Does anyone save UGLY animals?

My daughters are really into fundraising. Last week a man came to our door, introduced himself by telling me his name and that he was homeless, and asked if we had any bottles he could have. We loaded him up, and as he left, my daughter, in considerable distress at the thought of him out in the cold all day and all night, said "I'm going to save up and buy him a house." She has $4.97 so far.

At the moment, they are also raising money on behalf of Earth Rangers and their "Bring Back the Wild" campaign to benefit the Nature Conservancy of Canada. They have chosen for their funds raised to go toward habitat preservation for the Newfoundland Pine Marten. They can be very creative in their efforts - in the past they have sold brownies from a stand at the bottom of the driveway (proceeds to the SPCA), they have sold paintings they themselves made (proceeds to themselves), and they have done bottle drives (SPCA, again). This Saturday, we are off to my friend's gourmet food store, where the girls are going to dress up and hawk some homemade cookies in little cello bags: all profits to the Newfoundland Pine Marten via Earth Rangers.

It's a cute little program, where the child can set up a webpage of their own, featuring a little cartoon avatar they can customise, with a fundraising meter to show how close they are to their goal (the oldest has set a goal of $75, and the youngest wanted to go for $500 but upon reflection she set a goal of $75 as well -- she says didn't want to give TOO much to the animals: she'd rather give to humans. Our homeless friend Tom, for example.).

But they aren't doing too well, so far, and since both Tom and the Pine Marten are facing habitat loss, I thought I'd direct you to their fundraising pages in case you wanted to throw $5 their way. They'd be thrilled...so far they each have $10, donated anonymously by their mother. (Keep that on the down-low.)

My oldest daughter's page is here, and my youngest daughter is here.

Thanks in advance!

Lost Post

Saying that title in my head, I alternate between "Lawst Pawst" and "Loast Poast".

I just found this document in the cobwebbed shelves at the back of my laptop. (Virtual cobwebs, virtual shelves.) I apparently wrote it in March of 2010, which makes it nearly two years old. (I'm so desperate for content these days, I am posting two-year-old opinion pieces.)

***

I’ve always been one of Those mothers: the ones who took Women’s Studies in university, read “The Beauty Myth”, and took back the night, and then have a family of daughters who aren’t allowed to have Barbies.

Those Mothers, in case you haven’t met us personally, have also been known to ban Disney (harmful female role models) and use our bodies to block the magazine racks at the grocery checkouts so our cart-riding children can’t see this month’s Cosmo headline. (10 New Ways to Please a Man in Bed.)

Raising girls this way isn’t easy, but the payoff is that my oldest daughter, 8 years old, still loves her Playmobil and stuffed animals, and plays with her hobby horse every day. Other children her age have moved on to (and, in some cases, past) the eye-rolling, hair-tossing, boy-kissing, lip-gloss sucking world of Hannah Montana......while Charlotte is still a child.

Last week my husband called the kids from the family room to tell them Presto! was on TV – a Pixar short about a stage magician, his magic top hat, and the hungry rabbit inside it. It’s a hilarious film with a lot of visual laughs, and it can be hard to find, so the girls came running to see it. I heard Ian say to them, “They put Presto! on before Snow White.”

“Snow White?!” my daughter exclaimed, “Did you tape it for us?”

Ian said “Uh, yes, I did,” and glanced over to the doorway, where I was standing glaring at him (in an attractive, non-confrontational way, of course).

“Snow White, huh?” I said with my mouth, while my brain was yelling it’s violent! It’s scary! It victimises women, and vilifies them all at the same time! Snow White is a passive and gullible role model who needs to be rescued! All Disney movies encourage women to languish prettily while waiting patiently for a man to save them!

(See? Total abdication of female power.)

I looked over at my children, who were excited and happy, laughing at the Presto! rabbit's antics and settling in to the couch with blankets, getting ready to watch Snow White. My husband was sitting with them, remote in hand, saying “You guys are going to like the seven dwarves, they’re so funny.”

I realised something at that moment, while I was working up the courage to say yet another “No” to a misogynistic, commercialised mega-corporation, and force my family to turn off the TV.

My children have two parents.

Two parents.

I walked down the hall towards the kitchen, thinking. Maybe it’s okay, having laid groundwork – important groundwork, I feel – to let their Dad show them Snow White. Maybe it’ll be all right if he takes this other direction: a direction that I’ve never wanted to go.

