Category Archives: Black clouds in my brain

All depressing subjects covered in one blog post.

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Perhaps in a foreshadowing to Black Monday, it snowed on Friday! Snow in August isn’t unheard of, but it isn’t exactly typical either. Well, snow melts and markets move and the world keeps on spinning.

Fortunately we didn’t have any snow actually stick at our house and my flowers are still alive and well, despite it being 3 degrees for much of the day. The weather has definitely changed and it feels like fall. Even though the afternoons are warm and sunny, there’s still a crispness to the air. School starts next week and despite my excitement about wearing boots and scarves, I’m feeling a bit melancholy about it. We’ve had such a wonderful summer that I’m loathe to have it end. We are trying to fit in as many fun things as possible during this week – the zoo, the pool, the amusement park – so hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Last week I took the kids to see Inside Out. In retrospect, this might not have been the best idea since I has hormonal and emotional, and I had a giant lump in my throat for the whole movie, and actual mascara-wrecking tears at the end of Bing Bong. What a good movie that was. I highly recommend it to everyone as it was probably the most clever and entertaining children’s movie since the first Shrek.

Remember when Shrek first came out, and what a delight it was? I remember seeing it in the theatre with my then-boyfriend-now-husband and just wanting to watch it over and over to catch all the little jokes again. I feel this way about Inside Out – that it’s a many-times-re-watchable movie.

Speaking of re-watching things, the boys have developed an interest in Downton Abbey. I know! I can’t believe my luck either. It all started last year when we were visiting my in-laws; the television at our disposal doesn’t actually have any channels available, and so I had brought my Downton DVD’s with me. The boys started watching with me, and now we are working our way back into Season Four. I’m starting to feel a little uneasy, though, because although the boys have dealt with the storylines involving war, pregnancy struggles, death, and murder, I’m not sure if I’m ready to explain rape to them. Although, a few weeks ago I did have to explain child sexual abuse to Mark, who was completely stunned that such a thing could happen. Aren’t we all, though.

Let’s see: market crashes, snow in August, the death of childhood imaginary friends, and now rape and sexual abuse. I think I’ve covered pretty much every depressing subject available to me today. Quick! Let’s think of something cheerful! How about puppy Barkley sleeping in a Thomas the Tank Engine chair?

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 Ah. That’s better!

 

Looking down on creation

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Lately Mark has been quite preoccupied with the idea of growing up, and the logistics about how things work in the world. He wants to know how, exactly, does one buy a car, for example. How does one choose an apartment and how does one pay for an apartment? Do apartments come with furniture or does one need to bring their own furniture to an apartment, and if the latter, how is the furniture transported to said apartment? Can one choose paint colours in an apartment and are dogs allowed? How does one get an engineering job? How does one know what classes to take in order to become an engineer? And so on.

It’s really fun, these conversations. We have been talking a lot about university life, as well, and I’ve been trying to impress upon them how much fun it is and how there are hundreds of interesting courses to choose from. My memories of university are nearly all rosy; I loved being a student so much. I loved choosing courses, and attending lectures; I loved writing papers and exams and I loved the general feeling of university life. I loved how intense the days of exams were and I loved the relaxed feeling and having beer and nachos in the bar after the exams were completed. I loved taking step aerobics classes in the university gym and I loved the days that were warm enough to sit on the grassy hills, studying. I loved the packing-it-all-in feeling of spring and summer courses and I loved the quiet starriness of the early morning campus in the dead of winter.

I remember how I felt when I graduated. I felt like I was on top of the world, I felt like I could do anything and be anything and I could change the world. I want my children to experience that same feeling. Some people take issue with new graduates and their cheerful optimism, but I think there’s enough time in our lives to become grizzled old cynics.

