Proud in Brockville

Saturday was a really UP day for me.  About a week ago, we got notice that Brockville, a small town about an hour away from here, was going to have their first pride walk, and so I went.

I had good company on the ride, someone I know from PFLAG Ottawa, and we made a plan to leave early so that we could get parking near the starting site, as well as find a place to have lunch.  We were successful at both.

The event was planned and promoted by a high school group, but attended by a very diverse and large crowd from Brockville, Prescott, Ottawa, Cornwall, Kingston and places in between.

What was wonderful about it was the enthusiasm, the joy and the energy present all around us as we waited to head out on the walk.  We'd been told that the City had restricted the walk to the sidewalk of a main street, but I think there must have been a change of plan when someone realized how many people were there for the event, so the road was blocked off, which in itself was sort of thrilling.  There were lots of people watching---most clapping or showing support, some looking a little dazed or puzzled.  I heard no disrespect or derogatory remarks.  This is the article published locally on Sunday.

The end of the parade, when all the walkers were in, many hugging, others jumping and waving banners and flags, and the police car was leaving, with waves and bleats of the siren, was perfect.  It was perfect, except that my sparkly sneakers had let me down and left abrasions on my heels .

Not only did I have to tend to them when I got home, but I had to confess to Dave that I'd made a bad shoe choice after haughtily informing him, when he reminded me to think about what I was wearing on my feet, that really I didn't need him to check up on me.  I had already chosen my shoes.

I was just wrong.  But, and this is important, heels heal, but sparkles are forever.

Why Dave might want to do more reading

Tonight, I'm sitting in my "office", which would be my eating place if it were earlier in the day, watching Dave peel apples for his famous applesauce pancakes.  He has invited the family over for brunch tomorrow and now that he is the official breakfast maker, and I have successfully designated brunch as a sub-section of breakfast, I get to just sit and watch, or conversely, sneak away somewhere to read. 

I wonder how hard it would be to get dinner designated.  I can always take care of lunch, especially if I'm by myself and there's lots of peanut butter, but if dinner were another breakfast subset, I could get in at least one more hour of reading.

I wouldn't stoop that low if Dave were a more vociferous reader---I hold some things sacred, after all.  But he looks really good with a knife and a naked apple.

This is all about the cold dish

THIS weekend is a long weekend?  How did I ever get so out of touch?

Oh yeah, I'm retired.  RETIRED.  And yes, that is glee you feel oozing out over the ether.

This weekend is just going to be like every other day in my life, but please don't let that keep you from enjoying yours.

Outsmarted, but not Outwaited

I've mentioned from time to time that in spite of owning a camera, I seldom remember to actually use it.  A couple of days ago, Robyn was tearing around the house wearing a very massive and intricate hairband with mini-dolls and flowers on it---she tore it off the minute I turned the camera on and well before I aimed; then she teased me by being way too adorable, grabbing a small kaleidoscope we've left out for her to experiment with and putting it smack in the middle of her forehead, while making appreciative noises and turning the part that changes the patterns.  Again, she triumphed and I have 6 or so photos of the back of her head, and one of the eyepiece on the kaleidoscope.

Today, I got Robyn to wear a ponytail, and felt so good about it that I followed her around outside until she forgot about me and I got this result:

Then, out of compassion, she let me take this one:

It's not Edward S Curtis, but I'm kind of partial to them.

How did July 25th get to be Fun Day?

Well, actually, it wasn't easy.

• The day started out with rain, and my first part in it started out with fighting traffic taking a friend to have some bloodwork done
• the rain would have been easy to take if I hadn't worn my grey tunic---it has a fashionable longish curved hem which left about 12 inches of fine cotton hanging out the driver's door
• apparently lots of people in Ottawa think that having fabric hanging out your car door warrants lots of horn-pounding and vigorous pointing; I took this badly thinking it reflected on my driving which may have been affected by my early coffeeless start
• a number of factors contributed to my getting home caffeine-deprived and late; but not late enough to miss Dave's discovery of a glitch in our air conditioner resulting in my shoes floating in the plastic box we store underneath the air conditioner, cleverly hidden by a door we never open
• still cravenly craving caffeine, I ignored my twelve inches of sodden fabric and helped Dave bail out our shoes, only to discover that shoes can both float and be full of water; it would have been better to discover this before I turned them over to dry out
• caffeine ingested, tunic dispensed with, I started the fun part of the day by taking my niece to the Byward Market (SO COOL!), having a nap, going to the 65th birthday party of a friend I introduced to his wife 45 or so years ago, scarfing camouflage cupcakes made specifically to please an ex-military guy and flaunting my 5 foot 7 (6 feet in her 5 inch heels) granddaughter Phoebe.

