Monthly Archives: March 2010

He’s gone.

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Oh I, oh I, I’d better learn how to face it.


I love Hall and Oates.

So what did I do other than bake bread this weekend? Hold onto your hats: I went to Ikea. I think I’ve made it fairly clear that I’m not someone who particularly enjoys shopping, so I entered the store with my usual mix of trepidation and feelings of being overwhelmed. The thing is, I was overwhelmed and anxious through the trip, but I was also overcome with feelings of consumerism and dissatisfaction as I looked at their neat displays: did I need new drinking glasses, I wondered, or maybe some fancy napkins, or even a giant bubble shaped floor lamp? In the end I left with only one discretionary purchase: a mold for making heart-shaped ice cubes. The other, semi-non-discretionary purchases were of a very practical nature: a desk and shelving unit for our disaster of an office.

After lugging home our purchases, I promptly left for the evening, leaving my husband to swear and sweat and curse the Swedes and their complex, wordless instructions. I came home to find a new desk in the office! A miracle! What a lovely husband I have.

I spent a large amount of time cleaning out the horrors of our office, finding many bizarre and useless items, leaving me to wonder why I hadn’t thrown them out already. It shall remain a mystery. My husband uncovered an old tape case – remember tape cases? – filled with various cassettes and mixed tapes, some hilariously labeled “Party Mix” and one labeled with a distinctly feminine hand. Oh yes it was! A mixed tape from an old girlfriend.

Is there any woman out there who hasn’t made a mixed tape for a boyfriend? Ah, I remember those days with fondness. Mixed tapes were like an interpretive dance for a relationship; there were things that you wanted to say but couldn’t, and so you made a mix tape to show your feelings. Maybe if you were especially creative you could add some photos or something on the case. There was a special formula to a perfect mixed tape: a nice blend of peppy, popular music to show that you were a cool and fun girlfriend, but also some emotionally-charged ballads that you would hope that your boyfriend would interpret in just the right way. The making of the mixed tape would be filled with tension, and often tears, and the mixed tape itself would be heavy with meaning and, possibly, angst. Chances are the boyfriend would be like “Cool. A mixed tape. Thanks.” and then would probably tape over it with something he liked better. I guess with the advent of CD’s and whatnot, those days are long gone. Sigh.

Those days are gone, and I never did make a mixed tape for my husband, but as of today it is a mere nine days until our eighth anniversary! Eight years! Adding that to the four years of togetherness prior to our marriage, and we have been together twelve years! Twelve years of bliss, I might add, but that does makes me feel a teensy bit old. Not, however, as old as when I think of how long it has been since I labeled a mixed tape.

Passionate Choices

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I’m passionate about many things: Ashtanga yoga, for example, and gardening, and the ritual of pouring myself a very large glass of wine the minute my children are in bed for the night.

That ritual is not meant to imply that I am not passionate about my children. I am. I love being their mother, their stay-at-home mother. I love the luxurious stretches of time I have with them; my ability to take them to the park or to bake muffins with them, to read with them or to engage them in one of our many strange science experiments that usually conclude with vinegar and baking soda all over the kitchen. Sometimes those hours together can feel like a sentence, but mostly I revel in my life of extreme ordinariness.

It is not a life I ever thought I would have chosen, but it is one I am extraordinarily happy with.

I have chosen this life, just as some women choose a very different path, one with a career and a paycheque. I am aware of this privilege of choice, and also I am acutely aware that some women have no choices whatsoever. Some women are constrained indefinitely, and are making do with the shabby hand life has dealt them. Around me I see mothers – and fathers too – struggling to cope, every day. What I’m most passionate about is remembering that we are all – from the mother with the Louis Vuitton diaper bag to the one with the third-hand stroller and faded, worn jeans – in this parenting thing together. I am passionate about the idea that we parents, all of us, make up a community who need to support each other regardless of what choices we do or do not make.

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This post was written for the Mabel’s Labels BlogHer 2010 Contest, in response to the question “What are you passionate about?”

