Lori

my baby is nine

On June 5, Charlotte turned nine:

 Not nine days, not nine months – nine years. I’m not really sure where those years went.

Oh, wait. Laundry. Yes, that would be it. Laundry and dishes.

She is our girl of many faces, the drama queen, the ham:

Always entertaining.

Foster drew a picture of Jessie from Toy Story on a card for Charlotte:

 Jessie, a spunky cowgirl, is one of Charlotte’s favourites, which pleases me because she is the antithesis of airhead ‘fashion’ dolls. And yes, he drew Jessie free hand.

Anna needle felted a letter C:

That stands for Charlotte.

(You’re welcome.)

And at risk of getting my butt kicked by my photo-averse mother, here is the birthday girl with her Jam:

 Gah, so sweet.

Happy birthday, my baby.

 

 

my boy is eleven

As usual, I’m running about two weeks behind, so without further ado:

Foster the birthday boy as seen on his big day, which was, yeah, okay, last month, but give me a break. I had to get the film developed.

Ha, not really, but I messed you up for a second there, didn’t I? Remember the days of getting film developed? My kids don’t, of course. And that’s when I start to feel really old. “Film, mother?” they ask. (We’re very high class.) “What is this film whereof you speak?”

Here’s Foster revelling in Pirates of the Caribbean Lego:

His longtime career ambition: Lego designer. He’d be great at it.

And the best gift of all, although he might not realize it at the moment – the love and devotion of his sisters:

They’re a tight little unit, these three, and my wish for all of them is that they’re able to carry that closeness into adulthood.

And that they’ll eventually be able to guilt one another into forking over more for a nice nursing home for me.

Bossypants

Bossypants by Tina Fey. From the inside flap: “Before Liz Lemon, before “Weekend Update,” before “Sarah Palin,” Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV. She has seen both these dreams come true.”

I was both eager and reluctant to read Bossypants – eager because I enjoy Tina Fey’s work on 30 Rock and reluctant because I’d heard several disappointing reviews of the book. The bad reviews all seemed to have the common theme, however, of the readers having been let down because they had really high (read: impossibly high) expectations. This is why I generally avoid books that receive the massive hype and publicity Bossypants received. How could they ever live up to the buzz? I’ve been burned enough times that I now refuse to read most bestsellers, including practically mandatory works like the Harry Potter series or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. I’m tired of getting my hopes up that a book will be really spectacular, only to find it’s simply okay. Or worse, that it’s terrible. This, I’ll think, this is what everyone is having kittens over? And then I’ll spend way too long wondering what’s wrong with me that I don’t enjoy the things everyone else enjoys and, really, I don’t need to spend any more time comparing myself unfavourably to others. Already got that one covered.

So. Bossypants. Thumbs up or thumbs down? I’d say thumbs up. Was it the finest piece of literature I’ve ever read? No. Was it life-changing? No. Was it funny? Yes, by times. It was laugh-out-loud funny occasionally. Sometimes it was thought-provoking and sometimes it was mildly interesting, but I never found it boring. Do I wish I had bought it from the bookstore (for $29.99) instead of borrowing it from the library? No.

Tina Fey comes across as humble and down-to-earth and honest and approachable and a wonderful departure from the ‘diva’ attitude among female entertainers that seems to be in fashion now. If you read the book from the perspective of ‘spending time with an amusing and charming person’ instead of ‘golden words from a comedy genius,’ I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

wedding bells

No, not for me, silly. I already made that mistake glorious decision last century sometime. No, my cousin Shawn (who is the youngest of the Cameron grandchildren, by the way, since my selfish mother wouldn’t allow me to hang on in utero for another four months) was married on May 21 – finally, as everyone felt obliged to tell him. Over and over.  And over. Now we can all start nagging him about when they’ll start a family. It’s good to prepare all this hassling ahead of time.

Here is Shawn and his lovely bride, Nikki:

Gorgeous, huh? Yeah, and Shawn’s okay too. Whatever.

As it so happens, some of my favourite people were also in attendance. People like Shawn’s parents, my aunt Lilianne and Uncle Louis:

 Lilianne has gone through more crap in the last few years than anyone deserves, let alone someone so kind and funny and big-hearted. She’s awesome.

