Diary of a sxKitten

So Long, Farewell, Au Revoir, Auf Weidersehen

2005-11-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

Something something something about champagne ...

Fresh new posts are being served here.

Moving On

2005-11-28T12:58:00.000-08:00

Well, the curtains are up in the new place, the furniture's been rearranged a couple of times, and I've started unpacking boxes. I've even had a couple of visitors drop by with freshly baked comments. So I guess this is it for dear old Blogger. It's been a swell run - a good starter blog, well worth the investment. And I've still got some time left on the lease here, so the archives will remain until handyman Dean figures out how to relocate them.

Drop on by the new homestead for a visit when you get a minute - I'll keep the kettle on.

Moving

2005-11-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

Dean has set up a shiny new blog for me over here. I love the new look, but I'm torn. I'm comfortable here. It's easy, and familiar. The new blog is so ... empty. And new and strange - kind of like the first night you spend in a new home. You know you're going to like it more than the old place, because it has more rooms, and a bigger yard, and a pool, but right now it's just big and different, and the doors aren't where you expect them, and the noises are different.

Gotta Wear Shades

2005-11-24T15:17:00.000-08:00

I've never quit a job - of the first 3 companies I worked for, I was fired every time. The first one, I believe, was political. My father happened to work for the same company - different department, different floor, you name it. The only thing we had in common was the last name. He fell victim to some very high level machinations, and was let go with a very generous package so that he'd leave happy. Which he did. They even gave him a chainsaw as a lovely parting gift.

I was let go, suddenly and without warning, a few months later. Sans generous package, sans chainsaw, sans happy departure. Que sera sera.

Employer number 2: I went in round 4 of 6 or 7 rounds of downsizing after the company changed owners. Nice package, nice people, not heartbroken when the time came. It was no longer a happy place to work. Still no chainsaw, though.

Employer number 3: probably could have gone to court over this one. In short, I was dumped because I chose to get pregnant and go on maternity leave. They waited just long enough so their motive wasn't obvious. Dean would still like to burn the building down. Partly politically motivated (they fired my boss 2 weeks after she fired me), partly sexist (they got rid of 4 of the 5 senior women in the company in about 3 months). Again no chainsaw, although Dean would have put one to good use.

Firings 1 and 3 caught me totally off guard - mostly because I totally suck at spotting and moving with political trends.

Now on my fourth employer, I am, as you might imagine, a little gunshy about such things. So yesterday when my boss called me into his office for a closed-door conversation, I was more than a little apprehensive. His glum expression didn't help. I figured my days were numbered (and probably my hours and minutes, if past experience was anything to go by).

As it turns out, the work I did a few weeks ago did not go unnoticed, and the executive VP wants me to give some thought to my future with the company.

Until that point, I didn't think I had much of a future. I've been on temporary contract here for almost 2 years, and have been told on several occasions that a permanent position would not be forthcoming unless I was willing to work full time. Which I'm not.

But now, it seems, I Have Value, and have been asked to Visualize My Future and Consider My Options. More than one option. Four, even. Options in which they're willing to work around my insistence that I don't do Tuesdays.

This is a new experience for me.

The Changeling

2005-11-23T13:01:00.000-08:00

Here you see an ordinary, albeit oddly dressed, lad:

Sadly, he was bitten by a werewolf. Here you see him emerging from his lair:

And here the transformation is complete:

Getting All Artsy & Stuff

2005-11-21T19:37:00.000-08:00

We've been playing around with some of the more frou-frou capabilities of our photo-editing software, with some not displeasing results.

Here's an arbutus I snapped last month:

And here's the same tree subjected to some techno-painting:

The view from the top of Campbell Bay on a foggy, foggy day:

And some tweaked versions:

Ain't technology wonderful?

I'm Off

2005-11-18T12:45:00.000-08:00

For the weekend, that is, although some people might say it's a permanent condition.

At 6:30 this evening, I'll be here:

And sometime later (theoretically 8, but with BC Ferries, theory and practice never meet up), I'll be here:

My folks picked up the monkeychild (who woke me up at 5:22 am - have I mentioned that I'm not a morning person?) this morning, so he'll be waiting at the Mayne terminal, in his pj's and winter jacket, to meet me.

I'll be offline all weekend, but if all goes according to plan, there'll be a fresh new post from me tomorrow morning over here, with lots of linky goodness.

Have a great weekend, y'all!

D&D Flashback

2005-11-17T16:22:00.000-08:00

I Am A: Chaotic Good Elf Fighter Ranger

Alignment:
Chaotic Good characters are independent types with a strong belief in the value of goodness. They have little use for governments and other forces of order, and will generally do their own things, without heed to such groups.

Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existence.

Primary Class:
Fighters are the warriors. They use weapons to accomplish their goals. This isn't to say that they aren't intelligent, but that they do, in fact, believe that violence is frequently the answer.

Secondary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Deity:
Tymora is the Chaotic Good goddess of luck and good fortune. She is also known as Lady Luck, and also Tyche's fair-tressed daughter. Followers of Tymora believe in the tenet that, 'Fortune Favors the Bold,' and will throw caution to the wind and trust to luck to work things out for the best. Tymora's symbol is an unmarked silver disk.

Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of NeppyMan

What Fresh Hell Is This?

2005-11-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

I had a dentist appointment today, one of my all-time favourite activities¹. Just a cleaning, but with the anticipation of more to come. There's always more to come - I think I've had exactly 3 checkups in my entire life that didn't require follow-up work. This time, only 23 fillings, 12 root canals, and 48 crowns. Or thereabouts. I'm guessing someone has a 2006 BMW on his Christmas wish list.

After reading Wheelson's post on the subject, I spent a lot of time earlier this week contemplating my flavour options ². I also noted with interest the comments on some sort of new-fangled ultra sonic thingamabob, and wondered when my oh-so-progressive dentist would ante up for the latest and greatest in high tech gadgetry.

Turns out he already did. My first warning came when the hygienist asked if I was bothered by the cavitron. Now a cavitron, to me, sounds like something an Evil Dentist would use on an unsuspecting population to increase business: All will bow before me and pay tribute or I will unleash the terror of my CAVITRON 2000 upon your village!

It was a rather hideous experience - in addition to spraying water all over the place, the cavitron emits a ^high-pitched whine, almost but sadly not quite inaudible. And when it hits a crown, it goes up an octave - a sound I don't think humans are supposed to register, but I heard it. I guess I had bone conduction to thank there. At first, I thought it was tolerable - possibly even preferable to the traditional scraping with a rusty pick. At least it seemed to be going faster. But then she started working the molars, and it felt like she was driving needles into my gums with every move. Definitely worse than the scraping.

By the time she finished, I was a sweaty mess, digging holes in the arms of the chair, every muscle clenched. At least it was over, I thought.

I was wrong. The sonic needle of torment was not instead of the scrape-y pick, it was in addition to.

I hate dentists.
_______________________________________________

1. I lie.

2. Went with mint paste, thinking that was a safe bet, but then had to choose between grape and berry fluoride, neither of which goes well with menthol - next time I'll explore both sets of options before committing.

November, Inside & Out

2005-11-15T17:09:00.000-08:00

Grey and dreary, in other words. Not as bleak as January, for which I am grateful, but grim enough.

I wish it were May.

Take Off Your Tinfoil Hats

2005-11-14T13:01:00.000-08:00

It's all a hoax, people. A giant, government-perpetuated hoax.

MIT scientists have proven that tinfoil hats do not block radio waves. Even worse, they actually amplify key frequency ranges reserved for government use.

It's over, people. The mind-controllers have won.

Forgot To Mention

2005-11-13T20:26:00.000-08:00

I posted on Jim Winter's blog again yesterday.

Memories

2005-11-13T13:47:00.000-08:00

I ran across a reference to learning to type on computer, and was reminded of our first family PC, the Radio Shack TRS 80 Coco. My Dad brought it home in 1980. It ran off the TV, and loaded programs off a little cassette player. You had to remember to turn the volume down, though - the screeching as it read files was truly horrifying.

We subscribed to the monthly CoCo newsletter, which came with a cassette of new programs, all designed to make the most of CoCo's 4K RAM. Most were boring, at least as far as my siblings and I were concerned, although I'm sure the h@x0rs who wrote them didn't think so. I do remember one with great fondness, though - Hunt for Nauga. Your character, X, wandered through forests of trees, ^, and fired arrows, ->, which moved with agonizing slowness across the green screen. Thrilling times, I tell you, thrilling times.

Eventually we upgraded to a Commodore 64, and experienced the joy of Space Invaders first hand, but I'll never forget good old Nauga. The searing pain of playback, with the tapedeck volume cranked to the max, made sure of that.

Seven Things

2005-11-11T15:09:00.000-08:00

The Seven Meme - inspired by Diva & Christopher

7 Things I Can Do:
1. Play the clarinet.
2. Change a flat tire.
3. Whip up a gourmet meal.
4. Recite The Tale of Custard the Dragon from memory.
5. Water ski. Not well.
6. Comfort and soothe my children when they're sick or hurt.
7. Speak French.

7 Things I Can't Do:
1. The splits. Not now, nor at any time in my past.
2. Finish a book after it becomes obvious that something bad is going to happen to a child therein.
3. Remain dry-eyed during either Anne of Green Gables or Dean's Mountain Snowdrop story.
4. Walk out of synch with the muzak at a mall, unless I devote my full attention to the effort.
5. Be rude to my parents.
6. See the hidden image in those stupid Magic Pictures.
7. Kill a man just to watch him die.

7 Things I Have In My Life Now That I Am So Incredibly Grateful For:
1. Dean
2. Our children
3. And the rest of my family.
4. My health.
5. My friends.
6. A big, hungry brain and the curiousity to keep it well fed.
7. Life in a developed nation, where I can be reasonably sure no one I care about will die of malnutrition or treatable disease.

7 Things I Hope To Do Before I Die:
1. Travel - all over the place. Where is less important than with whom.
2. See my children's children grow up happy and healthy.
3. Learn to ride a horse (again).
4. Have a greenhouse so I can indulge my green thumb.
5. Learn to love early mornings.
6. Spend at least 60 years with Dean.
7. Learn to dance.

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

2005-11-10T13:04:00.000-08:00

From an email I received yesterday: I look forward to having this information from you by Nov 22.

From a voicemail left this morning by the same person: I thought you were going to have that information to me yesterday afternoon.

Light

2005-11-07T15:56:00.000-08:00

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

--Marianne Williamson--

My employer has started a yoga class at lunchtime on Mondays. I've been to three sessions now, and am enjoying it far, far more than I expected (and my expectations were pretty high). I find I am way more relaxed and energized on Monday afternoons, and not at all subject to the usual post-lunch doldrums.

At the end of each class, after the 15 minutes we spend contemplating nirvana, or our navels (or trying not to fall asleep, as the case may be), the instructor reads us a short, inspirational poem. While I usually scoff at inspirational anythings¹, today's poem, above, struck a chord². I am frequently³ guilty of "shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure". I only excel at things no one else is interested in trying, because I don't want to make anyone else feel bad by being better than they are.

It's not a productive thing to do.

And, in a nice piece of serendipity, I received a gift today. A gift in recognition of the outstanding work I did on the project which consumed most of my time over the last 3 weeks. A project into which I threw myself wholeheartedly because it was something no one else in the company could do.

I need to find more of those, but I also need to let myself shine the rest of the time. Even if there's competition. Because I'm not helping anyone by hiding behind mediocrity.

_______________________________________________________________

1. Have you seen The Demotivators? My inner cynic loves this site.

2. No, I don't particularly believe in God, but it really doesn't change the sentiment of the poem if you leave him/her/it out of the equation.

