A Mess of Pottage

Cower Not, Jedi!

2011-01-25T19:16:00.000-08:00

These are Jack's latest Lego obsession. He calls them Jedi Huts.
He has run out of little square bases. Otherwise, he says, he would make a whole city of them. Each one is customized and has a lot of luxury details.

But my favourite is the simplest one, the one he made for "Luke's nephew". As Jack explained: "Most of them are open all the way across the front but this one - see? has this little bit of wall at the front that makes a little corner that you can cower in. I call it a Cower Corner."
Because everybody needs a corner to cower in sometimes, non?

Fear not the Rat, O Jedi but fear the Google Eyed Bookworm!

snow splosions

2011-01-19T19:37:00.000-08:00

Wow, that haiku from my last post is still really speaking to me. I just read from the point of view of writing report cards which is a really onerous task (that's my word of the week, onerous). Yes, onerous, except when I am actually writing them. Then I get into the flow of writing, saying things in just the right way, selecting words that actually mean something and I stop being stressed about it. Mostly, anyway. Thankfully the trend in reporting seems to be away from robot speak and back to talking about real live kids doing real live things. Anyhoo, the point is that when I stop thinking about the snow (i.e. onerous task) as a burden and think about it as something that I can and must own, it all lightens.

I have to admit that I really enjoy messing around with words, crafting the old sentences. So pickle me this, reader(s?). Do you have a word problem that needs solving? Send it my way. I'm your gal. After January 27th, anyway (Report Card Due Date.)
I was out in the snow tonight with the fam and was mostly lost in thought about the dance lessons that I'm working on for tomorrow. They are going to be about making dances about snow and winter poems, carving pathways in snow and space, and lightness, and bound and free energy (tobogganing!) and I am really excited about them. I found a couple of beautiful pomes in David Booth's anthology of poems for kids , Til All the Stars Have Fallen (which i love love). The poems are My toboggan and I carve winter by Jane Wadley and Winter walk in forest by George Swede. If I could build every lesson around a poem, I would.

I also remembered how much I like looking into my house from the backyard at night.

hi, ku!

2011-01-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

waga yuki to/ omoebo karushi /kasa no ue

'It's my snow"
I think
And the weight on my hat lightens.

-Kikaku, trans. by Alex Kerr

I have been enjoying following several beautiful blogs by friends, family and strangers this year:
(soulemama, PhilOlogy, and Life in Colour) and recently I have been missing keeping my own record here. My paper systems (ahem, I use the term "systems" lightly) are always so haphazard and difficult to maneuver. I like the clarity and linear nature of a blog, even while lamenting the slow death of cursive and the general unstinting shift from analog to digital.

So, I am moving back again to naming my own snow, the soft quiet white noise of my life, observed.

swing out

2010-06-09T18:54:00.001-07:00

Summer is just around the corner. I'm taking the next 21 days to set the bit, habitwise. Hobbit and rabbit wise too. Moving and writing, sorting and purging, making way for crickets, sand and stars.

powems

2010-04-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

I was cleaning out monkeyboy's backpack this afternoon and underneath the NoFrills bag full of wet bathing suit and towel, crusty lunchbag and the collection of Sacred Scraps of Paper and Pebbles I unearthed a little notebook. It was the middle third of a cut up exercise book. There was only one thing written in it, on the first page and it was this:

"ToDay anD Every Day from now On Lets live in a way that Let's us find Powems."

YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! Let's do it!!!!!!!!!!!

I was only slightly disappointed to discover that monkeyboy hadn't come up with this on his own but I want to thank his teacher who sent it into his little brain and down his arm. I want to thank her in a big way.

yeaster

2010-04-02T20:02:00.000-07:00

This is the lonely first half of a pair of bunny slippers I am crocheting for my sister-in-law. I thought a snack might distract it from its singular existence.
I have always loved Easter. When I mentioned this to one of the other moms in the parking lot at the daycare, she seemed mystified. I could understand her disconnect. After all, what is there for a modern, secular person to love about Easter? Chocolate, ham, pots of tulips, bunnies, chicks, eggs, pastels? Yes, all of these things figured in my childhood experiences of Easter but these are not the only things I am nostalgic for. I was interested and moved by all of the church business of Holy Week: the palms, the supper, the passion, the joy at the end of it. My aunt would always come for the weekend and she brought with her attention and interest and left the scent of Anais Anais on my quilt. My mother always did a lot of special cooking around Easter. She always made eggy, braided Ukrainian breads and, once, sweet bun bunnies with icing. We ate the bunnies for breakfast with Champagne and orange juice. Our decadence was interrupted by the cat, bringing us a freshly killed mouse. For a few years she made Laura Secord style eggs, sugary fudgey on the inside and chocolate coated with our initial iced on top.
This bunny slipper picture reminded me of a certain quality to the light on Easter morning. I always tried to wake up early before everyone else and creep downstairs, following a trail of Smarties. One morning I woke up early enough to read finish the second half of The Stray, which had several great maps and a sad and mysterious ending. I remember once quietly singing Lord of the Dance to the rising sun. The melody is the same as the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts. I still love it. It always makes me feel that Easter feeling again, when I was awake and alone with the sun coming up, my family around me safe and sleeping and good food on the way.

Tis a gift to be simple tis a gift to be free
Tis a gift to come down where you ought to be
And when you find yourself in the place just right
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

Dance, dance wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be
I will lead you all in the dance, said he.

See? Joy. Whatever spring rite you've got going on, I hope you feel it too.

don't be a fool

2010-03-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

April is almost upon me and I feel restless. Too bad there is no spring thaw a happenin'. With hardly any snowfall this winter there is nothing left to thaw. No river of ice to break up with a rifle crack. Is this how people who live in the temperate climes feel when spring comes, a bland easing in to a greener time? I don't think I like it. I heard the birds singing when I went out this morning and I liked that very much. I must have been missing them (the birds) because the window ledge in front of my computer desk is full of birds. My friend Becky, a pro-fessional bird girl, spotted no less than eight birds here:

I also got this very fantastic bike for only $35 at the Bibles for Missions thrift shop over the March Break. Jack also got a bike there for 5 bucks! (This thrift store is awesome. I nearly bought a fifties lace wedding gown for ten dollars but I knew there was no way i was going to fit into it - it had a teeny tiny waist - and it was still way too long for Sal. ) When I was loading this very heavy bike into the back of my car to take it home, I had visions of pedaling this baby down to the market and returning home with a basket full of bread and roses. At the time, I was ignoring the reality of the long steep hill that leads back up to our house from the market. And the singular nature of the gears. I took a spin around the block with Jack and was shocked to discover what felt like an intense grade on the last stretch coming up to our house. While walking, this incline was almost imperceptible but trying to pedal 50 pounds of British steel up it gave it a whole new seriousness. Smith took it for a spin next and promptly broke the chain by attempting to switch gears (folly). But I am still in love with this bike. It makes me happy to see it every time we pull into the driveway. I may even get the chain fixed before the snow falls again.

in-depth reporting

2010-01-12T10:51:00.000-08:00

In the interest of being totally literal and unimaginative, this week's posts will be a series chronicling the mess on my desk. The Mess of Pottage. It's January, my brain is frozen. Or perhaps I am hoping to divine some deeper message (besides "clean up and get organized) lurking in the chaos. Like listening for patterns in white noise or reading tea leaves.

So, here goes.
Today the current items litter my desk:

my monitor, keyboard and mouse as well as my old laptop (including power adaptor, mouse and portable hard drive), dazzle card, digital cam (batteries are dead) and cell phone(also needs re-charging), a solar powered calculator and a camera tripod,
Smith's keys
a 3 inch Eve toy with replacement arm and tiny plastic boot with plant growing out of it, a small rubber cheetah and a Lego wizard (to keep the bogons away)
a bristle hairbrush,
a smooth stone from French Beach
a letter and photos from my mother-in-law
3 Alice Munro books of which I have double copies (Friend of My Youth, Runaway and Away from Her if anybody needs 'em)
a printout of a Georgian Bay cottage which the owner refused to rent to me
the most recent issue of Professionally Speaking magazine open to the page about Olympic lesson plans
a construction paper circlet, made by Jack
a ball of fuzzy green synthetic wool with tiny balls of colour threaded along it, a clear plastic purse handle
a Christmas package awaiting delivery (still)
a map of Montreal
a pile of Bermuda sea glass wrapped in paper towel
2 pieces of unopened mail (bills)
an empty eggshell blue coffee mug, an empty tea mug, an empty oatmeal bowl and spoon
a green blown glass sea-urchin paperweight
a travel-sized packet of tissues
a box of Curious George bandaids and a birthday party invitation (Come PARTY like an ALIEN!),
a lab test requisition form (for Jack) and two stool test kits with instructions
Bernstein's Reverse Dictionary ("mess, confused condition: MARE'S NEST") in which I found my own handwritten copy of this passage from Annie Dillard's The Living:

"Swing out", the voices said in the darkness.
"Push from the platform, and when you're all the way out, let go."
When? he thought. Where?
The heavy rope pulled at him. He carried it to the platform edge. He hitched up the knot and launched out. As he swung through the air, trembling, he saw the blackness give way below, like a parting of clouds, to a deep patch of stars on the ground. It was the pond, he hoped, the hole in the woods reflecting the sky. He judged the instant and let go; he flung himself loose into the stars.

