I Totally Kicked Those 17-year-old kids' ASSES

Well, The Fear? From last week? When I had the midterm and everything? Well.

When the prof was handing back the exams, she was telling us that the class average was 74%. (I'm all, I know I did better than that.) And then she was telling us that for the first time ever, she had someone score a 99% on the exam. (And I'm all, Damn that girl who handed her exam in first, way ahead of everyone, damn her!) When I went to pick up my paper the prof caught my eye and smiled.

Categories: Ash | Book Learning

Comments [11]

Because After All, It's Only The End Of May

Lo, ye readers not born in Canada, prithee tremble before these bald evidences of our latitude:

Categories: Calgary | Canadiana | House

Comments [1]

The Nerditude

A funny thing happened on my way back to academia. I became a big nerd. It was an accident. It was a result of The Fear.

Since the beginning of May I've been enrolled, and embroiled, in Art History 110 at ACAD (Alberta College of Art & Design). Twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday, classes are three hours in the evening. The weekly readings number in the hundreds of pages. I've never been able to draw, or paint, or even make a good ceramic ashtray in grade four art class. I have no background in art history whatsoever and have been starting from absolute zero. I'm also 33 years old, 9 years out of my last round of post-secondary, I work full time, and I'm a mom.

I sound somewhat busy. It's true that I have "a full life". We try to keep it real around here, but there's always lots going on. I've got plenny of edjumacation already, there're several degrees on my wall. So you might be wondering: Whatever the sweet hell possessed you to take this course, Ashley? Or perhaps: Why now?

This is what happened: Waaaayyyy back in December, I applied for the Canada Council grant, under the Visual Arts category. I'm a photographer, right? I've been doing this ongoing project on sustainability, wanted to go to Toronto to attend the Contact Photography Festival (read: pay my way to Beau & Julia's wedding). It turns out the only non-kick-ass part of the application was the part where they ask you to list your "major influences". This was my answer:

The aesthetic or cultural tradition that relates to my work (optional)
I am a self-taught photographer and as such I’m not 100% sure of what this question means,
as I have no background in aesthetic or cultural photographic traditions from an academic or
“art school” point of view. I think I would be considered a ‘creative documentarian’, but I am
always working to expand my storytelling and technical abilities by reading and exposing myself
to other photographers’ work. (Maybe next year I’ll have a better answer for you.)

I shoulda opted out of this question, but decided honesty would be the best policy. Ahem. This didn't work for them. In April I received a letter from the Canada Council that stated the following:

Dear Ms. Bristowe,
Your application was received in December and after a preliminary
evaluation you have been deemed not to be a professional artist.
We hated your photographs and you will never amount to anything.
So there.

I'm paraphrasing.

So after stomping around the house for a little while and planning my vociferous appeal to the venerable CC and their racken-fracken gatekeeping bureaucracy, I came to a halt. And it finally occurred to me that their assessment was... accurate. I am not an artist. At least, not necessarily. I am certainly not an artist from the point of view of a jury of my so-called "peers" in the Visual Arts, a hearty percentage of whom would have slaved through lots of formal art school before going on to being the poncy cravat-sporting art directors in Toronto that we all know and love. I forgot that you should never, ever show the fleshy part under your arm. Never, ever give them a chance to tell you you're not qualified. I'd gone right ahead and told them point blank that I didn't know whozits from whatzits in the formal art canon, much less among photographers. Totally dumb.

So I thought about my answer on the Canada Council application. Am I really so lazy that I couldn't get to the damn library and read up on photography, photographers, techniques, style, history, innovation? Well... no. I guess I'm not THAT lazy. So it was off to the library for me. I brought home stacks of books. Henri Cartier-Bresson. Sebastião Salgado. Diane Arbus. Jeff Wall. Etcetera. After a couple of weeks it started to become clear that it was good to be learning about these folks and the photography canon of the 20th century, but that I should probably take some proper courses at ACAD to really force myself through the paces and learn about what and who art schools think are important. Likesay.

I'd already taken their non-credit photography course a few years ago, and knew I didn't need to take it again. As I read through the spring/summer course calendar it was clear that to get into the upper-level photography courses I'd have to do some of the first-year-level prerequisites. The first was Art History 110. Here's the description:

This survey course introduces students to selected
histories and methods of the visual arts. Western visual
culture is considered in its world context: artworks and
artifacts are discussed in terms of their function as
conveyors an complex cultural values and meanings.
Survey I deals primarily with visual art up to the beginning
of the 16th century.

Aw, man! What did the 16th century ever do for me? This was going to SUCK.

