Category Archives: Fleeting Time

It makes me just feel like crying, baby, ’cause baby, something beautiful’s dying.

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“There’s a new Tim Hortons commercial that’s going to make you cry,” my husband called from the living room.  “I’ve already seen it AND cried this morning.”  I replied.  Oh, Tim Hortons and their tear-jerking commercials.  Years after it first aired, my husband can still say, stiffly, “I come watch” and I will tear up. 

But it’s not just Tim Hortons’ commercials.  I’m an emotional wreck these days.  In other words, I should not have, in hindsight, spent the afternoon of Jake’s sixth birthday watching videos of him and his brother from when they were small.  What was I thinking?  I wasn’t, clearly.  I’m suffering from some kind of pre-empty-nest syndrome.  Last night there was a barbeque at the school and when a friend asked if I was going, I replied that no, I was just going to stay home and be sad.

What a pill.  Fortunately, Top Gun was on TV and, like a moth to a flame, I found myself watching it.  It’s not even a guilty pleasure.  It’s just a pleasure.  They don’t make movies like that anymore.  I have been watching it for twenty-five years and it just never gets old.  “The plaque for the alternates is down the hall in the ladies’ room.”  STILL FUNNY.  It makes me want to go visit a bar near an air force base just to see if the pickup lines “I’m a pilot.  Actually, a naval aviator.” would still be used.  Of course, I’m not sure I fit the demographic that those delivering the pickup lines would be looking for, but one could hope.  Never have I been serenaded by a group of naval aviators singing “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” but it could totally happen. 

There has always been much talk about the glossy, oiled-up, homoerotic volleyball scene (“Playing…playing with the boys!”) and every time I see that movie I rewind that scene at least three times.  Iceman…because that’s the way he flies, ice cold with no mistakes.  Whew!  I saw that movie in my formative years and I swear it set me up for a lifelong enjoyment of the bad boy/asshole.  No soft and sensitive guy for me, it seems, which is probably a good thing.  I think I have enough softness and sensitivity to go around.  Of course, after watching the movie I felt like pounding away on my piano and yelling to my husband “Hey you big stud!  Take me to bed or lose me forever!”  So maybe I’m not totally soft and sensitive.

The first time I saw Top Gun it was in an ice-cold theatre on a hot summer night in Estevan, Saskatchewan.  Eleven-year-old me was fascinated by it.  I longed for a life of adventure, a life beyond my young and boring existence.  Now I’m thirty-six, with my happy and comfortable life that I love, my life which is largely devoid of adventure.  But when that opening music plays, I long to roll down the windows of the minivan and drive really fast down the highway.  The highway to the danger zone.

Nostalgia and almost-birthdays.

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I know this past weekend was a tough one for many of you, and so please accept my virtual hugs and kisses.  I did not watch the news all weekend, and I largely steered clear of the Internet, but I did think about those of you for whom this past weekend was very, very difficult.

The past few weeks have been unseasonably – I mean, really, truly, unseasonably – hot, and I’ve been loving every second of it.  Tank tops in September?  Who knew that such a phenomenon was possible?  It all came to a crashing halt today, which is fine because I’m gearing up for a busy week.  I have no time for such mundane things as enjoying the weather.  My husband is heading out of town, I have the first school council/ parent association meeting of the year, it’s Jake’s birthday, and I must procure many, many items of a baked goods nature.

This time of the year always seems very busy.  I have no time for reminiscing about Jake’s birthday, it seems.  Six years ago today, I was wallowing around like a giant panda.  Six years ago today I was eating such quality foodstuffs as Cheez Whiz on toast several times a day.  Six years ago today I felt as if the baby’s head might actually pop right out of my vagina if I walked too quickly.  Six years ago today I wondered why everyone in the world was so annoying, and why they were all out to get me with their annoying voices and mannerisms.

It’s probably better NOT to reminisce too much.  Who wants to live in the past, anyway?

