In Which We Attend The Quidditch Global Games 2014 and are Blown Away by Awesomeness

Tags

balls, bludger, brooms, feminism, gender equality, global games 2014, Harry Potter, lgbtq, muggle quidditch, quaffle, quidditch, seeker, snitch, sports, trans equality, transgender, transgender rights, Vancouver

We found out about it totally by accident.

We were at an indoor play gym as part of our constant battle to keep our little extrovert entertained on the weekend. PH picked up a local paper to flip through while we sat in the overwhelmingly loud atmosphere.

“Hey, the Quidditch Global Games are in Vancouver,” he said.

“Like, where people run around on brooms?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, we need to see that. When is it.”

He scanned the article. “Today!”

So we packed Owl in the car and headed down to see.

It took us a while to find it. International competition not withstanding, the Quidditch Global Games had not attracted a large crowd. Most of the spectators were family and friends of the players.

We were geeking out.

“They have MERCHANDISE!” I said, running over to the booth. There were shirts from many of the international teams. After much hemming and hawing I bought shirt from the Mexican team, where were newcomers this year and could only afford to bring half of their team.

The shirt says “Viva Quidditch, cabrones!” and really, how often do you get a chance to buy a shirt that says (loosely translated) “long live Quidditch, bitches!” in Spanish?

We showed up at the perfect time, because Canada was just starting their match against Australia. We watched as all players bowed their head while the “Snitch” – a heavyset dude in yellow with a sock hanging out of the back of his pants – ran off of the field to hide.

When the Snitch was out of a sight, a whistle blew and all hell broke loose. The players grabbed their brooms, mounted them, and then fought to get a “Quaffle” (which, confusingly, was white) through the other team’s hoops. Since they were all holding onto their brooms, all throwing and catching was done one handed.

It all sounds pretty silly, until you watch it played.

This sport is FULL BODY CONTACT, guys. They were tackling each other like mad. We saw at least one person carted off of the field in a stretcher, and several more down for a good 5-10 minute count. This isn’t about some silly geeks LARPing in a soccer field. It’s like Rugby with extra balls and literary roots.

While Chasers fought one-handed over the Quaffle, Beaters were throwing dodge balls at the players. Whenever one of them got tagged by a “bludger” they had to dismount and run back and touch their hoops before they could re-enter play.

After 18 minutes the Snitch returned to the pitch and then the play became (if possible) even more intense. The seekers tried to tackle the Snitch, who wasn’t afraid to knock them down repeatedly, while opposing team members tried to interfere with play. Meanwhile, the Chasers are still trying to get the Quaffle through the hoops while also helping out their Seeker.

You don’t even know what to watch – keep your eyes on the Snitch and miss another incredible goal? Or watch the Quaffle and miss the capturing of the Snitch?

Craziness.

We were able to stay long enough to watch Canada come in third. We had to take Owl home to bed before the final match, which the USA ended up winning (Muggle Quidditch originated in the U.S, and the page for the international association is actually called USquidditch.com, which bothers me. Hopefully as international teams increase, there will be a truly international page set up).

Some friends of ours who are both sporty AND geeky also came out to watch.

“Why don’t we play this?” one of them asked.

Good question.

PH has been missing sports in his life for many years.

In his high school yearbook, you can find his face in pretty much every team photo. Soccer, baseball, football, curling… he did it all.

In University he refereed several sports. But it’s surprisingly hard to get involved in sports here. There’s a big population and a lot of demand. When we moved to B.C. he tracked down the local baseball league and was rejected several times – they just didn’t have room for more players.

He did curling for a year or two, but since he had to take what he could get, he was shunted onto a team of lackluster players who he never quite jived with. He gave up in frustration after two seasons.

So then he decided to try refereeing.  He got qualified as a soccer referee, but was only every called out to a few games, earning a grand total of a hundred dollars over a whole season. The next year they only called once. He didn’t bother re-certifying the next year.

Last year he decided to get certified as a softball referee. It cost us $150 and they never called him at all.

Quidditch, on the other hand, could be a whole other ball game.

PH tracked down a Quidditch referee to ask how he could get involved and they practically leaped on him. Turns out that there was a team in Burnaby that was looking for players, and they are short on referees.

By the time we left the field he had exchanged emails with several people and they were hoping to see him on the Quidditch pitch next Saturday.  Today he downloaded the 150 page rule book and began memorizing it.

Quidditch rules, by the way, are awesome.

Not only is it a delightfully geeky and yet truly challenging sport to play, it is also heartwarmingly unlike other sports.

