from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 10:54 PM
subject Le gouvernement conservateur survivra au budget; Oups ! Petit problème… Ce lien semble brisé.
Dear Stephen,
How does it feel to be back to work? Do you feel lucky that your budget passed, or was it no big surprise? I guess you know that Michael doesn’t want an election right now and that gives you some leeway. I’m still on leave, though we are back in Montreal, the NB leg of the vacation finished yesterday morning in much the same way it began a week earlier: with Rose asleep during the flight. One difference upon arrival was that Sarah, who had come to pick us up in our car, had forgotten to bring the carseat. This was actually not a problem, as another difference was that we had twice as much baggage, a result of the gifts, new diapers and the haul of clothes Claudine picked up from Frenchy’s. There wasn’t enough room in the car for everyone and everything, so I simply drove our luggage home, picked up the carseat, and came back to the airport to get the girls.
I spoke to a someone with Revenue Quebec today. I had received a letter recently that stated if I didn’t pay the $4200 before March 5 then they would look into garnishing my wages. Yikes! So they would accept a promise to pay them $364 per month instead, and I have until next Friday to decide. I don’t think I have much choice in the matter, it just means that 2010 will be that much poorer. On the upside, I opened a savings account which automatically transfers 50 cents from my chequing account each time I use my debit card. I use my card 30 times per month on average. The bank pays .02% interest, wow I’ll be rich in no time.
I’m thinking of creating a list of rules and reflections on fatherhood. I’d like to share them with you:
1. Always take the time to nap. Tonight Claudine went out and Rose was a bit fussy around suppertime. After a bottle she fell asleep, and I did as well.
2. Don’t forget to eat. I find that I sometimes forget to eat, or eat well. This usually happens at work or when I am home alone. Tonight I made pasta with a pesto-tomato sauce. I find eating helps increase motivation to do things like respond to emails, research final grant reports, or reflect on and write post-mortem reports for work, or sort receipts, or build mobiles, or clean the cat litter as well as the dust that the cats seem to track everywhere. I think I might need to return to the clay litter, it just doesn’t track as easily as the sawdust.
3. Read more. Every since the book club meeting I’ve been reading more and more. I haven’t picked up the latest pick, Domino Men, but while in NB I read Heaven is small and Jonathan Goldstein’s book on the Bible, or his take on Bible stories. Now I’m on a selection of short stories, plus the New Yorker, in short I’m finding the time to read again and it feels great, like nourishment for the brain and soul.
Have you heard that Barack Obama wrote to Yann Martel to simply tell him that he enjoyed Life of Pi?
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:55 PM
subject Droits et Démocratie: Ottawa accusé d’ingérence politique; Tories flip-flop on changes to national anthem
Dear Stephen,
Today is my birthday. I celebrated by taking Manu to the vet. One of our cats has sprayed a couple times on our hallway closet curtain and yesterday I found fairly recent cat piss in one of my toolboxes. It could be either of them, and Kuan has had a urinary infection before, but Manu has been getting thinner lately and seems more sickly, so she was the one .Turns out she has an inflamed thyroid gland, but we’ll know for sure Tuesday when the results of the ($148) blood test come back. This, the $48 consultation fee, and 1 hour in the waiting room after Claudine and I had been discussing how poor we are. On the plus side, we are not sick and we have a roof over our heads, and plus we made an adorable little girl who is healthy and beaming with happiness. Happiness and gas, but mostly happiness, or at least that is what we suppose.
My list of fatherhood related rules continues:
4. Wash a load of laundry everyday. Especially with reusable diapers this rule is important. Today I skipped a load, though I did hang a bunch of the outer pants on the clothesline to disinfect from the sun. Since we made more diapers in Saint John we can now go a couple days between washes.
5. Single-piece pyjamas are far easier to put on and remove, though multiple clothing outfits are often more cute.
6. Everything takes longer than planned. Even email, and especially anything cleaning-related. Today I walked to the market not once but twice; the cat litter I bought first was so heavy I went straight back home to unload it before heading back for some groceries.
Before I forget, I should tell you a bit about the visit we had with Karina a few days ago. She had a baby in December, a little boy named Oliver, so it just makes sense to try to stay in touch more. After all, we did spend fourteen years together, some of those engaged and planning to spend our lives together. It didn’t turn out that way but finally she seems happy, she and John have a great little house in K-Park and they just bought a place in Toronto and will be moving in the spring. Her little boy is adorable. I found an old photo album from our high school days that I gave her. We look so young I find us almost unrecognizable. There is a whole bunch of old crap in my parents basement that I finally looked through but aside from a few books and photo albums, I instructed my mom to toss it all out. It is mostly student or even pre-student artwork, painful to look at.
