Bits and bobs
Neither time nor mental wherewithal to post a deep and thoughtful blog today. Nothing deep and thoughtful going on today. Today has been filled with uneventful events. Your curiosity is piqued, I can tell. And so I will elaborate …
**Rushing. Slept in (til 7:30!). Therefore spent the first hour of the day madly dashing about. Turkey in crockpot! Breakfast in children! Signing various papers! Issuing various reminders! Big kids out the door! CJ to nursery school! Forgot to eat breakfast! Gobble cold porridge! Pour coffee in portable mug! Race out into snowstorm! Drive across town to dr’s appt!
**Waiting. The result of all the rushing was a prolonged period of waiting at the sports medicine clinic, first for the woman who did the initial assessment, and then for the doctor, who ordered an xray. I’ll see him again on Monday. Meanwhile, take-home-message: no running.
**More waiting. I followed up my first bout of waiting with more of same, in a different location. Upon arrival at the xray place, and without my first asking, the receptionist estimated the wait time to be 45 minutes. I heard her continue to estimate the same time to everyone who came through the door throughout my two hour stint in the waiting room. Maybe that’s just the standard measurement she gives out. She should have mentioned she was referring to units of 45 minutes, of which I would spend about three. The xray technician, a sparkly former-long-distance runner, spent the entire appointment recounting her own running injuries. A decade of running injuries. Cheerful stuff, let me tell you.
**Texting. What would I do without texting? And my phone? The wait at the xray office was so long that I realized I would not make it home in time for the babysitter, who was picking CJ and a friend up from nursery school. Luckily, through the marvels of text messaging, I was able to arrange for the friend’s mom to bring everyone to her house instead (God bless friends!). For less practical reasons, the texting also broke the intense tedium of waiting in perpetuity. When not texting, I read the book I’d brought along (The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell). Someone in the first office had read it too, so we had a conversation. Which also worked for entertainment purposes. No one in the second office cared to chat with me about the book. Most were too busy texting. Except for the friendly man telling everyone in earshot about the diarrhea he’d acquired on holiday in Jamaica. I sat extra-far away from him. What surprised me is that not everyone did.
**Overdue. Library book, that is. Thought I’d finish off my wasted writing day by stopping in at the library to discuss a book which has been lost, and has yet to turn up despite ample and dedicated hunting. It was due today. And cannot be renewed again. BUT it can be placed on some special library list which gives me another seven weeks to find the book, and the library will hunt for it too (because the kids think we returned it). I also learned that our library caps late fees. Did you know this? I will have to pay late fees on the book, even if I do find and return it, but it will cost me no more than $9.00. This actually sounded like such good news to my desperate ears that I high-fived the librarian. In my head.
**Home. When I opened the front door, the turkey in the crockpot had filled the house with comforting smells. The laundry basket was still sitting, full of dirty laundry, on the kitchen floor. I hadn’t eaten since the cold porridge. I made myself a pot of tea, and warmed up some leftovers, and sat and read the newspaper. And that about sums it up.
**Aside. Does it strike you, as it does me, that none of this fits into either of my words of the year? It ain’t work. And it sure ain’t play. What is it?
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**In other news. The giveaway is now officially over! Thanks to everyone who entered. I will pick a name out of the hat, and announce the winner tomorrow.
From dancing to dentistry, just like that
my 4:45am companion, with sound effects
I did not take photos at last night’s show. It was late for mamas at mid-week, a decade and a half older than the kids who came out to dance. But we mamas came out to dance too. And we still know how, despite our complaints about the lateness (so late!) and the loudness (first band, so loud!), and the “Oh God, I hope my hip holds out” (so lame!).
The dancing. It was really fun. We danced for the second band, but the really inspired getting down didn’t happen until Kidstreet arrived on stage. I love my siblings! Their sound is infectious, their performance is joyful and welcoming, and my sister is just the most gorgeous and composed creature on stage that you can possibly imagine (whether or not she can see it herself). As the set progressed, my dance moves got more adventurous, less fearful of will-this-hurt-my-hip? By the last song of the night, I’d shed that decade and a half, at least inside my own head. Walking home through the quiet of freshly fallen snow, I had to admit that I was limping ever so slightly. But when I woke up this morning, my hip actually felt years better.
Seriously. I could jog across the living-room without pain. How bizarre is that?
