header Ottawa 3

Friday, December 21, 2007

... and the City of Ottawa Did Not Clean

Five days after the big fall, our street still looks like this!


Keeps us in good shape though....

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Environment Canada Did Not Lie

Well, it turns out that Environment Canada's predication of Major Snow was right on the bat...


This is downtown Ottawa (corner Bank & Laurier) seven shopping days before Christmas....

Snowed In

Poor Felix. Any more snow and he'll be totally cut off from the outside world.


This ain't Recife anymore!

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Bits 'n Bobs

Remember the pantry that was 5ºC? That's 41ºF. Well ... today it has slipped a few notches to 3.9ºC. I realise that this only represents a 1.1ºC difference, but when you're hovering that close to zero, this is major stuff. We've trying to decide whether or not to unplug our fridge for the winter as the pantry is cooler. That or else we'll start storing our white wine in the pantry and red in the fridge.....

We went to a craft fair today and bought a catnip carpet for Felix. Needless to say, he attacked the bag the minute we got home and we pretty much haven't seen him since.

I have given in and joined facebook. When my sister started to have to act as my facebook social secretary, I knew that it was time to give in. What intrigues my most about facebook is the word verfications needed to do anything. Vanderbilt went. Where did Vanderbilt go? Nostalgia goes. Where does it go? 20 Humber. 20 Humber what? It's like these half finished sentences, and of course the cat in me really wants to know the rest of the sentence! Not like here where the word verifications are complete nonsense....

Monday, December 10, 2007

Feeling Vrtuous

No, I did not forget the 'i' in virtuous! Seeing that we live on the edge of Ottawa's downtown core and can walk or take the bus to most things, we decided that a car was not something that we absolutely needed to go about our daily routine. We did, however, decide that occasional shopping trips to IKEA (waaaaay in the suburbs) or weekend skiing jaunts to Gatineau Park were a necessity. Enter Vrtucar.

Vrtucar
is a car-sharing network in Ottawa that gives you access to a fleet of cars that are parked/stationed in and around downtown. There is a one-time refundable membership fee of $500, and then members pay a small monthly fee ($20 in our case), an hourly rate for car rental ($2.50 - $3.00 an hour) and a kilometre rate (something like $0.35/km). That's it. That's all. No insurance (they have group insurance). No gas (unless you need to fill it up, in which case the total you paid for gas is deducted from your monthly bill, plus $1.50 for your troubles). No repairs. No maintenance. No changing the oil or winter tires. No hassle! Cars are booked online, and there is almost always something available for when you want it. We've been signed for a month and so far, so good!

Car sharing networks are popping up all over Canada and the States including in Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa/Gatineau, Toronto, Kitchener, Vancouver, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago.

And this is why I am feeling particularly vrtuous these days!

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Tchotchkes of the World - UNITE!

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. A trinket here, a piece of folk art there, supporting a local artesan on the street. A bric-à-brac during a site visit, an empty wall or nook in my massive Brazilian apartment....

But now that my entire shipment has arrived from Brazil, and my all stuff is assemble in a few rooms, I am wondering what the heck I am going to with the exponential number of tchotchkes that I seem to have acquired during my three years in Brazil. I certainly wasn't tchotchkeless prior to Brazil, but the numbers seem to have multiplied at a rather surprising rate. Right now, the majority of the tchotchkes are in a holding pattern on our inherited diningroom bookshelf (yes, a diningroom bookshelf). I'm just hoping that while waiting for final dispatch they don't decide to band together and overthrow the landlords....

Two confessions and an explanation:
1. The pic is small as I am kind of embarrassed.
2. The pic doesn't actually represent all the tchotchke's. Some have already been dispatched.....
3. The two lower shelves were already warped - this, at the very least, cannot be blamed on the tchotchkes.

TCHOTCHKES OF THE WORLD ... UNITE!

Sunday, December 02, 2007

2 Cold 2 Blog

Is it just me, or is it mind numbingly cold out there?

So much for the whole it's late October and 22ºC thing. We just passed late November and it's, well, frankly, minus 22 degrees. My official hibernation period will be starting ... NOW!

I know, I know, all you people out there are thinking "Buck up, it is Canada after all". Well, to all you naysayers, let me just explain with a small example. You see, we have a pantry that is off of our kitchen which is kind of like a walk-in closet. It also has a window to the outdoors in it. Well for the past few weeks, we have been calling the pantry the Root Cellar, due to its ability to keep cool. However, as the temperatures outside began to fall further and further, I started wondering just how cold the pantry could/would/did get. Well, tonight I dug out a thermometre and discovered that the pantry - aka the root cellar - is a BALMY 5ºC! Yes - this is correct; a part of my house which is neither the outdoor shed nor the garage which we actually don't have is in the single digits. S-I-N-G-L-E D-I-G-I-T-S.

Please don't tell me that my sensitivity to this is just because I have been in Brazil for the past few years!

p.s.: My trip to New Brunswick was good. I love seeing Brazilians meet snow and/or winter for the first time. I think that they must have taken more than a thousand photos between the dozen of them. Of course, that was the + 8ºC kind of winter. I can't imagine if it had been this week!

p.p.s: New York was also terrific (except when I got a terrible cold at the end which has taken three weeks to take its leave, but I digress). One highlight was perusing the rows and rows of fabric stores in the Garment District. Man - there is crazy wild fabric out that makes Carnaval in Brazil seem tame! Highly recommended!