english

“Oh! Pepe,” I said, “what big ears you have!”
“The better to hear you with,” was the reply.
“But, Pepe, what big eyes you have!î
“The better to see you with.”
“Oh! but, Pepe, what a terrible small mouth you have!”
“Wrafff, wraff, wraff!,” he barked high pitched.

My shoulder troubles are still not gone. Actually they have got worse. According to the MRI I have torn a tendon, and my physiotherapist suspects I have a “frozen shoulder” as well. If that is really the case, and I have almost all symptoms, that means I’m heading for a long and slow recovery. According to several Internet sites a frozen shoulder takes between 4 to 12 months to heal. It especially hurts during the night and in the morning after tossing and turning in my sleep. Sometimes I even wake up swearing from the severe pain that I endure when I make certain movements. Fortunately when I’m in rest it just hurts a little. But I can write off my plans to start climbing this summer. And making furniture is also not possible at the moment, since I can’t lift anything heavier than 5 kilo.

I try to do my daily regime of exercises with a ball and various rubber bands, but it hurts like hell. And the thought of many more months like this is not very uplifting.

The spring is really here to stay. On our weekly walk there where only a few patches of snow left. The rest of the trail was muddy and there where also big puddles because all the molten snow. But Poupoune enjoyed every bit of it, running to fetch the ball. She can’t get enough of it.

The answer to life, the universe, and everything.

As I wrote previously last week I lost my bag, with in it my camera.
I didn’t really lost it, it just sounded more dramatic, I had just forgotten to take it with me after I attended a meeting in the city hall of Prévost to to turn a big stretch of forest into a national park.
We left before the meeting was finished because I had to attend the weekly screening of ER and totally forgot that my bag was on the floor. Of course it was found after the meeting and today I went to Prévost to fetch it. I love my bag and don’t want to lose it. The camera I could live without, it would even give me a good excuse to buy a newer, better model, but my red bag is part of my image. A friend of mine saw my bag, really liked the modern, European style of it, and immediately wanted one. So the next time I went to the Netherlands I had one made for her. Since red is her colour, I ordered a red one too. But now every-time I visit her house or she visits ours, we really have to take care not to leave with each-other’s bags.

[I lost my bag with my camera last week, but it is found. I only need to pick it up and I can only do that next week. Above photo is made by an amateur photographer (although with professional equipment) who thought Poupoune was so cute he needed to make a picture of her, that he emailed us afterwards.]

On our weekly walk we headed to Rigaud, where we walked in the melting snow for a couple of hours towards a commercial Cabane ‡ Sucre. In a Cabane ‡ Sucre, for the uninitiated, they cook the sap of the maple tree to make maple sirup, maple candy, maple butter and various other maple products. They usually also serve meals (washed down with lots of beer), accompanied with live music, but the $27.50 price was a bit steep for us. We also had to get back in time to Montréal where we had to go to a dance show with the participants of my dance class. So we stayed outside, did some people watching and enjoyed some free “tire d’erable”; molten maple sirup poured on snow, so it cools to a toffee-like substance that can be wound around wooden popsicle sticks to make very sweet lollypops. A Canadian tradition that after almost three years I still hadn’t encountered. I saved doing all the touristy stuff for the times when friends and family would visit, but so far the visits did not happen, so I better do these things myself. Next up, the annual cull of Harp seals!

Because our feet were sinking in the soft snow we had quite an exercise. Poupoune enjoyed it as well but the next day even she has very sore leg muscles. Pauvre chien.

Cold after a walk in the snow, a shawl is good for warming up.

Poupone waits for Alison to finish her thing.

Pepe hides in the sweater that Alison is knitting for me to wear next year. Pepe likes warm sweaters.

A fellow Dutch immigrant had problems with her iPod not doing anything anymore. She’s totally a-technical so a mutual friend in the Netherlands suggested she should contact me for help. Since I’m a nice guy I, aklthough reluctantly, agreed to take a look. I pressed some buttons and that revived her iPod from its frozen state. But I also noticed the iPod’s battery wasn’t holding much charge anymore. So I suggested to replace it. And while I ordered a new battery for hers, I couldn’t resist ordering a battery replacement for my iPod as well, and, while at it, an extra laptop battery for my PowerBook as well. The prices on this site were pretty sweet, about half of what Apple charges. I wish I had ordered some batteries for my camera as well, but I forgot.

Yesterday, FedEx left the whole box of batteries on our porch and because we entered from the back last night, only this morning Alison found them and let them in from the cold. (It’s amazing FedEx just leaves expensive packages outside for everyone to grab, also amazing is that nobody grabs them. This must be Canada.)

Anyway, this morning I pried the oldest iPod open (better try hers first, I thought) and replaced the battery. It proved very easy, certainly after the iBook disassembly a couple of weeks ago. After it started up again -I admit I let out a sigh of relief- I tried mine. Since my iPod is a bit more recent it was completely different. Different battery, different hard drive and harder to open. But not that hard and within 20 minutes total I had both iPod’s batteries replaced. And now they are both recharging happily.