Category Archives: Uncategorized

Young Hearts! Be free! Tonight!

Posted on by
Tomorrow is the boys’ soccer tournament – Super! Soccer! Saturday! – and I am completely unenthusiastic about it.  It looks like it is going to be freakishly cold, and most likely raining, as it has been for most of this week. 

The rain did not dampen the spirits of a teenage couple who were walking down my street, hand in hand, and then, suddenly started making out passionately in front of my house in the middle of the afternoon.  Sometimes it just cannot wait, I guess.  By the time the guy got to second base – which really didn’t take long – I felt I should probably STOP WATCHING.  Ah, young love. 

Speaking of young love, I found this photo quite amusing:

Photo from Toronto Star
There’s nothing like tear gas and billy sticks to get passions flowing.  Maybe it’s the riot gear, in which case I actually understand.  Not much sexier than a man in uniform, especially one wielding weapons.  My friend Nan wrote a funny post on the rioting that probably had nothing to do with the Stanley Cup, and everything to do with people being assholes.  The rioting!  I find it hard to even somewhat understand this mentality.  These actions just have to be premeditated.  How else to explain it?  “Shit, the Canucks lost.  Luckily I happen to have a jerry can of gasoline and a sledge hammer.  Let’s go fuck some stuff up!” 

I mean, really.  It’s too bad that the rioters in question are more than likely unemployed and/or unemployable, or perhaps they could be held financially accountable for the damage.  Unfortunately, hanging out in your mom’s basement playing Wii isn’t a marketable skill.  My husband, upon watching the news, echoed his earlier sentiments regarding the rioting anarchists at last summer’s G20 summit.  This time, instead of declaring that should our children ever partake in such destructive festivities he would blow through their inheritance and education funds and buy a Maserati, he decided that he would purchase a Ferrari instead and never allow them to go near it. 

Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.

Meanwhile he is out golfing this evening while I drink copious amounts of wine and wait for the boys to be in bed so I can put on the NYPD Blue DVD’s and think about a) how many layers of sweaters to wear to Super! Soccer! Saturday and b) what to make for Father’s Day dessert – chocolate mousse (the non-avocado kind) or cake?  Anyone?  Anyone?

***EDITED TO ADD***
According to The National: the photo above evidently is NOT about two people getting it on – it’s a woman who tripped and had a panic attack, and the gentleman in question is trying to calm her down.  THAT MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE!  It would be sweet if there was a follow up date, though.

Bo Derek Sings The Gambler

Posted on by

Last Wednesday Mark got the all-clear from the doctor: no more pneumonia!  The second round of antibiotics worked, happily.  Sadly, less than two days later he caught his brother’s minor cold, and Friday night I lay awake, listening to him cough relentlessly.  Each thing I did for him – propping him up with pillows, giving him hard candies to suck on, administering sips of water – were completely ineffective until exhaustion took over and he finally fell asleep.  Not so me.  I stared at the ceiling thinking with great nostalgia about the two or three cough-free days.  Remember the night he didn’t cough?  That was great.  It didn’t help that I – with tremendously bad timing – had just reread Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro, in which the main character dies of pneumonia.  The line “Her lungs were ravaged by pneumonia” kept running through my head, like my mind was actually a broken record.  Cough cough cough.

When I finally fell asleep I had a bizarre dream that I went to my hair appointment and my hair therapist put my hair in cornrows.  How exotic!  My little braids would blow in the wind, the beads clicking together softly.  I woke up completely disoriented, and then I actually did go to my hair appointment.  I did not get cornrows, but I did get two inches cut off, which is extreme and wild for me, although possibly not noticeable to the average person. 

I have a busy week of volunteer work ahead of me.  When Jake made a “hug book” for Mother’s Day, on the page describing what I like to do was written “My mom likes to bak and volntr.”  That is, bake and volunteer.  Depressingly enough, that pretty much sums up my life.  Over coffee, my best friend – a mother of four and former teacher – shook her head over my commitment to be the chair of the school council.  “Wow,” she said, “You are going to need a LOT of wine to get through that.”  Exactly.

