Monthly Archives: May 2015

I’ve got 99 problems, and excessive caffeine consumption is one of them.

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Today was the Volunteer Appreciation Tea at the school, and guess what?

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SWAG

Not only did I win a door prize – Bath and Body Works stuff, which I LOVE – but I also got a “special recognition” for being the Chair and also the Book Fair Lady. I was pretty touched by the whole thing, and in fact I gave a tiny impromptu speech about how amazing the school is, how amazing the staff was, how amazing everything is…basically I was like the drunk guy with an open mic at a wedding. I can’t resist an audience and a microphone, I guess.

But I kind of WAS impaired, and in retrospect I probably shouldn’t have had six cups of coffee BEFORE leaving the house for the tea. The earnest and eager Grade Six coffee servers were very attentive, and I said yes every single time they visited my table. I’ve probably had about twelve cups of coffee today and TWELVE CUPS OF COFFEE IS JUST TOO MUCH COFFEE. I feel like a hummingbird on cocaine. I feel like Ben Stiller in Starsky and Hutch, when he thinks that the cocaine is sugar and uses a ton of it in his coffee and rubs it on his gums and then enters a disco dance-off. Thinking about it now, I’m kind of proud I didn’t start a dance-off in the middle of the handbell performance, or the choir singing of a Voyageur song.

At the end of the tea, the kids had a morning recess and the teachers swanned in to visit a bit with the parents, sort of like when you’re in Vegas and the Elvis and Buddy Holly impersonators go and chat with the audience. I felt a teensy bit like the completely wasted party girl, when everyone else has just had a sip of champagne; talking to my kids’ teachers with gun-fire rapidity, congratulating Jake’s math teacher on his upcoming entry into fatherhood, chatting with another teacher about the weather in Nevada, hugging my friend who had won the CBE “Volunteer of the Year” award. I practically felt like going for a 10K run, but fortunately for my knees I went home instead and tried to work, mistyping everything and flitting from task to task.

Currently, I’m in the “caffeine hangover” stage, and I still have the focus of Apu on 3 days of no sleep. I just paused writing this to do a Buzzfeed quiz to find out who would be my book husband. I would have said with 100% certainty that it must be Mr. Darcy, but it was actually Atticus Finch.

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I’ll take it!

My actual, non-book husband is also “passionate, dedicated, intelligent and a true fighter at heart.” This is especially true when it comes to telephone soliciting. We seem to get a lot of phone calls lately, but since no one I know actually calls me, with the exception of my mother and mother-in-law, I never answer the phone. If it’s not a telephone solicitor, I assume the caller will leave a message – which never happens. Ergo, the only people who call me are telephone solicitors. I’m used to this barrage of phone ringing, but my husband was home alone the other evening and actually answered the calls. By the time I got home he was ripping a strip off the latest telephone solicitor, who was the fourth to call in forty-five minutes.

Now, I’m generally of the mindset that it’s “just a person with a crappy job” and if, on the off chance I do pick up the phone and end up talking with someone who wants to know if I’d like my furnace cleaned, I’m generally short but polite. My husband, on the other hand, was at the end of his rope by the fourth caller.

Then, last night I did answer the phone. I was home alone, and the same number had called multiple times throughout the day. The caller asked for my husband, and when I said he wasn’t home, they asked when they could reach him.

Me: I’m going to do you a favour. My husband becomes incensed by telephone soliciting, so if this is a solicitation, don’t call back.

Telephone Solicitor: Well. Let me tell YOU something. This is Shamal Brown and your husband is going to WANT to talk to me.

Me: Oh, he is, is he? He knows you?

Telephone Solicitor: He’s really going to want to talk to me.

Me: What is this regarding?

Telephone Solicitor: When can I reach him?

Me: Why don’t you give me your number.

Telephone Solicitor: No. I’m going to call him back.

Me: I’m warning you. He really doesn’t like unsolicited phone calls.

Telephone Solicitor: Listen, he will really want to talk to me.

Me: I really don’t think so. He doesn’t know you.

Telephone Solicitor: Is he there? Right now? Now that you know I am Shamal Brown?

Me: HE IS NOT.

Telephone Solicitor: He’s there, isn’t he? Can I talk to him?

