Don’t get me wrong: we are the most surveilled (I know that’s not a word, but it should be) people, ever. Cameras are everywhere. Everything is recorded. We go blithely about our lives, usually forgetting that our images are being captured thousands of times a day. We only think about it when someone holds up a bank or something, and the evening news shows the security footage. And I squint at the TV and think,”hmmmm. Do I know that person? Could I hold the clue that will solve a crime?” and then realize no, I do not. I could not even provide helpful eye witness accounts of things because I describe everyone as being under 50 or over 50, and can not narrow it down any more than that. I am unable to distinguish between a toddler wearing Huggies and a bonnet and a rapper in a hat with his jeans hanging off his ass.

Having said that, the recent findings that the American government (and ours) is spying on its citizens reveals that  government’s most powerful agencies have powers of observation almost as acute as my own. Go read Gail Collin’s column in the NYT today. It’s excellent. Read of one family’s exposure to the devastation wreaked by government agencies acting like they’ve been cast in a Will Ferrell movie. Except it’s not funny, at all. Come to think of it, neither is Will Ferrell…..

If handing over the right to peruse, document and spy on your every move is okay with you, because “you didn’t do anything wrong”, you need a slap. We have handed over so many of our basic rights in the name of security, we’re like the frog in the pot. I just returned from Vancouver, and as I stood in line at security, I expertly tossed my shoes in the bin. The guard said, “no, you can leave your shoes on”. I was stunned. I can’t remember the last time I got to leave my shoes on. The worst part? I’m programmed. Programmed to knowing the only thing I can wear into an xray machine is my humiliation.

We’ve been reduced to thinking that only criminals demand a right to privacy. Maybe we’ve become too accustomed to only hearing those accused of crimes demand their right to anything at all; too many of the rest of us are throwing away our rights with both hands, because hey, if you didn’t do anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Right?

I have to change my email address over. If I’m in your address book, make sure it’s under contact@lorraineonline.ca . The big plan is to ditch Cogeco soon, and while I use my website address on most stuff, I’ve still had the @cogeco address for years. There will be more warnings, but make my life easier. And, emails I answer. It’s the phone that just lies there like a dead thing.

I had to go into my gmail accounts and stuff like that to make them stream into the @contact address. Well, that’s easy you say. Well, that’s not, I reply. My friend Jill was here from Holland months ago, and used to my computer to check her accounts. That’s all fine, until she’d gone and I realized she’d changed the language setting to Dutch. Now, Jill was born and raised here in Burlington just like I was, but guess which one of us is now multilingual? Yup. Not me.

I went into Google and read things like Ervaar het gemak en de eenvoud van Gmail, waar je ook bent. I did recognize the little boxes to put in my password, so I did that. And it told me the password had been changed. This does not surprise me. I change passwords so often, my password is ‘enter new password here’. It will say ‘put in new password’. And I do. And it says ‘sorry, that password has been taken’ and I say ‘I know, it was taken by me 5 years ago when I changed the password’. I then go through every single password that I can think of, and they’re all taken because I’ve already used and forgotten them at some point. I really want to say to them, “really, Google? Who the hell else has cats named JoJo&Maggie567? Or Maggie!JoJostupidcat? Or IloveMaggiebestdon’ttellJoJo?” Yes, I’ve used a thousand things just like that. Many of my passwords are stuff now like, “IfrickinghateTwitter” or “Facebookisformorons”. Then again, I can never remember what mood I was in when I entered those passwords, so I have to change them all again. I read tips for computering that say things like, “be sure to change your passwords often” and I laugh and laugh. Bet they didn’t mean every ten minutes.

So, I was reading all the prompts in Dutch, and trying to guess. And guessing wrong. It kept spitting out what I thought was my wachtwoord (ha! I’m learning already!), and I was trying to figure out how to reset it. U heeft een onjuiste gebruikersnaam of een onjuist wachtwoord ingevoerd, it asked. So I clicked here and reset things. It asked me if I wanted Geen toegang tot uw account? I wasn’t sure about the toegang, but I clicked anyway. And I totally reset my Google passwords. No, I can’t remember what it is, and yes, everything is still in Dutch.

I’m off to Vancouver, to drive a Mitsubishi Outlander in Squamish and go kayaking. And of course, look for any excuse to show off my new found language skills. It’s going to be heaven to be able to converse fluently in French, German, Italian and now Dutch. Well, as long as we’re reading cereal boxes, swearing, singing That’s Amore, or changing Google passwords. Yup. Got it all covered.

