Category Archives: Mind Songs

Ketchup Chips are a Canadian Thing?

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Right this minute, there is a news story on TV, in honour of Canada Day, all about the words “eh”, “knapsacks”, and “washroom”, and how ketchup chips are a Canadian thing.  American friends, I must know this for true: are there no ketchup chips in the States?  Really?  If that is true, I am very sad for my friends south of the border.  I am also sad that this is the news channel I watch of my own volition.  Who needs real news anyway, when I can marvel over Americans calling them “candy bars” instead of “chocolate bars”? 

Related to the state of my mind right now: Jake and I just sang “Call Me Maybe” together and it was a proud, proud moment for me.

Also a proud, proud moment: on Thursday I took the boys to the local amusement park where we met up with friends, and the kids rode the log ride all by themselves.  For me, this is quite possibly the greatest developmental milestone ever, the fact that I never again have to sit in a big plastic log zipping down a big slide with slimy, possibly decades-old water splashing all over me.  And why was I feeling verklempt about the passage of time?  For no good reason, that’s why.

Speaking of the rapid passage of time, today I heard on the radio – not my usual oldies station, but an actual modern, for-the-young-people station – something disturbing.  For the long weekend, the station was playing various number one hits from years past.  One of the flashback years was 1995. 

Now, I don’t know about you, but to me, 1995 does not seem so long ago.  It doesn’t seem worthy of a flashback hit.  But then again, when they played the song, I could clearly recall dancing to it in the bar, probably while drinking a vodka slime out of a jug, and wearing a crop top and high waisted jeans, with my Rachel haircut.  I was twenty years old: a significant number of years have passed since those days.  All I’m saying is that I can really understand how old people say that something happened a couple of years ago, when the reality is that the relevant event really took place decades ago.

More on the passage of time: this weekend my parents took the kids up to the lake without me.  This is the first time such a thing has happened; my parents have looked after my kids overnight before, but this was the first time that they have been taken to a second location.  After typing that I realize that I just made it sound like my parents abducted the kids, but no.  A fabulous time was had by all.  They celebrated Canada Day by going to the nearby small-town parade, where they waved flags, ate ice cream, and went on bouncy castles and through obstacle courses.  They had a great time.  I, on the other hand, celebrated Canada Day by eating scrambled eggs and drinking coffee while watching episode after episode of Mad Men, nursing a little hangover since I was at a party the night before and I didn’t get home until almost 11:30.  See what happens when the kids are away?  NICOLE’S GONE WILD. 

My husband and I went up to the lake to spend the night and bring them home today.  When I asked them if they missed me, the answer was “Um, not too much.” and “It was kind of MORE fun with just Grandpa and Grandma!”  Well, I guess that’s to be expected.  I’m not exactly known as Super Fun Mom – I did, after all, just buy them math flash cards, some workbooks, and journals for the summer. 

I has a sad

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Have you ever had one of those days where you are sad, but not for a particularly valid reason, and that lack of a valid reason makes you even more sad?  That was me today.  As I swept up the dust, again, I started to feel limp and wrung-out, with the thought of excessive noise and dust and general chaos for another week.  Looking outside, I could see trees bending sideways from the gale force winds, I could see the container of heat and drought loving flowers that I planted in the hot and dry corner of my yard, the flowers that are now dead because they have DROWNED from the pouring rain, I could see the grey, grey sky.  I had my usual annual impotent rage about the local meterologists claiming that the average daytime temperature for this time of year is twenty degrees, to which I say SHOW ME THE DATA USED TO CALCULATE THIS.  THIS CANNOT BE TRUE. 

So I was feeling sad, but ridiculously so.  I mean, poor princess: your lovely house is being renovated to be even more lovely and it’s a little bit messy in the meantime.  Poor princess: it’s a little chilly today, not that you need to be outside for any reason.  Poor princess: three little plants you bought died, which you can replace as soon as it stops raining.  Poor princess: you don’t have weather data to calculate the average temperature so that you could win an imaginary argument with the weatherman on TV. 

