Category Archives: Pop Cult-ure

It Had To Be You

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This morning I was stopped at a red light, on my way home from yoga, and I saw, walking along the street, a young man dressed exactly like Turtle from Entourage. I did a double-take; these days it’s unusual to see such a style, not unlike spotting the Loch Ness Monster or similar mythical creature. I watched him stride along the street in his maroon-coloured ball cap and matching tracksuit, and thought, not without admiration, there goes someone who is comfortable in his look.

Speaking of somewhat questionable fashion decisions, my kids were ecstatic yesterday at the idea of Justin Bieber being in jail, and when I explained to them WHY he was in jail, they decided that impaired drivers/ street racers should be imprisoned for life, or possibly executed. Their view of the penal system, when I explained the actual probable outcome for the Biebs, was dim indeed. They proceeded to call him, in a derogatory way, “Justin BEAVER” as though they were the sole originators of a terribly amusing witticism.

I later heard on the “news” that Vanilla Ice is offering advice and support to poor Biebs/ BEAVS, and while discussing this important matter, my friend and I were curious as to how Vanilla Ice obtained so much celebrity. As far as I know, he really only had Ice, Ice Baby. How did he become such a star? I heard One Night in Bangkok on the radio today and while it was – and still is – an amazing song, I would put it in a similar category to Ice, Ice Baby and I do not even know the artist of said song. I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine.

I do know that Vanilla Ice has some kind of television show and he was on some other kind of reality show, but to be honest, I don’t care that much. Does it seem to anyone else like there are no good television shows anymore? I’m not talking about fantastic Netflix-y shows like Breaking Bad or Mad Men or Downton Abbey – and yes, I know something terrible has happened with Anna but don’t tell me! I’m only on the second season! I mean that there are no sitcoms I find watchable anymore. Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety, but all my old favourites I find repulsive lately: Modern Family, for example, and Parks and Recreation. They used to be so funny! Now I just find them grating. Even Suburgatory, which I had ONLY just gotten into, seems lame and sad. There’s The Mindy Project, which is funny, but is now on hiatus.

Oh well, maybe I’ll start watching American Idol. I have not watched that show since the Chris Daughtry Debacle of 2006. To be honest, I cannot deal with all the drama and the terrible, terrible singers who nevertheless are suffering from Extraordinarily High Self Esteem Syndrome. But I was tipped off by a girlfriend that there IS a reason to tune in:

HarryConnick

photo from harryconnickjr.com

 

What was that? I think I blacked out for a minute. My husband was flipping channels and there he was, on the screen and I gasped out loud. I had a thing for him way back in the early nineties when I was busy with my giant hair and high waisted jeans, and I can just say now that he is improving with age. My husband and I watched for a few minutes. Dear man, he is very confident and comfortable in his masculinity, because he immediately began an argument/ discussion with me regarding the relative attractiveness of men on reality musical shows.

 

Mr: That Keith Urban would be really good looking if he had a better haircut.

Me: Who?

Mr: Keith Urban, the other guy there.

Me: No.

Mr: What are you talking about?

Me: What are YOU talking about? He’s not good looking at all! He’s not even a little bit good looking.

Mr: This is going to be another one of those things where YOU say he’s not good looking and then you’re going to find out that every other woman in the world thinks he’s good looking. This is JUST like that Adam Levine thing. He’s probably one of those Sexiest Men Alive.

 

Note: Husband was right. He was one of the Sexiest Men Alive. This is an insult to George Clooney.  

Late to the party.

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I have been relentlessly cheery today, so much so that I’m even annoying myself. Maybe it’s all the green smoothies I’ve been drinking; today I made one with frozen strawberries and, while it was very tasty, it looked like sludge.

But it has a great personality!

But it has a great personality!

I think my cheerfulness is actually directly related to the unseasonably warm temperatures we have been experiencing. It’s a spring-like feeling, the sun shining and the snow melting into messy piles of brown slush that very closely approximate the “great personality but non-photogenic” smoothie I had for lunch, which is a little disturbing to think about. Spring in January! Obviously I am not taken in by this; I recognize we have a solid four months before spring is actually here, but that does not mean I am not enjoying being able to move my fingers while walking the dog.

