blogthecat

Tickle

So you’re slogging through one of those days, a day where it’s unlikely anything terribly exciting is going to happen, not a dreary day but a purposeful, slightly boring day where crossing off the to-do’s is the major mission. Maybe it’s just going to remain one of those days (and that’s okay, because we all have them). But maybe you’re going to do one thing that reminds you that it’s not always like this, that there is more, that there is brightness and love and brilliant people and that on another day, or maybe even later today, there might even be a little brilliance in yourself. Maybe.

My one thing today turned into two things, and now I am doubly sure the world is full of magic.

#1: I discovered the Llama Font website. You type in anything and out come little llamas in various gymnastic poses. Yes they do. Avery Oldfield and Jack Inscoe, I love your minds and would have been a very happy fly on the wall watching you scribble away in pursuit of this mad and happy piece of heaven. What were you eating? Drinking? Smoking? Why llamas? Whatever the answers, you done did it.

#2: I then took the opportunity to spend some time on the website of the friend who pointed me to Llama Font: Sarah Leavitt, who I have adored for years and years before she became a big-time celebrated author (her graphic memoir Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me was shortlisted for tons of major literary awards). Anyway, today I turned to Sarah’s lighter side: her sweetly funny cartoons of animals. The following stems from Sarah’s musings about the famous poem, The Owl and the Pussycat: “If a cat and an owl can be close friends, could they not be more?”

The drawing is in Tangles, and for more info on it, Sarah's got a post devoted to its origins.

Such non-essential, quirky fare is really so ... essential. The odd tickle in a day of heavy lifting makes everything easier.

 

 

Driving Guru

I am that 40-year-old loser in the Larry’s Driving School car. The one driving with the instructor beside her, the one trying to ignore the gleeful teens giving her ironic thumbs-up and catcalling from the sidewalk. The one who never really, desperately needed her license until now, and who now really, desperately does.

To get into this car, I had to endure two heinous bootcamp weekends in a Larry’s Driving School classroom last year listening to a chainsmoking, hungover teacher explain the rules of the road to me alongside a dozen sullen, stinky high-school students (also hungover) and a couple of veteran lawbreakers forced to show up. So I am relatively happy to be the loser in the car because it means I have graduated from being the loser in the classroom, and because my hours in this car may make it possible for me to finally … drive. Legally. Unassisted. Like a big girl. With two kids. Yeesh.

Anyhoo. My mortification is not the intended subject of this post. What is is the salve for it: my Yoda-esque driving instructor, Param. Param, a bearded 70-year-old former helicopter pilot (in his native India) with a pulse rate of about 20, didn’t blink when I ran a stop sign on our first outing, when I threatened to speed through a busy intersection on my second, and when I nearly stole the right-of-way of a motorized wheelchair on a turn just a few days ago. During these episodes he smiles patiently and calls them my “learning,” noting serenely that “knowledge is power.”

Param is a philosopher as much as he is a driving instructor. Driving well, he tells me, is “an effort of body, mind, and soul.” When I point out a tailgater, he says, “This is not your problem. It is not your blood pressure shooting through the roof. You are calm. They are not. This is too bad for them.” He does, however, applaud my desire for greater space between cars. In fact, he says, we need greater space in all things: “When we have space we have time to reflect. We do not act emotionally. We have the distance to act in our best interests.”

To my complaint that it feels like we’re driving like slugs in a residential area (speed limit 40 km/h), Param says, “More time to enjoy yourself and the scenery.” When a car in front of me blocks my way and there's a chance for me to go around him, he wonders, “Do you really care about ten seconds so much? Will it make a difference to your day?”

When I asked Param how he got so Zen, he told me that he was born this way. “My mother asked the doctors to keep checking on me when I was in the hospital because I was so calm she didn’t believe I was really alive.”

Though he may be quiet, Param has lots to say. As you will have gathered, our driving lessons are as much contemplations of life as they are rote lessons about parallel parking and safe following distances. Our last session together is a perfect example.

I was rattled, and Param knew it the minute I dropped into the driver’s seat. It took about half an hour and about five egregious mistakes before I apologized, explaining a little about the stresses on my mind, including my dying cat and the sheer cumulative exhaustion of my year post-spinal-cord-injury avec newborn and toddler. It was a bit heavy for a chat with your typical driving instructor, but Param hardly fits this description. True to form, he came back with a response that required me to intensify my grip on the wheel and my sense of my surroundings, so taken was I with his words.

“None of us escapes in life,” he said. “Every one of us receives a piece of suffering; some more than others, but each one of us nonetheless.”

