Meet Mr. Lion

I have a t-shirt that my friend Andy gave to me when we lived in New York. It's got a screen print of an old sketch that he found in his desk one day. I love that t-shirt. Partly because my friend made it, and partly because it's just so odd. It's just this crappy drawing of a one-legged dude on a bicycle, but there's something a little alternative rock about it, I guess, and I have a soft spot in my heart for that stuff. I am from Athens, after all. (Come to think of it, Andy is from Athens, too.) Anyway, I started wondering if I could apply this crappy doodle principle to other things. In particular, I like the idea of using old t-shirt scraps and a magic marker to make stuffed animals. Here's my first one:


I think he's cute, but he's not quite alternative enough for me. It's like he's straddling the fence between being alterno-awesome and regular-type cute. I think maybe my drawing is too structured. I will work on this. So this one goes in the nursery along with Flat Guy.

My poor kids. They get all the leftovers.

Photographic Evidence of an Addiction

My name is Alana, and even after all these years, I still struggle with an addiction to film.


This isn't even all of it. And I didn't show you my closet full of chemicals, paper, etc. Yes, I'm aware of the existence of digital SLRs. Yes, I have a problem. But I'm in no hurry to solve it. Just as soon as these days get a little shorter and the sun starts setting before 11 o'clock at night, I'm planning to be back in that darkroom (er, bathroom, really). We'll see what comes out of it.

Fraises! Fraises! Fraises!

Our neighbors took us strawberry picking recently. It was a lot of fun, and we came home loaded down with eight litres of strawberries. Our neighbor's son enjoyed it the most, though. He spent his time there stuffing his face with strawberries and running between the strawberry patches shouting, "Fraises! Fraises! Fraises!" It was just as adorable as you might imagine.

When we got home, it was like Iron Chef. The secret ingredient? Strawberries! We made shortcake (of course), strawberry sangria, fruit salad with strawberries and plums, strawberry bread pudding, and brandied strawberries dipped in dark chocolate. We also froze about half of them to make tarts and jam. Oh, right. And we ate a bunch. For about 24 hours, my make-up was approximately one part self, two parts strawberries.

Mourning the 1980s

A mere hours after we all heard the news, Linda Holmes over at NPR had already put her finger on it. I was a young kid when Michael Jackson became popular, and honestly "Thriller" and "Billie Jean" would have escaped unnoticed if not for my mother. She had a big dancer crush on Michael Jackson, although she'll probably deny it now.* She played "Billie Jean" for us, bobbing her head and snapping her fingers, which even at that age I thought was so embarrassing. When I whined, "Ohhhh Mooommm," she gave me a lecture about Jackson's talents, particularly his dancing skills. (I should probably add that my mother was a dancer for most of her life up until that point, so this was one time when she actually knew what she was talking about.) I remember her calling me over to the television to watch "Thriller," and even if I didn't think my mom was particularly cool, that video was. It was the first music video I had ever seen, and it was awesome.

But the moonwalk! Oh, man. I don't know a kid of my generation who didn't spend hours in sock feet attempting to moonwalk across the kitchen floor. For years. Maybe our moonwalking phase was shorter than I remember, but it was like an obsession that seemed to last for most of the 1980s. We all wanted to do it, and it still kind of bugs me that I never got the hang of it.**

And so despite all the crazy Michael Jackson antics of the last several years, I think the thing most of us will remember is probably that glorious time in the mid-1980s. The moonwalk. Dancing zombies. Billie Jean. As Linda Holmes says in her article, "To a lot of people, he was everything terrible about celebrity, but to a lot of other people — or perhaps to many of the same people — he was everything good about the summer of 1983."




*Mom'll also probably deny her dancer crush on Patrick Swayze, but she had one of those as well. And, well, maybe I had one too. I've also had a life-long dancer crush on Mikhail Baryshnikov, but then who hasn't?

**I've also always been bothered by the fact that I never learned to breakdance.

Everything Old Is New Again

Check out my new skirt!




