fiona

The Grs and the goils dropped by for a visit this afternoon. I hadn't seen them in ages, and let me tell you that 3 weeks in toddler time is like 3 years in grown up time.

The thing about toddlers, or at least these toddlers, is that you never know quite what's going to happen. We sat around the living room for a while, where Ruby and Fiona became Freya and Freya. We then made our way downstairs, where we played peekaboo from behind the furnace, where both Freyas and their owner all managed to sit successfully in Freya's basement chair, where the five of us stood around and did the cat dance for 5 or so minutes.

Of course you did the cat dance in the basement, I can hear you saying, what else would you do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon?

Well, you would also go up to the bedroom and all five of you get into the ginormous closet until one Gr realized that with all five of us in there, there was no one out there to surprise, which is really the whole point of being in the closet. In this case.

As Freya, you might also decide that what you needed was to wear a scarf. And then you might realize that if one scarf were good, two scarves, three scarves, four scarves, five, really, were much better than one.

And you would be right.

Did you know that it is impossible for more than two people to own a car in Ontario?

Not inconvenient, not confusing.

Impossible.

We didn't really ask why. When Shelley and Steve and I walked up to the counter at the MTO a couple days ago, I said "We've bought a car together and we need to register it. There wasn't enough room on the form, so we need to fill out an Application for Registration."

The lady looked at us, quizzled up her brow. "Who bought it?"

"We did. All of us."

"Well, only two people can own a car."

"Pardon?"

"Only two people can own it."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Really? How come?"

She raised her eyebrows and shoulders, dropped 'em all back down again.

We could have pressed more than that. Had we all been less worn down from moving, we probably would have, to prove a political point.

But fucking hell. Shelley's written a letter relinquishing her stake in the car and Steve and I are the owners of a 2001 Echo with a manual transmission.

+++

Stick shift? I hear you saying. But Butch, you don't know how to drive manual!

After last night, I kind of do.

Steve drove me and our friend Rodenhizer out to the parking lot behind the experimental farm (cue porn music) and taught me to drive stick (turn up the volume), while Rodenhizer watched (it only goes to 11, friends).

I stalled the car. A lot. Stalling the car a lot was supposed to make me realize how easy it was to start it again, but my god, I think I might be a little traumatized. Such a horrible sound. Like something is dying. The engine, say. Permanently. But easy to fix, yes.

It'll take a few more lessons before I'm road-worthy, I think. I'm not the most co-ordinated person. It took me six months of boxing lessons to figure out how to move my feet and my hands at the same time. This kind of thing is not my forte. But once I get it down, it sticks like nobody's business.

Eventually, I hope to be able to make a turn without stalling.

+++

Speaking of cute, the Born Ruffian and I went for a long walk the other night. We got gelato, headed down the mess of Preston Street, along Dow's Lake for a bit and then up through the Glebe back towards Centretown.

Halfway between gelato and the lake, I started into a story about Fiona and Ruby. I tilted my head back slightly, held my hand in front of my mouth, and said "Oh my god, it was so cute."

And stopped. And started again.

"You know, I just realized that every story I tell about Ruby and Fiona starts with me holding my hand in front of my mouth and saying 'Oh my god, it was so cute.'"

I don't know why I do that. Am I afraid that if I don't cover my mouth, the cuteness, even in the much dimmer reflection of my words, will be so awesome that people will quail in front of it? It's a mystery.

+++

It was a surprise to some of you that I was getting a roommate. Considering the minutiae I normally regale you with, it really is a shock I hadn't said something.

Also a shock because I am a pretty big advocate of living alone. I love living alone. I have never been lonely because I live alone. You know why? Because if I get lonely, I call a friend. Or go for a coffee. There! Done! Not lonely!

Around the time we started looking for a house, M-C made it known she was looking for a place to live in Ottawa from September to April. I'd lived by myself for nearly 2 and a half years, and really had no intention of having a roommate.

But M-C is lovely and easy going. During one of the crazy snow storms last year, she ended up crashing on my couch a couple nights and a day or two. That's what convinced me. She stayed at one end of my apartment, I stayed at the other. We emailed a couple of times, chatted a bit when she needed something from the kitchen. Stayed out of each other's hair, mostly. Perfect, I thought, we can do this.

