Blame it on the Rain

“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” – Bob Dylan

Gaia’s been sick the last few days. An invisible ear infection that in turn caused a bit lip to fester into some weird, swollen, oozing sore that made my baby girl smell like an old man whose finally given up on hygiene. Meanwhile I somehow managed to log thirty working hours in three days while still taking a whole day “off” to stay home with my little geriatric. Hmmm. Anyway. Antibiotics, a good night’s sleep and a sunny walk to daycare this morning and we’re (almost) good as new.

But the sunny walk to daycare? By the time I left work I was faced with no less than a torrential downpour with the occasional sharp burn of pelting hail and wrath of thunder and lightning. Regina, like everywhere in the world it seems, is a little confused. I’d like to take a moment to point out, should Mother Nature read this blog that it is, in fact, SUMMER. But I digress. My point is not to complain. I feel like everyone else in this waterlogged town has got the complaining thing covered. Plus, it’s not my style.

So I braved the fifteen minute walk to my car with only a brief desire for the umbrella tucked safely in its backseat. By the time I got over the initial shock of going from dry to soaking wet in under a minute I realised there’s something beautiful about the rain. The way it smells (cliché, I know) and how it washes the city clean, blurring the steel and glass and making it shimmer like a Matisse painting, all brushstrokes. The way the dark clouds look ominous and lush all at once, a study in contradiction. Strolling stoically past the masses huddled under awnings with my dripping face turned up to the sky I enjoyed the rain like I had as a child (standing in wet pyjamas, barefoot with my brother on the grass in our yard, watching as my father checked the rain gauge). I even justified jumping in a puddle when I realised I couldn’t get any wetter. When was the last time you jumped in a puddle? I highly recommend it.

Small rivers dripped in my wake as I let myself indoors to pick Gaia up from daycare. She laughed when she saw me and stuck out her tongue to catch the beads of rain that dripped from my hair. I didn’t bother with her jacket, just held her close as we ran out the door, past the growing crowd attempting to wait-it-out at the entrance. The minute she felt the rain on her face she looked and me and smiled, then held her hands up to the sky to catch it and screamed with joy. We let the car’s seats be our towels and sang along with the raindrops on the windows. She clapped every time we drove through the puddles that splashed up in waves on her window.

How can you stop yourself from loving the rain? Besides, it’s only water.

Giving Thanks

Music Credit: Thank You by Led Zeppelin

Dear Vancouver,

I know in the past I might have given you some reason to hope that someday I’ll leave Saskatchewan and settle here with you. I’ll admit it’s tempting. You are the very picture of a perfect place to live, all ocean and mountains and tall trees blowing in the breeze. Amazing shopping and eclectic neighbourhoods and an arts community I would give my right arm to be a part of. I had a good six years with you. Please don’t ever think I won’t cherish those memories forever. The last month, while a brief affair, has been a whirlwind of fun and excitement. I’ll give you that. Still, when it comes right down to it Regina is just better for me. I’m sorry. Really though, it’s not you, it’s me.

See, while you provide an exciting escape from the ordinary, Regina has always been there like an anchor keeping be grounded. While Regina might not be as attractive or fun or charming, it’s got a lot of really wonderful qualities that grow on you and grab hold when you least expect it. While you and I have overpriced martinis and overpriced shoes and an epic university experience together, Regina and I have shared so much more. I hesitate to go into the details that would only hurt you but you have to admit, you always knew this was coming. I was born on the prairies and grew up there and I hope Gaia will too. While you hold the majority of my urban family, Regina holds Gaia’s grandparents and her fun Uncle Cody and our friends who have babies just her age. I know it almost doesn’t seem fair when I put it like that. Regina is friendly and pleasant and easy to get around. I’m learning to love the Riders almost as much as I love the Canucks and someday soon I plan to learn to bake a Saskatoon Berry Pie. Now that I’m a mother my vast list of martini recipes just doesn’t seem as practical as it did three years ago.

