Family Matters – Page 11

Pa-pa-pa Papageno

Happy father’s day to all the beauty cat fathers out there!

Unfortunately, we seem to have re-descended into the bowels of winter out here, but never-the-less, our hearts are light, and today we are off to eat some scrumptious brunch with M’s father – D. Gruyere.

My own vatter lives in Guelph Ontario, so I will be on the blower with him, just in case my carrier pigeons never reached him on time.

In honour of this day, I’ll eat some super duper healthy food, play some scrabble, and read some John Irving.

(It’s party all the time in that small Ontario town, let me tell ya! P.S. check out those hiking socks!)

Here are a few snaps of what has been coming down the pipe around these parts:

Graduation caps.

Rain soaked runs.

Scrumptious pasta.

Garden gate.

Epic treats.

In recognition of all the cool cat dad’s out there, let’s grab – if only in our imaginations – our baseball gloves, tie up our running shoes, and head down to the park to practice catching those pop flies.

But only after we’ve finished our homework.

I’ll make sure to save us a spot.

Professed love

So to continue the grand tradition of writing about all the amazing people in my life, today I am in the mood to celebrate my insane, bad-ass, genius of a husband.

You see folks, today Mr. M is graduating from Simon Fraser University with his Bachelor of Education.

Oh, and did I mention that he’s graduating at the top of his class?

IMG_1001 - Copy — Chocolate apple and a card with an graduation owl on it!

That’s right! Today he will be honoured as the top graduate out of all the newly minted secondary school teachers.

If this were a mid-90s teen comedy, as he crossed the stage to collect his degree and medal, myself and my pack of gelled-hair, frosted tipped, mini-backpack wearing friends would simultaneously jump up and start yelling, “He’s number one! He’s number one!”

(I might yell out something different though – perhaps along the lines of, “I love you baby!” Before clasping my hands together underneath my chin, and letting my tears flow freely down my face.)

At this point EVERYBODY would start cheering, and the slightly disheveled, but ultimately cool dean standing on the stage next to M would just shake their head good naturedly (maybe even roll their eyes and laugh), and M would point to me in the crowd, shouting out something like, “We did it!” before throwing his cap into the air.

And then Smash Mouth would come out of nowhere and play us into the credits.

The dance party to end all dance parties would ensue.

End Scene.

…

Okay, so that’s probably not how it’s going to go down. But the sentiment is the same none the less.

I cannot really begin to explain how insanely proud and happy I am for M.

He is a phenomenal student.

He is a tremendous teacher.

His students love him.

(In fact, some of then are even in love with him.)

And at the base of it all, he is an amazing, hilarious, driven, beautiful, bonkers, inspiring individual who makes my life, and all the lives of the people he touches better.

He makes life glow.

So please, let this serve as a brief introduction to his brilliant man.

Here are some other interesting facts about this Swiss-Indian man to whom I have pledge my troth:

1.) He completed his undergraduate degree in Classical and Medieval Studies. (Or simply put – he is one gigantic nerdo.)

2.) After graduating he earned his journeyman carpentry ticket, and helped build the Olympic ski-jump for the Vancouver/Whistler 2010 games.

3.) He has read more books that probably everybody I know, combined. Dude is well read.

4.) And boy is he ever ticklish.

5.) He has horrifyingly dextrous toes. And I fear them. You should too.

6.) One of the first things I noticed about him were his calf muscles. Ooer, mama.

7.) My heart practically melts out of my feet whenever I watch him concentrating like a mad man as he plays Dead Souls. It is adorable and a half.

8.) Sometimes when he is late getting ready and I am (desperately) trying to get him out of the house, he’ll sit on the bed with his underwear on his head, because he knows it drives me up the bloody wall (but also makes me laugh.)

9. The man doesn’t know a correct song lyric for the life of him.

10.) He will change the world. He’s already doing it.

So there you have it!

And now we are off to celebrate this tremendous achievement of his, in style, with grace, and of course – great humour.

But no Smash Mouth. We’ll have none of that.

Queen of spades

Kids! Tomorrow is my mother’s birthday.

To celebrate this day, I would like to share with you a memory I keep close.

(As re-imagined as my grade-two self.)

I am seven.

My mother isn’t home very much. We live in Vancouver but she works in Ottawa from Sunday until Friday. She’s writing a very long decision that will make sure that all Canadian women are ensured equal pay for equal work. I think the whole thing started with a nurse who made a complaint, but I can never be sure because I’m still suspicious about why someone would need to write a decision.

They are usually things you just “make.”

Then I get sick. Like really sick. I burn so hot that when I take a bath the water feels like it comes from an iceberg. Sometimes I imagine I am mutating. After I shed all of my blistered skin, I’ll emerge taller, sleeker. I’ll be a superhero, more powerful than ever.

