Category: Life, the Universe and Everything

Today is National Grouch Day

Sheesh, they ought to give a girl a little bit of notice on these things. According to the Ottawa Citizen, today is National Grouch Day. Had I known, I would have – erm, well, not baked some cupcakes. Um, not kissed some kittens. Uhhhh, well, I would have done something to mark the occasion. Maybe sucked a few lemons, at least. (Grouch image courtesy of the Muppet Wiki.)

How often do we get to indulge our inner cranky-pants? I’m puffing out my dimples, flattening the laugh lines around my eyes and getting all Oscar today. Today is all grouchy, all the time.

(And just between you and me? It has very little to do with National Grouch Day. In fact, today might be more aptly named Abject Terror Day. I’m doing this tonight, and I’ve got a major case of the performance-anxiety twitchies.)

So, bloggy peeps, I know it’s a break from the relentless cheeriness of our usual Yay Day habit, but what the hell. It’s National Grouch Day, after all. Have at it – grumble, groan, bitch or moan. What’s pissing you off today?

Massive slaughter of innocent hyphens

Fryman, one of my favourite sources for unsolicted blog fodder, sent me an article from the Globe and Mail detailing the mass genocide of 16,000 innocent hypens in the latest edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Formerly hyphenated words will either become new compound words (pigeonhole, waterborne and chickpea) or separated into two distinct words (test tube, water bed and hobby horse.)

In many of these cases, the Oxford was merely catching up with usage: Waterborne, for example, is probably used by the majority of newspapers anyway. (But as if to prove how arbitrary this all is, the old Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors has long given waterbed as one word. Aren’t these books published by the same company?)

Of course, the Shorter Oxford retained some hyphenated phrases to avoid ambiguity: They will permit the phrase “twenty-odd,” meaning “approximately twenty,” because to say “twenty odd people” has a somewhat different meaning. Copy editors love to give examples of the ways in which missing hyphens can cause confusion; perhaps the best-known example is “used car salesman,” which can be read in two ways unless you make a hyphenated compound out of “used-car.” The phrase “50 year old kittens” will also need a hyphen somewhere if it is to make any sense.

According to the UK Telegraph (I will stop at nothing to provide you with high-quality research), Shorter Oxford editor Angus Stevenson said the hyphen has fallen victim to our inherent laziness and unwillingness to stretch out our pinkies and reach for that hyphen key in our electronic communication.

It’s been a while since I railed against the injustices of an evolving language. My latest rant on the subject was outrage at the reduction of two spaces to one after a period (link is to the old blog because your comments are actually more entertaining than the original post!) And, for what it’s worth, a year later I am still firm on this one. A period gets TWO thumb-thwacks on the space bar, not one.

I am much less perturbed about a reduction in the use of the gentle hyphen, however. (I also have more moderate views on the use of the serial comma.) As far back as the first edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary in 1911, there has been confusion about the role of the hyphen:

We have also to admit that after trying hard at an early stage to arrive at some principle that should teach us when to separate, when to hyphen, and when to unite the parts of compound words, we had to abandon the attempt as hopeless, and welter in the prevailing chaos.

I’m guilty of having at least a working knowledge of the accepted practices of hyphenation – and ignoring them for convenience’s sake. When I’m feeling persnickity, I’l go back and edit them in after the fact, most notably when talking about my three-year-old. But some days, it’s just easier to talk about my five year old, ya know?

The one place I use the hyphen rather compulsively, intentionally and against what seems to be growing convention, is in the term “e-mail.” Email just doesn’t look right to me – you need to stretch out the eeee sound with that hyphen.

What say ye, oh wise and learned bloggy peeps? Do you have even the faintest idea of how to properly use a hyphen – and do you care?

Wherein I succumb completely to the PR bandwagon

I’d heard that Dove had a new video out (remember “Evolution“?) but it took me a while to get around to watching it. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few days thinking criticially (and somewhat cynically) about PR pitches and viral marketing and buzz marketing and exactly this type of campaign. Even though this is very much a marketing move on the part of Unilever, I also think it’s a very well-done and important message, and I’m completely putting aside my cynicism to share it with you. It’s worth sharing, and even ties in loosely with the theme of the day about women and their bodies.

