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

Comments [0]

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

Comments [1]

Toronto: Here We Come!

As of today it is officially ONE WEEK to Beau & Julia's wedding. We've been cheering these two on for years! And we can't wait for them to get hitched. 'Specially since we're invited. And ESPECIALLY since we're going to be in attendance. At the wedding. In Toronto! Me an' Turner, by ourselves, minus Sloaner.

All this is by way of saying that:

As marvellous as we all know the Sloaner to be, and as much as we'd like to foist her marvellousness on our Toronto friends as much as possible, we decided that this weekend would be for us. It should be said that we're also cheap bastards; now that she's two years old, Sloane has to pay full fare on airplanes. More than anything, this made the decision for us.

So this time, Sloane stays home, and Turner and I head to Toronto on our own. For me it's going to be three whole kid-free adult-like days of carousing and brunching and brainstorming with old friends (basically none of whom have kids). We might not talk about poop, we might not clean up toys, we might not recite the Dennis Lee poem "Tricking" (from Alligator Pie) for... the... whole... weekend!

SO:
Turner leaves for the Big TO on Tuesday, for a few days of official "meetings" with people at "Random House" and "Indigo-Chapters" or some such, and to get lickered with "Doug Bell" and "Graham Roumieu" and the rest of the gang. Also to negotiate the leads on two "columns"/"series-es" in big "national magazines" you might have heard of (which I'm too superstitious to type here). But Turner'll be finished the substantive edit on the book draft before he leaves. In essence he's done the book by the time he gets to Toronto (line edits and fact checking and acknowledgements, etc. to come of course - but, basically, done), so for the most part he'll be - shudder to think - ON HOLIDAY, on the loose in Toronto. I can think of worse places to be!

Me, I stick around in Calgary for another few days, doing an architectural shoot at the beginning of the week, and pounding out the Cryptic Moth transcriptions on which I've so egregiously procrastinated for four months. But...

THEN:
Granny Val arrives on Wednesday night, in town to babysit Sloane! Flying in on WestJet, Granny's under strict orders to arrive with the entire airplane's supply of Up magazines.

I'll spend Thursday studying for my class (remind me to tell you all about Ms. Ashley's Ill-Advised Foray Back Into Undergraduate Education in another post), going to said class, and arriving home exhausted at 10:30pm from said class since said class doesn't end until most sane people (read: those over the age of 25) are at home getting ready for bed. Anyway...

AND THEN:
On Friday morning I catch an err-err-early morning flight to Toronto. Let the weekend begin! Only six days 'til blast off!

Hurray Beau & Julia! Thanks for getting married, youses!

Categories: Married Life | Ontario

Comments [1]

Up! Magazine, May 2007

Last summer Turner and I did a piece for the WestJet inflight magazine ("Up!") on "Visiting Toronto with your kid" - he wrote it, I shot it. If you take a WestJet flight this month, it'll be in the seat pocket in front of you. Mind grabbing a few copies for us? Thanks a zil!

Categories: Married Life | Mom-ness | Ontario  | Turner | Work work work

Comments [1]

The Months Flew By

I am totally borrowing this idea from Sean & Keitha over at House of Hot Sauce, who had a similarly quiet few months on their blog. From Christmas to mid-March it was pretty quiet around this url. Here's what we were up to:

- Christmas!


Thab came to town with Seung-Yi and we managed to cross paths in the airport when she was on her way back to Toronto and Margo was coming in from Nova Scotia! Posing in front of the giant Sam Livingston head at YYC.



Official Chez Bristowe Turner family Christmas photo. I think Turner and I are on our way out for a date or a party or something here, Sloaner to stay home with Gamma.



Strawberry Hill, winter wonderland edition. Christmas 2006.


Christmas Eve Dinner with all the trimmings, fixings, doo-dads, and whatnots.  


This brass planter was my gift to Granny Val on Christmas Day - presented with a bonus Sloaner in on the deal.

Margo and John came to Calgary, we rented a giant SUV and drove out en masse to Nakusp for the holidays. Uncle Johnny-John and Cousin Liam joined us the day after Christmas. There were toboggan parties and Granny Val's birthday, Thomas the train presents and dogs aplenty, trips up to the spring, a fab snowmobile/drinkfest up at the Gustafsons', a ski day down in Rossland, a German meal 'in town' (fancy-fancy!), Grampa/Oompa got a bit upset and threw a few things down the stairs and had to be taken back to Nelson in the middle of the night, and in the end we fortuitously made our departure just ahead of what ended up being a Gi-Gan-Tic storm which shut down the Trans Canada Highway in every direction only 24 hours later.

- Happy New year! We rang in the new year in Nakusp, in the fine company of Granny Val and Papa Mike, Turner's parents Margo and John, and Turner's brother John and cousin Liam. My new year's resolution was to go on this food-combining plan that I've done in the past and works well for me: no sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol, no white starch (white bread, white rice, corn), lots of vegetables and fruit, and you seperate eating 'carbohydrates' and 'proteins'. In the end these categories contain foods that of course include various amounts of both, but in essence you're separating meat/cheese/oil and carbs, eating them three hours apart. I've lost 35lbs so far: 20lbs to go to hit my pre-Sloane's-birth weight.

