Monthly Archives: October 2012

What kind of monster have I become?

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It’s a beautiful autumn day here in YYC!

Did you just cry a little?  Yeah, me too.  Less than two weeks ago, this was the scene:

Jake, climbing our tree, wearing shorts.  Not shown in this photograph is the total heart attack I was having and trying to conceal.  “Wow, honey, you’re a really great climber!” is what I said.  “I am going to dial 9-1 and wait to dial the other 1.  I think I’m having palpitations!” is what I was thinking.  That was silly of me, because Jake DID lose his footing, but instead of falling he gripped the tree with both arms and both legs, hanging upside down, boasting the whole time about his superior climbing and monkey skills. 

It’s funny, the things you never think you’ll do or say that you end up doing or saying.  Things such as “Get down from there or you’ll break your neck!”  Or cleaning your child’s dirty face with your own saliva.  Just writing that down, I am revolted with my own motherly self.  And yet who among us hasn’t done this?  Who among us hasn’t retorted with the ever-popular “Because I said so, THAT’S WHY.”  Who among us hasn’t pretended to listen to their child’s steady stream of chatter and nodded absently and unmindfully?

Sometimes I wonder about the person I have become.  I look at my life and I wonder what happened to me.  For example, yesterday I was at the mall.  The mall.  On a snowy, windy, October afternoon.  All I’m going to say is, so many crying babies.  Not that I’m judging – I’ve been there before, the young mom desperate just to get out of the house.  Still.  Anyway, I was at the mall, and I saw a pink Star Wars t-shirt in my size and I considered purchasing it.  I really did.  I actually picked it up, then after a minute, I set it down again, mourning the little piece of me that died when I considered buying a pink Star Wars t-shirt for my 37 year old self.

What have I become?  I also marvelled at myself when I intervened in an argument between the children.  They were, uncharacteristically, bickering when Jake suddenly burst into tears.  The reason for the outburst was that Mark told him that of all the planets, he hated Tattooine the most.  This soul-destroying information just couldn’t be unsaid.  I spoke with Mark, and my exact words, my EXACT WORDS were “Honey, that really hurt Jake’s feelings.  How would you feel if he said he hated Naboo?” 

Who am I?

Another example of my burgeoning lameness is that the other day I purchased a bottle of Mrs. Dash.  I have always associated Mrs. Dash with the elderly who have been required by their health care providers to adopt a low-sodium diet.  I am now, apparently, a person who seasons food with Mrs. Dash.  I don’t even know what to think of this, except that I sprinkled it on my avocado-and-tomato quesadilla yesterday, and it was delicious. 

Other things that my former self would not have conceived of doing: spending hours photocopying things and becoming proficient at fixing paper jams, secretly becoming panicky and tiger-momish when my child gets four points docked on a bar graph unit test for not showing all the work, becoming sad when unable to obtain oven mitts that match my apron, and wondering if the socks-over-jeans-but-under-boots would be a good look for me. 

No, honey, I will not murder you when you cease to be a fast driver.

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Happy Thanksgiving, all my Canadian friends.  Although I’ve always thought that Thanksgiving is among the lamer of the holidays, given that I have never been interested in pie, turkey, or any of the usual turkey-trimmings-pie-fanfare.  And yet, it’s always a good idea to be thankful for what one has.  Right now I’m mostly thankful that I’m not in the car anymore.

We drove out to my in-laws’ house for the holiday, and came back today.  It’s a long drive, and I spent most of it staring out the window, listening to Jedi commentary and Star Wars trivia, queries about how much longer the drive would be, childrens’ voices singing along to vastly inappropriate popular music – “I’ve had a shit day!  You’ve had a shit day!” – and a startling amount of swearing at other drivers on the road, notably those who were driving RV’s, pulling trailers, elderly, and/or driving slow on undivided stretches of highway and speeding up whilst in the passing lanes, making it difficult to pass.  “If I ever get old and start driving like these assholes,” my husband said as he passed an elderly man driving an RV, “Just put a fucking bullet in my brain.”  Sorry babe.  I am never going to put a bullet in your brain.  Possibly you need someone else to carry out that living will of yours, mmm-kay?

I am also thankful for the three Macintosh apples I JUST ate in rapid succession.  One of the best things about visiting the in-laws in October is the fresh produce.  A friend of mine tried to convince me that yes, I could eat a varied diet as a locavore, but I say one hundred miles is not enough.  Fuck the 100-mile diet I say!  And those apples made the drive worthwhile, as well as the twenty pounds of Concord grapes my mother-in-law sent me home with. 

