Category Archives: My failing sanity

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? 

What does one need to wear to the Rapture?

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So apparently the term “whale tail” is not as commonly known as I thought.  Here’s a snapshot from Wikipedia:

It’s just as classy as a pair of Daisy Dukes and a crop top.

Do you remember that scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin where Andy and Cal catch a glimpse of the salesgirl’s whale tail while she is working in the bookstore window?



Andy: There’s something wrong with her underpants.


Cal: Yeah, they’re not in my mouth.

Speaking of showing your underwear to the neighbourhood and possibly earning the reputation as the creepy lady across the street, did you know that the world is slated to end THIS WEEKEND?  I don’t know how I went this long without realizing that Saturday is Judgment Day and, also, the Rapture, which I had erroneously thought was the Apocalypse until a friend corrected me.  Despite my Lutheran upbringing, from which I have clearly lapsed, I am actually a little unsure of the difference between the apocalypse and the rapture, other than the presence or otherwise of the four horsemen.  So anyway, mark it on your calendars!  World ending Saturday.  No need to stock up on groceries this weekend.


I’ve always wondered: if you predict the world ending, as has been predicted many times before, do you feel silly after the world does not end?  I think I would.

My long-awaited food processor arrived this weekend, in a very large box.  Jake immediately staked his claim on the box, which he named “Boxy”.  Or maybe “Boxie”.  In any case, Boxy has become part of his daily life.  He’s putting toys in it, rearranging its location, and spending hours a day sitting in Boxy.  This is all fine with me.  However, a game has emerged, and it essentially consists of Jake climbing into Boxy, closing the top, and calling to me.  Then, I am supposed to act surprised because Jake is not in the room; instead there is just a giant food processor box.  Failure to play along is not an option.  Along with this game is much one-sided conversation about the various Hero Factory characters that are inside of Boxy, which one I like best, and all of their different attributes. 


Here is my dilemma: on the one hand, there is less than six weeks left of school, then my afternoons with Jake will be over forever, as he starts Grade One in the fall.  I should be cherishing all of these moments.  One day, perhaps, he will not want to share every detail of his life with me.  But on the other hand, I think my eardrums are going to burst from so much loudly punctuated conversation.  “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, can I tell you something MOM?  MOM?  Did you know that Furno MOM?  Did you know that Furno is very powerful MOM?  MOM?  Guess what MOM?  I have a Breez 2.0 in my MOM?  Mom, can I tell you something MOM?”  Two and a half hours of this constant stream of consciousness and I am a broken shell of a woman. 

Yesterday after an afternoon based entirely on Jake’s talking and my planting actual flowers to go with my metaphorical mind-flowers – my thoughts are my seeds!  Jake’s just sharing his life with me! – we went to pick up Mark after school.  Mark played with one of his friends on the playground for a while, then came up to me and indignantly accused me of never listening to him, ever.  I thought sadly that maybe, given the afternoon’s events and my possible exploded eardrum, I was tuning out everything my children were saying, and I bent down to listen to what he had to say, which was, somewhat anticlimactically, “There was a ladybug on the slide.”


He went on to say that he and his friend were trying to rescue it, because if someone killed a ladybug, then Jesus’ mother would be angry.  I was completely startled by this revelation, and said that I didn’t know about Jesus’ mother, but I would be sad if a ladybug was killed, as they are very helpful bugs.  Mark nodded solemnly, and said “I guess both my mom AND Jesus’ mom would not like anyone to kill a ladybug.”

Comparing me, the creepy lady showing her whale tail in a modern day Mrs. Robinson-type way to the young neighbour to Mary, Mother of God seems a little heretical.  Maybe I should be concerned about this weekend.

