I am Dancing with Glee

A minus. Actually two A minuses. In one class I was one of only four students to get such a high grade. Yay me!

Katsup

Let's see.
Finished the fall semester- pretty sure I got quite good grades.
New car! - Honda Hybrid. Ssssoooooooooo lucky.
Did makeup on a student/indie/no budget short film- Was reminded why I don't work for free any more.
Been spinning wool - One of the most centering things I have done in a long time.
Knitting secret socks for Oli - After reneging on a knitted xmas gift 2 years ago (still not finished) I am not telling him about these puppies until they are complete.
Making deep and tender connections with far flung friends - love has no long distance charges and e-mail rocks.
Solstice dinner was moose meat fondue with sake, mandarin oranges and ginger cookies - Good way to spend the longest night while watching 25 cm of snow come down.

That's the Coles Notes catch up.

To come:
Indie film wrap party - will bring cookies and not stay long.
Physio is really helping solve my jaw problem saga- That is a blog entry all on it's own
Xmas with a small collection of family - rib roast, roast veggies, ginger beer and laughter.
New Years - having a small group of good freinds over to play board games and more laughing is on the menu.
Then school starts up again on January 5th.

Feeling good about life. Hope you are too.

'tis the season

The term "ginger-goon" started among my friends way back. I don't know who coined it but it doesn't matter much. The term was inspired by Calvin and Hobbes and the snow-goons which are mutant wrong-looking (or wrong acting) snowmen. One friend in particular was fond of ginger bread but not fond of gingerbread men in a traditional sense so began to make strange gingerbread figures. I think it started with gingerbread men with nooses and gingerbread women with alarmingly large bosoms. And we all just ran with it. There were ginger cragen, ginger saphic love bunnies, gingerbread persons with two heads. Gone were the days of quaint ginger bread stars, x-mas trees and men with all eyes and legs where they are expected to be. We had crossed over and there was no going back. Just look. This year, in my stayed old age, I created cookies with cookie cutters only and look what happened!The damage is done. I was never normal to begin with but now I can't even pretend.
I suggest all of you create unconventional holiday things this year. See what happens.

Don't Chase Me Ahmmy!

I have been reading in bed for about 20 minutes when Monkey finally decides to open her eyes and greet the day. I don’t get the customary “hello Ahmmy” that I am used to because what has caught her interest enough to wake up all the way is a pillow she had been sleepily rubbing her feet against. Her first groggy investigation of it has shown Monkey that the pillow has pictures of animals on it so her first words this morning are the delighted declaration of “Bear!” and the growly grumble of “Tiiiigerrrr!” She sits up to show me her discovery, her light coloured wavy hair sticking out in all directions. “Bear!” she says again.
A game we like to play is about animal sounds. I will ask her what sound various animals make. I go for the ones she knows like elephant which make a kind of raspberry sound. And cows which say moo, as we all know. But I like to throw in some conundrums like seahorse just to see what she will say. I never correct her as I figure in her world roosters may indeed say “eeeee!” She has never met one so anything is possible I suppose. Kangaroos say “Ach” with a strangled surprised sort of sound, as do bats and whales. Giraffes roar almost as fierce as lions but monkeys are quite gentle, only uttering a jovial “ee ee!” Bears, in her understanding, are cuddly and make a “mmmm” sound accompanied by a self-hugging motion. But tigers are always dangerous sounding creatures.
So this morning bears are greeted with delight and tigers are greeted with a knitted brow and a showing of teeth. Monkey goes on to introduce me to the donkey and the pig. It seems the pig is sad as Monkey demonstrates by pushing her lips way out and looking at me beseechingly. “Pig sad” she pouts in an exaggerated way. But there is not pause. We are right back to greeting the bear with joyful abandon. “Bear!”
Soon it is time to get out of bed and greet the diverse items in the kitchen
“Hello table. Hello paper. Hello sink. Hello towel.” This begins a new game of Monkey’s devising.
“Hello ephalent” she says to me with a gleam in her bright blue eyes.
“Elephant? I’m not an elephant. I’m your mommy!” I reply as expected.
She giggles. “Hello puppy.’
“Puppy!? I’m not a puppy. I’m your mommy!”
More giggles. This goes on; tiger, cow, cat, birdy, until it is time to eat.
After having sat so nicely on her chair for a whole ten minutes or so eating peanut butter toast she slides to the floor to warn “Don’t chase me, Ahmmy!” as she runs away. As I clear the dishes she laps me on her circuit yelling “don’t chase me Ahmmy!”
I bend down and make a swooping ogre face as she rounds a third time screaming with delight at a pitch only dogs should be able to hear.
I realize as I wash up the dishes she is being too quiet. I dry my hands and seek her out. She has found my notebook and pen. It is only by luck that she has chosen a page I was not already using on which to do her doodles. She sits on the bed narrating as she makes short random strokes on the paper.
“Doggy” she requests hold the pen up to me.
“You want me to draw a dog?”
“Yah.”
We lay belly-down on the mattress and settle in for some drawing. I draw a dog laying with it’s tail curled around it’s body. The only thing that sets it apart from my drawing of a cat laying with it’s tail curled around it’s body is the floppy ears.
“What’s that?” I ask Monkey to see how close my drawing comes to the real thing.
“Doggy” she says matter-of-factly.
Upon request I draw an ephalent, a fish and a seahorse. To her great delight Monkey has just taught herself to do a somersault while I labour over the finer points of drawing a horse.
She stands and gallops out of the room.
“Giddy-up!” she cries, signalling that drawing time is over.
After we gallop around the table a few times I think it is high time to try something less strenuous.
“Do you want to see Gramma?” I ask.
“Yah!” is the decisive reply and without hesitation Monkey is at the door ready to visit Gramma.
As we mount the stairs Monkey calls up to announce her arrival “Laaamaaaa! Hello, Lama. Ah coming, Lama”
Monkey’s Gramma is always delighted to see her and laughs often and easily in her company. Gramma and I sit and chat while Monkey runs circles around the place looking for the cat, pulling the odd book off the shelf for examination or jumping on Gramma’s bed. After she has stripped down to her diaper leaving her clothes strewn around the place, Monkey stands stalk still next to Gramma’s rocking chair and calls out plaintively,
“Help Ahmmy, tuck! Monkey tuck!”
“Are you stuck Monkey?” I reply in mock alarm. As I crouch down to investigate the mystery of her invisible bonds Monkey screams gleefully away calling back “Don’t chase me Ahmmy!”

