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Showing posts from 2010

Well, here goes

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I'm going to have to commence with the rusty, awkward, been-away-too-long re-entry at some point, right? So: We wore pajamas. For days and days we wore pajamas. We were suitably grateful for our gifts thusly: also thusly: We demonstrated to others the proper use of their gifts (that's Eve showing me how I should look while sitting in my new sun-shaded chair watching her or Angus play baseball) We made Eve set the giant square table because she can sit on it and is thus the only one who can reach the middle: We took brief reading breaks when and wherever we could find them: We invited beloved old people into our home and tortured them by making them wear funny hats: There was comfort, joy, laughter, and enough wine to create some serious purple teeth (only my husband was smart enough for the end-of-evening closed-mouth smile): There. I feel so much better. Now back to my long winter's nap.

Wordless Wednesday: Reasons I'm Glad I Married Him #176

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He comes home from the grocery store seven days before Christmas, when all the decorations are deeply discounted, Unloads the groceries, then wanders around the house with an enormous plastic tube, saying WHERE CAN I HANG MY GIANT BALLS?

The story of my Saturday night

We got back to the hotel with about an hour before Adonis was due to show up. Anne Marie asked me to read her some of The Sentimentalists to see if she found it less impenetrable when read aloud. What I read was nicely written, but I did see her point. We were having a lovely quiet reading time while she was lying down on the bed, and then Bonnie came in from the other room with some ice and tried to move around quietly and failed utterly, so we gave up on the quiet reading time and started mixing drinks again and getting prettified for our close-ups. Getting photographed was....odd. Adonis was great, and like I said there appeared to be no other guests in residence, so we sprawled ourselves and various camera equipment all over the lobby without disturbing anyone else. Bonnie said she got this idea from a friend of hers who had been surprised on her birthday with a bunch of old friends and a professional photographer, and she said she'd never had any pictures of herself whe

The story of my Friday and Saturday

The previous one, not the most recent one because I've been lazy and disorganized. Also, I'm too lazy to get up and get my camera so the pictures will have to wait. So five of us, who went to high school together, who all turned 40 this year (I guess we didn't allow any of those tiresome grade-skipper overachievers into our little group back then). At the Hotel Indigo downtown, with which I was unfamiliar and where I'm reasonably confident we were the only guests, but it was nice, and it is my favourite colour. Friday night four of us got to the hotel and had some drinks before going out for dinner. I still haven't figured out if I didn't drink quite as much as everyone else or if I'm just still a whiny self-conscious killjoy, because I did spend a lot of the evening once we left the hotel worrying that we were being too loud and obnoxious. We walked from the hotel to the Green Papaya and were served by a waitress who initially appeared very sweet an

The Story of my Sunday

On Sunday I woke up in the Hotel Indigo. No, this isn't the story of how I downed a bottle of quaaludes and a fifth of Jack Daniels and had a little desperate fifties housewife interlude (what the hell are quaaludes when they're in my medicine cabinet?). I was at the tail end of a smashing girls' week-end with four of my amazing friends from high school (should have been five but Sheila was having pregnancy complications and couldn't travel, which SUCKS beyond belief, not least because she is the driest of dry wits and she would have complimented the sweet lychee liqueur beautifully). The forecast had been dire, but my friend Anne Marie assured me that outside was just a little cloudy and threatening rain. Then Patti came back from her run and after we chipped the ice off of her she said 'it's freezing rain'. Fuck. So then we had breakfast because if you're going to subsequently risk your life and your academic future you might as well be full of th

