Category Archives: I love my friends

You put the meaning in my life! You’re the inspiration.

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I waitressed all through university, except for one unfortunate summer in which I worked as a beer girl, ultimately quitting when the requirement was for me to wear a Busch bathing suit to work.  Waitressing was not a bad way to make money for a student; the only problem was that by the end of several shifts in a row I pretty much hated the entire human race.  It got to the point where if one more person asked me for a free refill of diet coke, or complained that there was not enough salad dressing, or asked for three separate cheques and then left without leaving a tip, I was going to snap completely. 

Right now I feel the same way, but with regards to children.   

The book fair was fine, by the way.

Does it seem lately that we are all being inundated with inspirational quotes?  It seems like every time I turn around I’m receiving a quote about hope, and letting go to discover life’s meaning, and turning lemons into fucking lemonade.  Inspirational quotes are the email jokes of the recent age.  Remember how, with the advent of the email joke, our inboxes would be filled with lame jokes, and various urban legends, and pictures of kittens?  Now it seems like the day of that particular version of spammy emails is over and in its place are inspirational quotes. 

Don’t get me wrong: I do love a good quote: one of my favourites being from Mary Oliver “Watch, now, how I start my day in happiness, in kindness.”  I think about that every single morning and I swear it makes my day better.  Another of my favourites is from Desiderata, “With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.  Be careful.  Strive to be happy.”

But I came across a quote from the late Bob Ross, of “The Joy of Painting” fame.  Remember Bob Ross?  The guy with all the happy little trees?  Are you ready for this?  It is the most inspirational quote EVER.

“Maybe, maybe, maybe there’s a big old cloud that lives right there.
And he just sort of floats across the sky, and he’s got a friend that
lives right there. Clouds need friends too. We all need a friend.”

 
Anyone else suddenly have a case of the munchies? 

Birthdays, Mommy Makeovers, Easter, and Earth Day

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It was my birthday yesterday, just in case you missed the announcements and my not-so-shy reminders from the rooftops.  I love birthdays.  I think everyone should be celebrated on their birthdays with an outpouring of love and affection and maybe even some cake.  I was the happy recipient of an ice-cream cake, two new yoga tops, and several bottles of body lotion, not to mention a sticker proclaiming my status as “Number One Mom”.  My husband even unloaded the dishwasher, and you know what that means!

My lovely friend brought me those; aren’t they pretty?  Another wonderful friend lent me her daughter’s tiara for the day, which is to say she really knows me well.
A nice upside to a spring birthday is, depending on when Easter falls, the plethora of good chocolates around.  My in-laws sent the boys a big box full of treats and I have been surreptitiously absconding with some.
From the vantage point of t + 1, I think that 36 feels pretty good.  I’m happily sliding towards 40.  I know that aging bothers many – most? – people, but really, it’s better than dying.  I mean, sure, it’s disconcerting to see one’s breasts droop bralessly towards one’s navel, or to realize that one’s forehead has deep horizontal lines permanently etched into it, but it is not the end of the world.  I’ve been completely grey for years – thanks Dad, for those fabulous genes – but why else was hair colour invented?  I know a man who was so upset about turning 40 that he and his wife got into a divorce-worthy fight when she jokingly referred to him as “old”.  He admitted that he wished he was still 22.  This was years ago and yet I still find that strange.  In no way would I want to be 22 again.  I don’t know what you were doing when you were 22, but I spent my time dating idiots and having self-esteem crises every other day.  I’ll take the slide into cougarville any day over that.  In fact, today I’m wearing Seven jeans.  Cougar-licious!
Yesterday it was brought to my attention that there is a children’s book dealing with plastic surgery, entitled “My Beautiful Mommy“.  I looked at the website and felt fairly soiled for the rest of the day.  Plastic surgery in general makes me feel squeamish, but I find those “Mommy Makeovers” are especially vile.  Clearly there is a large market for that, and I suppose that if one is getting physically altered and recovering from the process one should really prepare one’s children for it.  Nonetheless I do find it sad that our society is so focused on appearances that we cannot celebrate our bodies which have been irrevocably changed by motherhood.  Not that I want to proudly display my muffin top with a crop top and Daisy Dukes, but there is something to be said about gracefully aging.  There is something to be said about a face with smile lines and a body that has borne, nurtured, and snuggled children.  Aging does not have to mean a decline in all of one’s body’s functions and a complete erasure of any physical beauty until one is saved by the sweet release of death. 
Which is not to say I didn’t find some humour in the beautiful mommy website.  “No, honey, Mommy IS happy.  Mommy just can’t smile big anymore!  Remember Mommy’s operation?” or “Mommy just can’t close her eyes anymore.  Can you find Mommy’s eyedrops?”.  “Careful, honey, Mommy’s new boobies are a little bit sore.  But remember when we go to Florida this summer, Mommy will be able to float really well!”
So I’m feeling good about my birthdays, many more to come I hope, bringing to me to my eventual goal of becoming Blanche Deveareau and/or a sweet old lady carrying her five pound dog in a handbag, and/or a backbending yogi grandma.
Have a lovely long weekend, everyone!
PS In honour of Earth Day, I have a post up at Yummy Mummy Club.  To be honest, it’s not my favourite thing I’ve ever written.  Environmentalism is a noble, but somewhat dull topic, in my mind.  Evidently I much prefer to write about how to make over the bad boys of movies, or about the evils of skinny jeans, than the environment.  It’s hard not to sound like a preachy zealot or, alternatively, like a giant carbon footprint moron.  Wow, I’m really selling this post, aren’t I! 
PPS I have a new post up at the cooking blog!  It’s all about berry crisp and how I am an awesome wife.

