Category Archives: My failing sanity

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

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I promise not to complain about the sheer futility of Daylight Saving Time, and the ending of Daylight Saving Time, and the ridiculousness that is the idea of Daylight Saving Time, and the fact that we are a mere two weeks away from the sun setting before 4:30 pm. I promise.

I have had the most bizarre song stuck in my head; it is Please Come To Boston. It’s somewhat obscure, and I do not know how it happened, but I have been singing You rambling boy why won’t you settle down, Boston ain’t your kind of town, there ain’t no gold and there ain’t nobody like mmmmeeeeeeeeeeee, ’cause I’m the number one fan of the man from Tennessee. Over and over. And with the very strong crescendo, which made my kids look at each other, alarmed and silent. A friend (HI ALLISON) who I saw at the yoga studio this afternoon helped me out for a few moments, by singing I am sixteen, going on seventeen, but alas, mere minutes later it was eclipsed by Please come to Boston, she said no, you come home to meeeeee. If this goes on much longer I may need to be medicated.

Saturday night I went to see Dr. Strange, which was the very last thing I wanted to do on Saturday night. Well, maybe not the very last; it was probably above “colonoscopy” but much, much below “binge-watching The Crown while drinking wine on the couch in my pajamas.” However, I am very happy to have seen it, because it was extremely entertaining, very funny, and the perfect length. Too many movies these days – she says, while shaking a grizzled, liver-spotted fist in the air – are at least thirty minutes too long. I highly recommend it, if you are a person who enjoys superhero movies. Even if you’re not, it’s still very fun.

I was feeling especially drained this weekend, after the eon that was last week, and seven and a half hours of teacher training on the weekend, which is why I wanted to just curl up at home on Saturday night. Friday, if you recall, I was chaperoning a field trip to the Olympic Oval. It wasn’t until we were actually at the Oval that I learned WHY we were there, and that was to watch the qualifying heats for the World Cup for Short Track Speed Skating. Did you know there was a World Cup for Short Track Speed Skating? Neither did I. But it was very fun, and I learned all sorts of interesting things, like Kazakhstan is quite a contender for Short Track, and also, the 500 metre event is absolute insanity. I kept waiting for someone to get killed, but it didn’t happen, happily.

The event was sponsored by an insurance company, and I am giving them a little bit of the side-eye. Since it was a qualifying event, the vast majority of spectators were all kids in Grades 5 and 6; hundreds of kids were there, with homemade flags and signs. The insurance company had thoughtfully provided each child with a gift bag, containing a water bottle, some very nicely done trading cards with photos of speed skaters on them, and TWO NOISEMAKERS; one that folded into an accordion and was used to make loud clapping sounds, and one that was a very loud kazoo. Imagine, if you will, an arena filled with hundreds of children aged 10-12, all armed with noisemakers. The noise was not to be described. Every time a Canadian set foot on the ice, the cheering and kazoo-ing got even louder, if that was even possible, bless those patriotic hearts.

The thing I did not know about speed skating is that there needs to be perfect silence prior to each heat, because any noise can trigger the starting gun and result in false starts. Think about that for a moment, if you will.

To be perfectly honest, the children were very good about this silence rule for the first little while, but kids will be kids and by the time the men’s 500 metre came up, there were a number of false starts and several warnings over the loudspeaker. I was pretty relieved by the time we packed it in, because things were starting to go off the rails a tiny bit. I was also relieved that Jake had somehow managed to break his kazoo-noisemaker.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Is it time to panic yet?

