The Lobster Experience

Some people asked me why I chose Cap Pelee for my cottage rental. It looked like a kid friendly cottage complete with a playground and toyroom and it was supposed to be on the beach. But it was close to the lobster capital of Canada. Of course we had to take pictures in front of the largest lobster and then we brought the smaller already cooked version home to try.

How can something so ugly and difficult to get at taste so delicious?

Research Part of Holiday

A few hours out of our way, the Pointe au Pere Sea Museum feature the Empress of Ireland. I wanted to really understand the deck system for my third class passenger/character ten-year-old William Alton. I'll have to compare my photos of models to the book I have at home. It's a lot of work for a few sentences in a book that's largely about flycatching.

Quebec City

This is the amazing fountain given as a 400th year birthday present from a department store owner to Quebec City. Originally, it won a prize at a world fair back in the 1800's. At the bottom there are frogs either spitting water to the next layer or projectile vomiting it right to the top.

Quebec is crowded with tourists and people celebrating the summer festival. The old town is quaint and filled with shops and cafes, still not a lot to entertain a seven year old. We did watch a juggler who climbed and balanced the ladder and then juggled torches from the top.

Pet Friendly travelling

Our first hotel provided a lovely two room suite, a kitchen sink but no microwave or fridge or more importantly pool.
That was all fine, however, they charged an additional $25 for our dog. Didn't matter that he wasn't a Great Dane or that
he never so much as woofed or shed a hair.

At the Quebec tourism board we asked about dining in outdoor cafe "avec notre petit chien". "Si il est calme" you can eat with your dog.

Naha. We couldn't eat with Mortie. So we shared an ice cream cone overlooking the old harbour and later snuck in Mortie to our next hotel. With the $25 we saved we enjoyed a Hawaiian pizza togther.

On the Road again...

We're very excited to be on the road to our rented cottage in Shediac. Mortie's not usually a good car traveller.
In fact he's the only dog I know who hates the car. But we loaded up his bed on top of a suitcase and snuggling with Hunter
in the back he slept most of the way.

Nothing exciting has happened so far but the trip has been good. We stopped in Montreal, did nothing but eat.
Today we're hoping for some historic scenery in Quebec City.

Owen's Christening

We ditched the dogs for a day to see Owen's Christening. Wow, once the church gets you in you have to kneel, pray, kneel, pray, kneel, pray..sing.

Still it was a lovely chance to visit with Kelly and Joey and baby Owen. The food was delicious. Owen was cute.
A happy day.

Mortie Has a sleepover friend

Some days when we know we're going to be away a long time we send Mortie to friend's place: Niles.
He's an older, slightly bigger, apricot coloured poodle who is very good natured. Mortie and Niles have
been running through the park together and wrestling.

The downside is that Niles has become too attached to me, emitting the most ungodly highpitched yelp when I return from say taking the paper in. Also he's not perfectly house trained.

Craig and Eireann are getting married

We attended the first shower for Eireann, my future daughter in law. Craig and Eireann announced they were getting married in April. The wedding will be August 9 and is going to be beautiful. How can it fail with such a beautiful bride! Eireann and Craig make a great couple and I love when they try to cheer a crying baby, singing songs and making faces together. Of course we don't have any crying babies around any more. Yet... Jen will have a baby December so that will change again

Mortie Gets to Go On a Press Junket

Mortie doesn't get invited to a lot of events but when PawsWay opened he not only got to go but ended up on television and in the newspaper all because he's cute. He also ignored some lovely biscuits, got weighed (11.5 pounds) and enjoyed watching other dogs go through obstacle courses. While he's super smart, he didn't do well on the pet intelligence test because it was all about retrieving a biscuit from under a big plastic cup. Remember those biscuits he didn't like? So he never bothered flipping the cup which would have made him a genius. Well he's smart enough to know what he doesn't like

Testing out the Go-karts for Today's Parent Toronto

The sales rep Maria Paguirigan for Today's Parent Toronto and I decided it would be fun to enter a team at the First Annual Downsview Park Media Olympics. So we entered ourselves and it was, fun I mean. Teamed up with Adam and Kristin from Easy Rock, We played soccer, beach volleyball and drove go-karts. Apparently I was the slowest driver by the electronic printout.
Parenting writers should be cautious and set good example besides those sports writers kept cutting me off!

We had a great day and even earned kind of a mini tree stump medal. Next year we hope for a bigger better team. Wait a minute, no one could have been better than Maria--lots of spirit and so fit for a pregnant person.

