Category Archives: Hello Calgary

One Size Fits All

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For those of you who follow such things, the federal budget contained an intention to legislate an end to the price gap between goods sold in the US and Canada. It’s about time! In this day and age I find it ridiculous to find an online price that’s 30% higher on Canadian websites compared with the same item, from the same corporation, in the US. If this goes through, however, it will be the end of an era.

When I was growing up, the thing to do was cross border shop. I clearly recall driving down to Montana, or sometimes even Washington, to buy back to school clothes. Things were significantly cheaper in the US at that time, and the dollar was about par, and so even with travel costs it was a better deal to shop “across the line”. Not only that but the US was home to many stores and brands that were just not available in Canada. My husband recalls trips down to Washington in the 1970s when he would happily partake in A&W Root Beer, which was not sold in Canada, even though there were A&W restaurants. For me, the item that was shrouded in mystery was the Twinkie.

Twinkies and Hostess Cupcakes were not sold in Canada when I was a kid, but I knew all about them from Saturday morning cartoons and advertisements in Archie comics. They looked amazing and delicious and I clearly recall the first time my mother bought them, on a shopping trip to the States. The anticipation! The excitement! The…anticlimatic feeling when I bit into it and it was just a weird spongy thing with weird cream on the inside. How disappointing. The cupcakes, I thought, were better on account that they had a nice chocolate coating on them, but the Day of the Twinkie Reckoning was the day I realized that not everything lives up to your dreams. When the world never seems to be living up to your dreams, it’s time you started finding out what everything is all about.

A pivotal moment in my life.

The Great Twinkie Incident Of My Childhood did not, however, cure me of coveting exotic items not for sale in Canada, specifically those found in a little chain you might have heard of: Victoria’s Secret. Four years ago, when I finally decided I was ready to travel with the children, we flew to Palm Desert to visit my snowbird parents.

PalmSprings

This photo has nothing to do with the story. It’s just my favourite from that trip. The boys had just gotten off the plane and were amazed to see flowers! and grass! in February! WHAT KIND OF MAGICAL PLACE IS THIS? And look at their little shoes.

 

That trip, my mother and I ditched the kids with my dad and husband, and went shopping. We went to Victoria’s Secret which was everything I had dreamed of, and more. The selection of bras! The gigantic comfortable change rooms complete with disposable panties and t-shirts to test out the bras! The businesslike salesgirls walking around in their black clothing with tape measures around their necks! Prior to this I had always done my bra fitting at the Bay, with older Eastern European women sharply admonishing the fit of my current bras. You are vearing ze vrong bra! Look at zis! Zis is terrible. Terrible fit. You need different. But these girls were gentle and sweet and very earnest in their suggestions. Maybe the Dream Angel? I don’t THINK you’d like the Bombshell.

The best part about that shopping trip, other than all the underwear I brought home, was that it was actually Valentine’s Day when my mom and I were shopping. Have you ever been to Victoria’s Secret on Valentine’s Day? It’s pretty entertaining. There were literally dozens of men, some of them wandering around wide eyed, some standing motionless and overwhelmed in the middle of the store, but most of them lined up to purchase gift cards. Those men were no fools. There are too many (literal) booby traps in buying lingerie as a gift. There are just too many ways that can go badly; gift cards are probably the safest way to go.

So I was happy to cross-border shop for sexy and good-fitting bras and panties, until the magical happened – a store opened up in my city! It opened to huge fanfare but I still didn’t visit it very often, because it was in location very inconvenient to me. But then! To much less fanfare and women walking around with angel wings, a store opened up NOT FIVE MINUTES AWAY FROM ME. Hurray! I received a coupon in the mail for $10 off a bra and off I went.

It was the same great shopping experience, with the same earnest salesgirls. When I got to the counter with my Dream Angel, the cashier asked if I would like the free Valentine’s Day thong panty. I’m not made of stone, OF COURSE I wanted the free Valentine’s Day thong panty. I chose hot pink, as being something exotic and unusual for me, and the girl started to wrap it in tissue. Wait, I said, What size is that? The girl smiled at me kindly and said the thongs were one size fits all. The bees are doing what now? A one size fits all THONG PANTY?

