Hypergraffiti

Nothing to see here...

2007-03-29T21:52:00.000-02:30

That's it; I'm gone. Picked up and moved to the all-new Hypergraffiti.

Dear Blogger,

2007-03-28T15:39:00.000-02:30

Dear Blogger,

It hardly seems possible that we've been together less than a year. What wonderful times we've had -- going right back to those shy early blogs when you helped me build my confidence to today, nine months later, when I feel confident calling myself a "blogger" (just like you! I've even taken your name!)

You've always been good to me. I have no real complaints, and I've treasured our time together. Sure, we never became a "hot item" with dozens of comments piling up under each post, but you've given me the freedom to express myself, and I think my friends and family have enjoyed spending time with us.

But now ... I have to go.

No, no, it's not you -- it's me. I've -- well, I'd better just be honest -- I've met someone else.

It was just a fling at first ... just checking out another site, seeing what it had to offer. I didn't think it would be any harm to register. Just an innocent little flirtation.

But I have to admit, my new love can offer me things you can't. No, it's not your fault -- it's more that my needs have changed. I've learned to appreciate a lot of qualities I didn't even know I needed. For the last couple of weeks I've been spending all my time with this new love of mine. You must have noticed I haven't been around as much. Did you suspect something was wrong?

I could stay with you and pretend to be content, but we'd both know I was living a lie. It's better if I leave so we can both start over. I'm excited about this new relationship and I can't keep it a secret any longer. It's time to go public, let everyone know where my heart is -- and that means saying goodbye to you, dear Blogger.

Thanks for the wonderful times. I hope you'll be very happy. You're a special, special piece of software and I know others will appreciate you just as I have.

Meanwhile, if anyone's got their bookmarks for my page set to www.hypergraffiti.com , you're already seeing the new site. If your bookmark is set to http://hypergraffiti.blogspot.com , you'll need to change it to www.hypergraffiti.com or http://trudymorgancole.wordpress.com --either one will take you to my new and beautiful WordPress site, where I'll be blogging from now on! Can't wait to see everyone there!!

Love,
Trudy

Newfoundland Spring

2007-03-27T10:22:00.000-02:30

Snow and blowing snow.

That's what we had last night, after two or three weeks with no snow, some milder temperatures, and snowbanks melting all around us.

The landscape outside my window this morning looks as white and wintry as January.

Given that this is my 42nd year of life and I lived away from home for eight years, this is my thirty-fourth experience of Newfoundland "spring." I'm quite used to it -- the false hope, the ugliness of the melting dirty snowbanks and everything that's revealed beneath them, the storm that hits just as you've unzipped the inner lining from your winter jacket. I know that what passes for spring here is really the long, slow, painful death of winter, struggling back to life long after we'd thought it gone for good. I enjoy springlike days in March and April, but I don't get my hopes up.

In my last blog post I reviewed the movie Reign Over Me and commented that I liked the realistic way it dealt with recovery from grief. We have such an expectation (fed by media and fiction more than by real life, I think) that recovery from terrible experiences, or any kind of change in life, is a spring-like process. People get better gradually but certainly, moving from a dark cold winter of pain and loss into an inevitable and radiant summer, becoming a little stronger and happier every day.

I teach young people who are trying to finish their high school program after dropping out -- sometimes because of physical or mental illness, or addiction, or abuse, or the aftermath of grief and loss. Watching my students last year as we slogged through "spring" semester towards their June exams, it struck me that making changes in life is less like our ideal picture of spring, and more like a Newfoundland spring. We make two steps forward and one step back -- if we're lucky. Good days and bad days. Whole weeks when you think the worst is over, you begin to hope, you shed your protective layers and walk around enjoying the sunshine. Then the bad things (whatever your personal "bad things" are) hit like a storm, snow and blowing snow whipping around in front of you, and you try to move forward through zero visability and wonder if it will ever end.

Even the good days have their share of ugliness -- the melting snow piles reveal layers of dirt and garbage and dog poop underneath. When the frozen layers that protect us start to melt, there's a lot of stuff beneath them we'd rather not look at. Sometimes it's easier just to retreat inside while another load of snow gets dumped on top.

Recovering from grief or loss, abuse or addiction, or just finding your way in life when you've been lost, is not like spring in the movies. It's not like spring in America, or some idealized picture-book spring with crocuses blooming and robins hopping about on the grass. Change, healing, recovery is more like March in Newfoundland, a hard dirty slog, days of hope punctuated by setbacks.

But a snowstorm in late March is not like a snowstorm in February -- the roads have been cleared, the huge mounds of snow melted, so that even though the visability is poor you have more space to maneuver; you can see where you're going. It's hard to remember in the middle of a March snowstorm that summer is coming -- it seems to remote and unreal. But we're closer to it than we were a month ago. Two steps forward and one step back still puts you ahead of where you were. Change is slow, dirty and frustrating. But it happens. Summer comes, every year.

Another Good Movie

2007-03-25T17:38:00.000-02:30

Jason and I got out for a "date night" last night (thanks to Jennifer babysitting!). We had dinner at the Magic Wok and then went to check out what movies were playing. There was nothing we had heard of or cared to see, so we decided to take a chance on a movie we knew nothing about -- something we very rarely do.

The movie was Reign Over Me starring Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. I know ... Adam Sandler. Normally his presence in a movie is a deal-breaker for me -- I just can't watch his asinine pratfall comedies. Although after Spanglish I did have to concede that he actually can act, so I was willing to pry my mind open a crack. And I do like Don Cheadle, ever since Crash.

So this movie was ... a lot better than I'd thought it would be. Reviews have been mixed, and I can understand what some critics disliked -- the plot rambles a little; it certainly could have been tighter and I'm not sure the filmmakers really knew what they wanted to do with the ending.

But ... that said, Jason and I both thoroughly enjoyed it and found it moving and absorbing. I thought Adam Sandler did an amazing job of portraying a man completely lost in grief as a result of a horrible tragedy. The film did a better job than any movie I've ever seen of exploring how a person recovers (or doesn't recover) from a terrible loss; best of all, it avoided the movie cliche of assuming that once a person opens up and talks about the tragedy, things will start to get better. Because as most of us know, that's when your carefully constructed coping mechanisms fall apart and things really get messy. Both the lead actors are fabulous in this film (as are many fine actors in smaller roles, especially Donald Sutherland in a memorable cameo) but it's Adam Sandler who steals the show by brilliantly showing Charlie Fineman falling apart.

In other news ... I have some new book reviews up at Compulsive Overreader, and I am working on a Grand Plan for a website upgrade which I will unveil sometime over the next few weeks ... watch this space for further developments!

Tragic ... but Stupid

2007-03-22T11:47:00.000-02:30

I heard a story on the news yesterday morning that absolutely gutted me -- but made me angry too.

I hate to criticize someone who has suffered the worst tragedy a person can suffer - the loss of a young child -- but I don't understand why the police are calling this a terrible accident no-one could have foreseen, and I don't know why the outcry is all around the dangers of power windows and how car manufacturers should install more safety features.

This parent left a six-year-old and a two-year-old alone in a car with the engine on. Not for a couple of minutes while she ran into the store to get milk either -- although even that would be ridiculous to do with the engine on -- but long enough to go into an office building (where she presumably couldn't see the car) and run an errand. Long enough for the six-year-old to unbuckle the restless two-year-old from her carseat and then, apparently, long enough for the six-year-old to fall asleep in the front seat.

Seriously, this woman has suffered a terrible loss, and it's awful that a moment's carelessness can result in the ending of a young life and such tragedy for the family. But let's call it what it is -- carelessness. Not an unforeseeable accident, not a design flaw in the power windows. You just don't leave two small children alone in a car with the engine turned on. Why would anyone even think that was OK?

Supposedly we live in a society where parents have become hyper-vigilant and everyone is making parents feel guilty about everything they do. And yet every so often something like this comes up in the news and you wonder if anyone is paying any attention to child safety at all??

OK parents out there, in case it didn't occur to you before ... kids don't belong alone in cars with the engine running!!!!! Power windows are only one danger ... there's also the possibility they could put the car in gear and drive into another car, or a building or ... it doesn't bear thinking about. Before we rush to blame the car manufacturer, let's exercise some basic common sense.

Getting Up In Front

2007-03-19T14:05:00.000-02:30

Having angsted a little bit in my last post about some of the guilt and worry that goes along with raising your children in church, I want to write about one of the (IMHO) absolute and unadulterated good things that goes along with involving your children in a church community. This is the fact that, as a rule, churchgoing children get more opportunities than non-churchgoing children to develop that marvellous skill known as Getting Up In Front.

Unless a child has a fear of public speaking so morbid and intense that they simply cannot be dragged to the front of a group of people -- or unless you attend a church which is absolutely opposed to the participation of small children, in which case I would have to ask you Why? -- it's almost certain that by the time your churchgoing child has reached the ripe old age of, say, nine or ten, he or she has had the chance to Get Up In Front in numerous Christmas pageants, Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day programs, and similar Sabbath School or Sunday School experiences. He or she has probably had the opportunity to recite a poem, read a Scripture verse, probably even sing or play an instrument in front of an audience of loving and indulgent people who are thrilled just to see the child standing up there. As a teacher I truly believe that children who get these opportunities (in addition to what they do at school) have an edge.

Obviously there are other, non-church organizations that will allow your child this kind of exposure, but you do have to go hunting for them. Whereas if you happen to be going to church anyway, opportunities of this kind just fall into your lap.

I was raised to believe in the virtue of Getting Up In Front; I literally cannot remember the first time I stood up and spoke in front of an audience because it was probably before my conscious memory kicked in. Our children have had the same opportunities, and for the most part (except for a brief burst of stage fright on Chris's part when he was 4 or 5) they have lapped it right up.

Getting Up In Front was a major feature of the fundraising night we just had for our kids' Adventurer Club at church this Saturday night. The evening consisted of desserts and entertainment for the grand sum of $5 entry fee. Sprinkled in between the grown-up entertainers were most of the Adventurer kids, who eagerly volunteered to show off their talents. Emma was one of three children who played little piano pieces, while Christopher played his fiddle. But what made me proudest of all was the fact that Christopher and his friend Kurtis volunteered to MC the event, and actually did a great job of it. They told little jokes each time they got up there, taking turns being each other's straight man, and then announced the performers clearly and concisely -- basically they won the hearts of the audience. It was great.

As was the whole event, its best feature being that it is now Over And Done With, so one of the things that's been keeping me busy and hurried over the past couple of weeks is now finished. Another long-term project is getting wrapped up this weekend, and I'm looking forward to more relaxing days ahead.

Of course, when I'm not Getting Up Front, I like being in the audience ...

I've attended three public performances in the last five days, which is a lot more than I usually get out. You know (if you've ever ordered books from amazon.com) how Amazon tracks what books you buy and uses them to make suggestions for books you might like? They figure they can establish patterns and tell what you're interested in by seeing what you've already bought.

Thank goodness nobody's trying to do that by tracking the performances I've attended recently. I can't imagine what conclusions they would draw.

On Thursday night, I went to a thoroughly enjoyable performance of The Vagina Monologues along with a group of women friends (including Tina, who wrote such a good and thorough review on her blog that I won't even attempt one here).

On Saturday night, I went to the aforementioned fundraiser, which was as close to an old-fashioned church social/talent night as you will find anywhere in the 21st century -- cute little kids and nice talented church people up in front playing their guitars and singing for a good cause.

On Sunday afternoon, I went with Jason, the kids, and some friends to the final regular season game of the St. John's Fog Devils. I would not call myself a big sports fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I can enjoy watching the occasional hockey game, since I at least understand the rules. Our seats were good, and I do like the lively atmosphere of a hockey game -- although "lively" would be an understandment for the high-pitched enthusiasm of the three teenage girls sitting behind us.

So, what conclusions should the invisible spies draw from my tastes in public entertainment? I like frank and honest feminist discussion of the female body; I like local talent; I like hockey? Basically, I just like to get out and see stuff happening; I find it very hard to think of a live event I wouldn't go to, although there are some I wouldn't pay for -- but I'd go to a monster truck rally or a Chinese opera (once, each) if someone bought me a ticket and I had nothing better to do. You couldn't pay me enough to watch strippers (either gender) or "professional" wrestlers, but other than that, I don't have a lot of boundaries in this area. When other people are Getting Up Front, I'm a good audience. I love the energy of almost any live performance.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in St. John's who was at all three of these events this weekend. One friend was at the Monologues and also at the fundraiser with me; some of the friends who came with us to the hockey game had been at the fundraiser the night before, but I doubt anyone else hit all three of these diverse events. I wonder if there were any other crossovers between The Vagina Monologues and the crowd at the hockey game? Possibly ... one thing I can say for sure is that during the part of the VM where you have to yell a certain word for the female organ out LOUDLY with the whole audience, those girls behind me at the hockey game would have had a lot to offer. They apparently have no problem Getting Up In Front ... maybe they were taken to church as children.

Giving or Stealing??

2007-03-17T16:19:00.000-02:30

My good friend Jamie recently posted in his blog about playing baseball in his youth (something that those of us who know him as an adult find difficult to reconcile with his lack of love for sports, but I'll accept the story at face value). He talks about not being able to join a Little League team because they played on Saturdays. Like me, Jamie grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist, and while Adventist interpretations of how to keep the Sabbath vary wildly from one culture to another, and one family to another, most North American Adventists consider team sports one of those things you Don't Do On Sabbath, and lots of SDA kids miss out on joining a sports team (or a drama class, or other fun extracurricular activity) because it meets during Sabbath hours.

Jamie's reflection on this experience (and yes, I have his permission to quote him and use his thoughts as a springboard for my own), continues: "So no team ball for me. It wouldn't be the last, or the worst, thing my religion robbed me of."

Reading these words yesterday really stopped me cold. I am raising my children in the Adventist church -- we are perhaps more liberal than a lot of SDA families, but one of the things we're pretty conservative about is Sabbathkeeping. Last night my kids missed out on attending a Fog Devils (local junior hockey) game which was a big fundraiser for their school. Their school competed with another school to see who could sell the most tickets to the game, and at the game there were going to be lots of fun activities for the schoolchildren, including the principal of the losing school getting a pie thrown in his face. It was just the sort of fun community event we would have supported 100% had it not been held on a Friday evening.

I realize there's a lot of room for debate even among Sabbathkeeepers about what constitutes proper Sabbath observance, and some Adventists might be quite happy with attending a hockey game on Friday night. That's sort of a particular in-group argument, and not really the point I want to pursue here. Let's just take it as read that this hockey game, while a fun and positive event, is also the sort of secular and commercial event that would be out of tune with how we, as a family, observe the Sabbath -- and explore the question that's really bothering me. By raising my children in this particular religious paradigm, am I robbing them of something? Will they someday resent us for the hockey games and other events that were "stolen" from them because of our religious choices, imposed upon them?

We've had some lively discussions over at Ship of Fools on whether parents have a right to "indoctrinate" their children in their religion, and the general consensus (not that there's ever anything much like "consensus" on the Ship) is that everyone, even atheists, passes on their worldview to their kids whether they want to or not. But if you observe religious practices, particularly ones that are rigid in some ways (and Sabbathkeeping can certainly fall into this category), then you're leaving yourself particularly open for the charge that you've forced your children to miss experiences they would have liked, and to live through experiences they didn't like (my son has an opinion on 45-minute sermons!), in the name of your religious beliefs.

The thing is, there's no way to know how they will view this without knowing what their own spiritual journeys will be like as adults, and that's the one thing I cannot know. I look back on my own upbringing in the church and I am so grateful for it. I think growing up with solid and unquestionable spiritual practices lays a foundation for those practices in adult life. I can think of two things -- taking a day of Sabbath rest every week is one, and tithing 10% of your income is another -- about which I often hear people say, "Oh, that's a wonderful idea, I'd love to do that, but I just couldn't fit it into my lifestyle, even though I'd like to try."

For me, there's no question of "try" -- these things have been a part of my life since I before I was aware of them, and so I don't have to make any effort to fit them into my life: my life has been shaped around them. (I will point out that my husband did not grow up with these practices and is arguably more observant about both Sabbathkeeping and tithe-paying than I am, so it is obviously possible to adopt such practices as an adult, but I do think it's more difficult). Despite the odd few interesting classes or concerts I've missed because of Friday night or Saturday scheduling, I am deeply grateful for a non-negotiable day each week which is completely dedicated to rest, worship and renewal. It's the reason why I can sit here blogging, guilt-free -- or, earlier this afternoon, lying by the fire reading -- when I have the hugest pile of dirty dishes you have ever seen in the kitchen sink downstairs. (We had family over for dinner last night, and the water buffalo is not doing his job!) Sabbath rest is simply a part of how I live, and so I view the fact that I was raised with it as a gift, rather than something that was stolen from me.

But I can see how I could so easily have turned out with the opposite view. I know far too many people who have been scarred by a fundamentalist or conservative religious upbringing, people who were made to carry a huge burden of guilt for trivial "sins"; people who have struggled to emerge from a worldview that simply didn't fit them; people who are angry about having been baptized as infants into a faith they have never accepted as their own. And people who are angry about having been raised with no faith at all, and left to figure it out all on their own.

It's a big question mark for parents -- what isn't??! -- and all we can do, I think, is to teach kids the things we think are important, try to do it with love and not harshness, and give them the critical thinking skills and the permission to seek and find their own truth as adults.

I don't know what my children will come to believe. I would be happy if they both grew up to be active but fairly liberal Seventh-day Adventists, exactly like me and their father, but honestly I know the chances of them adopting our exact same views are slim (and who knows if that position will even be a valid choice in 20 years?). I want them to be interested in spiritual things and pursue a relationship with God in a way that's meaningful to them. I am prepared for the possibility that they will be angry with their parents for some of the religious observances we imposed upon them. I hope they will be grateful for some, too. I even hope they will be mature enough to be able to say, "I haven't chosen to follow exactly the same path as my parents, but I am grateful for the foundation they laid down for me; they taught me what they thought was right."

They weren't too cut up, in the moment, about missing last night's hockey game. They seem to have already accepted "things we don't do on Sabbath" as part of who we are as a family. Last night we had various relatives over for dinner and they had a good time and didn't brood about what they were missing. My dad taped last night's hockey game off the local cable channel for them and we're going to watch it later to see if the pie-throwing and other hijinks made it to air. And tomorrow we're going to a Fog Devils game with some friends from church, which I hope will help make it up to them.

I hope they won't feel I've robbed them; I hope I haven't. But it basically boils down to the perennial parental hope that we're not messing up our kids too badly, and as we all know, only time will tell.

Hangin' With Jonathan Swift

2007-03-13T22:07:00.000-02:30

Tonight I got to spent an hour listening to Jonathan Swift: a heady experience for someone who has written a book that is at least peripherally about Swift. It's one thing to read a writer's words on paper, quite another to have an actor bring him to life before your very eyes.

The actor in question was Irish actor and playwright Michael Harding, who performed his play Jonathan Swift: Talking Through His Hat here as part of Irish Newfoundland Week. I wouldn't have known about the play at all if Helen Porter, bless her, hadn't called me the night before to tell me about it. (My mother also called today, when she heard about it, by which time I'd already made plans to go).

If I'd heard about this after the fact, I would have kicked myself black and blue, because it was an amazing performance. I can't say I actually like Swift, as a person or as a writer, but I do feel like I know him after spending so many years researching his relationship with Esther Johnson. He was an irascible, unpleasant, intense and melancholy man -- but also a brilliant and fascinating one. This play, based entirely on Swift's own words and set in his later years, as dementia began to take over that brilliant mind, is funny in places, disturbing throughout, and heartbreaking to anyone who has any feeling for Swift at all.

Thanks to Helen paving the way for me, I was brave enough to "make meself known" to Michael Harding and give him a signed copy of my book -- a bit of shameless self-promotion I probably wouldn't have had the nerve for otherwise. It was a wonderful evening and I'm so glad I didn't miss it.

In other news, two new book reviews up at Compulsive Overreader -- go check 'em out. I need comments, both here and there! Please feed the ego!!!

Glimmer

2007-03-11T20:04:00.000-02:30

As I've done so much whining and complaining about winter here, it's only fair and balanced that I should portray the other side of the picture. Yesterday afternoon we took the kids sliding in the playground up behind my parents' place. It was still very cold, but the sun was shining brilliantly, glimmering and sparkling on the snow and in the icicles. It was truly beautiful and we all had a good time -- even me! (Although I am not actually pictured here having a good time in the snow, as I am the photographer. You will just have to take my word for it that I wasn't whinging and moaning the whole time).

We had a very action-packed weekend, or at least an action-packed Saturday. Went to church in the morning, where I had to tell children's story and got to tell one of my very favourite true stories, about the homeless man who found $900 in the trash and gave it back. Had lunch with my parents, played and frolicked in the snow, went home to our gradually-warming-up house just long enough to change and then went down to Torbay to have supper with our friends Darryl, Cynthia, and Brianna. After a nice supper of haystacks, a game of Blockus and a game of Junior Pictionary, we headed home again.

Then I abandoned my husband and children -- temporarily -- to pick up Lori and Natalie and head out to Mount Pearl, where Christine was hosting a women-only dessert party in honour of International Women's Day. My determination to give up chocolate for Lent was severely tested by the delicious goodies on Christine's table, but she had thoughtfully provided all sorts of choices so that even someone not indulging in chocolate could truly celebrate the accomplishments of women -- in particular, of one woman who spent the entire day in the kitchen with fabulous results!!

The whole family slept in the living room again last night -- not because it was still cold, but because it was fun. We had a very lazy morning this morning; Jason and I lay around drowsily while the kids watched Pirates of the Caribbean and made breakfast for us. Yes, they really did, and it wasn't too bad either, although they didn't have to use any appliances more complex than the toaster.

Today was generally laid-back, to balance out all the running around from yesterday, but we did go to the Aquarena where Christopher demonstrated his new-found skill in the deep end. He has been taking lessons with his class at school and been quite distraught about the fact that he was expected to swim in the deep end and didn't feel ready. This week he finally broke through that barrier and today he was not just swimming around there but also jumping off the diving board. I am so proud of him! The only drawback is that now he doesn't want to go on the waterslide as often as he used to, because he has the diving board to amuse him. And I kind of feel silly going on the waterslide without a child along....

Of course, all I'm telling you about here are the external events of our weekend. On the level of our rich inner lives, where most of the activity happens here, the two big activities of the weekend were 1)Piracy and 2) Chemistry. The Piracy started even before we watched Pirates this morning -- all weekend, both kids have been dressing up in pirate costumes, building pirate ships, and generally buckling all the swashes in sight. Christopher talks in his "pirate accent," which sounds like -- well, like a nine-year-old Newfoundland boy imitating Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.

Chemistry also featured prominently as the children amused themselves by filling empty water bottles with coloured water in various combinations and setting up "science labs" with them. When I went out for groceries this afternoon I was strictly informed that I must bring home more food colouring. With this renewed resource they busied themselves in the basement setting up labs, then invited us to come down and see them.

Christopher was explaining things in his lab -- using, oddly, the exact same accent as his "pirate" accent. At one point, as he wrote out a formula for how you could combine the different chemicals represented by the bottles, he added under his breath, "By the way, this is all fiction -- you can't really do this!"

Meanwhile, in the next room, Emma invited me into "Emma's Lab, Museum and Grocery Store, where we have almost everything you need to get through the day. May I help you?"

"I'd like a bottle of that blue stuff," I said, picking the thing that looked most likely to get me through the day.

"Um...none of these bottles are actually for sale right now," she said. "But you can look at them."

"OK ... I'd like to look at a bottle something blue."

Amidst all the swimming, piracy and chemistry, I forgot to report that the best thing about today was the weather -- the temperature actually climbed above freezing for the first time in weeks. It was sunny and about 5 degrees today -- that's in the low 40s for the metrically-challenged. You could hear the snow melting. I was not too pleased about Daylight Savings Time coming in a few weeks early this year, and when I put the clocks ahead last night I was still grumbling about how DST in March only means a few more hours of daylight to see the mounds of snow everywhere. I'd rather have the clocks go ahead when there's at least some glimmer of hope that spring is coming.

But today felt almost like the whisper of a promise of spring. Yes, I know it's a false promise -- we're not even halfway through March and we still have Paddy's Brush and Sheila's Brush and who knows what else to look forward to. But on a day like this, it's possible to pretend that spring is around the corner, and why not enjoy that feeling for a few moments?

From huddling around our fire on Friday night, to frolicking in the snow Saturday afternoon, to dreaming of spring today -- with all the friends and family we've seen and all the fun we've enjoyed -- this has been one of those weekends that just makes me sit back and go, "Aaahh, yes ... this is Life As It Should Be Lived."

Hope your weekend was As It Should Be too, and if not, I hope you had at least a glimmer of brighter days ahead.

Camping In

2007-03-10T06:52:00.000-03:30

Sometimes in winter, we "camp-in" -- we all sleep downstairs, Jason and me on the sofa-bed, the kids on air mattresses.

There are two reasons for doing this: for fun, or because on certain nights in winter the combination of cold, wind direction, and older home means our house will not get warm no matter how high we turn up the heat. So a couple of times every winter we end up sleeping by the fire.

Last weekend, we had a "camp-in" for fun. Last night, we had one out of necessity.

When we do it for fun, Jason rigs up a makeshift tent in the dining room and the kids put their air mattresses and sleeping bags in there. When we do it because of the cold, everyone squeezes into the living room and we close all the doors to trap the heat.

Either kind of camp-in may involve some or all of the following: roasting marshmallows over the fireplace; drinking hot chocolate in front of the fire; watching videos; reading stories; playing board games; having family worship in front of the fire; telling the kids to be quiet and go to sleep 1,000 times before they finally do.

Last night they bedded down while watching the final scenes of Prince of Egypt. Jason and I retired to bed at the same time, both with books to read. Emma was out like a light immediately, but Christopher took a little longer to settle down. I ventured into the cold upstairs for awhile to check my email and a few other things online. When I came back down everyone was asleep.

It's been so cold here lately that when I got home yesterday and found I couldn't heat the house up to a comfortable level, I almost cried: all I want is to be warm. Just warm.

Last night at 10:30 I went to sleep in a smallish living room with the embers of the fire still glowing in the grate (our fire is excellent for putting out the heat). Next to me was my Big Warm Husband, and a few feet away, also giving off body heat, were the Small Warm Children, at least one of whom was fated to crawl into the bed with us before morning. I was wearing two pairs of socks, a pair of sweat pants, a T-shirt and a nightshirt, most of which were made of, or lined with, fleece. I was warm.

I woke up at about 3:00 and I was hot. I actually had to take off my fleece-lined sweatpants. I lay there gratefully soaking up the feeling of being not just warm, but too warm. It was wonderful.

Now it's 7:00 a.m., the house is still cold and so is the outside. Who knows -- we may be camping in tonight as well!!

