Monthly Archives: March 2011

I’m used to nice things!

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I had a plan to write a really funny post about how yesterday’s Costco trip destroyed my faith in humanity, but my neighbour restored it; and how the entire city suddenly got over their collective seasonal affectedness disorder because the sun came out and the temperature got above freezing and this was the actual, number one top news story on the six o’clock news.  I was also going to talk about how we got a new garage door to replace our terribly long-suffering forty nine year old garage door and how it has brought me joy as I have had to park on the street – ON THE STREET! – for the past few weeks and while this might not sound like a big deal to you, it is to me.  To quote Cameron from Modern Family, “What am I going to do?  I’m used to nice things!”  I’m not happy scraping several inches of ice and snow off the windshield at five in the morning and then tracking it accidentally onto my seat so that I have a soggy wet butt by the time I arrive at my destination.  The new garage door is a miracle of garage doors.

Anyway, I had some posts planned but I have been unable to focus because my operation to strip my varicose veins is tomorrow at one o’clock, and I have to be at the hospital at 10:15.  I’m a little mixed about this time; on the one hand it will be nice to sleep a little later, my parents don’t have to come over at six in the morning to take care of the boys, and I can shower in the morning.  I also thought, happily, that I could clean the bathroom before leaving for the hospital, and the fact that occurred to me in a cheery way just goes to show I need to get out more.  The problem with this time is that, since I can’t eat after midnight tonight, and the surgery is a couple of hours, that is a long time to go without eating. As those who know me can attest, I do not do well not eating for extended periods of time.  I become even crazier than normal so please, your sympathies for those who have to deal with me tomorrow.

Soccer Moms: not just about tracksuits anymore.

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So, after a flurry of activity this weekend, I am much more in control and not so sad, despite the fact that it is still snowing.  Still snowing.  It’s been a week now of snow, blowing snow, and the sky matching the snowy, snowy ground.  Someone who lives in a much, much nicer climate than I do phoned this morning and complained about the lack of green grass where she lives.  I was overcome with hysterical jealousy given that a) it will be a minimum of six weeks before green grass appears here, and b) it will be a while before brown grass appears given the plethora of snow.
But I digress.  I wasn’t even going to complain about the horrible, horrible weather, but instead inform you perkily that I have finished several things on my gigantic to-do list (although not the Costco trip.  That’s tomorrow but my mother is very kindly taking the kids for a few hours meaning I can have my usual Costco-based nervous breakdown without hearing “Mom?  Mom?  MOOOOMMMM?  Can we get a snack?  Can we?  MOOOOOOMMMM.”)  The biggest accomplishment for me this weekend was finishing the soccer schedules.  It is my third year of doing the soccer schedules for our community and the two surrounding, and happily, at no time did I resort to heavy drinking, crying, or trying to stab myself in the heart with my mechanical pencil.  Since I am now a jaded veteran of the world of soccer scheduling, I fully expected some sort of complaint or change as soon as I sent it out to the officials, and so I was not at all thrown off by the almost immediate reply that the number of U10 teams was going to change. 
What I have found about being a stay-at-home mom with kids in school is that the number of volunteer commitments that I sign up for tends to snowball at particular times of the year and then I feel like I have a full time, albeit unpaid, job.  It’s not like I don’t like being involved with the school or soccer community, although being a soccer mom makes me think that I need to go buy a neon windbreaker tracksuit.  I mean, sure, there’s the glory of being known as the “Book Fair Lady”, and the warm feeling of being appreciated when I get accosted at the volunteer appreciation dinner by someone drunkenly thanking me for taking on the soccer scheduling, but sometimes it just feels like a lot of work.  Although maybe it was me being drunk at the volunteer appreciation dinner.  After all, I won a gigantic set of French White Corningware and decided to walk home alone carrying the very heavy box, much to my husband’s dismay when I arrived, stumbling on the doorstep.  “LOOK WHAT I WON!”
But the big news of the weekend was that I attended a few sessions of a yoga workshop with this man, and it was fabulous.  Strenuous, but fabulous.  I have discovered some muscles that I did not know I had, and now I’m moving around like I’m an arthritic ninety year old.  Getting up off the couch is taking some serious effort.  The timing may not have been great given that it’s only three sleeps until my big day, after which I may be walking like an arthritic ninety-five year old.  But well worth it anyway.
How was your weekend?

The Apocalypse? Or PMS?

