If your life were a movie genre…

Yesterday, I alluded to a blog post I’d scrawled on a post-office receipt, and I suppose if I just take a second to decipher my chicken-scratch and publish it, I can stop worrying that I’m going to lose lose the damn thing! (Not that it’s a particularly inspiring blog post or anything — don’t want to get your hopes up. It’s really kind of ordinary, actually, but I liked the idea. Not that it’s not worth reading, either. I mean, um, maybe I should just get on with it?)

Anyway, ahem, I was puttering about in the car one Saturday afternoon, listening to Definitely Not the Opera on CBC Radio, and Sook Yin Lee was asking people, “if your life was a movie, what film genre would it be?”

I immediately loved this question. It took just a few seconds of considering various genres — black comedy, film noir, three-hanky drama, slasher fest, bromance or buddy pic — when I realized with a rather delightful jolt that I knew exactly what kind of film genre my life story would be: one of those John Hughes or Cameron Crowe quirky comedies.

C’mon, you know the ones — a cast of quirky but loveable *coughmisfitcough* characters, lots of snappy dialogue and smiles, moments of poignant drama, but an overall uplifting experience that leaves everyone happy and better off in the end. That’s totally how I (chose to) see my life.

What about you? If your life was a movie, what genre would it be and why?

The blog post that wasn’t

I have a lot of blog posts in my head, a few in my drafts folder, and one scrawled on a receipt from the post office and stuffed into my wallet. And you won’t be treated to any of them tonight because I’ve decided that rather than stay here with my nose pressed to the monitor where I would prefer to be (it’s a hell of a lot less work to just wag my fingers over the keyboard than to actually get off the couch and take care of all the things that are demanding my attention) instead I’m going to shut it down and go take the boys for an after-dinner walk.

Before I do, though, I have a quick question about my poor Lucas. We went back to the doctor today, and despite his having a clear chest and ears on Sunday, now he has an ear infection and some kind of chest infection. I wanted to ask you guys about something: the doc (not his usual) said: he has asthma caused by an allergic reaction to a virus. WTF? Not bronchitis, which is what it sounds like to me, but asthma, even though he has never had any sort of similar thing. ??? I asked if this was now a chronic condition and she kind of shrugged and said it’s the first time, we’ll have to see if and when it shows up again.

He’s got antibiotics for the ear infection, and two different puffers. Yeesh, just when you think you’ve got it all figured it, something new to contend with.

Anyway, your puffer and asthma and “allergic reaction to a virus” stories are welcome. Thanks!

Vote for The Motherhood — nominated for a Webby!

If you’ve been around for a while, you know I’m a huge fan of Cooper and Emily, creators of the blog Been There and the online community called “The Motherhood“. Now, this spectacular duo and their labour of love have been nominated for a (squeeee!!) Webby Award, and I need you to vote for them!

I’ve blogged about The Motherhood and my undying affection and admiration for Cooper and Emily before. In fact, what I wrote three years ago when The Motherhood was launched is still as true and fresh as the day I wrote it:

I first “met” Cooper and Emily through their blog Been There in early 2005. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in the summer of 2005, Cooper and Emily set up a clearing house where people who wanted to help could connect with people in need, and I was in awe of the power of two mom bloggers to make a real and concrete difference in the lives of people in devastating circumstances.

In the subsequent years, Cooper and Emily have raised awareness about (and even serve on the executive committee of) Moms Rising.org, and have recently spearheaded the BlogHer’s Act, a “year-long initiative to harness the incredible power of women online.” And they’ve even inspired a Canadian version.

As if being in the centre of all this hasn’t been amazing and incredible and enough to exhaust an entire cabal of bloggers, there is more! After more than a year of hard work, they’ve just launched another pet project, “The MotherHood.”


What is The MotherHood? In Cooper and Emily’s own words: “We asked ourselves — what if we built a big, beautiful tent where mothers can find, share and talk about all the interesting, hilarious, intriguing, inspiring, mobilizing, good stuff on the web, and, more importantly, find each other? And, with that, the heart and soul of The Motherhood was born.” There are link lists, discussion groups, favourite blogs, and much more on the way. It’s a great concept, and I know with Cooper and Emily behind it, it will be a wonderful place to hang out online.

Not only do I love and admire Cooper and Emily, but I’m simply dazzled by them. And more importantly, I’m inspired by them. All modesty aside, even this simple little blog can be a tool for change, and I can start – in my own small ways – making a difference.

