I used to comment on your blogs. Oh, how I loved commenting! Commenting + Me = BFF.
Tragically, something has come between me and my beloved commenting - The Evil Computer Viruses. Oh, gather near and hear the terrifying tale of how my faithful friend and companion, Noble Computer, was infected by nefarious and ill-intentioned nerd hackers and now thy pages doth freeze as I read them, then close with a tragic zap.
So if I haven't been around for a while, I am still reading you. Something about the virus is causing every other page to close suddenly when I click to comment. We're running some virus software tonight and HOPEFULLY the problems I've been having over the past week will be solved, as though a Magical Fairy Godmother has flourished her wand and turned all of the snivelling hackers into something "gwoss", as The Baby would say.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wherein I am interviewed
... and it's about time. All those childhood years of practicing looking soulful in the mirror while talking into a hairbrush have finally paid off. Mary-Lue has sent me the following interview questions:
You're on a desert island and you can have an unlimited supply of one beverage, on main dish and one dessert only. What are your choices?
So am I aiming to maintain optimal health here or am I picking three things that I'd like? If I was aiming to actually stay alive, likely V-8 Juice, some sort of protein-y, vegetable packed stew and apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. You know, for health. And if I was actually picking food that I liked, I would choose this really excellent spicy pasta from my favorite restaurant, some sort of decadent over-the-top chocolate thing, and as for beverages, I would choose something highly alcoholic because I AM STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND AND I CAN BARELY HANDLE BEING ALONE IN THE UPSTAIRS OF MY HOUSE.
Any parent has a few moments after which they know they would not win a "Parent of the Year" award. Can you tell me about a time in which you just /knew/ you'd just been immediately disqualified for that year's honor?
Ug. Well, there was the whole egg salad sandwiches on pizza day thing earlier this week. Or how about yesterday when there was a daffodil sale at the school and I didn't remember to give my poor daughter her money for flowers? I'm harried and tired in the morning and so I'm always forgetting important things. And now I'm feeling bad, so moving on....
What book do you remember having the most impact on you as a child?
"A Little Princess." The part where Sarah is no longer the most popular, wealthy girl but instead has to live in the drafty attic and work as a servant while still knowing that she was better than everyone around her became my favorite childhood fantasy, closely followed by Me Being Dead and Everyone Being Really Sorry.
You've written (very powerfully, I might add) about your near death experience as well as health scares your children have had. How is Beck "before" different than Beck "after" those experiences.
Well. I am truly neurotic about my health now. Before I was cheerfully a hypochondriac and now I get a cold and I think "I AM GOING TO DIE." So that's not a good thing, really. I do appreciate things more - I'm more certain of my husband's love, I know that I'm making the right choice to be home with my kids (although I think I should have some sort of minder first thing in the morning), and I also know that I won't regret delaying my writing career. Should I ever have one.
This may be in your archives somewhere, but can you share with me how you began blogging and what drew you to it?
I'd been reading blogs for two years and had always wistfully thought that it looked like fun, but I was too shy to start one. Who would want to read me? I wondered. After last March's Crapfest Of Horror, though, I decided that I needed an outlet, someplace for me to write and so I started My Blog.
Ta da! If you want me to email you some interview questions for your blog, let me know in my comments! Be warned, though - they will be hard-hitting and insightful, like Joan Rivers on the Oscar red carpet.
You're on a desert island and you can have an unlimited supply of one beverage, on main dish and one dessert only. What are your choices?
So am I aiming to maintain optimal health here or am I picking three things that I'd like? If I was aiming to actually stay alive, likely V-8 Juice, some sort of protein-y, vegetable packed stew and apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. You know, for health. And if I was actually picking food that I liked, I would choose this really excellent spicy pasta from my favorite restaurant, some sort of decadent over-the-top chocolate thing, and as for beverages, I would choose something highly alcoholic because I AM STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND AND I CAN BARELY HANDLE BEING ALONE IN THE UPSTAIRS OF MY HOUSE.
Any parent has a few moments after which they know they would not win a "Parent of the Year" award. Can you tell me about a time in which you just /knew/ you'd just been immediately disqualified for that year's honor?
Ug. Well, there was the whole egg salad sandwiches on pizza day thing earlier this week. Or how about yesterday when there was a daffodil sale at the school and I didn't remember to give my poor daughter her money for flowers? I'm harried and tired in the morning and so I'm always forgetting important things. And now I'm feeling bad, so moving on....
What book do you remember having the most impact on you as a child?
"A Little Princess." The part where Sarah is no longer the most popular, wealthy girl but instead has to live in the drafty attic and work as a servant while still knowing that she was better than everyone around her became my favorite childhood fantasy, closely followed by Me Being Dead and Everyone Being Really Sorry.
You've written (very powerfully, I might add) about your near death experience as well as health scares your children have had. How is Beck "before" different than Beck "after" those experiences.
Well. I am truly neurotic about my health now. Before I was cheerfully a hypochondriac and now I get a cold and I think "I AM GOING TO DIE." So that's not a good thing, really. I do appreciate things more - I'm more certain of my husband's love, I know that I'm making the right choice to be home with my kids (although I think I should have some sort of minder first thing in the morning), and I also know that I won't regret delaying my writing career. Should I ever have one.
This may be in your archives somewhere, but can you share with me how you began blogging and what drew you to it?
I'd been reading blogs for two years and had always wistfully thought that it looked like fun, but I was too shy to start one. Who would want to read me? I wondered. After last March's Crapfest Of Horror, though, I decided that I needed an outlet, someplace for me to write and so I started My Blog.
Ta da! If you want me to email you some interview questions for your blog, let me know in my comments! Be warned, though - they will be hard-hitting and insightful, like Joan Rivers on the Oscar red carpet.
The Domestic Cat
I have two cats, dimwitted rejects from my parents' farm. They aren't bright or mysterious or subtle, and behave more like houseplants than animals. In fact, my children frequently forget that they even live here and respond with a sad negative answer when asked if they have pets. The cats are sweet enough and I'm fond of them in a lazy, half-hearted manner, but for the most part, they live sleepy lives with the occasional exciting interlude of a mouse running across the kitchen in the night.When they wander downstairs in the evening - not coincidentally, after the kids are in bed - I'm happy to see them and spend a few minutes petting them and baby-talking, hefting our gigantically fat, laconic male cat up to my husband and saying that daddy should give him a kiss, or some other such nonsense. But they don't fill up a child-sized space in our lives. They're just cats, and my life has had - in the way of farm children - dozens of them, most of which met gruesome country ends. Fanbelts in winter are NOT a cat's friend, for instance. But these are MY cats and being indoor cats, they're able to live prolonged, pampered and rather dull lives.
Edited because of privacy concerns!
My cats peed on the wet towels in the dirty laundry this morning, and as I stuffed the towels into the washer, I grouched to myself about getting rid of them, finding them a nice person with no sense of smell to live with. Oprah's Big Dumb New World has made all of our feelings equal, but COME ON. Your dog bites someone, they get put down by the vet. Your toddler bites someone, you apologize and mumble something about them "going through a phase." This isn't a subtle difference.
What they wrote is just so wrong, so offensive to people with actual human children and yet I know what they meant - we're happy, we love our lives, don't worry about us - but so great has the divide between Us and Them become that my husband and I just silently passed the card between the two of us, amused and appalled.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
My husband priced materials for this playhouse yesterday and so it's a go! The Baby shall have a playhouse for her birthday and it will be lovely. I like the colour scheme of this little yellow house - isn't that cute?
Our yard is large - nearly an acre, actually - and nearly completely covered in the detritus of life with children. We have a whole, mostly hand-me-down flotilla of ride-on cars, trucks and tractors, bikes, swingsets, climbing gyms, sandboxes, wading pools, tire swings - spread out in a bright splash of primary colours across our poor yard, which was once - 30 years ago - considered the most beautiful garden in town. NOT ANYMORE. Our yard is one big eyesore, a big flaming warning that little kids live here.
At one time, when my first child was very young, I thought that we could do childhood tastefully, perhaps a sole heirloom wooden rocking horse in the corner tastefully whinnying that a child lives here, a quiet girl who would be fond of ballet and higher level maths and not be much trouble. We still sometimes hear echoes of this in other parents expecting their first child, and it always makes me shiver. "This baby will have to learn to fit into my life," one pregnant woman told me, and likely she's forgotten that she ever said that. Most likely, she's been through the same cataclysmic baby change that most women have, where your life suddenly falls into strange new shapes and you wake up to the chaos of a yard full of gaudy toys. But maybe not - perhaps her child has learned to fit quietly into her mother's life, and rides a lonely wooden rocking horse, feral and unknown.
Edited to add: I just realized that I sent my poor kids to school today with egg salad sandwiches and it's pizza day. I am the worst mother in the history of the world.
Our yard is large - nearly an acre, actually - and nearly completely covered in the detritus of life with children. We have a whole, mostly hand-me-down flotilla of ride-on cars, trucks and tractors, bikes, swingsets, climbing gyms, sandboxes, wading pools, tire swings - spread out in a bright splash of primary colours across our poor yard, which was once - 30 years ago - considered the most beautiful garden in town. NOT ANYMORE. Our yard is one big eyesore, a big flaming warning that little kids live here.
At one time, when my first child was very young, I thought that we could do childhood tastefully, perhaps a sole heirloom wooden rocking horse in the corner tastefully whinnying that a child lives here, a quiet girl who would be fond of ballet and higher level maths and not be much trouble. We still sometimes hear echoes of this in other parents expecting their first child, and it always makes me shiver. "This baby will have to learn to fit into my life," one pregnant woman told me, and likely she's forgotten that she ever said that. Most likely, she's been through the same cataclysmic baby change that most women have, where your life suddenly falls into strange new shapes and you wake up to the chaos of a yard full of gaudy toys. But maybe not - perhaps her child has learned to fit quietly into her mother's life, and rides a lonely wooden rocking horse, feral and unknown.
Edited to add: I just realized that I sent my poor kids to school today with egg salad sandwiches and it's pizza day. I am the worst mother in the history of the world.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
O memory that engraved the things I saw
I feel like writing again - my "real" writing, as opposed to this which is just... whatever it is. Public journalling, perhaps. All of a sudden the other day the constant narrative of poetry flicked back on in my head, my fickle muse forgiving me for the never-ending stream of babies and the accompanying creative fog. So I'm hoping to build up a body of work over this spring. Look, a GOAL!
My fickle muse, by the way, likes napping and computer games. Oh, and snacks. Perhaps it's the slow-moving springtime, this stately progression from winter to mud to flowers and grass and birds, the Easter stickers on my windows. Or perhaps it's the millions of rereadings of Max's Chocolate Chicken. It's something, anyhow, making me feel verdant, full of words.
In other news, I'd like to get The Baby a playhouse for her second birthday next month. We have a large yard packed full of climbing gyms, riding toys, swing sets, but we've never had a playhouse and I think she - and the other two - would get a LOT of use out of one. I was pricing them this morning and found a nice one for $250 or so, but my husband says that he can build her a beautiful one. Of course, he's so busy that she'll be 16 before it's done but I'm sure she'll still love it.
My fickle muse, by the way, likes napping and computer games. Oh, and snacks. Perhaps it's the slow-moving springtime, this stately progression from winter to mud to flowers and grass and birds, the Easter stickers on my windows. Or perhaps it's the millions of rereadings of Max's Chocolate Chicken. It's something, anyhow, making me feel verdant, full of words.