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My word, it has been a long week, hasn’t it? It feels like it should have been Friday for days now. It’s not over yet by any means; not only do I have a three hour class tonight, but in just over an hour I will be on a school bus, chaperoning a field trip to the Olympic Oval. I actually have no idea why we are going to the Oval, except that there is something to do with speed skating. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

So it’s been a long week but not a bad one by any means. In fact, many good things have happened this week. For example, I saw this:

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Kyle MacLaughlin, dressed as a kale salad. I cannot even begin to describe how much I love Kyle/ Kale MacLaughlin. I’ve had a soft spot for him for years, even when he played Charlotte’s douchey, breast-obsessed, mommy’s-boy husband on Sex in the City. For one thing, he looks an awful lot like my own non-douchey, non-breast-obsessed, non-mommy’s-boy husband. It’s not just me saying that, either. His budget-backpack-travel youth coincided with the height of Twin Peaks, and while in Indonesia he posed for a lot of photos. I like to imagine the family photos which include my husband, in those houses.

Thursdays are my very busiest day of the week; they are pretty much a whirlwind of ceaseless activity. Yesterday, due in large part to my recent hair appointment, God bless my hair therapist, I had an AMAZING hair day. Usually my good hair days coincide with the days I don’t have anywhere to go or anything outside the house to do, and it feels like a waste. But I had a great hair day ON A THURSDAY. Miracles do happen, people. They happen every day. We just have to look for them.

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This is not to say everything has been glorious this week. Today I broke a nail putting on my compression stockings, which says a lot about everything. Also, last night I witnessed a couple having a legit angry argument around the semantics of the word “shortage.”

Man: Hmm. There seems to be a shortage of eggs.

Woman: A SHORTAGE? Oh my god. What do you MEAN, a shortage of EGGS?

Man, gesturing towards the egg cooler at Superstore: There’s not that many eggs to choose from.

Woman: That’s not really a shortage. GOD. That just means they are almost OUT of eggs because it’s the end of the DAY. Don’t say it’s a shortage. It’s not a SHORTAGE, for God’s sake.

Man: Whatever! There’s not a lot of eggs!

Woman: It isn’t a SHORTAGE.

At that point I grabbed my orange juice and backed away. I mean, I don’t know what’s going on your life, but maybe some deep breaths would be beneficial?

But who am I to talk? I have been in low-level panic about the Madagascar drought and resulting worldwide vanilla shortage for a few months now. Everyone knows that the key to an amazing baked-good experience is doubling the vanilla, and here we are with a shortage.

I was at Costco and they were OUT of vanilla extract, and my own panic was similar to that of the Egg Lady. I have one bottle in my possession and I’m not sure at what point I start extreme rationing. Is it time to panic yet? Should I start hoarding? WHAT NOW.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. I need to keep calm because, after all, I’m going to be on a school bus shortly and that is cause for panic enough. Have a great weekend, everyone. xo

God Bless The Bus Drivers

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For weeks, it seems like everyone around me has been sick with this weirdly debilitating cold that’s been going around. Everywhere I go, there’s coughing and sneezing and nose-blowing. So far I’ve been able to stave it off with my signature trifecta of near-obsessive hand-washing, over-the-top vitamin intake, and homeopathic hoo-ha. Today Jake is home with it and I feel an impending sense of doom, like my healthy days are numbered. In the meantime, I will continue to scrub my hands like I’m going into surgery, all the while downing weird concoctions with a side of Vitamin C.

Things feel a touch gloomy because it’s completely dark and snowy outside, although I’m pretty relieved that the snow held off until today. Yesterday Mark – along with the entire Grade Seven body – went to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, which was, from all accounts, EPIC. It meant a four hour round trip on the bus, however. God bless those parent volunteers, is all I can say. Not to mention the teachers and bus drivers.

Mark told me that a few kids screamed hysterically, in that Grade Seven Humour kind of way, every single time they saw a dinosaur statue, so we should have all probably invested in ibuprofen stocks prior to this field trip.

In any case, yesterday was warm and sunny so it really was a good day for a field trip. I took under-the-weather Jake for his own field trip, to Superstore, for groceries, pumpkins, and Halloween candy. Somehow we have ended up with 250 little chocolate bars, which will surely be more than enough for the eight to ten Trick or Treaters we are sure to have.

