I love you like raisins

Tessa: This last Sunday was a lovely quiet day after our Saturday night dinner party bomb when our friend hijacked our cedar plank salmon and conversation with the 46 inch HDTV with 900 channels at full volume. Okay, the Ali G. marathon session was highly entertaining but nevertheless Sunday was a welcome reprieve. I was happy to have a nice quiet day and read on the couch while Dave photo shopped our friend's wedding picture for the 900th hour in a row. Deanna's head has been coloured, moved, removed, sampled, stapled, highlighted well you name it. But I digress because I was talking about my peaceful Sunday. From time to time Dave would rip himself away from his task sit on the couch, pat my feet, plant kisses on my forehead and say thing like"I love you like slfjdflkdflsj? " "Like what?" I said? "I love you like raissdosdrs." I'm positive I heard raisins. I love you like raisins. “Raisins” I asked. “You hate raisins.” "Yes, I know." he said walking away enigmatically...back to touching up his pictures for the 902 nd time.

A few hours later he would re-emerge from his cave, saunter over to the couch and whisper the same sweet nothing in my boggy ear still ringing from the Ali G marathon. But this time I thought I heard green peppers. I love you like green peppers. Green peppers. He hates green peppers. Ohhhh it’s all getting a bit cryptic now. How am I supposed to read when he’s busy photoshopping without me and telling me he loves me like raisins and green peppers. How can I fully concentrate on my zombie book with disturbing thoughts flying through my mind like an electrical storm. So I get up from the couch and travel to his lair. The photoshop lair. Now I’m beginning to understand that he’s not re-doing these pictures out of necessity which is one thing. He’s doing them because he LOVES DOING THEM. That’s why all of a sudden I’m a raisin and not a hamburger. He knows I’m on the couch reading my zombie book just waiting for him to finish with that filthy photo manipulating program so he can play with ME. Yes, ME! That’s right. I don’t want to read, I want to PLAY. He knows that. He knows I’m slowly seething. I’m turning into Ali G. I’m becoming the monster in my werewolf book because I want attention. Yes. I DO!

So I wrap my arms around his shoulders, bend down and nestle my face in his neck and whisper sweet nothings in his knobby ear. "I love you hot pants,"I say. "I love you like XFCXFG+KJHKHKJHLH." "Like what?" he shouts trying to escape my body hold. "Like raisins."I say sweetly. Like raisins.

No vision with television

Dave: Tessa and I had a small gathering of friends the other night. Just five of us getting together for food and drinks. I was really looking forward to it because we always have some great conversations and laughs. We decided to watch the hockey game while waiting for the group to arrive. Then a strange thing happened. When our first guest arrived our effort to turn the TV off was disputed. She said that we should leave it on so we could see the outcome of the game, we'll just turn down the sound. So an hour later, the game over and our guests all there, we again went to turn off the TV. To my dismay the person who grabbed the control started going through the channels instead of turning it off. This shockingly turned out to be a popular choice. As he went through the channels people started talking about different shows and wanting him to stop at certain programs. The television set had absconded with the attention of everyone in the room. It was a real eye opener. Everyone in the room is very social and usually save their television watching for alone time, but because the beast was on when everyone arrived it had total control. I finally turned the music on and started dancing to snap everyone out of it.

This experience has made me realize what power a television has. If you've ever been having a conversation with someone and there's a TV on in the room... it will grab their attention continuously throughout the time you're there. The show can be crap and the sound off, but guaranteed they will be glancing over continuously.

It's also sad that most people have their living rooms set up for TV viewing and less for socializing. In most places you go, even when the TVs off, every one's sitting staring at where the monster lies dormant, instead of at each other.

I guess this is easier for me to say because I'm not much of a TV watcher. Every time the TV goes on in our place Tessa starts banging things and dishes get broken.

Escape from Podzilla!

