the handy men of toilet sunday

A fine new toilet was installed at our house today. You will note from the pictures (if you are observant) that this is not the same bathroom shown in the "before" pictures of one week ago. In fact, installing a toilet was not in the plans for today. The upstairs bathroom that we are renovating still has no toilet. But due to unforseeable circumstances, the remaining toilet became inoperable today. After 6 hours of toilet-wrestling, 3 flange-seal assemblies and a couple of trips to the hardware store, the new toilet that we bought for upstairs is installed downstairs. It is a beautiful toilet that works whoosh-fully well. We will buy another new toilet for the upstairs bathroom this week. And now, we have two old toilets sitting in the back yard, wondering if they can be planters or fish bowls or if they really have to go to the dump. (They really have to go to the dump.) I am grateful to Andy and to our friend Tom, who came to the rescue. I am grateful that the swimming pool in our complex was open all day, so we could go and use the toilet in the changeroom there, and did not have to knock on neighbours' doors for the 6 hours that we had no toilet whatsoever. I am grateful that we just happened to have a spare toilet lying around that could be installed. Tomorrow is Monday. I hope nothing breaks. The washing machine is making a funny sound, but I'm just going to hope for the best.

question: did you ever flush something that you shouldna?

mompoet - flushed with relief

babblefish toilet flange label (english to italian and back again in honour of the Olympics)

The No-it Filters some Harvey No 1. The no-it sees of original No 1 appearance of cabinet of bowl of trim with the flangia of polietilene. For all the bowls of cabinet of taken of running of floor. The all measures 3" and 4" lines of I waste.

question - do you speak Italian?

mompoet - hoping we can install the flange and the attached toilet better than babblefish can translate

minor moment of perfect joy

I'm at the liquor store yesterday buying a 12 pack of beer. I already have an Americano in hand, declared by the guy at the coffee shop to be "better than Pappagallo." On the counter at the liquor store, there's a box of little dark chocolate squares. Donate $1 to "Dry Grad" and you get a chocolate - ok! add one to my bill! Then I remember it's payday - cashback! I leave with beer, coffee, chocolate and $100. It doesn't get much better than that.

question: did you have a good day?

mompoet - not fraught no more

fraught

fraught with ferrets
fraught with parrots
fought with torrents of glottal cots
overwrought with a lot of thought
fraught with a snot blot
an awful lot of snot
enought to besot a hot pot plot
begot a possum's bottom
brought a motte bomb
and another blot of snot
hot snot
and badly fraught
that's all I got

question: got?

mompoet - not

Ed Conference

Tomorrow is the annual British Columbia Teachers' Federation conference for teachers, school staff, administrators, school board trustees, parents and other interested people about public education. I've been going to it for a few years, first as a presenter when we were fighting to keep our elementary school open, then as a delegate parent invited by the Coquitlam Teachers' Association. This year I'm presenting again. I will be on a panel called "Parents as Catalysts for Change." One of my heroes, Dawn Steele, will be on the panel too. She writes the best darned letter to the editor I have ever seen, and is a tireless advocate for public education.

All of the other years I have gone out on the Friday night and stayed over, enjoying the opening speaker and the reception, and hanging out with my friend Gwenda, with whom I have worked on funding issues in our district. This year Gwenda is not available. It doesn't feel quite the same, but I know I will see lots of people who I know and admire, and meet some new ones. I have decided not to go Friday night, but to just drive out early Saturday and spend the day. I'll get to go to the plenary and concluding sessions and schmooze through the lunch hour. For some strange reason, I always accidentally find the teacher from Cranbrook, the district where my sister and her husband teach.

It also feels different because the organization that Gwenda and I helped to form, Consortium 43, has wound down to a state of hibernation. It might re-activate, but at the moment, parents in our district aren't coming out to fight for better learning conditions for their kids, and without involvement, we don't have a mandate. Also, we're tired of fighting the government and shining the spotlight on what' s wrong and we've turned our energies to other things. It hasn't been all for nothing. We have accomplished a lot in terms of public awareness in our community and we like to think the voices we have encouraged to activate have helped to push the government towards some of the minor changes it has made.

Mostly, I'm glad for this three-year-run of "just doing something," because our kids have seen that that's what you do when something is not right. They know that you have to speak up, get out, disagree respectfully and persist in the face of opposition. That alone is worth all of the work and worry.

question: would you rather be catalyst? or cattle?

mompoet - old gal on the back of the battle lines

hating my face off

I am learning my poem for the Poetry Face Off. To prepare, I memorize my poem and do my best to bring it to life with my voice, face and guestures, embodying and expressing what the poem is about. When I'm really prepared, and on top of a poem or really inside it, I love taking the poem onto the stage. I feel excited and alive. I perform the poem and the people in the audience laugh or cheer, or (even better) they are completely silent. It's just about the best feeling I know. It's a kind of total communication that is fleeting and unusual and very potent.

Along the way to that very good feeling is a period of awkwardness and confusion bordering on despair. This happens when I have the words just barely memorized. I practise out loud, usually while I'm driving in the car. While I'm practising I lose track of my original excitement about the concept and shape and sounds of the poem. The words sound bumpy, the rhythm goes all askew. I mispronounce phrases. I stutter and spit. I get parts of the poem out of order and find redundancy and repetition all over the place. Ideas that seemed strong and true go flat. I think to myself, "This is the stupidest poem I have ever written and it sounds like a bucket of whistling flounders." Parts that I thought were original are suddenly painfully derivative. I have even called up friends to say, "I think I took this part from someone else's poem but I don't know whose. Can you help me figure out where I got it?" I lose faith in the poem and hate it for a while, but I keep working on it even though I hate it.

At some point I get past the bumbles. I either fix them or make peace with them. I play and play with the sounds until I discover the way I want to say them. The poem comes back up out of the muck and I love it again.

In a few days that's where I'll be. I hope I'll merge happily with this poem in time for the Poetry Face Off. I want to do a wonderful job. I want to feel connected and luminous and worthy of the attention. I want to come across with this poem, and go home after saying, "Yes. That's a good poem and I made it."

So back I go to practise and practise and practise. I can't wait to find that poem again.

question: how soon will I love this poem again?

mompoet - been down this road before

News from Keren

My sister posted her blog from Eritrea again this week. There's lots of interesting news including an opportunity to help improve the school where she works, and some insight into the "cartoons of Mohammed" issue.

question - have you checked it out?

mompoet - always happy to hear from people far away, especially ones who I love

this magazine is not about eating sarcophagi

I was at the rec centre today when I found this on the free magazine rack. I will now breathe deeply and restrain myself from ranting.......................................................
Nope, I'm not ready yet.......................................................................
Well, uh, no. Not yet..........................................................

hmmmph.

What's inside this lovely magazine? (actual article titles, ads and quotes)

(under "What does a Yummy Mummy mean to you?)
"I did see one that was coming out of Canada Games pool the other day with four young kids and she was dressed fashionable, the kids were dressed fashionable and they all just looked 'cool' and 'with it.' - Rosa, Momof of 2 - Burnaby"

Chances are, You're wearing the Wrong Bra

Tight Tummy for a Yummy Mummy - Certified fitness trainer T'ai Erasmus answers you!

My Adventure boot camp for women (ad)

Sex Toys: The New Tupperware Party

Secrets to Successful Single Parent Dating

ethicbaby - organic baby clothes and bedding - stylish bamboo baby products for your little love (ad)

Yummy Mummy by Smart Ass. Funkie undies for the hip Mom.

Take a Vitamin C Shower - The Vitamin filter gives you Chlorine Free shower water! (ad)

The Ultimate Self-care for Moms: Life Coaching (as in get one - mompoet's comment)

Okay, it's just a freebie designed to distribute ads. And there is one relatively down-to-earth (though shallow) article about radio host Tara McGuire. And I know it's just marketing, but sheeeeshhh, who the heck is this for. The thought that there are enough women who would read this seriously to make it worthwhile to publish gives me the shivers.

I guess we'll next be seeing Cougar Digest (for the older woman on the make) and maybe even MILFMag for the mom who knows what she's got and isn't afraid to go to town with it.

YUK.

question: don't people have anything better to do? (sorry mom)

mompoet - bugged

Flo says go

This is my friend Flo who goes to cycle class with me at the rec centre. Flo is the spirit of cycle class. She is the inspiration for the new fitness craze: cycle karaoke. Flo can dance and pedal at the same time. Flo has a big smile and a bigger heart.

question: Hey Flo, wanna race me?

mompoet - photo credits to Pete

Tomorrow is Irene's Birthday

If you see Irene Livingston tomorrow (Wednesday, February 8), say "Happy Birthday Irene!" Or call or email her. Happy Birthday Irene!

question: do you like people to remember your birthday?

mompoet - birthdays R fun

When dogs write haiku

saturday blowdown
squirrel pee from heaven makes
compelling smelling

question: what fell out of the sky at your house?

mompoet - examining pieces of tree

you know when you are determined not to like a movie

then you like it after all?

