Jæja...

Since the last time the Duck put fingers to keyboard (cause if chickens have fingers, why can't ducks?), a few rather interesting things have happened.

First, the Good News: It's official!!! The Duck will be translating three chapters of a memoir by a group of Western Icelanders, for which she will be paid REAL MONEY, because it will become part of a REAL (PUBLISHED) BOOK!!! ... Little Blue Duck, although you probably can't see it from where you are, is bouncing up and down - her career has begun at last!!!!! Tremble, all ye citizens of the Great Ice Cube...

Stay tuned for updates, when Blue Duck starts pulling her feathers out over the correct word for obscure Icelandic farm tools...

Anyway, now for the Other News: It's not quite official, but according to the blood tests our friend Duck has a gluten allergy. Which means no wheat, no barley, no rye, no PopTarts, no Kraft Dinner, no triple-cheese hold-the-mayo McWhoppers, no glistening Tim Hortons honey-dip doughnuts...... It was as if a divine voice spoke out from the grey Winnipeg clouds and said: "Thou shalt not eat carbs."

Crocodile tears aside, Blue Duck's actual reaction to hearing the news was, in fact, "You mean I can still eat sushi? YIPPEEEE!!" To tell the truth, she was just relieved to find out what was wrong with her - and that it wasn't fatal. She had nearly had a heart attack several minutes before, when the nice assistant came in and told her she had an ultrasound appointment in two weeks (Thought Bubble: But.. this NEVER happens in the Canadian medicare system.. I'M GOING TO DIIIIIIE..) Now all Lil' Blue needs to do is find alternatives to all those tasty wheat-and-sugar products she can no longer eat, though in another happy stroke of Divine Providence a bakery appeared several days ago a mere block from her house selling gluten-free bread on Mondays. Coincidence? She thinks not!!

Oh, and she plans to fill her suitcase to Iceland (via Minneapolis) with a variety of white powders with labels such as "rice flour" and "potato starch". Stay tuned for updates on that too :P

Oh, and Blue Duck has rejoined her old choir! She has been somehow coerced (possibly with blackmail) into singing Rogers and Hammerstein in a medieval gown next Sunday.... all we can say is that no one must ever speak of this aloud. And there will be NO pictures. Ha, ha, just kidding. Blue Duck loves her choir (we do not wish to comment on her opinion of Rogers and Hammerstein), no matter what strange situations they may get her into. But there are still no pictures.