I bought a bunch of old t-shirts at the Salvation Army and made one of them into a skirt. The only problem with my new skirt is that it smells like stale smoke. But we're working on that.

Speaking of old things becoming new, I came home recently to this surprise:



A 1904 Singer sewing machine! Xander and our neighbor found it out on the sidewalk. A woman was moving and getting rid of it. It needs a few minor repairs, but it still works! I'm not sure that I'll get around to using it anytime soon, but I just love looking at it. I've always wanted one.

Taking Requests

Last year, I started a little craft shop online to help raise money to fight AIDS in Ethiopia. It went pretty well. We're going to do the same thing this year for another charity, preferably one that provides some kind of assistance in Ethiopia. So I need to get busy making stuff for it. Only I'm not sure what to focus on. Scarves? Hats? Dolls? I have a new necklace design that I've gotten several compliments on, so definitely some of those will be on the list. What else should I make? I've been thinking very seriously about bringing back the toilet paper cozy. And things made from recycled things are high on the list as well. I want to keep everything affordable since most of us are under budget constraints these days. I need suggestions from you nice folks. What kind of stuff do you think people would like?

Also, please feel free to offer suggestions for Ethiopian charities. We have a few that we are considering, but we're by no means settled.

Thanks in advance for sharing your ideas!

Status Update

My current status on That Silly Social Networking Site is as follows:

(finally) APPROVED TO ADOPT TWO CHILDREN! AHHHHH!!!!!!

Now of course I have to go to French class and try not to jump up and down in my chair for two hours or unexpectedly blurt out to the room full of mostly graduate students (for whom kids are not presently a consideration), "I'm gonna have babies!" We'll see how that goes.

Boys Kick Things

My husband plays freestyle footbag. "Hacky sack?" you ask. No, Hacky Sack is a name brand. Kind of like when you call a facial tissue a Kleenex. Or a cotton swab a Q-tip. College boys play "hacky sack" on the quad after they've finished smoking weed and eating pizza. Footbag is a sport. In fact, the dream of many professional footbag players is for footbag to eventually become an Olympic sport. "What," you may ask, "does such a sport look like?" Observe a couple of World Footbag champions:





The videos are fairly impressive, but it's much better in person. A couple of weeks ago, we went to a tournament here in Montreal. As you might imagine, it is really hard to get good photographs of footbag with a point-and-shoot camera.





And some photographs look downright silly.


So it really is best to just take a video.



So what does one do as a professional footbag player? It's a lot like being an artist or actor. Many of these guys have day jobs, and in their spare time they practice, compete, perform, and make movies, television shows, and commercials. Like this one featuring that world champion you watched earlier:

Happy Father's Day

Mourning the Loss of a Loved One

UPDATED

At first I saw the headline and thought, "Maybe it's not so bad." But no. It is.


Laugh at me if you will, but this makes me genuinely sad. My line of work means I'm already predisposed to tear up when landmarks are lost. But this particular landmark has been a part of my life for years. It's part of the essence of Athens. Yeah, you went there to see bands and movies and whatnot. But you also went purely for the atmosphere. It was The Georgia Theatre. It was also the location of one of my first dates with my husband.

The Wikipedia entry already refers to the building in the past tense. "The Georgia Theatre was a prominent music venue in Athens, Georgia." Geez, guys. Can't we at least wait for the autopsy?

My heart is heavy this morning.

UPDATE: My heart was lightened a little bit by this article.

Beginnings

Despite the aforementioned furry orange pest that frequents our balcony and nibbles at our plants, there are signs of life in our little garden.

First tomato flowers


First pepper flowers


First salad

Today's Status

Fat orange cat for sale to the highest bidder. Very low mileage. Loves banana pepper and basil. Immune to pokes, prods, and loud noises.

If interested, let me know.