Andy brought home Fever Pitch with Drew Barrymore on dvd. I like Drew Barrymore, sure, but I had never heard of this movie (I am a review snob!) and it just looked like a stupid romantic comedy (I am a dvd cover art snob!) But I watched it with the family. And I loved it more than I was prepared to admit, until the credits rolled and I saw it's a Farrelly Brothers movie. Then I was happy to admit it (I am a credits snob!)

So I guess it's time I get around to watching The Ringer, which I will probably love too. I should know by now but I fight it. I am a sucker for a big simple-looking dork of a movie that turns out to have a heart and a brain. I just like to pretend I don't like it until I am sure. And the credits still validate it for me.

question: how old do I have to be to just like something because I like it?

mompoet - struggling to overcome my something-or-other

for the record

The "before" photos. You'll have to take my word that there was a toilet. I just forgot to take a photo before its disassembly and removal.

Bye bye old bathroom!

question: have you ever felt a spider plant growing as you sat quietly?

mompoet - moving toward "after."

bust it, break it, wreck it, ruin it

Andy is upstairs bashing and smashing the bathroom to bits. The shopping is done

HALLELUJAH!

Well, we still need a big mirror with a maple frame for over the sink, but that will be found or built and it's part of the finishing touches.

Mike will come tomorrow morning and wreak further destruction before beginning the bathroom re-build. I will be at work when the worst of that happens. Today I'll finish "clearing the path" so that pieces may be carried in and out without tripping over ice skates, library books, stuffed anteaters and other miscellaneous clutter. Then I'm getting out of here! We're picking up a few friends, then there's a 75% chance we're going to go up to Cypress Bowl and let the madmen fling us down the hill on snow tubes. 25% I'm dropping miscellaneous kids off at various degrees of movies and going to watch one myself. Meantime:

BANG, CRASH! (drilling noise) SMASH! Well, it's still not as bad a shopping.

question: watcha doing today?

mompoet - getting ready for lavatory transformation

so happy

My friend Pete just emailed me this picture that he took at cycle class. My friend Flo is in the picture too, but I don't have her permission to blog her image just yet so she is temporarily invisible. I hope you'll see her too in a couple of days. Thanks Pete! I've been trying to take a picture of myself at cycle class, but I keep dropping the camera because it's all sweaty.

Right now I feel exactly like I look in the picture. I just found out that the CBC Poetry Face Off website is up. Here's a link to the Vancouver page. I'll be competing in the Face Off this year which is mighty exciting. The theme is "irresistible," so the poem was easy to write. The Face Off takes place Monday, February 20 at Cafe Deux Soleils in Vancouver. The winner is declared by audience ballot, and goes on to compete with poets in 13 other Canadian Cities.

I feel like I have won already, just being chosen to be part of the show. When I look at the 4 other poets with whom I'll be performing (they are all spectacularly wonderful), I think, "Wow, I'm with them? Wow!"

That face in the picture, that's me, with joy popping out and energy to burn. That's a good feeling, yeah.

question: what's good for you today?

mompoet - lucky beyond comprehension

There's a hole, there's a hole

There's a hole in the floor in the bathroom in the house on the street in the middle of the town.
Mike brought his saw and cut the hole. The wood is damp but the floor and bottom of the wall have done a fine job all these years of absorbing the damp, leaving the joists dry and strong. YEAH!

On Monday the real fun begins. Mike will tear out part of the floor and part of the wall and rebuild it, and install a new tub (that has a capacity just slightly exceeding that of our hot water heater...hmmm), cabinets etc., tile the walls and floor and make ready for the plumber who will hook things up at the correct intervals. We'll finally have a toilet with oomph, an exhaust fan that really sucks and water going only in all the right places. It will be nice.

In the meantime, we'll have a few days of "brother, can you spare a shower?" but that will be fine. Andy will take a couple of days off work while Alex writes exams, then Alex is home on semester break, so the timing is perfect. The dog and cat will be kept out of the way of the destruction/reconstructions and there'll be a pair of helping hands (I hear that putting in the new tub is like threading and eggplant through they eye of a darning needle).

A little more shopping needs to be done. Tiles and countertops R us this weekend. Luckily I have my camera, and you can buy one tile and bring it home and hold it up against the wall or beside the new cabinet and say, "see? maroon does go with puce." (not really) We have almost agreed that white sink, toilet and tub are the best and put colours elsewhere, but not quite. We are still touring neighbours bathrooms ("Hello, May we please come in and look at your tub-surround?) for ideas. Please call us if you're in walking distance and you would like us to visit.

I'll take some photos of the work in progress and post them. Looking into the guts of your house is almost as interesting as looking into your own guts. I have seen my own bones, veins and tendons. Now I'll get to ogle my joists. I like doing stuff like that.

question: do you like to look behind the walls?

mompoet - I see a saw in the hole on the bottom of the floor

Friendly Friday Potluck's Ready!

A poem for the Friendlies

I thought I was alone in this world
But you posted a comment
That burst my black bandaid bagpipes
With a theological dissection of
The Battle of the Boyne and its role in the invention
Of English Toffee band hats.
Just when I was thinking
I was the only dolt who didn't know
The difference between
Cilantr
and
Cilantro
You sent cotton candy kazoos and butterfly kisses
And posted your photograph of a strawberry
That looked exactly like Robert Preston
Only a little less juicy
And you told me
YOU LOVE LUCY
Too
So I knew
I was not alone.

I imagined my existence as an Alaskan Wasteland
Ecologically unique, sure...
But who'd want to live there?
Then you linked my post about the crucifixion
And my theory that the Bowron Lakes
Are actually named for a Celtic drum
(partly because of the shape and partly because of the goats)
To your post about a song medley:
Babaloo, Seventy-Six Trombones, and Light My Fire
And the pivotal place these pieces played
In the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.
I don't know how to describe
The adrenalin rush
Of finding my
Bubbly fictitious ruminations seriously associated
With the work
Of the esteemed former Chancellor
Of Barbara Pepper University.
I mean, I practically had a
Vanilla fudge ripple wind chime moment
Right there in front of the french fries and hot chocolate
And I actually said (out loud)
"Yeah! that's me there. That's my life...YEAH!"

I thought I was blogging into the void
Hullabaloo-wanking to beat the oblivion band.
Sure, I knew
Jesus Christ wrote a song for everyone
But I was certain
My song had been done before
With more compelling references and a superior template.
I was a somebody to nobody
And a nobody to somebody
Who really didn't give two figs
Or one persimmon
(depending on the hemisphere)
So much that it hardly bothered me
That all I had in my flickr foldr
Was a picture of an empty paper bag.

Because of you
I'm re-writing my profile in the present tense.
I'm posting stream of consciousness
Who cares if it makes any sense?
You led me up the cyclone pathway
To the top of Blueberry Hill
Told me the secret of Sargent Pepper
Welcomed me to the Green Charlotte Islands
And licked the yellow sticky off all of my envelopes
Before I could seal myself up
To hide away from you.

You are my friends
My band of brothers
Salutation of sisters.
You put the flunder in Fridays
The scrabble in eggs
With the gs on a triple letter score.
All of those things that I thought before
Now I know they're not true.
But I don't take any of it for granted
Because it's once in a blue moon
That a person like me
Is blessed
To hang out on Fridays
With friendlies like you.


By and For my Friends of the Friendless Marching Band Brothers and Sisters
mompoet 2006

instead of working on the poem this morning

(like I told myself I would), I posted a new blog entry for my sister Barb and her family. Read all about their winter holiday to border territory...

question: what do you do when you're leaving things to the last minute?

mompoet - perfecting the dubious art of procrastination

Next time I invite you guys to a potluck

I'll just bring napkins and plates. There's enough here for 10 poems! But I am drawn to excess, challenged by absurdity and pleased by enthusiasm, so this is exactly my cup (er, bucket) of tea.

Thank you everyone, for your contributions. Now I have to do some moulding and shaping of words and ideas. I will try to steer away from hash or stew and make something delicious and distinctive. Or maybe I will make some very yummy stew. Who knows.

Thanks for your trust and playfulness.

