A Picture Post

Just some assorted pictures from the last month - I know it's been a little low on visuals lately: Making the gingerbread house
The Boy's winter concert (he's the one in the back. I think.)

The Girl's winter concert. She's second from the left (red sweater) because I didn't get the "no uniforms today" email in time.

Playing video games with her cousin. Note the matching Christmas housecoats.

Opening up the oddest doll ever. Its eyes change colour when you push in the "soft spot" on its head.

Hanging out with their cousin in new Christmas jammies.

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TGIF!

I love Fridays. Yes, I am aware that I didn't actually work a full five-day work week to deserve this one. It was, in fact, only 20% of a legitimate work week.

But that doesn't negate the fact that it was still a tough day. Having been off since last Friday yet knowing it was the day before the weekend, I felt like it was Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday-Friday all rolled into one. Add a deadline I knew I had to meet by the end of today and I am plum tuckered out.

Oh, and I revealed myself at work to be the true uber-geek that I am. Asked to provide a few personal details about myself to include in a company-wide introduction email, I, of course, said I enjoyed reading Canadian and 19th century British lit, cooking and walking around the lake. Seriously.

Probably the nerdiest aspect of it all is that it took me a full five minutes to come up with that list. Those three things are officially the coolest things about me. Sigh. It has indeed been a long day.

Which is probably why "TGIF" for me means eating eggs and toast for supper, idly helping my kids make bead necklaces, and later frittering away hours online while catching a bit of Transformers out of the corner of my eye. And yes, it is all as exciting and super-cool as it sounds.

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Another Christmas Come and Gone...

(Did I really leave you all, my faithful readers, with a post about the bus - of all things - to look at throughout the entire week of Christmas? My apologies. It's been a busy week, but now I'm back and shall hopefully be much more frequent in my posting.)

Six days after leaving for Canada, we find ourselves back where we started. A few things have changed - we have the potential for being a bit more fit at our house using our new Wii and I'm sipping fantastic coffee from my new coffeemaker (undoubtedly a mistake, given that it is almost 11:30 at night and I have to work tomorrow, but I couldn't resist trying it out). There are a bunch of new toys for our kids to play with and it will take a day or so to get through all the mail.

We are also mindful that living here means that Christmas looks different for us than it has in the past. Our time with family and friends is shorter and more intense; we missed every one of our extended family gatherings as well as the church Christmas program. But the time we had was fulfilling and restful - thanks to all who made it such a great week for us.

Our major indication that "we're not in Kansas anymore" (or Winnipeg, as the case may be) was when we ended up in the local hospital emergency room. The Boy brought some cold germs with him to Canada that for anyone else would have simply meant a few sniffles and perhaps a low-grade fever. However, with his asthma, it turned into a full-blown attack and the medication we had brought was not sufficient, so we headed to the hospital to get him some help.

We've done that particular ER run more times than we would like, but we've never once thought of the cost; our thoughts were always and only with our son. This time, though, there was a cover charge. Upon entering, I rushed the struggling-to-breathe-crying boy to the doctor while The Husband stayed behind to register us and eventually run to the bank machine so he could pay the non-resident entrance fee.

Now we have excellent insurance and our being in Canada made really no difference in terms of out-of-pocket expenses. But the experience drove home to me how much I believe in universal healthcare. Does the healthcare system in Canada have its issues? Most definitely. Could it benefit from some level of privatization? Quite likely - I'd like to see more exploration of the idea.

But should a parent have to think twice about agreeing when the doctor says, "I'd like to take a chest x-ray just to rule out pneumonia?" No. Should mental computations calculating the growing expense of the medications offered take place when those medications are providing necessary relief? No. Should someone dread the thought of having a loved one admitted simply because of a low bank account? No.

Ah, but I digress. The Boy recovered as quickly as his cold left his system and fortunately we did not have to make a repeat visit. Our drive home was uneventful and we arrived to find that our neighbour had very kindly snow-blown our entire driveway as well as all our walkways.

Now off to bed with me - I have one day of work before the weekend and I suspect it will feel like ten Mondays combined tomorrow.

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An Open Letter to My Fellow Travellers on the Route 6 E 7:33 Bus

Dear Transit Riders:

I get it.

You got there first.

Yes, it is undoubtedly true that the Rules and Regulations of Bus Travel clearly indicate that seats are available on a "first come, first served" basis. In fact, one could go on to say that in the matter of posterior resting places, possession of one's backside-shaped scrap of real estate is indeed nine-tenths of the law.

But I would also like to note that the other one-tenth of that law includes the giving up of said seat (despite its being lawfully gained) for those smaller, older, more infirm and generally worse off than you.

That said, I am puzzled as to why, when my family and I boarded the crowded bus, you elected not only to keep your seats, but also to maintain ownership of the spaces you had procured for your inanimate packages. This despite being faced with the obvious presence of two small children who, I might add, had recently walked a fair distance wearing very cumbersome footwear.

Now it is possible that things were not what they seemed. That Crate and Barrel box sitting next to you on the bench may have been carrying a heart, packed in ice, wending its way towards the transplant patient lying on the operating table, a heart which required the most tender of care. It is also possible that the pink backpack with a seat to itself had nestled within it some mewling, orphaned kittens and that any movement would have frightened them terribly and led to their pitiable demise.

However, the fact that you did move your packages, albeit reluctantly and only after I stared you down with my most effective "Seriously?!" glare, does seem to suggest otherwise.

Having located two seats for my babies, I contented myself to stand. Your ungracious actions had brought out the Grinch in me and I could feel my heart shrink to several sizes too small. (Perhaps it would have been a good thing if the Crate and Barrel box had been carrying another heart.)

Then a passenger got off and a seat opened up across the aisle from my daughter, which I gratefully took. And a kind voice beside me proceeded to say, "I'd be happy to switch places so you can sit with your daughter."

With that, the Grinch gave way to Bob Crachit and I joyfully traded seats and had a lovely chat with my daughter about the holiday light parade we had just enjoyed.

But then, to my utmost astonishment, you, kind and gracious sir, took out your cell phone and dialed a number:

"Hi Nick, it's Kris calling."

A coincidental Santa-calling-Santa-type moment? I think not. You, sir, saved Christmas. (Well, at least my evening.)

In that same spirit of giving, I will not be curmudgeonly and hostile towards you seat-hoggers. Indeed, I hope you got home safely and that the heart and kittens all found good homes. To demonstrate further my sincerity, I close with those oft-repeated words of Tiny Tim, which I tonight dedicate to all of the riders who found themselves sharing that microcosm of society found only on a city bus:

"God Bless Us, Everyone."

With the merriest of Christmases to you,

PM

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Since When Is Christmas Only 6 Days Away?

For real?! Where has the time gone? I'm usually a bit late when it comes to preparing for Christmas (a holdover from my university days where everything waited until after that last final exam) but this year has been the worst yet. Part of the reason is that we've had few of the usual early Christmas season festivities - Christmas banquets, home group parties, extended family gatherings - to jumpstart the process.

Plus there's the whole "massive changes to the family routine" issue of late. We're slowly starting to settle in to the new schedule. The Boy only kind of hates school, and The Husband is simply stellar and usually has supper on the table by the time I get in the door. Mornings are still tough, but I'm pretty good at having everything ready to go the night before.

(Of course, that only works if I remember the kids' breakfast waiting in the fridge. Sigh. Yesterday took a detour when it was discovered only blocks from school that the day's PopTart/Fruit Bar/Chocolate Milk package was still at home. Fortunately there was a Caribou Coffee nearby. Unfortunately, breakfast for two children cost an astronomical nine dollars.)

Work is going super-duper-terrifically well. On the work environment front, it's a great office. Lots of perks (frozen yogurt day tomorrow!) and extremely nice coworkers. On the job responsibility front, it's pretty much perfect. Style manuals, templates, information-presentation guidelines - everything I do is governed by at least one standard if not two or more. The attention paid to consistency makes me want to weep for joy.

(I've often thought I should have been born about 125 years sooner than I was. The Victorian society, with its "a place for everyone and everyone in his/her place" mentality, would have suited me much better than this loosey-goosey social mobility we've got nowadays. Mind you, Victorian social immobility wasn't so hot when you were a charwoman. Or any kind of woman, for that matter.)

And we are cautiously optimistic that we may have found our new church. We "kid-tested" a local Mennonite church this past Sunday and it passed with flying colours. There are three little girls The Girl's age and one other boy who is exactly three days older than The Boy. Not a huge number, but they were all fast friends before the morning was over. We were fairly bowled over by the welcome we received. It's a very small church (about 65 or so) and a bit more traditional in their worship and older in their age demographic than we are used to. But we think it's a place where we could be quite comfortable, so we shall see what the new year brings.

