Sandra's at home

:(

2011-09-02T18:11:00.005-05:00

Sadface - smiley face.....winky face. Seems we're always telling people how we feel. In 140 characters on twitter - you can tell a bunch of strangers just how you feel about anything. But do you have to? Have we become a bunch of people that have to say just how we feel all the time about any and every given thing?
I am feeling very sad about the suicide of Wade Belak. Not that I know anything about him or about hockey at all. Frankly, I'd never really consciously heard of him before this week. I may have heard his name on the news but that's about it.
What struck me as so incredibly heartbreaking was when he killed himself, so many people who considered themselves his friends came out, spoke publicly and swore that he was never depressed. He was always such a happy guy, laughing and joking around. He had a perfect life, lots of prospects for the future and a great supportive network of family and friends - how could this be?
Well it could be, because the depressed, the truly clinically depressed, don't wear signs or special t-shirts. Depression is a hidden illness. A shameful illness. We are all taught to put a smile on, suck it up buttercup, put on our big girl panties and deal with it and walk it off. As a matter of fact, there's no crying in baseball. I'm pretty sure that goes for hockey too.
This hockey guy wasn't just a little sad. People who are a little depressed or "going through a rough patch" don't hang themselves in luxury hotels. They hide it. They don't show their tears and struggles. None of his friends or colleagues will never know what he was going through. And more is the pity.
I wonder if he wanted to reach out to people? To say:

Hey guys, my life is going through major changes and I just can't quite wrap my head around it all on my own. I don't want to ask for help but if you could just help me anyway - that would be great. I know you all love me and care for me but sometimes, when I am having dark days, it doesn't matter. That's what depression is - I can't feel that love. I look fine on the outside but the inside is black and hollow. I talk but I don't believe what I say. I ask questions and hear your answers and I make jokes as much as I laugh at yours but at the end of the day - it doesn't mean anything. I feel hurt and I feel empty and sad. Nothing helps me change this.

I'm just wondering if this is what it felt like to be him - but we'll never know. He suffered in silence like so many depressed brave people do - happy face plastered on. Not that any of us know what that feels like, right?

Another one bites the dust

2011-08-10T22:33:00.002-05:00

Farewell sweet Oreo - we hardly knew ye. Well, if we are being honest, we knew ye for 4 years which is about twice the life span of an ordinary hamster. You did well my friend. Lived a long and happy life in your little critter habitat. Enjoyed a good run in your ball. Ate your fill of nibbles.
Oh - you loved a good baby carrot!
Just last week you escaped and we caught you running free in the hallway! One last shot at freedom, eh
It surely wasn't your only adventure. You ran away many a time.
Remember when we found you behind the dresser in our room - cat watching from one end and dog watching from the other
Just on Monday I pulled you from the evil jaws of Cookie the cat - she wanted to eat you so badly.
Were you trying to spare us the trauma of finding your stiff little body stuck in the tunnel......such a good hamster.
Sammy will miss you - however, you should know that he wants to replace you immediately with a more substantial guinea pig. Just saying. Its not a long mourning period for tiny rodents.
Farewell Oreo....good hamster......good hamster....

Godless Heathens

2011-08-02T19:00:00.003-05:00

Well, Uncle George's funeral was a rousing success. Graveside in the blistering heat, it was punctuated by the odd "moo" from the cow's across the highway as if to say "Goodbye old dude on the tractor".
You see, the cows would have know my Uncle George....turns out when they took his license away a decade ago and he could no longer drive his ginormous car, he began driving either his ride on mower or his tractor to "downtown" Embro to the restaurant (in Embro-ese pronounced "restrunt") for pie and coffee every day - rain, shine or snow storm. Ah, Uncle George!
After the burial of his ashes we moved the party to the super tiny basement of the Knox United Church, only 3 blocks away.
We sat with my family and drank juice/punch from fragile tea cups and ate dainties. It was only 11am - I prefer my lunch before my dessert (as my Aunt Lois, aged 81, loudly pointed out a dozen times).
The kids asked a million questions.
Weird questions.
Sunday school - what is that?
What are these (prayer books)
Why are all those pictures there (they are the elders of the church)
WHY DO I HAVE TO BE QUIET?
It wasn't until about a half hour into this that we realized our 10 and 13 year old boys have never been inside a church before (discounting the black light theatre performance at Bramalea Baptist).
I suppose I should just be grateful that neither of them burst into flames when they entered (i.e. neither is the anti-Christ).

But it was weird. I never realized that we have never not once not at all gone to church.
We aren't religious but we aren't against it either.
Is it weird to go to church just to see if your kids like it?
What about making them go with Grandma?
Or do we just not bother?
I decided not to go to church after I went to Sunday school (Grandma took me til she died) for years and joined the church in my teens (on my own since no one else in my family went). I decided I didn't like the feeling I got there.
Later, Wayne and I talked about church and religion and decided we didn't want to go just to go because we thought we had to.
I worry that by not teaching my kids about religion and the bible and church that I am letting them make uneducated decisions.
But hey - at least they aren't the anti-Christ.....right? That's something....right?

Uncle George

2011-07-31T23:28:00.003-05:00

Nice photo eh?
That's my Uncle George. He just died last week and his funeral is tomorrow morning. I know - sad - but he was 85.
He lived a good life.
I have two points to make about my Uncle George. First off - he was a simple guy. My Dad's older brother, he left school, as my Dad did, in grade 3. He moved to a piece of land, on a hill across the field after he married my Aunt Josie. It was quite a scandal back in the day but Josie already had an illigitimate son when Uncle George married her - and he raised him as his own.
They lived in the tiniest house I've ever been into in my whole life.
It was one floor - no basement. There was one bathroom, two bedrooms and a kitchen. The whole place is heated by the woodstove in the kitchen - to this very day.
Sometime in the late 1980s they added a living room.
I always thought of it as a shack rather than a house but I LOVED to go there. It had a water heater in the bathroom and a wringer washer - so cool for a city kid to see.
Anyway - I digress - Uncle George and Aunt Josie raised 4 kids and a granddaughter in that house. My Uncle George farmed for 58 years until his pension kicked and and then he just hung out for 20 years.
He was quite a character and like my father he talked to everyone he met, genuinely interested in what they were doing and their stories as much as telling his own.
Also like my father he wore dentures. (Important detail - trust me).
I can remember my mom calling me 20 years ago and telling me about going for lunch with all Dad's brothers and sisters. After lunch, Uncle George took out his teeth and licked them clean AT THE TABLE IN THE RESTAURANT to be sure he would get every last bit!
My mom was horrified!
She told that story well and often.
To me now it shows how much he loved life. He was a happy guy.
You can see that from the photo right?
Why?
Why is there a photo of my happy uncle George which was obviously taken in a professional studio and obviously taken recently? Do all people who are rapidly aging and could die any day have to have a portrait shot taken JUST IN CASE they die so that there is something to show in the paper and on line?
Why else would he have had that picture taken?
He would have had to travel from home (Embro - population 600). Someone else would have had to drive him since he hasn`t driven in a decade. Why would this happen´....
Just a thought while I think of my happy go lucky Uncle George.
I`m sure he`s somewhere entertaining my Dad!

vroom

2011-07-25T10:46:00.002-05:00

I couldn't quite figure out how to re-start my blog after a couple of years of posting elsewhere. Should I legitimize my absence by explaining where my other thoughts have been or should I just ignore it and hit the ground running? I still have blog-thoughts - they just stay shuffled around in my brain and never get out.
Should I start by explaining the weird-weirdness that it is being an unemployed extrovert? I went from essentially talking for a living to talking occasionally, only when spoken to and mainly through social media. I feel like a snake that shed its skin.
If there was one thing about chatting at work that used to make me crazy it was the weekly order of conversation.
Monday and Tuesday were used to chat with people about their past - "How was your weekend?" "How were your holidays?" and Thursday and Friday were used to prep for the future - "Where are you going on vacation?" and "What are you doing this weekend?"
It never varied. And no - Wednesday's weren't silent - there just wasn't the formal structure around it.
*sigh*
I've said before and I will say forever that to the unemployed, everyday is Saturday. Or Monday. Or Friday for that matter.
Cup half full - cup half empty.
Add to that the kids have no summer camp or routine this year and its just a whole mess of weekend.
I spend a lot of time on twitter and facebook, linked in and email. That, to me, has taken the place of talking as human interaction. I hear a lot more opinions than I used to - but I don't really care as much about that anybody has to say. What do I care what Kirstie Alley has to say about Norway? Or Rogert Ebert's thoughts on Amy Winehouse. I don't - but I also probably didn't care what everyone did on their weekends.
I called my friend Doug last night to hear all the juicy details about his sister's wedding. I was genuinely interested in the details - and I loved hearing all about the outfits and the food and even the bugs. But, when I went to fill him in on what's been going on around the Fletcher home - he already knew 90% of it - he reads my facebook updates. That's just weird. I'm talking and he keeps saying "I know...." like he's bored.
Even when I try to talk now, I've got nothing original to say.
What's the solution? Stop using facebook? That's the only place I ever talk to some of the people I know. Stop calling people? I miss, quite honestly, hearing the sound of human voices.
Is there a balance?
Is there ever a balance?

September 23rd

2009-09-23T08:27:00.002-05:00

Note: Dan tells me this is a blog. I think its just what's on my mind - I'm sorry I've been keeping it in there so much lately.

My mom would have been 70 today. Seventy. Wow.
Funny but I can't picture her at 70.
She never seemed anything but ancient to me - I guess because she was in her 30s when I was born. She never seemed like a young person. She was silly of course but never "young silly" always "adult silly".
She drank singapore slings.
Her special new years eve hors'd'ovre was split hamburger buns covered in garlic margarine, bacon she cut up with scissors and a cheese slice and placed under the broiler.
We are NOTHING alike.
We are however so much alike its scary.
She always wore jewellery to match every outfit she had
She hated confrontation
She loved hard - like I do and I think as a result she was constantly disappointed.
She loved her birthday - celebrated every year like a kid - an adult kid.
She and I were meant to be together - I know we were
She did stupid things with her health essentially letting worry eat her alive
I don't want to be like her
So thats what day it is

Tell me where it hurts

2009-05-24T19:12:00.003-05:00

The other day I had physiotherapy on my shoulder. If you will remember waaaaaaaaaaaay back to last year I hurt my shoulder.
It happened when I was on the lazy river at Disney World, floating along on my inner tube. Sammy and I were holding hands. He proceeded to float one way and I floated the other. We didn't let go of each other and it is my belief that my baby ripped my arm from the socket.
Well, actually, the doctor tells me its bursitis. That sounds like something that old people get akin to "the rheumatism" and "the gout". So, I prefer to think of it as an extreme sports injury!
Back to my story, I was at physio on Thursday - again for my shoulder but my elbow was KILLING me. THROBBING elbow pain. So, he electrocuted it.
When I went back to physio on Saturday, my elbow was fine but my bicep felt bruised and almost hot to the touch.
NEITHER of these painful places were my shoulder where the actual, medically proven, injury actually is. It is my shoulder that is damaged - not my arm.
When I said - "wow that's weird" - my physio guy (who, by the way, is also a massage therapist, acupuncturist and chiropractor if you need a good physio guy - he rocks) said something that occurred to me later, when I wasn't in massive pain, that was very profound.
"Sometimes where things hurt isn't where you're injured"
My head said - well ya, my body is compensating. Its protecting itself. Its flinching when I go to poke it in the eyeball. Smart body!
But, what I thought later was that my life is sometimes doing that as well - and so do we all.
Christmas - Every year I protest when Wayne puts up the craptacular display of Christmas puke all over every surface of our house. Its not that I hate Christmas or even that I hate the fact that he tarts up the house like a Christmas whore, I just am acting to protect myself.
The hate of Christmas is compensation because my Mom isn't here to decorate her place with tinsel and the ceramic tree. My push away from all the cookies and gifts and over-kill is so that I don't have to try to be her every year. I'm the anti- her. I flinch when Santa pokes me in the rosy cheeks.
I do that a lot actually.
I pretend not to like things because my Mom loved them.
I use my grief as a cushion.
I use my Mom and stop myself from enjoying things that I could.
But I feel pain all over that doesn't just relate to being an orphan.
I rarely let myself get angry over the real things that piss me off.
I have a friend that I think lies to me. Why do I think that? Because he lies to every other person in his whole entire life.
When I call him on this, he says that I am the only person he doesn't lie to.
But, because I am me, I can't help but think that is a lie too.
And now, I've gotten to the point where I think that EVERYTHING he says is a lie. Even stupid stuff.
Really, even if it is a lie, does it matter?
What does it matter if he lies to me? Everybody lies.
But his lies make me mad. Not that they are even about me - but they make me mad AT him. But instead of letting myself be mad, I get upset. Sad. Depressed. Blame myself that he thinks he has to lie about things.......to me!
I feel hurt feelings.
The source of my pain is??????
What?
Oh - right - the source of my pain is lying. Not his. Likely mine. I lie to people all the time. It has nothing to do with them - everything to do with me. The lies cause me pain. Not mine. His.
Are you following me?
What I'm trying to say is that everything in this life is cause and effect. But sometimes its harder than you think to trace the cause. Not everything is a straight line. Not everything is easy to explain.
My shoulder still hurts - and my elbow - and my bicep - and my wrist.
The body protects itself the best way it knows how - or so says my physio guy.
The psyche does too.
With curved lines and double lines and lines with dashes.

Singing the Blues

2009-05-21T21:29:00.002-05:00

My friend is going to a concert tonight - to see Elton John and Billy Joel. While I've never been a fan of Billy Joel, I have always loved Elton John. Billy always seemed too.....hmmm........American for my tastes. Too working class hero. Too - well - just too American.
Elton, on the other hand, he was a mystery to me and I loved him.
Back in the 1970s I was alive and well but a kid - not really aware of what was going on around me but watching it nonetheless.
I watched "One day at a time". I saw Valerie Bertinelli and I identified with her because she was the FAT one - at least in my head she was. Of course she probably weighed fully half of what I did - but I digress... And I saw that Val LOVED Elton John. So of course, I too loved Elton John.
I heard Elton on the radio. And I loved him there too. He was fun and crazy looking. Flamboyant before that was a bad thing.
He was my generation's Liberace - before we knew why. Or well - I think we all deep down knew why - but before - when we were supposed to pretend NOT to know why!
And the pop music of Elton John followed me through my high school before it was eaten alive by the 80's new wave monster.
I can remember going to buy the "Live in Australia" double album set when that came out. It was the greatest album ever - and I think it still might be.
But where Elton sticks in my life in particular is in 1983.
When a boy....well I bet you can tell what comes next....a boy broke my heart. Sitting here I would love to tell you the story. I would love to but I'm not sure I can.
You see, at the time, it felt as if my heart was broken in half and laying bloody on the carpet in front of me. At the time I was sure that it would be better to be dead of heartbreak than to live through that pain. How could he? How could he not love me?
Elton said to me, "I guess that's why they call it the blues/Time on my hands could be time spent with you".
He knew.
I can remember crying through the tears.
I have a clear - crystal clear - memory of sitting on my carpet in my bedroom - near the window and singing along at the top of my lungs "don't wish it away/don't look at it like it's forever..."
I was eating a sandwich - white bread and cheese - don't know why I remember that. And I was crying so hard that the bread was salty from tears and I was kind of choking on its soggy salty stickiness while I sang and ate and cried.
But do you know, for the life of me I can't remember who I was crying about.
Was it Steve or Steve? Yes, both named Steve. Both broke my heart. Both in 1983.
Kinda sucked twice.
But who made me hurt like I wanted to die?
Who gave me that memory etched into my brain so that every time for the rest of my life when I even THINK about Elton John I think about choking on a tear stained cheese sandwich?
I can't say for sure.
But I think that's an important thing eh?
Sad thing is, I still have BOTH Steve's in my life and neither of them were worth the tears.

The Crickets

2009-05-19T11:44:00.002-05:00

Yes, that's the sound of crickets. I haven't been writing here lately and I'm about to give you the home spun psychoanalysis that I've managed to dig up out of my psyche.
People were reading my blog. People were reading my articles in the magazines that I wrote. People in general were reading what I had written.
Some people read it and asked me questions.
Some people read it and said I was oh so clever to have written these things.
Someone even said she showed other people an article and said "I know her" - like knowing me MEANT something. Like knowing who wrote those things was something to be proud of.
And all of the sudden I got shy.
Me.
I got shy.
Now, if you've met me, I am a huge fan of attention. Negative attention. Positive Attention. Being the centre of attention.
I call attention to myself at every bloody opportunity that I have.
I speak out in group settings.
I'm loud.
I'm opinionated and I'm not afraid to express them. On more than one occasion I have said - If you don't want to know what I think then you should never have a conversation with me - cause I will tell you.
I don't ever want to shrink into the background. You can tell that by the way I dress, the way I act, the shoes I wear....everything about me is bigger than life. I crave it.
That's right, I said I crave attention. I love attention. I can't even understand how people could NOT want to be noticed.
I've never ever shied away from attention either. I seek leadership roles in every job or committee or group I've ever been in. Its natural to me to want to be in charge, get up on a stage and talk about something. It doesn't even matter to me what I'm talking about! Big crowd, small group - I'm all in!
I am a natural story teller. Half of the time when I'm doing something, I'm likely trying to figure out how later I will tell the story.
"..when I tell the story about this day (and I will), you were naked!"
I think the stories, for me, are socially acceptable stand up comedy. You know, never one to seek out the stage (ahem) I have to have a creative outlet for my affectations.
I've always know I've had them - my Mother used to bellow at me when she was mad,
"You're so AFFECTED!" Like that or any type of drama was a BAD thing! I thought that I had turned my need to be in the spotlight into a "thing".
My "thing" if you will is being VISIBLE. You'd never be somewhere with me: a meeting or an event or a party and NOT know that I was there. I'm always visible.
That is, in part, what I love about my blog. Its a place where I express those affectations and the need to be seen and heard. Its where I am visible.
But something CLICKED recently. Something made me want to not be seen.
Part of it I guess is fear of success. Accolades made me shy. An odd reaction for an attention whore, but a human reaction at that.
I'm not THAT successful. I didn't get that much praise.
Is it the fear of being noticed? Maybe. Maybe if I am good at something then people will expect more from me. Maybe I will expect more from myself. Maybe I will want more from myself.
Someone asked me if it was my fear of the medium.
"You're fearless in person but naked in print"
It could very well be that I can't take back what I've said once its written. That my inhibitions that are stripped in conversation, surface when its cast in print. It makes permanent something that I think - and makes me accountable for my opinions.
I can honestly say I don't know.
I am not sure which of these things or which combination of these things it is but I am resolved to overcome it. I am resolved to pull the proverbial stick out of my ass and start letting out what has been trapped inside for the last 4+ months. I'm sure there is a floodgate just ready and willing to be burst open!

Turn it down

2009-01-30T19:28:00.004-05:00

I'm sitting here, on my love seat, in my living room wishing I lived in the country far far away from everyone. Far FAR away.
I can't even think. Its too loud. Way too loud.
What?
The neighbours. The neighbours music is SO loud that the wall is vibrating. Booming bass is banging and has been for half an hour.
How long do I have to listen to it before I can complain?
How many fucking times do I have to complain before they get that its just too bloody fucking loud?
For shit's sake they have a 6 month old baby who's hearing they are likely irreparably damaging. Four frigging kids and you CANNOT tell me that at 7pm they are sitting around playing monopoly and listening to some reggae shit turned up to 12 on their stereo. No freaking way.
I have no fucking idea what music they are listening too because there is no break between songs. Its like one big long booming song that has lasted over half an hour.
Now, this isn't the first time this has happened. Like I said, I've complained before. I've even called the police before. But these people don't GET it. If you turn your stereo to 11 it is too fucking loud. End of. It just is. It offends me. I can't hear my tv that is 4 feet from me. Wouldn't you think that they would learn that this makes me homicidal?
It its not over in the next 10 minutes.....I'm going to....oooooh....I'm going to go knock on the door and give them the "stink eye"!

Slight Delay

2009-01-10T23:31:00.002-05:00

I apologize for the slight delay in posting my New Years Resolutions 2009 - I had to do some reading and research and make sure that I had all of my priorities and plans in order for the upcoming year.............ok - I don't believe me either. I am lazy. Exceptionally lazy. But that isn't the case this year - I swear to you I've just been really busy and somewhat preoccupied.
But, you know, its actually BETTER to make your resolutions on the 10th of January. I've already had a chance to test some of them out and fail at them and now I get a chance to modify and leave out ones that I just can't commit to. Yay for me.
So here we go.
You ready?
These are going to be awesome!

1. Distinguish who my true friends are, enjoy them, and tell them how much I do. Let the friends who aren't friends go.
I did this a bit last year (the letting go part) and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I miss bad experiences as much as good ones. I'm a bit of a masochist sometimes, I admit.
I think my whole need to recognize when I'm loved and by who motivates this whole assessment process for me. I feel like my constant need for approval makes me very vulnerable - my need to please and be everything to everyone is not helpful in friendships.
But, I was saying tonight - the good friends that I have are awesome. And I made new ones this year - yay. I sometimes these things become damaging though and I need to check that I'm ok.

2. Eat Less Crap.
I eat a lot of useless processed carb as a vegetarian. Now that I'm eating some meat again, I need to be careful that I don't eat useless processed meat crap.
As a family we have all but eliminated fast food.
Ok - we still get subs and shwarma but really, who could live a life without falafel? I ask you. Is a life without falafel worth living?
We are trying to cook everything from scratch which is yay for us healthy but a shitload of work.
No more spaghetti sauce from a jar - its made from scratch.
Oh yes - its work but hopefully worth it in the end - right?

3. Declutter my life.
I have lots and lots of crap. I need to organize said crap. Once the crap is organized, some crap must go. Some crap can stay.

4. Move my ass more.
This is one of those started and broken resolutions that I spoke about. On January 5th Ben and I started doing Pilates at 5:45am. We did 3 days and stopped for 2. Today we took a walk and used the exercise ball. I don't know if we will continue at 5:45 am. But we need to move MORE.
Fat ass = unhappy Sandra/

5. Read things that aren't plugged in.
I read a lot on line. This blog. Other blogs.
Magazines.
The paper.
Emails.
Facebook status.
IM that would make you blush and your eyes bleed from boredom.
But I have been reading the same novel since November and that's not good.
I got AWESOME books for Christmas - the Wicked series - and I need to read them.
The more I read the more I write.
Read. I need to read.

6. Take care of my money
I'm very private about money - so I won't talk about that here. But I need to admit that I need to handle it better.

7. Start saying NO
I need to say no to people when they ask me to do things that I don't want to do.
I also need to say no to people when I agree to things only to please THEM and not ME.
AND lastly I need to say no to people when its just TOO MUCH.
Examples? Oh geez - too many to count lately.
Like next week at work when I work on the Job Fair project whick I took on as the managing Programme Director only because I couldn't STAND to work as part of a team. I don't play well with others - this can sometimes, like in this case lead to a shitload of extra work.
Like this week when I will spend my Friday off (the first one I've had since November) opening car doors at the kiss and drop at school in the freezing fucking cold and then making snacks for 699 kids. I know I volunteer and I know I am the PTA-VP but sometimes I should just say no.
Like when the dishes pile up and I do them instead of going to bed.
Or when we need milk and I run out at 11pm.
Or when someone asks if I "mind" if they don't come in to work and I have to cover...
SO yes, no would be good. Occasionally.
See, I whine too much. Maybe I should make that a resolution!

8. Not say yes to everything
I need reminding.
The opposite of no is yes.
Sure also works.
I shall try to remember!

9. Not take on too much by learning to say, "Stop, that's too much"
See above.

10. Get a new job.
I might lose mine this year. Its a long story and I'll explain more later but basically, the government is moving stuff around. I may or may not have funding for my program after March 31st.
So - leaving might not be my choice.
But I'm going to be proactive and do something about it this time.
Honestly I have a great bunch of people who work for me - and I would miss them like nuts but I need to move on!

11. Get one more magazine to publish in.
Duh.
If I only write for Canadian Newcomer Magazine then I will be a specialist. I'm barely a professional, I don't want to be a pro-specialist.
I think I might head towards muscle or fitness publications...who knows! But I need to diversify!

12. Pay more attention to this blog. Sorry blog people. I neglect you when I get busy. I come, sometimes, only to bitch and complain. I sometimes pay more attention to facebook than I do you. So so so sorry. I promise to bring my joys and triumphs here as well as my tears and rants. Bad bad me.

Well - that's it. Startinggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg NOW!

Resolutions revisited

2009-01-02T15:27:00.002-05:00

My friend Dan has a blog. Its here. In his blog, he does a "review" of last year's New Year's resolutions and gives himself pass or fail marks on them. I've decided to do something similar and let you all know just how I did.
I like a good resolution. Although, again, as anyone who knows me will tell you I rarely if ever manage to follow through on anything I resolve to do. I don't think that the making of resolutions is my problem. I think that following through on the resolutions is.
Here are the eight things I resolved to do or not do in 2008

1. I will not quit this stupid job until I get another one - and I will not stay in this job cause I kind of hate it.
Well, you see, this is a tough one because round about February of 2008 I started to really like my job.
So the question of whether or not to leave because I hated it became a moot point. I didn't want to leave.
Then, in the summer I became the company privacy officer which is a job that I actually really really enjoy. Then there was absolutely no question. I couldn't leave.
So now, here I sit with unemployment looming (the programme contract has not been extended past March 31 - YET) and no job in my future.
I'm writing exams for my privacy certification on January 21st - hopefully once I have that my place in the universe will be more secure. But who knows, career wise, where the wind will blow me.
Verdict? Fail. But ultimately - passed.
2. I will do the dishes.
I actually DO the dishes. Yesterday I did them 4 times! Grumble.
I still leave them occasionally but - wonder of wonders - I sometimes get hubby or son #1 to do them too! Yay.
Verdict - totally PASSED!
3. I will move.
Alright. We didn't move. But but but.......
Fine!
Verdict - Failed.
But I'm not unhappy about it.
4. I will win the war with chemical addictions.
Oh hell who am I kidding - I barely lasted 12 hours without diet coke.
Sure, I tried about 4 times to give it up - but I couldn't do it. I have that monkey on my back that just won't die. He's got his greedy little claws in my liver and he's giving me GAS but he won't let go!
Bastard monkey.
At least I didn't take up any NEW addictions.
That's something....right? right?
Verdict - Big bad ugly FAILURE!
5. I will stick to this vegetarian thing.
I did stick to the vegetarian thing.
I even took it a step further and went VEGAN for a bit.
I fought my cheese addiction.
And on Christmas eve I had a piece of beef.
Then I had an egg.
So, for the most part, 6 days a week - I am a vegetarian.
Go me.
I lost weight as a veggie, felt better, medications changed and all kinds of good things.
But, somewhere near the end of the years..........to be continued.........
Verdict - Pass! (mostly)
6. My body will not betray me.
Well, It didn't betray me, but it wasn't very nice.
I'm thinner than I was last year at this time.
But the peri-menopause is setting in and I'm starting to "old up".
I'd say, at this point, the body and I are friends.
Once we got the all clear on the "dying" front, we made a truce. Anything she can dream up to challenge me, I can handle.
Verdict - Pass
7. I will yell less.
Meh. Yelling is under-rated.
I mean, who's to say that my screaming isn't SOOTHING to some people?
Who's to say that its not the only reason the kids do anything?
I can't say that....can you?
Verdict - Fail. Miserably!
8. I will write more.
This resolution I rocked the ASS of of!
I wrote more here and in my other blogs which, if you really wanted to read you could email me and I could direct you to...
I wrote stories.
I even wrote a flipping poem. And, it didn't SUCK. I know - pretty freaking amazing isn't it?!?
I started writing for Canadian Newcomer Magazine and they actually PAY me for it.
If you think of writing like figure skating - I am being paid to write - therefore I have effectively turned PRO!
The first time I saw my name in print in a magazine thrilled me. I wanted to run around and scream and show everyone. I couldn't - I mean - that would be pathetic....right? But I felt like I had done something HUGE! Something I've always wanted to do anyway.
Verdict - Passed with flying colours.

All in all, 2008 was good - uneventful - which was my wish last year.
2009 I would like to be a building year - for bigger and better things. But, my friends, that's another blog!

Music of my Life

2008-12-28T10:49:00.001-05:00

I have decided that this is my new theme song.

Thoughts?

Pink and Fuzzy

2008-11-26T01:04:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure you know this but I have a real soft spot for Pink. Yes, Pink - the singer Pink. I think her real name is Alicia or something.
I don't own any Pink cds - but I did enjoy the "behind the music" story on her.
And whenever I hear her stuff on the radio I think to myself - that girl can write.
I also think whenever I hear her perform - that girl can sing.
She can indeed.
But Perez Hilton (and yes I enjoy him too) pointed me to this song, Sober, and the matching video. His comments were akin to this video and song are both amazing - and he is right.
He's also right that the bit with her in the bed - is awesome.
I am not an alcoholic. I don't even ever really drink anymore.
I am not a crack addict or a heroin addict - but we all - each and every one of us do things compulsively.
I know I do.
And no, I am not about to confess my compulsions to you here. Did you really think that I would?
Why do we do it? Why do we drink? Why do we over eat? What are the triggers and the causes and what makes us end it?
I was at the Naturopath last weekend - more to come on that - I PROMISE - and she asked me if I loved diet coke for the caffeine or the bubbles or the taste? Is it because its cold? Nope. None of those things. I can't quite figure out my compulsion with it. I really have no bloody idea but I have to. I have to figure out what is triggering my compulsion to drink diet coke.
Okay - you got me - I confessed my love of a caffeinated soft drink.
But its more than that. I have a lot of compulsive things that I do.
I don't know what it is.
I do know that I am a people pleaser and nothing cuts me more than to say no.
I know that I'm a lazy person - and I hate to do actual work - like cleaning and things like that. I'd happily live in a pig stye. Happily but guiltily. I secretly want to be clean and tidy but at the same time could care less about it.
I'm a mess of contradictions.
I live a life of contradiction, compulsion and denial of both.
How's that for fun Pink?
Back to Pink.
I am posting it for you to talk to your demons.

Aahh, the sun is blinding
I stayed up again
Oohh, I am finding
That's not the way I want my story to end

The Wonderful Foods of Disney

2008-10-19T22:29:00.012-05:00

It has been forever and a day since we got back from Disney World (World not Land - Land is in California). We went back in August.

One of the things I did to prepare for the trip was research the restaurants we would be eating at. Partly out of vegan-necessity but part of it because if you are on the meal plan, you have to have reservations for your sit down dinners - or you have to wait forever. Fletchers hate to wait.

So, 2 months before I started searching the Disney website for places for vegans to eat at Disney. There are a lot actually.

But, before I start describing my glorious meals, I must tell you that I didn't keep completely vegan on vacation. HELL - I was on VACATION. I had some baked stuff that more than likely had eggs in it. AND I had some cheese. I love cheese. But I didn't cave and eat ice cream. Oh okay, I did have some whip cream but I'm sure it was edible oil product and not real cream. (God it was good though!)

