Lapel Pin

Good morning, you three people in Canada who are not with your families today eating a gigantic turkey and getting cranberry sauce stains on your new white shirts.

The photo that got away

Paul and I had just walked further down the subway platform to get away from the two women who were having a fight over the payphone, only to stop next to a group of six scary looking teenagers. Or, rather, I found them scary until I realized that they were using a combination of sign language and lip reading (moving their mouths as if they were speaking, but with no sound) to communicate. Then Paul and I were fascinated and had to drag ourselves onto the subway car when it arrived. As soon as we stepped on, Paul - who has been studying rudimentary sign language - asked if I’d understood any of what they’d said.

Paul asked for a camera for his fifth birthday. Because he already understood how to use my Olympus digital camera, we decided to upgrade and give him the Olympus. He was very excited, and spent the rest of the day taking photos. It wasn’t until six months later that he casually mentioned what he’s actually meant when he’d asked for a camera was a Polaroid.

Virgo: They bring the art of self concealment to a high pitch, hiding their apprehensiveness about themselves and their often considerable sympathy with other people under a mantle of matter-of-factness and undemonstrative, quiet reserve. They are still waters that run deep.

I said that I was sorry we’d misunderstood, but that the digital camera made much more sense, because Polaroid photos cost eighty three cents apiece, while digital photos were free. He countered with saving his allowance. I said I just wasn’t going to buy him a Polaroid, and asked what it was about that particular camera that he liked.

He said it was about being able to hold the photo. I introduced him to the wonderful world of printers, saying that if he took the photo at home, he could have it in his hand within five minutes. He was very pleased with the idea, but we both forgot about it soon afterwards. Yesterday when he brough it up again I said I had to replace the ink cartridges first, which ran $100 and couldn’t be bought for another week.

Which is to say, digital camera photos are not exactly free, but because you pay for the ink in one giant glop they feel free and add to my general misunderstanding of money. There’s a theory that your first memory of money affects how you view it for the rest of your life. My first memory? Eating a dime.

Paul and I spent Tuesday at home, working together on some long overdue learning activities. Yesterday we had to head north to renew our OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan, but probably if you’re reading this on November 25th, you already know that) cards. I went through the house gathering everything we needed: our lease, birth certificates, the sheet of paper from Todd’s work saying they intend to keep him on for at least three years, our work permits.

After a bus and two subway cars, then slogging through the first snow of the year, which would have been a lot more fun if I’d realized it was going to be snowing and made sure Paul was dressed for it, we waited for twenty minutes in the overheated room, only to be told that we needed Todd’s work permit as well. I’d deliberately left it at home, reasoning that because our work permits hinge on Todd’s, there would be some sort of notation of his work permit number on ours. Not so, apparently.

My Canadian friends tell me that when they travel overseas they make sure to wear a little Canadian flag lapel pin on their jackets. Then they watch as the service people treat them with graciousness and civility while looking at the Americans like something they scraped off their shoes. Guess who was the Ugly American yesterday?

Sage WHAT? Look, I HAVE everything ELSE!

Clerk I’m sorry, but I can’t process your cards without your husband’s work permit.

Sage, loudly Listen, we can’t even have permits unless he has one! How could we be standing here with our permits?

Clerk It doesn’t say that on - wait. Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I need the number from his permit. I can’t help you.

Sage, even more loudly Goddamnit! I slogged all the way UP here and now I have to come BACK?

Clerk I’m sorry -

Sage It’s not your damn fault if the damn rules are so stupid.

Clerk, diving for his phone, and for all I know, calling Security

Sage, throwing things into her backpack and almost shouting I’m so pissed OFF! I HATE THIS PLACE! [flounces out]

Later, Paul asked why that guy hadn’t let us renew our cards.

“I behaved really badly,” I said. “I wasn’t mad at that guy, by the way. He was just doing his job. And I wasn’t mad at OHIP either. I was really just mad at myself for not bringing Daddy’s permit.”

So. My apologies, Americans who will now have to deal with this nice clerk who I scarred for life. Maybe you could wear a Canadian flag lapel pin?

You can’t have BEER!

Almost everyone in my extended family can sing. Like, really sing. Professionally. One time, when we were having a family reunion at Disneyworld and had been in line for the Pirates of the Carribean for what felt like two hours, my father and all of his siblings sang a Beatles song in four part harmony. The crowd clapped wildly when they were finished.