But I glanced at the Canada Council rejection letter. I guess I should start somewhere. And thinking about that, I got some other inspiration. After doing her nursing certificate, my mom earned her B.A. over thirteen years and finally graduated from Lakehead University just after my brother and sister were born. And over the last decade she's been taking her Bachelor of Science from Athabasca. She just finished her last course; she graduates in June. I've watched the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach to learning, so it doesn't seem COMPLETELY useless to plod, slowly, toward an academic goal. I resigned myself to learning about cave paintings and got my stuff together for the mandatory portfolio review. Which I passed. And into Art History 110 I went.

But let's back up a bit for a second.

In undergrad, I did great - after I failed a course in second year, I got my ass in gear.** The secret to doing well is fourfold:

1. Sit at the front of the class. I'm not talking about the front-ish part of the classroom. I'm talking about the FRONT of the class. I always sit in the front row. Right in the centre. That way there's no one flipping their hair in front of me, being a distracting asshole. I am that asshole, distracting others, while I get the great notes. Which brings me to...

2. Take great notes. I take amazing notes. I write down everything. Those people who sit there dozing, who write down a name or two every twenty minutes or so? That's not me. I'm the one feverishly scribbling away at my clipboard, destroying my fingers in service of higher education. You could re-build the lecture almost verbatim from my class notes. But the class notes aren't complete unless you go to all the classes, right? Which brings me to...

3. Go to all the classes. Don't skip. Viki's well-timed absence on the day of the Dawson shootings notwithstanding, never skip class, kids. It took me a long time to really "get" this one, still skipping classes like a moron, into my third year. But take it from me. Go to class. Don't skip.

And 4. Do all the readings. And I mean ALL the readings. I did them all. As many as were absolutely humanly possible, anyway. I remember telling Sean Nazerali about my new programme of academic-ness over the phone in third year - he had already graduated and was now far away in the Czech Republic. The line was always crackly.

Sean:      -crackle crackle- Did you say you're doing all the readings?
Ash:        Yes. I'm finally doing all the readings. I totally learn a lot more this way!
Sean:      Ashley, ALL the readings? -crackle crackle- On the list that they hand out at the beginning? Is that what you're talking about?
Ash:        Yes. What are you talking about?
Sean:      You're doing all the readings. -crackle-
Ash:        Yes! Why are you so surprised? I finally like my courses! Wait ...doesn't everybody do all the readings?
Sean:      Ashley. No. NOBODY does ALL the readings. Nobody. -crackle pop crackle- There isn't enough time in a week to do all the readings. How are you possibly doing all the readings?
Ash:        ...Um? I read fast?
Sean:      You mean you're doing -crackle- most of the readings. That'd be an improvement, anyway.
Ash:        No. Seriously. All the readings.
Sean:      ... -crackle crackle- ...
Ash:        Sean?
Sean:      ...Nobody does all the readings, Ashley.

I did all the readings.

Skip forward a few years. By grad school, this was my approach to academics:



I didn't like grad school. I'd really kicked out the jams in undergrad and needed a year off between. I didn't get it. I fell into a funk. Thab will tell you that halfway through January of my first year at grad school I snapped, developed nearly complete insomnia, and started reading novels instead of doing my assigned coursework. I'd be there in my room, pissed off and reading I, Rigoberta Menchu or somesuch and planning bomb building seminars. She'd knock on my door at, like, 4:15am: "Aaaaaahh! Aaaaashley! Goooo tooo beeeeeed." Good advice. I didn't heed it. I did okay anyway, academically, but didn't learn much. I, what you might call, "coasted" though. I really should have taken that year off, but if I'd done that I wouldn't've lived with Thaba and I wouldn't've met Turner. So I appreciate the purgatory of that school year for the other amazing things it brought to my life. But academically I stunk.

And by the time I graduated in 1998, I was done. Done, done, done. Toasted on both sides, crispy all the way through, done. NO MORE SCHOOL FOR ME, thinked I. I'M GOOD N' SMRT NOW. Off into the real world I fled for nine years. I took some courses here and there - at George Brown, through ATP, that kind of thing. But nothing with actual homework. Nothing with a permanent record. Nothing that, ultimately, academically "mattered".

So back to present day, and Ashley has deigned to join this first year ACAD Art History course at the beginning of May. It began in ancient Mesopotamia, moved through Egypt and the Aegean, on to Greek stuff and then finally to the Roman empire. I found I really liked the lectures, but I came home with aching, aching hands from the note taking (like many of us, I type basically everything I write nowadays, and my hands have almost forgotten how to do longhand). And after many years of falling out of practice, the reading was overwhelming. Too. Much. Reading. Hundreds and hundreds of pages, it seemed like. Slowly I started to consider the wisdom of piling a gigantic reading load onto an already time-intensive (6 hours per week in class) endeavour. Began pondering whether I was being selfish to be doing this kind of unrelated-to-my-daily-work course in the hopes of "someday" getting into a higher-level photography course at ACAD. And I started looking into dropping the course.

