The attitude. The attitude. And OMG the fricken ATTITUDE.

Let me explain.

I have four kids. Two in their 20s (round 1) and two tweenagers (round 2).

Why?

My theory is that a very deep, very masochistic part of me thought that it would be fun to go through the hell that is raising teenagers a second time.

Two things are clear from this:

1. I was drinking at the time.

2. I had forgotten about the oh-joy, oh-blissdom that comes with living with teenagers.

Stated another way: hormones are assholes.

As parents, we have our work cut out for us. And as a rule, seeing that happy smile on our children’s faces is worth every sleepless night; every ton of laundry.

But let’s face it. We’re talking about teenagers here. The smiles are rare and the attitude is abundant.

Good news!

As mentioned, this is round 2 for me and if I’ve learned anything from round 1 it’s that hormones eventually reach a state of quiet balance.

So my message to all you moms and dads of teenagers out there is to resist the urge to run away from home. Our children as we know, love and remember them, do resurface.

PS. This is an open invitation to remind me that there is a light at the end of the raising-teenagers tunnel.

Actually, in some shabby basement is probably closer to the truth than a rock. And in a shady part of town. So shady that you’re afraid to venture out into the streets of your desolate neighbourhood.

(Note to your neighbours: this is not a reflection on you. This is directed towards creepy twitter skank. Your neighbour.)

And since you have no friends, you spend your time trying to convince the rest of us that you’re hot.

You tell us that you look like a hair commercial:

Beautiful hair commercial girl.

But we KNOW you look more like this:

twitter skank

That’s fine. We all do what we have to to get by in the world. Although a mirror might help.

But since you insist on annoying the crap out of me, I thought I’d give you a smidgen of my undivided attention.

My question to you is why do you annoy me so?

I’m not interested in your get-rich-quick schemes.

I’m definitely not curious enough to click on your, um, virtual jolly links.

And if I believed in your free iPad 3 offers I might just be the first one in line. But I don’t believe anything you say.

Oh and in case you think I’ve overlooked the rules of proper grammar, the non-capitalization on your name, dear twitter skanks, is INTENTIONAL. You are not a proper noun. You’re an inappropriate weirdo who doesn’t know the difference between someone who actually NEEDS a penis enlargement and someone who is perfectly happy with her boyfriend’s.

Oh damn. I’ve just stooped down to your level by using the word “penis”. OMG I just used it again.

I’m going to twitter skank hell.

Here’s a snapshot of yesterday:

Me to Jon and Sam who were chilaxing on the couch, watching reruns of Malcolm in the Middle at 1 o’clock in the afternoon: What are you guys doing?

Jon: Studying

Sam: Reading

Me: Do you think I’m blind or just stupid? – Don’t answer that – It’s a beautiful day outside. Let’s go for a walk.

Silence.

Me: Come on. Let’s go.

Silence.

Me: Hellll-OOOOOOO.

At which point a few profanities were said that I can’t repeat here. (In case child services decide to check into our household on account of the profanities that I can’t repeat here.)

Have you ever calculated how long it takes a couple of teenagers to get a move on when there’s nothing they would rather do than, well, nothing?

Here. Allow me.

40 MINUTES!!!

By the time we finally got outside, I was exhausted. Also, I had lost my voice and the neighbours were politely acting busy with washing their cars and raking up their lawns. Probably so that they wouldn’t have to look me in the eyes.

Note to self: Must remember to use my indoor voice when yelling at the kids now that the nice weather has arrived.

During the last six hours before boarding the plane to come home, my focus became “how can I hold on to this forever?” Which lead me to go online and check out the real estate.

Did you know that you can buy a condo in Florida for under $50,000? I even found one for $26,000 in a 55+ gated community!

Yes, I KNOW that I’m not 55 years old (and thank-you for noticing) but I’ll fake it if it means I can spend time away from winter. And besides, living in a 55+ community would allow me to implement a three-step solution for staying young forever:

Step 1-Hang out with old people.

Step 2-Consume large amounts of alcohol.

Step 3-Repeat.

Since Greg hates winter as much as I do (possibly even more), I had him CONVINCED that buying a condo in Florida was the right thing to do. Everything was set, we were going to take the plunge and invest in our very own condo in Florida!

Then something stupid happened. Greg started playing around with numbers.

While I was 40,000 feet in the air and therefore unable to text him about all the great reasons we should buy our condo (as reinforcement), he was busy calculating.

His conclusion? By the time we’re able to spend any real amount of time in Florida we’ll have spent close to $60,000 on condo fees, taxes and electricity.

“It’s just not a good investment,” he explained.

I hate math.

So before my trip to Florida I decided to download a guided meditation onto my iPhone. You know. To help me manage my anxiety attacks during take-off. Only I didn’t get to listen to it during the flight because, Jonathan, my flying partner, needed my earbuds for the flight movie. (Somehow it’s just easier to deal with an anxiety attack than it is with a bored teenager.)

Since I never got to listen to this guided meditation, last night I decided to listen to it before falling asleep.

This is where I discovered that meditating really does bring enlightenment.

The meditation was going well. As I listened to the soft, soothing voice I could feel every muscle in my body relax. Even the hamster was being charmed into an unnatural state of quiet.

The meditation I had chosen was supposed to relax AND inspire, so I was even enjoying t he encouraging words that told me that all things are possible . . . if I focus on my goals “with love and clarity”.

To demonstrate the importance of proper focusing, the narrator went into a little story. A story about one of his “clients” who desperately wanted a million dollars.

Apparently, this client wanted his million dollars so badly that he meditated every day on his goal. Diligently. Until one day he was in a car accident and lost both his arms and his legs.

“And he did get his million dollars,” said the peaceful voice. “Thanks to his insurance.”

That’s when my eyes popped open. What kind of a guided meditation takes you on a journey of DOOM?!!

Can you imagine if I had listened to this while 40,000 feet in the air?

Lesson learned:

Wherein I used to think that alcohol should not be consumed while flying, I’ve changed my mind.

What was I THINKING?!!

In yesterday’s post I revealed that my life as a single mother has not always been, um, a fairy tale life.

Specifically, when I said this:

“ . . . once upon a long time ago I was a young, single mother and writing saved me.”

I didn’t intend to have a life of hardship – which is the best word I can come up with to describe the edge of hell that defines my 20’s.

The truth is that although my life started off with the same advantages as everyone else, the downhill spiral began with one decision: To have children with Mr. Bad Choice.

The warning signs were abound, including the voices in my head.

“NOOOOOOO! DON’T DO IT!!!”

But being young and stupid, I thought – I actually BELIEVED – that I knew better. I accused the voices of being paranoid, told them to shut up and went on my merry, little I’m-ignoring-the-voices way.

Well it didn’t take long for the light to shine bright on the direction I had chosen for my life and with two young kids in tow, I finally left. I knew that it wouldn’t be easy to raise my girls alone but I also knew that “hard” would be better than “miserably disappointed”.

Mr. Bad Choice turned out to be MR. DEADBEAT DAD who never contributed to the task of raising our children, two beautiful girls who deserved more than I could give them alone.

The reason I’m telling you this is because I have a strong urge to take every clearly unhappy woman – mothers usually – and shake some sense into their all-knowing asses. You may be 16, you may be 25, but if you’re contemplating on building a life with someone and a little voice that’s not your mother’s is saying, “NOOOOOOO! DON’T DO IT!!!” – I urge you to listen to that voice.

The quality of your life is not dependent on luck. You make your own luck. And that luck is made by your decisions. Your choices.

I’m done preaching.

I write, therefore I am.

We’re told that the most important thing about writing is to have something to say. Which I completely agree with. Most of the time.

This post is about those other times. The times when I have nothing to say. And yet still suffer from a compulsion to say it.

And by “it” I mean nothing.

If you’re a writer, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s that hot-lava feeling that stirs from the depths of your being. Almost like when you have to pee, except that it comes from a higher place. Possibly your solar plexus but definitely not your bladder.

And the urge can come at any time. It starts as a tinkling of a thought with the biggest part – the part you haven’t uncovered yet – pushing against your every intention.

Why am I telling you this?

Because once upon a long time ago I was a young, single mother and writing saved me. (I am now an OLDER single mother – and writing continues to save me.)

In fact, writing is the one thing that has always been a constant in my life. And for that, I am grateful.

I’ve written through my insecurities. My fears. My self-esteem issues . . . Words have oozed out of my soul like puss out of the face of a teenager.

Writing consoles. Heals. Brings you to a better understanding of yourself and the world around you.

I’m not sure what I would have turned out to be if I wasn’t a writer but I do know this. I wouldn’t be me. And on that note, I believe it’s time to make a toast:

To writing!

(Dear Muse, I’m going to walk into the kitchen now and it would be really cool if there was a bottle of wine waiting for me on the counter. Or vodka.)

My son, who would rather be ANYWHERE ELSE

We thought it would be a good idea to get me away from my computer and go for a walk on the beach this morning. You know. A little fresh air and exercise before work.

It was truly a great idea.

We had the sun.

The ocean.

The sand.

And a teenager who clearly thought that walking on the beach with his mother and grandmother was akin to root canal.

Flip Flops = Paradise

I’m relieved to report that Jonathan, my 13 year old, and I arrived safely in Florida last night. The first thing I did when we got here was rip off my Montreal, winter clothes and dig out my shorts and flip flops.

I LOVE my flip flops. They’re the second key ingredient to a happy life. (The first is alcohol.)

But it’s not all flip flops and happiness for some people; specifically the girl who works at the Burger King Jon and I stopped to eat at during our travels.

Now I don’t want to sound like I live under a rock but when I asked Ms. Burger-King-Ray-of-Sunshine what her equivalent to a Quarter Pounder was, the first thing she did was stare at me with a blank face.

13 seconds of silence.

Thinking that maybe I had spoken a foreign language (ENGLISH), I repeated my question in French.

“I heard you the first time,” she answered. “And we don’t have Quarter Pounders. We have WHOPPERS.”

“Yes, I get that. But I don’t want anything similar to a Big Mac. You know. With the ‘special sauce’,” I explained. “I want something Quarter Pound-ISH.”

“Uh-huh.” And then again nothing but a blank face so I ended up ordering a WHOPPER.

Dear Burger King Girl: May I suggest a little flip flop therapy?

Or maybe a career change.

Why?

So that I can look at it just before take-off. It will be a great reminder of what I WON’T SEE after my 3-hour flight.

PS. If you’re thinking of robbing my house while I’m gone, I keep my valuables right next to the dogs’ food. (Dogs’. Proper grammar. More than one.)

PPS. I just noticed that I’m awake at 3 and that my flight is 3 hours. Coincidence? The hamster doesn’t think so and will probably make a game of figuring out its meaning between now and when the day officially starts.

PPPS. Speaking of games and in case you hate them as much as I do, the word is INSOMNIAC. (See title.)

PPPPS. I don’t really hate games. But I do hate being up at 3 AM.

Of course, the fact that Greg isn’t coming is very, very sad (the extra “very” is in case he reads this post) but the truth is that I’ll be working throughout the week anyway.

If you follow this blog you know that during my last trip to Florida, I got the opportunity to face my fear of sharks with a non-shark attack kayak adventure. (The “sharks” turned out to be playing dolphins.)

Well tomorrow I get to face another fear: my fear of flying.

The irony is that my father (whom I’m going to Florida to visit) is a retired pilot. Well captain, actually. So you would think that flying is in my genes or something. It’s not. I have mini panic attacks during take-off and although I usually consider alcohol to be the solution to pretty much everything, I refuse to drink before a flight. Possibly this is where that genetic memory thing kicks in since my dad was adamant about not drinking when he was flying.

(To add fuel to my fear, I saw the movie “The Grey” recently where Liam Neesan’s plane crashes in Alaska and he has to battle a pack of demon wolves to survive.)

My trick for getting through take-off without breaking out into a full-fledged anxiety attack?

I close my eyes and hum. So if you’re on a flight to Florida tomorrow and you notice me humming with my eyes closed, please don’t disturb me.

Consider yourself warned.

Oh. And here’s the link if you want to read about my non-shark attack kayak adventure.

If it wasn’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done!

Steven Pressfield wrote a book just for me: “The War of Art”. Never mind that he doesn’t know who I am. The book talks about resistance and since I’m the queen of procrastination, I’m grateful for his attempt to reach out and intervene. (Just to clarify, I’m actually the queen’s queen. I am the queen that the queen bows down to when it comes to assuming the position of writing. And resisting.)

I love to write. I hate to write. I used to think it was just me but since reading Pressfield’s book, I’m partly relieved to find out that there are others out there that are just like me. But I’m almost a little ticked off. I mean, if I’m not the queen of procrastinating, then what am I? (Rhetorical question. No answer required.)

All that to say that since I can’t be the queen’s queen of procrastination, I need to work on my place in the world. And before I do that, I need to put on my therapist’s thinking cap (which looks exactly like a dunce cap only it says “therapist” on it) and ANALYZE.

This is where the hamster gets all excited. The hamster LOVES to analyze. As you’ll see by this very revealing list.

5 tell-tale signs that I’m about to procrastinate

1. I’m overcome by the sudden urge to tackle something I HATE doing. Things that fall in this category include cooking, cleaning the cat litter and removing the hair from the bath tub drain.

2. A sudden interest in learning something new takes over my life. If anyone’s interested, I downloaded a tutorial on how to grout kitchen tiles, which I’m pretty sure I’ll never get to.

3. An overwhelming sense of urgency to create an elaborate, colour-coded calendar based on my to-do list. A proven delusional way of “connecting” with what I want to accomplish, where nothing ever actually gets done.

4. A sudden desire to organize the medicine cabinet. (As an aside, according to the expiry dates on all the little jars, containers and bottles, I own a science experiment in my bathroom.)

5. A powerful impulse to renew my hate for clutter. Although I really can’t stand clutter, I’ve developed this cool way of ignoring the stacks and stacks of stuff in my house. Stuff that has mysteriously appeared and seems to procreate with time.

Now, just as a mathematician quickly calculates a problem, the hamster looks at this list and recognizes an important clue. A common thread . . .

Every time I’m about to procrastinate, a sense of urgency washes over me to tackle, learn, create, organize or renew.

PS. This blog post happened while I was supposed to be cleaning my house.

While many of us would rather do without our earlobes than give up Tweeting, every once in a while I can’t help but face the fact that there are stragglers among us; people who will fight to the end before admitting to the efficiencies of social media.

And although it pains me to admit this – both to myself and out loud – one such warrior is Greg.

I can hear the gasps of shock from here. Yes, my very own boyfriend refuses to have anything to do with a seamless source of breaking news, inspiration, entertainment and community.

Seamless?

Yes, of course!

While the coffee perks in the morning, I check out the latest in global news and local gossip. (It’s important to know what’s going on in the world.)

Waiting in line at the grocery store is no longer a point of frustration. It’s an opportunity to touch base and find out what others are up to. (Clearly a great stress buster.)

And how do you think I found out about Whitney Houston’s recent death? (R.I.P. Whitney.)

If you’re anyone EXCEPT Greg, you know what I’m talking about.

And yet a recent conversation made me realize that Greg will NEVER join us in the 21st Century.

Me: Why don’t you just try it?

Greg: I DON’T WANT to try it. I’m not interested and I don’t think it’s good for relationships!

Me: Um. WHAT?!!!

Greg: Twitter . . . Facebook . . . they open the door to adultery.

Me: You’re crazy.

Greg: Admit it. Talking to people on Facebook leads to cheating.

Me: I’d agree with you but then we’d both be wrong. Why is social media any different than talking to the pharmacist or the waitress or the gas attendant?

Greg: Social media? Who said anything about social media? We’re talking about Twitter and Facebook.

Me: You have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?

Greg: Of course I do! You’re the one who’s bringing your work into this with words like “social media” – and you KNOW I don’t understand your work.

Me: Okay. You’re right. I’m just trying to confuse you.

PS. I mean seriously. How do I argue with that?

Confession: Call me naïve or call me stupid (just not in the same sentence, please) but whenever I hear someone talk about how we’re destroying our own planet and how our exponential growth is suicidal because it’s gotten to the point where our planet is no longer capable of feeding everyone, I think about the dinosaurs and the missing links and I feel . . . um, comfort in “knowing” that the world will take care of itself somehow. It always does.

I also take comfort in “knowing” that the world will do what it needs to after I’m gone. But that’s just my happy-go-lucky side talking. (I love my happy-go-lucky side.)

This theory of mine – about the world handling her own problems, naturally – stems from reading about forest fires and the food chain. And was recently further reinforced when I read about how Twitter is harder to resist than sex.

So you see. That’s the world taking care of our over-population problem once again through Social Media.

Which brings me to another point: maybe I should connect with David Suzuki.

So what do I do when I can’t sleep? Mostly, I lie in bed and think about stupid things. Like the fact that, yes, Virginia, there is no laundry fairy and that I’m pretty sure that both Jonathan and Samantha complained that they had no clean clothes and did I forget to throw a load of laundry in???

Or I look things up on the internet only to discover that the word “many” in Latin is POLI, which is a buffet supper of food-for-thought for the hamster who just loves to put two and two together even though I’m not really good at math.

Polio . . . Polished . . . Police . . . Polite . . .

Then the hamster stops at the word “politics”.

POLI (many) + TICS (facial spasms) and the hamster starts to think about an old boyfriend I dated about three lifetimes ago and who I thought I really liked until I discovered that he was a compulsive liar.

Every time he lied he would get this nervous tic in his left cheek that would make his eye twitch. (No, Brian, I did not break up with you because your eye twitched. I broke up with you because you lied. About everything.)

You would think that after all this turning around in circles, the hamster would just collapse out of exhaustion but NOOOOOOOO.

The hamster is not satisfied until I get my sleep-deprived ass back out of bed to write about this epic discovery of where the word “politician” derives from.

Also, a benefit to being my age (which generally doesn’t really have any benefits) is that I have kids old enough to be adults. And since I don’t have to worry about changing diapers anymore, they might come too for a NYC adventure the whole family can enjoy.

Okay, but that’s in May. Let me tell you about what I’m experiencing in New York NOW.

New York is like any other city only any other city on steroids. And if you’re not paying attention you just don’t recognize all the unique-to-NY specifics – like transportation.

Transportation (also known as a point of frustration) is special in New York. This is how it works. You stand on a street and raise your hand every time you see a lovely shade of yellow driving towards you. No, it’s not Big Bird. It’s a taxi. And whether he (assuming it’s a “he”) stops or not depends on how he feels.

Let’s put it this way: 11 times out of 10, he’ll pass you by because apparently taxi drivers in New York just like to drive around looking rushed.

You know that expression “she’s a whole lotta woman”? Well New York is a whole lotta city with a whole lotta people and a whole lotta taxis driving all over the place – only they’re not exactly driving around as taxi drivers – don’t let the yellow taxi car fool you (which kind of defeats the word “taxi”, but what do I know?).

I’ve figured out that taxi drivers in New York City are actually video game geeks in disguise. In their minds, they’re not really driving. They’re playing a game called “let’s see if I can squeeze through this tight spot . . . WHOA-HOA!!! I DID IT. 50 POINTS FOR ME!”.

Warning: People with heart problems should not take taxis in New York.

Then at some point in your taxi hailing endeavours, another transportation seeking pedestrian will boldly stand in front of you with the same arm raising gesture. This is when it becomes necessary to wrap up your polite disposition in a piece of bubble gum wrapper and put it in your pocket for later. You move in front of him (which could just as easily be a “her”) and the who-will-get-the-next-available-cabbie game begins and continues until you realize that you’ve just walked 17 blocks in the opposite direction of where you’re going.

Meanwhile about 32 secret-service-looking-type dark vehicles have stopped traffic by pulling in front of you to say that they’ll take you to your destination for a fixed fee which translates into seven times the price of the yellow cabbies’ fare.

So far in my three days of taxi hailing Olympic training I’ve developed awesome muscle bulges under my right armpit. I’ve also realized that the whole arm raising gesture thing is totally useless. If you want a taxi in New York, you have to jump out in front of it while praying to the taxi gods that it stops before you body slam into it.

For my next trip to New York (which I hope is before May because I actually love it here!) I’m bringing my neighbour’s son’s hockey goalie equipment. I probably won’t stand out – this is NEW YORK CITY after all – but at least I’ll be protected.

A personification of my relationship with my house

At the risk of sounding completely delusional, my house is not happy. And when I say “not happy”, I don’t mean in a sad kind of way. I’m talking about that hairy-eyeball-look-you-get-from-your-dad kind of not happy. The kind he stares you down with because you’re seven and you just gave him the finger. Only you were stupid and didn’t check to make sure that his back was turned first because, well you’re seven.

Before I continue I just want to say that I can hear you shaking your heads from here. In my defense, 1) I did warn you about sounding delusional; and 2) that finger-flipping experience with my dad was a real eye-opener for me because I got to learn about the importance of looking before expressing my feelings through sign language.

Back to my house.

It all started last October when I decided to accept a full time position. Not that I wasn’t working full time before that. The transition is that I went from working full time from home, to working full time somewhere else. It’s at this point that my house started to change; becoming this stranger that I barely recognize anymore.

Where once we would enjoy the solitude of each other’s company (and maybe a glass or two of wine), now it’s just nag, nag, nag whenever I AM home.

Gone are the evenings of chilling in peace on the couch with a Criminal Minds marathon. Now all I get is:

“You never vacuum anymore.”

“Hellllll-oooooooo! Have you met your kitchen?!”

How do I explain to my house that it’s not her; it’s me? And that I don’t even have time to shave my legs anymore, let alone water the plants!

I can almost sympathize with that cheating line, “she doesn’t understand me” because I’m about ready to rent an apartment.

And then just as I was beginning to think that maybe some time apart would do us good, my boss tells me that I have to go to New York.

So here I am in NYC, it’s 4 a.m. and I so miss my house. I miss my bed . . . cooking in my own kitchen . . . I even miss the dust bunnies.

PS. I’m thinking that the solution may be to get some help . . .

PPS. But I just hate to pay for something that I can do myself – even if I’m not doing it . . .

PPPS. Hmmmmm. But I wouldn’t actually be hiring a cleaning lady. It would be more of a therapist for my house. A house therapist, to help deal with the sadness. And since I don’t have a degree in house counseling, I have no choice but to hire outside help.

PPPPS. I love it when a plan comes together!

Until . . .

“Mom did you know that mascara is made out of bat poop?”

THIS is what my kids think about after I tuck them in at night???

Back to my iPhone. It’s my new obsession. I could just lie in bed all day playing with all the features. The apps. It’s like a mini-computer that fits in my hand! Facetime makes me even feel like I never have to see anyone in person again!

The only thing it doesn’t do is clean my house. I’m hoping the next generation will do that. (Hey Apple! Yeah, I’m talking to you!)

Somehow this phone has even helped me to stop reflecting on the past. With all my regrets, which seem to multiply with time, I’m suddenly so appreciative of the present in all of its technological glory that I’ve decided to never think back in regret again.

So yayyy to me. No more regrets – just hours and hours of playing on my new phone.

What could possibly be mentally healthier?

PS. If you have to call and disturb me, call me on the house line.

Clearly my bar stool had high hopes for me.

“I know! I’ll send everyone a Moxie-Dude calendar!!!”

Which in theory is a great idea (or at least it was after my third vodka-cranberry) but by about 2 o’clock the next afternoon, on New Year’s Day, that great idea was replaced with reality: I don’t have a Moxie-Dude calendar. Bummer.

I can’t say that I’m 100% positive but I’m pretty sure that that was the thought that triggered a sense of “oh-my-god-I’m-NOTHING!!!”

It’s 2012 – the farthest I’ve ever gotten in my future – and what have I accomplished? NOTHING. Not even a calendar!

Then I started thinking about how I handled a non-shark attack just last year. Now I realize a non-shark attack (as in, a shark attack where no shark was actually present) doesn’t sound like much but when you can feel your heart throb in your throat and you suddenly become a faster, stronger paddler than any Olympic athlete, it’s a big deal.

Let me take you back to the scene of the, er, time . . .

It was November 2011, we were in Florida and Greg had the great idea that we should go kayaking. In the ocean.

Confession: I’m afraid of the ocean.

And when I say “afraid” I’m not talking about the “I’ve-got-it-all-under-control-as-long-as-I-choose-NOT-to-go-near-it” kind.

Nope. Simply watching a movie about someone else swimming in the ocean can trigger heart-palpitating anxiety attacks.

Which proves my theory: I was eaten by a shark in another life. (Funny how comments like that lose their validity when spoken out loud.)

Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy kayaking. Which is why I let Greg coerce me onto a piece of molded plastic to set adrift into the mouth of death.

But let’s get real here. I enjoy kayaking IN RIVERS. IN LAKES. Where finned ogres that travel to the opus of their own unpredictable appetites don’t exist.

So while Greg was busy gathering everything we could possibly need for our trip, I was busy following him around telling him about every shark story crammed in my memory.

“Are you even listening to me?” I asked.

“There aren’t any sharks,” he answered, without even trying to appease me. (A sure sign that the honeymoon is over.)

“Greg. We’re going into the OCEAN. Where SHARKS LIVE,” I argued.

Of course that bit of logic just pushed him over the edge. He chose to ignore me.

The next thing I knew, quiet Greg and disgruntled me were sitting on a bright orange kayak. The colour of old blood.

At first I was paralyzed. I couldn’t paddle and could barely breathe for fear of tipping my false sense of security, also known as our kayak. Stiff as a tree on a windless day, I just sat there longing to be where the smart people were. On land.

What felt like hours later, I heard Greg whisper my name. I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. I was paralyzed with fear that was triggered by a “knowing”. I knew that he wanted to tell me about the school of hungry sharks surrounding us. It had happened. Every single shark that exists on this planet had smelled my fear. A vein in my head was pounding to the theme from Jaws.

While my eyes were closed in silent prayer (“Please God. Please don’t let us die this way.”), Greg took it upon himself to turn our kayak around so that I could face my fear. With a deep breath I opened my eyes. But not out of courage. More out of I couldn’t stand the bloody visions that were playing on the inside of my eyeballs. I actually remember cursing Steven Spielberg at that point.

And there they were. Less than 20 feet away, three curved-finned creatures playing like ruckusing teenagers.

Dolphins.

Slippery, grey skin. Strong, meaty tails. Smiling mouths. I just watched in awe.

Then another kayaker happily yelled out a whisper that brought me back to reality:

“It must be feeding time!”

That little comment – as innocent as it may have been intended – set off an alarm in my logic. If it’s feeding time for dolphins, it must be feeding time for other ocean creatures too! And when I say “other ocean creatures”, you know what I’m talking about.

That’s when I went into turbo-paddle mode.

“Wow, you’re a strong paddler!” I remember Greg saying from the outskirts of my focus.

I had one thing in mind and one thing only: shore.

While getting to shore took just about forever, when we finally did make it I was happy for the experience (right after I told Greg that I would never get into another kayak).

But that was Saturday. Sunday morning I woke up wanting to do it again. And we did.

So you see? I may not have a calendar but I can go kayaking in the ocean.

His travel plans included leaving straight from work Thursday night, driving to Burlington and catching a plane from there with one stop in Washington before his final arrival in beautiful Tampa, Florida.

Arrival time? Somewhere between Thursday night and Friday morning (when time doesn’t actually exist).

In order not to impose on anyone (because Greg is like that), he rented a car from the airport and the plan was that he would text me when he arrived in the driveway so that I could wake out of my peaceful slumber to unlock the door and let him in. (Apparently the state of FIANCE makes you immune to a person’s not-wanting-to-impose-on-anyone else philosophy.)

Sure enough at 1:43 a.m. the text came in:

BEER!

I’m not sure if it’s because I was anticipating his arrival (even in my sleep) or because I was barely awake, but in my half-conscious state the letters appeared hazy and confused.

I read: HERE!

Luckily I was answering in text and you can’t hear the disgruntled voice that exists in the tip of your fingers at that time of night/morning.

My response: K. Coming.

(I don’t need to elaborate on the cuss word that was really going on inside the tiny brain of my fingertips.)

After staggering to the front door in the dark and tripping over a dog toy along the way (conjuring up another cuss word), I managed to unlock and open the front door. I was greeted by silence.

Most people have never seen that specific time of night. Even crickets and serial insomniacs are asleep at that time. It’s the time of night when leprechaun and fairy stories are made of.

All that to say, no Greg to be found. So I did what any other normal person would do. I went back to bed. As I rolled over my cell phone (the same cell phone that I can’t live without during normal operating hours), I realized it was flashing.

Another text from Greg:

NOT THERE YET.

That’s when I realized that although I’m an avid reader, at that particular time of night I’m dyslectic!

My higher self - which just happens to look a lot like Jesus - on my higher self's PC (low res me uses a laptop!)

So here we are in Florida once again visiting family and I have to say that I have never felt the future as much as I do today. And when I say “today”, I mean Monday (the day we got here).

The first thing Jonathan, Samantha and I did upon our arrival was drop our carry-on bags on the floor and pull out our devices – laptops, iPad, etc. – and try to hook up to the WiFi connection.

With the resident “techie” having stepped out, we weren’t able to connect right away, which totally made me realize that we’re slaves to technology.

Worse than that, we’re at its mercy!

Image courtesy of AcoBox.com

It made me feel original and at the same time simple.

I was well into my twenties before I ever met anyone else with my name. Having reached the peak of my existence up to that point, I was gobsmacked into a sudden case of turrets syndrome; induced by the humbling need to share something that had always been mine and mine alone.

“Nice to meet you, Mona.”

What school did you go to, Mona?”

“Come! Sit beside me, Mona.”

I knew full well that I was over-indulging in the use of her name – my name – but it seemed that the more I said it out loud, the more I needed to hear it. As though letting the two syllables grimace from my lips was a cathartic release of a pent up burden.

This unexpected opportunity to share my name was a swirled mixture of discomfort and relief. Like when you dare yourself to push your tongue against a toothache. Or when you talk back to a teacher for the rock star attention of peer recognition.

Can you imagine being the only person in your world whose name is abused by the intonations of displeased parents?

“What were you thinking, MoanAH?!!”

The truth is that had Mona been introduced to me by any other name than mine, the conversation would have probably ended after, “nice to meet you.” Full stop.

But I was so infatuated with her identity that I wanted nothing more than to make her my best-friend – at least until I got tired of hearing myself use her name like a punching bag of long forgotten shards of glass.

Today, my parents hardly ever say my name the way I used to hear it, on the verge of a cringe. But then again, rebelling against their expectations is no longer my purpose in life.

To be honest, I wasn’t planning on posting today. I’ve been so busy with client projects and suffering from the symptoms of a Vitamin D deficiency, that I didn’t think I had the time – or the motivation.

And then came the Tweet asking “Where is Moxie gone?”, and I got to feeling all sentimental and special and suddenly had to wonder . . . maybe it IS Valentine’s Day!

(Except that I know it really isn’t. You can’t fool me.)

So even though I have nothing to report today, I do want to thank you – my valued readers (especially you, Shez) – for, well, reading so faithfully.

Stay tuned as Moxie-Dude returns to its regular programmed schedule . . . soon!

What does this mean?

It means that my computer now rings incessantly.

It means that while I’m working, I’ll get conversation pop-ups from a couple of wise-guy kids asking, “What R U doing?” Or, “Where’s the jam?”

It means that my kids’ heads have evolved into one dimensional, screen-sized pain in the . . . um, laptop.

So now that I’ve disclosed my caveat (because I probably should have been a lawyer. No wait! Because I used to watch Ally McBeal), on to the post. The PRETEND post.

One more thing: Names have been changed to, um, protect myself from getting in trouble from the person whose name I’m changing.

Okay. Now on to the post.

Recently, I took someone I know shopping. And I know this person because I just happen to have given birth to her. We’ll call this person SALLY. It’s not really the shopping experience that’s on my mind but rather the object of our shopping experience and what it made me realize.

SALLY needed an undergarment. You know. The kind that can double as a slingshot. Or a booby trap – depending on what part of the world you live in.

The point is, first high school and now THIS?! There has to be a way to put the brakes on our kids growing up.

Confession: Having been a mother my entire adult life, I’m starting to get cold feet about my kids’ independence. This is where life revels in its own irony because it seems like just yesterday I was fantasizing about a little time and space to myself. But now that it’s actually starting to happen, I’m realizing that my kids are so much a part of who I am. Not an extension of myself, but the fixed and comfortable grounding points – the belly buttons – of my existence.

I look at my two older girls, now in their twenties, and I would donate an organ just to have them little again. (But not ANY organ. Something I have two of . . . like a kidney.)

