Rated PG for language

I was driving home from grocery shopping with the girls a couple of evenings ago. The radio was on, but I wasn't listening -- my mind was far away, already thinking of the other things I had to do once the groceries were put away and the children in bed.

Leah: Why did he use that word?

Me: (coming out of my reverie) What?

Leah: He just said a bad word on that commercial.

Me: (listening now to the tail end of a car dealership ad) Really? What did he say?

Leah: He said, "no-asshole financing."

Me: (nearly driving off the road, laughing) Oh, honey, I'm pretty sure he said "no-hassle financing."

Leah: (laughing along with me) I guess that makes more sense. Otherwise, they wouldn't give financing to people who are... you know...

It's probably a good thing that there isn't any no-asshole financing. If there were, I can think of a few people I know who wouldn't have cars.

Busted

Rachel turned 8 last weekend. She planned an almost-24-hour birthday party which included a trip to the pool at the rec centre (the one with the cool waterslide), pizza, Boston Cream Cake, a movie and a sleepover. It was an unqualified success. Lots of fun was had by all the kids.


During the party, Leah and I decided that we really didn't want to watch Furry Vengeance with the 8-year-old partygoers, my tolerance for Brendan Fraser not being at an all time high. So we repaired to my bedroom, where we watched Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. I figured that it wasn't too bad for Leah to watch -- less gore than the Indiana Jones movies, and about the same kind of plot. I'd forgotten a few things about the movie in the years since I first saw it though:

1. Despite what the credits say, the two main actors in the movie are Angelina Jolie, and Angelina Jolie's breasts. They're in almost every scene. Front and centre.


2. Daniel Craig is in the movie. And I think you all know how I feel about Daniel Craig.


(I have to give him kudos for looking her in the eyes in this picture. I'm pretty sure those things would exert an actual gravitational pull.)

3. Daniel has an almost-nude scene in the movie.


Yes, he's taking a shower (!) and hears a noise. Stepping out of the shower, and not bothering to grab a towel (squee!) he picks up his gun, and posing carefully behind a view-blocking table (what's the opposite of 'squee'?) he inserts a new clip into his gun (see picture above) and then walks to the door. He throws it open to reveal a startled chambermaid, who screams and throws a towel at him, which, disappointingly, he wraps around himself while apologizing to the maid in Spanish. Still PG rated, yet the scene makes the whole silly plot, Daniel's atrocious attempt at an American accent, and the wall-to-wall presence of Angelina's boobs worth watching.

We were watching an old VHS tape of the movie ('cause I'm old school), and as soon as the scene ended, Leah left the room to get more popcorn for us. I rewound it and watched the scene again. And then I rewound it and watched the scene again. Leah walked back in during the third time Daniel inserted the clip into his gun.

Leah: Did you rewind that?

Me: What? Oh. Um. Yeah. I did.

Leah: Why?

Me: I couldn't hear what he said at the start of the scene, so I rewound it to see if I could hear it better.
(I figured it was pretty good thinking on my feet, if I do say so myself.)

Leah: Mum?

Me: Yeah?

Leah: He was in the shower. He didn't say anything.

Busted.

I'm not a cat lady, honest. I'm stopping at two.

Pulling into the driveway one evening after work about two weeks ago, I saw a small furry creature streak across the lawn and into the bushes near my front door. It was small, but it didn't move like a squirrel. The girls and I went over and peeked into the bushes, and a tiny brown tabby kitten looked at us fearfully for a fraction of a second and then took off running into the neighbour's yard.

Over the next few days, I saw the little guy twice more. Once I caught him peeking at me from the hedge separating our yard from next door. And once, alerted by Max staring fixedly out the sliding glass doors, I saw him up on the barbecue, which I had forgotten to close after using it the night before, licking the grill to get at the last remnants of stuck chicken. Both times he fled when he saw me.

We live in the country, sort of, and so do coyotes:


martens:


and fishers:

Oops, sorry:


All of which (except for the guy who married Carrie Underpants Underwood) would look on a kitten as a tender morsel about on par with popcorn chicken. Not to mention the fact that winter is coming, and we live a block away from a very busy road full of potential kitten-smushing traffic.