But then two things happened, right on top of each other. First, I heard back from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. I'd applied under the Visual Arts category here, too, back in February. I'd known that the Canada Council application was a bit of a long shot with my background, but I'll admit that I figured I was pretty much assured some AFA money. Their letter was short.

Dear Ms. Bristowe,
Your application was received in February and after a preliminary
evaluation you have been deemed not to be a professional artist.
We hated your photographs and you will never amount to anything.
So there.

Jumping jesus on a pogo stick, even the AFA thinks I am a big loser. Obviously, some formal book learning in art history couldn't possiblly hurt at this point.

And second (more happily), the next day, I got my first course assignment back. I have always been a sucker for a numerical expression of my academic brilliance, I tells you. Because despite my concerns when I handed it in (I dunno what the prof wants with this paper? Maybe this isn't right? Did I quote these sources correctly? Oh jeez, I'm going to get a 50%... etc.), I got 100%. A hunnurrd! percent! Suddenly, of course, the race was on. Can't drop the course now, I thought. And blow my big early lead? No way.

So the second paper was an article review. I took a few days off to work on it. Worried like mad over that thing, an analytic discussion of the importance of veristic portraiture in Imperial Rome (a topic about which I know precisely nothing). Handed it in last week. Been awaiting its return.

But in the meantime, looming large was the approaching midterm. Slides with identification and multiple choice questions. I never did much in the way of coursework that required memorization in the past, Women's Studies and Planning both being disciplines more focussed on writing and reporting and suchlike. Surrounded by images of sculptures and paintings and architecture from places I've never been, made thousands and thousands of years before I was born, I was having serious trouble remembering the names and artists and stuff. That Demosthenes sculpture... Was it Pericles who made it? Or... Praxiteles? No: Polyeuctos? Or... wait, that other guy... Polyclitus? Yeah, yeah, probably Polyclitus... After slacking off so hard in grad school I began to feel like I'd totally lost my edge. Brain atrophy in my early thirties, here it was. All the articles say that it's easier to learn when you're younger. Panic setting in.

Wait, now, just wait. Slow down. Slow and steady wins the race. Increasingly nervous (?) but determined, I booked a couple more days off. Read everything in the textbook. Made notes on every sculpture. Revised my class notes. Figured out the difference between the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Akkadians and Sumerians. Had very clear moments of feeling like those Korean and Japanese students who spend every spare waking hour studying so as not to crush the family honour. It became perfectly clear to me, that sense of urgency and need for perfection I'd witnessed in some past friends and classmates who'd study and study and study and study. It'd always been easy for me in the past. Even when I didn't study I'd squeak by somehow. But now: Oh. If you're going to do it, there is absolutely no sense in doing it half-assed; in fact, what the hell are you doing if you're doing it half-assed?

Riiiiiiiight. It was crystal clear: Learn it all, Ashley, or give up and accept your complete disgrace before the world. I got it, now.

By this afternoon I couldn't really talk or be social to anyone. Had. to. study. more. Must remember the difference between steatite (Minoan Crete) and diorite (Mesopotamia). Must remember that Khamerernebty has two "er"s. Must memorize the order of the Doric and Ionic column parts. Finally, in a fit of terror that I'd never be able to mash it all into my brain in time for the exam, I even decided to make my own flashcards:

      
When I was making these I kept thinking, Aw, I bet Thaba knows all of these things backwards and forwards, she could do this exam with her head tied behind her back.

Turner walked in on all this a few days ago - after already having seen me reading and revising and reviewing for days and days beforehand - and was like, "...Uh? ...Flashcards, Ash? ...Overkill?"

Ash:         (gluing things, not looking up) Shut up, you. Terrified, here.
Turner:     You're going to do fine. It's okay.
Ash:         You don't know. I might fail.
Turner:     You weren't like this in undergrad were you? I thought you said Women's Studies was pretty chill.
Ash:         Turner. In undergrad I had a brain that worked.
Turner:     Ash. Take it easy. It's a first year course. It's the MIDTERM.
Ash:         ...Alright, you're going to have to leave. I have a glue stick and I'm not afraid to use it.
Turner:     I'm going. Just calm down. ...Waving a gun around, Walter? (exunt)


In the end, Turner was right. It went fine. At the end of the exam I added up all my "absolutely correct" answers: I got at least a 93%. The Fear is a superb motivator.




