Expozine

I'm at Expozine in Montreal this weekend, selling copies of my book and zines to kind members of the public. I forgot how much I like these kinds of events, even though they are cramped and busy and crowded.



From years of tabling at events like this I've made friends with a lot of writers and zine makers. This year I'm in a long row of tables with Adam Thomlison (40 Watt Spotlight), Jesse Staniforth (Querencia Zine) and Jeff Miller (Ghost Pine). All great writers and excellent friends. Jeff's partner Sarah organized the panel discussions and readings that go along with the event. Jesse's partner Ang is DJing at day two of the fair this afternoon. I've enjoyed spending a weekend surrounded by so many creative friends.



I didn't buy anything for myself yesterday, I figured I'd sleep on it and pick up some treats later today. The Drawn and Quarterly table is calling to me. Loudly.



Today we have another 6 hours of tabling and then I'm packing up the two Adams I drove here with and heading back to the more manageable chaos of the House of Science where I will lavish the Man of Science and all the pets with my affection.

J.

Dog Park

I've spent a lot of time in Sandy Hill over the past three years, but as most of you know, I didn't live here until May of 2009. When the Man of Science and I decided to move in together, several people asked me, "Well, why can't he just move in with you?" I looked at them like they were bonkers. A one bedroom rented apartment with no backyard was just no contest for an owned three bedroom house with outdoor space big enough for dogs and a garden, no matter how much I loved Cambridge Street North. I made up mind to happily cohabitate with my partner and our pets in this new neighbourhood.

Sandy Hills charms were not readily obvious, especially because I moved in just as the legions of Ottawa U students were throwing their last hurrah parties before going back to their parents' homes for the summer. Students, for the most part, are unappealing neighbours. They do not have roots in the community and this can lead to a lack of consideration for those of us who live here full time. Plus, on a more personal level, I didn't know anyone in this neighbourhood when I moved here. And I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to meet people. It made me feel kind of cranky and isolated, after coming from a street where I lived within seconds of several good friends and many more acquaintances.

In August, the park behind the Sandy Hill Community Centre re-opened after two years of construction and remodeling. The park is lovely, with a wide, sunken expanse of grass, and a separate section full of climbing structures and wading pools and swing sets. And the best part, for us and many other community members, is that the park is designated as an off-leash space for dogs.

Immediately, I started taking our three dogs there at 5 PM when I finished work. The dogs loved running around with their fellow neighbourhood canines and I loved actually talking to people in my neighbourhood who were interesting. Some of the dog owners have lived here for over 20 years. Some, like me, have just moved recently. There are parents with children who bring both their dogs and their kids to the park. There are people who work from home and welcome the daily oppourtunity to come outside and chat with their neighbours. There are some big dogs, but most of them are little. The largest one, Robbie, is an energetic rottweiler who steals the tennis balls that my dogs like to play with. He wags his tail when I stick my hands in his mouth to take the balls back.

Early on in our time at the dog park, a group of us arrived at around 5 PM and, as usual, let our dogs off their leashes to run. A young mom with her one-year-old was sitting on the grass at one side of the park. I could see that she was looking uncomfortable as the park filled up with dogs, but I figured there were plenty of places for her to go and sit away from the animals, so I didn't worry about it. As I said, there is a separate children's area at the far end of the park, complete with benches for sitting and lots of space for kids to play.

Eventually, she got up from where she was sitting and started walking out of the park with her child in her arms. She had a medium sized inflatable ball with her which, instead of picking up and carrying with her, she started kicking ahead of her as she walked through the centre of the off-leash portion of the park. Perhaps you can see where this is going. One of the dogs, no doubt thinking this was yet another one of the many balls that get thrown around for the park dogs to play with, grabbed the ball and started to run with it. By the time the ball was retrieved, it had been punctured.

The woman with the child was livid. She demanded that that the dogs owners pay for the ball and said that she was going to call Councilor Bédard and have dogs banned from the park. Which, frankly, I think was a bit of an over-reaction.

That was the only incident of its kind that I was present for, but there have been at least three other instances of parents coming into the park to tell dog owners that they shouldn't have off-leash privileges because it makes things dangerous for children playing in the park.

