planned childbirth

don't bother trying to call me tomorrow, and don't look for me online, i'm going to be in labour.

'what?' you say, 'you're pregnant? i had no idea!'

'well, i'm not. i haven't been in a while, and i probably won't be ever again' i reply.

'but you said you're going to be in labour tomorrow. you mean labour as in childbirth, right?' you ask, confusion dancing across your features

'that's right. i'll have midwives in attendance, checking my vitals, even'

at this point i quit being so mysterious and explain myself.

'you see, dear reader, i'm helping my midwife-friend out. she's leading a workshop tomorrow for her fellow midwives, demonstrating some sort of midwifey technique thing. and she needs someone to demonstrate on. i'll get to expose my well-hidden thespian side and spend the day giving birth. how's that for random?'

'oh, yes,' you agree, nodding vigorously 'that is very random indeed'

yarn joy

the other evening things were dreary and grey. my partner was taking the kid out, leaving the baby and i home to enjoy the marvelous joys of doing taxes. the baby was weepy and clingy, i had a headache... it was not the best moment of my life.
i was settling down in front of the computer, coffee in hand, whiny baby being ignored, when i heard a weird thump at the door. i looked out the window and saw a postal worker heading back to a canada post truck... do postal people deliver stuff at 7 pm? apparently so. or some divine spirit knew i needed some day-brightening and moved a spiritually aware package deliveryperson to bring me some goodness. either way, i was mightily surprised and pleased.

inside the screen door i found a plump, cheerful package that looked mightily pleased with itself. i was mightily pleased with it, too. pleased turned to ecstatic when i opened it...oh my dear lord.

• allergen-free 'granola' bars for my son
• lace-weight merino yarn in a stunning colourway
• packaged in a yarn bag

a yarn bag, i discovered as i read the tag, is a waterproof bag for holding a skein or two of yarn, for knitting on the go. if my thermos dumps itself in my backpack, if i set my bag down in a puddle, if the river overflows its banks and i'm chest-deep in water, i don't need to fret. my yarn is dry, secure, and in a stylin' bag.

the yarnis very, very soft. and pretty. i've never knit with lace-weight yarn and i have no idea what to make with it, but yarn doesn't go bad, so when the perfect idea arrives i'll be ready, pretty yarn in hand.

i don't have anything to say about the granola bars yet, since i'm saving them for the next outing i take my son on. there's nothing like an exciting new treat to bribe him into sitting still on the bus.

so thank you, yarnfloozies, for making tax night ten zillion times better.

disappointment is...

when i was a kid, when there was something i really wanted that was beyond my allowance (fifty cents a week until i was in my teens, then two dollars a week. but in a small town there isn't much to buy) i was told to go roll the coins in the change bucket. my efforts generally rewarded me with enough rolled small change to buy whatever lego set or scrunchie had caught my eye.

i've been quietly yearning for a magical windfall that would enable me to go to my friend's wedding this spring. trips to florida aren't cheap, though, and even if i had the money i'd need a passport, which i don't have. disregarding those irritating details, i decided to go begging from my sugar daddy of yore - the penny jar.two canadian dollars. 1.55 american dollars. i don't think i'll be visiting the sunshine state this year.

although the coppers and browns in the penny rolls are really pretty. can someone find me a sock yarn in those colours? pretty, penny-coloured socks might soothe my aching soul.

for the love of the yarn

it all started, as these things do, on ravelry. that place makes people do silly things. 'ravelry made me do it' is probably a legitimate defense to use in court.

first, i learned that my local yarn store (lys) had some yarn that i love on sale. 3$ per big skein of soft, local, beautiful wool. then i just happened to be perusing the patterns for things that i could make with that weight of yarn, and i found this.i've never knit a sweater before, but isn't the best time to start when the yarn is on sale?

that did it. the yarn had my head in a death grip and wouldn't let go until i got some. so i made a deal with myself. if i could run all my errands and make it to the lys on one bus ticket, i could have the yarn. if anyone could make it to the five places on my list and the lys (which is far from all the other places) within the hour that a bus transfer is usable, i would say that the yarn gods must be smiling on them and they should get the fibre they seek.

so, of course, i did it. lightning-fast trips to the bank, the library, the drugstore... i did not stop to smell any roses. i had mild panic attacks every time i had to switch buses. what if i just missed it? what if the bus came late? for what was intended to be an enjoyable day off from my domestic responsibilities, it sure stressed me out. but i did it; i deserved all the yarn my backpack could hold.

