Monthly Archives: March 2011

The Hunger Games versus Harry Potter

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I’ve been unwell for the past couple of days; I’ve had the cold that has been going around the kids’ school, and while it isn’t devastating, it is annoying in one of those “I just went through an entire box of Kleenex” sort of way.
Yesterday was spent in a cold medication-induced fog, the kind of day that not only gets in the way of any kind of productivity, but also gets in the way of basic functioning.  I spent the afternoon dozing in and out on the couch while Jake watched TV – active parenting, no? – and woke up to find his stuffed Quatchi on my face.  “I thought you might want to snuggle him!” Jake said happily, which made me happy although somewhat leery of being smothered.
I couldn’t even focus enough to read.  On the weekend I read The Hunger Games, which Mark’s teacher had lent me with a high recommendation.  I didn’t pick it up for a week or so, because it just didn’t seem like my type of book, and also I realize that the trilogy is very popular and the last time I tried to read something that popular – Harry Potter – I hated it and found myself alone on an island of non-enchantment.  I still avoid mentioning that I dislike Harry Potter in certain circles, due to the emotional tarring-and-feathering I received from my feelings.  So I worried that I would try to read this and hate it, and then I would be all alone again.  Here I go again on my own…
But I loved it.  I couldn’t put it down.  It greatly surprised me and so if you, like me, have been putting off reading The Hunger Games because you think it looks terrible, it might surprise you!  I took it to my hair appointment on the weekend because I couldn’t bear to pick up any of the usual tabloid magazines. 
Last Thursday I was grocery shopping and I came upon two checkout lines: one with a senior couple who had only a few items left to unload in their cart, and one with a woman who had a full-to-overflowing cart, and so I lined up behind the seniors.  I soon realized my mistake as the woman sped through the other lineup, and several other people after her, while I stood there waiting, waiting for the elderly woman to SLOWLY take one small item at a time out of her cart and the cashier SLOWLY rang it through and SLOWLY set each item with the utmost care in a shopping bag.  I kept thinking to myself, be patient, it’s only five minutes out of your day, then be patient, it’s only ten minutes out of your day, then OMG how can it take fifteen minutes to unload six items, no, be patient, finally TWENTY MINUTES!  IT’S BEEN TWENTY MINUTES ALREADY!!!  While I was deep breathing and focusing on not shoving everyone out of the way and bagging all the damn groceries myself, I started looking at the magazine display.  “Bachelor Brad Betrayed by Emily!” one magazine screamed, and went on to reveal that “engagement to dead Nascar driver was a lie!”  Okay.  Since this was last Thursday, and I know with 100% certainty that the Final Rose was only given out two days ago, I idly wondered if the network would be upset at this very important security leak.  Another magazine claimed to be the Cellulite Edition.  On the cover were various celebrities in various skimpy outfits, with circles around various body parts.  Yippee.  “Guess Who?” the magazine asked about someone in a bikini with “flabby love handles.”  I wondered if people actually buy this magazine.  They must, I guess, but how depressing.  How depressing would it be to be someone who writes those “articles”?  Even more depressing, those were the only two magazines that did not have Charlie Sheen’s and his crazy face splashed across the cover.  When I finally left the store twenty-five minutes later, I felt like I had lost actual IQ points from just reading magazine covers. 
And today I appear to be oscillating between being completely high, jittery, and unfocused due to cold medication, or completely foggy, slow, and unfocused due to having a cold.  Apologies if this post makes no sense.  But The Hunger Games!  You should try it; you may like it!

Screw you, Daylight Savings. Screw you.

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Edited to add: I just discovered that today is Pi Day!  I didn’t even know Pi Day existed, but the fact of its existence has made me so suddenly happy that I almost deleted this post.  Almost.  But now I feel like dancing around – PI DAY!  Please, a note of sympathy for my poor husband, as he has been listening to me rage about Daylight Savings; now he will have to celebrate Pi Day with me.  Hooray for Pi Day!

Here’s a sign of spring: yesterday I was walking the dog and saw, despite the fact that there are snowbanks everywhere and it was only 8 degrees, two men wearing shorts.  There is a special breed of Calgarian who just love to don their shorts the second the snow starts melting, which is bizarre to me but who am I to judge?  I wear shorts exactly never.  Let your freak flag fly, fellows.  Enjoy your shorts.

