tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-348192242024-03-14T01:40:35.773-07:00Half Soled Bootsgiven to introspectionShanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.comBlogger710125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-52973084620296203252017-11-02T12:54:00.003-07:002017-11-02T12:54:56.759-07:00Wool That Is Worth ItLong periods of silence broken intermittently by rushed but affectionate updates -- it's almost as if I'm a mum with busy teens.<br />
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Guess what?? I have a new job, working for my amazing sister at her <a href="https://www.saltwaterpurls.com/" target="_blank">new yarn studio</a>! My job description includes advising on yarn line purchases, planning and assembling kits, keeping tabs on the design world, and helping people with their knitting crises. I've moved to contract teaching, too, which is both EXCITING and WEIRD. (And I've had to learn <a href="https://www.instagram.com/saltwater.purls/" target="_blank">Instagram </a>which freaks me out.)<br />
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The shop is really fun and also scary, so far. We've been in business less than three months, but it's been a steep learning curve, and also so touching to hear people's very lovely feedback. The concept seems to resonate with people -- our tagline is "Carefully Curated Yarns"...it's a nice thought, but when you <i>really mean it</i>, as we do, you find it's awfully time-consuming to have high standards! One very important part of that is never, never violating copyright. It was one of the foundations of our business model --- we have seen yarn stores do this a lot, and we hate that designers everywhere get cheated of their profit and their creative rights this way. It's a little hard -- designers often don't respond to requests for permission to buy their patterns for inclusion in kits, for example, even if we are not asking for wholesale prices. But this aspect of the business matters to us and we're dedicated to keeping it up.<br />
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We're proud of what we've done. We've assembled a small but very pleasing collection of yarn, and we're slowly and carefully growing our collection. We're starting a knit group at a local Community Arts venue next week, and are looking forward to our first Christmas in business.<br />
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I think not many of my good old readers are still out there...the day of the blog is over, I know. But I wanted to share this with you, since I know you're all still knitting, and maybe you remember me as well as I remember you!<br />
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xo<br />
SShanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-71873691894405867152017-02-05T23:38:00.001-08:002017-02-05T23:38:18.590-08:00Weekend Goals ACCOMPLISHEDYou'll know the depth of my commitment not to leave the house this past weekend, when I tell you that on Friday evening I washed BOTH my outside bras and hung them to dry. By 'outside' I mean they are decent enough, performance-wise, to wear out of the house. I do have a third one (bra, that is), but it's missing one underwire therefore gives me a charmingly - but alarmingly - lopsided appearance.<br />
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Setting escape fantasies aside, I stayed put, knitted 18" of a new scarf I've just started, finished Tale of Two Cities (audiobook), and Animal Farm (ebook) and Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (book book).<br />
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I made a lemon loaf and then ate it. No pictures.<br />
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I made a few of these cute crocheted, zippered accessory bags, too - lots of hand finishing, quite a bore. The plan is to sell them and finance the lavish lifestyle to which I'd like to become accustomed.<br />
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I've got 9 done so far, which means I have to charge approximately $100,000 each. Perceived value is everything, though - I don't anticipate any problems.<br />
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<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-19578074164584283872017-01-18T17:12:00.004-08:002017-01-18T17:12:39.939-08:00Strait in a Storm<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's been stormy the last several days - today was a real sou'ester with the infamous Pacific coast sideways rain. But the ocean was pretty and this seagull was just chilling on the seawalk, thinking about seagully things.<br />
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<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-50793665174921490112017-01-09T12:01:00.000-08:002017-01-09T12:01:09.662-08:00A Record YearI believe I managed to underwhelm even myself last year, posting only a handful of times and not a word from March until now.<br />
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2016 was interesting for the whole world, more's the pity. In my little corner, the most interesting event was a relocation - my sister moved from Calgary back to our hometown. For years we've been dreaming of the day when we could be close enough to pop in without airline tickets, and all of a sudden, with almost no warning, it happened. She's here.<br />
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There was another big change in September when my oldest daughter started half-time at the local high school. She's in grade ten...unthinkable. So we're doing a mashup of homeschooling and public schooling; basically she's collecting her Sciences there, and her Arts and electives here. She's thriving in this new environment and doing very, very well both academically and emotionally. I'm getting ready to miss her, oh, so much. Just a few more years...<br />
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And the young one, twelve and a born artist. She is always working with miniatures, sketching, painting, decorating, hot glueing, dancing, singing, doodling, thinking, and dreaming. It's not easy to homeschool her...she's not a kid who can read a book and then fill out a worksheet. She challenges me all the time and makes me think on my feet. (Sometimes I don't do so well.)<br />
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Christmas was wonderful - a nice rest. I always take the full 12 days, December 25 to January 6, and this year I stretched it out to 14...I just took the tree out yesterday. It's still in great shape; I have to hand it to Home Depot because their Noble firs seem to last awfully well. I think I put the tree up on December 11 this year, which means it was in the house nearly a month and it still looks wonderful. Hardly any needle drop, and whenever I snap off a twig and try to light it on fire, it fizzles out.<br />
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I hope there will be more to come, soon. I had my ten-year blog anniversary last September and didn't even notice...in 2017 I would like to get back to a bit of a slower pace, and blogging definitely feels slower after years of Facebook and Pinterest.Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-34145736559009233032016-03-09T10:23:00.001-08:002016-03-09T10:23:37.514-08:00But You Did Not Come Back<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This small memoir - almost a booklet - stood on my shelf for a few weeks after I received it. The first day, I had scanned the opening page, but then I closed it and set it down.<br />
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It was too important to rush through, and I had a busy couple of weeks ahead of me, so this morning I picked it up again.<br />
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Marceline Loridan-Ivens hadn't "self-identified" as a Jew, but that didn't matter: she was deported with her father to Auschwitz-Birkenau as a young girl. All the familiar unspeakable horrors unfolded there, and from the first line, my eyes were hesitant to move down the page. I always have the feeling, when reading books like this or when watching movies about the Holocaust, that I'd rather not hear it all again but that I owe it to Germany's victims. And Russia's, and China's, and Uganda's, and Yugoslavia's. Syria's. The world's. My discomfort, my revulsion and my tears, are the very least of the tributes I can offer.<br />
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Marceline's father on the men's side managed, somehow, to pass a letter to her on the women's side. The letter contained, Marceline knows (she is sure), his urgent message of hope for their future life, and an exhortation to her, to survive.<br />
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But she has no memory of the words. She has no memory of where she lost the letter, or anything that it said.<br />
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Seventy years have passed since Marceline left Auschwitz, then left Bergen-Belsen, and marched through Czechoslovakia to a repatriation camp. She rejoined what remained of her family, and has carried Auschwitz-Birkenau with her, through all the mess and tragedy, up until 2016.<br />
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She lives in Paris. She sees the hatred that still burns against the Jews throughout the world. After decades of work as a documentary film-maker, she sees the failure of any system, of any nation, to establish either unity or peace.<br />