Can’t see the embedded video? Visit the Campaign for Real Beauty site.

Penny for your thoughts?

According to a news report this week, the Canadian government has been considering the elimination of the lowly penny. The article says that only one-third of Canadians regularly use the penny.

What the heck are the other 2/3 doing?

I mean, I know use of a debit card has probably widely surpassed the use of actual cash in most transaction. I only ever carry about $20 at a time myself. But everybody has to be using cash at least some of the time. Think about this: Tim Horton’s sells 76% of Canada’s coffee and baked goods (source) and they don’t take debit — how can only one-third of Canadians be using cash?

Mmmm, doughnuts…

Anyway, I’m not sure I’m on board with this idea of dropping the penny. I’m sure that there are far more pennies held hostage in jars, piggy banks and change trays across the country than are actually exchanged in commerce on a given day, but just because something doesn’t work as well as it used to doesn’t mean we should simply get rid of it. Heck, we still keep William Shatner around, don’t we?

My boys are still at that tender age when they believe me when I lie to them, and the sticky-fingered little monkeys like to filch coins off the dressers and countertops where Beloved and I dump them from our pockets. So far, it’s been an easy sell to tell them they’re only allowed to take the shiny, copper-coloured “pirate coins”, which are of course far more valuable than those bulky one- and two- dollar coins. Tristan, bless his clever little heart, has only in the past month or so figured out what a quarter is and that it is infinitely more valuable than the other coins because that’s what fits in all the candy machines. (Sheesh, that’s 2500% inflation since I was a kid – I still remember penny gumballs!)

What do you think? Is there a better use for the $130M the government spends each year keeping the penny in circulation? Or are you a traditionalist who thinks we need to keep the penny alive, at least so we can use it in wishing wells and fountains throughout the country?

(Edited to add: the title of this post was edited to reflect the brilliant comment by Trixie. I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of it myself first!)

My baby brother

When I posted last week about being a lifelong Rush fan, kgirl asked if I had a cool older brother, because it’s been her experience that girls who are Rush fans usually have cool older brothers.

Nope, not me. I have a cool younger brother.

Sean is five years younger than me, and despite the fact that he rarely makes an appearance in the blog, he’s one of my best friends as well as being my brother. It’s actually a bit of an oversight to not mention Sean here more often, as I think he as much as anyone in my life has had an impact on my sense of humour and how I see myself in the world. He and his wife Nat and their two kids – the beautiful, bald, blue-eyed girl who appears in my Flickr photos is his daughter – live outside of Toronto, so while we don’t see them as often as I’d like, I think about them all the time.

I wasn’t always happy to have a brother. Does this look like the face of a girl who is happy to cede her place at the centre of the universe to a baby brother?

Five years and a gender gap is a lot to overcome when you’re a kid. Sure, we played together sometimes – he was great about sharing his awesome collection of Star Wars toys – and we were always happy to have each other, but when I left home he was only 13 years old. And then I lived in another city for his formative years, and it wasn’t until we were both adults that we finally discovered that not only do we love each other in an obligatory sibling kind of way, we like each other as well.

Funny thing is, now that we’re adults it’s me who looks up to him as a role model. He’s my touchstone, my source for what’s new and cool, and my favourite euchre partner. It matters a lot to me what Sean thinks, and he has a huge influence over me – perhaps more than even he realizes! Not only is Sean way cooler than me, but he’s indoctrinated me on everything from music to wine to popular culture. He’s clever and kind and hilariously funny, and now he’s a wonderful father as well.

Happy birthday, baby brother! I love you!!

I heart Geddy Lee

I danced.

I screamed.

Okay, truthfully? When the house lights went dimmed, and the crowd started to scream, and the band came on stage, and the lights came up as Rush crashed into the first few bars of Limelight, and they were RIGHT THERE less than 100 ft from me, my barely repressed inner 14 year old girl and my inner geek rose up and took over in one hormonal moment of overload.

I wept.

