(Not quite) another rant

Since I posted last, I've heard from a number of other parents about the alleged "Alternative Schools Review" currently under way at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. People are concerned, as well they ought to be; and some are either sitting down to write letters, or setting up online gathering points to collect support and disseminate information.

Here are just a few of the sites offering info and a chance to make your voice heard:

Support Educational Choice: Alternative Schools Site

Upload Video Comments Here

Rideau High School: Victim of Neglect

(Note for knitters who might be wondering if they've come to the wrong place: No, I haven't gone completely over the wall. I do plan to post some actual knitting stuff...in fact, I had intended to write today about some ultra-cool socks I'm making. In fact, maybe I still will, later on. Stay tuned. And thanks for humouring me.)

Ship of Fools

Or: "The Ottawa Carleton District School Board (OCDSB): Like Ottawa City Hall, Only Less Interesting."

I don't even know where to begin this post. Let's just say that our family has a long and not always congenial relationship with the OCDSB. For years, Mitchell put hour after (mostly fruitless) hour into meetings, phone calls, research, more phone calls, public rallies, more meetings, presentations, election organizing -- you name it, if it had to do with preserving education for kids in Ottawa, he did it. And I was more or less the silent partner, staying home to look after the kids whose schools he was trying to save.

Here's just a partial list of the major campaigns we've seen over the years:

• Attempted closure of Lady Evelyn Primary Alternative School -- defeated when Mitchell found an architect who refuted the board's claims that the school should be torn down
• Attempted closure of the Gifted component of the Special Education program -- defeated
• Attempted closure of several inner-city schools, including the one our daughter was attending -- defeated

But we haven't won 'em all. Far from it -- we've seen the board cut, or attempt to cut, services to kids with different needs -- special ed programs, multicultural liason officers, speech and language pathologists, libraries...you name it. We've lost so much more than we've won, and all the fights were about what we could salvage, not what we could build. It seems like the board is in a constant state of dismantling itself.

I sometimes suspect that if the bean-counters at Greenbank Road could do it, they'd find a way to cram our kids into unheated one-room schoolhouses, supplied with only slates and chalk, and ruled by sergeant-majors wielding pointy sticks. It'd be cheap, it'd eliminate all these namby-pamby "special programs," and hey, if a few thousand immigrant kids or children with special needs happened to drop off the bottom, that's just tough noogies. Sink or swim, kiddies. The boat's leaving without you.

In general, I've learned not to dwell on board matters too much, as it tends to send me into a tailspin of rage and cynicism. The question that always come up is this: "What is it about our school board that keeps it mired in dysfunction?"

How is it that even though the players have changed since we first got involved in 1986 (good Lord, has it been that long? Someone shoot me), the game remains the same?

A few reasons. With a very few exceptions, the board seems to attract the detritus of Ottawa's political wannabes: these are the folks who know they don't have what it takes to get elected to city hall.

Think about that for a moment. Reflect, if you dare, on the current group of donkeys and buffoons at Lisgar Street, the ones who pulled a gazillion-dollar light rail contract when they first came to power, then got sued for it, only to decide a couple of weeks ago that hey, you know what Ottawa needs? A LIGHT RAIL SYSTEM! And I won't even touch the Lansdowne Park mess. Suffice to say, these people are not our community's shining intellectual lights.

And the school board -- well, they're the players who couldn't make the cut for city hall. And they are in charge of your kid's education.

So what's got me riled this time? A couple of things. First, they want to close Rideau High School, along with two others. Rideau is the east-end school that offers kids an "applied" stream, and that initiated Ottawa's first (and only?) in-school day care, so that teenage mothers could continue their education. Rather than investing in a school that meets some legitimate community needs, the board has chosen to shut it down.

And then there's the so-called "Alternative Schools Review Process."

Here's a hint: whenever the board calls something a "review process," it means they plan to trash it. Yes, folks, they're at it again -- taking aim at a program that's worked very well for the past 25 years, that has helped thousands of children learn to love learning -- and flushing it down the toilet. Oh, did I mention that the program entails no extra costs, except for busing that the board pays for anyway? Yeh.

Here's a post from an Ottawa blog I like -- Miss Vicky's Offhand Remarks. You can read up on the details of the alternative program and how it's helped the poster's child, but the poster was a bit too polite to mention the ugly politics underlying the "review" -- the board's long history of slashing and burning programs that seem vulnerable, where they don't anticipate much public resistance.