Another thing to be thankful for: it will be another year until we do our family pictures, so I won’t have to put up with the usual family-picture angst from the children about how the clothes I have chosen for them make them look like dorks.  Honestly.  It’s not like I was dressing them up in bow ties or that we were all wearing matching clothes.  My bar is pretty low: I want them in jeans with intact knees, and clean shirts that are not emblazoned with Angry Birds, Lego Star Wars, or similar.  And yet the drama that follows is worthy of an after-school special about a mean mommy who deep down really does love her children.  I have yet to upload the photos, but have a good mind to get our Christmas cards printed with ones that have a good photo of me and husband, while children block out their own faces by pretending to use the force and/or are making faces like Scooby Doo when faced with a large sandwich.  I’m sure I will have lots to choose from.  Merry Christmas!  We don’t know what happened to the children.

Here’s something neat to be thankful for – a yoga friend of mine, who also happens to be a mad talented at making videos, made this video from filming a typical morning practice at the studio.  It’s pretty amazing, I think, and if you’ve ever wondered what Mysore-style Ashtanga is like, well, here it is!  Take a look, you won’t be disappointed.  Fun fact: I am wearing the world’s brightest pink pants. 

Since getting home three hours ago, I’ve baked banana loaf, unpacked everything (well, my husband helped – is he trying to get lucky?  If so, it’s totally working.  Usually I unpack everything alone.), made and ate dinner along with my three apples, cleaned up, and have written this post!  Not bad!  I’m thankful for Wifi, my own foresight in stocking the fridge with long-lifed items before I left, and for my husband, who I will definitely not shoot in the head, if only to show my gratitude for his help in unpacking the luggage.

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Canadians, and for my dear American readers – happy Columbus Day!  Is that a holiday? 

Sorry, but I’m not a bodybuilder

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I am in a MOOD.



I was in a very chipper mood this morning, even though it was snowing and gusty and freezing. Part of this chipper-ness had to do with the fact that my husband is now at home and I am not the sole responsible adult around here, and part of the chipper-ness had to do with the fact that I can now breathe through my nose without sounding like I am a cocaine addict. Which is a win, as far as I can tell. But oh! That chipper mood has evaporated like a bucketful of tears left out on a hot, dry day. Not that I remember what hot, dry days feel like since it’s snowing and my dog rolled in the snow and is now soggy and filling the house with wet-dog odour.



My sour mood could have something to do with the fact that I just spent the last ninety minutes photocopying, cutting, and sorting papers for various school events and fundraisers. NINETY MINUTES. I started to lose the will to live after the first half hour. Sorting 1200 little pieces of paper into classrooms is really, really dull. At least I got to use the large-armed paper cutter, which spiced things up a little. For this I have a Master’s degree.



I am pleased my cold is nearly gone, and if I had to guess, I would say that yesterday’s Vitamin C overdose may have helped. I get sick so rarely that when I do I get hurt feelings about it; like my immune system has let me down. How could you do this to me, immunity? I give you everything you ask for. Some of this emotion may have to do with the minor high I get from cold medication. Some of that stuff, I wonder if it should be legal. Or perhaps I shouldn’t take it and then drink six cups of coffee, I don’t know. In any case, I actually slept (passed out?) yesterday morning. I walked the dog, came home, and climbed into bed.  This is so unusual I seem to have to make a note of it. 



I realized that the amount of supplements I now consume is bordering on the insane.  It started off normally, with a daily multivitamin, and now it’s just crazy.  So yesterday, with this cold, I realized that I had taken a LOT of additional vitamins, and I was eating those lozenges that are fortified with Vitamin C, so I thought I should actually read the package, lest I somehow overdose myself. The package informed me that I should limit my lozenge intake to no more than thirty a day. Thirty! Two things: a) if I am consuming thirty lozenges a day, I have larger issues than Vitamin C overdoses, and b) how much Vitamin C could possibly be in one of those lozenges if the daily maximum is thirty? I felt a little bit disappointed in the lozenge manufacturers; like how those sugar-ific “fruit” snacks say “contains real fruit!”, but the reality is that the fruit content is the equivalent of a grain of sand on a vast beach.



As a rule, I never answer the door during the day, or in the evening if I’m home alone.  I have a fear of being murdered.  I realize that might sound extreme, but something like that did actually happen not long ago.  A woman answered her door one evening, and a crazed man killed her!  In front of her children!  This is something I would like to avoid.  And so I never answer the door, unless I know for certain it isn’t some mur-diddly-urdler.  There is no downside to this, really, because mostly the only people that ring my doorbell are door-to-door salespeople, politicians, and occasionally my neighbour, looking for Beeps.  So I’m really not missing much.  However, yesterday I had to answer the door TWICE, which, along with my drippy cocaine-addict noise, was putting me in a bad mood.  First, the water-meter-reader rang my doorbell to complain that the city had not installed the kind of water-meter that can be easily read via, I don’t know, satellite, from the back alley.  The water-meter-reader, apparently, has to come INTO MY YARD to read my water-meter, which is completely inconvenient for him and ruins his day.  What I am supposed to do about this state of affairs, I am unsure.  I guess that my ownership of a bloodthirsty squirrel-bird-possibly-Beeps-killer of a dog is noted in my file and hence my wrong kind of water-meter is a danger to society, or at least to the water-meter-reader.  Keep in mind that while listening to this man, I had the boys home for lunch, the dog was frantically barking at the appearance of an unknown person at the door, and I was high on Advil Cold and Sinus.  And I had just woken up from my morning nap.  JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO, BUDDY.  Do I need to call someone?  Stop with the long explanation already.  I do not understand your water-meter language.

