September 10, 2013
Caution Against Any Recipe for Perfect Children
“I caution against any recipe for perfect children or for perfect families.” –Joan Bodger, “Afterword”, How the Heather Looks
How the Heather Looks is one of my favourite books about parenting and children’s literature, mostly for the wisdom contained in its Afterword. On a surface level, the book itself is really an incredible primer on the lengths parents can go to to make books come alive for their children, as well as a splendid introduction to so many kid-lit classics. But if you didn’t read Bodger’s Afterword, or her extraordinary memoir The Crack in the Teacup, you might imagine that the idyllic 1950s’ family depicted in her book was her reality. Instead we learn that even limitless exposure to the greatest books ever written cannot keep trouble from darkening one’s doors. For some of us, that’s a difficult lesson to learn.
I’m thinking about this now as we’re struggling at our house with an unexpected and really difficult adjustment to kindergarten. I totally thought that we’d gotten off scot-free because Harriet has been in schooling for a year now, and has loved her play-school experience so much. When she began play-school last year, she shed nary and tear and ran along to play like she’d been there always, and I secretly thought that this was a reflection of her character and resilience, as well as my own infinite wisdom as a parent for enrolling her in schooling when the time was right, and for preparing her so well to be in the world. But the last few days have been a hearty Ha! to that idea.
Living a life is so difficult, and loving someone little who is making their way can be so gut-punchingly horrible. You can never be prepared for that, or prepare that little one for everything she might encounter. There is no recipe for a perfect childhood, and while I’d like to wrap the world in cotton-wool, I can’t, so instead I will keep on reminding myself that just loving her so hard is enough,
September 7, 2013
How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny
There is. Something. Something about the way Louise Penny writes. The style of her writing. The manner in which her sentences. Are formed. If I pay too much attention her prose makes me crazy, and yet I have so completely overcome these reservations that I am now the type who buys her book in hardback the day it comes out, as I did last week with How the Light Gets In. Such a delight for a book to be an occasion, and then to encounter neighbourhood friends who ask if I’ve finished it yet, who implore me to get in touch as soon as I do so we can talk about it. And when I finish the book, I understand why; How the Light Gets In is worthy of an occasion entirely.
Once again, we find ourselves back in Three Pines, the idyllic village in Quebec’s Eastern Townships so isolated that it doesn’t appear on any maps, where cellphone reception disappears, and to which murder is curiously common. They’ve got Chief Inspector Armand Gamache on speed dial there on their ancient rotary phones, a phone from which psychologist turned bookshop owner Myra Landers rings when an expected guest fails to arrive for Christmas holidays. Gamache is just days away from joining his wife for the holidays in Paris with their children, still dealing with desertion by his long-time friend and lieutenant Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and conscious that he’s a marked man by the corrupt forces high up in Quebec’s Surete police force. A trip out to Three Pines promises a reprieve, as the villagers grace him with their characteristic hospitality.
But as ever, the trip will be business, not pleasure. Gamache’s investigations reveal that Myra’s friend has been murdered, found dead in her home in Montreal. Myrna is loathe to reveal her friend’s deepest secret, which is that she was the last of the Oullette Quintuplets, five identical little girls who were once famous the world over. Could her background have something to do with her death?
Meanwhile, Gamache is still trying to unravel the web of corruption at the Surete. The few colleagues who are still loyal to him have come under threat through their investigations of the police department’s computer archives, and Gamache decides that Three Pines is the safest place for them to hide. Their investigations turn into a dramatic game of cyber-cat and mouse, culminating in a fantastic showdown between the forces of good and evil. Gamache has always believed that good will ultimately triumph, but this time will he be proven wrong?
