How I know I'm a woman, or, Home Depot is stupid

Geary, D.C., 1998. Chapter 8: Sex differences in brain and cognition. In "Male, Female: the Evolution of Human Sex Differences". American Psychological Association Books. ISBN: 1-55798-527-8.

Rabinowicz T., Dean D.E., Petetot J.M., de Courten-Myers G.M., 1999. Gender differences in the human cerebral cortex: more neurons in males; more processes in females. Journal of Child Neurology, Feb;14(2):98-107.

Schlaepfer T.E., Harris G.J., Tien A.Y., Peng L., Lee S., Pearlson G.D., 1995. Structural differences in the cerebral cortex of healthy female and male subjects: a magnetic resonance imaging study. Psychiatry Research, Sep 29;61(3):129-35.

Party of 3, 2009. Home Depot was totally designed and laid out by men and things are put in places that are not logical at all. Idiots. Journal of Common Sense, People!, vol 1.

OK, so we already know that men and women think differently due to physical differences in their brains, blah, blah, blah, hardwired, blah, blah, neurons, yadda, yadda, cerebral cortex, blah, blah, blah, Ginger. I buy this, I really do. It's painfully obvious. And nowhere is it more apparent than in the giant social experiment in gender difference that is Home Depot. You see, Home Depot was obviously laid out by a man. Because nothing is in the places where it makes sense for them to be.

Case in point, I went to Home Depot to pick up 3 things: a new burner for my barbecue, a strap wrench to replace the one I borrowed from my neighbour and then misplaced (Connie, if you're reading this, please don't tell Cliff. I bought the exact same one to give back.), and a replacement 12-volt battery for my cordless doorbell. Simple, right? You'd think so, wouldn't you? But no.

The barbecue burner was easy. It was in the Barbecue Section. One down, two to go. The girls were enjoying themselves riding in the giant shopping cart.

Next, the strap wrench. A strap wrench is a tool, right? So I headed out to the Tool Section. Silly me. What was I thinking? I cruised the aisles in the tool section: hammers, clamps, screw drivers, bits, pliers, wrenches. Ah, here we go. Hmmmm, strap wrench, let me see, mmmmm, nope. No strap wrenches. Look up at sign at top of display: Pliers and Wrenches. Nope, still no strap wrench. WTF? OK, there's one of those guys in the orange apron.

"Excuse me, could you tell me where I'd find a strap wrench?"

"In Plumbing? But it's a tool. It's called a strap wrench, so why isn't it with the other wrenches in the part of the Tool Section that is clearly marked 'Wrenches'?! I mean, I figured that a person could find a strap wrench with all the other wrenches in a display which actually says 'wrenches' on it. It's just common sense."

"No, I will not lower my voice and stop saying 'wrenches."

"This place is stupid."

So, we slunk off and found the strap wrench. In the Plumbing Section. Idiots.

Next, the doorbell battery. Now where would a sane person (read: woman) put the battery-operated doorbells? Now I might be going out on a limb here, but I do think that perhaps it might just make the tiniest bit of sense to put the doorbells, oh, say, in or near the Door Section? You know, just for shits and giggles? So, undeterred by our wrench debacle, off we went down the wide concrete aisles in search of doors. And we found doors. Hundreds of them. Wooden doors, steel doors, screen doors. Oh, and door knobs -- fancy ones and plain ones, ones with deadbolts, ones with keypads, brass ones and nickel ones. And in the next aisle, the numbers that you put on the outside of your house, next to the door, so people know if they're at the right address.

Hot damn! The doorbells ought to be right around here. Because, you know, they're usually on the outside of a house, next to the door, about the same height as the handle, underneath the address numbers, and all of those items are in the same section.... But again, no. Nope, no doorbells and no doorbell batteries. I turned and looked for one of the 'associates'. I think I saw the tool guy off in the distance, but he ducked quickly behind a display of routers when I started in his direction. (Coincidentally, I'm sure.)

A new orange-apron guy informed me that doorbells and batteries for doorbells are in the Electrical Section. Right. Because battery-operated doorbells that don't even run on household electricity should really be found in the Electrical Section, instead of the Door Section, which, God forbid, would actually make sense. (Note: I do know that a battery is a device that converts chemical energy directly to electrical energy, I do know that AC/DC is more than just an Australian band with an old guy who still thinks it's flattering to strip out of his schoolboy uniform and show his scrawny ass to crowds of adoring fans, but come on. In the broad scheme of household items: things you plug into the wall = electrical, things that run on batteries = not really electrical-> battery-operated. Seriously.) But there they were, amongst all the light switches and outlet covers and other non-door-related objects.

Yeah, I know. Grumpy much?

I do think a fitting revenge for the guy who assigned items to the various sections in Home Depot would be to send him to Bed, Bath & Beyond with instructions to buy a set of cotton shams. Poor bastard would probably go crazy looking for the Automotive Care Section.

These aren't the droids you're looking for

I know what I want to be when I grow up: a Jedi knight.

Seriously, what's not to like? A cool lightsaber; a choice of flattering garments, from brown robes to more form-fitting white leggings and a tunic; totally awesome martial arts skills; and the ability to use telekinesis to bring things flying to you from across the room -- like the aforementioned lightsaber -- or, more practically, a new roll of toilet paper when you really, really need one.

But the best thing, the coolest talent that I'd have, is the Jedi mind trick, the ability to use the Force to influence the minds of others, just like Obi-wan:

I could use it on my daughters at home, so I could have more time for blogging, reading and sitting on my ass doing nothing gardening:


I could use it at work, to decrease the stress of my heavy workload:

If it works on customer service drones over the phone, I could use it to effect a positive cash-flow situation in the family budget:

Hell, I could use it on everyone in the whole wide world!!!!

Sigh. I guess even the Force has some limits.


But the ultimate use of the Jedi mind trick, the Holy Grail of mind control, would obviously be this:

May the Force be with me.

I'm not making this up, you know.

