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.

Waiting for William

Two or three days after my daughter’s due date and William still hasn’t arrived. (Yes we know his sex and name already) All the anticipation! Our phone warbles twice for long distance and for some reason, Jennifer’s calls. Don’t we hate telephone marketers or wrong numbers especially if they warble twice!

I can’t wait to meet William!

And yet I do.

I finished editing or totally re-writing an Alternative Pets article complete with fascinating information on exotic animals. I had to design a matching quiz which was a lot of fun. It will nice to see the “Pour” that’s magazine and book talk for the actual design of the page, complete with text and tons of photos of the animals.

Now I’m rewriting Last Chance for Paris—which is pleasant enough. No major work, just adding some more glacier/climatology detail all of which is stuffed in my head anyway.

So go ahead William, take your time. Babies and children should never be rushed.

Hect, hect, hect but exciting hect

I can’t believe I haven’t blogged in so long! Very exciting to me is that my Norwegian Series, A Wild Life will be coming to Canada. At least book one will for sure. The decision was made just last week. In Norway and Sweden it was loosely titled Last Chance Pass, in Canada we thought for a while and came up with Last Chance for Paris. Paris is a hybrid wolf-dog who turned up under the cabin. “Habitualized” animals often end up being shot by humans as they end up causing too much trouble once they lose their fear of us. It remains to be seen whether Paris can survive the four books I’m writing.

The third manuscript was e-mailed to my Norwegian publisher and I needed to make a few minor changes this week. River of Ice should be out in Norway and Sweden sometime this year. I have one very exciting book left to write. I can’t wait to get to it. Only this week it seems I’ll have to concentrate on my magazine writing job and also making some changes on the first novel for Canada. Too many things, too many things. All fun, I wouldn’t trade any for the world but they all can pile up and threaten to avalanche and suffocate me. Avalanche, did I say avalanche—that’s what will happen in my last wild life book. Or will it be my last.

Last Friday I visited a great school in Port Colbourne called St Patrick. I’ve never met such a friendly principal. I liked watching parents play board games with their kids at lunch. There are so many updated boardgames that look like tons of fun. Uno that shoots out cards for you, junior scrabble where the words are already laid out for you, you just scoop the letters and get triangles to keep track of points, and Clue where there are little standup characters. Have to sort through our board games and maybe start over on them.

I should practice guitar and singing every day because I really want to be able to sing Kyle’s lullabye. I want to go skating again. I haven’t even walked my cairn terrier Sputnik today. Tomorrow all that will happen. But at least, today, I blogged.

Gliding on the ice, a Zen experience

For Christmas I bought my grandson Hunter brand new ice skates with a helmet compete with a face protector—the idea being I would also take him skating. Spencer Smith Park has an outdoor artificially refrigerated rink right on the lake near the new observation centre and when we saw it was operational, Hunter and I rushed over. By that time school had let out and the rink had grown crowded. Still we laced up along with my pregnant daughter Jen (I had to lace up all three of our skates).

Turns out balance on ice is not such a natural thing. But Hunter groped the sides and inched along totally backflipping onto the ice in death defying moves. The helmet saved him. I asked the “skating police” as we called them how to help Hunter learn since we weren’t allowed using pylons or skate aids, whatever they are. They said he should continue edging along the outside, holding on. Within about four skating sessions he’d be soaring wildly across the ice.

Well, Hunter hearing this believes he will be performing triple turns by the fourth time out so he’s nagging to go skating again and again.

Today was our second time out and I skated backwards and forewards to keep him company. He got a glint in his eye when he saw the backwards skate. I told him it was easy, you just wiggle your bum. So that’s what he did. By the end of our skate he was shuffling through the centre of the ice and falling a lot less and of course, doing little bum wiggles backwards.

Skating outside at Spencer Smith, watching the grey waves rolling in and gliding across the ice is just the most lovely peaceful thing even with the teen bucks zipping in and out around us. Two more times till triple twirls.

Kyle’s Lullaby

Today with the help of some talented musicians, Angela McKay and Brian Wice, I set the poem in Beauty Returns to music. It was intended to be a lullaby which one of the main character’s Kyle sings to a crying baby. Then when Kyle dies, at his funeral, a fictional character Angela (based on the real A.M.) sings it and the congregation joins in. I had tried various melodies out in my head but as I can’t read music, it was hard to latch on to one. It was the most wonderful experience to have two experts help me and have it come alive in Angela’s voice. She is the person to whom A Different Kind of Beauty is dedicated and in Beauty Returns she is acknowledged again. Singing with her and strumming chords, I thought we sounded really good and the lullaby, lovely and moving just as I’d hoped. It’s wonderful to still be surprised by life like this. I mean here’s a whole other artistic avenue for words.

Life strums

The sales associate at Lakeshore Music said my classical guitar (as opposed to acoustic which is more for strumming chords rather than playing notes) is fine to play. He replaced my two broken strings but said all the strings really needed replacing. I bought a chord book complete with a DVD to help me play. But the guitar sounds flat! No matter how much I tune it. I’ll have to take it to my friend Angela McKay. Maybe with all new strings and a more professional tuning I’ll be set to go.

I also saw that at Spencer’s Landing the skating rink is operational despite the warm weather we’ve been having. I quickly foraged for skates in my dungeon and set them in the front hall: tomorrow’s fun challenge.

Goals and Resolutions

To take the time to do things I enjoy or at least remember to enjoy the things I’m doing!

Tomorrow I’m having a manicure and pedicure, the gift certificate for which was given to me in September. Wow, it takes me that long to get around to using it. I also have a massage gift certificate, but I’m making the appointment right away this time.

Tomorrow I also hope to take my guitar (that I bought with money from my first summer job babysitting back when I was sixteen) and replace the broken string. It’s been quite a few years since I last played. If that works out, and the guitar’s not warped or anything, I hope to visit my friendly musician Angela McKay for a lesson or two. I want to be able to accompany myself singing the lullaby I wrote for Kyle in Beauty Returns.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

December 28, 2006


Closing in on the old year makes me look back and think of all the highs and lows and because endings are what you walk away with, I’ll start with the lows and leave you with my highs.

The Lows

My mother lost her independence to Alzheimers. She spent the summer in the hospital and it feels like I did too. I sat by her bed daily and saw a wonderful view of Lake Ontario, complete with a jogging, roller blading path. Boats would sail by and I would wish we could both be anywhere but in that room. She went from there to a beautiful residence but still remains unhappy there.

Two of my favourite novels Project Disaster and Walking a Thin Line were put out of print. They’ve had a long life but it’s like a couple of my children are dead.

My agent of ten years retired from actively representing clients. It’s like I’ve lost a best friend.

The Highs

My eldest daughter, Jennifer, announced her pregnancy.

My youngest daughter Robin graduated from Mohawk’s advertising program with honours.

I hiked the Columbia Icefields with my husband, wrote about it and sold the article to the Hamilton Spectator. The research from this trip helped enormously in writing the newest Norwegian novel River of Ice.

I toured the Northwest Territories for Canadian Children’s Book Week. What an amazing experience!

For the CANSCAIP newsletter I interviewed and wrote the profile for Eric Walters.

I have a new literary agent who lives in Amsterdam. Hopefully I can visit her there sometime.

Beauty Returns, the final novel in my Beauty trilogy came out in Canada in May. Lots of nice reviews and fanmails already. I

While I know I’m forgetting some other wonderful smaller moments, finally, I want to mention I won the Korean War Veteran’s Award for Short Fiction because of a piece I wrote about spending a day with my grandson and Mom when she was first diagnosed with Alzheimers. Hopefully I can continue to make sense of this awful disease by writing about it.

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