Picture Post

Just some cute pictures for you all today - The Husband took the kids to the sculpture garden on the weekend:

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Vendredi V - Chef's Surprise Edition

When I first got married, my cooking repertoire consisted almost entirely of packaged noodles and sauce (hey, cut me some slack - I was a child bride - that's all anyone else my age was eating).

Since that day, I have slowly added to the list of dishes that I can make without entirely ruining and have become (hopefully not flattering myself unduly) a not unacceptable cook. I'm no Iron Chef, but I don't blanch at the thought of supper company anymore either.

This confidence stems less from inherent abilities and more from the discovery of certain products; my go-to epicurean enhancers, if you will; the first items to be purchased for my pantry after what has become our annual move.

Top 5 Items that Turn Me into Jamie Oliver**:

1. McCormick's All-Vegetable Bouillion Cubes. I do not understand how chicken- and beef-flavoured stock cubes can be made a) without MSG and b) without meat. All I know is I love these things so much that I'm importing them from Canada since I can't find them down here.

2. Butter. Even though I'm one "Meet Your Meat"-style movie about the dairy industry away from becoming vegan, I'm a huge fan of butter. It is my fat of choice and makes *everything* taste better.

3. Balsamic vinegar. I totally admit that I'm a Philistine when it comes to the world of for-reals, honest-to-goodness balsamic vinegar, the kind that requires a sommelier. However, I do know that even the cheaper stuff makes fanastic salad dressing and adds zip to all kinds of sauces.

4. Fresh-ground black pepper. From Campbell's soup from the can to homemade risotto, fresh-ground black pepper livens up every dish. I thought once that it would be a good idea to find a purse-sized pepper grinder to carry with me, but the odd looks I received from coworkers when sharing my great plan ground those plans to a halt.

5. My handblender. Not a food item, but a near-perfect invention. Its uses are few, but specific. No food processor, regular blender, or masher could ever puree a soup so easily and so well.

Happy Friday all! May you have at least one meal requiring the use of all of the above at some point this weekend.


** I totally admit that Mr. Oliver is a bit of a hack, but the way he loves food combined with his little lisp make him my culinary idol.

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How Can You *Not* Put This in the Cart?

Diet Dr. Pepper that tastes like chocolate-covered cherries. I can't imagine why it's a Limited Edition. Nor why I'm currently drinking a can of this aberration of nature. Pretty much the only thing on the list of ingredients I recognize is "caffeine." Something seems so wrong about this. And yet...(slurp)... so right....(slurp)....

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But What Can *I* Do?

In Middlemarch**, Dorothea Brooke reacts with dismay when she discovers that an acquaintance's reputation is being (unjustly, she believes) dragged through the mud. But when those around her counsel her to stay out of it and not borrow trouble, she replies with some heat, "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?"

Indeed.

Though such a sentiment lines up with both my personal faith and with larger Christian tenets (and also those of other major religions or even simply ethical and moral living espoused by those who profess no particular faith), I often struggle with exactly how to make life less difficult and for whom.

It's not that opportunities don't surround me. Our church is filled with MCCers and is associated with a number of different immigrant groups. One member works with cluster bombs, another with restorative justice. Our local community constantly advertises clean-up days, environmental awareness days, green festivals, etc. And, of course, there are enough new relationships in my life with work and the kids' school to give me ample opportunities to foster community.

But the sheer number of opportunities is overwhelming. The Husband and I watched An Inconvenient Truth yesterday, and as with most "call to arms" presentations like that, I rise from my viewing wearily, and instead of feeling emboldened for change, I feel disheartened and weighed down.

In fact, I feel less like Dorothea and more like her Middlemarchian foil, Rosamund Lydate, wife of the man whose reputation has crumbled and his livelihood along with it. When he tells her of their troubles and financial woes, she looks at him and says, "But Tertius, what can I do?"

In the book, her response is a sign of her moral weakness, her childishness, her selfishness. But I find myself saying the same thing in the face of the enormity of poverty, food security issues, the growing disparity of wealth, the sickness of individualism. What can I, little Peitricia Mae, caught up myself in a life where much time is spent unknowingly fostering the very ills facing our world, do?

I honestly don't know. I do think that the answer lies in picking one or two causes, pursuing them passionately, and cheering on those who choose others. I think the answer lies in saying not "what can I do," but instead "what can I do?" What is available to me? If I can't single-handedly stop global warming, perhaps I can sign up to teach some ESL classes. If I can't bring peace to Darfour, perhaps I can work to raise two children who will be peacemakers, even at individual cost. If I can't live completely sustainably, perhaps I can stay out of malls as much as possible to avoid feeding the latent consumerism that threatens to overtake me (and my wallet) too often.