Speaking of which, the guys set up all the decorations on the weekend, and although they haven’t yet put up the animatronic ones, I have noticed a number of people stop and look at our creepy, creepy house. I have gotten used to it, but at first I was pretty startled every time I would go to the living room and see this out the front window:

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Gah! There are two of those guys in our front yard.

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Not to mention zombie dogs:

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A number of bats:

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In this house, we bury our secrets:

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And we hope no one is arachnophobic:

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At least we have pity for the poor mail carrier who has to make his way through all our festive creepiness. He only really has to deal with this guy, swinging in front of our mailbox.

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This is the first year that I haven’be been really involved in the creation of the kids’ costumes. They are making some kind of weird mash-up (a MONSTER MASH, perhaps? It was a Graveyard Smash!) of old costumes and by old, I mean things they wore when they were in first and second grade. I’m not one hundred percent sure what the result will be, but most likely they will be wearing their parkas and toques to Trick or Treat anyway.

I wonder what the reaction will be to them Trick or Treating. Most of our street is filled with elderly people who have, by and large, known the boys since they were small, and they usually give out tons of candy. However, I know some people have a problem with older kids Trick or Treating, particularly those whose costumes are somewhat suspect. Personally, I don’t even care if someone is dressed up or not, or is a toddler or nearly-legal. I have 250 chocolate bars in my house, and you can be damned sure that I am going to give away as many as possible. Especially since one box contains Wunderbars, which are one of the greatest chocolate bars ever invented, in my humble opinion. I don’t need that kind of temptation just sitting around in my cupboard.

At least I had the fortitude not to buy Rockets! That would have been debilitating in every way, and since sugar is bad for immunity, I would be sure to be on death’s door by next week. As it is, I JUST sneezed! Time for an orange and some more of that weird echinacea tea. Have a great weekend, everyone! Happy Halloween. xo

The Golden Girls Action Figures ARE On My Christmas List

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On October 6, I was alerted by three people that the world has become a perfect place; there are now Golden Girls action figures to be had. Since that time, I’ve had messages from no fewer than eight people about the existence of such a glorious thing.

You know, we all just want to be heard, and to leave our mark on the world, and my friends messaging me about the Golden Girls action figures means that I have been heard. I have left my mark. I truly felt warm and happy, knowing that my Golden Girls love is that well known. Thank you to everyone who has mentioned them, and yes, they are on my Christmas list.

The thing about the Golden Girls is that it was a show about women supporting and accepting each other, and I think that is what is the most appealing thing to me. I think about my friends – you know who you are, right? – who are really more like sisters to me. My friends who I see daily, my friends who I see almost never but talk to often, my friends who are there for me no matter what. If I could build a giant commune somewhere warm, we could all live together, eating vegan cheesecake and drinking coffee (with vegan Bailey’s).

I was thinking about women supporting other women this weekend, when my friend (HI VALERIE) posted a piece entitled “When Her Good News Makes You Feel Bad.” I read these words over and over: …quit fighting over a bigger slice of pie and just bake a bigger pie and invite everyone you know to share it with you. Isn’t that the most beautiful way to live? Bake a bigger pie, or vegan cheesecake, as the case may be.

I know so many amazing women, I think my cake will have to be Olympic Oval sized.

On a much less inspirational note, the battery in the wall clock in the kitchen died last week, and this might seem like a small thing to you, but to me it seemed to be indicative of a looming loss of sanity. If you want to discover how many times you instinctively look at something in one day, change it up. Apparently I check the time approximately several hundred times a day, even though there are digital clocks on both my oven and microwave, as well as the one on my laptop that I often use at the kitchen table. Yet, it is the wall clock I look to for reassurance that I am on schedule throughout the day. Several hundred times a day.