I was not going to let that happen.

I started leaving a bowl of cat kibble out on the back deck near the sliding glass doors, and soon he would show up for a quick bite and then would disappear. With some help and direction from my friend Lori, I read up on feral kittens, and began to plot the kitten's capture. I started putting his food inside a cat carrier, and calling to him when I put the food out for him. Last Sunday, when he was in the carrier eating, I slowly slid the glass door open, put my hand out, and closed the cat carrier. The target was acquired.

He's been given a clean bill of health from the vet, except for worms and ear mites, which are to be expected in a feral kitty, and he's been medicated for both. He needs to stay in isolation (in my ensuite bathroom) for another week before being introduced to Max. How the Evil Ninja Assassin Cat is going to react to having a henchkitten is anyone's guess. I am sure we will hear from him in the fullness of time.

Here he is, peeking out from behind my clothes hampers:

and here he is with one of my giant shoes for scale:


When we first caught him, he was too scared for me to check whether he was a boy or a girl, so Leah and Rachel and I made a deal: if the kitten was a girl, they could name her, if it was a boy, it would be called Angus. I've wanted a cat named Angus ever since I read Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison. It turns out he's a boy.

Leah doesn't think he looks like an Angus, but I don't know, I think he kinda does:

Sick... a pictorial history of yesterday afternoon

There is no one like her in the whole universe

Found while initialling work in Leah's workbook, where the teacher had asked them to explain the word 'unique':

Unique means special and that there is nothing in the whole universe like it.

I am unique. There is only one of me, unless I have been secretly cloned.

Yep, she's my daughter alright.

Squirrels: cute woodland creatures or evil vermin? Discuss.

I have a really nice mature oak tree in my yard. It is large, and spreading, and produces big, glossy brown acorns that look good enough to eat. So, if they look appetizing to me, you can only imagine how delicious they look to the squirrels in the area.

Lately, there have been scads of squirrels in my yard, busily burying the booty from the oak tree. 'Oh how charming,' I thought, 'you know it's fall when the industrious squirrels are out looking so cute and busy burying the acorns.'

That was a few days ago. Now I'm not quite so charmed. See, the very best acorns grow at the very ends of the branches, which are thin and springy. And the portly squirrels, seriously in need of a zumba class or two, have trouble staying on the branches to eat or collect the acorns. Their solution? Bite the ends off the branches and toss them down, then climb down the tree and stuff their fat little faces in comfort on the grass. The lawn under the tree is littered with the branch ends -- a clump of 10 or 12 leaves on a twig that's been neatly severed with a perfect 45° bite.

It can't be good for the tree, and it makes a lot of work for me and the girls picking up the now acornless branch ends off the lawn. At first, I found myself muttering, "Stupid freakin' squirrels" under my breath, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that they're pretty smart freakin' squirrels.

Smart .... and evil.

I have to wonder that since they figured that problem out, can attempted world domination be far off?

I'm going to need a pointy hat with a veil

This morning did not start well. Somehow the alarm didn't go off, and I slept in an hour and a half late. So it was an insane scramble to get the kids to school on time and then get to work for an early meeting with my boss.

And of course, just as I dropped the girls off, the empty light on the gas gauge came on, which meant a detour to the gas station.

But there, at the gas station, when I went in to pay for the gas after pumping it, the day got a bit brighter. First, there was the surprisingly good coffee I bought there, as I hadn't had time to make any at home. And then there was the fact that the cashier called me "My Lady."

Yeah, "My Lady." Not "Miss" or "Ms." or the dreaded "Ma'am." But "My Lady". I felt like Guinevere.

It was very courtly and unexpected:
"Just the coffee and gas?"
"Yes, thanks, just the coffee and gas. I'd like to pay with my debit card."
"Do you have an Airmiles card, My Lady?"
"Um. Oh. Yes, here it is."
"Have a good day, My Lady."
"Thanks. [trying not to giggle] You too."