Dios de los muertos
and I am wondering
if you are passing through
checking for lit candles
put out for you

say
if you wouldn't mind
if it wouldn't be a bother
would you drop by
to use your razor
or your teeth
and cut this kite string
i want to let you go now
because you never call any more
and i don't have your new number
and if i can't have your laugh
and your brown eyes
i don't want to stand here waiting for them any more
yes
i am a fool
just
if you can
let me
let you
go

The Houses We Live In

Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners [...] when the web is pulled askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the middle, one remembers that these webs are not spun in mid-air by incorporeal creatures, but the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.
Virginia Woolf
A Room of One's Own

Having a fondness for spiders and all things "webby" I particularly like this quote I found today. Fiction is felted in with realty, the two cannot be seperated without destroying the whole. Reality is the sum of all the beautifully mundane things like going to the bathroom and looking in every pocket for your house keys. One's body is sometimes refered to as a temple or home- the place where the heart or soul resides. A person's casket or tomb can be thought of as their final house. I have often thought that a person's history/life story/body of work can, metaphorically, be thought of as that person's house. All the proof of where we come from, made of what we have been given and signs of our existance are the houses we have built of our lives. A part of Micheal Angelo resides in his paintings and sulptures. Old Bill Shakespeare is in his plays. Emily Dickenson resides in her deceptively simple poems and perhaps always did and no where else. The funny thing about these homes of the famous dead is they are empty now of all but furniture, old tableaus and echos. But what marvelous structures they are.

Tooth-some Wisdom

I wrote this in May 2002. I came across it earlier today and decided to share.

My jaw still hurts from having my wisdom teeth out. I have a quiet frustrated outrage over the fact that they call them wisdom teeth and then pull them out. Leah wrote a thing one time about how they should be called vision teeth. I think it would only be fair if they called them optional or transient teeth so you know from the beginning that you shouldn't get too chummy with them. I was always looking forward to mine coming in. I saw it as a step in my maturity, a rite of passage. But instead my teeth did a thing called "impacting" which could sound good or bad depending on the context. Turns out dentists unanimously agree it is bad. And bad things must be "removed before they can cause more damage"
...
My wisdom-my potential wisdom was ... damaging me? Couldn't some agreement be reached between me and my malcontent teeth?
Nope, they gotta go-and why did you wait so long in the first place?
...
Because I want to be wise...
...
So now I am four teeth lighter and I can open my jaw about an inch and a half, two inches. My back molars feel looser, my eye teeth feel tighter and I am wondering if it was the right decision. But everyone- EVERYONE- complies to the holy word of the men in white coats and I often doubt myself and chalk these feelings up to stubborn innocence of the facts. Still I can' shake the feeling that I gave away something important. So here I sit, struggling through my sandwich, mulling over the significance of four bones at the back of one's mouth and the possibility that everyone is ignoring the importance of them. That, just like when you grow up you realize you lost something important when you stepped away from childhood, it could be that those of us who rid ourselves of these chompers later cannot put our finger on the source of a feeling of unease or loss or distress. Because no one acknowledges this step in the right manner. It is seen as an unpleasant "procedure" that is common place and unimportant.
Well, I choose to give it importance. I choose outrage at the disregard everyone has for my lost symbol of wisdom. I choose to consciously relocate the symbolic physical location of my wisdom. I will have wisdom eyes or wisdom toes or wisdom hairs or wisdom vertebrae! I haven't picked the new seat yet. Perhaps it will choose me.

