Category Archives: Festivities

Hey hey, it’s almost Valentine’s Day

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Just in case you didn’t know, Valentine’s Day is only three days away!  Everywhere I turn, I hear that this year, this entire weekend is being referred to as Valentine’s Day Weekend.  So happy Valentine’s Day Weekend, everyone!  If my husband does not buy me a dozen red roses, a heart-shaped box of chocolates, and a giant stuffed incarcerated bear holding a placard stating that he is a Prisoner of Love, I shall leave him.
So many people get very worked up about Valentine’s Day gifts and what to buy and what they are expecting and I had better get a fancy gift or NO MORE SEX.  I’m not actually one of those people; in fact at one point in my more fiery youth I had extreme disdain for anything as pedestrian as Valentine’s gifts, if a boyfriend should have dared to purchase something heart shaped I would have had to break up with him because it would be like he didn’t know me at all.  Oh, the fires of youth. 

I’m not that fiery girl anymore, but I do feel that Valentine’s Day can be silly and inane; after all, does an expensive bouquet or jewellery or lingerie actually indicate the level of romance and love in a relationship?

I’m not a total grinch, despite the fact that my husband and I do not exchange gifts or go out on Valentine’s Day.  I did buy a bag of pink and red wrapped Hershey’s kisses and I do plan to share them.  I also enthusiastically assisted the children in the making of Valentines for their classes – Jake was especially excited to make a glittery card for his teacher, because, as he informed me gravely, if there is one thing she likes, it’s BLING.  Good to know for end of year gifts, I say.  As well, this weekend will see a massive baking spree resulting in many, many heart shaped sugar cookies, because if there is one thing I love about holidays, it is the baking of thematically-shaped cookies. 


While the boys were making their class valentines, they also zipped off a couple of pictures for me:

Me and Mark, on a snowy day.  My hair has lovely volume.

Me and Jake, standing in a sprinkler.  “Usually I make your hair orange,” he said, “But I thought you might enjoy it pink.”  Alarmingly, he is quite accurate as my hair really is pretty orange these days.

With pictures like that, who could ask for anything else?

The other day I was in the checkout at the grocery store when an elderly man, clearly hard of hearing, spoke very loudly into my general vicinity, “DO YOU HAVE A VALENTINE’S DISPLAY?  A DISPLAY FOR VALENTINE’S DAY?”  The cashier seemed a bit confused and so I spoke to the man, directing him to the display of chocolates and cards located near the front entrance.  “DO THEY HAVE THOSE POT OF GOLD CHOCOLATES?  I WANT SOME OF THOSE POT OF GOLD CHOCOLATES FOR VALENTINE’S DAY.”  I told him I thought there were a number of Pot of Gold chocolates to choose from.  “GOOD.  BECAUSE I NEED TO GET SOME THOSE POT OF GOLD CHOCOLATES.”

I thought about that for a while.  I wondered if he was buying chocolates for his wife, because he always bought her Pot of Gold chocolates for Valentine’s Day; maybe she liked having an assortment.  Did she like the kind with nuts, or maybe she liked to be surprised with different combinations of caramel or nougat.  Maybe they ate the chocolates together, talking about which they liked best, the coffee flavoured or the ones with almonds.  Maybe it was something he had been doing for decades.

And that’s when I thought that Valentine’s Day is not silly and inane.  A small gesture like getting someone’s favourite chocolates can be more meaningful and special than anything.  I thought about that old man in the grocery store; I thought that if my husband and I were still sharing a bag of Hershey’s kisses forty years from now, what a beautiful Valentine’s Day that would be.

Groundhogs, The Bachelor and male pattern baldness.