So I’m feeling cheerful and have spent the morning happily doing things around the house, singing random cheerful songs like “Burning Love” and “Sweet City Woman” and even, strangely enough, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree”. I’m not singing these songs now, however, because the boys are home and they have a friend over. I have to keep checking to ensure that there is just one extra kid, because by the sounds of it there are about 40. What are they doing that necessitates so much enthusiastic yelling? I DO NOT KNOW. Well, it’s Friday, and in approximately ninety minutes I’m going to pour myself a big glass of wine and watch Downton Abbey. My husband and I, for the past several months, have been working our way through all six seasons of The Sopranos, which we own on DVD. Why we have all six seasons on DVD I cannot explain, but we have been doggedly watching them like it’s our duty to humanity. We swore we wouldn’t start a new series until we finished, and finally, finally last weekend we finished. I know I’m about seven years late to this party, but that was certainly an anticlimactic ending. I was expecting some sort of apocalyptic-all-ends-tied-up Breaking Bad-esque ending, but no.

In any case, I am now free, free as a bird – AND THIS BIRD YOU CANNOT CHANGE – and so I started watching Downton Abbey on Netflix. Here’s the problem: as a rule, I do not watch television during the day, unless you count the morning “news” I watch while eating breakfast. Lately I haven’t even been watching that because the local newscast has almost exclusively focused on a) FLU OUTBREAK PANIC PANIC PANIC EVERYONE GET YOUR FLU SHOTS OMG OMG WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE, followed by b) we are all out of flu shots and we don’t know why. I can conjecture why. In any case I’m sure there were other things happening in the world, however, by the time the local news decided that “other events” were worthy of coverage, I would have already turned the television off in exasperation at hearing the same flu clinics are mobbed we’re all going to die and now we’re out of vaccines, sorry, we can’t imagine why there was such sudden demand. It’s been so bad that I find myself watching the Business News Network with my husband and having earnest conversations on whether or not to hedge our currency exposure.

Sorry, I nodded off for a second there.

Anyway, back to Downton Abbey. I find myself hopelessly addicted to this show, but the problem is my husband seems to be completely uninterested for some reason. Apparently if the show doesn’t contain strip clubs, chopping off people’s heads and hands before sending them to a watery grave, murderous rampages, or a former junkie chained to an underground meth lab who is forced to produce crystal for a dead-eyed sociopath who is in love with a logistics coordinator for a manufacturing conglomerate who is illegally shipping said meth around the world, then my husband is just not interested. Even when I explained it was a British period drama about social hierarchies, he remained unmoved. And so I’m trying to watch the episodes before he comes home from work in the evenings, but that is proving to be difficult, what with preparing dinner, and cleaning up from dinner, and supervising homework. Apparently trying to voraciously wolf down episodes on the sly is not in keeping with being an involved parent.

Why not, you may say, just watch the episodes while he was home? Screw it, as it were. Well, the issue here is that my husband actually likes to TALK to me, apparently. He finds me scintillating for some reason. And trying to carry a conversation – even one about currency exposure and should we be looking at Asia? – while constantly pausing and rewinding Downton Abbey just isn’t working for me. So I think I’ll knock off a bit early today, and spend the rest of this lovely Friday afternoon conjecturing if Bates and Anna are going to get it on, servant style. What? I’m only on the first season, DON’T TELL ME.

Bringing Sexy (or Blogs) Back, Festivus Style

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So far, Christmas vacation has been epic. EPIC. On Friday, after coming home from yoga in minus-JC-it’s-cold temperatures, I declared a lazy day and decided that we would not be leaving the house. Instead, I cracked the big bottle of Bailey’s and glugged it into my coffee. Thus armed, I watched The Price is Right with the boys, and it was Firefighter Day. I repeat, Firefighter Day. Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any better than that, I remembered I had two avocados in the kitchen and then made myself a double batch of guacamole for lunch. The boys had pancakes, and – other than my Santa tummy from three coffee and Bailey’s and two avocados’ worth of guacamole – it was pretty much the best day ever. Today I plan on making a giant bowl of popcorn and watching Elf with the boys. “Things busy for you?” Dr. Hipster asked this morning. “No,” I replied, “I’m embracing sloth.”