Me: *hangs up*

People, this morning at 8:15 am the phone rang – and it was the same number! I picked it up, wondering if Shamal Brown would be on the other line so we could continue this ridiculous conversation, but sadly, it was just a very young sounding girl. She said she’d call back tonight so let’s cross our fingers that my husband and Shamal Brown can connect, because nothing says “great marketing practices” like being harassed by Shamal Brown.

 

Spring Flings, and Love The One You’re With

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You guys! Remember the shampoo incident wherein I went to Costco, didn’t buy shampoo because it wasn’t on my list, and then that very night my child informed me that we were out of shampoo, and I discovered I didn’t have any in the pantry, and I had a premenstrually-induced semi-breakdown? The other morning I was drinking my first of many cups of coffee when my husband called to me from the bathroom. He was in the shower and I hurried in to see what was so urgent. Was he okay? Was he having a heart attack? No, he just wanted to let me know that we were getting low on shampoo and could I check to see if we had more, if not, could we put it on the Costco list? He didn’t, he said, want me to get upset again.

He said this while giving me a look that one might give when encountering an armed-and-dangerous, mentally disturbed prisoner on the lam.

Many years ago, we had a rickety wooden deck outside our back door; when Mark was a baby my husband decided to take it out and replant the area with grass. There was a great deal of gravel, but did I mention Mark was a baby? We were quite sleep deprived, so he put top soil over the gravel, planted grass, and regretted it for the next eleven years. The grass always started out the season just fine, but would dry up and go brown once the warm weather hit, and no amount of rain or watering would change that.

My husband talked about digging it up but I confess, I discouraged such action. The affected area was maybe 30 square feet, and I just didn’t feel like it was worth it. Translation: digging out gravel is hard. But this year my husband was determined, and since we have two boys who are – as yet – eager to help out with any and all yardwork, I went out one evening and came home to the three of them digging up the grass. The die was cast, and the next few days, every spare moment was devoted to the Project. I even helped, although my gravel shovelling skills are somewhat suspect.

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Many wheelbarrows full of gravel, loam, and sod later…

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So that was exciting. The boys and I also bought some more flowers, mainly for the front yard containers. I allowed the children to choose and Jake wanted to buy white geraniums for a particular container, which I gently tried to discourage, as I prefer more colour. He insisted and I capitulated, thinking what the hell, it’s only flowers, and how many more years is he really going to want to be at the garden centre with his mother? It turned out really nicely, as they go with the snowdrop anemones, and will look lovely once the white-and-green variegated hostas come up.

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Speaking of hostas, my backyard is south facing; the garden in front of my detached garage is north facing, and gets almost zero sun exposure since the house shades it in the morning, when the north-facing gardens usually get some sun. It’s planted with hostas, and I fill in the spaces with impatiens, and it’s just beautiful – for about three months out of the year. This is the garden that I look at the most often, since it faces my kitchen window, and this is what it currently looks like:

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In other words, the least attractive garden is the one I look at the most. I have beautiful colour and plants all over the front and back yards…except there. Tragic!

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Speaking of tragedies, Jake brought home The Big Book Of Why from the library, and he and Mark have been enjoying reading it in the evenings. Mark was deep into one of the “whys” when he asked me who was William Shakespeare? Well! I chatted on and on about playwrights and the Elizabethan era, and then talked about some of his plays. “Have you heard of Romeo and Juliet?” I asked, and when the boys said they’d heard of it, but didn’t know anything about it, I gave them a brief synopsis. At the conclusion, they were silent for a minute.

Jake then blurted out, “That is SO STUPID. I mean, the parents are jerks so you KILL YOURSELF? That’s so dumb! Why don’t you just get a new girlfriend? There’s so many girls!”

I sense that we do NOT have a future playwright in our house. I also sense that Jake is going to be a “love the one you’re with” sort of guy.

In the spring, an elderly woman’s thoughts turn to rage.

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It’s that amazing time of the year when the sun is still out when I go to bed (granted, this isn’t that late) and the sky is lightening up when I go to yoga at 5. The drive home at 6:25 requires sunglasses, the sky is blue and the mornings are calm. The wind picks up in the middle of the day, bringing forth that age-old dilemma: lip gloss or no?

