In which I rant just a bit

It’s my last day of vacation and I’m feeling a little cranky about it. Plus, ya know, I’m old now, and entitled to be curmudgeonly without warning.

So to celebrate this mood of minor annoyance, today I present to you the top five things that piss me off.

1. People who don’t acknowledge common courtesy.

It drives me nuts when I slow down to let someone into a lane ahead of me, or stop to hold open a door, or step back to let someone else go first, and they don’t even bother to acknowledge me. I don’t need a bouquet of roses, but a nod or a smile or a wave (or god forbid, a “thank you”) would go a long way.

2. People who don’t signal lane changes.

Apparently, I have a whole set of issues with lane changes. (Can you tell I drove back and forth through Toronto recently?) Also on their own sublist of things that piss me off are people who think they are entitled to your lane simply by virtue of the fact that their lane is ending, regardless of the fact that you might currently be occupying said lane, and people who must occupy the buffer of space I’m trying to leave between myself and the car in front of me as we hurtle along the 401 at the speed of light.

3. People who dribble on the toilet seat and don’t wipe it up.

It happens. Either you dribble a few drops when you stand up to wipe, or you are one of those people with stronger knees than me who can hover over the seat and give it a good spray when you pee. Regardless, would it kill you to take a minute and a square or two and wipe the seat when you’re done? I really shouldn’t have to do it, and it’s nothing short of disgusting to sit down and realize that you just sat in someone else’s pee.

4. People who sit on the gym equipment and chat.

I like to move quickly through my weight workout to keep my heart rate up, and I was told many years ago by a trainer that it’s best to stick to a particular order, working the larger muscles before the smaller ones. While I don’t mind jumping out of order if it’s busy and there’s a lot of people using the equipment, it drives me nuts to have to wait for a machine because someone is sitting on it while chatting with someone else. Frankly, it also kind of bugs me when people sit on the machines between sets, and when people don’t wipe down the equipment between uses. Hmmm, looks like I have some issues with the gym as well. Maybe a little too much testosterone in my system?

5. People who don’t say “excuse me” when they need to get off the bus.

This one is my number-one irritant right now. I’ve been idly thinking about blogging it for months. Almost every single morning, I sit on the aisle side of a shared seat on the bus. A surprising amount of the time, I’m sure the vast majority, when the person sitting beside me needs to get off, rather than saying “Excuse me” or even “This is my stop”, they simply make a lurching thrust toward me that I’m supposed to detect and interpret as an intention to get off the bus and that I should get out of the way. This is a relatively new phenomenon, and it pisses me off every single time. Seriously, how hard is it to say “excuse me”? I usually toss in a smile for free when I do it.

And they say we Canadians are overly polite. Bah!

By all means, don’t let me rant alone. What cheeses you off?

Summertime food ideas?

While I love this steamy hot summertime weather, it’s sapping my already-nominal culinary inspiration. I’ve completely run out of fresh summertime food ideas. We’ve done burgers to death, and I’ve lost my taste for hot dogs. It’s too hot to boil pasta, and we’ve had enough corn on the cob to pluck an entire corn field clean.

Last night, we had one of my summertime favourites: steak and veggie kabobs rolled in peppercorns, grilled on the BBQ and then served as make-yer-own pita sandwiches with tzatziki and feta and fresh cucumber and tomato slices. Mmmmmm!

Save me from another pizza; I’m desperate for inspiration. What’s your favourite summertime meal?

Cottage weekend

As I mentioned, we spent an extended summer weekend with my brother’s family at his in-laws’ cottage. Gotta love in-laws with a cottage!

The trip didn’t start out so well. By the time we started loading the car on Saturday morning, it was pouring rain and we were two hours behind schedule, partly due to the extended search for the cord to plug the DVD player into the cigarette lighter. Imagine our delight when we went to plug in said DVD player and discovered the cigarette lighter was dead. We were suddenly and unexpectedly facing a seven to eight hour drive with not nearly enough diversions planned to pacify the boys. Right then and there, we almost called the whole thing off.

We didn’t, though, and it’s a testament to how wonderful the weekend was that I can honestly say it was more than worth the hassle of getting there. And we survived a trip all the way across the province to Lake Huron with only a handful of colouring books, some snacks and our wits. Not that I’d ever do it again intentionally, but it’s kind of nice to know we could do it.