Besides being the only sport to involve multiple balls in play at once, the International Quidditch Association is dedicated to inclusivity and equality.

Teams MUST be co-ed, and it specifically addresses transgender issues in the rulebook. The co-ed rule reads:

Each team [is] to have at least two players on the field who identify with a different gender than at least two other players. The gender that a player identifies with is considered to be that player’s gender, which may or may not be the same as that person’s sex.

That is AWESOME.

The rule goes on to acknowledge that some players may not identify as male OR female, and that is okay, too.

If that rule wasn’t enough to make Perfect Husband and I fall head over heels in love with Quidditch (we consider ourselves ardent LGBTQ allies), our hearts were entirely won over when we learned that Quidditch also had a decree called Title 9 3/4 (a play on Title IX) which is devoted specifically to gender equality in the sport.

It’s so awesome, and I’m proud that PH is getting involved. I can cheer on Quidditch in a way that I just can’t with other sports. The literary roots of the sport generate some interest in me, and the gender-equality factor makes me want to support it.

I can’t wait to attend more games.

 

That Time Of Year When I Stress About Birthdays

Tags

birthday parties, science world, three year olds, Vancouver, venues

Owl’s third birthday is coming up very soon, and that puts a lot of pressure on me.

Owl has been looking forward to his birthday party… well, since his last birthday party. Every time he sees cakes in the store, he says “Some day, I’ll have a birfday, Mommy! Then I get birfday cake. Some day. Some day…”

Ditto for balloons, party hats etc that he sees hanging on the rack.

“Ooh, I get dis when I have my birfday.”

He spied an Angry Birds cake in Dairy Queen in July and he still talks about getting an Angry Birds cake. I’ll try and get him excited about ANYTHING ELSE.

We were originally going to have his birthday at the same place we had his last party. It was cheap, and fun, and he had a great time.

Unfortunately, they were booked solid through September.

So we had to start looking at other options.

I didn’t really like any of the other options – yeah, we could reserve space at a local play gym, but he could go to those any time – and does.

But by some miracle, Science World had an opening, at our preferred time, ON HIS BIRTHDAY no less. BOOKED.

But then there was more stress – their party for 2 and under is cheaper and more simple – you get a party room, and access to the centre. You also get free admission for 10 children under 3 (which is dumb, because they admit children under 3 for free anyway) and for 10 adults (better).

The other option is for 3-7. They have a 30 minute science “demo” and you get admission for 10 kids over 3, but only 2 adults (basically, you and your partner). It also costs way more.

So we had to decide what to do. Would Owl appreciate the 30 minute demo enough to justify the extra money? Don’t forget that we’d have to pay admission for all of the parents too. Oh, and at least half of the invited children if not MORE would be between the ages of one and three. We definitely don’t know 10 children over three.

So we went with the cheaper, more boring option. I keep having crises of anxiety where I worry that I’ll regret not getting the actual guided program. Otherwise, we just paid for a room, right? I mean, sure, it’s a room at the SCIENCE CENTRE, which is AWESOME, and we’ve been wanting to take Owl there for a long time. But will the kids play with each other? Probably not. They’ll probably eat food, open presents, and run off to explore the centre and won’t play with each other.

Maybe I should have just rented out the play gym.

ARRRRGH.

The kid better enjoy this.

 

 

Pitaless Cravings

Tags

cravings, food, pitas, pregnancy, restaurants, the pita house, Vancouver, wolfville

I didn’t have a lot of cravings in my last pregnancy, other than a brief longing for all things red. 

That was mostly because I was too nauseous to really enjoy eating much of anything.

I’m a little queasy this time, but I definitely have a craving.

It’s something I’ve craved before.

In the small town of Wolfville, Nova Scotia, there is a tiny little pita and juice bar with about three tables in it. It used to be called The Main Squeeze until they noticed that their pitas were more popular than their fancy juices. So now they’re called The Pita House.

They have this chicken club pita that tastes like God.

This is a picture of a SMALL. The large is DOUBLE THIS SIZE.

It’s a giant pita stuffed to overflowing with chicken breast, and bacon, and cheddar, and onion, and romaine lettuce, just DRIPPING in creamy garlic parmesan sauce.

Oh, and they’re ENORMOUS. An 8 dollar large gets you two meals.

AND I WANT ONE.

Now, mind you, I always want one. Every time I am back in Nova Scotia for a visit I go to get a fix. Last time I was home was a year ago, when my Aunt was sick. I was only around for a couple of days, so I ended up making a desperate phone call the morning I left for the airport. When the manager (who recognizes me whenever I come in) answered the phone I was so relieved.

