Storytime Sunday: The House

I stand at the road and stare at the building trying to reconcile it with the one from my childhood. It's just a non-descript house in a row of non-descript houses crawling slowly up the hill towards the church. Was that all it ever was? I ponder as I watch a lazy bumblebee loop-to-loop its way to the geraniums standing sentry along the front of the house.

The world stops. Even the breeze has disappeared. The unusually sunny sky paints the house but it's just a facade on the depressing stucco walls. Flecks of gray paint commit suicide from the front door overhang revealing the old pale blue underneath. Like a line of marching ants, four doorbells stretch along the doorframe. I can't help but think to when there used to be only one.

Movement.

The moment is broken as I feel the breeze on my cheek.

An ad for Skysports whispers out the window defeating the lace curtain’s attempt to hide life from the outside world. The whisper reaches the church bells and they answer in dulcet tones: it’s one o’clock and we don’t want Skysports.

The roar of life comes from the road and the bumblebee takes off.

You can never go home again.

Shoot for the Moon. Earth's Gravitational Pull Will Prevent You From Obtaining Orbit But Maybe You'll Land Somewhere Interesting.

After a fabulous weekend in Nanaimo during which we visited Gabriola for the Theatre Festival, played a total of 11 games of rummy (so, roughly 100 hands), drank a few bottles of wine, drank a few gallons of tea, and discovered I had injured myself, the rest of Summer has flown by.
Did you know it's September 1st today?

I know!

I realised that out of all my plans for the summer, very few of them actually happened but I'm okay with that.

Camping plans fell through at the last minute. Hiking plans never happened due to something else happening pretty much every weekend. Travel to Vancouver and Seattle never materialised for the same reason. I did a lot of running but conflicting schedules and then injury stopped my goal of four-times-a-week.

I did get to catch up with some old friends at Shawnigan. I sat in the gardens at Government House and read a good book. I had multiple BBQs with awesome people. I verbally committed to going to Guinea in December 2012 and teaching the Kubian village ladies to sew school uniforms.

Wait, what?

Yeah, you read that right. But don't worry, go back and reread it just to make sure. I'll wait.

Through the magic of links, I'll remind you of the time I said:

5) MoonDance is talking about going back to Guinea for another dance/drum intensive learning holiday in 2012. Actually, Lynn suggested it a few years ago and then later said it wasn't a firm plan. Tonight Erin and I decided that we're just going to talk about it like it's happening because then it will. So, I'm totally going to Guinea in 2012. You heard it here first.

Erin and I were (sort of) joking but it worked. Moondance is going to Guinea in 2012 for dance and drum lessons. (While I have verbally committed to doing this, I will refrain from saying I'm actually going until I can sit down and do some accounting math and planning.)

Moondance is very closely related to Matoto as Matoto was born out of Moondance's last trip to Guinea. At at working bee last week, we were discussing our school in Kubian which will begin teaching students this October! (very excited about that) when the topic of school uniforms came up. I remembered a project in Tanzania where the local women were taught to sew the uniforms which in turn gave the additional income to the mostly single women.

Why can't we do that?

Except we need someone who sews.

And that, my friends, is how I ended up verbally committing to going to Guinea.

(Actually, I told them that if I am able to make the trip to Guinea, I would teach sewing but that the *if* is quite substantial at this time. They gave me a 'uh-huh' look which clearly states they expect me to fully make it happen. I do, after all , have 15 months to get it sorted.)

Something else I need to get sorted out in that time? French.

Guinea's only offical language is French. While I know that many of our teachers will have some English and many of my fellow travellers will have some French, I'd like to be able to do most of the teaching with as little translation as possible. In other words, I should have started learning French yesterday.

I'm nothing if not ambitious... and slightly crazy.

Mostly crazy.

Storytime Sunday: Andrea's an Idiot

I woke up this morning trying to remember why I wanted to take my laptop with me to my mom's. She's away for a few days camping so I'm watering her plants.

