Monthly Archives: September 2010

That’s what she said!

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So! The hardwood is in! The hardwood is in! Part one of our home renovation process is DONE, and thank god for that because a) it is extremely messy, dirty, and disruptive, and b) this past week I have turned into the World’s Least Interesting Person. My entire brain was concentrated on the hardwood installation. The kids are back to school? Whatever, we’re getting hardwood. I feel badly for any of the poor unsuspecting souls who had the grave misfortune of talking to me this week. The slightest greeting from their side resulted in the regaling of my hardwood tales. “Hi Nicole, how are you?” “We’re getting hardwood installed.” Cue long story about hardwood.

So, I apologize to everyone I talked to this week. Also I feel I must apologize for the plethora of really bad hardwood jokes that I felt must be made under the circumstances, of the “that’s what she said” variety. But, wow. Those jokes practically tell themselves. After the installation, the (very cute) installer warned about scratches and dents, saying “Hardwood is a bit of a misnomer. It’s not that hard. It’s more like medium wood.” And THAT, I felt, needed some kind of witty remark but to be honest, I was kind of high from all the glue fumes in the house and so any repartee would have made me sound like a delirious lunatic.

So now I am going to go spend some time putting the house back together – including throwing out some of the accumulated crap from the kids’ bedrooms, sssh, don’t tell them – and enjoying the feeling that I have a brand new house, in the convenient location of my old house. Pictures to follow once I have things back in order, although, alas, I do not have any pictures of the installation itself. I was tempted, on the suggestion of a friend, to photograph the cute installers under the guise of “recording the progress”, but I felt too weird and cougar-ish to actually go through with it. Plus, I was feeling kind of strange since in moving my dresser they removed the drawers and my panty drawer was on full view for the entire installation. Did they need to see my panties in order to put in the hardwood? I suppose so. See? Hardwood installation is a WEALTH of comic material. Of course, now my panty drawer is very dusty, which seems like a euphemism but isn’t.

On that note, I’m off to clean! Happy Friday, everyone.

P.S. In the comments, Tonggu Momma asked if I wanted to pet the floors. I do. I do want to pet them. They are so nice. I think maybe I should open the windows to let the fumes out, what think?

It’s quiet. A little TOO quiet.

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Today was the big day. Not back to school – that was last week. Today was the day we were slated to get the hardwood installed. It was no mean feat getting ready for the installation, given that we were out of town for the long weekend. All moveable items were moved, all clothing, toys, and breakable items stashed in the basement. Then this morning we got the phone call that they were delayed and wouldn’t start until tomorrow.

Sigh.

I was under the expectation that I would drop the boys off – Jake’s first full morning of kindergarten after last week’s frantic pace of staggered entry – and then I would come home to chaos and noise and instead it is so very quiet. Even the dog is still at the kennel. I’m lonely. And I’m also unable to find anything, and I keep bumping into things.

This is the view of my office right now. Halp.


We were in Saskatchewan this weekend, visiting with my grandparents. My grandfather turned 96 on Saturday, which is quite a feat, I think. Last year there was a huge family reunion for his 95th birthday, which was initially supposed to be somewhat of a surprise party, much to my strong disapproval. Who thinks that a surprise party is a good idea for a 95 year old man? NOT ME. Anyway, at the reunion last year I had the sad feeling that it would be the last time I would see my grandfather – he was not doing particularly well and, in any case, he was 95. One does not buy green bananas when one is 95. But here he is! He looked great and was in good spirits and I was very happy we had made the trip. Plus my grandma made a scrumptious lemon poppyseed chiffon cake, of which I ate slice after slice.

One thing about travelling with kids is that it can be exhausting. We stayed in a hotel and so the kids were WIRED and no one was sleeping particularly well, with the obvious result that we were all a bit crabby when we started the two hour drive to the airport yesterday morning. A mere ten minutes into the drive, Jake morphed into a surly little goblin, “This is taking FOREVER. When are we going to be HOME? I’M NOT TIRED. I JUST WANT TO GO HOME. THIS CAR IS MAKING ME HOMESICK.” We listened to this diatribe many, many times. I stared out the window at the unvarying landscape of flooded fields and pumpjacks, all the while thinking “I can see for miles and miles. I can see for miles and miles. I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles.”

So how was your long weekend? I’m feeling kind of blah today, tell me something good?

NOT crazy. Just hormonally deranged.

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The first day of school went great, so I will not bore you with the details. Instead, allow me to tell you what happened on the last day of summer vacation.

It was cold and rainy. I thought a fun activity would be to print out invitations for Jake’s birthday and then have the kids decorate them, which was quite inspired except that the printer was not working. After an hour of online troubleshooting I had to make a decision: just let it go and get on with life or call the technical assistance line. I made the phone call.

Just to interrupt the narrative, it is imperative that you understand – if you do not already know this about me – that I am a crier. I cry for most emotions but especially for frustration and anger. The reader can well imagine how poorly suited I was to working in an open area trade floor, an environment in which I would frequently be sworn at (“This fucking model you made is a piece of shit. It doesn’t fucking update.” “Did you press the update button?” “I shouldn’t have to press a fucking BUTTON. It should just fucking update automatically! FUCK!” Cue crying.) After searching for printer related answers and then being transferred three times, I was very frustrated.

So by the time the final technical support person answered, I was sobbing hysterically. This may seem like an overreaction to the matter at hand and so it was. Perhaps was I a) expressing repressed emotions at the end of school, b) going crazy at last, or c) getting my period? If you answered c), ding ding ding!

I was, at this point, crying so hard I couldn’t speak, but instead was gasping out my printing issues. The technical support person was very soothing. “Ma’am, I will stay on the line if you need a moment to collect yourself. Ma’am, perhaps you would like a drink of water? Ma’am, you just relax now. I am going to take care of everything.” Poor guy. I mean, his job must pretty much suck. He’s a technical support person at a call centre. Probably the premenstrually deranged lunatic was the best call he’d had all day. Probably he deals mostly with irate people demanding to know why their screens were blank, when in fact they hadn’t turned their monitors on, or people screaming about their crappy printers, when in fact their printers weren’t plugged in. At least I was polite, if unintelligible.

My technical support person and I spent one hundred and five minutes on the phone before he came to the conclusion that my printer issue was strange enough to warrant a brand new printer, which actually arrived today, to which I say that is some good customer service. I wonder if crying had anything to do with it. It has never helped me in getting out of speeding tickets, probably because I could win an award for Least Attractive Crier: blotchy, red, and swollen. In any case, I was completely astonished by the result and thanked him many, many times. “You are welcome. Again. All right now, ma’am. Ma’am? Yes, you are welcome. All right, now you have a nice day!”

The rest of the day I felt like I had a hangover, from crying so much. With that stunning denouement to the summer, I was all ready for school today.


Too cool for school. Only after they chose their outfits and I had taken the picture and dropped them at school did I realize that they wore those exact same shirts on the first day of school last year. MOM FAIL.