Amnio

The following is a rant I wrote this afternoon to my father, himself a doctor, following today's amniocentesis.

Please bear in mind that when I was 18 I had Hodgekin's Disease, a type of lymph cancer. I was diagnosed at a teaching hospital (Kingston General) and treated at a teaching hospital (Tom Baker Cancer Centre of the Foothills Hospital) and was, for my entire cancer experience, very cognizant of my role in assisting medical students and residents learn about my type of cancer. I was a very cooperative and genial patient. As such it was not uncommon for my tests to be attended by gaggles of medical students, and my checkups to be rounds of telling my background over and over to residents who'd guess at my condition until someone finally got it right. I was repeatedly thanked for my attitude and willingness to be a guinea pig.

That was then. Now, I'm older, I feel I've done my time, and I just want to go home. I want the real doctor to be my attending and if someone wants to watch, that's... okay with me, but please, don't touch. I am no longer the willing guinea pig.

Which leads to today's rant.

Dad -

So, I'll start with this, just this:

I think it is outright wrong to tell people in the amnio prep seminar that the clinic doctors are all fully qualified perinatalogist blah blah blahs who have each done QUOTE "tens of thousands" of amnios, but, then when the door opens, in come TWO doctors, one of whom is obviously the perinatalogist blah blah blah guy and the other is absolutely giving off WAVES of Inexperience. At this point in my career as a patient I can smell a student a mile away.

This perinatalogy Fellow proceeds to smear an absolutely unnecessary amount of sterile dye from stem to stern before she prod-prod-prods around in concert with the ultrasound deciding on an entry point. And then, of course, with a great deal of deliberation and slowness in general p-u-u-u-u-u-u-ts in the needle and p-o-o-o-o-o-okes it through the uterine wall and swi-i-i-i-i-i-rls it round and round and round and round and round until even Turner knew that she wasn't doing it right. I had to force my eyes closed because I was going to kill her with my newfound eyebeam lasers.

I was within about three seconds of saying, "I think that's enough, could the other doctor please do this?", when I guess it was finally sufficiently clear that she just wasn't getting it right, and the perinatalogist blah blah blah guy decided to take over. He had to take it out and start over from the beginning: pushing the needle into the abdomen and through the wall of the uterus, to squiggle it around bouncing off my spleen and ovaries and spine AGAIN. At least it was quick, the second time.

But Dad, and here is my issue, it is wrong, saying in the seminar that they're all so good and they're all fully qualified and then sending in someone who is clearly still learning what to do. That is wrong advertising, wrong all around. It's an uncomfortable, somewhat painful, rather scary test to begin with, and then they add the extra factor of having to deal with someone else's learning experience. I was livid angry by the end. I should have said something right at the beginning, when she was smearing the dye and I could tell, I KNEW she wasn't the attending. I should've just said that I'd prefer the perinatalogist blah blah blah guy do it please, and follow up with the whole yes-I-appreciate-the-teaching-hospital-thing-but-I've-been-the-good-lab-rat-thanks-and-I'd-really-prefer-the-attending-please spiel.

I think I would probably feel differently if I hadn't been such a willing pincushion when I had cancer, but I really really REALLY feel like I've "done my bit for science" at this point and I'd like to have the following plastered onto my forehead in gentian violet for my next hospital visit: RESIDENTS, FELLOWS AND ALL OTHER "LEARNERS" - KINDLY FUCK OFF AND GO PRACTICE ON SOMEONE ELSE... PERHAPS START ON AN ORANGE.

...That said, once I had my big cry in the bathroom afterward and got all my hate out, it was ok.


Alright, I'm ready, bring out the knives.

Categories: Ash | Pregnancy

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WorldChanging The Second

Turner's second column is now up at WorldChanging.com; this one talks a bit about Crystal Waters, the Australian permaculture community we visited north of Queensland back in July. As it happens, this column used one of the photos I included in the Nine show, that One Lane/One Planet shot I put up in an earlier post.

See the new column, here.

Categories: Ash | GeoHope | Turner

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The Daily Planet Book of Cool Ideas

Halloween - check. Ashley's birthday - check. Remembrance Day - check.

...I know what you're thinking! It's that time of year when thoughts turn to Christmas, and also to the horror that is Christmas shopping.

Oh, but fear not, my good friends and fans! Because Mrs Hilksom has the perfect thing for you to stuff into stockings this year.

You may have already seen it at the local bookstore or on the bestseller list, and here it is with a personal endorsement:
The Daily Planet Book of Cool Ideas, by Jay Ingram.