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Clickety-clack, My Keyboard's Back!

Oh it is so nice to be posting using an actual keyboard instead of individually selecting each letter with a stylus. My palm pilot kept me sane these past weeks in that it allowed me to check email (without which function I feel a bit like Tom Hanks in Castaway), but the outgoing messages were few and far between given that I clocked in at a feeble 15 words/minute.

And those minutes were a bit tough to come by this week. Phew! I'd forgotten how hard working for a living is! When it comes to yours truly, "working mom" has become synonymous with "working-outside-the-home-mom." I would never want to minimize the tremendous work that my SAHM friends do, but when I am playing house, I don't do much. In fact, I don't think I could account for even half of my time for the past four months in a legitimate fashion. So it's definitely been a huge adjustment getting up every morning before 6:30 am and actually having to be somewhere. Wearing clean clothes, no less.

For those interested in the logistics, The Husband and I are staggering our work hours in order to a) keep the kids home for as much of the day as possible and b) avoid paying for after-school care. The Husband takes the "it can't be morning already, can it?!" shift and heads out the door to be at work by 6:30 am while I get the "herding bleary-eyed babies into uniforms and getting them off to school" shift and try to get to work by about 8:30. Then The Husband picks them up when school is done at 3:30 and I get home around 6:00.

Work is going really, really well. I'm overwhelmed and feel like I'm barely treading water when it comes to knowing what I'm supposed to do, but that's the first week on any job. It's an exponential learning curve as I try to get a sense of both the products and the processes. But my coworkers have been welcoming and helpful, and I can see myself fitting in there quite well. Even if they do use the serial comma.

Yesterday was our kids' Christmas program. Excuse me. "Winterfest." In this age of political correctness, the only nods to Christmas were the two trees with lights on the stage. The theme for the evening was "Fairy Tales" so there were various reenactments of well-known tales. It was fantastic - you could barely hear a word, the onstage lights were positioned so that all the children were backlit so you could only see silhouettes and no one seemed to remember what to do during scene transitions. In short, a perfect children's program.

Our children shone in their parts as a horse (The Boy) and the grandfather in Peter and the Wolf (The Girl). In fact, The Boy surprised us all by learning the song and his part having only been at the school for two weeks now. They were, of course, the cutest children there and everyone else might as well have gone home after the Grade One play. But there was a potluck after - gotta love a small private school where everyone can meet for a meal after the program!

Now that we're a two-income family, it means that all household maintenance takes place on the weekend. Add a week's worth of dishes, clothes, grocery shopping plus Christmas shopping in preparation for our trip north next week, and it'll be a busy couple of days! But I'll try to post some pictures from the last month soon - now that we've got a real life computer, anything can happen!

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Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's Off to Work I Go

It's been a long day, but I've got just enough brain space to blog a quick update.

My first day on the new job was really good. I spent most of it reading about the company's products and getting a sense of what I'm going to be doing.

Best of all - an internal style manual that is - get this - 90 pages long. 90 pages of serial commas and em dashes...simply fantastic.

It was The Husband's birthday today, so we ordered pizza and now we're celebrating with a couple of episodes of Flight of the Conchords. More another day.

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Waving Flags and Revving Engines - Ah, The American Dream

Yesterday we experienced something that personified much of what we (rightly or wrongly) associate with the American Midwest. Big trucks. Fried food. Standing together singing "proud to be an American." Altars to consumerism. 80's hair and sweatshirts.

Mall of America? Nope. A Republican convention? Nuh-uh. Nascar? Close.

Monster Jam.

That's right, we paid money yesterday to spend the evening with thousands of others wearing earplugs and screaming cheers for monster trucks with names like "Grave Digger."

The kids had been begging for weeks whenever the commercials came on, so we thought we'd surprise them. Well, it was a bit of a bust. Surprisingly, The Boy started freaking out and begging to go home as soon as it started. We're not sure why; we think perhaps the noise and rumbling were too much despite his ear plugs. So we left at the first intermission.

No real harm done. We'd already passed our favourite part of the evening - getting into the parking garage only to be told "no credit cards. Cash or check only."

With ten cars behind us, we scrambled to find a chequebook. Then a pen Then a working pen. Then another pen after the cheque was returned because we had not filled in the recipient and "oh no, I can't fill it in - I could write it out to myself."

You know what? Go ahead. Pocket our eight dollars. Call it a tip for being oh so helpful.

In a more charitable vein, today I attended a church that has now passed the "try it for two Sundays" test. It's a small Mennonite church that has impressed us both mightily with its extremely welcoming people. So we'll try it with the kids next week.

The rest of today will be spent doing laundry, tidying, and otherwise getting ready for our first week where we've all got day jobs. I start bright and early at 9:00 am tomorrow - I'll try to post in the evening to let you all know how it goes.

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An Open Letter to My Winter Tires

Dearest Dunlops,

How can I forget the day you came into my life? It was Christmas Eve 2004. An accident involving a Grand Cherokee and a bus bench had left me wondering whether "all-season" simply referred to how much of the year my stock tires performed poorly. Late to the party (who knew that wintertime is too late to order winter tires?), I "had" to settle for you since all the Pirellis were sold out.

Since that day, I have not always treated you kindly. I have let you suffer in the third circle of hell that is a Manitoba summer two years in a row simply because I have been out of the country for two "time to change over your tires" seasons and by the time I got back in late May, quite frankly, it was too close to winter to bother. And I let you be the scapegoat for that awful noise, rolling my eyes and declaring "it's my tires" whenever anyone commented.

But I have never maligned you when it comes to what you do so faithfully and so skillfully: stick to the snowy icy roads. You, my most precious treaded beauties, cling to the nastiest of highways with a tenacity my children only dream of.

Yesterday, of course, was no exception. You doggedly spun through really quite adverse road conditions to convey me to and from the border safely. You stuck to whatever visible surface peeked out of a snowy two-lane highway along Lake Superior, protecting me from certain submersion in said lake had we even grazed the shoulder. You cheerfully took ownership of the "staying on the road" responsibilities and freed me to enjoy selections from my 46 hours' worth of Penguin Classics audiobooks.

And then you waited so patiently while I successfully got my work visa and did not even murmur in protest that you only got to spend two minutes in Canada.

O circular miracles of rubberized perfection, I rejoice in your incredible aptitude for all things tire-ish. May our journeys together be long and similarly free of incident.

Yours always (or until the tread wears down),

PM

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First Day of School - Part Deux

(OK, so this is the third time I've tried writing this. Our computer is officially kaput and we're limping along with my palm pilot. It works, but about as well as scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush. So this might be short,)

My baby started school yesterday. Yes, I know he was in daycare full-time last year and that this is only pre-k, but still. They have circle time and learn about the days of the week and have activity centres - it's school.

He is Mr. Handsome in his uniform and even though he only knows two words ("bun-joor" and "whee"), he is trying really hard. His sweet teacher rigged it so that he was yesterday's "petit étoile" (little star) which meant he was first in line all day and he got to bring show and tell today.

My mommy heart is sore and proud. He is such a sweet, sensitive boy who looooves to be with his mama. He was so tired when I picked him up yesterday; he melted into my arms and didn't want to let go.

But we're all pleased at how smooth his integeation is going and I'm turning my thoughts towards work next week.

The final hurdle is causing me a fair amount of anxiety. I'm planning to travel up to Grand Portage - the closest point of entry is 5 hours away, grrr - tomorow or Thursday to try to get my visa. An immigration lawyer is sending me a hee-ooj package today and theoretically there is no valid reason I would be denied. But border officials do not always follow theoretical models and my stomach turns at the thought of my entire career resting on someone else's interpretation of the rules. Some prayers for road safety and easy visa acquisition would be much appreciated.

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Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Remember the local weather obsession? Well, yesterday the news reports reached a fever pitch, and the impending doom forecast was the talk of the town.

Apparently anywhere from 6 to 12 inches is on its way. In fact, the snow *just* started gently falling and the promise is that it will not let up until tomorrow sometime.

(I didn't believe the hype myself, until I read that NWA is allowing passengers to change their itinerary for free if they are scheduled to fly into/through our area over the next 24 hours. If an airline is waiving change fees, then a for-true blizzard must be a-coming. So I sent The Girl out to the backyard to rescue my colander; it was in use as some sort of rock receptacle and I didn't relish the thought of digging through a foot of snow the next time I wanted to make spaghetti.)