Failing to remember why I was so "got to remember my laptop" the night before, I set off to the land of free internet my mom's sans technology with plans to water her flowers, make a cup of tea and watch last night's episode of Doctor Who.

Well, I wanted to bring my laptop because it has all my stories on it. Kind of hard to post my writing when I don't have it.

And Space Channel is taking their sweet time getting the new Who up on the site. (I prefer to stream things legally when given the option.)

And there's no milk for my tea (like last time when I brought milk and found some milk left in the fridge) so I can even enjoy a cuppa on the back porch surrounded by my mom's lovely flowers.

So far, this Sunday's been a bit of a bust.

I Can't Quit You

Shannon (mother of the awesome 'J') recently posted about her love-hate relationship with facebook and it got me thinking about my own love-hate with social media. Anyone who knows me INR (in real life) can attest, it's mostly a love relationship.

For all I cringe when I think about what some people are willing to share on the site (for the record, I keep my stuff on pretty tight lockdown but I also very rarely share anything that I wouldn't share on a public site... well, other than my last name), facebook has always contained many more pros than cons for me. As someone who loves to travel, facebook has allowed me to keep in contact with friends I've met along the way. For that alone, facebook is worth it.

Unlike twitter where I've made friends I didn't previously have, facebook is about connecting with people I already have a pre-existing relationship with. So imagine my surprise one lazy April morning in 2010 when I get a friend request from a name I don't recognize and a profile picture which doesn't trigger any memories for me. I check out our mutual friends.

She knows Cormac, a cousin from Armagh.

Cormac had moved to the States and married an Andrea; she had changed her last name on facebook only a few months before and I had received two friends requests for her in error. I am about to send a message explaining I was not the 'Andrea M' she is looking for when I realised that she's friends with Paddy. Paddy, a cousin originally from Dublin, lives in Galway and has never been to visit Cormac in the US. It was unlikely that this person was looking for the other Andrea.

I close the message box and went back to staring at the picture.

Nothing.

I let a few days pass while I mulled over who this person might be. Like me, her profile is pretty guarded so I couldn't do much snooping to determine who she is. I take the plunge and accept the request. If nothing else, it will give me a chance to snoop around her profile and figure out who she was before I unfriended her.

Chatting with my dad on the phone the next day, I ask if he knew who this Estelle-person was.

"She's Fonsie's youngest."

I had my answer. To the best of my knowledge, I had never met Estelle. In fact, I didn't meet Uncle Fonsie (Alphonsus, it has nothing to do with Happy Days) until he came to visit us in Canada when I was 15. My dad was the eighth child in a family of 11.* Fonsie was much older (first or second born, I'm not sure) and, according to my dad, had moved out by the time my dad was old enough to form a relationship with him.

Then there was some family drama. You know how large families are. Or maybe you don't which is why I have to write this. All I know about it was snippets overheard during conversations between my dad and his other siblings. I knew he existed but I only saw him when I was 15 and I haven't seen him since.

In short, Fonsie and my dad were never close and he was an uncle in name only.

And his youngest daughter (who is a few years older than me) wanted to be facebook friends.

Ultimately, that has been my biggest joy in facebook: the ability to develop relationships with my cousins independent of my father's relationship with them.

Living so far away from that half of my family, my relationships with them have always been through my dad's contact with his siblings. My knowledge was only what was passed on from their parents to my parents. If our parents weren't big phone buddies, well, I often didn't know they existed beyond "this aunt/uncle has x number of kids".

For the first time ever in my life, I don't had to be in Ireland to talk to my cousins, learn what's happening in their lives, and share what's going on in mine. I've learned more about my cousins as individuals in the last three years when I added the first one, than I ever did in the 28 years prior.

For that, Facebook, I will always appreciate you.

*We had to do our family trees for Grade 8 French and then present them to the class. Most people were done in two to three minutes. After five minutes, my teacher cut me off because I had demonstrated my knowledge of the vocabulary. I hadn't even had a chance to talk about my mom's side of the family.