And perhaps that will have to do.

** For those who have not yet experienced the glory that is Middlemarch (a 19th century novel by George Eliot), I would highly recommend you make plans to do so this coming winter. It's not really summertime reading - unless you like your beach reading long, complicated, and with four (count'em - four!) marriage plots, but it's perfect for a snowy day with a cup of tea or two. Plan ahead now - keep an eye out at the bargain section of your local bookstore and pick up a cheap copy when you see it. It will likely take you longer than your average library borrowing period, and I would submit that everyone would be the better for owning a copy. It's my desert island book, and her ability to capture the intricacies of the human psychological condition in her characters makes every annual reading fresh for me.

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Vendredi V - Saturday Edition

Sorry all, a bit late to the party this week. It's been a doozy of a week, with The Husband travelling for a few days and all the working at home plus juggling kids' schedules that means. But he's home (for a few days), and work is done for the week, and it's Saturday.

Ah, Saturdays. They're the July of weekends. You've gotten the "just let out of school" silliness out, but you've still got the "slowly-approaching the new school year" preparation period to come. Saturday is that golden "between" day of the weekend. And so, in honour of the day:

Top 5 Best Saturday Memories:

1. Cartoons. This one's a standard. Getting up at the crack of dawn, whispering while making a racket in the kitchen and foraging for breakfast, and turning on the sugary sweetness of hours' worth of commercials and the kids' shows in between them. We held out to the bitter end and didn't trudge upstairs for lunch until all that was on was ten-pin bowling on CBC.

2. Going to the dump. An odd memory, perhaps, but one of the things that could drag us away from Voltron and She-Ra was when Dad would call downstairs, "anyone wanna go to the dump?" We'd squeal and run, pull rubber boots over our pajamas, and go with him to drop off that day's load of yard clippings/garage crap.

3. The smell of the vacuum cleaner. I hated Saturday cleaning with all my might (my jobs were bathrooms and dusting), but one of the last tasks of the day was when my mom would vacuum. I don't know what it was, but the Filter Queen - an ancient machine which has been passed down to the next generation and has been used by all three of us siblings, I think - gave off this weird smell. I think it was still a residual from when Yenno looked at the vacuum nozzle, then the toilet, and then wondered what would happen if the two met. While the vacuum was on. Annnnnyway, this smell would show up whenever the vacuum was used, and it always signalled both the end of work and the happiness of a clean house.

4. Daylight reading hours. Back in the day (and even on the odd day during my grown-up life), my favourite afternoons were those curled up with a book. Saturday afternoons were long stretches of time when I could skip out on reality as I knew it and join the likes of Nancy Drew, Claudia Kishi, and Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield.

5. The wet hair/pajama combo. Saturday night meant bath night, and to this day, going to bed with wet hair always reminds me of that cozy feeling when everything was clean, my mind was whirling with whatever reading adventure I'd been on, and my insulin levels were back to normal after OD'ing on sugared cereals during cartoons.

Good times.

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If Variety Is the Spice of Life, Make Mine Bland

My love for the "same-old, same-old" (which abbreviates, quite appropriately, to "SO-SO") is well-documented here, I think. Until today, I always thought I was just a stick-in-the-mud with mild obsessive compulsive tendencies who had an affinity for a place for everything and everything in its place.

It appears my quest for predictability has deeper roots:

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/04/15/choices.html

Apparently, researchers have confirmed what I've long suspected - too much choice is hard on one's brain.

Fortunately for the few brain cells I have left, I've discovered a number of ways to reduce excessive levels of choice in my life. I make one pot of soup on Sunday nights and - voila! - lunch for an entire week. We have tacos every Friday night and - presto! - one less meal to have to plan each week. I stay out of shopping malls entirely, and so never have to worry about choosing between the latest fashions. I am a vegetarian, and thus reduce the number of viable options on most restaurant menus to three.

Oscar Wilde said that "consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative." I suspect the opposite is true: those of us who strip our lives of variety, who cling stubbornly to "the way we've always done it," and who fear change (no matter what good it promises) are those who actually *create* and *nourish* headspace for real workings of imagination that are much more fantastical than deciding on which flavour of ice cream to choose at Cold Stone Creamery.

All hail the Mighty Mundane!

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Past My Bedtime

...so I have to make this quick. I had a fabulous first day of the new schedule - it's amazing how time flies when you start your day early. But 5 am will come again all too soon, so I'd best head beneath my snuggly covers.

We managed to make up with the other mom (see previous "play dayt" post) today. She was very gracious and kind. On the one hand, boys will definitely be boys, and mine just happens to be in the potty-mouth stage. On the other, it's never too early to learn the difference between exuberance and rudeness. So I made both kids apologize for being rude today and that's the end of that.