There you have it: my life in 6 square feet.

yulitudinous

2009-12-14T17:56:00.001-08:00

We jam packed the good times in last week, I tell you.
The Good Lovelies rocked the Vasey Church. In the sweetest way possible. Scott Cooper and family hosted and it had a very cozy, famdamly vibe. Scott played Porter Wagoner's Satisfied Mind which is maybe one of the best songs ever. And we all sang along to Silent Night. Robert Munsch has a book called Purple, Green and Yellow and at one point the heroine, Brigid, gets a pack of SuperDuperNeverComeOffUntilYourDeadAndMaybeEvenLaterIndelible Markers. When she uses them to draw, she draws roses that look more like roses than roses. Everything looks too good to be true. That's how the Lovelies sounded. Lush and smooth. It didn't hurt that we were in the front row and catching a lot of their live sound too.
The next morning it snowed and blowed like the begeezus.
SalGal's holiday concert was everything a concert of tiny people should be. Sweet, exuberant, slightly chaotic, not too long. She continues to regale us with "Give peace a chance, Baby!" and Silent Night at the top of her lungs. I attempted a few carols on the piano today. I quite butchered them, but the kids didn't seem to mind.
I headed up to my mom's on Friday and spent the day out in the freezing, snowy woods, cracking down old sumac trees and dragging them home to help build a palisade around the old barn ruin for Willy's wedding. It looks pretty wild and gorgeous. Mom made homeade bread and killer minestrone for lunch. The girlies played tea parties. A great day.
We had the cousins over on Friday night and the kids just rolled around the house in waves of play. "Let's play spies!" They all play spies. "Let's draw!" They all draw.
Saturday and Sunday were days of a thousand things, reconnecting with old friends and family, eating and drinkin and eating and drinking some more!!
Come evening, we found ourselves singing along once again, this time to White Christmas with my friend Phil. Everyone was packed into the house, cheek by jowl, standing in the hallway, sitting up the stairs. He has been singing for over a decade but this was my first time hearing him. It was worth the wait. We used to work together at the record store and we must have listened to Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas CD about 500 times. But when he sang Christmastime is Here, it felt fresh and sweet all over again.
So, let the damn roof leak. (yes, it really is. yes, the brand new one.) I'm going to keep on singing.

ghosts of christmas

2009-12-07T19:28:00.000-08:00

In the midst of mad wrapping and procrastinating about writing my cards, Pip's lovely christmassy post inspired many Christmas memories for me.
I have a lot of of happy Christmas TV memories. Which seems a little pathetic. But there we were, all together, watching. I felt safe and connected. One Christmas day, West Side Story was on the air. I think I was about 11. The opening credits were a little boring but mom told me that she loved it, so I kept watching. It floored me: the music, dancing, the epic tragedy. I still love watching it around Christmas time and am kicking myself for not getting down to see the Startford production this summer - I heard it was pretty great.
Maybe it was this same Christmas, or maybe it was another but I remember sitting and watching TV for hours curled up with my mom. It felt like such a treat. There was some strange Muppety special on about a Frog prince. The princess was enchanted and couldn't talk properly: "Break the hall in the candle of her brain!" Does anyone else remember this?There is still something luxurious and wonderful to me about sitting down to watch 2 or 3 movies in a row.
I also remember sitting around by the tree with my whole family one year, listening to the radio. It was Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe. The first time I ever heard it. We laughed until our guts ached.
I could write a book about Christmas food memories. I will be sad to miss Christmas pudding with whiskey sauce this year.
We are going to be away from home for Christmas this year, with Smith's family. But we are going to have one humdinger of a party to celebrate my little bro's wedding on the Winter Solstice, so we will be getting our merrymerry on here before we depart. Bonfire, vows in the snow, lamb, sangria -can't wait!
I am very excited to go and see The Good Lovelies and Scott Cooper tomorrow night. I should bring a big box of kleenex as I am sure it will conjure up memories of the last time I went to see them with Pip. We laughed like loons and cried like babies.
I haven't been listening to anything except Sufjan Stevens lately. Mysteriously, the copy of Come on Feel the Illinoise that Greg and Meighan gave us has stopped skipping - hurray! And we currently have his Christmas set of 5 EPs on shuffle in the stereo. He does a very sweet version of Lo How a Rose E'r Blooming. I love that song. I guess I should shake things us a little but I can't seem to find my Bing Crosby xmas disc or my Weinachten mit Heinjie! Xmas just ain't the same without Heintjie singing "Kling, glocken,klingalingaling!!!!!". I'll bet the Lovelies do a wicked version of MeleKelikimaka....
I should be knitting. Ay, the push is on, to complete last minute gifts. I am trying to be kind to myself and not start any projects that I can't finish in a day or two. But I keep finding such cute things on Ravelry and Knitty. Must. Not. Look.
My reading lately has been mostly limited to Anna Karenina. I love it and I refuse to rush it. With Jack, I am reading The Winter Drey, book two in the excellent Trilogy of the Tree by Sean Dixon. It's funny and strange and sweet, based on Norse myths and history. Jack is loving it, but he wondered: "How did he (the author) think of all of those crazy names like Snorre and Trondheim and Norway?" Crazy old Norway. We seem to be all about beautiful wintery books these days. Any suggestions for your favourite book about winter or favourite book to read during the winter. I cancelled our daily Globe subscription. It was a big commitment and I was starting to feel like I should get up earlier just so that I could get through the paper. I am missing it a little but am also slightly relieved. Although I am back to living under a rock status. What's happening out there in the big ol world?

keeping up

2009-10-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

I am still reading like crazy but it has been a jam packed month in other ways as well. I planned and executed Jack's 7th BDay party - Jedi Training camp! , cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving, made a pilgrimage to L.M. Montgomery's home in Leaskdale with my mom and took my in-laws out to see the Sound of Music. I also had a hard stint of knitting in there. It's all or nothing with the knitting - I find it so hard to put down once I'm in the groove. Also, I joined Ravelry, which is a fantastic knitting networking site. Very dangerous.
Smith and the kids brought me breakfast in bed this morning which was the best lemon meringue pie I have ever eaten, from The Lemon Tree Bakery. Wow. Crisp, sweet toasted meringue, creamy lemon filling, crisp short crust. Wow.
I should be out there planting bulbs this morning - purple crocuses and pink tulips, but it is damp and I am feeling a little blah. Speaking of which I think I am going to go and get the kids and myself vaccinated against H1N1 this week. Severe cases are so swift and unpredictable - it seems prudent to vaccinate, for ourselves and others.
I also borrowed my mom's sewing machine and am eager to get started on some curtains and a few sweet dresses for Sal.
And somewhere in all of this, I'm trying to squeak in some time for writing.
Right now, thought, I think I will go and have another piece of that pie. Wow.

what i'm reading

2009-09-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

I have been reading The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo out loud with Jack. We finished it last night. At a very high-stakes, emotional point in the story, the princess puts her hand over her heart. She is preparing to forgive a rat. Jack's hand moved involuntarily over his own little heart. When Mig was reunited with her father, he gave a happy little clap. "Well, I hope she's written more books because that was the best book I've ever read."

Reading with Jack is one of my favourite things in the world, ever.

We are going to read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, also by Miss DiCamillo, next.

Speaking of reading, I am also going to try to use this blog to keep track of... well, everything. But especially reading. I know there are whole websites for this sort of thing and I might around to that sometime soon but I'm going to start here.
Sooo, this week I am consuming (like a fire! I am on fire! Reading books like a crazy lady!), the following books:

Reference

Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market 2007, pub. by Writer's Digest
The Encylclopedia of Writing andIllustrating Children's Books by McCannon, Thornton and Williams, pub. by Running Press, 2008
Back Roads of Ontario Map Book (pub?). I love maps. Very much.

Children's Novels

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (she is so amazing)
A Kind and Gentle Knight by Kit Pearson. Great great great.

Picture Books

Good Night Sam by Marie-Louise Gay. I love Marie-Louise Gay. Their house is always a little bit messy, because they are busy being kids and I find this very endearing.
Pirates Don't Change Diapers by Melinda Long and David Shannon
Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner
Please, Louise by Frieda Wishinsky and Marie-Louise Gay, pub. by Groundwood: well, here is the book I would like to write about Jack and Sal - it has a great twist at the end.
The Trailer Park Princesses by Pete Marlow and Leanne Franson pub. by Annick Press
Some Birthday! by Patricia Polacco
The Art Room by Susan Van de Griek and Pacsal Milelli: about children taking art classes from Emily Carr: Last line/page: "and then went out to see/ with eyes that were wide." Lovely. Reading this with Jack, he said: "I looove these pictures. I wish she could give me art lessons."
Hello Twins by Charlotte Voake pub. by Candlewick. I love Charlotte Voake's Ginger books. So happy to find this one. Another great brother and sister book.

I also have some grown up novels that I'm dying to take a crack at when I have a minute: A Little Stranger by Sarah Waters and The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.

living under a rock

2009-09-17T17:56:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. It has been weeks since I watched or listened to a newscast. You might be kind and imagine that I am getting all of my news of the world from online sources. Or perhaps you assume that I have been reading the newspaper. But, dear reader, this is just not the case. When I am online I am in the tiny soundbite world of Facebook or deep in knitting or writerly blogs. My television time is strictly DVD these days. I gave up several hours of my life last week to Absolutely Fabulous, which I had never seen before and am now totally besotted with. I want to marry Jennifer Saunders and her genius for physical comedy and cringeworthy-yet-lovable characters. But I digress (as usual). I have read a big pile of fiction in the last month and several gorgeous essays and am currently trying to read as many award-winning children's novels as I can lay my hands on. When I am in the car I have been listening to The Good Lovelies and The Weakerthans. I am starting to feel downright irresponsible. Not about listening to fantastic Canadian bands and reading well-crafted children's novels - gosh, that seems rather wholesome, doesn't it? - but about my lack of interest in the greater world. When I say greater, I mean the world outside of my personal sphere of influence.
The next book on my shelf is Thoreau's Walden. My dad loves this book and I have never read it. I'm sure he will have something to say about this sort of thing.
Maybe I will simplify and cleanse during this coming week: bread, water, Thoreau, walks in the forest, paper and pencil only. And the radio tuned to CBC.

(Hmmmm. This is feeling very Bridget Jonesy. Stay tuned for posts about how many times I've checked my Facebook, how many gin and tonics I've consumed, how many home decorating magazines I have "flipped through" and how many episode of Ab FAb Volume 2 I have watched-probably all.)

p.s. sept 21st - facebook: about 50 times, no g & t but large quantities of pie and froot loops and sorry mr. thoreau, i have not cracked Walden once. news: not even going to go there.. but i did subscribe to the Globe and Mail! For which I was admonished to never answer the phone when i am home alone again.

many hats

2009-09-10T10:51:00.000-07:00

I was going to title this post too many hats but I removed the too because I think I handle the many.
So, if anybody is still out there reading this, I am back on again. It's the back-to-school effect. Back on the blog wagon.
After a long, rich summer of travels, nuptuals and hello-agains and farewells (too many farewells for my liking) I feel shook out and ready for some shape and routine.
The kids were delighted to head back to school. They were on Tuesday, anyway. But this morning Sal pitched a fit and reawakened some of my old guilty feelings about full time daycare for her.
I am supply teaching again this year but am relieved to not feel guilt about not doing that full time. According to our accountant, I worked exactly the right amount last year to maximize my financial input for this household. Armed with that, I feel more confidant to plan out a life that includes time for the work I really want to be doing: writing. (Colon or semi-colon there? Help, please.)
Of course, there are still all of the other realms that I am a part of too: mothering, accounting (badly), keeping house, cooking, gardening and making things and hanging out friends and family. I am trying to be pickier about who and what gets my time, which is not easy for me.
I can't wait to start my Nia class again next week and have been entertaining the thought of running again. Well, I have invited this thought over for tea and we have been tossing dates back and forth but have yet to really make it happen.
My house is full of peaches and pears, ripening like so many good intentions. And fruit flies, hovering, like so many doubts and excuses.
Jam will be made, dammit!

to do list-jan 18, 2009

2009-01-18T19:39:00.000-08:00

1. write and illustrate a children's book
2. bake more bread
3. play piano daily
4. make plans to hike the west coast trail
5. make plans to spend my 40th birthday in France
6. tobaggan more often. i love it.
7. start running again.
8. be more gooder.

