Work in Progress

My dog can't throw up (well, he's done it twice in nearly nine years . . . it's at least fair to say it's not a habit with him) and he resents the attention of strangers in the street. He gargles softly under his breath, has chewed on (safety) razor blades and lived to tell the tale, swallowed more than an adult human's fair share of ibuprofen, and he likes to bound through tall grass like a jackrabbit. In short, much like the human portion of his family, he really does specialise in . . . being odd.

So sure, instead of something like luxated patellas, collapsing trachea or liver shunts, like NORMAL Maltese get, what earthly reason is there why he SHOULDN'T have limber tail?

No reason at all, according to Dakarai. And his . . . woefully, appallingly limp and lifeless little tail.

That's m'dog.

"No, but that's what you do! The human race-- making sense out of chaos! Marking it out with weddings and Christmas and calendars! The whole process is beautiful . . . but only if it's being observed." ~Doctor Who, The Runaway Bride

Yep, that's us, all right.

( Making sense out of chaos )

First of all, concerning my wardrobe for tomorrow, the Halloween costume won out. It will be paired with a new top I got in Amherst today, and hopefully it will work out well. The outfit, however, is not the focus of tomorrow. The focus of tomorrow is meant, of course, to be Thomas, and yet I can't help but think that, our family being what it is, the focus is just as likely to be on Thomas ten years ago as it will be on Thomas today.

We pride ourselves, you see, on dredging up Stories. Stories to delight, entertain and, of course, utterly embarrass, or possibly a bit of all three. Stories, in fact, such as this.

Thirteen years ago this summer, we --"we" being pretty well the whole of Mum's immediate family-- sat around a big old harvest table, scarred and pitted with age. It would eventually be refinished and take up a place of honour in Anne and Jeff's then-new home, but at the time, it was just a place for us to eat our meal. The ages of my elders I will refrain from specifying, but I was ten, Claire was eight, Kayla was a cherubic six-nearing-seven, Erin was an eeny weeny snip of a toddler and Thomas was an oh-so-worldly five, still at a stage where he had just discovered that his parents had given names and saw no reason why he should not use them, too.

Aunt Anne had made us the biggest pot of spaghetti sauce you have ever seen, and was ladling it out by the measuring-cupful. She knew her eldest well, and in anticipation of his complaints had carefully extracted every green pepper from the sauce before setting his plate before him. Thomas studied the offering with grave anxiety then lifted his face to hers.

"Anne--"

"No, no," she shook her head, "I got them all, Thomas; every green pepper is GONE."

Thomas then returned his attention to his food, clearly distraught beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.

"But Anne," he frowned, "there is still much vegetation in this that I do not like!"

And tomorrow, he graduates. I still can't quite wrap my head around it.

I am in Parrsboro, which is good. I have puppies all around me, which is also good. I am meant to go to Thomas's graduation ceremony on Wednesday, which WOULD be good, except in tossing things into bags for travelling here I somehow managed to forget that the norm for graduation ceremonies tends to be some sort of outfit that is at least half a cut above the everyday. The sad truth of the matter is that I brought no such outfits with me, meaning that the only cut-above-everyday outfits I have here are a far-too-warm shirt/slacks set I bought for Brett's autumn wedding, a sundress from eighth grade, a two-year old Halloween costume and . . . my prom dress. This is bad.

So far it's a close tie between the costume and the prom dress. The question now is, which would be less offensive, on the whole: June Cleaver, or some quasi-Cinderella-esque creature bent on upstaging every graduate there? I will ponder this deeply, but truth be told I will likely end up driving to Amherst in order to buy something that falls, style-wise, somewhere between 1950 and a kingdom far, far away.

Finally, on the topic of new baby Ella:

Gram: You should see that baby! She is just so sweet, she is just so precious! Oh, she is SO sweet!
Me: Well, really, Gram, what baby isn't?
Gram: *oblivious to her own bias* Some are sweeter than others.

( Now, finally, a few pics behind the cut of our oh-so-sweet, very brand-newest family member, Isabella Avora )

Public Service Announcement to Myself:

for the love of life and unscarred throat tissue, Andrea-- move the blinking bottle of nail polish remover AWAY from the bottle of Diet Coke! NOW! Yes, NOW!

That aside, I feel compelled to cheer that I have been richly blessed with two bright and blazing beacons on an otherwise mostly sad and badly ant-infested day (yes, we have ants. Yes, I skipped my morning shower in favour of squishing them en masse and washing the little carcasses down the drain. Yes, I bought my first ever packet of Raid. My second packet, too. Yes I can still feel them CRAWLING ALL OVER ME, and YES this CREEPS ME OUT. Now-- on to BRIGHT spots!)