Apparently I’m not the only ones who think Cooper and Emily are doing an amazing job of making the world a better place, because The Motherhood has been nominated for a Webby! How cool is that? A Webby is like the Oscars of the Internet — that’s the big time, peeps, and I’m dazzled to know someone who has been nominated.

The voting ends tomorrow, and I’m making a special appeal to you. First of all, if you haven’t already, go check out the new and improved Motherhood. More importantly, though, could you please take a moment to register and vote for The Motherhood in the Webby Awards?

Voting for Cooper and Emily is not just a nod of appreciation to two girls who have worked their collective butts off to make our corner of the Internet a better place. It’s a vote to tell the world that you have confidence in an Internet that is collaborative, inclusive and creative — all the things embodied in The Motherhood. I support Emily and Cooper’s work with my whole heart, and I think you should, too!

The 100 Push-ups Challenge – Week 3

Okay, bloggy peeps — time to check in with your push-up progress! I’m so tickled to see another handful of brave souls have joined the challenge. *waves to Liisa and Shannon and Ingrid and Andrea and Brenda and maybe Lynn, too*

So here’s my confession for the week: I only barely made it to Week 3. I didn’t realize until this week that there’s a test (a test!) every two weeks, and if you can’t make the minimum threshold then you are supposed to go back and re-do the previous week or two. I’ve been using the iPod app to track my progress, and when I switched it on to begin Week 3 last night, it told me I should do an exhaustion test — that is, do as many push-ups in a row as I could.

On the one hand, I was pretty pleased that I could do 16 good-form push-ups in a row. (Remember, less than a month ago I could do only one!) On the other hand, I only barely made it into Week 3 — the app and the web site both suggest that you progress with Week 3 only if you can do more than 15 push-ups in your exhaustion test.

And exhausted is right! As soon as I finished the exhaustion test and figured out where I was supposed to be, I tried to go ahead with the Week 3 Day 1 program of 10, 12, 7, 7 and 9 push-ups and could barely squeak out a set of 8 before collapsing in a quivering heap on the carpet. So I’m officially starting Week 3 tonight with a fresh run at it.

How are y’all doing? Making progress? I took a peek ahead, and I may be stuck in Weeks 3 and 4 for quite some time — you’re supposed to be able to do a minimum of 30 in a row (!!) before you progress to Week 5. This may be a longer six weeks than I thought!!

In which her two-year-old reminds her of the important things in life

Lucas has been sick for a couple of days now — fever, snot, cough, and holding his ears on and off. He’s been getting worse instead of better, and fearing ear infections or other bacterial infections, I made an appointment with the on-call ped today.

Even though he has not previously had any problems with going to the doctor, as soon as we told him that’s where we were going, he started to fuss. “No doctor, no doctor!” he cried as we tried to put on his coat and shoes.

“Okay,” I told him to settle him, cringing at the idea of a 30-minute drive downtown with a howling toddler, “we’ll just go look at some flowers. Would you like to go look at the flowers?” Thankfully, this appeared to be a much better idea than going to the doctor. And, knowing we would be swinging down Queen Elizabeth past Dows Lake just as the tulip beds were reaching full bloom, there would in fact be lots of flowers to admire on the way. To the doctor.

I should have known that on a perfectly sunny April morning, odds were better than good that Queen Elizabeth would be closed, and it was. I thought maybe the cows and the other bits of minutaie we’d admired on the way into town would have sufficed, but Lucas has a longer memory that I would have given him credit for. We were in and out of the ped’s office in about six minutes — no ear infection, clear lungs, just a wickedly bad cold — and on our way out Lucas looked at me and said, “Where are the flowers?”

I looked around and considered for a minute. I had a long to-do list in my head that did not include walking around the Glebe looking at the flowers. I didn’t even have my camera with me — for shame! But, it was a gorgeous morning. And the flowers were pretty. And, most importantly, a little walk around the block would both allow me to keep my word and make Lucas happy. The to-do list could wait.

As we set off around the block, I was still a little preoccupied. Ugh, I thought, did I choose the longest block in the Glebe? Could I get away with just walking a couple dozen meters and then turning around? But the sun was warm and the air was fresh, and as we stopped to admire magnolia petals and fading daffodils and interesting-looking stones, I found myself relaxing and enjoying the walk.