Desire

2007-03-09T15:23:00.000-03:30

Following hard on the heels of my post about self-denial the other day, I read Andrea's post entitled "Want/on," which made me rethink the whole question in a different light. Not enough to make me go out to Tim's and buy that chocolate danish I've been craving, but enough to make me revisit the question of what we want and what we're willing to give up -- and why.

I pointed out in my other post that people who were raised in very guilt-ridden, negative religious backgrounds probably won't get a lot of spiritual benefit out of self-denial, because they will tend to interpret "giving up" through those lenses. After reading Andrea's experience of growing out of just that kind of background, I think more needs to be said on that question, to balance what I said earlier about the blessings of self-denial.

I honestly forget sometimes, or forget to focus on, the fact that some people have not been taught to name what they want and go after it. Some people have been taught that desire is bad, that they shouldn't want anything, that their own wants are to be stuffed down inside and subjugated to everyone else's concerns. Needs, OK -- you might possibly be allowed to have some of your needs met, if we can fit it into the schedule. But wants? Forget about those.

It's a concern for people from some fundamentalist backgrounds, as Andrea's post points out. It's also a concern from a feminist perspective, because many women have been taught (implicitly rather than explicitly, usually) that it's un-feminine to want too much, to be too ambitious, too desirous, too wanton. Women are often taught to ignore their own wants and needs in favour of serving husbands, children, bosses, parents, society's expectations.

If you don't know what you want, if you've never learned to say, "This is what I want and here is how I am going to get it," then there's not much spiritual value in denying yourself pleasures. You don't believe you deserve those pleasures anyway; you're giving up something you don't think you're entitled to. Whereas to me, the whole point of giving up pleasures is that they are pleasures. I know I desire these things; I know that I need to, as Christians sometimes put it, "order my desires" (disordered desire can be selfish and self-destructive) -- but it would never occur to me not to listen to the voice of my own desire, not to be aware of what I want.

Like so many other things, I have my parents to thank for this, and the more I read about other people's upbringings the more I think I should be sending my parents weekly roses, or cheques, or something. Not that they are, or were, perfect -- but there are so many ways in which they managed not to screw me up, that I am eternally grateful.

This area of desire is certainly one of them. I was always taught to know what I want and go for it, assuming it was not harmful to myself or others. Our family religion, while conservative, was very much not fundamentalist. I suppose when I think of the issue of desire in the context of my faith, I have been mostly influenced by Bible texts like, "Trust in the Lord, and He will grant you the desires of your heart," or "At His right hand are pleasures forevermore." Or, in the New Testament, "I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly," and "My God will supply all your needs according to the riches of His grace," and "He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think."

Whether by accident or design, I grew up with a mentality of abundance rather than lack: the world was a good place created by a good God, and it was good for me to have and to want things (always keeping in mind that ordering of desires: things that wouldn't hurt me or hurt others).

I still want things. A lot of things. I know what I desire, what gives me pleasure. I have been fortunate enough to have gotten a lot of the things I desire, and to believe that most of the other things I desire will come to me.

I want a chocolate danish at Tim Horton's when Lent is over.
I want to read the three new novels by favourite authors that I've got stashed away for Easter break.
I want a lengthy spa vacation in a hot southern climate -- which I'm not likely to get this winter. But I also want a weekend away in New York with my husband, and a weekend in Eastport with my Strident Girlfriends -- and both those look do-able in the next couple of months!
I want things for the rest of my life that I haven't had yet -- a year living outside North America; a Honda Goldwing (you didn't read that, Mom. Scroll back up to the part about what a great parenting job you did and reread that instead); a renovated bathroom with a corner whirlpool tub.

I know I won't get everything I want, but I know what I want and I know it's good for me to want. And it's good for me sometimes to say "No" to things I want. But when I talk about Lenten disciplines, about fasting, about the benefits of self-denial, I would hate anyone to think I was laying a burden of negativity on anyone who hasn't yet learned to say "YES!" to life and all its good gifts.

That's all I wanted to say. There's a flip side to this self-denial coin, as there is to everything. I want everyone to know that I plan to spend the entire week of Easter vacation in bed reading novels and eating chocolate, and that that is A Good Thing.

Well, that's what I want to do on Easter break -- I guess my kids will have some say in what actually happens!

Self Denial

2007-03-07T14:24:00.000-03:30

We are officially two weeks into Lent. So far I have kept up my Lenten disciplines; giving up chocolate (except for Sabbath, when I believe you shouldn't fast, but that's another story) and giving up fiction in favour of reading through my Lenten non-fiction book list (surf over to my book blog and check out the latest offerings).

Apart from the theological question of why someone who's not Catholic, Anglican or Orthodox should observe Lent, I sometimes field questions from people who wonder about the value of self-denial itself. "Isn't it like trying to earn your salvation?" I've heard people ask. Or, "What's the point of denying ourselves the good things God gave us to enjoy?"

On Monday I was at Tim Horton's for the first time since Lent began. I was relieved to note the tray of chocolate danish -- my favourite guilty pleasure -- was empty. Otherwise, I might have been seriously tempted.

Also on Monday, Christopher set himself the challenge of staying away from computer games all day. He likes to play on a site called "Addicting Games," and his questions about the site name led to some interesting conversations about addiction. He decided to quit computer games for the day to prove he wasn't addicted. He asked me if I could give up the computer for a day, and I agreed to try it yesterday. I made it through most of the day but cracked in the evening. I excused myself to Chris by saying I'd stayed off it till his bedtime, which was just as long as he'd done!

All this has got me thinking about the value of self-denial, why I believe it's intrinsically valuable to sometimes say "No" to the things we want. It should be pointed out here that I don't use Lent to give up things I think are bad for me anyway, although I know some people do that and it works for them. My practice is about giving up things I think are good but unnecessary -- those little luxuries and indulgences, like chocolate or fiction or the internet, that make life easier and more pleasant. Things I believe are good in themselves but also things that might get out of hand, might become too central, if not used wisely. Why take a self-imposed break from life's little luxuries?

I've come up with a list of reasons why people might deny themselves simple pleasures:

1. To earn brownie points with God. This kind of thinking is pretty low on the level of moral reasoning, and I don't know many adults, no matter what their theology, who consciously think this way. "If I give up chocolate for Lent, God will let me into heaven," or "If I keep the Sabbath and refrain from eating meat, I'll be a good Adventist and get into heaven." Put like that it looks silly, but maybe vestiges of that kind of thinking linger. Rituals of self-denial, like fasting or Lenten disciplines, are probably a bad idea for people who were raised with a very guilt-oriented, works-based view of religion, because it might be easier for them to slip into this kind of thinking.

2. To look good. Jesus, as you'll remember, told us not to make a big deal of the fact that we were fasting or giving to the poor (which makes blogging about Lent a bit inappropriate, I guess), yet it's hard to resist that temptation to say, "Look how good, pious and self-disciplined I am.

3. To prove that I can. The first time I ever tried giving up something for Lent, many years ago before I had any particular theology connected with it, it was definitely to prove a point to myself. It was chocolate then too, but there was no spiritual goal in sight: I just wanted to know if I could go without it for six weeks, and also (I was 23 at the time) if my skin would clear up, if I did. (I could, and it didn't). I am the sort of person for whom there is a certain pleasure in saying, "Lord, give me strength to meet this self-imposed and totally unnecessary challenge" (kudos to Ashleigh Brilliant for that famous line). So I do have to resist the temptation to take pride in my ability to "give things up."

4. To bring balance to the Force. OK, not to the Force -- I got carried away. But to bring balance to my use of these "simple pleasures." I think this is a good reason. Like Christopher with computer games or me with chocolate, we all have good things that we are tempted to overuse, and giving them up for awhile may help us to gain mastery over them so we can use them wisely rather than unwisely.

5. To practice saying "No." There will be times -- and this applies to every moral, ethical

person, not just Christians -- when doing the right thing will require saying "No" to my own desires and impulses. To do what's right for others, for the world, for the environment, means that I can't always get what I want in this particular moment. Gandhi allegedly said that no-one could practice non-violence if he or she hadn't practiced fasting. Learning to control my own desires, saying No to myself on occcasion, builds spiritual muscle, and reminds me that I don't always have to gratify my every desire.

6. To be mindful. I've blogged a little on Compulsive Overreader about reading a book on Buddhism and reflecting on the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, which I think is useful for Christians too. Giving up something as simple as chocolate means I have to stop and think about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, which anchors me in the present moment and makes me live more purposefully, more mindfully.

7. To increase dependence on God. I cannot tell you how much I miss the tiny comfort of a hot chocolate on a cold evening, or the pleasure of relaxing with a good novel (I love reading my non-fiction books too, but it is a different kind of pleasure; not the falling-into-a-feather-bed enjoyment of immersing myself in good fiction). When I am tired, or stressed, or just cranky, these are the pleasures I reach for. To say, "No, I can't have this right now" forces me to look for some other comfort, some other source of strength -- which I hope, at least some of the time, will make me more consciously aware of God as the root of all my strength and comfort.

So there you have it. Seven reasons for giving things up. The first three I consider (for me) to be poor reasons, ones I try to avoid; the last four are the reasons that lead me to forego the pleasure of a Tim's chocolate danish on a bitter, bleak winter day.

But only for four more weeks. Just four weeks. I can make it ... I think.

What's Inside a Snowbank?

2007-03-01T21:19:00.000-03:30

This post is intended as educational material for those who, sadly, live in places where they don't get a lot of snow. You may have wondered what you would see if a large piece of machinery came along and sliced a nine-foot, two-month-old snowbank in half. Wonder no more!

Given the popularity of those "cross-section" books that show what goes on inside a medieval castle, or a battleship, I think there's quite a market for my "What's Inside a Snowbank?" pictures. Observe how, like geologists reading the story of earth's history from the layers of rock, we can read the Story of Winter in St. John's in this single cross-section of snow. The layers that indicate different snowfalls, the darker, more compacted layers showing snow that was pushed up by the plough as opposed to the lighter snow that fell from the sky, the upper layer indicating the most recent snowfall. Enjoy this view while you can folks, because apparently this weekend it's going to get covered up with a whole new pile of snow! Yes indeedy!! Another weekend snowstorm!!!! I can hardly wait!!!!!

Some people know how to have fun in winter. Here are my kids on top of the snowpile that matches this one (on the other side of the driveway) last weekend:

And here is what their grandfather made while shovelling snow off his back deck. He didn't even have the excuse of the kids being up there while he did it -- he just did it for a laugh. See what a good attitude he has? I am not likely to be making anything entertaining out of snow anytime soon, unless it is a blanket under which to bury myself till it all goes away.

In non-snow-related news, Jason and the kids and I went out to supper tonight using the gift certificate I got for winning the Coast Conundrum the other day (remember that? That's what I won!) That was a nice little break in the routine.

Also, I am continuing to get through my Lenten reading list. Please drop over to my book review blog, Compulsive Overreader, if you haven't already, to see what I'm reading and maybe even comment on it!

BNL Rocks My World!!

2007-02-27T08:51:00.000-03:30

Last night Jason and I went with David and Jennifer to see the Barenaked Ladies on the last night of their cross-Canada tour. I haven't seen BNL live since about 92, whenever it was they were here for their "Gordon" tour. That was an amazing concert experience because we were in the second row at the Arts and Culture Centre and it was so intimate, it felt like having BNL in the living room. Last night's concert was not as amazing as that, but was still quite an impressive show!

Barenaked Ladies are unique in the category of Bands I Like since they are the only mainstream pop band that debuted later than 1990 that I truly enjoy -- my appreciation for pop music mostly ended with the 80s, but BNL has managed to transcend that. Their career has had ups and downs over the last 15 years or so -- there were times we hoped to catch them in concert and their tour was cancelled because they were doing so badly they couldn't afford to come to Newfoundland; there were times they came here and we were doing so badly we couldn't afford to go see them! So last night was like a conjunction of the planets: BNL are riding high and so are we.

Sometimes when you go to a concert for a band you've liked for years it's frustrating because they don't do a lot of their old stuff and you don't really know or care about the new stuff. This wasn't like that -- they did lots of old stuff, going right back to "Gordon" -- we heard "Yoko Ono" and a few others from that first album, and of course they finished with "If I Had a Million Dollars" for an encore. I also really liked most of the new songs even though I hadn't heard them yet. BNL continues to be the most lyrically interesting band I know, an amazing mix of cynicism and innocence, irony and sweetness. I'm not qualified to tell you if they're musically interesting but they're certainly musically enjoyable, to me anyway, so the concert was a total success.

I don't think I've ever been to a concert that had so many Good Causes associated with it -- we were hit up for money for the food bank before we got through the door; there was a table from WorldVision encouraging child sponsorship in developing countries; there was another table featuring eco-friendly products and information from Barenaked Planet (along with some scary laminated pages informing us that virtually everything we'd ever considered putting on or in our bodies was bad for us!) The earnestness was somewhat balanced by the on-stage end-of-tour hijinks, which included three of the Ladies coming out during the opening act wearing only towels and flashing Tomi Swick and his band (they didn't flash the audience, but a friend who was sitting close to the front confirmed that the Barenaked Ones were true to their name!) Lots of laughs and great music, although it will never equal the thrill of sitting in the second row at the ACC in 92 and feeling like I was One With the Band.

Oh! And more excitement today! A local radio station, Coast 101.1, has a brainteaser question every morning called the Coast Conundrum. I always listen on the way to work, always try to figure out the answer, and often try to call in without success. I'm particularly cheesed off when someone calls in, has no idea what the right answer is, and they give them the prize "just for playing!" This morning I knew the answer, I called, and I got through! I got on the air, won the prize, and the DJs told me I Was Smart. (My student Vince, whom I drive to school, was in the car next to me yelling, "Yeah she's smart!" in the background -- and no, by the way, I didn't call while driving, I called while parked in front of my kids' school after dropping them off).

So hey, it's an all-round good day and it would take something pretty drastic to bring me down right now. Let's hope we don't get anything drastic happening today.

Radio KFKD

2007-02-25T19:09:00.000-03:30

In Anne Lamott's wonderful book on writing, Bird by Bird, she talks about Radio KFKD, the radio station that streams two channels of self-talk into a writer's head, non-stop, 24/7. The channel playing in one ear is constant self-aggrandizement: how wonderful, how talented, how brilliant I am. My version of this channel includes numerous clips from my imaginary interviews with Shelagh Rogers. Then in the other ear is playing a constant stream of bitter self-doubt: how I'm a talentless, worthless hack and nobody will ever read or enjoy my writing.

Like most writers, I am familiar with both channels of KFKD. Lately, I have been hearing a lot of the negative channel ... because I'm in kind of a stuck place now, not as regards writing itself, but in the areas of getting work published, and promoting the things I do have published. This winter I've had long stretches of feeling like it's futile; there are so many better writers out there with more interesting things to say, and even though I can never stop writing, perhaps I should give up on the fantasy of ever being read.

Today I brought the opening chapter -- prologue actually -- for the next novel I want to work on, to a workshop with my writing group, the Newfoundland Writers' Guild. It was very affirming because, although I got some critique, I got mostly just positive vibes -- everyone enjoyed it, laughed in all the right places, insisted they wanted to read more. So I left listening to the other channel for a change -- how great I am, how wonderful my writing is, and I am all buoyed up to do more with this new project.

And yet ... the doubts are still there, chattering away in my other ear. I wish I could silence them. I believe success will silence that channel forever, but I know from experience that it won't. Are there any writers who ever achieve a healthy balance between the two channels, a realistic assessment of the value of their own work? I'd like to believe it, but if it's possible, well ... I'm just not there yet!

Everybody's Got a Water Buffalo ...

2007-02-24T14:05:00.000-03:30

...as the good old Veggie Tales song goes. Well, probably not everybody. But now we have one. Although with all the snow in the backyard (another 10 - 15 cm last night) I don't know where the heck we're going to put it.

Fortunately, a nice family of subsistence farmers in Asia has agreed to keep it for us, and apparently it will be a lot more useful to them than to us. It's only going to be useful around here if it can be trained to wash dishes, since we bought it to replace our dishwasher.

I see I have some explaining to do. Relax, take a deep breath. Enjoy the picture of the happy Asian subsistence farmers and their water buffalo.

I may have mentioned that our dishwasher gave up washing dishes for Lent. We have never actually bought a dishwasher; our current model came to us as the second of two used hand-me-down models. I'd always felt that a dishwasher was a bit of an extravagance, but if God was just going to arrange for someone to give us one for nothing, we'd take it.

Understandably, what with two kids and two working parents, we have gotten a bit dependent on the dishwasher and so when the latest El Cheapo (well, El Freebo, actually) broke down and Jason couldn't fix it this time, he said, "Maybe it's time we actually bought an inexpensive new dishwasher." And we added this item to our household budget.

But then Lent hit, and in addition to giving up chocolate for Lent, I also give up reading fiction. Not because fiction is A Bad Thing (it's a very, very good thing!) but because I'm such an avid fiction reader that I rarely make time for non-fiction. So during Lent, I immerse myself in a pile of spiritual/theological type nonfiction books that I would never get around to otherwise. And this year, right there on the top of the Lenten pile, was Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution, a great book that challenges Christians to live more simply and sacrificially in order to share with the poor (that's a very brief summary. My full review of the book is here, and you are cordially invited to meander through my Lenten reading list with me as I read and review the books over at Compulsive Overreader).

Jason started the book right after I finished it, and he is enjoying it to, so he understood where I was coming from when I said, "What if we don't buy a new dishwasher, and give the money to the poor instead?"

"We could do that..." he said a bit hesitantly.

Reminded of Shane Claiborne's principles about living in community with others rather than giving arms'-length charity, I suggested, "Maybe the poor could come over and wash our dishes sometimes."

In the end, however, we did opt for arms' length, but really useful, charity, because I went to the Heifer International gift catalogue and discovered that a water buffalo costs about the same as a cheap dishwasher. I will confess that I didn't research this gift very thoroughly; I picked it because a) I trust the people at Heifer a lot, and b) it sounds so incredibly cool to say we bought a water buffalo to replace our dishwasher. Only I shouldnt' tell people that, because of Jesus' whole thing about keeping it a big secret when you do good things -- oops. Here I am blogging about it. Today was a good day for charity but a bad day for humility. But maybe I can inspire someone out there to buy 1/10 of a goat instead of a take-out pizza, or to make some other small sacrifice that might make your life simpler and someone else's better.

I will say that we have not ruled out the idea of buying a dishwasher as well as a water buffalo. If the burden of washing by hand becomes overwhelming I will take it as a sign that God is going to send us either a) another free dishwasher or b) more money. But for now, we just have this buffalo.

Good Day, Good Cause, Good Film

2007-02-23T15:34:00.000-03:30

Yesterday was A Very Good Day for me, primarily because I got to do two things I really wanted to do, that were not directly related to either family or work, and that I didn't think I was going to get time for.

I had been looking forward to going to the Raising the Roof Pancake Day Breakfast, which was supposed to be held on Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday... pancakes ... you see?). It's an annual event which is hosted and aired live by the CBC Morning Show, and which provides a nice pancake breakfast for $5 with all benefits going to organizations that help people find affordable housing here in St. John's -- organizations such as Choices for Youth (which is very near to my heart because several of our students are also Choices clients); the Stella Burry Foundation, the AIDS Committee of Newfoundland and Labrador, etc. Pancakes, live entertainment, and the chance to support good causes -- what's not to like about that?

The breakfast was postponed to Thursday because of the storm on Tuesday, and I wanted to go Thursday morning but with Christopher still home sick from school and all the other complications of morning with work and children, I didn't think I could make it. But at 7:15, as I was listening to the live show on the radio and explaining to Emma what was going on, she said, "Let's let Dad stay home with Chris and we'll go!" Which we did. We had to hurry and couldn't linger long over our pancakes because Emma had to get to school and I to work, but we enjoyed being at an event that has such great community spirit. Plus, two of my students who are also Choices clients performed -- reading poetry, rapping, reading a scene from a play -- so I was glad to be there to be able to support them and tell them they did a great job.

Then in the evening, right about suppertime, I happened to be on the MUN website and noticed that the MUN cinema series was showing the movie Half Nelson, which I have been wanting to see for ages but which never came out in the theatres here (it's on DVD now, but I really wanted to see it on the big screen). On the spur of the moment, with no-one to go with and not even sure I could make it on time because Jason was out doing messages and I didn't know when he'd be back, I decided to try to go see it. I just barely made it in time, and I'm so glad I did because it was an amazing movie.

I was almost happier that I went alone because it was a movie that I wanted some time to absorb, and I'm not sure I would have been ready to answer, "How did you like it?" on the way out of the theatre. It's powerful, aborbing, very well-written and acted, disturbing and thought-provoking. It starts out as if it's going to be a typical inspiring-young-teacher-in-an-inner-city-school movie, but it's very not that, becuause the inspiring young teacher, played by Ryan Gosling, is also a drug addict, and his 13-year-old student, Drey (Shareeka Epps) shares his secret after she finds him smoking crack in a school bathroom. The powerful friendship that unfolds between the two of them is the most interesting depiction of a teacher-student relationship that I've ever seen onscreen, or in a book for that matter. The story doesn't veer into the obvious territory of sexual exploitation, but it does depict a relationship that's inappropriate, difficult, and real -- portrayed by two actors who completely inhabit the roles.

I am so not a film buff, and I really don't watch a lot of indie films. Frankly, I could do without the indie-film standbys of handheld ShakyCam, extreme closeups, and things being out of focus. I watch a great film like Half Nelson and I wonder, "Why can't we have the brilliant writing and acting, the thought-provoking themes, the realistic moral ambiguity -- and also be able to see everything clearly, just like in a Hollywood movie?" Guess I just will never understand cinematography.

ShakyCam and all, Half Nelson is a must-see for anyone who likes thought-provoking movies and who doesn't mind a fair dose of sex, drugs and language (not much sex, but a bit -- and a lot of drug use). The ending is not despairing or hopeless, but it's also not "heartwarming and inspiring" in an obvious Hollywood way. It never takes the easy way out, but dives right into the messy reality of life. I'm so glad I managed to squeeze two hours into the frozen landscape of this week to catch this movie on the one and only night of its big-screen release in St. John's!

Ash Wednesday: Come Dancing

2007-02-21T21:10:00.000-03:30

It's Ash Wednesday; the beginning of Lent, which is an important date in my personal calendar, though not in the calendar of my church. If you're interested in a more nuanced discussion of why a nice Adventist girl (OK, relatively nice) observes Lent, you may read an article I wrote about it here. I'll avoid repeating myself and simply say that I have observed the pentitential season of Lent as a private spiritual practice for about five years now, and for me it lends a lot of meaning to an otherwise bleak and gloomy season of the year.

So today that season of reflection, repentance and resolution begins. Begins with Christopher saying he's still not well enough to go to school, and me making arrangements for my parents to take him. Then backing out of the driveway, which is now like a tunnel with the massive piles of snow on every side -- imagine backing out of a garage that opens directly onto the street. Driving to work through streets that are barely wide enough for one car to pass, much less two.

After work it was worse, and I was hurried and cranky, trying to get some messages done and get the kids picked up and back home in time for Adventurers at 6:30 (that's the kids' club at church, which we are in charge of). The kids and I didn't get home till 5:15, only to find our driveway had been filled in again by the plough. The nearest sidestreet was now too narrow to park on, so I had to park down the road at the garage and walk three doors up to our house, with the kids and groceries, dodging traffic all the way. I was almost ready to cry with frustration.

We decided to call around and cancel Adventurers last-minute because it was just so difficult getting around, and that lifted my mood a little, as I knew I didn't have to rush to get supper. Still, the hectic afternoon had taken its toll on me, as I unpacked the groceries and realized I had bought ground beef, parmesan cheese, foccaccia -- all with the thought of having spaghetti for supper -- but had neglected to buy either spaghetti or sauce, thinking I had them both in the house. I didn't.

It's at moments like these that a handful of chocolate chips can do a world of good in soothing my cranky and irritable soul. Only, I'd given up chocolate for Lent, just so that I could grow spiritually by turning to God instead of Hershey's for consolation in moments like this. This was starting to seem like a bad idea.

I pulled my boots back on (Jason was home by this time) and slogged up to the corner store to get the necessary items. (The spaghetti and sauce, not the chocolate). Despite the rough going underfoot it was a beautiful evening, with a sky in such rich and incredible shades of blue I thought I would like to own a dress, or a crayon, or a painted wall in a colour called "February Twilight." I took a deep breath and thought how petty my little troubles are. I bitch and whine and moan about these dark cold weeks of winter, when some people live in a perpetual Lenten winter of real and painful troubles.

I could list dozens of people I know who are living with depression, divorce, abuse, addiction, pain, poverty, and children sick with things far more serious than colds. Not one of these things has touched my life and as I trudged through the snowy February twilight I remembered again how incredibly lucky/blessed (take your pick) I am.

Back in the kitchen, I put spaghetti on to boil and turned up my 80's Favourites CD while I washed a few dishes from the pile on the counter (did I mention that our dishwasher gave up washing dishes for Lent?) I was feeling OK by the time we hit one of my absolute favourite songs ever, a song I cannot be unhappy or cranky during: The Kinks' "Come Dancing." That song just makes me want to lay down every burden and dance.

Right on cue, as the first bars of the song played, Emma danced into the kitchen, holding out her hands for me to dance with her, and I did. In the dark window I saw a reflection of me holding my little girl, dancing together to a song we both love. I was almost ready to cry again -- not from frustration but from joy and gratitude.

I'd like to say I remained in a beatific state all evening, but later I was impatient and frustrated and cranky again, although still joyous and grateful underneath it all. That's why I need a penitential season. The sins I have to confess are not very impressive -- not the stuff of testimony meetings of "Unshackled!" episodes. I am ungrateful, impatient, short-tempered, self-absorbed and I complain too much. But I think I will get a T-shirt or a bumper sticker made that says:

Jesus Didn't Just Die for the Winos
He Died for the Whiners Too.

If you observe Lent, a blessed one to you. And if not, just get out and enjoy the February twilight, or better yet, come dancing.

The Big One

2007-02-20T16:37:00.000-03:30

This is it. Today was the Big One -- the snowstorm we've been waiting all winter for.

Not eagerly anticipating, exactly -- just waiting as you wait for the inevitable. We've had several storms, to the point where our backyard was like a giant bowl brimful of snow and the piles of snow on either side of our driveway were so high you could barely see to back out even when driving the van, much less in a car (which is hair-raising, because we live on a very busy road). School has already been closed twice before due to weather. So it's not like we've had an easy winter, by Newfoundland standards or anyone else's standards.

But all the storms we've had have been paltry little things dumping no more than 10-15 cm of snow at a time. We haven't had a truly big, pull-out-all-the-stops snowfall, a blizzard of epic proportions where everything is shut down and nobody bothers going outside.

Well, not until last night. We got some snow Sunday night, with lots more predicted for Monday night, and by suppertime Monday it was coming down in full force with howling winds behind it. The storm continued unabated throughout the night and this morning, with the total snowfall since Sunday totalling about 50 cm.

