Category Archives: Pop Cult-ure

You’re out of touch, I’m out of time

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“Why do old people always talk about the weather?” I clearly recall asking my mother this question, probably flipping my spiral-permed hair with my mood-ring-adorned hand and rolling my eyes. Likely I was wearing a black Depeche Mode concert t-shirt with ripped jeans at the time of this comment. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would speak about anything as mundane as the weather. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine not having incredibly meaningful conversations about poetry and alternative music at all times, the kind of conversations that would arouse emotions and incite heated debate.

But how about this weather?

It has been unusually warm over the past couple of days, and, since I am acclimatized to minus twenty, it feels like an absolute heat wave. A heat wave in which I am still wearing my winter boots and coat but still. It’s the kind of weather that instantly lifts my mood and makes me feel like Spring! Is! On! The! Way! Of course, this is ridiculous considering where I live but let’s just walk away from negativity, shall we?

I watched the movie In Bruges this weekend and it was incredible: hilariously funny, heart-breakingly touching, and possibly one of the most interesting movies I have ever seen. I enthusiastically recommended it to a few people, and the response was, consistently, that it is a great movie and that they saw it a few years ago, when it came out. Oh. I am always months and years behind on movie watching. One of these days I’m going to watch Brokeback Mountain. Even my grandmother has seen Brokeback Mountain – she saw it in the movie theatre – so I am officially more out of touch with popular culture than my grandmother. Actually, I am way more out of touch; she probably knows who Kim Kardashian is. The last movie I saw in the theatre was Pirates of the Caribbean Part Two, and I slept through most of it.

All of which is to say, I’m feeling a bit old. This feeling is not helped by the radio station I listen to, which frequently advertises for Grey Power Insurance. The other day I was listening to it, and the theme song from Golden Girls came on. First, I didn’t know that it was an actual song, not just a theme, and second, I SANG ALONG TO IT. Passionately. “And if you threw a PARTY, invited everyone you KNEW…”

What’s next? Coercing my husband into watching Jeopardy! and then answering all questions, out loud, in the form of a question? Oh wait.

Disjointed cinematic thoughts

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“What is with your health?” my husband asked, watching me blow my nose for the hundredth time. “Maybe you need more protein.” I looked at him silently, then raised my eyebrows lasciviously, and burst into giggles. Because I am all grown up and mature like that.

My sinuses feel like they are out to get me. My very lovely yoga teacher, who is also a nutritionist, advised me to stay away from sugars to obtain maximum immunity from illnesses. It was working really well until the Christmas season and its demands on me to consume my body weight in mint chocolate. So I’m back on my no-sugar plan because frankly, pressing my hands dramatically against my sinuses and complaining is getting old.

But back to my protein giggles. My standard of humour is very low. Someone slips on a banana peel? Hysterical. A wedding singer drops the F-bomb in the movie Old School? Side-splitting. But even I did not find The Hangover funny. In fact, I felt like I morphed into some prim elderly lady who is continually shocked by the downfall of society. “A baby in a car with no car seat? That’s just not funny. I mean, that’s irresponsible. I know it’s a movie. I know. But it’s just stupid.” I ended up going to bed mid-movie in protest, which is where I wanted to be anyway – it was past nine o’clock.

We’ve been watching a lot of movies over the holiday. It’s been great to catch up on films from the last decade or so. I gave my husband the X-Men trilogy for Christmas and I now have a small crush on Wolverine. “I can see why Hugh Jackman is so popular!” I kept saying, in step with people newly relieved and annoyed that the whole Y2K phenomenon was such a hoax.

My husband – without me – watched the new Star Trek movie. I have never once seen an episode of Star Trek, and it occurred to me that it is an entire cultural phenomenon that I know absolutely nothing about. Nothing! I grew up with two brothers, both of whom were into superheroes and Star Wars, so I have a whole untapped mental catalogue of information pertaining to those topics, but I have no clue what Star Trek is all about. “Are they like, aliens traveling around in space ships?” I asked my husband. He stared at me for a few moments, then said, “Yes, Nicole. That’s what it’s all about. Aliens traveling around in space ships.”

All of which is to say, I need some more sinus medication. And maybe some protein! Tee hee.

Happy Festivus!

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This is not really a ranting type of blog. I’m not so much a ranting girl. But it’s Festivus! Grievances must be aired.

