Monthly Archives: February 2010

No. I don’t like Pina Coladas.

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Music. It speaks to us. It’s like when you fall in love for the first time and you listen to “What a Wonderful World” and you identify with every single lyric – I DO see trees of green AND red roses! – and then maybe you break up with that love and you hear “Against All Odds” and the lyrics are like purposeful daggers to your broken heart. How can he just walk away, when I stand here taking every breath for him? Sob.

Or maybe you go Mexico and you hear “Margaritaville” and it captures the foggy, unfocused essence of your vacation, or you’re having a night out with your girlfriends and you hear “We are Family” and it’s like the soundtrack of your life is playing?

Sometimes, however, a song comes along that you cannot identify with in the least. I’ve mentioned before that I am the exact opposite of the desired person in Rupert Holmes’ song “Escape”. “Escape”, for those who don’t know, is actually the Pina Colada song. Who knew? I certainly didn’t; I always thought that its proper name was the Pina Colada song.

The 1970’s must have been a strange time to be on the dating scene, no? I mean, there was all that casual/ anonymous/ unprotected sex, and the penchant for mustaches and chest hair, and those truckers who had bumper stickers that said “Grass, Gas, or Ass: Nobody Rides for Free”, and the obsessions with zodiac signs (which I kind of get, I mean, I’m superstitious that way). The fact that long-haul truckers practically had a cult following says something about that era. Strange times to be dating, I imagine.

And so the Pina Colada song made it onto the charts. Did it top the charts? I have no idea. I do know that it is one of the most sing-able songs ever written, and also it has a very weird theme: a guy is bored with his “lady” and answers a personal ad, and it turns out his “lady” was bored of him, because she placed said personal ad. Clearly, communication was not a big thing back then.

Reasons why I would be un-dateable in the ‘70s, according to desirable qualities as stated in the Pina Colada song, and separate from my dislike for chest hair, mustaches, bumper stickers, and obviously, the whole casual/ anonymous/ unprotected sex thing (thanks to My Mom the Style Icon for the topic idea. If I was sure that my mom wouldn’t find out and murder me, I would totally send you a picture of her in a 12 inch mini dress.)

Do you like Pina Coladas? No. I dislike anything with coconut flavour. Actually, I dislike anything coconut related. Shredded coconut, to me, has the consistency of dried out dental floss and if there is one way to ruin a good cookie or dessert, it’s by adding shredded coconut to it.

Getting caught in the rain? No. I have very fine hair that goes completely limp in humidity. So you can imagine what I look like after being caught in the rain. Also, I don’t like walking around in wet clothes. Two kids = deflated bosoms = very depressing wet t-shirt contest.

If you’re not into yoga? I practice 5-6 times a week. I get up at five in the morning to practice yoga, so I guess you could say that I’m “into it”.

If you have half a brain? I have a whole brain. Unfortunately a large portion of it is taken up by useless information, like the lyrics to this song.

I’m not much into health food. This one makes me laugh. Yes, I like health food. This is not the ‘70s anymore wherein people who enjoy health food are walking around with unshaven underarms, hemp ponchos, and Birkenstocks, munching on mung beans and wheat germ. Normal people can like health food.

I am into champagne. I’m a red wine girl, myself.

If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape. Okay, stop it right there. I’m not even addressing dunes of the cape. I’m addressing making love at midnight. It’s a miracle if I’m up past nine thirty, let alone getting jiggy with it at midnight. Seriously, my husband is sexy, very much so, but if he woke me up at midnight he would be facing my groggy and somewhat comatose rage. He would not, as they say, be tapping that.

Stroller-free

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We sold our stroller this week and although we haven’t used it for many months – I can’t even recall when, exactly, we used it last – it feels strange that it is gone. For the first time in six years, I am stroller-less. At one point I actually had four strollers of varying child carrying capacities, weights, and wheel sizes in my garage. And now the fact that I have none feels like an era has officially ended.

I read this post about knowing when your family has maxed out on members, about knowing that there are no more babies coming down the pipe, so to speak. I knew I wanted two children, no more, no less, and I after I had my second healthy baby boy, I knew I wanted to stop. I recall clearly that when Mark was a baby, a small baby, maybe only a few months old, that I was already thinking ahead to the next baby. When Jake was a small baby, I knew, without a doubt, that he was the last.

I am starting to see that this viewpoint may not be typical.

