John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

First snowman

As Sunday's storm was settling in, our boy was out in the thick of it, turning the gobs of snow into a snowman. Alas, the subsequent wind lopped off the snowman's head, which made for a bit of a Calvin and Hobbes scene. The head has been restored to its rightful place.

Spice post

Our kitchen is a busy place, but a small one, which has meant we've had to be practical with fitting things into tight spaces. The Kitchn (yep, that's how it's spelled) has a how-to on making your own magnetic spice holder, which is an option I'd pursure - if I had enough wall space.

What went to the curb

Over the last few weeks, Martha and I have been clearing through boxes and boxes in our respective home offices. We're both packrats by nature, but have been pretty good this summer at letting go. Out went years and years of old files (notes, clippings, newspapers, reports, memos, minutes ... you name it), with the confidential stuff fed through the shredder. The picture above is what we put out in our driveway for our twice-monthly recycling pickup. (We don't have curbside recycling, yet, in our neighbourhood of St. John's, so we pay a company to do it for us.)

First tomato

We were late this summer with getting our tomato plants out on the deck, so it was nice to finally see a touch of red this weekend, knowing more are to come.

Seagulls, frost, and Florida

Last week, we got back from an all-round terrific vacation. For the second time, we took our son to Walt Disney World, and while we jammed our days and nights full of fun (the Toy Story Midway Mania ride is as good as everyone says - you can catch a home video here, including the walk-thru to the ride itself), we weren't prepared for a cold snap that fell on Orlando.

How cold was it?

Above is one of the hilarious gulls that are parked outside the Finding Nemo ride in Epcot. The joke with the animatronic birds is that they're often silent, but once in a while start chirping "Mine. Mine. Mine! Mine!", just like in the movie. Click here to watch a demo. This gull above also spits water at unsuspecting lookers-on. Except on this morning, when icicles formed on the frozen critter's beak.

Disney World, of course, is not equipped for cold weather. One of the store clerks told us how they were selling hoodies, which usually stagnate year-round, by the crateload. Thin woolen hats were selling out. And you know those cheap, thin cloth gloves - the kind that cost a buck for two or three pairs at discount stores? Disney was selling them for eight bucks a pop. Worse, we bought them - it was that cold. A day or two later, it was blazing hot.

An elegy for Donne

Some news shocks; some news takes the wind right out of you. On Monday night, we learned something that did all that, and more. Donne Flanagan, one of my roommates when I moved to Ottawa for my first full-time job in 1985, had died suddenly the day before in Winnipeg.

Donne had had a miserable year of heart trouble. Last fall, he suffered a serious heart attack. He recovered from it, though, and most of us, I guess, assumed he had mended. Just last week, Donne sent out a note to his friends, revealing that he had suffered a stroke in July. He described it as a minor stroke, and that he was on the mend. In true Donne fashion, he downplayed the seriousness of it, compared to what others endure: "I kind of don't mind having a little more work to do to speak and write cogently than I used to. Well, maybe I don't mind most of the time," he wrote. "But I think having a bit of a reminder of the struggle, if minor compared to so many, many people, I think will be good for me."

As it turned out, Donne's heart was in worse shape than we thought. He died last Sunday. He would have turned 44 next month.

I met Donne through student newspaper conferences, and when I moved to Ottawa in 1985, we rented an apartment with our friend, Samantha Brennan. It was a great period of my life; Martha took the photo above at her apartment that fall, while a bunch of us were cooking dinner. Donne grew up in Bassano, Alberta, and I was from St. John's, but we had plenty in common - including being particularly tall. (We swapped jackets and shirts more than once.) He was a good writer, but his primary skill then was design, and Donne taught me plenty about typefaces and fonts.

Donne - his name was pronounced like John Donne, the elegiac poet, or "Dunn" - was a funny guy, though he didn't necessarily have all the best qualities one looks for in a roommate. Dishwashing was, um, not his forte. At one point, Samantha and I went on a dishwashing strike, almost as an experiment to see how long it would take for Donne to notice that dishes had not been cleaned. I can't recall how many days passed, but it was plenty. Finally, I caved, and started washing the piles on the counters. Samantha told me my eyes were fiery when Donne asked me to wash two beer glasses he planned to take with him on a weekend trip!

There were other stories. Martha (who wound up moving into the apartment by that point in 1986) and I will never forget how Donne wound up picking Purolator, of all people, to move his stuff back west. He left in advance to take the train to see some friends, and I won't forget the Purolator guy's expression when he saw the "parcels" on the living room floor. It turned out that Donne's kilogram count was written down for the quote as grams.

Donne was a laugh to hang out with, a consummate beer buddy and a chatter of the first order. He made friends quickly, almost instantly, and I think part of it was that he was a good listener. He was curious about people. And he loved to laugh. (And pull pranks; one of his favourites was trying to distract you while you were on the phone, preferably on a business call.) I'm not surprised that so many pictures I've seen this week feature him smiling.

Donne wound up moving to Winnipeg, where he settled, ran a newspaper for a while and raised a family. He obviously adored his two sons, Callum and Kieran. He also developed a career I would never have predicted: political strategist. He worked for many years with the NDP. The party choice was not that much of a surprise (he was a bit of a lefty), but I would not have guessed he would have wanted to work from the inside of a party, not to mention at a senior level. He was the communications director for Manitoba premier Gary Doer, and served for a while as Jack Layton's chief of staff in Ottawa before resigning in 2004. (Donne described the episode as horrid; unfortunately, I never heard the full tale from Donne himself.) In any event, Donne's passing was significant to make the news in his adopted home.

I've felt very empty this week. Donne was a big part of my 20s, but was still a part of my life. I was happy that we had kept in touch over the years, much more so in the last few. We had talked over the years of a visit, one way or the other. I know I'm not the only one of his friends who has regrets that we didn't work harder at pursuing it. I imagine we all thought we had so much more time at our disposal.

Donne's death has brought together friends who don't talk so much anymore. We definitely should. One of the common themes in our shared recollections, knocked back and forth across the country by e-mails, has been about Donne's heart - not the one that failed, but how big-hearted he was. He was generous beyond measure, and I still can't believe he's not around anymore.

A service will be held later today for Donne in Winnipeg. My heart goes out to his boys, their mom, De, and all of Donne's family and friends. I'll be thinking about Donne all day.

Paddle power

Earlier this week, my son and I went kayaking from Norris Point; Nick had a brief experience last year on a pond outside St. John's, but this was a big leap for both of us. The weather turned while we were out, and it got pretty choppy. But we made it back safe and sound and exhilarated ... a great way to see Bonne Bay.

Coffee, tea, peanuts?

Here's an option for home entertaining (or old-fashioned snack storage): an airline trolley adapted for home use. As you'll note from this post, they're not cheap, although they can be gussied up a whole lot.

Kitchen porn

Over the last while, my wife and I have been wondering what we can do with our kitchen. They used to be dreams; they're gradually (very gradually) turning into plans. They might actually come together one day, too. So, I'll cop to spending time every now and again looking for pictures of kitchens. You often end up with stylized, idealized shots like the above, which obviously looks like a kitchen, but looks entirely unlike anything you see in the house of anyone you know.

I found it on The Kitchn site, in their Kitchen Design thread. The above shot comes from a House Beautiful spread. Sure, there's an allure to these kinds of photo spreads - you could nick an idea, if not an entire look - but the more I see of them, the more it seems like a fantasy indulgence, not unlike what gardening magazines lay before you.