- We switched phone & internet companies. I've long hated Telus, the company that refused to allow unlimited long distance into Alberta until approx. 8 months ago (Ontario and the rest of Canada have had the $20/mo plan since, oh, 1995). Great ads, shitty service and idiotic billing. Our internet bill came in differently every month. When I'd call to ask/complain, the operators would do some kind of complex math on the phone and tell me that it all worked out to the same amount per month over time, so shut up about it already. So when Shaw came out with a bundle that allowed you dedicated phone service (with your same telephone number as before), plus internet, plus cable for less than my previous internet + phone service from Telus, we wuz like, SIGN US UP. Of course, there've been some snags. Telus wants their modem back. They didn't shut off the internet service and continue to charge us for it - this one is going to end up in small claims court, unfortunately. And the "Retention Department" keeps calling to try to woo us back. I tell them that if they'd like us to think better of their company perhaps they might start by STOPPING CHARGING ME FOR INTERNET SERVICE I'M NOT USING.

- In mid-January we billetted an actor who was here for the One Yellow Rabbit High Performance Rodeo theatre festival. Kevin of Albequerque's Tricklock Theatre was neat and tidy, interesting to talk to, left the house early every day under his own steam and came home late (but quiet) at night, and when we attended the show we realized he was also the lead character (and damn good at his job, too). After the many many many kindnesses of strangers we've availed ourselves of over the years in foreign locales, we felt good about giving back to the international travel karma jar.

- Cousin Jessica came to visit again. We've been seeing lots more of Jess since Leo's stroke, obviously. When she arrived in late January Sloane and I decided to decamp out to Brucio's in Douglasdale, the better to spend time with her. Also to give Turner some space at home to write and wander around bleary-eyed and writer-like, without wife and child demanding his attention in the midst of this, the mid-home-stretch of the book writing process. So out to Douglasdale we went, and Jess guest-starred as the hookah-smoking lass in one of my photo shoots for Swerve, and Uncle Larry arrived from Aylmer for a visit too, and we had a good ol' family reunion there in south Calgary.

- We had our first-ever Sunday brunch. I'd been feeling decidedly out of the socializing loop, and Turner was getting that nocturnal lemur-locked-in-the-basement look he takes on after a long stretch of working solitude. Obviously we needed to rectify the situation somehow. Going out at night is expensive and inconvenient and requires a babysitter, besides interfering with our patented (and necessary) "third shift" of work after Sloane goes to bed. So there had to be some other way to see people... and to get Sloane involved... and finally we hit upon the idea of Sunday brunch. Having people over. Eating, and some potluck stuff too so we weren't completely swamped with prep. Our first brunch was inaugerated on Sunday January 21st. Although we forgot to invite a few people (and didn't realize we'd forgotten to invite them until we started to wonder why they hadn't shown up yet), it was a great first go and eventually we hope to make the Bristowe Turner Sunday Brunch a monthly "thang". Here it is March already and we haven't had another one yet, so obviously we're working up to this goal slowly.

- From January 25th to February 9th, Sloaner and Auntie Alexis and I went to Costa Rica. Our travel partners included Brucio of course, and for the first week we were joined by Fifi and Brother John. Turner flew down for the second week of our stay. The route took us from Calgary to Houston, where we had a seven hour stopover (and a special guest-star appearance by my old friend Amy, Houston-based friend from long ago in France), and then on to San Jose, where we stayed the night. The following day we drove cross-country to the west coast and set up shop at Brucio's place in Faro Escondito, outside Jaco, on the west coast. We went swimming in the ocean, and watched fabulous sunsets from the balcony, and ate mountains of seafood, and Sloaner learned to swim in the (cold) hot tub, and we did bird-watching and snake-watching and monkey-watching and butterfly-watching, and we all learned the requisite 5 phrases in Spanish and used them prodigiously.



Ash (looking like a hatted dork) & Alexis (looking jolly & festive) at Playa Hermosa.



Sloane learns to swim with Grampa. Note the fancy "PolyOtter" suit with insertable "floaties", brought all the way from South Africa for Sloane by the ever-awesome Dr. Garth Kruger.




The Bristowe-Turnersesses at the fabulous hilltop restaurant at Villa Caletas.

- Upon arriving home in mid-February, the craziness cycle began anew with work. I started in on the provincial arts grant applications, due February 15th. Transcribing the interviews for Cryptic Moth I shoulda done in Costa Rica. Shooting the Swerve column photos. There was a lot of work to do. Sloane went to playschool during the day and Turner and I worked our brains out. I'll mention only once, and very briefly, that we were owed an absolutely tremendous amount of money by a variety of publications during this period. Everyone took their sweet goddamn time paying. Or, rather, not paying, as it turned out. We went through another terrible financial crisis. It was basically all I could think about day and night from about the beginning of December all the way through to mid-March. I hated a lot of people very intensely. I wrote three huge blog postings about it, all of which I deleted before I posted them to the site. I couldn't just post blithe bullshit about how great our lives are when our lives were really not great (Costa Rica trip notwithstanding). Financial stress is awful stress. Basically that's what caused the silence for three months.