I have a major grievance against people who send their contagious kids to school, or allow their contagious kids to be in confined public spaces with other non-sick children. Especially the week before Christmas. Even when Santa is visiting the pre-kindergarten class. Especially when the contagions are of the vomiting variety. Jake is feeling much better – heartbreakingly skinny, but better – but now Mark is unwell. Today I had two things to accomplish: I needed to take the dog to the groomer’s and I needed to buy groceries. It’s minus 20 and I didn’t think that taking out one recovering child and one potentially vomiting child was a particularly good idea, so I accomplished both tasks before my husband left for work. Which meant I went out while still in my sweaty yoga clothes. And I didn’t have makeup on. This might not be a big deal to all you “I couldn’t be bothered with makeup” girls, but I apply a nice fresh coat of lip gloss prior to walking my dog, so going to the grocery store makeup-less and sweaty is actually a big deal for me. Blah, blah, vanity, blah, blah, I know. So here is the chain of events: a still-contagious child is brought to the pre-kindergarten Santa visit, and I end up in the grocery store with no makeup. No good can come of that.

I read a magazine article about a woman who spends thousands of dollars a year buying Christmas gifts for 150 people. I don’t have a grievance against that, per se, but at the end of the article the woman says that Christmas Day is a great time to get ideas for the next year’s gifts, because people are always talking about what they wanted and didn’t get. Really? Who are those people? I have a grievance against those people. Someone gave you a gift and it wasn’t what you wanted? It’s a gift, you asshole. A gift. You want something else, go out on Boxing Day and buy it.

Hey, it’s kind of fun, this ranting thing! Too bad it’s not Festivus every day.

Other grievances which just irritate me so much I don’t even want to spend my mental energy on them include the words Gosselin and Balloon Boy, people who don’t have children but have very strong opinions on how children should be raised, people who have road rage in parking lots, and elderly people who really should not be driving who are driving gigantic vehicles which almost run over you when you are walking with your four-year-old in the Co-Op parking lot. Although, my mother-in-law tells this hilarious story about an elderly lady who drove through her beauty parlor window – no one was hurt, but the ladies sitting under those big hair dryers were pretty shaken up. Evidently the woman meant to put her car in reverse, although it seems like that would have been just as disastrous, an elderly woman speeding in reverse through the parking lot.

Happy Festivus, everyone! Feel free to air your grievances!

At least we’re not in Edmonton! Hardy har.

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That’s what we Calgarians tend to say to assuage feelings of depression due to weather-related issues. There was actually some truth to that this weekend, however, since Edmonton reached a low ambient temperature of minus 46, which is really fracking cold. It was pretty fracking cold here, around the minus 30 mark. But at least we’re not in Edmonton!

The vicious cold and my weird viral cold kept me indoors all weekend. I don’t think I even stepped foot outside. It was a red-letter weekend nonetheless. Let me recap.

1) I watched the movie Funny People. This in itself is notable as it was made in 2009. Normally I see movies years after they have been released, and when I try to discuss the movie with anyone, the response is usually, “You just saw that now?” Funny People is a really good movie, very interesting, and not at all what I expected. I mean, Adam Sandler is in it so there are many jokes of a flatulent, masturbation, and penis/testicle-related nature. In spite of that, it is quite intelligent and intriguing. Also, there is a scene with Eminem, who plays himself, which is quite hysterical.

2) My husband wrapped the Christmas gifts! This was, to put it in terms of a smarmy Christmas special, the best gift ever. I am terrible at wrapping gifts. This is probably not unrelated to my complete inability to ice cakes, create gingerbread houses, and sew buttons on clothing without ripping a hole in said clothing in an area far removed from where the button actually needs to be. Normally, when I wrap gifts, I cut the paper incorrectly, and end up with a slice of the actual gift showing or, alternately, I have so much excess paper that it all bunches up in a very un-aesthetic fashion. Grossly, I often find strands of my own hair taped to the package, which I take to mean the stress from gift-wrapping causes my hair to fall out and, because of my need to use an excessive amount of tape, become attached to the gift. Just a little piece of me in every gift! Happily, my husband wrapped all the presents (except the ones for him, of course) and the kids have been happily occupied by staring at them, piling them up, counting them, and talking about them.