Today is pretty much the perfect day for a big snow dump. It's December 1, which means that it is officially Tree-Putting-Up weekend. Fortunately, we have a garden centre and a tree lot within walking distance, so our search for that perfect Charlie Brown tree shouldn't be too onerous. We weren't planning on going out during the day and the fridge is full. We do have evening plans, but our babysitter lives next door and we're only going so far as the local shopping/food district.

Oh, and I also wanted to acknowledge the lack of pictures over the last while. Our computer underwent some much-needed major surgery last week and did not emerge unscathed. It has lost its ability to load pictures, play movies & music, and generally perform in anything close to an effective manner.

So (shhh - don't tell it as I still need to check my email), it is headed for replacement. This computer certainly doesn't owe us anything; it was a refurbished laptop purchased hurriedly after the "WHO PUT WATER IN THE LAPTOP?!" incident two years ago and had the kindness to break for the first time last year just days before the warranty ran out, saving us its equivalent value in repairs. Perhaps it deserves a better fate than being handed over to our munchkins for abusive game-playing on pbskids, but that's how it goes in the world of disposable electronics.

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A Banquet *And* A Dance? O, It's Too Much Happiness.

Yesterday was one of those dizzying days when all of the good things that they say come in threes came all at once. It was a veritable feast of wonders.

The appetizer: a car repair that came in under budget. Waaaay under budget. It also brought with it the removal of a very loud noise from my car and the discovery of "The Volkswagen Man" (our new car repair shop of choice). Which, given my propensity towards all accidents vehicular, is a very good thing.

The main course: gainful employment. Yes, after sending in my formal acceptance of a letter of offer, I am once again a working stiff, a puncher of clocks, a bringer home of (veggie) bacon. I actually had a successful first and second interview a few weeks ago, but there was some delay while they conducted a background check to ensure I had no skeletons rattling in my closets, so I've been on pins and needles for awhile.

I am really excited about this job for so many reasons. I spent a fair amount of time there during my interviews and the office is in a great location and the people seem friendly and warm. From what I can tell, it brings together all the things about my previous job that I loved: collaboration, meticulousness and style guides.

The plan is that I will start in a week and a half; we just need to work through the immigration issue and I need to put all the appropriate childcare into place. The Boy will start at the same school The Girl attends on Monday and we'll ease them into the before school program hopefully next Thursday. So today my day will be filled with purchasing new school uniforms, arranging before-school care and making appointments for immunizations. After the last time, I think the victims-to-be will be told about the upcoming event when we pull into the clinic parking lot and I think I'll bring The Husband along for emotional and physical support.

Finally, the dessert: a call from the theatre company saying that the free draw slip I had idly filled out a number of weeks ago was pulled and I am the winner of four free tickets to an upcoming production of A Christmas Carol.

All told, quite a day. I totally should've bought a Powerball ticket.

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Those Darn Canadian Microbes

*GROAN*

We brought more than cheer and goodwill home with us this past weekend. Some nasty flu bugs discovered with glee our poorly-defended-against-Canadian-germs immune systems and hitched a ride in order to fly south for the winter.

The Girl was pretty much right as rain after staying home on Monday and The Boy has thus far emerged unscathed; his temperature seems to run higher than the rest of us (at least, he's always removing items of clothing and complaining of being hot), so perhaps he is an unwelcoming host. It seems that The Husband and I have borne the brunt of it, spending much of the past two days in bed.

I'm feeling mostly better today and so can embark on the post-sick clean-up (aka washing all the bedding).

In other news, it was cooooold here yesterday! By which I mean it was warmer than you Northerners had but colder than we're used to. We didn't see it coming, as is the case every year when I somehow forget that winter will eventually arrive at some point, so last night there was a quick stop at REI for some nice warm boots for the chill'uns. Fortunately last year's parkas were bought big, so I think we're good to go now.

Not that it matters much. Yesterday, the Girl got bundled up in parka, snow pants (a misnomer for us as there is currently no snow), boots from two seasons ago, toque, scarf and her brother's mittens (we could only find one of hers) only to go to school to find that recess was cancelled. Yes, cancelled. It was -15 degrees C and it was deemed too cold for the little ones.

Now, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was cancelled not for the weather's extremity but for the fact that many of the children's parents were also likely caught unaware and their munchkins may have been less than properly dressed. At least, this is what we're hoping. It will be a looooong winter if recess is cancelled whenever the temperature dips below -10.

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Sometimes You Want To Go Where Everybody Knows Your Name...And They're Always Glad You Came

First off: we arrived home yesterday at about 8:30 (pause for collective sigh of relief from two mother/grandmothers who still worry about our safety). The snowy roads ended about 45 minutes outside the city, so we had quite clear sailing most of the way home. Winterpeg indeed.

The typical "blech-it's-Monday" feelings, which are always more pronounced after a long weekend, were combined with some niggling stomach instability that a few of us started feeling while driving yesterday, so The Girl was kept home from school today. When there's no word of protest against the "no-TV-if-you're-sick" rule and a sigh of relief when flopping into bed, it's a sure sign of legitimacy.

(A quick apology to all those I hugged and breathed on yesterday - I'm feeling fairly fine, so hopefully I wasn't a carrier of some real nastiness.)

Ah, yesterday. Coming back to Canada is always a bit bittersweet, and nowhere have I felt that as strongly as at church. It was *so* nice to see all those friendly faces and to feel so much goodwill simply radiating at us when we walked in.

I read somewhere (Donald Miller, I think) that deep down, all people really want is to be known for who they are and loved anyway. In our world of Oil of Olay, The Gap and IKEA, it's tempting and relatively easy to put together a polished and attractive front. Yet when we engage people purely on a surface level, we will always wonder whether we would be as likable if we were suddenly as stinky and selfish as we know we really are when we look in the mirror.

I know that I'm frequently stinky and selfish around the people I purport to love best in this world, and because of that I always marvel that they seem to know me and love me anyway. I walk into church and am continually amazed to find people who have seen some pretty awful sides of me yet love me in spite of it. Or, perhaps, it is possible they love me because of it, in the same way that I find myself loving those who trust me enough to reveal their less-than-perfect sides to me.

I'm quite convinced that when I do get to Heaven, it will be like my arrival at church yesterday. (Possibly not exactly - one wonders whether there will be snow to shovel off of the front steps there.)

I'll walk in after things have started and I'll hear some whispered "Nice to see you!"s from fellow stragglers. The usher will smile as he finds me a seat and every time I look away from the front stage I'll catch someone's eye, who will then grin broadly with the promise of later catching-up. There'll be some fabulous singing interspersed with people sharing about how they show their love to God by loving others. After the show, I'll be surrounded by friends I haven't seen in ages:

"How was the trip up? Any trouble?"

"Nah, there was that cancer nuisance and I got searched at the border, but it wasn't so bad."

I'll grab a cup of Heaven's equivalent of fair trade/organic coffee and feel my heart's cup fill and overflow with a deep joy knowing that we all belong here and are loved.

And over and over I'll hear, "We've missed you so much; welcome back."

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The Blame Game

So Minneapolitans are obsessed with death and weather. At least, watching the first fifteen minutes of any of the four local newscasts suggests a particular fascination with all things morbid or climatic. The juiciest stories seem to be those that combine death *and* weather, so any trailer park decimated by a hurricane gets top billing.

One thing we have noticed during the full quarter of each newscast devoted to the weather is that any unsavoury weather patterns must be identified in terms of source for proper attribution of blame. Blizzards? From Colorado. Rain? A pipeline coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. Bitterly cold northerly winds? Canada.

The animosity with which they refer to Canada is quite pronounced. Canada - land of igloos and snowdogs. Canada - land of polite but frigid folks. Canada - source of curse-eliciting discomfort and grumbling parka-hunting.

Having returned to my fair country of citizenship for American Thanksgiving, I find myself tempted to agree. It's FREEZING up here! -18 degrees?! Quite a shock to the old system. I actually had to break out the parkas and toques ("winter hats" as they are known down south) in anticipation of our heading back to the North Country.

That said, there's always warmth from family and friends when we come back, so that keeps us pretty toasty. Right now the kids are busily decorating Christmas boxes for the cats to sleep in. The Husband is taking advantage of the local mechanic's shop (i.e. my in-laws' garage) to change the oil in the car. And I'm still basking in the afterglow of yesterday's book club - I loves me some book talk!