Look out for the poem on Friday.

question: why, when we go to a potluck, do we make enough for everyone, even when we know that everyone else is doing the same?

mompoet - gulp

stupid jokes you can make with your family about the toilet that has been removed

"Dance me to the end of tub."
"MOM!!! Get me a funnel!!!!"
"Now the cat doesn't need a litter box."
"If you get stuck in there, you'll have to stand on a stool to get out."
and the ubiquitous
"Don't fall in!"

question: ???

mompoet - enjoying toilet humour

oy

on the radio (yet)

"Chorino."

question - Kalankanobia?

mompoet - I know, get over it....

the toilet is gone

in its place a gaping hole, now covered with plastic
we await the carpenter's investigation of our bathroom's sad deterioration
and dream of sinks, cabinets, tubs of the rich and famous
and a new floor
will peeing be glamourous and steeped in luxury
once the job is done?
or will it just be
business as usual?

question: where has the toilet gone? and what will we do with the gaping hole?

mompoet - agog

mompoet shops and lives to tell about it

I do not shop willingly or cheerfully or with any skill. If you want me to love you forever, shop for me. Andy does this all the time. I write lists and wait at home while he shops. I go get my own clothing and personals, and I take the daughter unit out for similar items, and I will go to places like "liquor store" or "veggie store" but I try to stay out of big boxes and mega-stores as much as possible because they make me
CRAZY LIKE SQUASHED BANANA WITH BUGS CRAWLING OUT OF IT.
I like stimulation, information, sensation, but one thing or theme at a time. I do not like smorgasbords or surveys or samplers. I like a lot of one thing done well.
I HATE IKEA.
I went to Ikea today with Andy because we need to look at things together to decide what we will buy to renovate the bathroom. I think I need a support group for this, really, but I did quite well. I also went to two different Ronas (Rona is okay because it is relatively small and all one theme) and two different Home Depots (which are not as bad as Ikea because there are dogs in Home Depot - really! and things are sorted into sections which I can ignore until we get to the thing I want to look at). And I went to Costco which is obscene, but still better than WalMart which is obscene and mean. And I survived. Actually, the anticipation was worse than the actual shopping. Andy and I always quarrel before we do serious shopping. I am resisting looking at more than one place or more than one thing. He is imagining that we need to go everywhere and look at everything then go again to be sure. The reality is somewhere in between and by the end of the day we are proud and grateful towards each other for coming through it still attached.
My strategy this time was to bring a digital camera. Whenever we saw something we liked I took a picture of it, preferably with the price sticker in the picture. So when we got to the second Home Depot, and Andy said "I think I like this soaker tub better than the one at Rona," I said, "Well, let's just look at the one at Rona. I have a top view and a side view." This made life much easier because you just can't hold an accurate picture of tubs, sinks, cabinets, counter tops, and light fixtures in two brains all day and have them make any kind of sense.
So next Andy has to take the toilet out of the bathroom so Mike, the carpenter can saw a hole in the floor to find out how far the wet/rot and miscellaneous damage has gone and how much he will need to fix, so we know how much the whole thing is going to cost. The deal is, the less it costs, the more we can get Mike to do for us. In the end we will have a beautiful bathroom and we will still be a happy family. And Andy can go back to doing all of the shopping until we have to get a new fridge or something like that. I hope not for a while anyway.

phew

question: is there any ordinary thing that you dread/suck at/hate?

mompoet - nada-shoppa

WordPlay and the Fundraiser

I was too crabby and frantic yesterday to write about my good day Wednesday. It's safe now, to be in the same room with me, so I'm catching up on good things. I'm home from work until 2:30 when there are just too many after-school programs starting up for me to leave my co-workers on their own to manage, so I'll work for a couple of hours later in the day. Otherwise, it's pretty much a day off. Ahhhhh

Let's get crabby and frantic out of the way. Work is just way too busy, high volume with bonus time-consuming surprises. Then I take a couple days of flex time to do important things, but the work continues to pile up. It's life, but it's hard to handle. Add a low-grade cold and my own personal inclination to protect everyone around me from feeling the the worst effects of the stress, and I just naturally get to the end of my rope. A slow evening with my family and early sleep have done a world of good already. Wearing pajamas at 8:05 in the morning help too. Now Fi's home from school on a pro-d day so we'll have a girls' day, which will help also. Andy and I will sit down at the computer and actually book the vacation hotels this weekend, and that will help too. There's something about shared anticipation of a long-time-coming treat that feels so wonderful...

So you can see, I'm pretty good at finding my way out of a funk. At least partially de-funkified, I am ready to reflect on Wednesday's good things.

Barbara Adler and Brendan McLeod came to the middle school with me on Wednesday to present two spoken word workshops to grade 6 classes as part of a school-wide literacy day. The kids were hesitant at first, but Barbara and Brendan are captivating performers and very real and encouraging in the way they talk to the kids and get them to interact and play with words. I had my socks knocked off two or three times by things the kids said and did. At 11 years old, they are still "unzipped" to a certain extent, willing to go out on a limb and say and do things that reveal their thoughts and emotions. They are wildly creative and not yet limited by ideas of what a proper poem should be. It was a privilege to be given a peek into their artistic minds. And Barbara and Brendan were wonderful, generous, funny and lovely to be with. Thanks so much to the organizers of WordPlay, who run volunteer to run this program that sends poets to schools for workshops and performances. Thank you Chrystalene, Emily and Woody. You are wonderful! The WordPlay website is still in the works. I'll put a link in a future post.

On Wednesday evening I participated in the West Coast Poetry Festival Fundraiser. The festival is scheduled for the first week in July in Vancouver. This one will be the third annual. It's organized by the strange and wonderful Sean McGarragle. It's completely free and it's full of poets who will knock your socks off. A bunch of us helped Sean raise some funds on Wednesday with a show at Cafe Montmartre. I couldn't believe I was part of such a spectacular lineup: Poet Emily Elder performed intimate poems of love and loss. Storyteller Bill MacNamara had us rolling in the aisles and wiping away tears with his tales of misadventure. Chrystalene Buhler astonished us with the simplicity and intensity of her straight-to-the heart poetry. Fernando Raguero was gross and loveable at the same time. Patrick Swan swooped us into his world of hard-knocks and tender compassion. Anis Mojgani showed us why he's the current National Poetry Slam champ and a good-hearted guy too. Shane Koyczan made us laugh even when he wasn't on the stage. Sean MCd and performed a stunning new poem about the disappeared women of Vancouver's east side. Writer/musician John Dixon played evocative back-up trumpet and the divine Chelsea Johnson sang. I totally appreciated the audience for their response to my short set. That poem about the colonoscopy seems to hit home wherever I go. All in all it was a great night. I think Sean raised a bunch of cash. Irene Livingston came out and stayed past the break to see me perform. Thank you Irene!!!!! My friends Marianne, Cathy, Karen and Peggy were there too, and lots of friends from the Poetry Slam. It was all over about 11:15 so I made it home before 12, tired but very happy.

Wow, writing about all that good stuff has further de-funkified me. I know it sounds unbearably platitudinous (I know that's not a word), but our experience is coloured by our outlook. At least for me, changing lenses or pointing in a different direction is often enough to bring back a happy state of mind. Over all, I'm conscious in my logical mind and my heart and my bones that I live a life overflowing with good people, good fortune and extravagant opportunity.

question: what's good for you today?

mompoet - easily, happily distracted

Ggle

Google has just activated a "eunuch" search engine for use in China.

question: are there any good guys on the internet?

mompoet - optimistic and naiive

Time for a Potluck

Update: The table is now full. Thank you everyone for your contributions. I'll work on the poem and post it before I sleep Thursday.
Of course, if any rebel wants to arrive late with a bite or two, there might be some of us still hungry, but you're taking your chances, and it best be dessert you're bringing...

Carol, whose blog is called A Revision, recently asked if I would write a poem for her Friends of the Friendless Marching Band. I told her I would be delighted, but I need some help from my friends.

Every Friday, Carol highlights an interesting but under-visited blog and invites her band of fellow bloggers to visit the site. We all play instruments, and most of us joined because we were visited. I have found some very cool sites and wonderful people in the band.

I think I can have a poem ready for next Friday's FFMB post (that would be Feb 3). But I don't want to write it all by myself. Whether you're a member of the band or not, please help me by bringing your dish to the potluck sometime this weekend. I'm looking for (you can bring me one or more):

• a word or phrase that you would like to have in the poem
• a place (real or not)
• a person (specific or general)
• a colour, sound, flavour, song, sensation
• a cliche or song lyric or something else someone might say
• an historical event
• anything else you would like in the poem

I will take all of your "casseroles" and "cakes" and lay them out banquet-style to make a poem. I don't know what it will be about. It will be about whatever you send me.

It will be fun.

question: do you have something for me?

mompoet - getting ready to make pome

The big trip

On our family white board I have drawn a two-and-a-half-week grid of dates, with the name of a city inside each square. Most of the cities have roller coasters in them. Andy and the kids have been checking out websites about places where they have roller coasters, and also hotels. Pretty soon we will book places to sleep near roller coasters. Then we'll begin the countdown to our first really long, really far away family road trip. We have been saving up for this for about 3 years. It's hard to believe we're finally going to to it, but we are. Part of the calendar looks like a song: LA LA LA LA LA LA LA...

question: are you going on vacation sometime soon?

mompoet - LA LA LA LA LA LA

Big Poetry Bonanza Day - cough

Today's the day that WordPlay comes to the middle school. I'll be at the school with Barbara Adler and Brendan McLeod, two incredibly talented and good-hearted poets, helping with a poetry workshop for 2 groups of Grade 6 kids. The teachers at the school have organized "Literrific Day," and we're one of the workshop choices. Barbara and Brendan are part of the WordPlay workshop project put on by Vancouver Poetry House. It's going to be great.

I'll actually go in to work for a couple of hours after that, then off to more poetry.