This was my contract for the first half of 2008, working on this book. I didn't talk about it on the blog mainly because it's just a good idea not to talk about your current work on your blog. ...So's to save yourself the understandable headache involved in possibly being fired, likesay.

This book was originally conceived as a published version of all the 'environmentally-themed' segments done over the last couple of years by Discovery Channel's daily science news show, Daily Planet. The show's host, Jay Ingram, well-known and beloved science popularizer, was on board to be the book's author. Eventually the project concept evolved into a book involving the complex re-contextualizing of these Daily Planet stories, plus other, new material gathered from around the world on what's going on right now in climate science and technology. Illustration and photo-heavy, it was designed to target the Daily Planet viewer demographics as well as having broad appeal to kids and adults alike.

The job basically entailed managing and coordinating the research and logistics between Jay Ingram, Discovery Channel, and Penguin Canada. I worked on designing the chapters and overarching themes for the narrative and guided portions of the contract negotiations; re-cleared all the publication rights to the material we already had from the television show, and sourced new material and imagery; screened, shortlisted and selected footage from Daily Planet and myself shot some new photographs for use in the book; and generally liaised with the source subjects, promised them copies of the finished book, negotiated use fees, and overall spent most of every single day, seven days a week, for five and a half months, constantly on the telephone and sending emails at all ungodly hours, even ones you've never heard of. Although it was a vaguely ungrammatical title, my email signature told people I was the "Managing Research Editor" for the book. Go slowly through the words, and yep, that's the best description, overall, of what I did.

And I loved it. As a contract it was a fantastic fit for my background and mad diverse skillz (yo). Jay Ingram and I worked fabulously together. He's a man who doesn't suffer fools gladly, has a fantastic work ethic and focus, and possesses a great absurdist sense of humour. And he's a real person. When I came to Toronto to meet the Daily Planet team in January, he picked me up at the airport.

I worked damn hard on this book and I was really, really proud of what we accomplished with this all-out-sprint of a project. When we left for Australia my portion was mostly complete, and after a few long-distance calls at really ridiculous hours to clear up last details, my contribution was finished. 

...And then, about a month ago, we came home from the September/October travels to find a little something in the mailbox. My contributor's copy. The book turned out beautifully - 265 pages of text and photos and illustrations, wonderfully laid out and clearly presented. Turner did one of the blurbs on the back cover: "The Daily Planet Book of Cool Ideas is as concise and accessible a primer as you'll find on the subject, and its calm and ultimately optimistic tone makes it that rarest of reads - an invigorating climate story."  True dat. Honestly, a great book for anyone interested in the climate question.

And then, in the back, from the book's author:



In case you can't read the text, it goes thusly:

This book might have set some sort of record for the number of people who made significant contributions to it, but one person stands out. Ashley Bristowe was, as she puts it, "managing research editor" of this book, but actually, she ran it. If there's anyone out there who's better at cajoling, researching, challenging, organizing, record-keeping, or working 24/7 to keep a project on track, I'd like to know who it is. (She's pretty funny, too.) Without her this book would simply not exist.

Categories: Ash | Work work work

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The Teeny Ones Are Best

Sometimes people tell me they'd like to hear what Turner and I talk about at home. Y'know, to be a fly on the wall and hear what the famous writer and the jane-of-all-media-trades talk about whilst kicking back at Chez Bristowe Turner. I think mostly they envy an idealized conception of the work-at-home life balance and some of the snazzier stories about our projects. Or maybe Sloane's impressive vocabulary is the culprit. She gets it from Toopie and Binoo, we swear! 

But so just to give these lovely folks a taste: Here's us, last night, in the midst of settling in for another dvd episode of Battlestar Galactica. We join the supposedly fascinating couple just as I'm stuffing a whole mini mandarin into my mouth.

Me: (through orange goosh) Y'know, we never shoulda bought these mini mandarins. They are so good. They totally make those regular xmas oranges taste like shit.

Turner: Laughing. Laughing and laughing.

Me: What?

Turner: Laughing. ...Like "shit". They taste like shit. The big oranges.

Me: ...Okay, possibly not actual shit.




Tah-dah! Excitement she wrote!
 
(Thanks go out to David Friese, who inspired this post.)

Categories: Ash | Married Life | Turner

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The "Nine" Show Opening

Ya, ya, how did it go? It went well. Fairly well attended, not as packed as last year but not bad. As I've told many people: Sloane ate her weight in chips, friends came to cheer me on, people said nice things about my work, and Turner got me a corsage for the occasion.

