Category Archives: Hello Calgary

The Hippo Whisperer

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It’s Stampede Week in Calgary, and on Friday my husband headed into the office, wearing cowboy boots, a plaid shirt, and jeans. He looked pretty hot, by the way, but his usual work wear is a suit and tie (which is also hot. Hello? Hooters for women would just be guys walking around in suits holding up their credit scores, am I right?). In any case, Mark was hugging him goodbye and then stopped. He looked at my husband, and the shock and confusion on his face was impossible to hide. Um, Dad? Are you…going to work? Is this…casual Friday?

Then yesterday my husband brought out his cowboy hat, to wear to a function, and Jake gave him the side-eye. Dad? You don’t look like a cowboy. You just look like some dude in a cowboy hat.

My poor husband is going to have some self-esteem issues by the time the week is over.

Stampede Week is a great time to get out and do non-Stampede-related things around the city, so this morning the kids and I went to the zoo. They have a Dinosaurs Alive exhibit that was last there in 2010. This was me and the boys looking at a Parasauralophus in 2010:

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And this is them in front of the Parasauralophus now:

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I THINK THEY’VE GROWN.

One thing that hasn’t changed over the years is Jake’s deep and abiding love of hippos. Remember Foggy, and how deeply we mourned him? Jake has grown to love Ghost, Foggy’s grandson, just as much. As a side note, Ghost is no longer actually called Ghost, but Lobi; however, in our house he has remained and forever will remain Ghost.

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And I don’t know how it happens, I honestly don’t, but every single time we visit the zoo, something occurs that deepens Jake’s belief that he and the hippos are inextricably bonded. Today when we visited Ghost, the giant hippo turned around, looked at Jake, and wiggled his ears. When we were leaving, Jake said “Bye, Ghost,” at which point the hippo honked loudly. Cynics may think this is a silly coincidence, but I am not going to dispute Jake’s belief that he and the hippo are communicating. This is the kid who never believed in the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, and who stopped believing in Santa when he was in kindergarten. If anyone tries to tell him that he is not the Hippo Whisperer, I will stab that motherfucker, I swear I will.

On a much less violent note, yesterday I was invited to a Ladies’ Lunch in honour of my niece’s fifth birthday, and it was so nice! There were eight of us: her grandmas, aunties, big sisters, and her mom. Her other auntie also has two boys, and between the two of us, I thought we might steal the gifts to play with ourselves. I had given her a paper doll/ sticker book, and it was all I could do not to cut out the dolls and start dressing them up. The boys and I went shopping last week to pick it out and they could not have been less interested.

Me: Should I get the pink puppy one, or the dolly one?

Jake: Puppies.

Me: Really? Because this dolly one is really cute too.

Mark: Then get the dolly one.

Me: I’m just not sure which is cuter!

Jake: JUST PICK ONE. IT DOESN’T MATTER.

Mark: I’m going to look at the Percy Jackson books, come on, Jake.

Maybe I should have gotten the pink puppy one for myself.

Summer Love

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Here we are, on day three of summer vacation, and it kind of feels like we’ve been on vacation for a month already, in the best way possible. It’s been unseasonably warm and beautiful, and we haven’t yet had a moment of missing-school-or-friends angst that typically happens in the first few days of unstructuredness. The boys finished school on Friday:

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All has been, as they say, rosy:

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We’ve been as busy as bees, having fun:

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We spent the weekend at the lake with my parents, and much of the time was spent like this:

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And some of this:

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Today we went to the local amusement park, and although the forecast was quite warm, it was very overcast. Apparently this run of great weather has ruined my Calgary weather-savviness, because I failed to bring a jacket and so was completely unprepared for the drizzle that turned into rain. The bright side is that I had a lot of work to do this afternoon, and was able to complete it without feeling resentful that I was missing out on great weather. Also, the rain didn’t really start until we were pretty much ready to go home anyway, and the boys got to do everything they wanted in the time we were there. Plus, this year they are both tall enough for the big bumper cars, and it was hilarious to watch them jam themselves into the centre and get pummelled from all sides.

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I spent a lot of time reading this weekend. I’ve been reading a biography of the Queen Mum that my mother had lent me, and let’s just say it’s eye opening. Remember the scandal when Fergie had her toes sucked by someone, and Charles said he wished he was Camilla’s tampon? First, ew. Tampon, really? But these are completely tame and boring compared with the totally scandalous behaviour and also kind of incestuous relationships by the European royals of the early 20th century. HOO BOY.

