Charmingly Offbeat or Some Creepy Shit?

First of all, thanks and praise to Honest Betsy, who likes my post titles and gave me this (which has nothing to do with the post title, which is meant to be attached to the rest of what the post is about - crap, I sense I'm in danger of having my award revoked):



Get it? Because the word titler has 'tit' in it? Also, we're both breastfeeding advocates - and what says 'breastfeeding advocate' like cleavage in an animal-print bra?

Second of all, it was American Thanksgiving recently, and there were two Charlie Brown Thanksgiving specials on, which I PVRed, because hey, Charlie Brown. Tonight Eve asked if the three of us could have supper on TV trays (actually she asked if we could have lunch on lunch little tables, but if I said that none of you would know what the hell I was talking about, so I paraphrased) and watch Happiness is a Warm Blanket. I happily agreed because we usually let them watch tv while eating on Sunday, I like it when there's something

At least, I always have loved Charlie Brown. I loved him when I was a kid. I loved him when I was a teen-ager. I loved him when I was a childless adult. I loved him when I was an adult with little children. And now that I'm an adult with older children.... well, I still kind of love it, but I notice things I didn't really used to notice. Granted, I think we can all agree that the totality of Charles M. Schulz's oeuvre demonstrates that he was not exactly a happy and well-adjusted man.
Happiness is a Warm Blanket is a lesser-viewed program (if you haven't seen it, it's about an impending visit from Lucy and Linus's grandmother, who, Lucy reports, has vowed to break him of his blanket habit or 'cut it into a million little pieces'. Lucy decides she will 'help' him break the habit before the grandmother gets there. I haven't watched any of the other ones through these newly critical eyes, but to name just a few of the things that make viewing this with my kids slightly fraught:

1. Lucy is a real bitch. Well, okay, I guess I always knew that, but good LORD she's a bitch. She keeps saying she's going to "break (Linus) of this stupid habit". In our house, stupid is a word that is NOT to be used lightly, and while she's not actually calling Linus stupid, the implication is clear.

2. That Violet chick is a real bitch too. The weird thing is, her only function seems to BE bitchiness. Lucy at least gets a few good one-liners in, but all Violet does is walk up to Charlie Brown and say something bitchy about how loserish he is, or walk up to PigPen and say something bitchy about how dirty he is or walk up to Linus and etc. etc.

3. The Charlie Brown crowd is weirdly obsessive about boy-girl relationships. Lucy always draped over Schroeder's piano. Sally always chasing Linus calling him Sweet Baboo. Peppermint Patty lusting after Charlie Brown - what the hell? Is it because there are no parents around and they're trying to recreate some kind of nuclear family model?

4. Schroeder clearly needs some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder meds. All he ever does is play the piano - it's not natural. Oh wait - maybe he has a Tiger Mom.

5. What kind of mother lets a grandmother threaten her kid like that? Oh right, the kind that ISN'T EVER THERE.

I just did a little more research, and the script for this show was actually written by Schulz's son and someone else after Schulz's death. Still, a lot of these issues are in all of the shows, and the comic strips as well.

I'm not saying this means I'll stop watching Charlie Brown, or not let my kids watch it. In some ways it's a refreshing change from some of the early-childhood-educator-approved treacle that's made these days. It's just funny how you see things differently at different stages of your life.

But man, Charlie Brown was a frigging saint for not bitch-slapping Lucy.

Honest Crap...er, Scrap

It totally looks like I ripped that title off from Tracy, but I didn't. We just have similar immature and slightly foul-mouthed sensibilities, and she's quicker off the post than I am (ha).

My bff who I'm convinced I should have met when I was five because she would have made that whole anxious-childhood-miserable-adolescence thing infinitely more enjoyable (and good on fate for finally rectifying the error) Pam has bestowed the Honest Scrap award on me. I've seen this one around, and honestly, I'm confused by it. It's not for scrapbooking blogs? There's an arm holding a hammer. It's for people who are good at hammering..together...scraps of...knowledge or something? Anyway, it's from Pam and it's an award, and either of those two is more than good enough for me. And my little hammer.