     
One Lane/One Planet, Queensland Australia. 2008. Colourchrome print and acrylic

From my "Artist's Statement" for the show: I’m interested in language and words, and in particular Found Words – misspellings, graffiti, ironies in signage, language as backdrop for larger themes. One of the pieces in this show, the One Lane/One Planet work, is from this series and was shot at the side of the road in Queensland, Australia. We were visiting Crystal Waters, the noted permaculture eco-village northeast of Brisbane, an environmental and idealistic enclave surrounded by very conservative farming culture and remote countryside. One road lead to the community from the bush highway, and a resident had, with two well-placed letters, provided a note-perfect introduction to their overarching philosophy.

Initially this photo looks political, and in word content it does skew that way. However, the reason I included it in the show was actually due to my pleasure with the background after a very long process of work & tweaking in Photoshop. Not evident at this size, the trees and grass and hills in the background have been distorted and rendered very "painterly" after much effort. I think 'artists' always have other reasons for why they like their own work - this is mine for this piece.


  
A-frame Advice, Nakusp BC. 2005/2008. Colourchrome print and acrylic

From the artist's statement: Another piece from my Found Words series featured in this exhibition is the “SMILE, SOMEBODY’S WATCHING” work. During the Vietnam War Canada took in many American draft dodgers, and communes sprung up along the remote valleys of British Columbia. One such group built an A-frame on land now owned by my mother outside of Nakusp. When we first began visiting this structure it was full of old clothing and kitchen utensils, Kahlil Gibran posters and letters detailing concerns that the FBI would somehow find and extradite them back to the US. This old bottlecap, bearing a cheerful phrase I remember from my own childhood, also echoes through the decades another message, the uneasy melody of paranoia and tension that affected the lives of these exiles.


    

L:  Motel Knowles, Saskatchewan. 2005/2008. Colourchrome print and acrylic
R:  Roxy Theatre, Coleman AB. 2006/2008. Colourchrome print and acrylic

From the artist's statement: I’m also interested in the neon signs still in evidence on the Canadian Prairie. Neon gas, brought into widespread use in signage during the 1920s, changed how we light the night, bringing amazing vivid colours and dancing shapes to the palette of our nighttime world. Even today, neon signs are compelling as a combination of practicality and nostalgia. But neon’s initial impact, especially on our rural Canadian landscape of wild space and distances, must have been magnificent beyond our imagining. There are two pieces from my Neon Signs series in this show, from Saskatchewan and Alberta.

     
Netcasters I and Netcasters II, Queensland Australia. 2008. Colourchrome print and acrylic

The Australia spiderweb 'diptych'. The green one should look greener and the blue one should look more teal-ey. Limits of the internet, etc.
...Only Melinda Topiko called me on the fact that this is not an actual diptych! (I would expect no less from you, Melinda!)

I didn't sell any work, but I didn't really expect to. There was a commission I had to factor into the pricing, and I'd decided to backmount my pieces to acrylic, which is an expensive process at the best of times. The prices were higher than the show's 'market' could bear, and in general people don't like to pay for photography, especially now in the digital age.

Mainly I was participating to nail down my Canada Council qualifications, which, for the Visual Arts category, seem to stipulate that you have to have a certain number of gallery shows. Never mind whether you make your living taking and publishing photographs, never mind the artistic merit of those publications, never mind the other work you may have done in other artistic fields... last year I didn't have three gallery shows on my cv and I was deemed ineligible for funding.

So, ok, whatever, fine. I've got the chops, and now I've got the gallery shows. Woot, hear me roar, august federal funding agencies!

Categories: Art school | Ash | Work work work

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Turner At WorldChanging

Hey hey hey. This is to announce a new GeoHope collaboration with the illustrious and definitive WorldChanging. Turner has been brought on board to do a monthly-ish column on his work, The Geography of Hope, climate change, hope in general, and etcetera-type-stuff. I have a tiny role as the contributing photographer to his columns, the first of which has now hit the site. See it here.

This photograph was taken down in Taber, Alberta in September 2007. I was originally down there to do a shoot for the Globe & Mail at the big Enmax wind farm south of the town. (For the record, this was indeed the same site shoot during which I lost my shit, spooked by the giant scary wind turbines whooshing high above, and I had to hide in/shoot from the car, with the radio on full blast.) This photo was taken out the passenger-side window, and of course the text on the mirror reads, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear".

Enh! ENH? Symbolism, see? Metaphor! Wind turbines, wind power, sustainable and renewable energy are... CLOSER than we think! Get it?