Tonight there's a fundraiser for the West Coast Poetry Festival at Cafe Montmartre at 4362 Main near King Edward. The show starts at 8. Admission is by donation. Here's the show, in the words of WCP organizer, Sean McGarragle:

Performing at Montematre will be myself, Bill McNamara, Fernando Raguero, Patrick Swan (AKA Dunce the Wizard), Chrystalene Buhler, Anis Mojgani, Emily Elder and Susan McIntyre.

For those of you who may not know these individuals, Bill McNamara was last year's Vancouver Story Slam Champion; Patrick Swan is the Vancouver representative at this year's Individual World Poetry Slam in Charlotte North Carolina; Fernando Raguero and Chrystalene Buhler are former members of the infamous Vancouver Poetry Slam team; Susan McIntyre will be competing in the 2006 Poetry Face-off and Emily Elder is a performer, political burlesque dancer and relatively recent migrant to Vancouver from the cold climate of Calgary. A recent addition to the event is Anis Mojgani, the 2005 National Poetry Slam Champ. He's up for a couple of days and has offered his services for the evening.

If you can come, you should. It will be a wonderful show, and for an excellent cause. WCPF is the biggest, best, free-admission poetry festival you could ever imagine, and it happens every summer in Vancouver thanks to the genius and courage of Sean McGarragle.
It should be a really hot show of storytelling and performance poetry. And all proceeds will be going to the production of this summer's West Coast Poetry Festival.

In the meantime, echinacia is letting me down, and I have a tumbleweed in my throat, but that's okay. I'm too busy to get sick today - maybe tomorrow (well, no, I have to go in to work and write my budget) probably Friday. Oh well, by that time the virus will have given up in frustration at not being able to book an appointment and it will move on to someone more susceptible - I hope!

question: read any good eggplants lately?

mompoet - reassembling myself for the day

We Won

Our candidate, Dawn Black, was elected last night. I worked at the polling place all afternoon and evening, as an inside scrutineer for the NDP Party. We have had a Conservative or Alliance MP for the past 10 years, so it was great to get back to the NDP.

In the bigger picture, we have a Conservative Minority government for the country. At the best, this means that the parties will have to work together, listen to each other more, and cooperate to keep the government from falling. At worst it means that the government will work for a time, then grind to a halt, and fall to a non-confidence motion, then we're back where we started with another election.

In the meantime, we have more NDP Members of Parliament in Canada than before. Here at home we will be represented by a good one. Dawn was MP for New West Coquitlam in the early 90s. She has the experience, intelligence, courage and heart that we need in Ottawa. And now for some election day snapshots:

• Our house is now represented by Black and Black. Ian Black is our (Liberal) MLA in Victoria. Dawn Black is our NDP MP in Ottawa. I think Black and Rockwell would have sounded better, but who asked me?
  
• At the polling place, a neighbour who was working as a Poll Clerk told me about their training. "Everyone is afraid of the scrutineers, you know. We watched a video with this overbearing scrutineer who demanded to see ID from every voter and bellowed at the election workers. It was awful." The poll staff seemed relieved that we scrutineers were their neighbours, ordinary people, and polite. Our main job is to keep track of who has voted and communicate that to the phone bank, where they will call our supporters who have not come in yet. The impression among poll staff is that we are mainly there to catch them making mistakes and make them feel bad. Maybe it's the name. "Scrutineer" sounds a lot like "bucaneer." ARRRRR MATEY! YOU'LL NOT BE COUNTIN' THAT VOTE AS YOU SEE IT! YOU'LL BE COUNTIN' IT AS I SEE IT OR YE'LL WALK THE PLANK!
• The scrutineers from the various parties were very friendly and helpful to each other. We shared numbers, sandwiches (the Conservatives got much nicer sandwiches than we did) and stories.
• The Returning Officer at the polling place baked biscotti and brought tea and coffee for all of the workers and the party volunteers.
• People brought their dogs into the polling place (a school gym). About 6pm we were all cheered up by a friendly galoot of a golden retriever who wandered around the gym, visiting everyone who looked like they wanted a cuddle.
• Lots of young voters came in and registered. Very nice to see parents coming in for their son or daughter's first time voting.
• A kid who I know from our daughter's school came in and asked if he could vote. But he didn't have ID and he's 12 years old, so they didn't let him.
• More people I know from other places came in, working for the NDP - my neighbours from down the street and a lady from the church choir.
• My husband came in on his way home from work. Thank you Andy for putting up with my absence while I've gone to volunteer, and for putting up with the lawn sign, which is so not your style. Thank you for understanding that I need to do this.
  
• When the time came for the count, I tried to be a good scrutineer and "watch silently." But the poll workers were young and a bit nervous, and the count was so close it kept going back and forth between Dawn Black and Paul Forseth (the incumbent Conservative). It was like watching a hockey game. At one point we all burst out giggling. It is serious and important, but the tension was killing us!
• I loved having the voting over at 7pm. I heard that the polls closed later back east and earlier in the west to make the results come out over a shorter span of time. As soon as the polls closed, we got some back east results over CBC radio. The die was cast by that time.
• I skipped the victory party - not my scene. (It was at Il Mercante by the way - great choice!) When I got home, Andy was still out fetching Fi from rehearsal. Alex and I sat and watched the results come in and cheered our candidates, and speculated about the future. Like me, my son is optimistic that things will be good, in general and eventually.
  

So that's my personal reflection on this election. It felt good to be involved again. It was great that Alex got involved too. I'm over the moon about the outcome in our riding, but not so much about the country as a whole. Right now it's hard to imagine a federal government that would be all good. I guess it will be up to us citizens to make sure we participate more than just on election day.

question: how'd you like the election this time?

mompoet - yanking the sign out of my garden today

minutes after capturing their image the photographer ate her subjects

I have heard that eggplants are either male of female, and that one or the other is better to eat. But I don't know how to tell, so I'm not sure if this photograph depicts a same-sex encounter or not. I used the Moosewood Low Fat Favourites Cookbook recipe to make a yummy tomato and herb sauce with roasted eggplant, that I served with pasta and feta cheese. It is yummy. Carol, you should give it a chance. Do you like it in a tree? Do you like it by the sea? Would you eat it in a yurt? Would you eat it in the dirt?

question: does anyone know how to sex an eggplant?

mompoet - aubergines are all good to me

procrastination

Guess how many times I can check my email and post my blog and address a letter and pet the cat? As many times as I don't want to clean the house. Thanks for the emails friends. I'm listening to Definitely Not the Opera, CBC1 on the net while I clean, and I can hear your little chime whenever an email comes in, then I have to stop and read and reply.

It's starting to look (and smell) like the oranutangs moved south and people live here. Orange and bleach-scented people. mmmmm And I just baked an apple crisp with plums and blueberries so it smells yummy too.

hi-ho hi-ho now to scrub the tub and make the toilet so you can serve soup in it (but don't, really).

question: any other ideas for excuses to take a break?

mompoet - easily distractible

coming clean with myself

As I vacuumed the living room I thought about my previous post. Re-reading it I detect an obvious tone of resentment. Why does everyone make such a mess for me to clean up?

Here are my thoughts:

1. When I clean, I turn any real resentment about issues and disagreements with my loved ones into petty gripes about toothpaste and urine splashes and dirty socks under the couch. Anything that's smouldering is at least temporarily transformed into something that can be dealt with by physical effort. It's a form of denial or at least deferral. I must think on this.

2. When I clean in preparation for a busy week, I soothe my own guilty conscious. It's okay that I am going to abandon my responsiblities (family and work) on a temporary basis. I'm leaving a clean and tidy habitat for my loved ones to enjoy while I am away. I must think on this also.

question: who'd have thought I'd move the sofa and THAT would crawl out?

mompoet - scouring

the big scrape before the wacky week

If you read my blog regularly, or if you have visited my house, you will know that housecleaning is something I do occasionally and with reluctance. Today is one of those days that I have decided to do it - partly because Michele and Brent are coming over. We're going out for supper together then back here for dessert and coffee. It's also partly because we have a wacky week coming up, and as much as I hate scraping, scrubbing and sucking (with a vacuum cleaner that is), there's something about it that makes me feel anchored and more in control. So the cleaning and organizing is partly physical and partly psychic. There. I said it.

Did you know how much crap a dog can make in the back yard in one week? even when she mostly craps on walks and we pick that up as we go? I swear she craps more than she eats. How can that be possible?

The week coming up begins with the federal election, which pretty much guarantees I will be busy Monday (volunteering - either as a scrutineer or voter transporter) and depressed for the rest of the week (at least). It will be much better if our local candidate Dawn Black wins, which she can. The race in our riding has been officially declared "exciting" and "too close to call" in the media. Last time the Conservative who is currently our MP won by just .2% - that's two-tenths of one percent. Dawn is a great candidate. She has been working her butt off, and will be a great MP. It will be important to work hard on Monday, though to get all of her supporters to the polls.

Why is it that 4 people in one house all decide to do their laundry on the same day? And why do 3 out of 4 people think that it is a good idea to turf wet laundry out of the washer and "play through" with their laundry, leaving the wet load on the sidelines? It's not difficult to put it in the dryer, instead of making it wait in soggy purgatory for the next available opening.

