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Summer Camp in Spring
The boys and I went to summer camp last weekend--only it was most definitely spring time in the Rockies (which looks a lot like winter...)Camp Chief Hector hosted a flood-relief weekend for families...
View ArticlePublished in Telling Truths, Demeter Press, 2014
Not my Childrenby Kat WiebeSunday morning. Sun’s up. Me too. I’ve always been an early riser, leaving warm bed and bodies behind as I investigate what has begun. Setting moon or rising sun, ocean,...
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The Aging of Aquarius
I'm having a real problem with getting older but, like, who cares? Can't nothing stop that train, except the end of the line... Wiser (and older) minds than mine have said, "There's nothing good...
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My summer cottage
Summertime and the living's easy. It's hot and breezy. The sky is blue and my feet are bare. I'm never happier than when I'm scantily clad.I could not believe it the other day when my girlfriend pouted...
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My First Time
"Ooh, Mum," Primo says gleefully the other day, poking the back of my arm, "your flab is fun!" Lovely, I think. Secundo defends me: "Actually," he says reasonably, fingering the same piece...
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Climb On
Heading out to climb, the day is ours. It's just the two of us today, my partner and I. Three if you add the mountain. We approach along a narrow trail, knee deep in grass: I like this part....
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The Face you Deserve
“At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.” These words were apparently George Orwell's last written, and he died before turning fifty. Luckily I haven't kicked the bucket yet, and as is quite the...
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Called to Climb
Look, I’m no mountaineer. Rock climbing (on a sunny face) with my partner Andy makes me smile. An expedition is grocery shopping, kids in tow. And the most pain I tolerate is easing myself into a hot...
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To Sputnik--and Beyond!
One of the biggest blips on the parent radar these days is appropriate use of technology. How much screen time is too much? What are the effects of screen time? How can we mitigate for screen...
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Homage to Fromage
From start to finish Heather O'Neill's The Girl Who Was Saturday Night made me raise an eyebrow, shake my head, smile, laugh, gasp and cheer; in the end I even shed a tear. This is the brilliance...
View ArticleStories
As the days grow dark and winter returns, I think of my ancestors, hunkering down for their long winter’s nap: barns full of grain, flour in barrels, sweet, dry grass neatly stacked. Chickens for...
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A Blazon for my Boys
You boys,two of you,and each one,let me count up the waysthat you delight me:your morning breathand farts at the dinner table,your lies and deep truths,your fierce hugs and closed doors,your growth...
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The True Meaning of Christmas (for me)
"The greater the doubt, the greater the awakening; the smaller the doubt, the smaller the awakening. No doubt, no awakening." C.C. Chang, The Practice of Zen. I've been trying to communicate my...
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Sex and Santa Claus
"How do you make babies?" my sister's six-year-old twins asked her. She plunged into the description, gave her best answer at the mechanics and biology, covering all the bases, as it were, using...
View ArticleNot Mine
My boys,you two bundles of genetic joy,whose DNA I donated tobut did not decide,randomly sorted as it wasfrom the ancestral stewof which I am one ingredient--and of course there is anotherwhose legacy...
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Hands, Matches, an Ashtray: Whispered Posts of the Peoples' Poet
In the terrible years, the time of Stalin's psychotic reign of terror, a women named Anna Akhmatova wrote poetry. So suppressed were the free people in those years that Anna could not publish her...
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It's as Great as you Make It
I had a few days off this week, with boys. Primo read Stephen King (his first!--of many, I am sure, he's totally into series), Secundo continued to swim in the Harry Potter soup (he's been continuously...
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Bibliotherapy
Three of the loveliest books I have read in the last year are also the most disturbing: When the Saints by Sarah Mian, Heather O’Neill’s The Girl who was Saturday Night and Eleanor and Park by Rainbow...
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You Won't Get Another Life
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara is a must see! In a nutshell, my review: this film is fun, it's flirtacious, it's deep yet frivolous. It's perfect.Three buddies from school days who are now all rich,...
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Having fun yet?
Interesting pinnacle of summer fun was enduring (sorry, kids) the Calaway Park experience with my boys (10,13). Determined to accompany them and curious to see if I could do it without getting sick, I...
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Mad Max, Messenger of Hope
What did you hear about Mad Max (the new version)? Too much violence, too many chase scenes, too thin plot.So when my teen age son suggested we watch it together, I told him I had to do some research...
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All She Wants is Cherries
The Ones That Make ItNever mind the birds and bees; do you know where cherries come from? Sweet cherries, those dimpled, crimson bites so round and juicy, with their sweet meaty fruit flesh and taut...
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The bees knees
Thinking of knees today 'cause I'm gonna have arthroscopic surgery on one of mine tomorrow. It's stuck and won't budge. Could be there's some cartilage gummed up or torn. So I looked up the saying, the...
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Road Trip Rwanda
Calgary author Will Ferguson, three time winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour, writes about "his journey into the New Heart of Africa" in a book called Road Trip Rwanda. If you are like me,...
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The Perfect Sunrise
Rising sun on a frigid winter morning wraps the Rockies in dawn light lingerie. As the world turns, mountain flanks and alpine slopes are revealed. Two days past solstice and we are on the uphill climb...
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