Merry Foot-Rot To You: The Story of My Monday and Tuesday

So Monday night we went to a Christmas party. I was really freakin' tired from the week-end (more on that later. Yes, we're going to work backwards because then maybe I will get back to the first part of the week-end, which was magical), but the party was fun. My friend Collette usually hosts now, since we all had so many damned kids and they all got so damned big, and she has the biggest house so we don't have to be reminded of how many damnably large children we've all produced the whole time we're there. We all had a great time at the party and then we came home. Then the kids got their pajamas on and they were reading in my room for a few minutes before going to bed. I went into my room and Angus was lying on my bed with no socks on so I decided to take a look at this wart he's had on the bottom of his foot for a while because Matt had mentioned that he thought it was starting to bother him. So I lifted up his foot and looked at the bottom of it. The

Dreams, teeth, and Bert the Tree

Eve's been having nightmares and coming into bed with me at five a.m.-ish the past few nights. Yesterday I couldn't fall back asleep, partly because she was snoring in my ear and partly because something was really bugging me. The fact that I haven't started my Christmas cards yet? Nope. The fact that I have to write an exam on Sunday for which I've barely studied and it will be following two days and nights of partying with some of my high school friends? Uh-uh. That I haven't bought Angus's video game that he wants for Christmas and forgot to double check the name of it before he sealed his letter to Santa? Nah. It was that I couldn't remember what we had for dinner on Saturday night. It was driving me bonkers. I knew we had ribs on Friday and chicken on Sunday, so I was thinking it was probably meatless, but I couldn't see myself making it when I tried to picture it, or putting stuff on plates and handing it to the kids, and we definitely ha

Jury Rigged Advent Calendar

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A not-great photo from my not-great camera. It gets the job done, and it's right where the stairs are so I can't go up to bed without remembering to fill it. And the kids are quite impressed. Every day gets a chocolate and a cartoon or a suggestion for a Christmas activity or a little Christmas thing. Today they got pencils with toy soldier toppers and wrote their Christmas lists with them. I've read a couple of posts by people who are having trouble catching the spirit of the season. That's often me, but I'm feeling pretty good at the moment. I'm boxing up Christmas presents to ship to Edmonton, London and Thunder Bay, and it's only December sixth! Do you know what this means? This means we could possibly not have to pay the 'equivalent to your firstborn child AND your favourite limb and we MIGHT be able to get it there for Christmas' fee at the post office! I went to the library on Saturday (after my husband tried to vacuum my dress off m

Juvenile humour

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So today in the kids' advent calendar hat/stocking thingies I put chocolates and two of these cookie cutters, so we could make ornament cookies tonight: I can't for the life of me decide if I should let them use this one or not. What would you do?

Strange Times

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Look at me, posting because I want to not because I have to. Angus got his Scholastic book order today. I recently read Nan's rant about Scholastic books and had yet another 'wow, sometimes I am wholly uncritical and sheep-like in my ability to just do stuff without examining its underlying potential for evil' moment. Gee whiz, man, it seems so innocent! They bring home flyers with wonderful beautiful precious BOOKS in them and I wrote a check which, come on, that's not like real money, that's like play money, and then I forget about it and wonderful beautiful precious BOOKS appear. Clearly I will have to spend some time examining the Scholastic ideology because I'm coming off a rough month and I've been migrainey that past couple of days and I'm still unclear on the exact nature of the evilness, but I'm willing to learn. But this is not about that. This is about the books I ordered before the evil was revealed in all its leering drooling evi

Quote of the Day

My husband: "You cooked. I'll clean up." (cleaning up noises) "This used to hold a grasshopper. Can I put food in it?"

How NaBloPoMo Can You Go?