3. As in more than once a day. Probably closer to once an hour, except when I'm sleeping.

Neu Neu Neuticles

2005-11-06T11:20:00.000-08:00

"The revolutionary testicular implant procedure for pets"

We discovered these about 5 years ago, when my sister had Murphy The Travellin' Lab fixed, and many hours of hilarity ensued.

I revisited the site recently, and discovered that it's only gotten better with age. From the FAQ:

My vet said Neuticles are not ethical. Is that true?
We feel the removal of a God given body part - leaving a male pet looking unwhole after the traditional form of neutering is not only unethical but unnatural.

So removing a God given body part is unethical, but replacing it with a wholly synthetic substitute isn't?

Is one Neuticles model better than the other?
Each Neuticles model is equally superior.

Huh?

Some pets develop scar tissue ... the way to eliminate potential development is to gently massage the Neuticles weekly.

Aren't there laws against that? Talk about puppy love ...

Will my pet retain those 'nasty' male habits?

Like hogging the remote and leaving the seat up?

The number one reason to neuticle your pet? Rush Limbaugh says "Neuticles are just plain neat!"

As One Might Expect

2005-11-05T15:44:00.000-08:00

Doing yoga in the presence of a talkative leaping goon is 85% less relaxing than doing yoga alone. Especially when said leaping goon attempts to climb you during the warrior posture.

On a totally unrelated note, I have posted what I consider to be one of my better lunatic ideas here, where Jim graciously invited me to guest blog while he attempts the nightmare that is NaNoWriMo.

Another World

2005-11-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

I had lunch today with a friend who grew up in India¹. She went back to visit her parents this summer, then spent some time with her inlaws. Her niece, who was visiting from England, was invited over to the next-door neighbours', to see the new pet they had bought for their grandchildren.

A baby elephant.

Leaving aside the whole issue of who cleans up after the elephant in your backyard², how cool is that?

_________________________________________________________

1. I must confess that I've always been fascinated by ancient cultures, particularly those in hot countries. I'd love to visit Egypt (the Valley of the Kings in particular), Turkey (the Hagia Sophia and the library at Ephesus), Greece ... and India. I know it's not the land of the Raj anymore, but it's such an amazingly varied land. My friend grew up in Kerala (the setting for Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things) and I'd love to go there.

2. I realize there are ethical and moral issues here, but it's not like we don't have our own animal problems here in America del norte.

A Strange Phenomenon

2005-11-03T19:41:00.000-08:00

I have discovered of late a strange thing about blogging. When I'm alone - falling asleep, driving, waiting for someone - I play with ideas. Some of them have been bouncing around in my head for years. I've even blogged about some of them.

Here's the weird thing - the ones I've blogged about stop bouncing around my skull shortly after being committed to pixellated notoriety. For example, I no longer make my washroom stall selection out of a desire to foil would-be assassins. I didn't realize I'd stopped until I noticed that instead of choosing stalls at random at work, I'd been taking the one closest to the door for a couple of weeks.

The same is true for things that bug me - one self-aggrandizing ex-husband in particular. Once I've vented here, I stop worrying about them.

The latter is a good thing - blogging as stress relief and unloader of psychic burdens. The former, however, worries me a little. I like my weird ideas, and I worry that there is a less than infinite supply. What happens if I write everything good here, and wind up with nothing to entertain myself with on long drives? Will I start arguing with talk radio dj's, or singing along with Britnee/Ashlee/Flavourofthemonthlee, or voting NDP?

So I'm thinking I need to stop giving up the good stuff here, and just write about things that bother me. Turn this into a pure whine-blog. That way, I can maintain a high level of personal weirdness ad infinitum.

I'm idiosyncratic, and I'm proud!

Not Like It Sounds

2005-11-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

I just received an email containing the phrase "Please make sure he includes the groove tongues ..."

Anybody care to speculate?

Welcome Back, Diva & Chris!

2005-10-30T20:23:00.000-08:00

We've missed you here in our little corner of cyberspace.

The newlywed Mr. Murphy tagged me upon his return, so here goes:

1. Go into your archives.
Wow, who knew I'd written so much

2. Find your 23rd post.
Got it.

3. Post the fifth sentence.

He just can't get over what a fabulous guy he is, and it must be a continuous source of confusion to him that everyone doesn't share his opinion.

4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
Done.

5. Tag five other people to do the same thing.
Who to tag, who to tag ...

Trillian
Carmi
Amanda
Umm ... will anyone who hasn't already been tagged elsewhere ever read this? Unlikely, I fear.

Youthful Indiscretions

2005-10-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

And the commission thereof when one no longer qualifies as strictly youthful (but still useful, one hopes).

I bought myself a black velour tracksuit today, not entirely dissimilar to the ones that were trendy when I was a teen (I had a plum-coloured outfit when I was 13 or so). They've started a yoga class at work, and I need something stretchy to wear. I looked at official yoga pants, but they were 60 bucks and I had an unenthusiastic 9-year-old in tow. Then we walked past one of the trendy teenybopper stores I always avoid, and they had rack upon rack of velour right out front, so we wandered in. Fifteen bucks for pants and a hoodie, and Chickadee was most enthusiastic about the velour, so I took the plunge - without trying them on in the store. Sometimes you just have to live dangerously.

Dean eyed the outfit somewhat dubiously when I got home - it is at the J-Lo end of the fashion spectrum - but changed his tune once I modeled it for him.

It's designed for teens with 2% body fat, I'll admit - the waistband barely clears my hipbones, and the jackets ends mid-rib. Kate Moss would look fabulous. But I've got to admit that I look something less than totally ridiculous in it. Dean thinks I look hot, and I'm not terribly inclined to disagree. My abs are going to get a serious workout, but it's a small price to pay - for someone with 39 lurking in their near future, any outfit that encourages ass-grabbing is a good one.

But Mo-o-om! All The Cool Kids Are Doing It!

2005-10-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

Because I never met a trend I didn't like*, and it's been a long day of much brainpan activity, I'm going to follow Dean down the path of slack-assedness ...

My Sexy Brazilian Name is:

Nathalia Coelho

What's Your Sexy Brazilian Name?

My 1920's Name is:

Ione Belle

What's Your 1920's Name?

I am French Food

Snobby yet ubiquitous.
People act like they understand you more than they actually do.

Oh, how sadly true! Except Dean, who was obviously a French chef in a past life.

What Kind of Food Are You?

And one that's oddly accurate, except for the match maker bit:

Your Brain's Pattern

Your brain is always looking for the connections in life.
You always amaze your friends by figuring out things first.
You're also good at connecting people - and often play match maker.
You see the world in fluid, flexible terms. Nothing is black or white.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Except that this one's true, too:

Your mind is a multi dimensional wonderland, with many layers.
You're the type that always has multiple streams of though going.
And you can keep these thoughts going at any time.
You're very likely to be engaged in deep thought - and deep conversation.

I guess I'm just amazingly multifaceted. And really should get back to work.

And for Jim:

You Are Not Scary

Everyone loves you. Isn't that sweet?

How Scary Are You?

*OK, I'll admit that bellbottoms didn't do much for me, but I was only 8.

Some Days I Love My Job

2005-10-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a pricing model to anticipate future cost increases from our Asian suppliers. It incorporates the market prices of steel, nickel, zinc, and petroleum, labour costs in the Shenzhen region, exchange rate fluctuations for the renminbi and new Taiwan dollar, and the effects of rolling electricity shortages. I've spent over 45 hours in the last 2 weeks building it (and I only work a 28-hour week, so we're talking a significant percentage of my time) and it is A Thing of Beauty.

It's been a fascinating and challenging project, and I would sooo love to have a job that let me do this every day.

Sadly, I fear my data modeling days are coming to an end, at least for now - the big meeting for which all of this is prep work is next Wednesday. I'm harbouring the faintest of faint hopes that I'll have impressed the Higher-Ups with my analytical abilities and that I'll be given more juicy numbers to play with on a regular basis.

I'm not, however, holding my breath.

A Spot of Good News

2005-10-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

Y'all remember poor little Hot Chocolate?

The poor abandoned seal pup that Monkeyboy and Chickadee helped rescue? When they went back to visit him at the wildlife centre the next day, they were told he hadn't survived the night. Well, my folks took in another pup yesterday (Absolut), and were told that Hot Chocolate did make it through the night, prospered and grew sleek over the summer, and was set free last week (along with Cerveza, the first of their rescuees) - fat, happy and full of fish.

Success

2005-10-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded! ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the 'words to live by' category, this is one of my favourite quotes (although Monty Python's "Adopt, adapt and improve" also has a lot to recommend it - and it's pithier, which is important when trying to maintain grace under pressure. Ralph Waldo is a bit long-winded when you're trying to regain your sense of purpose in a crisis).

Whose words inspire you?

Say What?

2005-10-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

The Monkeychild solemnly informed me this morning that the second word he ever read was 'debenture'.

He went to the cabin with Grandma and Grandpa this morning so they met us at my office, en route to the ferry. Traffic was light and we were early so got to spend 15 minutes entertaining my officemates (actually, my parents were 10 minutes early, but opted to spend the time enjoying their coffees in the last silence they'll hear for 3 days). The Boy was a tad excited, making him even more talkative than usual (which is hard to imagine for anyone who's met him). He told the woman at the next desk that his head is bigger than the world, and has one hundred thoughts in it.

With this stupid cold, my head is bigger than a basketball and has <2 things in it. I had a brilliant idea for a poast this morning, and drafted long passages of it whilst driving, but can no longer recall a single word.

This cold sucks.

Ah well, I'm gone for the weekend, so you'll have to cope without my genius (such as it is) for a while longer.

Repurposing

2005-10-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with reporpoising*.

Chickadee's father talked her into being a cheerleader for Hallowe'en this year - a fine costume, to be sure, and easy to implement. But once out of his tender clutches, she decided she wants to be a vampire cheerleader. That's my girl!

This should go over well with the very pious principal of her Catholic school, who suggested that students' costumes should reflect the school theme of "Faith in Action". Isn't it every kid's dream to dress up as their favourite saint? What?!? You don't have a favourite saint? What the hell's wrong with you?

As a non-Catholic, I'm being totally supportive. Or I was until my mother suggested that I donate my $200 cashmere shawl for her black cape. Her argument was that it was a gift from my ex-husband and, since none of us like him, I should be glad to get rid of it. Except that it's black cashmere, and I look totally excellent in it, combining the best qualities of Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly (OK, maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but girls, you know what I'm talking about - it's one of those garments that makes me feel incredibly elegant and sophisticated, just for owning it). The cape was becoming an issue.

But I've always had trouble getting rid of clothes that I no longer wear. The Closet Nazis say you should toss anything you haven't worn in the last 6 months, but I've got favourites that haven't been off the hanger for the better part of a decade. Some because I hope to have occasion to wear them again. Others because they just have too much potential to be thrown out. One of the latter was a black velvet, ankle-length skirt I bought in about 1990. It was pretty snug around the waist before I had two kids, and I've known for many years that I'd never wear it again. But it's 4 yards of black velvet - I knew it would come in handy sometime.

And I was right. Slit the back seam, remove the zipper, and it's the perfect cape for a vampire cheerleader.

*Which, as we all know, is job training for injured dolphins.

Well That Went Off The Rails In A Hurry

2005-10-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

Was it only a month ago that I finally replaced the long-neglected wildlife tally with a list of what I'm reading? I figured I'd update it weekly. Which, obviously, hasn't happened - mostly because some of the books on the To Be Read list have been devoured, while others in Currently Reading are still languishing on page 43 - I'm not even sure where Mr. Crusoe is anymore, as my mother likes to tidy up while I'm at work, and I still haven't figured out her system for putting books away. I'm pretty sure he's still in the house somewhere but, as I mentioned a while ago, we have a lot of books and it's very easy for one to disappear.

