Kittens

We have figured out what the cat, Amber, was going on about. Mewling and yelling at us for the first day or two after our return.
I was sitting in the back yard a few days ago when I spotted Amber heading for the back door carrying something furry in her mouth. I thought, "Oh-oh, she's caught some rodent to present to Marsha." I told Marsha that the cat was trying to bring her something too small to be a rat, to big for a mouse. Perhaps a baby rat. Amber was turned away from the door and so carried her prey back behind some bushes and disappeared.
The next evening she arrived at the front door with a similar offering. Marsha wasn't pleased, initially, but then noticed that the mouthful was, in fact, a kitten. Amber's kitten. She brought it in and trotted over to Marsha's computer desk where she is able to access a deep drawer by coming through the back way. She had been mysteriously preparing this drawer, by tearing up paper in there, for a few days before Marsha departed for Kalamazoo in late February. Now she was using it as her nest. She is a small cat and Marsha wasn't too surprised at the idea of her producing just the one kitten.
However, a while later, Amber requested to go outside again, and when she returned, she was bearing a second kitten. She took it to the nest and now she seems quite contented. She shows up in the kitchen whenever there's any activity there, so she can keep her babies well fed. She apparently has just the two, because it's been a few days now, and no additional kittens.
We haven't named them yet; we've sort of left it up to Ryan and Emily to handle that.

Good Friday

We arrived back home in Louisiana yesterday, March 20th, and today is Good Friday. It is quite warm and sunny today, the temperature in the high 70's F. Our azaleas are in bloom (LEFT). We don't get to see them every year as our house is a bit like one more stop on our ongoing tour of North America and Western Europe. There is evidence of daffodils and crocuses, the dark green stalks that are left behind after the blooms have fled. I won't mow them for a few days, so when I'm sitting out in the sun I can ponder them. The travelogue tour continues in under three weeks: we'll be off to California around the 8th of April.

The picture of our van is the morning after the snow. We have rinsed the road salt off, though yesterday and the night before it got a good rain-drenching. I went to the car wash this morning where I was accosted by a man speaking some form of Louisiana ebonics, and after I had him repeat it four times I discerned that he said something after the order of: "Too bad I didn't talk to you before you started cuz I woulda did it for yuh." I told him I was OK even though I may have looked like a doddering old fool struggling with a soapy brush and shooting powerful streams of water which kept bouncing back and drenching me in clouds of mist. He obviously wished to make a little coin, but why?, did he think? didn't I take it to the car wash where they do all the work for you? Because I'm also a doddering old miser. And I'm trying to stay alive by getting as much exercise as possible.

Marsha's little grey cat, Amber, has returned, though she is a little nervous about us, since we keep leaving for extended periods of time. Still, we thought that was the deal. She obviously got too attached to a routine during December, and parts of January and February.

We managed to get to Pub Quiz on Tuesday night at Veach's Office Bar in Jackson, Michigan, and our team, the Blarneys, which plays every week whether we are there or not, won with over a ten point margin. It was a major victory, and a distinct team effort.
The distance from Jackson to Bossier City is 1055 miles, so we don't get to Pub Quiz all that often, but when we are in Michigan we try to get there every time we have a free Tuesday. As it happens, last Tuesday was the first one this year.

The night before we had driven down from Oakville, Ontario. the site of our last show of this tour segment. Most of the time we were in Ontario, we stayed at the Courtyard Marriott in Mississauga, where we took advantage of the swimming pool and exercise room. The accompanying photograph is of me in the pool at the Holiday Inn in Huntsville, the night after the Great Storm of '08; we had also been in the pool during the storm, underneath the faux palm tree.

During our stay in Ontario we went to the McMichael Gallery in Kleinsburg (BELOW: Marsha in front of the gallery) which houses the Group of Seven, Totem Poles, Etched stone, and Inuit stuff and we trolled about in the art for a few hours. I had always wanted to learn more about the Group of Seven (turns out there were 8 or 9 of them) as I actually referenced them on the trip between Huntsville and North Bay. Some of the scenery looked like Group of Seven paintings, as well it should, I soon found out. And I rediscovered Emily Carr who had been held up as a bit of a heroine during my schooling in Victoria, BC.