Tessa: About 3 years ago I quit my job in publishing. I had worked at this company for about 10 years and had hit middle management hell. I had a job, an expense account, travelled alot, a group of people who reported to me and work that was fairly interesting. Why was it then that I had chronic back pain, bags under my eyes, head pain, drank like a maniac, was dating a loser, was constantly tired and cranky and my generally bright outlook on life had turned to chronic, bitter cynicism.

I didn't really know the fire had gotten so hot until I started doing things like forgetting my laptop on business trips, leaving the country with no change of clothes, forgetting when I was supposed to come home, forgetting when I was supposed to leave, when I was supposed to be in a meeting, forgetting to breathe. I didn't realize how hard the pot was boiling by the time I stopped forgetting things and started adopting things instead. First it was the cat. Then the dog. Then I wanted kids. Then I just wanted things. Shoes, hair, jackets, pants, parties, food. You name it. I wanted to surround myself with people, things and stuff. Any stuff.

Around this time, when I would regularly find myself lying about in all of my things, in a post-martini hangover, usually feeling very sorry for myself, a friend of mine gave me a copy of The Artist's Way. I remember looking at it and then immediately shelving it thinking it was fluff. But one day when I was in particularly rough shape this same friend ordered me to go to my room, pick up the book, read it and do the exercises. Desperation drove me to it but I did finish the book. Although I learned a lot of things, the one thing that had never occurred to me was that my job was starving me creatively. I didn't have any outlet for my creativity. I was so busy supporting other people's creativity I never had time for my own.

What the book showed me was that I could take control of my life by taking risks not avoiding them.

About six months after finishing the The Artist's Way I quit my job [and I met Dave but that's another story!]. But the truth of it was I hated my job. I kept thinking of all the reasons why I should love it but it mainly had to do with the fact that it looked good on paper. Hell, it even sounded good. But I had no idea how I got there and when I got there I had no idea how I stayed there. I liked the people. Well, not really and especially not my boss after she started sleeping with another girl down the way (not that there's anything wrong with that) or the guy that forgot his meds and would whisper expletives in your ear as you walked past the photocopier. Although the constant round of socializing that drives the publishing calendar all year long seems exciting at first, after a few years and several thousands of bottles of wine and vodka later it all gets a bit blurry and unmemorable. I hated the small talk and I hated going over the endless list of books that had to be promoted that probably shouldn't have been published to begin with.

When I quit I thought there would be drama and tearful goodbyes. Afterall, it had been ten years. But there was none of that. They were as tired of me as I was of them. When I left I had no idea how I was going to make a living. I had a dog and a cat, the sperm bank wasn't working out so hot (THANK GOD) and I hoped and prayed the Latin restaurant down the road would hire me as a waitress. They didn't.

For the first 6 months I was exhausted and I slept all the time. I watched Oprah, read People and started working with a friend who had also quit at the same time. Our idea of growing a business was to have lunch at my house, watch more Oprah and discuss whether we should or should not answer the phone when the business line rang. It was bliss. Everyday I would wake up in my pajamas, walk the dog in my pajamas, 'work' in my pajamas and greet Dave in my pajamas. He would come home, point at the big knot in the back of my head and say 'you go out like that?' Yes, I did. Eventually I just cut the big knot off the back of my head.

I'm not going to say I'm some creative genious these days because you can beat the genius right out of yourself. But I'm trying. Dave has joined me in the creative revolution. Reuben, Olive and I are just waiting for him to flee his Podzilla. For now we're starting with small things like playing Kerplunk and twister, I chase him around the house then he chases me. We made a collage on my birthday and are planning on having a gingerbread making contest/martini party. Oh and then there's blogging...the most creative fun of all.

Suite Francaise

Tessa: I recently finished reading Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky on the recommendation of a friend who had called the book one of the most 'humane stories' she had ever read. I enjoy reading war stories (my favourite book is The Things They Carried and so looked forward to this one which takes place in France in 1941 when the Germans occupied Paris. I was initially surprised at my friend's enthusiasm for the book because the story takes a candid look at French society from the highest to the lowest classes and ruthlessly pillories each and every one of them. Leaving no stone unturned Nemirovsky clearly has no sympathy for the French or the fate that awaited them during the war. I'm glad I stayed with the story because it's in the second half of the book as well as in the Appendices that the full emotional import of what the author documents bears fruit.

