Definitely Dying, Possibly Dead

Sick here, sick sick sick.

Some kind of terrible awful no-good very bad flu has descended upon Chez Bristowe Turner.

I was down for the count by 10am yesterday, and we got a call mid-day to come fetch Sloaner from playschool after she'd barfed all over her naptime bed and blankets. But she seemed mostly fine by the time she got home and essentially scored a free day of videos on the couch, much to a toddler's understandable delight.

I've been hit a bit worse - ok much worse. Rolling-around-in-agony-type worse. Turner has had to wait on me hand and foot (literally - I had to beg him to rub my legs at 12:30am last night because they were throbbing and terrible). I woke this morning feeling a great deal better, so after Sloane headed off to school I went around opening windows and lighting candles, something my old friend Jenn Foley Foster used to do; her Cherokee grandmother believed it burned the sickness out of the house. So I'm on the mend, but not yet 100% - not yet able to eat anything, for example.

Post-Freezie tongue comparison.

 

Categories: Family | Friends | House

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Those Were The Days

At this point in my life everyone who knows me knows I hate forwarded "funny" emails. So the ones people DO bite the bullet and send (risking The Wrath) are generally excellent. Today I received one about preparing for parenting, which had many hilarious points, but this part I loved:

Lesson 8 
> 1. Hollow out a melon. 
> 2. Make a small hole in the side. 
> 3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from
> side to side. 
> 4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to
> spoon them into the 
> Swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. 
> 5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone. 
> 6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just
> throw up in the air. 

Although Sloane successfully feeds herself these days, I've been in the mind of parenting little babies of late - friends down the street have a four-month-old into which Turner and I managed to get five spoonfuls of orange stuff last night 
using the above method. And later this afternoon we welcome Keitha and Astrid of the House Of Hot Sauce for our first ever sleepover-with-kids. I have been practicing my re-starting-the-propellor-mid-flight sounds for the last few days.

Also I quite loved this:

> Lesson 7 
> Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the
> closest thing you can 
> find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an
> excellent choice).
> If 
> you intend to have more than one child, then
> definitely take more than
> one 
> goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the
> goats out of your 
> sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Definitely take more than one goat. Beautiful. We used to employ the trusty buy-the-deli-counter-sushi-and-crack-it-open-immediately,-surreptitiously-feed-to-child-whilst-sprinting-through-store method of getting groceries, ourselves. Not 
working so much these days, so I can really relate to the goat analogy. 

Categories: Friends | Mom-ness

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Happy Easter, Old Skool

For several (...okay, many, many) years, I've wanted to do psankye on Easter. I'm 1/4 Ukrainian, but my grandfather being... male, "my heritage" mainly manifested in periodic anecdotes about language loss and Ukrainian flags dangling from the rearview mirror. Mostly not so much with the arts and crafts. Especially when I was growing up in Winnipeg, I'd watch the neighbour kids head off to dance lessons once a week with flowers in their hair and be jealous.

So, yeah, it only took me six years since I moved back to Calgary, but I finally finagled my way into being invited to do psankye at Alexis' parents' house. All under the guise of teaching Sloane about her heritage, of course.


Our fabulous host, Christina Bahry, shows off the various (indelible! and inedible!) special Ukrainian easter egg dyes.

This was the post-holiday email I sent to Alexis about the event:

"Your parents were total saints about the fact that we brought a toddler into their house, and proceeded to engross ourselves in an activity involving concentration and indelible dye for several hours, obliviously leaving them to tag-team babysit Sloane. Meanwhile we drank up three pots of their coffee, smashed eggs on the floor, and yammered on about our own blathering ideas... after which they basically had no choice but to feed us lunch. Not only did your mom pull a huge crayon-marker set from out of nowhere in a very timely fashion, but she also spirited up a surprise: one fully remembered-and-wrapped-plus-card birthday present for the wee girl. ...In what I can only assume was Easter-inspired delirium, your parents suggested we make it an annual thing and I readily agreed before they could change their minds."

We made three eggs between us adults and carted them around all weekend, to the various Easter stuff we did, to show them off and brag about how authentic our Easter experience had been this year. Ya, late-bloom Ukrainian crafthood in my mid-30s: that's my story.



The red one is Margo's - widely regarded as the best effort this year - simple, beautiful. Mine's the way-too-complex one in front (I think that black-and-yellow crisscross circle bit at the front there is supposed to be the traditional 'sunflower' pattern... yeesh), and Turner's is that one in back, showing off the traditional repeating patterns to best effect.

I really enjoyed the whole artistic element of the psankye stuff and was only half-joking when, after Christina presented me with a bunch of supplies to take home, that we'd have the 2009 event at our house. Of course, whereupon I'd show off the 7000+ practice eggs I'd done in the meantime... In my vision, I've put up high-near-the-ceiling shelves along every wall to display my many many creations, and the house has a not unpleasantly pervasive eggy smell. Also, my hair is in wrapped braids & I'm pulling a tractor through the kitchen, but nevermind...



After approximately 8.5 minutes of her "heritage", Sloane wandered around the house touching stuff and generally proving that a chinese checkers game and an ornamental wood tea set are waaaaay better real toys for kids than all the Barbies & bits of plastic "toy" junk out there all put together. Also, we showed her the very adorable communion photo of Auntie Alexis on the wall, which everyone enjoyed.


* Please note, some egg-zageration (har!) has been employed in this post for comedic effect.

Categories: Friends | Sloane | Ukrainian

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The Rest Of The New York Shots

I spent my lovely birthday evening uploading, naming and captioning our NYC pictures. Hurrah!