I can’t eat very much and when I do I throw up.

When my mother tells me that she’s taking a week off to look after me, I nearly jump off the bed with excitement.

I spend the week wrapped in blankets and fleece, flushed and feverish, my mother sitting next to me. I wear and wash my favourite pajamas every morning so I don’t have to wear something new. It is a long dress and it is light blue, with a sleepy but stern looking owl printed on its front.

It is my favourite.

In between my ice bathes and simple mouthfuls of vegetable broth, we take turns reading aloud from The Secret Garden.

My mother doesn’t ever do voices when she reads, but her tone is soothing.

Simple.

Perfect.

I want to run away to the North of England. I want to skip rope amid the twists and turns of a sprawling manor estate, fall in love with gentle Yorkshire boys who can tend to the earth and talk to animals, and eat hot, crunchy biscuits smothered in butter and jam.

I want to be friends with Miss Mary, learn to plant seeds, feel fresh earth between my fingers, and chirp at cheeky robins that flit and flutter under a low-hanging sky.

But mostly I want to find a garden of my own. I want to discover a place that has been shut up and forgotten and reawaken the magic, magnificence, mayhem and majesty that once flourished there.

A place where I will be safe and strong and smart and stupefying in my splendour.

A place where I can be free.

…

Growing up my little sister and I spent every conceivable minute playing outside. And when we weren’t outside, we were building forts in our basement. Our overactive, bizarre and totally bonkers imaginations ensured that we were never bored and never without a storyline to pursue.

And yet, despite the number of times I played in our garden, or the front yard, or at the park, or in the school yard, or the overgrown alleyway, I never truly felt how I had hoped to feel, when reading about Mary Collins’ adventures in her secret place.

Now, as a bizarre, slightly bonkers adult, I still search for that feeling, this tangible moment of discovery and awe.

Last summer I had the chance to visit a garden where I had, for an all too brief a time, that moment.

It was a place of magic and mayhem.

(But the good mayhem, not “the Bay is being looted and my car is on fire.”)

It was a place of discovery and awe, governed by a beauty tied to a nature no one believes in anymore and the stories of the all too few that do.

Dreaming of a garden for you today (and tomorrow) momma!

Happy natal day to you.

Mixed Nuts

This weekend was as jam packed as an unopened jam jar.

It was a really great mix of time spent with friends and family, excellent food, and of course beauty, brilliance and hilarity.

Here are a few highlights from the past two days:

Brilliant brunches.

Bean Sprouts.

Smoking smokers.

Post-Prometheus chai.

Dream House.

Dream lunch.

Super dog.

Secret messages.

Yesterday was Italian Days along the length of Commercial drive. Luckily the rain stayed away and we, along with M’s sister V, her partner J, and his parents E (alias Darth Gruyere) and C, walked the length of the street, taking in all the different sights, sounds, and smells the festival had to offer.

It was a really lovely way of spending an afternoon.

(Though next time we are really going to need to get our mitts on some cannolis. And by some, I mean all of them. And by mitts, I mean mouths.)

On Saturday night M and I went to the pictures and took in Ridley Scott’s latest oeuvre – Prometheus.

Going to the movies is always a bit of a trip for us because we pretty much never go anymore.

Like, ever.

This is a bit strange because at the beginning of our relationship you would be hard pressed not to find us in a movie theatre at least once a week. (M was even a projectionist at two of the local independent theatres in the city during his undergrad.)

Now, we maybe take in a film twice a year at most.

I suppose we’ve just lost that interest. That spark.

(Perhaps we’re just waiting for the mother load of a movie to blast us back to our former selves? We’re not sure.)

Either way, this trip we did not hit pay dirt.

My tweet that night summed up how I felt (in under 140 characters) about the film: I LOVE Alien/Aliens, but – there’s a reason why they’re separate movies. Trying to make both at the same time just doesn’t work. #prometheus

If you want a much longer take on how I felt about the movie, please read this absolutely brilliant and gut-busting hilarious review by Henry Rothwell.

It’s magic.

And (in my opinion) bang on.

In terms of tough mudder: t-minus less than two weeks to lift off!

Yesterday I had one cracking run. I completed 15.4 km in 1:08 – one of my fastest runs to day. And that was after running 12 km on Saturday, combined with my circuit strength training.

I’m feeling really strong, and goodness knows the callouses on my hands are forming personalities of their own.

I can’t really tell you guys how stoked I am to drive up to Whistler and see what the course has in store for us.

I mean, don’t get me wrong – I, under no circumstances, believe that this is going to be a walk in the park. I know full well how greweling the entire experience is sure to be.