Eragon's finished, Taiko's stalled in a morass of unfamiliar names and places, A Short History is underway (although I haven't picked it up in a week), and I've started Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, The Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer, and the lovely coil-bound version of Jim Winter's Second Hand Goods. Plus I've powered through the first 5 volumes of Captain Underpants (highly recommended for your inner 8-year-old boy - and you know you have one!), and reread The Sword and The Lion by Roberta Cray.

Is that it? Probably not, but it's all I can recall without being at home to check the stacks.

Tired of Blow-up Betty?

2005-10-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

Want to try swinging the other way? You need www.plasticsexchange.com!

Actually, it's The Plastics Exchange, which is not nearly as interesting (or funny). BTW, does anyone have LLDPE resin pricing for the last couple of years?

I have

2005-10-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

The Cold. Raw throat, flowing nose - all I'm missing is the hacking cough, which I'm sure will show up in a day or two to join its mates.

I hate colds.

How Come

2005-10-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

I never had science teachers like this?

"Take your Ziegler-Natta* catalyst, usually TiCl3 or TiCl4, along with an aluminum based co-catalyst, and place in the monomer at midnight on the night of the full moon. Then place the beaker on the ground in a circle of lighted candles, and then write the word "isotactic" or "syndiotactic", depending of the tacticity you desire, in runic letters on the side of the beaker with the blood of a freshly slain goat. The goat must be less than one year old, and without blemish. Then one must recite aloud the Ziegler-Natta incantation seven times, followed by the tacticity dance. If the polymerization is successful, a cold and violent wind will quickly arise and extinguish the candles, and then die away as quickly as it arose. It is important that one fast for three days before and after carrying out the ceremony. Following this little procedure usually does the trick."

*Why am I looking up Ziegler-Natta catalysts, you ask? Blame it on my status as Company Googler. Apparently I have earned a reputation for being able to find pretty much anything, no matter how arcane, online.

On the Inside Looking Out

2005-10-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

Dean posted a comment over here in which he said "I covet my wife's incisive intelligence." I smiled when I read it, but it was partly a smile of disbelief.

I don't feel incisive, or even particularly intelligent. I've got a GMAT score worthy of MENSA, so I can't argue when people tell me I'm smart, but I don't see it myself. I wasn't an outstanding student (although my free-n-easy work ethic might have had something to do with that), I haven't made a contribution to a single academic field, and I haven't noticed people flocking to ask my opinion on what's wrong with the world and how to solve it. As I see it, I'm just good at multiple-choice tests.

I do learn new things a little faster than most people, and I'm insatiably curious (and I loooove the internet for its ability to feed that curiosity 24/7), but 'incisively intelligent'?

I dunno. I'm still waiting for proof.

Rhyme & Reason

2005-10-12T13:18:00.000-07:00

The MonkeyChild has recently become enamored of rhyming and alliteration. It started with a long series of rhymes like trees - breeze - fleas and degenerated into a race to see who could come up with the most rhymes the fastest: harmonica - barmonica - carmonica. He always won, being unhampered by the need to use real words.

Then he started insisting that harmonica and house rhymed, so I had so explain about alliteration, which set off a whole new chain of creativity: truck - track - trock - triumvirate (OK, that last one was mine). Once that particular thrill wore off, we started looking for things that were both: harmonica - habonica - higonica - helbonica.

Now we're looking for real words that are both alliterative and rhyming. So far, we've come up with:

Some who assaults fish - a snapper slapper

Someone who breaks appliances - a blender bender

One who makes spider-hide shoes - a spinner skinner

One who drinks and dives - a drunker dunker

Since my readers are a uniformly erudite and creative bunch, I want to know: waddaya got for us?

A Piece of My Past

2005-10-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

I just ran across my first blog. Timid and quickly abandoned, there are just 5 entries. But I'd completely forgotten that I had tried this whole blogging thing once before. If you'd asked me 10 minutes ago, I would have sworn that this was my first attempt.

Strange, no?

Huh?

2005-10-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

In addition to all the usual "naked soccer mom" requests, today someone found this blog by yahooing "cheerleading phone sex with aliens".

At least they used an appropriate search engine.

It seems to be the day for disturbing searches - I also got "jimmy neutron naked with cindy". And that's just wrong.

Got A Rack?

2005-10-08T22:32:00.000-07:00

I spent the afternoon with my cousin, the very practical, down-to-earth mother of 3 boys - 8, 6, and 4. They keep her busy, to put it mildly. As the only girl in a family of 5, she has to do a lot of explaining of things biological. And put up with all the gross and disgusting things little boys do when they're being little boys.

The other day, she had a friend's 13-year-old son over. He's into girls, and being macho and sexist, so she was prepared for her kids to learn some new things. Sure enough, they come into her room the next morning and her oldest asks "Mom, do you have a rack?" She looked over at the 13-year-old, who was snickering madly to himself, and figuring who was behind the question, decided to get it all out in the open. So she answered "Yes, I do. It's on the car, we tie luggage to it." More snickers, so she continued, "Some people also call a woman's breasts a rack, so I have one of those, too." At this point, the 13-year-old is smothering himself with a pillow, he's laughing so hard, so she decides to go all out. "And you know the thing people put on the front of their cars, to cover the grill? That's called a bra, so some people a woman's breasts headlights. But they're all talking about the same thing - breasts. And yes, all women have them." And then she leaves, so they can enjoy their newfound knowledge.

Later that day, when the guest is gone, she went to her 8-year-old and asked him if the older boy had told him to ask her about having a rack. He said, "No, mom. We were watching a show and they put a guy on a rack and stretched him. So I wondered if you had a rack and could make me taller."

Best Laid Plans and All That

2005-10-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

I had all kinds of things I was going to write about this evening, but I've just spent the better part of an hour wrestling a noncompliant and seemingly inexhaustible (yet totally exhausted) Wee Lad into bed. I feel like I've been through a wringer.

Maybe tomorrow ...

Getting To Know Me, Getting To Know All About Me

2005-10-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve received three of those “Get To Know Your Friends” email surveys in the last year – one just before Christmas last year, one a week or so ago, and one today. I thought I’d compile them and post the results here, sort of a quick and dirty ‘Less Than 100 Things About Me’ post. But as I was reading, I got interested in the questions that I’d answered more than once – on some things I’m very consistent, but on others my answers are all over the map. I'm all about multi-dimensionality, I am.

So here, for your illumination and entertainment, I present all 3 versions of me. Sort of a time lapse photo in words.

Can you juggle?
- No, but I can multitask

Cherry or Blueberry?
- Cherry

Chocolate or vanilla?
- Chocolate, both times I was asked

Do you like the person who sent this to you?
- Yes
- Yes, I do. He seems like the kind of person I'd hang out with if we knew each other offline.
- Absolutely!

Do you want your friends to e-mail you back?
- Most already have - I think this is the third time I've done one of these
- Not giving them the chance this time
- Well, I'm only sending this to one person, because the last time I did this, she was the only one who answered anyhow. And I already have her answers.

Who is most likely to respond?
- no one - I'm not giving them a chance this time
- Trick question, isn't it?
- Miko

Who is least likely to respond?
- See above
- Again with the trick questions
- The gerbils

Do you wear contacts or glasses?
- Contacts

Do you wear contacts?
- Only when I'm awake

Do you wish on stars?
- Once in a while (both times – at least I’m consistently vague)

Fall or Spring?
- Spring

Summer or Winter?
- Summer (although Spring is better)
- Summer

Favorite car?
- 58 Plymouth Fury
- I really can't think of one.
- I am required to say Ferrari, although I couldn't tell you which model. The cute blue one I saw last spring

How many cars have you had and what was the first?
- 5, the first was a black Chevy Corsica

What color is your car?
- green

Favorite day of the week?
- Saturday (x3)

Favorite day of the year?
- Any day spent with Dean
- Any sunny day with my family
- Hmm ... Christmas is pretty good, or any sunny day in the spring

Favorite drink?
- red wine (x2)
- Old fashioned cream soda

Favorite flower?
- sweet peas
- wild roses

Favorite food?
- depends on the day - salty snacks are always good, though
- Really good chocolate
- sea

Favorite month?
- End of April/early May
- May (x2)

Favorite smell?
- My children's hair and Dean
- vanilla, cedar chips, caramel

Favorite sport to watch?
- don't really have one - I'll watch figure skating and men's gymnastics if I have nothing better to do, but avoid the rest
- Formula 1
- does knitting count? If not, I guess Formula racing (Go Ferrari!!)

Favorite type of dog?
- I'm kind of smitten with whippets at the moment, for aesthetic reasons. Other than that, I like 'em all, large more than small.

Hair color?
- dark brown (for the first time in 20 years)
- Sort of plum/red

Have you ever dyed your hair?
- Every month or so for the last 20 years

How is the weather right now?
- cool and cloudy, with rain on the way
- Fall is in the air. It's about 18C right now, cool, and the first stars are coming out although the horizon is still light.
- Sunny (well, bright anyhow - the blinds are down so I can't really see)

How many cities have you lived in?
- 5
- 5 (technically North Van, Langley, and Delta are separate from Vancouver)
- Two - Vancouver and Montreal. Technically, I guess I've also lived in Delta, Langley, and North Vancouver, but I tend to think of them all as part of Vancouver.

How many states have you lived in?
- None. Two provinces, though. (x3)

How many countries have you lived in?
- 1

How many countries have you visited?
- 6

Your dream vacation?
- Backpacking through Europe, with enough money not to stay in hostels

How many years at your current job?
- 18 months

How old are you today?
- enjoying my last few months of 38
- 38 years
- 38 years, 6 days

Hugs or kisses?
- Kisses (x2)
- Both - can't separate the two

If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
- Maroon
- Crimson. Well, that's what colour I'd like to be. Really I'm probably more like cornflower.
- Crimson

Last movie you watched?
- The Cat Returns
- Pirates of the Caribbean (for the 48th time)
- Muppets Christmas Carol, on Disney

Last person you spoke to on the phone?
- Dean
- Umm ... it's been a few days. I think it was my mother, on Friday.
- Kevin - the guy who builds our displays at work

Living arrangements?
- Townhouse, 5 kids, Dean, me and the rodents

Are you happy with your living arrangements?
- A little cluttered, and another room would be nice, but the people are delightful

Number of keys on your key ring?
- 9 (x2)
- 8

Pets?
- 3 gerbils, aka The Java Boys, and 2 guinea pigs, Les Jolies Aubergines

Plain, buttered or salted popcorn?
- butter and salt
- butter and salt. Lots of both

Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers?
- Spicy.

Siblings?
- 2
- one of each, both younger

The email friend you have had the longest?
- Dean

Who is the friend you have had the longest?
- My sister

What are you afraid of?
- Losing a loved one. The possibility absolutely terrifies me.
- losing people I love
- something happening to my family

What are you listening to right now?
- my typing and the big printer next to my desk
- Dean in the shower and the hum of assorted electronic devices
- The hum of the printer

What color is the underwear you are current wearing?
- Boring white

What color pants are you wearing?
- Black
- Black swishy stuff - they make me sound like I'm wearing a snowsuit

What did you do last night?
- Took kids to gymnastics, sat through one class, came home with first child and had dinner, went back to retrieve second child, read first child bedtime story, surfed, cuddled with second child, put second child to bed, watched 15 minutes of PBS documentary on WWII, then went to bed
- Made curried prawns, ate dinner in front of TV, put the monkeychild to bed, gave and received some physical affection and went to sleep.
- Watched TV, put the monkeychild to bed, knit a while, scanned a bunch of pictures

What did you do on your last birthday?
- Worked, went home to dinner with Dean, the kids and my parents

What do you do to vent anger?
- talk to Dean, write
- Vent? No, I repress. Sometimes I rant, after repressing, if I can make it funny.
- Choke on it, then vent to Dean after

What inspires you?
- Dean, bravery & generosity
- My family and friends

What is on the floor of your closet?
- Shoes, laundry, Dean's weights, a couple of sports bags, homeless clothes, dog hair

What is under your bed?
- A mini basketball, a box of 30-year-old Christmas ribbons from my great uncle, a few books, lots of dog hair ... and other stuff I don't want to think about

What is your dream occupation?
- I'm still trying to figure that out. Permanent student sounds pretty good, but I hear the pay sucks.

