Attack of the awesome tomato.

I just had the most delicious tomato sandwich of my life. Twas a tomato from my own garden. My garden, this year, is absolutely pathetic. For 3 months, may-august, the critical months for a garden, I was too sick to tend to it. Now there's big empty patches, dwarfed little pea pods, sickly beet leaves and bitter overgrown carrots. The dill has gone to seed, and the lettuce is cramped and anemic. But the tomatoes! Oh my yes, the tomatoes are delicious. Meaty and sweet. I really should have taken a photo of the first one.

Also, I must say, to my surprise, the pumpkin patch is insanely flourishing. I want the pumpkins to grow as big as well fed raccoons. Like one I saw loping past the window the other night at 4am when I couldn't sleep. Big, fat, fuzzy raccoon, sauntering it's bulk around with his little robber mask on.

T is currently distracting me by singing an improvisational song about going to get coffee that ended with a tap dance.

Back to the tomato. I'd been eyeing it for days, waiting for it to be perfectly ripe. This morning I woke up knowing it was time. I went out in the early morning rain (must download some Gordon Lightfoot), in my pajamas to pick it and broke breakfast tradition slightly by having a sandwich. A perfect, delicious tomato sandwich that I really did consider photo worthy and nearly immortalized it for posterity's sake. Instead, I decided that actually eating it was too pressing and there was no time for dilly-dallying. I totally ate that sandwich. Delightful. R.I.P. in my stomach tomato. You served me well.

I think I might need to get out more.

Face it.

So painting. I haven't painted in YEARS. Maybe a tiny thing here and there, painfully excreted, but not real sitting down and "lovin' every minute of it" painting. Maybe it's the therapy, maybe it's the hormones, maybe it's both, whatever, I've been painting and really enjoying it. It clicked all of a sudden: I can draw a face and paint it in and I don't need a reason or a point other than I love doing it. So hah!

Some work out, some don't. The ones that don't, I chuck in the garbage and keep on truckin'. I couldn't care less because I feel like I have about a million in me. Who needs to write stories or illustrate events, really, I can say everything I want to with faces.

Tumult, vortexes of despair and glistening lakes of resolution.

Jeebus, what a tumultuous few days.

On a whim Friday, I looked at apartments on craigslist(Idle hands, devil's work etc... ). I saw a great looking one, told T, he agreed, made an appointment, we go see, we love, we sign application. Just like that. Whirlwind like, not a whole lot of thought. Stimulus,reaction.

The woman emails us, to say our credit check was good and we are her first choice and it's more or less ours, but she needs proof we can get out of our lease for October. We tell her we can get new tennants but not before having a new lease of our own.

She emails Friday to say she's considered it, she trusts us and we can come at 6pm to sign the lease.

Wow! We think. Amazing! We have a new place in less than 48hours. A 2 bedroom corner with a place for a dishwasher, washer and dryer, 2 balconies, across from a park and 10 minutes from T's school. We make the calls, we send out emails, we smile...

3 hours before our scheduled meeting, she calls T to say that she hasn't got through to his school to confirm that he works as a teacher and researcher there and that another appointment had been made to view the apartment that night by the current tenant of the place so she would have to wait until Monday to decide. WHAT???? But he showed her payslips! And the good credit check...

Can you believe that? T tries one last effort of going to find the woman at school that the landlady is trying to reach, asking her to be sure to be there and answer her phone that afternoon, tells the landlady to try calling again, but we don't hear back from her. Just like that, after promising us a lease, she smacks us with this news and refuses to negotiate.

Now, it is a very competitive market for renters here in Montreal. I realize that if you want something, you have to play the game and compete and put up with some shit sometimes. Here's the thing though: Screw that.

There is no thing out there, apartment or otherwise, that for me, is worth being treated like crap to get. No way. I don't want to make a deal with someone who would do that to people. I don't care how great the place was. It hurt, believe me, it hurt bad, but only temporarily for it is but a thing.

We emailed her and very politely told her she was shameful, we deserved better treatment and to stick her apartment up her ass.

Then we vortexed into panic. All of a sudden, after resigning months ago to stay where we were, despite certain upcoming difficulties about winter and space for a baby, we were in the mode of move, move, move!!!