First night...we went to the Animal Kingdom lodge to a buffet restaurant called BOMA. It is African themed and was recommended by the nice lady who was doling out the reservations on the Disney phone line.

Because it was African, there was a HUGE amount of vegan products. On my plate you can see evidence of the nice salad bar. And the selection of dips (black bean hummus, red bean hummus, and red pepper dip) on the right hand side. The giant flat bread that i dipped is the triangle on the top right on the table.

Next is corn bread, Spanish rice, ratatouille, baked pumpkin and of course, falafel and sauce. Mmmmm. I think I ate my own body weight in falafel!

I recommend Boma because the Animal Kingdom lodge was gorgeous. Because everyone in my family loved the food and because it was so unusual and delicious.

The next day we spent the day at Magic Kingdom. Lunch was an awesome veggie wrap with carrot cake and fries that I wish I had a picture of. It was awesome. Snack - funnel cake with powdered sugar. Messy but good.

And dinner was at the "Crystal Palace". This is a "character dining experience" which I wasn't sure we would like but, it was a buffet where we could watch the amazing fire works show so I thought it couldn't suck that bad.

Turns out, the kids loved the idea of visiting with Winnie the Pooh and friends while they ate.

The food was really basic but fresh and quite nice. I really liked the salads and the breads. Again, all you can eat. I should have stopped eating long before I did but hey, I was on VACATION!

Day 2 we were at a water park - Blizzard Beach where I ate the worst veggie burger of all time. Veggie burgers can be so very hit and miss no matter where you are. I don't blame Disney really.
That night we went to Epcot - to the Fresh Dinner place...I can't remember the name really. It was "family style" dining.

We had big salads with the largest cherry tomatoes I've ever had. They were also the best cherry tomatoes I've ever had. All served with hot biscuits and corn bread. Yes, I ate my own weight in corn bread.

Hubby and the kids got platters of steak, catfish, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, roasted potatoes and veggies. Later we learned most of the food is grown underneath Disney in their super farm place - we went on a cool tour of the place.

I, as a veggie, got the best risotto ever. Made with veggie stock and peas and asparagus. SO good. Sure, it had Parmesan on it but it was so amazingly good I didn't care.

The next day we were at Hollywood studios. We had excellent Pizza and giant salads at "Toy Story Pizza Planet" which I didn't get pictures of. Frankly, we didn't like Hollywood studios much. We enjoyed the Muppets theatre and the stunt driver show but, we didn't like all the scary rides and the High School Musical crap. ICK.

Dinner was another story!

We went to this 50s diner. Very kitchsy. They check that you don't have your elbows on the table and that sort of thing.

Ben had the best fried chicken he's ever had - or so he said. He also fell in love with collard greens and bacon. Who wouldn't?

And his dessert was gorgeous...photo....

I think it was M&M brownie cake.

It was smothered in whip cream and came with ice cream too!

My dinner was good. It was a rice stuffed pepper with ratatouille (I should really learn to spell that word!) on the side. Good but not very filling.

I could easily have eaten two peppers. AND there was no protein in the meal at all. No beans. Nothing.

It was one of those meals that I'm glad we were on the meal plan or I would have been pissed at paying a lot of money for it.

Dessert was a different story...

I had an angel food cake - most likely full of egg whites - oh well - with berry compote. It was all fresh and yummy!

The dinner was good but we were all hungry later. Sorry Disney, but it isn't exactly filling in the 1950s!

We ate in the German Buffet the next night. It was a cool place where you share tables with other families. We had dinner with a nice lady (it was her birthday) and her daughter. They were from Florida and just there to celebrate her day.

It was a challenging meal for the family though. Wayne told sammy that the schnitzel was chicken nuggets and he ate it - but they he went back to get more, figured out it was pork, and was pissed off.

Ben ate his own weight in mini wieners and sauerkraut.

Wayne loved it all.

I liked the salad part. You can see here - pickled cabbage, roasted potatoes, pretzel bread, apple sauce, carrots, spetzel, and tomato salad. MMMM.

AND all of that while listening to a live polka band. Does it get any better than that?

The last night we went to Planet Hollywood in downtown Disney. I didn't get a picture of my meal. Or the meal of the guy beside me - although I wish I had!
The emo/semi goth kid sitting beside me had vegan fajitas. They fried up onions, peppers, broccoli, tomatoes and stuff and served it with tortillas, lettuce, guacamole and salsa. It looked amazing. And wasn't on the menu. If I'd known about it before I ordered, I would have had that!

As it was, I had yum-o-lish pasta with fresh tomatoes, herbs, peppers and mushrooms. Really huge portion and really really good!

Everyone liked their dinner there - and it was on the meal plan!

I really did think before I left for Florida that I would end up eating nothing but french fries and ice burg lettuce salads the whole week. Instead I had really good meals that for the most part were better balanced nutritionally than I eat at home. Bravo Disney for a good vegetarian menu!

Thanks giving feasts

2008-10-12T21:32:00.009-05:00

I had to look back and check last years blog to be sure that I wasn't repeating the same blog again and again and again - you know how easy it is to do that, right?

Today I was asked for my 5 things that I'm thankful for. And I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. Hahahaha. No really, today I want to talk about the Thanksgivings of my childhood.

As a kid we would work for a week on Thanksgiving projects in art. Making turkeys from potatoes or cut outs of our hands or tissue paper. Sometimes we even did American Thanksgiving crafts and made pilgrim hats and Indian head-dresses. In the 70s it was like we were drunk on the Brady Bunch or something....and we just blindly followed along untouched by the fact that Canadian Thanksgiving is a tribute to the harvest and NOT a copy of a Pilgrim dinner party held centuries ago.

In my family we never did anything normally. Not even thanksgiving. But normal, it has been said, is all relative. Right?

From the time I was born we would always take off on the Thursday before the Thanksgiving long weekend in a "convoy" of the Burt Reynold's variety with all of my cousins following behind. Vans and trucks with trailers attached, making their way across South Western Ontario from Stratford to Sarnia. We would snake our way across the highway stopping at the border to chow down on egg salad sandwiches, cut in thirds and wrapped in tin foil.

We drove across the border (at that time it was a hey-how-ya-doing no passport required kind of border crossing). Our convoy headed over to the state park on the St. Clair river. Camping. We were going camping.

Well, camping of a St. Clair family fashion. Sure, we all had campsites. We put all of our picnic tables together commune style and built a HUGE fire pit. BUT, our main purpose was not to camp in the chilly fall and enjoy the changes in the colours of the leaves. Nope. Our purpose for our visit was to shop. Every day. From sun up to sun down. Target. Kmart. Farmer Jack.

We would go from store to store and load up on whatever we could get our hands on. Cheap underwear and socks! Purses and coats and all kinds of clothes. And because even then in the 70s Americans were fatter than Canadians and we could get unusual and somewhat more fashionable clothing there.

My favourite Thanksgiving outfit was the matching swan sweatervests and checked baby blue gabardine pants my Mom and I got. Awesome early 70s chic!

Often we would go to Mary Maxim the world's (as far as we were concerned) largest craft store. There I began learning from my mother how to stock pile craft projects - so many that I can never be truly finished! When my Mother died - she had about 3 dozen balls of un knit yarn. Hoarding hobbies was a habit that neither of us have ever broken.

We ate well in the US. Sure we were "camping" and did the burgers and dogs on the bbq - but we ate at the Sweden House buffet. Back in the day it was the most awesome buffet ever. I am not certain but I think the lunch buffet was $5. Sure it was! Hell, I was a kid - I didn't know anything about money! It might have been free!

Funny thing about the Sweden House, it was not Swedish food. It was all the goodness of an American buffet. Yepper. Meat - carved meat. Many kinds of potatoes. And I guess there was a salad bar but I don't remember ever visiting it. Of course, all the dessert you could carry.

The blue slushies from Kmart stick in my head as a big deal. We loved those slurpee like drinks - so blue and totally full of air. I can remember getting one and sitting out in the front of KMart and waiting for my mother to meander around the store endless times. She'd pick up nylon nighties and packages of knee highs. It was a happy thanksgiving for all of us.

But no traditional turkey dinner. Not for the St. Clair family. Not ever. We would, on thanksgiving Monday, stop at the Arby's (this is before we had Arby's in Canada) and pick up a dozen junior Arby's sandwiches. Once we smuggled all of our purchases across the border, hidden in the bowels of the trailer, we would stop just outside of London and have our sandwiches. Mmmmm cold roast beef.

But no turkey.

Until one year when my mother got tired of hearing us whine and complain about not having the thanksgiving that all of our friends had.

So she cooked up a turkey on the Wednesday before we left. Put it, all wrapped in tin foil, into the cooler and surrounded it with ice packs.

Off we went to Port Huron with the thoughts of stuffing and turkey and gravy swimming in our heads.

"I'll make the potatoes on Monday" she said.

Every time all weekend someone tried to sneak a bit of turkey my mother smacked their hand. She guarded that turkey like a rabid Tiger guarding its prey- perhaps a dead Zebra! (okay gross analogy but I'm making a point) She was adamant that we have this dinner on Monday and she would be the one to ensure it was perfect.

Monday came - socks and underwear and nighties are bought - and we open the cooler. Out wafts the most horrific smell ever. I was about 11 years old and if I think about it today - 31 years later, I can still remember that smell. It was vile. Barfaliscious. Horrible. Just nasty.

Oh but it got better. As my Mother pulled back the tin foil, the entire turkey was GREEN - grass green with mould and slime. Just awful.

My mother cried.

We all laughed.

Then she cried and laughed. We all still laugh about the thanksgiving turkey that never was. We ate the mashed potatoes and of course, Arby's. Yum. Roast beef sandwiches.

Now the point of me telling you this story is that I wanted you to know, I put a lot of importance on the holiday meals I serve. I am likely compensating for a life time of Arby's. I also know that every time thanksgiving comes I think of my Mom laughing and crying all at the same time over that stupid green turkey. Its the company you keep not the food that you eat that makes the day the day and I give thanks for that.

Crying over you

2008-10-08T21:19:00.005-05:00

I was 14 before a boy made me cry.

He wasn't my boyfriend. He was just a boy that I knew. That I liked. He was my friend. Well, in retrospect, I suppose he really wasn't. He made me cry by telling me that no one would love me because I was ugly.

He used my insecurities to manipulate me.

He even had me come back for more - I needed more - I needed to have him completely tear me down.

He said that I wasn't the right person. That I didn't have what it took.

That it was something that I did.

And then he laughed. He laughed AT me - not with me - but at me. And that ripped my guts out through my nose.

I did what you are supposed to do. I kept a stiff upper lip. I said he was full of crap. I stared him down and sat eye to eye with him in full possession of every ounce of self confidence I could muster. I was un-affected.

And as soon as I left - I was a mess. I cried so hard I heaved sobs. I thought in the fashion of a 14 year old that it would be LESS painful to actually be dead than to feel what I was feeling just then. It very likely would have.

But, I stuck it out.

And amazingly, it happened again. Another boy. He and I were making out. He lifted my shirt and traced the silvery spidery lines of my stretch marks. And he laughed. I don't remember what he said - but I remember the laughing.

And at the time, I blocked it out, carried on, let him kiss me again and again and then again - as soon as I was alone - I exploded with that same painful sob.

I remember walking into the kitchen and cutting some cheese and getting some saltines - still crying crying crying and choking on the cheese and crackers the two kinds of salty mixing and making me gag on the tears.

I have a delicate relationship with crying.

I can cry during movies like a normal person. I cry in commercials for Hallmark and at funerals for ANYONE (its the least I can do for them). I cry gently and lady-like. I cry in a controlled manner. I cry for show. But some days I could cry like it was the last time ever.

That pain wrapped up in the same cocoon that contains all that hurt - whether its mine to feel or not - that's how it escapes.

I know I'm not unusual. I know that we all cry.

Hell, I'm crying RIGHT now. For no reason at all. I'm not hurt or sad or upset or lonely or disgruntled or even inconvenienced. I just feel intolerably upset.

My husband tells me that the problem is when I'm upset by something or someone - I don't SAY anything. I let it go. I pretend "fake it till you make it" and the "suck it up buttercup" with my "stiff upper lip" and all that jazz. And then, well then I just break loose. Cry like the blubbering puke I know deep down inside that I am.

I remember going to the doctor once and having my eyes dilated with orange dye. And when I left he handed me a giant WAD of Kleenex. He explained that I would need it later when my nose started to run - orange snot. Where do you think your tears go when you don't cry? Good question. They are just snot.

Today I cried. Tomorrow I'll cry again. For as many times I've cried I've laughed 100 times more. For all those days I forgot or just didn't get around to crying, my guess is that I blew my nose more that day.

As for those boys that made me cry? They were the first and likely not the last. I'm a delicate flower of a girl!

One, Two, Three and Four

2008-10-07T10:36:00.002-05:00

You think that the only truth that matters is the truth that can be measured.
If I'm right, then I win.
If, in theory, a 9 gets a 9
then a 3 gets a 3.
If, in theory, you can only move the spaces that you roll on the dice then shit isn't always fair now, is it?
What if a 2 gets an 8?
Is everyone around them bound to check thoroughly and completely that everything is even and in balance?
That rarely happens though, does it?
The Honeymooner's.
I guess really it only happens on tv - The Flintstones, Happy Days, King of Queens, According to Jim...there must be more.

Big fat guy with his trophy wife. How often does that REALLY happen?
Remember that song that went "Three dressed up as a Ni-eye-eeeye-ne"?
You know I had to google it to remember it was Trooper - right?

Well you can say what you like
Be what you wanna be
You can suit yourself baby
But you don't suit me

What makes a 3 a 3?
It's only physical right?

What you can see from far away.

Have you ever seen Trooper? Like they should judge, am I right?
But what is my point today?
The point is, today in the paper they said that the national association for fat acceptance is trying to convince everyone that fat can be healthy.

Steve Harper is running the country I love and he has the ugliest hair of anyone I've ever seen. Its like painted on Ken doll hair.

Madonna is hailed as superfit superstar 50 year old woman and I can see the individual strands in the muscles on her legs and it makes me have a little vomit in my mouth.
The point is, that once a man told me that I was "quite unattractive" and while I think his momma needed to teach him some manners before he gets himself killed, I think he was also a giant idiot.

Who is he to judge?

Well, actually, he is the judge.

And so am I.

And so are you.
Every last ugly warty pimple covered one of us can judge the other.
Because if the only truth that matters is the one that can be measured, today I am a 4.
Please feel free to score yourself below.

"You used to be fun"

2008-10-06T10:23:00.001-05:00

Many years ago, I used to be a lot of things.
I have always been tall.
I have always been fat.
I have always been smart, and funny, and nice.
But, much to my regret, I have not always been fun.
Oh I have had fun.
But I haven't always been fun.
Back in high school I knew that I was a weirdo. Frankly, I think most of us do know that. A whole building FULL to over flowing of people who feel that they don't belong. Taught by people who likely feel very much the same way.
I was not fun. I might have had fun. I even might have created some fun - but I, was not fun. I was scared and smart and studious and a slacker. I was a liar and a hard worker and even a thief. I was running away and looking for love but I was not FUN.
My favourite favourite movie of all times, the Sterile Cuckoo with Liza Minelli says it best and every time I watch it I think to myself "she gets me - she really gets me" but really, she likely gets us all when she says, "It's gonna be nice to get away from all these weirdos".
When I left high school, that's what I really thought I'd be doing. But little did I know I would be taking all the weirdos with me - they were weird only because I made them weird. I looked at people like they were different from me, which in all reality they weren't.
At university I spent more days terrified than not. My roommate scared me stupid. We were instant best friends that hated each other on sight.
I didn't have many friends there and the ones I did were weirder than I was.
The gay army cadet poet who lumbered around drinking root beer schnapps from a mug every night.
The girl next door with 6 inch high hair who wore blue mascara on her eyebrows and was having an affair with her 60 year old boss while dating his 20 year old son.
I wonder what ever happened to them?
At that point in my life I sought out like minded people -like the fat girl across the hall who tried to kill herself and had all gay friends- she was like me, right?
These people would not be my weirdos - they were just like me.
Like a pretty girl who wants to be beautiful surrounds herself with ugly girls, I wanted to be normal so I surrounded myself with the super weird. Did it work? No idea. But they were good people and I adored them.
Did I have fun? Sure. Was I fun? I think I was starting to become fun.
I was funny.
I was charming.
I was learning to be fun.
When I was out on my own I was alone and awfully lonely. At 20 I lived in the largest city in Canada with few friends. To be less alone I clung to the friends I had - I cultivated my gaggle of gays and became their diva hag.
I made myself into an amazing companion - I did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.
I had the best time - probably the best times of my life.
I just let stuff happen.
I enjoyed everything I did no matter how small or insignificant and as far as I can remember - that is when I used to be fun.
But life encroached on my fun.
I fell in love, which was fun. But it isolated me a bit from my friends.
Then I had kids - again fun - again isolating me from my old kind of fun.
The "let stuff happen" fell out of my life and was replaced with real grown up responsibility.
I am still tall.
I am still smart.
I am still fat and funny and nice.
But I'm the Vice Chairperson of the School Community Council.
And a Manager.
And a Mom.
I am an orphan.
And a wife.
And a Privacy Officer.
I have a mortgage and debt.
I have life insurance.
The dynamic of what makes up who I am has changed.
I still have fun.
Fun is karate tournaments.
Fun is this blog.
Fun is being with my friends the two times a year (maybe) I get to do that.
Am I still fun?
Not every day.
So when someone said "you used to be fun". They weren't wrong. I had no right to be as GUTTED as I felt.
I "used to be fun" though - I suppose I'll always have that.
In that same movie, Liza Minelli gives the most moving speech about how short life is. And it is. But, when I was fun, I had more than my one minute of good things. I know I did. Lucky me.

You know what the trouble is? The trouble is that probably all the good things
in life take place no more than a minute - I mean, all added up. Especially
at the end of 70 years, if you should live so long, you still haven't
figured it out. You spent 35 years sleeping. You spent five years going to
the bathroom. You spent 19 years doing some kind of work you absolutely
hated. You spent 8,759 minutes blinking your eyes. And, after that, you got
one minute of good thing.

Blog-sharing

2008-10-04T08:50:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I was off work and trying to clean up my horribly messy house. In the kitchen I found fruitflies and rotting bananas.
Banana cake, I said. Banana cake.

Not loaf - cake.

Too lazy to walk up the 15 stairs to look through my dozens of cook books and WAY too freaking lazy to sort through the shoe box of my Mom's recipes to find Shirley Pugh's banana cake, I googled Banana Cake on my laptop.

I found this site http://seasonalontariofood.blogspot.com/ and a recipe for the most deliscious banana cake ever.

I tried to "vegan it up" but I left in the eggs. Instead of buttermilk I used soy milk with 3/4 tbsp of cider vinegar added to it. And instead of the chocolate icing I used the "Vanilla Butter Cream Icing" from the book Vegan Cupcakes.

The cake is yummy and I didn't end up having to make banana smooties. Again.

Check out that other site too - last week there was a recipe for minted carrots that looks AWESOME........

Do Not Call ME

2008-09-29T19:08:00.008-05:00

I don't answer the phone in my own house anymore.
Why?
I hate telemarketing with a white hot burning passion that knows no bounds. I really do.
But, say those of you who know me, you used to work in telemarketing, you used to write telemarketing scripts....
Yes - totally true. I did. And, frankly, if I may toot my own horn, I was quite good at it.
I can write a script to sell anyone anything. And for every reason why they don't want to buy whatever it is my telepeople are shilling, I will give you 3 reasons why that reason isn't a good one. And, if you know what's good for you, and I will tell you that it is good for you, you will want to buy what they are selling. You will. Oh you may regret it later but for now, you will want it.
But in my house, we had 7 phone calls tonight.Three telemarketing in the half hour we were eating dinner - all pushing doors and windows - and like I said, all during dinner.
I say "hello".
They start their speech and I hang up quietly.
That was for the first 3 calls.
Then SeyHuhn called for Ben. I swear he talks on the phone more than I do.
One more telemarketing call from a real estate agent.
I did the same thing, hung up.
And another for doors and windows. By the time this one came, I was getting pissed off. Really pissed off.
I had been thinking about all the things that I had been reading about the miracle promised by the "Do Not Call Registry" through the government. I'm sure you all read all about it. Well, I was there in the very beginning. I remember going to meeting at the CMA - Canadian Marketing Association years ago and hearing about the do not call registry. You see, to people who market the world, the telephone is the holy grail of sales.
"The do not call registry is on its way!" spoke the scary man in his scary booming voice from the podium. The ominous tones of sure sales campaign failure echoed through the room in the airport hotel conference centre. You could hear, slightly, in the background the theme from Jaws...da duh....da duh....da duh....dun dun dun dun.......
We all sat, mesmerized contemplating careers in the wonderful world of home decorating or retail merchandizing. But no, they told us. This registry is not for us! Its not for "legitimate" marketers. Its for the fly by night window and door companies...THOSE are the companies that will go down when all of Canada signs on for the DNCL.
BECAUSE>>>>>>>>>>>
the DNCL does not stop your bank from calling you - that means insurance, credit cards and other bank products - they can still call.
Political parties can still call you for any reason.
Oh - and any place where you have a pre-existing relationship - they can call you. For example, your cable company, your phone company, your electric company or the company that provides your gas....all those people can call you.
And surveys - well any one can call you to conduct a survey.
Let me tell you how the call is going to go now....
Hi, can I speak to Mr or Mrs. Feltcher.....?
Hello Mrs Feltcher - I am
calling to ask you a few questions - do you have time to take a survey? Great.
When did you last purchase windows?
When did you last purchase doors for your home?

Then they start to sell you windows and doors

So essentially no matter what the hell you do, register or don't register for the Do Not Call List it will make NO difference or VERY LITTLE difference to how many and what kind of calls we get. And I got a bunch of calls in a row.
Back to my story - I was pissed.
The little girl started in on her spiel for, you got it, windows and doors. And I got pissed, sighed - one of those big heavy sighs and then I hung up.
I just hung up.
Not slammed down the phone but hung up.
Then came last call.
It was a man.
May I speak to Mrs. Fletcher.
Yes. Speaking.
And this is what he said to me
"Can I interest you in some free menopause medication bitch?"
and then he hung up.

When I *69-ed the number, of course, it could not be reached - the cornerstone hiding technique of the fly by night windows and doors people.
"Bravo" co-worker of frustrated telemarketing chick - "Bravo!"

Sure, I was a bitch, and I deserved the snarky call back.
Is the do not call list going to help that?
Nope.
People are still going to get paid minimum wage to make those calls.
And people, like me are still going to be bitchy and hang up.

In a Rush

2008-09-14T08:11:00.002-05:00

When I was in grade 7, back in 1979 (yepper) there was a big push on fitness in Canada - "Particip-action" they called it. Everyone was made to exercise. But, exercise in that nonsensical 70s way: situps and chinups, jogging and jane fonda-esque workouts. "Lets get physical physical" Perhaps this was the Olivia Newton John headband era - I can't really remember.
But anyway, my school started an after school running program as part of this shift to health and fitness sanctioned and supported by the government. So, like a good girl, I didn't join. Frankly, I'm sure you can guess this, I've never been much of a joiner or a jogger.
But, all the boys joined. And after school every day, they would run around the block 5 times. They ran around the block that I lived on. Lucky me.
What I decided to do to participate in the health and fitness craze was run home and watching from my front porch.
Each day when school ended and all the running keeners would sprint to the gym to change into their 70s adidas shorts and absorbent terry cloth wrist and headbands, I would sprint home and sit on the porch.
I would quickly change my clothes into something I thought of as alluring (at the time anyway). Shorts and t-shirts that showed off my 13 year old good legs and bigger than average boobs were what I picked. Sure I was already fat - but I could flaunt what I had even then.
I would poise myself in full view - sitting sideways on the stairs, Tab in one hand and novel in the other. I would pretend to read carefully chosen novels like Catcher in the Rye and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Things that if you just were jogging leisurely by my house you could tell by the cover what i was reading.
Each day I did this for about a week - watching the joggers from overtop of my book - and reading nothing.
Eventually, a guy I knew from class, Mike and his friend Steve stopped to chat. "Want a drink?" I said.
Sure they did. And Steve stopped jogging and sat with me and Mike jogged away.
We talked about the novels I hadn't read. We talked about music. And we talked about the world in general.
I was in HEAVEN. I adored Steve and had forever. And here he was talking to me. Eventually, he stopped going jogging altogether. He would just come over. We would take my record player out on the front porch and listen to Rush - Moving Pictures. Later, we morphed that into Duran Duran, Rio and so many others. But, we started with Rush.
It was the very first time I used "sex as a weapon". The very first time I figured that the combination of my tits and my brains were a good thing. And that men liked both.
I was thinking about you the other day - thinking about how I haven't heard from you in ages. I need to put on my short shorts and a tight t-shirt and sit on my porch, pull out a novel and put on Moving Pictures.
But maybe you're still just jogging by my house. Not that you're not interested. But sometimes life just makes you stick with the program and keep jogging by.
Whichever, I do have my Tab and my novel, that I SHOULD really read - and of course, Rush to keep me occupied. I'll just wait here.

"the random wanting is my truth"

2008-07-23T20:06:00.001-05:00

"the random wanting is my truth"

The random wanting is my truth
it is - my truth

I am a big ball of half-complete and contradictory truths
Terms I confuse and over write
and right now all i want is to hear you beg
I will oblige
though i doubt that will resolve any of the contradictions

I doubt that it will fix the truth
truths
wantings
I doubt that it will solve a thing

The random wanting is my truth
The truth that will heal me
and no doubt set me free

Just a pair of earrings

2008-07-14T10:43:00.003-05:00

This week, as per my last post, I am waiting for my Aunt Jeanne to die. I started trying to think why she was such an important part of my life. She is my great Aunt, we really shouldn't be that close, right?
But really with the weird way that my family morphed into itself and over itself - its not all that illogical.
But my Aunt Jeanne was kind of special. She taught me important stuff about old fashioned manners.
Aunt Jeanne never forgot a birthday. We each got a card with $10 in it every birthday until we were 18 years old. We also got Christmas gifts - every year. At 18 we were cut off because we were adults. Fair enough.
But every year, she gave me a card.
As a kid I likely thought - "oooh free money!"
But, as an adult, I take that from Aunt Jeanne and I send out cards to my nieces and nephews every year with money or a gift. Birthdays and Christmas because I want to be THAT Aunt, just like Aunt Jeanne, that NEVER forgets.
My kids got the money in an envelope from Aunt Jeanne every year too. And while we only see her once or twice a year and they very likely forget who she is from visit to visit, since they have been old enough to draw I have made them send a thank you card. For the birthday money and for the Christmas money too.
This Christmas Sammy sent a letter thanking Aunt Jeanne for the Walmart gift card he got for Christmas and for the $10 he got for his birthday because he saved up all of this money and bought an Nintendo DS with Pokemon Pearl.
The next week I got an email from my cousin saying that Aunt Jeanne wanted to know what "those things" were. How cute is that?
But my kids got it - they GOT the need to write the thank you letter. You reward thoughtfulness with thoughtfulness back.
Getting stuff - even money - from someone thoughtful I hope makes them thoughtful too.
When I graduated from high school Aunt Jeanne and her husband, Uncle Ken, gave me a pair of earrings.
This was 1984 and everything was all Madonna-esque. Think Annie Lennox's punked up bright red buzz cut.
Pearl drop earrings.
UGH.
I accepted them, said my "thank you"s and never wore them.
The are pearls.
I was 17.
Ugh.
When I got married I wore my Grandmother's pearls. Do you know what went perfectly with them? The pearl drop earrings.
Over the 11 years that had passed, the pearls had yellowed slightly and they were just a perfect match.
I wore them for the wedding and then I put them away in their velvet box.
When my cousin Amy got married, do you know what went perfect with her wedding dress? Those same pearl drop earrings.
I'm not sure why Aunt Jeanne gave those earrings to me. I didn't get any other graduation presents - not even from my parents. But they meant something and I'm not sure what.
Who knows, maybe we pass them along generation to generation as the earrings that go with wedding dresses.
Maybe we should pass along Aunt Jeanne's rum ball recipe as the greatest rum ball recipe ever on the planet.
Maybe we pass along her New Years Day dinners or stories of her golfing and winning at the age of 80 and how she ran around town until just this past summer.
There are a lot of cool things we could share about her. But for me, her thoughtfulness is what touches me always.

A Matter of Time

2008-07-12T22:02:00.001-05:00

I got an unusual unwanted email tonight from my cousin Janice. She said that my Aunt Jeanne,her Mom, is in paliative care in the hospital and its only a matter of time.

Only a matter of time.

A matter of time.

Time for her, matters.

I get that time matters for all of us.

Its all we have really. But, for my Aunt Jeanne, this weekend, time is ALL that matters.

From what I hear, her family is with her.
From what I know, this is the worst time for them.

With my dad, when he had a matter of time, we sat with him around the clock and waited for him to stop breathing.

Just waited and every half minute, hoped that it would be his last gasp.

We just wanted him to stop. Stop having time to matter.

But as with all things, you can only control what you can control - and as we all know - no one controls a goddamned fucking thing.

Poor Aunt Jeanne.

Think about it.

As if this was your very last weekend.

The last weekend that mattered.

You can't GO anywhere.

You might not be able to talk.

You can't run or walk or be alone.

What do you want to do with your time?

If you can see your family - you can likely see them scared.

Do you want to die?

Do you just want to go?

Or do you want more time?

I don't have a smart smarmy answer for you.

I don't have anything clever to say about how I would like to eke out every last second I have to be with the people I love - and if you are reading this, you may very well be one of them.

I wish I could say I'd fight.

But I might not.

I might just wish the clock would run out.

Like it was just a matter of time.

I'm late I'm late I'm late

2008-07-06T09:52:00.002-05:00

I had really meant to write more on here. And I still do mean to write more. But, I've been working on this blog that is totally blocking me.
Its about when I was 11 years old - so, I'm reaching way way way back.
I'll finish.
I'll move on.
Until then.....enjoy this...

That is all....

2008-06-25T00:05:00.003-05:00

Its freaking one in the morning and I have been awake since six. I am not tired and I need to be awake again at, shockingly, 6am. Why can't I sleep?

_____________________________________________________________

Great now its fucking 2:01am and I am STILL awake.
I'm going to be a mess tomorrow.
Why dammit - why???

Solstice this

2008-06-20T20:57:00.002-05:00

The longest day of the year left this as my horoscope:

Gemini (May 21 — June 21)

You will improve awkward areas of your emotional world. At the moment, you are keenly aware of what's missing in your life, but soon you will realize how much you have.

_______________________________________________

I have awkward areas in my emotional world.
Things that I can't explain and won't.
We all do.
I swear that half of the life we live, we live in our heads and not out loud.
Half of all reality is fantasy. That's what makes it fun.

The things I do.
The things I say.
The thoughts I think.
All of these are very different.
Only the thoughts I think actually belong to me. Right?

