By the numbers

Geohede does it much better, but I was looking at the search terms, and since I started tracking:

• A very large group of people have shown up looking for some sort of information (?) about naked women and spitting. You're gross. Really gross. Go away now.
• 57 people have shown up at my blog, wondering some variant of whether or not Rob Lowe is bald. First off, I have written one post about Rob Lowe. One. And I do not have a bloody clue about whether or not he is bald. Not one. As near as I can tell, he's not bald. Do you all know something I don't?
• 15 people have come looking to find out why you can't divide by zero. I don't know either, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm not the math blog. Go and see Mr. Spit.
• 3 people came by looking for Altar Guild jokes. I promise you, as a life long Anglican, there is absolutely nothing funny about Altar Guild. (and certainly not this.)

And one of the commonest questions? On a Christian response to infertility. That's a hard one.

Monday Miscellany

• I have a post about men who don't like women that was going to go today, except, well, it's a crappy piece of writing. So, let me see about fixing it from some random bits of prose to something with a point.
• Mr. Spit went snowboarding. He has not broken anything, and thinks he might go again. He's also hobbling like an old man, but don't tell him I said so.
• I spent the entire weekend knitting and watching Star Trek: Next Generation. It is just possible that I may be the geekiest person, with no social life, ever.
• I also did laundry.
  
• Except, I do have a social life. I had dinner with Kuri on Friday. And unlike dinner with Gen, last Wednesday, there was not 5 Bellini's and 2 double shots of Jack Daniels.
  
• I had something I really, really wanted to ask all of you, and I can't remember what it is. Oh, yes. No, I do. Or at least I remember something, if not what I wanted to ask you, what I should ask you, which is this:
  
• I have a lovely university student house sitting for me while I'm in Vegas. (I told you I'm leaving for Vegas in 16 days, right? Martha is coming.) Anyway, said University student will be writing her final exams while at my house, and I thought I would buy "study food" for her.
  
• What's study food for you? I lived on Fried Egg Sandwiches and Pizza Pops. Which I am totally fine with. But she might not be? What would you leave in the fridge/cupboard for her?
• Oh, and finally, SAMUS IS DONE. I've started on Hey, Teach!
  

Snowy Grace

I woke up this morning to snow. And there's something about snow in November that makes me blue.

Amidst the swirling snow did I leave the hospital that day 2 years ago. In an almost blizzard I left the hospital, and the swirling snow became an atmospheric metaphor for the loss in my soul.

I have long maintained that I can handle a cold Alberta winter. It may be bitter cold, but there is bright blue sky and yellow sun, and miles of space. Alberta is anything but colourless in the Winter. Even the snow reflects the dazzled glory. Alberta is a land of deep colours, blue and grey mountains, green conifers, and brilliant snow.

I am, at my heart, a prairie girl. I always will be. And yet, when the snow closes in, when it swirls around I cannot take refuge or find comfort. I used to look at a blizzard as a wonderful thing, a chance to curl up, light the house, put on a fire, get a blanket. Comfort. Blizzards are soft and tender when you are in the house. The cloud cover keeps the light level low, playing hide and seek with illumination. It is dark and then lighter, in a random sense of play.

And I woke up this morning, looking at the snow all around me, and I remembered that day, the way the snow stung my face, my hands. I felt the scrape and blemish of ice crystals on fragile skin. There is no comfort, the snow, the wind, it is oppressive. There are no wide open space, reflected glory. Trudging to the car, arms and heart empty. Leaving Gabriel behind, looking back at the morgue in the basement, thinking of my son on cold, hard stone.

There's something about snow in Alberta, in November, that takes me back to that terrible place, where I am, once again, small and fragile. Newly born and so very old.

Saturday Quotes

When he shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars
And he will make the face of heav'n so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

My Mother's Rules

I have long maintained that no one needs to know Pythagorean Theorem. I was *that* kid, in the back of the class, who put up her hand, and lazily asked the teacher not why we needed to learn this crap, but asked exactly when he had used it in his own life. Generally speaking, it makes sense to memorize things you are going to use. Thus, I will always remember things like 2.2 KM to a Mile and the books of the bible in order. I will allow a certain amount of slippage, things that you needed to know once, but now don't, and probably make you a more rounded person anyway- the date of publication of the Durham Report, and the names of all the monarch's of England, in order.

And then there's the really dumb stuff, like Pythagorean theorem. Sure, it's a nifty bit of math, and it's dead easy (unlike conics, which may be nifty, but is hell to actually calculate). But really? No one ever uses it, and there A squared + B squared = C squared is nothing but clutter. Keeping me from remembering to pick up my laundry off the floor and making your name slip my mind.