In part, that’s why I’m finding the recent stabbing deaths of five University of Calgary students so hard to deal with. Never mind that I got two degrees from the University of Calgary, never mind that the stabbings took place only a few blocks from my house, in my much-loved neighbourhood. I cannot stop thinking of the families – not only of the victims, who had their whole lives ahead of them – but of the accused. I can’t stop thinking about how they probably felt, celebrating the end of classes, like they were on top of the world, like they could do anything and be anything.

Mildly Annoying Things

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You know when it’s the week leading up to your ladies’ holiday, and you feel all raw and emotional and sad things are unbearably sad and mildly irritating things are making you ragey and you’re reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid with your children and you didn’t realize how very mean spirited and awful it is, and it’s two days until your hair appointment and your hair looks and feels like orange straw, but with grey roots, and you have impotent rage about the impending time change and your husband thinks time change is “no big deal” and it’s “crazy to get all worked up about it” and Monday is a new moon and Mercury is in retrograde and why don’t we keep snack food in the house, omg, want snacks right now?  That’s the kind of day I’m having.

I realized yesterday that Barkley is going to be five soon, which means he is approaching doggie middle age, and I myself am approaching human middle age.  Or maybe I’ve already reached middle age, although I hope not.  I have an ultimate goal of being one of those sweet yet crazy little old ladies in the nursing home, wearing tons of lipstick which will bleed down into the lines around my mouth, and I will colour my hair orangey-red, and I will wear so much Chanel No. 5 that everyone will know I was in a room twenty minutes after vacating it.  I will wear jaunty little silk neck scarves in bright colours to hide the wrinkles on my chicken neck, and will paint my nails to match.  I will force the cafeteria in my nursing home to offer a vegetarian option and I will always have a bowl of hard candies in my room.  I think that would be fun, but I envision myself to be in my nineties, or late eighties at the very least, and so I do not think I have technically hit middle age yet.

Speaking of being an old lady, I do not want to be one of those mean ones who ram their shopping carts into people at the grocery store or complain about the lineups to the cashiers, and so I will blog about the things that have been irritating me today.  Although, technically, they aren’t irritating me so much anymore since I went to my beautiful friend’s restorative yoga class this afternoon so I’m actually feeling pretty relaxed.  Still.  Here is a list of the mildly annoying things on this sunny, blue-and-white day:

1) It snowed for about ten hours straight on Sunday; there is about a foot of snow on the ground.  This is nothing unusual since March is typically a snowy month.  However, by the level of complaints about the snow, you would think we were all living in the tropics and it suddenly and unexpectedly turned into the Arctic.  Also, the city road crews did an amazing job cleaning up the streets, all things considered, and yet the complaints about the city road crews were endless.

2) Because of the snow, I am dropping the kids off at the front of the school after lunch, rather than the alley.  First, people dropping their kids off for afternoon kindergarten park in the alley like they’ve never seen traffic before; they double park and park on blind corners and leave their cars and it is – in good conditions – a mess.  And so I tried to just avoid the situation by dropping off the kids in front of the school, but then my zen state was ruined by witnessing three people jaywalking with their small children across the busy street.  People: darting out between parked cars into traffic and expecting said traffic to stop for you is not a good lesson for your kindergarten aged child.  THEN one of those small children got stuck in a snowbank on the side of the road.  There’s nothing quite like watching a parent standing in the busy street trying to dislodge her child from a snowbank, meanwhile the younger siblings are darting around ON THE STREET.  I’m having heart palpitations just thinking about it.  It’s the same visceral reaction I get when I see pictures of babies on those Bumbo seats sitting on elevated surfaces.  Get the baby off there before it falls and breaks its little neck!!!

3) My friend Nan wrote about this today, but whenever anyone mentions the Paleo Diet I immediately picture that person with a club and wearing animal skins, hunting down sabre-toothed tigers and the like.  I find diet trends – when they are spoken about with fervour as they often are in the born-again dieter – to be annoying in general.  I mean, awesome if you’re into the Paleo Diet or low-carb or gluten-free or whatnot and it works for you.  What I find annoying are the attempts at conversion.  Hey, I’ve been a vegetarian for years and I have never once said anything derogatory about my carnivorous friends.  Particularly since I live with four of them (I am counting the dog).