Creative friends

We had a great visit from Norma Charles, the author of The Girl in the Backseat and Boxcar Kids, along with many other books.
It was neat to take her to visit other creative friends such as Deb Loughead, author of Time and Again and president of CANSCAIP.
We also made a point of breaking up Janet Wilson's day so that Norma could buy her cover painting from Janet.

Besides being a brilliant illustrator, Janet is a great grower of rhubarb and she sent us home with tons. Great friends and wonderful deserts, it doesn't get any better.

Sneak preview of Mars

One of the many fun parts of my magazine editing job is that I get invited to press releases and sneak previews.
Here's a shot of me and my husband posing on a Mars Rover, parked right here on Earth at the Science Centre.
I tried almost gravity free walking, I operated under Mars conditions and successfully removed gall stones and I saw the Mars Imax film and ate space cookies. Lots of fun. I don't understand kids who ask me why I write. I don't get why everyone doesn't want my job.

What I'm working on now

When I wander the streets of Hamilton, searching for buildings that would have been around when 10 year-old Will Aitken
would have arrived, June 1912, it's the most eerie feeling. I think I'm being possessed by his dead spirit when of course he's a fictional character. Of course, I usually write first person and do the method acting transfer till I become the character. But this time I'm writing in third person and instead I feel like he's trying to tell me something. It's fascinating and yet spooky.

Anyway, Central Public is the school Will would have attended. Next week I hope to step inside and see what he felt like when he attended on his first day.

Things a writer wishes she knew at the beginning of her career

This weekend May 23 to 26 is The Writers' Union of Canada general meeting and I went to a workshop
entitled "Everything I wanted to know at the beginning of my career". There were a few interesting things that came out.
How at the start Nino Ricci's creative writing instructor W.O. Mitchell thought he should quit. Nino actually grew more determined.Another speaker said that you might have a great story inside you but you really needed to hone your craft.
Paul Quarrington spoke about how arbitrary awards were. So awards now act as reviews used to--if you don't win or shortlist
your book gets pulled from the shelf after a couple of months. And yet these same career building or killing awards are handed out with a fair bit of randomness. He also talked about humility and how you always found yourself next to a writer with a long line up of fans while you yourself had none or few, or how you had readings or signings where no one turned up except the librarians or booksellers.

I think what's humbling is when a writer starts out way after you and suddenly vaults to the top. Writing is subjective so everyone can say, well that writer's better and so deserves the quick rise. But I think we all have to accept that for whatever laws of the universe sometimes you're not the flavour of the month and, point of fact, sometimes you never will be. Despite whatever promotion you do or how hard you work. Another amazing truisim, to me anyway, is that I work just as hard at a book that gets rejected as one that wins an award.

Atikoken Trip

I regret that while in schools, I rarely take photos. It takes someone else to suggest it and then I hand over my camera.
So while I really enjoyed the students at St. Partircks, North Star Community School and Atikoken Highschool, the only images I took with on computer were of the cemetary headstones and the Little Falls there. It was a great day for a walk and the seagulls were calling with all different sounds. "Ow, Ow, Ow!" one of them screamed. The headstone reminded me of the one on the cover of Grave Secrets, my ghost mystery novel. I especially enjoyed meeting the young writers Alicia and Chris. Hope I read them some day.

The photo of the lake shows the Sleeping Giant. from Prince Arthur Hotel in Thunderbay. I bought some amethysists, the purple stone mined here, and some Persian donuts: cinnamon buns with strawberry icing that are Thunderbay's trademark pastry.

At Thunderbay I visited a school and visited with one of my favourite librarians Angela Meady. If you want to listen view our interview, visit: http://www.tbpl.ca/internal.asp?id=%2087&cid=5631

Sudbury tour

Best week ever in Sudbury. Algonquin Public hosted a great young author's day complete with television and media coverage. I spent a lovely day at Warren Public with just a handful of writers, see the photo. CR Judd, AB Ellis and Valleyfield all showed me great hospitality and enthusiasm. With the younger readers, I shared Slam Dunk Robot, a short grade two novel set right in Sudbury mostly at Science North.

Fun in Saskatchewan

After visiting schools, we enjoyed the long drives back to Regina. We stopped in Corner Gas Land (Dog River=Rouleau) and bought some souvenirs. We also stopped to just enjoy an old ghost farm complete with this great tractor.

On the way to Macoun

Touring schools around Estevan, I really enjoyed myself but we were never quite sure how long a drive would take--especially when there was a train derailment. It all worked well and I loved meeting the kids in Estevan and Macoun.