When I write down what I think, it stops being mine.
I write too many things.
And then I portion them out in tiny packages to different people.
Even a grocery list.
Its a sharing thing. And frankly, I don't want to share everything.
Nor can I.
Nor should I.
I'm trying, again, to find my balance folks.
Hang in there....we're getting closer.

So on a day that is all about EXCESS - the longest day of the year - the most sunlight - the biggest pleasure - I give you all a giant push towards the sun.

From Fourty-One to Fourty-Two

2008-06-10T22:09:00.003-05:00

Today I am 42. Fourty two freaking years old.
I looked and listened for a song that would capture the last year of my life. I toyed with more Concrete Blonde, went through all of the Stars that I know and love. Hell, I even thought about some Blue Rodeo for old time's sake. But nothing quite hit the roller coaster year I've had.

I went back, and frankly thanks to the blogosphere you can too, and re-read last year's birthday stuff - just to get a feel for where my head was. I thought about where I was and where I am today and I came up with this pearl of wisdom for you.

There is nothing quite as sobering as a brush with almost near kinda death to make you see what a crazy insane psycho bitch you have the potential to be.

No.
Wait.
That's not it at all.

Love will save the day, set you free and sustain you.

Well. That's closer anyway!

Anyone who knows me even a little knows that my one real rule in life is that everyone must love me. The idea that someone doesn't like me is really the worst thought ever! I take what affection and attention that is offered and I revel in it - I really honestly do. I seek it out. I embrace any kind of love. In fact, I've said a tonne of times before - do we find love often enough that we can afford to ever turn it away? No matter who it is?

Well, with age comes wisdon and this year I changed my attitude a bit. I started to try to find love that made me FEEL loved and in turn made me feel good about myself.

I mean all kinds of love. Friends - family - where ever love finds us these days.

This past year I took a new attitude with my family. I love them all - each and every one of my extended family: cousins, aunts, uncles, dead parents, divorced in laws, estranged brothers. But, I'm not going to force myself into places I don't naturally fit. My kids need family - as much as I do. But they need it to be effortless and comforting not forced and surreal.

They say the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well, I can't throw holiday parties that my mother would love. I just don't have it in me. And you know, she's never going to fucking show up. So, it doesn't really matter does it? Its time I started pleasing myself - not my dead mother.

When I went to my cousin's funeral and my Aunt said that they were all "so proud" of how I'd handled myself in spite of the shitful fucked up hand I'd been dealt (paraphrasing of course gentle reader - my "Auntie Lois" would NEVER in a million years say shitful or fucked up)I cried for days like the blubbering puke that I am. Why? Not because she was right, although in hindsight she likely is, but because I needed that approval and validation from them - I sucked it up.

After I gave my head a good shake (read: Rick told me not to be such an idiot) I realized how pathetic that is. I don't need what essentially amounts to pity. I know I cope amazingly well. Somtimes I forget. But I KNOW I rock the crisis hard core. I am "Crisis chick". I should get a t-shirt - maybe even a cape.....hm.

I also made some decisions on how I manage my personal relationships. I know I hurt people who love me and who I love. I didn't mean to because, hell people, if you are following at all, I just want to be loved, but not all love is good for you. Some love was not good for me.

I did some pretty fantastically stupid things this year. And NO I am not going to make you a list! Suffice it to say that each and every wrong turn I made, I made a note of. I will try not to do it again. I can't say that I won't because I am the queen of unfulfilled promise, but I do have geniunely pure intentions.

I had, what some might say, a triumphant year for a 41 year old woman.

I discovered new things, bits and peices of confident sexy me that haven't seen the light of day in forever. Those peices of me own good high heels, push up bras and rock the short skirt. I like that girl. She's fun and flirty and confident and pretty fucking brilliant and in her fourties. She's not ashamed of her age, she's not too old to do anything, she's got wrinkles and sags and doesn't give a rat's royal ass. Because after all this time she's figured out that it really IS what is inside that gives her the bravado. She forgets sometimes and still wears crocs but I think we'll keep her.

I made moves to take this chick places. I took her to the magazine and wrote an article they actually published. And sure, its in ESL level 4 english but its a start, right.

I have read, this year, peices that have inspired me. I have collaborated. I have shared things I never thought I'd have the courage to share. I have opened myself, my heart and my soul to people in ways I never thought I would and for that I am eternally grateful. I FEEL exceedingly excessively loved.

Sometimes life is about opportunity.

I had tremendous opportunity this year. I took them. I didn't solve all my problems or make the world a better place or cure cancer or feed the homeless. None of those things. But I did the best I could.

My friend Dan said this today: "you just have some "tweaking" to do. not on your blog. but on life..." And, I think, he may be right.

Is it too corny to say that I'm taking steps in the right direction? I'm surrounded by people I love who love me back and they are walking with me where I need to go.

The Magazine

2008-06-09T19:22:00.003-05:00

I haven't been blogging much lately. Okay, let me correct that. I have been blogging plenty - just not hitting the magical "Publish Post" button.
Why?
Because they SUCK ASS.
No, I'm not being self deprecating. I'm being honest. They do.
They are mostly whiny and snivelly, self indulgent and sad.
Why again?
Because that's how I feel.
I feel just overwhelmed and under achieving.
If I have let you down recently I apologize.
I'm doing an awful lot of that to myself too.
I'm taking some time to regroup.
Re-think.
Re-write.
In the mean time - please feel free to peruse Canadian Newcomer Magazine and my fascinating article on summer festivals.

Gilligan's Island

2008-06-05T20:01:00.002-05:00

I have worked (again) this year on the Fun Fair at the boy's school. Hours and hours and meetings and planning and shopping and errands. Days and days and days I have spent trying to help the fun fair committee - affectionately called the Fantastic Four.
Days I was awake until 2am - emailing my fellow members and having them answer me.
I typed folktales and translated folktales and laminated folktales and spiral bound folktales...all with my buddies...all in the name of rabid multiculturalism. All in prep for the fun fair.
Today alone, I drove a quarter tank of gas on errands all over hell's half acre. I ran around town, I shopped, I wrapped, I organized.
I sold fucking tickets for raffles and food and freezies.
Candy floss and popcorn.
Burgers and dogs.
It was exhausting - for all of us.
All 4 of us looked like we'd been beaten up.
The principal gets up on the stage and says - "I'd like to thank the pta for all of their efforts to put on the fun fair....." and I'm thinking well, you're welcome. Then she continues - "this fair would not take place without our great team: Mrs Sharma, Mr. MacKay AND THE REST..."
And the rest?
WTF?
There are only fucking 4 of us.
And the rest?
The rest is Miss MacDougall and Mrs. Fletcher.
For fuck's bloddy sake there are fucking four of us.
I know now exactly why the Professor and Mary Anne were always so annoyed. They probably COULD have gotten everyone off the fucking island but were just pissed off at being ignored.
I'm annoyed.
No one volunteers to be acknowledged. You do it out of the goodness of your heart - from a sense of duty to your cause. But, its shitty when you're colleagues are recognized and you are not.
Ah well. I supposed it could have been worse.
The could have gotten my name wrong altogether or spilled ketchup on me or .... wait. Or maybe she's just a rude bitch.
That's the one I'm going with.
Its not like she doesn't know my fucking name!
There are 3 more events at the school this year although there are only 21 days of school left.
Teacher appreciation lunch. Fuck that - I'm working and although I COULD take time out to be there - fuck them - order the big 6 foot long fucking sub and be done with it. Last year I was in charge of supplying all the dessert. This year, let them eat fruit coctail from a can.
Volunteer appreciation tea. Fuck that. I don't want their tea.
Grade 8 grad. Now, that I WILL go to. One of the fantastic 4, her daughter is in grade 8 - and I want to make sure that she has a good night. After all - she is "and the rest" too.
But after that, I seriously need to re-evaluate my reasons for doing this. What do I get out of this? What is my motivation? Why does the P.T.A. make me so angry?
And how bad is it to be just like "the rest"?

Mother's Day

2008-05-13T17:55:00.004-05:00

Sunday was, of course, Mother's Day. I'm not sure if its "International" Mother's Day or just plain old North American Mother's Day.
I actually had a really great day. This year I asked for no bought gifts - just the stuff that the kids made for me - and a day to be treated. I decreed, unilaterally, that this day would begin at 6pm on Saturday night. Hey, its my day it starts when I want.
This meant that someone else did the dishes, someone else made dinner, someone else made breakfast and then someone else made dinner again.
I know, it doesn't seem like a lot - but it was great.
It is the simple act of acknowledgement - hey, that's a lot of work - that I was looking for. That, and the opportunity to be lazy.
I am the laziest person I ever met.
My ass.
The couch.
Two and a half hours of Coronation Street.
Pure heaven.
I must also say that the quality of Mother's Day gift is improving as the kids get older. This year I got a fridge magnet from Ben, a mug from both (the sitter), purple diorama frames from both (the sitter) and this lovely trinket box that Sammy painted at school.
Apparently there wasquite the controversy over the trinket box painting at school. Sammy wanted to paint it purple (which he insists is my favourite colour)but the teacher wouldn't let him. Score one for encouraging a child's creativity.
It did however inspire a great debate in the car about Picasso and his "blue period" and the many variations of blue.
We went to the zoo and froze.
It was perfect.
And the best part - for the first time in a dog's age I didn't spend the whole day pining over my poor Mom. The kids asked what my Mom used to like to do on Mother's Day - and I mentioned (because it was at breakfast) how my Mom used to love scrambled eggs and ketchup. And that was the only time she came up.
I'm quite proud of myself really.

Riding the Bus

2008-04-29T21:58:00.005-05:00

I try to do my part. Right? We all should. Save the planet and all that shit.
I recycle - paper, cans, bottles, boxes - all that shit.
I crush up the egg shells and blend them with coffee grounds and sprinkle them in the garden.
I compost all of my banana peels and veggie scraps and hubby's meat bones. All of the above.
Today I had a meeting out of town - and I had to drive. Drive all across the gta from Scarborough to Brampton. Almost 300 km in one day. That, my friends, is insane.
Why?
Because it was $1.221 a litre for gas. My trip today used about half a tank of gas. That is wrong for so many reasons.
So, me being the quintessential enviro-friendly cheapskate, I decided to take the second half of my day's journey (Scarborough to downtown Toronto) via good ole public transit.
I parked the car at Scarborough Towne Centre. That meant the RT to the Subway, switch trains, take another train and walk to the doctor's office. MUCH easier than getting in the car and driving the 30 minutes downtown. Much more environmentally friendly. Much cheaper.
I had forgotten how creepy it is on the subway.
Mostly, when I am sequestered in my van, I know that all the people I am riding with, mainly me, have had a shower and brushed their teeth. When on the subway, this is not the case.
We were, quite literally wedged into the trains. Squeezed in with not enough oxygen per person. Remind me that I am not doing enough to plug up the ozone layer.... And people on top of people on top of smells and textures and stench and horror of faces and colours and UGH!
The subway sucks.
Sure - it took us three times as long to get there and back.
Sure - it cost us only $6.90 for two people for a return trip.
Sure - Ben loved the fun of it all.
But I will have nightmares. The smell the smell the smell. Oh the things I have seen today. I have to say it again - UGH!
Did I save a tree?
I don't have a clue.
Nor at this point do I care.

The Real Deal

2008-04-24T21:58:00.002-05:00

Just because I miss her - because she was the best Mom.
She loved me, supported me, made fun of me, joked with me, and raised me to be full of myself.
She taught me to never stand up without pulling down my shirt over my ass.
She told me black and brown should never be worn together.
She threw a box of crackers at my head.
She broke my metabolism and taught me all her bad habits.
She was the worst cook, the laziest housekeeper and would never allow talking during All My Children.
She had a big smile that was full of love.
And she loved me.
She, quite likely, was chosen randomly by a clerk in an office somewhere to be my Mom.

Who Knew?

2008-04-13T14:38:00.003-05:00

Today was errand day for me. You know those kind of days where you leave the house before the stores even open - just to be the first one there - to rush through buying your share of crap so that you can get finished and take your crap home when everyone is just waking up.....?
That's the kind of errand day it was.
At Best Buy I lied and told the cute little homosexual pimply faced returns clerk boy that I had no idea what happened to the Wii game. "It just stopped working" I said with a look of bemused ignorance on my innocent face. "My sons are very distraught!" Which was true. The part I left out is the part where wayne sat the game on top of a lit candle and burned it. Um yes. We'll just forget about that part. I said thank you - have a great day as I ran for the car before they sussed out my liar vibe. OOOOOH!
I went to Old Navy. I went to Walmart. I went to Rogers Video. I bought a new BBQ at The Superstore. I got gas and bulk foods. And then I went to the grocery store.
And as a I wheeled my shaky cart up and down the aisles of No Frills, bemoaning the price of bread and looking for soy based proteins, I saw a vision in the frozen food aisle.
There. In front of me...with her very own cart...was a giant vision of Cher inspired loveliness....it was a humongous almost 7 foot tall black drag queen!
Now, I am an oddity among humans and have seen many things in my life time that many people will never see......but if you have never seen a drag queen in the middle of the day, it can be a horrifying experience.
With the drag queen, I find that all things are exaggerated. Bigger hair, taller shoes, MORE make up than one human needs, longer nails, more (fake) cleavage, all big big big.
This was the harsh fluorescent lighting of Tom's No Frills in Ajax, Ontario - population 80,000. This is not a pretty place for a glamazonian man lady to be. This was unkind.
But as I approached her, and instantly my head began to think up names for her, I thought to myself, well, even a drag queen needs to eat!
BTW: potential names, Nofrills Mary, Gimmea Banana, Alotta Foodstuff....I know I'm bad at this!
I have friends (and even more acquaintances) that are professional drag queens. They get paid to perform - men dressed as women - glamourous glorious OTT women. They are ALL fantastic. I doubt any of them would do their shopping in 6 inch stilettos!
Then I thought with horror....oh no....no no no no no...what if its a woman?? An extremely ugly woman with no fashion sense, no common sense - no sense at all? I know I see an Adam's apple and giant hands...but what if what if?? Please no.
Please let it not be an ugly woman! Please let Tom's No Frills have a giant drag queen shopping in the frozen foods!
It makes getting out of bed to run errands at the crack of freaking dawn on a Sunday morning TOTALLY worth it!

Black Plastic

2008-04-07T13:38:00.002-05:00

There is a black garbage bag stuck in the tree outside the window of my office. I keep seeing it out of the corner of my eye and thinking maybe that it’s a bird or a flag or something. And then I turn my head – look at it – and it’s still a black plastic garbage bag stuck in a tree.
It makes no sense that it’s stuck up there. I’m on the 3rd floor of an office tower. The tree is equally as tall as the building. How can crap have blown so high?
It’s the crap of the spring thaw. You know the kind where you find pennies and old chewing gum packaging as you walk around? It gets all hidden and mysterious over the winter and then all of the sudden just one day, it’s released.
No – this all has no deeper metaphorical meaning. There really is a black plastic bag and there really are pennies and crap in the snow. Nothing deep going on here today.
I’m really quite tired, blog people.
It doesn’t seem to matter what is going on in my life I will find one reason or another to be tired and indulge my chronic insomniac fantasies.
Am I really a chronic insomniac or am I just a freak that doesn’t like to sleep? Tell me that, will you!
The doctor actually referred me to the Toronto Sleep Clinic for a diagnosis for whatever the fuck is wrong with my sleep pattern. No. Of course I didn’t go. Have you met me?
I suspect that the doctor thinks that because I am a giant girl with big boobs that crush my chest that I have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is where you stop breathing during the night. It is often characterized by excessive snoring – not that I snore more than a kitten would – and exasterbated by weight. I refuse to have this.
I think some times I keep myself awake on purpose. I know I can survive on a half hour of sleep – so why not? I will be fine. I always am.
What if I don’t get everything done – I better stay awake and finish it.
What if something happens and I’m asleep? Then I’ll be annoyed.
What if someone wants to call me or write me – I’d want to be awake as soon as the email arrives. I wouldn’t want to keep anyone waiting for my oh so important reply.
So I stay awake. Often doing absolutely nothing. Often watching re-runs of Little House on the Prairie or Saved by the Bell and wishing it was still 1985.
Lately I’ve been writing – which is at least a tiny bit more productive than sitting on my ass.
I wish if I was going to stay up all night I could be on the floor on a cute pink or possible purple yoga mat doing leg strengthening exercises and hundreds of thousands of really properly done crunches. Ah – that’s the life.
But I don’t. Instead I catch something out of the corner of my eye and have to turn my head to look at it – sigh and carry on doing nothing.

Springsprung

2008-04-07T00:08:00.004-05:00

.Today as I walked the dog (not at the crack of bloody dawn like I usally do) n the actual morning (before stomach flu like symptoms overtook me and I started barfing up happiness from all orafices), I realized that spring has arrived.
Ah yes - the screams of my husband could be heard far and wide as kids attempted to walk on our snow ravaged lawn.
Kids with jackets and not coats. It makes it difficult when kids change coats to tell one from another. I will often refer to Sammy's friends as "dingle nuts" and "whats-his-face" because, without hats and coats on they all look the same don't they?
It even smelled different outside today too - didn't it?
Again this was BEFORE I started yacking up a gut - so everything was right with the world.
And now I shall tell you why spring in suburbia sucks.....
Because at 10:30 in the morning on a Sunday walk I was the only person over 11 that I saw. Hershey and I were out for almost an hour and not one person was outside of their house.
Its not like we could walk to the store - whatever store that would be. The closest one is 3.5 km from my house. Yes. Too far for a walk to get juice, condoms or insense.
There were also no tiny animals - squirrels and the like scurrying around.
We don't have trees big enough to sustain squirrels in my suburban hell. We have rabbits- dozens of them that had been forced from their homes in the woods that used to stand right here.
And we have one pair of beavers. Why they are here in Ajax I will never know. But they came here from somewhere to terrorize our baby sized trees.
Spring will send them into their lovely damn they have built. Its pretty cool actually.
The other spring thing that frightens me is my illogical irrational urge to clean. I am in the mood to downsize my crap. So, if there is crap of mine that you would like to be crap of yours, let me know.
I'm all ready for it though. Bring it on.
I need to be warm again.
And you all know I hate snow and winter with a white hot burning passion that knows no boundaries.
So spring spring with all its goodness all over the place

School crap - the aftermath....

2008-04-02T20:04:00.005-05:00

Last night my complicated convoluted confrontation with the people that run my son's school ended with Dan's question posed to the Vice Principal. "Do you think that my being involved in the school - at the school is making Ben's problems worse?"

Her answer "You're never here"

I was obviously upset by what she said and I responded maybe too defensively "but but but - I worked here - I am always here for basketball and concerts - I do the snack program - I am on the school council - the Campbell's soup label program - I run that...."

Again she said - "you're never here"

I just left. And went to a Move-a-thon planning meeting for 3 hours. Where I was assigned accounting duties. Where I made "test smoothies". Where I was told to bring my blender on Friday for mixing smoothies. Where I was assigned to make Friday's snack - nachos and salsa - on my own on Thursday night. Where I was told my volunteer services would be appreciated from 8:30 to 3:35 on Friday. I am the uber compliant always willing volunteer.

Screw her I thought. Look at what a nice person I am. I rock. I rock out loud the volunteer bullshit. Screw you lady and while you're at it - eat a fucking sandwich - you are skin and frigging bones!

Then today I wrote my resignation from the school community council (or the PTA). I was tired of doing so much work for the school and for the kids when it was quite obvious that no one involved in the school gives a right royal rat's ass about me being there but me. No one cares and no one cares and no one cares and on one cares at all but me.

So here it is:

I wanted to let you know that I made a decision last night and that the move-a-thon is going to be the last time I volunteer at the school.
I apologize for leaving the rest of you with yet more of a burden but I don't think that anyone in the school values my time or contributions as a member of the team and perhaps my time would be better used elsewhere - helping people who need it more.
I am resigning my position on the council as of Monday.
I will miss hanging out with you! Last night was a great and I absolutely value your support and friendship.

But I saved it to my drafts folder and didn't hit send. I needed to think about it more because I like being a part of the school. It makes me feel like I'm contributing something to my kids education.

Sure I'd be useful at the Cancer Society or the AIDS committee or Jews for Jesus. But the work at the school makes me HAPPY!

Then I got this email from the President of the council - just a broadcast email to the 4 of us that were at that meeting last night - that do EVERY BLOODY FUCKING THING IN THE SCHOOL - not that we are bitter - just tired.

We all work so hard for the school and there are some rays of sunshine - I wanted to make sure we all had some today because last night was pretty dark.

We were all negative last night and with good reason. Today has been a good day financially for the school but it doesn't change the fact that there are a small number of families carrying the school either financially or through volunteering or both. That is what frustrates me but we go on for a while longer.

The response to that from Nan - the most volunteer-liscious of any of the volunteers ever in the history of mankind was this:

As always I will personally continue to do what I do for the school, no matter the outcome of others. After all, the reason why I started doing this has never changed..."To set a good example for my children and to be involved in their lives."...

And fuck her if she isn't right.
To set a good example for my kids. The example being that even if you don't think you are valued your contribution to the lives of others is always valuable.
There ARE moments of sunshine - when some kid comes up to you in the book store and starts a conversation because he remembers you from school. Girls in the nail salon chatting to me - I remember them from when I did career day with the grade eights!
And I am involved in my kids lives - whether they like it or not! I pray to whoever is up there, that the kids don't regret it and neither do I! But for better or worse - I'm involved up to my cute little ass.

And that, my bloggaliscious friends, is that!
Email from drafts file deleted.
I am going to stick it out....Maybe, just maybe, I'll take pictures of the move-a-thon! It could be worse - you could be volunteering to help!

April's Fool

2008-04-01T08:16:00.002-05:00

I have a lot of stupid shit that I pay attention to on a daily basis.
Family.
Friends.
My gastrointestinal tract.
How to make a good martini.
Music.
Literature.
The Biggest Loser.
Art and Science.
Facebook Scrabble.
Tim Horton's makes bad chai tea yet I drink it every day.
What I eat.
What you eat.
What I don't eat.
The dog.
The neighbours.
International politics.
The list goes on and on and on.
Some things I sort out and pay more attention to and some things I just don't really ever get around to giving a second thought. Still others, I just can't figure out ever.
It's not that I don't WANT to solve all of the problems of the world, figure out how to bring the soldiers home from Afghanistan or stop the spread of HIV in the US prison system or determine what to make for dinner - but I don't have all the tools, the experience or the information to do it all.
Its the same for the little issues as for the huge ones.
I don't know HOW to do stuff sometimes.
Tonight I have 2 meetings.
One at 5pm with the Principal, Vice Principal, Teacher and another parent to talk about our kids and bullying.
Then one at 6pm to finalize plans for the school's biggest fundraising event of the year - the Move-a-thon.
Yes people, Ben is still being bullied.
There is a group of kids that are consistently picking on him and have been since the second week of school. When they pick on Ben he doesn't fight back. He tends to just stand there and take it. However, his friend Tyler doesn't. When he sees the kids picking on Ben, he fights back. He has started, at the advice of his father who is a police officer, to take matters into his own hands, and THUMP the kids that are beating on Ben.
This is great on one hand because it shows that Tyler is a good friend and has good character for standing up to bullies. But now Tyler is getting in trouble.
Tyler's Dad wants us to present a united front to the school and say, if you don't protect our kids from bullies then we will allow them, whatever the school rules, to protect themselves.
The whole mess makes me sick to my stomach.
I've mentioned here before how I find it just so awful to see that my son doesn't or doesn't want to stand up for himself. The fact that he now has other kids standing up for him because he won't is too terrible.
He has the size to defend himself (which is likely why he's being picked on). He has the skill to defend himself from the almost 2 years of karate. He has the intelligence to know that this is bullying.
He does not have confidence.
He's smart and funny. I wish he saw himself as we see him. Because, if this is him at 10 - how will he be at 20?
If anyone has any idea how to fix this once and for all - please let me know because although I understand the politics and psychology of bullying and all the psycho-babble bullshit that the powers that be and pop culture magazines preach to overturn it, nothing and I mean nothing seems to work.
And then at 6pm I will meet with the 3 other parents that volunteer to help raise money to support all the programmes and shit that allow our sadly underfunded school to function.
I will volunteer my time - yet again - to run around and do crap that the parents of the other 599 kids in the school just won't do.
I will volunteer my services to supervise a dance because we can't possibly have the teachers to that.
I will make fruit kabobs and make sure no kids stab each other in the eye with the sticks.
And I will count the money we raise.
Then I will vote on how best to equally distribute the funds even though I really want fans put into the classrooms so that my kid who has asthma will be able to breathe come June. By the way, I have been trying to get the fans for 3 years now and I am constantly out voted in favour of other things that need to be paid for first. First - before my kid who can't breathe....
My points in this whole confusing mess of a pile of crap blog are this:
1. If I can't solve the world's problems, who can?
Seriously. If we had stopped someone like George Bush from being a mealy mouthed rat-bastard snot-nosed bully when he was in grade 4, could we have stopped him from invading other countries as an adult? If we sit by passively and watch while the US beats the living crap out of Iraq are we not enabling a bully? Who can stop a bully - especially one who is stronger and more powerful than you?
2. If I can't solve the my kid's problems who can?
Who gets to be the one in charge of a kid's life? Really.
When my kid is at school, who's responsibility is it to protect him? Himself? His teacher? His friends? The school board? Me? Where do the lines get drawn?
Where the flaming fuck are the parents of the bullies?
3. How involved is too involved in my kid's life?
A friend said that he HATED it when his parents came to his school - for anything. Now, is my involvement in the kid's school and on the pta and meeting with the teacher, etc. - AM I MAKING THIS SITUATION WORSE FOR HIM???? Am I causing part of this by mortifying the poor child?
4. Why don't more parents give a rats ass about their kid's education?
5. Why does ANYONE have to raise money to buy fans for the classrooms so that the kids can breathe?

I'm full of questions and I don't have any answers. I apologize for barfing up worry and crap - but like I said, I have a lot of stupid shit I pay attention to.

The Princess Veil

2008-03-22T07:21:00.003-05:00

This is a short story I wrote recently called "The Princess Veil". I haven't written many short stories so of course I am a feedback/comment whore and beg you call to critique me.

She saw herself in the mirror, basked in white light and lace – almost ethereal - almost feminine. She had to watch it. She couldn’t stop staring. Surely, this was going to be the best day of her life. Surely, this day that she had painstakingly planned every single second of, would be the most perfect day ever.
It was always difficult to make everyone happy. Weddings are like that. Everyone has their own agenda. But, the books all said that this is “her day”. All about her. Funny that when someone else is paying and someone else is doing all the inviting that anyone thinks that the day is YOURS.
Oh but this day was hers.
Sometimes she thought that people underestimated her. Maybe they underestimated her intelligence, her wit, her cunning nature – whichever – but no one gave her as much credit for being a manipulative bitch as she quite deserved.
The wedding, which was all her idea, was to take place in 2 weeks time. Her dress had come from the dressmaker’s today. Of course, her mother bragged to her friends, she couldn’t “buy off the rack”. This nugget of information was doled out as a piece of hoity-toity one-up-man-ship. But, it was really a matter of necessity rather than privilege.
Her giant butt would have never fit into even the largest wedding dress known to man. She smiled to herself as she laughed at her own joke. She wasn’t the fattest woman to have ever lived but she gave that woman a good strong run for her money! And, as butts went, hers was a giant one.
She was built with a big bubble butt she often thought she could set things on it – like a shelf. Maybe a vase or nick-nacks! But this dress was very kind to her ass.
It was white lace over-laying white satin with a hoop type skirt underneath. It was just heaven and made up for a multitude of her past sins (fries and gravy, pizza, cake….etc.).
Now, today, she didn’t have the FULL effect but, in the mirror, she could see enough of the extras in her minds eye to know that this dress would be beautiful on her day. (Hiding her ass.) But she’d need her brand new good girdle with the extra panel in the back to make it just right.
She planned on doing her short mousey hair with a slight wave. Just combed flat with that slight wave to sit underneath the princess headpiece. There was a veil – but a short one. Nothing for her to trip over.
And pearls. She would wear her grandma’s pearls.
She had met someone. She was getting married.
She, as well as everyone else, had assumed that her life would take her nowhere exceot for the twin bed set in her room in her parent’s house for the rest of her life. She wasn’t a spinster but she wasn’t fresh out of high school like her girlfriends had been when they got married. When someone asked, she said she was waiting for just the right man. IN truth, that she actually did was wait for a man.
That was her only option. To wait for a man. No matter what her head told her on a regular basis or what her body betrayed her by thinking of its own accord, that was her option. It was her only path to take. And she did.
Now, in 2 weeks, she’d be headed down the aisle of the Park United Church. It wasn’t a fancy church by any stretch of the imagination – very 1950s minimalist décor but nice nonetheless. They would decorate it with paper flowers – crepe paper roses. Blue, of course, everything would be blue. She’ planned it all.
She would hold her head high at precisely 11am on Saturday the 6th of June and she would hold tight to the arm of her father and march down that aisle. Her fear of tripping and falling on her big fat face put to rest by her flat serviceable footwear hidden under the giant poof of a skirt that hid her butt that was hugged in by her girdle that smoothed out her belly and the smooth belly definitely made her boobs look bigger but just in case she was holding flowers in front of it to make everything definitely look perfect. It was all going to be perfect.
She knows – just now – looking into the mirror that the ceremony will be a tear jerker. Partially from everyone’s relief that she was getting married at all and partially from the thrill that she, was getting married. And who didn’t cry at weddings, right?
She’d chosen just the right blend of bridesmaids. Her sister-in-law who was a complete and absolute bitch was her maid of honour because it was the “right” thing to do. But really, she was 7 months pregnant and it didn’t suck to have someone fatter than you to draw the attention away from your own belly. And since her sister-in-law always looked so incredibly horribly awfully sour, it would make her look sweet in comparison – right?
Then there was her friend and her cousin. Both were miniscule, tiny little people - so much so they looked like children or elves. No worries there. They didn’t even look like women.
All three were wearing lovely blue dresses. The colour of robin’s eggs or the sky. It would be just perfect – along with her all dressed in white that they were just so blue.
After the ceremony she arranged that there would be a luncheon tea in the basement of the church with sandwiches and dainties, punch, tea and coffee.
Oh, it was unusual to have a wedding luncheon. Highly unusual – which is why it appealed to her mother’s sense of grandeur. It was an eccentric choice – a sophisticated option – another illustration of why SHE was better than her mother’s friend’s daughters.
That wasn’t it really at all now, was it?
She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone looking at her. She definitely couldn’t bear the thought of dancing in front of people. She couldn’t bear the thought of dancing at all. Looking in the mirror she though that, in retrospect, this dress would have swirled quite nicely around the dance floor.
But, the luncheon eliminates the need for a dance. Voila. She smiled at herself and her devious manipulation, curiously not reflected in the mirror.
Calmly, through a haze of diazepam, she visualized the day one more time. Dressed, photographed, aisle, ceremony, luncheon, escape.
Then, she would be married. Then SHE would be married. Then she would be MARRIED.

