Flying Fall

I think this year, I actually look older in my school picture.  Steve says it's the same (forced) smile, same eyes, same look, year after year.  Just the hair changes.  I think of Deuce and her 1000 different looks, beautiful or apish (this is a loving compliment if you know her cross-eyed monkey face), and think it would be nice to pull off something different.  But that's the thing with formal photographs.  You are expected to look into the camera and smile.  The photographer prompts the kids to say "Slimy Monkey"and then changes it to "Money" or "Payday" for the adults.  Ooh.  I'm smiling now.

I'll include said photos later.  They're at home and I'm in Winnipeg.  It takes a trip away to get me to write a new post.  That's cause fall is flying and we're sort of keeping up.  We've been exchanging emails and house plans with a draftsman in Winnipeg.  There's a December deadline hovering over our heads as draftsman flies south for the winter.  So we're drawing and thinking, looking things up on the Internet, eyeballing every house we pass and learning to stop talking when the other person says "I don't like it." to your heartfelt "I love it."  Go stir the soup, someone will come up with a new idea.

 FYI, this is not what we are doing.  Call it my Cro-Magnon plan.

And as October winds down, I'm thinking about Halloween costumes, report cards and the fact that there is less than 2 months before we fly to India.  There is a paper star made in India, full of swirls and vibrant colours, hanging in my classroom.  It's my reminder that I'll be heading there soon.  I have the urge to henna up my kids one day, but henna is a fairly permanent dye (a week-2).  I don't think our learning experience has to stretch itself that far.  (Parents, breathe a sigh of relief right now.)

In a silly way, I spend a lot of time being excited about packing my new backpack for the trip.  It is small and a sophistiqué grey-green.  I will wear one set of clothes and carry another.  This is a thrilling idea for a girl who chooses her clothing according to her morning moods.  And then has to change due to the morning weather.

Speaking of morning weather, here's a glimpse of the evening sky up here, early October.  Retirement Row is the place to be.

 Steve's Sunset Photo # no-where-near-as-many-as-Judy-has

Be then patient, young grasshopper.  In the quiet, in the dew, in the mixing and swirling of the stew, you will see things you did not realize were possible, you will recognize some answers were in front of you all along.

"When you follow your bliss...doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else." Joseph Campbell 1904-1987

a blessed day

September 5th, September long, it's the new fad.

I'd like to showcase, with some photos, the newest, bestest Me(a)ghan and husband to wed on this blessed day.  And the ones who did it last year.

Meghan and Reid McDonald.

Bagpipe reels as table markers.  Fitting, non?  The face that only mother (and wife) could love, the look that father perfected (I see you, Don).

Dashing, oui?  Parks.  Steve Parks.

And lucky me.  Got to drool over Meghan's self-knit shawl made of lavender seaweed-wool.  She handed it over for me to wear during breakfast as soon as I started exclaiming over it.  Just another talent of the new Mrs. McDonald.

paper the first

This is for the moms.

Well, I guess, this one's really for me.  I love these shoes.

Also, a thought:  Roses have never appealed to me.  Maybe because their perfume is too heady and sophisticated.  These roses were made perfect, though, when they were delivered to our room along with the chocolate truffles and sparkling wine.  Perfect only because we plucked them, a petal at a time, not just to scatter the bed (cliche!  cliche!) in blooms, but to take each petal as a moment to thank the other.  To love each other.  Not x-rated, people, but out loud declarations of what we hold dearest about the other.  "I love that...I love when...I love your...I love you..."

We fell asleep (in the deep, dark hours after the Windsor Hotel's open blues night) on our bed of roses.

Evening stroll, night on the town.

Morning run, the "We love Winnipeg" appreciation route.  Follow the river, cross the bridges, circle Louis (naked and not).

It's been a year!

something new

Recently, one of our friends told us, "When I turned 30, I learned how to ride a bike.  I started trying the things I was always afraid of doing.  If it don't do them now, when will I?"

I could totally relate.  I have a feeling this "Why the hell not?" attitude extends to many.  Maybe you don't have to turn 30, but at some point you want to experience the things you've denied yourself, out of fear, out of apathy.

 

I turned 30.  2 months later, I ran the Opasquayak Indian Days race.  The last time I lined up for that run was 15 years ago.  It was a great run.  Hard and fast.  I may have even run it better than I did at 15.  I spent half the race next to a girl whose name I love (Samantha Caribou).  I did not run it last year, when my sister did.  I don't know if I'd race against her.  Run with her, yeah, but race?  Who knows, maybe my attitude will change when I'm 31.  Or 40.

I turned 30.  One month later, I had my knees up to my chin, feet strapped to a board.  Wakeboarding.  My excitement jittered over my nerves, ruled over the scared.  Darc and Jord laughed, disbelieving, as I cut back and forth over the wake, dipsy-doodling, changing direction.  After that first run, too dumb to know that I did it well, I was hooked.  Two weeks later, I pulled Steve up.  Summer romance blossomed.  Hopefully that loving feeling returns next year.

"I will drink life to the lees/ (...) Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough/ Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades/ For ever and for ever when I move. / How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! / As though to breathe were life. (...) Come my friends, / 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. (...)"                                            -Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

August Long

Four days later, after hours of cleaning berries, Mom and Dad stand on the dock, a colander and cloth at their feet.  Dad holds the bucket of remaining berries and says "We'll do these the Finnish way."

"With water?" I ask, thinking, "I've done that before, it doesn't work that well."