Swift Current Library

At work with my new readers in Swift Current--well, actually we're chowing down on some great homemade cookies, discussing writing and life in general. It's such a privilege to be able to travel and talk about what I like best, writing. Whenever one my student audience asks what made you want to be a writer, I'm always a little dumfounded. Like what other job is as good as this?

Why everyone should want to be a writer

When people think research, they may think of hoisting heavy encyclopedia volumes to a library table and leafing through the tiny print pages for information. Here is the best part of research. I needed to finish book five in my Norwegian and Swedish Series Et Vilt Liv and just to make sure things were exactly as I described them, my husband and I booked a helicopter ride.
It was everything I expected and less sickening in terms of motion than a small plane. Everyone should save for one ride in his or her lifetime. We also rented skis and took advantage of the great quantity and quality of snow for April. The trail was as wide as a six lane highway. Terrific fun!

The big surprise was hiking the ice canyon. We didn't know enough to rent crampons so at times where we needed to hike up hill or slide downhill, we crawled on all fours. Still I found the perfect location for my main character Zanna to be stranded.

On the road again...

This is a catchup blog from the first week of April. Invited to speak at the Saskatchewan Reading Conference, I decided to add a few days to my trip and tour schools in the area but first a little detour to Canmore for some research and vacation. While we were driving across the prairie I was once again astounded by the big blue sky and the way a train snaked across the entire golden horizon. It was my turn to drive when I took this shot. A plane had just carved a white scratch into the sky but I couldn't quite capture that.

New Baby McNicoll

Last Monday, Owen McNicoll was born in London Ontario. Weighing in at nine pounds, he's my latest nephew, and very cute.
We celebrated the next day, breaking pizza together. Babies are wonderful!

Blog of the week January 3, 2008

February 3, 2008

I enjoy blogging, really, I do. But I never get around to it after all my other writing commitments. I’m going to try to at least put in one entry a week. So many exciting things happen to me. Yeah. Like I suffered through some gastrointestinal flu this week.I slept for a day then dragged myself around for another.

Then I applied for an Ontario Arts Council Grant. That involves a lot of careful reading and filling out of forms, double checking you’ve put everything together in the crafty way they’ve asked, finding the office equipment, envelopes, stapler, clips—the printer ink ran out in the middle of the first copy of five. Finally, with great relief, it weighed in at the post office and was mailed away.

Then I emceed what I think is the fourth annual CANSCAIP OLA Booklaunch. Eighteen out of twenty authors showed up at the Convention Centre in Toronto on this stormy day. Most businesses and government offices, certainly schools closed. Librarians didn’t all make it. But I think everyone enjoyed it. Just getting together with each other is fun. And publishers and librarians did drift in and out.

Today, the culmination of the week, I read a nice review of Last Chance for Paris by Gary Curtis in The Hamilton Spectator. He celebrates the fact that dialogue moves the story forward. Many reviewers feel disdain for dialogue, I think, because it brings a story closer to a television or film script.
But it does liven the pace. And who doesn’t want to eavesdrop on someone else’s conversation?

Wedding in the Dominican

My nephew got married in the Dominican Republic. What a great excuse for an all inclusive vacation. I loved sampling the fruity drink of the day: banana mama, dirty monkey, the Titanic etc. Better was floating on the huge waves of the Atlantic, or swimming the saltwater pool. The wedding itself was very romantic, with three guitarist and a Fabio looking photographer. Guaranteed sunshine, lots of relaxation. I enjoyed spending the week with my brother and his wife too. I haven’t spent so much time with him since I was a kid. Hurray for celebrations!

Last Chance for Paris Launched!

Finally my new book Last Chance for Paris is out! What better way to celebrate than a party. Seconds before the official launch, okay, days actually,all our windows and our front door were replaced. Mortie the Jackapoo huddled, shivered and complained in my office as the house became an icebox.

Then we had to plow the rest of the house. We’d also installed new floors on two levels and the junk was moved to the next levels. For the party it all had to be placed or hidden.
There are things we’ll never find again.

Still on the day itself, all went well. A light sprinkling of snow made the world just a little bit more friendly and holiday like.

Lots of friends turned out and I sang the madeup country song from the actual story.