** Despite this, there's no F on my official transcript: after I graduated from Queen's I was doing up papers for the Commonwealth Scholarship - which I later won - and wanted to have the best possible application. I petitioned to have that F removed from my permanent record on the grounds of having had cancer in my first year and then my parents divorced, obviously leaving me a battered shell of a student and ill-equipped to deal with Philosophy 228. The Dean of Arts & Science readily agreed. It was leaving that meeting, en route to Clark for Homecoming 1996, that I realized the power of being an alumna.

Categories: Ash | Work work work | Book Learning

Comments [4]

Chocoholic

If you'd asked me last year if I thought I was a "chocoholic", I would have said no. I do like chocolate, sure. But I've known people who are fairly bananas about chocolate and by comparison I was just a fan of the stuff. Now, in the weeks before giving birth to Sloane I was subsisting almost exclusively on giant Dairy Milk bars, chocolate chip cookies, and Tums, I do admit. And sure, one day back in high school Margaret and I decided it would be a super idea to eat a whole bag of chocolate-covered oreos. That was a long time ago, though. In my regular, non-8.5-months-pregnant, adult life, I ate what I'd call a "normal" amount of chocolate. I can't even tell you how much. But not every day, maybe not even every week. But some. I liked it.

So it was with some consternation and no small degree of surprise that I found, a few months ago, that I NEEDED chocolate. Like, BAD. I'd started in on this food-combining plan back in January to lose some of the tenacious baby weight I'd put on (and kept on) since the pregnancy. Works really well for me: no sugar, no alcohol, no caffeine, and lots of cheese can only be good, sez I. So it was going fine until about the six-week mark. I'd lost about fifteen pounds and I was feeling good. But suddenly I really needed some chocolate. Well, what to do? Chocolate has both sugar and (small amounts of) caffeine. I held off for a few days. Drummed my fingers on the counter, gazing into the now-bare cabinet where we used to keep the chocolate bars when I was pregnant. Ate some more cheese. Tried to ignore it.

Finally, I was trolling the grocery store aisles in search of something that could kill the chocolate craving, and I ended up standing in front of the baking section. There, in a flat blue box beside the "milk chocolate" and the "semi-sweet chocolate" was the "baker's chocolate". I peered at it: unsweetened, dark chocolate. Sounded terrible. But a little bit of caffeine wouldn't kill the food plan, I figgered, and maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I thought. I put the baker's chocolate in the cart.

When I got home I opened the package. Baking chocolate comes in big thick squares. It's meant to be used in cooking. I had to get a knife to chop the square in half to produce a piece small enough to fit in my mouth. That's when Turner arrived. "What are you doing - that's baker's chocolate, you know. It's going to taste awful." Me: "Shut up, you. The chocolate craving is killing me." In went the half-square of baker's chocolate. I chewed it up. It tasted like chalky brown wax. Turner peered at me from across the island: "How's that treating you?" I considered. My mouth was now lined with a thick, gross, bitter gloss. It was an effort to swallow it. "I dunno. That's pretty disgusting." I had a glass of water and walked away.

About five minutes later I was back. Staring at the package. Not because I wanted more, but because the chocolate craving was gone. Gone! It tastes like crap but whatdoyouknow, baker's "chocolate" can kill a "chocolate" craving! Whoot. I'd choke down about half-a-square per day. And within a week I was up to a whole square every day.

By a month later, I'd graduated to unsweetened cocoa. Blech? you're thinking. Ah, but what can you make with cocoa? That's right, hot chocolate. And there's no restriction on the use of artificial sweeteners like Splenda on this plan, and if I'm doing a "protein" period, then full-fat 18% cream is the recommended choice for adding to hot beverages. (I know, it sounds crazy. It works, that's all I know.) And in no time at all I was having a hot chocolate every day. Six packages of Splenda, lots of cream. Turner would watch me put this concoction together and cringe. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Six packages of Splenda?" Me: "Shut up, you. It's working fine and I'm wearing my old pants again finally." Turner, "Okay..."

So one hot chocolate per day (one-and-a-half teaspoons of unsweetened cocoa per) became two hot chocolates per day. I could see that this was escalating, of course. I only had the baker's square chocolate gathering dust in the back of the cupboard for 'emergencies' by this point. And we were buying cocoa every time we went grocery shopping. But I wasn't hurting anyone, and was eating really healthy otherwise, so what harm was one or two (...okay, sometimes three) hot chocolates every day? Not much.

But of course it begs the question: What happens when you run out of cocoa, Ashley? Well, um, that happened today.