It’s also time for my semi-annual diatribe against Daylight Savings Time.  How I hate it.  Hate doesn’t even fully describe it; Daylight Savings Time turns me into a red-hot-rage-against-the-machine-bitch.  As you know, I’m not a violent person by nature, I’m all cheery and ahimsa, but I am telling you, people, time change makes me feel, as the beautiful and talented Allison says, all stabby. 
And don’t get me started on the amazing reasons for time change because there ARE no good reasons for time change.  Oh, it’s light late in the evening?  Fuck you.  I wake up at 4:55 a.m. and I like going to bed when it is dark.  No one needs the sun setting at 10:00 p.m.  NO ONE.  And the children, my god, won’t someone please think of the children?  We are all totally screwed up and crabby. 
Oh, but we get the hour back in the fall!  Do we?  Do we now?  Here’s what happens in the fall: the children wake up at their normal time, which is now one hour EARLIER than before, and not only is that excruciating from a psychological standpoint, but it also means that by dinnertime they are falling apart with tiredness, and can barely stay awake until bedtime, and then they are sleep deprived assholes.  In the spring, the children wake up at their normal time, which is now one hour LATER than before, so when it is bedtime they are not tired and also there is bright fucking sunshine, so they fall asleep later and are exhausted when you wake them up for school.  Then, since they are exhausted they are falling apart and crabby by dinnertime and they have turned into sleep deprived assholes.  You see?  No change.  Just a whole lot of crabby children and parents.  And, since it takes several days to fully adapt to a change in time, it is almost a week of crabbiness.  STOP THE MADNESS.
Let me tell you something, people, Saskatchewan has it right.  I know, I know, insert your smartass Rider Pride/ dog ran away/ paint drying/ pass the freaking wheat comments here, but they are leaders in this country with regards to time change.  We could all take a lesson from Saskatchewan.  And the next time someone erroneously tells me that we have Daylight Savings Time because “of the farmers” I will punch them in the face.
Whoa.  Where did all that anger come from?  This is what Daylight Savings does to a person.  Om Shanti.
On a more positive note (like I could get more negative, right?) thank you all for your kind words and comments.  I treasure all your comments and support, so thank you so much.
A happy picture to make up for my colossal bitchiness.  From the Happiest Place on Earth!  Pluto was the one and only character the kids wanted to see.  The rest, they said, were “kind of creepy”.  What can I say, I agree

Frivolty in the Face of Tragedy

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So.  The day after I post a story about my over-reaction to a water main break on my street, the earthquake and related chaos and possible nuclear meltdown occurs in Japan.  I feel like an asshole.

How do you talk to your children about such things?  Mine are at an awkward age where they are aware, but cannot understand the magnitude or the likelihood or otherwise that it will happen to them.  They are also highly imaginative.  I have not been watching any coverage when they are around. 

I feel it’s best to focus on ways to help.  I think that reacting in a positive way is best, because kids are not only perceptive but also naturally want to know that there is a solution.  And while there may not be a solution, exactly, there are ways to help.

I recently read something about a man who had received compliments on his child, and those compliments included the word “lucky”.  He responded very indigantly and in an offended manner, that luck had nothing to do with it; essentially he is a superior parent.  My initial response to this is that buddy, if someone is complimenting you, take the damn compliment.  We live in a society, people.  Also, I do believe that parenting has a lot to do with how your children turn out, a lot, but I also believe in karma and fortune.  I have been very fortunate – I have two wonderful, healthy, smart children, I have very few worries and concerns – and I count my blessings every damn day.  I count my blessings that I live in a place where being cold and crappy are the biggest weather-and-geographical related issues, rather than being in a place that is earthquake/tsunami/hurricane prone.  I count my blessings that I am able to sit at my laptop and bitch about my water being turned off for two hours, that I have my family and that we are all together, all safe and healthy. 

And now I’m going to sign off and go play with my beautiful children and revel in my sheer luckiness.

