Facebook Groups II: Freecycling With a Vengeance

In addition to the fun and frolic of my Moms in My Town Facebook group, I joined a Freecycling group, partly because I wanted to get rid of some stuff and liked the idea of giving it to people who specifically needed it and partly because one of my friends is an admin, so I was already seeing it and I figured I should contribute something to pay back for the entertainment value alone.

The purpose of the group is supposed to be solely to keep things out of the landfill - it's been specifically stated that it's not a charity. Many people in the group, myself included, are bad at remembering this. An offered item is posted, and then people are supposed to comment that they're interested. They are not supposed to comment on why their need for the item is greater than anyone else's. Many of them do. You're allowed to give your item to whoever you want, of course - either the first person who comments, the first person who can pick it up, or by FOP, Fair Offer Price, which means you wait a little longer for people who aren't on Facebook as often, and then choose someone by draw or however else you want. You think if I offer kids' clothes and there's a single mom in the mix, I don't give them to her? And then I feel bizarrely guilty, because it's not supposed to be a charity. There's this weird, playing-God feeling that springs up when you have twenty people vying for your Tinkerbell pillow case or sappy Precious Moments figurine, and I'm not sure how long I can take the pressure.

Then there's the whole 'things you maybe shouldn't Freecycle' aspect. I guess if you want to take someone's half-used makeup or deodorant that's your business, but really? And the skanky schoolgirl lingerie? Think this, but less fabric and more thongish. A woman replied "interested for my daughter", and I thought "so your daughter's a stripper? How sweet of you to be so supportive!" And the creepy manikin thing made out of diapers - the owner wanted assurance that the doll would be left whole, not broken down for diapers. Uh-huh, that's enforceable, and not at all weird. And someone setting up an apartment that was in 'urgent need' of a mop and bucket (yep, totally reasonable) a bread-maker (um, you know you could just...) and a deep fryer (wait, WHAT now?)

And don't even get me started on the spelling and grammar. Okay, get me started on the spelling and grammar. I know a lot of people are on their phones, so it's not fair to judge. I judge unfairly. I know a large portion of the population has trouble knowing where to put apostrophes, I've tried to make my piece with that. But I didn't know 'threw' instead of 'through' was a thing - as in 'please keep me in mind if first exchange falls threw'. Over and over and over again. One woman posted an offer, promised an item to someone, then changed her mind and wanted to trade the item for an 'excersize ball' of which she was in dire need. It's not actually allowed to ask for a trade, you're supposed to offer all items freely, and some discussion was spurred on this subject, which meant that the phrase 'excersize ball' was repeated many, many times. I finally messaged my friend the admin and said "I guess I'm not allowed to stipulate that my item will only go to someone who doesn't overly abuse the English language, huh?" She replied "No. But think of the spectacular drama that you would inspire - most of it incomprehensible."

I'm not a nice person. Unless you have twins who desperately require Groovy Girl dolls and Percy Jackson books by the week-end and you don't get paid until Monday. Then I've got your back.

Facebook Groups: Oh, the Humanity

I belong to two groups on Facebook - a "Moms in Your Area" group which I don't recall joining, I was just suddenly in it, and an "Ottawa Freecycle" group which one of my friends administrates, so it kept showing up in my feed and I asked her to add me so I could get rid of some clutter.

I say "I try not to judge" a lot. It's not strictly true. I try not to judge too harshly. I try not to judge out loud too much. I try not to judge based on things that people can't help.

These groups do not make that task easier.

Although there are many reasonable inquiries on the first timeline - which gymnastics program is better for young children, request for hair stylist recommendation, has anybody tried the new Italian restaurant - there are also frequent indications that many of the moms in my area are of a venal, sub-intelligent, parsimonious type.

First there are the "Let me Google that for you" questions: what time does Wal-Mart open? What street is this dentist on? How do I wash lamb's wool?" Then there are the seemingly topical inquiries that inevitably devolve into unseemly gossip: "Why are there so many sirens down this street?" "I drove by and saw an accident." Good, there's an accident, everybody avoid driving in that area. No wait, there's more. "It was three cars and there are five people involved and one was drunk and two are wearing fur." "Last week near there I saw a woman almost hit a dog. I could tell by looking at her that she doesn't breastfeed." There was a thread about police cars and ambulances at a house near my son's school and people speculating about what had happened in the family that was really quite icky.

