You're Not The Boss of Me

Got a letter in the mail today. Addressed to me and everything. 

'Dear Spouses or Spouse-ish Type People,

We know you value your time with your partner, who has been deployed, delayed, tasked, on course, on exercise, on stand-by, and many other things that have repeatedly taken him or her away from you for the last (13) years.

We also assume that you have no idea what your partner does because communication is a lost art and when have you had any time to take an active interest or even ask, what with all that time away?

To honour this time apart and the frankly poor level of data retention on your part, we are hosting a "What do you even DO, really?" event.

On a Saturday.

There's, like, 52 of those in a year so you will happily spare one to come and be talked at for a polite 5 hour lecture on how to ask your spouse where all this money has been coming from every two weeks for the last 13 years, and maybe get an explanation of why their clothes all match.

Plus, there's a lunch! It won't be as nice as the brunch you had reservations for at that place you love. You know, the one that does the eggs that way? Call and cancel because we have cold sandwiches and instant coffee!

To ensure your willing attendance we're going to give your partner a rare weekend off. This way YOU get to feel what it's like to sit in a drafty hangar while your partner does alone all the many things you had planned to do together.

Unless he's a section head. Those guys have oodles of spare time on the weekends. That guy will be in to work FOR SURE. And what better way to spend some quality time together. Really, it's like we have to plan your marriage for you.

Honestly, if you both just took the time to ask a few basic questions about what goes on all day, or had bothered to come to any of the last 13 years worth of family day tours, we wouldn't find ourselves in this situation.

Annually. Because, good news, we're probably going to host one of these every year!

Sincerely,


Your Partner's Boss, so...no pressure.'

Bonum enim est ex familia! ~ For the good of the family!

Something Funky

The front hall is filled with boots and bags 

and mysterious bits of unconstrained, 

self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.

There are balled up socks on the stair.

Meeker is blissfully asleep 

atop a pile of unmentionables that I won't mention.

Jesse is doing her best to descend into the basement

where a Bon-Tempi, Easy-Beat-One version of "My Music At Work"

is being sung by a voice that makes my heart jump,

my throat tighten and my eyes fill.

 Hello, Heartbeat. You're home.

Domestic Bubbles Burst

It's just the two of us for Thanksgiving this year, Husband and I. Normally we would have a house full of folks too far from their home province for a quick weekend trip, or we would be invading someone else's house for heaps of turkey and endless board games. 

This year we are keeping it simple. I mean, relatively simple. I had suggested a simple picnic and some turkey subs from Subway but this was obviously too simple and resulted in a Look. So this year, we're simply having a simple meal for two, consisting quite simply of turkey with citrus and cranberry dressing, gravy, creamy mashed potatoes, roasted turnip and sweet potatoes, fresh corn, peas, maple-glazed carrots, Brussels sprouts sauted with bacon and almonds, honey slaw, and pumpkin pie with fresh cream for dessert.

So simple even I can do it.

Division of labour is determined by skill set. I will do all of the cooking because I am very good at not getting distracted by shiny things or politics or accidentally constructing a wing suit instead of not burning the house down. Husband will do all of the clean up because I am doing all of the shopping and prep and cooking. On a sunny day off. In the Fall. Indoors. Nowhere near my canoe. 

It occurs to me as I write this that while I was out buying all of the simple ingredients for our simple dinner and not, as it were, selecting a cute gingham table cloth and a bottle of wine for the romantic Fall picnic of my dreams, that I may have forgotten to purchase dish soap, which we are now simply out of. 

I suddenly seem to be incapable of peeling even an apple without using four pans and a muffin tin.

Friendly Manitoba: Weather You Can Stand It Or Not

It's Fall now. In Manitoba that means rains and mist and much passionate wooshing about of leaves in the wind and there are few things that will brand you an outsider faster than your reactions to the local weather. I tend to carry an umbrella when the weather is foul, partly because I think an umbrella adds the touch of class that a hoodie will never match and partly because some day there will come the ideal convergence of sidewalk, gutter, puddle and lamp post for a moment of epic Gene Kelly perfection. I will also wear extra splashy, super sassy, lace-up rubber boots at the slightest provocation.