What was the last thing you ate?
- cottage cheese & a bag of chips
- A souplike invention of Dean's - quite delicious.
- Chocolate hedgehog

What was your favorite toy as a child?
- Books (x2)
- Books and my chemistry set

When was the last time you cried?
- Sunday, briefly
- Trying to decide what to do with Miko's water dish.
- I do not recall the specifics - probably during some sappy scene in a movie (NOT the Muppets Christmas Carol, however). Possibly with laughter when the monkeychild told me to "Give it a rest, Mom."

Where were you born?
- Vancouver General Hospital

Where would you like to live?
- Fort Langley - close to the city but relatively rural and 'small town'

It occurs to me that few, if any, of these qualify as either deep or meaningful, so if there's something you're just dying to know about me, post it here and I'll do my best to answer (or make something up, if the truth doesn't cut it).

High Society

2005-10-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

They're burning a grow op in Aldergrove tonight.

As I was driving the smaller monkeychild home from gymnastics this evening, I noticed a large pillar of smoke rising over the hill just north of us. It's farm country, so I assumed they were clearing trees or some similar agricultural activity. When I went out again an hour later to retrieve the larger monkeychild, I smelled that telltale aroma and thought my neighbour was partaking in his carport. I rolled down my window a block later to clear the smell, only to discover that someone's smoking a LOT of pot out there. You can smell it for a couple of miles.

Pity I get migraines ...

Colours of Fall

2005-10-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

One of the very few things Mother Nature does poorly here in BC is any sort of display of autumn colour. I still remember the leaves of my childhood in Montreal and the Eastern Townships. Even as a colour-jaded 9-year-old (damn those vivid Saturday morning cartoons!), I was impressed.

Here, better than half our trees are evergreens to begin with, which is kind of nice come January when the rest of Canada is reduced to grayscale, but they don't do much for the landscape in October. Most of the rest are alder, cottonwood or chestnut. Chestnuts turn a not totally unattractive shade of rust before they fall, but alders and cottonwoods just turn brown. Paper bag brown. And our big maples, unlike their eastern cousins, show only a tracery of yellow amidst the predominantly russet shading.

There are a few bright spots - the little vine maples, although they rarely top 30', put on a brilliant display of crimson and orange, as do the sumac and a few other native shrubs, but they're a very small minority. Most of our colour comes from foreign imports, and so only appear in developed neighbourhoods. My rural commute is uniformly green and brown, with rare and rapidly disappearing splashes of more vivid hues.

I suspect it's because dear Gaia doesn't feel we deserve arboreal fireworks here on the coast - it's not like we're heading into 6 months of cold, glittering, unrelieved white. We don't need the autumnal pep talk, the little reminder than winter's not forever. Yes, it'll be dreary for a while - green trees, grey skies, straw-yellow fields - but my roses will be blooming for at least another month, the lawns stay green (and need mowing) year round, and the first wildflowers will be up in February.

Still, I miss all those colours.

Doldrums

2005-10-01T19:52:00.000-07:00

I keep thinking I really ought to post something, before all y'all lose interest and move on, but I just haven't had much to say this week. The few faint flashes of inspiration I've had disappeared long before I got anywhere near a keyboard.

I think I'm in a rut. Or a divot. A pothole, perhaps.

I'm Ruined

2005-09-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

My credibility lies in tatters, my reputation is shot and, worst of all, I have disappointed my child.

How, you ask, did such a calamity come to be? Well, I confused a Morphin' Power Ranger

with a Transformer Cybertron.

How will I live with the shame?

Deep Thoughts

2005-09-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

Is it better to have talent but think you don't, or to not have talent but think you do?

Obviously, it would be best for all concerned if those who have talent know it, and those who don't also know it. But watching American Idol, following the vanity press and fan fic arguments on Lee Goldberg's blog, and seeing a rise in the belief that wanting something really a lot means you deserve to get it, lead me to believe that there are a tremendous number of people out there who are completely unaware that they are totally devoid of talent. Who are shocked, outraged and defiant when told this is the case. People who are so convinced of their own abilities that no one, no matter what their credentials, will ever convince them they're not the Next Big Thing. People who will spend years and thousands of dollars trying to prove that their critics are wrong*.

In a way, I kind of admire these deluded souls. The ability to completely and unreservedly believe in oneself in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary must be pretty amazing. A little scary to the rest of us, perhaps, but imagine what it must feel like to know you're right, you're gifted, you're an incredible, if misunderstood, talent. Sure, it's a little frustrating when no one else agrees with you, but you can write them off as idiots and carry on in your own little universe.

I often think it would be easier to be like that than to have a genuine ability and not believe in it, or yourself. Like me. If I think about it rationally, I know I'm pretty good at a fair number of things. But I don't think I'm good enough at anything. Which kind of sucks, since I'm probably better than a lot of the people who think they're experts. But I don't have their faith, their conviction.

Most days, I'd be happy to trade a little talent for some of that self confidence.

*When their critics are, in fact, totally correct.

Favourite New Toy

2005-09-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

Oh, I loves me some Google Earth! It's just the coolest app - I thought Google Maps was wicked awesome, but Earth takes Maps and adds all kinds of cool features.

And I love their Terms & Conditions - especially this part:

THE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, OR AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL MACHINES OR ANY OTHER SUCH HAZARDOUS ACTIVITIES IN WHICH CASE THE FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.

I'm disappointed, of course - there go my plans for a home nuclear reactor*. Still, it's a marvelous time waster, and they have no restrictions on its use in world domination activities. Unless that falls under "hazardous activities etc."

I'm now going to try to explain to the Monkeychild how it's possible to be in Aldergrove, Canada, and North America all at the same time. We've had more than a few tears over the issue to date, and I will be ever so grateful to Google if we can clarify the situation.

*To be honest, I'm not quite sure how one would use a map of the world, no matter how detailed, in the day-to-day running of a reactor. But I'm no physicist, so what do I know?

For Everyone Who Came Here Looking for Naked Soccer Moms

2005-09-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

The Naked Soccer Mom

There you are, lounging around the public library wearing nothing but socks when suddenly the phone rings. Surprised, you hope it's the pizza because you're starving.....for loving and are happy to see the whole high school cheerleading team dancing. As the cheesy music begins you can't help yourself, so you do a cheer, awed by the size of the pizza bill that confronts you. Before you know it a car pulls up and it's the Dallas Chamber of Commerce eating the pizza you've been waiting for. Being the gracious host, you spank all of them, much to their delight.

The air is thick with the smell of someone's cheap perfume as 7 people are now writhing in a pile on the floor eating. You're completely absorbed in it, never having enjoyed so many people eating at once. Suddenly you look up and see more cheerleaders staring at you and you grin foolishly. You're caught! They give you a chalkboard so you can keep score next time and you turn them over to the Jehovah's Witnesses as the cheesy music fades out.

The End.

Courtesy of Porn-o-matic, inspired by Diva

Spanky Goes To War

2005-09-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

With a little help from Plot-o-matic , I think I've found my new calling - I'm gonna write movies! Thanks to Lee for pointing the way.

Spanky Goes To War
an original screenplay concept
by sxKitten

Period Piece: A kind hearted prostitute teams up with an alcoholic ex-CIA agent to save the earth from aliens. In the process they deflower four British men on welfare. By the end of the movie they blow up 23 oogly mothers-in-law and end up winning the admiration of their 3rd grade teacher, living happily ever after.

Think Priscilla, Queen of the Desert meets Lord of the Rings.

And if movies don't do it for you, there's always Porn-o-matic

Words of Wisdom

2005-09-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

As I was leaving the daycare this morning, MonkeyBoy came running up to me calling, "I have to tell you one fing, Mom!" It's a pretty standard stalling tactic - he either has one fing to tell me, or one fing to ask me, especially at bedtime. But today, he gave me some advice that I will try to live by - and I recommend that all of you do the same. Your lives will be better for it:

"Don't let any bad guys catch you today. Or feed you to their pets."

Oh CREP!

2005-09-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

Trillian’s post about seeing a dead opossum got me thinking about roadkill, and how it’s an underutilized resource. Think about it – unless you live close to a decent zoo, roadkill’s really your best chance of seeing wildlife (OK, wild animals, not necessarily live) up close. But you’re limited to local species. While I’ve had plenty of opportunities (not necessarily taken advantage of) to examine opossums, squirrels, coyotes – even a beaver, once – up close, I’ve never had a good look at a porcupine, for example.

It seems to me that there’s an opportunity for an interprovincial species exchange – perhaps an online bulletin board where schools and community groups could post their requirements, and an army of volunteers to source the specimens. There’d have to be standards – I don’t think your average Brownie pack would want to receive their Western Grey Squirrel sample in 5 or 6 ziplock baggies, so we’d want to specify intact carcasses. Perhaps members with extra freezer space could stockpile the more hard-to-find varieties, especially during winter, the prime collection season.

We could call it the Canadian Roadkill Exchange Program. We’d need sponsors – I’m thinking FedEx or UPS, since your window of opportunity is fairly narrow with this type of product. In exchange for free shipping, they’d have the right to use Proud Sponsor of CREP in all their advertising.

I won’t want to leave our American brethren out – they have a lot of cool animals down there, like armadillos, that we just can't get here in the Great White North – and would love to see someone spearhead the formation of the American Roadkill Species Exchange. Volunteers could be called American Roadkill Species Exchange Supporters, and those who got in right at the beginning would be proud to say “We’ve been ARSES from day 1!”

Happy Birthday, Charlie!

2005-09-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

It was my grandfather's youngest brother's 90th birthday yesterday. His son hosted a family party at Charlie's golf club - there were only 4 of us present (out of 30 or so guests, no children invited) who were under 40, and probably a dozen over 80.

As birthday parties go it was, unsurprisingly, a fairly tame affair. But I learned some interesting facts about my great-uncle's life, and there was a lot of talk about what the world was like when he was a young man. He and my grandfather were both born on a homestead in Saskatchewan, a few miles from a town that no longer exists. They were 5th and 3rd in a family of 8 kids, and lived, until after the birth of #6, in a 16' x 20' log cabin. How my great-grandparents found the time (and the privacy) to procreate, I can only guess.

My great-grandfather, a Scottish immigrant, sold the homestead and moved the family to Saskatoon in the early 1920's. They were poor - often living on oatmeal for weeks at a time - but he wanted his children to get proper schooling. Uneducated himself, he sent 5 of his 8 children to university.

Charlie studied medicine in Winnipeg, graduating just before WWII broke out. He joined up, the only one in the family to do so, and was sent to North Africa with the British army. I've seen photos of the massive tent city in the desert, and Charlie looking dapper in his khaki shorts. He took part in the retreat before Rommel's forces, then spent 2 years in Tehran, working in an allied hospital. He was called back to London and attached to an American unit for D-Day, was there for the liberation of Holland, and was the first allied medic in the Belsen prison camp. He doesn't talk about it at all. When I first learned about this as a teenager, history classes fresh in my mind, I asked him if the inmates were glad to see the Allies, and he said no, they were too far gone. That statement still haunts me. (I recently reread The Diary of Anne Frank, which says she died 2 weeks before Belsen was liberated. I find it strange to think that my quiet, unassuming uncle came so close to meeting the girl who became such an icon.)

