Category Archives: Testosterone-y

Back in business, baby.

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“I’m back in business” Mark said the night before school started.  You know how sometimes, just sometimes, you get a feeling about what your child will be when he grows up?  I feel quite sure that Mark is going to be an engineer.  If you know any engineers, or if you are an engineer yourself, then you know that there is a certain “engineer personality type” and Mark fits that type exactly. 

It’s funny, isn’t it, how people like to speculate what children’s lives will be like when they are adults.  It’s amusing.  A kid plays with blocks, and we think “architect”, or they play with cars and they think “mechanic”.  Personally, I thought I was going to grow up to be a concert pianist, which is funny, considering I became an economist.  When Jake was a baby, my husband turned to me and said “I think Jake’s going to grow up to be an investment banker.  Because he’s kind of a dick.”  That makes me smile every time.  Jake is kind of a dick, but in a good way. 

I know I’m supposed to say that I just want my kids to be happy, and of course I do, but I kind of feel like nurturing the attitude that it’s easier to be happy when pursuing a career with good financial returns.   

The kids were very excited to go back to school.  The first day was kind of chaotic, what with confusion about last minute out-of-area enrollments, ensuing large class sizes, and the specter of another class being formed to take the pressure off of said large classes.  Things will settle down later this week, but for right now things are all up in the air.  I’m feeling fairly calm about it, with the attitude that things are going to work out fine.

I was less calm yesterday after school when I went to pick the boys up.  I shielded my eyes against the sun, looking for them.  Yes, there was Jake’s bright orange hat, and yes, that’s Jake, but what is he wearing?  He had a different shirt on.  When asked, he told me cheerfully that a classmate had barfed all over the back of his shirt, and that shirt was wrapped up in a plastic bag, in his backpack.  OH. 

You know when you hear the word “barf” and you get that feeling like “maybe I should strip the child down and burn all his clothes right there in the playground”?  I had that feeling.  I kind of froze, then started asking leading questions about where he was sitting and how much contact had he had with the barfer, and how often he had washed his hands.  I asked the questions carefully, trying not to seem crazy, and then I vigorously rubbed hand sanitizer into his and Mark’s hands, and my own.  I thought about the shirt, and I thought that I had probably got my money’s worth from it, as I dropped it in the garbage.  Of course, this led to sadness later – “I loved that shirt!” – but yet, I could not fathom washing someone else’s kid’s barf.

There was also an unpleasant story from the boys about the children finding a dead cat in the field at recess time, which became more dramatic when it was discovered that the dead cat belonged to a friend.  There were other dramatic events, which I won’t relate here, but suffice it to say it was a very exciting first day of school.  I’m looking forward to less excitement, and hopefully less barf, for the second day.

Adventures in Boyland

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I’ve been reading the boys all the Little House books, in order, since they became interested in settlers and whatnot after reading Little House on the Prairie at school.  Their favourite was On the Banks of Plum Creek, what with all the plagues and Pa getting lost in a blizzard at Christmas and Laura getting a fur cape and muff from the church Christmas tree and totally flaunting it in Nellie’s face – Nellie didn’t have a muff – take that, Nellie, you uppity bitch.  But now we are reading The Long Winter and it is by far the most captivating for them.  All the tragic foreshadowing – no geese or ducks to be found, the muskrat’s extra thick home, the teeny tiny harvest they have to make last an entire winter – along with the drama of the storms, near-starvation, and seemingly imminent death really captures their interest.  I do not know what this says, but in any case, we’re enjoying it.

So I was very entertained when they dug out Jake’s old Playmobil farm and all the various Playmobil people from other sets – including the veterinarian and dinosaur hunter – and began to reenact scenes from the books.  Kind of.  There were blizzards, and there was fetching water from the creek, but there was also an ocean involved, and water desalination.  There were two moms, two dads, and two kids, so it was either a commune or a gay marriage thing.  I’m guessing commune.  Then one of the Pas – whose name was, coincidentally, Charles – bought some droids to help with the farmwork.  Just like Uncle Owen.

Story worlds colliding!

