nostalgia

I've officially survived 29 years. That means I'm technically into my 30th year now, but I'm OK to wait for the official OMIGOSH, I'M NOT IN MY TWENTIES ANYMORE moment to hit in 364 days, thankyouverymuch.

In this photo I am the awkwardly prepubescent age of 12. My family went on an outreach to Panama for a month when I was in sixth grade. That's a wild iguana. The face on my brother, Simeon, who was 7 years old at the time, had never been made before and I have never seen him make it since. It's the I DON'T TRUST YOU, IGUANA face*. I also love how we match. I'm sure it was unintentional because, no, my parents weren't the type to dress us the same. But there might have been a sale on yellow cotton garments at the Tigerbrand in Cambridge, Ontario that year.

Some things haven't changed in 17 years.

• I still love sundresses. I'm wearing one now.
• I still love yellow. I'm wearing a yellow cardigan now.
• I still love travel. The heat, the food, the sleeping arrangements and the bugs didn't bother me even at this squeamish preteen stage.
  
• I would still be more concerned about beaming at a camera than a reptile a few inches from my face.
• I still don't know why I wear a bra.

Most of the girls on the team that my parents were leading (late teens and 20s) couldn't stand the thought/sight/knowledge of the huge insects we routinely shared living space with. Granted, some of the beetles were the size of my hand. And could fly. But the day that we found this iguana showed me something: the size of our fears shouldn't matter. Here was a 3 foot iguana, from nose to tail (which was small in comparison to most of the other, unreachable, ones we spotted lounging in coconut trees), and it froze when handled. IT, God said, was scared of ME.

Over the past week, I've been reminded about how strange and silly it is for us to fear. It paralyzes us, makes fools of us, routinely upsets our plans to move forward in life. Fear is the opposite of love, and my God is MADE of love. He cannot exist UNLESS he is love. And he's conspiring IN MY FAVOUR. "So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?"

* Although it did bear an uncanny resemblance to his I DON'T TRUST YOU, ANDREW face, when Andrew and I first started dating.

"Light, space, zest— that's God!
So, with him on my side I'm fearless,
afraid of no one and nothing."
(Psalm 27:1, The Message)

“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
- Yoda

as good as it gets

**Spoiler alert!***

[Marriage is a lot of work. It requires a phenomenal quantities of prayer, work, time, effort, selflessness, and more prayer to be the spouse that makes your spouse be the best they can be. Enviable marriages do not fall out of cereal boxes.]

One year down, and on to the next! Andrew and I crossed the milestone in the comfort of the 4-star Montréal Hilton (the 'Ilton) Bonaventure downtown. We spent our elongated weekend traipsing from restaurant to restaurant, aimlessly strolling in and out of shops "with no particular destination in mind". The weather lingered in the mid-20s, didn't rain, and provided a breeze enough to prevent us exerting ourselves in any way. Bliss.

More blissfull still was spending time with La. We did all the things that give us a particular sense of joy, including a few hours of Arthur Burk's audio teaching on financial curses, playing "Would You Rather"*, picnicking, watching multiple episodes of Heroes and SNL, dreaming about the future, and people watching.

It's a long way from that first spring when things started to bloom, but it feels similar. I could spend a lifetime learning more about him and there would still be more to learn.

He's easily the hottest man I know, he's my best friend, he's the continuity my life had been missing, and he's still the best thing to wake up to in the morning.


* a variation of the game "Which Is Worse" popularized by the film So I Married An Axe Murderer:

Harriet: "What's worse?  You go to your favourite
restaurant order your favourite meal, take a bite and
under the steak is a scabby Band-Aid.  Or...."
Susan: "Or being electrocuted.
Tony: "And?"
Susan: "That's it. I was electrocuted once. It was horrible."

the truth about cats and dogs

We recently had, as Kate Graham aptly put it, twins. An eight week old chocolate lab named Solomon:

and an eight week old tabby named Oberon:

Yes, that means that one is the king of wisdom and the other is the king of shadows and fairies. On purpose.

They're both pretty much the cutest and best behaved pets in the world (considering their eight week long state of existence) and they provide much more entertainment than cable. I've noticed certain similarities between them and their caregivers, namely, Andrew and me.

1. They both can fall asleep in a room filled with people. Like me. (although Oberon seems to wake up easily and be fully alert, like Andrew, and Solomon takes a while to operate basic movements once "awake", like me)
   
2. They act cranky if they're hungry. Like Andrew.
3. Oberon is a fan of provoking Solomon and gleefully staying out of reach. Like me.
   
4. They have green eyes. Like Andrew.
   
5. They want to be in the middle of the action. Like both of us.

the way we were

Recently my old Hotmail account was hacked and The Spaminator sent a grammatically errored message to everyone I've known since I was eighteen (my husband fault's my easy-to-figure-out passwords: "A computer figured it out."). While using my crack skills to change my password to another noun I disovered my old MSN profile, including this saavy shot:

and this telling profile:
Things I enjoy about this discovery:

• I look goth. I was, in fact, never a goth.
  
• The photo taken at the Oakvillian home of my university friend, Nik, probably in 2001. Back in the age of land lines.
  
• I owned leather pants. I remember submitting this picture to "Hot or Not" around the same time, and a separate photo of a close-up of my face, as a social experiment. The leather pants scored supremely "hotter" even though my face is barely visible. What that thin shine will do to boys...
• I just remembered what inspired the purchase of leather pants.
• This is one of the few shots of my short hair phase. It was shorter than this at one point, but nearly all proof has been lost.
  