“Life will have its way with us, and to a certain degree, there is nothing we can do about it,” he continued. “But there is always something within our control. One of the most important things we can do in life is to understand what is in our control and what is not, what power we have to change things. Some people instinctively know this, and others learn it. The unfortunate never do understand this truth and are always in the position of victim.”

Param then gently advised me to get some rest and let up a bit on myself. Then, as he always does, he drew back from his life philosophizing and applied it to the task at hand: driving. To be precise, defensive driving (all drivers have a certain amount of power to protect themselves against others’ mistakes). His segue brought me back to the road—and to the hell task of lane changing—a little less jumpy and fearful.

You never know when you’re going to meet someone extraordinary, or how.

If you're lucky and you know it ...

Things are pretty hairy around our place just now. We are racing to meet too many deadlines, readying the apartment for the LD, and walking around a little zombie-like if truth be told. Not in an awful, dreary way—but yes, we are a wee exhausted. So tonight, we decided to try for something halfway normal: push off from our desks at 7:30 p.m.... go shopping for food since the fridge is bare … make an easy but promising recipe from a Jamie Oliver cookbook … sit down at the table like civilized adults.

We get home from the IGA at 8:30 p.m. Craig unloads the groceries. I begin the recipe: Risotto with Roasted Garlic, Thyme, Almonds, and Mascarpone Cheese. I’m well underway when I ask Craig for the thyme. As soon as I say it, I realize it’s the one thing in the $150 shop we forgot. I forgot. Craig’s poured himself a rare bourbon (he’s not drinking very often to keep me company through the pregnancy), and has had one miserly sip.

“I’ll go out again,” he says, though it’s mucky outside and there’s a hockey game on. “Should I pick up anything else?”

I tell him some basil and milk, and apologize absentmindedly.

He comes back while I’m chopping and on the phone with my brother. I point to the recipe book and signal that he should start the risotto-making part of the process, the directions for which, according to our recipe, are on another page. I’m yammering away with Dylan when I notice Craig looking somewhat despondent.

“We don’t have half the ingredients for the basic risotto part of the deal,” he responds to my questioning look. I hadn’t thought to look on that page, thinking it was a matter of rice, butter, and stock, or something equally simple.

I get off the phone, and try to convince him that we can make do with some admittedly paltry substitutions. He heads to the door. Without a scowl or a muttered anything, he heads out again (it’s after 9 p.m. now and his bourbon sits forlornly on the counter, ice all but a memory), waving off my repeated bleats of how awful I am.

When he comes back, I am so tired I have dropped to a chair at the table to chop feebly—no more standing up on my swollen feet. He makes the risotto carefully and quietly, and without the smallest complaint.

At 10 p.m., we sit down for dinner. Brian Browne jazz in the background, dimmed lights, single candle. The most delicious risotto I have ever tasted. Life is good. Very good.

My little grey spirit

My baby Franny passed away last month. She had been losing weight but showed no signs of pain. She was slower and quieter, but she still came down every night at 8 pm to yell at me and eat bites of my dinner beside me. Lately, she was turning up her nose at nothing—pizza, bread, pasta, whatever. As long as I was eating it, she wanted it. Then we would cuddle. No one could cuddle like Fran.

For the last half-year or so, she stole her time with me at night, knowing that Oliver took every ounce of my attention and energy in the day. She knew there was less of me for her, and she accepted this without protest. This made me love her even more than I had before. She asked only that I adore her desperately for a little while at the end of each day. I did so happily and every bit as desperately as she might have hoped for.

I found solace burying my face in Franny’s fur at the end of long days with Oliver, days that—as any mother of a new baby knows—are not only joyful but exhausting. With her, I became a little more just me again, me as me and not as mother too, me as nerves and heart and thoughts and dreams. All these I would pour into her little body, and she received them gratefully.

Oasis in a busy day

Ricocheting between errands yesterday, Craig and I fell into a convenience store on Broadway to grab some sustenance, yammering inanely as we so often do. Our thoughts were on our various missions involving setting up the baby’s room (okay, alcove) in some fashion befitting his infant self. Soon, we would be braving the “soul-destroying” (Craig) IKEA experience, and we were already a little hysterical at the prospect.

I loaded our purchases onto the countertop, hardly looking at the man who was serving us, so distracted was I at the time. Gum, juice, and a Cadbury Thins chocolate bar. I was already beginning to turn toward the exit when the storekeeper spoke. He was East Asian and very calm and poised. He looked me in the eyes, then quietly but clearly said, “I wish you good luck. God bless.” Then he glanced down for the briefest second at my tummy, which is now proudly announcing the imminent being within.