Wednesday I am delighted to be attending a WordPlay Poetry in the Schools presentation at the middle School. Our own Vancouver Poetry House will send performance poets Barbara Adler and Brendan McLeod to run a workshop for grade 6 students as part a school-wide literacy day. It will be fun. I'll take most of the day off work, but run back to my office afterward to catch up and do some hiring interviews. Later that evening I'll be part of a fundraiser for The West Coast Poetry Festival at Cafe Montmartre. That's 8pm on Wednesday the 25th.

How does toothpaste get everywhere in the bathroom? A person would have to be spinning around like a propeller, spewing it like one of those farm machines that projects manure onto farm fields to get toothpaste all over the place like it is in my upstairs bathroom. I'd like to see how this happens, just once.

Friday is a Pro D day for both kids, so I've booked the day off work. This will be lots of fun, but also stressful since I will have flexed most of Monday and Wednesday off too. There's that thing where you pay for a day off with frazzle before and after. I may have to go into work Friday evening to start up a couple of drop-in programs, because the other members of my team live in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, and it's unreasonable to ask them to drive back in to do this when I live 5 minutes from the program sites.

You know what's a real waste of time? Dusting. You have to look really close to see that there's dust, then you wipe it off and it comes back. I think I'll skip dusting and just turn down the lights and light some candles. Come to think of it, I could sprinkle some bleach on a cotton ball and tuck it behind my ear, then maybe I could light a candle in the bathroom and I might fool everyone into thinking it's clean too.

Then on Satuday-next I'm going to see Vincent in Brixton at the Playhouse in the afternoon with mom and dad, so I won't be cleaning at all next weekend.

So you see, I have to scrape today, because the house is really a mess and because I need to begin this week with a sense that things are tied down, tucked in and at least temporarily scrubbed bright. It's good exercise too. Especially the part where I carry the fifty pound bag of polluted kitty litter and collected dog crap up the street and hurl it into the dumpster. Yeah.

question: what do you do on a Saturday?

mompoet - domestic ninja

Stephen Harper is not Scary

Look. There he is, sitting on George Bush's lap and purring.

question: what the..?

mompoet - meow fssst!

duty calls

especially when it's a jury. I am called for jury duty in Ohio on Feb 6. When I stopped laughing and blew my nose and changed my underwear I actually read the thing. I am covered by a "MANDATORY EXCLUSION" due to the fact that I no longer reside in that county (not since I was 4 years old I should say). Fiona says I should go, and give them the bill for the airplane.

question: when duty calls, is anyone listening?

mompoet - fanning myself with a summons

The Ladeez Just got back from Broke Back Mountain

And we loved it! And we're glad we didn't take our husbands who have been making fun of it (and us) since we started talking about going to see it! So there! And the credits were nice and long, and the napkins you get with popcorn are good if you forgot to bring kleenex.

I am blessed to have friends who'll just pull on their boots and head out for a movie spur-o-the-moment. Also, I am not so sure I want my husband to go "fishing" with his friends anymore.

question: can you think of a question?

mompoet - when I am an old lady I will go to the movies every week

worry dreams

landslides with a river of abstract art fish people sliding down the hill
i'm watching from across the inlet
abandoned house with 3 girls sleeping
can't find my shirt
forgot to prepare for the meeting
5:30 comes before the happy ending

question: did you dream last night?

mompoet - okay by day, perplexed by night

work's like that

all day, all day
people and their funny ways
then I come home to my family

question: who invented perception?

mompoet - boggled

Free again

I am loosed once again from the clutches of Diana Gabaldon's imagination. A Breath of Snow and Ashes was a good read - all 950 pages of it. I cried at the end. There's the possibility of a sequel. I am now giving it to Kathy who is next in line. Next I will read The Kite Runner.

question: read any good movies lately?

mompoet - so many books, so little time. I will never catch up

Good for what ails ye

Everyone has a cold or the flu right now. If you have to keep working/studying/moving despite a bite of the virus, try packing this lovely brew with you in a thermos. Sip it all day. You may not get better any more quickly, but it will make you feel warmed, juiced-up and loved.

Sherrard's Hot Apple Drink

organic unfiltered apple juice
lemon
cinnamon
fresh ginger

Heat the apple juice in a saucepan. Squeeze in the juice of one fresh lemon. Steep a cinnamon stick if you have one or sprinkle in some powdered cinnamon and stir well. Slice in a few chunks of fresh ginger. Let the whole brew simmer for a while and pour it into a cup for right now or a thermos for later.

Make a big batch, drink lots, share it with your friends and loved ones. When you are feeling crummy you need to give yourself a lot of TLC.

question: what makes you feel better when you're not feeling so good?

mompoet - nurturing

I just volunteered again

to help select a new minister for our church. The congregation elected a committee to look at applications, meet candidates and recommend a new minister. I was surprised to be chosen, being pretty new at all of this. I am honoured and also a bit scared.

Our old minister retired about 18 months ago, and the great big church provided us with an interim minister for 2 years, who I wish we could keep but it doesn't work like that. So now we have to choose. It will be a new experience for me, and an important responsibility. I'll be working with some very good people. We'll do a good job.

question: did you ever hire a minister?

mompoet - leaping into the unknown with faith and optimism

there were these crows

Walking home from Shoreline Writers' group this afternoon I noticed that the sky was covered with crows - like fleas jumping on a dog's blanket. They were way up hight at first, reeling and plunging in some kind of line dance in the sky choreography. There were a few around the edges, clustered on trees near the shore of the inlet, but they joined in to make probably about 300 up there all at once. The sky was thick with cloud and dark purply grey. It was about 4pm, but already darkening, mostly because of those clouds. The crows were pretty evenly spread over a big part of the sky. The sound of the cars and trucks on the highway overwhelmed their voices until a change in the wind brought them down to me. They were clattering and cawing and they swooped lower until they were so close I could see the way they pumped their wings to rise and spread them to soar and turn. I noticed that the feathers on the edges of their wings separated like fingers but with pointy ends and a grey cast on the underneath. It was startling and beautiful and eery. The whole spectacle lasted for about 5 minutes as I passed beneath them. I kept walking but turned and walked backwards for a while to watch them as the whole sky full of them moved south and over the ridge. Now that was something to see.

question: who knows the purpose of crows?

mompoet - looking at the sky

blonder

I just got a bit blonder today. Thanks to the miracle of peroxide and my ability to withstand a condom on my head and a crochet hook in my scalp, I am spectacular. Well, actually, I am spectacular all the time. Today I am a blonder version of spectacular.

When I think of blonde I think of this or this or this (oh I do apologize about that last one!) and also of blonde jokes and "dumb blonde" and blondies, which are brownies without chocolate which seem to be a gross error of omission.

The thing is, I was blonde when I was little, then when I got older I got more like this colour. Not exactly brown, but no longer blonde by any stretch of the imagination. Also I started to get grey a couple of years ago, which looks sort of like blonde except that the grey hairs stand up straight like exclamation marks. I don't know why!!!

So I pay Julie who is an angel and slightly sadistic with the crochet hook, to get me blonder a couple (or maybe 3 or 4) times a year. Some day I will post a photograph of me wearing the big condom hat with crochet hooked hair sprouting out, but I'm not yet quite that desperate for material.

By the way, when someone gets blonde (or any other colour) it is completely okay to say "I love your new colour." You don't have to pretend like the person woke up just slightly more beautiful by some cosmic accident. It's not a secret. And there has to be some compensation for this collander scalp. (Just kidding Julie. I like it, really.)

question: are you vain in any way? how?

mompoet - it's all right to be beautiful, you know

Fat and Happy Times in Eritrea

Don't read my blog today. I'm not doing anything. Ready my sister's blog instead.

question: I didn't know there was more than one Eid - did you?

mompoet - well, not anything interesting, anyway

Something to ask your candidate about....

When I was 21 I got a job working at a community school, supervising a summer day camp for kids. I was the "Project Manager," team leader for about half a dozen other university students. Together we ran a program for about 100 kids each week. The money came from a federal government "Youth Employment Grant," and was administered by the local community association. That summer I found out how much I love to work as a team leader. I already knew that I was going to work with kids - as a teacher, I thought at the time. That summer I found out what fun it is to be the team supervisor, overseeing delivery of the program. This discovery led to me to pursue the work I do now as a recreation programmer. I still love hiring, training, coaching and guiding leaders, and designing and administering services. I am also very good at it.

That was more than 20 years ago. The federal funding is still in place, now called "Summer Career Placement Initiative." In the city where I work as a recreation coordinator, there are day camps at all of the community schools. They provide a safe and fun place for children to spend their days, and wonderful job experience for university students on their way to discovering what it is they want to do. Many of the leaders who I hire to work in our city rec department camps and programs got their initial experience in these summer employment projects. And it's not just kids camps. All kinds of organizations employ student with money from the federal fund. I'm guessing that a lot of those students are out there every summer discovering what it is they are good at.