The extra money is nice, of course, but mostly, we are all really excited she wanted to be part of our commune.

I'm not sure if she knows how to drive stick. But I'm sure Steve would be willing to teach her.

Around 5:45 Friday afternoon, my phone rang at work. It was Grace and Greg's number. Of course, I picked it up. Fiona, it turns out, had been sad all day. So sad. Super sad. Whiny sad.

When asked what would make her feel better, turns out she said "Go Megan's, see Freya." Could they make that happen?

Of course they could. What else are pets for except the de-sadding of two year olds?

Though I have no real idea if it worked, since they were off to visit their Bobcia shortly after.

++

There were many things yesterday that caused my simmering down: I made arrangements to buy three ceiling fans for $35, one of those very nice kettles for $25, off of kijiji mostly, thus saving me scads of cash; I had a great yoga class, where I was able to get past a couple of mental blocks I'd been having and into full lotus; it was especially great compared to the class on Thursday, during which I spent 20 minutes crying in the bathroom; the big cry in the bathroom on Thursday; certainly not least, the aforementioned Skype date.

The most important thing, though? More important to my general well being and mental health than all of those things put together?

I present to you, the list.*

Like many fellow neurotics/librarian-types, I'm a compulsive list maker. When I clean my desk off at work, clean out my day timer, empty the papers at the bottom of my bag, I find tons of lists. Most of them I'd forgotten I'd made, many of which no longer make any sense.

For this move, I had the lists of people who've volunteered their time, I had lists of what needed to be cleaned, I had lists of what needed to be double checked, what needed to be tripled checked, who needed to be reminded of what, and what I needed to buy to be prepared for the actual move.

All written on scraps of paper clipped on my desk at work, on my kitchen table at home, in my day timer, at the bottom of my bag.

And the tickertape was wearing me down.

Thursday, I stole about 7 feet of brown paper off the roll at work, tacked it up in my long long hallway, found all the lists I could find, and transcribed every thing from them onto the brown paper.

I promised myself that as soon as I thought of something, I would write it on the list. If I thought of it again, my mantra would be "ON THE LIST."

My brain caught on pretty quick. I had to use the mantra maybe 5 times before my brain just relaxed, and my shoulders with it.

++

I can only guess that the Go Megan's visit worked.

It's the best thing on there.

*Some of those names might not be right. The list is not so much for veracity as for the quieting of minds.

I will start with the smallest ones first.

Around 1:30 this afternoon (1:35 to be more precise, though it turned to 1:36 while I was leaving the message) I called Jennifer to say, "I'm going to the bridgehead to write. I'll be leaving around 2:30, so if you're up for it, meet me there!"

Around 2:30 (at 2:24 to be precise, though it turned to 2:26 while we were making plans) Greg called to say, "We're going to the park, and the girls asked if you wanted to come." I'm sick, so I said "I'll wash my hands and make sure I don't really touch them." Which is impossible around 2 year olds as adorable as these two year olds.

As it turns out, the best way to take a picture of a two year old is to have the following conversation:
"Hey Rubes, do you mind if I take your picture?"
"NO!"
"Okay, I'm going to slow the swing down, and get my camera and be right back."
"KAY."
"Okey doke. Here we go. Who's super cutie?"
Well, the answer to that is pretty obvious, isn't it.

For most of our park time, Fiona and I hung out by the swings. By which I mean I listened to Fiona's incredibly entertaining running commentary "higher higher good swinging papa ruby hi ruby hi papa mama slow down fix hat higher megan nice swinging time frances birdies wire higher good swinging ronica burfday paul eamon john john john fun burfday" while I pushed her till my arm ached. She was killing me, she was so adorable.

I loooooove how many words they have.

One of the things I bought at the wicked cool zine store in Portland was a book involving a small girl and a hootenanny. So on the way through the park after playing, Greg tipped up the stroller and said "Hey girls!" To which they replied "Hootenanny!"

Love it.

