36

Posted on 2/12/2010 by cheesefairy

1. My new age adds up to 9 and is also the former ideal measurement for female busts and hips. I can’t get “36 24 36” by the Violent Femmes out of my head so if you want, go here and listen to it.

2. Fresco greeted me this morning with “Happy Yooouuuuu.”

3. I have heard from both of my children that I will be receiving a bottle of wine later today. I think they should tell me that every morning. It makes me more likely to forgive them for slight transgressions.

4. Not really.

5. Maybe a little.

6. I am grateful to the Olympics for obliterating the usual non-stop Valentine’s Day Non News that I have to listen to around my birthday. I would rather listen to Rick Cluff panic about the weather for 2 hours than hear one more guide to Panties She’ll Drop Her Panties For.

7. I never noticed before today how much Rick Cluff panics. The man needs to take a deep breath.

8. Yesterday, Trombone’s preschool celebrated Valentine’s Day.

9. He came home with a bunch but not one from every child, which means I am not the only mother who thought it was silly to send valentines to preschool.

10. Alternately, I am not the only mother who totally forgot anyway, until it was too late, so didn’t even have time for an internal debate convincing herself she should send valentines to school because everyone else would be and her son would be the only one without valentines to share.

11. Isn’t it way too early to be thinking about this? Don’t I get a couple more years?

12. Hey, I dug up an old Canada Day shirt for him to wear so he’d have on some red and white, as instructed by the preschool calendar.

13. I still think of time as linear when it is this meandering river of a thing, this slipping, sliding road that I wander from and find my way back to. I have achieved one more year; last year at this time was point A, today is point B, but I have aged more than one year in some ways and less than one year in others.

14. I think it is possible to regain youth.

15. Or, what we call youth. Supple muscles, for example. I feel younger when I am limber. I am more limber when I stretch.

16. I am not talking about smoother skin or perky breasts. My skin will never be as smooth as my kids’ and my breasts will never be as perky as they were before my kids.

17. I am OK with those things.

18. My mind is more limber when I sleep.

19. My digestive tract is more limber when I eat fruit.

20. One year, for my birthday, I was actually thrown a surprise party. And I was surprised.

21. Another year, for my birthday, I made my dad drive all over town to get me the soundtrack for Chariots of Fire. Vangelis!

22. This year for my birthday I am going to drink that bottle of wine I mentioned up there and watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games on the PVR so I can skip anything I need to skip.

23. I mean, it’s 6 hours long. I’m not watching it live.

24. Plus, if I see too much Gordon Campbell and Stephen Joseph Harper at the same time, I’m afraid my brain might explode.

25. Plus, I can’t stay up till 11 o clock. I’m 36 years old!

26. My eyes do mist up when I hear stirring anthems. But I actually almost cried when I heard about the young athlete who died this morning on a luge training run. To come so far and be so close to competing. I hope he was happy right up until that last second.

(I can’t segue out of that one gracefully so please read this as a moment of silence.)

27. Yesterday I tried on my first ever pair of Lululemon yoga pants.

28. And my second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Let’s just say I’m not comfortable with the long underwear, camel-toed look.

29. Do you know how much their yoga pants cost? Upwards of $75! I had no idea! You really want to love them for that much money.

30. But I was at the factory outlet. So they were mostly downward of $75.

31. And the pants I chose would be a birthday gift from my mother, so really they were free.

32. The biggest size they have at the factory outlet is 12. Good thing that’s my size.

33. There were more styles to choose from in the “2” section. Because there are fewer “2”s in the world? Or because the demand for size 2 is greater so they make more copies? O great mystery of life.

34. I am happy with my size 12, heavily discounted, haremy-style yoga pants.

35. Even if my mother insisted on taking them home with her to wrap up and give to me tomorrow at my and SA’s Official Birthday Party.

