Eritrean Coffee Ceremony Part 1

As we arrived for our first Eritrean coffee ceremony, Barb washed the serving cups, spoons and saucers in our presence. She had lit a charcoal fire in a small burner. She measured unroasted beans onto a mat, and sorted through them, discarding any that were not just right.

The beans went into a long-handled roasting pan, Barb fanned the coals with the mat, as she roasted the beans over them. As they darkened, a delicious smell developed.

The roasted beans were presented in the pan, to each guest, to smell and pronounce ready.

Once the beans were roasted, she poured them onto the mat for inspections and gently rolled them to remove any loose husks left.

Barb ground the beans with a heavy metal bar in a grinding cup. She poured the ground coffee onto the mat and funneled it into the brewing carafe, in which water had been heating on the charcoal burner. She watched the brewing coffee carefully so it did not boil over. When it boiled, she set it on a stand for a few minutes while she prepared to serve it.

Eritrean Coffee Ceremony Part 2

When the coffee is ready, some incense is lit, and three spoonfuls of sugar are placed in each tiny cup. The coffee is poured in a continuous stream to each of the cups, and served, first to the eldest person present and then to everyone. Everyone must sip and pronounce it "Good coffee!" or Barb might just dump everything out and begin again so that it will please us all.

The coffee is sweet and strong (Barb said she made it not as strong as in Eritrea) and very nice.

Treats are popcorn, cookies and candies, first tossed around the room to feed the witches in the house, then served to us to enjoy with the coffee.

The coffee is re-brewed and poured again for a total of three rounds. Guests must drink coffee in all three rounds. It is not polite to stop or leave before the ceremony has been completed.

Kim dressed like a Muslim man in Eritrea, and we listened to Eritrean music while we enjoyed our coffee ceremony.

bla-bla-bla-potter-bla-bla-bla

Alex and I are in the home stretch of our read-aloud Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Project. So far we have been fortunate to avoid any spoilers, although most of the people around us know what happens at the end. I have avoided surfing to any websites that might have unannounced spoilers. Wouldn't that be an awful way to find out?

So far this final novel is not disappointing us, although it has a very long setup (past halfway through the book, by my analysis). Now we're hurtling toward the conclusion so the reading rate has accelerated. In the meantime, if I begin to hear anybody discussing it, I just plug my ears and sing "LALALALALALA!"

question: did you read it?

mompoet - please don't tell the ending

summer is beautiful

Andy and I walked into Port Moody Centre on Saturday morning. We stopped for an ice tea and shared a treat with the dog. On the way back I stopped to photograph these summer delights.

question: what grows near you?

mompoet - I love hydrangeas

Friday was something all right

We are enjoying our visit with my sister and her family, just home from 2 years in Africa. On Friday, I booked off work. The kids hung out together at our house, and Mom and Dad relaxed at their house, while Barb, Kim and I set out on a quest for unroasted coffee beans, and a grill for cooking injera, the bread that is the basis for most meals in Eritrea. We found the beans easily at JJ Bean on Commercial. They will be used for an Eritrean coffee ceremony. We also stopped for a coffee and I bumped into my friends Alyssa and Nola, and Alyssa's baby Iris. I hadn't met the baby yet, what a treat! She had a purple tongue, and was wearing a t-shirt painted by auntie: "The seahorse is the the only fish with a prehensile tail." Cool baby.

Meanwhile at home, Mom was baking an angel food cake for Barb's birthday celebration. Overbaked by just a few minutes, the first one collapsed out of the pan too early during cooling, and "flumped." Mom started again, baking another cake from scratch.

Next stop for us was an Ertirean restaurant a couple of kilometers down Broadway. Barb and Kim had found the address on the internet. After fruitless telephone and internet searching for a direct source for their injera grill, they thought they might get some info from a restaurant. Before we hopped in the car again, we strolled commercial. I saw Nora (in town from a summer job in Anchorage to accompany the Van Slam Team to Nationals in Austin) and Jeremy and Jeremiah, enjoying a late breakfast at Cafe Deux Soleils. This was turning out to be a nice, friendly day. We continued on and spotted an Ethiopian restaurant that was open, right on Commercial Drive. The lady there said she know where to find a grill, but when she called her connection, they had none. She did offer to sell us some injera, made by the cook at her restaurant. We thanked her, and continued on to Broadway.

At The Red Sea Cafe on Broadway, the owner was friendly and welcoming, and somewhat amused to meet my sister and her husband, so well-versed in Eritrean cuisine and way of life, and speaking some of the local dialect. He gave us a phone number and location (back on Commercial) to buy the grill. Then he served us up some "foul." In Eritrea, "foul" is peanuts, peanut butter or bean dip. We had the bean dip, served with warm buns. It was yummy. We also had some sweet cinnamony Eritrean chai.

We thanked the restaurant man, and left, then phoned the place for the injera grill on my cell. They had one! When we got there we laughed. It was three doors down from the Ethiopian restaurant where we had inquired an hour earlier. The Abyssinia Grocery looks like a corner store, but in the back there are East African foods, and they had a few of the grills to sell. Barb and Kim took one home, very happy.

We returned to my house, where the kids had walked the dog, played video games, make lunch together, and the girls had baked cookies and a birthday card for Barb. They baked the two parts of the card out of lemon shortbread cookies and decorated them with coloured icing. Barb says it's the most original birthday card she has ever received.

We all took a break for a couple of hours. Maya is studying for exams, so she did some of that. I read some more Harry Potter with Alex (we are going slowly). I wrapped Barb's present, then searched my freezer, and located some frozen strawberries to add to the cake later in the evening. Around 6:45 we headed out for a restaurant supper.

Our first wish was to go to our favourite Capitol Hill Szechuan Restaurant in North Burnaby, but they are closed for three weeks of vacation, opening the day after Barb and family leave for their home in Cranbrook. As much as they have been looking forward to dining at Cap Hill, they'll have to wait until their next visit.

We located another Szechuan place where Andy and I had eaten when we lived in South Burnaby, but they were booked for the night and couldn't accommodate our big party. Finally Barb succeeded in making reservations at a third Szechuan place, where I had heard some co-workers had approved of the cuisine. We rendezvoused there, only to discover it had morphed into a restaurant with the same phone number, but a different name. The menu advertised "Chinese and Western Food." This is not our kind of Chinese food, so we drove back to North Burnaby to try Szechuan restaurant number four. It occurred to me that having 4 (or may just 3) decent Szechuan restaurants in one small city is a pretty good problem to have, but by this time we were tired and hungry, and had run around enough. We got to the Plan D restaurant to discover that it is closed on Fridays. Who ever heard of that? Oh well. There was a sushi restaurant next door, so we switched countries and had a great Japanese meal. The place was hopping, but a big table was just leaving as we arrived, so we were served quickly and we had a lovely time indeed.

At home the cake was tall, and light and yummy. Barb enjoyed her gifts. We all breathed out, then closed our eyes and said, "Time to go to bed."