We had already posted ads to find new tenants to replace us (which would have had to happen before we could move anywhere since we were breaking our lease), we were in the mindset of talking ourselves out of this place...With no assurance we could find new tenants, and no assurance we could find the right place after that in time for October, we despaired and agonized. Would our landlord give us a good reference again after we had suddenly announced all this out of the blue? Would we end up having to take a crappy new place at the last second??? Would we have time for anything other than stress until it was all resolved?

Finally, Saturday, we sat the F down and talked about it like sane people. We drew time lines, we made charts, we assessed statistical probabilities and weighed outcomes on money, stress and happiness scales(all courtesy of T's engineering mind, which I do indeed appreciate being married to). The result: we should stay where we bloody are. It was such a relief. We talked to our landlord, he was happy, we were happy. Everyone's happy. In fact, I haven't felt so positive about this place since I first moved in.

It might be 2nd trimester hormones, but I am feeling some serious happiness. Like a huge, massive, ugly, stinky boulder has been lifted off my shoulders by deciding to stay here and having found solutions to the reasons that made us doubt this place as viable. I woke up this morning to the sun shining so brilliantly on the lake it was blinding white. The humid air had lifted and a cool breeze blew threw the curtains. My pumpkin patch was in early morning full bloom with the promise of many pumpkins this fall and I heard nothing but birds and leaves blowing in the breeze. That, my friends, ain't nothing to sneeze at. That is some good stuff.

Lessons, dear friend. Lessons of life and all that poop.

Now enjoy some of the good reasons of being here:

Trade offs

Ayep. Not so good at the blogging lately. I've been at home, isolated from the rest of the world for what seems like forever and 3 days and that equals BORING PERSON.

What can I mock and recount if I am not amongst the humans? Should I describe how my cat and I both had to go to the bathroom at the same time? Should I detail the pros and cons of various diaper options? I think not.

We applied for an apartment in Montreal last night. We weren't specifically looking, but I came across one on Craigslist and we saw it and applied. 2 bedroom, close to stuff, across from a park, corner building...I have no idea if we will get it. We decided we would take it if we did. After 3 years out here in no man's land, I guess I'm ready to trade river views and single home tranquility for not freezing to death in the winter, huddled around the fire place that burns money(wood), while I wait for someone to shovel the 4 feet of snowdrift from my front door so I can trudge through the snow to the damn grocery store, by foot and back again. It's nice in the summer and spring here. It's tranquil. I don't know though, something to be said about being not having to take a half hour train ride if you want to go to a yoga class or go out to dinner, or meet a friend or buy a vegetable that isn't iceberg lettuce.

With a baby on the horizon, it also seems like maybe I won't find being cooped up in my quiet, but isolated home in the middle of nowhere, as charming as I have for a while. The charm comes and goes...Life is change I suppose. I seem to bring change upon myself anyway, when I start to get too settled, despite my natural resistance to it. Either I like to give myself a hard time or part of me knows better than to stagnate.

Either way, it's not really up to us at this point. We await the landlords decision.

So today, in the meanwhile, exciting stuff on the horizon: Going to the walk-in clinic for a sore ear and throat, eating the rest of the cauliflower before it goes bad...oh and painting. Yes. I've been painting. Painting faces. I'll show you some soon.

Wondering about Don Knotts.

Whew, what absolutely rotten weather we've been having. Humid, humid, rain, humid. The weeds are growing like monsters in my garden as I helplessly watch through the window. For some reason, there's also a phantom patch where nothing will grow. A big huge patch of dirt in the middle. I've tried planting things in that spot 3 times this year. Only one lowly beet shot out some leaves that were promptly nibbled by some insect. Maybe when I stop feeling like I'm on a rocky boat all the time, I'll get out there and whip the garden back into shape.

I did manage to do the dishes yesterday. The bile was in my throat the whole time but I did it. I even cooked soup. Normally, just looking at the kitchen makes me want to throw up. I think maybe, I might be feeling better soon?