- In the midst of all this, Brucio bequeathed to us the second-most-giant-est tv in all of creation. (Why? you may ask. Because Brucio got an EVEN BIGGER tv and didn't need the "little one" anymore.) If you know us, you know we don't even have cable. So to receive, unsolicited, a truly humungous television (it has three remote controls. THREE) was... unexpected. When you're truly poor and are suddenly given a six-foot-wide television that can be seen from two blocks away, a giant pulsing beacon of postmodern opiates beaming straight into your brain, it does make you wonder about the rationality of the universe. Can't afford groceries... maybe we can eat the images being shown on the television...? They do seem so life-like... We are not the ungrateful assholes we seem. Thank you Brucio for the giant tv.



Aforementioned giant tv. Those are Brucio's feet sticking out at bottom right. He's putting the approx. 1.7 billion cords into the right connections to make everything... "go".

- Then, in mid March, we got the Canada Council grant. $10,000 is nothing to sneeze at. I'd been running to the mailbox every day for four months, WILLING the Canada Council grant notification papers to arrive. Turner had basically given up hoping. But I knew we stood an excellent chance: I was once a funder, remember. And I also wrote the grant application. Then, one day, while Turner was away in Seattle at Lebowskifest and feeling guilty about spending money we didn't have on another trip for the book... it came. I tore it open. And called Turner. We were both able to sleep properly for the first time in months. If any of my readers have some kind of philosophical stand against government funding for the arts, you are personally invited to leave the blog right now and never come back. All hail the Canada Council.

And that kind of brings us to the present. That's what we did when I wasn't posting.

Categories: Ash | Calgary | Family | Married Life | Mom-ness

Comments [0]

This Just In From Turner

We've been busy - I'm working on a December-to-now mini compilation of what we've been up to. But first, a taste of the humdrum everyday love n' stoopidnesses here at Chez Bristowe Turner:

This morning Turner sent me an interac money transfer over email (he has the Canada Council money in his account, but I pay the bills). When you deposit a transfer in your account online you send a little "got it" message back to the sender as a confirmation. Today mine was, "Thx. Love you. A"

We've had a hard morning around here. Schizophrenic-toddler-type morning. The cat-peed-on-my-mitts-and-hat-type morning. Administrator-at-the-new-daycare-keeps-giving-me-dirty-looks-type of morning. Not the most loving of mornings, is what I'm saying. So it was with willed effort and a deep breath that I put that love into the interac money transfer confirmation email and hit "send".

This is what I got back from Turner, who hasn't had the grandest morning, himself:

From:	"Chris Turner"
Subject:	And you
To:	"Ashley Bristowe "

Love you too. -- love T

(It occurs to me there's some sociology grad student
working on a modern communications PhD thesis as we
speak who'd say that communicating via Interac email
money transfer messages and webmail with your spouse
when you're within earshot of each other is somehow
indicative of some postmodern what-have-you and maybe
even devolutionary or something, but fuck it - that's
why we left academia. They can tell you what it is but
not how it is. Something. -- love T)

And that's how you keep a marriage going. Blessed be.

Categories: Married Life

Comments [0]

Working Together

Reporting and shooting the Antigonish piece for Up!

Categories: Married Life | Work work work

Comments [0]

Basically This Sums Up Our Different Approaches To My Beloved Fisheye Lens

Maroon Bells National Forest, above Aspen CO.

Categories: Married Life

Comments [0]

So What?

INT: Early morning, Bangkok, Thab & Phet's apartment. Ash and Turner are up with Sloane for her morning feed in the big bed. There is a local bird who does a loud, two-pronged call in the pre-dawn light, here. Yesterday morning it was calling and calling and calling after Ash and Sloane got up. It starts this morning's singsgong as Sloane is eating.

T: ...Ah, there he is, my old friend the So What bird.

A: Heh?

T: You hear it? So what? So what?

A: [he's right, it does sound a bit like So what?] Ah...

T: ...As in me, yesterday: - "Hey, tryin' to sleep here." - "So what?"

A: [finds this amazingly funny for 6:10am, and laughs and laughs]

Sloane eats, divebombs the boob.

A: ...he should meet the Cheeseburger Bird. [The Cheeseburger bird is a common bird in North America, but we haven't quite figured out which one it is, yet - the northern flicker? The spotted towhee? We're not sure - but I've heard it across Canada, from BC to Nova Scotia, in the summertime. It has a three-pronged call that sounds distinctly like Cheeeese-bur-ger! ...Hence the Bristowe-Turner-christened name.]

T: Nah, they wouldn't like each other. Both big showboats.

A: [laughing, laughing]

T: Like Madonna and Elton John.

A: [having been reading WAY too many of Thab's gossip magazines in the last few days] Apparently they like each other.

T: [on fire, this morning] But they wouldn't get married.

