mama monday: this too shall pass

Too busy to post today.  A place holder will have to do.  This one is from the fabulous band OK Go, who I have been a fan of since 2006.

Sometimes, when you're being snapped at at both of your jobs (and one of them voluntary!), bureaucracy is driving you bureau-crazy, a fire alarm goes off in your building for a half an hour, and the thought visits you frequently, sometimes hourly, that you'd just rather be breastfeeding in a rocking chair, well, sometimes all that helps is a beautifully mastered music video entitled, aptly, "This Too Shall Pass". 




You know you can't keep letting it get you down
And you can't keep dragging that dead weight around
Is it really all that much to lug around
Better run like hell when you hit the ground

When the morning comes
When the morning comes

Can't stop those kids from dancing but why would you want to
Especially when you are already getting good?
'Cause when your mind don't move then your knees don't bend
But don't go blaming the kids again

When the morning comes
When the morning comes
When the morning comes

Let it go, this too shall pass
Let it go, this too shall pass

You know you can't keep letting it get you down
No, you can't keep letting it get you down

Oh, is it really all that much to lug around
And you can't keep letting it get you down

When the morning comes
Oh, you can't keep letting it get you down
No, you can't keep letting it get you down

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.

mama monday: tick-tock, biological clock

I was out with a lovely young lady for lunch today who asked me when my biological clock began to chime.  She, concerned that she wasn't as "baby crazy" as her peers, wondered if it was normal not to want to pop out infants in multiples during her early 20s.

I assured her it was.

Last week, I joked that my friends were once convinced that my biological clock was digital.  It make no sound, it sounded no alarm.  For years, while girlfriends dated, engagified, married, pregnacized, and baked cookies, I dated, wrote, worked, traveled, and ate out.  I didn't really "climb the corporate ladder" as much as I dramatically cascaded along bookshelves on a wheeled one, like Belle in Disney's Beauty & The Beast belting out a musical number.  I wasn't opposed to children, I just didn't have time for them.  They weren't a priority, and neither was domesticating.

On my 25th birthday (to the day), I felt the urge to go home, home to Toronto, like a migrating bird.  I wanted to nest close to my family.  When I met up with Andrew I experienced the unnerving sensation of being with the person the I was going to be with for the rest of my life, which added to the drive to settle down.  But once we were two years married and looking to start a family did I begin to suffer the phenomenon of Everyone-Is-Pregnant-Itis*.  Pregnant bellies bulge everywhere I go.  They bump me on public transit, they delay the elevators, they waddle throughout the supermarkets, they post ultrasound pictures on Facebook. 

I am convinced that the "settling down" chip, implanted in us from birth, implements whenever and however it is made to - each according to its host.  Some people make effervescent younger parents, either on purpose or by surprise, and some become refined older parents, again, not always according to script. 

When it does, all of a sudden, things like this will make you all quivery inside:

*  Similar to Everyone-Is-Getting-Married-Itis, which generally strikes those looking to find a special someone.

foto friday: four fluffy feathers on a fiffer-feffer-feff

Some photos that are mildly entertaining and, at very least, diverting on a Friday afternoon.

 Dinner at a friend's house - after spoiling us rotten with an incredible meal, we were presented with this homemade dessert.  Haze courtesy of its heavenly aura.

 

 

My brother, and basement tenant, helping us set up our new couches from IKEA.  We assumed that couches would, at least, come fully assembled and not require the hated allen key.  We assumed wrongly.

Andrew and my sister-in-law, Sarah.  Not so much helping.

A fancy photo of the juicy tomatoes we harvested from our garden.

Our new video conference screen, whereby we can view all four, newly merged offices: Toronto, Montréal, Atlanta, and New York.  The top right-hand corner shows me, in Toronto, taking this picture.  The bottom-right screen corner shows New York's office, looking at Toronto office, and me taking the picture of them in New York...and me in Toronto.  Next up: holodecks.

A fancy picture of our dog, Solomon, attempting to retrieve his yellow tennis ball in a carpet of yellow leaves.  Photographer: my husband.

