What I did on the weekend

Well, I drove 917.31 miles (thanks, Mapquest, for the exact number) from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia to just west of Ottawa, Ontario. With a detour to Shediac, New Brunswick to find a beach with shells, since we didn't find any at the beach on the Atlantic Ocean. (I guess all the clams were vacationing someplace else. Alberta, maybe?) In an oldish car that makes a lot of funny noises. With two little girls, a portable DVD player, some dollar-store knock-off "Where's Waldo?" books ("Where's Donald?" and "Where's Frankie?" -- seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried), 4 stuffed animals, assorted Barbies, 2 blankies, a cooler full of drink boxes and cheese, 2 boogie boards, lots of luggage, and a driver with a bad case of seafood overload indigestion.

We left Saturday morning, spent Saturday night in Woodstock, NB where I had an interesting conversation with a 19-year-old waitress who referred to pretty well every inanimate object/geographic entity as "she" -- "Woodstock, she's a pretty small town. Now, Prince Edward Island, she's beautiful, you really ought to go." Not that I was complaining; she was interesting to talk to, and our dinner of pepperoni pizza, garlic fingers, two cans of Orange Crush, and 2 beers for me came to less than $20.

Sunday morning we set out at 7:30 and made good time through the rest of New Brunswick and Quebec until we got to Montreal, where, inexplicably, we hit a traffic jam. At five freaking thirty on a Sunday afternoon. What gives? The highways through Montreal are all twisty and snaky, and they don't seem to have been resurfaced since the Trudeau years -- they're mostly potholes strung together with rebar and chewing gum. Oh, and apparently, Montreal drivers think turn signals are for pussies. There I was, hurtling along at 120 (km not miles) trying to find my highway exit and 2 different cars wedged themselves into my lane in front of me, one from each side, at the same time, and neither of them signaled. I nearly had an accident. Of more than one kind.

The vacation itself was great. Visiting an old friend is a fun thing to do, especially when she's an amazing hostess. Evelyn took us to Queensland beach and we watched our kids play in the sand and ride their boogie boards in with the waves. We took the ferry to Halifax and watched magicians at the International Busker Festival and had nachos and beer at a restaurant on the pier while sailing ships sailed past and the fog came in.

One afternoon, Ev and I spent an hour or two with about 2 pounds of breaded clam strips and a deep fryer. It wasn't a pretty sight. But it was good. Once the kids were in bed, we drank wine and talked and laughed and almost (just almost, mind you) broke the cardinal rule that merlot and e-mail don't mix. Fortunately, we were in enough posession of our faculties that no exes were e-mailed, no matter how good an idea it seemed at the time.

It was fun, and worth the drive, but I'm not in a hurry to do another road trip any time soon.

Oh. Wait. The annual Labour Day bash at the Churchill's in Sudbury is coming up soon.

We're going.

Everyone else is doing it

Bullets, I mean.

I'm so stealing this idea since I'm leaving at 4 a.m. (yes, you read it right, 4 a.m.) tomorrow to drive with the girls to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. It's a two-day drive. Pray for me. So here are a few bullet points to serve as blog fodder for the next 10 days while I'm away.

• Things not to do. Don't put the remains of Caesar salad in the compost bin. Raccoons really like bacon and parmesan cheese. Raccoons have no trouble at all in twisting the knobs and opening the compost bin. I keep forgetting, and end up having to clean up the mess and put the cover back on the bin. I might as well put out candles and red wine while I'm at it.

• New additions to the family! Nope, no birth announcements or embarassment at finding myself knocked up at my age. Nana was visiting and bought the girls a beta each. They were so excited, they had them named before we were at the checkout.

Introducing Blueberry:

and Steve:

• 10 points for figuring out which kid named which fish. I think I'll be doing the naming when we finally get another cat.

• Eating half a basket of peaches the day before you are due to drive to the Maritimes is A. Very. Bad. Idea. But they're soooo good, I can't stop myself. I bought a basket of Leamington peaches at the grocery store in Stittsville, and it's like being home in Windsor again. Nothing tastes like a ripe southern Ontario peach in August.

• Have a great time while I'm gone. I'll be back all full of lobster and scallops, sunburned and with sand in my bathing suit, and hopefully still sane after another 2 days in the car with the girls.

No frogs were harmed during the making of this motion picture

We spent last Sunday up at my cousin's cottage near Bouchette, Quebec.



It was a gorgeous sunny day and the lake was full of frogs and gigantic tadpoles in all stages of metamorphosis.





Leah and Rachel thought this was the Coolest. Thing. Ever.



They spent a good 4 hours catching frogs and keeping them as prisoners guests at the Frog Hotel, a little lagoon they dug out at the water's edge. Rachel was the head warden concierge at the hotel, while Leah was rounding up guests.

Some of the frogs were less than thrilled with the accomodations and had ideas of their own, despite Rachel keeping an eye on things, as you can see here:

Signs your child might be getting too old for Dora the Explorer

Map [annoyingly, from the TV]: First you have to go to the drum parade. Can *you* see the drum parade?

Rachel [talking back to the TV]: Yeah -- I'm not blind you know.

I'm too sexy for my shoes

Did you ever have one of those days when everything went right?

When the sun was shining and it was breezy and warm? And your hair, for once, looked marvelous -- shiny and bouncy and straight? And you had just the right amount of sleep the night before, and sun the day before, so the bags under your eyes were gone and your face had a rosy, slightly tanned glow? And the small amount of makeup you were wearing made you look fresh and pretty? And you were wearing an outfit that made you feel sexy and stylish? So, all in all, you felt just gorgeous?

And, did you ever have a day when you had all this going for you, and you were walking from where you park your car to your office (about a 7 minute walk) and you noticed a guy walking on the other side of the street? A guy who also noticed you, and seemed to be glancing appreciatively your way? And did it make you feel good -- good enough so that you began to sashay just a little tiny bit? Just giving your hips that little extra swing to say, "yep, I got it going on and I know it"?

And did you ever get caught up in trying to keep the sashaying going while flashing him a shy smile? And while you were trying to do both these things at once, and project an aura of hotness, did you ever catch the toe of one of your new and favourite chocolate suede thong-style sandals in the uneven sidewalk, pitch forward ungracefully, and stumble for a few feet while dropping your bag and watching your belongings spew out and roll into the gutter?

Nah. Me neither.

By the numbers

Just a few figures to sum up the last week or so...

2 - on Friday, the number of years since my ex walked out. It was devastating when it happened, but now, with 24 months of perspective under my belt, turns out it was a good thing.

1 - the number of bottles of wine I bought to celebrate the above point

0 - the number of glasses of wine I actually had, seeing as I was busy caring for the plague children who had...