My baby left me for a body builder
She didn’t want to live with a pipe welder
I’ve got the tools
But He hangs around pools
I’ve got to get me a six pack
If I should want my baby back.
Oooh My beby left me for a body builder

Cover for My New Book

One thing we spent most of June evenings on was photographing my daughter Robin for my new book Last Chance for Paris.
She cooincidentally has a strawberry tatoo on her ankle much like my character Zanna. My husband Bob was trying to achieve the same light as the image the Fitzhenry designer originally chose. It didn't have enough resolution for the cover. Over and over we piled into the car, Mortie the Jackapoo, Robin, the model, Hunter, who wanted to spend time with his mom Robin and me the nanny for puppy and child. We chased the sunset in watery areas that we thought resembled Alberta. In the end the publisher and designer chose one of the first images which I will show here.

But on an off moment I took my little digital and caught Hunter posing like Mom. Consider it an outtake for the cover.

Franklin Gardens

On Saturday of Labour Day Weekend, I was slated to perform at Franklin Garden on Centre Island. First I needed to meet up with the other author Gwen Molinar from Edmonton and make sure she was set up properly at the story stage. I knew that we needed some promotion as on the island the author visits are not publicized much. The year before the flyer my daughter Robin had created for me didn't help much. What to do?

Well since the story I wanted to tell was The Biggest Little Dog, I decided to use Mortie as my walking advertisement. I cut up a t shirt of mine and used a permanent marker to write about my reading. Did it work? Well, sure it make me feel like I was doing something. And Mortie always draws a lot of attention. I had a nice crowd at Franklin and I enjoyed talking to them and giving away free books.

Magazine Travel

Finally a perk to working for the magazine. It feels like I have been slaving all summer on it. Hunter, Bob and I went travelling to Bruce Grey County to experience what they have to offer. We visited three museums, two beaches, four lighthouses, four waterfalls and hiked at two caves as well as Baldy's Lookout. I loved swimming at the beach and at the Westin Resort Pool.
Now to write about all that in two thousand words and do it justice.

End of Summer Roundup

Besides making the magazine run, I also wrote a shortstory based on my husband Bob’s adventures at Burlington Animal Shelter. He photographs the animals, mostly cats and helps the shelter upload the photos to their website so that they can be viewed for adoption. My story, called The Unaddoptable Pet, now needs some rewriting to make the character older. By September 19 it will go back for a final looksee. It would be good to say, here’s something new I wrote over the summer.

Just as the summer began with sadness so it ended. My favourite and pretty much the only aunt I have contact with, since the rest of my extended family lives in Germany, died of cancer. Renate Wildenburg in my mind will always be the beautiful 19 year old with the black up do that was so popular in the Elvis years when she came to live with us. Over the past years I have been e-mailing with her mostly about my mother’s condition but in between the lines I could read that Renate was also failing.

A sad thing for me is that I can’t tell my mother. She wouldn’t understand. And yet beyond the sadness it would cause I think it would help my mom release her own life or consciousness as it is with Alzheimers. I’d like to be able to share the news with someone who cared about her too. I’ll try to find an old photo in an album later to load in.

Summer Catchup

Sadly the summer began with a close colleague dying. Helen Keeler was the managing editor of Today’s Parent Toronto. By the time we all heard about her cancer re-occurring she was at peace with her death and let go. We all found it difficult to keep going and yet had to work harder without her sound advice and coaching.

Happily I had my grandson Hunter to distract me. Every morning I would work and in the afternoon we would have excellent adventures, mostly going to the pool. I had forgotten how much swimming puts me into a state of zen.

Mortie Graduates!

Mortie graduated from Puppy Kindergarten. He can now come when you call him if you have treats and nothing distracts him. He also sits, shakes paw and rolls over. Sometimes in anticipation of a treat he’ll bring out all three like party tricks.

Le Weekend

Mortie, the Jackapoo, did beautifully at puppie kindergarten. Last class Merve the trainer challenged me with the task of getting him to lie down on command and by that afternoon Mortie could do it. He just loves his treats, he'll bring out his whole repetoire of tricks to get them. Mortie will look, sit, wave his paw madly, lie down roll over--anything till he figures out what I want to part with some goodies.

But on command, in front of the whole class, I got Mortie to lie down on command. We got applause. Merve sat down and told me to teach the class. As if.

Then Mortie fell in love with the lovely black-furred brown-eyed shitz poo Maggie right beside us. He would no longer listen to anybody. Merve wanted to demonstrate "Stay" with Mortie but gave up. In fact he finally made Maggie sit at the other end of the room. Poor Mortie's heart was broken.

Then we needed to go to a pool party to say goodbye to writer/friend Rachael Preston. Mortie went into the crate, what a day for him. Broken hearted and no family to comfort him.