Wah, wah, wah.  I berated myself for feeling sad, but that didn’t help very much.  Yelling STOP BEING SAD!  STOP IT RIGHT NOW! at yourself is actually very ineffective. 

Eventually I did emerge from under my little black cloud, but only after such cheering activities such as changing the sheets, spraying down and wiping all the cupboards, going grocery shopping, and making a soba noodle salad with miso dressing.  Why would that help?  Because I cannot think of the word “miso” without thinking of The 40 Year Old Virgin “Me so horny, me so horny, me so STUPID!”  And this very lame line, I am somewhat ashamed to say, made me smile every time I thought about it.  It’s not even funny!  And yet. 

Adding somewhat to my bluesy feelings was the fact that I have had Moves Like Jagger going through my head, incessantly, since Friday morning.  Friday was our school’s annual year-end Stampede Breakfast (for those of you not familiar with the Calgary Stampede, a Stampede Breakfast is a pancake breakfast with cowboy hats).  The DJ played mostly top 40 songs for the kids, and my own kids got their groove on for ninety solid minutes.  They do indeed have moves like Jagger, in that they flap their arms and move their bodies a bit jerkily.  They loved it, but since that song – along with Party Rockers in the House Tonight and You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful – was played a NUMBER of times, it stuck in my head.  Do you know what it’s like to have I got the moo-ooo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oves like Jagger going through your head on repeat for 54 hours straight?  I swear I even dreamed about moving like Jagger.  SOMEBODY MAKE IT STOP.

First Step (Ask Her Out and Treat Her Like A Lady)

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The first step in the kitchen renovation is done!  Does anyone else immediately get Step By Step by Eddie Rabbit stuck in their head after saying the words “first step”?  Or is it just me?  I also cannot say – or listen to – the words “Here’s the situation” without mentally rapping the entire second half of Parents Just Don’t Understand by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.  If I was hooked up to a brain monitor right now, it would show my mind exploding with both those songs, simultaneously, just from writing those words down.  It’s a good thing I never did my Ph.D., or I would possibly no longer have room in my head for every song lyric ever written. 

In any case, the countertops, sink, and backsplash are now installed in the kitchen; lighting, appliances, and flooring are yet to come.  I think the first step was the worst, in terms of completely inconveniencing everyone.  The first cut is the deepest?  Baby, I know.  Anyway, what the not-so-festive long weekend showed me was that I really spend a massive amount of my day in the kitchen.  When the kitchen was out of order, I descended into some kind of strange sloth and confusion as to what to do now?  But now that we are back in business, baby, I have resumed my normal activity level and am now spending much of my day in the kitchen, but not barefoot and – thankfully – not pregnant.

Which brings me to this point: when one wakes up at 4:40 am, this is what one can accomplish prior to 10:00 am:

Drive to yoga studio and back, practice for 95 minutes.
Feed dog, kids, and self, in that order.
Unload dishwasher, clean kitchen, make beds, pack school snacks.
Shower, dress, makeup, and hair.
Clean bathroom.
Ensure children are adequately dressed, washed, and have brushed their teeth.
Start laundry.
Give self a manicure and check email while the polish dries.
Take kids to school and hang out with them until the bell rings.
Book appointment for husband with a strange online registration program.
Walk dog.

This makes me feel very virtuous, until I realize that when one wakes up at 4:40 am, this is what one can accomplish after 8:00 pm:

Supervise children’s showers and teeth-brushing in a semi-catatonic state.
Tuck children into bed.
Collapse on couch and try to muster up the energy to watch an episode of Mad Men on Netflix.
Go to bed.

What I’m saying here is that I’m really more of a morning person.

Anyway, I’m so pleased with my kitchen renovation and the speed at which I had a functioning kitchen, that we have decided to remodel the bathroom!  And re-tile the front entry!  And re-finish the fireplace!  And lose my mind, apparently. 

