Bluenoseblog

When is a Memorial Service Not a Memorial Service?

2007-05-30T18:49:00.000-06:00

This afternoon I went to the memorial service for my neighbours' baby who was stillborn at 22 weeks a few days ago. At least, I thought it was a memorial service, until I saw the little coffin and heard they were going to a cemetary afterward.

OK, fair enough, he was fairly far along, but at 22 weeks this baby never drew breath outside the womb. I didn't go to the gravesite. By the end of the 40 minute service I had had all I could take. We sang some hymns, which I could handle, but I was already disconcerted by the fact that this had become more like a funeral service for a baby that never lived and weighed barely more than a pound when he was delivered than just an abstract grieving and closure event for the parents.

I really lost it when I had to sit through the 20 minute power point display (to music) of photos of the family embracing the baby's corpse, dressed up like a live baby. Pictures of the mother kissing the corpse, holding the corpse, the corpse at the hospital, the little corpse at home (they were allowed to take it home)... I am using that word, which is more disturbing, very deliberately. No one would do this for an elderly person who died, would they? If they did, we would probably perceive it as being in very poor taste.

I understood the family's motivations for wanting to celebrate what this baby meant to them in terms of hopes and dreams, and this was their way of showing that he was cherished and loved even if he didn't come to full term, but I didn't realise that for me they crossed a line until I was there and in the midst of it. These are good people, who clearly believe the soul begins at conception, but I couldn't help thinking how much more sense this whole event would have made if this had been a baby who had been born, breathed for even a few minutes, and then died. I would then have seen all of this as necessary. And I am still wrestling with the fact that I feel so conflicted about this. I know they could not have saved him at 22 weeks, but at 24 weeks there would have been a chance. He was (on the outside at least) perfectly formed, and looked like "a real baby" (forgive the phrase), and the numbers 22 and 24 seem too abstract along side of it. BUT those numbers represent viability and non-viability as a foetus outside the womb, and even at 24 weeks things are dodgy to say the least.

Here we had two parents, griefstricken by loss, but I can't help feeling that they had misplaced their grief onto something that simply was not capable of warranting it. For them it was a birth experience of a kind though, a labour, a delivery of a baby that was dead, that looked like a small, perfect baby. But at 22 weeks, was it? This is a huge can of worms to open up, and I hope I don't offend anyone by writing this. This memorial service for a corpse that never breathed was a horrible, horrible experience for me, and I found nothing healing or comforting in the service. Am I merely recoiling from death out of squeamishness? I don't think so. But I do know my strongest sense was of it being a public display of something I felt was crossing a line. I DO know they grieve and they have a right to grieve, but this was not a funeral in the ordinary sense, and I wondered if I should be part of it. I am glad that hospitals now treat miscarriages with sensitivity and acknowledge the need to grieve. In the old days miscarriages and stillbirths were whisked away before the families could see them. This, however, felt like a situation where things had been allowed to swing too far in the other direction. Taking the dead baby's body home with you? Would they let you do that with a grownup body? I grieve for these people, and I acknowledge their loss, but something about this whole thing was nothing short of creepy. The body is a shell. If you have never seen that shell alive, how can you invest it with a name and a life?

So I left the funeral with a little card printed up with his name, the day he was delivered, and on the cover a photo of his little dead body. But, unless you know he's dead, it looks like any sleeping extremely premature baby. Beneath his photo is his weight and length. We've all seen this before -- on birth announcements. Inside are his handprints and footprints. I understand the words inside: the 139th psalm's verses about how "you knit me together in my mother's womb", and the family's words of their feelings about him: "D. is God's gift to us. As sad as we are today, we want to celebrate the gift that he is to us." I understand that, of course I do. But...what's wrong with this picture?

Moving Stress

2007-05-20T09:07:00.000-06:00

Stress. Hyperventilating. Lying awake at night and thinking of all the things that need doing... but can't be done at 2 AM. Stress. Stress. More stress. How do we fit a househunting trip into our busy schedules with me teaching Monday to Thursday until the end of June and the DH doing endless book launches and conferences? Stress!!!!!

Current reading: Susan Howatch's The High Flyer (1999)

Family Fitness

2007-05-08T16:34:00.000-06:00

The DD wants to go running with me of late, so I've gone twice with her, doing 1:1 slowly, and she seems quite keen, though the second time was right after ballet class while we were waiting for the DH to make dinner and I think she was a bit too tired. Anyway, I'm very proud of her and hope she wants to continue to go a couple of times a week. We ran 1.25 miles on Friday, and 1.13 miles last night.

On my own, I managed a long walk (56 mins) of 2.89 miles on Sunday night. Yesterday, besides running with my daughter, I got another run of 1.3 miles in (so yesterday I managed a total of 2.43 miles -- still not quite 5k!). Today my bones are creaking just a bit!

Spring class has started and seems to be going OK. I am getting them to do a short 2-page assignment and a large essay instead of two large ones, to see if I can manage the work load better in a six-week course.

Strange to think this may well be the last class I teach here, with a move to Ottawa virtually certain this summer. I have discovered that I am not good at being in limbo. Once I know a move is going to take place, I look forward, not back. I have very little nostalgia any more. I have realised that I like change, and, once things are in motion, I want them to stay in motion. As a result this period of waiting for government interchange paperwork to get finished is fairly torturous for me. Let's get on with it if we're going! But, I know, the wheels of the government grind exceeding slow. Always have. Always will.

The DH is at his "French class for feds" tonight -- and doing very well! I'm very proud of him. He's even helping to tutor his classmates! And he is being very religious about making a point of watching French TV every night for an hour. I think it's been a nice surprise to him to find out that his French is better than he thought it was.

Just finished watching The Piano for the umpteenth time. Every time I see that film I am just bowled over by how brilliant it is. Plus, it makes me deeply regret not being able to play very well anymore. I am doubly conscious of that, given that I live next door to a piano teacher and hear her playing so beautifully. Sigh.

First of May

2007-05-01T08:31:00.000-06:00

Happy May!

Birdies are singing, there's :whisper: no snow, and it's sunny outside. Time to go sit on the deck and have my morning tea.

Current Reading: J.G. Frazer's The Golden Bough (1922)

Sleeping Like Babies

2007-04-29T18:46:00.000-06:00

Took the path in the other direction this morning and ran 2.78 miles in 25 minutes. My thighs are in protest mode. We'll leave the running for a couple of days. But -- about 9k over two days -- not bad!

The DD had a fabulous time at her sleepover, but has spent much of today at the ballet school. Because she is in two classes this year (ballet and modern) she is in two performances. Hence, a 90 minute rehearsal for one this afternoon, and two hours tonight (she' s there now). She will be sleeping like a baby tonight. Me too.

How Many Times Can I Title Something "Back to Running"?

2007-04-28T11:24:00.000-06:00

Still coughing a bit in the morning, but I managed a really good run half way around Wascana Lake this morning. My run proper was 2.98 miles (sooooo close to the 5k I'm aiming at), but with the further walk home, I went 3.91 miles in all (over 6k). It is a beautiful sunny and warm day here today. Perfect weather for an outdoor run, and I wasn't alone. Lots of folks out walking their dogs (I'm feeling enormous dog envy), and other runners and walkers.

Spent almost two and a half hours last night at the DD's ballet school while her two classes had their pictures taken for the yearbook (and for us). The hairspray was so rife I thought I was going to stop breathing. But ballerinas have to have that hair slicked right down -- no sprigs sticking out.

The DD is having a sleepover at her little friend M's house tonight. The girls have been just about exploding with excitement over this for days now. Last time she had a sleepover I was an utter fool about it -- I kept waking up all night and thinking mournfully that her bedroom was empty. This does not bode well for her eventual departure for university.

Back after Exams

2007-04-26T15:47:00.000-06:00

All done! Exams are graded, committee meetings are over, and I have spent the day thinking about how I want to organise my time over the next couple of months while I teach the Shakespeare course. The end of term is very welcome. I plan to enjoy my week and a half off.

Since I last "blogged", I have read Rebecca West's autobiographical novels This Real Night (1984) and Cousin Rosamund (1987), and have just started a book of literary criticism on Joyce's Ulysses.

No real running exploits to report due to a lingering bout of bronchitis. It's almost gone, though not as gone as I'd like. As a result, I've put on weight again, and between that and stress-induced bad eating, I have a lot of ground to recover. So I'm back on the South Beach Phase One diet again. Salads here we come.

Current Reading: S.L. Goldberg's The Classical Temper: A Study of James Joyce's Ulysses (1961)
Current Music: Scott Joplin's "Elite Syncopations"

Brown Spots, Be Gone

2007-04-04T19:50:00.000-06:00

After cancelling my afternoon class due to a migraine, and sleeping it off with Tylenol and Gravol in time-honoured fashion, I went off to the laser clinic today to have two brown sun-damage spots removed from my face. I can now expect to look scabby and gross for a couple of weeks, but ... oh well. Since I teach until the end of June there really isn't any particularly good time when I can hide away from the world, so I'm just going to shrug my shoulders and wear my scabs proudly. I did tell my morning class what I was having done so I wouldn't they wouldn't think I lost a bar fight. I was going on to go for a run tonight, but I'm still feeling kind of wonky after the migraine, so I'll just wait and go for a walk tomorrow.

Current Reading: James Jones' Whistle (1978)

Yay Me!

2007-04-02T09:00:00.000-06:00

I had an amazing run yesterday at the fitness centre. I was starting the intermediate training programme, geared to adding distance, so I was doing 5 and 1's, but an extra set of them. Ran 1.92 miles in 27 minutes (5:1:5:1:5:1:5:4), and for the last quarter of the run had a real endorphin high and just chugged along, no pain, just in the groove. It was fantastic!

Back to Running

2007-03-31T19:30:00.001-06:00

Monday 13 March: Ran 1.7 miles (23 mins, 10:1)
Tuesday 14 March: Walked .85 miles
Thursday 15 March: Ran 1.72 miles (24 mins, 10:1)
Sunday 18 March: Ran 1.2 miles (16 mins, no stopping)
Tuesday 20 March: Walked c. 1.4 miles (28 mins)
Wednesday 21 March: Walked c. 1 mile (21 mins)
Sunday 25 March: Ran 1.6 miles (22 mins.)
Tuesday 27 March: Walked 1.67 miles (32 mins.)
Friday 30 March: Ran 1.55 miles (22 mins)
Saturday 31 March: Ran 1.43 miles (19 mins) (5:1)

As of today I started onto an "intermediate runner"'s programme. I should have run for 5 more minutes, but I copped out and only did 3/4 of the run. I'll try again tomorrow. My times are still slow compared to pre-Christmas, but while I've been running 20 minutes straight I've also been running deliberately a bit slowly because I was worried I'd run out of steam. I probably could have pushed myself harder. I'm actually surprised, looking at this list, at how frequently I've been actually going out and running or walking. I want to be sure to keep it up even when the essays start to come in this week. I want to start adding more mileage to my runs, not struggle to keep up to my goals.

Spring has Sprung

2007-03-24T11:27:00.000-06:00

It's going to be 13C or higher here today, which should contribute significantly to the melting going on. Since this is Saskatchewan, nothing says we won't have more snow before May, but we'll get a break from it, at least.

Woke in the middle of the night last night and decided I couldn't spend my time any better than by finishing the last 20 pages of From Here to Eternity -- which has turned out to be one of the best books I've ever read. I had no idea an army novel would be so engrossing. The characters and dialogue were absolutely real and, even though it's long at 847 pages, every single page held my interest. I've started Jones' "sequel", The Thin Red Line. From Here to Eternity ends with the bombing of Pearl Harbour, and this one is about Guadalcanal. I have to search around the house to see if I can find the tape with FHTE on it; so much is left out of the film, excellent as it is, that I want to watch it again to find out how much they cut out. I won't watch Terence Malick's film of TRL until I'm finished the book.

Current Reading: James Jones' The Thin Red Line (1962)

Fit as a Fiddle

2007-03-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first day I went to work feeling fit as a fiddle, full of bounce and energy. Now I just have to wade through the piles of essays that have hit my desk -- 67 to go and counting.....

Weekly weigh-in: 158.5
Current Music: Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on Greensleeves"

Too Ill to Bother

2007-02-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last 9 days feeling too vile to blog. I have some bizaare gastrointestinal flu that has had me lain flat for far too long. I'll write more later. Right now all I have energy for is writing lectures for Monday, which I fully intend to deliver sitting down.

Current reading: James Jones' From Here to Eternity (1951)

The Bucket Has Been Kicked

2007-02-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

Tonight the elderly cat finally went to meet his furry maker. Despite the lengthy lead-up to the event, it seemed he was rushed to the vet's tonight with frightening swiftness. We were torn between sorrowful goodbyes and a desperate need to make sure he wasn't in pain a moment longer than he had to be, and our stoic selves won out.

If I don't sob, it's because he had a long life, defied all medical logic, and it's really something of a relief. To be honest, I haven't had a chance to miss him much yet, though I will in the days to come. No one had soft bunny fur like our Bud. Already tonight the DH thought for a second he saw him prowling the kitchen counter. It will be a good long while before we cease to think we see him out of the corners of our eyes. I will be watching with curiosity the behaviour of our bereft cat to see how he responds to P's death. (I'm tempted to call him the Aged P). Boo-Boo isn't the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but he has clung to me inordinately tonight, so I suspect he gets the drift of what has gone on. Whether he will miss his friend more than he will glory in his new role as Alpha Cat For Whom We Pay the Mortgage remains to be seen.

