My mom-in-law's toilet crapped out on Friday, so we had to head out to the big Canadian Tire store to buy her a new one.

Oh be quiet. You KNOW that if you could have linked the words "toilet" and "crapped out" together in YOUR diary you would have done it in a heartbeat, eh, so don't be giving ME that look.

So where was I? Oh yeah, the Canadian Tire store. Now for those of you not Canuckian, Canadian Tire is a kind of a mix between an automotive store, a hardware store, and an all purpose store such as Wal-Mart. One stop shopping in many ways.

So while Paul is wandering around the hardware section fondling plumbing bits (hey, it's a free country and whatever a guy wants to do with his plumbing bits is completely up to him, I always say), I slipped off to another part of the store.

Yes, I must confess I did some fondling. I may have even copped a feel or two. It was kind of sordid, but ... look, I have my needs, eh.

I'm just the wrong woman to leave in a store's gardening section.

I'm a wreck. It's been months now since I've had my fingers in the earth to garden. My world is now covered with at least three feet of snow, with another six inches predicted overnight. It could be the end of April this year before we get spring. THE FREAKIN' END OF APRIL. EEEEEEEEEEEEK.

So yes, I may have squeezed a few bags of planting soil, opened the odd bottle of fish emulsion fertilizer to smell that organic goodness, and maybe caressed the soft lacey wonder of a fern ...

Or the papery roughness of a palm tree ...

Or the smooth goodness of a ficus.

Look, I have my needs and that's all I should have to say.

And any reports you may have heard of a middle-aged woman slashing open and rolling in bags of organic planting soil in a Canadian Tire store in Quebec?

I sweartogawd it wasn't me.

--Marn

SETI@home

There has been an outpouring of sympathy for the plight of one small moose. The incredibly cute and deeply talented Paul of Rilting fame has even made a button for the Do It For The Moose Campaign.

Here's where the instructions are on how to get it.