Friday the 13th, and Privilege Problems

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I just realized, now, that it is Friday the 13th!  Maybe that explains things, and by things I mean my state of crossness and irritability, although I really think that my attitude is more likely attributed to my lack of sleep and excessive worry due to my son having pneumonia, rather than the date.  I have been extremely irritable and plagued with what I refer to as Privilege Problems.  Don’t worry!  I’m not about to complain that my personal chef has been using just too much asiago, or that my housekeeper has been cleaning the bathroom so frequently that she is going through an excessive amount of cleanser, or that my stylist keeps putting me in Michael Kors, when I just want vintage, dammit!  I just mean that I have been having problems that are not actually problems, but are instead irritants that seem exceedingly important, but really are not.
Nicole’s List of Not-Really-Problems
1)      It is two weeks until my next scheduled hair appointment, and yet my hair looks and feels like straw.  Orange straw.  I have an emergency box of temporary hair colour in my bathroom cupboard but can I actually use it with only two weeks to go until my appointment?  I don’t know.  I can’t decide.  I am going to see my in-laws next week, and I don’t really want to see them with straw-like, orange hair, but is it silly and/or bad for one’s hair to apply temporary colour two weeks before permanent colour?  I JUST DON’T KNOW.  I could dither about this all day long, but fortunately I have other things to think about.  Such as avoiding breakouts prior to next week. 
2)      A few weeks ago my husband had the snow tires taken off the car, and today he asked if I would take it in to get the tires retorqued.  This was completely unreasonable, given that, other than filling it with gas, car issues are HIS department.  I do not deal well with car issues, even ones as innocuous as getting the tires retorqued.  I have been known to burst into tears when the “washer fluid low” light comes on.  I cannot, and have never been able to open the hood on my car.  I did take the car in but felt tremendously resentful for the entire day.
3)      My kids are going to be in the same class next year.  This actually seems like it might be a real problem.  Due to the school board’s budget cuts, the class that Mark was supposed to be in was eliminated, and instead they are going to be together in a Grade 1-2 split class.  My options are to a) suck it up, b) place Jake in the Montessori Grade 1 class (our school has a Montessori stream along with the regular program), or c) switch schools.  Neither b nor c seem like viable options to me, so I guess I’m going with suck it up, buttercup.
To counteract my irritability, I am going to list off all of the happy things from the past couple of days.
Nicole’s List of Happy Things, Complete With Pictures
1)      I planted a few very hardy plants!  They look pretty and it was so lovely to dig in the dirt again after such a long, long winter.
Does it look like Mark is saying “That’s what she said?”  Or is it just me?
Flowers!
This is what happens when I ask them to look at me and smile.  It does not go well.
2)      The new dog groomer did a great job on Barkley, and was less expensive than our old groomer.  The consult wasn’t even something weird, like I had imagined, although on the topic of the dog’s face, the groomer asked if I would like for him to have a moustache.  I laughed, but realized quickly that this was not a joke.  Um, no thanks.
3)      Mark is coughing much less, thanks to the miracle that is antibiotics.  I may – MAY – even get some sleep tonight.  Then I will surely be less bitchy and irritable.  Surely.

Tell me now, baby, is he good to you? Can he do to you the things that I do?

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I received an invitation for the school’s Volunteer Appreciation Tea.  I smiled happily until I realized that the date coincides with the next book fair, which I am running.  I cannot attend the Volunteer Appreciation Tea because I’m too busy volunteering.
Some days are just like that.
I have not been sleeping well lately and I am feeling very, very tired.  I’ve been waking up at my usual early time and I feel great for about two hours; then it all goes downhill.  I’m pretty much mainlining coffee by mid-morning.  My poor sleep is not helped by Mark’s barking, seasonal allergy-related cough, which apparently does not affect his sleep one iota, but keeps me up at night.  Also, I heard “I’m on Fire” yesterday, so last night I lay wide awake, staring at the ceiling while the following soundtrack looped through my head:
Did he go and leave you all alone, mmmm….What if that cough isn’t allergies?  Should I do something?…Sometimes it’s like someone took a knife baby edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley through the middle of my soul…What if it’s croup?  Croup probably sounds like that….At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head…But could someone have croup with absolutely no other symptoms?…Only you can cool my desire…Maybe I should get up and google croup.  No, that’s probably a bad idea.  Remember when I googled fifth disease and thought everyone had it?…Whoooooo I’m on fire…
Last night the boys had soccer for the second time since April 19, and it was actually quite nice.  My new goal is to not complain about freezing to death on the soccer field, and so last night I dressed up in five layers of clothing, boots, and gloves, and I felt quite comfortable.  The boys are both in teams with blue uniforms, and so the kids generally name the teams in a way that coordinates with the colour.  Jake’s team name, for example, is the Blue Berries.  One year Mark was with the Blue Bubble Gums, and last year they were both in the Green Geckos.  I happened to be listening in when Mark’s team was asked for name suggestions.  The first one out of the gate was from one of his teammates, who suggested the Burning Blue Balls.  The coach, a friend of mine, deserves everlasting credit for nodding seriously and saying, “Okay.  Anyone…else?”  Fortunately they went with another suggestion – the Blue Jays – so I don’t have to cheer for the Blue Balls. 
Since my run-in with the dog boarder-who-no-longer-boards-overnight-but-who-still-will-groom-my-dog-for-the-low-price-of-$80-plus-tip, I have been on the search for a new groomer.  Evidently this is a difficult task.  There is a place close to my house that has a two month waiting list.  To get my dog groomed.  Now, my hair salon also has a two month waiting list, but while I don’t mind making several advance appointments for myself, I would like a little more flexibility for the member of the family who likes to eat his own frozen fecal matter and roll in the dusty dead grass.  Maybe that’s just me.  So I found yet another place, which will take him next week, and I’m only slightly unnerved by the fact that I need to have a consult with the groomer.  If this consult is more detailed than “give him the kennel number 3 cut” I am going to just give up and lock myself in the bathroom with a bottle of wine for a while.  Maybe it will help me sleep.

It’s only Tuesday? We’re all going to die!

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Here’s a view of our backyard; the kids are in their pajamas because someone who is not me took the kids out in only their pajamas to take a picture of the giant snowball that they made. 