It's also lovely to be back on Canadian soil. Particularly on Black Friday. I got tired last week just watching the commercials announcing that Kohl's was starting its post-Thanksgiving sale at 4 AM. 4 AM?! Crazy consumerism. We may be shivering, but at least we've avoided the economic/foreign policy of "Buy. Buy! BUY!!" embraced by so many for the low monthly payment of "in credit card debt for the rest of your life." For now, anyway. We've still got to get through the next month of pre-Christmas pressure to purchase.

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"I Know You Are But What Am I, Infinity" (or, A Trip Down Memory Lane)

As a parent, I have found that one of the most nerve-wracking experiences I have had is sharing a prized memory from my childhood with my own children. It could go so, so wrong: they might gaze with derision at my humble offering of Cabbage Patch Kids or Thundercats and roll their eyes as they turn back to whatever cartoonish tripe is being offered that day. (I mean, really - "Horseland"?!)

Or, potentially even worse, I might return to the scene of childhood bliss and find that the event in question has not stood the test of time. Grape kool-aid drunk from the plastic Thermos that came with my Smurfette lunchbox tasted of liberation and independence, consumed as it was by the backstop in our back park with NO ADULT IN SIGHT. But I would be foolish to think that I could recreate that experience by handing my children a Lunch Box Punch and sending them out to the backyard.

Yet the potential payoff for such cross-generational sharing is huge. One of my best weekends in recent memory was the discovery of hours' worth of "Jem and the Holograms" on YouTube, with which I impressed my brood mightily with my intricate knowledge of plotlines, characters and songs.

And so it was with both trepidation and anticipation that I revealed this week's family movie night choice to them:

Yes, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. This movie made up a good number of the rentals on our Adi's Video card; my brothers and I spent many happy hours watching the grey-suited boy/man search for his missing bicycle. We would stop the VCR at the *exact* moment that Large Marge revealed herself to be a monster and laugh uproariously.

The next generation responded fairly well to this piece of cinematic gold. (I was actually pleasantly surprised to see how well the film has aged - gotta love early Tim Burton.) My favourite part was their debate as to whether Pee-Wee was a boy or a man. The jury would still be out if it weren't for The Husband's resigned sigh, "He's a man, you guys."

In related news, we have finally finished the Narnia books. The Girl and I have been slogging through them for bedtime reading for more than six months now. Not that I don't love me some C.S. Lewis; I still get weepy-eyed in The Last Battle when everyone gets tossed into the Stable and finds... well, you'll just have to read it. But this run-through of Narnia was different than those of my childhood. I'd never noticed the jingoism, the misogyny-disguised-as-chivalry, the blatant racism before. So I'll admit to a definite sigh of relief at reaching the final page.

Now we're on to Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House in the Big Woods. The Girl has turned into a history buff and particularly enjoys 19th century life and World War II documentaries. There's been a similar jolt for me as I've returned to the pioneer world with an older perspective. I identify less with Laura and her corn-cob-doll-pig's-bladder-balloon fun and more with Ma, working her starched and ironed bustle off to keep her household together while trying not to be resentful of her husband's wanderlust (really, Charles, yet another move?!).

Ah well. At least I have no desire to try making headcheese. Gracious, those pioneers ate a lot of meat!

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The Price of Readin', Writin', and 'Rithmetic

Fresh off the heels of a Friday morning school controversy (there was a miscommunication about whether The Girl's class was participating in the school-wide Pajama Day, resulting in most of the class wearing uniforms and some other little ones sporting Thomas the Train jammies), I find myself mindful yet again of the choice we have made concerning our daughter's education.

Since making the choice to enroll her in an immersion school in Canada, we have become huge advocates of second-language immersion. In fact, our decision to move here hinged entirely on the availability of continuing instruction in a second language; when it looked like the two public immersion schools would not have space for us, we had to face the realization that, although The Husband's job opportunity was amazing, we might have to say "no" because we could not continue our children's education in our chosen fashion. So the discovery of this school, with one space left in the first grade, seemed like an absolute God-send, particularly given that discovery only two days before we had to decide whether or not we would accept the job offer.

For the most part, we love the school. It has an international feel that we suspect would be lacking in public and/or English schools. The language that the teachers (imported directly from the mother country) speak is beautiful - The Girl's "rrrr's" already roll far better than her parents'. The standards are high - she visited a Picasso exhibit in her first week, has spent a few weeks learning about "les microbes," and is learning how to write in cursive. There is a healthy balance between physical education and mental education, her teacher is wonderfully dedicated, and the class size is small.

(Given the horror stories we keep hearing about the public school system down here, we feel as though we have dodged the "No Child Left Behind" bullet that faces so many other parents who have different and fewer options than we.)

The one thing that gives us pause is the cost. The tuition is high, particularly when we consider that we would like to enroll The Boy whenever I do go back to work. I would never have dreamed that I would be paying more for one child's annual (pre-Kindergarten!) tuition than I did for my own annual university tuition. And while we are fortunate enough to have finances that allow this school to even be an option for us, it is not an option that makes only a slight impact on our bank account. Our children may be our future, but does that future merit funds that could (should?) be put towards retirement?

A secondary - but noticeable - effect of the tuition costs is that many other students in this school come from, shall we say, privileged families. I am glad that my l'il Jetta has a high sense of her own self worth; otherwise, she might feel insecure each day as she parks beside Audis, Mercedes, Volvos and Hummers. My own background of simplicity and frugality is (usually) enough to arm me with the knowledge that most things of real value cannot be purchased.

But will that knowledge filter down to my children if they are surrounded by others who brag about new toys, chatter excitedly about their latest costly activity or sneer at my daughter that $1 from the tooth fairy isn't worth very much? (Huh - my blood *still* boils just thinking about that incident and it happened over two weeks ago.) Not that it would be better if we could get into the public school, something that we are trying to do, but could take years. It would probably be worse, actually, given the school's location in a pretty posh district and its lack of uniforms which possess such a tremendous leveling capability.

There will *always* be others who have more, I know that. My children, like children everywhere, need to learn about the futility of keeping up with the Joneses and about valuing qualities like kindness and graciousness in their friends, regardless of their friends' socioeconomic level. And there are certainly lots of families who have to sacrifice financially to have their kids in this school and have incomes/abilities similar to ours, so it's not like all of them come bearing lunchboxes containing a silver spoon.

Sigh. It was *so* much easier in Canada, where immersion schools were a dime a dozen and cost nothing. What our local school lacked in academic rigour it made up for in warmth, informality and liberal-granola-like-mindedness.

But so far we are glad that we found this school and look forward to watching our child/ren's continued academic successes. Even if the last month has been spent on Christopher Columbus and we have been the at-home-audiences for re-enactments (bilingual, mind you) about the "Indians." Nothing like a front-row seat for the early days of imperialism!

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Happy Winds-day!

To borrow from that pantless Pooh, it is definitely a blustery day out there! My little weather icon told me yesterday that you Northerners had actual wind warnings, so you got yours a little early.

(Yes, I keep the temperature for both Winnipeg and Minneapolis on my computer. Just so I can shout "go! go! go!" whenever they're neck in neck and then gloat when our temperature tops yours. Of course, I also hang my head in dismay on days like yesterday when you get to a glorious 16 degrees and we're stuck in the lower teens.)

It feels a bit as though the blog is going to be changing a bit as time passes. When we were in the thick of moving, there was something major to report every day. Each day had earth-shaking headlines:

"PASSPORTS OBTAINED: ONE WOMAN'S RED TAPE BATTLE"

"GIRL SHELVES TEDDY, GAINS BFF"

"MOVING VAN ARRIVES TO TEARS OF JOY"

Now that things are settling down (see previous post on predictable routine - aka "a rut"), it feels as though we are moving off of the sensational front page and towards Section B. Or perhaps even Section C, given that this morning's post started with the weather. With that in mind, today's post will be an op-ed piece.

Someone asked me the other day to choose: truth or comfort.

I paused for the briefest of seconds. Was this a trick question? The answer was so obvious - why would anyone choose anything but?

Truth, I answered.

Since then, I've been thinking of why that would be my knee-jerk reaction. I'll definitely be the first to say that I've got an active (some might accuse me of "overactive") sense of integrity. I'm the girl who contacted service reps when I'd printed their booklets wrong, even if the mistake would likely have gone unnoticed. I'm the girl who returned to Superstore after realizing I'd forgotten to put my butter on the conveyor belt to be scanned in order to model "truthiness" to my daughter. Even if she was only 8 months old at the time. I'm the girl who left a note on the car whose hood may or may not have been dinged by my son's over-zealous door-opening practices, even though I wasn't sure if the damage was our fault.

