Category: Life, the Universe and Everything

My mom wants to know about your bra

(Heh, catchy title, eh? Made you look!)

It’s true, though. For more than four years, she’s been one of my most loyal readers, but only rarely comments. (I do occasionally get an offline earful, but that’s another story!) Now, though, for the first time, my mother has actually proposed a topic and asked me to ask you for your opinions.

Talk to me — no, wait, talk to my mom — about bras. Love them or hate them? Necessary evil or favourite accessory? She and I have differing opinions on the subject. She sees them as a necessary evil, something to be released from at the earliest possible opportunity. Taking off her bra is her first step to getting comfortable, the way I imagine it’s like for a guy to take off his tie at the end of the day. Freed from societal convention, she’d happily go braless all the livelong day.

Me, not so much. I put on a bra first thing in the morning, and take it off last thing before bed. I hate not having one on – I feel worse than exposed, I feel uncomfortable and, well, unsupported. While actually shopping for bras is torture, once I have one that fits it’s my new BFF. I don’t like fancy bras or push-up bras or multicoloured lacy bras; I just like plain old comfortable, supportive, do-your-job-and-don’t-be-in-my-face-about-it bras.

As a matter of fact, I’ve been waiting until I finish nursing to go down to the high-end bra shop near where I work so I can pick up a couple of decent if not expensive ones that fit perfectly, something I was just about to do in 2007 when I found out I was pregnant with Lucas. I tried one on one day on a whim, wondering why on earth someone would pay upwards of $100 for a bra, and was astonished to see it slim 10 lbs off my silhouette instantly. Now I can’t wait to go buy one or — the luxury of it all — maybe two! Having a decent bra is like having a good hair day — it just makes everything better.

Talk to me my mom about your foundation garments, bloggy peeps! Are bras to be endured only as long as decency dictates or so fundamental you would never think of going without? (Notice that the idea that they could be purely for fun never even crosses my radar screen!)

Another harebrained scheme, you say? Chicken-brained, maybe.

So you know what I’d like to do? Not today, not this year, but maybe once the boys get a little older and I have a bit of free time on my hands again?

Raise a couple of chickens in the back yard.

(waits patiently for gales of laughter to subside)

No, really! Back at the end of December, I read an article in the Citizen about the urban chicken movement, and I was intrigued. According to what I’ve read, the chickens are reasonably low maintenance, actually good for your back yard, and two hens will produce eight to ten fresh eggs a week. How cool is that? Educationally amazing for the boys, healthy for us, good for the environment, minimal effort on my part — I love the idea.

I know my mother is rolling around on the floor laughing as she’s reading about this, and Beloved – who to his credit has gone along with just about all of my schemes and capers with nary a whimper of complaint – has flat out refused to even talk about this. He hates chickens, except when they’re on the barbecue with a good coating of tandoori marinade. I admit, I’m a little creeped out by them myself. But if they were our chickens, that would be different, right?

This blog about urban chickens gives an idea of the amount of work involved:

  • Everyday: fill the food bowl, change the water, check for eggs, add wood chips to the nesting box if needed. (takes 5 minutes)
  • Twice weekly: empty the droppings out of the Eglu, very easy to do by design, thanks Omlet! (takes two minutes)
  • Weekly: clean the Eglu by rinsing and scrubbing the interior parts (20 minutes)
  • Semi-monthly: purchase 50-lb bag of layena crumbles at the feed store (cost is $12 and is worked in with other errands)

That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? (An Eglu is a chicken coop specifically designed for urban chickens. A lot more aesthetically pleasing than your standard chicken-wire and wood coop, no?)

My only concern would be the Ottawa winters. Not chicken-friendly. Not only is it bloody cold for a bloody long time, the last time I checked there was about a foot of snow in the back yard (not to mention, erm, about three months worth of dog poop.) And even if by some stretch of the imagination I was able to convince Beloved to let me keep a couple of chickens in the back yard, there is no way on gods’ green earth that he’d let me overwinter them in the house or even the garage.

(Not to mention the tiny but insistent voice in my head that keeps yammering on about the poor, hapless house plants I bring home from the grocery store in a fit of enthusiasm every five or six months, only to neglect into withered brown stumps within a couple of weeks.)

What do you think? Excellent idea or pure folly? Would you do it?

Celebrity sightings?

I’m pulling this conversation out of the comments from yesterday’s post, which has turned to minor (and major) celebrity encounters. Share your celebrity sighting (or, erm, stalking) stories here!