What a weird day.  It’s only 2:15 and it has just been a strange day.  I keep reminding myself, alarmingly, that it is only Tuesday.  It’s Tuesday and it’s the first day of soccer, and the kids are actually meeting for a practice on the snow-and-ice-covered fields.  When I heard that, my first reaction was something along the lines of We’re All Going To Die, but I’ve since been assured that the practice is going to be more of a “meet and greet” than an actual practice.  I’ve also been told that Mark needs cleats, which he does not have, and for some reason it had not occurred to me, despite weeks of working on the soccer schedules.
While on a normal day it would be easy for me to run out and purchase a pair of cleats that is not the case today as I’m home with a sick, feverish Jake.  It seems that Mark’s mystery illness was of the contagious variety.  I was up for most of the night with Jake, who was burning up with fever and then instantly vomited when I gave him Tylenol to bring the fever down.  Don’t you hate that?  Here, take this medicine.  This medicine which will make you barf. 
So I am exhausted and I have weird hair and I’m wearing “at home with sick kid” clothes and I was interviewed by CBC with regards to education budget cuts.  I can barely string three words together, I’m so tired, but I agreed to the interview because it was supposed to be on the radio.  The chance of someone I know listening to this interview seemed slim to me; but they brought a TV crew.  So me and my weird hair and my eye bags and my non-functioning brain will be on the news tonight.  Whee.  I just hope I don’t look like a ranting Charlie Sheen,  with speech therapy and class sizes rather than porn stars and tiger blood.
I’m so tired.  I can’t believe I lived six years of my life with extreme sleep deprivation/ constantly interrupted sleep.  Two pregnancies in 18 months, newborns, toddlers, and the fact that my youngest did not “sleep through the night” until he was four and a half years old adds up to six years of exhaustion.  How did I live this way?  I guess I didn’t realize how poorly I was functioning until I actually started sleeping like a normal person.  You know when you have a newborn and you think “Wow, I’m really doing well on two hours sleep!” but really, you’re insane?  You think you’re functioning well but really you burst into tears when you run out of peanut butter and you think that everyone is out to get you and anyone who so much as sneezes in public is plotting against you and your precious baby.  I recall sobbing in the grocery store because I was there with my infant and one-year-old and the baby was crying and the carryout person reached over and put his soother in his mouth.  A stranger!  Put her hands in my baby’s face!  Her filthy carryout grocery hands!  We’re all going to diiieeeee!
I’m sure I’ll get some sleep tonight.  In the meantime, I am going to go dig out my giant winter coat and Sorel boots and get ready for soccer! 

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

Soccer Moms: not just about tracksuits anymore.

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So, after a flurry of activity this weekend, I am much more in control and not so sad, despite the fact that it is still snowing.  Still snowing.  It’s been a week now of snow, blowing snow, and the sky matching the snowy, snowy ground.  Someone who lives in a much, much nicer climate than I do phoned this morning and complained about the lack of green grass where she lives.  I was overcome with hysterical jealousy given that a) it will be a minimum of six weeks before green grass appears here, and b) it will be a while before brown grass appears given the plethora of snow.
But I digress.  I wasn’t even going to complain about the horrible, horrible weather, but instead inform you perkily that I have finished several things on my gigantic to-do list (although not the Costco trip.  That’s tomorrow but my mother is very kindly taking the kids for a few hours meaning I can have my usual Costco-based nervous breakdown without hearing “Mom?  Mom?  MOOOOMMMM?  Can we get a snack?  Can we?  MOOOOOOMMMM.”)  The biggest accomplishment for me this weekend was finishing the soccer schedules.  It is my third year of doing the soccer schedules for our community and the two surrounding, and happily, at no time did I resort to heavy drinking, crying, or trying to stab myself in the heart with my mechanical pencil.  Since I am now a jaded veteran of the world of soccer scheduling, I fully expected some sort of complaint or change as soon as I sent it out to the officials, and so I was not at all thrown off by the almost immediate reply that the number of U10 teams was going to change. 
What I have found about being a stay-at-home mom with kids in school is that the number of volunteer commitments that I sign up for tends to snowball at particular times of the year and then I feel like I have a full time, albeit unpaid, job.  It’s not like I don’t like being involved with the school or soccer community, although being a soccer mom makes me think that I need to go buy a neon windbreaker tracksuit.  I mean, sure, there’s the glory of being known as the “Book Fair Lady”, and the warm feeling of being appreciated when I get accosted at the volunteer appreciation dinner by someone drunkenly thanking me for taking on the soccer scheduling, but sometimes it just feels like a lot of work.  Although maybe it was me being drunk at the volunteer appreciation dinner.  After all, I won a gigantic set of French White Corningware and decided to walk home alone carrying the very heavy box, much to my husband’s dismay when I arrived, stumbling on the doorstep.  “LOOK WHAT I WON!”
But the big news of the weekend was that I attended a few sessions of a yoga workshop with this man, and it was fabulous.  Strenuous, but fabulous.  I have discovered some muscles that I did not know I had, and now I’m moving around like I’m an arthritic ninety year old.  Getting up off the couch is taking some serious effort.  The timing may not have been great given that it’s only three sleeps until my big day, after which I may be walking like an arthritic ninety-five year old.  But well worth it anyway.
How was your weekend?