Anyway, I am off to bed early tonight, our subscription to the New Yorker has been coming in and I now have a book of short stories on the go.
What’s all this about changes to the national anthem? I quite like and would support a change to the original 1909 lyric “in thou dost us command.”
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 8:55 PM
subject L’intimidation sévit sur des chantiers de la Côte-Nord; ‘My family is here,’ says GG as she returns to Haiti
Dear Stephen,
Sorry for my recent absence. Busy being a Mr. Mom, or at least a stay-at-home dad. I’m halfway through a combined overtime + paternity leave vacation (3 weeks total). Will take some of my paternity weeks later on, most likely in the summer. Have been finishing projects around the apartment, such as building mobiles for Rose, and decorating, but mostly cleaning. Lots of laundry and dishes. Also changed the cat litter, we are now back to clay.
We had Anne over for supper last night, Claudine grilled up sumptuous pork chops. The night before we had Sarah and her sister Rebecca, who was visiting from Brooklyn, over for homemade mac and cheese (a Jamie Oliver recipe). The rest of the time we have been cooking well, eating leftovers for lunch, and going for mid-afternoon walks around the neighbourhood. We are both broke so not much spending, hardly drinking at all.
Do you find that my letters lack artistic integrity because they are so often devoid of any real political commentary? I just figure yammering on about politics all the time would be boring. And since I have been hardly discussing any art at all I can now bore you with stories of my daughter’s feces. More on that later.
Actually, we all went to a couple openings this past Saturday, one at Art Mur, the other at Oboro. Art Mur was packed, there was a group show, and an eclectic array of blown and sculpted glass objects. We’re thinking of getting a glass bomb for Kate and Rich as a belated wedding gift, alongside the Karen Tam insect cutout vinyl coasters. I hardly looked at the art at Oboro, spent more time near the food table watching as Rose was passed from hand to hand. Belle of the Ball.
Back the Rules:
7. Baby poop may smell strong, and its viscosity may resemble glue, but it does wash out. For example, between Friday night and Saturday morning Rose had massive baby-crap explosions in her diapers. Let me tell you, in case you were not privy to this with your kids, but Rose only poops every 5 days or so, you have to imagine a little oven that takes new milk every few hours and then cooks it steadily at 37.5 degrees for five days when it all comes out in a fluorescent orange smelly paste. The odour is so strong and putrid it makes me gag on contact. However I am strong and still enjoy that we chose cloth diapers and I clean them out every time. Except the last time I did throw away the inner layer, the fleece that keeps the moisture away from her. There was no way I was cleaning the paste off it.
Anyhow, no more time for rules. Lost is on soon and I am having intermittent web access (Thanks Bell! What happened, you blow your load during on Olympics ads?). So I will offer more rules tomorrow, if I can get online, or even on the computer. Claudine is working on a big translation contract and I can’t find the chargers (yes I have two) for my old laptop, which I need to use to make our birth announcement cards because it is the only computer that we own that has a working version of Photoshop. Maybe I should just do my taxes. Speaking of which, I just received a letter that states I woe $181 in GST for 2008, just great news.
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 11:12 PM
subject Un Saskatchewanais accusé d’avoir menacé Stephen Harper; Man accused of killing OPP officer dies in hospital
Dear Stephen,
Well five days have gone by so quickly and we only realized because tonight there was a smelly surprise in Rose’s diaper! Which might explain why she was so cranky this afternoon. Of course, the two vaccines she received at the doctor’s office this morning might have contributed to her fussiness. She was actually quite good all day today, we went for a long walk throughout the neighbourhood, first meeting Claudine after her hair appointment at Queen of the world, then walking to Bébé Dépot to return the clip-on high chair (Steve and Monica and the Adairs had given us one in St-John). Anyhow, we gave Rose a bath and now she is back to bed. The other day we gave her a shower, she liked that as well. I liked the shower but I prefer the bath as there is less risk of slipping and/or dropping her. That would be bad.
Spoke with James at work today. I will give him a hand with some electrical work at his apartment this Sunday. I need to prepare a contract for negotiations, but it sounds positive. I still have to do my taxes and now a bunch of Third Space paperwork is coming due: final reports, report extensions, and grant applications, including the dreaded NB annual. Ugh.