Today is Festivus, for all you Seinfeld fans, and so in addition to being slothful I am also going to air my grievances. It’s been said, lately, that blogging – story telling, personal blogging – is dead. Dead! While I recognize the surge in popularity of review and giveaway blogs, I am not writing this from beyond the grave. Let’s take back the blog, people.

While writing last week’s book post, my friend Allison and I were talking about how fun it was to do memes, old school memes, and it is my personal resolution to bring back the meme. Bringing sexy back, in meme form. Since it’s two days until Christmas and I’m a sloth, I bring you…

Meme Monday: Festivus Television Version

1) What is your favourite Christmas television special and why?

The original How The Grinch Stole Christmas. No contest. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. Exactly.

2) What is your least favourite Christmas special and why?

Ugh, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer has always held least-loved spot in my festive television viewing world. Poor Rudolph – the story is terrible, and the creepy clay-mation…I’ve never made it through an entire viewing. I’d rather watch the news when they report on December 21 that “Malls Expected To Be Busy Today” followed up by “Airport Also Expected To Be Busy.”

3) What is the Christmas movie you cannot live without?

Elf and Christmas Vacation, of course. These are viewed annually, along with Little Women and When Harry Met Sally. As a side note, I’ve reached the point in my marriage where my husband will no longer watch these movies with me. The boys will watch Elf, but other than that I’m on my own. Apparently my husband has “bought the cow” and he no longer needs to romance me by watching me recite all the dialogue to When Harry Met Sally. If anyone needs me I’ll be on the couch with my DVD’s and some guacamole.

4) Name a Christmas special from your childhood that is so obscure you’re not even sure it exists.

Does anyone else remember The Little One, or is it something I have made up in my jasmine of my mind? It was a show about a donkey who was no longer good at…doing donkey things? I don’t know. He was heading for the slaughter house, I guess, but SOMEONE bought him because he was perfect for a job. That job was carrying Mary to Bethlehem. I feel FAIRLY certain I watched this at Sunday School. Has anyone else even heard of this or did I just make it up?

5) Name a “very special” Christmas episode of your favourite childhood television series.

This is hard, because I remember so few things from my childhood – except for those I may have made up, i.e., the donkey movie. Also I didn’t watch much television as a child other than The Muppet Show and Lorne Greene’s New Wilderness. However, I do remember watching Silver Spoons – remember that show? – and there was a Christmas special about a family living in a CAVE because they had no money. Did this show really happen or did I dream it? I DON’T KNOW EITHER.

So it’s your turn! Christmas memories, TV style. Bring back the blog, people, and sexy too, while you’re at it. Or just Festivus-ly air your grievances.

Merry Christmas to all of you, dear readers. xoxoxo

In my day, the Sexiest Man Alive only had one tattoo, a forearm anchor.

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Every year, I – and several of my friends, what’s up Hannah, Nan, and Beck? – tackle the important work of disseminating the annual People’s Sexiest Man Alive list. Side note: Sexiest Man Alive? Does that wording suddenly seem strange to anyone else or is it just me? Remember when Matt Damon won the honour and he passed it on to Tom Brady? Now, that’s cool AND sexy.

In any case, I’ve written a number of posts about this in the past – here and here and here and here if you’re interested. But this year, I’m feeling rather befuddled about the Sexiest Man Alive list.

Do you know how it is when you realize that a certain era has passed? When you realize you’re not a “young mother” anymore, maybe, so you probably don’t need this giant diaper bag instead of a purse. Or maybe one day you realize that no, you really cannot shop at Forever 21. It’s that moment when you realize that you might think you’re hip and all that, but really, you kind of look like the crypt keeper who stole your teenage niece’s clothes. You suddenly realize that at 8:00 pm on any given Friday night twenty years ago, you were uncomfortably snapping your bodysuit underneath your high waisted jeans and spritzing yourself with Calvin Klein’s Obsession on your way to the club where you hoped they would play “I Like To Move It (Move It)” whereas now at 8:00 pm on any given Friday you’re wearing Snoopy pajamas, a mud masque, and drinking wine on your couch while watching reruns of The Sopranos?