The rest of our weekend was quite nice. We picked up a new bike for The Boy as well and took both kids out for some parking lot practice:

So sweet. Of course, little does The Boy know in the above pictures that as soon as he's done, I'm going to make him go and clean up all the rocks he threw.

At the neighbour's driveway.

While their Audi was parked outside.

Sigh.

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Well, Now *There's* An Invite We Won't Get Again Anytime Soon

So the kids went on a "play dayt" yesterday (spelling courtesy of The Girl). Her BFF invited her over after school and, to be kind, the invitation was extended to The Boy as well. We were a bit uncertain as to how things would go, what with the 2 vs. 1 dynamic that is always present whenever there are three children together, but both children insisted they would play together nicely.

Uh-huh.

My first inkling of trouble was when everyone arrived home after The Husband had gone to pick them up. The Girl came into the house and informed me that she was supposed to go to her room to think about three things she could have done differently.

Next, The Boy came sobbing into the house, wailing incoherently about going to his room and three things and bathroom words.

Then The Husband came in grimly. I sympathetically rushed to uncork a bottle of wine while he proceeded to tell me that when he got there to pick them up, his eyes met a chaotic scene of children running and screaming. Our son had apparently turned into a monster-child and had been throwing things, stuffing the dog full of people treats, and yelling "bathroom" words. Initially stalwart, our daughter succumbed to the lure of the forbidden and soon began shouting her own obscenities. Then their hostess fell prey to temptation and, totally corrupted by our children, joined in on the linguistic crimes.

The mother (who was all by herself in the midst of this, poor woman), mustered up a weak smile for The Husband and remarked, "He sure has a lot of energy. And a lot of gas."

Oh yes, the farting. Not the "pretend-sound-from-your-mouth" kind to go with the bathroom words. The "oh-my-goodness-what-*is*-that-smell?!" variety that belong exclusively to him.

So the two perpetrators were hauled out of there and we had some very long time-outs and very serious conversations. I sent an apologetic email to the mother and The Boy will definitely be apologizing on Monday (if she's even speaking to us anymore).

I, for one, blame the kids' school. (It's certainly not our fault, of course, although when The Boy informed me later that his hijinks had also included the removal of his pants, I *almost* felt convicted enough to track down a book by Dr. Dobson that would admonish me for sparing the rod and spoiling the child.) Nope, it's certainly the school and their decision to have indoor recess almost every single day for the last two weeks. Getting sweaty in the gym is simply not enough. My demonspawn children require copious amounts of fresh air and lots of running on the field to get rid of enough energy to make them function properly.

Sigh. Somehow I'm doubting that this excuse will fly with the other mother. I'll try to look on the bright side - maybe the word will get out about our kids' *ahem* behavioural issues, and we'll receive fewer birthday party invites - buying all those presents gets expensive!

Do not be fooled by their mild-mannered appearance.

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Random Thoughts for a Tuesday

The Husband and I have decided to switch work shifts so that he has the opportunity to bike to and from work. Of the changes this will bring, the worst for me will be getting up at 5 am in order to make my bus in to work. So, to get my body ready, I'm getting up early this week, even though we don't change to the new schedule until next week.

And soooo, I'm feeling a bit tired and scatterbrained right now. No paragraph structure or unity and coherence today, I'm afraid. In no particular order or parallel structure, today's thoughts:

1. The Boy's eyes got worse before they got better. It went into both eyes and we had to stay home from church. But you can hardly see the redness now.

2. The Girl informed us yesterday at supper that she had volunteered to bring cupcakes to school the next day. We asked her when she thought she might be going to get said cupcakes. "I dunno," she said. Fortunately, we have a cupcake tree in our backyard (aka a quick trip to SuperTarget).

3. I really like my job. I might be jinxing it, but I'm starting to feel like I kind of, somewhat, now and again know what I'm doing.

4. I just sat here for five minutes trying to think of a fourth thing. No such luck.

Dear me, the quality of posting around here has gone down quite substantially. In an effort to liven things up a bit, a picture of the kids from a couple of weeks ago - the last day of school before spring break was "crazy clothes day":


The Husband told me I couldn't put The Boy in a dress. He said nothing about leggings or pink socks, though....

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The Smell of Spring in the Air...

What an unbelievably gorgeous day. Truly. It is still 18 degrees (Celsius!) and the sun has already gone down. The kids were running around in shorts and t-shirts today, and at one point were even doing the swimsuits and waterguns thing.

