August 4, 2010

Friends from France

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Frédéric and Misun were briefly in Canada. They went on a short cruise with Misun’s par­ents and made a quick stop in Ottawa so nat­u­rally I took the chance to see them. It was a lovely evening for a bar­be­cue and eat­ing out in the sun.

It’s so inter­est­ing to hear about every­thing they’re doing with their lit­tle art gallery stu­dio, adding to my excite­ment of vis­it­ing them in a few months.

Greetings

Seeing the new baby. Mommy barely looks like she was preg­nant, and Frédéric looks like he’s been eat­ing well in France.

watching Miric

Miric tests out the paper air­plane launcher I bought the boys. It was one of the few non-violent toys I could find in Toys R Us.

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June 27, 2010

Bobby’s number two

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I’ve been itch­ing to play around with some new footage lately cause I love edit­ing and it’s been a while since I had a good story to tell, so when Tiana invited me to Bobby’s sec­ond birth­day party, I couldn’t resist. I also recently pur­chased some new gear in prepa­ra­tion of a wed­ding I’ve been hired to film in the Fall (with a sec­ond one poten­tially lined up), and I’ve been look­ing for an oppor­tu­nity to field-test a new bag, shoul­der strap, and monopod.

I tend to get really shy at Tiana’s par­ties cause I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t know any­one else there, but she does a good job of mak­ing sure I’m never left alone for too long and included in most con­ver­sa­tions. She’s also the only other per­son I know to actu­ally design cus­tom invi­ta­tions. This time, how­ever, she was sport­ing a perky new hair­cut, and no longer a veg­e­tar­ian (for now). Such is the power of St. Hubert.

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June 16, 2010

Baby talk

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One sum­mer in my teenage years, I vol­un­teered at a kinder camp1, and that filled a gap in my knowl­edge about any­one under 10. Unfortunately, that gap only spanned chil­dren between 3 and 5, and aside from that range, I knew noth­ing about kids.

So inter­act­ing with chil­dren who’ve yet learned to speak I found espe­cially awk­ward. I never under­stood how to talk to some­one who didn’t seem to under­stand what I was say­ing. It was like talk­ing to a stuffed ani­mal, which I’m pretty sure can’t be done by any sane per­son with­out feel­ing creepy.

Rosella in the car

 

Not to men­tion how phony it sounds. Why do peo­ple raise their voices, as if a child trusts them more if they sound like them2? They don’t nor­mally talk like that.

Then I real­ized that I do kitty talk, with the boospy, and the schmoopsy, and the pokey of the belly. I talk to my cat all the time, a habit I’ve prob­a­bly picked up from liv­ing by myself for the last three years, com­bined with the fact that I’m an extreme intro­vert and stay in my house for the major­ity of my time.

Which is strange because Dolly doesn’t under­stand any­thing I’m say­ing (though I’m sure cats are intel­li­gent enough to evolve to talk if they believed any­thing a human had to say could be impor­tant). And this is after I wrote an entry seven years ago, specif­i­cally about how awk­ward I found it to talk­ing to cats.

Maybe I’m com­fort­able enough with cats now to hold a con­ver­sa­tion with one. Or maybe I’m going crazy.

Rosella with tongue out

 

I’m get­ting more com­fort­able with kids too. Not just talk­ing to them, but the idea of hav­ing them myself, maybe because my friends are get­ting mar­ried and giv­ing birth and I’m spend­ing more time with a few adorable boys and girls. I can talk to them even though they only respond in monosyllables.

Jodie Foster once described hav­ing chil­dren as the most cre­ative thing she’s ever done, and I com­pletely under­stand that now. I can’t think of any­thing more cre­ative than nur­tur­ing growth, curios­ity, imag­i­na­tion, and ideas in another human being. One day, I’d like to expe­ri­ence it for myself.

  1. Cause I had noth­ing bet­ter to do. Seriously. [↑]
  2. Though it worked for Owen Meany. [↑]
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March 28, 2010

Tiana’s 29th

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Also fea­tur­ing Bobby Hurricane.

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September 19, 2009

Protected: A New View On Kids

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October 14, 2008

Baby Gensey

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Baby tongue

Introducing Ryan Kevin Gensey, Aaron’s new baby boy, deliv­ered right on the pro­jected date. I bought him the tur­tle you see in the cor­ner of his bas­ket there.

