a tin can telephone

A Summer's empty Room...

2012-01-19T11:14:00.002-05:00

It sifts from Leaden Sieves -
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road -

It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain -
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again -

It reaches to the Fence -
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces -
It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack - and Stem -
A Summer's empty Room -
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them -

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen -
Then stills its Artisans - like Ghosts -
Denying they have been -

- Emily Dickinson

from behind the pine curtain

2011-10-25T11:07:00.000-04:00

"Soup's on!"

The missing pound cake recipe that is destined to be a family heirloom, as soon as we can find it among countless stashes of newspaper clippings and quickly jotted notes.

A response to my statement that, no, we aren't having kids just yet: "well, that's okay. I was an old mother too." GREAT. THANK YOU.

Collective laughter when my husband asked if anybody wanted "pop" from the grocery store.

Repeated viewings of Grandaddy's second great love: Diana Krall in Rio de Janeiro.

Locating constellations from the living room couch, courtesy of Steve Jobs.

Sharing more connections than differences, as is the case when you are lucky enough to be related to such folks.

another repurposed dress

2011-10-13T11:49:00.001-04:00

I'm still tweaking this next project, but when I found this $5 XXL Tall men's sweater in a thrift store, it just had so much potential. At first, the shoulder seams landed just above my elbows, and the sleeves dangled a good eight inches past my wrists and the armpits hung like wings. I did nothing to the neck opening or the length. (Also, please note that in the next two pictures I am busy trying to convince Toby to do... something.)

This first picture shows the color most accurately- a sort of mossy green. It isn't the most attractive color right away, but a colorful scarf, thick belt, statement necklace, or bright tights (maybe orange?) could make a huge difference.

Please forgive my dirty Peter Pan boots. And like I said, not the most gorgeous color, but compared to these, for example...

$188 from Anthropologie.

$65 from Modcloth.

$79 from Urban Outfitters.

...five bucks from Salvation Army starts to look pretty good.

Fall Film Fest!

2011-09-29T11:25:00.001-04:00

If I were a good, serious, capital-B Blogger, then I would have had this list ready to share on September 1st. Since I am a lazy, haphazard, lower-case blog-when-I-feel-like-it blogger, I'm just now posting this autumn film smorgasbord. Here are a few movies that I love to watch as the days get a little cooler, food gets a little heartier, and trees throw a big costume-changing party.

September: Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel

This series of "Anne" movies are sentimental and dreamy and quaint, for sure. My childhood self drank them up on sick days when I got to stay home from school, and they've stuck ever since. This one spans a few years and several seasons, but there are some lovely autumn shots and I love the series of scenes when Anne takes her students on a picnic on the behalf of Mrs. Harris, the crotchety grandmother of one of her students. It's the turning point for her relationship with Mrs. Harris, and their gradually warming friendship fits well with the charm and sparkle of the season around them.

October: Fantastic Mr. Fox

There is something about the combination of Roald Dahl + Wes Anderson + stop motion animation that is just perfect. And the warm sunset backgrounds, underground burrows, wool-and-plaid-clad humans, and storerooms of fat poultry and golden cider make for a delicious and light-hearted fall movie. (This soundtrack is pretty great, too.)

November: Gosford Park

I love this movie for a lot of reasons: a truly incredible cast, an understated and brilliant sense of humor, a dark and twisty mystery, a captivating wardrobe. The mood is set right away; even the opening credits themselves serve to set a damp, dreary, melancholy tone. It's about a group that gathers for a hunting party on a 1930's estate and a sort of Agatha Christie mystery unfolds, involving both the visiting upper class and "below-stairs" lower class staff.

(right about 2:00 is a beautiful title shot)

It's so suited to a bleak, misty, tea-sipping and blanket-bundling kind of afternoon.

(The costumes at 3:00 are so spot-on: tweed! wool! hats! and one poor fox. And the lavish outdoor lunch at 5:00 feels brisk and lacking just enough color, except for the glasses of richly red Bloody Mary... too much foreshadowing?)

Relics

2011-09-23T12:01:00.000-04:00

In an effort to help my dad & stepmom purge, I recently brought home a carload of family heirlooms they had been holding on to- in the form of china. SO MUCH CHINA.

I'm pretty sure this all came from my mom's side of the family, but any more information is lost to history, which is too bad. (Unless one of my relatives is reading this and can fill in the gaps for me!) I am resisting doing some purging myself, mostly out of a vague nostalgic attachment to family history, although I really don't know when we are going to have a dinner party that requires THIRTY PLACE SETTINGS of a wine glass, water glass, (not pictured) dinner plate, salad plate, dessert plate, teacup, and saucer. Not how we roll.

Bryan's solution is to see what these would fetch on Ebay. I'm a little bit tempted, I'll admit.

These teacups, though, have much more sentimental value for me. My mom collected them at random before she passed away, and I wish I knew when and where, but that's just another mystery upon all the others, unfortunately.

To quote my stepmom: THIS is why nobody has silver any more. Because you would spend your life polishing it, forever and ever. (And I'm not really the type to go back in time and move to England and hire a staff to do it for me)

But still kind of cool, right? I would love to find a way to work them into our ordinary dishes, or use them for decoration or something.

There is more porcelain and silver and glass, (oh, so much more) but I will spare you. The last category, though, I'm even less sure of what to do with.

This pink quilt lived on my bed for a while when I was a kid, and I'm pretty sure it's a family heirloom too, but once again: mystery. What's not a mystery: the rough shape it's in, what with all the shredding and stains.

This one rotated through mine and my brothers' childhoods as well, and it's in better shape (although still pretty stained and beat up):

I love the scalloped edges on this one. The question is, is it worth it to try to clean/restore these? I'm not particularly attached to them, but they aren't really functional in their current state, and I can't bring myself to just throw them away.

This last one, though... so much potential.

I love all the colors going on, and how the honeycomb effect is orderly and whimsical at the same time.

This quilt is also unfinished, which means I could do that myself (or learn?) and put it to good use, although it would probably only fit a twin-sized bed in the end.

All hand-stitched.

OR, I could take a deep breath and cut it up. Throw pillows, a tablecloth or runner, Christmas tree skirt, mixed-media art or wall hanging. The right inspiration could lead me to do it, but do I really want to undo all the hours of sewing that some dedicated person (relative?) poured into this? I hesitate.

I love when treasured possessions have stories that give them a little life, and even more when they evoke a particular memory on top of it. I just don't know when I cross the line from sentimental into aimless hoarder, or if I'm already there, which is entirely possible. We tend to purge every time we move anyway, which is roughly every ten minutes, so maybe that will solve the problem for me! Time will tell.

Autumn's Inauguration

2011-09-14T14:00:00.001-04:00

A chill settled in last night and has lingered all day, prompting me to start the Seasonal Closet Turnover process. A lot of laundry and digging and sorting as I decide what clothes need to just go to Goodwill already because I have not worn them in six years anyway, but I keep them because they are pretty (not because I am a batty old hoarder).

I don't know how people from California or any other temperate climate do it, keeping their entire wardrobes accessible all year round, because I just don't have the closet space to pull it off. Which maybe explains why so many women are more obsessed with walk-ins than I am. In any case, I love this ritual, and it has definitely become a ritual. I love unearthing jackets and boots and sweaters that I forgot I had, and stashing skirts and sundresses away to make room for them. Trading out the linen for the wool. Pulling out the heavy, thick blankets for the bed. There's something about the organizing and preparation process that feels comforting and right, like gearing up for hibernation. Like storing up the harvest before a long winter.

All this scenario is missing is some hot (spiced? spiked?) cider, and today would be perfect.

p.s. My lovely stepmom (yes, those two words can coexist, much like "lovely mother-in-law") found this beauty for us at the weirdest garage sale I have ever seen, and I am pretty stoked about it.

I have never upholstered a thing in my life, but I'm willing to give it a shot. The sheer pressure of picking the perfect fabric just might kill me, though.

crafty craft craft

2011-08-23T14:36:00.003-04:00

Well, I really have no good explanation for the lack of writing other than a creative lull in general. Moving and all of the accompanying tasks sort of sucked the energy out of me, combined with the occasional summer road trip. But hopefully things will settle into whatever normal is going to look like soon.

I have managed to pay attention to a couple projects long enough to actually finish them, though. Exhibit A!

A silver tray from a thrift store, combined with my own tarnished jewelry, endured several hot water/baking soda baths- the jewelry only went through once, but the tray went three rounds and STILL was not totally clear.

Much improved, though! (The perfume bottles are old ones of my mom's... err, vintage. "Old" always = "vintage", right?) This sheet of tinfoil was the third one to go, also. (Something about the tarnish transferring to the foil? I don't know science.)

Gross! Also from the same thrift store trip, these two beauties:

The bases are brass, then ceramic painted to look like wood? Or something? To match the wooden necks? I have no idea. They were mostly just ugly. And we needed living room lamps for cheap. Like, $5 per lamp and spray paint cheap.

That'll do. The lampshades are still a little funky, but they're livable until something classier comes along.

Now, this is the part where I brag because I'm pretty stinkin' proud of myself for pulling this one off. I had pretty low expectations. Before: a thrifted XXL cotton/linen beauty of a jumper.

After: this dress! (the cutest free pattern the internet would provide)

I quickly figured out that the stripes were going to cause me problems- keeping them orderly but getting enough fabric out of the old dress was a tight squeeze. There is definitely some funkiness on the sides where the skirt flares out, but other than that, I'm really pleased. I haven't tried to sew an invisible zipper in ages, but I made it through without any fits of cursing!

The belt is thrifted also, and I suspect it's a child's belt because I'm on the very last notch. Whatever works! Just in time for the end of summer!

within earshot

2011-06-29T21:08:00.003-04:00

The sleepy, deliberate ringing of the church bells across the soccer field, tallying the hours. The number 24 bus rumbling past, shocks gasping as it lurches over the 3-foot-wide speed humps. Kids arguing, scuffling, pretending, hollering, pleading: "just throw the ball back over here!" A sudden rustle and clanging tags as Toby attempts to follow a squirrel up a tree. Strains of sweet and imperfect cello, piano, and clarinet floating out a nearby window. A train braying, and then again, and again...

A new environment, a different pace, another place to call home.

two days of sunshine in a row!

2011-05-08T14:08:00.003-04:00

...the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.

- Jane Eyre

also, got my first splinter of the season.

2011-04-15T19:07:00.001-04:00

For the first time in almost six months, I finally got to work on my garden plot yesterday. Last Sunday was our first breath of warm, humid air this year and since then it took me several days to pull my act together. The community garden was bare and quiet yesterday, but not for long.

I started spreading some fertilizer and working it in with last year's soil, and within minutes I caught glimpses of robins creeping around. I know that sounds weird, robins creeping, but that's what they were doing- ducking and weaving behind fences and dried cabbage stalks nearby, hopping around and peering at me like cartoon-character-spies.

I was mystified at first, but soon I realized what they were after. Turn after turn of soil revealed worms, wriggling and gliding away as soon as I exposed them. Worms! This was a miracle to me. The raised beds were just constructed a year ago, so nobody had worms in their plots unless they bought them or dug them up elsewhere and added them in. I don't know if the worms came with the fertilizer, or if they worked their way up through the deeper ground over the winter, but I'm not questioning my good fortune. I don't know much about gardening, but I do know that earthworms are a vital partner and ally, and seeing them in abundance did my heart good.

I only planned to turn the earth and plant some early lettuce and spinach, but I stayed longer than I expected. I peeled off layers as I warmed up, even though the air was chilly. It felt good to break a sweat in the fresh breeze for the first time in months. Torso and back muscles usually reserved for snow shoveling are sore.

I'm looking forward to the hours to be spent in that mere 10' x 10' chunk of earth.

(I'm just sharing this friendly-named lettuce because the design is cool for beginners like me- the seeds are spaced evenly through the strip of tissue paper.)

blustery day

2011-04-11T18:19:00.003-04:00

The afternoon wind was wicked enough that once my car was on the highway, I needed both (sweaty) hands on the wheel. It gusted so hard, it practically willed itself visible, for the whole 20 kilometers home.

For some reason lately, I have noticed more tow trucks crouched on the shoulder of the occasional on-ramp, even more than one might expect during bad winter weather. Just waiting for the inevitable crash. Coming from me, host of Negative Nancy, this seems particularly pessimistic.

I don't know if I've felt wind this brutal since living in Denver.

my version of duct tape

2011-04-10T15:35:00.000-04:00

Bryan: When I make coffee in the french press it always gets cold so fast...

Me: It's okay. I'll just knit something to help keep it warm.

Bryan: Well, that's just your answer to everything.

Okay, so I didn't knit. I felted a thrifted sweater and cut out a rectangle and did some kindergarden embroidery to brighten it up. I won't even show you the back because the fastenings are atrocious- you can already see some of the flaps peeling away. But the wool does its job.

spring tease

2011-03-29T18:50:00.004-04:00

Spring is taking its sweet time getting here, that's for sure. But Toby and I went for a ramble this afternoon in the 38-degree-air, and it's getting ever closer to the messy, muddy stage before full-on spring.

I have a good feeling that this will be our last snow (please, PLEASE let it be our last snow) so we enjoyed it. Snowballs are good for throwing (me) and snatching out of the air to eat (Toby).

And if I can't wear my Wellies to the community garden just yet, at least they are getting broken in beforehand.

Hurry yourself up, spring. We're ready for you.

so, you want to be a farmer

2011-03-22T18:16:00.003-04:00

I have a small, nagging problem and it's all the internet's fault. All of it. Between reading bits of Wendell Berry and "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (fine, only 63 pages in, even worse!) and growing weary of winter and feeling the dim confines of our basement apartment... okay, the internet isn't responsible for all of it. But I have gotten sucked into a couple of pockets of the world that are so fascinating to me: young blogging homesteaders and farmers (that phrase could not have been possible even 20 years ago, eh?).

This young couple, along with their children, are very intentionally pursuing a lifestyle outside of the grasp of the mighty supermarket. It sounds impossible, but between growing and making their own food, as well as buying meat, dairy, and other supplies from locally owned and operated businesses... they are on their way to pulling it off. I love the idea of knowing exactly where your food comes from, how it was produced, and just how far it traveled to get to you, not to mention getting to know the people producing it.

