Darwin's Penetrative Force

"OMG, I allowed that man to orgasm in me. Without protection!  I wantonly willed it!"  My (68 yo) mother and I (45 yo) shared these thoughts together, yesterday on the phone.  We have both marvelled at the wonders of the biological clock over the years and at the choices we made when our own clocks were a buzzing.

"that man" is my XHusband (and "that man" for my mum is my Dad, her XHusband).

My mother, the slut (sarcasm alert), conceived me before an actual wedding date was set.  So my very being necessitated a hasty marriage to my Dad.  A marriage that was prompted by a cleverly planned emigration from Ireland (so no one was told of my conception).

This forced-marriage-emigration ploy by my parents was followed by a turbulent 15 year marriage.  An emigration to Canada (wtf? why not somewhere warm and kewl, like Australia or exotic like South Africa?).  All of which was finally sorted, for me, in my thirties (yup, it took me twenty years...longer than their feckin' marriage).

XHusband and I were married nearly 3 years when our first child was conceived (I was 26, he was 27 and this was the early 90s, so quaint).  The child that miscarried.  He impregnated me with Daughter a few months after that miscarriage but also started his dating life with his current wife.  I was very needy after that miscarriage.  I know he tried.  But he wasn't in it for the long haul and today, after 17+ yrs, I have to admit that I wasn't in it for the long haul for the right reasons either. BTW, it is only hindsight that allows me to admit this.

XHusband texted Daughter this week asking if she needed the money he had for her upcoming university gig.  He, a 46 yo grown man, texted his 17 yo daughter and asked her if he was allowed to use her university money for house renovations.  The house renovations that involve eliminating a bed in his house for her. A renovation that leaves her homeless if her other parent, moi, chose to do the same.

And today, all I can think of is:  A mother's instinct never fails.

Daughter needs protection from this imbecile I allowed to impregnate me.  And so, I will.  Continue to.


In whatever way I am able.  Just like my Mum has done for me.  


And I'm the first one to admit that I'm not perfect and I'm not enough.  But it's all we got.

Food Porn

Lunch time in a suburban Catholic school in the 1970s went something like this.  The bell rang for lunch time dismissal.  If you were in Grade 2 or younger you waited for an older sibling or a designated substitute or a parent (mother) to pick you up to take you home.  Or you waited for an older sibling or designated sub to take you to the gymnasium to eat your bagged lunch with your fellow 'bus kids' - of which there were only a couple of dozen in a school of a few hundred.  If you were in Grade 3 or older you were allowed to take yourself home or go to the gym yourself.

I attended a school such as this and I was a bus kid.  I was one of the very few children that had a mother that had paid employment (and possibly the only one whose mother made more $ than the father).  I was also the only child I knew that had a family that had public marital troubles in it's history (although god forbid I ever talked about that).

In grade 5 and 6 it started to become 'cool' for kids to stay for lunch rather than go home so I recall that we started staying in our classrooms for lunch.  This allowed me, an irish immigrant child, to gain further insight into the food choices of the mostly italian, portuguese and filipino families.  I would come home to my parents begging for things like nutella (on fresh italian bakery bread, OH MY).  And wagon wheels.  And pop tarts.  Their deli-meat based lunches smelled a lot different than my peanut butter and carrot (yes) sandwiches on brown whole wheat (cheap) bread.  My lunch treat was an apple and very occasionally a couple of (cheap) cookies.  I started baking at a very early age just so I could improve the contents of my bagged lunch.

Even today, the smell of the deli counter brings my mind directly back to those childhood lunchrooms.  And one of the proudest accomplishments of my parenting career is the fact that my daughter came home regularly during much of her elementary school years so she was able to experience a period of time that included a hot midday meal.  But she, like during my time, started wanting to stay with her friends in grade 6 and by grade 7 she was taking the subway downtown to an alternative middle school which ended her childhood hot lunch era.

