wake-up call

"Every day is an adventure" is the slogan for teachers, teaching on-call.  Today is no different....

Alarm goes off.  I doze. I am still sick from last week. I had a great sunny (record 3 days in a row!) weekend hiking with two Austrailian shepherd pups (mine: 'Alvys' and his brother'Rocky')   Then, surprisingly, my cell phone rings again (my lovely 'morning walk' ring tone of birds chirping and dogs barking happlily)  and its a 5 day call (yippee) but 7:08AM!!!!! weird....and cell says 6:45AM!!!!!!  

Rocky                   Alvys

I'm out the door in record time.......back to a school I worked for 5 months in....a 30 min. commute.

H1N1 Vaccination Anthem - Vaccine Nation

on a clear day

Clearly.....(my son's new word)  "Clearly, I know that mum".....

Another dreary Vancouver morning.  But would I also be bored in a place where its always sunny and warm, always 12 hours of daylight/nighttime?  Shifts and seasonal shifting....but a little seabathing now would 'set me up for life'....


I am half-way thru Patti Smith's "Just Kids" memoir.  I'm drawn into her world....even for a moment (constant interruptions)...i escape to Manhattan, 1970, a constant fascination for me, small town Copper Cliff gal, longing to leave...for the 'big apple' and all those tall buildings....the off-off broadway....I'd come home from school to see my mum watching daytime talk shows-Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas....and there's Patti Smith, with her hair hanging over her face, one leg propped up and over an arm of a chair...beautiful yet homely...My mum commenting on her 'sound' and looks....I however, was hooked and collected anything i could of her....She loved the same (dead)people I did ....Brian Jones, Antonin Artaud, Jim Morrison.....I felt I had a kindred spirit...I would come across her again and again over my life...her music, her poetry, reflections....

dreary days in Vancouver

I have been negligent in posting to my blog (thanks Facebook) Yesterday was a great day-sunny, hiking, working out, visiting old friends....My daughter is knitting (something I would never really get into but admire those who are patient enough to do it) I have sat here for a long time and now feel its time to move and get my dining room/study tidy.

Brenna's birthday

My little rebel is now 12. My older one was, once, and is now on his way to being 15! Time is funny and sometimes irrelevant. Its such a weird concept that seems to control most of the world and tease us into thinking we need to be doing that or this at this time... What does 'being in the moment' mean? I thrive on the moments, not the days (DAZE?!) or years or seconds or hours....I love getting "lost in the moment" and "losing track of time"......

Happy Birthday my little sweetie, monkey amazing girl!!

soccer sunday

In the midst of my chaos (having misplaced 2 T4's along with a favourite pair of socks!) I still function and laugh and persevere....Just watched VITUS-another film to add to my list of favourites....(i remember how much I love Bruno Ganz's work....loved him in 'Bread and Tulips') I am thankful for going hiking yesterday with Julie and Luke to Lynn headwaters....a beautiful day! and living in a temperate rainforest, you must be willing to be spontaneous and in the moment, as you never know....when the rain might happen.

seasonally adjusted greetings again...

Sister DJ's Radio Band at Farmer's Market....Wise Hall Dec. '08 ccccccccolddddd day

day 3 of hot yoga-Bikram=on the drive
not sure that its 'me' or suits my body...although I know that the regulars would argue that it is for everyone and that it takes time to adjust the body to 'it'. I have not sweated this much ever!!

i am going two more times as I bought unlimited pass for week...hopefully I will not pass out!!

cobalt art

interesting observation at this bar...they took the doors off the washrooms for various reasons...and now the patrons get these views while watching their favourite hardcore band...

having a merry little musical day

I'm zoning in my iTunes....making nifty additions to my playlists.....now to find my lil' ipod....so freakin' little...and get a new car stereo that will play on these new tunes (and finally rescue my Neil Diamond cd thats been trapped in my car for over a year!)

Me and Shelley, one Dec. snowy night....the beginning of the winter wonderland Vancouver 2008...the first I remember since 1996....when Commercial Drive felt like we were in Moscow in the 20's...or something...Wii is playing in the distance....i am comfortably numb...needing a good workout and massage....

'mismeasuring' memories

In a university, not far away, not too long ago...i was sitting in a hermetically (i actually spelled this correctly! wow) sealed humanities building, taking a course called Race and Racism:the beginnings of the 'race' concept. One of my favourite books is by Stephen Jay Gould "The Mismeasure of Man" . We used another book called: "Designer Genes" speaks about 'eugenics' being used in Malaysia during the 70's/80's...sterilization of the poor so there would be less poor people...i was shocked to learn that Canada was guilty of the practice too...

mismeasuring men

The New Sciences of Detection (http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/magic/police/policework.html)

By the 1880s, urban police forces began developing new techniques for keeping track of criminals, especially new techniques of record-keeping. Most of these techniques were heavily influenced by criminology, a field of study which sought to discover the relationship between what people looked like and their character.

This is the frontispiece of Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso's Criminal Man, published in 1887 and reprinted in Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man. Lombroso searched for a relation between appearance and character

Lombroso claimed that to the trained eye, the eye of the detective, these people would clearly be organized into categories. Those in group "A" are all shoplifters, "B" are swindlers, "H" are purse snatchers, "E" are murderers, etc. A crowd of strangers is rendered into categories. And supposedly you can see a man's real character at a glance.

Lombroso often lamented the fact that his fellow Europeans were skeptical about his work. But he took comfort from the fact that Americans loved it. His work was far more influential in the United States than anywhere else.

november 11

wallowing...how come its always raining on this day and gloomy?

Remembering the past and the future....

pining for somewhere else

At least its sunny....

Why do I remember the past and not the future?  (thanks for reminding me of this-Hawkings)  I cling....linger.....lurk.....

Its like skidoos....and 'rebel' station-wagons (talk about an oxy-moron )   

here I am....walk don't walk....

I am in limbo...I guess....feeling the pangs of emotion...words flowing out of me...but i can't get them down in time...I lose all feeling....whe n I leave that place...thinking of so much....but so much has left me...its old now and turning into the science projects in my fridge...

I see faces of anger, sadness....why do we do what we do.?  I see myself so many other places...I can hide for a bit but then reality seeks me out...I have to deal...but I also have to live...and be

inner workings

I have had so many inner workings problems lately. I am rather mystified by the whole process of online learning and wonder now the relevance of my field study: What am I hoping to find out? What am I trying to understand? What do I know already? What do I think I know? How will this integration improve my learning and self -assessment?

I feel like a fragmentary moment of a momentary fragment.....