Category Archives: My failing sanity

The Apocalypse? Or PMS?

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Yesterday I was so blue and everything seemed bleak and grim: my legs ache and hurt constantly, there are unspeakable tragedies all over the world, I need to do the soccer scheduling, I have to write an article for the community newsletter, the sky is grey, it’s been snowing for five days, it’s cold and damp and I have to wait outside for 30 minutes between the times that my children finish school at lunchtime, after which I can’t get warm or if I do I have to leave to stand outside again to pick up Mark after school, I stepped in dog poop while cleaning up dog poop, I have surgery next week and so much to do before then and it’s March break starting Monday, the dog stinks, what if I turn into a weirdo mother-in-law and my children become estranged to me in their adulthood, human atrocities do not seem to warrant international intervention unless such atrocities occur in an oil-producing nations, there is going to be an election and I don’t want one, I have to go to Costco, my driver’s license is about to expire and the province did not send me a renewal notice, which is the second time something like this has happened, which makes me believe that it was delivered to someone else and they didn’t bother to drop it at my house, despite the fact that I always, always drop off my neighbour’s misdelivered mail no matter how unimportant it looks.
Everything seemed overwhelming and glum.  I took extra Vitamin D tablets, made my favourite dinner – much to the disappointment of all other family members who do not share my affinity for Greek salad and pita bread – drank some wine and ate a piece of chocolate birthday cake, and then the sun came out for five minutes and I felt a little better. 

All those sad things are still sad today – except for the driver’s license part, which I renewed this morning thanks to the very kind man I spoke with on the government hotline who tipped me off that rates are going up effective April 1st – but I realized something: you know when you feel hopeless and depressed and loathing and like nothing you do even MATTERS, and ew, you have dog poop on your boot, and everything is so overwhelmingly sad but then you look at a calendar and do some back counting and then a lightbulb goes on and you realize – you REALIZE – that there is a reason, a very hormonal reason that you feel that way, and then you know you’re going to feel better soon?  Yes, that.

So I feel slightly more in control of things this morning.  Yes, I have no control over terrible things in the world but I can donate to relief efforts.  Yes, it’s cold and horrible but maybe it will stop snowing soon and March break means I do not have to do the pickups and dropoffs in the freezing cold.  Yes, my legs are constantly aching and swollen but maybe they won’t be in three weeks’ time.  Yes, I have to go to Costco but at least I can get one of those giant logs of goat cheese for five dollars.

I don’t like being sad.  That’s probably the most inane sentence ever uttered but it’s true.  My husband and I were talking the other night about how we used to like adventure travel and how I actually used to have a backpack to put my clothes in and how there were hundreds of places I wanted to experience.  Now, however, I said, looking out the window at the blowing snow “I don’t want to go anywhere cold.  Or anywhere that makes me sad.  I want to go where there’s nice fruit and it would be nice if we could go somewhere I can keep up with my yoga practice.”  My husband looked at me for a minute while I listed off all of my travel requirements then offered, “So you only ever want to go to Hawaii?”

Hawaii would be lovely, it’s true – who wouldn’t want to have a pretty drink with an umbrella in it and get to make “Getting Lei’d” jokes? – but even lovelier was Jake, climbing onto my lap, saying that he wished my operation was tomorrow so I could feel better right away, and if I needed anything he would get it, unless he couldn’t reach it in which case I may have to help him.  And I do feel better.  It’s Friday after all, I have a great yoga workshop to attend this weekend, I have an episode of Parks and Recreation to watch tonight, and Cadbury Mini-Eggs were on special at the grocery store. 

How about you?  Any plans for the weekend? xo

Screw you, Daylight Savings. Screw you.

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Edited to add: I just discovered that today is Pi Day!  I didn’t even know Pi Day existed, but the fact of its existence has made me so suddenly happy that I almost deleted this post.  Almost.  But now I feel like dancing around – PI DAY!  Please, a note of sympathy for my poor husband, as he has been listening to me rage about Daylight Savings; now he will have to celebrate Pi Day with me.  Hooray for Pi Day!

Here’s a sign of spring: yesterday I was walking the dog and saw, despite the fact that there are snowbanks everywhere and it was only 8 degrees, two men wearing shorts.  There is a special breed of Calgarian who just love to don their shorts the second the snow starts melting, which is bizarre to me but who am I to judge?  I wear shorts exactly never.  Let your freak flag fly, fellows.  Enjoy your shorts.

