Vendredi V - School's Out! Edition

Among the things that America does better than Canada (Netflix! Chipotle! Target!) is its designation of school levels. In Canada, you've got the oh-so-cumbersome I'm in grade one. Which works fine, until you are talking about said child and you have to call him a kid in grade one or grade one-er.

In America, it's all about the first grade and third grade; I'm in first grade isn't particularly easier than I'm in grade one, but when it comes to parental bragging, I've got a first grader and a third grader trip off the tongue much more easily.

Unless, of course, these things are true. In which case, there are no words, but merely an astonished gasp.

And they are true. School ended today and, as confirmed by their report cards, my munchkins are officially in first and third grades respectively. This is, of course, clear evidence of a rift in the time/space continuum as this actually happened only yesterday, and I heard the doctor exclaim, "It's a boy!" a mere two days ago and "It's a girl!" the day right before that.

Not surprising, then, that it feels like it was last week that I came running down Third Street, breathless with excitement that my own elementary school was out for the summer. The holidays beckoned, eight whole weeks ready to be filled with:

Top 5 Best Parts of Summer Holidays

1. Homemade popsicles. Did your mom make these? Mine did. It can't have been a cost-savings, since popsicles cost something like four cents. These contained some magical elixir made of carefully measured proportions of Kool-Aid and Jello and were molded in Dixie cups, with popsicle sticks stuck in at exactly the right moment of viscosity. They tasted amazing and, best of all, she would make them with different layers. Lime and cherry, ohhhhhh yeah.

2. Going to the library. Finally, no school to interfere with the best part of life. I'd put a cardboard box on my wagon, trundle it down to the library two blocks away, and fill the box with books. One year I got in trouble with the librarians because I read and returned most of the books on the same day I took them out, and they were none to pleased to have to re-shelve books whose spots were only recently-vacated.

3. Red Rock Bible Camp. Despite an only partially-successful first year in which I spent a good part of it crying for my mummy, I grew to love my annual week at camp. And what wasn't to love? I took Arts & Crafts and Music (hello! geek skills!) except for the years I broke it up with Fishing (which was fine, since we always went out in the heat of the afternoon and didn't have to catch anything). I retched a couple of times on the first day in order to successfully escape plate scraping duty (those coffee cans and spatulas clunked unceremoniously at the end of the table after a meal? Grossest thing ever). There was always a cute counselor to have a crush on. But my real crush was on Jesus. As much as adult Christianity is rewarding, it's hard; some days, I'd give anything to be be back in in that black and white world, where I was in looooooooove with Jesus, singing love songs to him around the campfire.

4. Painting the garage. Our garage doors were made out of red metal, and, when they (and my mom) got super-hot, she'd send us out with pails of water and paint brushes to make water-darkened pictures on the scalding metal. The pictures dried in minutes, so we had a blank canvas all afternoon long. She was smart, and we were losers, and everyone was happy.

5. Leathery feet. It was always a shock to run barefoot around the block for the first time after school was out; the feet in my memory were those from the end of the past summer, toughened by eight weeks of tearing around after friends, bikes, and dogs. Didn't take long, though - by mid-July my jelly shoes were somewhere in the back of the closet and my nightly ablutions consisted mostly of scraping the dirt off my feet.

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You Take the Good, You Take the Bad

Whew! It's busy these days over at the ol' Bringing-Home-the-Bacon Factory. Not as bad as last year, but it's definitely the high stress point of my annual work cycle.

In addition to the overtime, I had to skip my lunch-hour yoga class today. Again. Third week in a row. Kind of a dumb thing to do, I know, since I need it more these days than usual, but it's tough to downward dog your way to peace when you're thinking of the extra time you'll need to put in that night because you took an hour out for yoga. It's also kind of dumb since I pay a flat rate, so my cost per session is mounting, but at least I'm supporting my yoga teacher's biking trip to Costa Rica.

[Aside: This is not entirely unprecedented. In a feat of spectacularly poor scheduling, I once signed up for a $110 10-session ball-rolling class and was able to attend only the first class. I still have the cruddy old demonstration ball I received with promises that I could trade it in for my own personal fancy shiny one at the next class I attended. Given its cost-per-use ratio, that dang ball beats my fancy treadmill hands down as The Most Expensive Piece of Exercise Equipment I Own.]