Turner's blog posting about his new WorldChanging column, here.

Categories: Ash | GeoHope | Turner | Work work work

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"Nine" Show At Arthouse

Categories: Art school | Ash | Work work work

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Happy Birthday, Past Present & Future

Hi! It's my birthday today! I'm 35 GLORIOUS years old.



Here's me and Sloaner a few days ago, visiting Jenny & Korey's new daughter, Emmanuelle. Lookit that grin on our Baloner, eh? Hopefully she's ready to be a big sister? Because I'm/we're pregnant. Due in May 2009. Hurray!

Categories: Ash | Mom-ness | Sloane

Comments [6]

Soundgarden Parenting

I'd been humming Black Hole Sun to myself all morning, what can I say?

Categories: Ash | Mom-ness

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Stolen From Stephanie Nolen

On her personal website, Globe & Mail Africa correspondent Stephanie Nolen has an About page that follows this structure. Sitting around this afternoon building the pull quote list for the Daily Planet book, I rebuilt it for myself.

Spiritual Advisors: Margaret Mead, Karen Blixen, Allah

Advises against: Sneaking up on me (very easily startled, I’ve punched people in the face by accident).

Best piece of gear: Nikon D70. There are better cameras, but this one nearly bounces when dropped, and anyone can use it.

Can’t: Do math. Renew the car registration. Live close to everyone I love all at the same time.

Was a rabble-rousing student activist: Mostly in my mind, and behind closed doors. Women’s Studies: we got you where you slept. (Is that too… dirty to put on the internet? Mostly inaccurate for me, but I like how it sounds.)

Secretly: Is a trombone virtuoso. Fears caving.

Recommends: Bohol, Philippines. Skardu, Pakistan. The Blackfoot Truck Stop, Calgary.

Gets bloodthirsty over: Urban planning.

Happiest: Wearing earplugs.

Recently discovered: Adult friends with kids! Whoooooot!

Categories: Ash

Comments [2]

Old(-ish) wisdom

(Thanks to Sean, who probably doesn't even remember storing the letters described here!)

My beloved cousin is having a hard hard hard time of a brutal breakup. We were talking on the phone tonight and she referenced an email I'd written to her a few years ago, when she'd been in the midst of a similarly devastating break. I remembered writing it but not the details - then she said she'd forwarded it on to innumerable people, and that she herself had read it many many times, and I was like, Damn, let's see this again! So here it is (edited to protect some of the innocent), not half bad as a empathetic treatise, I think:

***
Well, hell. It is of absolutely NO consolation, but we have all been there. And I'll say it again: I know that is of absolutely no consolation. ...Wait - I suppose I think it'll be of some, miniscule consolation, or I wouldn't say it. So I suppose I'm offering you the only thing I think I have to offer: empathy.

Lord, I have SO BEEN THERE. Not the same circumstances, but certainly that exquisite surreality and gonging emptiness. The pain is awful.

I told Turner about this and he said, "Ah shit. That sucks for her. ...Well, everyone has to lose their first love. Sucks though." Basically that's exactly it: only 6% of all long distance relationships last through university. I remember A finding that statistic at some point and sending the article to me - she was in a long distance relationship with her high school boyfriend, a lovely boy named J who became a typical hockey asshole named J and who broke her heart all over the road.

Me, it was my high school boyfriend, and he cheated on me in the summer after high school. It is a LOT more complicated than that - he was a pathological guilt-tripper and he meddled in my life in all kinds of deeply inappropriate ways in high school and at university. We both ended up at Queen's and he stalked me all through my first year - finally I had to have Queen's Security bar him from my residence building (he would still get in, though - he had no shame or scruples - and I'd find him drunk and asleep, later beligerent and awake, at my room door). Actually, it makes me feel young and sick just thinking about that whole time. He was awful, but that didn't make it any easier - wait, maybe it made it the SMALLEST bit easier. Gave me lots of  permission to hate him. But I was still embroiled in the old relationship patterns in some ways, and yet I absolutely couldn't be with him anymore, and it was one of the weirdest, wrenchingest things I've ever gone through. [Ed. note: Boy did I learn LOTS from that one. All sorts of things about what I NEVER wanted to go through again, a whole treasure trove of invaluable learning. When girlfriends were being slain left and right through the 1990s with the myriod bullshit partners can sling, I was able to slalom right through. I'd seen (nearly) it all by age 18.]

