So what’s new? What’s what? What’s up?

Life has been comprised of little events over these past couple weeks. Little things and little events. The other night before falling asleep I was laying in bed with my husband, Zsolt, and I think we were right on the cusp of dreamland. Something happened, and I cannot remember what it was. Maybe we turned over at the same time, or sighed at the same time, or patted one another’s back or belly. All I can remember is thinking, ‘I have to write about this, it would make a lovely post.’

🙂

So lovely, and apparently, so forgettable. Taken away by sleep.

Little things have been happening. There was a wasp nest on the back porch; Zsolt an I constructed a plan to knock the thing down with an Ikea curtain rod. We were going to wait until dusk, when the bees were also sleepy, then he was going to poke the nest, drops the curtain rod, and run into the apartment (not a far run, it’s about 1 foot to the screen door). To be honest, I was looking forward to the adventure, but then the handyman who is working on the apartment came by and did it before we could tackle the situation. That’s probably for the best, but I feel just a little like the story has been stolen away.  So again, a lost opportunity for narrative fun.

But speaking of the back porch, since you’ve now read to the fifth paragraph in this blog post, I’ve got myself a little herb garden growing out there. Two basil plants, two mint plants, one lavender plant, one Thai basil plant, one Italian parsley and one clump of chives cut from the garden at my parent’s house. They are all planted in a box (which is very important for non-dying reasons you’ll read below) that I’ve arranged, and received daylight on and off as the sun arches across the sky.

So the other day, speaking of gardening, we received a letter in the mail from the city of Ottawa. This letter advised us not to grow carrots, or really anything edible in the ground. Why? Because the land on which we are now living used to be a garbage dump and the food could poison us! And down the street, on this very same road, there is a house that was put up for sale at an ambitious price tag of $400,000. Can you imagine anyone paying $400,000 to live on an old garbage dump where you can’t even grow carrots? But the house, much like my apartment, is beautiful.

In continuation of my publishing quest, I attended an event put on by the local Ottawa Romance Writers’ Association. These ladies know their stuff. The most interesting aspect of the talk revolved around self-publishing. It seems to me that with all the stuff I’ve already written, why the heck not find it some professionally designed covers and list them on Amazon as ebooks? They’ll be sitting there doing the exact same thing they are doing now on my hard drive . . . and I actually really like the stories. My mom always says I ought to write my stories like I write my blog, which is an opinion that makes sense – though nevertheless I do love my third person woman-in-flux narratives. : )

Last night I was at a good friend’s house for dinner. We ate BBQ beer-can chicken and spicy pork with grilled veggies (and wine, but I don’t really drink wine). It was entirely delicious. Anyhow, as the evening went on and no one left the table – which Zsolt calls, “preserving the harmony of the table” – the conversation somehow rolled around to water, or more specifically ponds and lakes.

Did you know that people (myself included) are entirely weird about water? Now you’d think that ducks, and fish, and otters, and turtles would be the ones who are freaked out by bodies of water – because statistically I think they have a wayyyyyy higher chance of being eaten while swimming than humans. But nevertheless, as we (the dinner party) chatted about water, it was soon revealed that we all have strange hydrophobic thought patterns.

I blame my father. That’s you, Tony. When I was a kid, he had me watch the movie JAWS because it was apparently the best movie of all time and everyone – even children – should check it out. : ) To this day, I have to fight back the image of a shark being in the pool with me every time I go swimming. And then extend that to lakes and oceans. It hasn’t stopped me from swimming in the Mediterranean, and canoeing in the lake, and doing laps in a pool . . . but it’s there in my mind nevertheless, and it makes me uncomfortable.

Another fellow said that he associates lady ghosts hanging above the water. And then another fellow said he always wonders how many dead bodies are in cement boots at the bottom. Eugh!

Zsolt, as usual, was not weird. He doesn’t have any qualms with water, lakes, oceans or ponds.

And since I’m now at the end of this post, several paragraphs later, I will ask you: does water freak you out? And if so, what exactly about water freaks you out? I’m guessing at least a few people have stories to share. It cannot be a coincidence that three out of four people at that dinner table have weird associations.

What’s your weird association?

P.S.

OH! Another bizarre association concept. One fellow asked the table, what do you think about when I say “best of both worlds?” Here are the answers:

The Star Trek Episode where Picard becomes Borg

Being a King and eating loads of cake

Having the best from a variety of options

Pulling from Europe and the United States

Fascinating or FASCINATING? What do you think of with the expression?