A: [laughing, laughing]

Sloane eats. Bounces her head against A's chest a bit.

T: Cheeseburger! So what? Cheeseburger! So what?

Categories: Married Life | Turner

Comments [15]

Lantau Island: Beyond The Airport

We arrived in Hong Kong very late on Tuesday night off our Korean Airlines flight. That's the background you get for this photo essay of our time on Lantau Island...

When Sloane woke, bright and shiny and rip-ready to start the day at 5:30am Wednesday morning, it was still dark. But we'd had most of a proper night's sleep and after hours and hours of travel I'd expected her to be a lot more whacked off her schedule. So I crept out of bed and wrapped us both in a hotel blanket, and we headed out to explore the environs. (Turner got extra sleep - I got parenting points for cashing-in later!) Before we left Canada, in quiet moments when I was thinking of the upcoming trip, I had this persistent nice image of riding the ferries with Sloane on my hip in the sling. So we made our way to the ferry landing at Mui Wo and caught the next boat to Hong Kong Island.

Sunrise over Hong Kong Island, as seen from the Lantau ferry

After our morning of ferry riding through the container-ship- and ferry- and tugboat- and other-boat-jammed waters of Hong Kong harbour (not shown above - in the photo HK's inter-island waters look uncharacteristically unpopulated, an anomaly), Sloane and I came back to the room and crashed for three hours.

Turner woke us up with a lovely afternoon snack of papaya from the market next door, for which he apparently paid about 80 cents. Everything in Hong Kong is expensive except for the papaya, apparently.

Something you may not know about me is that I love papaya. On our honeymoon in Cuba, Turner watched in horror every morning as I plowed through three-quarters of the papaya on display, to the exclusion of everything else at the gymnasium-sized resort buffet. ("Why did you never reveal this monstrous papaya appetite before we wed?", he was clearly thinking. Ah, but I am cleverererrrer than I look!, thinked I.) And in India I once ate so much papaya that the next day my poo was completely orange. Cousin Jenna actually witnessed this, so she can vouch for the truth of that statement. (For the record, I know you really wanted to know that about me. So now you do. If you are in a papaya-prolific area, I suggest you try this experiment. "Fascinating" just doesn't do justice to the ORANGE-ness.) Anyway, Turner is a lovely man, so he went out and foraged for papaya for his family.

Shown here: Papaya Eating Contest, part one. Sloane takes after Mama in the papaya enthusiasm department.

That afternoon (still Wednesday, mind), we took the bus 45 minutes down Lantau's hairpin highways (under construction every 3-4 km for maintenance) and up up up to the top of the island's mountain range, to the Po Lin monastery, where they have a bronze sitting buddha.

Whenever you're travelling in a Buddhist area, there's always a buddha image to go see, and it's always the "biggest"... most are pretty big, in truth. But the "biggest" always comes with a qualifer: the biggest jade buddha, the biggest reclining stone buddha, the biggest buddha above 1200m altitude, the biggest kneeling buddha in India, and so on. So this buddha was the "biggest" of course, in this case the biggest seated outdoor bronze buddha (in the world - I know you're keeping track. And you're thinking, "Is there a bigger one that's indoors?" ...Who's to say. Not me). ...It was pretty big.  

Turner heads up the approximately 60 kabillion steps to Po Lin's Tian Tan bronze buddha, with the Sloaner packsack on his back (Valerreeee valerraah)

Who's driving this circumnavigation bus, anyway? Zen mentorship or walkies - you decide.

Dusk at the bottom of the hill.

After the biggest-bronze-buddha hike (nice views, by the way), we took a taxi down to a nearby fishing village (Tai O? I think?) for dinner. ...Then we realized Sloane was getting cranky, and it was getting dark, and most importantly that none of the supposedly lauded restaurants had many people in them - Turner's cardinal rule of restaurant-choosingness-when-travelling. And the village smelled (just a little. But it was a fishing village, and it smelled like fish, so I guess I should cut them some slack). Since we weren't particularly starving yet (yay, papaya afternoon snackie) we decided to catch the bus back to Mui Wo and find something there. Here is a photo of the bus stop & schedule, for your enjoyment:

With Chinese characters on it, an' everything. Lookit us, in foreign lands! With busses!

We got dinner at the "Cooked Food Market" in Mui Wo, Sloane asleep in the sling. I took pictures, but they didn't turn out. It was dark, we were jetlagged, and I had a sleeping baby on my hip = my excuses.

The next day (being yesterday, being Thursday) we were up bright an' early to pack up and move em' out to the airport to catch our 10:45am flight to Bangkok. 

Overall, our impression of the island we named our daughter after: positive. We'd come back to explore Lantau further, for sure. Nice folks, clean air, ferry dock for easy access to Hong Kong "proper", great food, nice cats and dogs (as a rule I loathe street animals in Asia, since their mission in life is to eat you, if possible), good hikes, beautiful beach (with swimming, at warmer times of the year), bars & cafes aplenty - but not TOO aplenty. Good for families and seekers of places off-but-near the beaten track. Hot water and internet at the hotel. Nice ladies in the park doing tai chi before dawn, and lots of little kids (Chinese and expat, both) at the many little playgrounds. The Bristowe Turners say three thumbs up to Lantau.

