Pushing midnight.
No, I am not watching the Final Tragically Hip concert. We're in the Valley this weekend. I had them disconnect the cable on Friday. They were so efficient in doing so, and today the cable is gone. I put up a set of rabbit ears and managed to pull in CTV and Global, after a fashion. CBC? Nope. Didn't come in at all.
We spent the evening watching stuff on Netflix. The first few episodes of "The Riches", the late 00's show featuring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver playing "Travellers" who chance upon living in a large mansion, and the trouble that ensues.
A character at one point throws up his hands and screams, "Why don't we just go back to painting driveways?". Patricia didn't get the reference. These travellers or gypsies, or whatever I should be calling them, are grifters, con men, who among other scams will knock on peoples' doors and offer to pave their driveways. Certain funds exchange hands. All they do is paint the driveways to make them look re-paved. I have heard about how sometimes they will just thoroughly soak them to make them look freshly paved.
Anyway, it is an entertaining show. I am sorry they canceled it after only about 20 episodes.
We drove up Friday night. We tried like frig to get Newbie in his carrier, but the little so-and-so ran off, hiding somewhere in the house. We put extra food and water out for him and drove up.
For dinner, we had pizza from a place in Wolfville. Less sodium on a salt lick.
This morning, we went back to Wolfville, to check out the Farmers' Market. We met a Scottish man named Keith and his wife Vickie. His accent reminded me so much of Sean Connery's. No word of a lie: he said that his employee number at one of his jobs was "96-007". I ran into a former professor of mine, and his wife.
We ran into an old professor of mine, and his wife. I told them about my true crime column in Frank Magazine. As is normal when I do so, they conspiratorially hinted about what they had heard about a particular missing persons case.
Everybody has heard a story, or two, or a rumor, or two, about a missing persons case or unsolved murder in their part of wherever they live. I have never seen an exception to this observation of mine. Not even one. It goes beyond demographic, gender, or anything else. People are interested, often to the point of its being unhealthy, with this subject. And the media do not cover these cold cases nearly enough. Despite the fascination people have with these cases, they don't cover them much at all. I wonder why?
Anyway, after that, we had coffee with a friend for about an hour. After that, we wandered around Wolfville for the next several hours. We checked out the new apple cider place. For five dollars, you get 3, 3oz apple cider beverages, plus a thing of corn nuts. We shared. We made our way to the Cuts meat market. Much better store than the one in Dartmouth. Continued to the toy store in town, then to Willow Park, and then to the Tourist Bureau, where I worked (my god!) a full 30 years ago. Then we went to Wolfville's municipal museum, Randall House. We got the full tour of the place, and had a grand old time. We capped it off with tea, served on bone china.
We returned downtown. Went to Rainbows' End books on Main Street. They sell a bit of everything. I got a couple Canadian history books, including what I think is my 3rd copy of Barry Broadfoot's book about the Canadian Depression. Came out in the early 1970's. If you have read anything by Studs Turkel, Broadfoot does the same kind of approach: taking snippets of conversations with many dozens of Canadians as they share their experiences about living through the 1930's. This book is long out of print.
I also got Stephen Maher's out-of-print book of restaurant reviews. I don't think he talks about that phase of his career any more. He wrote about politics for the Herald out of Ottawa for several years, then went to another news provider and did the same there for a while. He recently released a novel set in Nova Scotia, a murder mystery of some kind.
I am not sure why people think that, if they can write non-fiction reasonably well, how that would qualify them to write fiction. Totally different set of muscles. You have to think about plot and character and realistic dialogue that moves the story forward, and be able to describe things in a way that doesn't bore people to death. I cant do it. You likely can't do it. No shame in admitting you can't. But people keep trying, thinking it is easy.
We made our way to the Wolfville Animal Hospital to check out the cats. There were plenty of black cats there today. We wanted to take them all. We tore ourselves away and went to Rosie's for an early dinner before paying the man who mowed the lawn here the other day and returning to the house.
I napped earlier. So, here it is, pushing 1 ayem, and I will likely be up for a while yet. Patricia turned in some time ago.
I think I will surf the web for a spell and try to get some sleep.
See you on Sunday.
Bevboy