When we were in Toronto I went completely off the plan and ate whatever I wanted - not crazy-like, just regular stuff like bread & butter, rice with meat, a can of Coke at one point. Drank some beers and even some tequila. Had a GRAND time, let it be said again. Monday morning it was back on the food-combining plan, sure thing, but I've had a few wobbly and overly-hungry days as my body gets rid of all the sugar and leftover alcohol and back into the calmer intestinal routine of the diet. Yesterday, among other things, I had three hot chocolates. (Also a lot of cheese. Although I'm talking about chocolate in this post I do want to stress that being able to eat cheese is definitely the best part of this plan. Cheese-o-holics take note.) Anyway, sometime yesterday evening we ran out of cocoa. I put it on the grocery list.

Today around lunchtime I had a blood sugar crash, had lunch, felt better. But later, I came lurking into the kitchen to make some hot chocolate. You know, to take the edge off. But then I realized anew that we're out of cocoa. Glanced at the clock: Hmmmm. Don't have time this afternoon to go grocery shopping. What to do... what to do. Looked in the cupboard again. The baker's chocolate, with no cream and no sweetness, is a crappy substitute for the hot chocolate at this stage. But there it was, one last square sitting in a dusty old blue box at the back. I hesitated for a few seconds. But then, shrugged. I guess it's my only option.



3pm: Turner just came in to talk about the family logistics for tonight.

Turner:     "You're leaving for your class at, what, 5:30pm? And your dad's getting here at 6pm... I need to leave right away after that. So if I go grocery shopping while you pick up Sloane at playschool, that should work."
Ash:         "You could go grocery shopping now."
Turner:     "Why? Why not do it while you're picking up Sloane?"
Ash:         "Uh, well... you might have enough time to walk with us, you never know."
Turner:     [looks at me funny] "No, you want the cocoa, don't you. You're jonesing for your hot chocolate."
Ash:         "No I'm not, I..."
Turner:     "You are. I saw that mess of... whatever the hell it was you cooked up in there. Left it in the sink for me to clean. Okay, I'll go get your cocoa."
Ash:         "I don't need it."
Turner:     "Suuuuuuuuuuure you don't."
Ash:         [gesturing at the computer screen] "...That's what this blog posting is about."
Turner:     "Your cocoa? The hot chocolate thing? The six packages of Splenda every day? Tell the people about how your kidneys are disintegrating under all that Splenda."
Ash:         "Maybe just my brain."

Categories: Ash

Comments [3]

Now That I'm Big And I've Been To Barrie

[Version of an email sent today to Sheila & Cherry, Tara & Rob, and Sean & Pepe]

Hi all youses Nazeralis & related,

Growing up I was a great fan of the very Canadian poetry of Dennis Lee, in particular the books "Alligator Pie" and "Nicholas Knock". You might (?) remember that when we were setting up the hall for Tara & Rob's wedding in July of 1997 I was asked to test the microphone and to do so I started in on a rhyming poem -

When they bring me a plate
Full of stuff that I hate
Like spinach and turnips and guck,
I sit very straight
And I look at the plate,
And I quietly say to it: Yuck!

Etcetera**. I mention this mainly because I think I made people laugh with a poem they'd never heard, this one being "Tricking" from Alligator Pie, my favourite.

Lots of Dennis Lee's kids' poems mention places all over Canada (In Kamloops I'll eat your boots; in the Gatineaus I'll eat your toes... etc.), and street names & places in Toronto (Bloor, Yonge, Casa Loma, etc.). Growing up in Winnipeg and Calgary, I didn't know most of these places. But I had family all over the country, so it was within the realm of possibility for my 7-year-old self to believe that I might someday visit these places, particularly the ones with the really evocative names - Moose Jaw, Napanee, and so on that stuck in my mind - and I have.

So now I'm 33 years old and I really hadn't picked up Alligator Pie for about twenty years. My copy is very elderly now, with a broken spine and a stained cover and fading illustrations (& complete with the grade-three-version of my signature inside the cover), but I've moved it around the country with my things for a long time. About a month ago I decided Sloane was probably old enough to understand some of the stories (I'd been reciting "Tricking" to her in the car and she loved it), so I pulled it out. As a kid I had my favourites, and I usually stuck to those. But with Sloane I just started reading the poems in any order, and eventually came to this one... I'm sure you can guess that if I didn't know where it was set when I was growing up, I do now:

The Fishes of Kempenfelt Bay, by Dennis Lee

Under the bubbles
Of Kempenfelt Bay,
The slippery fishes
Dawdle all day.

They park in the shallows
And wiggle and stray,
The slippery fishes
Of Kempenfelt Bay.

I ride on a bike.
I swing in the gym.
But I'd leave them behind
If I knew how to swim

With the slippery fishes
That dawdle all day,
Under the bubbles
Of Kempenfelt Bay.