Leah has a thing for words. She loves to read, to write and illustrate stories, to leave me notes, and she has a passion for those word puzzles where you have to find and circle words in a large block of what looks like random letters. She's even created her own -- slaving over the paper and then presenting me or Rachel with the finished product, the lines slanting and wavering, but the list of words at the bottom are always found in the letter block.

Knowing this, my mum gave Leah a giant word-search puzzle book at Easter. It languished for a while in her bedroom, but she's been working on it lately. Last Thursday we were at Rachel's soccer game, sitting on the sidelines, hoping that the rain would hold off (it didn't), and Leah was working on one of the puzzles in the book. She was using a bright red marker to circle the words. I glanced over at her just in time to see her circle the word plastered. Excuse me? What was that again? I leaned over for a better look. Yup, plastered. I checked the title of the puzzle: 'Drunken Stupor'. Nice. The word list included addled, bender, blasted, blotto, crocked, loaded, stewed, stinko, tanked, and wasted. Hmmm, the cover of the book didn't say anything like 'for ages 16 and up'.

Later that night, after Leah was in bed, I picked up the puzzle book and started leafing through it. The first puzzle was called 'Critical Condition' and contained words like adjudge, appraise, analysis, evaluate, partisan, review, regard, unbiased. OK, fine.

The next puzzle was 'Of High Standards': accept, admire, credence, curtsy, gratuity, ratify, tribute. I can't see how those words relate to the title, but still, OK.

Number 3 was the aforementioned 'Drunken Stupor'. Probably an anomaly, right? All the rest were probably lists of barnyard animals, or cities in Florida, or cooking terms. (And yes, all those were in the book, but they weren't the next ones, oh no siree.)

Number 4, 'This is a Bust': addiction, bong, bummer, charge, dusted, freebase, habit, hooked, kitchen, loaded, mainline, needle, overdose, posession, rush, score, wired.

And the logical follow-up, 'Dead End Street': acidhead, addict, candyman, connection, dealer, dopehead, freak, junkie, pillhead, pusher, runner.

So, of course, the next one would have to be 'Arresting Factors': accessory, bandit, bookie, conman, crook, felon, hooker, hooligan, killer, mafia, mugger, racketeer, thief, tong, vandal.

....?

I'm torn between tearing out the offending pages and letting them stay. She hasn't asked about any of the words, they're just patterns of letters that she's looking for. And who knows, perhaps this vocabulary can set her on a career path as a Crown prosecutor. Or a writer for Law and Order or CSI: Carp.

No, they're not

"The rich are different from you and me." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

"No, they're not." - Alison

See, we're all the same underneath, whether we're royalty, or just that guy who thinks it's funny to give his wife a Dutch oven in bed after a night of beer and chili.

Random thoughts

• Random thought upon seeing a bunch of highschool boys at the ice cream stand trying to impress the girls: Just because you can grow a beard, doesn't mean you should.



• Random thought upon first noticing the unusually large number of robins in Carp this spring/summer: Awwww, it's so nice to see all the birds around. It must mean that the environment is doing well, at least around here.



• Random thought upon seeing that Norwalk Furniture has changed its name to Lûxe Home Interiors: It's about time. Really, who wants to buy furniture from a store that shares its name with a virus that causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. Kind of like bragging to your neighbour, "Yes, that couch is stunning, isn't it. We got it at Stomach Flu Fine Furniture -- you know, down on Carling Avenue?" That was probably the worst business name since "Ayd's Meat Market" back in Windsor.



• Random thought upon noticing all the bird poop, mostly from robins, on the driveway: Wow, there are a lot of birds around this year.



• Random thought upon purchasing LCBO gift cards as end-of-year teachers' gifts: Nothing says "Thanks for educating my child" like alcohol.



• Random thought upon skimming bird poop out of the pool for the first time: Hey, bird poop floats! Who knew?



• Random thought upon skimming bird poop out of the pool for the second and subsequent times: Freaking birds, stop CRAPPING in my pool!



• Random thought upon being woken for the first time at 4:20 a.m. by the sound of birdsong: How beautiful! Back when I lived in Ottawa, it was sirens from the fire station that woke me in the night. This is so much nicer and gentler.



• Random thought upon being woken for the second and subsequent times at 4:20 a.m. by the sound of birdsong: Shut up, shut up, Shut Up, SHUT UP! OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WILL YOU PLEASE JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME SLEEP!!!!!!



• Random thought upon finding the remains of a robin on my front walkway that had run afoul (afowl?) of a predator during the night: Yesssssss! (accompanied by Gretzkyesque fist pump.)



• Random thought upon hearing coyotes yipping and howling down in the valley in the wee hours of this morning: Wow, the hair on my arms just stood up. What a wild and amazing sound! How lucky am I to hear that haunting noise coming in through the window on the night breeze while I'm tucked up all safe in my bed? Nature is beautiful.... I wonder if coyotes eat robins.

I don't think I want to know what's going on here

I went into Rae's bedroom the other day to put away some laundry, and I found this little tableau. I would have asked her what was going on, but she was on a playdate at someone else's house. (By the time she returned and I asked, she simply shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't remember".)

I tried to figure out a scenario that would take into account Bride Barbie and Belle in the car with Aladdin lying on the hood, naked except for his little cap and his gold pointy-toed boots, while Erik (Or Derek, I can't remember which) sprawled face-down in front of the jeep. Because I'm telling you, it looked disturbingly like a couple of Michigan hunters with a deer tied to the hood of their pickup; if, you know, Michigan hunters were wearing full wedding regalia and a ballgown and driving a cute little roadster, while the deer was a clothing-challenged Arabian kid who's best friends with a genie. I can't even factor in the drunk/sleeping/dead guy on the road ahead. Competing hunter, perhaps? Friendly-fire collateral damage from the deer/naked-guy hunt? Too many Barbie Budweisers? The mind boggles.

There has to be an innocent six-year-old explanation for this. Maybe BB and Belle were out for a drive, when Aladdin, driven from the shower by a wasp, pulled on his boots and ran out of the house......no.