The appeals for hairdresser, doctor, dentist or optometrist suggestions usually result in a good number of honestly helpful ideas and testimonials. But there is often one person who feels the need to contradict at least one referral, while offering some horrendous personal experience as a reason: "OH GOD, don't go to Lisa at Hairy's, she cut my daughter's hair into a 666 pattern and then charged me seventy-five dollars!": "I can't believe anyone is recommending Dr. Patterson at Optometrists R Us, he put up an eye chart that had obscene words in it!": "Avoid this doctor's office, you will be drugged and sold into human slavery."

Photo by Eunoia

And finally, the inquiries about where to buy goods or services that all end in earnest requests for economical recommendations: "Where can I get winter tires without spending a bunch?" "Best place to get custom-made birthday cake without spending an arm and a leg?" "Who sells mattresses at a reasonable price?" "Does anyone have a yacht for really cheap?" Look, I get it. Times are tough and no one wants to spend more than they have to. But really, what do they think people are generally going to suggest? "Go here - it's extremely expensive." "Oh, ask for Roger, he'll screw you right over." "We paid way too much at this place and we STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU DO THE SAME."

I know, I know, I could just remove myself from the group. It clearly doesn't bring out the best in me. When I'm not rolling my eyes, I'm weeping in envy at the ease with which women with small children can now find other people in similar situations to get together with - this group could have saved my sanity ten or twelve years ago. I guess you have to take the bad with the good.

I feel like that's enough snark for one post, so I'll save my Prolegomena on any Future Metaphysics of Freecycling for a post later in the week.

Surly Thursdays

In truth, I am not the least bit surly today. I got up and got the kids off, went for a lovely walk in the sun, got a few groceries, put some pictures in frames, and finished my exam. Matt gets home tonight and I'm going to a book launch tomorrow night with Pam and Denise. I also don't feel like the world is an inescapable vortex of cruelty and pain at the moment - it's a little thing, but it's a nice thing.

However, for you, dear readers, imaginary though you may be, I will happily recall some random surlinesses of the past few days? What was it that Wordsworth said? Something about extreme, eye-stabbing, ball-hoofing bitchiness recollected in tranquility? (I'm probably paraphrasing). I've been saving up my pet peeves for one of the Scintilla posts I missed anyway. Hence:

1. My exam. Specifically, my utter inability to grasp the inner workings of the Dewey Decimal System no matter HOW HARD I try. I took a first pass at it yesterday, then fed the kids supper, and when I went back less than an hour later I was already incapable of figuring out how I got the answers the first time. It's literally as if my mind gets wiped every time I look away from it. In one case, I got all excited thinking I'd figured out the way to get to a particularly complex number, which I had; however, when I looked at the answer I'd written, I realized I had ALREADY found that same complicated technique, TWO HOURS EARLIER.

Seriously. I'm like a monkey trying to make baked alaska.

2. My fingernails. They're weirdly shaped so they don't grow nicely, they turn into these ugly widely-splayed shovel-type things, and I can never cut them properly so when I can't sleep or when I'm reading I'm constantly feeling these weird edges and I can't stop rubbing the next finger on them or they catch on my clothes and it's EXTREMELY VEXING.

3. The number of things on my body that rest on other parts of my body. It's unsettling.

4. My head felt like it was in a vise all day Tuesday. My shoulder is acting up (old bookstore injury). I'm still doing physio for my patellar tendonitis. Head, shoulder, knee.... expecting a catastrophic toe injury any day now.

5. Water in my ear. My Dad always told me to stand on one foot, tip my head over and jump up and down to get it out. See number 3 - I'm worried that my house isn't structurally sound enough to withstand this kind of action on my part.

6. E-mail scams. Not on my own behalf. I just find it amusing when get emails that are purportedly from my child's Irish dance teacher or a long-lost relative or a Nigerian prince asking for money. And those tear-jerker ones that ask you to forward them on because some little cancer-stricken waif or brave soul with terminal Eyelash Disease will get money for every forward? Well, I know those are fake. Unfortunately, my daughter and her tender-hearted, soft-headed little e-mail demon friends don't. And when my daughter, as I'm trying to tuck her into bed, suddenly starts sobbing about some poor little girl from Texas whose arms and face got burnt off while she was in Wal-Mart with her brother who was buying her a birthday present, and I have to explain to her what snopes.com is, and how if somebody lost their little girl in Wal-Mart during a fire they would PROBABLY check all the area hospitals and not wait until 'the hospital called them two days later because they found the little girl's name and address in her purse', well, I get a TAD IRATE. Whatever asshole thinks it's fun to send these little pieces of idiocy out into the world like some twenty-first-century stupid-ass version of a message in a bottle is in serious need of a new hobby.

