happy new year

Wishing all of us good health, good tidings and an abundance of love and joy in 2008.

10 lb terrorist

This is Eli.

He is asleep on the dog bed that J-Dog got for Christmas.

J-Dog really likes his bed but Eli really, really likes it, too.

Eli weighs 10 lbs.

J-Dog weighs more than 50 lbs.

But J-Dog always defers to Eli, who I recently decided is related to the Fishing Cat.

things i can count on: boys will be boys and a dog will have dinner

My spouse left the kids in the back yard while he went to shovel the front walk. When he returned, D. was digging and shovelling looking focused and determined. Nine year old S. was nowhere to be seen.

Turns out he was completely buried in snow.

I am choosing not to be disturbed by this (although D. did look like he was really enjoying himself) and instead, to be pleased that they were playing together without fighting.

This is another rare sighting of my children playing together.

And this is where it all falls apart.

And this? It's a picture of my dog having his Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. Except cranberry sauce. Because that would be excessive.

when do my children go back to school?

Just asking.

kingston women get down

Taken this morning, under the influence of coffee with Baileys.

Whatever you're doing, whatever you celebrate, wishing you love and laughter this holiday season.

serendipity

Sometimes the most amazing things happen.

Or are done by amazing people.

Two weeks ago we had nineteen people to our house for a family Chanukah party. The cooking was shared (my spouse refers to Chanukah as "the festival of fried things"), the cleanup was shared and everyone had a great time.

After the meal, the children in the family exchanged presents.

There was also a package with my name on it. As I started to protest that this was against the rules, I was told that it was something special from my oldest niece (she'll be twelve this year).

It turned out that she had knit me a hat. It was her first non-scarf project and it is perfect. It's the most beautiful shade of turquoise, fits beautifully and just happens to be the exact same colour as the turquoise flecks in the scarf that I wear every day. And it looks great on me.

Just that week, I had tried to knit myself a hat but there was something wrong with my yarn or the pattern and it hadn't worked out. Just that day, I had been thinking how much I love it when people knit things for me and that I wish it would happen more often.

I love that hat with a passion because it is perfect and because it was so thoughtfully and carefully made, just for me.

And I have another example of an amazing thing.

I have been feeling kind of down lately. Part post-NY and Chanukah let-down, part grief for my old life and part chemotherapy blues, I've been feeling the dogs of depression nipping at my ankles. I've been fighting them off (and figuring out how to be healthier) but it has been a bit of a struggle (and of course the sadness is compounded by the guilt of a recovering Catholic: "I should be ashamed to be feeling so sorry for myself when I have responded to treatment so well, have good insurance and such great support!").

Two days ago, I wrote about feeling uninspired.

Yesterday, a book appeared in my mailbox, bound with a ribbon, on which was written the following:

"I like reading your blog and I find inspiration from it. Here is a book for you, may it bring you inspiration."

(It was from J., an artist friend, with whom I once worked closely and haven't seen in a long time. To think I inspire her means a great deal to me).

You know the expression "my heart lifted"? I now know exactly how that feels.

And how could she possibly have known that I have been scouring the Internet for patterns for knitted bags?

Sometimes, life is very hard. And it's not true that everything happens for a reason.

But sometimes, the right thing happens at exactly the right time. Or good people know to make good things happen.

The picture above was taken yesterday from the my spouse's downtown office window. Perhaps not the brightest woodpecker in the world, but I thought his appearance was pretty amazing, too.

uninspired

Perhaps it's NaBloPoMo burnout.

Also, Chrismukkah craziness and the chemotherapy blues.

Blondie says I shouldn't feel guilty about it, though.

a very short post

The last couple of weeks have been unbelievably busy.

Off to chemo shortly.

More time to blog, as I recover.

Go read Jacqueline's account of my trip to New York. She made me a little weepy. And she pretty much said exactly what I would have about our time together.

Kindred spirits, indeed.

december 6, 1989: why i am a feminist

Eighteen years ago today, a gunman walked into the engineering school of the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, separated out the women and opened fire after declaring his hatred of "feminists."

I remember exactly where I was at the moment I found out, how I felt as the details emerged. I also remember the outrage and pain I felt in the aftermath, when mainstream Canada refused to accept that these women were killed because they were women, aspiring to work in a male dominated field.

No one disputes that fact now.

They call it the Montreal Massacre and the killer has achieved the kind of recognition posthumously that he sought in life.

I will not re-print his name here.

I will, however, name each of the young women who died that day. Twelve of them were engineering students, one an administrator and one a nursing student. They would all be my age (or very close to it right now). When I think of all I have lived since December 6, 1989, I am reminded that these women and those who loved them were robbed of a very great deal.


Geneviève Bergeron.

Hélène Colgan.

Nathalie Croteau.

Barbara Daigneault.

Anne-Marie Edward.

Maude Haviernick.

Maryse Laganière.

Maryse Leclair.

Anne-Marie Lemay.

Sonia Pelletier.

Michèle Richard.