Seriously. They're plaid and go up to here.

Many times in Manitoba have I been told "you mustn't be from around here." More than in any other province apart from B.C., where for practical hurricane related reasons, an umbrella is really just a sacrifice to the capricious gods of wind and shingling.

I'm just saying that in general, I like to be ready in case of rain. Apparently this attitude is considered frivolously light-hearted and suspicious. Such things are not to be tolerated in a province where the population is so endearingly dependent on their steady intake of Vitamin D that I have seen people stop in their tracks to glare at fluffy-duckling clouds on a summer's day, in much the same way one reacts to line jumpers and people who talk during the movie.

I am not going to change, because clearly I am killing it when it comes to living life, but I am thinking I need to buy many more umbrellas in many more obnoxious colours.

Maybe plaid, to match the boots.

A Poem of Much Busyness

I was supposed to be writing yesterday. 

At least, that was the plan. I didn't, however, 

account for the abysmal,

you will agree, 

disorganization of my book, 
as it were,
shelves. 

Who put Darwin next to Gary Larson 

and why are all my Pratchetts out of chronological-by-story arc order?

You see my problem.

No one could be expected to work

under these conditions.

Which is why going out and buying a new bookshelf

was the only way I was going to get any writing done.

Foam packing material is quite diverting, the static clingliness

must be investigated. It sticks to 

walls, 

sweaters,

black dogs,

orange dogs,

but absolutely will not stick to inexplicably jittery cats.

Extra pieces left over. Pffft,who needs them? Seems sturdy enough 

without "small dowel #2 and associated flanges." Not a word I 

get to use often enough: FLAN-ges. Fuh-LAN-ges. 

Ah, look at all this room. This space, such a luxury! Who will live here... Natural sciences? Philosophers? Douglas Adams?

I can only hope that tomorrow's writing tasks go half so well.

Remember to Dress in Layered Cliches

I keep the secret hidden for most of the year,

Behind Star Wars t-shirts and scuffed sneakers, 
And a giddy optimism that I will use like a blunt object, 
Or a deflector dish! Yes, let's go with that one.

I wear my true colours in the Fall.

When the leaves are a-twirl in a wind that can't decide if it wants to be warm or cold. 

When the sunshine and the rainclouds wrestle for the same patch of bluest blue sky.

When the green flees the fields where the geese start to gather.

That's when I don my Lulus, head to the nearest cafe with book of Important Essays in hand, 

Declaring to the world with my tall flat white coffee,

Unapproachably oversized dark sunglasses, organic lip stain flavoured with honey from only the most self-righteous of bees,
And wearing a meticulously messy top knot over a perfectly baggy sweater emblazoned with a single, profound directive like "Be" or "Dream" or "Verb"...

This is when I declare that YES, I am a white girl.

Jesse's Name

They call me Old Girlie, because my cinnamon has turned to grey, and Sweet Potato which, as a descriptor, is perhaps a bit too accurate, but I don't mind, as long as the peanut butter toast keeps coming. They call me Dearest and Baby Girl, and Come-On-Honey-Bee when I take too long to think about things as I sniff along the trail. They call me Silly Sloot, as I lay in the sun with my privates on glorious display.

I am alright with this. 

I am even okay with being called Jesse, even though that is not my name, because I hear my real name in their voices.

I hear it when She uses my back for a pillow while She reads to me, even though I don't really care for post-apocalyptic fiction. He speaks it as he rubs my hips on cold mornings to make the ache a little better. I hear it when they call me over and over in the too-early morning, when my warm bed is all I really want. 

I hear it when I suffer the indignity of being lifted down from the car, before my legs betray me and I fall. 

I hear it every day.

My name is Awesome.