drawn to the cheeses of kittyness

2009-01-06T18:58:00.000-08:00

I tried bobealia's meme with the fd mosaic maker. Fun. I like the top half best. The bottom half descended into some silliness. It is in fact a fairly accurate visual map of my brain, now that I think about it.

i shirk work

2009-01-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

like everyone i am in denial about getting back to work after the holidays. my hiatus from work was extra long as i spend most of november working on the house. shifting gears is painful. i can't get up and put on my filthy work clothes. again. i actually might have to iron something soon. and i have to blow dry my hair. i don't think i was cut out for working away from home.
perhaps it is time to finally pursue my lifelong dream to wrtie and illustrate children's books. although we do have some bills to pay. guess i will just have to get out the shoe polish and suck it up. i guess the good news is that i am not covered in drywall dust or unnameable demolition garbage. my back and knees do not ache (too badly) and i can feel the ends of my fingertips.
today googirl is extra gooey with a cold so i am home sweet home after a nice and easy half day out in the trenches. the sun is shining which makes everything seem so very fine. the house is quiet except for the tippy tap of keyboards, upstairs and down. i might start to purr...

imagine the sound of a cassette tape on fast forward

2009-01-04T20:27:00.000-08:00

mixed in with the sounds of drills, falling rubble, concrete setting, dust flying, snow lashing the windows, wood warping in the chilly house, lonesome and dark. (do lonesome and dark have a sound?). fast forward again with more banging and sawing and hemming and hawing and toes warming in cold upstairses where i grew up and stews stewing and sanding, sanding, sanding , sanding, sanding, sanding, then much vacumming and gathering up of stuff. Ding, dang, dong - we're BACK! back in the darned ol, fabulous new house.
yeah, i stayed away from the blog a long time. i think it was fear of pretentiousness, fear of this becoming a blog about The Reno That Ate My Brain.
also, lack of high speed internet.
and heck, i was busy!
well, that' s over.

blog post subjects under consideration:

are my kids watching too much tv? (answer: yes)
groups/families - mine
boxing kangaroo pens
road trips i would like to take (this subject inspired by boxing kangaroo pens)
window coverings of my life, past and present
fear
education
fear of education
all-terrain vehicles i would prefer my neighbour didn't own
how i should spend the next ten years of my life
how to be good (nick hornby already wrote a book about this that i didn't like very much but maybe i need to read it again, now that i'm a little older)

june

2008-06-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

i felt that i had to squeeze in a post before june was over to keep up with my blinding post-a-month pace.
i have been on the road a lot, catching up with friends, always feeling like the visits were too short. sweet but not enough.
i have not been obsessing over the drawing board - the house plans have reached a slight hiatus brought on by bureacracy, over, literally, a matter of inches. tomorrow i am going to post a humongous sign on my lawn announcing our intentions and inviting public scrutiny. i am feeling a little self-conscious about it. i think i had imagined a much smaller sign.
people continue to urge us to move rather than renovate but we feel like we are supposed to be here and are counting on the house to come through for us. or at least to survive the onslaught. sorry house. just remember that we love you.
just because i am not currently spending every spare moment sketching and resketching and tracing and measuring does not mean that i am not horribly distracted on a deep level. i realized today that my response time to "hey mom guess what?" is about 6 seconds. a long hmmmmmm?
must wake up. must stay present!

sniptious things

2008-05-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

"Sniptious things for your style", in fact. My favourite junk e-mail subject line to date! I have no idea what they were trying to sell me and erased it before I could find out but now I am wondering about the snip-factor, you know? Maybe that is really what my style needs. Some sniptiousness. Sigh. Missed opportunity number fifty-three thousand and seventeen.

looth tooth

2008-04-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

The dust is pretty thick around here. In truth I have been avoiding this blog like a pile of papers that needs sorting and tending to but which will probably end up in a drawer somewhere. What can I say? I have been doing and making and thinking in three dimensions and the last place I want to be these days is in this little text box! Je m'excuse my sweeties. And I lost my digital camera and the deadwood dvd's just kept on coming in the mail and the laundry, oh god the laundry - nearly two solid months slaving down in the laundry mines!!!!!

Green things are growing and they are not in my fridge. The rhubarb that I transplanted last fall has survived both in its original bed and the new location. This makes me ridiculously happy. Almost as happy as the discovery that Joel Plaskett is playing Mariposa this year. Hot dog! Troutie is shedding like crazy. My brother tells me that he sheds so much because he is fat. Does this make sense? The scooter and the trike are out of the shed and wearing grooves in the sidewalk. Googirl is jealous of monkeyboy's enormous snowboarding/bike helmet. Googirl continues to pee on the pottie with reasonable regularity and great pride. We have paid our taxes and taken the snow tires off of the red car. I am still running but my hips are giving me trouble this week. They feel arthritic...ooo my achin bones. I have been teaching a lot of French lately and, strangely, my french seems to be getting worse. C'est dommage, n'est-ce pas?

But the big news around here is that monkeyboy lost his first tooth on Friday at around 3pm. He spent the remainder of the day sending whispered pleas to the tooth fairy and marvelling at the new architecture of his lower jaw. "Now the air doesn't have to go between the cracks of my teeth to get to my tongue - it can just swoosh right in!". He keeps asking me to look and see if his new tooth is coming in yet. I have an excellent little sarah apple pop-open wallet with a sad baby fairy on it that I wrecked the spring on that has found a new purpose as the tooth fairy wallet. The tooth fairy pays big bucks these days - two whole dollars! And let him keep his tooth besides! (On account of it being his first one, as she explained in her very messy reply note. Monkeyboy's note: "Hi TooTh FaiRy Look my 1ST tooTh"). He has a little lisp now that just makes smith and i melt.

neglectful, I

2008-03-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

It is officially spring. Hey dinga ding. And a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no. The forecast for tomorrow holds snow. Yes, snow.

Am I allowed to complain? I who have spent eight days out of the last snow packed, frigid month in Bermuda, sweet warm Bermuda, with sand in my toes and green grass all around? Thank you to Sylv, the hostess with the mostess, for that respite.

The Vacation in Not-So Brief:
Get up at 3am, -24 outside, drive, fly, land, head immediately to beach,eat beautiful beet soup by Sylv and go to bed early.
Day 2: A long walk along the rail trail with Sylv's friend Zeudie. Then to Gibb's Hill Lighthouse with Ron the super charming, nattily dressed cab driver for stair climbing, view viewing and yummy lunch with pots of tea. Managed to spill a full pitcher of milk all over. Horseshoe Bay for the afternoon with Teresa and her beautiful girls. Jack flew his new kite. Sal got wet and chattered her teeth. Smith ignored the signs and climbed high on dangerous rocks with Sal to wave at us down on the beach. Saw a huge parrotfish swimming in the shallows, flashing emerald. Drove up the hill to Tio Pepe's where we drank Sangiovese and ordered a bit of everything ("Finally, people who know how to eat"; Teresa). Ate, ate, ate while the kids ran wild, crawling under the table and dancing to themselves in the cloudy mirrored wall. Drove home (Sal on my lap again - freaky!) for more play and bath.
Day 3: Dockyards with Teresa after lunch. Sylv took Smith on her scooter. Wandered through the glassworks and Sylv's favourite gallery (with 4 kids in tow - brave weren't we?) then past the grumpy gatekeeper to see the dolphins being fed. Jack and Aimee taking turns snapping with my camera and Sylv's. Great pictures of course.We meandered through the museum but spent most of the time playing airplanes in the irresistable wide green common. We stayed on for dinner at the pub and waited a long time in the cold evening breeze for a bus. A couple was kissing in the bus shelter so we didn't go in. Jack is exhilarated by his first bus ride through the night. Sylv meets us at the stop with the running stroller - she has gone on ahead with her scooter and we carefully make our way along the rail trail in the dark with lots of reassurances for Jack.
Day 4: 11am -My birthday present from Sylv - a 90 minute massage from an incredibly gifted Sri Lankan woman, who Sylv calls "The Hands of God". We stop to buy groceries on the way home - all of the vegetables look bionic to me. Sylv says this is not the norm. For three big paper bags of groceries the bill is $187. !! We head home for a relaxed afternoon of arts and crafts. Late that night, Smith and I sit on the lawn and listen to the tree frogs.
Day 5: Took the ferry over to town. Coffee in the park and then home again for lunch and several clothing changes before heading to the Aquarium. Instead of Harbourfront for dinner we end up staying at Teresa's, playing Wii and getting take out sushi and pizza from The Specialty Inn. The kids were very happy to just get down on the floor and play - lots of new toys for Jack and Sal.
Day 6: A good run this morning, Smith and Sal following along. Sylv runs errands while we head to Church Bay Beach. Lots of big rolling waves and wind but the air is the warmest it has been all week. Sylv eventually joins us and we stay for hours. A painter sets up his easel and works for most of the afternoon. On the way back up from the beach, Sylv recognizes him as her favourite Bermudian painter - the first time she has met him in the 9 years she has lived there. Smith's favourite day. Later that night, I am falling asleep on the couch so Sylv and I hatch a plan to scoot over to the grocery store and buy chocolate cake. Ken comes home from hunting in Florida with a turkey in his cooler. We sit at the kitchen counter in our pj's and visit.

Day 7 : Runaround in town day - busy sorting things for Sylv's birthday. Head to the Underwater Institute by bus - Sal naps on the way. We love the Shell Room. Beware the Poisonous Gastropods! I love learning that only two people have ever been to the deepest part of the ocean (More people have gone to the moon and scaled Everest). Go to Rosa's for lunch - TexMex, right across from the freight docks full of containers, visit Sylv at work, then order flowers for Sylv's birthday. I manage to knock over a large vase full of water at the florist's. People say hi to Jack wherever we go: "Hey young one." "Hello little man". "Hey small one. How are you?" He never responds right away. He needs time to see his way into a conversation. We grab another excellent coffee from the frenchman at the Lemon Tree and race to catch the ferry over to Dockyard to get Sylv's birthday present, a painting by the man we saw at Church Bay. We find a perfect one of figures running along a beach, entitled Winter Sunshine. Then the bus and home again, home again. My turn to cook dinner - good old carbonara standby.

Day 8: The beach. The fabulous beach. Take the bus to Elbow. Stay until the snacks have run out and we are hungry. Then walk up to the Paraket to sit on stools at the bright green counter to eat burgers and drink milkshakes. Wait for the bus at the pole planted perilously close to the road. I sit on the rock wall and fear for my kneecaps while Smith entertains the kids on some nearby grass. (Grass -it was so good to see grass!) Ian calls with the news that it is snowing in Texas. Sylv and Ken bring home Indian for dinner. Mmmmmmmm. One last walk to the secret beach. Can see the lighthouse flashing out and around, out and around. We all stand around in the driveway for a while looking up at the million stars. We check the weather forecast for Toronto. More bloody snow. We hope for delays that might keep us here longer.
Last day: No such luck. Smith and I head to West Whale for one last dip. Then home to snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow like crazy cakes all over the darn place.

goo girl speaks up

2008-02-21T18:30:00.000-08:00

boooots! booooots!
amo? amo? amo? amo? amo? amo? amo?
NO. NO.NO.
hi gittie. gittiegittiegittiegittiegittie! hi poonie. mrow!mrow!mrow! mrow!
moon.
uh-oh. hhhhock. hhhhhhock. (meaning, i've left my sock in my boot)
chakie! chakie! hiiiieeeee chackie!
cheese? cheese?
MMMMMooooooooooooooo! (meaning i want to nurse NOW)

yes, you are

2008-02-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

Today I taught a Gr. 1/2 class.

