see you in the car

Eric and I thought that we could avoid a big to-do by eloping, but our mothers were not to be so easily deterred. Last weekend, our families and friends gathered in a barn in Southern Ontario to celebrate slash say goodbye. It was a beautiful day, and our moms prepared a lavish spread of way too much delicious food (so good that I’m only a tiny bit mad that my mom put the kibosh on my idea of having it catered by a middle eastern restaurant – “your grandmother won’t eat that stuff.” Fair point, mom).

some of our uni friends who made the trip

My sole contribution was showing up with three trays of black-market baklava (I mean, I think it was on the up and up, but it did give me a delicious thrill to call a restaurant to inquire about baklava, and be told to call back in half an hour for a special price), and posing for some requisite cake-slicing-and-smearing-icing-on-Eric photos.

Sometimes I’m too predictable

It was a fabulous time, and totally cemented my opinion that eloping and partying afterwards was 100% the right decision for me (but as a selfish lover of attending weddings, I do not recommend it for any of my friends).

Holinights

While I do enjoy the holidays, I find the speed at which December flies by rather disconcerting. It seems like seconds ago that I stepped off a plane from Haiti, and five minutes before that, we were eating cookies in sunny New York.

snow-free in the GTA

We spent about 5 days at my parent’s house, and Eric’s family came to celebrate with us on Christmas. Despite receiving nothing but raised eyebrows when I shared this plan with people (something about inlaws being crazy), we had a really great time. I did end up feeling a bit guilty when I realized that we see my family a lot more than his, but I suspect that this is because my family tends to be really pushy (in a well-intentioned way, of course) whereas Eric’s is more laissez-faire about things.

We were also able to see most of our friends in the region, and extract promises of visits to both Ottawa (in the short-term) and Jordan (in the long-term). Explaining to people that we’re moving to the Middle East for three years has not helped to solidify the idea in my mind; it still seems like we’re going on a very long vacation.

Although the current weather is making Amman very appealing, I’m nonetheless glad to be back in Ottawa for now. I want to appreciate the parts of winter that I enjoy, since I’m likely to pine for snow (at least a little bit) next year, or at least for soup.

Not Lucky

Talking to people about my job invariably leads to questions about Eric. What does he do, is he coming with me, what will he do abroad?

gratuitous picture of us

Usually, I pair “he’s an independent consultant” with “I knowwwww, I’m so lucky!” How convenient that my spouse has a job that he can do anywhere with an internet connection! I couldn’t have planned it better myself!

I recently realized, though, that acting like it’s serendipitous is complete bullshit, and I’m doing us (and especially Eric) a disservice.

The reality is that we had a lot of Serious Discussions About the Future, starting pretty much as soon as I applied to this job and with increasing frequency as I continued along the hiring process. That Eric made connections and took on projects to start networking with consultants in his field. That he quit a steady job at a great place to consult full-time, that he has been continuously working on developing international contacts, that he works in his pyjamas and has access to our kitchen all day (okay, I am burning with envy on that last point).

We can’t know how well it will work overseas until we actually go out, but we’ve at least laid the groundwork for theoretical success (knock wood). And it took a lot of effort on both our parts (my role was mostly one of suppressing my panic at the thought of a fluctuating income, which was important in its own way).

I’m not lucky that Eric is a consultant. I’m lucky that Eric is awesome.

Family hike

For an environmental studies grad, I go on shamefully few nature excursions. I mean, sure, I’m outside a lot, and transport myself in various non-car ways, but I’m not out in the woods, communing with nature, as often as I’d like.

So Eric and I took advantage of Thanksgiving and off we went, Gatsby in tow. Thwarted by path reconstruction, we wandered within a 1/2 kilometre of the parking lot for 45 minutes, trying to figure out where all the mountain bikers we’d scene had gone (turns out, they just ignored the large “path closed” signs and off they went). We saw a mother deer and her fawn, which Gatsby thought were other great danes.

We finally determined that there was a path across the road, and were able to hike an enjoyable there-and-back few kilometres; a bit short for our liking but more than enough for Gatsby.

It was a lot of fun to be crashing through nature, and I can’t wait to do more, especially since (common refrain alert) this could be our last fall in Canada for a while.

what bwings us together

We of course called our parents with the news as soon as we got home (okay, as soon as we’d screwed up the nerve), and we sent postcards to our closest friends (and those whose addresses we had, two groups that overlap incompletely), but when Katch posted a few preview shots on facebook, the response was overwhelming.