Polymer Anarchy – a guest post

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One of my very favourite blog friends is Marilyn, at A Lot of Loves.  She’s awesome and funny and has a really great site.  When she asked me to guest post, I was thrilled and started a post on non-Newtonian liquids.  That’s fun to say.  Non-Newtonian liquids. 

This morning I woke up feeling all stabby from a very frustrating school council meeting last night (have you ever dealt with a school board?  Then you would probably understand.  Those people are from a completely different planet.) and the arrival of fifteen centimetres of snow on the ground today.  I took one look outside this morning at 5:00 and decided that, in lieu of going to the yoga studio, I was going to go back to bed.  Sivasana! 

After some extra sleep, giving myself some exercise by shovelling the wet, heavy snow, and making a snowman with the kids before school – a snowman who was immediately pummeled to death by those same children – I feel much better.  I’m going to make the winning combination of kale chips and chocolate chip cookies today, which makes everything better.  And to top it off, my guest post is up at Marilyn’s, and I would really appreciate it if you could check it out!  I’m going to blind you with science!  See you there.  xo

High Maintenance Girl

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Sally: Which am I?
Harry: Oh, you’re the worst kind.  You’re high maintenance, but you think you’re low maintenance.
Sally: I don’t see that.
Harry: You don’t see it?  Waiter, I’ll have the house salad, but I don’t want the regular dressing.  I want the balsamic oil and vinegar.  But I want it on the side.  Then I’ll have the salmon with mustard sauce but I want the mustard sauce on the side.  On the side is a very big thing for you.
Sally: Well, I just want it the way I want it.
Harry: I know.  High maintenance.
Once again, I feel that movie is actually all about me and my life.  My husband is constantly telling me that I am high maintenance and although I protest, my protests are weak because I know that this is an accurate way to describe me.
I’ve been feeling somewhat guilty about complaining so much about my surgery because really, what am I really complaining about?  Things could be so much worse.  My beautiful, very active and sporty neighbour and friend was hit by a car while riding her bike, and ended up with a broken back.  A broken back!  She was out of commission for a long time, unable to do the things she loved.  And not just the sporty things she loved, but things like getting in and out of cars unassisted.   Another friend of mine had surgery in which her chest was cracked open and she couldn’t care for her two small children for many weeks, and a year later she still is feeling the effects of it.  So I feel a bit spoiled and high maintenance for complaining about something that is making me walk like I’ve been riding a horse for the  past month non-stop and is making me unable to wear anything but yoga pants.  I mean, a week ago I was clad in only pajamas and tensor bandages, so yoga pants are a very large step up. 
I’m still going to complain, though, and this one might be filed under an excess of information, but if one cannot impart an excess of information on one’s readers, then why have a blog to start with?
Here’s the thing: I can’t shave my legs.  I’m not sure when I will be able to shave my legs.  I feel like a sasquatch, or, alternately, a hippie.  You know, dear readers, I am all about peace, love, and happiness, but pass the damn razor.  And also the lip gloss.  Did you see the picture in the previous post?  That is what happens when there is no makeup.  I would have been a terrible hippie.  When I think about Woodstock I immediately get shivers thinking of all those people, all that rain and no toilets.  Not to mention the brown acid.  And all the guys wearing leather fringed jackets with no shirts underneath and without a doubt no showers or deoderant. 
But back to the issue at hand.  I feel like an actual yeti.  I don’t even want to hear from you people who regularly do not shave your legs because you don’t feel the need to.  Almost everyone I know who doesn’t shave a) is blond, or b) has little body hair anyway.  At the risk of disgusting everyone, I am not only fair skinned and brunette, but I am also of partial Scottish ancestry, and apparently my body still thinks that I need to keep warm in the Highlands. 
That’s that.  I’m not going to complain anymore, I promise. 