I Also Hate Camping

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 Two days ago, Jake and I were driving home from the grocery store when it appeared that my street was underwater.  An enormous ark-like flood of muddy water filled my street, and my first thought was that it didn’t seem warm enough to melt that much snow, when I noticed that the water was bubbling up from a water main break.
One thing you may not know about me: I have a strange and irrational fear of the water being turned off.  In the nearly eleven years that I have lived in this house, there has been a water main issue that has led to the water being turned off twice, and by “turned off” I mean “turned off for a couple of hours” and so my reactions to this slight inconvenience are absurdly extreme, even for me.  I’m not sure why having the water shut off elicits such panic in me, but it does.  I seem to believe that if the water is off, it may NEVER be back on, and I will morph into an itinerant hobo, wandering the street filthy and dehydrated, with greasy hair and dragging a garbage bag of dirty clothes to the nearest Laundromat, only to find I don’t have any quarters. 
So as soon as I saw the water gushing in our street, I raced into the house, turned on the tap, and sure enough, a low pressure trickle came out for a moment before completely shutting off.  Dammit. 
I couldn’t take the uncertainty.  I eyed the work crew assembling around the spill.  They seemed busy, but my need for information overcame my aversion to interrupting people at their work and possibly raising the ire of the work crew.  I assembled my secret weapons: my favourite lipstick, my saucy new wedge-heeled boots, and Jake.  Hand in hand we stood at the outskirts of the massive water spill, with Jake chattering and me smiling vapidly, until the foreman noticed us.  I commented on the work crew and their busyness and the enormous job before them, then asked sweetly how long the water would be turned off.  The foreman answered, only a little gruffly, that it would be two to three days.
I almost fell off my wedgy heels.
I asked, trying to keep the panicky tones at a minimum, if they would be sending out a water truck or something, to which he responded, “We haven’t even turned the water off yet.  We can’t find the main valve in all this mess.”  I told him my water was off, and pointed to my house.  Evidently the valve to the water supply on my side of the street had been shut in error, and the foreman smiled at me as he said he would rectify the situation as soon as possible.  He spoke to Jake, “How you doing, buddy?  Quite a flood, huh?”  You see?  Secret weapon.
Although he said the water would be on as soon as possible, I still didn’t know what that meant.  Would it be today?  An hour?  Tomorrow morning?  I didn’t feel I could prod for any more information at that point, and also I was nearly dizzy with relief that I would not be water-less for two to three days, unlike the poor souls at the other end of the street.  In any case it was time to pick Mark up from school, where my friends at the playground listened to my tale of woe very patiently and sympathetically.  I even wrangled some invitations from friends, should the situation necessitate Further Steps, to a) shower, b) come over and fill up jugs of water, c) bring the kids over for baths.  I accepted the invitations with much gratitude, although they were thankfully unnecessary as an hour or so later I heard gurgling in the pipes as the water came back on.
The second the water came back on I leaped into action.  I started to fill every water bottle in the house in addition to the bathtub.  By the time I was considering filling the second bathtub, my husband came home and asked why, if the water was back on, was I filling everything in sight?  I responded that I was preparing in case the water went off again.  This seemed perfectly rational at the time, although now it feels like perhaps I was auditioning for a role on one of those reality shows about people who hoard things. 
I’m happy to report that the water is still on and I didn’t have to resort to melting snow, as someone very unhelpfully suggested.  What can I say?  I would have been a terrible pioneer.

I once had a poster of a fish riding a bicycle.