Then a friend of mine who is a farmer told me that the dairy farmers she knows all have robots that do the milking.  I informed the children of this development and they stared at me, wide-eyed, and said in a reverential whisper “Cooooool”.  My friend said that the cows have computer collars so that the robots know where their teats are located, and the cows CHOOSE WHEN TO BE MILKED.  My mind – along with the children’s – is blown.  Completely. This is a little different from when Pa would use the clothesline to feel his way to the farm during a blizzard, and come back with a pail almost emptied of milk from the wind, and the milk in there just little frozen shards of milky delight.

What an age we live in.

Speaking of dairy, I’ve had a few people ask me how the whole no-dairy thing has been going, and I will tell you this: it’s much less horrible than I thought it would be.  I’m craving it much less, and taking the opportunity to eat more of the yummy non-dairy things I love.  Like guacamole.  So far this week I’ve had three avocados’ worth of guacamole, which is not giving me the shiny hair I covet, but IS pretty tasty.  I’ve also made my own version of my friend Natalie’s banana “ice cream”, which I plan on writing about over on my cooking blog, but here’s the Reader’s Digest (remember Reader’s Digest?  All those hilarious jokes?  Life’s Like That?) version: take two frozen bananas.  Put in food processor.  Add some almond milk.  Put in some chocolate syrup.  Process until it looks like soft ice cream.  EXCELLENT.  The kids lost their little minds.  YOU CAN MAKE ICE CREAM OUT OF BANANAS?  THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER, MOM!

Speaking of the greatest thing ever, the kids wanted me to make bacon for them, for one of our weekly “breakfast for supper” meals.  Now, as a vegetarian who is now practically, and reluctantly, a vegan, making bacon is not my forte.  The thing is, if one doesn’t consume meat, one generally sucks at cooking it.  And yet the motherly love I have for the children pushed me to make it, on the recommendation of a number of friends, in the oven.  OH THE JOY.

Jake: Are we eating Porky Pig?  I sure hope so.  I hate that guy.

Olympic Fever, sort of

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One of the things I love most about blogging is how much I learn.  My mind is expanding.  I mean, really, who knew about modesty socks or fake cigarettes?  WHO KNEW?  I am enlightened.  I am also confused because a very androgynous cashier called me “sir” today.  I’m not sure why.  I don’t think I look like a man.  I was wearing makeup, my hair was down, and I was wearing a pink tank top, a top that I discovered later, was missing its inserts and not properly concealing my nipples.  I don’t feel my appearance really warranted a “sir” but maybe this is a newfangled way young people refer to their elders nowadays?  Sort of like how the word “actor” refers to male and female thespians?  I don’t know.

It’s Olympic fever time around my house.  True confession: I find watching any of the events to be dull in the extreme.  I appreciate the athletes and their training, I’m happy to hear of a Canadian medaling, I understand other people’s excitement, and yet…I’m not that excited.  I did enjoy watching the opening ceremonies however.  I found myself becoming an encyclopedic explaining machine for the children, fielding questions about the British Empire, the Industrial Revolution, and Mary Poppins.  The trouble is that I tend to err on the side of over-information.  Children are by nature very black-and-white, and I end up explaining the grey areas like nobody’s business.  Half the time I can’t tell if the kids are informed or completely befuddled.  Lately some of the topics we have covered are drugs and ecstasy use, death, the dangers of not wearing helmets while bike riding, drunk driving, and what constitutes a cocktail.  After the past twenty-four hours we can now add the rise of factories and urban living in eighteenth century Britain, child labour in the modern world, and the definition of a banana hammock.

The children, unlike their mother, are very interested in watching the events with their father, who may or may not be enthused by their incessant questioning.  I observed them this morning watching the cycling and I realized that my husband is passing on his personal Olympic knowledge and general philosophies about life.  In my house, it is only acceptable to cheer for Canada, or, if the Canadian athlete is not close to finishing in the top ten, the host country, with one exception.  Under no circumstances can the American athlete be cheered for.  The Canada/US rivalry must be upheld at all times, as evidenced by the 2010 gold medal hockey game, during which I actually thought my husband was having a heart attack.  Fortunately he was not, and also fortunately, the Canadian team took the gold. 