“Oh GOOD, you’re open!”

“Actually, no, I’m just prepping, we don’t open for another hour,” she said.

“No! I’ll be at the airport by then!”

“Aw, swing on down now, I’ll make you one. What do you need?”

That woman is an angel.

Unfortunately, angelic as she may be, there’s still no way for her to make me a pita from the other side of the continent, which means that I have a PROBLEM.

Vancouver has a LOT of restaurants. Like, A LOT. In fact, I’m really not sure how it sustains that number of sushi joints. In a two minute drive from my house, I can think of FIVE sushi joints, just off the top of my head.

But do you know what I don’t have within a two minute drive?

A pita joint.

You know what I don’t have within a 20 minute drive from my house?

A PITA JOINT.

It makes no sense that a place as obsessed with healthy food as Vancouver (where they even put lettuce in donairs) doesn’t serve pitas.

I stopped a four, count them, FOUR, sandwich places today. NONE OF THEM sold pitas. Only one sold wraps, and those were pre-wrapped things on a glass shelf generically labelled “lunch wrap”.

And do you think I could stand the thought of eating ANYTHING else for lunch?

Nope.

Didn’t want McDonald’s. Didn’t want pasta. Didn’t even want a BLT sandwich.

I wanted a garlicky, creamy, chickeny, bacony PITA.

So I had to drive for a HALF AN HOUR today to find a pita place, because for some reason there are THREE pita places all within a few blocks from each other in Burnaby, even though there are NO OTHER PITA PLACES for a 40 minute drive in any direction.

First there was the awkward explanation to the staff about what I wanted, since they didn’t actually make it.

They were very understanding. The word “pregnant” has that effect on young twenty-something women. They think they’re seeing their future, and it makes them afraid.

Anyway, they sold me a chicken caesar pita but let me personalize it from their subway-esque make-your-own-wrap bar. Then they suggested combining schwarma sauce with caesar dressing, since they didn’t have garlic parmesan.

I tipped them.

I drove another half hour home and gobbled the damn thing. It was good. But it wasn’t GREAT. It wasn’t stuffed. It wasn’t dripping. It had way less chicken.

But I take what I can get.

Problem is, I want MORE. In fact, I want nothing else.

And I can’t drive an hour to get a pita or two every day.

Oh, and I hear what you’re asking – why not make my own, right?

I’m wiped. I’m just, like, completely exhausted all the time. I don’t even have the energy to sweep the floor. The house is a mess. I feel drugged. I find myself longing to curl up on the floor of a run on a dog bed at work (I don’t, though).

Just the thought of trying to put together a pita makes me want to go have a lie down.

…First world problems are hard.

March In Vancouver

Tags

daffodils, flowers, forsythia, march, spring, tulips, Vancouver

This gallery contains 5 photos.

In Which I Attempt To Introduce My Son To His Celtic Heritage… In Vancouver.

Tags

celtic, celtic festival, celtic music, children, colcannon, culture, east coast, fiddle music, Fiddling, heritage, irish, music, rankin, Vancouver

If you read me on World Moms Blog, you’ll know that I have been fretting over Owl’s Canadian heritage of late.

Owl has… questionable musical taste.

He gets kudos for liking Forget You and Gangnam Style. However, he loses points for constantly requesting LMFAO and Bruno Mars songs.

You try and put on something tasteful like The Beatles or Barenaked Ladies and he says “No, no like it!”

It’s a problem.

So on St Patrick’s Day we decided to take him down to “CelticFest” downtown.

I was all excited for him to hear some read fiddle music and get exposed a bit to his Celtic heritage – my maiden name is Irish, after all.

But I had forgotten how terrible Vancouver is at approximating East Coast things. Even music, which you think would be fairly reproducible.

It looked good when we got there.

Of course the streets were full of people in green hats eating green popcorn, but there was a band on the stage with guitars and fiddles, and its name was “The Whiskey Dicks” which sounded promising.

But then we got close enough to hear the music.

Owl had a good time dancing, at least… in a marching stomp to the TOTALLY NOT CELTIC MUSIC.

I grew up singing Barra Macneils songs.

Our neighbour used to stand out in his backyard practising his bagpipe every afternoon.

When I was pregnant, I was obsessed with listening to Great Big Sea.

This music is important to me, and Vancouver can’t do it right EVEN IN A CELTIC FESTIVAL.