4) The boys have another make up karate class today.  The oversharing, overly talkative woman will be there.  That right there should be enough but now she’s talking to ME.  God help us all.  She told me that outdoor sports – like spring soccer – are the only way to REALLY teach children about sports, and while I agree that there is something character building about playing soccer with snow on the ground, in the howling wind and sleet, I am ecstatic that my children are not playing this year.  I can’t wait to see what we will talk about tonight!

Speaking of which, I must go get ready to pick the kids up and head to the dojo – they got new belts this weekend!  White with the yellow stripe!  Excitement all around – and so I will sign off, feeling much better about everything.  What would I do without you to listen to me, dear readers?  I guess I would turn into Mean Old Lady.  xoxo

A Farewell to Foggy

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The boys and I had been planning a trip to the zoo today, with my mom, for the past week.  It would be our last zoo trip of the summer, and so Jake was especially excited to see his favourite animal, Foggy the hippo.  When I say “favourite animal”, I mean that Jake felt that he had a special bond with Foggy, and that Foggy communicated to him via telepathic signals, ear wiggling, and honking.  Every time we visited Foggy, the hippo would inevitably wiggle his ears and honk, and Jake was convinced that it was for his benefit alone.  Some of the things Foggy would say to Jake via these messages and the telepathic communications were “Hello, friend!” and “I love you, Jake!” and “You’re my favourite person!”.  I did nothing to discourage this; after all, Jake is someone does not believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, and so believing that he was special to this hippo, the oldest zoo resident and also one of the oldest hippos in the world was magical indeed. 

Then yesterday, we heard the news that Foggy died.

Jake and Foggy, 2010

Jake and Foggy, 2012

You might think that the loss of a zoo animal, especially one who would be 47 in a few weeks – just two days after Jake’s own seventh birthday – would not be a huge deal.  But it really was.  I heard the news and then, thinking about our zoo trip, went to prepare Jake.

The Five Stages of Grief

Denial.  After telling Jake, he seemed unaffected at first.  He said he still wanted to visit the hippo enclosure.  It wasn’t until he saw the story on the six o’clock news that he seemed to think it was real.

Anger.  On the news, they explained that due to health complications stemming from his very advanced age (most hippos in captivity live to their mid-thirties, in the wild their lifespan is much shorter) Foggy had to be euthanized.  Have you ever tried to explain euthanasia to a child?  It didn’t go well.  “THEY KILLED FOGGY!” he yelled, punching the couch.

Bargaining.  After discovering that Foggy had fathered seven offspring, Jake felt that one of them should be brought to the zoo, at all costs.

Depression.  Predictably, around bedtime, Jake completely broke down.  “I just can’t stop being sad,” he sobbed.  “It’s okay, honey,” I said, “You can be sad as long as you want.”  The zoo trip started out all right this morning: Jake and Mark were happy showing their grandma the penguin display, the dinosaur park, and the Canadian Wilds.  Then we went to the hippo enclosure.  Jake refused to look at Sparky, the remaining hippo, and on leaving the enclosure he said that he didn’t care what animals we saw next, because no animal would ever wiggle their ears at Jake again.  He was fairly listless though the other displays, he brightened only a little when Grandma bought some soft-serve, and he was heartbreakingly uninterested in the three adorable tiger cubs we saw frolicking and playing with the mama tiger.  We watched the tigers and pointed out the cuteness while Jake looked at the ground, sadly.  “Can’t you SEE them, Jake?” my mom and I asked.  “I can see them.” he said flatly.

 
 



Acceptance.  After the tiger display, we went to the gift shop – not something we normally do on a zoo trip, but then, this was not a normal zoo trip.  Also, we had Grandma with us, and we all know how that goes (Grandma may or may not be a soft touch).