OK, how about this: Derek/Erik and Aladdin were taking a walk, and it was hot, so Aladdin stripped down, when Belle and BB......nope.

OK: Aladdin is sunbathing face-up on the hood of Belle's car while she's changing the radio station, and D/E is sunbathing face-down on the ground. Bride Barbie is just heading off to bring back iced tea for everyone.

There. There's an explanation I can live with.

Victoria's Secret, meet Red Green

It was not the best of days yesterday. I got up at 4:30 a.m. in order to try to fix a mistake I'd made the night before with the swimming pool. The pool is up and running but I'm still fighting with the water quality it to make it something that one might want to swim in, rather than something one might stock bass in, and I got up early to try to rectify the problem and still get the girls up, dressed and fed and dropped off early at daycare so I could be on time for an early workshop at work. (What I did wrong with the pool would take an entire blog post on its own to describe -- suffice it to say it involved 3 kilograms of stablilizer granules, a black stocking, a tug-of-war, and much angst. But I digress...)

So there I was, half asleep, trying to get dressed and moving. The high humidity of the morning, coupled with the fact that I had run out of hair conditoner, meant that I looked disturbingly like this:

And to top it off, my last good bra had popped an underwire -- making it even more of a medieval torture device than it is already. What could I do? I was running out of time. While brushing my teeth, I was seriously trying to figure out which shirt I could put on that would best disguise the fact that I was reduced to wearing a bikini top to work, when suddenly, the solution came to me.

Duct tape.

Good for everything, including emergency underwear repair. And the silver colour is so sparkly and feminine. Red would be proud.

(Keep your stick on the ice.)

Because we just don't have enough gold lamé parachute pants in our lives these days

Take that, you skinny-jeans-wearing clones!!

Nuns. Wine. What's not to like?

Sometimes a joke shows up in your inbox that you just have to share:

Mother Superior called all the nuns together and said to them, "I must

tell you all something. We have a case of gonorrhea in the convent."

"Thank God," said an elderly nun at the back. "I'm so tired of

chardonnay."

Dr. Strangelawn, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Weeds

As a single mum with a full-time job, a commute, a house, and two girls in soccer, you can imagine that my schedule is, well, a little on the full side. And one thing that often gets ignored is the dandelion plantation lawn.

And really, to call it a lawn is to besmirch the word 'lawn'. (The fictional motive I created for the murder in CSI: Carp, episode 1 is totally believable to anyone who has actually seen my lawn.) After casual perusal careful study, I've determined that the breakdown of the plant species in my lawn is as follows:

Dandelions 45%
Plantain 35%
Pricky things that I step on when I go to retrieve toys off the lawn barefoot after dark 10%
Grass 7%
Clumps of daisies and violets that I am forced to mow around or the girls cry 2%
Weird plant that resembles the unholy offspring of Devil's Snare and a mutant blackberry bush that send up shoots into the lawn from its lair under the pool 1%

Not exactly the stuff of golf greens. My real-life neighbour has a lush carpet of emerald perfection that just mocks my poor excuse for a lawn. I used to worry about it. I used to worry that if I didn't get around doing something about the weeds or mowing the lawn on time, then all my property would need would be an old washing machine in the back yard and a rusted out pickup on blocks in the driveway to look like it was inhabited by people named Cletus and Brandine.


But the time involved in trying to make my lawn into something resembling Glen Abbey is not something I have any intention of spending. And really, unbroken expanses of green are a little boring. Dandelions are cheerful. And so are the violets and occasional johnny-jump-up that have colonized the grass in the back yard.

I started thinking about how to make the most of what's growing there now. Hmmmm, if the planned LCBO strike happens, I have the raw materials to brew up enough dandelion wine to keep most of Carp happy through the summer. And plantain is an amazing natural remedy for bee stings -- you pick some leaves and chew them up and then put the wad of chewed up leaf and spit on the sting site, and it relieves the pain. According to my calculations, if the girls get stung by 18 bees/wasps per child per day for the summer, then I'll be able to use up most of it. Mind you, I might get a bit tired of chewing up plantain and/or run out of spit before hitting the 18-sting mark.

So, I do what I can in the mowing department, fitting it in around soccer practices and games, pool maintenance and laundry, grocery shopping and dentist appointments, trips to the library and the splash pad. I don't worry about how much of the lawn is really weeds, because a having perfect weed-free lawn is not as important as all the other good stuff going on. And as my neighbour Chris told me: "If you mow it short, it all looks like grass anyway."

Literally

When Rachel was much younger, she provided us with a lot of unintentional humour. One time, when she was about three years old and could use the toilet by herself, but still needed help with the, ummm, post-activity clean up, she cracked me right up. Leah had fallen and cut her knee, and I had her sitting up on the kitchen counter so I could put a band-aid on her ouchie. Rachel was yelling at me from the bathroom, "I need you to wipe!" I was busy, so I called back, "Hold your horses, Rachel, I'll be there in a minute." There was a pause, and a sad little voice answered back, "But I don't have any horses, Mummy."

See? Literal can be funny.

And this is the funniest thing I've seen in a while: literal videos, where the lyrics have been changed to match what's going on in the video.

It just gets funnier the longer it goes on. The ending damn near killed me. I laughed til I cried, and I might have peed just a little bit too.

CSI: Carp -- "Mask of Death"-- episode one recap

XUP made this comment in response to my last post, CSI: Carp --

"Does Alex brush the lint dirt out of the corpse's eyes and then gaze lustily at him like she wants to climb on top of him then and there and do the nasty? Does Callie find some reason to shoot a gun and compare bullets? Does Horatio find some reason to shoot a gun and kill at least one person? Does the hot latino guy stand around looking hot and latino making the gorgeous blond suspect swoon and give up all her secrets which he will then use against her? I need closure here."

Who am I to deny my few legions of fans? (This is where I wait while you go back and read part one of this post if you missed it. No, go on, I've got a drink and a comfy chair, I'll be fine.)

