Too Close for Comfort

"Man shot in Halifax 3rd target of gun violence this month"

You can read the full story here.

This happened down the street from my house. Not on my street, but the connecting street. The one we walk along to take Liam to school.

Liam and I were on the bus heading for skating when we heard sirens and saw police cars racing in the opposite direction that we were going. I never have believed that they were heading to my neighbourhood.

I've lived in some bad neighbourhoods in my time, all of them in Toronto. One of the appeals of Halifax when we first moved here was the lack of violence. Most days the headline story of the local paper was about which celebrity yacht was moored downtown, or who had won the local fiddling contest. Violence was rare. Now it seems that it is occurring more and more frequently.

We are not packing up and moving. I still feel safe walking down the street, but I am sure that I will be much more aware of my surroundings, of who else is walking nearby, of how far I am from a friendly household or the school at any given time.

It's a sad world that we live in today, one with far too much violence. Violence that never solves anything any way.

Love Thursday

This is an oldie but a goodie. Liam would have been about 3 years old when I took these shots one night after his bath.

Wordless Wednesday - An original art piece

Role Reversal

Most couples have some form of division of labour. Whether they are the anal types who have lists and divide the work load of life exactly in half, or if certain jobs just seem to fall to certain people by default, the work gets done.

Hilary and I are no different. We don't have lists, but after almost 15 years together we have discovered that our labour division falls pretty neatly into two categories:

IN
and
Out

It sounds like an odd division, but for us it works. Let me give you some examples:

Hilary is IN: grocery shopping, cooking, feeding the cats... all things that go IN
Andy is OUT: garbage, cat litter, puke cleaner-upper.... all things that go OUT

Hilary also has allergies, so I get most things OUTside - Grass cutting, shoveling, leaf raking, so she gets things INside - laundry, cleaning the bathroom.

Our other division of labour divides into DELICATE and NOT DELICATE. Hilary is DELICATE so she can paint trim, wrap presents, sew - all things that require a fine, delicate touch. I am NOT DELICATE so I get to paint big open spaces, hammer things, move heavy objects - all things that don't require me to be DELICATE. So Hilary makes Liam's costumes as needed and I built the deck.

Tonight though we are having a role reversal. Our friend Mark is over installing our dishwasher. Normally I would be the one helping, holding things, using the drill, measuring. I enjoy these activities even if I'm not very good at them. I wouldn't say that Hilary enjoys them. Yet there she is! Using Mark's drill, feeding electrical wire through the wall, dashing out to the hardware store with him for missing supplies. She seems to be in her element! My days as home repair chick may be numbered (and that's okay!)

Spelling

Dear Anonymous commenter from West Palm Beach, Florida.

I'm very sorry that you never learned to spell in English . No, I'm not commenting on your excessive use of the letter S. Many people use this technique while typing to give the reader a sense of how they want the word to sound..... drawn out in this case, with emphasis on the plural. Your spelling mistake is in the derogatory term that you left in my comments. Faggot has 2 Gs and an O in it. Faget is not actually a word.

English can be a very complicated language to learn. Here is an overview of Hard and Soft sounds for the letter G:

Hard and Soft Sounds for ‘G’

The Pronunciation of ‘G’ generally depends upon the letter following it.

General Rules

• If the following letter is ‘E’, ‘I’ or ‘Y’, the pronunciation is said to be “soft”.
• If the following letter is anything else - including a space - the pronunciation is termed “hard”.
• A soft ‘G’ is pronounced ‘j’ as in general, giant, gymnastic, large, energy, intelligible, changing
• A hard ‘G’ is pronounced ‘g’ as in golf, pig, running, great, gum, fragrant, grasp, glut, progress, faggot

I'm also very sorry that your Google search for "Bullying Days" brought you to my "Anti-Bullying days" entry. You were obviously looking for a site that was for and not against bullying.

Better luck next time.

A Hoe Down!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Love Thursday

We are plagued with a virus at my house today, but here are 5 things that I have loved this week:

1) My dentist!

I used to be deathly afraid of dentists and them of me. Why were they scared of me? One tried to do a root canal once on a badly infected tooth. It was so infected that the freezing wouldn't take. He proceeded with the root canal anyway. I punched him in the nose. Apparently word of that type of behaviour travels quickly through dentist circles. Luckily for me it hadn't made it's way to Halifax by the time I moved here. Dr. Blanchard accepted my fears and worked with me instead of against me. I know longer require prescription doping just to be able to walk through the front door. He is such an amazing dentist that I refer anyone who is remotely scared or nervous to him. Apparently I have referred so many people to him that he wanted to give a little back to me. I needed to have custom bite plates made last month and was going to square away the bill on my visit yesterday. Turns out that they are "complimentary" for all my referrals. Cool!

2) Being a part of Liam's school.

Liam's school is A.MA.Z.I.N.G. no doubt about it. But what I love this week? That all the families are part of the school. It's little things... like the email today from another mom offering to bake a cake for Liam's teacher next week on her birthday. Her birthday is the same day as the school Fair, so all the parents will be there to help celebrate. .....like the parent support committee working together this weekend to bundle 3000+ Art cards into packs of 10 and everyone bringing stuff and turning it into a potluck. .....like the Admin assistant calling me for help with Excel. It is truly a community.

3) Couch cushions that can be washed.

Not usually something that you LOVE, until your kid has puked on them 4 times before noon.

4) Fast acting Children's Advil.

The puking is in cahoots with a fever, so fast acting anything that makes Liam feel better is getting my love today!

5) Cinnamon Buns, tea and left overs from the freezer!

'nough said!