It’s also bizarrely hilarious. For example, King Constantine I was deposed, and his son took over as king of Greece. Unfortunately, says the book, he was bitten by a monkey and died of blood poisoning in 1920. Two paragraphs later, we find out that Princess Marie Bonapart, in pursuit of a better orgasm, had her clitoris surgically repositioned three times. Three times! It seems amazing that it would work after that. These are the kind of anecdotes that keep me reading, because the book itself is very dense and heavy reading. It’s not unlike reading a textbook, albeit one with very strange stories in it.

I hope you’re having a wonderful summer so far! xoxo

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Just June

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After today, there is only one and a half days left of school, and excitement is mounting! Is it me, or did June fly by? Maybe it’s my life that is flying by and I should just lie down and sing “Cat’s in the Cradle,” “Landslide,” and “Sunrise Sunset” over and over for a while.

The last few weeks of school are pretty hilarious, aren’t they? Everybody’s just mailing it in at this point. Mark’s at a field trip to the zoo today, which is remarkable because it’s sunny and warm. I think this is the first field trip ever that it hasn’t been pouring rain or unseasonably cold or something. Jake’s class has an “in-class” field trip involving Light and Shadows, and I asked if he wanted me to volunteer in the class. He politely suggested that there were more than enough volunteers, and when I said no, the teacher was still looking for some, he said that he’d really rather I not. Well, I’d rather not as well, so I GUESS that worked out.

Jake’s class hasn’t exactly been easy street for the past few weeks though; Jake’s teacher is notorious for keeping the learning going until the bitter end. Mark had her for a teacher a few years ago and it was the same. For example, Mark’s class has watched four movies over the past four days, and has another movie scheduled for tomorrow. Jake had four spelling tests in the past two days. Monday night he came home with six pieces of paper on which he was supposed to write down THIRTY interesting sentences about the research topic they’ve been working on for the past month, and then glue the pieces of paper into a cube, all due the following morning. At first I wondered if he had slacked off in class, but no. It turns out everyone was given this assignment at the end of the day, so the last Monday night of the school year was spent doing this without notes because no one was allowed to bring their notebooks home. I felt a bit indignant; the busy work could have been kept for school time, in my opinion, but Jake was determined to finish strong.

I’m not complaining, mind you. I like the teacher; she’s a no-nonsense kind of lady. But I felt like that project could have been used to fill class time, especially since Jake came home with the cube the very next day. WHAT IS THE POINT.

Hilariously, Jake’s research project was on beavers. My children and their obsession with beavers. Be careful what you google.

Speaking of which, the last couple of weeks have been a learning time in one area: Sex Ed, or, as they call it now, H.S., and there has been some discussion about the horrifying nature of reproduction and the human body. I’ve learned too much.

So we’re all gearing up for summer, and I’m pretty excited about it. I need to remember that the lack of schedule takes a few days for the kids to get used to – Mom, should we do some worksheets? Can we make our own Freezie business? – and that there’s always a lot of emotions on the last day of school. This week has coincided with Ladies’ Holidays, which has made for an interesting couple of days. For example, yesterday I decided to make jam for the first time in my life. Long story short, I way overcooked the raspberries and ended up with raspberry-flavoured cement. I had to remind myself about what I remind the kids, in the yoga way – practice, practice, all is coming – and started over. The second batch turned out perfectly, and Jake had non-cement-like raspberry jam on his peanut-butter toast for breakfast.

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Perfection! Happy start-of-summer, everyone! xo

Animal Kingdom, or maybe Pet Semetary

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I think there’s a robin’s nest in my neighbour’s spruce tree which grows beside our shared fence. All during the spring, I would see robins busily gathering dry grass and little bits of garden debris, and flying importantly towards the tree. Whenever I would walk to the garage – which is quite often, during the day – there would be any number of robins standing guard; some in my garden by the fence, some on the fence, and some in my nearby spirea shrub. They would chirp at me but I wouldn’t look at them or the tree; I’ve heard that if you see a robin’s nest, and the mother robin sees you seeing the nest, then they will abandon the nest and the little babies in it. I didn’t want to be responsible for the death of any baby birds.

I have enough on my plate; for example, I feel like my next-to-next door neighbour’s cat is going to meet his demise in my yard. Beeps the cat has long been part of my life. He is primarily a house cat who somehow is constantly escaping from his house and heading for my Barkley-filled yard. I think the cat has a death wish. There have been a few near misses, when I’ve let Barkley out only to notice that he’s taken off like a rocket after the hapless Beeps. Since Barkley has been known to catch and kill squirrels in the back yard, I’m fairly uneasy with our feline visitor.