13,276 - the number of chicken pox spots (roughly) my girls had between them

3 - the cumulative number of hours Leah spent in a baking soda bath Sunday night to relieve the pain of chicken pox spots in a place that no girl wants to get chicken pox spots

0 - the number of hours of sleep Leah and I had Sunday night. I don't think I've ever actually had an entirely sleepless night before in my life

3:19 - in the a.m. The time I realized that Leah and I weren't going to get any sleep and put Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on the VCR in my bedroom

1.99 - how much it costs to rent a children's movie on videotape for a whole week from our local video store

17 - the number of times we've seen The Littlest Mermaid II: Return to the Sea since Rachel chose it at the video store on Friday

11.7 - the cost per viewing, in cents, of Mermaid II over the last week

9 - the number of games of Uno I played with Leah and Rachel

4 - the number of those Uno games during which Rachel got bored and wandered off to watch Mermaid II

3 - the number of silly photos I took to entertain the girls, using food from the play kitchen. See:

A pox on both your houses ***updated***

Chicken pox, to be exact. I had been dithering about getting the girls vaccinated against chicken pox because I'd heard that the vaccine only confers immunity for 7 to 10 years, and I was weighing the benefits of having them vaccinated now and perhaps coming down with the chicken pox while they were teens and suffering far more than they would if they got it now, or not vaccinating them and hoping they'd get it as kids and getting it over with. Well, nature just made my mind up for me.

Rae woke up covered with spots. Leah has just 2, but they're huge.

I have to go upstairs now, and get snacks and drinks, take temperatures and see if Tylenol is necessary, play Uno and watch Aladdin and the King of Thieves, and all the other things you need to do when your kids are sick. That's why this post is a bit on the thin side. So, I'll try to make up for it by leaving you with this picture that I found when surfing through Facebook. Apparently it's in Windsor, Ontario (and if any of you know where exactly, I'd like to know). Isn't this just the most Canadian sign EVER??

Update: Leah is up to 7 spots now, but seems to be sicker than Rachel, who has roughly double the number of spots that she had when the above picture was taken. Rachel is fine. Benadryl has taken care of the itching, and it's not too hot this weekend, TG. She has no fever (though Leah does) and is her usual rambunctious self. We have lots of videos and books and Rae and I even went in the pool for a swim yesterday afternoon. All in all, it isn't that bad. They are pouting this morning though, because I won't take them to the Farmers' Market for our usual Saturday morning breakfast. They also have new nicknames -- Rae is Spot and Leah is Dot.

Thank you for all the lovely comments and well wishes.

Strawberry season

Saturday, we decided to drive to Pakenham to the Cedar Hill Berry Farm and then stop off for ice cream at Scoops. It was a cloudy and sometimes drizzly day, but it was fun.



I might yet be able to get the strawberry stains off Rachel.

To complete the weekend, the girls now think I'm the Best Mother EVER, because on Sunday, the following words actually came out of my mouth (I kid you not): "OK, that's enough. Stop cleaning your bedrooms, we're going to the Hershey Factory."

Is it just me?

Or does everyone:

• have a car whose interior resembles a mobile landfill site/Salvation Army collection box/toy library*?

No word of a lie, I just took the following out of my car: two hoodie sweatshirts (kid size), a Bratz doll, a Polly Pocket boot and purse, an empty McDonald's french fry bag, two popsicle sticks, an apple core (ewwwww), a ripped-up coloured-on page from a colouring book, a chewed-up wad of gum (I threw out my gum, honest, Mom), a ripped road map of Ontario (grrrrr), 4 kleenexes (kleenices??), 2 french fries, 2 King Tut sarcophagus happy meal toys from Wendy's (they always have the coolest toys), a small mauve unicorn with a Barbie-hair mane, a Tim Horton's bag, and a drinking straw.

• have a laundry room where the piles of clothes look like a relief model of the Rockies?

I really think that David Suzuki oughta do a Nature of Things special on my laundry room. No matter how many loads I do, there is always more. It's breeding, dammit! Who knows, maybe he could capture time-lapse photography of a litter of baby socks being born, or teeshirts mating.

• who resolves to lose a few pounds get seized with an uncontrollable hunger 5 minutes after making the decision?

Yep, thought there was a bit too much muffin top going on with the jeans I was wearing. Told myself sternly, "Self, it's salads for a week or so to get this under control". Immediately, and without really being aware of what I was doing (body reacting to threatened diet and going into self-preservation mode), I found I had somehow had taken the box of Jos. Louis out of the pantry (bought for special treat for the girls and rationed) and consumed 3 without noticing. The only clues were the 3 empty wrappers and the chocolate crumbs on the carpet. (Clarification, they were the half Jos. Louis, not the whole circle ones -- I'm not a *total* pig.)

• feel like they can never get ahead of the housework, and their houses are where entropy goes to practice?

Seriously, I can't keep my house tidy for more than half an hour at a time. As soon as one room is cleared, a tide of Littlest Petshop figures, Polly Pocket shoes, hair and Lego pieces washes in and laps around my ankles. Not to mention the lawn that grows fast enough to track with a radar gun that needs mowing every 48 hours. Sigh.

• on Facebook who wants to find old University friends and work buddies have friends with names as common as dirt?

Yeah, you try finding Dave Evans, Nick Gibson, Suzanne Scott, or Trudy Miller when you don't know where they're living now or if they're even *on* Facebook. I've been reduced to 'friending' my nephew and my girlfriend next door, for Pete's sake. I might as well have gone to school with a bunch of John Smiths.

*I'm just looking for agreement here. If you were planning on commenting on how you a) never allow your children to eat in the car, b) always have a garbage bag/tasteful garbage container with matching wipes in your car, or c) have perfect, mess-free children, don't. Just don't. I'm looking to preach to the choir with this post.

Nightmares

Rachel slept with me last night. Or, I guess, more correctly, I slept with her. It was my bed, but she totally owned it -- stretching out like a starfish across the majority of the space. I had an area approximately 18 inches by 4 and a half feet in which to contort my 5 foot 10 inch body.

She woke sometime after 3 a.m because of a nightmare. I cuddled her and smoothed the hair off her forehead and reassured her that it was only a dream and that she was safe with me and that nothing bad could happen to her. I asked her what she had been dreaming about, and her answers were so very Rachel. She always has to ensure that you understand *exactly* what she's trying to say, and that everything is as precise as possible. Remember that as you read our conversation:

Rachel (crying): Mommy, is someone going to steal me?

Me: Of course not, Rachel. It's just a dream, you're safe in bed with Mommy. No one is going to steal you. I'm going to keep you forever.

Rachel: Are you sure?

Me: I'm sure. I'd beat up anyone who tried to steal you. Can you tell me about your dream?

Rachel: OK

Me: What happened in your dream?

Rachel: Well, I got stolen.

Me: Who stole you?

Rachel: A man in black. Or very, very dark blue.

There was more to it of course, but at that point one part of me had dissolved in giggles while the other part was intent on comforting her. Eventually, the story all told, she put her arms around my neck, aimed a sleepy kiss at my mouth, and rolled over, secure in the knowledge that I would keep any black- (or very dark blue-) clad men from stealing her.