7. Titanic hysteria. Fine, commemorate the anniversary. With some respect and decorum, maybe? As one of my Twitter friends said, "it's not a romantic story - a shitload of people died". My daughter, who is nine, put it pretty well: "I got this book about a little boy who had this stuffed bear on the Titanic. It's a true story. There are a lot of true stories about the Titanic. Well, but, there are a lot of lovey-dovey stories that aren't true. It's called historical FICTION, people!" (Too bad she's not as discerning about maudlin email stories).

There. Surly enough for you? Surely?

Surly Tuesdays (yeah, I know it's Wednesday, FUCK OFF)

Yesterday did not start out well. I've been having absolutely vicious insomnia, that even breaks through my sleeping pill (which I only take occasionally, but when I do it generally knocks me right out). I turn out the light and lie down and I know within ten minutes that I'm not going to sleep. Sometime I turn on the light and read some more, but sometimes I slip into this state where I'm too tired and achy to get up again but not enough to fall asleep.

It blows big chunky bile-green chunks.

Because my husband is sweet and considerate, he often takes the kids to school when I've had a crappy night like this. This would seem to solve the problem, but it doesn't really, because what happens is that I slip into a deep, deep, BOTTOMLESSLY deep sleep around four or five in the morning, sleep too late, still wake up in the middle of a sleep cycle and feel like.... big chunky bile-green chunks.

So I started the day feeling like I was late for everything (because I was, also 'everything' wasn't anything scheduled or formal or official), and I was feeling aimless and out of joint and despondent and despairing. A few years ago, I would have just mooched around the house until it was time to go get the kids. But now I have Twitter. Twitter, which I said I would never use. And it changes everything on days like this.

I have a great friend who lives next door, and she dispenses hugs upon request. But she works Tuesdays through Thursdays. A lot of my friends work full-time. Pam is generally available, but she was skiing with the school ski club. And sometimes I need someone to tell me that I don't suck, and that things will get better, and that everyone has days like these, and when I need it, I need it immediately, if not sooner.

So thank-you to Hannah, Sarah, Mary Lynn, Nicole, HappyGeek75, Marilyn, Kerry, VelocibadgerGRL and Clara (especially Clara - she used props) for being there, and being sweet and funny and awesome. Because the kind of bad I was feeling makes minutes seem very, very long, and you all helped it go away.

Then Eve came home. Which also beats back the badness a fair measure, because, hello, this face?

Then I took Eve to dance and went for tea with Patti and Susan and Helen (and Joelle), who also must be thanked (I didn't mean to make this post feel like an awards show). Because they wear Swedish ho hats and are witty and acerbic and Dutch Reformist and unsentimental and profane and they scare my husband when he goes instead of me because they are utterly insane, which is often exactly what I need on a Tuesday night.

Then I came home and decided that, since I hadn't really been very productive, I would take a crack at busting our sex drought (it's been a rough month). Because sometimes you have to get creative in order to ensure that, even if your to-do list is resolutely unchecked, at least one thing (or someone) gets done.

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.

Wednesday Waffling

Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows how I stand on cursing. Or they should - there's a small chance that they think I'm against cursing and just have really poor impulse control, and, well, I guess that wouldn't be the craziest thing to presume, but.... wait, I'm getting off track.

There are people who seem to think that cursing is one of the worst things you can do - up there with stealing and burning down orphanages and nun-beating. There are people on Goodreads who lament getting into a book and starting to enjoy it and then encountering 'the f word' on page forty-eight and having to stop reading, and wishing they hadn't wasted all that time getting engaged with something they couldn't possibly finish because.... what? Reading the word 'hell' or 'shit' would keep them from sleeping, or cause them to go out and rob a convenience store? I'm genuinely interested in what their line of reasoning is. Okay, you disagree with the use of 'foul' language. That would really keep you from finishing a book that you've been enjoying so far? I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm right, I just... don't get it.