Before we go, a shout-out to our accommodations:

Lovely in-room crib did the trick for Sloane Lantau Bristowe Turner during her stay on Lantau Island

Charming as all-get-out, Silvermine Bay, Lantau Island; view out front of the hotel (the only non-airport non-Disney tourist digs on the island, we stayed at the Silvermine Beach Hotel)

And a thanks-again to some lovely service therein:

Sloane and Esther-of-the-clacketty-bracelets, our server at breakfast each morning

Categories: Asia 2006 | Married Life

Comments [11]

Lord Ha' Mercy

Well, miracle of miracles. The Passport Office actually got Sloane's passport done overnight (earning their $70 extortion from yesterday), and the Air Canada jackassesses managed to catch a lucky break with the postal system - so the tickets are in hand.

Turner called from the U of C library just now, to check in on the day's progress. When I told him that things had turned around, he actually didn't believe me.

Categories: Married Life | Sloane | Turner

Comments [12]

Today's Best PC Quote: "Everyone In The F-ing World is F-ing Retarded"

INT: Sloane is sitting in her high chair, eating grapes. Turner is on the phone with Aeroplan in the front office, trying to sort out the Case Of The Missing Itinerary (Turner's e-ticket arrived a month ago, but mine has never appeared. Turner has talked to Aeroplan four different times before today, and each time the agent at the other end ASSURES him everything is fine and an e-ticket and itinerary will be emailed asap. And then no email comes). Ash is cleaning up the breakfast dishes and wiping the floor, in the midst of realizing that yet another day has been lost to the stoopidnessessses of bureaucratic and corporate bungling...

T: ...What? WHAT? On the 4th?? Someone realized this two days ago? I've been calling for a month! We leave on Monday! That'll never arrive on time!

A: [calling from the kitchen] What. What's going on?

T: [standing in the office doorway, GLARING. Completely red in the face. This is the man that only I get to see, and even then, only rarely in the extreme - other people don't believe that Turner is capable of this kind of rage.] This is the fifth time I've called. No one ever said anything about this, ever. ...Yes.

A: [Standing there, quizzical, supportive.]

T: [kicking a box full of stuff from the Niedzwieckis for Thaba, then stomping on one foot around the room] FUCK! Everyone in the FUCKING world is FUCKING retarded!!

A: What - what? What?! [looking at the phone] ...Are you still talking to that person?

T: No, [yelling into the phone] I'm on fucking HOLD!

A: [coming back into the kitchen] Sloane, this is an event to remember: on this day in 2006, your father finally lost it.

T: [coming into kitchen, too] The last four jackasses I talked to didn't know what they were doing. You need a paper ticket to travel with an infant. But nobody said that. Then the LAST jackass I talked to a few days ago finally realized it after we got off the phone, so he sent the paper ticket. By MAIL. REGULAR POST. He sent it TWO DAYS AGO. From Montreal or Vancouver or wherever the fuck.

A: Hm.

T: [incredulous] This is a fucking ridiculous nightmare? It never fucking ends? You know? ...Whhhhhhhh-haaaaat the FUCK is WITH the WORLD!

A: [leaning in to Sloane] Dad's gone loco. [to Turner] You... you want me to talk to them?

T: No! ...Fuck!

A: I could... I could talk to them. [receives glare from Turner] Okay... but are you okay?

T: I'm fine. [going back to the office] ...FUCK! [banging the phone on the desk in time to the following words:] Fuck! You! Fuck! You! [crackle on the line]...Hello?

Voice on speakerphone: Hello, Mr Turner?

T: ...[through clenched teeth] Yesss? [turning off speakerphone] ...Yes. Well, someone shoulda... yes.

A: [telling Sloane, singsongy voice, leaning in close] ...The day your dad went apeshit, the day the bastards finally ground him down! [smiling at the baby] ...Yesss!

Sloane: [digs in to the olives Ash has just put down on the tray, tongue-warbling] Ledder-ledder-ledder-ledder.

...Meanwhile in the office, things seem to be working themselves out.

T: Yes. Okay. Yes. So, anytime? Ok. At the Calgary airport? Okay. 24 hours. Yes. I understand. Okay. Thank you. Some of those other people should be fired. ...Yes, I realize. Okay. Thank you. [hangs up. Comes into the kitchen]

A: Hiiiiiii....

T: Hi. You need a fucking paper ticket. ...I KNEW something like this would happen. I just knew it. That's why I kept calling even when all those condascending jackasses were all fucking snippy and saying everything was fine and we didn't need the itinerary by email... I can travel on the e-ticket, but you have to have a paper ticket. Because you're travelling with the baby, officially.

A: K.

T: [looking around, wildly, accusatorily] ...You know? Because: what the fucking fuck. Is it us? How on EARTH should THIS many things be fucking up, right now. It just can't really be statistically possible. The universe --- it's actually against us.