For those of you who live in an older home, perhaps you have experienced this problem with renovating: once one thing is changed, it kind of makes the rest of the house look, how shall I say this, in need of an update.  It’s the black hole of renovating, it’s sucking me in.  The contractor actually suggested that my house would be so much more open if I just wanted to knock down this wall…but I shall not think of that right now.  I will only think about the fact that by NEXT THURSDAY my new kitchen is scheduled to be completed!  Right on time for a visit from my in-laws!

Cue ominous music.

Good Vibrations (not THOSE kind of vibrations)

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Hey, I’m guest posting for my dear friend Kimberly, who is recovering from gall bladder surgery and easing her way back into the world of the eaters, over at All Work and No Play Make Mommy Go Something Something.  Kimberly is an amazing woman and I’m not just saying that because her blog name is so very awesome.  She is one of the strongest, bravest women I know, but not only that, she’s FUNNY.  Like as in I think about something she wrote over two years ago and I still get the giggles (it was a metaphor of back hair, Italian heritage, and stallions).  So go over and check out my post, pretty please.  Check out the rest of her blog while you’re at it – she’s a lot of fun.  Thanks for letting me guest post, Kimberly – and get better soon!  xoxo

Birthday and Earth Day and Painting the Basement

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Today is voting day in Alberta and, as luck would have it, my polling station was located at my kids’ school, making it easy to slip in after drop off and vote.  You know you are at the polling station early when you beat the sea of seniors flooding in. 

How was your weekend?  Mine was absolutely fabulous, and I just have to mention the weather – warm, hot even, and sunny.  It was perfect birthday weather!  I am now older than Mrs. Robinson and yet I feel just as saucy.

I look just like this, minus the smoking and the (I think) fur coat.  Honestly, I kind of love her hair.  I would cut mine like this but I am committed to growing it out, because I regret it every single time I cut my hair.  Hoo boy, here’s a hot picture:

I would totally not trust Dustin Hoffman to fasten my bra.  He looks way too befuddled.  Come on, Mrs. Robinson, you’re better than that. 

I do wear a similar amount of makeup though.
So it was my birthday and it was a very happy one, complete with a date night on Friday, new Pandora beads from the boys – including a dog one, from the dog – on Saturday, ice cream cake, and a visit with my grandma, who is in town!  I also treated myself to homemade cosmopolitans which, while delicious, left my Sunday morning yoga practice a bit to be desired.  Well, as Bridget Jones says, if you can’t splash out on your birthday, then when can you?
Our Earth Day celebration took the form of a seeding and raking party with the neighbourhood parents over at the school’s naturalization area (read: area that has been planted with native grasses and plants; an “outdoor learning area”, if you will).  Did I mention it was hot and sunny?  It was a fabulous day; the kids were riding their bikes, playing in the playground, and blowing bubbles while we raked and seeded and chatted.  The day was only slightly marred by my apparent development of allergies to all the grass and dust.  I took some Benadryl for my sore, itchy throat and then slept like the dead.  LIKE THE DEAD.  I woke up, startled, when my alarm went off and it took me a while to shake that groggy feeling.  Who knew that Benadryl was so deadly? 
Speaking of saving the earth and whatnot, we had our basement painted last week.  Well, that really had nothing to do with saving the earth with the exception that we used special non-smelly paint.  But our basement!  It’s now blue!  I’m so happy with it, and will get around to posting pictures soon.  Years back in the dead of winter I wanted to paint our whole house blue – so cheerful!  Who could be sad in a blue house?  But I met with some resistance, and now we have compromised on a blue basement and wow, it’s lovely. 
We had hired a guy to do the painting, and it turned out that he was the type of guy who preferred to work without even the company of the radio, which meant that I completely forgot he was there.  Normally when we have had people working on our house, things have been very noisy and disruptive – i.e., the hardwood – but painting in the basement?  Silence.  Which meant that I would come in from my errands, and walk around the house singing.  Because, you know, I seem to think my life is like a musical theatre, the way I burst into song at any given time of the day.  Remember my impromptu Christmas duet with the old man at the liquor store?  It’s like that.  The problem was that the songs going through my head were twofold: Linger by the Cranberries, and Over My Head by Fleetwood Mac.  So throughout the day I found myself bursting out with “You’ve got me wrapped around your FINGER, do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it LINGER?” or “You can take me to paradise, then again you can be cold as ice, I’m over my head – OVER MY HEAD – but it sure feels NICE.”  Then I would remember, I’m not alone.  I would stop abruptly, and all I would hear is the near-silence of the paint roller.  It was kind of ominous. 
It turned out that the painter’s girlfriend is a mail carrier, and coicindentally she was substitutng for our mail carrier last week!  She brought him a Jugo Juice and the two of them sat on our step for lunch.  Cute!  Young love!  I’m sure he had better things to talk about than the crazy singing lady-client.  Right?

