The Aftermath

November 7, 2012.

"The Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!"

Nick slammed on the brakes, narrowly missing the two deer in the road, and everything came to a screeching halt - except the Bourbon-Chocolate Pecan Pie. It kept going, flying off Cayenne's lap and landing somewhere under Nick's seat. We arrived at Ilona and Michel's for our election night dinner with a pile of dessert, but happy it didn't come with a side of venison.

I spoke in my first American Presidential election yesterday. I became a dual citizen two years ago and now have a voice to help make things better, and not just to complain with.

I exercised that hard-won right with pride.

But here's the thing: The two party system is so divisive it only had one direction in which to fester, and it has. The vitriol spewed by both sides in this election was so toxic it threatened very strong friendships, mostly through social media.

So I was looking forward to waking up to a fresh start: the phone unringing; no more garbage in the mailbox; no more hate on facebook. But this is what met me: Republicans blaming the loss on all the ignorant, uneducated minorities who voted for the socialist, Muslim Obama, because they wanted more free stuff; and Democrats relieved that the Confederates and the rest of those gun-totin', bigoted, my-church-will-rule-your-life rednecks didn't make headway this time. Those are serious charges.

Educated, respectable citizens were making these statements. Certainly not everyone, but upstanding folks from both parties. I'm thinking it's human - when you are 100% sure what you're voting for is right - to think that anyone voting for the other side must be a little retarded. In the true sense of the word. But humans were also born with the capacity to see things from both sides, even when the halves are polar opposite. We just need to allow ourselves to do that.

Now's the time to heal - our feelings for each other and the state of the nation. The only way that's going to happen is if Congress swallows the hate and makes decisions based on what's best for the country - and that goes for both sides of the aisle. Fingers crossed we're adult enough to do it. Or better yet, maybe we should approach it more like children...

Here's how the girls let me know they'd dropped one of my favourite bowls recently:

"Mom! Great news! 

It only broke into four pieces so we can totally glue it back together!"

   

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

Lifting her head out of the latest Fine Cooking magazine Cayenne declared,

"So here's an excellent quote from me: 'Do what you love, do it well, but know what you're doing.' I've been on this earth 11 years. I can cook and I'm pretty good at it, but I still can't figure out if a scallion is seafood or a type of onion!"


You're doing just fine, baby girl.

Acacia and I are helping Cayenne recreate a scene from the Alice in Wonderland sequel, The Looking Glass for her Humanities class. There's blue masking tape, red paint and glitter all over the house. So glad Nick's in Phoenix at the moment. He abhors glitter.

Over the weekend, however, I would've been lost without him because in the 24 hours between 10:30pm Friday night and 10:30pm Saturday night, I played five hockey games, went to Carly's baby shower and showed some clients a house - which they decided to buy. :) For my reward, I got an extra hour of sleep as the time changed on us. I am not a proponent of Daylight Savings, but I sure appreciated it yesterday morning!

The girls are still getting the hang of it though, as this is how the conversation went last night:

Me: "Bedtime peeps - it's 8:30"

Them: "Really it's 7:30 so we have time"

Me: "Really it's 9:30 so chop chop"

Them: "Oh"

Me: "What're you doing?"

Them: "Making chai lattes"

Me: "With what?"

Them: "Cardamom, cinnamon, pepper and cloves"

(silence)

Me: Well alrighty then


Gotta love Fine Cooking. :)

 

All Treats No Tricks

Trick or treat!
Smell my feet!
Give me something good to eat!
Not too big, not too small,
just the size of Montreal!

The things that take up primo real estate in your brain are worrying sometimes. But that they can lie dormant for 35 years and then pop into your consciousness is pretty amazing. (For the record, we used to sing that song while skipping between the houses, but never at an open door. I do have standards, you know.)


Me at 9 or 10 yrs: "Trick or Treat!"

Neighbour Mr. Saulnier: "Show me a trick and I'll give you a treat."

Me: "Give me a treat and I'll show you a trick."

He hands me a piece of candy and I unwrap it.

Me: "Now you see it." Gulp. "Now you don't!"

I was very impressed with myself for scoring two treats at the Saulnier's. When I think about the entire pillowcase my-sweet-tooth-self used to fill with candy trick-or-treating in our neighborhood in Montreal, I realise that moving to Portugal was really a very, very good thing for me.

Halloween isn't the most meaningful of holidays, but it's proving to be a great opportunity to create fun family traditions and lasting memories (apparently).

City market's pumpkins were squishy this year. I wonder if they froze on their way to the store, or it's just too warm out?

Our Spanish Dancer

Some of the many neighbourhood kids enjoying a Chili Dinner at the Thomases pre-trick-or-treating

Dorothy. She wants to be a monster next year...
I'm thinking with those missing teeth she should've been a rabbit.

Fair Trade

Even the sky played along with its witch's hat on orange. :)

If you live in the candybelt (U.S. & Canada), I hope you had a hoot!!

    

Our Mountain Goats

Just in case any of you noticed Nicolas was not in the birthday party pictures, that would be because he took it as his cue to get the hell out of Dodge - I mean, took advantage of the amazing autumn to go climbing with his girls. They called at 9:15am Saturday morning from the summit of their second mountain. This being seven hours after I got home from next door, the same level of activity could not be said of me.

