Health

My Daddy is in the hospital with a very high fever. Virus. Origin unkown. Localization unknown. Treatment unknown. Tests. Scans. Biopsies. People asking the same questions endlessly as though trying to catch my dad in a lie. Does it hurt when I press here? How about here? Its scary and exhausting, probably more for him than for me.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Its a snow day! A real honest-to-goodness snow day made even more real by the fact that I had an 8:30 appoitment at an elementary school to work on rubrics with a group of teachers and it was cancelled due to snow! I heard it on the radio. Needless to say, I felt about 8 years-old (no big change there actually) and still do, although my adult self has taken over somewhat with guilt about possibly not hunkering down and working all day (icky!) but instead drinking white tea and trimming the tree (fun!). Outside, people are trying to make it up Victoria, some of them clearly with all-season tires. I feel like taking out my megaphone (don't have one) and shouting out my window: "You live in Canada! More specifically, in Montreal, the metropolis that gets the most snow in the Northeast! Get winter tires, you morons."

Even though every day is a gift, this one really feels like it. I need to harness that feeling.

Sleeping in here

"You'll be sleeping in here" He gestured to a mattress neatly laid on the floor. "Yes, thank you" I replied, rather meekly. The sheets were dark and masculine, colours that I would never have picked myself. I'll be cold, I thought, how lucky to have brought my sleeping bag after all. I put down my stuff. "Thank you" I said again. The closet door was half open and I nudged it with my foot. A semi-awkward silence ensued. Along the far wall, an ironing board took up the space in front of the window and there were vertical blinds shut tight. I'd have to open them before I went to bed, since I hate waking up in the dark. "So I guess I'd better change now..." I trailed off. "Yes. Right. Ok." He left then and I sank to my knees on the carpet to open my suitcase. My pajamas were there and my toothbrush. I put them on and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I padded back and crawled into bed, pulling my sleeping bag up to my neck. "You ok in there?" He came in. "just let me know if you need anything. Are you cold? We can move you, you know. Just say the word." I said I was fine I guessed. I turned out the light and watched him walk away, taking one last look over his shoulder. I lay back in the dark, my sleeping bag rustling as I shifted.

I will follow ... where you lead

I’m 30 years old (ummm…give or take and mainly give), I’ve lived in a multicultural Canadian urban metropolis for most of my life and more than anything I would like to live in a small town in New England. There. It would kill me, no doubt, and I am absolutely unprepared for it. The antiques, the baking. At least I’ve got the maple syrup part down. Its no use hiding it, I must confess that I am utterly addicted to the Gilmore Girls and from this addiction stems my newfound desire to live in a wood-frame house complete with wraparound porch and gabled windows. Although having abated somewhat in the topsy-turvy fall, my latent small-town-Americana (but not that kind of Americana, the other kind, the Martha kind, the TV kind) tendencies have reawakened with the ringing of sleigh bells poorly disguised as grocery store muzak. Are you listening? I want to walk in a winter wonderland in Stars Hollow! I want to spend some of my days in a fully-equipped-state-of-the-art-make-Williams-Sonoma-weep-with-envy kitchen and the other days walking around town in stilettos and tight sweaters, my lipstick crimson, my hair shiny, the snow falling yet melting miraculously in the path of my Manolos! Yes! Me, too much reading too much thinking yoga bending deep breathing hippie tea drinking me. The watcher in me chuckles. The reality would be different no doubt. I have bunions so the Manolos are out. I eat off any lipstick I put on within minutes. Tight sweaters … yeah, I could pull those off. Ditto the cooking. The cooking and endless tasting would, of course, make me fat. And even my fantasy comes full circle, with me monitoring what I put in my mouth as I fall on and off the wagon in a never-ending ballet of food management…

Simplicity and St-Nick

As you may know, I decided this year to forego most of the traditional gift-giving and give money to charities. People getting gifts from me would receive a card that describes what the money I would have spent on their gift was used for instead. For instance, 35$ given to Word Vision Canada (I know, I know, all manner of religious overtones here, but bear with me) gets a family in Somalia 2 full grown hens and a rooster. Some gifts, such as school supplies for Nairobi, multiply tenfold since you basically pay for the shipping of something that companies have donated. So one day, full of these plans, I go downstairs to my Mum's to tell her the news. "Mum," I say "this year I have decided to share with those less fortunate and help people de-clutter their lives at the same time by giving the joy of giving! Isn't that great?" Well, apparently not so much. My mum gave me the sort of look that let me know that I was playing fast and loose with tradition and that she wasn't having any of it. "What, no presents?" she asked " none at all?" she turned suddenly into a five year old "But I sort of like jewelry..." she trailed off wistfully. My dad's reaction was better. "I love this out of the box thinking!" He wrote in an email, happily using his new jargon "The rooster for Namibia just bought me!" Admittedly, his mastery of the jargon was still in its initial stages, but he was sold on my idea. In the end, though, I am having to go half and half, giving away some of the money and buying people presents to mollify them somewhat. I don't know yet where I stand on all of this. My mum gets ridiculous about Christmas which invariably turns into an overconsumption orgy with all of us opening presents at once since there are so many of them that we cannot keep up. Our opened gifts drown in piles of wrapping paper, ribbons and shrink wrap as we struggle to come up with appropriate exclamations of gladness and surprise, differing from gift to gift. Last year, I was so disoriented that I honestly felt like giving myself a time-out from the madness. Basically, when it comes right down to it, I just like the food (yummy Polish yumness), the fact that we are together and going to bed with a box of chocolates and a book from my Chapters Indigo wish list). Oh, and new pajamas.

This year, I've gone with Alternative Gifts International as well as World Vision Canada (in spite of its Christian roots).

Gah. A whole year.

I simply cannot fathom that it has been over a year since I have posted anything here. Well, that isn't entirely true. I CAN fathom it. The road to hell, after all, was paved with good intentions. This was supposed to be an outlet for latent scribal tendencies "oh, Syl, you have a gift, you should practice more" - but in the end I find it hard to write without an audience. And I know blogs are supposed to have an audience, but only if you tell people about it, ya. But I am finding of late that I would like to say some things and so I figured that I'll say them here and see how it goes. I'll get to play with things like uploading images and what not. That should be fun.