Categories: Ash

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The Cavalry

Granny Val has arrived and has taken over the business of keeping us alive. Meanwhile I languish in a muscle-relaxant-and-codeine stupor on the couch. Thank you for your invitations!

Categories: Ash

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A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Down From Monday

Let me enumerate a few more of the "funny" things that have happened to me this week:

- Giant rash on my neck. My throat chakra is very angry. Must be all the screaming from which I'm refraining. The rash arrived on Tuesday, a product of the stress and related bullshit surrounding the hard drive crash. It truly looks like all the bile I have inside has been thrown around my neck like a bumpy red scarf. It's AWEsome, trust me.

- IPod connector to the car stereo, broken, for no reason. Part of it still stuck inside the cigarette lighter hole. Not putting my fingers in there, me. So, no Sloaner Songs in the car. Which leads to a lot of complaining by Ms. "Mama First I Want The Chain Song, Then I Want Kids In America, And Then Bad Reputation And Then Soak Up The Sun" herself. I've been singing "Unravel" to her over and over.

- Probably best of all, I threw my back out last night. I have been reduced into a hobbledy, bent-sideways, shuffling-along & groaning cripple. As I type, I am sitting on the couch, a bag of frozen beans on my back. Seems I've badly strained a ligament in my hip. Joy. It's a long weekend, and no one had any proper massage appointments open. At one point in the afternoon I was in such pain that I was hyperventilating and sweating, with the spasms blooming through my torso like contractions. I thought I was floating outside my body. It's been great.

- I'm currently between sizes, with just about nothing to wear. But I did have one pair of jeans I can use to leave the house. Note the past tense. Last night, getting undressed, the top button popped off. I stood there looking at the busted button, twirling on the linoleum. And had to laugh. My last pair of pants? My last pair of pants had to be a sacrifice on the altar of this week, too? Obviously there's no rock too small to turn.

I would say "well, it can't get much worse", but this week the universe has been very creative at finding new and untapped ways to make things worse. It's one of those weeks where I really shouldn't've been leaving the house at all, just hiding under the bed and petting the cats with glazed-over eyes. Would've been better for everyone.

Hey, have I mentioned that Turner's out of town for two weeks?

Categories: Ash

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Intrepid Al

Saturday night. Sloane's asleep. Not yet time to go to bed.

For the record, I have pretty much every letter I ever received, downstairs in "the archive" (more accurately described perhaps as "the shitpile of stuff"). Went down there tonight, pulled out a box at random. Brucio's just back from Victoria, where Grandma, at age 94 or so, has decided to stop eating, enough is enough and so on. As a result, and obviously, I have been thinking in the last few days about mortality, grandparents, last words, fatal decisions, and legacies.

In the boxes I came quickly upon letters from Nanny, who died last year. My epitaph for her is here. She wrote me lots of letters when she could still see. She was, basically, a storyteller, and a good one. She never wrote her stories down. Except for one. For me. "Intrepid Al", about she and Grampa knocking a wasps' nest out of their backyard tree. Because I asked for it, because it was a hilarious oral story. In her later years, after she was blind, I really begged her to memorize this one (as she had for "The Cremation of Sam McGee" to tell at xmas 2000) so I could record her doing it, for posterity/a freelance CBC piece. She just felt like her time had come and gone and wouldn't do it for me.

So I'm down in the boxes tonight, and I see Nanny's handwriting. She hasn't gone completely blind at this point, I can tell by the script. I pull open the first envelope and there it is: Intrepid Al. Since Grampa's in a home in Nelson and can't object, and since it's a great story anyway, here it is.

Intrepid Al, by Gloria Horbow

We had a beautiful warm spring and our crabapple tree bloomed in great profusion. Then came a heavy frost and winter returned for a brief but deadly visit. Clouds hung low and threatening, and when the snow came it mingled with the beautiful blossoms... and both drifted sadly to the ground. Of course, no fruit grew that year and the leaves were sparse.

One noon hour towards the end of July, as I mixed batter for a pancake brunch, my husaband stood at the kitchen window and while lamenting the lack of apples, something in the tree caught his attention. He asked me if I thought it was a large bird or a smal animal. I couldn't tell, so my golden age gladiator went out to have a closer look. He was amazed to find a wasps' nest, about the size of a football, hanging from one fo the lower limbs.

The wasps were busy doing whatever it is that wasps do, and my mate decided then and there that the nest must go, and right now.

In a previous incident, a long pole was the instrument used to rescue his spectacles from a nearby lake and Al decided it was exactly what was needed to dislodge the quonset hut from its perch. As such he drove quickly to our son-in-law's home and returned carrying the 14 foot pole alongside the car with his left hand out the window, whilst he drove, steering with his right hand.