The Honest Scrap Award Rules say that I must:

1. Brag about the award.
2. Include the name of the blogger who gave you the award and link back to that blogger.
3. Choose a selection of blogs that you find brilliant in honest content.
4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with this award.
5. List at least ten honest things about yourself.

I've recently done the handing out awards thing and I don't think I frequent enough blogs to do this again so soon -- may I defer the handing on of the award?

Now for ten honest things. Does anybody besides me somehow automatically think that 'honest' equate with embarrassing or confessional? I don't want to gross anybody out here or make everyone run screaming from their laptops. I will try to strike a balance.

1. At one point when I was not exactly right in the head, I used to close my eyes for a few seconds while I was driving. Only on stretches with no other cars around, and only when I was alone in the car. Probably not long enough to make any difference. I don't do that any more.

2. Sometimes when I get other people's mail by mistake -- really wrong, not like I can walk two doors down and return it -- I read it (I've since learned this is possibly a federal offense, so I might not do it now). I just like the anonymous peek into someone else's life. Once at our apartment in Toronto we got a really witty interesting one from some gay guy in B.C. I sort of felt like writing back.

3. We've reached the point in our marriage where my husband's repeated expressions drive me insane. I don't think I have anything that I say all the time, so I really notice when people do. My friend Patti says "I hear ya", which I find adorable. Our friend Tony often says 'therefore -- ergo' which means the same thing, but I still find it endearing. My husband says 'that's for sure' at the end of statements frequently, and it makes me want to rip my ears off and set them on fire. "It's not for sure!" I often scream in my head. "Nothing is certain! You're a goddamned PHYSICIST, how can you not know that? It's a particle, it's a wave, it's the FIFTIETH time you've said that today! I hate you!" I think it's a sign of my personal growth that I never say any of this out loud. He also says dilapitated instead of dated. It's a wonder I haven't driven a stake through his heart.

4. I always let people in front of me when I'm driving. Except those people that zoom up the lane that's ending to get a few metres ahead before merging. Then I'd rather cause a six-car pileup than let them in.

5. It's possible my driver's license should be revoked.

6. I like some of Miley Cyrus's songs (sorry Jane).

7. I am lazy. I want to play the piano well again and write short stories and I theoretically have six kid-free hours during the day Monday to Friday right now. I should be accomplishing more.

8. I'm not sure if my daughter ever starts keeping a diary I will be able to not read it.

9. Sometimes I worry that if I had a choice between being nice and being pretty I wouldn't pick being nice. I guess it's a good thing I don't have a choice.

10. Once when I was buying jeans after having Angus the saleswoman was so skinny and seemed to look at my tummy so pointedly when she asked how old my 'newborn' was, I said he was two months old when really he was ten months old.

11. It drives me batshit when people pronounce it 'nuculer'. Like, if I met Mother Teresa and she had said 'nuculer' I would have been in doubt about her ultimate goodness, despite all the self-sacrificing and healing the sick and living with the poor and everything. People -- it's not that hard to say nuclear. Now people that say Feb-u-ary? Not a problem. Calling a month Feb-ru-ary is just dumb.

There you go. I hope we can still be friends. Everyone else, I mean -- Pam is totally stuck with me. I know where she lives.

March Break day three and Sunshine

We've pretty much dispensed with the wild-rumpus style out-in-the-world March Break fun; we're onto the slothful, energy-conserving, pajamas-all-day March Break fun. Matthew and Meghan came over and Angus and Matthew played Pokemon Platinum for four hours. In my defense, we had a busy day yesterday, and Angus has a cold. And I'm not responsible for Matthew's future brain-mushiness. Eve and Meghan invented imaginary friends and drew pictures of them (Meghan's is a five-foot-tall talking flower with a cellphone. Eve's is a half-supermodel, half-fairy, half-dog, called a FuzzBuzz. And no, I didn't point out the inherent fractional contradiction, we're all wearing pajamas, cut us some freakin' slack, would you?). Matthew and Meghan just left. Angus has another friend coming over for a sleepover and Eve is stalking Victoria from next door, who isn't home yet but will be leapt on with deranged slinky-like passion the moment she shows up.

