Dispatches from a happy Hullian

It's the Sunday after the Wednesday Elizabeth and Vivien took off for Europe. My general strategy is to keep myself and the kids here busy. We rode the Cycle for CHEO (15 km edition, to keep it manageable for Ada on a one-speed kid BMX bike) and it went pretty well — Oscar zipped off ahead despite my admonition to stick together but we didn't have too much trouble finding them. We took some time to hang out with Simon (who had done the 35 km on their own), chowed down on the included BBQ and wandered the activities — Ada sat in the driver's seat of the OC Transpo EV bus while Oscar assembled a cardboard O-Train and double-decker bus in one of the passenger seats (and took some prompting to dislodge).

We've been eating things that Elizabeth and/or Vivien don't (sushi! pancakes! meat sausages!) and on the PD day Oscar went off to the library after the bunch of us had sushi with Andrea. Yesterday Ada and I met up with Andrea and Morgen for a visit to the Ottawa Art Gallery at the speed of four-year-old attention span (we can get away with that because admission is free!) followed by Byward Market ice cream and a community barbecue at the Children's Garden.

One unsettling thing that happened on Thursday night was that someone was skulking around the yard and went into our garage, smoked in there, moved things around and, as far as I can tell, didn’t take anything — might have borrowed Elizabeth's bike helmet for a bit, and I thought they stole the digging fork but then it turned up inside the garage (it had been leaning against the fence). I think I saw the guy putting back the bike helmet. Odd — at first I thought Elizabeth had left her bike and helmet somewhere and the guy (not a familiar one, but I'm not at every open mic…) was bringing them back? They also moved the chicken feeding station out of their coop and unplugged the light in there. It wasn't hard to put things back and the garage smoke smell has dissipated but it was pretty unsettling.

This coming week I deliver the presentation on our unit's specialty to the recruits at work — I've delivered it last decade but it's been a while so I've spruced it up and am looking forward to it. I think, with me responsible for the kids in the evening, I might book a morning off for a second 32ish km run before tapering to Race Weekend.

Body: I created this image from some with I was doing on interactive media way back in 2004, helping out a professor in the Communication Studies department at Concordia. It's a still from a Flash toy where the washers are all tottering around and responding to mouse presses and movements. The group was very interested in bodies and technology and this was one of my takes on the link between the two. I use it now when I'm thinking of my health and aging.



Beautiful: I saw this sticker on a magical, giddy first trip to Ottawa with Elizabeth back in 2005 — someone had stuck it to the inside of an OC Transpo bus. It was touching and positive and probably put there with some political intent.



Art or moving: this was from another want with Elizabeth, around Duluth or so in Montreal. I was taken with the idea that someone was making performance art in the street but Elizabeth pointed out that maybe they were just trying to hold on to the parking spot for moving. It's a nice silly icon.

If you want me to pick some of your icons, as amazon_syren did for me, comment below saying so, or with a non-sequitur.

On my way home from picking up some vacuum-cleaner parts, I ran into Shawn, who runs Atelier Denu. I'd already talked to him a bit about trying out modelling in a session, and now I'm booked to pose next Tuesday. It'll be my first time posing naked to be drawn by people who don't otherwise see me naked. Five dollars gets you in (bring your own supplies) and it's free for high school students. If you come, be nice — the regulars all are.

I once posed in various states of dress and undress for a friend's art project. I don't know if the project ever saw the light of day. It was photography of people in their clothes, her neutral-looking overalls, and naked, to investigate the role of clothing in identity if I remember right. My Google skills aren't turning anything up; I don't know if all those rolls of film even got developed (last time I asked, I don't think they had been). A couple of years ago, I looked into posing at the Ottawa School of Art, but there was lots of paperwork and it felt like they wanted you to prove that you were serious: I'm not particularly serious, just looking to try out modelling and see how it feels. I'm feeling this should be an interesting experience and a good match for that. Elizabeth has often remarked on my “shamelessness,” referring to a quality that should make me reasonably confident and natural at getting up in front of people without clothes, we'll see if it manifests on the 22nd.

Friday, inspired by sassy_red_head, I went to the Ottawa sitting of Atelier Denu, a life drawing workshop where for two hours, a dozen or so people sit in a circle around a nude model and draw them (her in this case). No pedagogy, bring your own materials, Shawn the organizer just books the room, arranges for a model, keeps time and collects your $5. It's been over a decade since I've drawn a nude model, and perhaps it has been too long.