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Nearing the end of her life, she has written this memoir as if it's an ultimatum to us, to humans. All the terrifying events of her time in the camp, her time afterward - if there can be an afterward - and what she sees happening now...all these things unfold in bare, stark prose over only 99 pages.<br />
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I didn't cry a single tear during those 99 pages. It was all just too horrible, too full of despair, too unthinkable.<br />
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On page 100, there is a single sentence. That sentence, written so recently the ink is barely dry, caved me on myself and made me weep. I won't tell you why.<br />
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Read "But You Did Not Come Back".<br />
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<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-89622501528488716582015-12-27T10:36:00.000-08:002015-12-27T10:36:04.523-08:00Just the kind of thing I like.An interesting Christmas, this year -- my once-weekly job evolved into a bit more than intended and on top of extra classes to teach, as Thursday is my usual timeslot in the yarn shop, I had the unpleasant novelty of working Christmas Eve.<br />
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Everything turned out well, though, and we had a very merry Christmas day. My daughters cobbled together their money and bought me an impressively large gift card for Kobo, so I did some Boxing Day shopping and am now neck-deep in "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand", which I'm finding both enormously touching and killingly funny.<br />
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The Major found much to admire in America but also felt that the nation was still in its infancy, its birth predating Queen Victoria's reign by a mere sixty years or so. Generous to a fault -- he still remembered the tins of chocolate powder and waxy crayons handed out in his school even several years after the war -- America wielded her huge power in the world with a brash confidence that reminded him of a toddler who has got hold of a hammer.</blockquote>
It's full of wry, quotable sentences filched from the musings of its title character, whom I very much wish I could meet in real life, but am keenly aware that I wouldn't measure up to his notions of good manners.<br />
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Today I have the rare pleasure of being home alone. My husband has taken the kids to Nanaimo to shop, giving me a good few hours of lounging on the sofa with a chocolate in one hand and my e-reader in the other. I even have my glasses off, a technique I've developed in order to stay relaxed in a living room slightly too messy for true comfort.<br />
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My warmest, albeit late, wishes to you for a Merry Christmas. Don't forget -- we're only on the third day of twelve, so keep the Yuletide spirit going with a well-placed glass of champagne, some seasonal music, and pajamas at all hours.<br />
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XOShanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-37618313250242677922015-10-26T01:09:00.000-07:002015-10-26T01:09:47.625-07:00Revivification CordialPiper's been gone a month....it's so <strike>surreal</strike> <strike>strange</strike> <strike>weird</strike> sad. I miss him a lot.<br />
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One day I received a letter from the vet, in a card of condolence. She wrote,<br />
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<i>Wow, that was a tough one. </i><br />
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<i>But we have a saying, "Better a few weeks early than one minute too late", and I think that applies to your situation with Piper.</i><br />
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I'm grateful for her words -- not that I wasn't sure we were doing the right thing, but it was a relief to hear her say it.<br />
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And now, of course, I'm terribly sick and have been in bed for three days. The stress got to me.<br />
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I've been throwing back gallons of my <a href="http://halfsoledboots.blogspot.ca/2014/03/for-what-ails-ye.html" target="_blank">magic potion</a> and it's making me feel loads better. I've been knitting a lot, too, which is marvellously buoyant to the spirits.<br />
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Maybe I'll take some photos and put up a new post next week. Wonders, they never cease.<br />
<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-37214754772495491522015-10-10T22:32:00.000-07:002016-02-17T23:40:50.570-08:00Buried GiantIf you haven't read Kazuo Ishiguro, you should treat yourself and pick up one of his wonderful books. "Remains of the Day" is on my desert-island list, and I've just finished the beautiful "Buried Giant".<br />
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This is one of those very satisfying novels which, while you're reading it, plays you like a violin. I so much love the way authors can create pathetic fallacy in its most real incarnation, by engineering the reader's inner sky - the weather inside me changing according to the events of the story.<br />
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The husband and wife have forgotten something. It's important - it's part of their past and the story of their love and their youth, but the mists that lay over the land have clouded their memories and lulled them. They know there is <i>something</i>, but don't know what or why or how to get it back. So they set out to walk from their village, to find an answer they aren't even sure exists.<br />
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While reading this book, I felt the stirrings of puzzlement and curiosity precisely where, I think, the author wanted me to. They come and go, these stirrings - sometimes, they drop away out of sight so fast, and leave all quiet and placid, and you're left wondering whether they were ever there in the first place. In the same way, you sometimes wake up, heart pounding, hearing not a noise but the echo of a noise. And you listen hard for a few seconds, and soon you doubt you ever heard anything in the first place. Then, a few minutes later, you are back asleep and dreaming, sure there was nothing, after all.<br />
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I talked out loud to this book. I exclaimed several times "Who IS this guy?!" and many more times I furrowed my own brow in concentration, as the main character furrowed his, trying to lift his own memories off the page and into my mind.<br />
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Do yourself a favour and dig up "The Buried Giant". It really is the most marvellous thing.Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-70365874429061446932015-09-26T22:23:00.001-07:002015-09-27T00:53:16.532-07:00five years and two days and one lesson<i><br /></i>
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<i>Grief is like</i><br />
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<i>Grief is like...</i><br />
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I'm staring out the window. I'm half done the thought before I even realize I had started thinking.<br />
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<i>There's no manipulating it.</i><br />
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<i>There's no rewriting it or changing its nature or...</i><br />
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I'm looking down at my empty hands. The house is quiet.<br />
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<i>There's no changing its nature or...</i><br />
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Both doors are open. Front and back.<br />
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We don't have a fence in the front. We haven't had the door open; standing open, thoughtlessly open, for seven years.<br />
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But it stands open now.<br />
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<i>There is no changing its nature or cutting it short.</i><br />
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I was distantly surprised today when I felt, in a shock of painful, visceral recall - an ear-piercing moment of echoing, microphonic feedback from a past life - the need to hurt myself.<br />
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<i>There is no escaping it.</i><br />
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<i>There is no changing its nature or cutting it short. </i><br />
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In fact, here is the truth.<br />
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Grief is like nothing.<br />
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Grief is itself.<br />
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Grief is itself, and only itself. It doesn't have a simile because it is the metaphor. And you cannot change it and you cannot move it and you cannot escape it, or negotiate or plead or remonstrate with it.<br />