We left the party early to comfort him.

Now we have to work on the commands Stay and Fetch. Eat would be way easier. Bite me, that would be good too.

The End

Yesterday I finished writing a book I call Avalanche, the fourth book in The Wild Life Series in Norway and Sweden. It's due there in August so it should be ready in time.

It's tough ending a book. There's such a feeling of dissatisfaction for me ,knowing the perfect version in my head is now an imperfect version on paper that needs to be re read and rewritten over and over.

I reread it today and found some astounding date and day errors. This kind of stuff always happens. As you reread you mark what day it is on a paper, then suddenly you're really into the content and forget to mark that the day has changed when characters go to bed and/or wake up.

So tonight I made more adjustments, making sure clues that I had inserted are reaped when solving the mystery.

Tomorrow I need to review the subplot, the romantic element. I'm sure that that problem gets solved way too early and needs to be stretched out.
For the most part the real rewriting will be after other writers have read the manuscript and commented on it.

Time for some creative panic now. What if something major is wrong? To complicate life a coworker at my magazine is seriously ill. I know I may have to jump in and write and edit things that I've never had to before. But her illness also wants to make me "seize the day" and not work myself to death.

My best hope is that Avalanche is sound structurally.

Clean Fishbowl, Clean Puppy, Father's Day Lobster.

I've been looking at our poor sad Beta triplets and saying I really must clean their bowls for the longest time. They are beautiful fish and ask so little. Just the occasional speck of food and clean water say once a month.

But it's a life threatening situation for them too. They don't like to be dumped into the sink, they don't like to be fished back out. On occasion they have leaped into the air and hurtled to the hard porcelain floor. Then I have to scoop them flip/flopping around back into their clean bowls.

Today I did it. No injuries. So encouraged, I also washed the Jackapoo Mortie. He whimpered and whined the whole way through. Then for a long time after he shivered.
So I took him for lounge outside in the hot sun. Hard to shiver after that.

Next on the agenda was Father's Day supper. I heated up lobster for six, we bbq'd steak for the non shell fish lovers and enjoyed a great dinner together.

Mortie Goes to Puppy Kindergarten and a funny book

So after a long absence while in Vancouver, I attended puppy kindergarten with Mortie the genius Jackapoo. After the puppies all visit with each other,Merve, the instructor, has the owners and dogs demonstrate sit and come. Let' see there is a beagle,Simon, a doberman pinscher (forget his name) complete with bandages on his ear, a black poodle type dog, Maggie, and a caramel coloured poodle, Zoe.

Most of the dogs eventually came although they get distracted by the rows of dogfood on either side of them. Mortie and the doberman probably respond the best. The new trick we learned today was "Down". After the puppy gets to you, you stand up and save the treat in such a manner that he/she lies down. Then you give the pup the treat and say "Good down." (Such pigeon English)

Tall dogs have no problem with this command because they have to lie down to reach the treat. Short Mortie types can just reach down. In a moment when I thought no one was looking, I told Mortie to shake and he did. Merve then bet me Mortie wouldn't be able to lie down on command next week. If he did, I could have Merve's job.

The challenge was on. Never underestimate our Jackapoo. This afternoon he was bounding for me on "Come" and hurtling himself to his tummy on "Down". The funny thing is I'm not sure Mortie knows the difference between all the commands. When he sees a treat he just tries out all his tricks out on me. He looks intently "Look", sits, holds out his paw just in case I want to shake and then, if all else fails, slumps down.

Still by next week, I'm pretty sure Merve can hand me the reigns of his class. Afterall Mortie got the trick in a few minutes. After a whole week, I think I can teach him to wave to people from the car.

By the way I'm reading a funny book not available on the book stands 'till August.
It's called A is for Angst by Barara Haworth-Attard. It's almost like a Canadian version of the Snogging books except of course it's in Canadian. None of that off putting British slang. Well I'm sure it's not off putting to the Brits.

Alzheimers' ,a Donut Party, and Facing the End of a Book

After being away a couple of weeks I knew I wanted to visit my mom who suffers from Alzheimer's. I also was in charge of my six year old grandson Hunter so of course needed to combine the two. Then I added my puppy Mortie, bribing them all with a trip to the donut shop first. It was fun to watch Hunter agonize over his 12 choices especially when he had just one choice left--turned out to be another sprinkles donut.