my final bus dropped me off a little ways from the lys. google maps says it was about a mile. but have i mentioned the weather? it was -33 celsius that day, -27 fahrenheit. bloody cold. and the wind was crazy, blowing sheet after sheet of insidious snow into my face and into all the corners and crevices of my hat, my scarf, and my coat. it was worse than this looksand actually not that fun to walk in. that mile took me half an hour.

i got to the store and found my beautiful yarn. at the checkout i did what it took to cram the yarn into my already full backpack, telling the saleswoman that there was no way in hell that i would carry a bag, my hands needed to stay in my pockets for warmth. as i wound my scarf around my face and arranged my hat and two hoods, she jokingly said that she hoped i wasn't going out walking in that maelstrom. she was visibly shocked when i affirmed that i was. i admitted that if ever my commitment to yarn snobbery was challenged, it was today. but it's common knowledge that i have more stubbornness than smarts, so there i was, in the industrial area (read: bad bus service) in a winter storm.

my original plan was to stay at the store and wind all my yarn into balls using their equipment, saving myself heartache later. but the sun was about to set and the storm wasn't going to get better any time soon, so i figured it would be better to go for my stroll while the drivers could see me walking in the road instead of waiting for it to get dark. (the sidewalks were impassable)

i trudged, head down and shoulders hunched against the wind, through the storm. it sucked. but i happened to look up at just the right moment, and saw a bus! for a moment i thought it was just my wishful thinking taking me for a ride, but the rare and elusive bus that drives that route just happened to be going past! i sprinted and waved and yelled. (this is the place where if i were making this up i would say the bus driver didn't see me, but this here is a truthful account, yo)

the bus stopped. my transfer was long since expired, but the driver so admired my tenacity that he let me ride for free. the most wonderful part is that the bus i was on passes within a block of my house. i was home, drinking hot coffee, 15 minutes later.

but the story doesn't end here. nosirree. i may have escaped frostbite, but there were still more (less dramatic) adventures to come.

remember how i didn't wind the yarn into balls? well, i'm making socks out of that same yarn, from a skein that i bought (and wound) earlier. i'm almost at the toe of the second sock, but the yarn ran out. this evening i got to wind the skein into a ball.

oh, pshaw, you say. big deal. you probably do it all the time, just for fun. but do you remember that i have a 3 year old and a 1 year old? not so fun.to keep it all out of their reach, i had to hang the yarn from my splintery, beat-up bedroom door. as i wound, the yarn caught on the wood and caught on itself and caught on the wood again. plus yarn from the top kept slipping off the door, creating a messy tangle at the bottom of the loop. when the boys realized what i was doing, the wanted in on the action. they enjoyed swinging the door open and closed, crying when made them stop, kicking the door over and over, lying on the floor wailing when i made them stop, begging for treats, whining when i said no...

i wished i was back out in the blowing snow.

it took a couple of miserable hours, but i got it done.
it seems like a lot to go through for something so small, but this is yarn, people. 100% worth it. now i can finish up the socks and get them mailed off (they're already late for my dad's birthday. i'm a very bad daughter) and start a new, exciting project. one that uses yarn that is already neatly wound on cones.

my knittiversary!

on feb 13, 2008 i started knitting. i don't have pictures of several of my projects, but here's a selection of things i've worked on in the past year, in chronological order, with intermittent reminisces:
i used to knit when i was a kid. my dad taught me. he's a fantastic knitter, but his compulsion to constantly have something on the needles has worn off after more than 40 years. it's ok, i make up for his lack of knitting fanaticism.when i was 8 or 9 i read about hellen keller and became really interested in understanding how she perceived things. (i'd say i wanted to see things through her eyes, but that might be in poor taste) upon learning that she could knit, i started knitting in the dark. i remember my parents finding me sitting bolt upright on my bed (in my mind hellen keller had perfect posture) with the lights off and blinds drawn, knitting. as i recall they were baffled.my childhood knitting involved starting a lot of scarves and getting bored of them. i haven't made a single scarf, so far, and i have no plans to in the near future.my interest in knitting was reawakened by three things:

1. some good friends of mine knit. the things they make are beautiful and interesting. i like making things, especially beautiful, interesting things.
2. i was running low on socks and couldn't find ethical, affordable ones anywhere. my knitting friends, serendipitously, are sock knitters. it had never occurred to me before to make my own socks, but the idea was becoming appealing.
3. finally, i was in my favourite consignment/ yarn store and saw a yarn that took my breath away. the colours and textures sang to me. it was noro kureyon sock yarn, and with it i made these:

since then knitting has really grabbed me. my list of things i'd like to do is as long as my arm, easily. i spend lots of time on ravelry, and often as i drift off to sleep at night i'm thinking about knitting.
colour and light, followed closely by texture, are important to my mental wellbeing. photography satisfies my visual needs, but without something to touch, i'm not completley satisfied. yarn has colour and texture, and turning string into fabric is food for my soul.this year i'm hoping to make one pair of socks a month. included in that is at least one pair of felted slippers and some christmas stockings. i haven't decided if i need to make one stocking or two in a month to meet mygoal. i suspect that it will depend on how ornate the stockings are.on top of all those socks i want to make a sweater or two, a shrug, two hats, and more. it will be a busy year, knit-wise, but that appeals to me.these are my january socks. i've already blogged about them lots so you're probably bored of hearing about them. this hat has me stumped. i should have used a pattern. improvising is great when it works, but when it doesn't...this is one of my february socks. i'm making thick socks for my dad. they'll be done by the end of the month but not in time for his birthday.

grossout (a contest)

my partner and his friend ate canned haggis this week. the two of them often eat really gross stuff together, like preserved duck eggs.
i go out when they're having one of their disgust-o-fests.

like i said, this week it was canned haggis. he and his friend cooked the haggis and ate it on toast. they washed it down with scotch, to make the experience more authentic.
when they opened the can, the haggis didn't smell or look much worse than canned dog food, they say. i was previously unaware that things that are unfavourably comparable to canned dog food were considered edible. i believe his exact words were 'like canned dog food, but with an organ-meat sort of tinge to it, and gelatinous'.
my partner was disappointed that it wasn't encased in a sheep's stomach. perv. he also claims to have enjoyed it. i've refused to kiss him for the past few days. i can't kiss a mouth that has eaten this:in case you're wondering, the ingredients are: water, lamb heart, oats, pork fat, lamb liver, pork, salt, flavours, and dehydrated onion.
the can advertises that the product is free of additives and preservatives. if i were trying to market a can of lamb hearts preserved in lard i wouldn't focus so much on that particular aspect. i'd be more likely to put 'at least it's not human flesh!' on it or something.

which brings me to my contest. what line would you put on the can to make canned haggis attractive to shoppers? how would you market it? is there a slogan or catchphrase that would make this putrid sludge appealing? leave your idea in the comments section. if you have an image that you would print on the label, link to it. the contest closes on valentine's day. the winner will recieve a variety of cool band-aids from my son's collection. he definitley has shrek, superman, spiderman and batman band-aids, and i think there are still some hello kitty, jesus and pirate band-aids floating around here somewhere. if the winning response is cool enough i'll probably feel the need to throw some other random, bizarre stuff into the prize envelope, too.

comment away!

a recipe from above.

i have a friend. she doesn't know about this blog so i can't use any identifying details, but lets just say that she's pure of heart and righteous of spirit. she was chosen as a sacred vessel... maybe i should tell this story.

so my friend was doing something sacred and chaste like singing hymns or doing laundry or facebooking or something, when an angel of the lord appeared to her.


'be not afraid!' the angel thundered reassuringly. 'you have been chosen by the mightiest of deities to deliver his/her manhattan chowder recipe to the people of the world!'

then a glowing scrap of paper appeared in her hands. my friend's holy eyes scanned the paper and said 'oh, cool, i have all the ingredients.... um, except the clams. i'll get some when i pick the kids up from school. thanks!' but when she looked back up the angel was gone, and when she looked back down the paper had stopped glowing and she noticed that it was part of the envelope from an unsolicited credit card offer that had come in the mail the day before. the supreme deity reuses before recycling, my friend mused.

that night she made the soup. it was quick and easy and tasted good. the next day she heated up some of the leftovers, and it was freaking awesome. she tried it cold, and it was perfectly edible. 'so,' she thought to herself, 'this is a soup that tastes better the next day.'

