Category Archives: Recreation

Stickers, Post-its and Me

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When I was a schoolgirl in Liberia, Haiti, and Saudi Arabia, stickers were in short supply.   This created in me a tendency to covet and hoard the things, and I’m afraid it’s a tendency that, at the ripe old age of 42, I have not outgrown.  I buy oodles of the things “for my children,” who often don’t even give them a second glance.  Star Wars, Lego, knights and Harry Potter stickers are all over the place, still in their original states.  You’d think I’d be able to bin the things, or at least pass them on to kids who will enjoy them, but I have a hard time parting with them.

And, I’ll be honest with you here, one of the reasons that I buy the Sandra Boynton Family Calendar even after switching to a digital family calendar is that you get, not one, but two sheets of stickers to play with.  Dancing rhinos!  Happy chickens!!  Grinning pigs!!!

Having identified this sticker-deprived trauma from my youth, and my continuing tendency to hoard them, I am now ready to identify the root causes of my Post-It addiction.  I could open my own Staples store with the pile of Post-Its I have accumulated.  Am I ready to stop?  To end the Post-It addiction?  The hell I am.  There are spring colours available.

PM-KC1_PKG_RGB_DImagine my delight when Post-it sent us samples from their latest line: Post-it Mobile.  Just when I thought the Post-it world could get no better than spring hues, they go and make them easy to carry around!  We divvied up the loot: Carol swears by the pen/highlighter/flourescent flag combo, Beth-Anne swooned over the Attach and Go Dispenser, and my kids finally showed their genetic material in the love of sticky things department when they fought over the Attach and Go Dispenser with a clip to attach to a backpack.  I’m telling you, blood was nearly spilled.

And I selflessly let them nearly spill it.  I let it go.  There should definitely be some kind of parenting award for that.  Even better than that, when the youngest and I were in the coffee shop for our weekly-pre-library treat, we saw a university student use up her last Post-it flag as she was studying for her finals.  Oh, I thought, I have a cure for that!  Not to brag or anything, but I think I made her day (and very probably improved her exam mark) when I handed over a pristine stack of Post-it Flags.  Her smile lit up the room.

The world is just better with Post-its.

HBO’s Girls: A and B

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hbo-girls-soundtrack-400x400I know I am very late to the party, but I’ve had a marathon session of HBO’s Girls this weekend.  (All of Season 1.)  This means that (a) I married the right man ’cause he watched it with me, or (b) we need to get out more.  (We also watched the Habs game.)

Oddly enough, watching it made me feel maternal, and not in a good way.  I keep asking, “Who raised these kids?”  The fact that I’m watching myself watch it as a parent confirms (a) that I have crossed the great divide from youth to middle age, and (b) that the show’s narcissism is contagious.

I think I got so powerfully sucked into the show because (a) I have an addictive personality, and (b) because I am still trying to figure out how I am supposed to respond to it.  The writing is brilliant, but is it horror or comedy?  I find the girls’ narcissism truly hilarious, but it’s a really uncomfortable kind of appreciation because I’m not at all sure where the line between comedic exaggeration and reality lies.  I mean, I recognize some of these girls.  They were my students.  I promise, when they were my students, I did try to get through to them that they were not the centre of the universe and all, but, holy shit, they’ve multiplied.

Last, and not at all least, I am very worried that (a) girls who watch Girls will think that it’s reality and that the girls on Girls are true to life and not satirical representations of the special snowflake child, or (b) the joke’s on me and the girls who watch Girls are enjoying watching themselves while I watch myself watch them.

Chess Moves

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I read this wonderful article about chess ages ago, and it has stuck with me.  When things stick with me, I like to write about them, tease out what has gotten under my skin in good or bad ways.  In this case, it’s all good, and I want to share.  The article is about how chess has transformed the students in a Brooklyn school, and how it has given so many of them the sweet taste of success.  The school, a middle school, won United States Chess Federation’s national high school championship, beating top-ranked high schools.

I should start by saying that I cannot play chess.  I actually have no interest in learning.  (Oddly, I do covet all manner of themed chess sets, but that’s a love of the visual and of the stories that the themed sets represent.)  My five year old regularly beats me at checkers, so I don’t think my chances are very good if I take up chess.  My brain simply does not do well with spatial logic, and I lack the particular brand of patience required for strategic planning.  But I did grow up with there being a deep love of chess in our household.  I associate it most profoundly with my father’s few relaxed hours, with my father challenging family friends or my brother to a game on lazy Sunday afternoons, the enforced hush around them in reverence to their concentration.  We moved from country to country every few years, but one constant was my father’s cream-coloured wooden box with his chess pieces, a box that was, frustratingly, just slightly too big to fit into his briefcase no matter how hard he tried.  I can hear the pieces now, rattlling around as he carries them to the board.