What I’m saying, here, is that I have now realized I am not the target audience for People’s Sexiest Man Alive list. I know, I know, this should not be a shocking realization, but it IS. The majority of the list is, to me, full of young men I would refer to as “boys”. As in, “those are nice-looking boys”. As in, I’ve turned into my own grandmother. Example number one:

http://www.people.com/people/package/gallery/0,,20315920_20757637,00.html#30054062
from people.com

Hey, I like his music as much as the next teenage girl, but he’s so young! And short! And young! And he’s wearing red pants and a palm tree shirt and I just can’t get behind that. I AM TOO DAMN OLD.

How about this guy?

http://www.people.com/people/package/gallery/0,,20315920_20757637,00.html#30055030
from people.com

 

He is approximately the same age as the kid across the street to whom I accidentally flashed my underwear once, two years ago and who now watches me when I do yardwork. It’s uncomfortable for everyone involved. Especially for me. But this Rowan Farrow fellow was apparently fathered by Frank Sinatra back in the late eighties, I guess, which means old Frank was more virile than his fictional Johnny Fontane persona would have one believe. That’s an interesting fact, but it does not change the fact that he was born when I was in junior high school.

Sure, I think Jimmy Fallon is funny, but he reminds me more of the type of guy you’d be buddies with and then find out later that he really had a thing for you and that wrecked the whole friendship, dammit, Harry Burns was right, men and women really can’t be friends. Justin Timberlake is someone who I admire very much as he seems to be really happy, someone who is self-effacing and funny, and I do enjoy his music. Plus he’s a vegetarian! A vegetarian AND singer of Dick in a Box? Well, that’s a winning combo in my books. But he’s still too damn young; I would classify him in the “nice looking young man” category.

Adam Levine, though. Adam Levine. My husband watches that show The Voice and every single time it comes on we have this conversation:

Me: I just don’t get what the deal is with that Adam Levine guy.

Mr: What?

Me: He’s just not that attractive.

Mr: Yes, he is. You’re the only woman in the world who would say that.

Me: I think he’s creepy.

Mr: If you polled a million women right this minute, all of them would say that he’s attractive.

Me: I wouldn’t.

Mr: Well, you’re the only one.

EVERY SINGLE TIME THAT SHOW IS ON WE HAVE THIS CONVERSATION, AND IT APPEARS MY HUSBAND IS RIGHT. It also appears that he is a man very comfortable in his masculinity, and that’s pretty sexy. Ergo, my husband should be People’s Sexiest Man Alive, he really should be. What can I say, I have a thing for guys in suits who patiently watch The Sopranos with their mud-masque wearing, Snoopy pajama sporting, red wine drinking wives. But not tonight! Tonight I’m dressing up and going on the town – more about that in the next exciting installment of my adventures in the Boyhouse!

Super Freekeh

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Today I was in the grocery store, and I noticed something in the grain/ cracker/ cookie/ ethnic food/ chocolate bar/ ice cream topping aisle. Does that seem like a strange combination of goods for one aisle in the grocery store? It does to me too. In any case, my friend and I were looking for quinoa, which is apparently an incredibly elusive ingredient for my old-people Co-Op, and I came across something called Freekeh. It’s super-freek-EH! I have had a loop of that song, plus Le Freak (or, Le FREEK) going through my head for the past couple of hours. I feel immense regret that I didn’t buy it, because although I do not know exactly how one prepares Freekeh, I feel I could have figured it out. What’s for dinner, Mom? Oh, we’re going to get a little FREEK-EH. The jokes could go on forever. Hilarity at the dinner table. Or, hilarity on my part. It’s probable that my children would be less than enthusiastic about my adventuresome culinary ideas.

It turns out that Freekeh is actually just a kind of toasted wheat, which is fairly anti-climatic.

Other semi-freekeh things:

1) Tonight is the first School Council/ Parent Association meeting of the year, and I have just taken my traditional offering of brownies out of the oven. CARAMEL brownies. I have never made such a thing before and possibly won’t ever again, but I have over a litre of caramel sauce in my fridge due to a small kitchen disaster yesterday, and I’m trying to find ways to use it up. This is a teaser for the full post which will be coming up next week over at the Yummy Mummy Club. Let’s just say that I now have more caramel than anyone really needs in their life, and that I keep finding small splotches of stickiness on the countertop, taps, cupboard handles, etc. I don’t even LIKE caramel.On another note, I have a cookbook giveaway going on – if you like baking, this is the book for you!