Here's what I think:

-Dog owners and parents both have responsibilities. As a dog owner, I would not bring a dog to the park who I could not control, and I would not bring a dog to a park if that dog was likely to pursue and attack a child (or an adult for that matter!) because it's my responsibility to deal with my own animal. Most of the people who are bringing their dogs to the park for quality exercise and outdoor play, are responsible dog owners.

- I believe that parents need to teach their children how to deal with dogs safely (i.e. allow the dog to sniff their hand before petting the dog, don't run after the dog or scream at the dog, ask the owner if you can touch the dog etc) the same way they would teach their children how to be careful crossing the street. I don't know that banning dogs from the park is the automatic answer to some parents' concerns about what might happen to their children.

-The park is there for the good of the community. One group of people (parents) does not automatically gain priority over another group of people (dog owners). Especially because, to my knowledge, there have been no significant examples of dog owners misusing the park and recklessly endangering children.

-Dog owners use the park primarily between the hours of 4:30 and 6:30 PM. That's two hours, maximum, on most days. If people are concerned about off-leash dogs, why not suggest a compromise whereby the off-leash hours of the park are limited to those two hours? I don't think there are a lot of parents bringing their children to the park around the dinner hours anyway, it would probably not be a major loss for them.

-The park was designed and built with the aid of extensive community consultation. It was an off-leash park prior to being renovated, and it is still an off-leash park. This has already been discussed and resolved. Even in the minutes from the Action Sandy Hill meeting on October 27, 2009, Councilor Bédard said that "any change in the park designation as a dog park would require community consultation." We are all part of the community, dog owners and parents alike. If a clear problem with the use of the park develops then I agree that a community consultation would be the only logical route.

J.

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halloween

Finding the perfect halloween costume is a bit of a challenge for me. I don't do sexy. I don't do scary. I am a lousy actress and can't pull of either with any conviction. I never want to dress up as something that would have to be relentlessly explained, nor to I want to be something boring and overdone. Perhaps it's been a blessing in disguise that I've been out of town for the past three Halloweens and hence unable to participate.

The costume I wore the year prior to my three years off was easily one of my favourites:



It combined my love of all-girl bands and comic books. I wore it to a party and got so drunk I put my shoes on someone else's couch.



Highly impolite. And blind as a bat. Josie didn't wear glasses. Oh, but I do. So I was a very nearsighted pussycat for that entire evening.

This year I wanted an equally nerdy, cartoon girl costume, but one that would allow me to wear my own glasses without wrecking the effect. Enter Velma Dinkley.



I found an orange turtleneck sweater, a red skirt, and a brown wig at Value Village. But do you know how hard it is to find orange knee socks? No, of course you don't. Because no one wants orange knee socks unless they are compiling a Velma Dinkley costume.* I had to settle for orange and red argyle socks that, while they may not be what she wore, were certainly in the spirit of Ms. Dinkley.



I was pleased with my costume, to say the least. I even made up a Velma dance** that looked kind of like this:



I plan to be nerdy cartoon girls for halloween for the rest of my life.

Halloween itself was fun, though mostly because I got to hang out with Luchador Megan*** the whole time.



We went to both the Certain Sort lady party at the Buzz (where lots of people danced to music I didn't really like) and to the Centretown Massacre curling club party (where hardly anyone danced to music that I liked quite a lot). At the first party we spent a lot of time with Stella who was Megan's formiddable opponent.



But my favourite costume of the night was Julie, who dressed as Marge Simpson's recent Playboy centrefold.



All in all, it was a relatively low key evening. I was still getting over a week-long cold and Megan was distracted by her impending work trip to Montreal. We both agreed that if it wasn't Halloween we wouldn't have ventured out into the world at all. Still, we managed to enjoy ourselves in our usual wise-cracking/gossiping/giggling kind of way. And I can't ask for much more than that. But next year? I'm going back to Fest.

J.


*In fact Danielle, friend of mine and singer in the excellent Pillowfights, responded to my Facebook complaint about finding orange knee socks by saying, "Velma Dinkley? I've had this problem before."

** Not nearly as amazingly funny as Megan's Wrestler dance which I couldn't get enough of.

*** "My wrestler name would be The Butcher. Obviously."

Octoparty

Next Friday I'll be reading as part of the Octopus Books 40th Anniversary Party at the Carleton Tavern. I am so happy to be a part of the event that I'm not even going to Fest this year. Yeah, that's big time happy.