I was really tempted to add "My Lord" to the end of my last sentence. But I didn't. I did smile all the way to work though.

Conrad Black has nothing on her

I think Leah might have a head for business. She decided to set up a face-painting stand at the end of the driveway to make some money to spend at the Carp Fair. She was very methodical. First she drew designs of the various face paintings on offer on pieces of paper that she inserted into plastic photo-album pages, and created a catalogue of designs. Then she bought some face paint crayons.

I heard the following when she was discussing how much she should be charging for the service with her sister:

Rae: How much are you going to charge?

Leah: I don't know. A dollar? Hey! We should go on Dragons' Den and ask for $300 in return for 40% of the business.

I figure I'll be getting a Rolls for my birthday in a couple of years.

(For my American friends, you have Dragons' Den too, only it's called Shark Tank down there.)

I'm back. Damn.

This is a picture of a cat with mice crawling all over its head:


This is a fairly accurate representation of how it feels to be back at work in the office after two weeks of vacation (sleeping late, eating too much and having entirely too much fun):



Any questions?

No, we still don't like Justin Bieber around here

Perhaps unaware of Leah's feelings for Justin Bieber, my mother, who's staying with us for a visit, had the following conversation with Rachel about a Justin Bieber song playing on the radio:

Mum: Do you like this singer?

Rachel: Nope, he's not my cup of tea. [Glances down at what she's holding in her hand] Well, actually, he's not my can of Grape Crush.

Wait, is this irony?

So, a month or two ago, I succumbed to a slick sales pitch and moved my internet and home phone service to Rogers Cable from Bell/Sympatico. But it seems that their marketing push was far more advanced than their infrastructure. The cable bringing all this communications goodness into my home was patched into the cable box on the street behind mine and the guys who laid it put it right on the grass, through the yard and perennial garden of the house right behind mine. I'm waiting now for the company to get all the necessary permits for burying the cable..

I get along really well with my neighbours, but as you can imagine, they aren't really thrilled with a cable coming through their yard. They're retired and avid gardeners. The husband, when he noticed the cable through his yard, called Rogers to complain, and at one point, threatened to run over the cable with his lawnmower. He wasn't serious, just blowing steam. He would never have done that to me.

Three days ago, we suddenly lost the phone and internet. You guessed it. He accidentally ran over the cable with his riding lawnmower.

Irony? Maybe.

Annoying? Yeah.

What I did on the weekend -- Part 2: How do you say "Curse you, Mapquest!" in French?

So, we went to Québec for the weekend with friends. And we had a great time. The end.

That would be the Coles Notes version of the weekend, or the correct answer when someone at work asks, "So, what did you do on the weekend?" just to be polite. But you know me. When have I ever answered anything in less than full essay format with pictures and footnotes? Never, that's when. But in the interests of not boring you silly all at once, and stretching this story out for a couple of posts in hopes of reversing my terribly sporadic posting history of late, here is Part 2 of the story -- How do you say "Curse you, Mapquest" in French? (Part 1 can be found here.)

So, bright and early the morning after the B52s, Josie and I loaded up the kids, dropped the key at the neighbour's place so she could look after the cat, and hit the road exactly on time. This was huge. This is unheard of for me. (If you'll allow me to digress a bit, when it comes to traveling, especially estimated time to actually leave home, I work on Alison Time, which is Eastern Standard Time + anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours....ish.) And we were planning on meeting Jen and her family in Québec. We've managed a quick vacation with Jen for the past two years, and here's my batting average:

2008, Toronto. I plan to leave at 5 a.m., getting to TO by 9:30 or 10 a.m. I actually leave at 7:30 and then have to drive around the city of Belleville en route looking for an open pharmacy because Leah has inexplicably spiked a fever. We arrive at 11:30 a.m.

2009, Charlottesville, Virginia. I plan to leave at 5 a.m. and it's a 12 hour drive which should put us there around 5ish. I actually leave around 7 a.m. and it takes us longer than expected due to roadworks and a traffic jam due to a burning 18-wheeler, and we arrive around 8 or 9 at night.