So I was catching up on blog-reading in the brief between-extra-kids period. Mary Lynn mentioned that she was happy to get the Bloggy I gave her, but that she always feels hesitant about giving awards because she thinks people will feel like it's some weird imposition, or wacky chain mail-ish. And I was like dude! Me too! Or I feel like if their blog is a lot older than mine they'll be like "ooh, thanks, but I have four dozen of these cluttering up my virtual trash can, maybe there's some homeless blogger who could use it". So Mary Lynn passed one on to Julie, and Julie said it was her first award, which THEN made me think "what the hell, Julie, I've totally given you an award". But then I thought, crap, is it possible I completely forgot to pass on my Sunshine award from Suzicate? Yes, yes it is, as it turns out. It was my first blog award EVER, and I must have gotten carried away by the excitement (yay! praise me! externally validate me! enable my great yawning neediness! ahem). Also, the rules are to pass it on to ten other bloggers, and I don't think I can do that. I don't comment on every blog I read, and I can't see chucking an award at some unsuspecting blogger saying "hey! you don't know me but I love your blog! here, have some sunshine! oops, sorry, was that your eye? my bad!". So here you are. If you don't like it, go ahead and trash it -- but don't tell me, okay?





1. Julie at Thoughts of a Smothermother. I love her little vignettes, pictures, musings, snips and snails and puppy dog tails. And I covet her two-year old. I love two-year-olds.

2. Amber at Strocel. Amber is a mighty mighty blogger, in frequency, duration and depth. I tried to find out how you get to give a blog award without getting one first, because there's an Inspirational Blogger Award I really want to give her, but I couldn't figure out the rules (because I'm a teeny, teeny blogger, in frequency, duration and depth, and computer skills). But she's also kind and gracious, so I'm betting she won't spit at my Sunshine Award. Amber, you are inspirational, and also bright and glowy, kind of a like a big ball of incandescent gas... I mean, you help the flowers grow.

3. Jane from Theycallmejane's blog (it's a hence the name kinda thing). Jane is adrift in admirers already, and rightly so -- she blogs to better the world, or at least make sure we notice where some improvements could be made. And we like the same music!

4. Tracy, the Mayor of Crazy Town. She has four kids, so I'd rather make this a spa-day-and-margarita award, but we do what we can. I love her funny pictures and the way she blogs about kid-wrangling, moods and the agreeable chaos of the quotidian.

5. Lynn at Turtlehead. She invited me to World Trivia Night! We shared Pringles! We both love Glee! We both love The History of Love! She's in my friend Pam's book club! She makes pie!

6. Mary Lynn at Riding in a Handbasket. Mother of two little hamster-dancing cuties. Bestower of computer favours. At this point we may be starting to seem like a slightly sickening little mutual admiration society. Does this bother me? It does not. Not a whit. One-way admiration sucks. Ask all those Johnny Depp fans.

7. Alison at Party of 3. Single Mom. Hilarious kids. Intelligent, entertaining, grapefruit-juice-out-the-nose funny blog. I will get to meet her at a Blogger's Breakfast at some point if my husband manages to stay in the country or my kids let me leave the house.

8. CJ at Don't Lick the Ferrets. You think YOU take a lot of crap? CJ takes a LOT of crap, gracefully and graciously, madly churning out afghans all the while. She's kind of my hero.

Some of you I just gave a bloggy award to. Whatever -- it's awards season. Not the Golden Globes or Oscars, but those obscure, before-the-big-ceremony things they have for key grips and best boys. You're all like little happy pills without the nasty side effects. The least I can do is give you a little sunshine.