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You can only feel it. You can only sit with it and in it and through it. You can only let it be in you and around and through and over you.<br />
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It is the sole defining process of our lives, the learning process, the growing process.<br />
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You are inside it, and filled with it, and whether your eyes are closed or open, you cannot see or find or imagine a way out. You can only wait.<br />
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And you must wait.<br />
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So I will wait.<br />
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Piper, I will miss you until I see you again.<br />
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<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-80430119190503081592015-05-10T00:39:00.000-07:002016-02-18T00:39:45.275-08:00The Green RoadThis is a great book. Not a beautiful book, not a 'nice' story or an easy read, in some ways, but it's a great book.<br />
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Depressing as hell though.<br />
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It's extremely character-driven, and these characters aren't super likeable. The central problem of a woman who pushes away her children and then complains that they're gone, is so ubiquitous as to be boring...but I was so interested in the children, that the mother just seemed like background noise to me.<br />
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Man, I really don't like Rosaleen.<br />
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There is a moment at the end of the book, where one of the sons is walking through his childhood home, taking pictures of small features of the place where he grew up. A photo of the bathroom tap. A photo of a doorknob, of wallpaper, of a banister. This scene really struck me. It made me realize how all of the small details slip away as we age - all those tiny critical things that we associate with our childhood.<br />
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Close your eyes and think for a second...can you recall what the bathroom tap looked like, from your eye level when you still had to stand on tiptoe to reach it? Do you still remember how the screen on the back door smelled when you pressed your nose against it? Can you picture the print on your grandma's kitchen curtains, or remember what it felt like to open that old-fashioned fridge?<br />
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It seems Anne Enright can. And that's why I kept reading, almost without stopping, all the way to the end.Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-84419320743169028602015-05-04T18:44:00.000-07:002015-05-04T18:44:22.074-07:00At the Water's Edge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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" 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Today I finished "<a href="http://www.amazon.ca/At-Waters-Edge-Sara-Gruen/dp/0385664486/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1430789422&sr=8-1&keywords=at+the+water%27s+edge" target="_blank">At the Water's Edge</a>". Sara Gruen, the author, also wrote "Water for Elephants", which I read not too long ago.<br />
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In this novel, set in early 1945, the main character is an American woman visiting Scotland with her husband and his best friend. Back in Philadelphia, they are socialites with more money than direction or purpose, and their trip to Scotland in the middle of World War II is more of a frolic than anything else.<br />
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They are after a sighting -- and hopefully photographic proof -- of the Loch Ness monster. This fact, coupled with their truly awe-inspiring rudeness toward everyday, working-class people, alienates the sympathy of the local populace with surprising speed.<br />
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Mild hijinks ensue and our heroine, frequently abandoned at the inn while the men go adventuring for days at a time, winds up interested in, attracted to, and understanding of the hardworking locals.<br />
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I have to admit, here, that I didn't feel captivated by this book. The conflicts seemed overly contrived, and because the villain spent so much time off-stage, I didn't feel very invested in or concerned about the threat to our heroine. I never really believed she was in any danger -- certainly none that a bit of stiff upper lip couldn't prevent.<br />
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With all its faults I preferred "Water for Elephants" to this one. Still - I'm glad I read it and it was a nice way to pass a few hours over the last week or so.<br />
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Up next -- Kazuo Ishiguro does it again!<br />
<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-88799212903552296472015-03-20T11:13:00.000-07:002015-03-20T11:21:12.597-07:00I'd Like to ThinkThis has been a tough winter. I (and the whole family) have been slogging through the mire, metaphorically. After months of this, I find it's a bit hard to carry on.<br />
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My niece, 14, was diagnosed two weeks ago with Crohn's Disease after an emergency admission to Children's Hospital. Her life just changed, and not in a "You won the lottery!" way. She had just been accepted to the International Baccalaureate Program, but maintaining honours will be difficult -- may well be impossible -- with active Crohn's and the school hours she will inevitably miss. And then there's the malnourishment...and the anemia...and the pain.<br />
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I know there are drugs (big, mean, serious drugs: she's on the same immunosuppressants that my husband takes for his kidney transplant) and I have heard the happy sunshiney people blithely sing out that <i>their </i>friend with Crohn's has been in remission for <i>years</i>, but.<br />
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There are a number of people, let's just say, who haven't.<br />
<br />
Piper, my dog, who just turned 7 in February, spent four horrible nights suffering from grand mal seizures. On the fourth day, he couldn't even lift his head off the floor. After a battery of tests and hours spent examining him and observing him, the vet was stumped. And we were so exhausted and stressed out, all we could do was cry (me) and worry (Mr HSB). I phoned my homeopath and he told me to give Piper a remedy, which I already had in the house. He revived within about 30 seconds, and has been <i>almost </i>normal since.<br />
<br />
But he's not himself (does it make sense when I say he seems very sad?), and we think something is seriously wrong. The vet says she's ruled out everything below the neck: the next step is taking him to Vancouver to get an MRI on his head. Thousands, my friends. And that's before he has a single pill, chemo treatment, or surgery. Not happening.<br />
<br />
So we wait and hope we still get to keep him for a while.<br />
<br />
Then, head lice. And I don't really want to talk about that. Suffice it to say, that particular child is never coming over to our house again, and the laundry machines have aged <i>years</i> in two weeks, and I now have a pixie cut again after 9 months of growing out.<br />
<br />
There's more, but I'll spare you.<br />
<br />
I don't like these times, and not only for the obvious reason that it's painful and difficult. I don't like them because I feel embarrassed about being <i>that person</i> who is always going through something. It's almost like it's my fault or there's some kind of drama that I should be able to control.<br />
<br />
On the up-side.<br />
<br />
School is going well, comparatively, though with all the bad juju going around, we haven't had much time or energy to cover lots of ground.<br />
<br />
And I started a new job. (!) It's just one day a week, and that day is only five hours, but the kids can come with me if they want to and I just love it.<br />
<br />
I'm working at the local yarn shop.<br />
<br />
Getting paid in yarn is wonderful. I know my husband would rather there be money involved, and that's an option in the future, but at the moment the arrangement is just what I need. If I were being <i>paid</i>, I'd be putting it all straight onto the (gigantic, fearsome) Visa balance, or making another payment on Avery's new braces, or the vet, or summer tires for the Mazda, or the complete brake job for the Civic, or riding lessons, or, or, or..... But the one place that money wouldn't go, is toward a luxury like yarn. So right now, Thursday from 11 to 4 makes me happy.<br />
<br />
My daughter is turning 11 next week and we have a whole plan for her birthday week. We're going to make sugar cookies (flower shapes, I'll post a picture), go to Cinderella, spend an afternoon at the barn doing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPWKlwxmXKE" target="_blank">PPG</a> (in slow motion), paint with an artist friend of mine, go shopping in the next town, and have dinner out. I might try to fit in a drop-in clay class so she can have some more time on the pottery wheel -- she loves that.<br />