So, you see, I don't have the most sterling reputation for punctuality. But having Josie there to wrangle the kidlets and help do the last-minute chores helped immeasurably. And we managed to get about 5 minutes away from home before Rachel realized that she'd left Daffodil, her stuffed bunny, at home. So we turned around, and retreived the bunny. Whew, still only 10 minutes behind schedule.

I had looked up a route to get us to Quebec City that bypassed Montréal and was about 5.5 hours long. And then I typed the route into Mapquest and printed out the driving directions. (Maps? We don't need no steenking maps!) We left at 9 a.m. Simple math tells us that we should arrive around 2:30 p.m. But oh how the gods laughed at us. I am fated never to be on time, at least when Jen is involved.

Most of the trip was uneventful. I did turn onto one wrong highway -- well it was the right highway, but in the wrong direction, but we needed to stop for gas and ketchup chips anyway, and use the bathroom, so it was more of a refueling stop than a mistake.

But as we neared the outskirts of Québec, the clouds gathered close and darkened. The wind sprang up, and it started to rain. Lightly at first, but with increasing intensity. Did I mention that we didn't have a map, only driving directions? Do you know how hard it is to navigate using driving directions in a strange city with lots and lots of one-way streets? And lots and lots of roadworks and traffic lights on the flash cycle? And stop signs every block along a main road that we seemed to be the only people stopping at, nearly getting rear-ended a couple of times?

The rain just got harder. And it was coming down (across?) pretty much horizontally. Thunder and lightning were crashing and flashing (respectively) and I was white-knuckled on the steering wheel while Josie was reading the directions and we were both trying to read the ridiculously small lettering on the street signs. We didn't need a map, we needed an ark.

It was only a matter of time until the inevitable happened. We missed a street sign and became lost. Using my Infallible Sense of Direction ™, I attempted to circle around and get back onto Rue St-Paul, and back onto our driving directions. Because unlike a map, which you can use to figure out where you actually are and where you need to go, driving directions just tell you where you should be, you poor stupid bastard. And circling around works much better in a place with fewer one-way streets, I'm just sayin'.

So, soon we were irretrievably lost. Well, we knew that we needed to be in the Old City, which is at the highest point in the area, and has the oldest buildings. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to drive around, heading upwards? In traffic? In a monsoon? Surely not? Um, nope, not too hard. Just slightly impossible.

Fortunately Josie is the ultimate travel companion. Nothing fazes her, and we were laughing our asses off and cracking wise about the whole situation. After my Infallible Sense of Direction ™ took us down the same dead end (sans issue) for the second time, we parked at a corner where we could see both street names and called the hotel. And were promptly put on hold for 15 minutes. Instead of muzak to listen to on hold, the hotel had promotional messages looping in French and English. And each time the French voice started up, I thought I was talking to a real person and would launch into my halting French to ask directions, only to find I was talking to a recording. Finally we got a real person on the line. I told him we were at the corner of St-Foy and Désy and that we needed to be at the hotel. Jo got on the line with him and he talked us in.

Except that Josie wrote all the directions down with him on the line, and had hung up before we actually reached the hotel, and we ended up circling a fountain in front of the Chateau Frontenac a couple of times before realizing that we were lost again. I pulled over in front of the SAQ (the Quebec version of the LCBO) and hopped out. I went in, and in my very best French, said to the man behind the counter, "Je m'excuse, Monsieur, pourriez-vous m'aider? Nous sommes perdu. Nous cherchons l'hotel Clarendon." He smiled and said, "You're almost there. You need to go one more block that way, turn left and you can't miss it." I thanked him and went out to the car.

"How did it go?" asked Josie. "We're fucked," I replied quietly, so the girls wouldn't hear, "He said we couldn't miss it, which always means I will never be able to find it in a million years." But five minutes later, we arrived, unloaded the luggage and more importantly, the cooler with the beer in it. The valet swooped down to whisk away our car, and we went in to try to sort out the rooms. Jen had been texting/emailing Jo's Blackberry for arrival updates and had found out and let us know that Josie was not booked in for that night, but for the following two.