The downside to all of this talent is an inability to bear singing that’s off by even a tiny bit. Put my family in a room and force them to listen live music by Brittany Spears, and they’d be stumbling around, holding their heads and screaming like Captain Kirk being attacked by aliens.

So when we were walking down the stairs towards the subway car…

Subway Car Ding…ding…DIiiIiIiING!

Sage Owwwwww.

Todd What?

Sage The dinging was offkey.

Todd, nodding Ah, yes. The family curse. Can you imagine if your family controlled the subway system?

Sage, in a low voice I’m sorry, folks. The dings are offkey. We’ll need to turn this train around for repairs.

Todd All passengers will need to exit at the next station. In a moment, headphones will drop out of the ceiling. For your own safety, please put them on. We’ll have you out of this dangerous situation as soon as possible.

Paul No, Mama! NOOOO! DON’T DRINK THAT!

Sage What in the world are you going on about?

Paul That’s beer, Mama! You can’t have beer!

Sage Roooooooooot beer, babe. It’s a completely different thing.

Paul, suspiciously It has the word beer in it.

Sage No, hon, there’s no alcohol. See? Look at the ingredients. Filtered sparkling water, certified organic dehydrated cane juice, a proprietary blend of natural ingredients obtained from plants and/or essential oils, etc…

Paul Oh. Can I have some?

In fifth grade, all the students had to write a -

Man, I just found out that my 5th grade teacher is now a big ol’ Lutheran who still dons bad pink pantsuits and the same hairstyle she proudly wore in 1983, and if you wanted to walk closer to God back on September 13th and find out how to bear fruit in God’s family, then you could have gone to her house for the meeting - which, holy fuck, she bought for $875,000 in March. At a average California teacher’s salary of $30,000 in the ’80s, I guess she lived in a studio apartment and ate catfood.

- had to write a children’s book. As per usual, I’d left the assignment until the very last moment, so the night before found my dad patiently explaining how to sew the pages of the book together and drawing the illustrations for me. Although the end result was much more the result of a thirty eight year old mind than a 5th grader’s, I liked it and kept it for many years afterwards.

The other day, when Paul announced that he wanted to make a book, I was able to draw on that experience to demonstrate how to sew the book pages together. I made the holes, but he did all the sewing and afterwards pasted a piece of cardstock on the back to hide the stitches. I think he was somewhat awestruck that he’d made an entire book all on his own, because he hasn’t made a mark in it yet.

When I found out about a homeschooling field trip to a local bookbinder’s, I jumped at the chance. We spent two hours finding out how printing presses work (which Paul enjoyed so much I had to restrain myself this weekend from buying a self-contained home printing press) and at the end of the presentation the owner handed out high quality notebooks.

Paul, who used to literally howl upon being asked to write, has been writing like mad in his notebook ever since. Yesterday, he made a comic strip, and danced with joy when I laughed out loud.

While I am extremely happy with the way this has progressed, I’m somewhat uneasy about the unpredictibility of it - how can I repeat the sequence? My dad helps me bind a book, then I help Paul, then we go see professionals do it, then they give him a free notebook?

More importantly, how can I apply this sequence to math?

Elevator Breakfast

The Photo That Got Away

A woman who got on the elevator carrying a large plate, on which rested a napkin, a spoon, and a bowl filled to the brim with cereal and milk. She smiled at everyone and said, “I got a late start this morning.”

Paul and I went to an informal, more - like - someone’s - house - than - a - restaurant that improbably serves something both of us can stand to eat for breakfast. For me, quesadillas. For Paul, french toast. We sat and listened to Johnny Cash’s cover album, “The Man Comes Around”, which was funny the first time I heard his version of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus two years ago, but that morning, by the time he’d mutilated Danny Boy I was ready to get up and leave. Then he sang Desperado, and after, “You better let somebody love you (let somebody love you!) you’d better let somebody lo-oo-ve you…before it’s too laaaaate,” I could hear the cook singing her own backup: “I love grease, I love grease, I looooove greeeeease,” and I was happy again.

Apparently the restaurant was celebrating Weekend Dad Day, because after a particularly odious dad came to pick up his son (not, as I’d originally thought, the four year old girl he lavished all his attention on before yelling at his son) another father showed up to pick up his two daughters. The ten year old daughter pretended to be asleep while the four year old basked in the attention she was getting from both parents. When she realized, however, that this was all prepatory to going to school, she collapsed in great wailing tears.