Our P was a good buddy. We will miss him.

Crashed

2007-02-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

Friday was the last day of classes before reading week. Because you can never have too many days off when you are in Grade 2 (apparently), and no weekend can be too long, the DD had Friday off. We have Monday off as well, thanks to a new provincial holiday, called by someone with a cruel streak "Family Day". Why do we have a new holiday suddenly in Saskatchewan? Because Alberta does. And if Alberta has it, well, dammit, we're just as big and we can do it too. Why Alberta suddenly has it, I don't know, except to speculate that (A) they have mountains and need extra skiing time or (B) the Yankees have Presidents' Day and, hell, Albertans are merely Americans in disguise anyway. We are flat and un-American, but we hate Alberta and therefore must be like them if at all possible. For those of you who don't believe we can desire to be like those whom we detest, I have only one word: EuroDisney. (Those of you who make your livings probing the minds of oddballs and psychopaths, please feel free to explore all the pathetic possibilities therein.)

But, I mentioned reading week. That's a quaint term we used when I was a university student and too naive (or not in with the cool crowd) to know that we weren't supposed to use our week off for reading. (Meh. For me reading is always a vacation. It probably didn't occur to me to do anything else during my week off. Shoe-shopping hadn't been invented yet.) For the rest of the world, this week is known as:

Spring Break: For those of us in Canada, when "break" lands smack in the middle of the six-month season known as winter, this misnomer is either humourous or heartbreaking. Spring is too far away in either direction for us to either remember or anticipate it. Hence, the reading. The only way to make the words "spring break" make sense apparently involves getting on a plane to Florida and drinking, puking, and having sex with other drinking and puking people for a week. So I'm told. I don't actually know from firsthand experience because I was ... reading. In a library. Beerless.
Ski Week: Canadians can relate to this. (Except if they live in Saskatchewan.) Snow. Hills. Beer. Crutches.
"Suicide Week": I've heard this term and it makes no sense. Everyone knows Christmas at home with your family is the real time you contemplate suicide. "More cranberry jelly, sweetie-pie honey bunch? Auntie Mildred made it just for you!" "Wow, Auntie Mildred, a Yanni CD -- how did you know that was just what I wanted?"
Midterm Break: The phrase for break week that says nothing. It implies, if anything, that if you managed to make it this far into the semester, you clearly need to lie down. Pfffffffft. If you managed to make it this far into the semester, you probably need to crack open a book. (Whoops -- thus spake my ubercynical professorial self.)

So Friday was D-Day for me -- all the assignments had to be back and the entire day operated with the knowledge that if I made it past 3:30 I could crash. The DH took the child to his office, since it was his turn and I felt increasingly as the day wore on as though a nap was my only possible trajectory. So I told him to keep her there until day's end and I went home and napped after my office hour.

The antibiotics have kicked in, so the nose is OK again. The cough is clearing up too without having amounted to much. So what could my body do to betray me now?

It could manage to give me crushing muscle/gas pains in my back and middle all Friday night that made sleep impossible and have left me wobbling and dizzy for the rest of the weekend. It feels like a combination of non-puking food poisoning and a migraine that's just hanging around without reaching its zenith. The DD and I had the same spinach quiche at my college on Friday, and he tells me he was feeling uncomfortable too, so we are thinking it may be a little food bug now. I personally think it's about my beginning-of-break-need-to-crash: in a nutshell, or a quiche -- whatever -- , stress. So instead of doing all the fun things that might have initiated my week without teaching, I am spending the weekend nursing the bleak and unhappy place that is my intestines.

On the plus side, I finally finished For Whom the Bell Tolls. Reading it felt longer than the actual Spanish Civil War, but I have to admit Ernie pulled off the last 75 pages in truly masterful fashion. After 400 pages of "We will blow this bridge", "The bridge will be blown up", "Puta -- I obscenity in the milk of your bridge blowing" (I'm not making this up. Oy.), to actually get to the blowing up of the bridge was like being shot by the guardia civil after hours of torture -- a blissful release. I even felt a little tearful when we interrupt this message to avoid a spoiler for those who haven't read this book so in the end I'm glad I read it.

It's reading week, after all.

Current Reading: Rebecca West's The Fountain Overflows (1957)

Too Much To Do

2007-02-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

Classes stop next week for midterm break, what we used to call "reading week", but which now is referred to as merely a "break", or in more hilly climes "ski week". This means that I have to have everything done by tomorrow morning. Yikes.

To do:
Type up midterm questions.
Finish the last 11 bibliography assignments, which got shelved over the last two nights due to our domestic Celebration of Aging and Wrinkles and the Valentine's Day thing. (I'm not feeling touchy about turning 145, no, not at all. The uncontrollable twitching has almost stopped.)
Keep plugging along with the Steinbeck lectures -- always stay at least 21 minutes ahead of them.
Pick up my new purse (thanks Mum and Dad!) from Roots, which the store ordered in for me.

I dreamt last night we all went to Paris! Maybe this is a subconscious reminder to get my passport application going. It was a great dream, though -- even though I was concerned that I hadn't taken enough photos when I got back. Much of it consisted of shopping, which is not a bad thing -- if you're in Paris. I think the genesis of this dream may have been in a conversation with a work colleague of my husband's who mentioned to me that he and his wife are contemplating a trip to France. She wants to see Paris, but he's seen the City of Lights and wants to do the WWI battlefields. This excited me no end, since it's something I've always wanted to do to, and I commiserated with him -- Paris being a big, dirty city in some respects. Yes, there's the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower, and the atmosphere. But then there's also the poodle poop, the rudeness and the general noisiness of the big city. I can only say this because I've been there already and no longer have the starry-eyed fascination with Europe's cultural capitals I once had. Don't get me wrong -- I'd probably sell my kid to Bolivian revolutionaries for the chance to go again, but I'd likely head up to the battlefields myself after a really great meal or two and a glass of something at Aux Deux Magots. I'm a self-confessed WWI junkie -- I'd take a decent WWI trench over shopping in Paris anyday.

Places I would like to go still (in no particular order):
Australia
New Zealand
Fiji
Samoa
Brazil
Ireland
Scotland (again - permanently, if possible!)
Greece (again, but less lolling on a beach this time, and more archaeological sites)
Malta
Italy (Pompeii and Venice)
Prague
South Africa
France (bits I haven't seen -- Normandy, Brittany, Cannes in full craziness)
Iceland
Sweden
Whitehorse, Yukon
Newfoundland (again - I don't remember it much and I imagine it's changed a little since 1965)
Spain
Switzerland (again -- all I saw last time was Zurich airport and St Margarethe)
Japan
Montana (again - minus the Yellowstone flooding this time)
California
Israel
Jordan (Palmyra - the amazing ruins there)

For someone like me, it's stupid to make a list really, because I love to travel. I'm happy if I get to Montana over the border, really. There's just so much to see, and seeing the world makes my soul happier than almost anything else.

Current music: Paula Cole - "Tiger"

Happy Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

I celebrated by discussing the whorehouse in Cannery Row and Taoism in Steinbeck. Woo hoo...
The office staff at the college put little Hershey's Chocolate Cherry Kisses in all our mailboxes. Now I must hunt them down and buy a huge bag because they are completely scrumptious.

Current Music: Chopin's "Scherzo No. 2"

Plodding Through Assignments

2007-02-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

The head is still periodically pounding with a sinus headache. It doesn't help that I'm grading fiddly bibliography and citation assignments that demand concentration on details. But I have to plough on because I should have handed them back yesterday. Thirteen more to go from this set, and then another 35 from the other class that I hope to finish to hand back next Friday.

To do today: finish assignments for the morning class and pull tomorrow's Yeats lecture together (it's mostly done -- or well enough I could wing it). No running or exercise on the schedule until Saturday, when I hope to go for a run again -- at last.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is merely OK so far. I'm not a big Hemingway fan, but he seems to inspire either total devotion or hatred in his readers. I read his bullfighting book, Death in the Afternoon, last year and it was interesting but horribly uneven. Hemingway is a self-indulgent writer who needed a good editor to stick a boot up his backside. IMHO.

Weigh-in: 162.
Current music: The 13th Warrior soundtrack - "Eaters of the Dead"

Catching Up

2007-02-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted for a few days, so here's the latest in brief:

Wednesday I took the DD to see Night at the Museum and we had a grand time. Great movie -- lots of laughs.
Saturday the DH and I got to see The Last King of Scotland. If Forest Whitaker doesn't get the Best Actor Oscar for his role as Idi Amin, he done been robbed. This is a powerful movie, and has some unflinching violence in it, so it's not for the faint of heart. Very impressive.
Elderly cat went to the vet's yesterday. Revised diagnosis number 3: the tumour on his liver is not lymphatic, but will continue to grow and impare his liver function. His kidney function is reduced as well, but because he now has hyperthyroidism, he has more blood circulating in his body and this is good for the kidney. Our vet scratches his head. This was the cat who ought to have been dead a year ago. But he's still hanging in there.
Still blowing and snorting myself, but it's improving.

Current Reading: Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

Ugly with a Capital "ugh"

2007-02-02T16:29:00.000-07:00

My nose is raw and chapped and red -- and it's not because it's about a million degrees below zero here. It's just been blown about 50 times too often per day. The headcold from hell is hanging in there with a vengeance. I haven't completely lost my voice, so no excuse to stay home from work, though I cut out an hour early today by blowing off my office hour. (It's Friday -- I don't seriously expect anyone was coming to see me anyway...) I've stopped even bothering to put makeup on or my contact lenses in this week -- between the swollen, red eyes, the chapped, red nose and upper lip and a complexion pallid enough to make Dracula jealous, I just don't see the point.

Current music: Colin James & the Little Big Band - "Reet Petite"

And Now I Have a Stinky Cold

2007-01-28T20:17:00.000-07:00

The DD has had a runny nose for days, but I thought I had escaped it. No such luck. I thought the sneezing and nose-blowing was just my allergies, but now it's clear she has gifted me her germs. Maybe that explains the sucky run. It's an honourable theory. But how will I run tomorrow???

A Sucky Run

2007-01-28T15:16:00.000-07:00

I just came back from the fitness centre: I ran 1.64 miles in 22 minutes at 10:1. Unless I was actually in a coma and standing still for about 3 minutes, I don't see how that is possible. I will freely admit I felt like a lumbering walrus today, especially since my allergies are quite bad, but I'm starting to wonder if I need to invest in a new pedometer. Maybe I've dropped this one a few too many times? It's given me some highly strange readings lately (like .06 of a mile after a 15 minute walk). Anyway, I hope it's the pedometer, because I am damned annoyed with myself for such a pathetic time. I thought I was running "slow and steady", not "slow and standing still".

Walked Today

2007-01-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

I just came back from an 18-min. walk. The pedometer wasn't working properly, so I can only estimate it at about 1 mile and a quarter. I went for a walk on Tuesday night, but it was so cold that I gave up after about 10 minutes. I'm planning to just walk a couple of more times this week and hope to run again on Sunday.

Current Music: Will Smith's "I Wish I Made That/Swagga" (Lost and Found)

Oscar Nominations

2007-01-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Oscars are a crock, and it's really all about the dresses, but I've watched them every year as long as I can remember, and I'm not going to stop now, no matter how depressing it is.

Once, I actually went to movies. Then I had a kid. My husband and I have noted over the years that the movies we've actually seen has dwindled over the last eight years to zilch -- until they opened up the animated category. And then -- yee haw -- we were in the know again! :smirk:

So this year I took a look at the list and, sure enough, I've seen a whopping 3 films: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Happy Feet, and The Good German. Two out of three are "family" films. And because I live in a cinematic hinterland, I had to go to somewhat illicit lengths to see Soderbergh's black & white '40s homage, The Good German (which has been sorely underrated by the reviewers).

Still At It

2007-01-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

Despite achy legs, I managed 4.36 miles (in 25 minutes) on a recumbent stationary bike.

We finished watching the ninth episode of Rome tonight. I practically shout, "No!" when each episode ends, so caught up in it am I. It's fascinating, gripping stuff.

Back on My Feet Again

2007-01-21T12:21:00.000-07:00

I am jubilant, having finally gone for a run for the first time (I am ashamed to say) since 12 December. I got myself into a slump where I was afraid I would be a total loser and run badly when I got back to it. I don't know why I play these negative psychological games with myself, except to say that my fear of failure can paralyse me. But I finally got off my ever-widening-post-Christmas duff (not the figgy kind) and went to the fitness centre this morning. I ran 2.19 miles. I think it was around 23 minutes, doing 10:1, but I had to pause in the middle to try to figure out the Ipod I was given for Christmas and lost track of how many minutes I wasted there. Still, not bad, and I really enjoyed it, even if my legs are jelly!

Migraine Day

2007-01-21T09:02:00.000-07:00

Spent yesterday felled by the worst migraine I've had in ages. As usual it began with my waking up with a headache that just wouldn't go away, despite taking several Advil. It still hadn't gone away, but I foolishly decided to ignore it; instead, I went to a bookstore to buy a birthday present for my friend B. In the store, however, I started to feel mildly nauseous and my face began to go numb. I had a few minutes when I thought I wouldn't be able to drive home, but I managed it OK. Went to bed at 4:15 and slept for three hours after taking more Advil and a Gravol. Got up, feeling much better, made some toast, watched two hours of the first season of Rome, went back to bed, and slept from 11:30 to 8:45. I should know better. When I get a migraine, it's my body's way of saying, "Stop now, no, I mean right now, and go to bed." I just wish I knew why I got the migraine.