Although I ran out of steam to fix and fuss with every image, the total shortlist of the trip is now up on Flickr. I recommend the set & slideshow, here.

Categories: Friends | Sloane

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NYC on Flickr

There's lots more to come, but the first of the NYC photos, from the Coolpix (low tech), are now up on Flickr, here.

Categories: Book Tour | Friends | India

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Ferrebe!?

Ah. You see, much of my adult sense of humour has been reinforced and justified by the (very few) episodes of Father Ted that I've seen. But I do certainly owe my introduction to same to one Alice Ferrebe of the UK. The same marvellous woman visited our very own John Johnston here in Calgary just in the last weeks and it was absolutely splendid to see her again.

Apparently she's never had any inkling - WHATSOEVER - to visit Canada. Pshaw! Our part in making Alice feel at home in our land was to put a best foot forward in the form of a Thai curry dinner (made entirely by Turner. Sloane and I sat around and ate bon-bons on the trampoline).

Alice (Dr. Ferrebe of an esteemed university in Liverpool to you) is one of those grand people. ...You know? Much like our John J. So it's logical that they would've found each other way back (in the late 80s! Blimey!) at the University of Edinburgh. And our great luck to have met her through John.

In any case, she was a superb guest. As in, she has great stories. One of which (our hands-down favourite) involved Alice, as a teenager, looking through her parents' impressive collection of books. And thereupon noticing that many of the older titles have undeniable, indented, disfiguring scratches down their spines. Scratches? On all these books? How weird! she sez to herself, and trots off to investigate.

Whereupon she was unceremoniously informed by her parents that, as a very young toddler, Alice was herself obsessed with their books (prescient of her later occupational calling? ...I says 'yep'), and that her intense interest took the form of scratching, rodent-like, at their spines.

Alice was kind enough to re-enact the interest thusly:



John Johnston and Turner, feigning disbelief:



(Here we see "disbelief" portrayed with JJ's signature "Come On! Bring it!" gesture, and by Turner as pretend apathy.)

Categories: Friends

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Grateful

Last Monday evening Turner and Sloane left for Nova Scotia and I was left here in Calgary by myself. This was by design. I needed a period of me-time, it had been decided and planned months ago.

I missed Sloane and Turner this week, but I have been using the time alone (the first alone time in more than 2.5 years) very wisely. Among the things I was grateful for, this week:

- My bicycle. Such a lovely and constant companion these last seven days. It totally deserves a tune-up, I realize. But I toodled my wobbledy way through the traffic every day to avoid the horrendous Stampede parking fees around town, and got enough exercise in the process to stave off totally gaining the 20 pounds I deserved to put on this week (I went off "the Plan" when Turner left and this week even had PIZZA. And REAL TEA. And a GELATO. And so on).

- The band at Fionna McSomethingsomething (the Sheraton hotel downtown bar)'s willingness to play our yelled-out 'requests' of "RIGHT UP YOUR KILT" (Wild Rover) and "AND SHE WAS" (Black Velvet Band), and their amazing, miraculous, and fortuituously perfect timing on "Home For A Rest", which pulled Victoria and I out of the bathroom to madly pseudo-stepdance our hearts out, channelling the old Clark Hall Pub spirit.

- Sourpuss shots. Thank you, David Friese, for introducing these into our world. Far too tasty & dangerous!



- The weather. During the week it was 28C every day. I ran around outdoors working and carousing in the improbably humid air, loving every second. Then today, when I woke finally exhausted and worn out from the week, it was 14C. Perfect timing for turning on the furnace.

- Chic Studios. Amy Nicole of Chic Studios and I have been working together to cross-promote since December and I've really valued her amazing and ultra-positive business sense. A few weeks ago we hammered out the details of turning her hallway into a gallery that I would curate. This past week this has become a reality. Please visit the gallery at 100 - 850, 16 Ave SW (lower level). This is directly across the park from 17th Ave where the kids juggle and people hang out with their dogs in front of Mount Royal Village. You know you go past there every week, dawg. Drop in to see our hip shit on the walls.

- My house. Though I usually spend a lot of quiet brain time wishing my house had higher ceilings, or a second storey, or a back extension, or a rose window for the attic, or a properly sealed front walk... etcetera, this week I found in me a huge amount of genuine and unconditional gratitude for my house as it is. I love our proximity to downtown, I love the hollyhocks that are finally sprouting in the front yard, I love our freshly painted croft shed. I love how the house is cool even when it's roasting outside. I love that we have windows above our bed that let in the fresh early-morning air. I love that we don't live in a show home, so that our messy lives with our toddler and cat and million magazines can spill all over everywhere and it's okay. Plus, we live close enough to Stampede for the nightly fireworks to rattle the windows, so we've got that going for us, which is nice.

- And of course, the peoples! Among the peoples I need to thank for this amazing week of amazing fun whist being amazingly un-traditionallly-encumbered are: Chris Turner (my spouse and father of my child) and Sloane (said child) for getting out of Dodge without complaint; Alexis Bahry for finding a lot of really fun things to invite me to; Karen Krull and Victoria Coffin for calling and yelling into the answering machine, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TONIGHT???"; Bruce Bristowe and Peggy Bumanis for inviting me to the RCA Stampede party; Moonira Rampuri, Marcello DiCintio, Jenny Saarinen, Garth Kennedy, Jewels, Maryam Nabavi, Heather and Trevor for including me in their awesome, I-was-invited-last-year-but-couldn't-come Kensington House Crawl ('07)... what a wicked Georgian-toasting, bocce-playing, Reefer-Madness-watching, and piratey-minus-the-intended-eye-patches-ARR-me-mateys time was had by all! Thanks to my neighbour Rob Dermedy who was 100% cheerful about lending his electrical skillz to the Chic Studios gallery despite the repeated delays and logistical glitches. And of course three cheers to John Johnston, David Friese, and Bruce Manning, plus the guy Karen brought to the Sundowner. Thank you all for including me in your Stampede plans this year. (Marky Mark-Mark, we'll see you next year, yo!)

p.s. I read TWO BOOKS this week!!