36. Goals for the year: write more, fret less, laugh often, wear pants that please me.

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A Man of Innumerable Talents Turns 38 Today

Posted on 2/11/2010 by cheesefairy

He is unfailingly generous, one of the funniest people I have ever met, smarter than a red felt riding hat and sweet like that moment you exhale all the jive and inhale all the love.

But that won’t stop me from posting this picture of him. Happy Birthday, Saint Aardvark!

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And So Tonight

Posted on 2/8/2010 by cheesefairy

Light gleaming off the floor, sweet vanilla smell drifting from the oven, the kitchen appliances offering a background hum to the quick stuttering dialogue of the old movie SA is watching.

I recently got mad at a book for giving me a three page prologue, three pages more than I wanted, three pages that were all about setting the scene with lots of tree descriptions (Canadian Lit, natch) and sweeping vistas, as though the author was hoping for a screenplay option as much as a Giller. I grumbled my way through these three pages, skipping most of it, intending to hate the entire novel, well, intending to abandon it at page four because I don’t have time to read things I don’t like, but finding that the first page of chapter one was gripping, far more gripping than I expected. Now I am 3/4 of the way through and loving it, can’t wait to get back up to my bed, where my book is waiting.

If I were a student of literature again, the prologue of this novel would be up for discussion. There would be themes and symbols and we would unearth them from the descriptions of the sky and water. We would see intention where perhaps there had been some, where perhaps there had been none. Does the author try to push us away, the way Our Hero pushes away those he loves? Is there some subtle purpose behind the inclusion of totally unnecessary landscape writing? Compare and contrast with latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy and ridiculous overuse of voice-over in general.

But I am not a student of literature again and all I see is that I almost didn’t keep reading past page three.

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On Memory

Posted on 2/7/2010 by cheesefairy

My memory is not what it once was. I have said this before. I remember the saying of it.

There was a period of time, my 20s, when I remembered things. I remembered numbers, faces, peoples’ favourite songs, the shoes they had been wearing the last time I had seen them. These things, these seemingly petty details, lodged themselves in my brain like bullets. I loved my wonderful memory, my attention to detail. I fostered it, exploited it.

Why did I remember these things? Why did I not remember other things? I could not recollect, then or now, for example, my earliest memory. I could not collect it from its depository in my brain. I have no doubt this memory exists. It might even be from infancy. But I can’t retrieve it – and is any information worth anything if it cannot be retrieved? I do remember the stories around pictures I see in my parents’ photo album. I remember them telling me the stories. I remember how many times I have heard the stories. I do not remember independent of the stories.

I remember sitting in the back seat of their car, at age 7, next to the puppy we had just bought for $25 from someone whose dog had had puppies. One of my parents was in the car with me, we were parked at the pet food store, and the other parent had gone in to buy puppy food. I remember being over the moon excited that we finally had a puppy. I had wanted one for the longest time. We named him Philip, after the weatherman on the CBC evening news, because he would have to be outside in all kinds of weather.

That day is my earliest memory. No; that day is my earliest memory that is not a story someone else has told me. I remember things earlier than that, like being on the airplane on our way to Italy when I was four years old, having to stop in Montreal because of engine trouble, staying in a hotel on the airline’s dime, my uncle breaking the key in the lock of the hotel room door. Just after we landed – just before we landed? – the announcement was made that the Pope had died. The plane full of Italians swooned and crossed themselves. Bad things come in threes; what would be the third thing? They all wondered.

But that is a story, not a memory.

Do I really remember walking up the street behind my mother, dragging my heels and begging for her to hold my hand, only to have her refuse because she didn’t want to pull me up the hill? Or did I just hear the story so many times. Do stories erase memories or enhance them. Does it matter.

Since having children I have had to push some of my memory aside to make room for other things. I only have room for a certain amount of knowledge and what I know about early infancy and toddlers takes its share of space. I have also begun to realize lately that I do not always remember things the way others do. My perspective, once so reliable, is only my perspective after all. Other people, with their own perspectives, have very different memories of the same event.