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series/LakeBoat

2007-01-18T08:12:00.000-07:00

Just finished New Spring, the "prequel" to The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I was concerned that, after ten hefty books in the series, the last of which I read over two years ago, I wouldn't be able to remember enough of the plot or characters for it to make any sense. Just to make matters worse, in many ways, I've been reading Terry Goodkind fantasy series as well, which is an utter knock-off of Jordan's. So I was expecting to be horribly confused.

When I originally started reading the two series, I started off with Goodkind's only to be directed to Jordan by my father-in-law (thanks, Jim!). At first, I was entranced by Goodkind's humour and lighter tone. By contrast, Jordan's seemed heavy and almost pompous. Now, upteen years later, their roles have apparently reversed. Jordan is having fun, and Goodkind has turned into a pompous neo-Republican windbag who intersperses his once-enjoyable books with right-wing tirades. Who knew Richard would turn into such a bore (which is far worse than being a Republican, to my mind)?

I'm starting the eleventh Wheel of Time book, Knife of Dreams, this morning. Reading the prequel has at least begun to reseparate in my mind the Aes Sedai vs the Sisters of the Light and all the other similarities between the books. I notice, however, that Jordan's paperbacks don't give any plot summary on their back cover. At around 800 pages each, they can't!

Last night we sat down to watch the film of David Mamet's play LakeBoat, directed by Joe Mantegna (2000). (I had picked it up because I'm a Denis Leary fan, and he has a role in it. ) It was low on plot, but the dialogue was interesting. Set on a Great Lakes freighter, not much happens. The viewer just watches as the passive main character, based on Mamet's younger self, encounters various "lifers" on the boat and listens to their anecdotes. There were some nice performances, particularly from Robert Forster, George Wendt, and a William H. Macy lookalike, Jack Wallace, but I was too aware that I was watching a filmed play. Mantegna had done nothing besides film it on location to remove the staginess of the text. I'm not trying to suggest I wasted 98 minutes, but, despite Mantegna's obvious gifts as an actor, I think in the hands of a more adept director it might have been more interesting.

Current music: Bonnie Raitt's "Cool Clear Water" (Longing in Their Hearts)
Current reading: Robert Jordan's Knife of Dreams (2005)

Blondie Redux

2007-01-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

Blonde again. After a week of seeing a stranger in the mirror, I went to another hairdresser and got her to put in blonde and copper highlights to return my hair to its former golden tone.

Off to buy the DD a new dance leotard because her old one migrated elsewhere over Christmas holidays. Ballet class is tonight, so I have to get off my duff and head up to the dance store now.

No Rest for the Wicked

2007-01-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

As my husband left for work this morning at his usual hour, I thought about the time he got home last night. Doing the math, I realised he works 10 hour days, frequently without lunch. My own job is more cyclic, with peaks at the end of each semester that start climbing about six weeks in. I work at home as much as at the office, so it's harder to calculate how many hours exactly, plus it's variable. But what I do know is that we're tired, very tired.

A New Church ... Oy

2007-01-14T17:55:00.000-07:00

Today we decided to try out Sunday at the local cathedral. In the past year, there has been an influx there of various friends of ours and it had been recommended to us by them as a place where we might feel spiritually comfortable. So off we trekked in the kind of temperatures that usually result in a congregation of only the elderly and infirm. The former bishop took the service and everything was entirely satisfactory, although I found the liturgical tunes, being different, a bit wonky and hard to follow.

After service, however, the church school coordinator rushed up to tell us that our offspring is of an age at which the children are encouraged to become servers, in order to "feel a sense of ownership in the service". Fine, good. I will mention that to the sprog. Oh, think I, this isn't optional, is it? And they want one parent down in the church school with their children during Sunday school. I start to feel my heart sink. Great, now I can sit by myself in church or spend it in Sunday school. Neither was what I planned on. I go to church so I can attend the service, oddly enough.

So, I return from church with my back up slightly already, already alert for signs of being "sucked in". I am unwilling to get roped into something I don't want to participate in, and if anyone tries to dragoon me into teaching Sunday school I will disappear more quickly than any of them might have believed humanly possible. We were constantly being pestered to participate in everything at our last church, and, after experiencing "church burn-out" the last time, we are determined to take things at our pace this time. At our last parish, we knew personally what it felt like to be stared at by vampires who lust after "new blood". Our work lives and home lives are busy enough. We want to go to church, but not if it ends up being yet another obligation in our busy lives. My obligation is to that which I feel obliged to do at this stage in my life, not what others think it should be. I know what I am capable of right now. In ten years it will be different; indeed, in ten months it might be different. But right now, just going to church is enough without being asked to prop the institution up as well.

Balmy Saskatchewan

2007-01-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo! Only -27 here this morning! With an expected high of -24! Out with the barbecue and the coolers! Not.

What's "Freaking Cold" in Fahrenheit?

2007-01-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

Randy Newman said it best: "Only a man half-blind on whiskey would make this place his home." Yes, he was singing about Saskatchewan. (I'm not kidding - listen to his rock opera of Faust.) Clifford Sifton has a lot to answer for. I hope, when they were encouraging everyone to come out here, they were honest about the weather conditions. ("Note to Doukhobors: wear coats.")

Pioneer scene:
Lennart and Maj are building their soddi. It is -32C, -46 with windchill.

Lennart: Ve must move faster, Maj. Oddervise ve vill be cold. Hand me dat sod.
Maj (grumbling): Vy didn't I marry Bergren ven he asked me?
Lennart: Because he liked your sister better. Keep building.
Maj: Have you seen little Nils?
Lennart: Ja, he is playing in da snowbank. I told him to pick up his fingers if dey fall off. No point vasting perfectly goot fingers.
Maj: Ve are not having finger stew again! Already little Signe vill never learn to knit. Build faster so ve can go inside.
Lennart: Dis vill be da most beautiful soddi in Saskatchewan. In spring I put gingerbread trim on it.
Maj: Yu have gingerbread? Yu didn't tell me!
Lennart: Before ve sleep tonight in our beautiful soddi, ve say a prayer to bless Herr Sifton for giving us dis land.
Maj: I don't know, Lennart. I tink ve write a letter and mention there's no [insert Swedish curse word here] firewood. Anyvere.
Lennart: See? Now you know vy Bergren married your sister! She is not so negative. I see vide open spaces. Yu see "no trees". Alvays da complaining.
Maj: Alvays da cold. [pause] Yu know, Lennart, yu are a lucky man ve had Nils and Signe before ve left home.

Weekly Weigh-in (post Smokie's)

2007-01-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

Weekly weigh in: 161.

I knew it would be bad after a week of no exercise (haven't worked up the courage yet, and the elves were preventing me) and a repast at the home of mega-protein and carbs last night.

Smokin' Okie's

2007-01-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had dinner at a new BBQ joint in town called Smokin' Okie's. The DH is seriously into the whole BBQ/smoking thing, or "channelling his inner bubba", as he refers to it. The restaurant had a huge red smoker built in Mesquite, Texas, and the smell of smoked pork and all things yummy had our mouths watering. I had pork ribs, and the DH had back ribs, with smoked (baked) potatoes and corn or cole slaw (though other side dishes were available too). The DH makes outstanding smoked ribs, but these ones were definitely competition: tender and moist, and delicious... I could see him continually glancing over to the giant smoker with the gaze of an addict: "I wonder how much I could smoke in there... I wonder if he'd let me look inside...I wonder how much that would cost, and would it fit on the deck...?" After a while I had to snap him out of it and remind him he already has a sizeable smoker brought north to Saskatchewan from North Carolina just for him (courtesy of me). I think Nicole Kidman has just been replaced.

On another note, I finished Kostova's The Historian last night -- what a tremendous book. I would love it if she wrote another featuring the Order of the Crescent and its members' determination to exterminate all vampires, but I have a feeling Kostova isn't a sequel sort of writer. I was quite gripped by the action-packed ending.

Current reading: Robert Jordan's New Spring (2004)

The Inadvertent Brunette

2007-01-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

I am now a brunette as of 11:00 this morning. It wasn't quite what I had planned. I told the interim hairdresser (my regular one just had a baby last week) that my hairdresser usually used a bit of caramel in with the blonde. I watched some brown goo go on my head. The hairdresser said, "Don't worry. It will be blonde." I've seen purple goo go on my head and it still turned out blonde, so I thought: OK, you're the expert. Apparently, her idea of caramel is more of a reddish-brown. It doesn't look dreadful, but I am having a little trouble adjusting to my new self. Interestingly, however, it's almost an exact duplication of my daughter's hair colour. I can be a blonde again in late February, I guess.

January will have to be my month for testing out my inner brunette. So far, my inner brunette is grouchy and worried she looks older than the "look-there's-the-rest-of-my-life-way-down-at-the-bottom-of-this-hill" 45 she will be next month.

Evil Elves

2007-01-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

Can't. Blog. Today. (ouch)
Little elves are doing macrame with my fallopian tubes. If those little bastards make another planter hanger, I will be seriously pissed off.

New Year, New Blog Style

2007-01-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

I like a little change now and then, so I decided to spice up the blog with a new look.

I've been meaning to write a little something about Kostova's The Historian, but despite being half way through I was feeling uncertain about where it was going. I want to wait until I'm done to comment on it, since it is complex and has several threads to pull together. Finally, over 400 pages in (400 very entertaining pages, I must add) I can see where things are headed, but you have to get to the section involving Bartolomeo Rossi's epistolary accounts of his explorations in Romania before the pieces of the puzzle start coming together (for me, at least -- admittedly, I may be a little slow on the uptake...). The book is beautifully written, too, so it's a pleasure to read.

Classes start at the university tomorrow. I am optimistic that this will be a better term. C's illness and death put such a pall over everything last year, that I am hopeful that I can move on and begin to give more back to my work. I'm doing several new poems and a new novella in my classes. That should keep me busy.

I have to pick up my running again this week, which has languished in a sugar-induced Christmas slump. Weekly weigh-in entries have been deliberately and conspicuously absent, yes? Hey, I have PMS bloat, post-Christmas bulge, and I'm crabby about it. Give me a break. No one wants to weigh themselves when they're retaining more water than the Hoover Dam.

Charlotte's Web

2007-01-04T16:54:00.000-07:00

After restocking the kitchen for the first time in weeks, I took the DD to see Charlotte's Web. That pig was so cute! We've read the book and seen the animated film, so our expectations were high, and it was indeed a lovely little film. I particularly liked the charming graphics in the opening and closing credits and Dakota Fanning is a wonderful child actress. It's probably just PMS gone haywire but I actually shed a tear when Charlotte the spider expired...

Current music: Emmylou Harris and Roy Orbison's duet, "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again" (from Duets)

ILoveYouILoveYouILoveYouPurrPurrPurrr

2007-01-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Not much sleep last night. The fat cat sat not merely on my pillow but on my head all night long. He glommed onto me like he would never let me go. I think he would have crawled into my skin if he could have. I am a suck and didn't punt him off the bed, though, so I have no one to blame but myself. He just loves me to death, and that kind of thing is hard to resist. So this morning I have bags under my eyes (always an attractive fashion accessory) and the word "kitty suck" tattooed on my forehead...

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T00:24:00.000-07:00

Just got back this evening from Ontario -- one of the best trips to visit my parents I've ever had. A little tearful leaving, as usual, but it's nice too to get back to one's own little bed. Rang in the New Year drinking champagne and watching one of my favourite movies, Flight of the Phoenix (the new version). I'm exhausted, but unable to sleep, having consumed way too much caffeine on the journey home, but I'm having a lovely time listening to my fat cat purring ecstatically on my pillow. He's terribly glad the mama cat is home...Yawn. Must try to sleep now...

Current reading: Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian (2005)

Boxing Day Brunch

2006-12-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

It seems all we do at the holidays is eat. Usually on the 27th we do a big family brunch with a Brie wheel and stollen and smoked salmon and whatnot. We used to do it on Boxing Day, but, frankly, quickly discovered that we simply could not take a lot of food that soon after the Christmas nosh. This year the 27th Brunch is not to be, since we must spend the day in an airplane, but the DH made a lovely breakfast for the three of us this morning -- Grand Marnier crepes and bacon, with sparkling methode-champagnoise wine and orange juice (in the UK they used to call this Bucks Fizz, I recall). He's an excellent wife, my husband!

Ungggghhh (read: Merry Christmas)

2006-12-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

Five-thirty. The DD woke us up at 5:30. I tried to plead that I was a coma victim, but eventually got dragged downstairs. On the bright side, we were done unwrapping by 7:20. It wasn't even dawn yet. The child is still spinning; as I clutch my mug of tea, I am waiting for her to drop. I myself am barely sentient, having already been awake in the middle of the night for an hour (which I spent watching bits of Underworld: Evolution). Then went back to sleep and dreamt a complicated dream about vampire overlords and archaeology. Very Christmassy. Though, sadly, no Marcus in the dream. Of course, being visited by a vampire would have explained my undead state this morning.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night...tonight!

Current reading: Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004)

Reveillon

2006-12-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

That's French for Christmas Eve. So, despite nary a Quebecois drop of blood in my veins (we are of solid Anglo-Scots-Welsh-diluted-Irish-Dutch stock), I am making my traditional tourtiere for Christmas Eve dinner. (I ditched it for the party as yet one more thing I might mess up on the night. Less is, after all, more.) I use the Canadian Living Christmas book recipe and it's the best tourtiere I've ever had. Even I can't screw it up, though I have taken a devil-may-care attitude with the cloves and cinnamon over the years and added more to suit our tastes. This year, on the heels of my Martha-like party success, I am going all nouvelle cuisine and experimenting by tossing in a few cranberries. If it fails, I reckon folks can pick them out of the pie. If it succeeds, my daughter will have nostalgic memories of "Mum's unique tortiere".