No, I did not get any pictures!

Didn't the Beatles write a song about that?

Imagine that you have a Wii, a DS, a Flip video recorder, a competent digital camera, a creaky but functioning smart-phone, an e-reader and a laptop.  Then imagine that you have a secret longing for a Dell Inspiron Mini and a Touch Kobo that has you checking out the job opportunities at Chapters and local dress shops.  You would have an accurate picture of me, except that it wouldn't show that I am also feeling kind of uber-consumer-y, and unworthy.

Now imagine that you are a straight woman in a rewarding second marriage and that you have a dream that you are a lesbian coming out to your family, which includes all your children and grandchildren at about age 4 and both your husbands looking as smashing as they did at 25 and a set of parents whose religious background means they should shun you, or at least try to have you "cured", but who don't.  You would have an accurate picture of me, except that it wouldn't show how much time I spent this morning wondering whether it was the red wine or the no-snacks-after-dinner that got me there.

Don't thank me.  It was just another day in the life.

Out! damned sugar!

Yesterday, after some soul-searching and some first-class concern, Dave and I decided that the only way to deal with our lack of discipline around sweet foods was to have none.

I waited till Dave was out, then started stacking the cookies, puddings, boxed European desserts, candies, cookie fixings, ice cream, sundae toppings, maple syrup, sugar, jams and glazes.  It made a substantial pile of stuff, expensive decadent, self-indulgent stuff.

Emily, our dear soul, was going to relieve us of our burden because a person who takes at least 3 martial arts classes a week obviously has some self-discipline.  She quizzed us about this total clear-out, and after a quick discussion, Dave decided to keep maple syrup in case he makes pancakes, and I decided to keep sugar for my coffee.

This morning, after my small, small  glass of OJ and my yoghurt, I had coffee and buttered toast for breakfast.  Now I'm afraid that I'm going to be stuck having buttered toast for every meal, because OHMIGOD it was good.   And ohmigod, I appear to be more food-oriented than I thought.

Dave and I each have a goal of losing 15 pounds, which we know we can do.  I just don't know if I want to keep on keeping on after I make that goal.  When I'm pleased with myself, red wine and chocolate cake seem the best way to celebrate, and I'll be back on the cycle.  Unless, my secret weapon works: I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing it to support Dave.

I've done hard things before with that goal in mind, either for Dave, or for someone I care about, so maybe, just maybe, it'll work to change the focus.  Check back with me in 3 months, I'm sure I'll be babbling about it in some way.

Lorna and Caravaggio

I love the arts, but I'm not as comfortable with visual art as I am with other disciplines, so when I went to the National Gallery today with my friend it was to sit in the beautiful atrium, drink wine and have a ladies' lunch.

That done, and done beautifully, just as we'd anticipated, we headed off to the exhibit of Caravaggio and his peers, neither of us knowledgeable but willing to do the tour before we hit the Gift Shop.

It was a breathtaking exhibit, glowing with light, depicting sly card players and fortune tellers alongside Mary Magdalene (in her previous role as, if not prostitute, at least languorous courtesan) and St Cecilia watched by her guardian angel while a young man turned her into a martyr.   I still know very little about the peers in the exhibit as there were way too many people to get to read the accompanying notes, but, strangely, I don't feel the loss.  Just seeing this exhibit was magical.

Of course, being me, being her, my friend and I did hit the Gift Shop, but where years ago we would have been looking at Caravaggio-inspired scarves and jewellery, now in our granniness we spent all our time looking at toys and books for kids.  And buying toys and books for kids.

