Feel the love

Eve, lying on Matt with her ear on his chest, on the couch watching baseball: "Your heart is making it very difficult for me to hear the television". Turning her head to yell into his chest: "STOP PUMPING!" Matt: "Um...."

My GPS is not bilingual

So it appears that thinking about blogging doesn't get a blog post down any more than thinking about exercising makes my butt any smaller. Plus, just as I started this, Eve asked if she was Catholic, and when I explained that she's baptized but no, not really, she said "what does it mean when you're baptized?" Oy.

I continued my trend of starting the week off running - dentist, gym, groceries, piano, fairly involved dinner, some work on an assignment and BAM it was 8:30 (as opposed to doing a bunch of coughing, unloading the dishwasher and calling it a day). Of course, then I feel like curling up and reading zombie literature for the rest of the week, but it's a start.

Let's go back to March Break. We decided on a whim to go to Montreal. My husband called it the first step in cracking our Montreal Phobia. We live in Ottawa, so Quebec is very close geographically, but to me it still feels like an alien land. They speak a whole other language there. The stoplights are sideways instead of vertical. I feel like at any moment I could be snatched off the street, locked away, force-fed poutine and compelled to conjugate French verbs until I admit that Quebec is a distinct society. When I first started driving in downtown Ottawa I learned very quickly that if you zig instead of zag you can suddenly find yourself travelling over a bridge to Quebec with no clear idea of how to get back to Ontario - and my French is not bad, but I'm not entirely clear on how to say "oh fuck, I did it again" properly.

But Montreal! It's beautiful! It's charming! It's closer than Toronto! So we packed up the kids and programmed the GPS. Listening to our GPS's accent épouvantable was among the most enjoyable aspects of the trip. Boulevard Viau was abbreviated to Boul. Viau on the GPS, which you might think would be pronounced Bool Vee Oh. But no -- "In 600 metres, turn right on Bowel Vee Ow. Turn right on Bowel Vee Ow." She sounded like a sick cat; I hope she wasn't offended by the fact that we were all helpless with laughter by the time we finally turned.



We visited the Biodome. I got so caught up in telling the kids how cool it was going to be to see the penguins that I actually didn't realize until we were at the penguins that I've NEVER SEEN REAL PENGUINS before. Also, PENGUINS are FREAKING COOL. They walk so carefully with their wings poked out behind them. The crested penguins look just like the penguin in Surf's Up! When they swim by their feathers look like a wet suit! It's like they're uniquely suited to live in the Antarctic or something! Eve and I were about to settle in for the afternoon, but Angus made us leave. Dumb penguin-non-appreciator.





We stayed at a hotel with a nice pool. Eve met a friend in the pool and they played pool frisbee.

It had a nice front desk too. Angus made a friend at the front desk.



At one point we got ready to go down to the pool and then we all looked at Matt. He was wearing bright red bathing trunks and a burgundy t-shirt. It was the worst colour combination in the history of colour combinations. It made your brain hurt. It made your eyes scream 'look away, look away!' He thought we were just going to laugh a little and then let him proceed down to the pool. Fat freaking chance -- we made him change. You don't wear burgundy and red in Montreal. I think.

We walked through old Montreal to find a place for dinner. I ordered veal piccata and fettucine alfredo. The pasta was great, the veal wasn't. I wasn't going to say anything, but then when the waiter came I thought about how I'm always so gutless and I really should say something, so I said the veal was overly chewy and not lemony at all, and the waiter looked so stricken that I felt horrible and wished profoundly that I'd just shut the hell up. He brought us free tiramisu, which the kids fell on like starving dogs until they got to the booze part, whereupon Matt swooped in, which made the kids laugh their asses off.

Back at the hotel, Angus insisted on wearing his Montreal Canadiens t-shirt with his Quebec Nordiques cap, even though Matt said this meant his head was at war with his stomach.