So anyways, we’re shopping – SALLY and I – for this undergarment and while I’m browsing the racks for her non-size (she’s built like me; so far), she’s lurking in the pyjama section, eagle-eyeing the aisles to make sure that no one she knows comes within 100 yards. Gods forbid one of her friends should see her shopping . . . for underwear . . . with her mother.

Step two in the shopping process – a trip to the changing room to make sure said garment fits – was a definite NO GO. When I brought it up, SALLY’s eyes opened so wide that her eyebrows shot up past her forehead and completely left her face. The reaction I would expect had I suggested that we hand-cuff ourselves to the train tracks near her father’s house.

I didn’t argue.

If you hear random screams of frustration over the next nine months, it’s probably just me.

Last night was parent-teacher night at Jonathan and Samantha’s high school. We – the parents – received our kids’ schedules and went from class to class to meet the teachers for each subject.

Admittedly, parents in general are pretty awesome demi-gods with super-human abilities. Eyes in the back of our heads, the capacity to multi-task up to 17 different responsibilities at the same time and an uncanny talent for predicting what our kids will do when they THINK we’re not paying attention are only a few of the powers we’ve been accused of exercising.

And yet one fact remains: we still can’t be in two places at the same time.

For this reason Exy-Poo followed Samantha’s schedule and I followed Jonathan’s.

Confession #1: By the end of the night I was overwhelmed by the teachers’ expectations.

Out of the six teachers that I met, not one of them seemed even remotely aware that my kids go to school for a WHOLE CURRICULUM of subjects.

Translation: OH MY GOD – THE HOMEWORK!!!

And although the teachers that I met seemed unaware of each other, they all used the same language. The expression that scared me the most?

“I’m counting on your support at home.”

What I actually heard was, “Never mind cooking supper or even doing the dishes and any laundry until next June. Prepare yourself to just kiss your evenings and weekends good-bye. And have you heard about the new trend in sleeping? As in NOT sleeping? It was always over-rated anyways.”

Confession #2: I hate high school.

Of course my kids don’t know that. As far as they’re concerned, I’m an eager beaver who sits at home twiddling my thumbs in anticipation for them to walk through the front door so that I can start nagging them about their homework.

(Did I mention that I hate high school?)

The other day I was online searching for a solution to this problem – also known as a banana bread recipe – when I fell upon a solution to my OTHER problem: the selective hearing that my kids have so expertly managed to develop.

Apparently, you can write on a banana peel with a sharp object and your message will appear within 24 hours – kind of like invisible ink. (Clearly there’s so much to learn on the internet.)

The first thing to pop into my head after reading this was, “Finally! A way to cut down on my incessant repeating of reminders to my kids! I’ll let the bananas do some of the talking!”

Mums the word when the bananas can say it for you.

PS. These just may put greeting cards out of business!

Considering it is one thing. Living it is something else.

And the cherry on top of the fact that my kids are growing up is the reality that we live in a different world today. Social media sites, QR codes, iPads . . . None of these existed when I was their age.

Whereas I used to purposely NOT walk with my mother when shopping (gods forbid I should be seen with a parent – in public!), my kids are unfriending me on Facebook.

The signs of our kids growing up doesn’t stop with technology. Frequent – LONG – showers are another dead giveaway.

Once upon a not-so-long-time-ago I would have to practically scare my kids to take a shower (“if you don’t wash regularly, certain parts of your body will either fall off or become home to visible parasital entities”). Suddenly I have to BEG them to leave some hot water for me.

The recent must-have beauty products are also a good sign of maturity in the self-awareness department. The day before school pictures were to be taken, Samantha made me stop at the pharmacy to get some sort of spray-on hair tamer. (Apparently her hair is impossible to control now.)

And then there’s the sudden growth spurt. Just the other day I turned around to say something to Jon (formerly known as JONATHAN) and he and I were both shocked into how tall he’s gotten – I swear this happened overnight! He thought it was funny. I laughed with him – but really, I just felt small (and old).

The latest trend in new words indicates that your kids now have other sources of influence. For example, did you know that the word “congratulations” can be said with about seven different intonations, including sarcasm and belittling?

Me: Whose turn is it to empty the dishwasher?

Kid #1: I did it last time.

Kid #2 to Kid #1: Congratulations.

OR

Kid #1: I’m finished my homework.

Kid #2: Congratulations.

OR

Me: I need someone to help me take out the recycling bin.

Kid #1 and/or Kid #2 to me: Congratulations.

(Wherein kid #1 and kid #2 are interchangeable. Like the pieces of a Mr. Potato Head toy.)

I have to admit, the evidence of my kids changing into that alien phase of teenagedom doesn’t always induce an uncomfortable, teeth-gritting experience. There’s good stuff too.

Like when they suddenly do something randomly nice – like vacuum the basement or decide that they’re able to change the turtle water on their own now. (Which of course incites me into an exercise in trying not to let the mess they create taint their good intentions.)

Lately, we even have CONVERSATIONS. Cool conversations, where I get to learn about their unique opinions on things.

So while my kids are now both in high school, I can honestly say “so far, so good”.

(If you pray regularly, feel free to pray that we get through the next five years. I have a feeling it won’t always be this . . . uneventful.)

Animals are a different breed of beast than us humans. They don’t feel shame. Or guilt. And they can’t laugh out loud.

BUT . . .

I was driving home from the grocery store earlier (after not having actually bought anything because I FORGOT that it’s a holiday today) and while waiting at a red light I spotted a lady walking both her bike and her dog.

The lady looked perfectly normal although I know for a fact that there was something wrong with her by the way that her dog was dressed in a . . . um, dress. That’s right. A DRESS!

So while Miss-not-so-normal lady is out prancing around in comfortable jogging pants, her German Shepherd, who was also sporting a hat, was looking very UNCOMFORTABLE in her (I’m assuming it was a girl dog) pink dress and matching hat.

I have to say though that the leash did not match. (THANK GOD!)

So that known fact I mentioned earlier about animals not feeling shame . . . That dog was not only feeling shame, she was blatantly EMBARRASED.

And if you’re wondering why said pet owner was walking her bike instead of riding it . . . have you ever tried to run in a dress? Obviously not an easy feat for dogs either.

Knowing when to hold 'em. And when to fold 'em. It's an art!

Let’s call a spade a spade. Some people think that playing Spider Solitaire is a complete waste of time. I don’t agree.

I’ve learned some important stuff while playing Spider Solitaire. Important life-lesson kind of stuff. Stuff that possibly I should have learned just from my many years of living but it actually took this game for me to catch on.

Like what?

Glad you asked. And since I’m in the middle of a game right now, let’s dig right in.

Life Lesson #1

CHOICES. Both the game and real life are full of choices. And they’re all calling out our names and raising their hands, hoping to be picked next.

(John Travolta’s character, Vinnie Barbarino in Welcome Back Kotter just came to mind but I’m not going to mention it. Not too much. Because it shows my age.)

Some of the choices that we’re confronted with are good and some are bad. But we don’t really know the good from the bad until later on. Or in the game’s case, a few moves later.

Life Lesson #2

And with “choices” come DECISIONS. The important thing to know about decisions is that every one we make – while playing Spider Solitaire or in real life – has an impact on our future. Yes, I’m talking about CONSEQUENCES people!

Life Lesson #3

TRUST. Trust is a serious thing and we should really be careful about who we let in on our little secrets as well as our vulnerabilities. Like when we ask for help – especially when it comes to Spider Solitaire’s silent dealer. That dude doesn’t always (okay never) suggest the “right” move. I think he takes winning personal.

Tip: You ask for help from the silent dealer by clicking “H” on your keyboard.

Insight: The silent dealer isn’t a magical genie that you can summon whenever you want. You have to be playing the game.

Life Lesson #4

The power of CONCENTRATION. While some people (of the unenlightened variety) really do call playing Spider Solitaire a waste time, I call it an exercise in concentration.

Thanks to the hundreds of thousands of hours that I’ve invested in playing Spider Solitaire, my power of concentration has improved ten-fold. I can now play up to ten games in a row without getting distracted. (Or even thinking about the work that needs to get done around here.)

Life Lesson #5

The biggest lesson of all is that we can learn something from anything. We just need to pay attention. Which I’m obviously capable of doing since I’ve learned sooooo much from a seemingly waste of time.

Bonus: Spider Solitaire is also CHEAPER than therapy.

And that image up there? That’s not just ANY image. No sir. That’s an actual game. The game I’m playing right now. So, without further ado, I’m off to beat the little f u. . .

I mean. I’m off to exercise my powers of concentration. You know. So that I can focus better on, um, my work.

A two second break from fighting - just long enough to take this picture (I'm thinking this is how the Brady Bunch did it too.)

Last night I was cleaning out the files on my phone when I discovered this picture; taken last summer. I love this picture 1) because it’s a picture of Jonathan and Samantha, my two youngest kids, and 2) because it depicts a moment in time when said kids are not fighting.

In fact, I love it so much that it is now the background picture on my Blackberry. Now, whenever I pick up my phone I’m reminded that there are times when my kids actually do get along (also known as true zen moments).

This morning at breakfast I showed them the picture. Jonathan just sort of grunted in acknowledgement. Obviously bored. (If it had been a picture of his pet turtle riding a skateboard, now THAT would have been interesting!)

Samantha, on the other hand was devastated.

“Oh my GOD!!! What am I wearing?!!”

Obviously, her 2010 summer wardrobe was sooooo last year.

Oh sure. I own a digital camera. But only because it’s less complicated than a Polaroid (click and shoot; no film).

And yes, I blog. But that’s because I’m a compulsive writer who needs instant gratification from people who actually “get” me. Even if sometimes they’re just pretending to get me. (You can’t fool me. Not really.)

And I own an electric knife – although technically not technology, it does take electricity and in my book that makes it technologically correct. Like anatomically correct but with electricity.

As you’ve probably heard, Google is making waves with their latest launch: Google+ (pronounced “Google PLUS”).

So what is Google+?

It’s another social networking platform. Yes, because we needed another Facebook. From what I’ve seen, it’s very similar to Facebook but with different terms and maybe even more versatile and easier to use. Maybe.

Circles

This to me, is the BEST Google+ feature. Circles are your groups of friends and you can have as many “Circles” as you have friends. It’s great for organizing everyone in your life according to where they fit (family, friends, work colleagues, college buddies, etc.)

Also, there are no overlaps (your boss won’t see what you say to your friends and your friends don’t have to watch you suck up to your boss) and no one sees what Circle you’ve place them in. Or “CircleS” because you can drag and drop people into more than one Circle.

Plus (and maybe this is even where the “plus” in Google Plus comes in) you can create and name new Circles (i.e. Friends that I actually know. Virtual Friends, etc.).

Sparks

This feature brings content to you, based on your interests. Thai recipes, kittens, music, microbiology, whatever your pleasure, each of your fave topics gets their own Sparks page. It’s a great way to stay on top of things in your field or simply by interest.

Hangouts

Hangouts are like virtual rooms (think Skype) where you can video chat with the people in your Circles. I haven’t tried this (mostly because my Circles are empty) but the concept of virtually hanging out with friends or faraway family members seems like a neat idea (especially with the price of gas these days!).

+1 Button

This is Google’s version of the Like Button where you can publicly recommend sites, blogs, videos . . . essentially, everything you find online (that you like).

So far, to join Google+ you need an invitation. Lucky for me, I got one from a “colleague” (also known as someone I’ve never met before but thanks to LinkedIn . . .).

If you’d like an invitation to Google+, let me know and I’ll hook you up. We could be BCFs! (Best Circle Friends)

By the way, this is me trying to follow a speak-only-if-you-having-something-nice-to-say philosophy. But I will say this: it was a B.Y.O.W. (bring your own whatever) and there was tzatziki sauce on the menu. And that’s all I’m saying.

After seven years of date nights, the evening was comfortable – also known as “predictable”. And that’s okay. Really. No big highs and no big lows is something you come to appreciate “after a certain age”. (All you Y-gens out there will just have to trust me on this.)

It’s after dinner that the evening went a little weird. Not the Tina Fey and Steve Carell-type weird but strange enough for me to call the cops.

We were driving home after dinner when Greg suddenly decided that we should stop for ice cream. And since any guilt-free reason to up my calcium intake is a good reason, I agreed. Whole heartedly. Especially since dinner was, um, less than satisfying.

So we were standing outside the local ice cream parlour – like Dairy Queen only better. And cheaper – indulging in a cone full of yummy soft, vanilla ice cream when I noticed a 20-ish dude walk towards us. He subtly yet obviously looked under one of the picnic tables then turned and walked back in the same direction he’d come. I watched as he walked towards a car (as white as my ice cream) and just stood there nervously smoking his cigarette.

Less than ten minutes later a young woman did the exact same thing. Walked towards us and looked under the same table before walking towards Mr. Pacing Nervously.

As we continued eating our ice cream the entertainment went up a notch when an older lady walked up to me and asked if I knew where a certain address was (Greg told me not to mention the address so this is me being discreet).

Now I realize that under normal circumstances a stranger asking another stranger for an address isn’t weird at all. Except that we were on the street that she was asking about and when I said that I didn’t know where that specific address was but that we were kind of ON THAT STREET, she turned around and walked back towards her companion: a shirt-less, fat bellied man that stood waiting for her across the street. Hands on hips, he made no attempts to hide the fact that he was waiting for her. And she made no attempts at even PRETENDING to look for the address.

As she walked towards him I saw her shrug in his direction. You know the shrug. The one that says, “now what do I do?”

I turned to Greg and said, “Was that a code question? Because I don’t think I gave her the right code answer.”

Meanwhile the younger, picnic table scouting couple were still pacing feverishly around their car.

Obviously Greg and I had happened upon the drop location of some questionable dealings. And obviously I looked like I had something to do with all this.

Even though Greg told me not to, I called the cops from my car on our way home (I can’t ALWAYS listen to him!) and told them about what we had just accidentally witnessed.

And it’s a good thing it wasn’t a life or death situation because I was transferred three times. And repeated the story three times. Which explains why I remember the details so clearly. (Except I don’t think the police were interested in how delicious our ice cream was – which I don’t get since it was like 100 degrees out.)

All this to say that if anything happens to me, this is my story. If I turn up dead you should probably look for creepy-looking people who hang around ice cream parlours.

Attitude with a capital "A"

Before I get to the point of this post let me just say this: OMG CAN IT GET ANY HOTTER?!!!

It’s so hot that I can’t even muster up the energy to put on a little mascara – never mind blow dry my hair.

And as it turns out I must really look like crap because a homeless-heroine-addict-type looking person hit on me when I went to pick up my daughter – the one with the baby – the one that made me a GRANDMOTHER! – to take her to her doctor’s appointment this morning.

So yeah. My self-esteem is on the polar opposite end of that thermometer that’s telling us how hot it is right now.

And speaking of my daughter becoming a mother, I was thinking about the words of wisdom I received from an older adult when my first daughter was born (many, many moons ago):

“The first ten years are the easiest.”

I didn’t believe her at the time. I was sure that the teenage attitude crap I had personally bestowed upon my own parents would not be returned to me. Not because I thought I would be a better parent, but because I lived in a bubble. And in this bubble everything was perfect. Including my imagined future.

Today, I would love the opportunity to go back in time and slap my naïve self upside the head.

WHACK!

Young me: OUCH! What was that for?

Older me: For being so STUPID.

And even though I’m a, er, GRANDMOTHER now, I still have both feet planted in that phase of my life where I’m raising my own kids.

With my two youngest having turned 12 and 13 last month we are way past “the first ten years”.

That’s right. I’m not only a grandmother but a mother to a couple of TWEEN-AGERS.

With part of me feeling old and wise and the other part feeling over-whelmed and over-whelmed (no, I did not just stutter there), I’m in the mood to share a short course in REALITY for all of you young moms.

Myth #1

Having been a teenager once yourself makes raising teenagers easy peasy because it helps you understand them.

Truth to Myth #1

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Unless if you remain a teenager yourself, you will not be on the same wave length as your teenager. I don’t care how cool you are, you’re not supposed to be your kid’s friend. There are other teenagers out there to fill that position. Your role is to be a parent. Also known as an ADULT who knows better, thanks to life experiences. And we all know what the word “experiences” REALLY means.

Myth #2

After 12 years of raising a child, you will know and understand them and even have control over their “teenage tendencies”.

Truth to Myth #2

No matter how much time you spend with your kids and how well you know them, the hormones will come along and fuck them up. And fuck up your household. That’s what hormones do. And they do come. Oh yes they do. There’s no avoiding the hormones that will render your teenager illogical, irrational, and sometimes even a know-it-all ass-hole. (Yup. I said it.)

Myth #3

Telling children every day for 12 years to brush their teeth, comb their hair and put on clean underwear ensures that they will REMEMBER on their own by the time they reach 13.

Truth to Myth #3

Personal hygiene does not come naturally and you will probably have to remind them until one of their peers – another teenager – makes a comment about their body odour and embarrasses them. No matter how much you want to protect your teenagers from being hurt or offended, sometimes hearing it from their friends has a stronger impact. Sorry.

And why am I telling you this?

Because the first ten years really are the easiest.

Yup. I got sucked into the Criminal Minds marathon.

Although relaxing, I ended my night (at 10 o’clock) with a serious case of brain atrophy. Which I thought would be great for falling asleep – and it was – until I woke up just after midnight with the disturbing sensation that a serial killer was lurking in my house.

And then I heard one of my stupid cats hiss. Naturally this was proof that someone was patiently waiting for me to go investigate. I mean, why else would a cat randomly hiss in the middle of the night? (Never mind that my dog likes to occasionally – a.k.a. almost always – taunt and chase the cats.)

Did I get up? Nope. I just lay there with my eyes open waiting for the shadow of my killer to appear in my room. And since he never showed up, I had another six hours of uninterrupted time to go over the seventeen thousands disturbing scenes from Criminal Minds.

What will I never do again?

- Talk to random strangers
- Buy something online
- Twitter about my dinner (actually, I don’t think I’ve ever done that)
- Invite internet service people into my house
- Stop to investigate randomly abandoned cars in the middle of the night
- Tell the fruit and vegetable clerk at my local grocery store anything about my personal life
- Sleep with my eyes closed

I feel like I just took an intensive course on profiling.

PS. Just wait until those Jehovah Witness dudes come back!

As a freelance writer working from home, I don’t technically have a boss. Instead, I’m kept in line by a three headed Muse that I invoke daily in the form of to-do lists.

My “need to do list” consists of work; client projects, marketing, etc.

My “want to do list” includes personal writing and hobbies (working on my novel, playing guitar, going to the gym).

And then there’s my “hate to do list” that strictly dictates household chores, poop-patrol in the yard . . . stuff that I really don’t want to do and can’t bear to think about the consequences of not doing them.

This morning, despite the fact that it’s Saturday, I was doing really well with all aspects of my to-do lists. Before 9 a.m. I had finished the laundry, vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom and finished a client web page.

I was on a roll (translation: I hadn’t opened Spider Solitaire even once!)

Then the door bell rang.

I opened my front door to be greeted by two men in suits. Mild mannered (also known as passive aggressive), they wanted to talk to me about, well, God. That’s right. Jehovah Witnesses.

As with every other time that they’ve come knocking on my door, I quickly told them that I’m not interested. Not that I’m not interested in God. I’m just not interested in THEIR God. Then something happened in the middle of my rejection. I suddenly developed an insatiable thirst for their message and accepted their Watchtower publication.

We said our “good-byes” and instead of coming back to work, I sat down and started reading about how I could give my life “real meaning”. I was half-way through the 30-page booklet when I realized what I was doing.

Procrastinating!

The next time they come (oh and they will come) I will tell them about how their pedestrian delivery of God’s word is actually Satan in disguise. Camouflaged as salvation, they’re actually working for the wrong team.

And I’m prepared. I have a bowl of garlic and salt ready at the door.

“Does skim milk come from athletic cows?”

When I compare this to what I once believed (that chocolate milk comes from brown cows) I realize that we live in a different world today. A world where kids are just . . . smarter and more aware.

My answer: “Of course skim milk comes from athletic cows. It has something to do with the hormones.”

Jonathan: “What?!!”

Me: “Just because farming is in my heritage doesn’t mean I understand it. Ask grandpa.”

Consider yourself warned.

But apart from that time, I really never pick up hitch hikers.

Then last weekend I was driving home with Jonathan and Samantha (my 13 and 12 year olds) when I saw this lady – this OLD lady – hitch hiking. My first reaction was “what the hell is she doing? Is she fricken crazy? Doesn’t she know that weirdos are EVERYWHERE?!”

My second reaction was, “OMG I have to SAVE HER FROM THE WEIRDOS!”

Before I had time to analyze my logic, I had pulled over onto the side of the road.

“Dudes, never do this but we’re picking up a hitch hiker,” I quickly said to Jonathan and Samantha, who were sitting quietly in the backseat. (This is probably a good time for me to mention that those four words – “Jonathan”, “Samantha”, “quietly” and “backseat” – are very rarely found in the same sentence. So I guess I was kind of temporarily out of sync with reality.)

Fantasy: I would pick up the old hitch hiker, drive her home and we would all live happily ever after.

Reality: The effin questions.

“So if we never do this, then why are we doing it?”

Yes there’s just something about teenagers that makes you want to question everything you do. Or shoot yourself in the head. And since I didn’t have a gun at the time (Note to the prevention police squad: I NEVER have a gun at the time) my only option was to question what I was doing.

And when I say “question”, I’m referring to the big one: “Holy shit! What the hell am I doing?!”

So as exhibit “A” got into the car (the old lady hitch hiker), I said to her, “Oh my goodness. I can’t believe you’re hitch hiking! It’s so DANGEROUS!!!” Although I was saying it to our new passenger, I was really saying it to my kids in the backseat.

“Oh no,” says the stupid hitch hiker. “Not around here.”

I looked at her in that way that adults have of looking at each other. You know the look. The one that means “for the kids sake. FOR THE KIDS SAKE!”

Luckily, she caught on right away. “Oh. I mean. Yes. You’re right. It IS dangerous. Good thing you stopped. I NEVER hitch hike but have this emergency and I need to get home before . . . um . . . my cat . . . has a heart attack.” (Obviously not very quick on her feet.)

So we drove her home, chit chatting all the way about how hitch hiking is NEVER a good idea, and all the while Jonathan and Samantha were sitting quietly in the back seat. (Again. Which really was a great indication that I should have bought a lottery ticket. But I was too absorbed in my current “parental oops” to think about stopping to buy lottery tickets.)

Yes, quiet in the back seat. That is, until we dropped her off. As soon as she closed the car door after saying her thank-yous and good-byes there was an avalanche of questions.

“So if it’s so dangerous, why did we just do that? Why did we just pick up a hitch hiker? Didn’t you tell us that bad people can act very nice and that bad people can be girls too? And old people can be bad . . .”

Again, I wanted to shoot myself in the head.

PS. We all make a parental oops once in a while, right?

PPS. I just mentioned that I was working on this post to Jonathan, and that it’s called “oops” and he said, “oh you’re writing about the hitch hiker.”

Gun please.

I am this little guy's "Nica"!

“So you’re going to be a grandmother. How do you feel?”

People have been asking me this question for the past several months. And always with a taunting smile.

Partly because I haven’t finished raising my own kids; partly because I’m the first of my circle of friends and colleagues to have a child “with child”; and partly because I myself haven’t finished growing up.

And what have I been answering all along?

“This isn’t about me.”

Last night at 11:46 p.m. my daughter, Stephanie, gave birth to her son.

Three weeks early.

6 lb 10 oz.

Born the same day as my own son, Jonathan, who turned 13 years old yesterday.

“This is the best birthday present EVER,” Jonathan said yesterday morning when I told him that Stephanie may have the baby on his birthday.

Today I got to spend some time with this new member of our family. And as I sat in the quiet solitude of my own freaked out reflection, I couldn’t help but think, “I’m a grandmother! A fricken GRANDMOTHER!”

While I recognize that this new, little life is not about me, but about my daughter’s transition into a new and exciting phase of her life – motherhood – it also represents a new phase in my life. One that I’ve been logically expecting (I suppose) but not really anticipating. I mean, when you have kids you don’t think, “gee, I’m going to be a grandmother one day.”

No. You think, “Oh my God. I have a kid!”

Confession: I don’t identify with any of the label choices for this new cycle in my life.

Grandmother
Grandma
Nanny
Nanna

So I’ve decided to borrow some of my Romanian heritage and come up with my own.

Grandmother in Romanian is Bunica.

I am “Nica” – a shortened variation with a twist of not-quite-old-enough-to-be . . . um, well, OLD.

Welcome to the family Jayson Lee!

My memory, also known as my “disability”, is something I’ve learned to live with. The same goes for the rest of my family. My kids, for example, have been reliably telling me where we park the car after an afternoon of shopping since they were four. And post-it notes are like milk and eggs around here. Essentials of our everyday lives.

But of course nothing is ever ALL bad, right? I mean, there are some perks that come with this sort of disability. Like when I forget to do laundry after being told (apparently) by one of my pre-teenage kids how important it is that they have a certain top ready for school. I can cover my ass by saying, “oops. I forgot.” (This never actually happened. I’m just saying.)

So the question is, how do the rest of us manage when that part of the brain, the memory part, is dysfunctional?

The answer? LISTS!

Except my lists are not like anyone else’s. You know. Short and sweet with bullet points. No. My lists include paragraphs. And I never abbreviate anything. I tried once but later on when it came to referring to my list, I couldn’t figure out what I meant.

Does “ap” mean appointment, application or apartment? And what the hell is L.M.???

So now my lists are long, descriptive and leave no room for, um, forgetting what I mean. My grocery lists resemble the creative brief of a large brand corporation:

- Cranberry juice (but not the generic kind because the kids hated it last time but the brand name one . . . Ocean something . . .and not the raspberry mix, it’s too sweet. And if it’s on sale buy four. IMPORTANT: if I buy four, remember where I store them so that I don’t discover a sticky pile of fermented plastic at some point in the future – Again!)

- Popcorn (try the new one I saw the commercial for . . . the microwaveable one . . . brand name starts with a . . . P? T? Damn. A consonant.)

All this to say that duct tape is NOT the end all, cure all solution to every problem on this planet.

When you have a bad memory, lists are definitely the way to go.

I have to admit though that I’ve been a little stressed about it all week. My appointment was at 1 today but I arrived at noon because I was afraid of changing my mind.

So what did I do during my hour in the waiting room? I juggled text conversations between my two older daughters, Melissa and Stephanie (who were together at the time) and Greg. (No wonder I profess to be a serial multi-tasker!)

Looking back at some of the texts I sent I think that maybe I was over-reacting. Just a tad. But in my own defence, I was a little nervous.

Here are the conversations:

Me to Greg, Melissa, Stephanie (and Exy-Poo): At dentist. So not looking forward to this

Exy-Poo: All best!

Greg: Don’t worry. It’s not that bad.

Melissa and Stephanie: Oh ya. Good luck!

Me to Greg: Have this terrible feeling of doom over me. Is this what anxious feels like?

Me to Greg: I think I’m having a panic attack.

Me to Greg: I feel like crying.

Greg: Think of the buzz pain killers give.

Me to Greg: Oh. Yeah. Can’t wait to get my fix. Asperin. Better book me at betty ford centre.

Greg: Kidding! It’s not that bad.

Me to Greg: Then why am I so . . . anxious? And sad?

Greg: Keep teeth in a jar if ur centamental or just mental

Me to Greg: I’m not sentimental! (Notice proper spelling) No, it’s something else. Not sure what yet.

Stephanie: Awwww that sucks. Good luck!

Me to Stephanie: Thx. My only wish? That it wasn’t me!!!

Me to Stephanie: Oh and that the tooth fairy really existed. (Can you say “ka-ching”?!)

Greg: The needle?

Me to Greg: Needles don’t make me sad. They scare the bejesus out of me!

Greg: Oh I know. The bill!

Me to Greg: That doesn’t make me sad. Makes me depressed!

Me to Greg: And that’s another thing. Do you know how much this pain, anxiety and stress is costing me???

Me to Stephanie and Melissa: Oh why oh why do we even have teeth anyway?!!

Melissa: Maybe the right question would be why do we have teeth that we don’t need . . .

Me to Melissa: Oh. Ok (smarty-pants)

Melissa: Nope! It’s Melissa!

Me to Melissa: Yes I know. He’s MR. Smarty-Pants (in reference to her boyfriend; the one we all go to with our computer problems. And when we need heavy pieces of furniture moved.)

Me to Melissa and Stephanie: Song on radio says “why do I need this kind of pain?” Thx universe. Because I wasn’t already asking myself that.

Melissa: U R a SUCK!!! Lol

Me to Melissa: They will be yanking something out of my flesh!!! Haircuts make me anxious!

Me to Melissa: Ok. I am a suck. *head down*

Melissa: Ha Ha ull be frozen and get complaining rights later!

Me to Melissa: Frozen?!!!! As in NEEDLE?!!!! Oh. My. God. Ok. Shoot me. Now please.

Melissa: Wow! No . . . they rub freezing powder on ur gums. No needle!

Me to Melissa: For the record, no one mentioned freezing . . . Needle. Maybe they’ll put me to sleep.

Melissa: RUBBING POWDER!!!

Me to Melissa: Really?

Me to Melissa and Stephanie: Ok. Going in now.

Melissa: Good luck. Text us when you’re out . . . and drooling!

Me to Melissa and Stephanie: If I don’t come out, split my house between the 4 of you

Now do you believe me when I say that I’m a serial multi-tasker?

Well this post is actually for anyone else who is scheduled to have their wisdom teeth pulled out. As nervous as I was, it really wasn’t all that bad. The needle (also known as the HARPOON) barely hurt at all.

Yes, the stress ball that the dentist gave me to hold was the shape of a pancake by the time it was over but that is no reflection on the pain.

Bottom line: I had two wisdom teeth pulled out, less than two hours ago and although I am drooling right now, I am not suffering. Nor am I traumatized by the experience.

Conclusion: Texting is more affordable than therapy.

He was watching TV (probably one of those reality-yet-you-can’t-believe-it’s-real shows; also known as stupid) when he came into the kitchen to tell me about his awesome discovery.

“Mom! A lady had seven twins!”

“That’s not twins. That’s a litter,” I said, correcting him.

“But mom! I didn’t even know that was possible! How can she have seven babies in her stomach at the same time?”

“Well obviously she didn’t eat them,” I said. “So I guess it had something to do with . . . you know the sperm and the egg hooking up and then splitting up.”

Suddenly, he didn’t think it was so phenomenally interesting. He walked back into the living room and changed the channel.

Somehow I think I may have ruined a piece of his youth. Do you think it was something I said?

I think I’m getting old.

Yeah I know. Everybody gets old. But I think I’M GETTING OLD. Not only have I never been 46 before, but I’ve never – EVER – resented my time at the gym. Until today.

The conversation that went on in my head while at the gym this morning went something like this . . .

Ohhhh not another set . . .

I’m tired . . . How can that be . . . It’s 8 o’clock in the morning . . .

What if I skip abs today . . .

I mean, seriously. Will it really make a difference in my life if I don’t exercise that little muscle in the middle of my back . . .

My knee hurts.

What is wrong with that girl . . .

Do we really need to see cleavage to that magnitude . . . like two overstuffed cushions pushed together . . .

I wish she’d cover up. What is she? Like 12?

Maybe I’m just jealous . . .

NO. I am not jealous. Her ankles are the size of tree trunks. MATURE tree trunks . . .

Why do I feel like the oldest person here . . .

Oh. I AM the oldest person here . . .

Where are all the people my age . . .

I know. They’re probably doing something FUN. Like sleeping . . .

And on, and on, and fricken on it went.

Focus? 0.

Wanting to get the hell out of there? 100%

I keep thinking about my mother that time when we were sitting in front of her fireplace having happy hour and she blurted out, “If I was 40, I’d be worried that I’m an alcoholic. But I’m 60.” And then she raised her glass of wine to cheer her own acceptance and took a big sip. Self-congratulatory style.

So is this what happens? We reach a “certain age” and suddenly run out of energy, losing the fight of our own integrity and just . . . slump into life?

Now that was uplifting.

But before I get into the “review of my experience” (because movies are always a personal experience), I just want to say that no, I do not have a shrine in a corner of my house in honour of Johnny (I can call him Johnny at this point, right?).

With that said . . .