<br />
Spring is here, so I'm looking outside. I don't know whether there will be a lot of visible progress made this year (I had wanted to get to a couple of mowing paths and maybe plant a hedge), but we can at least go outside and pull a rake around, right?<br />
<br />
Any minute now it's bound to turn a corner, and good things will start happening. That's what spring is about.<br />
<br />
I hope.<br />
<br />
<i>I hope.</i><br />
<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-7395936842115002362014-12-31T13:45:00.001-08:002014-12-31T13:45:07.196-08:00A Cup of KindnessIn September 2010 my best friend Sandy died. It was a hard year, watching cancer progress and my friend suffer, and her family suffer.<br />
<br />
Christmas didn't feel much like Christmas that year. At least -- it didn't feel like I was used to it feeling. The magic seemed to have lost its power. I worried about it but told myself, 'Never mind, it will be back. Next year it'll be just the way it was before.' <br />
<br />
New Year's, the last night of 2010, was unnerving. I wasn't prepared for the grief I felt. In my heart I stood before the doorway draped with holly, mistletoe, rosemary and snowdrop, and realized it was time to step through and leave Sandy behind.<br />
<br />
I saw the last page of the chapter and the blankness on the other side, inviting me to turn the page and begin the next part of the story, and thought <i>I'm not ready; I want a re-read</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
New Year's Eve 2014. Here is the close of a chapter of painful loss and painful growth. Our lives have changed this year -- my daughter was forced to face the reality that a part of her life that she loved, the world of horses, in which she excelled and in which we all took a lot of pride, was actually a destructive force for her spirit. She brought it to a nearly complete end.<br />
<br />
My other daughter has spent this year grieving as her older sister grew up and away -- suddenly the 30-month gap mattered in a way it never had before. It's rare now to hear them playing together: more common for the older one to be texting her friends trying to find someone else to hang out with. So the younger sister has been struggling with that feeling of being <i>not enough </i>for the most important person in her life.<br />
<br />
And, of course, as the year turns over tonight, we will be leaving my father-in-law David in the past.<br />
<br />
There are awful things about being immersed in the moment of grief; the days and months surrounding it are full of hurt and painful introspection. For a while we're in that Between state, out of the main current of the world turning over our private sorrow, reliving all the past happy times, and all the more recent suffering and uncertainty. It can be terrible.<br />
<br />
But it can also be satisfying -- meeting our own deep need to come to terms with sadness and loss. As much as it hurts, it feels right. And the memory of the loved one we have lost is keen and fresh, and still very much part of the present.<br />
<br />
At first Dad is right in front of you, wherever you look. The last email you got from him was just a few weeks ago. There he is, in the photos you've been meaning to edit from the family reunion. I remember finding books Sandy had lent me, in a pile waiting to be returned to her. It's almost as if your loved one has become a cloud that you move through wherever you go -- a cloud both of presence and absence.<br />
<br />
The time goes by until one day, in order to see them properly, you find you have to turn your head.<br />
<br />
Now that Dad's last year is ending completely, we'll have to turn all the way around, our backs to the future, and look behind us.<br />
<br />
Tonight I'll light candles and think of Dad, and my children's waning childhood, and all my many private sadnesses. I'll write a list or two and dwell for a little while on what I hope will happen in 2015. I'll pray for all the people I love.<br />
<br />
As you carry both your happy things and sad things through the doorway into 2015, I hope that you'll be able to put down what you need to. Set some extra weight on the ground and leave it here where it belongs, in the old year. I hope that you've had laughter and tears in 2014 and that both have served you well.<br />
<br />
We've wandered many a weary foot. So here's a hand, my trusted friend, for the sake of times gone by.<br />
<br />
<br />
Be well, and Happy New Year.<br />
<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-17959803088500717742014-12-30T23:47:00.000-08:002014-12-30T23:47:00.210-08:00Dress Shop of Dreams<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<img alt="The Dress Shop of Dreams: A Novel" height="200" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tKEK-PSOL._AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-48,22_AA300_SH20_OU15_.jpg" width="200" /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Christmas is here, with all its spice and sleepiness. For the first time in months, I spent a few hours today reading a book: <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Dress-Shop-Dreams-Novel-ebook/dp/B00LKJHTGS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419752682&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Dress Shop of Dreams</a>, by Meena van Praag. It was a great way to pass the afternoon. It's a lovely thing like a slice of what they call 'plain cake'; simple yet sumptuous.<br />
<br />
Dress Shop of Dreams is a sweet story about a few people who are turning in the wrong directions and need to be put right. The book has romance, clever plot turns, a little suspense, a good dose of emotion, and just a whiff of sorcery.<br />
<br />
The dress shop really is magical, and that element of fancy, of fantasy, made the book such a pleasure to read.<br />
<br />
Amazon tells me that Meena van Praag has written a few other books and, having enjoyed this one very much, I'll be reading the rest this year.<br />
<br />
Thanks, Meena, for this little swirl of magic at Christmas time!Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-41344279158734155412014-12-10T09:23:00.000-08:002014-12-10T09:24:05.547-08:00Paging Linus van PeltI came online this morning and took a look at the blog, and thought: I've not posted for two months? I guess that sounds about right - on the one hand, I hardly noticed the time go by; on the other, sometimes every day is like a month.<br />
<br />
Christmas approaches fast, and with it the end of a difficult year. I'm trying to use a single word to describe 2014, but everything I come up with, sounds so dramatic. I think, "Maybe "gruelling"?" But then I wonder whether "gruelling" is yet to come, and I ain't seen nothin' yet.<br />
<br />
Not a very optimistic approach to the new year's possibilities.<br />
<br />
My children come to me, anxious, upset that they're "not in the Christmas spirit." I feel so badly for them. <i>Not in the Christmas spirit?!</i> I worry, <i>They're only children!</i> But then I remember that, when I was 13, I despaired of ever feeling it again.<br />
<br />
I guess they'll just have to get through it, like I did.<br />
<br />
Like I do.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Hard not to scramble around trying to think of things to DO to make it happen for them.<br />
<br />
<i>Gingerbread? We could do another gingerbread house...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The Nutcracker is playing down-island...should I invest a couple of hundred dollars and take them...?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>We could go up and spend the day snowshoeing on the mountain...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Maybe volunteer at the Food Bank again...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<br />
I hate that I can't fix it. I can't just put them in charge of directing the Christmas play, and getting a tree (a GOOD tree, not a POOR tree), and have them learn the true meaning all over again.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Solutions for this problem -- growing up -- don't come in 20 minute animated specials, classic though they might be.<br />
<br />
And they don't come in blog posts, either.<br />
<br />
<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-22526000618436100302014-10-23T22:51:00.000-07:002014-10-24T10:52:30.480-07:00O Canada.Watching the Parliament Hill shooting aftermath yesterday, I was filled with horror, sorrow, and rage.<br />
<br />
Mostly what's left now is rage.<br />
<br />
I like what Rex Murphy has to say.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/N89BAADF1bE" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
And in case you ever wondered what an action hero really looks like, here's Kevin Vickers for you.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Iu5XX-OTunc" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
I feel at loose ends. I wish Ottawa were not so far away because my impulse is to go there. I'd like to wear my red and white, and walk through the grounds and talk to other Canadians on the same pilgrimage.<br />
<br />
But I can't do that. So I went to the Cenotaph today, wearing the Remembrance Day poppy that the Veterans sent in the mail, and laid a bouquet in thanks for the two soldiers killed this week, and for the heroic action of the Sergeant at Arms.<br />