After the war, he moved to Vancouver, and specialized in internal medicine. He practiced at Vancouver General Hospital for 40 years, retiring at 70, then came back to fill in for other doctors for another decade. He's still very popular with both doctors and nurses - a rare thing, I understand. When he had heart surgery last year, even the women from the hospital switchboard came to visit him.

I don't know my uncle Charlie very well; partly because I don't see him all that often, and partly because I think he's a hard person to get to know. The family has a reputation for being boisterous (to put it kindly) but he has always been the quiet one, seemingly content to drift along on the edges of family gatherings. I once asked my grandfather if it was because of what he'd seen in the war, but he said no, Charlie had always been quiet.

And now it's too late - his memory is failing badly these days, and I don't think he knows most of us anymore. I hope he took his brother's advice, though - my grandfather has been encouraging him to write everything down for years. He's the only personal link I have with the war, and there are so few left who can tell us what it was really like.

Burning Bog

2005-09-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

Anyone got any marshmallows?

The aptly named Burns Bog is burning. Again. The last big fire was in 1996 - this one is relatively small by comparison, only 2 square kilometers so far. They've brought in the water bombers, but it could be a long battle. It's a peat bog, and as any Irishman worth his salt can tell you, peat burns beautifully.

And right now, the wind is blowing the smoke right into the loading bays of our warehouse - not a lot, but enough to fill the building with hints of burning leaves and bonfires.

Image courtesy of Google Maps

The weatherman swears it's sunny out there, but from where I sit, it looks like solid, albeit yellow-y, overcast. Apparently you could see the flames for miles last night. I drove within a kilometer or so of the fire this morning, but only saw smoke, and a few helicopters buzzing about like angry hornets (that cliche's mandatory, right, when talking about helicopters? I've never actually seen a hornet, but all the other kids are saying it).

Lost or stolen or strayed, 50 or 60 IQ points seem to have been mislaid

2005-09-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

I offer a tip of my hat and a hearty "Well done!" to anyone who gets that reference.

I locked myself out of the house yesterday, and had to drive 60 km to my parents' place to retrieve my spare key. In a long story involving a bike, a tuba, and my brother's inability to foresee consequences, I swapped cars with my parents on Thursday. I keep their car key on a separate key ring, along with the key to their apartment, so when I went to work yesterday morning, I had 2 sets of keys - my regular set, which includes the house key, and their keys. When I left work, I had one set - the car key. I didn't notice that I'd left the house key, along with the coat in whose pocket it was resting, until I was about 5 minutes from home - moments before picking up the Wee Lad from daycare, so there was no time to turn around.

Ever the optimist, I thought surely there'd be an openable window somewhere. And there was - our bedroom window, on the second floor, above the very steep and, at the time, wet carport roof. I briefly entertained the notion of climbing up to it, but the driveway looked awfully hard and I didn't think the Lad would do well if left to fend for himself for a couple of days (especially locked out of the house). So we headed into town.

Of course, my folks were delighted and insisted we spend the night. So instead of getting home at quarter to six yesterday, we walked through the front door at 10:30 this morning.

I'm going to spend the rest of the day looking for those missing brain cells.

Oops

2005-09-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

At work, we relocated our Toronto office, and I spent a fair amount of time over the past 2 weeks sending out notices to customers. All was good. Then someone decided we needed to send a special, personalized letter to all of our Accounts Payable contacts, with instructions to contact our customer service manager with any questions, and a 1-800 number to do so. I was given the letter and asked to coordinate getting it out to 1500 customers. Then, on Friday, someone decided we should fax the same letter to the same 1500 accounts. So I took care of that, too.

I came in today to find a note on my desk letting me know that the letter (which, thank whatever gods there are, I did not write) contained the wrong 1-800 number. Apparently we asked our customers to call an escort service instead.

Innocent Truth

2005-09-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

The children started playing some incomprehensible game in the car involving dinner reservations and a call to the cab company. I was informed that I got to be their chauffeur, and that later I could play the cook.

I'm guessing they'll need a maid next.

Weekend Highlights

2005-09-05T14:49:00.000-07:00

Most Ironic Moment
My Green-Party-Activist, "Big Business is an Evil Oppressor" brother teaching the kids to play Monopoly.

Most Inappropriate Comment in a Family Setting
By my 94-year-old grandfather's 84-year-old girlfriend: "Are you coming to bed, Johnnie? Do you want to play hide the weenie?"

Couple Least Likely to Play Hide the Weenie
Dean and I, who, although we shared a room, slept in the twin beds of my youth, with the children sleeping on the floor between us. We couldn't even talk dirty.

Most Inane Comment
Also by my 94-year-old grandfather's 84-year-old girlfriend, while watching an ad for Vileda mops with the PowerZone™: "Look at that! That's new!"

Most Often Heard Remark
re The MonkeyChild: "He's so cute!"

Best Group Photograph

My Ex-Husband is a Fatuous Twat

2005-09-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

***Warning: Venting Ahead, and a Bad Word***

I was actually reduced to rolling my eyes and snorting in disbelief this evening, a thing which happens almost not at all under normal circumstances.

My ex, whose last name starts with W, came by to pick up Chickadee, and I mentioned that I'd signed her up for gymnastics at the rec centre. "As Chickadee R, I suppose?" he said, R being my last name*. I explained that the rec centre doesn't ask for the child's last name - they need my full name (so they can charge my credit card), and her first name. So yes, she was probably registered as Chickadee R. "I want you to stop doing that," he announced, "it's disrespectful to me."

I thought loudly but did not say "Asshole!" I supposed that would also be disrespectful.

*Or a portion thereof.

Happiness

2005-08-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

I had one of those ephemeral moments yesterday where I was suddenly lifted out of myself, just for a few seconds of pure joy.

We were at the PNE*, damp and sodden after watching the parade in the rain. As we fought our way through the crowd wandering up the parade route in search of cover, Dean was pushing MonkeyBoy in the stroller a few steps behind Chickadee and me. The music was still blasting from the loud speakers, and we were skipping along to the beat, hand in hand, doing can-can steps around the puddles. And I realized, out of the blue, that I was completely and perfectly happy.

Even now, I can pull up a crystal-clear memory of the feeling, and it warms me right through. It's a gift we're not often granted (or, perhaps, are too busy to appreciate). I'm going to try to notice more often.

________________________________________

*The PNE will always hold a special place in my heart, no matter what they do to it in the name of progress or civic renewal. My grandfather was the General Manager back in its heyday in the 60's and 70's (he was coooool, I tell ya. He even got to meet Sonny & Cher!). We used to come out every summer from Montreal, to visit my grandparents and my 4 cousins from California, and the highlight of the trip was our day at the fair. We'd arrive early, before the gates opened, and leave after dark. The last, best year I was 9. The 5 oldest kids (ages 11, 10, 9, 8 and 7) were turned loose with 5 bucks each (back when candy apples were 50 cents each, and cotton candy a quarter), probably 2 or 3 hundred rides' worth of tickets (seriously - the ride passes were printed on red card stock, each good for 10 rides, and we had a stack at least an inch thick), and instructions to meet our parents for dinner. We covered every square inch of that fair, then had dinner at the Dogwood cafeteria followed by front row seats at whatever the evening's entertainment was (nothing memorable, obviously, unless it was Ice Capades - I remember sitting behind Karen Magnussen's parents during one of her shows). We finished off the evening with a stroll down the midway, where we each got to choose whichever of the giant prizes we wanted. My grandfather would point, and the carnie would haul down a giant turtle or bear or rabbit and hand it over. My poor parents had to fly 3 enormous stuffed animals back to Montreal.

The PNE has gone downhill since then, and that's not just old age and nostalgia talking. A good third of the site has been turned into parkland (a good thing, really, just not for the 2 weeks of the fair), and it's no longer the big agricultural draw it used to be. It used to be THE livestock show for the province; now they have representative farm species for the city kids who never get to see a live cow. The lumberjack show and demolition derby have been replaced by monster trucks and motorcross. A lot of the permanent exhibits are gone, too, like the Hall of Mirrors and the Funhouse, and the seatbelt-free skyride that used to run from one end of the park to the other (it was a great way to find people if you got separated - unless they were indoors, your odds of spotting them were excellent, and then you could bellow down at them in hopes of scaring them into dropping their snow cone). But they still have the Showmart, with the guys selling Miracle Shammies and the Slicer/Dicer/Chopper/Hacker things, and the knives that will cut cans AND tomatoes. And the Superdogs, and the pig races, and the little donuts and Buckeye Root-beer and Aunt Margie's fudge. And the Agrodome still smells of horses and sawdust, even though the equine entertainment didn't make it across the border this year.

To be honest, I don't go to the PNE every year to see what's new, I go to see what's old. I always wander past Grandpa's office, even though he retired in '77, and make sure the games arcade is still standing. Next year I'll take Chickadee on the rickety wooden roller coaster - it's a museum piece, but it still runs. I just hope we pick a drier day next time.

Time Travel

2005-08-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

The CBC is on strike, depriving me of my favourite distraction and leaving me alone with my thoughts while commuting. I've been forced to resort to daydreams and 'what ifs' to keep myself occupied. Last week, I kept busy playing out my options if I could go back and take over my youthful body at some point in my past - to relive a portion of my youth with the wit and wisdom I've accumulated to date (not much, I admit, but more than I had at 18 or 20).

What would I do with a 'do over'? Assuming that:
1) it would be for a limited amount of time (a month would do nicely, I think. I wouldn't want to start all over again at 18 or anything - I'm pretty happy with where I am now) and
2) that the results would be permanent (i.e. with lasting consequences, nothing getting reset to the way it was originally when my time was up).

The obvious scenario, I guess, would be to go back and track down Dean before either of us made our unwise first marriages - I know where he was and it wouldn't have been that hard to manufacture a meeting or two between us. But even though it would have saved us both a lot of heartache (assuming our younger selves were as right for each other as we are now), I wouldn't do it. We have 3 much-beloved children that I am unwilling to sacrifice. The girls, of course, could never have existed if we'd met earlier, and even knowing the date and approximate time of the MonkeyChild's conception, the odds of that particular combination of sperm and egg occurring again are almost nonexistent. So the price is just too high.

Ruling out the obvious, I've come up with two good possibilities. The first would be to go back to university when I chose my major, and take the CompSci option instead of marketing. Who knew, in 1985, that computers would be so big*? Plus it would have made my systems analyst dad happy.

The second would be to dump the guy I started dating right after high school (and lost my virginity too) and seduce my biology teacher instead. I had a massive crush on Mr. C - he was cynical, sarcastic, looked like Indiana Jones sans hat, and once told another teacher, in my presence, that I was going to be gorgeous when I was older. For a shy kid with no self esteem, that was a HUGE compliment.

So I'd go back, maybe 6 months after grad, and look him up. With the benefit of hindsight, he couldn't be any worse a first lover than the actual one was. Hell, he taught biology, so it was practically his specialty, right? At least it might have spared me a decade of worrying that I was frigid.

And I wouldn't even have to feel guilty about going after a married man - rumours about him and a female student were circulating only a few years later, so it's not like he'd have been totally unwilling.

So, what would you do?

__________________________________

*Well, not literally of course. But you know what I mean. And yes, of course I should have known they were going to be a major deal, but I was looking for the easy ticket and I could get 90% in marketing courses without half trying.

Victim of Fashion

2005-08-27T18:01:00.000-07:00

Originally thought to be a fatal drive-by crime of fashion. Upon investigation it was determined that the death blow was self-inflicted.

A Sign From God

2005-08-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

Or something ...