What is the attraction of Louise Penny’s novels, my reservations with her prose still being what they are? I think part of it is the intimacy she creates, between reader and place in her remarkably evoked village of Three Pines. And also the intimacy between the characters themselves, so much between them that doesn’t need to be explained, allowing the novels to progress in ways that are surprising. And finally, the intimacy of her narrative, her shifting points of view which enable us to understand her world from a wide range of perspectives. Which is not to say that her readers know everything. In fact, in this book in particular, the plot is operating on a whole other plane that readers are not even aware of until an incredible twist at the conclusion, and I promise that you never see it coming.
On Penny’s website, she calls How the Light Gets In a culmination of the Gamache books so far, the pay-off. And while it really is a most fitting culmination, one can’t help hoping that it isn’t. As ever, Penny has left her readers wanting more.
September 4, 2013
Easing isn’t always easy
Oh, summer summer. This week we’re easing out of the bliss that was. Harriet starts kindergarten on Friday, she starts her afternoon play-school program tomorrow. Stuart goes back to work on Monday, and things look interesting on that front, plus he is taking a college course that starts next week. I am also easing back into my role at 49thShelf, and looking forward to some really cool projects this Fall. And Iris is still figuring out how to be in the world, though it helps that she knows how hands and fingers work. She is 13 weeks old today, 3 months old tomorrow, a second tooth just breaking through and making the nights hard. Starting Monday, I’m going to be taking care of her solo, which is a whole new ballgame.
Today we tried out the backpack position in our Baby Trekker for the first time, and I am quite confident that it will be my liberation, by which I mean I will use to wear Iris while I make dinner and clean the house. She still takes her naps lying on my chest, and so nap-time will be me-time, by which I mean that I intend to get a lot of reading done. And I am writing these facts down here because really I’m just a bit anxious about settling into a new routine, a routine whose shape I haven’t glimpsed yet. I have a fantasy of dropping Harriet at kindergarten, Baby falls asleep in her stroller and then I head to a coffee shop to write for an hour. Though it’s probably more like 25 minutes, considering Iris’s naps. Fortunately, I have had a child before who naps for just 25 minutes, and it got better, so I am not so worried about this. I am confident the mix of working and taking care of Iris will figure itself out, but I am still not quite sure how this will happen.
I am routine-obssessed, as anyone who has ever tried to make plans with me on a Friday is well aware. (No thank you. On Friday afternoons, I clean my house, of course!) This is both a blessing and curse as a parent, the former because it gives an awfully chaotic universe a fundamental shape, and the latter because the shape is an illusion after all, and life requires flexibility. Not yet knowing what my routine will be is resulting in me creating manic posts like this one, and compiling lists like a mad-woman in the hope of feeling like I have some kind of a handle on it all. It is not yet clear that I do…
This transition from the bliss of summer has been nice. I am reading Louise Penny’s new mystery How the Light Gets In, which is so so enjoyable, the perfect kind of book with which to ease into anything. Perhaps I’ll even be able to post a review here in response, my first review in ages, because after a few weeks of summer reading, all the new releases I’ve been intending to talk about have failed to inspire much in me beyond a shrug. I keep blaming the books, but maybe I am too impatient right now. (With some of these I am being too generous though, and it is absolutely the book…)
So yes, transition is a fine thing, but I have never been good at transition. I think everything will be clearer when I’m right back in the thick of it.
September 3, 2013
How Television Saved My Life. Part Deux.
Once again, television came along this summer to make life with a new baby quite bearable. For the first six weeks of Iris’s life, every day was pretty much a mad scramble to 9:00 or so when we would sit down and take turns having the baby sleep on us while we delighted in excellent TV. We particularly loved watching the BBC drama The Hour, which was stylish, gripping and a stunning example of what female characters can be when women are writing them. In tragic news, the show was cancelled after two seasons, and left on a cliff-hanger. I have been pining for Freddy Lyon ever since.
We also watched Girls, which I’d been nervous about. Somehow in all the politics and furor around the show, I’d neglected to understand that it was a comedy. Sometimes I wonder if its critics didn’t get that either. We are looking forward to watching Season 2.