"Now," he said to me, "you're going to old a garbage bag under the nest while I knock it off the branch and into the bag."
   
I looked at him in amazement, but being the dutiful wife I occasionally am, I promptly swathed myself in cap, gloves, and scarves for the occasion. I tightened my pants at the ankles and was ready to go forth with my man to do battle against the enemy wasp encampment.

It was a very hot day and sweat poured out of my from heat, fear, and excitement. My knight stood with his jousting pole at the ready while I squinted up through scarves and persperation at the huge nest just a short three feet above my head.

"All set," I squeaked. Alex barely touched the nest with the end of the pole when out the little buzzers swarmed, blood in their eyes and their stingers in strike position.

Somehow, by instinct I guess, they seemed to know the villain of the piece and most flew straight for Al. Our hero dropped the pole and dashed for the back door, leaving me literally holding the bag. I was terrified, disgusted, and fearing for my life. I threw down the sack and stormed for the back door myself.

"To heck with that job, get yourself another method or another sucker!" As you can guess, I get quite waspish myself at times.

It was then that our adventurer decided to place the garbage bag over the metal frame which usually holds it. Now isn't that brilliant? Next, he placed it carefully in position under the nest, where the wasps had retreated to regroup. I stood at the kitchen window peeling off layers of clothing but still a keen observer of the activities outside.

This time intrepid Al was filled with determination and he gave the nest an almighty whack. It flew off the limb, missed the bag completely, sailed through the air and landed with an ominous thump about four feet from the home wrecker himself.

Now a truth, of which you are unaware, is that this man was a sports champion at his high school in 1937, with medals and trophies to prove it. He won the 220 dash, the 44 sprint, the high hurdles, the low hurdles, and all other field day activities. But I'm writing to tell you here that an unofficial world record in the standing broad jump was set on that 1992 summer day right there in my back yard.

Al cleared the 12 feet between the tree and the door in one gigantic leap. Panting inside, he congratulated himself for remaining unscathed and unstung while the hoardes outside the back door swarmed and rioted in anger, frustration and bewilderment.

But. One of the wily creatures, swifter than his buddies, and with the scent of the enemy filling his being, had managed to get through the door with our Al, and was now circling for an opening to strike. Not without reason, this wasp had recently been elevated to drill sergeant. He knew his job and was determined to repay this villain for the humiliation suffered by his comrades.

Suddenly realizing his peril, the agility of a youth returned to this aging athlete in the back hallway. His arms flailed wildly but his legs moved like well-greased pistons. They propelled him up the stairs, across the kitchen, around through the living and dining rooms, and down the hall into the bedroom. With only one place to escape, Sir Al threw back the comforter and prepared to dive under it. All this activity had loosened the lower section of his baggy armour and a goodly stretch of flesh was now exposed.

I arrived at this point, with a skillet in hand, in time to see the wasp drill into my beloved with all the venom he could command. In the next moment I smacked down with all the strength I could muster. A great howl of pain and outrage nearly lifted the roof off our bungalow. While Al clutched a this posterior I beamed triumphantly while the wasp died the death of a hero on the bedside rug.

Meanwhile, back in the yard, unaware they had been somewhat avenged, the wasps again returned to their poor and broken nest for a council of war. They sensed the breaker of their home would be returning with a stinger longer than theirs. A strategy must be devised for a counter-attack.

While this conference was in progress, my husband, disregarding his wound, decided to strike while the weapon was hot. "Now, I'm going back out there, and you're coming too. I'm going to pick up the nest on the end of the pole and plop it into the bag. You be ready with a twist tie to close the top." Now there's a brave fellow for you! I wasn't about to argue. Knowing his tender condition and consequent frame of mind, I geared up again and meekly followed to do his bidding.

And believe it or not, it worked out exactly according to plan. And not one more sting to show for it! (Of course, the one he did get couldn't be shown, either!)

With the nest safely tucked away, my lord of the wasps decided he would give the yellow jackets a few days to expire completely and then present the trophy nest to the young lads next door. They would take it to show-and-tell when school recommenced in September.

The victor is jubilant and, omitting all personal indignities, tells anyone even remotely interested how he slew the dragon wasps.

In the background, I smile knowingly.

Categories: Ash | Canadiana | Family | Olden Days

Comments [2]

Re: Frankincense & myrrh

I sat in on a silkscreen class today. The class materials list had, as mandatory-for-next-week, listed "frosted Mylar".

