Gatty's Tale by Kevin Crossley-Holland

so i finished reading Gatty's Tale last night and i have to say it's one of the better books i've ever read. it's the kind of book that just keeps getting better and better as you keep reading it. it never really gets boring or dull, but it's not gripping or thrilling either, i just kept reading it because it was so nicely written and the story was so well told and the characters were so wonderful and lovable and its world was so rich and colourful. it's its richness that makes it so exciting.

Gatty's Tale is a period piece set in medieval europe, during the time of the crusades and the short-lived kingdom of jerusalem. the story is really about Gatty's growth from a girl to a young woman and the story richly demonstrates her maturation from childhood to young adulthood in a very charming and warmhearted way. her maturation takes place during her pilgrimage from wales to jerusalem. getting to witness that transformation and the events that mature her is probably my favourite part of this novel.

it's a novel that i look forward to reading again and again. eventually.

on a final note, i think i should warn you that this is one of joanne's favourite books. the pace is decidedly slow and it's full of details and descriptions. it's the kind of book that focusses on its characters and settings rathers than the action and the plot. so it's not gripping and it's not exciting. if you can't stand that kind of thing, don't bother with reading this book. it'll bore you to death. but for everyone else, i can wholeheartedly recommend this book as a delicious experience that you will thoroughly enjoy!

war, inc.

okay, so i watched the movie war, inc. this weekend. it kind of took me by surprise because i was expecting it to be a serious thriller kind of movie. instead, i found it to be a shameless satirical comedy.

the thing that makes the movies satire really sting is its cynicism. the movie is so cynical, you can't take it seriously, you have to suspend disbelief and just laugh. the movie is set in the fictional country of turaqistan, which has just been invaded by the united states. actually, that's not entirely accurate. the invasion of turaqistan has been outsourced to the contractor, tamerlane, which is currently occupying the country so that american corporations can plunder ... er, develop ... the country. the genius thing about the movie is that, while it's set in third world country turaqistan, it manages to make poignant fun of american materialism and commercialism. it's only been a few months since the invasion/occupation and already turaqistan has its own britney spears wannabe pop star, yonica baby. (i'm not entirely sure that "baby" is actually part of her name, but most characters refer to her as "yonica baby.") there are fast food restaurants popping up all over the place. a trade show is opening in a giant arena. oh yeah, and they're diverting the river that flows through the city so that it flows right next to the trade show. (i know, right, why not put the trade show next to the river, instead of the other way around?) it's this kind of over the top kind of thing that makes the movie so satirically comedic.

anyway, the movie focusses on three central characters, an assassin who works for tamerlane (i don't know his real name but he's played by john cusack), yonica baby the pop star, and a tenacious anti-american reporter, whose name i also can't remember. the assassin is fronting as the manager of the trade show, so he has to work out everyone's differences, and put on a good face for the show, to make it look good, you know. his real job is to assassinate a local called omar shariff (not the actor). the reporter is kind of frustrated with the whole turaqistan experience. they're not letting her report on the real war, they only let her see footage that has obviously been edited. she develops a relationship with the assassin/trade show manager after initially rubbing each other the wrong way, they find themselves falling head over heels in tolerance of each other. this tolerance eventually matures into attraction. yonica baby is a difficult character. she appears to be a shallow materialistic whore who sells her body for fame and money. her wedding to her boyfriend/manager is scheduled to be one of the highlights of the trade show but it becomes increasingly obvious that her boyfriend/manager is an abusive jerk who's only after the money and is pimping yonica baby out. despite all the surface shallowness she puts on, yonica displays some startling depth when she thinks she's alone.

the scene that made me laugh out loud was one where the character played by john cusack goes to the war zone. he stops his car in a bombed out city and three children approach him, asking for candy. he replies that no, he didn't bring any candy with him this time, but he gives them a handful of american dollar bills in exchange for a bit of information, and he leaves his armoured truck with them. when he gets back, the truck windows have been smashed in, everything has been stolen out of it and the truck is on blocks because the tires are gone. "that's what you get for not bringing candy!" the little boy sneers, and runs off.

so, everything comes together at the ending, and its the ending that makes the movie worth watching. the movie kind of tortures you, makes you see all kinds of crazy stuff--there's talk of having one man drowned in pig dung and you have to watch tamerlane soldiers high on some kind of caffeine supplement massacre a bunch of unarmed civilians. but the ending makes all that somehow worthwhile. of course, you get the expected satisfaction of having tamerlane exposed and brought down. but the ending is just so optimistic and warm-hearted that it kind of jerked my head around because i thought i was watching a cynical, pessimistic movie.