Categories: Ash | Calgary | Friends | House | Work work work

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Adam's Pre-Nuptial Burger Quest

Our friend Adam Pasquella, oft-known as the writer AGP, is on a quest. A burger quest. Bound by no constraints other than geography, he seeks the perfect burger in Toronto.

He's gone to Metafilter: http://ask.metafilter.com/64056/Torontos-Best-Burger

And he's set up his own Burger-Quest Blog: http://theburgerquest.blogspot.com/

Can you help our seeker?

Categories: Friends | Ontario

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Our Amazing Toronto Digs

We have this friend named Ian and he's from Toronto. You've heard me speak about our stays at his Coach House in the Annex. Well, his parents have a modest place a few blocks away, on Avenue Road, and they're out of town at the moment. Ian asked his parents if we could stay at their apartment while we were in Toronto for the wedding this weekend. They said yes.

I just need to tell you that when I opened the curtains in our room (the guest bedroom, equipped with two very proper single beds, which were, of course, very lovely and completely suitable for our first-ever big weekend away from home), and I saw the majestic spread of the Annex laid out at my feet and the undulating roll of Avenue Road unfurling northward, well, I literally squealed and jumped up and down and clapped my hands. As someone who lived in Toronto at a maximum altitude of the second storey of buildings, I must say that the seventeenth storey provides an amazing perspective.

It was even better than this. Trust me.

If you are familiar with Toronto, you may know this building - the Prince Arthur Residences in Yorkville. Built about six years ago on some of the most valuable real estate in Canada, from the moment they broke ground it was clear the builders were going to do it up right. It's fancy. As in, the doors open themselves. There's fresh flowers everywhere and a huge fireplace lobby. There's men who park your car, and who smile and remember your name when you come in. FANCY, I tells ya.



That's Turner in the foreground, headed for the archway.

My new foray into Art History notwithstanding (will post soon about this course I'm taking, and the toll upon my beleaguered brain as a result), I wouldn't've been able to pick out the Miros in the hallway if Turner hadn't tipped me off.


Turner examines the fine brushwork typical of this Spanish artist's "black lines" per... wait a minute, don't listen to me, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

The view from the other direction: looking south we see Lake Ontario in the far distance, and in the bottom left, a view of the new Daniel Liebeskind crystal jutting out of the now-hidden venerable gothic renaissance Royal Ontario Museum. On the subject of said crystal addition, Turner hates it. In theory I hate it too, but in practice I found myself standing there looking at it and realizing that although it was poorly conceived and badly designed, now that it's mostly erected I kind of like it. I think a part of Turner's love for me died when I admitted this to him, but he hid it as best he could.



And looking west: Ian's Coach House is down there in the trees, at far right. I was trying to convince him that we should set up one of those tin-can-telephones, but he didn't go for it.



It was a great place to hang our hats for the weekend. Thanks so much, Ian, and thanks so much, Ian's parents!

Categories: Friends | Ontario

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Weekend in Toronto

Well, we're back. The much-anticipated weekend in Toronto for Beau & Julia's wedding didn't disappoint! There're plenny of stories, but for now on Flickr, a taste.

And Bauer's photos are in a slideshow here (includes some of me in my dress - something my shots missed for some reason...)

Turner & Beau, at the Friday pre-wedding mingle bash at the Duke on Yonge.



Deans, Turner, Adam, at the Academy of Spherical Arts, our Saturday venue.



Ash & Bauer, chitty-chatting at the reception.

Categories: Friends | Ontario

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And A Birthday Portrait for Mr. John Johnston As Well

I love the halo effect (created by a lamp on the wall, behind)!

Categories: Friends

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Happy Birthday to John J, John B, and Ainsley!

Happy Birthday to my brother and sister, John & Ainsley. Yes, they're twins. 31 years ago they were born at McKellar Hospital in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Last night we went out to McKenzie Towne (35km each way - we love to pester the suburban family members about the commute) to attend John's birthday dinner.


Dah spread, including a lovely pinot, lamb chops, and smashed potatoes.


Probably John's all-time fave dish, tomato and boccacini salad (with five kinds of fresh basil, grown by Fiona herself!).

Uncle John-John and Sloaner (the latter all hepped up on the special Cherry Sugar Bomb chocolate bars Fiona imported from Australia, special for John's birthday)



John Bristowe, birthday portrait. May 2006


And happy birthday also to John Johnston! 37 years old! (Photos to come tonight - we're taking John out for dinner to celebrate his day!)

Whoot - happy day to you folks!

Categories: Family | Friends

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The Book Meme

My first meme tag! Ahh!

The Redhead tagged me for this book meme: Grab the book nearest you. Turn to page 123. Go down to the fifth line. Type out the next three sentences.

Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader
From the essay, "Jello Biafra Is No Cretin"
'The question is, how many of these did we ever want or need beyond keeping certain winos out of the gutter by sticking 'em up on stages with guitars in their hands and letting them bang and yowl way to their hearts' content. I think that the true musical originality and importance of the DKs [Dead Kennedys] can be deduced from the conversation among four of their fans in the lobby on the way out, wherein they absolutely could not figure out whether the band had done one of their favourite DK anthems or not. Then there is the matter of politics.'