So I have a long two weeks of Olympic commentary looming before me.  However, I think it will be more than two weeks before I get this image out of my mind.  There are some things you just can’t unsee, like how my neighbour – who has lately been mowing a lawn in both a shirt AND pants, thanks be to god – parked his truck in front of my house last night, lumbered out wearing nothing whatever but a smallish pair of shorts, and stood there with his back to me, showing off a large percentage of his butt crack.  Look away, Nicole, look away.  And yet, like a particularly horrific train wreck, I was paralyzed and powerless to look away. 

I’m not dumb but I can’t understand how he lifts me in the air just by raising his hand

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It has CONTINUED to be summer around here, which is leading me to wonder where I am and to also SEIZE THE DAY, so there has been lots of swimming and outdoor activity around the Boyhouse.  There has also been lots of discussions about Star Wars. 

My kids talk about Star Wars all the time.  In the mornings, they play Star Wars Wii, and then the rest of the day, no matter what we are doing, they talk about Star Wars Wii.  They talk about the Star Wars movies and the Clone Wars and they spew out facts to me in a very intense way.  Jake spent his allowance on books about the Clone Wars and now they quiz me about bounty hunters and padawans and other things that I cannot remember because I have no more room in my brain.  Children, my brain is already filled with every song lyric ever written, I cannot make room for Star Wars.  Also I appear to have a mental block about it, to their frustration.  Mom, that’s Count DOOKU.  He’s bad.  No, that guy is a Jedi!  Jedis are GOOD.

They like to watch YouTube videos about Star Wars and then act them out while watching them, which is both cute – especially when Jake is Anakin turning into Darth Vader, the intensity with which he does this – and also a bit alarming.  I mean, isn’t there a whole subculture involving live action role playing?  I sure hope my kids don’t turn out like these guys.  But, I guess if they did, I wouldn’t have to worry about becoming a grandma prematurely, if you know what I mean.  Silver linings everywhere, people.

On Thursday we were stuck at home, waiting for the shower door people to install our shower doors.  Have you noticed I haven’t been talking about our renovations for a while?  That’s because they completely stalled two weeks ago.  The contractor kept teasing me with shower door installation dates.  I cancelled dinner guests, I waited at home, I cleared my schedule, only to find out that the doors were not yet ready, and they would be installed another day.  I kept looking at the bathroom, so close to being finished and yet so far.  But on Thursday, they were certainly going to be installed, I was assured.  And so while we were waiting I dressed the children’s stuffies in their own clothing – hilarity ensued – and watched fan videos of Weird Al’s Yoda on YouTube. 

Sometimes I look at my daily activities and feel a deep sense of whatever the opposite of accomplishment is.  As an aside, this video is deemed to be the best version, by both me and the boys. 

The shower door installation people did show up, but I sensed something was wrong when I heard a lot of arguing in a language I did not understand, plus a number of panicked sounding phone calls.  Any time I walked past the bathroom, the installers would fall completely silent and stare at me.  It was quite unnerving.  Finally one of them handed me his cell phone, and the man on the other end explained that the shower doors were cut incorrectly and so they would be reinstalled next week.

Sigh.  The Dark Side is looking pretty good right now. 

Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy.

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We’ve been experiencing SUMMER here in YYC.  The days have been sunny, and warm – hot even.  Of course, this is relative.  The highest temperature of the week is 30 degrees Celsius, which is 86 degrees Fahrenheit, which – when compared with my friends down in Virginia, where the tarmac at an airport melted in the 105 F heat, plus 90% humidity – seems more pleasantly warm than scorching.  However, according to local newscasters, this is a heat wave!  And we’re all going to melt! 

This is my very favourite kind of weather; in the rare occasions that it does get this warm, I get a crazy case of carpe diem: Must.Spend.Every.Possible.Minute.Outside.Before.Snow.Comes.  Fortunately, being a lady of leisure, I can do this.  For example, on Sunday we spent the whole afternoon lounging beside our backyard pool:

Unfortunately some armed thugs stormed the yard:

The dog retreated to the safety of the deck:

And I got a (relative) suntan!

Yesterday the boys and I spent the whole afternoon with a friend and her two sons at the local outdoor pool and it was so hot that I actually voluntarily got in the water.  That never happens.  Fortunately this guy biked over to the pool, and things got even HOTTER:

Sadly, this is untrue – the pool was filled with moms and kids.  The happy shrieking was enough to keep the wildlife away:

WHERE ARE THE ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS?  Won’t anyone think of the poor baby lions?