Really though, it’s been great, it has. But if we’re gonna get right down to it. I hate the traffic. There, I said it. I hate sitting in the car for forty-five minutes with a screaming baby in the back seat while I wait to get onto the Lions Gate Bridge. I hate that it takes me over two hours to visit some of my friends. See, it’s not that they live two hours away, just that the insane traffic congestion means I’m idling for hours. How can people live like that? And seriously, would it kill you to improve your mood a bit? I mean, the sun shines everywhere else in Canada, do you think it’s a coincidence that dark clouds always hang over you? I’ve had it with the rain. I’ll take blistering cold winters in exchange for breezy, beautiful springs and blazing hot summers and crisp, colourful autumns any day. And another thing, are your Cheerios really so superior they need to be almost a dollar more expensive then on the Prairies? How can anyone afford to live here? How can anyone afford to raise their family here? I’ll tell you one thing. It’ll be a cold day in hell when I pay three hundred dollars for a pair of jeans for my twelve-year-old so she can fit in at school. Just like those jeans sometimes I feel like you’re all flash and no substance. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Plus, I know it’s vain, but it’s been bothering me all month that my new haircut has been hanging limply in my face and my skin is breaking out in protest to your summer humidity. Frankly, in contrast to Regina, I’d have to describe you as balmy. You’ve got to do the best with what you have and I’m sorry, I just can’t do balmy.

But I digress. I didn’t write this letter to point out all your flaws or make you feel like less of a city. For some people, people I know and love, you’re just the right fit. Still, I’m the type that likes to root for the underdog and find the magic where very few see it. And you know, sometimes I want to get groceries in my sweatpants and not stick out like a sore thumb. I want to build snowmen with my daughter in the winter and take pictures of her lost in a field of wheat and watch the way her face lights up the first time she sees a prairie sunset. I’m afraid if I stay with you I’ll miss all that and more while I’m leaning on the horn stuck in another traffic jam. The bottom line, if I can find one here, is that Regina makes me want to be a better (wo)man. It reminds me that life isn’t about how much you own or how much you spend or how big your condo is. When I’m with you I get all wrapped up in the details and forget the big picture. When my daughter is twenty she won’t care that her first lip gloss was Bonne Bell and not MAC or that we bought her clothes from Superstore instead of Aritzia or that she drank her first beer in a pickup truck in some field instead of sneaking into an overpriced club. She’ll remember that her family had a house full of big dogs that she chased in the back yard and looking out the window on a White Christmas and the vacations we’ll be able to afford because we won’t be living from paycheck to paycheck.

Oh Vancouver, you’re all glitz and sparkle and you get me every time but I’m a grown up now and I need to stop being distracted by shiny things. So there it is. I’m sorry. I hope we can still be friends. If not, well, you still have the Olympics and you know, that’s cool I guess.

All the Best, Risa

Two Things

Firstly, today was one of those beautiful days where I felt sure I made the right decision in moving back to Saskatchewan. The sun was shining and Gaia and I met some friends for the Cathedral Village Arts Festival. It reminded me that Regina really does have a thriving arts community and that the city is full of interesting and inspiring people. Of course it helped that I ran into a counsellor from my years in summer camp who had a booth set up to promote the new alternative school she’s opening. I don’t remember ever reading about a school in Vancouver that meshes so perfectly with the way I want to raise my daughter. I can’t imagine a better educational model to encourage self-esteem, empathy and a sense of community responsibility (locally and globally) – all things I feel are sorely missing in the mainstream schools I’ve looked into. All I can hope is that the school gets enough support in the next few years to continue to be operational when Gaia is ready for kindergarten. If you’re interested check out their website here.

Secondly, on Friday Gaia and I got a package in the mail from Jose. Among the items in the package was a CD he made of his favourite Spanish children’s songs. Frankly, it’s amazing.

Being the true Canadian I am I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Raffi. Lately, when we’re all alone at home I’ve been singing Baby Beluga to Gaia. I don’t know if it’s the song or my terrible voice, but I always manage to get a smile out of her.



Peru’s answer to Raffi is Yola Polastry. Mi Ranchito is Jose’s favourite of her songs and he’s been singing it to Gaia since I brought her home from the hospital. He and his brother have big plans involving this song, costumes and choreography for Gaia and her cousin (due September 2009).



While I don’t think any comment on the inherent cultural differences as showcased by these songs is necessary but I will say this, from now on every time I get frustrated about immigration hassles or the distance between us and wonder if it wouldn’t have just been easier if I’d fallen in love with a Canadian I’m going to remember how lucky Gaia is too grow up in a family where she’ll learn to sing both Baby Beluga and Mi Ranchito... my little Latina-Canadian.