On the upside to volunteering is that I was invited to our community Volunteer Appreciation Night, taking place next Friday.  I went last year, and ended up winning a giant set of French White Corningware, which I drunkenly walked home with.  A friend won a plaster lawn ornament in the shape of a bear cub lying on a log, and with that variety of door prizes there is NO WAY I am going to miss this night.  My husband, strangely enough, is not overly interested in attending with me, so instead I am going with a girlfriend.  After I RSVP’d, I received the information that this year, not only is there going to be a DJ and a dance, but there is going to be a karaoke machine!  Karaoke!  I promised my girlfriend I would not sing (although if The Gambler is available ALL BETS ARE OFF) but I am giddy with anticipation – who IS going to use the karaoke machine?  Will it be a hockey dad or a soccer mom?  Will it be someone on the community newsletter committee?  Will it be the sole elderly man in the Scrabble club?  I really cannot wait.

It reminds me of the Christmas party I attended at the economics department when I was a grad student there.  For reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained, there was a karaoke machine.  One of my professors sang an astonishingly terrible rendition of Me and Bobby McGee, and I was never able to look at him the same afterwards.  Who, at the Volunteer Appreciation Night, will be that person whom no one can look in the eye afterwards?  I really hope it’s not me.

Grumpy Grandpa

Posted on by
My grandpa passed away Friday night.  He was 96, and ill, and so it was not surprising or even, to me, particularly sad.  I was thankful that we had visited with him a few months ago, prior to his foray into the hospital and nursing home, while he was still at home and still able to discuss the oil business with my husband.
My grandpa was not the kind of grandpa to bounce me on his knee, or to play with me, or even to smile much.  He was, to be completely frank, a gruff and grumpy man.  He would sit at the head of the dinner table, in complete silence, not joining in the dinner table conversation or even acknowledging that other people were there.  His plate was always filled, not by him.  My grandma would sit beside him, only sometimes asking if he wanted more before filling his plate.  He was a teetotaller, but also extraordinarily health conscious, so when he read that red wine was good for the heart, he purchased a gigantic jug of cheap, sweet Kelowna Royal Red.  After dinner he would pour himself half a cup of that swill, directly into the glass that he had just drained of milk. 
Just thinking about that makes me smile.
He was essentially useless in the kitchen.  I very much doubt that he could have made himself a sandwich.  But once, many years ago, my younger brother and I were encamped in his living room, embarking on what was probably our fiftieth round of Rummikub, bored out of our trees on that Christmas holiday.  My mother had taken my grandma shopping, and yet we heard an immense amount of banging and rustling from the kitchen.  We exchanged looks and continued with our game.  After thirty minutes of that noise, my grandpa emerged, carrying a plastic bowl of tortilla chips.  “Here,” he said gruffly, “You kids like these.”
He rarely acknowledged that he liked anything, but if he did, he would say “That’s pretty good.”  When I received my master’s degree, he said that it was “real good”.  And once, once I was visiting them at Easter.  I was a teenager at the time, and I came to the breakfast table dressed in a skirt, ready for the church service.  “Well,” he said, “Well.  You’ll be the prettiest girl at church today.”  He never said anything like that in my hearing before or since.
He was divorced, with four children – the youngest was my father – in a time and place where that would have been considered somewhat unusual.  He married my grandma, who was a widow with six children.  I am one of thirty one grandchildren.  There are lots of great grandchildren and even some great-great grandchildren.  I lost count.  He liked having family around him, even though he didn’t show it in a particularly conventional way.
He was gruff and silent, and he had a huge family and a long life.  I will always smile when I think of my grumpy grandpa.

