Month: October 2005

You are Snoopy!

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Categories: Memes

What I want to know is, how come when I’m standing at the bus stop, or in the shower, or in the checkout line at the grocery store, or at 4:05 in the morning, I’ve got all these tremendous blog ideas, but when I am actually staring at the computer, fingers poised expectantly over the keyboard, I got nothing?

Not nothing, really, but nothing coherent. For example, I could write about how this really freaked me out. It’s an article about, among other things, a company called Life Gems that “transforms the carbon in cremated remains to graphite and finally a yellow or blue diamond.” Ick. I mean, think of the pressure – no pun intended – of walking around with the compressed remains of your loved one on your pinkie finger. Aside from the ick factor, I’d be terrified that I’d lose it or scratch it. Every time I bumped into a door frame (happens a lot more often than you might expect) I’d be apologizing to the dearly departed. No thank you.

Or I could whine about how my family might have to not have a Thanksgiving dinner together this weekend. My dad is sick with some sort of lung ailment that might be tuberculosis, or might be something benign. They did some sort of medical test last week, and he has been on “house arrest” – not allowed to see anyone except my mother – while awaiting results. Those results were supposed to be in yesterday, but they weren’t. So if they aren’t in today, he has to stay in seclusion and we can’t spend any time with him (or my mom) until the test results come back in – the Tuesday after the holiday weekend at earliest. My poor mother is going through grandson withdrawal, but was lucky enough to bump into Beloved and the boys yesterday in – of all places – the parking lot of Toys R Us. Hmmm, wonder what she was doing there?

On a less whiny note, I was also thinking about talking about Random Acts of Poetry. I’m not a huge fan of poetry, not because I don’t like it but because for the most part it makes me feel a little less bright than the average bulb. There are lots of poems I like, but mostly because of the play of the words and the rhythm of the verse – think The Creation of Sam McGee. But I do love this idea of Random Acts of Poetry, mostly because I think any initiative that combines literacy, reaching out to people and a sense of humour is a worthwhile endeavour. Imagine standing at the bus stop, or walking down the street, completely absorbed in your own mundane thoughts, and having some strange person accost you and ask, ever so politely, if it’s okay if she “poems” you. I might go out at 11 o’clock to see the poeming at the Maman statue; it’s only a building away from here.

In the end, I thought I’d blog on this oh-so-scattered Friday, about two not-quite-anecdotes from my boys. Simon is at the stage where he is stringing two and occasionally three words together, although for the most part only Tristan, Beloved or I can understand him. He has mastered two key phrases that turn me to jello instantly. Whenever I hand him anything, he says, “thangumummy” (most gracious thanks, mother) and “lubbumummy” (I love you, mummy.) It really is fortifying to be loved so completely, and to love so completely in return.

And the last word goes to Tristan. He and Beloved somehow got on the topic of kissing and girls. Beloved asked, “Would you ever kiss a girl?” To which Tristan responded, “Ewww! Girls are disGUSting. I only kiss Mummy.”

That’s my boy.

Update – the test results are in, and whatever is making my Dad sick is not contagious and not TB. Turkey Day is back on!!!

As I’ve mentioned recently, I’m struggling with matters of faith and the Catholic Church.

I was greatly fortified recently to read that the Church has officially stated that the Bible should not be interpreted literally. (Are you listening, my creationist friends? Genesis is just a nice story, not an accurate account of historic events.) Wow, I thought, who knew? The Church may be modernizing its thinking after all.

Then I read today that the Church is considering to refuse communion to state leaders of countries who condone abortion or gay rights – like Canadian prime minister Paul Martin. Now, I’m far from being a Paul Martin supporter (although I do believe he’s better than the alternative), but this to me is an outrageous act of blackmail on the part of the Church. No government leader should be religiously censured for the laws of their country.

Martin’s response? “I believe in the Charter of Rights, and I do not believe that the prime minister of the country can cherry pick those rights.”

Bravo.

I really am a sucker for these things. I saw this one over at Scrivenings. (And I’m further stealing his idea of stashing my answers below the fold.) If you didn’t get enough from my 101-things list, here’s some more that you really didn’t want to know about me.

[ ] I’ve run away from home.
[ ] I listen to political music.
[ ] I collect comic books. (no, but Beloved does – and even teaches comic book illustration and design at the Ottawa School of Art.)
[ ] I shut others out when I’m sad.