The thing that people who don't swear don't seem to get about those of us who do is that we're not being all that transgressive, because we don't actually think we're doing anything wrong. Swearing isn't against the law. There are certain words that, for whatever reason, our society has deemed 'dirty' or 'unseemly', and for this reason they draw attention to themselves. When I use them, I want attention drawn to something - either in a negative way, i.e. whatever I'm talking about has made me angry, or in a humorous way, i.e. using a 'curse' is supposed to make whatever I'm talking about more funny. I tend to veer more towards using curse words humorously, or if I'm angry about a situation, because directing them at an actual person seems too hostile. This is the first part of my waffly feelings about swearing.

The second part is about when I'm walking into the community centre with my kids on our way to the library and the kids from the attached school are standing at the door smoking and swearing every second word. This does kind of bother me. It doesn't surprise me, of course, but it bothers me. When I swear, I am always mindful of my audience. This will likely come in time for the teen-agers, of course, but I like what my friend Collette told her son - that she knows he will swear when he's with his friends and has no objection to that, but that he should be aware that if adults hear him swearing it will be considered disrespectful and they may assume certain things about him that aren't true.



However, not swearing sometimes seems to me to be a way of drawing attention to yourself just as much as swearing would. One of my friends on Facebook is friends with a woman who is vocally religious and quite self-righteous, and at one point she made a joke and then speculated that she would now be considered a 'smart behind'.

Really? REALLY? I'm too lazy to look up the reference, but I believe it was an Andrew Greeley book, where the main character is in the seminary but home for the summer and trying to teach a girl he used to date how to water ski. He says something like "try to get the, uh, lower part of your body straighter" and she rages "it's not a sin to say 'ass' you stupid prude!"

Yeah.

I won't go out of my way to swear around you if it's something that bothers you. But it's not like second-hand smoke - it won't actually make you sick. It won't even cause you to swear. I strive constantly for greater purity of thought and deed. But I'm quite happy making judicious use of dirty words.

I Think I Know What We Should Do With War Criminals

Never mind hauling them off to the Hague. Just send them on a fifth grade field trip that takes place an hour away from the school. And make them ride the school bus.

Three classes. Twenty-five kids each. Three kids to a seat, when they're mostly too big to fit three to a seat, so they squirm and elbow each other and spill into the aisles and drop their water bottles, which roll under the seats, and then they try to climb under the seats to get them. A daytime high of forty-one degrees Celsius with the humidex. A bus with a non-existent suspension so your forty-year-old tailbone meets the seat with punishing force over and over and over. Five girls shrieking Justin Bieber songs directly behind your head. And that one kid whose face is somehow just really annoying.

It was Hell, manifested on earth.

The field trip itself wasn't bad, although I invariably volunteer for field trips, hope desperately not to be picked, get picked and wonder why the hell I keep volunteering for field trips. Except I really know why. I'm a stay at home Mom. Before my kids were in school full days I had very little difficulty justifying my existence. My husband would come home saying he'd had a rough day at work and I would say "really? Did anyone pee on you? Did you have to stop anyone from eating cat food? Did anyone nearly fracture your orbital ridge with their head while trying to reach the cookies in your backpack? Did you, at any point, hold vomit in your bare hand? No? Then shut up and help me bleach this."

But I'm nearing the end of my second year of both kids being in school full days, and I still haven't gone back to work. I know - it sounds heavenly. I assumed I would be giddy with freedom. I assumed my house would be spotless and scrupulously organized by the end of the first month, I would be finished my first novel by the end of the sixth, and OBVIOUSLY I would be thirty pounds lighter, because, like my mother said "you can go to the gym five times a week!"

From where I'm sitting at the kitchen table right now, I could reach out and lay hands on six novels, three textbooks, a kit for making twinkle tiaras, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Cheese Touch Game, a sock puppet wearing sunglasses, and a box of ant bait. That should give you a clue about the state of my house. The state of my ass? Let's not discuss it.

It's not that I haven't done anything. It's just that those six hours a day aren't as expansive as they seem once you're actually living them. Even though they seem like special, magical hours, it turns out they get eaten up and chipped away by stupid annoying crap just like every other kind of hour. I help out in the school library, I help out in the classroom, I take some courses, I go to for walks, I go to the gym. Sometimes I sit in my chair and read a book. Occasionally my friend Pam and I explore a new area of town or wander into a restaurant that serves us cupcakes instead of carrot sticks and asks us IF THAT's OKAY - those are good days. But I haven't started a business or trained for a marathon or even learned to play a Chopin waltz perfectly. I often feel like I haven't quite done enough with those hours, which then makes me wonder if I'm making the most of being a stay at home mom.