Well, the rest of the episode goes something like this. Alexx, despite the wholly unnecessary extra 'x' in her name and all it implies, does draw the line at beastiality, and merely caresses the little furry head before tenderly closing up the body bag and wistfully trailing the back of her hand along the zipper while the paramedics cart it off across the dandelion-infested lawn.

Calleigh does not need to shoot a gun and compare bullets, but does drop by the Canadian Tire in Kanata to pick up an assortment of rakes and then spends some time bashing a raccoon-shaped homicide dummy and comparing the resulting tine marks to the marks on the raccoon's body (the amazingly detailed CSI remote rake database being down due a tractor with a load of hay taking out a hydro pole on Carp Road).

She eventually comes up with a match to (collective gasp from audience) the same brand of rake missing from Alison's garage. When asked by Horatio where the rake is, Alison stammers (gorgeously) and answers that it was right there next to the shovel.

Meanwhile, hot latin guy (aka Eric) spends much time dusting things for fingerprints while wearing a tank top and glistening in the sun.

A nameless uniform guy shouts from further down the road. They've found a rake in the bushes on a neighbour's property. There is fur caught in the tines.

Horatio: "I think we have... [puts on sunglasses] ...our murder weapon." [he then pauses for Roger Daltrey's signature scream, but realizes that it isn't the beginning of the show anymore, and walks away]

Eric dusts the rake for fingerprints (in slow motion, muscles rippling) and announces that the only prints on the rake are Alison's, but there are suspicious blank patches where the rake has been wiped clean. Then he and Calleigh decide that it's a long shot, but during a short musical interlude with jumpy photography, they dust the shovel that was next to the rake in the garage. Bingo! Prints that don't match Alison's.

Using the computer in the hummer parked in the driveway, they manage to patch into the CSI ultracool Database of Everyone in the Whole Wide World (complete with flattering head shots) and the prints from the shovel match up with.... Mr. Chalmers, Alison's retired neighbour behind her house.

Horatio pays him a visit, surprising him in his garage. While Horatio takes off his sunglasses and gazes out over Chalmers' weed-free emerald lawn, Chalmers surreptitiously hides a dandelion removal tool and a box labelled 'GrubsBGone'. The others arrive at the open garage door.

Horatio has figured it out. "You were angry, weren't you... [puts on sunglasses, realizes he's in a garage, takes them off again] ...at the raccoon digging up your lawn. [H reaches past Chalmers and pulls out the dandelion tool and the insecticide]. You came home last night to find it digging up your lawn looking for grubs. You chased it into Alison's yard, and noticed how many dandelions she has. Dandelions that might just colonize your pristine grass. [stands sideways and puts hands on hips] You decided to kill two birds with one stone -- get rid of the raccoon that's been ruining your lawn, and frame Alison for it. Payback for letting so many dandelions grow in her lawn that your lawn was threatened. You broke into her garage and stole her rake, using it to kill the raccoon and leaving her...[puts sunglasses on anyway, garage be damned]... to take the heat.

Nameless uniform cuffs Chalmers and leads him away. Horatio and Calleigh smile reassuringly at Alison, who looks even more gorgeous in her relief. Eric glistens.

End credits.

Stay tuned for scenes from next week's exciting episode of CSI: Carp. Horatio and Calleigh investigate the body of a squirrel found in the middle of Donald B. Munro Drive. Suicide.....or murder?

CSI: Carp

WARNING: This blog post may be disturbing to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.

I saw a familiar figure skulking in the hedge that separates the front yard from the back yard tonight when we drove home from soccer practice. A raccoon. You don't usually see raccoons out when it's still daylight, but maybe this guy was getting a jump on all the other raccoons by heading out early to find some grub. Or grubs. (Note to critter: Dig up my lawn again, and you're toast. I don't care how cute and fuzzy you are.)

It reminded me of the last time I'd seen a raccoon up and about in the daytime -- it was a couple of years ago, during the summer....

[Cue wavy scene dissolving to signify going back in time]

There are some things you shouldn't have to deal with before you've had your first coffee in the morning. Like dead raccoons.

The previous night, Rae was in bed but Leah was still up. The sliding glass door in the kitchen was open but the screen was closed. Elvis [Max's predecessor] was hissing at something through the screen so I went and looked and there was a raccoon on the deck. I called to Leah and she got a glimpse of it before it ran off. I figured it could smell Elvis's cat food (I feed him next to the back door) so I closed the glass door. Leah was all excited -- "A raccoon! We can call him Ricky!"

I got up late the next morning -- summer vacation -- and I opened the curtain over the sliding door to check the temp on the thermometer outside, and there, right on the doormat on the deck outside the door is the raccoon. And it's dead. Paws-in-the-air, no-longer-breathing. Dead. (We can call him Stiffy!)

Oh crap, I hadn't even had coffee yet, and I had to get rid of the body before the girls woke up, I didn't want them to see it. Oh the drama if they saw the cute little forest creature tits-up on the back deck. (Yuck.) And the clock was ticking. The girls don't usually sleep in that late. So I put on some rubber gloves and went outside. It was a lot heavier than it looked. Stiffer, too. I couldn't see any signs of trauma, maybe it had been poisoned or just decided to have a garbage-overdose coronary at my back door. I bagged it up in a couple of garbage bags and an IKEA bag (Dear IKEA, thanks for making such strong plastic bags. Did you know that they are exactly the right size to hold a dead raccoon? I didn't think so. They are truly a superior product. Sincerely, a grateful customer.) and then I threw out the gloves and the mat and washed my hands about 18 times.

Luckily it was garbage pick-up day, so I was spared the awfulness of a raccoon festering in the garbage can in the garage for a week. The day got better from then on...well, really it would have to, wouldn't it?