This is Maggie the other night. She is telling me to put down the iPad and turn out the light. This is pretty much the last thing I see every night before I go to sleep. But I was knee-deep in a piece about boundary lines and southern folk and two old men settling old family scores. It’s from Atlanta Magazine and has lines like this: “I once came across a property line described as ‘Two smokes on a mule’s back from the chestnut stump,’” says Richard Webb, who in thirty-six years as a surveyor in North Georgia has dug through volumes of yellowed maps and deeds. “Well, how big was the mule? And what were you smoking?” It’s a terrific story, and just one of the many I keep digging up in Longform, much to Maggie’s chagrin. Boundary battles make excellent stories, providing a frame to hang so many characters from. I never got the big deal, until I watched my father, a farmer, go on and on about surveys and boundaries and trespassing. It’s probably no coincidence I’m reading Lonesome Dove (yes, again, shut up), where the unsettled land of the U.S. in the late 1800s is the main character.

I’m going to get Webgod Jeff to put that link on my main page of links on my site. If you find yourself with nothing to read or some time to kill, dip in. I guarantee there is something for everyone, and so much that deserves a larger audience than our ADD media culture provides.

No. I have one that’s been making me do that jaw-clenching thing for awhile, but it’s just getting worse. Vonage long distance. There’s one where the guy gets nearly weepy saying, “it’s because of my family! With Vonage, we can talk and talk and talk until nobody can talk anymore! I just love my family so much, I want to talk to them all the time!”. You will note, they don’t quote the rest of this guy’s family, who no doubt moved far away for a damned good reason.

But they got worse. Now, there is a woman (Brit? I think?) who says this, about being able to talk to her Nana. Or Nona. Something like that. “A call means so much more. Letters, emails, they just get thrown away. Now, a call is what lasts, what counts.”. Well. Let’s think about that. “Letters just get thrown away.” Let’s explain to Nona’s granddaughter how this works: we email because it’s the most convenient thing for us to do. We text if we’re lazy as hell, and forget that Nona will think WTF is the new car you bought, and a LOL is a new pastry. She will think YMMV is a medical procedure you got, and she will start worrying that you’ve caught WYSIWYG somewhere on your last trip to the Amazon. Nona will worry.

Slightly less lazy is calling Nona, but we hate doing that. Nona doesn’t know you are actually praying for two things: that she’s out getting her roller set and won’t be home and you can say you called and get the points for trying, or you will get Nona’s machine and leave a lovely message and not have to hear about her friends who gossip and shouldn’t be driving even though they’re the only ones who take her out to the shops and the neighbour’s cat who keeps crapping in her garden when did people become so disrespectful and you will get points for trying.

Let me tell you something, Nona’s granddaughter: a letter is exactly what Nona wants the very most. The very most. It is the most time consuming, thoughtful thing you can do, which is why nobody does it anymore. I guarantee you Nona has every note and card you have ever sent her. I guarantee it. People do not throw away letters, because nobody gets letters. A letter requires finding a pen, thinking about what to write, locating an envelope, looking up an address, buying a stamp and then finding a mailbox. In Canada, I think mailboxes should be red and white striped, because finding one is like looking for Waldo.

Anyway. Vonage, advertise away for your cheap rates. But come on, trying to pretend that letters just don’t matter because they just get thrown away? Put some Nonas in your focus group. You can find a whole bunch, waiting by the phone not expecting a letter.

I got this spam yesterday. I love it very much.

we are into representative search for various companies here in the United kingdom. Presently,we have a contract with Essar steel company

Banald Balad

They are into representative search. I am into other things, but I’m willing to try most things once. I’m also very open to recieving funds, which I shall use to change the exceptions to the ‘i’ before ‘e’ rule in the English language. Did you know there are apparently more exceptions to that rule than unexceptions? I read that recently. I do not know where. Maybe with my new-found Essar Steel Company wealth I will pay someone to fact check my blogs for me.

I did know this was a serious contact, however, when I saw the email address was a hotmail account. Everybody I know uses that for their business correspondence, especially hardbody69 and schoolgirl13. It reminds me of a spam I got last week with ‘Final Waning’ in the subject line. I was merely thankful it was finally waning. In the meantime, I will be polishing up my cv for thier consideration. See? I’ve made a head start on that language rule.

I received a note today from a reader, complimenting my latest column in the Globe. It’s about eating ice cream in the back of the station wagon as a kid. The note was lovely, and the sender went to considerable length to tell me he enjoyed the piece. Then he added a postscript: “What is your full time occupation?”

I think I’ll tell him I work for a steel company.