She begged her mom to let her stay with her all day instead, while her dad said things like, “You love school!” and then, to the mom (and, I suspect, the restaurant at large) “The minute she gets there, she’s laughing and playing with her friends.”

I felt sad for the daughter until I saw her face over her mom’s shoulder, beaming in a particularly hateful, “Wow, look at all the attention I just manipulated out of everyone here!” way. The mom and dad worked in impressively genial tandem to usher her out, and when the mom came back inside the restaurant she said, “Man, that was hard,” and put her hand on her forehead for a moment.

When we were finished eating, we began walking to the subway.

Paul That girl was really sad.

Sage She was, wasn’t she. It’s hard to see someone feeling bad, and not know how to help.

Paul It is. But you know what?

Sage What’s that, babe?

Paul When you don’t want to go to school? You should go to a school like she does. Where you can play inside - NOT outside, but inside - and have a good time, and laugh. Like her dad said.

Sage, amused that Paul is picking up the eavesdropping habit Right. Do you…do you ever think about going to school?

Paul Yes.

Sage, heart in her throat And…what do you think about it?

Paul I think, school is…phblechchchchch.

When we arrived home that night, the apartment building was having plumbing problems. The toilets didn’t work, the faucets did nothing but sputter ominously. Paul went off to do paper crafts, his new obsession and I sat down to whine about the water problem on Psychobabble. One of the other players asked why I didn’t just go buy some bottled water. I felt like an idiot for not thinking of that first, and after Paul and I had gotten our shoes on we trooped to the convenience store to buy three large bottles.

It wasn’t until Paul and I were walking down the hall towards our apartment that I realized why the whole scenario felt so strangely familiar. Granted, the last time I hauled water for the yurt, Paul was two and a half, barely toddling next to me instead of carrying one of the water bottles. But otherwise? It was time travel.

Yoroshiku

The photo that got away

At nine p.m. on Saturday night I was walking through the PATH system, which is basically a series of underground tunnels connecting various malls and subway stops throughout the city. (It sounds silly, but you try getting from point A to point B in January when it’s -25C outside, and you’ll quickly see the benefits.) Anyway. Two women were sitting on a bench in the closed mall. One was just beginning to braid the other’s hair, a project that looked like it would take another two hours at the very least.

Sage, Paul and Todd are watching the first episode of the latest season of The Amazing Race. The first team has just hit the finishing mat, and Phil, the host, is giving them the good news.

Sage Don’t hug Phil! Noooo, don’t hug Phil. [hiding face] This is so embarassing.

Todd Hee hee.

Five minutes later, another team has just had their car fixed by a mechanic at the gas station. One of the team members runs over and hugs the mechanic.

Sage Oh my god, what the hell, don’t hug the mechanic. Boundaries, people! Boundaries!

Paul Mama, why don’t you want people to hug? It’s nice when people hug each other.

Sage I don’t think they should hug strangers.

Paul What do you mean?

Sage I mean…okay, look. If you were walking down the street and you saw Hoggle from Labyrinth, you wouldn’t run up and hug him, right? I mean, that would scare him! Hugging people you know is great, but these teams, they don’t know Phil, or the mechanic, or anybody. They should stick to hugging each other.

Paul Ohhhh. I get it.

I’ve had a long-standing fascination with Japan, beginning with Elisabeth Bumiller’s “The Secrets of Mariko: a year in the life of a Japanese woman and her family”. I spent much of Paul’s first four months reading while he nursed (he nursed until he was three, but I think I was too stunned by his very existence to do anything but read for the first four months) and because Bumiller’s book was one of the first I picked up, those four months were filled with books about modern Japan. I read every book on the subject I could find, and only stopped because the flow of books dried up.

Six years later, my thirst for knowledge about Japan has been renewed, owing mostly to the Toronto library system, which (knock on wood) has a seemingly endless supply of books about this strange nation.

Rick Kennedy, an ex-New Yorker who’s been living in Tokyo for thirty years, writes in “Home, Sweet Tokyo”:

As I make it, you need only ten words and phrases to carry you gracefully through just about any situation…The first phrase to learn is yoroshiki onegai itashimasu, or simply, with people you know reasonably well, yoroshiku. English translations of this phrase are invariably grotesque - something like “I ask you to look favorably on me” - but it can be used to mean almost anything from “Hello” and “Goodbye” to “Please lend me 10,000 yen” and “Don’t bother me”.

