In threes

This post has been stuck in limbo inside my head and my heart for some time.  I have felt stuck and unable to write ... about anything, really, and it took me some time to figure out why.  I have come to the conclusion that there were three related events that rattled my sense of self, which in turn seemed to stunt my creativity.  Each event is related to a tangible part of my past, each of which recently left my possession for a time.  It has felt almost as if I needed to have all the parts of me back together before I could get any of my thoughts out on paper. 

I’ve had some free time lately and have been working my way through the house, organizing and rummaging through closets and old boxes, which led to me looking through some of my dad’s things.  A couple of months ago I uncovered enough slides, negatives and old photographs to take advantage of a deal through Black’s where they would convert them to digital format, saving me the effort of doing them myself “one day”.  So off they went, with the promise of safe return in 6-8 weeks. 

The order came in about a month ago and the results are awesome.  I can’t wait to show my sister the slide photos that my dad took at her wedding when we are together later this week – I am sure she’s never seen most of them! 

Cheeky smile!

Also, it seems that my penchant for taking random nature shots comes to me honestly; my dad had a keen eye for beauty in the ordinary.  I think it’s incredible how you can learn so much about someone even after they are gone. 



Winter street in Sault Ste. Marie





How awesome is this picture of my parents?



In the same bout of rummaging I found a box of old film reels.  Some were unmarked, but many had my dad’s handwritten descriptions such as, “Dance recital 1979” and “Baby 1974” (that’s me!)  I brought them to a local multimedia company, a true one-man band of media conversion, who agreed to convert them to Blu-Ray for me.  As of today I am still waiting for the film order to be complete, but I recently spoke with Mr. One Man Band and he said that it’s nearly finished and looking good.  I promise to share some of the footage when it’s safely back in my hands. 

In the midst of this walk down memory lane, my dad’s watch stopped working.  My mom gave my dad this watch on December 25, 1972 as both a Christmas gift as well as a “new dad” gift, as it was the date she was due with me (I didn’t make an appearance until January 18^th – poor mom!)  My dad wore the watch every day, in the roughest of work environments, wearing through several watchbands in the 36 years he wore it.  I’ve only had it for 3 years, and it’s given me a run for my money (much like I did to my dear old dad, no doubt!)  I wear it when I need to feel close to my dad, when I’m travelling on the highway (for some reason it makes me feel safe), and sometimes just for fun. 

At first I didn’t worry when the watch stopped, as popping in a new battery has always been the solution.  Unfortunately this was not the case this time.  When the jeweller came out of the back room gingerly holding the watch with a sad look on his face, I knew the news was not good.  I realize the metaphor here is heavy-handed, but I swear that I felt the same sense of dread that one feels getting bad news about a loved one’s medical condition.  He explained that the reason for the watch stopping seemed to be a mystery, but that they might be able to find someone who could fix it.  Otherwise might I consider putting the watch in a shadow box or display case?  I am sure that I don’t have to tell you my answer.  So I signed a waiver allowing the watch to be shipped off-site and held my breath. 

Weeks went by and finally the phone call came – my watch was fixed!  I won’t lie, the repair was not cheap, but it was totally worth it.  The jeweller replaced the glass cover as well and the watch looks sparkly and new.  And it’s nearly 40 years old.  There’s another metaphor in here somewhere, I’m sure of it.  

Bleeding Hearts

This lovely little plant popped up in our front garden a month ago. At first the green leaves that pushed up through the rocks resembled a weed, and I considered yanking it.  We moved into this house in the fall, so every new bit of green that sprouts is a mystery.  Considering that our family is prone to making the wrong judgement call when it comes to making the pull-or-save decision, I decided to wait this one out. 

It turned out to be the beginnings of a Bleeding Heart plant, whose progress I was able to excitedly monitor from my office window.  James thought I was a little too excited, if I'm being honest, but a couple of weeks ago all the ladies came out to play!


When I was growing up, we had several of these plants in every house we lived in.  My mom would gleefully take every opportunity to pull off a flower and show us the lady in the bathtub hiding inside, which I loved.  As an adult, I now see the flowers more like those two-way images, where you alternate between the young lady and the old lady, never able to see both at the same time. 

Remember this creepy cool image?

I've already dazzled my girls a few times this spring with my plant "magic".  I am sure the trick will lose its allure soon, but in the meantime, I'm the coolest mom going. 



Look at the whimsical little girl in her pink wig!



A single lady in her bathtub

A little faith

A couple of weeks ago Madeleine came home from her Sparks meeting excitedly clutching two little plastic cups of dirt.  Personally, I was somewhat less excited about the dirt part.  She explained that her leader Kelly had tasked them with planting and caring for seeds that would grow into plants. 

With the exception of the dirt-in-the-house situation, I loved this project.  When I was in grade school, every year my dad would come to my classroom armed with a tray full of Black Spruce seedlings and a lesson about tree planting and the environment.  At the end of the lesson, each of my classmates took home a baby tree in a little plastic cube, with instructions to plant it in a wide open space.  I like to imagine that some of these trees are still standing today in backyards and fields throughout Sault Ste. Marie. 