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Yesterday, according to the internet – which is never wrong, correct? – was Booty Appreciation Day.  A moment of silence, please, while we all absorb that riveting information.
Strangely, Booty Appreciation Day is immediately followed by International Women’s Day – so happy girl power to all of us!  Fish on bicycles, women’s work is never done or is unpaid or underpaid, etc.  We all take many things for granted these days, what with our abilities to choose things or the recognition that we are actual people rather than chattel or property, so I am undyingly grateful to the many amazing women who have changed the world for all of us. 
You know what would be fabulous for International Women’s Day?  Kindness and compassion.  Here’s what bothers me: I’m a statistics girl.  I have a not-insignificant (heh, get it?) background in statistics, and here’s the thing: there is a difference between correlation and causality.  There is also something called statistical coincidence, which is an underlying problem with any statistical study.  There is ALSO something called political motivation to studies, which means that statistics can be interpreted rather liberally, or a statistical study can have a number of conclusions but if one of those conclusions meets the needs of a political issue, then that is the conclusion that will make the front page.  Consider these:
Children in Daycare Get Sick More Often: This was quite a comprehensive study that included not only large daycare facilities but also looked at nanny care and small home-based facilities, and the illness rate of school aged children, all of which had different outcomes.  But the headline informs working moms that they are subjecting their babies to plagues and pestilence.  BAD MOTHERS.
Children in Daycare Are Smarter: Again, another study that had varying conclusions but that is what made the front pages, signaling to stay at home moms that they were leading their children down a path of idiocy. Not to mention that their children will grow up without a strong career oriented mother and will think that women are only good for baby raising.  BAD MOTHERS.
If you want to add in some real excitement, talk about how breastfeeding babies are smarter, thus clobbering any mother who gave their baby a bottle and hence shaved off IQ points, or talk about scheduled C-sections versus VBACS versus home births versus epidurals versus no drugs versus water births versus OMG I ran out of time and had my baby in the back of the car on the way to the hospital.  Maybe put in homeschooling versus public school versus alternative programming.  Or perhaps locally grown organic seasonal meals versus I fed my child an Oreo.  Let’s just think about all the ways we can judge each other on our parenting skills and decisions and then resent and hate each other. 
No.
Let’s acknowledge that we are all doing our best as mothers, every single one of us.  If we have the privilege of choice, which most certainly not all of us do, then that is a blessing and something that we should support each other in.  This may be a little “I’d like to teach the world to sing”, but I really think that we have come so far as women, but we have so far to go, so let’s support each other and our choices.  Right?  Girl power.
Who reads those crappy studies anyway?  Most of us are too busy living our day-to-day lives to really care.  And if someone does care, they either have too much time on their hands or are so insecure about their own decisions that they have to be negative about someone else’s, or some combination of the two.  So for International Women’s Day and every day, let’s practice compassion and kindness, and instead of judging try empathy.  That’s really WINNING.

A Tale of Two Closets

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Well, it’s one closet really.  The other day I was making my bed and I looked up and saw this:
From this view it would appear that my husband has bogarted all the closet space.  All those shirts, neatly hung on the upper tier, meanwhile I have a couple of hoodies squished on the bottom tier alongside several neatly hung pairs of men’s dress pants.  It made me feel a little sorry for myself until I opened the other side of the closet to reveal:

There are three other shelves that look like that.  I think I probably have enough yoga clothes, what do you think?

I probably have enough sweaters, and more notably, enough black tops.  I have an intervention-worthy addiction to black tops.  If one is on sale, I must purchase it.  But it’s 50% off!  I know I have three other v-necked black sweaters, but this one has a pocket! 
I realized I had a problem recently while packing for our trip.  My husband and I were sharing a suitcase, and he had set out the clothes he was planning to take.

It’s slightly different from the pile of clothes I was planning to take.

After I took this photo, I completely panicked and added a third bikini and cover-up, and two more black tops.  My husband, on the other hand, looked at his pile of shirts and took one out, questioning whether he really needed two similar shirts.  I did actually wear all the clothes I took, even though some people have expressed doubt at my need for this volume of clothing, specifically all the similar black clothing.
It was a mere eight days ago that I was wearing one of those bikinis and sleeveless tops.  It feels like longer given that it has been -25, windy, and snowy all week.  We are now at that point where I have completely lost perspective and have forgotten that a season not involving giant boots and coats actually exists.  I have a nagging feeling that we are actually entering the Ice Age, and I keep expecting to look out the window to see a small woolly mammoth taking up residence in my backyard.
The problem with weather like this is that we all become completely boring; every time anyone opens their mouths a comment about the extreme cold comes out, and the worst thing about this is that talking about the weather becomes fascinating in a dull sort of way.  According to my blog, last year at this time I was working in my perennial garden; as I write this the snowflakes are falling from the dull, grey sky and the yard is completely frozen and snow-covered, which makes me feel like curling up in a ball with a blanket, staring at the walls and eating potato chips, which I am NOT GOING TO DO.  Instead, I’m going to focus on the happy.
Last night after several glasses of wine, I thought that if I ever cultivate my blog “brand” and really start marketing my blog “brand” instead of spending all my time writing inane posts about germ phobia, the crappy weather, and my old-lady varicose veins, I have the perfect tagline: “Putting the OM in OMG”.  I thought this was hilarious and also perfectly encapsulated all aspects of my personality and I shared it with my husband, who listened patiently as he usually does when I have a wine-fueled idea.  His response was lukewarm, “I’m not a chick, and I also don’t do yoga, so I’m not sure if it’s funny or not.”  In the cold and sober light of morning, I wonder if he’s right?  What do you think, dear readers?  Funny?  Perfectly “Nicole”?  Or just weird and confusing?   