Given our Scots ethnic heritage, I still wish we could incorporate some Scottish traditions into our New Year -- apart from the obvious one of getting completely legless on alcohol, that is. I am unlikely to be able to foist haggis on my loved ones and bonfires in Regina probably get you a citation from the fire department as a nuisance. We'll probably have to make do with pulling out the good whiskey and scarfing down a few glasses. Mel Gibson's so unfashionable this year I doubt we'll want to watch Braveheart, though it could do with a second viewing as my mother talked all through it last time we watched it, asking questions like: "Who are the guys with the blue faces?" and "Now, why exactly doesn't Mel like the English?" A. Probably Picts. B. They're whingeing Pommy bastards.

The DD is a spinning top of excitement. I fear this may be the last, or next-to-last, year in which the magic of Santa is entirely real for her. Already she has begun to ask pointed questions about time zones and how they affect Santa's arrival time. She has already figured out the shopping mall Santa conspiracy. The other day she asked me if I believed in Santa. I cunningly replied, "Do you?" I was greeted with a resounding, "Yes!" to which the only response was, "So do I."

We are skiving off Christmas Eve service for probably the first, last and only time. I said to the DD, "That means I will definitely be reading the Christmas story to you tonight before bed." This is where my world fell apart. "What Christmas story?" she said brightly. "'Twas the Night Before Christmas?" I hung my head in my hands and said to my husband, "All those years of churchgoing undone by one and a half years away -- we have raised a heathen!" I pointed to the creche figures she had lovingly arranged just days ago. (Admittedly, it's a little peculiar as we have two sets, resulting in five wise men and a spare holy family... And, no, we probably don't help by referring to it as Jesus and his brother Bob -- with reference to the Arrogant Worms' classic song "Jesus' Brother Bob".)

"Remember them?" I said, pointing helpfully at the creche.

"Oh, yeah, the wise men." (At least she didn't say the wise guys.)

"And the baby?"

"Jesus."

"The son ooooooof...?"

I was praying she didn't say Joseph, but fortunately she piped up, "God!" Whew. We're safe at home plate. For now...

I pulled out my great-grandmother's bible, given her Christmas day 1940. We have many bibles around our house, but this one was closest to hand. I felt a very real frisson of guilt. If Nan G. could hear our conversation she'd be turning over in her grave. She was a tireless member of the Canadian Bible Society. I proceeded to read the DD the story from both Matthew and Luke. She listened attentively, pausing only to add, "Like in The Little Drummer Boy!" and to remind me that they also use the word "tidings" in the Christmas carol "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen" ("tidings of comfort and joy"). OK, close enough. She's not a hopeless case, but more than tourtiere is going to be needed this Christmas Eve to keep Christmas Day from being about "tidings of comfort and toys".

To Martha I Say "Pfffft"!

2006-12-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

Move over, Martha -- I am the hostess with the mostest!

The party was faaabulous, dahrlings....The tree was gorgeous, the food was gobbled up, people liked my lemon bread... Everything went off well. Even the 20-somethings whom I thought would be too hip to stay long amongst the baby-boomers stayed for ages. (One of my favourite moments was when one of them said, "Is this Radiohead? You listen to Radiohead?" I'm 44, but I'm not dead, I thought. "Yes, I do," said I, adding, "Not bad for someone 150 years old!") I didn't get to bed until well after 2 am. I even managed to keep the cats off the dining room table. Which is a good thing, because it would have been a one way ticket to Vet City for them on the Euthanasia Special if they had managed to disgrace themselves like that. (It was hard though -- I could see their little snouts sniffing longingly from the floor. They can sense cheese.)

I had a new wine-red table runner on the sideboard, on which I placed lit candles and martini glasses containing colourfully wrapped chocolates. The table had a red tablecloth and small silver snowflakes strewn around the plates of nibblies -- and more candles. In the living room, folks sat around the red and gold Christmas tree, surrounded by more martini glasses filled with chocolates, while they sipped red wine. It was just what I had hoped for. All that hard work paid off.

Today is for wrapping presents, maybe picking up a few more things, and going to a matinee of Happy Feet with the DD and the DH. I am heaving a warm, happy sigh.

Clean & Clean & Shop & Shop

2006-12-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the grocery store where I was buying goodies for our party tomorrow night. (You didn't think I was doing all this cleaning for nothing, did you?) The car was full and creaking with ingredients for making tourtiere, which I make every Christmas Eve, but will also serve at the party this year; cupcakes and cookies (I've got enough to do without baking a lot as well); lemons, oranges, and pomegranates; six or seven kinds of cheese (mmm... Wensleydale with apricots and Stilton with cranberries...); egg nog; chocolates; smoked salmon; nuts; Stollen....I even got some glittery branches, an idea for which is percolating in the portion of my brain marked "hopeless design ambitions".

I'm leaving the kitchen and baking lemon loaf and tortiere until tomorrow, so this evening is devoted to cleaning up the dining room and pulling out the decorations. I hope we'll get the tree decorated tonight, because tomorrow will be awfully busy.

Current music: Level 42's Running in the Family ("The Sleepwalkers")
Current reading: Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (1999)

To the Tune of Jingle Bells

2006-12-21T07:27:00.000-07:00

Clean, clean, clean
Clean, clean, clean --
Cleaning all the day --
Oh, what fun it is to find
The stuff I lost last May!
Oh!
Clean, clean, clean
Clean, clean, clean --
Who knew I'd so much sh*t?
I could have so much more room
If I'd get rid of it...
Scrubbing up a storm,
Making toilets bright,
Making up a list,
And shopping 'til I cry...
Having Christmas cheer
Isn't such a task.
All you need is chocolate
And brandy in a flask --
Oh!
Clean, clean, clean
Clean, clean, clean --
People coming over
If I'm still alive by then...

It'll be a bloody miracle.

Current music: John Coltrane's Live from the Village Vanguard ("Spiritual")

Weekly Weigh-in

2006-12-20T07:25:00.000-07:00

Weekly weigh-in: 158.5

Yay! Back down below 160, which is my new "evil" number. This new weight is not a product of exercise (unless housework counts), but rather the fact that there is nothing in Mother Hubbard's cupboard these days. I really need to buy food.

The study and bedroom are sparkly and tidy now. I excavated a library table in the bedroom that I hadn't seen in months. After cleaning out the dust-wombats from beneath the bed, I discovered sandals and the DD's "diamond" ring. Not a real one, sadly. We have decided to take the Nordictrack, bought in 1995 and used very little and either stow it in the basement or sell it. We just don't have room for it. It has remained in our bedroom as a failed attempt to "remind" us to use it. Unfortunately, if you wear a red string on your finger to remind you of something for long enough, eventually you will no longer notice the red string. Nordictracks are quite good for drying damp clothes, however.

Our house has no shower upstairs, only a tub, and while we have renovated the basement bathroom (put in a new shower, drywalled, put beadboard up to chair-rail height, repainted, retiled the floor -- it looks great), the upstairs bathroom looks dreadfully worn out. The tub was badly enamelled by a former occupant and both peels and stains badly. The wallpaper by the tub is peeling -- a process that has been helped by my daughter attempting to reset the decorating agenda. I am going to attempt to glue the wallpaper back down, but the tub is a disaster. Last night I got one of my bright (read: asinine) ideas, and filled the tub, then added most of a bottle of bleach. Proceeded to let it soak all night. Presto, one partially yellow tub, right up to the waterline. Eck. I am going to get busy with a can of Comet later and see what further damage I can do. With any luck, any guests who use the upstairs bathroom will be too drunk to notice.

Still At It

2006-12-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

I am spending the day cleaning out my study/office. My word, I have a lot of crap in there. Piles of books (mostly Swedish language texts and travel books) are migrating to the basement. Magazine clippings and extra copies of assignments and exams are migrating into a big green garbage bag. I have trouble throwing out letters and cards, but I went through a few and tossed less sentimental ones. (Kept all the soppy anniversaryand birthday cards from my husband, and all the cards from the DD, of course.) Now comes the other awful task: what to do with the things I am keeping? I know, if I don't know where to put it, then it doesn't get used in daily life; therefore, I should toss it. But I tossed a huge bagful of stuff already! I'm a recovering pack rat. I can only deal with my compulsion to keep things in stages... Heck, I even threw out my Master and Commander poster of Russell Crowe! Russell, alas, has been replaced long since by another imaginary admirer. (Notice I said admirer, not love object -- essential to my egotistical imagination is that they adore me.) But I digress... Back to shovelling shit out of my study.

Casino Royale

2006-12-18T22:12:00.000-07:00

Casino Royale was a blast. And I mean that sincerely. I have thought for quite a long time that Daniel Craig is a wonderful actor, so I was very pleased to hear he'd become the new James Bond. The DH is a big Bond fan, and I suppose I am too -- though Sir Sean will always be the ne plus ultra in the Bond franchise. That said, Daniel Craig is giving him a run for his money.

The film is gritty and action-packed -- none of this skidooing down snow-slopes and Roger Moore ponce-ishness. I reeled at the stunts and things going boom in the opening sequence alone. This Bond is determined to blow up, destroy, smash and obliterate practically every building he comes in contact with. No wonder they thanked the construction crews so profusely in the credits. No wonder M isn't sure whether to promote him or lock him up. But he looks like a fellow to get the job done. This is the first Bond in a long while who looks like he won't actually need all the cool spy gizmos. But I bet he'll cost MI-6 a fortune in damages.

The DH and I had a good giggle when this Bond drove up to a hotel in a Ford. Even I, who am less canny about Bond details, gasped, "WTF is he doing in a Ford?????" Clever segue later to the '64 Aston Martin signature wheels. Plus, Craig is the only guy I've ever seen wear one of those dorky short sleeved dress shirts and not look like a ... well, a dork. Fabulous piercing blue eyes don't hurt either. Anyway, all in all a very promising start to the re-visioning of the Bond franchise.

Cinderelly Stewart

2006-12-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

The house needs cleaning desperately. I am an all or nothing housecleaner. Either I do it in a big way or not at all. Usually the latter. I would love to be organised and tidy, but that just isn't going to ever happen for me. I long for a bigger house, because then I would have a room devoted to "shit I don't know what to do with".

So I started my week of cleaning woe with sweeping and washing the stairs. They need repainting and refinishing so they still look like hell, but at least they're clean. Given that one of our cats has a remarkable tendency to freak out and run away from his own puke, and then keep puking, only to repeat the process half way up the stairs, I felt a particular desire to do this. He's not very bright. Cute, but not bright. Kind of like me. Though I hasten to point out I'm really kind of lacking in the fur department.

I am the slob-child of a nurse. I don't know what kind of slides or films about germs they showed those chicks in the '50s, but they certainly scared the crap out of them. My mother-in-law and my mother both trained at the Victoria General in Halifax (universally known as the "VG") in the '50s and both of them are germaphobe cleanaholics. My mother-in-law once gassed herself trying to make the bleach she was washing her walls with more "effective". I'm just guessing here, but perhaps chemistry class wasn't a requirement... My own mother keeps her house so spotless you could do surgery on her floors. This is, needless to say, unnatural. It created an environment in which I was neither trained to clean (since I didn't do as good a job as she did) nor were my efforts appreciated (so I gave up). Unless it involved Dettol or equivalent, it was "filthy". I might add that both mothers were stay-at-home mums in the '60s and '70s, both decades which were fairly dedicated to the notion of the Spic 'n' Span housewife image. Nevertheless, it did nothing to convert me and I can always think of several million things I would rather do than houseclean. The only time I want to clean -- and this is pertinent and telling, it seems to me -- is when I'm feeling hyper and freaked out about something. Most of the time, I'm building my daughter's immune system. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

None the less, one of the things that does make me want to clean is watching my house devolve slowly over the semester -- at a particularly frightening speed as the last weeks close in. My home becomes The House of Entropy. The downside is that I start to have visions of looking through interior design magazines with bylines like "Christmas Dazzle -- Make Your House Festive for the Holidays" and "Last-Minute Decor Glitz". They have articles on 50 ways to decorate fashionably with cranberries, or how to make chocolate fondue, all accompanied by photo shoots of impossibly beautiful fruit in elegant dishes I don't own. I don't have a beautiful glass bowl in which to display shiny tree ornaments. I don't have a glue gun. Nope, no crunchy cellophane. Pillar candles? Zip. Even if I had wire baskets, I don't think I have the manual dexterity to make a tiered fruit arrangement for the dining room table.

I had a brief moment of Martha-like insanity last winter when I bought a variety of faux cranberry/holly thingies at a craft store. They were intended to make (can you hear the magazine talking here?) an interesting winter window-box display. I forgot, however, that in Saskatchewan, unless you divest your window-box of all plants in, say, August, you are pretty much guaranteed to find your window-box is filled with a mass of enough solid frozen earth to clog-dance on. Here, an "interesting winter window-box display" is a pile of snow behind which a house is barely visible for several months. Maybe I can resurrect them and make them into something creative and Martha-ish for my dining room? With crunchy cellophane and attractive, treasured objets from around my house? (Insert laughter bordering on hysteria.) Why I'm sure I can stick my head on a pike to make an attractive fruit arrangement! And then glue gun my intestines to the wall for an interesting post-modern twist on traditional garland!!!! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha... "It's alive! It's ali-i-ive!"