Since then I’ve found out that Hanky Panky – home to, apparently, the world’s most comfortable thong – also sells their thongs as a one size fits all, and I have to say, I cannot wrap my head around this phenomenon. How is it possible? What kind of miracle fabric is this? I can understand how a caftan at Sears can be one size fits all – “fitting” not being synonymous with “looking the same” – but a thong panty? I just cannot understand. I need the physics explained to me.

And yet I got home and tried on the one size fits all thong, and it was the most comfortable pair of underwear I have ever worn. My mind is blown. There are a lot of things I do understand: advanced calculus, visual basic coding, economics, but this is the most mind-bending concept of them all. One size fits all thong underwear. It feels like NASA had a part in it.

All Baking and No Eating Makes Nicole Go Something Something

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Happy Monday, I say from my perch on the office chair with a big coffee next to me. It’s Day…I don’t know how many days it’s been painfully cold but suffice it to say it was an indoorsy kind of weekend. Jake came down with a cold – probably because I’d JUST finished saying how lucky we’ve been and how we haven’t even had a cold in the house since late September – and so the boys did not even go to karate class on Saturday. Quiet weekend indeed. I baked some cookies in honour of Valentine’s Day.

Vday

SOME cookies. Eighty four, to be exact. Sadly, they are almost exclusively made of butter so I cannot eat them.

I also shot a couple of videos for Yummy Mummy Club:

Quinoa

The video on how to make quinoa as a breakfast cereal is right here. I’m wearing the apron my mom bought me for Christmas, from a lingerie store. The last video I shot I wore my old cupcake apron and my mom’s feelings were VERY HURT that I wasn’t featuring my lingerie apron. See Mom? I’m wearing it! I just like to switch things up a little.

Speaking of lingerie, I had a post all planned about thongs, but it will have to wait a day or two because my dear friend Kimberly from Make Mommy Go Something Something tagged me in a meme! And it’s Meme Monday so really, what could be better? NOTHING, that’s what!

1) If Jane had 3 apples and John had 78 nails, how many layers of clothing are you wearing (how is the weather in your neck of the woods?)?

Well, Kimberly, I am currently wearing jeans, a turtleneck, a huge sweater, and I’m sitting in front of a space heater because it’s OMG MY FACE HURTS cold outside. It’s the kind of cold that I always think “That’ll wake you up in the morning!” when I drop the kids off at school. Seriously. Every time. Oh, and I’m wearing my favourite thigh high thick grey socks OVER my jeans and fuzzy slippers.

socks2

I’m bringing sexy back…to the store for a refund.

2. What is keeping you sane during these long winter months?

Honestly, I’m at the point where I can’t remember what grass looks like. I’ve probably already lost my sanity. Oh! But I’ve been on a Margaret Atwood binge lately. Last night I picked up Cat’s Eye and remembered how hard it is to put down. *yawn* Which means I stayed up until 9:30 last night reading. 9:30! Clearly I HAVE lost my sanity!

3. If you were on a boat with a box of chocolate and your Mother In Law, who would you throw overboard?

What kind of chocolate? I kid, I kid. My mother-in-law has been knitting up a storm for me this winter and honestly, it’s made a huge difference in my quality of life. So far I’ve amassed six scarves and four pairs of legwarmers – plus she is currently working on an infinity scarf for me. To add to the sweetness, she sends them to me all wrapped up in ribbons with a note that says “Custom Made For Nicole”. Cute! So I’ll toss the chocolate and keep my mother in law and her knitting needles.

102

 

4. What’s in your underwear drawer besides underwear?

I have so many of those bra inserts that come in yoga tops. I don’t like wearing the inserts, but yet I feel like I MIGHT want to some day. I like to keep my options open. So I have about forty of those inserts taking up valuable panty space…I should go throw them out RIGHT NOW. I won’t, but I should. WHAT IF I NEED THEM?

5. Do you trust yourself with sharp objects near your face? (as in, do you pluck your own eyebrows? Do you have any eyebrow horror stories?)

I do pluck my own eyebrows because if I had to wait 4-6 weeks to get waxed, it would be a nightmare. I’d look like Martin Scorcese crossed with Frida Kahlo. It would not be a good look for me. And here’s a secret…I also pluck my upper lip. I KNOW. The feminine mystique takes quite a beating as we age, doesn’t it? Now, my husband has seen me give birth – twice – and yet I will not allow him in the room if I’m plucking my upper lip because I want to keep the romance alive, people. Feeling like your wife might look like a 70s rocker or possibly Magnum PI without the help of a tweezer is probably not conducive to romantic thoughts.