Madeleine has taken her task very seriously, and every day she waters her dirt and checks for signs of life.  After a week went by with no action, I started to worry that the seeds might not grow.  I wasn’t there when the seeds were planted, so I had to take her word for it that her seeds actually made it INTO the cup.  Madeleine reassured me, and said that Kelly told the Sparks it would probably take about two weeks for the seeds to sprout.  "Trust me, Mom, Kelly said so." 

One day the unthinkable happened: when Madeleine was watering her plants, she accidentally knocked one of the cups onto the floor, spilling dirt everywhere (the horror!).  She immediately looked at her father and I with big eyes and devastation moving across her face.  We quickly assured her that the seed was probably fine, that sometimes it’s okay to shake things up a bit.  She put the cups back on the counter near the window, putting faith in the fact that we were right. 

Another week went by and still nothing.  I was starting to feel a little devastated myself.  My experience as a parent includes a frequent struggle to balance my girls’ happiness with the occasional need for them to learn a “life lesson”.  (To be fair, there aren’t a lot of life lessons happening for Stella yet, but you just wait little girl!)  I will admit that I had a moment of desperation where I considered shoving a couple of little seeds into the dirt to fudge the results (with apologies to my scientist father), but in the end I decided this kind of life lesson was manageable for a six-year old. 

I got out of bed this morning and went to check on the cups and was surprised and delighted to see the tiniest little bud opening up above the dirt in one of the cups!  I gently moved both cups away from the cat’s perch on the window ledge (there is an elaborate backstory about Monty and his fondness for houseplants which I will leave to your imagination) and went to wake up Madeleine. 

When I shared the good news with Madeleine, she burst out of bed and ran to the window to check on her little seed.  “See?”, she said, “See?  I told you it would grow!”.  Oh ye (me) of little faith. 

What type of seeds they are remains unclear, but I suspect we will have our answer in a few weeks.  You can bet we’re going to plant this little seedling, whatever it is. 

Life lesson averted.  Well, altered, actually.   

http://youtu.be/8UkKTlzyLhQ
A little John Hiatt for good measure. 

Germs

Reason #17 why we normally avoid petting zoos. 

 
Awww, look at the sweet little chick! 

                                














...gently touching her tiny finger to the chick...

...and then putting it right to her mouth!  Aaaack! 

Guilty Pleasures

I like Billy Joel.  There it is, in black and white out in the open for all to see.  My husband will attest to this fact given the number of times he’s witnessed my reaction to hearing one of his greatest hits albums played in its entirety at our local pub.  I would never play the album in public myself, but imagine the quiet glee I feel when I get to hear every song!  I try not to sing along to We Didn’t Start the Fire, but it’s a struggle. 

My friend Jon has a playlist on his iPod that he calls his “guilty pleasures”.  It’s full of those songs that he loves but wouldn’t necessarily brag about.  Last time I checked, Jon’s playlist had Spice Girls, Kanye, Guns n’ Roses, Beyonce among others.  I presume it’s constantly updated and would expect to find Adam Levine there now.  To me, that’s going too far musically, but to be honest, I am in no position to judge. 

It likely will not surprise those who know me to learn that I too have a Guilty Pleasures playlist.  What may surprise them is its content.  The Cult, Van Halen (you can take the girl out of the Soo...), George Michael, Prince, Kelly Clarkson, and yes, my good friend the Piano Man (hey, he released it the year I was born).  Billy Joel is a bit of an enigma.  He was inspired by The Beatles and committed his life full-time to music after seeing them on the Ed Sullivan Show.  He’s not the best looking guy, yet he managed to marry Christie Brinkley and apparently he dated Elle Macpherson for a time.  He’s a talented guy.  He wrote all his own songs – it’s sad that this needs to be said, but with so many mass-produced electro-techno-pop-tarts saturating the music industry right now, it’s a rare compliment.  The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) lists him as the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling recording solo artist.  And yet he still falls into my guilty pleasures category.  Sorry Billy.

 

Seriously though, I defy you to get through this song without dancing just a little bit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eAQa4MOGkE

Billy Joel is clearly the master of satire (look at that hair!), however I don’t think his back-up band is in on the joke. 

It is important to note that I do not part with this level of detail about myself freely, but surely the internet will neither judge nor betray my musical indiscretions.  I think that if all just admitted to our musical guilty pleasures, surely the world would be a better place, as the lines that divide the music snobs from the music geeks would disappear and we could be free to ... oh I don’t know.  Just admit it people, you love AC/DC and we all know it.  See?  Doesn’t that feel better?

In the timeless words of Billy Joel, “Hot funk, cool punk, even if it’s old junk, it’s still rock and roll to me”.  I couldn’t have said it better myself Billy. 

Abu el Banat

I’m not sure why, but Madeleine has recently started making fun of her father’s English accent. 