Yesterday we drove out to St. Benoit for a visit to the cabin à sucre Lefebvre, run by a cousin of Clo’s mom. It was a nice visit with Rose-Marie and Gilles, his sister Madeline and Jo, Philippe and the boys. Of course Nataniel got completely wired on syrop, after all we were putting it on everything, even spoonfuls just for the fun of it. We ran around outside afterwards just to blow off some steam. We built and destroyed two snowmen in quick succession.
Coming back to Montreal we decided to go to the MAC for free Wednesday (we have both lost our Carte Blanche cards, and in any case, they are probably expired). Parked underground at Place Desjardins. I was impressed by the theatricality of Marcel Dzama’s sculptural works, his plaster figures and installations are humorous and spooky at the same time. They felt mostly like 3-D representations of his fanciful drawings, also on display. He seems to have a predilection for big cocks, golden showers, dancing girls with machine guns, cowboys, circuses, and bears. Makes me miss Drawing Club. Maybe I need to do more collage. The painting show by Etienne Zack featured good, solid painting that plays nicely with the weighted history of painting using interesting techniques and compositions, but they also felt temporary. The final show I glazed through, hitting a sugar low, unable to concentrate.
Stupid Bell internet is acting up again. I’d call them if it wouldn’t make me angrier. Why is Internet so expensive and such shitty quality at the same time in Canada?
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 11:12 PM
subject Niqab: plusieurs provinces ne tiennent pas à légiférer; Search resumes after major B.C. avalanche kills at least three
Dear Stephen,
After countless days of sun and balmy weather, today it rains. It is a cold rain, so we have decided to forgo our visit to the St-Joseph’s Oratory and instead work from home. Also we forgot about the time-change so we woke up late for mass anyhow.
Yesterday we went to the Belgo with Monica, after a visit from Janine and Monica as well, who jogged to our place from hers, in the Old Port, about 6 kilometres. There was an opening of new work by Diane Landry at Optica. Slowly turning bicycle tires with plastic water bottles affixed, those containing LEDs and small amounts of sand that in turn blocked and then released the light as gravity did its work. The exhibition had a nice sound to it. So did the accompanying show in the small gallery, 368 songs with the word “sad” in the title made into one song. The vinyl titles, placed spherically on the wall, was impressive. Very exact.
We rushed a bit to see other shows before 5, including Jerome Fortin at Pierre François Ouellet, an installation of 8000 tops to metal cans, but each one cut decoratively around the ring as one would to allow liquid to pour, only made redundant by making the holes run all along the ring. Also it was just the lids…or the bottoms…or both. I wonder, how long did this take? How many hands helped? Afterwards we walked to Chinatown and ate at Pho Bang New York.
A few nights ago we watched Cold Souls and then The Informant by renting from iTunes. We find the overall selection on iTunes to be somewhat spotty. No french films, for example.
We also watched the Canadiens hold on to beat the Bruins last night. Drank some beer and ate homemade popcorn. The evening turned into a “too much TV” as a couple of episodes of “Law and Order” kept us onscreen. I honestly don’t know why I watch.
On top of working on the Rose birth announcement card, I’ve been waiting for Corey in SJ to send me samples of his design work for the belated Sky Vessels catalogue. I am beginning to understand why he is often referred to as “critical Corey”, here are his most recent emails to me, unedited:
from Rise Studios
to chris lloyd <dearpm@gmail.com>
date Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 3:08 PM
subject Re: Booklet
Hey Chris. Yep, most of my accounting stuff is done. Still have a few bits and pieces to go through this weekend but it’s almost a finished deal 🙂 I hate accounting and can’t wait to be finished up 🙂
I’m actually working on this right now. I worked a bit yesterday, working today. You have my absolute word, that I will have some things for you to look at on the weekend. I’m alerting the printer on Monday to be prepared to pump this out before March ends and to expect to receive artwork next week.
What I have right now is sketch book pages with things written in and some rough images and sketches on the computer. Give me just a couple more hours with this between today and tomorrow and then I’ll have something for you.
I know it seems like it’s taking forever… I’m usually not like this but I’ve found this project to be a challenge. It’s a fight between two different artists / installations and an essay and I’m trying to work them all together in a nicely design page.
