cute shoes and other surprises

lately the summer weather has ensured that my daily shoe choices have been limited to my birks or my flipflops. there's part of me that is a little reticent about putting on "full" shoes, no matter how great my footware prospects for the fall, as it will be an admission that the summer is over and it's time to settle down to another round of hard work. tonight, however, i had the pleasure of deliberating at great length over my shoe choice for the annual awards banquet for rowing. after a lot of internal struggle (yes, L ... it was an internal struggle! stop laughing!) i finally settled for my favourite pair of tan heels -- the shoes that i often refer to as my "cute shoes" because of the little bow on the side. i was genuinely surprised to find that having on my feet shoes that i associate with lecturing and other school joys wasn't all that uncomfortable. it was to be the minor surprise of the evening.

though it was no shock to anyone on our crew, our coach was surprised to be presented with the club's award of merit -- we've always thought she was pretty nifty, but the award came as a complete surprise to her. perhaps only slightly more surprising was our crew's rousing impromptu chorus of "we love you, leslie" with which we serenaded her as she accepted the award. though you can't see us singing in the background, believe me, we were loud. we reprised our hit again at the end of the evening.



a second surprise followed in short order. thankfully no one captured my absolutely gob-smackedness when my name was called for "most improved masters rower" on film. little did i know, the little brass man on the plaque isn't quite wholly attached and within minutes of receiving the award, i thought i'd broken it; the man's little brass feet had come right off his little brass pedestal. shani soon demonstrated that, lo and behold, he's actually quite an active little man who can be shifted around into a couple of funky positions on his polished wooden plaque. what a relief!



perhaps the biggest surprise of all was kelly's revelation of her gypsy heritage. seizing my pashmina from the back of the chair, she quickly transformed into madame kiki, she who knows and sees all. if we had wanted advance notice of this evening's surprises, we should have just consulted her. i wonder if she would be willing to divine how our crew will fare at the world's in a week and a bit?

bookshelves

last night, fortified by ice cream delights, confessing mermaid and i settled in to leaf through the new ikea catalogue and both of us were struck by the photograph of a carefully planned room which, i do not doubt, the compilers of the catalogue ("catalogueiers"?) intended to be a monument to liberal/democratic boomer bourgeois taste. there were two walls, entirely covered in books, the shelves a mere infrastructure for the mazes of plots, arguments and descriptions that lined them. the room was tastefully lit with those little lights one finds at the swedish shop that require special ikea lightbulbs. on the right facing page there was an aphorism about the value of books, and the necessity of storing them on assemble-it-yourself-it-keeps-our-prices-down shelves to be purchased in stackable flat cardboard boxes on one's next trip to an obsessive-complusive's furniture mecca. CM and i wanted to move in right away.

this oogling of bookshelf porn (and what english major doesn't participate in such oogling from time to time) got me thinking about the neglected stacks of books scattered around my apartment. the architecture of my garret doesn't allow for many full-size, free-standing shelves -- in fact only two! -- and thus, i've resorted to stacking books in tottering towers in carefully chosen locations. there's my stack of anthologies, including the 10 lb norton shakespeare and my beloved broadview anthology of nineteenth-century poetry and poetic theory stacked next the radiator in the living room, across from the litterbox (i need to rethink that location!) and the stack of library books from stauffer near the doorway to the kitchen. i recently undertook a carefully executed assault on this stack in an attempt to find some books that i could return to bring down my list of borrowings which is nearing the cut-off point.

the most intriguing stack, however, is that to be found in my bathroom. yes, you read that correctly. i keep a stack of books in my bathroom, below the shelf of towels, on the floor betwixt the bathtub and the toilet. now, as any water closet reading selection bespeaks much about its frequent readers (friends of mine keep stacks of the new york times magazine, books about hockey history and back issues of tvo's guide to programming in a basket by the handtowels -- a demonstration of their cerebral interests and quirky approach to culture) in interests of full disclosure i should admit that there are magazines too: two back issues of the fitness magazine, shape both of which promise to reduce the size of one's thighs and increase the strength of one's weight-loss willpower, a summer edition of vanity fair with sandra bullock on the cover, a copy of glamour choicely subtitled "the man issue" along with the necessary, and they are definitely necessary, copies of back issues of the rowing news, including my favourite, the july 2006 edition, which features an article about john yasaitis, the masters sculler from boston who, in a freak boat accident, had the bow of an 8+ pierce right through his abdomen and who miraculously recovered and returned to competition six months later. if that last is not stirring reading for the john, i don't know what is.