I don't remember what time it was exactly, but it sure as hell wasn't 2:30.

Tomorrow: We have an ecstatic reunion with our friends and walk about 275 km, most of which is uphill.

What I did on the weekend -- Part 1: Ribs, beer and awesomeness at Bluesfest

So, we went to Québec for the weekend with friends. And we had a great time. The end.

That would be the Coles Notes version of the weekend, or the correct answer when someone at work asks, "So, what did you do on the weekend?" just to be polite. But you know me. When have I ever answered anything in less than full essay format with pictures and footnotes? Never, that's when. But in the interests of not boring you silly all at once, and stretching this story out for a couple of posts in hopes of reversing my terribly sporadic posting history of late, here is Part 1 of the story -- Ribs, beer and awesomeness at Bluesfest.

Prologue: (see, I told you I never tell any story the short way) Back in April, when the Ottawa Bluesfest (an amazing two-week-long outdoor music festival every July that I have never attended despite living in Ottawa for 13 years) announced its lineup for this summer, Becca called me and told me it was high time that I actually attended a show with her, and she suggested the B-52s. I decided she was right. And since the show was the night before the girls and I were leaving for QC, and my friend Josie would be staying with me that night, and since Josie is also a big B-52s fan, we all decided to go together.

On Thursday, Becca and Josie came up from St. Catharines and Burlington, respectively, and we ate lots of barbecued ribs and chicken and drank beer (in stinking hot temperatures) at my house and then headed off to Bluesfest to catch some acts. The Moody Blues sounded pretty good from our vantage point by one of the beer tents (never let it be said that we don't have our priorities straight) where we caught the end of their set. Then we wandered over to another stage to check out Andrew Bird, whom Bec had seen before and wanted to see again.

While Josie and I both agreed that he is a virtuoso musician, and the many, many people watching him perform were very, very appreciative, we realized that his music was not our glass of beer cup of tea, and Bec soon escorted the old people (Josie's words) to the main stage and settled us safely there (with admonishments not to go anywhere else so that she could find us again), waiting for the B-52s to start. She left to catch the rest of the Andrew Bird set and Jo and I marveled at the strange assortment of humanity there, including a really large woman dressed in a pink and champagne corset and tutu outfit (complete with a tiara), and a really, really drunk guy in a battered straw fedora and a red Hawaiian shirt covered in chili peppers who looked like he'd just been paroled from a Jimmy Buffet concert.

The concert was amazing! The crowd was dancing and singing, and the band looked and sounded like it was the 80s all over again. I couldn't say it better than this review from the Bluesfest site:

Last night LeBreton Flats was transformed into a giant go-go dance party as surf-punk New Wave staples The B-52s took the stage to headline day three of the Ottawa Bluesfest.

As the city endured soaring temperatures during the hottest day of a relentless heatwave, the B-52’s rollicked through a set that never slowed down, keeping the crowd on their feet and dancing despite a humidex reading that stayed in the forties until well after the sun had gone down.

There’s a certain quirkiness inherent in the call-and-response between pre-rap quasi-singer Fred Schneider and the harmonious pair of Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson that permeates the B-52s sound. And while the ultra-distinctive vocal stylings have always set the band apart from the rest of the New Wave scene, it was the jangly open-tuned guitars and some remarkably tight drumming that kept things moving last night on the MBNA Stage through hits like Deadbeat Club, Roam, and the ultra-lounge party smash, Love Shack.

Bec joined us again just in time to hear Funplex, which was my fave song of the night and the three of us watched the rest of the set. We danced and sang, and at one point, Becca took a picture of Josie and me with the band in the background. The pix have yet to be uploaded, as Becca forgot her USB camera cable in Ottawa when she headed home. But fear not! Through the magic of MS Paint, I am able to recreate the picture of Josie and I at the B-52s:

Don't we look happy? We were.