Needless to say we spent most of the day lazing about indoors. Christopher is feeling better, so the snowday worked out well for him -- an additional day at home to recover without having to miss another day of school (or work, for either parent). Jason has been bravely attacking the snow with shovel in hand for the last few hours (see picture above) although it's still not all gone.

I'm sure my fellow Newfoundlanders will have their own battle stories to tell and pictures to post. As for those of you living in warmer climes ... think of us and smile.

Tough Call, Again

2007-02-19T11:44:00.000-03:30

This morning Christopher started complaining of a headache and stomachache just before we left for school. Again with those sick-kid decisions -- when to stay home? when to send him to school?

I took him to school and told him to give it a try, maybe he'd feel better soon. I knew he wasn't just being a little third-grade slacker because his best friend was back today from two weeks in Florida (don't get me started on the envy!) and Christopher really wanted to be in school to see him.

So when he called me at work at 9:35 to say he was really miserable and wanted to come home, I knew he was serious.

At the time, I was writing notes on Chapter Nine of Lord of the Flies (Simon gets killed! Oh, sorry, did I spoil it for you?) on the board for my English 2201 class. I quickly finished the notes, checked in with Boss Tim, and wrote assignments on the board for the rest of my classes. (That's the joy of teaching in adult ed ... no dealing with messy substitutes; just leave work for your mature, self-directed students to complete on their own. Or, you know, NOT!!)

As I explained the sitch to my student their eyes grew misty with nostalgic remeniscences. "Yeah, I used to hate that, when I said I was sick and Mom would say, Go to school anyway! You'll feel better soon!"

"Or when I'd say I was sick to my stomach and she'd say, Eat your breakfast! It'll get better!" ... a line I had used this very morning.

I explained to them that from the parental side of the line the decision of what warrants a sick day was not always as straightforward as it might seem. Then I drove back to Chris's school to get my pale, sad-looking little boy.

He's sleeping now, and anytime Christopher voluntarily goes to sleep, you can pretty much bet he's sick. I'm using the time to try to catch up on some writing and reading. Making the sick-day call can be one of the tougher roles in parenting, but there's no doubt whatsoever that this is a sick little boy:

Recitals Ate My Weekend

2007-02-15T21:20:00.000-03:30

This past Sunday, with tremendous patience and forbearance and love of our children, my family (me, Jason and my parents) sat through not one but two music recitals -- one for piano students, one for violin students -- in which our precious darlings performed. That's two solid hours of children's music recitals, plus an hour of downtime waiting in between when it wasn't worth going back home -- for the total two minutes or so that our kids were onstage.

Yes, it was worth it. It was Emma's first-ever recital and she did a great job. Christopher also did well on the violin, accompanied by his Grampa. Christopher's greatest accomplishment, however, was to keep me laughing (quietly) throughout the whole of the piano recital. It's a requirement for me that in any potentially boring situation (classes, meetings, workshops, etc) I have to have someone sitting next to me who can send and receive sarcastic remarks to keep me amused. I am so pleased my son is growing up to be one such person.

I'll just give you a couple of samples of his commentary. There's a little girl who takes music from his teacher, a couple of years older than Chris, named Jasmine. Besides being amazingly talented on both violin and piano, Jasmine is also poised, self-assured and charming. When she got up to announce her first piano piece, she informed us all that the piece was by "Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsy," with lovely enunciation.

Christopher looked at me. "THE Tchaikovsky?" he said. I nodded.

"Nutcracker?" he asked. Again I nodded.

He rolled his eyes. "Well, she may know how to say his name, but I know everything about him," he commented as Jasmine began to play.

Later in the concert, this same Jasmine got up to announce her last piece, and again spoke with tremendous clarity and poise. Christopher gave me another sideways glance. "You think she's awfully clever, don't you?" he asked.

For those of you who are into this sort of thing, here are videos of the kids' two performances.

Mommy Olympics: The Qualifying Heats

2007-02-13T20:30:00.000-03:30

Part of my parenting philosophy is to try not to view motherhood as a competitive sport. I know there are moms who complain about other moms competing in the "Mommy Olympics," going above and beyond the call of duty to do all sorts of extras with their offspring that make the rest of us feel inferior.

My attitude is that we are all going to excel in some areas of parenting, because we all have things we do well and enjoy. So if someone else is a little more into doing crafts with their kids, I try to remember that I probably read more books with my kids, and it all balances out. I try not to find other parents' accomplishments threatening, and assume that no-one is threatened my mine.

It's unlikely anyone is threatened by me. Most of the time, I'm doing well to keep up with the basics of parenting, much less the competitive events. This is especially true since I went back to work and the kids started school. I think of myself as a well-organized person -- at work I'm almost fanatically organized -- but my organization skills are not up to the task of having two children in elementary school. I write everything down, but even then it's a challenge to keep up with which homework is due on what day, which papers I have to sign and send back, what milk money they have to bring, which days are school lunch days, which days are pizza, which are ice cream, and what I have to pack for each. Not to mention the clothing issues attached to gym days and swim days. Any morning my kids go out the door with the right homework, money and attire is a gold-medal day in my books.

But just to keep us parents on our toes, schools like to throw in some extra-special themes and projects. This week we had lots and lots of special events. It is, of course, Valentine's Day on Wednesday, which means child-signed Valentine cards for each kid in the class. Here is one area where I do find Mommy-Olympic resentment creeping in a little, because I know my children will come home tomorrow with not just a bagful of Valentine cards, but also three or four little extras--candies or cookies or little bags of treats wrapped in pink lace with ribbons -- from moms who just had to go that extra mile. Each little foil-wrapped chocolate seems like a silent reproach: "What, you only sent them with cards?"

Of course it's not enough that it's Valentine's, oh no. It's also Teacher Appreciation Week; parents were encouraged to bring desserts to school for teachers to enjoy in the staffroom. The lower grades also celebrate the 100th day of school, which falls right before Valentine's Day. This year Emma's class had to fill out a booklet about the number 100, and each child had to make a poster of 100 objects (we did macaroni, and Emma, of her own volition, wrote a little poem to go inside a macaroni frame -- which some other mother might interpret as being over-the-top on my part, but it was entirely her idea). Finally, there was an optional activity -- children could decorate a 100th-day themed T-shirt.

Normally anything "optional" falls right off my radar. This time, however, by an incredible freak of nature that had nothing to do with any awareness on my part, I had in my possession not only a plain white child's T-shirt, but also two packages of fabric markers. So last night Emma and I sat down and decorated a T-shirt, and while she did the lion's share of the work I made a batch of brownies to send to school

She was quite proud of her T-shirt and looked extremely cute in it. It was probably my one and only time ever qualifying for an event in the Mommy Olympics, and I'd like to say that I followed my principles and put aside all envy and competitiveness from within my heart, and just delighted in my child and her happiness. But I am shamed to tell you that when I brought her to school I looked around -- I did -- to see how many other first-graders had home-decorated 100th Day T-shirts! Because, of course, I had to know how many other Mommies were as good as I was.

Oh, all right, since you asked. She was one of three. And I think her shirt was the best. But you know, that's just my humble, entirely uncompetitive opinion.

Dear Me!

2007-02-08T19:55:00.000-03:30

There's an interesting exercise going aroung the blogosphere these days called Dear Me. The idea is to write a letter to your own past self. What would you tell yourself, if you could go back in time?

I've written letters to my future self, but I've never tried addressing my own past. Having enjoyed some of other people's "Dear Me" entries (including Catherine's, as she's the one I caught this particular idea-germ from), I decided to give it a try.

To: Trudy J. Morgan, 1987, Oshawa Ontario.

From: Trudy J. Morgan-Cole, 2007, St. John's Newfoundland.

Dear Me,

Right away I know there are two things in the heading of this letter that are a huge relief to you: the hyphenated last name, indicating that you're going to get married, and the return address, indicating that you're going to move back to St. John's.

Yes, I know all your deepest fears. I know that you worry that you'll never marry and have a family, even though you want to. None of your romances have worked out so far, and after all, you are nearly 22, so time is slipping away! Or so it seems to you.

I also know that, although you're enjoying the adventure of living on your own in a new place, the homesickness inside never quite goes away. You want to end up back in St. John's, but you're afraid you never will.

I can put both those fears at rest. You will move back home, and you will marry a wonderful man (no-one you've met yet) who is kind to you and makes you laugh. You will have two beautiful children, and although there will be days when they make you scream, you will also laugh with delight at how lucky you are.

Right now you enjoy your job, but you dream of something more -- work that will keep you working with young people, but allow you to help those who need help most, in a more practical way. You will find that work, although it will take some years, and you'll have wonderful adventures along the way.

In your work and in your personal life, you're learning now to establish some boundaries, to protect yourself from caring too much and getting damaged. You learned a lot last year, didn't you? Setting boundaries is a good thing to do. The day will come when you will wonder whether you've made your boundaries too firm, protected yourself too much. The day will come when some of them will have to be breached again, but by then, you'll be ready for it.

Regarding love: I know you're in love now and that you believe this love was "meant to be," that the person you're breaking your heart over is your "destiny." Hear me on this: he is not. Yes, you love him. There are as many different kinds of love as there are different people. You love him as what he was meant to be: a dear and special friend who will always be in your life. I cannot begin to explain to you the extent to which he is not the right person for you to marry. It doesn't matter, because you're never going to get the chance to say yes or no, but maybe I can spare you a little heartbreak.

Regarding writing: Keep at it. Not every dream you have for your writing will come true, but many will. Don't get discouraged. Don't give up. Some of the paths you take may be unexpected, but you will be happy with the results.

Actually, that's true for life in general. You are on the right track. You will make mistakes, but you'll learn from them. Trust the way God is leading in your life. Trust your own head and your own heart. Both are true, and you are learning which one to listen to when.

Looking at you from the distance of twenty years, I'm proud of you, and I hope you would be proud of me if you could see me. I will not offer any advice which could change your path, because you're headed in the right direction. All I can do is remove a little of your fear and uncertainty, by assuring you that things will work out all right. I know how much you hate uncertainty.

I know you hate it, but I also know that fear and uncertainty are the soil in which faith grows. If you knew for certain that everything would work out, would you need faith? Would you be motivated to try as hard? Would you be the same person you are, without those fears?

Maybe the fear and uncertainty are part of what you need to grow.

Maybe I shouldn't send this letter.

I think I'll just hang onto it. Don't worry about a thing.

Love,

Trudy

Updates and SSP

2007-02-07T18:12:00.000-03:30

We have pulled down the quarantine flag and taken the plague sign off the door. Jason and I are much better, and Emma is on the road to recovery, although she has been home from school three days this week. She's finally starting to show enough improvement that we're sending her back to the salt mines tomorrow.

In Shameless Self-Promotion news, there's an interview with me up at a blog called Progressive Adventism. This blog is maintained by a guy called Julius Nam who is a prof at Loma Linda University, and as the name suggests it is an SDA blog, so the focus is on me as an Adventist writer, so it may not be of interest to everyone. Still, I do have some general stuff to say about the writing life, etc., so if you're interested, click on over.

It's still bitterly cold and I want to be curled into a tiny ball somewhere warm, but I'm soldiering on through the winter. Perhaps soon I'll have a more intriguing and thought-provoking blog entry to post ... perhaps not....

Plague House

2007-02-03T15:41:00.000-03:30

We've been dealing with and fending off various illnesses around here for the last little while. As of today it is officially time to run up the quarantine flag and declare this a plague house. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here ... or better yet stay outside and leave small donations of food at the door.

You may recall, faithful readers, that Emma stayed home from school on Monday with a cold. After that she seemed to bounce back quickly, with only an annoying cough lingering. Speaking of annoying coughs, I've had one since January 13, and it's getting worse instead of better, but as I had no other sick-like symptoms I was able to live with it. Yesterday morning Jason woke up feeling miserable, having obviously caught some bug or other.

Yesterday evening Jason and Emma both went to sleep almost as soon as they got in the house and stayed asleep most of the night. Jason was shot down with flu-like symptoms, and Emma's cold had clearly recurred in a virulent form. I was still coughing, but otherwise OK, till just before bedtime when I started to get all sinus-y and stuffed-up.

By this morning, I felt just as bad as anyone, which was pretty bad. Christopher was the only lively member of the quartet. He recently got over one of those annoying coughs that hung on for weeks, and I am literally praying he doesn't get sick again, although how he would avoid it in this germ-infested atmosphere, I don't know.

If I could wave a magic wand and give myself one parenting quality, I would like to be able to instill (inflict?) in my children the same overdeveloped sense of responsibility my parents gave me, because 90% of the world doesn't appear to have it at all and the world needs the other 10% of us to show up on time. I had promised earlier in the week to have Children's Story at church today, and even though it's one of the easiest things on the church program to replace, even though I was lying there sick in a house of 75% sick people with hard crusty snow in the driveway and He Who Wields the Shovel flat on his back with the flu ... even then, it took me about half an hour to decide that I wasn't going to church today. I had a wonderful feeling of peace and freedom once the decision was made ... after, of course, I called the church to alert the platform chairperson that I wouldn't be there, which is what we responsible people do when we bail on things.

Today has been incredibly low-key, as Emma, Jason and I have stumbled from nap to nap, and Christopher has looked in vain for someone fun to play with. One nice accident of biology is that when I am sick, I tend to feel worse as the day goes on, and when Jason is sick, he tends to feel better as the day goes on, so on those dreaded occasions when both parents are sick, we can each cover half the day. There was a point about two o'clock this afternoon when my downward trajectory passed his upward one, and we smiled at each other and exchanged a few sentences. Then I went barrelling downhill like a skier out of control. Jason is now Parent-in-Charge, and has just shovelled the driveway and is now taking a shower. I'm blogging with my last bit of strength before crawling back into bed.

I leave you with a picture of two usually lively and energetic gals who today are ... not so much lively.

Nosy

2007-02-02T21:52:00.000-03:30

I am an incredibly nosy person. I eavesdrop on conversations and I look to see what other people are buying at the grocery store (and yes, I make value judgements about them based on their groceries, even though I wish I could stop doing that).

Today I was standing at the prescription counter at the drugstore waiting to get a prescription filled. I waited a long time because the couple in front of me seemed to be taking forever. Whatever they were discussing with the pharmacy clerk, it seemed to be very involved and convoluted, and at first I wasn't intentionally eavesdropping, just overhearing.

Then I heard the clerk say, "You have to sign these forms..." and I got curious. What kind of prescription would you need to sign forms in order to get? That was when I started eavesdropping. (My behavior gets worse in this story, by the way).

A thought popped into my head about what they might be doing there. A guess. I glanced over at them for visual clues. They were a man and a woman, both dark-haired, probably my age or younger, but it was difficult to tell. Both their faces could best be described as "hard," but, as is universally and unfairly true, this looked better on the man than on the woman. (He could be charitably described as "ruggedly handsome." She was just rugged).

I went back to minding my own business as the clerk continued talking to the couple. They were going to have to go away, read and sign their forms, and come back in about half an hour to talk to someone else -- I didn't get who that was. OK, I wasn't really minding my own business.

She slid the forms across the counter to them. I was standing quite close so I didn't have to lean in or anything, just shift my eyes for a quick glimpse. Yes, I looked at their forms. (That's as bad as my behavior gets. You can relax now).

My guess was right -- possibly it was on my mind because I'd heard the same thing discussed at staff meeting today regarding one of our students. They were signing forms related to receiving methadone treatment.

Suddenly they're not just two people picking up a prescription: they're a story. And I guess that's the easiest way to excuse my nosiness: I'm a writer; I'm looking for stories everywhere. I still knew next to nothing about this couple, but I had the evidence to make a couple of guesses: they were presumably drug addicts and were, for whatever reason, wanting to try to get off whatever narcotics they were on.

My reaction wasn't really a writer's reaction. On some strange and not-at-all-like-me level, I wanted to touch those strangers, maybe hug them, tell them that I think they're amazing and brave and I hope it works out for them. I didn't say or do anything, of course; I looked away and tried to pretend I was respecting their privacy like any normal human being would do.

I have, as I've said before, lived the most squeaky-clean life imaginable when it comes to any kind of substance use or abuse, so I don't know why I am so moved by alcoholics and addicts, why their stories (in fiction or in real life) intrigue me so much.

I know that I am in awe of anyone who makes brave steps toward huge life changes -- people who lose weight, people who come out, people who take the risk of loving instead of being lonely, people who take the risk of leaving instead of being hurt. But I am moved most of all by someone like the student who said to me this week, her voice bright and brittle with hope and fear, "I've been sober for four days now!" I wanted to hug her, too. I'm not a hugger, so I didn't.

But I'm also not a stranger at the drugstore, in her case, so I was able to say, "That's wonderful. Good luck with that."

Good luck to Drugstore Couple too, whoever and wherever you are. My prayers are with you. I don't know why it matters so much.

Snow Fun At All

2007-01-30T17:33:00.000-03:30

The above picture was taken in our backyard at about 5:00 p.m. this evening. We've had a lot of snow lately, but it's not that bad. You can still see the top of the fence. If we get another week like this the kids will be able to go out and sit on the top bar of the swingset, not to mention walking straight to Aunt Gertie's yard over the top of the fence, which is another of the joys of winter.

I just looked out the window and noticed that it's snowing again. This lot wasn't even in the forecast. It's falling thick and fast, but without the 80km/h winds behind it, it doesn't qualify as a snowstorm. It's just picturesque.

Let's see ... I've already had my obligatory whining-about-weather post, so there will be no whining in this post ... just straight factual information to update those of you who are not lucky enough to live in St. John's, Newfoundland. Last Wednesday, as I mentioned, was a snow day -- meaning that schools were closed, as was Jason's work, so we all stayed home and huddled by the fire. The next snowstorm came on Friday night, dumping another 15-20 cm on top of what we'd already gotten. By Saturday morning, the snow had stopped, though driveways were full and many roads weren't clear. Like the good people we are, we went to church anyway, largely because I felt responsible for teaching Sabbath School and playing the piano for church. Then we came back home to huddle by the fire.

Emma also caught a cold, with a bad cough, so on Sunday she stayed home from a birthday party and a sliding party that Jason took Christopher too. We also decided to keep her home from school Monday -- although it was one of those tough calls where in retrospect she might have been well enough to go -- and I took the day off work to stay home with her. The snow started again Monday evening and continued throughout the night and into this morning. We woke up to find schools closed again today.

So, if anyone's counting, that means I have basically been in the house since lunchtime Saturday. I have made a few forays outside -- the kids and I have "helped" Jason with shovelling a few times, and I took Max for a walk in the snow last night. Other than that I haven't been out and haven't really wanted to be. The slight traces of cabin fever have been more than worth it for the extended long weekend, the writing and reading I've gotten done (including a big chunky book I just reviewed on Compulsive Overreader), and the Not Going Out In the Snow. The kids have probably watched too many videos (we rented How to Eat Fried Worms, which everyone but Emma loved), but I do attempt to set boundaries on that even on snow days, so we have also had lots of playtime with Emma and I playing board games (she whipped me in Snakes and Ladders, five games to three!) and Christopher building more of his endless line of Lego creations.

I've decided that I could live in a (heated) cabin in the woods, or an isolated outport, if it were in winter and I had good food supplies and an internet connection. Not that it's likely I'll ever have to live in either of those places, but I think it's interesting that people usually leave the city to go up in the country or around the bay in summertime, and come back to city living in winter. If I actually think about my preferences, it's in summer that I love the city, love being out and walking the streets, going places, enjoying the lively social and cultural life all around me. In winter I just like to hibernate, so I might as well be up in the woods! Maybe that's how I'll spend retirement ... in an isolated cottage in the country during January and February, returning to town for the warmer months. I'd better check that plan with Jason, though!

Teachable Moments (or, the first Pop-Tart's free)

2007-01-28T13:24:00.000-03:30

One of my outstanding qualities as a parent -- I won't label it a strength or a weakness; I'll let my kids (or their future therapists) decide that -- is that I believe everything is a teachable moment. No life experience can be allowed to slip by without some Learning.

I'm sure this gets tiresome for them. Well, I know it does. I've known this ever since Chris was four and I was encouraging him to ride his tricycle up a small incline. I started explaining how if you stop, it gets harder to start again, then got diverted into a little riff on how Life Is Like That, and when things get hard, you shouldn't give up because it'll be harder to get going again. Chris sighed and said, "Mom, you can stop talking now."

Anyway, for your learning pleasure, here are a couple of my most recent Teachable Moments.

TM #1: Trudy and Christopher, on Swimming in the Deep End

Chris is quite a good little swimmer but is scared of going into the deep end, which is starting to hamper his progress now that he's moved up to a new level of swimming lessons. We discussed this one night while I was lying down on his bed with him.

Trudy: You know, you're a very good swimmer for your age, Chris. You're probably a better swimmer than I am. And once you can swim, even a little bit, you shouldn't be afraid of the deep end.

Chris: But I can't touch bottom!

Trudy: But you don't need to! If you can swim, you can keep afloat by treading water, or even just dog-paddling. It doesn't matter how much water is underneath you as long as you can swim.

Chris: The deep end is sixteen feet deep. People have drowned there.

Trudy: I'm pretty sure no-one has ever drowned in the deep end at the Aquarena. In fact, if you can swim, it's almost impossible to drown in a swimming pool unless you hit your head or something. A good swimmer might drown in the ocean, if you were far enough from shore, because you might just get tired and not be able to make it to the shore. But in a pool you're always close to the side or to a rope, so you can always swim that far. So a person who can swim might drown in the ocean, but it would be almost impossible for them to drown in a pool.

Chris: (pause). Great. Now you've made me afraid of the ocean!!

OK, so that didn't go as well as I'd expected. But maybe I'd have better luck with

TM #2: Trudy and Emma on The Evils of Advertising and the Need for Nutritious Breakfasts

Emma: There's this really good commercial for Pop-Tarts on YTV.

Trudy: (ever alert to mentions of advertising) Really? What is it?

Emma: (Describes Pop-Tarts commercial in great detail, which involves going to ytv.com to play a Pop-Tarts video game).

Trudy: Hmm. Does sound like a fun game. And what do you think they want you to buy?

Emma: Um ... I think they just want you to play the game.

Trudy: No honey, commercials always want you to buy something. That's why they make them.

Emma: Oh, maybe they want you to buy ... a Pop-Tart?

Trudy: Yes, I think they might. Do you know what Pop-Tarts are?

Emma: They're like ... bread, but with frosting and sprinkles on them.

Trudy: You know, they're really more like a cookie or a piece of cake. And some people eat them for (pause for dramatic effect) ... BREAKFAST!

Emma: (shocked gasp). No! Wow, that's not the way to get your vegetables.

(Note: I do realize that a bowl of Special K with a glass of juice is also not "getting your vegetables." But I got the gist of what she was saying, which is that -- bless her -- she knows the difference between a healthy breakfast and one that isn't).

Emma: You know, it's a bad idea to eat cake for breakfast, because then you might just go around eating cake all day, because you'd think, "Well, I ate it for breakfast so it must be OK."

Trudy: Right. And also, you wouldn't have the energy you'd need for the day. Well, you might get kind of a burst of energy at first, because sugary foods will do that, but then it would go away and you'd feel really tired and have no energy.

Emma: (obviously thinking back to previous Teachable Moments) Oh! You mean ... kind of like -- drugs?!

Well yes, I did, on another occasion, explain that drugs are things that people take that make them feel good for a short time but then feel really, really bad afterwards. So apparently I have succeeded in equating Pop-Tarts with narcotics in my daughter's mind. Which means I'm doing great for nutritional training, but not so good with the drug education. Hope she doesn't wind up in the gutter nibbling Pop-Tarts for a quick fix.

Parenting. You just never catch up, do you?

Lunch = Love

2007-01-26T15:21:00.000-03:30

Today was my annual "Congratulations, you survived the semester!" lunch for my student advisees. Yesterday one of the newer students, Chris, said behind my back that he felt bad about me treating them all to lunch. Unfortunately he said this to Ellie, so of course I heard about it immediately, because that's just how it goes. I told him, "You just have to accept that I'm an emotionally stunted human being and that buying people lunch is how I express love." Most of my students have gotten used to this particular quirk of mine -- lunch for the whole gang once a semester, and if anyone needs a little extra love and encouragement, they get taken to lunch once in awhile. Sadly Chris wasn't there today...he said he was sick, but maybe he was just rejecting my love! Fortunately, I'm not so emotionally stunted that I worry about stuff like that.

Anyway, I had the whole gang to the all-you-can eat buffet at Pizza Experts...picture of them all above, except for Vince who took so long in the washroom I got tired of waiting for him to come back and snapped the picture. Here's a picture of Vince saying, "Why didn't you wait for me to be in the group shot?" (Vince, who is a juggler and plans to go to circus school, wanted me to take pictures of him balancing ketchup and vinegar bottles on his forehead, but I said I wasn't going to encourage that kind of behavior by photographing it).

The best part of the day was seeing the three students who are no longer with us this semester -- Touria and Vanette, who graduated in January, and Paul, who beat the system by getting accepted to MUN as a mature student without finishing all his high school courses. The last pic, below is of Paul, me, and Ellie; if it had a title I would call it simply, "Irreplaceable." Before Paul left last semester he used to frequently ask who I was going to find to be his "replacement" but I assured him some people in our lives simply aren't replaceable.

This has been my busy week at work with new courses starting and new students coming in. I enjoy the challenge of getting to know new students and forming new relationships -- but it's true, the old ones really aren't replaceable; every one is unique and I love them all (even if I have to take them to lunch instead of actually saying it!)

In other news, we had a genuine snow day this week; school closed on Wednesday (so I guess it wasn't such a busy week!) with 10-15 cm of snow. There's another 20-30 predicted tonight (such a waste, for it to come on a weekend!) and I am enjoying lots of those classic evenings curled up by the fire that I like so much. Still not enjoying the going-outside part of winter that much!

I've updated my book reviews at Compulsive Overreader with a couple of new ones -- go check it out!

Party With the Dark Lord!

2007-01-24T10:15:00.000-03:30

Final post of my Christopher's-birthday extravaganza -- just a couple of shots of his party on Sunday. He had only a small group of friends out because the weather was bad, but we did have Darth Vader, who showed up to light-sabre battle with the kids, play some games, pose for pictures and generally exercise the power of the Dark Side. Actually he was quite fun and laid-back and a good sport. For anyone in the St. John's area who has kids into Star Wars, I can recommend Vaderparty quite highly!

A Birthday Alphabet for Christopher

2007-01-20T12:50:00.000-03:30

Continuing with the Christopher's Birthday theme here on the blog, here's an alphabet poem I wrote for him the other day. (Remember I'm a much more devoted mom than I am a poet, so go easy on me from the literary-criticism standpoint!)