In other news, I'd like to get The Baby a playhouse for her second birthday next month. We have a large yard packed full of climbing gyms, riding toys, swing sets, but we've never had a playhouse and I think she - and the other two - would get a LOT of use out of one. I was pricing them this morning and found a nice one for $250 or so, but my husband says that he can build her a beautiful one. Of course, he's so busy that she'll be 16 before it's done but I'm sure she'll still love it.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Wherein I Am Graceful Like A Flower Or Possibly A Gazelle
Saturday morning was very much the usual Running Of The Errands, and when we got home we were in a big hurry because our son's teacher was having a retirement party. There was a light skiff of snow on our front steps and I was wearing my hopeful springtime suede boots which are SO cute and as I dashed down the front steps to unload the groceries I suddenly took flight, like Icarus.
So I landed with a hard thud on the muddy ground, my ankle sending bright red injury messages to my brain. I howled for my husband and he came out, carrying The Baby and the two of them stared at me laying in the mud, like "What are you doing down there?". Eventually, he helped me hobble painfully into the house and to the couch, where I stripped off my sodden, muddy clothing (I obviously was as horrified by the fact that I was covered in damp, cold mud as by my having been badly hurt) and stared in sobbing wonder at my damaged ankle. The verdict was a bad sprain, but it's not feeling too bad at all today and now I have a spiffy story. My husband took the kids to the retirement party and I lounged around feeling enjoyably sorry for myself and reading Improving Literature.
Yesterday afternoon we ate a dragon fruit which had come all the way from Vietnam. It was fuchsia and purple outside, opening to a shock of white fleshy fruit speckled with black seeds. My kids were enchanted.
Last night I felt well enough to go to a concert with my mom and afterwards I had the fun of everyone I know dashing up to me to ask how I was doing, which is always enjoyable for people who are a bit melodramatic and who lack shame. My mom was going to stay to wash dishes but I was tired, so I walked home by myself, down the dark, quiet streets of my town, my ankle sending quiet "ouch, ouch" messages to my brain, feeling at once the spooky feeling of being alone and the mildly bored, not-unpleasant feeling of a place I know too well, while someplace in Vietnam, another woman is walking down her street, bored of a place I will never see, and the trees are heavy with lurid dragon fruit.
So I landed with a hard thud on the muddy ground, my ankle sending bright red injury messages to my brain. I howled for my husband and he came out, carrying The Baby and the two of them stared at me laying in the mud, like "What are you doing down there?". Eventually, he helped me hobble painfully into the house and to the couch, where I stripped off my sodden, muddy clothing (I obviously was as horrified by the fact that I was covered in damp, cold mud as by my having been badly hurt) and stared in sobbing wonder at my damaged ankle. The verdict was a bad sprain, but it's not feeling too bad at all today and now I have a spiffy story. My husband took the kids to the retirement party and I lounged around feeling enjoyably sorry for myself and reading Improving Literature.
Yesterday afternoon we ate a dragon fruit which had come all the way from Vietnam. It was fuchsia and purple outside, opening to a shock of white fleshy fruit speckled with black seeds. My kids were enchanted.
Last night I felt well enough to go to a concert with my mom and afterwards I had the fun of everyone I know dashing up to me to ask how I was doing, which is always enjoyable for people who are a bit melodramatic and who lack shame. My mom was going to stay to wash dishes but I was tired, so I walked home by myself, down the dark, quiet streets of my town, my ankle sending quiet "ouch, ouch" messages to my brain, feeling at once the spooky feeling of being alone and the mildly bored, not-unpleasant feeling of a place I know too well, while someplace in Vietnam, another woman is walking down her street, bored of a place I will never see, and the trees are heavy with lurid dragon fruit.
Friday, March 23, 2007
I stole this.
From Bub and Pie's, of course. Some of the categories are my own.
Books That I Absolutely Hated:
The Red Tent (Anita Diamant). This is more based on the number of deeply boneheaded conversations I've been forced to endure about this book than the book itself, which merely caused me to gag severely throughout.
The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger). Oh please! I'd dearly love to hear some sensitive preppy kid talk about his delicate feelings for HOURS.
Interview With A Vampire (Anne Rice). Vampires with DELICATE FEELINGS!
The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood). Yuck.
Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley). I'm a religious person. This book offended my sensibilities as a religious person. You can enjoy it if you like, but it wasn't for me.
Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald). I remember reading the more lurid sections of this to my younger brother and the two of us laughing and laughing. Perhaps I just am not very sensitive.
The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand). I just disagree with Ayn Rand in everything. She could come out in favour of hair, and I'd be like "dang, I have to SHAVE MY HEAD now."
Lord of the Flies (Golding) While I think this book stand on its literary merits more than the others in this list o' crap, it still bugs me. Exactly what world view are we trying to push on impressionable teens by having them read this? They should, of course, be reading "The Power of Positive Thinking." Anyhow, I own a copy, but whenever I pass it, I think "Oh, I hate that book."
The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd). Words cannot express how much I dislike this book. I liked her better when she wrote for Guideposts.
Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand). Look! It's Ayn Rand again!
Catch-22 (Joseph Heller). See, I have this theory that once the last Baby Boomer dies, we're going to quietly pretend that all of their literary contributions just never happened.
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery). No. I always see Little Prince posters among children's poster offerings, which I suspect are only bought by parents who haven't read this book.
The World According To Garp (John Irving) Sometimes I'll be going about my day and I'll flash back to the car accident scene. John Irving, you jerk.
Books That I Have Not Read, And The Reasons Why Not:
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and The Hobbit (Tolkien). I appreciate the Inklings - I'm on a big Charles Williams kick right now and I LOVE C.S. Lewis - but Tolkien leaves me cold. It is, perhaps, the pages written in Elvish, but mainly I've always felt that it's just a big goofy sausage party.
The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) Um, I'm not quite sure. I looked at it and thought "depressingly dysfunctional family in exotic climes" and tossed it aside, perhaps unfairly.
The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough) Because this was a book that my mom read and loved in 1978 or whenever and is thus relegated to the dust heaps of history. I didn't know people actually still read it.
A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford). Perhaps I'd read this if I was in constrained circumstances - prison, let's say - and it was either this or a battered copy of The Thorn Birds.
A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens) Oh, me and Dickens. What is it about you, Charles Dickens? I've read and loved Anthony Trollope, so you'd think I'd take to Dickens but never. I suspect that it's because his books are too well known to me to feel fresh enough to read. I'm not sure.
The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) Because they're DUMB.
The Stand (Stephen King) I have a No Stephen King policy which helps me sleep at night. Also, wasn't it fifty million pages long?
Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) I alienate MORE PEOPLE with how smirky I am about some books, so I'll just go silent here.
The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) Remember me being all smirky?
The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom) Smirkity smirk smirk.
The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares) Wasn't this aimed at 13 year olds?
The Celestine Prophesy (James Redfield) HAHAHAAHAH.
Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell) This one, I really just haven't read. I hadn't even watched the movie until last year and was shocked to find that I loved it, so really I will get around to reading it, being me.
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) Well. My childhood library did not have it. I did read Little Men and The Young Cousins (I think that's what it was called), so I'm not an utter Alcott illiterate.
Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) Isn't this science fiction? To say I'm not a science fiction fan is mild, like saying I'm not a fan of nonelective surgery.
Watership Down (Richard Adams) Oh, who knows. Probably the talking rabbits thing. Really, it's a wonder I read anything.
The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton). Gangs. Sensitive young gangs. Yawn.
The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas). Actually, this looks like cracking good fun, and I'd likely enjoy it, but I just haven't read it yet.
War and Peace (Tolstoy) This book is my retirement policy. I figure I'll while away my golden years reading about Napoleon sacking Russia.
Les Miserables (Hugo). Actually, I think I started this and lost interest.
Great Expectations (Dickens) See "Dickens, My Trouble With".
A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry). Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I'd dismissed this as a CBC book - good for me and dull - and never read it. If you loved A Fine Balance, let me know why I'd like it.
White Oleander (Janet Fitch) One of those flavour-of-the-month books from five years ago. I don't think it needs to be read.
Ulysses (James Joyce). Again, I started this book and then wandered off to less rebuffing climes.
The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck). I just never felt the urge.
East of Eden (John Steinbeck) Does anyone actually LIKE John Steinbeck? Does anyone ever think "You know what would make this rainy Saturday afternoon perfect? A little John Steinbeck!"
Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) No.
Life of Pi (Yann Martel) - I have a copy of this waiting for me to read it RIGHT NOW, actually.
She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)- Oh Oprah. I trust you in all (I got everyone on my gift list cashmere hot water bottle covers for Christmas on your say-so) but are you sure I need to read this?
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
Dune (Frank Herbert) - My loathing for sci-fi combined with this book looking like a pile of suck = me not having read it.
The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) I'm not an adult fantasy novel fan, to put it politely.
The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel) This is, I suspect, the stupidest book in the world.
Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) If I want to listen to a depressed Irish guy ramble on, I'll just go bug my husband. He's PART Irish.
Shogun (James Clavell). Again with this book being from the dim dusty 70s, except it was something my dad would read.
In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje) - I may have read this and forgotten it, actually.
The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) - On my to-read list.
Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) On my to-read list.
The Books On The List That I'm Missing Are The Ones I've Never Heard Of. I accidentally erased them and I'm too lazy to fix it.
Books that Were Vaguely Amusing Or Some Other Mildly Positive Adjective:
Confessions of a Shopoholic (Sophie Kinsella) Mildly fun, of course.
The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) Hating this book would be like hating a sad puppy. Don't worry, sad little book. Beck is here now.
1984 (George Orwell) I don't hate this book, so here it goes.
Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) I LOVED this book when I was a teenager, mainly because I thought it made me look very smart. So now I cringe whenever it's mentioned, which doesn't take away from it being A Literary Classic, of course.
The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence) Another book that I feel almost nothing about.
One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) Spiffy enough, I guess.
I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) I didn't actually like this book, but my mother-in-law bought it for Christmas for me one year and was obviously trying SO hard to make my Christmas special that it's endeared itself to me, by accident.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) A Book Gets A Moderately Positive Review.
The Diviners (Margaret Laurence) Did I like this book? I can't remember.
Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) Cholera! My favorite of the diarrhea-causing illnesses!
The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields) I quite liked it while I read it, but it's left no lasting residue in me. Having said that, I LOVED Unless.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) - I thought this book was pretty cool when I was in high school. It still makes me smile.
Books I Really Liked.
The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) I am alone in this, but I thought this book was BEAUTIFUL.
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) If Bruce and Demi hadn't wrecked the name, my daughter would have been Scout Finch Mylastname.
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) - I think Aldous was the one who got the future DEAD ON, in a way that Orwell just never did and I could rant all night about this, but that would make me look like Rebecca the Puritan and I like keeping my secret identity a SECRET.
Bridget Jones’ Diary (Helen Fielding) V. good.
All of the Harry Potter books. I quite love them. They're fun.
Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) This goes into the "Books I talked about WAY too much when I was 15" pile, but I reread it as an adult and it was still a stunner.
Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) This book gets to enter the Pantheon because my Lenny/Yeti (remember that Bugs Bunny cartoon?) imitation has brought so much joy to my life.
A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) I'm afraid to read this book again because it meant so much to me the first time I read it, long ago.
Books That Are Me/I AM HEATHCLIFF:
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) Well, duh. It's taken my all my adult life to understand that I'm not the captivating and loveable Lizzy, but rather the bookish and sullen Mary. I'm okay with it now.
Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) Lots of household accidents? Check. Tendancy to talk too much? Check. Extreme romanticism? Check.
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë) Love me, love Jane Eyre.
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë) When I was an overwraught teenage girl, this book was THE BEST THING EVER. And I still love it.
The Bible
Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) I don't know how many times I've read this, but I do know that the first reading was based on a bemused childhood interest in a book with my name on the cover.