The greatest thing about this time of year is gardening! I was at the garden centre yesterday, purchased what I felt was an appropriate amount of plants for the backyard, and am now contemplating taking out even more grass to accommodate my purchases. I have already edged my gardens, taking out some grass along the way, but I might have to do it again before my husband notices.

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“Is that the display or the contents of your cart?” he asked. Well.

Sadly, I did not get flirted with by any elderly men on my garden centre trip. Maybe I just don’t have it anymore. The entire garden centre was filled with seniors, and me. One lady got incensed at another lady leaving her cart in the middle of the aisle. “Excuse me? EXCUSE ME!” she said sharply, and I looked up. “Oh, not you, dear,” she said, patting my arm. “There’s just too many damn seniors in here. Probably forgot their hearing aids.” This lady was seventy-five if she was a day, so I just smiled and nodded. Don’t piss off the old ladies.

Honestly, elderly ladies are a strange lot, and I hope that when I’m an octogenarian I am one of the “sweet old things” rather than the “horrible embittered women without a filter.” I was grocery shopping at my usual senior-infused Co-Op and I witnessed an elderly woman having a meltdown on the produce manager. She wanted three pounds of potatoes. She came all the way here, a special trip, for three pounds of potatoes. But they only sell potatoes in five pound bags! Five pounds is too much! When the produce manager directed her to the display where one can choose which potatoes in whatever quantity they want, she was incensed. SHE WASN’T GOING TO WEIGH HER OWN DAMN POTATOES. The produce manager received a star in his heavenly crown for carefully weighing out exactly three pounds of potatoes into a bag for her, while she eyed him with suspicion. Were the prices going to be as good as they would be in a three-pound bag of potatoes? She didn’t know. She just didn’t know. She has shopped here for years and they’ve always had the three pound bags and now they don’t and this store is just going downhill, DOWNHILL.

God, I hope I don’t turn out like that. For one thing, potatoes last forever. Did she think she was going to die before she’d be able to consume five pounds of potatoes? Maybe. You don’t buy green bananas at that age, and at any rate, her blood pressure is probably through the roof. Her doctor is probably never going to allow her to grocery shop ever again. I have great admiration for the long-suffering produce manager; a lesser man might have pummeled her with the five pound bag.

Just for interest’s sake, this is a poster that was RECENTLY on display in my Co-Op. I am not sure what year it was taken, but I think it says something about my choice of grocery establishments.

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How was your long weekend? We spent it with my in-laws, and although it apparently snowed while I was gone, it was absolutely gorgeous out there. We visited friends and the boys enjoyed swimming in their pool with their kids (THANKS SAMMI!) and we spent a lot of time just enjoying being outside.

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We also did some shopping while we were there. My husband spent the better part of the day at the car dealership getting a new car for my mother-in-law – a star on HIS heavenly crown – and on Saturday morning we decided to buy a new bed. The bed that we sleep on when we visit is very soft and squishy, and makes me move like I am an irritable 100 year old woman. Friday night I actually got up and slept on the marginally more comfortable couch, which is when we decided that a new bed would be a good investment, since we spend a lot of our vacations out there.

People, I will cut to the chase. We bought a bed from a man whose last name was Wood, and on his business card, he is listed as a “Beducator.” I feel that I need offer no further comment.

I’ve got 99 problems, but after tonight chairing the School Council/ Parent Association will not be one of them.

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The long weekend is so early this year! It’s really thrown me off my game. I just realized that this is the earliest it can possibly be, so it’s not just me and my “What? Already?” feelings.

Adding to the panic-at-the-disco feeling is that – in addition to my husband being away earlier this week, and dealing with work deadlines – I’m scrambling to prepare for the last School Council/ Parent Association meeting of the school year, which is tonight. This is significant because it’s also the last meeting that I will chair, putting an end to my four years of tyranny and bossiness.

I have to say, I’m relieved. I felt like I was spread much too thin this year, and also that four years is a long time to chair anything, but especially a council that can be fraught at times. I did love doing it, though, don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing like getting all the insider information, developing relationships with all the school staff, and being the liaison between parents and the administration. It’s good stuff! But four years – as a friend just reminded me, that’s the length of a US presidency. Bush, Carter, Ford, and me – four-year presidents.

