Category Archives: Pop Cult-ure

Pretty Girls

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I turned the furnace on today; it’s been chilly and pouring rain -it even snowed in the mountains – and seems fitting, somehow, for the end of summer vacation.  Frankly, it’s a bit depressing.  But not as depressing as this:

This t-shirt was for sale at JC Penney – was, but not anymore.  Someone at JC Penney, after a public uproar, decided that girls sized 7-16 should probably not be advertising that they are too pretty for homework; something about their core values.  Regardless, the shirt was for sale, and someone, somewhere in the JC Penney corporation must have felt that it was at some point appropriate, just as someone at Old Navy decided that this shirt was appropriate for boys:

Similar idea, but without the public outcry, and also without the focus on physical appearance.  There’s the rub.  Celebration of idiocy and underachievement is socially acceptable, it seems, until we bring the cult of the pretty into the picture.

We like to at least give lip service to the idea that appearances don’t matter.  It’s what’s inside that counts – that is what I tell my children all the time, and of course it’s true – but also true is that appearances DO matter.  When I was in university studying economics, I read an academic article about how beautiful people earn more money, are promoted more often and more easily, and in general are afforded more advantages.  I was appalled, of course, I was outraged and angry, but I also knew that the restaurant in which I waitressed part-time would not hire anyone for their front-house staff who did not have a certain look.  Any applicants falling short of that would be considered for a job in the kitchen.

The ugly side to this is that pretty and smart are frequently considered to be mutually exclusive, as in the JC Penney shirt, or this one from Amazon:

If a grown, female mathematician was wearing this, I would consider it amusing in an ironic way, the same way I considered that guy wearing a Vagitarian t-shirt to be amusing in an ironic way.  But the thought of children wearing a shirt like this, children who see things in black and white and who may equate smart with ugly and therefore may be less inclined to strive for high academic achievements, the thought of that makes me ill.
There’s nothing wrong with being pretty, or striving to be pretty, but passing along the idea that pretty girls do not have to be responsible for homework, or math, or anything else requiring thought or effort, is pathetic.
The day I defended my master’s thesis, I had a celebratory lunch with several of my fellow grad students.  I had a 4.0 GPA, I studied all the time.  I prided myself on my work ethic.  As we sat in the lounge, I mentioned how exhausted I was.  A male student smirked at me and said “Why?  Did you sleep with the defence committee?  Is that how you get A’s?” 
It is possible to be pretty and do math.


Odds and Ends and a Royal Zoo Trip

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It has been a busy few days in the Boy House.  Last Thursday I found myself at the hair therapist’s without a book, and so I picked up People magazine to learn all about Bachelor Brad’s breakup with Emily.  Here’s the reason they broke up: Emily became jealous after watching the actual broadcast of The Bachelor – week after week she realized that Brad was romancing all the other women who were “vying for his love” and she didn’t feel special anymore – and the strain from watching her fiance get it on with other women wasn’t something Brad could “physically comfort her” about since they were not allowed to see each other in the months following the show’s taping.  Here’s a plan, people: if you want to actually have a healthy relationship, don’t go on a reality dating show.  I don’t know.  It’s just an idea.  I mean, if you want to be on the cover of People magazine talking about your failed relationship, well then, be my guest. 
The girl who shampooed my hair said, with regards to this Bachelor information, “I guess the show brought them together AND tore them apart!”  Very astute.
Speaking of breakups, I had a very awkward moment when I greeted a woman I hadn’t seen for a while by asking about her puppy.  Last I saw her she had a beautiful Lab puppy.  Wouldn’t you know, she and her boyfriend had broken up and now he has custody of the puppy.  I think next time I’m going to just stick with “Hi.”

Friday a friend and I decided to take our kids to the zoo.  The timing was not accidental – we had heard that Will and Kate were going to be visiting the zoo that day.  A chance to see the Duke and Duchess while also seeing wolves and Foggy the hippo?  Irresistible.  I have had an annual zoo pass since Mark was a baby, but I didn’t immediately renew it this year because the zoo has increased their prices considerably.  In the past four years, the price of childrens’ passes have more than doubled, and adult passes have almost doubled.  Plus, the zoo had eliminated free parking without purchase of an expensive pass.  One of the things I really hate about this city – besides the atrocious weather – is the cost of parking.  But I did eventually suck it up and purchase passes and – what do you know – we had a great day and it was well worth cost of admission.  Jake got to see Foggy and received his telepathic communication (“He said Hi Jake, I love you!” Jake informed me after staring at the hippo for some time).  Mark got to see his favourite Canadian wild animals although not, alas, a beaver.  We saw some active grizzly bears:

and some mascot grizzly bears, oddly enough.

