Happy Birthday, Past Present & Future

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



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

Categories: Ash | Mom-ness | Sloane

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Soundgarden Parenting

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

Categories: Ash | Mom-ness

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Lovely Gibran

About two weeks ago now, I was invited to attend a blessing way for Jenny, preparing her for childbirth. Two women brought this poem to share. I'd never heard it before but it was so perfect that I've been thinking about it ever since.

On Children
     Kahlil Gibran

    Your children are not your children.
    They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
    They come through you but not from you,
    And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

    You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
    For they have their own thoughts.
    You may house their bodies but not their souls,
    For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
    which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
    You may strive to be like them,
    but seek not to make them like you.
    For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

    You are the bows from which your children
    as living arrows are sent forth.
    The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
    and He bends you with His might
    that His arrows may go swift and far.
    Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
    For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
    so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Categories: Mom-ness

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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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2007 Year In Review

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




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

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

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




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

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



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

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

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




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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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




On drinking: Sourpuss shots have their time and place.

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

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



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

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

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

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

On holidays: There are no holidays.

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

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This One's Mainly To Panic The Grandparents

I got weak in the legs, watching Sloane traverse over these 3m-high loops at the local playground (on the occasion of our Ramsay Safe Walk evening, post to follow). Turner called me over to see the feat, reportedly sick to his stomach watching her the first time, himself.


Sloane, Dada, and Mia Ho.

In my day, I was also a great climber, me. For which I give my mom & dad HUGE props for being completely cool with letting us climb all over everything, including up onto counters and tables, and for providing us with swing sets and jungle gyms in the backyard throughout our youth. John and Ainsley and I all grew up with no fear of heights, and amazing core abs strength as a result of all that monkeying around.

But I very clearly remember visiting Nanny and Grampa at 206 South Hill Street in Thunder Bay, and climbing up onto the kitchen counter to fetch this ceramic bird from a shelf beside the sink - it was one of those things you fill with water and then blow through, producing a very passable bird tweedly-tweet-tweedly-tweet! So I'm scrambling up onto the counter with basically no trouble, and standing there picking up the bird, and Grampa comes in and yells, "GET DOWN FROM THERE! YOU'LL HURT YOURSELF!" And me: ...Really? I will? How?

This exact scene was to be repeated many, many, many times with my grandparents over the years, well into my twenties. And every time, the whole idea that I might possibly fall and hurt myself always struck me as absolutely ludicrous. Frankly, I had excellent balance and had the gymnastics balance beam medals to prove it. On a two-foot-wide counter I knew exactly what I was doing. Their fear of my inability to keep myself safe while climbing truly made me question my grandparents' judgement. I never fell. None of us did. And I wondered how grown-ups got things from the high cupboards.

When we moved to Calgary I was sent to Sam Livingston elementary in Lake Bonavista. In the schoolyard, there were these peanut-league soccer goalposts that had an extra, lower, set of bars within their frame. Me and the other gymnastically-inclined girls would play up there all recess and on lunchours, doing half-kips and baby drops, great fun. And then in grade five, along comes Lindsay Schooley. She was new, having moved to Calgary from somewhere else. She wanted to play on the bars with us. She didn't know what she was doing, and she fell, and broke her arm. We all got to sign her cast. But after that no one was allowed to play on those bars. And I remember, even as a 10-year-old, feeling so indignantly gipped by the whole situation. Pissed off: I most certainly wasn't going to fall and break my arm. Lindsay didn't know what she was doing and had tried a baby drop and missed it and now suddenly all of us were banned from the best part of the playground equipment. (I'm sure Lindsay Schooley is now a very capable adult leading a productive life. I'm sure she's a very intelligent and nice person. Let me not imply that Lindsay did anything wrong or bad by breaking her arm on those bars at Sam Livingston elementary way back in the early 1980s. I'm just noting here that she ruined it for the rest of us.) Even as a young person I had my suspicions that Lindsay's parents didn't let her climb around on the counters at home.

