Category Archives: My failing sanity

The book fair is over. Where’s my corkscrew?

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I was watching Modern Family on Wednesday, dying of laughter at what was referred to as “Satan’s Trifecta”, with Claire, Haley, and Alex all on the same “cycle”.  I laughed at poor Phil’s angst as I ate handful after handful of trail mix, wondering how I could possibly still be so hungry.  I wondered how, this week, I have been simultaneously exhausted yet unable to sleep, achy and tired and completely off my game.  I blamed it on the book fair, the minor case of the sniffles running through our house like a mildly annoying housefly, and the incredibly irritating personalities of others.  I did not blame it on myself.  I did not realize until a certain “aunt” came to “visit” much earlier than normal that there may have been something else going on.  Suddenly, it all made sense.

On a related note, a friend sent me an article entitled “Incompetent People Too Ignorant To Know It” which seems not only extremely accurate, but also extremely nerve-wracking.  Am I incompetent and unaware?  I don’t think so, but then, how would I know?  It’s enough to induce a breakdown of sorts, although the idea that stupidity breeds lack of awareness really does explain a lot about society.  Did I mention the book fair?

Speaking of breakdowns, Mark had one last night.  He was completely inconsolable because, he said, he was WAY BEHIND everyone in the class in math.  This struck me as very odd, since he is very good at math and also his teacher, a few days after we had returned from Maui, had assured me he was all caught up.  However, with the hysterical breakdown right in front of me, I wrote a note to the teacher and spoke with her prior to class, hoping to have a solution to the problem.  She was completely puzzled.  He wasn’t at all behind.  He missed a few worksheets when we were in Maui, but he scored very well on the unit test, and so she had given him the option to either a) forget about the missing pages, or b) complete them at his leisure.  Whichever option was fine with her.  Apparently Mark’s breakdown stemmed from his own standards, which were being compromised due to lack of time.  To say that he takes after his mother would be an understatement. 

Did I mention the book fair?

This week it seemed everyone was talking about Leap Day and the joy of having an extra day, which puzzles me.  It’s not really an extra day, is it?  It’s kind of like how we “gain” time during Daylight Savings.  It’s not really a gain, people.  Even if it is, somehow, an “extra day”, it’s an extra day in February, one of the bleakest months of the year!  Well, not for me, because I was on vacation, but I think most people would agree that February is, indeed, a bleak month.  This is not to say it isn’t fun to think of all those people who get an extra special Leap Year birthday – that’s kind of cool.  But then, I may be a little bitter since I spent Leap Day at the book fair for seven hours. 

There were some cool erasers, though:

For the rest of the day, I was singing “Don’t stop! Believing!  Hold on to that FEEEELLLINININGGG”.  My girlfriend who was volunteering with me that morning told me that her very first concert was Journey, which I thought was exciting and reminded me that MY very first concert was INXS.  The Devil Inside!  That was back in the day when you could see an excellent concert for under twenty dollars.  This also reminds me that The Grapes of Wrath – who I saw in concert for about twelve dollars and whose member Tom Hooper I had an astounding crush on – are rumoured to be GETTING BACK TOGETHER.  I’m a little nonplussed.  That just seems, for some reason, kind of depressing.  But maybe it’s just my current state of mind (“will you ever find your peace of miiiiinnnnndd?”).

My current state of mind being exacerbated by the fact that I spent all week in a windowless room staring at this scene, answering myriad questions regarding the price of various posters and erasers.  But that’s enough about the book fair.  I’m even boring myself.  This goes back to the original question, amended: are boring people too boring to know it? 

Whale Tail!

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At first I was going to do a “Wordless Wednesday” post – does anyone still do that?  I’m so hip to the scene – but then I realized that it’s Thursday, which is great, really, but probably means that “Wordless Wednesday” isn’t exactly relevant.  Nonetheless, I was going to entitle it Whale Tail and then show you this:

Cool, right?  We went on a whale watching tour and saw 30-40 whales, which I thought was incredible, until I spoke with my girlfriend who had gone with her family on a whale watching tour on the same afternoon and saw a) a group of males competing for female attention, and b) a baby whale breech right in front of them.  Still, it was very fun although I think that my kids were just slightly too young to really appreciate whale watching.  They enjoyed it, for the most part, but for kids that age if you have seen one whale, you’ve seen them all.