But heck if that doesn’t make me any less excited!

I am ready to get my mudder on, and get it on hard.

Tonight Mr. M and I ate farfelle with vine ripened tomatoes, kalamata olives, fresh basil, and paremesan cheese. We watched Sunshine.

It’s still cold, but things are slowly changing.

When you’re moving this fast, they’re bound too.

Canadian content

Hey beauty cats.

So I realized (aka it was pointed out to me) that I never revealed what it was I bought M for his birthday – especially after all that badgering he managed to withstand leading up to the day.

We ended up having a rocking shindig for him on Sunday night, filled with food, friends, drink, games and general merriment.

(If ever in the future you attend a party at our place I can promise you two things: 1. there will be a TON of tasty eats to be had, because we have the most fab, most culinary bad-ass friends you can imagine and 2. you will be forced to play the Name Game, because, well, that’s what we do at parties, okay?)

Earlier on in the day, I presented him with this:

The flowers, I should point out, were given to him by our brilliant friend Ms. M, whom, I am so excited to say, has just returned to the West Coast after spending a year and a half in Australia on a working holiday.

She is pretty much the best ever folks.

EVER.

Anywho, Mr. M loves Canadian history – Farley Mowatt, White Fang, North of 60, Pierre Burton – you name it.

So when I saw this hand written, hand illustrated book, I knew I needed to get it for him.

I also fell head over heels in love with his card.

It’s a mouse! Dressed in Elizabethan garb! HOLY MOLY!

Love it.

It’s funny, I don’t think I subscribe to a specific form of nationalism (goodness, I have a hard time using that word in a non-pejorative sense), but sometimes I dig being Canadian so much I feel a little funny.

(Which only serves to make me feel ever MORE Canadian because I understand this as me feeling bad for being too “into” my country. Someone get me a double-double and some timbits STAT.)

I mean, I’ve read enough literature on the invention of borders and passports, and the evolution of national languages and mythology to be wary of buying too much into these institutions and systems.

Heck, I wrote my master’s thesis on Canadian and British immigration policies post-1945.

However, I feel as though this perspective gives me enough wiggle room to take to heart some quintessential Canadiana, while still remaining critical of these norms on a larger scale.

It’s all about balance right?

When we were living in the UK, our flatmate S (we lived in an absolutely bat crap CRAZY old mansion that had been converted into nine apartments and we were living in 300 square feet of madness) asked if we could put together a slide show of some Canadian vistas, because he had always been attracted to our country’s wildnerness.

So over dinner the next night (we had a sweet system in place where one out of three couples that made up our group would cook, so all six of us could rotate cooking and washing duties) M and I shared as many photos of our travels across Canada as possible.

Here are three snaps from the original presentation:

Lunenberg, Nova Scotia.

While I may live on the West Coast (and love it here), much of my heart belongs in the East.

The Maritimes are so beautiful I do not know where to begin to describe them.

Nova Scotia’s beauty is stark, cut out of wild, tempestuous seas, multi-coloured fishing villages, fiddle-driven ceilidhs, and the effervescent, endearing (and enduring) spirit of some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

Lunenberg is situated on the province’s South Shore (seriously, GO THERE) and is located on a peninsula at the western side of Mahone Bay (again, GO THERE). The town is approximately 90 kilometres southwest of Halifax (when you go to Lunenberg, you will fly into this city. STAY THERE for a few days at the very least.)

No more caps, I promise.

North Vancouver/Pender Harbour, BC.

M and I do quite a bit of hiking.

Seriously, in the summer months, gives us our hikers, a mountain, some food and water (and also sunscreen because goodness knows if you’ve seen my skin you’ll understand that I am in fact a vampire) and we are happy.

Two gorgeous trails for views of a lifetime are Mt. Daniel on the Sunshine Coast (GO THERE NOW – sorry!) and Lighthouse park on the North Shore.

Soon, my darlings, it will also be camping weather, and you know what that means…

Onwards!

Whistler, BC.

M is a journeyman carpenter. Five years ago he worked on the Olympic ski jump in the Callaghan Valley (GO THERE) and he took this pic just as the weather began to turn, heading in the tail end of autumn.

All of the pictures he took from his time on the job site are pretty darn spectacular, however there is something about this one that just leaves me with goosebumps, all up and down my arms.

He did also manage to take a few snaps of bears.

And boy do I ever love me a pic of a black bear scouring the grass for some tasty wild flowers to munch, munch away on.

And speaking of which, I’m off to procure some grub myself.

So I ask you friends, what places would you like to share with the world from your own backyard? I’d love to know, even if it’s thousands of miles away from your actual home.