Old timer

Yup, I'm old

living and dying in modern times

All around me lately there are pregnancies, births and deaths. Of course, everyday, everywhere this is the case but lately I've been really noticing it. Perhaps it's because the tireless march of time is so clearly etched in my life each time I look at how big my babies are growing, every time I look in the mirror and see not a 12 year old looking back but a woman.

I was discussing with my mom how I believe that children are supposed to lose a grandparent while they're children, how that is a lesson in the great circle of life. Lose a pet; learn about grief, lost a grandparent; learn more profoundly about grief, and on it continues so that when we eventually lose a parent or spouse or God forbid a child we have a foundation of grieving and healing on which to lean. Longer lifespans mean that a great many of my contemporaries have never experienced death or loss despite being well into their 30s.

Conversely more and more people are waiting into their 30s and even 40s before having children (or electing not to have children at all) so a great many people in their 20s and 30s have never experienced a new baby coming into their family (nuclear or extended), have never seen first hand how life altering a new addition can be. People who believe that new moms are like Rachel from "Friends" - the baby mysteriously disappears when it's time to hang and have coffee with the gang.

Does this cushion lead to a generation more self-centred and less aware of their place in the loop that is life? A generation who fall apart when faced with loss, or even change? A generation more likely to try every medical intervention available to extend living even in the absense of life? A generation more prone to murder their pregnant wives rather than cope with the addition of a new person to the dynamic?

I wonder.

DVD tag

I've been tagged by Maricar

1) Total Number of films I own on dvd: Me - I dunno, 5 or 6, but C and the kids? Must be well over 100

2) The last film I bought: It was a kiddy film I'm sure?

3) The last film I watched: House of Sand and Fog. OK this is where you all learn the pathetic truth - I have the attention span of a Cheeto and simply cannot sit still long enought to watch a whole movie on DVD (the theatre is different, there's popcorn involved). Ditto TV, I've watched less than 5 hours of TV this entire year so far. I did watch most of Holiday Inn with C last month. And at least 10 minutes worth of Chicago sometime in April.

4) Five films I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me: It's a Wonderful Life (classic holiday tradition to watch). Star Wars (shut Up!). There's practically always something from Dora the Explorer playing in the background. Lord of the Rings trilogy (though I prefer the books I did love the movies) I know there's something I'm missing, I'm thinking...

Cheap date

We went out to dinner at a friend's house Saturday, always a wonderful time, good food and lots of drinks. However, it seems like 5+ years of TTC, pregnancy, breastfeeding, TTC, pregnancy and breastfeeding has turned me into a rather cheap drunk. I was far more inebriated Saturday evening than I ever have been before. I missed out of the college-binge drinking/passing out in the bars/puking in the taxi stage of life having gotten knocked up before I hit legal drinking age, so my 'I now understand what falling down drunk means' moment occured at the tender age of 32. There were cocktails (Kir Royale), there was wine (a wonderful mellow Spanish red), there was dessert (crème brulée liquer, to.die.for). I could feel certain cognative functions going offline, and finally I could feel the world getting dim around the edges. I didn't pass out, I have no doubt that just one more would have accomplished that feat, and remarkably I wasn't sick and didn't have a hang over the next day. Still, it was creepy and scary. Perhaps if I had experienced it in my early 20s it wouldn't have been so frightening, but from my older first time eyes I just can't imagine what makes people do that over and over again, weekend after weekend.

Still gonna get me a bottle of that fabu crème brulée, I'll just sip it next time ;)

Tip toe...

The Ottawa Tulip Festival is a huge deal here, it's the biggest tulip festival in the world (now really, shouldn't that be in Holland?) Anyway, it's always beautiful and we try to go at least once every year. We tend to avoid all of the carnival-type "stuff" that goes on in Major's Hill Park and stick instead to Commissioner's Park across from Dow's Lake (which has plenty of chip trucks, hot dog vendors, cotton candy sellers, lemonade stands, ice cream carts, face painters, souvenir hawkers and buskers but no big concerts or other strangeness). It seems like the majority of the flowers are there anyway, and so much open space for the kids to enjoy.

Katie and Jonah enjoying the tulips. Click for larger.





Katie is making that face because she's trying to figure out how to kiss the "two lips". LOL, the way kids' brains work!