Thinking of you all, today. Best to you, love Ash


**(Since I did a google search and can't find anywhere to link so you can see the full text of this poem, here it is:

Tricking, by Dennis Lee

When they bring me a plate
Full of stuff that I hate
Like spinach and turnips and guck,
I sit very straight
And I look at the plate,
And I quietly say to it: Yuck!

Little kids bawl
Cause I used to be small,
And I threw it all over the tray.
But now I am three
And I'm much more like me -
I yuck till they take it away.

But sometimes my dad
Gets terriffickly mad,
And he says, "Don't you drink from that cup!"
But he can't say it right
Cause he's not very bright -
So I trick him and drink it all up!

Then he gets up and roars;
He stomps on the floor
And he hollers, "I warn you, don't eat!!"
He counts up to ten
And I trick him again:
I practically finish the meat.

Then I start on the guck
And my daddy goes "Yuck!"
And he scrunches his eyes till they hurt.
So I shovel it in
And he grins a big grin
And then we have dessert.

Categories: Olden Days | Ontario

Comments [2]

Our Amazing Toronto Digs

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

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

Categories: Friends | Ontario

Comments [0]

Weekend in Toronto

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

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

Categories: Friends | Ontario

Comments [0]

Sloane's Pictoral Week In Review

Categories: Sloane

Comments [1]

This Just In From Val

People think I make this stuff up, but you CAN'T make this stuff up! I received this email from Val this morning:

People...anyone and everyone, needs somewhere to share their little discoveries and bits of homespun wisdom. I guess wisdom needs to be qualified somewhat as everyone thinks that their little gems are indeed wisdom when in reality they may be just mundane bits of crazyness. There needs to be a place somewhere where we (the people) can write in these little bits of nothingness. I have a plethora of just such stuff as you well know! For example this is what I would add at such a place today:

Today I looked at the white plastic lawn furniture which I purchased about ten years ago. It is in perfect working condition but like most I feel tempted to throw it into the dump as it has discoloured, blackish in some places...and just mucked up in others. In past years I have taken FANTASTIC and a scrub brush to it and although that did improve it - it never turned out that well and I wasn't particularly pleased with the result. I also totally distroyed my manicure in the process. Two weeks ago I had purchased a large plastic bottle of JAVEX. I don't use this down my sink or in my washing machine as my plumber tells me it will destroy the good bacteria in my septic system but I do soak things in it outside and pour the left over water down the driveway later. Earlier I had lined up all the white plasticlawn stuff on my balcony deck quite prepared to take a scrub brush to the old tired white stuff. I took my windex spray bottle and put the windex into a container. Equipped with the spray container I filled it with pure JAVEX and sprayed everything...all the dry white furniture with this. I left it for about two minutes and hosed it off with the garden hose. I was quite prepared to take the whole lot to the dump if it turned the stuff yellow.  Well guess what? It came out perfectly, much better than it ever has with the rubbing and scrubbing done years previously. It looks absolutely brand new and the whole affair took exactly 6 minutes.

Is there anywhere on your blog you could have such nonsensical contributions. I actually think it would prove to be an excellent addition for most readers. What do you think?
Love Mum

And a p.s. in regard to the new picture contribution site you have arranged for all of us. Who is the cruel, mean, nasty person that put that noxious, hideous 60th birthday picture of me up for display on that site...complete with pink and silver paper and plastic tiara. Ugh, I look like a dead drunk escapee from a nut house and Michael looks like my keeper. Shame on the contributor, shame on whoever you are. I will eventually find out and I will get you good for this very unpleasant gesture designed to humiliate and destroy any semblence of dignity and personal pride I have. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your airpits.......whoever you are. Shame, I say!

...The picture to which she refers is this one.

Categories: Family

Comments [4]

And A Birthday Portrait for Mr. John Johnston As Well

Categories: Friends

Comments [0]

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

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

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


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


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

Categories: Family | Friends

Comments [1]

Turner's Fabulous Hair

I'm not sure why, but Turner has this thing about his hair. He just can't seem to get a haircut that he likes. A long time ago he decided that all people wielding scissors were out to get him, and so why should he pay $60 for a salon to mangle his hair when a barber would do it for $12?

So he'd eventually go to barbers. And he'd always hate the cut, but then it would grow in a little and he would start to be able to live with it. And about four months later he'd need his hair cut again, but then he wouldn't want to go back to the last person, because they'd done a crappy job. So he waits and procrastinates and finds reasons why he can't get his hair cut this week. But in all fairness to Turner it should be stated that he has come home with some supremely shitty haircuts over the last ten years.