If you type the URL for any blogspot blog but drop the 's' (at least, it worked for the half dozen blogpot.com sites I tried) , you get:

A mega-site of Bible, Christian & religious information & studies; including, audio & written KJV Bible, churches, Doctrine, links, news, prayer, prophecy, sermons, spiritual warfare, statistics, and tracts. Features the Chronological 4 Gospels, Prayer Book, Prophecy Bible, and a photo tour of Israel. and a photo tour of Israel. By God's mercy, one of the largest Bible-centered sites on the web (app 6000 pgs).

So, do they think blogger fans are particularly evil and thus most in need of saving, or just more likely to swallow whatever crap they run across online?

Writing

2005-08-25T11:16:00.000-07:00

I've been curious lately about why people write - particularly those who do so (or hope to) for a living. Both John and Jim have very generously posted their thoughts on the subject in response to my prying, and I'd love to hear from the rest of you. Not just about writing, though - I'm interested in people who have something they love doing and are able to turn it into a career. Making a living out of your passion, as it were.

And lest anyone suspect me of having a hidden agenda here, let me put my agenda out in the open for all to see:

I haven't found anything (besides Dean and our children, and they don't pay very well) about which I'm truly passionate. I have lots of things I enjoy doing, but haven't found a way to transform any of them into a moneymaking proposition. This is, in large part, due to laziness. And insecurity. So I'm looking for inspiration.
On writing, specifically: I never liked writing when I was in school. I could do it quite well, and quickly, getting decent grades for very little effort, but I always disliked the physical act of writing. I blame it all on the sole Needs Improvement grade I got in elementary school - for handwriting in Grade 6. It scarred me, it did. So I wrote as little as possible, as quickly as possible, until I fell into this whole blogging thing a year or so ago*. Now I've discovered I don't hate writing. In fact, I kind of enjoy it. I've even got an novelicious idea or two rattling around in my head. But I don't feel any burning desire to get them out and onto paper. Not sure if that's 'yet' or 'ever'. So I'm curious about the mechanisms that drive people to write.

And there you have it. I'm a nosy, unmotivated busybody looking for career advice and/or permission to be a slacker for the rest of my life.

*I just checked, and it's been 11 months to the day. I never thought I'd stick with it as long as I have, to be honest.

Swimming in Egypt

2005-08-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

Ya gotta love Karla's dad. Here's his latest quote:

"I know my daughter, she wouldn't hurt a fly for God's sake," said Karel Homolka, who has spoken with his daughter but hasn't seen her in years.

Aside from those 3 teenagers (including his other daughter) that is. I also notice that he's not willing to back that up by actually meeting her face to face.

Or maybe I'm reading it the wrong way, and he's actually trying to say that while people aren't entirely safe around Canada's most infamous blond, house flies have nothing to worry about.

Thoughtlessness

2005-08-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

I've thought of all kinds of great things to write about over the last few days - funny things, deep things, incredibly insightful things that would make you bow down in awe of my amazing intellect and brilliant writing skills.

I had, of course, neither the time nor the ability to blog when I thought about them. And now that I've done the grocery shopping, fed the children, run the dishwasher, rounded up the laundry, applied for a mortgage online (and wasn't that a barrel of laughs!), registered for two sessions of gymnastics (not for me, although flexibility in a soccer mom would probably be a good thing), put the guinea pigs out for some fresh air and lawn clippings ... and a few dozen other household chores, and actually have time to sit down at the keyboard, I can remember none of them. Not a one. Nada. Zip. Zilch. In other words, bugger all.

Funniest Line of the Weekend

2005-08-22T12:44:00.000-07:00

Heard on the ferry, 5 minutes after leaving the dock:

Will the owner of a powder-blue Mercedes SUV please return to the car deck? Your alarm is starting to annoy the deck crew.

Maybe you had to be there.

The Naked Soccer Mom

2005-08-17T21:12:00.000-07:00

Photo is over on Dean's blog, if anyone's come here looking for it.

Stupid Foot Tricks

2005-08-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

This is really weird. And you can keep trying, over and over, to control your foot. But you can't - it has a mind of its own.

1. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles with it.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number '6' in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction. Every single time.

Strange, no?

When Silence Is All To Be Heard

2005-08-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

When the phosphorescence glow,
And the moon shines bright,
And the sound of the waves is all to be heard,
When then a rustle of sound comes to the ear,
Then all of a sudden a deer prances past the house,
A glorious sight, but then once again,
Silence is all to be heard.
What a glorious night to be seen.

-- by Chickadee --

Acid Reflux ... er, Flashback

2005-08-15T12:33:00.000-07:00

As part of my marketdroid duties at work, I've signed up for newsletters from a number of competitors. I received this atrocity a couple of weeks ago.

Once you've stopped retching and gagging, and your eyes are focusing again, you can see that it's really pretty clever. They're not actually advertising the nauseating green bathroom - it's for safety features, aimed at aging Boomers. The very people who thought guacamole and coffee grounds were a good colour palette back in the 60's. As their short term memory fails along with their ability to walk unassisted, this room is going to seem perfectly familiar to them. And it's a fitting punishment for their former fashion crimes, don't you think?

Wonder what they'll have in store for us in 20 or 30 years ...

That Uncomfortable Silence

2005-08-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

It's kind of telling, isn't it, how people react when you tell them you've done something unconventional? I enjoy it - people see me as pretty straight-laced so once in a while I like to do something that knocks their view of me off-kilter. Especially my mother - a not insignificant part of my motivation for getting a tattoo was to see her reaction when I told her about it. And I still get a kick out of telling people I meet that I have one - even though tattoos are pretty commonplace now, I guess I put out goody-two-shoes square vibes because I almost always get a double-take.

This morning we went for a walk and lunch with friends. They're good people, but we've always had a sneaking suspicion that they're a little more conventional than we are. Actually, quite a lot more conventional. At one point, we mentioned that we'd been to the beach yesterday and, since there are an number of them to choose from around here, the natural response was "Which one?" I waited a second, to give Dean a chance to take the plunge, but he didn't, so I said, simply, "Wreck." Everyone in Vancouver knows about Wreck Beach.

There was a brief, strained pause, then she said "Oh, that's nice." And the subject was hurriedly changed.

I'm guessing we don't have to worry about running into them down there. And that, possibly, we will never be asked to babysit.

Nudity Ahead

2005-08-12T12:18:00.000-07:00

Hmm ... perhaps that's a bit misleading, since I mean 'ahead in my near future' not 'ahead in this post'. Oh well, tough nellies*. Sue me for false advertising if you like.

It's supposed to be hot here tomorrow, so we're heading for the beach. But not just any old beach. No sir, we're going to the infamous Wreck Beach. That's right, the nekkid beach!

With lots and lots on sunscreen. I have a muchness of skin which has not seen daylight for many years. Actually, I think the last time I was there, I was great with Chickadee, so we're talking 9 years. 9 years and a lot of pasty white flesh. Oh, it's going to be a pretty sight!

*Who the heck are the nellies, anyhow, and why are they so tough? And am I the only person on the planet, besides my mother, who still uses that phrase?

Apocalypse Rats

2005-08-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

While pondering the possibilities raised by Dean's latest post - which may deserve a separate post of their own - it occurred to me to wonder why, in lots of post-apocalyptic fiction and movies, there are so many rats. You know - when the sole survivors try to enter The Big City years and years later, they are forced out/killed by/battling endlessly the legions of rats therein.

Where do all the rats come from, and what the heck are they eating? I can see a huge boom in the rat population immediately post-plague/war/nuclear holocaust, when there are lots and lots of bodies lying around. Rats breed fast and often, and I could see the cities being a-swarm for maybe a year after the fact, max. Once all the people are consumed, there just ain't that much food in your average concrete jungle. Wander through NYC 10 years after all we're gone, and I'm betting there just won't be all that much wildlife. Certainly not endless billions of rodents. Nature is very good at wielding the twin swords of plague and starvation to keep populations in control - remove mankind from the picture, and she'll have things nicely balanced out again in no time.

Tired

2005-08-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

I shouldn't complain - it's not like I've been working 12-hour days or anything like that. But we've been away the last 3 weekends, which means all the home stuff I do on weekends has been crammed into Tuesdays, my regular housework day. And the kids were away all of last week, and I just don't sleep soundly when they're away. And work has been stressful - irritating, thoughtless people causing 3 times as much work as is necessary because they just won't think, setting stupidly tight deadlines then not holding up their end so their work and everything else is late anyhow.

I think I'm burning out.

Call of a Different Kind

2005-08-07T17:33:00.000-07:00

A small boy hits the beach:

Rescue Call

2005-08-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

I missed it, but Grandma and Grandpa got a call on Thursday asking if they'd bring in another abandoned seal pup (#8 for them, #60 for the rescue centre). He's been picked up by kayakers (who had called first) who found him on the beach of a small, uninhabited island. They brought him over to Mayne, and my parents, with the kids, took him over to SaltSpring Island.

The kids named him Hot Chocolate.

He was really little - this is a standard camping cooler:

Unfortunately, Hot Chocolate didn't make it. He was premature, and hypothermic, and the staff at the rescue centre weren't able to warm him up despite their best efforts. But Cerveza, my parents' first rescue, is doing great, as are several of the others they've brought in.

Sway

2005-08-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

Make me thrill as only you know how
Sway me smooth, sway me now
-- Dean Martin --

I have, at the ripe old age of 38, finally mastered the feminine art of hip-swaying.

As pre-teens, my friends and I would parody The Walk, throwing our hips so far to the side that we risked dislocation with every step. As a thin and gawky teen, I joined a marching band, and in learning to walk military-style (any time a group of us went to the mall, we would eventually find ourselves marching in step to the muzak. It was horribly embarrassing) seem to have missed out on developing a girly sway. In my twenties, I took great pride in my long, masculine stride (Why? Damned if I know. In hindsight, it seems like a pretty lame – no pun intended – thing to be proud of.)

At 31, after a day-long hike with Dean, I developed tendonitis in my iliotibial band – the tendon that runs from the hip to below the knee. After some physio and (expensive) custom shoe inserts, it went from acutely painful to occasionally irritating. Walking downhill was the worst – every step brought a sharp flare of pain at my knee. It’s manageable, as long as I remember not to roll my feet when I walk, and exercise my quads, but every trip to the cabin, with its steeply sloping driveway, brings pain.

Until recently. I work with a woman who is about 8’ tall (OK, she’s really only about 6’2”, which is plenty big enough), who strides down the office corridors like a supermodel. I was mildly fascinated by her walk and started trying to figure out the mechanics of it for myself. There’s a loooong straight hallway between my desk and the washrooms, so I started practicing, trying to figure out how she does it. My own walk involves very little side-to-side motion, but my head and shoulders bob up and down. I discovered that if I concentrated on holding my head still, all that vertical momentum was translated into a pleasing side-to-side movement at hip level. After several months of practice, I can now sway with the best of them – even Dean has commented on the results.

And last weekend at the cabin, hills and all, my knee didn’t bother me once.

Diva's Next Pet

2005-08-03T21:18:00.000-07:00

Diva's expressed an interest in Pacific Banana Slugs. They have a lot to recommend them - they're low maintenance, will eat most organic waste, don't take up a lot of room, get along well with others, and are unlikely to be eaten by other pets. And while they don't wag their tails, they've got those cute, wiggly eye stalks:

Some interesting slug facts:

the Banana Slug is the second largest slug and can grow to 25 cm long.
their slime is multi-purpose: for respiration, attracting mates, locomotion and protection
the slime acts as an anaesthetic, which deters predators.
a slug can travel over a razor blade or sharp edge of glass without cutting itself because of the slime that covers the foot.
a slug that has climbed a tree can get down quickly by dropping to the ground safely from a string made of slime.
the Banana Slug is hermaphroditic - they are capable of self fertilization but more often cross mate.
when a slug is ready to mate, it leaves behind a chemical in its slime to signal potential mates.
before mating, slugs will eat each other's slime.
slugs are capable of storing the sperm that they have received for many weeks.
the Banana Slug gnaws off its penis when disengaging from sex.

