Gimme a G! Gimme a 20!

Toronto is in the midst of a peculiarly Torontonian melt-down. This city is to host the G20 meeting at the end of June. After spouting off for months about how this proves we are a 'world standard city', the place is now hitting panic mode and getting set to flee for the hills.
Hundreds of politicians, aides, reporters, lackeys and other various hangers-on are set to descend on the downtown core on the weekend - yes, weekend - of June 26 and 27. 
So what's everyone doing? FREAKING OUT!!!! The national trains have announced they will skip town, the fancy art gallery is closing its doors, theatre productions are canceled, massive fences are being erected around a great chunk of the city core, and there was discussion of removing thousands of bicycle locks from downtown streets lest they be uprooted from the concrete and used as weapons (or, heaven forbid, have bicycles locked to them). Meanwhile, the 'official protest site' keeps getting moved about, and at this rate will end up somewhere just shy of the Arctic circle. 
As a non-native Torontonian, I am greatly amused by all of it. Toronto swaggers about, one thumb draped oh-so-casually from its belt loop, peering out from its mirrored shades to see what the rest of the world makes of its studied nonchalance and perfectly unperfect coif. But after telling the world about its massive June house party, the threat of gate crashers has everyone running for cover. 
So much will be barricaded, closed or crippled by the city-wide klaxon instructing residents to avoid the downtown that our guests will likely step outside their hotels, see a few tumbleweeds bounce by, and wonder how anyone can possibly live in such a wasteland of civilization.


To anyone who's coming to the big G20 gab-and-pic-fest, I assure you this is a cool town. It's just got a massive confidence problem, and desperate need to be liked. Give it a little encouragement, and it'll open right up.
To the people who'll actually be here throughout, bloody toughen up already! Yes, a few glasses might get broken at the mega nerd house party, but that doesn't mean you should cancel the whole shindig. Just find a bloody dustpan, keep it handy and party on!

Game face

I've recently joined an Aussie Rules Football team here in Toronto. No, I've never played before. Yes, the irony is amusing.
While there's lots of blokes playing footy in TO, we're the only women's team in the city. For games, we either play against ourselves, or organize meets with other cities. So far the team has played against Montreal and New York City (although I had to miss out, due to A. my husband's birthday and B. my ongoing, farcical immigration debacle).


Still, even the lack of any health coverage can't keep me from the field. This weekend, I was in the ruck, which is the rough equivalent of a basketball tip-off but involves a higher risk of getting a knee to the gut. 
The girl I was against is Allison. She's about a foot taller than me, and -- I discovered on Saturday -- has a really intimidating game face just as she's about to face off.
This is us going for the ball:

I think I got a surprising amount of air!

This is Allison going after me: 

This is me, apparently going after the Village People:

The white team won, but we blues went down fighting. Or, at least, flailing.  
Next up, Ottawa on the weekend of my husband's and my first anniversary. I'll keep you posted!

File under A for Awesome

Need to get some wing nuts, but don't have anywhere to park your horse?
No worries.

The good people at Home Depot in Waterloo have got you covered! Horse and buggy parking, just five minutes from downtown and a mere stroll from Conestoga Mall.

Judging by the teeth marks left on the interior wall lining, your horse might get a bit bored.  But that's a small price to pay, eh?

Back on top!

Enough of the drama! And end to the drivel! We're getting back on top of things, people, and we're doing it in style.
Kitchener Waterloo is a hotbed of op-shopping glory. Don't get me wrong. It's tough on these here streets. Op-shops are busy. Competition can be fierce. But that doesn't mean one should go crazy. As always in the vintage-loving underbelly of fashion, you've got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em up and put them back, and know when to run.


I scored a few great finds, including some great brooches (or 'pins' as they're known in Canada) and an awesome yellow enamel scarf clip which happily tethered my Montreal Olympic commemorative scarf the other day.


But the ultimate piece, the one that had my husband looking at me askance and then hoping I might be about to serve him a slice of pie, is this little number:

I bagged it for $7.99 at a Goodwill. It would have been less at the Mennonite Thrift store I plundered earlier this week, but beggars -- sorry, vintage hounds -- can't always be choosers. 

I attribute this purchase to a number of factors: My dearest friend has me watching Twin Peaks again, and I'm finding Donna's 1990s threads disturbingly appealing; I've spotted a number of gals out on the town in 80s biker denim and office dresses; it had massive shoulder pads (which, yes, I removed).

But mostly, I think it's the amount of Golden Girls I've been watching this week. Those ladies are still dangerous, after all these years.

The interminable wait

Visa update: 


Citizenship and Immigration Canada do not like T. and I holidaying in Port Elgin. Each time we do, we get home to a nasty note from them. First, it was them telling me to leave the country. This past Tuesday night, it was a cranky email threatening to close our file.