Amazing little (not-so-little!)
Boy,
Creative and
Determined.
Every day an adventure
Flung into the future, you
Gallop ahead of me, but
Hate to be pushed.
I marvel at your
Joy in the work of your hands.
Knights, monsters, robots, villains -- crafted of
Legos, of drawings, of words --
Multiply across the
Never-empty space of your room --
Of your mind.
Perhaps you're
Quiet for a moment,
Reflecting.
Suddenly, you're a
Tempest of giggles, shouts, tears, silliness.
Unbelievable, unfathomable, unstoppable.
Violin, voice, piano, laughter -- so many
Ways you fill our lives with your
Xtraordinary music.
You, my son, are the
Zenith of my days.

Nine Years Ago Today...

2007-01-19T19:28:00.000-03:30

January 19, 1998.

I woke up at about 8:00 a.m. and rolled over in bed, enjoying the leisure of a Monday-morning sleep-in. Up until Friday, I'd been teaching full time. My maternity leave began this very morning, January 19, and my baby was due on January 25. Since I knew first babies were usually late, I was looking forward to a leisurely week or two puttering around the house, feathering my nest for the little newcomer.

Jason was in the shower, getting ready to go to work. I sat up and immediately felt an unfamiliar but expected sensation. My water had broken.

A wave of excitement mixed with panic hit me as I called out to Jason to come quickly. "My water's broken! The baby's coming today!!"

I said a quick and silent good-bye to my plans for a relaxing week at home with my feet up...and to relaxing with my feet up, uninterrupted, for the next eighteen years.

I didn't feel any contractions or anything, so I hung around in bed until the doctor's office was open at nine and then called in. My doctor, who had a refreshingly laid-back approach to childbirth, said there was no point rushing off to the hospital until I was having contractions. He told me to stay home, walk around, get a little exercise, and once labour pains started in earnest I should go to the hospital.

And then ... nothing happened. Jason took the day off, poised for action at any moment, and we just waited. I read a book, picking an old comfortable favourite from the shelf: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The day progressed so slowly and uneventfully that I finished the whole book, crying at the end as I always do. The doctor suggested (in response to another of my phone calls) that I should take a walk to see if that would get labour going. The ground outside was covered with ice; Jason and I walked as far as Shoppers' Drug Mart and back, with me clinging desperately to his arm, afraid I'd slip and fall. Still no contractions; not a twinge to indicate I was in labour.

Back home, we went downstairs and played a couple of games of Ping Pong. I lost as spectacularly as I usually did -- 21-2, if I recall the score correctly. We went back upstairs -- this was about 5:00 p.m. -- and as Jason cooked supper I felt the first stirrings of pain.

"I think this is it! I think I'm in labour!!"

I called the doctor again. He was less excited than I was. He advised me to stay home and take it easy. I'd be in labour for a long, long time with a first baby and I'd just be bored and frustrated in the hospital; better to get through these early stages at home.

The pains didn't feel like any big deal. I wondered if I should eat supper. I was really hungry and I knew once I did get to the hospital I probably wouldn't be able to eat anything throughout this long, drawn-out process. So I ate a nice plate of supper -- a decision I was soon to regret.

My contractions started getting faster and harder, and I called the doctor again at about 9:00. Yes, he said, maybe I should go to the hospital; he'd meet us there in a little while. So we grabbed the hospital bag which had been packed and lying by the door for three weeks, and headed down to the Grace Hospital, five minutes away.

By the time we got there I could barely stand up. They got me into a room and onto a bed, where I immediately threw up. A nurse came in and examined me and seemed deeply impressed with how far my labour had progressed. I had agonized over whether or not I should have an epidural but it seemed nobody was even interested in raising the question. The four hours I'd spent at home seemed to have taken care of that long-drawn-out process of early labour and the consensus was that I was going to have a baby anytime now.

The nice nurses did, however, give me a shot of a lovely drug called Nubain. I have led a remarkably drug-free existance and I was quite amazed by the effects of the Nubain. It didn't stop the pain; it just made me stop caring about it. I was clearly aware that there was a woman in pain in the room. I just felt quite detached from her.

Sometime during this lovely though short-lived phase, my friend Sherry showed up with something -- a balloon, I think, and some kind of gift -- and then my parents and Jason's mom arrived. I got moved to another, much nice room, and the Nubain wore off. There was no sign of my doctor. I later discovered that on learning I had been admitted at 9:30, he went to bed planning to get several hours of sleep. He was still banking on that "first babies take forever" philosophy.

Forever ended at 11:00 p.m. when the nurses told me I was fully dilated and ready to push. They kicked all my friends and family except Jason out of the room and one of the nurses told someone to call the doctor or he was going to miss the birth. I anticipated that the actual delivery would occur with the same lightning-like speed as labour had, and that my baby would be born on January 19, with or without an attending physician.

Alas, this was not to be. As the Great Big Sea CD's I'd selected rotated in the CD player and the team of nurses around the bed chanted "Push! Push! Push!" time wore on and no baby arrived. The doctor, however, did arrive, but he had no magic tricks to make the baby come faster. Just push, push, push until I thought my entire body would explode.

It went on. And on. And on. Until 1:24 a.m., January 20, when Christopher was born. Even then it wasn't instant maternal bliss, because there was no immediately healthy cry and I could see that the baby was a very unhealthy, pale colour. Instead of giving him to me to cuddle they whisked him to a nearby table. I realized he wasn't breathing and began babbling, "Please make my baby breathe, please make my baby breathe!" This time period seemed to last for hours though Jason assures me that it was only about 30 seconds before we heard our son's first cry.

Christopher only got a 4 on his first Apgar test. This was the first and -- so far -- the last test he ever failed, but I'm happy to say that he studied hard for the make-up exam and scored a 9 on his five-minute Apgar. Within seconds he was in my arms, staring up at me with dark blue eyes that seemed far too curious and knowing for a newborn. I tried to introduce him to my breast but he was much more interested in my face ... and his dad's face, and the faces of all the people who eventually came into the room to meet brand-new Christopher Donald Cole.

And Life as We Know It began ....

My Nose is Froze; My Toes is Froze (or, a Taste or Winter Whine)

2007-01-18T10:54:00.000-03:30

It wouldn't be January if I didn't take a few minutes to whine about how I hate, loathe, despise and abhor the weather.

It's an annual rant and you'd think by now I would have either moved to a warmer climate or shut up about it, but neither of those things is forthcoming. I continue to suffer thorugh the horrors of winter in the place I love, and I reserve my right to complain.

I hate snow and cold anyway, but we're having an unusually cold snap (by Newfoundland standards, not by prairie standards) this week -- temps down to between -10 and -15 Celsius, with windchills down in the -20s.

I am not happy about this. I am particularly not happy that our lovely but drafty older home is letting in so much of the wind chill, so that even when I'm home I can't be as cozy as I'd like.

Being home is the key, though. Winter wouldn't be a problem -- at least not such a big one -- if I were just allowed to stay inside. Instead I have to brave that punishing walk from the house to the car, from the car to the office, from the car to the store, etc., several times a day, as if I were some kind of intrepid arctic explorer.

People who claim to "love winter" -- and I know several of them, although mostly I think they are lying -- mainly say they like it because of the winter sports. They claim to enjoy things like skiing, snowboarding, snoeshowing. I highly doubt that people actually enjoy these things. I believe they're putting a brave face on an impossible situation.

But let's say, just theoretically, that there are people who do enjoy being outdoors when it's cold, feeling the snow crunch underfoor (it's been so cold here lately that the snow actually does crunch, rather than making that slurrrsshh noise we usually get in St. John's). I need to make it absolutely clear that I am not one of those people.

I love the outdoors as much as the next person -- well, maybe the person next to him, the one wearing the extra sweater. I love the outdoors in summer, when I can go for quick dip in the water at Manuels River and then lie on the rocks drying myself off. Outdoor activities with the word "beach" in them are very attractive to me. Outdoors in winter? There's no need. Either cancel school and work from January till March, or build a network of underground tunnels connecting the entire city. They've got 'em at MUN; all they need to do is extend the system a little. Don't get me wrong, you know I love my job, but this leaving the house thing has got to (although at the moment my office is warmer than my house, so, you know ... underground tunnels are the way to go!)

While we wait for the digging to commence, I will submit a short list of my favourite winter sports:

1. Reading by the fire.
2. Watching House DVDs by the fire.
3. Hot bubble baths.
4. Play board games with the kids -- by the fire, of course.
5. Going to bed early.
6. Sleeping in late.
7. Did I mention the fire?

Animation!

2007-01-16T07:56:00.000-03:30

Note: If you already read this earlier today and clicked on the video, click it again! Now it has MUSIC! (Aw, come on, it's only 30 seconds! Do it!!)

Here's the project that has been absorbing Christopher and Jason for the last couple of days. On Sunday they set up a scene with Christopher's Lego battle machines (he is the nine-year-old master of stripping down the Lego sets he gets and re-creating them as new creatures and characters). Then they created a stop-motion animation. Jason did most of the tech work but Christopher had a great deal of creative control of the project! Here's the end result:

I should note that despite it being called "A Cole Family Production," Christopher flatly refused to credit me with "Catering" even though I was cooking Sunday brunch while they filmed the animation. I tried to convince him that all "real" movies give credit to the caterers but ... no dice. Oh well. Next movie I'll have to try to move up to being a dolly grip or a Best Girl, I guess.

Grace, Angels, and the CD Hymnal...

2007-01-13T15:51:00.000-03:30

Thought for the day: Some days, all you can do is heave a rock at the window and hope grace shines through the cracks.

So, I had to preach the sermon at my church today.

OK, I didn't have to. I got asked to, by the pastor, on the way out of church last week. He was going away, and the person he had lined up to speak in his place had also been called away, so I was a second-string relief preacher.

I love preaching. I love public speaking in general, and I don't get all that many opportunities, so I rarely turn them down. I said, "Okay!" and then went home to think, "What on earth am I going to write a sermon about in a week?" (I realize the professionals get a week to prepare every time, but I am used to a little more lead time.)

Well, there's only one possible answer. If I have to come up with a sermon on short notice, it's going to be about grace, because that is literally all I know, theologically or life-wise.

So I wrote this nice little sermon called "Angels on George Street." It's a title I've been dying to use -- in fact, I wrote a song with this title once, but it was terrible because I can't write songs, so it's been buried in the rubble of my hard drive for some time now. The title comes from an image in my head, which, in its turn, comes from a bit of trivia that will only be understood by those who shared a Seventh-day Adventist childhood. SDA children are sometimes told that if you go to A Bad Place, like a theatre or a dance or (gasp) a bar, your guardian angel will have to stay outside because they can't follow you in there. To my adult mind this presents the ridiculous spectacle of going downtown on a Friday night (George Street is where all the nightlife is in St. John's, for those of you who don't know) and seeing the streets lined off with angels lounging outside the bars, waiting for their charges to come out.

Anyway, I had this sermon written about how God's grace is everywhere, when we're sinning, when we're in despair, even when we're in church utterly failing to love one another, God's grace never stops chasing us, never leaves us alone.

Last night, as I finished it off, I could not have felt less like writing a sermon. I was tired and I felt like I might be getting sick. And I was grumpy, for various reasons, and I just simply did not feel full of grace. But my key text was from 1 Corinthians 12: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness" ... so clearly I was in exactly the right mood to preach this sermon!

An additional complication, along with my having to teach Primary Sabbath School this morning (a burden my Trusty Husband Jason helped out with), was that this was my week to play the piano for church service. How could I do that and preach the sermon? (Read on, for the answer to that one!) Not being Superwoman and knowing my limitations, I called Phyllis, the Real Organist, and asked if she could play.

She said she was going out of town, so we'd have to use the Dreaded CD Hymnal. Well ... OK. The CD Hymnal is actually a brilliant invention, especially for smaller churches like ours where only a couple of people are willing to play the piano or organ (lots are able; few are willing) and you sometimes need a backup. The only thing is it's a bit stiff-sounding and unforgiving -- if you get half a line behind, the CD Hymnal will not wait for you -- so we try to avoid using it. However, Phyllis said I should just mention it to Sound Guy Brian when I got to church and all would be well.

So there I am in church with my sermon and my bad attitude, and who do I see but ... Sound Guy Larry. Larry is the back-up sound guy sorta like I am the back-up pianist, and when I told him I needed to use the CD Hymnal his face got this blank and horrified look and he confided that he'd never actually used it before. Cool.

You'd think it would be easy, using the CD Hymnal -- just punch up the number of the song and let it rip -- but in fact it's more complicated than you'd think, because in addition to the main hymns there are all these little incidental bits of music like the offertory, and the response after prayer, and some music for the children when they come up for their story. Also, our church service is broadcast on the radio, so dead air sounds really, really bad.

Anyway, I told Sound Guy Larry and Songleader Alice that I would play for the praise singing before the worship service, and then go up on the platform. And that got me halfways towards being in a good mood, because although I am a very mediocre pianist, playing for worship is one of the things that I really, really love doing, and it always makes me happy. We finished the singing, I went up onto the platform as the platform party arrived, the first hymn (Amazing Grace!) rang out of the speakers from the CD right on cue, and all was well.

Until Alice called for the offering. And there was silence. I looked up into the balcony, where the soundbooth is, to see Larry frantically staring at the machines and then shooting me a wild-eyed look of desperation with his hands in a "Play the Piano for Heaven's Sake" position.

I realized he had nothing lined up for offertory, so I scooted down off the platform and played for that. Then I stayed there through children's story and played the music for that, then got back up on the platform.

Next, the prayer was announced, and we always sing this song "Now Dear Lord As We Pray" right before prayer, and I knew Larry was prepared for that one, so I stayed where I was. Silence. The person announcing prayer said, "I guess we'll ... sing unaccompanied..." and I stood up and said, "No, I'll do it..." and started to cross the platform to the piano, at which point the CD kicked in, and I went back to my seat.

By this time everyone was pretty much laughing at me, I think, so when I got up to speak I explained what was going on (hopefully this also helped those listening on the radio who wondered where all the dead air was coming from). The great part was, first, I was finding it all so funny that it had totally relaxed me, and second, I couldn't think of a better opening to a sermon about God's grace in our weakest moments. Sometimes we are broken and human and fallible, and sometimes we can't even make a church service hang together. It was perfect. So I preached my sermon about grace, and I think most people got the point, and lots of them told me it was what they needed to hear. (Which I love. I'm not so crazy about hearing that I did a great job, although I know people mean it well, but that makes it about me, like it's a performance, and I don't think it should be).

The opening hymn played on cue, and I said the benediction. I had a package of Tic Tacs in my pocket because my mouth was dry after all the preaching and I wanted to be fresh and minty for the part at the back where you shake people's hands and say God-bless-you. I was planning how I would take my Tic Tacs as we stood reverently on the platform during the quiet postlude music, then walk down the aisle to the back of the church, only ... guess what? No quiet postlude music.

The silence grew. I shouldered my responsibility and, to the accompaniment of chuckles from throughout the church, went to the piano and played "God Be With You Till We Meet Again." The rest of the platform party went out to do the hand-shaking while I played the congregation out.

While I sat at the piano playing, my children appeared from nowhere to hug me and tell me I did a good job. While keeping track of the notes (remember I'm a mediocre pianist!) I said, "Emma, can you get the Tic Tac package out of my lap? Can you open it and take one out? Now can you put it in my mouth? Good!" Armed with Tic-Tacs, I eventually made it to the back of the church to shake hands, and I was in the best mood I'd been for days (I also had to apologize to Larry for surprising him with the whole CD-Hymnal thing at the last minute like that).

It was a total grace event, a living parable of what I was trying to say about God's power in our brokenness and weakness. Which is when I came up with my Thought for the Day about broken windows and letting grace shine through. (The broken-stained-glass-window picture, by the way, is by a guy called Frederic Poirot).

There are angels on George Street, angels on Aldershot Street (where my church is), angels all around. And grace everywhere.

Good Writin' News!

2007-01-11T17:29:00.000-03:30

Wow. Here I was thinking I was going to have to blog about what was going on in my life at the moment: AKA The Eternal Homework Hell. And I really didn't want to blog about how incredibly, unbelievably difficult it is to try to get Christopher through his homework ... what I wanted to do was to focus on something cheerful and pleasant.

Then, amazingly, something cheerful and pleasant happened!

My Biblical fiction about Deborah and Barak came out waaaayyy back last spring, but for some reason the publisher has been unable to get it listed on amazon.com ever since then. I have been bombarding them with requests, and every few days I check the amazon listings and it just makes me sad and frustrated, but I keep checking anyway ... and today I checked, and there it was!

So now there's no excuse ... people can buy Deborah and Barak on Amazon!

This is the second work of Biblical historical fiction I've written, the first being my book about Queen Esther. This one takes an older story about which far fewer details are given in the Bible -- the story of the prophetess Deborah and the warrior Barak and how they (along with mysterious hit-woman Jael) team up to defeat the eeeeevil Canaanite general, Sisera. It's one of the Bible's most dramatic stories, and also one that leaves lots of questions unanswered. Including the biggie: How did a woman ever come to hold such an exalted position -- prophetess and judge -- in such an overwhelmingly partriarchal society?

I divided the point of view between Deborah and Barak, which meant writing from a man's point of view -- not only a man, but a Bronze Age warrior who spends lots of time fighting, so that was a stretch for me. Anyway, it was a fun book to research and write, and I hope now that it's a little more readily available people will enjoy reading it!

I Like to do the Meme Thing

2007-01-09T22:03:00.000-03:30

Actually I don't ... do those blog-meme things that much, I mean. But occasionally I see one that looks cool, and they're good for days when you want to blog but haven't really got a lot to say. Here's one that Joshilyn Jackson did on her blog a little while ago (it comes from The Daily Meme). I like it because it's book-related.

Here's how it works (in case you want to try it, or want to have any clue what I'm doing here):

1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 -- first sentence
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph, like this:

Home, my soul sighed. When Regal spoke, it sounded as if he had dry bread caught in his throat. I waved a gracious good-bye at the door. Hands it to her. Which is not to say that there aren't nights when I put on my coat and take a walk here in Evanston and go down to the lakefront near the university and walk along the rocks and get nostalgic and look up at Chicago, all golden and clean, reflecting down the shore to me, and think: that's nice, that's real nice, but I knew a place once where the lights were brighter, and the air was filled with dreams.

My books were:
1 -- Justice Hall, Laurie R. King
2 -- Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb
3 -- The Boyfriend School, Sarah Bird
4 -- The Diviners, Margaret Laurence
5 -- Emma Who Saved My Life, Wilton Barnhardt (man, that book has a long last sentence!)

Aaaaannnd ... that's it from me today. Seriously, nothing more to say. Work has been quiet and slow this week as we're down to the last few days of the semester and most of the work is done (and most of the students are absent). I'll be glad to start a new semester and be busy again!

Love That Neo!

2007-01-07T18:01:00.000-03:30

I'm sitting in my living room typing my blog entry on an AlphaSmart Neo. Tina's AlphaSmart Neo, to be exact. Today was "Coffee with the Strident Women" day at Starbucks, and wonderful Tina loaned me her Neo for a week so I could try it out and see if I like it.

So far I like it very much! It's incredibly light, portable and user-friendly. I can't wait to try hooking it up to the computer to see if downloading the files to Blogger or Word is as easy as Tina swears it is. (Note: it was!) I could definitely get into using this machine. It's exactly what I need -- a smart, portable machine that does NOTHING except write -- no internet, games, or anything else to distract me. Of course, my ancient laptop is also distraction-free, but it has other drawbacks: it has no battery so always needs to be plugged in (major drawback); it doesn't run Word, only WordPerfect, and although it is small for a laptop, it's still clunky compared to the ultra-light Neo. It's definitely time for an upgrade, but if I get a new laptop it will probably have wireless internet and everything I DON'T need ... because I so easily distracted. The beauty of going to Chapters/Starbucks (or anywhere else) to write is that I can get away from all the distractsion of my home AND my home computer. I am so easily distracted it's not even funny, and the internet is the huge "something shiny" that always beckons me away from work. So, getting a Neo might be a solution.

Strident Coffee was great today ... Christine, the original Ms. Strident, sadly couldn't make it due to this Christmas flu that seems to have almost everyone I know laid low, but other than that the whole gang was there. We discussed everything from bridesmaids' dresses and beauty pageants to the writing life and local literary gossip. Lori was celebrating sending her manuscript out to a publisher -- a book I hope I'll be reviewing and telling you to rush out and buy real soon!

I have had something resembling a social life this week and have really been feeling good about it -- Thursday night, Sherry and I finally were able to connect long enough to go to a movie (the formulaic and predictable, but quite fun, The Holiday), and last night Jason and I had Jennifer and David over for board games. We played Blockus and Scrabble, and I won one game of Blockus. I'm blown away that someone's managed to invent a game of strategy that I can play, much less win. It's amazing. (Jason wants me to tell you that he won Scrabble, which he did, by a crushing margin. But this is not really news as he nearly always wins at Scrabble).

One of the things I've been feeling in the last year is that I don't make enough time to spend with my friends -- having a family, teaching and writing fills my days so completely. Sometimes I feel I'm more in touch with long-distance friends who I chat with on msn than I am with my own good friends who live ten minutes' drive away. It's not exactly a New Year's Resolution, but I would like to get together more often with my friends in 2007, so this week has been a good one that way, and Strident Coffee was the perfect way to kick off the second week of 2007!

In Shameless Parent Brag news, Jason's blog has a video of Christopher playing the violin in church last week ... check it out!

Spin

2007-01-02T06:46:00.000-03:30

Everything, really, is spin. How you tell the story. What to leave in, what to leave out.

For example, I could tell the story of the first day of 2007 in a way that makes me sound like a homegrown Martha-Stewart-slash-Supermom. Like a person, in fact, who would never need to make a New Year's Resolution again.

Here's the media-approved version of New Year's Day, 2007.

We arrived home in the early hours of the morning after bringing the kids downtown to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks. Everybody slept soundly and woke at a reasonable hour, and we got busy preparing New Year's dinner for my family, who were coming at 5:00. During the afternoon, while Jason cooked the turkey, we listened to the radio drama of Narnia on VOAR while the kids and I decorated a gingerbread house. I made a genuine old-fashioned steamed Christmas pudding in my vintage 1911 pudding bowl, given to me last year by Aunt Gertie. In the evening, my parents and Aunt Gertie came to enjoy a lovely turkey dinner and watch the children play with their Christmas toys while we showed videos of the children's Christmas concerts, which Aunt Gertie hadn't been able to attend. The guests went home early, the kids retired to bed, and Jason and I relaxed watching videos by the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree.

Sounds pretty, doesn't it? And not a word of a lie. Everything I said is absolutely true. There are just a few tiny details left out.

We did decorate a gingerbread house -- from a kit -- while we listened to Narnia on the radio. Unfortunately, due to my usual hurry and my unwillingness to peruse the directions, I discovered after the house was built that I had thrown out what I thought was just the top of the package but was actually the "E-Z Build Tray" meant to hold the walls in place. Without this support the roof caved in, sending numerous Skittles crashing into the interior of the house. We rebuilt it twice and finally got it decorated with one wall partly collapsed. It looked like Gingerbread House meets Hurricane Katrina. Emma kept sticking candies on it long after Chris and I had lost interest, so she really gets credit for any festive element in the end result.

I did make a pudding in the old-fashioned pudding bowl. The problem with a steamed pudding is that there's no way to check and see if it's done. Last year's pudding came out of the mold looking pretty much like it's supposed to look. This year's had to be scooped out in spoonfuls to lie quivering on the plate. It had a gummy, sticky texture. Everyone politely said it was tasty anyway. It probably would have been if we'd been able to drown it in sauce, but I hadn't made enough sauce. The kids, of course, wouldn't touch it and ate the gingerbread house instead.

We did have my parents and Aunt Gertie for dinner, although Aunt Gertie, who at 92 is more and more reluctant to leave the house, had to be coaxed to come over (she lives next door). I lured her over by assuring her the kids really wanted her to come, which was true at the time. By the time supper was ready, I was wondering if she might not have been happier left at home.

As we got ready to sit down to dinner, both kids refused to come and eat with their relatives: Emma because she was sulking from an imagined slight earlier, and Christopher because he was hard at work doing a drawing on his computer. I went upstairs and began urging them down to the table with dire threats. ("If you don't come downstairs with a smile on your face right now, Pixel Chick Will Die!!!")

Emma stomped downstairs wearing Eeyore-like expression, while Christopher said he'd be down in "just a minute." I went into his room and rapped smartly on the top of his computer to get his attention. I swear I did not know that this would cause the computer to crash and reboot, thus losing the last hour of work he'd done on his incredibly complex drawing (he dislikes saving to back-up his work, although I think he may have learned a lesson about that last night). Did I mention that one of my New Year's Resolutions was to be more patient with my children? Hmm...how long did that one last?

Meanwhile, my longsuffering husband, who had pretty much cooked the entire meal, had suffered long enough and was calling out to me to leave Chris alone up there; he needed help in the kitchen and couldn't get the whole meal on the table by himself. We both became somewhat testy, in those harsh piercing whispers you use to convince yourselves that your guests are somehow unaware that you're arguing in the kitchen.

Miraculously, all the food got on the table and both children joined us around the marginally festive board. Gradually the mood lifted (not that it had anywhere to go but up, by that point). Emma read a story to Aunt Gertie and showed us all the wonders of her Polly Pocket Cruise Ship. Christopher was able to re-create his picture on the computer and joined us in a happier mood for the viewing of the Christmas concert videos. Peace and harmony didn't exactly reign supreme, but they were allowed equal representation and a vote.

By the end of the evening I was generally happy with everything except the 10,000 dirty dishes covering every available surface in the kitchen. The part about us collapsing on the couch watching movies by the Christmas lights was totally true. I neglected to mention the running feet and high-pitched giggles from upstairs that continued until 9:35 p.m. I blocked those out.

It's so easy to do that -- to block out the inconvenient facts that clutter up the pretty picture. I find I have a lot invested in spin, in making my life look good -- to others, but especially to myself.

Magazine covers remind me that this is New Year's. It's time for a New Me, a New Life, New Directions. Oprah wants me to Live My Best Life, as usual. She also assures me this is the year I can become the Woman I Want to Be.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure this is my best life. And I think I am the woman I want to be. The person I am now, the life I'm living, fulfills most of my dreams and goals. I feel I'm honouring the important commitments in my life. I truly cannot imagine wanting to be a different person or live a different life.

Or ... is that all spin? If I tilt the picture to a different angle, what do I discover? No, I don't uncover a longing to be a different woman or live a different life, no matter how many collapsed puddings or crashed computers or disaster-stricken gingerbread houses or grumpy kids I have to cope with. What I do see is that within this life I've chosen, there is so much room for improvement. So many areas where I can be, not A Different Woman, but a better version of the one I am now. I am not discontented, but I am ambitious -- I believe I can do better, be more patient, more attentive, more mindful in so many areas of my life.

Yes, I still believe in making New Year's Resolutions. No, I'm not going to tell you what they all are. Except that next time someone gives me a gingerbread house kit, I'm going to hang on to the E-Z Build Tray. There's no point making things harder for yourself.