The coffee ceremony, goat stew with injera and the much anticipated family game of balderdash are still waiting to happen. A really good Szechuan meal looks not to be in the cards for this visit. Things are never quite what you'll expect them to be, but usually they are delicious anyway.

question: have you ever been on a quest?

mompoet - enjoying minor and benign unpredictability

sunny day driving in the car haikus

Otis all low-fi
mono man okay today
my dock of the bay

my my Lady Day
sweet wine only half drunk up
sad songs make me smile

Ella Fitzgerald
forgets the words to Mac the
Knife - I grin with her

question: what tunes play out your summer day?

mompoet - groovy

Birthday Cake

last eatburn post

My sister posted her final Eatburn Chronicles Blog, about the family's return to Canada. Check it out here.

question: have you ever been stuck on a train when the doors closed?

mompoet - encouraging Barb to start up the "Cranbrook Continuation"

so much for wordless

Oh, another cause for celebration. My union reached a tentative agreement with the employer for our new contract. Meeting tonight, ratification vote tomorrow. Looks like no summer strike for us.

question: did you ever go on strike?

mompoet - relieved

haiku

zamboni awakes
after brief hibernation
stay behind the gate

wordless wednesday

they're here!

Barb, Kim, Maya, Lukas and Simon are home. We picked them up at the airport Sunday night. They're staying at my parents' place, and we're spending as much time together as we can. It's funny. In some ways it's like we were never apart. But there's so much to absorb and so many things to talk about and catch up on. We've had 3 big family suppers, including a gorgeous Eritrean chicken and egg chili meal prepared by Maya, who developed awesome cooking skills in Africa. Tomorrow we'll celebrate the twin cousins' birthday (our Fi and their Lukas were born on the same day). They'll stay through the weekend, which is wonderful. We are all so happy that they are here, safe and sound, still the same people we love, only with heads and hearts full of new experiences and two years of growing up.

That's all for now. I'm bagged - working all day then visiting all evening. I have Friday off and it's a long weekend. Hooray!

question: did you ever eat goat meat?

mompoet - I will try it if Maya cooks it

funny feeling

The sensation of tearing apart comes back almost more strongly than the happy anticipation of rejoining, in the days leading up to rejoining. I think that's why we cry when we meet again. That last bit of leaving doesn't really leave us until we have you back again.

question: do you know this feeling?

mompoet - feeling it

mighty tasty

I just got home from Taste of the City. It was yummy. I tried samples from a bunch of different restaurants: salmon gravlax and salad and a pecan brownie and also some lavender/raspberry Earl Grey iced tea from O'Doull's, medium spicy chicken from Nando's, goat cheese tortellini and also a yummy cheese dessert from Fig Mint restaurant, bouillabaisse from Cassis Bistro, an ahi tuna taco from Joey's Restaurant. Alex helped taste all of this and he also had some pulled pork on a bun from some place I can't remember, and something called "baby burgers" (3 tiny burgers) and also some sorbet. It was a yummy experience. Then, we were at the PNE already, so we took a couple of rides on the wooden coaster and rode the new big ferris wheel at Playland. That was fun.

Less than 24 hours as I post this, until the Eatburns return to Canada. YAAAAAYYY!

question: do you like tasting?

mompoet - life is tasty

oil spill haiku

blackened maple tree
one or twelve or one hundred
dinosaur shadows

quite a week

On Tuesday, near my office, the Trans-Mountain pipeline burst open, and sprayed crude oil over the road and houses and yards for about 30 minutes before it was turned off. Thousands of litres of oil escaped to damage homes, soil and the ocean. Somebody made a mistake. The crew digging up the road thought they were digging in a safe place, but they ruptured the pipe. The damage will take weeks or months to repair. Some of the environmental damage may be irreversible. Several families will be out of their homes for weeks at least. Some of the homes may have to be destroyed, their soil dug up and replaced and the homes re-built. The long term impact on the land, water, plants and animals is unknown at this point. The city and the oil company and the government are working hard right now to take care of all aspects of the situation. It's very awful.

Tuesday evening I met with some of my Poetry House friends for a strategy meeting. So many ideas bubbled around the table. We have done some remarkable work in our first four years since forming a not-for-profit society to promote poetry in our city - planned two festivals, launched and sustained a poets in the schools program, run community workshops and collaborated with the Vancouver Poetry Slam and Vancouver International Poetry Festival. It's time for us to look ahead and decide our shape and plan for the future. It could be any one of a number of things, or all of them. It will be an exciting experience helping it take shape. I love working with the PoHouse directors to get things done. We're artists who like to lead and organize, a funny cross-section of qualities, abilities and personal styles. The "getting there" is as important to me as whatever it is we do.

When I drove home around 9:30 Tuesday, I took the long road. My usual route along the Barnet Highway was closed. It was along that road that the pipe broke. Near the end of my alternate route I found the the road into my neighbourhood was also closed. We live on the other side of the mountain from the disaster, but along the same ocean inlet, and at the other end of the same highway. A worker allowed me past the barricade to get home. While I knew my problem was minuscule compared to those of the people directly involved, I was upset by the experience. It's strange and awful to have to ask permission to get to your house.

On Wednesday, Fiona turned 14. We celebrated on the weekend because she was super-busy on the day. The show that ends her month-long musical theatre intensive opened on her birthday. She was out of the house from 7:30 in the morning until 11pm. Now she's 14. I think she didn't mind spending her birthday this way. We're very proud of her.

On Thursday, We went to see Fiona's show. This is her second year in the program, and we were expecting to be impressed, but it was even better than we thought it would be. After 16 or 17 rehearsal days, these young actors presented a full-length musical review in which they sang and danced their heads off. There were 80 students in all, ranging from about 9 years old up to 18. They all auditioned to get in. They all worked hard through the rehearsal period, with excellent faculty teaching and directing. The show was a take-off on Fiddler on the Roof. Golde takes over the lead in the show when Tevye breaks his leg. There were cheesey moments and corny humour, but mostly clear, beautiful on-pitch singing (including multi-part harmonies), combined with spot-on dancing (which is not easy). The choreography and vocal arrangements were amazing. It was something that would have impressed us had adults done in. Several times throughout the show, all 80 performers sang and danced together on the stage, it it was not a mish-mash. It was like fireworks, only it was people. It was truly remarkable. As a Mom, you have to take my word for it. I'm not just saying this because my kid is in it. It was really something.

Today I will work for just a few hours. Fiona has a couple of birthday parties to attend this weekend, so there'll be a bit of driving for that. The neighbours will meet on the street tonight for a drink together. Tomorrow, we're going to Taste of the City at the PNE.

Sunday, Barb, Kim, Maya, Lukas and Simon come home. Then it will really be quite a week. Really.

question: how was your week?

mompoet - experiencing an extra bonus portion of everything this week

dog walk haiku

dead crow in the road
torn feathers, bleached bones, like a
broken umbrella

Happy Birthday Fiona

Happy fourteenth birthday Fiona!

question: how do the years go by so quickly?

mompoet - head spinning

another dream

I am traveling along a highway in my car (little Civic). Behind me is my friend Jay Shaw (used to live across the street from us). Jay is driving a big "rig," one of those trucks you ship cargo cross-country in. We begin to encounter bumpy spots on the road, then things that are like stairs in the highway. We can't drive up them so we have to get out and lift our vehicles. The Honda is easy for me to pick up and set on the next level then get in and drive a bit more. Jay needs some help with the rig. It's heavy and awkward.