In Which I Embrace My Inner Hippie

That's right. I did the thing where you make a denim skirt from a pair of jeans. So by "embracing my inner hippie," I mean not. Because everyone but me has already done this two decades ago. Or they've at least bought a new skirt that looks like it was made from old jeans at some oh-so-hot clothing store. (Or maybe they sent a professional money and said, "Pimp my jeans!") So you could say I've become conventional.

Anyway, it went well. My new skirt is very comfortable and confidently says "cool, but dated." Aren't you jealous?


Coming soon, a skirt made from an old t-shirt.

Waiting

I've never been there, but I imagine waiting for a spouse to come home from serving in a war must be one of the hardest things to live through. Waiting day after day, hoping for a phone call or email or letter, praying the person you love most is still alive. I don't know that I could do it, and I have immense respect for people who are able to survive such a thing with their relationships intact. It just sounds so incredibly difficult. I really couldn't imagine being this guy.

Waiting for equality can also be enormously painful. I understand why Clinton signed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." I understand that he was stuck between a rock and hard place, that perhaps there was no way that battle could have been fought at the time. But things are changing, and it's time to begin letting go of the myths of homosexuality. To really think about where these myths come from and why some people are so afraid. Is it really about what's best for the country? Is it really about religion? The Bible? Or are these things just excuses that allow people to avoid examining their own prejudices? It's not the first time religion and patriotism have been used as excuses for discrimination.

Speaking of gay rights (sort of), the New York Times review of Sacha Baron Cohen's Brüno brought up some interesting points. I didn't really like his last film that much--I was just too horrified to enjoy it--but I'm going to give him a second chance. I'm really looking forward to hearing audience responses. I wonder if people will find the film "vulgar, inappropriate and harmful" or "bold, timely and necessary." Is it possible that "certain viewers won’t understand that the joke is on them and will leave the multiplex with their homophobia validated?" I guess we'll find out.

The Effects of Twitter

A recent post at WWdN cracked me up. (Is now an appropriate time to mention I had a huge crush--pun completely unavoidable--on Wil Wheaton when I was younger? ) I'm not on Twitter, because frankly I find keeping a blog plenty narcissistic enough for me. Besides, the whole thing is just too adorable to bear. I imagine all of the little "tweets" as sounding like high-pitched baby talk or cheerful Cinderella-type songs. It's like people are virtually pinching each other's cheeks or something. Plus I hate the word "tweet." I just can't be part of something that uses cute words like that.

But if I were on Twitter, I'd definitely be that guy. The one who couldn't turn it off and constantly refreshed the page and over-analyzed each tiny little "tweet" until I drove myself completely batshit.

Oddly enough, when I searched for the term "batshit" on YouTube to see if anyone had visualized the concept, the majority of hits involved Tom Cruise.

And Now a Word from Scott Simon

Scott Simon wrote a short commentary regarding the shooting at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Here's an excerpt:

Anyone who doubts that anti-Semitism still exists should have a look at my e-mail. Not a week goes by in which our show, or me personally, doesn't receive notes from people who use good grammar, have a detailed knowledge of the news, and who are certain that something — or everything — that irritates or scares them in this world traces back to Jews.

Interestingly — or maybe I should just say, appallingly — many of these people take pains to profess that they are not bigots, but distinctly perceptive observers; and if the rest of us don't see the truth as plainly as they do, it's because we're Jews, or in the pay of Jews, or don't realize how everything is run by Jews.

I spent a few years managing the collection of another Holocaust memorial museum, and I processed thousands--I'm not exaggerating, thousands--of photographs of things no person should ever see, much less experience. I also heard regularly from Jewish friends and coworkers who believed they had been judged or discriminated against based on their ethnicity. Sometimes their stories were so appalling that they were hard to believe. And then a guy walks into a Holocaust memorial and starts shooting, reminding all of us that bigotry is not a thing of the past no matter who our President is.

