This Writer’s Life

Caturday Quickies: Bun and Bucket

/ Melanie Marttila / 5 Comments

Those of you who have been following me on Facebook, know that Phil and I got a new car last year.  It was a pretty big deal, because it was our first new car.  We figured it was about time we treated ourselves.

The car is a 2012 Hyundai Sonata.  We went for the previous year’s model, as they gave us an incentive.

This be Bun

This be Bun

With a new car came a conundrum: what do we call her?  Naming a car is important, donchya know?

When Phil picked up the licence plate, the first four letters were BNVN.  He suggested we call her Bun Oven, a mnemonic for the licence plate.

“Why don’t we just call her uterus and be done with it then?” I said.

Sadly Bun Oven stuck, and Bun she remains.  We love our Bun, though.

This year, Phil wanted to get a pick up truck, “an old beater,” as he put it.  As we’ve tackled out home reno projects over the years, he’s lamented the lack of a truck to tote supplies.  We’ve either had to pay for delivery, or beg/borrow/steal a truck from someone we knew.

Initially, he was thinking of looking in the fall or winter, but when his mom announced that she’d be moving in October, he wanted to get one now, so we could help out a little more.

The result: Bucket.  It’s short for Rust Bucket and has nothing to do with her licence plate. She’s a 2003 Ford F150.

And this be Bucket

And this be Bucket

Do you name your vehicles?  My high school science teacher named his car Bucephalus. My friend Margaret, named her bicycle (when we were kids) Star-jumper.  Do you think the practice is silly, or endearing?

I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Caturday Quickies

Why I hate flying

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Now before I get too far into this post, let me preface it by saying I had an absolutely fabulous time in Michigan City with my friend Stacey Hembruff and her fiancé (now hubbie) Erik Lawrence.

For the day and a half I was there, I met Erik and his family, went to Carlson’s, a local landmark replete with car hops and brewed-on-site root beer (made me reminisce about the A&W of my childhood), went to their wonderful beach, and partied the night away at the local Elk’s lodge.

I had a blast and it made the trial and error of getting there so worth it.

Still.  I had a bit of an adventure.

Hater’s gonna hate

I’m not afraid of flying.  Sure my gut lurches a bit on take off, and when the ride gets a bit rough, I can’t read (legacy of childhood car-sickness) but I have nothing against the mode of transportation itself.  Sometimes it’s the only way to get from point A to point B.

Getting the ticket and dealing with the airline and insurance was a breeze, too.  I was actually pleasantly surprised at how easy it was.  And I was looking forward to flying with Porter, as several of my friends have and have reported that it was a great experience.

I’m the problem.  I’m a control freak.  I hate being at the mercy of someone else’s schedule.  If possible, I’d much rather drive because then if I’m late, I have no one to blame but myself.

So this is all on me 😉

My tale begins when I checked through security at the Greater Sudbury Airport.

The woman behind me turns to me as we’re collecting our belongings from the bins and says, “Is this your first time?”

Excuse me?  She went on to explain that her flight, earlier in the day, had been cancelled.  She didn’t say why and the day so far both in Sudz and in Toronto wasn’t stormy.

I should have known then that I would be in for a few unexpected delays.

The flight departed a half an hour late, and when it arrived at Billy Bishop Airport on Toronto Island, I had 15 minutes until the next boarding.  Would I make it?  Would my checked bag?  I was escorted to the lounge to await the boarding call and about when I expected to board, the announcement was broadcast that due to thunderstorms, all flights were grounded.

Okay.  I texted Stacey to let her know that I would be a bit late and she said that she and Erik were running late themselves and that all would be well.

When the boarding resumed, Porter started with flights to Boston and Newark and the boarding time was now listed 50 minutes after the original.

The boarding call was announced and the lot of us trouped down to the gate where we stood.  And waited.  Additional problems would cause another hour’s delay. We returned to the lounge and I texted Stacey again.  The issue wasn’t weather, she told me.  The skies were clear in Chicago.

The next announcement that went out was that there were weight allowance issues and that any passengers who would volunteer to wait until the next flight would receive a voucher for $250 dollars off their next Porter flight.

If I knew what would happen next, I’d have gone for the deal, but hind sight is perfect, as they say.

When we board, nearly 2 hours after we were supposed to, I noticed that the next flight to Chicago was boarding in 15 minutes. Le sigh.