I'm sorry I don't have photographs to share of these, because some were truly hilarious. The one that made me laugh the hardest was courtesy of the now-defunct Mission Hair Company here in Calgary, a salon that was great for me but sent Turner home with the Johnny Depp haircut from Cry-Baby, complete with the dippity-do curl in front. Turner was so mad that they insisted he not pay for the haircut. Turner won't usually let me anywhere near his head with scissors, but it was I who (partly) fixed that one, over the bathroom sink here at home. (It was an emergency.)

But the worst of all time was the one from the Imperial Hotel in Delhi. An otherwise absolutely marvellous establishment, Turner and I love the Imperial, a whitewashed venerable old place on Janpath. We dig the door-opener-guys with their giant turbans the mostest. High tea at the Imperial is also really great. But steer very very clear of the in-house barber, or darken his door at your own peril. Turner is a good looking man, but he walked out of that barber looking exactly like Tom Hanks. It was a remarkable lesson in how horribly wrong a haircut can go. It took almost a month for Turner to start looking normal again.

Now, Turner's lucky that his hair is curly and grows slowly. Because he stalls and waits and drags his heels between haircuts, and six or eight months inevitably go by. And only upon the spectre of arriving in Toronto for his Random House meetings with hair that looks like a grown-out squirrell nest (for example) pushes him to break the seal and make a damn haircut appointment already.

Every once in a while I can convince him to go to an actual hairstylist. But of course Turner arrives with a bad attitude about the whole undertaking and really doesn't trust all the styling products and fancy scissors and four different kinds of blow driers in those kinds of places. So he sits in the chair and unpacks this lecture on the haircutter person about how he never manages to get a good haircut and how he always hates how it turned out, but... this one time... (rustling in his bag)... he got a great haircut... (more rummaging)... this old Czech lady barber up in North York near his accountant's office... (pulling out photo of Himself With Great Haircut From North York Lady Barber):

Categories: Turner

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Meet... Fooney! I mean, Lise

About two months ago, before Rooney died, we'd started looking into getting another cat. From the beginning we'd intended on being a two cat household, but as a person who had never owned even one cat, Turner wanted to have Rooney start us off on solo cat ownership and then we'd work our way up to two. By about February Turner was pretty clear on all the various stuff that goes with owning a cat, and although he really couldn't figure out why the hell the cat would sometimes go rip-tearing around the house for no reason (as someone who grew up with cats I'll tell you that it's because he was a cat, full stop), Turner was willing to let me get another cat. So I started looking into it.

I browsed the various adoption websites and online classifieds for a while. I'm kind of an animal snob, as some of you know. When it comes to dogs, there's a few criteria: 1. no biting, 2. as little barking as possible, and most importantly 3. NO LONG HAIR AROUND THE MOUTH. I'm terrible on the whole idea of dog slobber, so the dogs that have long hair on their faces are right out for me. You know those little puffball-type dogs? The yippy ones? They're white, usually. But around their mouths - brown. BROWN. That hair grows out of their skin white, you know. And then it goes brown because of the slobber and all the ass-licking and what-have-you that dogs do. I really can't think of ANYthing grosser than the brown hair around otherwise-white dogs' mouths. Blech! So I don't like those kinds of dogs, and if they have mouth hair I don't care what colour they are and I don't even really care about their temperment. My cousin Jana has a lovely (though barky) dog named Mulder who is awesome with Sloane and generally a very good-tempered all-around nice animal. But he has slobbery hair around his mouth. I can't touch him and I don't want him anywhere near me and I wouldn't mind if Jana gave him away. (Yes, I realize I am a bad person.)

But I'm also another kind of snob. I like my animals to be beautiful. As in, interesting colour, unusual detail, and good form. Hence the purebred Abyssinian. Hence the purebred English Setter. So when I was browsing these adoption websites and suchlike, I was looking for a Siamese or other purebred-looking cat that would have a lovely personality, not bite, be young enough to adapt to our resident cat and active household, and best of all be beautiful. It's a tall order, especially considering most SPCA-type cats are mangy feral things. It's not surprising that the search would take a few months.

Around the beginning of April I finally found a cat in Lethbridge that seemed to suit us. It was half Bengal and super affectionate. 10 months old. Named Roxy. I conferred with the owner by phone a few times and we agreed that her cat would be a good fit for us, and us a good fit for her cat. We were just finalizing the arrangements to meet in Nanton (halfway between Lethbridge and Calgary) to do the cat hand over, and then suddenly Rooney died.

I can't help but think that if he'd had a friend in the house Rooney might not have been so hell-bent on getting outside. So I sort of blame myself for not getting him a friend sooner, because maybe he would've been running around inside and had more exercise and wouldn't've been lonely or needing to escape and then wouldn't've been killed. ...Something like that. I know it's stupid, but you think these things, you know?