For summer 2006, a new funding model is being considered. It is probable that funding to Summer Career Placements will be reduced. This will result in fewer community services like day camps for kids, and fewer opportunities for young adults to explore work that may result in that wonderful eureka experience of, "Hey! This is what I want to do!"

If you attend an all-candidates meeting or if a candidate knocks on your door, ask him or her, "What will you do to ensure that funding for Summer Career Placements is maintained or increased in 2006?" It's a good question.

question: what issues interest you in this election?

mompoet - continuing to discover what it is I like to do - EUREKA!

ear-itable

Where's that city where they're hosting the winter Olympics?

Too-Rin?
Too-Rin?
Chew-rin?
Churrin?

In my imagination I am going to call it Kalankanobia. Nobody can mess that up. When I hear some announcer bumble through calling it something horrible-sounding, I will substitute my city name just like a beep covers over a swear word...KALANKANOBIA. Maybe I will just shout it out and let people wonder what I'm on about. Every time an announcer mis-pronounces Turin, I will shout KALANKANOBIA!!!

There. I feel much better now.

question: what bugs you for no good reason?

mompoet - cranky

ch-ch-ch-changes

First the New Year's Resolution. I am going to write one letter each week to someone who would normally never receive a letter from me, and mail it. First one went into the mail yesterday.

Next.. two suggestions from my daughter about change: she says it's time to change my hairstyle (I disagree) and also my blog template (I think that sounds like fun).

We will see, we will see. I predict two out of three will be successful changes. But you never know. Otherwise I will remain EXACTLY the same. hah!

(not really)

question: when you turn the page where are you?

mompoet - perpetually curious about this middle half of life

another way to find good songs

I read about this in Stephen's blog From the Centre to the Edge. It's called the Music Genome Project. You type in a song you like and by some amazing algorithm, you get a stream of other songs that you are sure to enjoy. As each song comes out, the engine points out what this song has in common with the first choice that you indicated. It's very much fun.

question: is there anything the internet can't do?

mompoet - I know: hug, listen, cook supper, remind me not to ask rhetorical questions (unless someone invents a conversational authenticity checker - now that would be good)

Not born on the fourth of July or in a Prime Year

My Dad took a look at 1961 and got right back to me (also analysing birth years of my siblings):

When I tested divisibility by primes up through 31 I thought 1961 probably would be a prime. But 1961 = 37 x 53. So that takes care of you.

1963 = 13 x 151, taking care of Barbara.

1965 is interesting since 1965 = 3 x 5 x 13. Does that make Michael more complex than his sisters?

The largest prime less than 1961 is 1951, and your mother and I hadn't met then. Anyway, in that year she was 18 or 19 and I was 15 or 16 and I don't know if we would have been ready for each other yet, let alone ready for parenthood. The smallest prime larger than 1965 is 1973 by which time your mother was 40 or 41, which is getting on towards dangerously late.

So blame your grandparents, who should have started either earlier or later.

question: are you born in a prime year?

mompoet - still smiling without an overbite or a prime number birth year

How to decide how to vote

Check out this online survey - part of CBC's Canada Votes. Find out how your opinions on the issues match up with opinions of the major political parties. It takes about 5 minutes, and gives you a rating of how close you are to each of the candidates on issues like taxes, social policy, foreign policy, the economy, gun control...

Andy and the kids and I have been talking about how we get our political points of view. We agree that our parents are our biggest influences, but that experiences and learning help determine whether a child agrees or disagrees with his/her parents' point of view.

We also talked about whether voters relate more to issues or images, to the party or the individual candidate, the local MP or the leader. It depends on the person, but it's interesting to consider when examining one's own convictions.

Just a little over two weeks to election day.

question: how do you decide how to vote?

mompoet - interested in politics, influenced by parents, better informed on over-all philosophy than some of the issues, liking the candidates locally and federally (pleased to have met both) and eternally optimistic that this country and world will be okay

I am Weird Too

Carol from A Revision is collecting evidence of the weirdness from her online friends. She has asked us all to post our reasons for being weird (if we are weird). I don't really know the reason I am weird, and would not dare to jump on either side of the nature vs nurture weirdness debate. I do have lots of proof, however. In celebration of weirdness, here are the first things that have come to my (waking) weird mind:

Five bits of evidence of my weirdness...

By mompoet

1. I have chocolate in my underwear drawer (also a screwdriver, packing tape, a flashlight and underwear).

2. I exuberate over peculiar but useful words (and experience an unusual - some would say fanatical and dogmatic - degree of irritation when words are mis-used).

3. Whenever I put my socks on I practise balancing on one foot (imagine what it’s like when I put on gloves).

4. I collect beautiful overbites (but I have forgiven my parents for the orthodontia that deprived me of mine).

5. Some of my best friends are numbers (you should meet 49 – he’s a square of a prime and a stand-up guy).

Question: are you weird two?

mompoet - wee-rud since 1961 (Dad, is that a prime number??)

happy anticipation

Do you ever wake up in the morning knowing that something wonderful is going to happen, only you're still half-conscious so you can't remember what - you just know it's good?

That's an exceptionally good feeling.

question: what's good today?

mompoet - happy

theatre of the domestic absurd

child: Mom, what are you doing in there?

mom: Ironing.

child: What's that smell?

mom: That's caramel.

child: What?

dad: huh?

mom: It's coming out of the iron.

dad: WHAAA?

child: Why?

mom: I poured sugar water into the iron instead of plain water.

child: Why?

mom: Because Dad watered the Christmas tree with the pitcher I use to fill the iron. Only he left some water in it, and didn't tell me it was sugar water. So I poured it into the iron.

dad: (uncontrollable laughter)

child: But why is it caramel?

mom: The sugar is cooking inside the iron and bubbling out the little holes. See that brown stuff? It's caramel.

child: COOOOOL!

dad: Did you try emptying the iron?

mom: I thought about it, but how often do you have caramel coming out of your iron? I'm just going to enjoy it. Besides, it doesn't seem to be hurting this brown tablecloth one bit.

dad: Okay.

child: Okay.

mom: Okay.

question: what happened at your house today?

mompoet - looking for a can opener that makes fudge

Fur Kids Play Date

My friend Michele sent me some pictures she took when we went out with the dogs last week. It was a nice reunion for Soleil and Chiclet, who haven't played together since we took care of Chiclet for a week in September. After walking through the woods, we played dog-frisbee with them in the lacrosse box at the top of the hill. (No frisbee, just dogs. People go to four corners and call the canines over in turn. Dogs run from corner to corner to corner as they are called and encouraged, racing, chasing and having a grand time.)

question: what furry creatures live at your house?

mompoet - dogs R fun

last day of vacation

I'm home today but everyone else is back at work/school. It's a little luxury that I will enjoy very much.

I got a few more things done from my list yesterday. All of the Christmas ornaments are put away. The living room looks big and empty without the tree, but we can walk all the way around the coffee table again, which is nice. The thank you packages for festival volunteers are ready to go in the mail when I return to civilization tomorrow. I still have a messy kitchen cupboard and the dog still has long toenails, but that's life. Today I lounge.

I finished listening to Handel's Messiah yesterday and I'm partway through a second listen today. It is glorious. I had previously listened only to an abridged version, in German. The recording that my parents loaned me is in English, and full length, with the words in a book so I can read along. It moved me to tears in more than one place. So very, very beautiful and familiar, and brought to life by the orchestra, choir and soloists. I love the parts based on Isaiah - my favourite verses about the birth of Jesus, and the sad and grim parts are astonishing to listen to.

I am halfway through the gigantic Diana Gabaldon novel, and will continue reading it today. The heroine, Claire, just experimented with home-made ether, putting two young volunteers to sleep to find out how much is needed and how long they stay under, in preparation for a time when she might need to do major surgery. Besides the sex and fighting, the novel is full of detailed descriptions of medical procedures done in primitive conditions. It's very interesting.

I also have a poem bubbling, so now I will go and see if some of it is ready to splash onto the paper.

question: what do you do when you have a day all to yourself?

mompoet - savouring solitude

New Year TO DO list - partly done

In a flurry of activity, I have done a bunch of stuff that I meant to do by year-end, but there's still a bunch left... (this is the practical stuff that I worked in around all the fun we had this Christmas)

DONE:
-oil change
-bottled a batch of wine and started another batch
-mucked out the food pantry so I can reach the shelves
-Alex haircut
-straightened out dental insurance claims issues
-sent rebate forms for cell phones
-made a doctor's appointment
-rescheduled the orthodontist appointment
-got the old clothes to good will
-balanced the chequebook and paid the bills
-started reading a novel
-started listening to Handel's Messiah

STILL TO DO:
-mail thank you notes and cds to festival volunteers
-polish shoes
-make an eye doctor appointment
-write letters to relatives back east and to Barb in Africa
-mend ski jackets and quillows
-muck out the kitchen cupboard
-order Christmas photo prints while they are on sale
-price bathtubs
-finish reading the novel
-finish listening to Handel's Messiah
-clip the dog's toenails
-do the dog's January flea treatment
-take down the Christmas tree and put away the Christmas decorations
-bake muffins

I have two days left of vacation. I really want to spend one day being useful and the final day of vacation lounging. I think I can save Messiah and novel for Tuesday, but I'll have to decide on priorities for Monday. Life goes on and lists go on longer. Tra la la...

question: do you make lists?

mompoet - traipsing the mobius trail of obligation

mathematical verification

My Dad, the Math Prof, sent me an email confirming my assertion that "2006 is not a prime number:"

You're right; hardly any even numbers are prime.

