I was lucky to come home at the same time that a benefit dinner was being held for my early childhood friend Michelle. Michelle's sister Monica and I have been attached at the hip since I was born, and have seen each other through a lot. Last summer, Michelle suffered a heart attack while at work and was unconscious for twenty minutes before she received CPR. She was 23. She remained in a coma for months in hospital. When she regained consciousness, the injuries to her brain had became apparent. She is going down a long road to recovery. Eager to help in every way, her friends organized the most amazing evening in her honour, a "Celebration of Life". Michelle had never looked more beautiful.
I can't finish posting about Canada with an ode to whining about my age. These two beauties make sure that I keep things in check, and appreciate each day for what it is. My smiling niece, Charlotte. She's kind of perfect. I was lucky to come home at the same time that a benefit dinner was being held for my early childhood friend Michelle. Michelle's sister Monica and I have been attached at the hip since I was born, and have seen each other through a lot. Last summer, Michelle suffered a heart attack while at work and was unconscious for twenty minutes before she received CPR. She was 23. She remained in a coma for months in hospital. When she regained consciousness, the injuries to her brain had became apparent. She is going down a long road to recovery. Eager to help in every way, her friends organized the most amazing evening in her honour, a "Celebration of Life". Michelle had never looked more beautiful. That is Michelle in the centre of family and friends who love her. Happiness and optimism belongs to all of us. No matter what we've been through, or what we have yet to see. Your outlook changes with a smile.
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I would say that almost immediately after walking through the gate at Pearson Airport, my Mom told me about this vitamin E cream that she's been using, and maybe I would like to try some as well. My family knows no end for translating "you look like shit" into another vocabulary. Needless to say, my face now looks like I just participated in some Spring Break oil wrestling contest. Parched, unevenly toned skin be damned! I've never done an American style Spring Break, so I have no clear idea of what it is that happens there, but I fathom it might look something like chlamydia. I've realized in the past couple of weeks, that the part of me who would have indulged in this type of entertainment is long dead and gone. Instead, it looks like this: Sarah, the last "girl about town" that I know has gone and got herself pregnant. Our conversations have become ones about morning sickness and outings involve colour scheming paper lanterns for the baby's room. At least she still has great boobs. Shh, nobody tell her what's going to happen to them after the baby is born. It's a secret. I take no responsibility for feeling as old as I do, but instead blame it on the following. Exhibit #1: The BFF Past Experience: Drunk, drunk, drunk in Calgary. She called me slutty and I took it as the sweetest compliment ever. Find mutual admiration in watching our husbands play Pictionary drunk. See the Grand Canyon together. Present Experience: Fall asleep while a birthday party is happening in another room because my child needs Toopy and Binoo right now. Katie coming in to wake me up. Exhibit #2: Not being the last one standing at the midway. I want to say I came close to puking on some really brutal ride called the Devil Inside You, or something like that. In reality, it was the Berry Express and resulted from an over zealous step dad fulfilling his two granddaughters demands to "spin faster!" This is them, still going strong, hours after I had given up. Final Exhibit: Our three week "vacation". Utterly exhausting, packed full of activities. Joining my Mother at the kitchen table every morning, shutting the girls out until we've had that one cup of coffee in peace. Looking up and realizing that we do in fact become our mothers. Today is her birthday. We Skyped her this morning and Claudia asked "How old do you feel Grandma??" My guess is, old enough. I think our vacation may have aged her just a little bit more.
Make Lemonade. 25 cents a cup and the girl pulled in 12 dollars in 20 minutes. Cars pulled over just to give her money. I need someone to give her a life lesson to explain that this is not how it normally works, kid. Meanwhile, inside . . . I love them.
Hamilton has a multiple personality disorder. I can go on and on about the little pockets of loveliness that can be found here and there. You can walk among looming trees, on quaint streets lined with centuries old estates. Take an afternoon to stroll the clique that has become James St. North and you'll soon wish there was an American Apparel to don yourself in hipster-esque clothing. Climb a set of stairs to the second floor Pure on Locke Street and forget all your troubles behind. But man, are there troubles about. This is not a walkable city. Too many parking lots and long stretches of road with abandoned buildings in disrepair. Cars drive too fast and worry about other cars, not pedestrians. No inner city parks. Watch out for fucking motorized scooters, they own the place. Watch your step for phlegm on the sidewalk. Listen to a family argue over whether the dad can go to the "rippers" so he can "sink his teeth into some ass" while their child swings at the playground. It's pretty easy to feel disenchanted with the place that you so fondly called home. Luckily, one sunny afternoon, we escaped to one of the aforementioned little pockets, a place near and dear to me, a mansion called Whitehern. My Mom had planned a March Break itinerary for the girls, which included a Wizard of Oz themed afternoon there. We toured the house looking for ruby slippers, ran through the gardens while following the yellow brick road, and made scarecrows in the old stable house. Today we're off to the market and library, in search of cheese and a restored opinion of the potential for this city to be great. God help me if I get run over by a scooter.