Firstly, after school let out this afternoon Mrs D gave me a ride home. We talked about summer plans, since we knew that if we talked about the kids we'd both cry (again). She dropped me off here where I tidied up a bit, puttered around for a while and then went shopping because it had become very clear that Dakarai, Claire and I all rather badly needed food.

On emerging from the pet supply store I saw Gentle I from Mrs B's class crossing the parking lot with her mother. Gentle I is the girl who eagerly gave me (at a minimum) three hugs a day for the duration of my time at the school. She is soft and sweet and eminently huggable. I called her name and waved and she was so excited to see me she nearly dragged her poor mum into traffic! It was a perfectly-timed reminder that I will still see them around, just not as often as I might like to. That, and, you know, a reminder to not shout at people when cars are coming.

Second-and-a-half light: tonight I talked to Mum for two and a half hours, made plans to be collected on Sunday and head down home for a few days . . .

. . . and learned that . . .

. . . at two twenty-three this afternoon, Amber made the transition from expectant-mum-several-days-past-her-due-date to honest-to-goodness mother!

Seven pounds, thirteen-and-a-half ounces, healthy, howling and whole is our especially brand new Isabella. Ella, we know you didn't want to come out and we are sorry they had to go in to fetch you, but please know that you are here, safe, loved and WELCOMED!

I have amassed chocolates, cards, ceramics, jewellery and a very pretty plant. I also have a terribly quivery bottom lip and some watery eyes and therefore do not have the nerve to attempt to post quotes right now for fear that I will break down crying uncontrollably. Quotes will consequently be posted at Some Time That is Not Now.

I am going to miss these kids to the nth degree.

Yes, yes, I do have kindergarten quotes. Yes I am purposely holding off posting them, because . . . this is the second-last batch! And since I will be too busy clinging to the front steps of the school and shouting "NO, I won't go, they CAN'T make me!" to post next Friday's quotes, surely I had better save these for next week . . ? No? Well, they'll be up soon, then.

This post, however, is not for quotes, nor even is it to talk about quotes that are not here (well, hardly). Rather, it's meant to wish a happy Father's Day to all fathers, children of fathers, wives of fathers, fathers of fathers . . . you get the general idea, right?

And, of course, Happy Father's Day to MY father! Who can be seen here with me both "then" . . .



(wasn't I BALD?)



. . . and "now" (not exactly now, though; a year-ago-now, actually. But close enough. And I am not bald anymore!)

I should possibly just throw out my calendar, for all the attention I pay to it!

This weekend marks my second attempt to complete that annoying, tedious story I tried to complete in a weekend last summer, and WOULD have done, too, if Isaiah hadn't given both Claire and me his cold and knocked us off our feet for almost a week. I am really, really planning to not get a cold this weekend. I don't know, though; I was in Zellers today following my grocery shopping (peaches, yay! And tomatoes! I am drooling just thinking of them) and it felt germy to me. Or maybe that's just my paranoia? I so very much want to finish this already.

On the brighter side of my shopping excursion, I picked up a bunch of DVDs for five bucks each, so that was exciting, and when in the ladies' room I heard the woman in the stall next to me rattle the latch, pause, rattle it once more and then say ". . . well, now I can't get out."

Her friend rescued her, and I waited 'til they left before I laughed.

I show less tact than that when I am in the classroom.

( Or maybe they're just funnier there )

Updated to include words from Little A, shouted over the phone as Jessie tried to talk with me:

"'piderman! 'piderman! Ud whudeber uh 'pider dan! Dinna beb, enny dide . . . doobadeedoobadeedoobadee 'PIDERMAN!"

Well, all right, it's not. But I am posting Friday things today because on the actual Friday I went to the movies with Claire and then spent Saturday and Sunday in my pyjamas wracked with general malaise. The one bright spot (well, hardly bright, was it? Very shadowy, in fact. Riddled with flesh-eating shadows. I can't believe they bill this as a kids' show, sometimes) was of course Saturday's Doctor Who. And while on that topic, may I just ask: what is up with the strange little girl? The one whose psychiatrist told her that her life is not real? I mean, yes, I love that she was just chatting with the Doctor and all, and I love how her channel surfing nearly made the library collapse (kids! DON'T TOUCH MUMMY AND DADDY'S REMOTE! You could kill the Doctor!) but I would just hate to find out she's like . . . some abstract concept orbiting through space that made her own self up to combat her loneliness. And I wouldn't even put it past this show to do that.