I asked "Who here is an artist?".

They ALL put up their lovely lovely lovely lovely lovely lovely hands.

It made my day.

fashionlistess

2008-01-30T17:47:00.000-08:00

My first thought today when I didn't get called for any jobs was "Hey, since I won't be workin again til Monday, I don't really have to change my clothes for a few days". And the little warning light in my head didn't really go on until just now.

I blame it on not having any sisters to say "What the hell have you got on woman." (My brother used to do that job but it made me just want to punch his head. Sorry Jim.)

And also,winter. I hate being cold so much that I will sacrifice style for warmth in an instant. I know, know, I don't have to but I have a bag lady layering instinct. It makes me feel like...a real version of me. This makes so much gut sense when I clown. The layers of clothing are not just layers of clothing, they are my heart.

Take heart dear reader, I promise to change my clothes tomorrow and the next day. (At very least, my socks and undies). I also promise not to wear my jeans and a black shirt. Again. For you, I wear something a little crazy, hey? Like a tree growing out of my wrist and a bird's nest bonnet. And some big boots. I will make an effort to wear my heart. Not my mood. My heart.

Yeahhh, take that January!

running and rom

2008-01-25T17:59:00.000-08:00

i am taking a learn to run clinic. i am into my second week (run 2 minutes walk 1) and although my dilettante nature is tugging hard at my elbow I am really trying hard not to rush out and and buy a bunch of cool looking high-tech running clothes. but i really want to! i am worried that i like looking athletic more than being athletic. so i am going to try to stick it out in my stretched-out yoga pants, ski-mitted, husband's massive hoodie look and focus on the things i like about running.

5 things i like about running:
1. being alone
2. being outside
3. running
4. being alone
5. being outside

i also went to the ROM this week with monkeyboy and googirl and was extremely disappointed by the new renovation. on the inside the crystal felt awkward and wierd, as though they had just put up a bunch of strange slanty drywall to hide other construction that was going on. i had to take the stroller up the elevator which took me through the old entryway rotunda. it has classical proportions, big marble pillars and a very flashy gold mosaic on ceiling, all of which reminded me of eating ice-cream with vickie in vienna.
my favourite part of the new renovation is the family restaurant in the basement. (which was good because we spent most of the visit there) it was clean, open, modern, big multipaned windows, a space i wanted to be in. in truth, nothing affects my opinion of a space like good food.
the dinosaurs are back too and it was not too difficult to get excited with monkeyboy over the size of the t-rex and the prehistoric sea-turtle.

back in the saddle

2008-01-14T15:47:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I did it. Got my whistle and my yard duty boots on and took a job covering a Gr. 6/7 class. It was a good day for it: a snowy Monday. The kids were all still pretty relaxed from the weekend, I had a great EA in for the morning. But God help me I could not remember any of the arguments that the Patriots had for independance! I am a very quick study with names which always seems to impress and freak out the kids. In a good way. I think it makes them feel as though I actually see them. Although I always end up calling someone by the wrong name repeatedly, either the really high-strung one who freaks out at me whenever I do it or the quiet one who doesn't have the nerve to correct me. Today it was the quiet one and although I called her by the wrong name at least 20 times, it was usually to praise her. I don't know how Meg and Kelly (sorry, Roland) keep it straight in their classroom in Korea where all the kids have new English names, just for school. Crazy.
Anyway, it felt good to be out there again.

crappy jobs that I seem to be missing

2008-01-10T17:47:00.000-08:00

My current struggle with returning to work after an 18 month hiatus (thank you googirl) seems to be stirring up deep feelings of nostalgia for my old retail jobs. Jobs where I got to work crummy hours for even crummier pay in the employ of slightly (sometimes very) batty folks. What is there to miss? I worked retail for a long time. Granted, it was the best kind of retail - a record store and a used book store and NOT your shiny happy mall record and book stores but independant, old school storefronts, jam packed to the rafters, grotty around the edges, hand written label kind of places where people liked to linger. I got to do mindless menial tasks like straightening shelves, pricing, vacumming, data entry, stapling posters to the wall. And I got to have long conversations with strangers about music and books. At both jobs I got to listen to music all day, usually my choice. I think that is what I am nostalgic for. Solitude and good tunes.

Here follows a list of jobs where the listening was good.

1. My first job for my Dad who was a land surveyor. I worked alone in a second floor office in a red brick building on the corner of Elizabeth and First St. The air reeked of ammonia from the blue line printer. I drafted plans while listening to CBC - Peter Gzowski in the morning and Vicky Gabereau in the afternoon. Still a CBC addict.

2. Dish pig - Camp Kitchi, Beausoleil Island. God, I loved this job. Having never been to camp as a kid I was thrilled to be there even though it meant twelve to fourteen hours of rinsing, pulling the lever down on the Hobart, getting calluses on my hands from the scorching hot melamine. It was a big old wooden kitchen with windows hinged at the top. When it got too hot we yelled "Kitchen Dip!" and ran off the end of the dock in all our clothes. We listened to Cowboy Junkies - Black Eyed Man, Crash Test Dummies - Ghosts that Haunt Me, Barenaked Ladies, Moxy Fruvous and Laurie Anderson. Pop Quiz - 10 points if you can name that year.

3. Building giant puppets. We spent the first month of the summer building and rehearsing in a little old church just north of Queen St. I ate a roti almost every day for lunch. Potato and spinach. I spent the days up to my elbows in wallpaper paste, listening to Nirvana Unplugged-Live in New York, Hildegard Von Bingen, Ani Difranco, Alanis Morrisette - Jagged Little Pill.
Pop Quiz Part B - Again, name the year for ten points.

4. Record shop. List of albums too large to type here. Okay, highlights: Black Grape, Liz Phair, Rough Guide to Hawaii and Space Capades but Phil had to be there, Wilco's first album, Diana Krall's Nat King Cole tribute album, Lou Reed, Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball, Fugees, Eva Cassidy, Billy Bragg, PJ Harvey-Bring You My Love, Gram Parsons, ok it goes on and on. Sigh.

I was going to include my current stint as mom-at-home but I realized that smith's job is perfectly suited to good listening. I sometimes catch the fringe benefits of it on my way past to the laundry room or as I sweep in to retrieve a too-boisterous monkey boy or goo-girl but that's it really. I did get to witness monkeyboy's searing Queen sing-along this afternoon. "Can any-bod-ee faheeeeennnd meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee sumbuddy to love!"

homeday

2008-01-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

Things I have done so far today: got out of bed, fed Sal, got back into bed and slept a little longer (which makes the whole day off to a fabulous start already), dressed, groomed and bundled the children, kept them both in good moods through the very blustery walk to school, dropped Sal off with no fuss (again!!!) - she practically ran in with hardly a backward glance, was not totally socially awkward during Jack's drop off, gave Smith a pep talk, made bread, put away the Christmas decorations, washed the cat pee out of the kitchen rug, ate a healthy lunch and now am doing a fabulous job of procrastinating when I should be doing accounting.
Things I have not done today: Gone to work! Gosh, no local schools called, only far away ones. For the first time I am relieved about my temporary driving ban.

I am really into making bread this week. This is my second batch this week - whole wheat this time around - it is looking a little dense. I like everything about it: short ingredients list, whapping the dough around, getting my hands all gloopy, shaping the loaves ( I don't use pans, I just make little round loaves on a stone), the waiting time and of course the smell.

signs

2008-01-08T19:12:00.000-08:00

Today's message from the universe: two postcards found in our copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos while searching for a quote about farts. One postcard is from Trinidad and Tobago and the other is a postcard of a deep Scottish lake.

We dragged monkeyboy to swimming lessons today. I watched from the observation benches as he clung to a post and refused to enter the water. He remained scrunched up and miserable for the whole lesson. Poor guy. I am having the same feeling about going back to work. I know I have to do it but I don't wanna! The good news is that if I know monkey boy, I know he will probably be sweet-talking his teacher and showing off by next week. I hope I can demonstrate the same resiliency.

I am supposed to be ready to go to work tomorrow if I get called. And so, perversely, I want to stay up really, really late, watching movies and eating junk food. If I don't get work for tomorrow, I plan to drop the kids off at school and then go and walk a hundred miles, at least.

I am also supposed to be preparing for an audition. Holy crap. I hate auditions. But I like what can come from them so it is a necessary evil. And it is Shakespeare which I don't really feel built for, except for the clowns. Ahg - nervousness and knee shaking.

On a final note, thanks to the universe for sending me several great visits with several great women over the past week. Wow, wow, wow, wow,wow. How lucky can one girl be?

procrastination, resolutions, blessings, etc.

2008-01-02T17:46:00.000-08:00

2007 was a good year in this house. I say in this house, because this is where I spent most of my days, with the kids and smith, and although I am feeling a little cabin fevery at the moment, the cabin has mostly been a sweet, cozy place of content. This year could very well have been the best of my life so far in its understated and unambitious golden fuzziness. But I feel the need to stand up and shake. To make 2008 a year of adventure and forward movement. The number itself feels good to me - very round, bouncy, resilient and astonished.

I was considering making an extreme resolution this year like No Plastic for a year, or Eat Only the 100 Mile Diet, or Talk Only to Strangers. But I really just want to try to be a good person. Who drinks more water. Eats right. Is active. Is politically aware and involved. Is pro-human. Has good hair. Teaches her children good manners and how to read music. Doesn't buy any more wool until the stash is empty. Who plays more music, actually practises her good old piano. Sees a little more of the world - in an environmentally responsibly manner, if possible. Who never throws out perfectly good food and saves every milkbag. Who never procrastinates. Who visits her grandmother more and grows a vegetable garden and doesn't blog or knit when her kids are pulling at her elbow. Who acts, writes, directs, and dances. Who finally gets to go to Clown Boot Camp on Manitoulin Island. Who goes to East Coast to see old friends. Who goes to the West Coast to see old friends. Who dances more. Who has a least one fantabulous conversation over a glass of wine with each of the people I love and admire the most. Who loves her family as much and as hardly (Bobcageon definition of hardly, as in really, really, really) good as they deserve to be loved. Writes daily. Spends more time in big open spaces of intense natural beauty. Who knows each day and names it. Who learns to keep it simple.