You know you live in a small town when...*updated*

Sorry for the long silence. I spent a chunk of last week plus the weekend taking my kids to Marineland and at a reunion with my online mommies group in Niagara Falls. I'll blog about the trip when I have a bit more time and some photos downloaded.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about the advantages of living in a small town where people know you and look out for you. I love the village where I live and I seriously have the best neighbours in the whole world.

You know you live in a small town when...

• you get a haircut and both the ladies who work at the library, the owner of the bakery, and the cashier at the pharmacy all notice, and compliment you. And one of the librarians even recognizes which of the stylists at the salon is responsible for the cut.

• while picking your daughters up from daycare, you casually mention to your daycare provider that you're planning on mowing the lawn that evening, and your 4-year-old pipes up with, "Yeah, Jeanette [the school bus driver] says our grass is too long and you should mow it, Mommy." (If Jeanette has so much time on her hands to notice people's lawns, then maybe *she'd* like to come over and mow it is what I'm thinking. And how does she know which house is ours? She picks the kids up at daycare.)

• your neighbour gets his chain saw out to chop up a large limb of a maple that was blown down in his yard during a storm, and, while you are at the grocery store, decides to take down the dead maple beside your garage for you, just 'cause he's got the chain saw out.

• another neighbour returns a dolly you've loaned him and the two of you stand looking at the branches of the downed tree and you tell him how you're going to hire someone to run the branches through a chipper and say that you're going to have them take a look at the large dead branch in the adjacent poplar tree and maybe take that down too. And he tells you that he could do it with a buck saw, and you thank him, thinking that he'll do it sometime during the summer and then you come out an hour or so later to turn the hose on to fill the pool up and nearly have a heart attack because he's halfway up the tree sawing away at the dead branch.

• you call the pharmacy in a panic at ten past six in the evening, hoping it's one of the days that they're open til nine because you have to pick up your prescription before you leave the next morning on vacation, and the pharmacist answers the phone, recognizes your voice, greets you by name, and says that they're closed, but he's doing some inventory so if you come down in the next hour or so he'll give you your prescription.
  

• you leave on vacation with the remains of the maple tree plus the limb from the poplar still on the ground because it turns out that hiring someone to chip it is too expensive, and you've decided that you'll deal with it yourself when you get home, sawing it and bundling it for yard waste pickup, but when you get home, someone has not only gotten rid of the branches, but has mowed the long grass the branches were lying on.
  

• you run into the mother of one of your daughter's friends at the local farmers' market, and start to tell her about your older daughter's bout with strep throat, but she's already heard about it from her daughter, who heard about it from Jeanette the school bus driver.

Big cities are fine, and I've had fun and excitement living in Toronto and Ottawa, but there's nothing like living in a small town for feeling safe and secure.

Update:

It turns out that my neighbour behind me, the one who took down the tree for me, talked the tree people who came to take down the rest of his maple tree into chipping my branches for roughly one third of the cost that they'd quoted me. So I ended up having a possibly dangerous dead tree removed and cleaned up for $50. And it was the tree-climbing neighbour who mowed the long spot in the lawn where the branches had been. Too bad, I was hoping it had been Jeanette.

Je ne suis pas un genius

I went out for lunch today with a group of people from work to celebrate my French teacher's last day. He's leaving for a new job at Stats Can. Yay for them, but it's sad for us, since Vincent is far and away the best teacher I've had yet.

We sat out on the deck at Malone's on Dows Lake. It's a beautiful day today, sunny, clear and hot, and it was very pleasant, if a bit on the warm side. I ended up sitting next to Vincent, and while we were all waiting for our drinks to arrive, we were chatting. In French, of course. Vincent was fanning himself with his tee-shirt collar and said he was hot. He asked me if I was hot too. I answered with "Non, mais je suis toujours froid. (No, but I'm always cold)". He laughed so hard and corrected me so quickly, "Non. 'J'ai toujours froid', Alison" that it took me a minute or two to work out that I had probably told him that I'm always frigid.

I guess I'll have to remember to say that right if I want any success at all at picking up French guys.

Mommy. Mommy, mommy, mommy.

Do you remember when your babies were little cooing masses of pinkness and all you could think of and long for was to hear "mama" coming from those little rosebud lips? Yeah, me too. Fast-forward a few years to the present, and, well, not so much anymore.

Because that's *all* I hear. Mommy. Mommy, mommy, mommy. And for a bit of variety: Momma, Mum, Mummy, Mother, Mooottthhherrrr, and the occasional Ma thrown in for good measure. It seems that neither of the girls can start a conversation with me without prefacing it with a minimum of seven mommy's. Rachel does it more than Leah, but Leah does it too. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Here's a conversation we had last night, after Rae's soccer.

Rachel: Mommy. Mommy, mommy. Mom?

Me: Yes?

Rachel: Mommy, mommy...

Me. Yes Rachel, I'm listening, what do you want?

Rachel. Mommy, Leah took the boy Barbie again, and he's *mine*.

Me: OK, Rae, I'll deal with it. It's time to start getting ready for bed, anyway. But you know, once I say 'yes' when you're talking to me, I *know* that it's me you're talking to, and you don't have to keep saying 'Mommy'. OK?

Rachel: Mommy. Mommy....

Me (with a definite edge to my voice): Yes, Rachel?

Rachel: Mommy. Mumma....can we go to the park now?

Me: No, Rae. It's bedtime now. It's too late to go to the park.

Rachel: But Mommy. ... Mommy, I *want* to go to the park. It isn't fair! [start of waterworks].

Me: Rachel, *please* stop saying 'mommy', I *know* you're talking to me. OK, from now on, no more saying 'mommy', I don't want to hear that word again tonight. [sees Rae open her mouth] And don't call me Alison either. [mouth closes and pouts].

Rachel [thinks for a minute]: Dude.....?

You just can't win.

Sick - a timeline

Tuesday, 3:45 p.m. Feel a headache coming on as I'm trying to finish up a report before heading home.

4:45 p.m. Pick up the girls at daycare. Leah is crying, complaining her throat hurts and she has a headache. Crap. Strep? Maybe. Rachel is fine, but hungry.

5:06 p.m. We're home. Leah is on the couch with a pillow and blanket, she's had Advil. Rae is whining for dinner. I'm trying to wash down some ibuprophen with a cup of tea while making dinner. Kraft dinner to be precise, because I can't seem to shake the tiredness or headache and it's what the kids want anyway.

5:07 p.m. I cut my finger slicing a cucumber to serve with dinner.

6:30 p.m. I put "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" on the VCR for the girls and start folding laundry. Leah has perked up a bit and says her throat and head don't hurt anymore. I decide not to go to the walk-in clinic.

6:32 p.m. Rae has conked out, so I carry her to bed.