Whew. I think I'm going to have to consider upping the old medication...

Current music: Mozart's overture from The Marriage of Figaro

Recovering

2006-12-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

Head's fine today, but my back is still killing me. Despite my intentions to go to church this Sunday -- no, not because I did something in my drunken state that was sending me off to take communion in a state of angst, I'm a boring drunk, I just laugh a lot -- my back is still so sore that I think I will be in a Robaxacet haze most of the day. So much for going for a run too.

In a way, I enjoyed yesterday. Yes, I was tired and desperately hungover, but that pretty much dictated that I just spend the day in bed sleeping and reading Fitzgerald, so it was as good an end of semester as I could imagine.

Eight Glasses a-Clinking

2006-12-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

Today has been quiet. Very quiet. In fact I slept most of the day.

Because last night we were at a Christmas party. And I had five glasses of red wine,two of white wine, half a Jack Daniels & Coke.... and a partridge in a pear tree. Well, not the last one really. There are no pear trees in Saskatchewan. And the partridges are all dead on the side of the highway.

The snow is deep and mucky, thanks to a few warmer days. My shoulder and neck are very painful from having to get out periodically last night and push the car out of the snow on our unploughed city streets. That, I would say, is a quintessential Canadian experience. Meet your neighbours, bond with strangers, 1-2-3 Push!

Done Like Dinner (or is that Donne Like Dinner?)

2006-12-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo! Yay! Hurrah! Yippee! Couch-jumping, cartwheels, and congo lines! I have finally handed in all my grades! Zippity-doo-dah!

Christmas may now commence. Cleaning the house may commence. But first, a nap.

Current music: C.W. Gluck's ballet pantomime Semiramis (1765). Surprisingly calm music, given ol' Semi is dreaming about the husband she assassinated coming back for revenge. Whatever works...

If You See A Deleted Comment....

2006-12-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

By the way, I've been plagued recently by some cybercreature from the black lagoon who keeps adding comments about ways to make more money, some sort of cyberbot advertising nonsense. I delete the comments immediately, because not only are they rudely annoying, they are (the greater evil) BORING as shit. However, I wouldn't want to give the impression that I am blithely clicking away and deleting anyone who comments on my blog by saying, "Dear Bluenosegirl, I couldn't help noticing that you are full of shit and deeply solipsistic...", or "I find your puerile attempts at literary criticism and general commentary both ineffectual and mind-numbing. Please desist as you are giving me a brain tumour", etc. So, deleted posts are merely the nasty little burrs and ticks of the cyberworld. Click.

Un Certain Age

2006-12-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

"Une femme d'un certain age". Loosely translated this means: old enough to get passed over in favour of the young girls, young enough to still get pissed off about it...

When I look in the mirror these past weeks, the wreck of the Hesperus looks back at me. My skin is pale and blotchy, my eyes tired, my expression sags (like lots of other bits of me). There isn't enough foundation in the world to hide my bad skin. My hands are drying up from constantly being in contact with paper, with hangnails aplenty to go with it.

Whatever muscle I've gained these past six months from running is depleting rapidly in the face of sitting most of the day grading exams. (I will run tomorrow, though I did nothing today, and only some yoga stretches yesterday...)

They don't really pay me enough to feel this crappy every four months. It's at this time of year I always ask my husband, "Should I just quit?" He says, "You always say that in December and April. You love being in the classroom." I should get that tattooed somewhere: "I love being in the classroom." Maybe in Latin. Somewhere it won't sag.

Current music: Canadiana: Maritime Celtic Traditions ("She's Like the Swallow")

Weekly weigh-in

2006-12-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

Weekly weigh-in: 160.5

Marking and stress and PMS do some ugly things to a girl...Better luck next week. I think I've put on about 4 pounds in the last few weeks.
The Diva is having her school Christmas concert tonight. She's overtired, getting over a cold and grumpy as hell. They'd better be singing "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer", their big hit from last year...

Current music: Robbie Williams' Greatest Hits ("Feel")

Update: 11 pm. My wee darling was wonderful, standing up there in the bleachers with her classmates. They sang "Silver and Gold", and I couldn't have enjoyed it more if Burl Ives himself sang it. I beam and clap. My little diva kicks ass! Christ, this is how those obnoxious stage mothers get started, isn't it?

A Partay again

2006-12-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight we were at our neighbours the doctors' for a little holiday soiree. They are lovely people with fantastic children (mostly grown now). Huge house. Two dogs. I know their life isn't perfect, but I admit to envying them. Especially the day I was in their beautifully appointed home and C. mentioned her "interior designer". Insert weeping smiley here. My own house is done in Early Modern 7-year-old. I am going for that fresh, modern, "happening" look -- like something just exploded in my house... so much for interior design...

I could swear I bought a coffee table last summer. It's under there somewhere. I don't know whether to hire a cleaning person or an archaeologist. And sadly, I can't blame it all on the all the DD. The books and paper that encroach in every room like an underground resistance movement are mine. I am hopelessly forgetful and often put things down in the wrong spot. Or try to do two things at once, meaning I shove something in a closet with one free hand while I carry something else to another place in the other. I always think I should have a St Bernard with a flask with me when I pull anything out of the linen closet lest I should end up buried under the avalanche of towels and sheets. Said items are a strange compulsion of mine which I keep under control with difficulty. Some women buy shoes -- I would buy endless sheets and towels. Don't ask. I think it's genetic. My mother has the same compulsion.

Anyway, after an evening with Dr & Dr Perfect (who are the sweetest people alive) in their perfect home with their perfect teenage son and their perfect stockbroker/doctor/political bigwig friends, I am feeling less than perfect. Sigh. And thanks to exam brain drain, every time I opened up my mouth to speak, I couldn't say my words clearly, practically stammered. The perfect thin stockbroker/mother of two I was attempting to converse with looked at me as I babbled and I'm sure she was thinking, "Who is this stammering twit?" My brain and my mouth refused to get into gear. So I excused myself and headed for the food -- headed to the cheese tray like it was a homing beacon and practically crawled under the table to sit with one of their dogs. Really, I would be quite happy at any party with a glass of wine, a dog to talk to, and a plate of cheese. No stammering, no crashingly stupid attempts at making small talk. I might even enjoy myself. The DH was in a corner with the politicos, the king of schmooze in his element.

News from the Home Front

2006-12-12T13:29:00.000-07:00

My mother just phoned to inform me that, when my father was having the tumour in his bronchial tube removed last week, they found another on the outside of the tube about which they can do very little. Because of its fragile location, it cannot be removed. They will treat both sites with radiation sometime after Christmas, but no longer are using the word "cure" in discussions with my parents. Both of my parents have been on an emotional roller coaster these past few weeks, and now have gone from a sense of optimism post-surgery to being very shaken up by this new news. Especially since in the fall he had a battery of tests and everything looked good. However, because my father's cancer began in his colon nine years ago, it is more slow-growing than many lung cancers, so this is in his favour.

I feel less shocked by this than I might have thought I'd be. We'll know more later in the week when they speak with another oncologist. Any tears that come to my eyes feel more as thought they are for the thought of my father facing his own mortality and regrets than for myself.

Run Run Run Run Away

2006-12-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the track -- I ran 2.19 miles doing 10 and 1 and didn't kill myself. Yippee! That's almost a quarter mile more than usual!!!! I'm feeling quite pleased. It might make me less cranky while I mark exams this afternoon... I'm trying to get back into doing some exercise after weeks of relative inactivity.

Current music: Oleta Adams' Evolution ("My Heart Won't Lie")

Thanks for Playing...Now, Why are You Here?

2006-12-12T07:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I gave my last exam and ended up turning away two students who hadn't handed in their final essays. A requirement of the course, since it's a first-year one, is that all the work must be completed. The looks on their faces... I felt completely gutted doing it, of course, but I didn't let them know that. I reckon in first year there are valuable life lessons to be learned, like, "get your shit together or accept the consequences". Could they get a doctor's note, I asked? No. Why didn't they get it done? (I'm searching here, I'm trying to find a reason not to fail you ...). "I just didn't do it." Well, he got points for honesty. The girl said, "I've been having problems for the past two months." Sorry, I think to myself, we all do, sweetie. Ask me about my dad having cancer and my dying cat and my mounting debt and my husband's stressful job and my workload and my hole of a house and parental angst and ... (or, of course, you can just fuck off and tell someone who cares...). Then she, who has missed most of the course, asks, "Can I have a copy of the exam anyway?" Uh, no, it's not available for light reading. Am I bitch for doing this? Probably. Did I enjoy it? No. Did I feel I had to? Absolutely. One-third of the students in your average first year course will not go on to complete their degree. Let's cut out the middle-man. Do not waste the university's time and your money (though most universities will gladly rob you of your hard-earned cash if you are so inclined) until you figure out why you are here.

Most kids are on a middle-class treadmill. Mummy and Daddy send them off to university without a thought that other options might make them happier. We live in a society where the only really valued jobs are ones that involve either making a lot of money or pushing a pencil/using a computer etc. I personally could not survive without people who collect my garbage, clean my street, fix my toilet, wire my house, cut and dye my hair, etc. I couldn't begin to do what they do. Because I am a useless university lecturer. There was a reason why during most revolutions they shot us first! We have no life skills! (My husband is overeducated too, but he at least can build furniture. I have trouble making rice for dinner.)

Yes, I will probably encourage my daughter to give university a try (one year mandatory). But if she turns to me and says, "Mum, I really want to be a hairdresser/arc welder/circus animal poop cleaner-upper, " I will say, "Be the best damned hairdresser/arc welder/circus animal poop cleaner-upper the world has ever seen and be happy doing it!"

Current reading: F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night (1933).

Faulkner and Fitzgerald

2006-12-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm into the "F"'s on my personal reading list now. Just finished As I Lay Dying this morning, and started The Great Gatsby, both of which I've read before, but not for a few years.

I have had a strange relationship with this Faulkner novel, or perhaps Faulkner in general. My first encounter with As I Lay Dying was in a first year modern literature class at the University of Toronto in the early '80s. At the time I don't think I was a terribly patient or forgiving reader, so I felt virtually nothing but contempt for this alien, strangely-constructed book about a family carting a corpse around. The southern world it presented was completely foreign to me. I mean, if I wanted to read about these type of folks, there was always Li'l Abner, for fuck's sake. Then our professor asked us to write a passage in the style of one of the characters in the book. I simply rolled my eyes, thinking, "If I could write like William Faulkner I wouldn't be sitting in your class, Professor Chambers, now, would I?" I ended up writing a passage from Vardaman's point of view, and, looking back, I am fairly sure I missed the point of the exercise entirely. My apologies, Prof. Chambers (25 years later). It was a good exercise in learning about style, although imitation has its limits, admittedly.

Years pass. I am in J.M. Heath's Modern Fiction class in third year. We are supposed to read Go Down, Moses. I have been traumatised by Faulkner already, I reckon, and don't want to repeat the experience, so I skip that one (on a fairly lengthy syllabus, as I recall). I suppose I really ought to read Go Down, Moses someday. You can tell the guilt I feel by the fact that I remember it all these years later as a failing on my part. The only other set text at university that I didn't read at the time was Tom Jones, but I've made up for that a couple of times since. Still Faulkner remains, like a piece of grit, worrying away at me. A few more years pass. I am in England and decide to read The Soldier. It had one or two passages I liked, but didn't make much of an impression on me. My general feeling about Faulkner: nice tune, you can dance to it, but I wouldn't give it more than a 75, Dick.

Years pass. I am teaching here at the university and something is still bothering me about As I Lay Dying. I make the decision to teach it in my first year lit class, scratching my head as to my motivations as I do so. As I expect, it fries their brains a little (I can smell that scorched egg smell in my class periodically so I know it's working), but the experience of teaching the book is good for me. To teach something you must, in effect, become a kind of advocate for it. At the end of the semester I come away with a new, albeit awkward, respect for Mr Faulkner.

More years pass. I decide to read it again, just for the hell of it. And, you know, it's one hell of a book. I cringe as I read the passage about pouring cement on Cash's broken leg, I want to kill Anse Bundren for his ignorance and egotism, and ... I can almost smell Addie Bundren's rotten corpse on her journey to Jefferson. All in all, a strange journey. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm ever going to adore Faulkner the way I do some other writers, but I have patience on my side now and I'm glad I gave the book another chance.

Ironically, it was in Douglas Chambers' Introduction to Modern Literature class that I also read The Great Gatsby for the first time (along with Tender is the Night, Brideshead Revisited and Yeats and T.S. Eliot -- all of which I loved). I look forward to reading it again a quarter of a century later with whatever new insights age and time will bring.

Post Party Depression

2006-12-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

We just returned from the Chaplain's Children's Christmas Party and the DD is having a major crying fit. I like to think of it as the children's version of a post-Christmas party hangover... I am marking exams. And drinking a lot of Diet Coke.

Managed a 2.11 mile run this morning -- and, man, are my thighs killing me. I don't think I've run for a couple of weeks now.