But! now! as a parent, I can really understand the concern for the first time. It's an actual physical feeling. It's as though you, yourself, are in danger. The blood sugar crash, the rush of sound in your head. Danger! Watching Sloane climbing these loops, my legs went tingly and strange. I really really really wanted to grab her and pull her down. You know, to keep her "safe".

So I now doubly, triply, quadruply appreciate my own parents' restraint when it came to this stuff. I'm sure they went through the same thing, that same gut fear. But they squelched it. (Or just didn't care. ...Just kidding! Kidding, kidding.) And I grew up strong and able and athletic, with excellent balance and no physical fear. Turner and I have talked about this - the climbing - a lot. He absolutely didn't do stuff like this when he was a kid. Turner wasn't allowed to stand in chairs or climb along the backs of couches, and of course the famous example in his family is that he wasn't really allowed to look down into the Grand Canyon when they visited it. ... And Margo, I know you're reading this! I want you to know that I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND where you were coming from. That fear - it just doesn't go away, does it? I think it never really does.

At this point, I can completely believe getting emails from Sloane at university, with photo attachments of boat races and cheerleading pyramids, and still getting that crazy parent vertigo.

For now, however, we're biting our tongues and fighting the nausea. And hoping she ends up with an "Excellence" in the Canada Fitness Test (when they re-institute it, of course), and never falls off a counter. Because then, of course, my grandparents will roll over in their graves and yell "I TOLD YOU SO!"

Categories: Dad-ness | Mom-ness | Olden Days | Sloane

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The Truest Song

There are a lot of true songs out there.

But if you're from a prairie city. A Canadian prairie city, especially. (And if you're from a prairie city that you didn't want to end up back in, hoo boy.)

And you're missing someone... but it's over, really over. (And it's never going to be not-over.)

"Ah yes," I hear you saying, ironically, "Awesome." (Been there, fuck that, fuck me, gimme a beer.)

The song for you - and, I suspect, for all of us - is this one:


Left And Leaving, the Weakerthans

My city's still breathing (but barely it's true)
through buildings gone missing like teeth.
The sidewalks are watching me think about you,
sparkled with broken glass.
I'm back with scars to show, Back with the streets I know
Will never take me anywhere but here.

The stain in the carpet, this drink in my hand,
the strangers whose faces I know.
We meet here for our dress-rehearsal to say " I wanted it this way"
Wait for the year to drown.
Spring forward, fall back down.
I'm trying not to wonder where you are.

All this time lingers, undefined.
Someone choose who's left and who's leaving.
Memory will rust and erode into lists of all that you gave me:
a blanket, some matches, this pain in my chest,
the best parts of Lonely, duct-tape and soldered wires,
new words for old desires,
and every birthday card I threw away.

I wait in 4/4 time.
Count yellow highway lines that you're relying on to lead you home.

This song is about Winnipeg.

And although you could argue that although I've always loved Winnipeg (blindly, perhaps, as some have suggested?) for the wonderful childhood memories it provided me, it's true that I only lived there until I was eight years old. (Calgary, the city we landed in afterwards, and the city in which I spent my pre-adolescent and teenage years, is not generally known for its decay or angst, particularly.)

But for some reason, this song resonates for me. In some ways, maybe in the lives-unlived that I would have had in Winnipeg, or in Calgary if I hadn't left in 1991? I don't know. Maybe everyone who grew up Prairie knew and feared this future for themselves; lived it a thousand times in unremembered nightmares and panicked moments alone at university. Knew we didn't want to go back: might someday end up back there: and in such an instance, might need to kill ourselves.

It was a balance: make it, or die. Or, worse: face all those broken sidewalks and half-remembered faces and pound them through the glass door of your love, broken. (So really, might as well die...)

But even so, I see the St. Vital sidewalk this guy is pacing. The random smashed glass that didn't necessarily mean "trashy neighbourhood". The short summers that help make a southern Manitoba life barely worth living.

Me, I've been in those hopeful, hipster, far-from-the-centre mid-twenties venues where everyone is half-hysterical. Those ones with curtains for walls and everyone too excited (and somehow, embarrassed that they aren't who they were in elementary school, anymore. Apologetic. Defensive. And weird).