6. I am terrified of dead bodies, spiders, and the dentist. What are you scared of?

Moths. Good lord I just typed “moths” and I think I had heart palpitations. Either that or I’ve had too much coffee. THIS is what happens when I stay up until 9:30 on a Sunday night!

7. Does your husband cut up the back of your legs with his long toenails when you sleep?

Um, no. No he doesn’t.

All right, it’s my turn to think of seven questions and tag seven people but you know, I like Kimberly’s questions, except for the toenail one. I’ll keep those and add the last question: are you wearing nail polish? And if so, what colour? (I have red on my toenails and pale pink on my fingernails, FYI). I tag the following wonderful bloggers:

Hannah from Hodgepodge and Strawberries

Allison from Bibliomama

Sarah from No Whey, Mama

Swistle from Swistle

Lynn from Turtlehead

Alex from I Don’t Blog

Peady from Tempered With Kindness

You don’t have to be a blogger to answer these questions – feel free to comment on any of the above. Have fun! Happy Meme Monday! xo

My New Career As A Life Coach, Or Motivational Speaker

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Is it me, or is this winter the one that will go down in history for being the one where every geographical area did their best to win the Cold Olympics? It’s like we’re all in competition to see whose weather is the most atrocious. This morning it was minus 35 with windchill, which is pretty brisk. It’s worth noting that Calgary schools basically never close due to weather. I cannot recall one instance of schools closing here, because a) we’re used to hideously cold weather, b) we don’t get massive three-feet-of-snow-storms or ice storms that actually threaten power or heat, and c) if our schools closed due to cold weather they would be closed for weeks at a time, welcome to winter on the prairies. As it is our schools make indoor recess their concession to the cold.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not sympathetic to the plight of pretty much everyone else on the continent, what with seemingly endless snow days and abnormally low temperatures and massive snowstorms. A friend recently made snarky remarks about Southerners complaining of the cold, which I felt was uncalled for. If the temperature climbs above 24 degrees here, people start complaining about the heat, which I’m pretty sure would make any Southerner politely blink in confusion. Personally complaints about the “heat” make me feel like stabbing the complainee, and then I have to do deep breathing and OM SHANTI for a while just to settle down.

People, stop trying to win the Cold Olympics. Everywhere is cold. It’s winter. Even if it’s a relative cold, it’s STILL COLD.

Speaking of the Olympics, is it me or does the Russian Olympic Committee seem like that kid we all knew who waited until the night before the assignment was due to start working on it, all the while knowing that the assignment was worth 75% of the mark for the entire term? It makes me think of that SNL skit from a few weeks ago, where the character asked what the other venue choices were, Haiti or the middle of the ocean? Middle of the ocean actually sounds kind of cool in a Waterworld kind of way.

Ah, the Olympics. The precious time that my husband and I get into weird standoffs. He’s all about the athletes, and the determination, and the hard work that goes into training for what could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to represent your country and put pride into your fellow citizens’ hearts and tears of joy to their eyes. He is all about embodying the Olympic spirit and feelings of international cooperation through sport. I, on the other hand, have never gotten over the Sale and Pelletier gold medal debacle of 2002 and have not watched an event in its entirety ever since. I remember it like it was yesterday: watching in a hotel bar in Houston with American co-workers, surrounded by Texan men who, upon discovering my heritage, came over to offer sympathies and opinions, like it was I myself who was on the ice, gracefully skating to Love Story. I’ve had a soft spot for Texans in general and Houston in particular ever since.

Several years later I found myself at a Gold Medal Plates fundraiser with David Pelletier himself, and I will say this: there are probably more entertaining athletes to have dinner with. Not that I don’t feel empathy for the man; it must be very weird to be sitting at a table of people you don’t know, and having to make small talk when it’s pretty clear you have zero in common, and yet you are expected to be bright and charming and entertaining for the table full of athletic benefactors. A metaphorical soft-shoe, if you will.