More beautiful flowerbeds...

Words

The skies opened up just as I was getting the kids out of the van yesterday afternoon and my sweet, angelic daughter said (loudly, because things like this are never quiet) "Enough with the fucking rain already!". Oy! Now I've been known to swear, and though I try very hard not to do so I do occasionally slip up. I'm not sure she got that from me (it's not a turn of phrase I'd use) but I can see that we'll have to be a LOT more careful with the language we use around little pitchers. Especially now that Jonah is really talking, which is SUCH a relief. He's stringing together 2 and 3 word thoughts now, he's still missing a lot of consonants but he's mostly understandable, which makes all of us a lot happier. I particularly love when he says "Oor (where) Ka-ee go?" He's even started identifying colours (he's got yellow and blue down pat) and is developing a sense of humour:

C: Is that a spoon Jonah? (indicating the fork that Jonah is eating with)
J: No, foak
C: (a bit later) Is that a spoon Jonah?
J: No, foak
C: Is that a fork Jonah?
J: (pauses, then gets a mischievious look) No, a poon!

Love it :)

My challenge pics

Well we haven't had fabulous sunny weather or calm winds but I stopped on my way into work Tuesday to snap a few pictures of Mooney's Bay. It's a very pretty place, particulary this early in the morning when the only people there are a few paddlers from the rowing club...




(sorry for the tiny size, I have no farkin' idea how to redo this column to be wider and more useful)

Now if it will only brighten up a bit I can get some nice tulip pictures :) Maybe tomorrow?

Your inner European

Seen at Jana's

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Who's Your Inner European?

Look - but do you really see?

Every morning on my drive into work I pass along pretty much the full length of Mooney's Bay. Mornings when the sun is up and the wind is calm it's breathtakingly beautiful, a perfect mirror with trees and small white foot bridges reflected in its surface. Every morning I think "if I wasn't in such a hurry I'd love to stop and look for awhile, and take pictures". Then I drive along Hog's Back and the edge of the University campus, with green green grass, tall trees and waterfall and think about how much I'd like to stop there and enjoy the sights.

Picking C up from work downtown in the afternoons we pass several spectacular churches, all old stonework and stained glass and I think "if I wasn't in such a hurry I'd love to stop and look, and take pictures".

How many beautiful things do we speed by in a day only barely noticing they exist?

I challenge everyone to start your day 10 minutes earlier tomorrow and seek out something beautiful (or just interesting) that you pass by frequently but never stopped to really appreciate.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

I admit we're not big celebrators of Mother's Day, it's a nice idea but like most holidays it's way too commercialized for my taste. I made cards for my mom and the MIL, and James made a card for me but we don't get into the whole flowers/gifts/$100 brunch crap. A lovely sunshiney day at home with my family, getting sunburned and barbequing steak for dinner, that's my idea of a great day!

Hope you all had a great day, however you celebrated it.

Love

What is love?

Is love affection? Is it lust, sex, attraction? Is love possession or entitlement? Is it obligation or resignation? Adulation, idolatry, infatuation? Is it devotion or enchantment?

To me Love is safety. It's feeling secure, knowing (without having to be told) that regardless of situation or circumstance love will remain. Love bears no grudges, it exists only to soothe and comfort. Love can sustain in the depths of despair and yet be sustained by no more than a caress.

For all it's resilience though, Love is tenuous, the strands may be stretched only so far before they snap. It may die of neglect, it may be stamped out by indifference. It must be shared, for know matter how much one wills it, one cannot make another love them. And love is fickle, it knows not what is right or sensible, but insinuates itself where it may.

The bible says 'love is patient, love is kind', but love cannot wait forever, and love can cut deeper than a knife.

Why do we devote so much thought and angst to something so completely out of our hands?

Reflecting

I was standing in line at the post office yesterday when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in one of the windows and did a double take.

In my mind's eye I'm still a 12 year old, still bright and eager and optimistic. The woman - the old woman - looking back at me just looked so downtrodden, like she'd been kicked around by life. A lot. It's not that I'm shocked by how old I look (I'm turning 33 at the end of the month, I expect to look older than 12) but by how world weary that woman staring back at me was.

I'm happier living in my delusions.