my friend smiled to herself.

in the coming weeks my friend made the soup often, and it was always well recieved, even by her son, who is an insanely picky eater. (i've babysat him, and the kid likes cooked spaghetti noodles with a little parmesan cheese on them as a meal. nothing else.)

the holidays came and my friend and her family were planning to travel to visit family. my friend emptied her fridge of perishables (sushi! milk! lettuce!) and brought them to my house, since we were in the middle of our month-long illness. included in the bounty was a sour cream container with leftover manhattan clam chowder.

that night, in between the boy crying himself to sleep and the baby waking up covered in puke, i sat down with the container of soup, cold. i couldn't risk the microwave waking up the little sickos, but i hadn't eaten anything all day, since it had been a hellish nonstop sickfest. and the glory of the soup was revealed unto me. and deliciousness and wholesome fillingness shone around.

i bribed another friend to finangle the recipe for me, and made it last night. here it is.

chop and fry in a bit of oil:

• a medium onion
• 1 cup of chopped celery
• a clove or two of garlic
  

when onion translucent, add:

• a potato or three, cubed
• 2 cups of boiling water or stock

simmer for ~15 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
then add:

• 1-2 cups of chopped up tomatoes and liquid
• 1 can of clams with liquid
• 1t thyme
• salt and pepper to taste

simmer another 10 minutes.

we love seafood 'round these parts, so i used two cans of clams and their juice, minus the several that i ate straight out of the can while making it. you can never have enough clams. that's my motto. i also used a whole huge jar of tomatoes. and an extra potato. so i guess i doubled the recipe or something. that's fine, double the sanctity! more food from less cooking!

so cook it! enjoy it! and when you copy it out into your recipe box, title it 'divine manhattan clam chowder sent from above', ok?

the stuff that ledgends are made of

every so often at social gatherings someone will come up to me and ask me if i really wore a diaper full of sub sauce. people i don't know. complete strangers have heard of my fame, my derring-do. and i have to answer yes.

here is my story.

years ago i was living in a house with a bunch of people, working at subway, spending most of my time drinking coffee and wandering around with my friends.
my favourite of said friends was this punk who had recently moved there from ontario. he had a great sense of humour, awesome tattoos, and my skin tingled whenever i accidentally brushed against him. i really liked his eyes. we spent hours wandering the city together, looking at cool houses and big trees, talking... but we were not an item. not interested. no sir.

it came time for me to leave. i'd had enough of living in that city and was going to mexico. i didn't plan on returning to that particular city, since the world was my oyster and, to quote kimya dawson,

I've had this itchin in my shoes since I was just a little kid

but i was bummed about leaving my friend behind. but no guy is worth getting stuck in some disustingly cold city for winter, right? um, yeah....

so back to the story. we decided we needed to do something awesome and insane together so we'd never forget one another. we grabbed some adult diapers from a hospital and i took a big bag of chunky ranch sub sauce from my work and we made memories, replicating the toddler experience.

i shouldn't have refrigerated the sub sauce.

we were sitting in my kitchen, playing cards. he wore just a diaper, lots of tattoos, and even more body hair. i wore a diaper and a t-shirt. chunky ranch sauce was running down our legs. the slime was oozing into places that no condiment should go. there was a knock at the door, and i made him answer it. i hadn't told him that my parents were arriving that day from oregon, a three day drive. i hadn't told them that a scary-looking dude in a diaper would be answering the door. i hadn't seen them for a year. i stayed in the kitchen for a moment and snickered, then went to the door to rescue my poor friend.

we were married two years later.

on voting

first:
congratulations, world, on ousting bush. felicitations, americans, on electing a black man. may things turn out as well as you hope. (because, you know, he's secretly a marxist muslim arab terrorist who eats babies, but he won't reveal his true self until after he's sworn in.) (i'm kidding, people)
the only way nov 4 could have gone better is if prop 8 had been resoundingly defeated in california and i had won the lottery.

but i digress.

a few weeks ago we canadians had our federal elections. being the political junkie that i am, i was reading and talking and theorizing about the whole thing nonstop. i would have gone out and volunteered, but my son was sick, then my parents were here.
on the day of the elections my partner and i had a discussion on why voting is important. i consider it to be a duty and one of the most important things i can do. especially as a woman. i owe the women who fought and suffered so i could vote this much, as least.
but, he said, if everyone else is voting one way why even vote? if we vote with the crowd it makes no difference and if we vote against the flow it makes no difference. why bother?
i bumbled and stumbled and tried to articulate why we should always vote, but i didn't have the right words for it.