2) A few weeks ago, I put our decorative scarecrow family into the front garden, which is my traditional way of festively greeting autumn. Every single morning I pull open the living room drapes to let the sun shine in, and every single morning I gasp and have a little heart palpitation because someone is at the window.

If history is any indication, I will probably become used to my little ragged friend in the window once it’s time to take him down and put up the Christmas lights.

3) This is Rosie. She’s “my” scarecrow. The others are named Dummy Jimmy Too Tall, Idiot, and TV. I only named Rosie.

4) I bought a red sweater. I know. I bought it in a moment of passion and now it’s sitting in my drawer like a judgement.

5) After some discussion with my husband, I realized that I am not the romantic one in our relationship. This seems strange to me. And here I thought that not plucking one’s chin or upper lip in the presence of one’s husband was the ultimate in romanticism, but apparently that’s not enough. Well, he knew who I was when he married me, and that is someone who would much rather roll over and fall asleep immediately than engage in pillow talk for hours. Wham, bam, thank you sir.

6) Related: I think “boner” is the funniest word in the English language. If it was socially acceptable I would work it into every single conversation. Alas.

7) A yoga friend said to me the other morning that he wasn’t sure what I was doing on Sunday nights now that Breaking Bad is over. Nothing, Glenn. I am doing nothing. Mad Men doesn’t start up for months; I basically hate television now. Anyone want to recommend a show for me to become obsessed with? I hear House of Cards is good.

This episode brought to you by The Simpsons

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Did you check the traplines? is a question that my husband and I have been asking each other since Saturday, like we’re old-timey settlers trading furs at the Hudson’s Bay Company for blankets and tobacco. Happily for us, the answer has been they are empty which is good for both my mental state and for the general atmosphere of the household. My friend Julie reminded me of the scene in Little Town on the Prairie, before the Ingalls get a cat, when Pa’s hair gets nibbled off by nesting mice. I did not need for her to remind me of that, because I had already thought of that, which made me feel like this, substituting the word “boogeyman” for the word “mouse”.

But, we are happily mouse free, I say confidently and hopefully, and not at all in a traumatized way. I spotted a dead mouse in our backyard, and envisioned Barkley eating the dead mouse, and me having to deal with the aftermath of such a situation, and I went inside to talk to the boys. Boys, your mother is having a nervous breakdown. Mark, after assessing the situation, asked for me to fetch him the large shovel out of the shed, and then neatly picked the mousey corpse up and threw it out into the alley where a “car would flatten it”. I wasn’t entirely pleased with this conclusion, but I was pleased enough to not have to deal with it one way or another that I baked some chocolate chip cookies for him and Jake to take to school for snack for the remainder of the week. 

Tomorrow I’m heading to Toronto for the Blissdom Canada conference, and boy, am I excited. I’m especially excited because I’ve gotten all of my to-do items done, and also we have the vermin situation under control. These are equally exciting to me. I’ve been working hard to cross all of those things off the list, and at some point I was behaving exactly like this. I was a bit worried since a) this is the longest I will have ever been away from the children, yes I KNOW they are eight and nine years old, and b) I’ve never been away from the children during the school year. We all know things are much simpler in the summer, when there are no scholastic nor activity schedules to navigate. IT’S GOING TO BE FINE, I say to myself. What’s the worst that could happen? And then I come up with some strange worst-case scenario that makes me think I should just go ahead and open a bottle of wine.

The kids have had colds, and then my husband – who was possibly a wee bit run down due to work pressures and also sobbing hysterical wife pressures – came down with the cold, but in massive form, so that he basically looked like this, minus the sandwich. I have been so worried about getting sick before my very first blogging conference, and meeting all these people, that I have been sleeping over NINE HOURS A NIGHT and consuming possibly toxic levels of Vitamin C. Also oil of oregano, so much so that it’s not even gross to me anymore. Happily and knock on wood, I seem to have escaped the worst of it, only dealing with a tickly throat and fatigue.

