obamalot

We know they're referred to as opinion columns for a reason, but an article in yesterday's Globe & Mail has left me incredulous. For months now I have been familiarizing myself with the Globe's Life section and, in particular, Sarah Hampson's report in her weekly column: "Generation Ex". Yes, it's as dire as it sounds. Hampson, herself a divorcee, makes good the column's word to label Generation X as the "ex" generation, commenting on divorce rates, the supposed health and mental benefits of divorce, prenups, custody battles, infidelities... Delightful.

My issue is not that she writes about divorce (although, as a subject, it's fairly limiting) but that her personal experience with divorce and, therefore, her bias comes out as often as it can. Her ex-husband is referenced with embarassing frequency. "Generation Ex" reads like a personal blog, not a column for a national newspaper. A co-worker/friend of mine, a copywriter, quoted her sister regarding Hampson: "If she weren't writing for the Globe & Mail, she'd be a mompreneur".

[This has been building for a while, I apologize. And now, on to The Point...]

Ah, yes, yesterday's article. Title: "Obama fairy tale? Reality check, please". It opens with "Pardon me for not swooning..." and ends with this quote about the marital rough patches during Obama's first campaign for Illinois Congress (Hampson makes the error putting it during the presidential campaign) from Richard Wolffe's biography, Renegade: The Making of a President:

There was little conversation and even less romance. She was angry at his selfishness and careerism; he thought she was cold and ungrateful.

tacking "Ah, now that's reassuringly real." on as a final sign-off.

As the self-proclaimed spokesperson for "seasoned married people", "those who have been divorced" and "those of us who have been around the marriage block", Hampson goes after the Obama's date night on May 2nd with all the venom of a sore loser. She accuses their evening, which she refers to as a "swoonfest", of being "scripted", "perfectly executed", and "predictable", likening it to a reality TV show.

Read the whole article, I beseech you. It's astounding. Who scoffs at a date that doubled as "a playful rebuke to husbands everwhere who can't seem to plan anything more elaborate than an occasional outing to the local Pizza Hut"? Sounds like the reality Hampson wants to reassured by is that Michelle, having had stood by her man THROUGH the his campaigns, can't possibly now be benefitting from a marriage that didn't choose divorce as a cure-all. There must be a catch. Please, let there be a catch. All I got was Pizza Hut.

Let's Dr. Jekyll this date night: as far superior as the New York Times is to the Globe, so Maureen Dowd's article, "Can The One Have Fun?" is to Sarah Hampson's. Not only does her opinion not smack of jaded cynicism, it's well written, intelligent, and informed. She coyly pulls Dubya's pants down with a brilliant run-on sentence, winks at the stresses of the presidency, and then paints this poetry:

I loved the “Pretty Woman” romance of the New York tableau, the president, who had not lived an entitled life where he could afford such lavish gestures, throwing off his tie and whisking his wife, in a flirty black cocktail dress, to sip martinis in Manhattan, as Sasha hung over a White House balcony and called out goodbye.

(Incidentally, Hampson grumbled that the same New York tableau was "all so millenial and exemplary...what with Michelle in her fringed, sleeveless cocktail dress and the Prez in his open-neck white shirt and dark suit...he looked like a metrosexual from the pages of GQ magazine".)

Dowd even uses the SAME QUOTE from Wolffe's biography, but pairs the marital standoff during Obama's campaign with some refreshing context:

Wolffe limns what those of us who traveled with Obama could see: He was often grumpy on the campaign. He missed his family.

Hence, making good on the presidential promise he made to his wife - to take her to Broadway show. And, yes, she argues, he is allowed to do it in style (speaking of style: "limns"?! Win!).

I've blogged about the phenomenon I refer to as Epic Tales of Retrospect before, as well as my admiration for wives who love husbands 'till death do them part. Generation X can be so focused on proving the challenges and hardships of marriage (all valid) that we consistantly miss the beauty, the magic, and, yes, the glamour of a husband and wife in love. When we see it, we distrust it, being so long estranged.

But there, I've broken out in neck flush just blogging about it.

captain vegetable

Hubby is good at challenging me. In fact, it's one of the things he does best. Not merely challenging, but actually succeeding in changing my mind about something. My mother tried for years with very little payoff. Sorry, mom.