It seems CIC has decided to arbitrarily change the rules. The forms we filed last year, which were exactly as specified by CIC, are no longer good enough, they say. We must now send my traffic history (which, ironically, I originally sent to a different government arm last year as per CIC instructions.)


CIC says it informed us of the change last December. We never received that December request. Our lawyers never received it. It seems my application has been languishing untouched for the past five months because CIC is fucked up beyond all hope of salvation.


No movement on my file for FIVE MONTHS!! And my future in Canada is in their hands. Heaven help us all.

Be

I have been ruminating deeply of late on the state of being. To be is vastly different than to want, to strive, to avoid. To be is powerful. It is humbling. It is to know not only what you are, but what you are not. Better yet, if done right, it's only one moment in a lifetime of becoming.


Probably the hardest state of being, the one that slips and slides out of grip and refuses to be pinned down in a suitably infuriating manner, is parenthood. Or, to be precise, step-parenthood. To be a good parent is a constant challenge. The internal conditions can be tumultuous enough, given that the only real frame of reference is usually your own upbringing. Add in a batch of building hormones, some adorable but blinding teen awkwardness, and the strangeness of becoming part of an established family, and you've got a fairly slippery beast.


So Sunday was an interesting day. Mother's Day. I rang my own mum and messaged my sister (who is expecting her second bubba in September) the night before.
Then on Sunday, T., the boys and I went shopping to get the boys' mum a present, and had a lovely day at my mother-in-law's, as all of her children came round to visit with gifts, hugs and good cheer. It was also T's birthday the next day, so there was lots of well-wishing going round, but none came to me. 


On our way to dinner that night, I started getting really dejected. This is my first Mother's Day. Sure, I'm not with the boys all the time -- we have every second weekend and school holidays -- but I love the buggers, and as my own mum would say, I'm not exactly chopped liver. 
I tried to beat down the beast and put a good face on things in front of the boys. That's what being a good parent is about. The boys couldn't be expected to understand how I'm feeling. It would be nice if they did, don't get me wrong, but it's not their fault either if they don't. (I remember the astounding self-absorption of teen-dom. They'll swear they're not self-absorbed, but I know it's a self-deception. I'd have made the same argument.)


I told T. how I was feeling -- I may put a good face on things for the lads, but I will not become a martyr -- then cheerily sucked it up and shared a lovely dinner with my family. 
And as we sat down to eat, and raised our glasses for a toast to mothers everywhere, T. looked at the boys and said "And..."
"Oh yeah!" they said. "Happy Step-Mothers Day!" A. and E. raised their glasses again, with big smiles.
We clinked, and all that disquiet sadness evaporated to make way for my massive, beaming smile.


I got a rose at the end of dinner, as did all the mothers in the restaurant that night. It's a beautiful deep pink, and has now been carefully transported to Lake Huron for T.'s birthday getaway, and back to Toronto, where it's sitting on the dining table. 
Best flower ever.

To market, to market

 I've been putting it off for a week, but I suppose I should now finally report back from my first ever craft market.

We trekked out to Kitchener, and got up before 7 a.m. so we could get to the awesome farmers' market and set up, ready to rock by 8:45 a.m.

I gathered my wares -- hand-made recycled-and-recyclable gift bows made from magazines, and accessories made from ribbon and vintage buttons -- and presented them just so.

And then I amiably chatted with dozens, nay hundreds, of people, almost all of whom professed their utter admiration for my bows, and almost all of whom then wandered away without buying a thing.




As a learning experience, this was tops. As anything approaching worth the effort it required, zilch.
Still, if anyone out there needs a bow, I think I might be able to fix you up with something....

Do II

Further to the previous post 'Do',  subsection 2b, may I present the following household chattels and accoutrements. I argue that, despite being made previous to the current 'Do' week, the collection of these goods from their place of creation during said 'Do' week renders them admissible for inclusion under that same banner.


The exhibit includes: Six (6) napkin rings of my own design; 

Three (3) finger bowls, originally intended to have been cereal bowls, but reduced in stature due to unfortunate incidents during the throwing stage of creation (henceforth to be known as 'my clumsiness'); 

and One (1) leaf-shaped soap dish, also of my own design, created specifically for ease of soap removal from said dish. 

All works were created and glazed by me during six lessons held in the months of February and March. As some pieces remain outstanding due to a delay in the firing process, I reserve the right to reinstate 'Do' week as and when such pieces come into my possession.


Yours faithfully,
T.

Do

For quite some while I've been wondering what to do with this blog. Keep it lighthearted? Wander into the deeper, less entertaining territory of life's unexpected transitions? Start a chronicle of my get-rich-eventually schemes? (they are legion.)
In the end (as I sit here half loaded following a meeting of the Women's Wine Federation), I have decided to follow five themes: Do, Be, Hear, See and Say.
This week, it is Do.


