The Darjeeling Limited

Possibly the greatest cinematic experience of my life. I stared, slack-jawed in awe, for most of the film. Don't believe the reviewers. This film is incredible. I am aware that I probably have a more nuanced understanding of just how colossal an achievement it is based on my understanding of India. But even just the brass arm-bands on the porters, the flimsy yellow plastic pharmacy bag, the shiny borrow-scarves at the gurudwara. You may not be able to spot the superficial details that made this movie so satisfying for me.

But do yourself a favour. Go see it anyway.

Categories: Ash

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Dreadful Sorry

Well, a really sad thing happened on the night of the lymphoma walk. Somewhere along the way, Sloane lost her baba.

The baba is a family tradition. That is, I have a baba (which, now that I'm an adult, I call my "softie"), and Sloane has a baba. Sloane's first baba was, actually, one of my old babas from when I was a toddler. My mum saved them (there were multiple babas, all the same, white waffleweave cotton with a satin fringe) and ironed them and gave them back to me when Sloane was born. We introduced her to them when she was about 5 months old. "Baba" was one of her first recognizeable words.

The current baba which we lost on Saturday was actually a "new" baba, made by Granny Val especially for Sloane about six months ago. The old babas were wearing thin - literally - when suddenly in the mail arrived this amazing, satin-lined, fuzzy-centred, holes-in-the-corners-for-stuffing-fingers-into yellow baba from Granny.

Hurray! Turner and I said. Boo! said Sloaner. It took us about a week to convince her that the yellow baba was the new baba, I'll admit. But after that, we were good to go. We'd throw a complaining-for-whatever-reason Sloaner on our shoulder, then stuff the baba under her neck, and wait for the inevitable long sigh and the pop of her thumb going in the mouth. I tell you, that sigh, it's the sound of everything being all right in the world.

I would have bet cash money that we never woulda lost this yellow baba. Even now I find it hard to believe that it's actually gone. You know that feeling, when you lose something, that you get when you KNOW something is gone forever? I don't have that feeling about the yellow baba. It's out there in the world, somewhere.

Categories: Sloane

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Our Garden

Sloaner and the beans!

(Also shown, below: hollyhocks from Strawberry Hill, marigolds inspired by Shimla, and many sunflowers! The 'orange' theme for our newly-planted flowers this year is in honour of John Johnston's arrival in Calgary last spring.)



We have a great book, Barbapapa Sur Mars, given to Sloane by Jenny and Korey for her first birthday. It only took us a year to decipher the very elementary French of the story. And now? We love it!

Barbidur takes a bean, and plants it in the soil once they get to Mars.



Turns out that the French have moralising to do, under the guise of children's literature. This time, it's the well-known "never bring seeds across international borders" lesson you really need to drill into the under 5 crowd. In this story, the 'harmless' Earth bean tries to take over the whole planet! Mon dieu! Quel disastre!



For her part, Sloane was thrilled that we had planted and grown the very same beans which took over Mars! Formidable!



When we harvested all the beans that'd grown - two whole packages' worth of 'runner beans' - we ended up with just about enough to not-quite-be-a-side-dish for one person. Has Montsanto taken over the domestic bean market here in North America, too?

Categories: House | Lise | Sloane

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Light The Night!

Hi all you walkers & woulda-walkers! I just wanted to thank you so much for being part of my life and being with me, in body and/or spirit, on Saturday at the Light the Night walk for Lymphoma and Leukemia, here in Calgary.



Self portrait of our fearless team captain.

This was my first ever "cancer walk", and I wanted to do the one specifically associated with lymphoma. It's been fifteen years since I was diagnosed, and I decided it was finally time to start "giving back" (as opposed to my previous plan of "be in denial of ever having had cancer"). So to it: I gathered up a small group of close family and friends and sent them an email. It read: book off September 29th for the Light the Night walk for Lymphoma. Walk we must! (Our team name is The Hilksom Hee-Haws. Wear green!)