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Certain special days do not translate well for everyone.  For example, Robbie Burns Day – does anyone who is not of Scottish heritage really want to eat haggis and listen to bagpipes?  I’m half Scottish and I certainly don’t want to – or President’s Day, which does not carry over very well to countries that are not the United States.  Groundhog Day does not really apply to this part of the country.  I understand that there are pagan, weather-lore, and even Catholic and Protestant Epiphany-based roots that contribute to Groundhog Day, but we all know that it simply does not apply if one is living in Calgary, as I am.
It’s amusing, though, because Calgarians WANT to participate in Groundhog Day, despite the fact that no groundhogs would ever live here and anyway it would be supreme animal cruelty to make one come out of its den in this climate to observe its shadow, and so there is someone whose job it is to dress up like a groundhog:
Photo from balzacbilly.com

Occasionally I will succumb to a severe lack of judgment, which is what happened the other night when I watched five minutes of the Bachelor.  The Bachelor is one of those cultural phenomena that seems to indicate society’s downfall.  It is, arguably, one of the worst anti-feminist piece of entertainment around.  Just the concept is terrible: women desperately competing to win the attention of a man and/or kickstart a modeling and/or reality television career.  It is one of the saddest things ever, and the fact that I watched a piece of it is sadder still, although I still believe that from a lemons-to-lemonade standpoint, a drinking game wherein viewers have a shot every time the phrase “I feel we have a real connection” is uttered would be the best possible scenario.  Of course, this would probably lead to death or, at the very least, severe alcohol poisoning, so perhaps not. 
But anyway I tuned in for a couple of minutes and discovered two things: a) a woman whose Nascar-racing fiancé – and father of her child – DIED was actually going to drive a Nascar, um, car because it was “something she needed to do”, and b) the bachelor who is currently on the show seems to be one of the stupidest people in the world, and I do not say that lightly. 
Yesterday I heard, and shared, a quote which I thought was funny: “The best way to hide male pattern baldness is to make a shit load of money.”  I thought it was an ironic commentary on the misguided importance placed on material wealth, but I fear I may have inadvertently caused hurt feelings.  NOTE TO MY BALDING MALE FRIENDS: smooches, guys, you all look great.  As a rule, hair is of minimal importance to women, unless of course you are wearing your hair in a mullet, in which case I have nothing further to say.  But if you still think that hair is important in physical attractiveness, then I invite you to observe this man:

Image from reelmovienews.com

So to summarize: hair is not important, but being stupid – as in the current “bachelor – IS.  Groundhog Day is today and Alberta is leading the world in humanely treating groundhogs, by wearing ridiculous costumes.  Happy Groundhog Day!

All the cool kids are doing it!

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And so will I – a Year in Review.  Yes, I know it is the sixth of January and most year in reviews have already been posted, but I was far too busy writing about people who eat toilet paper and watching When Harry Met Sally.

So what happened in 2010 over at the Boy House?

January

I made a resolution to learn how to bake bread, and did so immediately, learning two important things: a) baking bread is not as hard as I thought it would be, and b) the key to New Year Resolution Success is to aim low.

I also ranted about the weird things people say to pregnant women and posted a picture of me with an extra seventy pounds to love.

Yowza.  I still had seven weeks to go at that point.  SEVEN WEEKS.
February
We got really, really excited about the Olympics.  We also went on our first ever winter vacation and became a parody of Canadians as the kids got off the plane wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Team Canada logos, and instantly started running around shrieking in amazement, “Mom, look!  There are FLOWERS!  And they’re REAL!  And the grass is GREEN!  And there’s no SNOW!”
March
Mark turned six!  I had my usual crises with regards to birthday party planning and Daylight Savings Time.  I cleaned out the office and found a whole box of mix tapes, some labeled “Party Mix” and one that was made for my husband from one of his old girlfriends that included songs from Richard Marx.  Hee.

April

I turned 35!  I celebrated by chaperoning on a field trip to the firehall, and cemented my cougar-like status by volunteering to try on the firefighter outfit, discovering just how heavy said outfit is, and actually saying to the young and attractive firefighter “Wow, you guys must be in great shape.”  Coo-coo-coo-choo, Mrs. Robinson.  It also snowed a lot and I wrote about attractive movie characters who would be terrible to be married to, i.e., Ralph Fiennes in the English Patient.


My friend lent me a tiara for my birthday, fulfilling my lifelong dream of birthday crown-wearing.