Let me tell you about the few hours between dancing and morning. I was gloriously asleep when the pitter-patter of feet woke me. CJ had gone to the bathroom by himself (yay!), returned to his bed and decided he didn’t like the looks of it (uh oh!), and come into our room lugging his water bottle and a giant sheep stuffie (noooooooo!). “I had a bad dream!” he announced, which is his new code for “I don’t want to go to sleep.” He attempted to climb into bed beside me. The sheep didn’t fit. Seriously, it’s enormous. We could all see this wasn’t working. I dragged myself upright, walked him back to his own room, explained about it being the middle of the night, sleeptime, etc., tucked him in.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter. No sheep this time. “Is anyone downstairs?” he asks from the side of the bed. It’s pitch black. 4:45am. “Nope. We’re all sleeping. Because it’s the middle of the night!” He climbs in beside me, snuggles up. I’m too tired to object. We “sleep” like this for an hour until I just can’t stand the wriggling anymore. (I know lots of parents share beds with their children, and I just want to know: do those children hold still in their sleep? Because mine are like squirrels, if squirrels were much larger and not furry and had sharp elbows and hot breath and digging heels).
“Listen,” I said at last. “I can’t sleep like this. I’m going to your bed.”
“What?”
“You can stay here, and I will go sleep in your bed. Or, you can go sleep in your bed and I’ll stay here. One or the other. Because I’m not getting any rest and I have to get up in an hour for a dentist appointment.”
“My blankets are too small.”
“Not the green one. The green one is plenty big. So what you do want: should I go sleep in your bed, or will you?”
Surprisingly, he chose to return to his bed. And then he slept.
And much too soon after that I was sitting in a reclining chair staring at beige ceiling panels, listening to top-forty soft rock while a masked woman scaled tartar off my teeth.
If I were sketching a trajectory of pleasantness upon a graph, say, from midnight until nine this morning, it would look like a ski hill. High to low, baby, high to low. The nighttime bed-sharing was definitely several graph points above the hygienist prodding exposed nerve endings between my teeth. At least with the bed-sharing I got to snuggle up to a hot-breathed, wriggling, pointy-elbowed creature of intense dearness. With the dentist all I got was a return appointment a week from today to fill a cavity — my first in TWENTY YEARS.
See. Straight down. Like a ski hill.
It’s a life.
Wondering and wandering in Blogland
I’ve been reading other people’s blogs. I’ve been reading and wondering and wandering. My mind is impatient this morning, and more than a bit weary. Up early for a swim. Second swim in three days. I am fit, but I don’t feel strong, not running. Which makes me wonder: what am I seeking in my quest to stay fit, if it isn’t to be fit? My routine is fairly grinding, but I hardly missing a planned work-out. Why? I don’t have an answer. I wonder if I will find one, and whether I will like it, or not.
Here’s what I’m doing tonight. I tried to post the poster, but it didn’t work: my siblings’ band Kidstreet is playing in town. I am staying up late to go dancing!
More napping needed.
I’m trying not to think about the dentist appointment booked for tomorrow morning at 7:30 (who does that to herself?). Or the dr’s appointment the next day. Or plans to go out Friday night, and to throw a scotch party here on Saturday night. Which will mean cleaning this whole disastrous kid-friendly house. Which means I’m trying not to think about the living-room, either, strewn end to end with the tiniest toys the children could find to strew about. I’m not thinking about the missing library book, due Friday, already renewed to the allowable limit of times, and nowhere to be blinking found. While I’m at, I’ll try not to think about the half hour I already spent on my hands and knees this morning looking under things for this book while cursing the tiny toys strewn about everywhere.
Instead, I will think about lunch. And coffee. And napping. And blogging. I found some great posts out there this morning. My friend Rebecca blogs about taking a week off from blogging due to feelings of inadequacy. She ends with a quote from Marianne Williamson, which coincidentally my yoga teacher read out to our class on Saturday evening, and which I meant to share here, but it slipped away in my shavasana daydream: “It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” And yet. My virtual friend Kerry blogs about Gabrielle Giffords, and how the miracle of her very survival is yet somehow not enough for the narrative of redemption that has been foisted upon it. How we crave the light of redemption and recovery, we want that story. “The narrative of her ‘recovery’ has been so remarkable for its falseness, for its abject denial of the realities of brain injury,” writes Kerry; the piece is worth reading in full.
I have to tell you. My darkness frightens me. But maybe it’s true that my light does too. Marianne Williamson’s quote goes on: “We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.”
Can we play big, be our better selves, and be truthful about the darkness in each of us, the inadequacies, the mysteries, the wondering and wandering, the good luck and the bad? Well, yes. I think so. I think that might be why I blog.