Then we saw the royal motorcade!  Oh happy day!

And despite what it looks like, we were not creeping out in the bushes.  We were standing at the gorilla viewing area!
My husband asked why I find the royal couple so appealing, and I will tell you: they seem so HAPPY.  I really like seeing happy people, as opposed to those people who have little black clouds over their heads at all times.  Plus, I am coveting every single one of Kate’s outfits including her fabulous shoes.  Where would I wear them is another question.  The playground?  School drop-off?  THE ZOO?  Perhaps not.
This weekend I was at a yoga workshop which was both inspiring and exhausting, and so last night I found myself curled up on the couch, drinking wine and watching Sex and the City reruns.  Speaking of which, I have a recipe for cosmopolitans up at the cooking website.  Yes, the recipe of the week is a drink, but what can I say, it’s Stampede time in Calgary which is code for “a whole lot of drinking and debauchery”.  Festive AND appropriate! 

It just doesn’t add up.

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I seem to have caught the boys’ cold, it is no one’s favourite time of the month, and the sky is dark grey and it’s chilly and rainy.  It’s like a trifecta of mildly depressing things.  Also mildly depressing is that I am repeating behaviours that I repeat every single June: I listen to the weather report which states that it will be chilly and rainy and also that the average temperature for this time of year is twenty degrees Celcius.  This throws me into a Hulk-like rage because that cannot be true.  The math does not work.  If the temperature is almost always in the low teens, then in order for the average to be twenty degrees, then there must be several days in which the temperature is much greater than twenty degrees.  This is how averages work.  This is how math works.  I want to see the data that goes into the calculation of this so-called average temperature and then I want to make my own calculations.  SHOW YOUR WORK, weather stations.

I have, on occasion, gone so far as to search for historical weather data, but then I have to take a deep breath and tell myself to dial down the crazy a little.  I mean, what am I trying to accomplish here?  If I did find out that the average temperature was fourteen, and not twenty degrees, would I phone all the local stations and scream “IN YOUR FACE” and then show them my calculations?  Would I burst onto the set where the meteorologist would be saying that we are living in the currently coldest major city in Canada, with the exception of Iqaluit, which isn’t exactly a cheering thought, and push said meteorologist out of the way shrieking that it is all a lie, we will never obtain an average temperature of twenty degrees?  And would the discovery of this information actually change anything, whereas I would suddenly be living in a warm and sunny city?

No, it would not.

Speaking of mathematical discourse, I was endlessly amused by this post by Swistle, in which she a) references the Monty Hall problem, and b) discusses the ridiculous, yet nuclear hot button topics that married people fight about.  We all have those, don’t we?  The fights that ramp up to eleven out of ten immediately, but when we actually analyze those fights, they are actually incredibly stupid.

Now, my husband and I really don’t fight much.  Part of this is compatibility, but part of it is also the realization on both our sides that sometimes we can be difficult to live with.  Sometimes.  Especially, I should say, me.  I mean, my almost pathologically-insane method of rinsing dishes prior to loading them in the dishwasher alone probably puts me pretty high on the crazy scale.  My mother was over the other day and she actually backed away from the dishwasher, silently, as I agitated about the treatment of a knife recently used to spread peanut butter.  She is unlikely to ever try to load the dishwasher as a helpful favour ever again. 

Anyway, the biggest fight we ever had, and it was one that was the cause of much crying and door-slamming, by me, and much calm-but-annoyed-you-are-crazy commentary by my husband, was in 1999 and it was spurred by a – are you ready – Sex and the City episode.  The episode was the one where Mr. Big marries Natasha, Carrie uses the line “Your girl’s lovely, Hubble”, and at the end Carrie says how happy she is to be a wild horse running free, or something like that.  My husband’s reaction to this was, essentially, that Carrie was in some kind of denial and that she was unhappy being alone and just wanted to get married, which turned into a statement that all women wanted to get married.  My reaction was a very – VERY – strong disagreement to this attitude, which spiralled into door slamming and tears.  And we weren’t even married then!  Sex and the City, a fictional television show, was the cause of our biggest fight ever.  As I read Swistle’s post, I reminded my husband of that fight and we got into it all over again!  Carrie Bradshaw put a strain on our marriage.  As a social experiment, I should bring this up in twenty years and see if it elicits all the same reactions.