[x] I open up to others easily. (Perhaps a little too easily, one might say.)
[ ] I am keeping a secret from the world.
[x ] I watch the news.
[ ] I own over 5 rap CDs.

[x ] I own an I-Pod. (well, it’s an MP3 player – does that count? Is iPod like Kleenex and Frisbee now?)
[ ] I own something from Hot Topic. (I don’t know what Hot Topic is.)
[ ] I love Disney movies. (I live with an animator. I am sick to death of Disney movies.)
[x] I am a sucker for hair/eyes.

[x] I don’t kill bugs.
[x] I curse regularly.
[ ] I paid for that cell phone ringtone.
[ ] I have “x”s in my screen name.

[ ] I’ve slipped out a “lol” in a real conversation.
[ ] I love Spam.
[x] I bake well. (Define “well”. I have my moments, but I’m no pastry chef.)
[x]I would wear pajamas to school. (Would, yes. Did, no.)

[ ] I own something from Abercrombie.
[x] I have a job.
[ ] I love Martha Stewart.
[x] I am in love with someone.

[ ] I am guilty of tYpInG lIkE tHiS.
[x] I am self conscious.
[x] I like to laugh.
[] I smoke a pack a day.

[ ] I loved Go Ask Alice.
[ ] I have cough drops when I’m not sick.
[ ] I can’t swallow pills.
[x ] I have many scars. (Not many, just one set of small but noticeable ones on my lower lip from a dog bite at age 6.)

[x] I’ve been out of this country.
[x] I believe in ghosts.
[x] I can’t sleep if there is a spider in the room.
[ ] I am really ticklish.

[x] I see/have seen a therapist.
[ ] I love chocolate. (I like chocolate, but don’t love it.)
[ ] I bite my nails.
[x] I am comfortable with being me.

[ ] I play computer games/video games when I’m bored. (I don’t have enough spare time to be bored.)
[x] Gotten lost in your city. (Rarely, but it’s happened.)
[x] Saw a shooting star.
[ ] Gone out in public in your pajamas.

[ ] I have kissed a stranger.
[x] Hugged a stranger.
[x] Been in a fight with the same sex.
[ ] Been arrested.

[x] Laughed and had milk/soda come out of your nose.
[ ] Pushed all the buttons on an elevator.
[x] Made out in an elevator.
[ ] Swore at your parents.

[x] Kicked a guy where it hurts. (Hit, not kicked.)
[ ] Been skydiving.
[ ] Been bungee jumping.
[x] Broken a bone. (The pinky finger of my left hand, possibly one of the most disposable bones in the human body. Remember that, Yvonne?)

[x] Played spin the bottle.
[x] Gotten stitches. (Lots and lots of stitches!)
[ ] Drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour.
[ ] Bitten someone.

[x] Been to Niagara Falls. (I ‘stole’ my parents’ car and drove to Niagara Falls without permission. I only got caught a month later when the bill for the Texaco card came in and I had charged $5 because we ran out of money. At the time, I had no idea that an itemized statement would indicate gas was bought on Main Street, Niagara Falls. I was not a bright teenager.)
[x] Gotten the chicken pox.
[ ] Crashed into a friend’s car. (But I have been in a friend’s car when HE crashed into a friend’s car.)
[ ] Been to Japan.

[x] Ridden in a taxi.
[ ] Shoplifted.
[x] Been fired.
[x] Had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back. (Many, many times.)

[x] Stole something from your job.
[ ] Gone on a blind date.
[x] Lied to a friend.
[x] Had a crush on a teacher/coach.

[ ] Celebrated Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
[x] Been to Europe.
[x] Slept with a co-worker. (Literally slept with, during a ball tournament weekend with eight of us in one room. Never had sex with a co-worker, though.)
[x] Been married.

[x] Gotten divorced.
[ ] Saw someone dying.
[x] Driven over 400 miles in one day. (That’s what, 600 km? I used to do that every second week, one way, the year Beloved and I started seeing each other, before he moved to Ottawa.)
[x] Been to Canada. (AM in Canada.)

[x] Been on a plane.
[x] Seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
[x] Thrown up in a bar.
[x] Eaten sushi.

[ ] Been snowboarding.
[x] Been skiing.
[x] Been ice skating.
[x] Met someone in person from the internet. (Met most of my best friends that way.)

[ ] Been to a motorcross show.
[x] Gone/Going to college.
[x] Done hard drugs.
[x] Taken painkillers.