Along with Johhny Depp, the story is told by a full cast of celebrated actors, including Geoffrey Rush, Ian McShane, Kevin McNally and Penelope Cruz. Even Keith Richards makes a brief, yet pertinent appearance – saving Jack’s life and revealing what he needs for his quest.

Everything about the movie, from the clever dialogue, to the choreography of grace demonstrated through sword fights and strategic escapes, authentically chic costumes and multi-dimensional characters – where the good are also selfish and cunning and the evil have an uncanny and admirable understanding of human behaviour – the plethora of over-dramatized characterization . . . ALL great entertainment.

And I got to experience it through the enchanting technology of 3D. I always forget how much better movies are in 3D. The only time I was pulled out of the world of pirates and their adventure was when I glanced over at Greg – forgetting that we were wearing the fashion-statement glasses – and was taken aback by his, um, nerdiness. (I guess this is as good a time as any to admit that it’s not a good look for him.)

Was there anything about the movie that I didn’t like?

Hmmmmmmm. Well I do remember thinking at the beginning of the movie that all of the men (even my favourite pirate) were a little . . . feminine in their movements. But that only lasted a few minutes before I got mesmerized into the world of Jack Sparrow.

As well, one scene in particular that included the backwards climb up a palm tree was over the top in unrealistic feats (even for Jack). But then again fatally beautiful mermaids don’t exist either. Only enchantingly beautiful ones.

As a character actor, I think Johnny Depp does an incredible job with Jack Sparrow. Creating a contemporary classic with the same memorable brilliance as Ebenezer Scrooge. Only different, of course.

The next movie on my list of must-sees? Bridesmaids!

Okay. It all started when Greg and I had plans to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Forgive my bluntness here but I fricken LOVE Johnny Depp. His face is interesting to look at (like you’ve never admired those cheek bones!) and I think he’s a great character actor. (No I’m not a whack-job groupie – just in case you were thinking that.)

Then, of all the days for the sun to finally decide to come out, our plans got changed. And when I say “our plans got changed”, I mean Greg called me up and said, “it’s too nice to go see a movie.”

Me, being the non-complaining-more-perfect-than-Mother-Theresa type girlfriend said, “Oh.”

But really, I was disappointed. Partly because I work from home all day but mostly because I really wanted to see Johnny Depp in 3D.

And so because I don’t want to develop any type of cancer and because I don’t have a therapist, I went on Facebook and bitched to all my friends over there. (Oh and by the way, thanks FB friends. Without you I might just be over at the Douglas Mental Hospital. Driving the staff there NUTS!)

But of course being the propeller-head that I’ve become lately, the next natural turn of events lead me over to (one of) my Twitter account(s) where I vented there as well. In 140 characters or less, of course.

And . . . (and here’s where I completely went ballistic) within seconds – SECONDS – Johnny Depp himself (not in 3D but in real, virtual life) retweeted my tweet.

Okay. So maybe that’s not such a big deal. And I guess now that I’m rereading it, it really doesn’t sound like a big deal.

But THIS coming from the person who was experiencing an anti-climatic evening after looking forward to seeing Johnny Depp in 3D all day . . .

IT’S A BIG DEAL TO ME. A BIG FRICKEN DEAL. Oh hell. It’s my blog. A BIG FUCKING DEAL.

I almost feel like I slept with him. The intimacy of a retweet by Johnny Depp. Come on!

And don’t tell me you don’t wish it was you. Like when you were back in school and the most popular dude asks your best friend to the prom. And you have to act like you’re all happy for her . . .

Okay. I’m in Canada and we don’t have proms here. Bad example. But you can’t tell me that you’re not wishing it was you that slept with Johnny Depp retweeted!

(Sorry Mrs. Johnny Depp. Your husband has no clue who I am. Really.)

Boyfriend got drooled on yesterday by severely handicapped man while waiting in line.

I also Twittered about it – in not so many words because Twitter is funny about word count. (Well actually character count but, well, who’s counting?)

All that to say that I’ve received quite a few inquiries about the drooling episode so here’s the story . . .

On Saturday the sky decided to swallow its clouds whole and give us a much anticipated sunny day. (Anyone who lives in or around Montreal knows what I’m talking about.)

The day began with us getting excited about the little things that the sun does bringeth. Like finally (as in FINALLY!) being able to wear flip flops this year.

Naturally, the sun also inspired us to “play” in the yard, which always first deserves a visit to the garden store. You know. For plants and stuff.

If there’s one thing I can say about Greg and I it’s that we’re both “efficient shoppers”. No matter what we’re shopping for, we walk in with a mission. We know what we want, find it, pay for it and leave.

And everything was going according to plan in the garden store until we got in line to pay for our stuff. The person in front of us decided that she was going to take advantage of her time at the cash to ask every fricken question she could think of. At first Greg was just annoyed. But 20 minutes later when Miss “and when should I water them?” was still asking questions, Greg’s impatience escalated to . . . can you say “skyscraper”?

I was actually surprised at how pissed off he got. And when I say “surprised”, I mean I was embarrassed. Yes. I was embarrassed at my boyfriend’s blatant intolerance. It wasn’t until we got to the car that I found out what had really set him off.

Back to line . . .

Standing behind us was a mother and her severely mentally handicapped son – an early 20-ish man who wouldn’t stop saying, “big bobo, big bobo . . .big bobo . . .”

I had noticed them when they first pulled up behind us in line but then didn’t glance back because I didn’t want to be rude. This mother had obviously had her fill of shopping with her charge (he was a handful) and he wore a bandana around his neck – loosely – serving as a bib for the mother to wipe the thick drool that incessantly hung from his face. Did I mention thick? The one time that I did glance at the pair, his drool was hanging down in a thick line of gob, about eight inches from his face to his mid chest area. Yeah. Gross.

When Greg and I finally got to our car he let out his suppressed disgust; at which point I found out exactly why he was so . . . um, annoyed. Turns out the mentally challenged man’s long line of drool had landed on Greg’s foot. And yes, this being our first flip flop day of the year, the mucous fell on his exposed skin. (Did I mention that Greg is a bit of a germ-aphobe?)

And this is why I love Greg. Because honestly, who else does shit like this happen to on a consistent basis?

I don’t think I need to mention that when we got home, the first thing he did was run up into the bathroom. To wash his foot.

But we all know that “the end” is really just a huge cover up for the truth.

And since no one else is brave enough to talk about it out loud, I’ve decided to set the record straight. Before we all die of waiting for the “happily ever after”.

Here’s what REALLY happens . . .

Narrator: And they all lived happily ever . . .

Man’s voice from somewhere in the castle: GLORIA? GLORIA! GLO-RI-A!!!

(Well now that we all know that the narrator’s name is Gloria . . .)

Gloria: What? WHAT?!! I’m in HERE!

Man enters “in HERE!” where we quickly realize that he’s not just ANY man. He’s Prince Charming.

Prince Charming: I can’t find my white shirt.

Gloria: What do you mean? You have seven white shirts.

Prince Charming: Yeah but I need the one that the buttons haven’t all popped off. I thought you were going to sew them back on.

Gloria: I did.

Prince Charming: Oh yeah? Does THIS look like the buttons have been sewed back on (Wherein Prince Charming throws a buttonless white shirt at Gloria’s face.)

Gloria: Well maybe if you weren’t so FAT, the buttons would stay ON. And when are you planning on fixing the washing machine anyway?

(Child starts crying in the background.)

Gloria: Oh geeze. Now look. You woke up the baby.

Prince Charming. Oh sure. I woke up the baby. Have you ever thought that maybe – just maybe – your loud mouthed bitching woke up the baby?

Okay. So you get the picture. Life between “living happily ever after” and “the end” sucks.

Not so for me. I get to be a mom AND I get to lead a single life (with live-out boyfriend). How cool is that?!

It’s like being a grandparent only younger.

And here you thought this was going to be a cynical post. You know, you really should have more faith in me.

I can just see it now. I would lie on her brown couch. Stare up at her beige ceiling and confess about my failings of the day. And she (Yes. “She”. It’s my fantasy and I want it to be a female, damn it!) would forgive me on behalf of the rest of the world.

I can hear her voice in my mind’s ear now . . .

“It’s okay. I know you meant to get more done. There, there. It’s not YOUR fault. It’s bad Spider Solitaire’s fault.”

And then I would pay her $100 and walk out feeling like FINALLY someone understood me.

What?! Oh because your fantasies are better?

As with any other week, it started on Monday. But unlike any other week, I found myself lying on the couch watching back-to-back episodes of CSI. Yes, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon on Monday.

(Anyone who knows me, knows that I very rarely watch TV.)

And while I lay there, indulging in my guilt because I had a ton of work to do, I couldn’t help but wonder if Horatio 1) dies his hair and 2) takes himself seriously.

I mean, here’s a 6-ish year old kid who just witnessed his mom get killed and who understandably is not talking to anyone. And what does Horatio say in his low, monotone voice?

“He’ll talk to me.”

Oh. Pel-ease.

Back to me and my dilemma of sudden laziness.

Clearly I was struggling with something way deeper than a bout of “I-just-don’t-feel-like- working”.

As it turns out I have an infection. And not just ANY infection. A double-whammy throat AND ear infection. No wonder it felt like someone was stabbing me in the jaw with a metal shish kabob stick.

So for the record, I take back every lazy-ass name I’ve been calling myself for the last two days.

Thanks to the bacteria that has decided to go forth and multiply in the right side of my head, I am not only behind in my work. I must also now find the time and energy to channel my former self to deliver a huge apology.

Oh. And in case you missed that episode, the kid did indeed talk to Horatio. He also reached into his school bag and handed Mr. Super Cop / Great With Kids the knife that killed his mother. Horatio had what he needed to solve the case before the first Bounty commercial.

What a guy.

PS. I wonder if Horatio could talk to my kids some time about the puzzling events surrounding the epidemic of single socks in this house.

PPS. Anyone know a good channeler? It seems my former self is not talking to me. (Some people are so sensitive.)

Me: What do you mean? You’re 12!

Jonathan: Yes, but I don’t have anything epic to remember it.

NOTE TO READER: “EPIC” IS THE NEW WORD IN OUR HOUSE. EVERYTHING IS NOW EPIC – BIG OR SMALL. (THE EXPECTATIONS ARE SUDDENLY VERY HIGH.)

Me: What? English please.

Jonathan: Well, like Greg has his hockey cards from when he was a kid.

Me: Oh. Well you have all your Sponge Bob stuff.

Jonathan: But that’s not cool. Hockey cards are cool.

Me: So start collecting hockey cards then.

Jonathan: It’s too late for me.

Me: *Cough*

For one thing, I have not one, but TWO great mother-figures in my life (you know who you are) AND I get to play mom to four amazing baby-goat-people; my kids.

So yes, I do feel blessed.

And to all my mother friends out there, a sincere Happy Mother’s Day to you! We rock!!!

Magician. Serial multi-tasker. Goddess.

These words are all synonymous with the word “Mother”.

I mean, who else could serve leftovers night after night, year after year, without EVER producing an original meal?

Any experienced bra wearer (namely women) knows that when a bra is comfortable, it’s COM-FORT-A-BLE! And when a bra isn’t, it’s oh-my-fricken-god-will-this-day-ever-end-so-that-I-can-take-this-stupid-thing-OFF!

Well I had one of those days today. I was at the grocery store – about four hours into my day – when it came to a point where I just couldn’t take it anymore. I rushed through the aisles like a swooping eagle on a mission and as soon as I got back to my car, I loaded the groceries into the trunk as fast as I could so that I could jump in behind the wheel and take it off. (My bra. Not the wheel.)

It was a struggle because reaching up my sleeves to grab the straps was like trying to stuff a 52 inch television up a sock.

Everyone knows that there’s a technique to doing this. One where nothing actually gets revealed. You slip a hand up a sleeve, count to three and suddenly – TA-DUM! – a bra magically appears. Like the magician’s handkerchief that mysteriously transforms into a white dove. Works like a charm when you’re wearing a short sleeve shirt – which I was not. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt. A tight, long sleeve shirt.

The whole procedure took me at least 15 minutes. When I finally stopped swearing to enjoy my moment of triumph, I noticed a man standing in front of my car. And when I say “standing in front of my car”, I mean RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY CAR. His hand was resting on my hood as he gawked. He looked as though he wanted to call his bookie to place a bet on whether I would succeed or not. He didn’t get the chance because the second I saw him, I punched down on my horn and scared the bejeezus out of him. I actually saw the lightening go through his startled body.

Then there was a three-second glare between us before he continued on his less-than-merry way to the grocery store. He was pissed at me because I’d just honked my horn at him and I was pissed at him because he was blatantly mesmerized by my little side show. And he was touching my car.

Clearly one cannot even remove one’s bra in the comfort of one’s own car anymore.

When I started working on the story (you can read the beginning here) I did have an end in mind. In fact, I had the entire story developed. But then something happened along the way. One of my characters, namely Edna, took me down unchartered territory as she took reign of the story and started dictating the events through her reactions.

So task number one on this mission to finish a first draft before the end of this summer is to re-evaluate the plot. And that’s where I’m at: back at square one.

How do I feel? Excited! Edna has evolved from an imaginary character – a blob of playdough that originated in my imagination, only to resurrect into a REAL person, dwelling in the sharpest corners of my mind.

Now about last night’s “happy hour” at my mom’s.

Her first words when I told her about my mission were, “but that will make you a boring girl.”

And when I told Greg, he said, “okay then I won’t drink either.” (And if you know Greg, that’s about as realistic as, well, a sparkly unicorn pulling Santa’s sleigh.)

As everyone sat at my mother’s last night with drink in hand (and by everyone I mean mom, Greg and I), I was perfectly content with my bottle of Evian water. Never mind that it spells “naive” backwards. I felt great. I was able to listen to the conversation and work out the plot of my novel with another, silent part of my brain. (If there’s one thing I do well, it’s multi-task.)

And a big, fat thank-you to all my supporters! Your words of encouragement here, on Facebook and on Twitter put a gi-normous smile on my face and step in my determination. (And they say there’s no value in virtual relationships. HMPH!)

Edna thanks you as well. From the bottom of her vampiric heart.

Oh and as a PS. The other thing I’m giving up is Spider Solitaire (again).

Sometimes I wish that I had made different choices in life. And when I say sometimes, I mean all the time. But since I can’t change the past, I’m working on changing the future; beginning with the present, of course.

I read somewhere that the true meaning of insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I’m referring to me finishing my novel. And as anyone who writes knows, writing is hard fricken work.

It gives me great pleasure, yet takes discipline.

It gives me a purpose, yet takes discipline.

It gives me a sense of satisfaction, yet takes discipline.

You get the picture.

So let’s look at the word discipline for a minute. Discipline is about NOT procrastinating. At some point in my life (when I was around three) procrastinating somehow managed to morph into becoming my best friend. The best friend that I hate. And as I get older, I’m finding that even procrastinating takes too much time and effort. Giving me only two words to say to my now new ex-best friend: good . . . bye.

So back to its opposite: discipline.

To be disciplined you have to sacrifice something. And when I say “sacrifice” I don’t mean giving up one of my children as a flaming gift to the gods. I mean something simple yet habitual. Like . . . off the top of my head . . . alcohol. Also known as “happy hour” around here.

If I give up happy hour, I’ll gain an extra entire evening every day to work on my novel! (Because happy hour never really lasts just an hour).

And when I think about the sense of accomplishment that I’ll have with a completed manuscript under my belt, giving up happy hour is such a small sacrifice.

Your job is to harass my ass until it’s completed.

Questions like . . .

“How’s the novel coming along?”

Or

“How goes it in the world of vampires?”.

. . will suffice.

My goal? To have a finished first draft by the end of the summer. Yes. THIS summer.

Oh my. That means wine, martinis, etc. for an entire summer, which just happens to be the best season for alcohol. Wow. When you put it that way it’s a bigger sacrifice than . . . giving up one of my children as a flaming gift to the gods.

Okay. I’m committed.

And this fall let’s plan on cheering to the completion of that first draft. Virtually or in person.

So remember:

My job – Writing/working on my novel EVERY DAY.

Your job – Helping me stay on track.

Are you with me?

And then on my way to an appointment my car started to give me attitude.

While half of me was swearing (“not now you piece-of-shit-excuse-for-a-car!), the other half was negotiating with the gods that be (“please let me get to my appointment. I swear. I’ll never . . . uh, swear again.”)

And then my car died. Which technically doesn’t hold me to any false promises of never swearing again, right?

Turns out that I ran out of gas. Now before you roll your eyes and label me dumb as a door knob, let me say that my gas gage is a little off.

Translation: it doesn’t work most of the time but works some of the time so I never know – never REALLY know – how much gas I have so I use the “0” button on the kilometre thingy except that I always forget to reset it.

Apart from that my car works perfectly fine.

The good news is that I’m a member of CAA and they came to my rescue with $10 worth of gas (procedure). With the price of gas these days, you’d think that filling up would come complete with insurance and an apple pie. (It doesn’t.) My $10’s worth of rescue gas got me as far as the next gas station, which luckily was across the street.

Every once in a while life gets overwhelming. How overwhelming?

Imagine this . . .

Think of a gi-normous bowl of jell-o (we’ll go with GREEN jell-o and there’s a reason for that, which I may get to) and put yourself right smack in the middle of this bowl of green jell-o, which, by the way, is the size of a millionaire’s house. So yeah. BIG.

Now put shackles around your ankles. You know, the kind they put on prisoners in the movies. And speaking of movies, go ahead and put on one of those un-fashionable-but- they-have-to-be-comfortable striped pyjama outfits.

Wait. We’re not done yet.

Add 20 lb blocks of cement at the end of each of those shackles you have around your ankles and now try to walk to the edge of your big, jell-o filled bowl that’s the size of a mother effin house.

And oops, the light-bulb just burned out so now you have to trudge your way to the edge of your bowl in the dark.

THAT’S what I’m talking about when I say that life gets overwhelming sometimes.

But what I just realized is that this doesn’t just happen to me! It even happens to the people who I think have it all together. Like movie stars and Donald Trump!

They get lost in the big, house-sized bowl of green jell-o with shackles around their ankles, wearing ugly striped pyjamas too!

And just knowing that I’m not the only one, makes me feel like the world is a happy, safe place.

I’ll get back to you about that green jell-o story. I’m too busy feeling warm and fuzzy inside as I picture the likes of Mr. Trump caught in the big bowl of green jell-o.

Yes, I suppose it’s a fantasy. Not THAT kind of fantasy (you perv!) but the kind that reminds me that all is well in the world. It’s my head that’s messed up. Which, of course, I can live with.

Had it all right in my hands.

And then the kids woke up.

The end.

(History does have a way of repeating itself.)

I’m even cursing them in my sleep (according to Greg).

Usually when you obsess over something it’s because you secretly, deep down LOVE whatever you’re feigning hate for.

So I’d just like to get this clear – once and for all:

I. REALLY. DO. HATE. CATS.

An ex boyfriend of mine used to say, “Why would anyone want a box of shit in their house?”

Although I thought him cold and callous at the time (“Awwww. But they’re so cute”), today I’m older and wiser and AGREE WITH HIM.

On another note, I’ve been busy as a bee and a few of my articles were published online today. Only I couldn’t tell you about it until now because this site was being attacked by hackers. Nope. Didn’t piss me off one bit.

Over at the Write On Project you can read “My Imagined Life BC (Before Children)” and at The Urban Muse, “Separating the ‘Writer’ from the ‘Prolific Writer’”.

Hope you enjoy them and feel free to leave comments (hint, hint, wink, wink).

And then there are cats. Did I mention that I hate cats?

Love writing. Hate cats. Polar opposites. Right now though, both emotions are surging through my eye sockets. Yes, I can multi-task. Being a mom made me that way.

Speaking of love, I only ever feel UN-loved when I check my email and there’s nothing in my junk box. But that’s ridiculous. We all know that spam belongs in the litter box next to the cat.

This is what a sleep deprived writer sounds like. Fucking cats.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we brought the deadline up?”

Yeah. Cool. Because thinking . . . strategizing . . . writing clear, comprehensive copy is always easier when I have a gun to my head.

Now that I got that off my chest . . .

Truth be told, I actually NEED deadlines. For some reason, the less I have to do, the less I get done.

Like that part of the week when my kids are with Exy-Poo. Suddenly the laundry mat in my basement shuts down; I totally forget that I even own a vacuum cleaner; and cooking becomes a chore that I completely put on hold. (Understandably, of course, because cooking also requires shopping, washing pots and pans and loading the dish washer.)

Let’s face it. When my kids aren’t here I become a writing machine.

So what the hell am I complaining about deadlines for?!!

What else is there to do between now and Saturday, when the kids get back?

We were visiting my aunt and uncle who live in Drummondville – Gaetan and Marjolaine for those who know me. For those of you who don’t know me, they are part of my French family.

Sadly, my uncle Gaetan’s father passed away recently. So naturally I went up to him, kissed him on both cheeks (because that’s the French way) and said, “felicitations”.

What I MEANT to say was “mes sympathies”, which means my condolences.

For those of you who don’t understand, what I actually said (“felicatations”) means congratulations.

I’m such a moron!

All that to say that Friday night I was meeting some friends at a restaurant and since I was early, I sat down with pen and paper at the bar to write (one of my favourite things to do).

I had planned to write a piece on social media but instead got totally caught up by the conversation going on beside me. I wasn’t actually part of the conversation. I guess you could say I was eavesdropping.

Okay. You could totally say I was eavesdropping. But the harder I tried not to listen, the more it seemed they were talking for my benefit. I think my ears had turrets syndrome.

This couple was obviously on their first date and even though I didn’t know them, two things were obvious: HE was uglier than a sack of potatoes. SHE was desperately looking for a way to leave. Without being rude.

And although I have nothing against ugly people (some of my best friends are ugly), it was his selfish rudeness that got my attention.

Some of the stupid things he said:

“My marriage was over years before it was over.” (Because every woman on earth hasn’t heard that one.)

“My business pretty much runs itself now.” (Oh yes. That AWLAYS makes a difference.)

“I’m the type of guy who believes in old fashioned principles. You aren’t offended when someone opens the door for you, are you?” (Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.)

As I listened to him sell himself I almost felt sorry for him. I said “ALMOST”.

Then I saw her down her drink and shift her body language so that it said loud and clear, “gotta run”.

And what does he do? He orders another round of drinks. Poor, polite lady. I actually saw her slump back on the stool in defeat.

And as I watched her surrender to this very ugly, but more importantly CONTROLLING and RUDE man, I realized that being polite for the sake of trying not to hurt someone else’s feelings is, well, STUPID.

She now had to sit through another 20 minutes listening to the sales job of a man she was not interested in.

Did I mention that it was Friday night? With Mondays being the most recurring day of the week, do you realize how precious Friday nights are?

Just as I was being bestowed with this great revelation on how stupid it is to play martyr at the sake of someone else’s feelings, I accidentally made eye contact with a man who was sitting directly across from me at the bar. I actually saw the “oh yayyy” in his expression as he wrongly thought I was interested.

Then I watched him swadangle himself around the bar to talk to me. Just as he reached me I half turned and said, “keep walking” just loud enough for him to hear.

Without missing a beat, he sucked in his breath and did just that; as though he was on his way to the bathroom or something.

The way I see it, I saved him the cost of a drink.

(Hear that A.H. Hamster. In the end, I’M GOING TO WIN!)

Hey wait a minute. Why don’t they have hunting clubs on the “do you want to donate your dead body parts” section of the forms???

No worries. I’m sure it’s just an oversight.

Before I continue, I have three points to make:

1. Stephanie is my 22 year old daughter (whom I’m sure you’ve read about because she’s just full of therapy-induced reasons for me to vent).

2. Driving lessons are so much more expensive today than they were when I took them (around the time when the Model T was being introduced).

3. I realize that many of you have children that fall in the “younger-than-Stephanie” age category, so you may not relate to this. But I suggest you read on anyways. Consider it one of those “oh this is what I have to look forward to” tips.

After dishing out a gazillion dollars on lessons for Stephanie to learn how to drive, she also got something that I would have gladly paid for her NOT to get. It’s called the LEARNER’S PERMIT. Also known as the permit to do serious damage to my mental health.

The five words I’ve come to hate? “But I need to practice.”

Those five words put me in the passenger’s seat of my own car, which is exactly where the stress comes in.

The fact that all bad drivers think they’re great (including my mother, but that’s another story) proves to me that Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man (“I’m an excellent driver”) has nothing to do with autism.

(Tonight’s prayer: please god – I mean, God – do I have to be a mom every fricken day of my life? And God, since I have your attention. Can you do something about Dakota’s crotch-sniffing habit? It’s embarrassing. If she absolutely needs a habit, I’d rather she smoke cigarettes. PS. Dakota is not my boyfriend. Greg is my boyfriend. Dakota is my dog. Why don’t you know this already?)

Step 1.

Wake up insanely early. (Not brutally; just insanely).

Step 2.

Cram in as much as possible before “it” happens.

“It” is life. Because once the rest of the world gets up – including the kids – the day goes to hell.

Step 3.

Thank God for the invention of swear words.

(Oh. Because she wouldn’t have invented them if she didn’t want us to use them. Now that’s just ridiculous.)

Step 4.

Learn to blame anything that goes wrong in your day on the cat. Yes. The cat. It’s ALWAYS the cat’s fault.

Don’t have a cat. No problem. I have two. Blame one of mine.

“Under this influence you will come to realize that your view of the world has been based on certain preconceptions, and this realization could make you question much of your previous existence . . . This could make you depressed because you will recognize that you have been deceiving yourself, making it seem necessary to start all over again.”

Just. Fricken. Lovely.

Me: I put a spider in the garburator. Does that make me a bad person?

Me: Oh and wish you were here. As in HERE.

Greg: That’s just cruel and inhumaine u should gentilly take outside and place it on a leaf or branch so u don’t tramatize it!!

Me: And that’s exactly why you should be here. So that I don’t end up in hell.

Greg: I’m kiddin about spider but yes I know I should b there.

Me: Hate to harp, but, WELL???!!!

Greg: And u r not going 2 hell babe!

Me: Lol

Greg: What? I think you sent me that by mistake

Me: I was laughing at your “babe”. I think we should just give it up

Greg: No ! I get it rite babe!

Me: I think you shouls learn to spell first

Greg: Shouls u made the mistake!

Me: Oops

Greg: How was ur macaroni casserole?

Me: Ok. Yours?

Greg: Cookin chicken fajitas now 4 beers done wish I was cookin with u

Me: Shut up

Greg: No babe!

Me: Double shut up

Greg: No, Babe, babe

Me: Ok. Don’t shut up. Suit yourself. But please. Stop talking.

Greg: What’s the matter?

7 minutes of silence

Greg: Damn tooth fell out again !

Me: Well there. That’s the tooth fairy punishing you for not being here.

Greg: I know

Greg: I’m going 2 hell again

Me: Again??? What! Do they serve free beer there? Why would you go AGAIN???

Greg: When I wasn’t with you

Me: Oh please

Greg: Ok babe

Me: Going in shower. Then watching movie. So can’t take any credit if it looks like I’m ignoring you.

Greg: Love you babe

Me: Give it up. It’s not you.

Greg: No god dammit you want 2 b called babe so I’ll do it!!

Me: I’ll look for an online course. Um what would they call it?

Me: Calling your baby babe 101?

Me: Or babing your way through life in 5 easy lessons?

Greg: That’s what I would call it

Me: K. I’ll find. Hope it’s worth credits. And hope you don’t have to be a vegetarian

Greg: Not that again . . . I’m eatin meat!

Me: Oh. Ok. Then I’ll look for an online course from texas. Vegetarians aren’t allowed in texas.

Greg: I did not know that

Me: Really? I thought everyone knew that. It’s even written on their flag. In English, Spanish and latin.

Greg: Daah!

Me: That’s what I said when I found out!!!

Greg: Really?

At which point we either both fell asleep or got bored.

Okay they do creep me out. And I did scream AND I did get grossed out.

And then I lost my mind and high-tailed my ass (and the spider’s) to my sink. Where I shook my hand over the garburator until it fell in.

What?!! And that’s not what you do with spiders?

(You’re just upset because I thought of it first.)

It’s just that since Greg and I are back together, A.H. Hamster has been working over-time (because he usually just sticks to his 9 to 5); wondering how things can be different this time around. You know. To stop the insanity of breaking-up and making-up. Incessantly . . . (OMG. That word is exactly like “incest” . . .well except way different.)

And one of the things hamster-genius has come up with is how cool it would be if Greg called me “babe”. Or “baby”. Or both.

Why? Because no one has EVER called me babe. No one that’s loved me, I mean. (Calling me baby because I was crying after falling out of a tree or because I was afraid to cross the highway while blind-folded does not count.)

And if you know Greg, you know that he’s not the type to call anyone babe. So it’s a perfect match – according to A.H. Hamster. And he’s ALWAYS right.

Only this project isn’t as easy as it sounds. First of all Greg doesn’t say “babe” right. He says it almost mockingly. I say “almost” because I know he’s really trying:

“I’ll call you when I’m on my way, BABE.”

Now that’s just wrong. Saying it like that sounds like he’s mashing a blueberry pie in my face.

“It has to be said with TENDERNESS”, I tell him.

“I’ll call you when I’m on my way. Okay, babe?”

“Feel the difference?”

Second of all, he doesn’t use it right.

“Looking forward to seeing you . . . Oh fuck I forgot. Looking forward to seeing you, BABE.”

Nope. Doesn’t sound forced at all. It’s not supposed to be an after-thought.

But he really is trying. And to be honest, I’m wondering if A.H. Hamster couldn’t possibly be wrong about the whole “babe” thing. There’s a first time for everything.

So what am I recycling? I’m recycling one of my Tweets. You DO follow my Tweets, right? Well just in case – and I forgive you if you don’t – here’s how to find me on twitter: @moxiedude (because you would have needed a secret code to figure THAT out).

Back to the point. I Twittered the following and decided that it needs expansion. Hence, here we are . . .

“If someone ever hacks my life, I hope they have better luck with it than me!”

In my despair, I may have even put that on Facebook. For all of my friends to see how pathetic I was feeling.

Of course reading that you think, “what a looser”. And I’m not denying the fact that I’m a loser with a keyboard stuck to the end of my fingers and a hamster in my head that doesn’t shut up. Ever.

Nooooooo arguments there. But here’s the sequence of events that lead to my Tweet. And Facebook status.

This morning 10:32 a.m.

Enter my mother who lives down the street (yeah, yay) and who is driving Stephanie, my 22 year old, to her aunt’s house.

Me: When are you coming back?

Stephanie: Sunday.

Me: You mean you’re leaving for the weekend?

Stephanie: Well, duh. Sunday would make it the weekend.

Me: Oh.

(Sudden click in my head.)

Me: You mean you’re leaving for the weekend?

Stephanie: YESSSS-AHHH (Because Stephanie has an ability to add syllables to words. She was born with this ability.)

Me: Oh. (Because the hamster was running too fast for me to actually articulate WORDS-AHHHH.)

The hamster (a.k.a. A.H. Hamster) had suddenly turned into an accountant or something as it calculated that Jonathan and Samantha, two more of my kids, were with their father until TOMORROW and that I would have the house to myself for like . . . 30 hours. A whole 30 hours!!!

Still this morning. 10:47 a.m.

Me: WHOOAAAAA-HOOAAAAA

This is me right after I kissed Stephanie and my mom good-bye and closed the door behind them.

Today. All day.

Tap, tap, tap (that’s me working)

Today. 4:50 p.m.

Me: Hmmmmmmmmm . . .

That’s me suddenly realizing that I have an entire evening ahead of me and I have no plans.

Don’t get me wrong. The thought of an evening all to myself was exciting. As a thought. And for about 13 seconds. And then something settled in the pit of A.H. Hamster’s cage . . .

There’s a word for it.

What is it?

Oh yeah.

BOREDOM.

Thus leading me to feel totally pathetic. And to the confines of Twitter and Facebook.

And the saddest part of all this is that I have no alcohol in the house.

Well, except mouth wash.

Now I’m not saying that there’s anything “special” about this. It’s just something that I wonder about, that’s all.

The same goes for the fact that 27 is the age that women start to feel old. It’s true. I heard it on the radio this week. (And everyone knows that if you hear it on the radio, it’s gotta be true.)

I have to ask the question: “how can a 27 year old feel like her body’s on the decline???”

I mean, even when you add the numbers (2 + 7), you’re still in the single digits for pete’s sake!

You want to talk old? I’M OLD. In fact, I’m even thinking about starting to lie about my age; telling people that I’m 64 instead of 46. Think of all the compliments I’ll get on how good I look for my age!