What are your wisdom tooth related thoughts and stories?

Cold Weather Haiku

So chilly-willy
and thick socks just won't do it
lets kindle the hearth

Surfing the main course

I feel as though I have spent the whole day surfing. It was fun, loud, strenuous, and satisfying but now I am exhausted and sun burnt. I long for my bed. In reality I have not been surfing- it being November, in Canada, no where near a coast, surfing is not an option. But I have been on quite a ride all the same. 18 members of my family descended on our home (at our invitation) for supper. It was a week in the planning and two days in the execution (if you included prep cooking). 12 adults and 6 children under 10 years of age. To our credit the food was tasty and everyone left happy. But our nerves were quite frayed by the end of the night...which is now...so to bed...to bed and no more 18 person meals for at least 6 months. Perhaps only once a year...if that....to bed.

Haiku day

Essay handed in
got a better idea
just a day later

Close-knit wise guys.

Birthday Haiku

mom says at birthdays

the lions share of the day

goes to who birthed you

Now, being a mom I think I am qualified to disagree. I do not want the beam of festivity shined at me on Monkey's special day. I want to continue to bask in Monkey's imperfect unpredictable splendour just like every day. I think it might be nice as an adult to honour that lady who squeezed you out, or reared you, or both, in some way on your birthday but as a kid there is nothing greater than excitedly ushering in a new faze of this marvelous, mostly unexplored life and revelling in the ritual that is YOUR DAY! I would never want to take that away just because I have a scar to proove where she came from. I am happy I borned her and when she understands stuff like that she will likely be happy I borned her too but for now let us all celebrate the wonderful universe that is Monkey.

Happy birthday, baby.

A New Ancient Tradition

I have been writing Haikus. It is a peculiar poetic medium to me, it feels kind of like word hors d'oeuvers. But I have been seeing whether or not this ancient Asian metre can accommodate modern subjects. They write up very fast so now I have this pile of tiny poems and no idea what to do with them. My solution? Blog it! Therefore at semi-regular intervals I will post a haiku. Starting with this one.

computer still on
my eyes dry from over-use
when will I sleep?

Famous Figures from the 80's - Where are they now?

Monkey came over with a Han Solo doll and a Rebel fighter pilot doll. She handed me Han Solo and said.
"Here, Ahmmy. Take the man."
To which I replied "That's Han Solo."
"Han Solo?" she asked
"Yes" I said.
So I took Han Solo and she held the Rebel fighter.
"Hello Han Solo" said Monkey's doll.
"Hello Rebel fighter" said Han. " How are you?"
"I sad" replied the Rebel fighter, bending low at the waist.
"Oh no" Han responded with concern. "Would you like a hug?"
"Yes"
Han Solo bent to give the fighter a hug.
"Is that better" he asked.
"Yes" said the fighter with relief. "Come on, Han Solo! Lets go see Farmer John."
At this time Han Solo, the Rebel fighter and their two human appendages went off to find Farmer John at the barn but instead they found Teela, He-man's Warrior Goddess friend. Teela, Han Solo and the Rebel fighter discussed many things such as where the farmer might be, whether or not the fighter was stuck and needing help, why Han Solo was sleeping and other important subjects.

CBC Literary Award

Here is an opportunity for every Canadian who secretly or proudly enjoys writing, to step outside their comfort zone, show what mad skillz they have and knock the country's socks off! Here is the CBC Radio writing contest open until November 1rst. Enter a short story, a piece of creative non-fiction or one or more poems. There is an entrance fee used for administrative do-dads but if you win you get a huge cash prize, your writing published in En Route magazine and you likely will be asked on to a CBC radio program to show off those mad prize winning writing skills. If you have some writing hiding in your closet, dust if off and submitt it. You can do so online or by mail. It could not be easier. So plug your nose and jump!

