Fall Inks

Fall is here! This is my favourite season, despite it being the harbinger of winter and snow and slush. It's cool and breezy, perfect for sitting outside with a tea or hot chocolate, it's clean school supplies and getting ready for the holidays ahead. Best of all, it's the season of my favourite ink colours - browns and golden oranges and rich reds and earthy greens. It's like the broken clock that's right twice a day: the inks that I tend to have in my pens year round are just right for this season of new beginnings and those glorious fall leaves. Sailor Kobe Arima An old favourite, Sailor Jentle Epinard - a desert island ink for me, notwithstanding the obvious impracticalities of being not waterproof. Another old favourite, J. Herbin Ambre de Birmanie Noodler's Antietam Noodler's Army Green And an ink I've never tried before it but turns out is a real beauty of a shading ink: Platinum Carbon Sepia. While I don't know if I'll ever completely leave behind super saturated, sheening, wet inks, I think my favourites are always going to be the shading sort of ink - and a particular soft spot for the dustier, gentle ones. After having good flow, shading is probably my most important trait of an ink - there is nothing like a letter or journal entry written with a vintage sepia or a purplish grey. All of these inks are in our tester ECOs in the shop. It's nice to have them out again since it's been a while since we've had them out, which is entirely my fault, and actually a bit unbelievable since someone else had cleaned out the pens and had them waiting for me weeks ago.

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In other news, in this beautiful fall weather, Caleb started preschool last week, along with the throngs of other boys and girls returning to classrooms, and he seems to have adjusted just fine. We've delayed his birthday celebration to give him some time to settle into his new routine, but he doesn't seem to have noticed. I was worried he'd be crying and feeling abandoned with all of these new and enthusiastic strangers (he's not really a kid who embraces enthusiasm from strangers), and it turns out he was pretty okay. Now it's turned into one of those weird things where I see other kids crying when I drop him off, and I ask myself if Caleb is doing okay because he's not crying like those other kids. A large part of parenting seems to be looking at what other kids and parents are doing and wondering if I'm supposed to be doing that too. I've also adjusted just fine, although Super is now enjoying a tremendous amount of redirected affection and love. I have to admit at first I was a bit lost without the padding of feet and yelling and accidental spills around me, but I've come to embrace these hours of freedom I have - although in these first weeks it seems mostly to be have been taken up by catching up on errands and emails, what seems like more than a few appointments and cleaning the apartment. Jon and I are left to wonder about and over-analyze the slightly bizarre ramblings he brings home to us: he talks about monkeys and Santa Claus, eating bread and water for lunch, the rituals of using a communal bathroom. I admit to being guilty of bringing him to the park after preschool and holding some slightly intense interrogations under the guise of casually sitting on a bouncy turtle. He's the only Asian kid in his class, and I'm not sure if that means anything - I mean, at what age do you teach him that some parts of him that are different are because he's Asian and we should be proud of that, and that other parts are different because his mama is just a little weird? Jon says I need to tone down the weird so Caleb can fit in a bit better. I hope the other kids are kind. In any case, I now officially have a preschooler. Time marches on.