I enjoy the cred this book might reflect upon my person, but alas it would be second-hand glam. In fact the Lester Bangs Reader is Turner's book, perched on the basement toilet here across from my temporary office quarters - 'tis the season to be ousted from your regularly-scheduled office by your in-laws, hence the basement office digs. (Happily "ousted", of course! Three cheers for John & Margo, visiting for Christmas, the second year in a row!) That said, I read cool books too, just not many about rock & roll. I leave that to DJ Turner.

I tag Thaba, and John Johnston, and Miss Viki.

Categories: Friends

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India On The Brain

I'm pining for the fjords. Or for the "Relax" stoplights. ...Something.

First off, I should come clean and tell you that for the last five months or so I've been scheming to get myself to India again this year. Yes, again. Tamil Nadu in February just didn't sate my India thirst this year, I'm afraid, the Chennai airport bathrooms notwithstanding. ...Mainly it's that Angad and Tara are getting married in what will certainly be the awesomest most Punjabi-and-Jewish-est wedding ever, anywhere, on earth, and the festivities begin at the end of November and go clear on through the first week of December. I want to go to that wedding. So. Much.

But we's broke. Most people don't pay us in any kind of "prompt" manner. Although we have done our work and people rave lovely feedback at us and we've invoiced them long ago, many decide, for example, that they're going to pay until June next year. And if we don't like it, tough titties (you know who you are). Imagine working, but some arbitrary and unexpected decision suddenly sets your paycheque back 9 months. I'm not talking about being paid poorly. I'm talking about NOT BEING PAID for months and months. A perfect shitstorm of unethical jackass behaviour of this sort from various people has set us back tremendously this year. Even now we're owed more than $10K in outstanding invoices. Can you dig that? I can't. It's beyond me to dig, at this point. All I know is that we have a new toilet flushing policy to conserve water (the ol' "if it's yellow, let it mellow/if it's brown, flush it down"), and we're on our fifteenth straight day of rice & beans. A few weeks ago I took some books on Quaker frugal living out of the library to look for ideas.

Anyway, recently I realized I probably wasn't going to be flying out to Angad's wedding at the end of the month. Paying the mortgage and the daycare bill and keeping up with our car payments alone has been impossible without some outside assistance (thank you thank you, you too know who you are). Soooooo.... yeah. It's really NO time to be putting a couple thousand dollars on the credit card.

But this month the whole universe seems to be conspiring to make me live and breathe India all the time. Thaba and Phet are currently in Delhi scoping out their new digs and I'm following them around the city through Thab's update emails, sighing as we whiz through Jor Bagh and shop at Fab India. John Johnston is on assignment in Bangalore, and I'm following his southern India adventures via his blog. Then I got a gig with a lovely prominent Ismaili Calgarian running for mayor next year, and he and I have been singing along to Kuch Kuch Hota Hai during the photo shoots and comparing notes on where to eat in Old Delhi (my vote, as always, goes to Karim's near Jama Masjid). Our friends Bauer and Karen are finally in India (Varanasi-Delhi-Rajasthan-south) after nine months on the road in Asia, and we've been emailing back and forth, comparing stories and travel advice. Then Ian Connacher & Cryptic Moth brought me on as the production coordinator for the upcoming India leg of the film schedule (check out their recent stuff out in the Pacific ocean aboard a Greenpeace ship, here: www.crypticmoth.com), so I spend my evenings chasing cool plastics leads on the Subcontinent, putting in long-distance calls to lovely erudite Indian friends-of-friends to get ideas and suggestions, and to book them onto the doc's itinerary.

And of course there's Angad's wedding. Let's face it, you get to attend very few great, grand weddings in life. You know, the sort where you look at the couple and think, YEAH. These are soulmates. Aside from the hoopla of this mixed-race mixed-religion wedding that's going to involve chartered busses to bring everyone from Part 1 (Chandigarh) to Part 2 (Delhi), I love Angad, and everything about he and Tara has been right, and good, and solid from the word go. I am so proud of him and pleased for him. I am grieving not being able to be there. It's been good to feel so connected to India again these last few weeks, but it's also just so tantalizingly close.

Back to work, Khabi Khushi Khabi Gham in the headphones...

Categories: Ash | Friends | India

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Quotes

In an attempt to cheer myself the hell up, I present the Best Quotes of the last week or so...

We barged in on Beau and Julia on Saturday morning for an impromptu drop-by visit at their Pape St. digs. Set ourselves up in the livingroom and demanded to be entertained. We were not disappointed. Beau is telling us about how, as a child, he loved the smell of coffee. So, this one time, he actually chewed up a couple of coffee beans to see how they'd taste.

Ash: How'd that work out for you, there?

Beau: [totally deadpan] ...It was disappointing. It's like when you drink the vanilla extract? And it totally DOESN'T taste like vanilla ice cream or baking cookies? Yeah... 

 

We had some people over to Connacher's Coach House on Labour Day Monday, to hang out an' shit. Turner was the dj, spinning the tunes, standing at the stereo wearing his Singapore tshirt, which features the merlion, the accepted national symbol of Singapore. Various conversations were going on between different people around the room, but it suddenly became clear that Angela Pacini and AGP were completely convulsed in laughter over to one side of the living room.

Turner: What. What the hell. Are you laughing at me?

Adam and Angela: [speechless, laughing]

Turner: Whaaaat!?

AGP: We were just discussing what exactly Singapore is saying when they make their shirts to feature vomitting, lion-headed pineapples.

Turner: ...I could provide you with a very rational explanation of this tshirt, but I think I'll just leave it. Yours is way better.