On Monday, I trekked an hour on the TTC to reach the Lawrence-Yonge part of Toronto to turn a stranger's backyard lawn into the beginnings of a vegetable garden. 
I am a Gardeneer -- basically a volunteer who gardens -- and I'm helping the Young Urban Farmers community shared agriculture get up and running. The idea is cool. Instead of trying to find enough land in Toronto to make a farm, homeowners donate use of their backyards so the volunteers and organizers can grow fresh produce, which is then sold through food boxes.
Great idea. Hard work. I spent four hours de-sodding earth, and frankly, that's tough. Sod is hard to turn asunder. Let that be a lesson for life.


Today, Tuesday, I made 50 bows out of magazine pages. It's all towards a craft stall I'll be manning later this month, and frankly, this one-woman-sweat-shop is wearing me down. Thank goodness my darling husband ran out at 10:30pm on Easter Saturday to buy me chocolate bunnies. Everything is better with chocolate bunnies. Another lesson in life for you.


Also today, I went to AFL practise and then trundled eastward for French wine and food with the glorious WWF ladies. I hope to extol the virtues of both at some later date.


For now, it's late and I shall now go curl up around my darling husband and sleep a deep, sore and slightly drunken sleep. The best kind. Lesson for life. 


x

Aus-tastic

I had the strangest experience recently: I had a brilliant phone call with a bank.
I had called my Australian bank to cancel my credit card. I don't use it much, don't want to keep paying annual fees, rah rah rah, and was gearing up to encounter a paperwork juggernaut.
But no. Turns out, the help centre staff were more interested in chatting about Canada, laughing about Melbourne, and helping me do everything over the phone. And then, to top it off, the final lass (I spoke to three people, all lovely) mentioned that, instead of canceling my card, she could just waive the annual fees forever. So she did. And we chatted a bit more like old friends, and then I hung up with the hugest smile.
I walked into the next room, where my bemused husband was shaking his head. "Only in Australia," he muttered. Or something like that. I was busy chuckling and grinning, and being homesick. Ah, Aussies. Gotta love 'em!

Boyz in da kitchen

Peanut butter. Bacon. Cookies. Do it.

You know you want to.

Have you met my little friend?

This little guy was just flitting about outside my window.

Isn't he handsome?

Ahoy thar fishes!

Naughty me. It's been a whole week since I dropped by. I really should have brought wine in apology, or at least a treat to go with the morning coffee. Schade, I've neglected that too. 


Shall I just plough on and explain my absence? I don't have a good explanation, really. I blame the ice fishing. It's an annual tradition. We gather the troops, drive an hour north of Toronto, and then drive over Lake Simcoe to party it up and then nurse hangovers in the ice-fishing huts the next day. At least, that's how it usually goes. We weren't quite game enough to drive our own cars over the ice this year though, what with the unseasonable warmth and the patches of watery-looking ice near the edges, so we hopped a lift in the back of a ute. All else went as per usual though. Hangovers were highly successful. The fish could smell us a mile off, I swear. Well, that's my excuse for not catching anything...

The fishing huts

The trick with ice fishing, the thing that no-one tells you, is how very, very dull it is for 98% of the time. Unless you bring lots of snacks, some drinks, and maybe a frisbee. That doesn't help the fishing, but at least it fills in that 98%. A quick run-down: 
The tools: A paint stick, with some fishing line wrapped around it and a hook of some sort attached. 
The bait: Some wary looking minnows, swimming round and round a bucket. The clever ones dive to the bottom whenever a hand comes near, leaving the losers at the top to be impaled on the hooks.
The process: Put minnow on hook. Drop minnow into water through hole carved in ice. Either a) watch minnow swim to freedom because you didn't impale it properly, or b) watch minnow hang about and slowly get less active (i.e. more dead). Suspect you feel a nibble. Tug vehemently on paint stick. Dislodge some lake weed. 
Repeat.

Perch-eye-view of the action

There were some fish down there. We caught a couple of them, dragged them up to say hi, and then sent them back into the water. The rest just gorged themselves on minnows and waited for us to drop down the next course. Clever buggers.

Workin' it

Since living in Canada, I've been introduced to the most ingenious, fun and madcap way to expand one's wardrobe: The Clothing Swap.
Most people probably already know of these things, but they're a relatively recent addition to my humble Aussie life. In essence: Clean out your wardrobe. Have friends do likewise. Bring all discards to a central location, and devolve into a mad fit of shrieks and giggles, while simultaneously adopting a manic look in your eyes as you try to find the one perfect item. Take home what you will. Everything left goes to charity.