So far, the only thing we can figure out as being different from before has been the giant outpouring of well wishes and congratulations from our friends and families. It’s nice. And nobody seems upset that we didn’t have a wedding, which is a huge relief.

A week in, I’ve still called Eric “my partner” in conversation to almost everyone – I suspect that one will stick. I’ve nearly gotten used to the ring, and the number of times we say “we got married!” to each other has slowed down a bit. Otherwise, our relationship feels the same – which is to say, quite lovely.

Addendum

As pointed out on Feministe today, an important part of this whole women having varying degrees of “it” is the support of men (their male partners in the case of heterosexual women as well as men generally).

I tend to forget about that aspect, because Eric and I have a very equal partnership. I would say “I’m lucky that Eric and I have an equal partnership,” but that’s total bullshit. It’s not about luck, it’s about expecting that my partner be an actual partner and contribute equally to the management of our life together.

It makes me face-twitch in anger when I hear women say that their husbands are “babysitting,” or when they say that I’ve “trained” Eric well because he does half the chores. I trained my dog, not my boyfriend, thanks.

But yes – being able to have a satisfying career and a few kids is probably a lot easier for women to do when they have partners who are on board with those things and doing their share of the work. Because (again, speaking from zero experience here) as much as kids look like they’re really rewarding and awesome to have, they also look like a dump-truck full of hard work, and if I had a partner who just left most of that work for me to do, my head would probably explode.

Thanks so much for hanging out through all my feminist ranting this past week, guys.

The Internet’s 345735734857th Name-Change Debate

It’s wedding season here, and while I’m not attending any this year (my close friends aren’t really the “marrying type,” it would seem), there’s a lot of crazy new last names popping up in my facebook news feed.

I know it’s a touchy subject, but it really surprises me to see so many women my age wholeheartedly snap up their new husbands’ last names with nary a hyphen in sight. Now, I owe it to these ladies to assume that they probably had some kind of thought process about the change, weighing the pros and cons, and maybe even threw around some wacky ideas like him taking her name… but they’re still all going for the full switch.

Personally, I could never imagine changing my last name. Due to the women in my family being a bunch of Amazon-esque man-shunners, I’m the third generation female to carry my last name, and my middle name is my great-grandmother’s maiden name. I identify with my name, and I just don’t think I could ever get used to a different one – plus why shouldn’t Eric take my last name if we were to get married, especially since I’m an only child and he has two siblings to carry the torch? Plus let’s not forget the most important reason – I locked in a good gmail address early, and if I wanted to change my name I’d be stuck with meagthomso4754323@gmail.com or some other impossible-to-say-over-the-phone garbage.

We had a big discussion about it in my french class last year. Fun side note: language training is great practice for diplomacy because you run out of “safe” topics really fast and spend the rest of the year locked in a room with the same few people debating religion, politics, feminism, the environment, and the space problem – and you rarely agree with any of them. Anyways, the argument coming from some of the more… socially conservative, let’s say… corners of the room was that everyone does it, so it’s stupid not to change your name (if you’re a woman), and men changing their names would just confuse everybody and be dumb, and THINK OF THE CHILDREN! 

Now, as someone who will never ever change her last name, and who will hyphenate the last names of any future children she has, this argument offends me. Not because I care what those people think about my hypothetical kids’ hyphenated last name – I don’t really care if the odd person finds it a little confusing. But the line that’s always trotted out with a smirk is, “sure that will work – until your kid grows up and wants to marry someone with a hyphenated last name. THEN WHAT?!” Then they stand back and wait for me to admit that they’re right… which obviously I never do, because I’m ardently stubborn.

I have a hunch that by the time any kid I have is old enough to get married, they’ll also be intelligent enough to raise the issue with their partner and decide for themselves what they want to do about their names, or the names of their children, if they choose to have any. Now, I’m already practicing my pie-baking and knitting, so I hope that one day I can be a grandma, because I think I’ll be a cool one. But I don’t really care if my grandchild is named Raven Thomson-King-McSmorgasbord-Li, because I’m not going to write their last name on their birthday cake, and beyond that it’s not my problem.

At the end of the day, you aren’t a terrible feminist if you change your name, and you aren’t an uncommitted hippie if you keep it, and you’re probably only a little weird if the two of you make up a wacky new last name (kidding – that’s my favourite option, but Eric’s not into it, even though we could totally be the Starpower family). It just surprises me when so many women still choose the same old thing, even when we have all these alternatives.

