I don’t know what your favourite books are, but I can tell you what mine aren’t: Scooby Doo Early Reader Mysteries. I made a grave error in ordering a package of nine (nine!) from Scholastic Books and as a result have been reading the most boring, mind-numbing series of books that were ever written. Oh no! Ghosts! No, it’s just some leaves blowing in the wind. Fortunately I also ordered a book about volcanoes, which has proved popular but not as popular as Shaggy and the gang. However, I want my boys to be readers, so whatever boring tripe (ahem, I mean stories) catch their attention is really fine with me.

I love reading; I have always been an avid reader. However, sometimes it’s hard for me to get into a mindset to read a new book. Lately I’ve just needed the comfort of an old favourite, and so the past three books I’ve read have been just that. I have Slumdog Millionaire sitting on my bookshelf, just waiting for me to start it, but I just haven’t been in the mood for something new. This is what I have been reading in the past few weeks:

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. This may be my favourite book of all time. I always get caught up in the love story, the historical drama, and the complex plot. There is just something so pleasing about the privileged, married, rich girl having an illicit affair with the communist/ pulp fiction writer-on-the-run. Sigh. My favourite line in the book is when Iris, looking at the painting of her grandmother, thinks “I bet you were alleycatting all along. I bet you had a secret life. I bet it kept you going”.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I picked this up the other day as I took a Facebook quiz – Which Jane Austen Character Are You? – and my result was Jane Bennett. Damn! I had been hoping for Elizabeth; I always thought of Jane as kind of a drip. P&P is probably the wittiest book ever written, I never tire of it. Also, Mr. Darcy. Ah, Mr. Darcy. “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you”. Rrrr. Rrrr in that whole repressed, nineteenth century way. My opinion of Jane Bennett hasn’t changed though, she’s still a sap. Well, as my sister-in-law said, at least my quiz result wasn’t Marianne Dashwood, the mentally unstable, dying-of-consumption-since-Willoughby-married-someone-else heroine who ends up a broken-spirited wife to the old Colonel. Of course, that old Colonel was very attractively portrayed by Alan Rickman in the film version, so that wouldn’t have been all that bad.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Isn’t this the classic of all classics? I never read this in school; in fact I didn’t read this until I was in my twenties. The descriptions of the town, the people, and especially the living conditions are fascinating and depressing at the same time. I get a lump in my throat every single time I read the ending. Best line? “I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn’t much else for us to learn, except possibly algebra”.

Your turn! What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend?

Here is what has been happening since my husband left for a business trip:

I took the dog to the groomer’s, and found out his adult coat is coming in and matting with his puppy coat. Exceptionally fluffy dog is now shaved, and as a result is acting QUITE bizarre.

I took both boys to the soccer field for practice last night. 70 km/hour winds kept blowing stray balls and unattended folding chairs down the field. I listened to a soccer dad tell me all about his self-published book on Taiwan, but couldn’t hear half of what he was saying because of the howling wind. I have a feeling I didn’t actually miss much.

Discovered, yet again, that the boys are always fine for two days when their dad is gone, but on the third day (i.e., TODAY) they turn into evil goblins who feel it necessary to shriek and whine the day away.

I complained to a very lovely woman about my husband being away, and picking up the slack, etc., to which she replied that she is a single mom and does that and more all the time. I felt like, and still feel like, an asshole.

Have you ever heard of a “mommy makeover”? There is a plastic surgery clinic in Los Angeles that caters to “mommies”. Remember my (strange, non-maternal) aversion to the word “mommy”? It is NOTHING compared with the revulsion I feel at the marketing towards mothers and the supposed dissatisfaction with a child-bearing body. Philosophically, I feel that mothers should feel more beautiful after having children, not less. Each stretch mark, every inch of loose skin, or, in my case, every giant ropy varicose vein, should be testament to your enormous gift to the world, in terms of your wonderful child and your exuberant entry into motherhood. Right? Well, maybe not totally. But I do feel that our obsession with appearance and need to erase all signs of bodily stress due to child bearing is quite…unattractive. It’s the same feeling I have when I see a picture of Joan Rivers or similar, someone who in their quest for eternal beauty has become a hideous beast. (As my neighbour so succinctly put it, “It doesn’t make you look younger, it just makes you look stranger”.) I’m all for acceptance that yes, your body may be different after childbirth, but it is just as beautiful.

This website advertises procedures running the gamut from face lifts, breast lifts and enhancements, body sculpting, and tummy tucks, all the way down to labiaplasty (ewww). You could get a total renovation! There are before and after pictures, and as I clicked on them, I started to feel, instead of revulsion with the concept, revulsion towards my own body. You see, despite my strident feminist feelings against such marketing and even against such plastic surgery, I am a vain person. I mean, I put lip gloss on to walk the dog: that kind of vain. So as I looked at the pictures I felt a genuine dissatisfaction with my own body.