On the very plus side, we went to the midwife friday and heard a heartbeat for the first time. That was intense. The midwife was very pleasant and encouraging and gave me crackers to eat. What doctor does that? No doctor that I've ever met. The bed you lay down on for an exam is a real bed. Comfy. Best of all, you get to test your own pee. It's true. They show you how to use their pH strips and hold them up against a chart to check for blood sugar and other things I don't remember. Plus, it's like going to french school because she doesn't speak english. Forces me to exercise my french muscle.

In closing, I have this to say about Michael Jackson. He was alright. Let's move on now though. Dude became crazy and did a whole lotta drugs, no big mystery. People should have had plenty of time to mourn the cool little dude, he used to be as he's been the walking undead for many years now. Is Don Knotts still alive? That's what I want to know.

Curses! My hind tooth for a library!

Wow, I was able to actually go for a tiny walk today. I've been sequestered, more or less, in this wee house for what feels like an eternity. I continue to endure perpetual sea-sickness without the sea. Do you know what is not fun? Throwing up.

Anyhoodle, I went for a little walk this morning to the dam near our house. It's pretty there. I took the stairs from the bridge, down to the ground so I could go sit on a rock near the water, but was stopped short by the stench of death. Someone had left some sort of dead animal in garbage bag that had been torn open. I didn't see it at first, I think I walked right past it and thought, what are teenagers getting up to in here? It reeks! Are they pooping in the bushes? Then coming back I saw it and realized. Thanks universe, for that vote of encouragement on my first attempt to venture outside in a while.

I won't even go into detail about the phone conversation I had with the department responsible for collecting dead animals. The secretary kept insisting that I must give her a street address for the bridge. It's a bridge! No street address, it's the only bridge over the only dam, damnit! Then she wanted to know, did I leave the dead animal in a garbage bag? Sigh.

I didn't really know it was possible to feel nauseous in your forehead, but that is exactly where it is generated for me. The body is a very strange thing.

And why is it that potato chips are the only thing that is consistently appetizing? Is that what nature wants me to do? Eat potato chips? If so, I must humbly obey.

The bonus is, when I do think of something that sounds edible, it turns out to be the most delicious thing in the history of time while I'm eating it. Then, as soon as I'm done, I never want to even hear it's name again. Whatever it is becomes instantly inedible. Why just 10 minutes ago, I ate a delicious green apple. Now, just typing the words is about as unappetizing as Satan's pee in a dirty cup.

You know what I miss most in this here part of the world? A decent library. One thing that's always saving grace for shut-ins, is a decent library. Even if you just pop in to get free movies and books, which I could use pretty bad. For some reason though, even if you don't feel that great, going to the library is still an option. So quiet and cool, with comfy chairs to sit in. Bloody Deux-Montagnes and it's rotting animal corpse terrain. There is a library here, about as big as my bathroom (not very big) with about 3 English books and it's open for 5 minutes every second decade. I hyperbolize ever so slightly of course, but it is true that the library here stinks. So poop on them. Satan's pee in a dirty cup for you Deux-Montagnes.

I hope you aren't eating or drinking lemonade, dear reader.

Immortalized (in short doc form)

Hey hey,

The college documentary about Portland is finished with some little clips of our wedding in the Voodoo Donut segment. Neat-o!

YESSSSS!!!!

I hate to rub it in Detroit Red Wings, but IN YOUR FACE!! Pittsburgh took the cup and it was so awesome. I've been following them all season hoping, hoping, hoping the young ones could take the cup from the phillistines know as the red wings. Ok, detroit play strong hockey, but they are brutes. It was so painful last year, seeing the Pens fight so hard right to the end and lose it. Sweet sweet victory was delivered this year. It was tense to the very last second, oh my yes, it caused T and I a great deal of stress. Way to go Pittsburgh! Snoochie boochies!

Pass the antacids, and the Dutchie on the left hand side.

Well, well, look who hasn't raised a knuckle in 8 million years to recount her daily dainties. That's the new word for life story bits. Dainties. Have I told you my dainties this week? Got any good dainties for me? etc.

It's pouring, pouring, pouring and it doesn't feel a teeny bit like June or summer. I've been quite inactive lately, other than being an incubator for a genetic experiment of the human variety, in other words, pregnant. I don't care for that word at all for some reason. It sounds so...afflicted. Although, it has been putting a stop to my already low level of productivity I must admit. I've been the sort of exhausted where even lying down, perfectly still feels like a thousand times too much effort. I smell things the way a microscope zooms in on a cell. For a while there, if T came too close, I swear, I could smell his spleen. This makes the kitchen a room of torture and cooking and eating truly unpleasant. Doing the dishes actually makes me vomit, so no change there but seriously folks...