As 2006 slips away...

2006-12-31T17:09:00.000-03:30

...I'm afraid I have no Deep Thoughts to offer. Perhaps I can compose a suitably serious New Year's post for the first post of 2007, but this is the best I've got to offer for now: pictures of us sliding at Bowring Park today (on the small layer of icy snow that's on the ground).

Sometimes at the end of the year I like to do lists of my favourite things (scroll down on that link a bit to see last year's list)-- books, movies, etc -- from the past year. I'm not doing that today though, because I've done a lot of list-making recently and I'm not in the mood to make more lists. Over on Compulsive Overreader, I listed my Top Ten Books of 2006 along with a bunch of new reviews ... go check it out. Also, in case you missed them before, here are some of my other Top Ten posts ...

My Top Ten TV Crushes of All Time
My 100th Blog Post -- Ten Top Ten Lists

And my Top One wish for all my friends, family and blog-readers for 2007 -- happiness and whatever will make your dreams come true.

Four ... Calling Birds?

2006-12-28T13:08:00.000-03:30

Here it is, the Fourth Day of Christmas already. Not a calling bird in sight (would we recognize one if we saw it?), but I do have a few minutes to update you on some random facts about Christmas 2006 at the Cole House.

First, though, a note about the Twelve Days of Christmas. The flip side of my attempt to observe Advent as a season of waiting and preparation rather than the usual pre-Christmas frenzy, is that I also firmly believe Christmas Day should be, not the end of the season, but the kick-off to a traditional, medieval-style full twelve days of feasting and celebration. (Which, to my modern sensibility, means sleeping late, reading a lot, and eating chocolate). I try hard to keep the Christmas mentality going throughout the Twelve Days, and to honour the old-fashioned tradition (still observed by lots of people here in Newfoundland, though fewer as the years go by) of keeping the tree up till January 6, Old Christmas Day.

This attempt to be all traditional and milk the celebration for all it's worth is somewhat hampered by my employer's expectation that I will be back to work on January 3. It's also affected by my own impatience -- I love relaxing and lazing around during the week between Christmas and New Year's, but after New Year's I quickly start to get impatient with the Chris-mess all over the house and want to haul down the decorations, put away the presents, and return my home to its usual state of pristine order (cue hysterical laughter here).

So, we are currently in Feasting and Merriment Mode though not convinced it will last all the way to Jan. 6. From Feasting and Merriment Central, here are a few highlights of the season:

Traditions Observed: Christmas Eve dinner with my extended family here at our house, highlight of the feast being lasagnas cooked by my dad. Lowlight, this year -- Aunt Bernice stayed home with a cold, and we really missed her. Christmas dinner up at my parents' place with turkey et al.

Only Known Drawback to Having Someone Else Do All the Major Christmas Cooking: No leftovers around the house. But we are struggling on, nonetheless.

Christmas Morning: Emma woke for the first time at 2:27 a.m. Yes, you read that right. She joyously announced it was Christmas morning and proceeded to toss and turn (in our bed of course) until she fell asleep again at 3:30. Then woke at 4:00. And 4:30. And so Christmas morning proceeded until 7:00 when we finally could delay the inevitable no longer and stumbled downstairs to open our presents. Fortunately the joy of watching our kids tear into the wrapping paper and exclaim with joy and awe almost offset the effects of the mind-numbing sleep deprivation.

As you can see from the picture, we had a green Christmas here in St. John's, although some snow has fallen since then -- most of the week has been piercingly cold but snowless. We've made it out for walks a few times to enjoy the sunshine when we have it, but there won't be any tobogganing parties or snowmen until January, probably.

My Favourite Present: "Totally 80s" Trivial Pursuit!! I have a long history of loving Trivial Pursuit but people being unwilling to play with me. I like to think this is because I'm so goooood but it may also be because I'm so insufferable about my trivia knowledge. However my darling husband lovingly bought me a trivia game specializing in the Decade That Defined My Life, and was willing to play a game and be totally trounced by me. Later, he trounced back, but that's another story.

Most Unexpectedly Successful Present: Emma's Tickle-Me-Elmo. There's a story behind this one. Having missed the original Elmo craze 10 years ago, I wasn't even aware that a tenth anniversary edition was coming out, nor would I really have cared had I known. But apparently our 92-year-old Aunt Gertie saw it advertised on TV and conceived a wish that Emma should have a Tickle-Me-Elmo for Christmas. My mom (who does her shopping) tried to dissuade her, because she knows as I do that Emma is big into being a Big Girl and having outgrown baby toys such as Elmo, Winnie-the-Pooh, and other old friends. Aunt Gertie would not be swayed: Emma must have Elmo. My mom told me in advance this gift would require some diplomacy so that Emma would appear appropriately grateful despite whatever disappointment she might feel.

As it turned out, diplomacy was unnecessary. Emma was captivated with Elmo's antics (oh I'll admit it; we all were for awhile) and was able to thank Aunt Gertie quite sincerely. I know this is a novelty toy and that she will not enjoy and play with it over and over like she will with her Polly Pockets or Chris will with his gazillion Lego sets he got for Christmas ... but as far as enjoying things in-the-moment goes, Elmo was a great gift as he allowed Emma to have a few laughs and Aunt Gertie to appreciate the laughter she'd looked forward to seeing on our little girl's face. Maybe the very old and the very young do understand each other better than we in-betweeners understand either of them.

Most Disappointing Christmas Present: Inexpensive kid-friendly digital cameras we bought for the kids. These were a huge hit with our kids, who love photography, until they discovered that the cameras mysteriously deleted pictures from their memory before they could be downloaded to the computer. We still have no idea what's erasing the pictures and can't get any response from the manufacturer's customer service, so we may end up returning these.

Most Relaxing Fun at Home (for me): Hanging around reading Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy (not a Christmas gift: I bought them for myself awhile ago but was saving them for Christmas holidays), eating the aforementioned chocolate, and watching the best-of Friends DVDs Jason bought me. They are from the first four seasons, which is great because the utter sucktasticness of the last few seasons had erased from my memory that Friends used to be laugh-out-loud, laugh-so-hard-you-can't-breathe funny. It's great to watch those early shows again.

Most Fun With Other People: Yesterday going to see Charlotte's Web with Darryl, Cynthia and Brianna was fun (and we give the movie seven thumbs up!) ... but the overall prize has to go to playing 80s Trivia with Jennifer, David and Greg here last night. I was totally paid back for my earlier cockiness by being soundly defeated ... both David and Jason were way ahead of me for most of the game and Jason finally won. The good part was that we played till 1:30 and we were all completely exhausted so I was in that frame of mind when everything anyone says seems hysterically funny. I was literally weak with laughter. I hope everyone was as amused as I was by my bursting into song every time an 80s song I knew was the answer to one of the questions ... though perhaps they may not have been. (I was singing Heart's "Alone" when Greg asked, "Are your children exhibitionists too?" so possibly I may not have been as entertaining as I thought I was).

Tonight we're having our annual Open House, a celebration of randomness which consists of inviting everyone we know and waiting to see who shows up and how they all get along together. We invite a widely diverse group of people every year yet somehow always end up with the same crew sitting around the living room talking at 1:00 as the evening draws to a close ... we'll have to see if this year is any different!

Flesh (A Christmas Meditation)

2006-12-24T16:19:00.000-03:30

Note: this is a blog rerun. I published this on my site in December 2004. But I still like what it says and it's just as relevant today, as I countdown the last hours to Christmas amid the chaotic blend of laughter, love, annoyance and apologies that makes up family life with two young children. It's good to be reminded of our imperfections sometimes, because in a way, imperfections are what the season is all about. Merry Christmas, everyone.

At this time of year we celebrate Incarnation: God taking on human flesh.

I dislike the word "flesh." I try to avoid using it. It's an unpleasant-sounding word, and I don't like its connotations. "Flesh" sounds flabby, raw, unhealthy.

It also has negative connotations in the spiritual realm. "Incarnation" comes from the same root as "carnal," the word St. Paul uses to describe the fallen, sinful tendencies of our human -- fleshly -- bodies.

The truth of Christmas is that Jesus came all this way to get a human body...but really, who the hell would want one? Human bodies are messy, flawed, fragile and inconvenient. They feel pain. Parts get injured and break. Human bodies overeat and get overweight ... or they don't get enough to eat and shrivel into starvation. Human bodies lead us into temptation. They get sexually aroused at inopportune times. Sometimes they fail to get aroused at opportune times. Human bodies inflict violence on other human bodies. We bleed. We make each other bleed. And if we somehow navigate all the pitfalls of the flesh, our bodies simply grow old and die.

Yet Christianity is not a dualistic religion in which "flesh" is simply bad and soul or spirit is simply good. The Bible teaches that God created our human bodies, cares for our human bodies, and will eventually resurrect and recreate our human bodies. Christianity goes a step farther than any other world religion and teaches that God not only values human bodies, God actually wears a human body. In the Incarnation Jesus took on our flesh -- our sinful, fallible, flawed flesh.

Flesh brings us down; flesh also lifts us to our finest hours. Only in human bodies can we know the bliss of union between lovers. Only in a human body can a woman share for a few months the experience of the Creator as she grows another human life inside her womb, pushes out into the world, then sustains and nourishes it with milk from her breast. Only in human bodies can we hold a child, a parent, a lover in our arms. Only with human bodies can we laugh and cry and kiss and taste and touch and participate completely in the world God created for us. And in human bodies--transformed and glorified--we will someday be raised to live eternally.

In this human flesh, fragile and fallen, the Son of God deigned to meet us on our own ground: to become a helpless human infant suckling a mother's breast; to be hungry and exhausted and weak; to bleed and to die.

Christmas in the secular world sometimes seems an inappropriate time for Christians to celebrate Christ's birth. It's hard to ponder the mystery of Incarnation in the midst of holiday specials and the shopping-days countdown and the flashing lights and Santa and Rudolph and Frosty and the Grinch. At Christmas our carnal nature shows its best -- the glowing face of a child opening a longed-for toy -- and its worst -- the vicious triumph of the mother who literally had to wrestle another shopper to the floor of Wal-Mart to rip the last Furby from her shaking fingers.

I have no doubt that the Christ who loves the poor and oppressed deplores the consumerism that runs rampant at Christmas. I have no doubt that He longs for each one of us to make this a simpler time, to lay aside stress and ridiculous expectations of the "perfect" holiday, to spend more time listening to Him and less time looking for replacement bulbs for the tree lights.

But I also believe that the God who was not too proud to lie in an animal's feed box in a barn, wrapped in the fragile flesh of an infant human body, is not too lofty to descend to meet us in the middle of our overpriced, overstressed, commercialized Christmas. He who did not refuse the company of cow and donkey does not exclaim, "Oh, how tacky!" when He sees His own image in the manger scene surrounded by Santa, Rudolph or Frosty. He descends into human flesh, into the carnality of Incarnation, and stoops to meet us in mangers and malls, in stables and supermarkets.

Christmas tells us that our God joins us in the experience of being human, having a human body. But Christmas is only Act I of the story. The grand finale, His resurrection, assures us that while He became truly human and experienced all humanity had to offer, the divine does not enter humanity and leave it unchanged. Jesus not only took on human flesh; He transformed human flesh. His resurrected body was recognizably human -- He walked, talked, ate, cooked fish with His friends -- but it was also far more than human, far more than the body that was born in the stable on Christmas Eve. God became human, and entirely transformed the experience of what it means to be human, to live within a human body.

So He is humble enough to meet us, this Christmas, in the check-out aisle of Canadian Tire as we realize with dread that the string of lights in our hand -the last string on the shelf --will not in fact connect to the three strings we already have at home. He will meet us in the overcrowded dining room as the uncle we haven't seen in twenty years asks embarrassing and inappropriate personal questions over a plate of turkey and dressing. He will meet us amid the stress, the shopping, the crowds and the ornaments and yes, even the blinking lights. He will meet us there, enter into the experience of human flesh, and, if we allow Him, He will transform our Christmas, our flesh, our humanity.

He's not too good for a stable; He's not too good for a human body, and He's not too good for Christmas. All He asks is that we meet Him there.

On the Brink of Christmasness...

2006-12-23T20:05:00.000-03:30

It's almost here! Lots of Christmassy stuff going on today -- almost, but not quite, enough to Make Mommy Lose It a few times, but still fun once I was able to step back and take those all-important Deep Breaths. Here's the cutest thing from today ... Emma with her Grampa singing "The Friendly Beasts" in church.

We also took the Adventurers (kids' group at church) carolling to the homes of some of the seniors in the church this afternoon ... the program had some organizational problems (like, I hadn't organized it well enough because I was relying on other people) but once we got going a good time was had by all. Here's a pic (no video this time though!)

Everywhere I go, people ask, "Ready for Christmas?" It's the standard conversation-starter on December 23. Well, there are always those few last-minute things to do, mostly optional ... but mostly, yeah. On every level (especially the level where we all get a week off school and work) I am very, very ready for Christmas!

Quest: The Sequel

2006-12-17T10:30:00.000-03:30

In case you were wondering what a $10 tree chosen in two minutes in the dark looks like once it's decorated:

Gotta say that to me it looks pretty much the same as a $35 tree that we'd agonized over for an hour would look, if we brought it home and put all our lights and decorations on it. I'm not into "theme trees" (fine in someone else's house, if that's what you like; not in mine). My ideal tree is an eclectic collection of colourful lights and colourful ornaments we've acquired and loved over the years. The colourful lights used to be those old-fashioned glass indoor tree lights, the large ones, because I could never get into mini-lights on an indoor tree. I was finally prepared to consider a change the Christmas before last when the old-fashioned glass lights burned four neat holes in the arm of our couch, which was touching the tree.

Now we have the coloured LED lights, which I think look just as nice but stay cooler and are supposed to be more energy-efficient, so what's not to like about that?

A Quest Completed

2006-12-16T21:59:00.000-03:30

Hey look! It's the third week in Advent and the beginning of Hannukah! Because we can never have enough winter festivals that involve lighting things on fire ... we need to borrow some from other religions. (Next: The Yule Log).

OK, honestly, we don't celebrate Hannukah. But the kids learned about it in school and we did have this very nice menorah, and through a process too completed to explain right now I came into possession of some dreidls, so ... we decided to learn a little bit about it this weekend. We even spun the dreidl and played the game.

Meanwhile, back on the Nativity shelf ... it's getting crowded. Everybody's standing around as if they're expecting something to happen ... which, of course, is the whole point of Advent.

This has been a very Christmassy weekend so far. We did a Christmas-themed Children's Church program today, which as always involved a lot of preparation and work but was enjoyed by all, which makes it worth doing. This afternoon we were supposed to go carolling but got rained out -- our spirits may be Christmassy but the weather is not at all. This evening Jason and I took the kids on their annual Christmas shopping trip, where we split up into teams (boys vs girls) and power-shop for each other for about an hour, then meet up for hot chocolate at (where else?) Starbucks afterwards.

Following that, we went on a quest to find two trees -- inside and outside -- in the dark. With $20 in my back pocket. My need to pay no more than $10 for a fresh-cut Christmas tree has gone from being a preference to being a full-blown obsession. This year the cheap lots were harder to find and we drove around in the dark for some time while Jason (bless him for putting up with such a cheapskate for a wife) tried to gently talk me into the possibility that we might have to spent up to $15 for a tree.

Then I saw it ... the magical sign, spray-painted by hand on a piece of plywood in someone's front yard on Blackmarsh Road: "TREES $10." My joy knew no bounds. (It was actually a place we'd bought from in the past, and if we'd remembered it sooner we would have saved a lot of driving around.) After a gruelling two minutes spent selecting the perfect trees (I'm not picky, just cheap) Jason lashed them to the top of the van and we drove home, where he is even now stringing lights on the indoor tree while the children nestle all snug in their beds, looking forward to getting up and decorating the tree tomorrow.

Christmas Concert, The First

2006-12-14T07:23:00.000-03:30

I am so fully in proud-Mama mode now that Christmas concert season has started, it's hard to get any sense out of me. We went to Chris' concert last night. His school has separate concerts for Grades 2-6 and Kindergarten/Gr. 1, so we get to do the concert thing twice this year. The tradition for the Grades 2-6 concert seems to be (based on two years of attending) that the Grade 6 Drama group does a musical play with backup from the Grades 4-6 choir, while the third-graders do a Nativity pageant that gets inserted somewhere into the play (no matter what the play's about). Christopher reprised the role of Joseph which he perfected back when he was in Kindergarten, and I don't mind saying that I thought he did a fabulous job. He has such a lovely clear voice both for singing and speaking, he learns lines effortlessly, he looks great in a Biblical costume ...

Oh, about the costume: for weeks Christopher had been bringing home notes from school saying that all Grade 3 boys needed to wear dark pants, a white turtleneck top, a bathrobe and a towel for their heads. I assembled this costume but noted that Christopher had no bathrobe that fit him anymore -- the only child's bathrobe we have is a Size 4 one that both Chris and Emma have worn and outgrown. Great opportunity to buy them both a new bathrobe! I thought, and ended up getting them at Sears where they were almost $25 each. (That's right, I spent $50 on new bathrobes, because you can't buy a new bathrobe for just one kid, can you?)

Then we arrived at school last night, Chris all decked out in costume, to be told by the teacher: "Oh, Chris doesn't need the bathrobe and towel. We have a special costume for Joseph. Didn't he tell you?" Um, no. But now he has a nice new bathrobe.

The accompanying picture is the best I could do with our camera at a distance ... it will give a sense of the occasion, albeit an out-of-focus sense. Expect a similarly gushy motherly post next week when we go to Emma's concert!

10 x 10

2006-12-10T15:59:00.000-03:30

Here it is. My 100th post. The burden of being meaningful and significant weighs heavily upon me.

Although there's no reason why it should, as no-one other than myself is likely to know it's my 100th, or attach any expectations to that. But, in the words of my favourite Ashleigh Brilliant saying: "Lord, give me strength to meet this self-imposed and totally unnecessary challenge."

I have borrowed an idea I've seen here and there about the blogosphere and decided to commemorate Hypergraffiti's 100th post by posting 10 lists of my Top 10 ... whatever. The challenge will be to keep this short and pithy, and refrain from commenting on and explaining each list and each choice on each list at length. After all, I do want at least two or three people keep reading to the bottom of the post.

To begin:

List #1: 10 Books that Have Changed My Life (in roughly chronological order of reading)
I don't think I could do a list of "favourite" books because there are too many, so I'm trying to select those that have had the most profound impact on the person I've become and the way I see the world -- mostly fiction, but a few nonfiction have crept in there.
1. The Bible -- specifically the J.B. Philips translation of the New Testament
2. Kate, by Jean Little
3. Mindy, by June Strong
4. Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
5. Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L. Sayers
6. The Last Convertible, by Anton Myrer
7. The Diviners, by Margaret Laurence
8. Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay
9. Gospel, by Wilton Barnhardt
10. The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions by N.T. Wright and Marcus Borg

List #2: 10 Movies I Would Gladly See Again and Again (in no particular order at all)
I'm sorry, I'm not a film buff, so none of these are "great films" by movie-people standards. Just mainstream Hollywood movies I have known and loved over the years.
1. The Princess Bride
2. Good Will Hunting
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
6. Crash
7. Galaxy Quest
8. Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail
9. Nothing in Common
10. The Sure Thing

List #3: 10 Days of My Life I'd Like to Relive (chronological order)
1. An afternoon at Hodgewater with my parents, late 70s, when we canoed over to the other side of Hodgewater Pond and saw a beaver lodge. The evening probably ended with my dad playing guitar and us singing by the fire in the cabin, so it would be a great day to relive.
2. Almost any Sabbath and Saturday night at Andrews University between 1983-1986. Even Saturday nights when I was breaking my heart because the guy I loved was out with some other girl ... I'd go back and relive those, too. I was growing up, I was with some of the best friends I've ever had, I was completely alive. Actually, I'd relive any day at Andrews, in a heartbeat, and change nothing.
3. Any day of the camping trip to Lake Simcoe in 1990 with Jamie, Ted, Jerry/Scott, Kirsten and Cathy.
4. The trip to Quebec City with Jason and the Pathfinders in 1991, but without getting violently stomach-sick (although re-living it that way would remove one of the most romantic moments of my life, when Jason carried my bag of vomit and I knew he was The One. Still would be nice to actually see Quebec City though).
5. August 1, 1995 -- the day Jason and I bought our house.
6. August 20, 1995 -- wedding day. Yes, it was fun and I would actually like to relive it -- we managed to make it fairly low-stress, and there were beautiful moments with family and friends.
7. January 24, 1998 -- about four days after Christopher was born. Those first days with a newborn were a little scary, but by the weekend the post-partum blues were gone, my milk had come in, and I relaxed and started to enjoy having my own little person to play with.
8. April 4, 2000 -- the day Emma was born. A much easier birth than Chris's, and I was much more prepared, so this was actually a great day, and I only spent about 4 hours of it in labour.
9. The day we spent tubing on a river in Tennessee, summer 2002
10. Any day on the houseboat in England, summer 2006. Preferably the day with the least locks.

List #4: 10 Dead People I'd Like to Have Lunch With (chronological order)
Comment: These could be ten separate lunches, but it also might be fun to group them. I'd like to have the first three at the table together, for example. All ten at once would be chaotic, though.
1. Jesus (OK, not strictly dead, as I do believe in the resurrection, but not readily available for lunch at the moment)
2. St. Paul (I have some questions for him)
3. Julian of Norwich
4. Queen Elizabeth I
5. Louis Riel
6. L.M. Montgomery
7. C.S. Lewis
8. Margaret Laurence
9. Peter Gzowski
10. Rich Mullins

List #5: 10 Living People I Might Actually Have Lunch With, but Haven't Had the Chance to For Awhile, or Ever
Friends who are far away, whom I haven't seen for years (and in one case haven't met at all except online). The first six are people I'm still in touch with; the last four I've lost touch with ... would love to sit down for lunch with each of these folks. No particular order to this list.
1. Kerry Schafer
2. Jamie Townsley
3. Catherine O'Brien Townsley
4. Sharon Fleshman
5. Katrina Stonoff
6. Linda Paulson Ramos
7. Roseanna Elton
8. Allan Paul
9. Grace Marks
10. Kurt Gillen

List #6: 10 Places I've Been Before That I'd Like to Visit Again
1. Dominica
2. Eastport, Newfoundland
3. London, England
4. Any portion of the Grand Union Canal, England
5. Florence
6. Venice
7. Athens
8. The place in Tennessee where we went tubing on the river
9. Brooklyn, New York
10. Williamsburg, Virginia

List #7: 10 Places I've Never Been That I'd Like to Visit
1. Hawaii
2. Rome
3. Anyplace in the South of France
4. Australia
5. Any South Pacific Island
6. Africa -- any part
7. India
8. New Orleans
9. The Alhambra
10. Egypt

List #8: 10 Songs I Would Put on the Only CD I Could Take to a Desert Island With Me
This is even tougher than the books. The criteria has to be songs I deeply love ... which could easily be 100 ... that I wouldn't get tired of. And each would have to carry some kind of message that would sustain me on my desert island. This is my best list, but I'm kicking myself for stuff I've left off.
1. John Cale, Hallelujah
2. Bruce Guthro, Walk This Road
3. Rich Mullins, Hold Me Jesus
4. Bruce Springsteen, The River
5. Lone Justice, The Gift
6. Fernando Ortega & Amy Grant, I Will Arise and Go to Jesus
7. Bob Seger, Against the Wind
8. Great Big Sea, A Boat Like Gideon Brown
9. Garth Brooks, The Dance
10. Steve Taylor, The Finish Line

List #9: 10 Items of Clothing I Have Loved
This is tough for a different reason -- unlike the books and the songs, I'm hardpressed to think of 10 items of clothing I've really loved. But the very few things I've ever really liked, I have liked a lot.
1. The corduroy skirt I'm wearing in my Grade Five school picture.
2. The pink-and-blue striped rugby-style sweatshirt, 1985.
3. Same style sweatshirt, peach and gray stripes, circa 1990.
4. Light denim jacket with floral insets on the shoulders, 1987-1997, probably.
5. Peach lace snakers bought in Oshawa in 1986 after a very depressing day teaching.
6. Bright red, very short dress with gold buttons bought at Fairweather in St. John's in 1990, which never looked as good on me as I thought it should but which I loved anyway.
7. Black and floral-print dress worn in Alberta in 1992 (and for some years after).
8. Cream-coloured slip dress with tapestry jacket, also worn in Alberta 1992 and for years afterwards.
9. Second-hand brown leather jacket bought three years ago at Previously Loved.
10. Riders mid-rise jeans from WalMart, size 12L, which I am wearing at this very moment. Most comfortable jeans I've ever owned, and the cheapest too -- I own three identical pairs, and if WalMart stops carrying them my life is pretty much over.

List #10: 10 People Who Have Influenced Me, Excluding the Obvious
This is another difficult list, as is any list that names individuals (i.e., I wouldn't list "My Ten Best Friends" for fear of hurting my eleventh and twelfth-best friends, and who really ranks their friends anyway?). I'm going for mentor-type connections here, people I have sort of looked up to, but I am excluding my Mom, Dad and Aunt Gertie because it goes without saying that your immediate family should get a free pass -- obviously all that I am or hope to be I owe to those three people. Ten others (there are far more than ten) who helped make me The Woman I Am Today...
1. Bernice Morgan, my aunt
2. Joyce Griffiths, Grade 4 teacher
3. John Janes, Jr., high school history teacher
4. Mary Barry, 1st year university professor at MUN
5. Valerie Phillips, women's dorm dean at Andrews
6. Meredith Jones, English professor at Andrews
7. Bruce Ronk, likewise, and also my boss for 2 years when I worked as a student in the English Dept.
8. Penny Estes Wheeler, my first editor at R&H and lifelong encourager
9. Glenda-Mae Greene, registrar at Kingsway College where I first taught
10. Ann McCann, on-site supervisor for my counselling internship and now my co-worker & friend.

That's it, folks. Now you know 100 things that are important to me. I've kept it as succinct as I can (which, as always, is not very) and if you require any clarification, or you want to say "Hey, me too!" or "You like that? Ick!" please put your comments ... well, in the comments.

Sometimes it's not that I have nothing to say...

2006-12-08T17:31:00.000-03:30

...it's having too much to say, that holds me back from blogging. As with this week.

Not that I had anything signficant or meaningful to say. Just a bunch of small things cluttering the surface of my mind, as envelopes and papers might (and, indeed, do) clutter the surface of my desk. Also, I had some pictures I wanted to post and didn't get around to until tonight, so I'm sorry ... I've been a slow blogger this week. I'm always frustrated when people don't update regularly enough, but this week, I'm one of those people. I can't even claim to be busy because this week was MUCH less busy than those weeks in November when I was NaNo-ing. Just didn't get around to it.