Really, I think the saddest, truest line has to be, "We meet here for our dress rehearsal to say: 'I wanted it this way' ": All of us, anywhere, everywhere, have been there. Lived this blow. Breathed this lie. Tried to live it. Failed. I've been that person, the one going about their business. And dying inside.

And, AND! the whole subtext of the city killing itself: so true to my own heart. Completely a true statement about Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary: My city's still breathing, but barely, it's true... Through buildings gone missing like teeth. I'm not that old, but I can still give you a tour of my adolescent Calgary landscape by what's gone. By what's not there anymore. All those buildings that they knocked down. The Theatrey. Studio A Go Go. The Westward Club. And so on. They live on in me, and they ache like a missing tooth.

So, me, right? I'm singing this sad song to Sloane tonight for the first time. It just came into my brain between Yoshimi and Country Roads, and I sang it through for her. And you might think, in the midst of singing it, as I did: should you really be singing this fucked-up, lonely, pseudo-stalker song about a dying city and its damaged man to your toddler?

But then, you (or me, for example, I) think:
1. That was all me, those lyrics. In ways. In feelings. In bits. And pieces. That was me. It is Truth. There is no more TRUE Canadian song. Blessed be.
2. And by the way, it's not like we're trying to hide Sloane from the actual truth bits of life. (See the "We showed Sloane Rooney's ripped-apart corpse and then let her watch Mama bury him in the yard" post from a few months back, for deets.)
3. Prairie childhood & upbringing, and the saga of same... she might as well hear it from us (in part by way of The Weakerthans, natch).
4. ... And heartbreak. You really, REALLY don't want your kids to know. But really, eventually, it'll happen to them. (And if it doesn't, they'll end up sociopaths. So you have to, in a weird and sadistic way, HOPE for your kids to undergo the torturous and revolting SAGA that is normal, everyday heartbreak.) And someday they'll be sitting there with the pain in their chests, just as sure as we were.
5. Plus, like, isn't it my JOB, like, as a parent, to, like, competely psychologically hobble my children? Don't all parents strive for this? (Shouldn't I be grateful that I was given such an early opportunity to do same?)

Or: it's just a song! Get over it! It's got a great tune! It's Canadian! It's slow and sounds like a lullaby to my toddler! She'll grow up with Canadian music pre-programmed into her subconscious, how lovely!

And: my life is great, it's not like I'm singing about the present. It's possible to be happy on the prairie. But there's a bunch of turmoil between here and there. Better to warn her, right?

Yer thots?

Categories: Ash | Canadiana | Mom-ness

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She Said, He Said

Me:         Okay Sloane, that's it. (Taking bowl, standing up)
Sloane:    Nooooooo! Noooooooo!
Me:         Yes, that's it. I'm sorry. (Moving to sink, emptying bowl)
Sloane:    Nooooooo!
Me:         Yes. Yes. I'm sorry lovie. That's it. (Wiping hands)
Turner:    (Coming into kitchen) ...What's going on...?
Sloane:    No! Mama! (Crying. Screaming. Throwing spoon.)
Me:         (Turning to Sloane) No, lovey. You may not throw your bowl while blowing milk through the whole wheat ...shedded wheat ...bran squares. (Looking at Turner. Grinning at the idiocy of the statement.)
Turner:    ..."Living With A Two-Year-Old In Fifty Words Or Less"
Me:         ...Too true.
Sloane:    Mama, I'm done!

Categories: Dad-ness | Mom-ness | Sloane

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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

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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

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SMOKIN' Mad

So I knew that there were lineups and wait lists and stuff like that for playschools. So I signed Sloane up back in March, paid my deposit. When I didn't get the promised receipt in the mail in 3-4 days like they'd said I would (a month later nothing had shown up), I called. They didn't answer my call. So I went back.

It's a great place and the kids look happy. The staff are friendly. It's close by. It reminds me of my own kindergarten. I put Sloane on the list for either full or part time, whatever came up first.

