Semi retired it is

The Sunday evening update from a semi-retired person - as the shore captain says "you're off long enough now that you have to call it semi-retired not a vacation" includes a rather busy schedule for someone semi-retired. 

Thursday was a 'getting your craft on' kind of day where I organized all my projects, washed my Frenchy finds and hung them out on the clothesline (amending my 'don't hang out laundry past Nov 1st rule) as it was just too mild and beautiful not to, walked the dog with a friend and generally enjoyed life. I think that's what us semi-retired folks are supposed to do.

Friday mornings the cleaning lady comes so after a short visit with her I made myself scarce and visited my friend up the road. We drank tea, ate chocolate scones and researched Tampa for our April trip. It looks like we'll be able to take in Busch Gardens, the aquarium and a harbour cruise as well as see a bit of the city. I had taken a craft project with me so the time was spent multi tasking until it was safe to head home. We walked the dog and although the nasty Rottweiler down the road made some aggressive noises and sounded as if it was heading towards us once my (bodyguard) friend - who had previously sent it flying back up the driveway - yelled at it to 'stay home' it didn't even come out out of the basement - not even on our return trip. Keely looks nervously over her shoulder until we're well towards home, just to be sure though. I told my friend that I'll have to tape her yelling and play it back loudly on days she's working or sleeping and unable to protect us. I fought with my sewing machine and finally won so got some of to-do list checked off by hemming the sleeves of my scrub jacket and lining my NS tartan scarf - looks great next to my Canada Goose parka I must say.

Saturday was a bit wet but it cleared in the afternoon so I popped over to the summer neighbours to take some photos of the construction going on in the form of an addition. My buddy and I walked the dog and then it was time to get ready for a supper invitation. We had turkey burgers stuffed with smoked gouda, sweet potato fries, curry noodles and three kinds of pies for dessert. Hard to get up from the table after that.

As it turned out, today was a quiet day as opposed to a frantic 'getting ready for lobstering' day. The season has been delayed until Tuesday due to wind and high seas so the waiting still continues. There were a few flakes of snow this morning and lots of chatter on FB about it which caused me to update my status as 'like September in Nunavut'. When I asked the shore captain to pick up the newspaper from the end of the driveway on the way in he said "you're not planning to leave the house today?" and I replied "too windy" to which he responded "you best put on your Canada Goose parka and get used to it". I am sure I'd be in a lather by the time I made it back to the steps as it was only -2 here not -32 as in  Taloyoak. He brought the fixins for eggs benedict with smoked salmon and so that was  what we had for brunch. He has spent most of his day in the la-z-boy watching a ninja movie on Netflix and sports updates while I have made brown bread, cranberry pudding and orange rolls. Nuff said.

The plan is to head out to watch the new James Bond movie tomorrow evening called Skyfall. It is one of those flicks which manages to entertain both of us - he for the action adventure / she for looking at Daniel Craig and I do love Judi Dench and some of the others.

While I was listening to CBC radio on one of my many trips back and forth for errands lately I heard an update on Gabble. This is sort of like twitter or FB where you have so many characters but it's a program which converts your words into little video/graphics. Apparently in our increasingly global world where we need to communicate this reduces the need for translation. Here, you try it:

http://gabble.com

I typed in I am going to see Skyfall tomorrow evening - so that will give you an idea of what it did for me.

As I was getting ready to hit publish on this update I was chatting with my previous Cambridge Bay roommate (who is in a different part of Nunavut) and she was telling me about seeing polar bears (with cubs) in town (while driving) about 15 ft away and being annoyed at not having her camera with her so going out walking repeatedly looking for them. When I questioned the safety of this activity she stated she could 'run up someone's steps to escape'. In direct questioning she says that she saw 'something whitish yellowish in the distance, might have been one, might not have' in Taloyaok. So that's good. I was afraid I was going to have to include a stick in my 'packing for north of 60 cupboard' as it's north of the tree line. Speaking of which - I was extremely annoyed to find the SAD light system advertised on Amazon this weekend for 30% off - do I have the timing or what?