It began in February after the girls’ Granny stayed with us – my mother-in-law speaks with a lovely Northern England accent – Madeleine started saying “I beg your pahhhdon” instead of “excuse me”.  Madeleine and Granny are very close and her accent should be old news, but for some reason Madeleine has picked up on the fact that Granny and Daddy sound different than the rest of us (and each other, interestingly).   

When Madeleine was three years old, she was having a rough time at daycare so James took a year off work to stay home with her.  In this time she unknowingly picked up her father’s accent.  She still refers to a grocery cart as a trolley and will put trash in the bin instead of the garbage, and to this day will  ask for “tomahtoes”in her sandwich. I will never forget the day we were having dinner with my parents and James accidentally said “tomaytoes”; I thought my mother and I were going to pass out we were laughing so hard.  Madeleine has since lost her accent but I'm thinking of picking one up, just to keep things interesting. 

Of course the little sister mimics everything the big sister does, so poor James has two girls walking around mocking him on a daily basis.  Well, technically three.  Four, when my mother visits. 

Daddy (giggle) can I please have some strahhwberries? (giggle) How about some rahhzberries?

Peals of laughter.

Would you like a glass of watah?  Watah! 

Say it Daddy!  Say watah!

I beg your pahhhhhhdon!

My dear husband, worn down by years of sleep deprivation, usually gives in, much to the girls’ delight.  To be fair, Stella has no clue why it’s funny, but given her penchant at an early age for hyperbole, I predict many more years of embellished mockery. 

There is an Arab expression “Abu el Banat” that roughly translates to “Father of Daughters”, which is intended to garner sympathy for a man whose fate in life is to raise a family of girls.  Occasionally James will mutter this phrase under his breath.  I think it helps him cope with his destiny. 

Abu el Banat indeed.

Friends With Kids

James and I saw this movie last night, because let’s face it, date night is never complete without Jon Hamm (and paying for a sitter and the guilt involved in leaving your children...aaaahhh...you get my point). The story involves three couples at various stages of couplehood/parenthood (including the male and female “friends” who decide to have a baby together without the drama of a relationship so they are free to date other people – yes, it is as predictable as it sounds but it works so it’s okay). There is a scene at the beginning of the movie where the two childless couples show up for dinner at the home of the couple with children and chaos reigns – dinner is half-cooked, kids and toys are everywhere, the couple is stressed and arguing. Been there...on both sides of the door. There were several awkward and uncomfortable moments in the movie, more so because they felt very real. These moments highlighted the fact that having children definitely impacts your relationship and quite frankly, your free time.  Hahahaha!  Free time!  Hahahaha! 

Today is a dreary rainy Sunday, the kind of day where you just want to curl up on the couch with a book or a movie on TV. Except you can’t, because the minute you even THINK about such a plan, there is a child dressed in a Minnie Mouse costume demanding that you pay attention to her by repeatedly crashing into the china cabinet with her ride-on toy and laughing demonically. 

Since James and I were already on Stella-watch, the to-do list was fair game. 

So far today between the two of us we have:

• Made breakfast (pancakes), lunch and two snacks
• Washed, dried and ironed three loads of laundry
• Polished a few pairs of shoes
• Made a big pot of soup
• Supervised the decorating of Easter eggs
• Had one long-distance phone call
• Vacuumed two floors (for the second time this weekend)
• Sold an item on kijiji
• Done some work for a client
• Dismantled an abandoned fort
• Dismantled an abandoned concert stage
• Dusted the fans and baseboards
• Written this blog post

...and it’s only 4pm.  And yes, we're exhausted. 

We also supervised the girls, in case anyone is worried. 

After watching the movie last night, I started wondering what we did with our free time before we had kids.  I must admit, this topic comes up frequently within our social circle. 

There is talk of long Sundays – almost too long! – where we would wake up at 10am or later, toss out a few options for the day (brunch? the movies? (gasp) both?) I have fuzzy memories of all day TV box set marathons. Sometimes we would just go to the mall ... because we had nothing better to do. Nothing.Better.To.Do. 

It is important to note that this is not a dig at those without kids. In fact, if you don’t have kids, stop reading now and go watch a movie. Or eat a meal in peace. Do it for me, please. Except don't be surprised if this gal shows up at your door:

Whatcha doin?

I can't help but feel that we should have been much more productive pre-kids, and yet we have nothing to show for our time. Neither of us wrote a novel, learned a new language or a musical instrument, we didn’t even take the time to learn how to use our camera properly. Now, the mere thought of sleeping in past 7am (without a child's elbow in your side or foot in your face) is a luxury. 

Even the six-year-old-pre-teen in our house can’t get any downtime on a lazy Sunday; Minnie Mouse is following her from room to room and smacking her on the head with some cardboard when she stops paying attention to her. 

So another not-so-lazy Sunday goes by. But really, who can complain when the distraction is this cute? I guess now I have something better to do.