Sometimes I read stuff in the papers and on the internet that just completely does my head in. Makes me wonder what kind of world we live in. Today, therefore, I have decided to commence an occasional series of posts, (not very) cleverly titled 'WTF?!?', which will be devoted to selected stories I consider worthy of scorn and ridicule.
For this, my first installment, consider the emerging social phenomenon of Childbirth as Spectator Sport. Yes, that's right. Last Sunday's NYT featured a story on the plight of a certain class of expectant mother. It seems it's no longer enough to stress about who to invite (or not invite) to your wedding and baby shower. Now, Yummy Mummies everywhere are fraught with angst over whom to favour with an invitation to view the actual birth of their babies. Forget about your husband and maybe your mother. Apparently, childbirth invitations are becoming sought after by in-laws, siblings, and even office co-workers: Just a generation after fathers had to beg or even sue for the right to be present, the door to the delivery room has swung wide open. Even the most traditional hospitals now allow multiple guests during labor, transforming birth from a private affair into one that requires a guest list. Like bridesmaids and pallbearers, the invitees are marked as an honored group of intimates. But few weddings or funerals involve nudity, blood or heavy anesthetics.
Needless to say, I find the thought of such a public spectacle to be grotesque. Is nothing sacred?
I have not, in fact, read the last few books I've finished. I listened to them. Getting rather tired of my iPod musical options lately (guess I need some new CDs), so I've plugged into some audiobooks this summer, during my commutes to work.- I bought Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje last year at Eason's in Dublin, cos it was in the bargain bin and only cost three euro or summat like that. As is the case with all of Ondaatje's work (hello, The English Patient), it's certainly a very worthy book. But it left me cold; reminded me why I don't really read much contemporary fiction. It was kind of the mental equivalent of eating your vegetables - ultimately good for you, but a bit dull.
- I actually have the paperback of The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier, bought some time ago at Hodges Figgis in Dublin. It has sat for absolute yonks in my 'to read' pile, though, so when I saw it a few weeks ago at the Public Library in audiobook format, I grabbed it. Given that it's historical fiction, I expected to really enjoy it - but I actually found the story a little thin. The tone of the book also struck me as kind of coarse (and not in a good way, sadly). All in all, I didn't really feel inspired to go read any of her other stuff - Girl With a Pearl Earring or no - but this week I ended up borrowing the audiobook of her first novel, The Virgin Blue, from the library anyway (probably because our library's audiobook selection is pretty poor, and there wasn't much else to tempt me).
- And on my bedside table at the moment? Why, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, of course. Jana loaned it to me when she was here visiting, and I've just dug into it in the past week. Unsurprisingly, it's utterly gripping so far. I expect to make short work of it.
Although I know it happens, I'm always completely gobsmacked when I find out that people with whom I have no connection occasionally read what I post online. Usually, I find out via comments and emails from said readers. But last evening I came across Feedster, a search engine for blogs (which is likely to be eclipsed now that Google has launched their own blog search function). And I discovered (yeah yeah...I'm sure this is nothing new) this neat little thing called a link search. Basically, you enter in the address of your blog, personal website, online photo album, or whatever - and you get back a list of who is linking to you.
So in a fit of intellectual vanity, I typed in the address of this blog, expecting to see just the usual suspects (I'm talking to you, McWetboy). But lo and behold, this person here linked to a post I made a few months ago, about a PBS documentary on higher education.
Weird! Kinda cool though.
Distinct whiffs of autumn today. It's been lovely and sunny, but it was a mere 12 degrees outside when I woke up this morning. One of the trees has already begun to shed its leaves across our front deck.But it warmed up in the afternoon, so we drove over to the Hydrostone Market. The Hydrostone neighbourhood is one of the historic and architectural gems of Halifax, and was built after the explosion in 1917 which levelled most of the city. It was planned in the style of the English 'garden suburbs' (like those at Hampstead, Letchworth and Welwyn in the UK), but on a vastly smaller scale - Halifax's Hydrostone is only about six blocks long, and one wide.Astonishingly, I'd never actually walked around the area until today - mainly because it's in the North End, which is a fairly dodgy part of town, and it can be hard to get to if you don't have a car. So we went, had coffee and sweeties at Julien's - arguably the best artisanal bakery in the city - and pootled round the various little shops. And very nice they were, too. I shall doubtless return.