After playing Love Shack, the band left. But not for long, in response to the crowd's yelling and clapping, they came back for an encore and played Planet Claire (and I'm embarrassed to say that for all these years I thought it was a synthesizer on that song, and it isn't, it's Kate Pierson's voice! And she can still do it perfectly.) and finally Rock Lobster. We all knew it was coming. The crowd went nuts. (Well, as nuts as an Ottawa crowd will ever get.) And then we filed out of the Bluesfest grounds with the rest of the crowd. As we were being swept towards the exit by the crowd, someone started mooing, which cracked me up, since the scene was sort of like a herd of cattle being driven into trucks setting off for the slaughterhouse a barn.

We ended the evening with sangria at my place before heading to bed. It was a great kick-off for the weekend.

Tomorrow: The trip from Ottawa to Québec and why maps are a Very Good Idea.

*UPDATED* Why I like to spend time with my kids: they're funny

On the subject of the relative cost of items one might wish to purchase:

Leah, talking about the car my mum won with a $10 raffle ticket: *I'd* like to win a car for $10. You can't even buy a hermit crab for $10.

On the subject of what one might like to eat for breakfast:

Me: What do you want for breakfast?
Rachel: I'll have some of that crispy stuff the locals call "toast".

On the subject of intellectual property law:

My conversation with Leah as she worked on a cat-themed costume for Superhero Day at school:
Me: Who are you going to be anyway? Cat Woman?
Leah: No! Cat Woman is copyrighted. I'm Kitty Girl.

On the subject of anatomy:

Rachel, swimming in next door's pool: It's way deeper than our pool, I can't even touch bottom with the palms of my feet.

On the subject of tween pop idols:

Leah and I watching a Justin Bieber music video on YTV between programs:
Me: So, do you think he's cute?
Leah: Justin Bieber? Seriously??? [rolls eyes] What am I? Six?

On the subject of the appropriateness of names in popular culture:

Rae, playing with Leah's Star Wars action figures: Why is the hairy guy partners with Han Solo?
Me: You mean Chewbacca?
Rae: Yeah, why is Chewbacca Han Solo's partner? He shouldn't have a partner.
Me: Why not?
Rae: Duh! Han *Solo*[meaningful look from under raised eyebrows].....So...Lo? [looks at me all disgusted with my obvious stupidity]

On the subject of proper evil overlord etiquette, when one has not quite heard the lingo correctly:

Rachel and Leah, in the pool during a water fight with pump squirters:
Leah: Oh no, I'm out of ammo!!
Rae: Bwhahahahaha [excellent evil laugh]. Now you will pay! Now. You. Will. Feel. My. Raft!

The more things change....

Summer 2010:

>







Summer 2007:

If I'd known there was going to be an earthquake, I would have shaved my legs

At 1:41 p.m. on June 23, 2010, somewhere 18 km below the surface of the earth, under the sleepy Quebec town of Val-des-Bois, a sudden pressure release occurred, probably along reactivated faults on the failed Precambrian rift stretching the length of the West Quebec Seismic Zone.

Seismic waves rushed out in all directions, through rock and sediment, rippling up to and across the earth's surface, rolling through fields and forests, villages and cities, lakes and rivers.

The magnitude 5.0 earthquake hit Ottawa fairly hard and moved outwards, rumbling through most of Ontario and Quebec and parts of New York state.

In Ottawa, frightened people ran from buildings as first the up-and-down motion of the P waves and then the side-to-side movement of the S waves shook the city. Cell phone systems were jammed. Schools and office buildings were evacuated. Thousands of people milled aimlessly around outside government buildings waiting for the all clear from the teams that had gone back inside to check for structural damage.

And one government worker tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible among the throngs of people, seeing as she had run out of the house late that morning, dressed in a short skirt to combat the forecast hot and sticky temperatures and safe in the knowledge that even though she had not had time to shave, no one would see her unshaven legs, as she would be alone in her office all day.

Crap.

Great moments in motherhood -- not so much

Last night we rode our bikes to soccer practice. Which meant that I spent an hour sitting on a blanket on the sidelines instead of in my semi-comfy folding chair, which has no case with straps and therefore can't be transported by bicycle. I did this because the girls really, really wanted to ride their bikes to practice. And because I try to be a good mum.