Apparently my brain has room only for one thing at one time these days, too. I tried to use someone's business card for a bus ticket the other day. Then on Sunday night, I somehow set my alarm wonky so I ended up getting up at 4:50 am instead of 5:50 am (on Monday morning, no less!) and only realized it when I was dressed and staring with confusion at the clock on the microwave.

[Seriously. That's TWO Daylight Saving spring-forwards for 2009. It is my most hated day of the year and I have to have TWO?!]

Things could be worse, though. I could be that guy whose car was on fire on the freeway shoulder this morning. Or one of the people in the Honda Accord I was following home today that had eight passengers in it. (I wouldn't have thought it possible myself, unless I had counted heads.)

Plus, I'm taking advantage of the beautiful day and biking down to the lake this evening where I'll meet a friend for a walk. (Biking! Walking! Lake! Friend-with-a-Minnesota-zip-code!]

And, super treat last night - I got to witness the birth of a praise band. Well, "band" is a bit generous. A girl from church invited interested folks to join her for a jam night, and the Peitricia Mae clan attended in full force. The Husband has been learning bass guitar in the hopes of just such an event, and did superbly (even sight-read!). I indulged in some alto, and The Boy played the bongos. He's not a huge lover of the actual beat, but does a fantastic job at filling in the empty space around it. The Girl was busy with crafts and presented each band member with a personalized paper box.

So all in all, I'd say we're looking at a slight net positive for the week. And we haven't even hit Chipotle on Friday yet!

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Super! Family! Fun! Time!

We went to the Children's Festival today. Good times. There was a Cirque de Soleil style show geared towards little ones (and wide-eyed parents, too - for serious, people should not be able to put their legs that far over their heads or hold themselves up using only their teeth). Lots of crafts and activity tents and music, too.

The Art Garden.

Trying out a new toy (which promptly turned into a light sabre).


The Canadian Consulate had a booth!

*sniff sniff* Makes me homesick.

But of all the activities we did, the kids liked this one the best:

The Boy still can't stop talking about his "TWO scoops."

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Vendredi V - Black Is the New Black Edition

You have perhaps noticed that I wear black somewhat often. Like, a whole lot. To the tune of my coworkers commenting when I wear a different colour (two days in a row last week! It's a record! Must be spring fever). It's become such a trademark that when The Girl makes a drawing for me, she uses lots of black because "it's your favourite colour, mom, right?"

To some, black is, at best, a good accent colour or a sensible (albeit boring) colour for a go-to pair of pants. At worst, it's a drab, ordinary choice that simply cannot compete with the lavendars, fuschias, and chartreuses of the world. But to me, all that is hogwash as I revel in:

Top 5 Reasons Why I Wear Black All the Time:

1. It suits my vibe. Nothing says "I'm a nerdy semi-colon-loving hater-of-change with technological disabilities who approaches life with paranoid suspicion and a mental red pen" like an all-sable, all-the-time wardrobe. Of course, the same could be said of the-world-is-darkness-wanna-be-goth-chicks or an Earls waitress. But in my case, the cut is different.

2. It hides stains. Given that I end up wearing portions of everything I eat due to a spectacular lack of coordination, a black wardrobe actually lasts longer than any other colour, since evidence of last week's Chipotle quietly joins those of weeks prior and no one is the wiser. Chalk dust was always a problem, though.

3. It is the colour of lots of other awesome things. Like black beans - way better than kidney and leave pinto in the dust! Coffee. My pay-as-you-go cell phone that costs me $7 a month because I never call anyone. Sharpies markers. Or fresh-ground black pepper - I've had a purse-sized pepper grinder on my Christmas list for awhile, but alas, The Husband doesn't take seriously my desire for being able to whip out my own personal supply at will. See item #1.

4. It makes shopping dead easy. I'm in and out of the store in 10 minutes flat because my search is restricted to noir. Of course, this does frequently result in me asking The Husband if he likes my new shirt/skirt/pants/dress and he says, "it's new?" But each item is unique to me, and I mourn each one's loss as though it were the only one.

5. It makes me feel stylish. None other than that great fashion icon Audrey Hepburn advised "you should always wear two colours, and one of them should always be black." (Fun fact: Audrey Hepburn had size 10 feet - if you don't believe me, check out the wedding scene in Funny Face. She and Fred Astaire pretty much don't even need that raft on the picturesque creek as they sail into the sunset - if she can make wookie-girl feet look awesome, so can I!) And this is advice I follow frequently. Of course, I leave out the whole "other colour" most of the time, and just stick to charcoal.