Does this not sound similarly weird as the presents the Three Kings brought? As in, when you were a kid. Like, did YOU know what frankincense and myrrh were prior to age 20?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Categories: Ash | Art school

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Gogol

And I'll say right now that when I was at Queen's I took a full-year course in Russian Literature in English. No Russian language training required, mind.

Kal Penn's character in The Namesake, talking about Calcutta rickshaws, running alongside his mom and sister in the seats, who are imploring him to shift over and come join them:

"No, you know... Because, like, being pulled by another human being is feudal, and exploitative, and... I don't want to be part of something like that."

Oh Kal Penn. Oh, we've all been there, princess. A few years of undergrad and it's all kinds of brutal to make the people work FOR you in the "third world".

Kal, you may have been cute when you were confined to the Toronto suburbs to film Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, but let me tell you this: if you have 2.5 tonnes of luggage as the average traveller does, and you need to go even 600m to the train station at, say, 6am (as Turner and I might have needed to have done, per se), and there's no such thing as a motorized vehicle to help you, you BET you'll take the emaciated man and his cycle-rickshaw to help you make your non-refundable booking on time.

No questions asked, and all that socialism training out the window, too.

Categories: Ash | India | Wurldliness

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I Am Legend

We went to see I Am Legend the other day. I'd been fascinated with this movie since the trailers started appearing in mid-November. We'd recently returned from New York and the clip of the Brooklyn Bridge bombed by fighter jets was a jarring image.

Sometime around then, though, we were up late watching tv and on came the most disturbing commercial I've ever seen. A small girl, about four years old. Walking through a post-apocalyptic suburban landscape all alone. Black smoke rising in the distance. Tinkly music playing. Cognitive dissonance to the extreme. It was for a video game. It scared me right down to the bones. I was so freaked out that I had to stay up for another hour, watching Blade of all things, to get my mind off it.

I really can't see scary movies, they're too much for me. But I wanted to see I Am Legend. So I researched the hell out of it. I watched every trailer available online and scanned through all the interviews. I was going to get the book from the library, but then I found an early draft of the current screenplay online, and read the whole thing. Then waited a few weeks to let all the key plot details sink in. By the end of the holiday season, I was ready.

I wore a hat to hide behind, I won't lie. I knew what was coming for the most part, and that helped a lot. I'll tell you that they definitely improved the ending from the screenplay I read, though I won't spoil it for you. I walked out of the theatre... satisfied. Not exactly enthusiastic, but my curiosity and interest were sated. The whole premise is terrifying, and they do an excellent job of employing the tension.

We went home to Brucio's house in Douglasdale, had a family dinner. I fell asleep on the bed, singing to Sloane. Turner came down later and we crawled into bed properly.

Then at about 4am I woke up. Just, woke up. Thinking about the movie. Lay there in the dark for about five minutes, trying to get back to sleep. Sloane woke, came to bed with us. I lay there some more. Thinking thinking thinking about the movie. Thinking about how the culture of apocalypse is increasingly portraying the end of the world as an increasingly-not-so-distant future. Thinking about self-fulfilling prophesies in mass culture. Thinking about Bhutto's assassination, thinking about military research, thinking about all the Christmas consumption and rainforest timber from West Africa and built-in cappuccino makers. And thinking about that little girl walking all alone in the golden hazy light down that devastated street in an ADVERTISEMENT for a video game.

I had a shower, couldn't sleep. Went upstairs and read for a while, nearly falling out of the chair I was so tired. But couldn't sleep. Went back to bed, no good. Up to the livingroom couch, where I dozed until Brucio came out to stomp around the kitchen at 5am. Left for the basement couch, where I remained semi-stuporous but fitful until lights came on, people looking for the Thomas dvds. Finally I went back to bed, where I fell asleep, finally, for real.

Whereupon I dreamed of an eclipse.

Categories: Ash

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2007 Year In Review

I learned and re-learned some lessons this past year. Wouldn't it be great if we knew it all at 18? Think of the world = oyster situation. Amazing.




On metabolic regulation: Remember to take your damn thyroid meds. Yes, every damn day.

On owning cats: One day you have a cat, the next day he's eaten by coyotes. So you grieve, and pull it together and get another cat. And then one day that cat is run over and you find yourself digging a second pet grave beside the house. So you reflect on your animal track record, but decide you still want to be a cat owner, and you get two more cats. And Sloane says, "Mama, please may we not let these new cats die?" Heh. We'll do our best.