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Battenburg Cake, take one

For a long time, battenburg cake has been nothing but a fond memory, something I associate with overseas travel and squished Marks and Spencer packages secreted in returning suitcases. Regardless of what it says about our predilections for haute cuisine, the marzipan-wrapped checkerboard has always been considered the height of tea-time snack for my family. In university, my cousin brought me one that was so squashed I had to eat the entire thing by balling up the crumbs with my fingers, which is exactly what I did.

There is research that points to the tendency of immigrants to cling ferociously to homeland trends and cultural practices, even when they are no longer practiced in the native country. Four generations and counting after my ancestors set forth from Great Britain (all corners of it), the idea of afternoon tea and cake is our idea of a rocking good time. I couldn’t tell you if anyone in the UK still actually eats this stuff, or if it’s on the same level as jello salad.

I have no idea why it took me 25.5 years to make battenburg cake, or why nobody else in my family ever attempted it. The idea of making my own, not from England and at least a week old, was so foreign that it only dawned on me last year.

After my initial revelation, hesitancy set in. What if it wasn’t as good? I couldn’t find a recipe with US measurements and I don’t have a kitchen scale. Should the cake be almond flavoured, or plain? Would I have to waste lots of cake while shaping it?

These fears were groundless. The internet took care of conversions, it was easy to put together (and now I have a bunch of frozen cake bits with which to make cake pops), and it’s delicious. Okay, not groundbreaking – I’m going to try again with a fancier sponge cake recipe – but damn good. Just like I remembered. I ate it one square at a time, and am already being cajoled by my family to make some for them. For tea.

Watching me train my dog would be terrible television

It is with great joy (and some trepidation, lest I invoke Murphy’s Law by saying it) that I announce to the world that the Brain Fairy has arrived chez Gatsby.

To those without the dubious pleasure of owning a great dane puppy, the Brain Fairy is a magical being who arrives long after you’ve expended your patience (and savings) on your dog and have come to accept a far lower standard of dog behaviour and cleanliness than you ever thought possible pre-leash. Just when you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that you have the worst dog in the world, the Brain Fairy comes and delivers to your canine companion some much-needed and previously missing cerebral matter, granting him (in our case) the ability to listen and vaguely comprehend what you’re begging telling him to do.

In other words, Gatsby is finally (almost) living up to the “great” in “great dane.” That might still be aiming high, but he’s at least a good dane now, whereas for a long time he was sitting at mediocre.

He no longer jumps on me during walks, which is great, because it was super embarrassing for two reasons:

1. people who watched Caesar Millan would judge me for not being the “pack leader;”
2. if I was wearing leggings he would sometimes pull them down.

He does still very occasionally grab the leash and try to tug it a bit, but instead of those escalating into a full-on jump storm, he stops when I tell him to. It’s revolutionary.

This whole “listening to us” thing is what’s really new, and indicating the development of some new synaptic pathways in there. It’s as though before, we were like Charlie Brown’s teacher to him – just a random horn that occasionally said his name or gave him a cookie, and didn’t seem to like playing rough. Now, though, when we give a command, you can see the gears turning – albeit still very slowly (maybe they’re rusty?) – as he puts the words together and (often) does what we tell him (or something close).

Heeling will be our next big focus – he’ll usually trot along happily on a loose leash but still gets far too excited around lots of people or dogs. Danes are supposed to be aloof and not that interested in people, but Gatsby is the most sociable dog in the world. He can tell from 100 metres away if someone is itching to come up and tell us how big he is and pet him. Unfortunately, people are often so eager to pet him that they don’t listen to us when we tell them that Gatsby has to sit first, so I’m going to have to start being more rude to his fan club.

I’d like to get him off the prong and using only the martindale by the end of the summer – so people stop coming up and lecturing me about how I’m torturing my dog, and also so that he’s a step closer to the canine good neighbour requirements. I’m going to start doing dedicated heel training with him at times other than our walks, so he gets better at focusing on where I’m moving, and with any luck that will pay off.

All this to say that it gets better (sorry, Dan Savage, I stole your line). A giant breed puppy is a lot more work than a smaller dog, because it matters that he be well-trained, and they’re so much slower to mature than small dogs that even at 18 months, he’s still considered a puppy (and is still growing!). Real dog training is not instantaneous like it is on TV; it doesn’t even happen in the hour-a-week obedience courses in which your dog is the worst one there. It happens verrrry slowwwwwwwwly over hundreds of walks, thousands of recalls, and countless litres of drool.