In Alberta you can't send your kid to playschool until they're 19 months old. Which means that to have childcare before that you can stay home, or send them to daycare ($25-45/day and up), or get a private babysitter of some description ($11/hr and up). Turner and I work in shifts (me - mornings, him - afternoons & evenings) and share the childcare at home. A lot of days Grampa Brucio comes over and takes Sloane for an hour or two. Our personal philosophies, combined with our financial situation, didn't really allow for dumping her in any ol' daycare. And besides which, there aren't many daycare places to be had, anyway. So I cobbled together my work in the free hours of my day, and although my career arc is transcendent at present, I was really looking forward to the chance to really kick out the jams.

Sloane is really social, too, and loves other children. She screeches, "Kiiiiids! Kiiiiiids!" when she sees other children at the playground, or we go to friends' houses with kids. We know she'd thrive in a playschool environment.

So it was with some measure of concern that I hadn't heard from the playschool yet. I'd perused the documents they'd given me, familiarized myself with the checklist of stuff I have to send with Sloane every day, read the bylaws, started scoping out the lunchboxes at toy stores. And yet, no call. By last week I'd put on my to-do list "Call playschool re: Sloane". And today I called.

1. The school is full for the fall. When I signed her up in March, I asked if I should be investigating other options. I said the words, "This is the only place I'm putting her on a waiting list. Is there any reason she might not make it to the top of the list by the fall?" The answer was, and I quote, "I don't see ANY REASON why she won't be here in the fall. Don't worry" (emphasis mine). So I didn't put her on any other waiting lists.

2. Other kids were brought through the wait list before Sloane. The administrator hadn't written that I would take full or part time, whatever was available first. They'd put "part time" by Sloane's name. Which means, and I quote from today's phone call, "Other children were placed ahead of Sloane". When I registered her back in March, they weren't sure whether they were going to cut the part-time program. Sometime between then and now, they went ahead and cut the program. If I had indeed wanted part time care for Sloane, I was not notified.

3. Fucking $100 per month from the fucking government. ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. You know what $100 buys you these days in Calgary? Not even a blow job. I am absolutely repulsed by these fucking government buy-off programs. Ralph and his fucking $400. Do you realize that even Sloane got $400? Seven months old and she was sent a cheque for $400 by the Alberta government. And then they take $180/mo in health care premiums. Schools are falling apart. Multinational oil companies are subsidized to speed the irrevocable destruction of the boreal forest and muskeg in Northern Alberta. But my seven month old daughter got $400 from the Alberta government, and so did I, just for breathing - just for being a resident of the province. We put it all in her RESP. 

But this $100/month. I am SO ANGRY at that program. Where the hell is a national strategy for child care? I am SO ANGRY at ALL the fucking political parties that have been promising a national child care program since the late 1980s. There was this big study recently that showed that back-to-work rates for women in Alberta is the lowest in the country. I am part of that demographic because I CAN'T GET MY KID INTO PLAYSCHOOL. I COULDN'T PUT MY KID IN DAYCARE BECAUSE THERE WERE NO SPOTS, AND THE ARRANGEMENTS I DID FIND WERE TOO EXPENSIVE, OR IN THE FAR SOUTHEAST, OR IN TRULY SCARY NEIGHBOURHOODS.   

There is one slender ray of hope and it's this: some little kid in the program hasn't shown up yet. If he doesn't show by tomorrow, Sloane is at the top of the list. But here's the kicker: they don't graduate kids to the next "grade" until the end of the school year. Which means that once the year is full, it's full until the following fall. And Sloane doesn't turn 19 months, the age at which she can start, until October 19th.

I'm terrified to call back and ask if that means that some other kid, who is already 19 mo + gets the spot ahead of Sloane.

I hate facing this feeling - the one where I know I'd claw my way over another parent to get what I need for my child. I don't know what to do. I'm SO ANGRY.

Postscript: I called. If this other kid doesn't show up, Sloane can have the spot. But only if we pay for the month of September to hold the place. That's $675 for childcare we can't access.

Categories: Calgary | Mom-ness

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Yet Another Reason

Um, the United States terrifies me a little bit.

Last night we went to Walgreen's. It's a drugstore down here. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself browsing in Walgreen's on past visits to the States. They carry the most ridiculous stuff, for a drugstore. I still have a lovely pair of fuzzy neon-pink socks from a Walgreen's in Chicago, and I think fondly of the store whenever I put them on.

