to the grindstone

Today was very productive. We tidied reams of miscellaneous papers, I paid bills I hadn't paid in, er, way too long, took some books to the local used bookstore and ended up bringing another one home with the credit. All this to prepare for a week of painting. We (well, ok, I) figure we may as well make use of Sugar D's last week at home and the paint the front and upstairs halls and the dining room, so that if we decide to sell at some point, it's two fewer things to do, and if we don't, we can finally enjoy the colours I've had picked out for the last four years. By the time I got home from the paint store with something like six gallons of primers, ceiling white, trim paint and wall colours, we were exhausted. Except for Swee'pea.

So Sugar D and I engaged in some horizontal parenting while Swee'pea ran around laughing maniacally like some kind of headless chicken and climbed all over us raspberrying all the way. I think it's the first time the three of have just chilled in the same room since we got back, and it was good to relax. We listened to the recordings of the final Rheostatics concert that I downloaded, and it provided just the right kind of music and melancholy. The reverie was threefold: reliving my memories of that concert and the sadness that hung over my enjoyment of the music knowing it would come to an end, remembering my excitemenet that night when we drove through Sage's neighbourhood and my exclamation, "Let's move here!" and later that night seeing the woman sitting on the garbage bag with her eyes rolling back her in head while her smoke burnt down and deciding that perhaps the Big Smoke was not for me (and pondering the irony that Sugar D now, four months later, somehow has a job in that neck of the woods,) and finally, nostalgia for those earlier moments that the Rheostatics formed part of the soundtrack for: that first taste of freedom when my friend got her driver's license and we spent the summer just driving, anywhere; my first kisses on a cold March night in my mom's car, just the dashboard lights glowing cyan and orange against the fogged up windows.

Speaking of nostalgia, last night I went through my closet and put together a pile of clothes that I haven't worn since I was probably 23, and two pairs of shoes that I bought at the same time even though they were a size too big (they didn't have the right sizes -- that's how much these shoes seduced me) because I couldn't bring myself to choose between them. I've worn them each probably five times max because it's really not comfortable wearing shoes that are too big no matter how funky they look, and they bore just a touch too much resemblance to clown's shoes.



I'll take them to consignment shop I think. I found myself wondering if I should get rid of the clothes, if maybe my child would grow up and feel a sense of loss that they couldn't use their parents' clothes to dress in the latest retro style like I felt with my parents' lost 70s wardrobe.

Anyways, eventually Sugar D and I managed to peel ourselves off the floor and couch respectively, and walked to the park. There were a lot of people canoeing down the river, and every time we saw one, Swee'pea would point and bellow, "Bo! Bo! Bo!" his loud voice shattering the tranquility.