Canada, 2008

It seemed like these places were a long way apart. In January we were on the beach at Palm Harbor, Florida, and last weekend we drove through one of the biggest snowstorms of the winter on our way to North Bay, Ontario. Oddly, North Bay itself didn't have much of the storm, which mostly took place around Toronto. Apparently places as far south as Columbus, Ohio, were blanketed in snow, and the storm gradually moved East and finally hovered over the Maritime provinces on Sunday.
The snow began as we were leaving Jackie and Eric Whitesel's place in Lake Orion, just north of Detroit and continued and worsened as we crossed the border at Sarnia and wended our way past London, Toronto, and north past Barrie. We almost got stuck behind a Canadian Tire semi at a rest stop, but he finally got himself going and we plowed through a pile of snow in his wake.
(Marsha writes:) PS: On Saturday we drove (all day!) through one of the harshest blizzards they've had in Canada in decades. We just held onto the steering wheel and trundled through the wind and snow and ice packed road, thinking this is what the brave Canadians have to deal with normally. We got to Huntsville before giving up, leaned into the wind to reach the motel door, and then from our cozy room we looked out the window and watched the snow blow sideways across the parking lot. (We also viewed the storm from the swimming pool for a while. That was pretty strange. The pool was nice and warm, with big windows looking onto piles of snow and a driving blizzard.) The next day the sun was out and all the news was about the storm and the huge amount of snow. Sometimes ignorance is bliss!! For us, I think it happens often.
We decided to stop at a Motel 6 in Huntsville, 75 miles south of our destination. I had been hearing all along that tomorrow (Sunday) was to be sunny in North Bay, and indeed it was. In Huntsville, too, so we set our clocks forward and headed for the Capital Center in North Bay where we arrived to do our 2 o'clock show around noon.
The show, "La Manche," went well and we headed back to our Motel 6 for Sunday evening dinner at Kelsey's. But, had we known we were driving through such a memorable storm, who knows? Would we have given up.

February in the Great North

February, and it’s time for the Northern swing. Shows this month are in Michigan, where the van is plugged into the Veach’s house in Jackson. For a week, George and Kathy went to Florida and I “sat” their house, and kept their two cats company. Also Ohio and Illinois, but mostly Michigan and Indiana. First show was cancelled (Bremen, IN) because of the threat of a flood in the high school. Pain.
There was a big snow night on the Tuesday in Tecumseh; they informed me that last year the February show was practically snowed out, and that was me and Marsha. So, we bring snow to Michigan. Hah. Anyway, I never made it back to Jackson because the next night was in downtown Cincinnati at the Traveler’s. I just climbed into the bed in the camper and tried to keep warm. Eventually i had to put my clothes back on as well as the pointed hair hat that Marsha had knitted for Eric (see Lake Orion.) I drove part way back after the show, spent a few hours at a Flying J, and completed the journey about 7 a.m. Saturday, I’m off to Grand Rapids to do a show for the Hope Foundation. Lots of children in the audience, which is both positive and unusual.
After the show I drove to Jackie and Eric Whitesel’s in Lake Orion, north of Detroit. They have newish dog, Border Collie obviously, called Ruby. She is a great watch dog, threatened to tear me up at the door last night, but also very smart. Knows tricks like rolling over and balancing a bikky on her nose then flipping it up and catching it in mid-air. And here is Eric in his pointy hair hat talking to Marsha the creator of same on the telephone.
Sunday is a day off, so we all went to Wholefood, where the hair hats were appreciated and stroked, and we bought cheese and meat and Gluewein (glow wine, mulled wine in a bottle) and now we are lying around snoring.
Jim Whitesel is taking up a career in filmmaking, so we are alll discussing how he might do this. Do courses at college, or go of to Los Angeles and get into the business at entry level. He has some pretty good stuff on You Tube. (see clip below.)
There is snow on the ground, but it rained this morning and it definitely beginning to thaw. Next shows are up I-75: Frankenmuth and Midland. Then it’s off to Indianapolis and Chicago. The beat goes on.
In March we will do the Ontario tour, starting in North Bay. That will be a trip.

It's a Brand New Year

Christopher and Ayden La Celle.

We had a busy time over Christmas and New Years: Marsha’s three children and seven grandchildren all gathered in Bossier City. Lupita came with husband Matt from Moses Lake, Washington and their three sons, Jacob, Christopher and Jordan. Jacob will be graduating from High School this year and looking for a baseball scholarship to college.


Jun came with husband Mike from Portland, Oregon where they are doctors and cancer researchers. Baby Ayden is just a few months old and was the hit of the season, naturally.

Matt and Mike explored their old stamping grounds and a bunch of us went to the Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl (isn’t that a contradiction?) where two teams which had managed as many wins as losses during the recent football season battled with one another for some kind of bragging rights. It was a once in a lifetime experience. I mean that.

