muy lindo

if you’re looking for love…

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

…there is no better place than your local Humane Society.

Stopped by mine the other day to deliver a duvet cover for the duvet I dropped off last week. (After it suddenly occurred to me that a duvet minus a cover plus claws equals feathers everywhere.)  Fortunately we had an old one that would do nicely.

A few years ago the original shelter burned down, there were many casualties, horrific it was. After that they found temporary housing in a shoe box; I hear it was beyond awful. No real facilities, no space, no air-conditioning. At least one of those summers, as I recall, was deadly hot and humid. I have no doubt they did their best but it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Thank god a new place has finally been built. And it’s a dream. After just a couple of visits I’m as enchanted as it’s possible to be by it and by the good work these people do. And stunned at how they accomplish it with zero funding. ZERO.

Despite an average annual vet bill of $250,000, plus a long list of other expenses, they manage solely through donations, fund-raising, sponsors and a dedicated volunteer base who do everything from feeding to brushing to walking to cleaning litter boxes to scrubbing out carriers—
—and laundry. At the moment they get by with a small washing machine and dryer, which isn’t nearly enough for the amount they go through. Three laundry lines are set up out back to help out. They live in hope of one day having two industrial size machines.
And, it seems, they do it cheerfully. Very happy vibes inside these walls and that includes from the animals—as happy, anyway, as homeless waifs can be.

I’d like to think this is how all shelters will be built in future: cages only for the anti-social or newcomers or segregation for health reasons, otherwise the population lives and plays in large communal areas and, best of all, have free access to the great outdoors.
Despite the lovely vibes, leaving this place without a fluff-filled carrier or something on a leash is as hard as leaving any shelter, but here at least you can take some small consolation in knowing these beautiful faces are, for the most part, really and truly at the very best place possible, next to a loving home. 

That said, and no matter how you look at it… they’re still looking back…

steal away…

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

“Just one word more—please steal time every day, if you cannot find it any other way, to lie on the grass, or in a hammock, under a huge tree this lovely month… and relax. What a tonic this is for the soul. What a rest for weary nerves! Our husbands, children, friends—yes, and the nation—will profit by our relaxation. The greatest need today is for calmer homes, and no fireside can be calm unless its guardian is at peace with the world.” ~Nell B. Nichols, columnist for Woman’s Home Companion, summer 1924

chutzpah, keys, and a toasted tuna on white

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

I was honoured to attend The Literacy Council of Durham Region awards presentation last night recognizing those adults who, through the Council’s tutoring program, have learned to read in the past year. Also recognizing their tutors.  

What I loved best about the event—aside from the fact that it was beautifully organized with not a moment of wasted time nor long-winded hoo-ha speeches (celebration, respect, warmth and camaraderie were the order of the day)—was that no distinction was made between groups as people were called up to receive their awards; we knew not if the recipient was tutor or student—this effectively sent the message that the process of teaching and learning is equal, that it takes courage and commitment to do either, and that every teacher is a student at some time.

The emotion and pride on every face spoke volumes about the power of the work, the power of words. I watched as people opened certificates at their tables, imagined the impact of not only being able to read words such as recognition or achievement but to know they referred to you.

What I can’t imagine is the stress of a lifetime hiding the fact that you can’t read—at work, in a restaurant, when your kid brings home a card she made for you—or, worse, pretending that you don’t want to. Even less can I imagine the chutzpah it must take to suck it up and say: today I’m going to do something about that… and then really do it, to actually pick up the phone, admit you need help. And then—as if all that’s not tough enough—you show up for lessons and feel, initially, like you’re in kindergarten, trying to understand that r-e-d spells the colour of your shirt.

But you keep going anyway.

Chutzpah.

And then, one day, you put on a shirt and it’s blue and you can see the word in your head. And when the goodbye card is passed around the office you can not only write your name but what you feel: hey, pal…good luck! You read pasta on a menu and decide you’re not in the mood for spaghetti; you look through the sandwich selection instead, ask for tuna on white, toasted, and when your kid says read me a story, you can.

Susanna Kearsley, one of the invited guests (and a former museum curator), compared the right to read with museum contents kept under lock and key, privy only to the curator. Thing is, she told the audience, we’re all curators of this particular museum and it’s wrong that certain of us are denied the key; we must ask for it, demand it if necessary.

In essence, that’s what last night’s graduates did, took back what was always meant to be theirs. But the effect of their actions goes way beyond what they’ll get out of it; I’m guessing more than one will take the step from student to teacher, if only by not letting anyone they know go without that key…

“Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” ~Abigail Adams

passing the cake…

~ carin ~ 1 Comment

 

I’m swanning about the place in a tiara today. Also a sash. Just missing a mitre—and, what, an ermine robe is asking too much??  All this thanks to Allyson Latta  who bestowed on me the most wonderful surprise of naming Matilda one of her picks for the (brace yourself) Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award—whose logo is a strawberry shortcake, which makes it probably the best award I’ve ever heard of.