It was a fine day.

Bluesfest Bows Out

We have a gigantic music festival for 12 days in July; it's loud and exciting and it's like a little village just the other side of the street and a bit to the left.  Except for last night.

Last night we had huge winds, hail, driving rain, whirling garbage, fallen trees, mobile but driverless bicycles and frantic music fans.  It was really quite scary.

Because it was so hot yesterday, we had closed the windows and patio doors and had the A/C going, which has the effect of shutting out the music from the 4 stages, so I was surprised to hear a whining noise outside followed by rumbles, abetted by the noise of the temporary fence along the bike path coming loose from the uprights and whipping around the neighbourhood.  Our plants and garden ornaments were whirling down the slight grade towards the path and people were streaming across the street, some fighting the high wind and staggering along in front of our place.

I motioned a few people up to the sheltered part of the patio and we stood in awe as branches and paper, umbrellas and unrecognizable flapping things went past us, and they told me how the walls of the main stage, where they had been, just shuddered and fell back onto the road, hanging in long enough for Cheap Trick to get somewhere safe.

Soon the sidewalks were full of scurrying people (apparently thousands had been taken into the museum) and the streets were full of cars, bikes, motorcycles and emergency vehicles, with the appropriate lights and honking and sirens.

It was all very exciting, which somehow guilted me.  There were a few minor injuries, but people kept going by drenched and shaken for another hour and a half, at least.

I managed to find all our paraphenalia, including a footlong cast-iron dragonfly which could certainly have wreaked havoc, but instead lay, one wing embedded, in the grass next door. 

For some reason, I had stayed in my wet clothes, unable to feel comfortable about being safe in my house, peering through the patio doors to see if anyone needed help.  Except for the few who joined me right at the beginning, no one did.

This morning, it's still raining but it's the soft kind of rain, the sun is streaking weakly through the gray sky and coffee seems like a good idea.




 

She looked really nice though

My sister Mary stayed with us for a few days, in which we walked, shopped, listened, laughed, ate outrageously, learned and did everything we wanted except take pictures.

How can that be?  This is the first time in about 6 years that Mary has been here, and who knows when she'll be back but did we think about the many Kodak moments we actually had?

Neither did any of the other people who passed through our lives over that time though, so I'm plunking myself smack in the middle of those guys who should have known better too.

I think one of my favourite we-should-have-pictures moments was when Emily was putting teal blue eyeliner on Mary, and I was standing beside them with my eyes stretched out and a just-right tilt to my face even though no one was working on me.  Another would have been just after Julia and Emma had had two kinds of amazing cake left over from our dinner on Saturday---they both looked as if they needed cables to keep them from zipping right through the ceiling.

We could have taken photos of Mary and me walking through Perth with about 6 bags and a 5 ft garden ornament, or Mary and me walking through the Rideau Centre with a ferociously unfriendly umbrella or Dave waiting for us with a plate of golden fries and a lemonade.  It would have been wunderbar to shoot Mary and Dave both scooting towards the bathroom for a shower, then each backing off, so I could have sailed in.  I didn't but that would have made an even better photo.

Nonetheless, pictures or not, we had a great couple of days and as always, I'm sitting here thinking of things we should have done, said or eaten, but didn't.

In which I take it all back

When I was moaning the other day about the work being done outside our place, I was giving in to a temporary annoyance because I wanted all the dust gone from the house while my sister Mary is with us this weekend.

What I didn't say was how pleased we are that we're going to be living right next to the National Fallen Firefighters' Memorial Park.  We are surrounded by greenspace and water, and the park is going to just add to the pleasure we take in our surroundings.

Having said that, here are some views:

this is a view from our patio; isn't it hard to imagine that we live downtown?

Here is our patio.  It's a lovely place to have coffee or lunch or to read a book, or play with the kids.

This is the view if you stand on the patio and look left.  That's the prow of the Canadian War Museum in the background.

And this, this is the construction office, at which I could, but don't, throw stones.