When I am an old woman

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When I am an old woman, I will wear an excessive amount of Chanel Number 5.  I will wear thick, bright layers of lipstick that will feather and bleed into my papery skin.  I will make wildly inappropriate jokes and sexually harrass all the male orderlies at the home and earn the reputation of being the creepy old woman in room 14. 


What I have discovered about myself, disturbingly enough, is that when I am an old woman I am going to relentlessly discuss my various health complaints.  Yes, I’m going to be one of those horrible old people who talk about my less savoury ailments to random passerby.  I’m discovering this about myself as right now it is all I can do to not roll down my thick, dark beige compression stockings to show people my stitches.  “Want to see my scar?”  Anyway, my legs have become somewhat fascinating to me, and so I must think that they are fascinating to everyone else, despite the fact that my long suffering, beloved husband turned slightly green at the sight of my unbandaged, revolting legs. 

Speaking of my long suffering, beloved husband, he went back to work today and I think he was quite relieved to do so.  Not only has he had to take care of me and my random, irrational fits of sobbing – But I don’t WANT my legs to hurt anymore! – he has also been running the house and dealing with the children.  I do not think that he has a glamourized view of the stay at home parent.  If any of you are feeling underappreciated these days, I totally recommend complete convalescence and to have your husband do load after load of laundry and wash sinkful after sinkful of dishes to really get some drudgery based recognition.  Or maybe I don’t.  Because it’s kind of depressing to realize that this is how I spend my days.

Anyway, back to my fascinating legs.  Other than the stitches scattered over the length of them – Do you have bugs on your legs, Mom? – they look, disturbingly, as though someone has taken a crowbar to them.  I’m like Nancy Kerrigan!  Why?  WWHHHHYYYYYYYYYY?  I feel a kinship with Nancy.  Perhaps she and I could hang out, discuss the pros and cons of Minnie Mouse ears. 

I ran out of my good drugs yesterday.  This is good and bad.  On the good side, as much fun as it was sleeping sixteen hours a day and being in a state of non-pain, my brain was just completely fuzzy.  I could barely concentrate enough to read a Candace Bushnell novel.  As it was, I did finish Mockingjay and I’m not sure if it was me or the book, but I couldn’t really get into it.  I kept wondering if this was a different battle scene or the same one, or what area they were in, or if anyone important died.  When I finished the book I was just totally confused.  Did Gale die?  What actually happened?  I tried going back and re-reading and just became more confused.  So I think that was me. 

On the bad side, of course, is the pain.  It’s like the House of Pain around here, but without the jumping around.  But you can still take Tylenol, I was told, which to me is the same as saying You can take nothing.  Bitch, please.  Tylenol?  Unless I can down the whole bottle, Tylenol is doing nothing.

So there’s that.  This weekend it snowed, thirty centimetres, and I stared out the window in drugged-out bliss while Mark enjoyed it:

Those are almond eyes, a carrot nose, and a banana smile.

See?

And lest anyone accuse me of only posting flattering pictures of myself.  Here I am, completely high on Percocet, enjoying the lovely fruit bouquet sent by my girlfriends.  Note my awesome hair and pajamas.

STRIPPING! Boom chicka wah wah! UPDATE

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So here’s what you may not know about getting your varicose veins stripped: it really, really hurts.  I know!  News flash!  But honestly, I was unprepared for how much it would hurt and how difficult it would be to walk afterward.  I am happy to tell you that today I am moving around and even getting up out of bed by myself without thinking that a crane and/or hydraulic lift would be handy. 

My strongest – and yet still vague and fuzzy – recollection from the recovery room is whispering to my nurse that I didn’t expect it to hurt so much.  “I just didn’t think it would hurt like this,” I whispered sadly as the nurse upped my morphine dosage.  The nurses kept asking me to rate my pain on a scale from one to ten, and I kept saying, passionately, SIX.  It is a SIX.  Mentally I rationalized that I’d had two babies with no pain medication, and that hurt way more, so I could not go above six on the scale, but I did not explain that to the nurse who I assumed could understand that SIX IS AS HIGH AS I WOULD GO. 