The protocol, I’ve been advised, on receiving the ISBA, is to a) thank the person who nominated you, b) share seven things about yourself, and c) pass along the award to other irresistibly sweet bloggers.

Well, first things first then: thank you so very much, Ms. Allyson, for thinking of my little corner of cyberspace and for the kind things you said about it—the phrase “sometimes wacky” notwithstanding; surely a typo… :D  (me, wacky??)

As for sharing seven things about myself—this should be relatively simple given that there happen to be exactly seven things about myself.

They are these:

1.   My backyard is home to several giant ant hills (by which I mean three or four), none of which I intend to do anything about. One of them has been there fifteen years. We call it the Ant Hotel. When visiting kids were small we had a sign for it. Very reasonable rates and efficient, speedy room service (albeit small portions) were its hallmarks.

2.   I’ve been toying with the idea of trying to like coffee but I keep buying tea.

3.   Corn makes my stomach ache. Annoying because I like polenta and Mexican food and Fritos, not to mention buttery cobs on summer days, which when I was a kid I used to eat like a typewriter. (Link provided for those who just said a what??)

4.   My heroes tend to be animals, children and very old people.

5.   I’m happiest when the fridge is on the empty side. I find this inspires creativity in my cooking. Some wonderful things have been invented under the most spartan conditions. Or maybe I’m happiest when I’m outside, up to my wrists in dirt (pardon me, soil), or on a lounge chair in the company of words. On the other hand, swimming, plunging my nose into laundry fresh from a sunny line, a morning spent walking or writing at the beach…all leave me smiling pretty solidly too. As does rain and snow and the kind of breeze you could fall asleep in and then you do and that feeling when you wake up and the world is just there, waiting for you, making no demands. And you remember there’s just enough ice cream left for a small bowl and because there’s only a bit, it tastes that much better. And then you find a jar of cherries.

6.   I saw Leonard Cohen in concert in 2009. I still haven’t completely recovered.

7.   I would like to learn Spanish and Sign Language. Spanish, so that I can go back to Chile and discuss bread and wine and life. Sign Language for its beauty and elegance.

Finally, a few bloggers to whom I’d like to pass along the shortcake. Not for sweetness but for enhancing the interweb with their wise words, gentle spirits and contagious sense of joy.

Alone on a Boreal Stage—Home of poet and visual artist Brenda Schmidt’s photo/video poems and other bird/nature/book related pleasures.

We Drank Cachaca and Smoked the Green Cheroot—I’ve become addicted to this site because of stolen rhubarb, orange knickers, lady bikes, Jean Talon Market and sentences like this:

“I was not expecting the skies of England to be all painterly, to perform for me as they have apparently done since William and Dorothy Wordsworth pottered about the countryside with their pockets full of mutton pies, but the skies did perform, and I am still thinking about them, because they billowed alive over the built-up bricks and statuary and pomp and palaces that caused the subtitle BYGONE DAYS to float across my mind the whole time I was there.” (From the post: Whence and Whilst and Those Constable Skies, 6/14/11)

Pickle Me This—I’m always happily surprised whenever I check into this site. Kerry Clare has exactly the right mix of book smart and life whimsy.

Carol Bruneau’s Blog—This is where I go to remind myself how to think about writing.

Four Rooms—Exploring the power of words in various forms.

Island Editions—Publishing, books, beachy vistas and occasionally food.

 

made me smile

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

Opening my library copy of Sarah Selecky’s This Cake is for the Party I found a nicely printed, glossy card telling me the name of the game is ‘experiments in kindness’ and that I’m now “it”. Funny how such a tiny inconsequential thing by a mysterious no one in particular, can brighten a day.

Will be passing it on tomorrow…
“The fragrance always remains on the hand that gives the rose.”—Ghandi

~

happy ‘new’ year, happy new old plaza

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

There’s a little plaza on my way to the dentist. I’ve driven past it three or four times a year for the past two decades. Used to be a pretty ordinary place, easy to miss—generic grocery, dry cleaner, bank, doughnut shop, LCBO (this was when outlets didn’t actually display booze; instead, they had pens chained to the counters and you had to order your Blue Nun by scribbling a code onto a slip of paper which you’d then hand to a dusty grey gentleman who would shuffle into the back room disapprovingly to fetch it for you). 

Eventually it  was all replaced with an Asian grocery and various shops—I didn’t know what kind of shops because I never went there again.

Not until yesterday.

I was half an hour early for a dental appointment. Normally early means reading time. I drove past the plaza as usual. A block later I turned around, drove back, pulled in under a sign that said Chinese Halal Restaurant.