But last night I saw this:

At first it just looks like your basic wall of baby formula and accoutrements. But then I noticed at all the formula (and nothing else) was locked inside plastic cases:

Now. Look closer at those little red labels on the locked cases. What do you see?

Can you read that? It says: SECURITY ALERT! To keep our prices low, we have secured this product. Please see any store associate for assistance. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Cans of formula like that cost between $14-26.

I walked around the store a bit. Items that are not locked inside plastic cases: makeup ($3-45), cough syrup ($6-18), new-fangled lazy person's gizmo for picking things up off the floor if you drop something and don't want to bend over ($11.99), fake leather bags ($8-30), and magazines ($3-12). This is just a random survey. But I should note that nothing else that could be considered an "essential" - milk, cheese, bread, aspirin, or even diapers - was locked up. You could reach across a counter and grab your own smokes at the till, if you really wanted to.

So it really begs the question: why lock up the formula? Well, the obvious answer is because people steal it.

Which begs the next question: why do people steal baby formula? Of all the people I've known who shoplifted anything from drugstores, condoms (not locked up) were the #1 item of choice.

I can afford formula, myself. It's expensive, but we can manage it on our grocery budget. And we're in the process of weaning Sloane onto soy and milk right now, so I haven't given it much thought for a while.

I can't remember the ins and outs and fidgetty details of the argument, but at one point in my undergrad, we Women's Studies majors did a whole thing about the evils of Nestle and the other manufacturers of formula. How, in underdeveloped countries, they used to give incentives to hospitals to supply new mothers with formula to discourage breastfeeding. Infant formula has been implicated in millions of baby's deaths by dehydration and poor development, due to either underfeeding or mixing with tainted water. Once a mother's milk dries up, it's incredibly difficult to get it going again. And thence families are locked in to buying formula, which in some parts of the world could account for 50% or more of a daily household income. Yes, I'm serious - google it and see for yourself. I've seen a huge difference in the advertising of formula in Asia, in just the last ten years. When I first went to the Philippines in 1995, formula ads were everywhere. In tiny grey script at the bottom of the tv screen or billboard, by law the companies were mandated to include the text: breastmilk is best for babies. If you weren't looking for it (I was), you'd never have seen it. Now the government obligates companies to have full narration about how mother's milk is recommended at least to six months, and that formula is a substitute. Huge education campaigns worldwide have apparently hit formula companies' developing-world profits, hard.

So what does this have to do with the locked-up baby formula in Walgreen's? I'm not 100% sure if it's completely related. But I look at a wall of baby formula locked up behind plexiglass, and something in me shudders uncontrollably. There's something yucky, and evil, about it. Sure, if people are stealing formula, the obvious conclusion is that it's priced too high for the market to properly bear. You never see bananas or bread or eggs go over a certain price threshold, because it's been demonstrated that people will actually stop shopping at a store which charges "too much" for what are considered "essentials". In some households, formula is an essential. As in, the baby isn't being breastfed, and is younger than a year old. In this scenario, the child should be getting most of its daily nutrition from a fortified formula. Bananas and bread and eggs all cost less than $4. In some households $15 is too much.

When a household "essential" costs too much, there are only three options:

1. Buy the item anyway, and go into debt to service the need, or do without some other "essential" good (You choose: Heat? Insurance? Rent? Etcetera).

2. Steal it.

Or, 3. Go without.

Once when I was visiting Jenn Foley down at UGA, I met her housemate who did volunteer work with Athens families living on welfare. She told us crazy stories about coming into homes and finding babies, 4 or 5 months old, sucking on bottles of blue Kool-Aid. She seemed to think that it was because the family didn't know any better. A few years later those kids would be carrying around Hallowe'en-packs of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as their "lunch" when they'd go outside to play, apparently. Those two images: the blue Kool-Aid bottle, the 4 year old with the Reese's cups, they've stuck with me for years. I remember being speechless. And empty. Terrified. I couldn't fathom a world where blue Kool-Aid seemed like a good idea for a little new baby. I exaggerate not in the slightest when I say that I came back to Canada and looked at my family, my city, and my life very differently from then on. A scary basis for comparison is always jarring.  

