You can help

I’ve had tears in my eyes for days, reading and watching the coverage of the disaster in Louisiana and Mississipi. I am simply flummoxed that a storm, no matter how powerful, could rend such damage. As I did for 9/11 and the tsunami, I pulled out my credit card and made a donation to the Red Cross… but it just doesn’t seem like enough.

Then I read this incredible post from my friends (and I use that term with sincerity and respect and affection) over at Been There. They’re taking real action by acting as a clearing house to link people starting over with people who might have clothes, supplies, books or toys to donate. There’s another post showing how ordinary Americans are opening up their homes to take in people who have lost everything, people who have to start their lives over again.

Edited September 2 to add: Suzanne at Mimilou posted a link to Hurricane Housing, another way those who have can help those who need.

Edited September 3 to add: And if you think your little contribution won’t make a difference, you MUST read this beautiful story on Been There. Warning: you’ll need kleenex.

I want to pin this post at the top for a while, so scroll down for new posts.

Do what you can. There but for the grace of God go I – or you.

Because I can’t stop thinking about this

I wish I could stop thinking about this whole hurricane crisis, but I can’t. And it’s my blog, so if it’s on my mind, it’s on the blog.

Phantom Scribbler has some really horrific stuff on the political mismanagement of this whole thing. I won’t pretend to know enough about American politics to be able to comment, but I’m finding her posts both illuminating and terrifying. I am still naive enough to hope half – just half – of the things she has noted are not true.

I work in government communications, and yet I swear I’d slit my wrists before setting up a photo opportunity for a politician and then dismantling it, leaving suffering people behind. As much as I think George Bush is an asshole, and a stupid asshole at that, I still don’t want to believe that this story is true.

Edited September 7 to add: Phantom Scribbler has since added a note that the second link, about the food distribution rumour, is no more than a rumour. Funny, though, it hasn’t much changed how I feel about George Bush.

Onwards, laughing

I can’t stay sad for long. No matter how horrible, I have this irrepressible need to smile. So although I continue to choke up with every new article, post and link I read about the Katrina aftermath, I need to find some happier things to think about.

And what is funnier than the things that come out of our blessedly innocent kids’ mouths?

For example, the one and only Snack Mommy is expecting a baby boy in December. In trying to give her son Tristan (great name, eh?) a little bit of perspective on the coming arrival, she has somehow stumbled into explaining that the baby will be making an entrance through the “Baby Door.”

Having thought about it for a while, Tristan has posed these questions of his beleaguered mother:

“How does the doctor close the baby door?”

“I think the baby door will stay open for six months after the baby is born.”

“Who let me out of the baby door, you, daddy, or the doctor?”

“Is there a handle on the door or does it just swing open like a gate? Or maybe there is a button like an elevator?”

“Did you and daddy build me before or after I came out of the baby door?”

“Why did the doctor need to clean me up before you saw me, I wasn’t dirty!”

“Do you pee so much because the baby is peeing inside you and it’s coming out your pee pee?”

“I think you have that sharp bump in your tummy because the baby is wearing a crown. You know, those sharp jewels they have on top. I think your tummy will feel better when the baby is born… with a crown on it’s head.”

“I think I should get up during the night to feed the baby mommy OK!?! The only problem, is I’m a little scared of walking down the dark hallway to get the baby some Cheerios so maybe you could come with me?”

Adorable, eh? Not even four years old yet and he’ll make a fine scientist someday. Makes me quite relieved that my ownTristan was barely verbal when Simon arrived!

Heard this morning as I left for work: “Goodbye crocodile.”

Heroes

A few days ago, Nancy was talking about heroes. As the scenario in Louisiana and Mississippi gets increasingly nightmarish, I think we need to be reminded that there are genuine heroes in the world.

Every Canadian knows the story of Terry Fox, but I often wonder if he is the same cultural icon to our cousins in the States. Are you familiar with his story? It is the definition of tenacity, and of heroism. Terry Fox is just a guy, a young guy, who lost his right leg to cancer. He wanted to raise funds and awareness for the Canadian Cancer Society, so he set off to run across Canada, from St John’s, Newfoundland to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1980. I was ten years old, and Terry Fox was my first hero.

I’m thinking of Terry Fox today because it was 25 years ago yesterday that he had to stop running near Thunder Bay, only half way through his journey at a spectacular 5,565 km, because his cancer had returned. To mark the occasion, yesterday Adidas released 6,500 pairs of a special edition replica of the trainers he used – he went through nine of them, one for his prosthetic foot and eight for his real foot – and they sold out in a day. A day.

Terry Fox was 22 years old, and he ran the equivalent of a marathon every single day for 143 days. The shoes he wore in 1980 didn’t have custom gel supports or cushioned soles of today’s trainers; they were just plain nylon runners, in navy blue with the trademark three white stripes.

To paraphrase many quoted in the Citizen article I read this morning, you could buy these shoes, but you could never fill them. But we should try.

It’s been a long week.

The other mother

Maybe this is just a thing that 19-month-old kids do. Maybe it’s a genetic tendency in our family. But I can’t help taking it personally.