7:00 p.m. I go out and vacuum the still-greenish pool and backwash the pool filter. In the rain and cold. Feeling like I don't have any energy left for laundry or dishes, I climb on the couch and watch the movie with Leah. Cuddling feels nice. I tell her that everyone needs an early night and that we're all going to bed by 8 p.m. I'll figure out clothes for the next day and lunches in the morning.

8:12 p.m. Leah is feeling better and is in bed, but pouting, she wants more stories. I turn the ringer on the phone off and fall into bed and an instant coma.

Wednesday, 1:13 a.m. I wake up to hear Leah crying in her room for me. She's burning up with fever and her throat is on fire. I get her some more children's Advil and water and move her into my bed so that I can keep an eye on her. On the way across the kitchen for water, I step on something on the floor, hurting my foot. It's a Barbie leg. The tiles around the sink look like a slasher movie. Barbie's torso and head are over near the stove, and her other leg is half under the dishwasher. Great. The Black Dahlia all over again, on my kitchen floor.

1:26 a.m. I realize that I'm not going to work in the morning and Leah's not going to school. Rae is in afternoon JK, so there's no rush to get to daycare in the morning. I turn off my alarm.

6:20 a.m. I wake up with a headache and a really sore throat. Yep, I have it too. Shit. Leah's fever is back -- 38.9. I call the daycare provider to say we're going to be late, work to say I won't be in, and the school to say Leah won't be in. The clinic opens at 9. Leah won't eat breakfast.

8:30 a.m. I drop Rae at daycare and Leah and I head to the clinic. In the waiting room we meet Wyatt, a little boy from the same daycare. He and his mom both have strep throat. Big surprise. We wait for quite some time, only one doctor on duty this a.m., and he peers into Leah's throat and says, yep, strep. He's not so sure about me and takes a swab. I *know* I have strep, I've had it enough times to know how it feels in the beginning, but the upshot is that Leah gets antibiotics and I don't. Yet. If the swab comes back positive tomorrow, they'll call in the scrip to the local drug store for me.

11:30 a.m. After picking up a few groceries, we head to the library to pick out a few books and videos to keep Leah occupied. While there, we find Puppy in the lost and found. This is somewhat of a mystery. He's been missing for a week or so now, but I was sure he was somewhere in the house. He's the most beloved of all Leah's stuffed animals and she's had him her whole life. She must have brought him to the library last week without me noticing and without her remembering. She's very happy, but tired and feverish again. We go home.

12:08 p.m. Leah eats a bit of a muffin and some hot milk. I put a video on for her and lie down on my bed for 5 minutes.

2:20 p.m. I wake up. I need more ibuprophen and some tea. Leah is napping. I vacuum the pool again and unload the dishwasher. Then I need to sit down. I put away the groceries and then I throw up. It hurts.

4:40 I wake up Leah so that we can drive to the daycare and pick Rachel up. Leah is not happy, she wants to keep sleeping, but I can't leave her on her own while I get Rachel. I'm praying Rachel is OK and I won't need to go back to the clinic for her. She's OK.

5:30 I made chicken soup for dinner. Rachel ate, Leah and I, not so much. Leah had her Biaxin. They're in the bath now, eating freezies. I hope all of us are OK tomorrow.

Freaking raccoons

With apologies to Wikipedia:

Raccoon (Procyon lotor)

A raccoon is any one of three species of nocturnal mammals which comprise the genus Procyon of the Procyonidae family. The most widespread species, the Common Raccoon (P. lotor), is often known simply as the raccoon, as the two other raccoon species in the genus are native only to the tropics and are considerably lesser-known.

Raccoons are unusual for their thumbs, which (though not opposable) enable them to open many closed containers (such as garbage cans and doors). They are omnivores with a reputation for being clever and mischievous; their intelligence and dexterity equip them to survive in a wide range of environments and are one of the few medium-to-large-sized animals that have enlarged its range since human encroachment began (another is the coyote). Raccoon hindfeet are plantigrade similar to a human's.

Raccoons are also evil little bastards known for their sense of humour, often waiting until children have just been put to bed before starting a series of piercingly loud trilling noises, which are amplified and echo-y due to the fact that the raccoons are under the deck at the back of the house. This prolonged series of calls can sometimes last from about 8 p.m. until well after 11, not stopping even when the irate house owner throws open her bathroom window and screams "Shut up, shut up, shut up, you stupid animals!". Scientist have not yet discovered whether the loudest of the raccoons' repertoire of calls signifies a male raccoon in search of a mate, a mother raccoon calling to her kits, or just a bunch of raccoons sitting around knocking back Mike's Hard Lemonade and drunkenly arguing about hockey.

(And they're probably Leafs fans...)

Holy crap, I'm a soccer mom!

If you catch me buying a minivan, just shoot me...

Seriously.

A short to-do list

In no particular order:

• I must call around and find the cheapest place to buy a new pool filter.

• I must remember, in the fall, that the pool filter has a drain. And, even though it's hidden by the long grass that springs up and thrives around the pool filter because I have a really hard time starting the weed whacker, it is still there, and must be opened at the end of the season so that water does not get trapped inside to freeze and crack the housing of the filter. See above.

• I must teach Rachel the difference in meaning between the word 'tickle' and the word 'gouge'.

• I must buy band-aids. See above.

• I must remember that even though *I* can hear the music when I'm listening to my MP3 player while gardening, other people can't, and are being assaulted by my off-key wailing. I will pay attention next time I see one of my neighbours and her 2-year-old daughter standing at the edge of my yard looking puzzled. It probably means that I am singing waaay louder than I thought, and if the mom hurries off dragging the child with her, it probably means that the song is about drinking or getting laid.

• I must phone and apologise to Linda. See above.
  

• I must get through the picking up the girls from daycare/making dinner/soccer practice/homework/bath/bed routine quickly tonight so I can be relaxed on the couch to watch the first game of the Stanley Cup finals.

• I must draft up a suitably snarky e-mail to the friend who's being forced to cheer for Anaheim due to his wife's infatuation with Teemu Selanne, upon the Sens winning tonight's game. See above.
  

A fairytale, sorta

Once upon a time there was a beautiful young princess named Alison. (Shut up, it's my story. Ever heard of artistic licence?) Alison lived in a small, but tasteful castle on the outskirts of Ottawa with the two mini-princesses, Leah and Rachel.

One day, a wicked sorceress put an evil spell on the princess, and things started to go wrong. First, Princess Alison came down with a sinus infection. The healers told her that it could actually be the plague instead of just a sinus infection, but they were wrong. It still felt pretty awful though. Now the Princess had been scheduled to take some important exams to see if she could read and write sufficiently fluently in the second language of the Kingdom. They wouldn't take away her princesshood if she failed, but her chances on getting promoted to Queen were nonexistent if she couldn't pass the French exams.