It was, in short, a concert worthy of waiting a lifetime for. Three hours (minus a short intermission, thank the gods who watch over pregnant bladders) of solid, grooving, driving rock. Almost all my favourites, plus guest appearances by Bob and Doug McKenzie (does it get any more Canadian than that?) and the kids from South Park (!) and the Best Drum Sole EVER, even according to my father, the former professional drummer. You can read the Citizen’s slightly more objective but no less favourable review of the concert here.

I’m sure the Player to be Named Later was completely perplexed… between the throbbing baseline reverberating through my sternum (my ears are still ringing), the dancing, and me screaming myself hoarse, the poor baby was more than a little confused. He danced right along with me for a lot of the night, though, so I think we’ll have to replace our Wiggles DVDs with some Rush concert tour DVDs for this one.

An interesting aside: this may be the first event I’ve ever attended where the line-up for the men’s room was three times longer than the line-up for the ladies’ room! After I noticed that, I looked around the stadium, and sure enough the guys outnumbered the girls easily 10 to one. It was also the first concert I’ve been to in a long time where people actually stood through the whole thing. In our section, aside from the opening song, people mostly stayed in their seats, but toward the end of the second set when they launched into Spirit of Radio and followed it up with Tom Sawyer, we were all on our feet and stayed that way right through the end of the encore.

Today, I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store when I noticed the guy in front of me wearing a tour T-shirt from the concert last night. We got to chatting, and agreed it was an all-around amazing show. I was basking in the rehashed memories when the clerk packing my bags, a fellow of maybe 17 or so, looked at me and asked, “What’s Rush?”

Ouch. Oh well, I may be too old to be culturally relevant anymore, but after watching old dudes rocking the house on stage last night, I’m okay with that.

Dr House at the Children’s Hospital

Yesterday, I put 157 kms on the car: 50 kms round trip dropping Beloved off at work and going back home to pick up Tristan; 25 kms round trip to CHEO (the Children’s Hospital) for an appointment; then I dropped off Tristan at school, dropped off Simon for his first day of nursery school (!), picked Simon up an hour later, picked Tristan up, and drove another 50 kms round trip to fetch Beloved.

Seriously? We need a second car.

***

The appointment at CHEO was kind of funny. I’d finally gotten around to asking Tristan’s ped about a spot that he’s had at the crown of his head back at his well-baby five year appointment in the spring, and the ped suggested a pediatric dermatologist take a look at it. It was actually a pinpoint scab that I noticed the day Tristan was born, and the nurse tried to tell me it was likely where “the probe” broke the skin, despite my insistence that there was no probe (I may have been in the throes of labour, but I was still paying pretty close attention to what came and went between my legs!) Over the years, it has become a hairless raised blistery bit about the size of a blueberry, and although I’m not overly worried about it, I figured we should get it checked out. Over the summer, he also developed a rather ugly black mole on his leg that we also wanted to have checked.

We’re puttering around the house getting ready for the appointment, and Tristan is loagy, hiding under a blanket and reluctant to get his shoes on. I finally feel his skin, and am not sure whether he feels flush because of the blanket or because of something else. Sure enough, I finally get him up and moving and realize he’s got that distinctive glassy-eyed look that spells fever. I debate for a few minutes, think of the five-month wait for this appointment and the work stuff I cancelled to stay home, and make the executive decision to tylenol him up and head out anyway.

We wait for more than a half an hour at the CHEO clinic, and though he’s subdued, he’s also fidgety and not terribly warm. He’s off, but not dealthy sick.

Finally, we get called in. A moment later, a very young woman (or maybe I’m just very old now) comes in with his chart and introduces herself as the resident, and asks me if it’s okay if more than one doctor does the examination this morning. I’m thinking she means her and the senior doc, so I’m fine with that.

She takes the case history, leaves, and a few minutes later comes back with not one, not two, but three other people, and Dr House, the Pediatric Version begins. There’s one obviously senior doc, and three very young (they still had student cards!) associates. He lays out the scenario and solicits their best guesses as to the diagnosis. Meanwhile, each of them paws through Tristan’s hair to prod his scalp, and then pokes and squeezes the mole on his leg.

Remember, Tristan is not feeling well in the first place. And, I don’t think he even knew about the spot on his head. He is tolerant of the attention, but barely.