We then visited my mom who was shouting at the people on the TV when we arrived. She said she liked them but they should put on a dress or pants. It was an AIDS/Africa special. Her talking level is only shouting now. She enjoyed selecting and eating her two donuts, one double chocolate and the other maple. Then we left for the splash pad at Lasalle Park. Nothing quite as fun as all those colourful showers and sprinkler systems. I waded through in my jeans trying to convince Hunter to try the ones I would have had I been wearing a swim suit.

Then I had to go home and face the end of my book Avalanche--also the end of the Wild Life Series. I feel I'm in the agaonizing position of the main character Zanna who needs to make a choice. Continue living with Dad in the beautiful Rockies where there seems to be nonstop lifethreatening disasters but where she'll also be with her twin brother Martin and loyal wolf/dog Paris and boyfriend forever, Tyler. Or move to Paris, France with her Mom who shipped her away in the first place over an argument about tatoos and a boy.

It seems simple here on a blog. Zanna and I are crying through this segment, we thought her parents might be together forever. Really they were only getting along well because they knew their time together was limited.

And so I wrote four pages and still didn't decide. Maybe tomorrow I can finally type The End.

Swimming and Face Book

So close to the end of Avalanche, the last book in my Wild Life series for Norway and Sweden. I'm actually writing the resolution and dealing with all the emotional wounds and arcs for all four books. Ahh! So when my daughter Jen invited me swimming, of course I said yes. Water helps the right brain.

I dressed baby William in his swim diapers and board shorts, a t-shirt and a hat and off we went to the pool. Three lengths or so and then William fell asleep. We headed back up to the condo where Jen gave me a facebook tutorial. She also made it so that my blog would automatically show up on the facebook. So what do I do about unknowns wainting to be my friend? What about identity theft? Maybe I should go back to finishing Avalanche.

Home from B.C.

Thinking over my Vancouver, BC vacation—my highlights have to be: staying with Norma Charles, fellow kids’ writer, and Brian Woods, her partner in life and kayak, we always had great chats; going to see a play called “Unhinged” on Granville Island. It was a very funny story about a bunch of women and how they raised their teens. Going to the hotsprings at Harrison. No one can be stressed in a huge pool of very warm water. Rollerblading in Stanley Park. I rested a lot while my husband Bob took amazing photographs. The park has so many interesting sights from totem poles to cruise liners, aquariums to horsedrawn wagons. I hope to post at least one later. And then coming home to family complete with two great grandsons, one six, (Hunter with two almost in adult teeth), the other four months, (William with two almost in baby teeth) and my cute well-trained Jackapoo puppy, Mortie. Of course it was nice seeing Jen, Robin, Craig and Adam too.

Vancouver Trip So Far

The weather and scenery here are heavenly. I had a great interview with Priya on CBC West Coast Live when I first got here, then went immediately to autograph Beauty Returns at Vancouver Kids Book Store.

The students I met from grade 6, 7, and 8 in Coquitlam at the Poirier Library were super, enthusiastic and attentive. After that I picked up Deb Loughead, another writer, from the airport and we sight saw (is that a verb?) together. At her residence there were seven baby skunks near the outdoor steps. When I get home I'll upload photos that I took of them. We also saw the head of a seal poking up over the waves in Spanish Bay. He's just a speck on the photo.

We enjoyed a kiddy train ride in Stanley Park through huge dark trees. We loved the gaping vistas of oceans, sailboats and steamships passing by.

Everything in BC is eyecandy.

Margret Atwood delivered the Margret Laurence address which was kind of a highlight of the whole Writers' Union AGM.

Tomorrow will hold more meetings

Mortie Goes to Puppy Kindergarten

Mortie visited Hunter’s Senior Kindergarten class once and continues to escort Hunter every morning so we expected great things when he attended kindergarten actually designed for dogs.

Not so. He did a number two on the store floor while we registered. He did number one in the actual classroom while waiting for the trainer: Merve.

He did not enjoy listening to Merve, in fact he yipped and yapped and yanked all the way through. I know he will enjoy it more next week as today he had a private lesson to catchup. Next week he’ll meet other dog friends to socialize with. His big lesson today was to focus. We tell him “Look” and hold a treat in front of our nose. When he does rivet his eyes on the treat, we give it to him and praise him a lot. “Good Look, Mortie”

Mortie caught onto this command immediately. So much so that when Merve just used the word look in one of his sentences, Mortie would rivet his puppy eyes in Merve’s direction. For no reason at all, I’d catch Mortie staring at me, hopefully.

Merve also made us buy Mortie some excellent treats, a new collar and leash. We’re going on a walk now to try them all out.