Lucas is normally a “me do it” kind of toddler, quite impatient with the idea of being held back by anything, so it might have been the fact that he was feeling unwell or just the moment that made him hold so tightly to my hand as we walked. I realized, as we inspected some particularly fascinating berries growing on a shrub, that in that moment I was perfectly content. Yes, I still had an otherwise miserably sick toddler on my hands, and I still had a lot of other crap to take care of during the rest of the day, and now it would take me just a little bit longer to get it all done.

But, in that sunny amble that took the best part of half an hour, my two-year-old son reminded me of the kernel of truth in the hoariest of clichés — you really do have to remember to stop and smell look at the flowers sometimes.

Thanks, Lucas.

Calypso water park sneak peek and giveaway!!

Are you ready? Less than 50 days remain until Ottawa’s hottest summer ticket opens: the Calypso Water Park east of Ottawa near Limoges. We’ve been waiting (im)patiently for more than two years for this park to open — did you know it will be Canada’s largest water park? And on a warm day late in April, I got a special sneak peek of the park to share with you!

436:1000 Calypso tour - Pirate's Aquaplay TtV

I was excited when I heard a new water park was coming, but honestly? I had no idea it would be this awesome. It’s not just a couple of waterslides — it’s really a giant water theme park, with more than 35 waterslides, separate toddler and kiddie play areas, Canada’s largest wave pool, a whole bunch of places to eat — it’s truly amazing.

From a recent Citizen article:

When the park opens, visitors will find 80-foot long extreme-style waterslides, a half-kilometre jungle river winding past a 52,000-square-foot wave pool, a beach, restaurants, shops, splash pads and pools for toddlers, and enough picnic tables and green space for 12,000 visitors a day. Calypso’s millions of litres of water will be kept at a constant 27 C and filtered every 90 minutes — every 30 minutes in toddler areas.

Calypso is located to the east of the city right off the 417, in the town of Limoges. It was a little less than an hour’s drive from Barrhaven. This is the front entrance, just getting its last touches of paint before the grand opening in six weeks.

Calypso tour - front gate

The park is enormous. The parking lot alone has capacity for 3,000 cars, and if I remember correctly, the park itself has a capacity for something like 15,000 people. You enter through a lovely little “main street” type area with a few different types of restaurants (from a cafeteria to an ice cream shop to a more formal sit-down dinner kind of place) and a souvenir shop. The water attractions are arrayed in well-spaced clusters around the grounds, with vast amounts of green space and picnic tables in between.

Moving clockwise through the park, the first cluster of slides is the Zoomerang, the Black Hole and Turbulence. “Thrilling rides with steep chutes, 360 degree curves in total darkness!” promises the park flyer.

Calypso tour - Zoomerang, Black Hole and Turbulence

Next is this giant water playground, the Pirate’s Aquaplay. It has tamer slides for smaller riders, and fun things like water cannons. The giant bucket at the top fills and dumps every few minutes. Perfect for the 5 to 10 year old crowd, I’d say.

Calypso tour - Pirate's Aquaplay

And for the littlest park visitors, there is a toddler park called the Zoo Lagoon.

Calypso tour - Zoo Lagoon

Calypso tour - Zoo Lagoon TtV

This will give you an idea of the scope of the park. I’ve just stepped away from the Zoo Lagoon, and turned my camera to the next cluster of slides. You can see the steep drop of the Fast Track on the left, the Boomerango and the White Water Extreme in the far middle, the Jungle Run river-raft ride in the foreground and the Turbo Lab at the far right. Behind me is the Pirate Aquaplay area for the kiddies, and the super-giant Calypso Palace wave pool is beside the Turbo Lab, with the entrance and "main street" bistro and restaurant area off camera to my right.

Calypso tour - Jungle Run

It’s HUGE!!!

I’m sure there is a perfectly good reason they’ve named this cluster of slides the Fast Track, Adrenaline and Vertigo. Not for the faint of heart! I think they should have called that skinny one with the near-freefall vertical drop “the Wedgie”. Yikes!

Calypso tour - The Fast Track, Adrenaline and Vertigo

This one of the Boomerango and the White Water Extreme is a shade out of focus (sorry about that!) but I wanted to show you what looks like a wicked-fun ending to the slide. You come flying out of the yellow Boomerango slide and it flings you up the blue and yellow striped wall until gravity yanks you back down again. Wheeeeeee!

Calypso tour - Boomerango

And yes, that’s a motorized lift, but only for the rafts. Your quads will get a workout when you visit the Calypso water park with all those stairs to climb!!