The sorceress's spell went into overdrive, and first mini-Princess Leah came down with pneumonia. Then mini-Princess Rachel came down with the croup. All the time that Princess Alison had hoped to devote to studying was spent caring for the sick minis. The night before the exams, Princess Alison could not sleep. Mini-Princess Rachel ended up in her bed, tossing and thrashing. When the princess managed to fall asleep, the evil spell ensured that her dreams were all about oversleeping and missing the exams, and of not being able to find pants to wear to work, and thus also missing the exams.

The next day, the princess dropped the minis off at the Royal Care-Giver's and drove her golden coach to work. She was very tired, and very stressed out. One more wave of the sorceress's wand, and Princess Alison, not paying attention to the road, ran her coach into the back of the coach in front of her on Carling Avenue, right near the Coliseum theatres. "Oh great", she thought. "Now I *will* miss the exams, waiting for the King's Guard to come and fill out a report and with all the insurance paperwork." But, a good fairy had been flying past on her way to sprinkle magic dust on Ray Emery's goalie stick, and, taking pity on the poor princess, waved her wand and it turned out there was no damage to the rear bumper of the other coach. The princess apologised profusely, and the other driver sped off, probably afraid that she would hit him again.

Still quite shaken, Princess Alison arrived at the tall dark tower where she was to take her exams. Waving the dragon smoke away from in front of her face, she passed the guardians of the elevators and ascended to the Floor of Language Training. The tests were a trial, requiring all of the princess's strength and intuition and intelligence. When they were over, she was so tired she was near to fainting while she and the other princes and princesses waited for the results of the exams.

The Testing Wizard handed the princess a piece of parchment with her test scores inscribed upon it. The princess gasped, she had scored a comfortable B on the writing exam, and an amazing C on the reading comprehension exam! (Strangely, a C is higher than a B in this scoring scenario, go figure.) The princess was very happy. She had received her happy ending because she was pure of heart and was always kind to small animals like mice and bluebirds ('cause you never know when they're going to come in handy), and oh yeah, because she'd been in language training 3 hours a week for about a year.

And she lived happily ever after.
__________________________________

There. That sounds much more interesting than "Crap, I had a bad week -- I'm sick, the girls are sick, and I was so stressed about my French as a Second Language exams that I have to pass if I want any kind of promotion at work, that I slept poorly, rear-ended some guy on the way to work (fortunately no damage), and sat the tests with a sinus headache, but totally ACED them in the end, doing so much better than I had expected, so I guess the week wasn't all bad then."

We're going to the finals, baby!

Saturday afternoon was the culmination of my ten years of Sens fandom. We took the third-round series from Buffalo in 5, and the cherry on the icing on the cake was that the game-winning goal, in overtime, was scored by Daniel Alfredsson, the captain of the Senators.

Go Sens!

The circus, recycled.....

Before I started this blog, I used to post to my mommies board and tell them the increasingly lengthy stories of life with the girls in Carp. Then I realized I could bore amuse a much wider audience, and launched Party of 3. The other day I was cleaning out some files on my computer, and found the following old mommies group post. It's from quite a while ago, as Rachel was 17 months old at the time, Leah had just turned 4, and I was still married.

I'm posting it now because re-reading it brought back memories and made me laugh. And totally *not* because I can't think of anything to write today. Honest.

________________________

Did you ever get the feeling that the purpose of your life was to act as an example to others on how not to do things? Let me tell you about my circus experience. A few months ago I got a phone call from the Police Retirees Association. They were raising money for children's charities by selling tickets to the Garden Brothers Circus. I thought it was a good idea, so I bought some. The time of the performance was 7:30 pm, but I didn't think too much about it. Fast forward to this past week. Slowly it dawns on me that 7:30 is past Rae's bedtime and maybe I should get a babysitter for her and just take Leah. Too late, not enough notice. Well, OK, I'll just make sure I have enough to eat and drink for her and a few toys, and if she gets sleepy, she can just drift off in my arms. Ummm, right. <- foreshadowing

So I pack 2 milk bottles, a juice sippy, a container of goldfish, a small teddy bear, some teething keys and another small toy, plus diapers and wipes. That sounds like enough for the 2-hour performance. So we get there, and it's a zoo to park, and it's first-come seating, so we're not as close to the front of the hockey arena as I'd like (the 3 rings are down on board-covered ice-surface).

Rachel is a little restless -- yeah, like a small tornado in pink. Out comes the bottle, and that settles her down. The lights finally go down and the circus starts. Leah is just mesmerized, she' s sitting in her Dad's lap and her eyes are as big as saucers. Rachel is fine in my lap, til the bottle runs out. Within 10 minutes, she's worked her way through both bottles and the sippy cup and is alternately trying to kick the back of the head of the guy sitting in front of me and trying to force feed her big sister a handful of goldfish. Then she starts to wail. No amount of jiggling or singing will quiet her. She's thrashing around like a fish on a line and she beans the guy in front of me with the teddy. He's nice enough to return it, and I 'excuse me' my way down the line of seats and out of the sitting area of the arena.

I spend the next hour walking around the perimeter of the arena, where the washrooms and concession stands are, chasing her because she's so giddy with all the open space to run in, and lunging at her every once in a while to stop her from picking up and eating popcorn from the floor. Each time I try to pick her up and go back to the seats, she starts with the wailing and her body goes stiff as a board. At intermission, D and Leah show up. It's almost 9 (Leah's bedtime is 7 pm) so she's tired and wants to go home. She loved the circus. I saw about 12 minutes of the show and now have a giant headache.

Things we learned:
1. Next year we're going to a matinee. Never, never, never take small children to an evening performance.
2. Seventeen months is the wrong age for a circus. Younger, and she would have slept, older and she would have watched the show.
3. Stuffed toys can be used as weapons.
4. Children can run very quickly when motivated by popcorn.
5. You should always carry emergency vodka in your purse for situations like this.

Things you don't want to hear your doctor say

"Yes, well, I'm pretty sure that it *is* a sinus infection, as you suspect, but I'm a little concerned about the tenderness over your temple. I want to do a blood test just to rule out biglongscaryname. It's very rare, but let's check anyway."

Great. Now I'm sure I'm going to end up at Seattle Grace where the fact that I have temporal arteritis (also known as giant cell arteritis. Giant cell!? This is not reasuring me any) will be a metaphor for what's going on in the personal life of one of the interns.

I hope it's Alex.

Tough decision

VS

It's Thursday night tonight. Traditionally Grey's Anatomy night at our house. The night that we order in pizza for supper and, in return for the treat, the girls go to bed a half hour early so that Mommy can watch Grey's undisturbed (without dishes to do, yay!). We don't have satellite or cable, so I have to watch it at the evilly early hour of 8 p.m. on CTV. I like to have the girls bathed and in bed, the ringer of the phone turned off, and me settled in the living room, glass of wine in hand, at 8 sharp. I'm stoked! I can't *wait* to see if George will really leave the hospital, if Derek will really pick up some woman in Joe's, and if that was Adele collapsed on the bathroom floor in the previews.