I hit a nice idea yesterday with a nice way to do the layout… I’m fine tuning my ideas here right now. All of my other work aside from one branding project is done and invoiced and it’s going to be about a week or more before any other work begins so I’m on your work here now, 100%.
It shall be done, I will not let you miss a deadline, trust me on that one 🙂 This one has potential to be a really nice booklet, I want to be confident in my concepts before I present them to you. I’m also very open to working with you a bit on this, so I won’t obsess too much about presenting “perfect” concepts either. Once I get some things actually digitalized and ready for you to look at I will send it out.
It may even be this evening… it’s a low key weekend for us. My folks are visiting from out of town but aren’t arriving here until 9 tonight.. gives me some time to work.
from Rise Studios
to chris lloyd <dearpm@gmail.com>
date Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 12:45 PM
subject Working
Hi Chris. My parents are gone and my wife is on a plane to Baltimore for business, so I have lot of time to myself here today 🙂
I’m going to be working on things here a bit this afternoon / this evening and then I’ll send you some samples.
from Rise Studios
to chris lloyd <dearpm@gmail.com>
date Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 9:54 PM
subject Tech Difficulty
Hey Chris. I’ve been having trouble with fonts. I was working on another client project end of the week and had issues with fonts on that project as well. I’m trying to sort it out again… thought I had is solved but I guess not.
I’ll get concepts to you sometime between now an early tomorrow morning. Everytime I try to output PDF files etc. I’m getting errors and it’s not outputting anything properly so i can’t even show you what I’ve got at the moment.
I’ll get it sorted out.
Good grief! His letters are even more offbeat and unrelated to the business at hand than mine are to you. At least my letters were always intended to be personal, after all what do I know about politics?
This week is supposed to be my official first week of paternity leave, but James’ father passed away on the weekend so I may go in a day or two this week just to keep on top of things, and attend the Tuesday Special. Maybe I can start the process on my new contract.
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 1:39 PM
subject Burqa et niqab: la RAMQ n’a pas d’accommodement à accorder; Tories reject consumer fee on MP3 players
Dear Stephen,
I am spending more time and money on the cats. Manu needs a pill every 12 hours and so does Kuan, only Kuan takes 1.5 pills, and Manu .5. Manu’s we can dump down her throat but Kuan is too fiesty and plus her pills are different and need to be taken with food, so we are trying to hide them in her Greenies cat treats that are supposedly good for their teeth. It has only been 24 hours for Kuan so too early to tell if it is helping, but she still makes far too many trips to the litter box with little results. Poor thing!
-chris
(Letter began March 16)
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 2:22 PM
subject Détenus afghans: le bras de fer s’intensifie; Obama optimistic on weekend health care vote
Dear Stephen,
Have you seen the video for Lady Gaga’s song Bad Romance? It’s a wild, grinding, danceable offspring of Mathew Barney + Madonna, if Matthew Barney had married Madonna instead of Bjork, and if copulation could produce dance videos.
Yesterday I Tweeted your Minister of Culture, James Moore, over your government’s rejection of an amendment to the levy on recording devices. If you are at all interested in the exchange you should follow me on Twitter.
I just finished reading The curious incident of the dog in the night-time, a novel written from the perspective of a 17 year-old autistic boy. Tammy lent it to me when Clo and I went to her condo the other night to take some baby things off her hands. She gave us clothes, a snowsuit, a sled, a box of toys and even a stroller, a small McLaren.
Last night we had Karen Tam over for supper. Clo chose a recipe from Distasio and I made shrimp over roasted leek with brown basmati rice and salad on the side.
Wednesday evening we went to McGill for Steven & Monica’s lecture, which was a lot of fun. Rose slept through it. Afterwards we went to eat at Dominion Square Tavern on Metcalfe with Chantal and Edouard as well as architecture students Matt and Mike, and professor Howard. The Dominion is a real classy joint, though initially they wouldn’t let Rose in—she is underage—but a manager stepped in and made an exception, possibly because the place was barely half-full and it was St.Patrick’s Day after all. The food was great though portions a bit small. We drank mostly Knob Creek bourbon. We missed the last metro by 3 minutes but were counselled to take the Orange Line in the other direction and from Namur take the #92 down Jean Talon. Well, the bus never appeared, and they locked the metro station all up before we had a chance to ask directions, so we were stranded briefly in a no-man’s land at the end of Jean Talon buttressed by the Decarie and strip malls. We hailed a cab.