Note the guy next to me in his festive Hawaiian shirt.  It’s obvious, but Hawaiian shirts are de rigeur in Maui, but they really do look silly elsewhere, unless worn ironically, I guess.

It is starting to snow right now, which makes me think of Triumph, the insult comedy dog.  This clip is QUITE hilarious, if you like that kind of humour, which I do (note: clip is not family friendly).  “Oooh, clouds!  It’s Armageddon for Hawaii!”

Something about being on vacation has made me completely incompetent when it comes to meal planning and grocery shopping.  I depleted our cupboards and fridge in anticipation of our trip, with the tragic exception of the milk I forgot to empty and hence came home to two 3/4 empty cartons, complete with chunks.  Ew!  Gross!  In any case, because of this depletion I have found myself grocery shopping every single day since our return.  EVERY DAY.  Today I realized that I needed – NEEDED – to go to Costco, and so there I went this afternoon.  I found that my faith in humanity – as usually happens when I shop at Costco – has been shattered.  Is it so hard to return a cart?  Is it?  Presumably, the non-cart-returner has already pushed the heavy, gigantic, unwieldy cart through the vast expanses of Costco and the parking lot.  Is that, then, it?  Is that all the non-cart-returner can give?  Is that the extent of their ability to exert themselves physically?  Is walking an extra thirty seconds with a depleted, much lighter cart just too much?  Apparently it is. 

It makes me all stabby.  Fortunately, I think that my grocery levels are now back to par, although unfortunately I went through the mental process I seem to go through every time I’m at Costco, which is to “just pick up an enormous family-sized package of soap and/or toothpaste, since I’m here anyway.”  I do this EVERY TRIP and now I have hoarder-levels of toothpaste and soap.  I’m going to have to hide some in the downstairs bathroom, else my husband may have me committed. 

Speaking of committed, my kids made up a game this morning that involved writing “prizes” on scraps of paper, putting them in a hat, and making me draw the said “prizes”.  I kept “winning” the following: ninja attacks on my person, bad luck, a football, and, finally, the grand prize of a golden marmot.  These prizes are all theoretical, of course, but I’m still a little disturbed by the many impending ninja attacks I have won.

Give your mother a kiss or I’ll kick your teeth in.

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Happy Robbie Burns Day!  I was telling the boys about Robbie Burns Day today, explaining the celebratory nature – in a modified way – and about their Scottish ancestry.  Jake was getting more and more agitated and more and more defiant about it, when he burst out “We are not in Scotland, Mom!  We are in Canada.  WE ARE CANADIAN.”

Good point.  Also I have to admit the only thing I do on Robbie Burns Day is look up YouTube videos of Mike Myers in So I Married an Axe Murderer and walk around singing Bay City Rollers songs and Do You Think I’m Sexy in a Scottish accent.  I’m probably putting my ancestors to shame.  It’s not like I’m heading over to the Legion to eat haggis, get drunk on Scotch, and get into a brawl with someone from a different clan, like a good Scottish lassie. 

Haggis.  You have to hand it to the Scots, they have cornered the market on the world’s worst cuisine.  Scottish cuisine is the absolute bottom of the global barrel.  Second is probably Norweigan – and hey, I’m Scottish-Norweigan so I can really vouch for this.  Boiled potatoes!  Fish balls!  And I’m very sorry to offend all of you haggis and/or lutefisk fans, but what the hell?  Was everyone drunk and did those dishes really seem like a good idea at the time?  Someone very kindly mentioned to me recently that if I wanted, I could get vegetarian haggis, which honestly seems like the third-most-awful food item in the world. 

Do you ever wonder how kind of bizarre cultural things got their start?  Like, for example, bagpipes.  Actually, I can probably guess how bagpipe music got its start but it’s a grim picture so I won’t go there.  Do people honestly enjoy bagpipe music or is it one of those things that you intellectually think you should enjoy because of your ancestry, but emotionally and viscerally you loathe it?  Is it like the recorder – intellectually you realize that elementary aged children are taught the recorder because of its lightweight size and inexpensiveness, but the sound of it, my god, the sound of it.  There is nothing like being next door to a classroom full of recorder-playing fifth graders.  Did I mention that I’m starting to get ready for the next book fair, which is next door to the music room?  Alcoholic donations welcome.  Also?  Ear plugs.