But, this is also the playoffs. And my only other television addiction is NHL hockey. The Ottawa Senators, to be precise. And tonight is the opening game of the third-round series against the Sabres. The puck drops at 7:30, and I want to be settled in the living room, glass of wine in hand, by 7 sharp to see the pregame show. I'm stoked! I can't *wait* to see the Sens duke it out with Buffalo, the team that put them out of the playoffs last year.

So you see my dilemma:




VS




Oh, sure, you say. Watch one and tape the other. Well, that would work, *in theory*, if I had a blank tape and the patience to decipher the badly translated VCR manual: "How to Programme a Recording. 1. Place the taping article into the tape chasm, make the START button depress with gentleness....." You get the picture.

Nope, in order to deal with



VS



I'm going to have to either have a very quick thumb on the 'quickview' button on my remote and toggle back and forth between channels, or beg Natalie to tape Grey's for me tonight so I can watch hockey.

Perhaps she can be bribed with chocolate.

Weekend recap

• What goes "THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump"? Answer: a chipmunk in the dryer.

Calm down, I didn't *actually* have a chipmunk in the dryer, that was more of an artist's impression of what it might sound like. But I noticed while doing yard work this weekend that the external dryer vent cover had rotted away over the winter -- UV radiation and cold, I guess -- and nothing was standing between the chipmunks and the interior of my house except the dryer door. Now I like chipmunks just fine, but I don't want them as roomies, so I set off to the local hardware store, bought a new external dryer vent cover,


and pulled out my trusty caulking gun. It took a while to chip off the old caulk, clean the vinyl siding, then cut the metal vent to size, install the new vent, and caulk around the new cover, but my house is now protected against chipmunks, squirrels, mice and things of that size. Leprechauns too, I guess. And I've been whiling away the odd half hour ever since by peeling silicone caulk off my arm like sunburnt skin.


• Took Leah and Rachel to the playground Saturday afternoon. Rae can now go hand over hand across 3 rungs of the monkey bars (!). She's also a pro at the fireman's pole. Leah is too. Leah said that I should try the fireman's pole (hee, no comments please) and I climbed up the play structure. The pole is out a few feet from the platform (red pole on left of picture)
  
  
  and doesn't look that tall from the ground, but standing up at the top, man is it high! I can't believe I let Rachel go down it by herself and she's only 4. But not to be outdone by the girls, I hooked a leg around it and launched myself down. Somehow I banged the side of my knee pretty good and now I have a really attractive dark purple bruise. I am not 4. I must remember this in the future.
  


• Sens rule! Watched the game on Saturday night. Bring on Buffalo! The picture below is from December 2005, but they are still the cutest Senators fans EVER. They watched the first period with me until Rachel got bored and went off to watch Aladdin on tape in my bed (translation: watched opening credits and then went right to sleep), and Leah fell asleep lying against me on the couch. I managed to stay awake for the whole game.
  
  

• Picked Becca up on Sunday and we took the girls to the leisure swim at the pool in the Goulbourn Rec Centre in Stittsville. It was great. Especially the relaxing-in-the-hot-tub part. That sure eased the aches and pains of firepole bruises and sore muscles from yard work/spider dislodging.

• Went home and barbequed some chicken, made some pasta and Caesar salad. Mmmmm. After dinner, we drove Bec home and then I had plans to watch a movie and have a Keiths or two, but all the swimming caught up with me and I crashed around nine.
  

• Pretty good weekend, really.
  

Gardening for the arachnophobic

My back yard earlier today:

Shhhhhp. [sound of weeds being pulled]
Shhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhp.
[pause][sudden intake of breath][realization that crawly sensation on arm is just breeze ruffling arm hair][relieved sigh]
Shhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhp.
[pause][a more-panicky intake of breath and slight scream][realization that what was thought to be a spider was only part of a dead leaf][slight embarassed laugh and relieved sigh]
Shhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhp.
Shhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhp.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHH!!!!! Fuck! It's on my arm!! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! Oh my God where did it go? Where did it GO? It's up my SLEEVE! AAAAAAUUUUUGGGGH! CRAP! [wild flailing of arms and shoulder shrugging, like a volunteer in a nerve gas experiment] THERE IS A SPIDER UP MY SLEEVE! [attempts are made to take long-sleeved teeshirt off right there in the yard] Shit! Shit. Shit.

[small black thing falls out of sleeve]

Oh..... It's just a cricket. Well hello, Mr. Cricket. You gave me quite a scare. Run along now like a good six-legged bug.
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhp.
Shhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhp.
Shhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
[delayed case of the willies, because it *could* have been a spider up the sleeve]
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhp.
Shhhp.
Shhhhp.
Shhhhp.
Screw it. I'm going in for a beer.

OK, I get it now. Also, seven things about me.

If I have any male readers, and I don't know that I do (at least not regular ones), please delurk now and give your opinion about something.

Supposing you are not gay. And you have been sort of dating someone on and off for a couple of months, but you haven't spoken in a week or so. And the woman in question calls you up at 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning to chat. And you chat for a bit, sounding distracted. And then you announce that you'd like to keep talking, but you really have to get back to the movie you were watching:

"The Sound of Music"......

(wait, it gets better)

...in French.

That's a blow-off, right? Yeah, I thought so. Points for originality though. Much, much more panache than "It's not you, it's me". Sigh.

And, in other news, Briana at Life with Boys tagged me with a meme. The "Seven things about me" meme. I'm supposed to list seven random things about myself that you don't already know, and then I'm supposed to tag seven people to do the same. Well, most of my loyal readers (all four of you, lol) have been tagged already, so I'll do like Alissa, and just say that if you'd like to do this, great! Leave me a comment saying you're in and I'll be sure to check out your answers. But I'm not requiring it of anyone, OK?

Here we go:

1. I have a love/hate relationship with laundry. After living in apartments for most of my adult life and having to use laundry rooms or off-site laundromats, buying a house with a laundry room seemed like a dream come true....at first. See, here's the thing: I'm really good at washing and drying, but I really suck at folding and putting away. Here at our house, we're always clean, but we're often wrinkled.
2. I lived in four different countries before I was five years old: the UK, Germany, the U.S. and Canada.
3. In 1987 I spent the summer working in a geological survey mapping camp in northwestern Ontario. It was like getting paid to go camping. One of the best summers of my life.
   
4. I turn the ringer on the phone off if I don't feel like talking to anyone. Often, I forget I've done this and then wonder why I no-one's called me in a few days.
   
5. I have five Hello Kitty figurines on my desk at work. And I have a Hello Kitty change purse. I know I'm too old to like Hello Kitty, but I don't care.
   