We left the 401 near Kitchener, and drove through the pastoral farmland of Southern Ontario that is so evocative of some of the best summer memories of my childhood. There is something about that rolling farmland, the yellow bricks one only finds around London, that particular shade of hazy blue, and the achingly beautiful turquoise of Lake Huron under a cloudless sky that fills my heart with sweet nostalgia. Turns out that even 19 years after the fact, sometimes you can go back home again.

The in-laws’ cottage was actually a grounded trailer with an extended sunporch / florida room, parked year-round at what looks like it used to be a Jellystone campground (warning, noisy link!) deep under a canopy of towering maples. The boys loved the built-in bunk beds, and thought it was pretty cool that Uncle Sean let them drive the golf cart (apparently almost every trailer has one for tooling around the campground) all by themselves.

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And where there are golf carts, there are of course serious golfers.

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Aside from spending time with family, the main attraction for me was the proximity to Lake Huron. The first beach we visited was so rocky we could barely keep to our feet, and we did little more than wade in up to our ankles and fill our waterguns.

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But the second day, we made a pilgrimmage to one of my very favourite summertime places in the whole world, the beach at Grand Bend, Ontario. The water was clear and warm and perfect for swimming, and the day couldn’t have been more lovely. I could have stayed on the beach for days.

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Except, of course, for a wander up the main drag to get some french fries and ice cream. Some traditions are sacred, and beach food is one of them.

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Who could have guessed that two-and-a-half days of beaches, pools, putt-putt, ice cream, campfires and four kids under six could ever be so refreshing?

On the last day, rather than drive straight home we detoured to a place I haven’t been since I was a tender one year old. I’ve been meaning to get back there for ages, and I don’t know a single person who grew up in Ontario who can’t hum the theme song for the African Lion Safari (sorry, more noisy links. I hate that!) It was another blazing hot day, which simply amplified the African savannah feel to the day.

This is not a picture of me feeding Ritz Bits with Cheez to a baboon who is perched on the passenger side mirror. Feeding the animals is strictly forbidden, as is opening your window.

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In fact, if you were – hypothetically speaking, of course – to open your window to get a better picture of the cheetah lying in the grass mere feet from your car, you would hear the immediate and bullhorn-amplified voice of a park ranger insisting that you CLOSE YOUR WINDOW, and if you didn’t immediately heed that first demand in your quest for the perfect picture, you would certainly be motivated to do so by the clear note of panic in the second and far louder bellow to CLOSE YOUR WINDOW NOW. Hypothetically speaking, of course. Not that you would ever flaunt rules so blatantly. Not even later when this very friendly and not in the least bit fierce or bloodthirsty zebra came over to say hello.

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By midafternoon under the blazing sun, the combined temperature and humidity topped out over 38C. Thankfully, the park has a supersized splash pad just about the perfect size for a pair of overheated preschoolers.

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We finished the day by enjoying the elephant show, including a 15 month old baby elephant gamboling beside its mother that was particularly charming. It’s nice to see the “mischievious toddler” thing extends to other species. And we ended the day on a high note – literally, with Tristan, Simon and I perched atop the back of Jenny, a very patient and very big elephant.

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Unfortunately, this isn’t a flattering shot of either of us.

(Click thru for more photos on Flickr.)

Yay day – the birthday edition

I have a lot to be grateful for as I look ahead to my birthday tomorrow. (Shameful how I gratuitously troll for your birthday wishes, isn’t it? It’s the Leo in me.)

We’re on our way home after a nearly perfect summer extended weekend away. Details will follow, but it included endless hot, sunny weather; a cottage tucked into a perfect little campground; my brother’s family; a pilgrimmage / day trip to my very favourite summertime place; and a baboon sitting on the passenger-side mirror of the car begging for Ritz crackers. No, really!

So today, I’m happy for family, for boys who are road-trip tolerant, for weekend getaways, for perfect summer weather, for people who love me and whom I love in return, for a life so full of joy it exceeds whatever wildest hope I might have had for it when I was growing up. It’s the best birthday gift a girl could ever want.