And I get it, I get it. We aren't teaching children to use Pythagorean theorem, we are totally teaching them to think another way. We are stretching their little brains, so that they grow up to be smart, articulate human beings, who can all get jobs, and pay their Canada Pension Plan Premiums, so that I can retire at 65. I get it. I get that learning is at least in part about learning how to think, instead of just facts.

But. . .

I got to thinking a while ago, about the lessons we learn as women. Most of the things, particularly those my mother taught me, were lessons taught "because women need to know this stuff." I know how to curtsy, how to seat people at a dinner party, what wine to serve with what, and how to make a centerpiece.

So, I was talking today about women's stuff. Actually, we were talking about women's humour and if it exsisted, and so forth. But, it made me think about the stuff my mother made me learn. And I have to confess, to you at least, if not my mother, that given the odds, I've seated more people at a dinner party, done more centrepieces, and yes I have curtsied. I still haven't used pythagorean theorum.

The Undiscovered Country

In less than a month, Gabriel will have been dead for 2 years. He will have been gone for 4 times as long as he was ever here. And I am pondering how I feel about this. How I feel about him, about me, about this life I am living.

I met a woman on Saturday, and we were talking about prostitution, and I made a comment about teaching our sons that women were not for sale. I wasn't talking about my son, or even your son, I was talking about boys, as a whole. I was talking about teaching children, most generally, better than we were taught.

And somehow, she missed this. She smiled, and she asked if my sons had "Their mother's red hair?"

I stumbled. There is a little boy at church, of about 4 now, and he sits on the Gospel side, ahead of me in the sanctuary, and I can see him even when I do not look. I can see him, and in him I see shadows of Gabriel. Gabe's hair, at birth was dark, black and oh so fine, but I wonder. His father had flaming red hair as a boy, and I still do. Doesn't matter how I colour my hair, the red comes through.

And I stumbled, and I fell down a bit. Oh, not visibly, I doubt that she noticed, but I fell down a bit.

For the sake of a little boy who would have had his parent's red hair, eyes somewhere between blue and hazel, a whole undiscovered country.

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 78-82

Fiona

I find that it is helpful to set very low expectations for myself, when it comes to any sort of physical exercise. I find that I should take my expectations, and then I should reduce them, and reduce them still. When asked what I hoped to get out of this running business, I answered that I wanted not to die. Oh, no, don't misunderstand, I didn't want to live longer, I wanted not to die. While running.

I went to the Running Room tonight. Now, the Running Room, much like Lulu Lemon, is a place, that well, scares the Dickens out of me. It is a foreign land. I do not speak their language. I do not know their customs. Indeed, these places, they are filled with a strange and foreign people, who need to eat more ice cream and cheesecake.

This land is full of clothing that is bright and reflective. In fact, in the absence of any evidence that their fashion designer is a peanut-starved chimp, I must assume that the goal of their clothing is to be, umm, visible. Now, I don't know about you, but I have never, even in the neon 90's, bought a jacket because it was screaming green, and had reflective tape across my butt. I am trying to camouflage the breadth of my butt, and there they go, trying to give passing motorists, if not a target, a heck of a fright.

I braved this foreign land, and I went to the back wall. Well, actually, the first time I went in, I got stopped at the front door and had to ask this pimply-faced young boy where the sports bra's were. Yes, that's right, I asked a 17 year old about women's underwear. (And tragically for him, I don't think he's going home to fantasize about me tonight) He pointed. To the back of the store. At this point I had 2 choices. No one, not even you dear readers, would have faulted me for refusing to push my way through all the runners, sitting on benches (why weren't they out running any way?) to get to the women's underwear section, conveniently located behind the running video that was playing. (And how does watching a video count as exercise anyway?) I did the sensible thing, and went for a cup of coffee.

I came back half an hour later, as the runners were leaving (Is there a polite company sort of expression for that many masochists in one place?). I wandered back in, went to the back, and this very charming woman came to assist me. She asked me what I was looking for. (Oh, how I longed to tell her the microfiber, fully breathable thong). I had 2 criterion (and my male readers are forgiven for bowing out now). Criteria one was containment in one container (holding my assets in one bra. I didn't want to, say, purchase one for each side.) Criteria 2 was constrain (the operative definition was no movement. Of any kind)

I have Fiona. Seriously. I have a sports bra, and her name (I'm not making this stuff up) is on the tag, and that name is Fiona. My assets are contained and constrained. By something named Fiona. I've always thought of Fiona as a name for a tall, slender, lithe Irish girl. But no, Fiona is some sort of industrial German Frau with no dress sense.

About an hour ago, Fiona and I went running. Run 60 seconds, walk 90. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 8 times. She held up (that's totally a pun) her end of the run, and I held up mine.

And like I said at the top of this, I had low expectations. I wanted not to die. I am pleased to report, that after shelling out $112, (including $60 for my bosom buddy, Fiona) I am not dead.

Seems a promising start, that.