But enough about that, I expect we'll find out next week anyway. Meantime, quotes! From the kids I will miss more than I care to think about, come June 21st . . .

( I am therefore relishing my every last minute with them as much as I can )

As you can see, he had a complete and utter blast. I also suspect he is more than half in love with Little A, Jessie's daughter. He pushed her down the slide, then grabbed her hand and clung on for dear life, and finally chased her all over the playground until she sought refuge on the bench, whereupon he grabbed her and hugged her til her eyes popped just a bit.

If she doesn't run screaming the next time she sees him, we'll know it's Meant to Be.

( Now, for pictures )

This is supposed to be a five quotes meme, but really, who can choose just five? I assembled quite a pile of them myself, then snipped and chopped and all that fun stuff but I still only got it narrowed down to nine that I couldn't bear to part with. So this is a five quotes plus four quotes meme, and I tag anybody who wants to be tagged, because I don't want anybody to bear the burden of guilt for not wanting or being able to oblige their tagged state!

The basic idea is that you visit this page and keep refreshing it until you have five quotes (or five plus four quotes, or some other number that appeals to you, personally) that describe some part of you, your life, your outlook thereon . . . anything like that.

Have fun! And here are mine.


The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
~William James

People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly.
~Brendan Francis

Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?
~Frank Scully

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.
~G. K. Chesterton

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.
~Agatha Christie

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
~Henry L. Mencken

Even sheep should have brains enough not to follow the wolf.
~Joseph Goodfield

Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
~Mark Twain

Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F. Kennedy

I am exhausted and weighted down with virus, but before I follow Isaiah's excellent example and trundle my weary way to bed I thought I'd post this-- my camera behaved exceptionally well tonight (or maybe I have just FINALLY mastered the art of manual mode) and although I took the lion's share of the photos, Jessie kindly snapped a few of me with Himself.

It was in all likelihood the only time he sat still while he was out of his car seat tonight.

Still fighting a bit of an infection in my nose and throat . . . I suspect the culprit is Russian D, who coughed into my face quite a few times a couple weeks ago. Anybody know how to say "cover your mouth" in Russian?? Ah, well, bless my twenty-two, affectionate little petri dishes; life might be healthier without them but it would also be tragically boring!

As a super special third birthday gift (hah) Isaiah had his meds switched up, hopefully to allow for a more even dosage so he isn't so . . . WIRED throughout the day, only to crash the moment he takes them. He's scheduled for another MRI in the not-so-distant future because we STILL don't know what is causing the seizures. Claire is away in NYC for the weekend, so I have him (and his new dosage schedule) all to myself for today, tonight and a bit of tomorrow, meaning that this should be INTERESTING.

To make it even more interesting, I made us a playdate for today! Lately I've been spending time with Jessie, the kindergarten assistant in Mrs B's room; she has a little girl just a few months younger than the Boy. I've met little A (Jessie's daughter) a few times, and although she is far more articulate and generally better able to focus on just about ANYTHING than Isaiah is, we're still going to see how they get along(!) We're taking them to the park this evening after a bit of shopping (the shopping being purely for us, not the kids) so here's hoping it goes well. We would actually be taking the dogs, too, except this is just not a good idea, so we won't. Jessie has the biggest freaking puppy I have ever seen, a six month old Lab/Shepherd mix named Diesel who is LARGER THAN YOUR AVERAGE GOLDEN RETRIEVER. It might have been a good idea except that Diesel is . . . well . . . a six month old puppy who is larger than your average Golden Retriever. And my dog is a Maltese who has been twice bitten by strange dogs, and now reacts accordingly whenever he meets --well-- a strange dog. So the dogs get to stay at home, instead, though Jessie and I do constantly fuss over how much we wish we could let them be together.

I am also doing a final proofread on the latest chap of Kingdoms Come and, having long since come to terms with the fact that I should NOT have started this one when I wanted to start the other fic first (I even knew it at the time I started writing but I didn't care and the fact that it lags now is ENTIRELY my own fault), I plan to post the new chap in an hour or two. This may mean I have taken leave of what little sanity remains to me, but ah, well . . . I had sort of relinquished hope of retaining it quite a while ago, anyway!