And when someone calls me on it, like when I get pulled over for a speeding ticket for example, I already have my excuse prepared.

“Ociffer, I’m dyslectic!!!”

By the way, men start to feel old a little later in life; when they’re 58. (Now THAT doesn’t need to be added to the list of worldly wonders!)

Oh yes, and speaking of wonders, I’m including some pictures of the mountain of lonely socks just in case you don’t believe me.

Basket of lonely socks

And here's a close-up. (I’m not the only one who’s awestruck by this phenomenon, am I?)

The Write On Project is a blog made up of a collection of pieces by various writers and a cool way for us to connect and share our unique perspectives on diverse themes.

The current theme being “Coincidences” left me racking A.H. Hamster’s cage for a relevant life experience. I have to admit though, that it didn’t take me long to come up with something.

Here’s a link to that something:

Laughing in the face of coincidence

I hope you enjoy it!

The following comments are solely the views and opinions of A.H. Hamster and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the writer.

Okay. Now that we got that out of the way . . .

Last November my 22 year old daughter, Stephanie, moved back home. With me. And although that’s only five months ago, it feels like a fricken eternity!!!

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE my daughter. I LOVE all my kids (all four of them).

At the same time certain things just have to be said . . .

Back in November when Stephanie first moved in, I remember feeling a little confused. It was the way she went about doing certain things. Mostly household chores. I remember scratching my head and thinking, “when did I teach her THAT?!”

Then it dawned on me. I didn’t teach her this stuff! This is just her being her own person, which is all fine and dandy in HER HOUSE.

Things like . . .

- Using the washing machine as a three-day stop over for her clothes (between getting cleaned and making it to her dresser drawer.

- Or walking through the house with muddy boots (because everyone knows that coming in “just for a minute” means that the dirt knows to wait for you at the door).

- Or leaving dishes in the sink until someone else washes them (another apparent common fact: at night, when everyone has gone to bed and the house is all quiet, happy, little elves AWLAYS come out to wash your dishes).

I’ve come to the realization that children who move out on their own (because I’m old enough to have had that experience now) morph into their own ideals about life and about how things should be done . . . or not done (mostly not done).

Conclusion: Adult kids are a great place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live with one.

Not only did that NOT succeed in calming Mr.-I’m-up-the-Hamster (selfish bastard); it actually invigorated him into this new day until I had no choice but to get my pissed off ass out of bed.

So here I am having coffee at fricken 4 a.m.

For anyone who has no idea as to what I’m talking about, I’m referring to the hamster that lives in my head. The one that never stops. The one that I have this total unconditional love/hate relationship with.

Thanks to his incessant need to get it all out – the words . . . the thoughts – he drives me to my computer because there’s this invisible (yet very REAL) intravenous tube that runs from my brain to the keyboard. It’s ridiculous. Never mind ridiculous. It’s fricken INSANE!

I hate him.

No. I love him.

Okay. Right now I hate him because I’m going to Quebec City today for more St. Patrick’s Day festivities and I just know that by 5 o’clock this afternoon I’m going to want nothing more than my bed. Just like an OLD person. And all because of the hamster. What an ass-hole.

And so that’s his new name: A.H. Hamster.

He’s very much like the dog that you feed at the table. You do it once and that’s it. For the rest of your life now you have to tell the dog, “NO. I’m not feeding you. Go lay down!”

Well I made the mistake once when I was about three, of giving in to the hamster’s begging for pen and paper (because we didn’t have computers back then). But it’s gotten to the point where the hamster is now the size of a lion and how the hell do you tell a lion to go and lay down. Yeah. Doesn’t work.

Okay. I’ll shut up about Mr. A.H. Hamster now.

Yes, I’m going to Quebec City! Before I continue on that I just need to say something. I wish I could say it with a little voice, but I can’t because I’m, well, WRITING.

If you know me, you know that Greg, my boyfriend of seven years, and I broke up a few months ago. Well (and here’s where that little voice comes in): we’re back.

Not together exactly but sort of. All that to say that I’m going to Quebec City with him and Dakota (my dog who I do NOT feed from the table.)

Wait! Before you roll your eyes in disgust hear me out . . .

I read this article online a few weeks ago about relationships and how we sometimes base our feelings for someone on our expectations. Well I’ve decided to try something different with Greg. I want to see if my feelings for him are based on . . . HIM – the person he is . . . or my expectations of what I thought I wanted in a relationship.

Make sense? No, it doesn’t make sense to me either when I read it back.

Let me try that again. I don’t think I want what I used to think I want from a relationship. Which was, of course, a “normal” making-a-life-together type thing. Because the truth is, how the hell am I supposed to have a “normal” relationship when I’ve got Mr. A.H. Hamster living in my head???

Okay. That just sounds messed up.

Maybe I should just eat some rat poison. (Yeah. That would teach Mr. A.H. Hamster.)

I give up.

I’m going to go work on my other blog now: the-secret-blog-of-a-teenage-vampire.com

One of the things my mother and I disagree on is my passion for exercise. For me, it’s one of the secrets to life. To my mother, it’s a total waste of time.

“Why don’t you wash your floors instead?” Yes, she’s actually asked me that.

I’m hoping that you agree with me when I say that having clean floors is good. But walking out of the gym after an intense workout is GREAT.

Okay. Now to the post:

A friend of mine asked me about the St. Patrick’s Day party I went to . . . YIKES! Was it last week already? . . . and I realized that I learned a valuable lesson that day and didn’t share it. (I KNOW.)

First off, let me say that it was a lot of fun. I met a bunch of new people (my friend Patty-Ann’s friends) and had an amazingly good time. So much so that I’m looking forward to next year’s party. (Hear that Patty-Ann? Put me on the list for next year!)

I don’t drink beer – not even green beer – but the party was in a bar so obviously there was no lack of alternative beverage choices. (Using the word “beverage” makes me feel so grown up.)

And speaking of “grown-ups”, during the course of the afternoon, I heard someone say, “There seems to be a lot of young people this year.”

Patty-Ann and her friends have been going to this particular St. Patrick’s Day party for something like 13 years so I couldn’t help but wonder: maybe the crowd isn’t getting younger; maybe you’re just getting older. I didn’t say it. I just thought it. (Well I guess writing it here is technically saying it . . . But I don’t remember who said it so it’s okay.)

Anyway, because you don’t actually BUY your drinks when you’re in a bar (you rent them), after about my third vodka and cranberry juice I needed to use the washroom. The first word to come into my head when I walked in the lady’s room was, “EWWW.”

In the establishment’s defence, the place was crowded with born again Irish. Who were drinking. Excessively. And apparently even girls lose the ability to aim after a few drinks.

Although “gross” was the second word to come to mind – and more so after I’d finally made my way up the line into the next available stall – I really needed to pee. But I didn’t care how much I had to drink at that point. There was no way that I was going to touch ANYTHING in there! Even my exhaled breath recoiled against my skin for fear of touching something.

Lucky for me, my quads are strong enough to hold me, so squat (and aim!) I did. Relief really is an empty bladder.

As I washed my hands afterwards, I remember looking at the ten or twelve girls waiting in line for a stall and it suddenly dawned on me that I was the oldest one in the bathroom. At that moment – because there were other people my age at this party. Patty-Ann and her friends, for example.

“One word of advice to you girls,” I heard a voice say. It took a minute to register that it was MY voice. “Make sure you keep strong legs because even at my age you’ll need them for times like this, when you’d rather swallow your own puke than sit on the toilet seat.”

So you see mom? Going to the gym is NEVER a waste of time!

Like everyone else out there, I have friends on Facebook . . . (oh look at that. Auto spell check doesn’t recognize “Facebook” as a, well, WORD. And in this day and age!)

Okay. Focus . . . Yes. I have friends on Facebook. . . (oops. There we go again with the auto spell check not recognizing the Facebook noun.)

(And will we EVER get to the point?!!)

Facebook. (will not comment on the auto spe . . .)

And I’m looking at the stuff on my Wall (proper noun) . . . from one “friend” in particular who is – OMG! – 20??? (Yes that would be . . . SO MUCH YOUNGER THAN ME!!!

Maybe I should actually read her posts. Why don’t I ever read her posts? (Self-psycho-analyzing thought: Is it because I think she has nothing important to say or is it because I’m JEALOUS. She’s young and I’m, well, NOT?!!)

HMMMM . . .*Freudian scratch of the chin*

Looking at her “comment conversations” with her friends, suddenly I’m unclear as to whether English is her native tongue. It was the last time I spoke to her IN PERSON.

I have no clue as to the actual contents/context of her Facebook conversations. It’s all hooked-on-phonics spelling and grammar-symbol smiley faces. Oh, and not to mention the new twist on old words with extended syllables . . . (phew. That was a thought-ful.)

“S’up? Did u go?” . . . “Yes. Was a-MAAAAAZING : – )”

Oh. And the pictures. So many pictures. I’m 46 years old and I don’t have one tenth the number of normal “can-hold-in-hand” pictures as this person does on line. (Take deep breath here.)

Sudden realization?

I’m fricken OLD (Deflate breath here.)

There’s an entire generation out there that comes from another planet. A population of fast-living, kinematic movers and shakers. Everything they do is with record-breaking rapidity.

Speed-dating . . . Speed-texting . . .

I don’t even bother telling anyone from this generation that I was 20 at their age. They can’t imagine it. And when I put myself behind their iPods . . . I can’t imagine it either.

Okay. Now that we’re clear on that, let me tell you what happened at the gym yesterday . . .

It was after my workout and I was in the locker room. Alone, or so I thought, until a woman came out of the shower. Stark. Fricken. Naked.

And it was all fine and dandy. She was doing her thing and I was doing mine, which consisted mostly of looking everywhere EXCEPT in her direction.

Then, as she’s towel-drying herself off for what seemed like half an hour, she decides to strike up a conversation with me.

My internal monologue went something like this:

“Great. I can do this, because eye contact is not necessary.”

Except that this is where I discovered that I have tourette syndrome in my eyes!

“Can you believe all this snow we’re getting?” she says to me.

“I KNOW,” I answer. And in doing so, I – by habit – look at her just as she’s lifting her leg onto the bench because gods-forbid she should miss that little drop of water behind her knee. (Nope. The view wasn’t traumatizing at all!)

“I’m really thinking of going somewhere warm,” she tells me.

And I’m thinking, “lady, why are you talking to me? I don’t even know you!”

But being the polite person I was raised to be, I say instead, “Really? Lucky you! Where?”

“Maybe Mexico,” she answers.

At this point I’ve bitten my tongue because she has now proceeded to lather herself with cream and I really don’t know if I can handle talking to this 50ish year old woman while she’s moisturizing her naked body in front of me. In fact, I’m starting to feel sick to my stomach.

“Have you been?” she asks.

“Ummm yes,” I answer. Notice the closed ended response.

“Recently?” she continues.

“Years ago,” I answer. By this time, my full attention has been placed on tying my hiking boots because even though I’m avoiding looking at her at all cost, I can tell by her voice that she’s changed positions and I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it.

But of course one can only tie their laces for so long before it’s time to look up and sure enough, she HAD changed positions. Her bare butt was now sitting on the bench!

I have to stop here to tell you that that very bench has seen the bottom of many a shoe. Both indoor and outdoor shoes.

Luckily by this time I was dressed and ready to exit the locker room, leaving Madame Naked Butt by herself. In my haste, I nearly knocked down a teenager who was just entering the locker room.

While most of me just wanted to get the hell out of there, a small part of me thought it was my duty to warn this unsuspecting teenager of the naked chatter box that awaited her inside. So I gave her a silent sign that she should beware.

Turns out Madame Naked Butt was the teenager’s mother. How do I know? As I was walking down the hall I heard the disgust in the teenager’s voice as she said, “Mom! Get dressed!”

I had to laugh.

And since I’m not wearing green, I thought I’d pay the day a little respect with a short write-up.

So here’s what I got . . .

- St. Patrick is a “religious” holiday . . . although most people simply honour it as a great excuse to drink green beer (yuck!)

- The Patrick dude was not even Irish – he was born in Britain or Scotland, nobody really knows since most of his life remains a mystery (probably because he lived like a gazillion years ago)

- A traditional St. Patrick’s day meal is Irish bacon and cabbage (I’m assuming Irish bacon is bacon from a pig. That lived in Ireland)

Usually I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t even go to the parade. This year is different though. Thanks to my friend, Patty-Ann (who still looks the same since fricken HIGH SCHOOL!), I’ve decided to attend an Irish Mingle at PJ O’Hara’s on Mackay Street. If you’re planning on going too, be sure to seek me out. I’d love to cheer the day with you!

- Your kids don’t like the supper you slaved over . . . you feel guilty.
- Someone’s favourite pair of jeans didn’t make it into the last load of laundry . . . you feel guilty.
- There’s no more cereal in the house . . . you feel guilty.

Never mind that the objective behind the meal menu was to nourish your little ingrates children, the jeans were under somebody’s bed and the box of cereal was put back into the cupboard . . . EMPTY.

None of this matters when you become a parent.

Agreed? Agreed (non-parents are not allowed to comment.)

Great. So here are some coping tools I’d like to share with you. And don’t worry. You won’t have to actually go out and purchase anything. These tools can be found around just about any home.

Doors

Ahhhh, my personal favourite. In particular, the door to MY bedroom.

Skill level – Beginner

Instructions for use – When you’ve had enough of the daily demands simply close it.

Hot tip – For best results, leave children on other side.

Hot showers

Great for those times when you’d rather just let yourself drown, the hot shower provides a safe and less permanent alternative.

Skill level – Beginner to intermediate

Instructions for use – Undress, turn on faucets, get under water.

Hot tip – With regular practice, stress and uncontrollable urges to use the “F” word will wash down the drain.

Shoes

Any type will do. Flip flops, sandals, boots. I’ve found that running shoes offer the best results.

Skill level – Please consult your doctor before attempting.

Instructions for use – Put them on (one at a time at first) and get the hell out of there.

Hot tip – Tell children you are going to clean out the garage so that they don’t follow you.

Making toast has simply been about making toast. Walking the dog has been about walking . . . with my dog. Even asking the kids about their day at school has turned up nothing. Nada.

A part of me has been frustrated because, well, “nothing unusual” just isn’t normal in my life. Ordinary days belong in someone else’s life. I’m even beginning to think that maybe – just maybe – the gods have decided to cut me some slack.

And here’s the odd part: I’M LIKING IT!

No drama. No crisis. Even my plants seem unusually calm.

My point?

Some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the hydrant.

Today I’m the dog!

But here’s my disclaimer: The day is not over.

Yesterday I took Dakota back to the vet and the tube was finally removed. She can now eat on her own. I was so happy that after telling the vet that I would gladly marry him right there on the spot, I jokingly said, “Yayyy! This nightmare is finally over and now we can make room for the next disaster to happen in my life.”

I was kidding of course but I have to ask the gods that be: “WHERE IS YOUR SENSE OF MY HUMOUR?!!!”

Why? Because the next disaster in my life did come.

It started this morning when I noticed little paw prints all over my desk. Effin cats! The evidence was there, right in front of me but for some reason I didn’t stop to wonder WHY their feet were wet enough to leave pitter patter marks across my desk and computer keyboard. Instead, I just swore out loud, wiped the marks away and continued working.

Then at around 3:30 this afternoon I decided to do a load of laundry. I was mid-way down the stairs to my basement when I was suddenly stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I even closed them, hoping that the water all over my basement floor (enough to bathe a flock of 200 birds) would be gone when I opened them again. (The water. Not the birds.)

When I opened my eyes the water was still there. It seemed my sump pump had chosen today, the first day that I don’t have to play nursemaid to my dog, to die on me.

First I panicked. Then I cried. Then I did what any other adult, single woman would do. I called my mother. She gave me the name of a plumber, who naturally wasn’t available. Feeling like I didn’t have a moment to spare before I needed to call in Noah for a little arc-rescue, I walked over to my neighbours, Frank and Sylvia’s house, to ask Sylvia if I could borrow her husband. (One woman’s husband is another woman’s saviour.)

It turns out that my sump pump is not dead after all. What died was the surge protector that it was plugged into. Sump pump functioning. One problem solved.

Next problem: what the hell do I do with all this water? Frank and Sylvia, who I now consider my best friends, actually devoted the rest of their day to helping me soak it up through a couple of shop vacs. Three, in fact. (Did I mention that I have declared the shop vac my new deity?)

Many hours and a few aching backs later, there is now only enough water in my basement for a fly version of Jesus to impress his friends by walking over it.

The carpet is ruined.

The gyprock is hosting an open house party for mold.

And I need to be reminded: Why is living in a tent a bad idea?

Unless if you consider cooking and cleaning after two kids, two cats, one dog and a turtle a “real life”. I don’t.

So it’s slightly addictive. I admit it. But it’s better than being addicted to Spider Solitaire (which I’m so over now, thanks to FB.)

The other reason I hate Facebook is because it’s always ready to remind me of how old I am. The other day I was friend-requested by someone I didn’t think I knew. His profile picture was of a cat so that didn’t help but I recognized his last name, which prompted me to press the “confirm friend” button.

Turns out he’s the grandson of one of my high school friends! (Yeah, I KNOW.)

Then there’s the time I decided to check out the life of another friend I hadn’t seen since school. His pic was of a car, which did nothing to update my memory of him at 14.

How did I feel after checking out his photo album? Let’s just say that gone is the memory of a cute boy I once had a crush on – only to be replaced with, well, an older (much older) version of what I wished I had left alone in the first place.

To summarize, Facebook is addictive AND makes me feel old. So why do I keep coming back for more? Because otherwise how would I know what everyone is up to? How would I stay in contact with people I may never see again? And here’s the biggest question of all: What better mirror on your life is there than – you guessed it – Facebook?!!

Yes, it’s a reflection of time. But it’s also a great way to connect because when you’re busy looking after two kids, two cats, one dog and a turtle – who’s got time for a real life?

“Maybe this year I’ll hire a contractor to remove the snow from my drive-way . . . but I actually LIKE shovelling . . . hmmmmm last year I only had time to shovel on the weekend . . . the gods hate me and it never snows on the weekend . . . but I’m an early bird, I should be able to shovel before I need to get my car out . . . do I really want to go outside at 4 a.m. and freeze my ass off when it’s still dark outside? . . . I hate the cold . . . I hate winter . . . I HATE shovelling. That’s it. This year I’m hiring a contractor!”

And every year I voice this decision out loud to my mother who then makes a seemingly innocent comment about needless spending and I end up NOT hiring a contractor. Then – naturally – at some point during our very lonnggg frosty winter I think, “NEXT YEAR I AM SO HIRING A CONTRACTOR!!!”

My point (and yes, I do have one), is that there’s this little voice that exists in the darkest recesses of my mind – yet can be heard from within everywhere in my body – and that voice belongs to my mother. I’m 46 and like the silent partner of my life, she still has a say in my decisions. It’s not normal. It’s neurotic. It’s INSANE!

A few weeks ago I arrived very (as in VERY!) late for a client meeting. Why? Because I got stuck in my drive-way. I spent over an hour spinning my wheels, swearing like a trucker and shouting into my windshield, “NEXT YEAR I’M HIRING AN EFFIN CONTRACTOR!!!”

Until finally one of my neighbours came out and asked if I needed help.

“Only if you have a gun,” I answered, “because I’m going to shoot my mother’s voice right out of my head. Right NOW!”

Of course, he had no idea what I was talking about but he managed to push me out and off I went, in a state of exasperated exhaustion, to my meeting.

My question to you is: am I the only one who still abides by her mother’s principles?

If you answer “no”, I am forever grateful . . . forever in your debt for helping me feel like I’m not the only child living in an adult body who needs to concur with a muted “would mom approve?”

If you answer “yes”. Shut up!

Now I don’t want to sound like we’ve ever lived in “Brady Bunch perfection”, but lately simple questions like “whose turn is it to empty the dishwasher?” are a direct invitation to unleash the drama queen that has taken possession of their bodies, minds and souls.

And the t.v. remote? Gone are the days when it was considered a device of convenience – belonging to no one yet accessible to all. Let’s just say that hell hath no fury like the wrath of s/he who seeks to watch television and can’t find the remote. Never mind that it can always be found squished between the cushions of the couch. Reason doesn’t stand a chance. Instead, we’re honoured with yet another visit from the drama queen.

Yes, the hormonal evolution is the instigator of many a great upheaval in our home. And unexpected surprises too! Off topic, I just want to mention the sudden chin hair I had the pleasure of discovering this morning. Chin hair! (No, visions of an old hag with a crackly voice did not come to mind.)

On the physical side of the imbalanced hormonal scale, we’ve got Jonathan . . . er, I mean Jon, who was not only surprised, but embarrassed when Samantha asked – with both couth and volume – “Ewwww what’s THAT under your arms?!!”

Apparently he hadn’t yet noticed a brand new patch of hair growing in this quiet pit of his anatomy. (I don’t even want to think about what’s going on below!). And yes, this unleashed yet another visit from our now frequent guest, the drama queen.

The one good thing about all these hormones is the fostering of my ninja-like ability to dodge unexpected mood-swings from my children.

And although my pre-teens have suddenly turned into some sort of alien beings who have somehow lost their sense of hearing (selectively), I’m silently impressed by their newly developed lawyer-like ability to justify why they shouldn’t empty the dishwasher . . . take out the garbage . . . hang up their towels . . .

Question: I will get my kids back, right? I mean, this teenage hormonal stuff does eventually come to pass, right?

When I consider that the average lifespan is 81 years (yes 81. I looked it up.), a shiver goes through my spine! I’m no mathematician but at this rate my nose has another 35 years of growth in it. I have to ask: what’s THAT about?!!

I mean, seriously. The nose??? Why not another part of the anatomy? Something a little less obvious like our big toe. Yes we have two. But I would trade in the growth of my ONE over-active hormonal nose for my TWO big toes any day. (Men, I’m sure, would opt to transfer the growth factor to another part of their anatomy, a little less south than their toes.)

I also have to wonder what the PURPOSE is. Especially when you consider that our bodies are designed for, well, reproduction. Okay. That’s just gross. Back to the mirror . . .

So here I am, looking at the new and improved deteriorating version of me, and I just want to yell at my nose, “STOP GROWWWWING!!!”

Okay. I didn’t stop at wanting to. I did. But it’s okay. No one else was in the house at the time. Well, except the dog and two cats but that behaviour, coming from me, is normal to them. And besides. They can’t talk. All they can do is look at each other and think, “what the f. . . ?” (Yes, I know that’s what they were thinking because I’ve seen that look before.)

Considering that the rest of our bodies shrink as we get older, maybe the nose thing has to do with balance and our centre of gravity. You know. Kind of like keeping us in line with our intention of walking forward. Although obviously the antennas on that theory go out the window after a few drinks.

My nose has hit a brick wall. Do you have any ideas / theories on why our noses never stop growing???

Yesterday was a travel day and today hasn’t officially started so I can’t tell you much about what THAT’S like but I can say this: it’s warm! Even without the presence of the beautiful Florida sun I can feel my skin getting oilier by the minute. By the end of the week I expect to look like a hormonal teenager with a pimple breakout but I can only say three words to that slight inconvenience: So. Worth. It.

(I remember Mrs. Pamboukian, my grade eight biology teacher telling me that I was lucky because I wouldn’t wrinkle as I got older with my oily skin. At the time I thought, “great, let’s make some French fries!” because what 14 year old worries about wrinkles?)

Travelling yesterday went well. Nothing extraordinary happened except that we (Samantha and I) waited in the wrong line for over an hour at the airport’s check-in counter. I think that was pay back from the Get-lost-even-though-you-have-very-clear-directions God.

Why? Because any time I’m in a car and behind the wheel, well, I always manage to make a wrong turn SOMEWHERE. And yesterday we drove to Plattsburgh to catch our flight and I didn’t get lost once. And since gods are sticklers for things like “order”, this god was a little pissed.

And if I can talk about consequences for a minute, the result of our needless waiting completely cut into our “eat at THIS time” itinerary. (Waiting in line does not foster sticking to an eating schedule.)

“No big deal,” I thought. “A three hour flight equals they’ll surely be serving food on the plane.”

WRONG.

Flight attendants no longer ask, “what would you like?”

Today’s question is, “would you like to purchase a snack or beverage?” Which translates to, “would you like to take a second mortgage out on your house so that you can purchase a sandwich and bottle of water?”

Apparently the cost of plane tickets these days does not include anything except the rental of your seat.

Hey the sun is coming up! Okay, the day has officially begun. Time to get some work done.

But before I go, here are some pics I took on the plane. I’m not up for any great artistic awards with these but it does go to show how you can find beauty anywhere. Even from a squished and very expensive plane seat with limited view.

PS. My travel companion is my youngest, Samantha. (Although she’s 11, she’s going on 30 and I depend on her for helping me remember important stuff like where our grocery store is or where I park the car.)

About four months ago Samantha (my youngest) braided me an ankle bracelet out of embroidery thread and told me to “make a wish”. And so I did – wishing that my four children be happy, healthy and safe – always. In particular, I was worried about Stephanie, my soon-to-be 22 year-old whom I hear from about twice a year.

Well last Sunday my wish came true when Stephanie sent a text message to Melissa (my oldest) asking for help. It seemed Stephanie was ready to leave her questionable lifestyle behind and rejoin our family. Melissa and I responded with our boyfriends and moved her and her dog here with me.

Why have I let an entire week go by before writing about Stephanie moving back home? To be honest, if I would have written earlier this week, it would have sounded like a venting session on steroids. Gone is my quiet little life.

As much as I love my daughter, she is a SLOB. Within hours of her moving in, my house needed a complete sanitization – preferably from a cleaning crew of 10! As well, after our drive home with Ariel, Stephanie’s Rottweiler/Shepherd mix, I noticed that the seats in my car needed a good shave from all the dog hair. Naturally, the excess shedding has transferred to inside my home with tumbleweeds of dog hair rolling around our feet as we walk from one room to the other.

Despite all the hair, I must admit that I am pleasantly surprised by Ariel. She’s a very well-behaved dog (probably more than her master) and has brought a sense of security into our home. Everything about Ariel is big. Her size, her bark and her teeth. NO ONE is going to break into this house!

And with our impeccable timing, this has all happened RIGHT AFTER Greg and I had decided that it was time to get a dog of our own – especially since I’m working from home now.

Dakoda, the other new member to our family, is a Husky/Shepherd mix. To give you an idea of the chaotic craziness of my new life, last week when I had to take Dakoda to the vet for the first time, I left over an hour before our scheduled appointment because the thought of sitting in solitary bliss at the vet clinic’s waiting room made me salivate.

But today, one week later, I’m happy to report that I’m settling into my new role of Resident Slave and Senior Vacuum Cleaner Operator.

I now know for a fact that all four of my children are happy, healthy and safe . . . at the forfeit of my sanity but then again a quiet, tidy home is way over-rated.

I’ll post pictures of Ariel and Dakoda as soon as I have some free time.

Well although the turtles are still not speaking to each other – each remaining in their corner of the aquarium – they’re both still alive.

The smaller one also seems to have overcome the trauma of me trying to handle him. This morning when I went to check on them, he (or she; I’m not sure) looked back at me from his place on a fake rock and, well, stared me down.

“You want a piece of me?” his motionless gaze seemed to ask. About two inches in diameter, not eating and yet he seems full of attitude.

And thanks to about 27 hand-washing sessions with antibacterial soap, I’m over the creeped out feeling as well (although I don’t think I’ll be trying that again anytime soon).

What I THINK is wrong with them:

Every time we change the water, we’ve been using the collected water from my de-humidifier in the basement. Thanks to the advice from Exy-Poo, we’re going to use what he calls “distilled water” going forward.

By the way, the names that Jonathan gave his turtles are Lightening and Maintenance. Yes, I know “Maintenance” isn’t a name but he likes the sound of it. And as these “pets” are becoming high-maintenance, it kind of fits don’t you think?

Remember those turtles I bought Jonathan for his birthday last June? Well, there’s something wrong with them. I bought them both on the same day, at which time they were exactly the same size. Since then, one has grown about four times its original size and the other one hasn’t grown at all!

That’s problem number one – and I just tried to take a picture of them to show you but couldn’t get a good side-by-side for comparison (it seems they’re not on speaking terms).

Although I have this rule about not touching them (rule applies to me only), I thought I could hold my breath and quickly take them out to get a good picture of them on the floor next to each other. But I was so creeped out by the smaller one’s squirmy little legs as it escaped my grasp that I dropped it back into the water about four times before giving up. So no picture today.

Problem number two is that now they’re both not eating. Even the greedy one who has quadrupled in size doesn’t seem interested in the, er, yummy turtle food.

So I called the “turtle vet” and not only is he an hour’s drive away, but the visit alone would cost close to $100 – plus any medication yadda-yadda-yadda.

Ahhh the joys of pet-ownership. And to be honest, I don’t even consider turtles to be “real” pets. To spend $100+ on a vet . . . I may as well bring a stale piece of bread and put that down on the examining table.

Okay Mr. and Mrs. Animal Rights Activist, before you get your tongue in a knot, obviously I have a conscience. They are ALIVE – I’m with you on that one. And they are important to my son – that’s the real kicker.

Well there’s a lesson here, right? I mean, isn’t that why we let our kids have pets – so that they can learn about the cycles of life and death? I read somewhere that pets are also great for teaching kids about responsibility. Of course, turtles don’t fit in that category. Just the thought of letting Jonathan clean the tank himself and the salmonella-mess makes me shiver!

This is about having the right attitude. I think we’ll stick to letting nature take its course and what a great opportunity for learning about the cycles of life and death!

WRONG.

Less than two hours of bowling for the six of us came out to over $60 – and that’s not including the alcohol.

With all due respect to all the die-hard bowlers out there, bowling just doesn’t make my list of top things to do that make me go “YAYYYY!”

With that said, yes, “alcohol”.

Let me give you my take on bowling.

It’s not really a sport – the typical bowler does not have an Arnold-Schwarzenegger-in-his-hay-day physique.

There’s no strategy involved – you throw a ball at a bunch of pins and open your eyes after you (hopefully) hear the pins fall down to see how many you got.

You don’t really have to pay attention – the giant TV screen that lets the world know what a bowling looser you are keeps everyone’s score and even tells you when it’s your turn.

And, thanks to the high-fashion red and green shoes, bowling puts everyone on the same style statement playing field.

Despite all this – not a sport, no strategy involved, paying attention not required – I had to laugh when Greg, my Mr. Works-hard-all-day-then-goes-to-the-gym-black-belt-karate-expert boyfriend . . . pulled a muscle in his leg on his first turn.

True story. I even heard the groans of pain the next morning. His excuse? “I didn’t stretch first.”

One question for you: who the hell stretches before bowling?!!

So, here’s a quick update on what’s been going on.

Ever since the day my kids and I moved into this house over a year ago, I’ve been promising my daughter, Samantha, that I would paint her room. First it was summer and just too hot (“I’ll do it this fall”). Then I was too busy (translation: I didn’t feel like it.), which naturally lead to another summer, and once again the excuse of it being too hot served me well.

Last weekend though, I just couldn’t justify another excuse so I promised her that I would get to it and we went to the hardware store to pick out her colours. Yes, “colourZZZ”. She’s been so patient about my procrastination that how could I possible say no to two colours? (I just heard a little voice in my head say, “easy. No.” – I think it was my father’s).

Anyways, apparently I was drinking when I let her pick out the colours because now that it’s finished, every time I walk in her room one question comes to mind: “what the hell was I thinking?!!”

I’m not sure if the picture below will truly depict the harshness of the hot pink and coldness of the blue, but let me put it to you this way. After the first coat, I had closed her bedroom door so that the stupid cats wouldn’t go in her room and rub themselves all over the wet paint. When Samantha opened the door to take a peak, the colour spilled out into the hallway like a religious experience. (I’m not religious and I don’t actually know what a religious experience feels like, but I’m pretty sure I had one when that door opened.)

So scroll down to take a look, but consider yourself warned. Sunglasses are required and if you have any epileptic tendencies, I would avoid looking at the picture all together.

Note to self: interior decorating is NOT my strong point. (Yeah, I know. Some of you already knew that.)

Yesterday was a rainy day here in Montreal so Jonathan, Samantha and I decided to go see a movie. (Because what better way to get your kids away from sitting in front of the tv than to take them to a movie theatre?). We went to see “Nanny McPhee Returns”. The kids loved it. I enjoyed it as well. Although a little bit on the predictable side, it kept my attention.