The Bachelor and Royalty

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My friend, in reference to The Bachelor: “Who watches this shit?”

Her husband: “The same people who keep with royalty.”

The Bachelor, along with pretty much every other reality TV show, really is shit. It is a horrific concept: hundreds, maybe even thousands of women vying for a shot at dating/marrying a guy simply because he is good looking and successful, or at least for a shot at a reality-TV career and/or a contract with Playboy. I wonder what it would be like if a friend or colleague was on that show, would it change your feelings for that person? What if that person was the woman that no one in the house liked? Although I am a strong believer in karma and non-judgment, I unfortunately would have to respond yes to that question.

That show is revolting on a number of levels but is particularly gross when the dating gets serious and the contestants are all allowed to stay “in the couple’s suite”. Inevitably, every woman chooses to do this meaning that the bachelor is screwing a number of women in a short period of time – and everyone involved knows it. Eww! I am not a prudish person but I find that stomach-turning. Although I do think it would be funny to invent a drinking game in which players take a shot every time someone on The Bachelor says “I feel a real connection with you.” I mentioned this to my husband and he looked at me expressionlessly for a minute, then suggested that a) a game like that has probably already been invented by college students and b) it would not be successful as everyone playing would be passed out in the first five minutes. True.

I don’t actually watch The Bachelor, but I have watched enough episodes over its multi-year run to form an opinion on it. Similarly, I don’t actually keep with royalty but I have in the past. In fact as a child – like many girls born in the seventies, I suspect – I was obsessed with Princess Diana. For Christmas and birthdays I always received those glossy coffee-table books about her and her snappy eighties fashions as well as, I clearly recall, a paper doll book that had a replica of her wedding gown which was impossible to cut out with safety scissors, all those lace points. I was staying with my grandma in Saskatchewan during the Royal Wedding and I remember her waking me up at four in the morning to watch it. I remember lying on her thick shag carpet in my summer pajamas, Grandma in her chair behind me, smoking and drinking coffee and discussing Lloyd Robertson’s boring commentary. When Princess Diana died in 1997, I was on my way to the bar with a group of friends when one of them said “Hey, did you hear Princess Diana died?” It was a sad ending to my royalty following.

I watched the movie The Bank Job this weekend, and discovered that Princess Margaret was involved in a number of sex scandals – who knew she was such a scamp? That was never mentioned in my coffee table books. Apparently she had several sad, doomed relationships, not unlike Diana. This brings me to something that I plan on writing about in more detail – post to come! – Lori Gottleib’s article and book about “settling” for Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right. Did Princess Diana settle? She married the heir to the British Throne, for heaven’s sake, she had two lovely boys, and, by all accounts, a very unhappy life. She “won out”, so to speak, against Camilla Parker-Bowles, who evidently “won” in the end. The women on the Bachelor are looking to “win” – but what’s the prize?

Spring-ish

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We’ve had a run of really unseasonably warm weather and I spent the afternoon cutting back perennials, pruning shrubs, and pulling back mulch to squeal over the teeny sprouts of my emerging very hardy perennials. Then I immediately replaced the mulch because while I might be excited, I’m not stupid: no mulch shall be removed until May. Fortunately these are extraordinarily hardy plants; they could probably survive nuclear fallout.

In my house, these little sprouts are known as “baby plants” and while my children may have a high level of disdain for actual human babies, they are thrilled about non-human babies, plants included. “Mom”, Mark said excitedly, “It feels like you are going to have a baby! Baby plants!” Apparently my ovaries are green now.

Finding little bits of green in my yard is my favourite part of spring. It feels very festive around here: the sun is shining, the snow is melting, and I walked the dog without gloves on. Truly festive indeed. There are only two small dampers on this festive spirit: muddy paw prints in odd places and the proliferation of outdoor wear in the back entry. I find the latter to be somewhat trying. Our back entry is overflowing: winter jackets and snow boots, gloves and toques and also baseball caps, light jackets and down vests, running shoes and mud-caked rubber boots. And I cannot get rid of One Single Thing because I am superstitious and it’s only March – I’ve finally realized it’s not still February – and the second I put away a winter article, even the smallest mitten, the city will be blasted with snow and ice, and it will be All My Fault.