We decided to go to Tom Lee Music because there was supposed to be a sort of jam session with Mairi Rankin there. The problem was that it had started at 3, and by the time Owl woke up from his nap and we got down town, it was 4:30.

Happily, the people at front of house let us sneak in for half price, so we crept in for the last twenty minutes of the session.

Inside was a small group of people clapping and stamping their feet to real fiddle music – like a secret conclave of actual Irish/East Coasters, hiding from the Vancouver rabble in their shamrock hats while singing about colcannon and teaching each other Irish love songs.

Owl listened in fascination the whole time.

This morning, he took his two plastic hockey sticks and walked around rubbing them together telling me “I play fiddle, Mommy.”

THAT’S my boy.

In Which Vancouver Fails At Snow With Spectacular Results

Tags

bridges, coping with snow, shovelling, snow, snow driving, Vancouver, winter

Vancouver got the first snowfall of winter the other day, and since this is Vancouver we are talking about, it could very well be its last snowfall of the winter as well.

I have always liked snow. Living in the Caribbean made me appreciate it, especially at Christmas time.

I don’t like Vancouver’s rainy weather, and I get delighted when the snow hits, because on top of a winter wonderland, I get some fantastic entertainment: watching Vancouver deal with snow.

Vancouver doesn’t get snow often, so when it arrives the entire city goes into a full scale panic.

December 18, 2012 — A snowfall warning has been issued for the southern coastal region of BC as a strong frontal system arrives tonight. 

Scattered precipitation will fall over the area today and become widespread this evening as the system approaches.

“It’s all elevation dependent” says Brian Dillon, a meteorologist with The Weather Network. “Areas of Vancouver close to the harbour should receive less than 2 cm of snow but if you move 100 m above the city you could see up to 5 cm.”

That’s right. Snowfall warnings are issued for what many parts of the country would consider flurries.

And with good reason, because this city can’t handle even a few centimetres of snow. 

If snow fell in the heart of the Caribbean tomorrow, I don’t think the startled inhabitants could deal with it more poorly than Vancouverites do.

ERMAHGERD, PUMPKINS.

Tags

family outings, Hallowe'en, parenting, pumpkin patch, pumpkins, toddlers, Vancouver

I love Hallowe’en, but I haven’t had time to get into in over the last few years. I used to do up the whole house in creepy cobwebs and make Kleenex ghosts, but I’ve lost the urge. Hopefully as Owl ages I’ll get back into things.

Meanwhile, we took our little extrovert to The Pumpkin Patch as a way to entertain him, and he had a BLAST.

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He ran everywhere, including into the corn maze, and got bored before we found the way out. He gobbled a hotdog and an entire apple, he saw cows and donkeys and lots and LOTS of Pumpkins.

We got a big one for ourselves and a little one so he could proudly carry one himself. I’m thinking of getting him to scribble on his and then carving out the scribble marks.

But the best part was getting this photo, which we instantly Memed in case he becomes The Next Big Thing.

 

Embracing Vancouver

Tags

Fall, rain, Vancouver, weather

It’s pissing rain today.

It pissed rain yesterday, too.

We can’t complain.

During the “blue season”, which is usually most of the summer, Vancouver gets very little of the rain it is so known for. In fact, we’ve barely had a drop of rain in… months.

Since July, I think. And this year the blue season just kept on going…

Till yesterday, when Fall came roaring in.

Now all the rain that we didn’t get these past three months is arriving at once, in buckets.

Owl is a true child of Vancouver, though. He protests bitterly when the bright summer sunshine gets in his eyes, howling “SUN GO ‘WAY!” and spent the last two days cheerfully observing “dark out! Sun down, down, down. RAIN.”

I hate the rain. 

When I lived in Curacao, which was a desert island, rain had a novelty factor. When it rained, the teachers let us out of class to play in it because we couldn’t focus on classes when there was WATER in the AIR outside. Sometimes it rained so hard that school was cancelled because the storm ditches were flooded and driving was impossible.

In a land where there air conditioning was blasting all year round, a rain-day was the closest thing you got to a snow day, and only happened once a year if that.

When we returned to Canada I lost my interest in rain in a hurry. It’s cold. It’s wet. It makes my clothes cling. It lands on my face. And the grey weather gives me depression. Whereas sun gives me energy, makes me feel more normal, and turns my hair a pretty blond.

PH, who grew up on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, is more philosophical about rain, and Owl seems to be growing up the same way. So, in honor of the fact that Owl is a Vancouverite and that this will be his life for the next six months, I took him out to play in the rain.

