Snowy morning in Quebec

E here and the picture below was taken this morning by one of my closest friends who lives about an hour north of Montreal near St. Saveur.  She snapped this from her front door and it’s pretty but as she said, “It’s like someone flipped a switched and we went from fall to winter overnight.” 

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Hamster update

We’ve named the second hamster Peachy.  Between the pale almost-pinkish-brown fur, the pink eyes, and the fact that she* is so fat as to be nearly round, it seems to fit.  M’s best friend thinks we should name the hamster Cocoa, and M wants to stick up for his friend, so occasionally the critter gets [...]

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What’s not on the ballot this November

S here with some election musings.  As we get down into the home stretch of an election season that seems to have lasted almost forever, let’s be thankful for one thing that we haven’t had to listen to.  Gay marriage is not on the ballot in Massachusetts.  There was a citizens’ initiative petition for a [...]

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Excellent service project for Scouts

M’s Scout troop spent a couple hours this morning doing what has to be one of the best service projects I’ve ever heard of. The troop had gotten permission from a local pick-your-own apple orchard to take the “drops” (apples that had fallen off the trees) plus all the apples left on the trees [...]

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Small town life

We live in a small town. It’s the kind of town where you still take your trash to the dump, and there’s a shed at the dump that people can take or leave books. I found a book by Leslea Newman there and brought it home; it was the first time I knew [...]

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Name That Hamster

When E was a child, her family had an all-white dog. In later years, E had an all-white cat who was her much-beloved constant companion through nearly all of her adult life, until he passed away a couple years ago. So when we went to buy a pair of new hamsters last weekend, and found [...]

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Keep safe, brother

S here. M’s Scout troop ends every meeting with the Scoutmaster telling a very brief inspirational story to the boys. The Scoutmaster is a very mild-mannered man with a quiet, almost dry, delivery, and yet somehow he manages to get 40 boys to go from total chaos to dead silence every time.
This week’s story [...]

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Some commentary from the cat

S here. E is away visiting her parents for a few days, and the cat has a few things to say about the level of care that M and I are providing in her absence.
“First off, you people are not home enough. It’s bad enough that you have to go to work and [...]

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It’s another sad day in hamster-land

When E got up this morning, she discovered that our hamster N died in his sleep last night. We’d known that N was not long for this world. About a month ago, we’d discovered he had a tumor growing on his stomach, and while he was still often capering around like his usual [...]

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