The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger) How I love this book.
Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) My children do an imitation of me sobbing through reading the chapter where Charlotte dies. We are a cruel people.
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) The last lines of this book are just the best things ever written.
Emma (Jane Austen) Actually, Persuasion is my favorite Austen novel, but I love all of her books, with perhaps slightly less love for Northanger Abbey.
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) Is this my favorite book ever? Why yes - it is. Have I reread it yearly since I was 8? Why yes, I have. Did the movie version suck? Did it ever.
Fifth Business (Robertson Davies) I LOVE it AND it's Canadian!
The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) This book - and A Little Princess - I blame for pretty much everything about me more than anything else. I picked it up as a deeply unhappy child and thought AH HA! and everything just flowed from that point onwards, fully explained.
Books That I Absolutely Hated:
The Red Tent (Anita Diamant). This is more based on the number of deeply boneheaded conversations I've been forced to endure about this book than the book itself, which merely caused me to gag severely throughout.
The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger). Oh please! I'd dearly love to hear some sensitive preppy kid talk about his delicate feelings for HOURS.
Interview With A Vampire (Anne Rice). Vampires with DELICATE FEELINGS!
The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood). Yuck.
Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley). I'm a religious person. This book offended my sensibilities as a religious person. You can enjoy it if you like, but it wasn't for me.
Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald). I remember reading the more lurid sections of this to my younger brother and the two of us laughing and laughing. Perhaps I just am not very sensitive.
The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand). I just disagree with Ayn Rand in everything. She could come out in favour of hair, and I'd be like "dang, I have to SHAVE MY HEAD now."
Lord of the Flies (Golding) While I think this book stand on its literary merits more than the others in this list o' crap, it still bugs me. Exactly what world view are we trying to push on impressionable teens by having them read this? They should, of course, be reading "The Power of Positive Thinking." Anyhow, I own a copy, but whenever I pass it, I think "Oh, I hate that book."
The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd). Words cannot express how much I dislike this book. I liked her better when she wrote for Guideposts.
Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand). Look! It's Ayn Rand again!
Catch-22 (Joseph Heller). See, I have this theory that once the last Baby Boomer dies, we're going to quietly pretend that all of their literary contributions just never happened.
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery). No. I always see Little Prince posters among children's poster offerings, which I suspect are only bought by parents who haven't read this book.
The World According To Garp (John Irving) Sometimes I'll be going about my day and I'll flash back to the car accident scene. John Irving, you jerk.
Books That I Have Not Read, And The Reasons Why Not:
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and The Hobbit (Tolkien). I appreciate the Inklings - I'm on a big Charles Williams kick right now and I LOVE C.S. Lewis - but Tolkien leaves me cold. It is, perhaps, the pages written in Elvish, but mainly I've always felt that it's just a big goofy sausage party.
The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) Um, I'm not quite sure. I looked at it and thought "depressingly dysfunctional family in exotic climes" and tossed it aside, perhaps unfairly.
The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough) Because this was a book that my mom read and loved in 1978 or whenever and is thus relegated to the dust heaps of history. I didn't know people actually still read it.
A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford). Perhaps I'd read this if I was in constrained circumstances - prison, let's say - and it was either this or a battered copy of The Thorn Birds.
A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens) Oh, me and Dickens. What is it about you, Charles Dickens? I've read and loved Anthony Trollope, so you'd think I'd take to Dickens but never. I suspect that it's because his books are too well known to me to feel fresh enough to read. I'm not sure.
The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) Because they're DUMB.
The Stand (Stephen King) I have a No Stephen King policy which helps me sleep at night. Also, wasn't it fifty million pages long?
Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) I alienate MORE PEOPLE with how smirky I am about some books, so I'll just go silent here.
The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) Remember me being all smirky?
The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom) Smirkity smirk smirk.
The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares) Wasn't this aimed at 13 year olds?
The Celestine Prophesy (James Redfield) HAHAHAAHAH.
Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell) This one, I really just haven't read. I hadn't even watched the movie until last year and was shocked to find that I loved it, so really I will get around to reading it, being me.
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) Well. My childhood library did not have it. I did read Little Men and The Young Cousins (I think that's what it was called), so I'm not an utter Alcott illiterate.
Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) Isn't this science fiction? To say I'm not a science fiction fan is mild, like saying I'm not a fan of nonelective surgery.
Watership Down (Richard Adams) Oh, who knows. Probably the talking rabbits thing. Really, it's a wonder I read anything.
The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton). Gangs. Sensitive young gangs. Yawn.
The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas). Actually, this looks like cracking good fun, and I'd likely enjoy it, but I just haven't read it yet.
War and Peace (Tolstoy) This book is my retirement policy. I figure I'll while away my golden years reading about Napoleon sacking Russia.
Les Miserables (Hugo). Actually, I think I started this and lost interest.
Great Expectations (Dickens) See "Dickens, My Trouble With".
A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry). Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I'd dismissed this as a CBC book - good for me and dull - and never read it. If you loved A Fine Balance, let me know why I'd like it.
White Oleander (Janet Fitch) One of those flavour-of-the-month books from five years ago. I don't think it needs to be read.
Ulysses (James Joyce). Again, I started this book and then wandered off to less rebuffing climes.
The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck). I just never felt the urge.
East of Eden (John Steinbeck) Does anyone actually LIKE John Steinbeck? Does anyone ever think "You know what would make this rainy Saturday afternoon perfect? A little John Steinbeck!"
Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) No.
Life of Pi (Yann Martel) - I have a copy of this waiting for me to read it RIGHT NOW, actually.
She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)- Oh Oprah. I trust you in all (I got everyone on my gift list cashmere hot water bottle covers for Christmas on your say-so) but are you sure I need to read this?
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
Dune (Frank Herbert) - My loathing for sci-fi combined with this book looking like a pile of suck = me not having read it.
The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) I'm not an adult fantasy novel fan, to put it politely.
The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel) This is, I suspect, the stupidest book in the world.
Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) If I want to listen to a depressed Irish guy ramble on, I'll just go bug my husband. He's PART Irish.
Shogun (James Clavell). Again with this book being from the dim dusty 70s, except it was something my dad would read.
In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje) - I may have read this and forgotten it, actually.
The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) - On my to-read list.
Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) On my to-read list.
The Books On The List That I'm Missing Are The Ones I've Never Heard Of. I accidentally erased them and I'm too lazy to fix it.
Books that Were Vaguely Amusing Or Some Other Mildly Positive Adjective:
Confessions of a Shopoholic (Sophie Kinsella) Mildly fun, of course.
The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) Hating this book would be like hating a sad puppy. Don't worry, sad little book. Beck is here now.
1984 (George Orwell) I don't hate this book, so here it goes.
Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) I LOVED this book when I was a teenager, mainly because I thought it made me look very smart. So now I cringe whenever it's mentioned, which doesn't take away from it being A Literary Classic, of course.
The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence) Another book that I feel almost nothing about.
One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) Spiffy enough, I guess.
I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) I didn't actually like this book, but my mother-in-law bought it for Christmas for me one year and was obviously trying SO hard to make my Christmas special that it's endeared itself to me, by accident.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) A Book Gets A Moderately Positive Review.
The Diviners (Margaret Laurence) Did I like this book? I can't remember.
Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) Cholera! My favorite of the diarrhea-causing illnesses!
The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields) I quite liked it while I read it, but it's left no lasting residue in me. Having said that, I LOVED Unless.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) - I thought this book was pretty cool when I was in high school. It still makes me smile.
Books I Really Liked.
The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) I am alone in this, but I thought this book was BEAUTIFUL.
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) If Bruce and Demi hadn't wrecked the name, my daughter would have been Scout Finch Mylastname.
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) - I think Aldous was the one who got the future DEAD ON, in a way that Orwell just never did and I could rant all night about this, but that would make me look like Rebecca the Puritan and I like keeping my secret identity a SECRET.
Bridget Jones’ Diary (Helen Fielding) V. good.
All of the Harry Potter books. I quite love them. They're fun.
Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) This goes into the "Books I talked about WAY too much when I was 15" pile, but I reread it as an adult and it was still a stunner.
Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) This book gets to enter the Pantheon because my Lenny/Yeti (remember that Bugs Bunny cartoon?) imitation has brought so much joy to my life.
A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) I'm afraid to read this book again because it meant so much to me the first time I read it, long ago.
Books That Are Me/I AM HEATHCLIFF:
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) Well, duh. It's taken my all my adult life to understand that I'm not the captivating and loveable Lizzy, but rather the bookish and sullen Mary. I'm okay with it now.
Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) Lots of household accidents? Check. Tendancy to talk too much? Check. Extreme romanticism? Check.
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë) Love me, love Jane Eyre.
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë) When I was an overwraught teenage girl, this book was THE BEST THING EVER. And I still love it.
The Bible
Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) I don't know how many times I've read this, but I do know that the first reading was based on a bemused childhood interest in a book with my name on the cover.
The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger) How I love this book.
Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) My children do an imitation of me sobbing through reading the chapter where Charlotte dies. We are a cruel people.
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) The last lines of this book are just the best things ever written.
Emma (Jane Austen) Actually, Persuasion is my favorite Austen novel, but I love all of her books, with perhaps slightly less love for Northanger Abbey.
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) Is this my favorite book ever? Why yes - it is. Have I reread it yearly since I was 8? Why yes, I have. Did the movie version suck? Did it ever.
Fifth Business (Robertson Davies) I LOVE it AND it's Canadian!
The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) This book - and A Little Princess - I blame for pretty much everything about me more than anything else. I picked it up as a deeply unhappy child and thought AH HA! and everything just flowed from that point onwards, fully explained.
MEMEMEMEEMEME
I was tagged twice yesterday, so today is going to be meme-tastic.
Mary-Lue tagged me with this birthday meme:
1. Go to Wikipedia and type in your Birthday Month and day only.
August 31
2. List 3 Events that occurred that day.
1. Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim of Jack the Ripper, is murdered, 1888.
2. Princess Diana dies. 1997. And where was I when I heard this? I was at a bonfire bush party. WHOOOOOO!
3. 1948 - Robert Mitchum is arrested on drug charges. Oh, Robert Mitchum, you zany pothead.
3. List 2 important Birth days
1. Deborah Gibson (1970)
2. Caligula (12)
4. List 1 Death.
Charles Baudelaire (1867). If I was going to write my adolescent memoirs - and I really shouldn't because I had a very dull youth - I would call it "Confessions of a Teenaged Baudelaire Fan." It would be suitably overwrought, like Jane Eyre sans Mr. Rochester.
5. List a Holiday or Observance. (if any):
The Saint's Day for Aidan of Lindisfarne.
Onwards and upwards, here's the next meme - Haley-O tagged me with the Real Moms.... meme. I shall do my utmost.
1. Real moms are very tired at almost any given moment.
2. Real moms are very happy that today is Friday.
3. Real moms get all choked up when their Pre-K brings home a cassette of him singing in class. Oh, that sweet little voice!
4. Real moms have a moment of pure, undiluted panic when they look up in a store and realize that their toddler is not in sight.
5. Real moms feel a moment of bittersweet regret looking at the negative pregnancy test.
6. Real moms spend much of the opening prayer in church shushing loudmouthed children who just happen to be sitting in her pew and sharing half her genes.
Mary-Lue tagged me with this birthday meme:
1. Go to Wikipedia and type in your Birthday Month and day only.
August 31
2. List 3 Events that occurred that day.
1. Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim of Jack the Ripper, is murdered, 1888.
2. Princess Diana dies. 1997. And where was I when I heard this? I was at a bonfire bush party. WHOOOOOO!
3. 1948 - Robert Mitchum is arrested on drug charges. Oh, Robert Mitchum, you zany pothead.