And now we’ve just started watching Mad Men Season 6, having saved it for a time when our evenings were a little less chaotic. Oh, it’s so good. Season 5 was a bit of a let-down, though still pretty remarkable, as we affirmed as we re-watched it recently. (Because yes, I have basically just been watching Mad Men over and over for about 3 years now. It probably is a good thing that I finally watched another show.) But Season 6 really does seem to be a return to brilliant form.
August 30, 2013
Peach Pie in Progress
The best part of living with me is my insistence upon baking when it is 37 degrees outside. Pictured here is a pie in progress, peach, baked to be taken away on our trip this weekend with my best friend of 20 years and her wonderful family. (When they were just starting to be a family, I wrote about them here. There are three of them now in their family, all excellent.) And I am just checking in right now as we’re waiting to confirm that Iris really is asleep before we watch Mad Men. I had a really wonderful visit to the doctor’s today where it was pretty much confirmed that my career prospects for neck modelling are shot. I am to invest in turtlenecks and pretty scarves, and live with this lump as long as I possibly can. (I can’t help but feel that Nora Ephron had no idea; I also think that if I end up with as few years on earth as Nora Ephron, I am going not to spend none of them feeling bad about my neck no matter how lumpy or eventually scarred it becomes. The great thing about never having been particularly good looking in the first place is that you’re not really losing much when you start to be hideously disfigured.) My biopsy results were inconclusive, as there were so few solids in the sample, but as my lump is cystic, the doctor assures me that the chances of it being cancer are slim. I believe him. This lump will be an ongoing concern, but not so concerning, and anything “ongoing”, of course, means that I am not going to die. It also means that I have to stop getting so excited whenever I have it tested, because it’s going to happen every six months. And so it goes. This is life with a body. I feel very, very lucky.
August 29, 2013
Destination Bookshop: The Annex/Harbord Circuit
Destination Bookshop is a new feature here at Pickle Me This! Part book-shopping-spree, part city travel guide, we want to inspire you to visit vibrant neighbourhoods all over Toronto with excellent bookshops as a chief attraction.
This time we bring you a neighbourhood we know very well, because it’s where we live. And part of the reason we love where we live is because the bookshops are aplenty. Keep an eye out for writers too, because quite a few of them make their homes somewhere just off Bloor Street. One of them is poet Desi DiNardo who honours the neighbourhood and its literary legacy in her poem Rainbird in the Annex.
The Shops: Begin at Annex Book City (501 Bloor Street West), which is my favourite bookshop in the world. They have a great mix of new releases, backlists, a beautiful kids’ section, bargain books, lots of poetry, and a great focus on CanLit. Their staff are great, and knowledgeable, and the store is really organized. Next, move along to BMV Books (471 Bloor Street West) which sells discounted and second-hand books on three 
enormous floors. Go south at Spadina until you get to Ten Editions (698 Spadina Avenue at Sussex), a used-book store where you get to climb up a ladder to bookseek in a most romantic fashion. The store is a warren, sometimes frustratingly, but there is a great Can-Lit section in the back. Turn right at Harbord Street, where you will find a whole host of bookshops. Bakka Phoenix specializes in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and is located at 84 Harbord. Wonderworks is across the street at 79 Harbord and is a new-age bookshop. Caversham Booksellers is at 98 Harbord, and bills itself as “North America’s largest mental health bookstore.” And then Parentbooks is located just before Bathurst Street in a cute little worker’s cottage at 201 Harbord. They have a fantastic kids’ book section, as well as books about pregnancy, 
parenting, and kids with special needs. Go north on Harbord to Little Island Comics (742 Bathurst), a wonderful children’s bookstore featuring comics, graphic novels, and remarkably-illustrated picture books. (Their parent-shop The Beguiling is located around the corner, just west at 601 Markham Street.) A few doors up is A Different Booklist (746 Bathurst), “opening the door to gems of the Canadian cultural mosaic.” And then hit Seekers Books back up at 509 Bloor Street, featuring more second-hand fare and lots of great kids’ book in the big room at the back.