But you don’t really care about that. You want to hear about other people’s teenagers – especially since ours are so perfect right (no, that wasn’t really a question).

Okay so here’s what happened. Since the movie – Nanny McPhee – came out on Friday, I had this very wrong impression that the theatre would be completely full. So after eating an early lunch, we hurried to be “first in line” for the 1 o’clock show. As in, the very first show of the day. We arrived just after 12 o’clock. And I have to admit, we stuck out just a little since the only other people there were two other teenagers dressed in burgundy and beige theatre employee uniforms.

With almost an hour to wait, the kids went upstairs to the arcade. As for me, I was predictably equipped with pen and paper and decided to write. Only one problem: the theatre lobby, although vast in the space department, had nowhere to sit. No chairs. No couches. No benches. Not even a window-sill. So I found myself a spot against a wall, sat on the floor and pulled out my writing paraphernalia from the big suitcase-purse I’d brought.

As an aside, this is my theatre-purse because it comes in so handy for concealing movie snacks. ONCE, I bought our snacks at the theatre and was bowled-over by the exorbitant prices; popcorn and drinks for the three of us had come out to MORE than the actual movie price. Yes, that same popcorn that no one ever finishes.

Back to me sitting on the floor . . .

I hadn’t finished writing my first paragraph when the movie police (one of the teenage employees) came up to me and said, “excuse me . . . ma’am? I’m going to have to ask you to stand up.”

I looked up to find a pimply-faced teenager towering over me. Of course I thought he was kidding. But when I smiled and he didn’t smile back I realized this skinny kid was taking great pleasure in telling me to get up off my ass. Somebody was taking their job very seriously.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No ma’am. It’s against fire regulation.” Yes, that was the second time he’d called me “ma’am”.

“And this would be because . . .” I asked, trying really (as in REALLY) hard to respect his “authority”.

“If there’s a fire, ma’am, you could get trampled on.” Again with the efin “ma’am”!

“You do realize that the theatre is EMPTY, right?” I said, looking around us to prove my point.

“Doesn’t matter, ma’am, it’s my job to tell you to stand up.”

That’s when I lost it. I stood up as quickly as I could and got really close to his face without actually touching it and said, “you listen to me, little man. One, I have almost an hour to wait before the movie starts and I don’t plan on spending it standing up. Two, looking around I see exactly four people right now and that includes the two of us, so me getting trampled on within the next hour is highly unlikely. Three, if your fire regulations dictate that no one is allowed to sit, then I suggest you get some seats in here. And four, you call me ‘ma’am’ one more time and I will personally . . .”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” the theatre police interrupted (thank the gods because I wasn’t sure what to threaten him with since this is not my usual behaviour). “I’m just trying to do my job.” He had suddenly lost his bossy-ass attitude and had reverted to being a teenager in an ugly uniform.

“I suggest you go do your job somewhere else,” I said as I sat back down on the floor. “That, or get me a chair.”

With that, Mr. Little-man-theatre-police walked away with his head down. I have to admit, I felt terrible. I imagined Jonathan at his first job and getting chewed-out by someone else’s mother and felt worse.

I actually thought of running after him to apologize but then thought better of it.

Ten minutes later he came out with a folding chair and silently set it beside me before walking away. Mr. Theatre Police was no longer talking to me.

So here’s what happened . . .

I’m walking down the street to that corner sandwich shop, the one I’ve written about – you know, the one that’s so expensive I needed to take out a second mortgage on my house – and I hear my name called out. Not Moxie Dude, but my offline name.

“Mona? . . . It IS you!”

I look up and since I wasn’t wearing my glasses, I just kept walking towards him, not saying a word. Finally I was close enough to recognize someone I had gone to high school with . . . er many years ago.

“Kevin?”

“Yeah! How the hell are you?”

I barely had time to answer, or maybe I was just slow in answering because I was in shock, either way Kevin didn’t wait to hear about any of my problems or my life story. He just dug right into telling me about his life; what felt like a minute- by-minute play of the last 30 years.

Did I hear any of it? Nope. Mostly it was just a bunch of adults from Charlie Brown speak:

“Wong, wong, wong, wong, wong . . .”

I was too focused on his face to hear anything. Kevin, who had been cute at 15 was now OLD! Wrinkles. Bald. Grey stubble on his face . . .

In high school he had been a hot, little (clearing of the throat) boy. Yesterday he was a short, fat, middle-aged man.

I don’t remember leaving the conversation. Or even the walk back to my office building. Suddenly I was in the bathroom scrutinizing my face. Did Father Time have a blast dynamiting the signs of years-gone-by into my visage as well?

Okay. I guess so. But nowhere near as bad as Kevin’s. Of course I really shouldn’t have been in such shock. All the signs are there . . . every day.

Yesterday alone:

1. Hearing my before-the-internet-was-invented name on the street was a big sign.
2. Better yet, I couldn’t see who was calling out my name, even though the voice was less than 10 feet away from me.

Time is time and I guess there’s just nothing we can do about it . . . well except that after work I stopped off at the pharmacy (“drug store” for you non-Canadians) and spent a lot of money on anti-aging creams (time to take out another mortgage on my house).

PS. Greg and I are back together. HA!!!

Okay. First off, let me apologize for my neglected blog situation. In my defence, the word “busy” hardly covers the amount of deadlines I’ve been under. Plus juggling the usual – house, kids, yard, kids, house, kids – well, it’s been a demanding couple of weeks.

On top of it all Greg and I broke up. Yeah, no surprise there and I’m sure you all expect us to get back together – since breaking up and getting back has been the highlight of our relationship for the past six and a half years. (Oh and thanks for that vote of confidence.)

The truth is I’ve had enough. Enough of what, you ask? I’ll tell you some day but this isn’t that day.

So how do you stop yourself from calling someone that your head simply says, “don’t call” but your . . . heart? routine? . . . says, “stop being stubborn and pick up the phone, stupid.”

My solution?

Between the deadlines and the kids and the yard and the house and when my brain was mashed potatoes anyways (aka not being productive) I joined an online dating service to keep my . . . heart?  . . . routine? . . . occupied. Not because I plan on dating, but because reading through the man-catalogue gave me something to do when the melatonin in that part of my brain that’s supposed to tell me that it’s time to sleep now, well, fell asleep. (Thanks for falling asleep on me and FORGETTING to tell me to do the same! Stupid hormones!)

What have I learned from my serious study of the online dating industry? Well for one thing there are a lot of lonely hearts out there and it’s actually quite sad. I’m just as superficial as the next gal and looking at some of the pictures, you just KNOW that these guys are going to be on there for a while; forever hopeful.

On one hand, it’s “normal”. You can’t fall in love with a picture (unless it’s a picture of Brad Pitt) and who’s going to give the dude with the big nose and uni- brow a chance? He may have the personality of a demi-god but are you really going to want to get up close and personal with someone who has more hair on that little strip of their forehead than on the rest of their head?

One lonely soul sent me a message asking me to please read into the sincerity of his profile, stating that all he wants is to find that “special someone to spend the second half of his life with”.

That’s all good and dandy, but dude, I haven’t finished with the first half of my life yet!

Personally, I think that time alone after a break-up is a GOOD thing. It helps you remember who you are, what you want and what you won’t accept. It’s empowering!

I’m at the stage now where I’m going:

 “Moxie-Dude! You fixed that loose wire that makes the headlight of your car go on all by yourself!” (Not only men can do amazing things with duct tape.)

And:

“Dude! Look at you, driving in the east end of town all by yourself!”

Yes, I’m alone and feeling pretty damn good about it. Well, I WAS feeling good about it until about 40 minutes ago when I got an email from Greg. Yes, the usual I-miss-you-like-crazy-type crap email.

Once upon a time I would have emailed him right back, opening the door to yet another reunion (the highlights, remember?)

Not this time though. No siree. Instead I’ve been sitting at my desk, playing that stupid game (yes, Spider Solitaire) and thinking about what I should do. To respond or not to respond, that is the question? (Is that what Shakespeare had in mind? Maybe not. They didn’t have email back then.)

You see, here’s where it gets complicated. If I respond, it’s an automatic-default: you’re-back-in-my-life-again. And it doesn’t matter what I say. Whether it’s “I miss you too” or “What? You have no plans tonight so you have to bother me?”

And if I don’t respond . . . well I just feel bad because Greg and I were close at one time (not that long ago) and I don’t have the intention of hurting anyone’s feelings, much less someone I actually care about. (“Care” or “cared”? Yes, I caught that one too.)

If I respond, I’m not giving myself a chance.

If I don’t respond, the question will remain in the back of my mind: “did I make a mistake?”

If I respond, what am I giving up? “Chance” for what?

If I don’t respond, it’s really easy. Life goes on.

Here’s my conclusion: when in doubt, don’t.

Yeah, I know. Life’s a bitch and then you become one. Not that I’m a bitch. I’m truly not. But you can’t get to my age and stay completely clear of catching at least a bit of cynicism.

Cynicism in your 40s is like the common cold at any age. You can build up an immunity to it, but sooner or later the bug of reality will catch up with you. That’s when any fairy-tale fantasy of living-happily-ever-after goes “POP”. The burst of yet another dish soap bubble dream.

Dish soap . . . yeah . . . dishes. There’s reality for you. I have a sink full of them. Time to get off my pondering ass and take care of business.

I do not panic. It’s just not what I do. It’s not me. Well that’s what I USED to think. Let me tell you about my night and we’ll see if “panicking” is not in my genetic make-up . . . somewhere.

This post is about my day. Yesterday. It was a lovely day. (Yes, sarcasm is the main ingredient in that sentence.)

It started with my drive in to work. I thought I would “try” another route to see if I couldn’t somehow dodge the traffic. This great idea was planted in my adventurous mind upon hearing the radio dude say something about “expanding our paradigms”. Obviously I caught the tail end of that monologue because it didn’t work out for me. I was pulled over for speeding less than four minutes into my expanded paradigm experiment.

As I sat in my car, watching Mr. Cop saunter towards me through the rear-view mirror, my vocabulary suddenly contained only one word. In case you can’t guess what that one word was, it started with the letter “f”.

Despite this, I put on my best academy performance smile as I rolled down my window and asked, “can I get to Decarie from here?”

Truth is I knew damn well that I could. That’s why I was on that road. Everything up to that point was “according to plan”. Um . . . well except for the cop hiding behind the big sign.

Unfortunately, my damsel-in-distress performance didn’t have an effect on him. No award for me. Instead, the opportunity for me to use the f-word a second time presented itself. Mr. No-Mercy-Cop gave me a ticket. It was a $110 lesson for me. What did I learn? I’ll let you know when I figure that out.

Okay. So that was my morning. The Oreo cookie filling of my day went fine. Work, work, work. Yeah, boring stuff. But it gets exciting again right after I left the office at 4:30. (Did I mention that “exciting” doesn’t excite me?)

I was driving to Montebello to pick up Jonathan because he had spent a few days with Exy-Poo. Was I travelling by myself? Of course not. I had my best friend with me: my GPS.

Let me just say that the drive to Montebello from my office, according to my back-up plan (printed directions from Mapquest) should have taken just over an hour. But . . .

Everything was going well. I was on the “highlighted raute” and moving right along with the traffic in the direction of my destination. I had no clue as to how to get there, but no worries. I had the friendly voice of my GPS to direct me. Until I dropped the stupid thing. Suddenly, my so-called best friend was not only OFF route, but speaking to me in Spanish.

This is where I started to panic.

I’m in traffic and going in a direction (east) that might as well have been in Nicaragua. Simply stated: I had no clue as to where I was. Finally I managed to get off the busy highway and pull into an empty parking lot to adjust my GPS. (Remember me? Your ENLGISH SPEAKING passenger/driver?!!!)

Of course getting back onto the highway could have been hell. Luckily, I had my GPS – now my best friend again.

Deep breath. Flowing with the traffic again and all is well because even though I don’t know where I am or where I’m going, GPS-dude is directing me. My life is in her hands. Until . . .

In her badly pronouncing-highway-names-yet-familiar-voice I hear, “continue on RAUTE 13 North for. 30. Kilometres.”

30 kilometres. It’s all good. I can turn the radio on for a while. So I’m driving along, having NO CLUE as to WHEN I’m going to reach 30 kilometres because a sense of distance is NOT something I was bestowed with, when I decide to look at my friend – GPS dude. My breath was caught somewhere between my chest and my brain as I discovered that she was sitting on the passenger’s seat with a blank face. The battery had died. How long was I driving off course? Your guess is as good as mine.

So I reach in my purse for “back-up plan” (Mapquest directions) which, in essence was a great plan. But when you’re driving on a highway that you don’t know alongside 50,000 other drivers you suddenly realize that reading while driving . . . bad idea!

Yup. Time to pull over again.

Luckily I had my charger with me but guess what. GPS-dude is out of commission when in charge-mode. Grrrrrrrrrr.

Lost. Lost. And lost. Twice in fact. The first time, no big deal. I was able to pull over (while GPS-dude was snoozing in “charging” mode) and sort of figure my way back on track.

But the second time I got lost . . . Have you ever seen the movie Deliverance? Well that’s kind of how I felt. Okay. Never mind “kind of”. I was TOTALLY there. To the point where I felt compelled to yell out loud “do you know where I am?!!!” (Yes, this question was directed at my so-called-friend . . . my taking-a-nap-friend: gps – no more capitals for YOU!

Finally I stopped on a country road “somewhere” to ask for directions. Luckily I am a woman because we all know that men don’t do that sort of thing (ask for directions). The sign said “marche aux puce”, which means flee market but when I walked through the opened door all I saw was a bunch of junk. No people. Just junk.

“Hello? Hellllll-oooo?” That was me calling out with my best “don’t-f-with-me-voice” (because I’m thinking I’m in the movie “Deliverance”, remember?)

Eventually this dude comes out from I don’t know where (and I don’t care at this point). As he limps towards me, I notice a toothless grin and I’m thinking, “don’t look at him, don’t look away, don’t look at him, don’t look away.” My goal is to . . . keep . . . everything . . . at . . . an . . . even . . . keel. We’re . . . all . . . good here. No reason . . . to . . . snap.

I tell Mr. Deliverance where I WANT to be and he tells me that I’m on the WRONG road (because I didn’t already know that).

Lucky for me, Mr. Deliverance had a great sense of direction and I finally made it to my destination. It was after 7 p.m. when I finally pulled into the town of Montebello.

What I learned?

1. I do panic

2. Never drive on unchartered ground without first charging your gps (you are still so in no capitals mode!)

3. The movie Deliverance was made somewhere far away and not anywhere near Montebello.

One of the downfalls of going away for the weekend is that you start your week a little less than prepared. Yes I went away last weekend, and yes it’s Thursday today. The point is I’m still less than prepared. It’s been a week of being not prepared. Kids have been complaining about missing socks, lunches have been on the “ewwww” side (kid-reviewed) and the cats are still complaining about having had to spend two days alone . . . with each other (MC hasn’t gotten used to Buddy being around yet – which you can read about here or here).

So during one of my ill-prepared days this week I decided to take a break from my “ewwww” lunch and went out to a little counter-sandwich-type place down the street from my office. I’ve since had to take a second mortgage on my house . . .

Me: How does this work?

Girl behind the counter: Just fill out this form.

Me: But I just want a salad and a soup.

GBC: Yup. Just fill out this form.

Me: I feel like I’m at the airport here. Can’t I just order a salad and a soup?

GBC: Please just fill out this form.

At this point I’m wondering if this is all the English she knows.

Me: Do I have to take off my shoes?

Blank stare from GBC.

Me: Never mind. Fine. I’ll ‘just fill out this form’.

As I looked down at this famous form, I thought, “Because ordering a salad and a soup is now complicated in this country.”

But as I started to read it, I realized that ordering a salad and a soup IS complicated in this country. Suddenly, I wondered if I was even qualified.

Choices. Choices. Choices.

First question: What kind of lettuce?

I’m only familiar with two: Romaine and ice berg but I chose spinach. Yes, I know it’s not a lettuce but little Miss just-fill-out-this-form seriously needed to have her head messed with.

The next section of the form listed a bunch of vegetables and asked me to pick 3. I picked 7.

Then I was asked to choose a “protein”. And since I always like my food to be referred to as a polypeptide – because I find it more appetizing – I chose chicken AND cheese. Yup. I was determined to show her.

A few more sections to fill out about seeds, nuts and cranberries and finally I finished filling out the stupid form and handed it back to behind-the-counter girl.

Me: I also want a soup.

She took my form and left me to wait. And wait . . .

How long can it take to make a salad, right???

As time stood still I somehow ended up at the cash with a tray that contained my custom-made salad and soup.

GBC: That’ll be $19.81.

Me: Are you kidding me? $19.81 for a soup and a salad??? There isn’t even any alcohol involved!

Again with the blank stare.

Okay. So she won. My complicated salad did not mess her up and I had to pay an effin fortune for it.

I was going to call this post “why Greg and I don’t live together” but then realized that truthfully, I’m not 100% sure that I’m qualified to answer that question .

Yes, we’ve been together for six and a half years. And yes, I’ve known him for 31 years . . .

Ewww. Let me rephrase that. Although I was 14 when we first met . . .

Okay. No matter how I cut it, the fact remains: we’ve known each other for a very long time. 

My point is that although I USED to buy into that “meet Prince Charming and live happily ever after” ideology, I like our separate – yet very together – lifestyle. (But do let me know when Prince Charming comes around; I’d love to see what he actually looks like.)

Despite the fact that some people still get married in this day and age, you can be sure that while the rest of us are hearing the distant sound of wedding church bells, some divorce lawyer, somewhere, is hearing “cha-ching.”

Me cynical? I prefer to call myself realistic. Although there’s no denying: you will see the look of awe and admiration on my face should you introduce me to any couple who has been married for more than six months.

Meanwhile, here’s what I love about our live-apart-relationship:

1. Kind of like the grandparent syndrome, I get to love his kids when I see them and then say “see you in a couple of weeks” at the end of our visit. And of course it’s the same for him. Yes, we love each other’s kids. But living with my own kids is hard; never mind someone else’s.

(As an aside, we did actually try living together for a year. This was about four years ago. My personal experience with that made me realize that there was something seriously WRONG with the Brady Bunch.)

2. We get more “date nights” than most married couples, thanks to our ex-spouses and shared custody.

3. When Greg has his kids and Exy-Poo has mine, I get the whole house to myself!

 4. I can get up to write at any ungodly hour (4 a.m. is pretty much the norm here) without worrying about disturbing anyone.

And despite all these great reasons for living apart, I have to wonder if somewhere, deep inside, the little girl who once-upon-a-time believed in Prince Charming and living happily ever after, still exists. If she does, we’ll never find her because she’s buried under a shit-load of cynicism reality.

Yesterday I was going through some old pictures and found one of me with cake batter all over my face. I was really young – hadn’t even started school yet – and it made me think of all the important life lessons I learned way before I even realized that there’s more to life than playing, eating and fighting “bed time”.

Although these are a few of my earliest memories, they’ve stayed with me like old friends . . .

Lesson #1: Before answering to the question – “did you touch the cake batter?” – always make sure there’s no incriminating evidence on your face. Later on in life, this has translated into: the truth is ALWAYS your best option.

In my defence, I was really, REALLY young and had not yet developed a perfect hand-to-mouth coordination. Also, I didn’t realize that the reason the skin around my mouth tasted so good was because of the actual evidence: chocolate batter. Mmmmmm.

Lesson #2: Don’t be a copycat. Or, the adult term: don’t be a follower.

I was young enough to be taking a bath with my mother and I wouldn’t even remember this except that it was possibly the first time I’d ever seen blood and it made me scream my head off. I must have been watching her shave her legs and when she got out of the bath first, I decided to do the same. Now remember, this is PRE the invention of the Venus razor for women by Gillette. Back then, women shaved their legs with a real weapon.

Lesson #3: Tick tacks do not melt in your nose. Not sure how this has served me in life but at the time I remember thinking it was pretty important.

Lesson #4: The chicken coop is not a safe playhouse. Or, don’t believe everything they tell you.
We were visiting “someone”. I was too young to remember who but I do remember that they had a chicken coop and I wanted to play inside this “playhouse”. I was told that it was “okay to go see”. The next thing I remember is my own voice, yes, screaming again, as I was being attached by a gi-normous, red-feathered creature.

Yes, I know roosters are not “scary”. But when you’re trapped with one and it’s almost taller than you are . . .

Lesson #5: Not everything brown is chocolate. Also learned as, “No, the Easter Bunny does not leave surprise chocolate treats for you in the grass. Let’s go take a bath”.

This weekend Greg and I took the kids – his two and two of mine – to Granby Zoo. We did this last year as well and consider it a “mini vacation”.

Luckily we found a motel that lets us sleep six in a room. (I didn’t say it was “good” luck . . .)

As far as “vacations” go, it’s not very relaxing but it is insightful.

Here’s what I learned during our weekend away:

1. Twelve year olds have just as much “teenage attitude” as any 17 year old.
2. Bikinis are the bathing suit of choice of today’s pregnant woman (even VERY pregnant women).
3. Spiders CAN crawl into underwear.
4. Deodorant melts to a soft ice cream-like substance when left in the hot sun.
5. “Don’t open the chips until after supper” can also be interpreted as “open bag of chips as soon as mom leaves the room”.
6. “I forgot” is a perfectly acceptable excuse – even if said “forgotten” instructions are but moments old.
7. Alcohol is sold on zoo grounds (thank God!).
8. It is possible to sleep in the same motel room as five other people – even when four of them are energy-induced adolescents (anything is possible when you’ve just had enough).
9. After many hours of hanging out with four kids, tuning out is a god-given gift (but note that eventually: they will reach you.)
10. “What the f*?!!” is a common French expression; mostly spoken by non-English-speaking natives of Granby.

Somehow, Jonathan managed to get the worse case of poison oak I’ve ever seen. (Don’t worry. I’ve decided to spare you from my new video-taking-expertise on this one).

It was so bad that I let him stay home from day camp on Monday. And even though I spent about $100 on anti-itching creams and bath salts, the poor guy called me at least 17 times to tell me how itchy he was. I was at work so my co-workers got to hear me say, “don’t itch!” a lot that day.

Here’s just one of those conversations. Note that I was torn between wanting to help my son and being aware of everyone around me – trying to act like this was a “normal” conversation.

Jonathan: “Hi mommy.”

Me: “Hey big guy, how are you feeling?”

Jonathan: “I’m soooooooooooo itchy. I can’t stand it!”

Me: “I know, sweetie. But you can’t itch.”

Jonathan: “I can’t help it!”

Me: “If you itch, you’ll leave scars. Try hard. Why don’t you take another bath with those salts?”

Jonathan: “Okay. And mommy, I have some bad news.”

Me (in my head): “Oh boy.”

Me (out loud): “What’s up?”

Jonathan: “I think Samantha’s kitten got my poison oak.”

Me: “Why do you think that?”

Jonathan: “Because I was playing with him before and now he’s itching too.”

Me: “No. Cats can’t get poison oak so don’t worry.” (Of course, I don’t know this for sure.)

Jonathan: “Oh good. But mommy? I have more bad news.”

Me: “What?” (This is where I tried to act all la-dee-da-just-a-normal-conversation-going-on-here.)

Jonathan: “I broke a glass in the kitchen.”

Me: “That’s not bad news.”

Jonathan: “The glass broke into a million pieces and it’s EVERYWHERE. I’m standing on a chair right now.”

Me: “Oh. Okay, I’m leaving work soon. Make your way to the couch and stay there until I get home.”

When I got home, there was indeed glass all over the kitchen floor . . . and chips all over the living room . . . and a trail of cereal between the kitchen and his bedroom . . .

And he did take a bath. How do I know? The bathroom looked like a herd of truckers had passed by my house. Clothes all over the floor . . . water everywhere . . . packaging from the bath salts, wet and spread across the counter . . .

And here’s one of the world’s greatest mysteries: How can one kid go through so many towels???

BUT . . .

As any single parent knows, the challenge of trying to balance quality time with the kids, work, laundry, kitchen duty . . . well, I think that on that particular day I had just plain and simply had enough. I couldn’t figure it out.

Not to worry though. That was two days ago and I have since recovered.

Here’s my second attempt at uploading the video and let me warn you:

-          It is dripping with “amaturity” – as in I-am-so-NOT-a-video-expert. Yes, I realize that you already know this but writing it out loud helps me to come to terms with the fact that it’s okay to not be good at something. Taking moving pictures is my “something”.

-          I’m not sure what’s wrong with my voice, and especially my laugh, but it makes ME cringe to hear it. Suddenly I feel sorry for everyone I know that has to listen to me laugh; which is often. I’m not going to start naming you all (you know who you are) but let me just humbly say: I’m sorry for my annoying laugh.

Enough rambling. Here’s Samantha playing with her new Buddy.

 (Click on the link below).

I’m just too cute

Call it insecurity or call it a comfortable routine not to be reckoned with, but when one of us misses a call, it’s like the balance has been tampered with. I admit: when our routine gets knocked off its kilter, 99% of the time it’s my fault.

This is because I don’t actually like talking on the phone. But since it’s the “routine of our relationship”; I’ve adapted.

You know that serenity prayer:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference . . .

Well this is an aspect of our relationship that I have to accept: There’s Greg. There’s me. And the heart between us is in the shape of a big, fat, red phone. (Yeah, “romantic” is the word I would use to describe us too.)

On Greg’s side, he doesn’t like talking to me through the Bluetooth when I have the kids in the car. Not because we talk all lovey-dovey, but because the “F-word” is one of the adjectives that he’s most likely to use in any given conversation.

Going back to the serenity prayer, “when” we talk through the Bluetooth is one of the things we have control over – a.k.a. “can change”. He’ll ask me if I’ve dropped off the kids and whether or not we go through the routine “how’d-you-sleep” conversation, depends on my answer.

So instead of waiting for him to call me the other day (because I have unlimited in-coming calls), I dropped off the kids and sent him a text: d.o.k.

Naturally, he immediately called me to ask, “what’s ‘d.o.k.’?”

“Dropped off kids,” I answered, not using the word “duhhhh” but thinking it.

And so now, our routine morning conversation goes something like this:

Greg: “Good morning.”

Me: “Hey.”

Greg: “Where are you in your travels?”

Me: “On my way to the day camp.”

Greg: “Oh. Okay well d.o.k. me and I’ll call you back.”

d.o.k. has now become a VERB.

COMING SOON:

Where the expression “I didn’t just pull it out of my calculator!” comes from.

Say hello to BUDDY!

Cuter than cute

More cuter than cute!

Here’s a hint: it’s more substantial than a turtle (sorry Jonathan) and it’s not a puppy.

(In case you missed it, click Update on a busy life to understand why I’m apologizing to my son about the turtle comment.)

Call me crazy but yesterday (of all days) I decided it was time to stain the fence that goes around my backyard. It was sunny and muggy; the kind of uncomfortable heat that you can’t get away from. I admit that just before I called it “quits for the day”, there was a whole lot of swearing going on.

The picture below shows where I stopped, giving me this great opportunity to show off the “before and after”. If you picked up on any sarcasm there, you’re 100% right. Yes, this is me putting a positive spin on the fact that I have so much left to do.

I figure it will take me the next three summers to finish the first coat.

Partially stained fence

Yesterday’s much anticipated rain came down violently and managed to break the sweltering heat. Yet I’m still a little reluctant about opening any windows. As much as I don’t like the 30 below winter days, I think the 30 plus humidity of our sweltering season is something I dislike even more (notice how I’ve dodged any usage of the word “hate” – but you KNOW I was thinking it).

Thanks to the rain, we lost electricity at work. So after hanging around in the dark for over an hour, we all left the office. It was around 2:30 and during my drive home I mentally planned my Friday afternoon/evening. I have to admit: I was getting excited about a whole lotta boring.

Once upon a not-so-long time ago, I would have been rushing to get home so that I could sip on a glass of wine while I got ready to go out. In fact, I would have had my outfit for the evening picked out before I even pulled into my drive-way.

But not yesterday. No sir-ee. Instead, I couldn’t wait to get home to a cold bowl of cherries that I knew were waiting in the fridge for me. My outfit for the evening was a pair of totally unflattering, yet oh-so-comfortable sweatpants. And exceeding the speed limit (just a bit) had nothing to do with the anticipation of socializing in some public (and very loud) bar. Instead, I couldn’t wait to get home to my books! Reading in bed – by daylight – is one of my favourite things to do. (HO-HUM to you too!)

And here’s the scary part. The part that made me realize that I really am getting older – without my even noticing it: all I could think about during my drive home yesterday were my cherries, sweatpants, books and my bed. It didn’t even dawn on me until this morning when my mother asked me what I did last night. My answer, of course, was “nothing”. But truly, it was the best nothing I’ve done in a long time!

I’m currently struggling with an incredible urge. And if you’ve been suffering from the heat wave, I’m sure you’ll give me the go-ahead to surrender to it. The urge? To bop the next person who asks me, “is it hot enough for you?” on the side of the head with a hose nozzle.

Do they think they’re being clever?!! It’s HOT. It’s sticky. Sleeping and even breathing is difficult and people are DYING – no joke – from the heat and yet I’m still getting “is it hot enough for you?”

UGHHHHH!

Okay, now that I got that off my chest (and thanks for listening) . . .

Canada has always been known to have four seasons. And in our very Canadian-agreeable way, we’ve developed outdoor activities to go with each of these seasons:

-          Spring – gardening, observing the return of birds from warmer climates

-          Summer – water sports, golfing, cycling

-          Fall – picking apples, appreciating the many colours of nature

-          Winter – skiing, skating

You get the idea.

Well it seems that our climate is evolving with a new, fifth season. It’s called sweltering. This new season is bringing on its own set of activities (which mostly consists of swearing, complaining, tossing and turning . . .)

The good news – because I’m the queen of putting a positive spin on things – is that this new climatic season is broken down into spurts that last DAYS instead of weeks.

All that to say: Hang-on! According to the weather forecasters, this spurt of sweltering will let up soon. Apparently, the sheets of rain that are falling as I write this will leave us with some sort of reprieve.

Yes, I know they’re usually wrong (“they” being the weather dudes) but you have to believe in SOMETHING!

That was then and I like to think that now, although I may not have youth anymore, at least I’m not stupid, right? WRONG! Turns out I still delude myself.

“Wrinkly knees” were mentioned in a comment I received on the post Public announcement: I am 45 and a HALF.

I have another friend who is not much older than me and who has terribly wrinkled-up knees. The day I noticed, we were standing in conversation (she was wearing shorts) and I admit that the chit-chat was just a bunch of blah-blah to me because although I saw her mouth move, verbiage-style, all I could focus on were her knees.

The screaming thought in my head (which is why I couldn’t hear what she was saying) was: “HOW THE HELL CAN SHE STAND THERE – IN PUBLIC – WITH HER KNEES ALL FROWNY  & FRUMPY LIKE THAT?!!!”

Well guess what . . . wrinkly knees happen to the best AND the worst of us. The other day I got an accidental glimpse of myself as I walked by the full-length mirror in my entrance. I was stopped dead in my tracks. Jonathan’s attention was actually taken off of his DS game when he bumped into me.

“What’s wrong, mommy?” He asked with crinkled brow.

As I was hit full in the stomach with realization, the words “my . . . knees . . .” came out of my mouth sounding like they belonged to someone else. The reflection of frowny & frumpy looking right back at me was a little overwhelming.

Okay, so I admit it. As a teenager, I was simply naïve. At 45 . . . NOW I’m stupid – for thinking that wrinkly knees would never happen to me.

When I picked her up from day camp the other day she told me that one of her friends – Alicia – was mean to her. She had apparently snapped at her.

“Well I wouldn’t worry about it. You have other friends you can play with,” was my motherly advice.

“But mommy, I think it was from something at home. I wouldn’t be a good friend if I just dumped her for that.”

The empty space above represents my dumbfounded reaction.

When did Mother Theresa die again?

Could my 10 year old daughter be her reincarnation???

With that said, here’s my story . . .

Anybody who drives knows that being aware of everything – in front, behind and on each side – is a critical factor in avoiding accidents. And when traffic comes to a standstill, you continue to check all your mirrors, getting the opportunity to get quasi-acquainted with your fellow drivers.

Yesterday I had the, um, pleasure of observing three road-comrades who were oblivious to everyone else around them. It seems that rear view mirrors don’t exist in their world, which gave me an opportunity to be discreet in my gawking.