As I plugged in the popcorn maker I thought, I can worry about the big issues – the undermining of the female role in our society, the future of my daughters’ self-esteem – tomorrow. Right now, their Dad can show them this classic Disney film, with a story they’ve read in books anyway, and they can all have a laugh at Dopey together.

Because successful parenting, at its most fundamental, is about balance. We’ve all heard “everything in moderation”, and it applies just as much to how we nourish our children’s minds and emotions, as it does to how we nourish their bodies. It’s just as dangerous to keep my children 100% sugar-free, as it would be to only feed them white bread and Nutella:  there’s a ditch on both sides of this road.

My husband and I have different roles in this parenting adventure, just as we do in this marriage. And the best way to equip our daughters for the potholes ahead is to show them that there is a left and right, a feminine and masculine, a yin and a yang to everything. To help them to know how to steer around the obstacles of adolescence and adulthood without hugging one side of the track too closely, they need to see the give and take of different people compromising while loving each other.

I walked back to the family room, popcorn in hand, listening to my family laughing together. It’s been a long time since I watched television at all – even longer since I saw a Disney Princess movie. That evening I didn’t watch Snow White: I watched my children see something fun and funny, that they hadn’t seen before. I watched my daughters laugh at the dwarves and frown at the witch. I watched them have a wonderful time with their Mom and Dad.

And I’m pretty sure they’ll be okay. 

Brr. And Ooooh!

I have a dog, but I don't often walk him.

Actually, that was part of the reason we got a Sheltie - because I read a lot of books which said that Shelties are a good choice for an older person or a sedentary person, because they can adapt to the amount of exercise their owners usually get. A Jack Russell, just to name an example, can't.

Hi buddy!

Recently I decided to start walking my dog, though, whether he requires it or not, because....well, it turns out MY species, the rare and dangerous shanissimus naturalis, needs more exercise than canis lupis familiaris.

And, it being January, my hands got cold.

"Mittens!" I cried. "My kingdom for mittens!"

"Stash diving", as people call it, is fun when you have been buying yarn for 8 years and using, relatively speaking, hardly any of it.

The green is Kauni Effektgarn, which changes colour from yellow to green and back again, slowly. The white is Lanett Superwash, left over from a baby sweater from yonks ago.

My thumb is not, in reality, as big as this photo makes it look.

It's just a made-up pattern - ribbing for 4 inches or so, with a few cable twists at the wrist for tightness, and then starting the colourwork, which adds a lot of warmth.

3 mm needles, which in retrospect are a little too big. The fabric should be tighter. Next time I'll do 2.25  mm and add a few extra stitches.

The two mittens are a little different from each other - I knit the dark green one first, and found the wrist too loose, so changed it up a bit for the yellow one.

And this weird, long photo is just to show the colour progression, but you can't see it anyway with that terrible light. (It's January.) Due to the phenomenon of perspective, the green looks huge and the yellow tiny, but that's just an illusion.

Now my hands are a lot warmer. And my dog is tired.

Philosophy 401 - Advanced Childrearing.

Unschooling from Luke Bessey on Vimeo.

Down With Synthetics!!

For years I've been lauding the merits of natural fibre. I remember in the early 1990s, trying to find yardage for sewing that had no acrylic, polyester, nylon, and so on.

And NOW look what they've discovered.

Billions of fleece items made from recycled pop bottles don't look quite so good now, huh? It turns out you can run from plastic, but you can't hide. When are they going to just stop making this stuff? The day after Never, I'm thinking. And my poor children, and yours, are going to have to deal with the toxic shit we just keep buying, wearing, and throwing away.

And cancer? I bet cancer is laughing its head off right now.

Earth Day is coming up. It's a good time to make, or renew, a commitment to sustainable, eco-friendly clothing. You should consider it -- for the health of your family, your body, your home and the planet...more or less in that order.

Oh -- sorry 'bout that.

I sort of forgot about the internet. This was me last night, while washing dishes: "Wha--? Oh my goodness! I have a blog!" Oopsie.

I haven't talked much about Christmas this year - except to laud Amazon.ca gift cards - but here is a little sample of Yule 2011.