Usually the (one and only) merlion, which fronts Singapore's giant harbour, is spewing out a stream of water. (Hence the "vomitting" idea, above; shown on Turner's shirt.) This photo, stolen from Google, was taken during an inexplicable... drought? ...I dunno. But you get the "lion-headed pineapple" bit from this, right?

Categories: Friends | Ontario

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Welcome, Samuel!

Bunked down in a lovely Lisbon private hospital, Sean and Pepe were blessed first with what sounds like The Greatest Labour Of All Time, after which they welcomed their son, Samuel Traca Nazerali. Hurray! Great work, folks!

Proud dad, Sean Nazerali.

I don't know anyone who looked this good after giving birth! (Personally, I looked (and felt) like I'd been run over by a truck full of chicken guts.)

 

Categories: Friends

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Cryptic Moth In Flight

Many of you know the handsome and fine man we call Ian Connacher. Do you know that we're staying at his place in Toronto? Yes, we are. A lovely, lovely place it is, too. A sanctuary for us in the city.

But where is Ian these days that the Turner-Bristowessesses can arrive en masse with our bags and camera equipment and travel playpen and Green Eggs & Ham books, and just set up shop in his Annex coach house? Well well well.

Did you know Ian's off shooting what will likely be the most important film ever made about plastic? He and the trusty Gad have spent the last half year and more circumnavigating the globe filming all the newest and greatest and most inspiring innovations in the world of plastics: research, applications in agriculture and infrastructure, recycling, impacts. Australia, Japan, Europe (Turner and Ian hooked up for some co-"research" in Germany in May), the US... I think India's up next, later in the fall.

Our Toronto peeps screening Alphabet Soup, the plastics documentary Ian made last year; the frontrunner for his current project that documented the accumulation of plastic in the Pacific ocean. From left: Turner, Beau Levitt, Angela Pacini, Adam Pasquella (aka "AGP"), Julia Chan, Joey DeVilla, Wendy Koslow, Anne Yourt, and the mysterious... "Paul".  

It's been in my blogroll for a while, but as we're here ensconced at chez Connacher, and since their blog has also recently hit a superb stride, I thought I'd point you in the Cryptic Moth direction.

Live, from the front lines of real change, check it out: http://www.crypticmoth.com/blog.html

 

Categories: Friends | GeoHope

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Welcome, Seung Yi!

Hey hey! This here is the post that welcomes Thaba and Phet's daughter, Seung Yi Savanh Sayo (SyS2: Sistoo!) - born August 28th sometime around 5:30am in Toronto.

Ciad Mile Failte to Seung Yi! Congratulations to Thab and Phet, and a big Yee-Ha to her big brother, Ji Hong!!

Our love to you from the folks in Antigonish this day!

With love from Ashley, Turner, the Sloaner, Gamma Margo, Gampa JT, and Uncle Ron!!

 

Categories: Friends

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Keep On The Sunny Side

You know that song? It's on the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Yeah, that one. Get it in your mind:

Get on the sunny side, always on the sunny side; Keep on the sunny side of life!

It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way; if we'll keep on the sunny side of life...

That's it, you've got it. Now - speed it up, just a little. Picture your old record player, and that switch that would let you (for what reason, I dunno) speed the sound up about 33%. Just that much. Enough to sound manic, and wild-eyed rocking-back-and-forth giddy, possibly cracked.

...Riiiight. There you go. That's where I'm at today. Right. There. Right now.

 

A Matter Of Tardy Arrival

So. Last night we were at Marcello and Moonira's wedding, and it was great fun and we were damn lucky to get invites, having just met them this year, really. It was at the Cochrane Ranchehouse, and it was beautiful and fun and we cried and ate and danced and handed out bindis and bashed Rob Payne and posed for photos and ate our weight in cheese, and generally had a super time. And I was even the designated driver, so there was very little booze involved in my version of events. (See, kids? You don't have to drink to have a good time - let this be a lesson to you all.)

But anyway, we were a bit late in leaving. Like, not late exactly, but we had juuuuuust enough time. Having been married so recently (2 years ago) myself, I remember pulling up to the hall, mad as hell that I was twenty minutes late. Every wedding I've ever attended started waaaaaay late of the posted time, and always because of the bride. And I was fricken DETERMINED that that wouldn't be me. I don't know why I staked a portion of my anxiety about my wedding day on whether or not I made it to the hall on time, but I did.

In any case, as Uncle Leo (who was driving) pulled up to the hall, Uncle Larry came down the steps and opened the door of the car for me. As he helped me out, two friends from Calgary scurried past us, obviously just arriving. "Hiiiiiii! You look beautiful!" they gushed, as they grabbed my hands and beamed. And - uncharitable me - all I could think was, "Get in the fucking hall! I'm twenty minutes late! If I'd been on time you would've walked in right as the ceremony was ending? What the fuck?" But I grinned and hugged them and was like, Yay! You're here! even though inside I was being a judgemental asshole.

So. Before I was married I always arrived early mainly because I didn't know you could arrive "on time". And now I arrive early because I never want to be those idiots arriving late - and lucky - that weddings don't start on time.

 

The Babysitters: An Introduction

Now. It's the World Cup, right? And Brucio just installed a whole home theatre thing, specially for the occasion of the World Cup. We're talking a ridiculously giant 9 foot x 15 foot screen, a whole projection unit (which apparently requires some kind of crazy burns-out-in-a-few-months $1000 bulb), and blackout curtains that render the entire basement completely dark. Like, black as the dead of night in a tomb. I went to Douglasdale to check it all out, and completely barked my shins on the stairmaster in the gloom, after ill-advisedly coming in through the back door and, hence, directly from the direct sunlight into the Pit Of World Cup Darkness. Brucio and Leo, deep into the Poland vs. Ecuador game, didn't even notice me arrive. To call my male relatives "soccer fans" would be to understate things to a grotesque degree, is what I'm saying.