But I realize that, although I love the heat, there are people who do not.  For them, I give you tips on keeping cool, even if you do not have a backyard pool and/or local outdoor pool at your disposal, like I do.  Here’s an idea: pour yourself a cocktail with lots of ice and run a nice, cool bubble bath:

Or maybe take your sailboat out onto the water:

Aiee.  Tan lines. 

Don’t worry about cooking dinner.  Fruit salad will do just fine.  Don’t forget the pineapple.

ALL of these men were featured in issues of Playgirl from the 1970s.  As my friend Beck said, how were any of us born if that’s what the desirable dudes looked like back then?  It truly is mysterious.

It’s Coming From Inside The House!

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How was your weekend?  Normally my weekends are fairly uneventful, but this weekend was the exception to the rule.  A while back, the CBC was having a fundraiser for the Calgary Food Bank, and my girlfriends and I managed to purchase an evening with local celebrity and food goddess extraordinaire Julie van Rosendaal, from Dinner with Julie!  Squee!  It was so much fun.  There’s nothing like drinking wine and hanging with the girls, am I right?  The thing is, it never really happens much.  Friday nights normally see me in my pajamas, drinking wine on the couch – and during the golf season, often that means I’m drinking wine on the couch by myself, watching NYPD Blue, which is a teensy bit depressing once I see that written down.  So, it was so much fun – we all dressed up a little bit, and I think we probably startled Julie with our zeal (WE LOVE YOU, JULIEEEEEE!).  Although, my girlfriend who hosted mentioned to me this morning that she could see me visibly fade after nine o’clock, and I was the first person to mention that it was now time to go home.  Could she blame me?  By ten o’clock I had been up for over seventeen hours, and after a few glasses of wine…zzzzzz….

Saturday dawned grey and rainy; of course – it was Super Soccer Saturday!  There’s nothing quite like having a soccer tournament in the pouring rain.  Fortunately the rain tapered to a drizzle and eventually let up.  Unfortunately the field in places was just completely sodden.  The kids had fun, I had enough layers and rain wear on that I didn’t freeze, and my life as a soccer mom is now over, so happiness all around.

How can you resist such a face?  He is also my hero of the day, and here’s the story.  First, I need you to understand, dear reader, that a phobia is a phobia.  Some of us have fears that may or may not have grounding in reality.  They may seem unreasonable or silly to others, but they are very real to the phobic person.  I have a phobia of moths.
They are such freaky things, and they flutter so spastically.  I am TERRIFIED of them, and as far as I can tell they do nothing of particular merit in the insect world.  They are just gross and ugly and I hate them the end.  Anyway, since we have been having work done on the house, the doors are frequently left open, and on Saturday afternoon I was calmly cleaning up the kitchen from lunch and a MOTH FLUTTERED RIGHT IN MY FACE AND THEN FLUTTERED AROUND THE SINK.  I don’t know what you would do in that situation, but what I did was scream my husband’s name over and over at the top of my lungs.  His lack of response then spurred me to run down the stairs, where the kids were very calmly playing and were disturbingly not at all bothered by my hysterical screaming.  “Where’s your dad where’s your DAD?” I shrieked, not waiting for them to answer before I burst into the bathroom where he was showering, effectively putting him into cardiac arrest.  By the time he dried off (slowly) and made his way upstairs, the moth was nowhere to be found.
The only thing worse than having a moth in the house is not knowing the whereabouts of said moth.
“It could be anywhere!” I whispered to my husband, as he walked from room to room, looking.  The moth was nowhere to be found.  A guy was actually working on our bathroom at the time, a huge and quiet guy referred to universally as “D”.  My husband explained the situation to the somewhat bewildered fellow, who reassured me that he hadn’t seen a moth, but if he did, he would squish it immediately.  After a while, my husband gave up the search, although I continued to creep suspiciously from room to room.  “It must have made its way outside!” he said cheerfully, although I thought, darkly, that he was saying this to placate me. 
This morning the moth showed up.  It must have hidden under the food processor.  I moved it out of the way to plug in the blender this morning, when the moth made its appearance.  I was making a smoothie for Mark’s breakfast, and he was fairly alarmed when I started screaming.  I took a deep breath, told him I needed him to be really brave, and to get the moth.  He grabbed a tissue, ran to the window where the moth was fluttering, and squished it!  My brave, big boy! 
And here I was, fretting at the speed at which children grow up.  There’s nothing quite so satisfying as having a big kid who can squish moths for me.   

