Some Things

I swear this was yesterday

But THIS was yesterday…

I’ve been thinking about how quickly time goes. I found out this week that my daughter will likely need braces, and while I wonder how I’m going to cover that, I also thought about how lucky she is that she will get them. I needed them also, but it didn’t happen for me.

My teeth aren’t horrible; I can smile without being self-concious, but I could use them and my dentist has recommended it on a few occasions. But do I want braces at 39? Is there enough time left to make it worth it? When does the time come that you just say “Screw it. I’m not paying for anything with an expiry date that could possibly exceed the time I have left.”

But then I take my Gramma shopping and she buys yogourt, so maybe this never happens?

Today is November 11, which is Remembrance Day in Canada. Last year I wrote about my Grandpa who was a tailgunner in WWII. When I call my Gramma today we will talk about him and we both might cry a little a bit. (We totally will.)

I miss him more the older I get. It makes me sad for my children, who don’t have a relationship with their own grandfather. But, so it goes.

Some other things that made me think this week:

• On Friday I wrote about how my week hadn’t been a particularly good week. But no sooner than I hit “publish” I got some good news, and things turned around, at least halfway. They turned around enough that I could breathe again. So hey, if anyone needs a wish granted, let me know and I will take it to the WordPress gods. MAI BLOG IS A MAGICAL 8-BALL.
• School is in full swing for the kids and I have to say, we’re lucky here in regards to homework. My daughter in grade eight has a manageable amount, and less than an hour or two a few times a week. It’s appropriately challenging, so far no one has cried yet. She is normally finishes her math and French at school and this is a good thing because I doesn’t do the math or Francias, cuz I ams a English majer. I read a funny blog post about homework this week by Alice Bradley (Finslippy.) It was excellent because – like the best humour – it is true. I had my kids read it and they agreed wholeheartedly. Thank you, Alice.
• We’re in week two of Movember, and some twitter friends and I created emoticons to celebrate:

Are you participating, or supporting someone who is? It’s not too late. When it comes to facial hair, it’s NEVER TOO LATE.

• This coming week I am having lunch with some new friends, who I met despite that fact that adults don’t make friends as easily as 5 year-olds do. Ann at Ann’s Rants had me smiling all week thinking about what it would be like if we did. She is totally getting invited to my birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.
• If this post seems disjointed, blame these:

Seven of them in a sitting will give you the shakes, heybutchaknowhat? I don’t care.

This week I also wrote at MamaPop.com about the crazy-but-lovable-wait-no-they’re-horrible Jackson family, and I also have an article at iVillage.ca about one of the worst parts of being a divorced parent.

Have a great week. Or at least one that doesn’t suck.

Sundown, you’d better take care (and also something about facial hair.)

Last night was Daylight Saving Time for many people. I love the “fall back” time of the year, mostly for the early darkness that goes with it. It almost like nature giving you permission to go to bed earlier, which the old woman I am becoming appreciates. Plus, less sunlight = less visible wrinkles.

A few nights ago I was in bed and I was thisclose to falling asleep when the phone rang. The telemarketers around here are unbelievable and have no reverence for things like meal times or primetime programming schedules. Who calls this late, I wondered. How badly do people need new windows/air duct cleaning/lawn care/Conservative party propaganda robo-calls that they’re willing to risk calling at this late hour?

It was 8 o’clock. In the PM.

I love the early bedtimes of autumn.

I like warm houses fogging your glasses, slow-cooked oven meals, the smell of wool mittens drying on heating vents, pink cheeks, the rumble of snow blowers, and pond skating.

Here are some other things I loved this week:

Bloggers providing/organizing help for Sandy victims - if you’re too far away to physically help, or you can’t afford to donate, you can donate blood because that’s free and you probably have an extra pint or two anyways. Contact your local Red Cross: Canada here, and the United States here.

If you got some free time this week (and if you don’t – make some) how about planning out an emergency preparedness kit? Here’s a starting point for you. That’s the freaky thing about unexpected events – they’re so unexpected. There really is no city completely safe from having some kind of emergency. Even if you live in an area completely devoid of risk from earthquake, tornado, hurricane, or snowstorm, you’re going to be glad you’ve got those extra rolls of toilet paper and a topped-up Ativan prescription if your mother-in-law comes to visit over the Christmas holidays and stays until Easter.

On the positive side of this past week, there was this:

Halloween Candy Haul – child #2

And this – the thing I wait ALL YEAR for:

I mean, COME ON.

I’ll leave you with that beautiful image. I hope you have a great, hairy-faced, warm-soup, foggy glasses week.

You can also find me at MamaPop this week. I was there twice this week, writing about how Randy Quaid should run for Prime Minister of Canada, and how Taylor Swift, Angelina Jolie, and Kate Moss are just like us! No really, they totally are!

Debt and Jazz and Moustaches, oh boy!

I’m hoping to find 42,987 more of these under the couch cushions

Note: My son discovered the auto-play function on my daughter’s electronic keyboard. So please know that everything in this post was typed to the beat of something reminiscent of a 1982 “Key Party” playlist. I didn’t realize “Porno Tunes” was included when we bought this machine at a garage sale, or I would have paid more handsomely for it. 

Oh, wait; he’s just found the “Great Aunt Ethel’s Funeral” button. Annnddd… now it’s birds chirping and I think some kind of a fart noise?