3. List 2 important Birth days
1. Deborah Gibson (1970)
2. Caligula (12)
4. List 1 Death.
Charles Baudelaire (1867). If I was going to write my adolescent memoirs - and I really shouldn't because I had a very dull youth - I would call it "Confessions of a Teenaged Baudelaire Fan." It would be suitably overwrought, like Jane Eyre sans Mr. Rochester.
5. List a Holiday or Observance. (if any):
The Saint's Day for Aidan of Lindisfarne.
Onwards and upwards, here's the next meme - Haley-O tagged me with the Real Moms.... meme. I shall do my utmost.
1. Real moms are very tired at almost any given moment.
2. Real moms are very happy that today is Friday.
3. Real moms get all choked up when their Pre-K brings home a cassette of him singing in class. Oh, that sweet little voice!
4. Real moms have a moment of pure, undiluted panic when they look up in a store and realize that their toddler is not in sight.
5. Real moms feel a moment of bittersweet regret looking at the negative pregnancy test.
6. Real moms spend much of the opening prayer in church shushing loudmouthed children who just happen to be sitting in her pew and sharing half her genes.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Twentythree Months
This has been a busy month for you. You've discovered recreational burping ("baaaaawrp! Ick-coos me!"), the joy of drawing on walls, and how disgusting much of the world is. ("Ewwwww, gwoss! Bllluck!") You've also discovered that all cameras are there solely to take your photo, which has led to some hilarious situations, like when you scampered over to a group of teenaged girls posing in front of the convience store, shrieking "Cheese! Cheeeeeeese!".
You've been getting up very, very early - we say goodbye to your dad and then hang out in the still-dark house, you cuddling against me while I groggily check my email. It's a sweet time of day, this early me-and-you time, your brother and sister sleeping upstairs and the two of us reading Five Little Monkeys or watching Little Bear, this last bit of babyhood. So much of motherhood is so busy that I forget to be really conscious of it, but this morning time with you is concentrated sweetness, is honey.
This past month has also seen you very sick, complete with brief hospital stay - and I don't have the words for how piercingly poignant and frightening that was, this instant return to how sick you were in your first year. It reminded me again of how much I take for granted your current good health, reminded me to be constantly thankful that I have you.
You're still so tiny, something that's constantly commented on when you're out in public, and I'm at once annoyed that people feel the need to point out your size to me (do they think I haven't noticed?), and at once share the wonder in walking, talking, tiny you. You are super-concentrated cuteness, even down to your rather grouchy temperament.
Turning two is fast on your heels, and will bring all of the lightening speed changes of two with it - toilet training, playgroup, more words, and the underwater switch from being my baby to being your own preschooler, this girl getting ready for her own life.
Someone asked me the other day, somewhat inanely, if I'd go through the past two years over again - me nearly dying, you nearly dying, my cancer scare, my HUSBAND'S cancer scare and all of the other delightful things (What? There was more? Yes, apparently.) that have happened, and I just stared at them, at a loss for words. Because having YOU was in there, and the joy of you, my baby, trumps everything else, always. I would die for you, of course, but more than that, I will live for you*, live through the hard things as many times as needed, just so I can have slow sleepy mornings with you for as long as I can.
*and your siblings, of course.
You've been getting up very, very early - we say goodbye to your dad and then hang out in the still-dark house, you cuddling against me while I groggily check my email. It's a sweet time of day, this early me-and-you time, your brother and sister sleeping upstairs and the two of us reading Five Little Monkeys or watching Little Bear, this last bit of babyhood. So much of motherhood is so busy that I forget to be really conscious of it, but this morning time with you is concentrated sweetness, is honey.
This past month has also seen you very sick, complete with brief hospital stay - and I don't have the words for how piercingly poignant and frightening that was, this instant return to how sick you were in your first year. It reminded me again of how much I take for granted your current good health, reminded me to be constantly thankful that I have you.
You're still so tiny, something that's constantly commented on when you're out in public, and I'm at once annoyed that people feel the need to point out your size to me (do they think I haven't noticed?), and at once share the wonder in walking, talking, tiny you. You are super-concentrated cuteness, even down to your rather grouchy temperament.
Turning two is fast on your heels, and will bring all of the lightening speed changes of two with it - toilet training, playgroup, more words, and the underwater switch from being my baby to being your own preschooler, this girl getting ready for her own life.
Someone asked me the other day, somewhat inanely, if I'd go through the past two years over again - me nearly dying, you nearly dying, my cancer scare, my HUSBAND'S cancer scare and all of the other delightful things (What? There was more? Yes, apparently.) that have happened, and I just stared at them, at a loss for words. Because having YOU was in there, and the joy of you, my baby, trumps everything else, always. I would die for you, of course, but more than that, I will live for you*, live through the hard things as many times as needed, just so I can have slow sleepy mornings with you for as long as I can.
*and your siblings, of course.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
nightmares
Ere it shall be told. Ere Babylon was dust,
the Magus Zoroaster, my dead child,
Met his own image
Walking in the garden.
That apparition, sole of men, he saw.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
A while back, I took part in a letter-to-and-from-myself thing, where I wrote faux letters both from my 14 year old self and from some future, matronly me. My letter - and the others I read - were written in a spirit of ovarian sisterhood, full of motherly kindness towards our current selves. Time then actually passed.
I'm currently reading Charles Williams's "Descent Into Hell", and one of the characters is doomed to frequently run into herself, this horrifying doppelganger. And once I thought about it, I realized that to actually receive word from the future would be most terrifying thing. Who would want such a letter, lead-heavy with terrible news, with losses that you can't even currently imagine? Who would want to hear, really, what our future selves have to tell us? The lone consolation of such a letter would be its assurance that we are in the future, that someplace we have arrived through time.
I was going to let that be all for today, but it seems a bit alarming and stark. It's the first day of spring, so I sent chocolate bees in the kids' lunches, and I'll likely make something suitable spring-esque for dessert tonight, something in the lemon family - lemons always strike me as a sort of brave fruit, this first taste of springtime. I guess I could make vast pitchers of lemonade year round, lemons not being particularily expensive but I save that for late June. Perhaps future me would warn me of impending lemon shortages and spectrally chide me for my foolish clinging to tradition, warning me to gather my rosebuds while I may, etc. I think not, though.
I had a nightmare last night. I frequently have very vivid nightmares of an odd complexity, which I attribute both to my hearty imagination and my habit of late night snacking. While I don't enjoy actually having them, they ARE fun to retell later on - and I do think that I'd make quite a good horror novellist if I could ever overcome my own fear of writing alone in my very old house, while Something Upstairs moves slowly about. Anyhow, I won't relate last night's nightmare - too personal! - but part of it, just a little throwaway note, was that I was living alone in some strange, hectic city, my husband having left me for another woman.
It's funny how that one detail has coloured my whole day, this little aside in a nightmare, this present to me from my own brain. I know better than anyone what scares me, what hurts me. Much of my pre-marriage adult life was spent stupidly and I would have no kind words for that girl but I DO know her. I have no guarantees that Me in the future will approve of me right now, will like that path I'm on, what words she would have to say to me. No sensible person would open a letter from the future, from this ghostly doppleganger we do not as yet know.
the Magus Zoroaster, my dead child,
Met his own image
Walking in the garden.
That apparition, sole of men, he saw.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
A while back, I took part in a letter-to-and-from-myself thing, where I wrote faux letters both from my 14 year old self and from some future, matronly me. My letter - and the others I read - were written in a spirit of ovarian sisterhood, full of motherly kindness towards our current selves. Time then actually passed.
I'm currently reading Charles Williams's "Descent Into Hell", and one of the characters is doomed to frequently run into herself, this horrifying doppelganger. And once I thought about it, I realized that to actually receive word from the future would be most terrifying thing. Who would want such a letter, lead-heavy with terrible news, with losses that you can't even currently imagine? Who would want to hear, really, what our future selves have to tell us? The lone consolation of such a letter would be its assurance that we are in the future, that someplace we have arrived through time.
I was going to let that be all for today, but it seems a bit alarming and stark. It's the first day of spring, so I sent chocolate bees in the kids' lunches, and I'll likely make something suitable spring-esque for dessert tonight, something in the lemon family - lemons always strike me as a sort of brave fruit, this first taste of springtime. I guess I could make vast pitchers of lemonade year round, lemons not being particularily expensive but I save that for late June. Perhaps future me would warn me of impending lemon shortages and spectrally chide me for my foolish clinging to tradition, warning me to gather my rosebuds while I may, etc. I think not, though.
I had a nightmare last night. I frequently have very vivid nightmares of an odd complexity, which I attribute both to my hearty imagination and my habit of late night snacking. While I don't enjoy actually having them, they ARE fun to retell later on - and I do think that I'd make quite a good horror novellist if I could ever overcome my own fear of writing alone in my very old house, while Something Upstairs moves slowly about. Anyhow, I won't relate last night's nightmare - too personal! - but part of it, just a little throwaway note, was that I was living alone in some strange, hectic city, my husband having left me for another woman.
It's funny how that one detail has coloured my whole day, this little aside in a nightmare, this present to me from my own brain. I know better than anyone what scares me, what hurts me. Much of my pre-marriage adult life was spent stupidly and I would have no kind words for that girl but I DO know her. I have no guarantees that Me in the future will approve of me right now, will like that path I'm on, what words she would have to say to me. No sensible person would open a letter from the future, from this ghostly doppleganger we do not as yet know.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Random Stuff and Seven Songs.
I commented to my husband the other day that I was a bit baffled at how I was presenting myself online as this fragile twee girl-woman and why was I showing myself like that when it's nothing like me?
"I love you, honey," he said.
HEY.
So, not helping the whole twee thing, here are my seven favorite songs as of this very moment and with the caveat that these are my seven favorites that I could find on You Tube:
1.
2. Grace Cathedral Hill - The Decemberists
3.
This would be our family's theme song, if we were a sitcom. Although really, there's no reason why we would be.
4.
Something that always occurs to me while browsing You Tube is that people suck. Especially the Youth Of Today, who seem to be horrible with a brand new ferocity, although that may just be my age showing and teenagers have always been vicious and worthless. Accidentally viewing a few fight videos has me thinking that, nope, modern experiments in parenting have failed and that the current young generation is soulless aggressive scum. Of course, I was reading "Farmer Boy" to The Girl the other day and paused when I got to the bit where the boys beat the teacher to death. Huh. So mainly it's just awful the way the world has always failed to live up to my standards, even though I consistently fail to live up to my own standards, too.
5. Lakes Of Canada - The Innocence Mission. Or posssibly Sacred Head. I listen to the Innocence Mission a LOT these days. Lots and lots.
One time, when I was going through a bit of a disastified spot, I asked a friend for some career ideas.
"Plucky girl detective," she said instantly.
Of course, I couldn't detect my way out of a paperbag - I'm not great at problem-solving, thanks - and I don't think plucky girl detectives actually exist outside of light mystery novels, AND, AND, I'm not very tough. I cry when things get scary and that's not exactly an endearing quality in a detective.
6. Cruel. Kate Rusby. There WAS a version of this on You Tube, but it had clips from Doctor Who in it, a show which I've never watched for longer than a second. I'm going to make a sensitive montage of clips from The Price is Right, set to my number 7, The Blower's Daughter by Damian Rice.
"I love you, honey," he said.
HEY.
So, not helping the whole twee thing, here are my seven favorite songs as of this very moment and with the caveat that these are my seven favorites that I could find on You Tube:
1.
2. Grace Cathedral Hill - The Decemberists
3.
This would be our family's theme song, if we were a sitcom. Although really, there's no reason why we would be.
4.