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Yah, I know that makes no sense. After all my moaning about how long November is, I totally didn't realize that today was the last day. Seems like I should have something more auspicious than...what I have. My friend Pam's husband is away for an unspeakable amount of time so I picked up her kids and took them to school this morning so she could stay in her pajamas, because my Dad picked up the kids a couple of times while Matt was away and I stayed in my pajamas and it was five flavours of awesome. I worked in the library for a few hours and got my cuteness fix from Eve's adorable little twin friends who always come up and hand me their books beaming these fantastic little smiles. And their hair is a different length so I can tell them apart. Then I went to Winners to stock up on advent calendar stuff. Then I went to Chapters to buy battling rodents for my nephew and an obsessive compulsive squirrel book and toy for my other nephew and in a fit of giddiness I bought

Stuff

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I very determinedly mooched around for much of today. This was the first day the kids were in school since Matt got back home and I figured I was going to be tired and out of sorts so I decided I wouldn't really try to get too much done before picking the kids up, taking them to piano, getting groceries and making dinner. I have this bad habit of thinking I'm going to have a relaxing day and then letting my stupid Catholic guilt wreck it, which totally defeats the purpose of being lazy. So I mooched. Even though I don't really like the word mooch. Or nibble -- why does anything ever need to be nibbled? Eck, the very sound of it makes my shoulders creep up and my nose all wrinkly. And snippets. I hate snippets of anything. Little pieces? Fine. Wee bits? Grand. No snippets.   While we were having supper Angus asked Matt if he'd been everywhere in the world yet. No, I did not put him up to this. Matt said the list of places he hasn't been in still much longer than

(Little Ray of) Sunday

Last year nablopomo was really fun. I was coming up to the end of my first year of blogging and it was a great galvanizing force, encouraging me to shape a little word sculpture every day, channelling my thoughts into a few posts I really loved, and several that I was quite happy with. This year? Not so much. It's not horrible. I don't approach the computer chair with a great heavy curtain of doom closing around me or anything. But I also haven't whipped out anything that I'm terribly proud of, and several posts have definitely just been for-the-sake-of-posting. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to look at it like a canoe trip. I always end up wondering, at some point on the second day, why the hell I thought this was anything resembling a good idea. I always end up wondering, at some point during the second night, if my triceps will ever feel like normal muscles rather than knotted-up, chewed-on, whipped chopped and puréed balls of PAIN. I always end up wond

Sat(on ass all)urday Rant

Yay my husband's home. My stock response to anything the kids have said all day is "I don't know, talk to your father". I have read two Saturday papers cover to cover. I have coined scathing responses to this article by Johanna Schneller, about her interview with Billy Bob Thornton, who acted like a total asshat last year on Q , a CBC radio show hosted by Jian Ghomeshi. Schneller calls Thornton a 'courtly iconoclast', and 'self-deprecating', and 'candid' and I don't know that he actually autographed her butt but she seems to have done everything short of planting a big old smacker on his. Because you know, he's "overly sensitive", and "I carry too much of what I see and hear" -- this in his own words, and this separates him from Robert Pattinson how? She claims that his bitchy mutterings, sullen teen-agerish silences and general douche-baggery on Q were a 'rejection of an opportunity to shill' in an a

Fried Day

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Yay. My husband is home. I can now make him do everything and then tell him how he's doing it all wrong. Because yes, apparently a large part of me IS still in grade nine. Blissful P.D. day. Kids are still in the pajamas I gave them yesterday. We all read, then Eve fell asleep for two hours and woke up outraged that she had "slept much longer than I planned to".  Tremendously exciting package arrived from Budding Artists . It's run by a friend of a friend, so I had heard about it years ago, but being your basic disorganized lazy procrastinator, it took me this long to get my act together and send them some of Eve's art. I put in a huge order for Christmas gifts for both sides of our family. We got fridge magnets, coasters, luggage tags, garden stakes, a coffee cup and a shirt for my nephew, all with Eve's pictures on them. I hadn't told her about it and her reaction when we opened the box was priceless -- loud, and priceless. Also, I had forgo