Simon calls both Beloved and I “mama” interchangeably.

Now, I must admit straight out that I’ve called him by his brother’s name possibly more often than I’ve used his name correctly. I’m most likely to call him “Trst-Simon!” and his brother “Si-Tristan!” Why the right child’s name is never on the tip of my tongue I have no idea. And although my Granny only had three grandchildren, I don’t think she once got the right name out of her mouth the first time. Even Tristan exhibits signs of this odd disorder, often calling out “Daddy! um — Mommy!” as he processes who is most likely to be within hearing range. It’s obviously a familial tendency to misname the people we love.

So it hardly seems surprising that Simon has come up with his own solution to the problem and calls both Beloved and I “mama”. But it bugs me. I put in a lot of effort eliciting those couple of syllables. After I spent months and months of suggesting “Mama” to each of his happily babbled “Da-da-da”s, it seems he is now overcompensating.

I’d like to think that Beloved staying home with the boys all summer while I worked had nothing to do with this, but of course it has everything to do with it. I’m quite sure the only reason it bothers me is that I’m already insecure about my role in the family. Simon’s got it figured out that the one who spends the day at home with the children gets to be Mummy.

So do I at least get to be Daddy? Nope, that’s what he calls Tristan. He is one confused toddler. At least he gets the dog’s name right on a regular basis.

Your name here!

Have you seen this? Starting September 1, sixteen American authors, including the inimitable Stephen King and John Grisham, are auctioning off the right to have your name published in one of their upcoming novels. Funds raised will support the First Amendment Project, a US non-profit raising funds and awareness for the freedom of expression.

The e-Bay page for the auction has some pretty funny requirements from each of the authors. For example, while Peter Straub warns that the name supplied may be attached to a character of “dubious moral character” and Andrew Sean Greer will be attaching the winning name to a soda shop or bakery that houses a pivotal scene, my idol Stephen King says, “Buyer should be aware that [work in progress] CELL is a violent piece of work, which comes complete with zombies set in motion by bad cell phone signals that destroy the human brain. Like cheap whiskey, it’s very nasty and extremely satisfying. Character can be male or female, but a buyer who wants to die must in this case be female. In any case, I’ll require physical description of auction winner, including any nickname (can be made up, I don’t give a rip).”

Ahem. I know what I want for Christmas. Infamy at the hands of a zombie in a Stephen King story? Where’s my chequebook?

And that may in some part explain this quiz result, care of Andrea (who always finds the coolest toys first). Turns out on the Nerd-Geek-Dork continuum, I am:

Pure Nerd
75 % Nerd, 43% Geek, 34% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about
learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the “dork.” No-longer. Being smart isn’t as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations!



So? Are you a nerd, a geek or a dork?

Everybody’s comin’ to Ottawa

Well, this is certainly an exciting week to be in our sleepy little government town.

On Sunday night, the Rolling Stones played to 43,000 fans to close out my favourite summer fair, the SuperEx. Then yesterday, a few scant metres from my humble cubicle, they filmed the video for their new single Streets of Love in the Byward Market. They pulled about 100 random people off the street to be extras in the video. And where was I during all the excitement, you ask?

Looking obtusely in the other direction, as usual.

I had no idea. Hadn’t had the radio on, was busying away like a good worker bee, and was completely oblivious. I often pop down to the Quiznos on York for a veggie sub at lunchtime, and the Quiznos is right across the street from Zaphod’s, where the video was being filmed. But not yesterday. Yesterday, I brought my lunch. Coulda been checking out the Stones, but I was eating microwaved cabbage rolls and working through lunch. How hip am I?

Aside from all that, looks like we’ve got another visitor on the way. The remnants of hurricane Katrina are apparently tracking this way, looking to dump a month’s worth of rain in 24 hours. Good thing I spent all day Sunday draining the pool (and scrubbing algae off the liner – ick!) According to the precicise and highly scientific forecast, we could get anywhere from no rain to 100 mm (4 inches) of rain, and winds anywhere from gentle breezes to gale force.

Apparently, Ottawa is where all the cool kids are hanging out these days. Well, at least the aging, once spectacular but now mostly spent ones.

Have you ever had a celebrity encounter?

10-pages-in book review: The Bird Factory

I read a review of David Layton’s The Bird Factory in the newspaper, and managed to get a copy from the library in fairly short order. When I read the review, I knew it was something I’d have to read because it touches on a couple of themes dear to my heart.

First, the author is a 30-something Canadian, and Canadian-ness is often enough of a selection criteria to just get me to open a book. Second, he happens to be the son of one of the grand old men of Canadian poetry, Irving Layton. Third, the review was generally positive. Fourth, and foremost, was the subject matter: The Bird Factory is about a 30-something guy whose life starts to spin out of control when he and his wife have trouble procreating, and he finds out he has lazy sperm. Among other things, the novel is about going through in vitro fertilization (IVF) from a guy’s perspective.

For the same reasons I wanted to read this book, I wanted to dislike it. See, we Canadians have this deeply ingrained quirk that makes us want to see successful Canadians knocked down a notch or two. I had hoped I’d risen above this nasty little peccadillo, but I fear not.