Something that always occurs to me while browsing You Tube is that people suck. Especially the Youth Of Today, who seem to be horrible with a brand new ferocity, although that may just be my age showing and teenagers have always been vicious and worthless. Accidentally viewing a few fight videos has me thinking that, nope, modern experiments in parenting have failed and that the current young generation is soulless aggressive scum. Of course, I was reading "Farmer Boy" to The Girl the other day and paused when I got to the bit where the boys beat the teacher to death. Huh. So mainly it's just awful the way the world has always failed to live up to my standards, even though I consistently fail to live up to my own standards, too.
5. Lakes Of Canada - The Innocence Mission. Or posssibly Sacred Head. I listen to the Innocence Mission a LOT these days. Lots and lots.
One time, when I was going through a bit of a disastified spot, I asked a friend for some career ideas.
"Plucky girl detective," she said instantly.
Of course, I couldn't detect my way out of a paperbag - I'm not great at problem-solving, thanks - and I don't think plucky girl detectives actually exist outside of light mystery novels, AND, AND, I'm not very tough. I cry when things get scary and that's not exactly an endearing quality in a detective.
6. Cruel. Kate Rusby. There WAS a version of this on You Tube, but it had clips from Doctor Who in it, a show which I've never watched for longer than a second. I'm going to make a sensitive montage of clips from The Price is Right, set to my number 7, The Blower's Daughter by Damian Rice.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Me Post No Good
Okay, the mystery of this morning's vanishing post? I didn't like it after I hit publish, so I deleted it.
I'm extremely fried from last week, still. I kept falling asleep all day, like if I sat down for longer than a second or leaned against a wall or even didn't walk quite briskly enough. So blogging - and reading blogs - has fallen by the wayside a bit as I try to take care of everything else. I've entertained myself by composing REALLY FUNNY blog posts in my head, but they haven't translated to words on screen, because something always happens between me and making it to the computer, sadly. The stuff in my head, though, has been GREAT.
I'm extremely fried from last week, still. I kept falling asleep all day, like if I sat down for longer than a second or leaned against a wall or even didn't walk quite briskly enough. So blogging - and reading blogs - has fallen by the wayside a bit as I try to take care of everything else. I've entertained myself by composing REALLY FUNNY blog posts in my head, but they haven't translated to words on screen, because something always happens between me and making it to the computer, sadly. The stuff in my head, though, has been GREAT.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Holidays R Us
I WAS going to make a post listing all of the holidays we celebrate (generally by baking something, which I like to pretend is for the benefit of my children but is actually due to my insatiable hunger for all things butter-and-sugar based), but the list was freakishly long. The Feast of the Assumption! Michaelmas! Eric Caryle's birthday! Little kids DO like holidays, and honestly, it really helps break up the sometimes-endless days of summer to be able to announce that it's Midsummer's Eve and we're having a fairy lunch in the garden, or that it's Arthur's birthday and we're going to make glasses out of pipecleaners.
I just forgot what I was going to write next because I was suddenly swept by a rush of sadness at the thought that someday my kids will not want to make green cupcakes with me for St. Patrick's Day - but then I remembered that The Baby is not quite 2 and that leaves me with at least 8 more years of foisting my appetite for children's crafts and, of course, cupcakes upon a defenceless child. And by then, doubtless I'll have moved on to something equally transporting. Like macrame.
My oldest child will be eight this spring. Seriously, that went by SO fast, as fast as the old ladies warned me it would during her endless infancy, where it seemd liked she'd always been a baby, always would be a baby. In a blink, she went from that toddler to a poised girl, someone with opinions on vampires and hair conditioner and favorite authors. She's still a little child, my little child, but the end of childhood is whispering closer and with it the bittersweet, as-yet-unrevealed day that will mark the last day of their childhoods, leaving the pretend fairies and the dandelions in the yard unrevealed and alone. And that is sad enough to make me tear up, and sappy enough to make me laugh, so enough for one night, I say.
I just forgot what I was going to write next because I was suddenly swept by a rush of sadness at the thought that someday my kids will not want to make green cupcakes with me for St. Patrick's Day - but then I remembered that The Baby is not quite 2 and that leaves me with at least 8 more years of foisting my appetite for children's crafts and, of course, cupcakes upon a defenceless child. And by then, doubtless I'll have moved on to something equally transporting. Like macrame.
My oldest child will be eight this spring. Seriously, that went by SO fast, as fast as the old ladies warned me it would during her endless infancy, where it seemd liked she'd always been a baby, always would be a baby. In a blink, she went from that toddler to a poised girl, someone with opinions on vampires and hair conditioner and favorite authors. She's still a little child, my little child, but the end of childhood is whispering closer and with it the bittersweet, as-yet-unrevealed day that will mark the last day of their childhoods, leaving the pretend fairies and the dandelions in the yard unrevealed and alone. And that is sad enough to make me tear up, and sappy enough to make me laugh, so enough for one night, I say.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Saint Patrick's Day
The Boy was telling his dad that the leprechaun trap once again failed to trap a leprechaun but that the leprechaun DID leave behind some gold chocolate coins. His dad asked him if the box felt heavy when he lifted it up, because sometimes leprechauns clung to the edge of the box and made good their escape while children were distracted by the coins. The Boy's eyes got huge as he thought this over, and he exclaimed that it WAS heavy. Kids are dumb.
We're making the full deal out of St. Patrick's Day today, because SICK OR NOT, I am NOT missing out on another one. So I frailly made Irish hot chocolate this morning (hot chocolate with whipped cream on it. Ideally, you'd throw in some Bailey's, but I was in no mood), and Irish oatmeal. Corned Beef and cabbage is cooking in the slow cooker, and I'm going to make a chocolate stout cake (Hi, Kim!) later if I can stand up long enough.
I have a photo from a few years ago - The Girl is five years old and has a handful of gold chocolate coins, the first time that the leprechaun made his Saint Patrick's Day appearance (or non-appearance), and on her face is this magical, wondrous look, that the day had suddenly become a DAY, this spot in time. It was a sad time for me - my young uncle had just died a few days earlier of a terrible illness, and yet my children still woke up to find gold in the kitchen, this magic that time can only partially take away. My goal is to give my children the beauty of faith and ritual that overcomes death, sadness, time - to replace the fairy's false (and chocolaty) gold with the real gold, to keep them wondrous and joyous.
And for your joy, here is an anecdote from last night - The Girl in the grocery store, after picking out roasted garlic spaghetti sauce: "Garlic is amazing. It wards off vampires AND germs!"
We're making the full deal out of St. Patrick's Day today, because SICK OR NOT, I am NOT missing out on another one. So I frailly made Irish hot chocolate this morning (hot chocolate with whipped cream on it. Ideally, you'd throw in some Bailey's, but I was in no mood), and Irish oatmeal. Corned Beef and cabbage is cooking in the slow cooker, and I'm going to make a chocolate stout cake (Hi, Kim!) later if I can stand up long enough.
I have a photo from a few years ago - The Girl is five years old and has a handful of gold chocolate coins, the first time that the leprechaun made his Saint Patrick's Day appearance (or non-appearance), and on her face is this magical, wondrous look, that the day had suddenly become a DAY, this spot in time. It was a sad time for me - my young uncle had just died a few days earlier of a terrible illness, and yet my children still woke up to find gold in the kitchen, this magic that time can only partially take away. My goal is to give my children the beauty of faith and ritual that overcomes death, sadness, time - to replace the fairy's false (and chocolaty) gold with the real gold, to keep them wondrous and joyous.
And for your joy, here is an anecdote from last night - The Girl in the grocery store, after picking out roasted garlic spaghetti sauce: "Garlic is amazing. It wards off vampires AND germs!"
Friday, March 16, 2007
That was grueling.
I am SO tired. Very, very, very tired. And everything in my house is covered, I suspect, in a light coating of barf and/or cooties. But the Baby is well on the way to being completely better, and even though she's thin and pale she's zipping around the house demanding snacks ("Cheeez!" "Noooonoooos!") and talking about the "kitty dog" she saw in a car on the way back from the doctor's office.
She was SO sick. I read someplace that there really are only two prayers - pleasepleaseplease or thankyouthankyouthankyou - and I did a lot of the pleading variety earlier this week while she was having trouble remaining conscious, while she was dehydrated, while she was throwing up every few minutes and calling for me to help her. There was nothing else I could do, beyond giving her little drinks every few minutes and cleaning her up everytime she got sick, and I fell into this horrible rhythm where it became my normal life - her misery, my tight knot of fear and worry in my stomach, this ongoing pleading to make her better NOW, to make this the last time.
My husband is home early from work today, and he's fretting and playing with The Baby. A kind friend - a different one! - dropped off a porch full of presents for the kids, bubbles and colouring sets and toy cars, things to make up for their March break being interrupted by sickness again. The kids are playing happily with their loot, talking about their planned leperchaun trap for tonight, and life feels almost normal again, thankyouthankyouthankyou.
She was SO sick. I read someplace that there really are only two prayers - pleasepleaseplease or thankyouthankyouthankyou - and I did a lot of the pleading variety earlier this week while she was having trouble remaining conscious, while she was dehydrated, while she was throwing up every few minutes and calling for me to help her. There was nothing else I could do, beyond giving her little drinks every few minutes and cleaning her up everytime she got sick, and I fell into this horrible rhythm where it became my normal life - her misery, my tight knot of fear and worry in my stomach, this ongoing pleading to make her better NOW, to make this the last time.
My husband is home early from work today, and he's fretting and playing with The Baby. A kind friend - a different one! - dropped off a porch full of presents for the kids, bubbles and colouring sets and toy cars, things to make up for their March break being interrupted by sickness again. The kids are playing happily with their loot, talking about their planned leperchaun trap for tonight, and life feels almost normal again, thankyouthankyouthankyou.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Stupid stomach bug
Well, I take it back.
The Baby still is sick. Not as sick, not profoundly sick, but pretty darn sick and I have that sort of wearied worried sensation that I never knew pre-motherhood. Motherhood is a voyage of discovery, my friends, and many of those discoveries really, really suck. I actually caught myself WRINGING MY HANDS earlier this morning, like O Woe! My Baby has the flu!
I just spoke on the phone with a nice nurse at Telehealth Ontario, mainly to keep myself from hyperventalating through The Baby's whole nap. She asked me a series of reasonable questions: Was the Baby throwing up a black tarry substance? Was she unconcious? Had she sustained a serious head injury in the past couple of days? No, no, and do I SOUND like a complete moron? Mostly we gave her too much to drink this morning, all heady with the optimism of yesterday's recovery and she barfed it all up, and she agreed with my diagnosis of parental stupidity. Oh, and we shouldn't be giving her any medication. Grand. I've been doing everything wrong. And NEXT she's probably going to tell me that I shouldn't let my kids eat sugar straight from the bag or settle their disagreements in a little room I like to call "the arena of death."
Haley tagged me to let everyone know what seven songs I'm listening to all the time right now, and let me tell you - it's a big mope fest. I'll add some links later (I quickly tried to find some on You Tube earlier, and I did find most of the songs, except they were used as the soundtracks to montages of Doctor Who or Harry Potter film clips. Oh, the pain.), but in the meantime, here you go:
1. Grace Cathedral Hill - The Decemberists
2. Lakes of Canada - The Innocence Mission
3. Romulus - Sufjan Stevens
4. The Sea and the Rythym - Iron and Wine
.... and that's only four. I'll think of three more later. Now I have to go tend to my crabby, sick, beloved baby.
The Baby still is sick. Not as sick, not profoundly sick, but pretty darn sick and I have that sort of wearied worried sensation that I never knew pre-motherhood. Motherhood is a voyage of discovery, my friends, and many of those discoveries really, really suck. I actually caught myself WRINGING MY HANDS earlier this morning, like O Woe! My Baby has the flu!