I’ve been reading Kathleen Winter’s blog, where she’s doing a new thing every day—might be she’s wearing red tights in public, or buying orange lipstick, or leaving the room to crotchet a necklace when company gets dull—and I’m loving this stuff. Makes me want to do my own new daily thing but I realize it’s a commitment. Got to be in the right head space. And I’m not. My thing this year is not focussing on the new but getting rid of the old. 

Thing is, newness is creeping into my life nonetheless. Partly, no doubt, because of the not so subliminal messages of my daily Cachaca and Green Cheroot fix, and partly because with every bit of  ‘old’ I toss, I’m actually making room for something new. It’s like I’m working on a different end of the same stick.

Old new. Ying yang.

The plaza, as it turned out, was like any plaza except the signs were in Chinese and the cantaloupe was dragon fruit. A Chinatown vibe but less frenetic. Compact. Easier to park.

And it was new. Which equalled fun.

I bought okra chips and New Year’s clementines with the stems and leaves still on—the regulars were pulling them off because they’re sold by the pound, but too pretty for this tourist to remove. I also got birthday cards in Chinese characters and one mystery card. The woman at the store couldn’t tell me what it said… Not birthday, not new year, not thank you, not party… Anniversary?… Not anniversary, not sadness…Wedding?… Not wedding… And little red paper money bags to tuck inside. I loved how, at the checkout the cashier chatted merrily in (Cantonese?) with every customer then when I got there she rang in my stuff and said You want a bag? (I love how, unlike travelling in, say, Europe, where you might be taken for a local, I’m relaxed in Asian cultures, knowing I won’t have to figure out how to explain that I don’t speak the language, that being a tall white blue-eyed Caucasion is enough of a clue.) I watched some old guys happily arguing at a table in front of a tea shop and just as I was leaving I caught the eye of a woman pacing outside the BBQ pork place that didn’t open til 11 a.m. Her expression such hungry anticipation I’ve already made a mental note to go back—after 11—sometime soon.

Very soon.

stars, eggs, editors, and other bright lights

~ carin ~ 14 Comments

Must be the way the stars are lined up. Or something. February’s darkness and promise of light? The way the snow crunched under my boots this morning? A perfectly poached egg?

Whatever it is, I’m full of the joys today.

Could be that I’ve begun serious revisions on the ms with the help of a freelance editor—whose help I should have enlisted moons ago. But one has to be ready, there’s marinating time, other things to be written and (thank god) published in the interim. Other games to play.

‘Games’ as in both politics and pure fun. The first is a given, everyone’s up to their necks in that, but the second, the play, the lightheartedness that allows for pleasure in the ‘process’—that sometimes gets overlooked, shoved aside for later. And when later never comes Jack turns into such a cranky pain in the butt.

And yes, I know, I know, the sky is falling over publishing, and true, the industry may not be perfect and the work may sometimes feel like dancing in cement and no one understands us or treats us with respect…wah wah… but jeezuz, would you really rather be doing anything else?  

Here’s what I’m saying: there’s altogether too much grumbling out there.

My ears and eyes hurt from it. I’m thirsty for positive thinking. Maybe we could look at the problems as opportunity?? A new world to embrace, even be enthusiastic about, rather than cynical and bitchy. Some very novel things happening on this front, as revealed over at Book Madam.  More of that please. Constructive action, not whinging, is what we need.

Let’s talk about what works, celebrate the good stuff—because it’s happening out there. Just maybe not to the naysayers. Or not at the moment. Or maybe it’s happening and they’re just not seeing it because they want what the other kids have. Wah.

So much is perspective and, granted, on another day in another mood, I might not be writing any of this. But today I’m feeling (annoyingly?) perky.

Truth is much of my current perky joyful positivity has to do with good news received by two writerly friends in the space of just a few months. 

No one is more surprised at how their success has added a zing to my own spirits.

The first is Steven Mayoff, whom I met at a workshop a few years ago on the beautiful shores of PEI and whose short story collection Fatted Calf Blues was not only short listed for the ReLit Award, but went on to win the PEI Book Award. The second, a former Humber classmate, Darcie Friesen Hossack, whose (also short story collection) Mennonites Don’t Dance has just been short listed for the Commonwealth Prize.

Egad. I should be knotted up with envy and bitterness, no? Both Darcie and I had work nominated for the 2009 Journey Prize, neither of us made the cut. She went on to make a book. I’m still revising. I should be asking myself: why am I still revising? But oddly, I’m euphoric rather than frustrated. Could be symptoms of a mania, but actually, I think it’s more honest to god joy that maybe the sky isn’t falling. That good things— yes they do!—still happen.

The bonus is that when they happen to really good people, it’s impossible not to be thrilled.

And revelling in the success of others, it seems, is not only good for the soul, but for the writing. An inspiration and a happy reminder that anything is always possible.

As for me, sir, I’ll take my pleasure anyplace I can…

~