So what to do? For my part, I'll be putting together a slightly more polite letter over the next few days, to add to the voices of the parents and children who want to save the program. And if you're interested, visit this website for a menu of options to make your voice heard. I'll be posting more resources over the next few weeks, and if you hear of any that you'd like me to pass on, please get in touch.

Oh, right -- and vote. Not now, there's no election going on (not that you'd know if a municipal election was occurring here, since they are about as exciting as watching paint dry) -- but when the time comes, next fall, you might want to pay a bit more attention. I'm not saying you have to attend school board meetings -- that would just be cruel -- but take the time to check out your local trustee. Does he or she seem to have any functioning neurons at all? Ask questions. If your candidate's eyes get all shifty, or you don't like the answers they give, send them to the back of the class.

As you were.

Frankensock the Second

Never let it be said that I don't learn from my mistakes. Having pretty much created a hash of my last attempt at sock repair (see yesterday's post), I decided to approach the other sock with a bit more care and preparation.

Thus, instead of rummaging through my scrap bag and pulling out the first yarn in the same colour family (whaaaat?! maroon and mauve are both shades of purple. Not a great match in this case, but better than, say, mauve and green), I took my time and inspected all potential sources of yarn in my stash.

Including the random project bags that someone keeps leaving in odd places around the house, and the bits of yarn I've tucked into corners for reasons I no longer recall. I'm a bit like a squirrel that way -- apparently they remember the location of approximately 20% of the nuts they bury, which means they have to bury an awful lot to ensure they won't starve when it comes time to dig them up.

Anyway, lo and behold, I actually found a bit of Twisted Fiber Art's Playful, in an unnamed colourway intended for heel and/or toe use. I think it came with a larger order a year or so back. It was kind of pinkish, but less glaringly awful than the maroon of my first attempt. And it was more or less the right weight, and I've had excellent results with other Twisted products on sock projects.

Having located some decent yarn, I took my time and picked up an even row of sole stitches, well down from the worn heel of Sock 2; and then I basically knit a new short-row heel, kind of a cup-shaped thing that would serve to cap off the whole shredded sock heel. I sewed the bound-off edge to the back of the sock, and tried it on. Not perfect, but a darn sight better than Frankensock I. And with new heels, these babies should take me through another winter.

I think they make a nice conversation piece, don't you?

Frankensock

WARNING: The following blog post may alter your perception of the poster. Read at your own risk. The faint of heart may wish to move along to the next blog.

Mmm. Who doesn't love the silky caress of merino against their feet? I'm certainly a fan.

So a couple of years ago, when I started back into sock knitting after a several-year-long hiatus, I was delighted to discover that the yarn market had expanded -- nay, exploded -- way past the "pounders" of Briggs & Little I remembered.

And so it came to pass that my first foray into exotic socks (which was also my first foray into toe-up socks, but that's a whole other story) involved two skeins of the most luxurious Koigu KPPPM, in a soft mauve colourway with blue and gold stripey bits. I loved those socks.

What no one told me at the time, though, is that merino has a distressing tendency to shred when it's subjected to hard wear. And since I'd knit the Koigu up on slightly larger than usual needles (why? I don't actually remember. I think I was just so enamoured of the yarn that I wanted to get started right away, and so I used the needles I had on hand, it being a Sunday morning or some such), I unwittingly exacerbated the problem.

Loosely knit hyper-soft merino = guaranteed sock holes.

But the disadvantage of knitting one's own socks (and yes, there are disadvantages, though I think they're far outweighed by the good bits) is that once a hole does appear, it's nearly unthinkable to do what one might do with a pair of machine-knit tossaways from Sears or Zellers. No, we sock knitters mend our socks, and we keep on mending them until they're worn down to a single tiny piece of fluff.

Oh, except for one small thing: if the hole appears suddenly, and it's very very large indeed, say, extending about halfway down the foot, and up the sides as well, then mending pretty much ceases to be an option. At that point, we think about replacing the damaged portion of the sock. Reknit the toe, or the heel, or whatever.

Oh! Except that in this case, the damaged heel was not just worn right through, but surrounded by damaged and worn bits, such that about 50% of the sole was pretty much a write-off.

Now, remember that thing I was saying about "starting a project before acquiring the correct tools and/or materials"? Yes.

I dug through my bag of odds and ends of leftover yarn, and found...not much. At least, not much that even remotely resembled the original sock. I have lots of teeny-tiny balls in all sorts of other colours, and even in the same colour family as the original, but nothing that's mauve, or even navy. So I decided to go for the gusto, and just use the yarn that would last longest.