[x] Cheated on someone else.
[ ] Were so bored you took this survey. (I’m not doing it because I’m bored.)
[ ] Have a tattoo.

Categories: memes

Oh. My. God.

I have not been this excited about the Internet since I ‘discovered’ blogging. Have you seen that Library Thing? It’s an online catalogue where you can store all your book titles in one spot.

Let’s back up a minute and examine what we know about Danigirl:

(1) She loves books.
(2) She loves collecting books almost as much as she loves reading books.
(3) She is an obsessive bean counter at heart.
(4) She is incapable of wandering more than 20 feet away from her computer for more than three hours at a stretch.
(5) She is an inveterate exhibitionist, and her favourite game is “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Wrap up all these qualities into a box, put a lovely ribbon on it, and make it ridiculously easy to use and painfully addictive, and you have that Library Thing.

I spent an hour and a half last night feeding two shelves of my favourite books into Library Thing’s database. Fifty-eight books down, 600 to go. Okay, maybe I’ll get bored and lose interest before I get to the cartons of pulp paperbacks stashed in the closet. But probably not.

And – did I mention they provide a blog trick? Books, beancounting and BLOG TRICKS, you say? Can you believe how cool it is? Now you can see five random titles from my library each time you drop by, right there in the sidebar below the word of the day.

You’ve got to try it! I thought it was a pretty neat trick until I actually tried to add a book… then I was hopelessly smitten. All you do is key in a couple of key search terms, and the database populates the rest of the information for you. It’s a tool for bookloving, bean-counting, blog-tricking LAZY people – it’s uncanny, I tell you.

Categories: Books

I’ve just been over reading a blog that I peruse from time to time. I used to really admire her, but frankly lately I’ve been finding her a little vacuous. I was getting all riled up about her comments on what makes a good father and working mothers, and started wondering to myself why I even read her blog at all any more if she so irritates me.

Why indeed?

You know what, I have the same problem in real life. I have friends (no, I’m not talking about you) who more often than not really irritate the shit out of me. Why do I keep them in my life?

I’m not talking about the good friend who has a bad day, or the friend going through a particularly needy time, who might be taking a little more than he or she is giving at a point in time. I’m talking about the kind of friend who hurts your feelings, who doesn’t respect you, who says things that offend you on a fundamental level. Why do I keep letting those people back into my life?

I think this is more a girl thing than a guy thing. I think for the most part, if a guy doesn’t like another guy, he just forgets that the guy he doesn’t like exists. Problem solved. For some reason, girls seem to have to keep picking at the scab of a failed friendship to see if it’s still yucky. Inevitably, it still is. Or worse, girls are unable to acknowledge a bad relationship, and will continue to harbour deep resentment while putting up a sunny face.

I can’t figure this one out. It’s not like I’m starved for friendship. Matter of fact, I am incredibly blessed to have so many people I adore in my life, and who treat me with love and respect in return. In my humble opinion, the most basic definition of a friend is someone who leaves you in as good or, for the most part, an even better state of mind than when you encountered her (or him). You should not leave an encounter with a friend feeling hurt, or annoyed, or rolling your eyes.

So does that make me the hypocritical one? I am so pathetically non-confrontational that I wouldn’t say boo to my own shadow most days, so small pebbles of grievances and petty (or not-so-petty) annoyances accumulate until they become a mountain of bad feelings.

How do you deal with this? There is no ritual of spring-cleaning for friendships. How do you deal with people in the same social circle as you whom you can’t stand to be around? How do you tell someone with whom you used to be quite close that you don’t feel the same way anymore? Or should you? How do you tell a friend that the funny little running joke she’s been making for years is actually something that grates on you like fingernails on a chalkboard?

And no, really, I’m not talking about you.

(Edited to add on 6 April 2006: Would anybody be so kind as to leave a comment to tell me why people who have ‘livejournal’ and ‘friend’ in their URLs seem to be stampeding to this post today?? I’m dying of curiousity!)

My lawnmower died. Well, the motor part is still working, but the handle snapped clean in half. It actually died about a month ago, just as I was starting the back lawn. Because I am stubborn, and because I suffered some sort of delusion that I could let the lawn go for the season after the end of August, I bent over double and pushed my half-a-lawnmower back and forth for the better part of an hour to finish the job. A lawnmower with an 18 inch handle cutting 6 inch thick grass takes a lot more effort than you might suppose.