When we got on the plane, it was one of the smaller ones, and it was packed to the gills.

English: Porter Airlines Bombardier Q400 landi...

English: Porter Airlines Bombardier Q400 landing at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (YTZ) in July 2008. Français : Un Q400 de Porter Airlines atterrissant à l’aéroport Billy Bishop de Toronto (YTZ) en juillet 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No wonder they had weight allowance issues.  Because of the smaller size of the plane, though, we’d have to stop for refuelling in Windsor…wait for it…for 15 minutes.  I’m willing to bet that the next flight was on the larger plane that could make the hop in a single flight.

As compensation, in addition to Porter’s usual snacks and beverages (and yes, before you ask, Porter serves actual alcohol on their flights) we were served a chicken pita sandwich, coleslaw, and Lindt chocolate.  I wished that I hadn’t purchased a late dinner in the airport lounge.

We stopped over in Windsor and flew to Chicago with no further problems.  I arrived, made it through customs and claimed my baggage.

But I couldn’t get a signal for my cell phone.  The airport had a Boing hot spot, but apparently, it can’t be used to text or email.  I tried texting Stacey again, because I didn’t know where she was, and I tried to text Phil, because I just wanted to tell him that I’d arrived safely.

I turned on the roaming and tried to latch onto some other network, but no dice.

I found Stacey, she introduced me to Erik, and we drove to Michigan City, about an hour and 15 minutes outside of Chicago.  We arrived without further incident at 11:30, 12:30 my time.  We were staying at Erik’s grandfather’s house and I tried again to find some kind of signal.  My poor phone searched and searched but couldn’t pick anything up.

After a day of travel, me by air, and Stacey and Erik by car, we were all of us pooped.  We dropped, and in the morning, Stacey texted Phil for me.

When I returned to Canadian air space, all my stored up texts were sent.

This is the way of air travel.  It must be accepted.  Still.  I had an adventure 🙂

And that’s why I hate flying.

How about you?  Do you like to fly?  Are you afraid of flying?  Or are you a control freak like me?  I’d love to hear from you.

Writerly Goodness, signing off.

Supper calls!  And tonight: True Blood 🙂

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Sundog snippets: Inside and out

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

Just a quick little note to let you know that I have a new piece of furniture courtesy of my friend Kim, who’s just moved houses.

FileCabinet1This lovely file cabinet used to hold her father’s papers.

I have two metal filing cabinets in the basement, a fire-proof box, and a safety deposit box at the bank that hold all our important stuff, but I just couldn’t resist the cabinet when Kim said she wanted to sell it.

Phil and I rented a pick up truck to move it (it wouldn’t fit in our car, or my mom’s hatchback) and I spent some time yesterday afternoon polishing her up and reinserting the drawers (which we’d removed for transport).filecabinet2

This lovely’s new home is in our living room.  Sadly, there’s no room in my office for it because I have a honking desk 🙂  I’m calling her Sally, and she’ll house our DVDs, Phil’s games, and other miscellaneous stuff we’ve kept in baskets and other hidey-holes over the years.

I rearranged some of the living room furniture to make room, and Phil and I discussed last night that we’d like to get some new furniture and use Sally as the thematic piece.  We have a small house and we were going to wait until we renovated the living room to get new furniture, but the hand-me-downs we have are worn and due for replacement.

So we’re going to look into that in the fall and probably touch up the paint on the walls at the same time, pending the full reno.  For the latter, we take everything down to the studs, rewire, re-insulate, and make sure everything is safe and code-worthy.  It will probably be a while before either of us is ready to tackle that project, though.

Outside, my experiment in chaos gardening is coming along well.  The lychnis (the fuschia flowers that complement the one young clematis along the wall) and rudbeckia (black-eyed susans) have joined the party.

chaostheorycontchaostheorycont2On the other side of the garden my bergamot (bee balm) is putting forth its spidery blooms 🙂  Bergamot is one of my favourite smells.  The roses are starting to fade, and are also putting forth a lovely scent.  I have a whack of hyssop in the garden (not blooming yet) as well.  I love smelly plants!

Next up: a brief update on the writing life, and a review of Lara Schiffbauer’s Finding Meara!