Current reading: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925)
Current music: Ralph Vaughan Williams' Orchestral Works ("Fantasia on Greensleeves")

Holly Cole - A Night Before Christmas

2006-12-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

The DH and I went to see Holly Cole last night at the Casino. Wonderful show, though the audience seemed to take a while to warm up. She didn't appear to mind; she was just having a happy time up on stage with her fantastic musicians. I was thrilled to see Aaron Davis, her pianist, with her still. He was part of the Holly Cole Trio when she started out and is an exceptionally fine musician. We used to live on the same street as him in Toronto so I'd see him occasionally around the neighbourhood. Being me, I never said anything to him (that would be un-Canadian), but I thought he was brilliant.

The first (and last) time we saw Holly Cole perform was Valentine's Day, 1993. I was dating my husband's friend at the time, but the DH was there with us too. When I saw that Holly Cole was coming here, I told the DH we had to go: I wanted to go with him this time!

Great show. I totally want a shiny copper suit like she wore.

Houdini Cat Liberates Self!

2006-12-08T08:14:00.000-07:00

My first marking free morning! I say that laughingly since it will all start up again tomorrow. I put the marks on the papers from last night only just now. I like to give myself overnight to see if any doubts about my marks percolate in my subconscious. Upstairs now to write the second exam.

Exercise plan: do some nice gentle forward bends to stretch my cramped up back. Hoping to run on Sunday.

We are going to see Holly Cole tonight, a Canadian jazz/pop singer. I last saw her years ago in Toronto -- with the DH, but ...with my boyfriend of the time!!!! LOL The DH and I weren't hooked up back then and I was dating a friend of his. Silly me! I really pushed for us to get tickets to see Holly Cole this time so I can say I went with him! It's a nice end-of-semester treat.

Stumpy Cat Update: Our cat houdini'd himself out of his splint yesterday! I don't know how he did it, but it may have been a surprise to him because he took off for the basement when it came off. (Maybe it was guilt!) I think the paw is OK, given he was going to get it taken off next week anyway. He's not walking quite normally yet, but that may have as much to do with walking awkwardly with a splint for five weeks as anything else. I'll keep an eye on him. I will kind of miss making fun of him: "Arrrr, Cap'n Pegleg -- did ye lose yer leg in the wars?"

Essays Done/Anchoress

2006-12-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

Ha! Just finished marking the last of the pile of essays! Yahoo! I had hoped to watch Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen tonight, but it is too late, and I'm bagged.

I did manage to get a walk in at the fitness centre today. I only managed 3 miles due to time constraints as I had a meeting to get to. Boy, are the old hip joints feeling it tonight.

I called my father this evening and was surprised to hear him answer the phone. His voice was slightly raspy, quite understandably since they'd been sticking things down his throat this morning, but he was in good spirits. He said he slept better last night before the surgery than he has in months, and had a good three-hour nap this afternoon. That tells me he's relieved to get something done. He has a battery of doctors' appointments over the next week, so I'll be waiting to hear when he's scheduled for radiation and chemo. I'm relieved too. Waiting is the hardest part in many ways.

This afternoon I treated myself between essays to a few minutes at a time of Chris Newby's 1993 black-and-white film, Anchoress, a feminist fable for the middle ages. A young girl decides to become an "anchoress", immured in an enclosed, small room off a chapel, when she has visions of the Virgin. Trouble arises when it becomes apparent that her mystical visions don't coincide with those of the established church, represented by Christopher Eccleston's smug, dogmatic priest. Her mother, played by Toyah Willcox, has no love for the church. She is practical and earthy, plucking chickens, making tonics for the locals and dispensing acid comments. At the beginning of the film one suspects Christine, the main character, wants to enclose herself in solitude to get away from her mother, but as time goes on we realise she has inherited her mother's tactile, earthy view of the world -- though it shows itself in her in a sensual delight in the simple beauties of the world. The scent of a loaf of bread or the music of birdsong brings her closer to the virgin than preaching and dogma. Why will she insist that in her visions the Virgin's robes are crimson red, when, as the priest argues, everyone knows they are sky blue? Her attempts at embroidery turn into a mockery of dry intellectualism (read: masculine) as she creates an image of the Virgin fondling herself in a way no church could advocate. The film is slow-moving, trying to convey the mystic beauty in simple objects -- newly threshed wheat, flowers floating in water -- even as it presents a vision of women in tune with mystical nature and men obsessed with dogma and confining authority. The self-indulgent camera work makes its point a little too lengthily, but the story raises some interesting ideas. However, you have to get over Natalie Morse, the lead actress, and her endless staring into space and wordless responses. My version was unrated, but it should say: "Caution: Patience Required".

Slothful

2006-12-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

I'm going to haul my ass over to the fitness centre today and do a 4-mile walk, which should take me nearly an hour. I feel like a sludgy, bloated three-toed sloth with all this sitting and marking. We are eating badly every night (cheese fondue last night -- good, yet so bad) because I haven't had time to actually shop for real food. I will have to seriously get back on the diet and eat healthily next week. This week all I can do is try to get a little exercise.

My dad is having his surgery today. I'll phone this evening to see how it went.

Currently listening to: John Lennon's Working Class Hero: The Definitive Lennon ("Cold Turkey").

Weekly Weigh in (shut your eyes)

2006-12-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

Weekly weigh-in: 161.5

We went out for an end-of-term meal last night and I gorged on Tortellini Alfredo. Waddled home and went to bed before 9:30. Not even a trip to the gym yesterday (close to 4 miles on a recumbant stationary bike) helped this one. I know these next couple of weeks while I'm sitting marking are not going to be good. I am going to do some sit ups today. I have to do something.

On another note, we have booked flights to visit my parents (at enormous cost), and my father sounded very pleased on the phone. I dread travelling at Christmas time, but I think he really needs me.

Currently listening to: The Bee Gees' Number Ones ("Lonely Days"). I have never figured out why I like them. Their voices should be really annoying, but I find them strangely compelling. :shrugs:

Church Defections

2006-12-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

We went on Saturday to an open house at some friends' from the DH's work. Interestingly, I met there some folks we knew slightly from our old church, from which we defected in spring of '05 because it had become terribly conservative and disturbingly achtung. I thought it was that way for us because we were younger than the average demographic at our church and left-wing gay-lovin' pinko-commies. It turns out that a number of the more elderly parishioners have left as well -- for much the same reasons! I felt just a little bit more justified. It was good to hear someone else express disbelief at the amount of time spent fretting over the use of the BAS (Book of Alternative Services) versus the BCP (Book of Common Prayer). Ah, Anglicans, ya gotta love 'em -- God's frozen people... Apparently our former parish has very low attendance now, and is badly in debt. I wonder if that's an indication that folks are weary of the profoundly conservative hardline.

Also at the party was a good friend of ours who also teaches at the university, G., a well-known Canadian mystery writer, and her husband, as well as a number of other people (the folks from our former parish among them) from the downtown cathedral, and they have convinced me that we really would like it there -- where there is "more than a whiff of liberalism", as G put it laughingly. I took it as a sign that I really ought to get off my duff and make the move to another parish rather than remain churchless.

Can it really be Advent already? I am drowning in marking -- barely able to consider planning or decorating for Christmas. Christmas cards are staring at me accusingly, waiting to be written for two weeks now. On another note, today was the last day of classes !!!! Hurrah!!! I am still mired in marking, but I can now do it (for the most part) without going into the office -- that is, in my jammies all day if I want to!

Current Reading: William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930).

Graham Greene

2006-12-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

The End of the Affair is simply gutting me. I have not read a book that I found so emotional or heart-wrenching for a very long time. I think part of the reason why I'm finding it so affecting has to do with the fact that I am going through a period of spiritual questioning myself, so I find Sarah's search for faith all the more powerful. There's such a sense of honesty and truthfulness about the book -- even the sections which are Sarah's diary feel like they are written by a woman. I am two-thirds of the way through and I am fairly sure this will be one of those books I won't want to reach the end of.

Update on Dad

2006-12-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

My father will be having laser surgery on his bronchial tube to remove a small tumour next week. In a way I was relieved to hear a diagnosis and a course of action -- that is always better than not knowing and waiting. This will be much less hard on him than the surgery he had last time which removed part of a lung. It's quite incredible to think this will be day-surgery. Inevitably there will be a course of radiation and chemo, and those are the parts of this that brought me to tears yesterday: the endless rounds of treatment, followed by all the awful symptoms which he now can anticipate from experience.

During and after his first round of cancer, my father was exceptionally good-spirited and optimistic. The second bout took away any hope that he would never have to deal with cancer again, and he never recovered the positive outlook that might have sustained him emotionally. He has suffered badly from depression ever since -- something he has always been prone to. No one who has not suffered from a life-threatening illness can begin to imagine the change in outlook that must come from the knowledge of one's own mortality. Even the simplest things are coloured by the understanding that one's time is limited. I have thought about this so much since C.'s death last month, and I can hear it in my father's voice when he tells me the latest news about his treatment, when he adds the phrase "if I survive this". I asked my parents how they were doing emotionally on the phone last night, but they were both on at the same time and I imagine neither would confess to the other at this stage that they weren't doing well.

I am left feeling saddened occasionally, numb and tired much of the time. I have a lot of work to do at this time of the year at the university -- piles of essays which demand my focussed attention. I don't think I can give them 100% of my concentration just now. We will undoubtedly be heading off to see them some time this month.

Weekly Weigh-in

2006-11-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

Weekly Weigh-in: 158

The Bloating Fairy came to me and waved her magic wand and "poof" ... lo and behold and it was gone. "Bloating be gone!" said she in her tiny little voice. Now I just need to look up the cell number for the Essay-Marking Fairy. She's damned busy this time of year though. I'd probably have to make a booking.

Office Blues/Jesuit Awareness Day

2006-11-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

Currently reading: Graham Greene's The End of the Affair (1951).

It's been a long time since I read any Graham Greene, and I've seen the film of this one, so I'm looking forward to it. I'm only about 40 pages in and already I'm struck by the philosophical tone and dark vision of love presented in the novel. I've finished all those McLean and Goodkind books that sustained me through the tough times this semester, so it's time to get back to my massive list of ought-t0-reads. I'll be heading through the swamp of Greene, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald for the next little while...

I spent much of today in my office with students -- all of whom were in a panic about something. It's the last full week of classes and essays have been due in both my courses, so of course the world is crashing down around everyone's ears. Despite my own busy state, I was flattered, however, that a former student brought her questions about an upcoming Wuthering Heights essay in another class to me. I did the best I could to guide her toward a better thesis so she could proceed with confidence. It's good to feel relatively useful. I stand there in my classes these days, asking questions and hearing in return the silence of three dozen exhausted students practising the zen of non-being. I feel tired myself, so I understand, but I hate the feeling of spoonfeeding people answers they should be reaching for themselves.

There is an essential contradiction present in classes at the end of the year. We (the teachers) want to experience the "big finish", like an orchestra reaching a crashing crescendo, something to reassure us that what we have been doing all year has paid off, there is an answer somewhere, and it is all falling together for them. They (the students) are burnt out from late nights, too many last-minute essays, and the extent of their desire for knowledge is "Will this be on the exam?" So much for Tennyson's archway of experience "wherethro'/ Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades/ For ever and for ever when I move." I've been teaching "Ulysses" this semester, and every time I teach it it seems a potent argument for the need to learn, to always seek knowledge in every form:

How dull it is to pause, to make an end
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

Yup, Alfie had it right on there. I'll be begging for books in the nursing home, and, when my eyesight goes, I'll get books on tape.

P.S. On another note altogether, I saw a poster up at the university today. "Thursday 30 November is Jesuit Awareness Day". Is it just me, or is that not the most hysterical thing ever? Hug a Jesuit tomorrow! ROFL

Saskatchewan Book Awards

2006-11-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

Last night we attended the Saskatchewan Book Awards gala. I am having a life crisis. A former student of mine won the First Book Award for his book of poetry. Sigh. I have an enormous "L" stuck on my forehead. Not that I was up for anything. To be up for an award you have to finish something. The thrill of the evening was listening to the wonderful Jane Urquhart speak. I want to be her when I grow up. Sigh.

Stuart and Harry

2006-11-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

Currently reading: Stuart McLean's Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe (2006)

These books have been a wonderful antidote to what has been, all things considered, an epically bad semester at the university. Now if I could just stop having dreams about dead friends, me being dead, death in general...

I have been supplementing Stuart McLean with viewings of the Harry Potter movies. I'm going to finish watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets this evening. It's nice to be reminded of just how good those movies (and books) are.

Later: Just started watching The Prisoner of Azkaban. Boy, those Phelps twins grow up rather nicely, don't they? Tall, handsome, red-headed boys... Damn. How pathetic is it when a woman in her '40s starts admiring those adorable Phelps twins. Oh, and Sean Biggerstaff was rather dishy in those movies too...(slapping self)...

I Like This One Better

2006-11-23T08:18:00.000-07:00

Next day's weigh-in: 159.5

Ha! See? So there!

Weekly Weigh-in

2006-11-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

Weekly weigh-in: 160.5

Well, that sucks. Could it be the giant burrito sitting in my gut from last night? And at 5:00 I weighed the same, after lunch and a run, so.... OK, I'm just going to ignore this one. Chalk it up to a giant burrito. Again, the mysterious connection between overeating and weight gain. Hmmm. Could it be there is a parallel here?

