procrastination, resolutions, blessings, etc.

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

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!

*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

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

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

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

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.