Boys are fun. I wrote about raising boys at iVillage this week; have a read:

The Joy of Raising a Boy

Other things using up real estate in my brain this week include:

Student Loans

I got my final student loan bill in the mail, and it’s equivalent to the Gross Domestic Product of a small but developing second-world country. I’m trying to not think too much about it, and for now I am just letting it sit, untouched, on the growing pile labelled “SCREW IT” on my desk. This is  not a whining post – I went in knowing full well there would be money to re-pay, and that’s cool. It’s just hard seeing it in one firm line of print, and hey, maybe a $10 Tim Horton’s gift card in the envelope would take some of the sting out, just sayin’, Government of Canada.

The loan amortization period is 10 years, which means this loan will be paid off the same year my son will start University. (Unless he doesn’t go; I’m thinking of letting him pursue the hobo lifestyle he enjoys so much, but I’m leery about all the train-jumping. And the possible sunburn during seasonal fruit-picking. Also, too many plums give him diarrhea.)

Being a caring parent is hard.

Children singing

I used to enjoy hearing a kid sing now and then. I’ve been to my share of choir recitals and Christmas Concerts to know that they’re not all bad. But YouTube, The X Factor, America’s Got Talent, and Please I’m Begging You Get Me Outta This Hellhole Indiana Town and Into Hollywood – all those type shows really – need to share the blame. So I just wanna say thankssomuch for making the previously angelic sounds of children singing now make me leave the room in disgust.  I don’t care how nice your voice is, how well you hold a note, how varied your range can be: if you are not at least 18 years old, I do not want to hear you singing about how love “done you wrong.”

I do not want to hear you singing at all.

Movember!

It starts in less than 2 weeks and I am positively tingling with the prospect of future facial hair. There’s nothing I love more than a beard or a mustache and a certain someone has promised to participate again this year. If you’re a fellow pogonophile, maybe you’ll like my Pinterest board dedicated to the beauty of facial hair.

Telemarketers

They are driving me nuts this week. There must be some sort of Air Duct cleaning quota to fill because the calls have been relentless. I don’t have call display, so I have to answer the phone every time it rings. I know if I just let it ring it’ll be an emergency cheeseburger invitation so I’m kinda stuck with this here.

I’ve put my name on the do-not-call list, but it’s not working. So, this week, ala Jerry Seinfeld, I’ve taken to dealing with telemarketers in my own way. Here are some tweets about it:

…signing off now to a nice electronic ragtime rhythm….

How was your week?

Gimme Mo’ Mo!

No, no, NO.

I love Movember.

November I can do without, but Movember can last all year long as far as I’m concerned.

Last Saturday night we went out for my sister’s birthday.  Most of the men in the bar where we were celebrating were participating in Movember in some incarnation or another. A quick scan of the bar demonstrated several of the various male facial hair growth patterns: the 1970’s porn star ‘stache, the trimmed and tidy “work hard/party harder” short beard, the dirty Jesus, and the sparse “Cut me some slack/all my hair’s on my back” wanna be beard.

And you know what?

I LOVE IT ALL.

I asked Google to help me explore my love of all things moustached and bearded, and it turns out there’s a name for my infatuation. I will henceforth identify as a proud pogonphile. At first I got really excited because I thought the word maybe had something to do with corn dog Pogo’s, because I LOVE THOSE ALSO. You can imagine how giddy I get when the carnival comes to town, what with all those hairy Carnie pogo vendors and such.

Probably the only beard style that I don’t love is the Amish style. But I do support button-free lifestyles, enjoy biblical names and a good barn-raising, so I could probably get past my distaste for the religious fringe.  

I think that if you are going to participate in Movember, you should go full speed – no holding back. You’re in or you’re out. (And don’t be out.) Please; no can be no waffling when it comes to something as important and sexy as facial hair. 

Alright Ezekiel, ready for some other rules? 

1. You must be at least 25 years old. Nothing is as disturbing as watching a 19-year-old kid stroking a full length beard. You earn the right to facial hair through age, just as you do other things in life. It’s simple and sequential: driving, voting, drinking, beards.  That’s called “adult math. “
2. Keep it clean. Your facial hair is not a crumb catcher; nor is it a soup strainer. If at any time your beard or moustache resembles the back seat of my minivan, it’s game over.
3. You should have some hair on your head. I don’t care if you’ve only got six of them and they’re less than an 1/8 of an inch long and three are attached with scotch tape, the rule stands: no hair on your head? No hair on your face.
4. Points will be given for talking like a lumberjack, fisherman, or other stereotypical bearded man. Note: Extra points awarded for impersonations of the super-sexy following: Grizzly Adams, Magnum P.I., Almanzo Wilder, or Friedrich Nietzsche.
5. Movember cannot be used as an excuse to refrain from personal upkeep. Just because you’re not shaving doesn’t give you a free pass. You must shower, brush and floss, and – this is key, fellas – put on new underwear every day. We’re fighting cancer here, not hygiene. In fact, why not spend the extra time you have now because you’re not shaving and re-invest it? Maybe cut those toenails?  
6. Never mind what home decorating shows are telling you – the carpet should match the drapes. Salt and pepper is okay; dignified, even. But if you’re coming in at 100% salt, you need to wait until you have the head to match. Colouring your hair and/or beard is not an option. I absolutely guarantee that if your partner walks into the bathroom and finds you huddled over the bathtub with Miss Clairol #344 Dark Beauty all up in your face, it’s going to be a long time until you experience one of the bonuses of having that beard in the first place.

I will be sad to see Movember end, especially since most men choose to opt out of the lifestyle once December rolls around.

But there is some consolation in the otherwise cold, hairless month.

Santa Claus.