Side note: I don't know what it is about the Hamilton area, but I'm so intrigued that such a relatively urban population (500,000 in 88 square miles) is also within such close reach to farms, orchards, butchers, dairies, flour mills, wineries... must be a fortunate combination of location and climate and history.

Another deadly trap has been the discovery of this blog, and while I can't say I have an acute case of Barnheart just yet, I can feel small twitches that threaten to grow. She makes me want to find a chunk of land, buy some sheep and a truck, and start selling and spinning some wool. I'm not kidding. Throw in some chickens too, and some beehives so I can give honey and beeswax lip balm away as gifts.

I'm idealizing this in so many ways. I loved "All Creatures Great and Small" by James Herriot, a veterinarian in rural Yorkshire. I would have "Charlotte's Web" on the brain and make the huge mistake of naming every last one of my animals, and it would break my heart to watch them get sick or, as is the nature of farms, finally slaughtered for food. I love hard, tangible, rewarding work, but I don't know what it is to be tied to the land and unable to travel on a whim when there is work to be done. I can't even haul my ass out of bed at the first (or second, or ninth) moment the alarm goes off. I have no idea what it is to be a farmer.

But when I read blogs like these, I yearn for woodburning stoves and the hum of contented creatures nearby and growing fresh food outside my back door and the dead-tired satisfaction of a full day of labor and having friends over for feasts. Simple, honest, pleasurable things. They aren't so unrealistic, in some small measure, right?

it begins in ashes

2011-03-09T10:50:00.004-05:00

There is something so gritty and tangible about the season of Lent, I am figuring out. The grey smudges on Ash Wednesday and the dim purples attributed to this time really reflect what's outside my window (although it is snowing thickly right now, but that's bound to turn to rain in the next 24 hours) and most of my surroundings as I move through my day. This time of year is tough; March is in like the crankiest of lions. Winter has worn me down and run its course, turned grey and dingy everywhere I look, but it's too soon for the earth to really come to life.

This moody, bleak setting is just about right for ideas like fasting and preparation and lament and 40 days in the wilderness. The sunlight and first day of spring and greens are on their way, and I have that to look forward to, but there's no shortcut through this season to get to the next, both spiritually and physically. So much of the Bible is about people waiting, preparing, anticipating. It's probably the kind of thing you could write a huge paper on (I am around my PhD student husband too much), all the ways and reasons and unbelievable lengths of time people hoped and prayed and waited. So much emphasis is on the preparation itself, sometimes more than the anticipated event, and that's something I haven't considered in past Lenten seasons. Like this time of year, I have passively watched the days slide by without participating or preparing.

So, I want to participate. The tangible side is straightforward; the tradition of sacrificing something or simplifying for the 40 days of Lent is familiar. In my case, it will be processed sugar, which my teeth will be happy about, but the rest of me, not so much. (This is scary for me to go ahead and write down, because I never do it here- I don't really talk about goals or challenges or commitments to whoever's listening, because then suddenly I'm ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEM. That is terrifying.) It's a comfort and a distraction, but not really healthy for the long term, and I think sugar could represent other parts of me that I use for comfort and distraction, but might be stunting my growth.

I had my last Shamrock Shake yesterday (now that they have shown up in Canada again!). How my heart and soul will participate is yet to be seen. I hope to be changed.

the taste of good things

2011-02-26T13:37:00.003-05:00

The last few weeks have been such a slump, for some reason. Maybe because the best part of winter has passed and I like to have something specific to look forward to, and there isn't anything on the radar right now. Maybe also because it's a weird time of Life Plan uncertainty for us (which you'd think we would be used to by now) and while I like to think I'm flexible and such, right now I'm pretty much just uncomfortable and discontent and a grouch.

So in an effort to rally, here are some things that I like, for no particular reason. Most of them are food.

We tried quinoa for the first time last week, and going into it, I was a little worried. Being a recovering Picky Eater (Hi, my name is Anna, and I'm a Picky Eater) and a total texture phobe, I wasn't sure how the quinoa was going to go over. So I found a recipe full of stuff that I like and hoped it would be enough of a distraction. Success!

And, my husband was a good sport and ate some too, even after I repeatedly told him that my feelings weren't in danger and he didn't have to eat it if it bombed. The quinoa was pretty bland and reminded me a lot of couscous, which we also had last week, and in an attempt to avoid any more bland mines (HAAAAA), I found a recipe that used all of this.

I mean, come on. How can sundried tomatoes steer you wrong? We had the couscous with a whole roasted chicken, but that did not turn out nearly as good-looking so I didn't take any pictures as evidence. It wasn't a disaster or anything, but it wasn't a chicken to brag about for generations to come, either.

Something I really, really love is roasting whole heads of garlic (which I did in the same pan with the undocumented chicken). I toasted some bread in the oven too, squeezed some roasted garlic on, took a bite, and passed out from sheer delight.

... I might be drooling a little over here.

I also found a Maple Pecan scone recipe while flipping through my new Pioneer Woman cookbook (a Christmas gift I received two of, one from my mother-in-law AND one from my stepmom, who are apparently competing for the thoughtfulness prize) and I am truly sorry I can't link to it for you, because it is delicious. Obviously this is the result of whipping cream, sugar, and about 19 pounds of butter, but I got over that guilt pretty quickly.

That icing is just ridiculous. I used to always use the scone recipe in my copy of the BHG Cookbook, but no more. We have a new normal around here.

I love this mug but I look like a fool when I sip out of the corners. It's the only way to work with it. The dignity we sacrifice for love.

I'm not very creative when it comes to cooking. It's like when I clean; most of the time I avoid it until I just have to deal with it, but every once in I while I'm struck with inspiration and clean all the things! or in this case, try something new without exceeding our means. It's a tricky thing, sticking to a budget and staying cheerful and creative about it at the same time. I'm not great at it but I have my occasional moments of grace that allow me to see the joy in what we so often see as "less".

I've been reading 'A Moveable Feast', a collection of essays from Hemingway's time in Paris, and he often mentions how poor he and his wife and his young son are. He does acknowledge having to choose between good things because of this, but it's never in a bitter tone. I love the simplicity and warmth in this quote:

"But then we did not think ever of ourselves as poor. We did not accept it. It had never seemed strange to me later on to wear sweatshirts for underwear to keep warm. It only seemed odd to the rich. We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other."

thursday funk

2011-02-17T10:50:00.006-05:00

Grand Rapids illustrator Rebecca Green

...just one of those days.

Dot.

2011-02-12T08:55:00.003-05:00

I love, love this short. So clever! And not just because it was produced by Aardman, who is responsible for the joy that is Wallace & Gromit.

Empathy, or lack thereof

2011-02-02T09:33:00.003-05:00

Scene: I am watching "The Bachelor" on tv. I make fun of it out loud, but secretly there is a part of me that enjoys it. (What is with reality tv and the false sense of superiority it gives me?) Bryan sits in the same room reading, but listening just enough to add his own commentary, because obviously the saga of human emotion is irresistible. He leaves the room briefly, and when he comes back, our friend the Robot Bachelor has sent a girl home, and I am laughing (because I am heartless).

Me: Do you know what she said? She just said, "I feel like I just got punched in the stomach. AND THE HEART."

Bryan: Aw, I liked her!

Somebody's a sucker for the drama, and it's not me.

four things

2011-01-17T18:09:00.005-05:00

1. The state of my hands in winter: dry, crackling, and bleeding at the knuckles. But also smelling of the many sweet, tiny clementines I eat during the day.

2. I never understand the "describe your leadership skills" portion on any type of application. Why does everybody want to recruit only leaders? Have you ever been trapped in a small room filled with a bunch of leaders, but no followers to balance things out? Sounds like trouble if you ask me. Really talky, bossy trouble.

3. If you're not a dog person, you probably won't find this entertaining. But I can't stop laughing. These booties are basically glorified balloons, and totally ridiculous.

Where are my feet?! from Anna Dyer on Vimeo.

4. Excuse me, but will you just look at these libraries? I think Woody or Diane might win.

habitat

2010-12-22T09:07:00.005-05:00

We can all let loose our collectively-held breath, now that winter solstice has passed and the sun won't be quite so shy each day. With that combo of dark and cold, it's no wonder that bears and other critters opt for hibernation- every once in a while, I hardly want to leave my apartment, let alone my bed.

But for some, this season has the opposite effect. Families construct backyard ice rinks with the precision of a suspension bridge. People shovel snow away in clean rectangles near lake shorelines, and the Tetris layouts expand farther and farther out as the water freezes thicker and the Saturday games fill faster. Every evening, along my path home from work, a retention pond nestled in the curve of a highway on-ramp hosts a small herd of cars and teenagers hockeying away until they can't see by the intermittent light of headlights any more.

And this, I suppose, is the essence of winter in Canada.

merry and bright

2010-12-18T17:53:00.004-05:00

"Why do you people think this is funny?"

My first mitten attempt, using this book. Although these won't have the flamboyant Musketeer sleeves- just a little longer than wrist length. I might keep these, but if I manage to get them done in time for Christmas, maybe they'll get gifted instead.

Your eyes do not deceive you. Toby's mutant saliva is practically his superhero secret weapon. But just when he's running in the snow.

And here's a little Christmas cheer from She & Him, courtesy of Conan. I could listen to Zooey's voice all day. Merry merry!

A rant in the name of library love

2010-12-14T18:21:00.005-05:00

This post needs more stats so I sound like I know what I'm talking about. I don't have them. Sorry about that.

I just got an email alerting me to the new policies being implemented in the libraries where I used to live in Colorado. I'm not so great at keeping up with news, local or national or international, so I was a little bit heartbroken to learn that 4 out of 7 Arapahoe county libraries closed a little over a year ago.

The techies and whippersnappers can commence their monologues, now. Go ahead. I will wait to make my point.

Okay, enough. I know the world is changing at warp speeds. I know newspapers are shriveling up and businesses are increasingly paperless, as well as academic institutions (and if textbooks went paperless I'm sure college students everywhere would rejoice). But the thing is, what percentage of the world's populations can actually afford iPads or Kindles? I'm uneducated in this area, but isn't the basic social goal of literacy a step that has to come before the general population can afford e-readers?

I suppose we'll get there eventally, but the fact is most of the world is poor. And most Americans live on a modest income; 68% of the population makes between $25 and $50K per year.

The point? We need libraries. And not just for the books and the movies. They provide more than the archaic, outdated, gasping-their-dying-breath-medium known as books. They are full of community-oriented resources, events, meeting spaces, and materials that the average person doesn't have easy access to. As a taxpayer who literally lives paycheck to paycheck but does her best to stay responsibly out of debt, and who also happens to love to read, I can't praise the institution and rich resource of libraries enough.

I don't want to criticize the County's aim to provide services primarily for their taxpayers. This is understandable and fair. What troubles me is that there is even a NEED, to begin with, to separate taxpayers from non-taxpayers PER COUNTY in order to lighten the load for the libraries that remain.

That's depressing enough, let alone charging an annual $100 fee to those non-taxpayers to enjoy the same benefits that same-county residents enjoy. Why don't the aliens have their own libraries in their own counties? Why aren't the same resources available to them, such that it's worth it to them to wander miles outside of their own communities to find them?

Now that I have pounded out my anger and frustrations on my frail keyboard, I don't know how to conclude this. I'm sad that, whoever voted these decisions through, such people don't see (or see, but don't prioritize) the need for libraries in communities. Negative Nancy says those same people probably list "watching tv" as a primary hobby. I'm inclined to agree with Nancy.

In defense of early winter

2010-12-13T20:50:00.005-05:00

It's getting a bit late to post this, in terms of the shift of seasons (because the seasons are rarely as clean-cut as the quadrants we categorize them in, are they?), but I guess it's been rolling around in my brain for a while without me realizing it.

I don't love the shortness of the days this time of year. I feel like I arrive at work in the dark and leave work in the dark; this must be what it feels like to work the night shift. I'm lucky to sit along a wall of southeast-facing windows at work, and like some sort of plant, my body inclines to the light as the sun passes by. I hate the typical office, soul-sucking, complexion-wrecking fluorescent lighting so much that I will avoid turning them on until I can't read anything on my desk any more.

But, short days aside, there is a particular kind of beauty to be found in late November and early December. This pocket of the continent doesn't see much happen with the weather, for the most part, and everything is cold and clean and stripped bare. All very hushed and sleeping. Nothing to distract from the sunrises and sunsets, when the moon is at its slightest, hardly distinct from the pale sky.

It's a quiet and spare beauty, at a time of year so often associated with death, but I like to think of it as the earth retreated and hibernating, hinting to us that maybe a little peace and calm, and even a nap, isn't such a terrible idea.

Tooth Trauma

2010-11-29T09:40:00.000-05:00

Roughly two years ago, I had a bad cavity that unraveled in a series of tedious and horrifying trips to the dentist, and over the course of six months or so, involved the yanking of an otherwise happy tooth, chipping away at surrounding teeth, and installation of a bridge to make up for the lack of molar. I'm pretty sure my dentist spent a week at a Sandals resort as a result of my payments, and I may still owe him an additional pound of flesh. Because he wouldn't accept my gallon of tears or bushel of minutes of sleep lost/nightmares collected as payment.

For some reason, at each turn and twist of this saga, I turned into a weepy puddle of anxiety with each update. When they told me the tooth would have to go, I cried. Every time I made a payment, I cried. Every time an assistant said something kind and reassuring, I cried. Oddly enough, I never reacted this way to the painful parts- just the mental shocker parts.

It was probably the cost, plus guilt for sabotaging three years-worth of torture in the form of braces, combined with straight-up fear of the unknown and my bad habit of imagining the worst possible outcome. For example, I was given the choice between the triple-tooth bridge to cover the gap, or an implant which they attach to a metal bolt screwed into my gum and jaw.

The implant carried the risk of breaking through the upper palate, and as soon as my dentist Dr. Ebenezer Scrooge mentioned this, all I could see was my sad, collapsed face, unable to eat or drink or laugh again, all alone because my husband couldn't possibly love a crater-face wife. This, of course, made me cry in self-pity and horror. And so I went with the bridge option.

You'd think making a decision would calm me down a little, and when it came time to pull the troublemaker tooth I was mostly fine. The oral surgeon used local anesthetic and the whole procedure took less than ten minutes (although it's a little disturbing just how little effort it requires to yank out a molar).