As I drank my post-raccoon-disposal coffee, I started thinking about the fact that I had found an actual dead body. Sure, it was an animal, but it made me think about all those detective novels that open with some poor peripheral character stumbling over a body. Not to mention the crime dramas on TV. The place I live in is a pretty sleepy little village, so a dead raccoon is about the extent of the excitement we get around here (not that I'm complaining). My freshly caffeinated thoughts started wandering and imagining, yes, you guessed it -- CSI: Carp.

[Cue another wavy dissolve with harp arpeggios to signify imaginary sequence]

From Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of CSI, CSI: New York, and CSI: Miami, comes an exciting new show, CSI: Carp.

[Show opens with a pounding drum beat accompanying a montage of arial shots of Carp -- the fairgrounds with the iconic red rotunda of the farmer's market building, the soccer field, the cows grazing on the field on top of the Diefenbunker -- ending with Alison's back deck.]

Horatio Caine stands there with Eric Delko and Calleigh Duquesne. Alexx Woods is kneeling down about to lift a dead raccoon onto a gurney. Alison, a tall, willowy, blonde knockout (Shut up. It's my imaginary show, I can look however I want) is leaning against the deck railing, looking distraught. Gorgeous, but distraught.

Horatio [taking off his shades, polishing them, putting them back on, brooding a bit while staring at the body, then turning to Eric and Calleigh]: What do we have here?

Eric: Hi 'H'. Not sure yet. Not a lot of blood at the scene, we think it's a dump job.

Calleigh: The homeowner, Alison, found it this morning when she woke up. [Alison nods wanly, but gorgeously, in response] We're canvassing the neighbours, but the raccoon could have been here overnight.

Horatio [standing sideways and taking off his sunglasses]: Alexx, any ideas on cause of death?

Alexx: Well, there's soil on his paws and a half-eaten grub in his mouth. And there are some marks on his head that look like the tines of a rake. It looks like this poor baby was eating some grubs he'd dug up from the lawn, when someone chased him up on the deck and hit him with a rake. Horatio, who could do this to a poor, sweet raccoon? [Camera pans to Alison, who looks shifty. Gorgeous, but shifty]

Horatio: Well, we'll just have to dig up an answer... [puts on sunglasses] ...the killer won't like.

[Horatio broods for a second and then theme music starts: The Who singing Pinball Wizard -- all the other good and possibly relevant Who songs having already been taken by the other CSI franchises]

***
I don't know. I think it could be must-see TV.

UPDATED: Full episode storyline posted due to one person asking popular demand. Click here for CSI: Carp -- "Mask of Death".

Perspective

Yesterday did not start out well. The girls were tired when I got them up -- my fault really. I'd let them stay late at the park the evening before, which pushed back bath and bedtime routines. Rae had been whiny and obtructionist, fighting me every step of the way through bath and bed. I had hoped that the morning would be better, that sleep would solve some of the behaviour. But no. Tired and cranky, Leah was in tears, and nothing could fix Rachel's bad mood. We argued all through breakfast, she refused to wear the clothes I'd put out for her, and bitched about what I was putting in her lunchbox. I was distracted, trying to keep mental hold of the million things at work and home that I have to keep track of. Leah reminded me about soccer practice, and the fact that she needed new cleats, which I'd forgotten.

So, I was in a bad mood, the girls were in bad moods, and no one was behaving well. Then the girls started in on each other, and I snapped. I was slamming cupboard doors and yelling, and generally not behaving like a calm, rational adult. Everything was just too much. The house was a mess, we were running late, the gas tank on the car was almost empty, we were out of cat food, the clothes dryer was still broken, I had a meeting at work that I wasn't prepared for, everything was just terrible and overwhelming and just. too. much.

I took a deep breath in preparation for continuing to argue (a pointless, stupid argument) with Leah, when a thought crept in past all the tumult -- I bet Tori Stafford's mother would give anything to be having an argument with her daughter right now in a messy house with a broken dryer.

I stopped yelling and apologised. We waited while Rae went and chose a new outfit for school. And when I dropped them at daycare to catch the school bus, we parted with the usual hugs and kisses. All you need is some perspective to see what's really important, and what isn't. It's heartbreaking that sometimes that perspective comes at such a great cost.

(8-year-old Victoria Stafford disappeared on her way home from school in Woodstock, Ontario, on April 8. Surveillance camera footage showed her walking away with a young woman. Two days ago, a 28-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman were charged with her abduction and murder. Police are still looking for her remains.)

Awesome. Cheesy. Craptastic. Yes, 80s excess at its best/worst.

The dancing! The emoting! The Desperately Seeking Susan spokes-singer! The blond Duran Duran wannabe guy! The flaming torches! The fake snowfall! The new-wave mullets! The parachute pants! The cartwheels! The bending upside-down and singing between the legs while wearing red stilettos!

Yes, it's all here. All that and much, much more. Treat yourself.



(I totally stole this from Bill's Facebook page. Thanks, Bill. And Happy Birthday too, my friend! I think you'll find that your forties rock.)

I bet even Peter Gabriel never saw this coming

On my way to work today, I passed the new headquarters of the Taoist Tai Chi Society of Canada. The building it's housed in used to be a Swiss Chalet restaurant -- a chain famous for rotisserie chicken and distinctive chalet-style architecture.

Does the juxtaposition of tai chi and rotisserie chicken make anyone else think of this:



Or is it just me?

The relevant part starts at around 3:21 of the video. And I do that every time I'm making a roast chicken or turkey. When I'm rinsing it in the sink before putting it in the roasting pan, I make it dance, and bow, and gesture with its little wings, for my own amusement, while I sing Sledgehammer (badly). I like to think that it would make Peter Gabriel smile.

Barbie does the National Capital Region

This showed up in my inbox and was too good not to share. Of course it'll be funnier for the locals who read it.

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Ottawa market

Orleans Barbie

This princess Barbie is sold only at the St. Laurent Centre . She comes with an assortment of Kate Spade Handbags, a Lexus SUV, a long-haired foreign dog named Mignon and a designer kitchen. Available with or without boob job, tummy tuck and face-lift. Workaholic Ken sold only in conjunction with the boob job version.
Barrhaven Barbie

The modern-day homemaker Barbie is available with Dodge Caravan minivan and matching Lululemon yoga outfit. She gets lost easily and has no full-time occupation. Traffic-jamming cell phone sold separately.