This excellent article in last Sunday's New York Times neatly encapsulates everything I've been thinking since last week about Hurricane Katrina's aftermath in New Orleans. The shock has dissipated, but the cold fury remains. I wish I could say I was surprised that such things could happen in the wealthiest and best-resourced country on the planet. But to have had it so brutally exposed by the media, every day last week, was almost unbearable.
I want to hope that the events of last week might shake some people out of their social complacency, but I fear that as time passes, people who should have learned lessons from what happened in New Orleans will once again slip into comfortable amnesia. Depressing stuff.
Even in my little enclave at the top of the adminstration building, the sound of overeager teenagers reached my ears today at work. It's Frosh Week at universities all across the land. I smiled benificently at all the kidlets across campus yesterday, out collecting money for charity, all the while discussing their strategies for getting to the liquor store later with a 19-year-old friend in tow to make the requisite illicit purchases. Ah...has it really been fifteen Septembers since I left my parents' home for my own Frosh Week festivities? Yeerks.
Got my new office space reasonably sorted out today, all to the strains of a soundcheck out on the lawn in front of my building (some sort of open-air gig there tonight). I've just moved down the hall, away (happily) from the eagle eye of the Big Boss. It's quite a nice space, with a big sunny window. Now all I need is a plant or two and something to hang on the walls, to replace the earnest photographs of people in developing nations (!) which are hanging there now....
*sigh* Growing season is winding down - not so many attractive subjects for photography this month. But the tomatoes are ripening at last!! Yum, scrum, etc.
Few piccies here.
What relief! This weekend, we seem finally to have bonded our two rabbits, Fawn and Timmy. Herewith some photographic evidence of their now-peaceful coexistence in the same cage:
How did we do it? Well, we had to resort to some guerilla bonding tactics. After much consultation of the relevant literature, we decided on Thursday night to try wedging both of them into the same small pet carrier, and then taking them for a drive in the car - the idea being that (rabbits being terminally nervous creatures) they will be so freaked about the weirdness of the car situation, that they'll forget to fight. To our surprise and delight, it worked a treat.
So on Friday, we decided to take them to Cape Breton with us for the weekend. Four and a half hours in the back of the car together, and not a peep out of either of them. We decided to risk putting them in the same cage together once at my parents' place (we nicked the dog's sleeping crate; she was none too impressed), and this too worked amazingly well. There were a few scuffles (nipping, circling, mounting) but nothing like the usual fur-flying, bloodletting scraps we've come to expect from these two. Putting them in neutral territory together seems to have finally broken down the hostility between them. When we got home tonight, we put them together in their cage, removed the barrier which has been between them for the last two months, et voila. Peace reigns.
It's amazing. We have never had so much difficulty bonding rabbits before, and I was really worried we wouldn't be able to keep Timmy if we couldn't get Fawn to accept him. So I'm delighted.
...erm...or something. Happy Labour Day Weekend, and all that.
Am blogging from Big Bras d'Or at the moment. Came up Friday night for weekend visit with the parentals. It's been another wonderful, sunny, warm long weekend - clearly repaying the karmic debt of our lousy spring this year.
Not much to do but relax, eat, read the papers. A. has been working (at long last) on his Masters. Earlier, I went down the shore with my parents and the dog, had a stroll, and picked some mussels and oysters, which I shall go and enjoy shortly. Well, the mussels, anyway - I'm still not a big oyster fan. Ho hum...life is rough, I tell you....
Sun beginning to drop in the sky, and I've just come in from outdoors. It's been one of those warm, indolent days, spent lying in a lounger under the big tree in our garden, reading the papers, listening to the rustle of the leaves and the flitting of songbirds in and out of the feeder. It's the kind of day you try to store away somewhere in your soul, to remember during the darkness of winter.Lovely weekend. My best friend Jana is here in NS this week, visiting with her parents, so she came down Friday afternoon to spend some time before she, her husband and their baby headed back home this morning. Her visit came not a moment too soon, as I have had a fairly shitty week, on a variety of fronts (family; work; friends). So we spent Friday at home with several bottles of wine, listening to music and talking long into the night. Saturday we did some shopping and hit our favourite spa for a few treatments in the afternoon, before heading off for a really marvellous dinner. We went to a new restaurant called Onyx, which is amazingly chic and urbane for Halifax (there's hope for this city after all!).
Afterwards, we went to a bar called Rain as it seemed a bit early to go home, but like every other lounge/club in this city, we discovered on arrival that we were: a) about ten years too old, and b) wearing far too much clothing, to fit in with the general scene. Nothing like a club full of pert teenagers in skimpy outfits to make you feel ancient... ;-)