6. I make really, really good cinnamon rolls. From scratch. Really.
   
7. I've seen "The Sound of Music" about 14 times. In English. And I'm not sure I like it anymore.

Well, better *this* Carrie than the one with all the pig's blood and telekinesis problems...

Yep, once more I was seduced by another "Which X in the show Y are you most like" quiz. For some reason, I can't get enough of these. For example, did you know that of all the Bond girls, I'm most like Honey Ryder from "Dr. No"? Or, of all the characters on Grey's Anatomy, I'm totally Miranda Bailey? (I figured I was more the Addison Montgomery type, or, failing that, slightly Izzy Stevens, but, there you go, can't argue with the exact and exacting science that is Internet quiz formulation.)

Anyway, I was thinking about dating and relationships, and lo and behold, stumbled across a "Which 'Sex and the City' vixen are you?" quiz. Vixen???? Moi???? Ooooo, gotta try that one out, and fast. Well, it seems I'm Carrie. Not bad. Now I just have to find my very own Mr. Big.

Try it yourself, the link is at the bottom of the post. Drop me a comment and let me know which one you are. I wanna know which other vixens I'm hanging with.

You Are Most Like Carrie!

You're quirky, flirty, and every guy's perfect first date. But can the guy in question live up to your romantic ideal? It's tough for you to find the right match - you're more than a little picky. Never fear... You've got a great group of friends and a great closet of clothes, no matter what! Romantic prediction: You'll fall for someone this year... Totally different from any guy you've dated.

Which Sex and the City Vixen Are You?

Random bits

Unfortunately I don't have it together enough to post anything succinct, coherent, well-constructed and/or witty today. In fact, I nearly sprained my brain trying to spell succinct, coherent, well-constructed and/or witty. Which should tell you exactly in what rough shape I'm in this morning. So, it's random bits that you're in for today -- and it's the best I can do.

• To those of you with younger girls -- are my girls the only ones that call their Littlest Petshop toys "Little Miss Petshop" instead? It keeps reminding me of "Little Miss Sunshine".

• The Hershey's factory in Smiths Falls, eastern Ontario, is going to be closing within the year. The production will be moved to Mexico, where costs are cheaper. This sucks. Not only does it put nearly 500 people out of work in a small town that is also facing large job losses (800 people) from the upcoming closure of the Rideau Regional Centre, an institution for adults with developmental disabilities, by 2009; but it also means the end of a favourite day trip for me and the girls. If you live nearby and haven't made the visit to tour the plant and buy cheap, cheap chocolate at the Chocolate Shoppe, you should go. It's best to go during the week and see the plant in operation (very, very cool), but the shop is open on weekends too. Stock up on all kinds of goodies that are bad for the waistline but good for the soul. The last time I was there, I spent $15 on chocolate, and that bought so much that the grocery-type plastic bag it was in ripped on the way out to the car.

• In an unrelated story, last Sunday night was not much fun. Deep in the throes of bad period cramps and in a pissy mood, I went to the pantry only to discover that not only was I out of cheap Hershey's chocolate, but that the girls have finished their Easter stashes (ungrateful offspring, not even saving any for the woman who carried them for what seemed like a combined total of 56 months and spent at least 3 and a half weeks in labour. But, I digress.). Then I remembered the baking chocolate. It was as if clouds parted and an errant beam of sunlight shone down (highly unlikely at ten at night) and illuminated the three-pound bag of Hershey semi-sweet chocolate chips down on the bottom shelf with the flour and the sugar and the oatmeal. SAVED! Before you could even say "chocolate chip" I was back in my chair, sweatpants hiked up snugly, self-medicating by washing down handfuls of Chipits with cheap French merlot and sobbing quietly at an episode of Grey's Anatomy from Season 2 on DVD. (You know, the one with the train wreck and the couple impaled on the steel rod while Meredith finds out Derek has chosen to stay married to Addison.) Ah, good times...[insert eye roll here].
  

• In contrast, last Saturday night was all kinds of fun. I got to meet up with some other Ottawa-area bloggers and was entertained and amused by them in person instead of in print, or online, or whatever. Chantal, Dani, Andrea and Alison are definitely as funny and interesting as you think they are from reading their blogs. I hope we can do it again when some of the other local blogging chix can make it.

• I have to get Rachel weighed. I know how tall she is, but not how much she weighs (no scale in the house), and I plugged in the values in the Parent Center Height Predictor tool. I had to guess her weight, but entered known values for all the other criteria. I guessed 40 pounds. I certainly hope that I'm wrong, because when I ran the little program, this is what I got back: " Your girl will likely be 7 feet, 0 inches at age 18." Um, yeah, right. Crap, better start researching basketball scholarships. (Or, maybe it was just a temporary software glitch. Tried it again this a.m. and it returned values of 5 feet 9 inches. Much more likely.)

• Last week Alissa, at Life's Little Adventures awarded me a Thinking Blogger Award.
  



Thanks Alissa! I'm somewhat floored by this, and very honoured. I never intended to make anyone think, just to make them laugh if possible. The deal is that I have to list 5 bloggers that make me think. So many bloggers make me think. I'll try to avoid tagging anyone that I know already has one, but I don't have the time to sift through archives and find out for certain, so, at the risk of repeating other choosings, here goes:


1. Chris at Rude Cactus. Today's posting is a good example of thought provoking.
2. Mamatulip at Where am I going... and why am I in this handbasket?. Her posts about her mother make me think, and often cry.
3. Kerry at Popwatchcanada posts on so many subjects, silly and serious, that there's always something there to think about.
4. Rick Mercer's Blog makes me laugh, and think, and then laugh some more. His skewering of the pompousness of Canadian politicians at all levels and of all stripes is breathtaking and very welcome. And snarky.
5. Andrea at a garden of nna mmoy makes me think. And leaves me in awe of her writing talents and her bravery in what she chooses to share with us.
   
   

One Hundred Years of Solitude -- yeah, I wish

Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is not a mother.

I know that he's not a mother for several reasons: for one, he's a man. But more importantly, a mother knows that you're lucky to get five minutes of solitude in an average day, and not all at once either. One hundred years of solitude can sound pretty good on a bad day. On a day when you can't even get two minutes alone for a pee without little hands knocking at the door and a litany of "Mooooom, Leah's being mean to me." "Mom, Rachel hit me with a Barbie, and it HURT." And so on. You know how it is.

One of the most useful inventions of the last century is the bathroom door lock. it's right up there with the automobile and the telephone. I've locked myself in the bathroom to make phone calls. I've locked myself in the bathroom to put on make-up without 'helpers'. God help me, I've even hid in there to sit on the closed toilet lid and just enjoy a minute of not having little hands grabbing at me or needing me to do something.

Yesterday the girls were playing some complicated imaginary game in the living room. Leah was a puppy and Rachel was wearing a long dress-up dress and carrying a baby doll. Nature called. I told them I was going into the bathroom and not to disturb me unless it was an emergency.

