mama monday: week 33 "womanhood, and all that is a woman"

In case you're wondering why I have ceased to post various fruits and vegetables that represent Baby Gaz's growth, it's because the growth at this point is difficult to document using fruits and vegetables.  Even websites are becoming more obscure in their offerings: your baby is the size of a Chinese cabbage!  A jicama!  A crenshaw melon!

Be assured that Baby Gaz is growing, Baby Gaz is moving (lots), Baby Gaz is hiccuping, and is healthy by all accounts.  The produce section of the local grocery store just doesn't suffice in describing how excited we are to meet him.

My husband, a lover of poetry and a fan of Walt Whitman, sent me this glorious poem a few months back: I Sing The Body Electric.  The poem should be read it its entirety - it is a stunning piece of art - but, if you're short on time, here are some of the excerpts that I thought painted a magnificent portrait of woman and her ability to incubate life.

This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
     all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
     was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
     likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
     diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
     and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
     love, white-blow and delirious nice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the
     prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.


This the nucleus--after the child is born of woman, man is born
     of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
     outlet again.


Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
     exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.


The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as
     daughters.


She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.

wifercize wednesday: hormones and hand sanders

Andrew has been such a dear in keeping up with his hormone-flooded wife.  The downsides have included fits of frustration (generally nesting related or sleep deprivation related) followed by a gush of tears.

A few months ago I decided to tidy the first floor of our house.  AND I HAD TO DO IT RIGHT.  NOW. Coming across a few pairs of Andrew's shoes in the hallway, I asked him if he would like me to put them in the front closet or upstairs in the bedroom.  He told me to hold on one moment, as he was busy paying a bill online.

I waited a moment.  I waited a moment more.  Still answerless, I abandoned the shoes and stormed off to complete some other equally-as-pressing task until Andrew tracked me down and asked me if I was OK (the banging of objects tipped him off).

"Yes.  I'm fine."  (I wasn't.)
"Reeally?  You don't seem fine.  Are you mad?"
"No.  I'm not."  (I was.)
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know."  (I didn't.)

About 10 minutes after this futile discussion Andrew was back on the couch and I furtively joined him.  I sat as close as I could manage with my bulky abdomen, put my head on his shoulder, and started crying.

"Are you crying?  What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry."  (I was.)
"That's OK.  For what?"
"I don't know."  (I still didn't.)

Andrew has been wonderful at decoding (or, rather, lovingly disregarding) many of my extreme ups and downs and for this I am grateful.  The truth is that, most of the time, I truly don't know why I'm upset.  In the past week alone, the answers to "Are you crying?  What's wrong?" have included "I'm tired.  And you're nice." to "This movie is too sad."  Both legitimate answers.  To me.  At the time.

Another behavioural development has been a slightly unhinged desire to refinish furniture, as mentioned on Monday.  The first of which was a stool.

I spotted the stool on the side of the road the day Andrew and I were parking near St. Joe's hospital for an ultrasound appointment.  It was a painted (chipping), white (yellowing), wooden stool with a slab of the seat broken off.  I thought it was marvelous.

After my dad reattached the broken seat with carpenter's glue, it looked a little something like this:

After a generous sanding with my handy Black & Decker GelMax Mouse Sander and Polisher with Touch Zone Technology, it looked like this:

And after two coats of black CIL semi-gloss latex interior paint (primer included!) it looked exactly the way I wanted it to:

You might remember that I've been working on this little plot of the house ever since I designed my own wire hooks to display decorative French cheese plates on the wall:

Since it's completion, I am happy to report that it is the first DIY project that Oberon approves of.  In fact, he approves of it so much he almost exclusively owns property rights to it.

"How handy," he told me when I placed the finished stool in the kitchen.  "You've finally given me the throne I so rightfully deserve.  From here I shall survey my kingdom and all that transpires throughout."

wifercize wednesday: absence makes the heart grow fungus*

* A moment of silence for The Barenaked Ladies of the 90s [...]

It's been four nights apart, but it feels like much longer.  For three years of marriage, Andrew and I have not been apart for longer than one night - partially circumstantial and partly by choice.  We're fortunate to both work in the same city at jobs that rarely require travel (or, at least, are flexible enough to allow us to travel together).