And Eve (who also got a hat for a souvenir), after mocking Matt's bathing suit/t-shirt combo, sported this cutting-edge ensemble all night:



We had a blast, no one laughed openly at our butchering of their cherished language, and we didn't get asked to leave and never return (mostly because Matt wouldn't let me steal a penguin). I call it a win. Oh, and one last picture for Pam, who has an inexplicable love of duck bums:

Ava Lee Kicks Ass: The Water Rat of Wanchai

House of Anansi Press sent me a copy of The Water Rat of Wanchai: an Ava Lee novel, which is the first of a series by Ian Hamilton in Anansi's new Spiderline imprint. I cracked the book a bit apprehensively for a couple of reasons: Ava Lee is a forensic accountant, and numbers are not among my top ten favourite things; a good part of the action takes place in Hong Kong and Bangkok, and I often find that mysteries set in Asia are just not my thing -- I've tried reading David Rotenberg's Zhong Fong series, and I just couldn't empathize with any of the characters or get engaged in the action.

Ava Lee is a compelling character. She is Chinese-Canadian, tiny, highly intelligent, proficient in bak mei -- an ancient form of martial arts taught only to the most gifted students -- and gay. Her employer, who she calls 'Uncle', is a well-connected Hong Kong-based godfather-figure who has implied ties to the Triads. One slight drawback of this being the first of the series is the need to introduce all of this information, which impedes the action somewhat initially. Also, at first I was a bit unsure about how Hamilton was going to generate any suspense, since Ava Lee seems eminently capable of handing most criminals their testicles before they even realize what's what.

This actually turned out to be one of the things I enjoyed most about the book. Because Lee is so self-sufficient, the action is much more subtle and intricate than in many mysteries. She does go from Canada to Hong Kong, to Bangkok, to Guyana, and the drastically different cultures and landscapes are vividly portrayed and integral to the developing plot. The supporting characters are all well-drawn, including Lee's father, with whom she has a complicated relationship as a daughter of a 'second wife'.

The book avoids a lot of pitfalls of the female detective genre -- she doesn't brainlessly put herself in dangerous situations just to prove how tough she is (Kathy Reichs, hello?), she doesn't harbour any dark secrets from a tormented past that some hot-shot yet gentle FBI guy (or chick) has to help her overcome, and there are no showy plot twists. It was quite refreshingly different. I really enjoyed watching Ava Lee in action, and I think subsequent books will be even better once the character's backstory is in place and she becomes more familiar.

I Am Go For Launch

Enough I say! Enough with the wheezy lungs and the palely loitering. Enough with displaying all the volition of brown winter slush. I informed my husband that, starting fresh after March Break I had big plans to...have big plans.

Sunday was bright and sunny and spring-like. Eve went to play at her friend's house and I went through her clothes to make the spring stuff more accessible and get rid of the outgrown things.

I buy my kids' clothes too big. Not stupidly big, and not things like shoes, but if I can reasonably go a size up and have something fit a little longer, I will. The problem is, then once it's in their drawers or closets, I forget that just because it's too big now doesn't mean it will be forever. Because kids -- they keep on growing, the little buggers. So here I am going through Eve's underwear drawer, the underwear that I put out for her to wear every morning, which she happily wears. And I find that the biggest pairs in there, the ones I thought were the exact right size, are size SIX -- and she just turned EIGHT. And there's only a few of those pairs -- and the rest are even SMALLER.

I'm not sure what to be first -- disgusted with my cluelessness, or impressed with how my daughter maintains her sunny disposition even wearing underwear that's four sizes too small.

After tossing out a bunch of tiny adorable undies, I walked over to Eve's friend's house to have tea with the friend's Mom and then walk home with Eve. The girls had been playing outside for hours and she didn't even know I was there for an hour and then I had to call Matt to come pick us up because she couldn't walk another STEP (her underwear was probably too tight).

Monday was snowing. I forced myself out to the gym anyway (big plans will not be derailed by snow. Or really bad hair). I went to three different grocery stores for the right yeast and Eve's coconut yogurt, went home and made a honey-curry marinade for pork tenderloin for dinner, carried Eve's cast-off clothes downstairs and sorted them, took the kids to piano, went to the library and paid off my fines (I think of it as a donation), brought the kids home, made dinner, helped Eve with her science project, read Still Alice, felt absolutely certain I was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's, went to sleep. I know -- it's a slow day for most people, but it's more than I did for most of the last six weeks. And I did it all without crying. Or coughing. Much.

