TODAY'S OBITUARY

Semi-intelligent emergency physician Fredericka Johnsdotter spent a sunny Sunday with her beloved daughter, after sleeping in, enjoying a Bailey's coffee while her daughter ate Nutella crepes, sorting laundry, and finishing a book. She enjoyed leftovers for lunch, let her Calico cat out on the back deck one last time as the snow has nearly melted in the supra-freezing temperatures of this fine fall day, went for a long walk through the nearby woods and along the river's shore, walking the path misnamed Lakeshore.

When dusk settled, she videochatted with her dearest friend, who she had not seen this year in accordance to their level of comfort with visitors outside of her bubble, and as Freddie lived in the red zone. 

It was a good day in the time of Covid, filled with her daughter's singing from the basement that she had taken over as a teenager of the age 14. There was enough time together, and apart. There were happy memories and dreams of the future. There were Christmas stories and parody songs. There was no war.  There was no disease. There was heat and electricity and food and water and peace and love. They were healthy, sheltered, and warm.

Sunday, November 29th was a good day to be alive.

NANOWRIMO 2020!

 

POST NIGHT SOCIAL UPLIFTS

I was done for the night, and I thought I would stop by the cafeteria for a pastry for the road. They are now wrapped in  plastic, and I saw a housekeeping colleague that was no longer in my department. After an inane chat, I decided on an almond croissant, which reminded me of Paris, and made me look forward to my drive home. When it came time to pay, the cashier told me that my bill was already paid! It was such a kind gesture! 

On my way out I had  to pick up a parking pass that allowed free COVID. I thought I was just getting a pass for the day, and that the October offer expired before my next shift, but I got a free pass without any foreseeable end!

After a short nap, I had a meeting where the default was to show no video and be muted. It was very efficient, and socially bereft.

I went outside to rake some leaves, and enjoyed the exercise. My neighbour came out asking to help. I suggested he cut back some vines that had been growing, and although he underpromised to do it tomorrow, eventually he came out and made good progress today!

My daughter's friend came over after school, and we had a nice chat before she got down to homework. Then my sunshine came home after volunteering to clean up the schoolyard, and after catching up with her friend, she told me lots of stories, and enjoyed my snack, and then bugged me by "booping" my head all the way to her dad's. It was the highlight of a very good day, if not exhausting!

I caught the brief sunset on the way home with trees still impressing with their increasing muted but beautiful colours, and many of their naked bodies calling us to look forward to the next season. 

At home in a snug dark evening, I touched base with an infrequent friend and talked for over an hour and a half, filling in the gaps of each other's deficiency.  She lost weight, gained control, and started running over covid. I have not! She was anxiously overplanning, and I was not. She had family and friends, but felt the isolation of being alone. I had company, even if I was annoying to her, one week out of two.

So I go to bed punch-drunk and happy, and grateful for the people in my life, even on a covid day when I go to sleep alone.

FORMULA OF A ROMANCE MOVIE: THE DATING LIST

 Two strangers meet: a reclusive writer and an enthusiastic wannabe editor (common ground)

By accident, they exchange portfolios and have to reconnect platonically.

The protagonist has three obvious barriers to her dream job. She's doesn't, a scary potential boss that already said no, and her competition is immediately jealous of her.

Her curiosity leads her to read a manuscript that she loves. Because she's so enthusiastic, she takes the writer to a copy place, and, with this task, they hit it of.

She is by sheer preparedness offered a job when the editor's assistant elopes.

The writer's identity is the mystery, but allows the protagonist's enthusiasm for him to be clear.

She is given the Herculean task of finding her boss a dating match, and her roommate immediately finds her a system that is a solution.

Time passes in a comedic fashion with her researching a few of the potential online dates.

Meanwhile, the writer's friend has written a great book, and the writer isn't confident about his, and is two years behind schedule. They end up working together to get the book ready. 

The writer gets unblocked and the wannabe editor is offered her dream job, while they edit the friend's book.

Eventually he takes her somewhere he finds special- a (fantasy) 24 hours bookstore, where she proclaims her fanship, and criticizes him without knowing who he is.