One thing I did get around to, though it's still a work in progress, was updating Compulsive Overreader with reviews of the books I've read over the past month or two but didn't have time to review. I've added a few new ones, and will be adding more over the next few days, so check it out!

Jason also got around to something this week. It involved bathroom repair. We have this bathroom that has been the bane of our existence since we bought our 60-year-old house eleven years ago. The bathroom is the only room we haven't redecorated -- it still has the shabby, peeling heinous blood-red paint that so horrified us when we moved in, we thought it was going to be the first thing we'd fix. Problem with the bathroom is that the things we need to change, and our visions of how we'd like that room to look, are so extensive that we can't touch one thing without the whole project unravelling into something that, frankly, we can't afford right now. So we've done nothing about it (except complain of course).

One of the few fixtures we like in the bathroom is a lovely old-fashioned pedestal sink. Unfortunately this sink was also cursed with unlovely old-fashioned separate taps, so that we could only get very cold or very hot water, and we were never able to mix them to an appropriate warm temperature for hand-washing. We agreed that "someday" we would get attractive taps that would look good with our basin and meet in the middle with a single spigot ... but it's taken 11 years to get to that point. A few weeks ago one of the taps was dripping and Jason said as long as he was going to fix it, why not get the taps we've always wanted? So with much grunting, muttering and hacksawing last night, he got the old taps off and the new ones installed. You can see from the photo how badly the wall behind the sink is in need of paint, but at least we were able to get this one, small manageable project done, and I'm happy as a clam with our new taps.

Emma got around to something this week -- she finally lost her second front tooth which has been dangling for the longest time. Sadly, the catalyst for this tooth loss was that she got hit in the face by a tetherball at school, but it did the trick -- later that night her tooth came out. I have always wanted a child with two front teeth out at the same time ... and to have it happen at Christmas so I can sing that annoying song to her over and over again ... well, it's just a gift.

Here's a picture. She's a lot cuter than the sink.

Speaking of kids, we had parent-teacher meetings this week. Apparently both kids are doing well at school. In fact, in one case, the teacher seems to be eliciting much better behavior from the child than we are getting at home, which is ... humbling, I guess. I mean, I wish we could get the same sunny disposition and ready obedience at home that this child appears to be producing at school, but at the same time, I don't underestimate how lucky I am to have kids who are doing OK in school both academically and socially. I know that that's a blessing not to be taken lightly.

Something I wanted to put a picture of in here today was the old white coffee table that I hauled into my office at work this week, because today it underwent an artistic transformation and that deserves to be documented. But that picture and story will have to be saved for another day, because I forgot to bring my camera to work today. I will, however, tell you a story that is sort of about work:

Last night I dreamed that I was -- pretty much where I was two years ago. I mean, I was in the same position in my dream that I was then -- I was a former teacher who had been staying at home, raising kids and freelance writing, for seven years, and I had just completed a Master's in Counselling Psychology. In the dream I was trying to figure out what to do next, career-wise. I had the option of staying home to write full-time while the kids were in school, but I knew that wasn't what I really wanted. I was offered several jobs in my dream (unlike in real life) -- one was an academic position, and I knew that that wasn't the life I wanted to pursue. Then there was a position in a school, either teacher or guidance counsellor, and I remember thinking, "This isn't right either." In the dream I had a lost feeling, wandering around rejecting options, not knowing what I wanted but just knowing that nothing felt right, that somewhere out there was a missing piece.

Then I woke up and my first thought was, "I have a job. I work at The Murphy Centre."

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you dream the person you love most is dead or gone from you, and in your dream you experience terror and grief and loss, and then you wake to find that person lying safe in bed next to you? And you're overwhelmed with relief and joy at your real life? I've had those dreams. And I have to say that waking up this morning, after the dream I had, and remembering where I worked was almost that good a feeling. The feeling that I've found my missing piece.

It's a funny old world where you have to feel apologetic about being happy and content, but sometimes I do feel that way, just because so many people (including many of those I love) aren't so happy and content with their lives. But I do have to pause and give thanks now and then for being the luckiest, or most blessed (pick your theology) woman I can imagine being.

This is my 99th blog post. I am trying to think of something cool to do for my 100th. Watch this space for developments.

Society of Strident Women

2006-12-03T20:21:00.000-03:30

Today I threw myself a little small party to celebrate finishing (yes, actually finishing) the draft of my NaNovel. I invited five literary women friends for coffee at Starbucks/Chapters, also known as the Sacred Temple to the Triune Goddesses of Coffee, Chocolate and Books. Since I probably wrote about 50K of my 80K total wordcount at Chapters, it seemed appropriate to celebrate there.

Gathered for the event were: Natalie (also a NaNo winner), Lori, Tina, Jennifer, and Christine who sweetly brought my flowers to celebrate. I hand-picked all these friends, even though they didn't all know each other, as the women writers I'd most like to party with, and as a group we clicked so well that we enjoyed two solid hours of non-stop conversation about books, plays, work, feminism, and husbands who don't socialize on their own. We have already discussed the possibility of meeting on a regular basis under the name (suggested by Lori) "Society of Strident Women."

Thanks to all the lovely strident women for making my post-NaNo party so much fun! And thanks to the Starbucks patron otherwise known as Table Guy for giving us his extra chair, then his table, and finally for taking our pictures!

Just a reminder to all my lovely readers: Blogs are like little flowers. Just as little flowers need sunshine and rain to flourish, blogs need comments (because bloggers are emotionally needy people who demand constant feedback to validate their own existance). Isn't it sad if a little flower withers and dies because it doesn't get enough sun and rain? Don't let a little flower die ... don't let a little blog wither and perish. Leave a comment ...

TGIA

2006-12-02T16:52:00.000-03:30

November is over, NaNoWriMo is over. Christmas is three weeks away.

Thank God it's Advent.

I won't take up space here on my blog with a length digression into why a good Adventist girl like me observes the seasons of the liturgical year -- if you have the faintest semblance of curiosity about that, read this article I wrote on the subject (for which I never got paid the amount promised, but that's OK, because writing it was a useful clarifying experience for me).

Let's just say that I like the idea of rhythms in time, rhythms and seasons that help to shape my spiritual, personal and family life.

I probably started observing Advent about the same time I started doing NaNoWriMo -- perhaps not a coincidence. November is already a busy month, even more so if you add writing 50,000+ words of fiction into the mix. I like to get Christmas shopping done before the end of November to avoid the madness of Retail Christmas in the stores and malls. If I want to remove myself from the hectic Santanic pace of the December shopping frenzy then it helps to get these chores out of the way early, so I can enjoy lots of quality time at home by the fireplace in December.

Also, these last two years I have found November to be an emotionally tiring month at work. Our students start in September with high hopes and good intentions, but by late October the same issues that kept them from finishing high school in the first place are beginning to reassert themselves and November sees a lot of them struggling with attendance, struggling to stay in school, dealing with problems that sometimes seem overwhelming even to me. November, for various reasons, requires a lot of me.

I also end up sacrificing a lot of sensible things in November -- things like enough sleep, exercise, and prayer. Part of the discipline of Advent, for me, is re-introducing those things into my life.

Mostly, though, Advent is about waiting, and I am trying to practice it at home so that the children will have a chance of learning that some things are worth waiting for -- not just presents under the tree on Christmas morning, but the incarnational Presence of Christ in our world and in our lives.

On Friday night we lit the first candle in our Advent wreath. The animals from our Nativity scene were hidden around the room and placed on their shelf as the children found them (Christopher told me they weren't hidden well enough, so I will have to do better with the shepherds next weekend). Gradually, we begin to move towards Christmas and its season of celebration. Now we are in Advent, which (ideally) is a time of silence, and simplicity, and waiting.

It's impossible to really keep it that way, of course, in a world dedicated to the belief that Christmas is a hopping, shopping, non-stopping frenzy that begins the day after Hallowe'en. Even I, as you saw from my last blog, bow to the necessity of decorating the workplace for Christmas on December 1. Retail Christmas is the reality of our society and it can't be entirely denied or ignored.

But I can try. While I clear away the shelves that hold the Advent wreath and the Nativity scene, I can clear away little spaces in the corners of my life, for this short reflective season between the busyness of November and the bustle of Christmas. Lighting the first Advent candle always makes me happy, makes me feel a sense of quiet which is badly needed in my busy life.

Whatever and however you celebrate in December, I hope it will be a time when busyness is at least equally balanced with peace, joy and hopeful expectation in your home.

Decorating Day

2006-12-01T23:07:00.000-03:30

Today was our annual Decorating Day at school, where we suspend classes and decorate the building. It was a very different experience than it's been during the previous two Christmases I've been there. First, we're now decorating a long, institutional-style hallway with classrooms on either side rather than a beautiful but cavernous three-story building -- that requires some changes to decorating style.

The bigger change, though, was in how we promoted it. I don't know how The Murphy Centre has done Decorating Day in past years but during the last two years we sprang it on students as a surprise, only telling them when they arrived that morning that classes were cancelled. Our students' attendance is so bad anyway that we figured advance warning would lead to almost no-one showing up for a non-required extracurricular day.

The "Surprise, it's Decorating Day!" approach led to one of three responses:

1) People arriving who were anxious to get some work done, getting very angry because they'd come "for nothing."

2) People arriving and immediately leaving because, "Hey, we've got the day off!"

3) A handful of eager people -- three or four -- staying to help the staff decorate.

This year we decided to be a little more true to our philosophy of empowerment, dignity and respect, and warn people in advance. But we tried to make it as attractive as possible with a personal hand-delivered invitation for each student and promises of hot chocolate and pizza for lunch for those who came to help.

This year's strategy was a great success. We ended up with a crew of about 15 students who really wanted to help decorate and were enthused and having fun. There was a great spirit and the place looked terrific by lunchtime. And I did my usual Decorating Day routine of wandering vaguely from place to place watching and commenting on what people were doing, trying to vary my movements enough that nobody would notice I was doing no actual decorating. I love the Christmassy mood and team spirit of Decorating Day -- I just don't like the actual work part, with stringing the lights and hanging things up.

SSP and Book News

2006-11-30T21:15:00.000-03:30

Time for a little more Shameless Self-Promotion, although at least this is group promotion and not individual. The anthology A Charm Against the Pain has just been released by Flanker Press and is now available. This is an anthology of work by present and past members of the Newfoundland Writers' Guild, the group that has nurtured and nourished me as a writer ever since I were but a wee lass. There's a grand collection of prose and poetry in here by the likes of Helen Porter, Lillian Bouzane, Bernice Morgan, Janet McNaughton, Jennifer Morgan, and many many more. What a nice Christmas gift this would make for you or someone on your list!

There are also two short stories by Yours Tru(d)y. The select few of you who have read the draft version of my novel Prone to Wander may be interested in these two stories because they are sort of forerunners of the novel -- they are stories I wrote several years ago while I was playing with a group of characters in my mind. Those characters, some of them under different names and with slightly different resumes, eventually became the lead characters in Prone to Wander, so if you're wondering when that will ever be published and want something to do while you wait, you may want to read "Through a Glass Darkly" and "Ten Thousand Years" in A Charm Against the Pain.

Charm will be officially launched Monday evening, December 4, from 5-7 p.m. at Bianca's in downtown St. John's, by far the classiest location for any book launch I've ever been involved with. I will be one of several writers reading a little piece of my work at the launch, so if you're in the area do drop in!

In other writerly news, NaNoWriMo ends at midnight tonight. I have written a total of 69,837 words since 12:01 a.m. on Nov. 1, and I now have a very-nearly-finished rough draft of a (short) work of inspirational women's fiction, tentatively titled Sunrise Hope. As such, I am entitled to flaunt this:

Congrats to all fellow NaNo'ers for giving it your best shot, whatever the final word count was! And don't stop writing just because November is over (but you can slow down a little).

Happy Birthday, Dad

2006-11-28T07:08:00.000-03:30

I really meant to post this yesterday, which was my dad's birthday, but the day got away from me. I mentioned awhile ago that some of my time this month had been absorbed with a project which I couldn't blog about due to secrecy concerns. The project was a memory scrapbook for my dad's 70th, full of pictures and tributes from family and friends. It did take up a lot of time but I loved doing it -- I am a bit obsessive about archiving photos and memories; I hate to think of pictures and stories being lost in the mists of time, which is why, despite my utter lack of artistic or crafty skills, I do the odd bit of scrapbooking (I made a similar scrapbook for my mom on a significant birthday a few years back).

Anyway, since it was a big important birthday and my dad is an important person in my life, I thought I'd dedicate a blog entry to him and reproduce here the first page of the scrapbook, and the tribute that I wrote for him in the book.

My earliest memories of my Dad are of him playing the guitar and singing. It seemed like music was a constant background to life in our house when I was a child. I remember listening to and learning from his vast repertoire of songs, which ranged from hymns to old love songs to a wide variety of silly songs. The fact that I inherited my Dad’s love for music without inheriting his excellent singing voice has always been a great sorrow to me, but at least I know where the roots of my lifelong love of music lie!

The “silly songs” included novelty classics such as Alan Sherman’s “Camp Granada.” I remember how excited I was years later, during my college days, when in a second-hand record store I found a copy of Sherman’s album “My Son the Folksinger” and bought it as a gift for my dad. Nowadays we’d just go online and find the album, but back then something like that was a real discovery and I was proud to be able to give it to him!

Other “silly songs” were not originally intended to be silly, but became that way under my father’s unique treatment. It was years before I learned that the old song did not go:

“Cab driver, drive by Mary’s place,
I just want to throw this pie into her face.”

I suspected, however, that there was something amiss with the Christmas carol that began,

“Watch that torch, Jeannette, Isabella,
You’ll burn the house down around our ears.
Call up the man at the fire insurance,
We’ll have a new address this Christmas.
Hush! Hush! Don’t tell him how it happened,
Hush! Hush! Don’t breathe a single word!”

And of course, what Christmas would be complete without a rendition of,

“Don we now our gay apparel, fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la,
You kiss Charlie, I’ll kiss Harold, fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!”

After all these years it is sometimes difficult to remember the correct versions of songs. In church recently we rose to sing “At the Cross, at the Cross” and I turned to my dad to mouth the words, “At the Bar, At the Bar, Where I Smoked My First Cigar…”

Musical evenings with my father were usually pleasant times except when my parents conspired to make me cry. I was a hard-hearted child who was not moved by tales of human sorrow, but my folks learned quickly that any song featuring a dead dog could make me cry. Just a few bars of my dad singing, “Old Shep Has a Wonderful Home,” or “Why Don’t You Send My Dog Home, Uncle Sam?” could send me running from the room in tears, accompanied by gales of parental laughter. As with my parents’ favourite trick of removing the head from my toy lamb “Poor Sin,” this was all done in a spirit of love … I think.

Dad knew how to make everything fun and I learned early on that having a good sense of humour was one of the most valuable qualities a person could have. I remember him reading my Sabbath School lessons to me on Friday nights and making jokes out of all the stories so that I giggled all the way through it. Of course, this is the same parent who answered my question, “What is a Rhodes Scholar?” by saying, “Someone who pays their way through school by working on the roads in the summer.” I quickly learned to take many things my father told me with a grain of salt.

His sense of humour stood me in good stead throughout my adolescence as Dad usually saw the funny side of things. The gargantuan task of teaching me to drive fell to him and I vividly remember rolling gently past a stop sign with my father in the passenger’s seat chanting, “Brake! Brake! … Break on thy cold grey stones, O Sea, and O that my heart could utter, the thoughts that arise in me!” I’m sure there were many thoughts arising at that time that he didn’t utter. Fortunately for me he always kept it light. I can probably only remember my Dad being angry at me once or twice in my entire life, and it was always short-lived.

The fact that he could quote Tennyson while I ran a red light was typical not only of his patience and humour but also of his love of literature, books and reading which made my family an excellent one for a writer to grow up in. At a gathering of writers recently some of the other people present were talking about how various family members didn’t understand or appreciate their ambition to become a writer. When they asked about my experience I replied that in my family – of printers, English teachers, and avid readers – becoming a writer seemed like a perfectly natural career choice! I’ve often wished more of my Dad’s stories were written down and I was very pleased a few years ago when he released the very-limited-edition “Don’s Dissertations” which gathered together some of the short pieces he had written as Superintendent’s Remarks during his years as a Sabbath School Superintendent.

As my Dad and Mom approach 45 years of marriage next year I am deeply impressed by the example they have shown me of a lifelong relationship between two people who are there for each other no matter what. One of my greatest hopes is that in 30 years Jason and I will still be best friends the way Mom and Dad are.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the stories I could tell, but I am grateful to my father for the heritage of music, books, faith, love and (especially) laughter that has shaped my whole life and that I hope to pass on to the next generation! Jason and I wish you every happiness, Dad, on your 70th birthday and many more wonderful years.

Cute Kid Moments

2006-11-26T22:52:00.000-03:30

Just a brief entry for tonight ... I had to share two kid-funnies from today.

We went to watch the Santa Claus parade this afternoon. At one point a limo drove by with the sunroof open on top and, sitting up in it, three young ladies in the garb of beauty-pageant winners -- gowns, furs, tiaras -- waving at the crowd. Emma, who obviously knew what she was seeing even if she couldn't remember the proper terminology, shouted, "Oohh, look Mommy! Drama Queens!"

We were all out to supper tonight at a very nice restaurant to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday with a whole lot of the family. Since we have had some quite harrowing restaurant experiences recently I drilled the kids before going on the importance of good behavior, seeing that this was Grampa's special night and the venue was not particularly family-friendly. Well, they both behaved like little angels (in my humble motherly opinion) and I made sure to tell them so afterwards. "You were both nice and quiet, spoke pleasantly to the grown-ups, and used good table manners," I said as soon as we got out of the car. "I was very proud of you both."

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen," Christopher said, "You've been a wonderful audience!"

50K

2006-11-24T07:15:00.000-03:30

Last night at 12 midnight I uploaded the writing I did on the laptop yesterday, onto our main computer where my NaNovel is stored. I did a word count and discovered that I was at 49,454 words.

Obviously I couldn't go to sleep with that situation ongoing.

So I stayed up till 12:30 and wrote another 500 words, just so I could post on the NaNo forums and see that green status bar next to my name indicating that I had officially completed the 50,000 word goal of NaNoWriMo.

I'm not finished yet, because my goal originally was to have a complete first draft of this novel by the end of November. It needs to be more like about 90K, and I don't see myself writing 40K in the next week, but I do want to get closer to having a completed book, so I'm going to push onwards. But there is a nice sense of accomplishment in knowing that, for the fourth year in a row, I have "won" NaNoWriMo. What that actually means to me is that in a life that is crowded on all sides by committment and responsibilities, where my own creative writing usually sinks to the bottom of any To-Do list, for the month of November I can manage to make it a high enough priority to produce at least 50,000 words of fiction. And if I can do that much in November, I can keep doing a little all year long.

And, my writerly friends (because I know some of my friends are writerly) -- even if you didn't do NaNo, even if you did NaNo but didn't complete it, my message to you is: You can do the same. You can make a little time every day to write; you can say "My writing is important, even if I am a busy mom/dad/university student/teacher/engineer/cubicle drone ... and I will make time to do it."

And then you just do it.

Here endeth the lesson. I'm now going to get dressed (it's 7:15 a.m.) and go dance in the streets to celebrate passing the 50K line.

Beautiful Things

2006-11-21T19:50:00.000-03:30

Big news du jour: I got a couch in my office/classroom at work!!

This came about because my friend Darryl is getting rid of what he refers to as his "old life stuff." I think it might be more accurate to replace a letter there and call it his "old wife stuff" but whatever; the bottom line is he is recorating, renovating and donating. And the Murphy Centre benefits.

As my commitment to making my workspace cozy, inviting and homelike knows no bounds, I was ridiculously excited by this acquisition and spent all day taking pictures of my students enjoying the new couch. After I revealed to them the circumstances under which I got it they have all taken to calling it the "Divorce Couch."

I really thought getting the couch was going to be the biggest thing in my life today and I was going to blog just about that. But as I left work I saw the most amazing, vivid and gorgeous rainbow. And I hate to be all twelve and everything, but I still love rainbows. This one was a complete half-circle stretching from the roof of the CONA building over to Pleasantville, and the Pleasantville end of it just glowed. As I drove home I saw that the rainbow had acquired a faint echo and was actually a double rainbow.

I tried to capture the moment with a few pictures, but I think that rainbows are among those things in life that are best enjoyed in the moment, because photography can never do them justice.

The same, of course, may be true for couches.

The only downside to my rainbowy, couch-tastic day was that I haven't added any more words to my NaNo total because, when I haven't been dancing about celebrating the simple joys of life, I've been very busy with two other projects. (Apart from my ongoing projects of parenting and teaching). One is a paying freelance job, and one is ... top-secret and time-sensitive. I'm sorry, I can't tell you anymore about it right now because then I'd have to kill you. So just take my word for it that my NaNo total is staying static at 45,695 for today, and bask in the rainbows and Divorce Couches life brings your way.

45K and Pressing Forward...

2006-11-21T00:04:00.000-03:30

After my last post filled with stress, angst, and spousal dishwashing, things took a turn for the much-better. If Saturday was one of those days when parenting seemed like too much of a challenge even for me (!), Sunday was the kind of family day where I wouldn't consider selling the kids even the circus was paying top dollar.

This might be because we had a complete Day of Fun Activities planned for them. But I doubt it, because as any parent knows, it's entirely possible to plan a Day of Fun Activities and have it turn out like a real family Bataan Death March if even one person is in a bad mood.

But this Sunday, nobody was in a bad mood, and we started off with family swim at the Aquarena. Christopher and I got lots of trips down the waterslide. Emma got to show off her swimming skills. At one point she wanted me to stand with my legs apart so she could swim between them underwater. "Watch in amazement!" she commanded Jason. Apparently it's not enough just to watch -- you must watch in amazement.

In the afternoon we went to see Flushed Away. This movie has been getting very mediocre reviews but I honestly don't know why. I enjoyed every minute and Jason & the kids did too -- it's smart, sweet and funny, which is exactly what I look for in a kids' movie, and I think it compares favourably to the rest of the movies both Aardman and Dreamworks have produced. Liked the movie; loved the singing slugs. Plus, combined with the actors' English accents, all the scenes of Roddy ineptly piloting the Jammy Dodger through the sewers reminded me vividly of our vacation this summer and my own attempts to steer a canal boat through the locks.

One interesting bonus to the movie was that before it started, when the previews began, it quickly became obvious that they were showing previews inappropriate to a kids' movie. They started with Stranger than Fiction, which was odd and random but OK, but then they showed a movie for something called Alpha Dogs, clearly a violent and disturbing movie, and parents started to voice loud concerns while shielding their children's eyes. The theatre staff showed up by the third preview to apologize -- they had accidentally put the reel for The Prestige on instead. We had to wait awhile for the proper movie to start, and out of concern for our inconvenience, not to mention our traumatized children, they gave us all free movie passes and concession discount coupons on the way out. Gee, that was almost worth having my six-year-old watch the preview for Alpha Dogs.

With all that action and excitement I did not get my usual writing trip to Chapters on Sunday afternoon, but I have been working hard to make up the slack and hit 45K this evening -- and am gradually thinking my story is salvageable. So all's well on the home front and the NaNo front, and now I really need to get some sleep!

Hi! From the Crazy Place!

2006-11-18T17:14:00.000-03:30

Actually I am not now in the Crazy Place. I was there earlier today, but I am on my way back now, driving slowly and enjoying the scenery.

The last few days (or were they weeks?) have been a little, ahem, challenging, from a parenting perspective. And since, as I pointed out some time ago, my children have reached the age where they don't enjoy having their crimes and misdemeanours blogged about in detail, let me just say that those of you who have kids will recognize that "challenging" is code for: "Mommy is calling Social Services, the Gypsies, and the Circus, and whoever gets here first with booster seats in their van can have the two of you."

Today I invited my mom for lunch after church (my dad is out of town) and then, to make it even more fun, I invited Sherry and Aunt Gertie. They are all very good company and they were gracious and pleasant and well-behaved. Which is more than I can say for all the people who live in the house.

Once the company had gone I wanted us to go out for a walk. Yesterday and today we have tumbled into a sort of Indian summer, or something -- totally unseasonal temperatures in the mid-teens with sunny skies and soft southwest breezes. Obviously I didn't want to miss this. But our walk had to be delayed for yet another round of sibling squibbling (Little Sister: "OK, I'm going to dance. But don't anyone laugh at me!" Big Brother: "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!" Little Sister: "Aaaiiiiieeeeeeeebooohooohooohoohooo SLAMS DOOR!")

We finally got out through the door with about half an hour to go before sunset. We walked Max to the nearby playground and the kids took their bikes for what I told them would probably be the last bike ride of 2006 (as I am confidently expecting snow any minute now). Then we went out to rent a movie for the kids for later tonight (I succumbed to Sherry's earnest entreaties to abandon my family and go watch Stranger Than Fiction again with her this evening).

We are now back home, the kids are playing quietly (and separately) with no yelling or death-threats. Best of all, Jason is down in the kitchen where he has spontaneously decided to clear the dishwasher and reload it with all the dirty dishes from our lunch today. He does this while listening to his "Jason's 80s" CD at top volume, so I am blogging to the music of Billy Idol (accompanied by Jason) singing "Rebel Yell," with a percussion section of clinking cutlery. What a splendid husband. Rinsing, scraping, putting away dishes: I now know just what Billy Idol was doing that made that girl yell: "More! More! More!"

Ahhh yes, serenity is attainable. For minutes at a time.

NaNoWriMo, Day 16 ... on the downhill stretch

2006-11-16T09:36:00.000-03:30

Nov. 16, Day 16: 36,106 words.

Sounds good eh?

And I actually like my story and my characters. Unfortunately, I'm consumed by authorial self-doubt about this project, more than almost anything I've ever written. Sure, I like it -- but I'm convinced everyone else will think it's dull. My story has no plot. My characters do nothing but sit around talking. My main character is a cipher, a passionless nonentity whose only purpose is to fall in love with the hero. I am the Dullest Writer Ever. What's the good of writing 36,106 words of boring, repetitive, meaningless drivel?

Worse yet, this self-doubt has bled over into ALL my writing. I am now convinced that EVERYTHING I write is horribly dull, that I never have any concept of plot, that I cannot write an interesting character or situation to save my life.

Clearly, some kind of NaNo-induced malaise has crawled out of my keyboard, up through my fingertips and permeated my brain. Or I just have the wrong channel of Radio KFKD playing inside my head. Don't worry, it's not serious and I'm sure it will go away. And there are probably some valuable lessons to be learned from this malaise. Such as: in the current novel, my heroine really is kind of bland. Largely because I haven't gotten to know her well enough. She needs to be more well-rounded as a character, and this will require lots of rewriting.