Ooo, I thought of one more. Bonus entry:

6. It allows me to keep my job. I have to get up at 5:00 am most weekdays, and coherent choosing of clothes is not something of which I am capable that early. Or most people: you should see what everyone else is wearing when I manage to catch the 5:55 bus. When everything's black, it all matches, and as long as I make sure to grab both a top and a bottom, I'm good to go.

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Who Do You Think You Are? (Or: I Love Ice Cream!)

Ordinarily I'm a novel girl, myself.

It probably started back in grade one, when I was given the burgeoning-nerd's equivalent of a Golden Ticket: admittance into the "big kids" section in the school library. While the rest of my class was stuck reading the Little Mr. and Miss oeuvre (lovely in its own right), I sailed smugly past them, down the forbidden stairs and straight into Chapter Book Land.

Learning to read was probably the most explosive thing that has ever happened to me in that nothing before or since has fostered such continual transformations of my worldview. It was tremendously freeing, and I quickly grew addicted to the high of literary escapism. I'm still teased for blowing off a friend "because I was too busy reading," and I can't actually remember the summer between grades two and three except for the sound of flipping pages.

If reading was my vice, then novels (or their chapter-book-predecessors) were my drug of choice. Their quality was irrelevent; whether it was E. Nesbitt or Ann M. Martin, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or Sweet Valley High, it was all devoured with equal enthusiasm.

(Except for autobiography. There were a few years around junior high when I loathed anything first person. This made I Am David excrutiating in grade eight. That and the fact that it was taught by Miss McKay, who also taught me Phys. Ed. I'm sure that every time she opened her mouth about the protagonist's motivation I expected her to make me do push-ups.

Of which I could do four at the time. But I'm up to seven now, so maybe I should give the book another shot, too.)

It's not surprising that I majored in English, nor that I ended up gravitating toward the novel. Sure, I did my time with poetry. But poetry is kind of like an extra thick milkshake from BDI. If you try to just sip from the top, you only get the watery, melted stuff and it gets all over your face. You have to go deep - all the way to the bottom - with a straw that concentrates your efforts. But it's super hard work cuz it's so very thick. And rich - too much of it and you just feel sick.

Plays were pretty great, too, especially ol' Will. But they're like a chocolate dip - you have to break through the outer shell of characters and plot and jesting to get to the real stuff underneath, and sometimes it's too tempting to just eat the chocolate and not go any further.

But, ah, novels. They of the long story arc, in-depth characterization, narrative structure, cohesion. The more complicated the better - hence the specialization in Victorian Lit, I guess.

[I suspect this is why Middlemarch is my favourite book ever. Doesn't get much more novel-y than that. I remember a teaching colleague striding into the staff room and asking incredulously, "You assigned them MIDDLEMARCH?! Are you crazy?" D*mn straight. They're the better for having read it. Even if they don't think so. In fact, the world would be a better place if everyone read it. You can bet your bottom dollar there wouldn't be a recession right now if all those bankers had considered the object lesson of Fred Vincy. And five bucks says we wouldn't be in Iraq if someone understood the inter-connectedness of humanity like Eliot.]

Novels are the Goog of literature. (For the uninitiated, a Goog is a BDI special: a blueberry milkshake topped with bananas, an upside-down hot fudge sundae, peanuts, whipped cream, and a cherry.) They've got everything! The richness of the ice cream and the lightness of the fruit. The sticky sweetness of the fudge and the crunchy saltiness of the peanuts. There's a different variety in each bite, each chapter.

The one type of literature I just couldn't quite do was the short story. Sure, I read my Chekhov and Tolstoy like a good girl should. But short stories just seemed like kids' vanilla cones with sprinkles. Good and all, but no real depth once you got past the maddeningly few bright spots. Plain, simple, and ultimately not enough to do much more than whet your appetite.

Then I discovered Alice Munro.

I read her first in university, and was extremely taken by her easy, deceptively-simple style. She writes about ordinary people in seemingly ordinary ways. At first, you think it's a vanilla cone. But then, you realize, you've just been focused on the whipped cream. There be peanuts underneath. And hot fudge. And echoes of blueberry milkshake, subtle but distinctive. In truth, her stories are mini-Googs.