But then, he left the room with my tooth full of emotional baggage, and I let out the breath I had been holding for two hours. As the assistant asked me a question I found I couldn't form a coherent sentence, what with the gasping sobs coming out of my mouth.

I felt bad for alarming her- "Are you okay? Does it hurt?"- and all I could do was shake my head while I cried. As I tried to choke out "I'm fine! I'm fine! I was just scared!" she wrapped her arm around my shoulder and patted my head, shushing me like a small child, consoling in her Russian accent, "Ch-ch-ch, it's okay, it's okay, don't cry! Your husband think we beat you!"

This made me laugh, and calmed me down pretty quickly. Even though the saga of dentist trips was just warming up, the worst of the weeping fits were over, since I had finally managed to wrap my head around the process.

A couple months later, me and my husband went to get our first tattoos together. Halfway through mine, the tattoo artist asked if it was hurting too much, and I informed him that four hundred dentist visits made the tattoo needle feel like puppy snuggles and angel kisses. No comparison.

reset button

2010-11-26T09:53:00.002-05:00

This past week has just been a beat-down. Nothing dramatic, just feeling like each good thing got smacked in the back of the head by two bad things right behind it. I blew a tire on Monday, one of the tires my compassionate dad had bought for us five weeks before, just as the circus known as Driving in Winter is set to start. And I didn't even have to really deal with it; my saint of a husband spent the next 24 hours on a laughable, under-60-km-per-hour tire replacement hunt. And things sort of just sunk from there.

Thanksgiving is the first holiday I have noticed and felt a difference living outside of the U.S., and it felt a bit strange. Not really sad, because I don't really have much nostalgia or sentiment attached to it; but, when I thought about giving the thankful train a wave from across the border, it just felt forced. This week has been a doozy to pretend to be grateful for, and giving thanks for the standard food-shelter-family-freedom just rang hollow.

So, it is good we did not sit at home on Thanksgiving. Because we were tempted. It sounded really good to just wallow and eat some junk food and drink a half a box of wine and go to bed at 8:30. But we dragged our asses out the door and went to small group.

It wasn't earth-shattering, or anything much more than ordinary, but it triggered a small thanksgiving for me. Despite setback after setback lately, it's still marvelous to me just how many of God's small mercies are all over the place. Our own tornado of life changes could have dropped us anywhere, dizzy and bewildered, but it dropped us here, in a pocket of warmth and generosity and people who love Jesus. There is so much richness in that alone, and even Negative Nancy can't deny that.

Tonight we'll probably have a mini-Thanksgiving, and roast a chicken instead of a whole turkey, but there will still be stuffing and green bean casserole, and if I have anything to say about it, an apple tart I am already thankful for. And I am grateful, as Anne Shirley says, that "tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it."

He can't be bought.

2010-11-15T17:26:00.005-05:00

If nothing else, reality tv has given me the following gifts: "The Bachelor" consistently reaffirms my gratitude for my husband, and “The Dog Whisperer” reaffirms my gratitude for my dog.

Not that my dog is a shining beacon of canine behavior, because he’s not. Or, I’M NOT, because if Cesar Millan has taught me anything, it’s that any and all wackiness and psychosis on the part of the dog is all my fault, directly or indirectly. If there is no Calm Assertive Pack Leader, it’s all shot to hell because I didn't get my act together.

He really is a wonderful dog though; whoever owned him before we adopted him gave him some basic training, and he obeys and listens 100% of the time at home and 70% in the outside world where overstimulation fries his brain with 800 electric shocks every half a second. He’s funny and goofy and has a boundless energy we have yet to scrape the bottom of.

I love him, but he is a freak. And here is my proof. He is the only dog I have ever known who, when offered either a walk or a game of fetch, if I throw him a treat he will catch it and Spit. It. Out. On the ground.

There is no bribery juicy enough to win him. You can’t reason with that kind of fanaticism.

Toby vs. tube from Anna Dyer on Vimeo.

wanna go for a walk? from Anna Dyer on Vimeo.

Today's Playlist

2010-11-11T18:45:00.004-05:00

The radio station at work today served up no fewer than three Justin Biebers, two Avril Lavignes, and three Taylor Swifts. I know, they are all tiny and shrill and harmless, but they just about sent me over the edge.

As you might imagine, I am ready for the weekend to get here already.

In order to balance the music scales in my life today, I resorted to Christmas music for the drive home. And you can't even get mad at me- know why? I live in Canada, where Thanksgiving happens in October and therefore there is no universally accepted green light for the Christmas music and the commercials and the oversized mall decorations.

Just think that through. No one to rain disapproval on the pine scented candles or strings of white lights or the viewings of 'Elf' and 'It's A Wonderful Life'. Too early? SAYS WHO? Not Canada, that's for sure!

And, seeing as we received our first official Christmas card at work on November 1st, I'd say we're in a free-for-all.

(Christmas 2008)

Let me paint you a picture.

2010-11-09T17:53:00.003-05:00

Here's a metaphor for you.

Say one's complexion is like a fresh, dewy lawn of grass.

And, in this scenario, that would make acne a rampant infestation of dandelions... sometimes blending in with the grass, and sometimes exploding all over the place.

Therefore, I find myself with two (and maybe even a third, time will tell) of these:

And that's pretty much what they feel like.

You're welcome.

The Very Worst Missionary

2010-11-05T09:34:00.005-04:00

I don't know this person, and I can't even retrace my steps down the internet rabbit hole that led me to her blog, but I love this post. Her words resonate with me. (Plus, she's pretty funny.)

"I believe, whole heartedly, that Jesus Christ, himself, wades knee deep in shit to save me.

Not that he did. But that he does. Because I am not yet wholly restored, I am not fully healed, and not nearly perfected."

I think I (and most people) hold people like missionaries and pastors and church staff to a different (and somewhat impossible) standard, and I find her honesty and vulnerability refreshing and necessary.

greens & blues

2010-11-03T19:28:00.000-04:00

Well, a knitting update is as good as any, right? It's not like you want to hear about the sort of day that involved forgetting to set an alarm; a thwarted attempt to buy desperately needed gas because, apparently, we don't live in a paperless society quite yet; flinging half a bowl of soup against the wall at work and a thwarted attempt at cleaning it up with the breed of paper towels that don't absorb anything and push the soup around instead. That kind of mildly negative day. I would have had a little more respect for today (and a much better story) if the day had some gumption and stranded me on the side of the highway with an empty gas tank or something.

Therefore, what follows is a series of uncomfortable self-portraits. Let the awkward posing commence!

This yarn is a beautiful silk/baby alpaca blend that was a birthday present several years ago.

I was hoping this hat would have a more slouchy fit, and sometimes I can mash it around so it looks that way, but to be honest by the time I bound off, I just didn't have the heart to rip it all out and start over. It's a weakness. Kind of like thinning carrots in my garden.

I had some of the same yarn left over, and I couldn't figure out something more clever, so I made a wee triangular kerchief/scarf thing.

I forgot that the lights inside are just no good, so here's a self-conscious one in natural lighting. And I should probably add a button or something eventually, because right now (because I'm still wearing it, right now) the ends are held together with a bobby pin.

Apparently, my laziness makes itself known in just about every thing I knit. Huh. Never noticed that before. Can't quite shake it, nasty laziness monkey.

Here's my attempt to make something I could wear with leggings.

I'm not trying to look unhappy; I'm just busy trying to decide what to look at and where to put my arms and how to not look like a moron.

The collar has a cable, but the yarn didn't quite take to it- not sure why. It was the last piece to knit, so I was content to leave it as a chunky roll. Again, the laziness monkey.

Lastly: 3/4 of a sock!

Unfortunately, this is the first one, so if laziness monkey has his way, there might never be a second. Christmas is coming, after all. I have some people to knit for besides myself.

Twelve-hour Twitchfest

2010-10-26T18:00:00.000-04:00

Well, the other night I made the questionable choice to watch a scary movie with my husband. He likes the zombies and the bad guys, and I waver between moderate disgust and feeling bad that he doesn’t have any campy-gore-loving friends to watch these movies with. So, with a plea of “but it’s Halloween!” and a compromise on the selection, we picked a movie neither of us had seen: Paranormal Activity.

Now, I am all for suspense. I, like many peaceful-first-world-living people, don’t have to deal with actual terror and/or danger on a daily basis, so the whole experience of adrenaline and pretend danger without any real risk is totally enjoyable.

As the dumb guy is tiptoeing down the stairs into the basement with a candle, I am simultaneously yelling at him to WAIT UNTIL THE POWER COMES BACK ON, and squirming, and also loving that horrible endless span of time between the descent and the “BOO!”

Can’t take the gore, though. If a sharp implement makes contact with anyone’s neck area, that’s a good indication of a Movie Anna Won’t Watch. You just file that one away for the future.

In any case, I would rate my reaction to the movie as Pretty Okay. Hardly any gore, enough anxious anticipation. And I felt mostly calm afterwards, although I did sort of swing between Fine and Paranoid: turning all the lights on in the apartment, but not closing any curtains on our ground-level windows; afraid to close the bathroom door while I was peeing in case something jumped me when I opened it, but not checking behind the shower curtain (OBVIOUS DANGER).

I even fell asleep pretty quickly, without any nervous stream of chatter to my husband to distract me from the basement-nighttime-darkness.

I did, however, check to make sure he was breathing several times throughout the night.

Actually, I do this on a regular basis anyway. I am not kidding. It ranks in my Top 5 fears. Not every night, but several times a week I listen for the breathing (often not a problem; I could be deaf and still feel the vibrations from the log-sawing next to me) or feel for the heartbeat. I even do this with the dog. I feel his bellows of a chest for warmth, or hold my hand in front of his nose to test for air movement. Is that creepy?

Lesson? I don’t need violent movies to give me nightmares. Apparently my subconscious is sufficiently morbid all by itself.

Tense Icing on the Anxious Cake: either I am not a very talented sleeper, or I channeled all my stress into my left shoulder, because right now it feels like someone jammed in a wine corkscrew and wound it about 12 rotations. When I press the right spot I feel dizzy and nauseated all at once, even without the five glasses of wine I used to dull the memory of Paranormal Activity.

But, it could also be because I was trying to pinch my playing card of a phone between my shoulder and ear while baking. Come on, I don’t like speakerphone! It’s like trying to talk to someone who doesn’t understand English; I just end up repeating myself in English anyway, louder and LOUDER, which is no help to anyone.

Sorry. This post sort of spiraled into a dumb, semi-prejudiced joke. This is what happens when I don't plan ahead, I guess.

public display of affection

2010-10-17T17:06:00.009-04:00

"Why don't we turn beautiful colors when we die?" - my brother

Well, autumn has spread out her welcome mat. Literally, in our case.

I wish I could tell you I've spent my time away fully enjoying every minute of it, busy with seasonally appropriate adventures, but that's just not the case. I've just had a lull, and haven't gotten out nearly as much as I mean to, so now of course I'm grieving the quickly fading sunset that is fall.

I even love the chilly, rainy days, because they are the perfect excuse to eat and wear and do all things cozy. And really, I don't mind so much when they fall on outing days either, even on an excursion to Toronto (first time for me) for a Sufjan Stevens concert.

So, today was an attempt to soak up that rare combination of clear, cool air, thin sunshine, and confetti-littered forest floors.

My plan A fell through, but after a bit of wandering, Toby and I meandered down Mountain Brow Road (it doesn't get any more promising than that name) and picked up a segment of the Bruce Trail, which runs along the Niagara Escarpment.

It was just a slice, but just the portion I needed.

Autumn, or at least the traits of autumn that I most love, is so brief compared to the other seasons. Really, autumn is still happening long after the last maple leaves have flared out, but the excitement is pretty much over after Halloween. And because no camera lens is wide enough, or sensitive enough to light and to color, or comes with scent-capturing technology... I will just have to enjoy pinches of autumn at its most potent, wherever I can.

where I'm at

2010-09-16T13:03:00.003-04:00

A steady rain commenced at 8:00 am today, and has not stopped for five hours straight. Relentless. And because I am crabby that I can't be home to snuggle in bed and knit and watch a movie (rain-appropriate activities), I have had two cups of tea, one cup of coffee, one sesame bagel, two butter pecan cookies, and one chocolate chip muffin in protest. I anticipate a sugar coma anvil to come crashing down on my head at any moment.

goodbye to a friend.

2010-09-14T20:30:00.003-04:00

You pet people out there will hear me when I say: Charlotte, my childhood dog of over 16 years passed away today, and it's tough news to take.

16 years is a long time for a pup, and she had declined a lot recently--deafness, harsh arthritis--and when she lost the use of her hind legs yesterday to some mysterious ailment, my family knew her quality of life had about run out. And I'm grateful she didn't end her life in pain or in fear. Because she was a runner, always had been, and none of us would have been surprised if it was a speeding car on a dark street that took her out in the end.

She was the dog to make me into a dog person, and planted the joy I feel from a dog's burst of excitement every time I come home. Because, how great is it that they are excited every damn time, whether it has been 10 minutes or eight hours? Such a simple and pure affirmation, with no bias or tinted motivation.

And despite that tendency to squeeze through any and every hole in our ragged fence, leading us in a frantic and frustrated chase, I loved her and her craziness. One of the many times she ran away, a day care down the street called to say they had found her, and told us not to worry because the kids were giving her water and graham crackers.

She was a companion and a reassuring presence in every way a dog should be, especially for a kid stumbling through adolescence in the most insecure ways. Dogs are uncritically, unapologetically and enthusiastically loving, and it was good to have in my life then-- and hopefully I'll keep a dog in my life as long as I can.

Love you, sweet girl. You were a great one.

Superior Susie lurks in the wings

2010-09-06T10:24:00.000-04:00

What, did you think Negative Nancy was my only alternative personality? She's not even as vocal as Bitter Betty. Superior Susie makes mostly silent appearances, as most judgy critical inner voices do.

In this instance, I'm a little worried that she could turn up since I'm not convinced she has just yet. Here's why: I am all for thrifting. I think our consumerism is out of control (both in terms of overpricing and volume), and I think we're remarkably wasteful the minute we can afford to be so. Thrifting just makes so much more sense in terms of giving products a few more go-rounds instead of sending them straight to landfills.