Chess is one of the activites offered all through the year as an after-school activity at the boys’ school, and my eldest, who is in his last year of elementary, has been playing chess since Grade 1.  He loves it, and I love to see that his grandfather’s passion for the game has passed to him.  I love it even more when he beats my father, fair and square.  There are not many playing fields on which children and adults can meet on equal footing, but chess has proven to be one of them in our family.  The two kids who play (11 and 7) are capable of beating their father, grandfather, uncles and friends.  I love what that teaches them about the value of patience and persistence, about the chances of the little guy.

But it’s not just their performance on the board that makes me wax lyrical about the benefits of the game.  Indeed, if there is one thing the head chess coach wants to plant firmly in the minds of his young charges, it’s “Think before you act.”  There are limitless possibilities to the applicability of that wisdom, and I think I’ve uttered it more than a thousand times in my parenting life.  And that is why I lit up when I read this part of the article:

The walls [of the classroom] are plastered with chess tips that read like maxims for living life: “When you don’t know what to do next, improve your worst piece” reads one, written in felt-tip marker. “If you’re winning, play safe and keep the game clean and simple. If you are losing, take risks and complicate the game.”

When my eldest tried out for competitive hockey, the coach said, “I can tell that he is a chess player.  He’s always steps ahead of the play.”  What joy to hear that the maxims that the chess coaches were teaching him were translating to other areas of his life.  Chess does move in mysterious ways, its wonders to behold.

Freedom To Read Week

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FTRW2013_squareIt’s that time of year again: time to raise awareness about the freedom to access books and to celebrate the books that others folks love to hate.  Canada’s Freedom to Read Week.

Check out this great video on the Freedom to Read site.  It was made by students at Calgary Science School.  There are messages hidden in students’ desks that point out how impoverished our lives become if we limit our and others’ access to a wide variety of books:

a world without choices, never coming face-to-face with real problems, nowhere to escape to, no imaginary worlds….

The 49th Shelf has a great list of books that have been banned, a list I liked because it highlights the variety of groups and grounds on which they want to ban certain books.

And here is a list of books that have been banned around the world, from the Prince Rupert Library web site.

The best way to beat censorship is to read the banned books, so pick one for your loved ones and snuggle up and READ.

Real Love at the Movies

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fargoI searched my brains for this week’s topic, on finding a favourite love story on film.  I looked and looked and concluded what I’ve known since I could tie my shoes:  I don’t like romantic love stories on film.  At heart I think this is because I like to either relate to what I’m watching, or learn from it somehow, and cinematic love typically does neither of these things.  Fantasy’s not my thing, and that’s pretty much how I think of movies about love.  

But I did think of something.  It’s Fargo (1996), which is about a man who hires creeps to kidnap his wife, the bungled kidnapping, and the very pregnant and clever police chief  (Marge, played by Frances McDormand), who investigates the crimes.  In the world according to Carol, this movie is sandwiched by two very good love scenes.

The opening love scene:  Marge has to go to work before the crack of dawn.  Her husband drags himself up in the dark to make his wife breakfast, even though there’s a good chance she is going to throw it up.  He says something like, “You have to eat.”

The closing love scene:  Marge has solved the crimes, and witnessed the destruction that can ensue from the most pathetic human sources.  She goes home to her husband, who has been creating an illustration for postage stamps.  Marge finds that he  is disappointed because his work will only be shown on the three cent stamp, which nobody uses.  Marge disagrees; she insists that everyone needs the little stamps when postage prices increase.  Her husband allows himself to be cheered by her.   She concludes with something like, “We’re doing okay.”

I saw this film over a decade ago, and I hope my memory of it holds up.  But even if it doesn’t, this is what tremendous love looks like to me, and possibly why I don’t see it that much at the movies.

Not a movie, but a way of watching

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As you may have gleaned from my review of Alan Bradley’s latest Flavia de Luce mystery, I get rather overzealous when it comes to things I love.  I am not moderate in my passions or in the speed of consumption of the things I love.  I throw myself into a book or a movie or a series or a hobby full tilt, and I pretty much don’t look up until it’s done.  I’ve read the occasional book that was so achingly good that I wanted to make it last longer and read it slowly, but the desire to gobble great things up usually wins out.  I’m a Wild Thing that way: I’ll eat you up, I love you so.

So, I don’t have a favourite romantic film so much as a favourite way of watching movies with my beloved: in great, greedy gulps.  We will have marathon sessions of watching a string of Prime Suspect or Inspector Morse dvds, of The Sopranos or Mad Men episodes, and, our first: The Lord of the Rings movies.  One of the great joys of the Christmas holidays in the years when those dvds were being released in December was to curl up and devour the four hours of extended movie and the bonus features discs!  The battle between good and evil is hardly a Hallmark Valentine Theme, but it was such fun to bond over our geeky zeal.  Even better than the high I get when settling in for a marathon session with a Sure Thing (entertainment-wise) is sharing that buzz with my husband.  The guilty pleasure is amplified, and we feed each other’s glee.  Nothing beats that for romance.