Merry Thursday

We're at husband return day minus one. I have given up all pretenses to responsible parenting and am currently revelling in excess and permissiveness. We went to the movies. We had popcorn and french fries for dinner (with a few Swedish berries -- which at least r esemble fruit -- as a garnish). Then we went to Chapters to get a birthday present for Eve's friend and I bought Angus the next two books in the series he's reading and Eve the fourth Judy Moody book, instead of giving them their allowance, spending more than their allowance, thus TOTALLY NEGATING the very purpose of having an allowance (excess! permissiveness! total negation!) We came home and I gave them the absurdly fuzzy fleece Land's End pajamas (there was a link to snowflake feet pajamas here) I meant to save for Christmas -- hey, it's cold out and they arrived today, like it was meant to be. I have now been comprehensively, literarily and fuzzily hugged and snuggled. Today was the Christmas

Wordless Wednesday: Angus McCrock

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I shared the pictures of Angus McCrock from World Trivia Night with Angus. Angus is now being really obnoxious. Angus is walking around saying "if it's not me it's crap!" Eve said "is he calling me crap?!" I said "he's calling me crap too -- and I'm his mother." For some reason that made her feel better.

And I keep telling them TV makes your brain mushy

It's not that I don't know that knowledge can be derived from surprising sources. I once floored my mother by volunteering that Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner, which I learned from a Mickey Mouse comic book. Still, we lean pretty hard on the tv as entertainment, treat, opiate-of-the-masses, not edu-info-anything. So on the way to dance tonight Eve was talking about why it rains, which they had talked about in class. This made me think about in grade six when my teacher wrote some words on the board and one of them was 'meteorologist'. Only one kid knew what a meteorologist was -- and he almost dislocated his shoulder waving his hand around, the dorky know-it-all. So today I thought I could make sure my kid had the chance to be that dorky know-it-all, and I asked her if she knew what someone who studied weather was called. She said "a meteorologist?". I said "How the hell do you know that?!" And she said (while laughing her s

Blogs that pass in the night

Remember Friends ? Remember how Monica was a clean freak and a totally organized? There was one episode where she was trying to prove that she could be carefree and somebody said okay, so say you don't pay your phone bill until you get the second notice or something and she tries to say okay, but then she yells "WHY would someone DO that?" (You don't even want to know how much time I just wasted trying to find the exact quote. And now I really miss Friends. And the last half hour of my life). I was blog-surfing a little today and remembering when I was talking to FameThrowa at Blogging Out Loud Ottawa and talking about pinging around from blog to blog sithout keeping note of them so I could go back later and the look on her face was that kind of look: "WHY would someone DO that?". Then she very helpfully told me about Google Reader and RSS Feeds and how I never have to lose track of a blog I like again. Oh crap, I just realized I'm equating FameT

I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up

There are big things going on in the world. None of them are going on in my head. My head is cluttered and disorganized. Much like most of my house. I'm trying to think of tomorrow as a fresh start. Most of the November craziness (most of it good) is over, some wonderful people watched my kids for most of the week-end, and my parents are back for my second husband-less week so if I have to go to the doctor again at least the people I stick the other kid or kids with while I'm stuck in rush hour traffic will be largely obligated to still like me. Let's talk about books! This one was about a famous clown named Kaspar Krone -- an extraordinarily perceptive man who hears people's emotions and experiences as music, and who can sense events and surroundings from miles away. There's something about unpaid taxes, his ailing father, some kidnapped children, a disappeared lover and a taxi driver with artificial legs. The book was a strange mix of mystery thriller a

One man's trivia is another man's...uh, trivia.

So it turns out Eve does have pneumonia after all. That's right -- I sent my plague-ridden daughter to another woman's house while I was out carousing. Mother of the year, right here. In my defense, no one could believe it, including the people she's staying with. And my doctor had said to call her if Eve got worse, which she hadn't, so I guess I won't bitch about it taking two and a half days to call me after the x-ray. And she did call me on a Saturday morning, which my sister the health-care professional assures me is quite impressive. So, the icky pink medicine has been dispensed, she is still happily ensconced at her best friend's house, and we'll all just have to live with the medical mystery. Apple a day my ass -- I think she may have proved that being a chronic wiseass actually strengthens the immune system. World Trivia Night was an unmitigated success -- not 'success' in the sense of 'winning' or 'placing' or even