I am not yet at the "magical" 3 month mark, I'm 3 weeks away from that, so I throw caution to the wind , or give suspicion the deluxe finger or something like that by speaking of being "embarked on propagation of the species", as it were.

Millions of things could wrong at any moment now or in the future or everything could be fine. Either way, it's pretty much beyond my control, outside of normal care, so why hide it, is what I think. Especially since little else is occurring as a result of my "afflicted" state. I'm soooo tired!!!!! Did I mention how tired I was?

So much to consider: Do we have to move? Buy shares in Microsoft? Grow a moustache? Will any of it help?

Meanwhile, I am here, drifting through each day like a limbo ghost, while my body does it's own thing. It's like: "Hey M, this is your hormones here, we got to do some work so you'll be locked out for a while, we got blood volume to increase and we got to hoist your uterus up to a new location, could take a while, probably will crowd out the stomach and the bladder, you'll feel that in the form of hella peeing and burping... you might as well just lay down on the couch for the next couple months and forget about contributing to society."

"Oh, ok, so will everything work out?"

"Maybe."

"Okey dokey then."

So that's where I am. Even bags make me want to puke. (They've probably been making you want to puke for a while now.) Too bad I'm not into online gaming or stock investing or something that would pass time with little physical effort. I hate TV, reading has become tricky because I think I need glasses dammit!, and I don't even care about real punctuation anymore. An exclamation followed by a comma. Shocking disregard for form. Grammar slammer hammer!.,,:

So will I become an endless bore as I continue the random formation of a human? Probably. "Become?" you say. Ha ha, aren't you funny.



While we're at it:









For a truly mindblowing experience, play them all at once.

Work station, engage. Make it so. etc.

Regard and regale the evolution of my work station. Twas once this:



It had character, yes, but was it extremely uncomfortable and annoying also? Yes.

The state of things now:



So clean, so efficient (I hope!).

Why it dang well inspired me to take a plunge and finally list a few items in my etsy store. I have several more to list in the upcoming days as I'm trying to meter it out a little. It's all new to me, I'm learning as I go along how to get exposure and junk and stuff. Wish me luck on that. (Please!)

Wedding fishizzle-ictures

Wedding was fantastic and perfect. Now bed. photos later.

Donuts, rain, sleep deprivation and a wedding

Getting married today. Crazy! I hope I remember some of it and stay awake. I don't travel so good. Sooooo tired. It rains today, today it rains. I will buy an umbrella from the vintage store across the street (there's one of those, every five feet) and go get married, that's my plan for today.

Here's yesterday:

Right out of your mouth. With a wooden spoon.

4:20 AM. That's when our alarm went off this morning. Dressing in the dark, bleary-eyed, moving through the house like a grape through jell-o. Why is air so much thicker when you are tired.

Right now it's 7:45 pm pacific time. We are in the coolest room I've ever been in at the Bluebird Guesthouse. It's old-timey. Art-deco. I'm sitting still but the room is spinning from plane dizziness and exhaustion but I'm happy as hell anyway.

Let me return to early in the morning hours. Driving in the cab through town before sunrise, with the streets dead, was cinematic. I started missing my cat (who's for real name now is Trillby) about 20 seconds after leaving. Little fuzzball.

We breezed through customs and our flight to Dallas was uneventful. Yes, that's right, we took the very efficient route of flying to Dallas before getting to Portland. Sigh. Anyway. I have been wanting to visit Texas for a long time. Somehow though, I don't think eating a pasty vegetable wrap in an airport terminal, watching planes being refueled is the best way to see Texas. Or is it?

I wrote this next part in real-time on the plane so I'll switch temporal modes now:
So I'm flying out of Texas now, above Utah or Arkansas or Poland or whatever the hell is between Dallas and Portland. There are 3 manly men in the seats across the aisle from us. 2 are from Texas and 1 is from Boston. The Texans were mocking the Bostonian: "How come you say 'Ore-re-gone'? It's Orr-gun. Orr-gun."

