An Unexpected Benefit

The steam from simmering chicken stock in this house for hours results in a most excellent blank steamy-window canvas for drawing:

Which in turn results in really smeared windows, but nothing some vinegar can't fix.

Could Be Worse

If I had to wake up with tummy troubles in the morning, today was not a bad day to be laid low.

There was leftover oatmeal for the kids' breakfast.

Cubby is at school.

I have a lot of beef, duck, and ham broth in the freezer, should the time come today that I feel I should take some nourishment other than herbal tea with honey.

It's foggy and dank outside, so Charlie and Jack are happy to be inside. (Meaning I'm not sitting outside or running in and out to check on them when all I really want to do is slump in the recliner with a blanket.)

There are enough good leftovers for a satisfactory dinner tonight with no cooking required.

Of course, the best-case sick scenario is for me to be sick on Saturday when A. doesn't have to work or go to church. Then I can just hide in bed.

But failing that, I'll take previously-prepared food and a school day.

The Sad Tale of Mr. Lonely

This morning when Jack, Charlie, and I took our regular walk down the road to visit our neighbor's chickens, our neighbor--Ms. Rita--happened to be out working around the barn and she asked the boys if they wanted to see her new rooster.

Now, Ms. Rita already has a rooster. The new rooster was more or less dumped on her because no one else wanted it. It's not unusual for roosters to find themselves unwanted, as I well know, but this particular rooster had a sad story. Whoever had owned it hadn't provided any coop for it last winter. You absolutely cannot do that in this climate without killing or damaging a chicken.

In this case, the rooster's comb, toes, and spurs froze off. Poor thing. I don't even like chickens much, and I still felt sorry for it.

His lack of spurs and toes (meaning no talons) meant that he had no means of defense. So Ms. Rita couldn't put him in with her chickens, because if the other rooster attacked, the new rooster couldn't defend himself. That's why she was calling him Mr. Lonely, because he was in a big dog crate by himself in the barn.

Ms. Rita raises animals mostly for food, so she's not sensitive about the ultimate demise of animals, but she doesn't like to do the killing and butchering herself. I had mentioned before that if she knew anyone who needed to get rid of extra chickens and didn't want to deal with them, we would take the live chickens away.

Away to my stockpot, of course.

And this is why A. was walking down the road at 4 p.m. today holding a live deformed rooster by the feet, trailed by three small boys and a very interested dog.

More than one car passed him during his woodchuck walk home. I can only hope we provide some entertainment in what was a quiet neighborhood before we moved in.

This Could Be Misinterpreted

Jack has not been particularly quick to start talking. At least, not intelligibly. He actually talks all the damn time, in what sounds exactly like long sentences or questions, he just wasn't enunciating any words known in the English language.

He did, of course, eventually start to say some sounds that matched up with actual words. First was "Da." For Daddy. Of course. Still waiting on anything resembling "Mom."

Ingrates, all these kids.

There are other words now. "Dee" for the chickadees that mob the bird feeder on the porch. "Gee" for the hundreds of Canada geese winging their way southward over the house. "Baw" for ball. And so on.

But there are other words that might give some people pause to hear a two-year-old exclaiming with some excitement. "Poop" is understandable, if a mite crass. But "gun"? Well, it is hunting season. He does see Daddy's guns with some frequency these days (safely in Daddy's hands, of course).

And then there's "gin."

Yes. My toddler says "gin." And he says it any time he sees the seltzer bottle.

Great. Not that that makes me seem like a lush or anything.

Now the reason he says this is because whenever I would have some gin in a glass he would of course want some--because nothing tastes better to a child than something an adult is trying to consume uninterrupted--and I would have to say, "No, Jack. That's gin. That's Mommy's. You can't have any. It's gin." And I always add seltzer to my gin. Hence the association.

So now he says "gin" whenever he wants some seltzer in a glass. Super.

The first time A. heard it, he said, "Is he saying gin?" Yes. And it is kind of embarrassing, albeit also funny as hell.

It won't be so funny, though, if he ever says it to anyone else. Like, say, the pediatrician at his two-year check-up, which is coming up soon. That kind of thing can really give the wrong impression.

Is this the face of a child who would rat out his mother? Damn straight.

A Mood Booster

Well. Yesterday sure was depressing. Regardless of who you supported in the infamous presidential election of 2016, I think we can all agree that the general mood of the nation yesterday was less than jubilant.

So how about something less depressing? Like these goobers.

Occasionally infuriating, but never depressing. Charlie's face notwithstanding.

Onward and upward, my lovelies. For the children, if for no other reason.

A Really Major Plus

Hey, know what I'm not doing, even though it's fall? Picking up black walnuts. Or raking.

Yee. Haw.

What I Did

You were all just desperate to know what I did in Montreal, weren't you? No? Well, I'll tell you anyway.

I got lost.

I mean that in a literal sense, actually, because I have the worst sense of direction ever, and I didn't even have a map of the city. I had a map to get to the city, which was only helpful until I crossed the St. Lawrence River, at which point the detours started and I had to follow signs that looped me hither and yon, around and around, and possibly to Narnia. It was insane.

Eventually, however, the detour ended and I managed to work my way back to the street I actually wanted to be on. After parking, I got out of the car and found myself by the Ritz Carlton Montreal. Which meant I was in the fancy hotel district and, shortly, the fancy shopping district.

I have little interest in Cartier, however, so I just started walking along one of the main thoroughfares, marveling at the quantities of stores and the frenzy of consumption on display.

Obviously, I am not the consumer the business community of Montreal is hoping will visit. I didn't see a single store that sold snow pants or Secrets of Eskimo Skin Sewing, both of which were in my latest Amazon Prime order.

I did see, however, the Barbie Expo, mostly because the building that houses it also has a public bathroom. Let me tell you, nothing prepares you for the sight of all the Twilight characters rendered as Barbie and Ken. There was also a particularly strange Barbie dressed as a lion that I'm pretty sure would give a kid nightmares.

Anyway. Onward!

I walked until I found myself by Christ Church Cathedral, which is certainly worth seeing. Apparently, Mark Twain commented that you couldn't throw a brick in Montreal without breaking a church window. It might not be strictly true in the present day, but there are certainly a plethora of churches. I only went into two this time (I also went inside the Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral), but I passed at least half a dozen.

At one point when I got really lost, I also stumbled upon an imposing stone building whose engraving told me it belonged to the Black Watch, the 5th Highland Regiment. It didn't seem to have any activity around it, and didn't have any informational sign or anything, but I did see a man swipe a pass card to get in the front door, so I figured it was still in use as their headquarters or something and moved on. But now, looking it up, I see that it's actually a museum currently closed for renovation.

I also ate a chocolate-filled croissant, flank steak with shallots and French fries and a glass of wine, and some gelato--not all at the same time--and stopped in two places to finish the book I'd brought along*. Then I managed to find my car again and set back off for a 30-minute tour of random outlying Montreal neighborhoods, a.k.a. the Route 138 detour.

I got home just as the family was finishing dinner. Later when I asked A. how his day was, he said, "Oh, you know. It was kind of boring. We ate some things from the refrigerator, the house got messier and messier . . ."

Yup. My daily life in twenty words or less.

It was a good day, though. Sometimes getting lost is just what you need.

* The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness, which is the last in the All Souls trilogy and a REALLY heavy book to be carting around a city all day.