Busy Day

It is now noon. I've been up since 9. So far today I have:

had breakfast
done three loads of laundry
pulled the windows out of the dining room and scrubbed the frames and cleaned the glass
cleaned the front door windows
done two loads of hand wash only laundry in the kitchen sink and hung them on the line
had lunch

All that in three hours. Not so bad eh?

Next is:

two loads of towels and blankets
pulling my bed apart and hitting it with more WD40 than it knows what to do with (it's so squeaky, it's waking me up)
weeding the front garden
pull the windows out of the kitchen, scrub the frames and clean the glass
work on my written assignment that I want to get in the mail tomorrow (priority post, whee)
get a new sanding attachment thing (oh, marvel at the technical words...not) so that I can finish sanding the hallway so I can begin painting the hallway

We'll see how late it is before I get all that done! Busy busy busy busy.

Racist Bus Passenger

Racism is not dead, sadly. Picture this. I'm standing on a particularly crowded bus going through downtown. I'm carrying a duffel bag, but most of the other passengers are similarly burdened. There's a older white man sitting in the seat next to where I'm standing. He smiles at me and comments on how crowded the bus is. I smile back and agree. He then leans towards me and says, "I'd give you my seat, but one of them n****ers would take it before you could." He gestures towards an older woman, who's wearing a hijab. I'm too stunned to react, so he continues:

"Used to be that they'd have to get up and give you their seat. That's the way it should be, like in the old country. Guess that's what you get for living in this country."

I'm frozen, hearing these hateful words spill from his lips, and painfully aware that there are a large number of people watching our exchange. Finally, I respond, "Actually, equality is one of the things that I love and admire about this country", and with that, I turn my back to him. It's the most dramatic movement I can make in the crowded bus to signify that we were not in any way together. I catch the eye of the woman wearing the hijab, and she smiles at me, a truly marvelous smile. A man that I hadn't noticed before gets up and offers his seat to an elderly black woman, who thanks him and sits down. He winks at me to show that he's on side.

So no, racism isn't dead, but it's fading. With each small stand we make, it fades further into history. I am proud to help it diminish.

Brief Update

Am I ever bad at updating this! I haven't (believe it or not) been on my computer much recently at all. I've been too busy doing this and that.

I've started going to the gym with Mum and Emma, and I love it! Surprise, surprise. We're doing that three times a week, and I'm thrilled.

The living room is yellow. I can't start the hallway until we get a ladder so that I can reach up at the top of the stairs.

Wrote my midterm today, and it was relatively easy. I'm not too worried. This weekend I'm writing up the report, which should be a piece of cake.

I have to go for supper, but I promise I'll update more when I have things of interest to say.

New Paint

Today is another gray, rainy day, but here at the Never Ending Renovation House, we're not letting that stop us. Dad and I drove down to Home Depot and bought paint. That's right, after living in this house for 4 years we are finally, finaly, finally, painting over to barf green in the hallway and the dusty butter in the living room. Dad picked a more green for the hallway and a more yellow for the living room. I should take some before and after shots for you.

Having come home an hour ago, I have pulled all the furniture in the living room into the middle of the room, and removed all the paintings from the wall. I am also glad to say that I am done filling the bagillion holes and dents in the drywall with plaster, and am just waiting for the plaster to dry so that I can sand it flat and begin to paint! Yay!

This whole adventure has stressed the poor dog out beyond belief. He's been following me in circles, whining at the fact that he can no longer sleep on his couch. I moved the dog bed out to the kitchen for the moment, but it's no couch. He cannot sleep anywhere but the couch. He is a couch dog. I thought to calm him by giving him a biscuit, but that only caused more of a dilemma because I forgot that the only place he can possibly eat the biscuit is on the couch that he can't get to! Oh the harm done to his nerves! Weird dog.

We seem to specialize in weird pets here. Malika chews in her sleep and talks constantly, Boots is obsessed with the couch and highly anxious, and Rumble...well he's just too easy-going and relaxed to be a cat. I wonder if he was cross-bred with a sloth or something, except that he has so much energy. Maybe his mother was a kitty-dope addict and produced a litter of mellow-heads.

Rain in the forecast for the next three days, with the high possibility of a thunderstorm tomorrow. I love rain, but I don't like these gray days. I wish it would just rain and get it over with.

Off I go to sand down the walls and begin the un-dirty-butter-fication of the living room.

Something Meaningful For Mother's Day

When I saw my siblings earlier this week they eagerly informed me that what Mum had requested for mother's day was a blog post. (You can read Adam's writing over at It's Not All Mary Poppins.) "It's what she really wants", they said. Okay, Haley, pressure is on. After much deliberation, the following post is what I came up with. Happy Mother's Day, Mum.
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How to write Something Meaningful for Mother’s Day:

Step One:
Put it off for as long as possible, knowing that it’s going to be a tremendously difficult thing to do, no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise. Yes, you are a competent writer, but this is no term paper. This has to mean something; it has to convey the depth of feelings you have for the woman who devoted the majority of her life to raising you. You have to make it really good. Let the anxiety and guilt that you might not be able to perform adequately gnaw at you for several days.