It’s also time for my semi-annual diatribe against Daylight Savings Time.  How I hate it.  Hate doesn’t even fully describe it; Daylight Savings Time turns me into a red-hot-rage-against-the-machine-bitch.  As you know, I’m not a violent person by nature, I’m all cheery and ahimsa, but I am telling you, people, time change makes me feel, as the beautiful and talented Allison says, all stabby. 
And don’t get me started on the amazing reasons for time change because there ARE no good reasons for time change.  Oh, it’s light late in the evening?  Fuck you.  I wake up at 4:55 a.m. and I like going to bed when it is dark.  No one needs the sun setting at 10:00 p.m.  NO ONE.  And the children, my god, won’t someone please think of the children?  We are all totally screwed up and crabby. 
Oh, but we get the hour back in the fall!  Do we?  Do we now?  Here’s what happens in the fall: the children wake up at their normal time, which is now one hour EARLIER than before, and not only is that excruciating from a psychological standpoint, but it also means that by dinnertime they are falling apart with tiredness, and can barely stay awake until bedtime, and then they are sleep deprived assholes.  In the spring, the children wake up at their normal time, which is now one hour LATER than before, so when it is bedtime they are not tired and also there is bright fucking sunshine, so they fall asleep later and are exhausted when you wake them up for school.  Then, since they are exhausted they are falling apart and crabby by dinnertime and they have turned into sleep deprived assholes.  You see?  No change.  Just a whole lot of crabby children and parents.  And, since it takes several days to fully adapt to a change in time, it is almost a week of crabbiness.  STOP THE MADNESS.
Let me tell you something, people, Saskatchewan has it right.  I know, I know, insert your smartass Rider Pride/ dog ran away/ paint drying/ pass the freaking wheat comments here, but they are leaders in this country with regards to time change.  We could all take a lesson from Saskatchewan.  And the next time someone erroneously tells me that we have Daylight Savings Time because “of the farmers” I will punch them in the face.
Whoa.  Where did all that anger come from?  This is what Daylight Savings does to a person.  Om Shanti.
On a more positive note (like I could get more negative, right?) thank you all for your kind words and comments.  I treasure all your comments and support, so thank you so much.
A happy picture to make up for my colossal bitchiness.  From the Happiest Place on Earth!  Pluto was the one and only character the kids wanted to see.  The rest, they said, were “kind of creepy”.  What can I say, I agree

I Also Hate Camping

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

A Tale of Two Closets

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Well, it’s one closet really.  The other day I was making my bed and I looked up and saw this:
From this view it would appear that my husband has bogarted all the closet space.  All those shirts, neatly hung on the upper tier, meanwhile I have a couple of hoodies squished on the bottom tier alongside several neatly hung pairs of men’s dress pants.  It made me feel a little sorry for myself until I opened the other side of the closet to reveal:

There are three other shelves that look like that.  I think I probably have enough yoga clothes, what do you think?

I probably have enough sweaters, and more notably, enough black tops.  I have an intervention-worthy addiction to black tops.  If one is on sale, I must purchase it.  But it’s 50% off!  I know I have three other v-necked black sweaters, but this one has a pocket! 
I realized I had a problem recently while packing for our trip.  My husband and I were sharing a suitcase, and he had set out the clothes he was planning to take.

It’s slightly different from the pile of clothes I was planning to take.

After I took this photo, I completely panicked and added a third bikini and cover-up, and two more black tops.  My husband, on the other hand, looked at his pile of shirts and took one out, questioning whether he really needed two similar shirts.  I did actually wear all the clothes I took, even though some people have expressed doubt at my need for this volume of clothing, specifically all the similar black clothing.
It was a mere eight days ago that I was wearing one of those bikinis and sleeveless tops.  It feels like longer given that it has been -25, windy, and snowy all week.  We are now at that point where I have completely lost perspective and have forgotten that a season not involving giant boots and coats actually exists.  I have a nagging feeling that we are actually entering the Ice Age, and I keep expecting to look out the window to see a small woolly mammoth taking up residence in my backyard.
The problem with weather like this is that we all become completely boring; every time anyone opens their mouths a comment about the extreme cold comes out, and the worst thing about this is that talking about the weather becomes fascinating in a dull sort of way.  According to my blog, last year at this time I was working in my perennial garden; as I write this the snowflakes are falling from the dull, grey sky and the yard is completely frozen and snow-covered, which makes me feel like curling up in a ball with a blanket, staring at the walls and eating potato chips, which I am NOT GOING TO DO.  Instead, I’m going to focus on the happy.
Last night after several glasses of wine, I thought that if I ever cultivate my blog “brand” and really start marketing my blog “brand” instead of spending all my time writing inane posts about germ phobia, the crappy weather, and my old-lady varicose veins, I have the perfect tagline: “Putting the OM in OMG”.  I thought this was hilarious and also perfectly encapsulated all aspects of my personality and I shared it with my husband, who listened patiently as he usually does when I have a wine-fueled idea.  His response was lukewarm, “I’m not a chick, and I also don’t do yoga, so I’m not sure if it’s funny or not.”  In the cold and sober light of morning, I wonder if he’s right?  What do you think, dear readers?  Funny?  Perfectly “Nicole”?  Or just weird and confusing?   