More and more I speak with women who have pangs to have another baby, who perhaps wish to have another one and can’t for varying heart-breaking reasons, or who continue to add to their families with joy and happiness. Sometimes, and this is a confession, I wonder if there is something missing in my maternal being that I never, ever have pangs for another baby. I don’t even really enjoy holding other babies, and that is a difficult confession to make.

My grandmother, among others, would frequently advise me that I had better get pregnant, soon, with the infuriating advice that I should really try to have a girl. “Girls are different”, she would say, “Wouldn’t you like to have a girl?” And, my distaste at the thought of trying for a specific gender notwithstanding, I would reply mildly that girl or boy, I do not want any more babies.

A few years ago, when the boys were still very small, my period stopped for a few months. This was after we had taken permanent birth control steps, so pregnancy in this case, while not unheard-of, would be pretty much a medical curiosity. Still, I worried. I took test after test and they were all, of course, negative. But one day I was in the car with the two of them, driving and listening to them complain about dropped sippy cups and snacks, and I thought, what if the tests are wrong? What if I actually am pregnant? And the panic and anxiety that filled my being was such that I had to pull over so I could collapse in a sobbing puddle of tears.

Soon after that incident my period returned, and it was clear that our decision to have only two children was the correct one.

Meanwhile, each time Jake passed through a trying stage as a baby – a tiring one like teething, or a gross one like potty training – I would think well, I don’t have to go through that again. And now we are past, long past, the stroller stage and although that certainly wasn’t trying or difficult, it was a stage and now we are in a new one. I think about the hundreds of times I would tuck them into the stroller, with blankets and toys and snacks, and I think about those days with affection and also sadness, that the time has gone so quickly, so quickly I didn’t even notice.

Groundhog Day is the stupidest day of the year.

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I was about to launch my annual diatribe against Groundhog Day, and thought I would actually look up a bit of the history behind this dubious so-called holiday. It turns out that modern day North American Groundhog Day has roots in European weather lore, the pagan festival of Imbolc, and the medieval Catholic holiday of Candlemas, which is related to the end of the Epiphany and (in the Lutheran church in which I was brought up) the Presentation of Jesus. One thing I love is when I find out that something ridiculous like Groundhog Day, setting for one of the lamest movies ever, is actually related to something more global. It’s like realizing that in the dead of winter, cultures and religions all over the world recognize the need for a light-filled holiday, and bam! There you have Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Winter Solstice, Midwinter Pagan Festivals. It makes me feel like a part of a global community, cue the We Are The World music. It almost softens my feelings for Groundhog Day.

But really, Groundhog Day. I hate it. Despite the above paragraph, it is surely the stupidest day on the calendar, if only because I live in a climate in which six weeks more of winter is an early spring. Hell, if you could guarantee that in ten weeks there would be no more snow and minus ten degree frosts, I would be ecstatic. My husband actually dug up a bed of my tulip bulbs, evidently tired of my face falling off with sadness year after year as I would eagerly watch my tulips emerge, then bud, then get covered with a foot of snow, freeze, and break off at the stems before flowering. Of course, he grew up in a significantly warmer climate that me, a place where tulips actually grow and flower unhindered by snow or frost.

As an aside, a certain family member of his who still lives in this lovely climate phoned me a few weeks ago, complaining about the glorious spring weather that they were experiencing. “I hate this,” she said, “Because you know, I just love winter.” I looked out at the minus 20 degree, snow covered backyard, then broke my own rule about speaking nicely and snapped nastily, “Then I guess you should move to Calgary!” What I was trying to accomplish with that comment, I do not know. For one thing, perhaps I too would enjoy winter if a frigid winter day meant the temperature hovering around the freezing mark and the season itself lasted less than three months. For another thing, what if she took that comment at face value? Then where would I be?

Anyway, I heard this morning that our resident groundhog, Balzac Billy, did not see his shadow, predicting an early spring, whatever that means. Here’s a picture of Balzac Billy:

Yes, Balzac Billy is a guy dressed up in a groundhog costume. Suck on that, PETA. You want to swap out a large rodent for a robot? Well, we are WAY ahead of you up here. Yes, we may have the rodeo, and the grizzly hunt, and my neighbour kept a deer carcass in his backyard all last winter, but DAMN. We have our mascot-like, six foot tall, red-t-shirt-wearing Balzac Billy.