A tiny little bit of my history - Pt. 2

My grandmother waving her hankie to the ship. I'm not sure if it was a send-off or a welcome, but I love this picture..

My mother with my grandparents

More of Mum - I love her with this haircut..

No caption required here, right?

I think this was a birthday celebrated on the ship where she met my father..

I really was a cranky looking baby. Apparently I was the first of the bunch (Mum's close circle of girlfriends) so nobody had much experience and it took a long time for them to realise that I was lactose intolerant.. It can't have been easy.

 

This was the first little house Mum owned. Cute and colourful in Chifley.

Yes. Excited by an iron. Thrilled to bits even. How things change!

I had to include this one. My stepfather couldn't be more seventies!

This was my neighbor, Andrew West I believe. We played Abba in the backyard and believed we were Swedish megastars. 

It's always fun until someone loses their entire lower body.... 

And then there was a baby sister. Cass was the cutest child you've ever seen. I would post so many of my favourite pics of her here but I fear she wouldn't forgive me. Cass hardly wore any clothes until the age of four and I used to love showing pics of her wearing nothing but a string of pearls and a pair of knee-high boots but she was less than impressed! Maybe now that she has her own 2 yr old....... 

Homeward bound

May 22nd:
Montreal --> New York --> Los Angeles --> Sydney --> May 24th: home.

A tiny little bit of my history

A few days ago a friend dropped in with an old photograph she needed to scan; she had bought it from a woman in Havana last month who sold it to her on the street for a dollar. It reminded me of a very old picture I have of my (great?) great grandparents, posing for a portrait before being presented to the Queen. Why they were being presented to the Queen I have no idea (Mum, do you know?) but the photograph itself - ragged and yellowed with age - is really something.

I searched my mac for this and several other family pictures I know I've scanned, but they must be on a hard drive at home. I did find these, mostly of my mother and myself; though not quite as aged, they've satisfied tonight's burning need for 'old family stuff'. And seeing that I'm about to turn fdzxhcfzjhdx years old in a couple of weeks, these must be able to pass for ancient documents right?

(The last two won't quite pass for childhood pics but they were in the folder and I like them)

 

 

Friperie goodness

So on a brighter note, I picked up this little bundle of books for the princely sum of $3.50. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek came with a small shipping fee but has provided me with such beautiful respite from the tedium of the metro rides in the last week, it's more than earned its keep! Thanks to T for the recommendation - I'm so enjoying it.

We took a walk down by the river yesterday and took some pictures. I only had BW film in my cameras so I took a few snapshots with my phone.. but it couldn't capture the beautiful colours against the pale of the landscape. It's a shame we can't get any closer to the river itself near our place; the railway and the industrial buildings along the shore are well fenced and inaccessible. Still, it's a nice walk anyway.

 

Do I stay or do I go? (Thinking aloud)

It's a winter wonderland out there today; big snowflakes waft down past my window, blanketing every surface that last week's sunshine exposed. Inside the cat sleeps to Leonard Cohen and Nina Simone. I lost all of yesterday to a migraine; I lay in bed avoiding daylight, munching on ibuprofen and codeine between sleeps. Today I emerged from the cocoon, grateful that the miniature climbers who spent all of Sunday scaling the walls of my head with crampons and icepicks have finally left. Today all the curtains are open and the whiteness of it all doesn't faze me.

I've been grappling with a decision that is proving difficult to make. Anyone who knows me will know that I'm hopelessly indecisive at the best of times so when it comes to something important I'm a mess. I have a plane ticket from New York to Sydney on March 9 - the return leg of my ticket. So I haven't got long to change the ticket to May, when my current visa expires. Unfortunately the change will incur a fee of around $250 plus the difference in fare to secure a new flight home. And I don't have a spare $250 right now. I don't even have enough to pay my rent this month. Much of my work has been postponed or in some cases, projects have been cancelled or had their funding cut. One of my government clients is being investigated for fraud and another has recently retired. 

If I let the ticket go, and instead stay here in Montreal, Fred and I will have to apply for the de facto visa - where he sponsors me as his spouse - but this will cost us almost $1500 to apply. It will still be months before I can (legally) get work here. If I go I won't have enough to get back here for a long time and Fred won't be able to cover the rent. I'd also have to get to NY (rideshare maybe...) and travel insurance for my computer and other work things I'll need wherever I go. No choice strikes me as being the better one.

Maybe it's time to get that lottery ticket!

There's a curious sense of freedom in not having a clearcut answer, knowing that I could go anywhere in the world really... no one place has a clear advantage over another; anywhere I chose would/could have the same struggles, the same opportunities.

I've been clicking through rental listings in some of my favourite places: the Blue Mountains, Melbourne and here in Montreal too (with lower rents!) I could browse Brooklyn or Reykjavik or some tiny country town somewhere in the middle of nowhere. As long as it had an internet connection or a dire need for graphic designers...

Where would you go if
you had nowhere to go,
...or everywhere? 

Other people's clothes

I always noticed an awkward, clumsy mark or move that kept showing up in my work and I felt that if I could just get rid of that my work would be so much better. No matter what I tried though that clunky thing kept popping up again and again! It took me years until it finally dawned on me that that odd goofy thing was actually me! Everything else was just me putting on other people's clothes.

Robert Kingston

Found here

Dog days