We have never fought about the Monty Hall problem, however, but I do remember getting into a very involved and impassioned discussion about it with some colleagues many years ago, although perhaps not so many as when the Sex and the City fight occurred.  The end result saw my colleagues and I using a random number generator and creating thousands of simulations to prove the result of the Monty Hall problem.  What can I say, we were a bunch of nerdy quantitative analysts and mathematical simulations were what we did every day.  In the end, we all agreed that sometimes the math doesn’t seem logical, but there it is.

Which is to say, I am NOT going to try to dig up historical weather data and calculate a mean.  I am not.

Mayday! Mayday!

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After watching The Wedding on Friday, I sank into what can only be described as a state of complete obsession and sloth.  I performed the absolute minimum in terms of child maintenance, instead staring at the television, watching and re-watching the highlights, pausing only to trade wedding-related analysis with my mother and grandmother over the phone about everything from the hats to Camilla Parker-Bowles to the Archbishop’s eyebrows.  This non-stop television watching continued somewhat into the weekend, to the point that Jake came into the room and, seeing the couple walk down the aisle, said “Oh, this is a good part!  They’re going to get into the carriage.”  I was starting to wonder if I needed to seek some sort of support group or maybe enter rehab, since not only was I completely obsessed with wedding coverage, but I was also completely obsessed with consuming the gigantic bags of Mini-Eggs in my cupboard. 
Fortunately my addictions seem to be subsiding.
Consuming my body weight in chocolate and rewinding the vows over and over were not the only things I did this weekend.  I also had lunch with my very dearest friend, which was lovely.  We met at a restaurant at the mall, where I took the opportunity to purchase a gift for a birthday party that Jake is attending next weekend.  This is the sort of errand that fills me with anxiety, even if the birthday kid is a boy with similar interests to my own boys.  As it is, the birthday kid is a girl, and not one I particularly know well.  I walked through the bright pink aisles and felt completely overwhelmed and bitter, about having to choose a gift and also about the strange amount of pressure I was putting on myself about choosing a gift.  I mean, it’s a gift, and as a general rule children like anything so long as it is gift wrapped, within reason; unless I chose something completely obviously wrong like a toy rifle or a set of little army men the birthday girl will most likely be happy.  Still, I stared hopelessly at the aisles of Barbies and Zhu Zhu Pets and baby dolls, making my way through the pretend food and dress-up shoes, until I found a box of mosaic sticker artwork with the promising caption “Posh Puppies”.  Fortunately my friend, whom I met after this purchase, assured me that her girls – of similar age – would love it, filling me with relief.
Am I the only one who feels this way?  I’ve spent much time trolling the toy aisles only to choose something that the birthday kid already had, sometimes in duplicate, making me feel like I could have just as well given a card full of cash and skipped the middleman.
The weather has finally turned springlike, and only the tiniest patch of snow remains in our backyard, with the result that my husband’s golf course is now open for the season.  Ergo, I am now golf-widowed.  It’s not a bad thing.  He’s happy and I am going to be able to watch my recorded wedding coverage without anyone saying “Why are you watching that again?”  Because it’s all about happiness, dammit.  I was also extra emotional this weekend, in a very special feminine way, swinging that lovely pendulum between irritable bitchiness and weeping.  I love this goddamn wedding.  Everyone is so happy.  Bring on the chocolate eggs.
*****
Speaking of spring, over at the cooking blog I have a recipe for oven-roasted asparagus, the ultimate spring vegetable! 

The Royal Wedding, or The Reason I’m Going To A 2:30 a.m. Tea Party

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So THE wedding is tomorrow and I’m sure I’m not the only person bourgeois and/or pedestrian enough to be excited about it.  Hey, I’m a Canadian girl.  One of my fondest memories is when, thirty years ago, my grandma woke me up at four in the morning to watch The Wedding with her, and although that marriage was clearly doomed and also somewhat of a sham, it was endlessly fascinating to me.  I was completely enamoured with Princess Diana and for years after I received something Diana-related for every birthday and Christmas: glossy coffee table books outlining her (somewhat frumpy) fashions, Royal Family scrapbooks, and a paper doll book, the (somewhat frumpy) clothing I patiently, painstakingly, cut out with safety scissors.  Do you remember how many lace points were on her wedding dress?  I cut every single one of them out with safety scissors. 