so, if you like anti-american satire films, watch this one. it's fantastic.

all week long

well, we've had quite the interesting week.

monday morning at five o'clock, i woke up to janelle yelling, "patrick, patrick!" from the bathroom. being the kind and sensitive guy i am, i yelled right back, "what!?" and she said, "come here!" so i clambered out of bed and made my way to the washroom, squinting because i didn't bother with my glasses that early in the morning, and very grumpy at being woken up so early. when i entered the washroom, janelle was sitting on the toilet. "look!" she beamed, pushing something at my face.

it was a pregnancy test. the display read "+1." i could feel my face splitting into a grin.

janelle wanted to call everyone right away. as excited and happy as i was, i wanted to get back into bed. we went to bed and, when we woke up later in the morning, like around a quarter to eight, we tried to decide if we should tell everyone yet or not. we decided to tell everyone, so janelle called her parents and i called my parents and everyone was really excited. then we went to the office, again we couldn't decide wether or not to tell everyone. we decided to tell our coworkers because they might celebrate by giving us time off, which would be stellar.

so, around ten o'clock, i made some coffee and brought it down to the office and when joy got down i told her, "hey joy, janelle's pregnant." and the news spread from there. henry thought we were kidding. jane screamed and danced. there was some belly touching and hugs and things like that... it was a unique experience. at least, for me.

no such luck as getting a day off though, with the tour coming the next day there was plenty of work to do and we were very busy.

at lunch we called most of our family and friends and informed them of the good news.

i had to work late, to help get ready for the tour and janelle went to the hospital to get some bloodwork done. afterwards we got invited to rebekah's for supper and we went, we borrowed mom and dad's swan's car.

we stayed quite late, and afterwards stopped by the superstore for some dried prunes: janelle's first pregnancy craving. she used to hate dried prunes, now she eats them all the time.

tuesday morning we started early, but not as early as joy, jane, and henry. they started at five o'clock. we started at around seven. the tour arrived at eight o'clock. what a waste of time getting those apartments cleaned, they didn't even look at them.

and i thought that we'd get to do nothing the rest of the day because the building was all cleaned and looking great. but mary ann decided that she wanted all of the empty units market ready by the end of the day. there was one really, really bad apartment and joy and i spent most of the day cleaning it. we sprayed oven cleaner all over the place, we used up about a can and a half of that ... and we ran out of all purpose cleaner, so we mixed water and bleach and sprayed that around for a while. in the washroom, we used straight bleach to clean the mildew off the shower tiles and floor and i sprayed the inside and outside of the toilet and sink with toilet bowl cleaner. as you can imagine, after a while, the fumes started getting to us and we developed terrible headaches and sore throats.
later in the day janelle told me that if we had read the label, it would have told us not to use bleach and oven cleaner at the same time because the fumes combine to make some kind of poisonous vapour. but by then i'd already developed a nasty bleeding nose that bled intermittently for a few days.

on wednesday we found out that there was going to be another tour the following tuesday. we were too exhausted to do much of anything and after hastily tidying the building, we spent the rest of the day doing very little.

thursday was the staff party at bowlerama, so we closed the office early and headed over with mom and dad swan. it was pretty fun, we bowled. henry is the best bowler, but he hurt his shoulder and stopped playing. our team didn't win at bowling, however, i did win $250 in gift certificates from sobeys in a random draw. so we went home happy.

on friday, some guy from waste management came and put up some signs in the building, at first joy and i helped him, but joy abandoned us and then it was just me and him. we put signs all over the building, showing how to separate garbage and recycling. afterwards he praised my resourcefulness and initiative to mary ann and she was very impressed. i patted myself on the back. now janelle is at a potluck party or something and i have to go to the washroom... so that's all.

weekend working

you know, the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who love cats and those who hate cats. sad to say, i'm beginning to find myself in the second category.

so, it's the halifax conference this weekend. guess what we're doing? cleaning apartments. okay, if we were just on duty, one of us could go, or we could take turns going ... but someone at head office decided that monday would be a good day for an investor's tour and mary ann picked the two dirtiest apartments to show them. so janelle and i are spending the whole weekend cleaning. oh yeah, and don't forget to water mary ann's flowers...

both apartments belonged to tenants who were evicted. both apartments belonged to people who couldn't care for their cats properly. both apartments belonged to very dirty people.