Yes, I realize that maroon and mauve are a surprising combination. Yes, I realize that the original sole was stocking stitched, and the new one...is not. And I also know that I picked the stitches up on a bit of a wonky angle. Let's just say this is not my best work.

However, when you know the sock this intimately, you're not as likely to write it off. It's no longer merely a disposable commodity; it's the product of your own labour. And so you improvise. Even if the outcome looks like a bit of a dog's breakfast, I'll still get another couple of years' wear out of this sock. As long as I wear shoes, that is.

Late adopter

I always seem to be the last to pick up on -- or even know about -- the latest trends. I'm not sure whether it's because I just don't pay attention, or I pay attention to other stuff, but for some reason, by the time a trend reaches me, it's usually morphed into the opposite of trendy.

In the same way that I "discovered" the Clapotis long after it had become an iconic knitting phenom, I recently decided that the world needs another Central Park Hoodie, which apparently everyone and his uncle/her aunt has already knit. But what the heck.

The pattern sort of grew on me. At first I liked it well enough, but I didn't really see what all the fuss was about until I started working on it myself. I think it's the pattern's very simplicity that won me over -- single cables, not too tightly wound and perfectly placed to flatter the wearer; solid proportions, with nothing either too big or too skimpy; two by two ribbing that morphs quietly into cables, with no jarring disconnects; a straight-up design that speaks of warmth and comfort and sitting by the fire with a cup of cocoa.

I'm doing it in Peace Fleece's Shaba Green, which I bought a couple of summers ago at the same time I picked up all that Baghdad Blue. It's a hardy wool, a bit rough, but I know from experience that it fluffs and blooms when it's blocked, and it's warm as all get out.

My current debate: buttons or zipper? I'm leaning toward buttons, but I'm open to argument.

Remembrance Days past and present

Yesterday morning I tuned in the CBC's live-streaming thingy on my computer so I could take part, at least at a distance, in the Remembrance Day ceremonies at the Cenotaph.

When I was very little, my parents used to take me to the Remembrance Day parades each year in Victoria; my grandfather, a veteran of WWI and Canada's Siberian Expeditionary Force, marched along with his remaining comrades from the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles. Even as a small child, I remember a sense of overwhelming sadness welling up as I watched these old men march past, lips pressed firmly together, eyes resolutely in front, fixed on something I could never see.

I had no idea what I was watching; I only knew that Grandpa and his friends had been in a war, and that each year, fewer of his friends joined him in his slow, steady march down Douglas Street.

As an adult, I'm still overcome with emotion each year when I hear the lone trumpeter play the Last Post, as the cameras move slowly over the faces of men and women who've served in battles long past. The long, solemn moment of silence drapes heavily over the crowds gathered around the War Memorial, each person lost in reflection, or reminiscence, and when the guns fire from the Hill, their thunder is almost a relief. Then the prayers, in English, French, and Cree.

This year, I watched as the wreaths were laid at the foot of the Cenotaph: first our Governor-General, dressed in her full regalia as Commander of Canada's Armed Forces; and then one by one, individuals and small groups made their way up the steps, heads bowed, to offer their respect and place their wreaths.

One of the final wreaths was laid by a couple -- she wore a woven Metis sash, while he wore a long fringed buckskin jacket. I don't know what Grandpa would have thought. He was an old-school soldier in the stiff-upper-lip British tradition, the son of a Justice of B.C.'s Supreme Court; and even though his own mother was River Salish, he did not think of himself as half-Indian. In those days, it just didn't pay to let on that you had "Indian blood."

But my heart swelled a little as I watched that Metis couple place the wreath: finally, after far too many years of racism and systematic exclusion, Canada has begun to acknowledge that this country was not empty when we arrived, and that we are more, much more, than two solitudes.

It's a small gesture, welcoming our First Nations, Inuit, and Metis into the circle of remembrance, but it's a tiny step in the right direction.

November 11

A moth-eaten flag on a worm-eaten pole --
It doesn't look likely to stir a man's soul.
'Tis the deeds that were done 'neath the moth-eaten rag,
When the pole was a staff, and the rag was a flag.

--Gen. Sir Edward Bruce Hamley
(Referring to the colours of the 43d Monmouth Light Infantry during the war in the Crimea)


(Oh, and he was my grandfather's uncle and namesake.)