Baby birth card

I had the chance to hold him before he was a day old in the hos­pi­tal. At first, I approached this idea with some trep­i­da­tion, see­ing as how I carry the pre­con­ceived notion of how frag­ile baby’s necks are, but I couldn’t resist. He’s a lot lighter than Dolly, but some­how just as warm.

Baby foot

Aaron has always wanted a boy first and a girl sec­ond — so the older brother can take care of the younger sis­ter — and it looks like every­thing is falling into the plan.

I’m now offi­cially an uncle.

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February 9, 2007

To Eat And To Forgive

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It’s Friday. Pizza day. At Louise’s house, the par­ents don’t feel like cook­ing, and the kids get a treat.

The slices are out. The salad’s in the serv­ing bowl. Everyone has an accom­mo­dat­ing fork, nap­kin, and slice. I see Eric move a hand to his face in the cor­ner of my eye, and assume that he’s started eating.

As the guest, this means I’m allowed to eat too. I take a bite out of my slice, but before I can even chew, I real­ize that Eric was just scratch­ing his beard. With a smile on his face, he says “Don’t for­get about grace, Jeff”.

It’s a dou­ble whammy.

Not only am I a rude guest, mis­tak­enly eat­ing first, but I’m a hea­then too, dis­re­spect­ful of their religion.

It reminded me of some­thing that hap­pened when I was a teenager. Matt was over. Pizza night. As the guest, Matt got the first slice. He waited while the rest were being handed out, but my dad, with­out any sense of for­mal­ity, took a bite as soon as he had one. Neither of my par­ents noticed, but there was a star­tled look on Matt’s face. He quickly closed his eyes, held a fist to his face (not a clenched one, but as if hold­ing the beads of a Rosary), and said a prayer in his head.

I always imag­ined that it went, “ThankyouGodforthispizzaandformygracioushosts”, because he was done so quickly.

It made me won­der, what was in that look? What do those who ask thanks of their meal think of those who don’t? What do Christians think of those who don’t say grace? What do Muslims think of those who don’t fast? Are we unap­pre­cia­tive? Do we take our food for granted?

Eric’s tone is kind though, not con­de­scend­ing or judg­men­tal, as if to say, “We only ask you to do this for the sake of our kids”.

Louise asks Sarah if she’d like to say grace. She sings a song that bears a strik­ing — excuse the pun — resem­blance to the melody of the Westminster quar­ters (along with choreography).

Hark to the chimes (arms held upwards and open)
Come bow your head (hands together in prayer)
We thank thee lord (arms upward again)
For this good bread (hands together again)

But as a seven-year-old, Sarah doesn’t know the right words. She says “heart” instead of “hark”. “You” instead of “thee”.

No one men­tions it though. Not every­one is per­fect. One can be forgiven.

Even me, I hope.

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July 13, 2005

Today I Hit The Snooze

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I also dressed down, and stole a drink from work. Two of my best friends finally met each other. They got along famously, bet­ter than any of my other friends in the past. I sup­ported one on the biggest deci­sion of his life. The other told me that I had always been her hope­ful out of the round of inter­views for my job, over a chicken sand­wich and some onion rings. I learned the four Cs of dia­mond appraisal, and saw a car­bon spec through a loupe for the first time.

I met two cats; one rolled into my lap while play­ing Double Dash with the best kids in the world. A fam­ily inspired me, and I dared to dream of some day hav­ing my own.

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April 20, 2003

Talking To Cats

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I had the plea­sure of tak­ing care of Nala while Trolley and Wheaties were home for the long week­end. She greeted me with loud protes­ta­tions, angry that her care­taker had left her alone in the house for two days so far. Alas, it was only me who had arrived, a stranger she hadn’t got­ten com­fort­able with yet. She fol­lowed me around at first, and watched as I filled up her food and water dishes. After a while she real­ized that I was the only one com­ing. “Where is my slave?”, she demanded, and ran off to sleep under the kitchen table.

I tried to talk to her, to let her know that her com­pany would be back in two more days. I asked if she was alright, if she was bored or sleepy or energetic.

It felt…a lit­tle odd…to be so ver­bose with a cat. I con­sider myself to be a sane per­son. At the same time, I real­ize that cats can­not answer back. A strange lit­tle paradox.

I find myself in the same sit­u­a­tion around chil­dren. When a kid asks me a ques­tion to which the answer is beyond his com­pre­hen­sion, I don’t know what to say. I become rather embar­rassed that I’ve been placed in such a sit­u­a­tion. Do I tell this child the truth, or do I give a sac­cha­rine answer? Do I attempt to shed some con­scious­ness on a child’s life, or do I let him/her remain in a bliss­ful child­hood ignorance?