On getting what I want: Patience and humility have done wonders for my win ratio. From photo assignments to getting Sloane into the right playschool, shutting up and being polite and proceeding with grace have been such amazing lubricants this year. Shoulda learned this one at age 20.




On getting fired for other people's bullshit: Sometimes you get fired for other people's bullshit, nothing you can do.

On parties: People will not come at the appointed time. The best people stay late, but the worst'll hang around until then, too. Exits define your attendance, particularly if you stomp the shrubbery on your way out. If you're serving mulled wine and beer, some friend-of-a-friend will still march in and ask for a good scotch straightaway (and we will give it to them). And we'd still love a few more invitations to other people's parties, please... a reminder to publications and corporate friends: freelancers have no Christmas parties or schmancy fundraisers to go to unless you invite them to yours.



On accounting people at various publications: People will take as long as inhumanly possible to pay you.

On finances: It's good to be able to mean it when you say, "Well, if we have to sell the car and the house, I can live with that."

On funding: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.




On freelancing: Turner - "You will sometimes do your best work for free, you will sometimes do the most work for the least pay. The tradeoff is that you are your own master. ...Most of the time." September 26/07

On continuing education: As it turns out, I'm a complete obsessive, bent on perfection. If only Farokh could see me now (Farokh Afshar, my M.Sc. advisor, 1947-2007, peace be upon you).

On parenting: There are tough days. There are days when you are so flayed and raw and every smile and moment of concentrated attention is a huge effort. We want to keep her away from sugar, and tv, and crappy plastic toys, and the moronic cult of the fairy princess pervading the under-six crowd. But grandparents will still give her Smarties for breakfast, and Thomas the train dvds are incredibly helpful in moderation. So you try to find the middle way and hope to keep the scarring to a minimum.

Also on parenting: We are such good parents, way better than the rest of the parents out there. Also better than our own parents, of course.



On Sloane: She's the best. The talking, my god the talking. Being able to see into her little 2 year old mind has been such an amazing blessing every day. Even her temper tantrums are the best. And the hair is getting fabulous! When she hugs my head and says into my ear, "Ma-mee, Ma-mee, Ma-mee!" in this purposely hilarious pitched voice, I know she's going to have a great sense of humour and inner dialogue.

On attending weddings: Still a good idea, particularly when you've arranged babysitting.

On photography: Everyone wants to have their picture taken, even the ones who say they don't. Creating a meaningful photograph is one of the greatest gifts you can give a person. When they're ninety-nine and in a home and the caregivers ask for a photo from when they were young and beautiful, you bet they'll choose one of mine.

On sending out photos I've taken of people, having promised to send them copies: Managing expectations does wonders. Once I started saying, "Don't expect to receive these for quite a while," people were more grateful when they finally arrived. Take note McConnell Reunion-Goers, you still won't get your photos for quite a while.




On drinking: Sourpuss shots have their time and place.

On politicians: Disappointing liars, 98% of the time. I'm cautiously optimistic about the other two.

On marriage: I'd still rather be poor with Turner than rich with anyone else.



On Turner: I had this awesome and terrible realization about Turner. He is well aware of my many many failings, my ego, the judgemental edges. You think marriage is about loving someone so much. But the worst of it is that you have the love of someone else. Turner loves me despite everything he knows, and in the face of this I am appalled, and thunderously grateful.

On building community and having good friends: Pick the good people who love us back. Get rid of everyone else. Life is too short.

Also on friends: Sometimes people drift away. There're all sorts of reasons. I try not to take it personally, I figure the soul mates will resurface eventually.

On changing the world: It's exhausting. When you can't even convince your family to recycle their cans and bottles, the uphill battle seems that much more uphill. But boy, you take pride in your work, and you know you're on the side of good. Call it sanctimonious if you like, but it feels good to work hard.

On holidays: There are no holidays.

Categories: Ash | Married Life | Mom-ness | Photography | Sloane | Turner | Work work work

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I'm A Real Photographer!

Okay. Like, remember I took a course in the spring semester? Art History? And I completely crazed out and became one of those lunatic mature students and ended up with the highest mark in the class? And swore that I'd never take another spring course again? Yeah. All that's true. But I did come away with the impression that I needed more out of ACAD. The Alberta College of Art & Design clearly had a thing or two to teach me. I might not know it ALL, see.

So at the end of August I dutifully trooped down to ACAD and, after a few glitches, received an official dispensation from the Head of the Photo department to sign up for MADT 305: Photography. A FALL course. For the record, let us all bow down before