We keep going along on this fashion, rapidly ascending to a high altitude about the city. We do no question our wisdom or purpose in hauling our vehicles up this challenging road. We just keep going up.

We come across a dark hole in the side of the mountain, an abandoned mine. Outside the opening to the tunnel and blocking the road are three or four rusty old metal ore cars. Jay shoves them off the side of the road. They tumble down the mountainside and towards the road below. We watch in horror as they crash all over the traffic on the road far below. Cars are smashing and burning. That's the whole dream.

dreamed Monday night

question: what do we say to ourselves when we dream?

mompoet - paying attention

slow potter

It's a fast story, and we're not slow readers, but finding time to read to a 17 year year old when you work full time and he's on teenager hours is more challenging than reading to an 11 year old when you are camping together.

We just finished chapter 7 last night before I had to go to sleep. Alex stays up until 2 in the morning and wakes sometime around mid-day. At a rate of 2-4 chapters a day, we should be finished by the time he's 18.

I think the cousins are going to beat us.

The cousins will be here Sunday.

We need to tell the cousins: shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

question: how do you squelch a spoiler?

mompoet - I like surprises

wet weekends are fun part 3 - sunday

It was still raining when I awoke on Sunday. I had already decided to stay home from church, mostly because I'd sprung out of bed with somewhere I had to go already on my Friday off and on Saturday. I do miss church when I don't go, and I'll be back there next Sunday, but sometimes, pajamas trump all.

The house was quiet and still, but the bread machine was announcing a fresh loaf at 9:30, so that's when I got up. I had sneaked out an hour or so earlier to let the dog out for a moment, and feed both her and the cat, so both creatures were contented and drowsy. I was delighted to read my sister Barb's post on her blog, and to know that her family is reading the same book that Alex and I are reading. We'll both be done by the time we see them next weekend, so we can compare impressions and speculate on sequels and movie interpretations.

Andy spent most of the day assembling billy bookcases from IKEA. We got black ones with silver doors and a matching CD/DVD rack to help complete our basement reno. They turned out really nice.

Fi came home around noon, soon after her birthday cake came out of the oven. It was my turn to bake a chocolate cake. I don't think it turned out as well as when she bakes it, but it was good. Mostly it was a quiet day. I read some Potter with Alex, did a bit of cleanup, then took Fi out costume shopping for an hour or so before supper. Supper was a family birthday celebration at Andy's Mom's place. Fiona invited her Grandma and Grandpa (my parents), the Juergensen's (Auntie B, Uncle Ralph and Frousin Emma), and Cousins Adam and Steven. We had a nice feast with 3 pies and a cake for dessert, then came home full up. I enjoy stretch birthdays. In our family we seem to have ongoing celebrations for about 3 weeks surrounding the actual day. It's a kind of festival in itself.

Now I will do some ironing and altering to make our Value Village costume finds ready for Fi to take to rehearsal Monday morning. It's the last week of the month-long musical theatre intensive program, with performances happening Wednesday and Thursday. After my costuming work is done, there's time for a couple more chapters of Harry Potter, which is shaping up to be full of danger and intrigue, but that's all I'll say for now.

Tomorrow I'll return to work. It's supposed to rain one more day, then the sun will return. I'll look forward to a sunny weekend coming up, but I'm kind of glad that this one was rainy and fun the way it was.

question: how was your weekend?

mompoet - full up with pie, love and stuff to think about

Wet weekends are fun part 2 - Saturday

Saturday I got up early and assembled things for the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival. It's an annual event put on by Pandora's Collective, a very cool organization that does tons of good work with poets and poetry in Vancouver.

When I said good-bye to the day for Fi, I wished her a successful "friends" birthday party. She and her best bud Shannon were preparing a day of laser tag, bouncy castle and other fun at their combined birthday party at Shannon's house later in the day, followed by a sleepover. I knew I wouldn't see her until Sunday.

On the way to the festival, I picked up our copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at the mall. We got the "adult cover" edition, with a more sophisticated dust jacket, which I think is funny. It's so people can read it on the bus without having to let on right away that they're reading a kids' book. I just figured fewer people would have this version so that's the one I chose. I packed it up safely for later-on reading.

I arrived about 11am at Lumberman's Arch in Stanley park, and unloaded 200 water bottles and a couple of camping jugs for refilling water bottles. Last year it was so hot that someone had to make a run for more water. This year it was cool and rainy, so that water was not in such high demand. It was great to see that some people filled their own bottles or refilled their store-bought bottles when they were empty. The festival began at noon. I enjoyed sitting at the Poetry House table for part of the day, enjoying the poetry performances and panel discussion for part of the day, chatting with poetry friends and participating in Steve Duncan's chapbook workshop. Even with the rain, the audience tent was brimming with happy people. This year there was a kids' stage too, with musical performances, and a face-painting station and a mock protest against Harry Potter in favour of wonderful adventures in Canadian books. By 6pm I was full up with words and ideas and visiting, and ready to come home. It was wet all day but not cold. Still, I wanted to spend a bit of time with Andy and Alex before it got too late, so I came home for a late supper and movie.

Reflecting on this year' Summer Dreams, I think I appreciate it more each time I participate. Bonnie Nish and Sita Carboni, the organizers, have a way of bringing people together to celebrate their art and each other's company that is truly remarkable. I'm grateful for what they do. The new venue at Lumberman's Arch is lovely. I can't wait to enjoy it on a "sit on the ground with a picnic" sort of day. Reading series' and writing groups from around Vancouver were highlighted throughout the day. That's remarkable too - the number of groups and events and the number people who participate in writing and reading around our town. I'm glad that Pandora's Collective has a festival about it every year.

I made it home around 7. And yes, we did crack open the Harry Potter. I read the first 3 chapters to Alex just before bed. After a lovely damp outdoor day it was good to be warm and cozy indoors with my family. I think it was just about a perfect day.

question: did something ever turn out different from how you expected it, but still good?

mompoet - different is usually good by definition

Japanese TV

Rock and roll with puppets linked by Yes but No but Yes. It's worth viewing the whole thing or at least fast fwd to the finale. Nice.

question: do you like my hat?

mompoet - please don't say yes

bingo

Visits logged match posts posted, for the moment. ahhhh.

question: why are coincidences intriguing?

mompoet -easily amused

Wet weekends are still a lot of fun - part one, Friday

I took Friday off work to run around and do errands. I dropped the theatre camp carpool at the Jewish Community Centre just after 8am, then drove all the way home (almost) to make it to the cycle class at the Rec. It was the debut class of all new yellow bikes, so the die-hard luddite old bike lovers were a bit uncomfortable. I felt sorry for them. I got a good and welcome workout. My summer morning work and driving schedule has put me off regular attendance at the gym. I'm walking a lot more to make up for it, but it's not the same as sweating your head off and shouting and laughing with a bunch of other goofy people in the dark on a bike.

After the workout I popped by the office to pick up my new cell phone charger. I got a new cell phone from work on Thursday and I realised the short charge that the dealer gave it wouldn't take me through the weekend. My friends at work told me to "Go away. You have the day off." So I did.