I have had one of those days that left me crying in the bathtub tonight. I feel like an utter failure in just about every aspect of my life. I have failed to meet every marking deadline I have set myself this semester, so my first-years didn't get their papers back this morning. Then I opened my file folder in class and had one of those moments that makes you want to work in retail: "Oh shit," says I to myself (silently). "That was what I forgot to do last night." Finish my Evelyn Waugh lecture. I stare down and realise I have only about a third of a lecture prepared. And the book I'm doing with them is a satire that seems to be leaving them quite befuddled. So I couldn't pull the classic rabbit out of the screwed professor's hat and ask brightly: "So, what do you think?" Well, I could, but I would be confronted by a mind-numbing silence and two dozen blank stares. (This doesn't mean that they couldn't answer any questions, but it speaks to a desire to be spoon fed that they won't let go of.) "Who's William Morris?" I ask brightly, since he is referred to in the text. Shoulders shrug. Later, "Have any of you taking psychology heard of Havelock Ellis? What is he well known for?" Dunno. And apparently nothing has impelled them to find out. So, I kept talking. You know: words coming out of the mouth, mind distanced and listening to the automatic pilot drivel. So it's 10:20 and I've already struck out twice. Or three times if you count my inability to stimulate discussion. I spend the rest of the day feeling very close to tears and very, very tired. I knock back five chocolate-covered espresso beans and wait for the river of caffeine to hit my bloodstream.

Two hours later, I am still waiting. Depressed and experiencing hunger as the only side effect of the caffeine, I have a bacon cheeseburger for lunch. With salad and a diet Coke -- ha ha ha. Second class looms. I might manage to get through Shakespeare, since he's generally easier for me to teach. Love dem dead white guys. And I am very fond of the students in that class. So fond of them that the inwardly vulnerable and tearful me would really like to kneel down before them and confess that I am not worthy. They deserve better than me. I am all too conscious that I haven't been giving 100% to my job this semester.

On my way back to my office I am cornered by one of my colleagues whom I like to think of as the Pretty Pit Bull. She is venomously political and speaks to me about current politics among our sessional lecturers with the fervor of a ... well, I had a metaphor to use, but it wasn't necessarily politically correct. She spoke to me with a patronising self-righteousness that sways many of her listeners, but which I find offensive. I was so offended I said nothing. God, I hate that. When I am upset, I wish I could find something equally venomous to say -- poisonous even -- something like "Go shit in your hat, bitch." But I can't -- I just want to get away from her. So I went to my office and had a little cry while I waited for a student who couldn't make it during my office hour.

Spent 20 minutes reassuring my student, a very bright Japanese student, that her essay was going in the right direction. Then I went to the fitness centre but only had time for a run of less than 15 minutes because I had to make it home for my daughter. Perhaps it was because I was so angry, or perhaps I just wanted to make the most of the 12 minutes I had, but I ran a mile and a quarter, shocking myself! I was fast for a change. If I'd had time to do a full run I could have gone over 2 miles. So at least that I was pleased with.

Coming home, I felt completely drained of all energy. I wasn't a very fun mother. I neither wanted to go for doughnuts, nor be the recipient of a "makeover". What I really wanted to do was sit in the bathtub and cry. So I did.

The DH just arrived home from work, let me sob all over him, and is now a nominee for the husband of the year award as a result of handing me a big glass of Californian Merlot. And bringing home Indian food -- chana masala, chicken biryani, and lamb rogan josh, with naan bread. Life is briefly worth living again.

Current mood: I suck.

Back to Running

2006-11-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

I went for my last run the day of C's funeral, which was 9 days ago. After that, I just couldn't seem to find the heart for it. I found reasons to squirm out of doing just about anything, and felt draggy and tired. I don't find it hard to find a reason for that.

I went today to the Fitness Centre at the University, since there was a thin film of ice in places on the pavement and I had visions of messing up further my calf (which still bothers me a bit). I made it through 20 minutes (10:1:9), but it damn near finished me. I felt slow and was sweating like a fiend. Only made 1.92 miles, which is not an improvement, so I really was going slowly. I am going to try to run at work again tomorrow after my office hour before I go home.

I feel so sluggish. My dieting has stalled slightly, though my appetite is diminished somewhat since the Halloween/post-C binge. Yesterday I tried to be a June Cleaver mum by making cupcakes with my daughter after school. Caramel pecan cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Then I was a Roseanne Barr mum by eating some of them. Gave half a dozen of them to our neighbours for safety's sake.

Current Reading

2006-11-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

Currently reading: Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe Diaries (2003).

From the cover: "VINYL CAFE DIARIES: A golden opportunity to invigorate your reading skills! Scores of pages filled with alphabetical symbols which when deciphered offer hours of pleasure!... Good Natured Humour Guaranteeed!"

Bad Dreams

2006-11-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

I have had terrible nightmares for the past couple of weeks. Last night was no exception. First I was yelling at my parents for butting into things that were none of their business, since they were griping about the size of my VISA bill (not fully paid off) and various other things. During the rest of the dream, I kept encountering my dead friend C. She was visible to some people, and solid when you touched her, but occasionally would disappear. At one point I kept running into her on a street where she was handing out pieces of buttered toasted raisin bread from a plate to anyone who passed her. It troubled me that she was clearly moving around, not at peace, and I wondered if she was looking for her boys. I felt so much sadness and anxiety for her. I would really like to have a banal, non-descript dream some night. My dreams are often strange, but lately I awaken feeling so troubled and disturbed by them.

Retraction

2006-11-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

After a truly miserable week, I feel compelled to retract my previous statement. I am, in fact, really a Merlot person. A Stone Valley Californian 2004 Merlot is better than tea...

It's described as a "crowd-pleasing fruit bomb... loaded with classic blackberry and plum". Yum. Gosh I'm glad we bought a case of it. Tonight I could be convinced to open a second bottle. That's how bad this week has sucked.

Gingerbread Latte .... mmmmm

2006-11-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

I am a tea person. I am fussy about steeping my tea properly and generally won't order tea in restaurants unless I know they use ceramic pots. (Metal ones steep too quickly and make the tea harsh and too strong.) I feel a horror akin to the breaking of an orthodox dietary law when I see people dipping teabags in their cups to make tea. (I have learned to hide this, out of necessity. They no longer notice my gasping intake of breath.) I set a timer to tell me when my tea is steeped, having been traumatised by memories of my grandmother's Pyrex tea pot on a stove burner visibly boiling the tea during dinner while I was growing up -- boiling it until it was, as we like to say in the Maritimes, "black as the inside of a cow". When I want a hot drink, tea is my beverage of choice.

Being a tea person, I seldom finish a cup of coffee. I might like it for the first third of the cup, but then I am repulsed by the flavour quite suddenly and can't bear to finish it. (This is much like the infrequent urge to eat a chocolate bar -- I am completely disgusted by the sweetness as soon as I'm done.) On the other hand, my favourite chocolates are coffee cremes, my favourite chocolate bar Coffee Crisp, I adore coffee ice cream, tiramisu, and chocolate-covered coffee beans. Go figure. I can occasionally make it through a cup of coffee if it is tarted up beyond all recognition and is essentially dessert in a cup. Iced coffee or Vietnamese coffee -- excellent -- I'm all for it. Those frappuccino/iced cap things are just dandy. Real coffee I can only take black with two to three sugars, depending on how strong it is. And even that I can only drink late in the afternoon -- not for any physiological reason, but simply because that's the only time I can enjoy it. If offered coffee by someone, I will accept it, but, as I said, seldom finish it. I fully admit I am weird about this. I submit as further evidence: I find the smell of bananas almost makes me nauseous, but I adore banana bread.

Yesterday, however, I discovered Starbuck's Gingerbread latte. I generally argue that ginger makes everything better anyway (even men) and I use huge dollops of it when I'm cooking whenever possible. Now, I was cautious, and only ordered a tall latte (read: small), but I finished it! And finished another today! Do you think there is hope for me? Will I someday look like a grown up who actually goes out for coffee like the rest of the world?

P.S. Yes, I expect my friends will snigger about the ginger men comment. I confess I am a helpless victim of my addiction.

Currently Reading

2006-11-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

Currently reading: Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe Unplugged (2000)

Just finished his set of short stories entitled Home from the Vinyl Cafe, which contains the now-famous "Dave Cooks the Turkey". That's a great story, indeed, but I think it is surpassed in some measure by the infinitely funnier "Polly Anderson's Christmas Party", which contains the almost-tragic punch bowl mixup (which results in the kids in the basement having a fantastic time while the adults' party seems oddly ... stiff), parental wisdom about how to get a crying baby to sleep (wave a hairdryer over them a couple of times), and alcohol's release of Sam's inner Niles Crane. In our house we adore Stuart McLean. His CBC radio show, The Vinyl Cafe, is a weekend favourite.

Weekly Weigh-in

2006-11-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

Weekly weigh-in: 159.5

What? Surely not? You mean the pasta and cupcakes have CALORIES in them? Why didn't they tell me? "Grab for my wine glass again, buddy, and you're gonna have to learn to write with the other hand!"

November has been a stressful month. On top of that, as soon as it turns cold, pasta and yummy hot chocolate start calling to me. Add a full-blown case of girl-agony and water retention and I am trying to not feel despondent about the weight-gain. Excuse me while I take a swig of my nicely-breathed Barolo... "BACK OFF, ASSHOLE!" I find wine very soothing, don't you?

Currently listening to: Telemann's "Concerto in F major" from Tafelmusik

Icy & Dicy

2006-11-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

It's cold and icy with a freezing wind out there today. I am finding it hard to convince myself even to get in the car and go over to the fitness centre to run. Before the funeral yesterday I did manage to run for 20 minutes and even made it through 1o minutes straight, and then another 9 minutes after a minute's walking break. I made 1.92 miles. I was sweating like a pig by the time I finished, but pleased I managed it. Problems with my calf still persist, so I am a little concerned about trying another run today, but I have been stretching more (which, I suspect, is the key to my problem).

Current reading: Stuart McLean's Home from the Vinyl Cafe (1998).

P.S. Darn. Darn. Darn. My car locks have iced over and I have no way to open the car. Guess I will have to forgo that run... Darn. Darn. Darn. Better make another hot chocolate. I am so completely without motivation today. I'll wait until the DH gets home and ask him to do the hairdryer/extension cord magic trick for me.

C.'s Funeral

2006-11-14T07:36:00.000-07:00

I went to C.'s funeral service yesterday. I tried to write about it then, but found the whole idea too exhausting in my state of mind. The church was packed with family, friends, and colleagues. The church they chose was not their own; they had to find one a good deal larger because they knew it would be such a large turnout. Unfortunately, it was a church which piped cheesy "pop" Christian music through its speakers at the beginning and end of the service, and the minister himself pulled out what was clearly one of those generic funeral sermons that you do for people you don't know. Our college chaplain, fortunately, conducted most of it, and she is not only a lovely person -- completely sincere and warm -- but one of the most extraordinary, gifted speakers I have ever heard in any setting. People who knew C. got up and spoke about her, but none amazed me more than her husband, who showed extraordinary composure and such gratitude for having been given his wife for even a short time, that I watched in complete awe and admiration. The most difficult part was watching the slide show of photos of C. and her family. I could hardly bear to watch it -- it was incredibly painful to see her in such hopeful stages of her life: marriage, pregnancy, playing with her boys, on holiday with them and her husband. One photo of her and her husband kissing, with the Arizona mesas as a backdrop, will stay with me as terribly poignant. It was taken in the spring on holiday while she had a brief reprieve from her cancer. Some of us questioned the wisdom of this photo display, since it wasn't particularly comforting -- only a raw reminder of life's brevity given to people already wounded by her loss. The best part of the ceremony for some of us was the inclusion at the end of two aboriginal songs, sung accompanied only by a traditional drum. The sound was powerful and raw and seemed a better expression of our grief than any hymn. I couldn't bring myself to stay for the luncheon I had helped prepare. My eyes welled up every few seconds, and I didn't want to be around a lot of people trying to compose myself or rummaging in my purse for kleenex every five seconds; so I went to my car and cried for a few minutes, before pulling myself together sufficiently to go pick up my daughter at her aunt's.

All I wanted to do was hold my daughter. I gave her a long, tight hug, and heard her say, "It's OK, Mum". My sister-in-law supplied me with a much-needed cup of strong tea. I felt completely drained and exhausted. Thank heavens I remembered to wear my glasses, or I would have been peeling my contact lenses off the backs of my eyelids.

Afterward, I took my daughter to see Flushed Away, since I certainly felt like I could use some diverting. It was charming, but best of all was to spend time with my girl after a morning spent reminding me that anything can happen.

Rest in peace, C. I still remember how much you laughed.

Give This Joke a Punchline

2006-11-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

I forgot to add that while we were making the funeral lunch, one of my colleagues (who leaves me in stitches every day) realised that he and another colleague were like a joke in the making. He's Jewish, and his colleague teaches Islamic Studies. There they were in the college kitchen, on a Sunday, making ham sandwiches... My friend I. said, "You know there has to be a great joke here:

So, a Jew and an Islamic scholar were making ham sandwiches together on a Sunday, and the Jew says to the Islamic scholar..."

Academics: Will Cater for 500

2006-11-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

Spent an hour and a half at the college this afternoon with 20 colleagues making sandwiches and trays of "dainties" for C.'s funeral tomorrow morning. I discovered a hitherto unknown talent for saran-wrapping trays. We reckon we should all put on our academic CVs: "Can make lunch for 500 on short notice."

Everybody Copes in Their Own Way... Or Not

2006-11-10T15:47:00.000-07:00

Went into college today feeling a bit more angry than sad about C.'s passing, not so much for her as for her family being bereft of her so unjustly. Fortunately I work in a wonderful place where the staff all truly care about each other. The Christianity of my college expresses itself in the most positive of ways, and embodies all the good things about the faith (true caring, concern, and warmth), not the bad things (like bigotry, intolerance, and smug self-righteousness). Lots of hugs amongst us in the hallways today. I imagine the students wondered a bit at us. I don't think C's death is general knowledge among them yet. She hasn't been at work for a year.