Arnprior Barbie

This recently-paroled Barbie comes with a 9mm handgun, a Ray Lewis knife, a lo-rider Chevy with dark tinted windows, and a Meth Lab Kit. This model is only available after dark and must be paid for in cash (preferably small, untraceable bills) ... unless you are a cop, then we don't know what you're talking about.
Westboro Barbie

This yuppie Barbie comes with your choice of BMW convertible or Hummer H2. Included are her own Starbucks cup, credit card and country club membership. Also available for this set are Shallow Ken and Private School Skipper. You won't be able to afford any of them.

Stittsville Barbie

This pale model comes dressed in her own Old Navy jeans two sizes too small, a NASCAR t-shirt and tweety bird tattoo on her shoulder. She has a six-pack of Coors light and a Hank Williams Jr. CD set. She can spit over 5 feet and kick mullet-haired Ken's butt when she is drunk. Purchase her pickup truck separately and get a confederate flag bumper sticker absolutely free.
Rockcliffe Barbie

This collagen-injected, rhinoplastic Barbie wears a leopard print outfit and drinks cosmopolitans while entertaining friends. Percocet prescription available as well as warehouse conversion condo.

Kemptville Barbie

This tobacco-chewing, brassy-haired Barbie has a pair of her own high-heeled sandals with one broken heel from the time she chased beer-gutted Ken out of Cougar Barbie's house. Her ensemble includes low-rise acid-washed jeans, fake fingernails and a see-through halter-top. Also available with a mobile home and a Skidoo.

Glebe Barbie

This doll is made of actual tofu. She has long straight brown hair, archless feet, hairy armpits, no makeup and Birkenstocks with white socks. She prefers that you call her Willow . She does not want or need a Ken doll, but if you purchase two Barbies and the optional Subaru wagon, you get a rainbow flag bumper sticker for free.

Vanier Barbie

This Barbie now comes with a stroller and infant doll. Optional accessories include a bus pass. Gangsta Ken and his 1979 Caddy were available, but are now very difficult to find since the addition of the infant.

Mount Tremblant Barbie

She's perfect in every way. Ken has a condo in downtown Ottawa and visits on the weekends.


I'm still waiting for Byward Market Barbie, who comes with a sleazy clubbing microdress, a handstamp from Helsinki Lounge, a tequila shooter, and a 3 a.m. shawarma.

Laundry Wars Part I: Alison vs. playground sand

There seems to be a high percentage of clay in the sand at the playground. Rich clay, saturated with highly coloured particulate matter, hides amongst the sand grains and binds with foot sweat to create an instant and indelible brown stain on the bottoms of socks. It insinuates itself into small shoes and rainboots during play, and no sock is safe from its foul malevolence.

I have tried presoaking. I have tried stain-removing spray. I have tried bleach. Oh, how I have tried bleach. I've used enough bleach that the chlorine-y scent of those socks causes flashbacks to ogling jailbait at the community swimming pool. But I have failed.

(I would like to state at this point that I was going to take pictures of the socks, I had even posed them artfully against my white kitchen tiles, and then I realized that really, as interested as you all are in the minutiae of my life, no one wants to see pictures of my childrens' stained socks. If you are disappointed at this, please seek help. But I digress....)

First Battle of the Bleach - a mere skirmish

Add one cup of bleach to water in washer, set washer to warm, put stain-sprayed socks in washer, cross fingers. Stains laughed, flipped me the bird, and drove their jeeps back behind their own lines.

Second Battle of the Bleach - covert maneuvers

Add one and a half cups of bleach to water, set washer to hot, put stain-sprayed socks in washer, cross fingers. Stains took heavy losses, but regrouped, called in air support, and held onto their territory.

Third Battle of the Bleach - going nuclear

Put socks in bathroom wash basin. Add hot water and 2 cups of bleach. Leave soak for an entire afternoon. Stains have apparently mastered duck-and-cover and/or time travel to avoid giant bleach nuke. Although the blast force of the bleach totally faded out the colours of the socks, as soon as the fallout had cleared it was evident that the stains, like cockroaches, had survived the attack.

***************

Why it didn't occur to me that lovely pastel pink, green, and pink-and-yellow-striped socks would be, I don't know, bleached out to sad, pale, blotchy versions of themselves, as if you'd tie-dyed ghosts, I'll never know. I was just so determined to get the stains out. So now my children are walking around in two-toned socks: whitish tops with brown bottoms.

I still love the smell of bleach in the morning, even if it doesn't smell like victory.

Screaming adult snake valium

This is a fairly sleepy little blog. On an average day, about 50 people visit here and leave between 10 and 15 comments. Most visitors are in the friends (both real-life and blog friends) and family category. Others stumble across Party of 3 in a variety of ways. A few days ago, I posted about Colin Firth, and the stats exploded. (Well for me it was an explosion, proportionally, visits to my site tripled.)

I did a little research and found out that these hits, which were coming from all over the world (Japan, UK, Belgium, Germany, Romania, Portugal, Australia, China, France, Canada, USA), could all be traced back to 2 Colin Firth chat sites that had linked my blog. There are A LOT of women who seriously like some Colin apparently. More than I ever imagined. They didn't leave any comments, but that's OK, I like seeing all the new dots appearing on my map of the world widget that tracks visitor locations.

Over the last little while, I've been interested in how people find my blog. I've been keeping track of Google search strings that have sent people here. There are two search strings that appear over and over. "How to remove a squirrel from your fireplace" and variations on that theme send 2 to 3 people per day to this blog post. Think of it. Squirrels are falling down chimneys all over North America and Europe at a rate of 2 or 3 a day, sometimes as many as 5! This is verging on being an epidemic of squirrel falls. Perhaps the World Wildlife Fund should get involved.

