My dog

is honestly the sneakiest dog in the world. I left the bottom of a bowl of broth from my soup supper on the table, and she had been eyeballing it since I set it down. Since becoming progressively older and grumpier, her manners have been worsening and she does things she wouldnt have dared to try 5 years ago. So back to the story, I had to go to the bathroom, assuming that this carpet of a dog sleeping on the couch would not cause me grief.

How wrong was I? Im not a couple of minutes in, and what do I hear? The sound of my dog gleefully lapping up the remnants of my soup. Ick. Naturally I holler at her to stop, which she doesn't, of course. I finish my business, and head out, and where is she? Chomping away at her own food, looking up at me with an air of complete innocence, as if to say 'What are you yelling for, Ive been here this whole time?'.

Sneaky dog.




Who can say no to that face?

 

Out of the blue

Alright, so I'm out of the low (thanks Serena). Everyone has their days right? Right.

So on to other things, I went to Mass yesterday in a church that I hadn’t been in in a long time. My step-father‘s family have an annual commemorative Mass said for my step-father’s father, so my sister and myself always try to be present for them at this time. It was also the second week of Lent, and the altar and large cross were decorated in shades of purple and fuchsia.        At first when I went in, the aesthetic differences between the Greek Church and this one jumped out at me.

Compared, the Catholic Church seemed... bare. Very bare. Unattractive, almost. The walls had very large windows of frosted glass panes with a red cross in the middle, maybe four to a side. There was one chandelier on the top, simple two rows of pews, and a very few small statues on the upper sides, where one can light candles. Nothing extravagant and the only thing that would stand out would be the beautiful ceiling drop in the shape of an inverted V, with each panel showing a hand painted scene. The first one starting at Creation with Adam and Eve, and so on until the peak of the V was the Last Supper, and then ending with a painting of our current Pope blessing a youngster. That was stunning, but apart from that, it was quite bare.

Or so I thought. Once I sat down and actually looked, instead of just comparing, I realized that the beauty of the church came from its simplicity. No lights were needed, because of the brightness that came through the windows. Another cleverly placed stained glass window was hidden behind the altar so that the setting sun would shine directly through it and give the back wall a warm yellow glow. The more I looked, and the more I liked this church. Its beauty really was in its simplicity. It was open, and fresh, and simple. It was simply stunning. The priest was also very jovial, and dynamic. You could tell he loved what he did, and it came through in his sermon. He was also the first black priest I had ever seen in a Catholic Church.

So has it become a contender for my wedding ceremony? Heck yes it has! I’ve also been told by a cousin of mine that when she married, she did the ceremony in a Catholic church, and wanted to merge some aspect of the Greek customs within the Catholic ceremony. She decided to include the Stefanos (wedding crowns) within her ceremony. Hmmm...

Ups and Down

Im warning you, this blog is going to sound weird, and probably bipolar to boot.

But my mood has been really down lately. Lately being as of Monday night to be precise. Here is why: This wedding is stressing me out, and I’ve still got over a year to go. It hasn’t got anything to do with Jeff, or with being stressed by how I will look, how it will look, or anything like that. I am terrified of mixing my mother’s side and Jeff’s family. Just thinking about it is giving me the shivers.

I don’t know how I will make everyone happy, how people will get along, how anything will happen. I knew when I started going out with Jeff that this was going to be difficult, which is why we kept it secret for the first month of our relationship. Jeff and I were basically raised in the old mentality, French vs. Mohawk, Mohawk vs. French. I was never allowed to go into Kahnawake and Jeff was strongly discouraged to have French friends. We were both brought up with our parents and families having strong negative opinions about the opposing side, and it’s a mystery how Jeff and I actually got together in the first place. All that to say our families have very little chance to actually coming together in joy. They met once, when we moved out to our first apartment. Tension was already in the air because of a fight that we had had with Jeff’s mother kicking us out when I was very sick. Feathers were ruffled, and intense dislike was in the air. My mother actually almost fought with Jeff’s grandmother, and I believe that the only reason why they didn’t is because I came into the room. The move took all of two hours. How am I supposed to believe that everyone will be able to put aside years of violent history and hatred to come together in some beautiful fairy-tale wedding story? How am I supposed to make sure no one will fight and ruin what’s supposed to be a day filled with joy and peace and love? Both sides are looking at us like were crazy trying to plan something which can only be disastrous; and some are more reluctant than others. Jeff’s mother actually suggested she would pay for the whole wedding if we just eloped somewhere alone. And I'm supposed to believe that I will be able to bring them together for a whole day? Don’t even get me started on how I'm stressing over what will happen when Jeff and I will have children...

