Okay, so I haven't done a Weekly Roundup in nearly three months; does that make this a Quarterly Roundup? I choose to ignore the nonsensical name I've given this and stick to my tin six-shooters: Pchoo! Pchoo! Weekly Roundup it is.
I took Mallory into Toronto yesterday for a campus tour of the U of T. I don't know if it has the program she really wants, and as the hour and a half walking tour didn't even involve seeing inside a residence or a building that hosts lectures, I don't know if she'll end up being impressed by the actual school, but there's no denying that Mallory is intrigued by the idea of living in the big city -- who wouldn't be? Here's hoping she ends up picking a university for all the right reasons.
I didn't really want to talk about U of T, though. We had a much more interesting time going on a campus tour to Ottawa a few weeks ago. First of all, Dave was able to get us free accommodations at the Chateau Laurier (because of a mixup with a reservation he had there for a business trip over the summer) and the gorgeous suite made for a lovely vacation vibe. When we first got to Ottawa, we headed straight for the Museum of History (actually in Gatineau) because Mallory wanted to see the temporary display on Alexander the Great. While she and I carefully examined every artefact (and I mean carefully; I didn't want to make Mal think her passions are dull, so I stayed with her forever) from Ancient Greece, Dave and Kennedy went to the Terry Fox exhibit. When we finally met up with them there, we kind of breezed through it (even though Dave kept directing me back to things I probably missed; worn out running shoes and the spare prosthetic leg; again, I was obligated to be interested in those things which are specifically interesting to someone else) but we were struck by an interactive feature at the end. Surrounded by a display of actual letters that were written to Terry Fox during his Marathon of Hope, there was a keyboard that you could type your name into and see if your letter had been archived. I knew I hadn't written him a letter but we tried my name anyway, and Dave's (no luck), and then his sister's, and there it was, projected on a giant screen overhead:
We took that picture and sent it to Rudy and she said she was in tears imagining that the family had actually cared enough about the support they received to keep those letters all these years. Just Rudy's reaction was enough to make the museum trip totally worth it. What we didn't realise was that the museum closed at five and we were shooed out before we could check any more names, or even other exhibits.
We went out for dinner, walked around Parliament Hill (where we saw some cops in the aftermath of taking down a guy with a paintball gun; a story that I never saw make the news; wonder how often that sort of thing happens?) and then headed back to the Chateau Laurier, where Dave wanted to walk around and check out the hotel. As we were looking into a darkened room, a staff member came up behind us and said, "What are you doing here?...When you could be seeing those paintings close up?" He then turned on the light in the room and said that if we exited through the door at the other end, we would end up on a patio that had a breathtaking view of Parliament and the Rideau Canal. We walked through as encouraged, and when we reached the exit, Dave checked and sure enough that door was locked from the inside -- so even though it was obvious this employee assumed we weren't guests of the posh hotel and was attempting to shoo us out in the most gentile of manners, we took his advice and went out to the patio and enjoyed the view before walking around and reentering the lobby.
The next day, we went on the campus tour (which was no different from the tour we did before when Kennedy was contemplating Ottawa), and while afterward Mallory went to hang out with a friend who attends the school, the rest of us went to Carleton for our other reason for the trip: to see the Walking With Our Sisters display at Carleton's art gallery (frustratingly impossible to find with a GPS). Conceived of as a memorial to the missing and murdered Native women of Canada (with a smaller area devoted to the children who died in Residential Schools), this display consists of nearly 2000 pairs of moccasin vamps -- just the embroidered tops, left unfinished to represent unfinished lives -- laid out in a sinuous line that you walk along. When we first entered, we were greeted by an elder who explained that we were to remove our shoes, refrain from photography, and prepare to be cleansed. On the lower level, a Native woman smudged us with sage and explained that we were about to enter a ceremonial space. Next, a young volunteer offered us a small packet of tobacco to carry with us that we were to pray our intentions into and leave in a basket at the end for an elder to burn ceremonially. Just picking up the tobacco put a hitch in my breath and I was solemnly affected by this display: by the love and effort put into the vamps by the women who had lost a family member and also by the sheer number of vamps -- it was impossible not to remember that each pair represented an actual person and in my mind they were the equivalent of bodies stacked up in piles around the room; nothing short of tragic. This is what needs to be done in order to reach the non-Native community; the more I learn, the more I believe that healing must be Native-initiated and that they hold the keys to building bridges within society.
We have more campus visits lined up for the next couple of months, so who knows where Mallory will end up?