Enter road-comrade #1 – The Sneezer

This dude was sneezing so violently that, not only did his car shake, but I could almost HEAR him, despite the fact that his windows – and mine – were closed. (If you live anywhere near Montreal, you know that it’s too damn HOT right now to live without air conditioning).

The sneezer must have convulsed close to ten times in less than 30 seconds. I’m thinking he HAD to have peed at least just a little!

Enter road-comrade #2 – The Pig

I couldn’t take my eyes off of this one! Driving a Volvo – which to me is a nice, CLASSY car – was this well-put-together woman of around 30 years old, eating what looked like a sandwich. So far no big deal right? You have a pretty lady eating in her nice car. Nothing extraordinary about that. Except that I lost my appetite just watching her eat! Mouth open, chewing-like-a-cow, disgusting!

Enter road-comrade #3 – The Exploder

As I watched the show, I actually locked my doors. A man in the car behind me – a red Dodge Caliber – was yelling so hard that I could actually see the veins popping out of his neck as he craned his head forward. I’m assuming he was shouting into a Bluetooth device because he was alone. I couldn’t hear him and I don’t claim to have any real lip-reading experience but I swear I could make out a few of the adjectives he was impartial to using; mostly those of the “f-word” variety.

By the time I got home, having received my quota of entertainment for the day, I had no need to turn on the television.

Where did it go? To be quite frank, getting into the routine of a new job kind of took over. But now that I have that under my belt (what a stupid expression!), I’ll be updating the (Almost) Daily Muse regularly again.

What to expect

I’m a firm believer in two things:

1. The power of positive thinking
2. You CAN create the life you want . . . WITHOUT limitations

While Moxie-Dude’s main posts will continue to offer entertaining perspectives and insights, the (Almost) Daily Muse will provide you with a kick-start for beginning each day with a worthwhile and motivating tip to creating the life YOU want.

I’m not a life coach. And I’m not a therapist. I’m just a single mom. And when I compare the struggling place from which my adult life began with where I am today, I am living proof that we really are the creators of our own lives.

I also believe that laughing – especially at ourselves – is one of the keys to happiness (chocolate is another). I’m very grateful for the opportunity that the Moxie-Dude.com blog provides me with for sharing some of the whacky experiences of my life.

 And I’m especially grateful to YOU, for connecting with me in this journey called life. (NO. I have not been drinking!)

I look forward to sharing a cup of coffee with you each morning as we – together – delve into the possibilities that life has in store for you! It has been said, “If you can imagine it, it IS possible.” That in itself is very empowering!

Despite my almost-longing to go back in time as I reluctantly get on in age, I have to admit that being 45 does have its pros. The biggest being how much wiser I am now than I was, say, 10 years ago.

So in the shower this morning – because I take lonnnnngggg showers (yeah, I know. You NEEDED to know that.) – I thought about all the good things about me, today, and why I feel better about me (at 45) than I did when I was 35.

Here’s a run-down of that list:

1. I no longer care what people think about me, what I say, what I wear.

And I have to admit that that in itself, is very liberating. I’m no Gandhi though. I mean, if I was ever invited to a party (hint, hint) I would still do my best to look my best (even though my best today isn’t as paramount as it was when I was, well, 35.)

2. I no longer feel the need to prove myself.

I know who I am and what I’m capable of. And unlike a few years ago, I don’t give a rat’s ass that I’m no mathematical genius. (That’s why my BlackBerry has a built-in calculator!)

3. And speaking of “rats”, I no longer care if I get caught in the rain without an umbrella and have to go through my day looking like a drowned rat.

I may be deluding myself, but maybe the drowned-rat-look gives me a sense of style . . . like I “intended” to look like that. Okay, maybe not. But quite frankly, does it really matter? Will it affect the output of my work if my hair is not perfectly coiffed?

4. I am more confident in my opinions.

This is partly because I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut in my old-ish age and listen to other’s with open ears. (We have two ears and only one mouth, after all!). So when I do share an opinion now, I’ve more than likely thought it out.

5. My math skills may not be my strongest asset but I have come to terms with the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day and no complicated math formula will ever change that.

So now I pick and chose what I do with my time and if the vacuuming doesn’t get done (which is most often the case), I can only shrug my shoulders and say two words in my defense: “oh well”.

6. I now take time off work for appointments (dentist, doctor, etc.) with confidence and without guilt.

Looking back (to when I was younger and “stupider”) I remember feeling guilty for having to leave work early for a regular check-up. I don’t even know the people I used to work with anymore so really, what difference did it make and health should always come first!

7. I am more secure in who I am. Yes, I’m 45 but who I am today is a reflection of who I’ve become; not who I wish I was. And quite frankly, being me isn’t so bad.

So how do you like them apples?!!!

I haven’t played since the day I posted my declaration (of cutting myself off the stupid game) but this morning I was listening to an MP3 recording of a self-development coach speak on self-esteem issues (for a magazine article I’m working on) and thought, “I can’t just sit here and listen. I have to DO something!”

Well guess what that something turned out to be. Yup, a nice, complementary game of solitaire.

And while I was listening and playing (since I am woman and can multi-task), I realized how busy I’ve been and how I’ve let so much good stuff go by without writing about it. So here’s the “Reader’s Digest” version of what’s been going on in a chronologically backwards listing . . .

Yesterday – appointment at the neurologist’s office

Some of you don’t know this but I have epilepsy. I’m not perfect after all. A shock, I KNOW. But true. Okay now that we’re over the initial shock, I’ll give you a little background on the pain-in-the-wazo this epilepsy thing has been.

A few years ago, while sitting at my desk at work, I had a seizure and ended up in the hospital. I didn’t need to go to the hospital but after slamming my body into a filing cabinet and then lying on the ground like a dead spider, my colleagues panicked (understandably since if I remember correctly, I hadn’t told anyone I was, well, epileptic).

The doctor who saw me – who looked 12! – decided that it was his duty to report me to that department within the government that dictates whether or not you should be driving.

The story is much longer than this but to cut it short, I lost my driver’s license for an entire year. Twelve months of absolute HELL!

Lucky for me, I’m surrounded by great people and they helped me out: getting to and from work, picking up my kids from school, shopping . . . You know, the important stuff.

Well that nightmare is over and I’ve since:

1. NOT had any more seizures (yayyy!)
2. Gotten my driver’s license back (double yayy!!!)

And here’s the triple yayyy – Yesterday my neuro told me that since it’s been a few years, I can go off the meds. Like I said, there’s more to it than this but here you have the highlights in a peanut shell of why yesterday was a great day.

Saturday, June 26^th – Jonathan’s birthday

I still can’t believe he’s 12 years old. And with being 12 comes added responsibility, right? At least that was the argument when he told me he wanted a turtle for his birthday.

My first reaction was, “No frickin’ way! Like I don’t have enough to do in a day!” And that’s a good counter argument, right?

Well I broke down. I bought him not one – but TWO turtles. Why? Because they had two left at the pet shop (as if turtles are “pets”!) and I didn’t have the heart to separate them.

I haven’t yet had the urge to shoot myself in the head (although useless, they ARE cute) but I know it will come. It will be a day when I have 17 other things to do and Jonathan will come to me and say, “mommy, we need to clean the turtle tank because there are OTHER things living in there now.”

Yes, it will come.

Tuesday, June 22^nd – Jonathan’s graduation

Not only is he 12, but he’s going to high school next year! And to celebrate, his elementary school had a graduation ceremony with certificates and food and even a “dance” where the parents had to leave for two hours.

Now I realize that all kids mature at different stages but Jonathan is definitely NOT into dances yet, much less into girls! How do I know this? When I picked him up from school the day of the graduation he told me that a girl had asked him out. Like as in “to be his date”. (Now if you see him, DON’T mention it. He was totally embarrassed when he told me.)

“But mommy” – yes, he still calls me mommy – “we’re just FRIENDS. I said ‘yes’ because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.” (Sweet yes, but he’s a BOY. That won’t last.)

Then when I picked him up after the dance at 9:45 p.m. he told him he was bored. And that his “friend” wanted to smooth dance with him but he had said no.

(See. I told you the sweetness wouldn’t last.)

Saturday, June 12^th – Samantha’s birthday

Sammie’s birthday is actually on the 13^th but we had a pool party at her father’s on the Saturday. Convenience and all that. The party ended in a sleep-over at my house with two of her friends.

Samantha is my baby so her turning 11 is like WOW! How did THAT happen?!

Even though she’s younger than Jonathan, she’s so much more . . . “mature” than he is.

The word “delightful” is not a regular part of my vocabulary but I have to say that the evening of Samantha’s pajama party was delightful. No problems what-so-ever. Her only request was that I make pancakes for breakfast.

Now how easy is that?!

Father’s Day has to be the toughest occasion to shop for of all. And the radio campaigns don’t help. They target “golf dads”, “tech dads” and “fashion dads” as though there are only a few types of fathers and they all fit neatly into three categories.

Maybe part of the reason that it’s so hard to come up with that perfect gift is because there’s only one day a year that is dedicated to expressing our gratitude. (Not enough practice? But we’ve been celebrating Father’s Day for 100 years now . . .)

Out of all the ties and gadgets I have ever bought my father, NOTHING has ever even come close to expressing how I feel. Father’s Day is one day – yet I know damn well that my father thinks about me 365 days a year. (Well if he doesn’t, he’ll start now.)

All this to say that I love my father very much.

Thanks dad!

Father’s Day trivia

On which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the year?

Yup. You guessed it. Father’s Day.

I’ve been getting a lot of requests for updates on my new job (email, Facebook) and I’ve decided to fill you in here – it’s just easier this way since I have a “to-do” list that’s longer than a new roll of paper towels . . . and you do too, I’m sure.

My new job – how’s it going, you ask. Well I just finished my fourth week and as with any new environment, I’m getting into the flow of the culture there. I have to say that the people are really nice. I was especially impressed when I heard the owner of the company ask about an employee who had left for the day because she wasn’t feeling well.

“Send her a text to see how she’s doing,” he had said to the person who works closest with her.

Now you have to admit, that’s the sign of a genuinely caring person. (I personally think that “texting” is an absolute genius invention. It’s quick, efficient and NOT invasive.) It’s also the sign of a real “team ambiance”. And when you work in a creative field, coming up with great stuff really is a team effort.

There’s this human need to “belong”, which any company that truly values its employees should be aware of. I’m happy to report that my new company is. Every Friday, the company buys us lunch and we all eat together in the board room.

Working hard is important. But having fun doing it and enjoying the people you’re doing it with is crucial. “The company lunch”, as they call it, gives us an opportunity to get to know each other on a “people basis”; bosses are present but as individuals only.

All that to say that I’m beginning to really like my new job. And I’m even getting used to the traffic. My swearing has gone down about 80%.

Oh. And because I know you’re dying to hear if I fell off the wagon, the answer is NO. My morning routine for the last two days has NOT included playing solitaire.

This is my first morning of cold-turkey-no-more-solitaire-for-me. It’s been 24 hours and so far, so good. Although I have to admit: this morning, my mouse did hover over the Spider Solitaire icon I had put on my task bar . . . So I deleted it.

As well, the fact that I wrote about wanting to kick this addiction here, had a huge impact on me NOT opening the game. Call it pride, but there was no way in hell that I was going to come on here and tell you that I had broken down and played that stupid game again.

How’s the novel going? Well in order to meet my self-proclaimed deadline, I had made a writing schedule for myself on Monday that outlines how many fixed amount of words I need to write every day. Of course by Tuesday I was already behind schedule. But that’s okay. There’s this thing called “life” that will interfere, and I accept that. As long as I keep at it, I won’t beat myself up over it.

Also, you know all that traffic I sit in everyday? Well, I’ve decided to use it to my advantage (instead of swearing at it). I have this handy-dandy little digital voice recorder and as I drive in, I dictate notes to myself for the upcoming scenes. The drive in to work gives me almost an hour and a half of writing time!

Okay. It’s not “exactly” writing time but it’s planning time. Not only that, but it also helps to reinforce my focus. (Not to mention help me to NOT FORGET what I’m working on.)

For the past few hundred years – or what seems like – my morning routine has included stumbling out of bed, making my way to the coffee machine à la zombie-style, telling the cat to shut up and kicking her out of the way so that I can put the food INTO her bowl, and opening my computer to play solitaire. Spider Solitaire, to be exact.

I don’t know exactly when or how I fell into this addiction, but I have wasted many, many hours on the stupid game. You’d think I’d be an expert by now, right? Well I’m not. Maybe the fascination falls in the mindless entertainment category.

Well I’m through with it. This is me, taking Step One, as I admit that YES THERE IS A PROBLEM. I’m kicking the habit as of TODAY. No more solitaire for me. (I hardly ever win anyways.)

So what will I do instead? Last week I got an idea for a story. A novel. I kicked it around in my head over the weekend. Made notes, expanded on it, developed it . . . and on Monday – the 14^th – I started writing. I’ve made the decision to let it consume me and want to finish a first draft by July 25^th. That date has a special meaning for me and even though it seems close, I figure that with all the time I won’t be spending playing stupid solitaire, I should even be able to write a symphony between now and then.

Which reminds me, I haven’t been playing guitar much either because I’ve been too busy playing . . . yes, solitaire.

That’s it! I’m looking for a way to take it OFF my computer!

With a line-up of bars, restaurants and terraces, Crescent Street has to be one of Montreal’s more notorious partying settings. And the drizzling of rain didn’t seem to bother any of the excitement seekers. Well maybe it bothered yours truly just a little. (Not the rain per se but the seventeen thousand umbrellas that I got poked in the side of the head with.)

In anticipation of the traffic, Greg parked his car at the metro station in Lasalle (Angrignon) and met me downtown.  Why bring two cars and pay the hiked up parking price twice, right?

Once we’d had enough of squeezing through an unending crowd, we went to Weinstein and Gavinos for dinner then walked back to my car for the trek home. (Well, first back to Greg’s car and then back home.)

All in all, it was a nice evening. Everything was pleasant and “normal” until Greg decided that he had to pee NOW. So he discreetly found a spot at the back of the parking lot where my car was parked and “took care of business”.

When I heard him swearing under his breath I knew that something was wrong. Somewhere along the way between his pee spot and my car he had stepped in, well, dog poop. At least I HOPE it was dog poop. During our jaunt downtown I had noticed a considerable number of homeless people. Of course I didn’t mention this to Greg. He had enough to deal with. (Did I mention he was wearing flip flops? Yeah, you get the picture.)

“You are so not getting in my car with THAT,” I told him. So what does he do? He opened the car window, through his flip flops into the darkness and sat in my car with his foot hanging out. And that’s how we drove – in silence because somehow having poop on your foot and sitting beside someone with poop on their foot just paralyzes any ability to make conversation.

And about his discarded flip flops. Yes, I’m full aware that what he did was litter in the worse way. But he was so consumed with rage at having stepped in it in the first place that he just couldn’t think past reacting. Swearing and throwing were all he could come up with.

As for me, there’s no way I was going to touch his poopy flip flops. I don’t care how much I love him. There’s a line that gets drawn when it comes to helping someone out who has poop on their skin. I’m pretty adamant about that.

You see, the ad agency I work for got this new client – a chain of lingerie stores – and one of their claims to fame is a wide selection. They also want to increase consumer awareness on their “fitting expertise” and customer service approach.

I thought, “great. I can use a new bra,” and made a note-to-self to check them out over the weekend; combining personal needs with customer research.

So on Saturday I made my way to one of their stores, walked in, sought out an “expert” and told her I was looking for a bra.

Expert: “What size?”

Me: “What do you have in the negatives?”

Expert: “Come. I’ll measure you.”

I admit, I was a little on the excited side as I thought, “finally, I’ll have a bra that fits properly!”

And off to the changing room we went where she pulled out her “expert fitter tool” (a measuring tape), got the information she needed and disappeared, only to return a few minutes later with something for me to try on.

What happened next is where the “pathetic” part comes in. What she brought me was not only too BIG, but also the SMALLEST size in the entire store!

(I may have my mother’s eyes but I have my father’s chest. Yeah, somebody got THAT right.)

I told my mother about my little humbling experience (nope, the word “little” doesn’t make me want to reach out and call a therapist. Not one bit.). And what does she do? She goes bra shopping. (The idea must have hit her after she stopped laughing.)

“I bought you a LITTLE something,” she tells me. (Yes, she’s very funny.)

Okay. I admit it. I can be mean sometimes.

Before I tell you what happened, let me begin by giving you a mental picture of my house. I live in what’s called a “side-split”, which means that off of the living room on the main floor, there are about six steps that take you to the bedrooms and bathroom. And facing these stairs – and bathroom – there’s a window that overlooks my neighbour’s driveway. As much as I love windows and sunlight, this window is actually an imposition because my neighbour – and this is no exaggeration – is ALWAYS washing, buffing, playing around with this fancy red car of his.

Okay. So you get the picture. From my neighbour’s driveway, if you look into that window of my house, the direct view is my staircase and bathroom.

Usually we close the blind on that window as soon as it begins to get dark but last night Greg and I went out for dinner and simply forgot.

Not long after we got home, Greg jumped into the shower and only realized after that there weren’t any clean towels available. So what does he do? He walks out naked, which was really okay because even though neighbour dude was out, loving his car, all the lights were turned off in my house.

BUT, as Greg was in mid-stair on his way to get a towel, I ran into the bathroom behind him and turned on the light. Greg froze for about 2 seconds the way a deer does when it’s caught in the headlights of a car. Then I actually saw him “consider” the option of continuing in his momentum to run to the window to close the blind. But then I guess he came to his senses because instead, he quickly hunched over, turned around with cupped hands over his (clearing of the throat) manhood, and ran back towards the bedroom.

Once Greg got over the trauma of being caught buck naked, we laughed for about 20 minutes. Real side-splitting, tears down our faces laughter.

This morning when we got up there was a big blue tarp between my neighbour’s driveway and my window.

Guess Mr. I-Love-My-Car was traumatized as well.

You know when you see an empty coffee cup, chocolate bar wrapper or graveyard of cigarette butts on the ground (also known as “garbage”)?

Well, it didn’t just get there by accident. No sir. Purposely dropped there, was its fate . . . by a litter bug.

I’ve had the frustrated pleasure of witnessing this myself. Someone with no shame sticks their arm out of a moving car, opens their hand, and releases their garbage out into the world.

If I had the gonads I would pick up their garbage, follow them until they reached their destination and say, “I think you DROPPED this,” as I throw it back into their car.

But instead I do what any other earth loving person would do: say the f-word in disgust and continue on my non-moving journey to work or home, depending on the time of day.

And speaking of “time of day”, I’ve noticed that the litter bugs come out mostly in the afternoon AND that they are of the procreation age. Which surprises me even more since it’s their children’s earth that they’re polluting with their crap.

So how about an anti-litter bug campaign directed at the 20-ish? Since they’re such social media addicts, we could send it out via Twitter. Or maybe they feel that it’s their right to litter since their virtual world has overtaken the once-upon-a-not-so-long-ago era of printed . . . everything.

Okay. Now I’m just getting nasty. Let me start over . . .

I’ve been noticing lately that there’s an incredible amount of individuals who find no shame in littering. I didn’t realize that littering was in such full force, given that we’ve become so “earth-friendly” these days.

Of course the purpose of our earth-friendly ways is to preserve the earth for our future generations.

Now I’m not pointing the finger at anyone in particular, but it may be a good thing if we could ALL make an effort and put our garbage where it belongs; even if we’re very busy texting at the time that we’re over-come with a sense of disposal. Because having a clean car is really important.

And I’m sure that my right leg gained an extra 15% in muscle mass. This, from lifting my leg from the gas peddle to the brake peddle 3,600 times during the 75 minute drive in (yes, that’s OVER an hour). So if you notice that I’m walking a little funny you now know why – I’m no longer symmetrically correct.

One of my on-going goals in life is to always look for something positive within the not so positive mundanes of daily life. Here’s what I came up with this morning.

The “good” that comes out of sitting in traffic:

1. I can’t do laundry or clean the bathroom or cut the grass – I have no choice but to relax. And yes, “relaxed” is exactly how I feel while sitting in traffic. (That’s why I’m venting about my frustration now.)
2. I get to problem-solve, also known as obsessing over my problems. (No, that doesn’t add to my frustration at all – in case you were wondering.)
3. I get to practice my ability to enunciate certain words so that other drivers, the ones who cut me off, can read my lips and know exactly what I think about them.
4. Sitting in traffic also helps me in my knowledge of the automobile industry. Because knowing that the Sonata is made by Hyundai and that paprika is now a car colour is, well, important.
5. I now know that a vast majority of the population is able to drive and do disgusting things that entail both their fingers and their nose at the same time. (And they say men can’t multi-task.)
6. I now know all the words to the 7 songs played on the radio (because those are the only 7 songs ever invented and they play them over and over and over and over and over . . . )
7. I now know that it is impossible to tan through the car window but possible to cook through it. (The colour change of my left arm is actually the shade of “well done”.)

Conclusion:

So, not only is sitting in traffic as beneficial as a relaxing day at the spa, but it’s also the best form of education as well.

I am now smarter and more relaxed than I was when I left my house this morning. (That’s my new mantra. Jung would be proud.)

Have you ever looked at yourself – or a part of yourself – and wondered: “what the hell happened?!!”?

Well that’s what happened to me yesterday. I was writing and happened to glance down at my hands when I completely lost track of what I was working on. Suddenly my eyes popped out at the exact same time as those words (“what the hell happened”) erupted from my mouth like the lava out of a volcano – uncontrollable and hot with rage.

They weren’t MY hands. They were the hands of . . . I hate to even say it out loud . . . an OLD WOMAN! Scary stuff!!!

So what did I do? What any other vain person would do, of course. I ran to the bathroom to look at my face in the mirror. And yup, sure enough, this old person was staring right back at me.

Did I miss something? I mean, I don’t “feel” old. And I can still squat without grunting and even run – except I avoid anything that has to do with bouncing my bladder because . . . well I’m not ready to say THAT out loud. (But that’s not an age thing. I have a friend who is 10 years younger than me (okay nine) and she can’t go on a trampoline without a trickle syndrome occurrence.)

So apparently I’m old. And what about all those expensive creams I’ve been using that are supposed to “rejuvenate” your skin . . . blah, blah, blah?

Suddenly, I understand “the quest of all quests”. The one that has had people searching for centuries. Legend, myth or great, big, fat secret? Where is that damn fountain of youth?!!

I don’t remember why I started using a “peanut” in reference to my memory. Yes, I know. How appropriate for me to forget. It could be because elephants are known to have great memories and are also known to eat peanuts. So maybe it’s simply a “subconscious word association” thing.

The truth is that my memory is more like a pasta strainer; events just sift through the holes without my realizing it. How do I know this? Common sense. A friend will bring something up and the sudden pause in conversation will tell me that this is where I’m supposed to say something because, well obviously I’m supposed to know what they’re talking about.

I also forget random, unimportant things like which side my gas tank is on when I pull up to the gas attendant. Unimportant to me, but maybe not so for the 3 people behind me who all have to back up as I re-position my car. (Luckily my hearing isn’t that great either and I don’t hear them swearing at me.)

Do I worry about this? Nope. I feel like the blind person who has learned to compensate in other departments to make up for their “disability”.

Tips & Tricks for hacking through life when you’re born without a memory

1. Pay attention to the moment.

I’ve become really, really good at “adding value” to conversations as I silently scramble to figure out exactly what it is we’re talking about. (But if you tell my boss, I will deny it!)

2. Become an incessant note taker.

The only problem with that is that I have so many notebooks going on that it’s hard to keep track. My system now includes post-it flags – the best invention since pen and paper.

3. Have kids.

My kids became extremely adept at remembering random things at a very young age. My youngest, Samantha, could tell me where we parked the car, what we came to the grocery store for or the names of random people we run into since about the age of 3. Either she was born really smart or she sucked any memory I had left out of me when I gave birth to her. Either way it works for us.

Of course they say that memory loss is a sign of aging. Did I suffer from this when I was younger? The truth is, I don’t remember.

This is pathetic. I don’t even go to school and I’m excited about the end of the school year. As mentioned in a previous post, my kids’ homework tops the list in my daily challenges.

Second on my list is packing their lunches. It’s a volatile world out there but even more so when I get all excited to find out that they LOVE sliced turkey, only to be told the following week that they HATE sliced turkey.

This love / hate thing makes me think that I’m sooooo spoiling them. Whatever happened to, “gee mom. Thanks for getting up two hours before us so that you can make sure we have clean underwear for the day and a good wholesome lunch.”  (Yeah, that sounds like my kids.)

Appreciation as Mother

I was in a store yesterday and as I was paying, a toddler from somewhere behind me was having a temper tantrum. Oh I remember those days well. (I didn’t say “fondly”; I said “well”.)

Even though I was alone and my kids are beyond the public-display-of-emotion age (they reserve their outbursts for the privacy of home now) I still turned around.

There’s this switch that goes on as soon as you give birth that just simply doesn’t have an off position. How many times have I been walking along and turned in response to someone else’s kid saying, “mommy”? It’s just how it is. We become mothers and suddenly we develop this acute sense of hearing.

The cashier that was serving me during the surround-sound temper tantrum blare looked a little exasperated. Obviously not a mother (she looked about 12), she had yet to develop another keen faculty that women develop upon becoming mothers: the ability to tune out. (Out of all my senses, I have to say that my sense of tuning out is my favourite.)

As the cashier handed me my change, she also handed me a flower – a Carnation – as a Mother’s Day token.

I turned to leave and the overwhelmed mother of the child that was broadcasting his moment of discontent, stepped up to the cash. And as she did, I thought, “the flower’s not going to cut it. This woman needs a drink!”

Appreciation as Daughter

I consider myself lucky. I have not one, but TWO women who have played motherly roles in my life and who’ve grown (actually, I’m the one who’s grown) to become my friends and confidants.

Cheers to you both!

(And I do mean that literally as well as appreciatively!)

Well another school year is drawing to an end. I don’t know who’s happier: me or my kids. I’m thinking: “Yayyyy! No more homework for a whole two months!”

For one thing, by the time we get home at the end of the day, we’re exhausted. My brain has morphed into mashed potatoes and my body has energy only to do what’s absolutely necessary – and there’s ALWAYS a lot on the “absolutely necessary list”: prepare supper, clean up the kitchen, oh and somebody always NEEDS something washed out of the laundry hamper for the next day . . . The “do or dies” of pre-teen emergencies.

Also, although I consider myself half-way intelligent, I can’t for the life of me figure out the homework these days. The math alone makes me feel . . . stupid (and maybe a little old). I just don’t get it. How can they change the math?

While I admit that I’m no mathematician (discounts mess me up; 10% off? Oh GREAT!) isn’t math one of those “staples”, like meat and potatoes?

Then there’s the French. Okay, so we live in Quebec and learning another language can only be a good thing. But the kids come home with these science projects that completely throw us for a loop. Gives the “work” in “homework” a new look – one that mingles sweat with drool and it’s really not pretty.

How are “we” supposed to understand (and retain) new information in another language when we don’t even know it in . . . well our own? Yes, I know it’s “their” homework but anything they bring home automatically becomes “ours” . . . well not the frogs and stuff.

Oh and here’s a question: what do they do (“they” being all kids everywhere) between 3 o’clock when they finish school and 5:45 when I pick them up? EXACTLY! Not much. So why don’t they do homework during that time . . .with the help of “teachers” – as in, people who get this new math and know the science terms in French?

Kids grow up fast, don’t they? It seems like one minute you’re constantly attending to a snot-nosed whiner that can completely melt your heart with a simple smile, and the next minute you’re buying them deodorant.

And shame on me for assuming that kids come with an already built-in comprehension of what to do with deodorant. I remember when I bought Jonathan’s first stick. I placed it on the bathroom counter next to his towel, face cloth and pajamas and said, “Jonathan, you’re getting older and need to put on deodorant after your shower now. It will make you smell nice. Understand?”

“Yes, mommy.”

He said he understood, so I walked out of the bathroom thinking he’s got it all under control.

After his shower he came into the kitchen and I asked him if he put on his deodorant because as a mom, that’s part of my job: tell them to do it. Remind them to do it. Make sure they did it.

And what did I get?

“Oh yes. I put it on my arms . . . and my stomach . . . and my face . . .” as he said this, he mimicked the action of gliding an invisible deodorant stick all over his body.

I remember just staring at him. Dumbfounded. How could I have just “assumed” that he would know what to do with it???

Well now it’s Miss Samantha’s turn to start wearing deodorant. I tried to make doubly sure that she would know what this nice smelling stuff was used for but somehow she already knew.

She’s a girl after all and maybe girls are born with an instinctive understanding of how these things work.

Either way, here’s an idea for a new invention. I call it Kid-Odorant.

Essentially, it’s deodorant, packaged for KIDS with illustrative instructions. Big, colourful pictures of . . . say Mickey Mouse putting on deodorant where it’s intended (i.e. armpits!)

And of course the array of scents would be kid-oriented: bubble gum . . . chocolate . . .well maybe not chocolate . . . but strawberry-scented . . .

And since boys generally don’t care about all the hype on “smelly stuff”, the boy version could have cool names like Iron Man Power Stick or something.

I can see the conversation now, “put this on and it will make you strong.”

Yeah, well, smell isn’t everything, right?

What do they fight about? Stupid things. Like when we’re driving and a good song comes on the radio they fight because:

I have a ton of work to do but what am I doing instead? I’m outside in my pyjamas, taking pictures of my flowerbed so that I can show it off. (I hope the neighbours aren’t up.)

To catch up on this story, you can read worms, worms everywhere by clicking on the link . . .

The flowerbed was looking pretty neglected and pathetic after Greg and I upturned the earth. Waiting until Victoria Day to plant flowers just seemed so . . . wrong. So we decided to steal a few rocks from the woods nearby and after placing them we stood back and admired our work. I have to admit, it looks like a graveyard full of tombstones. Greg insists that it looks good “that way”. So fine. It looks good that way. (I will secretly remove a few . . . gradually so that he doesn’t notice. Yes, I know how to win my battles.)

Rocks in place and eager to add some life, we went to the local gardening store to “ask questions”. (I knew damn well that I wasn’t leaving there without buying SOMETHING.)

I sought out help from a gardening dude and he told me that I don’t have to wait until Victoria Day. I can plant perennials now! This news made me as happy as Happy Pappy and ready to go to town!

With the help of my new best friend (the gardening dude) I picked out a few flower plants, of which I don’t remember the names because they’re long and Latin-sounding (apparently too much for my brain to retain). But I can tell you this: the colour scheme is orange, yellow and white. I’m normally pretty relaxed about things but when it comes to something I create from scratch – like this flowerbed – it turns out I can be anal too. There’s nothing like a new activity to bring out your best qualities.

Mr. Gardening Dude did introduce me to one plant that I remember the name of – simply because there’s a link between its name and some fond alcohol-induced memories. The plant is called Tequila Sunrise and who could resist buying anything with that name? Bring it on, I told him.

BTW, Mr. Gardening Dude looked to be about 12. Either they’re getting younger or I’m getting older . . . we’ll go with they’re getting younger.

So here’s how the flowerbed looks now, tombstones and all.

Turns out I do have to wait for Victoria Day to plant annuals but my take is, why would I plant something that I have to re-plant every year when I can just fill it up with flowers that come back???

Today’s the day that many, MANY people scramble to get their taxes done so that they can send them to some poor, over-burdened government official . . . somewhere. April 30^th comes at the same time every year and yet I still manage to leave it until the last minute.

I used to ask myself “what’s wrong with me???”

But this question no longer haunts me. I attended a Time Management seminar a few weeks ago and when the presenter (who arrived late, by the way) asked, “what’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of deadlines?” I blurted out “SOLITAIRE!” – as in the stupid game that comes with your computer.

And it was at this precise moment that I realized that I’m not the only loser with procrastination issues. The laughter that followed my spontaneous blurt-out told me that my confession had resonated with everyone else in the room.

So although I didn’t leave the Time Management seminar with any life-altering insight, I do feel a little better knowing that procrastination is actually a human instinct . . . like the need to belong or the will to live.

My taxes are still late and I’ve been putting off looking for a way to disable “solitaire” in my laptop (which I’ll tell you about someday  . . . if I can manage to get around to it).

But at least my inherent need to belong is being fulfilled.

To all you other procrastinators out there . . . I nominate myself as treasurer of this club. Can you imagine the fortune there is to be made in membership fees?!!