The doctor and his acolytes bandy about some very scary terms and some long Latin names. The perky blond with freckles suggests one thing, and the senior doc tells her, “No no, that usually presents as red, lace-like adhesions.” The lanky brunette with the eyelashes suggests the spot on his leg might be a residual foreign object imbedded under the skin, and blushes furiously when the senior doctor shoots me an inclusive look and says, “Don’t you think the mother might have noticed a trauma severe enough to embed something in her child’s leg?”

Just when I think we’re done, the senior doctor asks if we mind if the next group comes in. I blink silently, my brain still trying furiously to file away the various diagnoses for later consultation with Dr Google, and in the end nod faintly. It’s hard not to laugh when FOUR MORE student doctors file in and begin to poke, prod and generally irritate the snot out of poor Tristan.

Finally, we get a confirmed diagnosis. The spot on his head was likely a simple absence of skin that formed in utero, and the bump itself is just a cosmetic scar that may or may not resolve itself. Removing it would introduce the possibility of worse scarring, so we agree to leave it alone and I am silently grateful that at least Tristan is taller than all his classmates and so at least it won’t be terribly noticable if we keep his hair longish. The spot on his leg is a Spitz Nevus, which Dr Google tells me is a benign tumour that is often misdiagnosed as a melanoma. Melanoma and tumour are the only two words I’ve grasped all morning, and I am happy about neither, although the “benign” keeps me from truly panicking. The doctor suggests we remove it as a precautionary measure, and sets us up with an appointment next Wednesday. While my brain grapples with the implication of the speed with which he wants it removed (this must be more serious than his gentle manner is letting on, cries the hypochondriac in me) the more logical part of my brain protests aloud the date. “Does it have to be Wednesday? It’s truly the worst day of the week for us.” Sure enough, this doctor only visits CHEO on Wednesday mornings.

Another Wednesday, another day of missed work, another 150 kms of driving. But at least I got to watch a live version of Dr House’s pleasant alter-ego. That counts for something, right?

Insight into the teenage mind?

Hey bloggy peeps, I need your help. (Again.)

Next week, I’ll be doing a presentation about social media, and more specifically, blogs, at the CEGEP were Beloved teaches. (CEGEP is creation of the Quebec school system, sort of like a middle school between high school and university or college. The kids will be in the 16 to 18 year old age range.)

I’ve done a few presentations on social media to groups of public servants, but I have to tell you I’m a lot more intimidated by this group of teenagers! With public servants, I am usually pretty confident that I know more about social media and blogs than at least the majority of the people in the room; maybe not so much with the teenagers! The prof insists that I should start with Blogs 101, and that in her new media classes, only one of two of the kids actually have a blog.

So what I’m asking you, bloggy peeps, is this: what blogs would be interesting to the average teenager? I’m planning on walking them through a basic what and how, and talk about technorati and links and RSS, and go through some of the free blogging platforms. But can you think of any blogs they will find cool? I mean, I started out in life pretty far from cool, and now I’m a mom and a civil servant – my coolness factor drops by the day!!

I was thinking maybe the Grey’s Anatomy writers’ blog, and I was going to do Wil Wheaton’s blog – but Star Trek TNG might be too old skool to be appealing to them. There’s Barney’s Blog, from How I Met Your Mother, but that’s not even a real blog. Lame list, eh?

Help me! What’s cool in the blogosphere, from the perspective of your average 17 year old?

10 pixels in – my first video game review

Not too long after my recent post talking about how the boys have transitioned from a TV addiction to a computer game addiction, I got an e-mail from a nice lady offering me a sneak preview of “the first video game made for kids 3-6 on Nintendo DS.” The boilerplate advertised that “Storybook DS features skill-based mini-games and read-aloud fairy tale adventures for shared play and interaction between mom and child.” I wrote back to say thanks for the offer, but we only play games on the PC and we don’t have any game consoles. She wrote back to say, “No problem, we’ll loan you a DS console for a while to play to the game. You can keep the game cartridge, and send back the console when you’re done.”

Hard to say no to an offer like that, isn’t it? And that’s how someone who doesn’t really like video games becomes a video game reviewer – or at least whores her children out as video game reviewers. Let the record show that they didn’t seem to mind.