By way of illustrating the point, let me retell this story of a friend’s first visit to the east coast. He was watching the men fish for lobsters. They’d haul up a trap and open it and shake the lobsters into a wide, shallow bin then they’d drop the open trap back into the water. (Pardon me if I gloss over the details. The lobster fishery is not something I’ve studied in any amount of detail.) The point is, the man watches the lobster fishermen (fisherpeople, I guess) for quite a while before his curiousity overcomes him.

“Excuse me,” he says, “but do you mind if I ask a question? That bin is so shallow, the lobsters should have no trouble climbing over the side. How are you keeping them from escaping?”

To which the lobster fisher person replies, (insert salty east coast accent here) “Well, me boy, these ‘ere are Canadian lobsters. Any one of them gets too close to the top of the pile, ‘tothers will just drag ‘im back down agin.”

More succinctly, as my dad recently put it, a Canadian is someone who will knock you down to size, then apologize for it.

So for reasons that are ingrained in me culturally, there’s an odd little piece of me that wanted this to be a bad book. Thinks he’s clever, does he? Writing about infertility? Thinks he has some insight, maybe some talent?

Turns out, he does have both insight and talent. It really is a good book. Layton’s wry humour, clean writing and genuine charm have me hooked. I’m a little more than 10 pages in – more like 60 – but just thinking about it as I’m typing makes me want to curl up and read another chapter to find out what happens next.

According to the review I read, Layton has gone through IVF himself, so he knows whereof he speaks. I found myself at various key points in the narrative thinking, “No, that’s not how it was for us,” then realized that he’s not narrating this from the woman’s perpective, he’s narrating it from the man’s – something to which I can’t really speak. I know what Beloved said and did, but I can’t claim to know how he felt. So when I was getting a little agitated with the protagonist’s laissez-faire attitude, it served as an interesting reminder that maybe my husband had a different way of experiencing that chapter in our lives.

I love a book filled with quirky characters, and this one has them to spare. Luke Gray, the protagonist, has a little lost boy quality that I would have found irrestible were I a literary character or he a real person. His wife Julia is a classic high-achiever who attacks the problem of infertility with a a single-minded focus that reminds me almost painfully of myself. Luke’s father, an erstwhile film-maker, builds a river in their suburban basement when Luke is a boy. Luke has made a business of constructing large decorative bird mobiles, and he seems to adopt employees like stray cats – odds and sods of societal rejects who seem even less engaged in their lives than Luke is in his.

You don’t have to have any experience in or even perspective on infertility to enjoy this book. It’s an insightful, darkly funny and poignant examination of one guy’s life and the forces that drag him through it.

Categories:

Friday photos

A little end of summer photo essay, because sometimes they really are worth a thousand words…

Tristan has given Simon some potty training tips this week. Most important: you gotta take time to look at the trains.

Two boys + one garden hose + one hot summer day = priceless.

Tristan’s first day on his big-boy bike.

Fun at the Ottawa SuperEx:

Not as sexy as Marla’s Charlie’s Angels pose, but yet more proof that we were separated at birth (both photos taken at an Ex on Sunday, half a province apart and with no prior consulation).

I believe

I was trying to resist this, really I was. But it’s so on topic that I can resist no longer. You see, I too have converted to the Cult of FSM – Flying Spaghetti Monsterism. No idea what I’m talking about? Then you haven’t been paying attention.

You might remember I have issues with Intelligent Design. I have found an ally and bloggy mentor on this topic in Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer. It was under his tutelage that I was first exposed to the growing FSM movement back in the first week of August.

I’ve been looking for a devotional outlet for a while now. Catholicism was good when I was young and naïve – and not divorced, and not mother to a child created through assisted reproductive technologies, among other things. I needed something more inclusive. Here’s what FSM founder Bobby Henderson said in his open letter to the Kansas State board of education:

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

From the moment I first read about His Noodliness, I knew. And yet despite the obvious draw, I waited. I’ve been burned before, you know. Could I trust FSM, or would it leave questioning myself in the quiet dark of sleepless nights? But now that FSM has it’s own Wiki entry, I know it’s for real, and it’s here to stay. Far be it from me to reinvent the pasta wheel, when I can quote Wiki to tell you what FSM is all about:

Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is a parody religion created to protest the decision by the Kansas tate Board of Education to allow intelligent design to be taught in science classes alongside evolution.

The “religion” has since become an Internet phenomenon garnering many followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (sometimes referring to themselves as “Pastafarians”, a pun on Rastafarians) preaching the word of their “noodly master” as the one true religion. FSM is primarily the invention of Bobby Henderson, a graduate of the Oregon State University with a degree in physics.

At last, I have a community to call my own: the Pastafarians. And I’m in good company. When the Lincoln Sign Company offered FSM stickers with the logo you see above and offered them to the first 100 people who sent an e-mail, they were inundated with over 3,500 requests in seven hours, and the 100 decals were gone in the first eight minutes.

Boing Boing has offered a $1M reward to anyone who can prove that Jesus Christ isn’t the son of the FSM.

How could you not love it?