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.

Changes

Sometimes, watching my girls, I'm astounded at how grown-up they are. They look exactly the same for what seems like months on end, and then one morning when they drag their sleepy selves to the breakfast table, they've changed. Subtly, but unmistakeably. One or the other looks older somehow, more mature. Losing the roundness of the little girl faces, the excitement of the little girl voices, and gaining the height, the stretch, the angularity of older girls, the ennui and disdain for things, like Dora, that once they adored.

I get glimpses, flashes, of the teenagers and women they'll become -- Rachel sitting on the couch with her legs crossed, twirling her hair while she finalizes details for a playdate with her friend Kate over the phone, saying "Yes, that works" to Kate's suggestions. Leah and her friends Alice and Ellie breaking character in their make-believe game to gossip about a classmate in trouble for flipping off a teacher. I have no trouble imagining these three in the future sitting around a pub table with beer or wine in front of them, bending their heads together and laughing in the same way that they're now doing over strawberry-kiwi Fruitopia and chips.

But some things don't entirely change. Some things still echo the past and bring to mind the little girls they once were, though those things are fleeting and don't happen often.

Leah was watching TV the other day in a pose I remember from the past. I snapped a picture:


And then I went to the photo albums. The year that Rachel was born, Leah was two, nearly three, by the time Rae arrived. She liked to watch TV on the floor. I opened the album and took out the remembered photo, and snapped a picture of it:


It's nice to know that some things haven't changed.

Little Miss Muffet redux, now with extra snot

Man, I'm just hittin' them out of the park with my titles lately, aren't I?

Well, here's the scoop. I apparently spit in the Universe's eye last week when I was bragging about making it all the way through the fall and winter without a single cold. Sure, we danced a bit with a gastro flu once or twice in the household, but no pain-in-the-ass, drippy, sneezy, coughy colds. The Universe has a wicked sense of humour, though. It bided Its time and let me make it just past the vernal equinox and into spring before unleashing the mother of all head colds on my unsuspecting body. I'm thinking of redoing the occupation portion of my business cards to read "mucus factory". The one bright spot (and I really hope I'm not jinxing us yet again) is that the girls are showing no signs of this plague.

So, since my head is full of what feels like bricks and, well, snot, I'm incapable of coherent writing and will once again reach into the archives for a previously viewed post. And seeing how well snakes went down, this one's about spiders. I'm *not* a fan.

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 test subject 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.

For Meanie, or Anatomy of a fashion icon

When five-year-olds dress themselves for playing outside in September.

No velvet was available at the time.

Facebook thinks I'm fat and lonely

Facebook thinks I should take a good long look at myself in the mirror.

I am apparently not achieving my full potential. It's obvious from the steady stream of gently nudging ads that appears on my profile page. I have no doubt that Facebook has only my best interests at heart, and truly wants me to be a better person. A thinner, less wrinkly, and happily shacked-up in-a-relationship-with-my-soulmate person. (A short digression, Facebook: glass houses and stones. Your new layout really sucks leaves a lot to be desired. Epic fail. Seriously. You need to change the format back. Do it for yourself, if not for your members.)

But let me count my shortfalls according to this Dr. Phil wannabe social networking phenomenon, as manifested through the ads:

1. Compatible Single Men! - lonely
2. The Dr. Bernstein diet - fat
3. Are you 45? Win a Wii Fit! - old and out of shape, possibly fat
4. Ottawa Singles Events - lonely
5. Meet men over 40! - lonely, and only attractive to fellow oldies
6. Fine wines at the LCBO - Well, OK, Facebook, you got me there.
7. It's better than Botox! - wrinkly
8. Lose weight with Acai berries, Hollywood's secret! - fat, and easily swayed by celebrity
9. Date a millionaire! Meet single, verified Canadian millionaire men who want to date classy women! - lonely and shallow/gold-digging. And easily flattered due to my desire to believe in my own innate 'classiness'.
10. Amazing anti-aging cream: Why does Celine Dion look so much younger than she is? - (I don't know, maybe she sang at the devil until he couldn't take it anymore and gave her a portrait for her attic?) - old, with a side of wrinkly

Yeah. Then why am I in such a good mood seeing as I'm obviously totally pathetic?

Status: Alison is logging off Facebook and getting a glass of wine.