Potty Mouth

I used to swear. Ahem. I used to swear A LOT. As I’ve gotten older I’ve tried to tone it down a bit and while it’s not uncommon to hear me drop a f-bomb in polite company I’d say I’m getting pretty good at keeping up appearances as someone with a touch of class. Yes indeed, I’m one classy bitch. Unless you happen to catch me in the driver’s seat that is. Sigh. I know it’s cliché but I have a serious case of Road Rage. Of course moving to Regina didn’t help. I think the worst drivers in the country all come to Regina and hop in their cars as soon as they hear my garage door open. Merging seems to be a lost art here, as is efficiently changing lanes. I can’t take the Ring Road without being prepared for the inevitable hoarse voice that comes after shouting “THE LEFT LANE IS FOR PASSING... YOU FUCKING MORON” over and over again as I speed by on the right. Aggressive driving seems to have no place here. It breaks my heart to see three cars turn on a green arrow where sixteen cars in Vancouver would have been and I swear I tense up at the very sight of a four-way stop. Note to all the drivers out there – politeness has no place at a four-way stop. To make matters worse everyone drives at or below the speed limit. I know it only takes about fifteen minutes to get anywhere in the city but I don’t think that’s any excuse to be so blasé with your time (or more specifically, mine). Besides, aren’t those “limits” a little arbitrary anyway? Driving anarchy, that’s what we need. Now who’s with me?

Gaia, that’s who. It seems that while my daughter snatched the majority of her good genes from my husband, she managed to inherit the Road Rage gene from me (I of course got it from the foul-mouthed road warrior more commonly refered to as my mother). For the last few weeks Gaia has started screaming the minute I snap her car seat into place and not stopped until I snap her back out upon reaching our destination. A few days ago, after a particularly long journey across the city, nearing the end of my patience for baby screaming, I flipped on my signal light and began plans for a quick lane change en route home. I checked my mirror. The coast was clear, save for a sporty black car a good ten car lengths back. Mere seconds later the same black car was purposefully accelerating to close the gap and deny me my rightful place in front of him. This seems to be a Regina specialty. I couldn’t help myself. I shook my fist with fury and screamed.

“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! THAT’S RIGHT... YOU! YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE! ASSSSSSSSSSSSHOLE!”

Suddenly Gaia got quiet and, I kid you not, she laughed her little baby laugh and promptly fell asleep. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Wasn’t I concerned that my newborn found my screaming obscenities calming? Mildly. More concerning still was the brief moment I seriously considered screaming obscenities as a valid soothing strategy.

Chaos, Chance & Change

As I was checking my email at work last week and I was suddenly struck by the date. I’ve been twenty-seven for a whole month! Granted, it’s not that twenty-seven is a particularly important age, but rather that, for me, my birthday always seems to mark the official end of the year. It’s always on my birthday that I take the time to reflect on what’s passed and look towards the future. To determine the bad habits I’d like to give up and bask in the hope of new beginnings. Plus, I’ve always gotten the feeling that the days between December 26th and 31st were just ‘filler’ anyway. Yet somehow this year, amidst walks on the beach, llamas and inca kola, 2008 seemed to slip into 2009 without much thought. Which is funny, because let’s be honest, if there was ever a year fit for reflection, it was 2008.

The result of this realisation? I’m starting a blog. Do I fear that blogging about my life is terribly self-indulgent? Yes, but c’est la vie. Judge me if you must. If nothing else perhaps I can blame it on the boredom. Besides, thousands of people can’t be wrong. Right? To celebrate the very first post on my very first blog, I present to you, esteemed creepers with nothing better to do…

365 Days of Chaos, Chance & Change: The Five Fabulous Facts of My Life (Mi Vida) in 2008

#1. Trains, Planes, Taxis and Ships ~ In January, a mere month after signing on the Navigator of the Seas I was presented with the option of an unlimited extension on my sign off flight ticket out of Rome and back to the Great White North. Yes, I was making a decision for my five-months-into-the-future-self with no real fix on that self’s financial, mental or physical state after almost seven months of Adventure Ocean chaos, but riddle me this… what would you have done? After pushing the limits with the illustrious Royal Caribbean Adventure Ocean scheduler I picked an arbitrary date and committed to a (unplanned) European vacation of a lifetime. All I knew for sure was that I’d be kicked off the boat in Rome on June 19th and I had seventeen days to kill before my flight home on July 5th. I spent the next five months half-heartedly planning. A random email to a friend who might want to join me here, a brief perusal of flight tickets and hotel accommodations there and before I knew it I was three days away from sign off with no plans, no partner-in-crime and on the verge of a fairly significant panic attack. The night before I signed off, with more than a little prodding and considerable amounts of calming down from Jose, I booked a room in Rome for the coming three nights. Yes, I still had fourteen days to fill. Yes, travelling alone seemed daunting. Yes, I hadn’t even finished packing. Yet somehow, it all made sense. I think it had something to do with reading of Eat, Pray, Love. Thank you Elizabeth Gilbert.