I related this to a Canadian friend, then said jokingly that all you need to know in Canada is “Oh, sorry!” and then that very day proceeded to have the following conversation with a deli clerk:

Sage I’d like two buttered bagels, one for here, and one to go.

Clerk One with butter, one without?

Sage Oh. No, I’m sorry, one to go, one for here. Both with butter.

Clerk I’m sorry. One for here, one to go. That comes to $3.29.

Sage Sorry, can I use my debit card?

Clerk Yes, right here.

Sage, as usual, slides the debit card through incorrectly.

Clerk Sorry, it’s like this.

Sage Sorry! There you go.

Clerk Now, two bagels? One to go with butter? One for here, no butter?

Sage No, sorry, I didn’t explain very well.

Clerk Sorry!

In “Tokyo, My Everest: A Canadian Woman in Japan”, Gabrielle Bauer writes:

People who are drawn to Japan (aside from those who are in it only for the money or the easy sexual conquests) tend to be reserved, reflective, intense in a muted sort of way, people who value solitude as much as social intercourse. Thailand’s champions, on the other hand, are relaxed and expansive, comfortable in their own skin and not, as a rule, overly driven.

I found this theory very curious. Putting politics aside, am I drawn to Canada because I value politeness, practicality, friendliness and helping when I can? This country is certainly not as confrontational as I am - witness the general appalled looks I got from my Canadian friends when I yelled at the teacher - and the fascination with sports bewilders me. But would I feel as at home somewhere else? I don’t think I would.

Todd asked the other day if I would be interested in living for a year in Japan, because he could investigate the possibility with his company.

“Oh, no way,” I said.

He was surprised. “I thought you’d jump at the chance!”

“No, no,” I said. “Japan, for me, is like a big giant crush. From afar. I’d fail miserably at a society based on non-confrontation and subtle looks to convey your opinion, where one word can mean anything from “That would be nice” to “That’s an outrageous suggestion”, depending on the amount of air sucked in after saying it, a culture that hates saying the word ‘no’. I mean, I loved Sting when I was fifteen too, but if he’d showed up at my door and asked for a date I would have run screaming.”

No worries.

Let me begin with: No worries. Paul is perfectly fine.

And if you’re single, and looking for tips on how to create a happy marriage, I can help. Commit to a person who is smart, can make you laugh, is your very best friend, and is more optimistic than you.

Then you can survive seven hours of emergency room panic with only one serious breakdown in the women’s washroom while your partner sits next to your son as he sleeps on the waiting room floor.

(Did I mention that Paul is completely fine? Okay. Just making sure. I don’t want y’all to be panicking over there.)

Wednesday night, Paul told me that he’d seen a drop of blood when he peed. Todd was alarmed, but calm, and I channelled my incipient hysteria by cleaning both bathrooms until they were gleaming. Because I hadn’t seen anything but pee in the toilet, we decided to wait until morning and make a doctor’s appointment.

At half past four, Paul woke up and asked for some water. He drank it and then threw it all right back up. Then he said that his stomach hurt.

I am famous for losing it when I’m scared or worried. Witness, the time Paul put a chickpea up his nose, and Todd and Kite completely correctly ended up asking me to go away - far away - because my screeching was not exactly helping. This time, though? I was outwardly completely calm. Inside, I was a deranged lunatic running through the streets naked, but outside? The picture of relaxation.

We called a cab and headed for the emergency room. When we arrived, a toddler whose only word was “Mama” was crying and crying. Paul looked worried, so I told him that the baby was just scared because he didn’t understand what was going on. Paul was scared, too; when they hooked him up to a heart rate monitor and the nurse asked about his health we could actually hear his heartrate increase when the questions seemed onimous. She said to go into the waiting room and that someone would let us know when the doctor could see us.

Paul was very tired, and soon fell asleep on the waiting room floor as Todd read to him, waking up three times to throw up again. Todd and I passed the time playing cards and shoring each other up. A very nice housekeeping person scoured the entire hospital for a pillow and a blanket, completely on his own. We hadn’t said a word.