On the weekend I was working in the garden and was alerted to Beeps-related danger by Barkley’s barking and growls, and my next-door neighbour – who is in the middle of our house and Beeps’ house – calling the cat in an alarmed voice. Sure enough, the cat was headed right for our fence, with Barkley snarling on the other side. Luckily my neighbour grabbed him and handed him off to Beeps’ owner, who didn’t realize the cat was gone. She came to talk to me and I knew what the conversation would be, because we’d had it before. Beeps’ owner is convinced – absolutely convinced – that Beeps and Barkley are the best of friends, and this is based on one incident several years ago when they sniffed each other through the fence. This, then, was the conversation, that Beeps and Barkley are friends, that she’s not at all worried that Barkley will do anything to Beeps, and she JUST doesn’t want Beeps to get lost in the neighbourhood, is all. No amount of me claiming that Barkley is a) territorial, b) a dog, or c) 55 pounds will convince her that this relationship is not one of inter-species friendship and love.

At this point, I think the only thing that I can do is take my mother-in-law’s advice that she gave me when I told her of this recurring issue: learn to use a spade and keep quiet about it.

I mean, I hope it doesn’t come to that. There’s enough weirdness going on in my neighbourhood lately. Last week I was working downstairs most of the day; shortly before school pick-up I was folding laundry and happened to look out the window at my neighbour’s place across the street.

There was a small grave dug in the front yard, complete with a giant wooden cross.

Alarmed is probably too mild a term for my reaction. I know with 100% certainty that their dearly-beloved dog died years ago, and yet I cannot imagine what else could be buried there. Since that time, the cross has been taken down and put up again several times, leading me to hope that perhaps it’s one big hilarious joke, the front-yard grave. Although, as my friend and neighbour said to me, why would you want an ornamental lawn grave? This is a good point. I keep waiting for flowers to be planted in the dirt rectangle, hoping that it’s just a strange looking flower bed, but so far, nothing. Oddly-placed rectangular flower bed is currently the best case scenario. If the mannequin shows up again after all this, I’m going to be tempted to call a real-estate agent.

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.

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!

Lordy, lordy

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I turned forty yesterday, and if the past few days are an indication of the decade to come, then I think my forties are going to be amazing.

We had a party on the weekend, and the only downside is that I’m probably getting wrinklier by the minute, given that my face was like this for most of it:

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You will note that I am wearing a sash. I had a matching tiara as well; the same friend who brought those two items also brought a bottle of Baby Duck and at around 1:45 am, I partied like I was 16 years old:

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Wow, that stuff is bad. And yes, you read that right – 1:45 am. I STAYED UP PAST TWO IN THE MORNING OMG.

So, it was a memorable birthday, made even more memorable by my husband’s friends serenading me in the manner of Maverick and Goose in Top Gun, which has long been a dream of mine. FINALLY THE DREAM CAME TRUE. From the moment I heard you never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips to the final ba dum, ba dum, ba dum dum DUM, I was on cloud nine. Much, much more to be said about this on the throwback blog next week.

By the way, if you’re not reading Throwing It Back, you should. So far I’ve recapped Deenie by Judy Blume, Allison has talked Mr. Dressup and Girl Guide Camp, and, most recently, Hannah recalls with fondness “Wok With Yan,” which may have somehow inspired my love of apron culture. I have it on good authority that we’ll see something about Gilbert Blythe tomorrow.

Gilbert! He seemed to be the first crush of every Canadian girl growing up in the Eighties, and I was no exception. In fact, he made it on my Sexiest Men Of Years Past list, a.k.a., the guys I used to crush on. RIP Jonathan Crombie. We will always be Carrots to you.

In other news, it is really and truly spring in Calgary. I know! I haven’t wanted to say anything because I haven’t wanted to jinx it, but we have had a mild, dry winter and it’s been a warm, dry spring. There are downsides – grass fires ahoy! – but the past few days I have been working in the garden and my perennials are all growing – with the exception of the hostas, which never make an appearance before May. Although, perhaps I shouldn’t say that because my clematis is already up – and that never happens until May – and it is also, strangely, showing new growth on the old vines. THE APOCALYPSE IS NIGH. Well, I’ll take it, especially after last year’s Planet Hoth-like winter.

 Speaking of the beauty of Mother Nature and also Planet Hoth, it’s Earth Day today and besides feeling slightly smug because my kids ALWAYS have litterless lunches and snacks, I participated in the Google Doodle quiz about what kind of animal I am. I cannot resist such quizzes; whether it be what Downton Abbey character I am or what genre of music represents me best, what is my age based on the men I find attractive (28, what is up with that) or what US city should I live in based on my astrological sign, I will always take the quiz. And so I participated in Google’s quiz and found out the following:

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If anyone needs any heavy lifting, my giant tusks and I are here for you. xo