During this span of apartness I've thought a lot about couples I know who must spend weeks, even months, apart at a time.  My friend, Courtney, found out on a Tuesday that her husband, Gerritt, was being deployed on Wednesday afternoon for Libya.  For, potentially, six months.  Marriages like those, I think, have such an incredible structure of trust, support, encouragement and compassion that they deserve admiration equal to Notre Dame; each spouse adding a flourish of stained glass here, a supportive flying buttress there, resulting in a monument of love.

Our four nights have been spent restlessly: Andrew getting to sleep later than usual because his Skype conversations with me and me waking up multiple times in the night to adjust Andrew's temporary replacement.

Thanks to the magic of Skype, however, we have been able to talk to each other once (OK, three times) daily about everything from the trite details of our day to updates from the pastors meetings.
 

As you can see by the second photo, Andrew's enthusiasm for being documented waned as the conversations continued.  In fact, he informed me that if I didn't stop taking pictures (the tell-tale sound effect of which was audible to him) that he would cancel his video stream.  So I stopped.

Three sleeps left to go, which should be manageable enough.  Since I go everywhere with my MacBook clutched to me in case Andrew comes online and, this morning, called Sandra (our senior pastor) "Sandrew" by accident, I'm sure my travel companions will be happy when three sleeps have passed.

foto friday: I'M ALIVE

Here's proof that I have not deserted you.  I'm apparently just perfecting my skill of writing drafts.

In fact, most if not all of the drafts that I've written recently have been typed, deleted, re-typed, deleted again, and onwards in a never-ending cycle of indecision.  If only soul searching didn't act as as a costive block for my writing.

And now I've likened my writing to a bowel movement, which would make my blog...a toilet?

In a tremendous effort to write SOMETHING down - yes, I've read the comments left for me on my Facebook wall:

I figured I'd a) stick to writing and not deleting (hence, the above toilet comment), and b) start with a Foto Friday to get back into the swing of things.  How intimidating could photo captions possibly be?  We shall see.

These two parties should never meet.

Since watching this video, it has become impossible for me not to comment on things like this.

Sunbathing, part 1.

I found this book in the bookshelf of the amazing Red Room on Spadina.  The key adjective is "happily".

He's a wee bit bigger than he was last October, but we still treat him like a lap dog.  Solomon's take on it?  A+, as usual.

Sunbathing, part 2.

Andrew and I volunteered at this year's Kids Fest and I checked an item off my Bucket List: to pet a tiger.  Yes, it was everything you thought it was.

Hipster Cat, a portrait.

A wonderful little cafe on Annette called The Good Neighbour.  G'head and check it out if you live/work/shop in the area.

Because Hipster Cat is too good for the couch.

Noah joined a west side gangsta crew early.

Someone does not understand personal space.

Andrew celebrated his 31st birthday on March 6th of this year, and we had friends over for a mammoth meal followed by...Nintendo Wii.  Andrew said he felt like he was 15 again.  But 15 drinking wine.

I can't decide which is the best aspect of this portrait.  The mullet?  The pug?  The leather jacket emblazoned with mountain, lake, and giant bald eagle?

wifercize wednesday: food poisoning

It all started with my winter boots.

I have a great pair of winter boots, Steve Maddens, that my mom bought me a few Christmases ago.  They have served me well, providing warm, protective foot shelter for two winters.  The only trouble with them (and Steve, the jerk) was their COMPLETE LACK OF TRACTION.  I'm not joking.  The bottom of these "winter boots" were as smooth as a baby's bum.  And, speaking of bums, I was tired of mine being bruised.

STEVE MADDEN, I DEFY THEE.

Instead of purchasing new winter boots I thought it wise and cost efficient to have mine re-soled instead.*  After consulting a few women at my office, I discovered the best and cheapest option was just outside Bay station in an underground concourse.  A little man with an indistinguishable name took my boots, traced his gnarled fingers along them like he was deciphering braille, quoted me a decent price, I talked him down**, and we shook hands.

Hungry, and nearing the end of my lunch hour, I stopped for a chicken shawarma in the food court.

CHICKEN SHAWARMA, I DEFY THEE. 

After work, Andrew and I drove to the east end to attend a traditional English Christmas party at my parents' house.  Mince pies and Devonshire cream and sherry, oh my!  The festive spirit wasn't hitting me in the same way as in previous years but what was hitting me was an undeniable urge to get some fresh air before I threw up.

And then I threw up.

And then we drove home.

And then I threw up.

And then we went to bed.

