Overheard in Oakridge

On Day One of Grade One:

Me: How was school? What did you do?
Kid: Oh, just the same old thing.

At lunch:

Me: You seem to be making a habit of spilling your lunch all over your shirt.
Kid: It's not a habit, it's a hobby. It's not a very good hobby, but it's the only one I have.

While helping pick apples:

Dad: Will you please pass me that bowl?
Kid: What did your last servant die of?

While getting ready for bed:

Dad: Get in here, it's time to brush your teeth.
Kid: You weird imperialismed guy.

On Lawnbowling

You know a girl's got it bad when watching someone else lawnbowl qualifies as a real treat. A night out.

Moving right along, here are some things I noticed while posing as a lawnbowling groupie.

--Hubby is WAY more competitive about the sport than he would like to let on. I counted four times when he asked the skip to move the mark six inches to the left, or the right, and once he just went commando (sort of) and made up his own mark in his own mind. I am of mixed feelings about this. One the one hand: yay honey! You're filled with integrity and athleticism and a healthy sense of sportsmanship! On the other hand: DUDE, IT'S LAWNBOWLING (with apologies to Heather Armstrong, QUEEN OF ALL CAPS).

--I noticed a man with a French pedicure. It kind of freaked me out. Why? Because if he had that kind of time, you think he might have, oh I don't know, combed his hair or checked one last time to see if the plaid pork-pie hat was dorky. On the plus side, he was a very nice person who offered to get me a beer on his way over to the cooler.

Here's one of his feet:



You totally cannot see the pedicure, but all the girls at the green noticed it. I believe it sapped the strength of this gentleman's team; they certainly seemed surprised by the trouncing handed to them. And if his mom knew about it, she'd have something to say.

--Lawnbowling might be the only activity in this city that unites mid-40s new media faux slackers, earringed attornies, grandmothers with flappy upper arms, 20-year-old stoners, men with French tips on their feet (as mentioned:), older men who resemble Colonel Tigh from Battlestar Galactica, and random French people hauled off the street to serve as subs for absent people. Thank God they eventually repealed the Act of 1541, which forbids artificers, labourers, apprentices, husbandmen, servants or serving-men, and other "low-born" people from participating in the game of bowls, except at Christmas in their master's grounds and in his presence.

--The bowls themselves look a lot like malted Whoppers to spectators who haven't yet had their dinner because SOMEBODY forgot something at home and had to go back for it and there was no time to eat before the first jack was hucked or whatever it is they do to jacks.



--Everyone who doesn't lawnbowl treats lawnbowling as a joke, but I am assured by all who play that it is a game of raw courage, Machiavelian strategy, and physical grace. Much like motherhood in that respect, except no one stocks a huge cooler of free beer at the front door of THIS place.

Child "care"

A lovely friend was recently horrified by the bucket of dirty blocks her angelic 2.5-year-old was handed at a soon-to-be-hastily-abandoned childcare in the neighborhood.

Today I'm hosting that particular angel, her equally angelic (though steely-willed) older sister, my cousin's angelic 12-year-old, and Kid (streaming trails of glory, etc etc). They're in the living room, just down the hall from my office, each in a different chair, all playing DS/Leapster in dead silence. The house is a tip, there's a drooling coonhound licking their feet, roughly 18 million fruit flies in the kitchen, nothing even remotely resembling a healthy snack anywhere within walking distance, and inappropriate music being streamed on my Mac.

And yet how much better this is, for all of us. I will actually be sad when they're all back in school and I am left alone here with my little career. But at least I won't have to share the Pringles. . . .

The beds are made!

Soon I shall shout THE BEDS ARE MADE! THE LEGO IS PICKED UP! THERE ARE NO BOY PANTIES ON THE BATHROOM FLOOR!

And here's how I'm going to do that (thanks, government of Indonesia, for the inspiration):



Yep, I'm going to grease me a totem pole, tie some treats up top, and -- where was I going with this? How will having the Kid climb a greased totem pole result in him cleaning his room?

Just a sec. I'm sure it will come to me.

Shit.

Well, THIS is awkward.

Once again, "eyes bright with purpose" has not translated into "brain bright with logic" here in the voodoo bungalow.

I think I should maybe go back on disability for another week or two.

Time to grow a pair

An interesting turn of events:

When you have a spiral fracture on (in?) your metacarpals, you risk losing some centimeters from your finger length.

The relative sizes of one's ring and index fingers supposedly point to whether or not you are a transvestite or trans-gendered person. (Thanks, tflem, for forcing me into gloves for the rest of my life). I shared this info at the dinner table last night. Even I could not have predicted what would come of it.

My six-year-old son is now not entirely convinced that I am currently/have always been a girl. Evidence: the finger thing but also the fact that there is sometimes a long white hair sticking out of my jaw (clearly, a beard). Also noted by small brain: daddy often refers to "mommy" as "Pete." "Mommy" likes to watch Eddie Izzard (formerly the world's funniest transvestite comedian, now, one hopes, soon to be a Member of the British Parliament) in the afternoons and has been heard to say "I love that guy."

Note to the interested: when you say, "Time to man up, son" to a small boy worried that his mommy is really a man, you should expect a look of horror followed by questions about how adoption works.

You sure?

Had a manicure on Saturday. First one in years. It went okay except for two things--which, actually, when you think about it, is kind of a lot of things going not okay when all you're doing is sitting in a chair while someone else paints your nails pink.

First of all: the giant TV that was playing an infomercial for Plan Canada, which sponsors tired and hungry children around the world and is a very excellent thing and something that I personally support. That much said, it is still a horror to be paying the equivalent of two weeks' nourishment for a Ugandan family of five for the not-so-very-life-threatening service of cuticle removal--WHILE THE STARVING FAMILY GAZES WEAKLY AT YOU FROM A 50-INCH PLASMA SCREEN. I think I have been cured of manicures forever.

Second, half-way through the manicure, Queenie turns the light onto my face and says "You want me to take care of your brow too?" When I demurred, she looked at me incredulously. "You sure?" I was. Queenie again: "We do your brow, that lip and your chin. 20 dollars." THAT LIP? MY CHIN?

I went in looking for something pricessy and came out feeling like a selfish evil hairy troll--and, wait for it--a selfish evil hairy troll with "Your a Pisa Work" pink nails.

The H Word

Kid swears. He's picked up "damn" from Indiana Jones, and he and his little cabal mutter it under their breath when they drop crackers on the floor, break a pencil tip, or miss the sink when spitting toothpaste. I've decided neither to crack the hell up nor to overtly comment on it one way or the other and hope the thing clears itself up before school starts. Speaking of hell, Kid has also learned--probably from one of those damed 7-year-olds--that there is a swear word that starts with the letter "h," and he is trying like anything to figure out what it could possibly be.

Laur, halibabby.
That's not it, Lief.
Hostinfeffer.
That's "hasenpfeffer," and no, that's not it.
Hambiltung.
Nope.
Hunkomore.
Cute, but no. Drop it.
Hoochalordy. Hink. Horrible-toilet-tongue-sandwich.

He got up in the middle of last night, stumbled into our room and pronounced "Halibut." As I scooted him back down the hallway, his eyes only half open and the rest of him almost completely asleep, he kept trying. "Hello. Helium. Hi. Huge. Henry."

"Go the hell to sleep," I whispered lovingly, as he drifted back to dreamland.