A: You know of course that at this point there's no turning back. The washer-drier, the passport, the ticket... It's all going to hell. We'll think we're safe once we finally leave. But actually it's just going to go on and on. The flight is going to be an apocalypse and our hotel in Hong Kong isn't going to be booked when we get there at midnight...

T: Yeah. ...But... [hopeful, dreamy-eyed delusional, now] maybe we're in some alterno-universe. Maybe... All our North American shit is going totally tits-up, but when we get to Asia everything will completely run like clockwork.

A: [Having lived in the Philippines (twice) and India (for a year and a half) and travelled extensively in the region, which - for the record - I love] HA! Right. Well, I'll believe that when I see it.

Capturing the moment. Turner, on same: Quote, "You and that fucking fisheye lens are doing nothing good for my blood pressure right now," endquote. Per se.  

Categories: Married Life | Turner

Comments [12]

We're Becoming "Those People"

You know "those people"? The ones that always have something disasterous befalling them, the ones seemingly always embroiled in an amazingly, complicatedly, inconvenient and unlikely mulberry bush chase of epic proportions?

Yes. Those People. We are becoming Those People.

I know what happens when you become Those People. Other people stop listening to you. Because it's Always Something with you. I know. I've been on the other side, tuning out the droning list of complaints and wondering what's for dinner later. So I know it's deeply tedious, but for my own edification and because it's my website and I can do what I like on here, I present a short litany of just a few of the stooooooopid things going on right now (remember, T-minus three days to departure for Asia, and counting):

• Sloane's Passport, Undelivered - lost this week by Canada Post's Expresspost courier, apparently due to "incomplete address", on its way to us from Passport Canada. We realized the 'error' last night, and today was totally hijacked to the sweaty and panicked chase around town for new photos, new application, new guarantor, and putting the new application in with (because it's apparently not the Passport Office's fault or problem that Canada Post lost the first passport) a new $22 fee for the passport plus the $70 emergency "rush" fee so that we can get the damn thing tomorrow. Because we leave on Monday. Which isn't their problem, either. So none of the many, many, many other errands and bits of work I had scheduled for today, got done. And Sloane was in childcare today so I could get it all done - $60 for last-minute care like that, by the way - which was great for her but meant SO. MUCH. DRIVING. for me, the dayhome being down in Douglasdale. Today was terrible in a zoned-out just-keep-going,-must-get-passport kind of way. When the woman at the passport office counter asked me how to spell the surname of Sloane's guarantor, I couldn't remember who the guarantor was (bit of a red flag in most circumstances).

• Life Insurance Situation Still Not Resolved: we applied for life insurance last May, going through a friend of a friend at a the local office of a big-name insurance underwriter. After a month of meetings and questionnaires and quizzes and even a medical exam where a nurse came to our house, our broker left his position. Our file was transferred to some other guy. A month later, that guy quit. Then about three weeks later we received a form letter wherein we were summarily rejected for insurance by the parent company because we'd apparently missed a deadline to hand in some form we'd never received. We called the local company office, going, Hey, WTF? We were passed up the food chain to a third guy, a manager of some kind. This was in September. I'll spare you more of the gory and boring details, but it took THREE AND A HALF MORE MONTHS for this guy to even get us a quote. We were apparently a "high risk" because of the trip to Asia we had planned. This, in a town full of petroleum engineers who head off to Sudan and Kazakhstan left-right-and-centre: yeah, Thailand's SCARY! Ooh! So anyway, the quote comes back really high. Like, $245 per month. And then the guy is giving me grief on the phone when I tell him we need the premium to be A LOT lower - he's scaremongering me with stuff like, "Gee... are you sure? ...Because I reviewed your file, aaaaaaand, I really think this is a good policy for you guys..." And I'm like, "Dude, we can't pay that. I won't pay our life insurance premiums using my credit card - and that's what it would take to afford that rate." I got off the phone feeling like there is truly no decency left in the world. Went online and found much more reasonable quotes. Things were seeming fishy and yucky. Broker #3 is supposed to come to our house tomorrow morning for a 'meeting' but I cancelled it tonight over the phone - in the wake of the passport schmozzle and considering that we only have three days left before we leave, we just don't have it in us to shuck and jive the sales pitch of an insurance policy that's been seven months in the making and STILL doesn't meet our budget.

• Washer and Drier Still Not Fixed/Removed From Our Premises: We are being given The Run Around by the big appliance retailer that sold us these pieces of shit. Bosch, my ass. How a baby shirt covered only in banana could possibly go through a full "power wash" cycle on "turbo temperature boost" and come out still covered in banana - like: truly still covered in banana, with little bits hanging off and everything - and the service people tell us that WE must be doing something wrong... "Have you tried using a different detergent?" Uh, YES. And, AS IF IT'S THE FAULT OF THE FUCKING DETERGENT! That's BANANA!! Like, c'mon - how can this be. Have some pity, people. Just do the right thing and replace these goddamn machines already.