But I will think about that when November is over! For now, I'm past the half-way mark in the month, I'm past the halfway mark to the official NaNo goal of 50K words and well on my way to my own personal goal of having a complete first draft by the end of the month. And I am going to tune in to KFKD and turn up the OTHER channel, the wildly self-aggrandizing one which constantly plays how I am the greatest living writer and on which I am constantly being interviewed by Shelagh Rogers about my Governer General's Award and my Giller Prize. I'm turning up that channel REALLY LOUD, so if you want to tell me my novel's dull, La-La-La I can't hear you.

He Brought Her Flours!

2006-11-12T20:21:00.000-03:30

Last night Jason and I had our long-awaited night out to celebrate Jason's 42nd birthday. Yes, that's right, my wonderful husband is now 42. He, himself, now embodies the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. (If you didn't get that, don't worry about it).

My parents took the kids over night (blessings upon them) and we had supper at Boston Pizza and then went to see the movie Stranger Than Fiction.

I think I have a new favourite movie! I loved Stranger Than Fiction. I loved it passionately. It's the perfect film for a writer or reader or anyone who loves books. Not to give anymore away than the previews do (because you ARE going to see this film!!) but Will Ferrell plays (very well) a guy who discovers he is a character in writer Emma Thompson's novel ... and she's going to kill him off. It's a sweet romantic comedy but also a thought-provoking movie about writing and the responsibility writers have to their work, their characters, their readers and themselves.

I am toying with whether to kill anyone off in my current NaNo novel and this will make me take that decision much more seriously! I don't want any characters showing up on my doorstep begging me to spare their lives!

As for the NaNovel, after a nice long session at Starbucks with my laptop (and Natalie, and her laptop) this afternoon I am at 23,269 words and happy with my progress (though still secretly convinced that my novel is dull). (And that I use too many brackets). (But how many are "too many"?)

Remember...

2006-11-11T06:52:00.000-03:30

I have an undergraduate degree in History and I have taught Global Issues, Canadian Issues, and World History. I think I'm a pretty smart person. But I'm finding it harder and harder to understand the news.

This may be some kind of age-related brain decay. Or it may be that the news is actually getting harder to understand. Specifically, I have more and more trouble understand why forty-two Canadians (four of whom were Newfoundlanders) have been killed in Afghanistan, and what they were doing there in the first place.

Don't get me wrong; I'm no fan of the Taliban. Quite apart from their repressive attitude towards women and their other crimes against humanity, this was a regime that wouldn't allow people to listen to recorded music. That's a major atrocity in my books. If I were in Afghanistan I'd be glad to see the back of them. But it becomes more and more difficult for me to understand what's happening there and why it continues to cost the lives of young Canadians.

On Remembrance Day we wear a poppy to honour "those who died fighting for our freedom." We listen to "In Flanders Fields", a World War One poem by a Canadian poet which simulataneously evokes the tragedy of death in wartime, and urges its readers to continue the conflict.

I don't outright reject "Flanders Fields" but I think Remembrance Day ceremonies should also include readings of Siegfried Sassoon's "Suicide in the Trenches" and Wilfrid Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est." Just to round out the picture.

For a die-hard pacificst like me, Remembrance Day is a difficult holiday. I appreciate freedom; I feel great sorrow over people who've died in war. Yet I don't always believe you can draw straight lines between that freedom and those deaths. The main thing I remember on Remembrance Day is that, in the words of the great Eric Bogle, "a whole generation...was butchered and damned." And I wish a species as smart as humanity could figure out a better way to solve problems.

Yesterday, in the midst of getting all my Christmas shopping done in a three-hour period, I sat down at a coffee shop in the mall that has a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. Having nothing to read, I stared at the soundless TV while I ate my sandwich. While I was sitting there, they showed the names and photos of each of the 42 Canadians who have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002.

I have no family members or friends in the armed forces. I don't even have any former students overseas, although if things continue as they are I imagine that will change in the next few years and some of "my kids" my be over there. Yet seeing the faces -- especially those of the Newfoundlanders, who are hugely over-represented in the Canadian armed forces in proportion to our population -- brought home to me the losses. And it made me question again why they died, whose freedom (if anyone's) has been won by their sacrifice, and why we can't come up with a better way to settle the world's disputes than getting beautiful young men and women to shoot each other.

John McCrae wrote "In Flanders Fields" in the middle of one of the most ill-conceived and apparently pointless wars the twentieth-century has seen. The headlines were easier to figure out in those days. Everyone knew who the "bad guys" were and who was fighting whom. Yet the motivations for it, the value of fighting and dying, was no clearer then than now.

I struggle with Remembrance Day recitations of "In Flanders Fields" because I don't want to "take up [their] quarrel with the foe." I honestly believe rhetoric like that is an attempt to justify what is often beyond justification, to give meaning to meaningless deaths. I want to lay down the quarrel, to find other ways to deal with "the foe," to learn to see others as something other than foe.

Half an hour after I sat in the coffee shop crying over the faces of the dead in Afghanistan, I passed a woman in a store wearing a red T-shirt with a maple leaf on it and the slogan "Support Our Troops." We don't get as many admonitions to "Support Our Troops" as our American friends do, but they are becoming more popular here in Canada, along with the assumption that if you question the wars in which our governments choose to become involved, you are failing to support our troops. If you don't agree to take up their quarrel, they won't sleep in peace.

I usually wear a poppy on Remembrance Day, although often with conflicted feelings -- I'm not about to switch to a white poppy anytime soon, because I think the blood-red symbol of those green fields of France reminds me well enough of the loss of life in chaotic and sometimes stupid conflicts. When I wear it, I want to say that I support our troops.

I support our troops in the only way that makes sense to me: I want them to stop dying.

I want them back home shovelling snow off the streets of Toronto so we can laugh at the mainlanders who can't handle a bit of weather.

I am proud to see Canadian soldiers engaged in peacekeeping in places where there is actually some semblance of peace to keep.

On November 11, I remember those who died in war and honour them even if I don't always believe in the causes they died for.

I remember World War One and the slaughter of the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont Hamel.

I remember the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I remember the forty-two dead in Afghanistan. I remember especially, though I never met them, Cpl. Jamie Murphy of Conception Harbour, Sgt. Vaughn Ingram of Burgeo, Warrant Officer Richard Nolan of Mount Pearl, and Sgt. Craig Gillam of South Branch.

Remember.
Remember.
Remember.

And try to find a way to make it stop.

That Hamster Wheel Feeling

2006-11-09T19:37:00.000-03:30

Yes, I have had the hamster-wheel feel the last few days ... but it's hard to know what I would have dropped if I could, because everything I've done has been so enjoyable (well, except making Christopher do his homework and listening to the resulting howls of protest. Everything apart from that). I'm at 16,962 here on NaNo Day Nine, and things finally seem to be settling down a little as we head into the long weekend.

Apart from the usual teaching and parenting stuff, there has been a lot of added value this week. Yesterday was especially hectic. After school, homework, etc., we had our usual Wednesday night activity with the kids, the Adventurer Club at church, of which Jason and I are the leaders. Last night we filled boxes for Operation Christmas Child, which was chaotic and fun.

Then my parents came to babysit around 8:00 p.m. and Jason and I headed out for the final evening of VOAR Sharathon. I love the last night of Sharathon, where there's always lots of people and lots of energy, especially on a night when the phones are ringing and it's clear things are going well and we'll make the goal (in 15 years of Sharathons, I've seen every possible outcome: making the goal, exceeding the goal, falling far short of the goal ... you just never know). Things got really fun after about 9:00 when Tina and I took over the controls and started playing more upbeat music (we said that everything had to be on the "T&T Approved List") and I was dancing around the studio (or was that "praise movement"?) to such songs as Randy Travis: "Pray for the Fish." It was a very successful night; we exceeded the $40,000 fundraising goal by making $46,750 ... very exciting. Got home at about 11:30 completely wiped out but very happy.

Today was a busy day at work too. We have just launched the Arts Smarts project I applied for, in which we have a visiting artist (Cara Coleman, a graduate of the Murphy Centre's Youth Arts program) coming in to work with my Writing 2203 students on a unit called "Exploring Creativity" -- linking visual arts to writing projects. Today Cara did a painting workshop with my writing students and then a puppet-making workshop with my Theatre Arts students, which was fun and very high energy. I made a puppet I called Red Angus, the demented Scottish bagpiper. Here's a picture of me and Angus! (I also included some pics of my students with their puppets below -- they were really creative and came up with great ideas!)

After school I escaped to Chapters for an hour with my laptop and got a couple of thousand words further ahead on my NaNo story. I'm loving the novel but convinced it's so dull that no-one but me will ever want to read it! That's OK; right now I'm just writing to amuse myself.

Then it was time to pick up the kids and resume normal parenting routines. One parenting moment that amused me tonight: After Emma's bath, she was standing in the hall clad only in her towel when, in one of those random utterances I can only assume must have been inspired by a story or TV show, she raised her hands in the air and said, "Great Spirit, take me now!" Pause. "Well, not while I'm naked!"

Anyway, one more workday this week, and some shopping tomorrow afternoon -- taking advantage of sales to get some Christmas shopping done -- and then I get to step OFF the hamster wheel and have a relaxing long weekend with very little planned (except the kids have a sleepover at Grammy and Grampa's on Saturday night, so Jason and I will have a night out!) It's been crazy to be so busy these last few days but as I said, every bit of it has been busy doing something I loved, so it's hard to know where I would cut. I don't really mind the frenzy as long as it's short-lived and quickly followed up by long weekends, dates with my husband and maybe a few bubble baths!

As promised, a few more puppet pics from work today:

Jen and Kim with the "Jen puppet" that Kim made.

Chris with his "dirty hippie" puppet, complete with pom-pom facial hair.

Vanette's old lady puppet.

NaNoWriMo, Day Seven ... on track at 12,600

2006-11-07T19:52:00.000-03:30

I broke 12,500 words today! GO ME! That means I'm right on track with where I should be for the end of Week One ... not as far ahead as I'd like to be, but given what this first week of NaNo has been like, I'm amazed I'm doing this well.

Last week's challenge was getting my grades in on time. This week I've been helping out, as I do each year, with Sharathon, the annual on-air fundraiser, at VOAR. After work I've been running into VOAR to do an hour or so on the air ... I really enjoy the fun and energy of those few days. So I have my head full of totals, little thermometers that need to be filled. "Wouldn't it be great if we could make $25,000 tonight ... I need to hit 15,000 words tonight..."

Of course, the big difference is that with NaNo, making the word limit is entirely up to ME and my own best effort. With Sharathon all I can do is go on-air, make my best appeal, and sit back and wait for others -- the listeners -- to call in and donate. The outcome is out of my hands.

Being the control freak you know me to be ... which do you think is easier for me?

Amazing Gail

2006-11-05T23:26:00.000-03:30

Tonight I went to a meeting of the Adventist Women's Association -- fairly rare for me, since I only manage to make AWA meetings when they're doing something particularly interesting. Tonight definitely qualified, as we were going to Gail Dempsey's house to hear her talk about her experience with breast cancer.

If I had to name the top ten women outside my own family who have been influential and inspirational in my life, Gail would definitely make the list. She has been a church friend throughout most of my life; she is about 10 years older than I am and I taught one of her children in school and had both in my Sabbath School class and youth group for many years when I was a church youth leader. Gail and her husband Erin have been around for so many of the milestones in my life -- in fact, I'm pretty sure Gail gets some of the credit for getting Jason and me together in the first place (long story).

Gail had surgery for breast cancer last year, and the fact that she chose to celebrate this occasion by inviting all the church women to her house to inform and educate them about breast cancer says everything about her. Many years ago when her eldest child was diagnosed with epilepsy, Gail's response was to found Epilepsy Newfoundland and Labrador, an organization which didn't exist in this province until she started it. She is a person who meets things head-on and never backs down from a challenge.

For so much of my life I've observed that the typical "good church lady" is self-effacing, quiet, meek and traditional in all her views. None of those terms applies to Gail: she is loud, outspoken, funny, opinionated, a feminist, an activist, and the best church lady I know. Tonight she whipped out her breast and showed her lumpectomy scar to 25 church ladies and gave us an hour of funny, insightful, moving commentary on what it was like to go through this experience. I wish I'd brought a camera so I could illustrate this with a photo -- not of Gail's breast! but of Gail herself -- so that those of you who don't know her could catch a glimpse of this tough, beautiful and amazing woman. I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting at her house tonight!

A quick look at the NaNo stats for those following this saga: I'm up to 9231 words and have finished my second chapter; I still like the way the story's going, and today I met with fellow NaNo'ers Natalie and Lori for a write-in at Chapters/Starbucks. That was another time I wished I'd had the camera as a shot of the three of us at one table with our three laptops up and running would have captured the spirit of NaNoWriMo ... but again, 1000 words (or less) will have to replace the picture.

Shameless Child Promotion

2006-11-04T23:14:00.000-03:30

Today I took a Sabbath rest from NaNo (I'm at about 5600 words and started on Chapter 2, for anyone who's interested).

Hope this video works ... it's Christopher singing in church this morning, and doing (may I say in my unbiased parental way) an extremely fine job of it. Jason is accompanying him on the guitar -- what talented men I have.

We had lunch with my Aunt Bernice, Jennifer and David -- my mom and dad were there too, so it was a nice family afternoon. Jason & I and the kids, and Jennifer & David, went for a walk down the Rennie's River trail afterwards, and there was much fun and games and throwing of autumn leaves.

Back to the serious novelling tomorrow!

NaNoWriMo, Day 3: 3660 Words

2006-11-03T09:05:00.000-03:30

This has been a crazy week at work because I have to have my midterm grades submitted by the end of the day today. I haven't had nearly as much free time as usual as people have been finishing up tests and assignments and I've been calculating marks. In the midst of all this I have managed to get 3660 words written on the first chapter of my NaNo novel and I am genuinely having fun with it -- so I'll consider that a successful start to November.

Today is the first day of this month that really LOOKS like November -- overcast, gray and rainy. Yesterday and Wednesday had that sunshiny, crisp-fall-air, October-blue sky thing going on, at least for part of each day. It's easier now to believe this is really November, month of dreary skies, midterm grades, fires in the fireplace, untold midterm angst among my students ... and month of writing a (more or less) complete novel in 30 days.

November ... bring it on.

NaNoWriMo, Day One

2006-11-01T07:35:00.000-03:30

I guess I'll get this posted while it's still November 1. I have many deep thoughts to share on the wisdom of writing 50,000 words in the month of November, and on the month of November in general, which is always kind of an oddly reflective time for me.

But these thoughts must wait till tomorrow. Because I have written 1770 words today on top of my teaching, parenting, and other duties -- all of which have been rather tiring today. On the good side, I like what I've written of my NaNo novel so far and I'm glad to be embarked on the annual adventure once again.

In place of Deep Thoughts, I give you the last of the Hallowe'en pics from yesterday, and leave you to ponder them as I go to sleep. Good night.

It's Good to be Queen

2006-10-29T19:43:00.000-03:30

Hallowe'en is upon us. Christopher is Harry Potter (though for the party we went to tonight he rejected his cape in favour of casual attire), Emma is a "girl wizard," and Jason and I decided to be king and queen. King and queen of what, we're not sure, but we sure do look royal. (I should also point out that the headpiece of my gown has a black chinstrap, which accounts for the slightly bearded look I am sporting in the photos below ... not that I have suddenly grown facial hair!)

We were invited to a party tonight at the home of Christopher's school friend Jessica. As with other parties at Jessica's, we had to leave early because of the atmosphere of cat hair in the air, to which Christopher has a bad allergic reaction. Fortunately, I get to wear my royal robes again at work on Tuesday. Our theme at work for Hallowe'en is to dress up in costumes that are somehow career-related (because Hallowe'en falls during Career Awareness Week). So, I plan to tell everyone that my next career move is to find a small backward country to rule.

Although, most days, Jason and I find ruling our small backward household quite enough of a challenge. God Save Our Gracious We!

Jason's Coming Home Tonight!!

2006-10-26T20:53:00.000-02:30

Need I say more?

All in all I think we have survived our dad-less week pretty well. Both kids seem to still be alive, which is a good thing. As for myself, I haven't noticed any new grey hairs. Of course, I haven't looked too closely!

Tonight I took the kids out for supper to Boston Pizza. My parents met us there. Eating out with the kids is a toss-up -- it always seems like it'll be less work and trouble than cooking a meal at home, but sometimes, depending on behavior, it's actually more stressful, especially when other people (such as grandparents) are there so we have worry about how the kids will behave in front of them. Tonight would be ... one of the times where eating out proved to be more trouble than staying home would have been. We were all in pretty good form by the end of the meal but there were some rough times along the way. I'll avoid mentioning any names or details in order to protect the guilty.

Be that as it may, I get my better half back sometime after midnight tonight. And as parenting these two children seems to be very much a two-person job, I will be glad to have backup again!

Quick Dip in the Shallow End

2006-10-24T16:21:00.000-02:30

I'm afraid it's impossible for me NOT to post this "House" video. Because you know, until Jason gets home, there's really only one man around my house ....

Flying Solo, Day 5

2006-10-24T13:12:00.000-02:30

This Tuesday afternoon finds me not at work where I would normally be, but at home with a(n) (allegedly) sick little boy.

Sick kids. Always such a tough call. I know Christopher has been a bit under the weather the last few days ... having more trouble than usual getting to sleep at night, complaining of headache, sore throat, etc. But as these symptoms usually seem to appear when he has to do something he doesn't want to do, and disappear when he's doing something fun, I've been guessing this might be more emotional, to do with Jason being away, than an actual, physical, viral-type thing.

The "I can't go to school this morning!" complaint is pretty frequent 'round our way, so I have a gold standard: you can't stay home unless you're a) running a fever, or b) vomiting. Preferably both. Neither was in evidence this morning, so I fell back on my old favourite, "Just go to school and see how you're feeling ... you can call me to come get you if you're too sick to stay." I've found 90% of third-grader symptoms disappear within seconds of hitting the pavement outside the school and seeing his friends. Not always, though.

I was heating up my lovely leftover chicken korma in the lunchroom at work when the call came. "Mom, I'm feeling really sick. Mrs. Cadigan said I felt warm to her. Can you come get me?" So I quickly ate some korma, left instructions for my 1:00 class on the board (without much confidence that they're going to be followed!) and headed off for school, where Christopher was sitting on the front step waiting for me.

No sign of fever (maybe Mrs. Cadigan has very cold hands?) but he did seem tired and listless and complained of a headache and upset stomach. So far, we've been home for about 1/2 hour and my attempts to get him to lie down and take a nap have met with little success -- after being in his room for all of five minutes he wandered out and said he had had enough sleep for now. Currently I'm trying to get him to take a nap here in my room and that's not going over so well either. He's lying on my bed trying to reprogram my clock radio, also staring at my bookshelves saying, "Mom, how many Jasper Fforde books do you have?" Doesn't this sound like someone who's well enough to be in school?

To top it all off, he just sighed and said, "I've been asleep for at least half an hour!"

Silver lining: An afternoon at home with a sick child should give me plenty of time to catch up on my writing as I push towards my pre-NaNo deadline of finishing the fantasy novel.

Which, of course, completely explains why I'm updating my blog.

BTW, if anyone's interested in what Jason's up to, check out his blog. And tell him to hurry home to his family who need him!!

Flying Solo, Day 2

2006-10-21T16:55:00.001-02:30

So it's Day Two of Jason's Seattle/Vancouver trip and I am coping JUST FINE. With the practical details of life, that is. I got the kids to school and back yesterday, brought friends home for them to play with in the afternoon, cooked supper, did baths and bedtime. This morning we got up and made it to church on time, I taught their Sabbath School class, got home from church, did lunch etc. Since it was a rainy afternoon with little better to do than watch Narnia on DVD and draw and do puzzles, I even managed the normally Daddy-exclusive feat of putting in a fire. Truly, I am woman. Rrrrrooooowwwwrr. (Hear that?)

The kids, of course, miss Jason -- Emma in her usual dramatic fashion, putting her head down on the table at lunch and saying, "Oh, it's so sad when there's an empty place at the table!!" I told the kids I'd probably miss Dad the most after they were gone to bed because then everything will be quiet and that's the time Jason and I usually hang out, talk, watch TV ...

"Watch 'House,'" Christopher said. It was the air quotes when he said "House" that made this hilarious.

I had been trying to look for the silver lining in my long quiet husband-less evenings. I thought, even when you love someone, living with another person always requires compromises. Jason and I have to decide who gets to use the computer, what to watch on TV, what time to go to bed and who's going to leave the light on to bother the other one who's trying to sleep ... stuff like that. So, I thought, I'll focus on the fact that for a week, once the kids are in bed I'll get to do whatever I want. I've got writing to do, and what with the Internet, and books, and of course House DVDs, I won't be bored or lonely. I can just ... do whatever I want.

Funny thing is, turns out what I most want to do ... is hang out with Jason. I miss laughing with (and at) him at the end of the day. So in the short term, that's a little lonely. But in the long term, it's good, 'cause of how we're married and all so we'll probably be hanging out together for the next 30 or 40 years at least. Just as well we enjoy each other's company!

3000 Words

2006-10-19T20:09:00.000-02:30

So after hardly blogging at all this week, I do TWO posts in a day! Yes, yes, I even amaze myself. Actually, I just thought my work-related blog and my family-related blog should be two separate posts. Mostly I just have some cute stuff to post to make you go "Awwwww."

Like, how cute is THIS? With the missing front tooth? Awwwww...

And, 'tis the season to carve pumpkins. We had to hurry up and do this tonight because Jason is leaving tomorrow for a week-long business trip to Vancouver (with a little pleasure trip to his sister Janice in Seattle thrown in). Jason doesn't travel much so I rarely have to function without him, but on the few occasions I've done it I've emerged with a new respect for single parents. Without my partner and team-mate, we'd never be able to do stuff like this (cause they don't let me handle sharp objects):

Finally, this week we celebrated my Aunt Gertie's 92nd birthday. Any time someone turns 92 and is still able to enjoy blowing out birthday candles, that's a good thing. But in our case it's an even better thing since one year ago Aunt Gertie was in hospital, having surgery for breast cancer (which she first had when I was five, and recovered from). Given that it once seemed unlikely she'd live to see me grow up, the fact that she is now enjoying and spoiling my children amazes me -- and for a woman of her age to recover as well as she has from last year's surgery really reminds us that every day we have with our loved ones is a gift. Here's Chris and Emma "helping" Aunt Gertie with her candles:

Theatre Rats

2006-10-19T18:51:00.000-02:30

Today the lovely and talented Christine Hennebury came to my Theatre Arts class to do a workshop with us. She did lots of theatre games with my participants, focusing on movement and action since the students have a tendency to stand still and talk when they're acting, forgetting to move their bodies. Christine gives a great workshop and I think everyone had a good time.

I am so impressed with my Theatre Arts students. They began as a group in which a couple of people were comfortable acting and a lot were wary and uncomfortable. In less than two months they have grown into a group where almost everyone is willing to take some risks, get up in front of the group, improv a scene or try a game. It's really great to see.

I played "Party Quirks" with them the other day and I was delighted to see how they threw themselves into the game ... Vince's performance as the guy who thinks he's in an action movie, or Chris's as the melting snowman, were moments to remember. They brought the same kind of energy to the workshop today and I thoroughly enjoyed watching them in action.

I always remember that (with a few exceptions) my students at The Murphy Centre were the ones who, when they were in high school, sat at the back of the class and rarely got involved or participated -- not necessarily because they're not smart, but because they were disconnected from school, bored by it, or "in trouble" of some kind. Seeing them up front, taking centre stage and actually enjoying themselves in their own very uninhibited way, gives me joy.

I haven't blogged much about school this year but I am having a great year -- if possible, even better than last year. What I remember about this time last year is that I was excited about my classes but I was also very absorbed in the situations of several students who were having difficulty staying in school and keeping up with their classes. This year is different -- we have lost a few students who decided not to stick with it this year, and as these include a couple of my old friends from last year, I feel sorry about that. But those who are still with us seem to be pretty committed to being there and doing well, which makes teaching much more fun.

And I'd Like to thank Starbucks....

2006-10-15T19:39:00.000-02:30

Once again today, a couple of hours' retreat (and a chocolate oatcake) at Chapters/Starbucks helped move me a step further along the road towards having the manuscript I'm working on now completed. If this book ever gets published I will have to thank Starbucks in the Acknowledgements (and would hardly be the first writer to do so!)

All this, of course, is just clearing the decks so I can have a clean desk and an empty mind on November 1 to start a new project for NaNoWriMo.

What? You've never heard of NaNoWriMo? You've never done NaNoWriMo?? If you're a writer, or a would-be writer, and you need a kick in the pants to get moving on a project, or you need to silence your inner critic and just push forward with something rather than agonizing over whether it's "good enough" ... NaNoWriMo may be for you. Writing 50,000 words in November may seem like a tall order, but having thousands of other participants cheering you on (in the online forums ... and in spirit, I guess, for what that's worth) might just be what it takes.

As well as grinding out another chapter on The Stones of Ashreel today, I finally updated Compulsive Overreader with a few more book reviews ... and answered a bunch of emails I felt guilty about not answering. Not bad for a person who essentially didn't get out of bed till noon. Ah yes ... life is good.

Ethical Family Blogging

2006-10-13T20:30:00.000-02:30

We think we may have fixed the problem that made the video in my last post unviewable to most people ... but now I'm feeling a little guilty about posting it, because one of the Beautiful Children featured in that video (I'm not supposed to say which one) said it was "embarrassing" and I shouldn't post it. The same child has had issues in the past with being mentioned in Mommy's blog, and I once rashly promised that I would allow said child to approve anything I wrote about him/her before posting it.

The fact that at least one child is now old enough to read my blog and have an opinion on it has really given me some pause for thought about the ethics of being a "mommy-blogger." A lot of blogging moms have babies or preschool children who obviously don't have an opinion about the issue, and a lot of others keep their own and their families' identity anonymous online. For various reasons that I've blogged about elsewhere, I choose to use my real identity online, which means I can't tell my children, "Oh, nobody knows who you are when they read my blog."

It's funny that if I write something about my students that involves quoting them directly, I ask permission, but I consider my children fair game. As a parent, I think there's a transition from babyhood, when you think of your children basically as extensions of yourself, up to the point when they become completely independent human beings. And somewhere along that process, I guess I have to think carefully about how I write about my kids, how honest and open I can be, how much of our family life they want me to share with the world.

One of my favourite writers, Anne Lamott, has taken some flak lately for the way she writes about her now-teenaged son Sam -- something she has done ever since she wrote about his first year of life in the excellent memoir Operating Instructions. More recently, some readers have felt that Lamott's very frank and open way of discussing their parent-child conflicts might be exploiting her son -- although in at least some of her writing she talks about getting his permission to write about certain things. Just as, it seems, I am going to have to get my children's permission to blog about them!