Not to be materialistic here, but the acquisition of not one but two hippos really turned things around.  Jake said “I will always remember Foggy in my heart, and now I can snuggle my own Foggy whenever I want!”

I has a sad

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Have you ever had one of those days where you are sad, but not for a particularly valid reason, and that lack of a valid reason makes you even more sad?  That was me today.  As I swept up the dust, again, I started to feel limp and wrung-out, with the thought of excessive noise and dust and general chaos for another week.  Looking outside, I could see trees bending sideways from the gale force winds, I could see the container of heat and drought loving flowers that I planted in the hot and dry corner of my yard, the flowers that are now dead because they have DROWNED from the pouring rain, I could see the grey, grey sky.  I had my usual annual impotent rage about the local meterologists claiming that the average daytime temperature for this time of year is twenty degrees, to which I say SHOW ME THE DATA USED TO CALCULATE THIS.  THIS CANNOT BE TRUE. 

So I was feeling sad, but ridiculously so.  I mean, poor princess: your lovely house is being renovated to be even more lovely and it’s a little bit messy in the meantime.  Poor princess: it’s a little chilly today, not that you need to be outside for any reason.  Poor princess: three little plants you bought died, which you can replace as soon as it stops raining.  Poor princess: you don’t have weather data to calculate the average temperature so that you could win an imaginary argument with the weatherman on TV. 

Wah, wah, wah.  I berated myself for feeling sad, but that didn’t help very much.  Yelling STOP BEING SAD!  STOP IT RIGHT NOW! at yourself is actually very ineffective. 

Eventually I did emerge from under my little black cloud, but only after such cheering activities such as changing the sheets, spraying down and wiping all the cupboards, going grocery shopping, and making a soba noodle salad with miso dressing.  Why would that help?  Because I cannot think of the word “miso” without thinking of The 40 Year Old Virgin “Me so horny, me so horny, me so STUPID!”  And this very lame line, I am somewhat ashamed to say, made me smile every time I thought about it.  It’s not even funny!  And yet. 

Adding somewhat to my bluesy feelings was the fact that I have had Moves Like Jagger going through my head, incessantly, since Friday morning.  Friday was our school’s annual year-end Stampede Breakfast (for those of you not familiar with the Calgary Stampede, a Stampede Breakfast is a pancake breakfast with cowboy hats).  The DJ played mostly top 40 songs for the kids, and my own kids got their groove on for ninety solid minutes.  They do indeed have moves like Jagger, in that they flap their arms and move their bodies a bit jerkily.  They loved it, but since that song – along with Party Rockers in the House Tonight and You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful – was played a NUMBER of times, it stuck in my head.  Do you know what it’s like to have I got the moo-ooo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oves like Jagger going through your head on repeat for 54 hours straight?  I swear I even dreamed about moving like Jagger.  SOMEBODY MAKE IT STOP.

For Cinco de Mayo, I’m building a snowman

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Festively enough for the fifth of May, huge, fluffy snowflakes are falling right now.  It’s kind of depressing.  The boys were slated to start a junior golf program this morning, but since there is a minor blizzard going on, we are all at home in our jammies. 

Speaking of sports, because of all the rain that has been falling over the past few weeks, Mark had his first soccer game of the season on Thursday night.  It was not raining, but it was cold, and I wore my giant winter parka and two pairs of mittens.  After the game, Mark was coughing a lot, which threw me into a state of despair and panic.  Last year Mark developed a cough during the freezing, wet soccer season, which eventually turned into pneumonia, which led to months of subsequent incessant coughing during the night and following any kind of physical activity.  Giving him his inhaler – which we haven’t had to use all winter – seemed to help.  I am not going to be sad in the least that this will be our last year playing soccer.  Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a climate in which I wouldn’t get the shakes just thinking about outdoor spring activities. 

