Today his results came in the mail. He passed the exam easily with an impressive mark and he is now a Master Electrician. Or at least he will be once they issue the actual licence.

I'm really proud of him.

Currently reading:

• Mercy Among the Children – David Adams Richards

Finished:

• Bear – Marian Engel
• A Good House – Bonnie Burnard
• Clara Callan – Richard B. Wright
• Broken Prey – John Sandford
• Deafening – Frances Itani
• Luck – Joan Barfoot
• How to Be a Canadian – Will Ferguson & Ian Ferguson
• Dropped Threads: What we aren't told – Various authors, edited by Carol Shields & Marjorie Anderson
• Three Day Road – Joseph Boyden
• Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets, Selected Poems, 1962-1996 – Al Purdy
• Invisible Armies – Jon Evans
• The Lost Garden – Helen Humphreys

It was kinda freaking me out, too.

She came to me and let me look at her mouth. The girls thought they'd seen a loose tooth, one of her canines (fangs), but I thought that was unlikely since she has her adult teeth now. Everything looked ok on the outside so, after some consultation, I took a flashlight and pried her mouth open.

She had a piece of a branch wedged against the roof of her mouth from side to side. And it was really stuck in there, too.

I called the vet's office and they said to bring her right in. When we got there, the vet opened her mouth, reached in with a pair of pliers, and yanked it out. The pup was so thrilled, she practically did a happy dance.

Ice and I were wondering if that would teach her to not chew every single stick she finds in the backyard but somehow I doubt it will.

Why the hell would I want to watch an edited awards show??

Bloody idiots.

The opening 'hosts' sequence was funny.

Jon Stewart did a really good job. He made me laugh often and he's now a very close second to Billy in the Best Host category.

Many of the speeches were more entertaining than in other years. None of them choked me up though.

I hated the music playing behind the acceptance speeches. It sounded threatening.

I love George Clooney.

Naomi Watts looked like she just came from an audition for a live-action version of Corpse Bride.

I was concerned about Lauren Bacall. I hope it was just a teleprompter issue.

The "go to the theatre!!" pitch got a little tedious. I don't download movies (and never will) but I watch them on DVD or on pay-per-view or on one of the movie channels. It's not that I don't want to see them in the theatre; I simply can't afford to go very often. I don't need someone lecturing me about how movies look better on a big screen. I know that already.

Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep were great in their tribute to Robert Altman.

The absolute shock of the 'Crash' folks was pretty cool.

Overall, I liked the show. It moved faster than in other years and that's always a good thing.

I was exactly 50% right in my pre-show picks (12 out of 24 categories). Considering I've only seen 3 of the 53 nominated movies, I thought that was pretty good. More importantly, in the 15 categories that Newt gave me her picks for, I got 10 right, one more than her. No drink-fetching for me!

However, I did get to enjoy the following exchange:

Tech support: You use Outlook Express for your email?
me: No.
TS: Outlook then?
me: No. I don't use Windows.
TS: ............oh. What do you use?
me: Linux.
TS: ............oh! Wow! So do I! Wow!

I often wonder if they would be less shocked if I was male and younger.

The snow started Saturday afternoon, huge flakes, and just got worse as the day went on. By the time I went to bed, the power had gone off multiple times, we had tree branches down, our phone line was lying across the backyard (although our phone still worked), and our cable/internet was out.

On Sunday, the wind started and all of the highways in this area were closed. We couldn't have left town if we'd wanted to. About 11:30pm Sunday night, the power went off and stayed off until just before 5am Monday morning.

I got up this morning at 5:15am when one of Ice's co-workers called. Several phone calls and road checks later, despite the fact that the highways were still closed, Ice's boss said, "Wait until 9am, then take a backroad in." I was, and still am, extremely pissed off.

Pictures of the backyard, taken late Sunday afternoon from my office window, of the damage caused by the heavy snow. The snow is much deeper now than it was then.

• The kids have a PD day tomorrow. Sure, I get to sleep in but they have to go back to school for Friday. On what planet does this make sense?
• L had final exams for her semestered classes this week and last. She only had three so she ended up with two full days and two half days off (plus tomorrow's PD day). She didn't study as much as I thought she should but then again, I didn't study much when I was in high school either. I didn't tell her that though. I played The Mom and nagged.
• In addition to the presents the kids and Ice gave me for my birthday, I got a snow day.
• We had three Christmases. One with my parents, my brother, and his family at my parents' house. One with my parents and Ice's parents, here on Christmas Day. One with Ice's parents, brothers, sisters, spouses, assorted kids, also here in early January.
• I now have five moose. Or as I call them, meese. Mel came from up Timmins way. Wally and Winnie have matching outfits. Kris plays "Deck the Halls" if you press his belly. And Ross is a snowboarder. Ok, it's really a toboggan but he's standing on it and who the hell stands on a toboggan? Ice suggested that perhaps he was the very first snowboarder so I'm going with that.
• Hey, Margaret Atwood: Put down your pen, turn off the computer, step away from the desk. Really, take a vacation now and then.
• I'm really behind in my email. MA and Y: I will get back to you. Sorry for the delay.
• I'm also really behind in my movie reviews. It scares me to think how many I have to write up.
• He may be Prime Minister but he's still Stephen &*@#!$% Harper to me.
• I'm picking the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl.

I'm sure there's more I wanted to say but that's all my tired brain can come up with at the moment.

The second half was much more exciting and even included some humour.

That was the first time I'd seen the football equivalent of a shootout. Highly entertaining.

Ezra Landry. Wow, can that guy run. And wow, is he short.

The Black Eyed Peas?? With all the musical talent in this country, they chose the Black Eyed Peas for the halftime show? And they weren't even all that good. The first song sounded terrible, the second song was just dumb. Not impressed by their performance or by the decision to have them play.

Everybody in this country knows that Tim Hortons has several million commercials in stock. So why did we have to suffer through the same one over and over and over again? And why that one? It was amusing the first couple of times I saw it. Now it's just annoying.

Every time the Subway "parmesan chicken" ad came on, Ice and I said, "No!! Take the burger!!" Since, ya know, we tried one on Thursday night.

And Subway? Where was the "best buns in the CFL" ad? We like that one.

Scotiabank gets a thumbs up. I don't watch football normally and maybe those who do, have seen those ads multiple times but they were all new to me. I liked them.

And one final piece of advice to Eric Tillman: Do something with that hair. Anything, please. It scares me.

The cable guy came on Saturday and replaced the receiver. And Ice was here so I didn't have to deal with him.

At some point yesterday, we lost access to the lower channels on our digital cable box. The basic channels like TVO, CTV, and the American networks. When they still weren't working today, we called to see what the problem was. The lady said that it had happened to other people and that she would have it fixed within 15 minutes. Then she called back to say that our box wasn't responding and that from what she could see, it hasn't been responding since April (and they didn't notice?!?). She said she would send someone out and that he would be here by 5pm.

He didn't show up. Didn't call either. If he doesn't come tomorrow, that means no HNiC, no Grey Cup on Sunday. Nobody in this house is happy about that.

And with my luck, whenever he shows up, it'll be Grumpy Cable Guy, the one who was so rude to me last time. I was really hoping to have it fixed while Ice is home so I wouldn't have to deal with him.