by Heather Plett | Aug 26, 2006 | Uncategorized
An invitation to a birthday party seems to be a rite of passage in our culture these days. This morning, Maddie is off to her first. For years now, she’s watched her sisters head off to various parties and she has dreamed of the day that it would be her turn. Today it was her turn. She’s talked about it all week and was more than just a little excited. This morning, her sisters helped her get ready – one of them helped her tie the bow on her shirt, the other helped write out the card. I wish you could see her new sneakers on this picture – she’s SO proud of them. Pink faux-converse. Too cute.
Julie is itching to become a driver. She drives every chance she gets. She’s learned to drive her Pépère’s (that’s French for grandfather) lawn tractor, and sat on my lap last week as she drove our car around Marcel’s parents’ yard. Yesterday we went to Thunder Rapids and she lived out a little part of her dream by driving a go-cart like a little speed-demon.
Nothing makes me realize how muck Nikki is growing up like watching her take responsibility for her little cousin. She dotes over her every chance she gets and handles her like an old pro. She’s always been so responsible. I remember when Maddie was learning to crawl – she often kept a closer eye on her than I did. And now she’s doing the same thing for little Abigail. Last night, she got to feed her carrots.
The pieces of my children’s lives are passing before me like a fast-paced movie on the big screen. Sometimes I wish I could grab the remote control and hit re-wind so I can re-live some of the really good parts. If not re-wind, then I’d at least hold the pause button down now and then to keep them from passing into the next stage quite so quickly. The growing up and the growing away hurts sometimes.
At the same time, I get such a rush when I look at them and realize the incredible people they are growing up to be. Yesterday was one of those days as we mini-golfed and drove go-carts and bumper boats. As much as I loved their baby-hood, I’m also loving their budding independence when I can sit on the sidelines a little more and watch them grow and become.
How did I get so lucky?
by Heather Plett | Aug 25, 2006 | Uncategorized
Shortly after writing that post about my husband’s cooking, I went to pick up some printing, and ran into an old friend I haven’t seen in quite awhile. Turns out she’s trying to put together the pieces of her life after a hellish year. There can be nothing fun about being forced to move your fifty year old husband into a nursing home because of his rapid decline due to MS. And that was only after she’d struggled to care for him at home while trying to keep herself sane. After too many days of having to run home from work to help him off the floor where he had fallen, she had no other choice.
She describes herself as a married widow. Not only can her husband no longer cook her the kind of meals I’ve been treated to, he can’t even keep her company in her lonely house. He can’t go for walks with her, can’t travel, can’t curl up on the couch with his arm wrapped around her, can’t go to movies, and can’t please her the way he used to (and this is someone who used to brag about her sex life).
This friend is one of the most vivacious, fun-loving people I know. There is something incredibly unfair about the way her life turned out. Too unfair for words.
by Heather Plett | Aug 24, 2006 | Uncategorized
When you sit down to a meal of grilled chicken skewers and curried rice with roasted almonds, apricots and apples, it’s only right that you should bow your head and thank God for a husband who can cook like that!
Aren’t you jealous?
by Heather Plett | Aug 23, 2006 | Uncategorized
Thanks for lunch today. Thanks for being a bright spot in the day. Thanks for your cheerfulness and your positive outlook on the world. Thanks for being comfortable, honest, encouraging, and non-judgemental.
I didn’t know we would be friends when we first met. I didn’t even know it during those first few days after we’d landed in Africa. We were all feeling our way with a group of new people, trying to establish our relationships during those long hours on the bus. At the start, I didn’t really know who I’d bond with or if I’d bond with anyone. (I was pretty sure who it WOULDN’T be with though. Some things are just obvious.) I didn’t automatically think it would be you, since there were some on the bus with ostensibly more in common with me.
I remember the moment it happened though – the moment we passed the line between polite acquaintances and friends. We’d stopped for a pee break somewhere, and we’d all taken our turns squatting on the floor in the filthy, stinky squatty potty close to the gas station. I have no idea how it came up, but we started talking about bowel movements and how we weren’t sure HOW we could be regular on this trip when we were spending so many hours on a bus and our only options for relieving ourselves would be to squat over a dirty hole in the floor. (I think you were also with me when we were in Maasai-land, miles from even a squatty potty, and I had to bury my “feminine product” under a tree. Ah yes, those were the days.) We had a good laugh, and then we climbed onto the bus.
We sat close to the back, and after letting down our guards a bit over toilet talk, we started a real conversation. Not those polite conversations over family photos that had been the standard on the bus up until that point, but a genuine conversation about our lives, our fears and insecurities, and maybe even the impression we had of some of the other passengers on the bus (yes, we were a little catty now and then).
That was the start of a beautiful friendship. From there it only grew. We learned fairly quickly how to stake out our claim, sidle up to each other when it was time to claim luggage, and end up roommates in those places where we had to share rooms. We even suffered through a night in the same bed, pestered by the mosquitoes who could bite through the screen because we were both pressed up against our sides of it. And then there was the night when we had our own rooms, but I got sick during the night and decided I should find you just in case I passed out in the bathroom (as I’m inclined to do when I get sick) hit my head on the concrete floor, and not be found until morning. Thanks for letting me into your room in the middle of the night. No, you weren’t entirely coherent, but you were still very friendly. 🙂
We had some incredible moments, didn’t we? Who can forget the Serengeti? Or the night in the tent when the goats kept us awake? (Thank God for duck tape!) What about the visit to the AIDS orphanage? Or the sexy dancer who had his eye on you? Could you believe our beautiful room at that resort in Tanzania? Or the church service in the bar the next morning (when we skipped communion together)? What about when we bartered for souvenirs in the downtown market?
