Alright, time to spill it. My purse, I mean, to follow up on this recent post.

So here is the list of what I carry around everywhere.

What’s in

1. Wallet
2. Card holder (for all the pesky membership cards)
3. Keys, on and off
4. 2 memo pads
5. 1 pen stolen from work
6. Misc. paper things (tickets, prescriptions)
7. Dead batteries (so I can get replacement ones of the same kind, one day)
8. Paper ruler (from Ikea)
9. Gum
10. 3 packs of Kleenex (why 3?)
11. Purell
12. Tylenol, on and off
13. Deodorant
14. Tide-to-Go (that I’ve never used)
15. Lady hygiene stuff (not pictured, bleh)
16. Club Med Perfume
17. Band-Aids
18. Medicated lip balm (not fun at all, but effective, ugh…)
19. Stick make-up
20. Lip gloss — I took the resolution to wear lipstick more often, but it’s a failure as yet.
21. Pocket mirror
22. Sunscreen
23. Bag for the baby stuff
24. 2 diapers, different sizes
25. Baby wipes (not pictured… I ran out recently)
26. Bib
27. Crayons
28. Crackers in a candy box
29. Digital camera (point-and-shoot, not pictured)
30. Extra memory card

What I plan to add
(There’s still enough space.)

1. 1 Sharpie
2. Small roll of duct tape
3. Swiss Army knife (is that legal?)
4. I should also add the waterproof matchsticks I made as a girl Scout… always prepared!
5. USB cord to unload the camera, maybe

The great thing about this bag is all the compartments, keeping things organized.

No phone, no GPS, no Palm, no iPod!! We live in the dark ages, Frank and I.

No pacifier, but there’s often one in my jeans pocket anyway.
No toys, but I carried around a Hot Wheel in my coat pocket most of winter.
I would carry drink boxes if my purse didn’t get kicked around so much.

No spy gadgets! though I dig that this list ended with “lipstick”.

If you have suggestions for useful additions, I’m interested.

When I was younger, one my idols was a B.D. (European comics) character named Yoko Tsuno (and on Wiki). Apart from being a brainy electrical engineer /slash/ Aïkido black belt /slash/ glider and helicopter and jet pilot /slash/ scuba diver /slash/ alien friend /slash/ time traveller — and an all-around very nice person I might add –, one of her cool trademarks (to my eyes) was the fact that she was often carrying around a long-strap bag filled with useful gadgets and tools, which made her ready to tackle any tricky situation (as she is wont to do). This bag — actually, these bags, plural — were somewhat like the one Jack Bauer lugged around for most of season 5 (the one with the nerve gas), except cuter and probably cleaner.

Thus, I have a sweet spot for well-equipped long-strap bags.

Behold, my purse.

This little shoulder bag may not help me face a terrorist threat, but it deals wonderfully with most of my day-to-day crisis. For fun, I’ll let you guess at the contents before I make a list. You’ll be surprised how much stuff this small accessory can snug in.

PS. I leave you with some Yoko Tsuno images. That Asian/European chick is some kick-ass sci-fi hero.

It took very little effort to imagine a pack of children scampering off in the yard, as I pulled up the car to a large white house just before lunch on Saturday. The house sits at the heart of the village, a few yards from a great ornate church; various extensions on sloped ground overlook the spot where the big garden used to grow. All over the walls, fish scales of wood dress the house with ancestral charm, and green trim complements it, though I remember it being painted burgundy – I have an old blurry picture somewhere, that I took with my first camera back in the nineties.

It became my private game for that day: conjuring up visions of cousins crouching behind beds playing hide-and-seek, aunts calling up children from the bottom of the twisted carpeted staircase, or uncles sleeping off hangovers on the couch after New Year’s celebrations. We’re all grown up now; some of us have children of our own. Yet, still, my grandmother’s house remained the carefour of an extended family scattered throughout the province; it remained, despite the loss of my grandfather over a decade ago and, more recently, my grandmother herself moving out to lodgings better suited to her failing health. It served through the years as gathering place, shelter and rallying point. The house was permeated with family.

It’s odd that it will not be our first stop on trips to my parents’ neighboring hometowns anymore. My other grandfather’s house – on my father’s side of the family – was sold last year as well, so I am not sure where visits will land us or how often we will make the trip in the years to come. Times are changing.

I took a picture of Xavier in front of the house, to try and hold my past and future in the same image. The little bugger will just NOT stand still!

And Orléane got to meet her great-grandmother for the second time, so we snatched a pic of the 4 generations of women.