There are a handful of things I can't bring myself to buy at thrift stores: anything faded, anything that qualifies as an undergarment, shoes that can't be easily cleaned. What I wonder about is when (if?) our money situation changes for the better (because 'paycheck-to-paycheck' is about as minimal as it gets), if my perspective on thrifting will shift with our income. That is to say, it's easy to support it right now because our options are slim. I can let out some Superior Susie chatter, but really, I'm not making much of a choice or a sacrifice. And I hope once it becomes an actual decision to be made, when I could afford new things if I wanted, I'll stick with my convictions where I can, and not prove myself a hypocrite.

But I WILL buy new shoes.

evening

2010-08-25T18:55:00.005-04:00

Slowly the evening changes into the clothes
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you look: and two worlds grow separate from you,
one ascending to heaven, another, that falls;

and leave you, belonging not wholly to either one,
not quite as dark as the house that remains silent,
not quite as certainly sworn to eternity
as that which becomes star each night and rises—

and leave you (unsayably to disentangle) your life
with all its immensity and fear and great ripening,
so that, all but bounded, all but understood,
it is by turns stone in you and star.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Garden chats, in four parts

2010-08-17T07:28:00.000-04:00

My garden is at the bursting point, a phase I missed out on last year when we had to move juuuust as the good stuff was coming in. So, some observations.

I. 'When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds attached to it the rest of the world.' - John Muir

In that moment, there is nothing more marvelous and unbelievable than eating a tomato, fresh from its earthy bed, still sun-warmed. It's good to be reminded that this is where food comes from, not in piles of identical flawless clones in grocery store bins.

II. Aliens

All of a sudden, my garden is their nursery. And the problem is, between seed exchanges and the odd additional plants I bought when I thought my seedlings weren't going to make it, I have no idea exactly what kind of tomatoes these are. Besides killer ones, of course.

The CD serves both as a reference for the size, and to date myself.

And how crazy are THESE?

Same story, with the mysterious grab bag seeds and the limited space and when it came down to it, I had to choose just one single plant. Because squash plants like to basically swallow you whole if you stand still for 10 minutes. So, this was the one I picked, and it spat out these. Google tells me they are "scallop" or "patty pan" squash, which brings to mind Little House on the Prairie for some reason.

III. Lesson: learned.

This is how you know I'm a novice gardener: I hate thinning plants out. I'm told I need to do it, so they can grow to their fullest potential and not be cannibalizing each others' nutrients, but I feel terrible pulling up perfectly healthy, wee baby plants. They didn't do anything wrong! Except decide to get all clingy and share the same square inch of dirt! But I learned. Because if you don't thin, this is what happens.

By the time I pulled out three that were tightly wound together, I got the point. Digging them out was like trying to pry a cork from a bottle with your fingers, they were so crammed together. But I left some behind, so hopefully they are breathing tiny carrot sighs of relief and sprawling out a little.

And how beautiful are they, really? With their full heads of hair. (It is so weird to me that we eat the leaves of some things, the fruit of other things, and the roots of everything else. Who ever looked at a pineapple and thought, 'I bet there's something delicious under there!')

IV. Dinner.

I don't have any pictures of this final part because I was too hungry to wait any more, but: curry + carrots + squash made a lovely soup. It felt a little early to be eating squash soup, something definitely autumn-oriented, but it made me excited for fall and also relieved that the patty-pans weren't going to waste. They did not disappoint.

and the world spins madly on

2010-08-14T08:21:00.000-04:00

I have gotten into this strange, slightly creepy pattern of discovering a blog (although usually it’s one with a huge readership and didn’t require much ‘discovery’), becoming interested and curious, and reading mile after mile of its archives. Usually it’s the things she has to say, or the way she says them, that pulls me in and makes me want to learn more about her (and so far, these have all been women anyway, so the ‘she’ is accurate). (I know I go a little crazy with the parentheses, but it makes sense to me. Sorry if it makes it more confusing to read. There is no easy way to organize my brain.)

In the case of my most recent time-sucker, it was a tragic event and the unfolding story around it that caught my attention. This couple unexpectedly lost their first and only daughter before she even hit two years old, and both of them (although more so in the wife’s case) documented the subsequent deluge of grief in their writing.

This is where I mull over the fact that grief is a strange phenomenon, but not so strange between strangers. Everyone’s grief is different, so much so that to categorize and file it away under that one word—the mental, physical, and emotional toll; the ebb and flow of feelings; the ‘time period’ (with no definite ending); the altered reality—must have been dreamed up by someone who hadn’t ever grieved a beloved person. Like so many emotional experiences in this life, someone tried to stick a word to something that can’t be named, like running after a wicked thunderstorm with its label on a post-it. Almost too ridiculous to bother. But to someone who has never watched the sky turn green and a funnel cloud touch down in their backyard, it’s simple to slap that post-it to the photo and move on. Labeled and filed. Done. I have progressed through the Seven Stages Of Grief and I am done. Check the box and continue on my merry way.

Nine years ago today my mom died. Nothing at all like losing a baby girl. But so much of what I read from these two mourning people was a true and accurate testimony of what it’s like to be the one left behind. To be the one left in the wake of someone’s inexplicable vanishing. I found myself in tears or letting loose sighs I didn't even realize I was holding in at the end of many of their posts because I have shared those same thoughts or wished those same impossible wishes. (C.S. Lewis and Nicholas Wolterstorff also put relatable emotions into words; I’m sure there are many more out there I simply haven’t read.)

I know it sounds weird to identify so closely with strangers, but with loss, you either get it or you don’t. You either think at some point you ‘get over it’, or you know that no one ever does. The individual who came up with that cliché ‘time heals all wounds’ was misinformed, because it doesn’t tell the whole story. Time heals the skin visible to the world, but leaves you with a tender scar and a quieter, unseen hurt, like a low-lying, slow-moving stream. The torrential flood does drain away, and sometimes you can go a while without a ripple in the current, but it’s still flowing, steady and silent most of the time. That loved one may not be present any more, but their very absence has its own presence. An empty hole is still a hole. And the timeline of your life is forever divided into the time before and the time after.

Eventually, I will have lived more of my life without her than with her. More people will know me in a context with her absence than a context with her presence. The reality is that time lurches steadily forward, but tiny parts of my brain and my heart just won’t buy it, and float along that deep smooth current, quietly looking backwards all the while.

razor burn is for girls

2010-08-12T18:16:00.004-04:00

So, for who knows what reason, the most contentious discussion topic in my family lately is that of shaving; specifically, women's legs. Even more specifically: why women's legs.

There are those of us who think it's a ridiculous, unnatural, misogynistic social construct; there are those of us who are grossed out at the thought of leg stubble in any amount; and there's my youngest stepbrother, who asked me why girls just don't shave their arms, too. I was speechless at that one. Because we're not all little Michael Phelpses and don't grease our whole bodies in olive oil in an attempt to be the first human body to break the sound barrier? Because I don't want to spend more time in the shower than I do sleeping? Because you don't have any hair on your face yet, let alone your body, so you don't yet know what contortions you'll put your face through for the rest of your adult life, therefore I can't tell you to multiply that square acreage by 2,000 and you get my to-do list in the shower?

To be honest, there are bigger problems to me than the moral arguments to be had around shaving and not. And I'm sure there are valid points to be made. But those points are not the point of my story. The point of this whole thing is this: I have been using crappy $2 used rusty machetes to hack away my leg hair all spring/summer. And then yesterday, buried in the half-used shampoo bottles I couldn't bear to throw away and insanely opted to haul 1,500 miles across the continent, I found my GROWN-UP RAZOR. With extra replacement blades. And it was like rubbing buttered peach skins against my shins in comparison.

Give it a week. Maybe ten days. I'll be back to hating shaving like the rest of you, don't worry.

coming up for a breath

2010-08-11T17:27:00.003-04:00

I was going to do a "here's our summer so far" picture-post, because I have more of those right now than I do words, but then I looked up and it was August 11th, which is hardly midsummer.

It's more like the time most kids are really reading their summer reading assignment (too little too late, munchkins!) and if you don't have a tan by now, don't even bother. You won't work up a decent base in time to nicely contrast all those white clothes that have been out of storage since May. Although, no matter how my summer goes, white is usually like camo to me, anyways.

Every store has already forgotten summer even happened, despite the evidence of the temperature outside and the time the sun goes down and the number of tomatoes my garden is burping up. Unrelated: does anyone have a good recipe for homemade tom

ato sauce? Anybody?

Another thing preventing me from doing previously mentioned picture-post is that I've been using my decrepit old camera more lately, which requires film and does not allow you to see the photos until you run them through chemicals in the dark, and that whole process demands a few more loonies and toonies than I care to part with. Now will one of you go get granny her slippers? But really, some of our outings this summer have been captured on both cameras and I'd like to have all the pictures together before I post anything.

Just to reassure you I'm not dead or collapsed in our apartment from the weight of the humidity in my hair, here's a picture from this past weekend when my dad, stepmom, and youngest stepbrother came to visit.

how to throw a great party.

2010-07-25T18:52:00.003-04:00

After attending what may have been the loveliest wedding I have ever seen (and felt, inside & out) (sorry to be so gushy), it makes me wish I had done a handful of things differently at my own wedding. I mean, this is bound to change with the years passing and seeing so much creativity with each successive wedding I go to. But taking part in such a celebratory and meaningful ceremony, followed by a relaxed and meandering reception on the soft lawn of a family lakehouse, backed by cool woods and spilling down to Lake Michigan- it was perfectly lovely. The lanterns above the dance floor, the long communal dinner tables, the delicious variety of desserts that far exceeded the dry term of "cake", the pause in the checklist of events to soak in the sunset... rarely at a wedding does one get to savor each passing moment without spans of boredom or waiting for the next thing to get checked off the to-do list.

But this wedding and reception was not boring. It was sweet and loving and rich in so many ways. It's the kind everybody dreams up, one way or another, although if your budget is more than the cost of a car, maybe it's not for you. (there were a lot of bare feet before dinner was even served.)

The only thing I would have added, down on the beach after the sun went down, would be some of these:

(I first saw these in a festival in Guayaquil, Ecuador, but they seem to be common in Asia too, based solely on what I saw in YouTube videos. Also, at least one source makes 100% biodegradable ones, because it would suck to send a lot of flaming paper and metal and wax into the world.)

not in Kansas any more, Toto.

2010-07-11T09:48:00.004-04:00

While making the 250 mile trek from Hamilton to Saginaw on Friday night (3rd weekend of 4 in a row!), I had a most unexpected Technicolor moment. And not just Technicolor for your eyes- the kind that hits your nose and ears and skin all at once, too. It happened in an unlikely place, too- after the border crossing in single-lane construction traffic as the sun was on its way down.

It was the whole mix of circumstances, I suppose... the first bearable car ride I'd had in a week, considering my car's air conditioning isn't in top form. (Anyone who loves summer should spend half an hour in my car with me, in rush hour traffic, in the kind of weather we had last week. It'll cure you.) A near-perfect mix of Ryan Adams, Eva Cassidy, and Sigur Ros. A miraculous 10-minute wait at customs, which has taken as long as 1.5 hours in the past. So looking forward to seeing my husband for the first time in a week, without a trace of the resentment I was braced to be feeling, since I had made the drive home & back alone, and worked long hours, while he spent the week reading and writing at his parents' house.

So, after cruising through the border, my trek more than halfway over, I was feeling grateful and calm. And even as we funneled down to one lane of traffic, flanked by orange barrel cones, somebody threw a switch somewhere, and suddenly everything was lovely. I couldn't remember the last time the air felt so cool and delicious. Every surrounding field was thriving with crops, hemmed in by lush woods as thick as brick walls. The sinking sun beamed rays of light through the dust stirred up by construction equipment earlier in the day.

And as fickle summer evening skies sometimes do, for the next hour, the slow sunset was epic in every direction. There's nothing like a little atmospheric upheaval to make summer sunsets some of the most dramatic and color-saturated of the year. I wish I had taken pictures, but I can hardly talk on the phone and drive at the same time, let alone operate a camera without killing anybody.

I suppose life is made up of endless subtle, pleasant moments like that hour was for me, but the gift of it was the simple beauty made so plain. A small portion of that loveliness slipped through my normal, flawed filters, and for a little while I could absorb and revel in it, rather than letting it pass by unnoticed as so many do.

Negative Nancy Epilogue (or, my husband is great)

2010-07-06T21:59:00.005-04:00

My husband is in MI for the week for various and sundry practical reasons, but I have to work so I am not in MI. At least until this weekend when I go back to pick him (and the dog) up.

Yesterday, near the end of the work day, this image appeared in a text from him:

...with the accompanying words, "Christmas in July!"

He found it while rearranging his parents' kitchen cupboards, which means I must have used it a few times when we lived with them last fall. But he didn't know it was THE mug. He just thought it looked like me, okay not LIKE me, but you know what I mean, and checked if his mom recognized it. Which she didn't. Which makes it my hopeful-frustrated-longing-mug. I do love that wee (impractical) round handle and the irregular shape of the whole mug.

Yeah, I won this one. Or maybe he won it for me. Either way, it makes me happy.

Public Service Announcement

2010-07-03T13:19:00.002-04:00

Sorry I failed to mention this sooner, guys- but I recently changed the privacy settings on this blog and on the Nomads one. Now when you leave a comment, I first have to approve it before it is posted publicly. Just a little heads up!

in which Negative Nancy shuts up for a second

2010-07-01T17:18:00.003-04:00

There is a particular blog I have been stalking recently, and in a nondescript post in a slew of pictures of small children and shoes and things cooking, was a particular photo of whoknowswhat with a blurry mug in the background.

I have that same mug, which I bought in my last days at World Market last year, which is not in this apartment as we speak, which means it is hopefully hibernating deep in the other half of our belongings that resides in our attic storage unit, aka My In-Laws Who Are Too Nice.

At least, I hope it is in said storage unit, because it could easily have been lost along the path of our long and messy exodus from Colorado last year. This has been a source of much frustration and helplessness and even maybe a few tears for me (directly followed by crumpling to the floor, surrounded by taped and untaped and retaped boxes, in total defeat). If I had known how this whole series of moves was going to pan out, I would have planned differently. That statement can be applied to every event in life, probably, but you'd think something as strategic as moving could be a little more organized.