I looked for the most recent prime number year and also the next one. We can ignore numbers ending in 5 (except 5 itself) because they are divisible by 5, and we can add the digits of a number to see whether the number is divisible by 3 (the sum and the number itself will have the same status, since 9, 99, 999, ... all are divisible by 3 and when you add the digits you are simply ignoring 9, 99, 999, ...), and even numbers except 2 aren't prime.

This tosses out 2005 and 2004 immediately (2004 for two reasons -- even, and fails the 3 test), but 2003 needs checking. Out came the calculator and I tried dividing by 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, and 43 checking all the primes up through 43 and then I stopped. The quotient with 43 was 46.58139535 approximately and that's far enough because the next prime to test would be 47 which is past the square root of 2003. So 2003 is prime.

Then I looked in the other direction. 2007 fails the sum of digits divisible by 3 test (every third odd number will) and 2009 turns out to be divisible by 7 (every seventh odd number will be) -- that was quick! But 2011 isn't divisible by the primes 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, and 43 and when divided by 43 yields 46.76744186 approximately, so it's prime.

Interesting that 2010 will NOT be a prime number, nor will 2009, but 2011 will be a prime. In Vancouver we are all conscious of twenty-ten being the deadline for many magificent public works projects all geared to the Winter Olympics that will be held in our city. Maybe, my mathematical superstition suggests, this means that the leadup and year itself will be dodgy, but the aftermath positive??

All that said, I plan to enjoy 2006 even if it is not a prime number. Thanks Dad, for checking my math, and for the projections which are most helpful.

question: what's your favourite number?

mompoet - numbers are people too

Rent

Fiona and I went to a movie. There's wasn't much out there appropriate for a 44 year old plus a 12 year old. We saw Rent. I did not have high expectations after the Georgia Straight recommended just watching the Rent parody in Team America World Police ("I have AIDS, you have AIDS, she has AIDS, we ALL HAVE AIDS...").

Well, now I know that you can agonize for over a year about your art and still churn out cliche-schlock (like the two main characters, a song-writer and a film-maker do), or maybe I just didn't get it. I also know that a bad rock song that takes more than a year of misery and a soul-searching cross-country journey to create can have the power to bring a lover back from the arms of death. I am also reassured that I still don't like pretty-faces on boys unless they are drag queens, then they are wonderful.

There were a few good moments and fun songs and the character of Angel was lovely, and I think it was still a better choice than Cheaper by the Dozen. Fi and I had a great discussion about it (and many issues connected to it) on the way home, and the whole thing cost just $13 with my parking totally paid for by the theatre validation. As a mom and kid experience it was good. As a movie, I don't recommend it. But then I also hesitate to recommend Team America World Police unless you just fast-forward to the Rent parody and skip the extended marionette sex scene.

Just to clarify:

• We saw Harry Potter already.
• Fiona dislikes Narnia
• I did not watch Team America World Police with my 12 year old

question: seen any good movies lately that you could take your kid to?

mompoet - I love the movies but they don't always love me

Nelson's Big Day Out

Nelson the rat has been watching us coming and going all Christmas. From his place of honour on the "Santa shelf" he has seen us heading out the door to parties, shows, suppers, shopping and all manner of exciting events. On Thursday morning he was looking a bit sad so I asked him what was the matter? He told me that he wanted to come too.

So we took Nelson with us on our busy and fun day. We began at Grandma and Grandpa's house (my mom and dad). They served us our traditional Christmas/Hannukah lox and bagels breakfast. Fiona made Nelson a little paper yarmulke in honour of the occasion.

Next we did some shopping, but Nelson waited in the car because he doesn't have any money, and people get alarmed when you have a rat in your grocery cart. After that we met Louise and Sam and Robin and Emma at Capitol Hill Szechuan for lunch. Nelson could not believe how much fun that turntable is that moves the dishes around the table. But I think he got a little carsick from riding around on it. If you look closely you can see he dropped his hat and scampered out of the picture just before I snapped. Nelson's fortune cookie advised him to keep his nose to the ground and stay out of holes. This was especially appropriate with the suffix "in bed" added. The kids thought that was very funny.

After lunch we went skating. I offered to loan Nelson one of my skates, but he preferred to sit on the sidelines and watch the Zamboni. He asked Al for a ride on the Zamboni, but Al says only the mayor gets to do ridealongs. Nelson says he will run for mayor next time.

Back at home, Nelson helped me set up the carport for the annual "sit in the carport after Christmas and drink hot mulled wine and feed all of our leftover cookies and chips to the kids" party. Nelson liked the mulled wine, although he's not partial to allspice. He stayed away from the chips, but the declared the shortbread perfect. After a nosh, he chatted with Kirsi and Karen for a bit, and I think he's now invited to a New Year's Eve Party.

The party ended about 7:30 and we came inside. Nelson said it was the best day he has ever had.

question: have you taken your rat out on the town lately?

mompoet - some of my best friends are plastic rodents

Happy News from Eritrea

My sister has just posted a new blog entry. You can read about her family's Eritrean adventures at The Eatburn Chronicles. There's also a letter that just arrived at my parents' house yesterday. We're going over for breakfast this morning. I can't wait!

No more dire news of war or evacuation. I'm hoping and praying for peace on earth, especially the part of the earth where they are living now.

question: have you been to Africa?

mompoet - ankle deep in Canada (for now, anyway)

Yummy Lunch

Leftovers are often better than the first time round. Mostly for the cook, I think, because you're not eating something you just sweated and fussed over - or even if you did not sweat or fuss it still feels like you culinary baby when it's first prepared, and it's not that great eating your baby.

For lunch today I ate leftovers from the perfect Boxing Day supper. Here's the recipe for those who check in to my blog for recipes. I haven't posted one in a while:

Roasted Eggplant with Peanut Sauce

Slice up one medium size eggplant or about 10 baby eggplants or maybe 2 of the Japanese kind. If the skin is tough, score it or cut strips away. It will soften with cooking but it can be a bit much. Season with salt and pepper and put on a baking pan liberally-coated with olive oil. Bake at 450 celsius for about 10 minutes on each side until it's looking toasty and shiny and smelling like eggplant should smell.

In the meantime, make the sauce: 2 tablespoons peanut butter, 1 tablespoon of something tangy (balsamic vinegar, lime juice, dry wine - whatever you have), 1 tsp sugar, 1 Tbs soya sauce, 1 small garlic clove minced up and a sprinkle of dried chili flakes plus 1/2 cup of water. Heat and stir on the stove until it bubbles. You may want to add some more water to keep it runny. Don't burn the peanut butter or you'll have to start over.

When the eggplant is roasted, arrange it on a platter. Drizzle the sauce over it. Garnish with fresh cilantro.


Szechuan Green Beans with Minced Pork

While the eggplant is roasting you can make this. Put on a pot of rice too.
Wash and trim as many fresh green beans as you can fit into your wok or skillet. More is better. While you are doing that, brown up 1/4 pound of ground or minced pork in some oil in your wok, nice and brown and crispy. You really only need 1/4 pound. It's for flavour - the green beans main event. During the last minute or so, throw in a clove or two of garlic, minced or sliced. Set the pork/garlic aside and put the green beans into the wok. Stir fry them. If you like them crispy, stop when they are all bright green and shiny. If you prefer them wilted, keep cooking until they are wilted. Both ways are good. When the green beans are cooked, toss in a spash of water (1/2 cup maybe?), a couple of tablespoons of soya sauce, and as much ground fresh chili paste as you like. I use sambal oelek. You could substitute chili flaked or chopped fresh chili or chili oil or sauce. Stir it all together, mixing the pork/garlic back in. Stir fry just a bit longer to distribute the chili heat evenly throughout the beans.

Serve the green beans with rice and the egglplant beside it. It's very yummy and good after a monstrous European feast, and even better reheated for a lunch a day or two later.

question: what do you like to eat the day after the feast?

alternate question: what's your favourite leftover meal?

mompoet - procrastinating

All I want for New Years

I never make self-denying or self-correcting New Years' Resolutions (well at least not for the past 20 years). Saying "I will stop watching Trailer Park Boys on TV" or "I will take my vitamins every day" is a recipe for disappointment in self, like a behavioural bandaid that just won't work because it's based on the assumption that I'm doing something wrong, or at least not living up to some arbitrary minimal expectation of virtue.

Instead, I try every year at some time (last year it was November, but I haven't got around to it this year) I try to think of something new that I will decide to do that will enrich my life. That's so much more interesting and utimately do-able than deciding to give up something or to take on a load of difficult but good-for-me or good-for-the-world behaviour.