<br />
I can't really do anything, but I can be something: I can be all the things that Canada promises. Free in my choice of religion, free in my choice of lifestyle.<br />
<br />
I probably won't ever be called upon to physically defend my country, but if that strange day should somehow arrive I would be glad to pay Canada back with anything and with everything.<br />
<br />
God keep our land.<br />
<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-37034056462742263132014-09-21T10:58:00.000-07:002014-09-21T10:58:12.402-07:00Another FarewellMy husband lost his father this month, to a long and bewildering mystery disease. Officially I think it's been finally named 'brain cancer' but those two words are insufficient explanation, given by baffled doctors only a week or two before his death, for the last two years of his life.<br />
<br />
In person David was unassuming - quiet to the point of near silence, introspective almost to an obsessive degree. You could well forget he was in the house.<br />
<br />
He saw much and said little.<br />
<br />
As opposite as we were to each other, he treated me at all times as if I were his own daughter. That is to say, his characteristic reticence applied to all of us equally. He never said much to me on the infrequent occasions when we were in the same room. Not because of who I was, but because of who he was.<br />
<br />
But email, when it came along, was a boon to him. He grabbed hold of it as if it were a voice he could finally use. Messages from David would arrive in my inbox with a frequency and a cheerfulness that never ceased to amaze. Often I couldn't imagine him actually speaking so many words in person. Not only the number of messages, but their tone, was unprecedented. Normally David reserved his emotions, but when emailing he was able to be more open...and to use exclamation marks liberally.<br />
<br />
In 2010, after the death of my best friend, I wrote a long series of very open and heartfelt posts. I hadn't thought much about their audience, but I found out afterwards, to my great surprise, that David was keenly reading every single one.<br />
<br />
Four months after her death, when I had written my last post about it, he sent me an email that floored me. It was the most I have ever seen into his heart, before or since, in the 18 years I've spent in his family. And now, when we have parted from each other, I realize how apt his words were - how perfectly they described his own true self.<br /><br />I have struggled a bit over whether to include his message, bearing in mind that if you were all seated in a room and there was a microphone at the front, Dad probably would not have stood there and said it with his own words. But then I thought that however foreign it may have been to him, and in whatever eccentric light I might have appeared to him, Dad valued my complete openness.<br />
<br />
So here is David's message to me, and, really, his message about himself. I post it with respect, to honour him.<br />
<br />
Goodbye Dad, with my love and thanks.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>I had this one thought yesterday, when your parcel came.....you
were sorry not to have some "pretty" wrapping .....I thought it is
not the outside which is important, but what the inner content is, whether
applied to a parcel or a person. The old expression,"it is the
thought that counts" can apply to many of life's encounters. Having
just read your Pacific blog, which I will shortly show Mom, I am struck by how
much that old expression applies to your parcel "wrapping" concern
and to you over-all as a person. And how truly impressive were the
words of the blog and how enjoyable the final picture....the one Mom and I had
thought was just terrific!.......you have a marvelous talent for writing how
you feel, how circumstances are dealt with, no matter how severe or
difficult they may be, and how in the end, life does go on, with
one becoming more aware of how life's moments can be so precious if only we
take a breath and consider how significant those moments are. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>May your Blessings be great...</i><br />
<i>.....love/Dad </i><br />
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Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-54210151460507487172014-07-16T17:22:00.003-07:002014-07-24T12:12:40.701-07:00The Heist that Wasn'tDid I ever tell you about the time I nearly got arrested for attempted bank robbery?<br />
<br />
It happened like this.<br />
<br />
I grew up in a small town where there really wasn't much for young people to do. There was an arcade (which we all called "The Arcade" to such exclusion that I don't think I ever knew the actual name of it), but since only 1980's punks and losers hung out at it (much scarier than modern punks and losers), we never went there unless we had a spare period and it was broad, bright daylight.<br />
<br />
We had a couple of video stores but those, too, were small, badly lit shops, most likely fronts for illegal activities, and choked with gritty pornography and scary horror movies on greasy, well-thumbed VHS. Anyway there are only so many times you can watch Ferris Bueller have a Day Off. Soon, you start looking for something to DO.<br />
<br />
We were Christian kids. Christian kids attending a Christian school, which in those days didn't mean "We had to leave the school property to smoke." We really, truly, honestly were upstanding and ethical, with great morals and integrity. Which meant if we wanted something to Do, the answer would never be "drugs" or "each other".<br />
<br />
By the time we were in our late teens, we were thoroughly bored.<br />
<br />
After graduation, there was an ecstatic summer in which anything was possible. Graduation gave us the first sense of completion most of us had ever known. Those first jobs had given us a tiny taste of money and choice. Come the fall, with formerly-daunting local college classes suddenly feeling like "just more school", we looked around and realized we hadn't moved: we were still in our hometown, only with later curfews.<br />
<br />
We were restless, with the shine still on our drivers' licenses, and gas at 59 cents a liter.<br />
<br />
<br />
One Friday night, within 24 hours of finally doing the road test and earning the right to drive unattended, I borrowed the family car. It was a small-ish Pontiac station wagon, dating from sometime late 80's. It must have been the newest car we had ever had and was a dashing shade of navy blue. I drove to a friend's house in the gathering darkness, the road lit by the orange cast of intermittent streetlights and the warm glow of possibility.<br />
<br />
In the basement of James' house, we began our Friday night question-and-answer ritual. The opening dialogue never varied.<br />
<br />
Whaddya wanna do?<br />
I dunno, what do YOU wanna do?<br />
<br />
After that came a finely-tuned round of suggestions, coupled with vetoes. We ran through them all with the ease of long practice.<br />
<br />
Wanna play Pictionary?<br />
No.<br />
<br />
Wanna go to the arcade?<br />
Too many punks with concealed knives.<br />
[Insert side conversation about someone's latest encounter with an arcade loser.]<br />
<br />
Wanna watch a movie?<br />
No. We've seen them all.<br />
<br />
Wanna drive the logging roads?<br />
I'm not allowed to take the car off pavement.<br />
[Insert side story about getting stuck while four-wheel-driving 15 km up the Duncan Bay Main.]<br />
<br />
Wanna have a beach fire?<br />
The tide's in. Plus it's October.<br />
<br />
By now it's close to 10 PM and the stir-crazy finally drives us out of the house. "Let's just go downtown and hang around." At the worst, on those nights, you could go to one of the two open restaurants -- you had your choice between truck-stop Patty Jo's, the all-night pie place where cigarette smoke made the ceiling more theory than certainty, or Boston Pizza, where we'd spend two hours and ten bucks (all together) on bottomless pop. (Waitresses just loved us.)<br />
<br />
But this night, no one was thirsty, and anyway no one had any cash for bottomless pop. By now we were impatient and irritated. Feeling at loose ends, we proceeded in a sullen, hormonal motorcade to a parking lot near the Bingo Palace, just behind a 1960s strip mall with a mundane, rain-pooling, gravel-bearing flat roof.<br />
<br />
We couldn't go in the Bingo Palace, of course, being too young. And even if we could, a lot of us were Baptists.<br />
<br />
We parked in a little knot of pickups and station wagons, and all sat on the hoods of our cars and looked at each other. Just as we were beginning to wonder whether we should just go home, one of us spotted something interesting.<br />
<br />
Facing us across the alley was a row of garbage cans and stairwells leading to basement back doors. But at the far right of the nearest shop, the second business from the end, was a little flat, gravelled roof just a few feet lower than the overhang of an even higher rooftop.<br />
<br />
I feel like it might have been me who saw it, and made the suggestion. But it could have been anyone - most likely one of the thrill-seeking boys. Of course, in retrospect, I think of myself as a thrill-seeking boy. In any event, someone put it out there.<br />
<br />