But it just didn't happen that way. We brought some things we needed which were packed along with nonsense like all the cards I saved from our wedding (ALL of them), 85 mugs (but not the one mentioned earlier), a camping lantern, our wedding china (without owning a dining room table with which to host, mind you), and so on. We also brought a few things that failed to fit down the stairs, instead of, oh, a vacuum cleaner or a kitchen trash can (using an office one now) and turned around and drove it all right back over the border.

This would not have been as big of a deal if it wasn't snow squall season along our route, and if we hadn't already made three full trips moving crap, and if my father-in-law's trailer pretty much threw in the towel and DISENGAGED ON THE HIGHWAY at 65 mph. You get the picture, I hope.

All this to say: half our stuff is not here. Which is remarkably easy in a way, and wicked annoying in several other ways. But this is not the point of this post.

The point of this post is: I scrolled through this other blog. Saw the mug. Identified the mug. Experienced a sense of longing and confusion for a few seconds. But THEN, instead of going the collapse-in-a-teary-tantrum-heap route, I thought: "It will be so great when we finally do settle down in a normal sized house, with all our stuff under one roof, because unpacking it will feel like Christmas." You know, when you pack belongings away and forget you have them? That's half my stuff! INCLUDING everything literally Christmas-related!

This is a big step for me. Believe it.

the company I keep

2010-06-22T20:59:00.002-04:00

This is my view at work:

It is open and bright, which brings to mind a museum or an art gallery, except there is nothing on the walls at all, and the only things in the room are me, my desk, and a sad fern in the corner. Sorry. I'm bored just typing that. Moving on.

Now that summer has settled in and every manner of creature is running amuck, all sorts of drama unfolds in front of those windows. Spiders seem to love this spot and every morning, I have to clear a web or six away from the doors, although I can't reach the highest corners.

The neighborhood sparrows are cool with this, though, because whatever spiders I can't dispose of are their snacks. All day long they clatter at the base of the metal doors and hover in the corners, pecking at the elusive spiders until they have to drop to the ground. What the sparrows really need is a hummingbird's structure and heart rate, but they make do, swooping in and out.

Once in a while, one will land in the crook of the door handle and perch there, give the glass a rattling peck, and lift away again. What's even better is when one swoops in and comes back with a shred of cobweb stuck to its beak, and proceeds to completely freak out, flailing around like a toddler with scotch tape clinging to her fingers. Who hasn't experienced the trauma of blindly walking into a spiderweb in the woods?

I guess what strikes me is that we humans have to keep up our structures and living spaces constantly, because the moment we stop, the moment a building is abandoned or forgotten, nature begins the slow and unrelenting process of reclaiming it. It may take a while, but sun and wind and moisture and critters take our roofs and walls apart brick by brick. The spiders and sparrows would carry on their wee food chain contentedly, with or without my comings and goings every day.

Nothing to add.

2010-06-19T16:26:00.001-04:00

an indicator of my future

2010-06-17T20:47:00.002-04:00

Two nights this week, I have crawled in bed while neighborhood birds are still chattering outside our well windows.

I'll let you know when I start eating dinner at 5:00, and try to answer the remote when the phone rings.

a little more nonsense for you

2010-06-15T14:37:00.004-04:00

You know what's good? Homemade sweet tea with a slice of orange. I could suck it down all day.

You know what will be good? The solitary Dr. Pepper that made it back from Michigan untouched that I am hoarding for an emergency. I'm sure you know the sort of emergency I mean: the kind that involves stress or a hot, shitty spell in rush hour traffic or a sweet tooth attack. If the sweet tea isn't cutting it already.

I also enjoy the cheapo flags sprouting out of car windows everywhere. The vibe I get is that, for some people and maybe even whole nations, the World Cup is a more unifying event than the Olympics, and almost definitely more exciting. I've tried to watch a couple of games, and I'm starting to think soccer is like baseball or hockey for me: fun to watch live, a ritual-filled event in itself, but impossibly mind-numbing to watch on tv. But maybe I need to give it more time.

Another good thing is that I think I may have a cute dress or two to choose from for weddings this summer, but that leads down a treacherous road because my gut has convinced my brain that none, and I mean NONE of my shoes are good enough any more. My gut is saying the shoes are fine for what they are, that there's no shame in it, and I can go ahead and settle if I want to, but I should not forget that there is probably something better out there. Shoes cuter, sparklier, more stylish, and paradoxically more comfortable. My gut is a troublemaker.

mini-loves

2010-06-10T19:51:00.000-04:00

- so many days of near-torrential rain that I haven't needed to water my garden in about twelve days.
- when, on an ordinary walk, Toby spies a squirrel in his path and switches into Hunter Mode. His head and torso glide along parallel to the ground, while his shoulders pump like greased pistons- even though he's on a leash and never actually goes for it, he makes me believe he could nab that cheeky rodent. No problem.
- Mr. Dyson. I have a serious crush on this man. Not sure if it's because of his accent or because maybe I just want one of his vacuum cleaners. Either one.
- it has been so cool lately that we can sleep under a sheet, blanket, and comforter. With the windows open. A rare thing in my past experiences of June.

knit update

2010-06-05T11:46:00.002-04:00

Since these have delivered safely to my sis-in-law, I'm not spoiling any suprises. First, a lacy leafy blanket that looks orange, but it's really more the color of watermelon:

And, since this cotton yarn just goes on and on unbelievably, a couple wee hats:

Did I mention she's having a girl? No?

As always, my blogging has lagged because we can't seem to stay put for more than five days in a row. We spent Victoria Day weekend in Grand Rapids, seeing my brother graduate, and then Bryan took off for an extended Memorial Weekend while Toby and I carried on with our daily lives.

Mid-summer, I will head to Michigan FOUR WEEKENDS IN A ROW, which I know sounds insane but will be for all good reasons. I'm not looking forward to that repeated stretch of highway in a car that appears to be starting menopause and has surging hot flashes in bad traffic- but I'm excited for each of the events and that will pull me through. A cottage weekend with dear friends, a wedding, a preaching opportunity for Bryan, and another (what promises to be lovely) wedding. All life-affirming and encouraging events to take part in.

In its own strange way, being so much closer to friends and family has prevented a true, consistent settling where we are, or at least that's how it feels to me. It's tricky to plan ahead and commit to things when our travel schedule is so flexible and unpredictable. Mixed blessing, I guess? But it's also summertime, so maybe that's part of the flurry of activity. It just feels like I shouldn't bother putting my suitcase away for a long time, which isn't exactly reassuring. I just have to take each week as it turns and work with the time I've got.

why summer is not my soulmate.

2010-05-26T17:42:00.004-04:00

So, this is the moment in the year when people start gushing about the fun, early phases of their relationships with Summer. They can't shut up about Summer, how dreamy he is and how long they've waited for him, and then they go and display sloppy, nauseating PDAs all over the place.

I don't blame them, really. I can see the appeal. See it, but definitely can't feel it. Summer and I have this strained relationship where he is the little brother who follows me around and smothers me the minute I sit still, and I just put up with him and wait for him to get bored with me, because I'm too nice to yell at him to lay off with all these other Summer-lovers around, ready to judge me up and down for not liking summer.

This is the norm for me, but this week at work is amplifying it because the two-story, 100-square-feet reception area I work in is the only section of our building that has inexplicably decided to go on strike. The summer air in every other office area is whipped into submission, but in mine it's allowed to run amuck. Or, not so much run amuck as plop down and unpack its 18 suitcases all over the damn place with no regard for anybody else's personal space.

I'm told the landlord has been called to evict the insensitive punk, but in the meantime I sit in the 81 degrees and perspire. A lot. And what's worse is, I get sleepy. I'm sure I sound a little bit drunk when I answer the phone. And you can only cut back the layers of clothing so much before it starts to get problematic.

Maybe it's the time of year, but today the sitting and perspiring and the buzzing of my wee fan brought back some vivid memories of elementary school. I spent 1st through 4th grade in an ancient, dank, prison/labyrinth of a school, complete with desk-and-chair combos with seats worn shiny by thousands of squirrely kids' butts. Boys had to wear slacks and girls had to wear skirts at this school, and the feeling of sweaty legs sticking to those wooden seats will forever live in the corner of my brain that also houses The Trumpet of the Swan, times tables, cursive, and phonics. Going to school was always just a hair more impossible when you had to sweat the whole day long, knowing summer break was just within reach.

Now, when I'm sitting and sweating, instead of wanting to eat a popsicle and climb a tree and ride my bike around, I just want to take a nap.

Okay, I'll still take the popsicle.

2010-05-13T20:08:00.002-04:00

I have
immortal longings in me.
- Shakespeare, "Antony and Cleopatra"

I have in me:

An 88-year-old Jewish woman who plays mahjong and saves her tea bags and knits and says things like "six to one, half-dozen to the other" and "whippersnapper" and "Lord willing and the creek don't rise..." (okay, maybe she's not Jewish.)

A 62-year-old hippie who wears multiple loud floral prints at the same time, wears too much jewelry, talks about composting too much, and throws an unforgettable garden party.

A ten-year-old book-swallowing nerd. Although that's really just the same as the current 26-year-old nerd.

What's funny is, most days I don't feel the age that I am.

no judgement, please.

2010-05-07T18:02:00.003-04:00

Okay. Confession time.

Today felt more like the Ides of March than the first week of May- chilly and steadily raining. And for some reason, my day at work just draaaaaaaaaagged. I'm already bored just trying to come up with a way to describe how slow it was. So, it being miserable and boring and Friday, I was anxious to get home and take off my stupid clicky work shoes and wrinkly work clothes and put on pajamas. (It may be disturbing, but I go straight to pj's at roughly 5pm every day of the work week. I need to get out more.)
However, be it the rain or the Friday crazies, traffic was uncooperative and frankly, a little belligerent. (No idea if I spelled that right.) Traffic and I have a tense relationship anyway, but there's no reasoning with it when it gets in a mood like that. Incorrigible is a good word for it. So I called my On-star (read: husband) who gave me the most reasonable route home from the nearest exit off the highway.

I wasn't sure where I was at first, but then I recognized enough landmarks to realize I was near the Hamilton Cemetery, so out of curiosity I pulled off the road to check it out.

Tangent: three things. 1. The cemetery is old. And crammed. And really lovely. 2. On the City of Hamilton's website, the cemeteries are categorized under 'Parks'. Um, I guess? A really quiet one? 3. I guess they are parks, because outside each entrance are signs depicting dogs on leashes, and people picking up after them, which implies walking your dog through the cemetery is totally cool.
So, I'm rolling around this vast collection of concrete and marble chunks, and that's when I see the lilacs. Along the back edge of the cemetery chain link fence, as far as I could see were frothy, fragrant lilacs in full bloom. And I know exactly where I am; over the fence and down the hill lies my usual route home from work, and I've looked up the hill coated in lilac bushes and wondered how to get up there. And I had got up there.

I've always loved lilacs. In the wild, unkempt back yard of my childhood (well, somewhat kempt, okay Dad?) we could always count on an abundance of three things: lilacs, peonies (GLORIOUS peonies!), and sycamore twigs. The first two I loved; the latter was the bane of my existence every Saturday morning, as we were drafted to gather them all lest they choke and kill the lawn mower. Like that would have been such a tragedy.

But anyways. It took me about eight seconds to decide to park off to the side of the quiet road, and scamper around soaking-wet in my stupid nice work shoes, snapping twig after twig of heavy blossoms. It's the smell. That smell will fill a room in a few hours, did you know that? Those things smell so sweet and light and rich, they're practically spun sugar. Or meringue. Or something. I think it makes me go a little mad, hence the thievery.

And I'll be honest: I stopped and checked over my shoulder, in every direction, a few times. And I even had brief thoughts of what I would say to some horrified elderly resident stopping by to pay their respects... I considered picking out a family member whose grave I would pretend to be picking the lilacs for. Braithwaite was a contender, just because it's a pretty name. But I digress. I just didn't want to get caught like a guilty eight-year-old.

Now, they're clustered throughout the rooms of our apartment, and they're delightful. Dare I say I would do it again? Here's the thing: I don't think the dead would begrudge a bit of spring to the living. The dead can't exactly enjoy them, anyway.

roots

2010-05-02T15:38:00.002-04:00

The notion of having, one day, our own place is occupying more space in my brain lately. All this gardening going on around me is probably why. The metaphor of lengthening, anchoring, sprawling roots is obvious. It'll feel so good to live in a way that isn't tentative or temporary.

Also, because I have a ridiculous amount of book reports from third grade and every photograph I ever took and every book I've ever read, it will be fun to have it all unpacked (or at least a designated storage home) and together under one roof, because our belongings are officially spread between three roofs (and maybe more, who knows). And let me tell you, books are a bitch to move. And it's worse when we BOTH like books, so there are twice as many. I know I've written about this before, but since 2002 I have moved 13 times. THIRTEEN. Of course, this included college which is highly transitory anyway. But still. You get good at moving books. Free tip: pack them in small boxes. I know that means a LOT of small ones instead of less big ones, but your back will thank you. Your arms and shoulders and knees will appreciate it as well.

Point: one day I would like to unpack all my books in built-in bookshelves with a rolling ladder, for easy access when I want to take one to read out on the front porch, possibly in a porch swing, definitely with a gin & tonic. I would also like to take our food scraps out to the compost bin after dinner (eaten at our hypothetical dining room table, with a dinner party of friends, with our wedding dishes currently in hibernation), and weed my vegetable garden to my heart's content, knowing that if something turns out pear-shaped I'll have many more summers to practice. A bonus might be nice neighbors to share all the harvest with, too.

I feel old when I say this, but I want to just settle. Stay put for enough time to care about the walls we'll paint, to gut the bathroom that needs redoing, and generally putter about the house. I look forward to puttering.

my apologies.

2010-04-21T21:53:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the absence. This is neither the first time nor the last for me, as you know, but hopefully by now you've come to accept (or did a long long time ago) this among my many flaws, and have already forgiven me. How convenient for me!

The last three weeks have been just nuts-o-rama, without a spare second to breathe, although who am I kidding, I would take a spare second to sleep over breathing. But that's just me. I attempted to cram in some extra hours at work to earn just enough vacation time to leave this past weekend, even though we had been out of town the two weekends before. Nothing like dumping your suitcase out at 10pm Sunday night, washing everything, and putting it back in on Friday morning. I felt like I only came home to sleep for about ten minutes every night. But anyway.