I felt able to deal with it until I entered my office and there, with the door shut, unexpectedly broke into tears. This might be a good thing, all things considered, but not when you have to teach less than 5 minutes later. I went into my class red-eyed, but teaching grammar is fairly unemotional. It's hard to get teary-eyed over commas. So I made it through, and was OK for the second class after lunch, though I heard myself talking in circles. Several of us said we had trouble focussing when we taught today. But it was good to teach. One of the great virtues of teaching is that you really can't bring your problems into the classroom. Early on you learn, quite unconsciously, to put on a teaching persona, which takes over like automatic pilot when you start to teach. (There's a lot in common between teaching and acting.) This isn't to say that we are false when we teach, merely less vulnerable or exposed. It's a bit like armour, I suppose. All I know is it got me through my classes, and I'm grateful for that.

As I went to get into the elevator to my second class, I noticed the corner of the elevator was occupied by a young girl (university-age) sitting on the floor playing a Gameboy. So intent was she that she neither rushed to hold open the door which started to close on some of us, nor did she ask us to press a floor button for her. Four of us got on, all eyeing her and each other with wordless smirks of disbelief. Quite clearly this girl was just planning to keep on riding the elevator and playing her Gameboy. What to make of her, I really don't know. It's a stressful time of year at the university. I know I love to absorb myself into a good game of Sims2 when I'm under stress, but I really can't imagine squashing myself into a corner of an elevator to do it. To each his own...

C is gone

2006-11-10T07:41:00.000-07:00

My friend and colleague C. died last night around 7 pm. She was surrounded by her friends and family who "prayed her out" with prayer and drumming. Her end, I am told, was peaceful. Her husband will have a fire going in their backyard for the next four days and nights until her funeral and we are invited to drop round with food, wood, sage, sweetgrass, cedar, or any other herbs significant in the aboriginal tradition -- or just bring ourselves. I am filled with loss and a confusing sense of the rapidity of her decline in the past few weeks. If anyone reads this, I hope they will pray for her husband and two boys. C. was 34 years old.

Dad's Ill, C is Dying

2006-11-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

My mother just called and said cancerous polyps were found in my dad's throat today. Actually, we're not 100% sure where they are from (throat or sinus) since he sneezed one out the other day. That in itself qualifies as peculiar, I should think. We don't know enough yet to know the extent of the cancer, so we just have to wait until he has further tests later in the month. This will be my father's third bout of cancer. In '98 he had colon cancer, and in '02 the same type of cells were found in a tumour in his lung, and he had cancer in both the lung and the lymph nodes. He's very healthy otherwise, and has always recovered incredibly well. Now, these polyps contain those same kind of cancer cells that were in the original colon tumour. He was resting when I spoke to my mother, so I will call Dad later today and wish him well. I approach this with trepidation since we don't have the easiest of relationships, despite our love for one another.

And today C.'s husband sent around an email indicating that C. is now dying, fighting for her breath with every tooth and nail. We knew it would happen, but never dreamt it would be so fast. I don't really have any words for this. It all seems such a testament to the utter randomness of events in the universe. I almost wrote "randomness of the universe" but find that idea too difficult to contemplate. I still want to believe there is a controlling force to the universe. I still believe goodness is the essence of God, but evil itself may be utterly random. Order and chaos, the eternal opposites.

10 Minutes!

2006-11-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

I have reached a running goal I never imagined I would -- I have run 10 minutes straight! I remember distinctly thinking 5 minutes would be an impossible goal several months ago. This is proof that just sticking at it and pushing myself a little each week has had results. I am having calf trouble this week, so I didn't make it through a second set of ten minutes, but I will when the muscle is feeling better. I am paying for not stretching my calves enough beforehand.

Weekly Weigh-in: 157.5

Junk Food Blow Out!

2006-11-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

Everyone has their moment of weakness. Mine was yesterday. Well, to tell truth, it started late last week when I succumbed to a colleague's flogging chocolate covered almonds. (Our daughters' ballet school uses them as an evil fundraiser.) Saturday night was a do at the dean's house with totally yummy finger food. And today, coming back from classes, exhausted from lack of sleep, I let my inner food troll go to the local 7-11 and bought (and snarfed down):

1 Coffee Crisp chocolate bar
followed immediately by
1 small bag Ruffles All-Dressed potato chips
and
half a package of strawberry Twizzlers
all washed down by an irony-laden Diet Pepsi.

Yuck. Why? Why? WHY?

Randomness

2006-11-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

A friend has inspired me to do a blog with six random facts about myself. Careful, it won't be pretty.

1. I can tell you which number of the alphabet each of the 26 letters is, even out of order. (For example, L is the twelfth letter, and so forth).
2. I wear contact lenses. I started with glasses when I was 9.
3. I usually wear solid coloured clothes - patterns feel too loud.
4. I talk to imaginary friends... still. But only when I'm alone. (Or am I?)
5. I went through a long phase as a kid where I only drew horses.
6. My initials are carved on a rock on a beach along the Northumberland Strait in Nova Scotia. (If you know where Anne Murray's cottage is, you're getting warmer.)

Weekly weigh-in

2006-11-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

Weekly weigh-in: 156

Happy Halloween

2006-10-31T08:08:00.000-07:00

This morning, with some other people, I am going to the hospital in our Halloween costumes to visit a friend we used to work with who is terminally ill with cancer. She has always loved Halloween, and they have made it a special holiday in her family for that reason. I admit I am approaching this visit with trepidation. It has been a while since I saw her last and she will undoubtedly look very changed. She recently stopped chemo, since it was making her feel terrible and sapping her of what strength she has left -- strength she wants to spend enjoying time with her husband and two boys (who are in grade 3 and kindergarten). The situation reminds me so much of the death of my cousin Susan who had breast cancer and left behind two girls, aged 5 and 2. She too was only in her mid-thirties. Our friend C. recently had her 34th birthday a few weeks ago. I find this terribly hard to write about, or even think about, to be honest. C. has the same progression of cancer (from colon to lung) that my father had, but he, at 75 is doing quite well, while at 34 she is dying. The cancer metastasizes so quickly in the young. It has been only about 13 months since she was diagnosed. It will be terribly hard to see her today, thinking as I am of what a cheery, energetic woman she was before this illness hit her.

Snow Sucks

2006-10-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

So, I blew off going running today, because (boo hoo) it snowed. I know -- lame. And here on the prairies it may well continue to do the snow thing until April, so I'd better suck it up. I did go yesterday and managed 2.07 miles, and it was the third run last week, so I'm not doing too badly. Hey, I vacuumed today -- that counts as exercise, doesn't it? Cleaning the bathrooms must burn off a few calories, surely? Well, back to the toilets I go... (how apt).

Current reading: Terry Goodkind's Chainfire (2005).

40 Questions

2006-10-28T20:35:00.000-06:00

40 Questions (found this on the web - thought I'd try it out)

1. Have you ever been searched by the cops?
No, thank heavens.

2. Do you close your eyes on roller coasters?
No, but I scream loudly.

3. When's the last time you've been sledding?
Probably about 11 or 12 years ago when I lived near Christie Pits in Toronto.

4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?
Most of the time, alone, but it would depend on who was my co-sleeper of choice...

5. Do you believe in ghosts?
Yes, but not in a creepy-crawly-scary way. I think they will eventually be explained by science, but we don't as yet have the vocabulary to explain them. We don't know it all yet, as much as we might like to think we do.

6. Do you consider yourself creative?
Yes, but not always productively creative. I have an extremely active imagination.

7. Do you think O.J. killed his wife?
Truthfully, yes. But every dog gets their day in court and that's that.

8. Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?
For what? I don't care who Brad Pitt sleeps with as long as he doesn't ask me! Yech.

9. Do you stay friends with your exes?
Not usually. Only one, who is as dear to me as a brother would be even 20 years later.

10. Do you know how to play poker?
Nope. But I'm OK at bridge and love cards generally.

11. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight?
No. I don't think I'm capable of it.

12. What's your favorite commercial?
I'm quite fond of the recent cat food commercials with adult men playing the roles of cats displeased by their owners' culinary tastes. Is it an IAMS ad? Or Friskies? You can tell I don't pay much attention...

13. What are you allergic to?
Wool against my skin (very grateful I wasn't born in the Highlands like my ancestors), various trees, particularly elms (so I live in a monoculture of the damn things), various grasses, dust mites, something for every season both indoors and outdoors really. Lucky me.

14. If you're driving in the middle of the night, and no one is around do you run red lights?
No. I don't assume I can see everything.

15. Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?
Not many but probably one or two. I'm a very honest soul in most things.

16. Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees?
Neither. I live in a baseball-free zone, sadly. I have a tepid hometown allegiance to the Toronto Blue Jays, but I also like the Seattle Mariners (and beautiful Safeco stadium).

17. Have you ever been Ice Skating?
I'm Canadian. Duh. I still need a wall to stop though, even after all these years.

18. How often do you remember your dreams?
Most of the time. I then tell them to my husband, whose response is invariably "You're weird."

19. When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried?
Possibly at the cinema watching Team America: World Police. The puppet sex scene made me laugh, cry, and have an asthma attack.

20. Can you name 5 songs by The Beatles?
"Yellow Submarine", "Norwegian Wood", "Lovely Rita Meter Maid", "Eleanor Rigby", "Michelle"

21. What's the one thing on your mind now?
Filling out the quiz. Waiting for Red Road to come out on DVD in the UK and be released in North America.

22. Do you know who Ghetto-ass barbie is?
Not really. Does she come with a group of other barbie dolls? Is she related to Drug Mule Barbie?

23. Do you always wear your seat belt?
I have occasionally forgotten to, but generally I always wear it.

24. What cell service do you use?
Sasktel.

25. Do you like Sushi?
I adore sushi. The great regret of being on the South Beach diet is that I can't have rice. Sashimi doesn't have the same appeal, sadly.

26. Have you ever narrowly avoided a fatal accident?
I don't think so.

27. What do you wear to bed?
Tonight, fabulous flannel jammies. Blue with white polar bears and snowflakes on them. They were a present from my husband a few Christmases ago -- the year he finally figured out how to buy something useful from La Senza.

28. Been caught stealing?
Don't steal, so no.

29. What shoe size do you have?
7.

30. Do you truly hate anyone?
I don't think so. There are a few people whom I dislike intensely and would never want to see again.

31. Classic Rock or Rap?
Neither really. Of the two I guess I'd prefer Classic Rock, so I can understand the lyrics, but there's only so much Creedence Clearwater Revival I can take.

32. If you could sleep with one famous person, who would it be?
Tony Curran. Tall, red-headed, blue-eyed, smart, talented and gorgeous -- with a Scottish accent. What's not to like? It would be quite nice to be putty in his hands...

33. Favorite Song?
That changes, but I do have a real soft spot for "Bobcaygeon" by The Tragically Hip. It' s on their album Phantom Power.

34. Have you ever sung in front of the mirror?
Not with a hairbrush, but yes.

35. What food do you find disgusting?
Okra.

36. Do you sing in the shower?
No, but I have long conversations with my object of lust of the moment.

37. Did you ever play, "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours"?
Not as a kid... LOL

38. Have you ever made fun of your friends behind their back?
Not often, but I frequently make fun of people I don't know well. I'm a bit of a clown. It's hard to swallow a funny line if I can manage to think one up.

39. Have you ever stood up for someone you hardly knew?
Yes. I don't think I've changed world history or anything, but I have stood up for students in various situations.

40. Have you ever been punched in the face?
No, and glad of it. I did, however, walk into a tree the other day.

Goin' to the Dance

2006-10-28T09:21:00.000-06:00

Don't think it was exotic. Don't think I had a fabulous marital date. Nah. I was taking the sprog to the local Halloween dance (run kindly and unselfishly every year for the neighbourhood kids by the local United church). She was Princess Jasmine, and I was relieved not to have to argue with her that Princess Jasmine came from a significantly warmer climate but, had she come from Saskatchewan, she would most certainly have worn more clothes. So this Princess Jasmine wore leggings and a ballet leotard under her costume, and went to the party in her winter coat and runners. "Mummy, you have to wear a costume too!" Oh. Mummy grabs a witch costume off the rack at W******. Brings it home to discover it is a purple medievalish gown made of see-through patterned purplish-black material. With it comes a black slip dress. Uh huh. Right. I am cool being witch, since it speaks to my inner nasty mummy self. Not so cool with being a hot MILF witch...So I too wear leggings and a long sleeved shirt (black) under it, with socks and boots. We go off to the dance warm, toasty and asexual (amen!). The DD has a fab time dancing, screeching and running around with her friends from school, who have turned up in abundance. I spend the dance, frighteningly, just like I spent any high school dances I attended: sitting on a chair by the wall with the other girls (except all of us are mums now). The nostalgia is killing me. Maybe I should have worn the slip dress...

Swanning Around

2006-10-26T11:46:00.000-06:00

Currently listening to: Camille Saint-Saens' The Best of Saint-Saens ("Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor", "Danse macabre", "Le Cygne")

Weekly weigh-in yesterday: 158

Off for a run this afternoon. Then back to cleaning the house, which is in entropy mode -- devolving rapidly, in other words -- while I've been marking. Nothing unusual about that! I apologise for the unmitigated dullness of this blog...