Meaning is Lost

You want spending in the 3rd world, so you cause damage that forces spending here instead.

You want world peace, yet protest with violence.

You want an end to genocides and wars, and protest by putting lives in danger.

You want to protect the environment, yet travel far to bring your message, burning countless tons of fossil fuels and spending dollars better spent elsewhere to do it.

You want the attention of world leaders, yet cover your face and deny journalists the opportunity to film you delivering that message.

You want police to leave you alone, yet take your demonstrations to extremes that force them to engage and act.

You want aid to underdeveloped countries, yet travel here to break windows instead of traveling there to build a school or a well.

You oppose government intervention, yet will be appalled if you have to wait for treatment in government-sponsored hospitals after you are wounded in the skirmishes you start.

You blame big banking for the 2008 financial meltdown, and demonstrate by smashing banks in the country seen as the most stable, where the least people have been affected by lost homes and bankruptcies assisted by banks encouraging overreaching on debt load.

You want to encourage freedoms by holding a city hostage.

Meaning and purpose has been lost in the layers of contradictions and irony, in the actions of some that obscure the messages of many others. There are people on both side worthy of blame, people on both sides worthy of support. Those hoping to avoid clashes and either protect people or deliver messages peaceably have lost out in all of this, tarred with the same brush as those who came to it looking for hard lines and violent confrontation.

It is all so sad, on so many levels.

Beauty

The air is amazing yesterday and today - warm, but not sticky, and redolent with sweetness. Flowers are in full bloom, and two of my favourites are filling the air to bursting with their scent. The air is clear, the light gold-toned, and the linden trees and jasmine bushes are pushing their perfume up my nose, filling my senses with wafts of their heady, rich deliciousness until I feel fair swoony. Can it stay just like this all year? It's simply gorgeous, and I am revelling.

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Pumpkinpie danced away down the hall to her room, having found her favourite pajamas in the clean laundry and donned them in mine. They are striped, with a tiara on the shirt, and the statement, "Canadian Beauty."

I followed her, preparing for our nightly rituals. "Okay, little Canadian Beauty, into bed with you," I instructed her.

"These are my favourite pajamas," she informed me, "because I am Canadian, but am I a beauty?"

She asked it without guile, without doubt or expectation, as only a child could - but what a loaded question!

I kept it simple, "You are beautiful to me, alright, my girl," I said, planting a kiss on her forehead as I settled in beside her for her tucking-in.

It's strange, wanting her at once to know and have the confidence of knowing her own beauty, and at the same time, wanting her free of the knowledge, free of the boastfulness or using of it that can result from that. The fact is that her delicate features, bright, wide eyes, a pretty colouring make her impossibly lovely, but I find the expressing of that to her a touchy balance.

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Last week, one day's work called for practical, even manly clothes, the kind of thing that takes me miles from my girly side and into hardcore comfort and ruggedness. I find that slippery territory, for I am a girl who likes my comfort, and it's easy for me to slide into slobbish, grungey, comfiness, but as much as there is ease in that, I find it also divorces me from the side of myself that enjoys dressing for anything but that.

The next day, then, I went for a snugger dress than any in my closet, paired with a great pair of patent peep-toe pumps to balance it out. Comments all around and some of them flirty rounded out the return to feeling like a proper girl.

I seem to exist on the edge of sliding away entirely from sexy all the time anyhow between the demands on my energy and attention, my total lack of girly skills like hair and makeup, and my resistance to suffering to look good, so it's good to bring myself back in touch with it every now and then!
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Subway Sweets

I stood this morning on a crowded subway, and two women drew my eye. I immediately wondered - friends, or partners?

I took closer stock, wondering what had made that impression on me, and found that they were nearly identical in many ways. Same style of shoe: practical, athletic, but not a runner, necessarily. Sam cotton twill pants, business shirt, and hoodie, though in different colours. Watches on the same wrists, short, practical haircuts on both small, neat heads. Wedding bands that seemed to match.