Riding on clouds with lollipops and kittens and springtime and sunshine

2008-03-14T22:20:00.002-05:00

I have been in the best mood this week.
I'm even going to go out on a limb and say AWESOME MOOD! (Those of you who know me well know I never use that word....)
I'm smiling at people and once, maybe twice, I think I actually giggled.
Its odd really.
Out of character for me to be happy with 8 feet of snow on my fucking lawn. Once again, may I remind you, that I hate winter with a white hot burning passion that knows no boundaries....
Also, I have a chest infection. Yes again. No I haven't seen the doctor. Why? Because I'm convinced that is where I GOT the chest infection from! It will go away eventually and if not, well, I just don't care cause I feel great.
AND even odder little known fact - there is no diet pop (including diet coke) in my house. Not one. Sure I have the occasional one while I'm out and today I had 4 cups of tea, but I am shaking my addiction.
While we are on the subject of addiction, I am doing exceptionally well with the cheese monkey. I would never hurt an animal but I think this monkey is packing his bags and getting ready to move on - no need to actually kill him. Its simply mind over matter.
Yep, I can smell the stench of mouldy windows and see the beginnings of a thaw in the universe. Today, I saw sun. Okay well it was in a photo from last summer - but I remember what it feels like.
My article for Canadian Newcomer Magazine comes out at the end of the month. I'll post it here. For those of you who are unemployed newcomers to canada I'm sure you'll find it all kinds of fascinating!
My next assignment for them (yes they like me and I am on the "preferred freelance writers" email list) is on summer cultural festivals called "Seeing the world in your own backyard".
I also wrote a short story that I like. I'm not sure whether to post it here or not. For once its not about me. At all. It was fun to write though and I like it I just haven't shared it with anyone (read: Dan) yet and I'm hesitant to just push go and shove it out into the world unprotected.
Spring is going to change my life people. Are you with me?
There are so many good things in my life today.
*grin*

Plumbing Update

2008-03-02T08:11:00.002-05:00

After 2 days with no water, I was convinced my family would start pooping in the yard and melting snow for drinking water.
None of us had showered.
To update, I had an exploding bathtub tap. This was followed by a flat tire (unrelated but also annoying) and another exploding tap.
I booked and then cancelled the plumber (I had to get my flat tire fixed!)
I drove, in a blizzard, all over the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) looking for parts.
I FINALLY found said replacement parts at a Plumbing Warehouse 10 minutes from my house.
And I wish to officially give the Moen faucet people a peice of my mind.

So Moen people, it doesn't MATTER if your replacement parts are FREE if no one can FIND them to replace them. It doesn't make logical sense to give out FREE replacement peices if no one can make a whole bloody tap because there are 6 peices and they can only find 4! Its a stupid system and you need to change it.

But, I digress.
I fixed the taps.
Both of them. Not a plumber - not a man. Me.
My husband says its because my father was an electrician that I have the "skilled trades" in my blood. Perhaps. I just think its because I am a true renaissance woman.
I can knit and sew and even crochet and embroider. I've built a fence, fixed several toilets and now replaced some taps. I make soap and tie ribbons and bows and I move furniture. Hear me roar.
I mean sure, the taps work backwards to the general "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey" rule - but they work!
So now we are bathed and clean and laundering things.
You're welcome family.

Old Faithful

2008-02-28T21:54:00.003-05:00

I settled in tonight for one of those luxury baths that only a TRUE bath efficianatto can truly appreciate.
1. Cool bathroom - cold actually.
2. Hot Hot Hot water
3. Nice clean tub
4. Giant gorgeous home made bath bomb.....www.soapbaubles.ca......
5. Brand new novel - spine not even cracked - written by a pseudo friend - how exciting!
In I climb.....
ah - the luxury! the unabashed joy that being totally weightless affords those of us who truly love our baths! AH - pure relaxation.
I float.
I close my eyes and sink my head.
AH.
I shall use my foot to turn off the water....
I am THAT GIRL.
It isn't shutting off.
Up I sit....I will condescend to use my hands THIS TIME to shut it off.
It won't shut off.
I turn and I turn and I try to turn and it just won't shut off!
Oh NO!
Help - I call.
Help - and no one answers.....
Help Wayne Help I scream.....
Up he comes....what is it?
Shut off the tap - the water won't shut off!
He tries and tries - it won't turn off!
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? - he screams.
Down he runs to the basement - and I sit there - naked in the rapidly over filling tub - because the water won't fucking shut off!!!
I have to let some water out before we over flow.....
Up comes Wayne - wrench in hand.
OOOH he looks so handsome and capable and plumber like!
Every woman loves a hot handyman.
He turns and fiddles and uses a screwdriver.
He hits and pulls.
He uses the wrench and turns.
And then off breaks a piece.
And another.
Do I need to mention that I am still naked in my beautifully scented and now over flowing tub?
The water - still not shutting off.
And bang - he hits it one more time - one LAST time before...........chaos, bedlam, water begins shooting full blast out of the tap hitting the ceiling, bouncing off the walls, the curtains, filling the floor - my books are soaked - my magazine rack totally water-logged!
Wayne runs from the room FULL STOP to the basement to shut off the water at the valve. On the way from the room he slips on the bath mat and, vaudeville style, falls on his ass. Great.
Again, I remind you I am NAKED in the overflowing tub with water shooting all over me.
It seems to take HOURS for him to shut off the water.
But its off.
And the bathroom is a FRIGGING NIGHTMARE!
EVERYTHING is covered in water. And my bath - totally RUINED.
Now what? Now what indeed.
I ran out to Home Depot.
Sure they have replacement parts.
And sure the replacement parts have instructions.
They were even FREE replacement parts.
But that doesn't mean that I can replace them.
Wayne has REFUSED.
So tomorrow I call the plumber.
Until then, not only no more baths - no more water!

Just like a child

2008-02-22T14:44:00.004-05:00

When I was about 10 my best friend lived next door. Her name was Lisa.
My family thought that her family was weird. You see, they were Italian. Except in my family it was pronounced EYE-talian. This meant that they ate strange foreign foods like pasta and eggplant and drank wine not beer. They were also catholic. Shock. Horror.
Catholic girl that she was, Lisa went to the school around the corner - Immaculate Conception - or I-macs as it was called and not to Juliet like I did.
Lisa and I played outside every night after school, before dinner and after. We could play out until the street lights would come on at which point our respective mothers would come out on our respective front porches and, as my mother would say, "holler like a fishwife", for us to come in.
There were no other kids our particular age in the neighbourhood. They were either teenagers or little kids. I suspect that this, as much as actual interest or affection, was responsible for our friendship. Sometimes proximity breeds strange bedfellows.
In the case of Lisa and myself, we were stranger than oil and water - chalk and cheese and all those other euphemisms that exist for things that don't naturally go together. But that having been said we were friends for years.
We started out playing with our Barbies together. I must tell you that I played with my Barbie, bad body dismorphic role model that she was, until way too late in my life. Not 16 or anything inappropriate like that, but definitely until I was about 12 or so.
Barbie was my escape. Chubby girl with frizzy hair imagines herself a tall gorgeous super thin busy lovely - and I always imagined my Barbie was super smart and had not only a husband, conveniently named Ken, but also a power job as a doctor or lawyer and a kick ass convert able.
Barbie was never named Barbie though, she was always Leah or Jane or Trisha - something exciting and powerful not like Sandra which I considered quite bland and full of nothing.
I played Barbie alone for years - in my room - in my yard - in the back of the car - and then along came Lisa who liked her Barbie too. Her Barbie, of course was named Lisa.
We would set up our houses, complete with blow up furniture, a respectful distance from one another. I suspect we wanted LAND. I often ended up loaning Lisa my amazing blow up bed with cardboard headboard and matching plastic patterned quilt. You see, she liked it. Who was I to deny her something that was mine? SHE wanted to play with ME!! Tell me that there was anything better than that?
Our Barbie's did good fun things like go to work and make supper for our Ken dolls. Sometimes we would park our convertibles in front of the tv and pretend to go to the drive-in. Lisa and I would sit behind them eating popcorn and watching "Tammy and the Doctor".
All of this was fun but Lisa had a secret. Oh yes she did. Her secret was kept neatly hidden at her school but, as we got older, and technology (okay 1976 technology), the telephone, invaded our life, her secret got out! Lisa - was POPULAR. It seems like a little thing but it morphed our friendship to something HUGE.
Lisa stopped playing outside every single night. Sometimes, she'd be lured away by the intoxicating mysteries of the phone. Now, I can't say for sure what she and her new-found popular school friends talked about but, in my head, I imagine that it was all about how to rule the school, who to shun, who to mock and who to tease. That was the modus operandi for popular people right? To make everyone else feel inferior by their superiority? Right? Right?
It was hard for me to adjust to not being important in Lisa's life. But I sucked it up and kept on playing away with my Barbie. Barbie now got to sleep in her own deluxe blow up bed any time she wanted.
Sometimes, on weekends, I would get invited to be part of Lisa's entourage. You see, the popular girls, Becky, Maria and Julie, they all went to the catholic school and didn't know what kind of social pariah I was at Juliet. I was IN for those few hours on a Saturday afternoon.
But what would we do?
We could listen to the radio? We could sit and talk about boys? We could try on Lisa's mom's clothes and shoes and makeup? We could play Barbies, I suggested...
*chirp*
**crickets**
*Stares with open mouths*
I remember that moment like a hard slap in the face.
Becky looked at Lisa, ignoring me entirely, and said "how OLD is she?"
I WANTED to say "but its what Lisa and I always do" - but, I knew - I just knew if I gave Lisa's Barbie love up that it would be a bad bad bad thing that our friendship would never recover from.
I went home that night, put my Barbies in a box and never touched them again. Many years later my cousin Amy was thrilled with Barbies' still in good condition blow up bed.
Many weeks later after listening to the radio and talking about boys who's names I knew but had never met I was instructed by Lisa that I would have to leave - now. You see, the others were staying over night - a sleepover with pizza and everything. I wasn't invited, explained Becky (I assume Becky explained because Lisa was a bad liar) because Lisa's mother wouldn't allow her to have people who weren't catholic sleep in her house. A perfectly logical explanation really. Why would they want a heathen polluting their sleeping bags?
So, dutifully I thanked Lisa for inviting me over and headed out the door. On the porch I ran into Lisa's Mom.
'Aren't you going to stay over tonight with the girls?" she said.
Instantly I knew that I should cover my undesirability as a guest.
"I'm not allowed" I said. Instantly I was ready with a barrage of back up lies about my mother being old fashioned, needing to go to church, being on medication and having a bad back == just in case they were needed.
But they weren't. She went inside. And I went home and cried.
For right there that moment I realized that while I was part of the group for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon, I wasn't really part of anything.
Just as I knew deep down that I was Lisa's friend when we played Barbies but only for my blow up bed and my proximity to her house.
I continued to hang out with Lisa when I could, when she wanted me and when I was allowed, until we hit high school.
Over that period of time I was her confidante when she liked a boy that the others disapproved of. I was her sounding board when she herself was excluded from the group. I was her dance partner when ice dancing was all the rage and she needed someone who could lift her. And on the day that Elvis died I was there with her to help comfort her Mom who was beside herself with grief.
We parted ways in high school, her popularity by thenb far exceeding what I was capable of achieving and creating a gap which neither of us were able to bridge.
My point here is not that I once had a popular friend and therefore should now be popular by association and therefore am way too cool to hang with any of you.
Nor is it to garner pity for my sad social ineptitude as a kid growing up.
I want to illustrate that how we allow ourselves to be treated in friendship as children sets the scene for how we carry forward throughout our lives.
I was a WILLING VICTIM of Lisa's disdain and to a certain extent her ridicule if my memory of feeling her bite is clear these 30 years later.
Life lets you lead yourself places and sometimes it takes you there by itself.
I still do all these things: I loan out my "things" to friends although I want them for myself. Not physical things anymore so much as my thoughts and feelings and time.
I hurt for various reasons and instead of running back up to that bed room and saying to Lisa and the evil Becky - "I know you lied you little bitch your Mom told me!" - and then running the hell out of that house head held high no regrets and never talking to that bitchy little madame again....I retreat and repress and keep all of my feelings in.
Mostly those feelings are ironically related to shame. I feel such SHAME when someone, worthy of my affection or not, does not want me around. My rational mind, my indoor voice knows that this is silly. But when you've done something, felt something forever, its hard to change.
Over the course of my life I have done many things in the name of friendship. I have lied to them, lied for them and lied about them. I have altered my life plans for them, given advice and told them how to live their lives. I have abused them and been abused by them. I have had them choose their boy friends over me. I've had them leave me behind and move on. I've moved on and never left them any place but in my heart. I've moved out in the middle of the night. I've fought with them and argued with them and sucked up to them but I've very rarely told them two things: what I really think and the truth.
I've loved them. I've also not.
And now, at 41, my son is being bullied - and upset by his FRIENDS. Again. The kid doing the bullying is himself bullied by his own older brother. While I feel for this kid I also want to punch him in the neck.
I see my son retreat inside himself to the place of shame that he and I share - shame at being excluded and for finding himself in a a place where he is in a position with no power.
I say to him - "stand up for yourself" and "you are worthy of respect". I say that as a mom quite convincingly I think - yet, I don't believe it of myself.
I see him crumble and I try to hold him up. I see him try to suck back the snot that is really just tears he isn't crying. I want to tell him not to be like me but I know he will.
Such a bad age. Its so hard to be ten years old.

February 20, 2008

2008-02-20T21:31:00.003-05:00

Please answer this question with the closest appropriate response.

Sandra is currently:
a) homicidal. Sandra wants to hurt, maim, kill or injure people (insert names of people here).
b) suicidal. Sandra feels that all would be better and things would hurt less if it all just went away. Far, far away, irrevocably completely away.
c) disappointed. Sandra is disappointed in not only herself but others, the universe, karma (which she now believes is a complete waste of time), fate (which again, could quite conceivably be a crock of shit) and even happenstance.
d) all of the above....plus a couple other things thrown in for good measure like: anger, betrayal, malnourishment, heartbreak, crestfallen-ness, insanity, moronic behaviouron her part and the parts of others and obesity.
e) none of the above. Sandra simply craves your attention something fierce.

Please select answer, insert explanation or reasons for your opinion and submit as a comment.

Live throught this and you won't look back

2008-02-18T19:00:00.004-05:00

I have a friend that plays me music and before the song starts he'll say "this is my theme song". He says that the song touched him at this point in his life or at that point - that it reminds him of this or that and that it totally encapsulates his feeling about this person or his relationship with that one.
I listen to the songs - and I must admit because I find this particular friend completely enchanting - I really listen. I hear the words and I get his point. I understand how this song IS or WAS his life.
I fully expect each time I see him to hear a tiny invisible iPod pumping out these tunes.
He doesn't just have one theme song - like Spongebob or even "Hail to the Chief" - he has many. And he's totally bang on - each one IS about him.
I don't have this.
In my entire life I've had one song that I could say I believed was truly written for me. It was situational though and completely brought me through the great "gonna die" episode of 2007.

Calendar Girl by Stars

I dreamed I was dying as I so often do
and when I awoke I was sure it was true
I ran to the window
threw my head to the sky
and said whoever is up there
please don't let me die
but I can't live forever
I can't always be
one day i'll be sand on a beach by the sea
the pages keep turning
I mark off each day with a cross
and I'll laugh about all that we've lost

I try to think back to when I was a kid - the music that I listened to created, as I've said here before, a soundtrack and a backdrop to my life. What it never did was touch me.
Not until this past year has music actually touched me.
Just this week my friend of the theme songs said that he found the band that I like the best, BORING. He was worried that this would hurt my feelings....hate the band insult the fan....but it really didn't at all. I mean, I have nothing invested in them - right? They are just a band.
But that right there is a problem. Just a band. Just a song. Just a nice thing to sing along with on the radio.
I want music to touch me. I know that music has the ability to change my mood. And I know from this last year that it has the power to save me as I ride the waves of my own moodiness.
I find myself at a crossroads today, blog people.
I'm a little lost.
I'm a little hurt.
I am being too reckless with my own feelings and too thoughtless with those of others.
I wish I had a theme song - something that was me - to pull me out the other side. I'm thinking maybe of this.....

Spiderman, spiderman
does whatever a spider can......

Ruby's Ready for the Party Bath Cupcakes

2008-02-16T20:09:00.000-05:00

Its a Jelly Bean World

2008-02-15T02:07:00.004-05:00

Spare time.
What is spare about spare time?
I don't seem to have any leftover - sitting on a shelf somewhere like the chili that grew fur in my fridge last week: it was leftover from the leftover leftover's leftovers and over and over and over again. I threw it away.
But time is more immediately wasted.
At the end of the day if I haven't slept enough or spent enough time doing something or too much time doing something else, then its just gone.
Its like every day they give you 8,963 jelly beans and you can eat them all whenever you want for what ever reason. But, at the end of the day, all of the jelly beans must be gone.
The trick is to not eat them all at once so they make you sick.
Don't eat all green ones or you have a heart attack.
All pink ones will make you lonely.
All white ones will make you mean.
And the purple ones? Don't even ask!
But, who decides what the perfect balance of beans is?
Who decides, this guy gets more blue and you get more yellow and NO ORANGE for anyone!???
What if you aren't hungry and day after day after day, you just eat too many brown ones and sleep too much and can't eat all the lime ones?
What if you finish the jelly beans at the middle of the day?
Can you get more?
Nope.
Not even if you steal them or beg them or borrow them.
You can't trade them - they are only for you.
You can tell people which ones you think they should eat - but they don't belong to you so its ultimately THEIR decision.
From the second we're born we have jelly beans.
Some days I've been worried that I've dropped mine all on the floor. Some are dirty and I don't eat them and some are just lost. I live in constant fear of overindulgence and waste. But spare? None of mine are spare.

Reaffirmation

2008-02-05T07:50:00.000-05:00

About a year ago - pretty close anyway - Rick said I had to tell the doctor about the morphing mass of crap on my leg. It was a freckle that turned colour, got scaley and bumpy. Yes. It needed to go. As a matter of fact, I wrote myself a note that day. It said "remember left leg". And I did - I remembered to tell the doctor - yay me!
At first I said - it's probably just psoriasis - right? But the doctor said - "hm". We better take a sample, he said. Next month - let's see if it grows.
I waited a month - watching and waiting for any infantessimally small growth on this dime sized spot on my leg. Was it bigger? Had it changed? Really though, I couldn't tell.
I dutifully returned in exactly one month to the doctor's office. He measured it all again - and it had almost doubled in size. I guess I really couldn't tell. He took a biopsy and sent it away and I left with a hole in my leg that hurt like a bitch about the size of a pencil.
I waited the 2 weeks and started calling for results. Nothing is back. Wait something is back... I'm going to have to have the doctor call you. That is never good.
It was something called ExtraMammary Paget's disease. I was shunted from the family doctor over to the Dermatology clinic. They apparently (and you'll find out why apparently is the right word later...) know more about this kind of thing.
Extramammary Paget's is a form of skin cancer. A secondary cancer really. It is caused by a base cancer somewhere else in the body and manifests itself somewhere else. It needed to be removed - and soon.
But beyond removing the skin cancer, we needed to find out what other cancer was causing it. Did I have undiagnosed breast cancer, lung, brain, bone, colon, bowel, gyne....where was the evil cancer bastard hiding?
I remember going home - telling my husband and just sobbing for a day. A full 24 hour day. It took me about a week to start to tell people. Its hard to explain to people that you have skin cancer - which lets face it, is really nothing - and beyond that you have another cancer that no one knows what it is and how to find it.
EMP is rare they kept telling me. Only about 200 people a year are diagnosed with it. Of those people about 10% - or 20 people in the world (or as I like to say - in the known universe) have no underlying cancer. My hope was to bank on being one in 20. I defy the odds a lot - surely I could be that rare!
I had the excision in May. They cut out a chunk of my leg that was 4 inches by 3 inches and one inch deep. I left a divot in my upper left thigh and a scar like a catterpiller.
When the dermatologist called me back with the results - he confirmed that indeed it was EMP and the testing should begin for all the underlying possibilities. In June and July I had: a bone scan, a abdominal CT scan, MRI, Gyne Ultrasound, a mammogram, colposcopy (you don't want to know but they put a camera up your lady parts and use a knife - un hm!), a chest xray, a thyroid ultrasound, blood tests and my personal fave, a colonoscopy.
The stress of the tests was overwhelming! Everything - every last one came back negative. There was relief after I received the results of every test. Thankful that it wasn't the "cancer of the day". But dread as well as my possibilities dwindled. All I have left is....... and the vain hope that its just independant.
In July I was told that the underlying cancer must be dormant - meaning not manifesting itself YET. YET being the operative word. For the last six months everytime I've had a headache it had the potential to be brain cancer and every diarreah signaled bowel cancer. I had an overwhelming sense of foreboding that I cannot describe to you.
The entire time that this went on I learned a lot about myself.
I am a consumate faker. I pretended that I was fine 90% of the time when in reality the thought of leaving motherless children filled me with abject terror. I was overwhelmed by anything and everything but my ability to fake that I was fine was astounding, even to me.
I have amazing friends. From my best friends who made me feel more loved than I ever had before to strangers on line who through this time became friends - everyone and I mean everyone - was amazing. The love and support people show someone who is in crisis is just astounding. Its a pity we don't do that for each other all the time.
I can change my own life. I met a boy and this boy helped me to see that the power of my own free will over the things that I think and the things that I say and what I eat and what I do and who I have in my life - that power is all mine. And I exercised that power in a bunch of places. I changed my attitude, I changed my direction and I believe I changed my own life.
That being said, I returned to the hospital last week to follow up with the Dermatological Oncologist - skin cancer doctor to you and me. This "expert" on EMP had been out of the country until just this month.
She took one look at me and said - who told you this was Paget's disease?
The doctors.
When? Why? Who? Based on what?
I explained the long involved gruelling tests I went through. I told her about the biopsy and the excision and how BOTH had come back from the pathologist saying EMP. I told her of the doctors and technicians I had seen. All the year of searching.
And her response? I think they are wrong.
She pulled up the pathology - checked it herself again - and sure enough they were wrong. Apparently, EMP and another cancer, a squamous cell carcinoma called Bowen's disease are exactly the same except for 2 things. And the other pathologist just made a mistake.
A mistake.
They just made a mistake.
For one full year of my life I went through the absolute hell of thinking that I had a disease that had the potential to kill me. I believed that somewhere inside me lurked an illness that had killed my father in 6 months and now, for some unknown reason was coming after me.
But they made a mistake.
How is the Bowen's treated? - I managed to stammer out....through removal of the lesion. And since the margins were clear on my excision, it was removed - totally and completely.
The cancer is gone.
I am done with it.
I don't have an underlying cancer.
There is no primary source.
Its all gone.
All of this information in a 2 minute conversation. I had spent a year thinking I was dying and now I am totally fine in a manner of minutes.
So yes. I am eternally grateful for the incompetance of other people. Hurray for the doctor making mistakes.
Hurray for EVERYONE being wrong.
Someone suggested to me that it was the power of positive thinking that CHANGED that diagnosis. A bit of good karma induced revisionist history. Do I believe that is possible? Hell yes.
Do I think that the changes I made in my head and my life have made SUCH a difference that the gods decided that I deserved a second chance? I hope so.
I am grateful every day to be here. To do what I do and love the people I love and know the things I know.
Why has it taken me a week to say anything?
Because its hard to adjust.
One person suggested to me that I got off on the whole "I'm sick - I'm dying" vibe. And I have to tell you - that is totally not it at all. There is nothing glamourous about being someone that people pity. There is really no WORSE feeling, to tell you the truth.
I feel like I spent a whole year CHURNING through every emotional rollercoaster. I put on that brave face - and now I have to take it off. That's a big adjustment.
But I'm ready now.
I no longer have cancer.
Its gone - cut out. I am in the middle of my life. I've changed my attitude, my diet and my outlook. I thank you all for being so amazingly wonderfully supportive.
I promise not to eat steak - eventhough I changed BECAUSE of the cancer. I promise not to take things like my health for granted - eventhough that is SO easy to do. I promise to use sunscreen. I promise to keep telling those that I love and value how very much they mean to me.

Unconscious Aging

2008-01-24T08:53:00.000-05:00

I know I'm getting old. Not in a "good GOD look at all my wrinkles" kind of way but in an approaching Alzheimer's kind of way. Not in a good way.
Every day as I drive in to the office, I take the same route. Faster some days and slower on other but on average 20 minutes door to door. 5 minutes on the city streets and 15 on Canada's largest highway. Highway of Heroes if you will....but, don't get me started on THAT!
My issue is not like most people who work in Toronto, at least I don't think it is.
My issue is this:
I get on the highway and merge out of a lane which is ending, to the left, one lane. I stay in that lane until Morningside, where I merge one lane to the right. I stay in that lane until the exit for Markham Road appears where I again, merge one lane to the right, follow the off ramp and turn left from the right hand lane on to Markham Road and proceed to the office.
Occasionally - like yesterday - I have no memory of giant CHUNKS of this drive. As I pulled off the highway on to the off ramp my head said....wait....did I pass Pickering? Did I? I must have, otherwise how would I have gotten here? I don't know! Surely I must have?!?!
Is that how people get in to accident? Seriously. Do they sit in their cars - staring blankly at the tail lights in front of them (because its so fucking early when I drive in to work that its still dark out!) and they are so hypnotized by the music on their car stereo and the headlights and the sheer boredom of the repetition of the same fucking drive over and over day after day change lanes here change lanes there signal check merge.....Is that why?
Are there even that many accidents on the highway? Because frankly, I just don't see them.
If I am going to be late for work because of an accident I want to SEE the actual accident. I want chunks of debris on the side of the road. I want cars and police and wreckage and BODIES. I want to see dead and injured along the roadway as I pass. That I can reconcile with myself.
If I don't see these things, my assumption at 7:30am is that some ass-hat hit the brakes at 7am 20km ahead and that is why every subsequent driver is doing the same thing some half hour later. And that makes me crazy.
But crazy isn't old.
Old is not remembering your drive in of a morning.
Old is getting to work and not being able to remember if you brushed your teeth. I mean, of course you brushed your teeth. As usual. As always. Right between moisturizing and makeup. But DID you? Did you really remember today? Hm.
There are a million other examples.
Where did that onion go? I was sure I had an onion left for the spaghetti sauce or ....did I use it in something else? Maybe I did? Or did I move them? Where? Where did they move to?
Where did my gift card go for Montana's?
What about the CD I got for Christmas?
My black pants?
I know. I know. I have 20 pairs of black pants. But THOSE particular black pants.
And since I have been a list maker since the day I was born, writing stuff down isn't much help. Why? Because you have to remember to put it on the list in the first place!
But I'll tell you all about THAT later. If I remember, that is!

Getting the Cheese Monkey off my Back

2008-01-08T18:27:00.000-05:00

I have a monkey on my slightly slimmer vegetarian back. Monkey thy name is cheese.
(NOTE: I know the picture is of a RAT with cheese on its back - but come on - its SPARKLY CHEESE!) I've said a dozen times in the past to my vegan friend - lets call him "Vegan Guy" - A life without cheese is a life I'm not willing to live. But, you know, I kind of think I may be changing my mind.
I am very much about visualization.
I like to imagine how things will go in my minds eye and then I can imagine where they will end up. You know, its how prepare myself mentally.
I read this book - Wally Lamb's "She's come undone" and in it the heroine (if she could be called that) loses a bunch of weight. She explained that her weight loss method was to imagine all of her food with mould and decay on it. It grossed her out so badly that she wasn't able to eat and lost weight. Ta da. Good idea - right?
So - I've been using that to help me as well. I seriously haven't had a hard time adjusting to this meatless life because when I even remotely crave meat, I visualize the animal. Carved up bleeding head off animal. UGH
Now, let me tell you, I didn't start this change in lifestyle because I cared about baby chickens and saving the poor trapped veal calf - living in a tiny white hut chained to its home - fed only milk. Nope - I could have given a royal rats rump. This change was all about me. Screw the animals.
Or.
Well okay well maybe I do care. A bit. And picturing the animal really really has helped.
On New Years day I roasted a turkey - something I've done a million times in my life. This one though - this one gagged me.
I touched its slimy skin.
I pulled out some stray feathers.
I washed it and dried it.
I pulled out a bag of its guts.
I touched the bones in its disembodied neck.
And I cooked it.
And I carved it.
And I didn't eat it.
And my kids didn't eat it.
My husband ate it. All of it. In one week, my husband ate an ENTIRE turkey (except for whatever Doug ate). And today while he munched down the final serving of my famous turkey ala king, I pictured a turkey in my head and felt really quite ill.
It was that bit of throw up in the back of my mouth that tipped the scale. I think I'm ready to be done with cheese. Its made from milk. Milk from a cow usually. Cow milk is food for baby cows. Not for me. Baby cows. UGH.
I've been cruising vegetarian chat rooms for weeks now. Reading. Exploring. Trying to find out how to shake the cheese monkey on my back.
Some people say that if you crave stuff its because your body needs it. You should give in to the craving because your body needs the calcium. Calcium. If my body needs calcium why am I not craving spinach or salmon with the bones in it?
Some people say that if you crave stuff you just have to ride it out. Suck it up buttercup.
Others suggest substituting soy or rice versions. But I don't want fake cheese just like I don't want fake meat.
But the advice I like best is one that I've followed for lots of other things. If you can give up something for 3 weeks - just 3 weeks then you can give it up forever. It takes 3 weeks to form a new habit (and apparently only 6 days to break one).
I'm still in the contemplation phase folks so don't get too excited. But really. I can do this. As I go to bite into that wonderful wedge of Gouda I will try mooing to myself......just a quiet baby cow moo. "why are you taking my mommy's milk lady? moo"
OH - and btw - the kids requested - yes REQUESTED the brown rice pasta with homemade veggie sauce and soy meatless meatballs - and tomorrow - that is their lunch. Yay!
I'm getting there.