Which comes vaguely around to my point. Which is, we've had a great trip so far. And most Americans are awesome. But.

This is a country where fast food is cheap, health care can bankrupt a family, and baby formula is locked up to protect a store's profits. Conclude what you wish.

Categories: Ash | Mom-ness

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The Main Difference Between Dragons And Lions Is That Lions Are Not Dragons

When Sloane and I were transitting through Hong Kong in March, we stayed at the Metropole Hotel in Kowloon. We were hoping to be able to change our itinerary to be able to meet up with Auntie Anne. She was coming through town for a schnazzy work thing, and we WOULDA been able to meet up, but we weren't allowed to change our onward ticket. 

Our itinerary had us going HK to Seoul, switch planes, and then from Seoul to Vancouver, all with Korean Airlines. (approx 11,000 km). Then it was to be Vancouver to Calgary, with Air Canada. (approx 1056 km)

Korean Airlines was willing to bend over backwards and do a little dance while throwing kimchi in the air to let us change our ticket, no problemo and kam sam nee dah to you, too. The whole "problem" rested with Air Canada. Somehow, they couldn't find ONE SINGLE SEAT for us on the (8 x daily) Vancouver to Calgary flights they run, other than the seat I already had booked. Despite my efforts, my industrious travel agent's efforts, and the efforts (dig this) of KOREAN AIRLINES to help us make it happen (thank you Korean Airlines!), Air Canada decided, in the end, to fuck us at the drive through. They wouldn't let us change the flight at all... and then, later, they cancelled the flight they made us book. And we were only told this once we arrived in Canada. Which meant that I had to wait twice as long in Vancouver as I would have if they'd kept the original booking. ...Which leads me to believe their flights aren't as heavily booked as they'd like to think... which inevitably leads to the idea of: WHY NOT LET ME BOOK A NEW FLIGHT THE NEXT DAY, OR ANY OTHER DAY?  

But I digress.

In any event, Sloane and I had one night in Hong Kong, and we decided, after much discussion between us, to eat at the restaurant across from the hotel. This restaurant was huge. As in, it-took-up-the-whole-of-the-second-storey-of-the-building HUGE. It was one of those Chinese restaurants essentially designed to host enormous displays of family weath; the kind that has whole walls devoted to fishtanks of arawana, the huge waiting area was filled with lean-over-and-peruse-your-future-dinner acrylic vats of lobsters/crabs/carp swimming in circles and waiting to be eaten. It had floor-to-ceiling divider rails, allowing for the restaurant to be partitioned off into chomp-sized pieces if there were particular piece-by-piece family events to be accommodated. It looked over one of the busiest roads in northern Kowloon, and had a truly awesome neon sign that featured a Godzilla-sized fish gulping repeatedly upwards at the characters that made up the name of the restaurant. And, we soon learned, the staff didn't speak English and weren't interested in my efforts at international sign language.

In the end I got the (English-speaking) manager to come to the table; I asked him for his suggestions as to what I should order; I ordered those things; our dinner was ludicrously delicious. And Sloane got restless about 0.5 seconds after I'd had my first bite of food. Which meant, in our then-new-age of walking, that she got to roam. The Chinese folks in the restaurant didn't really appreciate the nuanced amazingness that is our Sloanedottir, and so it behooved me to fix-and-thenceforth-monitor the situation. Which I did.

At one end of the restaurant was a sort of stage area. On the wall facing the restaurant, the huge Chinese characters denoting "wedding"/"marriage", Double Happiness:

This was where the bride and groom would sit, presumably, if the restaurant were packed with guests and we were celebrating a wedding. Which, this night, we weren't, so it was totally deserted except for us and three other tables, so Sloane and I headed up to investigate. I don't have any pictures of the papier mache figures adorning the pillars there, but I do wish I did. Truly serious, were these. The most prominent among the many animals depicted were the dragons, a matching pair which gripped matching pillars on either side of the stage, their bulging eyes made of quietly sizzling red neon bulbs. The heads were bigger than mine, the bodies wrapped, snakelike, round and round the poles. I took Sloane up close to see.