The days I go on field trips? I don't feel like that.

Helping in the classroom is a pretty cushy gig. You help dye some Ukrainian easter eggs, you help make stone soup, you read a book out loud, maybe you help someone build a pulley or make a bug out of playdough. You squeeze your butt into a chair that's too small and you get to be a fly on the wall watching what your kid does every day, which is kind of a kick. But field trips? Like I said, they make you ride the school bus - they mutter some crap about supervisional ratios, but really I think the teachers just want to share the misery. Because the school bus? The school bus would be too loud if that many kids all just talked. But they don't all just talk. THEY ALL YELL. Then you find yourself responsible for a group of kids which without fail contains some boys who will tear off ahead so you lose them and some girls who will dawdle behind so you lose them and frankly, I don't need the pressure - most of the kids who aren't mine at some point become so annoying that I flirt with the notion of losing them on purpose, but I'm always dimly aware that their parents probably find them somewhat less annoying and would probably not be overly impressed if I lost them. The last time my husband saw me checking the 'yes' box beside the 'will you be able to help'? question, with my usual grumbling, he said "you know, just because you're at home doesn't mean you have to volunteer for EVERY field trip". I looked at him blankly and said, 'um, actually I'm pretty sure it means exactly that.' Having to be behind a desk or on a factory floor or manning a customer service counter is a pretty solid excuse for not going on a field trip. Having a vague plan to put away the Christmas decorations that have been sitting on the stairs for five months? Not so much.

Anyway. Today we went to the Mill of Kintail Conservation Area. It's not only beautiful, it was much cooler there than back in the city, with the breeze off the river and the shade from all the trees. My son Angus actually thought the R Tait Mackenzie Museum was really cool. There was a scavenger hunt with half of my group of six took VERY SERIOUSLY ("okay, let's all split up and look for different things! I'm looking for the anchor! I promise I'll find the anchor! Jared, you look for the tree with the cross on it! Angus, what are YOU looking for?!") and the other half was eminently willing to throw over in favour of going to look at the headless crow in the woods. There was a hike in the woods with frequent stops for conversation about animal habitats and frequent opportunities for me to get in trouble (Employee: "Okay, what's the first rule of hiking?" Me: "No talking about hiking! No, wait, that's fight club..."). There were two girls who walked around holding hands and stroking each other's hair, which struck an exact balance between cute and creepy, until I realized they were part of the Bieber-song-shrieking group, whereupon I filed them firmly under creepy.

The bus ride back? Well, it was full of seventy-five sweaty ten-year-olds covered in bug spray, so it smelled even worse. But Angus suddenly decided that the loud silliness at the back of the bus in which he had enthusiastically participated on the way there was now 'annoying', so he decided to sit near the front and said I could sit with him, and slept on my shoulder for a bit, so that was kind of nice. When we got home he said "thanks for coming. It was nice that you suffered with me." He's eleven. I take my bonding experiences where I can get them.

What can I say? Sometimes it feels good to be mean.

I'm mostly over being cranky. Mostly. I'm generally a nice person. I smile at people when I walk past them, I hold the door for strangers, and if somebody does something embarrassing in public my first impulse is usually to help or pretend I didn't notice, rather than point and laugh or record it and post it on Youtube. But periodically I develop a mean sense of humour. Pam and I went to the craft show today and on the way there we mocked all the joggers running as fast as their scrawny little legs could carry them. Then we mocked the people who lined up to get in two-for-one with strollers and speculated on how many of those strollers were actually empty or filled with fake babies. We mused about whether Pam should force-bathe her husband with lavender bath bombs since lavender is supposed to be relaxing and he's been really stressed lately, which as you can imagine is really annoying for Pam. Then I remarked how it's really annoying when you're just walking by glancing at someone's stuff politely but then they corner you and explain in painful detail how they crocheted these floral toilet-seat-covers from recycled all-natural unbleached cat hair while you're trying to smile and thinking "Christ, I was just trying to get to the chocolate-covered soybeans at the next booth!". Of course, then I went into one booth that had clothes and I was trying to find a size and the chick there was talking to another exhibitor and totally ignoring me, and that pissed me off too. Okay, maybe I'm not totally over being cranky. But Pam and I loved the stuff at Yasmine Louis Textile Printing -- she takes shirts and silk-screens her own photographs and text on them(our favourite ones said "Sometimes TV is so good" and "I lied and went to a matinée", and "I changed my mind".) Plus she has fabulous hair - I bet people looked at her hair when she was two and knew she was going to be an artist. If I had better hair I totally would have amounted to more.