Any deci­sion can be thought of in a bad way. I never know what to say, so I gen­er­ally don’t answer back.

I still talk to Dolores though.

For there can be no judge­ment there.

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February 24, 2003

Imbalance

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I think Dolly may be inter­ested in hav­ing another cat around the house. I’ve been play­ing some cat sounds, and no mat­ter where she is in the apart­ment, she’ll com­ing run­ning into my room. A sec­ond cat is some­thing I only started to con­sider this term. Last term it felt as if I wouldn’t be able to han­dle the chores, let alone dou­bling my annual vet­eri­nar­ian bill. Sometimes she seems lonely though, like when she imme­di­ately starts to cry when I walk in the door after a day of school, her protest­ing only being soothed after pick­ing her up, and being replaced by a low purr. I’ve always seen myself as a one cat per­son; I think I’d feel a lit­tle imbal­anced if I had more than one. If I do decide to get one, it will def­i­nitely be after I grad­u­ate, def­i­nitely after I find a sta­ble job, and pos­si­bly after I can pur­chase a condo. It would be more for Dolly than for me though. I can’t imag­ine find­ing another cat that is as well-adapted as she is, so the idea scares me a little.

One time I dis­cussed with Pita whether he would ever con­sider get­ting two dogs. He said that he couldn’t, not just because it would be much harder to han­dle, but because he would feel more favourable to one or the other.

The idea of favour is one that I haven’t been able to under­stand. How can par­ents love all their kids with­out lik­ing one more than the other, espe­cially when one fol­lows the desires of the par­ents more closely. It might be some­thing I don’t under­stand, being an only child. If such a bal­ance is pos­si­ble, wouldn’t polyg­a­mous rela­tion­ships work as well? I think part of the mis­un­der­stand­ing stems from my con­fu­sion of rela­tional love and parental love as well.

For love is the root of my imbalance.

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November 1, 2002

The Question Of Kids

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I just received (within 10 min­utes) a one page let­ter deny­ing my appli­ca­tion to become a Big Brother. It greatly, greatly sad­dens me. I wish I knew why they decided this, but they aren’t at lib­erty to dis­cuss it. I actu­ally had to sign some­thing acknowl­edg­ing that if I was rejected, I wouldn’t know why, if the orga­ni­za­tion chose not to tell me.

I’ll always won­der why I was not allowed this oppor­tu­nity. I thought I’d be good at it, but I’m sure that this com­mit­tee of peo­ple know bet­ter than I. After all, I have lit­tle expe­ri­ence with younger peo­ple. I just wish some­one could under­stand how much this would have meant to me.

I won­der if it could be my matu­rity. If it could be my time restraints. My rela­tion­ship with my par­ents. My being a good hater. Could it be that they feel my motives are out of self­ish­ness? Could it be that one of my ref­er­ences gave me a bad rep­u­ta­tion? Or sim­ply that I’m not the right kind of per­son for the job? I really have no idea, since I believe that I gave an extremely good impres­sion at the interview.

I always believed that my expe­ri­ence with par­ent­ing would help me become a good par­ent myself. Many peo­ple whom I’ve spo­ken to believe this of me as well. Yet, the idea of hav­ing chil­dren of my own still scares me. It’s the idea that I am in con­trol of some­one else’s life, when I believe that my own life will always be full of entropy. What hap­pens to my child if I ever got divorced? What hap­pens if I ever died? So many uncer­tain­ties make the whole idea very frightening.

I also don’t believe I have the capac­ity to love in this man­ner. It’s not a pater­nal emo­tion that I have been able to develop or learn. I have my reasons.

The sub­ject of kids has always been present in my rela­tion­ships, and it’s usu­ally been a source of conflict.

About three years ago I came upon a site called WebMD. It’s a pretty good resource for health issues, and psy­chol­ogy issues. One of their events was a chat ses­sion with a par­ent­ing expert, and I couldn’t help but try to ask a ques­tion that I had been ask­ing myself at the time. The tran­script can be found here (my name was jesterz_webmd).

At the time, I felt like her answer was quite unconventional.

I had been brought up my whole life think­ing that I needed chil­dren of my own to be happy. I sud­denly real­ized that think­ing this way was not for every­one, and that not hav­ing kids could be as ful­fill­ing as rais­ing kin. It was then that I decided that I most likely wouldn’t have chil­dren of my own.

Then again, I was only 19 on the time.

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