Brucio was our first shift of babysitting for yesterday. We needed to leave for Cochrane by 2:30pm at the latest, in order to make the ceremony. But because our departure fell right in the middle of the afternoon game, we had to deliver Sloane down to the guys glued to the tube down in Douglasdale. Brucio sez to me on Friday, "Lookit Ashley, for the next month it's the World Cup and that's my first priority. But my granddaughter TOTALLY comes second, like, above everything else. She's completely the focus. Except the World Cup, because it comes first. ...So bring her over and she can watch the Argentina - Cote d'Ivoire game, but I can't come get her, because halftime is only about fifteen minutes and it's not enough for the round trip to your house."

I guess you can't fault someone when they're that clear on their priorities. Or, perhaps more to the point, when you don't have any other options for babysitters than your photophobic Calgary football hooligan relatives.    

So in the end I sent Turner to deliver Sloane, and I stayed home to write out the bedtime routine instructions and set out Sloane's dinner for our second babysitting shift, the incomparable and beautiful Alexis Bahry. (...Ladies and gentlemen, Alexis Bahry. Thank you.) Also to do my toenail polish. Because if there's one thing that my old friend Jenn Foley taught me, it's that you can't go to a wedding without polish to match your outfit. Which I had, so it was applied, and I flapped around the house finishing my hair, packing the wedding bag (camera, tums, eyeliner, money, extra underwear, and toothbrush & toothpaste), and writing out the gift cheque. And getting increasingly stressed about the time. I wanted to arrive on time. Things were not looking good.

 

Just Under The Wire

Turner finally made it home, changed into his wedding gear, and we roared over to pick up Chris and Meike in Crescent Heights. And then made our plodding way out of the city, confounded at every intersection by the worst timing in traffic lights that I've. Ever. Had. We took the lesser of the two routes (Koentges totally suggested a better way and I overruled him), and I did some serious speeding, not to mention a ballsy passing-at-the-last-minute-before-the-exit of a huge truck on our way into Cochrane. And we roared down the hill to the Ranchehouse in a cloud of henshit and small stones, ran across the parking lot, and, panting, signed the register, with (barely) enough leeway to pee before the ceremony started, nearly on time. Folks, my nerves were shot before "Hello".

We had a great evening, but I was sober, and we left for home reeeeeeeally late. I never quite wholly calmed down from the frantic driving-to-Cochrane adventure, so I was nitpicking at Turner the whole night, uncharacteristic behaviour for us (at least, in public). We got home around quarter to three, fell head-first into bed, and slept. I dreamed about biting my hands, and clocks, and general anxiety. I don't know what the hell had gotten into me, but it stuck.

 

Those Patio Lanterns, They Were The Stars In Our Eyes

So. Today. I got up and I knew we had a buncha things to do. I didn't look at my daytimer, but Turner was going to the Herald Book Sale at Crossroads Market, and Jenny Repond's going-away-forever-to-England party was this afternoon, and I was picking up Jenna and Jackie at the airport at 3pm. A busy mid-June Sunday to be sure.

Sometime around 1pm, Brucio showed up and suddenly decided that This! Was! The! Day! to make a gift of new patio furniture. Which is to say, he announced that he'd buy us new deck furniture, but only if we left right then, and only if I'd choose it from the one and only store he was going to take me to. When we arrived, I was overwhelmed by the lovely and scary outdoor sets, all snazzed up with placemats and stylin' umbrellas and fake plants. And the sale was ending today, so tomorrow all the prices would jump 25 - 30%. So I didn't have the option of coming back. I wandered around, a bit paralysed, looking at the beautiful furniture, trying to picture any of it on our (lovely) deck in our (ghetto) neighbourhood, and wondering how long it would last if we didn't bolt it to the deck surface with locks. Then Sloane started to get grumpy. And hungry. And began calling for the bottle and the baba. As I paced around the store with heightening blood pressure and unable to choose which set I "wanted", I was also obsessively checking the time, which was growing shorter and shorter before I had to leave to meet Jenna and Jackie at the airport.

Finally I picked a set; it took nearly fifteen minutes to pay for it (those fancy furniture store people have to earn their commission even at a psychological level - "Sooo I need to staple all these things together... aaaaaaand take your address... aaaaaaand have you sign four forms... aaaaand now I have to inexplicably go to the back room for a while..."); and then it started to rain. It was five minutes after 3pm, and I prevailed again on Brucio to PLEASE just accompany me to the airport, but he had some other vague-sounding "errand" to run and he "couldn't" come to the airport, and I "had" to drop him back at Spiller Road so he could collect his car there. And then Sloane wailed the whole way home, baaabaaaa.... botttt-eeee... baaaaabaaaa... bott-eeeee... You know, it wasn't the end of the world, but I was pretty strung out by this point.

 

But, When It Rains, It Pours

The rain turned into a downpour. The sort that, in Calgary, usually twists a bit to the left to suddenly become hail and irredemably pock your paint job. Through this, I was weaving down Deerfoot with the wipers on Ludicrous Speed, them whapping back and forth, and in my mind going Fricken racken-fracken Dad, why the hell can't he just fricken come to the fricken airport for ten fricken minutes so I can make it on time for Jenna and Jackie... racken fracken ME and MY fricken weekend time management, why couldn't I fricken just tell Dad that I couldn't do this today? Forty-five fricken minutes is no kind of fricken timeline on which to buy fricken expensive deck furniture... But on the outside I hoped I was achieving the grateful-yet-hurried outer demeanor I meant to convey to Dad, who had, after all, very kindly gifted us a beautiful (if speedily-chosen) patio set. Even if I did have to drop him at his fricken car, which was parked at our house, necessitating a fifteen minute detour. And, you know, if you're at home now anyway, you might as well run in for ten seconds to get the damn baba and make a damn bottle for the poor daughter all bent out of shape, back in the car.