It was a pretty good day.

Desperate Times

I'm suffering from a bad case of blogger paralysis. Whenever I sit down to blog, my brain seizes up and shows the test pattern (which in my brain is not a block of coloured stripes but a school of goldfish crackers with piranha teeth about to attack John Cusack). In the interest of cracking the paralysis, I'm going to mock other people to make myself feel better. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.

1. The woman who fell into the mall fountain while texting, and then got put on youtube. I'm not mocking her for falling into the fountain while texting. I might have felt a small moment of vindication for confirmation of my conviction that texting is evil and taking over the world and will lead you into perdition and might make you fall into a mall fountain, but this would have been much more satisfying if it was a teenager. I'm also not linking to it, because it's mean. But I really think her response should have been more along the line of a simple "whoever posted this is an asshole" message, and not hiring a lawyer and solemnly answering idiotic questions posed by an idiotic news interviewer who is even more mockworthy because he's not texting while asking his moronic questions: "so when did you realize that you'd had a bad fall?": "um, when I was suddenly all wet in a prone position? you braindead douchecanoe?" And let's examine the fact that, in the course of trying to sound halfway sympathetic, they've played the clip of her falling into the fountain upwards of a dozen times, from two different angles. Class-ee.

2. The people on the show I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant, or as Pam and I like to call it, People Who Are Too Stupid to Live, Let Alone Breed. The last time we were at the gym (it wasn't that long ago! There was some skanky sex song by Rihanna playing! Oh wait, that could be any time in the last four years) TLC was playing the show. I was so caught up in the (I've run out of synonyms for idiotic) drama, when I went to get a drink and my treadmill timed out I thought we had twenty minutes left until Pam informed me that we only had eight. Watching really stupid people apparently makes workout time go by really quickly. "Tammy had gained twenty-eight pounds and her boobs were two sizes bigger and she had heartburn and threw up a lot -- what could it be? It was mystifying!" And then when they go into the hospital: Doctor: is there any chance you're pregnant? Woman: No, I can't possibly be pregnant! Doctor: So you've never had sex? Woman: Well, yes, I have sex all the time, but... Doctor: So you always use contraceptives? Woman: "Well no, we never do, but... Doctor: So you've had a hysterectomy? Woman: No, but, aside from the weight gain and barfing and heartburn and these regularly spaced agonizing pains I feel TOTALLY NORMAL! To be fair, one of the women did have a birth control implant and...ah, screw it, fair isn't going to get my blogging brain unparalyzed.

3. My friend's ex-husband: He thought that hydro equal billing (when the hydro company estimates your power usage for the year and bills you equally each month, rather than billing you much more in the months when more power is typically used) meant that the power usage for their neighbourhood was added up and then divided by the number of houses so everybody paid the same. When I still liked him I thought this was kind of endearing. Now that he's turned into a five-star asshat..... LOser!

That's all the vitriol I can muster for today. I promise to be back to my normal, more gracious (wishy-washy) self soon.

Also, wtf was with Christian Bale's beard?

I can't just leave the cranky book review post lying there, even though I've really got nothing.

I'm less sick, just feeling kind of out of it. I went to an Oscars dinner party on Sunday night (well duh, going to an Oscars party on some other night would have been kind of moronic) and drank a bunch of whiskey sours, which I've determined to be good medicine indeed. I made "The Fighter" cauliflower (ear) fritters with smoked salmon and crème fraiche, and caramelized cashews with maple syrup and cumin (because the mother was nuts). I never used to watch the Oscars until my friend Collette had the brilliant idea of tying it to stuffing our faces. I read in the paper the day after that some people thought Melissa Leo should have been more prepared and professional, and this would have avoided the vocabulary malfunction (which apparently only we in Canada got to hear -- lucky us). Prepared and professional? Dude, her profession is acting, which means she acts how somebody tells her to and says words that are written down for her by somebody else. She was being professional -- how many professional actors don't swear at least seven times a sentence in real life? I remember somebody who did a movie with Melanie Griffith and said she couldn't say two words without a curse between them - a weiner in a bun was a 'hot fucking dog'.