These make me want to call the number.  EVERY SINGLE TIME.  If it wasn't for my husband's logic I think we'd have one of those crazy cat houses.

I'm offended that this is the type of junk mail we're receiving now.

Melissa's adorable little salon set-up, where she did my hair for Jordan & Noel's autumn wedding.

Her vintage salon chair.  Can you stand it?  I can't stand it.  It's too cute.  Make it stop.

Jordan (screenwriting graduate) and Noel (journalist-in-training) and their incredible, theatre-themed wedding held at Capitol Event Theatre.

This guy is superhot.  So, incidentally, are my red shoes.

I don't know if I would ever seriously wear one of these, but I'd give respect to anyone who did.

Our cat, Oberon, in our bedroom.  Where he should not be.  Which is why he is looking ruefully back from whence he came.  Because am in bed...with a squirt bottle in my hand.

My awesome brother dressed up as his hero, Antoine Dodson for Hallowe'en.  Actually, for Sunday church on Hallowe'en morning.  Which makes him even awesomer.

And as soon as Hallowe'en is over...

I love packages from our Montréal office.  I'm "Mme".

 NICOLE, LOOK!  CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY!

wifercize wednesday: suzie home-maker

It hit me like a sneeze.  At first, a slight tingle - an itch, really - barely perceptible and mostly ignorable.  I think it began when my mom gave us a subscription to House & Home for our one-year anniversary.  No harm done.  Just a magazine.  But then the tickle grew, the eyes began to twitch, and the mouth formed a turned-down crescent.  I began to bake (a foreign tradition to me, as my mother was more of a cook than a baker).  I discovered I liked baking.  And Andrew liked my baking.  I tried my hand at gardening.  I requested patio furniture.  For my birthday.  Now, the urge is irresistible.  No amount of superstitious preventative measures could possibly stop this impulse.  I weekly check home decor blogs such as Covet Garden, Remodelista, and Design*Sponge.  We ordered two matching grown-up couches.  I revel in doing laundry, cleaning dishes, and Swiffering.

Eyes squeezed tight, face distorted and stretched, a large gasp of breath, held, and...

I've caught the home-making bug.

As surprised as I am to have been struck with this contagion, I largely blame my married status, my home ownership, the influence of my wife-friends, and my biological clock - which once I assumed was digital, but has now morphed into a city hall clock tower.

Don McKay, a Canadian poet Andrew introduced me to when we were dating (the story is a little more romantic than that: we were at Starbucks on a date, one of those Starbucks attached to a Chapters, when he grabbed my hand, pulled me into the poetry section, selected McKay's Camber from the shelf, and read selections to me out loud, such as: "I want to spread the shed years on us as a mulch"...I know...I win - and others which I posted a few months later) wrote in his book Vis-à-Vis: Field Notes on Poetry & Wilderness:

"Home, we may say, is the action of the inner life finding outer form; it is the settling of self into the world."

I love that sentiment.  Our home, our little house nestled in what otherwise would be a strictly Portuguese neighbourhood, with its butter-yellow stucco exterior, its heating/cooling issues, its dark bamboo flooring, its seamless blend from living room to dining room to kitchen, its two matching grown-up couches, and its tiny patio furniture on its tiny patio is an expression of Andrew and myself.  The bamboo floors are scratched because we love our chocolate lab, Solomon.  The dish rack is nearly always full because we love to feed our friends.  We have three 6.5-foot bookshelves, all full, organized into fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and reference, by author's last name, because we both graduated with English degrees and love literature...and we're anal retentive.

It's our little plot of land.  A little plot of land that speaks of who we are on the inside.

What McKay continues with explained my current fancy with home-making:

"To make a home is to establish identity with a primordial grasp, yes; but it is also, in some measure, to give it away with an extended palm.  We might try to sum up the paradox of home-making by saying that inner life takes place: it both claims place and acts to become a place among others.  It turns wilderness into an interior and presents interiority to the wilderness."