Julie cut my hair and I caught up on her triathlon adventure last month. It was 38 degrees in Oliver, where the race was held. It was so awfully hot that nobody did their best. Julie has a great attitude, and decided that her goal was just to finish (she is a seasoned triathlete, but not competitive). She made it across the finish line, and was glad for it. I got to ask obscure triathlon questions I had always wondered about like "Who takes care of your bike while you are swimming and running?" (They are locked in a guarded cage) and "Do you stop to pee?" (Yes) That was an interesting conversation.

Then I drove downtown to pick up 100 bottles of water from Nester's Market at Seymour and Nelson in an absolute downpour. The store manager gave me perfect parking and pickup directions before I came, so it was not as nerve-wracking as I thought (try parking anywhere near anything downtown and you'll know what I mean). The manager on duty carted the water out and loaded my car for me. They are very generous and kind, and the store is wonderfully set up and stocked. Shop at Nester's if you need groceries downtown.

For some reason I decided to drive up Cambie Street back to the Oakridge area where I was scheduled to do theatre camp pickup. Cambie is completely trench-dug for the Canada Line rapid transit. There a slim lane on either side with a massive fenced trench in the middle. I'm not usually on the west side, so I hadn't seen it until Friday. All the way from downtown past 41st, it's an ugly mess. Nowhere to stop if you want to go to any of the local stores or restaurants along the way, an obvious nightmare for people living on sidestreets (noise, dirt, access). Once it's done it will be lovely, I'm sure, but UGGG! To boot, water was streaming down it like a river in the continuing downpour. I purposefully stopped at a restaurant on Cambie and parked in the lane while I ate lunch. Those guys need our business right now.

With still an hour to kill and all of my newspapers and magazines read, and one day until Harry Potter, I decided to go to Oakridge shopping mall to get a new umbrella. My old full-size umbrella finally busted so it was time for a new one. Oakridge is awful. I don't like a mall at the best of times, and this one is full of snooty weird women's clothing boutiques and jewelery shops. And there's really nowhere to sit. I got a coffee at one point and had to perch on a bench that I swear should have been a luggage rack. At least I should have enjoyed people-watching but I couldn't leave fast enough. I ended up at The Bay and found a nice one for a reasonable price, but only after I ran the gauntlet of high end stinky cosmetics counters, peopled by aliens in lab coats (Here, let me experiment on your face). Only the one at Oakridge is twice as big as the usual because I guess the people around there spend even more on that stuff. I just beeline through. No eye contact, I'm just looking for an umbrella.

Then I picked up Fi and her friend and got her home in time to rendezvous with other friends who were going early to the movie theatre to see opening night of Hairspray. Then I collapsed on the couch for an hour and caught up with Andy on how his day went (busy busy day at work). Then I fixed supper for Andy and Alex and me. I made sausage and perogies for them (good rainy weather food) and I ate the leftover pasta with chicken and veg from Thursday.

After that, the ladeez in the 'hood went down to Myrna's house. Her twin sister Marlene is in town from Toronto. We try to get together whenever she comes. Marlene's son Brandon is living at Myrna's so I got to meet him too, as he was at home for the evening to see his mom. We ladies drank several bottles of wine and sat around and laughed and talk and ate some of Marlene's yummy cooking (should not have bothered with supper at home). We came home around midnight. At that time I could have gone to the bookstore to pick up Potter, but I decided to wait. I had done enough already. Really.

question: how do you spend a rainy day?

mompoet - still wondering if that was really a day off

weird coincidence

1,271 visits recorded by statscounter since I set the counter a couple of months ago.
1,268 posts since I started this blog a few years ago.

Let's see if I can do a couple of short posts and catch it when it matches.

question: can I do it?

mompoet - loving a Sunday morning with nothing better to do
aka - played hookey from church to read Harry Potter out loud but Alex is sleeping in so I'm wasting time on the internet

the eatburns are in England

Just 7 days until Barb, Kim, Maya, Lukas and Simon are with us! We can hardly wait. Now that they are in the land of speedy reliable internet, Barb is posting her own blog again (I did it mostly while they were in Eritrea, from emails she sent to me or to Mom and Dad). You can find out about their transition adventures here.

When we see them we will be sure to:

• eat at Capitol Hill Szeuchuan Restaurant (they have been missing it. we have been thinking of them everytime we go there - particularly my nephew Simon - we think of him!)
• celebrate the birthday of the twin cousins - Fiona and Lukas both turn 14 on Wednesday, so the party will be a little late, but that's okay
• celebrate Barb's birthday (August 4)
  
• play balderdash with a dictionary and scraps of paper
• hang out and breathe in and hug and cry and get used to each other all over again

We will be very very very happy to have them home.

question: why do we miss someone especially much when they are almost here?

mompoet - aching with missing

colour-blind haiku

pimento-green eyes
quit peeling my durian
nothing to see here

Harry Potter and Me

I read the first two Harry Potter books to Alex and Fi some time after they were released. The series was just catching on at that point, but my good friend Louise had enjoyed them with her son Sam during a summer camping trip. We dove into them and finished them off before the fist month back to school had passed. Since then we have bought each book on publication day and joined the wave of readers who anticipate the next and the next and the next. I can remember most of the places where I read the new books - lots of times on summer camping trips. I have read every one out loud to Alex - some more than once. Harry Potter is good exercise for out-loud reading. Spell and wizard names and complicated sentence structure make it a challenge. I think I spit a fair bit when I read Harry Potter out loud, and I cry too. In fact, I cry a little bit just thinking about the last book. Reading the Harry Potters with and to my kids has been one of the joyful parts of our growing up together as a family. I wish it wasn't the end. But with Alex now 17 I think my reading out loud to him days are numbered.

I won't speculate on the ending of this story. I will cross my fingers for who will not die. In the meantime I am adrift between novels, not wanting to break off in the middle of one because our copy of Potter is available (Friday midnight special opening at Coles books at the mall). And I do so want to re-read The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman before it comes out as a movie later this summer. Oh well, that will be next.

question: do you read the Potter books?

mompoet - spitting out spells and wizard names one last time

Elton John is everywhere

Here, his face is morphed with that of another well-known Brit.

question: why does the same thing show up over and over?

mompoet - aka "the queen"

morph-azing

Here's a morph video of my celebrity face match.

question - ?

mompoet !

my celebrity face match

Here it is.

question: who do you resemble?

mompoet - b-b-b-benny

a mysterious ticking noise

haiku movie review - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

teenage wizard angst
draconian politics
not enough Hagrid

question: have you seen it yet?

mompoet - I liked it ok

this is what a promise in July looks like

comment on orzo salad with feta cheese and balsamic vinegar

"What's that? It smells like a bowl of dog farts."