I did see a woman in the grocery store today with a small girl, perhaps she was three years old.  The little girl was adorable, shrieking with excitement in the produce section: “Carrots, Mama, we’re getting carrots!  They’re orange!  Carrots!  Peppers!  I have little tomatoes!”  I was reminded of my days of grocery shopping with Jake.  I spent the rest of my trip awash in nostalgia until we got to the lineup.  The lineup that had a trifecta of incredibly slow and inefficient people: the cashier, the bagger, and the little old lady with what appeared to be several hundred coupons and who wanted to pay with every single penny she had in her little vinyl purse.  I took the opportunity to read US magazine and catch up on all those people who I have no idea a) who they are or b) why they are famous.  The little girl and her mother were in front of me, and the little girl was restless.  She asked to get out of the cart, she tried to help put groceries on the conveyor, she lay down on the floor, she got accidentally stepped on by her mother, she started sobbing for all of humanity.  I smiled at her mother, who looked frazzled and tired, I tried to make up for the crabby comments I could hear from the woman behind me. 

And just like that, my nostalgic feelings dissipated and I went to pick my big, big boys up from school for lunch.

"Pa Ingalls Was Such a Massive Dickhead"

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Few things, I find, are more offensive and soul-destroying than trying to find parking in the busy Costco lot and then finding some spots, only to discover at the last minute that there are several giant carts stranded in the vacant parking spots, the vacant parking spots that are mere steps from the parking lot cart corral, which is totally devoid of carts.  Quite honestly, it makes me sad for the state of humanity.  Can we not all walk five metres to return our giant Costco carts to the cart corral?  Why?  Why is this an issue?  Are Costco shoppers just completely depleted after their trips and the extra steps are just too much to take?  Does Costco just destroy people’s souls so much that they cannot return their carts to the corral, but instead leave them where they lie and rush home to consume recently purchased extra-large bags of potato chips?

I still managed to return my cart to the corral, although I did feel like my soul was being swallowed when I was in Costco, as usual.  For one thing, I sustained an arm injury while attempting to lift a giant box of San Pellegrino.  The very tender skin of my inner forearm got stuck between two of the boxes, which was very painful and also led to the unfortunate result that I couldn’t actually move one of the boxes, since my arm was painfully stuck.  Moreover, after this debacle, I discovered that Christmas decorations and other assorted Christmas-related items were on display.  On September 7.  As if I didn’t feel like time was fleeting enough.  Not half an hour prior to witnessing this early Christmas display, I had dropped the boys off at school after lunch.  They insisted that they could get to their door by themselves, so I watched as Mark led Jake through the playground, placing his hand so gently on Jake’s shoulder.  And then I cried.  I did not need to see the Christmas display, Costco. 

So I felt a gloom permeate the air as I narrowed my eyes at the Christmas display, but then fortunately remembered the most cheering remark I had heard – possibly the most cheering remark I had heard in my entire life – after my last blog post.  Beck can be credited with what is, most likely, the greatest Little House on the Prairie quote of all time:

“Pa Ingalls was such a massive dickhead.”

I cannot help but feel that she has summarized the entire series quite admirably.  From my friend at Hodgepodge and Strawberries came this fabulous quote about Ma Ingalls:

“His wife was either a laudanum addict or a saint.”

And that is nearly all one needs to know about Little House on the Prairie.  There have been some questions regarding the appropriateness or otherwise of reading these books aloud to small children, and I would say that, despite my sarcasm, they are great reading.  Some things to note that may need editing/ teachable moments/ beforehand preparation:

1) As mentioned before, Pa throws the family into financial ruin by building a fancy house – with glass windows and a stove, my stars! – on credit, to be paid back with the lucrative wheat crop which never materializes.  This right there could be used as a teachable moment given the state of the world’s economy.  Stay in the damn sod dugout, Ingalls family. (On the Banks of Plum Creek)

2) When the Ingalls family moves from Wisconsin to Kansas, they are moving into Indian Territory.  The government is supposed to give them the land that belongs to the Indians, but in the end it doesn’t.  There is a lot of racism, not subtle, in this book.  This could be used as a teachable moment regarding past attitudes towards non-whites in North America.  (Little House on the Prairie)

3) Several older boys plan to beat the new teacher and break up the school, and are supported in this endeavor by their parents, who are bragging to the community that their sons are going to give the teacher a beating of a lifetime.  Previously they beat a teacher so badly that he died of his injuries.  Oh boy!  Manslaughter!  Happily, Mr. Wilder – a gangsta, for sure – provides the new teacher with a bullwhip which he unleashes on those boys.  Revenge, Little House style.  (Farmer Boy)