So I have to start out by admitting that I’m a little bit biased against handheld games, especially for the preschooler set. I like to see and hear what they’re doing, and it’s harder to share a four-inch game console than it is to sit together in front of a 15 inch monitor.

Nintendo StorybookHaving said that, I have to admit I was immediately impressed with Storybook DS. I know kids get this stuff so much more intuitively than we did, but literally within one minute of snapping the cartridge into the console, Tristan was using the stylus to colour a picture. A few minutes later, he was showing Simon how to do the same. With no input from us, they found their way through a counting game, a music game, a drawing tablet and a storybook reader.

Tristan and Simon playing Storybook DSBoth boys enjoyed Storybook DS, even if it was a bit on the simplistic side compared to what they are already playing on the computer. Tristan had an easier time navigating and exploring, but both boys could use the stylus to play by themselves. I’m not sure about it being billed as “shared play and interaction between mom and child” – more like interaction between child and video game. I peered over their shoulders a few times to see what they were up to, but three of us jockeying for position around a four-inch screen didn’t work well for us. If you’d like to pick one up, they’ll be available in stores in late September. (Sorry for the lack of links. I had asked for a URL to point to, but never did get one.)

It was nice to be able to test-drive the Nintendo DS as well as the game itself, and Beloved didn’t waste any time going down to the local rental place and picking up a few other games for us to try. I can see the appeal of handheld games, especially for long car rides, or for when one wants to watch TV and the other wants to play games, but I’ll stick with my initial assessment of handheld games. They might be a nice treat for the older kids, and no doubt my 3 and 5 year old would love to have one, but when we finally capitulate to a game system for the family – sadly, with three against one I know it’s a matter of when rather than if – I’d much prefer a full-size, TV-based console rather than a handheld one.

So what do you think? What age – if any – do you think it’s appropriate for kids to start playing with personal, handheld video games? I don’t think I can hold out on this one forever, but seven or eight years old sounds about right to me.

Random bullets to banish the brain clutter

Blogging really is a feast-or-famine kind of thing, isn’t it? There are times when your brain is empty, and you go days fearing you may never be graced with an inspiring idea again.

And then other times, your brain is so busy blogging all.the.time that at any given time, you have half-composed posts oozing out of your brain, begging you to get to a keyboard and release them to the Interwebs. This is one of those times. I have a lot of ideas rattling around, but nothing cogent enough to form a full post.

Thank goodness for the existence of random bullets!

  • We woke up this morning to what appears to be a brand new double mattress delivered to our front lawn. Problem is we didn’t order a new mattress. I have no idea where it came from or, more importantly, what to do with it. It’s garbage day today, so maybe one of the neighbours put it out and some prankster dragged it down the block to our lawn? But seriously, have you ever dragged a full-sized mattress anywhere? It’s not like the wind just picked it up and carried it over. The irony is that we could really use a new double mattress, but I’m not sure I trust providence enough to accept randomly occurring mattresses as part of the natural order of things.
  • I was supposed to call for my Integrated Prenatal Screening blood test results yesterday – and I completely forgot. I guess I’m not too worried about them, eh? I’ll try to remember to call today.
  • I also go for my first official appointment with the midwife today. Yay!
  • Today is my sister-in-law’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Belinda!! Sometime in the next four days (oy, my memory sucks!) is my very dear friend’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Jojo!! Saturday is my cousin’s birthday. Happy birthday, Mike!!
  • Last Sunday would have been my 18th wedding anniversary, had I not bailed from the practice marriage back in 1993. Eighteen years! Eek!!
  • I find it somewhat validating that since I have made the jump to WordPress, Haloscan has been under some sort of spam attack. I think the last time I had to delete a spam comment was months ago, and I’ve had to delete more than 20 in the past week.
  • Tristan has been on a ‘what I want to be when I grow up’ kick lately. Last month, after visiting the African Lion Safari, he wanted to be an elephant trainer. The other day, I was getting ready for work when à propos of nothing, he announced, “Hey Mom? When I grow up, I want to be king.” (pause) “Why are you laughing?” You go, Tristan! Queen Mother sounds like a lovely career option for me.