A walk in the woods
I am not running right now. My last attempt was a week and a half ago, a long weekend run of 15.5km on a bitterly cold and windy afternoon. The light was thin. My hip cried the entire time. That necessitated a frank assessment of my physical limitations, and a visit to my family doctor, and his request that I refrain from running. For now. I see a sports medicine doctor on Friday and the truth is that I’m holding out hope that his opinion will be otherwise: Go ahead and run! It can’t do any harm! (Hope hurts.)
Meantime, I am getting by with extra yoga classes, which seem to be helping. At the very least, I am strengthening and stretching and practicing my breathing. I am also continuing to swim, though not quite to the distances I’m used to: I stop when it starts to hurt rather than pushing on (the opposite of my usual style). And there’s spin class once a week.
But as mentioned in a previous post, none of those activities gets me outside. I’m missing not just the endorphin magic of a good run. I’m missing the bitter cold, the snow, the wind, the purposeful entry into the elements, even (and maybe especially) into the unpleasant elements. I’ve gone for runs in the dark, in cold rain, in hail, in blazing sunshine, in humidity. I also run in less extreme conditions, but it’s those more adventurous outings that stick with me, that please me most, that seem like tests of will and determination; there is a thrill to just sticking with it, hanging in there, going on. I could see how that sounds psychologically revealing; and not everyone’s cup of tea. And I accept that this injury may teach me many good things that I couldn’t learn otherwise: such as the value of stopping rather than pushing through; and patience. That too.
On Sunday, I went to my daughter’s soccer practice. It was a clear sunshiny afternoon, bright with snow on the ground. I could not run. But I decided not to sit by the sidelines indoors. Instead, I dressed for the weather, took my camera, and went for a hike in the woods. The trails were so familiar, trails I ran on all last summer and fall. And I was able to walk briskly without pain. It wasn’t like a good run, no, but it’s not fair to compare. It was exactly what it was: a walk in the woods.
Many of the photos came out with a melancholy feel (as above; do you agree?). I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the wintry landscape, the bare trees. Or maybe it’s the eye that was seeing the wintry landscape and bare trees. Whatever was captured, melancholy was not what I felt upon returning home. I felt better. Just plain better.
The week in suppers: rush, rush, rush
Cooking with kids: Fooey’s turn
**Monday’s menu: Falafels, pitas, hummus, and tabbouleh.
**Woot for Dad: All freshly made by Kevin (with the exception of the pitas). I was in Toronto, so he said he’d take care of supper. And he did.
**Must remember: Very popular meal. I added hot sauce to my stuffed pita.
**Tuesday’s menu: Chili in the crockpot. Leftover rice and lentils. Leftover tabbouleh salad.
**Because: Brief turnaround time between swim lessons and soccer.
**Must remember: People are getting tired of Mom’s chili. Sorry, people.
**Wednesday’s menu: Pasta with pesto. Pan-fried shrimp. Turkey broth noodle soup. Cabbage salad.
**Happily: Used frozen pesto made last summer, but only had enough pasta to make half the portion I usually do for our family. Therefore, added the noodle soup to the mix. Used turkey broth frozen from Christmas, added some leftover pesto for flavour. Threw this meal together in under half an hour.
**Thursday’s menu: Leek and potato soup. Roasted squash. Cornbread. Leftover cabbage salad.
**Tuber time: I have 50 pounds of potatoes in the cold cellar, so we brainstormed uses, such as this potato soup. It really could hardly be better. CJ devoured it. So did Albus. So did I! But we also thought up: oven fries and mashed potatoes. There must be more of a variety, right? Send suggestions.
**Friday’s menu: Baked potato bar at church.
**Because: Community-building. And I don’t have to cook or do dishes.
**Also: Speaking of other uses for the potato.
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**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: Four loaves of bread. Four loaves of banana bread (baked at 7:30pm on Saturday night, just before heading out poetry book club; they were still in the oven when I left, so Kev had to finish the task.)
**Cooking with kids: Sunday supper. Fooey’s turn. Indian theme.
**Menu: Saag paneer. Tandoori shrimp. Homemade samosas. Basmati rice. Raita. Cabbage salad. Take-out naan bread and pakoras. Tropical fruit salad and banana bread for dessert.
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**One last thing: A friend I’ve made through this blog (a poet and writer and mother who lives on the other side of this country) asked whether I’d mind if she posted her own spin-off of The Week in Suppers. Of course I said yes! Check out her first installment. I was interested to see what her fall-back meals were. And I want the recipe for her lentil loaf!
**One more one last thing: My TNQ giveaway open until Friday!