22 January 2003

Folks,

Okay, it's time for a quick note. I'm home today, with the laptop on the dining table, doing a pile of job applications. I'd rather be working downstairs, it's much warmer with the insulation now on the walls. If I set the thermostat for 18 or 19 upstairs I find I'm more than comfortable in the basement. That's a good money-saving measure given that it's currently minus twenty outside. We find it quite cosy below decks; I brought some toys down and most evenings you can find me reading on the schlafcouch (now with its proper cover) while Maddy builds Lego towers, bounces on the trampoline, wheels a teddy bear about in the doll carriage, or plays with ABS glue and power tools.

The less said about job-hunting the better. It's not my favourite thing in life. I'll give it a few more weeks before I take my resume over to the Mohawk station on 14th street.

So I haven't been doing too much on the house lately. We're basically ready for drywall; last week I re-wired the phone system and put in the network cable. I think we've schedule a "drywall party" for the 7-8 February weekend, when some of Annette's younger apparently handy male colleagues will come over and we'll hang sheets on the walls while Annette cooks a meal (if she remembers how) and provides beer. I don't know about the ceiling yet, maybe we'll put it up right away, maybe not. After that we really can't do much else because the money isn't there. I think it's worth hiring someone for the drywall finishing, so that and painting and floors will have to wait until the above-mentioned job search bears fruit. The bathroom I leave for you. (Having another toilet is suddenly critical now that Maddy hogs the can for half an hour first thing every morning; more on this later.) In the meantime there's only a few small jobs: finish the big steel desk so that we can set up the computer when Annette's new laptop arrives, run a wire for a future electric fireplace (I need 12 gauge for that, right?) and install the vacuum.

It's bloody cold out there. No trips to the park after school, alas. Yesterday Maddy and I walked to Safeway for a quick shopping trip. I bought some flowers but they froze on the way home and by the time dinner was on the table they were all drooping and black in the vase. Which was just as well because Annette was late for dinner once again and a dead bouquet was the perfect punishment.

Lunch will soon be on the table, leftover soup from last night, a pseudo-Mulligatawny made from roast squash base, with curry, onion, wild rice, apple and chunks of really delicious locally made chicken-and-sundried-tomato sausage. I've been reading "Kitchen Confidential", a deeply funny memoir of two debauched, drug-fueled and very unsanitary decades in high-end New York restaurants and, in spite of myself, have begun paying attention to food.

Annette is working like a demon and quite exhausted. I think things will improve soon. It's not so much the teaching as all the other stuff hanging over her head: book reviews, administrative reports, etc. Her daughter is a bit grumpy about this (though not as grumpy as her husband) but seems to be accepting it with increasingly good grace.

On Wednesday last week Maddy came down with a very mild case of pink-eye so it was decided that she should stay home for the remainder of the week. I had four straight days of her, with Annette locked up in her office most of the time. We had fun. On Thursday she just wanted to stay home, which was fine by me. On Friday we went up to campus and had lunch with Annette, then after napping in the jogger at the Olympic Oval I stole the car and we drove to the zoo to collect our passes and visit the new "Destination Africa" buildings. "The hippos have a new house," I told her. "And they have a new couch too!" she said brightly. (I had a brief vision of these disgusting animals sprawled on their leathery asses watching television.) On Saturday and Sunday we went up to the Oval to watch the world championships (long track but the sprint events). Wotherspoon cleaned up and Cindy Klassen was a pleasant surprise; Catriona Lemay-Doan didn't do much in what was probably her last race in Calgary, but that wasn't unexpected. The place was packed, probably close to 5,000 fans, at least a quarter of them Dutch and therefore extremely loud and often in the way. Maddy had a great time. As the competitors warmed up on the inner lane she would lean forward, wave her little Canadian flag and yell: "Hey skaters! Hey skaters, where are you going!?" Which, I suppose, is a fair question. On Monday she went back to day care and I collapsed, exhausted. Being out three days running in crowded public places for eight hours at a stretch turns out to be pretty tiring.

With the four days ostensibly at home, we decided to make the big push and get her toilet trained. In at the deep end: on with the underwear, off with the diapers. Consequently I am living in a World of Piss and Laundry. (Actually it's not going too badly, she's doing fine.) Today she went off to school wearing underwear, accompanied by a bag of spare clothes. A few of the other kids are doing the same thing so I figured it was time. She definitely gets the whole toilet idea now, the only problem is her failure to distinguish between needing to pee - i.e. just about peeing - and having just peed a small amount. This is crucial. What's been more frustrating lately is a string of atrocious, colossal, three-quart voidings while wearing pull-up diapers, which of course become hopelessly saturated and leak everywhere. Yesterday morning she woke up, demanded yet more apple juice, then soaked pyjamas, sheets and mattress pad. Yesterday afternoon, same deal only on the couch while watching Pooh. (We'll wait until we're well past the accident phase before sending the cushion covers out for dry cleaning.) First thing this morning, I was ready for it, I had a verbal agreement that she'd go straight to the toilet as soon as she got up, that she would not pee in the bed, but she unloaded and once again I was dragging all the linens down to the laundry. Damn. If you have three catastrophic containment failures in 24 hours there's really no point continuing with diapers, is there?

Okay, enough about toilet training. It's a bit messy, a bit frustrating, but mostly funny and appears to be going quite well. As Annette pointed out during a moment of horror last week, any child who can form the sentence "Mommy, are you scooping poo out of the bath?" should understand where that poo would ideally be deposited. We're also moving in encouraging directions with respect to Madeleine putting herself to sleep, albeit at her typically ungodly hour of eleven. I frankly don't care how late she stays up as long as I can read for watch TV undisturbed.

And I think that's all the news from currently chilly Calgary.

Regards,

Scott