Cadoo

A package arrived for the girls a couple of weeks ago. Presents from Aunt Lise. The best thing nestling inside the box (except maybe the Mamma Mia! DVD for me) was a copy of Cadoo. Cadoo is a game from Cranium, which makes some of the best, most imaginative board games for kids around. And this one is no exception. There are cards that can only be read with secret decoder glasses, and when one person reads the clue, she must either act out the answer, sketch the answer, or model the answer out of bright purple modelling clay for the other players to guess. There are also codes to be broken. It's loads of fun, and the great thing about it is that although it's fun for all of us to play together, the girls can play it by themselves, without me having to help out.

I came up from the basement the other day, with some chicken from the freezer to thaw out for dinner, to find the girls had pulled the game out and were playing in the living room. Rachel had just finished miming 'eating breakfast' -- spooning up invisible cereal, when Leah sculpted her object and placed it triumphantly on the coffee table:

Y'all know what this is, don't you?


That's right. It's a tap.

Spring

It's above freezing today, it's nearly 11 degrees. The sun is shining, there's birdsong in the air -- the metallic-sounding calls of the first robins, the chirring of the red-winged blackbirds, the harsh croaking of the bluejays, and the autumnal honking of the geese heading back north -- and my front walkway is a small lake from the melting snow. I have all the windows open to air out the house, and I'm already thinking about all the yard work that will need to be done when the last of the snow is gone.

And I'm not the only one in the house who's noticed that spring is coming.

Snake-o-rama

Just in case the title of this post has left you in any doubt -- I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that this is a post about SNAKES. There will be pictures of SNAKES in it. Real ones. If pictures of SNAKES make you feel icky and/or freaked out, then it's time to click on over to a small fluffy animal blog or something.

You have been warned.

OK, so you might have noticed that there are no snakes in the above picture. Don't bother looking either, it isn't a "Where's Waldo the Snake" picture. (Unless the snake guy didn't take them all with him when he left, and I'm pretty sure that he did. But, if Max turns up missing any time soon, then maybe I should check under the couch. But I digress...) That's the adorable birthday girl, above. The one who loves snakes, and reptiles, and yes, amphibians. She is a fan of all things scaly and slithery and tadpole-y. So, when we were at the Carp Fair last year, and Leah saw that there was a Little Ray's Reptile Zoo tent there, she was mesmerized by the snakes. She found out that they did birthday parties, and it was game over. We were having a Snake Party!

Children were invited:

And a few adults were too:


(You didn't think I'd let this opportunity to quote from Snakes on a Plane go by without taking advantage of it, didja?)

Pizza was ordered, the room was decorated, and the cat was locked in my ensuite bathroom to avoid inadvertently becoming snake chow.

I can't say enough about Kevin and the show he put on with the snakes. He was so good with the kids, he remembered all their names, was so patient with all their questions, and really, really knew his stuff. It wasn't just letting the kids pet the snakes, no, he started with North American snakes, and then South American, African etc. He explained what kind of snake each was, where it comes from, what it eats, how big it gets, etc., etc. He also brought a monitor lizard and a cayman. The kids were spellbound. It was fun and educational and way cool. Here are a few of the 50 or so pictures I took:

A teeny tiny Rubber Boa, native to BC. Who knew we had boas in Canada?


It looks like a Rattlesnake, but it isn't, it's a harmless Bullsnake.


The monitor lizard had very sharp claws.


The Yellow Anaconda was my favourite snake, it's just beautiful. And heavy.


The cayman was pretty laid-back. I'm thinking crocodillian valium. He did have his snout taped shut (avoiding his nostrils) just to ensure that there were no nasty missing-finger issues.


Then violently and without warning, the house was tipped on its side and screaming children slid down the suddenly inclined walls to fall in a giant heap while Kevin valiantly used a hook to keep the Reticulated Python pinned to the once-floor and now-wall so that it wouldn't be flung down on the unsuspecting kiddies!!! (No, not really. For some reason I can't get this photo to come out in the correct orientation. I've rotated and saved it about 50 times on my hard drive to no avail, but my explanation is way better, I think. Just tilt your head.)

That snake (Reticulated Python) was voted Most Likely to Eat Someone, as it was not a happy camper and lunged at Kevin. No petting was allowed, and it was sent to its box without any supper.

And then came the big boy. Or big girl, actually. I think her name was Pebbles. Yes, I had a 12-foot Boa Constrictor in my living room. How incredibly cool was that?

Check out the size of her! She's huge. And gentle. She seemed to like all the petting.

After we said goodbye to Kevin and the reptiles, and everyone washed their hands, it was pizza and cake time.

I don't think any of the kids is going to forget the party anytime soon. Samuel L. Jackson would have been proud.