Further along, on the way to Bridgehead, we walked by the Oak, where a traditional Irish band was playing. We looked sideways at each other and kind of rolled our eyes. Then I got excited. "But but but! It's a HOOTENANNY!" Greg got excited too. He tipped back the stroller "Hey girls! What is it?" Perhaps is was a bit of post-park sleepiness or pre-cookie anticipation or a glaze of wonder in the face of a real live hootenanny, because they said a measured "Hootenanny," and looked away.

Off we trotted then, to Bridgehead, where there was not room for Greg and the girls, but was for me and my laptop. I snuggled myself in with a coffee, and tried not to be distracted by a woman who kept, in a annoyingly nasal and terribly loud voice, telling her son, who was playing some video game that he kept calling stupid, to be quiet.

Though her voice did allow me to overhear parts of an infuriating conversation. The woman, long-haired hippie aesthetic, her son astride her knee, nestling his back into her chest, was chatting with her also long-haired hippie friend, who had an adorably quiet young girl in his lap. Long-haired Woman said "Oh, and we were going to do his toes, purple I think - wasn't it, sweetie?"

Cool, I thought. Long-haired man also nodded his approval. The son mumbled something at his game.

"What was that, sweetie?"
He ducked his head a little lower and mumbled something else.
"Weird? You're weird? At school?" She started stroking the side of his head, obviously distressed.

And you know, they had me up to this point. -Fuck people! I thought. -Ah, kid, it'll get better, I thought. I'm a sucker for that. Going to school with a bunch of people who think you're weird is shitty. Knowing that they're right is even shittier.

She said "You're not weird! Of course you're not weird!"

And she lost me. I mean, I don't know what school that kid goes to, but I do know Ottawa, and chances are he doesn't go to a school where a significant proportion of the boys are contented pink-shirt-wearing vegan jews with purple-painted toenails. Just a guess.

So telling him that he doesn't know what he's experiencing on top of being the weird kid? Not exactly going to help give him the self-confidence he going to need to be a triumphant weird kid.

But easy for me, eh? We'll see what my reaction is if either Fiona or Ruby says that to me in 4 years.

Last Wednesday, Hallowe'en, I was going to go to yoga. But I got to Grace and Greg's and found two very cute spotted creatures. The only trick or treating we did was across the road to Jo and Adrian's house, where Grey was an elephant, and R and F were thrilled to get their first Hallowe'en candy.

Ladybug Fiona

Penguin Ruby

The girls are nearly 20 months now, and getting lovelier and lovelier. I always get lots of hugs and kisses when I go over, and am occasionally attacked by adorable, when one or both of them runs across the room with arms outspread and grabs me. Or whoever they're attacking. It is a very nice way to be attacked.

What 20 months also means is that it is damned hard to take pictures of them. They're constantly being cute, but constantly moving, and moving fast. And when they're not constantly moving, as soon as you pull the camera out, they want to "PUSH. BUTTON."

So I feel that the pictures above do not do justice to the adorable of the girlies. The picture below captures a sliver of Ruby's cute, but the only one I got that did the same for Fiona was blurry and dark. Maybe next time.

Got back not too long ago from the Grs house, where I had a lovely play and bathtime with Ruby and Fiona.

What is cuter than a starkers baby being helped to walk from the bedroom to the bathroom?

Not much, I can assure you. I was a bit busy when Fifi had her promenade, but I got a full cute backside view of the Ruster as she went off. Her muscles are shocking - her quads and hip muscles were actually bulging.

After bathtime came story time, which was a pretty short one. And then! I got to give Fiona her bedtime bottle. She schnozzled into the crook of my arm and tapped the cap that had been on the bottle against the side of the bottle and looked up at me as I murmured god knows what at her and then she'd look away and droop her eyes and just was generally delicious enough to make you wish she might never go to sleep but instead snuggle there forever, warm and baby-smelling.

They're so big now. I haven't been over in almost two weeks, and it's totally a cliché, I know, but the fact that babies change so quickly is only a cliché because it is entirely true. Fifi's got so much hair! Ruby looks so different I didn't even recognize her in a picture with her Aunt Carrie.

I do love those babies.