He had a blast, splashing in puddles and getting absolutely soaking wet. 

At least one of us will enjoy Vancouver weather this winter.

This picture courtesy of last April, because I couldn’t take a photo today or the camera would be DRENCHED

In Which Owl Discovers The Fair

Tags

animals, pacific national exhibition, parenting, Playland, PNE, the fair, toddlers, tourism, travel, Vancouver

Every year we go to the Fair at the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition).

It happens in August, and I remember going the day before Owl’s due date, so it really helps me mark the years. Last year Owl was a somewhat passive participant, although he enjoyed patting the slimy cow noses.

He still loves that part.

But this year was even better. 

He had a blast, extrovert that he is. 

Plus, I discovered that a friend of mine had decided to go with her family the same day, so we met up. She directed me to a section that I didn’t even know existed, where there they had a competition for best playground set-up.

AMAZING.

Owl revelled in the ball pit (of course), and then in the hexagonal play house with the slide, and then he disappeared into this crazy rabbit-warren of construction where he (according to my friend’s teenage son, who attempted to follow him) “took ridiculous angles”.

Basically, he ran totally amok, ate all my popcorn and generally had a glorious day.

Now we just have to help him understand that he has to wait until next year to do it all over again.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go (Fear of Change Says HELL NO)

Tags

anxiety, change, jobs, moving, Nova Scotia, transfers, Vancouver

PH and I have always talked about going back to Nova Scotia some day.

After all, we don’t like that our son is growing up away from his grandparents and all of his cousins.

We don’t like that he may not know all the words to “Barrett’s Privateers” before the age of ten.

We don’t like that he may not know a Halifax donair if it fell on his shoe.

Most of all, we just think of ourselves as Nova Scotians, so obviously, SOME day, we want to “go home”.

But in the future.

You know.

Like, not right now, but maybe some day.

Sometimes, when I get really frustrated with living in the city, or when homesick for old friends, or for my mother, I have wanted to go home RIGHT NOW.

But usually it’s… “maybe in a couple of years”.

So when a job came up in Nova Scotia that PH would be perfect for, we didn’t know what to think.

I mean, what, leave Vancouver?

No more mountains? No more sushi? What about Owl’s awesome daycare? What about our diaper service? What about all of our friends, whom we would leave behind?

And yet…

The job was in a perfect location. Just half an hour away from my parents, and a little over an hour to his parents.

And then we looked at housing prices and we just started SALIVATING.

2,000 square feet and an acre of land for half the price of our current 1,000 foot townhouse? NO PROBLEM.

So we made a pros and cons list. It looked like this:

• PRO
• close to family
• cheap houses
• VERY cheap houses
• close to Carol’s old friends/boy cousins
• same salary, lower cost of living
• Carol either doesn’t work or does dog training at home
• No daycare/Nana Daycare
• Have we mentioned the house pricing?
• Cause it’s cheap, you know
• Seriously, $70k for a three bedroom HOUSE
• not condo, HOUSE

• CON
• moving expenses? How cheap is PH’s company?
• Negative equity in house currently YAY GLOBAL RECESSION PLUS SCREW YOU MORONS
• No Happy Nappy 
• All of our Vancouver friends go byebye
• Daycare lady would be sad 😥
• No vet tech job for Carol, probably
• Carol would have to take up prostitution
• or dog training
• one or the other
• but probably prostitution

Ultimately, we realized that the universe was calling our bluff. When fortune just hands you the thing you’ve always said you wanted, you have to go for it. We’d be chicken not to.

So PH applied.

Well, it turns out he’s the best candidate by a country mile and they really want him.

What they aren’t sure of is whether they can afford to help us move out there.

What WE aren’t sure of is whether we can afford to sell our house right now, because the housing values are down and we don’t want to end up in a negative equity situation.

All of this is causing me massive anxiety because you KNOW how much I love uncertainty.

And change. Don’t forget my love of change.

I keep alternating between dreams of a big house and a dog-daycare that I run out of my own home, and joy at the thought of leaving my job… and complete panic at the thought of leaving all the people here, not least my awesome daycare lady who had gone above and beyond the call of duty for me and Owl.

I waver between excitement and terror.

I don’t want to go!

I don’t want to stay!

I want to go, I just also want to stay!

And then, the next morning, I woke up in a sweat and shook PH awake.

“I just realized. We CAN’T go to Nova Scotia.”

“Why not?” he mumbled into his pillow.

“THERE’S NO ANTON’S IN NOVA SCOTIA.”