To quote Mr. Anton Chekhov:
"We shall find peace, we shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds."

Happy New Year.

iron jenny bonney

2007-12-17T18:37:00.000-08:00

Did I mention that I was a birthday party pirate about a month ago? Yes, it is what you think. I dressed up as a pirate and led a bunch of 10 year old boys on a treasure hunt. I know it sounds sort of cheesy and horrible but I had a blast.
First of all I got my Halloween dress-up fix at last. I unearthed all of the favourite costumey bits I have squirrelled away and wore them all at the same time (pirates like to layer). It's funny that dressed up as a pirate was the most glamourous I've felt in ages but it felt great to put on the layers of heavy, full skirts, the cinching belt and vest, a big blousy shirt, rings on every finger, ratty gloves and a sleek silk kerchief. And I wore make-up for the first time in a long time. Alright it was brown eyeshadow smooched across my face and knuckles but it still required some preening time in front of a mirror. I admit I felt a little self-conscious toting my lantern along the subdivision sidewalk. Methought my coin belt jangled a wee bit too much but I tried to swallow my nerves and look tough.
And it rocked! 10 year old boys are not afraid to admit that they are having fun. My cousin (the mom) had devised a devilishly intricate hunt that took us two hours! We got to tear through the park after dark looking for clues! We got to dig up the back yard! I got to talk like a pirate all night! And now! I get to write about it ! using many exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monkeyboy takes his mother's silliness very seriously.

this one's for meg!

2007-12-17T18:22:00.000-08:00

*surprise!
*because you are thirty-two now
*because I forgot your birthday
*because I know you peek in here now and again and hoped you might be pleased by your own personal birthday message post - Ta Dah! - even though it is a week late and there is no excuse for that.

So,

Song for a Tall Brown Haired Gal (sung to the tune of your choosing but make it snappy)

(p.s. imagine the bracketed bits are back-up singer bits)

She like to siiiiiing
A lot. (want to start a church of singing)

She wear her birthday bli-ing
To clean the house. (ooo la la tiara)

She teaching Eng-
-Lish in Korea. (why why why teacher why?)

She wishin she could fliiing
A snowball. (poof. thud.)

She cool! (she cool) She funny! (so funny) She thoughtful! (full of thought) She a honey! (yah!)
Yah!
Yah!
Yah!
Yah!

Mmmmmmmmwah.

stitchhead

2007-12-14T08:12:00.000-08:00

The month-long hiatus. Yeah. I know. Bad. But I have been knitting. Productively. Actually finishing projects that actually fit the people they were intended for. HaveI done a bad thing by making monkeyboy a knitty addict as well? He actually climbed up into my lap this morning while I was (quickly) checking my email and said, "Hey Ma, let's look at some knitting!" (italics his). I kid you not.
So my current mess looks somethings like this. Snow melt and mud by the front door obscured by piles of bootshatsmittsscarvessnowpants. Dining table covered by Christmas gifts, wrapping stuff from last year that I want to reuse, half-addressed cards, bags of pinecones, The Trumpet of the Swan (our new chapter book) and a pile of ironing. Kitchen counter covered by good intentions ingredients (I keep meaning to get to some Christmas baking...) and dirty dishes (as usual.) Coffee table covered by upturned laundry hamper/kitty cage, goo-girl's beloved board books and broken crayons. The tree is coming in this weekend so soon all of this will also be covered by the ubiquitous, prickly spruce needle. And more snow. Monkey boy is addicted to Fraggle Rock and googirl just wants to keep changing her outfit and climbing up on chairs. And spinning on little rugs. A very good time.
Smith is cranking out the orders back there, lord love him.
I have to go back to work in a few weeks. I am ignoring this.
Monkeyboy and I are working on a big snow-sculpture of Herbie the Love Bug. We are just in the planning stages now.
Last night I went out for dinner for Willy's birthday. A New Zealand feast. I have always said that I hated lamb but I was wrong, so wrong.

be hopeful

2007-11-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

Both of these have been moving around my house for the last couple of years, either taped up inside my kitchen cupboards or stuck on a my junk board. I thought that typing them out again and sending them into the blogosphere would be a good meditation, a good remembrance.

Discourse on Good Will

May all beings be filled with joy and peace.
May all beings everywhere,
The strong and the weak,
The great and the small,
The mean and the powerful,
The short and the long,
The suble and the gross:

May all beings everywhere,
Seen and unseen,
Dwelling far off or nearby,
Being or waiting to become:
May all be filled with lasting joy.

Let no one deceive another,
Let no one our of anger or resentment
Wish suffering on anyone at all.

Just as a mother with her own life
Protects her child, her only child, from harm,
So within yourself let grow
A boundless love for all creatures.

Let your love flow ourward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.

Then, as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.

(from the Sutta Nipata of The Buddha)

Now, When the Waters Are Pressing Mightily

Now, when the waters are pressing mightily
on the walls of the dams,
now, when the white storks, returning
are transformed in the middle of the firmament
into fleets of jet planes,
we will feel again how strong are the ribs
and how vigorous is the warm air in the lungs
and how much daring is needed to love on the
exposed plain,
when the great dangers are arched above,
and how much love is required
to fill all the empty vessels
and the watches that stopped telling time,
and how much breath,
a whirlwind of breath,
to sing the small song of spring.

-Yehuda Amichai
translated from the Hebrew by Leon Wieseltier

my life in the snowbelt begins again

2007-11-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

Looking out at the whiteness I remember now why I was so eager to drive my face off for the last six months, going places and visiting people. Because now begins the long stretch of limited and unpredictable vehicular mobility. And getting out of the house with two babes is now going to require two hours of prep time instead of the usual twenty minutes. Goo girl is happy about the whole thing. I'm not sure if I am going to be able to get her snowpants off her ever again. She looooooooooooves them. BIG PANTS! And there will be a puddle inside my front door for the next four or five months that I will always step in, with little wet sock trails leading away from it. And various wet woolen and nylon things hung off of doorknobs and chair backs and spread out in front of heat sources. And bills for said heating sources. And (more) mice coming in for the winter. Note to mice: I know I loved you when I was a kid, rescued you from cats, made you little shoebox houses, then elaborate gravesites when the shoebox thing didn't work out, even though I am reading The Rescuers out loud to monkeyboy, don't think that I haven't changed, inherited my mother's ruthlessness with rodents and things wild that invade my house. Fair warning.
Hey speaking of rodents (for those who can't stand rodents and haven't already been put off by talk of mice, quit reading now...) we went out for Chinese food on Saturday night, before heading out to see the Sadies at the Horseshoe Tavern (which requires it own whole post). We were cozied away in the back room, had just ordered soup and beer when - Ta Da! El Rato! Making a complete and frenzied tour of the room! We laughed. They moved us to the front room (rats don't like the street view?). We stayed and ate - the food was so good, we got drunk on Tsing Tao - although I did experience a full twitch and body shudder and make a "gahhh" noise every time my scarf brushed my cheek or someone's foot touched mine under the table.
It is starting to snow again...

hallowasn't

2007-11-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna make this short and snappy because I realize I am missing out on real live social time with smith to be here in cyber space with you (it's not that I don't love you but just sometimes it feels kinda wierd, you know?).
I just realized that this year, the first in my thiry five, I did not dress up for Halloween. I did have a Halloween headress on at some point, one of those headbands with little bats on antennaes and some feathers and glitter thrown in for good measure, but I'm pretty sure I was just wearing it because I was sick of stepping over it in the kitchen. And I was wearing black and orange socks. But really, how pathetic is that for someone who loves to dress up so much that she devoted a large portion of her life to doing it professionally? (I know there is more to acting but I can't tell you how much I loooooooved the dress up part). On the up side I could wax gooey about a certain wiry little bespectacled guy and a very bossy little giraffe who insisted on wearing her rubber boots but I am heading for outer space, i.e. the TV room and parts adjacent.

soup factory

2007-10-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

So, last week I made soup. Buckets and buckets of it. And I am still not sick of it. Good thing becuase the weather is gettin nothin but colder. Drove through some snow yesterday on my way home from my weekend off in the city ("The city", as though it were the only one...)

Beets! Look at these darn things! Bottom photo is the white and yellow beets after they were peeled - they looked like a sunset-the top photo is of the beets just out of the oven, sort of scabby and homely looking before the Cinderella effect of peeling them. The fuschia beets went into a big pot of borscht. (front L burner).
And here is the recipe! (It is my Babka's and she is Ukrainian so I don't need to tell you that it is a darn fine borsht. She spells it Borsch. ?)

Babka's Borsch(t)

1 medium onion diced
1/2 cup green peas
1/2 cup potato, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
1/4 fresh dill, chopped (VERY IMPORTANT)
2 tsp salt or to taste
2 Tbsp lemon juice or vinegar
1 cup or more cream (also good without but....)
1 few fresh garlic leaves if available, chopped
1/2 cup broad beans or fresh green beans diced
8-10 small to medium beets with stalks and leaves
5-8 cups of water or stock of any kind (I usually just use water and it is very tasty).

Wash and peel beets. Rinse leaves and stalks well. Dice beets and put in a large soup pot and water or stock. Bring to a boil and let simmer 10 minutes. Then add all other vegetables, including diced beet stalks. Keep leaves aside for now and add about 5 minutes before other vegetables are cooked. Do not overcook the vegetables. Remove from heat and season to taste with S & P. Add cream and stir gently. Serve with a spring of dill (or lots, chopped) and a dollop of sour cream or a swirl of heavy cream floating on top. Serves 6-8 people.
The back burner was a potato and leek soup - Julia Child's out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And the rest of my fridge cleanup went into a pot of cheesy cauliflower soup with parsley dumplings on top. And here is that recipe, my mom's:

Golden Cauliflower Soup
3 carrots, diced
2 ribs of celery, diced fine
medium onion, chopped
1 small head of cauliflower chopped up smallish
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1 1/4 cups shredded cheddar
2 cups milk

Ina Dutch oven, melt the butter and cook a medium onion chopped up till tender. Sprinkle flour over this and blend well. Stir in milk and cook stirring constantly till thickened. Pour in the stock and veggies and turn to simmer. Salt and pepper to taste. Drop Parsley Dumplings by teaspoon into soup (recipe below). Cover tightly and cook over low heat for 20 minutes. Then gently stir shredded cheese into the soup until melted. Serve hot - full meal deal.