I found the place in the upper reaches of a (the?) fine art building at the university of Ottawa by following someone who looked like she knew where she was going (and asked if I was looking for the life drawing workshop). I got oriented pretty quickly, found out that a “donkey” is a bench that you straddle that holds your drawing surface at a nice angle, and made my way over to a spot near sassy_red_head, only to realize about halfway across the room that carrying a somewhat heavy bench in one hand with your wonky arm isn't a good idea. I got a couple of people to take the things I'd been carrying so I didn't drop them, and got myself straightened out and re-socketed. After that, the night went much better. As an aside, naproxen is my new favourite post-dislocation painkiller.

The actual drawing was in poses of increasing lengths, going from two minutes up to twenty. I'd brought a big 18-by-24 newsprint pad, a smaller sketchbook, compressed charcoal, conté pencil and drawing pencils, but wound up working exclusively big and with the chunkier charcoal and conté: it felt good and I find it's easier to work fast in big movements. I did a lot of contours and work with negative space, some shading and lots of nice dense markmaking. It felt really good, and I think it was pretty different from what everyone else was doing (that I saw, at least). My faces and proportions were hit-and-miss, but I didn't feel like I was starting from zero. I'm going to try and make it to more of these.

I'm not shy to share some drawings, but I'm on my parents' computer in dialup-land while we are visiting them, so I will post them in a few days.

I've been really enjoying the arrival of spring. Yesterday, I seeded the garden and ripped out a lot of dead branches from the back yard hedge. I'm a little achy from hauling dead stuff out of the back, but it was definitely worth it. We also took a family 11km-or-so walk involving picking up coffee beans and conversation from Bytown Beanery and supper at So Good — the food was great at So Good as usual, but the parenting advice was a little unrelenting. I think we're more or less at the stage when babysitting seems like an option, between Oscar's more varied diet and his improved capacity to have fun. Baby's first babysitter is in the cards!

In the past month or two, there have been a lot of Baby's firsts:

• Baby's first flight of stairs climbed (the back steps)
• Baby's first few mouthfuls of dirt (in the back yard)
• Baby's first visit to a sugarbush (complete with a bit of tasty pancake)
• Baby's first concert (this week at Umi)
• Baby's first junior assistant scrutineer shift (actually coming tomorrow)
• Baby's first street demonstration
• There was also baby's first poetry reading in the winter — anyone have a black turtleneck and beret that would fit a 20 pound baby? Gifts of baby Gitanes are not encouraged.

There's almost always something Oscar can try at every meal, now, which is exciting. He likes his bready things, and seems unfazed by a little bit of spice or sour. Steamed rice (at So Good) wasn't such a good idea — most of it wound up all down Mama's left side. We gave him baby corn and broad noodles from the leftovers, though, and he liked those.

A month from now, I'll be back at work on a slightly reduced schedule (yay, family-friendly workplace!). I have mixed feelings about it, but I do miss work and the people there, and also the different time-scale that work-focus operates in. I hope we all adapt to the changed routine — we'll both be working for a total of a little over one full-time job's worth of time, so we'll need to be more efficient (or more likely, adjust some expectations) and Oscar will have to get used to more one-parent-at-a-time time.

It's been a little while since I've summarized what's up in point form.

good

blah

Healthy Getting the hang of caring for Oscar and being domestic Put down flagstones in the back yard Gathered a bunch of kale seeds for next year Oscar's first overnight trip to my parents' place went well Pretty prints from visioluxus arrived in the mail on Tuesday Somehow managed to have seven kinds of cake last weekend, over three fun birthday parties Small bits of preparation for Christmas achieved Visiting J&K (and now R) is always nice — and they always shower us with tasty food.

Kind of tired and spacey Missing work a little bit Fussy o'clock seems to be a regular occurrence Rapid-fire wet diapers Joints a little achey

commodorified is already jonesing for Oscar pictures, so here is a new one my mum sent me (from our visit this weekend):
( Oscar and his grandpa )

We had a long weekend!