Unrelatedly, I have a hair appointment this afternoon. On the weekend, I caught my husband looking at me strangely. I initially assumed he was looking at me with adoration and lust, but that idea faded when he asked if I had a hair appointment scheduled for this week. WHAT ARE YOU SAYING. Maybe he had adoration and lust too, I don’t know.

Speaking of my life of glamour, this morning I was walking through the kitchen carrying a full laundry basket, and I slipped on a tiny puddle of water, left there from when Barkley drinks from his water dish and his fuzzy face drips on the floor. I wrenched my ankle a bit, but managed not to actually fall. My ankle’s a bit sore, but imagine if I had really hurt myself? That would have been embarrassing. How did you break your ankle again?

In any case, this afternoon I’ll be resting my ankle at the hair salon, while catching up on all of the gossip about unknown-to-me celebrities.

Lettuce pray.

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This morning I got home from yoga a bit earlier than normal, at about 6:20, and this is what my back yard looked like:

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One hour later I took “weed the garden” off my to-do list.

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Well, the snow’s stopped now and I’m sure it will be melted by the time I pick the kids up after school. I’d be more upset about it but really, we’ve had such a mild winter and a beautiful spring that it doesn’t seem to be getting me down at all. Maybe that’s because I have a new secret admirer.

Last week I received an email, from someone amiably named “Birky Tony”:

Hello,Am so sorry to have intrude in your privacy i sincerely like your profile picture on facebook it really caught  my attention. hope you don’t mind us knowing each other much better?.My Name is Birky, I’m from Austin texas.Am a 9 years widower,I live with my pet dogs.I am a Man with sense of humor,I am passionate and romantic,I have the fear of God in me, I have respect for my fellow human being.! It will be wonderful of you to send me a feedback if you want us to get along and know each other.I promise to make you happy and always put a smile on your face.Thanks and Cheers!

Regards,
Birky

It’s nice to know I have options, especially with regards to a person who has respect for his fellow human being, but apparently no respect for rules of punctuation and grammar. Any moment now, Birky is preparing to send a photo proving his masculinity, I just know it.

Did you have a nice weekend? I was much, much busier than normal, but in a good way. We all went to see Avengers: Age of Ultron on Saturday, and I found it to be even more of a snore than I normally find those types of movies. Zzzzz. I mean, really. All those men and the only one we see shirtless is Bruce Banner? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE. I enjoyed a) seeing Captain America in a tight t-shirt chopping wood, b) the on-screen romance between Natasha and the afore-mentioned Dr. Banner, and c) recognizing that Hawkeye’s pregnant wife is actually Sylvia from Mad Men. Other than that, I mostly thought of other things during the long, long movie that seemed to never end.

But I’m not the target audience, am I? It’s not like Joss Whedon is writing movies for people like me, but still, it would have been nice to see a little shirtless action.

And, of course, it was Mother’s Day, and I hope all you moms out there had a great day. Well, I hope everyone reading this had a great day, but you know what I’m saying. I got two awesome cards that I had spied in backpacks last week, a gorgeous blue Le Creuset canister to hold all my cooking utensils – huge improvement on the previous situation, in which I was constantly jamming in my numerous spoons and whisks and occasionally swearing about it – and a matching spatula! It was almost as exciting as last year’s giant bag of dirt, which is really saying something.

I say that without irony, by the way. I really was thrilled about my giant bag of dirt. The gardens are looking great this year already – and will look even better when the snow melts, I’m sure.

And speaking of gardens, my indoor grow lights are really paying off, and no, not like that. Look, it’s my first harvest!

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It’s mostly leaf lettuce, but there’s a bit of spinach and arugula in there as well. I’m pretty excited to plant more, because it was amazing. And it only took five weeks of concerted effort!

An interview with my kids about ME

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I haven’t been sleeping well this week, which is very strange for me, so my general tiredness, coupled with upcoming ladies’ holidays and concern over the appalling disgrace that is Alberta politics, has me feeling quite gloomy of late. I find myself sighing to myself a lot, and staring off into space, like I’m Eeyore in a black sweater.