When the park is finished, in 2012, it will look like this.  Our building will be on the right of the photo, and I imagine I will often walk over there with my coffee in the morning.  The spring and summer mornings.  In the interim, I am going to enjoy our other views and stop kvetching.

It's only dirt!

Today it's hard to believe I am the same woman who dragassed around last week.  And I wasn't doing it because I was lazy; I literally needed time to get mobile, and when I did mobilize, it hurt.

I hope I'm not jinxing myself by feeling so jubilant.

Right outside our front window, a new park is being built.  It's a park to house the National Fallen Firefighters' Memorial, and I'm sure that when it's finished, it's going to be wonderful and amazing.  Right now, it's a bit noisy, but that comes with city-living, and dusty, but that's been the case since we moved in because of all of the from-scratch building that's going on.  More apparent than noisy though, is the puzzle we're having, tracking the progress.

First, they came in, put up fences and signs and pounded the ground from one end to the other---a space big enough for an office building---then, they brought in machines that broke up the ground, trucked off all that soil and dumped truckloads of what I can only hope was different soil in a bunch of little hills that started to grow grass.  Next they moved all the soil to other places and began digging a long deep trench; meanwhile, on the other side of the property, things like rebar and concrete started multiplying while we were out, and in came a construction office in the form of an incredibly ugly trailer, now planted 20 feet from our front window.  The portapotty, thankfully, is down at the other end of the property, but one suspects it's going to get moved at some point.

Oh, I know it's going to be beautiful.  I've seen the maquette and watched the very moving ground-breaking ceremony.  I just wish it were going to be beautiful sooner.

July 4th means...

Tomorrow being Independence Day in the US, I'm wishing all my family and friends a joyous and safe day. 

July 4th has always been a special day for us Spindillyrushinghams because it was Mum and Dad's anniversary.  They were married somewhere in Kent, England in 1941, neither older than 20.  My dad was in his Canadian Forces uniform, my mum in a dress with a white collar, and unlike me, who still remembers and goes on about every moment of our wedding, they never talked to us about the ceremony.  Of course, marriages in England during the war weren't lavish but looking back, it seems strange not to know who was there.  Why don't we ask those questions when our parents and grandparents are alive?  It makes me sad not to know more about the circumstances.

I do know they were in love and stayed that way until my mum died, anxious to see Bill and Jesus in that order.  They made a safe and loving home for us in all the 20-some places we lived and did all the parent/grandparent/sibling/friends things with grace and an enviable  kind of two-of-usness that no one ever questioned. 

They set us a high standard for relationships without ever mentioning it or lecturing us and I could never have told them enough how much I appreciated having such great role models.

So, America, and specifically you people whom I love in it, have a wonderful July 4th, and I'll have a warm, contemplative one.  Both just right.

Hubris, and how it makes you feel prettier than some people

I have spent a lot of time the last few years telling everyone who asks me about retirement how much I love it and how lucky I am to be strong and healthy so I can enjoy it.

About a week ago, I wanted to rearrange things in our living room and casually lifted a basket of LPs we have hanging around waiting to be digitized.  I'm not sure of the ratio of LPs to basket, but I do know that it was heavy and as soon as I started the process, I was going to regret it.

Usually, I can either stretch back pain away, or curl up like a cat and make it go away.  On top of neither of those having no effect at all, parts of myself that had nothing to do with lifting a basket started to hurt and refused to move when I sent the mental order. 

I have no idea what's the matter with me, but suddenly I am not strong and healthy.  I am ragged and worn.  I hate it.  I hate it when sitting in the car makes me sore, when getting out of the car takes longer than it took to buy it in the first place, when walking makes me feel like I'm dragging all my grandchildren and an 1812 cannon, when waking up fools me into jumping out of bed and I discover jumping is no longer an option.

I've just had my annual physical, in which my doctor told me I was in great shape for my age.  "Congratulations!" he said, "you're doing well."

As soon as I get my strength back, I'm going to go back in and wrestle him to the floor until he yells "Uncle!"  In the interim, I'll be the one moving around like a female version of Charles Laughton in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", except I'm slightly better looking.