And so, as you can see, slugs make most excellent pets. Except for the slime, but really, what pet doesn't come with a drawback or two? And they're cheap - I'd be happy to provide you with as many slugs as you want, just for the cost of shipping (they're light, too - an added bonus!). If you think the 25cm Banana Slug is too big, we have smaller Black Garden Slug as well - they top out at about 15cm, and with their glossy black skin would be well suited to more formal occasions.

Non-lethal Cuteness

2005-08-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

We didn't get called to rescue any seal pups over the weekend (which in the grand scheme of things is a good thing), so I have no heart-stoppingly adorable pictures of big-eyed orphans. We did, however, receive daily visits from this fellow:

He wandered up a couple of times a day for a drink, then disappeared under the porch my father insisted was otter-proof. Once upon a time that pot had fish in it - we have no idea what could have happened to them.

I would say more about our fabulous weekend, but Dean pretty much covered all the highlights. Except the part about where I learn that waterskiing at 38 is not the same as waterskiing at 21 - at least not as far as your joints are concerned. Oh, but it was worth the pain!

A Small Episode of Personal Growth

2005-07-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

I met with the spearhead again today (I've got to come up with a better name than that as she's really very nice. Perhaps I'll just call her A.), and had to entertain her for half an hour or so between meetings. I managed to refrain from the personal data dump this time and limited my conversation to amusing anecdotes.

I'm so proud of myself!

Weekending

2005-07-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

We're heading off to my parents' place again tonight - they took the kids yesterday and will keep them next week while Dean & I are at work. Which means 4 whole nights without kids, the longest we've been alone since the monkey child was born.

And, if we are sufficiently decadent, may mean a dearth of posts over the next week or so. If I have to choose between getting nekkid with my beloved and blogging, it's not much of a contest.

On the other hand, my dad's new hobby is rescuing seal pups, so I may have some appallingly cute photos to post on Tuesday.

Have a wonderful weekend, all! I know we will.

Babble-ocity ... Babelousness ... Babblaciousness ... Talking Too Damn Much

2005-07-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

Some time in the last 10 years, I've turned into a chatterbox. I used to be a quiet, bookish type. My sister was the talkative one in our family, and my mom. My dad and I were the ones who just smiled and nodded in agreement. I still think of myself that way, until I realize that I've been rambling on like an idiot, or telling my life story (well, maybe not the juicy parts - I save those for here) to someone I just met.

At work, we've hired a creative agency to help us revamp the company image. I'm the main coordinator on our side, and I met today for the second time with the woman who will be spearheading the project on the agency side. We talked about the project for about 90 minutes, then started making small talk. Half an hour later, I'd told her about my kids, my parents, my incomprehensible brother, my sister and why I think she move to London, why Dean and I are together ... As I left the building, I was thinking to myself "What the fuck? Why the hell did I tell her all that?" Granted, she's a lovely person, and a sympathetic listener, but we've spent a little over 3 hours together in total, and I really don't think any of the conversation was relevant to the job that brought us together. Even 5 years ago, admitting I had a child would have been opening up a lot for me. So where did this fountain of confidences come from?

As I drove home (in really ugly traffic, by the way), I came up with the following possibilities:

1. I have a chemical imbalance that has resulted in a dramatic personality change.

2. I'm finally starting to believe Dean when he tells me I'm worth listening to - to the point where I'll inflict personal thoughts and feelings on any innocent bystander in the mistaken belief that they care.

3. I'm so insecure and needy that I'll spill my guts for anyone in hope of garnering a little sympathy/pity/polite yet insincere interaction.

4. I'm turning into my mother (oh no, please, not that. Anything but that! Tapeworms in my brain, even).

5. It's this damn blog. I've gotten used to rambling on and on about whatever I feel like, and the people who wander by and drop off the occasional polite comment have provided just enough random positive feedback that I'm addicted to baring my soul.

Return To Form

2005-07-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

I posted a mildly titillating comment on Jim Winter's blog yesterday (he has resurrected the Angelina - Hot or Not? debate) and have received some traffic as a result. Poor souls, looking for more sxKittenish musings, and what do they get? Hallmark moments and a canine obit. Kind of false advertising, really.

So, for any visitors wanting more sx than kitten, I hereby present my Top 5 list, à la Friends, of Celebrities With Whom I Would Sleep, Given The Opportunity:

1. Angelina Jolie
2. Tom Selleck
3. Angelina Jolie
4. George Clooney
5. Angelina Jolie

Tom would have to buy me dinner first. George would have to spring for dinner, flowers, and a really good bottle of red wine. Angelina just has to show up.

So, who's on your list?

Good-bye

2005-07-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

Miko
May, 1990 - July, 2005

Good-bye, my friend.

More Cuteness

2005-07-18T12:32:00.000-07:00

The Monkey Child Asleep.

He loves his soccer ball and his new racing car toothbrush (still in its wrapper for safekeeping).

The Racers

He says he chose Victoria because she had the prettiest face paint. And she did, too:

Insulin-shock Warning

2005-07-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

Photo of almost unbearable sweetness ahead.

Today was my company picnic. It was just the MonkeyBoy and me, which is fine as he gives me the perfect excuse to avoid excessive socializing (something at which I suck). We tormented crabs on the beach, played at the park, ate lunch on a lunch-eating rock (that's what he called it, anyhow. I would have thought you'd want to keep your lunch as far away from a lunch-eating rock as possible, but what do I know?), then we went in a 3-legged parent-&-child race together, which was absolutely hilarious. Then they had a race just for kids, and he paired up a little girl - I can't remember her name, but she's just 3 and adorable. I didn't take many pictures, but this one was just too good to miss:

Amazingly, they did not come in dead last, despite being the shortest team by many inches. After that, there was a water balloon fight, a candy toss, some more dessert, and then it was time to go. I was sure he'd be asleep in under 10 minutes in the car, but no. We played 620 questions on the way home - Scooby Doo, Jimmy Neutron, and Spy Kids this time. I'm pretty beat, but he was still going strong right up to bedtime.

Responsibility and the Ducking Thereof

2005-07-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of being the responsible parent in my daughter's life. The one who makes her do her homework, and practice the piano, and clean her room, and put her laundry away.

My ex-husband signed her up for and takes her to piano lessons, but he expects me to make sure the practicing is done. Ditto for homework - he picked and paid for the private school and goes to all the award ceremonies, but the actual work part is almost always done on my watch.

He's a college instructor and despite the fact that he constantly whines about how hard he has to work and how gruelling his schedule is, he doesn't actually put in more than 35 hours a week, and sets his own schedule so he's not actually on campus more than 3 days a week (Plus he gets 2 weeks off at Christmas and almost 4 months in the summer, but I won't get into that just now). Which means that on the days she's with him, he doesn't work. He bitches about how much work he has to do, but when they're together, his schedule is free and clear. It's just the two of them, and they go hiking, kayaking, fishing, swimming, work in their garden, look after their dog, cat, rabbits and chickens. They took stained glass classes together, then built a workshop in the basement. They go out for dinner at fancy restaurants, have seasons tickets to the opera ... he treats her more like a girlfriend than a daughter, but they do a lot of cool stuff together. And I don't think she's ever cleaned her room at his house.

I'm very glad that she's being exposed to all these wonderful things, but it often makes me feel like the also-ran parent. I work 4 days a week, but can't set my own schedule, so my weekday off is devoted to laundry, grocery-shopping, and cleaning the house. Weekends are a little better, but there are 4 of us to coordinate, money's tighter, and we have other obligations. And this summer, neither Dean nor I can take vacation time.

Chickadee and her dad are heading off for 10 days at a cottage on one of the Gulf Islands this weekend, kayaks, bikes and fishing gear in tow. She'll have a ball. When she gets back, I'm entitled to an equal amount of time with her, but I have to work. So my parents are taking the kids to their place on Mayne for a week and a half. Dean and I will join them on the weekends. She'll have a ball there, too, but all the fun stuff will be courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa, not me.

I worry about how she's going to look back on her time with me when she's older. Will she feel that I didn't value her as much as her father does? That I didn't make time for her? Will she resent my pushing and prodding her to work?

The only consolation I have, and it's a small one, is that it would have been infinitely worse if her father and I had stayed together.

All Out of Answers

2005-07-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I figured out why I'm having trouble remembering things. It's not an age thing (or at least it's not just an age thing). It's the children - the shortest one in particular.

I can't remember my grocery list, or what colour carpet we need for our booth at the next trade show, or what products are in group 49, or where I left my keys, because all my RAM has been given over to remembering every single fricken' detail of every single movie the MonkeyChild has every seen. We spent over 2 hours in the car on Saturday, and he spent the entire time peppering me with questions like:

Why did Jimmy's mom get mad at him for knocking the chimney off the roof? (Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius)
Why did the sand people power R2D2? (Star Wars)
How come Scooby Doo got put into the cyber space? (Scooby Doo and the something to do with computers - Grandma rented this one, so I didn't actually watch it but am still expected to know all the answers)
Why did the robot blow up when he got into the water? (The Incredibles)
What would happen if the sand people powered me and you and dad? (SW)
Why did Randall want to steal Boo? (Monsters Inc.)
Why did they tell Mr. Incredible to just kill the robot and not destroy it? (TI)
Why wasn't Cindy wearing different underpants? (Jimmy Neutron, When Pants Attack)
Why did Randall put Mike in that machine thing? (MI)
Who was Luke again? (SW)
Why did King Goobar steal Jimmy's parents and want to feed them to the giant chicken? And can you say the thing he said when Jimmy was tiny and then wasn't tiny again? (JN, BG)
Why didn't Mr. Incredible put Syndrome's gloves in water so they'd blow up? (TI)
Who was inside the tar monster? (Scooby Doo and the whatever)
Why did Cindy's pants come off all by themselves? (JN, WPA)
Why did Syndrome want to kill all the supers so no one was super but him? (TI)
What's a virus? (Scooby Doo, I assumed)
Why did Jimmy launch the toaster into space? (JN, BG)

Part of the challenge is that the questions come at random - you can't predict what you'll be hit with next. And each answer spawned new lines of questioning - an endlessly branching tree in which he leapt from branch to branch as lightly as a squirrel. I think the lad has a future in the intelligence community - he's utterly relentless, and frequently doubles back to try to catch you in a contradiction. I finally said my brain had run out of answers, that he'd have to wait a day to ask me any more questions. Fortunately, that sounded completely reasonable to him, and every time he started to pose another one, he'd stop and say "Oh, I forgot, your brain is empty."

I wish. I could do so much with all that free space ...

I'm Going To Get You, Christopher W. Murphy ... Someday, Somehow, Somewhere, I'm Going To Get You!

2005-07-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

Dude, you almost made me cry at work!

Explanatory note: In what I assume was intended as a thoughtful gesture, the aforementioned CWM sent me the following today, probably meant to express sympathy at the plight of my aging and feeble dog:

"DOG OWNER'S PRAYER"

Have you a dog in Heaven, Lord?
And do you pat his head?
Does he sit up and beg each night
Before he goes to bed?

Does he look up with soulful eyes
When he sees your smiling face?
Does he wag his feathered tail
When he wants to run a race?

Do you have a dog in Heaven, Lord?
Is there room for just one more?
My faithful dog died today,
He'll be waiting at your door.

Please take him into Heaven, Lord,
And keep him there for me.
Just feed him, pet him, love him, Lord,
That's all he'll ask of thee.

- Anonymous

The problem is, I've gotten weepier as I've gotten older. In my 20's, I cried at nothing. Unless I got really angry. Then I cried. Which made me angrier. So I cried harder, which made me angrier, which made me cry ... you get the picture. The net result was that I very rarely get angry any more. But in the last 5 years, I've started tearing up at the dumbest things. Funerals and weddings, OK, that's socially acceptable. But maudlin birthday cards, touch-feely emails, sappy movies ... things I would have sneered at in my youth now make me tear up. It's really pathetic.