Photo Credit: Strolling with the Bean http://strollingtoronto.wordpress.com
Where to Play: We recommend the recently refurbished Margaret Fairley Playground on Brunswick Avenue, south of Harbord at Ulster Street. Even if you haven’t kids in tow, the new park features huge armchairs carved from tree trunks that would be perfect to curl up and read in. We do not guarantee you won’t get splinters, however… There are also picnic tables if you bring a lunch (see below). Sally Bird Park on Brunswick north of Harbord is a tiny little park featuring play equipment for grown-ups. There is lots of space to roam and explore on the University Campus, just east of the neighbourhood. If it is raining, go hang out at the Spadina Road Library just north of Bloor Street at 10 Spadina Road. And do check out Gwendolyn MacEwen Park on Walmer Road just north of Bloor, which features lots of pigeons and a bust of the famous Canadian poet
Where to Eat: We are partial to picking up a picnic lunch at Harbord Bakery (115 Harbord Street) and taking it to eat at Margaret Fairley Park. Or you can have lunch at By the Way Cafe (400 Bloor Street West), which has a lovely patio from where you can watch the world go by. Great ice cream too across Brunswick at Sweet Fantasies (398 Bloor Street, open only in the summer). Pick up a coffee and a snack at Red Fish Blue Fish Creative Cafe (73 Harbord Street). And if you’re craving something sweet, have a fancy tart from Dessert Trends Bistro (154 Harbord).
How to Get There: By transit, at Bathurst or Spadina stations. If you are driving, there is a Green P parking lot south of Bloor Street at Lippincott.
August 29, 2013
Get up and go
The best lesson this summer has taught us is that sometime you just have to get up and go, and worry about the details later, which is how we’ve made it to Toronto Island, the zoo, and the Canadian National Exhibition in the past two and a half weeks, whereas when Harriet was 12 weeks old, we just sat at home watching her, cowering in fear. Today’s somewhat impractical decision was to go out for dinner at Fanny Chadwicks, because it was a perfect summer night and we’ve been wanting to try out their patio (which has astroturf!). Anyone who has ever met anyone who measures out their years in single digits is well aware that children have a tendency to go berserk after 5pm, which is why lunch is always a much better bet. But no matter. Dinner it was, and so early too that we had the whole patio to ourselves. The light was fantastic, the food was delicious as ever, Iris only squawked like a pterodactyl until the food arrived, and then she sat sweetly in her stroller chewing on a cloth book. Harriet declared her macaroni the best she’s ever had. I drank a pint of beer, which always results in me loving the world ferociously and crying about how beautiful life is. Iris discovered her feet. Stuart ate a slice of lemon cake and decided life was beautiful too. Harriet continued her new habit of telling everyone she loves them, this time our waitress. We did the Mad Libs in Chirp magazine and found them hilarious. And then we walked home glorying in summerness, and marvelling that such a perfect day could arise out of one that began with a family trip to the dentist.
We had no cavities. Obviously.
August 28, 2013
True Confession
Last week on our biannual visit to the mall, I bought gendered Lego. But that’s not the whole story. Read my True Confession here.
August 26, 2013
Have Milk Will Travel: EVENT!
I am excited to be part of an event on Friday September 13 to launch the anthology about breastfeeding Have Milk Will Travel, along with editor Rachel Epp Buller, Carrie Snyder, and Sarah Campbell, all of whom have work published in the book. I am not published in the book, but I am really looking forward to reading it. I will be doing a short presentation entitled “When Love Isn’t a Let-Down After All”, and you should probably know that yesterday I breastfed on a subway platform, and last week while walking to the pandas at the zoo. Shedding all inhibitions has been an incredibly liberating experience, and I am impressing myself with my dexterity.