Cool Things People (who are not me) Do

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The other day, someone asked me how my bread making was going. This poses the question: if your New Year’s resolution is to bake bread, and you bake bread one time, does that mean your resolution has been fulfilled? In actuality I have baked bread four times, thank you very much, and each time they have turned out very tasty. I had visions that I would bake bread every weekend – not all bread consumed by our household, but weekend dinner fancy bread. But – fortunately for me, unfortunately for my lofty bread goals – I discovered that my friend, an artisan baker, was selling his wares at a market near my house.

I have a soft spot for this friend because a) his bread is unbelievably delicious, b) he practices early morning yoga with me at the Yoga Shala, and c) his girlfriend is an independent film maker who was indulgent enough to allow me to be an extra in one of her short films! I’m a movie star! I always wanted to be in a movie, and in this you can briefly see me doing a Sun Salutation and also stretching. Total movie star, no? AND, thrillingly enough, her film is going to be shown at the Sofia International Film Festival. I told my mother this and her response was “Wow, a lot of people are going to see your feet!” Yes, my feet figure prominently in one of the shots. At least I had given myself a pedicure prior to this.

Where was I?

Oh yes, bread. With my friend’s bread so incredible and convenient, my own bread making fell by the wayside. Every week he would offer something different: sourdough with poppy seeds, crusty whole grain loaves, cheese bread, and the most amazing cheddar and olive breadsticks. I could eat those breadsticks every single day for the rest of my natural life. But an incredible opportunity has arisen for this couple – they are headed to a Buddhist monastery in Nepal for him to build a restaurant and organic garden, and for her to document the experience for a movie. That is fairly amazing to me, a person who makes numerous lists just to leave the house, and who takes weeks to figure out what to pack for a six-day vacation.

So, I guess I’m back to baking my own tasty-but-much-inferior bread. Is it totally selfish of me to be just a teensy bit sad?

What day is it? What month is it?

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I’m completely confused. I keep thinking that it is still February, yet simultaneously I believe that it is later in the week than it actually is. I’m thinking “Wow, I can’t believe how warm it is for February” alongside “I’m sure glad it’s Thursday!”

So I’m confused and I feel like I’ve been whirling around like the Tasmanian Devil, minus the drooling and anger. Well, not totally minus the anger since yesterday I felt that I was actually losing my mind, for real this time, because during the entire afternoon there was no ten minute block in which someone was not complaining, arguing, or hitting someone else with a foam sword. Those foam swords, a loot bag item from a long-past birthday party, are the bane of my existence. The boys have created their own special fight club, where they jovially and companionably beat each other with foam swords, until inevitably someone goes too far and the fight gets serious. The first rule about fight club, of course, is that you don’t talk about fight club, so when I intervene in this so-called game, they tell me that they are just having FUN and they’re NOT REALLY FIGHTING and I’m WRECKING THEIR GAME. I can’t imagine my no-fun status improving any time soon.

Along with the fight club and Jake’s fairly disturbing new picture making obsession, (“I’m drawing Anakin. He has a red light saber. This is Obi-Wan Kenobi. He is cutting off Anakin’s hand. OH NO. Anakin is Darth Vader! He’s BAAADDDDD!” he narrates as he paints over his picture with dark colours, chuckling evilly to himself) I’ve been busy with the school’s Scholastic Book Fair. It’s such a great fund-raiser for the library, but it has, as always, unhappily resulted in the obtaining of a new Scooby Doo Early Reader. I love reading to the boys. I do. I even willingly read Mark’s favourite Dinosaur Encyclopedia, which is clearly the driest and dullest dinosaur book ever written, due to its propensity to list in grave detail the dates and locations of various fossil discoveries. But, along with foam swords, those Scooby Doo books are a menace to society.