wifecize wednesday: bluetoothing

We had a Couple (WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS) over to our house for lunch on Sunday. Both of them are friends of ours, which made for amusing witty banter, and the lemon/thyme roast chicken + potatoes/carrots that Andrew made was deeeelicious (aren't I blessed? I know!).

After lunch we "retired to the parlour" (which is our way of saying "let's sit on the couches in our living room which are right beside our dining room table") to consume tea. Solomon, our 7-month chocolate lab, was busy inspecting our guests' crotches, so Andrew went upstairs to retrieve an old T-shirt. He came back down, tied it in a knot, and handed one end to me. We each pulled on our end, never breaking the stream of conversation we were having with the Couple.

Guy of Couple: "What...are you guys doing?"
Us: [pause]
Guy: "With the T-shirt?"
Me: "Oh, we're making a tight knot in the middle so Solomon can play with it. It's his favourite toy. T-shirt-in-a-knot."
[Andrew ties double knot and we resume tugging furiously]
Guy to Girl: "I think this is what we have to look forward to."

Guy was right, I realized. The dizzying phase of early dateship paves way for the romance of late dateship, which then turns into the domestic bliss* of marriage.

I can still remember the morning after Andrew and I reunited at a friends' wedding, danced all night, exchanged phone numbers, and went our separate ways, and I can remember the song playing in my mind as I woke was "I Hear Music" by Brisa Roché. I can remember the first time Andrew held my hand, in a movie theater, as he asked me if anything was wrong because he could feel my pulse pounding in my thumb. I can remember the first time he kissed me, outside University College, and tripping twice on the way back to the car because I felt lightheaded.

What we have now, however, outweighs all memories of what we had then. It's in the bluetoothing Andrew and I do every day together: gelling our thoughts, dreams, expectations, jokes, advice, anticipations, and prayers, until the two start to become one.

It's in silly things like wordlessly handing someone one end of a knotted T-shirt and expecting they'll know what to do with it.

* See this post's disclaimer.

2-in-1: wednesday wifersize & friday foto

Since it's been three weeks since my last post, here is both a belated Wifercize Wednesday and a Friday Foto.

Wifercize Wednesday Friday:
Poking around a blog I frequent (BUT CAN NOT CONDONE), I found a curious question posted on its community section:

If you have them, what are the three "nevers" of your life?

Ignoring the number of people that wrote "never say never" as one of their three...followed by two others (really?), I waded my way through until I found one that resounded: "Never marry a man unless you want your son to be just like him."

I had heard variations of this before - comparing a prospective husband to other influential people in your life, including your father, yourself, your male role models, etc. - but never in relation to a son. Fortuitously, since I did not know about this rule prior to marriage, I won. Andrew has so many admirable qualities and characteristics, I would be proud to have a mini-Andrew.

Understanding that people (even little people) make their own decisions and can choose differ greatly from their parents, and understanding even more than many of the flaws and generational garbage that Andrew and I have can and hopefully will be eradicated in their lives, I still believe in the power and blessing of posterity. In mulling over when and if it should be time to start a family (and, in essence, forever changing the two-person "us" factor of our first years of dating and marriage), I recently came to the conclusion that if our kids would be an extension, an amalgamation, of him and me: knowing him, wouldn't I see him in them every day? Wouldn't I, seeing them, love him more?


Friday Foto:
I'm happy to say I've completed a 10 year old goal. For those of you who commute via public transit, you will be familiar with the graffiti art displayed from Dundas West station to Keele station as the subway emerges from its tunnel.

At the age when I began to use the TTC I lived in the Beaches, in the east end of Toronto. My fascination with and ignorance of the west end was partially due to never exploring the city past Spadina station (that's where Kensington market was and, therefore, as far west as my teenaged heart could desire) unless it was from what I gathered from the window of a subway car, partially due to Old Mill station (I could spot the magical Old Mill itself, where my parents were married and which was familiar to me from old wedding photos), and partially due to this graffiti mural. I naturally assumed the west (especially between Dundas West station and Keele station) was a dark, seedy underworld of crime and violence, pitting itself against the majestic forces of Old Mill.

