June 16th

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lil braids!
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this entire plate of food went onto the floor & she had cookies for lunch instead
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making tortilla chips all afternoon forever
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tiniest baby fuchsia
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Taylor went to a one-day conference this week. He brought home two chocolate cupcakes from a boutique cupcakerie: one filled with caramel and the other filled with cream and topped with a Oreo cookie. I ate them both while Gwen was napping and Sym was at school so I wouldn’t have to share. This was poor planning on my part, as I felt very ill after.

On Saturday morning we were walking down our street behind the farmer’s market stalls (I wanted to go pet these two big fluffy white Samoyeds that belong to a women who works for one of the vendors) and a woman with two little boys walked by us and said about Gwen: “Walking now? She’s so big, but I guess I haven’t seen you in a long time,” and I had NO IDEA who it was. It wasn’t until later in the afternoon when I realized who she was:

She moved into my neighborhood a few years ago, pregnant with her first child. They live on the corner opposite a preschool I used to drop off/pick up kids at so I’d see her, her partner and eventually, their baby, all the time. After a while I saw that she was pregnant again, with her second baby. This was back when I was still trying to convince Taylor to even try to have a baby with me, and I literally started bawling my eyes out to him about how come SHE got to have TWO babies and I didn’t even get to have ONE, it’s not fair, wah wah wah. I guess my wah-wah-wahing worked though, because it can’t have been much longer after that I finally got Taylor to agree to have a baby.

On Sunday to celebrate his caving in to my hysteria I made blueberry/raspberry/white chocolate pancakes for a Father’s Day brunch. Gwen’s gift to him (she assisted with the online ordering) was a beard care set from the Dr K Soap Company, and my gift was not getting on his case about playing computer games & reading comic books all afternoon (also some hot dog-print boxer shorts, lol).

One of my favourite books in the whole world is Hens Dancing by Raffaella Barker. My mom lent? gave? me a copy forever ago, but someone borrowed it from me and never returned it, so I hadn’t read it in a long time. A couple years ago I put it on my Christmas list and that was when I discovered there was a sequel, called Summertime. I asked for that one as well and Taylor ordered them both for me.

Unfortunately Hens Dancing didn’t arrive until well after Christmas- I think I got it as a birthday gift instead- and Summertime never arrived. I think maybe it was out of print? Taylor just got a series of emails from Amazon saying “we’re having trouble locating this book, would you like a refund instead?” This went on for OVER A YEAR and finally they just cancelled the order and refunded him.

Since I received it I think I’ve re and re-read Hens Dancing half a dozen times. It’s just so familiar and soothing! I read it again the other week and after I finished it it was driving me crazy that I couldn’t read the sequel, so last Friday I decided to check again online to see if Summertime was available at all. Well GUESS WHAT it was, and not only that it was available for kindle for $3.50. I purchased it immediately and as soon as Gwen went for her nap I adjourned to the bath to read it.

Maybe I’d built it up too much, or the familiarity of Hens Dancing coloured my opinion, but I was kind of disappointed? The main character seemed kind of stupid and mean, a subplot about her customizing clothing in idiotic ways and selling them to fancy boutiques was silly, some secondary characters were left out and others appeared to have had a personality transplant. Worst of all, everyone was constantly telling the protagonist (a divorced mother of three) that she should get married, she needed to get married, there was no way she could possibly successfully raise her kids if she didn’t get married. This was a theme that was not at all present in the first book and I found it very off-putting. idk, I’m going to re-read it a few dozen million times and maybe it will grow on me, haha.

One Reply to “June 16th”

  1. I love the big-girl hairdo!

    I didn’t like the Hens Dancing sequel, either. Very disappointing, after the first book was so cool. I felt as if Raffaela Barker had changed, so her writing changed with her. Maybe she’s not so nice now. Seemed bitter.

    I always want to meet these people and ask them.

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