David Pelletier

And yet, the guy basically texted Jamie Sale about the babysitter all night long, which in light of what happened next in the Sale/ Pelletier story, is pretty sad. Also, I was really jealous of the table who kept bursting into loud and raucous laughter at the apparently hilarious stories one of the Olympic skiers was regaling them with, while David Pelletier sat in glum silence. Long story short: I am not particularly excited about the Olympics, and for more reasons than just the figure skating. And yet, I will cheer Team Canada along side the guys in my house who ARE excited.

This morning I saw a rainbow, an actual rainbow in the sky. I would have taken a photo of it were my fingers not frozen stiff despite my gloves AND mittens. A rainbow, in February, in minus 35-with-windchill. A small miracle, I would say.

But yet it represents something even bigger: a dream. I say this to all of you – Olympic athletes included – as one who knows: dreams can come true, and the impossible can become possible, if only you work hard enough and believe in yourself. Yesterday, I accomplished something that I have always felt was out of reach, that was not possible, that could not be done. And yet. And yet I did it. Yesterday, I went to Costco with a list of 14 items, and I returned home with those same 14 items, and only $112 poorer. My husband did not believe me at first, but I saved the receipt and will possibly frame it, artwork entitled “BELIEVE”. This morning I saw the rainbow in the frozen morning sky, and I thought it was there for me. Reach for the stars, people, and you just might pluck one.

Late to the party.

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I have been relentlessly cheery today, so much so that I’m even annoying myself. Maybe it’s all the green smoothies I’ve been drinking; today I made one with frozen strawberries and, while it was very tasty, it looked like sludge.

But it has a great personality!

But it has a great personality!

I think my cheerfulness is actually directly related to the unseasonably warm temperatures we have been experiencing. It’s a spring-like feeling, the sun shining and the snow melting into messy piles of brown slush that very closely approximate the “great personality but non-photogenic” smoothie I had for lunch, which is a little disturbing to think about. Spring in January! Obviously I am not taken in by this; I recognize we have a solid four months before spring is actually here, but that does not mean I am not enjoying being able to move my fingers while walking the dog.

So I’m feeling cheerful and have spent the morning happily doing things around the house, singing random cheerful songs like “Burning Love” and “Sweet City Woman” and even, strangely enough, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree”. I’m not singing these songs now, however, because the boys are home and they have a friend over. I have to keep checking to ensure that there is just one extra kid, because by the sounds of it there are about 40. What are they doing that necessitates so much enthusiastic yelling? I DO NOT KNOW. Well, it’s Friday, and in approximately ninety minutes I’m going to pour myself a big glass of wine and watch Downton Abbey. My husband and I, for the past several months, have been working our way through all six seasons of The Sopranos, which we own on DVD. Why we have all six seasons on DVD I cannot explain, but we have been doggedly watching them like it’s our duty to humanity. We swore we wouldn’t start a new series until we finished, and finally, finally last weekend we finished. I know I’m about seven years late to this party, but that was certainly an anticlimactic ending. I was expecting some sort of apocalyptic-all-ends-tied-up Breaking Bad-esque ending, but no.

In any case, I am now free, free as a bird – AND THIS BIRD YOU CANNOT CHANGE – and so I started watching Downton Abbey on Netflix. Here’s the problem: as a rule, I do not watch television during the day, unless you count the morning “news” I watch while eating breakfast. Lately I haven’t even been watching that because the local newscast has almost exclusively focused on a) FLU OUTBREAK PANIC PANIC PANIC EVERYONE GET YOUR FLU SHOTS OMG OMG WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE, followed by b) we are all out of flu shots and we don’t know why. I can conjecture why. In any case I’m sure there were other things happening in the world, however, by the time the local news decided that “other events” were worthy of coverage, I would have already turned the television off in exasperation at hearing the same flu clinics are mobbed we’re all going to die and now we’re out of vaccines, sorry, we can’t imagine why there was such sudden demand. It’s been so bad that I find myself watching the Business News Network with my husband and having earnest conversations on whether or not to hedge our currency exposure.

Sorry, I nodded off for a second there.