And then I woke up at 2:30 a.m. to throw up.

And at 4:30 a.m. to throw up.

And again at 6:30 a.m.  Not to throw up, mercifully, but instead to go through all the motions and muscle spasms of throwing up without a result.  Because nothing was left.  So I sat on the bath mat dragged over to the toilet, frozen and hunched over - the perfect tableau of a cat expelling a hairball.

It was like my body was a computer system searching for any perceivable trace of the offending shawarma and getting rid of it by any means available.  EJECT!  EJECT!  EJECT!

At 7:30 and at 8:30, respectively, I woke to my stomach rolling itself over carefully, inspecting, and ready to EJECT! anything else it might discover.  By then, my system was wiped clean.

I spent the day, zombie-like, lying on the couch and being nursed to health by Andrew who first made me ginger tea (like, ginger boiled in water) and then a simple homemade chicken broth with rice and carrots, which I was only able to stand around 4:00 p.m.  Any mention of food, any thought of it, even Andrew making himself normal, unpoisoned food in the kitchen, even watching actors eat in the movies we were watching, produced an elevator-drop-like reaction in my gut.

The very word "chicken shawarma", even now, comes with a visceral warning much like: "Don't even think about it.  I will turn this car around."

As we went to bed on Saturday night, my back in knots and my abs sore from throwing up, my face pallid, my hair in a half-attempted French braid to keep it out of the tea, the soup, the toilet, and the throw-up, I laid my head on the pillow and patted Andrew's cheek.

I told him I loved him and I meant it.  He told me he loved me and I knew it.

* Frugality does not always come naturally to me.  My Italian husband has been aiding me in this area.
** See?

foto friday: november rain

Let's begin:

This is what my husband regularly prepares for me on a Saturday morning, to show me his love.  He's pretty much this awesome at everything he does AND YES THAT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS.

A book title that caught me off guard. 
Is this what literature has come to?

These four (one not shown) women were on the subway yesterday evening as I rode home from work.  Each impeccably dressed, each lively and laughing, each conversing with each other as if they had been for years.  I must admit I stared at them the whole ride.

My fabulous husband is ordained as a minister!

A date with my dad at Korean Grill House.  Dad and I have been going on dad/daughter dates since I was just out of high school, and I love them.  This was our first in almost three years (my Reverend Husband takes precedence now) so it was about due.

Before we threw ourselves at the all-you-can-eat meat menu:

...and after:

wifercize wednesday: cyber-sentimentality

I have a stubborn habit of having to know.  I just...have to know.  I have to know what you're laughing at, I have to know why you have that scar, I have to know why the lady on the bus is frowning, I have to know how to reupholster a chair*, I have to know when I'm going to become pregnant, I have to know who said the pope could be the pope.  Dan Brown recently told me the answer to that last one.  It's the answer that suits me, anyway.

* (I hope to reupholster a chair of ours and document the chaos progress on this blog.  Stay tuned.)

Andrew and I knew each other for six years before we started dating but that didn't stop me from Googling the heck out of him after our first date.  Family, fine, schooling, fine, interests, fine...that was all covered over Pho and, later, over coffee.  What I really wanted to know was what Andrew was like when I wasn't around.  The best way I know how to experience this is with the wondrous gateway of Google.

A friend of mine aided me in my quest, and we began to email links we found to each other.  The further we scrolled, the more delicious the outcomes:

I figured these moments of discovering e-nuggets about my husband were over.  I WAS WRONG.  Recently, while looking up his Wishlist on Amazon [lover, you didn't read that...at least, not until I give you your gift tonight] I happened upon a much older Wishlist of Andrew's.  First, his profile:

This, I love.  "Andrew D. Gazaneo".  It's not enough that Gazaneo is one of the rarest Italian names on the planet, nor that his family is the only family that shows up in a Canada411 search, Andrew felt it necessary to include the "D".  For "Domenic" - his father's name.  That's just so...Andrew.  Not to mention that the only point he decided to include in his profile is "My dog's name is Comet".  This too, is true.  Or was.  Comet was Andrew's dog since he was 10, and he passed away probably around the same time as Andrew when created this profile.  "My dog's name is Comet" is just as significant a characteristic as "D" for Domenic and he wanted Amazon to know it.