Step Two:
Sit down in front of the computer. Open your writing application of choice and stare at the imposing new white page. In some ways the electronic blank page is more threatening than the material blank page, because you can’t doodle on the electronic page to get the juices flowing. Or can you? Write gibberish in the wing-dings font, and reminisce about the time you spent making up secret codes and writing messages in them for Mum to decipher. Chuckle to yourself that you were so amazed at the fact that no matter what language you created, Mum could always determine that it read “I love you”. How kind she was to pretend to try really hard to decode the same message over and over and over. Oh, hey! That’d be a good tidbit to put into the thing you need to write. Make a mental note to include that story.

Step Three:
Realize that you have now spent twenty minutes playing with wing-dings and other font settings. Decide to knuckle down and begin maybe even with that story about deciphering. Stare at the blank page.

Step Four:
This case of writer’s block you seem to be suffering from reminds you, somehow, of those “how to write” guides that Mum got when she was first thinking about writing a column for the local newspapers. Remember how excited she’d been at the idea of having her writing published, and at setting aside the time for herself to write a little bit every day. Wish that you had been more supportive of this idea of hers; after all, she has been supportive of so many things that you have started, done, and finished. Swimming, karate, clarinet, flute… what else did you have to do when you were younger that she supported, and paid for? Think about all the hobbies that you started in a moment of excitement and passion, and then abandoned weeks or months down the road. How could she have been supportive of each new thing, knowing that you would, in all likelihood, just abandon this one as well? Marvel at her dedication while simultaneously feelingly disappointed in yourself for your lack of stick-to-it-ness. Hope that you are even a fraction as supportive to your own potential future children as Mum was (and continues to be) to you. Hope they also inherit her cheekbones.

Step Five:
Have a glass of wine. Determine that it’s been far too long since you’ve had anything to drink, and the one glass of wine is hitting you like it was 4 glasses of wine. Think to yourself that you’d better have some water. Get up suddenly, and trip over the cat. Swear at the cat in a foreign language. You don’t remember exactly what translates to anymore; you just remember it was something your Spanish teacher used to yell whenever she lost her temper with the class. You recognize only the words “mother” and several things that must verbs in the string of utterances you’ve just made. Think to yourself that maybe you should stop swearing things you don’t understand because one of these days someone who actually knows what you’re saying is going to overhear you. Briefly ponder over what exactly you were saying about the cat’s mother. Then wonder where your cat’s mother is. What would it be like to be a cat, separated from your mother at just 4 weeks of age, and raised by a completely different species that can never understand you? Think about the psychological damage and trauma that would ensue. Realize that you are now analyzing your mental health from the perspective of a cat, and you should really be writing something meaningful for your mother, what kind of a daughter are you anyways that you can’t even string together three lines about the single most important woman in your life. Get it together already, you ingrate.

Step Six:
Think that perhaps the best way to start would be with an inspirational quotation about motherhood. Bring up Google, and begin the search:

“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.” (Honore' de Balzac)
Hm, maybe not. That’s certainly rather bleak. It almost makes it sound that except for the forgiveness, a mother’s heart is a black hole. Certainly that’s not the experience you’ve had of your mother, the woman who informed you that it was important for your psychological health to receive hugs every day, and showered you with affection and compliments. Maybe another one will get it better.

Think that it might be nice to include something by Jane Austen, since Mum loves her writing. Think about an appropriate passage. Come up with nothing. Turn back to Google.

“Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.” (James Joyce).
Ha! Now this one is on to something. It’s not glamorous, and so not exactly what you were hoping to find, but it gets to the point. Mothers are reliable. You can rely on them to always love you. This reminds you of the chorus of “Love Song” by 311:

How ever far away, I will always love you.
How ever long I stay, I will always love you.
What ever words I say, I will always love you.

That’s certainly appropriate! Now that you’re in university, and not at home for most of the time, you are very far away, but you still love her. Mental note: work that in somehow. Briefly toy with the idea of learning the guitar tabs and singing the song for her, but then realize that you don’t even know how to tune your guitar yet, never mind use it to produce music. Abandon the idea of using a quote. It’s overdone anyways. You want to be fresh and original in order to make something masterful that will linger in the minds of everyone that reads it – something that people will read and afterwards say, “my, how that girl loves her mum”. Laugh to yourself at the idea that you could write something like that. Think that perhaps you’re aiming a little too high.

Step Seven:
Have an epiphany. Eureka! That’s it! You are aiming too high! No matter what language you encode it in, the message will always be the same, and your mum will always be able to decipher it. It doesn’t matter how you write it, whether you write 400 verses of iambic pentameter, 20 different limericks, 14 haikus, or a short story, whatever you write, she will decode. Your mum has never stopped being the master decipherer you thought of her that one day as a small child. She can read the hidden message in anything you try to make for her.

