Thursday, May 28, 2015

for goats


I seem to have developed an affection for goats. Isn't that strange? Mind you my grandparents had goats, a whole herd of goats, snow white against the weathered hillside or wandering amongst the Queen Ann's Lace.
Goats are hard wired to climb and I remember a picture of them standing on the barn roof in the winter.
Looking for spring no doubt.

painting fool


A spotted fawn is hiding in my garden. I painted it many a year ago when I was a reckless, brush wielding, canvas, wood, and rock painting fool.
Kind of miss those days.
Miss the painting.
Perhaps it is my first love.

Monday, May 25, 2015

like....congratulations


I have hastened past this photo more than once as I've trolled through old family photos. Today I realized with a jolt that the rather austere woman on the right is the very woman I was nearly named after.
Gadzooks.
Apparently in 1957, there was a bumper crop of babies born in the Royal Inland Hospital, and I was the 1000th. Woohooo, like.... "congratulations, you're the 1000th customer"- cue the confetti and balloons!!' The local paper reported this great moment in history but My mom always felt they could have at least given her a spoon or something.
Enter great, great Aunt Mildred.
My great grandmother's sister-in-law.
Some helpful soul actually suggested to my mother that since Mille and 1000 are sympatico, then calling me Mildred, whence I might be nicknamed Millie would be just the thing to do.
What!!??
I was a little girl in the 60's and a teenager in the 70's. I can tell you first hand that Mildred was NOT a name that would have been at home in EITHER of those decades.
Mind you, I kind of like the name Millie now. It conjures up a certain retro sweetness.
Minnie and Millie and Ella and Allie. Those names would have walked arm and arm once upon a time.
It's taken more than a hundred years for people to re-discover their feminine sweetness.
Sorry Auntie.

I actually have something else to say about this photo of great, great Aunt Ella and great, great Aunt Mildred.
All names aside, the more I look at this picture, the more I love it.
Isn't body language a wondrous thing?
Aunt Ella is perched on the edge of the carriage. She is the picture of inner calm. Her hair is styled low over one ear with only the sun slanting down on it. Her hat isn't primly and properly in place, but held casually in her hands. The shapeless sweater adds a further casual note. Aunt Mildred to the right, is a stunning contrast. Her hat is exactly level, exactly large and exactly black. Her jacket is crisply tailored, almost sober. In fact, her stance says sober or perhaps propriety. It gives me a vague sense of unease. I've never been good with propriety. I've been good with shapeless sweaters and bare hair under the sun though.
And I've been good with leather shoes.
Aren't theirs great?

Sunday, May 24, 2015

i am woman

It's nail polish time again.
Toe nail polish.
I never paint my fingernails. If they were glossy and bright, I'm sure I'd be so distracted I'd put a fork in my ear or shift the car into neutral on the freeway.
Toes are different.
I love painted toenails
I've talked about the delights of painted toes before.
This year, I think I'm going to spring for a new color. Something unexpected.
Something that looks as good as it sounds; Raging Rhubarb or Stolen Kiss or maybe even Mercury Glass.
I am woman hear me purr.

maybe even

Have you ever wondered who gets to name paint chips? Does a committee huddle around a table, voting on names? Or does a single lucky soul sit down and begin to write with a flourish, Dove Wing, Fresh Linen, Moon Dust, Fuzzy Mitten, Paris Sky......
Would you rather paint a room Potato Peel or Vichyssoise, Twine or Cardigan?
I think some of the names were acts of desperation made late on a Friday afternoon.
By then color would be swirling round and round and the names of each would run across the horizon like the news on CNN.
Perhaps the Paint Chip Namer rushes home to a completely white apartment each evening;
Ironstone White or Powder or Handkerchief or maybe even Perfect Pearl.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

on the wind

Sometimes I write something several times and choose my favourite line:

White butterflies, fluttering like bits of paper in the wind.

Small white butterflies like bits of paper tossed by the hand of the wind.

Little white butterflies dancing over my garden like paper on the wind.

infused with hope

”What should we throw out today?” I ask my husband happily.
We've been striking a blow for serenity.
We've been simplifying our foyer.
Now those two statements might not seem remotely linked but they truly are.
Our entry way (foyer) has been making a very bad first impression on visitors to our home for an entire decade.
It has been dark and dingy and dusty. 
Dust always settles where indecision or apathy reign. 
This time it was likely a bit of both. First, indecision which left unchallenged gave way to apathy.
All that changed this spring when I made a decision. The wall paper had to go.
In fact, I made the decision in the very split second that I reached out and twitched a strip of paper off the wall. And then another.
Every time I descended the stairs for the next week or two, (or three) I twitched off another piece and then another.

I am married to a man who can catch a ball, even one thrown a bit on the wide side by me, and run with it. 
And make a spectacular touch down.

I should have taken 'before' pictures.
I'll take 'after' pictures though.

My husband has accrued so many brownie points that he could bank them for years to come.
He is a very hard working and particular man and I treasure his hard work for what it truly is, a large and lavish bouquet.

Our entry feels so different now.
So open and infused with hope.

makes me wonder

"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"

Isn't that the oddest thing you ever read? I found it amongst old blog post drafts and had no idea who I was quoting or where I planned to go with it.
Sometimes I jot down a sentence or a few words although it's usually on a scrap of paper that wafts off, never to be seen again by mortal eye, or at least for a year or two. When I do happen upon it again I am not only delighted, but transported back to that very moment. It's a sort of form of time travel. Safer though.
P.S. Turns out to be a quote from The Secret Garden. Ahhh, yes, that makes sense.