Thanks kid, that's my lunch.

question: why is something yummy to one person and yukky to another person?

mompoet - I like stinky cheese

summer

It's cool this morning.
I just ironed my skirt.
I have 127 mosquito bites.
Two of them itch.
Pretty good, considering.

question: what is this moment of summer like to you?

mompoet - pausing to notice

Twisted Poets is moving (and won't be on next week)

My feature performance at Twisted Poets has been postponed. I'll keep you posted when there's a new date. Pandora's Collective is organizing a new venue for this reading series. This month they're "between venues."

question: did you know that there's someplace to listen and read pretty much every night of the week in Vancouver?

mompoet - lucky

this is a recipe for Laurie

from the August Canadian Living Magazine (I improvised a bit - see brackets)

Lentil (Chickpea) Feta Salad

1/2 cup slivered almonds (pine nuts)

1 cup dried green lentils, cooked just until tender with 2 cloves garlic (can of chickpeas, drained & rinsed)
1 1/2 cup diced cucumber
1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup diced sweet or red onion
(I added corn cut off the cob from last night's supper and yellow bell pepper, diced)

2 Tbs chopped fresh parsley
3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tbs red wine vinegar
1 Tbs chopped fresh oregano
1/4 tsp each salt and pepper

Toast the almonds (pine nuts) in a small skillet over medium heat until golden (about five minutes). Set aside.
Cook the lentils with the garlic until just tender (about 20 minutes), drain and rinse, or open the can of chickpeas and rinse them - I think this would work well with most legumes.
Add the tomatoes, onions and cucumber (and whatever other vegetables).
Whisk together the dressing ingredients and toss them with the salad. Add the toasted nuts, feta and parsley. (Save a bit of feta to sprinkle on top for garnish.) Toss gently.

Makes 6 side salad servings. It made 4 main meal size servings when I made it, but I did stretch it with extra veggies.

If you are cooking the Canadian Living version, measure carefully. If you cook the mompoet version, just dump in what looks about the right amount. That's the magic of cooking.

Store any extra in the fridge.

question: do you like feta cheese? If not, what would you substitute?

mompoet - I like feta cheese

mp3 haiku

Jack White's ear guitar
switch buds, my back to the stage
surround sound skull song

question: do you download?

mompoet - now I do (legally)

shiny green milestone

Alex took his road test Monday. After a year of practice driving and some excellent lessons, he may now drive my car by himself. As soon as I got home, he took his first solo drive, which felt "weird" and made him feel "nervous." He'll get used to it.

After 2 years of safe driving with the "N" he'll retest for a full license.

Congratulations Alex!

question: can you remember your first solo drive?

mompoet - admiring

bits and splieces

What a week this has been. Camp opened with large masses of mosquitoes and happy children and great leaders. Now first week has come to a close and the summer has begun. I am grateful for the weekend. Here are a few bits of what's been happening and/or about to happen:

• I won an MP3 player at the PCT Tour that Andy and I took on Saturday. A lady from the company called me yesterday and I picked it up today. I have never owned an MP3 player but I'm going to try it out and find out if I like it. If not, I can give it to someone.
• Fi's summer theatre group will sing O Canada and be in the halftime show at the BC Lion's season opener Friday night, so I'm going to my first football game ever.
• Just a little over 3 weeks until Barb and Kim and the kids come home. I can hardly wait!
• Aunt Lucy may visit in a couple of weeks. She lives in Nairobi and is visiting her sister in the States. Last time she visited was about 6 or 7 years ago.
• I have the day off work Friday! I can't wait to get back to the gym, which I miss bigtime. I have a great big energy blurt that needs out, bad!
• After the gym I will go eat pasta with my friends from work, only I don't have to return to the office after.
• I gave blood this afternoon. It was a very hot afternoon, so it took about 5 minutes from start to finish. I was a little wary leaving - will it start up again? But I have managed to contain myself (bad pun). When I got home I had a glass of wine with the ladies in the 'hood. Wine works amazingly well when you are down a unit. Two hours later and I'm still just fine.
• I think that's all. For now.
• Oh, one more thing. I got another spider bite. Am I delicious to arachnids? I don't know. It's not like I sleep in woodpiles or go dance in webs or anything. It looked like a little Mexican hat with a white crown and a purple brim and there were fang marks. Today an entomologist came to camp to teach the kids about bugs. I showed her the bite and she confirmed it. Nice to have an expert to verify your parasite encounters. A perk of the job, I guess. It's flattened out now and is yellow/green in the middle with a purple donut around it, and lovely fang marks. I still like spiders. They are cool.
• I just checked. It was definitely an entomologist and not an etymologist. An etymologist would be good for checking any word-rash or the like.
• One more thing. The bite is on my left arm, just below the elbow. I did not see it happen. I am not that weird. Not quite.
  

question: what's up for you this weekend?

mompoet - waiting for a blurt, then all will be truly well

good fun for simsonphiles

I took Alex out to the Kwik E Mart in Coquitlam this evening. There were about 100 people lined up waiting to get inside the packed store, and more kept arriving. It's a publicity stunt for The Simpsons' Movie, and a very clever one I think.

Alex bought a Squishy, a Homer silly straw and 2 packages of Kwik E Mart donuts. They were all out of Buzz Cola.

The most fun was the people. Mostly young men ages 15-35, but also quite a few families. People were taking photographs with their cell phones all over the place. My cell phone just makes phone calls, so words is all I got to show you. (or you could check out Lynn Valley Girl's blog for some great photos). In the lineup, people were giddy with the silliness of the whole thing. Inside, there was a lot of laughing and pointing (there were life size Simpson character figures in there) and lurching and grabbing as cases of Kwik E Mart junk food were wheeled in and opened.

It looked like a bit of Disneyland spit out onto a Coquitlam side street.

question: what's your favourite flavour of Squishy?

mompoet - thank you, come again!

good fun for word nerds

Courtesy of Matthew Baldwin at defective yeti

epiphany euro facetious

inculcate metamorphosis sanguine

soliloquy tautology vacuous

ziggurat

I knew the words in green; I did not know the words in red. In total, I knew 6 of 10.

question: would you like to try it?

mompoet - wordy but still learning

more news from Nelson

Last time I posted something about our intrepid, world-traveling, plastic rat, Nelson, it was to indicate that I was pretty sure he is gay. After an encouraging and supportive night at Auntie Myrna's, Nelson came home with fuchsia toenails, a pierced ear, a green satin bow and a note that says "There's something I've been meaning to tell you..." We all think it's great that Nelson is gay (if that is the case - we're deducing), and we've been telling our friends how he's a whole new rat these days.

Then on Sunday, Kirsi (who recently took Nelson with her to Ireland), came out of the house with something (someone?) she found in her suitcase. It looks as if Nelson has offspring. Now this doesn't rule out Nelson also being gay. Some of the best and most devoted parents I know are gay or lesbian. It also doesn't prove conclusively that Nelson is female. Nelson could be a single parent dad too (one who likes fuchsia and an ear stud). I tried checking out Nelson's private parts for a clue, but he does not appear to have any. Baby Nelson has a rectangular shaped cavity in his/her belly where any normal organs would reside, and also an imprint "made in China" which further confuses things. How did baby get from China to Ireland? Or, when was Nelson cavorting in China and we didn't know about it? Alternatively it could be an overseas adoption situation. Nelson just won't say.

So now we have a big rat and a little rat. They both like to travel, that I know for sure. I am concerned about little one's obviously hollow abdominal cavity. We may have to get him/her on the organ donor waitlist soon.

question: what's the story, morning glory?

mompoet - guessing the tale, nightingale

our neighbour

Port Moody was once a mix of industry and residences. Now we're mostly houses and small businesses. We still have the CP Rail main line running along our waterfront, and we still have Pacific Coast Terminals, or "the sulphur pits" as most people call them.