In which I break a promise

It's 11:17 p.m. This time shift to daylight savings is kicking my ass, because the kids aren't tired at bedtime because their bodies think it's earlier. And I can't get the photos to load from the server at work, where they're stored.

So, to avoid making this the sum total of the snake pictures from Leah's party:

I am going to have to wait until tomorrow to blog about Leah's Snake (and other assorted reptiles) Party.

Snake-o-phobes be warned, there will be snake photos in tomorrow's blog.

Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated

Well, I can't deny it. I've been a bad blogger lately. It's been more than a week since I've updated. And I haven't been round to visit many of you either. Some intense structured-writing and XML training, a presentation for my French class, and planning Leah's birthday party (which will be blogged in all its snaky glory, so be warned) kept me away from blog .

But here's how much I love you guys. Five minutes ago, I was upstairs in my living room. In my comfy chair. With a glass of red wine at my elbow, a fire burning merrily in the (fortunately squirrel-less) fireplace, the Sens one goal up on the Buffalo Sabres on the TV, and a P.D. James novel open on my lap. The girls were WWF wrestling playing nicely and I was trying to decide between brie on crackers or dark chocolate for a snack.

And now I'm here. Down in the dank ENAC-infested basement where the computer lives. Instead of being up there, in the warm bosom of my favourite hockey team family. The guilt at not posting more often was made that much more manifest since I spent a lovely few hours brunching with other Ottawa-area bloggers down on Elgin Street today. It was great to see the uh-may-zing bloggers I've already met -- XUP, Nat, Andrea, Maven, Jobthingy -- again. I also got to meet two of my other blog roll reads in person (finally!): Adventures in Mongo, and Raino M.O.T. And I had a great conversation with the Dandelion King's human.

So, here's the deal. I promise to get back on the bloggy horse tomorrow and tell you all about the 12-foot boa constrictor I had in my living room, if you promise to come back and read. And I'm a person who takes her promises seriously. (And on that note, Maven, I want to hear that you actually did deflower a masseur for me at the spa today, K?)

Return of the evil ninja assassin cat

Morning greetings, Large One. I see you and your skin kittens feeding at the table. I spurn your meal. It is a meal fit only for humans. Toasted bread and brown sticky spread from nuts that grow underground. Pah! I spit on your meal. (I mean, if my mighty death-dealing jaws were able to spit, I'd spit on your meal.)

Not for you are the tasty flayed carcasses of mice, or the heady intoxication of bacon 'n' liver dinner fresh from the can. Not for you is the cool fresh water lapped from the large white bowl in the room where the skin kittens immerse themselves in vile baths. Not for you are the.......wait.....I smell milk! Ah milk, sweet nectar of the feline gods, second only to the warm, salty tang of blood from still-twitching prey.

I am the evil ninja assassin cat! I. Will. Have. Your. Milk.

I will use all my ninja skills. I will use my stealth and my grace to perform such acrobatics as are necessary to acquire the milk that should, nay must, be mine! You dull humans will not even see me as I impersonate the shadows and the darkness to liberate that which should by rights belong to the superior being in this household.

It begins.

Intimidation and cranberry sauce

Today, American President Barack Obama is visiting Ottawa. Also, I was late for work this morning.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that these two events are linked, but actually they're not. It wasn't presidential road closures or steely-eyed Secret Service types that prevented me from reaching the office on time. It was gang activity.

Yeah, in West Carleton. I know. I'm surprised and disturbed too. There I was, minding my own business, driving down Old Carp Road, when a gang stepped out into the street. A girl gang. All dressed alike in black, sneering at me. They were loitering all over the front yards of a couple of houses, and when they saw me coming, they stepped out into the road, blocking my way. Daring me to blow my horn at them or get angry. I'm not ashamed to admit I was a little scared. They looked mean.






When I got out my camera and started snapping pictures they moved off, swearing at me. At least they didn't key my car.

As I drove away, I started to feel hungry, and I swear I could smell sage.

How I spent Valentine's Day

Becca was back in town from college, and she came over to our place to hang out and visit with me and the girls. This had something nothing to do with the fact her parents wanted to have a romantic Valentine's Day evening at home alone.

This is what we did

Tobogganing:



(Notice how Rachel tries to take her big sister out at the bottom of the hill in the above clip. Sisterly love at its best.)



Rachel doesn't make it all the way down the hill this time. She ends up with only Becca's hat and no sled.