this past sunday i went to a bob dylan concert. his showmanship was mediocre at best, but the thrill of actually being there was incredible.it looked like this.

in the middle of the concert, when the whole arena was clapping and screaming and whistling, i had an epiphany.

voting is like applause.
really, it makes no difference if i join in applause. i can clap or not, either way it's a deafening noise. you can choose not to clap, too, it's ok. but if everyone chooses not to clap, you don't get applause, do you? if everyone chooses to put their hands together for someone or something, something amazing and communal happens. so, fine: don't clap. don't vote. but you're just standing there like a douchebag while everyone around you is contributing.

freaking ugh.

when i lived in mexico there was a donkey carcass by the highway. it was at least 35 degrees* every day for months and months. the carcass stayed there and rotted for months and months. the flies swarmed. the air was unbreathable. we would walk miles out of our way to avoid that section of highway. there are no words i can use that would adequately describe the way that dead donkey smelled.

but my compost smells worse.

it's a healthy, living compost. writhing with bugs and worms and maggots. the bottom is beautiful black gunk, worth its weight in gold to my garden. and i believe in composting, it's one of the best free things a person can do for the planet. but it stinks. not particularly when you open the top to put stuff in. it doesn't smell at all from a few feet away. but if you open the bottom to scoop out the composted material, watch out.

food scraps, newspaper, rabbit shit and garden scraps, swamped with rabbit piss every few days and left in a black container in the sun to stew. sound tasty?

and i plunged my hands in, up to the wrist. crouched over it. spent half an hour breathing it in, filling small buckets and carrying it to my garden. i had to come in partway through, it was too much. i seriously contemplated running across the street to the fire station to ask if i could borrow a rebreather.

ok, done whining. i'm headed back outside now.

*that's 95 degrees in americanspeak

ethical clothing: a retrospective

about two years ago i was reading about the human rights and environmental issues presented by north american overconsumption. i was pissed off that something as basic as clothing myself caused people and the earth to suffer. my contribution to these wrongs seemed inevitable. but i got to thinking... is it? could i opt out of consumer culture?

i don't have much money, so i couldn't go spending hundreds of dollars on hemp clothes tenderly coddled into being by unionized former child prostitutes in the third world (although, if i had the money, i would definitley support such an endeavour) and the city i live in isn't known for its overabundance of counterculture, so i couldn't just go to a mall and have a variety of ethical clothing options handed to me.

in fact, when i started out, it was really hard. there was a fraction the number of online sources of ethical clothing that there are now. and everything cost more. niche markets are like that. but i searched (this was back when i used yahoo instead of google, so i can't say i googled) and checked the clearance sections of several sites weekly until i found the things i need with ethics i could live with at prices i could pay. i paid 11$ for my organic hemp, union-made hightops. i got underpants for 8$ a pop, organic cotton and union-made. i got socks, 2$ a pair, organic cotton, made in the states (hopefully not by undocumented workers). it's gradually become easier and easier to find these items. last month i spent 6$ on organic cotton, made in canada yoga pants at zellers. (that's the canadian equivalent of target)

ethical has become trendy, and that kicks ass. blogs have popped up all over the place with info on what not to buy, what's ok and what's fantabulous. it's become almost easy to skip the mall.

well, almost. i'm about to have a major issue, since my winter boots need replacing and i'm not aware of any affordable, ethical options. finding used sorels (or similar) is nearly impossible. also this past spring i ended up buying two perfectly unethical bras at 60$ a pop. it was insult to injury, paying so much for something that i was opposed to. but my boobs thank me. and i really don't know what i'll do about a winter coat in a year or two. i rushed out and bought a dressy shirt at old navy the night before my sister's wedding, since i was three weeks postpartum and didn't fit the dress i had originally intended to wear. so it's not perfect. but neither am i.

it's nice. i started out anxious about how i was going to make it work and looking enviously at all the cool things i couldn't have. i felt so sure that a new this or a pretty that would make my life sparklier and happier. but then i sort of just forgot that those things in the stores are available to me. now when i walk through the mall i see all sorts of things on racks, but they aren't for me. before i had kids i could walk past racks of kids clothes and register that they were there, but not give them a second glance. what would i need with kids clothes? now the whole clothing department is off limits to me, more or less.

