By Lucy

Morning of the third day, three days remaining

Murphy’s First Law; anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Went to my buddy’s place the other day to sort where I’d be parking the car and drop off some stuff for him. His place has some absolutely awful speedbumps around it and the oil pan on my car has already been cracked by a speed bump. So of course, when I pulled my car out of the driveway this morning I noticed an oily mark under where the oil pan was.

It’s impossible to check. The weather, far from cooling down, has been hovering around 0 for the entire week and it was raining hard today. There’s not much I can do to check out the car by the side of the road, in the rain, so I panicked and called the garage I usually go to. I won’t expect Andrej to pick up the car from the garage, and I can’t leave the oil pan for a month even with a slow leak – it’ll be bone dry when I get back and I’ll have to have it towed to the garage. Plus, more time and more money. Fortunately, the garage has time for me Monday and he ordered the parts for the repair in case that is what’s going on. Best case scenario, I pay 60 dollars for peace of mind, and I’ll get them to top up my fluids and air while I’m there. Feel bad for the tech – with my car packed up, there’s no way they’ll be able to put my seat back to drive it in, and I’m not unpacking it the day before I leave. He’ll have to think small.

It’s been a stressful week. I had no hits at all on the freezer, so I contacted the homeowner’s friend who wanted to buy it. Presumably sensing desperation, she dropped what she was offering from 100 to 75 and started bitching at me about the trouble to get it out of the basement. I thought it was rude, so I deleted and blocked her number and decided I’d rather donate it than let her have it. The homeowner talked to her of his own accord (I never mentioned it to him) and told me he’d pay me the hundred and she’d make it up to him somehow. So that turned out, lucky me.

Hurry up and wait is the order of the day. I’ve been packing and repacking my stuff, fretting that it won’t fit but unable to check. I wanted to pack up the car today because the weather was supposed to go colder, but it’s been pushed back and it’s hard to choose to sit in an empty room when I don’t have to. I’m constantly worrying someone might break into my car for my useless crap. Nothing to them, an expensive repair to me.

While I watch Sons of Anarchy, I’ve been sorting and cleaning my porcupine quills. During the pandemic I lived at my ex’s place, ten acres in the middle of nowhere. Indigenous peoples, as all of us should, have the general opinion of ‘waste not want not’. Around August porcupines, for whatever reason, get stupid and start getting wiped out as roadkill. So I grabbed a couple from the side of the road (in a plastic bag I kept in the trunk for that purpose) and threw them in the freezer until I had a spare moment. The first one was almost useless; his quills were all bent and broken from being smashed by the car. The second one was better; a clean headshot, and he was thrown clear from the road. Cleaning it was time consuming, so I functionally skinned it into a bowl and when I have some time I separate the short underhair from the quills.

They use both the long, stiff hairs and the quills. The hair is used for a ‘porky roach’, a headdress, and the quills have many uses, mostly quillwork. The quills are technically hair too, you can find long hairs like the one above that is between being a long hair and being a proper quill. It’s painful work, but I’m used to being stabbed from working as a seamstress. Porky quills are worse, however, because they are barbed. The reason for the comic ‘dog’s muzzle full of quills’ is because of the barbs sticking – they hurt more coming out than going in.

Quillwork is long and fiddly – unlike thread for embroidery or beading, the quills are small lengths and need to be tied off quite frequently. It’s a different kind of art though, it looks different, and it adds a certain rigidity and texture.

Despite it being unseasonably warm, I did manage to go skating. It’s been a bad year for it, unless I want to pay for a rec pass, which I don’t. Other than the two weeks of it being too cold to skate, it’s barely dipped below 0 this winter. But Monday and Tuesday it was just below 0, perfect skating weather. I’m undecided if I’m hoping it’ll still be cold enough in Thunder Bay in March for skating or if I’ll just be done with winter.

Saturday should be a lot of nothing and Sunday should be a lot of everything. Cross your fingers for my poor oil pan. I’ll do one last post before I jump on the plane.