I just spoke on the phone with a nice nurse at Telehealth Ontario, mainly to keep myself from hyperventalating through The Baby's whole nap. She asked me a series of reasonable questions: Was the Baby throwing up a black tarry substance? Was she unconcious? Had she sustained a serious head injury in the past couple of days? No, no, and do I SOUND like a complete moron? Mostly we gave her too much to drink this morning, all heady with the optimism of yesterday's recovery and she barfed it all up, and she agreed with my diagnosis of parental stupidity. Oh, and we shouldn't be giving her any medication. Grand. I've been doing everything wrong. And NEXT she's probably going to tell me that I shouldn't let my kids eat sugar straight from the bag or settle their disagreements in a little room I like to call "the arena of death."
Haley tagged me to let everyone know what seven songs I'm listening to all the time right now, and let me tell you - it's a big mope fest. I'll add some links later (I quickly tried to find some on You Tube earlier, and I did find most of the songs, except they were used as the soundtracks to montages of Doctor Who or Harry Potter film clips. Oh, the pain.), but in the meantime, here you go:
1. Grace Cathedral Hill - The Decemberists
2. Lakes of Canada - The Innocence Mission
3. Romulus - Sufjan Stevens
4. The Sea and the Rythym - Iron and Wine
.... and that's only four. I'll think of three more later. Now I have to go tend to my crabby, sick, beloved baby.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Today is better, thank you.
The Baby - and I want to call her by her real name here, because she currently feels so fragile and vulnerable - threw up so much Sunday night and yesterday that she has red scalds around her mouth and on her chin, her little mouth cracked with dehydration. This IS what we feared she would get, one of the scariest possibilities for parents of a severely underweight toddler (and Kyla, you have no idea how cheering I found your comment in some grim way, this feeling that SOME OTHER MOTHER UNDERSTOOD. ), but The Baby is feeling much better today.
I was jubilant when my husband got home (well, as jubilant as a sick and exhausted person can be), because it had been two hours since she'd last thrown up, and when I woke up again this morning and realized that she hadn't been sick at all during the night, it felt like someone had dropped a big present off on my porch. And someone had, in fact - one of my lovely friends made a trip to the Big City to pick up gluten-free snacks for the baby and dropped them off after work, at midnight, hanging them silently on the front door.
So we did have an emergency trip to the hospital Sunday night, first having to wake my mom up (and those middle of the night phone calls are never any good, are they? Although we do get cheerful middle of the night drunken phone calls for Yvonne. YVONNE IS NOT HERE, DRUNKARDS!) and come rushing in to watch the other two and sit up, sleepless and worried all night. The hospital closest to us is small and doesn't have a doctor actually there at night, but the nurses took good care of The Baby and she was sent home in much better shape. She had another visit to the doctor yesterday afternoon and we seriously thought that she would end up in the hospital for a several day stay, but instead she got better, mercifully. Now I have to fatten her up, like poor Hansel being fattened by the Witch, but right now she's freshly bathed and napping in the playpen next to the computer desk, her sweet little belly full of apple juice and rice crackers. I keep turning around to look at her, my eyes hungry for the sight of her safe and well.
I was jubilant when my husband got home (well, as jubilant as a sick and exhausted person can be), because it had been two hours since she'd last thrown up, and when I woke up again this morning and realized that she hadn't been sick at all during the night, it felt like someone had dropped a big present off on my porch. And someone had, in fact - one of my lovely friends made a trip to the Big City to pick up gluten-free snacks for the baby and dropped them off after work, at midnight, hanging them silently on the front door.
So we did have an emergency trip to the hospital Sunday night, first having to wake my mom up (and those middle of the night phone calls are never any good, are they? Although we do get cheerful middle of the night drunken phone calls for Yvonne. YVONNE IS NOT HERE, DRUNKARDS!) and come rushing in to watch the other two and sit up, sleepless and worried all night. The hospital closest to us is small and doesn't have a doctor actually there at night, but the nurses took good care of The Baby and she was sent home in much better shape. She had another visit to the doctor yesterday afternoon and we seriously thought that she would end up in the hospital for a several day stay, but instead she got better, mercifully. Now I have to fatten her up, like poor Hansel being fattened by the Witch, but right now she's freshly bathed and napping in the playpen next to the computer desk, her sweet little belly full of apple juice and rice crackers. I keep turning around to look at her, my eyes hungry for the sight of her safe and well.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Ack
Posting is going to be light for the next little while - The Baby has a nasty stomach bug. We spent last night in the hospital and she does seem to be feeling a little bit better today, but she's so underweight already that this is incredibly scary. Keep her in your prayers today, please.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
So yesterday was intense for me, but it was also lovely - a friend came over with her two kids and her baby and the little girls had a tea party and the boys ran around with a remote control loader and her little guy rode The Baby's rocking horse, which rocked back and forth as time keeps going on and on. And then my mom came over with a prayer shawl that she knit for me, and my husband gave me a poem that he wrote and a zillion people (well, not quite. But lots.) commented on yesterday's post and it felt very beautiful and acknowledged.
Today started with The Baby singing happily to herself in her crib and reading to herself from her two favorite books - "Bread and Jam for Frances" and "Franklin Does Something And Learns An Important Lesson". I can always tell which she's reading, since she "reads" them out loud - Frances is "Mama, Dada, Baby, COOKIES!", while Franklin is "Turtle, turtle, bunny, turtle, bug." My husband and I lay too still in bed, each of us feigning sleep for the moment when she would suddenly realize that she was ALL ALONE and need saving, which came with her suddenly hurling her books out of crib and shrieking "help! HELP!". My husband and I cracked up and ended up with some little 23 pound creep hogging all of the valuable middle-of-the-bed real estate. Not every story gets to end this happily, and I do know that I am blessed. Very.
The gifts that we were given are not always the things that we would ever ask for. I certainly would never have wanted to go through what happened last year, but it has thrown the rest of my life into this high relief, this happiness for the time that I have been given. I may live to be a hundred or I might not but I did get to see my baby through her hard year and keep her well, I did get to spend more time with my kids and my husband and this past year was a blessing, this unearned, welcome gift.
Today started with The Baby singing happily to herself in her crib and reading to herself from her two favorite books - "Bread and Jam for Frances" and "Franklin Does Something And Learns An Important Lesson". I can always tell which she's reading, since she "reads" them out loud - Frances is "Mama, Dada, Baby, COOKIES!", while Franklin is "Turtle, turtle, bunny, turtle, bug." My husband and I lay too still in bed, each of us feigning sleep for the moment when she would suddenly realize that she was ALL ALONE and need saving, which came with her suddenly hurling her books out of crib and shrieking "help! HELP!". My husband and I cracked up and ended up with some little 23 pound creep hogging all of the valuable middle-of-the-bed real estate. Not every story gets to end this happily, and I do know that I am blessed. Very.
The gifts that we were given are not always the things that we would ever ask for. I certainly would never have wanted to go through what happened last year, but it has thrown the rest of my life into this high relief, this happiness for the time that I have been given. I may live to be a hundred or I might not but I did get to see my baby through her hard year and keep her well, I did get to spend more time with my kids and my husband and this past year was a blessing, this unearned, welcome gift.
Friday, March 9, 2007
I've written about this before.
Everyone has secret anniversaries, days they keep in their heart. The day someone died, the day you first kissed your husband, things that make an ordinary day suddenly this sacred thing.
So today, last year, I got very sick.
My kids - the older two - had Scarlet Fever. My doctor looked at me and took my temperature and worried that I had bronchitis again because I did have a deep, gross cough and so she gave me some antibiotics and sent me home.
I didn't mention that I'd pretty much stopped peeing several days earlier, because it didn't strike me as a big deal. I'd realize mid-afternoon that I hadn't gone to the washroom all day and think, hmm, maybe I should. My urine - and this is way too much information but anyhow - was deep brown and fetid, something that I noticed with a detached interest, like I was already on the moon, from someplace far away where little details like that no longer mattered. The Baby would cry and I would look at her and wonder where she'd come from and why was she making that sound?
And so this day last year - the first Friday of the March break - I'd been having weird irregular heartbeats all day, like my heart was suddenly jackhammering out of my chest and I was falling down a lot while I walked and I noticed, with no real interest, that my temperature seemed to be a bit high. I phoned my husband and told him that I was feeling very well and could be come home? I didn't tell him any of the things that struck me as irrelevant - that I wasn't peeing, that my heart was being weird, that I kept falling down - and he said, quite reasonably, to put the tv on for the kids and just to rest until he got home at his regular time.
He got home and looked at me with some concern. I wasn't acting quite like myself, was obviously very sick. He wanted to take me to the hospital but I just wanted to have a bath and go to bed, and I lay there in the dark with my heart going BOOM BOOM BOOM like something dreadful walking towards me.
The next morning my husband insisted that I go to the hospital. I wanted to phone Telehealth first, because I was sure that all of this - the not peeing, the heart stuff, the high fever - was nothing. The nurse on the line suddenly sounded tense when I told her what was going on, and told me that I had to go the hospital immediately, that I had to promise to leave within the next 20 minutes. We dropped our sick older kids off at my in-laws and drove to the nearest tiny rural hospital, 20 minutes away. The emergency department led me straight to the Serious Emergency Room, with me dreamily thinking the whole time that they were making an awfully big fuss.
They were worried primarily about my heart, and asked me to give them a urine sample to rule out pregnancy so I could have chest x-rays. I obliged and handed the cup of urine to the waiting nurse, who gasped out "JESUS, HONEY," when she saw what I'd given her. And then a young girl came into the emergency room who had been kicked in the head by a horse and needed to readied immediately for air transport and there was only one doctor and one RN in the whole hospital. They paused midway through getting her ready to run into my room and tell me that I should file a complaint with the hospital, that they were horribly dangerously understaffed and that I wasn't getting adequate treatment. I wanted to go home. The young curlyhaired RN came running over and whispered to me that she wasn't supposed to say this, but that if I went home, I would die.
I spent two days in the emergency ward. My fever would suddenly spike. I had seizures, came close to going into a coma, my white blood cell count plummeting and my heart rate at 145, 155. My husband sat beside me crying, holding our baby. I remember almost nothing of this, just little scraps. My dad came into the hospital with a chocolate dog and a note that said "Stop malingering." They moved me into a regular room - and regular hospital beds are like airy pieces of Heaven compared to the hard, flat examination tables that I spent the last several nights on - but moved me the next morning into isolation. My mom was back and she took my baby away, bringing her over for me to kiss first, and I kissed my little baby thinking that I was never going to see her again. You can imagine, I suspect, how that felt.
I spent a week in isolation. There was a chair overlooking the parking lot and the endless snowy field going away from the hospital and I'd sit there, feverish and feeling like this was the last of my life. I was on massive doses of iv antibiotics, on a constant heart monitor, on oxygen, and I felt lost in the massive tangle of tubes and wires. My husband printed out recent pictures of the kids and my daughter made me a long chain of buttons that I held onto almost constantly, like it was the thin thread keeping me from floating away. The nurses were kind - one red haired nurse would come in and sit with me, talk about American Idol and sneak me treats from the cafeteria to try and tempt me to eat. I slept most of the time.
The doctor released me from the hospital when my heart stopped acting up, when the massive infection was gone from my system and my fever was gone. He had a serious talk with me about my low white cell count, how hematologists in the nearest Big City had been following it with some concern and suspected that I had leukemia, that I had to go the next weekend once I was strong enough for massive testing. And so I went home, desperate for my children and sure that I was only going home for a little while, that I was going to die horribly.