The things you can learn from Concrete Blonde

2008-01-07T23:02:00.000-05:00

I've got to try not to live so much of life alone - that's what the people in Concrete Blond tell me anyway.
I do like George Strombolopolis as well. Not only is he smexy - smart and sexy, he is also able to talk competently and intelligently about all kinds of stuff. Just off the cuff. I wish I could do that.
For someone who talks a lot - like me - its a horrible burden to have the inability to speak coherently off the cuff.
Oh now don't get crazy - I can speak. Oh yes and I'm hysterically funny and witty and intelligent in the right circumstances. But if I am trying to express myself - you totally want me to write it down.
Sure - I still fuck up some days.
Like today.
Okay. Almost every day.
But I'm much better in writing than I am in person.
I think this more and more often as more of my friendships go electronic.
This started at my last job. In an effort to talk about the boss and her pet monkey behind her back we set up MSN in our offices. That meant that I was literally MSNing the girl in the office 4 feet from me.
I started that super short short hand at JobsNow too. It taught me what ttyl and brb and ROTFLMAO was.
I added friends to MSN - and more and more. Cool. I can talk to 4 people at the same time. Convenient, fun and time effective.
Then I started on myspace. Met some folks. Started a blog. People started to read it. Then I took some of those friendships off of myspace.
I'm talking less. I'm writing more.
Which, don't get me wrong - I totally LOVE.
Oh no here comes Facebook! I'm on - my friends are all on - you all know how I feel about facebook!
I have a blog - and here you are reading it - and not calling me on the phone.
I have a blog on the side so that I can write about stuff I don't want to share with you.
I still MSN insanely.
I still email people who sit 5 feet from me.
Sometimes I call. But its rare.
Earlier today my husband said - why don't you just call him. And I said - I don't call him. He's not a calling friend. No not ever. Is that weird?
For a lot of people yes.
But I'm living a lot more quietly now.
It gives me time to choose my words more carefully.
To give that thoughtful consideration like George does.
I hope I sound as intelligent and humane in person as I do in writing. I know I sound the same. Same inflection and pattern of speech.
But is it weird not to live your life out loud?

Things get better everyday you stay alive
then I'm amazed
every day
that the sun decides to rise
every minute, every hour, is another
chance to change
life is beautiful & terrible & strange.
Take me home - Concrete blond

Beware the Ides of January

2008-01-06T19:22:00.000-05:00

There is a line in a Barenaked Ladies Song that goes like this:

You're like a baby
I'm like a cat
When we are happy
We both get fat...

And I fear sometimes that's how I get with this blog.
When I'm happy and content - not much comes out.

So all that has happened lately is that my general need to rid my life of pop and all its nasty chemicals lasted about 12 hours.
I, my people, have a giant cola chemical monkey on my back.
I suppose it could be worse - it could be crystal meth.

If you think of anything to make me angry, leave me a comment and we can discuss it in greater detail. Until then, I shall sit all fat-like and purr.

The Best Room in the House

2008-01-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

All day I have been thinking and thinking about my 2008 New Years Resolutions. Even when I didn't have a blog, I still made resolutions. For the most part, I try to stick to my resolutions - check back through the year to see how I'm doing - that kind of thing. But really, for those of you who know me well, you know that I rarely if ever stick to anything. Resolutions are just my way of making myself feel bad about stuff later in the year. So, tits to the wind - guilt away!

1. I will not quit this stupid job until I get another one - and I will not stay in this job cause I kind of hate it.
Sounds simple right? But sometimes I stay in jobs just to prove that I can do it. I prove to myself that no matter how bad it is, I can suffer through it - I will win...But I can't win if it sucks. I'll try not to get fired and I'll try to find something better.
2. I will do the dishes.
Everyday. Whether I want to or not.
Or maybe I should change that to "I will not leave a sink full of putrid dirty dishes when I go to bed". Because at least then I give the illusion that other people could maybe do dishes too.
Now, some of you are thinking - "ugh rutting pig leaving dirty dishes!" and others (and you know who you are) are thinking "I only do dishes when every last available dish including granny's silver is dirty - what's the big deal?". I want to walk that fine middle line with pride.
3. I will move.
Somewhere. Not anywhere. But 2008 is my year to move.
4. I will win the war with chemical addictions.
Not Ecstasy or crystal meth or anything fun.
My next chemical purge is pop.
I can win - its mind over matter. I need to be less chemical-y. Just let carbonation go......
Seriously though - I've done it before - I can do it again.
5. I will stick to this vegetarian thing.
I may try at some point to reduce or eliminate cheese - but lets cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?
Its been 2 months.
I've rarely if ever done anything for 2 whole months.
And save for a few HUMONGOUS cravings in times of stress for burgers and bloody red pieces of lamb its been temptation free.
Say, if you gave up chocolate - you could be wooed to chocolate quite easily by smell or endorphins. But meat? Not really appealing in the same way.
I can't say its been easy because frankly I have had spotty support. The people who support me - support me a lot and the people who don't are asses about it. Ah well.
6. My body will not betray me.
I won't let it.
2007 sucked (see below) and 2006 wasn't exactly a banner year either.
But 2008? I am in charge now. So there.
7. I will yell less.
Yes. I am a yeller. I have made a conscious effort to stop. I will continue to try to curb this impulse to scream "are you mental?" at my kids. I will also stop yelling these things:
- who peed on the seat?
- shut that f-ing (and I do actually say eff-ing) thing off!
- hurry up!
- who forgot to flush?
- stop hitting your brother!
Bad energy - bad mojo - bad everything.
8. I will write more.
I like it. I really do.
I've been working on stuff and stuff and stuff.
Experimenting with moods and emotions and voices.
I found my voice in 2007 - I hope others find it in 2008.

That's all I've got this year. I'm hoping 2008 is relatively uneventful....
Happy calm new year to all.

Six and a half things I learned about myself in 2007

2007-12-30T20:58:00.001-05:00

Alright my friends, I am not quite at the point of self actualization that I am able to put together my top 10 of anything. Or even my top 5 of anything. I can't even actualize the world around me really.
But, I have discovered some things about myself and I'm compiling a list for you.

6 1/2 Things I Learned About Myself In 2007

1. I need to be super vigilant in this age of digital photography and on line photo posting about how I pose for photos and who I let take them.
2007 was not a banner picture year for me. Lets examine the evidence shall we....

My advice is do NOT let well meaning people who are shorter than you are (whether they are 7 years old or not) take your photo.
Don't let ANYONE take close ups.
Repeat to yourself, "even Madonna has adult acne" and don't let it beat you down.
Keep your frigging eye(s) open.
And most importantly, get rid of, or at least camouflage, those hideous superfluous chins. Perhaps a jaunty turtleneck?
2007 - year of the bad photo op.

2. Just because you make a plan doesn't mean it will be easy to follow.
I love what Anderson Cooper said in his book last year...I forget the name....with regard to New Orleans hoping that the levies would hold in case of a Hurricane....
"Hope is not a plan".
He is totally absolutely right. Hope is not a plan. Even plans are aren't easy to follow and just because you HOPE shit will or will not happen- that doesn't mean ANYONE is out there listening to what is going on in your heart.
I hoped I wouldn't lose my job. I hoped that I wouldn't lose my friends and a place that I believed in. I hoped that the government would see sense and keep the place up and running.
But nothing I hoped for with regard to my job happened.
There was a feeling that I got when one of my clients found a job.
Even a stupid $8 an hour Tim Horton's job.
There was a bigger feeling when I helped my one eyed carny get a drug plan - and medication.
It was pride. I was proud of what I did. And just because I hoped that I could continue to be proud of what I did, that didn't mean it was going to happen.
I have a plan now. Its not as good a plan as my hope - but maybe if I keep hoping, it will get better.

3. Food and I are not Friends.
At the start of 2007 the Doctor told me I was 100 pounds fatter than Tyra Banks is when she is at her fattest. I was 100 pounds over weight.

At first I didn't believe him.
Then I did the math.
And he was right.
Alot - 100 = still alot.
Good God in heaven how did that happen?
I mean, I wasn't at my fattest but, I was giving my fattest a run for her money. She was running slowly and out of breath but she was running nonetheless!
So I was determined that I would lose 10 pounds a month. Just 10. No problem. I could be done in one year. 10. That's it. I can take a good crap some days and lose 5 - so how hard could 10 be?
And for the first few months it wasn't hard at all. I lost 20 pounds in 2 months. Yay me.
Then I got sick - and stressed - and lazy - and stressed - and lost my job - and unemployed - and stressed - and lazy......and finally here we have ourselves arrived in December. I have gone back to the 100+ point 3 times this year. There was one point where NOTHING fit me. NOTHING. Even my fat pants turned in to just regular pants! That was a bad day to be me!
But I end December 22 pounds less than I started January.
I HOPE - and again - hope is not a plan - have I taught you people nothing? - that I can change.
For 7 weeks I have been meat/chicken/fish free. I dropped eggs a few weeks ago - milk and yogurt and ice cream. I have had serious thoughts about cheese - but I'm not quite willing to let that go quite yet.
In January we will begin to examine our relationship with carbonation.
I'm trying to think about what I eat. I'm not on a diet, but I bought a belt for my new fatter fatpants the other day.
Sure, Tyra Banks will always look better than I do. But she hasn't had the pleasure of deep fried cheese stuffed olives now, has she?

4. Its not easy to make friends.
Sure, you've all read my previous blogs (you have haven't you?) about my year of the olive branch and how through the blind insistence of one friend I managed to find a tonne of great new friends but dammit - its hard.
I'm old. And some of my friendships seriously go back forever. I've had one friend for 33 years. Another two for 26 years. One for 23 years - and a bunch for 22.
That is amazing and I am truly truly lucky. I don't let people go once I find good ones.
But, having said that - I don't let people go once I find them even when the friendships are not so good anymore. Lets put that insight on the back burner for "resolutions 08".
This year was about busting out.
Making friends in new ways.
Using technology.
Changing my style.
Changing how I act in groups - how I assimilate and amalgamate who I am into a bunch of people. So no, not easy.
But good. Very very good and consider this my full two thumbs up recommendation for a 2008 resolution for yourself.

5. Cancer sucks ass.
Now, this could be where I give you the song and dance about how to never take your good health for granted. Live each day to the fullest. Be kind to others. Blah blah.
But, I won't - because you all know that.
It is the not knowing - the indecision - the imprecision - the unknown that is scary as fuck.
And that is what this year has been about.
My cancer is dormant.
Not gone.
Dormant. Sleeping.
And although my calm exterior may seem like all is good, inside my little head is a person running around screaming at the top of her lungs - "HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHIT" on a constant loop.
I see another dermatological oncologist in January. I start the tests all over in January. And cancer, continues to suck ass.

6. I'm not a Mary. I'm a Rhoda.
I act like a Mary a lot.

But I'm not happy doing that.
In my best relationships - my favourites and the ones that I am most at ease, comfortable and happiest with myself in - I am the Rhoda.
I want to stand behind you.
I love to be the quirky, fun, brightly coloured one.
The paisley scarf-dress to your velvet pantsuit.
The perfectly coiffed and well liked Marys freak me out.
The fact that to someone - anyone - I may appear as a Mary is wildly disturbing. Almost upsetting to me.
If you need to ask why - then you don't know me very well at all.

6 1/2. I'm better than I think I am.
I've given this a half point because its something that I'm not so sure about at any given moment of any given day.
In my job, my marriage, with my kids, when I cook, when I eat, when I write, when I read, when I drive - I'm not as bad as I think I am.
I am way too hard on myself.
I judge myself ALL the time about everything.
I should stop that.
But I'm half sure that I'm half way there.

And that, my friends, is the truth.

Siiiiiiilent Night - Hooooooly Night

2007-12-26T00:10:00.000-05:00

Today is Christmas. Yes it is. It comes every year whether you are ready or not. It brings with it an abundance of gift cards and too much food. Usually there is a family fight or two - just for good measure. This year at my house (and my Mother in Law's house) - no fights. All was calm. All was bright.
But, the day, for me at least, was not without controversy. In fact, I think I had a couple of major epiphanies. Silent ones that I kept to myself - but major nonetheless.
Our dinner conversation - and after dinner conversation this year centred on multicultural Canada and the celebration of religious holidays.
Now you see, the more I work with people who are new to Canada, it is my firm belief that Christmas as we know it is shyly disappearing all around us. The more we accept that Christianity is not the ONLY religion in this country, the less acceptable it is going to be that every last place in the universe save the Hasty Market is closed for 24 full hours.
Our whole retail system in the country is set up to encourage Christmas shopping by everyone far and wide whatever your religion and bargains bargains bargains know no secular prejudice.
To me this started with the shift to "happy holidays" and the disappearance of the Christmas tree. I don't disagree with respecting other cultures. Why should my religion dictate if you can buy KFC on a Tuesday. Okay - well, you shouldn't ever buy KFC but it was the first place that came to mind.
My husband thinks I'm insane. He said that it is a slippery slope and if we follow my point of view soon the insurance company will be insisting that he service insurance needs 24/7/365.
My Mother In Law (henceforth known as MIL) said that this country was formed on Christian beliefs and if you want to be here you better tow the line. Um - hello - did you not immigrate here lady? Um yeah. That's what I thought.
I pointed out that we are not a country of majority rule but one that accepts the faith of many. But in her mind it is he who yells loudest and the Christians have a mighty bellow.
My brother in law said nothing. That's his thing.
But - I walked away from the conversation (metaphorically of course) - MIL and husband continued to agree with each other for HOURS!
The epiphany in this gem - stubborn people don't listen. Not one bit. Don't even try.
Before that though - there was dinner itself!
I've been a vegetarian for what - a heartbeat - 2 months of my 41 1/2 years....barely anytime at all. Definitely not long enough to have established my vegetarian "rules".
Basically, I am fuelled by the righteous indignation of other vegetarians. I haven't established my "horror" points. Until, that is, tonight. Tonight, I, the only vegetarian in the house, was forced against her will to carve not only the turkey but the ham as well. UGH.
I know that I'm good at shit like that. I'm a fat girl who watches the food network. I can carve a turkey like a professional chef. But, just because you're good at something doesn't mean you have to do it.
I tried protesting. And again, this entered me into the great - "why are you a vegetarian anyway" debate.
I just am, I said. I just am.
Why is that never enough?
My husband says - "I am the one who suggested we eat less meat" "I am the one who said we should cut down on beef" "I don't understand why you think this is important NOW - all of the sudden" "I think its silly to have so many rules"
My MIL says "Are you doing this to lose weight - because it won't do you any favours" No. "But you still eat butter right?" No. "But eggs - right?" No. "Well you love ham - why not just try the ham?" No thanks.
And then both chime in on a lecture on MODERATION.
Why can't you just eat meat in moderation? Why can't you just try to cut back? If you just had a little of everything......?
I JUST DON'T EAT MEAT ANYMORE - THAT MEANS CHICKEN AND TURKEY AND HAM TOO AND NO I DON'T EAT EGGS AND I CAN'T THINK OF THE LAST TIME I HAD MILK AND OH MY GOD I DON'T EVEN WANT TO EAT CHEESE NOW - I JUST DON'T. NO I DON'T. PLEASE STOP TALKING TO ME ABOUT IT.
The Epiphany in this you ask?
My food. My business.
I will go to your house and eat what I want from what you serve. If there is nothing I can eat - I will eat nothing. End of.
This is not up for debate.
This is just how it is.
So what have we learned here today people on day that Santa throws Jesus a birthday party? We learned that people are who they are - can't change it - don't even try. That's the best way to keep that silent night silent and that holy night full of holes.
HO HO HO

Ho Ho Holy Crap

2007-12-24T15:23:00.000-05:00

I am a good gift giver. Yep. Thoughtful and generous I always strive to get JUST the right thing.
Well, I try anyway. Lets see....
This year, I gave the mother in law slippers and gloves and a cookbook. Thoughtful? Sure it is because usually she complains that we all spend too much - this year - I obviously didn't! The slippers are the ugly ones she favours - and the gloves are old lady servicable isotoners - just the way god intended. As for the cook book? Well, if I didn't give her something to complain about she'd be disappointed - wouldn't she?
I gave the sitter a gift certificate for the only restaurant in town that doesn't make her "violently ill" or that she hasn't gotten food poisoning from. It was hard to find one but I, being a generous and thoughtful gift giver, did just that!
Other friends I will give their gifts in person. I will go to their house and I will let them belittle my house (they used to live next door). Then I will appropriately oooh and ahhhh when they show me all their new things. I will marvel at their giant tv. I will even say, just to be extra nice, "I wish I had one of those".
I will ignore the fact that their 17 year old is so stoned he can't speak properly. I will pretend that I've forgotten that their 14 year old daughter tried to commit suicide last month. And I'll even bring a pie.
The gift I give to them is that of feeling superior. It seems to make them REALLY happy. So, thoughtful and generous gift giver that I am - I will give that feeling to them freely and without asking for anything in return.
I don't normally give Christmas gifts to my friends. There are some exceptions but really - I just don't. I'm also bad with birthdays.
I tend to give gifts whenever I find them. Again - that's the thoughtful part.
So, having said that, if you are one of my friends and are waiting for me to give you a gift card from HMV - its unfortunate but you may be waiting for a terribly long time. Sorry.
To counteract this - I apparently am a very difficult person to buy for. Which I find just horrifying.
My Mother first told me this when I was a CHILD. What kid likes to be handed a wad of cash and told that they don't receive gifts well? Its disturbing.
My husband can't buy gifts - so he always asks me what I want. This has robbed me of my will to want stuff. I have learned just to be happy with what I get. Even the year that I ended up with slippers and a crock pot didn't suck that bad. Okay well it did. It really did.
Gifts are funny though - aren't they? - I think its all about the balance of power. The giver begs for approval - "oh I've tried so very hard to please you" and the getter gives or removes approval at will. Power struggles.
What does Shakespeare say?

for there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so

Maybe I should just stop thinking so hard.
Generous and thoughtful my ass.

Crossing Over

2007-12-23T19:49:00.000-05:00

As Christmas celebrations begin in earnest, I find myself sitting in the next room from my 9 year old son. He has sent himself to his room for what amounts to no reason at all and is reading and listening to music. Alone. Without the tv on. Or a video game attached to him.
This would not be remarkable in and of itself except that it is the very first time ever that this has happened.
I'm proud of him really!
Yay for having the wherewithal to entertain yourself when those around you have failed to entertain you.
Yay for not just sitting in front of the tv mindlessly which is what the rest of the family is doing.
Yay for being yourself.
Yay for escaping something that is bugging you and using music as your escape hatch.
But, this being Christmas time, I am reminded of holidays past and on how many occasions I escaped to the sanctity of my room.
Ah.
My room.
When I was a kid we had a house on the street where my cousins also lived. Which was good because our house was always full of family - but bad because our house was always full of someone.
I had a cool bedroom. TWO closets! But TINY. I wanted more space. So, I asked my younger brother with the bigger room that had NO closet to switch with me. Amazingly (and to this day I don't know why) he agreed. So, we switched rooms.
It was an older house and my new room had floral wallpaper - ugh - so I asked my parents to paint it before I moved in - which they did. Eventually.
This was in the summer before I started grade 10.
But it took them from the summer through to February to do it! Granted, there was about a dozen layers of ugly wallpaper and the walls were in rough shape - but I was homeless for months...or was I?
As a teenager I had the ultimate escape room. I had the family trailer - parked in the drive way of our house - that was my room for almost 6 months!
It was so cool - almost like having my own apartment. But without food or running water or a toilet.

In the winter I had a space heater on a timer and my dad would only allow me in my "room" when the heater was on (after 9) and it was cold as hell. But it was cool.
Now, if I'd had cool friends with booze and pot who wanted to come over and sneak in and have sex, I would have some kick ass stories to tell you wouldn't I? But I didn't.
I never had one - no not one - friend over to my bachelorette pad.
I never snuck anything illicit in or out of the trailer.
It didn't have a phone.
Or cable.
I had my 12" black and white tv with a metal coat hanger as an antennae and my turntable. They sat on the fold down kitchen table at the front.
I used to play Duran Duran's Rio over and over and over those six months. Sure, I know all the words to all of the songs now, but for the life of me, I can't think of why I liked it. I prefer to think at this point that it was peer pressure!
I liked Rio because a boy gave it to me. And I liked the boy. Boys give me a lot of my music in my life.
The only one that I truly compromised my principles for was the boy that was totally into Springsteen. God love him (and I was all kinds of fucked up over him) he was not very attractive, not particularly nice, not terribly bright, drove an awful car and had hideous taste in music. I don't even think he liked ME which is usually enough to sway me. But, I'm getting off track here...
So, there I am, in my 6 month trailer secondment. Sleeping cold. And I loved it. Because, like Ben, I could hide away. I could turn on music and escape into my head. I could read and be a million miles away. I didn't hate my life like a normal teenager - but, I needed to know that there were other lives out there for me. In my room is where I figured that out.
Sometimes you just need to be quiet to hear what you're telling yourself.
Good for him for figuring that out.

Really Now

2007-12-20T21:04:00.000-05:00

Stop making ambiguous comments.
They are getting on my nerves.
Why won't you just come right out and say what the fuck you mean?
If you aren't careful - I'm just going to ask you what the hell it is that you mean.
Are you surprised by my boldness?
You can't deny that you're wasting my time.
I think that your inability to articulate what you really think is a sure sign that you aren't worth my patience or the time that I'm spending with you.
I need to move on - away from YOU and sooner rather than later.
Gr.
Of course I'm angry with you.
How can you even think that I wouldn't be?
You are the most self obsessed ego maniacal pain in the ass I have ever met.
You must be living right up the crack of your own ass not to notice what's going on with me.
Me.
Yes me.
When was the last time you paid attention to anyone but you?
Its about your fun. Your unhappiness. Your joy. Your family. Your friends. Your life. Your cock. Your tits. Your ass. Your problems.
You must stop thinking that everything is about you.
You probably think that THIS is about you - don't you?
My blog. My story. Not that you even give a flaming fuck enough to even read it.

Life skills

2007-12-19T23:44:00.000-05:00

I am amazed at my natural ability to take any situation and use it to make myself feel like a hunk of shit. Piece of dirt. Loser. Nothing. Idiot. Pig. Moron.
I can take any innocent perfectly normal conversation and find offense.
I can take a complement and see the evil in it.
I can hear a question and twist it into an order.
I can take a statment and make it into an insult.
I'm not sure how I developed this amazing ability. I don't know what twisted warped thing happened to me, no doubt in my childhood, to make me feel this way. I don't even know that I want to know in case it makes me even more insanely sensitive.
The other day I drove through the Taco Bell drive thru, as obsessive compulsive eaters often do by the way, and the nice lady at the drive thru said "you look nice today". I took this as a sign that I go to Taco Bell too much and haven't been back. She was likely just being nice. But I can't deal with that. And her kind words cost her a customer.
Once when my husband and I were fighting he said something about the kids not taking a bath everyday. And I screamed "so now I'm a bad mother?" I knew that wasn't what he said - but it was what I heard.
I always purport to not be one of those fat chicks that has low self esteem. And if you know me well enough to know my secrets you know that I have a manic depressive state of self esteem. High when I need it and running on empty most other days. Its insane really.
Is it that constant waiver between feast or famine of I'm fantastic and I suck that sends me into tailspins when someone says something totally innocent to me? I don't know.
Just yesterday my sweet Auntie Lois told me that the family is proud of me. Proud. Of me. Because I have done so well for myself in spite of the fact that I have no one.
I was a fucking basket case afterwards. I cried - I think I had a panic attack. Is that where you can't breathe and feel like your heart is going to explode out of your chest? Yes? Then that's what I had. It was scary sobbing heaving crying. UGH.
I know what she said was nice.
And I also know that she's wrong. I don't have "no one". I have family and friends. I have people who like me and people who love me. I am well respected in my profession and hopefully give a lot of myself to people who need it. But at that moment - when I processed it - in my head - I had no one. I was totally alone in the world.
On my own.
By myself.
Why can't I see through the crap and take things as they are intended?
Why does it take me 24 hours to sort my shit out? Why, even now, is it making me cry?
Self aware.
I like to think so.
I know what I like and what I don't.
I love honestly and openly and say virtually all of what is on my mind.
I am not afraid to tell people what I think.
But I have regret and sadness and unfulfilled potential and fear. Why can't I just ask them to leave?
To tell you the honest truth - the reason this is so easy to write is because I don't want to talk about it. I don't want anyone to try to help me work this through and get over it. Its mine. I own it. I can fix it or not fix it as I like.
Should I? FUCK. Yes I should its making me crazy.
Will I? I really don't know. I hope so.
Until then, I would suggest keeping your complements to yourself!

Old Blog - New Home

2007-12-10T23:19:00.000-05:00

I wrote this blog a year ago today and thought I'd share it with a new perspective.

Aint it good to have friends?
Current mood: nervous
Category: Life

Once I went to a party and buzzed the apartment buzzer - and a guy answered the buzzer. Gawd he was funny. So funny. I ran up the stairs to the apartment to see who it was and I haven't left his side since.
Its rare to find someone who you love who loves you back. Sure he's gay but frankly, who these days isn't?
My best friend tells me when I look like crap and when I'm being a bitch. Honest without hurting me. He also loves me unconditionally and always takes my side as any best friend should. He was my best man of honour or whatever we called it. They say if you leave your best friend behind at the alter you married the wrong person - I'm not sure that's true - cause this way Rick and I never argue about money or sex.
Rick will be my kids guardian should my husband and I ever be killed in a horrible accident. Cheery thought eh? But seriously - I hope my kids learn from him how to live a life without compromise. Do what makes you happy - always follow your heart - take joy where you find it.
Everyone should seriously be so lucky as to have a friend like mine.

I even remember where my head was the day I wrote this - a year ago. I wrote it because I felt alone. Like I had one friend in the whole world who loved me and cared about me. I felt rudderless except for my one person pulling me home and reminding me of who I actually am and where I was supposed to be.

I was afraid to make new friends and meet new people. I didn't think they would like me - I wouldn't fit in. I was so comforted and comfortable with who I knew liked me that I just didn't think I could cope with new folks.

Last year, I won the lottery, of a fashion. I brushed mortality as we walked in opposite directions down a narrow hallway. We, as Canadians, apologized as Canadians so often do. And we went our separate ways.

I collected a few things on that walk. Some healthier self esteem. And a mother load of new friends.

Now some people don't believe that friends you have only on line have the same value as "real" friends. And I disagree. I have a healthy mix of both - some crossovers and its worked very well.

As a matter of fact, I had lunch with a bunch of people I used to work with the other day. And while I wouldn't have ever called them friends a year ago in my semi-self indulgent ruderlessness, I don't know what I would do without them now. They love me for "the loser that wears flip flops with a suit if I can get away with it" that I am. And not a lot of people will accept shit like THAT! Then they tell me that I'm dead inside and we all hug.

These are friendships totally out of my comfort zone and character. But if you don't stretch - you don't grow.

I grew around the world this year. Virtual strangers helped me cope with my life as best as virtual strangers can.

I have a hard time getting to know people. I really do. No. Seriously. It is hard for me to just be myself. This year I forced it. I joined the PTA. I met Moms and Dads and didn't act like someone else. I just was myself. And I think they liked me. I made friends and I was proud of myself for - again - pushing out of my comfort zone - I am part of a group. Not the leader - not the boss - just part.

From rudderless loser with one friend to joiner - group member - cyber friend. And I lost nothing. What was I afraid of? Whatever it was - lets hope it passed. The blog still holds true - he is an amazing friend - my best friend - and I never would have busted out without him.

a kiss is just a kiss

2007-12-04T23:48:00.000-05:00

I've been a friend to the gay man for a very long time. Its something that I've done for so long I doubt I'd know at this point in my life how NOT to be one. Being a FAG HAG is a badge of honour, a walk of shame, something I pride myself on and the bain of my existance.

I have acted as the reserve prom, wedding or family party guest for all of my homo friends at one time or another. If my straightening services are required I shall be there for you. If you need someone to go with you to buy you a suit, I will be there (especially YOU - and you know who you are!). If you require a date for the company Christmas party who won't spill your beans, its me. I've done it forever. I will keep your secrets if secrets need to be kept.

And in return what do I get as your hag (a term which most, including me find offensive)? I get the attention. I get the affection. I get to be the only girl in a gaggle of boys and sure - they don't want to fuck me but they want to BE with me - and in most cases, that's enough.

I get love-a-plenty and shopping advice. Someone will watch chick flicks with me.

Someone will tell me I'm pretty and smart - cause they believe it - not because they want to get some.

And yes, it is good for my self esteem - usually.

But there are those times - when your faggots drop you for an anonymous cock (or 4) in the alley or a boy with a promise of forever - and its destructive and it hurts like someone ripped your heart out through your nose with a spoon.

Sometimes the hags fall for their gays - cause like I say - fag hags are attracted to boys - sometimes our hearts get confused and hurt.

Its best, when your gays kiss you, to hold your breath and think of England. Do some complicated long division in your head. Don't - whatever you do - DO NOT let yourself buy into the kiss. No matter how long it lasts. No matter if there is tongue or not (cause sometimes these things slip in by accident). No matter if he makes your insides all gooey like jello. No matter how hard he holds it - or you do. No matter WHAT - don't let yourself enjoy it!

How many girls have said after that one stupid drunken or stoned kiss goodnight, "I really felt something - maybe....". Maybe will kill you.

Sure they look great. They feel great. They love you or at least like you a lot. They smell (usually) like you could eat them up - but its all a trick.

Not by the gay. He's totally innocent in this. He knows not what he does.

Its a trick that you are playing on yourself. Wishful thinking is a cruel mistress.

The other night - I was out - had a few drinks and met a few new people. I met a new cute boy - yum - who looked fantastic and smelled like heaven. When we left, I kissed him goodbye. It was a good one. Firm and soft and just a bit of tongue. One of those kisses that could go for hours if you left your head. But even drunk on double Gin and tonics and a promise, I stopped short. I pulled away before I let myself go. Smart girl.

Except later that day I found out he wasn't gay. He wasn't gay. Not gay. What the flaming fuck?

I have to stop assuming that everyone I meed is gay. It robbed me of good kisses. It robs me of adventure. It makes me a GIANT fag hag - and that is not always a good thing.

Sometimes a kiss is just a fucking hot wet warm really good kiss.

Fag Hag. My definition: A girl, usually a fat girl, who for one reason or another endears herself to one or more gays. Over time, the number of gays she gathers may expand and contract - usually though - there will be a primary gay. The role of the hag is to support, stroke egos, act as confident and overall BFF - to tag along, to follow and to become part of the entourage.
Out of her gay environment, the fag hag may appear just as a normal girl. Sometimes fag hags can marry and procreate although this is rare as the only men she usually meets are gay. She may be sad -deep down inside and full of wasted potential.

Image courtesy of damnstraight.oversampled.net

Where have you gone?

2007-11-19T23:14:00.000-05:00

I am somebody's Mom.
Of course I am.
And normally, I'm quite good at it.
I know the right vitamins to feed them.
We have food charts with all 38 of the required food groups.
We use tupperware that is all recyclable for the perfect boomerang lunch.
We have chore charts and allowances.
I belong to the PTA.
We have activities and play dates.
We have a limit on computer time and age appropriate video games.
We have healthy snacks.
We check homework.
We have an "asthma plan".
We wear clean pjs every day.
I try so very hard.

But the kids are whiney. Super whiney.
I don't know how to fix it. I just don't know how.
Is the answer herbs?
Behaviour modification?
Councelling?
Change in diet?

I just don't know. What is the secret?
Do I need to read that Doctor Phil book? Could Dr. P help?
Don't tell me I have to call Super Nanny??!?!

My cousin Amy, who is 30 something now, was the whiniest child in the history of the world. She sucked her thumb until she was almost 12. She pouted for ever. She just breathed complaints. Until she hit her teens. She was the most agreeable person ever come age 16. Now, Amy has 2 kids of her own. She is one of my favourite people in the world.

