Margot Pollo.

Spring is in.

Rebirth.

New name, thanks to my sister who threw wide a window for me last night while we wrote back and forth wildly on my way to pick up Lisa from Gare Centrale. Thanks Frin, you are one hell of a woman.

Margot Polo already belongs to someone, thus Margot Pollo it is (a little nod to my Poulet baby). My new shop name. Stay tuned, the cauldron is back on the fire, 'a simmerin' away. Stencils are it. Paper projects, sewing projects, ink, watercolor. I am being led back to the print, I think. Hallelujah! How I miss that process. Last year at this time I was zipping all over rural Manitoba in Art Teacher Meg mode. I miss teaching silkscreen to middle school kids; tough crowd, crazy art! Damn I loved that job.

Art teacher.

I woke in a small and soft bed this morning in a room I had never slept in before. Light streaming in, a rooster crowing at my wrist, an open suitcase with clothes and boots boiling over. Upon waking in the unfamiliar of my home at Casa Clark, I smiled as that familiar creeping cold took hold of my bare ankles just like it does in the bush in late spring. Early and quick to rise before the cold can convince you to stay on the mat of your tent floor, all rumpled with body warmth and spots of dew. Leaving one's tent is hard to do. Anyway, I had not been in that place in many super moons and it was a great way to start my day. Smile plastered on my face, I dipped in to check on my sleeping senorita--Lisa--and pick out some socks. Off to work under the blue blue blue, grinning in anticipation for a great day ahead.

Yesterday while climbing the stairs to our home after a trip to the PA with Lo and Lisa, Lisa made me hack and hack with coughing laughter (obviously). "That kid is going to die from fun". Yup. He will. He is going to. Il allerais. Two clowns are on the loose! I think Lisa and I would make a smashing child entertainment duo. Oh Lisa. What ease with that lady, this is friendship to me. She arrived, we ditched her suitcase and settled into my bed, laughing until hungry. Lo arrived just in time to join our walking tour to the PA (a cheap as neighborhood grocery great for cheap cheese and hot men in high numbers). Three abreast on the sidewalk, we passed a fancy kitchen shop closed for business, but open to private catering. I could have lingered in that window for a lifetime (trust me, I did as long as I could. Fixated on the young chef at the back, bearded and whipping around a chopping block in whites). What was going on in there? That was no cooking class. Whatever it was, I want in. It looked like a private party for a 50 year old birthday party. I could so see my mother having a birthday party for herself in a place like that. Kitchenware on tidy shelves and friends around a huge island; wine, food being made to order in front of you in a fancy shop kitchen by a sexy French man. Whoa. I lingered alright. An enquiry is necessary.

Absolutely.

Leo just got a shit load of new plastic spring toys: diggers, trucks, sand pails, a stacking rainbow tower, mini baking bowls and cake lifters. Looking forward to camping out with him in a sandbox this summer. Bareback in overalls, my kind of guy. Can't wait to dump my realtime children off at Grandma's house in years to come. Watching them blast from the vehicle for the ragged trampoline and the mountain of fresh sand that my mother replenishes for her unruly neighborbabies every spring. What a maman! "Say hi to Grandma first!", nope. We will go in, have some tea on the deck and I will ask questions about canning. These are the kinds of things I daydream about sometimes. I so look forward to knowing my parents as grandparents. They are the best.

Golden Grahams for breaky, reminds me of my own Grandma (who always had that cereal in her pantry at sleepovers). I miss that old farmhouse on the hill, my grandparents house in Rosie. Winter white, a tall and proud house in the country with the giant red barn. I loved that property so much and find myself wandering there in thought more often than not. I miss my family.

In other news, I have a wild chest rattle and feel terrible for keeping the whole house awake due to coughing my guts out last night. I should have slept on the balcony. Sorry Lo. Sorry Lisel. What a drag. Life is not perfect, life can be ragged and phlem filled. Le Poulet and I swapped germs and he has the ragged cough too. It is heartbreaking to hear him work it out while fast asleep in his own soft bed. Wish I would go in there and soothe him, but it will pass. Right now, I am just grateful as hell that I have a job that allows me to soothe a baby, to lie down if I am sick, to make tea, to go for a walk at 8:30 in the morning if I feel like it (like we did yesterday).

In the six months that I have worked with Leo, we had never before left the house before nine in the morning. But yesterday while pushing the carriage to nowhere through muck and slush while Leo serenaded the neighborhood with babble and song, I inhaled the early morning air and just felt good to be here. I love Montreal, it is starting to feel like home.

Realtime.

Everybody poops, even ethereal women.

On that note, enjoy Sister Spring.

Be nice today.

Easter Shoes 2010. Photo by M Dixon.