Post Card

I mean a placeholder. For a post. A Post Holder. A Post place card. Fuck it. My daughter doesn't have pneumonia. I'm going to World Trivia Night. I am holding on to the po in Nablopomo with the very ends of my fingernails. Something funny to tide you over? Okay, sure. Paraprosdokian sentences: A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect. Ø I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness. Ø Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience. Ø I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car. Ø Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. Ø The last

The post I'm too tired to think of a title for

Thanks to everyone for the kind words. I want to assure everyone who might have gotten the impression that my doctor is mean and that I am not assertive enough that I did get confirmation that if the x-ray showed pneumonia she would CALL in a prescription rather than requiring the honour of our presence again -- NOT doing that little forced march twice in two days. The night was less than stellar -- despite the puffer Eve coughed forcefully and pitiably from bedtime until midnight or so until I gave up on both of us trying to sleep, got her up and propped her up in my chair to watch TV and gave her a full dose of Benadryl. Around two a.m. we both dozed off and the rest of the night was better, although I think I dreamed a couple of additional episodes of Naturally Sadie . This morning we dropped Angus off at school and headed to the X-Ray clinic where my doctor had assured me we wouldn't need an appointment. This was true; however, the receptionist said she would have to ask t

Expletive deleted

So Eve started coughing last Monday. Last Monday, when Matt was still home and would be for a week. She was coughing, but nothing else. She wasn't stuffed up or feverish or lethargic. She went to school every day and played with her friend next door most nights and it was all good. I went away for the week-end -- still good. But coughing. When did that nagging but basically unassuming cough turn into something a little more sinister? I'll tell you when: the minute -- probably the goddamned mother-cursed bugger-freaking SECOND -- my husband's plane passed out of Canadian airspace. On Monday, a WEEK after the original cough began. Seriously -- it's like a switch flips once he's gone and all manner of mishaps, catastrophes and incidents of mayhem (MAYHEM I say) descend upon us. Stairs cannot be traversed without falls. Fingers bend in strange and unintended-by-nature ways. Maggots infest the green bin. The clocks run backward and blood streams from the t

Absence makes the heart unable to take out the garbage

There's a perception that a lot of husbands don't cope very well when their wives are away from home and they're left to manage with the kids alone. There are tales of wild junk-food fests, failure to bathe, horrifying wardrobe combinations, and general chaos and disaster. Some wives fill the refrigerator with meals and lay out clothes for each day they will be absent. Some wives write out a schedule of events and staple it to their husbands' shirts. Some wives just don't go away for fear of the carnage they will find when they return. I am not one of those wives. I have a friend whose husband's memory is extremely bad. He has received a phone call from his mother reminding him to bring a certain item to dinner, agreed to bring the item, hung up the phone, ignored the item which is sitting right beside him, and left for dinner. Once when we were on the way to a friend's cottage, she realized she had forgotten to remind her husband to bring her son to

I Will Survive while Shaking my Groove Thing in a Boogie Wonderland

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Week-end was fabulous beyond description. We stayed with a friend of my friend who was coming to the play with us, which made me a little nervous (I shower a lot. I snore. I like my space. People I don't know freak me out. I like the impersonality and anonymity of hotels) but she and her husband were so amazingly nice -- they made us breakfast! Twice! And I had my own room -- the craft room, with a futon, and a bookshelf with ample reading material, including a book called 'Sexy Hormones' which I various read as 'Sexy Homeowners' and 'Sexy Mormons', both of which made me think these were people I really wanted to know -- and I woke up once and someone in the room next to me was snoring which was a tremendous relief. There was some of this: A little of this: And, of course, this: The show was amazing. When my friend suggested going back in May, I didn't think "oh, I really want to see that", I thought "yippee, week-end away with my