Anyway, back to Downton Abbey. I find myself hopelessly addicted to this show, but the problem is my husband seems to be completely uninterested for some reason. Apparently if the show doesn’t contain strip clubs, chopping off people’s heads and hands before sending them to a watery grave, murderous rampages, or a former junkie chained to an underground meth lab who is forced to produce crystal for a dead-eyed sociopath who is in love with a logistics coordinator for a manufacturing conglomerate who is illegally shipping said meth around the world, then my husband is just not interested. Even when I explained it was a British period drama about social hierarchies, he remained unmoved. And so I’m trying to watch the episodes before he comes home from work in the evenings, but that is proving to be difficult, what with preparing dinner, and cleaning up from dinner, and supervising homework. Apparently trying to voraciously wolf down episodes on the sly is not in keeping with being an involved parent.

Why not, you may say, just watch the episodes while he was home? Screw it, as it were. Well, the issue here is that my husband actually likes to TALK to me, apparently. He finds me scintillating for some reason. And trying to carry a conversation – even one about currency exposure and should we be looking at Asia? – while constantly pausing and rewinding Downton Abbey just isn’t working for me. So I think I’ll knock off a bit early today, and spend the rest of this lovely Friday afternoon conjecturing if Bates and Anna are going to get it on, servant style. What? I’m only on the first season, DON’T TELL ME.

The best way to spread Christmas cheer is self awareness.

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Oh hey, it’s blizzarding again. The news anchor mentioned that Saturday is the First Day of Winter! and I stared at the television in confusion. I think seasons should actually be defined differently here in Canada. We’ve had tons of snow on the ground since before Halloween, so I THINK I know a little something about winter. This morning I drove home from yoga in almost zero visibility, feeling like a modern day Laura Ingalls in The Long Winter, without all the icky starving to death and freezing to death and slowly going insane sitting in the dark listening to the wind because Pa’s frozen dead hands can no longer even play the fiddle and we might as all just go to the barn without a rope, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Anyway, as my sweet new yoga teacher said to me this morning, these are the most yin days of the year, what with the darkness and the cold and the holidays approaching. I am going to take her at her word and hibernate, eating the plethora of chocolate truffles and peppermint bark I have in the house.

I THINK IT’S TIME FOR CHRISTMAS VACATION.

There are only one and a half days of school left, including today, and – despite the fact that yes, we did just have a PD day two weeks ago – we are all ready for a nice big break. The children are hyper and spazzy, and it appears that as of yesterday, all work is finished for the calendar year. Today they were requested to bring in candies to decorate the graham cracker “gingerbread” houses that they are making for, apparently, a Social Studies project. The tie into Social Studies is pretty shaky, but after all who can concentrate with Santa coming and all. Tomorrow is pajama day and they are watching movies, wheeeee academia.

I’ve been seeing my hipster chiropractor nearly every day this week, and I can’t help but feel a little smug about my “progress”. Dr. Hipster keeps telling me how impressively “self-aware” I am, which makes me giggle a little. Self-aware. Is there a douchier term? I don’t think so. Dr. Hipster is also very impressed with my “flexibility and range of motion” and every time he tells me this, it takes everything I have not to go into show-off mode and whip my legs behind my head or something. You think that’s flexible? Get a load of this. But I don’t because I like to behave like a normal person in public, generally. GENERALLY.

In any case, Dr. Hipster was warning me about re-injuring my back and informing me that I am NOT allowed to shovel snow, which is actually kind of nice. He also warned me about stress and tension adding to lower back troubles. “Although,” he said, “You don’t appear to be the type of person who is high-strung or under a lot of stress.” NO KIDDING DOC. I have as low a stress level as is physically possible, I think. Maybe it’s because I’m so “self-aware”? I don’t know.

Even with my super low stress levels, I have been a complete idiot this week. I’m blaming it on the week before Christmas – and maybe because these are yin days and I’m being more yang? I don’t know. Yesterday I wrapped up a bottle of wine for our school secretary and put a card on a box of Lindors for the office staff, and put them both in a bag to take to school. It was Mark’s last day of swimming lessons, thankfully, since his lessons end at 11:50 and in no universe can 25 fourth grade boys make it in and out of the change room in time for lunch. There’s just a zero percent chance. So I’ve been rushing to the school, picking up Jake from his classroom, walking over to the pool, and picking up Mark, which really cuts into our 52 minute lunchtime. Anyway, I was planning to take the gifts with me to school, but forgot them and only realized I forgot them when I was actually physically in the office, wishing the school secretary a Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, here’s a…oh shit. I forgot it.