Sundog snippet

Caturday quickies: The super sweet blogging award

/ Melanie Marttila / 9 Comments

Caturday Quickies

So here I am, almost a month later, and I’m finally getting around to taking care of this sweet little bit of business.

I got another blogging award!

So here are the rules:

  1. I must thank the person who nominated me.
  2. I must answer five Super Sweet questions.
  3. I must include the Super Sweet Blogging Award pic in my blog post.
  4. I must nominate a baker’s dozen of deserving bloggers.
  5. I must notify my nominees on their blogs.

The thanks

Super Sweet thanks to Lord David Prosser of the Barsetshire Diaries!

The questions:

Cookies or cake?

Will I be considered an anarchist if I say pie?  Pie is, as Phil likes to say, the perfect dessert. Cherry, banana cream, and apple and cranberry praline are my faves.

Chocolate or vanilla?

Vanilla.  Love vanilla beans.  Cut one open and pop it into your sugar.  The flavour will infuse.  Awesome for all kinds of things.  My fave ice cream is the vanilla with the flecks of vanilla bean in it.  It’s also a fab accompaniment to the above-mentioned pie 🙂

Favourite sweet treat?

I’m not really a sweet tooth (believe it or not).  Most nights we don’t have any dessert around here, or maybe I’ll just grab a piece of fruit.

I have a weakness for pie crust though (sensing a pie theme here?).  I once made an all-crust pie with some friends 🙂  In recent years, though, I find plain crust isn’t enough, so I’ll have to go for pettes de soeur, or nun’s farts.

French-Canadians must also be fans of crust.  When they make a pie, instead of tossing all those little scraps of dough, they collect them, roll them out, slather with butter, and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  The pastry dough is then rolled, sliced into disks, and baked like cookies.

Can I just say—nom!

When do you crave sweet things the most?

Um, I’m a woman in her early forties already getting pre-menopausal symptoms.  When do you think I crave the sweet stuff?  I’m at the mercy of my hormones, people!

Super sweet nickname?

I don’t really have any nicknames.  There’s Smelly, of course, but I don’t think that’s very sweet.  Phil calls me Mellie, and sometimes adds on a –boo or –belly, so I think I’ll have to go with that.

The Award Pic

the Super Sweet blogging award

The ma-nominations (do-doo, da-do-do!)

Not sure if I’m going to be able to list 13 people who don’t already have it (!)

Here we go:

Kim Fahner;

Elissa Field;

Jenny Hansen;

Gemma Hawdon;

Rebecca Barray;

Bolton Carley;

Heather Button;

Lara Schiffbauer;

Hally Willmott;

Laura Howard;

Swati Chavda;

Claudette Young and Meena Rose; and

Amanda Socci.

I’ll notify them all, but it might be through email, FB, or G+ rather than their blogs per se.

Now to add the award to my awards page 🙂

Next up: The Conspiracy of Three reading series I attended in North Bay last week 🙂

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Sundog snippets: Pupdate, July 2013

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

So here’s a quick pupdate for you.

First, the story so far:

In January, Nuala had an ACL repair. On the heels of that, she contracted a UTI. We administered antibiotics. She somehow scratched herself an aural haematoma. Rather than having it drained, the vet recommended letting her body metabolize the blood. We agreed.

The follow up urine sample, however showed extra protein, which is usually a sign of a problem with the kidneys. Blood tests showed that Nu’s kidney enzymes were in perfect balance. An x-ray revealed no stones in either kidney or bladder, but an enlarged liver and spleen.

The vet recommended an ultrasound. This would require a journey of several hours for which Nuala would have to be sedated (she doesn’t travel well) and several days off work for Phil and me. The ultrasound may or may not have found anything and may or may not have resulted in a laparoscopic biopsy, which may or may not have proven clinically definitive. We declined.

We changed her food to a kindey health diet, and started her on a regimen of ACE inhibitors. Nuala subsequently redeveloped a UTI and this time we have the urine sample cultured. It turned out to be a massive e-coli infection. Uber-doses of antibiotics later, she was once again clear of infection, but the high protein in her urine remains a concern.

