Sunday, March 22, 2009

Idea for iPhone App

Times you hear "BUT, MOM. . . ."

+

Times you hear "WHEN CAN I PLAY MY DS?"

+

Times you hear "A COUPLE EQUALS 2. ONE, TWO. NOW CAN I PLAY MY DS?"

+

Times you hear "WHATEVER"

+

Times you hear "PKHOO PKHOO PKHOO" (or however lightsabers sound in YOUR house)

+

Inches of snow having fallen in latest 24-hour period

X

Number of bristly white hairs shed per second by the flatulent coonhound

=

THE ADDRESS OF THE NEAREST PSYCH WARD WITH A MARTINI BAR

Developers, the operator is standing by.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

I've looked at youth from both sides now

Listen up: I am now 46 and that means you all have to start treating me with more respect.

That means you, little girls in the swimming pool locker room: I do have big pink boobs. You should be so lucky.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Lying about Clocks

All mothers spend a great deal of their day lying. Oh, cut the crap, you know you do. I lie all the time. I told Kid we got him out of a catalogue. He thinks that he has a personal Tooth Fairy called Marvin who leaves money only if he is given not only a tooth but also some Almond Roca. Toys R Us is open only one Sunday a month and not at all in June. If you don't wash your hands after being in the bathroom, "The Committee" knows and will squeal to Santa. So today I lied about daylight saving's time. I honestly didn't know that it happened last night. Imagine my surprise to discover that we had missed the glorious opportunity of driving for 1.5 hours in sub-sub-sub-zero temperatures on a windy and snowy highway to go skiing.

I'm inconsolate, I tell you.

Nothing to do now but pour a glurg or two of Kahlua in the old coffee and mourn my unfortunate inability to remember simple things like "Spring Forward."

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

What next?

Hello.

Kid came home from kindergarten today bursting with the news: they had done something gruesome and violent and disgusting in class today.

Oh yeah. Sounds like another day, I thought to myself.

Ah, but I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

(Cue insane laughter.)

This was the day in which 25 five-year-old hygiene-challenged midgets were to don workgloves and break apart owl pellets to see what the lovely birds had horked up.

Bones, it turns out, was what the vomit nuggets contained. Eyeballs, apparently. Skulls. Chipped. Done violence to with sharp beaks and talons.

And then the children were asked to glue the bones onto a piece of paper. Some kind of diarama of death, I imagine, although this remains to be seen. Perhaps it will turn out to be part of a nineteenth-century corset project. Viking rowboats. Snakes and ladders. The double helix.

And then they were released into the domestic realm, with no warning, into the arms of their innocent mothers, some of whom, as you know, are balancing on the very keenest blade of sanity.

And some of those mothers might have imagined that tonight's dinner would be unlikely to feature the following gems:

There's no way I'm eating this. It looks like an owl pellet.

Mommy, did you choke this up from your gizzard?

Are you sure?

Is that a frog skull?

How can I tell that that is a piece of onion and not a frog skull?

There's no way I'm eating that. It looks like a mouse pelt puked up by an owl's gizzard.

That doesn't look like bread to me. It totally looks like something you would see if you broke apart an owl pellet and there were bones and skulls and feathers and fur.

When owls puke up a pellet they have this look on their face like they're having a really big poo and it's not going too well.

I can't remember if I washed my hands since I was scrapping through the owl pellet, which got puked out by an owl and is full of bones and skulls and feathers and fur.

Next time the dog barfs can I scrap through it to see what he ate?

There's no way I'm eating any of this.


What ever happened to the days of making modernist papasans out of styrofoam egg cartons? Of painting rocks that say I LOVE MOMMY? Of learning to tie your shoes? (Hello, we could use some HELP with that.)

I'm going to need a stronger prescription of everything.




Head here to scrap through your own owl pellet.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Dear Karmic Wheel

I complain a lot. About everything. So, for the record (ahem! any gods hanging about who might have to do with punishing those who don't count their blessings) here are a few things for which I'm grateful:

1. My child is cool with sarcasm and can dish it out as well as take it.
2. My dog might have bad breath and ginormous poo, but he has a big heart and is one of life's more pleasant surprises. Who could have foreseen a coonhound from New Orleans joining our kvetchy Canadian tribe?
3. No one makes mashed potatoes like my mom.
4. The last time I wore panty hose because it was part of the dress code at work was so long ago that I can't remember.
5. I can still afford NeoStrata products.
6. Popcorn.
7. I can eat grapefruit again.
8. BoingBoing
9. The little coffee whirler jobby that foams my milk in the morning.
10. Nice family. All alive. All quirky.
11. My sister's husband put her at number 42 on his list of "Priorities." And then left the list around. Every time I think of this I snort and giggle.
12. I have learned to accept the fact that I snort when I laff.
13. I've seen the Northern Lights twice.
14. I'm now at an age when my grandmother's jewelry is age-appropriate. Hello, sparkles!
15. Found someone who cuts my hair just fine. And doesn't colour it burgundy. Also a plus.
16. Angela Thirkell's fluffy novels.
17. Battlestar Galactica.
18. My new purple leather briefcase. I should set up a meeting with someone, anyone, just so I can take it out into the world. It should be seen.
19. No venomous spiders in the vicinity.

So, hellowee. deities, vengeful sprites, demiurges, niaids, etc.: See? Grateful! Jolly! How about STEPPING ON THE SPRING PEDAL ALREADY AND MELTING THE EFFING SNOW? I mean, you know, when you have time. Thank you for your patience.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Chairlift to HELL

Poor Kid. Driven into heart of splendid Canadian Rockies on a warm and bright winter day, for his private ski lesson. Dressed warmly, equipped professionally. Fed generously. Allowed to flirt with small girl instead of drinking his milk. Allowed to ride the chairlift, not for the first time, because he was now judged old enough and a good enough skier to do so.

As I looked into his huge gorgeous blue eyes, with the crystalline tears brimming in them, and watched his bottom lip tremble, and saw his small boy hands clutching passionately the line-up railing, and saw too the trust he placed in me to make everything better and take him back to the lodge and give him hot chocolate and tell him he was a brave boy for even considering taking the chairlift up the mountain, I kind of felt like the worst mommy in the world for putting him in the headlock and hustling him onto that mechanical contraption of certain child doom. His screams (not of terror, of rage) rang and echoed through the Banff-area skies. At one point he called upon Zeus--I kid you not--to strike me down with a thunderbolt.

And to that mom in line behind us, you know who you are: Your turn will come. Consider yourself served a heaping tablespoon of instant karma.