They seemed so together. Their bodies were angled towards each other in a V, one looked deep into the other's face as she spoke to her, reading her response there.

Partners. I was sure of it. And then, confirmation - at a busy stop, one leaned over a dotted a tiny kiss on the temple of the other as she turned to leave the train.

What a sweet morning ritual, to ride the train with your love.

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Further on in the ride, the train now largely empty, I noticed a man, standing by the doors.

A short man, and thick, with hands to match. His pleated and belted trousers didn't add any impression of height. His black hair was slightly long, and curly, falling back from his forehead.

When he turned, I was surprised to see a congenial expression twinkling in round bright eyes, a beaked nose, and a mouth that pooched out slightly, with a poutier lower lip above his double chin.

Surprised why? Because but for his brown skin and fuller head of hair, he could easily pass for Danny DeVito. Who knew he would have a South Asian twin?

Looking Up

Life is improving in leaps and bounds over here suddenly.

Misterpie has been taking a course that took every Saturday I wasn't at work as well as one evening, while I work two other nights. Add in soccer another night, swimming lessons on the day off and a few bouts of illnesses, and it's been a whirlwind.

But suddenly, we're approaching the end of the tunnel. Spring is here, and with it the end of cold and flu season, warmer weather with less layers, and lighter evenings. Misterpie's Saturdays are done, and he has only a couple more evening classes. There are only one more swim class and one or two more nights of soccer.

The Bun has started sleeping through consistently - oh frabjous day! Calloo, callay! - so I am better rested than I have been in a couple of years. Does that ever make a difference.

I have some new dresses in my closet, and have found that my old favourite summer skirts fit just fine (though I need new Tshirts to replace some warped and shrunken old one older than my children), so I can go to work feeling fairly put together, which I appreciate.

And best of all, Misterpie and I have managed to take people up on babysitting offers twice in the past month and go out for dinner! Alone! Without children! It was wonderful. And we've found that we enjoyed it so much, now that can do it without worry because The Bun is sleeping reliably (he doesn't wake well), that we are resolving to start going out for a date night! Just once a month, which we think we can manage, but is still a major step up from once or twice a year. A chance to reconnect, badly needed after such a manic spring. It's like a tiny slice of heaven.

All put together, I feel like I'm emerging from darkness into light, and am looking forward to an even more relaxed summer, with some vacation time coming, The Bun moving to the same care site as Pumpkinpie, and Misterpie off, as well. If we manage to finish off the last bits of the closet and sort the remaining boxes out of our house over the summer with some of that time, I might just be the happiest kitten alive.

Aaah...

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On a separate note - I am holding a giveaway on my review site for older kids and teens books - kittenpie reads kidlit. I will be drawing a winner at the end of this week, so if you would like a shot at winning a copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, go on over and drop a comment!

To the Victim Go The Spoils

She was howling, so was he. I hastened down the stairs to find Misterpie scolding The Bun for whacking Pumpkinpie. I sat on the floor, put my arms around Pumpkinpie, and fed into her drama: "Poor Pumpkinpie! Oh, no! Poor girl! Are you okay?" She ate it up, as she is usually not given much rein for indulging her drama queen act, especially when the role is as victim.

This wasn't about her, though. This lesson was for The Bun, who ran to me, teary and wailing, when I appeared and got completely ignored, since I had heard Misterpie already making the sorry and the hug happen. This lesson was about who gets the sympathy and the attention - and that when you smack somebody up, it sure ain't you.

He whimpered lying on my leg while I tended to Pumpkinpie until he realized he wasn't really getting anywhere, and then just sat by me because he likes being by me.

He absorbed the lesson alright though, because at lunch, when his leg brushed mine, he told me "hurt! Sis leg hurt!" As if, kid. It is, might I add, damn hard not to laugh during this.

My back may have been shaking just a little.