One of my own guilty pleasures has been the provision of nutella for my daughter.  This was one item that never came into the household I grew up in and was regularly provided for my elementary school peers.  I wish I could also say that she also brought fresh homemade cookies throughout her childhood.  Let's just say that she too started baking in a quest to improve the contents of her bagged lunch.  After all, the apple doesn't stray too far from the tree :)

Remarkably unremarkable.

I poured over a series of books in my childhood.  I couldn't get enough of finding out the mundane details of Midwest American Pioneer life from the viewpoint of a girl who aged throughout the series, going from just below my age to a young married mom.

My formative years were spent reading.  The pages of the books in this particular series became dog eared and the binding on the paperbacks started cracking.  And, similar to the Velveteen Rabbit, the books became living things to me.  I absorbed the day-to-day life details by osmosis since they were incidental to the real (and somewhat autobiographical) stories portrayed in the books.

As childhood slipped away and more sensational authors like Erica Jong joined my list of reading pleasures (nice pun eh?) the pioneer series was shelved.

In the last few years I've thought often of these books.  I even found a book outlining the detailed biography of the author and her daughter.  I was disappointed to learn that the book series I was so fond of was actually a happier version of what really happened in her life and that soon after the 'ending' of the series, the author's life took a few nasty turns and life remained quite challenging for much of her young adult life.  She didn't actually write the books until the onset of her senior years with the encouragement of her daughter who had herself become a successful professional writer.

In the mid-70s, this book series was destroyed [imho] by the turning of it into a long running and horribly inaccurate tv series that continues to deliver residuals to it's producers.  By definition, television has to be remarkable to maintain ratings and on it's own this series just didn't have enough to sustain the 10 seasons it ended up running (and a multitude of spin offs).  I suffered through a few episodes and found the characters horribly misaligned with my firmly implanted characterizations from the years spent reading and rereading these tomes. I actually now point to that series as the beginning of the end of my television watching days.

There is something to be said for ordinary.  How did a pioneer family heat their house?  How did they go 'grocery' shopping?  What happened during the holidays?  How did they talk to their teachers?  What was their dinner time routine?  What happened when family came for a visit?  How did they prepare their food (my favourite parts!)?  How did they socialize with friends?

This is the sort of thing that I found remarkable as an eight - twelve  year old girl.  And over thirty years later, I find  it remarkable at how such unremarkable plot lines continue to resonate in the very core of my being.

Cheap Shots

It is always interesting for me to think now of how quickly the world has changed.  Back in 1977, with my first camera, there was always the underlying cost consciousness for me (and my parents).  Every click meant a photo development cost and if you didn't focus or use a flash when needed you were essentially throwing money away because the development of the photo was the only way to know about whether your skills made the cut.

This new hobby of mine was soon neglected with the resurgence of parental turmoil and the almost overnight removal of extras from our comfortable middle class life.

The hobby didn't really resurface until the birth of my child.  This was in 1994 and although digital cameras were making their debut in the consumer market, my now adult pocketbook was competing with the costs of a new mortgage and child care costs.  And then, after the abrupt ending of my marriage, frugality once again became a necessity.  However, I did manage to snap enough pix in those early childhood years to fill (and label!) a few photo albums.

And now I own a digital camera thanks to my mother.  About 8 years ago she gave me an awesome present of a top of the line point and click camera with a swivel LCD screen.  By today's standards it is quite primitive but I still love it.  In the past year I've taken to carrying it with me nearly everywhere.  I delight in the opportunity to take unplanned urban shots like the ones below.  I love the ability to take multiple shots and immediately assess them (or not).  The camera has become like an appendage to me.  And perhaps it is my way of taking cheap shots at the world I am so regularly angry with.

South side of King St West East of Spadina  September 2011

Vaughan Rd North of St. Clair August 2011

I have had fun filling up albums on Flickr, Facebook and Picasa.  I am contemplating trying all 21 of the suggestions here.  My old recipe blog has a lot of food pictures and may soon see a resurgence due to my never ending penchant for cooking and my new knowledge about taking food photos :)