Continuing with this theme, yesterday I realized I was out of coconut milk. A while ago I realized I had 48 canned good items in my cupboard, including 6 coconut milks, 11 cans of various types of beans, and – weirdly – 4 cans of pumpkin. I vowed not to buy anything until I was actually out of something, and finally I realized yesterday that I had used up all the coconut milk. I headed for the grocery store, and decided to do my weekly shop as well. I hummed Christmas carols to myself as I filled my cart, went home, unloaded the groceries, and realized I didn’t buy any coconut milk. I even had a list with me and remembered to buy odd things like compost bags and hemp seeds. But no coconut milk.

However, this is all a drop in the bucket compared with Monday. Our usual morning routine is that I leash the dog, make sure the kids are appropriately dressed and that they have their backpacks, then I unlock our (unattached) garage, and open the van’s sliding door. The dog jumps in, the kids pile in, we go to school, and then I take the dog to the off leash dog park. On Monday I took the kids to school, met my friend who walks with me, drove to the dog park, met our other friend with her dog, and I opened the van’s sliding door to get Barkley. THE VAN WAS EMPTY. And I will say this about myself: I am terrible in a crisis. I am not at all good in an emergency. When I realized the dog wasn’t in the car, I kept saying “OMG OMG OMG BARKLEY’S NOT HERE WHERE’S BARKLEY HE’S NOT HERE OMG OMG” until my girlfriends calmly told me to go home, look for him, and to text them when I had more information. Off I went. I turned into the alley, opened the garage door…and out came Barkley. He apparently was in the garage for the half hour or so that all this took to happen. Poor puppy! And also that experience – the thought that my dog could be lost, wandering the neighbourhood – ratcheted up my stress level. Good thing Dr. Hipster didn’t see me at that moment. My self-awareness was taking a break.

Clark, Audrey’s frozen from the waist down.

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I know I complain – often? – about the crabby old ladies on the seniors’ bus who swarm the Co-Op when I’m grocery shopping and who snap at the sole cashier for being the only one working, like he has a choice in this matter, and who bang the back of my legs with their shopping carts and who, in general, seem to be going through life – or at least, the grocery store – with a black cloud hovering over their heads, but yesterday I had the loveliest conversation with two elderly ladies in the (sole) lineup. The conversation started with commentary about an unflattering photo of Hillary Clinton on the front page of a tabloid, which then led into a discussion about the perils of celebrity, and how we all feel sorry for young actresses who get labelled as “PREGNANT?!?” just because they had a large lunch or are slightly bloated. And yes, I did use the term “young actresses these days” because when in Rome, well.

It has been so cold here, complete with insane blizzard conditions that has left giant snowdrifts everywhere, but especially in the alley behind the school. Since Tuesday, I have personally seen eight cars stuck in the alley, one of which had to be chained out this morning. Public Service Announcement: do not attempt to park in alley until further notice. It’s so cold that I’m bundling up like Laura Ingalls on her way home from the Brewsters’ for the weekend (thanks Hannah!) and so I’m waiting for my husband to romance me old-timey style. Maybe we can exchange name cards or touch mitten tips or something.

The local news is entirely taken up by this cold snap. I have no idea what, if anything, is going on in the rest of the world because the newscast is entirely filled by messages about how many seconds it will take before your skin freezes, and to dress in layers. Noted!

OF COURSE it’s the coldest week of the year because it’s also the week that Mark’s class is having their swimming lessons. Luckily the pool is right next to the school but due to some disastrous planning their lessons end at 11:50. Guess what the chances are of 27 third and fourth graders getting out of the pool, showering, getting dressed, and putting on a zillion layers of winter clothing by lunchtime dismissal? Yeah. Our lunchtimes have just become that more rushed.

The weather is also cramping my dog walking style. Although Barkley is furry enough to tolerate these frigid conditions, I – despite my Scottish/ Norwegian heritage – am not. As I told my dog walking companions, my cut off is minus 15, which has unfortunately left us walk-less this week. Yesterday I decided to suck it up, buttercup, and walk ten minutes to the post office, dog in tow. I’m not sure if it was sheer giddiness from being outside after a cabin feverish week, or the fact that we were going a different and therefore extraordinarily exciting way, but Barkley was pretty much the most over-stimulated dog ever. If I could read his mind, it would probably go something like this: Where are we going? This is new! This is different! They have snow here! I’m going to pee on this snow! Then sniff the snow! Sniff sniff sniff. So many smells! Where are we going now? What is this place? There are people around? OMG a tree. A TREE. They have trees in this new exciting world. Where are we? What is this amazing place? OMG exciting. Wag wag wag. Hopefully the weather breaks soon or his fuzzy little mind is going to explode the next time we walk down a different sidewalk than usual.