Obviously the whole new-cat-acquisition thing very suddenly went on hold. I wrote this email to my old friend Renee Kerman a few days later:

Ren,

I just lost my cat Rooney to coyotes on Friday night. I know you never met him but he was a super little guy, really a character. He was an indoor cat but managed to get out when we had guests on Friday. We found him early the next morning, about a block from our house, torn in half. It was probably the most surreal thing I've ever seen in my life. I buried him in the yard early Saturday morning. (I think that's illegal, but fuck it.)

I've been thinking a lot of you and the email you sent when Nora died a few years ago. I can't remember if I wrote back anything lengthy or particularly insightful, but your email really conveyed how sad you were and how important she'd been to you. I've been thinking about your loss a lot in the last few days, digesting my own loss.

I've also been thinking a lot about [Renee's old university beau] Denis and how he lost that new puppy (traffic accident?) and he was so devastated, and then got another puppy sort-of-too-quickly afterward. I don't remember how all that turned out but I remember talking with you about it, at the time. I was in the midst of adopting another cat for our household last week and now I'm like, Should I stop and wait? I was going to get another cat anyway, even if Rooney was still alive. I'm not trying to replace him. But suddenly my cat is dead and I'm totally grieving... I don't know. Anyway, I just wanted to write and tell you that I've been thinking of you and Nora, and that I'm in a similar-but-different position these days. Sad times.

How are things with you?
Love Ash

Well, in the end I did the cat show and it was really great (if expensive) and cathartic and all that. And the following week I thought it through, and quietly started back into the adoption process to find another cat for our house. Not to replace Rooney, mind, though he'd left a giant Rooney-shaped hole in our lives when he left us. We wanted another cat (I wanted another cat), and eventually we will be a two-cat household as per the plan. So we'd start back with one again. Eventually I found a lovely cat at the Calgary Humane Society (Sloane called it "the cat store" after a few visits), a tortie-point siamese cross. Very different personality than Rooney: very shy, almost skittish, but super affectionate, loving the head rubs. One year old, and beautiful. I adopted her. And brought her home. We named her Lise.




(The title of this post comes from some very black humour from the weekend of Rooney's death. Turner and I were lying in bed sort of digesting the events of the day on Saturday, and I was upset, but we were kind of smiling about how Rooney finally got his big night out on the town. The topic turned to the whole adoption-of-new-cat I'd been doing and how it would look on the website if I blogged about the events. Turner: "You can't get another cat yet. Just replace Rooney and move on? What's it going to be on the blog? Saturday: Goodbye, Rooney. ...Monday: Meet... Fooney!" I almost choked, laughing so hard.)

Categories: Lise | Rooney

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

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Sloane's Greatest Hits

We recently became the owners of a lovely little green iPod Shuffle, purchased by Grampa Brucio specifically for Sloane. It's a cute little thing, almost too small to comprehend. I feel like such a dinosaur when I marvel at its smallness, having been the semi-proud owner of several gigantic ghetto blasters in my teenage and university days. (Then I met Turner, Mr. Clark Hall Pub DJ, and graduated to having a whole "stereo", with seperate "woofer" and "cd changer thingee" and "speakers" all strung together with "cords".) That you can put 250 or 1000 or 20,000 songs on it is immaterial - I simply can't get past the fact that that music is put somewhere in a piece of machinery about 1/4 the size of a pocket calculator. And all kinds of MATH fits into a calculator! Surely you can't possibly stuff bigger pieces of the universe into something smaller than a calculator.

However it seems they can, and now we, too, do. Although she hasn't embraced the concept of wearing her earphones, she does love the songs we've put on the shuffle. Which we play through the olde-tyme "stereo" in the livingroom.



Sloane's Greatest Hits: The Playlist Thusfar (with Sloane's personal title, if applicable, for each song in parentheses):

Jump Around, House of Pain ("Raise The Roof")
Big Rock Candy Mountain, Harry McLintock
Wonderwall, Oasis ("Gonna Throw It Back To You")
Hey Ladies, Beastie Boys
Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell ("Paradise")
Black Betty, Ram Jam
Moonshadow, Cat Stevens
Looking Out My Back Door, Creedence Clearwater Revival ("Back Door")
Tutti Fruity, Little Richard
La Petite Poule Blanche, Michael Doucet ("Fais Dodo")
Chicago, Sufjan Stevens ("All Things Go")
One Hand On The Radio, Aengus Finnan
Kowloon Hong Kong, The Reynettes ("Hong Kong")
Hold On, Sarah McLachlan
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Part I), Flaming Lips



Sloaner dancing with her Dada


Jump around! Jump around! Jump up jump up and get down!

Categories: Sloane

Comments [2]

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 y