And then there are those who Google "I'm too sexy for my shoes" (1 or 2 per week) and get sent here. A large percentage of those hits come from India. Curious. Maybe Right Said Fred should mount a comeback tour in Mumbai.

But it's the weird search strings that bring people to your blog that are the most fun. Ones that make you shake your head. Ones like these:

Can you light a fire in your chimney to chase a squirrel out?

Technically, yes, but it's a really bad idea. Seriously.

Kermit crack
I don't even want to know if that is some new kind of illicit drug or a frog in plumber pants.

Tampax crafts
Eeew, stick with the foam shapes and glitter glue. Please.

i want to send a sorry mail to my manager that i have done wrong stuffs in the party
Getting drunk at an office party is nearly always a career-limiting move. Except maybe in Japan.

Alison Detroit nude
While I have been in Detroit on more than one occasion, and I have been nude from time to time, I can honestly say I've never been nude in Detroit. Not even that one time...

Male cow penises
Um, what other kind of cow penises are there?

screaming adult snake valium
Sorry, I only have the screaming children's snake valium on hand. Wish I could help you though.

What's the weirdest search that ever brought someone to your blog?

Colin Firth is not always brooding

I've been having a Facebook conversation with Jen. You know, Jen, who's having a significant birthday tomorrow? Well, I know that a milestone should be properly celebrated, and so I gave her Colin Firth to have as Husband #2:


And out of the goodness of my heart, too, NOT just to keep her away from my fiancé:

(And I would like to note that she was very gracious in her gratitude.) Now, what was I saying? Yes, Facebook. Well, Jen was saying that Colin seems to be brooding a lot. I've set out to prove her wrong. Humour me and check out the following evidence:

Not brooding at all. Quite content, actually, like he's just finished a lovely meal, and the waitress that just served that lovely meal had a low-cut top and a nice rack.

Definitely not brooding. Definitely happy, verging on giddy. (The extra head growing out of his shoulder is a bit disturbing though.)

Sort of brooding, but if you squint a bit you can convince yourself he's merely undressing you with his eyes.

Not brooding. But exceedingly damp. And prone to leave stains.

Not brooding, merely concentrating on holding a sword to someone's neck while simultaneously looking down her blouse.

Not brooding. Pensive. That's it, pensive. Or thoughtful, abstracted, and preoccupied. (A thesaurus -- best investment I ever made.)

Not brooding. His eyes are closed because he is overcome with love. Or he has a migraine. Or Bridget has just accidentally hit him in the sensitive bits with her purse. But he's not brooding.

So not brooding.

Not brooding. Merely solemn and meditative, and a bit contemplative.

Positively gleeful.

OK. I'll agree this is a full-on brood. No matter. I'm sure that Jen could soon put a smile on his face.

Happy 40th anniversary of National Jen Day!

A whiter shade of pale

Have you ever been in Florida or Arizona in the winter months? And have you ever walked past a hotel, snug in your cardigan/jacket/windbreaker, and noticed very, very pale people cavorting in and around the outdoor pool in bathing suits saying things like, “I can’t believe how *warm* it is!”? Those people are Canadians.

I should know. I’m one of them. I remember December 2006, basking by the pool outside a Phoenix hotel while grounds staff wearing long pants and jackets wielded leaf blowers the other side of the ornamental fence. Christmas carols were playing, and my kids and I were jumping in and out of the emerald-green water of the outdoor pool.

Cut off from the sun and subject to subzero temperatures for long periods of time by our lengthy winters, Canadians (especially those like me, who are of British ancestry) on holiday in tropical climes will strip down to shorts or bathing suits as soon as the thermometer creeps above 18°C (66°F) and expose their blindingly white skin to both the elements and the locals with exuberant abandon. This is so prevalent (and we are so very, very pale) that the only way you can see Canadians lying on a nude beach, and avoid stepping on them, is to watch for them to blink. (Not that I'd know about the nude beach from experience, mind you, I'm just sayin'.)

This carries over into our behaviour at home. Long after our neighbours to the south are giving themselves sunburns while gardening, we are shovelling the last patches of snow off the lawn and onto the driveway to get it to melt faster (and believe me, the irony of that situation after a winter of doing it in the opposite direction is not lost on anyone). So when an unseasonably warm Saturday rolls around in mid-to-late April and the thermometer goes up to 27°C (84°F), tradition dictates that we purchase beer, fire up the barbecue, uncover pasty white arms and legs, and let the children welcome the warm weather with the annual rite of spring: the slip 'n' slide.



The sharp-eyed among you will notice that while there is no snow left on the lawn, there are no leaves on the tree yet either.

The Universe still has a sense of humour

This is the last song I heard on my MP3 player in the Radiology waiting room before my name was called to go in for my mammogram.




Bwahahahaha. Pretty apt, no?

For XUP and Loth

Even lower primates, such as Ring-tailed Lemurs, know that toast should be buttered and eaten while hot.

(Click to enlarge. Do it. They're really cute.)

And so, to recap:

Acceptable toast-buttering:



Unacceptable toast-buttering.



Any further questions?

(Photo credits: adorable lemurs courtesy of a friend of a friend, thank you C&J; scrumptious hot-buttered toast (both multigrain and white), dripping with buttery goodness courtesy of my toaster oven and camera; cold, brittle, mutilated toast courtesy of an ad in the last LCBO Food and Drink mag, photographed by me.)

Carp to Belle River, a journey in random mode

Unlike the trip back from visiting family for Easter, the trip down was actually a pretty good one. The car was well provisioned with snack foods and juice boxes for the kids, and diet Cokes for me. The gas tank was full, and the MP3 player was charged.

I don't have an iPod, I have an RCA Lyra which has a very temperamental operating system that makes random mode about the only good way to listen to it. I loaded it up with songs that I like, and ones the girls like, and hooked it into the FM modulator so we could listen to it over the car radio. On the dot of 7 a.m. (well, more like 7:15, but still scarily on schedule) we hit the road. I pressed play.