4) Bored with the quietness of their lives, Pa and his cronies dress up in blackface and put on a show for the whole town.  The townspeople think this is the greatest thing ever.  Much time is spent applauding this showcase of talent.  (Little Town on the Prairie)

5) Laura – who is fifteen and forced to work as a teacher, which she hates, so that her blind sister Mary can attend the College for the Blind – is billeted at a house where the wife is driven insane with hatred for her husband who forced her to move from civilization to some god-forsaken shanty in the middle of the prairie.  This woman pulls a knife on her husband in the middle of the night, threatening to stab everyone in the house right then and there if he doesn’t let her move back to her home.  It’s a little creepy.  (These Happy Golden Years)


Despite all this, the books are definitely worth a read.  Little House in the Big Woods is an especially cozy family book.  After reading it as a child, I kind of wished WE would have a pig slaughter just so my dad could inflate the pig’s bladder and I could play with it like a balloon.  And if six year old me could feel that way, imagine how delightful these stories truly are.  Despite the manslaughter, insanity, racism, and poor economic choices.

Don’t it make my brown eyes bluuuuueeee.

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So I’ve been blue, due to a number of factors, the most pressing being disappointment over not being offered a writing contract that I had my heart set on.  I’ve been in mourning about it, wallowing and eating all manner of bad things, and reading my most favourite comfort book, Diary of a Provincial Lady.  That book never fails to cheer me up.  It’s like chocolate cake and macaroni and cheese for the mind.  It is possibly the wittiest book ever written, and contains such gems as:

Move about after dinner, and meet acquaintance whose name I have forgotten, but connect with literature.  I ask if he has published anything lately.  He says that his work is not, and never can be, for publication.  Thought passes through my mind to the effect that this attitude might with advantage be adopted by many others.

Right?  Mark said “I’m sorry you’re sad you can’t write for those people.  But you can still write at home!  On your computer!”  True. 

Do you have a comfort book?  I once dated a guy who had a comfort movie.  Whenever he was feeling ill or down, he would watch Rudy.  The thought of it makes me snicker, and not in the kindest way.  Remember the scene – if you ever had the misfortune to watch said film – when all the players brought their jerseys to the coach.  “It’s for Rudy, Coach.” 

It just occurred to me: maybe I’m like Rudy.  I do have a lot of heart.  That’s depressing.

It also occurs to me that perhaps I just need an excuse, at this time of year, to have an emotional breakdown.  Remember last year?  When I had a complete breakdown at the fact that my printer wasn’t working and ended up sobbing, on the phone for hours with the Dell representative who kept speaking in soothing tones and asking if maybe I should get myself a drink of water and not to worry, he was going to to take care of everything?  I’m a mental case.

Not helping matters is the fact that we are all a tiny bit sick.  Nothing full blown, nothing major, but the boys both woke up Friday morning with slight runny noses.  Two things: a) that was fast, normally the first cold of the year occurs within the second week of school, not the second day, and b) five years old is NOT too young for a man-cold.  Jake became completely indignant that he was going to go to school, despite a tiny sniffle and slightly watery eyes.  “I can’t BELIEVE this,” he said, “This is the SECOND TIME I’ve gone to school like this!”  I related this amusing anecdote to my husband but ended up having to explain the concept of the man-cold to him, which was somewhat awkward.  I tried to make the explanation as general as possible.

And how was the first day of school?  It was excellent.  Both boys are, as anticipated, in the same class at school.  The benefits of this arrangement far outweigh the negatives, not the least of which is that I don’t have to be room parent for two separate classrooms and, with any luck, I will only receive ONE copy of all the notices that come home from school.  Also the boys are ecstatic to be together, and their teacher is fabulous, one in a million.

On the way home from dropping the boys at school, I saw a woman with a very small boy, standing on the sidewalk watching a wood chipper at work.  That brought me back, intensely.  I don’t know how many hours I spent watching various large machinery at work, boys in tow.  I don’t know how many times I would take them outside to watch the garbage truck pick up the trash, or watch sidewalk repairs, or to the nearby construction site where a large office building was being built.  “Diggies!  Diggies!  Happy!  Happy!” one-year-old Jake would say from the stroller, clapping his hands.  A gas station in our neighbourhood was demolished, and believe me, I spent days watching the machinery tear down the buildings and dig out the contaminated soil.  It got so that the crew would wave when they saw the three of us walking up the street.  My jeans would be caked with mud from carrying Jake, his muddy rubber boots bumping against my thighs.  I would be tired, so tired, but would stand there with my fascinated boys, daydreaming about other things.  And now we’re in a whole new chapter.