This past weekend was the Festival of Faith and Writing at my good old alma mater, and it was just delicious. Every time I go, I realize just how much I miss the learning, literary community I lived in college. I have a refreshed reading list, communed with friends, and learned more than a few new things. It felt like church.

So, here are some of my favorite bits and pieces from the weekend.

"I don't expect to see them again, but as is the case with God, I am open to surprises." - Matt Ruff (speaking of his dead parents)

"God's idea of healing--restoring wholeness to our community--might not look like ours. Healing is not curing." - Sara Miles,

"Writing is a way of paying attention. Writing is an act of prayer." - Eugene Peterson

"I think it's creepy when people call their books their babies. You don't sell your babies." - Joshilyn Jackson

"At some point, something's gonna go wrong, so you ought to have a good pair of boots on." - Michael Perry

"I'm just a schmo with a gig." - Michael Perry

"We live in a beloved, created world, and we are guests here. We are caretakers too, but in the sense that we care but also honor, and keep, with a deep sense of responsibility that it may continue." - Kathleen Dean Moore & Scott Russell Sanders

memories warm and bright

2010-04-05T21:40:00.001-04:00

We took a very quick and unplanned trip home for Easter, because Good Friday happens to be a statutory holiday in Canada(marvelous Canada!). Never mind that it was the first of three trips across the border I'll make within a 17-day-window, and that the border guards will eventually ask us what, exactly, we are smuggling every weekend besides dog food and knitting needles and beer.

Tangent: this Easter weekend was the warmest I can recall, midwestern or Coloradan. We got to wander around in the sunshine with a hodgepodge assortment of family members for a bit, both human and canine.
Charlotte is as old as Moses, and that breeze could have whisked her away at any given moment, but she was loving it. She's known for bolting at every opportunity, and she still has that rogue look in her eye, but she can't hustle the way she used to, so we intercepted and herded her back to the group every few minutes.

Who doesn't love springtime? It makes the creakiest of us a little lighter on our feet. And don't worry; Toby enjoyed the outing too. And he also has lost some of his hustle. But I think the longer hours and warmer days will work their magic on his energy levels.

For reasons that still remain a mystery, we enjoyed a spontaneous blackout on Friday night. It was well-timed because we were already finished eating dinner and had candles lit in a few rooms. Plus, the fam happens to have a generator ready to go which coughed to life about ten seconds later, but we may have pretended it wasn't there, anyways.

Many of the men in my family have this obnoxious gift of musicality, particularly when it comes to improvisation. This is just a snippet from an hour's worth of Coldplay, Iron & Wine, Bright Eyes, and The National, courtesy of one brother and one husband.

Blackout from Anna Dyer on Vimeo.

It makes me think of this scene from the movie Once, the kind of dinner party I would love to attend. (Disclaimer: youtube doesn't have the clip, and even though I have no idea what the advertisement before the clip says, it's ridiculous. It just is.)

And just at the end of the trip, literally as we were climbing in cars to pull away in opposite directions, the Wool Fairy gave me these:
MMMMMMMMMMM. Undecided as to whether I'll felt them or unravel and re-knit them. I'm not sure what's the better treasure, the sweaters themselves or knowing my Wool Fairy knew I would like them and set them aside for me.

It was too short, as trips of this nature often are, but we made the most of it, including trash talk all throughout the Final Four and an Easter Sunday service at one of the places that most feels like home to me.

Now it's time to hunker down until the next ramble across the border...

victories great and small

2010-03-22T18:49:00.004-04:00

Victory cake!

To be clear: the cake itself was not a victory. It was the first of its kind I have made from scratch, and the icing was good, but the cake came out tough. Not dry, but pseudo-brownie texture with crusty edges. Not great. And not sure where I went wrong.

Yeah, that chocolate pie was better. BUT, the Victory Cake was in celebration of Bryan's victory, in particular: the paper he submitted at the previously mentioned conference won! They sent him home with a stack of books and a check, which was very nice of them. Maybe he will SHARE THAT CHECK WITH HIS SUPPORTIVE WIFE. But, you know, he won it so... whatever. Toby and I are proud of him, regardless.

In the realm of minor victories, here are some knitting updates for you. This t-shirt turned out well, but not as nice as I was expecting, I'll admit it.

I do like that leafy pattern in the middle, though. Here's a picture of the sleeves. Ack, that bumpy neckline!
I love this soft baby alpaca wool that turned into this hat. If it were made from something lighter, it probably would be more slouchy and I could wear it farther into springtime, but I'm okay with the bulk.

SO SOFT. I have been wearing this one a lot, often because I hate the length/cut of my hair is at these days and it makes it easy to hide it/distract from it.

We had a tease of a warm week last week, but now we're back to chilly rain. THIS is the March weather I remember. Spring is moody, but I don't mind it most of the time. It seems in this part of the country (and where I grew up as well) this is one of the first bright signs that spring is coming.Mmmm, forsythia. One day when we have a house of our own I would love to plant this stuff in an unexpected corner and watch it liven the place up every spring.

go it alone

2010-03-20T11:30:00.000-04:00

My husband is away this weekend presenting a paper at a conference, and my lack of vacation time kept me from tagging along, which is absolutely nerdtastic but disappointing nonetheless. This academic journey of his has become more of a team effort than ever, with both of us sharing the uncertainty and burdens and changes that have rolled in. So, I'm sad to miss this first, more public accomplishment in person. But hopefully it's just the first of many.

In the meantime, Introvert Anna was really really REALLY looking forward to some alone time. Not that I expected the routine would really differ from when he's home; it's not like I go to bed with a full faceload of makeup or have perfect hair around the clock when we're both here, and five days alone means a break from that or anything. I expected to function pretty much the same, other than maybe cooking something I know he doesn't like and watching stupid tv that would otherwise invite him to mock me.

But heavens to mergatroid, people, have I ever felt like a single parent this week. And I'm not even a parent to a human. Granted, my child is a fairly high maintenance dog, and cannot be carried around in my purse for my convenience. The poor guy has sat alone for whole days while I'm at work, and then to attempt to make it up to him I've taken him for a long walk, sprints fetching at the dog park, and an exhausted walk home. On Wednesday, this was followed by a trip to the grocery store, the liquor store for some wine, and then a round of dishwashing(which is quite the undertaking without a dishwasher, sometimes) and risotto cooking. And then I turned around and it was 8:45. And I hadn't even eaten yet. Since I had to be up at 5:30 the next day I should have just skipped a few steps and eaten in bed to save time.

Now, those of you who are parents to one or more human children, don't even comment. I know what you're going to say. I promise. And I know that I DON'T EVEN KNOW how crazy nuts it can be. And really, I'm not worn into the ground or anything- but I am very glad it is finally Saturday, and I don't have a schedule looming over me and gobbling up all this alone time I thought I was going to get to savor all by my sweet self. I guess it's good to know that I can get done what needs to get done, even if I don't love how a touch of bitter disappoinment tastes going down.

Even now, I need to chase down all the black Toby-hair dust bunnies running amuck, and scrub the bathrooms down. But, those don't have to get done. What does have to get knitted is a wee baby blanket, and of course I can't do that without a cup of tea and a movie. My prioritizing skills are remarkable, I know.

oh, the warmth in your eyes swept me into your arms

2010-03-10T17:31:00.003-05:00

In the last week, literally four unrelated individuals have recommended the band Mumford and Sons to me. And after watching video after video on youtube, I have wholeheartedly jumped on the bandwagon, and this blog post is the proof.

Why I like them: 1) British. 2) Banjo. 3) Beautiful, rich, juicy lyrics- sometimes interesting references to faith. 4) Every melancholy, brokenhearted band has a place in my life in my dreariest of days, but these guys are relentlessly hopeful and fun. The energy in their videos is palpable, which makes me want to see/hear them live. Here. Look.

family outing

2010-03-07T20:19:00.004-05:00

This weekend brought our first taste of spring for the season, which meant lots and lots of walks- two yesterday, and two today. Hamilton is spread over and along the Niagara Escarpment, and although none of them rival the big one, the escarpment is littered with waterfalls.

This one is Tiffany Falls, one of 125 waterfalls in Hamilton. Hopefully those wee people can give you some scale. It was a beautiful walk, and I do mean walk, because the car ride to get there took longer than the walk itself. Which is what sold Bryan on the whole deal.

The water was cold but the air was mild and the paths disastrously sloppy. Toby did his darndest to take us out, towing us down slushy stretches with determination, but we didn't have any wipeouts. I think he was mad we wouldn't let him go for a romp in the just-thawed water.

Yeah, he's prettier than me.

If all the waterfalls are as accessible as this one, we'll knock off the remaining 124, no problem.

"Corky, we want you to liiiiiiiiive!"

2010-02-28T22:12:00.004-05:00

I feel horribly cheated, because when these commercials for the United States Census first showed up on tv, I thought another Christopher Guest movie was coming out. Wrong. Sad.

The snowless wonder

2010-02-25T20:38:00.004-05:00

Well, I have to tell you; Canada is hardly Siberia. Of course, we aren't much further north than where I grew up in Chicagoland, but it's the vague perception of Canada, you know? Igloos and dog sleds and hockey and all that. Well, the hockey part is legit. But I'm pretty sure Texas has gotten more snow in the past ten days than we have. For serious.

And then on Monday, we couldn't have gotten more than 20cm (I'm learning! I'm learning! And p.s., $.99 per liter of gas is NOT AS GOOD AS IT SOUNDS.) of snow, but it sifted down in between 2pm and 7pm, and what normally takes me 20 minutes turned into a remarkable two hours rolling along at 10 kilometers per hour (learning!) on the highway. Yikes.

I was Captain Crankypants, let me tell you, but after I changed into some sweatpants and my new outrageous sweaterboots I felt better. Thanks, Mashley.

Canadian Care Package from Anna Dyer on Vimeo.

Turns out walking through the snow is about 18 times better than driving in it. Also, Toby is fun to throw snowballs at.

So, we are having ourselves a slice of winter after all.

how the Dyers celebrate....

2010-02-13T11:05:00.002-05:00

...because--huge sigh of relief!--glory be, I finally found myself a job. We can pay rent! And feed the dog! And occasionally ourselves! And maybe even buy some wine once in awhile! It's a receptionist gig, so nothing fancy, but I'm definitely looking forward to more normal office hours and normal weekends and NOT working nights. No love lost between me and the world of retail, that's for sure.

So, this is how we celebrated: with greasy chinese food, the first of what is bound to be many Take-Out Tests. That's how you find your favorite places, right? Trial and error.
Spring roll, good. Egg roll, not so good. Probably why the egg rolls were free. But overall, I gave it an 8 and Bryan gave it a 7.

The next day, I attempted this chocolate pie truly from scratch, and glory be AGAIN, it is as good as it looks.This moment could not have been possible without The Pioneer Woman, and you can find her pie crust recipe here and the pie + chocolate curls recipe here. I even whipped that cream myself, people! The jobless funemployment era has definitely led to some Domestic Diva tendencies.

But that's all over now.

(I'm mostly kidding. But this recipe is firmly planted in my repertoire now. Come visit, and I'll make it for you! How's that for incentive!)

the appeal of the thrift

2010-02-09T10:17:00.002-05:00

I just found this blog this morning (thanks to Mama Loan!) and I can already tell it's going to become a favorite of mine. Thrifting is an ecological, frugal answer to the horrible world of retail, (not to mention an awesome treasure hunt) and the mindset just makes so much sense to me.

For people whose skin starts crawling at the idea of buying used stuff, browse through this blog a little and maybe you'll reconsider. I know I have, more than once, bought something at a huge chain retailer that had been used, NOT cleaned, returned, and thrown right back on the shelf at regular price... in other words, NOT NEW. Thrift stores demand more time and flexibility, but the payoff can be so, so sweet.

RUFIO!

2010-02-02T18:13:00.001-05:00

All he needs are some red spiky streaks in his hair and some spandex.

(sweaty moustache guy creeps me out a little, though)

Snippets

2010-02-01T16:04:00.001-05:00

Besides losing my mind doing horrid job searches through the Black Hole known as The Internet, I have been reading, walking Toby, knitting, cooking, skypeing(which is hilarious) and getting excited about the last season of LOST. I'm also pre-mourning the last season of LOST, but mostly excited. Grieving comes later.

Thanks to some gorgeous purchases made possible by Santa in the form of my thoughtful family members, this is my most recent project:

I used every last scrap of that chunky baby Alpaca wool, and it was the perfect amount for this shrug + a small headband. So soft! That lower hem is a little loose, but I can live with it.
I don't know why I always choose the bathroom as my backdrop.
I like this stitching that separates the sleeves. (This was the pattern I used, and it's repeated and altered all over Ravelry.) I would love to keep knitting just for me, but that's just not an option with all the babies due to arrive this year. Not to ME, but to plenty of other people I love. Hopefully projects for little people will fall off the needles a little faster cause they're smaller.

Just in case you're worried I've aged 50 years since you last saw me, what with all the knitting and reading, here's some evidence that I am actually 10 years old: literally a week ago I skinned my knee. Big time. I was walking Toby in the morning, hit a hidden patch of ice and catapulted myself forward. I will spare you a photo full of juicy scabs and green-and-purple bruises, but the knee is still so stiff that when I bend over or try to sit on the floor, I have to execute a bowling stance. Something like this:And I look about that graceful doing it. Plus lots of sound effects. Minus the shoes.

That is all I have to report. What does that tell you about the level of excitement and activity around here?

minor setback

2010-01-20T15:20:00.001-05:00

Well, good morning.

What's odd is that nothing important was missing. Maybe some change. Which, in a way, is more frustrating because, COME ON PUNKS, did you really need to smash a whole window for $2.73 in coins? REALLY??!!?? say Seth and Amy! Get a flashlight and do a sweep before breaking glass all willy nilly. That's what that one dude did a few years ago, while I was sitting in my Jeep, in the driveway, at 11pm. And he ran away, with no confrontations, so no hard feelings here.

