Colonel By Day...

[fajrdrako]

Today was Civic Holiday, which means most people didn't have to work. They seem to be calling it "Colonel By Day" here now; Colonel By was the man who created Ottawa with the building of the Rideau Canal in the early 19th century.

Nobody I know calls the holiday that.

I had a lot of things to do - a website to put up, a story to write, an apazine to finish - and ended up really not doing any of it, but I still feel a sense of accomplishment. I have hired a friend of mine to paint my kitchen on (probably) Wednesday; it's a job I've been putting off for more than a year, so getting someone else to do it seems to be the only way it will ever get done. She said cheerily, "All you need to do ahead of time is scrub the walls."

Scrub. The. Walls. Okay, if I'm doing this, I'm doing it right. So today, with the audiotape version of A Storm of Swords to listen to, I attacked my kitchen. I emptied all the cupboards and reorganized them and threw out the items I hadn't used in a year or more. Then I scrubbed everything. Walls, floors, even the ceiling. (Come to to think of it, I missed the light fixture.)

Donna and Jim dropped by and I had a chance to chat with them over some cold iced tea. "Do the budgies always make this much noise?" Donna asked. Uh... usually even more.

Then this evening, because my friend Lil and her mother were in town from Montreal, Beulah and I went out for dinner with them at the St. Hubert chicken restaurant on St. Laurent, which as far as I can tell is the only one left in Ottawa - though there's one in Gatineau and one in Aylmer. If I'd never been there before, I would not have been impressed. There was a wait for a table; the service was slow; the soft drinks were tepid and had no fizz; the carrots were overcooked, the ice cream was melting.... They were having a bad night in the kitchen. But the waitress was pleasant and helpful and it was fun to talk to Lil and her mother and a good time was had by all.

I got to see something gorgeous: Lil had taken one of Sandi-Marie's paintings, Room With a View, and made from it it into a hooked rug which she will be giving to Elizabeth and Jerome for their fifteenth wedding anniversary.

Comments

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

I read the subject line of your post and thought, "And what is he by night?"

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

LOL - what a wonderful question! He had a spiffy uniform, not too dissimilar from the gents in your icons. I've always rather liked Colonel By, but of course he wasn't a naval man - more a Major Edrington than a Captain Hornblower.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've often admired his statue in the park when walking there at lunchtime. He was an engineer though... so not an Edrington, either, but more like some of the secondary characters in Sharpe :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, agreed. Don't people ever write novels about engineers?

[maaseru.livejournal.com]

I thought exactly the same thing. But, being a dirty old woman, I finished it up with "...anyone's by night."

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Hee... I like it.

Welcome back.