Parsley Dumplings (I loooooooooooooooooves dumplings)

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp oil
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cups milk
2 Tbsp fresh parsley or 1 tbsp dried

Stir together dry ingredients. Add parsley. Combine milk and oil and add to dry ingredients all at once and stir only until flour is moistened. Plop spoonfuls into soup! (see above).

in which we take a detour

2007-10-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

We dropped my sister-in-law off at the airport yesterday which I was a little sad about because we had such a nice weekend. Monkeyboy is crazy about her. She kept his little mailbox full of fun games for him to play with his cars, bought him coke for breakfast and let him snuggle up with her in the mornings. Good auntie.
We parked up high on the roof at the airport so we could see planes landing. It was so beautiful that smith thought we should take the slow route home and maybe stop at the mcmichael gallery. Which we did. There was an art sale on and the Robert Bateman exhibit so it was a zoo but we had paid our 5 bucks for parking so we stuck it out. And in spite of crowds and line ups and a googirl on the edge we had a good time. We even lined up and waited to get in to see the Bateman exhibit which we debated skipping but I was glad that we didn't. His paintings are beautiful, detailed and luminous. Monkeyboy's fave was Salt Spring Sheep. Baaaaaaaa. He was better behaved than some of the 50 year olds I saw, poking away at the canvasses. I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying "Stop that! You're grownups for god's sake! Even my five-year old can tell me that you're not supposed to touch the art!" We also spend a good chunk of time checking out the Tom Thompson room. Monkeyboy said "He does water REALLY good." And most of the Group of Seven paintings "remind me of my Uncle W!" Googirl really dug the Totem Poles and the a big stone polar bear carving: "kittycat!".
Today I am going to attempt to cook up the fifty pounds of vegetables that have taken over my fridge. Soup anyone?

in progress

2007-10-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

The red square hat sans boings.

The extra large toque with lumpy star for Chef Nikos.

The beginning of scratchy acrylic scarf. I so love the colours of this yarn but it is so cheap and plasticky that it squeaks. I am knitting it on the ultra beautiful birthday needles from pippa to make it feel better.

in which we are tardy, again

2007-10-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

Goodness, it is already the 20th of October. Shame on me. I am going to take a page out of Bobealia's blog and do a week at a glance thing to try to get back up to speed.
I will go move backwards in time. (cue soundtrack -something Space Capade-ey).
Tonight: spent most of the day rustling up a robot costume for monkeyboy to wear to a birthday party tonight. Thank god my crafty and talented sister-in-law was here to whip up a silver jumpsuit. We drew circuits and a control panel on with a sharpie and monkeyboy took great delight in adding "a bumhole!" which we labeled "Disposal Unit". I spray painted some water shoes gold (thinking, will the toxins leak into his little feet? so paranoid) and stuck some google eyes and strobe blinkers from the corner store on an old colander which i lined with foam for comfort. The level of comfort should not have been a concern since an overwhelmed and exhausted monkeyboy wore his costume for exactly 5 minutes. Because I told him he could take it off for the rest of the night if he wore it for at least 5 minutes.
Me: Auntie worked so hard on this costume, she will be sad if you don't wear it for at least 5 minutes. If you wear it for 5 minutes, you can take it off for the rest of the night"
Monkeyboy: Ok. 5 minutes, ONLY.
Me: Ok, now go show it to your cousins. (I am shameless).
Monkeyboy will only show the costume to people who come into the hall to see him.
Monkey boy (every 30 seconds): Is it 5 minutes yet?

On the way home, we realize that we have left one of the strobe blinkers on the counter. Monkeyoy loses it and insists that we turn around to retrieve it. I am merging on the really big messy part of the 401 right before the 400, swathed in by 12 lanes of traffic, not really into pulling a U-ey. So, there is great sadness in the Hyundai. Googirl gets in on the scream scene. I am tired and bitter and turn up the Elvis Costello, singing "I Want You" which I find outrageously sexy most of the time but which now only serves to deepen Monkeyboy's despair.

Luckily, at home there is lots of scotch and marshmallows and a lovely sister-in-law to have a good laugh with at the end of the evening.

Thursday: Dizzy. Feeling dizzy, naseous, thinking it is the flu. I know it is probably just low iron but can't help indulging in morbid fanatasies of some exotic, tragic ailment. Things seem to clear up with a cup of mint tea and several chapters of "Julie and Julia". Which is strange considering that she discusses cooking offal for most of the book. Googirl is working hard on cutting some more teeth. Needs a lot of carting around, which is unusual for her, busy bee that she is.

Wednesday: Got monkeyboy off to kindergarten, reluctantly. We are late, again. In spite on the handy dandy new clock radio/CD alarm we got him for his birthday. We are late and have to sign in at the office which monkeyboy hates. Made a list, packed googirl into the car and set about crossing things off of the list. Run over to school for teacher interview after school - Jack is doing great- he is reading! he is counting! he is running errands around the school! he loves library! he want to learn to write stories! although he does this weird, nervous, swishing his finger around and around in his mouth the whole time his teacher is talking to him. Smith and monkeyboy went to see "Queen Live in Montreal" at the movies while I knit up a storm finishing an extra large hat wool hat with a star motif (fancy! lumpy!) for Chef Nikos last year's birthday prezzie and starting a nice chunky square cap with boings from a pattern I found on knitty (looooooove knitty) and a scarf out of some really nasty cheap Red Heart acrylic that had a beautiful color mix that i couldn't resist. I also have a big crocheted shawl on the go. As with most of my life, too much on the go, but I like to have options. Have good long talk on phone with beautiful friend.

Tuesday: Quiet day at home. Date night with smith in pm - see Micheal Clayton - love Tilda Swinton. Love George Clooney. Especially love oh god what's his name, the crazy guy Tom Wilkinson.

Monday: Monday? Oh yeah, the day that laundry ate.

me new career!

2007-09-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

I have just edited my profile and you will all be pleased to learn (as i was, upon posting it) that I am entering the Accounting industry in Afghanistan.
New beginnings indeed.
Perhaps this is the vision of the woman with coins at her feet that the psychic pointed out.

not sleeping OR that damn house

2007-09-30T21:12:00.001-07:00

I am not sleeping because that damn house sold. That damn house that we have been so speculative/daydreamy/hem-hahy about has done bin sold. So onward, right? frig. and blast. and #@$%!klj$*&#@. I will not be getting those four weeks of headspace back but!!!!!!!! it is October. October the best month of the year!!!!! Has anyone seen my Dylan Thomas book? frig. and blast. and fuckity fuck. It has done gone missing just when I wanted to share me favourite poem about October (especially for those with October birthdays). October, October OOOOOOOOOOOO!
Death.
New beginnings.
And a dentist's appointment at 1 pm.

buncha sickies

2007-09-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

We are all descending into plague land. Monkey boy was the first to fall victim since he is back at the germ-factory known as Senior Kindergarten. Googirl is definitely living up to her nickname but it hasn't slowed her down. She is a super-duper stander upper but still prefers the scoot. And smith is stricken. And grumpy about it. I am just waiting for the ax to fall, laying in supplies and getting things done while the going is good. I have broken out the sticks and string and am trying to plow through my knitter's block, finishing about the bajillion little projects that I've started over the last few months. I am not allowed to bring any more yarn into the house until my stash is cleared out a bit. It's a good thing that the colder weather is here. The moon is waning too, a good time to be finishing things up, I think. Fall is here! (Monkey boy likes to count the days - yesterday he lay down on the lawn, sighed and said "Second day of fall") My most favorite and melancholy season.

limbo lee la la la

2007-09-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in my dining room - well, I call it a dining room but it is really just a too big table squished between the couch and the piano. Sitting between a bouquet of droopy roses from the bombastic bush along my back fence and a pile of litter that includes a stuffed bison, a bag of "goose droppings" (actually chocolate covered raisins), a tiny pumpkin, notes to self written on the back of unpaid bills ("note to self: pay bills"), 10 dinky cars, a paperback, a big fat yellow measuring tape and a very large letter O. Typing. Thinking of my two favourite words right now, which are: "slacker" and "laundress". They seem to typify my life at the moment.
Is anybody else out there having facebook burnout? I am. Also having laundress burnout. And slacker burnout. Am ready to be productive and energetic anti-laundress. Here's to dirt! And studied dishevellment! Finely tuned and muscularly executed wrinkling! Yeah! Take that entropy!

extended mat leave

2007-09-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

it's true. i am not back at work yet. i will work when goo girl walks. so has her daycare decreed, due to licensing changes. can't say that i am overly anxious for her to walk. not that there is any danger of that since she has perfected the scoot and is breaking land-speed records for bum travel.

222222

2007-09-02T21:42:00.000-07:00

This was the odometer reading on the red car for a brief period between Gooderham and Irondale this evening. smith and i watched it until it clicked over to 222223. (the road was straight and true, don't worry)
labour day always feels like new years day to me. like something hanging in that clear september light, shimmering before it clicks over into the new rush and busyness of september. (september light - wow! it is the best - i want to swim in it, throw apples up into it!)
i have been feeling melancholy and elated for the past couple of days. we are thinking about buying this wreck of a house on this lot situated squarely on my left ventricle. (is that where the heart beat impulse issues from? forgive my hack anatomy). and i am trying to just lay back and let things fly and not get toooooo excited or tooo dissapointed or too anything. my horoscopes advise me to recognize that I am maybe missing some important other issue (hmmm, going back to work, maybeeeeeeee?) by getting caught up in this. And also to get some blessed, soul-restoring sleep.
Damn you cyberspace - you keep me awake! (just one more set of brackets, i can't help it).
Good night lovelies.

Peoples was gettin' DOWN!

2007-08-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

I spent over twenty hours on the road, between Wednesday night and Friday night in pursuit of a Black Crowes concert in Northampton, Massachusetts. (NO KIDS!) What a great couple of days. Got to spend hours in a car chatting with a very fun, intelligent couple who we don't get to see enough of. Stayed at a lovely B&B so close to the park that we could hear the sound check from our bathroom window. Got to spend hours drinking, dancing and yelling "Whooooooooo-hooooooooo!", also with said couple at The Pines Theatre. Here is a link to some footage of a Wilco concert there - you get a great sense of the initmacy of the place. Imagine us down in the front row, close enough to spit on Chris Robinson (who looked ancient and coked out but man, he can give 'er):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJT82bjDQqo
Suzanne had a long spontaneous conversation in the washroom "It's good to be back". In America, a land where people talk to each other.
Our first stop in Massachusets was of course a gas station/McCafe complex thingie but there was a farmers market stand right out in front of the MacDonalds! Fresh local blueberries, eggplant, chard, peaches, organic garlic and more more more! And a big pile of cool fresh juicy apples glowing with a nimbus of just-pickedness. Fresh! Macs! Not last years apples! God they were good.
Then we stopped for lunch at a greasy little roadside joint. The beer was cold, the food was piled high and the conversation was of great books, heavy on the CanCon. We felt like had arrived.
After the concert - which was over by 9:30 (is this not a dream vacation for an almost 35 year old mother of two? crazy but not toooooo crazy)- we rolled down to a pizza joint operated by a Turkish family - Morgan kept asking them for Turkish words and I just couldn't get my head around them - Meg - I need some lessons.
The next morning we slept in - sweet hallelujah - and then went for breakfast at the Cup and Top Cafe in Florence. Yummah! Local suppliers! Fresh yoghurt! Fair trade organic beans!Great coffee.
A couple from Vermont thanked Morgan for his enthusiasm at the concert. And assured us that they had not voted for you know who. "Sometimes it's just embarrasing to be an American."
On the way home, a herd of deer, a huge double rainbow and a fingernail moon hung low.
We're doing it again next year!

googirl goes up

2007-08-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

Up the steps. Very pleased with herself. Pounds the step below with her little feet. Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump. thump. thump. Checks to make sure I am watching. Grins. Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.
Goes down the stairs.
Goes up the steps. Looks back over her shoulder. Grins.
"Duh, da da da da DUH!"
Scootscootscootscootscoot. Stop. Eat something off the floor.
"What are you eating little girl?"
Grins.
Scootscoot mom is coming to stick her finger in my mouth scootfasterscootfasterscootfaster.

clothes make the monkeyboy

2007-08-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

We are putting p.j's on, the ones with the green and blue stripes.

monkeyboy: "I'm not BEING Cinderella right now, I' m just me, but when I put these p.j.'s on, I FEEL like Cinderella, all over."