May
Jake’s pre-Kindergarten class had a Mother’s Day tea in which they sang a song that went “May there always be sunshine, may there always be blue skies, may there always be mama, may there always be me”, and I still tear up thinking about it.  I also cried a lot thinking about this Tim Horton’s commercial and I got way too excited about the woman with the MBA with a concentration in economics winning Miss USA.  Clearly May is an emotional roller-coaster of a month for me.
It was still snowing in May.
June
It was really cold.  On Father’s Day weekend – and Super Soccer Saturday weekend – I attended a yoga weekend workshop.  Happy Father’s Day!  Now take care of the kids all weekend.  The kids finished school and my husband came up with a plan in case my kids ever decide to be protesters at a G-20 Summit. 
My two favourite pictures of Mark ever taken.  He’s getting his groove on at the end-of-school-Stampede-breakfast.  Note that it is June and Jake is wearing his fleece jacket.
July
It was raining and cold and I decided to make yarn octopuses, which turned out as well as any craft I make does.  Terribly.  We went to the Okanagan for some sunshine.  The cold and rain made me become Miss Carpe Diem, and so any day with slightly above average temperatures had me running the kids to the pool.
The yarn octopuses, Moppy and Bum, doing a duet of Heart and Soul.
August
It was still cold and rainy.  I wrote a lot about fashion, especially the jeans with zippered ankles that came out that made me feel like I was wearing turquoise slacks and a coordinating blouse, hobbling around with my walker and my Scotch mints, with a tissue in my sleeve.  Also – and my friend just reminded me of this yesterday – I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that said “Vagitarian”.  I still laugh evilly thinking about it.  Vagitarian.  Says the guy who lives in his mom’s basement.
September
Mark started Grade One and Jake started Kindergarten.  We got hardwood installed by two attractive young whipper-snappers which led to many “hardwood” jokes.  Also I came home to find that they had taken out my drawers to move my dresser with ease, and my panty drawer was proudly on display for all to see.  So I had to show my panties to get hardwood.  Hee.  Also, Jake turned five!
Too cool for school!  Note the boxes of hardwood at right.
October
In typical October fashion we seemed to have a lot of viruses, dead squirrels, and excitement about Halloween.  Also I went on a two-night vacation with my husband and no kids!  And we all survived!  Actually the boys had the time of their lives and still talk about how awesome it was that Grandma picked them up at school.
Boo, I’m a scary witch!  For real.
November
It snowed a lot, I got ready for Christmas, I ran the Scholastic Book Fair, Mark barfed.  That pretty much sums up November.
A foam finger!  It says “We’re #1 – bp”.
December
I blogged almost exclusively about Christmas, Christmas songs, Christmas baking, and my new awesome sexy bitch boots.

Whew!  If you’re still reading this, thank you!!!  So 2010 was a great year, and here’s to a wondeful 2011 for all of us.

I hate you, Harry. I really hate you.

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Happy New Year!  How did you spend New Year’s Eve?  After taking the kids out for a very early dinner and putting them to bed at the regular time my husband, in what can only be described as an overwhelming display of love and affection, watched When Harry Met Sally with me, while I, in an overwhelming display of self-restraint, did not repeat the dialogue word for word.  Then I went to bed at the wild hour of 10:30.
Today has been a very pleasant day, started with a nice Bailey’s and coffee, and filled with doing small but satisfying jobs of organization.  Yesterday I left my chaotic and slightly cabin-fevered household to go to the mall and I was faced with the amazing phenomenon that is Boxing Week.  Christmas cards 75% off!  Lingerie and sleepwear 70% off!  Jacob – 50% off the entire store!  I’ve mentioned before that I’m neither a Handbag nor a Shoe Person, but I am a Sweater Person and so I spent some time clearing my dresser of various ill-fitting and worn out items to make room for my new purchases, despite my husband’s assertion that I probably did not need any more black sweaters.  There is no such thing as Too Many Black Sweaters, I say. 
I also performed a job that I was not relishing but needed to be done: clearing the artwork off the refrigerator.  I kid you not; I took 112 pieces of artwork off the fridge.  One hundred and twelve.  Then I became instantly emotional at the sight of my actual fridge and put 32 back on.  I feel for those people who are hoarders.  Mark may have drawn 25 pictures of Muk Muk and his (fictional) little brother Muk Mike, but every single one of them is adorable to me.  And Jake’s drawing of a Thanksgiving turkey alongside his depictions of alien invasions?  Priceless.  I know that eventually some of them will need to live out their lives in our recycling bin, but I’m not ready for that job.
I know I already stated my New Year’s resolution – to enjoy my friendships, socialize, and drink more wine (with friends), but then I heard of a friend of my husband’s, whose resolution was to make one person happy every day and then by the time ten years passed, she will have made the population of a small town happy!  Beautiful, right?  I immediately resolved to do that as well but then started overanalyzing: would it count if you made the same people happy over and over?  Do you have to make a different person happy every day?  What if you don’t make it out of the house one day and you see no one?  Do you need to make two people happy the next day?  My mind started spinning out of control, making this lovely notion into a complex obligation.  However, I still think it’s a beautiful idea, and I’m going to try to spread much happiness in 2011. Also perhaps I will attempt to not buy any more black sweaters.  Scratch that last one – never going to happen.