The fact that the author, a Russian Jew, is in France during the occupation at the time this story was written and later perished in a concentration camp makes this story even more poignant. Suite Francaise was never published until now, sixty five years later when her surviving daughter discovered a suitcase she assumed was her mother's journals was in fact this novel.

Suite Francaise brilliantly creates an authentic tableau of French society and the impact of the German occupation during this period. What she reveals in its telling isn't very pretty. With clinical precision she unpeels the layers of civility to reveal what people are truly made of when confronted with horrific and often life and death circumstances. The characters she portrays come from all walks of French life from urban upper middle classes, to farmers, aristocrats and villagers. While some of the characters disappear early in the book the story truly hits its stride when we're introduced to Lucille a young, beautiful, married French woman who ultimately falls in love with the German soldier billeted in her mother-in-law's home.

It is against the backdrop of the German occupation of this small village that Lucille and Bruno's love for each other unfolds. Here we see a parallel relationship between the French and their German occupiers and Lucille and her German officer. During their three month stay the initial shock and shame of having foreigners in their homes and village dissipates as familiarity creates a skein of normality that allows day to day life more or less to continue. When the immediate pressures of war fall away, friendship and in the case of Lucille and Bruno, love blossoms.

Love like war is chaotic and has no rules. It's only when a French farmer kills a German soldier that the reality of the occupation re-asserts itself and both Lucille and the villagers find themselves once again at odds with their occupiers. In the end, love like water can't be contained but in dangerous times it poses a real threat. Nemirovsky's real skill here shows not only how war, class, jealousy and other malignancies keep people from love but also what brings them to love in spite of all these obstacles. Therein lies the humanity in this book.

What I also found interesting was Nemirovsky's depiction of French class structure and how it invited complicity when the war came. When the Germans occupied the small village the aristocrats, notorious for hoarding and unwilling to sell food to the starving villagers, began to assume a comfort level with the German soldiers. In the end they knew that these foreigners would protect their interests.

This book is brilliant in its detail and evocation of everyday life under the German occupation and shows yet another sorry time in our contemporary history. It's a great read.

Irritable blogging syndrome

Dave: Tessa and I decided about a year ago that we wanted to do something creative together, two brains into one idea. We set out and bought a gallon of bright yellow paint, a gallon of bright orange paint and a gallon of vodka... and at around four in the morning we had our first finished project: our bedroom had two bright yellow walls and two bright orange walls, not to mention a lot of mixed yellow and orange on the carpet and bedspread (I guess when you're so inspired and full of martinis, drop cloths don't come to mind). Of course this led to the realization that to prevent blindness and/or madness we would have to turn the room into the guest room and move down the hall. The next plan was to dye our white living room curtains a nice burgundy. So once again after a few warm-up martinis we filled the bathtub with dye and proceeded... what came out of our "great" idea was not a set of funky hip burgundy curtains, but a color that I don't even know how to articulate.... pinky, salmony... dried pepto bismal vomit? The funny thing is is that they still hang in the window of our old rental apartment. If you live in Vancouver I'll give you the address and you can drive by and see them for yourself, it's worth the trip. Our next idea was a little better, maybe due to the fact we didn't warm up with our usual barrel of drinks. We decided to buy a dozen pink (maybe the curtains inspired us) and a dozen white baby shirts. We drew a big green and pink flower and silk-screened it on the front. We decided that we'd sell them on e-bay and make millions so we could buy a huge farm and adopt all the dogs in shelters...... we still have all the shirts except the six we've given away, I don't know why they didn't sell.

When we discovered blogging it was another way we could create something together, something we could look back on one day and laugh... and the colors we chose for the site are not even orange, yellow or pink. It doesn't even matter if anyone reads this, we're just having fun and have discovered yet another way to play.