So of course I’m going to get up early to watch the wedding.  In fact, a very sweet friend of mine is having a 2:45 am tea party to commemorate the occasion.  My grandma phoned me last week and mentioned that one of her Red Hatter friends is coming over in the wee hours to watch with her, so I feel the circle has been completed. 

As an aside, my grandma is one of those people who thrives on very little sleep, even now.  When I was a kid, I could get up at any time of the night, and my grandma would be at her dining room table, smoking and drinking coffee and doing a crossword puzzle.  There was always something very comforting about that.  I think it would be the same now, except my grandma quit smoking – cold turkey – after more than six decades of being a heavy smoker.  An amazing woman, the strongest woman I know. 

I love weddings.  I love them in spite of all the icky, anti-feminist, bride-as-a-piece-of-property-being-passed-along traditions that are at any wedding.  I just try not to think much about such traditions.  If you think too much about them you might just go crazy deciphering the fertility symbols, virgin-whites, and property-exchange that are at the bottom of most wedding rituals.  It’s better just to sit back and enjoy the happiness and wedding cake.

One of my husband’s young colleagues is getting married in a couple of months.  I wanted to pass along my completely unsolicited advice for any bride who may be enduring typical bridal stress regarding flower arrangements and centrepieces.  There are only three things anyone will remember at a wedding: what the bride looked like, if the food was good, and if there were too many speeches or bad dance music.  Those are the only three things that brides really need to concern themselves with, in my opinion.  I remember one wedding I attended where the very drunk best man monopolized the microphone for thirty-five minutes, telling incredibly inappropriate and frankly, pretty gross stories about the groom.  I was at another wedding in which they had an open mike.  Future brides, take note: this is a very bad idea.  Especially if open mike is combined with open bar. 

But I’m sure Kate is probably stressed about more than those three things given that she is going to be a) filmed and photographed within an inch of her life and b) marrying the future King of England.  Also, she is the subject of much artwork.  I am amazed at the sheer volume of artwork and commemorative items cropping up depicting the two of them, and sometimes, creepily, the three of them, if you include the late Princess Diana.  Some of this artwork is lovely, of course, but some?  I am the least artistic person in the world; if I were to draw a picture of the happy couple it would be a stick man and woman, with maybe an apple tree in the background.  But some of this artwork is so truly horrendous it is actually kind of kitchy.  Quilts!  Dolls!  Tea cozies!  Frankly, I’m surprised I haven’t seen an engagement portrait made entirely out of spray-painted macaroni noodles, with Princess Di floating in the background.

There is one commemorative item I am truly dying to have: Crown Jewels Commemorative Condoms.  Their slogan is Lie Back and Think of England.  I mean, how absolutely great is that?  I especially love the disclaimer at the bottom:

Crown Jewels Royal Wedding Souvenir Condoms are not supplied to, or approved by, Prince William of Wales, Catherine Middleton or any member of the Royal Family.
Crown Jewels Royal Wedding Souvenir Condoms are a novelty condom not suitable for contraception or protection against STDs 
 

Duly noted.

