endurance training

One thing that children require: stamina. Today I read Dennis Lee's poem "Alligator Pie" nine times in a row. When Lucy said "More!" (or more accurately, "Muh!") for what seemed like the zillionth time I resolved to teach her to say "Again!" and so that was the lesson for the afternoon. Along with repeating "Can you say 'please'?" over and over, to be rewarded with her little voice piping "Peez!"

Oh, I love her. I love her so much.

So that was my today, Lu's head pressed hard against my breastbone as she leaned back into my lap while I read stories and picked out important words when she got impatient and turned the pages really fast and repeated and repeated and repeated.

p.s. "Eg!" Success? You decide.

never let 'em see you sweat

Today, a day that included both slamming my hand into the corner of a table hard enough to leave visible bruising and falling off a ladder, was the best day of my week. This is, in part, due to Greg's motivational speaking skills--apparently I just needed someone to tell me "You will have a good day tomorrow" in a confident manner. I did not finish all the things that needed to be finished, largely because finishing them would have defied all laws of nature, but I did knock out a few things that had been bothering me. There was a terrible Oh Hell No moment, but Mathabo swooped in and rescued me. I think the rest of my calm came from knowing that no matter what I did or didn't accomplish, my workday would be over at two, and I would get to go home to my snuggly sheets and my room-mate and my boy and my cats.

My cats who are very busy auditioning for a buddy cop movie. Tish is the hardbitten veteran who doesn't want a new partner, dammit, Max is her fresh-faced rookie sidekick and Roo is...maybe the dispatcher. Or that woman in the office who hands them the right file at the critical moment. In support of this theory, Roo has been trying to operate the remote control, walking over it to change the channel to "Lethal Weapon" while Elizabeth was trying to watch "Jon and Kate Plus 8."

what is "I have lost the will to live," Alex,

This cold is slowly sapping my will to live. I'm tired. All the time. I don't even remember the last time I was not tired, like, so tired that if I lay down I could go right to sleep and wake up sore from having stayed in one exhausted position for hours. On that cheerful note, here are some things that are making me happy:

1. New flannel sheets
2. Robin McKinley's new YA novel, Chalice
3. Lucy
4. When I came home today and came in out of the pelting sleet, my house was warm.

I had a dream that I was stuck talking with scary were-moose, a discussion that rapidly made its way to quilting and stuck there. You can take folksy too far. Sarah Palin, I'm looking at you.

public health warning

All of my friends who are out of Toronto right now, or who live somewhere other than Toronto, here's a tip: STAY OUT OF TORONTO. Toronto has the plague, in the form of this year's fall cold, and it is a doozy. A lose a week of your life, cry because your joints hurt so much, go through several boxes of tissue doozy. And it's a crazy cold, the kind that's talking to you in your head all the time. "You can go out," it says, "what do you want to be cooped up in here for? Go to the store. Shake hands with a lot of people. Touch everything." So I must have sounded plaintive when I called my job yesterday to tell them I was not coming to work today.

"I have trainees!" I told my manager. Fortunately, she knows from colds.
"You can't cough on new people! Are you mad?!"

Um, yes? Only it's from sleep deprivation because of not being able to breathe? Right. Okay. Carry on.