Election Hangover
Oye, yoi, yoi, today I’ve got election hangover. Our “safe” Liberal seat was lost by 72 votes, and the “safe” Kitchener Centre Liberal seat also went down in flames, both to Conservatives; though in the country overall it’s hard to pick any real winners. Conservatives are back with yet another minority (apparently we don’t like them quite enough). Liberal support tanked, but is obviously still out there–they finished second overall in seat-strength. The Bloc was strong again in Quebec, proving that the Conservative ploy to buy Quebec votes failed sorely. Dippers made some gains, including taking a seat from a prominent Conservative in Alberta. Greens won nothing. Gloomiest of all, voter turn-out was at an all-time low. Conclusion: Real change ain’t a comin’ to Canada any time soon.
I think it’s time for our government to move to proportional representation, or at the bare minimum to some model of governing that favours real cooperation between parties. The minority parliamentary model we’re working with now, with its confidence votes and playing chicken, is really just a big pissing contest. It seems invented to create failure, not success; in other words, we the people are supposed to recognize this “natural” dysfunction and, shaking our collective heads in disgust, vote in a majority next time. Except that’s virtually impossible with five legitimate parties scrabbling for our votes. Majority parliaments work because they’re based on a two-party system. Canada no longer has a two-party system. I’m tired of people having to worry about splitting the vote if they vote with their hearts.
Can someone give me some good reasons for not going to proportional representation as a governing model? It can’t just be because the big parties have too much to lose. I wonder whether there are some ideological uncertainties about it too: does it make the country more fractured, does it entrench regionalism?
I’m writing this in a rare moment of quiet this morning. Woke with supper dishes still unwashed and cluttering the countertop, with supper needing to be made in advance due to Beckett lesson this eve, with diapers in the washer, a pile of dirty clothes on the basement floor, two laundry baskets overflowing with clean, unfolded clothes in the living-room, F with a playdate here this morning to supervise, and baby CJ with a hankering to crawl everywhere, eat everything, then get frustrated and demand to be carried about in a sling. Plus we walked out the door thinking we were late for school (we weren’t). I’ve only conquered a few of these problems so far, but things are temporarily looking up. Laundry’s hanging on the line. The girls have played beautifully together all morning. Baby CJ went down for a nap. Dishes got washed. I’m cooking up a black bean and grain stew. Is there any way to fry quesadillas in advance? The 6pm music class is proving hairy to get to, and we’re dashing out the door still chewing our food, despite what seems like pretty good advance organizing.
Oh, my squash refused to soften last night. I roasted it for ages, but in the end gave up and discarded it. I’ve never had this happen before. And our CSA sent us gobs of chard and kale yesterday, and yet more beets, so I need to get organized and cook something out of this stuff before our fridge turns from jungle to swamp.
While the Dishes Wait
Dilemma: to blog or to finish making supper and start the dishes? Hmm.
Kevin’s off fetching our CSA box, almost the last of the season, and the girls are playing “Little House,” and just came into the kitchen dressed in aprons and bonnets and mittens, wondering how they could help. Taking them seriously, I suggested cleaning up the living-room. The sounds of things being dumped currently accompany this task, but here’s hoping things are being dumped into appropriate containers. Boy, with baby CJ on the move, danger lurks in every wretched Playmobil flower abandoned on the carpet. I came out to the living-room today to discover him under the art table, grabbing up fistfuls of broken crayons with evident delight. Oh, F just returned to the kitchen and I see her Little House outfit includes a baseball cap, and beneath the apron a mermaid costume.
We are having leftover surprise tonight (thanks, Janis, for bestowing that name on a supper made from whatever’s discovered in the fridge; makes it sound so cheerful). I put whatever’s in the fridge into a big bowl, added a gravy-ish white sauce, and sprinkled cheese on top, then baked it in the oven. We’ll see if they eat it; after all, everything is mixed together, and my kids, like many kids, prefer some separation upon the plate.
Also roasting a squash and prepping a salad.
Baby CJ is so incredibly on the move that I simply marvel at his mobility. He crawled from living-room through dining-room to kitchen this afternoon, ending near the fridge. Then he suggested I pick him up and carry him around in the sling; he’s spent about three hours in that sling today and my back doth protest. But, really, baby CJ wants to walk. Whenever possible he gets a taller person to help him stand. He can hang on and stand quite ably, and as soon as he masters the getting up part, there will be no stopping him. Apparently, by six months, babies feel big. They don’t care to be identified with those blobby infant-types any more.