At the beginning of the week I was introduced to someone; a friend of a friend’s colleague. Yes, that confused even me. You’ll note that I’ve “strategically” waited until now to talk about this. This is my attempt at camouflaging exactly who I’m talking about. (I don’t meet that many new people during the course of a week but nobody knows that, right?)

Let’s call this friend’s friend’s colleague . . . John.

So I extend my hand while saying, “hello ‘John’, nice to meet you.” And what does he give me back? Oh his hand alright but it felt like a limp fish!

Several thoughts immediately crossed my mind at the same time. Actually they ran into each other:

What is he . . . afraid to touch me? Do I look like I have a disease? And he’s supposed to do well in business with that handshake? What a weeny!

Yes, WEENY!!! I don’t remember the last time I had the opportunity to use that word but boy-oh-boy did that handshake bring it back up to the surface!

They teach all kinds of useless “subjects” in school (religion comes to mind) so why not a 40 minute workshop on the importance of a good, solid handshake? A handshake says so much about a person:

-       Too strong: this dude is sooooo insecure

-       Too week: is there a back bone in there?

-       Too awkward: geek!

-       Too touchy-feely: ewwwww!

Note to self: This weekend Jonathan and Samantha are going to learn about the old-fashioned art of handshaking  . . . with confidence, self-assurance and sincerity.

By the way, the word “weeny” came up again later that same day when another driver (yes, another on the road story) decided to change lanes without looking and almost hit me. My automatic reaction was to first swear out loud, and then hit the center of my steering wheel as hard as I could to induce my car’s ability to swear out loud (also known as a horn).

But instead of an assertive “watch where your driving, ass-hole!!!” the sound that came out of my car was a complete weeny-honk.

I was embarrassed.

Although the other driver would have been totally at fault had he hit me (yes, it was a “he” and no, I’m not exaggerating about the “totally his fault” thing), I almost felt like I deserved to get hit after hearing that poor-excuse-for-a-horn sound that came out of my car.

In fact, it reminded me of the weeny handshake experience I had suffered through earlier that day.

On my wish-list: a decent sounding horn. You can change tires, lights, floor mats . . . why not a horn?

Last night Samantha came to me with some . . . form or something telling me that she has to go door-to-door to “sell something”.  A fundraiser.

“Absolutely not!” I said.

First of all, it had been a long day. I was tired and I still hadn’t cleaned up the kitchen.

Second of all, I could only imagine that my neighbours were also tired.

Third of all, apart from the dangers (I’m not saying that my neighbours are dangerous but it’s a chance I’d rather not take, thank you very much), I know that I get annoyed when my neighbours’ kids come ringing my door bell and I feel coerced into buying a $16 chocolate bar (sorry neighbours).

All that to say, teachers, principals, schools, school boards: please stop sending stuff home for my kids to sell.

If you need to raise money, how about a car-wash on the weekend?

I’ll even pass through twice!

Yesterday my mother and I were sitting in my living-room, chatting like old friends (because we can do that now that I’m, well, OLD) and somehow the conversation turned to Moxie-Dude.

“I don’t understand. Who has time to read blogs?” my mother asked, a little perplexed.

Yes, she reads Moxie-Dude. But the truth is that if it wasn’t for the fact that her daughter the writer happens to blog, she wouldn’t even know what a blog is. It would just be another obscure word in a hazy-vocabulary-filled world, which she openly doesn’t take part in. (I haven’t even told her about Tweets and Diggs yet.)

“You read magazines . . . It’s the same thing . . . except in front of a computer screen.” I answered.

But I’ve been thinking about her question and I realize that blogs are much more than simply the new magazine.

For one thing, since many are updated on a post-abound basis, they provide the latest in groundbreaking news and information. Niche blogs that focus on technology, politics and celebrity gossip are especially adept at this. And they have to be. Blog readers around the globe are continuously available for the latest headlines, as they remain committed to their enthusiasm for the latest, greatest and juiciest!

Looking at the personal blogs that I follow, these bloggers have become . . . my friends somehow.

There’s Delana over at Du Jour  who entertains us with interesting tidbits about her day-to-day life in France.

And of course Heather at dooce.com, who managed to turn a bad experience (getting fired from her job because of what she wrote on her blog) into a full time passion.

So, yes, a blog is like a magazine in that the voice is consistent. But it’s much more than that. I feel like I actually know these bloggers.

And then there are the advantages that blogs provide to corporations. In this new, social media driven world, blogs are a way for companies to connect with us. They can no longer afford to view us as the “target market”; but instead as real people with needs, wants and desires – whose opinions matter because we now have a medium to voice them.

Gone are the days of “one-sided talking” (also known as advertising). “Interaction” is the way to go now.

So mom, to better answer your question, “blogs are like the 6 o’clock news on steroids. Only better, because we get to play Program Director on what’s playing and when.”

Since moving into my house last summer, I’ve been talking about converting a small patch of grass on my front lawn into a flower bed. Well Sunday was the day. Lucky for me:

1. Greg was over
2. He also enjoys working outside

I started up-turning the grass by myself and although it wasn’t a big area, it took over half an hour to get through one tenth of it.

Then Greg came out and we really went to town. Of course the earth critters were not too happy about the sudden excavation but the way I see it, they’re not only ugly . . . they’re DUMB and have probably moved on with their little lives by now. (Yes, I know that will get me a few calls from the worm rights movement.)

Although a small job, we felt pretty proud of ourselves after the job was done.

Then I went to the store and bought a few “decorations” to dress it up until flower planting time. (Apparently I have to wait until Victoria Day weekend to plant.)

Except for this beautiful rock, which I smuggled from a trip to Old Orchard a few years ago.

Can you tell this is a fake, plastic rock?

And don’t you just love this happy little guy?

Now somebody pleeeeaaaase tell me I don’t have to wait until Victoria Day weekend to plant flowers!!!

But I have to admit, there’s one thing I have zero tolerance for and that’s muscle-boys in men’s bodies who think it’s attractive to grunt and groan as they struggle during their weight-lifting exercises; only to finish their set by drop-throwing their weights on the floor with a bang.

“Uhg-uhg . . . look at me. I am heeeeee-MAN.”

Yeah. Okay. And no, that is not drool on my chin. I am not drooling over you. It is puke! As in “ewwwww . . . not appealing!”

I can’t ask the following question to you, men, since we’re obviously not looking in the same mirror. So I come to you, ladies:

What’s with these guys??? Why do they think that picking up weights that are TOO HEAVY FOR THEM is something we might find attractive???

Do they think . . . no scratch that. They don’t think. That’s why we have to think this one out for them.

It must be some sort of he-man-peacock syndrome.

I don’t know. Call me intolerant if you have to. I just find it so annoying to be working out in my zone, only to be startled back into sweaty reality by a loud clang as the weights hit the floor beside me.

Okay. Enough venting.

On a more positive note, I was at the gym earlier (yeah, I guess you knew that) and as I walked out I got a whiff of spring. Not dog poop, but “SPRING”. It’s here!

I love this time of year. It means flowers and gardens. It means walking outside without having to put on an extra 30 lbs of clothes. It means people I love will be coming home from Florida. It means baby birds. It means . . .

Hey wait a minute. Spring . . . maybe that’s what’s going on at the gym. Nature . . . He-man . . .

Ah-hah!

I can’t help it. No matter what time I go to bed, I wake up at around 4 o’clock to the voice of god in my head.

“COFFEE . . .”

The truth is, it’s annoying; even to myself. I would love to be able to sleep in – especially after a late night of too much wine. It doesn’t happen often but hey, I have kids and sometimes I need to cut loose too. (If you’re a parent and you don’t relate, I don’t believe you.)

All that to say that since I get up before the rest of the world I’ve added a Daily Muse box to the site where I will be thinking out loud almost every morning. (“Almost” is my disclaimer because sometimes life happens and the hamster, who is always turning, may be pre-occupied with other . . . pre-occupations.)

I’m actually really excited about this. Not necessarily about the self-imposed pressure of having to think something up “almost” every single day. What I’m enthusiastic about is the opportunity to share something useless with you.

Useless, but maybe inspiring or thought-provoking or simply a new perspective on an old notion . . . who knows.

And if you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to send me an email at moxie at moxie-dude dot com.

Right now, I have to go and save MC who is impatiently (which is a nice way of saying “annoyingly”) signalling that she wants to come in.

Until tomorrow . . .

And by the way, it’s a BYOC (bring your own coffee).

M.

“I ate my cereal randomly.”

“I made my bed randomly.”

“She called our names randomly.”

Unlike “intense”, “awesome” or “sick”, her new word has nothing to do with being “cool”, but rather unsystematic. So I’m happy to report that there’s no contemporary change to the definition.

My question is why does she feel it necessary to tell me that she has not taken an intentional approach to whatever she’s talking about? What’s going on in her soon-to-be-11-year-old-mind?

Maybe it’s just a “random choice of words” . . . and maybe that’s how new words – or new definitions for old words – come about.

Nifty, groovy, rad, hot, swell, dandy, rockin’, awesome, bitchin’, sweet . . .

Is “random” the new “cool”?

He was quite obviously upset. His hands were thrashing about like an injured bird trying to take flight and his head was bobbing so violently that I couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to give himself a headache. 

Boy would I have liked to be a fly on the wall in that car! I have no idea what he was saying but as he contorted and stretched his mouth into flamboyant speech, his passenger silently listened without expression. I could only imagine that she was thinking, “okay big guy, hurry up and get it out of your system so that I can shoot myself in the head”.

Watching Mr. Mad Dog Bobblehead Driver go at it for the ENTIRE length of the light, I’m certain that he must have used up a good 3,000 calories.

I have never seen such a violent act of ventful speech in my life. And not just in its aggressive display, but in its duration as well.

Well somebody didn’t need to go to the gym yesterday. He got his cardio workout sitting in his car after an obviously very bad day.

Yesterday when I picked up Jonathan and Samantha from school, one of the after-school program monitors wanted to speak to me. The first two words to cross my mind were, “oh-oh” – especially since Jonathan was standing with her, and looking very upset.

Another little boy had been harassing Jonathan all day and calling him names (“rich kid” and “fagot”). Near the end of the day Jonathan had had enough and the two boys got into a fight.

The fight didn’t last long (if you know my son, he is so NOT a fighter) and the other boy’s mother was told about her son’s behaviour.

Apparently this boy has a history of bullying other kids.

As the monitor was telling me what happened, she turned to Jonathan and told him that in the future, he is to ignore the other kid and if he continues to harass him, he is to tell a teacher. Of course I reinforced this but then Jonathan started crying and I knew it was because he felt helpless.

Ignore and tattle. Yeah, sure. I’ve been there and I know exactly how Jonathan felt. Let’s face it. As innocent and sweet as children are, they can also be very cruel. Yes, “cruel”. (I don’t think I’ve ever actually written that word because it seems odd to me.)

Reality check: Children can be cruel to psychopathic proportions!

In the real world, here’s what happens:

-          Bully picks on one kid.

-          Kid getting bullied walks away with his head down feeling (and looking) like a weenie.

-          Kid (now viewed as a weenie by his peers) tells the teacher.

-          Teacher says, “hey bully, don’t bully”.

-          Bully may get a detention.

-          Bully gets mad at the kid (now known as a weenie and a tattle tale) and bullies even more.

The first thing I did when Jonathan and I got in the car was congratulate him.

“Good for you for deciding that you’d had enough and clocking that dude!”

“But I got in trouble for it.” Oops.

“Yes, violence is never a good thing. But a person can only take so much.” My response was contradicting, I know.

“Mommy, Nick calls Jonathan names all the time,” Samantha said, reinforcing my need to “fix this”.

Okay, reality states that telling the teacher about a bully doesn’t solve the problem. And we all know how effective violence is (even if it feels good at the time).

Obviously I needed another solution. Something strong. Something with staying power.

And then this morning it hit me. It’s something I learned from my current boss’s boss. And although it’s VERY effective in the working world, my challenge was going to be in bringing it down to size so that Jonathan and Samantha could understand it and apply it in their own – not to sound demeaning – little lives.

Here’s how our drive in went this morning.

Me: Jonathan, do you remember what you’re supposed to do if that kid bothers you again?

Jonathan: Yes . . . ignore him . . . (optimistic is NOT a word I would use to describe his belief in this strategy)

Me: Do you want a secret weapon?

Jonathan and Samantha: A secret weapon?!!

Me: Yes. Something you can use the next time that bully bothers you.

Jonathan: Like an invisible cloak? (hmmmmmm . . . wouldn’t that be handy)

Me: No more like a power tool for life. Something that you can use any time and you don’t have to carry it around.

Silence. (I think I lost them at this point.)

Me: I use it a lot.

Jonathan: What is it?

I pulled to the side of the road at this point and turned around to face them in the back seat.

Me: Okay, Jonathan. I’m you and you’re that kid. Now call me what he called you.

Jonathan: Hey fagot!

I just looked at Jonathan for about 3 seconds and then turned around and started driving again.

Jonathan: Mommy! You told me to say it. Don’t be mad . . .

Me: I’m not mad.

Jonathan: Then what . . .

Me: That was it. That was the secret weapon.

Jonathan: What?!!

Me: You don’t know what I’m thinking, do you?

Jonathan: No . . .

Me: The best reaction is NO REACTION. The next time that kid bothers you, don’t ignore him. Instead just look at him for a few seconds and then turn away and do something else. Don’t react. You could even give a little smile and shake your head just a little . . .  like this . . . The trick is to think “YOU ARE AN IDIOT” but not to say it out loud.

As the three of us walked into the school yard, I could see that they both felt empowered. Like the “secret weapon” was going to save the day.

I’m not going to delude myself. I know that bullies can be pretty persistent. But I also know that not reacting to a situation (which is different from ignoring) puts you in control.

Luckily, I have the fact that the teachers know about this bully as a back-up.

And at least my kids feel better about the situation.

Was he traumatized by it? No. Did it mean he was turning into a more feminine version of himself? No. Did he ever tell his friends? That, I don’t know. We never discussed it. But I do know that although a good old fashioned Rambo movie is more his style, he did at least mildly enjoy it. And I know this because of the way he reacts when he really doesn’t like a movie (like when we took the kids to see SpongeBob SquarePants).

During Sex in the City, I heard him chuckle a few times and afterwards, not once did the word “stupid” come out of his mouth (again, like when we took the kids to see SpongeBob SquarePants).

Why am I bringing this up? I just found out that Sex in the City 2 is coming out next month. Will Greg come see it with me? Probably not (especially not after this post). But that’s okay. No Rambo for me and no Sex in the City for him. Unless of course if he really wants to see it because he’s been secretly dying to know what Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda have been up to these past two years.

Highly unlikely.

Yesterday’s dinner is a great example of its divineness.

52 years ago yesterday, my friend and neighbour, Valerie, was born and I wanted to commemorate the occasion by cooking for her. (Also known as “a good reason to share a bottle of wine”.)

My only obstacle? A full day of kids, work, making sure that EVERYbody is where they need to be and EVERYthing is getting done lay ahead of me. You know the days.

But . . . before leaving for my daily adventure, well, routine, I quickly threw in some stewing beef and a bunch of vegetables and seasonings into oh-holy-one (that sits so patiently on my counter) and covered the concoction with water and Bovril. (LOTS OF BOVRIL).

When I got home – some 11 hours later – voilà! An amazingly hot and yummy stew awaited us. Tender, tasty and (no, not another “t” word) READY!

My point? The crock pot is not simply a cooking tool. It’s a SAVIOUR!

It’s a natural occurrence. At first it’s like, “well I’ll just live out here – because it’s cheaper – but still enjoy the “energy” of downtown.” The best of both worlds, right?

Then, slowly but surely (so that you don’t actually notice the shift) that same energy – the one you swore to appreciate until-death-do-us-part, annoys the crap out of you.

Traffic becomes something you would give your wisdom teeth to avoid (well maybe not my wisdom teeth). And when you do get stuck in it (traffic) everyone else becomes an “a-hole”. I hate that word. (Obviously. I can’t even write it) But when I’m driving I suddenly become surrounded by, well, “a-holes”!

And parking! What? I have to look for it AND pay for it? Just doesn’t make sense. I KNOW!

So I finally get to Decarie after swearing at least 13 times from being cut off, and I go into this automatic pilot zone where I’m thinking about my day . . . the meeting I’m going to . . . realizing I have no change for the parking meters (damn!) . . . And suddenly I come back to the moment and realize that I’m in the middle lane and everyone on either side of me is whizzing by. Without noticing, I had pulled up behind a Honda Civic that was going about 65 km/h. Another a-hole.

Of course no one (as in NO ONE) would let me change lanes because gods-forbid they should actually be a “considerate driver” (if that even exists).

Finally I get to my sort-of destination and surprisingly, I find a parking spot in record time. (I only had to drive around the block three times.) I parked on Tupper and yes, of course. Parking meters.

“Well Alexis Nihon Plaza is around the corner. I’ll get change there,” I thought.

So I walked up Atwater to Ste. Catherine Street and was astounded to see that the McDonald’s on that corner – the one that had been there FOREVER – was gone. Same building, different . . . establishment.

Once upon a very long time ago (what is it? Like 30???) that McDonald’s – the one that belongs HERE

was where my friends and I would meet before a concert . . . before going to Mount Royal . . . and most of the time before figuring out what we wanted to do. It was just “the place to meet”.

A little stunned but mostly sad, I continued on my way to get change for the parking meter and there it was. The McDonald’s had moved to a little-nook-of-a-restaurant inside Alexis Nihon.

It looked like a cave on the side of a mountain . . . like an after-thought.

Despite our efforts to better ourselves, grow and reach our full potential, there will always be someone out there who will try to put us down. And the reason why, I’ve come to realize, is quite simply because that’s just easier than trying to bring themselves up.

Zig Ziglar said, “Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember – the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.”

I love this! In fact, I love it so much that I’ve actually considered having it tattooed on my forehead in a “so there” attitude. (Except that I have huge issues with pain – it hurts me – so I think I’ll forego the forehead owee.)

Speaking of attitude, there’s something to be admired about someone who does what they do best “with attitude”. The trick is to develop enough confidence to let that attitude shine.

Of course attitudes come in all shapes and sizes. There’s the positive attitude, the bad attitude – which is not the same as the negative attitude – the winning attitude . . .

Imagine the person who struts their stuff with confidence AND the right attitude!

What a winning formula for a sense of self-satisfaction – as opposed to the person who’s always looking for someone else’s approval or wondering how “they” would do it.

Note to self:

From now on, I am the new “they”.

I can remember pulling my brother around in the wagon my father had made us. It’s a very old memory (40 years at least) so the exactness of it may be a little diluted, but if I remember correctly, the wagon was actually a cupboard door on wheels (now that’s recycling!).

But the part that I do remember well is that I could never go through with my turn to be pulled. For some reason, I just “knew” that the neighbours were watching us from their windows saying, “look at her! She’s making her poor little brother pull HER!!!”

Although there were only 2 ½ years between us, the gap is of Grand Canyon proportions when you’re 6-ish. Thanks to the neighbours (also known as the voice in my head) it was impossible for me to enjoy my turn.

Of course, the neighbours were not watching or judging. I know this. But that same voice of “everyone else knows better” has been annoyingly criticizing me since day one. (“That’s not how you go through the birth canal!”)

At the gym: “What is she doing? That’s not how you do a leg extension!”

At home: “Oh my god!!! Somebody please put that girl out of her misery and show her how to cut the grass!”

At the grocery store: “Look at all the fruit she’s buying! What is she? Constipated?!!”

Meanwhile I KNOW that the world does not revolve around me.

At the gym, at home, at the grocery store . . . people are too busy worrying about their own stuff to notice what I’m doing or what’s in my grocery cart.

But even more importantly, it has finally dawned on me that I’ve been training, cutting grass and buying food for longer than the majority of people that I run into. (Now there’s a happy thought.)

Call it age. Call it self-confidence. Call it coming into one’s own. Call it whatever you want. For me, it’s finally my own voice that I hear. I’ve managed to SHUT THE OTHERS UP!

I’ve thrown them down into the cellar and closed the door for good.

I think – no, I KNOW – I’ve earned the right to be the voice in THEIR heads.

“You! Yes, YOU. . . Mr. Has-more-testosterone-than-brains! Why don’t you stop looking at yourself in the mirror and move it so that someone else can use that leg press machine!”

It was a beautiful day yesterday. The kind that makes you dig to the bottom of your closet to find your flip-flops, make a mental note to visit the pedicurist asap, and want to go play outside – which I did in the adult form of raking the lawn.

Melissa and her boyfriend Colt came over and as we were sitting outside, sharing a bottle of one of our favourite wines (Mission Hill), I brought up a conversation that Melissa and I had several years ago, mentioned in my last post: Talking to our kids about sex: who’s the mature one here?

“I was wondering how you were going to bring that up,” she said, having obviously read the post and taking great pleasure in watching me squirm.

As it turns out, she doesn’t even remember the conversation.

HMPH!

Guess it meant more to me . . .

“How have you dealt with having to talk about sex to your parents?”

I don’t know why they were asking the question and I wasn’t in my car long enough to hear any of the answers. But it did trigger a memory; or rather, a partial memory. It wasn’t of me talking to my parents about it (ewwww!) but of my eldest daughter, Melissa, talking to me about it (double ewwwww!) . . .

Having worked late one night, I was sitting alone at the kitchen table with my prepared plate of chicken, mashed potatoes and peas when Melissa decided to sit with me.

As we sat chatting away and giggling at I-don’t-remember-what, I remember thinking, “how nice is this? Just the two of us . . . talking . . . We really should do more talking.”

Then all of a sudden, somehow, somewhere, the conversation turned to, you guessed it, that three-letter “s” word.

Was I uncomfortable? Yes. Did I show it? Luckily I was doing something at the time (eating) so trying to look busy was a great distraction as I strategically transported my mashed potatoes to the 10 o’clock position on my plate . . . then rolled my peas, one-by-one, to the 6 o’clock position . . . All the while working very hard at NOT cringing. (It’s amazing how appearing mature can at times be the hardest thing in the world to do.)

Meanwhile, it seemed that Melissa’s babble, babble about something I wasn’t prepared to hear lasted FOREVER.

At this point I realized (or maybe just imagined) that I was actually really good at looking engaged as I deliberately nodded my head at tactical pauses in the monologue.

Yet despite my labour-intensive attempt at maintaining poise, grace and interest, I was still caught off guard when the words, “. . . and I like it . . .” came out of her mouth.

I remember catching my breath as I suddenly realized that the silence meant I was supposed to say something. GULP.

Not knowing where to look, what to do or what to say, I went into panic-mode and on impulse, shoveled a heaping forkful of mashed potatoes into my mouth.

And then . . . nothing.

The memory ends and I draw a complete blank.

Melissa – now 24 – is coming over this weekend. I should ask her about it. I think I’m mature enough to bring it up . . .

For some, sleep is a cherished luxury and not to be disturbed unless the bed is actually on fire. Not for me. I mean, I like sleep . . . when I’m tired. And maybe I suffer from attention deficit disorder but it’s just not something I can do for long periods of time. It’s one of the things I’ve been trying to fix about myself for years now.

I’ve tried EVERYTHING. After hearing (or maybe reading) that “you should sleep with your head facing north” I’ve rearranged my room to accommodate a trial period in all head-facing directions. And when that didn’t work, I even tried all the cross-compass directions: north-east; south-east; south-west; north-west. Nothing.

Then I read somewhere that red wine is a good sleep inducer. Partly true. I guess any alcohol will put you to sleep eventually but I still woke up at 1 o’clock in the morning only to lie there, trying to will myself back to sleep. (Did you know that whoever painted my bedroom crossed the wall-to-ceiling line in 3 places and there are 7 nail holes on the wall facing my bed?)

I’ve tried the old-fashioned cup of hot milk. There were two problems with this:

1. It’s gross
2. After finally falling asleep, I had to wake up to pee

Then I thought I had a solution. I started listening to guided meditations on my MP3 player. This worked for a while but seems to have lost its . . . power.  I still enjoy it. It relaxes me, but then again so does a bottle of wine.

Back to square one.

Maybe it’s hereditary. All three of my parents (mother, father, father’s wife) have very active night lives of watching TV, reading, eating, taking the dog out for a walk . . .

(As an aside, passing traits along to other family members is a VERY REAL phenomenon – including insanity, which I’ve inherited from my kids!)

The other day I read that as you get older you need less and less sleep.

That was . . . encouraging . . .

It seems I’m not the only one who thinks that some kids just aren’t ready to learn about our body’s ability to reproduce, the parts involved and how it all works.

Although Jonathan is 11 and tall for his age, he’s still a baby. (Sorry Jonathan. I mean that in a good way!) He still needs me to tuck him in at night – which I love! – and he still sleeps with an array of stuffed animals. And even though Samantha is mature for her age, her innocence is priceless!

Maybe I should have kept her home yesterday to “protect her” from seeing that “disgusting movie”, as they called it.

-          Long live their immaturity

-          Long live their innocence

A time will come when I’ll wish they still thought the opposite gender was “gross”. (I’m trying to avoid using the “s” word).

With all that said, I do realize that education in the reproduction department is necessary. (Again, this is me sticking my proverbial tongue out at the spammers.)

Puberty comes fast and it’s a confusing time. I was 11 at their age and I remember being baffled by the bizarre things that were happening to my body, my mood . . . Especially my mood! I have very distinct memories of the rest of my family being traumatized by my mood swings. Ah yes . . . the joys of hormonal awakening.

(Of course, now I’m going through it all over again and I may STILL not be ready for it but at least I know what’s going on – sort of.)

Protecting our kids from learning about “certain things” is really NOT about keeping them ours for as long as possible. It’s about letting things unfold naturally. We eat when we’re hungry. Sleep when we’re tired. Walk when we’re ready.

Education does have its place. This is one situation where ignorance is NOT bliss. But in due time, Kemosabe. Their time will come.

As for all the cryptic language, I’m not spam-aphobic. You wouldn’t believe the number of “comments” I received that were actually ads for “enhancers” of all kinds (I dare not write it out for fear of even more trying to advertise their “goods” to you, my loyal and valued readers.)

Samantha: “Mommy, can I stay home from school tomorrow?”

Me: “Why?”

Samantha: “We have to watch this video and . . .”

Jonathan: “Oh! I watched it already. It’s DIS-GUSTING!”

Me: “Disgusting? What’s the video about?”

Jonathan: “Puberty . . . it showed us testicles and girls’ virginia’s . . .” (No, this is not a typo.)

Samantha: “Pleeaaaase mommy! I don’t want to watch it!”

Me: “Sorry Samantha. You have to go to school. So what did you learn Jonathan?”

Jonathan: “Nothing. It was GROSS. They showed EVERYTHING.”

Samantha: “Pleaaaasssse MOMMY. You can work from home tomorrow. Don’t make me go.”

Me: “Sorry sweetie. You have to go to school.”

Samantha: “Well then I’ll just close my eyes the whole time and do what you do. La-la-la-la . . .”

I could only imagine that she had stuck her fingers in her ears at this point. (Yes, I do this sometimes . . . when I don’t want to hear something. I know very mature.)

And when I tried to find out exactly WHAT this video showed that seemed to be so traumatizing, they both clammed up. Apparently it’s too disgusting to even talk about. Their reaction reminded me of Harry Potter and he-who-must-never-be- named.

It makes me wonder . . . maybe this age group isn’t ready to learn about the logistics of the human body. (Can you say anatomically correct?)

But then again, Jonathan will be starting high school next year – this September! – and it’s all uphill from there.

The power of outside influences (friends), the things they learn (friends), the trouble they get into (friends). Can you tell I’ve been through this before? (You can read part of the experience in the What I learned from raising my teenager post.)

Ahhh the joys of raising children. You just want to protect them from everything . . . even the burden of having to learn about puberty.

Last night a few friends were over and they confirmed it. My freezer really is dead and the fridge is not far behind. This completely explains why I heard Samantha heaving the other day after pouring herself a glass of milk. (“Mommy chunks fell in my glass and it smelled like baby throw up.”)

And so the adventure of shopping for a new fridge begins.

I am not a shopper. I have never been a shopper. Luckily though, I have high friends in the world of hard-core shopping, whom you can read about here.

I may not be able to find an actual “coupon” worthy of the hefty price of a fridge, but I now know about sites like shopzilla.com and pricegrabber.ca.

And even though shopping is right up there with retiling the roof on a scorching hot August afternoon in terms of my “fun things to do” list, I’m actually excited.

Imagine  . . . a new fridge with working freezer where my chicken nuggets will remain hockey-puck-hard until cooking time. Or an ice cube tray that homes real cubes of ice instead of stale pockets of water!

And I can even get bold in my choices. Stainless steel . . . bottom freezer . . . side-by-side . . .

The fridge is about to become the coolest thing in my kitchen!

Yesterday I took something out of the freezer that had begun its life as well-packaged hamburger meat. That’s when I realized that my freezer was dead.  The partly frozen but mostly soggy meat had morphed into something . . . nameless.

So empty the freezer I did. Although most of the items I threw out were indefinable, the definitive “gross” came to mind as I filled up my garbage bin.

What a waste. What a shame.

Looking into the now empty freezer, two things came to mind . . .

The first was my father’s voice, “close the fridge door.”

I have a whole repertoire of childhood memories that include this simple phrase; right up there next to its twin: “don’t slam the fridge door.”

Confession: in my “adultness”, I have grown into a leave-the-fridge-door-open-while-I-poor-the-milk type fridge owner. As well, I have slammed the fridge door closed with my foot . . . more often than I should have. (What? My hands were full!)

As mental images danced in my head of me committing these terrible crimes, I had an epiphany: I am guilty of killing my freezer.

The other thought that came to mind as I stood peering into my now foodless (and soulless) freezer was, “I can fix this!”

I took out the handy-dandy screwdriver that my father bought me last summer (apparently the butter knife wasn’t good enough) and “got to work”.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself when I managed to remove the five screws that held the bottom of the freezer in place (although I’m still not sure why the screws were necessary when gravity does a pretty good job).

From there I pulled out the bottom without a hitch – easy as pie.

(If I may divert for a moment . . . that’s the stupidest expression I’ve ever used. Have you ever tried to make a pie? It’s NOT EASY! Okay back to the freezer story . . .)

Placing the piece on the floor, I eagerly examined the empty shell of a freezer at which point I lost all sense of purpose. I had no clue what I was looking at. I didn’t even know what I was looking FOR.

A few wires . . . a piece of Styrofoam . . . nothing complicated but what did it all DO? Better yet, what was I THINKING? I don’t know how to fix a freezer!

Two things I (hope to) never do again:

-         Stand with the fridge door open

-         Slam the fridge door closed with my foot

Can an almost-old dog learn new tricks? Let’s hope so. Meanwhile, four simple words were bellowed in my kitchen this morning as Jonathan stood peering in the fridge (was he waiting for something to suddenly manifest???):

“Close the fridge door!”

Funny how we become our parents . . .

Every once in a while something happens that takes us out of our little comfort zone, our perception of self . . . only to make us aware of something monumental. Something big. Something EPIC.

Well one of those big moments happened to me yesterday. It completely through me off guard. Made me realize how mortal I truly am. It (almost) humbled me.

This sudden dawning had me drive the rest of the way home in a daze. I was actually mesmerized by my awakening.

And as therapeutic as this rant may be for me, I can actually hear you:

“Okay. Enough with the drama already! What happened?!!”

I had stopped off at the grocery store on my way home from work and as I was putting my one bag into the trunk of my car, a grocery-packer-dude (who had come outside to gather the carts) came up to me and said, “Do you need help, mam?”

TWO things struck me:

1. Do I look feeble???

2. Do I look like a “mam”???

I don’t even know how to spell mam!!!

mam

mamm

m‘am

The automatic spell-check is underlining ALL versions!

Maybe “mam” isn’t even a word . . . which would make him the dim-witted one, right?

Anyway, caught in my moment of desperately trying NOT to feel old, I’m going to look this word up. Don’t go away. I’ll be right back . . .

HAH!!

Turns out it’s spelled “ma’am” and it’s a British term “used in addressing the queen or royal princess”.

PHEW. I’m not looking old and feeble after all. The poor boy thought I was a PRINCESS!

They call me MR. Moxie-Dude!

Oops. Guess I just ruined the moment by showing my age (once again). And for all you “young ‘uns”, that line comes from an old Sydney Poitier movie:

“They call me MR. Tibbs!”

A few years ago a psychic asked me, “you don’t make money your god, do you?”

She was right of course; mostly because I didn’t have any and partly because I just never thought about it.