Worst Blogger in the World.

I want to catch up. I do. So many things have happened that I haven’t blogged to the world. First I spent a week in Sudbury and Manitoulin Island. With the students there, we created a story about my new dog Mortie.

By the end of the week, I read the new picture book at Alexander Public School, the same place that I set Slam Dunk Robot at. Back in Burlington, I told the story for Hunter’s birthday to his kindergarten class. Now my publisher has it and says she likes it: The Biggest Little Dog.

Also I’m closing in on the end of the fourth book in the Last Chance Pass Series. My main character Zanna is hunting through town with her wolf/dog Paris, her twin brother Martin and her ranger boyfriend Tyler for the kidnappers’ hideout and hopefully her father, if he’s still alive.

Soon she’ll hear the helicopter overhead. Is it just Skylon providing the escape chopper as demanded by the kidnappers? I think not. I think it’s the Mounties, more specifically the Emergency Response Team. They’ll drop down on a rope and surround the kidnapper’s hideout. Very exciting for me. You can understand how hard it is to pull away just to blog.

St. Elizabeth Seton students are great!

Yesterday started off full of hect. I wanted to spend some time getting organized for an author visit at Newmarket Public Library at 1:00. I had mapquested how to get there but of course those details were lost and I had to do it again. Also my husband Bob was sick which meant I was on new puppy detail. Mortie doesn’t quite have the toilet training thing down. And I was delivering my grandson Hunter to school.

Let’s get two birds done with one stone. I thought Hunter would enjoy showing off his new pet and Mortie could tinkle on the school grounds. Rushing around to make lunches and find socks, the normal routine all made us late. Mortie hated the car and kept whimpering. A sudden brake caused him to fly down and then he went to the bathroom all over the car. Who knew such a sweet little puppy could be such a stinker!

Well, okay. Smelly car for an hour and a half drive to Newmarket. Luckily, I had this new car Scotchguarded so everything came off easily. Also I have a moon roof which I opened so I wouldn’t die of doggie pollution.

I didn’t organize myself that much for the visit but I arrived early and the three grade eight classes from St. Elizabeth Seton also got there a little ahead of schedule. What a nice change!

The boys filed in first and I thought, man, no girls in three grade eights? But no, then the girls arrived. It was a story well venue with stair/seats that circled me. Everyone sat down quickly, no fuss. Another nice change was that the teachers had started reading Beauty Returns to the classes. So maybe what I talked about made a little more sense to them. All the students were attentive and some made great comments along the way.

In case any one of them are reading this the book where the horror story “Consequences” is in is called Horrors II edited by Peter Caver. The Newmarket Public Library has a copy. Oh, oh, or maybe it’s The Horror II. Can’t check I still have the book in the car. Never mind you can check it out. The librarian, Ms Hoffman will know.

Lots of the students commented on my site which was so nice. I wish I could visit more students as interested and interesting as they are.

Mortimer, our new mouse dog.

After our trip to Florida, we came home to no dog. No dog welcoming us back. No dog to pass tidbits of human food. No dog to walk. No dog snoring in our bedroom. The house felt very hollow.

I visited the local animal shelter where we had found Sputnik but they only had two huge mastiffs that never stopped barking. My sister in law Donna suggested petrescue.com and I searched for Cairn terriers, the breed Sputnik was. All of the Cairns lived somewhere south of the border. It was unclear whether Canadians could adopt them and even if we could, the adoption fee was often as high as $400 US.

Why not try a breeder? The Cairns cost between $700 and $1,200 there. A good friend told me her niece had Jack Russel puppies but as I did research and accepted the fact that we’d have an extremely lively dog, I suddenly understood that they were not “hypo allergenic” the way Sputnik was. Oh, oh.

I went on The Net to find something close and discovered a Jack Russel Poo which crosses the hypoallergenic with the hyperactive. The ad said the pups didn’t shed. More research and a final call to a dog training friend told me that you could never be sure, you actually had to experience the animal.

So we picked up Willie whom we have renamed Mortie. We didn’t want him to have the same name as our latest grandson. We are allowed trying him for three days and now, even though he does cause some itchy eyes, no one wants to return him. He’s way smaller than we had planned on, really a Paris Hilton carry around pup—the danger of shopping on the internet. And he yaps. But oh my gosh, he’s affectionate. Loves to sleep on top of me as I write or nap. He’s bright too. Always intrigued by everything going on I’ve taught him to sit and sometimes stay. Next we’re working on teaching him to write.