To say I was disappointed with my reaction is an understatement.

Part of it is, and I’m almost shy to say this, I used to have a GREAT rack. I had a nice set of 36 C’s, that expanded to a triple D when I was pregnant. And now…well, I got measured by the bra-fitting specialist at the Bay, and the result was 32 B. And B is a bit of an overstatement, because the actual measurement was somewhere between an A and a B. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. “YOU ARE VEARING THE VRONG SIZE BRRA” the bra fitter admonished me. Um, you think? So as I looked at the pictures of the women with breast lifts and enhancements, I thought, hey, that DOES look good! Dammit!

Marketing that targets the insecurities of moms is wrong on many levels; I guess that is why it is so effective. So what I’m saying, ladies, is let’s stand up for our post-partum, different-but-still-beautiful bodies! Let’s celebrate what we have and think of the changes not as flaws, but as amazing and miraculous evidence that we came, we had babies, and we conquered.

I was a meme virgin, but I was tagged by Beck (okay, I asked her to tag me). Here we go!

8 Things I’m Looking Forward To

1. Spring – it’s kind of here, many of my plants are starting to poke up. IT’S ABOUT TIME.
2. Having a glass of wine tonight. But then, I’m always looking forward to that.
3. Incessantly watching NYPD Blue reruns on DVD this week. My husband will be away, and I’m not looking forward to that, but it does give me the freedom to obsessively watch David Caruso. (“Tell him John Kelly is looking for him. JOHN KELLY.” Rrrr…..)
4. Eating a LOT of Greek salad this week – another thing I do when the cat’s away. I’m so wild.
5. The Mother’s Day Tea at the preschool this week! Although Jake informed me “I told Ms. Jan I didn’t think I should have tea. But she said I could have juice”. Good to know.
6. Getting the dog groomed. He kind of stinks.
7. Wearing capri pants and sandals, which I’m hoping will happen sometime soon! Rise, mercury, rise!
8. Rob coming home from his week away, and the ensuing – ahem! – reunion. Rrrr….

8 Things I Did Yesterday

1. Ate a frozen chocolate Girl Guide cookie. Bliss in a cookie.
2. Walked the dog.
3. Made pasta sauce, which I loved but no one else seemed all that crazy about.
4. Watched 30 Rock and the Office, and laughed a lot.
5. It was warm enough that I picked the boys up from school wearing only a sweater and t-shirt – no jacket!
6. Worked on my drop-backs, thank you very much lovely teachers.
7. Worked on a post about mommy makeovers.
8. Got grossed out reading about labiaplasty.

8 Things I Wish I Could Do

1. Drop-backs – it’s coming though! Soon, maybe.
2. Cook something really delicious that everyone in my house would eat.
3. Not cry when something goes wrong with the car. Especially something stupid like running out of windshield washer fluid.
4. Be able to open the hood of my car.
5. Downhill ski.
6. Eat unlimited amounts of potato chips, nachos, and the like without gaining any weight.
7. Speak another language.
8. Throw and catch a ball.

8 Shows I Watch

1. 30 Rock – best show on TV.
2. Grey’s Anatomy, although I’m a little disturbed by my crush on Dr. Hunt. He’s a wacko! Why do I find him soooo sexy?
3. America’s Next Top Model. I’m slightly ashamed.
4. Jeopardy!
5. How I Met Your Mother – next to 30 Rock, this is the funniest show on TV.
6. NYPD Blue Season One. For reasons previously stated.
7. American Idol – full disclosure, I don’t usually like this show but my husband watches it. This year, it’s pretty good! I’m actually enjoying it.
8. Breakfast Television. Sometimes for a laugh I call it the news.

Meme deflowering complete!

Hey, have you heard of this thing called the “swine flu”? No?

I am having a strange time with all the coverage of H1N1. On the one hand, I feel like there is a teensy bit of panic and fear mongering going on. The reality is that 300 people die of the flu, the regular old flu, in Alberta every year. Currently there are six cases in Calgary, which is a city of over a million people. So perhaps a little perspective is needed.

On the other hand, I am a person who glares warily at people coughing and sneezing at the best of times, and relating to me that your child was up all night vomiting will inevitably lead to me surreptitiously sanitizing my hands at the first possible moment. “Germ-paranoid” is a term that comes to mind.