The trip from the Beaches to Kipling is long. You would not fault me for fanciful daydreaming if you knew.

Ever since those years I wanted to make the time to get off at Dundas West and document the mural on foot until Keele, but never did until recently. Unfortunately, the original mural that I grew up with has been painted over and this is a new incarnation.

There's something about graffiti - illegal (unless commissioned, which these murals no doubt are) and vandalistic - that transforms an otherwise drab city into a palette of colour. I mean, if you're going to break the law, there are worse things you could do.

From west (Keele station) to east (Dundas West station). Click on an image to see a larger version. Please try to ignore any obscenities. It adds to the colour!

wifercize wednesday: army wife

Story time.

Over Thanksgiving weekend I visited my paternal grandparents and uncle's family in Halifax, along with my parents, brothers, and Andrew. For the sake of brevity, the weekend was amazing; Halifax, beautiful; turkey, delicious; weather, fabulous; family, well.

On the way home, The Posse (dad, mom, bro #1, bro #2, and hubby) flew Porter and I flew WestJet. Kisses and hugs were exchanged as they boarded a few minutes before me, all of us joking that we'd see each other in Toronto in just over three hours. Or so we thought. My flight was canceled due to a plane malfunction, all 300 of us were put up in a nearby Quality Inn, and were scheduled to fly out on the next available flight - which was 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Over the course of Monday night, both Andrew and I suffered from the discomfort of Empty Bed Syndrome. Throughout our (year and five month) marriage, we have slept apart only a few nights and each was an explanatory, premeditated necessity. Never have we been apart by accident or, as the case was, unexpectedly. The Syndrome fed off the nasty surprise. By the time I finally drifted off to sleep (an hour and a half past when I should have, due to tossing and turning) only to wake at 1:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., 4:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., etc. in search of a body that wasn't there.

A body that wasn't lying, warm, beside me dreaming. A body that wasn't a reach away. Or even a stretch away. Or even a roll away. A body that wasn't available for me to "plug into"; a habit I have of tucking my hand under a part - an arm, a side, a shoulder - of Andrew just to know he's there. A body that has inspired some of my happiest, most comfortable contemplations.

I don't understand how 27 years of sleeping solo were undone by a few months of sleeping with Andrew, or how I have been conditioned to miss something that I lived without for the majority of my life. I don't understand and I don't care to.

A few of my friends and I saw The Time Traveler's Wife since we had all read the book by Audrey Niffenegger. The movie wasn't brilliant, but then, that was the required response of those who have read the book. As lackluster as we found it, however, all four of us were sobbing happily by the time the credits closed. There is something so raw and bitter about a married couple separated for any reason, for any length of time.

I have a friend who is the wife of a pilot who has been deployed to the Persian Gulf for six months. Six months. MONTHS. I'm reeling trying to even comprehend it. Half a year of Empty Bed Syndrome. I'm following her blog and will post a link here if and when she gives me permission (oh! she did!) but, until then, here is an excerpt that caught my breath:

If anyone out there has ever played the game "Settlers of Catan," then you'll understand this next illustration. In the game you have commodities such as wheat, sheep, and ore. You trade them to build settlements and cities. There is a card in the game called a Monopoly card. When you play this card, you are able to take all of one type of resource away from every player in the game. Then, you usually sell it back to them at a higher price. This is how I felt. The military was playing their monopoly card. They were taking my spouse, my community, my sense of home and were trying to sell me a cheaper version of the real thing at a higher price.

I suppose this post is to reflect on all the beds made empty by business, travel, war, illness, and death. It's not to glorify or vilify the Canadian Armed Forces, nor to wax poetic about the widows and the orphan so try not to get political or theological in your comments. I just had one of those moments that Rob Bell describes so eloquently in Drops Like Stars when I could feel a fraction of someone else's pain, thousands of miles and many more worlds away, because I experienced it in miniature.

Send a little love her way, will you? It will help keep her warm at night.

wifercize wednesday: the man cold

You girls with dads, brothers, or husbands under your roof will know the symptoms. Fever, headache, body aches and pains, sore throat, chills, sneezing, runny nose, coughing. Not unlike your regular cold but for one detail: a man is suffering with it.