The kids have a day off school tomorrow – again – so today has a nice, festive, long-weekend feeling. I think this weekend will be the one to make our annual fugly gingerbread house! Stay tuned! We’ve been improving every year and yet…

we are still not candidates for a career in gingerbread decorating. Remember the melted snowman? And the dead gingerbread man in the background? What will this year’s bring?

Born To Be Wild

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Today a man with a full-on business-in-front-party-in-back mullet rode down my street on a unicycle. I wonder if it was an ironic mullet, or maybe mullets are the new look for young hipsters, or – and this is a distinct possibility – this man was holding onto his lost youth by wearing the hairstyle of his heyday. I didn’t get a good look at his face, so I could not ascertain his age to determine if the latter was the case. Of course, my hair therapist has told me that after a certain age its best to choose a classic hairstyle that works best for one’s hair type and flatters one’s face shape, and then stick with modifications to that basic style. Perhaps this man is following that wise advice, although I’m not sure that mullets can be considered “classic” nor “flattering” but to each his own, after all.

This reminds me of a professor I once took classes with, a brilliant man who always wore his hair in the shortish, feathered style of 1983. At some point this man’s hair will be hip and happening once again; perhaps it is already, I’m not really that with it.

I know I’m not really with it because I read this morning that last night the Video Music Awards were on, and I had no idea. Apparently there was some kind of scandal with Miley Cyrus who is not on Disney anymore, people. Quelle scandale! To be honest, I’m kind of surprised anyone was even watching the VMAs, given that Breaking Bad was on. There are only five episodes left! Why waste time watching the VMAs when you can curl up in the fetal position on the couch, clench your fists under your chin, and sweat profusely while having heart palpitations? At least, that’s what happens to me when I watch Breaking Bad. I’m not even sure that I LIKE that show, but I’m so addicted to it that I have to know what happens OMG I hope Walt gets destroyed completely. I was watching one of those Talking Bad recap shows, and the guest, who was the woman who plays Claire on Modern Family, said that she was really “rooting” for Walt and “hoping he gets away with it” which is pretty much the opposite of how I feel. He is a man who has destroyed myriad lives and is, essentially, Satan in meth-cook form. My husband gently suggested that I not get so worked up over what is, in fact, a fictional show. Honey, are you okay? You’re hyperventilating again.

I need to thank Heather and Andrea, dear readers, who let me know that my post about Hot Carl is once again relevant. The authorities are looking for the owner of the vehicle with the Hot Carl license plate because they are cracking down on lewd personalized plates. However, Hot Carl’s license plate is over fifteen years old, allegedly, and so there is every reason to believe that the owner is just a guy named Carl who has a high sense of self-worth. Whatever you do, do not look up what a Hot Carl is in the urban dictionary. You will be very, very sorry and despair for humanity. In any case, I haven’t seen Hot Carl’s vehicle for long time. Perhaps he’s fled the city, or at very least the neighbourhood, having heard what monstrosities people do in his name. Poor Hot Carl!

Other things happening around here: the boys performed solo karate demonstrations at the open house on Saturday, which made me Explosion Level Proud. The next thing will be possible sparring, which makes me Somewhat Nervous And Also Proud. Continuing the tradition of mildly strange things happening in my eclectic neighbourhood, I noticed the young man across the alley chatting with our 80 year old neighbour lady. The young man was wearing a t-shirt that said FUCK THE TIME on it, which made me wonder what, if anything, was the lady’s reaction. Did she notice? Did she care? Was she somewhat offended, or maybe amused? We may never know. I also discovered that my across-the-street neighbour is a veteran who served in Desert Storm, which made me feel immediately bad for giggling about his penchant for mowing the lawn in only giant sneakers and red cut-off sweatpants. However, the pinnacle of my week was going to the grocery store and seeing this fellow in the parking lot:

That is one bad-ass beagle.