Margaret Atwood was mentioned in the last set of comments, and I have a story of my own to add – one that nicely straddles the line between sightings and stalking, in fact!

It was the late 1990s, maybe 1998 or so, and I was attending a Margaret Atwood reading at the National Library. I had a small collection of autographed Canadian literature, and I was clutching my hardcover copy of Alias Grace, hoping for a signature. I stopped off in the washroom about fifteen minutes before the reading was scheduled to begin and – gasp! – there she was! Margaret Atwood! In the bathroom!!

She stepped into a stall, and I froze. Would there be a public book signing after the reading, or would this be my only chance? If I slipped the book and a pen under the side of the stall, she’d be comfortably seated and able to sign at her leisure. In less than a second, the realm of possibilities played out in my head, and finished with me being escorted out of the library by security with neither my book nor my dignity. In the end, I decided to wait, and got my autograph by standing in line with the rest of the world. “The time I almost stalked Margaret Atwood in the ladies room” doesn’t play out for laughs quite to the extent that “The time I stalked Margaret Atwood in the ladies’ room,” but I didn’t know about blog fodder back then.

Do share! What’s your best brush-with-celebrity story? (And, only a couple of days left to vote to send me to Chicago. Just think of the potential for minor celebrity stalking at BlogHer!!)

Hey you guuuys!! The Electric Company is BACK!!

Waiting for the return of your favourite show can be very trying on one’s patience. Thursday nights during the few weeks between the fall and winter seasons of Survivor can seem interminable. The wait between May and January for Lost is almost unbearable. But this is really something worth waiting for: after 30+ years, my six year old self’s favourite show is back with all new episodes! As I blogged about back in May, the Electric Company is back this week, the new episodes start airing on PBS and TVO!

TEC2009

I took a quick peek over at the new Electric Company website, and after an initial “hey, you messed with my favourite show!” moment, I think I like it! A lot!! They have a little trailer that shows some promise. It looks like they’ve kept the flavour of the original episodes, with a kind of madcap randomness, but updated for kids of today. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of Electric Company Old Skool, you can see it here. (Or you can come over to my place and watch the DVDs with my kids me!)

I’m ridiculously pleased to be on the mailing list for these kinds of releases from Sesame Workshop. Here’s what they had to say about the new Electric Company:

The Electric Company television show is brought to life with a 15 minute narrative storyline that is interspersed with segments that include curricular clusters of music videos, sketch comedy, animation and short films.

The cast of characters of The Electric Company is a group of do-gooders who keep the neighborhood safe with their literacy superpowers and solve problems often created by a group of troublemakers called “The Pranksters.” Stationed from their home base, The Electric Diner, the team consists of four core cast members.

* “Keith Watson,” played by Ricky Smith, is a 13-year-old boy with the power to turn words into graphics/animation.
* “Jessica Ruiz,” played by Priscilla Diaz, is a 13-year-old girl with total aural recall allowing her to replay and display speech as text.
* “Lisa Heffenbacher,” played by Jenni Barber, is a high school student with the power to solve any word problem at super human speed.
* “Hector Ruiz,” played by Josh Segarra, is a 20-year-old college student (and older brother to Jessica) that has the power to visually recall things he’s seen, even if only peripherally.

Teaching letter sounds and words through a series of short films that occur within each episode is vocal percussionist, Chris Sullivan, who plays “Shock,” an Electric Company member who works in the diner and provides the beat as the Company carries out its missions.

Season one of the new The Electric Company will feature comedy segments with Live With Regis & Kelly co-host Kelly Ripa, Academy Award winning actress, Whoopi Goldberg, kid comedian and actor, Kyle Massey, former NFL superstar and Today Show correspondent Tiki Barber, rapper Common and 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer; music videos with Grammy Award winning musician Wyclef Jean and hip-hop superstar Sean Kingston; and original songs from singer/songwriter Ne-Yo, Saturday Night Live’s Jimmy Fallon, rocker Pete Wentz and R&B star Mario.

And, because we’re not in 1976 anymore, Toto, there is an entire interactive section to the new Electric Company website, too:

The new Web site at pbskidsgo.org/electriccompany invites kids to experience the world of The Electric Company within an interactive environment. Launching in conjunction with the television program, the Web site blends elements of popular kid-friendly internet applications that encourage kids to create, share, and rate each others’ video creations and decorate their own profile pages. Kids will also be able to play educational games, based on the curriculum featured in each episode, and win points in support of their favorite The Electric Company characters. The site will stream full episodes that will have aired the day before on TV, Web exclusive behind the scenes segments, cast interviews, outtakes, bloopers and celebrity clips. In addition, extensive downloadable outreach materials will be available to support the TV series and supplement the curriculum that parents, caregivers and teachers will be encouraged to use.