I’ve got a hair appointment at Queen of the World this afternoon. The 3-minute, $17-dollar cut my dad paid for me in Saint John (Quispamsis, technically) isn’t bad, it’s just a bit bland. Spring is here and with it, time for a new look.
Speaking of new looks, and Saint John, apparently Steven & Monica’s transit art is still drawing controversy, mostly from folks who just can’t stand that public money goes to anything other than the 3 Ps: parking, plumbing, and pavement.
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 11:18 PM
subject «Résistance» face au Canada: Cannon fustige les mots de Duceppe; Hansen announces $200-million global initiative for spinal-cord research
Dear Stephen,
Finally, I feel like I have accomplished a few things this weekend. My receipts for 2009 are ALMOST all sorted, the Sky Vessels brochure is ALMOST all edited and ready to go to press, the new media call for submissions is ALMOST all cleared up…what else? Rose had a couple explosions in her diaper, she has jumped the queue and now seems more unpredictable, no more 5-day clockwork. Stephan Lafleur came by unexpectedly for a visit on Saturday, he has finished filming his second feature, now he has a few months of editing ahead of him. Friday I got my haircut at Queen of the World, with Evilyn, the same hairdresser who does Clo, Caro and François. Sarah came over for breakfast Saturday morning so we could catch up on her gossip and eat croissants and toast and jam.
Saturday night was the opening at Iliana and David’s new gallery called Silver Flag. The show was called Echo Chambre by Kristen Horton, a mix of photo, digital photo collage and sculptural works. Kristen was in good spirits, there was a good turnout, lots of good people, many DHC techs, Simon and his new girlfriend, I met Mark Lançtot, a curator a the MACM, and his wife who is, surprise surprise, pregnant. And Marie-Josée Jean was there, it was the first I had seen her since Belgium, as she and her hubby Klaus had been in Austria for the fall and winter. Apparently things are going really well with the new building that has yet to be built, but when it is built, in a couple years time, VOX will have loads of space and be principle co-owners along with ARTEXTE and Vidéogrpahe. This is part of the whole Quartier des Spectacles construction that makes going downtown a logistical nightmare.
Anyway, we stayed at Silver Flag, which is located in David’s studio space, actually, for over 4 hours. All his tools and supplies and sculptures were tucked away into the living-area side of the apartment, where the kitchen/bar was. And we watched the hockey game on his laptop, though I didn’t see the end where the Habs scored to send the game to overtime nor when the Leafs won it in the shootout. At least we got a point. Our plan had been to eat at an inexpensive restaurant but we left at 11pm so we just whipped up some pasta at home.
Clo and I visited the store Bummies today and bought a few more diaper overpants for Rose; she is growing out of the overpants we currently have. We rested at a café on Fairmont and had soup before Clo took Rose to her WWKA rehearsal. I made plans to eat with Stephen and Monica but then I bailed; too tired, and too many little things to do at home. Like finally get all my letters to you from 2009 in one document, ready for publishing to Lulu.
The cats are still on their respective medications, at least Kuan eats her pills whole alongside her Greenies. Manu runs and hides and when I do find her she often spits up the pill, so I have no idea how often she has swallowed or not.
This morning there was a radio documentary on Fred Ross that Judith produced, about him dealing wiht life in a nursing home. It’s not a total nightmare, as he gets into his studio to work 3 times per week, but he is 83 years old and fell and broke his hip which led to his “incarceration”. He is mostly good-natured about it, but he’s a rebel at heart.
Off to finish, maybe, sorting my receipts before bed. I am back to work tomorrow.
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 10:18 PM
subject Un soldat blessé en Afghanistan meurt en Alberta; Canadian soldier dies of wounds in Edmonton hospital
Dear Stephen,
First day back to work in a long while was not as exciting as, say, passing historic health care legislation, nor as stressful as stonewalling parliament over questions of prisoner abuse, not as dull as watching paint dry, but somewhere in between all of those things. I cleaned shop vacs, air filters, and took apart a ventilation fan to see if it actually went anywhere. The answer? I still don’t know, the duct goes up into the ceiling but who knows how far that is, and it could end there, maybe never even going outside. The whole point of the investigation is that a washroom now doubles as a server room, and the servers throw off a lot of heat and noise, and the noise drives the creative department crazy, so we are going to soundproof.
Once home from work I edited more the Sky Vessels publication, realizing that our printer that came with the iMac, was thrown in for free, is actually a scanner as well, which makes it easier to send edits via email. There are quite a few.