At that moment I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon.

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A while back, I read Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP newsletter, something I never do unless my attention is directed to it.  This particular newsletter – which I cannot find archived, for some reason – dealt with how to be organized.  I was particularly interested because, not to overly congratulate myself here, I consider myself to be a very organized person.  Hyper organized, one might say.  Insanely organized, even.  I write in my agenda daily, little to-do lists that really transcend what I think normal people probably write on their to-do lists.  For example, I write down “clean bathroom” on the same days that I clean the bathroom, week in and week out.  One might think that, hey, it’s Monday/Wednesday/Friday.  I always clean the bathroom.  I do not need to write that down.  But yes.  I do. 

That’s just day-to-day information.  If something really big is happening – and by “really big” I mean “really big in the life of a stay-at-home-mom”, so take that with a grain of salt – then I compile lists, normally on spreadsheets.  If there are three really big events occurring over a six week period, which is my situation right now, then the lights will be dimmed with my spreadsheet making. 

So when I read this GOOP newsletter I was struck by two things: a) Gwyneth Paltrow’s writing is somewhat difficult to read, but it seems that she is attempting to show the world that she is just a regular mom, which I contest given that regular moms do not normally shimmy on a grand piano at the Grammys with Cee Lo Green and a tribe of dancing Muppets, although I totally would if I had the chance, and b) she has a friend who she admires for her organization as she makes spreadsheets when she is packing to go somewhere. 

I read that and thought, really?  Doesn’t everyone just make spreadsheets while packing?  But no, it appears that they do not.  Also, not everyone makes a weekly dinner plan to avoid staring at the fridge and sobbing at five o’clock.  Neither do they carefully schedule grocery trips and other boring domestic activities into their daytimers.  It appears that I am just an anal weirdo.

Remember the scene in When Harry Met Sally (greatest movie ever) when Sally finds out that her old boyfriend, Joe, is getting married?

Sally: I’m difficult.

Harry: Challenging.

Sally: I’m too structured, I’m completely closed off.

Harry: But in a good way.

That’s me.  I am Sally.

The problem with being hyper-organized is that something has to give, and that something is sponteneity.  I have a very hard time just going with the flow, especially if I’m busy.  This week has been extraordinarily busy, for me, as I have been running our Scholastic book fair; in other words, this is the week I stand in awe of working parents everywhere.  How do you all do it?  Clearly I am just accustomed to a slack, slow-paced life as I am frantically trying to keep up with my regular life in addition to dealing with excited little people and their ravenous acquisitions of floppy covered books and fancy erasers.  I am TIRED, people.  And I think I need a glass of wine, Thursday be damned.

I need to learn how to go with the flow, I need to learn to be more spontaneous (perhaps I should write that on my to-do list: “LEARN SPONTANEITY”.)  I need to learn to take a deep breath and not get frustrated when (let’s say, for example) Jake leaves his mittens on the steps at lunch and then slips and falls down said steps thirty seconds before we have to leave the house, in order for me to be on time to open up the book fair.  Let’s say.  Or to be more empathetic when I hustle the children back to their normal routine after a ten-day vacation, and remember that if I am frantically rushing around it affects them, and to not completely snap when I ask Mark to please pick up his Legos and he responds with an “Awww!  What?  I never get to do ANYTHING!”  I also need to not be completely thrown off when I reach into the dog’s crate to retrieve his food bowl and subsequently thrust my hand into a pile of his own regurgitated food that he was trying to re-consume.

Well, maybe I can accept being thrown off by that.  What can I say, it’s been a bit of a crazy week.