I think we all have a responsibility to identify our own prejudices and work to address them, because the problem with bigotry, like Scott Simon indicates, is that people often don't even recognize it in themselves or become immediately defensive at any suggestion of prejudice. We must also speak up when we witness prejudice in others. And possibly most importantly, we have to talk to our kids about differences in race, religion, culture, etc., because someone is likely to bring these things up to them at some point, and in my family I'd like that person to be me. Along those lines, I'm a big fan of the website Teaching Tolerance, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and recommend checking it out if you have not already done so.

Ahhh, New York

This was in the news today. This is why so many movies and tv shows are set in New York. Never a dull moment.

Bjorns and Blogs? What About Food, Clothing, and Shelter?

There was an article in Salon recently that claimed some parents are "rebelling against the judgments and assumptions and expectations and slings and Bjorns and blogs." In fact, it seems like every day I see an article dissecting one aspect of parenting or another. The articles cover everything from breastfeeding to vaccinations to whether or not one should allow one's child to attend slumber parties. And no matter what the topic, some mommy or other almost always writes a counter argument. These and other somewhat niggling discussions make it sound like the majority of parents are either agonizing over incredibly frivolous judgments or rebelling against the ones making them. Really? I'm not so sure. It sounds like these arguments are largely between well-off parents to me. What about the numerous men and women who are working so hard to provide food for their families that they don't have the time or energy to worry if their kids' bottles are BPA-free or if their peas are organic?

The ability to become enraged over things like breastfeeding and vaccinations and whether or not the baby carrier you use is damaging to your child's spinal development is an enormous privilege. Most mothers in the world, and I'd wager even in the US, are more focused on keeping their children alive and out of trouble. I'm not saying mothers who have the ability to fuss over breast pumps and baby carriers should not take advantage of their privilege to do so, but how about a little effort to keep things in perspective?

One of the things I keep coming back to as we go through this adoption process is what a huge privilege it is. I don't mean that in a gushy, sentimental, I've-got-religion sort of way. I'm being straightforward. Compared to most of the world, and despite occasional complaints about our glorified grad-student lifestyle, I'm a rich lady. And in a manner of speaking, I've outsourced the trouble of pregnancy and childbirth to a poorer nation. I'm not bragging about that. It's horrible. It makes me feel guilty and sad. And I think the injustice of it all deserves to be acknowledged. There's a very big imbalance in the world, and international adoption highlights it better than anything. While rich mothers here argue over organic versus non-organic food, mothers elsewhere are dying by the thousands from preventable causes. And those that survive are struggling just to put (cheap, even non-organic!) food on the table. Some simply do not have the means to do so.

Who is to blame? In large part, we are. We have done a lot to help cause these imbalances. And so when people act like we're doing something so heroic and special by adopting children, it makes me cringe. We're not. What we're doing is putting a teeny, tiny bandage on a gaping wound. Adoption is not solving the problem. It's a pathetic attempt at triage. Our children will be getting nothing more than what they deserve, what they should have been able to experience in their home of birth. And by that I don't mean BPA-free bottles and designer strollers, but simply food, clothing, health care, an education. People become visibly uncomfortable when we talk about the dark side of adoption, but it's a lie to pretend we're some kind of heroes. Our adoption does not absolve us of responsibility. We can't pat ourselves on the back and say, "Good job. We've done our part."

I feel like I should end on a positive note to make everyone more comfortable, but I don't think I will. I think I'm just going to let it hang out there. Because I think about this every single day--it's part of the process--and it makes thinking about Bjorns and blogs and BPA-free bottles difficult. Whenever I start to feel frustrated by the bureaucracy or the paperwork, or whenever anyone tries to warn me of the dangers of sippy cups or attachment parenting, or whenever anyone comments that they can't believe we're adopting two because it will be "sooooo hard," I can't help thinking about the conditions that make international adoption possible. And in the end I find myself feeling humbled, sad, and grateful.

Just Like Me

I'm catching up on my reading over at Anti-Racist Parent, so some of you may have already seen it, but this brought tears to my eyes.