Went a little mad with the camera today! They made flowers from construction paper for math class (the petals had to make a discernible and repeatable pattern, hence the math-y-ness of them) and I took pics of almost all of them with their completed or nearly-completed projects. A lot of the shots blurred, sadly-- there is one corner of the class where the lighting is such that my camera will not behave no matter how long I fiddle with the settings, and I happened to be working with them in that very corner. The blurryness of the pics in no way diminished their utter delight at seeing themselves on the screen, though, and I think I'll be cropping at least one or two pics so that I can have some pretty paper flower icons.

As to why Friday is only my second-favourite day of the week . . . well, Fridays mean that the weekend is coming, and yes of course weekends mean rest and recuperation and whatnot. But Mondays are the best. Because Monday means I get to start another week with THEM.

( Until then, however, I suppose I can manage to relax! )

Just sorting through all my pictures and wishing very much that I could share a few! Can't, of course, since they're of, you know, other peoples' children(!) but I love these kids so much, I could just brag them up all day!

I would so badly want to show you the utter, radiant glee that suffuses Veronica's face when she is seized with a Brilliant Idea (the adorably inspirational little finger in my Eureka! icon is hers) as well as the moments when she is lost in her deepest contemplations. I would love to let you see her side by side with Betty, the pair of them so utterly unalike and yet so bizarrely similar that I never get tired of talking to them.

I would love the chance to show you Russian D at his most solemn and reserved, huddled in the corner on Poetry Day, as well as at his most boisterous-- grabbing Focused J for a great big bear hug, and smooching poor, bewildered Bud soundly on both cheeks. Very European yet, our D.

I want to show you the frequent and prolonged looks of deep contemplation on Milady M's face, and the impish, unreserved, full-body-dancing glee of Elfin H. I'd love to show you the many faces of Dreamy L, L at her sweetest, her silliest, her most outraged and her most intensely focused (girl wears me out just watching her, sometimes).

I want to show you the way Focused J faces the camera like it's an adversary to be overcome, and how he also relaxes completely when he doesn't know he is observed. I'd love to show you Bud and Dimpled E bent over Bud's zippers, rejoicing in the Total Power that comes of being able to transform your own jeans into shorts at will.

I'd get such a charge out of sharing so much more of them with you than I'm able to, because I sometimes get the feeling that the comments alone don't cut it. I can gush about them from sunup to sundown, but I still feel like I'm not doing the whole situation justice, and I so badly want to do so.

You've got to understand. These kids, their every quirk, their every fiercely perfect imperfection . . . all of them are such a large part of what makes me one hundred and fifty thousand percent convinced I am in the exact right place at the exact right time. Nothing this perfect, this seamless, this utterly meant-to-be happens by chance. Nothing, if you will forgive the analogy, that you pull off the rack at Wal Mart ever fits you like this does-- this time, this place, this job, these kids and yes, okay, the fantastic adults I also work with . . . every single seam, stitch and hemline, every part of this fantastic garment . . . it was tailor-made precisely, perfectly for me.

God forgive me for losing my temper, however briefly, with anyone who would seek to tell me otherwise.

Again, I am not one for real reaction posts. If you want an actual, spiffy, analytical reaction post then by all means trot on over here to check out what intrikate88 wrote about House and Bones and even a teeny bit about DW, though not so much for content on that one.

Or, if you would actually like to read my vaguely spoilerish ramblings, by all means continue on.

( Cut for vaguely spoilerish-ness rambly-type stuff )

Mish mash of stuff here . . . Molly over at Adventures in Mercy has a new post up, entitled Fundamentalists Need to Be Loved. Now, I love Molly's posts anyway, both on general principle and of course for the fact that she's just so cool (yeah, I have Standards!) but this one is especially spiffy not only because it's both sweet and sad at the same time, but is also generally awesome for its combination of humour, humility, and a very real dash of general looking-back-ness, all of which are the ingredients that keep me returning regularly to her blog to see what she's up to lately. Highly recommended!

I also have kindergarten quotes here, but as a special bonus I have decided to open with a quote of my own, one born of my fierce and determined efforts to get myself, my sister and the dog home to Parrsboro this weekend. It was fired off through cyberspace to poor Katie, who will shortly log onto YIM and read the following:

AURRGHH i had planned to be done your scene by now but there's this stupid policy thing at the car rental place, where you need to make a cash deposit, and to that i say something LOUD AND PROFANE because i do not have 300 dollars cash and they are out of their blinking MINDS. and poor gram is trying to get hold of sharon and see if she banks online and can e-mail me the extra hundred i need and i think car rental places are the ANTICHRIST.

or at least VERY BAD PEOPLE

As you can see, the kindergartener's natural tendencies to speak in run-on sentences and to overreact to even the most reasonable of rules and requests are beginning to rub off on me . . .