His identity becomes a barrier to their growing intimacy, but his secret identity is too important to give away yet.  

When he tries to kiss her, she runs away from her feelings because she is saving him for her boss' romantic options. 

In offering the writer to her boss, she spends more time with him and his friend. While her boss likes the friend, she keeps her distance in the mistaken idea that her boss likes the writer when she has fallen for the friend.

The writer asks her to read his next book in an act of trust, but he overreacts when the junior editor's jealous colleague tells him that he was part of an elaborate search for her boss' romantic interest.

Despite his rejection, she keeps his secret and loses her job over it. 

She makes peace with her nemesis, who apologizes to her.

She loses her job, but is offered a better when she is offered partnership with her senior editor boss. 

When they meet again, he discovers that she has kept his confidence. He apologizes, and they kiss.

Happy ending with financial security, dream career, and friendship ensue.

IN OTHER WORDS:

Setup: two strangers meet by chance in coffee shop

Inciting incident: they mix up their portfolios, and have to remeet to exchange them

Rising action: She applies for a job at a publishing company.

She looks for a dating profile for her boss

They help his friend publish a book.

He finishes a long overdue book.

They get to know each other, and take increasing leaps of faith.

She thinks her boss likes him, and tries to keep her feelings platonic for the sake of her job.

He tells her who he really is.

Climax: Risking her job, she keeps his confidence, but he rejects her when her jealous colleague tells her secret in the most unflattering light, and he overreacts

Falling action: She loses her job, gets a better one, and remains available. 

He takes his book away from the original publisher, and finishes it.

Resolution: He apologizes, she accepts, and the two couples live happily and successfully ever after.

UPSIDE DOWN INSIDE OUT WORKSHOP: CREATIVITY AS A FORCE FOR CHANGE

Today, I am up bright and early on a Sunday morning, excited by the idea of spending 3 hours focussing on creativity. This was the second workshop that I had participated in from a leading edge masters degree from Concordia in Human Systems Intervention.

This is nothing I had heard of before my friend introduced me to the first one 5 years ago called Embracing Imperfection, based on the book by Brené Brown. Last time, my friend was a co-participant and we were able to gather in groups. This time, my friend was one of the leaders, and I was so proud! The other difference, that was marked, was that we are unable to gather in person, and so participated on a zoom call.

We were taken on a trip, which was probably supposed to be exciting, but was just frustrating in context. It was meant to be experiential, and intense. I was impressed with the amount of work, and honesty that both the leaders and the participants were bringing that morning, but I just didn't feel like I was getting much out of it. I may not have been as open to the opportunity as I should have been, but what I was missing was the preparation and link to the book that I didn't have access to. Fortunately, my friend realized that having gotten my ticket though a third party, whom I didn't trust with more information than I need to register, I wasn't privy to the ideas that the group had prepared in advance.

It was not the experience I had hoped for, in some ways, it did give space to the question:

Why is creativity important to you?

Our group talked about: exploration, adaptation, problem solving, innovation, following intuition, play, possibilities, job, magic, daring to take risks, control over our own experience, and hope.

The purpose was: to courageously explore and nurture your creative confidence as a force for change. 

Some questions:

Can you think of a time where you or someone you know did something "unconventionally creative"?

What feels like a leap of faith/risk?

What conditions were present?

parachute: what works

gremlins: what works against

uncharted territory (crossing the chasm): what did it look like once here

What pearl of wisdom/lesson would you take from this act of creativity?

I thought of my friend Susanne, who is conventionally creative, but, in response to the pandemic, she took to a platform she was just becoming familiar with, and spent the month of April posting a work of art a day on instagram. She didn't know the outcome or how all of it would work, but she used her artistic talents, and it was brilliant to follow such beauty that inspired in a dark, anxious and isolating month. It made be want to start something without knowing the end result, which is every creative process, isn't it?

We had a group project using an interactive program that made a communal art piece. I learnt that there were a lot of people that did not see themselves as creative, even though everyone of them had things they clearly (to me at least) created. I learned that I wasn't seeking confidence in creativity, and that I had to manage a lot of transference and sarcasm, which the others didn't seem to suffer from.