"No, with wind."  He tips the bucket three feet above the colander and the berries spill out.  As they do, the wind whips away leaves and twigs.  Magic.  One day, I'll try this myself and make it look like I've always done it.

I watch him and Mom from a distance, through the leaves of Mountain Ash and poplar.  It's so windy I can't hear a thing above the steady rush of waves hitting the shore.  I wonder why Dad knows about this "Finnish way"; tricks picked up from his in-laws?  Mom figures it was from his days at camp, out on Wabegischik, when the old Finnish guy would pick and clean his berries at the boat landing.  Dad would watch.  The scene stamped into his memory for a lifetime.  

Blueberry picking became a worthwhile endeavour this year, with Dad's purchase of berry pickers from Lee Valley.  Red boxes with metal tongs comb through the plants, gathering the berries and allowing leaves and twigs to fall between the tines.  This year's harvest:  20 litres in 2.5 hours.  This is a far cry from the meagre amount Jen and I painstakingly gathered last fall.  

The berries are still small, but sweet.  The experience is soul-lifting.  You're crouched in a clearcut (they have their own beauty, I promise), listening to the crunch of your shoes on dried slash, fingertips slowly covered in a thick, purple dye.  The smell and feel of heat hits your nose, your cheeks, at the same time: waves of soil, leaves and wood.  We are 20 kms down the Sherridon road and can still see a smoky haze in the air, a reminder that the forest fires still burn somewhere "near".

After an hour and a half, our backs sore and heads starting to spin, we met back at the truck for a break.  Compared booty (I had more, but picked dirtier), had a beer.  Headed out again, but didn't last as long...we were winding down.

Post-pick, we stopped at a bridge on the way out to the highway.  Wandered downstream in our bathing suits, climbed over rocks, manoeuvred our way into the deeper waters.  Steve did his otter routine, London swam furiously to save him and I dunked and got out of there (unknown waters could harbour leeches).  We lounged like boreal merpeople, stretching our backs and muscles while perched on glacier-moved river boulders.  Dates don't get any better than this.

Long August

"Where's Steve?"

"Under the house."

                                       "Hiiiiiii!"

"He's not coming out 'til he has to."

To fix a foundation, get an opinion.  And another one.  Throw in a different angle, a surprise reveal of information, return to original neighbourhood experts for a new take on the situation.  Let simmer for a couple of months.

Collect jacks of all sizes, meant for all trades.  Bottle jacks, 2 ton hydraulic jack from the trunk of the Datsun (in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit...), jacks to lift the house from a 6 inch slump to a level footing.  Send Steve to wriggle around, army worm style, under the kitchen.  Raise, block, release.  Raise, block, release.

Then dig.  30" wide by 15" deep.  Choose a day where the sun will bake the dirt to your skin, creating a delicious looking mess, and where loose cotton shorts slap against your thighs, heavy with sweat.  It is helpful to have a father or father-in-law who matches or surpasses you, shovel for shovel.  He will call at 8 in the morning and be at your door within the hour.  Remember that you are living the dream, not experiencing Hades, and jump in the lake.

Chain gang.

Build forms, borrow a laser level and get eagle-eyed Laser Girl to holler out orders as she hovers over the bubble of air;  "Up a quarter inch."  Pry with steel bar, block with rock.  "Down an inch."  Pound on stake.  "Again."  Again.  "More."  Again.

Repeat before rebar is placed on chairs, hung from wires.  Even when patience is thin, mosquitos are whining and neighbours keep stopping by to see how things are shaping up.  Remember, you asked for their advice.

Past:  Here be ants.

Present:  Here were ants

Negotiate the pouring date, time and quantity with the local concrete personality.  Diamond information can be found in the rough.  Listen and learn.

Call on friends and favours come pouring day.  Fill the 70s flowered carafe with coffee, pull out the sweets for the sweet teeth, the savoury for the unsavoury.  Put the beer in the fridge.  Your yard will fill with wheelbarrows, the barrows will be filled with sludge.  Pour into forms, tap, stab, push and screed.  Wait.  Trowel.  Wait.  Trowel.

Sign your piece of art, piece of history.  Savour your peace of mind.

Meaghan:  Love lives here.

Steve: House of Love.

The God of Small Things

The joys of home ownership, renos, demos, ohnos.

I neglected to mention that when the office was torn down, one lone piece of roof made a final protest at being removed.  Swung soundly into one of the living room windows.  Voila the result.  Steve only got one gash and, after a couple weeks of looking at poly, installed a window that mom and dad had in their garage, almost a perfect fit.  Good for now.

Turning your attention to the finer, major details of home construction, may I present to you our foundation?  Proudly supporting our house and the wood addiction of local carpenter ants.  We've bought the lumber to begin The Job.  Or One Of the Summer's Jobs.  In Dad's new book of Wisdom, some famous guy says, "I've known this all along: Don't ask the experts."  And so we are going ahead with the installation of beams, replacing of pony walls and pouring of foundation ourselves.  Consult enough of the Snake Island crew and you have all the expertise you need, minus a few beers.

I just have to say that, despite the fact that it causes the collapse of our house, I have always loved the trails made from ants eating wood.  I used to find the logs along the ski chalet hills riddled with passages and think that I had discovered ancient languages, characters of the forest...warriors?  Gods?  Fairies and elves.  Dwellers.  I would decipher them, but I can't tell you what they said.  Then I'd have to kill you.