So, Amy gives me hope. Hope that this is a phase that they will grow out of. I'm sure it is but, frankly, how do we all make it through ALIVE?

I see so many of my friends make bad horrible mistakes with their kids.

I see their kids go off the rails. Get in trouble with drugs and the law. Get kicked out of school or drop out of school. These people thought that they were good parents too.

I can't rely on the hope that my children are anti-social nerds to be the plan for the future.

There is nothing worse than seeing your child hurt. The boo boos hurt physical or mental or social. I can't even seem to handle my own social interactions and friendships let alone those of my kids.

I can't protect them.

I remember when Ben was 3. The little girl next door, Jodi, was 4. He always wanted to play with Jodi and be with Jodi. And Jodi held ALL the cards all the time. One day in particular, Ben asked Jodi if he could come and play and she SHUT HIM DOWN. NO. And Ben started to cry....Jodi won't let me play....and I tried to soothe him - its okay - another day - you'll be okay. Ben screamed "but I LOVE her!" In a voice that made me believe that he really truly did love her. And although his heart seemed broken, I can't tell you how it gutted me. His first rejection - his first unrequited love - and he was 3.

How do you mend a broken heart? Hell if I know.

Humbug Ho Hum

2007-11-18T17:57:00.000-05:00

I don't HATE Christmas. The holiday itself doesn't offend me - but, quite seriously, there are so many things about the season that bug the shit out of me, it would almost seem that I do.
Today we went to the Santa Claus Parade in Toronto. I LOVE the Santa Claus Parade. When I was a kid, I watched it on tv. When I lived in Toronto to go to University, I went alone. When I lived in Toronto and had friends, I dragged them along. I even forced my parents to come and bring my cousins when I live right at Christie Pits. I love that parade.
I love that they use the same costumes and floats year after year after year. In person the colours are super human - super flourescent. If you watch on tv, it looks normal - but really, its not.
Pink pinker than pink.
And rightly so.
And who doesn't love the upside down clowns? In fact, this is the FIRST year that Ben noticed that the upside down clowns have eyeholes in their asses. At 9, its starting to lose its magic for him. I swear to you, it will come back!
The Christmas that I don't HATE didn't begin with the parade though. It began yesterday at Loblaws where I fought to get the last two carts available in the store apart for me and some old Papi. They were fused. I had to wait for some poor sap to unload his groceries into his car before I could get a cart. WTF? It is NOVEMBER?
Walmart was a zoo yesterday. People had carts full to overflowing with crap. Toys toys toys.
The kids have started their Christmas Whine. Gimme gimme gimme. And we encourage this by having them write letters to Santa asking for STUFF. Everyone at school, on tv, who calls wants to know what STUFF they want. Always. Gimme gimme gimme....
Bah Humbug!
Because we are SEASONED Parade go-ers, we knew to park and take TTC to the parade. BUT we had to walk through the mall to get to and from the car. The mall was INSANELY busy. We were all starving - and I wouldn't stop at the food court. Too many people too many lines too many too many too many.
I couldn't take my hands off of Sammy - paranoid as I was that I would lose him. In the subway, Sammy, who's had I did have, and I got on to the car. Wayne and Ben did not. We had to wait for them at Kennedy. Sammy sobbed uncontrollably on the super jammed subway car "we lost Ben and Daddy" the whole way there. I'm sure that made everyone else's trip as enjoyable as mine.
And don't even get me STARTED on the radio station that plays only Christmas music from November 1 to January! What the hell? Its like nails being driven not only into my ears but my psyche....I hate is so very very much. Mariah Carey has no place in a civilized society. Even worse - today I heard Rod Steward and Dolly Parton murder "Baby its cold outside". Make it stop.
But, Wayne loves this station. As soon as he gets in the car, on it comes. If I even try to change it he says "Why do you hate Christmas"?
I DON'T!
Wayne wants to buy a set of deer made out of lights for our front yard. This would be in addition to our two 3 foot high candles that say "NOEL", lit bushes, garland and bows and light up candy cane walkway. As I SCREECH "no way!" He says again, "Why do you HATE the holidays?"
I swear to you I don't!
Last year I had 6 parties in 7 days between Christmas and New Years. I was scheduled within an inch of my life. This year, only 5. Much better.
If I don't bake cookies, I stand the chance of being harrassed by both my mother in law and Wayne. Last year, I made 12 different kinds and made gift boxes of cookies for neighbours and friends. Do you think that any of them guess that they are cookies motivated not by love and good wishes but by guilt and intimidation?
My Mother was the Queen of Christmas. This year, I promise you all, I will NOT try to compete with her. I will NOT let Alan Jackson's version of "all I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth" drive me to a homicidal rage. I will not pressure myself into making fudge. I will not buy my kids way too much out of a combination fo guilt and confusion. I will relax.
Breathe. Just Breathe.
I do not hate Christmas.

labels

2007-11-06T00:03:00.000-05:00

I think it may indeed be unfortunate that my favourite thing about my new job is the Brother P-touch electronic label maker. It has 8 different fonts. I love labelling things. Files - that's a no brainer. My calculator. I wish I could stick labels on all my stuff. I have a lot of stuff at the new job
I am also enjoying the industrial strength shredder.
So far I'm only taking joy from the office equipment because I don't really know what the fuck I'm doing. When I know - you'll know.

Program Manager

2007-10-27T18:41:00.000-05:00

As everyone in the free world knows, Monday I start my new job. New company. New culture. New responsibilities. Things are changing - not just for me but for my whole family.
So what is the job? Well, I'm going to be the program manager for the Scarborough Specialized Job Search Program. Its provided by my employer - and funded through the government of Canada. We will work with people who are either new to Canada or who have literacy issues. Its a 4 week intensive job search course. Or so they tell me. I don't really know anything for sure - seeing as I don't start until Monday.
Scarborough is on the outskirts of Toronto for those of you not in the know. The area I'm working in is stuffed to capacity with immigrant families. Its not the safest neighbourhood after dark - mental note to self - and is colourful and super populated. I can't wait!
It really is a tremendous opportunity, I think, to do some really good feel good give yourself a big hug kind of work for my fellow man/woman. Its also a HUGE challenge and I can only image what kinds of barriers we will come up against.
Its also the first time I've managed an office or other people in about 4 years. Which is kind of scary. Not that I'm worried - cause you all know how I LOVE to be in charge - but its still a challenge to be new to a company and new to an office and come in and just TAKE OVER.
A stupid yet HUGE challenge for me is the business formal dress code. I have fatted myself out of even my fattest of fat pants. This is not good. Everything I wear has to have a blazer with it - so I suppose I can cover up a multitude of flab with a jacket.
My husband wanted me to buy a girdle - ostensibly to "rein it all in". Screw that - I'm just going to let it all hang out - FIGURATIVELY of course. I am sure that pantyhose will be discomfort enough for all concerned!
And, Yes. I like to be in charge. I start this routine off by being physcially intimidating. I'm already pretty huge and 5'10" but I like to wear high high heels and tower over everyone - it makes people think you are the boss. Biggest person = highest rank: Amazonian Rules.
I will also keep to myself. Because as much as I like people to like me - hey, these people are strangers and I won't know who to trust for a while. Its that "I'm not here to make friends" mentality.
Dan suggested that I could be whomever I want to be in this new and strange place. Speak with an accent or create a whole life or background for myself from fiction - not from fact. And I guess, in a sense, I'm planning on doing just that. I will be aloof and focused. And for anyone that knows me - that's not who I am at all. Okay, maybe a little.
Routines change for the kids - the school - the sitter. We all get up HOURS earlier then we are currently. We have to have cook ahead - preprepared super mom meals. The kids need to get to bed earlier and SO DO I. So, if you are expecting to talk to me on MSN at 3am - lets hope I have to let you down. I don't want to insomniac my way through this job on diet pepsi and red bull.
So - wish me luck. Of course, I'll tell you all about it! I hope there isn't a Smallville fan there that makes me watch it everyday at lunch...or someone who refuses to wear shoes....or someone who shows her boobs to people at her desk...I've already done that!

Going down with the ship

2007-10-21T20:47:00.000-05:00

The other night I fell asleep in the bath tub - no big deal really - I've been falling asleep in the bathtub for years. But it occurred to me after this nap, that its not a particularly safe thing to do.
I can remember back in the early 1980s when I had my first job at A&W there were two shifts you could work: 9am to 6pm or 6pm until 3am. The best weekends were when you had Friday closing, Saturday closing and Sunday day shift! Tonnes of hours and a full day's sleep on Saturday. And hey, I was working at A&W so it wasn't like I had a social life to worry about.
After these shifts I came home coated in the horrific stench of fried meat and bacon. Sometimes in a shift I had fried 10 pounds of bacon...it does wonders for your skin!
Anyway, on a closing shift, I would come home to a sleeping house. I didn't usually want to watch TV or talk to anyone - but I was usually too keyed up to sleep. I would take a bath. In the middle of the night, in total silence, I would take a bath.
I would go over the evening in my head. Replaying the conversations I'd had with the super nerdy greasy A&W dudes that I totally adored I would think of all the things I should have said but didn't. I would devise all sorts of plans to become my most beautiful me and woo the boys so everyone would love me for me - and not just because of the faint smell of maple bacon I always had.
I would float in the semi darkness of the bath tub - scented with my mother's bath beads - green and red and full of smelly oil. And in the total silence - tired from prepping burgers and making coney fries I would fall into a deep sleep.
And what woke me up? Often it was when the water turned cold - I'd have been asleep for hours - and I'd start shivering in the water - and it would wake me up.
Other times, I would wake up when my ears hit the water. The only sound I could hear was splashing - in my ears - and this was enough to wake me up.
As time went on and I moved from my parent's house to apartment after apartment, I always had a great bath tub for my night time baths.
One of the best bath tubs was in my apartment in London. Sure, the apartment had some problems in that my upstairs neighbour was a prostitute that worked from home and my back door neighbour was a recently released convicted murderer, but the bathroom rocked. It was in the basement - a seriously scary late night stumble down some seriously scary stairs. You couldn't stand totally upright in the bathroom but, what did I care, I sat down to pee. And it was a gorgeous old claw foot tub. Amazing for bathing - and once I caulked up the drainage valves, amazing for sleeping.
The only other claw foot tub I had was in the apartment on Maitland - that was 100+ years old. It was a great apartment until the roof over the tub collapsed because our upstairs neighbour, Bongo Jesus, had a problem shutting off this taps.
When we bought this place I wanted the super sunken tub - not whirlpool. Whirlpools make noise and are very distracting for sleep. Again, once I caulked up the drainage valves on the tub, I was in business. A dose of bath salts - a bath bomb or some bubbles and I can sleep like a baby....
But now, in addition to waking up when my ears hit the water or when the water goes cold, I also wake myself up snoring....you know you're getting old when.... But a nice hot - blazing hot scented bath - that is the way to sleep.
I'm sure one day, the bath will be my undoing - I will fail to wake up - I will go under and not come up. If that's true - I want that in my obituary....she went down with the ship!

on death and dying....

2007-10-17T09:35:00.001-05:00

I have a confession to make today. Nothing earth shattering I'm afraid. Nor is it a deep seated confession of sexual perversion.....nor that I am really a man...nothing as cool as that.
I read the obituaries in the newspaper - every day. Sometimes I even read them on line. I have a consumptive interest in the death and life stories of other people. I figure if they took the time and trouble to live their life, the least I can do is read about it.
I started reading them back home - in Stratford - where the entire daily newspaper is less than 20 pages long most days. Usually there are half a dozen dead people - some days more or less. And, best of all, sometimes they run the obit for multiple days.
Sure, the obituary gives you all the facts - where they lived, how old they were when they died and where and when the funeral crap will be. It even tells you where you can make donations in memory of the deceased - which can sometimes give you an idea of what killed them. B
But to me, the important bit is the listing of family. Married to, predeceased by, meeting his parents in the great beyond...that's the information that lets you piece together the important bits of someone's life. That's what tells you what makes the man.
Its in the family list that you can find out all of the bits and pieces of a person's history that they may leave out if they were to tell you themselves. Like the child that they had that died at birth and the brothers and sisters they are estranged from - even the divorces and remarriages. If you were to have met the person while they lived it is likely they would never have told you so much about themselves - all the juicy bits and pieces.
If you are very very very lucky, you find obituaries in the newspaper that tell you about how that person lived. What they did for a living, where they worked, what their hobbies were, charities they worked with and things and people that were important to them. That is like discovering a gorgeous novel!
Always, the gold star for obits is a photo. An old photo is the pinnacle of newspaper obituaries. Not only do you create a history for the person - you can picture the actual person as well. Excellent.
Okay, well not really excellent - cause the person is still dead. My husband thinks its sick that I read them. But, hello, what the hell are they in the paper for?
I want people to read mine. I'm asking you right now, one of you write me a fantastic obituary (preferably AFTER I die) and the rest of you read it. Someone find a picture that doesn't make me look fat. Photoshop it if you have to.
Lisa recently wrote a blog asking how she would be remembered after she died (my suggestions are in the comments) and hypothesized that maybe it doesn't really matter how we are remembered after we die - cause, you know, we're dead. But, it matters to me to remember people.
Today in my troll through the star obits (2 full pages and lots of photos - yay!) I found someone I used to know. Someone I used to work with who beat me out for a Supervisory position once that I really really wanted. She got the job. She also got cancer, suffered for 10 years, and left a husband and child behind and died at 54. Given the choice, I'd rather be unemployed.
I called Wayne to tell him - Jennifer died - and he already knew. Oh no, he said, you're reading the obituaries again. I am. And I'm remembering Jennifer and thanking my lucky stars just to be here.

The Part

2007-10-14T18:12:00.000-05:00

I went to a party last night. A party that sucked ass. Hard. And not in a good way. In a very bad very bad way. And I was bored and not amused. Wayne said I was objectionably bored.

I drove around today early waiting for the stores to open when they weren't. I bought meat and felt bad about myself for no reason. Letting down no one. Unfulfilling no promises I had made or not made.

I listened to the radio. I sang along and no one could hear me - or at least I hope they couldn't.

I yelled at my kid today. I said - stop crying or I'll smack you. Cause that makes it all better. And although I knew what I said was wrong, I didn't know what was right to say. It will only get worse - not better. I only make it worse.

I wanted to call you today - yes, you. But I couldn't because of your stupid rules. But more than wanting to call you, I wanted you - yes, you to want to call me. I don't suppose that ever happens, does it?

I imagined my life changing today. Squinting my eyes and praying to be able to visualize a new life a new place and new head and all I got was a headache.

I saw you on MSN today - yes, you - and I wanted to talk - but I didn't. I don't want to be the one to say hey first anymore. I want you to buzz me and then I want the right to be a bitch and ignore you - yes, you. I was hurt for no reason and alone for even less of one.

I felt bad saying that said I love you today - yes, you - and I'm not sure I do. I'm not sure I ever did. I'm not sure I want to.

I emailed you today - yes, you - and deleted it before hitting send. It was too easy. I didn't want to give you an out - give you an in - make it easy. You work this time - not me.

I took a shower today - and in it I had an imaginary conversation with you - yes, you. And you said - of course I miss you - of course we should spend more time together - of course I'm sorry - and I didn't believe you even in an imaginary conversation.

I felt bad today for what I wrote about you - yes, you again - all the mean things I said about you and how I hate you hate you hate you hate you. And although, they are true, every last word, I still feel bad.

I found spots on my leg today and wondered if it was a monster come back to haunt me and eat me from the inside. I showed my husband who said - are you just LOOKING for something to be wrong? And I guess that I am.

I cried a little today. Setting up the computer and I couldn't figure it out and I couldn't make it work. I felt old and useless and stupid and today that was enough to make me cry.

I hid today. From my family in rooms where they weren't. In the car. Just sitting and staring and singing to the radio so I wouldn't have to talk to people and yes, you. I shut myself off here in a blog that spits into the wind.

Puppy Love

2007-10-10T19:25:00.000-05:00

I spent part of today bonding with the dog. Cause that's what everybody needs to spend a day doing every once in a while. Getting some love.
This morning when the wind was howling in the open window that I was too cold to get up and close, the dog crawled UNDER the comforter with me. I could hear her saying "although I am covered in fuzz (she doesn't really think of herself as particularly furry), it is considerably colder than it was the other day when the house smelled of meat. I feel the need to warm myself under the thing - I enjoy the thing as we are a similar colour. I understand that as a dog I am colour-blind and shouldn't know this." Then she snuggled up to me and slept until the alarm went off.
Later in the day, as I was making the same bed with the flannel sheets (Good Lord I love the cold!) we played an interesting game of "you can't see me" while she tried to pretend she was invisible and hide under the sheets as I made the bed. Always fun.
In the afternoon, while I was on line in the office, she layed right in the doorway - I assume she does this to protect me, should the cat decide to come in the area and attempt to give me love. Hershey's presence will prevent this. Hershey knows that the cat sleeps all day under my bed - right where she wants her.
When I'm not home, the dog stays in her crate in the living room. Usually I leave either the tv or the radio on for her - don't tell anyone - it seems weird.
It is in those times that I imagine the cat asserts her dominance over the dog. She does this by walking - back and forth - back and forth - in front of the crate the whole time we are gone. In her best prissy kitty voice she says to Hershey "you're in a cage - well, it looks like a cage....I get to walk anywhere I want - anytime I want. Do you know why? Cause they trust me. Its a matter of respect. The humans respect me. Do you know why? Cause I don't eat my own poop. Yep. Do you know why? Cause that's disgusting. You are a disgusting animal in a cage...." and she says this over and over again while Hershey silently weeps "I am not...I am not..."
Hershey only wants to love the cat. Its all she's ever wanted to do. She enivisions them running together in the field near the house - "here Pumpkin - come play with my frisbee!" and Pumpkin rolls up her nose and says "I despise you poop eater>>>harumph".
We drove Ben to karate tonight and Hershey rode in the passenger seat - where she feels she rightfully belongs. She sits primly and watches the cars out the front window. She's not the kind of stick your head out the window to feel nature kind of dog. She's a people watcher dog.
Not that she doesn't have a lot of dog friends. She has Pepper the little poodle we play ball with at the park. The black and white border collie who isn't really a friend but gets her all excited and agitated when he comes around. And the daschund and his brother the cockapoo (they have two daddies) and the little ball of fluff down the street named Charlie, the Rottweiller named Princess and the old Beagle from the park. Lots of doggie friends.
One of my favourite things she does is groom the children! After they get out of the tub or the shower, Hershey tries and tries to lick them dry - tries to comb their hair by licking it - it hard not to let her - she thinks they are her babies...but hey, she eats some gross stuff....
Now as I sit here, Hershey is back at her post, in front of the door. When I stop typing she turns around to look at me to check that I'm okay. I assume if I turn to her she'd come lick me. Just to see if I taste okay. So here's to Hershey. Cause everyonce in a while everyone needs some love from the dog.

Thanksgiving List

2007-10-08T21:42:00.000-05:00

Every thanksgiving I think I should have a list of all the things that I am thankful for. I think that it comes from an old episode of some tv show - I want it to be the Brady Bunch, but, I don't think that it was. In this tv show, the family would sit around the table, hold hands and each one would say a little speech about what they were thankful for.
I am more of a list maker than a speech giver. Okay, well, that's strictly not true in that I'm both a list maker and a speech giver. But my obsessive compulsive listmaking is legendary. I rock the comprehensive multi-tasking list like only a woman can.
So, instead of my thanksgiving speech I give you my thanksgiving list 2007 in NO PARTICULAR ORDER:
I am thankful each day that my kids aren't hooligans or wierdos. I am thankful that they think burping and farting is hysterical and that they love cartoons, don't do crack and aren't giving or getting blow jobs behind the school. I think that its so wonderful that they are so incredibly normal.
I am thankful that my friends listen to me when all I have to say is something about nothing. Its a generous thing to do.
I am thankful that people don't think I'm as annoying as I think I am.
I am eternally thankful that I remember little stupid things about the past that I should likely have long forgotten. Like bendy-straws. I remember my grandfather saving up his bendy-straws when he was in the hospital when I was about 10 - and bringing them home to me because I loved them so. I was so excited to get a straw wrapped in paper. I'm thankful I can remember that.
I'm thankful to have my body. No matter how horribly ugly I often think it is. No matter how it betrays me by making my brain feel sick and my stomach turn. No matter how it takes normal things and makes them difficult. Its still all I've got. Perhaps if I was nicer to it and treated it better it would be better to me.
I'm thankful that I get to spill out all the thoughts that are in my head and very rarely does someone tell me how badly I suck.
I'm thankful that I have the time and abilty to think.
I'm thankful for silence. And music. And good movies.
I'm thankful that the dog just likes to sit with me. Sometimes she sits right up against me and just sighs. She loves me.

Its not a comprehensive list. But its a start. Because, quite frankly, if I look at the nowhere place that my life is right now, I just get too scared to be too thankful for too many things in case someone says I have more than my share and takes anything away.

The Book

2007-09-30T22:56:00.000-05:00

I've bought myself a journal. A paper one. To write stuff down.
Lately, I've found myself writing on the backs of envelopes I've got in my purse or bits of paper headed to recycling. Not prolific introductions for the GREAT CANADIAN NOVEL - but just thoughts and stuff and observations.
I know I have TWO blogs. One here - and one on myspace. And, I could most likely write stuff on facebook if I was so inclined. I also have a couple of friends through which email has become a wonderful exchange of ideas. But I have this obsessive need to write what no one can see but me.
And - to write it with a pen!
I medium blue ballpoint pen. Not a clicky pen, because I play with those. Not a fine pen because I tend to press too hard and wreck the paper. Just a plain old bic pen. On paper. And I will keep it to myself.
It feels like I'm doing something wrong in a "the kids are in bed lets have another gin and tonic" kind of way.
Do you keep a journal?
I wonder who does.
Did you keep one as a kid?
I always did. Up to my 20s really. Then I lost interest in recording what I felt as closely. I felt like I had to live life instead of write it down. I am the same way about pictures. Sometimes it feels more important to forget about making a photo essay about "family trip to the park" and just enjoy the park.
I have been writing a lot lately though. And I think I'm feeling a lot more confident with my stuff. I have a few great friends who helped me out a lot - said nice things - and some not nice things - and pushed me in a direction or two that I want to go.
I'm going to start writing grant proposals for my kid's school - to beg for money for little things like library books and air conditioning. I figure if all it does is improve my typing speed - I'm good. But its writing something.
But not on paper. Paper and pen I'm saving for myself.

The Actual Sound Track of the Movie of My Life

2007-09-18T21:29:00.000-05:00

Dan's challenge to me from his comment on my last blog was this:
If you had to pick and compile the "Soundtrack to the Movie of your LIfe" album...and it COULD be a double...please specify the opening song and the closer-credits song.
I would start the Album out with "I think I love you" not the David Cassidy alone version - but the Partridge Family Version. Because so much of my early dealings with music came from tv - Donny & Marie, Captain & Tennille, Sonny & Cher - I would put in a nice 1970s sitcom theme song medley - there was rarely a time in our house when the tv was NOT on.

From there I would add in snippets from those K-tel albums - Brandy, you're a fine girl, When the lights all went out in Massachusetts...Maggie May - who doesn't love just a little Rod Stewart. And I have a love of Melissa Manchester and Barry Manilow that is both unexplainable and disturbing but must be acknowledged.

Next we would have the songs of high school - Rough Trade's High School Confidential, Romantic Traffic from the Spoons, Wham, Depeche Mode, Yaz, the Eurythmics and of course Duran Duran. And I'll always have a soft spot for Elton John's "I guess that's why they call it the blues" (particularly bad dumping by a boy who NEVER deserved me). I was never a metal fan - none of that crap. I used to say I didn't enjoy music that had guitars.

From the time when I started University we could add in Tears for Fears, Everybody wants to rule the world, Everything But the Girl and Small town boy - that was Bronski Beat - right? Intersperse some bits and pieces of British 80s invasion pop - Style Council, Housemartins, Boy George and Culture Club and Madness. Love, Love will tear us apart, again...

I developed a love of dancing and shook my groove thing to Divine - You think You're a Man - and Dead or Alive Spun me Right Round baby like a record baby right round round round. And I would have been a different person all together had Lisa and I not sung Janet Jackson's entire Control album into our curling irons - so we'll put on Control.

When I moved to Toronto I discovered the joy of live music and the soundtrack would contain live, in concert recordings from the long gone likes of the Razorbacks, the Skydiggers, the Waltons and the Lowest of the Low - Life's a bitch for the eternal fatalist....And since I saw Blue Rodeo in concert over 100 times (no - I am not kidding) I would have to add in a few of theirs: of course Try and maybe something from Tremolo.

Through my Blue Rodeo journey I discovered Barenaked Ladies - and I really do just love them - I'd be hard pressed to pick just a few songs - but I like their ballads - NOT the If I had a million dollars/chimpanzees stuff. Definitely "Any other guy", "in the car" and "half a heart"

From there I did a whole range of pop-y stuff from the Radio. I went through some angry sad girl rock - Allanis Morrisette screamed for me - and Jann Arden made me sad. I'd definitely have "Good Mother" on the soundtrack of my life.

One thing that is not ever no never on my CD is Jazz....I hate jazz in all its many forms - no jazz....never.

In the last couple of years I'd add quite a few things to the end of the CD (wow its a huge CD!):

Cold Play - Fix You (because its a song about good friends and people who love you)
Cry me a River - the Cliks (cause boys sometimes suck ass and that's good to remember)
Calendar Girl - Stars (which I am sure was written expressly for me and speaks totally about my cancer journey)

The big album closer is this - its Barenaked Ladies - For You

"If I hide myself where ever I go
Am I ever really there"

I don't think its a song about me or one that is universally loved - but I know its a song that reflects how my insides feel when I'm alone. Its SO SO SO important for me to be myself - and as much as I know it - I constantly forget it. And I need to constantly remind myself to stay present - in the moment - enjoy what I have - and to not hide myself wherever I go.

P.S. I forgot Robbie Williams and the Philosopher Kings.

Soundtrack of my life

2007-09-17T23:14:00.000-05:00

There is a soundtrack to all of our lives - music that plays in the background - songs that ultimately remind you of the times of your life. Whether you are listening or not, it's there.
Recently I watched a couple of old movies - and by old I mean - Less than Zero from 1987 and Pretty in Pink from even earlier than that. These were movies I watched as a young adult - and watching them again I noticed that I knew every word from every song - and that songs were all through the movies - every scene every moment had some sound behind it. It didn't seem artificial at all.
Everywhere I go - in the car, at home - there seems to be music. Not always music I like but music nonetheless. I think its part of the whole multi-tasking of our generation.
My kids don't have that same soundtrack - there is more of the electronic beeps and boops that they favour now adays. I can remember listening to albums on my Mom's giant console stereo with my head pressed up against the speakers. I had 2 albums when I was my son's age - 9 - both K-tel compilations. I used to listen to "Brandy - you're a fine girl" over and over and over again.
I used my babysitting money to buy singles and albums. An important boy gave me Duran Duran's first album and changed my life. Then when I put Rio on my stereo turntable (by that time I had my own) it didn't come off for MONTHS. It was my soundtrack for those years.
Near the end of high school I bought myself a Sony walkman - I converted to cassette and went everywhere plugged in to what today would be GI-NORMOUS headphones. It was through the headphones that I discovered the joys of 80s music. Its stuck with me through my whole life.
I started going to concerts when I moved to Toronto - the concert was an extension of the soundtrack - the soundtrack live if you will!
Even now, as I head heart first into the throes of middle age - I hear music everywhere I go - in behind every conversation, everything I read and all that I write. I don't know anymore if my musical taste is any good or ever remotely socially acceptable - nor do I care.
Its nice to hope that things won't change. But it did for my parents - those K-tel albums were replaced for them by horrid country music that rotted the core of my being! Please don't let me be THAT guy!
I sure hope that when they make the movie of my life - and they will - that the soundtrack kicks ass - is a cool blend of 80s and 90s good stuff - has plenty of Can-con and the music of people I love.

Rearranged

2007-09-14T15:02:00.000-05:00

When I opened my email box today, there was email from someone I hadn't heard from in months. It wasn't a reply to an email I'd sent - it was honest to God unsolicited communication. And, my heart skipped a beat! I got that funny in my tummy oooooh hurry to get to the inbox feeling!
Do you get that too?
Like when someone you really like - who you hardly ever hear from signs in to MSN and the computer makes its little "DOOT" to tell you that they are there....and because you promise yourself NOT to be the girl that MSNs the second that other people sign in you suck in your breath just in case just in case they message you!
oOOOOOOOOOH and when they do - and MSN makes it heart churning "dootaldoo" to let you know that someone - this one - wants to talk to you - oh the excitement!
Its not the frequency or infrequency of contact that I have with the sender that makes me exctied for these emails and (usually) middle of the night e-conversations. I have that same "a cute boy likes me" lift to my spirits through the telephone as well. And, lord help me, of course they are all from boys - and not necessarily ones that LIKE like me if you know what I mean and you do.
Why are these particular communications so uplifting? They are from people that I like and people that make me happy. Not that everyone doesn't make me happy in some way (except THOSE people) its just some people make me that kind of special happy. The kind that makes your heart skip a beat. Not love or sex or romance happy - just regular old run of the mill special happy.
When I get email from my cousins it takes a dogs age for me to respond. Its hard to find the words to say and things to talk about - coming from me that's weird, eh? If blabbing was an Olympic sport I could talk for Canada! But those conversations take WORK. The special ones are not work at all - just stuff you want to say for the pure joy of saying it.
Some people are easy to write to - those people who hear you talk when you write - that's different. Even my friend from this morning - who so rarely writes back, is the easiest person in the world to email.
Back in the day, we would exchange email 5 times a day...not so much anymore as life wiggles its way in the middle of chats sometimes. When I would email him I would sign them all "love you, S". At one point, I sent out an email to a work colleague and signed it "love you, s" - and hit send - luckily it was a work colleague with a good sense of humour cause it was humiliating. To this day, I force myself to re-read even the smallest tiniest emails in case at some point, I have told the person somewhere in the email that I love them...cause that might be wrong!
So thank you to the people who make my tummy and my spirits flutter when I've got mail - it makes me shiver with anticipation.
love you,
S

The Price of Gas

2007-09-12T21:11:00.000-05:00

So Dan insists that we talk about farts since he thinks he is the ONLY person who has ever farted in public ever in the entire world (see the comments on my last blog).

I live in a house FULL of testosterone. I have two sons and a husband and all have been blessed with the Fletcher Family Flatulence. In our house farts are funny.

But, those aren't the sort of funny fart stories I've decided to tell here today. My kids fart. My husband farts and yes - Dan, as he told us in his comments, also farts - I assume although I have not experienced his farts myself.

But my point is that girls fart. Girls fart just like boys - loud and proud - in public and in private - at home and at work. We do. I swear. All kinds: silent, smelly, loud and proud, wet and juicy - all kinds of gas.