Postcards

Posted on by
Remembrance Day, to me, conjures up images of the World Wars.  I think about mothers, like me, with sons who were drafted and never came home and with sons who were drafted and did come home, scarred.  I think about the elderly veterans who have seen and experienced unimaginable things, and I think about their mothers crying with joy when their sons came home. 
I admit I don’t always think about Afghanistan.  It’s strange, because my husband’s close friend, someone who I admire, has served over there, and yet that is not what immediately comes to mind on Remembrance Day. 
At school all the kids made postcards for Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, “Postcards for Peace”.  They were to be given to a soldier, a master corporal, at their Remembrance Day assembly today.  Each class had a student present the soldier with their postcards, and Jake was selected from the kindergarten class to do this.
The master corporal first spoke to the children about Remembrance Day, about serving in Afghanistan, using terms and anecdotes that were appropriate for a young audience.  He spoke about the heat, and the houses made from mud, and the children who would come and ask the troops for candy and pens and paper, the children with no schools and no toys, the children who would point out the landmines to the soldiers.  He spoke about the children who were killed when a bomb went off near the military base, and how they did not allow local children to approach them any more due to the inherent dangers.  He explained that his own parents were worried when he went on his tour of duty; he said that he was their special boy, and that they were worried that he would be hurt.
The children from each class lined up to give the master corporal their postcards.  Jake was last.  He walked towards him, the length of the gymnasium, and then turned to go back to his seat, postcards still in hand.  Prompting from a teacher had him heading back towards the soldier, only to take another wrong turn.  Finally, the soldier in his dress uniform crouched down, smiling and beckoning to Jake, who was proudly dressed up in his new shirt with a poppy pinned to it.  Jake solemnly handed the soldier his class’ contributions.
And I thought, there is my special boy.

Knowing Me, Knowing You, the Barfing Edition

Posted on by
On Thursday I was talking to a friend, and we noted all the kids missing and sick at the school.  “There sure is a lot going around,” I said to her, “I just hope if we get it, we get it right away and get over it before the book fair.”  That very night, Mark woke up vomiting and continued vomiting every half hour for the duration of the night and well into mid-morning.
It’s good to see the universe is listening to me.
Mark is on the mend now, and no one else has come down with it so far, a phenomenon that seems mysterious, lucky, and ominous all at once.  I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.  I also think I’ve gotten soft.  The morning after the all-night barf fest, I pulled myself out of bed with very little sleep and was hardly able to function.  When the kids were small, that would have been an average night’s sleep.  Evidently when they were small I was in a zombie state all the time; after one bad night I felt completely inebriated.  I walked into the wall not once but twice.  How did I function back then?  I guess it is something you get used to.  
The weekend has therefore felt very disjointed, what with Mark in recovery mode and me obsessively monitoring everyone else for possible illness, and also the evil, accursed time change, which I complain about every year and yet it exists still. 
So I have decided, this month, to participate in the Fairy Blogmother’s Knowing Me, Knowing You since my creativity has been sapped from all the BARFING.  And worrying about barfing.  And being indignant about time change and how it still exists even though I want it not to.  How rude!
1) What’s on your Christmas Wish List?
My Christmas list is exactly the same every year: books, pajamas, and yoga wear.  I also am planning on asking for gloves this year.   
2) Do you have a handheld video game in your house?
No.  We’re Luddites.  Although I’m not sure how much longer that will last given the boys are all aware of video games and whatnot.
3) Are you participating in the 25 Days of Christmas challenge?
This is the first I’ve heard of this.  So maybe?  I’m not sure I can think of 25 Christmas themed family activities, offhand.  But it does sound fun.
4) What is your favourite kind of cookie?
Gingersnaps!  Chocolate chip!  Oatmeal chocolate chip!  Gingerbread!  I love cookies.
5) Coffee or tea?
Coffee.  Coffee.  Coffee.  I drink a lot of coffee.  I was over at a friend’s house with Jake for a playdate and she asked if I wanted some tea.  I requested something herbal, since I had already consumed eight cups of coffee that day.  She turned around, and gasped “PARDON ME?”  I felt like I had just told her I prostituted myself out for a hit of heroin right before the playdate, and if she didn’t mind, I would just drink my wine out of the bottle in the paper bag that I brought along.  So evidently I should cut back on the coffee, just to fit into society and all that.  Like that little boy who dressed up as Daphne for Halloween!  But the boys are getting hungry and my housewifely duties are calling, and so that is a topic for another day.