Happy, happy monkeyboy.

reading is dangerous

2007-08-14T19:36:00.000-07:00

Because it makes me want to do things. So because I am reading "Animal Vegetable Miracle" I have made this pact with myself to can a big whack of peaches and tomatoes while they are lolloping all over the produce landscape. And I have read all of these books on home schooling this week (I am a crammer) so I am trying that on mentally and today was not a good day for the home school game. 0 points to home school today. Never attempt to envision home schooling while on the first day of your period, a first day home, alone, with two cranky kids tired from vacation and junk food, dirty kitchen, laundry up to your ears kind of day. On that day you should envision a deserted beach, a deep lounge, a large fruity drink, a pile of novels and no door to be knocked on. And then you settle for pizza and snuggling up to watch Cars for the 400th time. Not a bad compromise, really.

babies

2007-08-09T19:51:00.001-07:00

I know a lot of you tune in in hopes of hearing a bit about monkeyboy and googirl - i promise lots about them in the next post.
For now - sleeps.

wings

2007-08-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

But don't be satisfied with poems
And stories of how things
have gone with others.

Unfold your own myth,
Without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand
the passage "We will have opened you."

Start walking toward Shams (the great teacher)

Your legs will get heavy
and tired. Then comes a moment
of feeling the wings you've grown
lifting.

-Rumi

I read Eat Pray Love last week and I was expecting to really hate it but I have to admit that I loved it. I laughed and laughed and kept interrupting smith's reading to read bits of it to him. And it opened me up, got me thinking about what I want, what I REALLY want - not things, not what I want to do, but what I want to BE. In it, a Balinese medicine man describes the theory of the universe as a circle, with both heaven and hell being the same destination, the outer ring, but the journey being different - getting to heaven you pass through seven levels of happiness and getting to hell you pass through seven levels of unhappiness but you end up at the same place - love. I KNEW IT!
So universe (and beautiful people out there in cyberland) keep sending me your thoughts and i will keep sending you mine. Oh this post seems oh soooooo flaky but that's where I'm at and I am sending it out to yoooooooooou!

Im still on the homeschooling visionquest thingy. Alternating between reading books about homeschooling with reading a Sophie Kinsella novel (which is pink, of course.) Oh, yeah and some, er.. Kierkegaard and stuff, eh? Yeah, sure. Just about to dive into Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle. A book about food and our world, big and small.

Speaking of food - when I went to pick up our beautiful organic veggie box this week there was so much bounty! The baskets were full of purple peppers and big juicy garlic bulbs and beans, tomatoes, greens, swiss chard, potatoes, hot hot peppers, more ground cherries, beets (two kinds!), big buckets of sunflowers and piles of fresh aromatic herbs. As monkeyboy says "MmmmmmmmmmMMM! Kim grows such nice food!". The harvest season is upon us people - go forth and fill up on local. I saw the birds starting to flock yesterday. A chickadee, three bluejays and many starlings in the space of five minutes all over my lawn - i will just whisper it...(fall! yay!)

be brave

2007-08-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading this book about homeschooling and I get a very nervous feeling. My pulse is up and I have butterflies and I wonder if it is because I have stumbled upon something that I truly desire: to live with my kids every day, answer questions deeply, let them follow their interests, follow my own. September is looming and it is so loaded that I can hardly breathe. Back to work for me and back to school for monkeyboy. I hate the idea of us each in separate classrooms, learning about how to manage and be managed. Our summer has been so rich and full of detail. And space. Any discussion or thought of institutions this week - school, church-has put me so on edge, made me drive my heels in. Oh universe, send me some reckoning. Tell me that I am not just summer crazy, but deeply lucid. As I wrote this, three fire trucks came to stop on my street, silent,but blazing with lights.

sinister pickles

2007-07-30T06:18:00.000-07:00

The jar on the end, slightly separate, the loner, did not seal. They shall be banished.

Poor neglected blog

2007-07-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

As usual of late, smith and i are off in our separate corners in the blue light, tapping away. The moon outside is almost full, the babies are sleeping, both getting awfully long and lean. I just finished unpacking from last weekend and am packing again for this one. I managed to sneak in not one but two movies out this week -Ratatouille and the latest HP. Feel spoiled rotten. Made ratatouille yesterday with a big zuccini that I snagged in our veggie basket this week. Food movies always make me want to cook and eat their featured food - Tam PoPo was frustrating because all we had in the house at the time to satisfy our noodle craving were instant noodle packs.
I even made pickles today, four jars of them. They are sitting on the counter now. I am waiting for the one on the end to seal. I used my mom's recipe - dill and garlic on the bottom and top, 12 parts water, 4 parts vinegar, 1 part salt. Monkeyboy was eager to help-got himself a pickle-poking stick and started hacking off dill for me. The kitchen was a glorious mess. He was very interested in the pickle-cucumber connection as he loves cucs but hates pickles. "Are cucumbers pickles? Do cucumbers come from real live mommies?" (This i think from the talk about "baby" cucumbers. ) Which reminds me of a discussion we had about chimpanzees. I said that chimpanzees were a lot like humans and he said "Yes, they give birth to live young." That boy knows his mammals dangit!
He insisted on packing the last jar of pickles himself.

transference

2007-07-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

Reading about Matisse will not make me paint like Matisse, will it? Or reading about Virginia Woolf thinking about writing Mrs. Dalloway will not make me look like a century tree, will it? Summer is so goddamned beautiful and there are so many books out there. I am deep into the pool of summer reading. Thank you God for late July and fine novels and deep lakes.

mariposa for meg

2007-07-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

Even before you add in the music and the beautiful craftspeople Memorial Park is an idyllic spot. Curving out into Lake Couchiching, lots of beautiful tall trees catching the breeze. Green and blue luscious summer. Monkeyboy loves MusicPark as he calls it. He stretches out his jackrabbit legs and runs and runs and runs (after getting his face painted as a cat of course). And then he swims and swims and swims. And swims some more. He even sat down for five minutes of music and Auntie K helped him make a nifty cardboard box guitar covered with wood-grain mactac. Very cool.
Highlights for me included: The Bill's crazy super-long klezmer bluegrass finale - I was sitting right down in front on a blanket - standing, dancing by the end of the set; Hawksely Workman's monologue about the sexual confidence of the insects that swarmed the mainstage; hearing Madrigaia again and again, all over the park; the Sadies' suits and There is a Higher Power; Chuck Baker's Northern Town song(sorry i didn't catch more of your sets Chuck); Matt Anderson as a blues-playin hair-flingin force of nature; seeing Ron and Lisa at their booth; seeing musicians playing Ron's gorgeous guitars at their booth; convincing almost all of my women relative and friends to buy a pair of Sarah Apple's block printed beaver undies; Lisa modelling said undies over her jeans; Amy Millan's hat and her ultimate down-to-earthedness; Gregg Hobb's funny divorce song; running into the parents of an old friend; running into family; running into more family; running into still more family; Jill Barber's gorgeous voice; women musicians wearing sundresses and cowboy boots;crazy ass lightning storm swirling around Gordon Lightfoot; deep, deep downpour while waiting in the parking lot to go home.
Wish I had had an instant polaroid transfer photo done by Melanie Gordon at her booth. Very gorgeous - check out her link at the side here. Lisa had one done and I was jealous and admirous. Am also covetous of quilted wall hanging purchased by Pip from Katherine McLellan. BUT I have two totally gorgous paintings evocative of the view from an airplane coming in at dusk over Toronto and they make me feel lifted every time I see them. Thank you beautiful and talented Lisa Belanger!!(she is related to me eh?).
Can't wait until next year.

here i yam

2007-07-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

Tired, tired, tired. I want to write about our great weekend at the Mariposa Folk Festival but I am just too dang tired. Lightning, blues, beer, lakewater, kids, klezmer, blankets in front of the stage, ice cream, watermelon, sweet melodies, shady lazing, long lake views laid over with acoustic riffs, funny undies, coolers, tall trees, cat-face painting, piggy backs. All goodness but it made me very zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

summer damp

2007-07-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

I love our old house but there's an old house smell that comes out in the summer, a damp dirt smell, especially after the rain. Makes me want to light a fire.
We have been busy already this summer - spent the weekend in Niagara with the cherries and the wine and the falls and the stunning lake views and the tourists. I got a little giddy by the falls, I always do. It always amazes me that you are allowed to get so close to them. Does anyone else feel a little worried that they might not be able to resist the urge to fling themselves in? They are just so damned magnetic, elemental. Yeah, in spite of heat, kids, zoo atmosphere, still awesome.
We found some ok sushi for lunch at the kiosks and a french-speaking woman at the plastic table beside us wove a grasshopper - "une sauterelle" - for Jack out of a long blade of grass. Then we headed up the parkway to the Butterfly Conservatory. Also awesome in spite of insane crush of humanity. Monkeyboy and googirl were filled with delight, faces up, fingers out. Sweet.
My mom rocks. She tagged along and babysat the kids so we could go to a wedding and sample figs and champagne on a vineyard patio. Our table at dinner had great lengthy pop culture conversations.
Hitting the road on the way back from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Monkeyboy said "I'm not sleepy or anything, but are we halfway home?"

the crack cocaine that is facebook

2007-07-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

At a wedding in wine country, a couple of Saturday nights ago our table spent hours discussing pop culture. No one else at our table had kids - not one single toilet training, feeding, sleeping anecdote was heard. It was fun and heady but I felt kind of queasy when we started discussing cyber entertainments like facebook and second life, both of which kind of creeped me out. I know, I know and here I am blogging about it so who's the junkie, really? And, you guessed it - I am a full Facebook junkie as of two days ago.
Also, I seem to be at the centre of a karmic reconnection vortex (am really into that word this week - VORTEX!!), facebook being the least of it. As Smith just pointed out, maybe this is a symptom of blogging, thinking that it is all about me. (Hey buddy, aren't you the one reading Cosmos and Psyche?).
I guess the question I am asking myself is are some kinds of connection better than others? More and more I am thinking that is snobbish and holier-than-thou and that the universe is just saying connect! connect! i don't care how! Like that scene in Barbarian Invasions where the daughter says goodbye to her dying father via an emailed satellite video.
More later. Must sleep. Maybe I will just check my facebook one more time......

