Here's how the day began: I was peering anxiously at Liverspot's engine temperature gauge* as I bumped down Farfara Way, wondering if it was behaving eccentrically (it wasn't), when I nearly veered off into a wooded ditch to avoid hitting a young buck who was standing in the middle of the road. Liverspot's never had the most responsive brakes.

What does she do in there with all those bricks of paper?

Here's how the day ended: I went off to schedule my English language tests for immigration - both written and oral - and to reflect on how embarrassing it would be if I failed them. Coming home, I slowly chased a deer back up the driveway, trying my best to imagine that a car could gambol.

* Yes, my car's name is Liverspot. S/he's a 2001 Camry, and a particularly unappealing shade of brown, so I gave the car an avert-the-evil-eye name. What of it? (Although I can't say it's been particularly successful, since last Monday s/he left me by the side of the road in a cloud of smoke. But that's a story for another day.)

Luckily we have another car, a 4WD Escape designed to help us navigate our long, LONG, steep, and gravelly driveway in the snowy winter.

How steep is the road to Farfara (our house)? Every single new visitor who has ever come to our door - including every delivery man and one group of Jehovah's witnesses - has had the same first comment: "That driveway! I bet it's a nightmare in the winter." "Tell me about it!" I always say, "I live here! Wait, is that a Bible you're holding?".

So we had to get an SUV to handle the driveway in the winter. (How did I go from being the person who didn't even know how to drive five years ago to owning two cars, one of which is an SUV? I don't like the direction this is heading - it begins to feel as if I'm, in Mère Sycorax's words, "up to my eyeballs in assholedom.") It's grey, sleek, and comfortable, with a cool-running engine, impeccable brakes, and inexplicable multi-colored disco lighting for your feet. I call it "The Barge She Sat In."

Farfara, Nova Scotia
30 October 2012