Just a few more stories worthy of a roundup:
When we were on our way to Ottawa, Kennedy received an email saying that she is invited to an awards ceremony: as the "student with the highest cumulative average in the fifth semester of her program" (oddly specific, eh?), she is to be given an award and scholarship. "Scholarship" made all of our minds fill with visions of sugar plums and dollar signs, but when Kennedy googled the name of the award, it said that the scholarship consists of "one book prize". That made us all giggle, assure Kennedy that it's still an honour, and as she says I can come with her tomorrow to receive the award, I'll soon enough know just how much of an honour it is. (My mother pointed out that being smart enough to immediately google the name of the award, and therefore avoid disappointment, is a sure sign of why Kennedy is getting this award in the first place. Ma ain't wrong.) Added later, here's her scholarship; still a big deal:
A couple of weeks ago was honours night at Mallory's school, and even though she knew that she would be receiving an honour roll certificate, she said she didn't want to go and didn't want to put us through the interminable ceremony, watching all the other kids march up on the stage, shake multiple hands, and march off again. I did protest that I would be happy to go and watch just for her, but Mallory wasn't interested, and I didn't push. And then she found out later that she had also won an arts award and I felt awful for not pushing her harder. Awful; Mal deserves to be celebrated, too.
This past week, even after assuring us that she would be neither performing in nor hosting the Coffee House that she had arranged for school, Mallory texted me at dinner to say that she would be performing after all, in less than ten minutes. We hightailed it over to the school in time to see the sweetest performance ever of Dream a Little Dream of Me. (A performance, by the way, that she decided on two weeks ago. Brat.)
Sort of a long story: The inlaws adopted a dog from the pound a year and a half ago; a sweet-faced Cockapoo named Stewie. They felt good about rescuing a dog and he was just what they wanted until the first time he bit Grannie. They contacted the pound, and while they said they were surprised to hear that he's a biter, they warned the inlaws that if they tried to return Stewie, it would be an automatic death sentence. Being lovely, dog-loving people, they decided to keep the biter, and of course, he bit again. And again. He even bit me when we were dog-sitting for them and I saw for myself that Stewie was just a broken animal with a crazy switch in his brain -- unprompted, he clamped on my fingers and then cowered as though waiting to see what I would do. The wound needed antibiotics and I have permanent tendon damage in one finger, and maybe I shouldn't have, but I kept that bite from the inlaws. Stewie can't be groomed without sedatives (and even then, the groomer refuses to go near his face), you can't take anything that might hurt him out of his mouth, and he's proved himself to be a maniacal killer of baby birds and squirrels. Maybe six months ago, they decided that they couldn't keep an untrustworthy dog around, but when they called their vet to make an appointment to put Stewie down, this vet protested that they hadn't tried hard enough to rehabilitate the dog. She put them in touch with a dog whisperer, who gave the inlaws lessons in how to create and maintain dominance, and although they thought he was doing pretty good after that, none of us wanted to be around Stewie -- Dave even refused to let them bring Stewie to the cottage we rented this summer. When someone told them that dogs were indeed allowed at that cottage and Grandpa confronted Dave, Dave said, "I didn't say there were no dogs allowed. I said you couldn't bring your dog." So, this past week, the inevitable happened: Stewie bit Grannie and she needed twenty stitches on her hand. The only upside to Alzheimer's is that Grannie couldn't remember all the other times Stewie has bitten people ("It's funny because he was a perfect dog until just recently"), and although the vet tried to protest again, Stewie was put down this week. It feels terrible to be relieved that this dog has been killed, but I honestly don't think he was fixable, and when none of us were willing to scratch the little guy's ears when he'd come say hi, that's not a happy life for him either. As a footnote, Dave refused to call his parents and give his condolences because neither of them showed him compassion when our own beloved Libby was put out of her suffering this summer. Childish, yes, but he is their child after all.
Okay, a few amusing tidbits to end with:
Lolo's sister was visiting with her family last week, and while I was upstairs folding laundry, I heard Ella burst through the door and say, "Who wants to see a baby?" Kennedy ran to the door and was talking with Ella (who had brought her nearly two-year-old and five-year-old cousins over) and then I heard Kennedy say, "I'm Ella's cousin, too." Then Zeke, the five-year-old, said, "You can't be her cousin. You're a grown up lady." That tickled me.
The other day, Mallory told me that, after seeing me drop her off at school, some guy told her, "No offence, but your Mom looks just like Brave." Mal thought this was hilarious because of the "no offence" part. Why, according to her, would someone pushing fifty be offended for looking like a sixteen-year-old? Of course, I was offended by her saying that I'm "pushing fifty". Pfft, I'm pushing forty-eight.
Over the summer, my Uncle Mike came to visit and he brought his longterm girlfriend Carol with him. We had met Carol before but this was the most time we had spent with her and we all got along really well. I was going to avoid mentioning the federal election again, since I whined about it at length already, but I just need to share a photo that Carol posted on facebook the day after the election:
I really wanted to comment, "Great picture Carol but I think you have a piece of crap on your sleeve". But I didn't. 'Cause I'm too classy.
And finally, now that Mallory has had her driver's license for a month, she told me the other day that sometimes when she's driving along by herself she gets a feeling of unreality, like she's too young to be actually driving; like a little kid playing around in Mom's car in the driveway. "I just think sometimes," said Mal, stabbing her finger at the air for emphasis, "somebody put that baby in a carseat." Lol, she'll always be my baby.