"Arrrruh!" I trilled, as I held her up to the dragon faces, showing her the teeth, the whiskers, the talon-clawed feet. Arrruh! I think the neon eyes actually convinced her a bit, and when she started to wrench around, wanting to get away, I showed her how you could touch the nice dragon and it was all okay, don't worry. She was all worked up by then, so I carried her back to the table. But halfway back, she turned and pointed at the dragons again. "Dra-gunn", I said, pointing too. "Arrruh!" "....Aaaaacccchhhh!" trilled Sloane making a kind of half-choked gurgling sound in her throat, thrilled with herself. So back we went to take another look. We spent most of the next half hour going back and forth between the dragon stage and our table. And Sloane's love of dragons was born.

I'd bought an embroidered Thai wall hanging in Bangkok which featured a detailed and shiny-beaded dragon, and we hung it on the kitchen wall above the high chair. Sloane points at it and gets us to Arrrruh! for her every day, and she grins and grins. Aaaaccchhh, she says to it, and claps her hands. Dragon! Yay!

So, to the story at hand: Turner bought me a Chariot for Mother's Day this year. I badly wanted a Chariot, or any facsimile thereof, asap last year - and I was THUNDEROUSLY disappointed to hear I wasn't allowed to put my kid into a drag-it-behind-the-bike thing until she could fit/wear a helmet. And they don't make helmets for babies. So that meant I had to wait until this year, and I did that waiting with all the patience of a sugar-stuffed kid anticipating a ride on the roller coaster, which is to say, not all that patiently. I spent all winter taking Sloane around, trying to fit her with a helmet that would stay on her noggin, to no avail. But our summer finally arrived and I finally found a helmet for her (the smallest on the market), and with those preconditions in place I slapped our kid post-haste into all the available bike-draggy-thing models around town, reported back to Chez Bristowe-Turner base about the prices and etcetera, and finally bought a Chariot model on consignment from the Macleod Trail outlet of Once Upon A Child. Happy Mother's Day to me!

Brought it home, triumphant. Hooked it up to the bike, dancing back and forth like someone who needs to pee really bad. And finally took the whole thing out on a maiden voyage. Sloane screamed the whole time, hating the helmet like mad (she has since come around on the helmet and wants to wear it everywhere).   

When I was eight and nine months pregnant last year, I used to sit around dreaming about all the amazing feats of athletic prowess I would perform after I gave birth to the bowling ball in my belly. And foremost in my mind was the image of me, three months post-baby (and of course completely fit and lithe already), biking down the Bow River pathway en route to Kensington to get a coffee or something (I don't really drink coffee, but that's not the point), dragging the baby in a chariot, the little sticky-uppy orange flag flapping in the lovely warm Calgary sunshine. It was a very specific vision. I was going to have that vision.

So one night early last week, away we went to Kensington, along the Bow River pathway. Calgary's weather this spring has been nigh-on awesome. It's been raining cats and dogs the last few days, but before that it was basically a month and more of sun and warmth and light wind and chinook after chinook, each day better than the last. Our ride to Kensington was on one of the best spring days of all time: leaves just unfurling on the Memorial Drive poplars, the river still low and the geese honking at the pedestrians and scooting their goslings into the high grass. Rollerbladers and dogwalkers and cyclists out in hoardes, and me and Sloane (screaming at the helmet), wheeling among them, finally living the dream. When you become a parent, it's important to have lots of little achievable goals. It allows you the illusion of progress. There I was, check mark in the box of "drag baby behind bike down Bow River pathway to Kensington". It was great.   

On the way home, I spotted the dragons that flank the entrance to Sien Lok Park where 1st St. SW meets Riverfront Avenue, and veered over to show Sloane. She was deeeee-lighted to Arrrruh! at the dragons, getting me to walk back and forth between them. Over the next week we came to visit the dragons whenever we rode the river path, and Sloane was always thrilled to see her friends with the big teeth. One day we were there doing the Arrrruh! and a young Chinese mother came by with her daughter. We started talking about the weather (beautiful again) and our daughters, and I looked at the dragons and thought to ask what the word for "dragon" is in Cantonese.