My mother now observes Andrew challenge me on THE EXACT SAME ISSUES as she has since I was in grade school - and get away with it - with a mix of delight and chagrin. I suspect it has something to do with his extreme hotness.

The latest has been regarding vegetables. We all know we should eat more, they're good for us, too much meat is bad, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, but it's been an uphill battle of convincing me since I consider myself to have carnivorousness (it's a word! I looked it up!) in common with our pets.

He explained to me the Hallelujah diet (it's OK to snicker):

The diet in its current form focuses on health and nutrition from a biblical standpoint. It follows vegan principles and consists of living (raw) foods, juices, and distilled remineralized water. A daily ratio of 85% raw and 15% cooked foods is followed.

Which neither of us are keen on following in its entirety, but it reminded Andrew of this scripture in Numbers:

The LORD heard you when you wailed, "If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!" Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, "Why did we ever leave Egypt?"

Hopefully he'll post more about this because it's interesting to hear the revelation that unfolded, re: nutrition in a desert climate, how meat would have tampered with digestion, and how God wasn't so much cursing the Israelites as much as informing them of the consequence of their demands.

Today, when packing my lunch for work, I added two grapefruits, four yogurts, and an apple. They should go down nicely with my chicken and rice. On a related note, I've had this song in my head since last night's discussion:

white hot

I'm not about to turn my blog into a fashion commentary as well as a place for theological, biological, marital, and poetic analysis. I just thought I'd post some pretty pictures.

My brother accused me of just liking "new, pretty, white" things. It's true. Andrew can verify. When we go shopping, I must have him forcibly steer me away from any collections of white. White shirts, dresses, scarfs, shoes.

The Sartorialist posted some delicious shots of white worn on Governors Island in NYC. Like Scott, I am prone to notice white against lush, green backgrounds. Although white is synonymous with winter, I've always matched it with the heat of the spring/summer season. I'm convinced it sprung from childhood.

Anne introduced me to the White Way of Delight...
...and the white dress she wore to recite The Highwayman at the White Sands hotel...
...I remember snowball trees behind Bendale Bible Chapel...
...and feeding swans at Ontario Place...
...the DON'T PICK THOSE, IT'S ILLEGAL trilliums at the cottage...
...and, growing up, some of my favourite pieces of white...

midwives, doulas and water births

Mom, mom-in-law, spiritual mothers, eager friends/babysitters, brothers from other mothers, and sistas from other mistas:

NO, I AM NOT PREGNANT.

I am, however, interested in writing a post about birth. Speculation being what it is, I felt it necessary to preface this post with the above disclaimer. [pause for open-mouthed looks of incredulity and feigned exclamations of: "Who, me? Oh no, I wouldn't have assumed..."] Of course not. Not you.

I've been following two blogs recently, a daddy blog and a mommy blog. Before you Google either term, I'll warn you: most of these blogs are dump sites of tawdry drivel from parents who firmly believe the sun rises and sets on their precious spawn. NOT SO with Ryan's blog or Heather's blog. Disclaimer #2: The colourful language used by both authors might not be suitable for persons under 16. The colourful detailing of pregnancy, birth, and lady bits might not be suitable for anyone unmarried, unpregnant or ever wanting to have kids. Ever.

A post on Heather's blog and a morning spent navigating the labyrinthine pages of Wiki, and I became somewhat familiar with the terms "membrane sweep", "cervical check", "cerclage", and "effacement". I leave out links to these terms on purpose. Google image search with MUCH caution.

Since hubby and I have opted to go the road less traveled in terms of birth control, in favour of my healthy, natural hormonal functions, it's now no surprise to see how well I'm taking to the idea of a healthier, more natural method of childbirth. My favourite, so far, has been the water birth option. It could my my extreme love of swimming or the memory of the vivid illustrations from The Water-Babies that I read when I was younger, but I'm smitten. BIRTH IN A POOL? EPIC WIN.

I have a friend who is a midwife, another who is training to be a doula, and Andrew's mom works at an OBGYN office and I plan on questioning them all to PIECES once I really get on this baby train, in the same way I researched the heck out of something as supposedly second-nature as lovemaking and birth control. Anyone out there with advice or anecdotes about birth? My nerd instincts are kicking in and I'm feeling the urge to read medical terms.

Good thing I married someone who's idea of pillow talk is whispering sweet grammar in my ear. Two peas in a pod, we are.

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.