It's awesome. Through these things -- preferably wine-sodden -- I've gained a sparkly silver 60s cocktail dress, a trench coat, a cool singlet silkscreened with a picture of a Mac Truck, and many other bits of whimsy I now adore. Of course, I've also brought home loads of dubious choices I end up giving to charity anyway, but that's the beauty of it all.


Latest absolute winners: These wicked 90s style running pants. I have gone running twice this week, just as an excuse to wear them. SCORE!

First words!

Tune in to the Six Sentences blog tomorrow and you should see my very first inclusion in their daily micro-fiction stream. It was my first submission to the site, and I am pumped to try crafting more.

This will mark my first purely-creative publication since a tortuously post-modern poem of mine was published while I was at university. (Yes, it used symbolic http-code. Yes, once I learned http-code I realized how dumb that was.)

I am so excited! A big thanks to Rob for his extremely enthusiastic response. For anyone thinking of trying this out for themselves, DO IT! It's a fun challenge, and can take your brain to some seriously weird places.

And please, feel free to tell me what you think!


Update: My entry has been nominated for 6S of the Month for February, 2010. If you want to vote (oh, do!), go here (and, quite ingeniously, follow the link that says 'cast your vote HERE') before March 7.


Updated update: I didn't win, but I did get a solid third of the vote. Which is awesome! Sadly, I haven't had chance to submit much to the blog since then, but I have been included in the next book, 6S Volume 3. :D 

Pop-psych

So, ladies, what Barbie are you?


I am, apparently The Original Teenage Fashion Model Barbie, a "timeless original" who adores design and haute couture, and while having a "delightfully flirty, sultry streak", at heart is a traditional romantic.


I'll take that.

I'll also take her swimsuit, if I can find it in my size.

Curling rocks!

My current obsession with the Winter Olympics has turned up some big surprises! It turns out curling can be absolutely thrilling, white-knuckle stuff, the Australian skating uniform designers apparently hold a big grudge against the athletes, and there is such a thing as jingle-induced insanity. (Any Canadians watching the CTV coverage can attest to this.)
We Aussies never get much coverage of this stuff, so I hereby consider it my duty to lounge about* and soak up as much of it as I can, while eating peanut butter from the jar and watching it snow outside. Reckon that'll help get me points for citizenship?


(*After writing some of my novel in the morning, naturally. Thank goodness for the time difference between TO and VCR that lets me be at least a little productive.)

This snowy lull

In snowboarding, I believe they call this patch the glide. Not much is going on. The track looks smooth and gentle, rolling along the hillside. But this apparently easy leveling-off is actually when it's hardest to stay on your feet.

This is where I live now, and, my lawyer tells me, where I'll likely stay for many months yet. The glide. 

Life is so much easier to handle when you're carrying momentum. Screaming down a mountain, trees and bumps coming at you faster than you can handle, everything flows on instinct. Fear forces you to take risks that either leave you whooping in exaltation or dumped on your arse trying to work out what not to do next time. Either way, one thing is for sure: you're alive.

This glide, though, steals that momentum. It robs you of balance and renders even the smallest of inclines a mighty challenge. You start to lose faith in your instincts, begin overcompensating with thought, and more often than not come grinding to a halt in the middle of nowhere, staring at the scenery and wondering where the heck to go.

My lawyer informed me yesterday that my residency likely won't come until July/August, one year after this debacle began. I had been hoping for a miraculous early arrival, even carrying my phone with me around the house in case the call came.

The phone's not on me any more. I'm not working on my novel, not making crafty bows, not running errands or going for jogs in the snow. I am simply drinking tea. 

The glide is where I'm at. And the scariest thing is, I don't know if I'll ever get that momentum back. 

Crafty bizniss

It seems my housewifery knows no bounds. As evidence, I present this week: I baked a vegetarian lasagna while gadding about in my frilly apron, mended my own sweater (purchased at the dangerously good Preloved annual sale), and today completed yet another recycled-magazine-craft project from How About Orange.
What next? Valium and fluffy heels? 

A coaster and two gift bows. Woot! Woot!

The haiku project

In November, I randomly decided to write my Facebook updates in haiku. I thought I might do it for a week, or maybe a month. Heading into my third month now, I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep at it. After all, it likely seems pretentious to people who read it.

But I like the challenge of it, so will keep at it. At least until my next update. 

Here are some favourites so far (although I just discovered Facebook doesn't seem to keep updates indefinitely, so I'm going to pretend there may have been some better ones prior to this...)

Today:

Ignore the ice. Look

up. Bare limbs, bathed in gold, have

much to teach of love.

Jan 6:

Velleity: (n)

an urge too weak to act on.

Sounds like my gym plans.

Dec. 26:

Ending the night with

a dwindling bowl of Twisties.

Does it get better?