Also awesome is my Uncle Cecil, seen here with my cousin Rachele (yes, yes, she’s awesome too) and my similarly awesome Aunt Viola:

 Vi and Cecil have been married a long, long time now and although Viola is in the grip of Alzheimer’s these days, Cecil looks after her with the care and love of a newlywed.  It’s all so sweet and sad I had to keep helping myself to the wine to maintain my composure. No, not really. My parents were there too and I had to behave set a good example. You know they’d be out of control, otherwise.

Speaking of Rachele (who is Shawn’s sister and my MUCH older cousin – coughbytwoweekscough), here she is with her family and the bride and groom:

 There must be some mistake with this photo because Rachele’s son Joshua, on the far left, is still a toddler (…in my mind…) and his sister, Savannah, beside him, is still a newborn. That’s just the way it is. There is NO WAY this much time has passed and I am this old. Impossible. These holographic images of them from the future are cool, though. Kids are so talented these days. The gentleman in the pink shirt is Rachele’s husband, Robert, and I bet he would like me to add that the pink shirt was not his idea. I believe his exact words were, “It was hanging in the closet, so that means wear it.” Wise man.

Considering Shawn was wearing a pink striped tie, I’d say he’s learning too. I have yet to achieve this level of sartorial compliance with The Boy Wonder, so I raise my (empty again) glass to you, ladies. May we all live happily ever after.

kitchen scraps

Kitchen Scraps by Pierre Lamielle. From the inside cover: “Remember your mother’s favourite cookbook? The one dog-eared to the hamburger with canned soup recipe? This isn’t that cookbook. And what about that cookbook your too-perfect friend has? The one where all the recipes are about stacking things on top of each other and garnishing them with a hard-to-find leaf? This isn’t that cookbook either.”

It’s true; I’ve never seen a cookbook like this one. The recipes look good (I confess I haven’t tried any yet), but it’s the crazy illustrations and witty stories before (and during…and after…) the recipes that really set it apart. It’s super-creative. I liked it a lot.

Highly recommended, even for those who don’t cook.

call me Mommy dearest

Today is the one week anniversary of Mother’s Day, that glorious occasion otherwise known as The One Day of the Year that Figuring Out What to Have for Supper is Not My Problem.

After breakfast in bed – a dicey proposition with three children, two dogs and a cat all using the bed as a combination trampoline/wrestling mat – I opened my gifts, which included:

Felted Fish by Foster.

Cute, isn’t it? He is a craftsman.

Not to be outdone, Charlotte made this:

Felted Perry.

Perry is, of course, Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb:

Perry lives a double life, spending half his time fighting crime as Agent P (as seen above) and the other half posing as an ordinary pet platypus:

Charlotte took pains to make sure Felted Perry included both Agent P’s hat and Perry’s wall-eyed blank stare so I could “play with him either way.” A+ for attention to detail.

Anna presented me with vouchers good for two breakfasts in bed and two “no kids” days – “10 hours max” – because she knows I’d totally take advantage and stretch it out to eleven or twelve hours, given the opportunity. I tried to scan her coupons to show here, but couldn’t get a clear image for some reason. What do you want to bet she produced them with some kind of cutting edge anti-reproduction technology to prevent me from running off dozens of them? Foiled again.

I spent the afternoon with my mother, fending off blackflies as we toured two local gardens. (Sorry about the bites, Ma. I’m sure the scars will heal someday.)

Ooh, look – pretty forget-me-nots:

And a nice rhodo:

And this…thing. I call it flowering quince and my Mum calls it Japonica:

Whatever. You say tomato, I say watermelon.

Light Lifting

Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod. The blurb from the back cover: “Light Lifting, Alexander MacLeod’s long-awaited first collection of short fiction, offers us a suite of darkly urban and unflinching elegies. These are elemental stories of work and its bonds, of tragedy and tragedy barely averted, but also of beauty, love and fragile understanding.”

I read Light Lifting more than a month ago and have been waiting since then for a few free minutes to put together an intelligent review and, well, that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. Not the ‘free time’ part or, let’s be honest, the ‘intelligent’ part. Instead, I’ll tell you what I’ve been telling everyone within earshot for weeks now: you must read this book.

Read it as soon as possible.

It is so brilliant and so utterly absorbing that it was all I could do to not pitch it away in a fit of jealousy. (That’s a compliment.)

So…you’re going to read it, right?