Dear Diary

On our way home from the 12/31 -> 1/1 festivities last night — K driving, because I'd had more than just a taste of my brother-in-law's brandy slush — we passed a road blanketed in soft new snow, with just one solitary set of tracks down its centre. It struck me as the most perfect metaphor for a new year: a trail undiscovered, waiting. In three hundred sixty-odd days it'll be deeply rutted, heavily traveled, alive only in memory. But right now it's full of untapped potential.

I wanted to ask K to stop the car so I could take a picture. But it was 2:30 in the morning, so I didn't, and now I feel a kind of gentle regret. So here's a hundred or so words to try and take the place of a photo.

- 1 -
De bon matin j'ai rencontré le train
De trois grands rois qui allaient en voyage
De bon matin j'ai rencontré le train
De trois grands rois dessus le grand chemin.

Venaient d'abord les gardes du corps
Des gens armés avec trente petits pages
Venaient d'abord les gardes du corps
Des gens armés dessus leur justaucorps

- 2 -
Puis sur un char doré de toutes parts
On voit trois rois modestes comme d'anges
Puis sur un char doré de toutes parts
Trois rois debout parmi les étendards.

L'étoile luit et les rois conduit
Par longs chemins devant une pauvre étable
L'étoile luit et les rois conduit
Par longs chemins devant l'humble réduit.

- 3 -
Au Fils de Dieu qui naquit en ce lieu
Ils viennent tous présenter leurs hommages
Au Fils de Dieu qui naquit en ce lieu
Ils viennent tous présenter leurs doux voeux.

De beaux présents: or, myrrhe et encens
Ils vont offrir au Maître tant admirable
De beaux présents: or, myrrhe et encens
Ils vont offrir au bienheureux Enfant.

On the way home from Christmas celebrations, we* were listening to CBC. They played a French Christmas concert, featuring "Le marche des rois" (above), as well as my favourite carol in either language, "Ça bergers, assemblons-nous".

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas.

____
* Well, one of us was listening, and one of us was sleeping.

Let there be slack.

All day it's been the Solstice, and I only just noticed now. From here on out, the days get longer.

Woo hoo!

Baddd Spellah featuring MC Frontalot, "Rhyme of the Nibelungs":

…the music's hella stupid, it don't got no beats
and that's the twenty-second time I heard the leitmotiv
and I cite no grief but opera ain't for me
it's for the type of people who listen to the CBC

Corb Lund*, "Brother Brigham, Brother Young":

Now I believe your revelations, Brother Brigham, Brother Young
I now believe your revelations, every one
Even the ones beyond all reason, Brother Brigham, Brother Young
Even the ones beyond all reason, Brother Young

Peeping Tom, "We're Not Alone":

We're not alone in this psychodrome, and I don't wanna lose ya
Our love is made like a Starbucks chain and we're takin' over this neighbourhood

Tragically Hip, "At the Hundredth Meridian":

Drivin' down a corduroy road
Weeds standing shoulder-high

Barenaked Ladies, "Helicopters":

This is where the allies bombed the school
They say by mistake
Here nobody takes me for a fool
Just for a fake

Terror of Tiny Town, "Burkina Faso":

Mr. Thompson was overqualified
So he offered to poke out his extra eye
You should've seen it, it was quite a show
But then I had to let him go

And so it goes…

___
* Whose concert I will be attending.

So this past Saturday we're doing some cleaning. It's the last warm day of the fall, probably (almost 25C, I'd warrant — Swan River, three-ish hours north of here, was the hot spot in Canada that day), and so we're washing windows, hanging laundry on the line, that sort of thing. I went up and down the ladder a dozen or so times, cleaning the gutters.

My wife calls to me: "I need you inside, something's leaking."

I think, Oh crap.

Our hot-water tank has sprung a leak.

#

I call around to some folks. First my dad, who's not home. Then my brother-in-law in Winnipeg, on the off chance he's got some least experience with this sort of thing. "Blind panic," he advises. "Then maybe call a 24-hour plumber."

I call the plumber. I have an electric tank all ready to go, to replace the holed gas one. "$300," he tells me. "Plus $92.50 for weekend premium." Even though I've got the new tank in the house already. "Plus you'll need an electrician to wire it to your panel."

"I'll, uh, get back to you," I say.

#

Because, see, here's the thing — we are in the endgame of installing geothermal heat, and part of the system is a pre-heat cycle for the hot-water tank. So we were going to have the electric tank installed by the geothermal guys, and use the gas tank as a holding tank for the pre-heated water. The new plan, of course, is to use just one tank, the electric one. Sometime this week, it should all be done. All hooked up, ready to draw heat from the pipes buried in my yard, pipes that go down 100 feet vertically.

Long story short, if you come to my house in the next few days, don't expect a hot shower. The best I can do is boil water for your bath.

When you have an ear infection, and can't hear very well out of the affected ear, and you tend to sleep on your side, sleeping with the bad ear up makes it rather hard to hear your alarm clock.

Work: Got some Perl stuff pretty much finished up. Now I get to start in on the Content Management System.

Judo: Taught a couple new members three throws: sasae-tsurikomi-ashi, ippon-seoi-nage, and uki-goshi.

Weather: Rainy all day; supposed to rain all night. Plus we're getting a spot of lightning and thunder, the first I've seen since, oh, October sometime.

TV viewing: Tried to tape the season finale of Battlestar Galactica tonight, but my VCR did something wonky and I wound up with nothing. For the second time in a row. So I guess I'll have to see if anyone I know managed to tape it…

Overall: Not a bad day, though I'd like to see a little sunshine.

G'night!

You know how sometimes, you can look at a problem from 800 different angles, and it just won't go away? And you just know there's a simple solution; the problem is just picking the correct simple solution from the infinity of incorrect ones.

And you know how sometimes, it'll filter in your mind, and suddenly you'll have this epiphany, this flash of insight, and you know the answer? And it turns out you're right?

I'm halfway there. I haven't had the epiphany yet, but I've got One of Those Problems. Nothing life-threatening; just something that's intellectually aggravating. And Tech Support is involved, too.

#

Did some writing tonight, too. At least that went well. I have some research to do. Things I would like to know include:

• Burial customs in the 17th Century (Boston? New York?)
• 17th-C slang
Things of that ilk.

G'night!

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