I never slept through Money Never Sleeps

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The boys had a day off of school today, and it went the way such days often go: with happiness distributed like a double bell curve, peaking in the mid-morning while pajamas are still on, bottoming out in the early afternoon, and then peaking again, after some activities instigated by myself, only to start the slippery slope back down again.  Mark has a love-hate relationship with days off: on the one hand, he enjoys the freedom to just play unrushed, but on the other hand he really misses the structure of school.  And I run a pretty structured house, it’s not all hippy-dippy around here; meals are eaten at the same time, bedtime and rising times are kept the same, clothes are still expected to be worn, as opposed to pajamas.  Mark started to spiral downwards right after lunch, becoming irritable and high-needs until I suggested he make Valentines for his class.  Glitter and sticker backings soon overtook the table and happiness reigned once more.
On Saturday night I watched Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which is remarkable for the sole reason that I watched it in its entirety and did not fall asleep.  I very rarely see the end – or middle – of movies because I generally fall asleep or, alternately, get bored and start reading, which means I have a very fuzzy view of most films released in the past ten years.  For example, the other night my husband was watching the movie Blow, which we had seen together a few years ago.  I watched a bit with him, unable to remember how it ended, only to discover that it has a very sad ending.  I watched the final scene with tears running down my face, while my husband reminded me that the man in question was a hardened, criminal drug lord, even if it was sad his daughter never visited him in prison.  It is surreal watching movies that you know, intellectually, that you have seen before but can only remember small snippets of.  The last movie I saw in a theatre was Pirates of the Caribbean Part Two, and I slept through nearly the whole thing, waking occasionally to see that weird guy with a squid head and a scene where Captain Jack was being chased around an island.  Although I may have dreamed that part.  Was Johnny Depp naked?  And feeding me grapes?  No?  Then I guess I dreamed it.
But Money Never Sleeps was an excellent movie; I would highly recommend it, especially if you are interested in financial markets.  If you aren’t, then I wouldn’t recommend it at all.  It was a very interesting and entertaining view of the 2008 market correction, and I found myself strangely attracted to Michael Douglas, which is nothing short of disturbing given that he is a senior citizen.  Evidently I’ve turned into my mother, who has always thought that Sam Elliott is the bee’s knees, and my response would be “Oh GOD, Mother, he is so OLD, how can you LIKE HIM?”  Well now.
My husband also loved Money Never Sleeps, which is not surprising given that the original Wall Street was a “motivating” movie for him.  Yes, my husband found Wall Street, greed is good, to be “motivating”.  I am not sure how I feel about that, but I guess it’s better than Rocky, or something of that genre.  Although a guy I once dated used to watch Rudy as a motivational movie.  He used to get so choked up in the part where the teammates bring their jerseys in “It’s for Rudy, Coach.”  I remember laughingly telling that story to a male co-worker, then noticed that HE was getting teary eyed as I talked about Rudy finally getting to play.  All of which is to say I just don’t understand.

This is the end, Christmassy friend.

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It’s all over, people.  I know some people leave their tree and decorations up until the New Year, some people leave them up until Epiphany, but my festive spirit and accompanying décor had been up for over a month and it was high time to reclaim the living room.
Yesterday I looked around me and saw a million Lego pieces scattered on the floor, along with Playmobil animals and Egyptian artifacts, puzzle pieces, and board games.  The Zen thought about not being able to control others, only yourself floated through my mind.  I wanted to dismantle all holiday decorations but my husband was ill, god help me, I didn’t think I could take down the seven foot tree on my own.  I drummed my fingers on the table for a while, looking around at the chaos, and then started hauling all the boxes up from the storage room.  Remember the one time I fixed the gutters?  I am invincible, I am woman, I could take down the tree. 
There were some minor protests from the kids when I started taking down all the decorations, to no avail.  Mark, realizing he and Jake were powerless to stop me, started to help.  Soon I had everything down but the tree, and I was ready to take it on, but at the eleventh hour my husband rallied and did it for me.  Possibly he was alarmed by my fervor, although he should be used to it by now, seeing as we have spent twelve Christmases together.  The living room, like the Grinch’s heart, seems to have grown three sizes in the absence of the holiday décor.
I feel decluttered.  Unfortunately there is one area in the house that is not decluttered, and that is the kitchen.  There are no fewer than fourteen boxes of chocolates of various varieties in there.  Some, like the giant box of peppermint Lindor, are exclusively mine.  I am now faced with a decision.  Should I freeze some, should I aim to eat a reasonable daily amount over the next few weeks, or should I consume them all, immediately, in order to destroy them so they will not tempt me with their minty goodness?  The former two seem to be the wiser, if less exalted, solutions. 
How was your Christmas?  I was the happy recipient of many lovely gifts, including several books from my in-laws that I had requested.  I wrote up a list so long ago I actually forgot what I had on it, so opening them was like being a pleasantly surprised and cheerful amnesiac.  The one I started reading first was a biography of Louisa May Alcott.  Let me tell you, if you want to feel good about the miracles of modern medicine, read about the life of a nineteenth-century woman.  Talk about women’s issues: practically every woman in the book so far has suffered through numerous pregnancies, miscarriages, stillbirths, deaths of their children, and – unsurprisingly – many of them subsequently die in childbirth.  Not exactly cheerful but it does make one thankful for what we have.  Which is what the holidays should be about, really.  Thankfulness and joy.
And I have a lot to be thankful for.  I also have a lot of mint chocolate, some of which is going to be consumed imminently.  Tell me about your Christmas – was it lovely?  I hope so.