I think I’m a Winter

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I’m starting to talk like our contractors.  My husband asked me, casually, what the tile guys were going to do with the cement shower base and cinderblock bench.  “They’re gonna beef it up real good” was what I actually told him.  Because I now know ALL when it comes to pouring the cement for a shower base.  Also, if ever I am in a tiling situation where I am instructing someone, I know that the proper way to ask someone to affix a tile onto a surface is to say “Butter it up, slap that fucker on.  COME ON!  Shim it up a bit!  Fuck!  Let’s go!”

I was just out driving in an electrical storm, which is always a bit freaky, although they say a car is the safest place to be.  I don’t know, I think I prefer to be in the comfort of my own home, but maybe that’s just the irrational, “hail is pelting my windshield and it’s scaring me” part of my brain talking.  Speaking of irrational, when I went to pick the boys up for lunch, Mark came out with no jacket.  In the rain.  When asked about it, he said he didn’t think he needed it.  By the time I had to take them back to the school, the rain had upgraded from “raining a little” to “torrential downpour plus hail” and yet Mark still refused a jacket.  To be honest, I was just as glad because sending a child to school with two jackets is a recipe for one of those jackets to be destined for the lost and found.  “Run fast!” I told him as I dropped him off, hoping he wouldn’t be totally soaked for the rest of the day.

Yesterday was a beautiful, warm day, and this is noteworthy since it was a Tuesday, and, therefore, a soccer practice.  A warm day for soccer?  It’s bringing up the average temperature!  Meteorologists across the city were probably rubbing their lying hands with glee.  In any case, I was just as happy to be sitting in the sun.  Or, as it turned out, playing soccer in the sun.

The coach approached me a couple of days ago to ask me to help out on the field at last night’s practice.  He specifically requested that I, maybe, could wear sneakers?  We both looked at my feet when he said that.  I was wearing three inch wedges – in the playground, ridiculously enough.  What is wrong with me?  Anyway, I told him I most certainly would help on the field, and I did not mention the fact that despite owning many, many pairs of black shoes, I do not own a single pair of sneakers.  What?  I’m not a runner, nor do I ever frequent the gym, so…I pulled out my one pair of sensible shoes – Mary Jane-style Skechers that I wear when I work in the garden.  They worked for the purpose, anyway, although the “parents versus kids” game that I was supposedly participating in morphed into an “older siblings who want to annihilate their younger siblings versus kids” game, which, quite frankly, sucked.  I don’t usually complain about other mothers, and I try not to judge, but there is one mom on the team who brings her ten year old son to watch the practices and games, and whom she very obviously favours over her younger son (who is on the team).  I’m not a big FAN of favouritism, like most of us, but when she happily sat by as her older son effectively kept the ball away from the younger players, WHOSE PRACTICE IT WAS, well, Judgy McJudgerton.  Yes, your ten year old son is awesome compared to the U8 team.  Praise Jesus.

I am not – obviously – a fashion blogger, nor do I read any fashion blogs, but I do love when people write about clothing, shoes, bags, etc.  So I was kind of excited to read Swistle’s post about all her clothing essentially being the same three colours.  I was excited because my wardrobe is, as you may or may not know, almost exclusively black or grey.  It’s not just me, lots of people have a predominant colour palette in their wardrobe!  Remember how everyone used to get their colours “done” and would only wear colours in their “season”?  It occurs to me that maybe we are all subconsciously doing just that, without actually getting our colours “done”. 

The book is a little misleading though.  THIRTY special colours? 

Not to be an idiot, but I would have to think very hard to come up with thirty colours, unless I lamely did something like light blue, medium blue, dark blue, etc.  I most assuredly do not have thirty colours of anything in my wardrobe. 

So tell me, what’s in your wardrobe?  Do you find you buy your clothes in similar colours, or are you a veritable Rainbow Brite?