Be Kind Resolution, or How I Resolved to Drink More Wine

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In the height of holiday overindulgence last week, a good friend said “I didn’t want to make New Year’s resolutions, but at this point it’s impossible not to.”  I understood.  I’m not generally one for traditional New Year’s resolutions, although I am feeling kind of bloated and sugar high from my own indulgences.  But, as a jovial older colleague used to say “It’s not what you eat between Christmas and New Year’s, it’s what you eat between New Year’s and Christmas”, which is, I think, very astute.  Unless of course your regular diet consists exclusively of Double Downs, Coke, and Sour Patch Kids, in which case a change just may be required.
In other words, I am looking forward to getting back into regular routine next week, one that will contain much less mint chocolate, given that it is quickly disappearing from my kitchen. 
I do have a New Year’s resolution this year, and that is to entertain more, go on more coffee dates, and enjoy wine with friends more.  As opposed to enjoying wine while sitting on my couch in pajamas watching Jeopardy and stating answers in the form of questions, which I’m still going to do.  One cannot make drastic changes overnight.
That’s the thing about resolutions and their high percentage of failure – the rate of which I don’t know exactly, but I would hypothesize it to be 99%.  I mean, who really keeps resolutions?  Well, I did last year but that is because my resolution was to learn how to bake bread, which I did by mid-January, with the assistance of the best cookbook ever, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which I recommend and wish I was getting a marketing fee for the number of times I mention it to people.  Artisan Bread people, are you listening?
Where was I going with this?  Oh yes.  Keeping resolutions.
A little while ago I went to a workshop with this lovely woman, who spoke about compassion.  If you wish to be a truly compassionate person, she said, you need to start with yourself.  It’s true, isn’t it?  Aren’t we our own worst critics?  Nowhere is that more apparent than when you are in a room with people making New Year’s resolutions.  I don’t think that there is anything wrong with wanting to change bad behaviours, or trying to achieve a goal, but can we agree to do it in a more compassionate, more loving way?  Perhaps try to walk more or eat healthier in order to feel better, rather than the standard lose-weight-exercise-more-I-am-a-big-fat-whore?  Self loathing is very destructive, and this is why I think most resolutions are never kept – they are based in unkindness towards oneself.  If changes are needed, implement them with kindness and compassion and joy, rather than punitively.
This is why my resolution is to be with and enjoy my friends’ company more.  My prediction is that 2011 will be a very good year.
Are you making resolutions this year?  If so, what are they?  (Remember: be kind to yourself!)

This is the end, Christmassy friend.