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Yesterday I was so blue and everything seemed bleak and grim: my legs ache and hurt constantly, there are unspeakable tragedies all over the world, I need to do the soccer scheduling, I have to write an article for the community newsletter, the sky is grey, it’s been snowing for five days, it’s cold and damp and I have to wait outside for 30 minutes between the times that my children finish school at lunchtime, after which I can’t get warm or if I do I have to leave to stand outside again to pick up Mark after school, I stepped in dog poop while cleaning up dog poop, I have surgery next week and so much to do before then and it’s March break starting Monday, the dog stinks, what if I turn into a weirdo mother-in-law and my children become estranged to me in their adulthood, human atrocities do not seem to warrant international intervention unless such atrocities occur in an oil-producing nations, there is going to be an election and I don’t want one, I have to go to Costco, my driver’s license is about to expire and the province did not send me a renewal notice, which is the second time something like this has happened, which makes me believe that it was delivered to someone else and they didn’t bother to drop it at my house, despite the fact that I always, always drop off my neighbour’s misdelivered mail no matter how unimportant it looks.
Everything seemed overwhelming and glum.  I took extra Vitamin D tablets, made my favourite dinner – much to the disappointment of all other family members who do not share my affinity for Greek salad and pita bread – drank some wine and ate a piece of chocolate birthday cake, and then the sun came out for five minutes and I felt a little better. 

All those sad things are still sad today – except for the driver’s license part, which I renewed this morning thanks to the very kind man I spoke with on the government hotline who tipped me off that rates are going up effective April 1st – but I realized something: you know when you feel hopeless and depressed and loathing and like nothing you do even MATTERS, and ew, you have dog poop on your boot, and everything is so overwhelmingly sad but then you look at a calendar and do some back counting and then a lightbulb goes on and you realize – you REALIZE – that there is a reason, a very hormonal reason that you feel that way, and then you know you’re going to feel better soon?  Yes, that.

So I feel slightly more in control of things this morning.  Yes, I have no control over terrible things in the world but I can donate to relief efforts.  Yes, it’s cold and horrible but maybe it will stop snowing soon and March break means I do not have to do the pickups and dropoffs in the freezing cold.  Yes, my legs are constantly aching and swollen but maybe they won’t be in three weeks’ time.  Yes, I have to go to Costco but at least I can get one of those giant logs of goat cheese for five dollars.

I don’t like being sad.  That’s probably the most inane sentence ever uttered but it’s true.  My husband and I were talking the other night about how we used to like adventure travel and how I actually used to have a backpack to put my clothes in and how there were hundreds of places I wanted to experience.  Now, however, I said, looking out the window at the blowing snow “I don’t want to go anywhere cold.  Or anywhere that makes me sad.  I want to go where there’s nice fruit and it would be nice if we could go somewhere I can keep up with my yoga practice.”  My husband looked at me for a minute while I listed off all of my travel requirements then offered, “So you only ever want to go to Hawaii?”

Hawaii would be lovely, it’s true – who wouldn’t want to have a pretty drink with an umbrella in it and get to make “Getting Lei’d” jokes? – but even lovelier was Jake, climbing onto my lap, saying that he wished my operation was tomorrow so I could feel better right away, and if I needed anything he would get it, unless he couldn’t reach it in which case I may have to help him.  And I do feel better.  It’s Friday after all, I have a great yoga workshop to attend this weekend, I have an episode of Parks and Recreation to watch tonight, and Cadbury Mini-Eggs were on special at the grocery store. 

How about you?  Any plans for the weekend? xo

Spring has sprung!

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Well, not really.
I grew up here and March is not, to me, a spring month.  It’s a WINTER month.  My birthday is in late April and that is when spring begins for me, which is not to say it won’t snow after said birthday, but it’s spring snow, rather than winter snow.  Big difference.  In the event that I move out of this city into a milder climate – one day, please, one day! – I will be stunned, surely, by flowers and grass and leaves in March but for now, it’s all about shovelling snow.
It’s easy to get down at this time of year, the sky is grey, the snow is on the ground and has been for five months, magazines everywhere are advertising spring fashions that I might be able to wear in another three months or so, if I’m lucky and it doesn’t snow, but yesterday I was walking the kids to school and I looked at their fleece toques.  The snowflakes on them were perfect; they were perfectly formed, I could see all the individual designs, they were beautiful.  I felt almost poetic, it was a lovely moment.  I showed the boys each of their brother’s toque, and we all marvelled for a moment.  I talked about every snowflake being unique; although truly that is not something anyone could ever prove, no matter how many resources you pumped into that kind of hypothesis, you could never, ever prove it.  Although I suppose you could never disprove it either.  It makes me feel someone like a snowflake agnostic.
Having a positive outlook is so important.  That’s not to say we should all walk around chirping annoyingly about every! great! thing! in! the! world! because wow, would that be annoying.  But I was reading (in O magazine, don’t JUDGE me people, I have a subscription, it was a gift subscription from my mother-in-law) about four things people have control over in terms of their health: not smoking, having a healthy diet, exercising, and having a positive, optimistic outlook. 
I love that!  I also truly believe that positivity and optimism can heal.  My father-in-law, ten years ago, was diagnosed with colon cancer.  He was a man typical of his generation; he had not been to the doctor in probably forty years, and he had been experiencing symptoms for many years prior to his diagnosis.  At the time his tumour was the size of a grapefruit, it had started to metastasize, it was encroaching on organs, he was given six months to a year to live. 
He didn’t believe it. 
He went through aggressive treatment and all throughout he kept saying, “I am going to be healthy at your wedding.”  When we got married – nine years ago tomorrow – he was healthy.  You would have never known he was ill.  Amazing the doctors, he recovered and regained his strength and until recently was cancer free.  But that’s another story.