Because of the melting streets and the filth on my windshield causing me to be actually unable to see out my windshield, which seems like a liability somehow, I washed the car today.  That is a MAN’S job, people.  Anyway, I manned up and took my filthy minivan to the carwash, and beside it an apartment complex is being erected (heh) and there was a giant, cavernous hole dug, filled with various heavy machinery.  It made me supremely nostalgic.  There was a time when I would walk my boys in their double stroller to construction sites, and they would sit there, fascinated, for HOURS on end.  Jake was one, and he would clap his little hands and say “Diggies!  Diggies!  Jake happy!  Happy!”  We spent our days that way, our endless unscheduled days, wandering around the neighbourhood looking at buses and machinery, and playing farm and blocks and trains, and now suddenly they are gone most of the day and when they are home they are involved in their own little lives that often do not involve me at all, and one day they are going to be bringing their recorders home to practice and suddenly I am wallowing in Robbie Burns Day melancholy.  Just like a good Scottish lassie.

Inspiring!

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This weird little Christmas holiday virus seems to be the gift that keeps on giving – every day it’s a new and different symptom, and although I am feeling better – i.e., functional – I am far from being my usual energetic and healthy self.  For example, my cough is now almost all gone but my sinuses seem to want to kill me softly, with their extreme pressure of a song.  It’s enough to make a person pull out the neti pot, and I do not make that move lightly.

Back when my cough was the symptom of the day, I was taking Halls’ cough drops when I noticed something on the individually wrapped candies.  I looked closely: on each wrapper was written “Nothing you can’t handle” and “Don’t waste a precious minute”.  Inspirational quotes on my cough drops.  This seems like the thin edge of the wedge.

Is it me, or is the vast volume of inspirational quotes making them superfluous?  Everywhere you look, there are little nuggets of precious wisdom; from Lululemon bags to my favourite but very pretentiously named Yogi tea, from billboards for a “better Calgary” to the massive influx on my Facebook news feed.  It’s like, to paraphrase a modern quote, drinking from the firehose of motivational sayings.  Don’t even get me started on Jack Layton’s final letter to Canada: the first time I read it I felt somewhat uplifted; by the fortieth time I read that love was better than anger and optimism better than despair, I felt more irritated than inspired.

This is not to say that I am a cynical sourpuss – or if I am, that will surely change momentarily, given that it’s Friday and I’m planning to test the theory that red wine is medicinal.  When I was young, my grandma had “Desiderata” hanging on the wall of her home, in between framed embroidered pictures of flowers in baskets with such maxims as “Grandchildren are a gift from God” with all of our names surrounding it.  I would look at “Desiderata”, and even at a young age it spoke to me.  As I hit the bumpy road that is the young teenage years, I would remember “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.” and I would feel peace.  Her “Desiderata” was the one thing I wanted from her possessions when she died; I had it reframed and it now hangs in my living room wall.  I look at it every day, and every time I read “With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world” I feel that it really IS a beautiful world.  Everything I believe in is written in “Deserata”.

So I suppose that is my inspirational quote, the one that inspires me.  Perhaps someone out there is being inspired by “Don’t waste a precious minute” on their cough drop wrapper; I suppose it’s possible.  Or perhaps we should treat the constant stream of motivational sayings the way we do fortunes in fortune cookies – with a “in bed” addendum on the end.  Like, “Nothing you can’t handle – IN BED”, or maybe “Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself – IN BED”.  Or even – and this is a nod to all the hockey fans out there, I am a Canadian girl after all – “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take – IN BED.” 

Post-Christmas Cleaning Binge

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Did you have a good Christmas?  I’m relieved to tell you that Mark recovered enough to enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, although he was somewhat exhausted by yesterday evening – but then, shouldn’t we all be exhausted by then?  My mother mentioned yesterday that Mark is always sick at Christmas, which seemed incorrect to me, and indeed, upon checking my blog entries the last time anyone was sick at Christmas was 2008.  That seems like a fairly decent run to me.

But today we are all enjoying good health and also our Christmas gifts.  I caved this year on my “no video games” policy and the boys – all three of them – are currently playing Mario Kart Wii.  They are also threatening to get a fourth control so I can play with them, an attitude I am steadfastly discouraging.  So far they have yet to turn into slack jawed zombies, so I grudgingly admit the Wii is fine.  Also, I received a game, just for me, the Wii Jeopardy.  Now THAT is something I can get behind.