Because of my excessive vitamin supplement consumption, I order all my vitamins online.  It’s way cheaper that way, and generally the box arrives the very next day.  This leads me to the second reason I had to answer the door: I could see the Canada Post man standing there.  I very reasonably thought he was unlikely to be a murderer – and he wasn’t, I’m still here to tell this tale, never fear – but you never know.  We are all, I think, familiar with the term going postal.  But in any case, the Canada Post man was very nice and I opened my giant box of online-ordered supplements.  Inside was a piece of paper informing me that my gigantic order qualified me for a free gift.  The free gift consisted of the following items:

– a cheap plastic water bottle
– a lidded cup that is apparently intended for vigourous on-the-go mixing of various bodybuilding protein shakes
– an orange-scented car air freshener in the shape of Popeye
– a “performance pill” box, also emblazoned with an image of Popeye
– a Popeye-themed lanyard
– a Popeye key chain
– a sample of a high-dose protein shake
– something called anabolic energy muscular endurance muscle fiber activation workout fuel (two servings!  Blue raspberry flavour!)
– a sample of something that promises to get me “beyond ripped” and is a subcutaneous fat-incinerator
– an enormous t-shirt with a maple leaf on it

What a generous free gift!  What to do with this?  I feel completely deflated, environmentally.  Also I am puzzled; my order was Women’s Multivitamins, Vitamin D, and Women 50+ Calcium supplements.  My order does not match this free gift.  However, if any of you want to start a new bodybuilding regimen, let me know.  I have some things for you.

When the cat’s away…

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My husband is briefly out of town, and you know what that means!  Salad for dinner, an episode of NYPD Blue, and going to bed at 8:45 pm!  When the cat’s away, this little mouse is going to get her party on.  A salad/NYPD Blue/early bedtime party. 

Yesterday I could feel a cold coming on.  I dosed up on oil of oregano, spinach smoothies, and an excessive amount of vitamin C, but I felt the only true remedy would be a good night’s sleep.  I have a piece of advice for you: if you ever want to slip into a coma, try Nighttime Benadryl.  Hoo boy.  I went to sleep at 7:30 and I woke up this morning at 6:45.  I felt mighty confused when I woke up – Who am I?  Where am I?  The nurses are stealing my money!  Get off my lawn! – however, I’m feeling much, much better. 

Other than the little case of the sniffles and the resulting unintended coma, I had a lovely weekend which included a date night AND a fabulous shopping experience, so a win all around.  I bought two new bras from Victoria’s Secret, and let me tell you, they are life-altering.  It’s not like I had never shopped there before, but this was my first venture to our local store – it’s still pretty new here – and the service was outstanding.  Who knew there were so many bra specialists? 

Natalia, the super cute and enthusiastic bra specialist assigned to me, informed me that my bra size had changed, which I do not understand.  I mean, I understand how weight gain/ weight loss/ pregnancy/ breastfeeding changes your bra size, but what if none of the above applies?  Anyway, Natalia fitted me in a sweet new “uplifting” bra and I will tell you, it’s hard to get anything done because I am now constantly distracted by my fabulous new rack.  I think I finally understand men!  I wore my new bra for our date and my husband agreed, it was ASTONISHING.  Ladies with deflated bosums, there is hope!  And that hope is Victoria’s Secret! 

I should probably note that I’m not getting compensated for gushing about Victoria’s Secret.  I AM JUST REALLY HAPPY WITH MY FABULOUS UPLIFTED BREASTS, OKAY?

Speaking of understanding men, the first time I heard of it the show Wipeout I thought “Who would ever watch that?”  Now I know.  Boys.  See also: my feelings on America’s Funniest Home Videos.  Nothing, I tell you, nothing is funnier to boys – and men – than seeing another guy get hit in the testicles with something.  In any case, the boys have been recording and watching episodes of Wipeout like it’s Mad Men.  They are obsessed with Wipeout.  They have, unfortunately for me, constructed a Wipeout-like course in our basement using exercise balls, a giant stuffed tiger, the couch, and light sabers.  I do not witness this game because I like to keep sane.  However, the other day they created a game called Family Wipeout which started with both of them on an exercise ball and ended when Jake came upstairs with blood gushing from his nose.  Sometimes I feel like I’m starring in my very own bizarre reality show.  Or maybe that’s just “reality”.