Now all of these things cost me fairly little in the grand scheme of things. But when the two are mutually exclusive - when truth comes at the cost of comfort - I'll still choose truth. Back when we were struggling maritally, it would have been far easier to avoid knowing the truth in order to save what seemed to be a comfortable life. But I chose truth then and would choose it now too - no comfort is worth it when built on a lie.

Don't get me wrong; I'm still prone to choosing comfort now and again, particularly when I can convince myself the truth is not at issue. But unless I'm able to perform some fairly nimble mental gymnastics and truly believe that I'm not compromising my integrity, I'll frame the issue in a "truth or comfort" dichotomy and will agonize until I choose truth.

(This makes me an absolute nightmare for students who think that plagiarizing is no big deal. I take it quite personally and the barest whiff of sloppy citing of secondary sources turns me into one of those drug dogs who will not rest until the smuggler of others' ideas is found, wrestled to the ground, and appropriately brought to justice.)

It gets me to wondering. Is it just me? (Probably not.) Are there people who would knowingly choose comfort over truth? (Probably.) Are there compelling reasons for doing so? (Hmmm...)

So, what would you choose - truth or comfort?

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Ack! Bad Blogger!

Yet *another* "oh-i'm-so-sorry-i-haven't-had-time-to-update" for you. Last week's swift descent into chaos, which tends to happen when The Husband travels for longer than two days, was immediately followed by some more weekend company so there was just enough time in between the two to press the reset button on the house and that's about it.

We had another great weekend showing our out-of-town guests around "our" city. (Wonder how long I'll need those quotation marks?) That those guests happened to be Grandma and Grandpa was extra-special as The Girl and The Boy definitely miss all their grandparents. There was shopping and fort-building and lots of earnest lectures about all the different kinds of Pokemon (The Boy's latest obsession). My in-laws were even kind enough to offer to stay with our munchkins one night so The Husband and I could go out for a grown-up supper.

Weekends such as this underscore how quickly we've become accustomed to this place. Well, it seems relatively quick to me. I consider myself directionally challenged at the best of times and it was quite a triumph to be able to chauffeur everyone around. Pointing out the sights and coming up with the odd bit of local lore felt good, too.

Today felt like a return to routine, which we all know is my nirvana. Consistency, predicability, repetition - that's what keeps me feeling grounded. And as much as it's not my ideal routine, it's a rhythm nonetheless and I'm grateful for it. Getting everyone out of the house, dropping The Girl off at school, coming home to scour the Internet for jobs, a bit of Curious George over lunchtime followed by a little outing with The Boy before picking up The Girl fills up my weekdays quite nicely. Well, enough for now, I guess.

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Older and Hopefully At Least a Teensy Bit Wiser

Happy birthday to me! Yesterday I officially became "thirtysomething." Yes, I know I hit the big 3-0 last year at about this time, but that's not quite the same as being firmly established in a particular decade. 30 is like a layover between the twenties and the thirties - you disembark from Flight 2029 and take the tram over to Terminal 30 and wait around, checking out the magazines, drinking coffee and trying to decide which trail mix to buy. It's a kind of transition year where you're forgiven for forgetting that you're not in the "I don't have to decide quite yet what I want to be when I grow up" stage of life anymore.

(Of course, most of my friends who are already in their 30s seem to still be in that stage. Perhaps old age pension is the new "when I grow up.")

But now I'm buckled in with my seat back upright and my tray locked and we're taxiing down the runway towards the real land of the grownups.

Although, come to think of it, my first official day in my thirties was a bit of a bust in the whole "grownup" department. I gave myself permission to do nothing constructive where housekeeping is concerned. Which is different from every other day, of course, when I pretty much do the same thing except beg forgiveness after the fact instead of give permission before. Now my livingroom looks as though the local chapter of Phi Delta Epsilon had a rousing frat party here last night. We ordered in pizza and the kids and I sat around and watched The Biggest Loser.

(I will point out that there was educational value to this particular program as The Girl was quite busy adding up the number of shed pounds each team required in order to avoid elimination.)

Then I had the opportunity to go to bed with a teenage vampire. My dear sweet husband, in an act which is all the more cherished given the amount of head-shaking he no doubt performed while doing it, purchased for my birthday present the third book in a series of adolescent literature about teenage vampires. It's kind of like Sweet Valley High meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's adolescent literature at its "finest" - if I were 13, I would be head over heels in love with mortality-challenged Edward Cullen.

So let's see - my room is a pigsty, I had pizza and Coke for supper, I watched a few hours of inane television and my current drug of choice is Edward the vegetarian vampire (he doesn't eat people, you see - just mountain lions).

I have this curious feeling that I am just about to have my travel visa revoked.

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The First Few Flakes

Hello all - sorry I've been so absent lately! I have an excellent excuse; I was happily hostessing our first visitors to our new home this past weekend (and no, the title of this post does not refer to them). Some dear Canadian friends came to pick up the packages they've been sending here to save international shipping costs and were sweet enough to stay for a few days. I suspect they just needed to increase their duty-free limit, but they promise that they came to see us, too.

We had a lovely weekend with lots of kid-friendly activities. It was rewarding to be able to show people around "our" city and even have some favourites already to share with them. The menfolk went on a loooong bike ride (42 km!) to test out The Husband's new bike. (Not on the same bike - they rode separate ones. Although that's a pretty funny mental picture.) We also hit the kids' bookstore, the park, the trolley, Legoland and a fabulous Italian restaurant.

And today, with a wistful wave at their departing van, I returned back to reality. The Boy and I pretty much vegged all day, particularly given that there isn't a whole lot of incentive to keep the house firing on all cylinders. The Husband left this morning as well for a business trip that will keep him away - and unfairly warm as he's in Texas - until Thursday. We all know what *that* means: bare minimum in the cleanup and parenting department and lots of "macaroni and cheese from the box."

Today I also saw the first teensy-weensy flakes of snow fall. Nothing much - certainly nothing warranting the barrage of Christmas commercials on TV. I saw my first WalMart Christmas commercial at 9:23 pm on October 31. They didn't even have the decency to wait until Halloween was over - funeral meat at the wedding indeed. I always thought that Americans didn't get quite so much of that pre-pre-pre-Christmas pressure since they had a later Thanksgiving to keep the marketers at bay. Alas, Target is full of blinky lights, the greenery is appearing on the storefronts and the mysteriously absent occupants of the showroom livingrooms at IKEA have all put up the Christmas trees. I even saw one pseudo-kitchen that was displaying some Christmas cards.

Now really. Who is sending Christmas cards in November?! Those Swedes - masters of organization.

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The One Day of the Year It's Okay to Take Candy from Strangers

As much as there are elements of Halloween that I don't like, I'll admit that I find it kind of heartwarming that one day of the year, even the most curmudgeonly of neighbours buys a bag of candy, turns on the porchlight, and allows - nay, rewards - children to knock on his door and beg.

Our munchkins got fully into the spirit of things. Behold, the Snow Princess and the "Mutant Ninja Turtle":

His costume came with a mask, but he didn't want to wear it. So everyone thought he was a knight.

Trick or treating was lots of fun. We had to have a few etiquette lessons: at the first houses, The Boy announced that he does not like peanut butter or chocolate, which led to some people apologizing that it's all they had. He blithely said, "that's okay" before coming back to his mortified parents who instructed him to simply smile and say thank you.

This being Minnesota, 8 out of 10 houses count a dog as one of the occupants. There were a few occasions where The Girl would run up to a door, ready to hold open her bag and then scream and run even faster back to where we were waiting on the sidewalk. Never fear, her TMNT brother was there to save the day, and he would yell at the owner of the carnivorous canine "is he friendly?! Is he FRIENDLY?!" until he could turn around and assure his quaking sister that all was well.

We only did a few blocks, but managed to come up with a fair amount of loot:

The requisite check for razor blades and needles

The spoils of victory

The Boy also had his very first Pixie Stick yesterday. His response: "Now *that's* good."

Of course, all the excitement and pixie-stick-action (bollocks on all those studies who say that sugar does not cause hyperactivity) led to a late bedtime and a verrrrry cranky morning. The kids were a bit grouchy, too.

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Clean-up, Clean-up, Everybody Do Your Share

(Is it bad to start your Monday mornings off with a song by the big purple dinosaur that you'll now have running relentlessly through your head? Sorry.)

I love fall clean-up. Well, I don't love the actual cleaning part of it - it felt like we bagged somewhere around 89 bags of leaves yesterday. But I do love that feeling of "battening down the hatches" because winter's coming. I always think of Ma Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, stockpiling her root veggies and making preserves and hanging hams from the ceiling in order to get ready for winter's isolation. (And I always wondered - doesn't it smell to have hams hanging from the ceiling?)