If you live in Ontario, you can catch the new Electric Company with a two hour launch on TVO at 5 pm this coming Monday, January 19, and then Mondays at 5:30 or Saturdays at 9:30. (How happy am I that I’ll be able to watch it with my kids????) You can also catch it on Fridays on PBS.

Sing it with me:
We’re gonna turn it on.
We’re gonna bring you the power
We’re gonna light up the dark of night like the brightest day in a whole new way
We’re gonna turn it on we’re gonna bring you the power
It’s coming down the lines, strong as they can be
Through the courtesy of The Electric Company
The Electric Company. The Electric Company!

(I’m still bummed I can’t get the ringtone for my cell….)

Poor baby

Be thankful you aren’t Lucas this week. Poor guy, not even eleven months old, is having a hell of a week. One week ago, last Tuesday, I brought him into a walk-in clinic because he had a fever and had been sleeping poorly. Diagnosed with an ear infection, and his first dose of amoxicillin.

Saturday night, he got the stomach flu I’d been dealing with since the day before. In one twenty minute span I had to change him into three separate sleepers, and change my own pyjamas twice. Good times.

This morning, the rash that had been on the back of his hips for a couple of days had spread to his entire body, looking alarmingly like measles. I figured it for a reaction to the amoxicillin, but we’d finished the full course of that on Sunday, so I called the ped to be sure. He called us in for an appointment, and said it’s possible that it’s a late reaction to the antibiotics (Beloved is deathly allergic to penicillin) but looked more like a viral rash to him. He also said Lucas has a lot of redness in his throat and some serious mucus building up, further supporting the viral theory. Here comes the head cold.

Sheesh, no wonder we haven’t been getting any sleep lately!

The good news is, the stomach flu made it to the fourth member of the family around midnight last night, so we’re four down with one to go on that count. And I feel like myself for the first time in five days. Here’s hoping for more restful nights ahead!

I promise, blogging of topics other than bodily fluids will resume shortly…

Top 10 TV shows of all time

I’m a big fan of the eclectic CBC Radio program Q, arts and culture from a Canadian perspective. I was listening yesterday in the van while running errands, and they had a segment on one regular contributor’s top ten TV shows of all time list. I thought he did a pretty good job. Here’s his list and justification for each:

1/ The Simpsons – this shouldn’t be an argument; it will become longest running show in history next season, opened doors for prime time animation, cultural influence is immense. Yes the movie was a letdown, but the show is unmatched.

2/ The Sopranos – watching it again reminds you just how groundbreaking this show was; best writing on tv except for the show above it on this list.

3/ Hill Street Blues – changed tv police dramas forever, still stands up today.

4/ M*A*S*H – most watched series finale in history, show broke tv rules and rewrote them – political and funny, this one also comes in a glorious box set edition.

5/ The Wire – another of the recent cable shows that elevated the entire format, simply amazing.

6/ Saturday Night Live – hugely influential, made sketch comedy subversive and voice for counter culture, launched numerous careers, from Chevy Chase and Bill Murray to Will Ferrell and Tina Fey.

7/ The Twilight Zone – remarkable series that still holds up, challenged conceptions of what tv could be, and set groundwork for later shows from The X-Files to Heroes.

8/ The Muppets/Sesame Street – Jim Henson gets a double shot for his two greatest creations, shows that forever changed the way people see children’s entertainment, he was one of tv’s greatest geniuses.

9/ Law and Order – will become second longest running series next year, updated the police procedural for modern era, there would be no CSI without this show.

10/ The Munsters – because I can – this show kept me company during many sick days when I was a kid – I still love it – way better than The Addams Family.

Okay, so I’m not a fan of the Munsters, and I’ve never seen The Wire, but I’m on board with just about all of these choices in the order he included them. Interesting that there are no medical dramas in here – no ER, no Grey’s. I might find a place for Seinfeld or Friends in my own top ten list, or maybe All in the Family. And the original Star Trek. I’d put an asterisk beside SNL to include SCTV. And I’d like to find a place for Survivor, because it was the granddaddy of all reality television — like it or hate it, there’s no doubt it changed the TV landscape.