Mostly I'm happy that Octopus exists now and has existed for 40 years. I started working at Octopus in 2001 and worked there on and off in various capacities until I got my current job in 2006. It remains my favourite of all the places I have ever worked.

Octopus Books is cosy and quirky and unpredictable. It is full of delightful books and delightful people and it shows that there are options beyond Amazon and Chapters for book buying. A place where people can recommend something for your communist cousin or your tea-drinking mother-in-law. Many of the books I have really loved in recent years have come from the store. And working there meant that I always had people around to discuss books with. I remember being shocked, during one of my spells of full time Octopus employment, that other people in the world didn't care who won the Governor General's Award for Fiction.

Octopus is an excellent little world in the middle of our less-than-excellent bigger world. I hope I get to read at its 80th anniversary party too. If you live in Ottawa, I hope you can come and celebrate with us.

J.

A Peaceful Saturday Afternoon

Our dogs are often seen passed out on various pieces of furniture, however they do have their moments of chaos, usually when someone is trying to relax or when we're watching a television show that requires concentration.

J.

5 Things I Like Right Now

I'm sure it would be more appropriate to talk about things I'm thankful for, seeing that it is Thanksgiving and all, but I've been meaning to do a link list for a while. So here are some things, internet and non-internet, that I've been enjoying lately.

Photos: The Dogs On the Furniture Pool on Flickr

I often post my dog photos to this Pool and then click back through a whole bunch of the other posted photos. Some of them are very pretty photos and others are just, uh, hilarious like this one titled "Nocturnal Poodle Magnet".

Blog: Jenna Woginrich's Cold Antler Farm

I just finished Jenna's book Made From Scratch which chronicles her first attempts at a self-sufficient life. It was a great read, half good stories, half practical instructions for everything from beekeeping to sewing. It is directly as a result of this book that I started attempting to sew clothing, something I've never really done before.

TV Show: Escape To River Cottage

Similarly, I have been enjoying episodes of this BBC show about a chef who leaves London to live off the land at his "small holding". Each episode shows him bartering with locals to get food and resources while he also catches fish and grows vegetables at his new home. There is a bit too much of the killing and eating of animals for me, but he also hires some very entertaining vegan mouse banishers who then come for a dinner of risotto and refer to meat eaters as "corpse crunchers" which I found amusing.

Book: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

This book was magical. I never read anything running related because I can just not get into the take-yourself-super-seriously cult of running. But this? A book written by a novelist who loves running? About how running related to writing? Totally my thing. It was simple and funny and inspiring and full of subtle advice about running and writing and life in general.

Place: My new sewing/guest room

Our guest room has unpainted walls and no floor and we're leaving it that way for at least the winter (long story, to be explained eventually) so we decided to make the best of it and buy some rugs and furniture to make it livable. I got the chair for $20 at Value Village and am very in love with it. It is old, in good shape, simple, and comfortable. Score! The cabinet took the Man of Science 5 hours to assemble and bolt to the wall, but it serves our purposes perfectly. And the bed is there for Lesley when she comes to visit. Oh, and for other visitors too.

J.

Stayed Up Late

Megan's birthday was this weekend so it was time to celebrate. Megan's friend and neighbour, Shelley, threw a cocktail party-type deal on Saturday night and flocks of well wishers showed up in their best attire. Shelley is a truly excellent hostess. Every time I turned around she was handing me a martini or a piece of vegan chocolate pate with raspberry sauce. Now that's a party.

After I'd lost count of my martini numbers and traded in my shiny, red high heels for more practical flat boots, Megan, Guybrarian, and I took off to Babylon to enjoy The White Wires. I told the door guy it was Megan's birthday and he let us all in for free. An excellent score. There was dancing, and more drinking, and 7 inch buying, and then I wandered home and fell into bed at 2 AM. Approximately four hours later than my usual, nerdy bedtime.

Pictured above, in case you were wondering, is my birthday gift for Megan. A Fashion Crimes Bingo card. It's in a frame, but if we wanted to, we could copy it and take it to rock shows and cluck our tongues at the girls who wear tube tops and heels in the middle of a frenzied dance floor. Yes we are old, cranky ladies. It's what we like about each other.

J.