Interview with Nicole

Posted on by

I’m doing a meme from Marilyn over at A Lot of Loves. Fun!

I should probably warn you that I’m feeling PRETTY giddy and silly today because it’s sunny and beautiful and I spent the morning at a pool party! In Calgary! And it was warm! In Calgary! I feel like I won the Saturday morning jackpot. Plus there are sunny days to come this week. Evidently I should have been a California girl. Or gurl. Except that there is NO WAY I would ever wear Daisy Dukes. I don’t even wear regular shorts, for goodness’ sake. Also my husband is currently at the golf course so I’m going to watch NYPD Blue reruns and the thought of it is filling me with joy. “You tell him JOHN KELLY is looking for him. JOHN KELLY.” Oh David Caruso, and your angsty hunkiness.

So! Here goes with the meme. I haven’t done one of these for ages.

What experience has most shaped you, and why?

I have very fine hair with a lot of cowlicks. When I was a kid, my mother always told me I had “terrible hair” and I spent my childhood with either a) a super short haircut, or b) a HOME PERM and so ever since then I have had long hair, with the regrettable exception of the time in university that I had a “Rachel”. I always thought I had uniquely bad hair, but I now realize, with the power of hindsight, that I just had really bad short haircuts. And home perms.

If you had a whole day with no commitments, what would you do?

I’m overwhelmed with just that thought. I don’t even know. I think I would spiral right off the freaking planet with giddiness. I would definitely go out for a huge dinner and eat a lot of cheese, but other than that I HAVE NO IDEA.

What food or drink could you never give up.

Oh, that’s easy. Red wine and cheese. One of my favourite restaurants serves a baked goat cheese encrusted in pecans and it is truly one of the best things I have ever eaten.

If you could travel anywhere, where would it be and why?

A friend just returned from safari in Zambia and Namibia, and I am DYING of jealousy. I want to go! Why didn’t she take me? Maybe because it was her honeymoon?

Who do you have a crush on?

If you read this blog with any kind of regularity, you will know that I have many, many crushes. I may be 35 but I’m like some boy crazy tween. Of course, my husband is unbelievably hot so I am going to say I have a crush on him. Also Hugh Jackman. Yes, the lady would like two tickets to the gun show.

If you were the leader of the country, what would you do?

I would outlaw home perms.

Give me one savoury recipe that doesn’t include cheese.

I make a MEAN pan of kale chips with tahini sauce. It is delicious. Full disclosure: my husband tasted them and said it was the “worst thing he had ever put in his mouth.” So, I guess it depends who you ask.

What did you think you were going to be when you grew up?

Oh! Haha! I thought I was going to be either a) a concert pianist, or b) a great theatre actress. That sure panned out for me.

If you could spend just one day in the body of someone else, who would it be?

I would like to give a really intelligent answer to this one, but I’m drinking wine and watching Sex and the City, so erudition doesn’t really come into play in this situation. I’m going to say a Victoria’s Secret runway model, so I could wear those really big wings.

Which woman writer – living or dead – do you most admire and why?

I love so many woman writers. My favourites are Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, LM Montgomery, LM Alcott, and Alice Munro. Alice Munro is probably my most admired from a literary standpoint, but my least admired from a personal standpoint.

What character trait inspires you the most?

I really admire positivity and joyfulness in people.

******************************************************************************

I’m supposed to tag other bloggers and add a question of my own. So, I’m tagging:

Happy Geek, who is as hilarious in person as she is on her blog
Valerie, who is my gorgeous friend and also has a brand new blog, which is beautiful and makes me think that I should really get her to show me how to take a decent photograph
Subspace Beacon, who constantly makes me laugh with her wit and erudition

But if you are reading this and want to answer a few of these questions, leave me a comment! It’s fun!

And the question I am going to add is:

Sweet or salty? Discuss.