Hey -- we could easily climb up there and walk on the roof...in fact, we could jump from roof to roof and walk along this whole row of shops!<br />
<br />
Instantly we were down off the cars, across the alleyway, and giving each other legs-up onto the flat roof. From there it was an easy climb and we were up! We strode along, grinning from ear to ear, laughing - I was exhilarated for the first time since graduation night. Boys started running, of course, and leaping up or down from shop to shop. These roofs were all connected - this was no death-defying feat. But man, it felt amazing.<br />
<br />
We walked up to the edge of the roof, overlooking the main shopping street below. We could see over Shoppers' Row, past the Discovery Inn, across the Foreshore to the dark void of ocean - and beyond, to the Quadra Island lighthouse. The traffic at the intersection below, only a few meters lower than we were, looked small, powerless, and totally different than it did at street level in daylight. A few cars honked their horns at us, six teenagers silhouetted along a strip mall rooftop in the darkness and the pattering, invisible rain of a mid-October sky.<br />
<br />
Spread out along the entire block, some running, some leaping, some just standing...we were all staring down - not across - at the streets of our childhood: we had gained a new perspective and it was a rush.<br />
<br />
Of course, if we HAD been at street level, and not in the back alley, we might have read the signs on the building and remembered what we already knew: that the business at the end of the mall was, in fact, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.<br />
<br />
Would it have stopped us? Well, it wouldn't have stopped the boys. But the girls might have sat this one out.<br />
<br />
As fate would have it, none of us had the logic or foresight to put "Bank Roof" together with "Honking Horns". We were without guile. And being without guile, when the rooftop euphoria began to pall, we simply climbed down and resumed our car-hood seats in the alleyway.<br />
<br />
There was a short silence.<br />
<br />
"So.......whaddya wanna do now?"<br />
<br />
A siren began, far off.<br />
<br />
"I dunno. What do YOU want to do?"<br />
<br />
The siren got a bit louder.<br />
<br />
"I dunno. I might go home."<br />
<br />
The siren stopped and a quiet, powerful engine approached slowly.<br />
<br />
As one, we turned our heads to look at the entrance to the alley, as a police cruiser came around the corner. It stopped within ten feet or so of the nearest car.<br />
<br />
A second car came around the other side of the alley. This one had a floodlight that immediately revealed us all, squinting, in a wash of glaring day.<br />
<br />
"Huh," I thought, "They must be looking for someone."<br />
<br />
You bet they were.<br />
<br />
"Hey, guys," said the officer who emerged from the driver's seat bearing a MagLight that seemed to lay bare all my deepest thoughts, "Have you seen anyone around here climbing on the bank roof?"<br />
<br />
Looking back, it must have been priceless to see our faces as his words sank in. You could see us all, frozen in merciless headlights, with the words "THE BANK" dawning in all of our teenaged minds at the exact same instant.<br />
<br />
We were good, Christian kids. There was only one option.<br />
<br />
"Yeah," I announced into the awful silence, "That was us."<br />
<br />
The lights closed in as they moved forward. I wish I could relate word for word what followed in the next minute or two, but it's all a blur of dark-clad authority figures, questions, the digging out of shiny new IDs and the cool crackle of a woman's voice from their radios.<br />
<br />
I do remember that they started by asking us if we had any alcohol or drugs. We laughed out loud, but they still checked our pupil dilation and our cars. At least we had the comfort of knowing they wouldn't find so much as a cigarette butt.<br />
<br />
As they collected all our drivers' licenses and wrote down everything about us, including whether we still had our childhood teddy bears and how tall our dads were, they asked us the most inane question of all. And anger, at the sheer stupidity of it, brought me out of my fear.<br />
<br />
The question was, "Why? Why did you do it?"<br />
<br />
All the inaction, the flatness of life, the endless round of familiar streets and bus loop and the arcade and the classroom, the worn VHS, the be-kind-rewind...it all suddenly boiled over. "We were bored," I said loudly, an edge of defiance creeping into my voice. "We were really bored and we thought it would be fun."<br />
<br />
And it WAS fun, I wanted to add. It was <i>fantastic</i>.<br />
<br />
"Fun??" the officer repeated, as if I had said "It's fun to run red-hot wires into my eyeballs."<br />
"Fun?? Surely there are other things you can do for fun."<br />
<br />
"What are you, new in town?" I wanted to say, but instead I said "We've done everything."<br />
<br />
"Well," he said as he took my license from me (my brand-new interim license, no photo), "What about renting a movie?"<br />
<br />
I seriously wanted to punch him.<br />
<br />
I settled for saying "We've seen everything."<br />
<br />
"Everything?? Have you seen 'Glory'?"<br />
<br />
I wanted to punch him again. He had managed to name the only damn movie I hadn't seen.<br />
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"No, I haven't seen 'Glory'," I said through clenched teeth.<br />
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"You should see it, it's good."<br />
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I had had enough of this big, tall, gun-toting police officer (I was still too young to feel the pull of police-officer attraction). I burst out in a frustrated cry, "You can only watch so many movies, y'know! This town has nothing interesting!!"<br />
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He didn't say anything for a moment. Then, "I know. There's not much for young people around here." I was completely taken off-guard. Obviously, he wasn't from around here. His was an outsider's perspective.<br />
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And a second later I realized that an awful lot of his job must involve this - giving warnings to groups of bored teenagers searching for purpose and settling for distraction. Scaring them away from the dangerous edge of a flat and featureless roof.<br />
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With one last glance at my interim driver's license, he handed it back to me. "Oh, by the way," he added, "Have a good birthday, tomorrow."<br />
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"Thank you." I took my license and folded it up. Just before they all got back in their cars, he turned back and called "Go find something else to do, guys."<br />
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And that's just what we did. Within six months I was dating my first boyfriend, and was packing to move to Victoria, university, and a new job. Two of my partners in near-crime had begun a relationship, that became a beautiful marriage, that is now in its 21st year and fifth child. Another travelled to Africa soon afterwards to live with and help a missionary family.<br />
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Next year will be our 25th high school reunion. Almost all of us are still in touch, and we like getting together to talk about old times. The Bank Roof story will be retold next year, and so will the one about the Stuck Truck. (Stuck Truck happened a lot.) And Window Jumping, and the one about Laura's Cat, and the one with the Substitute Teacher's Upside-Down Desk. And the Princess Bride Reenactment Era, the Double-Dutch Skipping Craze, and the one where my sister, finally fed up, Threw a 7-Year Old Bully down an entire 15-foot flight of stairs.<br />
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None of us knew how close we were to the end of that time. We were so busy staring down the road forward. We didn't know, didn't care, that in the getting there, everything we knew so intimately would retreat in our rearview mirrors.<br />
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Looking back now, I think our stories are all we've got to pass down, in the end - a way towards comradeship and common ground with the next generation. They make it possible to show someone the way things once were - they're photographs of a forest that used to be right where that hospital is now.<br />
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You wouldn't remember, we say, smiling. That was before you were born. There weren't as many streets then...all this was wilderness.<br />
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And the stories make me smile.<br />
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Thanks for reading.<br />
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<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-89394261113059307452014-06-04T00:14:00.000-07:002014-06-04T00:45:06.829-07:00Aqua Perfection<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4eRtHoit_XQ/U46gGsr2BXI/AAAAAAAAF1Y/2UH2anG7uPo/s1600/AAconf+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4eRtHoit_XQ/U46gGsr2BXI/AAAAAAAAF1Y/2UH2anG7uPo/s1600/AAconf+%25282%2529.JPG" height="226" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><u>Anna's Confirmation Pont Neuf</u></span></b></div>