but yes, there are books. at the moment three to be specific, two of which are library books. the two smuggled from the stacks of stauffer to my bathroom floor are brantlinger's and thesing's a companion to the victorian novel and brantlinger's the reading lesson: the threat of mass literacy in nineteenth-century british fiction. the latter has a yellow sticky note perkily placed over the cover art which reads "shannon -- this is out on my card so you might want to put it on yours. i'd be happy to have it back some time -- but no rush at all. CRH". this note from my second reader stares me down each time i retire to the wc, a reminder of my book renewing delinquency (i'm sorry cathy. i'll make sure to switch it over this week, after the library catalogue is up and running again. i realize it's been two full terms since you loaned me the book!). the third book is adam gopnik's paris to the moon which i like to read in those quiet moments of bathing solitude, often with my favourite "paris" playlist playing in the background.

it was as i was reading this last of my toilet trilogy that i was struck by a realization, hovering on the edge of my consciousness. at the time was thinking about what gopnik was saying about the two kinds of travellers ("There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see and sees it, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more") when it hit me; i don't think anyone, even the ever-practical and design savvy folks at ikea, have come up with bookshelves that fit the architecture of the bathroom. moreoever, in the design magazines that i like to peruse from time to time, i don't recall ever seeing a bathroom that acknowledges the fact that a lot of people do a lot of reading (and writing!) in the loo. now, i realize that there is nothing to stop one from assembling some billy bookcases and setting them up in your lav, but wouldn't it be nice if bookshelf creators came up with a shelf that met the specific needs of the bathroom reader? a shelf, the dimensions of which complimented the height of the majority of bathroom counters, and which met the eye-level of your average squatter? perhaps with protective glass doors that kept the books dry while allowing them to breathe and not be assaulted by the damp air from a too-hot shower? maybe there would be a rack, something like the one used for towels that could be used to drape the latest broadsheets for convenient quick reading when one ducks in for just a moment. certainly a reader's paradise.

i suppose a girl can only dream. if you'll excuse me though, i've got some reading to do.

des violons de l'automne

autumn is coming and with it a whole new host of challenges that at the moment i am shrinking from, and not in any manner that has, as of yet, proved successful. the challenges are still there, the fear is still nagging, and i'm tired: "des violons de l'automne blessent mon coeur". if my garret apartment was in paris, i would take myself to a café and proceed to drink far too much absinthe. an interesting linguistic note: the OED defines "garreteer" as "dweller in garret, esp. poor literary hack". ha!
as a way of rolling around in my pensive sadness, much like a dog rolls around in dead fish washed up on the beach, i've been listening a lot to this French song, "Verlaine", the lyrics of which are from the poem "chanson d'automne" by the 19th-century decadent French poet Paul Verlaine, a contemporary of Baudelaire. in this recording it is sung by the great Charles Trenant. one often hears the haunting melody in the soundtrack of any Hollywood movie that includes scenes in France. i now more fully appreciate the autumn that is often associated with twilight, decay, melancholy and a sense of approaching fin. my previous acquaintence with the season has always been tinged with optimism akin to that others feel at the new year, largely because of my life in the academy. this year my experience of spring was new -- it actually lived up to its fabled reputation and i could revel in it, free from the stresses that are usually affiliated with april (namely graduate student poverty, end of term deadlines and exams); perhaps this is the year in which i will discover another autumn as well. at the moment it feels too much like the discovery that a long-time friend is in no way the person you believed him/her to be.

Veraline (sung by Charles Trenant)

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne,
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur monotone.
Tout suffocant
Et bleme, quand
Sonne l'heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens et je pleure;
Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m'emporte
Deca, dela
Pareil a la feuille morte

three things i love

(post)impressionist art, france and rowing ... why didn't i think of this before? forgive my terseness in this post. i'm unabashedly speechless at my inability to make this connection earlier (bonus points to those who can locate the rowers in the seurat)

claude monet, la grenouillere, oil on canvas, 1869

pierre auguste renoir, lunch at the restaurant fournaise (the rowers' lunch), oil on canvas, 1875

pierre auguste renoir, oarsmen at chatou, oil on canvas, 1879

georges seurat, a sunday on la grande jatte --- 1884, oil on canvas, 1884-86

it's 6:40 pm in paris ...