And you? What are you celebrating today?

Baby TV comes to Canada

The front page of the Citizen this morning had a big article about the pending arrival of BabyFirstTV, a new 24 hour TV network “devoted to babies six months to three years.”

My only question: in the age of the ubiquitous DVD player, do we really need round-the-clock programming for babies? Can they not get past the 3 am feed without a bit of electric nipple to sooth them back to sleep?

Most of what I’ve read on this whole baby TV debate has centred around the educational value of TV for babies, and whether watching Baby Einstein three times a day at the age of six months will help junior improve his high school grade point average. Seriously. Is there anyone who really believes those weird psychedelic camera angles of brightly coloured toys are cranking up baby’s IQ?

Of course not. TV for babies is not really for babies; it’s for mothers (and fathers.) It’s about finding something that distracts a needy baby for 15 or 20 minutes so a beleagured new mom can load the dishwasher or take a shower or (god forbid) sit and drink a cup of coffee and stare off into space for a while. Never, of course, so mom can pick up the laptop and check what’s up in the blogosphere. Never that.

You know I don’t have a problem with TV for kids. Heck, ask my mother and she’ll tell you I graduated magna cum laude from university in no small part due to the influence of two hours of Sesame Street a day in my formative years. And yet, I don’t think we’ll be subscribing to Baby TV. Truth be told, we only have basic cable anyway. But I’ve got a drawer full of Baby Einstein DVDs that I’ll happily dust off and put back into circulation. My biggest challenge will be getting the boys to share the DVD player. With any luck, Queen Amidala will be in heavy rotation by then.

Ottawa’s hidden treasures

After more than 900 posts, I’m always looking for new stuff to write about. Now that I’m in vacation mode (can I get a ‘hallelujah’?) we’ve been doing what I love to do… touring around the city, doing all of our favourite summertime things. And in doing so, I realized that there are a lot of wonderful things to do in this city with families, some better publicized than others. And that writing about all of Ottawa’s “hidden treasures” would give me lots of inspiration through all four seasons AND encourage me to get out with the boys more. Granted, none of the stuff I’ve been thinking of blogging about is truly “hidden”, but how often have you heard about something in or near your neighbourhood for years and never actually gotten around to checking it out yourself?

And thus, an idea is born!

The outing that inspired this brainwave was a trip to the Ottawa Farmers’ Market at Lansdowne Park. I’ve been inspired to try to buy locally, but it hasn’t been easy. In the height of strawberry season, my local Loblaws offers only berries trucked in from the US. The open-air market in the Byward Market, a mere half a block from where I work, doesn’t restrict vendors from outside our geographical area. I’ve been to the North Gower farmers market and was disappointed by the selection, and the Carp market is more than an hour round-trip.

And then I finally got around to checking out the Ottawa Farmers’ Market last week. Granted, it’s practically downtown, not exactly conveniently located for a suburbanite like me. And the day we decided to go, the neighbourhood was packed to capacity for the FIFA Under 20 World Cup semi-finals (bad timing on my part.)

But the selection! Not just cukes and tomatoes, but potatoes and onions and lettucey-type greens. Beans and snow peas and zucchini. For the first time, I could buy an entire week’s worth of vegetables from a farmers’ market. I saw after the fact they also have horse-drawn wagon rides through the Glebe… next time, for sure.

One day, I’ll get brave and actually buy some of my meat from the farmers’ market, but for now I’m happy to savour locally grown and freshly picked produce… cuz nothing tastes better than a toasted tomato and salt sandwich (bacon optional) with a tall cold glass of lemonade.

So, it probably cost me an eigth of a tank round trip, and the price is quite a bit higher than in the grocery store, and the selection is excellent now but not so great early in the season. This “buying locally” thing isn’t cheap or easy… but it’s a start, right?

Baby says "hi"

During my ultrasound yesterday, baby lifted its arm in a little wave, which I immediately interpreted to mean, “Say hey to all the bloggy peeps for me.”

Everything looks great. Baby has two arms and two legs, and just one head, which is about all you can tell from the 12 week ultrasound but which is more than enough to reassure me at this point. I was 12w3d and baby measured 13w1d, but when a millimeter makes a day of difference, I’m not yet too worried about percolating the Baby That Ate New York.