I am not religious, but I felt blessed. The man was reverential, polite, and honest. He halted me in my tracks, both physically and in my mind. I looked up at Craig, whose eyes had gone as soft as mine, and … let’s just say we had a moment.

The kindness of strangers. It can be transformative.

Love affair

Time and again, I find it’s the tiniest things that make life worth living. I’ve just torn myself away from a mid-day love fix from Franny, my deeply weird and wonderful cat.

Franny and I found each other seven years ago in Brooklyn. Walking home along a busy main street, I came across a man with a rickety cardboard box at his feet. Three little grey cats hunkered down inside; two were just-born babies, and one was a delicate, shivering mother, stunted in her growth from having gotten pregnant when she was just a kitten herself. I picked the mother up. She buried her head in my shoulder, hiding in my hair. Knowing her babies would find homes more easily than she would, I brought Franny home. She was basically feral.

Even now, Franny is not an easy ticket. Skittish would be a kind description. She flirts with Craig when he has food in his hands, but otherwise, Franny’s limited her sights to me. Even with me, she’s got rules: I can approach her only under certain conditions; she can be brushed only on a certain rug; and though herding me to bed to snuggle is her day’s central pursuit, she will lie only on my left side with her back to me in a tight spoon.

In this position, I stroke her and whisper nonsense into the fur between her ears, all for the reward of her tilting her head back to look at me adoringly through half-closed eyes. Occasionally she’ll push that little head up to my mouth for a kiss, and when I’m incredibly good she will bestow a few licks to my fingers for positive reinforcement. And she will purr … the most relaxing, contented purr, a purr that resonates through me and soothes my every nerve.

This is enough. This is more than enough. But today, I got more. For whatever reason, when I lay down today for a quick rest and read, Fran hopped up on the bed and walked onto me. She looked directly and meaningfully into my eyes (a very rare thing for her to do, face-to-face) and then nudged herself into the crack between my arm and my body. And turned into me. The reverse-spoon! She propped her downy paws up on my chest, and purred herself to the point of sleep. Groggily, she sighed and lowered her head onto my neck. Little snores rumbled out soon after, and I put my book down, too thrilled to concentrate.

For seven years, Fran has been opening up to me, bit by bit. Her trust is hard won, but when she gives it, I feel like the luckiest person on earth.

Miraculous inventions

From time to time, I get excited about certain products or brands. Recent faves include Multigrain Life cereal, those little yogurts with a granola or chocolaty mixture package latched on top, Mac computers (of course), and Bumble & Bumble hair products. But nothing compares to the frenzied gratitude I now feel toward bra extenders.

While my boobs have been growing since I got pregnant, they’ve been doing so slowly and manageably. Until last week. Last week, they mounted an all-out effort to rival Salma Hayek's set when she was pregnant. My bras strained to keep them in, I strained to keep breathing, but inevitably we'd surrender … at restaurants, on planes, wherever, I'd reach up my shirt and unhook that clasp. Nice.

But yesterday, unpacking from a trip to Ontario that had been too busy to accommodate super-size bra shopping, I found a little package of two bra extenders I got from Thyme Maternity about a month back. I had forgotten about this purchase, since at that time, the growth spurt hadn’t struck. I ripped open the package, hooked up a bra, and called Craig in from the other room to do me up.

Oh my god. The relief. For $3.99. I am a product champion.

For more on the indignities of pregnancy boobs, see the entry at the blog a little pregnant. One of the comments to the post is: “I really like the point at which your boobs can help balance a plate on your belly while standing up.” This gives me hope: at some future date, my new boobs may at least be functional. Until then, I will focus on the heaven-sent bra extenders.

Cat wakeup call

My friend Sarah found this on YouTube, and I cannot help but share it despite my post only yesterday about things of a cattish nature. I am still clutching my stomach and broken ribs from laughing.

Attribution for the video: Simon Tofield, whose stuff can be seen at Tandem Films (click "Directors" then "Simon Tofield").

One of my favourite things about the video is the cat's voice: it's not the typical, overused, grating meow, but more of a calm, persistent meow that is quite sure of the outcome.

Thanks for this, Sarah!

The power of the underdog

“There is no excellent beauty that has not some strangeness in the proportion.”