and i wish i was here:

the washington playlist -- a 2-disc special edition (with bonus liner notes in parentheses)

if you're looking for some sing-along road trip music, look no further. a few have already asked for the playlist we perfected on our 11+ hour trip from alexandria to kingston (crossing through the district, maryland, pennsylvania, new york and ontario). your ears will be delighted; i know mine were:

disc 1:
Good Times/Charlie Robison (good times will be had by all; it sets the tone for the rest of the collection)
Take A Chance On Me/ABBA (as with the other ABBA selections in the collection, one must belt out the song, regardless of whether or not one knows all the words)
Another One Bites The Dust/Queen (the theme song of single girls driving to yet another wedding celebration!)
Let's Drive Away/Eleni Mandell (yes, please, let's!)
Good Morning Little School Girl/Taj Mahal (no reason for this one other than it's one of my favs)
Canada/Low ("you can't take that stuff to canada" -- dr. katetacular was worried about being allowed back into the great white north; her visa renewal still hasn't been processed!)
Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps/Cake (perhaps one will meet with a handsome, eligible man at the reception ... perhaps!)
Natural Woman/Aretha Franklin (it's absolutely imperative that the driver sings the melody and the passengers provide the back-up vocals "uuuuhhooooppp")
Super Trooper/ABBA (on-coming headlights = "the super trooper beams are gonna blind me")
Folsom Prison Blues/Johnny Cash (the car wheels seem to roll more smoothly with this one)
C'est Magnifique/Eartha Kitt (ahhhh, eartha ... what's not to love?)
The Blower's Daughter/Damien Rice ("i can't take my eyes off of you"; now that's romance)
Gimme Gimme Gimme/ABBA (beckie's theme song *ahem*)
Sweet Home Alabama/Lynard Skinnard (another classic sing-along, another road trip song that mentions turning wheels; do we have some recurring imagery here?)
Fighter/Christina Aguilera (come on, we're allowed at least one poptart song!)
Love Means Never Having to Say You're Hungry/Charlie Robison (do not play this song just before you stop for food)

disc 2:
Careless Driver/Eleni Mandell (this is how one feels when one plays this CD for the second or third time on the trip)
The Ballad of Eddie Mullet/South Austin Jug Band (katetacular's car is named "eddie")
Joy to the World/Three Dog Night (one must sing along in one's best bullfrog voice)
London Calling/The Clash ("and i live by the riiiiiiiiverrrrrr")
Sleep in Late/Molly Johnson (katetacular's theme song)
Dreams/Cranberries (this is on the soundtrack of your life if you're between the ages of 25-35)
The Worst Day Since Yesterday/Flogging Molly (if one is driving through the night, the lyrics are highly appropriate!)
Lay All Your Love On Me/ABBA (a good song for disco seat-dancing in the car)
Fanny/Asylum Street Spankers (this song mentions the game show Wheel of Fortune, bonus points if you can sing along through the whole thing without laughing)
Chariots of Fire(Techno Remix)/John Williams (it's all about endurance, baby!)
Cocaine Blues/Johnny Cash ("i thought i was her daddy, but she had five mo'")
Je Cherche Un Homme/Eartha Kitt (yup, i'm still looking)
Nicotine & Gravy/Beck (just because of the funky robot sounds at the end)
The War of 1812/Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie ("so ... if you go to washington, it's buildings clean and nice, bring a pack of matches ...")

swank

this weekend dr. katetacular, beckie (aka "snugglebunny") and i went on an odessey of a road trip to alexandria, virginia to attend the wedding celebration of our good friends anne and spencer (aka "the hamsters"). it was a long, giddy car ride, fuelled by candy and caffeine and made to the melodies of johnny cash, ABBA, low, and the soundtrack from the big chill. following our arrival at our luxury hotel, we collected our psyches and our party shoes and headed to a farm on the outskirts of alexandria that once belonged to none other than george washington. in a restored colonial farm house, surrounded by 18th-century gardens and manicured lawns that stretched down to the banks of the potomac, the three of us in our finest finery ate delicious delicacies from china plates and drank nectar from crystal glasses. kate and beckie played a vigorous game of croquet; as the resident expert in 19th-century sport, i refereed. waiters in dinner jackets weaved in and out of the crowd carrying plates of finger sandwiches, canapés and fruit and cream; it was a little surreal and i found it difficult not to feel as though i had somehow stumbled into the pages of an edith wharton novel. soon, we three, tired of flirting coyly using the chinese paper fans and parasols provided for the guests, wrecked a little good, old-fashioned, maple-infused canadian havoc. enjoy the pictures!*

kate, cheating at croquet

halfway through the festivities, the three of us kidnapped anne and held her hostage in the women's loo and forced her to imbibe. in the kate/beckie dialect: "she was playing too hard on 'team appropriate'"

anne realizes her fate; beckie smiles devilishly

post-beverage, we were all giddy -- some of us more giddy than others!