  

“What grade are you guys in?”

Where will we be when the summer’s gone?

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Have I mentioned that it has been – wait for it – unseasonably hot around here?  Honestly, it’s beautiful, and every day I have a sneaking feeling that I have been transported to a different city without my knowledge.  Today it was – wait for it – thirty degrees Celcius which is both highly abnormal and very welcome.  Sadly, the days of capri pants and tank tops are going to come to a screeching halt tomorrow given the forecast of rain and cool temperatures, but that’s okay.  I’m now ready for the kids to go back to school, which is happening Thursay.

The kids are also very ready to go back to school.  Mark has been making up his own math worksheets, and is asking me to put little checkmarks beside each correct answer.  Jake has been creating incredibly complex and difficult to follow stories, and doing home reading of his own accord.  It’s a sign. 

And the talking, my god, the talking.  It’s like someone set the children to “Loud” and “Rambling”.  Part of it is that my husband was not working last week and is now back to work and MY WORD THE CHILDREN MUST FIND AN OUTLET FOR THEIR INCESSANT CONVERSATION.  And by conversation, I mean spouting random facts about Cars 2, bodies of water, and Canadian wild animals, along with non-stop questions about those topics and also complicated explanations for “games” in which I am to pretend I am someone who has a pet river otter, or a pet wolf, and then the “wolf” and “river otter” compete for my attention.  At this point I think my brain has liquified.  But still I participate in these “games”, thinking that wine sounds nice but I can’t have any until Friday and it is only Monday, dammit.

Yesterday I was walking my dog and I ran into a woman who lives in the neighbourhood who I met once, briefly, a few years ago.  She told me that her daughter had graduated high school and her son was a year away from graduation and that she is also now, sadly, widowed, and so she was feeling extremely empty-nested.  Wow.  I was startled by all that information and also felt that maybe I was not appreciating all the time with my children over the past couple of days and that I should get home, pronto, and cherish the moments. 

But I can’t cherish the moments right now because there is SO MUCH NOISE.  Plus right now the kids are arguing about what is more destructive: bombs or fire.  They are getting very emotional and worked up about this apocalyptic argument.  “But fire would burn everything up!”  “But bombs would blow everything up!”  “Fire!”  “Bombs!”  I don’t even know the context of the disagreement, and to be honest, I prefer not to find out.

Updates and a meme!

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I feel like I, perhaps, left my dear readers hanging; I will make amends by updating you on the goings-on in the Boyhouse.

1) Mark has been using an inhaler for a week, and he has NOT COUGHED FOR A WEEK.  Happy coincidence?  Related: I have been sleeping uninterrupted through the night.  Not once have I woken up and listened to coughing for two hours!

2) I found a new esthetician.  I chose this particular place because of the incredibly convenient hours, but they also advertised “pain-free” waxing, of which I was deeply skeptical.  Now, you may or may not believe me, but the waxing was actually PAIN-FREE!  For every ending there is a beginning, I suppose. 

3) Related to aging and fleeting time:
 a) INXS’ “Devil Inside” was played on the local “oldies” station, and
 b) While in the pharmaceutical section of Wal-Mart, I noticed three ladies who appeared to be in their sixties giggling and talking to one another with regards to their favourite product.  The product in question?  Personal lubricant. 

I will leave it at that.

Marilyn over at A Lot of Loves tagged me in a meme, about seven posts that I’ve written.  I love memes!  I especially love them on Friday nights when I have a big glass of wine beside me.  I had to dig through a whole lot of archives, and discovered posts I had forgotten that I had even read!  But here goes!

Most Beautiful Post
This was tricky because I don’t tend to think I write particularly beautiful posts, but I do like this one about happiness with children (plus it has super cute pictures of my kids as babies!), and I also like this one about my very grumpy grandpa.