3) My husband went out and bought, and then installed, a new tap for the kitchen. This may not seem like an interesting or note-worthy thing to you, but if you were a bon-bon eating housewife like myself who spends half her waking hours in the kitchen (but not, fortunately, barefoot or pregnant) and for three weeks you had been dealing with a tap that sends out either a small trickle of water or no water at all, you would be happy too. For three weeks as we waited for replacement parts, I tried to think yogic thoughts – many people don’t even have running water, I should be happy for this small trickle – but it was killing me softly. With its trickle song. However, several replacement parts and futile efforts to fix the tap later, my dear dear husband went out and bought a new tap. First gift wrapping! Then a new tap! He’s also a great lover!

So that was my weekend. How was yours?

Warning! This post contains an obscene amount of name-dropping.

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I saw Jim Cuddy on The Hour a couple of nights ago. Jim Cuddy. Sigh. Beck wrote a funny post about the potential husband material of certain Canadian TV stars and while I was hard-pressed to come up with any of those – Mark Critch? Nah. George Stroumboulopoulus? Nah. – I sure do have opinions about Canadian music stars. Jim Cuddy. I like to refer to him as “my boyfriend”. My husband really likes that too.

I actually met Jim Cuddy one year ago. My husband phoned me from work and said, in complete seriousness, “You wouldn’t really be interested in a gala dinner tomorrow night, would you?”. Now, believe me, BELIEVE ME, I do not attend gala dinners with any sort of regularity. Or at all. So of course I wanted to go. Then he revealed that his boss’ girlfriend’s firm had extra tickets. And it was an Olympic fund-raiser. And we would be sitting at a table with Sale and Pelletier. I immediately phoned my mother, “CanyoubabysittomorrowbecauseIamgoingtobeatatablewithSaleandPelletier!”

I watched Sale and Pelletier win the silver medal – later to be the gold medal – at a bar in Houston. There was one other Canadian girl there, also a figure skating fan, and when the scores were tallied a man leaned over to us and drawled, “Well girls, ah don’t know much ah-bout figure skating, but I think you Canadians were robbed”. I love Texans.

Anyway, at the gala we were enjoying a glass of wine when Rob’s boss’ girlfriend leaned over to me and said, “Hey, there goes Jim Cuddy. We should follow him and get our picture taken with him.” She was laughing but I’ve never been more serious. I grabbed her arm and we followed him, walking as quickly as possible without looking like actual stalkers. We followed him into a section where he was talking with Kelly Hrudy, who was hosting the event. Someone agreed to take our picture and here it is:


I love this picture. I am the absolute epitome of star-struck. You can almost see my thoughts, OMG, Jim Cuddy has his arm around me!!!! Meeeeeee!!!! The wine in my glass was vibrating like the puddle in Jurassic Park.

So that was a highlight. But truly the whole night was amazing. I enjoyed the delicious food and wine, alongside David Pelletier, who, it should be noted, is not the best tablemate as he is quiet to the point of surliness. I enjoyed the music (provided by JIM CUDDY). I looked around the room, and at least half of the people were working on their BlackBerries. Some were leaving to answer work-related phone calls. There I was, in the midst of a massively stressed-out crowd, a crowd which was there for duty but certainly not pleasure, and I was thrilled every second.


I thought about that the other night when I met up with some girlfriends, a couple of whom were former co-workers, and one of those was still at that firm. She talked to me a bit about my former workplace, and she was speaking a language which I recognized but hadn’t spoken in nearly six years. I was asked if I missed it, being at work. I thought about it, the ten hour days at a desk, the stress, the overtime, and at that gala dinner, the people who were so busy trying to juggle family and work that they couldn’t even enjoy food and wine and JIM CUDDY. I don’t miss it.
Me and David Pelletier. He looks really happy, probably because the gala was almost over.

Too much news

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I need to stop watching the news.

I’m sure there are a lot of interesting things going on in the world, I’m sure there are a lot of important stories to be following, but the only thing I know about is the H1N1 vaccine. Vaccination clinics opened here on Monday, and it’s been a non-stop media frenzy since then. I made the mistake of attempting to go to the post office on Monday to mail my mother-in-law’s birthday gift (Her actual birthday occurred two days earlier; I am a bad daughter-in-law. Also, we gave her socks. Socks! She requested them but still. Bad daughter-in-law.). The post office is located beside the vaccination clinic for my quadrant of the city. There were probably a thousand people lined up OUTSIDE waiting for their shot. I couldn’t even get into the parking lot. Flu shot be damned! I must get this package mailed! I’m losing points as we speak!