At the end of the morning, the take home points were:

1. Make a commitment

2. Find an audience

3. Make it real

The reflection was to ask myself, "Who am I becoming?" 

The book that the day was based on was called: Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom and David Kelley (brothers and founders of IDEO).

Homework that I did after the workshop that has started putting it all together for me. 

HSI Creativity Facebook page

Youtube videos that I had missed:

Upside Down, Inside Out Workshop

Where did the magic go?

What if you have what it take?

TED Talk David Kelley How to Build Your Creative Confidence 

TED Talk Tim Brown Serious Tales of Creativity and Play

FRIENDSHIP AND SHARK ATTACKS

When I was growing up, we sang a song about friendship called, "Silver and Gold".  The lyrics go like this: 

"Make new friends and keep the old. One is silver and the other gold."

I have been fortunate to have kept many old friends, and they are truly as valuable as gold. It is a shame that so many of them live far away, however. 

Today I was talking to one of them, and it was really a challenge to have a conversation on the phone, so I find myself tonight writing this entry to try and express myself. It's something she's not comfortable to talk about in person she told me today, but she recently posted a blog post that made it impossible for me not to try to reach out, and she asked that I write rather than talk on the phone.

She worked with my ex-husband, and she and her husband were friends with us, because of him, not me. Our friendship really only began when I heard about her symptoms that added up to bad news, and I took her to the emergency room to be diagnosed. Just as I can't see her without my ex-husband's burden, I don't think she can see me without having her shark attacks reflecting back from my face.  But this is part of the trouble. 

I think I am the only one who have seen so many shark attacks without being afraid of sharks, as most people are, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to find a way to make this strength of mine translate into something positive in our relationship. I don't make her laugh like she did with my ex. Now that she has withdrawn so far away, I don't have connection to her husband or kids unless she feels brave enough or strong enough. I always feel at her beck and call, and my offers have mostly been rebuffed, but when her invitations come, I have always made it a priority to say yes, until they only came with travel plans.

Strangely, it was only my willingness to travel 10 hours away, and drive in a foreign country, and have enough liquidity to share accommodations that has kept us getting to know. I love the people she surrounds herself with, but when she started to feel overwhelmed with the idea of hosting, I gave up another group of locals, and thought we were done. I had hoped there would be an opportunity to transition when we decided to meet for supper one year a couple of years back, but what has happened is that I have just lost touch with her friends. 

In my imagination, I had hoped we could increasingly make a network around their family, as I know that they will increasingly need help. But if there is a need, I don't feel needed, or helpful. I hope others are doing the things I can't. I find myself like a tragic prophet, always knowing where the shark attacks will take her, but helpless to use the knowledge to do anything about it.

I am not gifted in making jokes, or playing video games. I am passionate about art, and food, and travel, and have a car, a disposable income, and four able limbs for the moment. I do not take these for granted, but I cannot seem to convince my friend of the urgency I have felt since that day in the hospital on Mount Royal to use these things to enable her to keep doing some of the things she loves too, and validate the guilt I feel for feeling well and being healthy, and the deep need to help. 

I don't know how to express that I need this as much as I offer it. I fear it comes across as charity, as it may be from someone else, but I have suffered so much loss in my professional career, that it is truly a relief if I could use the terrible knowledge I have gained for something other than grief. I know she is terrified of the current and future shark attacks, but I am not. I am only afraid that she bears them alone, when I am immune, and am not afraid. 

When I was at my lowest, away from my kid, and after losing so many friends following the breakdown of my marriage, she gave me reason to laugh, and gave me strength and friendship through email, and some precious invitations. Sometimes it still feels like I lost her and her husband too, even when they chose me, because it is so hard to get together. I realize that her introversion, and my general off-putting nature may be too much for either of us to overcome as she gives up many roles, and it might be necessary for her to give up her role as friend to me. How can I ask for what I need, when she feels helpless to take care of her own needs? And yet I have seen so many ways that it can work. I don't know if she has seen this before, but I want her to know that doesn't have to have all the strength herself. 

I hope that she can one day let me play the role of friend to her. I am shy and blunt and way less funny, but it would seem such a waste that our friendship couldn't evolve. I just hope she can let me in a little. I need a little more gold in my life. And I want to believe that my friendship has value too.