Most Popular Post
My post that has the most pageviews is this one, and I’m going to guess that its popularity is based on the fact that I reference “mom jeans”.  My second most popular post referenced Scaredy Squirrel, which just goes to show that in order to gain popularity you need name-drop a little. 

Most Controversial Post
I’m not huge on controversy around here, but my post on breastfeeding spurred some discussion.  Breastfeeding = controversy, AM I RIGHT?  If you want to ignite some flames, just bring up breastfeeding!  But I urge you, my dear readers, to always be kind, especially to hormonal and sleep-deprived new mothers who may, years later, still ache about certain memories.

Most Helpful Post
Oooh, this is a tough one.  I don’t feel my posts are particularly helpful OR informative, unless you want to commisserate about weird things.  However, here is my public service announcement about what NOT to say to pregnant women.  I urge you to read the comments. 

Post Whose Success Surprised You
Well, obviously the one about Scaredy Squirrel, because I discussed DEAD SQUIRRELS in my neighbourhood.  Not exactly that interesting.  Kind of revolting, really.  I was also surprised at the success of my varicose-vein stripping update, but I guess it was popular because I used the word “stripping” in the title.  I imagine the people who were googling “stripping” were probably somewhat disappointed when they ended up at my blog.

Post That You Didn’t Feel Got The Attention It Deserved
Hey, I’m just happy to be here.  I’m happy that people read my blog at all.  However, early on in my blogging days, I wrote this about Woodstock, Ann Landers, and Alice Munro, and I really liked it.

Post That You Are Most Proud Of
Honestly, I have no idea.  My favourite posts are always the ones leading up to Christmas, but I found this little gem in the archives.  It’s not exactly fine literature, but it pretty much sums up life in the Boyhouse.

Melancholy thoughts about back to school and the transformative power of a new pair of panties.

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Two years ago, when Mark was starting kindergarten, I wrote this.  One year ago, when Jake was starting kindergarten, I wrote this.  I find the differences in the pieces to be very amusing – in the first one I’m all “Buy some new panties!  Drink some wine!” while the second one is “My baby birds are leaving the nest!  Wah!”  Maybe I need to buy some new panties and drink some wine because I’m feeling a tad melancholy about the imminent end of summer.  Sixteen days until school!  Sixteen days until, with the exception of the lunch hour, the boys are gone all day long. 

It’s not like I’m not looking forward to a little space and the idea of buying groceries without two children in tow, asking to buy cupcakes and asking to push the cart and then accidentally running into things with the cart and then picking up the scattered items off the filthy grocery store floor and then sticking their heads in the garbage cans to ascertain how stinky the garbage cans are and then having a prolonged conversation with the somewhat slow-witted carryout guy about whether a centaur can be properly referred to as a man-horse.  I’m also not wishing to stop time or that I had my babies back or that I had another baby – HEAVEN FORBID.  But I’m just going to miss the boys.  That’s all.  I’m going to miss them and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I had a hair appointment today and I was struck, as I always am, by how dull my life must appear to the average young woman.  The sweet, eighteen year old shampoo girl always chats with me and asks me many questions about my life, and I can’t help but feel that my answers must fill her with chills about aging.  Don’t get me wrong – I love small talk, I am the QUEEN of small talk, but I found myself thinking with nostalgia about the previous shampoo girl who was terribly shy and barely spoke to me.  What did you do this weekend, she asked, what’s up for the rest of the day, what are you doing for the rest of the summer?  She seemed somewhat nonplussed by my boring answers and went back to applying conditioner.

It’s not that I find my life dull to live, but I do think it must seem quite dull to the sweet and perky shampoo girl, who usually regales me with information as to the best clubs to go to for dancing and the best time to go – not before 10 pm.  Dancing?  Today is the 34th anniversary of Elvis’ death and I have had Kentucky Rain stuck in my head all day long.  Dancing and clubbing do not seem particularly relevant.  Related: I found out today that Anne Bancroft played Mrs. Robinson at the age of 36!  THIRTY SIX!  I am thirty six!  Also related: the shampoo girl asked what my natural hair colour was and when I answered grey she smiled and said “I mean, what was it BEFORE grey?”  Um, I’m not sure?  It’s been grey for a really long time.  Sigh.  The baby birds are leaving the nest and I’m the same age as Mrs. Robinson.  I am definitely going to need some new panties and wine.