A middle aged Scottish woman with red hair, waiting with her husband, came over to see us. “Has he even seen a doctor?” she asked.

“No,” we chorused.

“How long have you been waiting?”

“About five hours,” said Todd.

“That’s disgusting,” she snarled, and shot an evil look at the reception desk.

But, actually, we were thrilled that it had been so long. If they’d rushed him into a room within ten minutes, I’d have been hyperventilating.

Inside, where Paul couldn’t see me.

After six and a half hours, we were able to see a doctor, who was encouragingly relaxed about Paul’s non-circumcision. He sent Paul’s pee off to be tested (tired and punchy by then, we conjured images for Paul of mad scientists making Pee Soup back there in the lab) and came back half an hour later, smiling widely.

“Not a drop of a drop of blood in there!” he crowed, “Not one red blood cell! He has a virus, that’s all. You guys go home. I think he’s going to be completely fine.”

Indeed, by the time we arrived home, Paul was asking for food, which he kept down with no problem at all. Todd ran out for some sickie supplies (mineral water, crackers, and, I confess, Jello) and by the time he was unpacking the groceries, I was falling asleep. I stumbled into the bedroom and passed out for the next four hours, waking up feeling perky and energetic.

When I woke up this morning I found out that an ongoing problem fellow parents are experiencing had gotten worse. And, you know, I care, of course I do, but the rage I’d have felt on Wednesday morning had turned into a sort of zen acceptance. I’m still going to work on doing my part to fix it, but any kind of angst I’d have felt has been taken up by a running loop of “Paul is healthy, Paul is healthy, la la la, Paul is healthy…”

Forbidden Phrases

The photo that got away

A woman in her fifties, sitting alone in the subway car, wearing formal slacks and a fur jacket, avidly playing her Nintendo Gameboy.

Sage is at the Science Centre, next to a cave where lots of children are playing. A little boy with an orange nametag comes out of the cave, crying.

Sage Sweetie, where’s your teacher?

Boy cries

Sage, turns to other nametag kids Do you guys know where your teacher is?

Other Nametag Kid She’s over there.

Sage, relieved Oh, good. Your teacher’s coming, it’s okay. [wanders away]

Boy cries

Teacher screams What the fuck is it NOW? Jesus, I am goddamn sick of you. Shut up and stop crying!

Boy cries harder

Sage is speechless with rage

Five minutes later, the boy is sitting alone, still crying. A grandmotherly lady is asking him where his teacher is.

Sage Um, you might not want to find her. I did the same thing, and she just screamed at him.

Grandmotherly Lady My goodness! All right, then. Finding the teacher…not such a good idea after all, I guess.

Sage sighs No, not really.

Sage goes into the cave.

Teacher screams at all the orange nametag kids All right, dammit! You come the hell out of here, RIGHT THIS MINUTE! Do you HEAR me?

Sage, shaking by now Stop it!

Teacher WHAT?

Sage Just, just, stop SCREAMING at them! Jesus!

Teacher You don’t even have - [realizes I must have a child, as I am, after all, at the Science Museum in a cave] - these kids are my responsibility. [taps the word “Staff” on her tshirt]

Sage So stop screaming at them! My god, then maybe they’d actually be able to listen to you!

Teacher stomps off

After coming up completely empty last year in my search for long johns, last week I took Arlene’s advice and headed to the Mountain Equipment Co-op to buy them early. Unfortunately, all of the long johns were made of polyester.

Todd But polyester does keep you warm.

Sage No. It doesn’t. And even if it did, I don’t care. It’s yucky to have it right next to your skin all day.

Todd You know, 100% cotton isn’t all that.

Sage I’m waiting.

Todd For what?

Sage For an adjective.

Todd Hee!

Sage Like, “…great”, or “…comfortable”.

Todd Is this on the list of forbidden phrases?

Sage Yes. Right after “tastes like ass”.

Todd …that it’s cracked up to be.

Sage Thank you.

Paul And then, for my Halloween party in March? I’m going to have eat-able slime!

Sage Edible slime?

Paul Yes! It will be eat-able and all the kids will eaaaaaat it. It will be so gross!

Sage It’s edible.

Paul Edible?

Sage Yes. If you say “eat-able”, people will think you’re referring to an Oedipal complex.

Paul What’s that?

Sage It’s… [thinks: about this guy who accidentally killed his father and married his mother] when someone acts nuts.