Marsha’s brother Dick came from San Antonio with Phyllis and their son/ grandson Nate, and we celebrated Dick’s 60th birthday and our 25th Wedding Anniversary (Nov. 28th, but we were on the road) and New Years Eve, too. Also, Grandpa LaCelle and wife Alice came from Albuquerque for a few days and stayed with most everybody over at Shelly, Timothy, Ryan and Emily's place. And a great time was had by all.

On Christmas Day we talked on the transatlantic blower to my sister Fiona in Highgate, London. She and Gerald were hosting a family Christmas dinner: my daughter Justine, the author of the recently released “Spin the Bottle,”
(see Tin Press) her husband Hugh, my brother Peter and wife Joan from the Gold Coast of Australia. We vowed that we would spend next Christmas in blighty.

We began the Travelogue season in Florida, which is nice in midwinter. Soon we’ll be in the frozen north and we are reading about all the chilly weather which is prevalent in places like Michigan, at the moment. Oh well.



The Fire God!




Singing around the campfire, Geneva, Florida.
Note: The two bottom pictures can be glued together so that Janet's legs form the connecting point.

In Florida we spend one day at the beach near Palm Harbor where our old friend Bunny Coppock lives; and we spent a couple of days near Orlando where Janet Williams from Unadilla Forks, New York (Marsha’s home village), was staying with her son, longtime Florida denizen, Duane. The highlight there (well, there were the oysters, too) was an evening with the fire god at Duane’s place. We got to sing and meet new people and we hope to be back in Florida in January next year.

Merry Christmas

When we first met Bimbo, she was part of this Border Collie community (OK, there's a Shelty in there, too) which lives in Langton Matravers, Dorset. We saw her running on a hillside near the English Channel and she looked so much like Cammie from a distance that our hearts missed a beat and we had to get to know her.
Zoe, her mistress, said that she was a little standoffish, so we shouldn't be surprised if she didn't bond with us; she wasn't even likely to go for walks with Peggy, Zoe's mother, or other family members. But Bimbo took to us. She chose us. She bonded immediately and came to our camper and went on tour with us to pubs all over England that summer of 1996. At the end of the season we said our tearful farewells.
Next summer we were back in England and our first act was to go and get Bimbo so she could travel with us again. At the end of that summer, Zoe gave us this gift, this dog which became the third member of our traveling show. We never took her back to England: there were quarantine rules which later relaxed somewhat for continental travelers, and there were doggie passports, but Bimbo really didn't take well to air travel, so we never put her into a plane again. Zoe and Peggy never got to see her, but we kept them abreast of her life and when Bimbo passed away in October, they wept along with us.
Anyway, these are Zoe's dogs now: none of them knew Bimbo personally, but they are all members of Zoe's group and they do agility training and live with a cat and a bird and some other creatures. When we visit Langton Matravers we take them for walks on the hills and go for drinks at the Square and Compass in Worth Matravers (see the scene with the Morris dancers in our film, "La Manche: The English Channel" and the the border collies' scene in "It's Great! Britain.")
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Back Home in Louisiana

Home. Our house has survived our neglect once again and we have our new room and modern bathroom now, so it's even better than staying at a Motel 6. Without Bimbo we were able to experiment with non-Motel 6 motels and we stayed at 3 or 4 motels with indoor swimming pools. Memorable was Howard Johnson's in Lincoln, Nebraska, which had a huge pool and resort type area. The (yes) Motel 6 in Waterloo, Iowa, has a welcoming indoor pool, as does the Comfort Inn in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which was part of our payment for doing the lecture series there. There was a least one other pool but I can't think of it at the moment.
The great thing is that during the winter months very few people use the pools, so we are mostly alone in there. And there's usually a hot tub involved as well.
And speaking of "lecture series," I refer to these wonderful institutions in New England which are FREE lecture series. A benefactor, a Carnegie, perhaps, or some such, has left a chunk of money to perpetuate the education of the masses through an annual series of illustrated lectures, and we are the current beneficiaries of this remarkable foresight. Portsmouth, NH, is one such series. The benefactor in this case being a modest school teacher named Phyllis Hodgdon whose family carries on the tradition.
I love these series best of all: others are in Concord, New Hampshire, Greene and Portland, Maine, and Woburn, Mass. These are examples of the American spirit at its greatest. The hell with jazz; give me a free lecture series any day.
Merry Christmas.