• Computer, Broken-Broken-Broken: Sony VAIO computers SUCK ASS. This is the second one I've had (both hand-me-downs from family members who were trying to do me a favour) and so I feel somewhat qualified to report that Sony VAIO computers SUCK ASS. Keyboard suddenly doesn't work. The mouse changes directions spontaneously (i.e. moving right with your hand makes the arrow move left, and vice versa), and then changes back again, and then seizes up altogether. Hard drive quakes, periodically. Although Turner tells me that it's not this, I have a sneaking and persistent suspicion that if our nephew Marlon had never touched my computer at Christmastime and put MSN on here with all his moronic teenage friends messaging me for a week after they left : Wasssszzuppp dawgggg???, then everything would have remained just fine. But whatever the reason for the spasmodic terribleness infesting this computer, a solution is going to have to wait for Bangkok. God help me if I lose the photos on the HD before then.

• Aeroplan hasn't confirmed my flight between Hong Kong and Bangkok: Although Turner got his online itinerary a month ago when we booked the onward flights from Hong Kong, my receipt never arrived. He calls them once a week, and they assure him that my flight is booked, and they say they'll send a receipt and itinerary to me. And then they never do. Turner's on file as calling for this express purpose, now, and the agents get snippy with him right away. But his argument is fairly straightforward: "Would you leave the country without a receipt and itinerary for your onward journey halfway to your destination? ...No, neither would I. So please, please just send a receipt to my wife!" And the agents pity him and say okay, we'll do it again. And then they never do. They just. never. do.

I can see your eyes glazing over, there. You're already sick of hearing this. I know. I know. I've been where you are. I know Those People - they're always complaining about something. Yes. ...Yes, this is us.

Categories: Married Life

Comments [11]

In Which Turner Would Like The World To Know That He Is Not Just "A Greaseball"

Turner sez to me tonight he sez, "You tell those people out there on your blog that I do more than just model as a greaseball for passport photos. I make dinner, you know."

Y'all, Turner makes lots and lots and lots of dinners. Amazing dinners. Ones that include "zest" of this and "zither" of that. He grinds things with special implements and he marinates other things in stuff he has to buy, special, for the occasion. He's not just a pretty face, my husband, no - he brings home the bacon and then he fries it in special oyster reduction after coating it in the slightest hint of cajun breaded marinade.

As a full-time work-from-home writer, Turner sees 'making dinner' as his second profession. I think he loves it in part because the men of T's family have always been known as Men Who Cook. But in his particular case I think it's extra-satisfying because while writing never ends, dinner can be finished and eaten & appreciated - and then it's over.

It's a rather satisfying prospect - to create something and have it consumed and appreciated immediately and then move on -- for a writer whose 'main' work (the writing, that is) is always waiting for him when he returns to the basement lair office. (The cooking side of things is satisfying also for the wife, it should be said - though for different reasons. My waistline would probably better appreciate a more "artistic" type who subists on apples and beer. But I can't deny that T's food is soooo gooood.)

Typical Alberta meal: steak and salad: period. It needs to be mentioned that Costco may well be the death of small retailers of goods and grocery sundries everywhere... but they carry such DAMN good meats. (So thick were these steaks that I hesitate to tell you how thick were these steaks. Being an Albertan, I know how y'all get jealous and then get to bashing The Alberta. ..So I'll let you read [between] the [under]lines. ...And yes, I have a special grad degree. That's where you learn the soffistikated use of square brackets, for your information.)

Also: I'm still learning how to properly balance the light when using the fisheye lens, for the record. Give me some time, and I shall rule the fisheye woooooorrrrrld-duh!

The husband also does the dishes. He wanted you to know. (FTR: dishwasher door, still broken.)

p.s. By the way, and despite my fisheye shortcomings: DIG THE FISHEYE LENS!! Enh? ...ENHHHH!!??!? You know you love it!!

Categories: Married Life | Turner

Comments [14]

The Appliance Vortex Of Death

When it rains, it pours. Or so they say. Over the last few weeks we've had a collective death of every appliance in the house, save our food processor (it’s on 24-hour suicide watch). So Sloane still gets her mashed peas, but everything else is on the fritz. Thank god we leave for Asia in a week.

First it was the washer-drier in the basement. Thought to be top-of-the-line Bosch products, these things turned out to be LEMONS. Let me spell that for you. Ell, ee, emm, oh, enn, ess. L-e-m-o-n-s. I won't say where we purchased these machines, because the business in question is still deciding whether they’ll deign to replace/fix them (an ongoing fight to the death – we’ve had 3 service calls so far that remedied exactly FBA). So if they, the sellers, don't fix the problem in some way, shape or form, I will give a full report. In any case, the clothes washer and drier are badness. For now I'll leave it at that, so I'll thank you to keep your comments to yourself when you see us out and about, wearing dirty clothes in public.

Next up, the dishwasher. Exactly one day before we left for Edmonton, the door on the dishwasher gave out with a little whimper and now it yawns toooo wide. While still functional as an actual dish-washer, the machine nonetheless requires maintenance which we can't supply ourselves. Goddamn repair people have to come. Bring a little whatsit replacement thingee for the hinge. Take four and a half minutes to affix it (elapsed time includes entering abode, unpacking of tools and repeated hiking-up of pants), and then slap us with a bill for $80, I just know it. Fuckers.