Separated at Birth

Tessa: Well, well, well. Who would have guessed it. Wayne Rooney and I are on the same team and its not Manchester United! ? It's called Sleep Neurosis. A friend of mine sent me a link to an article in The Guardian where Rooney talked about his sleep habits in a new autobiography entitled, My Story So Far. It turns out that Rooney can't get to sleep without a vacuum cleaner on or baring that a hair dryer or television set. " I not only like to have the TV and light on to help me sleep but also a vacuum cleaner. Failing that, a fan or hairdryer will do. I've ruined so many hairdryers by letting them burn out. So far I haven't set fire to anything. " Unlike Rooney, I haven't graduated to vacuum cleaners yet but I do travel everywhere with a handy portable fan that generates enough white noise to lull me into a state of restful slumber. That and a bag of uber impenetrable earplugs and a set of ear muffs and I'm ready to catch some good zzzzzsss. I don't remember when my sleep neurosis began but I do remember buying a pack of gum and feeling some kind of relief when I realized I could chew on it all night long and I found that inexplicably soothing. That was right after I gave up on sleeping pills so nocturnal gum chewing have been an act of desperation. When I travelled to Calgary with my friend Diane to attend speedskating camp we shared a room at the dorm. She was shocked when I pulled out my sleep accoutrement. Unable to sleep with my fan on which she deemed 'too noisy'(what does she know???) I was obliged to going back to rabid nocturnal gum chewing to survive the trip. When I met Dave I decided to abandon both the earplugs (how unromantic AND the fan (how weird). I knew I had met my soul mate when on our second sleepover he stared at the ceiling, sighed and said " I sure wish I had my fan here." How great is that! Next date he brought over his fan which has been with us ever since. Thank god for Wayne Rooney. The Sleep Weirdos have finally been outed.
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On Being a Sissy

Tessa: Hello. My name is Tessa and I am a sissy. Sometimes you know something about yourself and you deny it. Sometimes you just don't know. In this case I really know. One of my favourite sporting activities is chasing Dave around the house, wrestling him to the ground, pinning his arms above his head and yelling, "You will pay. You will pay." He looks at me bemused, maybe a little frightened and asks where I got the cheezy line from. Well I got it from the only movie I've seen recently and my favourite movie A History of Violence. Those are moments when I feel empowered and not so sissyish. But really, I'm a sissy. I'll give you some sissy examples: one of the games I play with Reub is called Mother Theresa where I put a towel on his head which makes him look like Mother Theresa, then I scream Mother Theresa repeatedly while grabbing the ball and throwing it some place while blinding him with the holy towel. Dave's games are called things like Drug Trafficking, or Kill the Squirrel, or Eat the Little Dog, or let's do Drugs. Another example is if I see a dog while walking, it doesn't matter who is beside me I'll put them between me and the dog. It doesn't matter if its my mother, sister, child or Dave they go between me and the threat. The good thing is that it happens so fast they don't even realize they've been strategically placed CLOSER to danger.
Wikipedia says sissy is the shortened pejorative term for sister. Why am I surprised? To call a man or boy a sissy is to infer that he is like a sister or sissy. Basically a cowardly pussy. Etymology aside, I stand bravely by my cowardly ways. Don't come to me if you need saving. I'm likely to freeze while you burn or get run over. I won't deep sea dive or jump out of airplanes and I have no long term or short term plans on changing. Like Cato, I will continue my surprise wrestling attacks on Dave and continue to scream, " You'll pay. You'll pay."

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Tessa: I usually buy books through one of three methods; a book review, a recommendation from a friend who has reasonable book taste or by browsing in the bookstore and reading one or two pages from random books.