so i'd like to welcome the rest of the world to the place i've been for the last couple of years. relax, stay a while! take in the incredible textures of organic cotton and the amazing prices of thrift store items! realize that what you already own is more than you will need for a long time.

miscelany

this month i have made:

• enough jam to last ~9 months (we love our jam around here so i'm counting on needing about a litre a month. but this is the world's best jam so we might finish it by halloween) (pics pending)

• this hat: the intended recipent, my brother in law, has a truly tremendous cranium. gigantic. so i meant to make the hat bigger than the pattern suggested. but i'm not the world's greatest knitter, it turns out. so it fits the boy. i guess my little dude gets to wear an extra-cool toque this winter.

• these socks. rather, i finished one and knit the other. it was a sock swap. kara (the best person in florida, possibly the southern states) knit me a beautiful pink sock, then sent me the pattern, the yarn and the one sock. i was to knit the other. but i was short a little yarn so i took the yarn from the first sock's toe to finish the second sock, then gave them matching white toes. it looks like i meant to do it.

• my garden has flourished. the tomatoes are almost ready and i think i have a hot pepper (i'm giving it a few more days but i could pick it now if i wanted) so today i got my first fruits: i thinned the beets. there's a scarce handful here, so i took a close-up so they look bigger. then i added a couple of carrots and some garlic and sauted them in soy & sesame oil. then i added in a shiitake mushroom and some water, then some miso. and a bit of cayenne. and it's delish. mmmm.

and the boy told his first mom joke the other day. he was touching me with a frozen water bottle and i was shrieking dramatically and jumping around.
me: aaaah! it's cold!
my 2 year old: your mom's cold!
i almost died of pride, right there. also my baby started walking, but that milestone seems small compared to the awesomeness of starting telling mom jokes.

now i'm going away for a few days. tata!

the last great adventure (that i missed)

five and a half years ago the western world was in a tizzy. bush was certain that iraq harboured weapons of mass destruction and was pushing as hard as he could for war. many people were equally certain that no such weapons existed and bush really just wanted some cheap oil. many, many people didn't really know what to think. it was fun times. remember?

my life was all in a tizzy, too. i had just started working at a homeless shelter (which i loved) and gotten engaged to a heavily tattooed man (whom i love) and was about to start jewellery school (which i loved). thins generally rocked. but this war thing - it bugged the hell out of me. and i didn't want to sit around and talk about it over a bottle of cheap wine. rather, i wanted to do more than that. my partner and i were considering joining cpt and going to iraq as human sheilds. yes, that's the group that included the people that got kidnapped a few years back. they're evangelical christians, but so were we at the time. the idea was that we'd document human rights violations committed by both sides during the conflict. when bombs fell from the sky we would be in hospitals and schools, hoping to protect the brown people with our whiteness. i was so noble and so naive.

it was actually pretty complicated. on the one hand, we could stay in canada and make out and plan a wedding and i could go to school and we could make out and things would be good. on the other hand, we could get married in a hurry and go to iraq and possibly make a difference and make out and have experiences that we could never replicate elsewhere and make out. so what did we want, to make out in the safety and boredom of canada, or the danger and adventure of iraq?

obviously we chose to stay here. we wanted to have a chance to be married and stuff before going into such a stressful, dangerous situation. at the time it felt like the impulsive, wild part of me was being squelched.

but it's good that we didn't go.

• the foreign aid workers were given an ultimatum right before the war began: get out or do what you're told. mostly they were told to go to weapons factories and power plants when the bombs dropped instead of the more humanitarian-type places. but hussein used foreign aid workers as pawns, the same way he used every other resource at his disposal. can you blame him? the dude ended up in a hole in the ground eating doritos, it's no wonder he did all he could to avoid that fate.
• 4 cpt team members were kidnapped. one was killed. that would have sucked. especially for our families back in canada.
• our families would have freaked right out the whole time we were gone. that's actually one of the main reasons we didn't go.
• our first year of being married was brutally hard. my birth control made me incredibly depressed. i was too young to be married. i was 20, for crying out loud! i'm glad that we got through that year here, with all the people who love us, instead of in a dusty war zone.