Where we are now

The vet is again encouraging us to consider the ultrasound. We’ve discussed things at length and here are the ultimate reasons Phil and I are not going to follow through with it:

  1. Nuala is behaving well, she’s feeling better than she has in a long time. Her residual limp from the ACL surgery is almost unnoticeable. By all accounts, she’s happy.
  2. What will the ultrasound reveal? The existence (or the lack of existence) of a growth of some sort.
  3. If the growth is benign, will it be removed? No (unless its negative impact on Nu’s health is severe).
  4. If the growth is malignant, what can we do? Not much. Cancer in dogs is notoriously fast-growing and often has metastasized before an operation can remove it. Though they do have canine chemo and radiation, the course of treatment would again involve travel and its effectiveness is not as good as human therapies.

While it may result in a better diagnosis and possible prognosis, we may not be able to act on it quickly enough to make a difference.

So we’ve decided to stay the course with her current medication and see how things go.  If Nuala’s health worsens, we may have to revisit and reconsider our decisions, but I honestly don’t think this will happen.

Our last dog, Zoe, had cancer, and we did what we could, but the cancer was aggressive and ultimately fatal. The operation to remove the cancer wasn’t effective, was very hard on her, and it may have bought her two weeks, but they weren’t a good two weeks. Her death broke our hearts and it was two years before we thought about adopting another dog.

Whatcha got there?

Nuala hoping to scam noms from Phil 🙂

You may disagree with our decision, but I hope you can respect it.

Here ends what I hope to be the last pupdate for some time. Nuala really is doing well and until we can see a reason to, we’re not going to put her through further procedures.  She’s been through enough this year already.

 

Sundog snippet

Caturday quickies: What’s going on in the garden?

/ Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

Just a little note to give you an update on how things are going, or not, with the back yard.

The trees are gone and the hostas and ferns are beginning to recover.  Phil wanted to construct a roofed gazebo on our patio, but realized it would be fairly expensive.  Solution: a purchased gazebo.  He chose one that has a solid roof and intended to bolt it to the patio with tap-con screws.

recoveringhostasrecoveringhostas2

Sadly, it’s bigger than the patio.  Solution: Phil is going to dig post-holes and sink some sono-tubes in the ground and pour proper footings for the gazebo.

Unfortunately, it’s been too hot to do a lot of work on the weekends.

So we wait.

Second problem, we had this small pond beside the patio.  It’s never been what either of us envisioned, so it came out this year.  The ground has been levelled but there are still all the stones around the edge.

This was the old pond

This was the old pond

then we dug it out

then we dug it out

now it looks like this (plus rubble)

now it looks like this (plus rubble)

Phil wants to replace them with retaining wall bricks or landscaping ties, but not until next year when he builds the deck overtop the patio and knocks down the brick retaining wall he build several years ago, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I think is a little too ambitious.

We’ll see what can be done.

In the meantime, it’s no outdoor office for Mellie.

As far as the gardens go, I’ve decided to let them grow wild.  I keep up with the weeding as I can, but I’m not moving plants from one area to another, thinning, or any other typical gardening duties.

The result is wonderfully chaotic.

chaostheory2chaostheory3

itty bitty vine, HUGE flower

itty bitty vine, HUGE flower

Note how this clematis has grown up under my window (!)

Note how this clematis has grown up under my window (!)

And the Hedge Rose

And the Hedge Rose

Strawberry harvest is done.  Had about a week’s worth of berries on my morning cereal.  Perfect.

And my hedge rose has gone crazy this year!  I’m not complaining 🙂

Inside

My mom is helping a friend prepare for a move down south to be near family.  As a result, I’ve nabbed a couple of things.

A lampe Berger.

lampeberger

And another dolphin for the office collection.

dolphin

Tomorrow: An ever so brief pupdate (the last, I hope) and another book review.  I’m thinking Blaze Ignites.

See ya then!

Caturday Quickies

Sundog snippets: quick update

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

First, happy Fathers’ Day!

Second, I’ve been away at the Canadian Authors Association CanWrite! conference 2013.  There was much writerly goodness to be shared, but no signal in the lecture hall, so I couldn’t Tweet the sessions as I’d hoped to.

I will be blogging them, however, even if after the fact, and just so I don’t get completely out of step, I’m going to be doing something I haven’t done in a very long time: I’m going to blog daily until I’ve got it all transcribed!

Also, there are big things happening with the CAA, and I’ll save that for the wrap post.

Michael Reaves’s Blood Kiss has been funded through Kickstarter at over $88,000.  The movie is a go, but there’s still much work to be done.  I’ll pass along updates as I receive them for those who were partial.