I had an epiphany this week.  I realized that extreme, overwhelming dissatisfaction with my appearance is one hundred percent correlated to my menstrual cycle.  This may seem obvious to the rest of you, but to me it was a relief.  The next time I find myself glaring at myself in the mirror, wondering if I could possibly avoid all contact with the outside world, I am going to take a look at the calendar.  If I tracked my expenditures on beauty products and makeup on a calendar, I would surely find a huge spike in the days leading up to my ladies’ holidays.  This should have been obvious when I found myself in buying a jar of special hair masque alongside three different kinds of dark chocolate.

Adding to my “look away, I’m hideous” attitude, there has been a visiting yoga teacher this week.  She’s fabulous, and I love it when she’s here, but I always get up a little bit earlier when she visits, to give me a little extra time with my practice, and to get as much instruction from her as I can.  Getting up ten or fifteen minutes earlier doesn’t seem like much, but by the end of the week I’m an hour short of sleep, which – I apologize to those of you new mamas who aren’t sleeping at all – makes me a little stabby.

But I had a couple of glasses of wine last night, ate some of the aforementioned dark chocolate and watched Grey’s Anatomy – did you see it?  That’s what happens when you have premarital sex, APRIL – I slept well, and now this morning all the stabbiness is gone.  The kids are busy playing Star Wars Wii, as they have been since yesterday – “It’s Star Wars Day, Mom!” – I can hang out in comfy yoga pants all day, and the snow will surely melt soon.  So life is good.

Up The Irish

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Today, in addition to making three dozen cupcakes and a loaf of banana bread, I am going to try my hand at Irish Soda Bread, in the festive spirit of the day.  I am also making kale chips and roasted asparagus, which count as festively Irish because of the green colour.  I am in general not a fan of potato dishes, so green veggies and soda bread is about as far as I go in the St. Paddy’s department.  I don’t even wear green, which is due to the fact that my wardrobe is almost exclusively grey and black.  This brings me to another point: it’s all the rage these days to wear a certain colour on a certain day to show support for various causes (purple for gay rights, pink for anti-bullying, etc.) and I’m sorry to say I almost never partake.  It’s not that I don’t support those causes – I am all for gay rights and anti-bullying, of course – but I don’t actually have the appropriate clothes.  So here’s what I’m wearing on St. Paddy’s Day:

Festive Irish wear – complete with fluffy dog!  This is also week four of my “growing out my goddamn hair” and I’m feeling pleased with it.  It’s growing!  Hair grows!  Regretsy no more!
It has been a very, very shitty week in the Boyhouse, but I am TIRED of being a little black cloud of sadness.  Last night I drugged myself and slept ten hours, and today I am filled with optimism! and cheer! and so instead I am going to transform myself into my usual ray of sunshine and tell you all the happy things about this week, as well as a few things I find cheering. 
1. Mark’s birthday party is tomorrow and of the fourteen children invited, thirteen of them RSVP’d by the date specified on the invitation.  This is surely a new record.  I’m taking an extra goody bag just in case but hooray for people adhering to basic societal expectations!
2. The boys’ class put on a play about the history of Calgary, and Jake was genius – GENIUS, I SAY – as Inspector Brisbois, head of the Northwest Mounted Police and builder of Fort Calgary.  He even wore a handlebar moustache.  Perhaps he is a future Movember participant? 
3. Report cards came out yesterday, and much to my surprise, Mark is apparently gifted at thermometer reading.  Several sentences were devoted to Mark and his ability to accurately read a thermometer.  He is the go-to person when classmates have questions about temperatures. 
4. This makes me laugh every time I look at it:
Although the other explanation is “rich” and/or “titled”.
5. I found this picture of Barkley when we first got him:
CUTE!!!  Wook at his widdle face.
And…that’s it.  I have been in a bit of a funk, so I would love, love, love it if you told me some cheering/happy things going on in your life.  xo