When the second Texan came to his seat, the first Texan said to him: "Watch out now. This guy is from Boston. I saw his Red Sox shirt and thought, oh now, this won't work, I'm a Yankee...but he's in the military and I got to respect that...."

None of these chaps knew each other, but soon became the best of friends, bonding over talk of guns and sports and how short their mothers are.

"My mom is 4'11."
"My mom is 4'9."
"My mom is 4'2."
The other two in unison: "Really?"

"Yeah but she's tough."
"Oh my mom too. She'll beat the piss right out of your mouth with a wooden spoon."

Will he put that in her obituary I wonder?

This plane is a lot smaller and hotter than the first one. There's a pilot sitting kitty corner from me. I scrutinized his face during take off for signs of concern. He was too busy reading his Harry Potter book to be reliable though.

I guess flying has become a little less scary for me, but no less uncomfortable. It's a long haul. I'm sure it will all seem worth it when I get there.

Back to real-time again, here in Portland, I can say already, it was worth it. I'm already pretty sure I need to live here. In a few short blocks around our Inn, we've seen streets and houses and restaurants that look like our brains designed and built them specifically for us. Hopefully the photos will do it some justice. I'm pretty out of it this evening and maybe not at my writing or photographing best. I am feeling full of good food and soon, I will be full of gravol and sleeping like a northwestern log, hopefully.

Portland day 1. Success.

bitchin' hitchin'

Alright then, T and I might as well go get married this week eh? Ayep. We will be eating our way through Portland for 4 days. Wish us luck.
Have a donut in our honor on friday after 2pm why don't ya?

terry jan

We found this photograph that someone left here, stuck way back in a little closet in our place. Written on the back is: "terry jan". I felt like drawing it today. My favourite is the dad in the background with the killer eyebrows. I didn't draw it well enough to be seen, but in the photograph, he's making a fist so tight it's white knuckled. I can't tell if it's Terry or Jan's dad for certain, but I'm guessing it's Terry's. Terry looks pretty comfortable there all spread out. Jan's looking a little more demure than him. She's got that "in the in-laws home" demeanour about her. Also, I can't tell, is dinner done? or just started? There's salad and that's about it. Hmmm.

Also in the news. I've finished my first commission. A woman from Voodoo donuts offered her services of photographing our wedding in trade for me making a bag for her out of an old David Bowie t-shirt. I should have taken a picture of the t-shirt to show the before and after, but now I know to do it next time. It was in rough shape. The whole top had been cut off. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out in the end, especially the shiny gold lining. Hopefully, she will like it too.

Feeling like Merv.

These bags are getting more kick-ass. I am especially exited about linings. You know when Rick Moranis does Merv Griffin, all bent over, showing off his big but and saying to Dave Thomas as Liberace: "Ooooh. Show us your (suit jacket) lining. Ooooh." I feel just like Merv.

Right on to winter effing off for another year.

Dare I commit to writing that Spring seems to be here? Even if it's just the very tippy-toe of Spring. The last two mornings I've noticed the light looks different through the curtains. More Springy.

The days are longer and the temperature is above zero! I thought it would never happen again. Piles and piles of snow are drooping and turning slushy on top and I heard a bird in Montreal in the middle of the day. I don't know what kind of bird it was, but it seems ages since I've seen or heard one. Soon, the red-winged blackbird that always lives on our roof will be singing right outside my window and waking me up at dawn, like it has the past two years. Grass is gonna poke through the ground, rain will fall instead of snow, the tulips and irises will grow in my flower garden and I'll wear shoes again. What's it even like not to wear boots? I can't remember.

The soundtrack to the arrival of spring seems to be Skylarking by XTC. Every time I notice Spring-ness, I get the urge to throw it on.

I've had a cold the past couple days and have been confined to the couch so I picked up the knitting needles to keep my hands from becoming tools of the devil, what with their idleness and all...it's a bit late in the season for it but I'm pleased with my new hat.

Right on to Spring.

I'm sooooo boring!!!!

New bag finally. It's reversible! Been knitting. Finished this damn sweater that looks less than flattering but is completed at least. Plus, some slippers to boot.