Though the Margie Lawson course is now over, I’m not going to blog it.  Unfortunately, after about the half-way mark in the month, I fell behind and have not finished the course.  The information was great and I would definitely recommend Margie, but I think the best way to experience her courses is to participate in one of her in-person intensives.  I think that’s a critical piece of the puzzle that I missed out on.

Also, I would suggest starting out with the EDITS system course.  It is the foundation of the other courses Margie teaches, and though you can purchase and download the course materials, I don’t think that it can be a substitution for the live Margie experience.

I received my contract from On Spec this week.  This was the happy-dancing news I received back in April.  They wish to purchase one of my stories for the publication (over the moon).  On Spec is one of the most respected and longest running speculative fiction magazines in Canada.  It is a true pleasure to be honoured with their acceptance.

I manages a couple of submissions so far this month.  Things are definitely looking up 🙂

I’ll be posting an interview with Anthony Armstrong shortly.

Back in a few.  True Blood starts shortly and I have to book to make that deadline 🙂

Sundog snippet

The yard, she be nekkid!

/ Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

Well, not really, but while I was away training trainers, the excellent and knowledgeable arborists at Tamarack Expert Tree Care took down six trees in our back yard.

Before

Before

nekedyard1

After

 

As you can see, there is still a honeysuckle and a few pin cherry trees back there, so it’s not completely nekkid, but my lovely (but potentially deadly) ladies are gone.  Also, my hostas and ferns were trampled (sorry, wasn’t going to move them—they’ll survive) and my mom’s fence lost a couple of boards.

A moment of silence, please.

Now we’ll be able to get the patio set up and I’ll be writing outside every nice evening and weekend through to the fall!

It’s been a rainy weekend here, but it’s one of my favourite times of year.  Yesterday afternoon when things dried up a bit, the breeze was pulling in the scents of lilac and honeysuckle from all around the house.

Sundog snippets: Spring is finally here!

/ Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

So … spring has finally arrived in northern Ontario, but the black flies and mosquitoes have me hiding inside.  I also find that I’m not as motivated by outdoor tasks as I once was.

One thing I’d usually start doing is set up my outdoor writing spot, A.K.A. the patio, but this year, Phil and I have made the decision to rid ourselves of some potentially dangerous, though lovely, trees.

We have a stand of 6 birches that have in recent years been dropping what Phil describes as “widow-makers.”  If someone gets hit by one of those, it’s game over.  Plus, they’re older than I am and if one of them should rot and fall (which happens with old birches) they could damage either our house, or my mom’s.

Soon to be departed trees

These are the birches and poplar

They’re about 30 feet high.  The poplar (actually a large-toothed aspen) is coming down incidentally, because of its proximity to the birches and to my mom’s house.  Last year, we had to trim it back, rather it had to be trimmed back by the roofers because it overhung Mom’s roof and would have damaged the new shingles otherwise.

The poplar can be pretty

The poplar’s rather pretty in spring, with its new silvery leaves and catkins hanging down.

The work will be done on May 29th, while I’m away, but I’ll come home to a new view and that weekend, Phil and I will set up the patio.

Another sign of spring that always happens around the Victoria Day Long Weekend is the blooming of the pin cherry trees.  The blooms don’t last long, but they are glorious while they last.

Pin cherries in bloom

They herald the coming of the lilacs (in about a week).

Lilacs on the way

I have a massive bunch of rhubarb.  I need to take some in for the girls at work.  If they can help me get through some of it this year, it will be a good thing.  We always have so much more than we can use.

My massive rhubarb

And one final gift: my one perfect tulip.

My one perfect tulip

Sundog snippet

The Sundog Snippet: Thinking of Dad on Mother’s Day

/ Melanie Marttila

Before you say anything, Phil and I treated Mom to a Mom’s Day Brunch at Culpepper’s.  We would have taken Phil’s Mom too, but she threw her back out last night and couldn’t make it 😦

Yesterday, though, during out traditional Caturday pancake breakfast, Mom asked me to take some pictures of the tulips she planted from Dad’s funeral arrangements.  They didn’t come up last year because of a killing frost, but this year, they look beautiful 🙂

Dad's Tulips DadsTulips2 DadsTulips3

 

 

 

 

 

Just  sharing.

Happy Mom’s Day, everyone!

Sundog snippet