Road Trip

For March Break suddenly we could see a parting of everyone’s works schedules. Hunter was off school and I was dying to check on my mother’s house in Florida. And some of my friends were going too. Because Hunter doesn’t have a passport we had to drive. Three days there, three days back.

Holy Toledo ( we drove through Toledo and we taught Hunter that expression) for once we had great weather. At the end of the first day, we stuffed our coats in the trunk and broke out the sandals. By the second day, we were looking for hotels with outdoor pools. We settled on an indoor one.

And the third day we arrived. Highlights were we saw alligators at Myaka State Park, tons of them. We rode on the spiffy cart bike you see in the photo. We visited Burlington writerGisela Sherman at her hotel in Sanibel and swam in the gigantic pool. We visited Bush Gardens for two days and enjoyed great shows, the Rhino Rally as well as lots of parrots landing on us and feeding from our hands.

Beach time was great! Dolphins even performed for us. We buried Hunter in the sand and made him a merboy complete with a sculpted tail. “Hey People,” he’d called to shell seekers strolling by, “I’m having a little trouble getting back to the water could you help me out?” No one helped the stranded merboy.

Back at home, tanned, and at my desk again.

So Long Sputnik!

Sputnik is Russian for fellow traveler and the name of our Cairn Terrier. She traveled along side us for 12 years since we first found her at the animal shelter. She loved to leap up stairs and benches, to beds and even picnic tables. She also loved to run. My favourite memories of Sputnik involve her circling the soccer field as she tried to follow a seagull flying overhead. Also when she tried, on that same field, to keep up with a couple of greyhounds chasing a ball.

She had short legs but a huge heart and spirit.

I loved the sound of her toenails on the floor, or scratching at the bedroom door. I loved her soft snore at night and the sound of her lap-lapping at the water. She had a deep throaty bark that she seldom used unless someone trespassed on the park just behind our backyard or our front lawn.

Squirrels made her go beserk. She forgot she couldn’t fly or climb and she would scramble up trees and stone walls after them. Sputnik loved the snow but only suffered water sports for my sake. She’d follow me out into the water with a disdainful look on her whole body.

Sputnik escaped near death from a strange blood disease about five years ago at Christmas. She needed a blood transfusion from some Labs and she had to take a course of prednisone. I drove to Guelph Animal Hospital every day to talk her into living.
“How can you sit here and not eat anything when just over your head there’s a cat sitting?” Despite 50/50 odds she made a complete recovery.

At Christmas this year she also fell ill, her breathing became heavy and she wouldn’t eat. But suddenly after a course of antibiotics and a bath and everyone returning from various business trips—Sputnik began to eat again and run and breathe.

Only not for long. She had a lump that grew and a trick back leg and panty breathing. We took her for a car ride, fed her lots of treats—her last: a forbidden chocolate croissant that she quite enjoyed. We parked right in front of an overhang where a couple of squirrels darted and zigzagged through the brush. Sputnik could not lift her head. I did not try to talk her into living this time. Her time had come.

We took her to the vet and she lay in my arms, leaning on me heavily in utter trust and fatigue. She slept through her sedation and right through her death. Even as the doctor carried her away her soulful brown eyes kept watching me, faithful and true.

Good bye fellow traveler. You deserve your rest but I will miss you very badly.

Welcome William!

In the worst snow storm of the year on Valentine’s Day, my grandson William slowly began his entrance to the world. We didn’t mind. School was cancelled, most businesses were shut but we shoveled ourselves out with a mission. We knew there would be a new member to our family by the end of the day.

True to McNicoll tradition, we packed up toys, two laptops, movies, sudoku puzzles, and lots of food and drinks (this is the way we always travel) to wait it out at the family centre at Joseph Brant Hospital.

Close to midnight we headed home convinced William didn’t want to begin his new life outside the womb ever. At 1:30 a text message on a phone told us differently. 2:00 AM we headed back, snuck through Emergency as the hospital was locked up to the general public now, begged for entrance and headed up to delivery. Again we waited in the family centre until another future grandmother told us she’d heard a baby cry. Since the only other patient was her daughter and she hadn’t had her baby, she felt by default it had to be ours.

We ran down the hall in time to see William wheeled out in his little glass gurney, his father Adam snapping photos as the nurse tilted it every way for a better view. He cried his desperate newborn cry which made me want to scoop him up immediately.

Wonderful! Perfect healthy fingers and toes, dark unfocussed eyes, a mat of brown hair.
We look forward to getting to know him better.