All that to give some history as to why I've been devoting time to try to find some sort of thing for the wedding that would possibly bring some cohesiveness to the three families. And I had thought I had found a low budget, super idea which I read off of some internet website or other. Basically, everyone likes to bake, and everyone has some dessert they are ‘the best’ at. So I thought why not make a dessert bar, where Jeff’s grandmother could make her date squares, or my mother could make poudding chomeur, or my cousin make baklava? With cute little insignia which would say who had made what, it would be sure to create conversation, with people comparing or asking for recipes. Hope makes you stupid. It made me stupid enough to actually believe in this enough to tell my mother, who immediately shot down my idea. ‘Why the hell would I ask anyone else how to bake something I know very well how to make? If you think I'm going to go to your wedding and make desserts you’re out of your mind’.  Ouch.

So since then, I've been stumped. I'm feeling low. I'm starting to consider Jeff’s mother’s proposition even though it is the furthest thing from what I want. I don’t know how this is going to work out. People tell me, who cares about others you shouldn’t care about what anyone else thinks, but I can’t do that. This is my family. That is his family. I feel like I'm living in a soap opera. Next episode on the Cynthia’s Life Show, how Cynthia is dealing with her issues about walking up the aisle without her biological father. Ugh.

Thursday`s Three Small Successes (and more)

1. I continue to work on a project that is due in a little less than two weeks. That, if anyone knows my work habits, is extraordinary.
2. I took on the classroom door decoration duty. I had the kiddies choose whatever color they wanted for their hand, painted it, stamped it, and then laminated their (dried) handprints. I will then make a tree out of brown paper that they will also have painted, and attached the handprints to the branches, thus creating the effect of leaves. Or at least I hope so. I will also make a cheesy saying, like `Spring into Kindergarten`or something equally corny. I`ve been letting down work and focusing on school lately, so hopefully that will boost my value as an assistant.
3. I ate breakfast this morning, and was full-er all day. I guess they weren`t lying when they said that breakfast was the most important meal of the day.
4. I got up off my lazy bum and went to go 'shop' for an affordable gym membership yesterday night. Turns out, that doesnt exist. Not in my present budget anyways. But it gave me a feeling of having done something instead of just thinking about it.
5. I ALSO washed the floor yesterday. That in itself isnt all that extraordinary, but yesterday wasnt the day for washing floors (Sunday and Friday is), and I did it just because I felt like it. It was awesome.

Wordless Wednesday: On the menu

Life is full of coincidences..

For the past four years I have been thinking about starting a collection of memories that I still have about my father. I have hesitated and haven't started because.. well I don't really know why I haven't done it. I had a grand old idea of writing down what little I could remember, then asking everyone who would to write theirs down also. Maybe as a gift to my Yiayi, maybe as a memento to be shared between his three daughters, or maybe something for my children to read when they ask me what their grandfather was like. I don’t know what I would have done with it, had it come to completion. But for whatever the reason, it never got done.

I had pretty much forgotten that idea (consciously or unconsciously) and had many other things that deserved my attention. But life will have its ways, and will mess up your well laid-out plans. I arrived about half hour early to one of my classes last Tuesday night, and I sat down with my book, since I was alone, and the teacher was in the next room correcting some papers. I didn’t get two sentences read when she came in the room and started to talk, continuing a sort of debate that we had never gotten to finish. A few more students came wandering in, and they also joined the conversation. Then, seemingly out of the blue, she turns to me and says ‘I finally figured out where I remembered you from!’ To put everyone into context, I came into St-Willibrord in the middle of grade 3, and she was a Kindergarten teacher, so we had both assumed she recognized me from seeing me in the halls. Or so I thought.

She then continued on with saying:

‘I met your father in the Alibi once, when my husband and I went in to play pool. He was with a friend, and seeing as how we four were the only people in the bar apart from the bartenders, he immediately hailed us over and asked us to play pool with them. I didn’t know him, we were complete strangers, but he acted like we were friends who he hadn’t seen in awhile. Before long he was buying everyone shots and we had so much fun! That was a month to the date before he passed away. I thought you would want to know.’

Incredible, isn’t it, how even now, even 12 years after he passed, I still meet people who knew my father, and tell me about him. The most unlikely person, that I would never have connected with my dad turns out to be my teacher in a course that I didn’t even want to take in the first place, randomly tells me this memory she had of him. They met once for a few hours only, yet he marked her and her husband enough that 12 years later, she would meet his youngest daughter and tell her of this one night when a random man played a friendly game of pool with complete strangers.

How extraordinary is that? What an extraordinary man my father must have been. Maybe this is God’s way of kicking me in the butt for not doing what I was thinking of doing 5 years ago...

Just floating around

Here are some pictures that have been floating through my mind lately.