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It’s all over, people.  I know some people leave their tree and decorations up until the New Year, some people leave them up until Epiphany, but my festive spirit and accompanying décor had been up for over a month and it was high time to reclaim the living room.
Yesterday I looked around me and saw a million Lego pieces scattered on the floor, along with Playmobil animals and Egyptian artifacts, puzzle pieces, and board games.  The Zen thought about not being able to control others, only yourself floated through my mind.  I wanted to dismantle all holiday decorations but my husband was ill, god help me, I didn’t think I could take down the seven foot tree on my own.  I drummed my fingers on the table for a while, looking around at the chaos, and then started hauling all the boxes up from the storage room.  Remember the one time I fixed the gutters?  I am invincible, I am woman, I could take down the tree. 
There were some minor protests from the kids when I started taking down all the decorations, to no avail.  Mark, realizing he and Jake were powerless to stop me, started to help.  Soon I had everything down but the tree, and I was ready to take it on, but at the eleventh hour my husband rallied and did it for me.  Possibly he was alarmed by my fervor, although he should be used to it by now, seeing as we have spent twelve Christmases together.  The living room, like the Grinch’s heart, seems to have grown three sizes in the absence of the holiday décor.
I feel decluttered.  Unfortunately there is one area in the house that is not decluttered, and that is the kitchen.  There are no fewer than fourteen boxes of chocolates of various varieties in there.  Some, like the giant box of peppermint Lindor, are exclusively mine.  I am now faced with a decision.  Should I freeze some, should I aim to eat a reasonable daily amount over the next few weeks, or should I consume them all, immediately, in order to destroy them so they will not tempt me with their minty goodness?  The former two seem to be the wiser, if less exalted, solutions. 
How was your Christmas?  I was the happy recipient of many lovely gifts, including several books from my in-laws that I had requested.  I wrote up a list so long ago I actually forgot what I had on it, so opening them was like being a pleasantly surprised and cheerful amnesiac.  The one I started reading first was a biography of Louisa May Alcott.  Let me tell you, if you want to feel good about the miracles of modern medicine, read about the life of a nineteenth-century woman.  Talk about women’s issues: practically every woman in the book so far has suffered through numerous pregnancies, miscarriages, stillbirths, deaths of their children, and – unsurprisingly – many of them subsequently die in childbirth.  Not exactly cheerful but it does make one thankful for what we have.  Which is what the holidays should be about, really.  Thankfulness and joy.
And I have a lot to be thankful for.  I also have a lot of mint chocolate, some of which is going to be consumed imminently.  Tell me about your Christmas – was it lovely?  I hope so.

Tomorrow is Christmas! It’s practically here!

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Remember when you were a kid, how difficult it was to wait for Christmas and how you would get all crazy and frantic waiting for the minute you could get up on Christmas morning, and quite possibly you drove all the adults in the vicinity a little bit insane with your incessant chatter and odd behaviour?  That is exactly the situation in my house right now!  I emphasize with the kids.  I do.  But I’m not sure why their pre-Christmas excitement manifests itself in running through the house naked, whipping each other with their underwear and remarking on the various qualities of their penises.  “Just get dressed, you guys,” I sigh and they respond with entirely irrelevant remarks.  “When Jake and I are grown-ups we are going to live in the same house and have dink fights every time we go to the bathroom!” Mark informed me.  I’m not even sure what that means and I prefer not to delve any further into it. 
“Here’s your early Christmas present!” Jake said, giving me a kiss.  I smiled at this sweet gesture which was promptly followed by “Oops.  I tooted.  It’s stinky.  I guess you got another present you maybe don’t like!  A stinky toot!”  I started to think that Bailey’s in my coffee might be a good idea.
I was planning to write a Festivus post yesterday airing all my grievances when I realized that I don’t really have any grievances.  Except possibly the fact that my children perpetually look like hobos.  Here’s a million dollar idea for all you entrepreneurial types: jeans that have quadruple-enforced knees.  Why has no one come up with this yet?  Is it a conspiracy by the clothing companies to get moms to constantly need to purchase replacements?  Yesterday I went through their drawers only to find endless pairs of jeans with gigantic rips in at least one knee each.  The only reason I care is because it is Christmas, dammit, and my mother will inevitably comment on their slovenliness.  My parents are coming over for dinner tonight at which I am making a roast beef, strangely enough, with butternut squash soup for the vegetarians in the crowd (i.e., me).  Last night we were at a party, and someone asked me how I get enough protein, which gave me the giggles, but since the people at the party were some of my husband’s colleagues, I did not feel the response I wanted to give was appropriate.  Funny, but inappropriate.
Merry Christmas to all of you, and thank you for reading.  Your readership is a gift to me every day and I appreciate it so much.  I hope your holidays are filled with much joy and happiness, and very few grievances.  xo