Going to tabulate some receipts for taxes and read some New Yorker before bed. Work again tomorrow, interrupted by a Conseil des Arts de Montréal awards gala. Oboro has a nomination, so Clo and Rose will be there too.
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:20 PM
subject Contraception dans les pays en développement: la motion rejetée; Coulter’s Ottawa speech cancelled over ‘public safety’ fears
Dear Stephen,
Just what the heck is going on with your government over the whole “family planning” in Africa? It is turning into a ludicrous fiasco. Give your head a shake man, you can’t bluster on and claim to save “women and children” and not run a wide swath of family planning initiatives. Good grief.
We’ve been hit with a spot of cold, wet weather. And I’ve had a carpet on the roof racks of our car for over a week. Luckily today Stacy at work offered to take it off my hands, so we dropped it off at his studio after work. He plans to make some art with it, after it dries out.
I should clarify that work ended for us around 11am, as that was when we left for the Sheraton and the 25th CAM gala awards luncheon. It was fun, we were served salmon not rubber chicken, and though Oboro didn’t win, Mutek and Electra did, which is great for a young, hip organization. They do good work. My high point was borrowing Rose from Clo and sitting her at the DHC table for a bit. She’s so damn cute it sometimes makes my eyes hurt and I can’t concentrate on anything else.
When we got back to the office we convinced James and Iliana to leave right away and we all went to Cococabana for draft beer. It was James’ birthday yesterday and he only just came back from his dad’s funeral in Ottawa last week, and seems a little fragile. Simon and Jon joined later, after they came back from our storage facilities in Lasalle. It is nice to finish early once in awhile, have a beer in the afternoon.
When I got home Jo, Philippe, Nataniel and Dorian were there with Rose-Marie, who was cooking up a spaghetti dish. I was immediately drawn into play with Nataniel, who has boundless energy, and likes to play with our Mexican wrestling masks, as we don’t have many toys for young boys. It felt like a full family meal. Washed dishes, worked on taxes, now I’m exhausted. Bedtime.
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 12:23 PM
subject Les libéraux fédéraux en mode réflexion; Edmonton readies for funeral of fallen soldier
Dear Stephen,
In honour of your government dumping 2500 pages of redacted text onto Parliament late last week, further obfuscating and delaying the order to release all relevant, un-redacted documents referring to the Afghan torture issue, my letters to you will now be redacted.
I haven’t quite figured out how to do it in Open Office, so I’ll write the letter, then print it, then redact it, then scan it, then send it. More process-heavy for me, and in the end you are left with less info. We’ll try it for a bit and see how it fits.
Last night we watched In honour of your government dumping 2500 pages of redacted text into Parliament late last week, further obfuscating and delaying the order to release all relevant, un-redacted documents referring to the Afghan torture issue, my letters to you will now be redacted, In honour of your government dumping the medication 2500 pages of redacted text into Parliament late last week, further obfuscating and delaying the order to release all relevant, un-redacted documents referring to the Afghan torture issue, my letters to you will now be redacted.
Thursday night was fun, we had invited Sebastian and Fannie over, as well as Dominique and Lynne, who is now In honour of your government dumping 2500 pages of redacted text into Parliament late last week, further obfuscating and delaying the order to release all relevant, un-redacted documents referring to the Afghan torture issue, my letters to you will now be redacted. Surprisingly, between the six adults we didn’t even finish the second bottle of wine.
The weather In honour of your government dumping 2500 pages of redacted text into Parliament late last week, further obfuscating and delaying the order to release all relevant, un-redacted documents referring to the Afghan torture issue, my letters to you will now be redacted. In honour of your government dumping 2500 pages of redacted text into Parliament late last week, further obfuscating and delaying the order to release all relevant, un-redacted documents referring to the Afghan torture issue, my letters to you will now be redacted.
Sincerely,
Chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 10:46 PM
subject Des sujets sensibles abordés à la conférence libérale; Canadian Cardinal jumps to the defence of Pope
Dear Stephen,
I must apologize for my recent letter; it was redacted, but falsely so. I had just copied the first paragraph and then pasted it again and again and then blacked it out. So it was a pointless to black it out, but I was excited to try out the idea and see how it looked on my blog. And I’m pleased with the results and so will now write you an actual letter, which will then be redacted, and posted to the website. I might even keep this up longer than you hold out on the Afghan prisoners info; I like the idea of sending you letters that are illegible, blacked out, making completely redundant the very act of writing you personal letters.