but there's a little part of me that looks back at that choice with melancholy. it's the last chance i had to go do something wild and extravagant and inadvisable. now i have kids and so i can't throw myself in harm's way. and i've gotten soft. i like having showers and a bed. running water, people who speak english pretty much everywhere... i'm used to this. it would be really hard for me to go back to being as flexible as i was. i was made of rubber back then.
anyways, i can't really blame the utter dullness of my life on anyone but me. i chose not to go to iraq.

so much for that.

we loaded the car right up to the roof yesterday and headed out to the farm. it is 82 km away. that's 50 miles. we listened to and out come the wolves as we drove. that's one of my all time favourite albums.
we got there and put up the HUGE tent. here it is, with views from inside.just beyond that line of trees is the river. there were fly fishermen out enjoying the day. it was
seriously perfect. not too hot but definitley not cold, no bugs, a light breeze... it was heaven.


this is pippin. she's the ideal farmdog. friendly, well-trained, big... the boy was obsessed with her and spent as much time with her as possible.


these are twiggy, toots and tagalong. they are alpine goats.
twiggy has gender identification issues - she is technically a she, but doesn't get pregnant, has a beard, is more aggressive than a typical female goat, a bit taller...
toots is my favourite. she's more reticent than twiggy, but friendly and loves a good scratch behind the ears. she's pregnant and due in about two weeks.
tagalong is pregnant, too, due at the same time as toots. she's shy so i didn't really spend time with her.
i spent lots of time feeding the goats, scratching the goats, talking to the goats, showing my kids how to treat goats... the goats eventually got bored of me and started ignoring me. and it turns out that they don't really like rice bread. or peanut butter on rice cakes. they just aren't into gluten-free food, i guess.


the boy and pippin checking out the chicken tractor. according to wikipedia,

A chicken tractor is basically a movable chicken cage without a floor. It is usually of light construction so one person can drag it around the yard, it may have a couple of wheels at one end to make this job easier.

The chicken tractor has a number of advantages over fixed cages: The chickens always have fresh ground to scratch at and grass to eat. The cage never needs cleaning; when the enclosed area starts to look worn or patchy, the cage is simple dragged to a new location, the droppings left behind help to fertilize the soil.

i didn't get any pictures of the chickens themselves, but most of them looked just like this. there was one rooster, also black. his feathers had a beautiful sheen to them. the boy spent hours looking at the chickens, feeding the chickens, talking to the chickens, traumatizing the chickens... he seems to be as attracted to chickens as i am to goats.

that night it got cold. really cold. really, really cold. down to freezing. and believe me, we were freezing. we had stacks of blankets but i still lay awake for most of the night, shivering. breastfeeding when there is frost on the ground is really no fun. it was awful.

i was too tired and couldn't cope with the thought of another night like that, so in the morning i decided to come back to the city.

we spent the morning doing a little bit of weeding and lots of enjoying the sun and the animals. my dude mowed a section of the lawn with the ride-on mower. i spent a good amount of time sitting on the grass with tracy, the chick who lives there. her daughter is the same age as my baby, and the two of them adore one another. they are collectively the fattest, cutest, doolingest things on the farm.

so here i am, back home. i'm disappointed that i couldn't stay for the week, but it was not to be. i'll get back out there in a couple of weeks.

alphaghetti memories

one year when i was 15 or 16 i went to san diego (from canada) with nothing but two sarongs, a bathing suit, a guitar, a can opener, a fork and a case of alphaghetti.
yes, a case of it. seriously.
i slept on the beach (one sarong as clothes, the other as a blanket) swam all day, sat around bonfires all night, and lived on alphaghetti. the corners of my mouth cracked and bled from the godawful canned spaghetti. but i had a great time. i may be married and respectable these days, but my heart still secretly belongs to the surfers that shared their burritos and beer with me.

three years

three and a half years ago things were going haywire with my girly bits. you don't need details. basically, every month i was conceiving and miscarrying without ever knowing it. it sucked. the doc said i should quit the pill for a few months, let my body get back to normal, then try another type of pill. and that i shouldn't expect to get a period, since quitting the pill does that to a person for up to a year.three years ago this week i went to the walk-in clinic for my new prescription for the pill. the routine is that they do a preggo test before issuing the pills. it's no biggie. i pee in the cup and read my book for a few minutes, then the doc hands me my prescription and i'm good to go. i only ever felt the slightest twinge of trepidation as i peed in the cup, but no worse than usual. a few minutes later the doc came into the exam room and i said, looking up 'you got it? good, i need to get going' or something like that. and the doctor was silent. she was giving me a funny look. my stomach suddenly felt like a lead brick.

