May 9th, 2010
I’d rather lick a garbage truck
It was a year ago that we discovered just how immovable our child was, though I wouldn’t comprehend just how much until she was born. And now she’s eleven and a half months old, we’re planning her first birthday party. She sleeps all night almost every night, which makes me feel that wonder and amazement you’re supposed to feel when someone hands you your newborn for the first time. That this enormous blessing could be mine. (Other mothers say, “We’ll see how long it lasts” and then I want to hit them.)
I had a splendid Mother’s Day today, beginning with six and a half hours sleep (and it’s only that because I stay up far too late), then a lie-in, breakfast in bed (croissants! yoghurt! fresh fruit! tea!). Harriet was thoughtful enough to buy me Darwin’s Bastards (which I didn’t think I’d want to read when I first heard about it, but the more I read about it, the more I longed to). This afternoon, my own wonderful mom came into the city and accompanied us to afternoon tea at The Four Seasons. Scones were so fresh. Harriet was an angel, and the staff were so nice to us even though they had to vaccuum grapes and cheddar cheese off the floor after we had gone. (Interestingly, they remembered Harriet from our last tea in February. I am not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.)
Also, asparagus is in season, so all is well.
In really stange news, my maternity leave ended on Friday. In an alternate universe, I’d be going back to work on Monday, but as working full time and being a mother would cut into my tea breaks, we decided it would be best if I stayed home for a while. Also, my husband begins a new day job in two weeks, leaving his Bay Street office behind for work at a non-profit. I’m very proud of him, excited for him, and relieved that if I get to be home all day, at least he’ll be working somewhere that makes him happy.
And I do mean that, “get to be home all day”. Can I just say that staying home with a small baby sucks like nothing else in the world? I’d rather work in a glass chewing factory or lick a garbage truck. Staying home with a one-year-old, however, is pretty brilliant and gets better all the time. It’s also a great excuse to spend sunny afternoons outside in the park. Even though her naps are often fleeting, I get to curl up on the couch with a book and a cup of tea. When Harriet is awake, we hang out together. She is beginning to show her understanding of language in ways that fascinate me, we can share jokes, she is a pretty happy kid and very affectionate, and I really do like her company. So I feel lucky that we get to continue our days together, that spring is here and summer is coming, and I look forward to exercising feats of financial acrobatics so that our little family can get away with having our income cut in half. (There may have to be less afternoon tea. This is sad).
Anyway, all of this is to say that I am grateful for my good fortune (especially the asparagus) and that I’m very happy that I’m a mother today.
May 4th, 2010
House Post 2
I’d been thinking about houses anyway, on account of Meghan Daum’s wonderful book, when I found this book at a yard sale for 50 cents on Saturday. A House is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman and illustrated by Betty Fraser was published in 1978, and I can’t decide whether I like the text or pictures better. Never mind, they’re perfectly complementary.
The book starts off fairly tamely– a hill is a house for an ant, a hive a house for a bee, webs for 
spiders, and nests for birds, and then the refrain, “and a house is a house for me.” The story continues through various other abodes, returning to that house for me– which might be a treehouse, a fort under a tablecloth, a snow fort, or a huge cardboard box. But then things get a little bit crazy: “Perhaps I have started farfetching, perhaps I am stretching things some…”. Because a carton is a house for a cracker, a sandwich is a house for ham, a hat a house for a head. Because “once you get started in thinking, you think and you think and you think. How pockets are houses for pennies, And pens can be house for ink.”
The illustrations are to get lost in, managing to be both exploding and detailled at the very same time. Full of secrets, jokes, and delightful things, and flowing right off of the page. I love the be-spectacled duchess, in bed with her knitting, her books and her banjo. And yes, the tea page, which was created with the sole purpose of thrilling me, I think.
“A box is a house for a teabag. A teapot’s a house for some tea. If you pour me a cup and I drink it all up, Then the teahouse will turn into me.”
April 27th, 2010
Be sure to die near water
We went to the ROM today, which was an amazing experience, because Harriet is now 11 months old and therefore big enough to get something out of the Kids’ Gallery, and the museum was quiet enough on a Tuesday afternoon for an 11 month-old to play there with abandon. Her favourite part of the under-six area was a toy with a variety of cranks she could turn, and mine was the exhibit of children’s and minature tea sets. Elsewhere, I learned that fossils are seven times heavier than bones (and therefore the dinosaur exhbit’s floors are specially enforced) and that if you wish to be fossilized, be sure to die near water.