Flying by Seat of Pants Recipes: Carrot Brie Soup

For those of you who enjoyed my hapless attempt to recreate citrus almonds , here's another one.  1) go to Allium in Ottawa with three friends (great restaurant, stupid name -- whose chef was actually trained by my husband's cousin's French-chef husband -- true story -- well obviously, why on earth would I make something like that up? I met him at my brother-in-law's wedding. Where there was a vegetarian buffet. He was fairly gracious in the absence of foie gras). Fail to order the Carrot and Brie soup on the grounds that you have never really loved carrot soup, which usually tastes like watery cooked carrots, while I prefer them raw. Taste the Carrot and Brie Soup of a friend and then wait for her to go to the washroom so you can eat most of it and refill her bowl with wine and hope she won't notice.  2) go home and mount a pitched battle with said friend to see who can re-create the recipe best. Swear at her when her first attempt is much better than yours,

Just Move Along. Really.

Ack. No one reads blogs on Saturday anyway, right? Um, um, um, um..... Oh great, the computer just autosaved and I hadn't typed ANYTHING since the last autosave. Thanks a lot Blogger, not a bit demoralizing. I am about to open a package of M&Ms. I have just opened a package of M&Ms. Colour breakdown: five yellow, three brown, three red, two orange, two green and one blue.  I'm not really here. I'm actually in Toronto opening up a package of H&M . Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ooh, that old lady is scary. And watching singing dancing men who probably have better legs than I do. And can dance in heels. So right now I am in fact most likely having a gay old time (hee). But Thursday night? I was totally uninspired.

Balls to you if you don't think this is funny

Yes, I am incredibly immature. I pride myself on being puerile. When I saw The Pillow Book with my boss from the book store where I worked, I could only look at Ewan McGregor buck naked for a second or two before I filled the theatre with hysterical giggles and almost got simultaneously fired and asked to leave. My husband often gets angry at the kids for being silly at the dinner table. Then he has to get angry with me as well, because hell, it IS funny when someone keeps saying 'beef burger' over and over again in a German accent. I love this ship . Why? Because it's called a frigate . And don't you sometimes just want to say frigate? Or, go here , you can here some other guy say it over and over -- how awesome is that? So this? Well, this made my friggin' day. And with that, I am off to Toronto to see singing men in drag , leaving my husband and children to fend for themselves for TWO whole nights. One hockey game, one hockey practice, one hockey ph

Remembrance

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I don't have anything profound to say. It just seems wrong to write about cute stuff my kids said or stupid stuff I'm worrying about today. My husband is planning to take his grandfather to the dinner at the Legion tonight (hopefully he won't heckle the Peacekeepers this time). I went a couple of times -- it was wonderful, and sad. The very first time I visited Matt, Grandpa started telling war stories; I didn't realize until afterwards that this was the first time Matt had heard any of them. It was riveting. It wasn't all hell, of course -- in a way, the war was the only way he would have seen as much of the world as he did, and some of the times were grand old times indeed. But the parts that were hell were appalling, horrifying, unimaginable for those of us who weren't there. I worry sometimes that, as his short-term memory deteriorates but his long-term memory remains crystal clear, he will be trapped in those hellish memories. And then there are th

Wordless Wednesday Wedding Pictures

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Sometimes after stories Zarah lets Sophie play with her shoes. It was right about now that Eve realized that my shoes suck and asked if she could live with Zarah. "We're gonna have the same dress, and the same sweater, and the same shoes, and we'll be like twins, and it's gonna be awesome!" Shield your eyes from the adorableness: It's all about the shoes This is where we started shouting at them to put each other in headlocks. Sadly, not a one of them knew what the hell we were talking about. I somehow thought that a headlock was part of genetic memory. Guess I was wrong. They were playing her song. All night. You wouldn't believe how hard he had to work to get her to do this: The almost nauseatingly happy couple: And one of him gazing adoringly into her -- oh. Never mind.