Brief
Because I blogged about my dad remarrying this weekend, I feel obliged to provide some public follow-up. But the truth is that I can think of nothing to say on the subject that wouldn’t hurt someone. That’s been one of the most interesting, troubling, revelatory discoveries of this whole experience–I mean, the experience of my parents’ marriage breaking up–that sometimes there is no “right.” I think I’d always believed that a problem, any problem, if only given enough creative thought and attention, would eventually yield to a solution.
Well, maybe not.
I had great difficulty sleeping last night (of course, Murphy’s Law, baby CJ slept like a, well, baby, while I tossed and turned, then woke like a real baby the instant sleep arrived for me).
Will sign off for now.
What We Ate
Yesterday we had a feast. It was all about timing, and I did spend the better part of the day preparing food. Luckily, I realized, in the nick of time, that the pies would need to be baked before the chickens. Kevin’s sister helped whenever she passed through the kitchen–mashing potatoes, extracting cooked pumpkin from its shell, et cetera. But as evening approached, I began to panic that the children would, in their hunger and impatience, literally climb the living-room walls, waiting for the chickens to reach optimum cooking temperature. Chickens surpassed expectation, thermometer rose, and we had dinner on the table at six o’clock sharp. Baby CJ got to try mashed pumpkin (a so-so review, I’d say). The chicken was succulent; the stuffing delicious; the brussel sprouts edible (Kevin’s mom loved them, but I must say they could have been better–perhaps parboiled or roasted a tad longer); the salad of local bitter greens with honey-balsamic dressing and chopped apples and seeds stunning (am I allowed to say this about food I’ve prepared myself?), and the smashed potatoes with garlic very yummy indeed. Yams snuck onto the menu all by themselves–they were in amongst the potatoes from our CSA box, and were pale in colour, white when uncooked and a delicate yellow cooked, and I assumed them to be odd-shaped potatoes, overgrown fingerlings, and only upon chopping them realized they must be something else. Good old yams. At the last minute, I scrounged up a bag of frozen cranberries and cooked that down into a quick sauce with sugar and water. So easy, but it added the finishing touch–tang and colour.
Food, Not For Thought
Today’s our Thanksgiving feast. I’m keeping it simple. Right now, I’m roasting a whole smallish pumpkin (CSA) in the oven, because, gosh darnit, my kids want a pie, and I’m going to try. We also have two chickens, six pounds, and seven pounds, respectively, thawing in the fridge, which I plan to stuff with a traditional bread stuffing (chopped apples tossed in for fun), and roast according to my Joy of Cooking recipe. Lots of salt rubbed on the skin, shallow pan, breast up. It’s going to smell good in here. Additionally, I’m planning on boiling, then roasting some brussel sprouts, if Kevin finds some good local ones at the market. Boiled, smashed potatoes (CSA) with garlic and butter and mmm. Perhaps a balsamic-honey-dressed green salad, depends on what Kevin finds at the market; apparently “spring” mix is newly seasonal right now.
Am I forgetting something? The squash will be in the pie, assuming that works out.
Baby CJ got his six-month immunizations yesterday and has been ever so fussy. On top of his stuffed nose, he’s pretty miserable, poor bab. He spent the night cuddled in our bed, again, nursing off and on. This is beginning to take a toll on my dewy-fresh complexion … Yes, I’ll blame it on that.
Kevin’s family has arrived. Everyone is off to market, except for napping baby CJ and me (for some reason, he’s happy to nap in his crib during the day; it’s only at night that he wakes instantly and screams and hollers upon being extracted from a loving parent’s arms).
To offer an update on Nina’s buying club: It remains alive, popular, and subversive. Who knows, it may be a catalyst to change local food policy and by-laws in exciting ways in the coming months and years. Meantime, it sounds like we will continue to be able to buy at least some of our food through Nina, though today, for the first time in at least a month, we had our groceries delivered by Grocery Gateway (that sounds decadent, but hear me out: none other than George Monbiot, author of Heat, advocates online shopping and delivery, more efficient than each of us hopping into our individual vehicles and tooling around town picking up one item here, and one item there. The delivery cost is $10). Generally, I wait to make the Grocery Gateway order till some heavy things have piled up on my list, which would be difficult to transport all at once in the jogging stroller (aka my shopping cart/bundle buggy).
Thanks for your support re this weekend’s familial turmoil. An update on the subject may or may not be forthcoming, depending on how confessional my mood becomes. Today I’m focussed on cooking and hosting, good and occupying tasks. Just remembered what menu item I’d forgotten: YAMS! They didn’t arrive at buying club yesterday, and I neglected to add them to my market list. Too bad. Baby CJ probably could have tasted a smackerel too. Maybe I’ll save out a bit of pumpkin to mash and cool and serve to him. So far he’s eaten nothing but expressed breastmilk mixed with brown rice cereal. Pumpkin/squash is a pretty safe early food, right? Allergenically-speaking?