Apparently, it worked, because as we were coming back into the house, Rae looked up at me and said, "This was the Best. Day. Ever." (Note: we have a lot of Best. Days. Ever. around our house, and Worst. Days. Ever. are not altogether uncommon either. The younger inhabitants of the Casa de los Estrógenos are pretty dramatic on a fairly regular basis.) "And you are the Best. Mother. In. The. Whole. World." she added. (and yeah, I am also the Worst. Most. Terrible. Mother. In. The. Whole. World. too sometimes. Often in the same day.)

So I asked Rae, in a joking sort of way, "Am I really the best mother in the whole world?" "Yes," she said, nodding solemnly, before pausing and adding, "except for the Christmas concert. Do you remember the Christmas concert? And the football helmet with the head in it. Oh, and the train station. Apart from that, you are the best mother in the world." Then she patted me on the arm and added, "And those really weren't all your fault. [longer pause] Well, the concert one wasn't."

So there are three reasons that Rachel will end up in therapy that are only partially my fault: the Christmas concert, the football helmet, and the train station.


The Christmas concert:



When Rachel was in junior kindergarten (4 years old), I missed her Christmas concert. The very first Christmas concert of her school career. We had flown down to Phoenix to visit my dad in early December, and so Rae was not at school on the day the memo about the time and date for the concert was sent home. Compounding the problem was the fact that a substitute teacher was on duty the day they were handed out, and thus didn't know to keep a copy for Rachel when she returned. And unlike her older sister, who gave me a daily countdown to her class Christmas concert when she was in JK, along with a set list complete with demonstrations, Rae didn't say a word. So imagine my surprise when my daycare provider phoned me one December afternoon and asked why I hadn't attended -- Rae was crying at her house because all the other kids' parents had been at the concert. Every last one. Except me.

When I rushed to pick her up at the end of the day, in tears myself, she looked at me sadly and said, "I kept waiting and waiting for you to come. And then I saw your purple jacket, and I was so happy, but it was only Grace's mother. But it's OK. After we sang, when we all got to have snacks with our parents and show them our artwork, Cameron's mum and dad let me sit with them. And they gave me a donut." Ummm, Mother fail.

The football helmet:

I have a pretty busy life. With work, the commute, the girls, the girls' activities, the house, the yard, etc., etc., and no one to backstop me, I need my little pleasures. Like vast amounts of red wine Thursday night TV. I'm not a big TV watcher, but I do watch C.S.I. and Grey's Anatomy on Thursday nights. And one Thursday, Rae wasn't feeling well. She wanted cuddles and reassurance, and I really, really did not want to miss C.S.I. So I decided to multitask. I put her in my bed at 7:30 with the bedroom TV on and cuddled with her. She dropped off to sleep in about 20 minutes. I extricated myself from her, and popped out to the kitchen to make a drink and a snack, and arrived back in the room to find her sitting up and watching the TV.

C.S. I. had just started, and a football helmet was bouncing down the road in slow motion to an orchestral arrangement of The Blue Danube. Just as I reached the bed and went to grab the remote to turn off the TV, the camera zoomed in to show, as you might have guessed (though Rae didn't), that the helmet contained a gory, bloody, severed head. Cue screams, tears and a nightmare. Mother fail.


The train station:


A couple of years ago, the girls and I took the train down to Windsor, where my family lives. The trip involved a rather lengthy stopover in Toronto's Union Station where we had to change trains. This was made more lengthy when the train we were transferring to was delayed coming out of Montreal. We were all on edge waiting, and I had staked out a position at the very front of the line so that the girls and I could get one of the seating areas on the train where four seats were arranged with two seats facing two seats, so that none of us would have to be in a different row from the others.