Saturday PCT had an open house as part of Golden Spike Days. Andy and I went down for the tour. We walked around the site and saw sulphur (which is a bi-product of oil and gas refining) being loaded out of train cars onto a ship. We found out that most of the sulphur goes to China for fertilizer and manufacturing. PCT also loads liquid ethylene glycol, which is also shipped out for manufacturing.

They put on quite a party. It seemed that most of the 30 or so permanent employees were there to hand out cookies and coffee, conduct tours, drive people who needed it around in golf carts and explain how things work. There was musical entertainment, balloons, facepainting and a prize draw. We went out on a short harbour cruise and got up close to the sulphur pit, which seems not so monstrous now.

Our impression from the tour is that PCT is a good neighbour. A park or fancy houses would be prettier, but they're important to our local economy, and they're environmentally responsible and generous in supporting community arts and other good causes. I'm glad we went to meet them.

question: have you ever been to the sulphur pit?

mompoet - neighbour

pink

Dooce linked this pink page.

question: what would you do if you came home to pink?

mompoet - thinking I would like to be fly on the wall

spike at night

Andy and I went down to Golden Spike Days Saturday night with our friends Michele and Brent. We took our lawn chairs and set up in the beer garden to enjoy a couple of drinks and listen to Tiller's Folly. It turned out to be a much more entertaining and educational evening than we had ever imagined. All in all, it was a smorgasbord of sights and sounds, and a slice of Port Moody that was a bit more than we'd expected.

We arrived about 7 to a finally sunny festival. The man at the Thai food stand told us that Friday night was dead (probably because of intermittent pouring rain and lowering skies). While he scooped us up delicious satay and curry, we chatted. Turns out he saw Sweeney Todd at his high school dance too (him: early 70s, Carson Graham Secondary in North Vancouver; us: mid to late 70s, Burnaby North Secondary). Sweeney Todd will be at Spike Days Sunday evening. At this point, the man's very tired looking teenage son perked up and reeled off his favourite classic rock groups and performers, beginning with Rod Steward (at that moment being creditably covered on the stage by a man in a tomato-red suit) and going on through Roy Orbison, Jimmy Hendrix and a couple others I can't remember. That was fun.

Inside the beer garden we noticed that we were some of the few not ID'd at the gate. The crowd was young, and loud and mostly drunk. The evening was cool, but that did not stop most of the women from erupting from various garment portals. More boobs and belly walking than I'd like to see in a week or too. Mixed in was the entire clientele of the Port Moody Legion. The beer lines were long, the porta pottie lines even longer. At one table, there was a beer can pyramid. Then the police came and escorted a red-faced and wild-eyed young man just outside the fence for a long talk and checking of pockets. About 15 minutes in, his equally robust and ruffled looking friend went out to try to talk sense into the police, while a table full of beer can stackers shouted "NOOO! don't gooooo!" When he returned un-arrested 10 minutes later they chanted his name. Meantime we were marveling at how visible thong underwear still lives (in Port Moody) and wondering how some people can wear jeans so tight that their only choices are to stand up (in spike heels, on the grass) or lie down. Meantime, the men folk were strutting about, in various fashion statements, including a rainbow of awful tropical shorts and shirts and one guy with his sunglasses hanging out of his ear canals for over an hour, even when it turned dark out. Speaking of dark, with Venus (and a full moon) rising, the "things that glow" vendor showed up with a shopping cart full of swag. Soon there were young dudes with neon swords/phalluses and women in predictable twinkle bunny ears and light-up devil horns cruising the joint. Although the crowd was seeming to thin, it was getting louder and louder in the beer garden. We had finished our drinks and fetched coffees from the fish and chip place. It was hard to see or hear much of the band, so we just sat in our chairs and watched the people around us. Then the MC from the entertainment stage came in and tried to convince some of us who had finished our drinks to move out of the beer garden and sit with the perilously scant audience nearer to the stage, so we did.

What a different world. Out there the sound was great. The band played like there were a thousand of us, even though fewer than a hundred were focussed on the show. Inside what now appeared to be a cage, the beer guzzlers rumbled and zorked. Luckily we could hear them only between songs. A few families sat in the audience, and we watched a dad and daughter arrange their chairs into a canoe and paddle/swim through a couple of the songs. Soon we were tapping and clapping and getting into the good music. By the time the encore came, everyone was into it, including a one-legged man, dancing with crutches.

After the obligatory 11pm ending (noise bylaw), the beer garden rocked and rumbled on, with only the music of bla bla Saturday night. We walked back to the car (lots of police on hand to ensure a peaceful dispersal) but were stopped by the sight of a young couple engaged in an argument. While it stayed verbal, some of the man's body language was alarmingly overbearing, and when the young woman gestured that she was through, the man wouldn't let her past him to leave. I made a quick call and the police came and talked to them. They settled down and walked off together. I thought, if he's like that on the street, what's it like when they're behind closed doors? I hope she is okay.

We came back to our place for coffee and a wee drop to warm up, and thanked our lucky stars for age, wisdom (most of the time) and vicarious adventures.

Tonight is the neighbourhood Canada Day block party. Sweeney Todd is on from 9:30-11. We'll decide later if we go, or if we've had enough already.

question: what did you do for fun on Saturday night

mompoet - through the looking glass

Sicko

I took Alex and Fi to see the new Michael Moore movie last night. We all enjoyed it. It was fun to sit in an audience full of Canadians feeling smug about having better health care than Americans. Of course, it was typically Michael Moore - big G generalizations about our national persona vs theirs and heart-wrenching stories about people ill-served by the richest and most powerful nation in the world. Still, you have to give Michael Moore credit for entertaining people into thinking about important issues. While part of me wanted to yell, "It's more complicated than that!" quite a few times, I was also thinking, "fundamentally, he is correct."

So now we want to move to France. And believe it or not, maybe even Cuba. But that's just Michael Moore talking. If you aren't driven round the bend by manipulation and hyperbole you will enjoy this movie muchly.

question: how best to win hearts and minds to good causes?

mompoet - respecting anyone who takes any way in that does no harm and shines some light

translating pop culture "news" into something more meaningful

So Paris Hilton got out of jail and promises to quit partying and make something more meaningful of her life. I grabbed part of the story off the web and ran it through a couple of cycles of babblefish. You decide which makes more sense:

ORIGINAL
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hotel heiress Paris Hilton left jail on Tuesday in red-carpet Hollywood style, waving and smiling to scores of paparazzi, after serving three weeks for violating probation in a drunken-driving case.

THOROUGHLY BABBLED
With su Aen Jel ley su (with will drive and to sprout) alcoholic beverage withdrawal from inside the case round afterwords the rice Oh the r Oh in zz different meaning score, to wave the Hollywood which smiles a violation probation inside red Yoong grade style Tuesday - hotel succession nye the Paris Hilton prison hazard 3 weeks it left.