Thursday to Saturday we had some guests in from Waterloo — a colleague of mine from Concordia and his wife. Catching up was fun, and eating well was fun, too: they took us out to Haveli in the market, which was excellent, and we cooked up a couple of breakfasts and an egg-free vegetarian supper (it turns out that Indian vegetarians tend to shy away from eggs but not dairy products — although the danish blue cheese had them shying away for un-philosophical reasons).

We got supplies for a few improvements around the property on Saturday and used them on Monday: our back stairs are now much less disconcertingly springy, and we have an outdoor compost bin set up with a bunch of yard waste already in there.

Sunday, Elizabeth and I went to see the 1930s exhibit and a bit of the permanent collection at the National Gallery. It's only around one more weekend if you haven't seen it; it was worth a look — disconcerting at times, but it seemed intent on showing the variety of competing viewpoints and currents, and on connecting the art to the history. It was a bit more crowded than I would've liked in there, though. There were some really engaging portraits in the show, both photographic and painted. In the permanent collection, I was thoroughly happy to see Rapide et Dangereux by BGL, after seeing a piece under the stairs to the modern collection by them that was sort of like a sculpture of a storeroom.

The low point of the weekend was wonking my shoulder on Sunday before heading out to the museum — I thought I was done with that!

Now, it's back to work for a short week, and possibly a real piano in the near future...

Before it's too late, happy International Dadaism Month.

Next day of the month is on Friday.

zimzim urallala zimzim urallala zimzim zanzibar zimzalla zam.

The first half of last week involved getting ready for a big night of sponsors, partners and company visiting the lab, then actually doing the night. We got a bunch of interesting and interested visitors: the evening was pretty laid-back, we had more than enough people to greet visitors, and got what I think was a pretty good response. Walking home from that was pretty wet, though: the rain promised most of the week came down in a gigantic dump Wednesday night.

Thursday to Sunday, I travelled to Subtle Technologies with rottenfruit. The festival itself was intense: we saw maybe two thirds of the thirty presentations, including some really hardcore chemistry ones, some beautiful art and music ones, and some that were just... weird. Like utility fog, for which I'm now on the beta testers list. We also traded off some of our worldly goods to Nancy Nisbet. rottenfruit acquired a negative ion candle and a ceramic vase-y thing, I got a nice bandana. There's now a Handmaden CD and an alarm clock and bus schedule combo in Nisbett's big truck going around the continent.

We also went out to Mississauga to have supper and kick around with my grandfather, aunt, uncle and one cousin, and wandered Kensington Market and Queen Street in the space around the conference. My grandfather's health is not so great, this may be one of the last times I see him. I'm glad he got to meet rottenfruit , and that she'll have more than just stories and photographs to know about him from.

We ate amazingly well... our good food sense led us well all weekend: vegetarian sushi on College (with ice cream and hot sake for dessert), amazing smoothies, burgers, fries and peanut sauce, free cookies (with coffee purchase)...

The trip felt a little packed, boxed in by both our work schedules. It's the longest we've taken together yet, though. We missed catching up with a few people (and didn't even attempt that many — too many friendly people in TO, not enough time).

Two days ago, rottenfruit's rat Apostrophe died. I felt more involved with Apostrophe than with Kiki, having been the rat-keeper for a week in February and having helped take care of her here and there since. She was energetic and social almost to the end (and had long lost her bite-y streak) and lucky to have such a caring owner.

Things seem to be working in the getting-me-paid department. I have a loan to call in a chunk of that I still don't know about, but I think the paperwork's all done and settled for everything else on my plate. Things should all be caught up by mid-February (well, chances are I'll still have some chunks to go on the loan-which-won't-die, but everything will be rolling along).

Scrabble yesterday was a bit of a flop... things were slow in coming together with bookings and materials, so we pretty much called it off (but hung around the site to see if anyone turned up)... another contributing factor was that it turns out we were in competition with a literacy conference over at UdeM, so they were probably drawing the literacy crowd as well as not coming down to play with us. More communication next time.

Candide last night at Pollack hall with rottenfruit was fun, we were whacked over the head with symbolism and general ribald humour. Voltaire and Bernstein's work was done well by Opera McGill. Go see it if it might be your cup of tea.

Today, people from the CBC and some of our partner organizations came by work for a quick look at us all. I hope they liked it — it felt kind of rushed, though.