I suppose we will never know for sure which is truly worse, the regular cold or The Man Cold, since our experiences are entirely subjective and our pain comparable only to previous experience. I had, at one point, thought that the pain of having a compacted sternum (due to a mild car accident) along with the constant sneezing that accompanies seasonal allergies was the worst I had ever endured. Then I contracted a kidney infection. And, so, I revalued my definition of pain and my tolerance for it.

But kidney infections are no match for The Man Cold, no! I can remember my own father, a strong, muscular, generally healthy man who worked as a carpenter, when afflicted by an occasional Man Cold, schlepping about the house in Man Slippers and terrycloth housecoat. How the mighty have fallen!

I caught a cold from goodness knows who, complete with a sore throat, headache, and stuffy nose. The same ailments spread to my darling husband just as I was recovering from them. Since I was the source of this disease in our house, I felt a funny sort of guilt (or was it empathy?) for his discomfort (P.S. Why is it that we, almost always, cite the culprit from whom we caught a cold or flu? As if to say, It's not my fault!) which was soon tempered with amusement.

When I came home from work yesterday, there lay my husband, my "strong, assertive, firstborn alpha male", wrapped up like a taco in a blanket on the couch, blinking at me from the hood of his grey, wool sweater. Taking care of Andrew is the few ways of loving him that is rare. I can hug him, kiss him, call him, email him, listen to him, pray for him, and laugh with him daily but he's capable enough to look after himself.

Unless he's sick. Then he is crippled with mumbled sentence fragments, a general loss of interest in anything ("Do you want tea?" "Yes." "Do you want green tea?" "No." "Wildberry?" "No." "Chamomile." "No." "Peppermint?" "No."), an inability to move, a keen sense of temperature drops or increases, an appetite for soup, but not too much soup, and a knit brow. Impervious to my affection in this state, I am free to fuss over, tend to, and cuddle with him.

Lumped together like two puppies on the couch, we watched episodes of Saturday Night Live last night. I tucked the blanket around his torso and his legs.

He groans. "You missed my feet. My feet are out. This is worse than before."

wifercize wednesday: volatile soup

Women, you're going to get a lot out of this: especially if you aren't familiar with why you operate the way you operate. Men, don't tune out: this information might one day save your life.

First: men and women are different. You might recall this image, forwarded internationally in LOL-postscripted emails:

Second: a quote I originally read on my husband's blog (before he was my husband...but after I wanted him to be), which I love:

But women are built like nuclear reactors. We're constantly marinating in a volatile soup of hormones that's poised and ready to form a new, living, breathing human in nine months flat. Think about having that kind of power under your hood. It's awesome, and it sucks.

I was speaking with a male coworker who was outlining some of the differences between his girlfriend and himself, namely spending habits, budgeting habits, decorative preferences, and desire for shiny things. He also mentioned that her cleaning habits were odd, and ran like clockwork. "Her apartment will be a disaster for almost an entire month and then, over two days, she'll go on a cleaning frenzy. Everything. The bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom. I figure I might as well have her over to my apartment during those two days..."

What he is unknowingly describing is a phenomenon that many men are only vaguely aware of and, sadly, women are only a little less vaguely aware of. I found this helpful chart on a website called The Venus Week (don't worry, it's not half as new age as you might think). Dr. Rebecca Booth, the author of the website and book by the same name, explains that women experience what she describes as "The Venus Week" which is, essentially, ovulation. Women look and feel great because their bodies are casually hinting HEY, IT'S TIME FOR ME TO MAKE A BABY. Happens every month.

The interesting part about the constantly rotating (I prefer "rotating" over "raging") hormones in our systems is that they casually hint other things. All the time. And we're, more or less, quite subservient to their demands. Such as HEY, IT'S TIME TO NEST WHICH MEANS THAT ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IN YOUR IMMEDIATE SURROUNDING MUST BE TIDY AND CLEAN. Happens every month.