To my master decipherer, the woman who has always amazed and inspired me, the woman who kissed all my cuts, stayed up when I was sick, held my hand through the tough times, smiled at me proudly through all the good times, and made her children her absolute priority in life, I have only this to say to you:

Just as I am your daughter, you are my one mother, and nobody will ever replace you or even hope to outdo you. I love you, Mum.

Injury

Rumble is wounded, poor mite. He managed to jam one of his claws, or splinter it or something. We're not exactly sure what happened to make it look the way it does. It's bent to the side, and he was limping around, poor guy. We added insult to injury as Grampa and I washed it out with saltwater to prevent infection, or, rather, Grampa washed while I held his squirming, swearing body still. He then spent a while lying on the kitchen floor, having his head washed my Malika. He doesn't seem to be in any discomfort now unless it's directly touched. In fact, he's right now racing around the apartment playing tag with Malika. They're such good friends.

Sleep Needed

I did not know it was possible to be this tired.

Word Damage

Reading my developmental psychology book, it talks about how children learn from modeling. If a parent says things like, "that was really hard, but I'm glad I stuck it out", and then later tells a child, "I know ____ is a challenge for you, but I know you can do it", the child, after completing the task, will start to self identify as hardworking and diligent. It's better explained in the textbook, but I'm sure you all know what modeling is anyways. That got me thinking.

Although I generally agree that life is a process of learning and self-realization, I think that a lot of the time we get so wrapped up in ourselves, and learning about ourselves, that often we can't see what's right in front of us, even about ourselves. Let me explain. A friend recently complimented me on being "multitalented". At the time, I just laughed, but it stuck with me.

As I washed the dishes yesterday after a meal I had cooked for my Dad and Grampa, I was struck by the number of things I've done since I've been home. I've sewn, done basic construction, cooked, cleaned, etc. Sitting in my bedroom, the room that I single-handedly painted, furnished, made bedspreads and curtains for, and looking at the Victorian style dollhouse that I made from a kit, planning my day tomorrow of painting trim on the stars on my room border, finishing touchups on the wardrobe, sewing together a coat I knit, and starting to rip up flooring in the kitchen for refinishing the hardwood underneath, I have to admit that I do feel pretty darn multitalented. I'm academic, I'm domestic, and I'm pretty handy too.

I chuckled to myself at the though of being "accomplished" as something that you read about in a Jane Austen novel, a lady who knows Latin, can play the pianoforte, and do needlework as well as paint. Maybe I'm the 21st century version of accomplished? What a lovely thought. If not, I'll settle gladly with multitalented.

Obviously it's easier to take positives about yourself than negatives, but that makes me wonder about those children that were tormented in high school as ugly, stupid, uncool, etc. I imagine that if this one casual comment from a friend about my being multitalented has brightened my outlook so much, how awful must it be to live under constant criticism from peers? My heart goes out to those kids (and older people as well) that have internalized those negative comments to the point where they actually believe them of themselves. It's just heartbreaking to realize how much damage hurtful words can cause.

Mastered

I have mastered power tools! Or rather, a cordless drill. But still, I have mastered it. I used it to remove shelving from my walls, and then to put the shelving back up 3 feet over, to leave space for the wardrobe that will soon be mine. Then, just for the heck of it, I used it again to move my bulletin board. Obviously that I could have done by hand, but heck, power tools are fun!

By this weekend my bedroom will be an entirely new place. I have new furniture (stolen from other parts of the house or from the storage barn, so new to my room, not new new), I finished my bedspread and my curtains (also hung with power tools, oh yeah) and I reorganized my closet. My craft supplies are now carefully organized and my books are on shelves. My DVDs have a home. Next step is to go to the dollar store or Ikea or something and get some cheapo picture frames for my photos.

Better get to bed. I have to get up in the morning to go help Mum out with the daycare kids and give her a morning off. Well deserved, I must say.

Back in Ottawa

I'm home! The drive went well. I signed all my paperwork and picked up Malika (Jackie's cat). She cried for only about the first 10 minutes of the drive, and then just talked for another hour. Whenever she wasn't being petted she'd be meowing. At one point she discovered a great place to sit. If she climbed up on top of Grampa's headrest and sat perched up there with her bum resting on Grampa's head (she's too big to perch on just the headrest), and with her paws clutching the sides of the headrest, she could see out all the windows! It was the funniest looking thing. I wish I hadn't packed my camera in the back seat. She spent most of the trip sleeping on the armrest between the two front seats though, and was altogether a pretty good travel cat.

Now I'm home, and pretty much exhausted. I'd forgotten what a state my room was in. I've made some headway, and should have it in shape tomorrow. Then I start tearing up the kitchen floor. We've discovered that under 2 layers of linoleum, 1 of plywood and 1 of shingles (yes, like the ones on your roof, I don't know what they were thinking), is hardwood floor! Up comes everything else, and refinishing of the hardwood is the plan. Should be gorgeous when it's done.

Anyways, I'm dead tired, so it's to bed for me. Or rather, to the dryer, to fetch my bedding, and then to bed.