Mrs. Hilksom's Three Thousand Km Footrace

Parenting Two Kids

Ashley Bristowe — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:17:05 GMT

Riley Park, Kensington, Calgary.

Rotary International Ambassadorial Cutbacks

Ashley Bristowe — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:19:19 GMT

I was very sorry to hear that tomorrow, due to the financial crisis and its impact on RI endowments and accounts, Rotary International will be terminating their funding for their Ambassadorial Scholarships.

It was under this program that I earned my year in India & Pakistan in 1999-2000. In that time Turner and I studied Hindi/Urdu in Mussoorie; read a lot of Indian literature in English; met & came to love Carla, Sunit, Angad and the Chowdhrys; lived in Shimla with Nazko; had many dear friends and family to visit; and learned a whole hell of a lot about a whole hell of a lot. Neither of us would be the people we are today if it hadn't been for that scholarship.

Those who visited us were also directly affected by this scholarship, listed in the chronological order of your visits:
Bruce Bristowe (March 2000)
Valerie Bristowe & Michael Garvey (April 2000)
Ainsley Bristowe Sullivan, Sunday Kayaras Sbrozzi (April 2000)
Claire Lording (May 2000)
Mark Magee (May 2000)
Sean Monkman & Keitha Robert (June 2000)
Alex Luckhurst Van Tol & Colin Van Tol (July 2000)
Jenna Roussy (August - September 2000)

Although many of you know that my experience with Rotary Clubs in India and Indian Rotarians was particularly (and spectacularly) disappointing, it's worth remembering that the Canadian district (7080) that chose me as their scholar was hugely supportive to me, and their clubs gave me wonderful support both before and after my stay abroad. And the Pakistani Rotarians I worked with were awesome. For the record, if you ever thought you might want to give money to an NGO or Rotary club that would use it wisely, I definitely recommend the Rotary Club of Lahore Garrison.

I am very, very sorry to hear that this scholarship is becoming defunct. Tonight I raise a glass to RI, and to the Ambassadorial Scholarship. You should, too. Thank you, Rotary.

Dressing In The Morning

Ashley Bristowe — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:56:52 GMT

Ashley: Ok Sloaner, c' mon get your socks on.
Sloane: (spies the shoes I'm holding) Crocs?
A: Yes. They'll match your dress. C'mon.
Sl: I don't have to wear socks with the Crocs.
A: Yes you do. They told me that you always have to wear socks.
Sl: But I don't have to at school.
A: You can ask Deb when you get there. C'mere.
Sl: I don't want to wear socks!
A: Lookit, sit down. They're blue, they match everything else you're wearing. It'll be good. Come here.
Sl: (looking at herself, realizing that her whole outfit is blue) Ohhh? They, they'll call me the Blue Girl!
A: No they won't and it doesn't matter. C'mon. Gimme your foot. I have to put these socks on you.
Sl: Mama, Debbie will let me wear no socks with the Crocs.
A: That's fine! Fine! But you have to GO to school in the socks. Because when I've sent you to school in sandals with so socks, they get mad at me. Come here.
Sl: They won't get mad.
A: They will. COME. HERE.
Sl: (putting out her foot)
A: Good girl.
Sl: They won't get mad.
A: They will. They get mad. Their hair falls out.
Sl: ...Mama, actually, their hair doesn't fall out.

That Alexander Smile

Ashley Bristowe — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:48:59 GMT

Alexander is juuuuuust about smiling these days.

Reminds me of the look on Mowgli's face at the water hole, in the animated Jungle Book.

Working

Ashley Bristowe — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:57:28 GMT

I have very few photos of myself working. I suppose most people don't have photos of themselves working. Ooh, here's me, sitting at a desk. And me, on the telephone. Ah, here's one of me in a meeting... We all know what it looks like to sit in front of a computer, or zone out at a boardroom table, so it's perhaps not something we even need to see ourselves doing in photographic form. But my working life is unconventional, and I do all sorts of things. Although I spend much of each day working, I don't have a good idea of what I look like when I'm working, or indeed what my work "looks like".

I have a photo of myself from when I was working in radio. It's poorly composed. I'm barely in the shot, just caught in the bottom left corner. I'm in headphones and holding a microphone. The print was sent to me by one of the people I was interviewing that day, who stepped back and got the shot on her crappy automatic film camera.

I have that photo framed on my desk. I love it. It reminds me that I'm destined to find my way back to radio, kicking ass and taking names when the time comes. And until recently it was the only photo I had of me working.

Now, I have another. This week Turner and I have been working on his upcoming story for Alberta Views about The Rural Alberta Advantage, a band being featured in Calgary's Sled Island music festival. Turner found the RAA on one of his music listserves sometime last year, and we've been listening to them ever since, the best undiscovered band in Canada right now.

I was shooting the band Thursday night in the alley out back from Broken City, and after the individual portraits I was setting up the group shot. Turner was on hand and picked up the D70 + fisheye and took a few shots of us as I was demonstrating how I wanted Nils Edenloff to lean against the wall.