Fortunately, there's little actual clean-up for us to do as we have no garden and a postage-stamp-sized lawn; once the leaves are done, we're pretty much good to go. And then we can turn our thoughts to that all-important fall task: carving pumpkins.

This is about as close as she actually got to touching the inside.

(No, there's nothing wrong with his eyes. He's just in that "fake smile" stage where kids don't seem to realize that the idea is to look realistic when someone says "say cheese!")

The Husband's labour of love.

Yesterday was one of those beautiful fall days where the air is a bit crisp but still warm and the sky is that rich blue one only sees in October. We took a scenic walk around downtown:

Stone Arch Bridge

Taking a break from throwing stones.

In the "hmm, that's odd" category for the day, there was a knock at my door right after I returned from dropping The Girl off at school. A man showed me a very official-looking badge and explained he was doing a background check on my next-door neighbour and wanted to ask me some questions about her. I got off easy with my patented "I just moved here" excuse, so he continued down the street, presumably looking for juicier stories. Which begs all sorts of questions: for what purpose does he want this information? Was his badge legit? (If it wasn't, then his Dockers certainly bespoke bureaucratic officialdom.) What sort of things has my neighbour been up to? Is the blue minivan intended to blend in or are there departmental budgetary constraints that provoke all sorts of frustration?

So many questions.

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Bigfoot Sighting

Is it just me or are The Boy's new shoes awfully similar in size to his mother's (which is no small *ahem* feat, given that she was frequently compared to Chewbacca in high school)?


No complaints from me about his size, of course. I do worry that the truant officer will show up at my door one of these days following up an anonymous tip from someone who has seen this child who looks to be school-aged yet sits at home all day.

(Speaking of which, The Boy has decided that he no longer wants to attend daycare or school. This is partly due to the fact that he has been told that he cannot attend them if he does not get the rest of his immunizations, so non-attendance leads the way to a needle-free existence. Upon hearing this, I reminded him that he had a fairly un-exciting life right now filled mostly with television and downloading Pokemon colouring pages. His response was that those are the things he likes to do, so all is quite fine in his world.)

I love Fridays. They're better when one is a cog in some individuality-crushing-bureaucratic-machine, of course, but second to that feeling when one is given a 48-hour pass from one's cubicle is the feeling when one's loved ones are sprung from the joint. Friday nights are typically movie-watching nights at our house, so I suspect a walk to our local purveyor of movies will be in order tonight. And we're having Ethiopian, mmm. Nothing says TGIF like eating without utensils.

Halloween is H-U-G-E down here. It's a bit disconcerting for The Girl, who struggles somewhat with the blurry boundary between reality and fantasy and is a bit frightened by all the ghoulish decor around us. But the bonus is numerous community parties. The first one was held last night in a local school:

She throws like her mother. Poor girl.

Oh, please, no. Not hockey. I *cannot* do 5 am ice times.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

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Ghosts of Peanuts Past

Anybody remember the Peanuts comic strip where Sally is seen beaming and hugging a prize to her chest? The caption reads: "Happiness is a new library card."

*I* remember that comic. I remember it because it was taped to the circulation desk at our local public library when I was growing up. I remember it because I stared at it when I was waiting impatiently for the staff to check out my stack of newly-chosen books. And, given that I was at the library about twice a week in those good ol' days, I had many opportunities to burn its image into my retinas.

I was reminded of said strip yesterday because I finally obtained the most important piece of documentation I require in any new city - a public library card. It always takes awhile to get because one needs to provide proof of residence and it is always the card that makes me the most gleeful. Driver's license? Pssht. Bank card? A necessary evil. Even my American credit card did not produce the same sense of well-being.

Our local library definitely lived up to my high expectations, too. Its selection is minimal, but in this age of computer-based library catalogues and inter-library delivery, finding the books I want is easy. But it's a lovely old building, with big windows, a fireplace and lots of dark wood. The children's section (complete with its own children's librarian) is really great, too.

At least, I'm hoping my kids will find it great. Like any parent with a passion, I fear that my children will be indifferent (or worse, downright hostile) to reading. I cringe a little every time they choose yet another viewing of Scooby-Doo over my offer to read them the book of their choice (even if that means a Transformers chapter book). Yet I also know that a true love of anything *must* be the result of self-discovery - I cannot force, only inspire.

I also wonder how The Girl's learning-to-read experience will be different from mine. In her old school, they taught reading in English in grade one to build a linguistic foundation and then only moved on to French reading in grade two. Her current school has the entirely opposite approach: learn how to read in French and then introduce English language arts in the second grade.

It is unbelievably gratifying (and terribly cute) to hear her sound out words in French. (Her favourite is "attention!" which she likes to yell.) And she sounds out English words, too. But how does a child who is learning to read both languages concurrently sort out which is which? I know children in bilingual families all manage it somehow, but I'm curious to know how it will all work. And, given that she is a mini-me and sometimes when I look at her all I see is myself at age 6, I am anxious that her experience be mind-opening and expanding and not limiting.

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It Takes So Little

So little to make me happy, that is. A sunny day, $7.99 pillow covers from IKEA, a hot cup of Dunn Bros. and the promise of a later trip to the new SuperTarget and I'm blissful and blithe. I mean, honestly, one would think the bar should be raised a *bit* higher. But I suppose the upside to being an emotional yo-yo who is sent plummeting into the depths of despair by the odd car accident (*ahem* - "wreck") is that it takes equally little to send me soaring to the heights of happiness.

(This is why it is good I am married to a cool-as-a-cucumber engineer. There is a balance - I provide the drama and he mops up the mess.)

The big news in our house is that The Girl has a head start on her Christmas list:

"All I Want for Christmas..." etc. etc.

Her top front teeth have been so loose for so long that they were pretty much flapping in the wind. She re-fyoooosed to help them along, so we had to suffer in silence and watch them dangle. The first one came out in school yesterday; she flashed me a proud, toothless grin when I picked her up and handed me a balled-up bloody Kleenex with a present for the Tooth Fairy. Later on the playground, I got to witness more tugging and tongue gymnastics as she got it so it was hanging by a sinewy thread. (How can such cuteness be preceded by such tremendous grossness?!) One accidental bump by the back of her hand and the other one flew out as well.

So Abigail, the Tooth Fairy, paid us a visit last night. Now although Santa and the Easter Bunny do not exist at our house, the Tooth Fairy does, primarily because I received so very much grief from my coworkers about ruining both Christmas and Easter for my child when I answered her honest question about their existence with an honest answer. She also exists because when I was pressed by my daughter to tell the truth "for *real*, Mom!" and I intimated that there was not, in fact, an actual Tooth Fairy, she began to cry. It seemed that one girl in her class had woken up in the night and had actually seen the TF and had received a sticker.

Well. Fantastical characters who inexplicably hand out money for used dental equipment are an all or nothing deal - either everybody gets them or nobody gets them. There was *no* way that my daughter was going to feel left out, particularly from a non-existent experience. So I back-pedalled and mumbled something about parental subterfuge and found myself typing a letter from "Abigail" to slip under The Girl's pillow to prove her existence. Said letter was excitedly pronounced authentic the next day because "the typing isn't the same as *our* computer's!" (Thank goodness for different fonts.)

So, much to my chagrin, I find myself guilty of lying to my child. But if that is the only way in which I have scarred her and destined her for intense therapy sessions to aid recovery, then I will count myself fortunate.

(For those wondering, the TF shells out the same amount per tooth that she did back in Canada - $1. However, The Girl would have been better off if she'd worked a bit harder to get them out last week on Canadian soil what with the exchange rate and all.)

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Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

It is so very odd to cross the American border and think that I'm now "home." Particularly when I'm in the immediate stages of withdrawal from "the-country-formerly-known-as-home."

But we had a fabulous time back in Canada - thanks to all who made it so lovely. And apologies to those with whom we were not able to connect; we'll catch you next time.

Our trip home was uneventful once I had fixed the tire that was rapidly flattening thanks to the nail embedded in it. Fortunately, my dad noticed its lacklustre swelling while the car was parked on his driveway and I was able to deal with it before I became one of those unfortunate souls stranded on the side of a highway that is just busy enough that people breeze by and assure themselves that someone else will be the Good Samaritan this time.

(A short digression: am I the only one who struggles this much with all things vehicular? I feel like I walk around with a "kick me" sign on my back when it comes to maintaining a roadworthy car.)