 

Put On The William Tell Overture

So. I leave Dad standing on the side of the road in front of our house, and PEEL away from the curb with a true screech of the tires. (Let me just note here, just in case you don't know me: I'm really, really not that kind of driver. At all. Ever.) It's 3:15pm, and if the flight is on time, Jenna and Jackie are walking off the plane as I navigate my screeching route through Ramsay and Inglewood, back to the Deerfoot. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change... Squealing through the Spolumbo's intersection on a very stale yellow light... to change the things I can... Breaking my own iron-clad rule for never using the cel phone while driving, trying to change the message on our home answering machine while merging onto Memorial from the Zoo bridge, and realizing, on the trunk down to Deerfoot North, that our cellular service provider obviously isn't Telus, because it won't allow access to our phone-company-controlled home voicemail system... and the wisdom to know the difference... Giving up on the phone and just concentrating on getting to the airport a) at top possible velocity, but b) alive.

I pulled in to the Calgary airport's short term parking garage at 3:42pm, now nearly a half hour late for Jenna and Jackie's flight. There were no parking spots anywhere remotely near the WestJet end of the garage, and, in a momentary fit of complete and context-necessitating shitheadedness, I parked right in front of the door I needed, in a handicapped spot. (In case you're wondering, I'm not in any way physically disabled.) Unceremoniously yanked Sloane out of the car seat. Slammed & locked the car doors. And then I RAN like I haven't run since way before I got pregnant, two years ago. Bang, out the doors and across the "Caution: bus" talking intersection. Started scanning the faces in the taxi queue near the terminal doors. Sprinted across the intersection, boobs and baby bouncing merrily below my crazed head. And burst through the WestJet doors, into the lobby. Heh! Heh! Heh!

Looking at every face, every chair, looking for Jenna and Jackie. Are! They! Here!? Jogging down to the baggage carousel, zipping through the crowd, bobbing among the faces, looking for my cousin and aunt. I checked the clock: fully a half hour late. I pounded around the lobby for a good ten minutes, checking the flight schedules, hoping they'd come around a corner, out of a store, from behind a pillar, down the escalator. ...But no, it was increasingly and finally clear: they weren't there. I'd missed them. I called John to tell him what I'd done, and he hadn't heard from them. I called Dad to tell/guilt trip him that I'd missed them at the airport. And then I just stood there, holding Sloane's hand, looking forlornly at the arrivals gate doors. And knowing that Jenna and Jackie weren't going to miraculously come through them, now, 45 minutes after the plane landed.

 

Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me, Think I'll Go Eat Worms

That was the point when I quietly removed myself from the public eye with as much dignity as I could muster. I herded Sloane into the ladies' washroom and sat down on the floor of the wheelchair access stall, handed Sloaner my wallet to keep her busy, and had a giant cry, looking at the air vent in the ceiling.

Oh woe is me. Oh, I am a bad cousin/niece. Oh, I shoulda never gone with Dad for patio furniture if it was all going to be such a rush. Oh, now Jenna and Jackie have taken a cab to my house, and I'm not there, and I've got Jenna's keys to her car. ...I guess the fair thing would be to reimburse them for their cab ride since this is all my fault. Fuck, that's about $35 I don't have. ...And I'm such an asshole. I was paralyzed by the patio furniture. I never should have gone, today. ...Oh man, I hate having to drive that fast, it's not safe. ...I wonder what my blood pressure is, I can feel my heart pounding in my eyeballs, that can't be good. ...Oh LORD, I can't believe I took a handicapped spot out in the parking garage! I wonder if I'll be fined. Super, a couple hundred bucks for sure. ...Oh jesus, poor Jenna and Jackie, they totally don't deserve this, Jenna's graduation weekend, oh man. ...They've both always been so loyal, they've always stood by me and been so supportive. ...What an asshole I am, they're on their way back to my house in a cab, thinking I forgot about them. ...I SO SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE ON TIME, I'm an asshole, I never shoulda let Dad talk me into the patio furniture thing today... I...

...I ...uhh...

That's when it hit me. That, uh, I was there a day early. Yes, Jenna and Jackie were coming in tomorrow, on the 3:15pm flight, on Monday. ...That I'd completely lost my mind, I'd rushed the patio furniture thing, I'd gotten SO mad at Brucio, I drove like a maniac. I'd completely ruined the whole day, over NOTHING. Over a mistake, a logistical scheduling error.

 

Keep On The Sunny Side

So. Crisis averted. Or, perhaps I should say, Non-Existant Crisis averted. No need to be mad at anyone. No need to self-flaggelate about being a crappy airport picker-upper person. No need to lament my own time management prioritization, or regret the patio furniture foray. No, no need.

I very quietly gathered up Sloane, washed my face in the airport bathroom washroom, and walked back to the car. We drove home silently, at a normal, safe pace. I handed our girl over to Turner, and as he put her down for her nap, I set about doing the needful for my shattered nerves: frozen vodka heals all wounds, particularly on an empty stomach. Numbs them, anyway. After my shot, I pulled out the food processor and whipped up a giant pile of hummus, leaving all the dirty bowls and utensils and empty cans everywhere, and set myself up on the couch, to stare into space. Strangely zen. Completely cooked and done. Serene but a bit on the "gone" side. As in, "Gone Fishin' ". I couldn't even reflect much on the lessons that were sure to be on parade through this experience. Just needed some time, let the vodka & hummus do their work. I very rarely get worked up about stuff, so I'm somewhat poorly equipped for those periodic days of frothing stress. I felt like a zombie. And then the soundtrack for this whole fricken 24 hours came to me, and started to smile. Then laugh.