This archaic Wishlist had but one item on it:

A Panasonic DVD-L50 Portable DVD Player...by Panasonic.  "Currently unavailable" probably due to the decrease in DVD sales and, with it, a decrease in all items DVD related but, at one time, Andrew had his eye on this piece of technology enough to add it to a Wishlist.  He wished for it.  I can tell you why.  Firstly, it's portable.  Andrew is nothing if not practical.  I would bet he was thinking long-term and the lightweight, easy-to-handle, travel friendly body of this DVD player in particular appealed to him.  Secondly, Andrew was and still is an avid movie fan.  What better way to watch his beloved legal thrillers than on a built-in colour LCD monitor?  Lastly, it received an admirable 4.5 stars out of 5.  This means that Andrew did his research, as he still does to this day.  I'd put money down on the fact that he read the majority of all "142 customer reviews", if not all of them.

And there it sits, added October 27, 1999, "unpurchased", like a tiny time capsule of longing.  If I knew him then as I know him now it would have been purchased, delivered, wrapped, and presented to him with all the love in the world.

The irony is that Andrew had his name drawn at a church Christmas function when we were dating and won a portable DVD (or was it CD?) player and it remained in its original packaging until we re-gifted it a few years later.

Tonight, Andrew is being ordained as a pastor, legally recognized as a minister by the provincial government.  He's put in so much energy, time, and passion into the long-term vision of our church, he's researched all the stipulations, and, although he might not have turned out to be like Tom Cruise's character in The Firm, he is still a sexy beast and now has something better to brag about than his really hairy chest: he is the Reverend Andrew D. Gazaneo, his dog's name is Solomon, and his wife is very, very proud of him.

wifercize wednesday: domestic bliss

[Note: this is a post I saved in draft form on October 7th, 2009.  It was left unfinished due to a hunt for the quote at the end of the post - a hunt that took, apparently, AN ENTIRE YEAR.  Fortunately, the post is still true today as it was a full year ago.]


Perhaps it's the change in the season, and that change signaling the long months of hibernation to come. Perhaps it's reading "A Room with a View" recently, with its cozy, early 1900s colloquialisms. Perhaps it's hormones. Perhaps it's age.

I'm just so happy being a wife. Having a home. Sleeping in the same bed, next to my fabulous husband, night after night. After night.

Not ground breaking for you homebodies, but you who suffer from wanderlust? yes, you who are already plotting your next trip? you who can't seem to settle down but rather feel that what you're searching for is Out There? This is for you.

Instead of browsing more travel porn, let me give you a piece of advice. "You may need to see the world in order to find your place in it". That was God's advice to me in 2004, as I was weighing the pros and cons of spending a year in Korea teaching English. I took it as a green light (what traveler wouldn't have?), packed my bags, and spend a fabulous year in Asia.

I spent my 25th birthday on a beach on the coast of South Korea and discovered something: no matter where I was, there I was.  The same fears haunted me, the same hopes, the same dreams, the same desires, the same frustrations.  The only difference was that, on the other side of the world, I was miles away from a hug or a coffee or a kind word with anyone I knew well.  And anyone who knew me well.

It was while in Korea that I read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry and discovered this quote:

How can I leave that earth?  It is not good to go far from your native village.  Then you forget who you are.

The quote stuck with me, I wrote it out in my journal, it trailed behind me like a cartoon thought bubble for the rest of my time in Korea, it comforted me when I experienced re-entry difficulties back in Toronto, and it still makes me smile today.  My native village turned out to be better than I ever thought it could be.  And I know who I am.

foto friday: just chillin' at the home show

Someone at Andrew's school gave him free tickets to the National Home Show two weeks ago and since free things get us all excited, we went.

We were consequently quite pleased that we didn't buy tickets.  It's a bit of a bore, lots of exhibits and pamphlet-pushers, and very few booths that we liked.  Still, FREE IS FREE, and we amused ourselves regardless.

Melissa, bless her, came along despite being a week away from giving birth.  Her nesting impulses drove her.  Incidentally, we saw a few booths with art so poorly rendered (Andrew: "I could paint that.  And I don't paint.") that we coerced Melissa into opening a booth next year with some of her awesome art instead.

Just chillin' in my gangsta whirlpool.

Just chillin' with my homeboy, Bob Villa.

Just chillin' with his kristal chandeliers.

Just chillin' in a Japanese full-body massage chair.

Just chillin' in my dream wine cellar.

Just chillin' in the reflection of this helpful sign.