There are people who live on rafts between tiny islands in Samoa or somewhere who have never seen a car or a bottle of Pepto Bismol who now know where Toronto is. Uhm, thanks? The cameras of the world are pointed this way, and the only thing to be seen is Rob and Doug Ford and several million people putting their hands over their faces.

Because I get my issues of Toronto Life magazine 6 months at a time and long past their current date (Roz and I trade; I give her Vanity Fairs), I was reading this morning about Rob Ford’s cover story called his Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Year. That was last year. Sometimes you really should hold back; the answer to “could it possibly get any worse?” is “yes”.

I don’t actually live in Toronto, so my fascination is more like watching a documentary on TV where something small and cuddly is getting eaten by something mean and sneaky. Nothing I can do but watch, so I might as well pull up a chair. The problem of course, is that this is not how a city should be run. I watch interviews on the news and I admit it – I’m astounded at the Man in the Street clips that show Ford Nashun declaring him the best mayor, evah. Really, people? Really? This is cool with you? An elected official who creates his very own 200 car pileup, and blames other people? Somebody’s mama hung all his artwork on the fridge; he’s so out of his depth he’s doing that thing where you get caught in a big wave and have no idea if you’re kicking in the right direction anymore. You can’t even see sunlight.

Anyway. I’m writing away here and stuck, and reading the Canadian papers is too depressing. Switching to global ones, I still see the Ford story creeping onto the cover pages, and can’t help but think,”well, Toronto, you always wanted to be world class!”. So I did what any thinking person would do, and went instead to Craigslist, where reading the best-ofs is always good for a hoot. Here ya go. Some of them are great.

I bought vegetables. Roz said to get one kind of tomatoes, so of course I got the wrong ones. I had the right ones in my hand, but put them down because I couldn’t figure out how much everything was going to cost. Sun, shade, 3-for-$10, $12-a-flat, $1.59 each, they grow this much up and this much across, plant them this far apart, I got very confused. So many rules. I finally just loaded the cart up with a bunch of stuff and came home. I am fully aware that what I forked over for plants is more than it would cost me to buy most of it at the market. A woman actually came up to me and said, “do you work here?” and I laughed and said, “I wish, then I might know something”. I didn’t even have on a little orange apron. I must look very earthy, I decided.

I’ve had a bag of dirt out front for too long. I’m sure the neighbours give me the side-eye, but the ones I don’t like can bite me, and the other ones will forgive me. I loaded up the wheelbarrow 6 times trucking dirt around back, all the while remembering when Dad used to give us wheelbarrow rides if we were very patient. Thankfully, the boys didn’t come out and ask for wheelbarrow rides.

I got all the dirt dumped, and cleared some other bags of potting soil out of the shed that had been purchased in more optimistic times. I filled my planters and stuck flowers in them. I haven’t done this in a couple of years. I have grass seed sprouting all over – Sandy, a commenter here, is the grass’s honorary godmother. She slugged the rototiller around for me two weeks ago. Bless her. I promise she won’t have to raise the grass should I die, nor take it to Sunday school.

So. I have baby grass waving, and plugs of colour all over. I had a big whiskey barrel I forgot about, so I just dug up a hosta from another part of the yard and stuffed it in. I have a bazillion hosta. No, really. I counted them. I have tomatoes (wrong kind), beans, green peppers, hot peppers, some big red pepper thing, cucumbers and purple onions. Oh, and a melon thing. The green kind. I am awaiting a riot of garden euphoria. When everything looks like it just might make it, I’ll take a picture.

I miss my Dad.

• fired
• to like you
• to kiss you
• back
• deported
• to fall in love with you
• stop snoring
• to love you
• someone’s wifi password
• someone’s ip from skype

That was before I could type in my next word, ‘out’, as in “how to get someone out” when the selections revealed this:

• of your head
• of depression
• of your life
• of jail
• of your mind
• of their house
• of your house
• of a cult
• of your league

You’d never know I’m on a deadline, would you? It’s been one of those weeks. The smallest things amuse. And I now know not only how to get someone out of my house, but out of theirs. And then I guess I can get them deported.

Forget all that (she says, popping an antihistamine) and go read this. If you’re a WWII geek, you’ve probably already read about this, but if I knew, I’ve forgotten. There was a fake army! With fake tanks! On our side! It’s from The Smithsonian magazine, and you’ll get lost in there it’s so much fun. I have a great Smithsonian story but I’ll tell it later. I have an electrician coming over to make my dishwasher work. Hopefully. Another story…

But go read about inflatable tanks. The artists messed with the Germans, but good. It’s about such good subterfuge. And who doesn’t love good subterfuge? I love just saying it. Of all the places you’d think a ‘b’ should be silent. But no. There is is, in the middle like a sore thumb…