A: "...Turner? Please? Could you put on that song? [humming]"

T: "Which one, madam?"

A: " ...'Keep On The Sunny Side'. That basically sums up everything right now."

T: [laughing] "...You got it."

A: [laughing] "Keep on the sunny side, all-ways on the sunny side, KEEP ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF LIIIIIIIIIIFE!"

T: "True enough."

 

Categories: Ash | Calgary | Family | Friends

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Ah, The Quote Board

When visiting Cousin Jenna in Lennoxville I was re-acquainted with the staple of student decorating: The Quote Board.

How true. How very, very true.

 

When I was in undergrad at Queen's in the early-mid 90s, we had a similar ongoing group project at our house, the Rules Learned Through Experience, (Vol. 1 - approx. 20), a compendium of knowledge accumulated by the rotating cast of seven-or-so paying tenants and various honourary housemates who wandered through our house over the years. We were young, barely out of our teens, and loose on the world. We learned some stuff.  

"Beer left too long in the freezer explodes."

"When cooking pancakes, do NOT touch the pan with your hand."

"If you squee-gee the mop toooooo hard, the rod is liable to suffer a fracture, and thus become two seperate pieces."

...Like every other set of random Canadian undergrads, we didn't know shit about shit. I dunno what the hell our parents were teaching us at home during high school, but it obviously didn't involve any cooking, cleaning, financial management, or common sense.

"When preparing Kraft Dinner, it is a good idea to remove the noodles from the strainer before adding the milk."

"Never go grocery shopping when you're hungry."

"When walking in the ghetto during a thaw, avoid all puddles - due to the irregularity of the level of the sidewalks, a puddle that looks like only surface water may well teach you that things are not always as they seem."

We had to learn it all from the beginning. So looking back on these lists now, I see so much that is now, of course, SO OBVIOUS. But the Rules, as a collection, serve as a (valuable!) reminder that we all have to learn these stupid things once, and more often than not, as a result of our own stupid behaviour - sometimes (gasp!) even drunkenness.

"There are no pasties like wine pasties."

"If you have to get up the next morning at 6am and drive 9 hours, don't go to Pub Nite and get really drunk the night before."

"If you are at the SkyDome watching the Vanier Cup, and you fall and crack your head open, and you don't notice the pint of blood that has gushed all over the front of your white shirt, the First Aid people are likely to strap your ass to a stretcher, accuse you of having a spinal cord injury even if you can prove you can wiggle your toes, and then toss you in an ambulance. Then the medical community may, depending on the amount of sadistic glee they get from watching you struggle, belt your chin and arms to the bed, ask you stupid questions like, 'What's your surname?', and finally try to coerce you into peeing in a bedpan before finally, 4 hours later, releasing you into the free world armed only with a photocopied page of Head Injury Instructions."

Overall, the idea was that any Rule had to be true, and thus any Lessons we learned were - natch - begot Through Experience. And some of us were... not so bright.

"Spaghetti sauce that has been opened and is left in the cupboard goes moldy."

"Don't set hot frying pans on linoleum."

"Styrofoam melts in the microwave."

Oh, university. Oh, youth. Oh, I'm so glad it's over and I only have stupid tax-and-parenthood-related Rules Learned Through Experience (Adulthood Edition) to look forward to in my 30s.

...Some of my other favourites included:

"Always remove the layer of foil from the neck of a wine bottle before using a corkscrew, or you may discover that that 'sticky cork' was not a cork, and you've just successfully drilled a perfect hole through the bottle's screw-top."

"The wrapping chicken comes in to stay fresh in the fridge? It need not remain on to keep the chicken fresh while cooking."

and of course,

"If you happen to be stirring two pots on the stove (at the same time)  you will be treated to a 240-volt surprise as you complete the circuit with your upper torso."

 

Categories: Ash | Friends | Olden Days | Ontario

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The Sun Shining On My Face

As with lots of families, the Bristowes had those seminal movies that informed the cultural corners of our childhoods. Among ours were Poltergeist, Out of Africa, Star Trek II (The Wrath of Khan), The Colour Purple, all the Star Wars movies, and The Dark Crystal. And anyone who's spent time with John and Ainsley and I will have noticed our propensity to quote an otherwise under-appreciated Bill Murray movie, Quick Change. (I do recommend you go rent Quick Change.)

In the midst of the catastrophe of our trip down east, I found myself repeatedly thinking of another movie we watched over and over as kids: Mask, which starred Eric Stoltz as Rocky Dennis, a young man with a facial deformity, and Cher as his druggie bike-gang-affiliated mother. At one point in the movie he's following her around the house, reciting a poem he wrote for class. Inspired by that poem of Rocky's, I have cobbled together my own for our recent Ontario-Quebec jaunt:

These Things Are Bad

• Humping a collapsable playpen up and down many, many, many sets of stairs
• No Royal Banks anywhere in Ottawa
• Setting off the house alarm at Richard and Stephanie's, and having to wait for the police to to arrive so I could explain that no, I'm not a burglar; please don't shoot, yes, I have a key; no I don't live here, I'm the wife of the nephew of the man who owns this house; yes, they know I'm here; no, I don't know why the alarm is going off 
• Losing my favourite scarf somewhere along the way, possibly stolen by that pierced-face francophone teenager on the bus
• and, Don't get me started on the Ontario health care system