—Francis Bacon

Bacon’s assertion is spare, eloquent, and bang-on. I saw proof of his claim today when I tuned into a summer phenomenon that I somehow missed: Paul Potts on Britain’s Got Talent. My mom told me about Potts last night, explaining that she and her colleagues have been watching his performances on YouTube at the office around a communal box of Kleenex. Now, my mom is not a reality TV person, and neither am I, so I decided her account of Potts’s effect was worth checking out. This is the video I watched on YouTube (Potts’s audition for the show):

I just regained normal breathing functions a minute ago after watching this for the fourth time. As much as I still want to jump on an airplane and hug the unlikely hero Potts for his stunning courage, tenacity, and talent, I am also able now to be a little objective about what reduced me to a pile of blubbering jelly on the carpet below my desk. It’s the way the clip highlights the complete improbability that Potts will be successful, while at the same time hinting that his success is exactly what we’re about to watch.

From the beginning, we’re made aware of Potts’s strangeness through shots of him pacing nervously in the waiting room and delivering a moving but far-from-leading-man introduction of himself to the show’s interviewers. We gulp a little when at the start of his audition, Potts tells the judges that he “wants to sing opera”—this, on a show that regularly rewards Celine Dion-like balladeers and other cheese. We witness his distress as the camera pans among the show’s skeptical judges, who look as though they’ve just smelled something unspeakably foul. And we feel his pain via several segments showcasing his confidence problems, which occur at the same time we know the judges are pondering his fate. Especially effective is the shot of Potts standing on the stage in hell as he awaits the verdict. When Simon Cowell tells Potts to go ahead, the expression on the notoriously callous judge’s face is closed and ungenerous; classic narrative tension is at an apex: all odds are against the underdog.

Now, who doesn’t love an underdog? Who hasn’t felt bullied and trodden on and swallowed by the world? Who doesn’t want Potts to wipe that dour look off Simon’s face and vindicate us all?

Within ten seconds of Potts’s performance, we know we are watching something phenomenal. Through crooked teeth, with eyes ablaze, Potts unleashes a voice powerful and pitch-perfect, a voice strengthened by the humiliations its owner has suffered over the years. It’s a voice everyone in the audience is desperate to hear; it is a salve, proof that there is justice in the world. It is a story of redemption.

The clip’s producers capture the universal, emotional response to this story by alternating between Potts, audience members shaking their heads and wiping their eyes, and the judges, whose skepticism visibly melts into willing submission and gratitude. The YouTube clip masterfully conveys the unexpected ferocity of Potts’s beauty. Potts’s voice is a marvel, but it’s the story that makes us weep.

Writing that sounds like speaking

Last night I went through all my blog posts and replaced hyphens—which are the default dash in so many applications—with my beloved em-dash. The hyphens have been tormenting me since I started writing blogthecat entries, but I wasn’t sure how to change them. A quick hunt for HTML codes yesterday ended my misery, and I can’t tell you how merry—delirious, even—I was as I pasted the long, elegant line over each ill-placed and unsatisfying hyphen.

The em-dash is one of my favourite punctuation marks. I try not to be its slave, since it can certainly be overused, and anything overused is ugly and distracting. Employed sparingly, however, and to proper effect, it can dramatically punch up a piece of writing. It can also add to the sense that the author is speaking her writing right to you. I think there are two reasons for this:

1. Em-dashes can be used to begin and end an interruption or aside in a sentence. Consequently, em-dash-fragmented sentences mirror how most of us actually think. We don’t think in one pure burst of linear thought most of the time. We make room for the odd tangent or revelation brought on by a previous thought. Consider the following along these lines:

“He refused to tell anyone—least of all his wife—about that embarrassing moment during the medical exam.”

Without that em-dashed clarification, the sentence would be less interesting. Even if the clarification were kept, but surrounded with commas instead of em-dashes (as it certainly could be), it would lose power:

“He refused to tell anyone, least of all his wife, about that embarrassing moment during the medical exam.”

2. The ineffectiveness of the comma substitution above attests to the second way the em-dash makes writing feel like it's being spoken: via its visual impact. It provides a nice, long break between thoughts, so the reader’s eye can have a little rest to get ready for the next piece of information. It provides rhythm, and an uneven one at that. Who among us speaks in perfectly spaced-out verbal bursts? When you listen to someone speak, often it’s their pauses, their hesitation, their lingering, etc., as much as what they’re actually saying that’s so compelling. The em-dash may be the best punctuation mark at approximating this unpredictability.

Of course, it’s hard to get away from conventional wisdom that we should always consider other marks (the comma, the semi-colon, and the period—for different reasons) before using the em-dash. I keep this in mind, and I do change the odd em-dash into another mark. But not often. And with a sigh.