These pages (click on each hormone to learn more about them) were vastly helpful as I began to research the hormones that rotated (see?) through my system on a monthly basis. And guys, if you're still reading, keep the eye-rolling to a minimum. If you think the lady in your life is irrational now just wait until oxytocin hormone joins the "volatile soup" in the weeks leading up to birth. I'll leave you with this quote from The New York Times on the subject:

With hammers pounding and drills whining in the background, Ms. Kinsey, speaking by phone, said she is having her kitchen “completely gutted” to make way for new cabinetry, flooring, appliances and countertops. Next, she wants to repave the driveway, finish landscaping the yard and enlarge some windows to let in more light. “I got up at 4:30 in the morning the other day and looked at the windows and thought they were too small,” said Ms. Kinsey, 36, whose baby is due in May. “Is that nuts or what?”

friday foto: moving day

My Facebook tagline is "Mild-mannered receptionist by day..." which helps describe the half-office, half-ministry life I lead. My 9-to-5 helps me live my 5-to-9 (and weekends) since we all need to pay the automobills. One of my homes is the one I own with Husband, and the other is the one I spend 40 hours a week parked at: the front desk of an advertising agency (yes, yes, like Mad Men, but not in the 50s and with less smoking and drinking...well, less smoking anyway).

Over the two years that I've worked here, I've done everything from decorating it to making it a safe haven, and today I packed it up. We're moving all employees to our second floor suite which means bidding my workplace a fond adieu.

I. Love. Packing. The only thing I love better than packing is UNpacking, which I believe is a throwback to all the moving I did as a child. I have lived in 12 places and attended 8 schools from pre-kindergarten to O.A.C. so, to me, change is thrilling and creative and refreshing. And packing means change.

I recently read this in Mark Driscoll's book "Confessions of a Reformission Rev." and it reminded me of how much and why I love change:

On that day I had only a few appointments, with lengthy breaks in between. I decided to walk down to the deli a few blocks away and get a Reuben sandwich on sourdough bread and some fresh air. On the way back, I walked barefoot and remember thinking that these simple pleasures had made the day one of the most relaxign and satisfying days I ever had. But by the time I walked back to the church, I realized that I was already getting bored. There was no dragon to slay, no hill to charge, no battle to fight, and no foe to conquer.

Next week: pictures of my new reception desk on the third floor!

hints on etiquette

Andrew and I post quotes on our fridge from movies we like. One of them, from Woody Allen's film Manhattan, is: "Really biting satire is always better than physical force."

I'm not the first to write about the recent high-profile outbursts in the news: Serena Williams, Joe Wilson, and now Kanye West. I won't bother explaining each incident since all three have been Trending Topics on Twitter which means there's enough fodder on the world-wide web to educate yourselves.

The fact that all three happened in the same week has become the catalyst in a slew of delicious satire directed at the current state of decorum: here, here, here, and here (the last of which was written by one of my favourite satirical columnists, Maureen Dowd, at the New York Times). George Will of the Washington Post quotes:

We've decided that it is therapeutic to express oneself no matter how coarse one's thoughts, and that whatever is therapeutic is good. I think we're seeing a kind of emotional exhibitionism whereby people say, 'I said something ghastly, but I said it honestly and sincerely.' And honesty, sincerity, and authenticity are self-legitimizing.

In our own, homegrown Globe & Mail this morning, Judith Timson wrote a great article about what she labels "entitlemenia". Like Timson, I agree that private poetic license the stage has been set for public outbursts. Intelligent, witty, and well-phrased (don't even GET me started on grammatical precision) comments are far outweighed by uncouth comments from Twitter to Facebook to YouTube to blogs. Andrew and I were just hypothesizing about how brave most of the commentators would be in person, without a computer and the internet between themselves and their victims. Bravado builds slowly until it ruptures on tennis courts, in congress, or on stage. In a heated moment on stage, it's difficult to curb a foul mouth that has been fed backstage.

Timson writes:

The Internet and the opportunity it provides for everyone and anyone to boldly disseminate their opinions might promote rudeness but it also nurtures democracy and connectedness in a way that Marshall McLuhan never dreamed of when he coined the phrase “global village.” We need to somehow make civility sexy again in this global village.

As I remind Andrew when he feels a bout of brutal honesty coming on: "Just because it's true doesn't mean it has to be said." And when I use profanity casually, to make a point or for jest, he counters with, "You're more intelligent than that."

I'm bringing civility sexy back.