I also received this beauty:

A Pandora bracelet!  It’s perfect in every way.  I also received this pashmina scarf, which is so unbelievably soft I want to make out with it:

I haven’t yet.  But I want to.

Meanwhile, today I have broken all my normal rules and have not taken the Christmas tree down.  It’s not because I don’t want to.  I came home from yoga, faced with the clutter and boxes and general grunginess that indicates holiday living, and thought I could not face one more minute with the tree up.  The kids intervened passionately, and I have agreed to give it one more day.  I regret this decision immensely, and I find myself giving the tree what my children themselves refer to as the “furry eyebrow”.  Enjoy your time with us, tree.  You’re next.

If I couldn’t take down the tree, I certainly could deal with the holiday grunginess, which is exactly what I did.

That’s me, minus the blonde hair and kicky pink dress.  My children seemed a little alarmed at the zest with which I attacked the floors and bathroom.  My husband went out to run an errand and came back to find me scrubbing the floor tiles with vinegar water and a Sham-Wow, all the furniture moved around so as to clean behind it.  “Wow,” he said, backing away slowly.  “You’re really…cleaning.”  YES I AM.

Meanwhile, we have approximately one thousand chocolates in the house, which seems like a lot.  What’s better – freezing and savoring them over the next several months, or devouring them all just to destroy them?  Probably something in between, I suppose.  But given we still have Halloween candy in our house, something must be done.  Immediately.  Now pardon me while I go deal with a box of After Eights.

The very best way to spread Christmas cheer is by singing loud for all to hear.

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I went out for a few hours, came home, and found that my husband had wrapped all the Christmas gifts!  It was the best Christmas gift ever!  It instantly made me feel like giving HIM a big Christmas gift, if you know what I’m saying.  Voluntary gift wrapping is even sexier than voluntary dishwasher unloading. 

Here’s a little fact about me: if there is a song playing that I enjoy, I will sing along, regardless of the location.  This isn’t a conscious thing; I just tend to sing along, in my head, which often leads to SINGING OUT LOUD FOR ALL TO HEAR, a la Buddy the Elf.  It’s my way of spreading not only Christmas cheer, but just cheer year-round, I guess.  There is a good chance that if you see me in the grocery store, I will be pushing my cart, humming and singing along to the 1970’s light pop favoured by grocery stores everywhere: I’ve seen lonely times that I could not find a friend…but I always thought that I’d see you again.  Needless to say, if Hall and Oates is playing, there is no chance I will not be singing along.  She’s gone, oh I, oh I, got to learn how to face it. 

A large part of my inability to hear a song and not sing along is that – I’m going to boast about myself for a minute – I have an immense catalogue of song lyrics in my head.  I pretty much know all the lyrics to every song ever written, from By the Light of the Silvery Moon to In Da Club.  What can I say, other than my awful voice, I rock at karaoke.  The downside to this is that I have a massive percentage of my brain devoted to song lyrics.  If I could just free that part of my brain think of all the things I could accomplish, like earning my Ph.D., maybe, or figuring out how to drive to south Calgary without bursting into tears.

A few weeks ago I arranged to meet up with some friends in an area I was not familiar with.  I wrote down directions, studied them, and half an hour before the appointed time, I headed out.  Not unlike the time I was driving from the airport to West Houston and ended up in Sugarland, Texas, I drove past my turnoff.  There was much construction, and road signs were not up – for the love of god, Calgary, keep road signs up during road construction – and I ended up far into a residential district before I realized my mistake.  Then I pulled over and cried, before remembering that deep in the glove box is a Garmin!  I plugged it in, typed in the address, and then became insanely frustrated as the Garmin had not been updated in some time, and kept telling me to turn left where the streets were blocked off by construction.  Eventually I made it to my destination, and realized that I did not know how to get home, until my friends very kindly pointed me in the right direction.  Upon reaching home and relating this to my husband, he sighed heavily.  “You’re so smart” he said, “How can you be so bad with directions?  You need to realize you’re lost BEFORE you see a herd of cattle or the signs to Banff.” 

He has taken it upon himself to become my instructor, spreading maps all over the house and quizzing me about the major arteries of the city.  Some of this information must have been absorbed, because I drove to the southeast part of the city to meet up with Marilyn for lunch and I neither got lost nor burst into tears.  I had heart-pounding anxiety for much of the trip, but I made it!  I did! 