We all know that a stopped clock is correct twice a day, and yet, a stopped clock is still pretty much useless. Yes, I could have just changed the battery immediately, but for some reason I did not. Well, that reason is that I was probably lazily hoping my husband would just do it. In any case, I let this stopped clock issue go on for a good thirty six hours, at which point I was about to lose my mind, looking at the wrong time constantly. I pulled over the high stool to reach the clock, efficiently changed the battery, and hung it back on the wall.

Or so I thought.

I had apparently not secured it to the wall, since it came crashing down, shattering everywhere.

Do you want to know what’s more annoying than a stopped clock? A non-existent one, a bare space of wall that you constantly look at because apparently you have a tic that causes you to look at the time several hundred times a day what is wrong with me why am I like this.

Today I finally had a chance to stop at Bed Bath and Beyond, which always makes me think of Frank the Tank (I don’t know, I don’t know if we’ll have enough TIME) and I purchased a clock which is now affixed to my wall and my sanity is saved. The only problem with going into Bed Bath and Beyond is that it immediately makes me want to be The Ultimate Consumer. I want EVERYTHING. I feel like I need every little gadget from the non-stick rolling pin to the Magic Bullet to the little scrub sponges that are in the shape of happy faces. I don’t know who sets up the displays, but they are extremely effective.

And, for the love of god, the Christmas displays are up, everything smells like cinnamon, and I had to physically restrain myself from buying a miniature light-up tree meant for a coffee table, a leg lamp, and a set of tea towels with reindeer embroidered on them. I left with ONLY the clock, feeling virtuous and regretful. I really wanted those tea towels.

But if you ever throw a party, and invite everyone you know, you’ll see that the leg lamp will be from me. And the card attached will say Thank you for being a friend. xo

Black Moon Day

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We are all tired. Is there anything more boring that can be said than I’m tired. We are all in a permanent state of – at the very least – low-level tiredness. This is just a part of being an adult; if you had a room full of people, and asked them how they felt, the vast majority would say that they felt tired. The ones who didn’t are probably on cocaine.

So, there’s nothing particularly interesting about being tired; that said, this week has me feeling like a hollowed out shell of a woman. I was going to blame it on the Black Moon, but then I found out that, according to astrology, the week leading up to the Black Moon is supposed to be extremely peaceful. Well then.

I wasn’t feeling particularly peaceful yesterday, when I received an email from the school, addressed to the entire parent body. I wonder if our beloved principal, when she was preparing to embark on her career in academia, ever thought that she would spend her time drafting emails begging parents to not perform illegal maneuvers in the middle of the road in front of the school. I wonder if she, fresh-faced and eager, ever thought that she would have to put out constant reminders to parents not to a) jaywalk across the very busy road with children in tow, dodging moving cars and popping out between parked cars, b) park in the bus zone when there are nine school buses needing to access said zone, c) park in clearly-marked no-parking zones, d) take illegal u-turns in the middle of a busy road in front of the school, or, my personal favourite, e) try to pass the school buses by driving into oncoming traffic while all of the above were happening. I feel quite sure that when she was in university getting her teaching degree, she never saw that coming. I sure hope to make a difference to children, to educate them, to shape young minds and prepare them for the future; also, I hope to send semi-monthly emails to their parents to remind them to not do illegal shit with their vehicles that puts everyone in a dangerous situation.

In any case, the Black Moon is supposed to signify a change or shift, new opportunities, and a time of clarity. Plant those seeds of positivity, be the change you want to see, etcetera, etcetera. Put shopping carts away and try not to run over children in school zones.

I suppose I shouldn’t write about the changes I want others to make – seriously, my kid is a crossing guard, don’t run him over – but instead about the changes in my own life. At this very moment, we are getting our roof re-shingled, much to Barkley’s chagrin. They just started an hour ago and already the noise is making me feel a bit crazy. I feel a bit like the Grinch, and the noise, noise, NOISE!