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<b>Pattern</b>: Pont Neuf, from <a href="http://www.twistcollective.com/2013/spring/magazinepage_025.php" target="_blank">Twist Collective Spring-Summer 2013</a><br />
<b style="text-align: left;">Yarn</b><span style="text-align: left;">: </span><a href="http://www.yarn.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/categoryID/A6851465-EEFA-4EF6-A2AE-A3F6C1BA87A4/productID/04F06B63-10EE-45F8-B367-7A1FE1606FAC/" style="text-align: left;" target="_blank">Zen Yarn Garden Serenity DK</a><span style="text-align: left;"> in Frosted Teal (4.25 skeins)</span><br />
<b style="text-align: left;">Needles</b><span style="text-align: left;">: 2.5 and 3mm Addi Turbo</span><br />
<b style="text-align: left;">Gauge</b><span style="text-align: left;">: (blocked) 23 sts 36 rows over 4"</span><br />
<b style="text-align: left;">Buttons</b><span style="text-align: left;">: 1/2" lucite with rhinestone, from </span><a href="http://www.buttonbutton.ca/" style="text-align: left;" target="_blank">Button Button</a><span style="text-align: left;"> in Vancouver</span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><b>Modifications</b>: Had to add rows to the yoke area to make up for my row gauge. (Pattern calls for 32 rows over 4", and I was getting 36.) The extra rows also affected my lace panel pick-up - I had to pick up 103 instead of the prescribed 93.</span><br />
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I had to knit 2 all-nighters to finish this in time. Confirmation was pushed forward by a whole week, leaving me scrambling to finish it. </div>
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I finished it on the Friday at 10 PM. I soaked it, spun it in the washer, squeezed it in a few towels, and pinned it out at midnight. </div>
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I left it to dry most of Saturday, and on Saturday evening took the pins off and tried it on my daughter -- a little too tight. I had been using the measurements from a beloved garment of hers, but that particular sweatshirt is quite thin and that made a difference in size.</div>
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So, I sewed all the buttons on, laid it back on the carpet, and pinned it out with extra width - I really stretched the lace panel in particular. I took the steam iron and shot about 300 ml worth of water, in steam form, through the whole front panel. I cranked the ceiling fan on as high as it would go, and went to bed.</div>
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By morning, it was both dry and the perfect size. Relief! I unpinned it at about 9:40 and we had to be at church at 9:45.</div>
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Luckily, church is only 2 minutes away, so we were early and looked very composed.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_JzYsBQ8bYU/U46ofR0nsoI/AAAAAAAAF18/o86fMd861Eg/s1600/IMG_2026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_JzYsBQ8bYU/U46ofR0nsoI/AAAAAAAAF18/o86fMd861Eg/s1600/IMG_2026.JPG" height="320" width="180" /></a></div>
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The yarn -- wow. <a href="http://www.yarn.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/categoryID/A6851465-EEFA-4EF6-A2AE-A3F6C1BA87A4/productID/04F06B63-10EE-45F8-B367-7A1FE1606FAC/" target="_blank">Zen Yarn Garden Serenity DK</a>, 90% merino and 10% cashmere. I got it from Webs on sale in early May. I wish I could afford to knit a me-sized sweater in this yarn, but I'd need about 6 skeins and, at $33 per skein, regular-price, it must remain a dream. </div>
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I can't say enough good things about it. It's soft, squishy, pearly, gentle on the hands, amazing yardage, blocks like a dream, glows in the light, has wondrous stitch definition, and is basically the yarn that all the angels have in their online carts, waiting for the day they get a pay raise.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A-6XdietApQ/U46gU4LY45I/AAAAAAAAF1s/lXkp2cLXvR8/s1600/PontNeufButton2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A-6XdietApQ/U46gU4LY45I/AAAAAAAAF1s/lXkp2cLXvR8/s1600/PontNeufButton2.jpg" height="400" width="280" /></a></div>
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The buttons were a last-moment find from the marvellous <a href="http://www.buttonbutton.ca/" target="_blank">Button Button</a>. So pretty, and just perfect for a girl of her age. There are 11 - 1/2" lucite shank buttons with a little rhinestone on the top of each one. This photo makes them look too blue - in fact they were greener in tone: a lovely pale robin's egg.<br />
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I loved this project. The pattern is utterly beautiful - I think it even beats <a href="http://halfsoledboots.blogspot.ca/2009/05/unfurling.html" target="_blank">Ruby's Fern</a> for the title of nicest thing I've ever knit. Avery wants one - "In rosy pink," she specified firmly. </div>
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Yay for finishing in time! And yay for that moment of harmony when gorgeous pattern meets celestial yarn.<br />
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<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-62703658875826114352014-05-30T11:53:00.000-07:002014-05-30T11:54:32.949-07:00Owie!Knitting crazily fast, listening to episode after episode of <a href="http://cast-on.com/" target="_blank">Cast On</a>, trying to get <a href="http://www.twistcollective.com/2013/spring/magazinepage_025.php" target="_blank">Pont Neuf</a> done for my daughter's Lutheran confirmation on Sunday.<br />
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Yes, Sunday June 1.<br />
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I am nearly finished the bottom border, then I will do the button bands, block and done.<br />
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I really do NOT KNOW if I can get it finished in time.<br />
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My hands are killing me.<br />
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I have to go now.<br />
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<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-4256208743154603082014-05-21T13:22:00.000-07:002014-05-21T13:30:03.499-07:00HeartbrokenOur beautiful hummingbird time is over. While we were out for an hour this morning, something brought the nest down and took the babies. Mummy came back shortly after we did, hovered for a few moments, then flew away.<br />
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We are all grieving terribly - shocked to find how much we loved our little friends, who didn't even know we were there.<br />
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Goodbye, little sweeties.<br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.285714149475098px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<i>It was passed from one bird to another,</i><br />
<i>the whole gift of the day.</i><br />
<i>The day went from flute to flute,</i><br />
<i>went dressed in vegetation,</i><br />
<i>in flights which opened a tunnel</i><br />
<i>through the wind would pass</i><br />
<i>to where birds were breaking open</i><br />
<i>the dense blue air -</i><br />
<i>and there, night came in.</i><br />
<i>-Pablo Neruda</i><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5CQhXaxqt1k/U30J5-7ewMI/AAAAAAAAF0k/QG70hX7L-TQ/s1600/IMG_1847.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5CQhXaxqt1k/U30J5-7ewMI/AAAAAAAAF0k/QG70hX7L-TQ/s1600/IMG_1847.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.285714149475098px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-53671641170151490442014-05-19T08:51:00.002-07:002014-05-19T08:51:49.889-07:00Babies on Board<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Anna's Hummingbirds' incubation period is 13-24 days, and our bird's eggs were laid April 30 and May 1. Looking at the calendar I was a bit disappointed because we were heading to Vancouver right on day 13, and staying three nights. </div>
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Not that we would have seen anything - the nest is too high up for us to look down into. But I thought we might miss something good.</div>
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In the event, the morning after we got home I snuck up while she was away, and took some quick photos. I couldn't see what I was looking at, but the camera did a fine job anyhow.</div>
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Funny-looking things!</div>
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So far, their eyes are still closed and they aren't making any sounds - a safety issue I'm sure. And, so far, they are small enough to be fed by one parent, so the dad is nowhere to be seen. According to what I've read, he'll come back when one beak is not enough for adequate catering. When that happens, I suspect it will become much harder to get family photos.<br />
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But for now, here's a little scrap of video for you. Every time a breeze shook the branch, the babies thought mummy had arrived with dinner. So cute!<br />
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<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-901445536986486172014-05-07T19:01:00.001-07:002014-05-07T19:01:33.288-07:00The Green Giant Was Right All Along.Here's a tip for you:<br />