Today...wow, me not obsessing about being slothful and despairing is almost as boring as me obsessing about being slothful and despairing. Among the normal Tuesday stuff, today I am finally at the point where getting my hair cut, as horrible as it is, is still better than NOT getting my hair cut. In other words, I can't live like this any more. I also FINALLY called the dishwasher guy, which is HUGE -- I'm finally over thinking that it's quaint to have half your dishes come out covered with multi-coloured glued-on crap, AND somehow at the exact moment when I decided I was ready to dial the number and use my words like a big girl, the tiny purple scrap of paper I wrote the phone number on was magically available -- isn't it great when Me and The Universe suck less concurrently? Tomorrow I might do something crazy like make appointments with the eye doctor. Stand back, folks. I'm unstoppable.

Knowing Me Knowing You - March

Gotta love when Shan the Fairy Blogmother comes along to rescue me from blog oblivion with another Knowing Me Knowing You.

1. Do you consider yourself a foodie?

I looked at this question a couple of days ago and my first thought was 'what exactly is a foodie?' Then I read a piece in the paper last night that made it sound like 'foodies' are sort of snobby and elitist about everything they eat - organic this, local that, molecular reduction of the other thing. In that case, I'm most emphatically not a foodie (I kind of hate the word foodie the more I type it). I enjoy cooking and I try to have most of what we eat have ingredients I can pronounce and not have to look up online, but one of my friends the other day says she can't even think about a McDonald's cheeseburger without feeling nauseous and, while I sort of wish I could say the same, I can't (although I do feel dirty inside after I eat one. A little.) We've been doing dinner parties with four other couples where everyone tries to cook something interesting, preferably something they've never cooked before, and that's been really fun (pork belly! celeriac! chocolate meat!).

2. Are you a spender or a saver?

Tough one too. I spend too much on books and clothes for my kids, and groceries when I get away from planning my meals well. I don't enjoy shopping that much, so if I don't go I don't spend -- my husband observed the other day that having pneumonia for a good part of February did wonders for my bank account. Then I went shopping with Pam -- we'll see how happy he is about how much better I'm feeling the next time he checks the bank account balances. I don't enjoy trying on clothes, so if I find something great that fits well, I will buy it just so I don't have to keep trying stuff on. And Angus still gets excited when I buy him clothes and Eve is just so much fun to dress still. The more honest answer is probably that I'm a spender, but I think I'm saving until we get to the end of the month and I try to figure out where all the money's gone.

3. What was the last movie you saw?

The Adjustment Bureau, on a date with my husband. It was okay -- Matt Damon did his customary great job of probably acting a lot like himself, Emily Blunt has a nice screen presence, I love movies based on Philip K. Dick short stories -- the ending was a little trite, but I sort of expected that. Right now I'm listening to my son and my husband guffawing at people getting injured on Home Alone 3. It's a guy thing.




4. What is the closest book to you?

The book at the top of the pile on the table beside me is 36 Arguments for the Existence of God by Rebecca Goldstein, so I can make notes on it before I return it to the library. It was very enjoyable -- I had read a non-fiction book about Spinoza by her and then a novel that I found kind of derivative, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but this book combined her work on philosophy with fiction, and the writing was exuberant and playful, although some of the female characters were a little one-dimensional. Overall I really liked it.


5. Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day?

Nope. I always mean to, but it frequently falls within March Break, and just gets swallowed up. I didn't even realize it was St. Patrick's Day until I was shopping with my Mom and Eve and they announced it in the Rideau Centre. It's not like my kids really need another reason to eat chocolate anyway. Also, green beer is icky, and leprechauns kind of scare me.

Maybe he accidentally packed my principles in his suitcase

Angus's hockey team has been in playoffs for a few weeks. Three weeks ago his good friend Noah showed up with a red stripe down the middle of his head -- 'playoff hair'.



My husband soundly mocked the mother, whose younger son was similarly flamboyantly coiffed. On the way home, Angus asked if he could dye his hair too. My husband said "How can I put this nicely? NO."



My husband and I have a general policy of trying not to undermine each other with the kids, even if we're in disagreement. I don't remember articulating it to myself, but I'm pretty sure I thought that if Angus tried to do an end-run and asked me if he could dye his hair I would say no.