Celebrity, Marky Mark, and the Big Egg Hunt

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I was at the grocery store on the weekend, picking up only a couple of items and scanning them through the self-checkout lane when one of the cashiers, a fairly young guy, ran up to me excitedly.  “I saw you on CBC!” he said.  “I was watching the hockey game and then you were on TV!  On the news!  I said to my buddies, I know that woman, she’s in Co-Op all the time!”  Clearly I spend a lot of time buying groceries.  I gathered up my bananas and dinner rolls, fairly pleased with my one minute of fame and also pleased that the video clip came from a separate interview a day after my unexpectedly videoed, bad-haired radio interview.
Often I think being a celebrity, despite the fact that celebrity often means fabulous wealth and personal chefs, would be very difficult.  It would be hard on even the strongest ego to see oneself on the cover of Star magazine or similar with circles around one’s belly or buttocks, highlighting cellulite or “Is She Pregnant?” bulge.  Having a personal chef would be pretty amazing though.  It would eliminate the “what’s for dinner/ spaghetti again?/ if I have to chop any more carrots I’m going to stab myself” boredom we all go through.  Or I go through.
Speaking of celebrities, I’ve always had a bit of a crush on Mark Wahlberg (MARKY MARK!) and Christian Bale.  Christian Bale, I’ve liked him since he was Laurie in Little Women.  So I have wanted to see The Fighter for a while now, and I actually watched it on the weekend.  It’s an excellent movie, and I really loved it, but I would have to say if I knew what the plotline was prior to seeing the movie, I probably would not have seen it.  Have you seen it?  Christian Bale is a crackhead, which, right there, would have turned me off this film. I make it a general rule not to watch movies that feature a lot of illicit drug use because they are just too sad.  I’m a real escapist at heart.  But – and I really mean this – it is actually kind of a feel-good, happy movie.  Although I was pretty sad that there were very few shots of a shirtless Mark Wahlberg.  I mean, it’s a boxing movie.  I expected a lot of gratuitous, sweaty, shirtless scenes, not unlike the volleyball scene in Top Gun.  Sadly, there were none to be had but I recommend it anyway.  Even if I did spend most of the film saying “Argh!  I hate his mother!  Argh!  I hate those sisters!” 
The weekend was a beautiful one, and you may or may not believe this, but it did not snow!  I know!  An Easter miracle.  It was lovely and sunny and the boys staged several egg hunts in the backyard.  We, traditionally, hide chocolate eggs and candies from the Easter Bunny in the house on Easter morning, but we take our hardboiled coloured eggs outside later in the day, weather permitting.  The boys prefer hiding the eggs for my husband and I to find them.
I love this picture. They look like hobos; Mark with his torn jeans,
Jake with his rubber boots and hat over his eyes. 



Yesterday it continued sunny and mild and the boys asked if they could run through the sprinkler.  At 13 degrees.  I said yes and so they put on their jackets and played in the water until they were soaked and frozen.

Notice that there is still snow in our yard.  My children are a hardy people.

High Maintenance Girl

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Sally: Which am I?
Harry: Oh, you’re the worst kind.  You’re high maintenance, but you think you’re low maintenance.
Sally: I don’t see that.
Harry: You don’t see it?  Waiter, I’ll have the house salad, but I don’t want the regular dressing.  I want the balsamic oil and vinegar.  But I want it on the side.  Then I’ll have the salmon with mustard sauce but I want the mustard sauce on the side.  On the side is a very big thing for you.
Sally: Well, I just want it the way I want it.
Harry: I know.  High maintenance.
Once again, I feel that movie is actually all about me and my life.  My husband is constantly telling me that I am high maintenance and although I protest, my protests are weak because I know that this is an accurate way to describe me.
I’ve been feeling somewhat guilty about complaining so much about my surgery because really, what am I really complaining about?  Things could be so much worse.  My beautiful, very active and sporty neighbour and friend was hit by a car while riding her bike, and ended up with a broken back.  A broken back!  She was out of commission for a long time, unable to do the things she loved.  And not just the sporty things she loved, but things like getting in and out of cars unassisted.   Another friend of mine had surgery in which her chest was cracked open and she couldn’t care for her two small children for many weeks, and a year later she still is feeling the effects of it.  So I feel a bit spoiled and high maintenance for complaining about something that is making me walk like I’ve been riding a horse for the  past month non-stop and is making me unable to wear anything but yoga pants.  I mean, a week ago I was clad in only pajamas and tensor bandages, so yoga pants are a very large step up. 
I’m still going to complain, though, and this one might be filed under an excess of information, but if one cannot impart an excess of information on one’s readers, then why have a blog to start with?
Here’s the thing: I can’t shave my legs.  I’m not sure when I will be able to shave my legs.  I feel like a sasquatch, or, alternately, a hippie.  You know, dear readers, I am all about peace, love, and happiness, but pass the damn razor.  And also the lip gloss.  Did you see the picture in the previous post?  That is what happens when there is no makeup.  I would have been a terrible hippie.  When I think about Woodstock I immediately get shivers thinking of all those people, all that rain and no toilets.  Not to mention the brown acid.  And all the guys wearing leather fringed jackets with no shirts underneath and without a doubt no showers or deoderant. 
But back to the issue at hand.  I feel like an actual yeti.  I don’t even want to hear from you people who regularly do not shave your legs because you don’t feel the need to.  Almost everyone I know who doesn’t shave a) is blond, or b) has little body hair anyway.  At the risk of disgusting everyone, I am not only fair skinned and brunette, but I am also of partial Scottish ancestry, and apparently my body still thinks that I need to keep warm in the Highlands. 
That’s that.  I’m not going to complain anymore, I promise.