Cowboy Grandma

The Photo that Got Away

A young woman dressed conservatively walking next to her grandmother, who was decked out in a short skirt, knee-high black leather boots, a short jacket, a cowboy hat and enough makeup for three saloon bargirls.

I travelled off the edge of the earth Saturday morning (which is to say, north of Steeles Avenue) and on the bus - which featured seats so cushy I felt like I was riding British Airways, first class - I was like a cat in a cat carrier. I spent my time staring frantically out the window, trying to figure out where I was, bobbing my head up and down, trying to catch a glimpse of the Toronto skyline.

Flustered, I got off at the wrong stop, and stood in the cold wind waiting for the next bus, cursing the impulse I had in August to rip out all the north of Steeles pages of my Toronto Street Guide, because…why the fuck would I ever go there?

After taking care of the volunteer animal rescue work I’d braved dragons for, I promptly got on the wrong bus and was dropped off a block later by the kindly bus driver. He told me to “stand by the blue sign” and wait for the next bus, so of course I waited next to the wrong blue sign. When the correct bus arrived, the bus driver obligingly waited for me to run up the hill to the bus doors. She giggled a little as I stepped on. Can’t blame her.

I must say, despite their life crushing job choices (i.e. being outside of Toronto), the bus drivers in the suburbs are quite a bit more genial than the Toronto TTC workers. You’d think they’d all be listening to Cure albums, wearing black lipstick and smoking French cigarettes in an effort to lift the depression.

Todd Ooo, Kurt Elling is coming to Toronto!

Sage squeals Where, where?

Todd The, uh, Ursula Franklin Academy. It’s a high school, apparently.

Sage Ew. It sounds like he’s going to be performing in the gym.

Todd I know. It’s weird. I hope this doesn’t mean his career is tanking.

[both sit in sad silence]

Sage No, no, it’s not weird! I just figured it out! Kurt’s going to defect, just like Mikhail Baryshnikov! Baryshnikov was performing in Toronto when he got word that his American friends would help him to leave Russia, you know. And Kurt will finish his little high school performance - the CIA won’t bother to watch him there - and then he’ll sneak off the stage, neatly avoiding his handlers, to be spirited away to a secret room in the Royal York hotel. He’ll miss Chicago, sure, but it will be worth it.

Woman in Black

Submitted entry: I was on my home from the post office, my brief respite and exercise during the chaos of my day. It’s a fifteen or twenty minute round-trip, one I looked forward to. I had new comfy sneakers on my feet, warm layers, and headphones on my ears. One of Sarah’s mix cds was in the player in my pocket.

The walk up was uneventful and goes fast when I walk to the beat of whatever music is pounding in my ears. When I got my mail and exited the building, I pulled in from of another lady on barreling down the sidewalk. She was wearing all black. Black pants, black shoes, black shirt, black trench coat, flapping in the still-warm breeze.

On the way home from the post office, instead of going straight for the next two blocks, I normally turn right and go up two blocks and around, to make it longer and to work out my legs on the small hill. So I turned off to go up the quiet street by the church, and as I did I glanced behind me. Lady in Black had turned as well.

The song in my ears had changed, to one of spooky dreary teen-loss music, accented with cello. (”Miss you” - Blink 182) Images of the Gothic video flashed in my head, and I snuck a look again. Lady in Black was still behind me, gaining.

“Maybe she’s heading to the church,” I guessed, as it loomed up ahead of us, crystal blue sky above, golden leaves still on the trees, white spire pointing upwards. The cemetery just beyond. I hustled along past the church, involved in the next song, until I got to the part where Nickelback were singing, “I like my hands around your neck.” I turned around.

Behind me, Lady in Black was close enough to easily converse with. Which I didn’t.

I continued on to the end of the block, my house within running distance, the old abandoned cottage immediately on my right. “If I turn left here,” I thought to myself, “and so does she, I’m running for it.”

I turned left and looked behind me.

And here’s where it would make a good story if she was gone, but alas, she had turned right up the next street, away from me.

You can visit Andrea at Atypical Life, where she describes living in the wilds of Canada while homeschooling four children, from the ages of 4 to 17.

I’m awake!

The Photo That Got Away

A nondescript, conservatively dressed woman in her early forties on the bus, wearing a skirt. When she crossed her legs, I could see three large tattooed cat paws going up her calf, as if a mountain lion had just finished climbing into her lap.

