Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

I'm back (back) the fog has lifted
The earth has shifted
and raised the gifted
You knew I'd be back
so pack your bone
And hit the road jack
cause kellie's home . . .

Yes, I've bastardized Kid Rock (again?). . . but I am back. And with my return, your vacation from my frenetic marathon blogging sadly comes to an end. Check back hourly. I'm feeling frisky.

So Alma was . . . well, very Alma-like . . . lots of sticky buns, fresh air and the like. Tides were a bit screwy . . . like it better when it's rolling in at night and not mid-afternoon, but nothing to be done about that, you've got to take the tides as they happen. Not sure whether Mom enjoyed herself or not. But unlike insane sisters I don't choose to worry about this very much, I'm not responsible for my mother's entertainment.

It was a tamer vacation than past years. No shoe fights, not a lot of partying. Kind of unusual and weird on the whole I would say. After twenty some years, odd to be someplace with Gary sober. To go on our usual liquor store run and have him buying milk for the girls and nothing else, while I sucked back cheap wine like there was no tomorrow. Odd, but not unpleasant. Well, maybe unpleasant for my mother . . . I did try to stay up all night talking . . . Shots just fired down the street again . . . it MUST be something else, I mean really, these people can't possibly be shooting this much . . . unless it's time to take the moose hunt test or something . . . is it?

Got to spend tons of times with my babies, not enough for Paulina though, she still hadn't had her fill of me by the time we got back this afternoon . . . wanted to stay with me, have a sleepover, go home later. I told her we'd do that some other time. I can't wait until the kids are old enough to come on the train themselves and stay for a week during the summer holidays. One or two at a time . . . not ALL at once. Maybe they won't ever want to do that, I don't know. But I hope so.

Paulina and Anna fight an awful lot. It's terrible the way they torture each other. And Anna HAS to do or have everything that Paulina does or has. She's quite demanding. And Paulina of course is not very flexible or forgiving where Anna is concerned. Were Sherry and I like that? I don't think so. We fought of course. There was that time I threw her onto the coffee table and worried that I had broken her back . . . but there's a bit more of a gap between us, I think it might've made a difference.

Paulina has grown up and changed so much in the last year since she went to school. Reading all the road signs on the drive. She's very skeptical, doesn't believe just anything you tell her anymore . . . sometimes even when it's true. If it doesn't seem logical, she's not buying it, unless you can produce the written fact . . . which many times you cannot on the spot or on the road.

They hadn't brought any toys or games for some strange reason (Hello! Even I know you need SOMETHING to keep these kids entertained.) So I found myself curled up with Paulina the other afternoon reading Allan Cooper's poetry. When in Alma . . . A lot of the other books I had with me seemed to be either too risque or too dense for her. But I had this book of his with some nature poems that she liked.

She made me read this one poem called The Form at least a dozen times. She was trying to figure out what kind of animal was hiding in the ditch while the car drove past. She approached it like a riddle. I said maybe it's a deer and she said it couldn't be a deer because it was almost human and humans walk on two legs so the animal must walk on two legs. I said maybe it was a squirrel sitting haunched on its back legs looking almost human. She thought about that for awhile and then said it couldn't be a squirrel because this animal had eyes all sparkly like stars in the sky and squirrels eyes are huge, deep, black bulging circles. So I asked her what sort of an animal she thought it might be. "A kangaroo," she said. Hmm. In Alma. I suppose it's possible.

She made me read the poem to Grammie and her mother to see if they could figure out the animal. They offered nothing new. I read it to her one last time and then she looked at me and said rather matter-of-factly, "Kellie, I think that animal can be anything we want it to be. It can be different for everyone who reads the poem." I told her that's the way a lot of poems and stories were and that she was exactly right, which made her smile. It made me smile too. I wish someone had read me poetry when I was five years old . . . or even anything Canadian. These children will not grow up thinking you can only do certain things south of the border, thinking you have to move away to do what you want, to become a certain kind of person.

On the drive home today, I sat in the very back of the van with Paulina. She told me it's only a matter of weeks and she'll be back in school, in grade one. Then next fall, grade two, and the next, grade three. And in between we'll go on vacation in the summers. I asked her how many grades she would go. Her forehead crinkled in that way it does when she's thinking, ready to guess but not sure of the answer. "Eleven?" she asked. I shook my head. "Twelve?" I nodded. "Yes. And then after grade twelve you'll graduate and we'll have a big party to celebrate and you'll get lots of nice gifts and a lot of money for being so smart." Her eyes opened wide, "Really?" she asked. "Yes. And we'll give you a brand new set of luggage and a gold ring and a yearbook and then send you away to live someplace else." Her head whipped around and she looked at me with that lopsided smile she has, the one that says you're full of shit, I don't believe a word you say. "No really," I continued. "You'll be able to go anywhere in the world that you want and learn anything you want to learn. It'll be the best time of your life and you'll want to go." She sighed, shook her head. "You think I'm kidding, but it's true. You wait and see." She crossed her little arms and rolled her eyes. "Look Kellie! It's a pack of cows," she pointed out the window.

Mood: glad to be home
Drinking: Banrock Station
Listening To: Red Rider, Lunatic Fringe, and the landlord hammering something next door . . . too much for hanging paintings . . . perhaps he's building something
Hair: Still attached to my scalp