I didn’t get a good picture of the giant Calypso Palace wave pool, but it’s the size of three NHL rinks. There’s nothing rinky-dink about this park! Apparently it will be Canada’s largest wave pool (appropriate, considering this will be Canada’s largest water park!) and will have five different types of waves. And it’s good for all ages, as the depth starts at nothing and slopes gradually down.

I was impressed by every single facet of this park. From small details to big thrills, they’ve got a lot to offer. There’s a really neat biometric payment system described in the Citizen article:

One innovation […] will allow visitors to make purchases at restaurants or other facilities without having to carry money or cards. All they need is their fingerprint. If they choose, a person can put funds into an account at the park, either with cash, credit card, or debit card, and then have a fingerprint recorded electronically. Then, all that is needed to make any type of purchase in the park is to have the fingerprint scanned again to access the account.

Isn’t that brilliant? So you don’t have to carry your purse or wallet around with you or have someone watching it at all times. Hmmm, wonder if they could do that with my camera equipment?! And, you can bring your own picnic basket and blankets into the park, as long as you don’t bring any glass containers. I love that!

So the sneak peek was a lot of fun for me — thank you to the media relations director at Calypso for making me feel like a respectable journalist. And guess what? I’ve got two free day passes to give away to you! I was going to give them away as a pair, but I think I’ll split them up to spread the love around. (Actually, I was thinking of making you take me if you’re the winner! Am I allowed to enter my own draw?!)

Edited to add: sorry, the draw has ended, but if you’re looking for more ideas on great places to visit and things to do in Ottawa, check my “Ottawa Family Fun” archives! Or, you can read about our first visit to Calypso water park the very week it opened — so much fun!!

And if you’re wondering what’s up with the pictures with the black frame and the distortion — that’s “through the viewfinder” photography. The images are taken with my digital SLR camera, but through the viewfinder (ttv) of a 50-year-old Kodak Duaflex camera. Interested in knowing more? Check out this TtV tutorial!

The 100 Push-ups Challenge – Week 2

Well, this push-up thing has taken on a life of its own — as seems to be the case in an alarming number of things in my life! What started out as a poorly formed idea to be able to do *some* proper, full-body push-ups, with perhaps the capability to do some unspecified amount of *more* push-ups by some date three or four months in the future has now migrated into a formal challenge where a bunch of us are going to try to do 100 push-ups. In SIX WEEKS!

Yeesh, that peer pressure thing never really does go away, does it? So far, I know Finola and Nat and Christy and Barbi are playing along — did I miss anyone?

And you know what the really funny part is? I’m already a quarter of the way to the goal! Yep, yesterday, for Day 1 of Week 2, I managed to do 26 push-ups. Remember, it’s only been three weeks since I first tried and could not do a single push-up, and now I can do 26. Yay!

Here’s the secret — it’s not 26 all in a row. This hundredpushups.com site has an amazing program where you start out doing two push-ups, then rest for 60 seconds, then churn out three, then rest — it’s almost too easy that way. And it increases incrementally, so yesterday I did five sets of 4, 6, 4, 4 and 8 push-ups with 60 second rest-periods in between — 26 push-ups in five minutes. On the site, they have a tracker so you can log your progress, and if you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, there’s an app for that!

So I knew that I’d probably improve the muscle tone and shape of my arms and shoulders (hello sleeveless season!) but what I didn’t expect is that between the push-ups and the rowing machine I’m suddenly starting to see a lot of definition in my abs. Mind you, it’s definition with about 3/4 of an inch of belly fat, but definition none-the-less. After five pregnancies and three 10 lbs babies, I’m now working on my first-ever six pack — who would have guessed it!!

So there you go, I’m officially more than 1/4 of the way to the ludicrous and accidental goal of being able to to 100 push-ups. Ain’t serendipity grand?

In which Beloved calls it like it is

I‘m standing in the kitchen, unloading freshly bought groceries into the cupboards. The boys are drawing at the kitchen table, and Simon asks me what’s for dinner.

“Well,” I begin, “funny you should ask. I was going to make shrimp and naan and tiki masala, but while I was doing the groceries I realized we hadn’t had chicken fingers in a while, and so I thought maybe we’d have that instead. But the shrimp sounds good to me, too. I dunno, which one would you choose?”

Before he can answer, though, I realize that I really *do* want the chicken fingers, so I barely pause for breath before continuing. “But, I really want the chicken fingers, so choose that one, okay?”