GRAD GIFT EXTRAORDINAIRE

From the private collection of the latest MMFA exhibition

The magnificent Chagall was a  present on passing his undergraduate degree!

 

SAINT GEORGE'S AND THE DRAGON

I found this beautiful motif on a pedestrian commute recently, and my evangelical, non-iconic spirit was amused by the dragon on this Anglican church with St. George's namesake. 

 

PARC ILE BIZARD

 

COCONUT ENERGY BALL ON OATMEAL: EASY HIGH ENERGY BREAKFAST

 COCONUT CRISPS

VEGETARIAN SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE

 Eat this meal while reading John Grisham's The Broker.

DESSERT WINNER!

 

MY HOME SCHOOL ART CLASS INSPIRED BY EMILY CARR AND A MONTREAL FALL

Kispiox Village, 1929 Art Gallery of Ontario

 

BATHROOM PROBLEMS

It has been quite an inconvenience to have a broken bottom shower guide and a missing faucet dummy, and I haven't been able to find replacements. I have the overflow replacement, but can't get the screws out for the rust!

 I was hoping to live with this bathroom for pennies, because replacing the faucets and shower will need a new surround, new tub, and likely demo of the entire room, which are plaster and chicken wire, id est, not easy, nor cheap. Anyone have an in-between alternative? Or a good bathroom renovator with high standards and low prices?

 

MONTREAL CHILDREN'S WALL ART

 

HOMEMADE SPANAKOPITA

It's been months that I haven't been able to find the Pilaros spiral spanakopika that I love. I can find triangles, but I find they are often underfilled and over cooked, and don't prefer them.

I realized I had a roll of frozen phyllo, so I bought spinach (how can it still sell for $1 for 500g) and feta, and made a few styles. The rugelach version is the best of both worlds, but they were are very beloved. Still, I managed to put aside a few for the freezer, for another day.

MACDONALD FINALLY OFF HIS PEDESTAL

Not sorry.

 

SIGNAC, POINTILLISM, AND MY UNCLE IF HE WAS A SAILOR

 

TRASH TO TREASURE

My new creative room chair. A few staples, fabric, and scotchguard!

 

BUTTERFLY GARDEN

 

Yesterday we may have seen the last monarch of the season, but I am really not sure if this is a ladybug with hearts, or its own separate species!

MENDING WITH LOVE

 

AUTUMN LEAVES

 It's a particular joy to live in Montreal in the fall. This is the first year that I don't imagine that others wished they were here, but for those of us who live here, the beauty of the fall is in the leaves yet again.

After the loss of our maple tree in the front, it's hard to get much of pile to jump in. I thought it was enough to get a pile together, but I was not counting on the determination of two grade niners. Princess Pirate might have finally started using the adjective literally properly, but she was still ready to play in a leaf pile that covered her body and her friends!

I suggested that they rake other parts of the yard, but they were looking for higher yield that were dryer than the ones in the garden beds I had hoped they could clean up! Yes, they used the leaves in the street gutters!

There were beach moments when we covered her completely, snow moments of forts and fights, and the action shot in the pile that were the yearly photo op. 

Princess Pirate is in this pile!

Today, 48 hours after we were compelled to collect a few beautiful leaves, I realized that they had already started to curl up. Thanks to wilted celery and carrot experience, I thought I'd give rehydration a try, and it seemed to work.

TIPS:

1. Do this as soon as pick up the leaves. If that is too late, lower your expectations, and hydrate in a water bath just long enough to become pliable. Plan for a few losses, as some corners may break or fold over before you can do anything about it.

2. Use two pieces of wax paper and an iron on low heat (I used 3 for polyester blends).

3. Start with the leaves face down, from the stem iron up and then out. It makes it more likely, especially with complex leaves like maple, that the edges will turn out well. 

4. Iron each side until dry, about 1 minute each. The rehydrated ones take longer, but the smell is nice!

5. Use clean cereal box lining to place the dry leaves on. I have Mod Podge that you paint on. It looks worrisome, but the end result dries clear.