Seriously though, this doesn't make me want to throw all my stuff in the trunk of our (now well-ventilated) car and bolt in the night. These things happen in poorly-lit alleys of urban neighborhoods. The last time this happened to a vehicle of mine, the hoodlum at least had some class- he or she broke the smallest window. (Although, he/she also stole my stereo so the whole deal was on a much more professional level.) But it happened in Grand Rapids, and I still have much love for Grand Rapids. It didn't ruin the neighborhood or the city for me. And Hamilton's not ruined for me now. I may clench my teeth a little harder now when I'm laying in bed panicking about money (or, more accurately, the speedy disappearing act it's performing on our wallets), but it's going to take more than that to get rid of me.

Today's

2010-01-13T20:35:00.000-05:00

lunch: curry fried rice with pineapple and red bell pepper. Not quite the same as takeout from Moon Thai Express, but good nevertheless. I'd make it again. Also, I've determined that my life would just be empty without garlic and curry in it.first project: finishing up the curtains for all our well windows.

midafternoon cuppa: Raspberry chai from Kataluma Chai Co., a gift from Bryan's lovely aunt in Denver. Yuuummmmmmm.

second project: hanging a heavy mirror on the kitchen/dining wall. Pictured: a stud finding studs without a stud finder... ha.

We are not much help.

to and fro

2010-01-11T19:04:00.000-05:00

(DISCLAIMER: I have never worked nor do I know anyone who works at a border crossing for any country, but it is certainly an important job with a myriad of details I'm not aware of. So, this post is not intended as any sort of criticism- just observations of the hoops everyone has to jump through, no matter what direction we're traveling.)

In the course of our trips across the border over and over and OVER (AND OVER for Bryan), it's funny what small details stick out. Bryan was chosen for random searches twice on the U.S. side, and U.S. border patrol (at least in our case) has consistently been no-nonsense, curt, and a bit baffled by Bryan's choice to study in Canada as opposed to at home. Crossing into Canada, generally the feel is a degree less tense and we've even been wished "good luck" in the moving process. I'm not trying to generalize, but the relatively friendly (and probably gentle in terms of immigration to any country) interactions on the Canadian end have been a serious blessing.

All that said, when you move in multiple small trips like we did, it makes the border crossing a pain in the ass. We had different guards/staff/whatever every time, re-re-explained ourselves, showed our lists of belongings that already came, were coming, or lingered somewhere in between. I kept getting the feeling that they didn't quite know what to do with us, or how to categorize us. But eventually after an assortment of paperwork and stamps and signatures, we had a rough idea of how to proceed by the end of our second trip.

The third trip is where the mini-moment of grace comes in. I was picturing every possible scenario in which we screwed up, since we were leaving a whole lot of stuff behind and we had our dog and booze with us. I was picturing Toby locked up in some concrete quarantined area, huge brown eyes leaking innocent dumb tears at me, when we rolled past the border and were directed to immigration. It was a busy time so we knew we'd be in line for a while to pantomime Act III of Temporary Resident Quest: The Team Dyer Story.

And then, glory be! We hand our slip to the uniformed guy. He tells us to take it inside. While we ask if it's okay if we leave our fully immunized and socially delightful dog in the car, another uniformed guy walks up and asks, "You guys are working here, right?" Bryan says he's studying, but yes, we're moving- and lo and behold, this particular guard was our audience for Act II. And he remembers us! How amazing is that? Our friendly ally waves us on, and we never even set foot outside the car. (And good lord I hope this story does not get him or anyone he works with in any sort of trouble. Because I know that none of my dear readers are politically powerful or SNITCHES or anything.)

I know that, of all the cross-cultural and international moves to make, the one from America to Canada is the absolute easiest and least disruptive. I am so, so aware of this. But still, this moment of connection and kindness was quick but hugely encouraging. Warmed my heart, that did.

call me convicted

2010-01-09T16:41:00.000-05:00

My sweetheart of a mother-in-law just ordered this book, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years by Don Miller, but once it arrived she decided she wouldn't have time to read it anytime soon and offered the first go-round to me. Which I accepted, because I a) am poor, b) am a fan of Don Miller and c) found myself in need of something decent but not too dense of a read, if you know what I'm saying. But not quite so light as one of my many "Trashy Romance Novellas" as my brother-in-law labeled every. one. of my nine boxes of books.

This was great. You should all go read it right now. The idea of our lives as stories with plots, driven characters, goals, and memorable moments totally appealed to the book nerd in me (i.e. pretty much 87% of me), but it's not just for the book nerds in the room.

There's a lot of talk of movies, and love and family and purpose and adventure, plus whoa is it convicting. In a way, everything he points out is so apparent and so new at the same time. It's a beautiful, epic way to look at life, in my humble opinion.

In other news, this is our last night in Michigan. Tomorrow the three of us transition to our lives as Temporary Residents of the Grand Nation of Canada. Here we gooooooo....

Am I glad to see YOU, 2010.

2010-01-01T16:35:00.000-05:00

This particular New Years' is all kinds of symbolic. Never has the start of a new year meant so much change for me, right down to the first week. 2009 was a long, uncertain, draining time, and a total jerkface. But, 2010 involves a new haircut, a new program of study for Bryan (although this started last semester, technically), a new home, a new job (please, God, please!), and a new country, for crying out loud. Can't get much more fresh than that.

Not to say that this year doesn't already hold plenty of uncertainties, because it does. But even those are getting changed out for different and unexpected ones, so I'm not going to get picky now. Beggars can't be choosers, as they say. Things will be a little dicey until we have some actual income flowing that isn't borrowed from various institutions. And although we've only been here two nights, I have a feeling that steeper grocery prices is only the beginning of a whole new version of cutting back- something tricky for people who are already as frugal as we are. Let's hope Canadians do coupons!

We have to do our moving in rounds and shifts, so I won't truly feel settled until clothes are hung and books are on shelves and my dog is sniffing the whole place down. But moving on, we are. And it's a very good thing.

Christmas, phase 2

2009-12-29T17:19:00.001-05:00

Phase two has been just as cozy + snow! + flannel.

The afternoon/evening we arrived, it snowed fat, light flakes the whole time.

Hermit in the library

This tree is elevenish feet tall.

Blazer boys

Last night, we initiated what will evolve into an annual pub crawl. Stop #1: thumbs up.

"What was your 7th grade science project?"

"Whether cats are right-handed or left-handed." (Not a joke.)

Stop #2: not as favorite. But probably better in the summer.

Taking over the dive bar jukebox with Radiohead, Nickel Creek and Keane. We were not their favorites, either.

Stop #3: We added a few more participants and had fish & chips, as well as a few onion bricks. Not rings, not strings; BRICKS of greasy goodness. But I forgot to get a picture. You can see the remnants below.

(They're having more fun than their faces look.)

Next up... celebrating the END of this year and the start of a fresh one!

some highlights (part one)

2009-12-25T15:04:00.000-05:00

Well, Christmas outside has been dismal (alternating rain and wind) but Christmas inside has been merry and cozy. We went to a Christmas Eve service together, followed by appetizers, dinner, and Beatles Rock Band hour.

Christmas Day unfolded something like this.

(that is a Bodywrap Blanket, NOT to be confused with a Snuggie. And it is amazing.)

Toby is always subjected to this.

...Mary's box-o'-Riesling gift.

And, the various costume changes of Coconut.

Merry merry and holly jolly!

(Christmas spoiler alert!)

2009-12-23T17:44:00.001-05:00

The Christmas presents I'm making for my immediate family involve poetry, but since I'm pretty sure none of them read this blog (OR DO YOU, SNEAKIES?) I feel safe disclosing the previous detail.

I've been going through my pitifully sparse stash of poetry books, and keep finding ones that are so, so great. I really should be dog-earing all the pages or something, but I'll just leave them alone for another four years or so- enough time to forget them and rediscover them all over again.

Here's one of my new favorites:

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

- ee cummings

p.s. Toby can fight with Coconut while laying down, and she has all four paws on his face somehow. He is the gentlest big brother/cousin I've ever seen.

some serious honesty.

2009-12-16T15:02:00.000-05:00

Our time together as a commune/family of boomerang children is drawing to a close, and boy is that a pile of mixed emotions. It has been both weird and comfortable, but I will say this: I can't, CAN'T wait to no longer be living out of boxes, digging for spices and books of poetry in the basement, and wondering if my most comfy slouchy boots are lost forever or just lost in an unmarked box.

One unusual, unexpected angle has been living with the in-laws as the news and early stages of the first grandbaby have begun trickling in, long-distance. Everyone is excited, and maybe I'm a little relieved to not be going first, but the in-laws are definitely sad that this event is mostly taking place 1,200 miles away.

Now, my personal list of reasons/fears/hesitations when it comes to parenthood is long and multifaceted. And the worst is knowing that if and when I ever want to have a baby, I won't get to share that with my mother. I don't know how she dealt with all the tiny ups and downs of pregnancy, what kind of babies my brothers and I were, or what advice she would have given me- and chances are my dad could recall a smattering of these.

I'm so, so glad my sister-in-law is taking the plunge first, mostly because I know she'll be a fun and amazing mother. And even though her mom can only hear her through the phone instead of watching her change day to day, at least the phone connects them. For me, the joy and the grief come tightly hand in hand.

just another day

2009-12-12T12:52:00.001-05:00

Coconut: my ears!
Toby: MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOOOOUUUUT YOOOOOOOOOOUUU!

(Yes, Toby is a closet Kelly Clarkson fan.)

A little rearranging

2009-12-03T11:23:00.000-05:00

Hey peeps, in an effort to change things up a little and not include quite so much first-and-last-name-personal-information, I'm shifting things over to a different blog: a tin can telephone. (I tried "tin can telephone" without the "a", but some dude who hasn't posted since 2006 has it, and I'm too lazy to branch out from blogger.com. Dang.) I'll keep this one open for a while so everyone can get used to the switch, but I'll either end up deleting this one or blocking it. We're moving our stuff and our dog and our lives soon (AGAIN) anyways, so why not move this too? Catch you on the other side...

the kids' table

2009-12-03T11:13:00.000-05:00

Our Thanksgiving in a nutshell.

A Revival

2009-11-14T10:14:00.000-05:00

So, when my husband lost his job back in January it automatically meant cutting out any and all extra spending, such as eating out, going out for drinks, clothes shopping, and yarn shopping. Knitting is so relaxing and comforting to me, especially when I'm traveling or staying home sick- basically any situation I'm trapped in and just have to wait out! But the costs definitely add up, depending on how fast I'm turning out projects, so other than gifts for people I had to cut myself off. And it sucked.

So when a brief, amazing sale at a craft store rolled around a couple weeks ago, I was in the perfect vulnerable position to cave. I haven't worked for six weeks now, and have way too much free time on my hands, so cave I did.

First in the lineup is a sweet short-sleeved cardigan- I've never knitted a sweater before, so we'll see what happens. Then, an assortment of baby blankets and maybe even some teeny tiny dog sweaters for the ankle biters in the family. That's not a joke. I will almost definitely be knitting some canine sweaters. Expanding my knitting resume, that's what!

Coincidentally, during one of our spelunking adventures into the basement to dig through our hundreds of boxes for shoes or books or coats, Bryan found his long lost pipe and humidor. So, we are back to our normal nerdy geezer selves over here. Sort of.

her simple worsted gray/is silver now with clinging mist...

2009-11-08T14:19:00.000-05:00

Well, I should have saved the Frost 'November' poem for today. Yesterday was 70 degrees and breezy, but today is a bit more seasonal.

My November Guest

2009-11-06T12:57:00.000-05:00

(although it is sunny today)

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

(Robert Frost)

A Farewell to October

2009-11-01T12:05:00.000-05:00

Halloween really ought to be our national holiday. For real. It's not in my top three favorite holidays, but for some reason this year the quirkiness of this holiday struck me. On no other occasion is every single home expected to give free candy to every stray, oddly-dressed child who threatens for it. Regardless of race, religion, age, or gender, it's a given that we all participate. It's not a holiday necessarily centered around family or the people we love; the most exciting parts (at least for kids) (well, for that matter, maybe adults too- plenty of parents in our current neighborhood were strolling behind their kids with beers in hand) take place away from home. Its success depends on the participation of the community and public acceptance. It's the only night kids are encouraged to take candy from strangers, for crying out loud. It's such a topsy-turvy, contradicting mix of fear and fun, of terror and sugar, of screams and laughter. And I guess one of the many benefits is that it can be expressed in a bajillion different ways through decorations and costumes, whether hand-spun or store-bought; and unlike Thanksgiving or Christmas, there's no pressure or mounted expectation to be a smiley, loving, perfectly functional family unit. Expectations are as broad as your own creativity allows.

Overanalyze much?

In other news, I will never ever grow tired of watching autumn leaves flare up like so many matches, and burn down to smoldering embers until cold November rain snuffs them out.

how to be a girl

2009-10-27T16:04:00.000-04:00

I have been traveling a lot lately, and inevitably the entertainment comes down to trashy magazines. My laptop battery is decrepit, I run out of new podcasts, and I need something more akin to cotton candy than whatever heavy, dense, fruitcake-of-a-book I happen to be reading (because, of course, it makes me feel good about my English-major-self to wade through books like this and check them off my list, but my attention span just isn't up to it). Enter: a glossy mix of celebrity gossip and fashion/personal care magazines.

They're fun and pretty and indulgent, but after flipping through two or three of them in a row, it starts raising all sorts of concerns in the far corners of my brain. For instance: I do not have a Skin Care and Beauty Regimen to speak of. The magazines declare this is a critical problem because, if I do not adhere to some sort of 5-step program, my skin will spiral into disrepair and LOOK OLD. Never mind the fact that it will, in fact, one day BE old--nasty, wrinkly, crone-face old--I never under any circumstances should look my age, and the time to moisturize is now. The magazines instill a sudden Sunscreen Paranoia I never knew I had. Usually I just wash my face when it starts to feel greasy; who knew that I was unwittingly propelling it even faster into the future?!

I can't even enter the Fashion arena because, a. even if I had the disposable income to spend on a purse with a four figure price tag, I couldn't bring myself to do it, because WHAT PURSE IS THAT AMAZING? and b. clothes are fun, and I like to look cute, but beyond that I am not terribly fascinated by the coming and going of trends.

Outcome of all this? I am a shoddy female. I probably spend the most personal care time on my hair, but that only happens every three days. I DO NOT SHOWER EVERY DAY (If that's a friendship deal breaker, I understand). I wear makeup, but usually when I'm forced out into the public. I hope my husband isn't too fond of the makeup, because if he tells me I'm beautiful too many times without it, I might just quit.