My seven year old set up her doll for a nice nap. Looking at this baby's "bottle", and when I remark that my daughter considered Rescue Remedy a matter of course for her baby's nap, it becomes obvious that I had high-needs children.

I was in Kaboodles a week before Christmas, spotted these little crank-driven music boxes, and threw them in with the rest of my purchases, not realizing they were $9 each. I wouldn't have bought them if I had looked closely (I thought "8.99" said "3.99"), so I'm glad I didn't look closely...they sound so beautiful and they were right up at the top of my children's favourite presents this year. The kids have spent hours - literally, hours - lying on the floor holding these things in two hands, staring into space and spinning the cranks to listen to the songs.

Have a listen! (The "Nutcracker Suite" is the property of the younger child, and so has suffered more abuse...spinning backwards, etc...and you can hear it.)



And this was my second-favourite present of the whole year. Haflingers! I've been wanting them for two years, and Mr. HalfSoledBoots stepped up. Now that I have worn them for three weeks, I will never - no, sir, I will never ever - wear any other brand of slippers.

Lastly - because I know you were wondering - here is my favourite, most favouritest present of all...from my sister Gwen.

As to what was inside...

Who cares?

Ever In Your Favour

I love it when I get Amazon gift cards for Christmas. I always have a huge wish list going, and there's nothing quite so satisfying as clicking "Add to Cart". This year, I ended up with $100 at Amazon. Fun! So I spent Christmas afternoon intermittently basting and browsing.

I managed to come in wondrous close - $99.63 in total, with two knitting books, a DVD, and a hardcover box set of The Hunger Games trilogy.

I haven't watched the DVD yet, the knitting books can wait...but I read the whole Hunger Games back to back in two and a half days.

WOW.

First off, let me admit that I had never heard of this series until I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie. I noticed the little line "Based on the book by Suzanne Collins". Well, I thought, I have to watch it, and before I can watch it I have to read it.

I didn't know anything about the story when I ordered the set, aside from what I'd seen on the movie trailer, but if the reviews were anything to go by, it would be amazing.

This trilogy, being in the young adult genre, does come across as a little juvenile for an adult reader. But, this translates into a fast-paced, fun read, rather than a boring or babyfied story. The plot is wonderfully handled - the central conflict IS definitely a conflict. I had no idea how the emotional storyline of the characters would play out. So often in a young adult book, the characters are too black and white - the author doesn't balance the sympathy and antipathy, heavily directing the reader toward one obvious outcome, which you root for, pretty much from page one.

Another thing I loved was that Collins doesn't go for the Harry Potter effect, wherein the teenage hero defies the rules, flouts boundaries, sneaks around the adults, and in the end is pretty much proved right - the adult mentors of the child end up wiping their brows, sighing with relief, shaking the child's hand and saying "Thank goodness you were here! Imagine what would have happened if WE were in charge!" Which device, being an adult, I detest.

-----SPOILERS------

Katniss Everdeen, the main character in this series, is not a rule-follower at all but, unlike Harry, her defiance of convention (and boundaries, and adult rules) brings about serious consequences and does not result in her saving the day. In fact, most of the time, she is a pawn in the political struggle between adults who allow her to believe that she is important and powerful...when she discovers their manipulation of her, she is chagrined and frightened. It's realistic.

-----END SPOILER------

The Hunger Games is a wonderful version of the post-apocalyptic, dystopic science fiction genre. As I read it, I was reminded of many other great stories...Ender's Game, Fahrenheit 451, The White Mountains, Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, even Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery. There are similar elements, and there is a similar feeling, in all of these pieces. Part of what makes The Hunger Games special is the female lead - also that the world Collins creates is very believable. There are 'hoverplanes', but no teleportation. It never crosses the line into the eye-rollingly fantastic.

One negative to note: the entire series is written in the first person "historical present" tense, as in this line (not from the books):

"I go to the door and open it - she stands there, waiting for me. 'Finally,' she says."

It gets annoying. The historical present works well as an occasional device, but the constant precipice feeling made me impatient after a while.

Other than that, I LOVED this series. I wish I hadn't read it so quickly, though, because now I have a long time to wait until March, when the movie comes out.

The Hunger Games Trilogy
by Suzanne Collins

Reread: absolutely
Give to Others: absolutely
Book Plate: ABsolutely!

3/3