dr.katetacular, me, spencer and beckie, or spencer and his canadian harem

me and beckie, the snugglebunnies

one very coy kate -- she's working on the "raising one eyebrow" trick; either that, or she's signalling a waiter for more cake

beckie took this photo of me after our aborted attempt at skinny-dipping in the potomac; we got as far as testing the water before disrobing by sticking our feet in. seeing the debris and the deflated basketball floating in the water not far from shore, we changed our minds. i think in the photo i'm still giggling. i giggled a lot the whole weekend.

*beckie, the intrepid photographer, has many more photos, including shots of our whirlwind tour of washington, dc. i promise i'll have them up as soon as i can!

just to row, or not just to row ...

as we departed from the launching dock at henley, our coach went down the boat and placed a reassuring hand on each of our behatted heads (smashing hats, those!) and then issued our battle cry: "Give 'em hell, ladies!"

much hell was given.

later, our coach said this in an e-mail to our crew:

"I wanted to let you know that despite bee stings, alfredo sauce, a bump on the head, a bad seat, a lost hat, coxie dumping, and wheelchair dunking, you each turned in outstanding performances. You proved that you went to Henley to compete, not just to row, and earned a personal best time in the 8+ of 3:34.56. Congratulations all! [. . . .] You made me proud!"

awwww, shucks.



*for those who are wondering about the date stamp on the photos posted ... my mom took them with her aged digital camera from the shore near the finish, opposite the henley grandstand. obviously her camera thinks it's still 2002, and that one can row in the early part of a canadian february.

the devil's inch redux

i've slowly been adjusting to my new found identity as a "short person" (see this post ).last night, however, while having a late dinner with some friends, i found my hastily patched up identity challenged and now, i'm horridly confused.

upon arriving home from boat unloading, jules and justin phoned and asked if i would like to join them for ice cream and later, dinner (in that order!). as the can of soup i planned on opening with what little fortitude i had left after lifting, swinging, spinning, flipping, washing, rigging and storing more boats than i'd like to think was looking very unappetizing, i promptly agreed. over a second dessert of fresh niagara peaches and yogurt (the ice cream was merely the appetizer!) i told them about my recent identity shift. jules was incredulous; she was shorter than me, she had always known, but there was no way she was that short! another flurry of tape measures, hastily thrown-off shoes, and backs pressed up against wooden door frames followed. aided by a carpenter's level left lying around from their ongoing home renovations, justin measured both me and jules and came to the conclusion that i was 5'7" and jules was 5'6". for those who may doubt, the marks are there on the kitchen door frame. was i somehow just magically shrunk that night at the crew bbq? was i waterlogged from all that swimming? whatever the reason i am now feeling as though i have a thoroughly postmodern identity; i seem to exist in the liminal space between 5'6" and 5'7".

i'd tell my crewmates, but i don't think they'd believe me.

henley 2006

here are some photos from a very memorable henley weekend which included: head injuries, equipment problems, our coach doing a slip and slide on the dock, our coxie taking flight, and my all-time favourite: the "fly and die" race, or as i now like to think of it, the "row and barf". no shiny medals to show off (henley only gives out golds) but we did manage two team PRs (A4+ 3:40:11 down from 3:59 @ Ontarios and the 8+ 3:34 down from 4:05 @ Ontarios !!), and i was reminded once again just how amazing are the women with whom i row.
rigging the nascopie. one would think that racing a boat named after a famous Hudson's Bay Co. freighter would be a bad thing, but surprisingly, it's not. it used to belong to some very fast german men.

pre-practice snack (note all the coolers; we eat a lot!)

the A4+, masters of the "row and barf"

the C4+, the "vintage boat"

me and shani, very tired. shani wore braids that day to see if she'd get ID'd at the dock.

dr. katetacular and me, also very tired (we hadn't had our 2 post-race cups of coffee yet!)

