The Seated View

There is no happiness. There is only moments of happiness - Portuguese saying (allegedly) For most of my life, the transition to a new year has been hard. Caught up in the hype of endings and beginnings, I’d invariably find fault with my life, usually some variant of waiting for my life to happen, that although I was going to school, working, etc., I wasn’t quite plugged in, that I was coasting, existing, not living. About a month ago, I found myself saying something stunning to a friend. That if you’d shown the me of 5 years ago the me now, 5-years-ago-me would’ve been horrified. I would’ve shuddered at my pain levels, my limitations, how much my life has shrunk, both in terms of ability, social life, geographic mobility (the way my pain levels prevent me from going beyond my immediate neighbourhood). I would’ve believed this life unbearable. And here’s the stunner: I am happier now than I was 5 years ago. Than I have ever been. Here, in my little life, the life that ...

I love Christmas. It’s my favourite holiday and I can’t get enough of it. Which turned out to be a good thing. We always congregate at my mother’s on Christmas Eve, but this year, we got a call from the TinkParents early in the day to tell us that they’d had a case of not Typhoid Mary, but rather Typhoid Liam and that although the children were all bright-eyed and bushytailed after experiencing only a brief period of gastrointestinal distress, the infection had laid waste to aforementioned TinkParents and it was impossible for them to come. So Christmas #1 was a smidge quieter than it otherwise would’ve been, with mor, myself, Ken and Michele doing our level best to eat for 8 (it’s the least we could do), sing with abandon (no noise complaints were received) and in general enjoy ourselves to the max (and although we missed the pestilent a great deal, we did admittedly have a rather terrific time). In honour of the absent, mor placed candles by her photographs of the Tinks an...

I had a plan. I even had a Schedule. Then there's that thing about how doing something twice makes it tradition and in the past two years, I've done a special Christmas post ( here and here ), so naturally, somewhere in the past three days, I fully intended to write a thoughtful post about the joys of the season and... well. I think it's too late. T he nisse is here already so all I can do is wish you and yours a wonderful holiday. May it be filled with love, good cheer and plenty of really yummy food.

On Monday, at the very top of my list - after blogging, of course - was creating a bit of a schedule. It went something like this: 10a.m. - stress out 11a.m. - panic 12 noon - tear hair 1p.m. - gnash teeth 1:30 p.m. - eat lunch. Include chocolate 2p.m. – flit from task to task, never spending more than five minutes on any one thing, create mess, be convinced that alphabetical paperclips would solve all my problems (how couldn’t they? I mean, it’s alphabetical paperclips !), lose presents in mess 3p.m. - have hysterics 3:30 p.m. – nap As you can probably imagine, Monday was highly unproductive. In the evening, I attempted to get a grip by writing a list for Tuesday and printed in capital letters at the top was GET OVERVIEW OF XMAS, because I am that anal-retentive and my lack of perspective so profound that only by the proverbial writing of a list and checking it twice (or 10 times) could I begin to hope for less holiday angst. So I got an overview, no...

The first order of business today is the result of last Wednesday’s contest. I got a ton of email, which I always enjoy (note to self: have contests more often!). There were answers, guesses and even made-up songs - Willowtree ’s “Ain't no trout about it” deserves honourable mention and Cindi’s (who may have a blog, but I’m not sure) suggestion that I was thinking of the theme from Jaws made me giggle every time I thought about it. Most of you were on my wavelength – a fact which you may or may not decide to worry about – and I want to especially thank Jessica for taking the time to type out all the lyrics – now when it’s stuck in my head (over and over and over again), at least I can sing more than a line or two. If you guessed Fish Heads by Barnes & Barnes, you were in the pool. I respectfully requested the participation of Her Royal Catness, but she claimed to be busy digesting, so I put the names in a Tupperware container fancy receptacle, closed my eyes and pic...

I was talking to friend about euthanasia the other day - yes, I know, we have such uplifting talks ‘round here. We were in wholehearted agreement about the barbarism that is our ability to, when the end is inevitable and filled with suffering, help an animal to a dignified, painless end, but not do the same for people, should they wish it, because… I dunno, human suffering is noble and useful before death? And then the subject turned to Robert Latimer and things got a little hairy. F ourteen years ago, Latimer killed his severely disabled daughter Tracy and last week, his parole application was denied . And I will come right out and say that I rejoiced when I heard that, because I think what he did was wrong with a capital W, because no one has the right to "help" someone die who isn’t capable of asking for that help. My friend is a parent and believes that although the rules may say that what he did was wrong, it is quite possible that in this particular context, it...

Something I saw the other day made me laugh. And prompted thinking about a contest. It’s been a while since we’ve had a contest ‘round here. I briefly considered making A Schedule™ the prize, but am pretty sure it’s too close to the deadline for it to be of any use and then there’s that thing about not all of you out there being knitters. So instead, I offer up an 8x10 print of your choice from the multitude of photographs posted here or on Flickr. Or, should the winner be a knitter and really desirous of A Schedule, we can do that instead. Enough preambling, here it is: W hat song did I spend the day humming after seeing this Send answers to landers5ATgmailDOTcom with the title Christmas Contest by Friday midnight EST. I’ll attempt to come up with some interesting (or not) way of randomly selecting a name – involving Her Royal Catness seems appropriate.

I caught a song in the grocery store the other day. You know how it goes – there you are, somewhere between the pickles and the orange juice and the music you’ve so far largely ignored (due to the abominable selection) changes at first imperceptibly and then somehow, you find yourself humming without quite realizing which song and then you hear it and either continue humming along – maybe even singing along or am I the only one who sings happily off-key in the produce section? - or you shut your mouth, aghast at what’s emerging from your vocal cords. These days, supermarket muzak is a bit of a mixed bag – on the one hand, 80s music has officially become store entertainment and I’m a little worried about admitting just how much of that I can sing along with, on the other, sometimes you get the aural equivalent of a Twinkie. But I digress. As usual. So I caught a song and it stayed with me not just to the cash, as they usually tend to do, dropping off me as I near the exit, but f...

Three things have happened this week that have caused behaviour best described as unseemly, quite possibly shameful and which has significantly set back my personal growth. Thing #1: It may be somewhat of an understatement to say that I'm slightly competitive. I try – oh, lord, do I try - to control it, especially when playing games with children, as I believe it may be cruel to wipe the floor with someone who's underage while cackling maniacally as you win. Besides, it's not a fair fight and it is much more fun to win when you're on a level playing field. Which brings me to the Minesweeper story. An innocuous, deceptively quick little game, it has the potential for addiction built right in. Which I discovered to the point of incurring a Minesweeper injury. If that wasn't bad enough, both Ken and Stephanie joined the “fun”, which took things from serious to demented and I didn’t quit until I reached 83 seconds on the expert level (Ken and Steph having ha...

I’ve loved to dance for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I’d dance on the Maslagan , disappearing into movement, convinced I was as graceful as the ballerinas I’d watch on TV with my mother and for a while, I alternated future career goals between dancer and fire fighter. That is, until I dropped both in favour of horse trainer in a circus, then later working with Jacques Cousteau and I’m getting off track. I was talking about dancing. And last week's finale of The Best Show on Television has made me think not just of how much I love ballroom dancing, but of my own experience therein. I was nine, or maybe eight, the year I decided I wanted to take ballroom dancing. This idea had come to me from my best friend AB who'd been doing it for a few years - it was a fairly common thing for children to do in Denmark around the early 70s. So my parents got me lessons at the same dance studio that AB went to, run by a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. G. I don'...