But! I’m all packed (including a baggie full of Vitamin C packets, along with Advil Cold and Sinus JUST IN CASE) and for once I feel that I’ve packed just the right amount of clothing. Shoes, however. I have four pairs of shoes packed, not including the boots that I will be wearing on the plane, nor the fabulous hippo slipper-socks bought for the occasion. What is wrong with me? How can I possibly feel that FIVE PAIR OF FOOTWEAR is appropriate for a Thursday to Sunday trip? Well, there is no going back now! Tomorrow morning I’m going to be taking my well-heeled (literally, shoes, see what I did there?) self on the plane. And I’m going to read a book the whole way! And not think about what I’m making for dinner! Well, I MIGHT think about what I’m making for Sunday dinner….

Sing a song

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I don’t know if it’s because of the full moon tomorrow or what, but I’ve been having one of those super productive days in which I actually amaze myself. I had a pan of vegan peppermint brownies (minties, maybe) in the oven before 8:00 am, and a separate pan of vegan non-peppermint brownies baked a few hours later. Why all the brownies, you may ask? It’s parent-teacher interviews tomorrow night, and I am bringing (apparently a lot of) brownies and pasta salad to the teacher potluck. I may have to sample them, though, just to ensure quality control. The house smells amazing; brownies are a nice project on a rainy and cold fall day.

I also went to the grocery store, and much to my delight I made it in and out prior to the arrival of the seniors’ bus. If you do not think that is something of note, then you have never had the back of your legs nudged vigorously by an old lady behind you in the lineup who is sure that she is going to miss the bus back to the lodge, despite the fact that said bus doesn’t leave for another forty-five minutes. You have never had to navigate around carts left randomly in an aisle, three wide, while a gaggle of elderly women talk about the virtues of store brand bran flakes versus All-Bran. You have never had to turn your cart around in the produce section because the lineup at the pharmacy is blocking the aisle where they keep the mixed greens. And none of these things happened to me today because I made it there before the bus even pulled up. It’s a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

While in the baking aisle, I noticed this:

Now, I know that sometimes we all need something quick and easy, but this seems really kind of icky to me. Cans of plain frosting, add your own flavour with the little artificial flavouring packets. People, it’s VERY EASY to flavour your own frosting; you do not need to do this. I IMPLORE YOU. Frosting is one of the easiest things to make in the history of the kitchen arts. The hardest thing about making frosting is ensuring that you remove the beaters from the mixer before licking them, lest you accidentally turn the mixer on and have something terrible happen to your tongue. I just wrote about how to make different kinds of frostings over at Yummy Mummy Club – check it out if you want a quick and easy cupcake recipe.

Jake with his birthday cupcake.


Last night my husband was watching Shark Tank (I KNOW) and there were two ladies on there who had started their own company, called Wicked Good Cupcakes, shipping cupcakes nationwide in little mason jars. It seemed to be the most adorable thing ever, and I briefly considered trying this – cupcakes in mason jars, not shipping nationwide – but then I became puzzled on how one would actually get the cupcakes in the jars without them getting squished or crumbling to pieces. It is one of those Pinterest-y ideas that seems So! Awesome! but ends up with someone crying and/or having a major self-esteem crisis.

Speaking of wicked good things, did you read that Mark Wahlberg has just recently graduated high school, after originally dropping out in ninth grade? Hooray, Marky Mark (and hubba hubba). It’s nice to see celebrities doing good things, instead of making moronic political/ societal/ vaccination-based comments that make me despair for the state of the world. Mark Wahlberg instead wrote that he wanted to be a good example for his kids. What a guy!

 


I KNOW.

Completely unrelated, I have had Elton John’s Levon stuck in my head all day. At this point I am pretty much begging any other song to take over, since I’ve caught myself singing out loud several times. He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas Day when the New York Times said God is dead and the war’s begun….HE SHALL BE LEEEEEEEEEVON. I desperately need something, anything else to take up this space in my head. I will take any earworm suggestions at all. ANYTHING. He shall be Levon, he shall be a good man…MAKE IT STOP PLEASE.