it turned out that i'd been pregnant for 5 months without knowing it. oops. guess i shouldn't have imbibed, huh?this was my belly, 2 weeks later, when my back was arched to make it stick out. it's bigger at this moment and i am definitley not pregnant. seriously, how could i have known?!?!

anyways, three years ago this week everything about my life changed. and now i here i am.

nutshell-sized cuteness

[a woman, a baby and a toddler lying in bed, dozing off together. stripes of light on the wall from the streetlight, the noise of a passing bus. the woman and the baby are facing one another and the baby is nursing, the toddler is facing the woman's back and the woman is stroking the toddler's face, stomach, back. very mellow]

toddler: jesus have penis?
woman: yep, jesus has a penis.
toddler: jesus have bum?
woman: you betcha.
toddler: ok.

[fade to black]

feliz the happy hen

years ago, when i was young and carefree, i lived in a dirt-poor village in rural mexico. i got myself a pet chicken for eggs and companionship. i named her feliz and carried her around, tucked under my arm, everywhere i went.
the village where i lived had tons of crazy, backwards superstitions. one of them was that chickens couldn't lay eggs without roosters around. total bollocks. they thought i was an idiot for having a laying hen with no rooster. each day a herd of kids would show up where i lived, asking if feliz had laid an egg. every day she came through for me. the locals decided that my chicken must be magical. they seriously thought she was special or blessed or something, laying eggs like that.

when i left to come back to canada i gave feliz to a family i was friends with.this is them.

when i left they were all excited. they had huge plans for getting feliz to reproduce and have a whole flock of magical chicks - without the help of a rooster.

sick of it.

being in a cast sucked. for the first little while it was nice to be able to walk again, but the charm quickly wore off. last week i said 'FUCK THIS SHIT!!!*', got out some scissors, and spent five hours removing my cast.


*it is interesting to note that the euphemistic version of 'fuck this shit' is 'have sex with this poop'.

a busy day

we didn't take the car. we've had enough hassles with old cars breaking down and costing a lot. but here's a breakdown of my busier-than-usual day.

1 am - went to bed after a rousing game of settlers. i haven't played it in at least a year and a half. i lost by a hair.
7 am - the boy was up so we were all up. spent the morning cleaning, decluttering, calling car dealerships, etc.
11 am - the co-owners of the former car came over with kids. kids fought over toys while we discussed seeds, gardening, etc. i found it all very exciting.
1 pm - the guy from the vw dealership picked us up. we took the baby and left the boy at home.
5 pm - left the dealership in our new (to us) '04 jetta, fully loaded. felt rich and spoiled, what with the heated seats and all. and the car was within our budget, after they cut us a deal.
6 pm - got home, dropped off the baby and left again. getting anywhere was slow, what with the blizzard and all. the dude's gut can't tolerate seafood, it seems, so we had a lot of conversations in the car about what to do if he had to poop right there and then. i forbade pooping in the new car and insisted that he could shit in the snow on the median if he had to. traffic was at a standstill so it's not like jumping out of the driver's seat would have been dangerous. it's when we have long conversations on these topics that i know i married the right man.
7 pm - saw U2 3D at the IMAX. it was freaking amazing. the 3D effects were... effective. at one point bono got right in my face and reached out to stroke my cheek and i flinched backwards, thinking 'hey, don't touch me!'.
8.30 pm - went to the vegan collective for a bite. had their incredible tofu. if i could cook tofu like that i'd never make anything else. we ran into a former roomate. she was snotty and distainful for a bit, but mellowed out. i'm so glad i don't live with her any more.
9.30 - got home and put the boy to bed. took a poo that was at least 3 inches thick, maybe 4. i left it in the toilet for the dude to see. he was duly impressed.
11.43 - hoping to go to bed soon. i've worked out a budget for the coming month and want the baby to get tired already.

tomorrow maybe i'll get to take a bath. it's been more than a week since i washed, thanks to the challenges presented by my cast. i really stink.

that is all.