So, sadly, I had to put the lawnmower (technically, the two halfs of my ex lawnmower) out on the curb on garbage day. Which seems appropriate, really, because that’s where I got it in the first place. About a year and a half ago, I was walking home from picking up Tristan at daycare one day, and there it was, sitting at the end of someone’s driveway with a “FREE” sign taped to it. Free, I might have mentioned previously, is one of my favourite words.

So I snagged it. Did I mention that I was pushing the double stroller at the time? And that I had the dog with me? We got some priceless looks that day, our little caravan with me pushing the double carrying about 70 lbs of chubby babies and restraining the 100 lbs dog on her leash with one hand, dragging the free lawnmower behind us with the other hand. But did I mention FREE?

For what it’s worth, and to provide you with an accurate record of my complete history of lawnmower ownership (hey, it’s not easy coming up with something to write *every*single*day* you know), my first ever own lawnmower was also free. Well, it wasn’t exactly mine, but a loaner from the benevolent ÃœberGeek. When I scored a free lawnmower of my own, I sent that one back into rotation among the mowerless. Everybody deserves at least one free lawnmower in a lifetime, don’t you think?

Our driveway donor lawnmower lasted an impressive two full summers before giving up the grass last month. Since it perished at the end of August, I was pretty sure we could just let the lawn go native for a few weeks and soon those long, waving blades would be buried under an avalanche of snow. Nice theory, except this is the endless summer of 2005, where it tops out at 26C in October. In OCTOBER!

I knew I had to do something when I’d let the dog out into the back yard and lose her in the meadow. And tall grass makes a great hiding spot for poop-bombs, turning a quick pick-up into a search and destroy mission. I had to finally give in and borrow my folks’ lawnmower on the weekend. And I discovered that most wondrous of grass-cutting options, the mulch. No more projectile grass cuttings! No more digging the swing and slide out from green haystacks after every lawn trim. (Um, yes, we really do have to work at cutting the grass more frequently.) Mulching rules!

I was going to write this post yesterday and solicit your lawnmower feature recommendations. But showing my usual lack of impulse control, when we went to Canadian Tire last night to see what remainders might still be hiding amidst the newly arrived snow blowers and Christmas decorations, I found a display model identical to the one I had borrowed from my parents, and they were willing to knock 15% off the price to be rid of it. So I bought it.

So now that it’s too late, tell me anyway what’s your favourite lawnmower feature? I personally am deathly afraid of gas mowers, so I was happy to snag an electric. (The boys – all three of them – heavily advocated for a ride-on, but I don’t think our yard is large enough to allow for a turning radius.) I opted not to get the bag feature at the back and saved a stunning $12 more.

More importantly, how old do you think the boys have to be before I can force them (ahem, politely request their assistance) to cut the grass? I remember doing it at age 10 or 11, but I figure they’re big boys, I can start ’em early.

I should’ve got the model with the harness.

Edited to add: here’s a better question. What’s the best FREE thing you ever got??

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an excellent summer of concerts as the summer of 2005 in Ottawa. We’ve had everyone from Harry Connick Jr and Diana Krall to Pearl Jam and the Rolling Stones to Matthew Good and the Tea Party. Every time I turned on the radio (oh how I miss my CBC Radio One!) I was hearing about another band that I kind of knew a couple of their songs who were coming to Ottawa.

The one big show that I really wanted to see was U2, but the Web site crashed when 85,000 people tried to log in at the same time to buy the hottest ticket in town. After spending the summer sulking about it, I have come to terms with the fact that I won’t be seeing U2 in November with 30,000 of my closest friends.

What I will be seeing, however, is… the Wiggles! Tristan was never a huge Wiggles fan, but Simon loves them. (More specifically, Simon loves anything to do with music and will take any opportunity to dance.)

When I got home from BC last month, Beloved pointed out an ad in the paper saying that tickets would go on sale the next day. When I cancelled one meeting and begged off another so I could hover over my keyboard when tickets went on sale at 10:00 am, I was probably subconciously trying to make atonement for ‘abandoning’ the boys for four days earlier in the week.

Finally able to let go my anger over the U2 ticket fiasco, I was thrilled with the results of my frantic refreshing and lightning-fast reflexes. I felt like mother of the year. I had scored FLOOR SEATS! (Can you imagine trying to corral two preschooler in the nose-bleed seats, with a 50 degree incline and 200 feet to the arena floor below? Yikes.)

And then the payment screen came up. And it was no longer priceless. In fact, it was downright expensive. The price of maternal guilt is apparently $196.20.

I’m such a sucker.