To a Special Girl On Her Third Birthday

A very special girl turned three recently.

She got a bike with no pedals from her grandparents. What a lucky girl! It sounds like she had a wonderful birthday weekend with her family.

I have one little surprise left for her.

I hope you will all forgive my singing!

R.I.P. Jack Layton

Dear Readers Mom, I had a post all ready to go about my weekend (and the post will still go up at some point) but I woke up this morning to the news that Jack Layton, leader of the the New Democratic Party, had passed away. As much as I strive to keep politics off my blog because that's not why I started this in the first place, I love politics. I wanted to use my little corner of the Internet to say good bye to an amazing man.

[Edit]: You can read Jack's final letter to Canadians here.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world. ~Jack Layton

Dear Jack,

I woke up this morning to a flurry of tweets about your passing. I hoped and hoped it was some cruel joke like the Gordon Lightfoot death-tweets a few years back but as more and more respectable people added to the tweets and linked to CBC news, I knew that you really had passed away.

I cried.

There will be a lot written about you in the coming days. It will be mostly good, as happens after someone has passed away. And as it should be when the person was as generally good as you. Stephen Harper has already issued a statement. Between you and me, behind his sadness at your passing, I think part of him is relieved that he won't have to face off against you in the House of Commons this fall.

Of course, that is assuming Harper can feel emotions. Scientists are still running experiments to determine if he can.

You were one of the few politicians that I actually liked and respected. Although I did not always agree with you (politically, I understand why you disagreed with Elizabeth May being in the debates. Emotionally, I think you were a dick about it), I always felt like you put the Canadian population ahead of everything else when it came to your job. You were one of the few politicians I wanted to meet. I wanted to shake your hand and say 'thank you' for restoring my faith in politicians.

You were amazing in the last election. The NDP was the only party with ads on online TV channels, the only one with ads in bus stations, and the only one who really seemed to go after the youth vote. The result was the largest NDP result ever (and in a few of the ridings you lost, you lost by a handful of votes.) and the decimation the Bloc in Quebec. As much as it pained me to see Steven Harper finally get his majority party, I was so proud of the strides you had made for your party.

You were incredible.

There was a passion in everything you did. There was a determination in your actions. Yet, there was a relatability which resonated with people. Canada even voted you the party leader they'd most like to have a beer with. Perhaps it was because you were so passionate and determined that they responded to you. Whatever it was, your passing is a sad day for Canada and Canadian politics.

Thank you for everything you brought to the House of Commons. Thank you for years and years of service on behalf of your fellow Canadians. Thank you for being you: for being open about your fight with cancer, for being passionate about your beliefs, for challenging us all to be better, and for being strong in the face of it all.

You will be missed.

Just Popping By!

I've had one of those weeks. It's both hard to believe it's Thursday but I also can't believe it's already Thursday.

You know this type of week?

After a busy weekend, I've had a busier week. Family in from out of town, in the office for most of the week (but not today! Hello, Mr. Sun! I've missed you! And you, Mr. Exlamation Mark! I've missed you too!), running plans, meetings. I feel like I've done more this week than I have in the last two. Is it Saturday yet? No? You mean I still have to go to work tomorrow?

At the same time, the week has been flying by. I need another day to sit down and read a book, or have a hot relaxing bath, or watch a movie and crochet. I need it to be Tuesday so I still have a lovely family dinner of BBQ salmon and my mom's awesome pilaf to look forward to. Or Wednesday so I can visit with my favourite Vietnamese family in Victoria. Both those events went by way too fast.

Still, I'll get to catch up on my relaxing this weekend so I can't complain too much. I'm off to Nanaimo (well, technically Cedar) and will have free internet for the weekend so hopefully I'll have more than five minutes to sit down and say hello then.

Until then, a few photos of my last summer wanderings around Cedar.