Snow

Winter arrives one Saturday night as we're eating wings with our children. We leave the joint to the sprinkle of solid rain. When we emerge from our next course of Pho, it is truly snowing. A and E's daughter stick out their tongues, gleefuly catching snowflakes. We all squeeze into E's new sportscar and speed out into the flurries. By morning there is a layer of white on the ground. I feel like burrowing away somewhere for the next 5 months. I wish I could have a big meal and then a long, drawn-out sleep. I just finished reading Friday Nights by Joanna Trollope. I've never read her before and it was a companionable read, but left me feeling just a little bit hopeless about what women can expect of our lives. Sometimes, when out with E and the kids, I have no sense of us being together and that frustates me. Our children are greedy for our time and attention and we seem to have none left to spare for each other. We are truly happy alone together, but that isn't always possible. We have to find a way to be together with our children and not be lost to each other.

Halloween Week

I sent A off with her school Halloween costume - all cotton (okay, except for the wings, where does one find cotton wings?) - for her class party today. I also sent apricots. We were to send orange snacks such as carrots and cantaloupe, but no candy!

We'll make up for it later. The school next door is having a party too, with candy, which I'm sure the kids will appreciate. Then there's Larry O'Brien's last hurrah Halloween party tomorrow. Of course then the main event on Sunday, when we'll test the neighbourhood for its receptivity to kids.

It has been difficult to write lately. Last week a number of things came together that left me thoroughly shaken. Things calm down, of course, but it takes time to settle again.

I'll work up to saying more, but for now I'll just try to keep focused on immediate challenges. The case conference is in the offing. I'm trying to prepare documents now, which is another worry. I do not know how long this conflict will last and it is exasperating. All I can do, I think, is keep fighting for what I believe in.

Thanksgiving

Showing gratitude is supposed to shield you from any number of ill-effects, so I try to remember each night all the things I am grateful for. We had a touching show of grace and gratitude this past weekend at E's house, with him offering to our Thanksgiving table that he was grateful for 1. me and 2. his new car. I was next so I said, I was grateful I was ranked before the car. I actually offered my thanks for the gathering of family and friends and our health and happiness, but I was also thankful for E for beginning that moment of thanks, because he knew it was important for me.

Today, as I whiz back and forth, trying to antcipate and address issues in relation to the Case Conference, I am grateful that I have more in my life than this. It is too often too big a part of my everyday experience. I am thankful for today's sunshine and for our Ottawa bike paths, and for E who stops by, and for leftover turkey, and for A's imminent arrival home.

I am also thankful to be reading Elizabeth Gilbert's new book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. I started reading it last night and it is due back to the library today, but I'll try to renew it after A's swimming lesson. I'm not a skeptic about marriage. Even now as I experience the lingering after-effects of my awful 5-minute marriage, I still believe that marriage is a blessing, a sacred practice, and an essential component of social stability. For all her resistance to it, I think Gilbert sees it in a similar way.

Anyway, I'm thankful I still believe, even if I am nowhere close to marrying at the moment.

sunshine and spiders

Most people are off to somewhere special this weekend. I've been rooting through my garden, trying to avoid the spiders, as I pull the last of my cherry tomatoes before the frost. I wasn't able to eat most of the tomatoes from my 4 plants, but I may plant even more next year, because it is thrilling to have them and maybe I can give more away. Actually, I may create a larger garden in the back yard and see just how much I can grow.

A is off to her father and I had to work this morning. I'll get her back on Monday and we'll have a Thanksgiving lunch with E and his kids and friends from Montreal.

This has been a hellish week of trying to deal with my still-difficult lawyer. There has been no response from him to me in about 2 weeks, and he claims my ex's lawyer hasn't gotten back to him in a month and that I have no choice but to go to court. I find all of this too upsetting. I feel the phrase legal bullying applies to exactly such behaviour and this was recently condemned by the Ontario Law Commission, as it should be.

The good news is that E got his car. He's thrilled. We've been accelerating a lot.

I was not so thrilled to go ring shopping. I can't decide whether to get a new solitaire or to remount his three gorgeous diamonds on a new setting with more diamonds. I'm leaning towards more diamonds.

Long Rainy Day

I have been working from home since the early morning. It makes for a long, dull day when it is raining. E stopped by, but only briefly. He is taking possession of his new car tomorrow. We are going to talk to a ring designer on Friday. Meanwhile, I'm in the muck of marking. Still. It won't end. The good news is that Thanksgiving is on the horizon and after that . . . is a new reading week the end of October. I'll need all the breaks I can get if I am to be in any shape to go to court in November.