And so I turn to my blog to cheer myself; I needed a diversion, and also I don’t have any good chocolate in the house to munch on. I came across this post by my colleague Andrea, and I thought it would be fun to ask my kids 21 questions about ME, since Mother’s Day is fast approaching and all. This is a fun and kind of eye-opening little quiz; since the kids are 9 1/2 and 11, the answers were surprisingly astute. I encourage you to play this game with your own kids; with small children it would be a hoot. For example, when Jake was in kindergarten, he was tasked with writing down two things that I loved the most. His answer: baking and volunteering, accompanied by a picture of me at the book fair with a giant cookie in my hand.

Here are the unabridged answers from my children. Since they often answer in unison, like Forrest Gump and Bubba (ALABAMA, SIR!) there is generally just one answer for both of them.

1) What is something I always say to you?

I love you!

2) What makes me happy?

US!

3) What makes me sad?

Politics.

Note: It’s true. Politics are very, very depressing to me. I have a very dim view on politicians in general, and yet I still watch House of Cards.

4) How do I make you laugh?

Jake: Lame jokes.

Mark: Totally. Lame jokes about math.

Note: Again, true, but maybe not so flattering? THOSE JOKES ARE NOT LAME, BOYS.

5) What was I like when I was a kid?

Jake: I have no idea.

Mark: I think you had short hair.

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6) How old am I?

Um…uh…I think…………forty?

Note: They took WAY too long to answer, given I just turned forty LAST MONTH and we had a party and made a BFD about it.

7) How tall am I?

Mark: Ooh! I know this one! Five foot…seven?

Note: He’s right!

8) What is my favourite thing to do?

Mark: Drink wine.

Jake: Yeah. Drink wine. And watch Elf.

Note: True. Possibly this sheds a bad light on me, since they didn’t say “hanging out with us” and perhaps this will be a topic of discussion in future therapy sessions, but I hope not.

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9) What do I do when you’re not around?

Mark: Walk the dog.

Jake: Uh, I don’t know. Work?

10) If I become famous, what will it be for?

Cooking!

11) What am I really good at?

Mark: Math!

Jake: Math! And Just Dance.

Note: Not to be immodest, but I am really good at Just Dance. Especially the YMCA and I’ve Had The Time of My Life. I’ve perfected the spins and everything.

YMCA

12) What am I not very good at?

Jake: Video games.

Mark: Totally. Video games.

Jake: You’re TERRIBLE at video games.

Mark: Well, except Just Dance.

Jake: Yeah, you never know where you’re driving or who the characters are.

Mark: You do die a lot.

13) What do I do for my job?

Jake: You’re the Meatless Mummy at Yummy Mummy Club!

14) What is my favourite food?

Mark: That salad you make on Fridays.

Jake: With pitas.

Mark: What’s that salad? Greek salad.

Jake: AND PITAS.

Note: It’s true, almost every Friday I make this Greek salad with a version of this hummus, and pita. It is my favourite meal!

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15) What makes you proud of me?

Jake: When you bake things.

Mark: Totally! Baking things.

16) If I was a cartoon character, who would I be?

Mark: What kind of cartoon are we talking about? Like, a specific cartoon? Or one of those ones on Teletoon Retro? I can’t answer this.

Jake: Linda!

Note: Jake compared me with the mom on Phineas and Ferb. And Teletoon RETRO? I’m not sure I want to know where Mark was going with that.

17) What do you and I do together?

Mark: Um…fun stuff?

Jake: Like, gardening?

Note: Do more fun things together.

18) How are you and I alike?

Jake: We live in the same house.

Mark: We also argue for fun about lame stuff, and math.

Note: Mark is correct. It’s a hereditary thing, since my dad and I regularly get into long, involved, spirited arguments about ridiculous topics. It starts when one of us says “Did you read this about x?” and the other takes the polar opposite view. When this happens my husband leaves the room and my mother opens the wine.

19) How are you and I different?

Jake: I am great at video games and you are terrible.

20) How do you know I love you?

Jake: You tell us?

Mark: You hug us a lot.

21) Where is my favourite place to go?

MAUI!

Nicole

It’s like I’m suddenly alive with colour.