I'm still not sure which make more sense.

question: which do you like better?

mompoet - leaning toward the babble

White Stripes played at Creekside Youth Centre Sunday Afternoon

My friend Bob phoned me at my office today. "Look at your emai!" he said. I looked. There were photos he took at a secret, teeny tiny White Stripes concert that happened Sunday afternoon. Bob manages the Creekside Youth Centre in Burnaby. On Friday he got a call. A band manager was looking for a place for his band to play a small show for youth before an evening performance. Bob said sure, who's the band? He couldn't quite believe the answer, but the manager showed up Saturday to check out the venue (a portable building set up at one end of an elementary school parking lot). He told Bob he could invite about 25 kids. Bob said that was a hard thing to do. At 2pm Sunday, there they all were, waiting. Bob still couldn't believe it would really happen.

"Then the van pulled up in the parking lot," he said, and when they took out Meg's drum kit I knew it was real." Did I mention Bob is a huge fan? Moments later Meg and Jack jumped out of another van, ran into the centre and did a show there for Bob and the kids. Later that night they performed at the Shadbolt Centre outdoor festival space in Burnaby. But they really opened their North American tour at Creekside.

I got goosebumps just thinking about it. I think this is some kind of delicious wonderful.

question: can you think of anything quite as nice?

mompoet - I didn't even have to be there to feel giddy about this

in-between time

It's 7:25 and I'm the only one up. The cat and dog went back to sleep after breakfast. Andy has gone to work. The kids are sleeping in. They finished exams and celebrations last week and don't go back until Thursday for report cards. Nobody needs me to make breakfast. Nobody is asking for a ride to school.

Work has been incredibly hectic, preparing for summer camp to open next week, and taking time off for awards ceremony, school leaving etc last week. I'm going to go into the gym this morning before work and start a little late, just to catch my breath. Tonight I'll go to the Main Street Slam.

Next week, everything begins. Alex should have his first days of actually working over the Canada Day weekend and beyond, then he'll go for his driver's test. Fiona starts a one-month musical theatre intensive in Vancouver. Camp opens for me then I have to write budget for 2008. Luckily Andy has the first week of July off work so he can help us get into gear.

For now, this quiet is nice.

question: isn't the pause between events delicious?

mompoet - shhhhh don't wake the dog

goodbye College Park Elementary School June 2007

some more pictures from College Park farewell party

unstoppable

As unstoppable as this June rain, so are the neighbours on our street. We had gathered for a drink and a chat outside Cathy's carport when it began to rain. Luckily Kirsi's kids play soccer so she had lots of big umbrellas. Party on neighbours!

question: did you ever have fun in the rain?

mompoet - if we want to have fun, we have to include the rain sometimes

a remarkable church

First United is a big, old dingy-white church with a W-shaped roof, at Hastings and Gore in Vancouver's downtown east side. It's a bustling mission, supported by all of the United churches in the area, as well as lots of other people and groups who want to help.

I read in the Vancouver Sun today that its congregation is disbanding. Fortunately it will continue as a mission. This is a good article about the church and what happens inside.

question: do you know why the roof is shaped like a w?

mompoet - hint: it has something to do with a benefactor

good-bye college park

I attended the "College Park Fun-tastic Farewell Party" Friday. The school community hosted a picnic for families and friends of the school. I saw lots of people I have not seen for a long time - people who have moved or retired, children who were just promises when I last saw their moms, and old principal, and even some old teachers who were so old they had retired before we even began at the school. There was a barbeque and lots of fun things for the kids to do. I'll post some photos when the camera comes home (it's at a rehearsal, I think). Everyone was sad and nostalgic. I visited classrooms where our children first came to kindergarten, and where they finished in grade 5. The Library (my favourite place in the school) was locked up. Too sad to look at it empty of books, furniture and decorations I think. A band was playing, and a balloon release was being prepared. Kids and dogs and grandparents wandered around in little clusters, hugging and helloing. I felt happy to see them and sad to know this was the last time we'd see each other in this place. Most of the current teachers are going to one or the other of two neighbouring schools, so will stay with the College Park children when they move. But, in the words of one teacher, "It won't be my school, not for a long time." On the wall outside the gym, we were invited to write down our happiest memory of College Park. Mine was the Halloween parade. Every year, children and teachers would dress up and make a parade, starting with kindergarten and progressing up to grade 5. They'd walk through every classroom of the school then outside and around the field. We'd all take pictures and marvel at their costumes. I don't think any school anywhere had a Halloween Parade as good as College Park's.

This photo is from the huge display prepared for the event. I'm the kangaroo, telling a story to Alex's grade three class. He's a devil, in case you're wondering.

They gave away all of the photos at the end of the event because there is nowhere and nobody to keep them.

question: why is it so sad to say good-bye?

mompoet - missing a very special place in the life of our community

a real hero

Suman Virk

mompoet - 'nuff said

today is a portal

Solstice sneaked up on us through generally mild but gloomy weather. By now it should be fairly consistently hot and summerish, but we've had grey skies and rainshowers, with just the odd bright day to raise our hopes.

On this longest day it will be grey and damp again, but summer will be happening nevertheless.

In our family we will mark several rites of passage:

Alex will prepare for his last exam of grade 11, which he will write tomorrow. He plans to go straight from school to the roller coaster at Playland. This has been a hard-working year for him. Most notable he has made it through "Math Principles 11" with the help of the Wonderful Ms. Thorstensen, his math tutor, who he has met with twice every week since January. We are grateful for her help and for Alex's persistence in making it through the hard learning that is required. Next year his courses will be a fair bit easier, with more room for the film electives that are his passion. He plans to go to a film program at college after graduation.

Alex is also in the final stages of preparing for his driver's license road test, just 3 weeks away, and getting ready to actually go to work at his first job, once the sun shines and business picks up at the fish and chips shop at the park.

Andy and I will prepare to say goodbye to our neighbourhood school this Friday. Open since 1975, and the place where our kids learned and grew from Kindergarten to Grade 5, it will be permanently closed at the end of the month, due to declining enrolment in the district. There's a big celebration on Friday evening, open to the whole community. I couldn't stand to go there for the last day of school next week, but I'm hoping this will be a time to give a last look down those hallways where our kids grew up, and thank some of the people one more time for the difference they made in our lives. There will also be a barbeque, a climbing wall, pony rides and a bouncy castle.

And for Fiona, it's a huge weekend. Today is her last awards ceremony at Middle School. She's singing O Canada. Then this evening she'll have her school-leaving ceremony and a dance. We'll be at the school for both. She's had a wonderful time at the middle school and is looking forward to Grade 9 in the Fall.

Then Saturday it's recital time. We'll see the kids from Lindbjerg Academy demonstrate all they've learned in their singing and dancing lessons. Grandma and Grandpa are coming to that one.

At the end of all that, even if it's still darkish outside, we'll know for sure that it's summer in our hearts. Part happy, part sad. We'll move through this doorway away from things that we love and have depended on. On the other side: new adventures.

question: it's not a coincidence, is it?

mompoet - I do not believe in coincidence

wordless wednesday

cross-eyed blogger droop

I am always tired the evening after I go to the poetry slam, but it is almost always worth it. Last night, I wouldn't have missed it, even if it meant staying up all night and walking around like a zombie today, drooling on the photocopier and answering the phone like this: "Garrrragggzzzklk?" And that is saying a lot, because I do love my sleep. I think my pillow is something I would keep on a desert island list of essentials not to give up. Just six or seven hours of the deep dive into restfulness and I'm all exuberated all over again (that's a word from slam host Barbara Adler by the way, as in "Are you all exuberated for the second round?).