in one of the apartments, the cat pee smell was so strong that we treated it by pouring bleach all over the floor. after we mopped it up, we could still smell cat pee. apparently, they didn't bother buying a cat litter box, they just poured sand all over the floor in the closet and let the cat go nuts. i'm surprised they didn't get sick and die; while they were living there, the cat pee could be smelled in the common hallway and in other people's apartments.

we figured out that we could cut corners in our cleaning. in the kitchen, we sprayed everything (everything!) in oven cleaner and then wiped it clean. it got all the grease and grime off. in the washroom, we ran out of bleach cream, so we covered everything in toilet bowl cleaner and wiped it clean and then sprayed it with all purpose cleaner and wiped it again. in the bad cat smell apartment, we found chunks of poo all around the toilet and the outside of the bathtub, these chunks were covered in cat hair. it was gross. we took out whole garbage bags that seemed full of little other than cat hair.

so, if you live in an apartment and have a cat ... please have some consideration for your superintendents and neighbors!

another cat story! i was sitting in the office doing some paperwork this morning when a tenant from the second floor came in and told me there was a cat wandering the corridors on the second floor. so i took the elevator up and in the elevator i saw a sign that read: "missing black and white cat." nothing else, no phone number, no address. that's awfully helpful! (apparently, the other two elevators had a phone number on their signs... but i didn't see them.)

i found the cat curled up and looking scared in an apartment entryway. i picked it up and knocked on the door but there was no answer. so i started toward the elevator and picked up my cellphone to call joy (our immediate supervisor) because she has two cats. as her phone was ringing, another tenant came off the elevator and pointed out the sign inside that elevator: "missing black and white cat" this sign had a phone number, but at that moment joy answered her phone and i said, "sorry joy, i just found a cat and i was going to call you to see if you could babysit it until we find the owners, but i found someone's phone number here." she sounded a little excited, "is it black and white?! it's mine, it's mine!" so i smashed the cat in the head with a shovel and it died.



just kidding. i'm pretty sure the cat gets to live happily ever after. dumb cat. i got claw marks all over my arms and chest because the beast doesn't like elevators.

Bicycles

so janelle and i got bicycles. the first one is a brilliant grayish schwinn that i found over at quinpool court. someone parked it in the lobby and left it there all day. i asked janie if she wanted it and she said no, she doesn't like bikes. so i said, okay, if no one claims it, i'll give it to janelle. and no one claimed it so i gave it to janelle for her anniversary present. okay, i know it's not paper or linen (what's year three again?) or anything romantic like that, but still... can you beat a brand new fancy bike?

the second one is a red or purple bike that was abandoned at spring garden terrace. it's in pretty bad shape, the gear shifters don't seem to work too well and the breaks are kind of sketchy, but it peddles and the tires can hold air so it's cool.

so janelle and i have started making it a bit of a habit to bike around a little more than when we didn't have bikes. we even bought us some dorky looking helmets.

seven books i recommend to joey

so, yesterday while she was at our house, joey revealed a deeply personal tidbit of information: she likes boring books with lots of mundane and largely insignificant details. so i made up a list of books i recommend to her:

1. From Dawn to Decadence: Five Hundred Years of Western Cultural Life by Jacques Barzun

This is a cultural history of the west. It's very long and very detailed. Every few chapters has a "cross section" of history, describing what life was like in a certain city in a certain year. The history professor who assigned it to us told us not to read it but to browse it. i started reading it twice but never yet finished. i plan to read it from front to back someday...

2. Che: A Revolutionary Life by Don Lee Anderson

this is a sympathetic biography of Ernesto Guevara, the Argentinian medical student who became the revolutionary freedom fighter of Cuba. it's not so mundane and detailed as From Dawn to Decadence, but it's still pretty boring.

3. Defiance: The Bielski Partisans by Nechama Tec

this book is exceptionally boring. it's a sociological history of partisan fighters in the forests of Belorussia during the second world war. it's all about the day to day details of forest dwelling partisan clans. the movie was not so boring.

4. The Pilgrim Church by E. H. Broadbent

probably not as detailed as i would suspect you'd like them, The Pilgrim Church is about the history of "brethren assemblies" from pentecost until nowish. it mainly discusses their beliefs and methods of gathering and stuff like that but i'm certain it has enough of the kind of stuff that interests you.

5. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy is widely recognized as one of the best writers ever. this story, while not at all boring, mostly, is full of little mundane details. it does a really good job of describing its characters day-to-day life without coming straight out and telling us, rather it shows what mundane day to day life looks like. it is extremely well written.

6. The Silmarillion and The Unfinished Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien and edited by Christopher Tolkien

all the details you might have been curious about if you ever read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

7. the Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz

a lot like Tolstoy, except it's set in cairo, obviously.

More Exciting Events in the Lives of Patrick and Janelle

So it's election time in Nova Scotia and we all know what that means... at least, all of us here managing this building. It means Loads of trash to clean up. It seems every party has to come through here at least twice dropping off flyers promoting their candidate and ninety percent of these flyers end up on the floor for me to clean up. You'd think that with the environment being such a "hot" political issue these days, the parties running for government would reconsider their methods.

So anyways, last night I got a call from a girl who claimed that her laundry was stolen and she wanted us to check the cameras. I told her to come to the office in the morning and we'd have a look. So, she showed up this morning and we all sat around to watch yesterday's recordings on the security camera. We watched just about the whole day in fast forward. So what happened is this: the girl put her laundry in one of the wheelchair accessible dryers before leaving for work in the morning. Later that day, a woman in a wheelchair came in, tried to use the same dryer (it's one of only two wheelchair accessible dryers) and found it full of dry laundry. Unable to reach to put it on top of the dryer or on one of the tables in the laundry room, she moved it into one of the adjacent washers and left it there. Later in the day some other tenants came and placed something like ten loads of laundry into the washers, including the washers on either side of the one into which the woman in the wheelchair moved the laundry belonging to this girl. Later, they returned and took their laundry from the washers and put it into the dryers, not realizing that they had accidentally rewashed this girl's laundry and moved it into the dryer. By this time it's nearing five o'clock. The girl came back into the laundry room, being done work, and unable to find her laundry in the dryer she placed it in, started looking around for it. She found it in an adjacent dryer, which was running. She opened it, found that her laundry was wet, and replaced it to continue its cycle, she went back to her apartment. Then the other tenants came back, took their laundry and this girl's from the dryers and took it to their apartment in laundry baskets. Moments later, the girl came back and found her laundry completely gone.

We were able to find what apartment the thieves were in by matching the times on the security camera to the time the laundry room door was activated by their perimeter chip, so the girl and I went to their apartment and knocked on the door.

To me it was an honest and understandable mistake, so I was polite and asked something like, "So, when you did your laundry yesterday, did you mistakenly take someone else's laundry from the laundry room?" The girl who answered the door wrapped in a bed sheet answered, "No," and looked at me kind of confusedly. "Could you double check please?" I asked. "It's already all folded," she said. "Well, we have you on cam--" I started.

"We have you on camera stealing my laundry," the girl who had been stolen from cut in icily.

"Oh. Um. Let me have a look," she replied. She disappeared for a few moments before returning with a Sobey's bag full of folded laundry. "Is this yours?" She asked.

"There was way more than that."

The girl disappeared again and when she returned the bag was even more full, "I'm so sorry about this," she sputtered.

The girl who had been stolen from looked through the bag and looked up satisfied, "Thank you," she said coldly.

"If you find that any more of it is missing, just come back and I'll let you look through my stuff for it," the girl in the bed sheet said.

"Thank you," I said.

As we left the girl said to me, "How can she be so sorry, she stole my laundry!"

Afterwards, I complained to Janelle about all the flyers that I had to clean up and showed her a handful of them before I dropped them in the recycling bin. After I left, Janelle called the Liberal Party candidate (Jane Spurr)'s office and complained to them. Well, they sent people over to clean it up! I was impressed.

birthday celebrations

it was supposed to be a surprise ... but i accidentally found out today at lunch. joey and colin and ashlin, marcella, and laurie came for a bit of a birthday celebration supper thing and they brought their waffle maker. we had waffles with yogurt, whipped cream, and iced cream and strawberries, bananas, mangos, and raspberries. yummy.

it was so nice to have them with us! the kids were crazy as usual and funny and hilarious in turns. plus they brought a birthday present! a book! and i really look forward to reading it!

And We're Back

So we're back in Halifax and back to work after yet another exciting vacation. We are refreshed and renewed.

The rest of our week in the greater metropolitan area of Kapuskasing was both eventful and enjoyable. Unfortunately the weather only got slightly better--it stopped snowing and the temperature increased, but it was still quite cold and remained overcast, raining occasionally. Nevertheless, we had a great time.