I had no sooner sat down than the knocking started. It was Rachel. "Mom, I need you".

"Mommy's going potty right now Rachel, I'll come and see you when I come out."

"But I need you now."

"Didn't I ask you to leave me alone unless it was an emergency?"

"But it is an emergency. I'm pregnant."

Well, after having 2 kids I tend to pee when I laugh anyway, so at least I was in the right place. After I had finished I went out in the hall to see Rae with a doll-shaped lump underneath her dress. "See, Mommy, I'm having a baby".

At four years old it's pretty funny. I just hope that we don't have the same conversation again when she's sixteen.

A hundred books

I love to read. It isn't an exaggeration to use the word love. At work I'm an editor (see, books again), so, in essence, I read for a living. At home, you'd think I would do something else to relax. But no, once the girls are tucked safely into bed and as much of the housework I feel like doing is done, I read. (What, you were expecting me to say salsa dance? Wrestle bears? Watch American Idol? Please...)

I've always loved reading. My mom told me that I taught myself to read at age 3, and I haven't stopped since. I come from a family of readers. As far back as I can remember there were always books in the house. My mom read constantly, my dad read too. Trips to the library were treats for my sister and me. Mom and I still swap author names we think each other would like, and every couple of months my dad will send me a book that he's read and liked.

The year I gave birth to Leah, I kept a journal of the books I read. One hundred and six books in one year. Have I mentioned I'm a fast reader? I hope that I can instill the love of reading in my own children. I think I'm doing OK. "Mommy, read me a story", is one of the most used phrases in our house (right after "Mommy, [insert Leah or Rachel here]'s bugging me!", "I'm hungry", and "You're not the boss of me").

I saw this a while back on But I Digress, and filed it away for a slow blog day. Today is the day.

Look at the list of books below.
The ones I’ve read are in bold.
The ones I want to read are in italics.
I've left alone the ones that I'm not interested in.

I wasn't as inventive as some have been in assigning them to categories, but here you go.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander* (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (J.K. Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged** (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (George Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible***
46. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Scott Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead**** (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Helen Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In the Skin of a Lion (Michael Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses***** (James Joyce)

* I'm currently reading this (along with The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman - awesome!) and I'm almost finished, so I guess that counts as read.

** I'm not sure why, as this book, in paperback, is basically the same size, shape and density as a brick. And about as edifying. I read it when I was in university. I think I read it due to losing a bet. Whiskey and I shouldn't hang out together.

*** Well, I've read parts. All of us have read parts, haven't we?

**** After Altas Shrugged, you'd think I'd know better, wouldn't you. But I didn't. Now I know why people read Ayn Rand: it's like hitting your head against a brick wall -- it feels so good when you stop.

***** Everyone I know says they want to read it, but no one I know actually has. One day, I'd like to take a stab at it. Maybe. If I'm really bored. And there's no bad reality TV on that night (sorry -- redundant). Oh, who am I kidding. It'll probably never happen.

Finally, the reno reveal

Well, it's hardly Extreme Makeover, Home Edition, but I'm really happy with the way my bedroom turned out. A new bed, new duvet cover, and new paint turned our old bedroom into my new bedroom. Much more feminine. In fact, the inspiration for the paint colour came from a Victoria's Secret bra, and you can't get much more feminine than that.

Before:






The colour "swatch" with new paint. Pretty close match, dontcha think?:



After:







I still need a window treatment and a couple of pictures, but all in all, much better. A sanctuary that's all mine.

When girls drink too much

I was just reading Danigirl's post Dancing with Beloved on Postcards from the Mothership, and the lines where she described the differences between dancing near someone and dancing with someone made a great deal of tea exit through my nose, and made me think of an e-mail a friend had sent me a while back (in particular, number 2, below, is what reminded me), and I thought I would share it with you:

When we girls drink too much...........

1. We have absolutely no idea where our purse is.

2. We believe that dancing with our arms overhead and wiggling
our butt while yelling "woo-hoo!" is truly the sexiest dance move
around.

3. We've suddenly decided that we want to kick someone's butt
and honestly believe we could do it too.

4. In our last trip to pee, we realize that we now look more like a
homeless hooker than the goddess we were just four hours ago.

5. We drop our 3:00 a.m. submarine sandwich on the floor (which
we're eating even though we are not the least bit hungry), pick it up and carry on eating it

6. We start crying and telling everyone we see that we love them
sooooo much.

7. We get extremely excited and jump up and down every time a
new song plays because "Oh my god! I love this song!"

8. We've found a deeper/spiritual side to the geek sitting next to us.

9. The man we're flirting with used to be our 5th grade teacher.

10. The urge to take off articles of clothing, stand on a table
and sing or dance becomes strangely overwhelming to us.

11. Our eyes just don't seem to want to stay open on their own
so we keep them half closed and think it looks exotically sexy.

12. We've suddenly taken up smoking and become really good at it.

13. We yell at the bartender, who we believe cheated us by giving us just lemonade, but that's just because we can no longer taste the gin.

14. We think we are in bed, but our pillow feels strangely like
the kitchen floor.

15. We start every conversation with a booming, "don't take this the wrong way but..."

16. We fail to notice that the toilet lid's down when we sit on it.

17. Our hugs begin to resemble wrestling take-down moves.

18. We are tired so we just sit on the floor (wherever we
happen to be standing) and take a quick nap.

19. We begin leaving the buttons open on our button fly pants
to cut down on the time we're in the bathroom away from our drink.

20. We take our shoes off because we believe it's their fault that
we're having problems walking straight.

These are sadly, pathetically, and totally familiar -- in my case I'm intimately familiar with numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 (especially 7), and 18, as anyone who went drinking with me back in the day and stayed sober enough to take note of my behaviour will tell you. Not that this happens with any great frequency these days, but I'm just sayin'. Total. Accuracy.

You too, right?

Spring....sorta

OK, the snow we're going to get this weekend? My fault.

Seriously.

I've tempted fate. Right now, my car is at the garage having an oil change and having the summer tires put on. Which of course means that we will be royally dumped on this weekend. That's just the way it goes.

But spring is here today at least. The sun is supposed to come out today before the rain starts tomorrow, and the snow flurries on the weekend (that's from Environment Canada, and not just a pessimistic assessment of my bad snow-tire-removal karma).

My mom and stepdad were up on the weekend for a visit. While she was here, we celebrated her birthday and dyed eggs with the girls for Easter. Her favourite flowers are daffodils, and we bought a bunch from the Cancer Society and waited impatiently for them to bloom.









I wish I had Alissa's photography talents and camera.

Oh yeah. And what was my mom doing in Eastern Ontario on the weekend, you might ask? Well, it was to pick up the car she won in a raffle. How cool is that? And not just any car, but one decorated by Marlene Ross, who paints masks for a lot of NHL goalies.





Not bad for a ten dollar raffle ticket, eh?