A friend of my cousin Amy was getting married a few years ago. She and her future husband had been living together for years - and they had 2 kids already - marriage was just really a formality. She and Amy had the big "heart to heart" after the bride started to have second thoughts. How did she know that the two of them would stay together? How did she know that he would be a good Dad? How did she know that this was the right guy for her? Why, she couldn't even "pass wind" in front of him.....What? She couldn't what?

She had been with this guy for years - lived with him - had babies with him (so undoubtedly allowed his penis to enter her at LEAST twice!) but she couldn't/wouldn't fart in front of him. She told Amy that sometimes it was PAINFUL to hold it inside. She would rather live in pain than pass wind out her ass in front of a man who she had seen naked.

My point is - everyone farts - everyONE of us. But this strange girl saw farting as something exceedingly private - something to be kept to herself - or more than that - something to be kept AWAY from someone else. To what end??? Pain? Freedom from embarrassing sound.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me - but will sounds? Gas? Wind? Smells?

She worked through her jitters - married the guy and had 2 more babies with him. I wonder every time I see them if she lets them rip now - surely to heaven she saw sense. She does seem very tense though...

My mother was a very proper person. She would NEVER ever ever have farted in front of strangers - she kept her farts especially for home and her family!

It's hard to describe really. My mother would pass gas - always tiny sharp sounds - we called them "toots" as kids. When she tooted she would laugh - "OH!" - like it was a surprise to her. When she laughed she would toot - and the whole process would repeat itself over and over again! I remember practically rolling on the floor in hilarity as my mother killed us with her powerful stink. Its still funny.

So there you have it - everybody farts. Some of us loud and proud wherever we are and some of us in secret to hide our humanity from our loved ones. Its just gas people - nothing earth shattering. Well, sometimes it is....

Who knew

2007-09-12T09:10:00.000-05:00

Today I washed the walls in my house. I didn't think that they would be particularly dirty but they were. From what? Dirty children hands, the odd candle burning and time. My question today is this:
Does everyone wash their walls? Why have never heard of this practise??? I mean other than the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser commercials for when your kids draws on the wall with crayons, non erasable markers or paint with their own feces? (And by the way, that's what I used to wash the walls - thanks Mr. Clean - they truly are magical!)
I don't remember my mother EVER washing the walls of our house. She did laundry; sometimes washed the floor and occasionally bullied my brother or I to vacuum. But never, not once did I ever see her or hear of her washing the walls. To be fair, until I was in high school we had red velvet textured wallpaper all through the downstairs of our house -and that probably would have been a bitch to wash.
Did Mr. Clean revolutionize the world of cleaning or is washing the walls one of those things that we just don't talk about like: after you have surgery your wounds can pop open and what to do when you have diarrhea and are vomiting at the same time?
And, for that matter - why are there things that happen to ALL of us that we just don't ever talk about? Why don't we talk about wet farts, hiccuping and burping at the same time and day dreaming? We all do it. I'm sure we do.
So here: let the clean walls of my house be your inspiration - send me your stories about what people just don't talk about - sandra_fletcher@hotmail.com. Lets talk about them here. Clean walls and all.

Damn that Oprah

2007-09-03T19:58:00.000-05:00

At one point this summer (it must have been a low point!) I found myself watching Oprah and listening to some cleaning expert tell me that a messy house means that you have a messy life. Whether your life is in abject chaos, your finances are in chaos, your mind is messed up, you are psychotic, your husband is a crossdressing lunatic and your children are addicted to crack - whatever the mess - it is reflected in how you keep your home.

Talk It Out
What's really causing your clutter?
Peter Walsh and Dr. Robin team up to get to the bottom of your
piles.

My home says that my life sucks ass.

I complain, and have done so here on this blog many a time, that I feel pressure from my husband to clean - because I am a slob. And my friends will often mock my slobby-ness. But, this summer, as I ran around playing in the park with the kids and walking thousands of miles at the zoo, something happened in my house - it was a transformer of sorts and turned from rusty pick up truck into a giant walking fire breathing dragon beast. No. Seriously. In a "there is crud stuck on the bottom of the fridge that is sticky and has been there since june" and "I'm afraid to turn the oven on in case it spontaneously combusts" kind of way. Yep. Its bad. Not that I'm going to invite anyone here to check it, you'll just have to take my word for it.

And, as irony would have it, I think that this Oprahexpert may be right. My House is a mess because My Life is a mess.

I have this thing that I say to myself all the time that makes me feel better and calms me down - I can only control what I can control - I can't control the world but I can control my reponse to it.

Apparently, I can't control anything. I don't honestly feel as if I've had any control over anything that has happened in my life in the last year (at least!) and so I feel (today) as if I've given up trying to take control of EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING.

Today I caught up on the laundry that was in the basement. Then I discovered that there were 6 more baskets of laudry waiting upstairs. I used to be able to get caught up every week. I can do that again I'm sure. But I think I need to take baby steps.

I'm going back to "work" tomorrow. I say work in quotations because its one hour a bloody day at the school watching kids NOT eat the food their parents send them and trying to make sure no one dies on the playground.

My assumption is that forcing myself to shower each day and wear a bra will also force back into my life some semblance of normality. I'm assuming that it will anyway. Who knows.

I NEED to go back to the gym. Badly. And I will. I swear. I have made a date with myself to go back Thursday. Yes. No more excuses. I feel as if I can't quite physically handle my life anymore and part of that I'm sure is the fact that I am a giant pile of cream and jelly. I don't mind if I'm a fat chick but I have to be a fit fat chick or its just not going to work. Back I go. I enjoy the eliptical trainer and the treadmill however, I don't like to sweat. Whatever.

Maybe if I can be more disciplined then shit will start to fall into place - in my life, in my house, in my relationships, with my job, inside my head....I wonder if Oprah when told that she messed with your head would send a team of experts to sort you out? Or is that a more Maury Povich kind of thing. Maybe all I need to do is watch more tv!

UPDATE: September 6th - only 3 loads of laundry (or so) left to be done and I just cleaned the refridgerator. Yep, even the crisper drawers. I made chicken meatballs in home made sauce for dinner and took out the composting. I'm getting there.

Eating Local

2007-08-29T10:43:00.000-05:00

I recently read this article "10 Reasons to Eat Locally" and while most of the reasons make sense:
- tastes better
- reduces pollution from shipping
- reduces or eliminates preserving chemicals
- eliminates the possibility of bio-terrorism (that one is a bit of a stretch but given what happened with spinach and carrot juice last winter - who am I to judge!)
.....it wasn't until this morning that it all came together for me.

Today for breakfast I fancied a tomato sandwich. We don't have any tomatoes today - well - that's strictly not true - we have grape tomatoes (YUM) but I wasn't about to eat a sandwich with 15 grape tomatoes in it! WAIT - we are growing tomatoes in the yard! I looked outside and most were green. But on closer inspection, we found one orangey-red perfect tomato. So - we picked it. Took it from the backyard to the kitchen - like 15 feet - and cut it up onto toast.

Yum yum yum. That is the difference with local produce. That RIGHT there - a tomato that tastes like a tomato, isn't woody or gross.

What else do we have in the garden?

I'm making pasta salad for dinner. We added peas and carrots - FROM THE BACKYARD. I cut up one of our cucumbers with thin onion slices and I'm making quick pickles for dinner too! I feel like a freaking genius. MY family grew the food we are eating. Ben picked the carrots he planted. And while none of Sammy's jalapeno peppers are ready yet, I suspect that their arrival will coincide with the reddening of more tomatoes! We also have spinach coming out of our ying yang and herbs aplenty - anyone need any chives or mint?

This is the purpose to me of local produce. Its cool to have our own food - there is a sense of definite accomplishment for having things grow. Sure, we still need to buy bananas but hey, its kind of fun to not have to buy tomatoes.

Maybe next year we'll do zuchinni...garlic.....or eggplant....watermellon.....maybe even pumpkins!

Table for One

2007-08-24T21:55:00.000-05:00

There was a Pity Party at my place tonight and everyone was invited! Woo hoo - although I didn't see any of you there.
I got dumped/dissed/practically stood up. And if any of you ever wonder why I don't have girl friends, this is why (and before you start bitching - you don't count - you know who you are)!

I was supposed to meet the girls from work - well, technically where I used to work - at 7pm tonight. Massive amounts of emails had been exchanged as had messages on MSN and Facebook. Much to-do had been made. Then one cancelled on Wednesday. There's always one.

So today in the afternoon, I took as shower and blew my hair dry, which frankly, nowadays, is a rare occurance. Not the shower, but the blow dry - what am I blowing my hair dry for when I have no where to go? I put on makeup, brushed my teeth and used the rarely used mouthwash (again, not that I'm a pig, I just hate mouthwash).

I put on pants - full lenght pants, not capris (again - tres rare nowadays) and put on shoes that were neither flip flops nor crocs. I wore jewellery. Okay, well, I always wear jewellery - but I wore jewellery that matched my outfit. I looked quite presentable as a matter of fact.

So 6pm rolls around and I still don't know where, specifically we are meeting. I text. Nothing. 6:15 rolls around and I call - voicemail. If I am to be two towns over by 7pm I need to leave at 6:30. At 6:25pm I get a call - "yes well, can we reschedule - see we both have other stuff to do and well another time would be better...you understand - okay great."

No. Not okay. Not great. I don't go out much. Ever. And I was really looking forward to grown up drinks in a bar with people I like who aren't my family. And no, I'm not okay. I'm sad. Really desperately so.

So, I decided since I was all dressed up I should go out. My husband refused to go with me. You see, he had already started making taco meat and he wanted to watch Family Guy re-runs. I was refused for cartoon reruns and ground turkey.

I will go to the movies then - cause I like the movies and I will go alone. I used to go alone all the time before I was married. Why not? I'll tell you why not. Because I live in suburbia and no one does anything alone. The megaplex was packed with couples and groups.

I chose a particularly depressing movie on purpose so that I could cry. And I did. I cried like the lonely loser I am into my giant bucket of salty popcorn and jumbo diet coke. Oh yes I did.

I don't want to be a loner. I don't want to not fit in with the other Moms. I don't want to have, as Rick says, 4 best friends, none of which live in the same area code as me. I don't want to have relationships by email and fax and phone and text message that leave me feeling cared for and appreciated but more than just a little empty and alone. I want people who love me and enjoy my company and want to be with me. I don't want to be less important than reruns.

So yes. Pity Party. One night only.

The lodger

2007-08-23T22:40:00.000-05:00

I used to have this roommate named Margaret....that's how I used to start my stories, and you all know how I love a good story, about Margaret. But, as I began this, I realized that Margaret was more than a collection of humourous anecdotes. Oh yes, she was insane. And a bit of a bitchy cow, but that chick had some major league problems too.

Margaret and I met when she began working at Addition Elle, a clothing store for fat chicks, back in the 1980s. To tell you the truth, there was no skill involved in working in fat lady fashion in the 80s - we were all just so grateful to not be wearing men's husky lee jeans and cords with a big oversize tshirt that we would have paid any price at all for the bit of panache that these stores offered. Which, in a way is good because while I had style - oh yes I did - Margaret had zero and while she could sell anything, I could NOT. (If that ever comes up, make a mental note, I cannot sell anything - if I attempt to sound sincere it sounds fake and if I am sincere it sounds more fake. Its best to have me run the place or go fetch stuff.)

Margaret and I became friends because we were constantly thrown together on the night shift. At the time, I was working and going to school and she was doing the same. We both worked as many nights and weekends as we could muster. She was an Admin Assistant at an Insurance company. She had gone to college - to study admin stuff and fancied herself an accomplished typist and short hand taker person - who was I to argue?

At that time, she was living in a rented house and I was living with evil roommate number 2. Soon the situation with E.R.#2 became unbearable and I was forced out essentially on to the street. Margaret, god bless her heart, took me in. Not only me, but also my cat, Nab.

It was clear from the start that although I was living with Margaret we were not roommates in her eyes - she considered me a lodger. Which to me was fine because it meant I didn't have to share in all the unpleasantness that was hydro and heating bills and the crap that was mowing the lawn and shovelling sidewalks....or so she lead me to believe.

Nab and I settled nicely into our super-lavender tiny little bedroom in the 2 bedroom bungalow at Glencairn and the Allen. Nab got along nicely with Margaret's dog, Mandy but did not get along well at all with her cat, Fluffy.

Fluffy was anything but fluffy. She was scrawny and bony and didn't have an ounce of kindness or compassion in her at all. She was also one of the first disagreements that Margaret and I had. You see, every morning, Margaret would open a can of food for Fluffy and set in on the dining room table and Fluffy would eat straight out of the can. When did she pick up the can and put it in the recycling/garbage you ask? NEVER. When I finally broke down and cleaned up (which royally pissed her off) there must have been nearly 100 empty cat food cans - oooh little but of throw up.....it was so icky I can't even tell you but, I was a lodger....remember? Not my deal. Nab ate in my room.

Margaret didn't like to clean the litter box either. She preferred to let Fluffy, and as time wore on, Mandy, just pee where they wanted and crap when they had to. The WHOLE basement was full of well, full of crap. It was a horror - an absolute horror.

But, like I said Margaret had problems. She was the youngest in a big family by about 15 years. (Again, if you are making mental notes, I'm going to say don't try for one last baby when your next youngest is 15....) Her father died when she was a kid so she and her mother were super close. Until her mother had a stroke when Margaret was 25. Of course, she still lived at home. She'd never been on a date, had a boyfriend or been kissed - she lived a sheltered life.

As the siblings stood around Mom's hospital bed, they had to decide - pull the plug or let her go on indefinitely on the machines. Margaret said - let her fight - but, she was alone. They pulled the plug - the doctors said it would only be hours - but she lived for days - lingered and died. Margaret stayed the whole time - and watched her poor mother die. It was horrible for her.

But, it got worse. Everything that Mom owned was left to all the siblings equally - so one week after the funeral, the siblings put the house up for sale and kicked Margaret's ass to the curb. That's how she ended up in the rental. She had a nice nest egg, some lovely old furniture, an inferiority complex the size of a house and a woe is me the world hates me attitude she carried everywhere she went. To be fair, she came about her sadness honestly, as do the rest of us.

Life with Margaret was always interesting. You could never know when she was going to go off on one of her weird tyrannical screaming fits. Well, and she had the funniest haircut I've ever seen. She had a bad fat lady haircut.

Now, anyone out there who says they don't know what I mean when I say fat lady haircut is full of shit. You all do. Its kind of a modified Dorothy Hamill cut from the 70s....only in a way unattractive way. Longish short hair at the front and shaved sides and shaved at the back. If you have any neck fat you are fucked - it looks ridiculous. She had that hair all frosted and tipped within and inch of its life.

She was also cursed with the fat lady back fat phenomenon. Its horrid when it happens - and it happens to the best of us. But the combination of fat lady hair with a neck fat roll and fat lady back fat phenomenon is unfortunate - add into that extremely low self esteem, a bad attitude and the misfortune of wearing nothing but pink and floral patterns and you are in for one hell of a bad time.

Margaret and I used to take road trips in her HUGE car that she inherited from her Mom - in my head its a K-car...We would always call them "fat chick road trips" and each began with a trip to 7-eleven for snacks. Sweet teeth indulged, we would head out to Southwestern Ontario where she would mostly hang with my Mom. Although attempts were made to socialize her into her own age group, with peers and introduce her to people (read: men) she was hesitant to do this and again, add in her bristly nature and out attempts were few!

Time went on and Margaret eventually got me a job at the insurance company where she worked (which if you are keeping track is where I met my husband so its not all bad!). Each day we would leave the house in its semblance of chaotic disorder. When we returned home at night, the tv would ALWAYS be on, with a cat (hers or mine) perched on top of the cable box having turned it on with a wayward paw and the dog sitting there watching it. The dog was insane and sat with its dog-ass on the couch and its paws on the floor. I think Mandy thought she was people.

It became harder and harder to live with Margaret. She didn't like me going out. She didn't like me staying in. She hated it when I cleaned up. She hated it when the house was a mess. She was getting more and more unpredictable and weird. My thought was often that she just needed to get laid. Maybe that would have solved a multitude of problems.

In fact, she took a trip to England once over Christmas vacation to stay with her aunt. She met a nice English guy in his late 40s, single, who lived with his mom. And she fancied him rotten. So much so, she arranged to go back to England in the spring - just to see him again - but this time he ignored her. Thus making it the least successful and second most expensive second date in history (I'll tell you about the most expensive second date some other time!).

Near the end of our time together, her dog barfed in the front hallway near the door and she simply threw down a newspaper and walked around it for weeks and weeks and weeks. The smell was obscene. I had to leave - I had to.

I decided to bid a hasty exit. She was not impressed. She yelled and screamed. I was cheating her and treating her mean - AFTER ALL SHE HAD DONE FOR ME! But I moved anyway - in with roommate number 4 across town. She all but threw things at me as we loaded up my stuff. I don't think I'd ever seen my cat so very happy!

Years later Wayne and I were walking in the Eaton Centre and we heard someone calling my name from miles away.....faintly - "Sandra - Sandra St. Clair....". Who was it but insane Margaret! She chased me through the mall until Wayne and I got out on to Yonge street and lost her in a crowd our hearts beating with a combination of relief and hillarity.

I was never quite sure she was all that stable. And while I don't really blame her for being unstable - I have a healthy fear/respect for the instability.

The cottage

2007-08-19T20:21:00.000-05:00

I could write a blog about the cottage and how weird it was to be unplugged totally for a whole week of no internet. And I could write about how the children started making out verbal wills the night when the power went out for 4 hours as they felt that they were going to die. And I suppose I could write about the plight of the mother on vacation that still has to cook and clean and do everyone's bloody dishes. I could write about how nice it was to just have time to read and about the wonderful fantabulous books that I read. I could write about how vacations make strange bedfellows - about choosing good companions - about how everone made me nuts and how I value my private time. But I won't.

The cottage was fun. I won't do it again soon - but neither will I go to Frankenmuth Michigan again soon - that was last year's vacation (sure it had 7 pools and a mini putt inside the hotel but, people, it was LITTLE BAVARIA 24/7!)

I think that the best solution for family vacations would be to take them separately. Each person go it alone for a few days....see how that works out. Then, when you come back, everyone is happy to see each other!

My vacation isn't over it seems. My husband is still off work this week. So, tomorrow, I am going to get my nails done - and not worry how long it takes. I may get my hair cut this week too. Oh yes....but you know, I'm still cooking and cleaning and doing the damned dishes.

The lovely people of Huron County have turbines that generate electricity interspersed amongst their corn and soybean crops. The change the landscape sure - but its so cool to think about the electricity they generate. Its good to know that my composting and recycling isn't the only effort we are making to save the world. Go Huron County!

Beerfest

2007-08-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

For the last 25 years I have spent my life surrounded by crowds of gays, gaggles of faggots and legions of lesbians so that now I find it quite odd to spend the day in with a whole bunch of heterosexuals. There is something sociologially intriguing about the heterosexual community when gathered in multitudes of hundreds.
Today my husband, my friend and I went to Beerfest. It is a gathering of people - largely 20 somethings and 30 somethings - at Old Fort York in the shadow of the neon bedecked CN Tower. You can't buy better people watching than exists at this event - its like gay pride - only without the gaiety!
Year one when we attended our pleasure came not only from the beer but from watching the 19 year old tipsy girls in little skirts teeter on their very high heels that they wore - not realizing that this place "Fort York" had grass instead of a dance floor. It was a very fun day.
Year two, there were some especially fun bits. Drunk guy who couldn't find his friends - we spent HOURS passing drunk guy as he got drunker and drunker and drunker - until we finally found him in the drunk holding pen at the end of the evening. It was a happy ending though as this is also where his friends found him!
The heterosexual drunk guys are great to watch. I like the way that large groups of them will wear matching ugly tshirts or unfashonable hats - the gays would NEVER do that.
Perhaps the best part is near the end of the evening as they start becoming unable to walk and hugging each other to hold each other upright. And as Doug says, they look at each other like they are either going to kiss or fight and frankly it could likely go either way and no one would remember.
This year we went to the BBQ expo with Ted Reader - as we usually do. He was making MEATZZA and 3 inch thick porterhouse steaks. I watched fascinated - the meatzza had a base or hamburger instead of crust - cause what man wants to fart around with carbs - and was covered with cheeses, chicken, steak, saucage and bacon. It was a heart attack on a plate. Of course when it was cooked - he invited me to be one of the people on stage to try it - and I just couldn't. I have been trying really hard to walk the vegetarian line. Something told me to just say no thank you and following my instincts was right.
Reader launched into a huge diatribe about how vegetarians are people who can't hunt fish or kill anything. They should belong to PETA - People who eat tasty animals....oh - the men love that kinda talk when they are drunk and full of meat!
Another thing that I noted about beerfest versus pride was the men. Basically all men look alike - right? Gay straight drunk or not. At any gay event you will get a contingent of what are affectionately known as "bears". The bear for those of you not in the know is a big weighty usually bearded, plaid clad muscular or just plain fat guy. Not that there is anything wrong with that. At a gay event I'm going to go out on a limb and say 1 bear for every 1o atendees. At Beerfest - 1 bear for every 4 people. Fun.
As the evening wears on (and it closes at 10pm) the people get friendlier and drunker - as with any event. Some drunk chick came up and hugged me and kissed me and high fived me. And as Doug said again, the instint is to say - "Happy Pride!" But what do you say at Beerfest? Happy Beerday? Woohoo you're drunk?
Tomorrow I'm going to the taste of the Danforth - where I will be again surrounded by people - but with kids. Sunday, its Wonderland. Somehow its not quite the same. But Pride and Beerfest- those were some good times.

Taking one for the Team

2007-08-08T22:48:00.000-05:00

Years ago, I was a working woman in a man's business filled with women. To be more specific, I was working in group insurance, with a partner company that provided insurance to groups of people - mainly in Unions. Amalgamated Transit, CAW, Electrical workers, Construction Workers and my personal faves The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way (railroad guys). A couple of times a year, the head of the conglomerate, Chuck, and all the Union Leaders would meet. Normally the insurance company sent the account manager to represent the company.

Well, the account manager had moved on and there was no one in the company who knew more about the account than me - but eek eek eek - as politically incorrect as it was the company couldn't send me -cause I'm a girl. The Union boys apparently are all just that boys and there was no place for a lady like me amongst them. Someone had the brilliant idea of sending a boy - Giorgio - and sending me as his beard - insurance beard. Giorgio would do all the talking and I would would be his Cyrano. Hell, it meant a free trip - so why not!

So Giorgio and I headed off like a pair of muggins to the gorgeous St. Andrew's By the Sea. Wonderful place - lousy trip on a tiny plane. G didn't tell me that he was air sick. But he was - as noted on this trip and others to follow.

We were unable to get in to the big resort where all the important dudes were staying - but were put up in the B&B accross the street from the resort called - Pansy House. I shit you not - Pansy House. It was nice - all hardwood and doilies and quilts.

Day 1 was about play - Day 2 about work.

Day 1 - Giorgio treats all 15 delagates to golf. I sit back at the B&B and read a book. The way the world works. Let him do the schmoozing - I didn't need to put myself out!

Dinner on day 1 was to be at Archies - right on the Bay of Fundy - and aren't we lucky - its lobster season.

Now Giorgio and I walked to the restaurant and on the way divulged our most innermost secret - I hate fish and shellfish of all kinds. So does Giorgio. Whew. So, when we get there - no matter what the peer pressure of being on the waterfront - we will not eat fish. We both knew that they were the million dollar clients - this was a huge dinner - but we were principled people - we were going to stick to our guns.l

Into the kitschiest restaurant ever in the universe we walked - posture perfect fuelled by our self righteousness. It was the kind of place with plastic lobsters and crabs on the wall strung with old fishing nets. Plastic table cloths in red and white checks and wood pannelling. It was perfect for a restaurant on the Bay of anything.

Everyone was already there. And they had saved us seats - together - which is every networking professional team's nightmare - at the very end of the table. As we take our seats - the waitress places 2 beers in front of each of us and Chuck informs us both that we are already behind - and that they have taken the liberty of ordering for us. Oh great.

Giorgio looks at me and I look at him and we agree - we are going to eat what we're given - neither of us are going to have any principles - we are going to do this for our jobs - take one for the team as it were.

Out comes the starter - it is a HUGE bowl of mussels - and I think to myself -oh goodie - we are sharing the starters - those are like cake batter bowls - I can get away with not eating many. Ah - but I'd never been to the east coast before - of course they weren't for sharing. Each one of us was served a HUGE bowl of mussels - lets say 30- as a starter. I have eaten mussels before. I even liked them once. But I'd shared a bowl of a dozen mussels with 3 other people. I can handle that. But I am nothing if not a team player - and with the assistance of my beer - served 2 at a time - I managed to choke them down. The booze and the superiority I felt watching Giorgio actually gag - helped A LOT!

Out came bibs.

Oh holyshitjesuschrist - they ordered us lobster! And as I'm planning how I'm going to hide my lobster under my potatoes and peas, they set my lobster in front of me. The thing is frigging HUGE but at this point - that's no surprise is it? But, what is my lobster served with? Potatoes? Rice? Salad? Veggies? Nope - lobster and a side order of mussels. More fucking mussels. It's like serving steak with a side order of pork chops. Or lasagne with a side order of spaghetti. Its just not right. Not right and ugh.

Giorgio and I both tried and tried to eat that lobster but rather than taking one for the team it was like taking it right up the ass - over and over and over - from the team - only with gobs of melted butter attached. And let me tell you right here people, when you don't like lobster, not even butter will save it. I would have rather drank the butter straight up.

But, by stuffing some in my napkin, leaving LOTS in the claws and even spilling some on the ground I managed to make it through dinner.

Poor Giorgio barfed all night at the B&B.

Day 2 - we did the presentation for our lovely gentlemen hosts. Giorgio did the intro and sales and I filled in the little things - like FACTS. It worked and all went well.

Together Giorgio and I made a bunch of trips with those boys. I could keep up drink for drink. I could eat their steaks and smelly cheeses. Giorgio could golf and smoke cigars and I wore low cut shirts. We were a great team.

The moral of the story is - teams come in all shapes and sizes. No wait - the moral of the story is that sometimes you just have to take one for the team and suck it up. Or wait - is it that Boys will be boys? Sometimes the greater good requires that you have no principles? Or if I guy named Chuck who controls you career advancement says eat - you eat? Either way.

Girl Parts

2007-08-04T09:07:00.000-05:00

Over the last 6 months I have developed something that most women take for granted. I have never before this point in my life had PMS. Yep - that's right PMS. Never had a cramp - been retaining water - broken out - experienced irrational mood swings - nothing. I was totally truly blessed and apparently as were my family and friends.

(If I've been a bitch to you in the past and you've tried to write it off as "its just her time of the month" - dude - it wasn't - I'm just a bitch sometimes - full stop. But thanks!)

As part of what the doctor tells me is "peri-menopause" or early onset menopause I am experiencing all the joys of being a woman - its like all of my Christmases have come at once!

Lets use today as an example:
1) I have a pimple the size of a small town right between my eyebrows and it hurts. Really really hurts. You know the kind - its a pimple alright but its not something that you could satisfyingly pick at or remove. Sucks.
2) I yelled at my husband this morning because he was wearing a baseball cap that the dog chewed to go golfing in - and he couldn't find his good Jay's cap...yep - I'm going to call that an irrational mood swing.
3) I feel like someone is standing on my lower stomach and jumping up and down. I don't know that this is cramps but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it is. I understand now why women back in the day took to their beds for a week at a time if this is the hell that they had to endure.
4) I have no ankles and my elastic waist shorts are too tight. Not good.

I totally hate this. How do people put up with this crap? I guess I have been lucky for the last twenty something years. I'm starting to think that I might have lived a different life if I'd gone through this my whole life. I would have never gone to gym class - angered friends and made hasty hormone fuelled decisions...coulda change my whole life.

So - in my anger filled progesterone haze I will sit around and be sore and horrible and just cling to the hope that as quickly as it came it will also go. Bring on the menopause quickly and easily - I welcome your goddess HRT!

Windsor Pride

2007-07-31T23:31:00.000-05:00

This weekend was Windsor Pride. Its always hard as someone who is not actually gay to attend an event the purpose of which is to be proud of being gay. I mean - I would if I could but I can't. Not really. And its not like I'm a PFLAG Mom. I'm just an old fashioned Fag Hag with gay friends coming out my asshole - which is somewhat appropriate - don't you think?
My Mother, back in the day, hypothesized that there should be no gay pride day/week/parade until there was a straight pride. I disagree. No one ever got the shit kicked out of them for being heterosexual.
So what's it like? Like being invited to a party bringing all the food and being asked to enter by the back way.
What was this pride like?
It was okay. Just okay. There was a lot of shit flying through the air and some stuck and some didn't. Too vague?
Okay - Friday at the Armouries broke my heart. Dinner before was brilliant - I was allowed to indulge my Dan mojo - for those of you playing along I remain smitten by this boys charm and like oh - psyche sparkle - its pathetic really. I allowed my worlds to collide introducing new friends to old - and amazingly no one died. What broke my heart was that my friend Rick had worked so incredibly hard to put this thing on and the place was deserted. It was very sad.
Sometimes when we promote Pride events we need to branch out people and just promote the fucking event as an event that will be amazing even if you aren't gay. Gheesh.
Saturday was incredibly cool as we were recruited to pick up the evening's host - a gorgeous Drag Queen named Miss Conception. But when we picked him up at the train - he was Kevin.
Kevin and his fiance Daniel were incredibly nice - we clicked right away. We had an amazing day and just enjoyed his company so very much. He put on a fantastic show - I was so impressed!
The highlight of my night was the incredible Carole Pope. I idolize Carole - Rough Trade was insane and she did not disappoint at all in spite of being sick. I had my photo taken with Carole and friends and I am so sick with excitement to see it - she does look about 1000 years old but what the fuck - some day we all will! She totally rocked the house - Diva Bitch she was! And I got her autograph on my copy of Anti Diva! Holy crap.
Oh - not that I forgot - Dan read an incredibly smart poem to the super enhused crowd. I was just purple with pride - not for gay pride but for my FRIEND. How amazingly talented this guy is. Hearing poetry is totally different from reading it people - its the difference between hearing a song sung and reading lyrics on an album liner- it changes everything.
Sunday was Sunday. Too much pride crap and I hit the wall - way too much for one weekend. And, as sad ass as this is - it would had been better if I had been drunk. But I wasn't.
I'm not sure that I want to talk about it here - I know I don't in fact and I won't (if its that important for you to know - email me your questions!) - but it was a weird day for me. I had issues with people place and circumstance. Crap happened. Enough said.
Thank holyshitjesuschrist its over (I stole that from a book I just read - and I intend on continuing to steal it).
So Windsor - home of my future - I enjoyed your Pride - now fuck off and forget about the whole weekend. Okay?

Little Children

2007-07-21T15:38:00.000-05:00

I've often felt like I was having a Kate Winslet moment - you know the one - from the amazingly brilliant movie "Little Children" where she is sitting in the park - both pretending to watch her kids, pretending to read and not quite pretending to interract with the other mothers.