But what really made me love her was when I read her introduction to Selected Stories:

I did not "choose" to write short stories. I hoped to write novels. When you are responsible for running a house and taking care of small children, particularly in the days before disposable diapers or ubiquitous automatic washing machines, it's hard to arrange for large chunks of time. A child's illness, relatives coming to stay, a pile-up of unavoidable household jobs, can swallow a work-in-progress as surely as a power failure used to destroy a piece of work in the computer. You're better to stick with something you can keep in mind and hope to do in a few weeks, or a couple of months at most. [...] I took to writing in frantic spurts, juggling my life around until I could get a story done, then catching up on other responsibilities. So I got into the habit of writing short stories."

How can you not love a woman who admits that she has to fit her creativity in between the spin cycle and after-school snacks? This, I can understand. I can barely squeeze out a few blog posts now and again, much less an entire story. A novel is utterly out of the question (although I have been known to while away pleasant hours imagining how chagrined Oprah will be when I pull a Franzen and decline to be in her Book Club. Is she still doing that? Don't tell me if she isn't - you'll destroy the daydream. Wait, do tell me - it would make my heart happier knowing that millions of women are now being given the freedom to choose for themselves what goes in their bookbags).

Alice Munro writes about the things that matter most - people loving one other, hating one other, being petty with one other, being gracious with one other. Her characters are so human that they don't suffer from the relative lack of description they receive. In some ways, it's hardly escapist literature at all, so close to home it is - it feels effortless and ordinary, yet it stays with you long after you've moved on to the next story.

I was absolutely thrilled to read this week that Munro has won the Man Booker International Prize. It's so incredibly well-deserved, and I smile thinking about the readers who will now hear of her and find out how lovely her works are for themselves.

So, summer is upon us, everyone - march out to the Jake Epp Library or your favourite online bookstore and get yourself some Munro! Treat yourself to some mini-Googs on me.

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Say Thankya

They were the lucky ones, and on some level every one of them knew it...which was luckiest of all.

~ S. King, The Dark Tower

I struggle with being grateful. Not because I'm not, or that I don't have reason to be. Far from it - sometimes it's the recognition of just how much I have that prevents me from being able to acknowledge it.

I don't know if it's just that same old liberal white (Mennonite?) guilt talking or what. Maybe I still labour under the impression that good things come to the deserving (in which case, somebody's got some fairly rose-coloured glasses when it comes to tallying up the marks on my moral report card). Maybe I struggle with the knowledge that the rain falls on the good and the bad, seemingly without any sense of order (in which case, why me?).

Sometimes it's just misguided (and ultimately useless, really) self-defense: if I don't acknowledge how much something means to me, then it's less of a target. Or it won't hurt so much if it's taken away.

Regardless of why I do it, I do believe that when I withhold thanks, I spurn the Giver. Saying "thank you" honours the gift and the spirit in which it was given. It humbles the recipient, who is forced to acknowledge a connection with (if not a dependence upon) someone other than herself.

All this to say that in the past few weeks, I have found myself becoming increasingly grateful. I don't deserve any of this, any more than the homeless clown who begs for money as I pass him on my way home from work deserves to have been let go from the circus.

[Not a metaphor. He sits on Nicollet Mall wearing floppy shoes and the saddest clown make-up I have ever seen.]

In a land of mounting job losses, I have employment I love. Surrounded by foreclosures, I live in a comfortable home. With the cruel hands of Illness and Death knocking too often at the doors of those I love, our family gets away with the odd asthma puffer and carrying an epi-pen.

Although I'm woefully unprepared and most days fall entirely short of the mark, I get to be "Mom" to two kids of such splendidiferousness that I have to catch my breath sometimes when I look at them.

Despite having been to hell and back (or, perhaps, because of it), my husband and I talk idly about retirement planning or upcoming vacations where once there was no shared future.

And all this is but a taste of what's to come when we finally can run headlong Further Up and Further In.

It's a golden life of such wealth that I understand what it means to have an embarrassment of riches. I'm tempted to feel ashamed, to look down and shuffle my feet a bit. Or somehow minimize its grandeur by complaining about the little things (oh, they are so little).

Today I can't. Today I need to be thankful, unabashadly grateful, no hedging.

To the Great Giver of the Great Good: Thank you.

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