And another Sure Thing is on its way:  the third season of Game of Thrones!  I watched the first season on dvd when I was sick, and my husband would peek in and get pulled into the story.  Once I was over my flu, and had to return the dvds, I discovered that season two was available, so he ordered HBO just so that we could watch the second season on demand!  And we watched it in great, greedy, gleeful gulps.  The only problem with this long-awaited third season is, we will have to parcel it out like every one else, and watch it One.  Episode.  At.  A.  Time.

Hockey Mom

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photoLast night, after I had deafened him in one ear cheering my eldest son’s goal, my brother-in-law officially declared me a Hockey Mom.  (Sorry, Mike.)  Decibels alone, apparently, are sufficient to earn me the moniker.  Never mind the kilometers travelled from rink to rink, the countless hurried meals cooked and eaten on the run, or, heaven help me, the thousands of times I’ve nagged reminded the boys to hang up and air out their hockey gear immediately after each game.  I consider myself something of a fanatic on that score, actually, since the awful stench of hockey gear is a totally avoidable thing and need never, not ever, be a part of my car or home environment.  (Do you hear that, boys.  Never.)

Well, I was thrilled to discover this weekend that a dad of one of the boys’ teammates washes all his son’s hockey gear each week, and a more devoted Hockey Dad you could not hope to meet.  The padded shorts, the knee and elbow pads, the chest pads; the whole shebang.  That’s more often than I do it (monthly), and notwithstanding my brother-in-law’s deafness, this was the last hurdle I needed to overcome my sense of not quite belonging to the hockey parent crowd.  I’ve been assured by numerous (smelly-gear) people that it is just not right to launder hockey gear, and each time I crammed the gear into the washing machine I felt a combination of self-righteousness and a wee bit of hesitation that I was cementing my outsider status with each load.  No more!  My boys will wear their field-fresh-scented gear proudly, and I will embrace Hockey Mom status whole-heartedly, knowing that I’m not the only laundry fanatic in the stands.

Canadian Ski Council Ski Pass is back!

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Just got word that the Canadian Ski Council will be running their very popular Ski Pass™ program again this winter. For just $29.95 — the cost of processing and delivery of your child’s pass –  your grade four or five student can ski or snowboard up to three times each at one of 150 participating ski centres across Canada. Otherwise, the pass is free!

If you’ve got a child born in either of 2002 or 2003 (currently enrolled in grade 5 or 4) and are a Canadian resident, all you have to do to take advantage of this fantastic offer is to visit the Canadian Ski Council website. To get immediate online access, you’ll need a digital photo of your child as well as digital proof of age or enrollment in grade four or five in a Canadian school. If you don’t have the required information at your fingertips, you can download an application from the website.

Snow Pass season starts December 1st and is valid for the entire 2012 – 2013 ski season. Visit the Canadian Ski Council website for more information. Happy skiing!

Do You Doodle?

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I have always wanted to be able to draw, to create beautiful and funny and quirky images with a quick flick of the pen.  Alas, hand-eye co-ordination is not one of my gifts, and I have to make do with plodding copying from others’ work.  I adore a series of books by Christopher Hart that teaches drawing based on a shape: Draw a Circle/Triangle/Square, Draw Anything.

And as if I didn’t already love Mo Willems enough, he earned a very special place in my heart when he said, in an interview with Leonard Marcus in Show Me A Story!, that when he creates his drawings, “It’s important to me that a five-year-old be able to reasonably draw the characters in my stories.  The books themselves should be merely a point of entry for their own creations, based on copying my characters.”  (The Don’t Let the Pigeon Run This App lets you do that with your finger on the i-phone!)

Because I also want to enable my kids’ ability to express their creativity on paper, I have become addicted to doodle books: the kind of book that gives you a framework and lets you fill in the blanks.  We’ve had fun with Once Upon a Doodle, which has scenes from dozens of fairy tales, fables and children’s stories.  What I like about the format of that book is that it encourages the artist to change bits of the story: the fairy godmother gets her spell wrong, screws up the pumpkin to a carriage transformation, and the artist has to draw the result.  Of course, as with many tellings of fairy tales, there are gender stereotypes, but there’s room to change those, too.   Running Press has a whole series of doodle books, from large to pocket-sized, and from general doodles to themed collections for Halloween and Christmas.    

And, because I’m nothing if not addicted to these things, we’ve also got My Beastly Book of Monsters on the go.  I love monster illustrations, and this one has hundreds.

So, for those of us without a natural talent for illustration, these books work as wonderful starts to creativity.  They give just enough instruction to get an idea off the ground and to let imagination soar.