This newfound information has not displaced my song knowledge, however, or – needless to say – my propensity to sing out loud in public places.  On Thursday I found myself in the Superstore liquor store, singing a duet with an older gentleman.  I was pushing my cart (yes, CART) through the aisles, and I heard someone singing the very best festive song about date rape ever written: Baby, It’s Cold Outside.  I unconsciously hummed, then sang along – SANG ALONG – with a total stranger.  It was somewhat awkward when I realized I was part of this impromptu duet when I rounded the aisles and the older gentleman winked at me, me with my case of wine, giant bottle of Bailey’s, and a twenty sixer of gin.  It had all the makings of a great romantic comedy, other than the fact that a) I’m happily married, b) the man in question was in his sixties, at least, and c) this was all taking place in a liquor store at ten in the morning.

Holy shit! Where’s the Tylenol?

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The boys have been practicing Christmas songs at school – for what purpose, I am unclear, since they never have a pageant or holiday-themed special night for the parents to watch them do non-denominational festive winter performances or anything.  Don’t get me wrong; I am not a “put the Christ back in Christmas” kind of girl, not by a long shot – and I’m also not going to get into my usual festive discussions about the reasons that Christmas is celebrated on December 25, stemming from pagan winter solstice rituals.  I like to celebrate the season as one of giving and light and love, and not get caught up in political/religious details.  If you want to put the Christ back in Christmas, that’s cool, but I am not going to get all up in arms if you call it a holiday tree, you know?  Let’s all just hold hands and sing around the shining star like the fucking Whos, okay?  No need to get all divisive.  Pa rum pum pum pum.

I’ve been on a bit of a rampage this morning.  It is one of those days where I find everything strangely irritating; the lack of green sugar sprinkles in the Co-Op baking section – the fucking Co-Op BAKING SECTION – just about pushed me over the edge.  I was one second away from ripping down their “Festive Solutions” display and going all Clark Griswold on the place.  “Hallelujah!  Holy shit!  Where’s the Tylenol?”

I realized after I got home with my non-green-sugar-sprinkle groceries that I had only consumed about 1/2 cup of coffee this morning.  I quickly remedied this and felt much better.  I’m a bit mixed: should I be concerned about my obvious coffee addiction, or should I be happy that my crankiness is so easily fixed by just drinking more coffee?  I’m leaning toward the latter.

Anyway, the boys have been practicing Christmas songs at school, and predictably, they are coming home singing various festive songs with the words changed around, featuring Batman and Robin and the Joker peeing on a wall.  Such lyric alterations are extraordinarily witty and clever, in their minds.  Eventually the conversation turned to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

And here is where I shall digress a little.  There are few Christmas shows/songs/stories that piss me off as much as the Rudolph.  In fact, there are NO other Christmas shows/songs/stories that piss me off.  I love Christmas.  I love it in the way that the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes and he realizes

Maybe Christmas, thought the Grinch, doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe Christmas – perhaps – means a little bit more.
I love the generosity and goodwill that come from people during the Christmas season (except at the mall, which is why I do not go there past mid-November, to keep my wholesome view of humanity).  I love Christmas trees and lights and baking.  I love it all. 
With the exception of Rudolph.  Well, it’s not Rudolph I have a problem with.  It’s those bastard other reindeer, not to mention – when it comes to that terrible clay-mation show – the assholes that Santa and the elves show themselves to be.  People who get all pissy about “Happy Holidays” and “Holiday Trees” and whatnot should be pissy about poor Rudolph and his mistreatment.  Since when, in this day and age, is it socially acceptable to isolate and mock someone because of differences?  Since when is it socially acceptable to exclude someone because they look different?  And since when is it okay to only accept those differences when that individual does something heroic and saves the day?  THIS IS NOT OKAY.  
So when the boys came home singing about Rudolph, I said mildly to them “You know, I’ve never liked that song.  I always feel so sorry for Rudolph.  The other reindeer are so mean to him, just because he’s different.”
Jake looked up at me intently with a serious expression.  He was silent for a moment, then said “You know Mom?  It’s not the Christmas spirit, but you know what?  I kind of want to get a gun and shoot those other reindeer.”
I do not endorse violence, but I had to agree with him.