I might have learned this earlier, had I any siblings. I watch my boys sometimes, wonder what they will remember. I heard Trombone today repeating a story I told him about himself as a memory of his own. He is three-and-a-half now, he was two at the time of the memory. It is strange to build a past for someone, even if you built him from scratch and have been there since he was not. It feels somehow dishonest to hand him his memories ready-made, though I know it is my job, for now. What else does he have, except yesterday, this morning, ten minutes ago.

The day we
remember when
oh you must have been about 3 then

already it is fading. Already it is washing over me, watercolour instead of oil.

The older I get, the more I want to remember. I want to re-experience the richness of an experience, not just touching the fragments, the layers, the lessons, that have stayed with me. I know those are the important parts. I know that what lasts, what we learn from an experience, is really important. But to taste, touch, smell those moments again. To catch a glimpse of something not told to death, not analyzed and kept from breathing, a glimpse of something that takes my breath away. I guess it’s what I’m looking for, when I dig into my brain, searching for the beginning. I’m looking for the dance, the velvet, the moment. A breath, gone.

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Monkey Party!

Posted on 2/6/2010 by cheesefairy

We were walking up the ramp to the overpass and Fresco was screaming, “Monkey! Monkey!” pointing out at McBride Boulevard. All I could see was traffic. No monkeys. “MONKEY!” he insisted and when he insists, you have to figure it out or he’ll just keep repeating it until you are searching for the closest ball pean hammer for taking out your own forebrain, damn the consequences. So I kept looking. I saw the Justice Institute. I saw a truck with a big McDonald’s ad on the side of it. I saw – one of those flipping roadside billboards with a picture of the Olympic Mascots.

“Monkey?” I said, pointing at the billboard. I have no idea which one he meant – to me, each looks equally like and not like a monkey.
“YEAH!” he said.
“Oh, that’s not a monkey,” I said, pedantically, “that’s a. A. An Olympic Mascot.”

***

“What’s an Olympic Mascot?” said Trombone as Fresco ran like a wild donkey down the other side of the overpass, towards the park.
“It’s a thing, a person dressed as a thing, who tells people about stuff and gives out stickers and things.” stupid stupid stupid
“I like stickers!”
“Yes, I know.”
“Are they going to the Olympics?” Thankfully I didn’t have to explain the Olympics because they are talking about them at preschool. I promise, when it’s sex-ed time I’ll pull my weight but I can’t explain the Olympics worth a damn.
“Yes, they will be around.”
“Are WE going to the Olympics?”
“Nuuuuh, no.”
“Why?”
“Because the tickets are too expensive.”
“How expensive?”
“More expensive than a gumball.”
“Oh.”

***

A few minutes later we are walking along the path to the grocery store, jumping in puddles, enjoying the sun on our shoulders. It feels like March, not early February. Trombone and Fresco have this game where they bend over a drain and then say, “DEEEE!” and laugh at each other. I can’t do it properly, only they can. They are doing that thing I was hoping they’d do, excluding me and I am determined to enjoy the exclusion while I can, until the day I start to miss them and wish they would include me more.

“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“How can we go see the Olympic Mascots?”
“MONKEY!”
“Well, I don’t know. I guess we could go to Queen’s Park…” I was thinking out loud. I can’t seem to remember not to do that.
“Sure, let’s go to Queen’s Park!”
In for a penny… “Yeah, the Olympic Torch is going to be there.”
“What’s the Olympic Torch?”
“A party. There’s going to be a party.” (Preschooler Conversational Tip: Whenever possible, deflect from explanations you aren’t comfortable making by inserting a word that you know will thrill and amuse.)
“I LOVE PARTIES!”
“Yes, I know.”
“Can we go to the party?”
“Well, it’s during school…”
“Oh.”
“But if you wanted, you could miss school that day and we could go to the party.”
“I WOULD LIKE THAT!”
“…all right.”

Watch out Monkey(s). We’re coming.

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