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If your entire family loves frozen corn, and yet you lie awake at night agonizing over what fresh, delicious, and expensive vegetable recipes to make in order to satisfy your need to do 'enough', you are you own worst enemy.<br />
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"Loving Dinner"...it sometimes means frozen corn and take-out potato salad.<br />
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Thus endeth the lesson.Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-33748095829254291132014-04-30T11:38:00.000-07:002014-04-30T11:38:03.901-07:00I guess where I'm going, is On.If you've been <a href="http://halfsoledboots.blogspot.ca/2006/12/in-memoriam.html" target="_blank">reading for a while</a>, you'll know how I am with <a href="http://halfsoledboots.blogspot.ca/2011/09/3-2-1-blast-off.html" target="_blank">anniversaries</a>. I'm a big believer in observing days of importance, but not as something artificial or obligated. Actually it's better to say I believe that days of importance ARE observed, whether that's intended or not -- on a deeper level, sometimes unconscious, something in us remembers what happened a year ago, or five or ten years ago, and marks the day.<br />
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Avery was diagnosed on April 29 last year. Yesterday was a bit tough for us. Fittingly, I was up at 2 AM doing a cartridge change to try to bring her blood sugar down with fresh insulin. She had been crabby for days, sick with a virus, reacting to a booster shot, with her blood glucose perpetually over 12.5. It was wearing on her, and wearing on me...the constant weighing of variables, the hourly troubleshooting, the second-guessing. Is it a bad site? Is it that extra 6-carb Cadbury Mini Egg she had that we didn't bolus? Is it the lack of exercise from being sick? Is it just the virus coming back? Could that insulin be bad?<br />
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So D-Day carried a lot of feelings with it. Avery was a little down. She made two remarks about it: [grouchily] "I don't feel like going for a bike ride, I'm too high," and [gloomily] "I wish I didn't have to squeeze blood out of my finger and take insulin every single time I eat anything."<br />
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For my part, I spent the day moping around the house, crying at odd moments, for not much immediate reason. On most anniversaries, even of something bad, one is marking an event that ended -- time has passed since the occurrence, and one is in the process of moving on.<br />
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In this case, what we were marking was an event that started a new way of life: one that is different than before, and in a handful of ways better (improved diet, more activity) but for now, overall it's worse. Say what you want, be as positive as you like, but it would be better if we didn't have this disease.<br />
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Let me repeat that.<br />
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AVERY HAVING TYPE 1 IS WORSE THAN AVERY NOT HAVING TYPE 1.<br />
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And she's going to have it forever, unless some genius cures it, and within her lifetime the cure can be administered.<br />
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Otherwise, this is the way it is forever.<br />
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So we were sad, and we were tired, and we just didn't feel good.<br />
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The story of life is that in order to survive all the shit that comes your way, you have to find happiness, hope, humour or joy in the small things. They don't actually outweigh the bigger, bad things, but at least you can have a laugh, or feel the tiny thrill of a tiny victory.<br />
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The insulin WAS bad. After the 2 AM cartridge change (which she didn't wake up for -- <i>victory</i>), she woke in the morning at a nice, calm, reasonable 7.5. <i>Victory</i>. Two hours after breakfast, she was 11, and then before lunch she was 8.2 with a little insulin still on board. <i>Victory</i>. She threw a fit about going to Pony Club last night, but once she was at the barn she had a great time running around finding chickens and checking on all her cucumber seeds. 45 minutes of exercise -- <i>victory</i>. Before bed, she was 9.0. So it worked. <i>Relief</i>.<br />
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Today I read a bit of chatter on Facebook about first-world problems; how funny we all are, debating our lipstick colours while children are starving on the other side of the world. Sometimes I feel inconsequent for lying in bed at night, thinking about whether or not to continue dyeing my hair -- grey is the current reality, after all. And how annoying it is that I have to buy 50 paper cups for giving my homemade ice cream to my friends, when I really only need 10.<br />
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Am I lucky? Sure. Am I blessed to be here in safe old Canada with an earning husband, a dental plan, more yarn than I can use and a pharmacy stuffed with insulin? Of course.<br />
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But we live the life that's in front of us: not the one that <i>could be</i> if only we were poorer. It's impossible and unrealistic for me to live in a constant state of weak-kneed gratitude that I have food in the fridge. I can be grateful -- and I am -- but I won't be racked with anguished guilt.<br />
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Because the fact is that, full of technology as it is, full of privilege and wealth, safety and comfort as it is, life is hard. Life is also sad. Full of loss. Full of disappointment. It's grueling. It's one foot in front of the other. It's wake-up-tired, make-do-all-day, never-make-progress, go-to-bed-too-late, lie-awake-worrying <i>hard.</i><br />
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I'm not sure how to end this post. The writer in me wants to wrap it up with an inspiring paragraph about beauty in small moments. <i>Stirring my tea. Watching the hummingbird tending her nest. </i> Or I could close with a list of little, quaint domestic actions that make me feel better. <i>Hanging laundry out to dry. Braiding my daughter's hair.</i> Either would be fitting, slightly positive (the break-in-the-clouds effect) and allow the reader to leave with a sigh of completion. It might inspire you to put a comment about how well we're handling the whole thing.<br />
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Instead, I'll carry on the way I started. She was 9.1 at 1 AM, but she woke up at 15 today -- last night's slice of pizza came on board in the early morning. She's gone to play with a friend, who always feeds her crackers no matter how many times I protest. She'll come home high and hungry. I'm tired, and as usual I'm way behind. Still haven't unloaded the dishwasher. I need to buy more test strips. Anna is due at the barn in two hours. The kitchen floor is desperate, and, bizarrely, I can't find the broom.Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34819224.post-10473081578925144052014-04-27T13:18:00.004-07:002014-04-27T13:18:50.596-07:00Garden Flat, TenantedTwo years ago we had the pleasure of watching a chickadee family raise their young in a hanging basket just outside our sliding glass door.<br />
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It seemed like a miracle. We kept thinking they'd get a fright from the dog barking, or the sliding glass door opening too much, and move out; but they stayed around until the babies had grown and flown away.<br />
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A few weeks ago, a windstorm brought this branch down into the corner of our roof:<br />
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That's the kitchen window. For days, whenever I was washing dishes, I'd look at that branch and think "I must remember to take that down - it's going to drive me crazy."<br />
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My procrastination was rewarded last week when this happened.<br />
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She finished the nest the day before yesterday (always seems to be something to tinker with, though) and left it for a few hours, giving me a chance to get closer.<br />
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And today I think she must have laid some eggs, because she has been in position most of the morning.<br />
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She looks quite reddish in this picture...just a lighting change.</div>
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It's a joyful process to watch. We feel quite honoured that these little creatures have decided to trust us, in a way...we come and go out the back door, mow the lawn, putter in the garden, and the birds move in anyway, just a few feet from us. For a couple of delightful weeks, they watch us, and we watch them.<br />
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<br />Shanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10704810407872873565noreply@blogger.com2