As nice as it was to return to our current residence, it underscored our current sense of being in limbo. We are officially between, in transition, experiencing change, etc. We are the visitors, not the visited. Life moves on for those back home (and thank goodness for it!) and slowly the hole we left behind begins to close over. But that's moving away, right?

We spent our weekend re-setting our house and our kids. Grandma's house is a fabulous place where treats abound and rules are relaxed. That's as it should be, of course, but it's always a bit of a shock (for all of us) when the kids come back to reality. Saturday was sunny (finally - what happened to all that Manitoba sunshine!?) and we went to the "other" zoo - the one that is smaller and less exciting, but also free.

The decades-old carousel we rode


If you kiss him, he'd probably just turn into a Ninja Turtle

Checking out the koi

Yesterday it was The Husband's turn to be the church-sampler. He tried churches number 3 and 4. Number 3 was a Mennonite church whose odd lack of Internet presence was explained when he got there and found a building, one car and no people - guess they folded. He got home in time to get to Number 4, which was a very small church (30 people). He was told that about half the congregation was missing for some reason and to come back in November. But, he was warned, there has been a fair amount of conflict recently (hence the lower numbers) and they are looking for a pastor. Apparently there is a severe pastor shortage around here - almost every church is in the interim-pastor phase.

So we continue our search for fertile ground into which we can plant some roots. And I continue my job search. I lack patience and follow-through (if you hadn't already realized that), so it's quite depressing to me that I don't have a job after 7 days of searching and 3 resumes sent out. Ah well, that just means more stay-at-home fun with The Boy. We're off to IKEA today and to the new Super Target that just opened - nothing says comfort like retail therapy!

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My Car Is Now Worth About $1.87. Including GST.

Somewhere along the line I must have deeply offended the gods of all things automotive.

It may have been in high school, when my friend Schellenboink and I followed each other through town, each driving our parents' somewhat "older" vehicles. Hers was a Chevy Caprice, I think, and mine was a 1978 Oldsmobile Omega lovingly dubbed "The Blue Hippo." We would travel along at idling speeds (passing many other drivers as we did) and laugh uproariously when the lead driver would signal a turn and then shock everyone at the intersection by turning the *opposite* way.

Or it may have been when we locked said Schellenboink in the trunk of a different car and played "guess where we are based on the movement of the vehicle."

(Why, yes, I grew up in a small town.)

Whatever the egregious offense, I am now paying for it. Repeatedly. I was involved in yet another car accident yesterday.

This one was totally and completely not my fault. (Sigh, they never are. Yet they keep happening.) I was not even in the car at the time; I was with my brood in the West Acres mall in Fargo, taking a quick playplace break. We came out to the car and I thought, "hmm, I think I know most of the dents in my car - and there are a number - but I don't think I've ever seen *those* ones." The piece lying on the ground beside my car also looked suspiciously familiar.

I called the police officer who had kindly left a note on my windshield and he informed me that a witness had reported a hit and run and they were looking for the perpetrator, but they weren't sure if the license plate number they had would turn anyone up. He also took my name and address; since I just got my new plates last week, my number isn't even in the system.

Fortunately the car sustained only surface damage, so we continued on our way. Less fortunately, The Boy decided that it was a perfect time to decorate the interior by putting a constellation on the ceiling. In marker.

It is enough to make one's equilibrium dip ever so slightly.

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A Hunting We Will Go, A Hunting We Will Go...

I wish we could find a doppelganger church. Or, if not *exactly* the same in an eerie yet comforting way, one that was almost the same but not quite. Like on The Simpsons when Bort and Liza save Krusty the Klown. It would be called Port Merrie EMC and would be ably helmed by one Claiton Gleeson.

Like our old church, it would be a diverse community of believers held together by a common love of God and each other. It would strive to manifest that diversity in its worship (hymns one week, Hillsong the next), its ministries (cradle roll for the newbies and senior lunches for the seasoned) and its leadership (all ages, both sexes). Best of all, it would be a place where all views and backgrounds were respected (even if respectfully disagreed with).

Sigh. Or, if we couldn't find the doppelganger church, I wish our *other* church wasn't quite so great (well, not really, but it would be easier to leave if we were storming out in a huff because no one consulted *us* on the plum-coloured back wall).

But, as we believe that a church community is important for so many reasons, we're hunting for one that has an Our Heroine/The Husband/The Girl/The Boy-sized hole in it. We're surrounded by Lutheran and United churches in our area; certainly potential places of community, but there are a few doctrinal issues that make us a bit hesitant.

The Husband tried a Mennonite church last week - yes, there really are Mennonites everywhere you look! It was an extremely welcoming church, but quite traditional in its worship and not a lot of children. I tried an Evangelical Free yesterday. Not the most welcoming (but to be fair, I was always terrible at welcoming new people), but it certainly had potential.

But how does one define "potential"? If we can't have everything, then what is settle-able and what is a must? Geographical distance? Surmountable, but makes connecting mid-week difficult. "Meat-y" sermons? Can do without if necessary, but it sure is nice to feel fed and not just loved each Sunday. Children's programming? Very important to us, but not necessarily a part of every church. Musical worship style? We like a bit of everything, but can we handle a church with only one set style?

Unfortunately, our other church (I can't say "former." It's still "home" to me) has left some awfully big shoes to fill. Ronald McDonald-sized if you will. The result is that I've become a bit of a church snob. I turned my nose up yesterday at the pastor who quoted Chuck Swindoll as his main source and then mispronounced "unanimity." And then I felt convicted for turning up my nose - fortunately I was in a good place to feel convincted.

(As petty as that reaction is, it does beg a question: can I/we feel comfortable at a church with sermons that seem watered-down?)

Ah well, no one said it would be easy and no one can expect to find the perfect church home on the first try. Well, our church back home was the first one we tried. But lightning doesn't strike twice.

Yesterday was dreary again, so we headed off to the Science Museum. It's like Touch the Universe. Except it hasn't been neglected since 1985 (or whatever year the funding ran out), so it's still cool.

The Boy with the Triceratops. Wearing his dinosaur shirt, of course.

The Girl playing some sort of game.

$35 on tickets and the highlight is colouring.

I liked some of it. It was awfully, oh I don't know, "science-ey." I was flashbacking to Grade 12 Physics with Mr. Hennessy. He was an exchange teacher from Tasmania and he called us "naughty sausages." And tried to teach us trigonometry in one day (for some reason, Grade 12 Math was scheduled concurrently, not as a prerequisite, so we lacked the necessary skills). SOHCAHTOA, baby!

Well, the kids are eating breakfast and the laundry's just about done, so we're almost ready to pack up and head out of here. Back to the True North for the three of us! Looking forward to loonies and twoonies (my wallet gets so fat from all these one-dollar bills) and knowing that it goes without saying that "guns are banned on these premises" in public buildings.

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(A Quick Note About Formatting)

For all of you who read my posts with raised eyebrows (particularly former coworkers) and question my chosen profession when you see the wonky formatting (yes, that is the technical term) of my posts, please be advised that I am aware of it but am incapable of fixing the problem.

(By "incapable" I mean too lazy to go through the Blogger help archives to try to find a solution.)

Anyone who can tell me why the internal spacing between the lines is fine until I put in a picture (after which picture it suddenly goes to eye-test-worthy single spacing) will get a gold star and will undoubtedly save my faithful readers a prescription change on their next optometrist visit.

If there is no ocular saviour out there, we will all just have to live with this. But it's been bothering me since I started and I just needed you to know that it has not escaped my attention.

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"I am but mad north-northwest...

...when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw."

Sometimes I'm embarrassed by how much of an emotional weathervane I am. My outlook on life often seems entirely shaped by external circumstances; those proverbial sunny days that keep those clouds away make me happy and anything else makes me...very much not happy.

Not enough sleep? I'm surly all day. Miss one of my daily constitutionals? Watch out, kids. Hit all of the red lights on the way to school? Don't even bother asking for assistance with your colouring.

I'm working on being more anchored, more stable, more "be still and know that I am God"-ish. In the meantime, I'm grateful (as is my family) for nice, sunny days like today.

The day began with coffee and a walk around the lake - just like every day should. No sooner had I got home than the doorbell rang.

"Hi, I'm your next door neighbour. I'm a sophomore in high school, and I noticed you had kids; I just wanted to let you know that if you ever need a babysitter, I'm available - here's my phone number."

(Of course, said children were in full Saturday AM cartoon mode - see previous post on the new member of the family - and for some reason they were not wearing clothes, so I didn't introduce her to her proposed charges.)

