There is a Lot of Useful Information in This Post But It’s Buried in Inconsequentialia

I was at the mall yesterday and I saw a little girl, hopped up on candy canes and dollar store chocolate, skipping madly away from Santa’s Wonderland and singing, “JINGLE BELL, JINGLE BELL, JINGLE BELL RAAAAAWWWWWWK” and I suddenly saw both how Trombone might think the song needed some improvement and how he might have mis-heard “right” for “rock” initially and is now just being ornery about it. I know someone else in our family who hates to admit she is wrong – I wonder who it could be.

Also he spent the night away last night so I am feeling more fondly towards him.

Fresco and I spent some time together yesterday afternoon while we waited for the local tire shop to put on our snow tires. Having won over the overworked tire guys by having Fresco look up at the giant stack of tires in the showroom and clap heartily, we only had an hour to kill while the work was done.

That is why I am happy to shop in my neighbourhood. Earlier in the day when I had been planning a big outing on my own (with babysitting in my own home!) I had called a few bigger places that were near other places where I could get other stuff done. The Canadian Tire said it would be a three hour wait, the Costco parking lot gave me hives so I left in a hurry and the Wal-Mart is out in its own pasture near Seattle so I would have had nothing to do while I waited except, well, shop at Wal-Mart. One week before Christmas.

Granted, an hour is still a pretty long time for a baby and it is also a pretty long time to be Uptown in the Mizzle. I would say that on the Scale of General Unpleasantness, an hour Uptown in the Mizzle with a baby is almost equivalent to three hours at an isolated Wal-Mart.

We mailed a parcel at the post office and talked to some local flavour about People Today Who Don’t Know How to Raise Children Present Company Excluded Of Course. Then we walked a bit but it was kind of chilly. When Fresco is by himself in the buggy he sits in the front seat and he doesn’t like it nearly as much. The back seat allows him to hold on to my red purse of love and chew on the handle. In the front, he just sits there and looks around. This bores him. If I give him the red purse of love, he just drops it in the slush and then I take it away. This makes him mad. So we went in the mall and looked at the lights. I was *this close* to taking him to see Santa because SURPRISE there was only one person waiting and Santa looked sad about that but then I didn’t. I was sort of afraid Fresco would give Santa The Peoples’ Elbow.

We got our car back at five o clock and it took almost 20 minutes to get home because Uptown The Mizzle has RUSH HOUR! Who knew? All these people come out of the buildings at 6th and 6th and 7th and who knows what-all and then they all try to drive the same direction. Jeepers. We took a circuitous route through the less-traveled Queen’s Park neighbourhood and it was then I appreciated my newly applied snow tires because those roads were not clear in the least.

I had been pleased, earlier in the day, with how civilized it was to drive around the day after a snow fall, after days of freezing temperatures. The roads were…fine. It was like Vancouver finally figured out how to deal with snow. It snowed, let’s go back to business as usual. I was writing a long, fascinating post in my head while I drove about how it’s about time and maybe we are a world-class city after all but then I remembered I was actually driving in Coquitlam when I thought that so I mentally rescinded it.

How’s Vancouver, you guys who live there? Is it civilized? Or do the suburbs get the snow plows in exchange for public transit?

Anyway, those side streets around the park, they were murder.

It’s no Ontario, mind you. (But I should like to belt whoever came up with “stormageddon.”[ Tim Cuprisin apparently. Huh.])

And finally, as of yesterday, two days before he becomes 8 months old, Fresco has finally broken gum with one tooth. And a great cry of joy was heard around the house. Because everyone knows the first tooth is the hardest. To celebrate, I gave him a hunk of bread for breakfast and he absolutely massacred it. Gotta go hide my chips.

I will eat the world with my one tooth! Starting with this gift!