Chambly

We were supposed to cycle to Chambly for the weekend last month. But alas, it rained on the day we were supposed to leave. So we went by bus, which made the weekend slightly less exciting but still quite pleasant. I didn't take many pictures because we'd been there before. There were two things we did this time that we didn't do last time, however. One, we went to Bedondaine et Bedons Ronds and had some really amazing beer while looking at their giant collection of beer memorabilia.


And two, we had dinner at Fourquet Fourchette, which was also very good. The ambience is a bit touristy, but the food is not. The menu includes old Quebecois dishes made using local meat and beer, so we did something we almost never do and broke vegetarianism in order to eat there. (We believe that trying local cuisine when traveling is more important than upholding dietary ideals. When in Rome and all that. Actually, when in Rome we eat pizza margherita...) I had a caribou pot pie made with a Maudite sauce. Xander had a braised pork dish, also in a Maudite sauce. And of course we drank Maudite with it. It was quite tasty. I think we both met our protein and cholesterol quotas for the year.

We stayed in an old roadside motel.


We walked around the lake.




We met odd flat people.


We admired colonial houses and churches.



And we saw people surfing in the rapids. Very strange.




All in all, Chambly is a nice place to spend an inexpensive weekend away. But next time we're hoping to go by bike.

Summer-type Things

I considered not even telling you about our latest project. The last time we attempted anything like this, it ended with death and tears. But we've decided enough time has passed that we are ready to move on. To start fresh. Internets, we're growing things. Plants, to be precise, on our balcony. We are now the proud owners of things like lettuce, shallots, teeny cucumbers and even teenier tomatoes, banana peppers, and an assortment of herbs. We're ignoring many of the rules, digging through piles of information in Internetland to find out just what we can get away with, pushing the limits. We'll see how it goes. But for now, our little babies are doing okay. No one is dead yet. But there's still time. And a fat orange cat who will go to just about any lengths to get at the basil.




In other news, we went to Festival Mondial de la Biere yesterday. It was a little smaller than what we were expecting, but nonetheless overwhelming. We tried too many to list, but my favorite was a smoked lager from Le Trou du Diable. Santé!

How to Swear Like a Quebecer

Step 1: Make a list of all the most sacred, Catholic-themed words you can think of.

Step 2: Translate them into French.

Step 3: Apply using one of the following methods:

1. Shout words loudly while gesturing wildly and/or stomping foot.
2. Mutter under breath while rubbing forehead.
3. Alternate methods 1 and 2.

Tip: String several different words together for greater emphasis.

Here's a demonstration by Tom Green:



Didn't get that? This short guide to popular Quebec swear words (sacres) might help:

sacrament - sacrament
maudit - damn
baptême - baptism
crisse - Christ
câlice (coupe is also sometimes used) - chalice
ostie - host (very popular)
tabarnak - tabernacle (also very popular)

Still need help? Okay, here's another tutorial:



Swearing in Quebec is such serious business that there's even a Wikipedia entry to aid the ill-informed.

Stowaway

My backpack felt a little heavier than normal...

New Furniture!

Okay, not really. Xander's aunt and uncle gave us their 20-something-year-old loveseat a few years ago. It has a (not) very stylish bamboo frame and some pretty amazing 80s pastel upholstery. We'd been covering it with a sofa cover, but the thing kept shifting and needed to be straightened almost daily. We'd had enough, and I finally got around to reupholstering the damn thing. I'd been inspired to try it by my friend Robin, who actually did a much, much better job on her loveseat.

In preparation for messy little ones, I chose an outdoor fabric with Scotchgard. Water beads and rolls right off of the stuff. It's great. I also decided to go with a simple envelope approach, which allows me to remove the cushion covers for cleaning. I'm no sewing expert, and my corners are a little sloppy, but the loveseat still looks worlds better than it used to. My next reupholstering project will be the rocking chair in the kids' room, which I'm hoping to do with some yet-to-be-acquired repurposed vinyl (preferably a used outdoor table cloth in some awesomely tacky pattern).

The old


The new


In situ