Lemon Meringue Pie

2007-06-23T22:11:00.001-07:00

Lemon Meringue Pie
Originally uploaded by seriouslygood1

pie in the sky

2007-06-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

i went to a celebration of life party this evening, a memorial event for a family friend who died in march. we looked at pictures and told stories and toasted him and ate some of his favourite foods (although lobster and corn on the cob, his absolute faves, were sadly absent). my mom made a lemon meringue pie that was to die for. her pies of late have been stellar, the apotheosis of pies (am i using this word correctly? i love it and don't want to abuse and misuse it.) she made a rhubard raisin custard pie with a whole wheat crust last month that is currently at the top of my Best Pie Ever Eaten list. i know i digress but i think that bud would approve of the current tack of this post. he was a big fan of pie. so, let's hear it - favourite kinds of pie, best pie ever eaten, pie to die for - don't be afraid...hit that lil' ol' comments button......

indian food (a song)

2007-06-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

Another hit by monkey boy.

Accompanied by a drum kit consisting of a plastic yellow hardhat, a plastic red fireman's hat, a cowboy hat and a live cat:

indian food!
indian food!
we've got it
indian food!
right up here
on the stage
come get it
on a plate
right now!
indian food!
indian food from thailand!
yeah!

over the hill (and back again)

2007-06-21T20:43:00.001-07:00

On Tuesday night I drove an hour to meet a dear friend (hello dear friend) in a small town neither of us knew, a quiet little half-way hamlet. There was not even a Tim's ladies and gentlemen, I kid you not. We had fried dinner and chocolate milk in the only game in town and walked to the gas station for a chocolate bar for dessert. By then, whatever had been happening at the Legion had wound up and the Weight Watchers meeting at the library was over so we just drove around talking and listening to music until I had found every dead end in town. We saw it all: the co-op, the water tower, the old folks home, the co-op again. I was glad I went. We got honked at (twice!) walking back from the gas station which was funny because we were talking about how we started to think of ourselves as old this year. Which is also funny because I feel simultaneously old and adolescent at the same time a lot lately: awkward, over eager, shy, scattered, pretentious. I am not sure how to present myself, how to dress, how to talk.

Hey friends far away if you are reading this, I miss you! I think of you often! I am thinking of you now! I would drive an hour to meet you too if I could, walk under the maples (or the lindens or the pines or the palms or whatever tree is growing in that half-way town) and talk, laugh, cry, be silent, talk some more. And then take the long trip home feeling full again, feeling myself again.

summer solstice

2007-06-21T20:07:00.000-07:00

We spent the last few hours of this longest day of the year at Dufferin Grove Park enjoying the Cooking Fire Festival. Had a very tasty dinner of vegetarian enchiladas and a rich beautifully textured bowl of hominy soup with wild boar cooked over an open fire. Dessert was fresh ice cream sandwiched on cookies. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Monkeyboy spent the night kicking up the dust and running as fast as he could. He has a need for speed and bouncing these days. Googirl just wanted to eat grass and scoot around.

Ah, Les Trouveres, you have captured my heart (again) and made laugh until I almost peed. More please, more please, more please.

procrastination and the five point plan

2007-06-18T19:28:00.001-07:00

Well, here it is, procrastination, happening now. According to the Five Point Plan, as orchestrated by the brilliant and beautiful Jennifer W (also talented - multi-talented) I should be working on writing and illustrating a children's book, while formulating an outline for a blockbuster young adult novel that will make me tons of money and allow to immediately fulfill my lifelong dream of writing for a living. I don't like to write these things down because I worry about putting new fresh little ideas out in the cold. But is almost midsummer and the soil should be well warmed by now so I should just lay them in.
Smith was playing ultimate frisbee at J's school tonight so I walked over with the kids. J wanted to play mini-car store and practice jumping up at the monkey bars. S watched J and sang her loud songs and charmed folks with her lil' button eyes. The geodesic dome/climbing structure was gone from behind the school. I guess it was getting dangerous. The little girls running ahead of us called it the beehive. "Mommy, mommy the beehive is gone!" Too bad, because it was groovy and retro and nobody seems to put them up anymore. Oh Buckminster Fuller, where have you gone?
J caught a moth and was deeply, tragically saddened when it flew away. He perked up when we got home and by then time I had gotten S down he had brushed his own teeth, changed into his pj's and gotten his own snack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AMAZING! The snack was a big bowl of marshmallows, but I couldn't bring myself to chide him after such a rockin display of independance so we just saved some for tomorrow, threw a glass of milk down after them and brushed our teeth, again.

2007-06-17T20:58:00.000-07:00

(sorry about the neckstretcher photo...)

We went to the Auto Flea Market last weekend and got ourselves a good dose of internal combustion glory!!!! And got to see Great Uncle Hughie, that jolly old elf. What a boy's paradise - or nightmare - especially loooooved the old boy who gave J a toy gun, saying "There you are, that's what you need. We've got to take care of the kids."????????? OK, that said, most of the people giving J free stuff were quite sweet about it. You could tell that they just saw a little guy with a hankering for little cars and wanted to make his day.
Miles and miles of tires, coveralls, old mufflers, Crocs knockoffs, spare hoods, pistons, headlights, side panels, repair manuals, antiques, gaskets, gew gaws and of course beautifully restored old cars and trucks. J was in heaven.

dark saturday

2007-06-17T20:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning we went out for lunch. I had done some stinky painting and we needed to get out of the house for a few hours. We had walked around the block scoping for garage sales, thought about going to the park but it looked like rain. We finally headed up to the junk food plaza (Tim's, our pizza place and Subway) and here's where the day started to feel warped and unreal. All of the light fixtures and ceiling tiles in the Tim's were hanging crazily from the ceiling. Renovations, ok but for some reason I found it very unnerving. Then we saw two cruisers and yellow caution tape around a pair of sneakers and a pile of bloody clothing. They were big white sneakers, teenage boys sneakers. We distracted monkeyboy with food and headed home and on the way home saw that the park was also ringed with yellow caution tape. That morning a couple of 16 year old boys had been stabbed across the street from the park(our park) by another couple of boys, thrown into a stolen white Lexus and then thrown out again a few blocks later at a plaza (our plaza). They were taken to the hospital where one of the boys died. Sad, sad, sad.
All day even before I knew all of these details, I felt edgy, out of sorts, charged, but in a totally aimless, frustrating way. On the late news, this story was preceeded and followed by stories about traffic accidents - a huge one to the south of town that closed part of the 400 down for the night and another, small but fatal, just north of my parents house ( both of these pretty much at the boundaries of my existence right now). Nothing touching me directly but my whole personal geography bracketed and laid over with violence and death, the dark underbelly of summer's energy.

calling all angles

2007-06-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

One of my high school English teachers loved to stress the point that it was The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence, NOT The Stone Angle. All anglers would be mocked.

The title of this post was supposed to be Calling All Angels because the beautiful song of that name by Jane Sibberry (actually a duet with k.d. lang, another Canadian gal) is running through my head but a typo intervened and i feel that the tone of the new title lends itself more to examination, prediction and dissection than to transcendence, luminosity and feathers.

So in this post I will not be lamenting that the beautiful play Icaria by Number Eleven Theatre will no longer be produced (the set was ceremoniously burned last summer after the final performance). If you missed it, you should feel a little sad.

I will also not be relating the story of how my cousin's budgie was killed by the fumes of a chili sauce being pickled in a summer kitchen.

Or, I suppose the transcendence of that chili sauce - the earthy spiciness! the tart bite of vinegar! the sweetness of the tomatoes that summer! Oh for a mess of scrambled eggs!

No, none of that.

Instead I call forth the engineer within (not a very good one - neglects to measure twice or use a level), the pool shark of my soul (cue awonk), the protracting pundit to look at all the balls on the table, the lay of the land, the hang of the string in the wind and call all angles, name them now!

But first I need to go and listen to that song. (And maybe go to bed - these long midsummer evenings make me lose track of time.)

firefly boy

2007-06-04T16:53:00.001-07:00

Img_0618
Originally uploaded by nannamamma

Song to googirl on the way to the Cottage by monkeyboy

we're almost there
we're almost there
we're almost there
we're almost there

500 reasons why
we are a family
feel like a hmmmm
yeah yeah
we're almost there

500 treeeees and
what do you get
but it's so fun
we're almost there

it's a long way

400 thiiiiings
so so so so so so
it's a long time ago
it's a dark sun
it's a sad sad day

why are we getting off of the way
500 clues

whooooo! yeah!

it's so fun when we're drivin to the cottage
why are we getting so big and loose
it's jus the cottage no worries to see
it's just the cottage road

arrrrrrrr!!!! my captain jack

2007-05-31T05:45:00.000-07:00

so i went out to the movies by myself on tuesday night (sorry kel) and saw a big summer blockbuster.
it was a good thing i was in the mood for it because my choice of movies at the barrie galaxy on a tuesday night consisted of:
a sequel, a sequel, a sequel OR (wait for it...) a sequel!
yup, four movies at a twelve screen cinema.
ahhhh, barrie. "sooooo wonder white", as nick put it.
but it was a tuesday night, the parking lot was packed and i felt like part of the happy herd.
and i will not lie, i wanted eye-candy and lots of it. so hurrah for johnny depp and orlando bloom! plus, there was a preview for the golden compass, which made me giddy.
i LOVE going to the movies by myself. i feel free to absolutely love or hate whatever crap gets thrown up on the screen. if you haven't done this before, i highly recommend it.
you have my permission to be anti-social. go forth! get yer popcorn! you won't have any trouble finding a seat.

Poste the Firste

2007-05-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

Hi lovely friends.
I am about to lose my blogging viginity - bloginity? virgoggity? Well here I am, all yours, in all of my procrastinating glory trying to avoid the backspace and delete keys and just get something out there to you beacuse I love seeing the mess of other people's mind via their blog, so......

Piled around me are bills, wee girl's shoes, not-so-wee boy's paintings and the damned looming folders (real and imagined) of Things I Have Been Meaning To Do (for quite some time). The season of knitty frenzy has ended and now I am up to my elbows in manure slogging out some new beds along the back fences. We put in a rain barrel this weekend and it is already overflowing. It gives us a feeling of bounty and self-sufficiency.

Speaking of self-sufficiency, I read Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road this week and it gives new meaning to the term. What a harrowing and beautiful read. I was sort of shell-shocked by it and found myself being extra tender towards not-so-wee boy and weeping at people walking their dogs and other ordinary activities.