I should mention here that we speak to Sloane mainly in English, but there are some things I say in other languages - a mishmash of phrases and nouns in French, Hindi, Tagalog, depending. Sloane'll grow up thinking that a horse is a "ghora", or when something's all gone you say "wala, wala na". When something's going on I ask her, "Qu'est-ce qui se passe?" and when I want her to come to me, I usually say, "Eeder ao". These things just started coming out of my mouth when I became a mom. I could say them in English of course, like, I'm capable. But they seem right in the other languages, so I keep on.

So: given Sloane's appreciation of dragons, and the provenance of the joy associated with growling at them, it felt appropriate that we might introduce the Chinese word for dragon into our family vocabulary. So I sez to this other woman, I sez, "What's the word for 'dragon' in Cantonese?"

She looked confused. ...Dragon?

I said yes, dragon, gesturing to the two dragons on either side of the path, right beside us as we stood by the bike.

Ah... she said, "This is lai-yun." 

Hm, said I, trying it out: "Lai-yun?"

She looked at me, still a bit troubled somehow. I said, "Dragon is 'lai-yun', eh? [nodding at her, looking for approval on my pronounciation] Hm, okay: lai-yun..."

The woman started shaking her head: "No no. Lai-yun." She paused. Leaned in like I was a retarded person, and pointed at the dragons: "This is not dragon. L-I-O-N, in English spelling. This is lion."

I looked at the dragons. And they are very obviously not dragons. They are, in fact, very obviously LIONS. The light went on: lai-yun/lion. Ohhhhh. 

She said, "You know, dragon more long [showing with her hands], has these things [indicates long carp-like whiskers]."

Me: "Yes. Yes I know. You're so right, of course these are lions."

(In my own defense, I now present a short list of Similarities Between Lions And Dragons In Chinese Iconography: flowing mane; claws; tail; open mouth with sharp teeth. Dissimilarities abound, but those are the things they have in common. I think my error was understandable. ...Okay, of course I am a moron, don't listen to my rationalizations.)

Uh, so uh, now I take Sloane to see the lions. Except I pronounce it lai-yun. Because I'm stubborn that way, and can't admit I'm wrong. Mostly.

Categories: Calgary | Mom-ness | Sloane

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Dance! Dance! Dance!

Our Mother's Day topic is, "The decided lack of opportunity to publicly dance in today's Canada, particularly for mothers."  

When I was at university, I danced at least twice a week, if not five times. (It really depended on how close we were to exams...) Even in high school here in Calgary, I had a friend who would sleep with the bouncers (how sporking - I mean sporting! - of her, don't you think?), so we were in to the Taz and the Underground, at least, both nights on the weekend.

I was there to dance, me. My contribution to getting entrance to bars was focused on an expertise with replicating the hand stamps; one person (usually the tart – friend! - who boinked the door guys) would go in, and then come out a different exit and meet us in the parking lot. Thereupon it was my job to study the stamp design and draw it, backwards in black or blue or red ink (in those days, nightclub stamps came in only three colours), onto the hands of all our underage cronies. Blot with paper towel, lick & smear it a bit, and bob's yer uncle. My fake-o stamps worked every time. And then we danced!

Yeah, I love to dance. I was very, very pleased to become "legal" and avoid the hassle of finagling my way into the bar. Legal drinking age is 18 in Alberta and Quebec, and 19 in most of the rest of Canada, a fact I failed to consider when I chose a university in Ontario. So back to the (literal) drawing board: I had to doctor my driver's license to get my dancing fix. It was a simple process to falsify an Alberta driver's license in those days - peel open the lamination, scrape off the last number in the birth year, and glue it back together. Put a piece of transparent tape overtop, and carefully, gently draw in the necessary year. And voila. Worked so well that I was able to sell my fake ID after I turned 19 - to a moron to went to the same bar where I was celebrating my birthday and the bouncer, who knew me, recognized the name and confiscated the ID. Worst 20 bucks she ever spent, I bet. But anyway, I feel sad for the kids these days who have to get