I had another, less emotionally-impactful change this week; I had my hair coloured. Earlier I was talking to a young girl at the yoga studio; I mentioned something about when you have kids, it never stops, there’s always something to deal with – orthodontist appointments, meetings with teachers, homework, activities, there is always something. She looked at me with complete surprise and said, “Oh wow, you have KIDS?” I wasn’t sure of the implication; surely she didn’t mean I look too young to have kids.

While I was getting my totally grey roots coloured, I stared at myself in the salon mirror. I guess the lighting in a salon has to be a certain way in order for the hair therapist to see what she’s doing, but hoo boy. I found myself obsessively staring at myself, my undereye circles needing their own postal code, my deep horizontal rivets in my forehead, my marionette lines around my mouth. I kept thinking I guess this is my face now, I guess this is what I look like. I remembered my mother-in-law saying to me once that she felt complete and utter shock on seeing a photo of herself: an unrecognizable old lady on the outside, which was not consistent with the way she felt on the inside.

Now, I don’t think I’m an unrecognizable old lady – YET – but the salon mirror doesn’t lie.

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Well, we all know it’s a precious gift to be allowed to grow older, so I will embrace my face. I won’t embrace my grey hair though.

Before (smudgy, end-of-day makeup):

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After (the lighting in the car is much more flattering):

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Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. Enjoy this Black Moon and I hope you have lots of positive changes going on in your life. xo

This is fine.

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I consider myself to be a pretty upbeat, optimistic person, but this morning I read a post about being prepared for emergencies like possible rioting due to civil unrest and it made me feel a bit like this:

And a little bit like this:

 

So, anyway, let’s think of other things. Let’s not think of how I’ve been Kondo-ing everything, including donating all my extra towels and sheets, and working to NOT stockpile up on things, etcetera. EVERYTHING IS FINE WE ARE ALL GOING TO BE OKAY WORRYING DOES NOTHING EXCEPT DRAIN STRENGTH TAKE DEEP BREATHS HAKUNA MATATA.

What I really need to do is adopt my husband’s attitude of No Matter What Happens The Next Day Basically Everyone Will Just Get Up And Go To Work. Whether or not this is true, it’s good for my mental health, serenity now serenity now serenity now.

Speaking of serenity, Facebook Memories reminded me that it was three years ago today that I found mouse droppings in my kitchen. So, it was only three years ago that I had complete nervous breakdown and considered burning the house to the ground to start fresh, but really just cried a lot and spent hours disinfecting everything, buying pantry staples, and transferring all said foodstuffs into impenetrable glass and stainless steel containers. Three years! How time does fly. We haven’t had a mouse issue since and my mental state is much, much better for it. Serenity now.

I’m so glad we have the Facebook Memories feature, or the anniversary of that incident would have passed unmarked. What an age we live in.

Today is Picture Day at the junior high, and it is also the day the grade sevens start their swimming module in phys ed. Maybe the school gets a kickback for Picture Retake Day, I don’t know. I do know that grade seven gym is in second period on Tuesdays, so the likelihood of them all getting their photos done prior to being in the pool seems small. It doesn’t really matter to me, since my short-haired son looks pretty much the same no matter what happens, but I feel indignant on behalf of all those who might take pains with their appearance, only to have those pains be for naught. I think I would have ohmygod literally died when I was that age, because how could we ever have teased our bangs to appropriate height in the small amount of time given for changing? How could we have reapplied our coloured mascara and crimped our hair in only ten minutes?

To be totally honest, I never did have coloured mascara nor a hair crimper, but oh, how I wanted one. I had to be satisfied with a Toni home perm.

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Some brief updates: the carts are gone from the alley. I repeat, the carts are gone. They have either died in their gang turf war and their pieces are buried in the gravel, or someone took them away. We will never know the answer.

