Multicultural crap

It's my fourteen month-old's first multicultural day tomorrow! Whatever the hell that may mean. I hate the word 'multicultural', its the politically correct word for racism, at least in my opinion, at least where I currently live.

You see, I have a lousy sense of identity. Born in a beautiful country and forced to leave because of a fucked up civil war (which apparently is over), grew up in a country I learned to like and identify with until fate brought me right back to my country of birth. I was lost and a few years on found myself a place with a few good friends.

But then I was confronted with the whole "what am I going to do with myself...I don't want to be some old housewife dreaming of all the things I could have been, should have done..." So I left, this time to another continent altogether. I hated it at first, and then realised I fit right in. No one cared about the colour of my skin, my first language, religion or any of those things. I was me! I was a nerd, I was crazy, I was that person who called it as I saw it. And people were friends me with me for who I was. BUT, I struggled with the identity issue. I often asked myself who I really was!! As a matter of fact, I still do!

So when they call me from the daycare, when I am trying to get dinner ready after a nasty winter day, with a cranky infant and hungry husband, asking me to bring something or dress my son in something that relates to my tradition or culture, I wanted to ask the supervisor to get lost and hang up. But I didn't. I said I would have conjured up some costume if I had a girl, but seeing as I have a boy, I was not sure what to do. She then said, "oh don't worry love, its just that we told all the parents."

I spent the last hour or so thinking and Hubby and I decided our son will go and celebrate his citizenship. I don't want to hyphenate his citizenship. I want him to have a sense of belonging, develop a sense of identity and know true patriotism. I hope to learn from him. So tomorrow he will take with him his country flag. Go Canada Go!

Say again?

I was on my way home and as I walked into the subway station I heard an announcement saying something about all services having resumed. I thought to myself that perhaps having a two hour discussion after class had perhaps been to my advantage when I heard, "...if you have not heard this announcement please call ..."

I was not sure how one could call if they never heard the announcement? You wouldn't know that you have not heard it, if you've never heard it!

Flower update

Two days after I brought some tulips home they didn't look so happy. Every one of them seemed to be heading south (the only direction I can point to with confidence, well may be not).

So I had to get the clippers out and I straightened them out a bit. I clipped the stems and tried arranging them to look up a bit. But then they looked worse.

I left them until that night and fixed them up again. This time I cut the stems and removed most of the leaves and changed the vase as well.

And then I decided to move the vase to another place...one I thought would do the flowers justice.

But I was not happy, so I put it back on the dining table...and today they look ready to say good-bye. It sounds like I have way too much time on my hands, nothing could be farther from the truth, but these flowers have really helped in terms of reducing stress levels. Every time I looked at them I thought of the form, colours and how pretty they are, I didn't think of the pile of pathetic papers I have to mark or the papers I have read or the floors that need cleaning. I am going out to get more flowers today. Before that I might actually do some of the work that does need to be done. This blog thing is working for me too.

I don't know who reads this. But if you are reading this and there are no flowers where you live, get some, even if it is just one stem. They have more power than all the great things in life.

Its 2010!!

I know we are well into the new year, but the last couple of weeks I have sort of been living in the past. I have stalked all my old friends on Facebook, listened to music from the nineties and thought of what might have been if I had done one thing over another.

Anyways...I just got home and was making myself a cup of coffee when I heard Des'ree on the radio. That song takes me to the mid nineties. So I was going about my business getting my coffee, thinking of dinner when it hit me that we are way past the mid-two thousand(?). We are into the second decade of the new millennium??!! And I had to Google the word to make sure I was saying the right thing.

2010 was supposed to be when robots ruled the world and we were flying around in space cars. But instead we are still walking, driving crappy cars and making our own coffee...where is my robot?!!

The sure cure

Its been a long winter...autumn arrived early, the trees lost their leaves without their usual show of colours. Things are different with a baby around, we don't get out as much as we used to, just because bundling up the little guy seems a sin.

I got to thinking about how I could make this bearable for myself, I mean the long miserable winter with no significant snowfall for excitement and being confined indoors so much of the time...flowers!! They always perk me up. But trying so hard to be the good housewife means I often knock it off the shopping list as a luxury. But nah uh! I realise they get my spirits up better than any darned spirit out there. So after a considerable amount of time spent over which bunch I picked up these beautiful yellow tulips.

I love how the simplest things in life are the ones that make you smile...from the bottom of your heart.

Nostalgia

There is much in life that can take you back in time...a smell of some sort, like a specific perfume. I know one brand of perfume that reminds me of my mother when I was around seven years old.

Music does the same, doesn't it? I was cleaning my desk (happens every once in a blue moon, or when things get totally out of control) and wanted to take myself to some place less complicated and I got good old you tube to take me back in time, to my first real job. My best friend and I would listen to Breakfast at Tiffany's when it played on the radio, we would be at work ridiculously early, and often we didn't work, but listened to music and I am not sure what else we did?! I don't know if she really liked it, but I loved it, for no apparent reason. Listening to it now just took me away from the complications life brings with time, it took me to a time of hope and dreams...oh to be young and dreaming of great things, things I know now I will never do.

So while I was at it, I also listened to That thing you do, I got to listening to this at a different time in my life. My friends would be dismayed to learn I can still listen to it over and over again. It also brings back fond memories of people that introduced me to a whole different me!

What I think really makes these songs special is not just the music, but the people I associate them with.

These are my happy songs. I am so glad I have them!

What was that again...Haiti...what?

So what did I say about Haiti being forgotten...a pile of snow in Washington DC and Haiti was off the radar, gone! Now we just have to wait for the next insane humanitarian to kidnap a bunch of kids before we see it in the headlines again.