Then, after a sturdy brunch of homemade waffles and hashbrown casserole (my arteries feel like I went to Cracker Barrel - yum), we walked down to the lake to play at the park and take the trolley.

Standing outside the trolley. The Girl is clearly excited.
Riding on the trolley. The excitement is palpable.
Now *that's* more like it! (You can see the bandstand and the lake in the distance behind her)

We broke up the long walk home with a stop into the most incredible children's bookstore I've ever seen. There is a dedicated door just for kids, animals wandering throughout the store (a chicken and two cats usually have the run of the place, and I've seen a chinchilla take a spin around in one of those balls) and the walls are lined with books.

Finally, home in time to rake some leaves:

(You will notice, of course, that the leaves are *maple* leaves - we're even patriotic when we do our fall cleaning.)

So today was a sunny day. Good timing, as the forecast here calls for rain for the next four days. Fortunately, the kids and I are headed back to Canada next week for a few days, so hopefully I (and therefore, they) can escape the full brunt of this flighty rooster atop her weathervane.

P.S. 10 points to the first commenter who can identify the source of today's post title - without the use of a computer.

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Another Job I Could Never Do

I could never be a headhunter. You know, those people from staffing agencies who circle prospective applicants like sharks circling the lone occupant of a dinghy in the middle of the Atlantic.

Yup, the job search is officially underway and I thought I'd speed up the process by posting my resume on a job site. It was akin to the dinghy-occupant getting a huge paper cut (you know - those ones from file folders where you think "how on earth did I slice myself open with *that*?!" and then wonder where the nearest urgent care centre is) and then languidly trailing her hand into the shark-infested waters. Three calls in less than twenty-four hours - fresh meat!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy to let someone else do the looking for me. But one cannot be choosey as to which someone else is doing the looking. My first call yesterday was from someone who was, shall we say, quite enthusiastic that I apply for the position he was looking to fill. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm did not help me to understand his heavily-accented-English-as-a-second-language. In fact, it made it a bit worse, as he tried desperately to convince me to apply for a contract position and that it was not, in fact, too far from my house as he was typing the address into GoogleMaps as we spoke.

(At least, I think that's what he said.)

Now I know that he is only doing his job. And I know that those jobs are cut-throat and that he likely has tremendous pressure to meet targets. His mother loves him very much and he is, after all, made in the image of God.

This does not change the fact that I understood only 10% of the conversation and, while I thought that my resume would only be sent on once I had confirmed I wanted the job by email, his reply to my email to him indicating that I do not wish to apply for a contract position was to tell me that he had indeed sent on my application based on our prior conversation.

So now I'm screening my calls for over-zealous headhunters and I can cross "staffing agency" off of any possible career lists!

In other news, we have a new member of the family. Behold the "before" and "after":

Before - notice The Girl doing her best to mimic the "big screen" experience with a 12" screen
After - no need to pretend - *that's* a really big screen!

Yes, The Husband's "Congratulations to me for getting a new job" present arrived a couple of days ago. I spoke previously of my battle with avoiding the seductive blue glow of the Idiot Box (is it still a "box" if it's a flat screen? Perhaps it's an Idiot Panel?); I have now raised the white flag of surrender and declared the entire war lost.

Finally, your daily dose of sweetness. Yesterday on the way back from the park, The Girl told me a very long and intricate story about (I think) various animals and some garbage cans. 1/3 was told using various French words, 1/3 was in "Frenchified" English words (apparently you can just throw a Parisian accent into the mix and call it another language - kind of like the Star Trek Universal Translator) and 1/3 was pantomime. The pantomime came because she was trying not to use English and instead shouted "regarde! regarde!" so I could guess which kind of animal she was being. Very sweet. And my pride suddenly made me a tad less begrudging about the cheque we write each month to her school.

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A Painful Day

Sigh. You know the SuperDogs? Those highly-trained, super-fast dogs that do stupendous feats for the crowds at stampedes and exhibitions? They always do these obstacle courses - run through the tunnel, zig zag past the poles, race up and down the see-saw and, for the grande finale, jump over the bars like a show horse. Of course, with every pass through the course the crowd is whipped up into a greater frenzy by the announcer who thunders, "Who thinks that Laddie can do One. More. BAR?!" And so another bar is put on and Laddie keeps going through the course until finally, spent beyond his Kibbles and Bits, Laddie catches the highest bar with his back paw and they all (bars and barker) come tumbling down. But everyone cheers for Laddie anyway, who takes a good-natured turn around the arena before heading back to his kennel for some well-deserved treats.

I feel like Laddie today.

First, the DMV. As an out-of-country resident, I am required to prove my understanding of the rules of the road and have to take the knowledge test. (Better than those poor suckers from outside of North America - they have to take a road test, too. I'd never pass.)

Having pored over the Minnesota Driver's Manual, I headed over to the DMV and waited my turn to take the knowlege test. I had The Boy with me, but I also had the DVD player. Score one for me, I thought. But then there were all those signs - no electronic devices, no talking, no smuggled-in copies of the manual (guess they've got problems with cheating on the test). I was informed The Boy could not sit beside me with his DVD player.

So I took the test. With The Boy on my lap. Barely reading the questions before hurriedly logging the answers, whispering threats, and praying that I would not be overheard and given an automatic fail for cheating.

(For the record, I passed. I got one wrong - I guessed that you need to stop 50 feet behind a schoolbus with flashing signal lights. Apparently those little devils only need a 20-foot margin of safety. And while I'm okay with my 97%, I'm a bit bummed. Made me ask myself, "what happened to the other 3%?" Old habits die hard.)

Having passed my test, I waited again to be called to the window. Once there, the nice man behind the counter looked at my passport and said, "Um, I don't think this is you." This move has given me a few gray hairs, but nothing along the line of The Husband's all-over-distinguishedness. Yup, I'd brought the wrong passport.

So The Boy and I went home for a lunchbreak and a passport swap.

Back to the DMV. Back to another line-up. The next part - getting my license and registering my vehicle - was deceptively easy. Cleared that bar with inches to spare. I had thought, hmm, maybe I can go ahead and register/get plates at the same place - might as well bring my documentation and save myself a trip. Gotta say a kind word for Xauvier - a nicer public official I have yet to meet. In and out in an hour with a provisional driver's license and new plates for my car.

Off to the next obstacle. Immunizations.

The Girl requires the final rounds of Hep B. Or she "could jeopardize her ability to be admitted into/continue on in school." The Boy also has his share of required vaccinations, so off we went to the doctor's office after school. Weighing the pros and cons of giving her some warning vs. springing the ordeal on her, I opted to tell The Girl this morning. Yeah. Won't do that again.

Despite promises of a Target run to get some much-coveted items, The Girl was close to panic when we got there. The Boy, not remembering his last one at 18 months of age, was less upset. We got in the room and the physician's assistant said, "okay, so we're doing two for The Girl and six for The Boy."

Um, no.

I explained that all I wanted was Hep B for The Girl and whichever two were the next up for The Boy. She gave me an impatient look and tossed five of the eight pre-filled needles into the garbage. I volunteered The Girl to go first as the anxiety and anticipation were working her into a frenzy. I held her top half down and the assistant held her bottom half down and rammed the needle into her thigh. The Boy, confronted with the reality of the heretorefore abstract concept of "a needle," proceeded to panic and run around the office screaming, "NO NEEDLE! NO NEEDLE!" So repeat the above (times two) with the added pleasure of a six-year-old incoherently screaming next to me.

(I think the assistant was glad we had opted for only three after all.)

So I hustled two sobbing, limping children into the car and headed for Target with declarations of "the needles in my leg are hurting!" and "I can feel the sickness going through my body!" hurrying us along. But the pain was forgotten (well, mostly) once we got through the check-out.

Got home, checked my email, and found that the husband of the woman who rear-ended me (remember that obstacle from long ago?) has decided that the estimate we have provided is essentially an attempt to scam him (based on the expert opinions of his wife and pre-teen sons who determined at the scene that there was little damage, if any) and is capping the amount he will pay without involving the insurance company at just less than our estimate. He goes on to note that this is a "windfall" for us, but it's our call if we want to go to our insurance company.

(Okay, one more time Laddie. One. More. BAR!)

The Husband came home and I related the day's events.

"You registered your car? We don't have insurance down here yet - you know that you're not insured by Autopac anymore now, right?"

(And the bar crashes to the ground.)

Weary and bewildered but not beaten, I now take my well-earned lap around the arena to all of your wild and kind applause. No doggy treats for me, but the glass of wine is certainly helping. Although it could explain why I fell down the stairs ten minutes ago.

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