I've been pondering what a funny thing home-making is. Its a dusty concept, buried behind suffragettes, feminists, and mommy wars.  It makes me think of Betty Draper, coiffed and at home, preparing meals, keeping house, and gossiping with neighbours over cocktails.  But if home, as McKay puts it, is weighty enough to warrant the definition "inner life finding outer form" why should a the role of home-maker be so drôle? 

I'd like to think that the movements begun on our behalf by women who we will never meet were to give us the freedom of selection.  When home-making was the only entrée on the menu, our choice was limited, and social norms cruelly kept us there.  Likewise, if being a career mom with children in daycare were the only widely accepted option for women, the equation would still be unbalanced. 

I watched the movie Mona Lisa Smile when it first came out, and one speech in particular stuck with me all these years:

Joan Brandwyn: You stand in class and tell us to look beyond the image, but you don't. To you a housewife is someone who sold her soul for a center hall colonial. She has no depth, no intellect, no interests. You're the one who said I could do anything I wanted. This is what I want.

I'm eager to experience for myself what home-making will offer.  I'm eager to see what my particular brand of home-making will incorporate.  I'm eager to turn wilderness into an interior and present interiority to the wilderness.

---

She looks over a field and buys it,
   then, with money she's put aside, plants a garden.
First thing in the morning, she dresses for work,
   rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started.
She senses the worth of her work,
   is in no hurry to call it quits for the day.
She's skilled in the crafts of home and hearth,
   diligent in homemaking.

(Proverbs 31 woman)

mama monday: change the world

I've made a shortlist of the worst things (that I can think of) to wait for:

1. Waiting for a method of public transportation, outside, when the weather resembles Voldemort's return to power.
2. Waiting for your turn at a government subsidized office when turns depend on complex letter/number system, like Bingo, and the letter/number system does not progress alphabetically nor chronologically.
3. Waiting in line at an amusement park for a ride that your peer group chose by democratic vote, wherein you were of the minority group, in the blistering sun, having eaten very little.

Waiting to get pregnant (to be pregnant? to turn pregnant?  to pregnacize?) is definitely up there and follows a strict mathematical increase of vexation whereby the axes are represented by "amount of time you are not pregnant" and "amount of time you've been thinking about being pregnant, including contemplations about, dreams about, poetry about, and blog postings about".

Unlike other experiences in waiting, however, I find that this one is difficult to explain.  In fact, other than disappointment, the waiting period is generally pleasant: life is good, I have a fantabulous husband who loves me to bits and makes me laugh, friends surround and support me, an amazing extended family, a great house, and many aspirations for the future.  Compared to examples 1, 2, and 3 above, the actual waiting process involved with parenthood is benign.  A baby would only be the addition to an already agreeable existence.

Simplistic, maybe, but also true.  So why not focus on what we have instead of what we're missing?

When Baby Gaz makes his/her debut and makes us parents in the process, will he/she want to hear that we were excitedly planning for his/her arrival while making the most out of every opportunity?  Or will he/she have an image of Mom and Dad weeping and complaining their way through the months before he/she was born?  I don't want whining to be a family trait.

Jon, new dad, wrote this in his blog just before the birth of his son, Noah:

...many of the characteristics, habits, mannerisms, modes of speech, and even culture that my son will learn are already in me.  The lifestyle of fatherhood began long, long ago (not too long ago, I’m only 25 here!) and continues to grow and deepen as I do. What I’m getting at is the effect my life has on my son’s life even before he is born.

I want to live life now in a way that positively affects my family to come.  If I want them to live in a world with less hatred, I'm going to start loving people more.  If I want them to live in a world of possibilities, I'm going to stop limiting myself.  If I want them to live in a world of hope, I'm going to cultivate it so they'll have a harvest of it when they're born.

I want to make my children proud.

---

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

(Mahatma Ghandi)

"Once you bring life into this world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world." (Elie Weisel)

I'm starting with the man in the mirror

I'm asking him to change his ways

And no message could have been any clearer

If you wanna make the world a better place

Take a look at yourself and then make that change

(Michael Jackson, Man In The Mirror)