I guess this is where I'm confused: if all this "Personal Care" is really for myself, to make me feel good and for my own well-being, why is it so focused on what I present to the world? My (many) insecurities render me susceptible to how everyone perceives me, although I really really REALLY do not want to care what other people think about my hairshoesjacketeyeshadowrockhardabsjewelry. But I DO care, and I can't help it. We all do, even if it's just the slightest lack of confidence in one small area. And the glossy magazines are getting to me. Evidently there is all this stuff I should be doing, products and regimens to care about in the name of womanhood; an ever-expanding realm of personal care to be insecure about. I suppose there will always be some aspect of my body or appearance that I'm not whipping into feminine shape & order (And I don't even live in L.A., Manda- the body obsession must make you CRAZY).

Yeah, I'll be taking a break from the magazines for a while.

just the occasional hiccup

2009-10-13T20:55:00.000-04:00

Okay. I now live in Michigan. Last week I was reunited with my husband and my dog after five weeks apart: all good things. Let's talk about the less-than-good things, hmmm? Just because I'm Negative Nancy.

Last Tuesday I was hustling a car full of suitcases of clothes, various toiletries, and bubble wrap stolen from my former employer, trailing warm memories of friends and mixed feelings about Denver behind me. It was a wonder the car made it from Denver to Chicago with no conniptions, and I may have been pushing my luck the last 300 miles... but anyways. I left Chicago late in the morning, in the rain. I drove through Indiana and southwest Michigan in the rain. Continued across the soggy mitten in the rain. Are you catching the less-than-subtle foreshadowing? Of the less-than-good things?

Well, less than 10 miles from my destination (and my dog and my husband and his family), I exited the highway on a curved off-ramp. Ever so slowly--and yet marvelously quickly!--the rear end of the car decided to try to pass the front end, like a scampering puppy whose front paws can't keep up with the back ones. I couldn't tell you which pedal I was kicking at (if at all) or what words were tumbling out of my mouth until I came to a complete stop, but I can tell you that the back end of the car slammed squarely against the guard rail--blessed, precious guard rail--and slowed me down. 30 minutes later, my husband and father-in-law came to collect me, my bumper and my crunched car and drove us all home.

In the days that followed we took a brief trip to Hamilton and back, and I started settling in at my husband's parent's house (possibly while nursing a sore neck). On Saturday we ventured out to find cider donuts and apple cider, because that is what Midwest Autumn tastes like, and it's glorious. Unfortunately, we came home to a slightly altered version of Toby: Scarface edition. We trucked him over to the vet, and one hour later escorted him home with dilated eyes and ten stitches in his cheek. How he managed to gouge his face open while chasing a tennis ball, we may never know. Certain unnamed neighbor children won't be playing unsupervised any more, that's for sure. Toby may not be playing unsupervised any more, either.

This whole major Life Change Transition could be going smoother, is what I'm trying to say.

boy do I have updates for YOU.

2009-10-12T12:13:00.000-04:00

but until I have time to pull it together, check out the most recent book Yann Martel sent to Stephen Harper. I'm pretty sure I've posted/written about this project of his before, but I find it fascinating and tremendously important. What is Stephen Harper Reading?

out of the office (autoreply)

2009-09-28T12:50:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I go for long stretches without blogging because I hit streaks when I feel like I have nothing to say. Lately that's not the issue. It's because my internet access has been particularly limited. I was checking all of my usual internet time-suckers the other day, and I could hear my power cord making strange crackly noises, so I shut my laptop down and unplugged it for 24 hours or so. The next day I plugged it back in, and 20 minutes later the crackling was back- so loud that the dogs (not Sadie & Annie- we have moved on to Bailey & Shelby) were intrigued. I figured this could not end well, and while I was trying to block their not-small-or-weak bodies from the chattering power cord, it gave a tiny pop and died. My laptop battery is just about useless, so I steal a few minutes of internet time where I can find it on the behalf of my hosts or the library. But it won't be a consistent presence in my life for at least another 10 days, which, horror of all horrors, is forcing me to READ MORE. I HATE my life.

To be clear: this coming weekend pop and stepmum drive out to CO to help me keep my sanity through my final drive across the Heart of America, which if your main goal is at the other end, and does not include leisurely stops and sidetrack adventures, feels a bit like falling down an endless rabbit hole. It's long. A long, long, flat, long drive one shares with truckers and occasional construction. Almost exactly 1,000 miles of FLAT. (Well, 1,000 miles to IL. Another 300 across MI to where my husband is.) One day, we will make it to Ontario. And all our stuff will too. It's a matter of logistics, but do not doubt I will keep you updated on the joys to be found in work visa applications and the housing market in Canada. Hello, adventure!

currently reading:

2009-09-19T12:39:00.000-04:00

I'm in the middle of "The River Why" by David James Duncan (who also wrote "The Brothers K" which I have yet to read) and it is about fishing. I care as much about this topic about as much as I care about Nascar or physics or the Jonas brothers, but I am still reading. If you pay attention, Duncan has a sneaky sense of humor and richly multifaceted characters, and I can't help but like this book. Here's an example of why:

"A native is a man or creature or plant indigenous to a limited geographical area--a space boundaried and defined by mountains, rivers or coastline (not by latitudes, longitudes or state and county lines), with its own peculiar mixture of weeds, trees, bugs, birds, flowers, streams, hills, rocks and critters (including people), its own nuances of rain, wind, and seasonal change. Native intelligence develops through an unspoken or soft-spoken relationship with these interwoven things: it evolves as the native involves himself in his region. A non-native awakes in the morning in a body in a bed in a room in a building on a street in a county in a state in a nation. A native awakes in the center of a little cosmos--or a big one, if his intelligence is vast--and he wears this cosmos like a robe, senses the barely perceptible shiftings, migrations, moods and machinations of its creatures, its growing green things, its earth and sky. Native intelligence is what Huck Finn had rafting the Mississippi, what Thoreau had by his pond, what Kerouac had in Destination Lookout and lost entirely the instant he caught a whiff of any city. But some have it in cities--like the Artful Dodger, picking his way through a crowd of London pockets; like Mother Teresa in the Calcutta slums. Sissy Hankshaw had it on freeways, Woody Guthrie in crowds of fruit pickers, Gandhi in jails. Almost everybody has a dab of it wherever he or she feels most at home... But the high-grade stuff is, I think, found most often where earth, air, fire and water have been least bamboozled by men and machines."

life in limbo

2009-09-11T23:44:00.000-04:00

All of this treading water is wearing me out. Literally living out of a (well, three, really) suitcase has all but lost its charm, and having to do it 1,300 miles away from my husband is even less fun. Maybe it's because my very minutes at my job are numbered, but the days stretch endlessly and the company's shortfalls refuse to be ignored like one of those garbage-truck-sized zits that start out painfully invisible and then ERUPT. You know the ones I'm talking about. In a word, things at work are tense. Not as jolly as they used to be. And in a way, I'm grateful I'm making my exit now, on my own terms.

And although I'll be relieved to leave Denver limbo, I'll just be moving on to Michigan limbo until we make it to the finish line that is Ontario. Which may be awhile. And during which I'm not sure how to occupy myself, considering it will take place in the company of my husband, as well as my brother-in-law and my father-in-law and my mother-in-law, all under the same roof. Can you tell I'm a pessimist? Negative Nancy: present. (Flight Of The Conchords joke. sorry.)

So basically, I'm worrying about situations I haven't even entered yet, and I need to take a step back and just let things unfold naturally without assuming the worst. I'm really good at expecting any & every possible problem or downfall, to the point where my brother told me a couple weeks ago that I should consider giving up being negative for Lent. For serious.

So, in the spirit of not being negative, here are some things I can be grateful for:

Autumn is rolling in, even in Denver! This morning was cool and drizzly and completely refreshing. And since we've had such a wet summer maybe the trees will turn some lovely shades of fall instead of just shriveling up.
Inspired by smashley: new 'roos!
Kind & generous friends who have let me truck myself in & out of their homes for a month.
Sadie & Annie, my buddies for one more week, who keep me company and bark at all the strangers.
A dad & stepmom who are willing to haul themselves all the way out here so I don't have to make the last road trip alone.
A group skype date tomorrow night with some dear, darling friends from ALL four U.S./Canadian time zones!
Looking forward to a fall that includes: TWO Thanksgivings, a wedding, and a family reunion, celebrating in particular a 90th birthday and a brand-spanking-new adopted baby Shepard.

In honor of the sunniest state...

2009-09-09T00:52:00.000-04:00

I still have 22 days left, and although I never felt like it was a place I really belonged, Colorado has its benefits, and this is one of them:

stab in the heart I can totally see coming

2009-09-05T14:08:00.000-04:00

When I watch this commercial, I know they are manipulating me, I can feel it happening, and I try to resist the pull, but there's a BABY OTTER. Come on now. No animal lover can resist the smarmy sappy let's-save-the-baby-fuzzy-animals-from-evil-corporations propaganda.

who's the fairest?

2009-09-03T23:30:00.000-04:00

So, some background information. My stepmom has three sons. My dad has two sons, and yours truly. They have a spanking new, lovelier-by-the-day house that is slowly transforming into a home. The necessities are in place (hot water, microwave, wine cooler, internet- important things.) but certain lower-priority details are, shall we say, lagging behind.

Such as mirrors.

There is one mirror in this house. One. And it is tucked away in the master bathroom, and had to be built in with fixtures and cabinets so there was no avoiding it. And the obvious factor: there is only one female in the house, and like most of us all she needs to get by is one mirror in her own bathroom.

There are six more bathrooms in that house, and none of them have mirrors. Maybe it's because it's my own family, so I feel minimal pressure to make myself presentable, but other than the odd moment trying to put in contacts or flossing, the last couple of visits I haven't worried about it too much. I am so used to catching my own reflection many, many times a day that I was more thrown off by the abrupt change to my habits than not being able to check and recheck and triple check my appearance.

At least, I hope habit (and not vanity!) is the reason I notice the absence...

Well,

2009-08-26T11:39:00.000-04:00

Toby and I are in Chicago visiting the family, and I don't really want to leave. It all just fits so easily.

Friday: the non-day-off day off.

2009-08-14T17:35:00.000-04:00

My day, thus far, in pictures:

When I woke up this morning, I found this scene in the bathroom, and I have to admit I felt a wee bit of concern.

In his attempt to set up a small garage sale early this morning, my husband had smacked his baby toe on a metal bed frame.

He mostly ran the sale himself. I just babysat it when he changed his gauze and poured another cup of coffee.

Check out the bees!
They're responsible for the following: a summer's worth of raspberry jam.

A week's worth of zucchini bread. I know. Just a week. That plant is a beast.

An hour's worth of packing. Heaven knows I love my books, but good grief do they weigh a lot.

...packing because, that is, my darling husband got himself accepted into a Phd. program in Hamilton, Ontario, CANADA... for this fall, if that's not enough tsunami change for ya. It's certainly enough for me. I'll be ping-ponging between time zones for the next eight weeks, but the stuff goes next week. And my LANTA for only three years of marriage, we certainly have accumulated some stuff.

having a 'big picture' moment...

2009-08-13T13:36:00.000-04:00

This observation may be obvious and a touch stupid, but the simple presence of Facebook is really going to change how we keep in touch with the people we meet throughout our lives. Our impending move is triggering all sorts of reflections for me, but I find it so interesting that my generation was first on the Facebook bandwagon when it was only a college social network, and as we move on, those ties and connections that would normally (and naturally) fade will probably stay in place... although via the most passive venue of relationship/community possible.

The people my parents knew during their childhoods, high school years, and college years have mostly stayed in those time compartments except for the closest of friends; but I can see pictures of weddings I never would have known even occurred, and babies I wouldn't have known existed, if it weren't for the internet. It's a log of every (well, almost every) soul I've had more than two conversations with, and as my life creeps on, it'll be so interesting to follow all those souls too, no matter where on the planet they happen to reside.

child of the 80's

2009-08-04T11:47:00.000-04:00

There were a lot of fads and cultural highlights of the 80's that I missed.

I was never devoted to a member of New Kids on the Block. I watched maybe three episodes of Saved By The Bell. I didn't see Labyrinth or The Sandlot until college. I'm pretty sure I never wore a side ponytail on purpose, or a sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder with a bright leotard underneath.

But, thanks to my geek of a father, I definitely saw TRON. Many times. And I'll probably watch the new one with him too. (Even now, in a game of SceneIt I am fully dependable in the area of 80's science fiction.)

faith is a story

2009-07-31T13:04:00.000-04:00

I love this post of Don Miller's. It's a bit long, but stick with it. Something interesting to ponder.

A sample:

'I had a long conversation with a distinguished scholar last month whose lifelong expertise is story structure. He is not a Christian. And as we talked, he said something that fascinated me. He said this:

“I understand you Christians. I understand the essence of your message. It’s this: If you are not a good person, you are going to burn in hell for all eternity.”

As I said, this man was a distinguished scholar and so it surprised me when he made this statement from a position of absolute knowing. There was no doubt in his voice. He wasn’t asking me to confirm. He knew. But he was absolutely wrong. That isn’t the essence of the Christian story, and anybody who believes so is a heretic.'

three and counting

2009-07-30T12:35:00.000-04:00

I really should have done this post yesterday instead of the garden one... but I swear my priorities aren't that out of whack. I was just waiting for some film to be developed. :)

Happy three years, love! This last one has been bumpy, but for better or for worse it's always an adventure with you. No regrets. I love you always.

garden update

2009-07-29T17:43:00.000-04:00

Well, two weeks have gone by and the squash monster is growing.

Squash on the left, tomatoes on the right. I was worried about them, but I think they'll pull through.

Somewhere behind the squash: spinach, green beans, & carrots.

And the basil is nestled in there somewhere... hopefully the sun will keep after it.

First round of green beans!

And, this is what happens when I am gone for a weekend and leave one in the oven too long. The arm is for scale.

Every time I step out the front door, I feel a touch like Dorothy opening the door of her tornado-tossed house into a technicolor garden. And the biggest sunflowers haven't even bloomed yet.

Up next: camping with the Brady Bunch!