A story is not like a road to follow

I was pleased to hear that Alice Monroe, a Canadian author, won the Nobel Prize in Literature yesterday! Coincidentally, I read " The Moons of Jupiter", a book of short stories written by her, over the summer and liked it so much that I'm reading it again. I foresee that I'll read it yet again - the third time paying more attention to the grammar, her sentence structure - the mechanics of writing. Then it will be a trip to the bookstore for something else by her.

I love short stories, especially ones that are about the human condition. They don't have to have much going on in them, but are best if they delve into character. I think it takes a particularly skilled author to write a good short story as every word counts - there is no room for superfluous language.

I have a dream that through the rereading of her stories I will somehow become imbibed with a grain of her talent. A girl can dream...

We had a really cool sunset last night while we were eating supper. It looked almost other worldly.

Carm couldn't join me on our walk this morning, so since the dogs have been somewhat bad (squirrels are everywhere), I put them on their prong collars. Immediately their behaviour changed and were fun to walk again. We stopped to talk to a few people, so I explained the benefits of these ugly collars - the main one being that they get a correction at exactly moment that they pull, and every single time, consistently. FYI - if we are just standing around talking, they do sometimes lean into the collar so it mustn't be that uncomfortable.

I had the pleasure of a visit from Jo Ellen and Don this afternoon. We sat around and enjoyed the sun, the views, and each others company. Oh yeah – October 11th and a high of 21. Wowzers!

 

“A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.” ~ Alice Munro

Summer Afternoon

Here it is October 10th at 1pm and I'm sitting outside in shorts, happy to find a spot of shade. I've got a glass of icy lemon water beside me, and the satellite 70s music channel is playing. Life is good.

We moved sites this morning, just across the camp road, to our preferred site for the spring and fall. It gets full, blazing sun from morning to evening. It also has a lovely view of the water - I'm looking at the fall colours reflected. Serene.

We were lazy with our homemaking this trip and didn't set up the fence – I’m already sick of moving the dogs around to follow the shade so I just put them inside. The fence does make things much easier...

The chorus of John Denver's song comes to mind:
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high

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later in the day

I just read my email to find out that we could have had visitors today – that would have made a perfect day, even more perfect (can I say perfecter?).

Last night we had an invite to Burt and Susan's campfire. So after a supper of crab ravioli with a homemade tomato/red pepper sauce, and a side salad of arugula and pear with a Dijon maple dressing, we walked next door.

The fire was beautiful, and we had a congenial evening. The down side? Every little bit of me smelled like campfire… which even woke me up in the middle of the night – washing my hair at 2am seemed like it would be a good idea (I didn’t). It was as bad as the olden days when people smoked everywhere.

 

Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. ~ Henry James

Back, break, 1 an 2 an 3 an 4

After a long walk in the park (where I took all the tree photos in this post), I sat outside reading and watching the ships float by. With the sky reflected so clearly in the calm waters they looked like they were floating on air.

The sun shining into the camper yesterday woke up all the Japanese beetles (they look like lady bugs but bite!). We captured/vacuumed up over 170 of the little orange invaders. We had an infestation! Thank goodness they weren't spiders or ticks - I would have been totally creeped out at that!

Last night at dance class we learned the Triple Swing. It is a complicated series of steps that one of us couldn't get right. It seems that Carm had put his two left feet shoes on... It was fun none the less with lots of laughs. I love this class!

As the instructor was showing us the steps I couldn't help but remember Monty Python's skit, "The Ministry of Silly Walks", cause surely that's what our teacher was showing us. I wasn't able to keep a straight face, but at least I didn't burst out laughing. This dancing stuff is pretty funny if you look at it the right (wrong?) way!

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~ George Eliot