Cooking:


Making a heart-shaped pizza is harder than you'd think. A quarter is cheese-only because Rae is too damn picky possessed of a discriminating palate.


Caesar salad. Thanks to Daysgoby for the crouton recipe, they were soooo good.

Eating:


After that, I lost interest in photography, but we had ice cream and strawberries for dessert and then we all watched Mamma Mia! on DVD and I wanted to sing, but Rae kept shushing me. Then the girls fell asleep and Becca and I watched the late hockey game on TV and talked.

It was a very good Valentine's Day.

L is for loser, that's good enough for me

I'm either a really nice mum, or certifiably insane, or maybe both. Friday is a PD day at the girls' school, so today is the day that they will be exchanging valentines. Of course, we did not purchase valentine cards when they hit the shelves, back in late December, nor are we the Martha kind of family who hand-makes individual valentines out of red velvet, Alençon lace, spun-gold thread and unicorn hair, so I realized yesterday that we would have to go shopping for VDay cards that night so that my girls would not suffer social ostracism at school. ("Yeah," I can hear you saying, "Good luck with that.") It took stops at 5 stores (one department store, 2 grocery stores and 2 pharmacies) before we found some that weren't either Dora the Exporer or Hannah Montana. Which meant that Leah and Rachel were up past their bedtime filling out the cards and taping a foil-wrapped chocolate heart to each one (because cards are not enough, apparently).

And then while making lunches this morning, an olive escaped when I was transferring it from the jar to a container for Leah. It bounced across the kitchen counter, onto the dining room floor, where it rolled between the CD tower and the wall. Batting a very interested Max away, I sat on the floor to retrieve it, instead of just bending over. Why, I don't know -- probably because I was so tired from wrangling overtired kids to bed way too late, and from having a crappy night's sleep because of Rachel ending up in bed with me -- but it provided the opportunity for some sticky-backed foam letters and numbers that had been left on the floor when the girls were making crafts to afix themselves to the seat of my pants. I didn't notice, and if the girls did, they weren't saying. So I came to work this morning with a purple S and a yellow 8 stuck to my jeans. I was like some kind of pervy Sesame Street episode: "Today's ass is brought to you by the number 8 and the letter S."

Luckily I saw them in the mirror when I went into the washroom very soon after I got to work, so I don't think very many people anyone noticed. Loser.

Singin' the blues

Well, it turns out my car has a faulty crank sensor. Alrighty then. (I wonder if people can have this problem too, and that's why they're so cranky -- their sensor is faulty and they don't know that they should just lighten the hell up. But I digress...)

The good news is that I should get the car back today, and that my amazing friend and next-door-neighbour Connie drove my kids to daycare and me to work yesterday, and then picked us all back up and brought us home. (I have the Best. Neighbours. Ever.) I'm working at home today so I'll be able to pick it up when it's ready. Also, it's a fairly small repair bill, which is a good thing.

The bad news is we're expecting freezing rain all afternoon, and if I don't get the car back early enough, I'll have to walk to the school in freezing rain to pick the girls up and walk them home, because school buses were cancelled today. Leah had a 7:30 a.m. dentist appointment, we left the house on foot at 7:00 for the dentist's office (sort of halfway between home and school) and I didn't listen to the radio before we left to hear the news and didn't discover it until we had walked to school and found that it was in snow-day mode and there would be no buses home. Sigh.

Oh, and my staus as Angel of Death, Appliance Division (Canada) seems to be totally without dispute, as yesterday, the dryer heater died. It'll tumble, but it won't get hot. Double sigh.

Now if you're thinking (and I don't blame you if you are), "Alison's whining about her life AGAIN!", this was actually a long-winded and only marginally clever intro to this:

What's your blues name?

Follow the instructions below for the genuine thrill that comes with discovering your blues name: From the first list, take the name using the initial of your first name. From the second list, do the same with your middle name. From the third, your surname.