I thought Anne Hathaway was adorable, but then I kind of have a crush on her. James Franco was high as a bloody kite or half asleep, or possibly channeling Charlie Sheen. I kept wondering if he was handing the winners their Oscar statue and telling them 'you put your weed in there'.

There was one man who won for one of the less-sexy awards - sound editing or something - who said at the end of his speech 'let the record show that I'm not wearing jeans'. I turned to Matt and said 'I totally thought he was going to say underwear'.

I often regret that I don't have more chances to use the word 'obviate'.

Lest Ye Be Judged and all that crap

All the blog posts I just read (none of them my regularly scheduled reading) made me cranky. It's fine to say "I try not to be judgemental", but what the hell does that even mean? The truth is you can't really go five minutes without judging. You can't get from bed to bathroom to breakfast without making judgements. You have to use your own best judgement (which can be really unfortunate in some cases). And people? Well, aren't people just annoyingly individual, and different from each other, and all with the opinions and everything? And if they differ enough from you in how they think, or eat, or talk to their kids, or watch reality tv instead of Lost, or treat people who don't believe in their god (sorrowful glances as opposed to, say, acid-throwing), well then, how do you not judge that? I actually once heard myself say the words "God I hate intolerant people." Great, huh? And some things I can say "totally respect your opinion, although I totally disagree with you", and sometimes I lie awake all night formulating brilliant, incisive arguments that will without a doubt change this poor misguided unfortunate's mind if I just get the chance to share them. Because who, in the name of all that is sane and good and has a delicious candy shell in the world, would want to be different from me? Don't they know everything would be better if they just tried to be more like me? Well, me and Kurt from Glee.

I'm Definitely NOT Without Sin, BUT....

I try really hard not to judge other parents. I know full well that parenting can be like a box of chocolates mixed with rabbit poop -- you REALLY never know what you're gonna get. So go ahead, feed your toddler chocolate in front of me, leave them wailing and beating their fists on the floor of the mall for as long as you like, use whatever bribery or blackmail seems required... whatever gets you through.
My kids are fairly timid and clumsy, so they're not big climbers or clamberers or daredevils. A lot of kids are, and their parents let them climb things or jump off things that I don't have to debate letting my kids climb or jump off because it just doesn't come up.
However, today we were at this great park we go to quite often. There are a bunch of different areas with different play structures, and a splash pad. My friends and our eight kids and one baby were pretty much the only ones there for a bit, and then a summer camp of twenty kids showed up. It got a little crazy, nothing major. Then one boy climbed up on the top of the play structure where our kids were playing. Now, I've seen kids get on top of a play structure with a flat roof. It doesn't thrill me, but really, it's the same surface they would be on inside the play structure, just a little higher. This was not a flat roof. This was a curved piece of slippery plastic that was barely as wide as his body, which was over three slides so there were kids rushing by under him and bumping him. If he fell, it was far enough to do real damage.
In short, this seemed to be like the classic 'real bad idea'.

photo credit
creative commons license

We didn't really know what to do. His sister kept yelling at him to come down, but no parent appeared. I was on the verge of going over and asking him where his Mom or Dad was just so I could go ask them if they were okay with this, because (this does not show me in the best light) if he fell, then at least I could say I drew someone's attention to it. As I was about to go over, one of the camp counsellors seemed to be approaching him, so I thought maybe he was with the camp. But the counsellor just looked at him as if he was having the same 'real bad idea' thought, but he didn't actually say anything.
Just as one of us was about to go over again, we see this woman running over from another play area. We breathe a sigh of relief. We wait for her to say "are you crazy? Get down from there this minute! You'll break your neck!"
Instead, she pulls out a camera and takes a picture.
So I'm at a total loss. I have no idea if I should have said something. Why is it so hard to say something? Instead I just thought "well, at least she'll have a good shot to show them when the emergency room doctor asks 'and how exactly did this happen?'" Bitchy, I know. I wonder what I've done to make people feel about me the way I felt about that woman.