Heartbeat was a nice, normal 156 bpm, and the nuchal fold isn’t anywhere near thick at 1.5 mm. (A thickened nuchal fold, larger than 3 mm or so, is considered an early risk marker for Down Syndrome.) I had the first of the two blood tests that comprise the Integrated Prenatal Screening test, and the second one will be August 10. It will be reassuring to get those out of the way. Next on the schedule, I have a regular OB appt on August 16, which will be another nice place to be past as that will be the 16 wk appt, and if you’ll recall, that’s where I had bad news last time. Fingers crossed and touching wood, I’ll then have another ultrasound on August 29 to find out whether baby’s plumbing is of the indoor or outdoor variety… but I’m not quite able to look that far ahead. Sounds soon, though, doesn’t it? Just a little over a month away.

I told my OB how unimpressed I was with my interaction with her employee who told me to “keep on truckin'” and she simply made a noncommittal noise in her throat and kept reading the paperwork in my file. When I kept talking about how debilitating I found the fatigue, she said given my iron is fine they can’t do much about the fatigue, but she did circle back to my mention of depression (I told her at the time I wasn’t sure if I was battling anaemia or depression, but that it was more debilitating than anything I had dealt with previously) and she said that they do have treatment available for depression. She also offered me medication for nausea when I mentioned the stomach upset that had been discouraging me from the prenatals, and medication for heartburn. While I appreciated her offer to treat the symptoms that may have been bothering me, none of them bother me even close to badly enough to medicate and in the end I was more irritated than anything. What I wanted was reassurance, and what she was offering came from her prescription pad.

I got a call yesterday that I have yet to return from the midwife to tell me they have a space for me. I’m frozen with indecision by which path to follow, the OB or the midwife. Despite my dissatisfaction as expressed in the previous paragraph, I’m not convinced that I’m unhappy enough to deal with the logistics of switching to the midwife. I think I’ll return the call and be honest with the midwife and lay my concerns on the table, and schedule myself a tour of the Montfort hospital. Just to leave my options open for a little bit longer, ya know?

(Edited to add: Spoke to a hospital administrator about arranging a tour of the Montfort. There are no actual tours permitted in this post-SARS era, but there is a power-point orientation presentation. Can’t even register for the orientation session until I confirm that I plan to give birth there… but I can’t decide I want to give birth there until I have actually seen it. Sigh.)

The friendly floatees

A hat-tip to Kerry, who shared this link with us last week. It’s as engaging as the idea of the escaped elephants taking a tour of suburbia from last week, and I couldn’t help but share.

Picture, if you will, 29,000 children’s bath toys – a virtual armada of red beavers, blue turtles, green frogs and yellow duckies – circumnavigating the globe for the past 15 years. Is that not the most whimsical thing you could imagine?

From the Globe and Mail article:

It’s a story that began in 1992. In rough weather in the Pacific Ocean, a container of plastic bathtub toys went overboard from a ship sailing from Hong Kong to Tacoma, Wash., and broke open. The 29,000 turtles, ducks, beavers and frogs that were freed from their container prison have been floating around the world ever since.

Their travels have been tracked by retired oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer of Seattle using findings sent to him by a network of beachcombers. The toys’ journey has been remarkable. Since going overboard, one group has circled the north Pacific between Alaska and Japan five times. But other groups have struck out in other directions.

“Some of them peeled off to the north [through the Bering Strait],” Mr. Ebbesmeyer said, “over to eastern Greenland, down to Labrador, over to about where the Titanic sank off Newfoundland, then turned east and went over to Europe where a frog was found in Scotland. On the U.S. side, a duck was found in Maine.”

(Make sure you click on the map that accompanies the article in the Globe. It shows how the currents have driven the toys through the years. Way wicked cool!)

The Wikipedia entry for the “Friendly Floatees” says that a $100 savings bond has been offered to anyone who finds one of the escaped bath toys, predicted to begin washing ashore in the UK sometime this year, and collectors are paying up to $1,000.

How can you not smile, knowing there’s a massive fleet of 15 year old bath toys floating unhindered on the ocean’s currents?