It's an interesting dilemma as a mother and writer -- I consider everything in my life to be "fair game" for my writing, but then that's easy for me to say because I get to make the editorial decisions about what gets shared and what doesn't. Is my family also "fair game"? I don't want to exploit my children for the sake of my blog or any other writing -- but I also hate the idea that a child's embarrassment might preclude me from sharing those "cute kid moments" that I so enjoy blogging about. I'll have to give this some more thought!

In the meantime, it won't embarrass anyone if I tell you that the reading Wednesday night at Mount Pearl library went well; I talked to lots of lovely people who really enjoyed my reading, and I thoroughly enjoyed other people's readings as well. It was great of Christine to invite me. There's a more detailed recap of the event up at Tina's blog if you're interested.

And now, with another week of work, family, writing and whatnot behind me, I think I'm planning an early Friday-night bedtime!

Reading Tonight

2006-10-11T07:15:00.000-02:30

Just a reminder for anyone interested that I'll be reading tonight at the Mount Pearl Public Library along with Russell Wangersky, Tina Chaulk, and Paul Butler. If you're in the area and would like to hear me along with some other really great authors, please stop by! The readings start at 7:00 p.m.

And to balance the Shameless Self Promotion, here's some Shameless Child Promotion. You have to have a pretty high tolerance level for "cute" to handle this ... Chris and Emma making a "music video" to Great Big Sea's "Sea of No Cares." Video quality's not the greatest but we are currently experimenting with what we can do with the video function on our digital camera. Well, Jason is experimenting with it ... I'm just along for the ride!

Thanks (Giving)

2006-10-10T08:01:00.000-02:30

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I didn't cook a turkey. I didn't even get around to posting a blog entry listing all the Things I Am Thankful For (or Things For Which I Am Thankful, if you get antsy about ending sentences with prepositions ... which I don't).

I did cook a Thanksgiving meal -- cranberry chicken with rice -- for my parents and my Aunt Gertie and Aunt Vera. It was a pretty low-key Thanksgiving meal, not too labour-intensive, leaving me with lots of time to hang around the house taking pictures of my kids being adorable; Christopher playing with his dad's electric guitar and Emma playing with my 35-year-old Fisher Price toys. And really, when it comes to things I'm thankful for, a picture is worth several thousand words.

I just wrote a list for my last blog (thanks for the comments everyone! I still want to know who other people's crushes are!) so I'm not inclined to generate a Thankfulness List -- plus which, my list is really predictable. I'm thankful for all the things I should be thankful for -- family, friends, God's love, great job, excellent health, books, House on DVD ... There's nothing startling or surprising on my list, and why should there be? "May you live in interesting times" is a curse, not a blessing. I see enough "interesting" lives around me every day; what I'm most grateful for this Thanksgiving is that I do have all those boring, predictable things to be grateful for, and not for one second do I take them for granted.

On Sunday I gave all the change in my van's change tray (about 80 cents) to a panhandler, because he made me smile. He was standing on the median at the traffic lights at Freshwater Rd/Kenmount Rd/Columbus Drive, holding a sign that said, "FAMILY KIDNAPPED BY EVIL NINJAS. NEED SPARE CHANGE FOR KARATE LESSONS." That's so much better, in my eyes, than straight panhandling -- he put some effort into it and gave me a laugh. Well worth my change and the time it took to roll down my window -- and I don't even care what he uses the money for.

80 cents and a smile -- we each gave something, we each got something. Happy Thanksgiving, my dreadlocked panhandling friend, and to all my bloggery friends too. Enjoy this moment. May you live in not-too-interesting times.

Top Ten TV Crushes

2006-10-06T15:50:00.000-02:30

So, the House obsession has gotten pretty intense. I'm entirely past the horror of watching medi-gore -- I still avert my eyes from time to time, but less often -- and entirely into the compelling personality of Dr. House. And when I say "into" I do mean "into." So much into, in fact, that I feel the urge to take a nostalgic tour of the Top Ten TV crushes of my life.

What do they have in common? In every case, it was definitely a crush on a character, not on the actor who played him ... while I'm interested in actors, there's a clear distinction in my mind. It's definitely the fictional character I'm drawn to, just as I might be to a character in a book (and my literary crushes could fill a whole other blog entry). There's a sense of humour, of course. And something darker -- a sort of lostness or vulnerability or need that made most of these men attractive to me. It seems, looking through the list, that the dark side gets a little darker later in my life ... possibly after my marriage to a quite nice man who is not terribly dark and brooding at all. Did my bad-boy fantasies need an outlet?

Without further self-analysis, I present: The List.

1. Jerome the Giraffe. I can't explain why I was so drawn to the giraffe puppet on The Friendly Giant, but even as a preschooler I knew there was something special about Jerome. His voice and his big, soft eyes made my little heart melt.

Later in life I made two horrific discoveries about Jerome: he was pink and blue (a fact concealed from me by our lack of colour TV; I had always assumed he was, you know, giraffe-coloured); also, he apparently didn't have a whole body, only a head and neck. Jason revealed this second fact to me when I was twenty-six years old and I have to say I was more than a little shaken up. He still finds this hilarious. When I mentioned Jerome tonight, Jason immediately burst into a soulful rendition of "I Ain't Got No Body."

2. "Alex" on the Uncle Bobby Show. Beautiful singing Alex with his guitar was my gateway into the world of Crushes on Human Beings. I found him irresistible and used to have fantasies (not those kind of fantasies!! Eeewww!!! I was four) in which Alex was in some terrible trouble and only I could save him (interesting to see how early my rescue-fixation kicked in, isn't it?)

Alex (whose real name was Alex Laurier and who appeared on other children's TV shows of the 70s, most notably The Polka Dot Door) didn't appear to have much of a dark side. But why is it nearly impossible to find a picture of him online? Why did his career sink without a trace? Some of the online bios I read made vague references to him having had a "difficult life" since the Uncle Bobby days, but one site said he had been accused of child molestation, back in the day. (Funny, too, because if there was anyone on The Uncle Bobby Show giving off the creepy-old-man vibes, it was definitely Uncle B., not Alex. Looks can be deceiving, apparently).

I hope it's not true, but if it is, I have clearly beat Sherry's record for Tragic Childhood Crushes, set after Grizzly Adams was busted for cocaine.

3. Bob from Sesame Street. Another smiling, singing man ... but a little less sinister, apparently. You just call out my name, Bob, and you know wherever I am, even if I'm only six years old, I'll come running!!

4. Gilligan. What more can I say? Hapless, feckless, the butt of everyone's jokes -- I loved Gilligan passionately. And what better object for a young girl with rescue fantasies than a man forever stranded on a desert island?

5. Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce. This is the TV crush that really undid me, watching M*A*S*H at an impressionable age as I did. My first post-puberty TV love was doubtless the one who did the most to shape my image of the ideal man. Wisecracking, smooth-talking, yet deeply troubled -- mostly by the fact that he was stuck in the Korean War for eleven years while the rest of the world only had to stay there for three. Recently we've been watching the early seasons of M*A*S*H on DVD and I'm impressed all over again with how handsome the young Alan Alda is, and how thoroughly well-developed a character Hawkeye is, for a 1970s sitcom.

M*A*S*H ended in the early 80s, and I went off to live in a college dorm without a TV set. My first apartment didn't have a TV either, so there's a long gap in my TV crushes till we get to the early 90s and ...

6. Chandler Bing. I was a Friends fan from the early years and it was mainly my devotion to Chandler that kept me going when the show clearly jumped the shark. Chandler had it all -- the smart mouth, the self-doubt, the inner demons. And, just for the record? Monica was never good enough for him! She treated him like trash!! On the whole, he would have been better off with Janice, in spite of her annoying voice. At least Janice adored him. As I would have done, given the chance.

7. Tom Paris. Through all my years of Star Trek fandom I never fell in love with Captain Kirk, Captain Picard -- not even with Riker, really. And my interest in Mr. Spock was purely intellectual. But Voyager's ex-con reformed bad-boy always had the ability to tug at my heartstrings...and maybe stir up a little Blood Fever.

8. Danny Kincannon. Unlike most devoted female West Wing fans, I was never head-over-heels in love with Josh, or Sam, or even Toby. Maybe closest to Josh, but I never wanted him for myself -- just for Donna. It was the occasional guest appearances of Timothy Busfield as CJ's devoted suitor (but still hard-nosed reporter) Danny that made me sigh happily. And since CJ was always kind of my alter ego (smart tall girl makes good), I was extremely pleased that Danny came back before series' end to give the two of them a happy ending.

9. Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Be still my beating heart! If the hardened, embittered cynic with the well-hidden heart of gold wasn't enough to make me shiver, the fact that Nathan Fillion is just so darned boyishly good-looking (and Canadian!) would push me over the edge. From the moment Mal kissed his crucifix during the battle of Serenity Valley, my heart was lost to the Firefly captain.

10. Dr. Gregory House. See what I mean about my crushes getting darker and more dangerous? From an innocuous pink and purple giraffe to a cranky, sarcastic, misanthropic Vicodin addict -- who also happens to be the world's most brilliant diagnostician and, of course, a wounded man in need of a little love and healing. Which I, in my remotely controlled fantasies, am just the right woman to provide!

So there's my tally ... two doctors, two intrepid space explorers, two musicians, one first mate on a tour boat, one journalist, one guy who did something with data entry that no-one could ever remember ... and a giraffe. And each and every one found the way to my heart. I wonder who'll be next?

My Last Duchess

2006-10-03T19:20:00.000-02:30

Now here's a sentence I don't get to write very often: Today I read a really great short story.

Generally I am not a fan of short stories. I tend to find them difficult, evasive and obscure. If I do find a short story that engages me, then I'm usually frustrated because it ends just as i'm getting interested. A collection of linked short stories, such as Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women, can be almost as good as a novel. But mostly when I read a good short story, especially if it's by a new author, my main reaction is, "This is good -- she should write a novel!"

Margaret Atwood has a new collection of short stories out -- Moral Disorder. Not surprisingly for Canada's best-known and most-critically-acclaimed novelist, it's getting good reviews, but I felt no urge to pick it up. I have enjoyed some of Atwood's novels, particularly The Handmaid's Tale, but I find her short stories (of which I had to read plenty in my grad-school days) more off-putting even than most short stories. Besides being obscure and too short to really engage me, Atwood's stories are also, usually, pretty much downers.

But then I read a review of Moral Disorder that mentioned a story called "My Last Duchess," about a teenager reading Browning's famous poem of that name. I knew, immediately, that I had to read this story.

I have quite the history with My Last Duchess. When I was in high school, it was in the English anthology in Grade Nine ... and Grade Ten ... and Grade Eleven. The first time we did it in class, I found the poem haunting and a little chilling, especially after the teacher walked us through it and I saw what was going on there. The next two exposures lacked that thrill of discovery and by Grade Eleven the menacing Duke and his smily Duchess had become a bit like embarrassing old acquaintances with whom you avoid eye contact in the supermarket aisle because there's just nothing more to say. The poem had been literally analyzed to death for me. Yet some faint memory of its former power to creep me out lingered about the edges of my much-graffiti'd English book.

I think I taught the poem a few times in the early years of my teaching career, but I haven't seen it in anthologies in recent years; its popularity must be waning. Its popularity came, I think, from the fact that it's an eminently teachable poem -- difficult enough that an average student won't immediately grasp it upon reading it, but clear enough that Teacher can come along and magically unfold it into something that makes sense.

Anyway, I knew I had to read Atwood's story about it, so today I went to Chapters and took Moral Disorder off the shelf and read the story "My Last Duchess." And it truly is a great short story, about a very smart and self-conscious high school girl reading the poem and trying to explain it to her somewhat less smart boyfriend, then reflecting on the duchess in the poem and all the sad, passive, victimized women who wander like wraiths through the hallowed halls of Great English Literature. I'm glad the high school English curriculum has admitted a bit more diversity since days when I, and Atwood's character, were in school -- I hope girls today are getting more varied literary pictures of how to be women. But this young woman, using literature as a tool to discover her place in the world, is a character with whom I can readily identify -- and Atwood's prose is spare, lovely, and absolutely precise.

I see, and have always see, the poor dead Duchess differently from how Atwood's character sees her -- to me she was a woman who simply loved life and loved people, and had her spirit crushed by a husband who was both misogynistic and misanthropic. Like Atwood's narrator, like the narrator's teacher Miss Bessie, she is a woman who can be read many ways, seen in many different lights -- depending on what I, as a reader, bring to the act of reading.

The story haunts me just a little, tonight. The poem, nearly thirty years after first reading, still does too.

All Good Things Must Come to an End ... But How?

2006-10-01T12:01:00.000-02:30

Today, with the help of a cafe mocha and a wholegrain brownie from Starbucks, I leaped over a major hurdle in my writing life, and I can't tell you how good it feels. Well, I can try to tell you, but until you've done it yourself you probably won't know what I'm raving about.

I figured out how to end the book I'm working on.

I've been stuck on my rewrite of my fantasy novel, The Stones of Ashreel, for ages now, making no progress because, to be quite frank, I don't know how to end it. I mean, I know the basic ending: (some of) the good guys win, (some of) the bad guys lose. But the actual plot mechanics of getting from where I am now ("everything is horrible") to where I need to be ("happily ever after") were a little hazy.

I don't really plot well. As a writer, I think my strengths are character development and dialogue. My weaknesses are creating a vivid setting, and moving the plot along. Two things that are pretty essential if you want to write fantasy.

The problem with describing setting I have an explanation for: I attribute to my not being a very visual person. Someone asked me at a party last night to identify my daughter's Grade One teacher by description, and I just stared at her blankly. I could pick the woman out of a police line-up, but tell you what colour her hair is? How long it is? I just don't register or recall details like that. (If you're a crime victim, you'd better hope I'm not the only eyewitness). I have a very strong auditory memory, however, which I think is why I do dialogue well: I can "hear" people talking in my head quite easily. I just can't see the room they're in, or what they're wearing.

The problem with plot I put down to me being not very bright.

I always tell people I only know one plot: person is born, lives, dies. It's a good and durable plot and I have used it in the past (most notably in The Violent Friendship of Esther Johnson, and also in my Biblical fics about Esther and Deborah. This plot lends itself admirably to historical fiction). But I require a story that's a little more plot-driven, where cause actually has to lead to effect, I find myself all at sea. As I've been, for several weeks now, with the end of this novel.

Today at Chapters I went to Shannon Patrick Sullivan's signing for The Dying Days (read it! It's good!!) and then I retired to Starbucks with the aforementioned mocha and brownie, and my clipboard and pen. I started writing out, in summary form, everything that needs to happen from here to the end of the novel. And, to my utter amazement, I got there. I'm not sure it all makes sense, but I have something that resembles an outline.

I don't normally do outlines: my writing process doesn't work that way. As I explained in my comments on the blog of the amazingly organized writer Katrina Stonoff, my writing process (if you can call it that) is inspired by the words of Theodore Roethke: "I learn by going where I have to go." I start writing with only the vaguest sense of what's happening and let the story unfold. Surprises occur. The story itself tells me where I need to go. I know some authors swear by outlines, but I can't work that way.

Now, though, I need an outline. And now I sort of have one! You wouldn't believe the rush of energy and enthusiasm I now have to get back at this project. Having a clear sense of direction makes all the difference.

Other writerly notes: A little more Shameless Self Promotion is in order. I am reading on Wednesday night, October 11, at 7:00 p.m. at the Mount Pearl public library. It's the first Michael J. McCarthy Memorial Reading, and I'll be there along with Tina Chaulk, Paul Butler, and Giller nominee Russell Wangersky. I'm also participating in Memorial Writes on October 29 (the link above is actually to last year's event, but it's happening this year again!); I'll be signing books and hopefully chatting to people from 2-4 p.m.

Also, I've just updated Compulsive Over-reader with four new book reviews, so click on over there and check them out.

Finally, this has nothing to do with writing, but we've been laughing at it like crazy ever since Jason found it last night. The kids and I have been going around singing the chorus all day. It'll only be funny to geeks like us who love a) Star Wars and b) Weird Al Yankovic -- and come to think of it, most of the people in those two categories have probably already seen it -- but just in case you, like us, have been living under a rock and missed this, here's the funniest music video I've seen in awhile:

SHMILY

2006-09-30T20:53:00.000-02:30

Last week in church, our pastor told children's story, and it was about this old guy who thoroughly confused his wife by leaving little messages all over the house that said "SHMILY." SHMILY turns out to be an acronym for: See How Much I Love You.

Since that story, SHMILY has been turning up all over the house. The kids have been leaving random SHMILY notes around for Jason and I to find; I put little SHMILYs in their lunchboxes earlier in the week. It's cute.

This morning, Christopher and I had a rough morning. Actually we had a rough day, but it all began this morning when I confiscated his piggy bank to get money for church offering. We give the kids $10 allowance each week which is enough to pay for the only expenses they ever incur: milk every day at lunch and recess; ice cream one day a week; pizza on Fridays; offering in church on Sabbath. If there's a dollar or so left at the end of the week, they can put it into the piggy bank to save up for a toy or something. It's supposed to be a little lesson in financial management, right?

So this Tuesday, Chris brought $2 to school, a dollar for milk and a dollar for ice cream. Only he apparently decided not to order ice cream, yet failed to bring back the extra dollar. I pointed out that he'd basically thrown a dollar away and he said he didn't care.

Cut to this morning, when there's not enough change left in his allowance thingie to bring offering to church. I explained that offering is a regular part of what he has to pay for each week, and that if he's careless with his money and comes up short, I have to take the difference out of his savings -- thus slashing his hoarded savings from $13.80 to $12.80.

The screams! The howls! The wails and protests of injustice!! Suddenly he cared very much about that lost dollar -- except it wasn't his fault for losing money at school, it was my fault for ruthlessly robbing his piggy bank.

Somehow we got past it (well, we stopped talking about it -- I don't think he ever actually got past it) and got ready to go to church, Chris still very grumpy. Jason and Emma were already out in the van while I was trying to get Chris through the entire getting-ready process, which included not only shoe-tying and jacket-locating, but also running around at the last minute collecting paper and pens he wanted to bring to church. And, since he can't touch paper and pen without stopping to draw something, Mommy going insane telling Chris to stop drawing and get ready for church right now!! ("Get ready for church so we can go worship Jesus even if it kills us!!!" is always the unspoken Sabbath morning subtext).

I sat on the bottom step as Christopher came sauntering out of the living room, shoeless, trailing paper from one hand and an assortment of pens from another. "I just wrote something with the invisible pen, and now you have to go over it with the decoder pen to decode the message," he said.

"No, you have to put on your shoes so we can get out to the van," I countered.

He laid the paper and pens on my lap and reached for a shoe. "Just do it! Just decode the message."

I rolled my eyes. I was about to refuse. I thought better of it and picked up the decoder pen to rub across the apparently blank paper.

Slowly the letters appeared ... S ... H ... M ... I ... L ... Y.

It's the thing that gets me every time about parenting -- especially with my son, who is the more combative and less demonstrative of my two children. We can be staring each other down, me thinking, "How did I give birth to someone so absolutely impossible? Do the gypsies still take children??" and him no doubt thinking, "Why is this huge and powerful being conspiring to destroy my life, take away all my fun and rob my piggy bank?!?!" And in the middle of it all, on both sides, there's this huge force of love that's still there, like a tap waiting to be turned on. Anytime, all the time.

They drive me crazy. I drive them crazy. But at any moment, it's right there, waiting for either of us to reach for the faucet and turn it on. See how much I love you?

House, etc.

2006-09-29T07:15:00.000-02:30

I watched the first two episodes of House, season 1 on DVD last night.

I don't normally watch medical shows. I remember my parents being really into St. Elsewhere back in the day, and I do recognize that a hospital is a great setting for a workplace drama, and the highs and lows of saving (or losing) lives make for great TV. There's just this little problem. I am a bit ... how you say? ... er, squeamish. Sissyfied. Apparently as a small child I cut myself and refused to look at the wound, screaming, "There is no blood!!!" This is still my preferred way of dealing with illness and injury.

A few years back, when ER was all the rage, I used to occasionally catch a bit of it when flipping around channels. Every time I clicked on to it -- without exception -- I was treated to a shot of someone's chest cavity opened and bared to my view. Well, maybe sometimes it was the abdominal cavity. Whatever. It wasn't what I needed to see before bed.

More recently, people whose taste I trust have highly recommended both House and Grey's Anatomy. But really, why go there? As long as West Wing was on I had all I needed of smart, beautiful people speaking great dialogue, wrestling with huge issues and also making me laugh. Best part? Nobody's chest cavity was ever opened.

But in the post-WW wasteland in which I now live, I've been casting about for new TV ("new" meaning, to me, something that came out long enough ago that I can get it on DVD). I was briefly tempted by high-octane reviews of Lost from a variety of friends, but staring at the box I found the premise simply too off-putting. On the other hand I was intrigued by descriptions of the bitter, misanthropic doctor played by Hugh Laurie (who's suddenly American!) in House. On discovering that Blockbuster had House Season 1 on DVD, I decided to give it a try.

Only, Blockbuster doesn't actually have it on DVD. They have the cases out on the shelf, but the actual DVD has been bought by a customer, so they are just keeping the case out there to tantalize me.

Don't get me started on video stores. I know Blockbuster is a big evil mega-corporation that's choking smaller local businesses to death. We really only have one independent video store left in St. John's that's doing at all well, and that's because they've got a niche market in quirky hard-to-find movies for quirky hard-to-please people. We go there once in awhile, but mostly we go to Blockbuster because, Big Evil Corp or not, Blockbuster understands customer service. Particularly with the extended rentals and the no late fees.

So if the video place that has the best grasp of customer service in town is keeping empty DVD cases on the shelves for DVDs they don't actually have, you know things are looking pretty dire. I popped into Jumbo to look for something else that wasn't in stock at Blockbuster, and I rented Season 1, disc 1 of House. Which is where I really felt the pain for it not being Blockbuster, because Jumbo gave me a one-night rental for a disc with FOUR one-hour episodes on it. Do they think people have nothing better to do on a Thursday evening than watch four back-to-back episodes of House??

As it turned out, I had nothing better to do than watch two back-to-back episodes. Sure enough, the show was great and all the characters -- especially House, but the supporting cast as well -- pulled me into it right from the beginning. I was even able to handle it when the camera zoomed up the patient's nostril and right through her nasal passages into her vivdly realized CGI brain. "It's just CGI, it's just CGI," I chanted to myself over and over, looking at the scene through my half-closed eyes till the cranial animation ended.

Then they had to perform a tracheotomy on the patient. Uh-oh. Apparently it's not enough to show the scalpel lowering menacingly over her pretty white throat -- we have to actually see it cutting into her pretty white throat, and blood spurting out. This was the point at which I turned the TV off. House or no House, I could not pretend there was no blood.

I wandered away for a few minutes but curiosity drew me back. I really wanted to see the rest of the show, but not with gruesome blood and all. I decided a judicious use of the fast forward button would get me safely through the episode, which contained lots more CGI brain stuff, but no more cutting-into-live-bodies stuff.

Jason watched the second episode with me, upstairs in bed where we do not have the luxury of a remote control. Every time it looked like something surgical was about to happen, Jason had to leap from the bed to hit FF on the computer, while I buried my head under the covers.

Yet, incredibly, the brilliance of the show actually made all this hassle worthwhile. I would not have believed it, but I think I may be hooked on House. (Thank heaven my fondness for twisted, bitter, unhappy men is pretty much confined to books, movies and TV. Oh, and my students.). Now I just have to figure out how to get the rest of the episodes without paying ridiculous late fees!

My Whirlwind Tour of Halifax

2006-09-25T10:07:00.000-02:30

Yesterday was a bizarrely long day. I was awake by 4:30 in order to shower and get ready to be at the airport for my 6:35 flight to Halifax. I decided my one-day trip to Halifax to read at Word on the Street was going to be my practice run for if I ever get to be a Truly Important Author who gets send jet-setting around the world on a book tour.

It was a flying visit, but actually longer than it needed to be, since WOTS only ran from 11:00 - 5:00 and I was actually going to be in Halifax from about 8:00 in the morning till 9:00 in the evening (those were the best flight times I could get). I had all kinds of plans about being adventurous and seeing a bit of the city in addition to attending WOTS. When I got up at 4:30, one of those plans was to visit a church in Halifax in the morning -- I love visiting churches, and what better thing to do when you have Sunday morning to kill in a strange city? (Well, Halifax is not all that strange as I've been there several times, but it's not home).

By the time I woke from my brief and uncomfortable nap on the plane at about 7:00, I realized how tired and hungry I was. The option of sitting through a church service had lost all appeal and I decided instead that I would worship at the Temple of Brunch. I planned to go downtown to Cora's, get a raisin bread French toast with "mound of fresh fruit," and continue on to WOTS from there. This plan kept me buoyed up throughout the rest of the flight.

But when I actually got to the airport and checked the bus times, I realized it would be hard to do that and still get to WOTS on time, and I did want to take in the whole festival. So I reconciled myself to an egg and cheese crossainwich at Burger King -- quite a few steps down from Cora's! -- and caught the airport bus downtown. I was the only passenger and the driver was extremely chatty. Mostly, he wanted to talk a lot about the drug trade and how people always seemed to be getting busted for it, but kept growing and selling marijuana anyway. He seemed like a very clean-cut older guy (61, retired trucker), but I'm not sure what he would have said if I'd showed a livelier interest in the subject of marijuana growing -- I mostly just kept shaking and nodding my head and making "oh, that's interesting," kinda noises till we arrived at Pier 23 just as the festival was beginning.

It was a great day with lots of excellent readings. I had the chance to hear and talk with many writers, some I already knew and some who were new to me. Janet McNaughton, Ami McKay, Maura Hanrahan, Carrie Mac, Natale Ghent, Nellie Strowbridge and many others showcased some of the best Canada, especially Eastern Canada, has to offer. There were also great sale tables by the Halifax bookstores and I'm afraid the money I saved by not staying overnight was at least partly swallowed up in book purchases!

As for my own reading, I had about a dozen people there, which was a decent turn-out by the standards of what I'd seen all day, and especially gratifying as none of them were related to me! (Not that I don't love my relatives turning out to readings ... I rely on relatives and friends, but occasionally it's nice to read to someone who doesn't already own the book!) Only two people bought the book at my signing, although my hope is that a bunch more were intrigued enough to maybe follow it up later, because the audience did seem to really enjoy my reading (with all the sales on, I didn't buy any of the full-price books by the authors who were reading, so I hope others were thinking the same way and will remember my book next time they're book-shopping!) I had a lot of fun with the reading; it's the one part of shameless self-promotion that I really do enjoy, since I have no stage fright and actually enjoy being in front of a microphone. It's a bit like acting but not as risky.

As to whether it was worth the trip, from a book-promotion point of view, I'm not sure -- it would be hard to justify the cost of even a one-day trip to Halifax on the strength of selling two books, but as I said I have to hope that things like this have a long-term effect in terms of word of mouth and networking.

I enjoyed the day, but was glad to get home at 11:30 p.m., very tired and pleased to have survived two plane flights in less than eighteen hours.