The Girls and I are back home for a few weeks, visiting family and friends. On this sunny afternoon, there was no warmer place to be than in the company of The Babcia. She loaded the girls up with cookies, chocolate and Polish donuts. We sat outside and made phone calls to Germany to say hi to Daddy. We're now sitting on the couch, watching The Sound of Music and eating homemade ice cream. It feels good to be home. A note about the wooden egg. When my Dzia Dzia would get a hole in his socks, they weren't replaced, they were mended. A neighbour of Babcia's carved this egg to place inside socks, where they were then darned. I have always appreciated that resourcefulness, even if I find it hard to follow. I will bring the wooden egg back to Germany and remember to try as best as I can to "mend and make do". If you're willing to accept your inner nerd, and then accept that you're going to display it in public, Geocaching may just be for you. I had bought Aaron a handheld GPS for his birthday a few years ago, with the promise that we would go out and activate ourselves with fresh air, good parenting and financial control. This lasted about 3 months and then the GPS went into hiding and I focused my energy on retail therapy, medical therapy and "maybe I might benefit from psychotherapy." If only I could understand what Dr. Deutsch was saying to me . . . Living in Germany is expensive, so it became time for us to exercise that financial control thingy. So we dusted off our GPS and took the kids out treasure hunting around Münster. I ROCK at finding caches! What started out as wholesome became a competition, and I won. Unless I let Aaron win, but even then, I still won. We saw a lot of the city that we had not ventured to before and the kids really did enjoy themselves. So, another happy and retail free Sunday marked off. Spring has come early to the city and presented itself by way of fragrant blossoms, flowing water and our first robin sighting. The girls and I leave for Canada on Saturday and I hope when we come back, the warm weather will be here to stay and we can enjoy more days like this.
There is a German folktale that was told to children about a tree, called a Schultütenbaum, that grows near schools. At the end of summer when the tree's fruit, or Schultüten, are finally ready to pick, it's time for the children to start school. My little Miss finally started Kindergarten!
I used to talk to Babcia every night before she went to bed. Daily ramblings, what we had for dinner, what Mrs. So-n-So said at Bingo, it's raining, it's sunny, it's snowing . . . the majority of the time our conversations went along those lines. And then, every blue moon, her mind would open up and the next thing you know she's telling you about a blue scarf she wore on her 13th birthday. And the thoughts keep coming. You don't even look at the clock until you've hung up and realize you've been talking for hours about the most beautiful, hilarious and sentimental things. Tonight was one of those nights. Stealing sorrel leaves from a neighbours meadow when she was sixteen. Her friend Katie setting her up with a German soldier. "Tara, can you imagine if we were caught?? We would have been killed!" And the first time she heard her husband sing. He came back to her village, in Marksteft, after the war was over. They went for a walk in a meadow. She said to me "It was a song about Katyusha, he sang it in Russian. All I can remember is a part about her being by the river. I think it was a love song." And then, not two minutes later, I found the song and played it for her. It was a love song. And together, her and I listened. Her remembering her husband as he was 70 years ago, and me, thinking, this has got to be the best Valentine's Day I've ever had. Apple and pear trees were blooming. O'er the river the fog merrily rolled. On the steep banks walked Katyusha, On the high bank she slowly strode. As she walked she sang a sweet song Of her silver eagle of the steppe, Of the one she loved she loved so dearly, And the one whose letters she had kept O you song! Little song of a young girl, Fly over the river and in the sunlight go. And fly to my hero far from me, From his Katyusha bring him a sweet hello. Will he remember this plain young girl, And her sweet song like a dove, As he stands guarding his proud nation, So Katyusha will guard their love. It may already be known, but it's been hella cold out here in Germany for about two weeks. The drizzle and grey have been replaced with glorious sunshine and air that stabs your skin. And no snow. It's bizarre, really.
I was reading up on this extreme Eastern cold front and stumbled upon an article about a Dutch man visiting the area, who fell through 10 cm of ice and is still MISSING. That's terrifying. So naturally, when Aaron said he wanted to take the girls "sliding" on the ice, I was really excited to have an hour of shopping to myself. He decided that they would go to the old city moat, which is now a flooded ditch, a frozen flooded ditch. There were signs near the bridge that said you should not go on the ice, lest you slip to your cold, watery death, but Aaron was not to be dissuaded. In fact, an oft seen legless, homeless, wheel chaired Man with a litre and a half bottle of beer resting on his lap, assured Aaron that the sign was all nonsense. In German. (I do not speak German.) So Aaron, being responsible, decided to heed the sign's advice and walk about 100 metres further, out of the sign's view, to where a bunch of teenagers were drinking and doing some sliding of their own. At this point I left, because I'm anxious about such things and all my hovering was noticeably pissing my husband off. I got lost trying to find what I was looking for in town and when I turned a random corner, who is there but The Oft Seen Man. Seriously, this guy moves backwards. In his wheelchair, over cobblestones. I have no idea how I managed to run into him again, but I did and he offered me a ride on his lap. In German. Taking this as a sure sign that the ice was cracking at that very moment, I ran back to the frozen ditch to find my family basking in the sunshine, as happy as can be. So I gave up my hesitation and joined them on the ice. Life was good, until I saw a fish swimming 10 cm under my feet, and then it was time TO GO. I love the nights where I can sleep soundly, knowing that I've been both a good wife and a good mother. Like when I let Aaron nap after dinner, and orchestrated craft time with the girls. Total win, win, win.
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