When did it change from, "Oh, no! Careful with my new cutlery set that I love so much! Don't just toss them into the drawer, place them carefully one on top of the other so they don't get scratched!" to, "I don't know where your needlenose pliers are. Just hand me one of those little dessert forks so I can pry this staple out of the wood."

Daryl (last night as we arrive home and he opens the fridge for a glass of milk): Ugh, something in the fridge is going bad.
Me (in my head): What could be going bad in there? It's totally clean!

Me (this morning as I get out some milk for my cereal): Oh, Daryl! Nothing's going bad, that's my leftover hummus sandwich from yesterday!
Daryl: That's disgusting.

I was rather looking forward to enjoying it for lunch today...

Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College, from his book "For Heaven's Sake"

"The phrase, 'man's conquest of nature' is a sexually chauvinistic term not because all views of the traditional generic man is but because we have a civilization that is in the midst of what Karl Stern called the flight from woman. We extol action over contemplation, doing over being, analysis over intuition, problems over mysteries, success over contentment, conquering over nurturing, the quick fix over life long commitment, the prostitute over the mother."

It is pomegranate season again. I love pomegranates. I really do.

The first time I had a pomegranate was when we had just moved to Cairo. It was pomegranates season then, too, only I didn't know that yet. It was a hard move, we moved right at the beginning of December and EVERYTHING was unfamiliar. I can't think of one thing that felt the same... except my family. Everything was new and different (read, scary and unfamiliar). Nothing was simple, my mom and I got lost taking a walk even though we swore we just stuck to following the same high wall around one square block.

And then...

Our new landlady, Cookie, gave us a pomegranate. She knew we probably had never seen one before so she showed us how to open it and carefully take out the seeds inside. I can still hear her cautioning us to be careful because the juice will stain and not come out. And what a sweet surprise! So delicious! So tart yet inviting. So pretty once you opened the leathery outside. It was the first thing I loved about Egypt. Every winter the fruit vendors would pile high pyramids of pomegranates on their carts and we would eagerly pick out the ones we thought would taste best.

But it all ended when we came back to Canada. No more pomegranates. No more, that is, until the last few years when they have appeared in supermarkets everywhere! We would find one or two small little excuses for a pomegranate at certain stores, but they'd be outrageously priced. But now the rage has caught on, and pomegranate season returns.

I'll eat one or two a week during pomegranate season. I don't even mind the lengthy task of emptying the seeds from the husk. I like the feel of the leathery skin. How it often seems that if it looks beat up and kinda brown, like it's truly traveled from somewhere exotic, it has the best, sweetest, reddest seeds. I love slicing off the ends, trying not to slice open any seeds, challenging myself to make as little mess as possible. And then prying open the tough skin to reveal glistening jewel after glistening jewel. The pomegranate is such a female fruit. The many soft folds of white flesh, the bright red of the seeds. The tender way you must handle the fruit. She is a thing of beauty.

So go! Buy yourself a pomegranate and delite in the experience. Pomegranate season doesn't last forever, afterall.

Dear Condo,

It's not that I haven't enjoyed living here. I have, I really have. You are the first place I owned. You are the first place I paid mortgage payments on. You will always be special to me.

I couldn't believe that we could afford something like this when we first saw you. The towering windows that let in so much light. The high ceilings, the french doors and beautiful working fireplace. The window in the bathroom. The character that hangs in the room like an expensive perfume after the wearer has left.

So much has happened in these walls; it's been a big year. Moving in, the giddiness of preparing for a wedding, the keen disappointment of having to postpone. And the waiting,

waiting,

waiting.

Living here when I kicked Daryl off to Brandon so that I could have some "condo-time." And maybe my favourite few stolen moments when we stopped by between the wedding and reception with our slurpees, climbed the stairs in our wedding garb, picked up our overnight bags, looked at everything so disheveled in the mayhem of wedding preparation and I thought, "this is our home."

And maybe you will be home to our new family, too. Maybe the groanings of birth will take place within these walls, and the joys of being new parents.

But maybe not. Please don't see it as a slight, but I really hope you sell before then.

I really, really hope.

Has anyone else seen this?

It kinds ticks me off. Maybe the fact that Americans feel that "it's not appropriate for an American president to bow to a foreign one" is the reason that Americans are so poorly thought of elsewhere in the world.

Was their president not visiting an emperor on his own soil? Was he not a guest in that country? Maybe it's a good idea to try an approach different from ages past?

I know this is terribly foreign to American politicians, but maybe a little humility is called for?

Sometimes, in reflective moments, I try to figure out why I fell in love with Daryl. Falling in love sounds too trite for what I mean, though. What about him, in particular, made me love him, out of everyone else? Is it emotional? Is it chemical? Is it personality? Is it spiritual? I don't know. I do know that there are moments when I am overwhelmed with thanks and praise that this man is my husband.

And now the two who became one will soon become three.

Oh, the excitement, and the joy, and the expectations, and the hope. But somewhere in there I lost Corrie and I don't know where she has gone. The hormones and the sickness and the sleepless nights and the tiredness made her leave, maybe. And I think all that is left is a vessel for baby. And all that is left is pre-natal vitamins, and getting enough milk, and vegetables, and protein, even when I don't feel like it. And no sugar, even when I really feel like it.

And I'm left with this little stranger who controls everything about me now, even what mood I'm in.

But I hear the old Corrie sometimes. Reminding me that she's still around. And reminding me that she doesn't know how it happened but she fell in love once, she can do it again.