three very important women in my life: the physio on our crew, my dissertation supervisor (yes, i row with my supervisor!) and my coach

the cheesecake shot (not our legs; we're eating it!); the fingers held up are supposed to be our time for our 8+ race, but stroke and i forgot about the whole mirror-image deal, so instead of reading 3:34, it reads 4:33. ack.

sage advice from wise friends

in the aftermath of my hellish couple of weeks (car accident, mom in hospital, rowing trauma, money problems, etc.) two friends have passed on some words of wisdom akin to lines from a karate kid script, and which are so wholesome and uplifting in their love and encouragement, i wanted to share them here.

i went to my mailbox this afternoon to find a card from the princess waiting for me. in it she wrote: "I miss you already and hope you are meeting with good luck, rest, health, and happiness [. . . .] Remember always how strong and special you are. I am always here (phone, email, in person, the latter always the best choice!)"

jules, who knows the value of a calming, creamy latte dispensed this wisdom: "Take heart, don't give up, these things will pass. It will get better. The world will turn again and the way will be smoother. Lattes will come to you."

lattes will come to me. i like that.

the devil's inch

no, no. not that devil's inch, as in the urban legend that inspired the name of a boat in our boathouse ...
this is a bit different.

i've always thought of myself as short. i come from a family of fairly tall people and i think this has given me a bit of a height complex. for example, when i'm in a grocery store and the sweet little old lady who seems to shop for groceries at the same time i do every week asks me to get something off the top shelf for her, i hesitate because i doubt i can reach it. for those of you who have seen me, you know that this fear of mine is a bit of a joke, as i always blush to confess that i'm 5'7"; not exactly a short girl.

or so i thought.

at our crew party the other night, i stood next to the woman who rows in the seat behind me and we found out that we're exactly the same height. i had always thought she was taller than me. when i admitted this, she laughed and said that there was no way that could be true as she was only 5'6". her admission stopped me dead in my tracks. it didn't take long for my syllogism-challenged brain to compute:

proposition one: if i am the same height as mary-louise,
proposition two: and mary-louise is 5'6".
conclusion: i am 5'6".

what followed in the flurry of tape measures, hastily thrown off shoes and straight backs pressed up against wooden door frames was the massive shift in self-concept that i still have not quite recovered from. this morning as i was walking back from the breakfast place after a yummy breakfast with shani and kate, i distinctly felt short; it was like my spine was compressing. i have gone through my entire adult life up until now thinking i was an inch taller than i actually am; my worst fear, one of my bigger psychological hang-ups, has been revealed to be true. for some quite juvenile reason, probably related to my rather large feet, i've always been a little thankful that i was 5'7". my feet made slightly more sense when i was that height (as did my body weight!). now, as a newly short person, my feet (and my estimated body weight!) are absurd. clearly this new definition of self is going to take some growing into.

desperate remedies

last night we got together for a bbq at a crewmate's house. she has a lovely, tiered backyard that descends somewhat steeply down a hill that resolves itself in an irregularly shaped pool lit from under the water with small lights. after a decadent dinner and dessert, in the dusky evening, 6 of our 8+ along with our cox and coach, donned our bathing suits and slipped quietly into the water (or cannonballed off the diving board!). as we floated on our backs, gazing at the stars, we talked of everything from the difficulty of replacing the pin in an oarlock to the choice monikers we have for memorable ex-boyfriends. the whole evening was a desperate remedy of sorts because as of late rowing has been taxing -- it's reaching that point in the season where we're all tired.

i think the venture was in part a success. this morning, during one of our practice starts, the boat practically flew through the water. i'd like to think that in those innocently sensual moments when surrounded by the warm water, relaxed by the choice wine and slightly awed by the sight of a starry night sky, we opened ourselves up one another, discussing details of our lives that are never the territory of our boat-talk, we formed bonds that propelled our straining strokes just a little harder and faster at a time when it counts the most.

i've also turned to a desperate remedy of my own. as i struggle to shape into a chapter loose and fragmented ideas about thomas hardy's 1871 novel desperate remedies, i've begun a research journal. it's a longhand endeavour that will be scribbled on the pages of a soft faux-leather bound notebook i picked up one day with intentions of turning it into something else entirely. the remedies of hardy's title, namely the fires, murders and hiding of bodies in corn sacks in old stone ovens are undertaken by the novel's anti-hero, manston, as he struggles with his desire for cytherea graye, the sunny and graceful heroine. in desperate remedies rowing functions in the plot in an essential way. though it's not the struggle of one oxbridge crew against another as they wind their way down the gruelling course of the thames, there's a passage i was just re-reading this morning, a stunning moment when cytherea slips away with her lover edward for a row out on the lake, that reminds me, once again, just how sexy rowing can be:

At length she looked at him to learn the effect of her words of
encouragement. He had let the oars drift alongside, and the boat
had come to a standstill. Everything on earth seemed taking a
contemplative rest, as if waiting to hear the avowal of something
from his lips. At that instant he appeared to break a resolution
hitherto zealously kept. Leaving his seat amidships he came and
gently edged himself down beside her upon the narrow seat at the
stern.