At that moment I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon.

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A while back, I read Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP newsletter, something I never do unless my attention is directed to it.  This particular newsletter – which I cannot find archived, for some reason – dealt with how to be organized.  I was particularly interested because, not to overly congratulate myself here, I consider myself to be a very organized person.  Hyper organized, one might say.  Insanely organized, even.  I write in my agenda daily, little to-do lists that really transcend what I think normal people probably write on their to-do lists.  For example, I write down “clean bathroom” on the same days that I clean the bathroom, week in and week out.  One might think that, hey, it’s Monday/Wednesday/Friday.  I always clean the bathroom.  I do not need to write that down.  But yes.  I do. 

That’s just day-to-day information.  If something really big is happening – and by “really big” I mean “really big in the life of a stay-at-home-mom”, so take that with a grain of salt – then I compile lists, normally on spreadsheets.  If there are three really big events occurring over a six week period, which is my situation right now, then the lights will be dimmed with my spreadsheet making. 

So when I read this GOOP newsletter I was struck by two things: a) Gwyneth Paltrow’s writing is somewhat difficult to read, but it seems that she is attempting to show the world that she is just a regular mom, which I contest given that regular moms do not normally shimmy on a grand piano at the Grammys with Cee Lo Green and a tribe of dancing Muppets, although I totally would if I had the chance, and b) she has a friend who she admires for her organization as she makes spreadsheets when she is packing to go somewhere. 

I read that and thought, really?  Doesn’t everyone just make spreadsheets while packing?  But no, it appears that they do not.  Also, not everyone makes a weekly dinner plan to avoid staring at the fridge and sobbing at five o’clock.  Neither do they carefully schedule grocery trips and other boring domestic activities into their daytimers.  It appears that I am just an anal weirdo.

Remember the scene in When Harry Met Sally (greatest movie ever) when Sally finds out that her old boyfriend, Joe, is getting married?

Sally: I’m difficult.

Harry: Challenging.

Sally: I’m too structured, I’m completely closed off.

Harry: But in a good way.

That’s me.  I am Sally.

The problem with being hyper-organized is that something has to give, and that something is sponteneity.  I have a very hard time just going with the flow, especially if I’m busy.  This week has been extraordinarily busy, for me, as I have been running our Scholastic book fair; in other words, this is the week I stand in awe of working parents everywhere.  How do you all do it?  Clearly I am just accustomed to a slack, slow-paced life as I am frantically trying to keep up with my regular life in addition to dealing with excited little people and their ravenous acquisitions of floppy covered books and fancy erasers.  I am TIRED, people.  And I think I need a glass of wine, Thursday be damned.

I need to learn how to go with the flow, I need to learn to be more spontaneous (perhaps I should write that on my to-do list: “LEARN SPONTANEITY”.)  I need to learn to take a deep breath and not get frustrated when (let’s say, for example) Jake leaves his mittens on the steps at lunch and then slips and falls down said steps thirty seconds before we have to leave the house, in order for me to be on time to open up the book fair.  Let’s say.  Or to be more empathetic when I hustle the children back to their normal routine after a ten-day vacation, and remember that if I am frantically rushing around it affects them, and to not completely snap when I ask Mark to please pick up his Legos and he responds with an “Awww!  What?  I never get to do ANYTHING!”  I also need to not be completely thrown off when I reach into the dog’s crate to retrieve his food bowl and subsequently thrust my hand into a pile of his own regurgitated food that he was trying to re-consume.

Well, maybe I can accept being thrown off by that.  What can I say, it’s been a bit of a crazy week.