( And now, for things that are much happier! )

Aunt Anne, Gram, Joyce and Uncle Jeff are all now coordinating with me, and we are hard at work on the car rental angle. I love this-- they are trying a combination of different approaches, and I have to say, when they really put their minds to something, my family is rather dizzying to behold!

I wonder if Dakarai knows that it's all his fault we can't just take the bus and be done with it . . .

E(again)TA: Mum is driving up and taking us back tomorrow morning. I am definitely delighted to know we'll be seeing everybody, and in fact would be infinitely chipper-er about this if I weren't so worn out! I had Grand Plans to go see Prince Caspian tonight but it turns out Claire works til 11, so we can't go together. I don't quite feel equal to going alone, so . . . I think I will just stay at home and read! *is bookish*

Having been blindsided by a sudden, unexpected and fierce desire to write one-shot Susan songfic, I am flustered. For reasons of necessity I don't rely on inspiration for completing multi-chapter fic, but it's the very breath, life and soul of all my one-shots; the problem is I cannot tell if inspiration will last long enough to allow me to complete this fic. If it does, well, spiffy! New fic for the first time in eons! If not . . . well, that's one more unfinished piece of pixellated dust-gathering frustration cluttering up my hard drive.

So. Quandary.

(the song, incidentally, is "White Rose" by Heather Dale-- mostly just the first and/or final verse and possibly the chorus. If the writing stalls, I have wasted a perfectly good song on an unfinished fic . . . but if it sticks long enough, I could make it Good, I know I could. Neurrrgh)

ETA: I got a review or PM or something sometime last year that said I wrote an awful lot of fic based in whole or in part on Heather's lyrics. I think I was bland and polite in replying, but the more I think on it, the more I think "um, yes!" and am soo happy about it. After all it was my first time seeing her in concert that kick-started the biggest portion of all my Narnia writing, and it's always one of her songs that sends me back to working on one or more pieces following a dry spell. That, plus the fastest Isaiah EVER went to sleep for me was when I sang him several of her songs. He stopped fussing two verses into "Holly, Ivy and Yew" and by the time I finished up "Bow to the Crown" he was out cold. What's NOT to love, after that?! :P

Really, really not one for reaction posts. I will therefore say only that House and Bones combined last night to ensure I did not actually get to sleep until nearly one in the morning, which is absurd and insane and probably unhealthy, but it's not like I make a habit of that anymore, so I think I can probably let it go just this once.

As long as they aren't like that next week, too.

Also, re: Doctor Who this coming Saturday-- FINALLY! I have been waiting for the Agatha Christie ep since they first announced it. The previews look very exciting, but I suppose that's their job, now, isn't it? Nevertheless I am sure it will be exactly like last week's ep in that it will in no way live up to my tenderly cherished expectations, yet at the same time will cleverly manage to surpass expectations I didn't even know I had, therefore balancing out quite nicely and leaving me with a vague feeling of "was that really as good as it feels like it was, or is that just the adrenaline talking?" and not really minding much either way.

I do hope they work in a Dorothy Sayers reference, though. Then my night would be complete.

If there were a resident artist to be named, it would be Claire, hands down. Girl's got some kind of gift. She uses it maybe twice a year, mind you, but . . . she's pretty awesome. Something to do with her spatial reasoning skills, I think-- she can reproduce just about any image you give her, down to the detail, whereas when I am compelled to pick up a pencil --even more rarely than Claire-- my only hope lies in drawing something purely from imagination.

Even that doesn't usually go too well.

That might actually be for the best, since if it did go well, I would probably waste thousands of hours recreating scenes from dreams and fairy tales and Narnia and all sorts of fun things, so maybe it's best that Claire, who seldom if ever decides to sit down and draw, is the one who actually, you know, CAN.

Occasionally, however, I do have the need to draw. It's certainly not a need born of rational thought, and definitely not born of a desire to feel good about my own abilities (!) but rather it seems, as near as I can tell, to come from an understanding that something has suddenly got to be put to paper, and even as poorly as I am certain to put it I seem to be the one who is required to do that.

( All of which is just to say that you really shouldn't expect anything phenomenal, here. Just me, being desperately, confusedly, fumblingly creative. Sort of. )