I suspect this is a one-off, though. The forecast calls for showers and even some possible snow later this week, so it's a good thing we made the most of it. We said goodbye to The Husband's parents, who were kind enough to come to our house this week to spend our kids' spring break with them (thus keeping our daycare bill nice and low this month). I went for a fabulous walk by the lake; felt a bit odd being in a t-shirt while walking beside the still-frozen lake, but I'm not complaining.

Then a walk/bike to the library. Well, more like "walk/run-while-swearing-under-one's-breath-and-pushing-a-complaining-girl-on-a-bike." For her birthday, The Girl received a brand new bike and we're trying to teach her to ride it. The trip to and from the library sent us all soaring past our upward limits of frustration, so we'll wait until at least tomorrow to try again.

(She actually called The Husband "a bad man" for his part in the debacle. So much for all those Hallmark commercials where the father lets go and proudly watches his daughter go sailing away shrieking, "I'm doing it! I'm doing it!")

And to add to the day's freshness, The Boy decided to spray some Febreeze on himself. Well. With his oh-so-sensitive skin, he immediately ended up with huge welts/hives behind his knees and was ushered sobbing into the shower. Not content with one allergic reaction, he handled his Febreezed clothes and then rubbed his eye; nine hours later, his eye is almost back to being unswollen.

Ah well. At least it smells lovely around here - both inside and out.

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Vendredi V - Harriet the Spy Edition

I love people-watching. Always have. I remember my dad busting me at the air show for not watching the planes; everyone else's necks were craned towards the sky while I was much more intrigued by the horizontal view.

What I see is often a tad unsettling. In fact, there have been a number of things lately that have been the cause of some discreet head-shaking. I give you:

Top Five Things Observed in the Downtown Skyways that Befuddle Me:

1. Ugg boots. They look like what they are - made by New Zealand sheep shearers for New Zealand sheep shearers. I was mildly annoyed when they first came on the scene; a few years later, observing their unabated presence, I'm simply mystified.

2. Venti-no-fat-soy-double-strong-extra-hot-frothy-whirly-gig designer drinks in the morning. For an afternoon treat, I can see it. But at 8:00 am?! That's straight-up black coffee time, folks.

3. Bluetooth headsets. Is the pace of modern life so hectic, and the strain of mere existence so burdensome, that you can neither dispense with your cell phone for a quick walk from the car to the office nor actually summon the required strength to hold a cell phone to your ear in order to place that all-important call? I keep worrying about all the people walking around holding earnest conversations with themselves complete with hand gestures.

4. Groups of people walking slowly. The number of people walking is, mysteriously, inversely proportional to the speed at which said group will saunter. And, the larger the cluster, the more right they seem to feel they have to spread out across the entire walkway. Usually while clutching their frothy coffee drinks. Since when does might equal right?

5. A Scot wearing full national costume - including the kilt - on St. Patrick's Day. Okay, so I only saw this the one time. But it was pretty stunning, nonetheless.

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Happy Birthday, Little Miss April Fools!

Seven years ago today, I was blindsided.

My-life-as-I-knew it was walking blithely along, humming a tune and thinking how nice it was that all her ducks were in a row and that everything was going according to plan.

Then - WHAM! - providence ran up behind her, and, snickering, gave her a hard push which sent her sprawling, limbs akimbo and carefully organized packages in disarray.

I remember asking in disbelief, "You mean I'm having this baby here? Tonight?" And then, two short (but unbelievably intense) hours later, with even more shock, "it's a GIRL?!"

Since that night, the joke's been on me in so many ways. Out the window went all my carefully-laid plans. Into the ether went any sense of my own mastery over my world. And gone forever was a little piece of my heart, so help me, now carried (and too often dragged through the mud of frustration and crushed by the boulders of fear) by my daughter.

She's as intense and emotional as she was when she first showed up. Yet she's also aloof, so snuggle-time is rare and hard-won. Language-loving and curious, she soaks up information as fast as you can pour it into her.

I often see her baby-self in her - when she cries in frustration or when she looks mournfully and wordlessly around, and I know she needs her Mom Teddy to make it better. I see her toddler-self in her - when she excitedly tells me about something new she has learned at school.

And I often see the young woman she will become - when she is snarky (and, good heavens, she can snark your most belligerent teen under the table). When she is wise beyond her years. When I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye and her lanky frame with dishevelled hair suddenly transforms into a leggy, glowing beauty.

I'd freeze her if I could. This is the first year I've said that - until now, I've been impatient for her to grow up, to be able to do more, to be able to understand more. But I can tell already that with continued maturity will come conflict; we are far too similar, too emotional, too dramatic. We are both so stubborn, so determined to be right.

But until that day (and probably still on that day, if I'm being honest), I'll admire her and love her and bask in her turbulent glow. Baby girl, I'm glad you brought this chaos into my life. Even if it meant five more weeks of chaos than I'd planned.

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