But after spending some time with the “Coupon Queen” (also known as my step-mother), I’ve decided to change my ways. Watching her in action has given me a new lease on how much more money I spend than I actually have to – especially on the every day items.

Just as an example, Coupon Queen walked out of a store last week with tooth paste, milk and eggs – all for an exorbitant .58 cents!

How did she do it? COUPONS!

My beloved Coupon Queen taught me that coupons are not just for the underprivileged. As with any accomplishment, she felt genuinely good about her savings. And can you blame her? I don’t remember the last time I paid under a dollar for – not one, not two, but THREE items of real value.

I also learned that NOT paying attention to the weekly flyers is actually stupid.

Old me would come home from work, pick up the plastic bag full of flyers that gets delivered to my door every week, and toss it right into the recycling bin.

New me comes home from work, picks up the plastic bag full of flyers and sprints to my kitchen table to check out the weekly specials.

Snip and save has become my new sport of choice.

“She finds. She cuts. SHE SCORES!!!”

Stay tuned for an update on how much money I save within the next couple of weeks . . . just by taking the time to cut out coupons for the things that I would buy anyway.

Ah yes. The sweet smell of a saved dollar.

I admit it. A month before my eldest daughter was to begin her first year of high school, I panicked. I think I even became temporarily insane as I obsessed over the peer pressure I imagined she would be under.

Mental images of faceless teenagers force-feeding her drugs and bullying her into robbing gas stations looped in my mind. 

It didn’t take long for my sense of panic to turn into a mission: I had to somehow figure out a way to protect her from these evil, hormone-infected bullies. At the same time, I didn’t want to become the over-bearing mother-in-absence. The challenge was to make her “bully-proof” without becoming the voice in her head.

To be perfectly honest, my qualifications for teaching this course didn’t go much beyond a fierce determination to ensure that she grew into a happy, healthy adult (without a criminal record). How could I possibly teach her to confidently face the challenges of high school when I was about as assertive as a rabbit myself?

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear

Thanks to my new purpose in life, I suddenly realized that I was surrounded by teachers in disguise. (It’s funny what you can learn when you simply pay attention!)

My first “teacher” was a coworker named Jill.

I was working for an advertising agency at the time and during one of our team meetings our boss brought up the possibility of working overtime.

“I have yoga on Tuesday nights, so Tuesdays are out,” Jill informed us.

I was in awe. Here she was, mid-twenties, and somewhere, somehow Jill had developed a sense of self-respect that I could only envy. I was even more surprised by our boss’s response: “Okay. Tuesdays are out.”

Why did this make such an impression on me? It was in complete contrast to the way I would have contended with my “Tuesday evening yoga class” (had I had one). I would have simply missed it.

What I learned from Jill

1. HOW you say something is important

2. Everything is negotiable and SELF-CONFIDENCE can put any situation in your favour

3. If YOU don’t respect your time, no one else will

My second “teacher” was a woman named Rachel who also worked at the ad agency.

Rachel had this nervous giggle as though everything she said was really funny – which it never was. Not only was this annoying, it took away from her credibility.

The truth is that Rachel had the most experience out of all of us at the agency. She could have easily been the “team leader” but her irritating giggle took away from her credibility and authority as a professional.

What I learned from Rachel

1. HOW you say something is important

2. Without SELF-CONFIDENCE you lose all credibility

3. If YOU don’t respect what you have to say, no one else will

Taking these lessons home

With these new observations I started teaching my daughter the fine art of self-confidence through her own decisions.

“Why do you want more rice?”

“Why didn’t you make your bed?”

“Why did you put ice in your lemonade?”

I felt that reinforcing the reasons WHY she chose to do even the mundane things, would help to prevent her from being coerced into doing the terrible things I was imagining.

My greatest observation during this time was that there are two types of people:

-          Followers

-          Leaders

What sets them apart is the ten letter “c” word: c-o-n-f-i-d-e-n-c-e, and it all begins with “self”.

My daughter is now 24 years old and I’m happy to report that we both survived her high school years.

Why am I bringing this up? My son will begin his first year of high school this September.

Here we go again . . .

And for those of you who aren’t aware, March is National Women’s Month – all 31 days of it. We are all worthy of recognition; from the mundane-task-accomplishers with super- powers of stamina, endurance and resilience to the “wow” achievers who have paved new paths for the rest of us.

Although it’s too early for happy hour, let’s remember at some point today (since it IS FRIDAY) to raise our glasses in recognition of ourselves and each other!

Cheers to us all, sisters!

The beach at Pier 60 is heaven. Especially when you consider that just a few days ago we were wearing winter boots and heavy  jackets. Bathing suits, sun glasses and some sun block on the tip of our scarcely sun-exposed noses (now slightly red). Yup, that’s paradise.

 As we squished Pier 60’s powdery white sand between our toes, we couldn’t resist comparing the current moment with any other Wednesday at 11 o’clock.

 Then to top it off, we found a place that serves unlimited lemonade to kids and other “adult drinks” all for $1.99! That pushed our paradise up a notch to perfect bliss.

I now know what hell feels like. It’s topsy-turvy, out of control speed. It’s travelling at such an intense velocity that you actually feel the position of every organ in your body. (“There’s my spleen . . . oops it just moved!”)

It’s hoping that your silent prayers are being heard, “please let this moment be over. I swear that if you just put me back on the ground in one piece, I promise to never, ever swear, get angry or drink straight out of the orange juice container again.”

In three words, hell is the ROLLER COASTER RIDE.

I’m still not sure how it happened. Somehow my family convinced me (twice!) that I should go on one. It started with what they called the “baby roller coaster”. And although there were small children in line with me, there was nothing BABY about it!

All I could think while on this hell ride was, “they invented this because . . . it helps humanity, how???”

The second time they convinced me, I didn’t actually see the ride. They went on “something” while I enjoyed a nice, safe tour of King Tut’s tomb (on the ground, always vertical and moving at MY speed). All of a sudden they came running up to me all giddy and high from the thrill, “you HAVE to come on this ride. It’s awesome and you’ll LOVE IT.”

Thinking that they KNOW me, I let them drag me into a short line before I had a chance to change my mind. I realized something was up when they took off my flip flops and put them on a holding shelf but it was too late. I was already strapped into the chair of death.

It was 45 seconds of pure hell.

What did I learn? I HATE ROLLER COASTERS.

Maybe this is old school but I had seriously considered dressing a little on the “up” side for our big travel day (from Albany to Florida). Boy am I glad that I decided to leave the high heals at home. Running shoes can be a girl’s best friend when you’re lugging around your most valuables – kids and laptop.

For those of you whom I told that we were driving to Alabama to catch our flight to Florida . . . I meant ALBANY. No wonder you responded the way you did. (Alabama??? Why would you drive to Alabama?)

The drive went well. In fact the entire day was pleasant. Kids were great; hotel was clean. Everyone in Albany is super-friendly.

The funniest moment of the day was watching Greg walk back to our hotel room after swimming in the pool. He looked like an orangutan, uncomfortably walking with poop in his pants.

Very attractive!

I laughed all the way down two corridors and up the elevator.

“What? My shorts are cold and wet.”

That’s what you get when you go swimming . . . in WATER!

Luckily I told the kids I wanted to see what they packed before closing up their suitcases.

Jonathan:
- 17 pairs of socks (I didn’t even know he owned that many)
- 2 pairs of underwear (goes to show where his priorities are)
- 8 pairs of shorts (did I mention that we’re leaving for a week . . . ONLY)
- 13 t-shirts (a week, you say?)
- 3 bathing suits (because he can only wear one pair at a time)
- 6 pairs of pyjamas (guess he plans to sleep a lot)
- 1 pair of flip-flops
- Toothbrush (after I reminded him about six times)

Samantha:
- Swimming goggles (she actually packed these over two weeks ago)
- 4 tops and 3 pairs of pants (which she packed as “outfits” – she’s such a “girl”)
- 1 bathing suit
- 2 pairs of pyjamas
- 15 pairs of earrings (at 10 she’s already a fashion diva!)
- 5 pairs of panties (Samantha says, “that’s a little personal” but insists I keep it in the post)
- 2 pairs of flip-flops
- 2 stuffed animals
- Toothbrush

Once again, the difference between boys and girls is so obvious.

Oh and burglars: just in case you have any funny ideas while we’re gone, my good friend Bubba and his two German Shepherds will be house-sitting in our absence.

Stay tuned for updates on our long-overdo vacation.

As I mentioned yesterday, there was a time – before Greg and before Exy-Poo – when my mission in life was to meet the right person. He didn’t have to be perfect, but he did have to be handsome, interesting, know how to fix things, like kids, have a job, have a car, have a sense of humour, like to cook, like the countryside, like movies, reading, exercising . . .

No one I knew fit the bill so I took matters into my own hands and created a “profile” on one of those telephone dating services. Lucky for me, it was free for women.

My first impression was almost savage-like: Wow! A man catalogue! There were big voices, small voices, tall voices and even handsome voices.

Although things are a little bit more advanced now in the dating sphere (thanks to the internet), I thought I would share some of the lessons I learned.

Lesson #1 – Men lie!

Yes, I realize that we all know that our boyfriends/husbands occasionally lie. No big epiphany there. Common knowledge, we all go through life pretending that we don’t know about the stupid things they’re lying about and everyone’s happy. But I was very surprised to learn that men even lie about their appearances to people they’re about to meet . . . in person.

“Uhhhh my friends tell me that I look like Brad Pitt.”

And when they’d show up looking like Pee Wee Herman, what? Was I supposed to believe that they were just having a bad hair day?!!

Lessons #2 – A handsome voice does not make a handsome man

One of the first things I learned was that a great sounding voice does not always belong to a great looking man. To demonstrate this point I’ll use George Clooney. By popular opinion, George is hot. But the next time you’re watching a movie with him (in it!), close your eyes and listen to his voice. You’ll soon realize that he has a weenie voice.

Definition of “weenie voice”: The sound that comes out of a man’s mouth but is actually stuck in his throat. (Sorry George. But you have everything else going for you so I wouldn’t worry about it.)

Lesson #3 – Connecting on the phone does not mean that you’ll connect in person

My very first date through the telephone dating service was with a dude named Richard. I have to admit, young, naïve and a little on the stupid side, I thought this was going to be “the one”. In fact, I was sure of it.

We had spoken about three times before agreeing to meet. It would be a breakfast date. As I was getting ready, I thought about Richard and our life together. I had already conjured up exactly what he looked like. Tall, dark and, yes, handsome. A Johnny Depp look-alike!

A little over anxious (and over-dressed for breakfast) I arrived at the restaurant only to find out that my knight mare in shining armour was a little on the short side.

Okay. He was a midget. And that’s fine. I have nothing against midgets. Or even short people. My own children are short! But he really should have mentioned this to me before we met. I mean, did he think I wouldn’t NOTICE?!!

Lesson #4 – First dates should always be close encounters of the nearest coffee shop kind

It didn’t take long for me to get this lesson down pact. Another hint: always tell them that you have to be somewhere “in 20 minutes”. There’s nothing worse than feeling stuck for an entire evening with someone you KNOW you have NOTHING in common with. And, if it turns out that you actually like them, you can always feign the change-of-plans pretext.

Lesson #5 – Listen closely before you actually meet

Ahhhhh yes lesson number 5; also known as Jimmy. On the phone Jimmy was polite, funny, smart . . . I really enjoyed speaking with him. In hindsight, I did notice that whenever he said an “s” word (simply, sure, swell, sweet) there was a whistling sound on the phone. Of course, I didn’t put two and two together until we met. Jimmy had no front teeth! Again. I have nothing against missing teeth. My own children didn’t have any until they were about the age of two. But dude!

Well these are my fondest memories with a telephone dating service. Of course, things are different now with the internet. You can actually SEE what you’re in for. I’d love to hear some of your contemporary internet dating experiences!

So far Jonathan and I seem to have bypassed the Puke Fairy’s visit. I can only keep my fingers crossed that the gastro germs aren’t just silently waiting for the right moment to spring out. Mostly because being sick sucks but also because we’re escaping the cold in a few days to visit family in Florida.

There’s always a lot to do when planning a vacation. Lucky for me, Exy-Poo and I have a great relationship and he was able to stay with Samantha for a few hours while I went into the office yesterday.

I may not have had the best of luck with boyfriends but I’ve done pretty well for myself in the ex department. In fact, I think ALL single mothers deserve an Exy-Poo like mine.

How did we meet? That’s a long story but here it is broken down into 158 words:

There was a time in my life – before Greg and before Exy-Poo – when I really wanted a boyfriend. I was a single mother of two and had very little time to waste sitting in a bar hoping that Mr. (lying-his-pants-off-to-sound) Perfect would come along and sit beside me.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands and made it my mission in life (for about two years) to “rustle me up a boyfriend”. This is pre internet dating services like Lavalife and eHarmony. But as there has always been a market for lonely hearts, the “solution” back then was telephone dating. That’s right. No pictures, just a voice.

During those two years I met quite a few men on quite a few dates – most of whom were of the oh-my-god-how-do-I-get-out-of-this variety.

Finally, I met Exy-Poo who took me away from all that and we lived happily ever after . . . for just over six years.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the lessons I learned during my telephone dating experiences. Oh yeah, good times.

“Mommeeeeee . . .”

Fever. Throwing up. All the perks of gastro had been bestowed upon her. And yet, she hadn’t shown any symptoms before going to bed. It’s like the puke fairy suddenly decided to sprinkle a little flu dust on my poor unsuspecting little girl. No return policy. No mind changing. No fries with that (thank goodness because yours truly was the quicker picker upper in the puke department.)

It happened twice today. I’m sitting at my desk, absorbed in my work and minding my own business when not one, but TWO people stopped to ask, “are you okay?”

Apparently, I was scowling at my computer.

And I know the look only too well. I’ve seen it several times over the last few months. It’s always the same. I walk into the bathroom, click on the light and POOF! There’s me in the mirror with this perpetual look of constipation on my face.

Despite the fact that my eyes are fine and that I AM happy (damn it!), it seems I now wear an unconscious scowl. UGHHH!

When I was a kid my grandmother used to say, “keep looking like that and your face will stay that way . . . forever!”

I knew even back then that nothing lasts forever. Well, nothing good anyway. As it turns out, life’s experiences coupled with my new best friend (gravity) have had their way in putting a little “forever” into my life. Or rather, my face.

I can remember shopping with my mother as a kid and noticing a grouchy-looking couple in front of us.

“Why are they so mad?” I asked, in an out-of-the-mouth’s-of-babes kind of way.

“They’re not mad. They’re just older,” she whispered.

 Of course this had a profound effect on my perception of aging and traumatized me into thinking that all “old people” are to be reckoned with on a don’t-piss-them-off basis.

And now here I am with that same ingrained frown on my face.

Four words for you: how did THAT happen?!

Extra work isn’t really acting but I must admit . . .  when I saw Pluto Nash in the theater and caught a .03-second glimpse of my giant head on the big screen, I felt pretty famous. (Seeing your face blown up to 4 feet wide by 6 feet high proportions is . . . surreal!)

One of my favourite acting coaches was New York City based Gene Frankel, a wise old gentleman who knew his way around the acting scene and life in general.

“Youth is wasted on the young,” he would say. At the time I was in my early 30s and didn’t realize how profound those words truly were.

And although I’d love to go back to being 20 in body, I would much prefer to remain 45 in spirit. Despite what has been said on the definition of “naivety”, there’s really only one synonym for this word and it’s STUPID.

Let’s see. What DON’T I miss about being young(er)? Ahhhhhh let me count the ways . . .

Self-esteem issues

Having finally come to the realization that I’m just as important / great / smart (pick one) as everyone else, I no longer stress about my place in the world. When you consider the major role that your self-esteem plays in your life and the trickling effects it has on the quality of it, this is a big one!

Kicked the guilt habit

It turns out that feeling guilty is NOT one of our five senses and is NOT related to survival. Instead it’s just a complete waste of time . . . in EVERY scenario.

Younger me . . . felt guilty for leaving the vacuum in the middle of the living room floor.

New me . . . marvels at watching how everyone simply (and without even noticing) steps over it on their way to sitting in front of the t.v. (Leaving it out also saves a step in the following week’s household chore routine.)

Younger me . . . felt guilty if I thought I said something to offend someone.

New me . . . realizes that not everyone hangs on my every word. (I’ve also learned the fine art of shoulder shrugging.)

Younger me . . . felt guilty for even “thinking” about having that second helping.

New me . . . is a firm believer in “what’s good for the goose, is good for the man-goose”. (You never see a man feel guilty for making a pig of himself! If it tastes good, EAT IT!)

Worrying about what other people think about me

What a stupid waste of time that is! A very wise person who had a profound effect on my life – I’m not trying to be secretive here. I just can’t remember his name – once said, “It’s not your business what they think of you.”  And not only is it NOT my business . . . who cares! You don’t like my shoes? So, don’t wear them. You don’t like my laugh? Don’t tell me any jokes.

And the funny thing about this one is that the less I care about what people think, the more it seems they value my opinion of them! (Go figure.)

The need to fill in all the silence

Moments of quiet used to drive me crazy. I now realize how empowering a closed mouth can truly be.

Explaining myself

I love this one. Not feeling the need to explain why I:

-          talk to myself

-          make certain decisions

-          don’t bother to tie my boot laces

is VERY liberating!

Conclusion

One of the side effects of “maturing” . . . getting on in age . . . growing old . . . is how wise we get. We may look like sagging apple dumplings but we KNOW stuff!

It’s not that I dislike dentists. I just can’t help but wonder about the borderline psychosis that’s obviously going on. The way I see it, anyone who consciously decides that they want to clean other people’s mouths for a living has to be a little . . . disturbed.

And routine, schmootine! I still remember my last visit when I was told that my wisdom teeth – all of them – needed to come out.

Ahhh yes. I remember the traumatizing experience well . . .

I had arrived early for my appointment because I just wanted to get it over with. To my dismay, I walked in to an assembly line of scheduled mouths to clean and a failed plan. To top it off, I was bestowed with an extra 40 minutes to stress about my impending pain session.

Do you realize how long 40 minutes is when you’re waiting to have something yanked out of your flesh? I remember looking at the clock on three separate occasions – all about a year apart – to see 6:47 each time.

So I tried to distract myself. I made a grocery list (which included the wine I would pick up on my way home), read 14 magazines from cover to cover (of which I remembered nothing), and made a pact to floss my teeth after every meal for the rest of my life. This would be my part of the deal if I could just get through this with minimal suffering.

Finally my name was called by a young technician wearing a geisha-girl-type smock. I followed her smiling face to my execution chair, where my dentist was already waiting. A tray was meticulously prepared with the regular variety of shiny metal prods and prongs and a needle the size of a whale harpoon.

Nope. I wasn’t nervous at all. A picnic in the frickin park.

“Can you remind me why we’re doing this again?” I asked, trying to camouflage my annoyance at the general atmosphere of jovial bliss at my expense (literally!).

“For preventative reasons,” he answered, “to avoid the possibility of potential problems in the future.”

That’s when the red light went off in my head.

As the words “preventative”, “possibility” and “potential” sank in, a certain sense of assertiveness rose to the surface of my very essence. I opened my mouth to speak and a voice came out that I recognized only too well. It was my mother’s voice.

“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that there’s no reason – right now – to remove my wisdom teeth and there may never be a reason?”

“That’s right,” he answered as he pulled a clinical rubber glove on and snapped it aggressively at the wrist. (I swear that as he did this, there was a look in his eye that reminded me of Hannibal Lecter!)

“They don’t pose a problem now but they could cause you problems in the future,” he continued. “And I prefer to extract them.” (Funny how that word just sounds so much better with the word “vanilla” in front of it.)

“Of course,” he suddenly added as an afterthought, ”the decision is yours.”

At that point I wanted to scream out, “why not remove my uterus while you’re at it? Or better yet, why not a breast? AFTER ALL, I could possibly, potentially have breast cancer one day!”

But instead I thought very carefully about my next words. I really didn’t want to use the “hey-wait-a-minute” tone.

“So they might never need to come out, right?

“It’s a possibility,” he answered, with the same non-committal, save-my-ass attitude you could expect from someone who earns money from messing around in your mouth.

“Good. Then I’ll keep my wisdom teeth for now.”

And that’s how I ended up avoiding the pain of dental extraction.

Although all of this happened almost a year ago, the it’s-time-for-your-routine-cleaning call I got this morning brought it all back as though it happened yesterday.

I’ll tell you why I’m worried. Remember the deal I made? The one where I promised to floss after every single meal if I could just avoid the pain . . .

Well, you know how it is. You get tired. You get lazy. You FORGET.

Oh boy. I’m in for a doozy.

You see, I’m the only one on my street that doesn’t have a snow-removal contract (I’m also the only single mother on my street. Go figure.)

Lucky for me, we’ve had an amazingly mild, and practically snowfall-less winter so far. We’ve had snow, but hardly any surprise dumps from the sky legislature.

And then yesterday happened.

According to The Montreal Gazette, 41 cm fell in 11 hours. That’s over 16 inches of snow. But because it was so mild, most of it just turned into one big, fat, slurpy slush, spread out to near great lake proportions.

Well, at least that’s what I thought until I got home . . .

I was driving down my street after work, noticing all the cleaned off driveways and thinking that my driveway won’t be clean, but at least it will just be like the roads: full of slush.

So imagine my shock when I pull up to my house and – yes, my driveway is a wet, sloppy slush puppy – but there was a four-foot-high by two-feet-deep pile of snow right across the mouth of my driveway. No wonder everyone else’s driveway was nice and clean. Here was all THEIR snow, in front of MY driveway!!!

GRRRRRRRR 

 There. I told him!

Now somebody please tell me that I’m not the only person this happens to . . .

In the old days, in order to use the phone (as in telephone; the word “mobile” meant something else back then) you had to actually be near one. Let me give you a visual. You’re in a building. There’s a wall. There’s a special plug protruding from the wall (called a jack). The phone had a wire and this wire had a plug-type end, which went into the jack. Kind of like charging your cell phone except ALL THE TIME. (Yes, I know. How could we have lived that way?)

Things are different now. Everyone and their grandmother is reachable no matter where they are. In fact, if you don’t answer your cell phone, you get, “I tried calling you yesterday but you didn’t answer”.

Which really means: “I tried calling you yesterday and you had better have a damn good reason for not answering.”

Patience please. I am getting to the point.

You see, I’m a writer. That’s what I do. People call me up and they ask me to write. Articles, ads, brochures and even email content. Then a few months ago I got a call from someone wanting me to write a piece on the impact social media will have on the future of advertising. A mouthful, I know. But did I panic? Nope, I did what everyone else does. I went on my computer and “googled” my way through it.

I have to tell you though that as I was researching for this piece, I was shocked into the Millennium (yes, 10 years late) when I discovered that there’s a whole world out there. A virtual world.

Oh I’ve been quasi aware. I have a profile on Facebook and I even own a Blackberry so that I can keep up with email. I just never realized that while I check my 3-minute-old emails, thousands upon thousands of people are connecting in real time. In fact, the on-line community is like a parallel world with its own native population!

So as an attempt to “catch up” on this virtual yet very vibrant world (that has risen to oh-my-god proportions without my noticing), I decided to create a list of some of this new-world-stuff and share it with you. So here it goes.

(Maybe I’m in denial but I refuse to believe that I’m the only person “out here” who thought that an Avatar was simply the name of James Cameron’s latest movie!)

1. Avatar – www.gravatar.com

As it turns out, an Avatar is an image that you attach to your online identity – kind of like a visual signature. Here’s me using it in a sentence: When you comment on someone’s blog, your Avatar appears with your post.

2. Delicious – www.delicious.com

Having an account on this site enables you to sign in from any computer anywhere and not only see your list of personal bookmarks, but also see what everyone else is bookmarking. Think “popularity contest” . . . sort of.

3. Digg – www.digg.com

When I first saw this word I thought, “what are we digging into and why is it spelled like that?” It turns out there’s no shovel involved (big surprise there) and this is actually a pretty cool website. It’s kind of like a “share and vote” site where browsers submit things that they find on the web like news pieces or videos, and others vote on it. They either “dig it” or they don’t. Get it?

4. Kindle – www.amazon.com/kindle

The first thing I thought when I saw this was, “I sooooo want one!” A Kindle is a portable e-book storing and reading device. And you can wirelessly purchase and download e-books within seconds. Imagine having all your books in one sleek, hand-held device! If everyone had one of these, think of all the trees we’d be saving. A paper-less world would go a long way in the future of our planet.

5. Twitter – www.twitter.com

Text messaging on steroids. That’s what Twitter is. Except that the text messages – called Tweets – are displayed on your Twitter profile page. As well, you can also set it up so that the messages are sent directly to your cell phone. You follow people, people follow you. It’s a quick and efficient way to tell your “friends” what you’re up to in real time and in 140 characters or less. Now that’s efficient! The cool thing is that you can even follow celebrities. Yup, they’re on there too apparently.

Well that’s about all my brain can handle for now. (I can only learn in small doses.)

I’m going to create my Delicious Avatar so that others will Digg me on Twitter . . . right after I drool a bit more over the Kindle DX.

Don’t ask me what the DX stands for. That’s another day’s learning.

At first I didn’t read too much into it except that my “natural” thought was, “Geez! What’s with all the old people today?”

(Yes, I know. I’m gong straight to hell for that one.)

I felt like the visible minority in a cluster of, well . . . old people!

(Yup. Guess I’m going to hell for that one too.)

You see, I don’t ordinarily go to the gym on Sundays because usually I have my kids. But unbeknownst to me, exy-poo had made plans with Jonathan and Samantha for that day. (Lovely word, that “unbeknownst”. I don’t think I’ve ever used it before and look at me now . . . using it twice in the same paragraph. Don’t tell me I’m not growing up!)

Anyways, as I was saying, exy-poo picked them up at around 10 o’clock and I thought, “geesh, what am I supposed to do now?!”

Actually, I didn’t think that at all. And if you know me, you didn’t fall for it either.

What I really thought was, “geesh, all this time on my hands!”

I grabbed my gym bag and off I went . . . to the gym.

And that’s where I saw them all. The geezers. Even though not-a-one-of-them was wearing a t-shirt that confirmed it, you just knew that they were somebody’s grandfather.

It seemed to be 40-plus day at the gym – a little less testosterone-ish and very high in Geritol-users. (Nope. I’m not stereo-typing at all.)

I truly felt like I had entered into the wrong building. Had I walked into an old folks’ home by mistake???

As I was walking around, trying not to make eye contact with any of them (just in case they mis-read my look of complete Alzheimer-confusion for lust) when it hit me: These men aren’t old. They’re my age! They’re my boyfriend’s age!!!

And so here I was thinking I was surrounded in a sea of atrophied testosterone when they were probably looking at me and thinking, “where are all the chicky-poos? If I wanted to see an old lady, I would have stayed at home!”

I realized then and there, that the pool of men for me to draw on has gotten really, really small. Baby pool size. I had better must love Greg. Not because I don’t see “old” when I look at him, but because I still see the person I knew when I was 14 (Yes, we’ve known each other for a while).

Which got me to wondering, what does he see when he looks at me? I’m going to have to figure out a sly-woman-way to ask him that question because obviously if I just ask him, the conversation will go something like this:

“Greg, when you look at me, do you see me old?”

“Of course not. You’re not old.” (Notice the double negatives? The sneak!)

“Well I’m 45.”

“So I’m 47. When you look at me, do you see me old?” (Somehow he always manages to turn the conversation to him.)

“No.”

“Well then, either do I.”

And of course, I’ll have to accept that; not really knowing the “real” answer.

Hmmmmm I could start calling him “my old man” and see if he starts calling me his “old lady” (If he does, I’ll have to stab him with a fork or something before it becomes a habit. You know. The old pain-association treatment.)

Or I could ask him about some of his friends, who he’s known since high school:

“Do you think Jeff looks old?”

No, that really wouldn’t tell me anything.

Ladies, a little help here please!

Yes, I’ve tried more hair colours than everyone I know put together. Which, by the way, I think I should get a refund for or something because the false-advertising part of it all was that, NOOOOOO, blonds do not have more fun.

And yes, I came home with two pigmy goats once. Of course the neighbours weren’t too impressed and we had to eventually get rid of them – by way of giving them to someone who actually lived in the country . . . (a “farm” I think they called it.)

Despite it all I do believe that all the eye ball rolling I’ve been subjected to over the years was a little on the unfair side.

You see, now that I’m, you know, 45 and soooooo much more mature, I can speak in hindsight – which is NOT a language but a reflective communication that is indicative of an experienced thought process. (Yeah, that sounded like me.)

I believe that my so-called impulsiveness was caused by two things:

1. My memory – which everyone who knows me will attest – is the size of a peanut
2. The uncontrollable hormonal changes going on within my body

First the memory theory. Simply put, how could I be expected to stay on track (they call it “on strategy” in my day life) when I forget. The book I’ve been meaning to write. The hair I’ve been wanting to grow. These are all things that I still want to do. If I could just remember!

Then there’s the whole hormonal thing. It wasn’t exactly me who thought that goats were a good idea. It was my body’s way of lashing out until I fulfilled its incessant need to get closer to nature (for that week). You see our bodies are very complex and complicated. Who am I to mess with nature’s calling?

I speak in the past because I think – although I can’t be 100% sure – that I’m on the brink of entering a new phase of life. One where “that time of the month” simply means I have to pay the phone bill again.

So yes, I’m outgrowing my hormonal impulses. The unexpected and abrupt are becoming less frequent and to top it off, I’m learning how to write things down so that I don’t forget.

The book is getting written and now with the lack of spontaneous trips to the hair-dresser, my hair is getting longer.

For some reason I’ve always wanted nipple-length hair. But there’s just one problem with that. Something I never accounted for. It’s called gravity. And as time goes by, the pull gets stronger so I’m not sure that my hair will ever catch up to my nipples.

What’s the take-way? The nipple-length hair of yesterday is the belly-button length hair of today.

During the day, I work as a writer for a company. I love my job. I truly do. I’m a writer and I get to write . . . all day long. I mean, what else can a writer ask for? (Another good question and I‘ll get to that in a minute.)

First, let me say that I also love really enjoy the people I work with. I even appreciate my boss’s boss, who just loves to edit absolutely everything I write. But that’s how I learn and he’s a great teacher. (No, my nose is NOT brown!)

So what else can a writer ask for . . . well I suppose the biggest thing is “freedom of penmanship”. The sell sheets, the marketing collateral, the articles . . . everything I write during the day is great (I “love” it, remember?). And this blog is about letting the pen run through my hair while letting go of all confinements of left-brain writing.

As well, as I play around with the layout and formatting of this blog I realize that it’s very much like my life. The tweaking and pretending to know what I’m doing until I finally figure it out . . .

In many ways, blogging is the perfect fit to my life (which is also continually “under construction”).

Now to the second question: “why Moxie?”

I’ve come to the realization that to truly live takes courage. And it’s unfortunate that I’ve wasted the last few hundred years of my life, but only recently have I gotten the gumption to be who I am (although still a tweak in progress).

So my advice to you: live with moxie today because before you know it, it will be tomorrow and you’ll be left standing with the fridge door open, scratching your head and trying to remember what it is that you’re looking for.

 I’m now well into my 40s yet I still remember how fatally old 22 seemed to me. And although all this time has gone by, with its accumulated experiences – the heart aches, the joys, the “growing up” – it still astounds me that I’ve reached 45!

 As my boyfriend, Greg, would say, “look at it as an accomplishment because otherwise what’s the alternative to getting old? Dying young!” He’s right of course but you have to understand, I’ve never been 45 before!

 This blog is about my right as an aging person (there has to be some reward!) to share my insights and adventures. Of course this is all under the pretext that I’ve actually learned something, which when I compare young me to (clearing of the throat) older me, I can attest that I have and continue to do so. That’s just how life is.

 When deciding on a niche topic (because that’s what all the good books on blogging tell you to do), I had an important writing rule in mind, which is to “write about what you know”. So I went through my list of interests: exercise, health, reading, writing, single-parenting, marketing, advertising, playing solitaire on the computer . . . and realized that although I know about all these things, they all tie in to one thing: surviving life’s experiences.

 I figured out a long time ago that life is a series of “lessons” (although sometimes simply getting the memo would be nice).

 My promise, with this blog, is to always give an honest and pure assessment – even if it means embarrassing myself.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of honesty, I’ve only read one book on blogging: Problogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett. Not a plug. Just an expression of my gratitude because you know, people “my age” weren’t born with a mouse in our hands.