Annie St-Arneault.

Annie Turcotte.

Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz.

busted!

Just because we're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get us.

Undercover officer hit riot squad member at Montebello: filmmaker

wonderful wonderful, wonderful

It's as though I didn't know any other adjective, I've used it so much over the last few days.

But it really is the best possible way to describe my long week end in New York with Jacqueline.

I now own two Rebel 1 in 8 designs. Click here and here for pics. Don't I look happy? She made me feel so beautiful.

Jacqueline also made me my very own Rebel necklace, something I have wanted for a long time.

But the joy is about more than the stuff I got (although I do love the stuff I got). It's about kindred spirits, never running out of things to talk about, experiencing unfathomable kindness and being inspired by people and place, touch, taste and sound.

I have been back since late last night and I am still all aglow.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

a few days off

NaBloPoMo is going out with a bit if a whimper this year.

I am off to hang with Jacqueline and take the scissors to some of my clothing.

I won't be back until late Monday night and (are you sitting down?) I am not bringing my computer.

I'll be back next week, though, with lots to blog about.

good kind of frantic

Short post to meet my NaBloPoMo commitment tonight.

Tomorrow, I am off to NY (Brooklyn, actually) to hang out with Jacqueline!

I'm so excited, I can't stand it!!!

i've got nothing

It's November 28 and I nearly forgot about NaBloPoMo.

Go read Sara, she's written an interesting post about, um...penlights. And walking. It's more interesting than I am making it sound. Honest.

a balm for the stressed out, cranky soul

I had lunch today with four very beautiful women, three of whom I had not seen in a very long time.

We laughed.

We vented.

We talked and talked.

When I left the restaurant, my step was much lighter than when I entered it.

And that good feeling stayed with me all day.

I am not letting another year go by before I see them all again.

family pictograms

Tonight, when 4 year old D. was going to bed he said to my spouse:

"I know which door to go into at night because I have a D. on my door. And a hockey player, because I like hockey.

You should have a 'p' for Papa on your door and a butterfly because you like butterflies (last night D. came home and declared that he didn't like butterflies because 'girls like butterflies.' My spouse replied that he liked butterflies. Clearly this made an impression on my young son).

Mama would get an 'm' and a boy because she likes me. No. She loves me. And her picture should be a heart, for love.

And S.(his nine year old brother) should have an 's' and a zombie."

please explain the pedagogy behind the practice

My son has the same French teacher he had last year.

All they seem to do is memorize short stories and put them on as plays. Each time, a significant portion of their mark is based on their costume. Exactly how does it evaluate a child's progress in French, when you mark them on the quality of the costume that their parents are able to put together?

What's more, a classmate of my son's was assigned the role of a girl in one of the plays from last year (there are more boys than girls in my son's class). Since the girl in question was a contemporary eight year old, the boy playing the role told the teacher he would wear a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. He was informed that if he did this, he would be given a failing grade; he needed more of a 'girl costume.'

I went to the presentation. We saw the same short story presented several times. The boy who had wanted to wear a t-shirt and jeans was wearing a poncho and a headband. The other boys playing girls wore frilly dresses, ridiculous wigs and hats, spoke in high-pitched voices and flounced around like the worst possible 'girly' stereotype.

If the message that this teacher, a woman, had wanted to convey was that being a girl is to be the object of ridicule, then she succeeded.

There are four girls in the class. I wonder how all this made them feel.

And, how exactly is all this helping these children to become bilingual?

Tonight we scrambled to pull together an opera singer's costume. Don't opera singers perform in the costume of the opera in which they are performing?

We just tied a silk scarf around his neck and grabbed a flouncy velvet jacket from the dress-up box.

It will have to do.

in this for the long (hopefully very long) haul

A few random facts about my life as a cancer patient:

I have treatments on Tuesdays (two weeks on, two weeks off).

I always feel better by Saturday. Much better. Almost as if I'd never had treatment at all.

The chemo regimen I am currently on makes me feel crappy but is NOTHING like "make you bald and bloated and unable to tolerate light, sound or motion, so sick you cannot ever imagine feeling well" first six rounds that I went through back when I was first diagnosed (and we were still going for a cure).

I will be in treatment for the rest of my life. This is (hopefully) not a short term thing.

Going over posts from this time last year has served to remind me just how scary things were then. And how much better they are now.

And if you ask me on a Saturday, I will almost always tell you that life is really very good, indeed.

i bore myself to tears

As a deadline approaches rapidly (and I fit writing around parenting, recovering from chemo and oh, procrastination), I have become convinced that everything I have ever written is trite babble that no one would ever want to read outside the context of this blog.

Please don't try to convince me otherwise.

If blog content is especially lacking in depth these past few weeks, it's because I have been busy staring at the computer screen and not writing.

Perhaps I will really torture myself and do NaNoWriMo next year.

the view from here

J-Dog was not impressed with me taking pictures through the back door as he waited to come in.

Pretty boy.

Pretty snow.

I could have waited a few more weeks for the white stuff, though.