Wednesday we had another paintball war and this time Jesse joined us.

Thursday, Janelle and I drove Sophie to the bus station and she headed back to Sudbury so she could spend the weekend camping at Wasaga Beach with her boyfriend. We spent lunch time with Dan and Kaye who made us a delicious fish feast. Thursday night after meeting Janelle and I joined Kim and Matthew and Jonathan and Jesse and Joel at Casey's for a late supper. We had a great time and really enjoyed their company. I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time!

And Friday we got packing and in the late afternoon we went to Timmins for Danielle's baby shower. While Janelle and Mom stayed at the baby shower, Dad, Uncle Phil, Cousin Harry (Danielle's husband), and I went to Uncle Vern's house where Uncle Morris had also retreated from the shower. We ate pizza and chatted it up until the women started migrating back.

Mom and Dad drove back to Kapuskasing and we stayed with Uncle Phil and Aunt Pauline who hosted us once again most graciously. And then, Saturday morning Tante Doris arrived bright and early to drive us back to Toronto so we could catch our plane.

We had breakfast at Mike's in Timmins and spent the rest of the day driving, except for a short stop for lunch in North Bay. We arrived in time for our flight and made it to Halifax after a rather bumpy (though not as bad as last time) flight at eleven o'clock. When we landed we met up with Jeff and Angela and their two children who had been on the same flight as us! They had flown in from Toronto because their father died earlier the same day. On the bright side, that means Jason is also in the area...

Sunday we spent a relaxing day, having delicious lunch at the Frith's. We came home early in the afternoon and Janelle spring cleaned our living room and we bought a window fan to cool us down and drown out the noise of the squeaky fans across the street that keep Janelle awake annoyed. After gospel meeting we went out for bubble tea with mom and dad Swan.

Today it was back to work, and there was lots of work to do but it was nice to be back.

Paintball

So Janelle and I bought some paintball guns so we could play with Jordon, Heidi, Emily and Joel and James (who all also have paintball guns) and we decided to have a bit of a game.

First Janelle and I tested the guns to make sure that they work and to see how hard they shoot. So after taking a few shots at the wood pile, I stood about twenty feet away from Janelle and let her shoot me. I felt the first shot go by my leg, it brushed my pants and hit the ground next to me. The second shot hit me squarely behind my knee. It stung and left a big red bruise.

So after that we switched places and I shot at Janelle. I missed the first couple times and then hit her on the inner thigh. Ouch! So we were satisfied that the guns worked and shot quite acceptably.

Uncle Louis and Aunt Priscilla and their family came over for supper. After supper, Joel and James came over and we started up a few rounds of paintball with the eight of us. (Uncle Louis joined in too.) The first few games were kind of confusing and chaotic, but we soon got the hang of it. The most fun I had was a free for all with four teams of two. We played on the rock piles near our house. Two teams started on the rock pile, Sophie and Courtenay and Uncle Louis and Heidi. Joel and Jordon started in the bushes at the base of the rock pile and James and I started about a hundred feet east of them. When the game began, James and I circled behind the rock pile and climbed it, coming behind Sophie and Courtenay who were engaging Uncle Louis and Heidi. Uncle Louis kept Joel and Jordon pinned down in the pushes from his advantageous position on the rock pile and Heidi distracted Courtenay and Sophie, keeping their attention as James and I snuck up behind them. They were easily dispatched. Then James engaged Uncle Louis and I engaged Heidi who hid in a depression in the rock pile and kept ducking down. I was able to keep her down by firing at her whenever she stuck her head out and advanced on her position until I was about ten feet away. Then she got a little more agressive, firing over the edge of her depression without popping her head up, which sent me ducking for shelter. We exchanged shots for a while and I kept advancing, although much more slowly. James was unable to dislodge Uncle Louis, even though Jordon and Joel had also engaged him. Finally, I managed to get to a position where I could fire into Heidi's hiding place, we fired at each other simultaneously and hit each other right on the face mask. It was painless but it put us both out, so I put my hands up and pulled my mask off, right that minute Uncle Louis noticed me and fired a couple shots at me, hitting me in the chest, stomach, and legs before he realized that I was out and my mask was off. Grrr.

I liked that one because it was intense and it was more about strategy than just shooting at each other.

After that we ran out of CO2 and called it a day, but we'll definitely try it again soon! Plus we'll be bringing them back to Haligonia with us, so if any of you have them, let's hope we get some use from them!