First List: A=Fat; B=Muddy ; C=Crippled; D=Old; E=Texas; F=Hollerin'; G=Ugly; H=Brown; I=Happy; J=Boney; K=Curly; L=Pretty; M=Jailhouse; N=Peg Leg; O=Red; P=Sleepy; Q=Bald; R=Skinny; S=Blind; T=Big; U=Yella; V=Toothless; W=Screamin'; X=FatBoy; Y=Washboard; Z=Steel-Eye

Second List: A=Bones; B=Money; C=Harp; D=Legs; E=Eyes; F=Lemon; G=Killer; H=Hips; I=Lips; J=Fingers; K=Boy; L=Liver; M=Gumbo; N=Foot; O=Mama; P=Back; Q=Duke; R=Dog; S=Bad Boy; T=Baby; U=Chicken; V=Pickles; W=Sugar; X=Cracker; Y=Tooth; Z=Smoke

Third List: A=Jackson; B=McGee; C=Hopkins; D=Dupree; E=Green; F=Brown; G=Jones; H=Rivers; I=Malone; J=Washington; K=Smith; L=Parker; M=Lee; N=Thompkins; O=King; P=Bradley; Q=Hawkins; R=Jefferson; S=Davis; T=Franklin; U=White; V=Jenkins; W=Bailey; X=Johnson; Y=Blue; Z=Allison

You can call me Fat Fingers Bailey. Now where's my harmonica?

Be careful what you wish for

Yeah, don't say things like, "I really wish I could get more exercise." Because you totally know it's going to come back and bite you on the ass.

Case in point: I made the above statement yesterday during a conversation with the mom of one of Rae's friends. Apparently the Universe was listening. This morning, the car wouldn't start. Crap. OK, well, we'll walk to school. It was pretty cold, but they were dressed for it, and it wasn't too bad. Round trip distance for me, about 2 km.

I called CAA when I got home, and they said they'd send someone to boost me. When the guy showed up, it was a good thing he was driving a tow truck, because it wasn't the battery that was the problem. So I jumped in the truck and he towed my car to the small neighbourhood garage I use, which is about 5 km away. After the mechanics said they'd look at the car this afternoon, the tow truck driver said, "have a nice day," and left. By now it had warmed up some and was sunny. So I grabbed my purse and started walking home. I had probably got about 2.5 km before a neighbour driving by recognized me and stopped and gave me a lift the rest of the way.

Total distance walked today (so far): 4. 5 km.

I hope they can fix the car this afternoon, or I might be walking to daycare and walking the kids home (4 km round trip). And I think that would be just a bit too much exercise for one day.

Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!

Well not really. It's more like, "Pre-written from Ottawa, it's Thursday morning!", but I've always wanted to say that. I may not be a guest host, but I have written a guest post.

I'm guest blogging today at Jen on the Edge while Jen and Pete move Jenworld Headquarters to its new digs. So hop on over there and see what I have to say about organization, salad dressing and home improvement.

Updates

I realize that most of you picture me lying about on the couch washing down bonbons with champagne while reading trashy romance novels. (Lance pulled Samantha to him, his nearness overpowering her...) Hah! Shows how much you know. 1. Sauvignon blanc goes way better with bonbons than champagne. 2. I'm more of a mystery fan. 3. I'm too freaking busy to lie on the couch.

Things are a little hectic around here. I've been busy moving into my new office (more on this below), dealing with a case of pink eye (Leah), a case of pharyngitis with inflamed tonsils and adenoids and accompanying fever (also Leah), an upcoming birthday party to plan (Leah again), the general housework/swimming lessons/homework/life, and I'm guest blogging over at Jen on the Edge tomorrow, so I've had to write something halfway decent.

All of this is to explain why I've been slacking somewhat in the blogging department around here. So, since I'm all but legally brain dead and incapable of writing something coherent, I thought I'd just update you all on a couple of things.

• I met with my director regarding my office. I finally got the whole story, and there was no malice involved, just really bad timing and, in government-speak, poor optics. We are undergoing an integration with another branch to create a new entity and managers are being moved over from another building. The director was only informed of the necessity to find this particular manager some office space after I had already vacated, and all the other managers of that level are along the hallway where my old office is. I got an acknowledgement that it was poorly handled, so now I can let it go and move into my new office (which isn't that bad) knowing that I stood up for myself.

• After debuting as number 358 on the library request list for Twilight, I finally got it. I have to say that I am seriously underwhelmed. I've reached the part where Edward rescues Bella from some would-be rapists and I'm not enjoying the story much at all. I don't think it's the vampires -- I like vampire stories just fine. I guess it's the fact that the protagonist and all her friends are teenagers, and I don't like watching TV shows or reading books about teenagers. Yawn. Bella is irritating, and I want to march her off to an ENT doctor to see if he could do something about her obvious inner ear disturbance that causes her extreme clumsiness and propensity for falling down. I'll probably perservere to see if it gets any better, but at this point, I gotta agree with XUP's thoughts on the book.

I hope to be back to posting on a semi-regular basis soon. At least until the new bonbon shipment comes in.