The line got longer and longer. Finally a boarding call was made, along with an announcement that we would be boarding from a gate on the opposite side of the concourse to the one we'd been waiting at. The crowd turned and headed for the new gate. I had Rae by one hand and was pulling a suitcase on wheels in the other, with duffle bags and a purse hanging from my shoulders. "Keep up with me," I yelled to Leah, and took off at a run, in order not to lose my spot at the head of the line.
"Mum!" said Leah, with some urgency.
"Not now, Leah," I snapped. "Just keep up with me."
"But Mum...."
"Leah, no talking. Running."
"But Mum, Rachel's fallen down."
I stopped and looked down. Sure enough, I'd pulled her off her feet and she was lying face down on the floor, crying. I was so concerned with getting a good seat, and was already carrying so much weight, that I didn't even notice that I was was dragging her across the wide marble floor, practically dislocating her shoulder in the process. Uh, yeah, Mother fail.

She still brings these up occasionally, when she's been bad, to try to make me feel sorry for her. It almost never works. I just remind her of the time she wandered away from me at the Carp Farmers' Market when she was three years old and scared five years off my life. I figure we're even.

Heroes Aren't Born, They're Built. (And they come with ballgowns and anthropomorphic cats.)

Did you ever decide you needed a night off?

A night where you planned on indulging in a little red wine and Robert Downey Jr.?

And, by happy coincidence, did this night occur when both of your children had been invited on sleepovers?

And, did you ever settle down happily on your bed in your flannel PJs, with the pillows plumped up just right behind your head, a glass of Sangiovese in your hand, and Iron Man in the DVD player?

And just when you were sighing in relaxation and enjoyment, as the movie started and you took that first ruby sip of your wine, did you ever hear the front door opening?

And did you ever spring from the bed, wondering who was walking into your house?

And did you ever run to the front door, a heavy flashlight held in one hand and your wineglass in the other, because you didn't think to put it down?

And then, did you discover that it was your younger daughter, being returned by the sleepover mother due to a "stomach ache" (cough*homesickness*cough) and quickly hide the flashlight behind your back?

And then, instead of spending your evening watching an insanely hot arms manufacturer/superhero, did you ever spend the rest of the evening cuddling a weepy seven-year-old and watching Barbie: Princess and the Pauper?

If you're a mom, chances are that you have.

Sock mystery: solved!

I bought new socks a couple of months ago, in the winter. I got rid of my old worn out socks and bought a few packages of new crew length socks (longer than ankle socks, but shorter than knee socks) in various colours. I bought black ones, charcoal grey ones, white ones, pale blue ones, mid-blue ones, and navy blue ones. About 12 pairs in all. And now, in May, all I can find are the mid-blue ones. And I seem to have more pairs of the mid-blue ones now than when I purchased them.

WTH?

How could that be? Shouldn't the dryer just be eating one sock of each colour, leaving me with one black, one grey, one white, one pale blue, etc.? But no. There are about 4 or maybe 5 pairs of mid-blue socks in the clean laundry.

I've thought long and hard, and I think I've figured out what's going on.

Seasonal colour transition.

No, really. It all makes sense now. The socks are reacting to the lengthening days, and pigments in their skin are changing to camouflage them against the more colourful summer clothing palette.

It's just nature at her most resourceful. After all, I do live in the northern hemisphere, where wildlife has evolved seasonal colour variations in order to hide themselves from predators (e.g. hares) or prey (e.g. foxes):





There's a Nobel prize for biology, right?

Moonlight sonata

The spring night was magical.

Warm breezes, scented with a hint of the barely open lilac blossoms on the bush outside my open bedroom window, swayed the filmy pink curtains softly to and fro.

The just-past-full moon lit the yard and turned everything silver and black -- the lawn, the trees, and a raccoon hurrying by on some solitary errand.

Stars blazed and wheeled in the night sky, a Van Gogh canvas come to life.

Coyotes yipped and howled down along the river, the sound of their revelry carried up the ridge and through my window on the night wind.

And I was awake at 2 a.m, 3:17 a.m, and 4:03 a.m. to enjoy all this freaking nocturnal beauty because the freaking cat kept jumping up on the bed and standing up on his hind legs to look out the window, sniff the breeze, and growl at the passing fauna -- while using my head as a conveniently positioned standing platform.

And using his claws for balance, of course.