Phew!

Tadah!
I was getting tired of the black background. It felt a little too moody in that "I write in the dark about dark things and cry in the rain" kind of way. So here is the new face to Bits Of Things.
It took quite a lot of fiddling, to the point that I was messing with the script which I know nothing about. "Whats this do? Ooh that kinda worked. Lets see what happens if I do this?" That kind of thing...might explain why it took so long.
Anyway, tadah!

Yay love!

So the friend I was talking about last post (this one) has awarded me the prestigious "I(heart) Your Blog" award. After my "existential muddling" post she sent me a note saying she liked my blog just the way it was. Friends are awesome, dontcha think?

This is a share-the-love kind of thing so I am asked to offer this award to 7 other bloggers I enjoy. Upon looking in my favourites list I realize that I, yet again, am stepping outside the rules. Some of my most frequented sites have little to no words at all! So here is my list despite the fact that it does not precisely fit the expected form.

Knit and Tonic
Skonen Blades' Photos
The AntiCraft
Kreddible Trout's Photos
Claire Land
Ariadne
Brain Goo

Some are craft based. Some are sites of "outerspace" freinds (by which I mean freinds in the real world I knew before the internet "inner space" thing got involved). All smart and often fun folks and sites in my opinion and worth getting outside your comfort zone to have a gander at. I have not included "She Read And Reads" because she is linked at the top and got an award already so she knows she rocks. (I think you rock Avis, in case you didn't know).

Annuality, A New Day.

So it seems I have had this quiet little thing going for two years now. I am as shocked as you are. I even missed the "anniversary". Seems it was officially the 10th of September 2006 this accidental blog started but no matter. Though I took no notice last year, I normally use the beginnings and endings of these annual cycles to review and take stalk; to see where I've come from and where I wanna go. So you are being taken along for the ride. Keep your arms and legs inside the blog at all times please. Enjoy.

Today I received a link to the blog my friend recently started. It is nicely organized, sticks to a theme and is consistently filled with useful and interesting information. Check it out.

So here I am two years into my blog and upon seeing my friend's boffo (yes, I said boffo) site I am wondering if I should be getting my act together.

Should I get a theme and stick to it? I had assumed a theme would organically evolve...but as I reflect the only theme I see is me talking about my life which is hardly out of the norm for me or, I would think, of any particular interest to anyone who doesn't know me. But I might just be being harsh. So let's say I have a theme-of sorts.

Should I fill my entries with useful information? Apart from my last entry where I alerted all non-pirates to International Talk Like a Pirate Day I don't think I have advised, directed or alerted anyone to much of use, per say. I suppose I could begin doing that but where would I start and where would it end? I see the word "Theme" floating to the surface again. Shoo, you silly constructive thought. Well I am a writer and I do like that subject and know where to find info on getting published. I could add those things in. And I am a knitting fool so I could put more of that in, which I haven't much up until now.

Should I be more consistent? I have thus far attempted to make a minimum of one entry a month. I figure that is not taxing and if I write two or three then I am suddenly super productive! You gotta like that feeling. But maybe one a week wouldn't be too much of a strain. If I started to feel behested (not a word? not a problem) I could always ease off. It's not like anyone will fire me if I shirk.

Well alright then.

Okay, Q. Public, you are witness to my second anniversary resolution. I hereby declare that I will write one entry a week. I will include a minimum of one useful or interesting link per month (any suggestions on subject matter welcome). But I have reserved the right to NOT choose a theme apart from whatever it is I have been doing thus far.
Let's see how this goes.

.......

Does this count as my first weekly entry?

Friday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day

My pirate name is:

Black Bess Flint

Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Having fun, Ahmmy

Some little voice in my head whispers "remember this" as I become light headed from blowing bubbles for Monkey in the bath tub. She holds one gently perched on her outstretched palm as she uses her other hand to swiftly crush every other globe coming within range. Transparent domes girth her pale belly as she giggles, her arm and neck stretched up as she reaches.
The same voice whispers as she walks up to me masking her face with a cardboard from a recent delivery. From behind the partition she knocks. To our combined delight when I "open" the cardboard door her beaming face is framed by a bevelled brown rectangle. "Hello!" I exclaim. "How are you?"
"Having fun, Ahmmy" she replies thoughtfully.
She was recently given a baby doll which she has dubbed Sooshish, the first given name that has stuck for more than a day.
When given a piece of paper and a crayon she commissions works from me instead of drawing her own.
"I waaaant.....hamburgers and apple trees" she declares.
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Yes...please" is her steadfast reply.
Remember this, the voice whispers. And I do.