April 14th, 2010
The tea came from the East
“Mrs. Pigheights, without responding, raised the cup to her lips and was, as one sometimes is in moments of distress, delighted by the brief voyage along the inside of her throat. The tea came from the East and bore her away to the East, the East as it had been dreamed of and conquered by the British Empire, inlaid with saffron, sand, and multicoloured servants. The imagination holds in reserve a multitude of emergency exits. Always remember that, Lucie.” –from The Breakwater House by Pacale Quiviger, trans. Lazer Lederhandler
February 15th, 2010
Oh, for a cup of tea and crumpets
” ‘Do you know, Wilmet–’ the dark eyes looked so seriously into mine that I wondered what horror was going to be revealed next– ‘he hadn’t even got a teapot?’
‘Goodness! How did he make tea, then?’
‘He didn’t– he never made tea! Just fancy!’
‘Well, one doesn’t really associate Piers with drinking tea,’ I said.
‘He drinks it now,’ said Keith. ”
–from A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym
January 24th, 2010
Kettle from a headlight
Today I loved Cut/Paste: Creative Reuse in Canadian Design, an exhibit on at the Royal Ontario Museum until the end of the month. Featuring a gorgeous quilt made out of ugly one size-fits-all t-shirts, a toaster fashioned illicitly in penitentiaries out of a cigarette tin, guitar string and a shingle, a lamp made out of a chair, jewelry made out of skateboard decks, and a coffee table made from a toboggon. But my favourite was the K-42 Electric (tea!) Kettle manufactured by GE in the 1940s. Materials were scarce due to wartime, so the kettle was made from a recycled car headlight, but it would set a standard for kettle design throughout the 1950s, and become iconic in kettlish realms. (Image taken from The Canadian Design Resource).
January 21st, 2010
Apart from the soul
“The fortunate thing about lab glassware is that it boils water at the speed of light. I threw a spoonful of black leaves into a beaker. When it had gone a deep red I handed it to Dogger, who stared at it skeptically.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘It’s Tetley’s.’
He sipped at the tea gingerly, blowing on the surface of the drink to cool it. As he drank, I remembered that there’s a reason we English are ruled more by tea than by Buckingham Palace or His Majesty’s Government: Apart from the soul, the brewing of tea is the only thing that sets us apart from the great apes– or so the Vicar had remarked to Father, who had told Daffy, who had told me.” –from The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
December 21st, 2009
A great big teapot all sizzling and piping hot
“And now”– here he suddenly looked less grave– “here is something for the moment for you all!” and he brought out (I suppose from the big bag at his back, but nobody saw him do it) a large tray containing five cups and saucers, a bowl of lump sugar, a jug of cream, and a great big teapot all sizzling and piping hot. Then he cried out, “A Merry Christmas! Long live the true King!” and cracked his whip and he and the reindeer and the sledge and all were out of sight before anyone realised that they started.”– from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
December 4th, 2009
Laying down among the tea cups
“At which point the much-tried Wimsey lay down among the tea cups and became hysterical.”
I am adoring Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, which I’m reading because I’m interested in literary Harriets (Harriet Vane, in this case) and because of Maureen Corrigan’s recommendation. At first, I supposed Corrigan having given away the ending might have ruined the experience, but it hasn’t actually– the thing about detective fiction is that even if you know the final piece of the puzzle, it doesn’t matter until the rest of it is put together.
I do find it remarkable how difficult the book is, however. I thought there would be something of a breeze about it, and maybe it’s just that I’m incredibly tired, but there are entire passages I don’t understand no matter how I try. Part of it is that the book is bursting with allusion, the characters make a game of literary quotation, but I don’t pick up the allusion at all or know where it came from. Who knew that detective fiction could make one feel wholly ignorant? Also, the novel takes place at Oxford University, which seems to be a foreign country for all its customs, rituals and own peculiar language. None of this is detracting from my enjoyment of the book though, but I must admit there has been some skimmage.
And also remarkable is how Sayers treats the “work” of writing. Maureen Corrigan wrote considerably of her own search for “work” in The Novel (whose characters are usually writers who never write and banks who work off-page, etc.). But here we find it– Harriet Vane is a crime writer, though various circumstances have led her to be sleuthing on the side. And throughout the book as she seeks to get to the bottom of goings-on at her old Oxford College, she is plotting her latest novel. We see her actually working– as well as being distracted by all the parts of being a writer that keep one from actually writing. For Harriet Vane, plotting is an actual occupation, sort of akin to moving furniture around a room, and it’s so rarely that we see this kind of intellectual activity enactioned. It has been fascinating to encounter.
Oh, and yes. Like all the English novels I’ll ever love, there are obligatory tea references. Delight.