The next morning passed in a frantic rush, as sign off mornings do. I stashed the majority of my stuff in Jose’s cabin, stuffed my remaining suitcase with everything I could carry, put all my sign off cash in my wallet and I was off. To make a long story short (something I’m not known to do), travelling alone in Europe for those seventeen days was the best decision I could have made. When all was said and done I’d been to Italy, England, Spain, Greece, Croatia and the airport in Brussels (where I justified counting Belgium as country number six on my official vacation tally). I’d seen the sights and checked off every must in the tourist handbook. Along the way I caught up with a great friend, got one more night with mi amour (which, as you’ll see in Fabulous Fact #2 turned out to be quite significant) and finally got to enjoy my “voyage to adventure” on board a cruise ship I was not employed on. More than all of that, what made the vacation warrant a spot on this list was the experience of travelling on my own. There’s nothing like the knowledge that all that talk of independence and adventure weren’t just bullshit and realising, in a way that a university degree, countless hours of employment, budgets and bills never taught me... I was all grown up. Shockingly, when you’re eating gelato on the edge of the Trevi Fountain, being a grown up seems pretty sweet.

#2. The Uber-Fetus and the Art of Making an Entrance ~ I don’t think I’ve ever been as sick as I was the morning I woke up for Rachelorette 2008. Sitting on the side of my bed, shaking after vomiting up breakfast I casually laughed it off when Roberge suggested I might be pregnant. To be fair, playing it safe was not mine and Jose’s strong suit, but if the doctor gave you a less the 2% chance of conceiving naturally wouldn’t you have been tempted to play the odds a little? It was hours later, after much bachelorette frivolity, standing in the liquor store thinking the greatest challenge for the day might be the choice between vodka or beer, when it hit me that taking a test, just to ease my mind, might not be such a bad thing. Of course, next thing you know I’m locked in the hotel bathroom, three positive pee sticks later and suddenly frantic about the reality of the ‘situation’ that would come to be known as the Uber-Fetus. In hindsight it really does seem like fate, but at that moment all I could think about was the fact that I had no home, no car, and soon, no job (ship life and pregnancy don’t mix) and I’d just maxed my VISA on some, admittedly fantastic, 7-inch heels. Did I panic? Hells ya. I guess for me it really was a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’. Anyone who knows me knows I’ve been a little baby-crazy since birth, even evoking genuine concern from fellow Adventure Ocean staff with my multiple adorable European baby-napping plots, but the reality of the situation was a very different from any fairy tale I’d dreamt up in the past twenty six years.

Of course as I write this now, about seven and a half months pregnant, I feel silly for feeling like this baby was anything other than a blessing. Against all odds, with one night in Barcelona, fate seemed to set the stage for my entire life to change. I don’t know where I’d be now if not for the baby, but regardless I know I wouldn’t be nearly as happy. My parents always called me a “surprise” but I think if the Uber-Fetus ever does question the shady circumstances surrounding its conception I’ll just have to tell the truth. Unplanned? Obviously. But then again, aren’t the best things in life those you never saw coming? I like to think that even my tremendous imagination couldn’t have come up with a ‘situation’ as beautiful fate dropped into my lap. Plus, you’ve got to admit, even in utero this baby knows how to make an entrance.

#3. Life in the Land of the Living Skies ~ As I packed “the dirty bitch” (RIP) after my years abroad and drove west to start at UBC it never occurred to me that someday I might end up back in Saskatchewan. In fact, if anything I’d made a secret pact with myself to never let that happen. That was almost eight years ago now and, like most decisions I made when I was nineteen, I’m not entirely sure what the big deal was. Faced with a burgeoning belly, a baby-daddy stuck on a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean and less than $20 to my name, Saskatchewan wasn’t looking too bad. The truth is. I like it here. It’s nice being in a place that has seasons beyond damp, rainy, really rainy and flooding. I missed the snow. I missed the fields. I missed my family.