That summit marked Cayenne's 27th Fourteener, and Acacia's 23rd. Nick spent some great hiking time with the girls this summer, but if I'd posted about every climb, all my posts would've looked the same. I'm very proud of them though, so if you'll indulge me for a bit here, I'd like to share some of it with you:

Cayenne on the Spiller-Babcock Ridge, June 9, 2012

Acacia and I on Sneffels, June 15th, 2012

The girls and I popped up to Engineer on July 6th (just down the road from Durango)

The flowers on Engineer were gorgeous

 Acacia on East Babcock, July 12, 2012

While Acacia was on a road trip with her grandparents to visit her cousins in California, Cayenne and Nicolas spent a long weekend camping, and climbed four 14ers: Yale, Shavano, Tabeguache and Antero.

She said they were Easy Peasy. :) Good father-daughter time.

July 31-August 1 they climbed Snowmass and Castle.

I love this shot

The Red Rover enjoyed this summer

Although it looks like she's peeing, Acacia is actually unloading her latest rock collection.

Kind of ethereal with the sun rising behind them.

They also climbed Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Democrat, Lincoln and Bross.

On the most recent one they were reminded that the climbing season was probably nearly done. And while I'm sure someday they'll look back on their adventures in the mountains as some of their most indelible, my guess is they welcomed the snow.

 

Stop This Ride!

Can someone please stop our planet for a week so I can get off this ride, catch up with life, and climb back on??? My apologies to any of you who have faithfully checked in to peek at what's been going on at Camp Cofman, only to hear the crickets chirp.

Acacia hit double digits on September 24th and it took about a week to celebrate it Acacia-style, starting with a double birthday party at Michel & Ilona's. With my 45th just three days later, we economized on the celebration - but not the food. Acacia requested anything with sausage and Ilona got to work on homemade Italian pizza fit to rival anything in the Four Corners region... That said, a new place downtown is about to open, so Ilona may have competition soon! Last weekend Petra and I enjoyed the parade of homes and Fired Up Pizza was on the tour. They served free pizza and barley vodka basil lemonades. Needless to say, it was our most lengthy visit on the tour and they were calling us by name by the time we left.

But I digress. Like her sister, Acacia got a bedroom makeover for her birthday - but I got smart this time and allotted three days to do it, so was less suicidal by the time it was done.

 Once the last pillow was in place, I realized this is the room I never knew I always wanted.

Cayenne helped make the box on the wall to the left of the window
for Acacia to hang her jewelry and store her nail polish.

Painting on the furniture and walls felt so naughty - like my Mom was going to walk in and flip out at any minute - it was pure pleasure!

(I found the mirror at a thrift store - this very heavy oak one was just what I was searching for - and because it was only $17.50, I didn't mind testing the paint idea on it. 

I had so much fun I went a little nuts on the rest of the room...)

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Luckily, while I was busy making sure Acacia's birthday was just right, next door Petra was sending out invites to make sure mine would be too. Good times!!

Thank you Petra!

I'm Famous!

Well, at least among my friends who not only read the Durango Herald, but also make a beeline for the Bear Tracker section, which, it seems, is exactly one of my friends.

The Herald printed this photo today:

Pretty cool, eh?

Took this one a few minutes later...

Michel lent me his good camera so I can take photos of houses for work (merci!) so I'm practicing, and the zoo in our garden is making it easy! 

I took the hummingbird one while talking on the phone with Jeanette, who happens to be the friend who noticed the bear picture in the paper. :)

Adventures in Real Estate

"Get there early to pick up the homeless guy's sleeping bag and stuff off the porch." That was the advice I got before showing a house a few days ago.

Huh?

I got there well before the potential buyers and had just enough time to move the sleeping bag, hide the cords he was stealing electricity with, and gather the mounds of junk food wrappers. Mounds.

It didn't feel wrong to hide this evidence because once someone buys and is living in this home, no one's going to be squatting on the ground-level back porch.

But their first question to me was, "So... what can you tell us about the soup kitchen around the corner?"

Then, as they're measuring the rooms in this house they've fallen in love with, they notice that about twenty people have come in and out of the beautiful clump of trees across the street. In with a back-pack, out with nothing. It seemed like a place where these wanderers could unload their burdens, literally and figuratively, judging by the colourful conversation emanating from the leaves. I was fascinated and would have enjoyed the sociology lesson if I hadn't been in the hood to sell a house.

And I just might have, had these smart shoppers not driven around the corner and noticed Hilltop, our local halfway house. I knew it was in the vicinity, but not that close or I would've mentioned it when they showed concern over all the dreadlocked activity going down. I'm glad they saw it now instead of weeks into a contract, though.

But during the two hours they were imagining their furniture in this house, I couldn't stop thinking about the tube of Anbesol I found among the candy wrappers, remembering how awful my recent experience with toothache was. Anbesol wouldn't have touched the pain - I used Nick's leftover Percocet! All the junk this guy eats doesn't help I'm sure, but here in America, crap food is the cheapest thing you can buy.

How do you get out of this horrible cycle? How do you get into it in the first place? If you had a tight group of friends in the same situation, would you even want to get out of it? What's society's role in breaking the cycle? I think the soup kitchen is great - we've served dinner there and Cayenne helped plant their homegrown garden - but is feeding them daily healthy meals keeping them on the streets?

Probably not, but these were the thoughts going through my mind as I remade his bed. I tipped the wheelbarrow back on its side like he'd had it, hung up the ratty towel, and then, not 10 ft from his sleeping bag, nearly stepped into a huge pile of bear poop.