I recently picked up Jonathan Saffran Foer's Jonathan Saffran Foer's recently published book Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close on the recommendation of a friend. I read the book quickly and overall quite enjoyed it. The story is set in post 9/11 New York and follows a year in the life of Oskar Schell, a precocious nine year old, who embarks on a journey to find the lock that matches a key that belonged to his father who died in the World Trade Center. The book transitions between the sometimes hilarious journey Oskar takes in the wake of this horrific tragedy and the journey his grandmother and grandfather took over 60 years ago as survivors who lost everything in the firebombing of Dresden. And while the transition between these two stories is sometimes confusing the parallels between Oskar and his grandparents is apt. War takes a heavy toll on those who are left to carry on. The price that is paid is both personal and political. As Oskar, his grandmother and grandfather struggle to come to terms with each other and their loss, a zeitgeist of violence, pain, healing and revenge is created on different levels. Although Oskar's journey ends in coming to terms with his father's loss, the looming issue of war is increasingly the cornerstone of all of our realities. In the end the reason I liked this novel as much as I did was because it brought home the reality of loss. War no longer feels so far away. It's not an artifact of history or of another place. Jonathan Foer lets us know that war is on our turf.

Slowskating is the New Speedskating

Tessa: On September 12th speedskating started up again. This is the time of year when I get up every Tuesday morning at 6:00 am, I haul my sorry ass to an ice rink where I wear a too tight licra full body leotard which Dave likes to wear and run around in more than I do, then I put on a bunch of gear and some skates and then I get tortured by coach Ariana who for the next hour will scream things like 'your legs are just meat, lower, faster, faster, lower'. You are probably wondering what kind of gladiatorial undertaking this is. Well, it's speedskating, of course. And that person you see on the left there. That is absolutely not me. I started skating about 12 years ago as an adult. An old adult. An old adult who couldn't skate. For the first four years I skated in the kids group, where I stayed much longer than any of the other adults who started and then moved on to the adult group almost immediately. It's the sissy thing. I speedskate but I'm afraid to go fast. When I get to the start line I look at my coach with steely eyes and say daring things like "I'm going to skate as slowly as I possibly can" not to get a reaction but because this really is my plan. Being in the kids group had its drawbacks. No kid wants to be partnered with an adult. Especially a slow adult. So whenever we had to team up it was me and whatever geekie kids were not picked because they were slow, untalented or just not cool. I met Derek this way. He was 12. I was 36. He was overweight. I wobbled on my skates. His ankles caved out. Mine caved in. So we teamed up to do some laps one behind the other and with any luck one of us would pass the other and then the next person would take over the lead. The first time we teamed up I took the lead. After a couple of laps I heard grunting and groaning you know weird human noises you don't want to hear. Uh, ow argghh uh crap...oi ahhh. When I turned and looked Derek had ice chips melting down his cheeks and in his eyes. He was soaking wet. I asked him what happened. He looked at me and said its you...you keep chipping the ice and it's flying in my face. Really. Uh huh. Sorry. Yeah. Really. I am. Does everyone do this. Uh no. Then we started to kill ourselves laughing. We roared. Two sissies killing themselves like SCHOOLGIRLS. The next time Derek showed up for practice he had glasses on. Very cool glasses. The kind the pros wear. He stood beside me. When it was time to pick partners we didn't have to wait around. He was always my partner after that. Anyways, I don't know where Derek is. He quit. But its cool being friends with someone who is 24 years younger than you and who isn't a relative. We had some wicked laughs. I'm in the adult group now (barely). My partner's name is Agatha. She is 75 years old and she's still faster than me. But that's another story. To get more info on this hair-raising sport visit: BC Speedskating Association

Devil Child

Tessa: Condofire is a blog about how we escape danger each and every day of our lives. This is no lie. Today I thank god that we didn't burn our house down. Or inadvertently off our dog, lose our cats or our minds. Today we're alive and talking about, tattooes and how to get rid of them, speedskating , boarding, the crazy American government, books, the crazy Canadian government, how Europeans dress better, soccer, neurosis, Friday night dance parties and our family. Look at this picture here. This is Reuben. Our devil-child. LOVE HIM. Then there is Dave. He's the other devil child. Me. I'm not a devil. Or a child. I'm just a sissy.