One of the things I will always remember about Africa is you. You were one of my favourite things about that trip, and there were LOTS of great things. I’m so glad we had a couple of days at the end of the trip when everyone else had gone home. It was fun, wasn’t it?
Thanks for the memories.
by Heather Plett | Aug 22, 2006 | Uncategorized
Are there times when you meet someone and you know within a relatively short period of time that you can be friends with this person, that you will probably laugh at the same jokes, read the same books, and, in time, share fairly intimate details of your deepest, darkest character flaws and secret cravings with them? Some people talk of “chemistry”, some people refer to them as “kindred spirits”. My old roommate used to refer to someone like that as “one of US”, with a knowing look on her face – like we were about to become partners in crime and would be forever bonded by our secret guilt. I mentioned that same phenomenon when I talked about the dinner party last month – when seven women who didn’t really know each other before bonded like old pals over wine and barbecued shrimp. After a chance encounter at our party in the Spring, they just KNEW they could be friends and they KNEW which other women could fit neatly into our little circle even though they were virtual strangers to the rest of us.
I love it when that happens. Today I had lunch with “one of US”. I don’t know her very well, but I think we both sensed that we could and should be friends. She’s a journalist with CBC and in my years of media relations I’ve come into contact with her on a number of occasions. Up until recently, however, the extent of our conversation consisted mainly of the story she was working on for the evening news. A couple of weeks ago, I bumped into her and her husband and little girl at the BDI (local ice cream joint). We struck up a conversation, hit it off fairly quickly, and I suggested we get together for lunch.
I knew I hadn’t been mistaken in my assessment of her when she sat down, looked at the menu and said “you know it’s usually polite to order something light like soup and a salad when you’re lunching with female friends you don’t know very well, but I’m hungry, so I’m going for a burger and fries”. And I said “well then, let’s just dispense with the formalities of politeness and order whatever the heck we want!” We both agreed to skip over the low-fat section of the menu – I indulged in coconut chicken fingers.
Turns out I was right when I suspected she was a kindred spirit. We have a lot of the same interests (I didn’t ask what she’s been reading lately, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be too far off my book list), we find the same parenting issues challenging, we both get tired of managing whiny sensitive people, we both wish sometimes that we had thicker skin and petty insults wouldn’t bother us so much, and we’re both wondering how much longer we want to be “career-driven” working moms. Feels a little like wrapping an old familiar blanket around your shoulders when you meet someone with whom you can relax like that. Thanks J!
I have another possibility of making new friends tonight. I’m really excited about the invitation I got from one of the editors of Cahoots. (They published an article of mine a little while ago. A GREAT magazine! For those budding writers who responded to my publishing post, you should send them stuff!) She’s going to be in town for a few days and has invited all of the women from Winnipeg who’ve written for the magazine to join her for coffee and dessert. There are at least three of us joining her for cheesecake. (There you go – another woman who suggested we meet over a decadent dessert rather than polite rabbit food – must be kizmet!) What fun! An evening with fun and interesting fellow writers. I feel so lucky. I’m a little bit nervous, because all I know of these women is what they’ve written. Will I like them? Will they like me? Will we bond over our common passion for writing? Will I embarrass myself by telling irrelevant stories while their eyes gloss over with boredom? Will they all be thin and pretty with well-put-together lives and I’ll feel fat, ordinary, and scatter-brained? Will I drop a big blob of cheesecake on my ample chest and have to sit there with a stain on my shirt for the rest of the evening?
Okay, so I’m not really THAT worried (or insecure). Mostly I’m excited. I can usually hold my own in a conversation, and I only occasionally tell boring irrelevant stories (mostly I reserve those for my blog and subject you poor souls to them – nyuck, nyuck!)
Sometimes I wish I could meet some of you, my blog friends. I just know we could bond over a good plate of fries or cheesecake! And if you dropped cheesecake on your shirt, I promise I’d drop some on mine too so we’d be on equal footing. (Which reminds me of a story I once heard of the Queen of England. Apparently she was dining with dignitaries from various countries, and when one of the people unknowingly drank from the finger bowl, she did the same thing. Sounds like a classy thing to do!)
Julie is itching to become a driver. She drives every chance she gets. She’s learned to drive her Pépère’s (that’s French for grandfather) lawn tractor, and sat on my lap last week as she drove our car around Marcel’s parents’ yard. Yesterday we went to Thunder Rapids and she lived out a little part of her dream by driving a go-cart like a little speed-demon.
The pieces of my children’s lives are passing before me like a fast-paced movie on the big screen. Sometimes I wish I could grab the remote control and hit re-wind so I can re-live some of the really good parts. If not re-wind, then I’d at least hold the pause button down now and then to keep them from passing into the next stage quite so quickly. The growing up and the growing away hurts sometimes.