Also, our stove. Thank god this happened AFTER the whole Christmas goose and seventeen thousand other important family meals leading up to the big day: on Boxing Day Turner and I are running around getting the house ready for Ainsley’s surprise baby shower, and at some point we realize that the air is decidedly gassy. Like, natural-gassy. Like, the giant 1950s stove that is the beloved centrepiece of our kitchen is LEAKING GAS-gassy. So we get on the blower with ATCO and they send a man scampering to the house. As I’m putting out cookie plates and mixing up punch and watching the front window for the imminent arrival of the guests, Mr. Atco guy’s little Geiger counter doohickey is saying that the natural gas levels in our kitchen are something like 500 parts per million. In layman’s terms, that translates as “Shut off all the gas to the house, you are standing in a combustion chamber”. Guy sez we just need to replace the valves on the burners, and that should solve the problem… if we can find valves for the burners on our rare, antique stove. Dear readers, please write in to report you have exactly our stove in your garage and that you would be thrilled to send us its mint-condition burner valves, would you? Thanks a mil.  

Finally, the microwave. One minute it worked just fine: I had hot tea on the kitchen island to prove that it'd been functional only moments earlier. But suddenly it yelled Goodbye Cruel World! with a loud clunk accompanied by a terrifying cascade of numbers on the display. After a few test-pokes which were rewarded with ominous rattles and bangs, it was abundantly clear that our microwave was no more. By that point we were pretty zen about the black hole of appliance death that is our Spiller Road home. Turner was dispatched to Future Shop post haste to replace the ex-microwave with something, quote, “Less fake-wood-panelly” as his only guidelines.

But like I say, the food processor still works. Mashed peas, anyone?

Categories: House | Married Life

Comments [2]

Family Christmas Portrait

Merry Christmas and Season's Greetings to you all!

Oh ho ho, the ol' self-portrait in the WEM Fantasyland Hotel lobby pillar trick... do go on.

Categories: Family | Married Life

Comments [0]

N! Nest!

Ash and Turner are padding around the kitchen, getting morning beverages ready: water, coffee. Doo-dee-doo-doo baby toy music in the background, accompanying Sloane's fist-mashing efforts on the singalong alphabet toy we got at the liquidation centre

T:    [suddenly, in perfectly-matching singsong voice like the toy] N! Nest! ...We've been on that one for weeks.

A:    Ha ha ha.

They head back to the livingroom, get computers up and humming. Turner starts back into the kitchen.

T:    You want coffee this morning?

A:    [really up an' at 'em today, possibly due to the barometric pressure drop of the incoming chinook] Oh YES PLEASE.

T:    Oh... good. Just what we need this morning, everyone fulla beans. [in kitchen now] ...Aw SHIT.

A:   What?

T:   ... [sound of water running, various grunty Turner sounds as he grabs the washcloth from the sink]

A:   Whaaaat? [craning neck around computer, looking futilely into dining area] Whaaaaat? What happened? What?

T:   The... [wiping sounds] fucking... [sound of appliances moving across the countertop] coffee pot wasn't ...on the burner properly and there's coffee [more wiping sounds] ...everywhere.

A:   [getting up, coming to kitchen, grabbing some paper towels, wiping up giant spilled puddle on floor while Turner works on the counter] ... ha ha ha.

T:   What. What?

A:   Ha ha ha. ...M! Mess!

T:   You're a lotta help.     

Categories: Married Life | Turner

Comments [3]

Dreamy dreams

Ash and Turner are headed south down Blackfoot, en route to Douglasdale for Sunday family dinner.

A:   Sooooooo. How are you?

T:   Heh?

A:   How are you, what's going on?

T:   Nothing. Driving, here.

A:   [looking around, bored] Sooooo...

T:   This is trouble, I can feel it. Stop while you still can.

A:   I don't know what you're talking about. I say, "How are you?" and you say, "I'm fine", and we have a lovely ride. See, but you have to parTICipate. Like, for example, I say "what's going on?" and then you proceed to tell me all sorts of interesting things. ...Ok, go.

T:   [sighs. It's been a long and frustrating work day at Chez Bristowe Turner, even though it's Sunday. Turner's nerves are shot.]

A:   [Looks out the window for a bit.]

Driving, still driving. Negotiating the Blackfoot south-Glenmore east-Deerfoot south ramps. And then:

A:   Sooooooo. Um, so. ...SO! Uhhhh.... what was your bad dream about last night? I didn't get to hear about it. You were starting to tell me this morning but we got interrupted.

T:   Ah... nothing. No - it, it was complicated.

A:   Cinematic, you said.

T:   ...Yeah. And... complicated. One of those complex ones. 

A:   Scary? Was it scary?

T:   Well, not so much scary. Just...

A:    Scary, right? Bad dreams are the worst, I know. [nodding vigorously]</