Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Here, there and everywhere

Just a side note: Aaron has turned on the French language feature on my keyboard by randomly pushing buttons while I wasnt looking, so I dont have an apostrophe right now, just this: è. Also, no slash (é) or question mark (É). Please excuse my poor punctuation until I figure out how to fix it.

We went on a little jaunt into Saskatoon this Sunday and Monday. We drove in Sun. night, and camped overnight so we could both get a little city culture into us and get our art camp shopping done (ie--go to Michaels) in our allotted time period and with everyone still sane at the end. Aside from neither of us packing the air mattress, this worked out great.

It was funny, because I was walking down Broadway (the main funky strip in town) and wearing my typical clothes -- jeans, a hand made poet-y blouse, my big green cordoroy bag and a scaf in my hair to keep the mess looking civilized -- and no one was staring at me. In fact, I was on the tame end of the fashoin statement scale. Sitting in a coffee shop by myself -- also normal. No one felt the need to come over and say hi and ask when the person I was meeting was getting there. In fact, no one said hi at all, except a guy who was trying to get his Saxaphone back from a pawn shop and wanted to know if I would kindly spare a nickel. I read the newspaper and wandered around and no one cared. No one will say to me any time this week, È(oh, no quotes either -- what do french people do when they punctuate their sentences on this computerÉ) So, Jill, saw you were having coffee by yourself. Was that a good article you were reading in the newspaperÉ. Not only that, but the coffee shop was open past 6 pm.

It made me realize that I am not the wrong person. I am just in the wrong place. It is a releif to be reminded of this once in a while.

Anyway, we had a good breakfast at a 50s diner (Dave and I are big diner breakfast eaters) and talked about the glowing optimism of that era, and looked for sandals for me and went to the quilt shop (of course -- and yes I did pick up a few odds and ends (ahem)) and to Michaels and Canadian Tire and the motorcycle shop and McNally Robinson (a bookstore chain) and McDonalds and Tim Hortons . . . quick, quick! cram in as many things we cant get at home into 20 hrs as you possibly can . . .

Then yesterday I went to the fair in Nipawin with the Hetkes and their three kids. It was really fun. This year Andrew went on someting other than the kiddie train. He actually tried every ride he could go on and would have gone on more if we hadnt arrived late and run out of time. He was super funny becuase he had the most serious, analytical face almost the whole time. We were on the roller coaster and while the other kids are screaming and waving their arms he was sitting perfectly still. About the 5th time around the thing really got going and whipped us around a little bit faster and Andrew exclaimed OH I like this! That was it. I was so impressed with his independence. He even went on things all by himself when we couldnt find a little friend to go with us and he was pretty calm about it. Aaron desperately wanted to go on the rides, but you had to be over 2 for everything except the bouncy carosel (I bought him a ticket to go in this once with Andrew and they had fun). He just kept whistfully saying Ride. Ride. Ride. After supper he got a little out of hand and I actually lost him for about a minute, which was pretty scary. It ended up that he was following the bees around the edge of the ride, since he couldnt go on the ride.


Today we just hung out in Nipawin and let the kids play while I visited. It was perfect - the kids played happily and I got to check out my new book that I got in Saskatoon -- the Creative Family (more on that once I finish it) and have a good visit with Sharon.

Still a busy week ahead -- Art camp shopping and project - trying to do, and guests Friday and SAturday, and then next week we (I) run a 4 day craft-based day camp. Since I pick most of the activities we re doing a lot of fabric-based stuff this year -- tie dying, softie making, batiking, print making. We have more volunteers this year, so Im hoping to still be breathing at the end, unlike last year.

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