Whaddya think?

Best Bet Toys for 2009

[Edited to add: Click this link for information on the most recent CTTC Toy Report for 2010.]

Apparently, I’m a creature of habit and tradition. (Who knew?) Each year since 2005, I’ve blogged about the Canadian Toy Testing Council’s annual Toy Reports. I love these reports because they aren’t sponsored by any company or store; toys are tested and rated by Canadian kids and families. You can search for a particular toy to see how it ranks and what families did and did not like about the toy, or you can peruse the Best Bet listings for the best-ranked toys of the year. There’s also a “children’s choice” category, and breakdowns by age group.

This year’s Best Bet toys include old standards like playdough (in this case a Diego/Backyardigans combo), Brio trains, Lego, and a handful of Crayola sets. They also recommend a Musical Bingo game which sounds kind of intriguing and an indoor Scavenger Hunt game from Pazow that I might just have to pick up for my little scavengers.

If you’re looking for recommendations for great kids’ books, you can get that from the CTTC site, or you can hop over to Mad Hatter’s blog and take a look at her ongoing series on the subject.

This year, our Christmas gifts to the boys will skew toward their current obsessions with Lego, Pokemon (choke), and Star Wars. Simon loves board games as much as I do, so we’ll add to our family collection of those, too. And while I’m guessing Lucas would be just as content to play with the wrappings as the toys inside, I’ve got one of these classic FP telephones stashed away for him, too. Some toys never go out of style!

Got a favourite toy or gift to recommend?

Happy birthday, Sesame Street!

Like me, Sesame Street is 39 years old — and still going strong! I’ve blogged before about my love for the show, especially the old skool ones where Cookie Monster loved his cookies always and not just as a sometimes food. I’ve got the Old School DVDs, the Songs from the Street CD collection, and I’ve got my favourite clips bookmarked on YouTube.

I would have loved to craft a fun and creative post incorporating the news release I received today, but I’m also dreadfully short of online time right now. It’s too good not to share, though. For the rare exception of Sesame Street, I’ll just cut and paste the entire release for you!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. New York, NY- Fans of television’s longest-running children’s series, which celebrates its 39th birthday today, will have three new digital platforms to access their favorite episodes according to executives from Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces Sesame Street.

iTunes – For the first time, beginning today, fans will be able to download full Sesame Street episodes right to their computers for $1.99 per episode. Launching with 12 episodes from season 35, this new offering adds to already-existing content on iTunes including free outreach videos on the Learning Along with Sesame TV series such as Talk, Listen, Connect – a program helping military families and their young children cope with the challenges experienced during deployment and Happy Healthy Ready for School where Elmo discovers some wonderful things as he learns to get ready for school which will launch on November 17th.

Sesame Street You Tube Channel – Provides access to over 100 of the best Sesame Street clips and currently has 1.3 million video views. Fans can look forward to seeing more segments on a monthly basis.

Hulu – On this new channel, which went live last week, Sesame Street fans can view over 100 Sesame Street segments plus over 30 of the series’ most popular celebrity segments including Julia Roberts and Laurence Fishburne. New clips will be added on a monthly basis.

In addition, the Workshop was awarded a Google Grant, an in-kind donation program awarding free AdWords advertising to select charitable organizations. When Google users search on keywords related to Sesame Workshop an ad will appear next to relevant Google search results under the Sponsored Links sections which will only help the Workshop reach more of their audience and fulfill their mission to reach all children.

32 minutes

For the last two days, Lucas has been averaging a 32 minute nap, a couple of times per day. That would explain, for those of you who are hanging on my every word (hi Mom!), why posting has been so light this week. For what it’s worth, 32 minute naps also make for one cranky-assed little baby who wants to be held and entertained all day, thus further reducing stolen minutes online.

This is a list of things you can achieve in 32 minutes:

  • read/write Twitter updates or read/write e-mails (but not both)
  • fold one basket of clean laundry (but not put it into the drawers)
  • pick up all the clutter off the floor so you can vacuum or actually vacuum (but not both)
  • eat breakfast or clean up the breakfast dishes from the rest of the family (but not both)
  • read the last three or four entries on one favourite blog (but not comment)
  • shower or get dressed (but not both)
  • compose a kick-ass clever blog post in your head (but not write it)
  • write one lame placeholder of a blog post (but not one worth reading)

And right on cue, there he is…

Edited to add: yeah, Lee beat me to it again:

2008_01_21_free_time

Doodle by Lee. The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.