Just Like Bogie and Bacall

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Jake stayed at school for lunch today for the very first time – excepting, of course, Fridays when the kids have a “nutrition break” at their desks and then are dismissed at 1:10.  But today he is at a Lego Club meeting – there IS a Lego Club – and is the first of my children to voluntarily eat lunch at school.  You read that correctly: I do not share my friends’ angst about school lunches and the packing thereof; I live five minutes away from the school and so the kids come home and eat peanut butter and other contraband items.  I’m happy to have them home at lunch, they are happy to come home at lunch, but today it feels like Jake is all grown up now, in no time at all he is going to be leaving home and calling me on an infrequent basis.

It’s enough to give one just the teensiest bit of a heartache.

And yet, I do not wish my children were younger and that I could relive those years.  Sure, it was fun to be able to go to the zoo or the science centre any day of the week, and sure, it was fun to make up plans about what we could do that very day, and sure, it was fun to take the kids for a walk down the street so they could jump in puddles and become soaked and admire the neighbour’s collection of vintage cars that he was ostensibly restoring.  Actually, no, it wasn’t.  There were many long, boring days when I cleaned up paint from crafts and when I veered between each child when they went in opposite, hazardous directions at the playground, but I’m in a place now when I can think of the zoo and see the excitement from seeing elephants and getting those little Dibs ice cream things, and I can gloss over my entire, full-body exhaustion from pushing the heavy double stroller and from packing dozens of snacks and diapers and pullups and bottles and sippy cups and changes of clothing.  I can gloss over the potty-training episodes in public bathrooms, or the germophobic feeling of horror watching the kids using those little phones that tell the stories of the animals in that particular enclosure.  It’s like I’m scrapbooking in my mind: I’m remembering sunny, happy pictures of eating lunch at the picnic tables and talking about gorillas and I’m pasting over the thirty minutes it would take to get the sunscreen applied and the shoes on.  “Going To The Zoo!” is what I’m writing in bubbly stencils in my scrapbook mind, adding lots of happy stickers.

I don’t wish to go back in time.  We took the red-eye home from Maui, and this is what happened: the boys ate snacks and read books while waiting to board, they slept on the plane and woke up on landing, despite having only five hours of sleep they non-grumpily waited in line at Customs and then helped gather all the luggage at the carosel, they rode happily in the taxi home and carried their booster seats into the house, they went to bed and slept for another couple of hours, getting up cheerfully when I woke them up.  Here’s what I observed other people, people with much younger children doing: chasing their kids in the waiting area to tire them out, plying the screaming toddlers with sippy cups and soothers on the plane, walking around on the plane trying to get the babies to sleep, looking like a zombie in line for Customs, holding a sobbing, inconsolable little one.  I wouldn’t trade places with them for the world.  I love how my kids are so interesting and fun and relatively reasonable and self-sufficient and full of cool ideas.  But I came across this picture of them at age two and three:

And this one:

And then this one, from age 10 months and 27 months:

And suddenly, ANGST!

This angsty feeling was exacerbated by the fact that I’m finally reading Room, and by page 22 I had to get reassurance from everyone I know who has read it that it all will end okay, otherwise I would burn the book and spend the rest of the weekend curled up in a corner, crying.  I am not yet finished, but I haven’t burned the book yet, so I suppose that is a positive sign.  I did spend much of the weekend feeling moody and emotional, much to my husband’s puzzlement; was this moodiness due to my period?  WHAT MOODINESS????  AND GIVE ME SOME DAMN CHOCOLATE.