This is not to say that I think I am too good for improvement. Like everyone else, I am constantly and consciously evolving. It's just that I choose to orient myself to positive and nourishing action. I like to pick something that will reveal new vistas. Maybe it's my background in early childhood education. Maybe I'm a young soul. Maybe I just like to have fun. I believe that we learn and grow through play, so I make play my vehicle of expression and road to achievement as much as possible.

Last year's "resolutions" were:

• To leave time unscheduled and available for spontaneous choices.
  
• To listen to music recommended by my friends and decide what I like and why I like it.

Number one was maybe too much in the denial category, because I haven't been successful in making a substantial change in this direction. There's always way too much to be done, and I find myself fully committed and scheduled almost all of the time. It's a consolation that I am enjoying almost everything that I do, and that there aren't many things I wish I could be doing instead. I'm very busy, but don't feel trapped by it. Luckily I don't need too much sleep. I also have a great degree of control over how I spend my time, so the stress level is minimized. Still, I'd like to be able to say "Hey family, let's pack our bags right now and head over to the island for the weekend." I guess there'll be time when we can do that. Probably not practical right now.

Number two has been a joy and a revelation and a total success. I started out by blogging my musical discoveries every couple of weeks, but that's fallen off. I am listening to all kinds of everything these days, mostly in the car. I'm still borrowing cds from friends and from the library, and buying them when I can afford it, or if I specially love something. In my car right now are Madeleine Peyroux, and by connection Billie Holiday to whom she has been compared but who is, of course incomparable. I'm still liking Red Hot Chili Peppers and also Nirvana and I am hooked on the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou? I think this is because the voices sound like my Ohio Uncles - those soft rrrrrr sounds and lazy vowels feel like home. I have not reached any conclusion about "what I like" because it seems that I like just about everything I listen to. I have decided that I like dramatic expression, acoustic sound and good lyrics and a sense of history or connectedness - either to some other music or art or human experience. It's hard to put into words but it's important.

I haven't settled on what to do for 2006. It's not urgent that I do so by January 1. Something will nudge its way into my decision-making machinery, or not. In the meantime, I'm listening and thinking about other people's ideas for new pages to turn in the new year. Whatever each of us chooses, let's hope the story's a good one.

question: what will you do for the new year?

mompoet - living a very good story

more seasonal haiku

chickweed emerges
through dank maple ground cover
for brief glimpse of light


dog noses damp soil
as eagle ke-keers raw joy
fishing's good today

question: hai?

mompoet: ku

This post my first from mom and dad's hand-me-down mac 7600, prompting this last haiku for today from a mom of teenagers, married to an internet card-player, now grateful for two comuters online...THANK YOU MOM AND DAD!

email never sleeps
msn is msn
my turn online please?

Christmas Surprises

While I sit in my pajamas NOT shopping (but making coffee in anticipation of pumpkin pie for breakfast) I will recap my Christmas surprises (so far).

I have spilled two beer (in two days) - unusual for me - beer are for drinking, not for spilling. Why is it when you do something stupid twice it becomes a legend, but if you do something intelligent twice it's still a coincidence? Apparently I am now cut off and dangerous even to drink water except from a sippy cup.

We finished the jigsaw puzzle. It's spectacular, and we stayed up until 1:30 doing it (practice for New Year's Eve I guess). We are missing 3 pieces, which is not surprising because we hauled it around to different places in the house on a piece of foam core for a couple of weeks. I'm sure I'll find the bits unless a child over 3 ate them. (No, they were not inside the vacuum cleaner hose.)

I fell in a ditch. This is completely unrelated to item number 1 (beer spilling). On Christmas Day I took the dog out for an hour of pre-feast fast walking. Almost home, ascending from the highway to our hillside home, we took a shortcut throught the woods. Trouble is you have to ford a ditch to get onto the woods trail. The sides were more slippery than I expected. I did not actually roll in the ditch, more like hitting the muck on hands and knees. The dog escaped unscathed. I was muddy and laughing. The legend is already blooming though that I lay in the ditch in the frigid cold (it was actually 11 degrees celcius) while the dog saved my life with CPR.

Aside from that, Christmas has been unsurprising. Just nice.

question: have you been surprised lately?

mompoet - always surprised

Going now to eat pumpkin pie and read Diana Gabaldon in my pajamas. How Diana Gabaldon got to wear my pajamas, I'll never know. nyuck nyuck nyuck

Christmas Warnings

We will be very safe this Christmas, or at least if we are killed or injured the products that have played a part in our demise will be off the hook legally (if not morally). Please heed with us the following Christmas warnings:

• Do not set your new cell phone battery on fire and stand close to it while it burns. (Nokia)
  
• Do not eat scented tealight candles or put them in front of a rocking chair (Ikea)
  
• Do not use dvd player case as a swing, carseat, or for any other purpose than to hold the dvd player. (Polaroid)
• Do not let children under three eat jigsaw puzzle pieces. (Great American Puzzle Factory)
• May contain peanuts or traces of peanuts - on a jar of peanuts.

And best of all:

• When the candles are lit for "Silent Night," please be careful not to drip wax or light people near you on fire. (St. Andrew's United Church Christmas Eve Service Bulletin)

Have a happy (and safe Christmas). You have now been protected, or at least warned.

question: when did risk management cross the line into the realm of the absurd?

mompoet - loving the silliness of ordinary human beings

Christmas So Far

I have been on vacation for one week. It's very nice to take a break from work and spend time with the family. Slowing down takes time, so I'm grateful for two-weeks-plus to do this.

Like always, I have lots of plans/ideas for my holiday. Some are turning out just like I thought. Others not so much, but so far it's mostly for the good.

I thought I would sleep more, but it seems like part of getting older is needing less sleep. I have been sleeping in until 7:30 every morning (I can hear Kirsi laughing as she reads that), which is kind of a luxury considering I normally get out of bed at 5:30. But I'm staying up until midnight every night. I have never enjoyed wasting time slumbering, and my back gets sore if I stay in bed too long. This week it will be harder to bound out at the crack of dawn because Andy is finally on vacation too. He likes to slumber. He likes me to stay. Some mornings, when he's home, it's like All-Star-Wrestling just to get my feet to the floor. But that's fun.

Spending lots of hours awake has allowed me to do a lot of things, which is what I had planned for this first week. I have: (in rough chronological order) kept up my cycle class schedule at the gym (pedalling for Almond Roca?), picked up an iMac at the challenge centre so our daughter can work on a film project over the holidays, picked up my dad from the hospital after day surgery to have a monitor implanted in his chest to track what the heck that heart of his is doing in there, made 2 cedar wreaths, shopped with Andy for a Christmas tree (big, beautiful, thirsty-fresh and only $16!), decorated the inside of the house including putting up the tree, attended a performance of A Little Night Music at the Playhouse (3 out of 5 stars), gone out for Italian lunch and Thai supper, watched "A Christmas Story," "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" and "March of the Penguins" on dvd, celebrated with the Shoreline Writers, taken the kids shopping for stocking stuffers for everyone in the family, enjoyed a singing advent church service thanks to the spectacular St. Andrew's United Church choir, stayed up late at the Vancouver Poetry Slam, phoned about a hundred households as a volunteer canvasser NDP candidate Dawn Black, taken our son to the barber's for a haircut, gone ice skating with my daughter and her friends, chaperoned a sleepover and provided the big breakfast in the morning, dropped son off at godson's so they could go see King Kong together, walked through the wet woods with Louise and Soleil, unplugged the clogged vacuum cleaner hose while chatting with Irene, re-negotiated our mortgage (we're in the home stretch and will own this place before our daughter graduates high school - yay!), tried to give blood but was just a bit too low on iron this time, worked on a big jigsaw puzzle, read the paper and drank coffee every morning, walked the dog a lot, baked pumpkin pie, washed a gazillion loads of laundry, cleaned up my side of the bedroom, and welcomed my dad over so he could set up a hand-me-down macintosh computer so we now have two computers online again (most helpful with teenagers).

What I thought I would do but have not is read. Except for the newspaper and the internet, I have not been reading. I am in the middle of a wonderful novel, but not craving it like I usually do with a captivating read. Maybe I should take a vacation from it and go wallow in the new Diana Gabaldon. We'll see.

Today is Christmas Eve. We're having friends over from out of town. Andy and I still have to wrap presents, and there's church. St. Andrew's family service is at 7, but we'll be there at 6 because Fiona and I usher. It's something like being a friendly greeter, something like packing commuters into a Japanese train at rush hour. On Christmas Eve it seems like the whole neighbourhood shows up at our church. There's always room for everyone, but you have to get cozy. After that there's Christmas day with supper at Andy's mom's and my parents coming too, then a whole week more of holidays to do some of the things that I planned, some not, and some that I never imagined.

question: how's your Christmas so far?

mompoet - my cup runneth over

Nelson Noel

Fiona sewed Nelson a hat for Christmas.

question: will Nelson go anywhere for Christmas vacation?

mompoet - glad to be home, but thinking that Nelson likes adventure in faraway places