Good times.  So the last few days have been marked by my stumbling around the house – “walking” to avoid blood clots and the like – sleeping a lot, and counting down until it’s time to take pain medication again.  My husband has been handling things amazingly well, making meals and even keeping the house clean.  The kids have been good and have made me several dozen pictures in the past couple of days.  I was sent a gorgeous fruit bouquet by some girlfriends and one lovely friend dropped off sourdough and scones just today.  So I feel very thankful for my wonderful friends and family.

Here’s my complaint about convalescence: it is very boring.  Daytime television is atrocious.  We have a couple hundred channels and almost everything is either a) some sort of strange reality program, b) a crappy talk show, or c) sports.  Since it’s spring break and the kids are around, I can’t really watch reruns of NYPD Blue, either, or not without fear of scarring the children.  I did watch Chris Rock on David Letterman and laughed so hard at his criticism of foreign policy – “There’s a guy over there having a heart attack!  Let’s go kick him in the balls!” – that my stitches hurt. 

Thanks everyone for your well wishes.  xo

I Also Hate Camping

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 Two days ago, Jake and I were driving home from the grocery store when it appeared that my street was underwater.  An enormous ark-like flood of muddy water filled my street, and my first thought was that it didn’t seem warm enough to melt that much snow, when I noticed that the water was bubbling up from a water main break.
One thing you may not know about me: I have a strange and irrational fear of the water being turned off.  In the nearly eleven years that I have lived in this house, there has been a water main issue that has led to the water being turned off twice, and by “turned off” I mean “turned off for a couple of hours” and so my reactions to this slight inconvenience are absurdly extreme, even for me.  I’m not sure why having the water shut off elicits such panic in me, but it does.  I seem to believe that if the water is off, it may NEVER be back on, and I will morph into an itinerant hobo, wandering the street filthy and dehydrated, with greasy hair and dragging a garbage bag of dirty clothes to the nearest Laundromat, only to find I don’t have any quarters. 
So as soon as I saw the water gushing in our street, I raced into the house, turned on the tap, and sure enough, a low pressure trickle came out for a moment before completely shutting off.  Dammit. 
I couldn’t take the uncertainty.  I eyed the work crew assembling around the spill.  They seemed busy, but my need for information overcame my aversion to interrupting people at their work and possibly raising the ire of the work crew.  I assembled my secret weapons: my favourite lipstick, my saucy new wedge-heeled boots, and Jake.  Hand in hand we stood at the outskirts of the massive water spill, with Jake chattering and me smiling vapidly, until the foreman noticed us.  I commented on the work crew and their busyness and the enormous job before them, then asked sweetly how long the water would be turned off.  The foreman answered, only a little gruffly, that it would be two to three days.
I almost fell off my wedgy heels.
I asked, trying to keep the panicky tones at a minimum, if they would be sending out a water truck or something, to which he responded, “We haven’t even turned the water off yet.  We can’t find the main valve in all this mess.”  I told him my water was off, and pointed to my house.  Evidently the valve to the water supply on my side of the street had been shut in error, and the foreman smiled at me as he said he would rectify the situation as soon as possible.  He spoke to Jake, “How you doing, buddy?  Quite a flood, huh?”  You see?  Secret weapon.
Although he said the water would be on as soon as possible, I still didn’t know what that meant.  Would it be today?  An hour?  Tomorrow morning?  I didn’t feel I could prod for any more information at that point, and also I was nearly dizzy with relief that I would not be water-less for two to three days, unlike the poor souls at the other end of the street.  In any case it was time to pick Mark up from school, where my friends at the playground listened to my tale of woe very patiently and sympathetically.  I even wrangled some invitations from friends, should the situation necessitate Further Steps, to a) shower, b) come over and fill up jugs of water, c) bring the kids over for baths.  I accepted the invitations with much gratitude, although they were thankfully unnecessary as an hour or so later I heard gurgling in the pipes as the water came back on.
The second the water came back on I leaped into action.  I started to fill every water bottle in the house in addition to the bathtub.  By the time I was considering filling the second bathtub, my husband came home and asked why, if the water was back on, was I filling everything in sight?  I responded that I was preparing in case the water went off again.  This seemed perfectly rational at the time, although now it feels like perhaps I was auditioning for a role on one of those reality shows about people who hoard things. 
I’m happy to report that the water is still on and I didn’t have to resort to melting snow, as someone very unhelpfully suggested.  What can I say?  I would have been a terrible pioneer.