I’m listening to the hockey game, Montreal and New Jersey. The Habs just scored, it is now 2-1 for the Devils.
Hey, are you doing anything special for Earth Hour tonight? It is in ten minutes…does listening to the radio count? And Claudine is working on a translation contract on her computer, I guess that doesn’t work. Rose just fell asleep so I can turn off her rocking chair, which runs on batteries anyhow so would that count? I don’t really feel like reading by candlelight. I guess I could sort Claudine’s receipts for her taxes.
Today we met Sarah at Le Depanneur Pick-Up for brunch, then we went to Dave and Iliana’s gallery Silver Flag. It was nice and relaxing; they had just finished giving their cat a bath. Off we went to another gallery in the neighbourhood, then I stopped to visit Jon and see the show in his basement by Scott Bowering while the girls went to the market. Have I mentioned lately that I love our neighbourhood?
So the films we watched last night were, in order: The September Issue (kinda bland); The men who stare at goats (intriguing, humorous, a little far-fetched); and the Fabulous Mr. Fox, which was typical quirky Wes Anderson but with playful, whimsical old-school animation. I like how it wasn’t close to a Disney morality flick. We watched three in a row because I thought they were all 7-day rentals,
I don’t even know why I bother following hockey. It just adds needless stress to my life. I ran into François on the street today, while returning the films, and we chatted briefly. We’ll try to meet up to watch a match at Miss Villeray later this week.
Rose has woken up, maybe with a wet diaper, but I’ll let her stay up with me for the end of the game. Damn, the Habs lose. Why do I bother?
I’m reading Fall on Your Knees, by Anne-Marie MacDonald. Talk about depressing! But beautifully-written, though a tad too corny, or flowery for me at times. Very Maritimes, very Cape Breton, very oh-so Canadian.
Have you checked out my website lately? I’ve signed up for Ann Coulter’s weekly rants since the cancellation of her talk at the U of O, and adding them to the website, as well as correspondence from your party. I like it all to speak for itslef, including Chuck Norris.
Rose is still awake, trying to speak, it seems. I love that little girl so damn much.
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
time Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 10:29 PM
subject Ignatieff a un remède pour soulager les maux du pays; Toronto girl wins Canspell spelling bee
Dear Stephen,
Have I told you that I spoke to Revenu Quebec again last week? They didn’t go for my proposed payment plan of $200 per month. They are firm on the $360, so that it is paid off in 1 year. They said if I can’t get a bank loan then they will garnish my wages to a tune of $590/month. So I think I might just have to bite the bullet and pay them what they want. It will just take longer now to pay off Mr. Visa.
We’ve both been a wee bit depressed about our finances lately. My license renewal was overdue, plus I had forgotten about a parking ticket in Quebec City last summer that is now $95; all that, plus the cats, and the taxes, geez, not much to save for. Although at least there are the “Harper Bucks” that we can use to start the fund. Saving for summer vacation will be tricky.
My landlord Tariq called me yesterday wanting me to pick up that waxy ring that goes under the toilet and install it, because the guy he hired to do it back in the fall when he replaced our toilet, did a lousy job. Apparently there is a slow leak downstairs. Clo and I decided it wasn’t a great idea to begin doing favours of this kind for Tariq, as we could be held responsible for other things. In any case, when I called him back to say I wouldn’t do it I couldn’t get the words out, he was at the hardware store and picked up the ring and dropped it off within five minutes, which in itself is weird because he always talks about how he is so far away in Laval. So I did it, it only took twenty-five minutes, a slightly gross job but really nothing to it. Now Claudine is mad because she says it would cost $200 to have a plumber come do it. Probably not that much, closer to $70 or $80 I would gather. I’ll invoice Tariq $40, that sounds fair, no?
It was a bit of a lazy day around the apartment, I washed some laundry, updated my blog, cleaned the cat litter, washed dishes, the usual. It was cold and windy today so no walk, in fact Claudine took the car and Rose to a café, meeting up with Sarah to do work. Then our Internet crapped out so I sorted her receipts for her taxes. All ready for tabulation. Thanks Bell!
Back to work tomorrow, so I am going to have a shower now and then read for a bit. I might shave the beard off, what do you think? Am I better with a beard or without?
-chris
DEAR PM 