A few days later, my white blood cell counts went back up. I had a viral infection that had sent them shooting down, nothing worse. (edited to add - that wasn't what caused me to get so sick, though - I had a septic kidney infection, which means that the infection in my kidneys had spread into my blood and from there into my other organs. By the time I was in the hospital, my lungs and heart were beginning to fail.) Friends came and stayed with me all day for the first few weeks out of the hospital (I don't write about them often, but I have lovely friends), watching the kids, keeping me company, and I felt frail and like the rest of my life had been thrown into this high relief, because I came so close to being absent from this, from my life.
And so that is today's anniversary. Tonight I will drink some wine and likely eat some pizza and feel a mixture of gratitude - I do enjoy being alive - and a darker emotion that I have trouble expressing, this animal terror that I can so close to dying and now know that someday I will.
So today, last year, I got very sick.
My kids - the older two - had Scarlet Fever. My doctor looked at me and took my temperature and worried that I had bronchitis again because I did have a deep, gross cough and so she gave me some antibiotics and sent me home.
I didn't mention that I'd pretty much stopped peeing several days earlier, because it didn't strike me as a big deal. I'd realize mid-afternoon that I hadn't gone to the washroom all day and think, hmm, maybe I should. My urine - and this is way too much information but anyhow - was deep brown and fetid, something that I noticed with a detached interest, like I was already on the moon, from someplace far away where little details like that no longer mattered. The Baby would cry and I would look at her and wonder where she'd come from and why was she making that sound?
And so this day last year - the first Friday of the March break - I'd been having weird irregular heartbeats all day, like my heart was suddenly jackhammering out of my chest and I was falling down a lot while I walked and I noticed, with no real interest, that my temperature seemed to be a bit high. I phoned my husband and told him that I was feeling very well and could be come home? I didn't tell him any of the things that struck me as irrelevant - that I wasn't peeing, that my heart was being weird, that I kept falling down - and he said, quite reasonably, to put the tv on for the kids and just to rest until he got home at his regular time.
He got home and looked at me with some concern. I wasn't acting quite like myself, was obviously very sick. He wanted to take me to the hospital but I just wanted to have a bath and go to bed, and I lay there in the dark with my heart going BOOM BOOM BOOM like something dreadful walking towards me.
The next morning my husband insisted that I go to the hospital. I wanted to phone Telehealth first, because I was sure that all of this - the not peeing, the heart stuff, the high fever - was nothing. The nurse on the line suddenly sounded tense when I told her what was going on, and told me that I had to go the hospital immediately, that I had to promise to leave within the next 20 minutes. We dropped our sick older kids off at my in-laws and drove to the nearest tiny rural hospital, 20 minutes away. The emergency department led me straight to the Serious Emergency Room, with me dreamily thinking the whole time that they were making an awfully big fuss.
They were worried primarily about my heart, and asked me to give them a urine sample to rule out pregnancy so I could have chest x-rays. I obliged and handed the cup of urine to the waiting nurse, who gasped out "JESUS, HONEY," when she saw what I'd given her. And then a young girl came into the emergency room who had been kicked in the head by a horse and needed to readied immediately for air transport and there was only one doctor and one RN in the whole hospital. They paused midway through getting her ready to run into my room and tell me that I should file a complaint with the hospital, that they were horribly dangerously understaffed and that I wasn't getting adequate treatment. I wanted to go home. The young curlyhaired RN came running over and whispered to me that she wasn't supposed to say this, but that if I went home, I would die.
I spent two days in the emergency ward. My fever would suddenly spike. I had seizures, came close to going into a coma, my white blood cell count plummeting and my heart rate at 145, 155. My husband sat beside me crying, holding our baby. I remember almost nothing of this, just little scraps. My dad came into the hospital with a chocolate dog and a note that said "Stop malingering." They moved me into a regular room - and regular hospital beds are like airy pieces of Heaven compared to the hard, flat examination tables that I spent the last several nights on - but moved me the next morning into isolation. My mom was back and she took my baby away, bringing her over for me to kiss first, and I kissed my little baby thinking that I was never going to see her again. You can imagine, I suspect, how that felt.
I spent a week in isolation. There was a chair overlooking the parking lot and the endless snowy field going away from the hospital and I'd sit there, feverish and feeling like this was the last of my life. I was on massive doses of iv antibiotics, on a constant heart monitor, on oxygen, and I felt lost in the massive tangle of tubes and wires. My husband printed out recent pictures of the kids and my daughter made me a long chain of buttons that I held onto almost constantly, like it was the thin thread keeping me from floating away. The nurses were kind - one red haired nurse would come in and sit with me, talk about American Idol and sneak me treats from the cafeteria to try and tempt me to eat. I slept most of the time.
The doctor released me from the hospital when my heart stopped acting up, when the massive infection was gone from my system and my fever was gone. He had a serious talk with me about my low white cell count, how hematologists in the nearest Big City had been following it with some concern and suspected that I had leukemia, that I had to go the next weekend once I was strong enough for massive testing. And so I went home, desperate for my children and sure that I was only going home for a little while, that I was going to die horribly.
A few days later, my white blood cell counts went back up. I had a viral infection that had sent them shooting down, nothing worse. (edited to add - that wasn't what caused me to get so sick, though - I had a septic kidney infection, which means that the infection in my kidneys had spread into my blood and from there into my other organs. By the time I was in the hospital, my lungs and heart were beginning to fail.) Friends came and stayed with me all day for the first few weeks out of the hospital (I don't write about them often, but I have lovely friends), watching the kids, keeping me company, and I felt frail and like the rest of my life had been thrown into this high relief, because I came so close to being absent from this, from my life.
And so that is today's anniversary. Tonight I will drink some wine and likely eat some pizza and feel a mixture of gratitude - I do enjoy being alive - and a darker emotion that I have trouble expressing, this animal terror that I can so close to dying and now know that someday I will.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Wait!
I remember when I was a callous, coal-hearted teenager and I'd occasionally run into women in their 30s who were obviously being thrown for a big loop by the whole aging/loss of sex appeal thing. I'd listen to them complain about their Mysterious Weight Gain and I'd think "Oh wah wah wah, Grandma", or something equally compassionate. Now, of course, I'm in my 30s and while aging is being relatively kind to me, I certainly am being thrown for a karmically large loop by my post-childbearing fuller figure. THANK YOU, karma. What are you going to do next - crush my adolescent dreams of marrying Morrissey?
I'm not fat. I'm 5'7" and I weigh around 145 pounds, which is reasonable enough but it's certainly not the slim girl I used to be and while I don't miss that girl - SHE WAS A JERK - I DO miss her ability to eat and never gain weight. A friend of mine has recently lost a lot of weight by carefully watching what she ate (as opposed to dieting) and going to aerobics classes 3 times a week. That doesn't sound that hard, but everytime I think about exercising, I then move to the logical conclusion, which is not exercising. And everytime I consider eating with more care, I then worry that someday there will be a famine and then, then I might not be able to get my hands on a Big Turk bar. It's frustrating.
My husband, for the record, loves me with an uxorious ardour and is apparently completely happy with me fat OR skinny. But I'd like to feel happier trying on clothing, like to not feel self-concious about my appearance, and I'd also like this to magically happen while still lounging around all day* and eating everything I can find in the fridge. I have the time to exercise (I could exercise for hours a day, like a certain skeletally thin mother of four that I know), I have the know-how, and all I lack, tragically, is the will/magical powers.
*because I'm a housewife, yo.
I'm not fat. I'm 5'7" and I weigh around 145 pounds, which is reasonable enough but it's certainly not the slim girl I used to be and while I don't miss that girl - SHE WAS A JERK - I DO miss her ability to eat and never gain weight. A friend of mine has recently lost a lot of weight by carefully watching what she ate (as opposed to dieting) and going to aerobics classes 3 times a week. That doesn't sound that hard, but everytime I think about exercising, I then move to the logical conclusion, which is not exercising. And everytime I consider eating with more care, I then worry that someday there will be a famine and then, then I might not be able to get my hands on a Big Turk bar. It's frustrating.
My husband, for the record, loves me with an uxorious ardour and is apparently completely happy with me fat OR skinny. But I'd like to feel happier trying on clothing, like to not feel self-concious about my appearance, and I'd also like this to magically happen while still lounging around all day* and eating everything I can find in the fridge. I have the time to exercise (I could exercise for hours a day, like a certain skeletally thin mother of four that I know), I have the know-how, and all I lack, tragically, is the will/magical powers.
*because I'm a housewife, yo.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
It's Wednesday, again.
I had a lot of anxiety issues after I had the Baby, in that I was anxious ALL THE TIME, every single moment, and things like taking a ride in the car to the grocery store would reduce me to hysterical, terrified weeping because we might all get killed. It was a lot of fun, as you may well imagine. When I weaned The Baby at 14 months, I was back to my normal levels of anxiety within a few weeks, which makes me suspect that Lactation is my mortal enemy. I was still nursing Baby when I started my blog and I read through my early entries the other day, trying to see if I could see hints of the anxiety which was literally crippling me and nope, not really. I WAS amused to see that my early blog nickname for The Girl was "Tillie". Ha. Tillie.
Right now I'm mostly just anxious about MY STUPID WEIGHT. I spent the first 25 years of my life looking like a stick bug and apparently I'm going to spend the next 25 years looking like someone's pudgy mom. I do know some skinny, hot mothers, but most of them got that way by not eating. So that's not likely to happen at my house any time soon, tragically. At least the people at Dove love me... although since Unilever also owns Axe body spray and SlimFast, they might just be faking it. In the meantime, I'm considering taking up the dreaded exercise. Maybe I should buy a treadmill-powered television.
Haley-O tagged me with Five Reasons Why I Blog, so here we go:
1. I am a big showoff and no one wants to watch me be pretend to be a pretty ballerina anymore.
2. I was reading blogs silently for TWO YEARS and suddenly started feeling like a bit of a creep.
3. My thoughts and feelings are SOLID GOLD, BABY! Who wouldn't want to read my endless meanderings about painting my office and going to the dentist? My life is one unending adventure and it was just selfish of me not to share it.
4. To force myself to start writing every single day instead of being all "yeah, yeah" when well-wishers told me I should write. Look! I'm writing!
5. To write myself back to health.
Right now I'm mostly just anxious about MY STUPID WEIGHT. I spent the first 25 years of my life looking like a stick bug and apparently I'm going to spend the next 25 years looking like someone's pudgy mom. I do know some skinny, hot mothers, but most of them got that way by not eating. So that's not likely to happen at my house any time soon, tragically. At least the people at Dove love me... although since Unilever also owns Axe body spray and SlimFast, they might just be faking it. In the meantime, I'm considering taking up the dreaded exercise. Maybe I should buy a treadmill-powered television.
Haley-O tagged me with Five Reasons Why I Blog, so here we go:
1. I am a big showoff and no one wants to watch me be pretend to be a pretty ballerina anymore.
2. I was reading blogs silently for TWO YEARS and suddenly started feeling like a bit of a creep.
3. My thoughts and feelings are SOLID GOLD, BABY! Who wouldn't want to read my endless meanderings about painting my office and going to the dentist? My life is one unending adventure and it was just selfish of me not to share it.
4. To force myself to start writing every single day instead of being all "yeah, yeah" when well-wishers told me I should write. Look! I'm writing!
5. To write myself back to health.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
There's nothing more fun
... than going to the dentist. At one point today my mouth was propped open and metal spacers were holding apart my teeth and I just thought, GOSH! I am having the BEST time! This is, of course, a logical result of my all-sugar diet and you may hold me up to your children as a Bad Example, with my nasty chalk teeth and my many, many fillings. By the time everything was repaired, the left half of my head was frozen, and I still had to run into the grocery store for a few things. There's nothing like being unable to feel your mouth, nose and jaw to make you worry that you might be inadvertently drooling and/or standing, mouth agape, in the gluten-free bread section. (answer: yes to both.)
