Wednesday, September 27, 2006

In the dog park

The other day I was looking
at
the chain link fence
and a stretch of barren ground
It was all a little bleak except for the sky
The sky was so heavy with blue
it made you think of math
or fishing boats returning home
and as I watched,
a lone lax monarch
all marigold and ebony
entered the picture
Unperturbed on fragile wings,
it proceeded across this expanse of blue
and I felt this blue made the most perfect frame
for this summer creature
which appeared somewhat
determined to sneak quietly
into autumn’s colder air
to blend in, perhaps, with
the next big thing -
a colourful congregation
of changing leaves -
in a final wish to close her wings in one
spectacular display of falling

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Monica

Monica had forty dollars in her wallet for a pair of jeans. The ones she wanted were at a place not too far from her school and so she was going to purchase them at lunch time. Instead she comes home with a hard cover copy of New Moon by Stephanie Meyer.

It was only two weeks ago that I drew her attention to the first book of the series called twilight and that was by accident. We were in a bookstore looking for a birthday gift for one of her friends and I had pulled down twilight as a suggestion.

“What is it about?” Monica asked

“Vampires.”

“She doesn’t like Vampires.”

So we kept looking but Monica turned to me at one point and asked. “Can we get Twilight to read together?”

“OK.”

So, we buy it and we read the first few chapters that night but the next evening I am a little busy to read with her and so she asked, “Can I keep reading on my own?”

“Sure”

She read for three days straight and at every meal she would tell us what was happening. She absolutely loved it. Of course when she finished it she came and asked immediately if she could get the next one and I said, “No, it is in hard cover still. But maybe for Christmas.”

And so when she comes home with this book I’m a little disappointed. “You realize I am not replacing your jean money and so you have one pair of jeans and two sweat pants to make it to Christmas on.

“I know.”

“A pair of jeans would of taking you through the winter – that book will be finished in a week.”

“I know. But I think she is writing another one.”

-----

Another moment I had with her was last night. I called out to her, “Monica, they have the trailor for Eragon up.”

So she comes running in to watch it with me on the computer. And she is silent for the whole thing and as soon as it is finished she says very disapprovingly. “They got it all wrong. I hate when they make a movie without reading the book.”

For some reason that struck me so funny.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Close now

Greg has been working hard trying to get his application up and running. It is 99% ready. Just a few tweaks and a week of testing. I am proud of him. I mean ideas are pretty easy – even great ones but seeing your idea go from conception to implementation is a huge undertaking and he never gave up on it. If something didn’t work he tried a new approach. He would have those moments in the middle of the night where he would jump up and say, “OH yes, that might work?” and then go running down to the basement to try his thought out. I think about all the evenings he spent down there working on it – with the cat meowing at the laundry door to go in to use her litter box, or the dryer sounding off with that loud beep and him pleading with us to keep the laundry room door shut because it was all too distracting. When Youtube exploded onto the scene, I kinda felt a moment of panic seeing Greg’s idea already done but he didn’t see it that way. To him it is all about building a better mousetrap and the sucess of youtube only made him more determined to get his up and running. And Apple just released ITV yesterday and so now everyone is getting on the band wagon but when Greg came to me with this idea over two years ago it was new and fresh and Greg would go on and on about mpeg4 and how it could crunch video down, etc and he was so enthusiatic about it, it was hard not to pick up on his excitement. However, he went at it alone with the help of one buddy programmer who was just too busy at his day job to give Greg the support he needed and Greg had his jobs too and so well it just took him this amount of time getting it underway. Sounds like I am giving a list of reasons why Greg is a dollar short and a day late. But I’m not. I am actually thrilled for him. He is so happy seeing it finally coming to life and it is a really nice looking site now and a sweet application and I’m very proud of him. It is funny though because the only financial plan we had for this was our Visa card (s). Man, do we have a strange relationship with that credit card. We moved to Toronto and lived for the first few months here with the help of credit, we got married on credit (our wedding and honeymoon came to the exact amount as our visa limit was at the time) and now this application was more or less completely credit card and line of credit supported in the last few months and well we’re maxed out once again. I’m not saying running up credit is the proper way to achieve financial stability but wasn’t the Wayan’s movie “Hollywood Shuffle,” financed by a Visa card? And it worked out for them – so our fingers and toes are crossed now leaving butterflies to roam freely about our stomachs. I’ll let you know when the site is up so you can have a look.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

I wanted to try this meme

1. One book that changed your life:

Gone with the Wind was my first adult book. I think I was twelve or thirteen when my sister and I use to sneak into my parent’s bedroom and scan their bookshelf looking for books with sexual content in them. We would flip through the pages until we came across love scenes and then read them aloud. Well, it wasn’t like our parents were going to tell us anything. Anyway as I was flipping through Gone with the Wind, scanning away, something about it caught my interest and I went back to the first page and started reading. I remember being so taking by that book, so engrossed in Scarlett's world, I would get excited, butterflies even, every time I sat down and opened it to where I left off. I believe previous to that experience I was happy with The Black Stallion, Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew, and The Laura Wilder's series and I remember after finishing Gone With the Wind thinking wow, if every adult book is this grand and satisfying I am going to be one happy reader.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
The only book I read more than once is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Once in my early twenties and again at forty. I loved it both times.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
Difficult to say. For me it would have to be a book I haven’t read yet. Something thick and critically renowned.

4. One book that made you laugh:
Elle by Douglas Glover. It was laugh out loud funny in parts.

5. One book that made you cry:
Mary Karr’s The Liar’s club. If I remember correctly, at one point she is sitting in a diner with her mom asking questions and getting answers, which caused me to have a mini breakdown of sorts. I cried for several minutes over that page.

6. One book that you wish had been written:
Hmm – The gospel according to Mary Magdalene

7. One book you wish had never been written:
Sorry, stumped on this one. Possibly Madonna’s children book just because it was so hard to get by its all- gloss-and-glitter-display case that was stuck in the front of every bookstore, especially when you had a little girl in hand. In fairness though I haven’t read it.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
Stephen Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time

Monday, September 04, 2006

September


All done with that – thank goodness. Happy I was able to stick with it but I don’t think it did much for me except having me wish an entire week a way. I love food. I shall not be parted from it ever again. Made rhubarb jam this weekend. The only thing that was edible in my garden. I miss not having tomatoes. And the raccoons are into the grapes again. What a mess. However the sweet smell of ripe grapes is so nice when it drifts through the kitchen window. Summer is winding down. It seemed so incredibly quick this year.