Thanks, T!

Butterfly Garden

Ashley Bristowe — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:32:19 GMT

Our neighbour Carol-Lynn dropped by a few weeks ago with a gift: a plastic container with some caterpillars inside. Oh! sez we. How nice! sez we. Thanks! sez we.

She gave us the instructions (uh, watch and see, they'll go into chysalis soon, and then emerge as butterflies... let them out when they emerge... don't leave the container outside or they'll freeze if it frosts... that's it) and left.

So we put the container on the mudroom windowsill. And we wandered in there every few days to check it out. After a week or so they all spun themselves little cocoons. Hey, cool!

But then nothing happened for a while. As in, almost three weeks. Actually, I'd come to think that some kind of spider mite or cocoon cough had gotten them and they were dead in there.

Ha ha! Beautiful camouflage, no? sez Nature. But, sez Nature: NOT DEAD!

Because, voila, just yesterday, they hatched! Monarch butterflies, in our very own Spiller Road yard!

Obviously we took them outside, and eventually they all flew away (some on their own, some with some poking-prodding help from Sloaner and Mama), but one of the late bloomers was still there on our fence-side lilac bush the next morning when we went to check.

SUCH a cool gift, thanks Carol-lynn!

Climbing! Mount! Mama! Redux

Ashley Bristowe — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:25:08 GMT

The Climbing! Mount! Mama! game, originally seen here, has proved an enduring favourite. And now we have it on video!

Climbing! Mount! Mamaaaaaa! from Ashley Bristowe on Vimeo.

Loki Would Like You To Know That That... Thing Is In His Spot

Ashley Bristowe — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:35:41 GMT

...and he's not impressed.

Sloaner and Alexander

Ashley Bristowe — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:40:40 GMT

With A Rebel Yell, He Cried "More, More, More"

Ashley Bristowe — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:58:16 GMT

Champion eater, our Alexander at three weeks.

Wedding Goers

Ashley Bristowe — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:30:36 GMT

This past sunday we ventured out into the wide world and Alexander made his official public debut at Auntie Alexis' wedding!

There But For The Grace Of God Go... Oh Right. Us.

Ashley Bristowe — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:41:44 GMT

As a parent, the scariest thing ever to arrive in the world are your own children. Forget monsters, nuclear holocaust, grey hair, or flunking out of school. Your kids have you by the raw-edged basal ganglia dendrites of overwhelming fear from the moment they arrive. Oh the potential dangers that might befall them, all the terrible things that can happen to them: the visions of terror, they are extraordinary. I think everyone with children, and everyone with children in their lives, knows the fear of harm-to-that-child/those-children.

So it has been understandable that in the faces and voices of everyone we know, we've recognized that fear when we tell people about Alexander's first days. Every parent with a small child holds that kid a little tighter while they ask about our new son. And some of them visibly pale while contemplating the inevitable oh my god, oh my god, what if that was my kid. People don't have to even say anything, the empathy is extraordinary. It's a force in the room, a palpable push in the air. And we don't have to explain how it's all affected us, that we've been scared and confused, and then cautiously hopeful, and then carefully elated. We don't have to say any of that. Everyone knows.

Turner and I have spent a lot of hours the last two weeks, alone and together, driving the route between Ramsay and the Rockyview: Highfield Road, Blackfoot, Glenmore, 14th Ave. A lot of minutes watching our boy sleep, hoping he'll eat, tripping over and gathering up and untangling monitor wires. Rocking Alexander to the alarms ringing in the NICU hallways, putting in time on the couch next to the rhythmic drone of the breast pump. Trying to parent him in the hospital, a half-hijacked, part-time venture at best. And attempting to keep our home life sane and normal for Sloane's sake, for our own sakes; having people over for dinner, answering the telephone messages and emails, getting yardwork done in these newly beautiful days of Calgary springtime.

Our boy pulled out his own oxygen face tubes on Saturday, and we decided to let him have another go at 'room air' without the supplement. If he could make it 48 hours without 'desat-ing', he could come home to us. Last night I roomed in on the ward and rocked and fed our son overnight for the first time. And this morning Turner comes to pick us up at NICU, and we're all going home at last.

On one of the glass walls here at the Rockyview NICU there's a sign that just says, "BELIEVE". In the first few days, while everything was so chaotic and sleepless and wrenching, and all around us were tiny babies, many much smaller than Alexander, all of them in such precarious straits, this message seemed weirdly fatalist, vaguely perverse somehow. We didn't like being reminded that we should "believe". Your child just is. They will endure, they will, they will...

Nevertheless. You can tell yourself you're okay. And you can tell each other that you're okay. And you can act like things are okay. But it was something totally else to walk in here yesterday and see him still without the oxygen, and have the doctor congratulate us on his progress and tell us he was on track to be discharged on Monday.

The relief. The flooding relief.