That scene is so brilliant because it is so true to life. I always am the Mom on the side, the one that forgot to bring a healthy and nutritous snack containing all of the essential food groups needed for healthy growing children. My kids don't want to wear the right clothes or say the right things - and damnit if I can make them. I figure part of growing kids with healthy self esteem and stong minds is allowing them the tenacity to make their own pig headed decisions. Whether I'm going to like it or not.

While Kate doesn't enjoy these other women - she might want them to like her - although doing anything about it would be against her nature. Their permapress coordinated outfits and soccer Mom hair isn't wrong it just isn't her. I understand this. If I am going to all the trouble to put on lipstick - it won't be to wear it to the park.

In this movie, we are given the horrifying news that her lover doesn't think that she's beautiful - he prefers his skinnier more polished working wife. Where, in reality, isn't Kate Winslet - normal sized girl - just beautiful? Wouldn't any of us give our left arm to be as beautiful as Kate? So, what does that say about how we feel about our own appearance every day? Do we imagine that the permapress soccer moms and their working counterparts are not only more together and on the ball than we are but that they are also better mothers and more beautiful than we are as well?

All of these questions came to me while I was sitting on a park bench yesterday. I was surrounded by gaggles of Moms watching even bigger gaggles of kids.

The Indian Moms all stick together and mutter in a language the rest of us can't understand. I don't want to think this but, I always imagine they are laughing at me or talking about me - the same as I imagine when I go to the nail salon and Amy the Vietnamese nail goddess smiles at me and laughs with the other nail goddesses. The Indian Moms always seem to have extra children more than they would normally be able to fit into the tiny townhouses on our street.

Then there are the baby sitters - who also tend to congregate together. These are the Moms so superior to you and me that they get to look after other people's kids and get paid for it. The have menus and activity plans. They walk every where (because they care for more than the legal number of kids and can't fit them all in a minivan) and are therefore far more fit and capable than I could ever be.

The other suburban Moms have been coming to the park at this time of day on this day for eons. Far longer than I who have only begun as unemployment dictated. And - by the way - I am far too disorganized to go anywhere everyday at a certain time. They are the ones who look pityingly in our direction as I failed to produce even a peice of gum for my kid who was both hungry and thirsty. My "we live 2 minutes from here - lets just go home" even got a little shake of the head from one of them.

But I kept thinking of Kate Winslet. Because in the movie she got the super cute guy (if only for a little while) and in real life she got nominated for an Oscar. Who will be laughing when that happens to me, I ask silently to the super competant Moms? Who will be laughing then?

Six reasons why Facebook is Weird by Sandra

2007-07-20T21:41:00.000-05:00

Facebook is weird - and these are the six reasons why I think that. Lets start out by saying, my friends on facebook are people I actually know. Like my cousins. And my old neighbours. And people from highschool. And my actual friends.

1. My husband has a facebook and is friends with my friends. As George would say "worlds collide". Just makes me a little nuts. Especially when I say something to one of my friends and they reply - "oh I know, Wayne told me. we're friends - facebook friends!" Of COURSE it was a lie! Of course - but it was mighty disturbing anyway!

2. My old neighbour's husband facebooked me and added me as a friend - I couldn't see how I could say no. Now I see his updates about going home to "get on the right end of a fatty" and I worry more about what a terrible father he is to his 4 kids then I used to. Then I see his "notes" where he talks about what a terrible father he is and how his whole life is falling apart. And so now I worry about his wife - my friend. Am I allowed to call her and ask if everything is okay? Or is that cheating? Is it spying on people - if they come right out and SAY that they are upset and hurt to cross over from facebook friend to real friend and try to call them and see if you can help???? Where is the line people?

3. I'm friends with my cousin - who on facebook lists her interests as "women". Now we have long suspected she may in fact be a lesbian but do I now know that she is? Am I allowed to acknowledge it as if she has TOLD me that she is? Can I come out and say - I love you no matter what and if you need support - I'm here for you - or is that crossing the line from facebook reality to regular reality? Do I have to pretend not to know until she tells me?

4. I'm friends with my friends in real life on facebook. I don't live in the same city with them. I don't live in their pockets. Yet, I don't have to ask them what they are doing -- because there are events and they have signed up saying they are going.....and status updates tell me their every move. Is she on vacation? Is he in the garden? Is he at work? Is he at home faking sick while eating corn chips and masturbating? I KNOW this info whether I want to or not.

5. My sister in law is a facebook friend. She is still my sister in law as she and my brother are not yet divorced. Its nice - lets me see pictures of the kids and all.....but - then there was the update to her relationship status! "Tracy is in a relationship". Okay - with WHO? Can I ask that? Can I send her an email saying "yay for you!" Where is the line? Or do I do what I did and just pretend to have my hands over my ears and sing lallalalalalalala....

6. Facebook put me in touch with an old boyfriend. My first boyfriend. My first kiss. Pretty weird to reconnect after 25 years. Tonight I got a message from him apologizing for taking advantage of me - in a good way - he said that he was sorry for not appreciating that I wanted to be with him because now he finally sees "what a gift that was"- and sorry for the way things ended. He was happy I found someone better than him.
Now people, that shouldn't REALLY happen. That kind of shit - that full circle tie up loose ends shit - that happend in books. Not in real life. But, thanks to facebook - I have a novel ending to that horrific chapter in my life. Its probably a good thing for my self esteem but frankly it doesn't make it any less WEIRD!

And those are my reasons.

Its all about the story

2007-07-15T23:04:00.000-05:00

Its always to me been all about telling a good story. Not matter what, make the life you're living good enough that when you tell the story later, and you will, its a good story.

My favourite good story moment of the last few years happened at gay pride in the early 2000s. I can't remember specificially what year - it seems they have all blended in to one. Before I start the story - apologies to those who appear in the story who may not like their roles or the descriptions there of. Its MY story afterall.

This particular year I attended with a different bunch of folks then I normally do. I therefore expected a varying degree of fun - and before everyone gets their panties in a knot - I was WRONG.

It started with brunch at an all you can eat breakfast buffet. No bad can come from a day fuelled with BACON. Natures most heavenliest of foods. If it were not for bacon I would be a vegetarian today. But I can't give it up - its like a drug! If they could make something that tastes and smells JUST like bacon and was calorie free - they could make it out of old tires, I wouldn't even care - I would LOVE that. Just yum. But already by brunch two of our attendees had already punked out.

One of the cancellers was my cancelling out friend - EVERYONE has at least one cancelling out friend - think about it. The person that says they will be there - can't wait - sounds great! Then the week before the event has a tickle in their throat (this is what we call the pre-complaining stage) and you say "hmmm I understand". And then the day before - ooooh - its questionable if they can attend - malaria, period pains, gastrointestinal distress - etc. Then the day of, you get a call, email or text and unfortunately they can't make it. But, since its the cancelling out friend and you did have a week to prepare and you usually don't count on them anyway, its all good.

The second canceller was one of those people who just is so busy with work that they can't seem to have time to fit in life - and we all expect it - and its all okay. Soooo.... we're down to 4.

Erica - who I worked with, her friend Scott, and my friend Doug. We finished brunch, pushed our way through THRONGS of people and found ourselves a nice place on the parade route. The parade fuelled by Erica's giant bottle of strawberry wine masquerading as pink gatorade was boring as it normally is.

So we escaped to the Alexandra parkette to see what music was happening and hit the beer tent. Who do we find there? Cancelling friend number 2 who was supposed to be working. Whatever. He was suitably uncomfortable which made me happy. I'm often not as happy with revenge as I am with subtle guilt and the ability to be superior - just for a minute.

We left and went to the 501 beer garden - continuing our sad debaucery withoutScott. Somewhere in the afternoon Erica and Doug began discussing their mutual nipple peircings - a conversation I couldn't participate in not having one of my own. Then it started to rain. (It rarely rains on Pride day to eliminate the inevitable singing of "its raining men". )

Erica took off her shirt and so did Doug and the two of them danced shirtless in the rain. I took pictures. Of course I did. I felt it was my duty to record the day. And what I told each of them was - When I tell this story - and I will - you were both NAKED. That's it - dancing naked in the rain.

Monday rolled around and I took in the photos to be developed at my local grocery store - where I always get them developed. I went back end of the week to pick up the naked rain dancing photos and opened them up in the store - I couldn't wait to see what they looked like! I opened the photos and there were the pictures - of a baby shower. Who's baby shower? How the fuck should I know? I rushed back to the photo counter - and panicking asked the little stupid photo boy what had happened to my photos. Long story short - after much hullaballo - turns out that 5 people had their photos mixed up - someone got my naked rain dance photos and I got someone else's babyshower photos.....

The whole thing is - the story of dancing naked in the rain wasn't nearly as good until the photos showing the REAL version ended up with some nice polite suburban family looking for baby pictures with Uncle Fred. That's what MADE the story fun. Good enough fun to be a good story. And its all about the good story - isn't it?

You can't go home again

2007-07-12T21:49:00.000-05:00

I went home today - to Stratford and it brought back all kinds of stuff. Stuff. Just stuff.
Back in the day - I left home immediately after high school to move to Toronto - I couldn't wait to get free. So much so that I graduated high school a year early. I can't say just what it was that pushed me out or enticed me away but there was something and it was urgent and important.
When I lived in Toronto I would come home on the train. As the train got closer and closer to Stratford - closer and closer to home - I would get more and more nervous. I would leave my seat and make my way to the train washroom and check my makeup - make sure that everything was just right. Toronto Sandra needed to cover up what needed to be covered up and fluff what needed fluffing. I always freaked out about my clothing and worried that I was dressed right - making sure that I looked my very best.
It wasn't that I was trying to impress anyone in particular - mostly I was just trying to make sure that I had all my chutzpah before I landed at home. I needed to be Toronto Sandra before I got there so I could hold it together. Stratford Sandra held nothing together.
Stratford Sandra was different than Toronto Sandra.
Stratford Sandra remembered the summer between grade 13 and University when I had an interview to work at Kmart. The lady that interviewed me actually told me that she couldn't hire me because I wouldn't fit into the uniform - which at that time was a horrid polyester overblouse with gabardine pants. Because of my gigantic girth I couldn't be a cashier at Kmart. There went my career plans.
Today - as I drove towards Stratford two decades later - I actually put on lipstick while drive 100km/h on the highway. And strangely it brought all that junk flooding back. I had that panic again today - that I'm not good enough - I'm too ugly - too fat - too stupid - MUST get out....must be Toronto Sandra because the uniform doesn't fit Stratford Sandra.
What would have happened if I'd stayed?
As I sat at the Erie Drive In waiting for my battered mushroom lunch I looked at the giant mouth breather amish-looking guy - waiting for his fish burger - and driving away in his big man pick up truck. I bet I could have gotten some guy like that to knock me up. I could have been his dutiful wife popping out babies and keeping a decent (although not likely clean!) home and making my family jams and preserves. We would have gone camping every summer and it would have been just what I wanted.
Or - conversely I could have been a great single mom - living in the city housing out by the old drive-in - watching as my kids ran shoeless across the parking lot towards the broken down playground. I could have whipped up nutrient rich meals with my cunning use of condensed milk, bologna and frozen veggies. I could be the teller with a heart of gold just working my ass off to make a living for my poor fatherless brood, hanging out at Classics on a Saturday night trying to find them another daddy.
Or I could have gone back home - taken that University degree that I never finished and got myself a good job as a paralegal. I could have scrimped and saved and bought myself a nice decent townhouse in the good part of town behind the new fire station. I would have tastefully decorated with a pleasant mixture of innovative paint techniques and figurines. On Saturday nights my old friend and I would sit with popcorn and big glasses of gin and tonic and watch sad girl movies sobbing out our eyes for the loves we never found and the boys that never felt us up.
But none of those things happened. None of those Sandras materialized. Not that I'm saying that Toronto Sandra is any great shake. She has her share of ups and downs and her life certainly never turned out like a plan or a novel that anyone would purposely make. She still makes the effort though to pretend to rise above the rats ass girl she left behind.
Stratford makes me slightly nuts. I'm a mix of emotions the whole time I'm there - full of memories and regrets and insecurities. I like to keep the visits short. Very short.

I read the news today - oh boy.

2007-07-10T01:07:00.000-05:00

Its funny isn't it - how news comes to us.
Today I got many emails, a couple of phone calls - some IMs and some posts on facebook and read a few messages on myspace. Lots of news. Lots of people in my life- its funny how they come and go.
I love when you sign on to email and it says there is a new message. Even if its just Amazon saything that my order has shipped - it shippped! WOW.
But, more than that, I love the blip of IM. That sound - that prescious sound - telling you someone is saying something to you - RIGHT NOW. Whether its written or spoken its conversation and isn't it amazing?
Today I got an email from a friend on the other side of the universe saying that his mother is dying. She has inoperable brain cancer and 3 months to get her affairs in order. I felt so awful for him. So awful for his mom.
How hard was it for him to write this email? Was it as hard as it was for me to read it?
It took me a while to write back - what do you say to that?
What I said was this:
You poor thing. I'm so sorry for you - your family and your Mom to have your time together cut short. Its cruel. I've been through one of the doctor count downs with my Dad and it sucks. They gave you a gift. They have given you time - and don't waste it. Do your mother a favour and tell her whenever you can how much she means to you - how much you've learned from her and how much you love her. Don't wait until its "the end". Life isn't like tv - sometimes there isn't a big farewell scene where everyone makes their peace. Use your time wisely and love her a lot - you won't get another chance. If you need me - want me - or help - please call.
I've done both deaths with my parents - the long drawn out 6 month farwell where I did just as I said there - told my dad all that I could and showed him how much he meant to me. And I did the sudden death - where I regret each day not telling my Mom that she was the best Mom ever and the perfect Mom for me. Both were awful.
Its important to us all to tell everyone that we care about how much we care for them whenever we have the chance and to value people as our life happens. Life IS NOT tv. There are no Gilmour Girls wordy protestations of love - you just have to take your chances as the moments come.
When the email beeps and the IM makes its blip - I'm excited. Because these people are people that I care about - okay - maybe not Amazon - but still. Thank you for emailing me people - even those f-ing chain emails are okay with me.
And I'm sorry so so sorry for my friend and for his Mom - I hope they use their time wisely.

2007-07-08T18:50:00.000-05:00

Several hours - I've been writing blogs for hours and hours and hours - and publishing none of them - blah. And I just can't make it come out - somehow something isn't quite ready.

I had a nice weekend full of fun fun family Fletcher things. Which, after the week we had, I wasn't sure was possible.

Whoever tells you that being unemployed, staying home and taking care of a family is easy work is full of crap. Absolute complete crap.

My sons are 6 and 9. The six year old has attitude and a slight speech impediment and YELLS absolutely everything all the time. I think its so he can be better understood.

My 9 year old has a quick temper and the attitude of someone of the ripe old age of 12. Both hate everything and are likely bored already before anything has even had the possibility of starting.
Now, I don't profess to have ever been a model child. I was boring to the nth degree. As a matter of fact, when I was a teenager my mother took me aside and said that if I didn't go out and get into some trouble that I was doomed to never have any fun at all.

I had that same attitude they have and I too was perpetually bored. But nowadays kids are multi-tasking boredom.

My kids like to flip through a magazine while they play their gameboys and watch cartoons. They listen to music while they read a book. They swim and use their waterguns while the gameboy charges. They call their friends and talk on the phone about pokemon while they battle each other real time on line. Its near impossible to keep them entertained.

By Friday afternoon this week I was ready to duct tape them to the wall until they withered up and died.

I could do no right. No one would pick up after themselves. The food I made was boring, their lives were a misery and it was all my fault.

But saturday, things seemed to change. We went to karate like normal, then mini-putt, the batting cages, had a dinner that everyone one ate(!), went night swimming in the little backyard pool, lit the tiki torches and watched a movie that we ALL enjoyed. My husband made me mixed rum pomegranite cocktails that we drank outside watching the kids and we talked - really talked about the future.

It was really really nice.

No one fought - no one tried to kill anyone!

I know, I was shocked too!

Today even...we had baseball practice in the rain - and it was fun and no one complained. Everyone made their own lunch (!) and even cleared their area afterwards. Ben graduated from yellow belt to orange at karate and although the ceremony and display were painfully long and exceedingly dull - we all got through it. We even went to Dairy Queen afterwards like a normal family.

Today we went to the farm market near home and bought corn on the cob, tomatoes (both hot house no doubt but who cares!) and peas, radishes and baby potatoes. We had fresh veggies with herbs from my herb garden and beer can chicken. It smelled so good that even I had a bite of the chicken (and then I remembered it was chicken and ew).

It sounds so mundane writing it down but these are the kind of weekends that I aspire to. Where not much happens. We laugh. No one tries to beat anyone with a shovel - simple things (not that that EVER happened!)

I hope that these are the weekends that the kids remember.

I remember weekends like that with my parents.

I remember driving out to Pletch's farm on the highway with my Mom. She would be wearing her bathing suit (we had an inground pool) and wouldn't get out of the car - so I had to! And I would get 3-4 DOZEN corn on the cob and a basket of tomatoes. And that is what we would have for dinner in the dead of summer.

My mom had this thing she did for the corn - see if you can follow these instructions. Wash out one miracle whip jar - it must be miracle whip because the mouth of the jar needs to be big enough. Place one pound of butter in the miracle whip jar. Cover the butter with boiling water.

Dip your corn into the butter/water sludge. Butter should adhere to the corn. Devour. This mix can be remicrowaved for future use but in our house it barely lasted the one meal!

Family and fun isn't all about food - but to me it is intertwined.

One of the things that I want for my little family is to have big extended family. Oops. My family lives a million miles from here. I think I need to build one from friends. You can do that you know.

Up my ass

2007-07-03T22:53:00.001-05:00

The world is up my ass today with its petty frustrations - so I'm going to share them, get them off my chest, and move on. Yes, clear my brain of world cookies and get on with it!

I went to the doctor today fearing bad news. And what did I get? The run around. I am being sent to yet another doctor - another specialist. Its in the same fucking place - why couldn't I just go today? I'm already there - its Toronto people - like 45 minutes from where I live! And why did I have to wait in line for 15 minutes for them to tell me that I have to come back next week? Seriously? Why?

I bought sushi today. Vegetarian sushi cause, ew, fish is gross. Apparently to the sushi people, eggs are vegetables. COLD eggs. EW EW EW EW. The 2 egg ones were icky - removed the egg and all was good. But come on people. Eggs do not GROW out of the ground. Gheesh.

I have job placement assistance for one month from the day of my dismissal - which for those of you playing the Sandra Home Game was May 31st. Um - hello - thanks for finally returning my bloody call last WEEK! So, she says, send me your resume and I will revamp it and make it spectacular. Okay. Its a human resources company that I worked for so I trust you. I got back a 1970s version of my resume stripped down with an Objective (does ANYONE use those anymore? seriously!) It was horrible. She even changed my font to something boring and antiquated. What the fuck is the point of offering people who find people employment assistance in finding employment????????

I have $12 left in my overdraft at the bank. Seriously. Okay, my husband gets paid tomorrow but DAMN - where the friggin hell is my EI? Or the money that I earned (and oh boy did I earn it!) working at the school??? I'm dying here. Tonight I had to buy milk and it left me with 47 cents in my wallet. Seriously Canada - help me out here!

I have sent out over 40 resumes in the last month and gotten ZERO replies. How much do I suck? What the fuck is wrong with me/my resume?? Surely to holy crapping hannah somebody somewhere needs me to do something. I'm good - I swear!

Alright. Air is cleared. I feel much better. Thanks.

Before they tell me

2007-07-03T22:53:00.000-05:00

My doctor rocks. I don't want to give the impression that I don't think that the sun shines out of his ass because I totally do. He's just anal retentive enough to worry about the right things but he is irreverant enough to tell me when I'm being insane.
Case and point - I showed up all teary and horrible. I'd been having panic attacks - he gave me tranquillizers which I dutifully carried around in my purse and never took. Still had the panic attacks - I just liked to know that I had the tranquillizers available....just in case. So I'm in his office - crying that the blubbering puke you all know I am - and I say through my tears "am I crazy?" and he says in his no nonsense way "no. actually you are psychotic." Strangely it made me feel better.
Then there was the time that Wayne dropped Ben - who was about 4 months old - on his head in the Toys R Us parking lot - just slipped and fell. The doctor told me his story....seems he and his wife (who is my gynecologist if anyone is keeping score out there) were giving their new baby a bath. Naked babies are slippery and they dropped their son head first into the toilet. He said, when you've done something THAT stupid - then we will talk about guilt!
He's pretty cool.
He's also on vacation in Europe with his wife and kids (neither of whom have brain damage) from June 21 to Septemeber 8th. Ack.
So instead of leaving my final diagnosis/prognosis/treatment plan to a locum, he referred me to his wife's boss - the head of gyne at Sunnybrook (big Toronto Hospital). Tomorrow afternoon, she decides what happens to me. Do I go to an oncologist? More tests? Chemo? Radiation? Are we done? Just starting? If there is a 90% recurrance rate - WTF? Where is that primary cancer anyway? Could I really be so lucky?
I wish my Doctor was here. I could use the irreverence. I could use a friend there with me really. I'm scared putrid to be totally honest. I imagine the doctor would say, as he has before "we're all going to die stupid, its just a question of when". And ironically that would make me feel better.

Higher Education

2007-07-02T14:04:00.001-05:00

Last week was report card week for my kids. I did one of those dreadful Mom type things and actually cried while reading my kid's report cards. Sad but true.

I protest too much and constantly feel the need to tell people I'm a good Mom. I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to prove and to whom but, again, I swear to you, I'm a good Mom. Unconventional maybe but good.

I force my kids to do their homework every day. If they do their homework at the babysitters house before I pick them up, they can play video games all night if they want. I am convinced that Pokemon has taught them math and strategic thinking. Seriously. If a Chimchar has 25HP fights a Turtwig with 25HP and both are level 5 a Chimchar will win because fire beats grass. Duh. (BTW I didn't make that up, I asked my 6 year old.)

Then, when my kids get good marks - and I mean over 90, I bribe them again. Over 90 gets $5 and 100% you get $10. Ben saved his money and bought a nintendo DS system for $149 - not bad for a 9 year old - a 9 year old that got a B, 3 As and an A+ in math this year. My point is, I pay for it now as a reward or I use the money later to bail them out of prison.

I've found out what motivates my kids and I've used it to get the best from them.

So, 2 report cards - and all As and Bs with the exception of one mark - a D in Drama and Dance for Ben. Obviously the teacher gave him some other kid's mark by mistake - cause he is the most dramatic kid that I've ever met. He gets it from me. Seriously.

But yes, I want them to continue to be those kids. Its not easy - its hard to say to your kids "all the cool hip kids are getting As in Science - un hun."

I want to be a good Mom - and have well rounded smart funny kids. They are smart - and they are hysterically funny. The other day, we were discussing Sammy's speech problems. Ben said that Sammy pronounced things with a "british" accent. I said - give me an example of what you say that is British - and Sammy - who you will remember is ONLY 6 said in his best Little Britain Daffyd "gay gay homosexual gay!" They are funny kids.

But, are they sociable? Not really. They also get that from me. They don't make friends easily. Sammy is popular and Ben is awkward. I'm working on it. I am. Because I TRY to be a good Mom. I try really really hard.

Pride

2007-07-02T09:49:00.000-05:00

I was sitting in Union station - waiting for the GO train home to suburbia last weekend after a fun fun fun day of pride filled activities with my friends. Approaching me from accross the station was a little gay child about 19 or 20 or so. He sat down beside me and we started chatting. He told me this was his very first pride - and we talked about what he had seen and how he had enjoyed himself. And in my head, I'm thinking - HOW THE HELL does he know that its okay to just come up to me - middle aged woman with kids and start chatting about his gay-ness and fun homo fueled activities? I know I have quite the most developed gaydar on the planet but how the hell could he tell that from accross Union station at midnight?

Oh. Right. I'm wearing a bright pink "its okay for me to drink at pride" bracelet. Well, that explains a lot right there!

Ali and I continued our chat on the train ride home. We talked about art, photography and his struggle to come out - apparently its not easy being a gay Muslim.

About half way to suburbia, he said to me: Are you a fag hag?

I had a conversation with my friend earlier that day about the role of the fag hag and how it has changed throughout the years. Back in the 1980s fag hags were essential to the inner sanctum of any group of gay men. We were your wedding dates, prom dates and accompanied you to all things where you needed to hide your homosexuality (i.e. work christmas parties and family reunions). As the years progressed, with the "will and grace"-ing of American and more importantly Canada, covering up became a mute point. Why cover up?

As gay right progressed and the country grew to accept the gay couple down the street with their kids and two cars, as the second cup steps were torn down and homosexuals were allowed to marry, there no longer was a need to hide. You could be out at work, at home and with your family. The role of fag hag ostensibly disappeared.

But Ali wanted to know if I was one - so I asked back - "why would you ask me that?" And he replied "well, you were at pride, you don't look like a dyke, you're wearing a wedding ring and you're fat."

All of these are very valid points and totally true. If that is the criteria he is using for someone to be a fag hag then yes. Yes I am. I wonder though - to him was fag hag less about being a "beard" and more about being a fat hetero girl with gay friends? Perhaps now adays a fag hag still exists but she has a different purpose or meaning. I can't say because I don't know.

I said good bye to Ali on the train and went my merry way into my own suburban hell. No matter what role I had that day, I had a good time.

Suburban Blues

2007-06-30T15:46:00.000-05:00

I discovered sad scary things about the effects of living in suburbia this weekend.
The most horrific being that there are only 2 places to buy CDs in this town. Two. Yes two.
I wanted to buy Amy Winehouse - my husband thinks I'm insane, but I'm hoping to see her at Osheaga this fall and in spite of it taking a while for me to warm to her, I think I'm ready. But NO. Apparently here in Ajax, its not meant to be. For neither WalMart nor Futureshop have the CD. I'd like to think that they just sold out but, I'm not so sure. Nope. Not sure at all. It could be suburban conspiracy that is keeping out all negative influences. I did see an awful lot of Martina McBride. EW.
I also discovered that there is no place to just go for a drink in the middle of the day.
I'm having a particularly bad day people. One of those ones where something is wrong and I can't quite put my finger on it. I'm not sure if its because: my kids are sick and horrible today, or my husband is being an ass, my friends could care less because basically I haven't called any of them and they aren't psychic or anything, I see the doctor next week for next steps in the great cancer journey and everyone including me seems to have lost interest in my impending mortality and morbidity, I have no job and no prospects of said job, my EI hasn't kicked in yet, I have no money, I have no parents and no one to just reach in and tell me that its all okay.
I thought - good God - I'll just run away, hit some bar, have a couple of drinks and numb my senses for just a bit. Sure its a stupid idea - but what the fuck, I've done stupider stuff. But I couldn't even find a bar.
I live in the land of strip malls and superstores. We don't have bars or record stores, butchers or bakeries. We have assimilated all of these functions into one giant mastermall. If you go to the mall - you will see all of your neighbours and colleagues and friends there. Why? Because they have no where else to go either. There is zero anonymity here.
God, its so depressing.
So I came home, ate a bunch of good for me fruit, had a green tea and fell asleep watching "Pretty in Pink". I can't even self destruct properly. Probably I should have drank myself blind, ate chocolate bon bons and watched "Natural Born Killers".
I think its time to move.

ADDENDUM: I had a giant tequila, 3/4 of a bag of chips and some dip and ordered Amy Winehouse off Amazon.

its been a long time

2007-06-28T14:03:00.000-05:00

Yes, its been a long time since I've tried my hand at poetry so apologies if it sounds like it was written by an angst-ridden teenager.

She whines
like an asthmatic refridgerator
humming to herself
shuffling up and down
making the occasional
unintelligable murmur
(what was that?)
mulling it over
They said,
"Everyone has to have a home,
you don't always need to be alone."
In her home
with the tv on
and the sound turned off.

Impulsive forever
like a whim that never stops
(a good idea gone bad with time and neglect)
whims
she didn't know what they were
or why she had to have them
but she assumed she did and that was all she had to know.

She is this very instant
asleep at the wheel
its cold in there
with the key in the ignition and the lights off
- they smashed the windsheild-
and left shards everywhere

She has never now been more awake
setting her face against the elements
-frowning into the wind-
not knowing that nothing can stop it
from blowing right through her.

Serenity

2007-06-27T14:05:00.000-05:00

I have a new friend. His name is Dan. Who what where why when how not important really. But he has described in his blog, our relationship as "a bubbly and serendipitous" one. I thought about that at the time that I read it and thought - yep - we are lucky to have met. But, I think its more than that. Serendipity, as I understand it, and you KNOW I looked it up, is being lucky enough to find something don't know that you need when you don't know you need it and aren't really looking for it.
I found a friend who I didn't think I needed. But that I want. He, likely, and I am speaking for him, doesn't need me around - he has his own friends. And that's just pretty cool to me.
I spend a lot of my life doing things out of obligation - whether real or imagined. I'm the kind of person who sends emails thanking people for coming to dinner parties that I give. I don't wait to be thanked - I thank in advance. I always write thank you cards for gifts. I always remember birthdays and Christmases, send presents for the kids teachers and live a life based upon polite obligation. Sometimes it can be a bit much but, at this point, 41 years down the road, its part of who I am.
Obligation to me is not an affectation either. I don't do it for attention or return of that duty but I do it the same way that I say bless you when someone sneezes - its automatic.
Those of us who live our lives in politeness tend to be the world's great givers. We LOVE to take, don't get me wrong, but it gives us far more pleasure to give. We are the world's volunteers, the designated drivers, the responsible ones, the ones to be relied upon.
Getting back to my new friend Dan....for the first time in my life I feel no responsibility or obligation to another person - just like for no reason or happenstance. Not in a mean "I don't care what you think or what your needs are" kind of way but in a really good way. In a " I honestly do - care what you think" kind of way. Its very freeing.
Not that the rest of my friends, and you know who you are- should feel that I am dissing them for not being my serendips! No way! I truly believe that people in your life are there for a reason - each person that you meet has a part to play - and for that matter, as do I in their lives.
And I'm sure that there is someone out there saying - good God girl - do you really need more faggots in your life? Well, you know, unless I am going to put "must be fuckable" on my friend application, I don't see how it matters. I think for me, that too is just a happenstance.
What I'm trying to say is getting more complicated as I try to explain it. Every person you meet -every person you know has a place and serves a purpose - then someone comes along who doesn't fit - who doesn't know all your stories, doesn't already know your weaknesses, doesn't know who you really are already. And you get to re-tell your self and all the stories about yourself as you introduce your self to the new person. You get to be excite,d because someone likes you the way you came prepackaged with the label torn off and one corner missing. And its okay because you don't owe them anything. If they don't like it they can walk away - and so can you. No obligations.
It may be a stretch to bubbly serendipity but the reason that I feel so lucky is that I often feel so loved and just as often feel so unloved. This person - this friendship - it comes obligation free and purposeless and free of encumbrance - and for this I am grateful and excited.
Serendipity.
Turns out I am an excellent judge of character.