So anyhow, I didn't even make it through the second verse today. I still can't read the whole thing start to finish without getting all sucky and emotional. You've destroyed my stoic facade, Christopher W. Murphy, and you must PAY!!!

PS. Thanks, by the way. He's doing just fine again (well, as fine as a 15-year old, senile, deaf, arthritic, deranged border collie can be) and will probably keep chugging along for another 5 years, just to be perverse.

Death-Defying Dog

2005-07-06T16:30:00.000-07:00

I'm at home today, nursing a self-inflicted migraine. Low grade - they've lost most of their punch over the years, and this is the first one I've had since my one and only experiment with pot last fall. I spent most of the morning in bed, wishing whoever was rocking the room back and forth would just fuck off and let me sleep. I had thought about trying to work a half day, but was still pretty dizzy around lunchtime and figured driving wasn't a great idea. Just as well - the big project I was going in to work on was canned this morning.

The joy of the migraine was compounded by Dean's announcement, at around 4 this morning (I'm guessing here - without my contacts, I can't read the clock in our room) that the dog was in distress - incontinent, very confused, and agitated. He's 15 now, and has been failing for almost 2 years - arthritis, paralysis in his back legs, cataracts, profound hearing loss, assorted lumps and unnatural growths ... plus total senile dementia. He was never very sane to begin with (most Border Collies are a little nuts, but he's on the far end of that bell curve) and he's become more and more deranged as he's aged. So I sat with him, feeling utterly wretched, from 4:30 til probably 5:30, stroking his head whenever he stopped his frantic pacing, and wondering what time the vet opened so I could take him in for The Last Visit.

I've always said I'd let him go when he stopped being happy to wake up - it's totally subjective, I know, but I figure I'll know when it's time. This morning, I thought it was. He was so disturbed and frenetic that I knew it wasn't a kindness to keep him like this. I finally lay down on the sofa and drifted off to sleep for 45 minutes or so. When I woke up, he was motionless on the floor beside me, and I really hoped he'd just gone in his sleep. But he woke up, followed me up the stairs without falling (a rarity these days - we've been locking him downstairs at night because his legs are so weak we're afraid he'll fall and break his hip), and went back to sleep in his old spot in our closet.

He's always happy when someone's home sick, and he's been padding around behind me all day, sleeping when I sleep, perfectly happy and serene in his insanity.

So, no trip to the vet. Today.

Summer Randomnicity

2005-07-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

A pot pourri of stray thoughts on a warm and wet afternoon. The kids are flaked out on the futon with the guinea pigs (also known as the Jolie Aubergines, an homage to Ursula V's cheerful eggplants), hoovering down pretzels and Yop. I'm staring out at the rain between sentences, pondering the wisdom of agreeing to barbecue shrimp for dinner.

MonkeyBoy is conducting vocabulary experiments again today. I asked him if he wanted a drink this morning and was told "That's a resounding no, Mom." He also told the nice man at Safeway, at some length, about his new intragalactic laser.

We had a lovely long weekend at the cabin. Much food was consumed; a walk to a very high place was executed;

there was beachness;

there was playgrounding;

and we caught some frogs. Teeny, tiny frogs;

Actual size was less than an inch long. Oh, and both baby eagles are flying now.

That about sums up the weekend, really.

Offline Warning, Plus a Bonus Movie Review

2005-06-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

We're heading off to Mayne Island tonight, provided our ferry remembers to stop in time. The internet has reached Mayne, provincial backwater that it is, but not my parents' cabin, so we'll not be posting til late Sunday at best. But I should acquire lots of blog-worthy photos, so all is not lost.

Grandma and Grandpa took the kids over yesterday, leaving us with a whole evening to fill, so we betook ourselves to the movies. Since we're both in lust with Angelina Jolie, we watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and enjoyed it thoroughly - totally unbelievable plot, lots of things blowing up, witty banter, and my beloved Angelina in black vinyl and fishnets. What's not to love?

As an aside, Jennifer Aniston never stood a chance. She should have hired a divorce lawyer the second Brad agreed to work on location with Ms. Jolie.

A Milestone of No Import To Anyone But Me, About Which I Shall Blog Anyhow Because It's My Blog and There's Not a Damn Thing You Can Do About It

2005-06-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

For the first time since 1993, my hair is (barely) long enough to catch back in a ponytail.

Spoiling for a Fight

2005-06-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

MonkeyBoy was in a belligerent mood this morning, not of a mind to agree with anything. Having experienced this before, I wasn't foolish enough to give him any ammunition, so he was left to find his own windmills at which to tilt. He found one, eventually, and worked himself into a towering rage, bellowing "She says there aren't any names I can't rhyme, but there are SO!"

The she in question is the unnamed singer of The Name Game. You know, the one that goes "Shirley, Shirley, bo Birley, banana fana fo Firley, etc ..."

Yes, it's been one of those days.

New Addiction

2005-06-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

Photographing flowers - I don't seem to be able to walk past my garden these days without grabbing a few close-ups. Maybe it's my subconscious, preparing for the cold, grey days of winter. Whatever the underlying cause, I find I'm fascinated by colours and textures - so delicate, but lush and sensual at the same time.

A few of my current favourites:

Nasturtiums - bought on a whim, neglected and unplanted for almost a month, and still they reward me with their cheerful faces.

A miniature rose (the flower itself is less than 2" across), one of four purchased at the supermarket, also on a whim (to be honest, 95% of my garden consists of spur-of-the-moment acquisitions). I thought they were too delicate to be planted outdoors, but they're thriving. All have doubled in height, and are starting to bloom again. This is the first to flower - the others are lavender, deep red and yellow.

A close-up of the rose in my front garden. I shot this blind, but love the result - the petals look so fragile, so ephemeral. They're remarkably tough for all their diaphanous appearance.

PS. I haven't forgotten my promise to show you my lilies - I'm waiting for the two newest ones to bloom, then will post the lot.

There Are No Words

2005-06-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

David Hasselhoff's latest video - is this the kind of thing you dream up after a 2-week drug binge? You have to watch it right to the end, painful though it will be, because it just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

My kids have better sense than he does. Hell, the guinea pigs, with a collective IQ of two and a half, know better. What was going through his mind when this idea was pitched?

Thanks to Jason Mulgrew for the link. This is one of those things you have to see to believe. It's just that bad.

On Books

2005-06-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Because I have been tagged by the Diva herself

1) Number of books I own.

I had to do a collective count, because separating all our books into His, Hers, and the Short Ones' would take weeks. Our grand total is something over 1200, broken down thusly:

Our bedroom: 110 in the bookcase, 28 scattered hither and yon.
My ensuite: 15
Living room: 130 big people books, 146 small people books
Kitchen: 26 cookbooks, 11 others
Chickadee's room: 110
MonkeyBoy's room: 60 of his, 150 of ours.
Assorted boxes: somewhere between 300 and 500.

In the last year, we've divested ourselves of another, oh, 6 or 700 books, donated to the fledgling library on Mayne Island.

2) Last book I bought.

Although it horrifies me to admit this, I cannot remember the last book I bought. I've been rereading some of the hundreds of books we brought back from our storage locker for the last 3 or 4 months. I used to buy at least a book a week - it's an expensive habit, and I've had to cut back of late.

3) Last book I read.

Kushiel's Avatar, by Jacqueline Carey, third in a trilogy, a much-appreciated present from my love. Highly recommended if you like a little S&M with your fantasy.

4) Books that mean a lot to me.

I'm not especially sentimental about books - I think I've just read too many to form strong attachments (I'm a book slut, I admit it). Still, I have some favourites:

The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien - I read this for the first time in Grade 2. I can't imagine that I really appreciated it at that age, but I do remember being quite taken with Smaug.

Narnia Series, CS Lewis - read at about the same age. My dad brought them home for me one at a time, a new one tucked in his overcoat pocket every Friday.

The Tale of Custard the Dragon, Ogden Nash - still one of my favourites, I can recite this one from memory.

Thomas Covenant series, Stephen R Donaldson - the first novel I read where the author had a bigger vocabulary than I did. Favourite new word learned: chiaroscuro

The Blue Castle, LM Montgomery. Overall not as good a book as Anne of Green Gables, but I identified more with the main character.

5) Tag (at least) five more.

Um, I'm going to wimp out on this one and let Dean do the tagging. Almost everyone on my list has already been hit. I obviously need to get out more.

Stall Selection

2005-06-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

Wherein I reveal how deeply weird I really am. Anyone desirous of retaining even the smallest amount of respect for my intelligence and sanity should leave now.

Seriously.

Go on now, shoo!

Ok then, you've been warned ...

For as long as I've worked in an office where the washroom has more than one stall, I've made my choice of toilets based on a strategy designed to minimize the likelihood that I will be assassinated¹. I've built my strategy around the following assumptions:

1. Said assassin will want to minimize the possibility of witnesses, so will need a hidden position and an opportunity to make the attempt while I am alone. The washroom at work, in my opinion, provides the greatest chance of success.
2. Said assassin can only cover one stall at a time².

In my current office, there are 3 stalls. I generally prefer the one closest to the door, but I try to inject as high a level of randomness as possible in my selections throughout the day, to avoid forming a noticeable pattern, thus minimizing the likelihood of a successful hit. And I've done a pretty good job of it, if I do say so myself.

Until today, when I realized that in order to foil my carefully planned manoeuvres, all a would-be killer would have to do is put something icky in 2 of the 3 toilets, and target the third.

If you don't hear from me again, you'll know why. Don't say I didn't warn you.

_________________________________________

1. Why would anyone want to assassinate me, you ask? Well, that's hardly the point now, is it? I mean, if I knew why they wanted to assassinate me, I could possibly do something about the situation, thus rendering moot the question of where to pee.

2. Because if he can cover all of them at once, then I'm dead no matter what I choose and there's no point in having a strategy at all, is there?

Overheard at Home

2005-06-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

From the Monkeychild:

Pull-ups are just like underwear but different.
My dragon is the same colour as not the other dragon.
I can't eat any more, I'm filled.
Just tell me without remembering.
Robots can fall down, you know. If you take the key out, they fall down on their metal bum.
I want some water to drink in bed, but in a juice box, not a glass, because then I'd have to wake up to drink it.
Dad, stop making that noise. I'm trying to make coffee here.
Yes or no? Yes or no? Just tell me yes or no. I'll give you a hint: nuh-nuh-nuh ... -- Um, no? -- Yes, precisely!

Lily

2005-06-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

I'm taking pictures of my lilies as they open, and will post the complete collection once all the colours have bloomed. In the meantime, here's an artsy shot of Lily #2:

*** Haloscan is being a pain in the ass and won't let me post a comment, so I'll reply here:

Thanks! I was trying to mimic one of the new features in PaintShop Pro - when you select an area to crop, it drops the rest of the image into shadow so you can preview it. Dean pointed out that it was a cooler image than either the original or the cropped version, so I tried to recreate it.

Amanda; I don't have a flickr account yet - these are all hosted on Photobucket . I've thought about switching, but I have another blog for my family under my real name, and I don't know if I'd have to set up 2 separate accounts to avoid blowing my cover :-)

Mystery Pix by MonkeyBoy

2005-06-19T18:43:00.000-07:00

The Short One got hold of my camera the other day and took some interesting shots. His portrait work:

My new, red shoes:

The guinea pigs (also known as the piggles):

He exhibits his father's fascination with texture and my love of colour, plus a penchant for extreme close-ups. Ten points for every image you can identify correctly:

Bonus Round: What movie did we watch last night?