The thing about the H1N1, which I am using out of respect for pork producers, because although I am vegetarian, there are some serious pork fans in my house (“Pork chops! Yay!!!”), is that there is really nothing to be done in terms of prevention other than the regular old hand-washing and avoidance of people who are infected. Which is kind of common-sense, you know. And one of the great things about the internet and massive media coverage is that there is awareness – so people who are sick have a free pass to stay at home and recover, to keep away from the general public.

(Just writing that, I recall my former place of employment, which completely frowned upon people calling in sick. The guys I worked with would show up in all sorts of contagious stages, hacking and coughing and practically passing out at their desks. I myself once showed up to work with a massive kidney infection, typing away in agony, putting my exhausted head in my hands every hour or so, until I had finished my daily tasks and went home to ingest antibiotics.)

What precautions, if any, are you taking against this flu? Are you canceling vacations? Are you turning into an agoraphobic germ-phobe (like me, although I am fighting this urge in an attempt to seem normal)? Or, are you taking normal precautions against illness like hand-washing, but keeping your perspective?

My husband likes to blame much of society’s ills on what he calls the “hippie generation”. Every time he does, I giggle a little inside, because the term “hippie generation” makes him sound like he’s an extraordinarily crotchety 75-year-old, and while I did bag myself an older husband, he’s not a senior citizen for goodness’ sake. And yes, I’m aware that by saying “goodness sake” I myself sound like I’m 75.

But back to the hippie generation. Among other things, my husband blames problems with the justice system, paroled sex offenders, laxity in the school system, and children’s behavioural issues on those damn hippies. While I may or may not agree with blaming the general downfall of society on one particular group, I do feel that there is far too much laxity with children and behaviour these days.

The thing is, there are a lot of fun and sweet parts to being a parent, but there are a lot of difficult parts too. Difficult: discipline. It is hard to discipline your children, and by discipline of course I mean correcting behaviours and ensuring that your child is not a spoiled brat destined to become a self-indulgent bratty adult with a sense of entitlement. It’s not a fun part of parenting but it is an important and very necessary part, one that does NOT go hand-in-hand with being your child’s best friend.

What I’m saying is, if you set low expectations for your children, they will always fulfill them. If you don’t apply rules and boundaries, your children will have problems. I’m not talking about some craziness a la the Babywise school of parenting, or not picking up your crying baby, or anything silly like that. I’m talking about boundaries, and lessons, and all that other stuff that is not fun. Without knowing where their boundaries are, children become unsure and act out.

I work really hard at teaching manners, instilling respect, and taming behavioural problems as they arise. It sucks, it is not fun, but I work hard at it. When I see five-year-olds slapping their mothers, screaming “Why didn’t you remember my hat? You’re so dumb!”, and falling to the floor shrieking, completely unchecked, I think, those are their peers, who they will be spending the majority of their time with in a few years, and I feel like I’m swimming upstream.

I don’t write much when I’m sad. I don’t mind writing about being sad, but I don’t like to write when I am currently sad. There is a reason for this. I feel, I really do, that I am an extremely fortunate person and that I have more than most. I mean, I have a healthy family and a loving, employed husband and in the grand scheme of things, this feels like the ultimate in blessings. Although I have had many sad periods in my life, now is not one of them, and so when I feel sad it feels a bit…self indulgent. Or spoiled. Either way I feel like if I’m all mopey about something trivial, fate is going to deal me something bad. It’s kind of like the karmic equivalent of “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!”. Or, a phrase commonly used in my household “Suck it up, buttercup”. I know! Repress feelings! I would have made a great Englishwoman.

As it is, I’m a nice, albeit bizarre, combination of Scottish and Norwegian heritage.

But yesterday I was SO SAD and moped around a bit. My usual routines felt oppressive to me, and I kept interrupting said routines to look out the window at the grey sky and brown grass, which was soon to be covered in a fresh blanket of snow, while the children shrieked and fought in the background, probably because their mother is a nut. And although I tend to be quite glib and jovial about Calgary weather – it always snows in the spring! And in the summer sometimes too! Remember the July Stampede when it snowed! – really, the weather was getting me down. The temperatures hovering around freezing, the snow, the wind. Really it’s quite depressing. But, as they say, if you can’t change something, change the way you feel about it. I mean, I’m not Ma Ingalls and it’s not like trains are not going to get through and we are all going to die of starvation. Perspective, people.

And so my husband cheered me up by indulging in one of our favourite semi-annual activities – minds out of the gutter people! – which is looking at houses on-line, talking about buying a different house, and then concluding that our house is just FINE, thank you, and we aren’t moving. We have a nice house for kids – it’s got a good sized kitchen, a fully developed basement for a play area, and a gorgeous yard and garden. Which are currently covered in snow. Snap! Enough of that! Back to thinking about Ma Ingalls.