Getting there the night-of, I was very pleased (selfishly, of course: trying to hold it together, over here) that it wasn't too emotional overall... I got a bit teary at the beginning when I was seeing the memorial tshirts for people who'd died or the stickers saying "I'm Walking in Memory Of...." Not sure why, really - I always knew I'd live through the Hodgekin's myself, but maybe it's just the mother in me now that makes me feel like Oh, that Could Be My Kid, Oh Jesus... I'd asked you all to wear green as a 'team colour' - this was a downgrade from my initial instinct to go full-on with the pixie costumes, tiaras, giant banner (green of course) and so on. I'd never done a cancer walk before, though, and so eventually re-thought these ideas on the basis that they might be too heretical to the 'in memorial' walkers. (In the end, I was very pleased to see many teams with tiaras, giant banners, and some even with costumes! Lesson learned for next year's walk!)



Val (Mem!, who came all the way from Nakusp for the occasion of my 15 years in remission): getting set for the walk

Overall, I was weirdly satisfied by the balloon colour arrangements. For those of you who weren't there, the balloons were different colours: red for "supporters", white for "survivors" and gold for "in memory of". I carried a white balloon of course (struck down, at 18, by CANCER, roll the 'r', that's me), and everyone on my team had a red balloon.




Looking north: this is about 1/20th of the crowd gathered at the start line, Eau Claire Market, Calgary, September 29th/07.

I kind-of ended up averting my eyes from most of the gold balloon teams, I'll admit. They were happy people for the most part, it's true. But I just couldn't take it. I'm not sure necessarily that that person who was missing, being "remembered" could have been me, or anything like that. Maybe it was just the loss inherent in the balloon colour, and the glad sadness in the holders' dedication to helping people who came after their loss. I was, however, totally overwhelmed by the red and white balloons. The red: because they represented all the people (and in this case, actually WERE some of the people) who loved people like me, and who supported people like me: people who'd known people like me who had suddenly and completely surreal-ly and unexpectedly been diagnosed with a completely improbable "cancer" (me at 18: 'Really? Cancer? Are you SURE? I don't think so...') .



Yer scribe & Brucio, who said I was "very brave" (i.e. at the time of the cancer).

I'll mention that ultimately we were kind of sucky-pants cynics at the overall idea of the balloons themselves, however, since 1. I'd expected candles, for some reason. Balloons with lights inside just aren't the same. Lacking in 'atmosphere' or something, I guess. 2. the balloons were all outfitted with a "light" inside that didn't really work (they blinked, or broke, or generally malfunctioned), 3. the string/wire between the "switch" you were supposed to hold and the balloon itself was too long, and got tangled around other people, and tree branches, and stroller handles, etc., and 4. the whole contraption was made out of plastic and was obviously meant to be discarded, somewhere, at the end of the run.

Which seemed grossly (and probably disproportionately) irresponsible to me & Turner, the former who'd just come off a recent contract with Connacher's plastics documentary (the world is going to hell in a leaching ball of phthalates, oh my) and the latter who's about to publish a book about sustainability (and, I was reminded by Margaret, who wrote a story about the ridiculous "disposability" of too many plastic products after their "temporary" use has expired in a Canadian Geographic piece published earlier this year).

Anyway. Despite the snuffly-ness and cynicism. Just wanted to say thanks.



At the beginning of the walk, we managed to stay in something resembling a group. From left: Victoria Coffin (yawning/singing?), Serene Ho (pushing stroller), John Johnston (in orange hat), Ashley (white balloon lady), Bruce Bristowe (in black jacket, looking backwards and yelling for people to hurry up), Turner and Sloane (middle, with green blanket), Valerie Bristowe (green hat, background), and Margaret Countess (formerly Drummond, foreground, holding red balloon and with snazzy 'belt').




Ania Wojciechowski and Karen Krull, members of the Hilksom Hee-Haws!

For those of you who couldn't make it - next year I think I'll do the Terry Fox Run, so you're on notice that I may recruit you for that. (I've always wanted to be the Queen Bee of the local Terry Fox Run!) This year was the preliminary, soup-up, 'get-folks-suckered-into-participating' pussy 5k "walk" (though some of us had screaming toddlers in tow and jumped ship at the 2.5k mark...). So you've been warned, be prepared and have a few goes on the treadmill this winter in anticipation for next September's Terry Fox Run. (Next year you have to fundraise, no more Ms. Nice Guy in that department!)




JJ & Ash get all arty with the lymphoma balloon self-portraiture...

Best to you all, love Ashley

Categories: Ash | Cancerous!

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