So that was my weekend.  On Saturday morning I saw a friend had written on Facebook that she had spent Friday night listening to her boyfriend play guitar; it sounded all blissful and romantic.  Here’s what I did Friday night: I drank half a bottle of wine on the couch in my pajamas, watching reruns of 30 Rock and then, incredibly, an informercial about love songs of the eighties, and that entire CD collection – entitled “Easy 80’s” – could be mine in only six payments of $26.99 (plus shipping and handling).  I was singing along to the informercial.

Actually, it WAS pretty awesome.  I mean, drinking wine in your pajamas is kind of the ultimate in comforting, and I’m sure my husband loved my rendition of Key Largo.  I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

COME ON DOWN! You’re the next contestant…

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It’s the last day of January, which feels very strange given that, with the exception of about ten days wherein I had that feeling of doom that I would never be warm again, it has been mild.  The snow is almost melted in my backyard, which is odd.  Perhaps the apocalypse is upon us?  I can think of no other explanation. 

Other things I cannot think of an explanation for: why I thought it was a good idea to apply nailpolish five minutes before I needed to leave the house, thus ruining the nailpolish application the second I put my coat on; why I have had Pinball Wizard stuck in my head for days only to magically have it disappear and be replaced by Rasputin; why there is an audience for such shows featuring people who live in swamps, or who are crowded in their houses because they cannot stop purchasing on-sale toilet paper, or who dress their young daughters up for beauty pageants; why people take their dog-hating dogs to off-leash parks, and then become defensive when my dog-loving dog goes to greet their dogs – why not just leash your dog and walk it around the block?; and why I am insanely craving popcorn at ten in the morning and I also feel like bursting into uncontrollable tears and/or curling up in bed and wallowing in sadness?

There may be an explanation for the last one.  Rah rah Rasputin.  Lover of the Russian queen.  They put some poison into his wine.

Related: can a tsarina really be referred to as a queen?  I know that it was the Russian royal family, but is a tsarina and a queen the same thing?

Completely unrelated: when I was a kid I loved watching The Price is Right.  If I could time travel, I would totally go back to the early 80s and I would be a contestant on that show.  Ideally, I would be wearing a tube top.  I would get to play Plinko – and I would get all the chips because I would know which cost more, a case of Rice-a-Roni or an electric kettle.  I would spin the wheel – and, even if I didn’t win the $10,000, I would still be the first to choose my showcase showdown which would include: an RV, a dinette set, and a trip to lovely Myrtle Beach.  I would get inappropriately hugged by Bob Barker, and I would scream and wave my arms around a lot in excitement.  Perhaps I would even fall on the floor – I don’t know.  I haven’t gotten that far in my time-travel fantasy.

When I was a kid I used to think it would be so cool to live in the 1800’s; maybe I would work on my embroidery sampler all day, or perhaps write things on my slate with my slate pencil, and I would be excused from excessive physical activity since running or sports would put a serious strain on my corsets.  Now I just think that it seems kind of icky, living with no running water and no toilets – I don’t even like camping, at campgrounds WITH running water and toilets – and also my embroidery ability, like my ability to sew on buttons, is extremely hampered by my inability to put a piece of thread in a needle and not have it completely tangled in seconds.  Also I am unable to sew anything without crying.  So if I were to time travel, it would definitely be to be a contestant on The Price is Right.  Wouldn’t you just love a new dinette set?  Or – OR – a NEW! CAR!

While I’m at it, maybe I would time travel to be one of Barker’s Beauties!  I could walk along the stage in my super high heels with unlikely and impractical “camping wear” (i.e., Daisy Duke shorts and a plaid shirt tied at the waist) with a giant smile, showcasing the grand prize of a recreational vehicle.  Only for a day, though – I would like to blot out the whole Bob Barker creepy grossness. 

If you could time travel, where would you go?