• I think I'm opening some sort of chocolate snack. Since I'm at Nik's house, not my own, I was allowed.
• Chances are, I'm on the phone with my mother which means that I was keeping the chocolate snack a secret.
• Although my profile seems scattered (was I 25? was I 23?) it probably has something to do with the dates that I updated it. "Suffering from acute joy and hope"? Really?
• The Keats quote is from La Belle Dame sans Merci. I was studying Romantic Poetry in university and had fallen quite madly in love with Keats. Which was nothing compared to my love of Longfellow.
• La Belle Dame inspired famous paintings by Sir Frank Dicsee and John William Waterhouse. Incidentally, Waterhouse's painting is a fairly accurate depiction of how I try to kiss Andrew.
• I still have many of the same interests.
• I feel much older and much happier now than I did then.
  

drunk on spring

It's 11:30 a.m.

I'm perched on a dining room chair, albeit removed from the dining room, on my very own back porch. Our backyard isn't much to look at yet: cracked slabs of concrete delineating a patio, a 10 square foot patch of tired, brown grass with tire tracks etched in it from or car's attempt to park during the thaw, and two-by-fours slapped together to form a quick porch.

But it's our patio, it's our yard, it's our porch.

I should also add to this touching memoir the fact that I haven't yet showered, my hair is in a hasty bun (...should that be a name for a bakery?...), and I'm in my housecoat. Our brown "puppy blanket" (made of muppet-like material that feels like a...puppy), a wedding gift from an Italian aunt on Andrew's side, is over my lap. The whole image, I would expect, must give the appearance of an invalid except for my iBook which, perched on my knee, and in alliance with a steaming cup of Earl Grey tea alters my brand to "crazy writer".

My neighbour has let out her yappy Pomeranian, Rocky, out into her yard to terrorize the people strolling along our back alley. She informs me that he was raised with much bigger dogs, so thinks he is one. "Cookie?" she bellows. Rocky, silenced, gallops to the back door expectantly. The trick has a 30-second time lapse.

My neighbour, Rocky, the sound of someone sweeping, a buzz saw from four (five?) houses down, the fat sparrows' committee meeting, the azure sky, the nip of under 10 degrees, a touqued child being pulled down the lane in a wagon, 11:51 a.m. with no pressing engagements for the rest of the day.

Shaken, not stirred.

putting the recess in recession

So far, I've had very little to complain about.

Sure, I'm on a salary freeze but, then again, I still have a salary. I haven't yet put enough space between me and the eight-month unemployment phase of 2007/2008 (*shudder*) that I can't recall a balance preceded by "-" so I'm quite content with my salary, frozen as it is.

Andrew and I have been able to buy a house. Not just any house, but a newly gutted and renovated house in a nice neighbourhood, for $36,000 less than the asking price. Still in our late twenties and not yet married a year...yeah, we're doing OK.

Did I mention our mortgage rate? Maybe I shouldn't. Lusting is a sin.

Overspending is out of fashion, creative money-saving techniques are in. Since last week coworkers of mine ran an impromptu slide-to-Polaroid transfer workshop and Googled how to press flowers. Did I mention the flowers were left over from what we collected together, as an office, to help support CANFAR's "Spring For Life" campaign?

Stores are vying to host the best sales, brown-paper-bagging is hip, bartering is back, political parties are getting back to the basics, international cooperation trumps imperialism, and we're beginning to realize that money doesn't grow on trees, debt is not our friend, and short-term sacrifice can equal long-term gain.

"recession": ORIGIN mid 17th century: from Latin recessio(n-), from recess- ‘gone back’

"I feel like the only thing that will save us, is if something huge that we never thought could be taken away from us, is suddenly gone. I just think it's our time to struggle. This is what will save us from ourselves. Families will dig deeper to connect in ways we have forgotten. We will value work and money in important ways again. We will be quick to help others because we will have known what it means to struggle. We will put focus on our communities to keep them safe and look out for our neighbors that might be reaching their end. We will remember to save. In the end if things get bad enough and the struggle is long, we will take back our country from greed. We have to struggle long enough to get past the mindset that if we just keep spending money everything will be okay again."

- Pacing the Panic Room

animal farm

I was sent this link by my mom, via my brother. Does anyone remember Harry the Horse from Sesame Street? Does anyone else have vivid memories of their mother, doubled over with laughter, half-impersonating Harry trying to talk:

Harcophrophrollackarlophmopol...

I do. Twenty-five years later.

In keeping with the animal theme I must honour the oath I swore to my husband last night to post a conversation we had regarding pets. We've decided to get a puppy since we both love them and, yes, I'm sure it will prove to be baby-training-wheels for us newlyweds. I cringe at the predictability of it all: married, house, puppy... I (notice: not we) also want to get a kitten. I love dogs, but I adore cats.

Andrew: "We'll get a lab puppy, but not an expensive one."
Me: "And a kitten?"
Andrew: "Yes, and a kitten. That won't be expensive. We'll find one on the street or something. They're like...leaves."

Which, sadly, is true. I was on Kijiji the other day, scanning multiple postings for adorable labs going for $400-$900 each. Kittens? $20 O.B.O.