Here's another revelation that I had today - if one's head is mostly frozen, one should likely not decide to have a turky pepperoni stick no matter how delicious it appears, because pepperoni and tongues are the same consistency and eventually, your head WILL defrost. I offer you this, free of charge. Someone should just follow me around taking notes and then publish a book called "Don't Do This - Lessons From Beck."
Here's another revelation that I had today - if one's head is mostly frozen, one should likely not decide to have a turky pepperoni stick no matter how delicious it appears, because pepperoni and tongues are the same consistency and eventually, your head WILL defrost. I offer you this, free of charge. Someone should just follow me around taking notes and then publish a book called "Don't Do This - Lessons From Beck."
Monday, March 5, 2007
Of birth and dough and babies
Sourdough starter, Cin, is a type of living yeast made from flour and (normally) water. There are stories of this yeast being handed down in families since the 1840s. Of course, making sourdough starter from my breastmilk is, like eating placenta, just something I will not do. Yep, that would be my boundaries. My husband DID joke about wanting to save the placenta and I made a post-delivery joke about that, which made the whole delivery room go quiet with discomfort. Oh FINE, if everyone is going to be touchy...
And here I am, one and a half weeks before said Baby made her appearance:
I'd apparently given up wearing supportive undergarments by this point. My living room is obviously yellow, and I read this article on decorating with yellow the other day, which said that you shouldn't paint your living room yellow, because it's too stimulating. My husband and I LIKE painting rooms actual colours, though, likely because we have no taste. And when the sun starts setting a bit, right about four in the afternoon this time of year, the light that fills the livingroom is heavenly, this glowing mellow happy colour.
We nearly named The Baby - the baby I am stuffed full of in that photo - Grainne, which struck me as hilarious when I remembered the other day since she's such a gluten-free gal and all. The sourdough starter would never have been able to nourish her, but there are other things we can give her - badly timed jokes, overstimulating living rooms, hand-me-down clothes, and a family that has loved her every moment of her life.
And here I am, one and a half weeks before said Baby made her appearance:
I'd apparently given up wearing supportive undergarments by this point. My living room is obviously yellow, and I read this article on decorating with yellow the other day, which said that you shouldn't paint your living room yellow, because it's too stimulating. My husband and I LIKE painting rooms actual colours, though, likely because we have no taste. And when the sun starts setting a bit, right about four in the afternoon this time of year, the light that fills the livingroom is heavenly, this glowing mellow happy colour.We nearly named The Baby - the baby I am stuffed full of in that photo - Grainne, which struck me as hilarious when I remembered the other day since she's such a gluten-free gal and all. The sourdough starter would never have been able to nourish her, but there are other things we can give her - badly timed jokes, overstimulating living rooms, hand-me-down clothes, and a family that has loved her every moment of her life.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
feeding babies
I've been having technical difficulties with my computer for the past two weeks, which has led to me being unable to make many of my usual commenting rounds. Of course, I've been able to do my other hobbies - swearing and staring off into space -much more frequently.
Stupid computer.
I've had three children. I've breastfed all three of them with varying levels of success. The first one, The Girl, was born by c-section and was groggy, jaundiced and strongly affected by the pain killers I'd been given. She'd latch on, weAkly, and fall asleep. We were told to keep her undressed, to wash her hands and face with water. It didn't work.
My milk came in, which caused me to get horrible mastitis (understandably, since she wasn't latching on) and that was when the hospital pump came into our cruddy apartment. We tried giving her little bottles of formula, which caused her to double up in pain, shrieking. My milk supply was shockingly abundant - I was able to easily pump far, far more than she could drink in a day, so we bought a freezer and started saving the extra and that is how my firstborn child was exclusively breastmilk fed for the first seven months of her life without ever latching on for more than a minute. I found one of those lone bags of breastmilk in the freezer for a few years ago and briefly considered making some sourdough starter out of it, so I could feed generations of my children, but then Reason regained her throne and I tossed it out.
My second child, The Boy, was born after a prolonged and gory labour and immediately latched on in the delivery room and remained latched on for pretty much the next two years.
My third child - sigh. The Baby was born early and her latch didn't feel good to me but she WAS nursing and she was so much smaller than The Boy had been (his near-10 pounds to her barely 7) that I wrote it off as being that. Then she started losing weight and we had to take her to the clinic every day for weigh-ins and really, really we should have been at least supplementing with formula, really. She was such a skinny little baby - and now I suspect that the gluten in my diet was keeping her from absorbing all of the nutrition and keeping her from gaining weight, but that's one of the hideous things about looking back, that the right answer seems so obvious in retrospect. At the time, I was horrified and trying my best to take care of her and she WAS nursing like a champ, but I did not do the right things for her. She loved nursing, however little it did for her - when she was taken away from me in the hospital when she was 11 months old, she lost tons of weight in her unhappiness, which led to her being diagnosed with failure to thrive. And finally she had to be weaned all at once because I got bit by a frickin' TICK on a camping tick and I was getting very, very sick! I'm still annoyed by that.
So, three kids, three different breastfeeding stories. I look on my experiences with my first child with pride, this strength that I certainly didn't have before I had her to do something hard for a very long time for someone that was not me, the thing that made me her mother. My second child was the combination of nature and my ideals meeting up perfectly. And my third child was, sadly, when my idealism, however inadvertently, hurt one of my children. The guilt of that last sentence makes me feel dizzy and sick, but there it is.
Stupid computer.
I've had three children. I've breastfed all three of them with varying levels of success. The first one, The Girl, was born by c-section and was groggy, jaundiced and strongly affected by the pain killers I'd been given. She'd latch on, weAkly, and fall asleep. We were told to keep her undressed, to wash her hands and face with water. It didn't work.
My milk came in, which caused me to get horrible mastitis (understandably, since she wasn't latching on) and that was when the hospital pump came into our cruddy apartment. We tried giving her little bottles of formula, which caused her to double up in pain, shrieking. My milk supply was shockingly abundant - I was able to easily pump far, far more than she could drink in a day, so we bought a freezer and started saving the extra and that is how my firstborn child was exclusively breastmilk fed for the first seven months of her life without ever latching on for more than a minute. I found one of those lone bags of breastmilk in the freezer for a few years ago and briefly considered making some sourdough starter out of it, so I could feed generations of my children, but then Reason regained her throne and I tossed it out.
My second child, The Boy, was born after a prolonged and gory labour and immediately latched on in the delivery room and remained latched on for pretty much the next two years.
My third child - sigh. The Baby was born early and her latch didn't feel good to me but she WAS nursing and she was so much smaller than The Boy had been (his near-10 pounds to her barely 7) that I wrote it off as being that. Then she started losing weight and we had to take her to the clinic every day for weigh-ins and really, really we should have been at least supplementing with formula, really. She was such a skinny little baby - and now I suspect that the gluten in my diet was keeping her from absorbing all of the nutrition and keeping her from gaining weight, but that's one of the hideous things about looking back, that the right answer seems so obvious in retrospect. At the time, I was horrified and trying my best to take care of her and she WAS nursing like a champ, but I did not do the right things for her. She loved nursing, however little it did for her - when she was taken away from me in the hospital when she was 11 months old, she lost tons of weight in her unhappiness, which led to her being diagnosed with failure to thrive. And finally she had to be weaned all at once because I got bit by a frickin' TICK on a camping tick and I was getting very, very sick! I'm still annoyed by that.
So, three kids, three different breastfeeding stories. I look on my experiences with my first child with pride, this strength that I certainly didn't have before I had her to do something hard for a very long time for someone that was not me, the thing that made me her mother. My second child was the combination of nature and my ideals meeting up perfectly. And my third child was, sadly, when my idealism, however inadvertently, hurt one of my children. The guilt of that last sentence makes me feel dizzy and sick, but there it is.
Friday, March 2, 2007
DELETED. And also, that is enough snow, thank you.
I just erased one of those blog widget things that seem super fun for the first couple of minutes and then as time goes by and you're trying to think of something to write, the dumb thing keeps flashing at you: hamburger, guy picking nose, people making out, books, repeat - and I stopped liking it JUST LIKE THAT.
The big storm passed over us, mostly. We got some snow but nothing crazy. Just snow. Apparently the snow BROKE THE INTERNET, though, because I wasn't able to go online for much of the day. Oh, and all of the kids were home. That was the most fun combination of things ever! At one point, the two older ones were rolling around slugging each other and The Baby was crying and I was thinking O Death Where Is Thy Sting? So let me totally recommend being a stay-at-home mom! Not only is it prestigious but the pay is AWESOME!
I love Friday night. It is the happiest night of the week - the magical booze-soaked Disneyland of days of the week - and it starts in less than an hour. To top it off like a magical cherry, my husband is bringing home supper. Whoo hoooooo!
The big storm passed over us, mostly. We got some snow but nothing crazy. Just snow. Apparently the snow BROKE THE INTERNET, though, because I wasn't able to go online for much of the day. Oh, and all of the kids were home. That was the most fun combination of things ever! At one point, the two older ones were rolling around slugging each other and The Baby was crying and I was thinking O Death Where Is Thy Sting? So let me totally recommend being a stay-at-home mom! Not only is it prestigious but the pay is AWESOME!
I love Friday night. It is the happiest night of the week - the magical booze-soaked Disneyland of days of the week - and it starts in less than an hour. To top it off like a magical cherry, my husband is bringing home supper. Whoo hoooooo!
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Schmarch
Veronica Mitchell just nominate me for the February Perfect Post awards, and I am very pleased. Thanks! It was for this post. If you haven't read it, go check it out while I wait here, humming an instrumental version of Copacabana to myself.
So it's the first day of March. I like the first of months - they seem all fresh and full of promise, unruined. March is nice because it promises spring, however falsely - we're supposed to have a severe snowstorm tonight, which isn't very springlike. My heart has turned to thoughts of crocuses and green leaves, of things that are alive and clean and new, and so I guess that it's just Lenten waiting for where I live to catch up with the calendar.
I always start a fresh notebook at the beginning of each month, where I keep my menu plans, recipes I've taken from magazines, crafts I want to do with the kids, lists of things to do - and I still have my notebook from last March, with my cheerful plans for St. Patrick's Day and the kids' March break. None of it happened - first the kids ALL were sick with Scarlet Fever and then the next day I was in the hospital and so the notebook just hangs around taunting me with how fragile any of life's plans are. But I'm starting my March notebook again today, with my cheerful plans for St. Patrick's Day and the kids' March break. The hope that everything will be okay is what keeps me going through this lovely imperfect life.
So it's the first day of March. I like the first of months - they seem all fresh and full of promise, unruined. March is nice because it promises spring, however falsely - we're supposed to have a severe snowstorm tonight, which isn't very springlike. My heart has turned to thoughts of crocuses and green leaves, of things that are alive and clean and new, and so I guess that it's just Lenten waiting for where I live to catch up with the calendar.
I always start a fresh notebook at the beginning of each month, where I keep my menu plans, recipes I've taken from magazines, crafts I want to do with the kids, lists of things to do - and I still have my notebook from last March, with my cheerful plans for St. Patrick's Day and the kids' March break. None of it happened - first the kids ALL were sick with Scarlet Fever and then the next day I was in the hospital and so the notebook just hangs around taunting me with how fragile any of life's plans are. But I'm starting my March notebook again today, with my cheerful plans for St. Patrick's Day and the kids' March break. The hope that everything will be okay is what keeps me going through this lovely imperfect life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