Simon is nonplussed, but Beloved jumps right in. “And that boys, is the essence of your mother. No wait, it’s the essence of all women. They pretend to give you a choice, but really, there is no choice at all. Sometimes they tell you the right choice and sometimes they don’t — but really? You’d better choose the right one.”

The boys are silent throughout this exchange, but by the time Beloved finishes his speech I’m laughing so hard tears are in my eyes. “It’s funny cuz it’s true!” I manage to sputter out while cramming the celery into the vegetable crisper.

Some day, their wives are going to thank me. Or hate me. I’m not quite sure which.

Well, that was a trip through bloggy hell

I had nothing but the best of intentions when I set out to upgrade both my WordPress installation and my Thesis theme last night. With infinite idealism, I told Beloved I’d need “30, maybe 45 minutes, tops.”

That was 16 hours ago. I didn’t spend *all* of that 16 hours trying to recover everything that got farked up, but it was more than six hours. Maybe close to eight. And you know, I don’t usually plan for eight hours of blog maintenance in the average weekend.

But victory is MINE! I’ve recovered almost all the customization settings I lost. Phew! And even better, I found a solution for a problem that’s been vexing me for the best part of six months now.

Just in case it’s been vexing you, too, and because I am deeply proud of myself for figuring out a solution when I was swimming in waters way over my geeky little head, here’s the problem and the solution.

I’d been losing WordPress dashboard functionality for a while. I’d lost the widgets that show incoming blog links and recent comments, for example. And, the reason I did the upgrade is because I’d intermittently lose the ability to edit a page. And then I started getting 500 Internal Server Errors. What a mess! I’d figured out that it was related to plug-ins, so set up to update all of those, too.

Long story short, the WordPress upgrade went okay, but the Thesis theme upgrade completely wiped out some of my custom settings. It took me *hours* just to recover those, but they were not related to the core functionality of the blog. The larger problem was the previously intermittent problems with functionality became suddenly severe. I’d get random 500 Server Errors when trying to post a new article or page, or the plug-in page would disappear. Eventually, I disabled every single plug-in and was *still* having trouble.

I googled “plug ins and internal server errors” and found a whole bunch of articles about people using my host (1and1.com) having this problem. One post suggested editing the .htaccess file and adding a couple of lines of code. I was afraid, very afraid. The .htaccess file is a bit of a mystery to me, but I know it’s at the core of my server-blog relationship — severing this might just sever the bloodflow to the blog entirely! After consulting with my in-house tech support (thanks, Beloved!) I went ahead and added the following lines of code to the .htaccess file: AddType x-mapp-php5 .php AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php And damn if it didn’t fix everything! (Well, the functionality issues. It still took me hours to repair the lost customizations.) Apparently, my host needed special instructions to tell the blog to read php 5 instead of php 4. Or something like that.

Anyway, I am deeply pleased with myself. Performing this bit of codery was not unlike performing open-heart surgery on the blog, and things were dicey for a while there, but it looks like the patient will make a full recovery. How people can do this for a living is beyond me!

I’m happy to report that all is well now, except for the hours of lost time. Oh well, it’s not like the floors won’t still be dirty tomorrow, and the unfolded laundry has waited patiently for my return.

/geekout

Because sometimes, you just need a treat

I‘ve been working on the healthy living thing lately. I’ve done pretty good — I’ll tell you in a separate post about how well the hundred-push-ups thing is going, and I’ve lost another couple of the pounds I regained. Yay!

But sometimes, you need a treat. No matter how healthy my choices, there will always be room in my life for splurges. Because dammit, I’m worth it.

I’ve just indulged in one of my very favourite treats: wavy (ruffled, not rippled) Lays potato chips and Helluva Good Onion dip. Mmmm-mmm, lip-smackin’ deliciousness! And you know what? I do not feel in the least bit guilty about it.

(I am, however, feeling a little sheepish about the compulsion to go back for a second helping. Which is exactly why I never keep that kind of food in the house. I think the “once in a blue moon” kind of indulgence makes it that much more delicious, but then I simply must get it out of the house!)

And really, don’t you think it’s worth it to indulge a little bit every now and then? Cookies every day after dinner is a bad habit, but splurging on *really good* cookies every now and then is nirvana!

When you’ve earned a treat, or when you need a treat, or when you really, really want a treat — what do you reach for? When you must scratch that itch for junk food, what’s your go-to treat? Is it chocolate? Ice cream? Oreos? What’s your favourite indulgence?