She breathed more quickly and warmly: he took her right hand in his
own right: it was not withdrawn. He put his left hand behind her
neck till it came round upon her left cheek: it was not thrust
away. Lightly pressing her, he brought her face and mouth towards
his own; when, at this the very brink, some unaccountable thought or
spell within him suddenly made him halt--even now, and as it seemed
as much to himself as to her, he timidly whispered 'May I?'

Her endeavour was to say No, so denuded of its flesh and sinews that
its nature would hardly be recognized, or in other words a No from
so near the affirmative frontier as to be affected with the Yes
accent. It was thus a whispered No, drawn out to nearly a quarter
of a minute's length, the O making itself audible as a sound like
the spring coo of a pigeon on unusually friendly terms with its
mate. Though conscious of her success in producing the kind of word
she had wished to produce, she at the same time trembled in suspense
as to how it would be taken. But the time available for doubt was
so short as to admit of scarcely more than half a pulsation:
pressing closer he kissed her. Then he kissed her again with a
longer kiss.

thirtysomething

last night i passed over the opportunity for a night of revelry downtown with shani and curled up on the futon to watch a double bill showing on tvo's saturday night at the movies. it has been many years since those saturday nights as a teenager, when i would stay up till two in the morning watching snam, fascinated not only by the movies (which none of my friends even knew existed) but also by elwy yost's interviews with aging stars. it might have been here that i first saw greer garson in mrs. miniver. last night i took a little nostalgia trip, popped myself a big bowl of popcorn, grabbed my pillow and blanket and after a hot bath settled in for a double bill of random harvest and mrs. miniver, and once again, i was fascinated by the woman who won an academy award in 1942 for playing the long-suffering, strong and plucky british matron of the latter title.

curious to find out more about greer garson, i started to google between screenings while yost conducted his interview. i have become quite the intrepid googler of all things classic hollywood, and i managed to turn up some interesting information about the woman who became famous for marrying the actor who played her son in mrs. miniver, a man 15 years her junior (shani! take note!).

not only did garson take a degree from the university of london in french and 18th-century literature (1926), harbouring dreams of becoming an academic, but she also worked for years at a british advertising agency before she was discovered by louis b. mayer in 1937; she was 33. she didn't appear in her first feature-length film till 1939 ( goodbye, mr. chips, at the age of 35) and she won her only academy award for the role of kay miniver in 1943 at the age of 39.


as evidenced by my morbid fascination with garson's thirtysomething career, i've been thinking a lot about my own age lately. many of those who know me laugh when i say that i feel old and that i've not done much with my life up until this point (what happened to that novel that i was going to write before i turned thirty? and that round the world trip i was going to take? and that recital at the met i was going to give?). in a year and a bit, the academic gods and the members of my committee willing, i'll be dr. smith -- that's something, i suppose, though staying in school has never really seemed all that much of an accomplishment when i compare it to things others i know have done. it's always felt a little too much like stasis.

i suppose what impacted me most the other night wasn't so much the scene where garson, as kay miniver fends off a wounded gun-wielding german pilot in her kitchen, or as paula ridgeway waltzes with the british prime minister though those are certainly thrilling. it was the realization that there actually is life after thirty, both professional and personal. in the muddle that is my romantic life (ack. what a mess!) i've always been comforted by the fact that katharine hepburn didn't even meet spencer tracy until she was 33 -- yes, yes, i know; she didn't fall in love with a raging alcoholic who demanded a lot of her emotional and physical energy until after she had forged a career for herself both in hollywood and on broadway, surmounting the challenges facing an independant and strong-minded woman in a masculinist culture, but allow me my silly and slightly delusional romantic fantasies! that little myth has helped me to live my life in a way that keeps me from being one of those scary women with a pith helmet and a man-sized butterfly net. last night, i realized that if i work hard at doing what i love, i can write my own definitions of success, including the age by which i think i should have achieved certain goals. i sat down today and took stock of what my life will look like a year from now. here's a list of a few things i'll (hopefully) have done:

*written the draft of a book manuscript (somehow, thinking of my dissertation like this makes it feel like something substantial; in one of her later roles, garson was famed for saying "if that's life, i'll take the library!")
*raced at the FISA World Masters Games
*travelled to Paris

the list doesn't add up to 7 academy award nominations and accolades from the queen mum and sir winston churchill for much-needed morale boosting during WWII, but somehow these few things make 30 seem a little less like failure.

hugs

hmmm, yes. it's time for one of those sappy posts. in the past week and a bit, life has been anything but easy. following the car accident, there was my tumble off of CM's porch, my insomnia due to nightmares about the accident, e-mails from a friend who is in a life and death struggle with depression, another round of messy paycheque bureaucracy with the university (2nd month, still problems sorting it all out!), and to top it all off, my mom went into hospital on sunday night with dizzy spells and chest pressure. i jumped on bus on monday morning and took off to st. catharines for a couple of days, arriving in the middle of the hottest niagara weather of the season. mom is doing fine; she was battling a bout of bronchitis, made worse by her not finishing a course of previous-prescribed antibiotics, and a sinus infection, and after a couple of days of daughterly care and scolding she's back on her feet. i, however, feel a little like i've been hit by a truck (that cliché has a whole new literal meaning for me!).

through it all, my friends and family have been amazing. what i've felt the most is the wonderful hugs that i've been getting to communicate sympathy. a hug is really a unique thing. the comfort of human touch, the safety of someone's embrace, whether platonic or romantic, it really is quite healing. there are some people in my life who give truly great hugs:

princess -- your hugs are familiar, those of the sister i've always wanted. they stabilize the world for me and this time stopped it from it's dizzy spiral. i don't know what i would do without you as my friend
confessing mermaid -- your hugs are full of empathy and understanding; i don't know how you say so much with one physical gesture
shani -- hugs at the bus station followed by a bag full of handmedown designer clothes from your most recent closet purge ... what more could a girl ask for? ;o)
jules and justin -- you're my family here; dinner and a heart to heart chat with you both followed by warm farewell hugs makes life here good; thank you.
jane -- you're the only other rower i know who gives such bone-crushing bear hugs!
mary louise -- one should always be able to hug one's supervisor and cry on her shoulder a little
katetacular -- you hugged me when i broke down in your living room crying and you listened to my angry rant when i was shocked and scared; i needed that more than i needed a tissue; thank you
L -- a hug and an impish smile has helped me through so much in the years that i've known you
maggie -- a hug hello after months of not seeing you made the world a little less scary

there are also those who, for logistical reasons weren't able to hug me in person, but the warmth of their words or their voices had the same affect:

pat -- our late night chat soothed my weary soul
aunt ingrid -- knowing you were there if i needed someone helped me to be strong
cathy -- yours was the voice of assurance i so needed to hear
shelley -- your empathy coupled with a reminder that the world outside was patiently waiting for me helped me to stay grounded

i've saved the best one for last:

mom -- when i opened the front door and saw you, saw that you were okay, and when i could squeeze the life out of you, my heart started beating a little slower and the world was no longer a dark place. i love you, mom.

okay, sappiness over.

if you think it's hot in kingston ...

try being in st. catharines where the temperature, with the humidex, is a balmy 50C. yes, you heard me correctly: 50C. according to my mom, who is the weather network unto herself and has a directly line to god concerning the forecast (or so she claims!), that converts to a wonderfully warm 120F.

when i went for my run this morning through the streets of downtown st. kitts at 6 am it was already 28C. 15 minutes into my training run, which eventually lasted a gruelling 60 minutes, i had sweated through my unisuit (don't ask why i was running in it ...) and the old cotton t-shirt i had thrown over it for modesty. i had to make two stops for water, at a bathroom in a tim hortons and at a public fountain in a park because both times i had stopped sweating. very bad indeed. when i returned home a little after 7 am the temperature had gone up to 30C.

oh, niagara, how i've missed you!

hopefully the weather will break soon; both the official weather network and my mom say thursday. until then, our household, as well as those of our neighbours,will sit glued to the television, watching the temperature climb higher and higher ... let's keep all lucky appendages crossed against the possibility of another power blackout!