7:17 a.m. Pulling onto Craig Side Road. Playing: I Wanna be Sedated by the Ramones.

• OK. Not the most auspicious beginning-the-journey song. And I probably won't want sedation until at least Woodstock. Maybe London.

9ish. Hwy 7, somewhere near Tweed. Playing: She's got the Jack by AC/DC.

• Alison [internal monologue]: Funny. A song about cards. I *think* it's about cards. [singing along with song]: "She gave me the Queen, She gave me the King, She was wheelin' and dealin', Just doin' her thing, She was holdin' a pair, But I had to try, Her Deuce was wild, But my Ace was high." [back inside head]: Yep, cards. Stop. Wait a minute -- I'm thinking maybe "the Jack" is a euphemism! "And if I'd known what she was dealin' out, I'd have dealt it back" Ooooh. Oh. Well, I'll be damned. It's a song about STDs. Probably should be "She's got the clap." Heh. Not cards.


• Leah: What's this song about, Mum?


• Alison: Cards.

9:20 a.m. Somewhere along Hwy 37.

• Pull over to use the very user-UNfriendly playlist 'feature' to find some Taylor Swift for the girls. Love Story for Leah, and Our Song for Rachel. This takes about 15 minutes, but forestalls all the pouting that I could see coming when I looked in the rear-view mirror.

10:07 a.m. Turning off Hwy 37 onto the 401 at Belleville. Playing: Kiss by Tom Jones (his cover of the Prince song).

• Yeah, I know. Mega cheese. But this song is like Roquefort -- horribly stinky, but very enjoyable in small quantities.

11:25 a.m. Hwy 401, going through Oshawa. Playing: Three Pistols by the Tragically Hip.

• I'm freshly caffeinated, back on the highway after a drive-through, riding the coffee buzz with a Timmie's large (double double, of course) in my hand, Lake Ontario looking so blue to my left, rocking out to this song, and it suddenly hits me that I couldn't feel more Canadian if the girls were wearing hockey jerseys and eating poutine in the back seat, while Margaret Atwood rode shotgun with a beaver on her lap drinking a Keith's.

12:33 p.m. Hwy 401, cruising through Toronto. Playing: What is Love by Haddaway.

• This song comes on and I start to laugh, remembering downloading it one night after a couple of glasses of wine. I tell the girls that they have to shake their heads to the side in their seats like in A Night at the Roxbury (which started from this Saturday Night Live skit). They've never seen the movie, but I demonstrate, and they get right into it, and the three of us are shaking our heads in perfect unison, when I look to my left and see the driver of an 18-wheeler watching us and cracking up. I wave.

1:21 p.m. Hwy 401, just past Cambridge. Playing: Learning to Fly by the Foo Fighters

• I look at the speedometer. Oops. 130 km/h! Good thing I haven't seen any OPP since Port Hope, I was flying.

2:30 p.m. Hwy 401 near Chatham. Playing: Detroit '67 by Sam Roberts.

• Wasn't 1967 the year of the Detroit riots? Ironic, seeing as there's a riot breaking out in the back seat. Someone did something horrible, like breathe the other one's air, or take up a nanometre of the other one's side of the seat.

3:30 p.m. Belle River, Ontario, my sister's driveway

• I'll take that sedation now. Make mine a glass of red.

What a long strange trip it's been

I'm just dashing this off quickly before I head for bed. I have a longer, much better post describing my trip from Ottawa down to Windsor percolating, and maybe I'll get to write it tomorrow. Instead, you get a few random thoughts about my trip home today. All 13 hours of it.

Things I learned today:

• I need Mapquest. Seriously. It sounded easy: pop off the 401 at Burlington and meet Josie for lunch. In reality? Overshoot Burlington while looking for the QEW instead of 403. Finally exit on Eglinton Ave. and have to backtrack, appearing an hour late for lunch.
• Those small paper bags from Tim's that a single donut comes in don't hold much vomit. Also, they are only waterproof for a short period of time.
• My sister shells out for the good Ziploc sandwich bags, not the cheap ones.
• Good sandwich bags can hold a fair bit of vomit in a pinch, and don't leak.
• Leah gets carsick.
• Alternatively, Leah has the stomach flu. The jury is still out at this moment.
• I have amazing friends. Josie waited an hour for me to show up, fielding my increasingly frustrated phone calls with good humour. She let Rae eat most of her lunch when Rae's pizza was not to Rae's liking, and entertained Rae while Leah and I made several trips to the ladies' room. And she let us borrow the couch at her office for Leah to rest a while before I put the poor girl back in the car.
• My life is totally ruled by Murphy's Law.

Catch you tomorrow. I'm off to bed.

Move over, Fellini

Last Sunday it rained. It was dreary and cold, and Rae was playing over at Kate's, so Leah was bored. Crafts soon palled, as did the TV, and for once Lemony Snicket failed to enchant. What to do with a bored nine-year-old? Why, introduce her to movie-making, that's what.

Inspired by XUP, and her sarcastically funny films An Evening at the XUPs and XUPs Go Shopping, I fired up the computer, went to Xtranormal, played around with it for a few minutes with Leah, figuring out how to work things, and then left her to it. She wrote, produced, and directed two short films.

The results speak for themselves.

Set in jarring juxtaposition against the disparate backdrops of a sterile suburban tract house and an idealized Japanese landscape of blooming cherry trees, these intertwined examples of her ouvre show clearly the existential angst of living in constant conflict with a younger sister.

In the first film, Me and Rae, the fact that Leah appears smaller than her younger sister demonstrates clearly the Jungian underpinnings of the eternal sibling rivalry. In the second film, Me and Rae II, the roundness and fuzzy amiability of the Leah and Rachel teddy bears and the beauty of the fairytale setting contrast with the harsh way the two characters treat each other. Both films, however, do show the sisters reconciling, perhaps indicating that peace is still attainable in a hostile and uncaring world.

ME AND RAE



ME AND RAE II



Truly a cinematic tour de force. Of course, being her mother, I could just be biased.