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The other day I got a piece of mail from a random energy company that wants to offer me fixed natural gas rates, which is annoying in itself. I mean, I worked in the energy industry. I have a master’s degree in economics. I used to price options and structured products, and I have a very good understanding of hedging. I do not want fixed natural gas rates, so please stop sending mail/ knocking on my door/ phoning me.

But the piece of mail was addressed to Mr. Nicole MacPherson, which was odd. It made me wonder if I needed an upper lip wax, or if Nicole was simply the latest name to become androgynous in the manner of Ryan or Taylor. Then I thought that perhaps this was a new, feminist way to refer to my husband! My husband – now known as Mr. Me. It’s about time!

Recently I read about a woman who wore the same thing to work every single day for three years, which I thought was interesting. My initial thought was that she wore the same clothes every day for three years, which made me wonder what the state of those clothes were like after so much wear, and, presumably, washing, but the reality is she bought fifteen white silk shirts, some black pants, a blazer, and a little black ribbon necktie. Essentially it was a work uniform.

I had a lot of thoughts about this, once I realized that no, this isn’t based on a sole outfit that ended up grimy and stinky by the end of the week. My first reaction was that taking this approach to fashion seems really boring, if you like clothes like I do. Boring or not, this is similar to what many – maybe even most – men do in the workplace: think guys in suits, or men like Steve Jobs who have a signature “look.” The premise of having a “work uniform,” so to speak, is that it takes the decision making out of your hands, and frees up your time and thoughts for more important things. I do this for meals; I plan meals for the week and I do not deviate from that schedule, ever. It takes all the decisions out of my hands; there’s no waffling around at five o’clock. I like to think that it gives me more time to contemplate important things like should I plant tulip bulbs this year, or if Don Draper ends up jumping off a building it is going to be very anticlimactic.

Slight digression: I almost always make some sort of stir fry/ Pad Thai/ Kung Pao dish on Monday nights, but on Sunday I realized I had some romaine lettuce that I didn’t have a chance to use on the weekend, since we ended up being out of town. Last night I made up a big Caesar salad with pine nuts, baked two crusty loaves of bread, and sautéed some chicken breasts for the guys with a barbeque sauce. Great, right? My husband came home and was completely befuddled. It’s good, he said, But I was thinking about stir fry all day.

Anyway, it got me thinking about how much time I spend thinking about clothes, and the answer, surprisingly enough, is not much. I set out my outfit the day before based on anticipated activities and weather forecasts, and like the meal plan, I do not deviate from it. This is because if I had to make that decision in the morning, who knows what would happen. I’d probably end up standing in my underwear, staring at my overstuffed dresser full of black clothing, until the children were late for school. So I spend a minute or two the day before setting out clothing, end of story.

That’s when I realized that I already HAVE a uniform of sorts. It’s called the work-from-home-but-still-leave-the-house-enough-that-I-want-to-look-nice uniform. Black sweaters/ tops/ t-shirts and jeans. Various scarves. Sometimes I vary it with a grey top under a black sweater, maybe, or – like today – a pink yoga top underneath a meshy black sweater. This is why I spend no brain power on clothing, it’s because my clothing all looks largely the same. Granted, I probably don’t NEED 22 black sweaters and an equal or greater number of black tops and t-shirts, but I have a uniform. I’m on trend with this whole thing and I didn’t even know it!

Realizing that I’m already kind of like that woman who wears the same outfit all the time was an exercise in self-awareness. On the one hand, I was congratulating myself on spending minimal time actually thinking about what I wear every day; I put on the clothes I set out, and I go about my business. Sometimes I admire how it looks, sometimes I don’t notice. On the other hand, maybe I’m much too boring in my clothing choices. Maybe, fashion wise, I’m just like Steve Jobs, but with much less money and fame.

This weekend we were at my parents’ place, and my mom and I went shopping to this interesting little shop in the small town she lives in. I’ve bought a few things there before; it largely deals with yoga clothes, but there are some cute dresses and things in there as well.

People, I got a tunic-length top with pockets, and it is PURPLE AND GREY. I feel kind of conspicuous, but also kind of pretty in it. Is this a turning point for me? Probably not, but I’m going to enjoy my small foray into peacock-like flamboyancy.