What I do know, however, is that there was an unknown black cat in my backyard yesterday. Jake and I were walking home and Barkley started lunging and pulling on his leash like nobody’s business. Nobody, that is, but the strange cat that was sitting in full view near our back door. Jake offered to go shoo it away while I held Barkley, and when he turned around it had disappeared. We looked all around and couldn’t see it, so we concluded it hopped over the fence. To be safe I put the going-insane dog in the house, and Jake and I followed suit. As we emptied his backpack and chatted, Jake suddenly yelled “THE CAT CAME BACK!” and instead of answering with the very next day as would be my instinct, I ran to the back door. We looked again and the cat was gone. We were just about to go inside and question our sanity, but Jake found it hidden underneath a potentilla. It escaped over the fence and we watched it scurry away, thankful for a few things: that Barkley was still in the house, albeit having some kind of dog-stroke, that there was a cat and it wasn’t just our imagination, and that it was GONE. I don’t know whose cat it was but I don’t need a) Barkley to attack anyone’s beloved pet, or b) Barkley to get scratched by some unknown cat and therefore get Cat Scratch Fever, which I assume is a real, tangible threat.

I mean, I have enough to worry about without that. Civil unrest, for one.

I’m not a cat person by any means; I never know what cats are doing, I find their sudden movements startling, and I much prefer the straightforward, tail-wagginess of dogs. However, it’s too bad that cat didn’t show up on my doorstep three years ago. I could have saved myself several bouts of hysteria.

More magical journeys

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Strange things are happening in the neighbourhood. There was a Home Depot cart in my back alley. It’s not uncommon to see carts from Walmart and Co-Op, both of which are within walking distance, but the nearest Home Depot is at least five kilometers away. Did someone take a cart and walk all the way to my back alley with it, before abandoning it to its fate? How else would it have gotten here? What was its journey, what was it carrying? These are questions that I am seriously wondering.

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Note the Budweiser can at its wheel. I suspect there are more cans in its basket, but I didn’t actually get out of the car to investigate.

The cart was there for a few days, then it moved to someone’s front lawn. Currently it’s residing on a nearby boulevard. Just across from its original position, a different cart appeared. I think it’s from Canadian Tire. The carts are multiplying.

Maybe I find myself somewhat obsessed with the journey of these carts because of my own irritation about people not returning carts to the proper corral. Obviously these carts were used for different purposes, and that’s fine. But as we all know, the people who leave their carts in random parking spaces, or worse, mere feet away from the corral, are the worst people in the world. Okay, maybe not the worst. Maybe lazy is a better word. Or inconsiderate of other people. Or making the store employees’ lives that much worse, when the corral is RIGHT THERE JUST PUT IT AWAY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. Tomato, to-mah-to.

Anyway, enough about the fascinating journey of the Home Depot cart and its new friend or possibly rival, the Canadian Tire cart.

I just thought of something. Maybe the Home Depot cart moved because of a turf war. Maybe this is a Sharks/ Jets kind of thing. Like this, but with carts.

Speaking of journeys, I have great news for those of you following along with my Kondo journey. The charity that was supposed to pick up my donations but didn’t called back and rescheduled. Hooray! Mark and my husband lugged all the bags back out onto the step early Friday morning, to the interest of a new addition to the neighbourhood: a skunk. Eeek! Fortunately the skunk scurried down the street and – possibly unfortunately – hid underneath a neighbour’s van. This neighbour has two noisy dogs, and I imagined the worst, but so far things have been non-stinky. Possibly Pepe le Pew found his way to an uninhabited-by-pets yard to stay in.

My life lately has been yoga, yoga, yoga, which is wonderful. Things are busy and hectic in the best way possible. We went to an information and Meet the Teacher night at the junior high, and the principal mentioned the active Parent Association, and the desperate need for a Treasurer, and my husband gave me a look that needed no verbal interpretation. I did NOT attend the subsequent meeting because we all know how that would have ended, and I really just can’t anymore.

We are having a real Calgary fall, which means that yesterday the dog park looked like this:

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Whereas today is freezing cold and rainy. I have brought out my warm, lined fall coat and I dub today’s Clothing Theme to be Sith.

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