You may recall that my husband then decamped for California -- a week-long trade show where he shows off testing equipment and switches and wavelength division multiplexing (yes, I TOTALLY know what all of this means and I'm TOTALLY using it correctly), and at night gets wined and dined by various customers and salespeople. In California. You may further recall that we had a blizzard that week, followed by freezing rain and then plain old soul-sucking basement-flooding un-frozen rain. Two solid days of it. Here -- not in California. So when Angus asked me if he could get playoff hair, I thought for a moment, then said...


"Sure. It'll be a nice surprise for your father."


Right now? As a mother, I could not rock any harder. As a wife? Maybe not so much.

Best Friends OR Opposites Attract OR Some other title I can't think of that's less cheesy

On Monday Angus was still firmly parked at the house where he'd slept over the night before. If you want to, you can savour the entertaining fact that a friend who moved six hours away a few months ago was also there, and that Angus came home with a dozen pictures on his ipod touch of... his friend Noah's new hamster. My husband said "you didn't take any pictures of Jon?" Angus said "I already know what Jon looks like." 

Eve was bored, it was sunny out and we were supposed to walk the neighbours' dog while they're in the Dominican. So I proposed that we walk over to her friend Marianna's house and pick her up for a few hours. We called and set it up, then went next door to get the dog. The dog wasn't there. There's a friend staying there who might have taken him to work. It's a mystery I'm chosing to leave undisturbed for now. I'm not sure why I mentioned it except that it was another good reason for a walk. If I was an editor I'd red-pencil it.

Anyway. We had a nice walk over. On the way, Eve said "when you think about it, it's funny that Marianna and I are friends. I can't climb a tree to save my life and she hates books." It's true that they don't have a lot in common except each other. Marianna is wiry and agile and never met a horizontal straight skinny thing that she didn't hang upside down from. Eve used to take twenty minutes to inch her way across the balance beam at gymnastics -- which was six inches above a cushioned floor mat. Marianna loves olives and squid. Eve doesn't even like sauce on her spaghetti. Marianna's own mother says that she lacks empathy -- if someone is sad she'll try to make them laugh, but she just doesn't get it. Eve is so empathetic she doesn't like watching golf balls get hit. Despite this, they've been inseparable since the third day of Junior Kindergarten, which, after two days of staggered entry, was the day they met.

I find it really funny how they're so aware of their differences. As soon as we got there, Marianna ran up to get her new toad to show Eve. She said "do you want me to put it in your hand or are you too scared to touch him?" without a trace of judgement. On the way home, we saw a long line of huge noisy vehicles -- the truck that chews up the snowbanks and a bunch of the dump trucks that it spits the snow into, one being filled and moving on, another empty one moving up to take its place. Eve said "I want to watch them, they're so cool!" and Marianna said "I don't really want to" and Eve said "yeah, I figured you were going to say that". As we walked on, Marianna said "It's the Big Slow-Moving Loud Truck Convention". Eve said "that name is a little awkward... but very descriptive!". Just as we were turning the corner for home, Marianna said "are we almost there? My legs are tired." and Eve said "I was just thinking it was weird that you hadn't started complaining yet. I know how much you hate walking." 

Their play dates are more of the same. One wants to play a board game, which of course is the last thing the other wants, then five minutes later they're playing the board game happily. They play with the hermit crab that Marianna gave Eve for her birthday, which she was too scared to touch for five weeks but now can pick up. They draw pictures (Eve's favourite thing) and play video games (Marianna's favourite thing). We bring Marianna home, which then turns into a post-play-date at Marianna's, and they both wail when it's time to leave. 

I don't know how long they'll be friends. I'm not in touch with anyone I went to kindergarten with. Marianna's crazy Greek family has totally embraced Eve, which I find overwhelmingly wonderful, since my kids don't even have the once yearly experience of being awash in relatives that I used to have with my mother's Polish clan in Saskatchewan. I find it doubly amazing since, like me, they must not really know what to do with this kid that is so different from theirs.

I'm at a point in my life where most of my close friends are a lot like me. I like the idea of being exposed to different ideas and perspectives and paradigms, but in practice, I'm middle-aged and fairly settled in how I see the world, and if I'm honest, someone who views child-raising or religion or or marriage very very differently from me and is a very vocal advocate of their position (there's always room for someone who's as wishy-washy as I am) is probably not going to become my BFF. I'm not trying to make this more profound than it is -- I just find watching my daughter with her friend kind of neat. (and I'm not at all bitter about having to clean out a hermit crab cage every second day).