They’d shut down one of the major roads, so the traffic on the side roads was terrible. The bus driver braked so hard that we were all thrown forward in our seats. The bus driver called out, “Just making sure everyone’s awake back there.”

A man in the back of the bus yelped, “I’m awake! I’m AWAKE!” and everyone got the giggles.

When they hear about how many places we’ve lived in the past 10 years, my Canadian friends are quite convinced that I am only flitting through Toronto on my way to new adventures. I think turning down six months in Paris for Todd’s job made a dent in their convictions. (The dent is something like, “My god, you moron, GO TO PARIS, what are you THINKING?!” but…it’s a dent.)

When I went to France as a teenager in the mid eighties, I was bowled over by the kindness I was shown by the French people. I was able to experience Paris as well as a remote town with a population of less than five hundred people. Everyone made a sincere effort to understand my stumbling high school French, and I enjoyed being there tremendously.

That said.

Recently I found out that Americans can be assimilated (resistance is futile) by France:

Assimilation is reserved for persons of non-French descent who are able to prove that they are more French than American, having mastered the language as well as the philosophy of the French way of life.

Which, I must say, somewhat supports my view of France as the Popular Kid’s Table of the world. And if the rules were reversed, how would a Parisian prove that he was more American than French?

“Hello, sir. If you’ll look over my paperwork, you’ll see that everything is in order…Yes, it’s Jaq - Jack, I mean…I’ll be living in Kennesaw, Georgia. No, I don’t own a gun. Is this relev -? The law? Surely you are making a mockery of me, sir. I don’t…Well, all right. Sec. 34-1. Yes, I do see that all residents must own a gun. It’s…you know what? I think I want my paperwork back.” ”

Little Man

You know how you watch movies made in the ’50s and there’s always some wise-cracking twelve year old kid whose voice hasn’t even changed, but he talks like a gangster, and you think, that could never happen in real life?

We were on the bus the other day, and this twelve year old boy in a newsboy cap and a button down shirt got on cradling a tiny kitten in his arms. Paul was, of course, enraptured, turning around in his seat to moon over the baby kitty. The kid smiled at Paul and said kindly, “Do you want to pet him, little man?”

Paul got flustered that a Big Boy actually talked to him and turned around in a hurry, and I had to look away from Todd so we didn’t both crack up right in the poor kid’s face.

Apparently the people who said, “If Bush wins again, I’m moving to Canada,” weren’t just posturing this time.

Kischer [an immigration lawyer] believes people are genuinely serious about making the move. He says his firm charges for consultations and Americans are paying.

“They’ve spent money and time here to take a look at the possiblity of immigrating to Vancouver, so I think they’re very serious.”

Kischer estimates Bush’s election victory could result in double the number of American immigrants coming to Canada. - CBC News

When we came here, it was on Todd’s work visa. The next step is to become a landed immigrant, which will cost us about three thousand dollars total, and give us the rights of citizens minus the right to vote. In 2007, we can apply to become citizens. The month of free rent we signed up for when we signed the lease, which was originally earmarked for a digital SLR camera, is now going directly to our landed immigrant fund.

Because we knew the work visa would expire in November, Todd responsibly filled out all the paperwork a month early. We were getting progressively more nervous as the days passed without any word from the Canadian government. Finally, just two days after the election, Todd received a voice mail from the immigration department, telling him he was $75 short on his paperwork fee. He paid it instantly, laughing that he was lucky they weren’t trying for $7,500 - no mistake that they waited until after the election to call!

The next day, the phone rang.

Immigration Person Hi. I’m calling about your work permit?

Sage Oh, hi there. Did you get the fee and everything?

Immigration Person Yes, everything is in perfect order. I just wanted to let you know that Todd’s permit, and Paul’s permit, will come in about a week. Your permit will take about two weeks. Because one of them had to be late - with the late fee and all - I thought it made more sense to make yours be the late one.

Sage Yes, yes, absolutely. That makes perfect sense.

Immigration Person I just didn’t want you to worry when your permit wasn’t in the envelope with the others.

Sage Thank you. Really. I would have panicked. After the election - it’s twice as important that we stay in Canada.

Immigration Person laughs and laughs, then says in a warm, sweet voice We like it here too. ”