Anyway, the media surrounding this flu reminds me a little of Michael Jackson’s death. Like, there were other things happening when he died, but that was pretty much the only thing on the news. Even now, I will hear the occasional “New information in Michael Jackson’s suspicious death!” and I will have to dive for the remote to turn off the television. Not that there was not incredibly important information involved – for example, I did not know his child was named Blanket. How did I live before receiving that information? – but really. Really. Do we need 24 hour coverage of the death of a crazed former child star turned (allegedly) pedophile who gave the world the awesome song Billie Jean? No. We do not. Also we do not need any information with the words “Jon and Kate”. I have never seen that show but the mere word “Gosselin” releases in me the same impulse to dive for the remote.

Back to the flu shot. I find it very difficult to deal with all this information in the media. It feels like fear mongering on all sides. A bioethicist was on the news saying that everyone has a moral duty to get vaccinated, to avoid spreading the virus to high risk groups. Hmm. Then you have only to google “flu vaccination safety” to get two million results, most of them scary, some of them written by crackpots. Hmm. So what’s a mom to do?

My first instinct was to not vaccinate the kids, but vaccinate myself. Any mother who has had to care for sick kids while being sick herself can understand that. The kids have to get two doses, which seems a bit scary, the vaccine was made very quickly, which seems a bit scary, and anyway I have the luxury of being at home with them – if they get sick, I can keep them at home for as long as needed, no big deal.

No big deal except the case of the healthy Toronto boy who suddenly died of the virus. Died! My heart goes out to their family; losing one of my children is the worst thing I can imagine. If one of them died and there was something I could have done to prevent it, I would not be able to live with myself.

I was trying to think about this rationally. The percentage of deaths is small; the likelihood is small, but what if? As I walked the dog I thought about it. I stepped off the curb and a car suddenly sped around the corner, and the driver slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting me. How strange to be thinking about death from the flu and almost get hit by a car!

I just want to do the right thing for my kids. But what is that?

Woodstock, Ann Landers, and Alice Munro

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Alice Munro, one of my favourite writers, was once quoted as saying she was terribly grateful to have had her daughters, but had she been given the choice, she would not have had them. I thought about that when I read Maclean’s article “The Case Against Having Children”, specifically regarding Corinne Maier’s assertion that she at times regretted having children, which is “what many mothers silently think but aren’t allowed to say”. The famous Ann Landers article is then brought up, when she asked readers if they could do it again, would they have had children, and 70% said no, they would not. That’s disturbing to me, but on another level that poll was taken in 1975 and I would like to think that there is some “sign of the times” going on.

Women at that time, that revolutionary time, just did not have the same options and choices that we do today. As my mother’s cousin put it to me, “It was just so simple. I never had to make a decision about work. You just stayed home and that is what everyone did”. Clearly, a generalization. Clearly, not everyone just stayed home. But it was prevalent for women coming of age in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s to go to college to get the Mrs, or perhaps just to marry their high school sweetheart after graduation. For those women, of whom society expected to marry and have children, well, maybe they did have regrets. But I would like to think that today, if a similar poll was taken, 70% of mothers would not say they wouldn’t have had children.

It was different back then. I was telling myself that this weekend, this weekend that marked the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. Woodstock! Have you watched any Woodstock footage lately? It’s QUITE entertaining. The announcer telling the crowd to watch out for a certain type of acid going around, it’s “bad acid”. The out-of-service school buses overflowing with hippies. The proliferation of fringed leather jackets worn without shirts.

As a side note, I stumbled upon a clip of The Who singing See Me Feel Me, with a very high Roger Daltrey wearing a ridiculous fringed leather jacket and no shirt, which I subsequently became somewhat obsessed with, watching it some twenty times this weekend. That’s 100 minutes of my life I am not getting back. Man, I love that song though.

I know the general consensus regarding Woodstock is that it was a turning point in history, all those amazing musicians gathered for a free concert, all peace and love, but all I can think is this: half a million people, no toilets. Half a million people, no showers. Half a million people, lots of drugs, “free love”, and NO SHOWERS OR TOILETS. Ew. It’s prissy of me, I know, but I find myself oddly focusing on the hygienic issues.

The hygienic issues and the children featured in every single Woodstock clip you see. Inevitably, there will be footage of a small child, usually naked, playing in the vicinity of its very high mother. The children wave happily to the camera, while their whacked-out mother smiles woozily. This weekend I looked at those clips and thought about Ann Landers and Alice Munro and felt sad.