Joy, joy, joy!

I’ve been increasingly frustrated with my mouse lately – it catches, horizontal movement is jerky, vertical motion is sketchy at best, and so forth. I’ve taken it apart, I’ve cleaned it, I’ve tried different rolling surfaces… nothing works. It’s also very flat, which causes me to hold my wrist is a rather “broken” fashion.

Today, while surfing, I nearly smashed the ruddy thing – is it too much to ask that a mouse, I don’t know, mouse correctly?

Then I remembered that in my laptop case o’goodies that MLG gave me a few months ago, there was a mouse. A useful addition when you get fed up with the little button that the laptop has for mouse movement, or if your hands are the size of my husband’s, for example, as opposed to my own tiny fingers. I tend to use keyboard commands while working with the laptop, so the little button isn’t a problem.

I dug it out. I plugged it in.

Glory! Will you look at that! Smooth pointer movement; a nice arch to the hand-rest; and a gentle click (so quiet, in fact, that I can barely tell I’ve selected something). No more mouse-abuse on my desk!

Marc, I so owe you. Are you keeping track?

While my husband and I were out and about on Sunday, we stopped in at a Renaud Bray bookshop, where I should never, never go because among other cool stock they sell many blank books and pens and inks.

I browsed through the bottles of ink and debated buying a jar of copper-coloured ink and a jar of chestnut ink, which, I reasoned, was a different shade of brown than I had at home already so I might be able to justify buying it. And then, I looked down at the dip pens.

I have dip pens. My mother-in-law bought me a lovely dip pen ensemble of nibs and a wooden nib holder a Christmas or two ago, and on top of that I have older nib holders and nibs that my father passed along to me.

These, however, were works of art. Stained wooden nib holders turned on a lathe and shaped with knobs and ripples. Metal nib holders of brushed steel. Painted wooden holders with metal ends.

I was deciding between the brushed metal and the knobbly wood when my eyes dropped even lower to the kits on the bottom shelf. And there, in a kit with three nibs and a bottle of ink, was the most Victorian nib holder I�ve ever seen. Long, narrow, with scrolls of flowers and vines inset into the middle. It�s exactly the style I�d always envisioned using. I�ve wanted a metal pen for ages � something about the weight, I think. They�re narrower than the wood holders, too.

I bought it.

I love it.

It�s the best-weighted pen I�ve ever used. And the nibs are dreamy and smooth, unlike all my others which are scratchy. I wish it had come with black ink, but I�ll use the blue. (I already have a bottle of black and a bottle of blue� I prefer black, that�s all, and I�d have used it up sooner.)

Someday, I�ll use my lovely swirled glass inkwell for ink instead of storing my extra nibs, too, but then I�ll have to find another place to store my nibs. Maybe I�ll look in flea markets and antique fairs and start collecting inkwells. That would be nice and eccentric.

So I have lovely new pen, and wonderful nibs, and a little stack of blank books� and nothing to put in them. I feel awkward about blank books; I don�t want to ruin them. If I were composing the Great Canadian Novel longhand, I�d use one, but it�s directly to the laptop. Perhaps I�ll begin by copying my favourite poetry or something, although copying bores me after the novelty of spacing things out and making my handwriting as attractive as possible wears off, and the goal becomes getting it done instead. Mistakes creep in; I get frustrated; the project gets put on hold or abandoned.

In the meantime, I have scrap paper, and I�m writing out the alphabet in as many different scripts as I can remember, in different colours. I�m making my �to-do� lists in lovely coloured ink and flowing cursive. Looks like I�ll have to go back for those copper and chestnut-coloured inks� I enjoy the consistency of these Aladine inks much more than the two Windsor & Newton inks that I have already. And I need a green, to balance out all the black and blue that I have.

If you�re as in love with dip pens as I am, you have to check this site out. Swoon!

See? Medieval legly goodness. And it was all for Marc. (The look on his face under the hat that makes him look like an apothecary says it all, don’t you think?)

I love these boots. They are my Jedi boots. They lace all the way up the front. I really don’t wear them often, but when I do, I feel amazing. Bring on the Dark Side! I’ll challenge it and preserve order and justice in the galaxy! Even in a medieval mini!

Happy Very Last Day of Work, Mum!

I heard the geese flying overhead last night and this morning as I lay awake in bed. It’s fall.

I also know it’s fall because my overwhelming desire to move furniture around is still running high. We switched a couple of pictures around last night in an attempt to assuage it. The pictures look great, but I still want to rearrange sofas and tables and beds and desks for some reason. I think it’s connected to the Ikea urge, somehow; you know, that cocooning concept that revolves around the subconscious knowledge that you’ll be stuck inside most of winter so you might as well create the ideal nest to be trapped in.

I picked up that CD I had ordered four months ago from HMV, and it’s wonderful. I still find it a little odd that I, the woman who claims she doesn’t enjoy Mozart all that much, special-ordered a Mozart CD. Looking back over my orchestra-related blog entries, I can see that I enjoy playing Mozart as well. Perhaps I should upgrade my Mozartean value judgement from “indifferent” to “reluctant enjoyment of certain pieces”?

Even in death, Andr�s continues to educate me musically. I sang three hymns in Latvian this afternoon. Interesting language; sort of a cross between Swedish and Ukranian.

No, don�t ask me what I sang. I have an odd linguistic talent that enables me to read a foreign language and make it sound like I know how to speak it. I don�t know how I do it; it involves accents somehow, though. I�m just good with words. It�s all in how it sounds to the ear.

Funerals are strange. If you want a seat, you have to arrive early, but no one wants to talk, so you sit in silence for ages until the family arrives. There are never enough seats (except at Eric�s funeral this spring; there was plenty of room in the synagogue, but that was the only funeral I�ve been to that had adequate seating), so people stand in the side aisles and at the back of the church. I�ve been paranoid about being late for funerals ever since the funeral of one of my best friends in my first year of university, where I arrived right on time and had to stand in a crowd at the back of the church, so today we arrived forty minutes early.

This service was one of the nicest I�ve been to. Even though Andr�s was taken from us so suddenly, the congregation was there to honour him, not for consolation. I wish more funerals could be as this one was: a commemoration instead of grieving. Yes, death is always a shock; yes, we are left, bereft and confused; but in the end, it is ourselves we weep for. If we gather, it should be to celebrate the deceased�s life and accomplishments. Mourning our loss always seems so selfish, somehow, when set against the brilliance and joy of the days and years lived by someone we all loved and respected.

I love the way my circle of friends counts down to Hallowe’en as most people count down to Christmas.

(And it even has nothing to do with the fact that a large chunk of the aforementioned circle is Pagan.)