I officially moved back in August and somehow my Dad and I concocted a scheme to turn his basement into a self-contained three bedroom apartment. I got a job at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, as the Education Program Assistant, finally doing something I really wanted and learning from a woman who’s been in her position for over twenty years. The lack of shopping options and entertainment has been a blessing in disguise, leaving me more fiscally responsible then I have ever been. Plus, I love leaving the house fifteen minutes before I have to be somewhere, instead of an hour. I guess no matter where I’d lived when I was an angsty teenager it probably would have seemed like hell on earth, but I feel bad for knocking Saskatchewan for so long. I played the big city girl for awhile but it’s just like Dorothy said... “there’s no place like home” and I’m glad to be back. Well... for now.

#4. “Si Accepto” ~ I was talking to a friend on the phone today and he pretty much summed it up... “Dude... you’re married”... Yeah.

Now, I’m not the most romantic person in the world, but the truth is, I love Jose more than anything. After what can only be described as pure and unadulterated drama onboard the Grandeur of the Seas and six months of read-between-the-lines emails, when he finally got to the Navigator and we finally got it together, I’ve never been so happy. One of my favourite days in Europe was our disastrous trip to Florence where, with only an hour in the city after misjudging the train journey, we almost got married in a park beside the train station. Logic got the better of us then, but somewhere between the arrival of the uber-fetus and the repeated rejection from the government of Canada the idea of marriage came up again. Now, anyone who knows me knows I’m not the marrying kind and I can assure you, neither is Jose. We kept finding excuses to push the thought out of our minds. Excuses like our repeated periods of separation, the fact we’d only had a life together onboard a cruise ship and the cold, hard truth that, well, isn’t a shotgun wedding a little tacky? Still, the minute I finally saw him in the crowd at the airport in Lima, I knew I wanted to be with him forever.

I absolutely loved our wedding. I loved finding our silver rings in Lima and laugh at their cost (about $15 each). I love that we both wore black and that I’d bought my dress on sale at ‘Le Crapeau’ just in case I needed something nice that fit over my belly to wear while I was away. I loved walking the two blocks through Punta Hermosa from Jose’s house to city hall and that his brother preformed the ceremony. I love that everything was said in Spanish and that we signed our marriage licence with our fingerprints and that, as Jessica King so eloquently put it, we ate “street meat” at our reception. I always thought I wanted Tiffany’s platinum, bouquets of orchids and a tower of cupcakes. I even worried, right up until the day, that I would forever regret not having a ‘real’ wedding. Like everything this year, I was shocked at how wrong I was. I think in the past I’d been fixated on all those things, not just because that’s what everyone else had, but because up until then I’d been missing the most important piece of the wedding puzzle... the groom. I loved our wedding because I was marrying Jose and that meant that everything was perfection. I can’t imagine needing anything more to feel like my wedding was more beautiful than any I’ve ever been to. Plus, say what you will about a shotgun wedding but I kind of liked having the uber-fetus there with us. More than a marriage, on our wedding day the three of us became a real family and I’ll always be able to tell our spawn about the look on her father’s face when (s)he kicked him during our first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Chancho.

#5. Inner Peace eh? ~ I’ll be the first to admit I’m a little hard to handle. I like to think of myself as one of those people you have to learn to love. High strung? Check! Controlling? Check! Judgemental? Insensitive? Bitchy? Check! Check! Check! But somehow, amidst the pure chaos that might have sent me into a shameful downward spiral only a year ago, I managed to stay, dare I say it? Zen. Yes me. Zen. I’m not sure when it happened, or how, but the evidence is irrefutable. I can’t see a cloud without waxing poetic about its silver lining. I’ve taken every obstacle as it came, dealt with it and moved on. I’ve been doing yoga and meditating and giving up prime parking spots in the dead of winter. Some might say it was love that finally did it, others the baby. I’m pretty sure ship people are convinced it’s the lack of hard liquor. Sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t like a computer on the verge of breakdown that somehow got re-booted just in time. A coping mechanism I developed in the eye of the storm like some aspect of Darwin’s survival of the fittest. Truth be told, I think there was always a peace-loving hippy alive and well inside me. If I ever let you in enough to know me well, you usually found her in the squishy parts beneath my cultivated thick skin.