Beauty – Page 11 – Rant and Roll

On a wedding anniversary

This is what he remembers of his first year in love.

Sticky summer evenings on leftover bicycles

Green grass cuttings and the heather scent of your hair

One legged races and falling down together

And getting up together, everytime.

Knitting words so true that they became laws into themselves

What we writ on paper was our sinews and our bones

Magic promises, and you pulled me into a love of myself

Along with my love of you.

I’d never bought a pair of pants for a girl before

Never walked home at midnight carrying her laundry

Trying to scare her, and myself, with remembrances of

Low mists and Japanese ghost children, and all those things that terrify.

Realising that we were not scared together.

I hiked an island while you wrote and waited

On tables and coffee consumers, and I wrote

And lay in bed, in the warmth, with my phone cards

that were always running out

And my emails, and your emails, and we started a story together

That will never be finished, that we’ll always be writing

Until the end of the world.

…

One tough cookie

Hey friends!

It’s Friday, it’s June, and it’s raining and winding like a raining and winding thing.

Tough Mudder is tomorrow, so as I may never see (write to?) you beauty cats ever again (due to my imminent death by hypothermia), so let me just say that it has been an absolute pleasure conversing with all of you.

For the (mayhaps final) Fry-Up, there are three things heating up docket, so let’s dive right in.

Number one:

Pretty pretties from the internets.

I’ve always been super weary of purchasing goods from the world wide interweb, however when I saw this dress there was little I could do to stop myself from taking out my credit card and buying it on the spot.

It was thirty-five dollars – which included shipping – a price so low I half expected the garment to dissolve into dust as soon as I opened the packaging.

However, as it is a non-structured dress (a slip, with a sheer overlay) that came with its ridiculously cute pink belt, I figured if I know my size pretty well, there was little chance that the fit was going to be completely off.

(I mean, for thirty-five clams there was no way I was going to go through the effort of returning the thing. If by bad luck it hadn’t fit, I would have bloody well made it fit.)

And it ended up being brilliant! On the whole, I am just so enamoured with its retro style that I half expect an American GI to walk up to me as I walk down the street and ask me if I would like to jitterbug with him as soon as the band returns from its break.

It’s also comfortable as all get out, both work and play appropriate, and as flattering as a grade school crush.

Now I just need to figure out how to curl my hair properly and heck – no one will be able to stop me!

Onwards!

Number two:

Fab books and belly laughs.

I am currently reading this book:

It is hilarious.

Today on skytrain I was busting a gut so hard the fellow sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what I was reading.

“A hilarious Canadian book about the absurdity of academia and our electoral and parliamentary systems!” I responded. “It won the Stephen Leacock medal!”

I don’t know whether to describe the look that flickered across his face as incredulous or withering, so let’s go with both.

If I had known that he would have greeted my description with such non-plussed scorn (hey, it’s a thing!) I probably would have said something different.

I should have just hollered, “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS YOU ULTRA MAROON!” and then farted loudly.

(P.S. This is how you get a seat to yourself on transit at all hours of the day.)

Anywho, the book is blinkin funny as heck, so if you have a chance, ch-ch-check it out. This goes double for all my Canuck readers out there.

You won’t regret it, I promise you.

P.S. for my international readership, the Stephen Leacock award is for Canadian humour writing. People who win it often have genetically modified funny bones. I am currently in the process of saving up for an F.B. enlargement so I too may one day compete in this illustrious field.

Number three:

SHOWERS.

I am one of those people who LOVE to shower.

I love being clean.

I love the process of becoming clean.

Everything about the venture that is involved with standing inside an enclosed bathing vestibule – I BLOODY WELL LOVE.

And tomorrow, during Tough Mudder, I am going to get very, very dirty.

The dirtiest.

Perhaps (and by perhaps I mean it is certain) that I will reach levels of filth I cannot even begin to imagine, sitting here at my computer.

And while I don’t fear that mess, I very much look forward to that moment where upon completion of my race, I will step into a shower, feel that cascade of hot water on my skin, and scrub the absolute shit out of my dermis.

Take that as you will.

…

So there you have it dudes.

On one last T.M. note, I am so excited to start off tomorrow I can hardly sit still.

I have trained like a madwoman and now it is time to see what I can do. I promise to take lots of photos and let you know how both Mr. M and I fared throughout the sixteen kilometers and twenty-five obstacles.

We’ll be seeing you at the finish line.

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.

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.