Last night I got by on five hours but I was exuberated before I slept and exuberated again remembering what a fun night.

Chrystalene, one of our best poets and organizer of WordPlay poetry workshops for students, hosted an "instant poetry" session before the slam. There were 4 of us writing. We began with a free-write and selecting then progressed to writing our own pieces that had to include a phrase and a word:

be prepared to stop

and

garnish

We committed to performing our pieces that same evening in the slam, which was fun to do, but also very frightening. I'm used to totally memorizing each piece, and being really ready to live inside it while I perform. Now I had something written on the pages of my notebook that I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to see up on stage. I do dislike taking my glasses off in front of people still. Luckily, all of our instant poems went over very well. Chrystalene explained to the audience what we'd done, so there was a bit of extra appreciation and encouragement. I did a pretty sentimental and personal piece about talking to a teenager about love and sex. I was afraid it would be too gooey or Hallmark cardy. Like those "I have the sweetest most amazing child in the world" poems, which are lovely personally but not so good for performance. But the audience responded enthusiastically and I made it to the second round. Also created on the theme were a call and response poem by Sean, thanking everyone who helped him weather a traumatic break-up; a jilted love poem by Chrystalene which, she said, was not all true; and a hilarious story about a pre-teen boy-girl party game, by Lisa.

I hope I'll get to do that again some time. I won't be quite so scared, which will be too bad. The first time of doing something new and challenging is always the best. It will be fun to see others try it.

Mike McGee featured. His "Midnight" poem knocked our socks off. Mike has a heart as big as the world and he puts it authentically into his work, and he's funny and intelligent and one of the most engaging performers I have ever seen. He's been best in the world more than once. Lucky us he calls Vancouver his second home. Now I am listening to all 115 tracks on his "compilation of every CD I ever recorded" a generous-beyond-imagining thing of beauty.

Irene came to the slam too, and almost left before Mike arrived (that's who she really wanted to see) then almost left again before the show started. But then the show started and she was still there and she performed "Chick-a-boom" and brought the house down and she was mighty happy indeed.

A good night, so very good. I am lucky. and tired.

Pillow pillow I love you. Here I come.

question: what is worth staying up for in your world?

mompoet - glad that the slam is one of mine

baby

A fascinating series of photos. Guess what it is?

question: what is it?

mompoet - I'm not telling. You have to look.

The Oil Change Dinosaur Bible Story

sixty hours logged with an L on the back
road test date set
my son drives me everywhere these days
today is a marathon of car maintenance
tire change, fill-up, oil change, car wash
passing our time with what may be the final episode
of hanging out together
he is seventeen, after all

he’s a good driver
I relax and listen
he talks about hockey draft picks
alternate energy sources and hybrid cars
American politics

by the time we get to Speedi-Lube
he’s run out of topics
so we read the National Post
and drink “fresh spring water” from styro cups
in a submarine-shaped waiting room

that’s where he finds the article about the Creation Museum
the Creation Museum opened this Spring in Petersburg Kentucky
it’s a natural history museum
built on the premise that the Bible is the true literal history of life on earth

at the Creation Museum
God made the world and all its creatures in one week
so dinosaurs roamed the earth with Adam and Eve and all of their descendants

my son begins to argue science words
fossil record
carbon dating
DNA evidence

oil change guy interrupts him to ask me if I want Quaker State for $10 more
then goes back out to the shop
to pour dead dinosaurs into my car engine

I say to my son
“didn’t you hear? Noah took a stegasaurus on the arc
two stegasauri actually
and pterodactyls too
it wasn’t a dove that flew back with the olive branch
it was a pterodactyl”

“oh,” he says, “and Jacob and his sons worked at the quarry
they used brontosauri to pick up big rocks
at the end of the day, they slid down their brontosaurus necks
yelling, ‘Yabba Dabba Doo!’
oh! that was FRED FLINTSTONE!”

“I heard that as a boy, Jesus had a pet dinosaur
the dinosaur cured lepers and walked on water
haven’t you seen the pictures?”

“Mom, that was a shark
everyone knows Jesus had a pet shark
not a dinosaur”

we laugh at what some people think
we like to think it’s okay to believe what you choose to believe
as long as it doesn’t hurt others
or threaten our right to believe something else

oil change man presents me with my dipstick
I pay forty bucks and we head home
where I look up the Creation Museum on the internet

they have an online gift shop at the Creation Museum
you can buy a “Truth” fish auto emblem to
“combat the corruption of the Christian fish seen on so many cars today”
and an “After Eden T-shirt” to “Bring the Darwin Fish to his knees”
now it’s starting to sound like a threat

I also learn that a Canadian Creation Museum opened recently
near Drumheller Alberta
perhaps to bring those scientist unbelievers at the Royal Tyrrell Museum
to their knees

I am flooded with protectiveness
for my son
who is curious and playful with ideas about the world and God
whose imagination and intellect
allow him to reconcile science and faith without resorting
to a Flintstone version of Eden
and while I’d like to think he’s immunized against dogma
I know it’s a shark
that bites without warning, and I need to know he’s safe

so that evening, after supper
we walk the dog and talk some more
I’m pleased to know that at 17
he gets the idea of the Word of God
as allegory
rather than practical instructions for everyday living
and
if God is not a man in a white robe in the sky who smites people and parts seas
maybe God is someone or something different for each of us
an organizing principle
the “collective unconscious”
like the red letter L on the back of the car, maybe God is Love
the feeling that grips your heart when you are overwhelmed by the power of nature
or the reassurance of discussing divinity with a seventeen year old
who will soon be ready for more than a new driver permit

walking, and talking and thinking
I think that maybe
faith is a state of wanting to be more sure
the less sure we feel
the more desperate and imposing we are in our insistence
that others believe the same

I have to have faith
that seventeen year olds
will think about these things
and no matter what they see
or what they’re told
they’ll know that the truth is in them to find
on a journey as long and complicated as the DNA record of our hearts
the history of how we know what we believe

and that every one of us
has the L for learner our whole life long
and also the L for Love

question: do you think the meaning of life can be conveyed in a museum?

mompoet - learner

Monet to Dali Slideshow

An art critic at the Vancouver Sun has posted a slideshow of a few of the works in the VAGs show.

question: what can we learn by looking at how others look?

mompoet - curious

maple ridge slam

I went to the Maple Ridge Poetry Slam last night. It's held at the Ridge Roasting Company Cafe, the third Friday of each month. Devon and Maris Goodman organize it. It's a youthful, exuberant, lovely fresh slam - a treat to be part of. I was the "feature poet" offering a 20 minute set of my own poems in between the first and second rounds of the slam. Here are some photos.

question: do you know what they shout at the host of the Maple Ridge Slam when she announces a time penalty?

mompoet - it was hard to make out, but I think it was something about a horse pooping on your head