Serendipity

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Do you believe in serendipity?  And I don’t mean the movie, which was fine and all but lady, let me give you a hint here: if John Cusack asks for your phone number, don’t write it on a five dollar bill or in a random book or throw it away.  GIVE HIM YOUR DAMN NUMBER.  It’s John Cusack.  Lloyd Dobler!  One day he could be holding up a ghetto blaster outside your window and it would be the most romantic moment ever.   
Slight digression: did you love Say Anything as much as I did?  I love it nearly – but not quite – as much as I love When Harry Met Sally.  I sigh audibly when I think of that movie.  Oh Lloyd, you adorable slacker, you.  And while I think that John Cusack is some fine drink of water, I actually think that it would be quite irritating to be with someone whose sole ambition is to spend time with me.  I mean, really, I like being adored as much as the next girl, but there are limits to my patience with complete and utter worship.  Not that this is exactly an issue for me, but still.  That movie is fabulous with some truly great lines: “I gave her my heart and she gave me this pen.”  “Joe lies, Joe lies, when he cries.”  Sigh.  Not to mention some great scenes; remember when the guy was singing “The Greatest Love of All” at the graduation ceremony?  They can’t take away MY DIGNITY.
Anyway, back to serendipity.  Friday night we went to the mountains for a night with the kids to celebrate Mark’s birthday and our wedding anniversary, both of which are coming up on Wednesday.  While we were planning this little evening – a  couple of weeks ago –  I called the kennel where I send the dog for boarding, to book him in for a night.  The woman on the phone informed me that she was sorry, but they didn’t take dogs for overnight boarding anymore.  Since this was a Thursday, and only four days earlier I had picked the dog up from that place of business after boarding him there for eleven days, I asked when that policy was in place.  I was informed, rather perkily, that there had been changes in management.
Huh.  Suddenly it all made sense.  When I picked the dog up from boarding there was a strange absence of dogs.  As well, normally after he has been boarded with other dogs, he is completely exhausted like he just got back from the dog version of a Charlie Sheen party, and sleeps almost constantly, but this time he was surprisingly alert and did not seem at all tired.  In fact, for days after he simply sat at my feet and stared at me in a disturbing sort of way.  I realize now he was trying to telepathically communicate with me.  I started wondering what, exactly, had been done or not done with my poor dog, but more than that, I had no idea what to do with the dog for the next time we were going out of town.  In this city, all the big boarding kennels are either a) outside city limits, b) a 45 minute drive away, or c) full of strange and crazy restrictions (Our dogs are allowed to roam free!  If you bring your own food you will be charged excessively!).  The dog boarder that we had used was pretty much perfect; that is, perfect until they stopped boarding dogs while my dog was being boarded.
Later I was picking the kids up from school, and I happened on a friend I hadn’t seen in a while and for some reason it occurred to me to ask her about dog boarding, and it turns out that she has a friend who boards dogs out of her home, not ten minutes away from me.  Score!  So Barkley went there on Friday and I’m happy to report that he is currently passed out like he spent thirty six hours snorting cocaine and having sex with porn stars/hookers and boasting about his Labrador blood.  Serendipity.

It’s a Long Way to Tipperary

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  I set out green shirts for the boys to wear this morning, saying “Better wear your green or the leprechauns will pinch you!”  Jake sighed heavily.  “Mom, leprechauns don’t EXIST.”  Ah, the magic of childhood. 

My children may not be enamoured with the magical, but they are enamoured with science, as evidenced by their recent report cards.  Happily, this happens to be right up my alley.  Science experiments are my favourite indoor way to pass the time with the kids, and it’s what I’m guest posting about over at Significantly Simple!

When the lovely Laila and Heather over at Significantly Simple asked me to guest post, I was flattered and a little nervous.  It’s my first guest post ever!  I am losing my guest posting virginity.  It’s just like losing actual virginity but without all the awkwardness and regret. 

Anyway, take a wander over to Significantly Simple and let me know what you think!  xoxo