Preferences

Posted on 4/15/2011 by cheesefairy

I started writing this this morning while drinking coffee and thinking about how much I prefer snot to puke. Did you think that said “not to puke”? That is the first fundamental truth: I prefer NOT to puke. But if I have a choice of bodily fluid to clean up, I pick snot over puke. As bodily fluids go.

Something I never really considered before I had children was what kind of bodily fluids I prefer. There are many things to consider, you know, many more than I ever realized. I am not complaining about the continued action here at Virus Central because after this month (and possibly the next month) our immunity will be so strong we will be able to win any reality show. I just hope it’s different reality shows for each of us so that we each win a million dollars AND pave the way to an appearance on Celebrity Apprentice someday. (Also I kind of hope Trombone gets on Survivor so he has to try some new foods.)

I used to watch The Apprentice, years ago, and then it got boring. During the dry – ha, but not really dry at all! – spell of this past March when there was a) nothing on TV and b) my face hurt a lot – and c) I already told you all the stuff I read so it’s not like my brain is liquifying but that I just needed some damn Gossip Girl you know? Actually a LOT of Gossip Girl. I needed a Gossip Girl marathon but the TV was giving me stupid shows I don’t like – I saw an ad for the Celebrity Apprentice so I told the DVR to record it and then was shocked to realize that it is a two-hour show. Why is it two hours? TWO HOURS.

I say I need TV but I don’t need two hours of any show. If I had two hours to spend, I would watch a movie. I have to be in bed by 9:30 so I don’t end up staying up till 11. It’s a very slippery slope in my brain, you guys. Maybe it is liquifying. Maybe I should solidify my brain with something fibrous. Maybe I should watch that show on the Knowledge Network about the old British guy. Now that’s fibrous. Anyway. I failed to notice that Celebrity Apprentice is two hours long before I started watching it. The first hour is the best part anyway; the whole second hour is dramatic music and grown adults screaming at each other. Thankfully since then, a lot of the good TV has returned so I will be able to save Celebrity Apprentice for those truly desperate sick days that I’m sure we won’t have any more of because of our super immunity.

I complain a lot about snot, but snot is way better than puke. Even the words: puke. Vomit. Barf. They’re bad. I am not a barf person. I mean, no one is, right, but some people I’m sure are better at barf than me. People who are more used to it. We don’t have a lot of barfing in our house, the ratio of snot to barf has been 50:3. Lucky, I know.

I don’t barf often and when I do, because I am 37, I can put it tidily in a toilet bowl and wave goodbye to it. I don’t wake up at 11:30 pm and go “what’s happening!” and then barf all over my room. Thank god the kids don’t share a room (yet!) or that would have been two children covered in barf. I would have probably just collapsed in it and gone back to sleep.

Snot doesn’t smell. This is really important, in the bodily fluids preference thing. I guess the best possible scenario would be the caregiver with a sinus infection and unable to smell anything and THEN barfing. Maybe next time.

While I am not fond of snot I do know the best ways of dealing with it and of getting a snotty toddler to put his face to me so that I might wipe it. When in doubt just grab on like you’re going for a ride up a rope tow and don’t let go until the tissue or cloth you’re holding is sodden.

Related: Fresco, who has a new name for himself every eight seconds, who knows where he gets THAT from, decided yesterday his name was SUPERSNAIL. Which is appropriate, as he has that slow, sticky feel to him. Is yesterday’s snot a new snot? Will we all have snot in three days? Could it possibly be related to Trombone’s random barfery of Tuesday, 11:30 pm? Let’s hope so.

April is awesome. No really it is. We barf, we clean it up, we move on. It’s just life and life is good. Happy Friday.

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New West Wednesdays at Tenth to the Fraser

Posted on 4/13/2011 by cheesefairy

Hyper (uber?) local New Westminster website Tenth to the Fraser has come up with a local meme for Wednesdays. Briana explains:

“This is the first in a new weekly series on Tenth to the Fraser. Every Wednesday we’ll publish a post that’s meant to spark conversation about New Westminster. You can participate by sharing your thoughts in the comments on the blog, Facebook or Twitter, writing a post on your own blog (just link to this post and a link to your post will show up in the comments) or submitting a guest post. To submit an idea for discussion, email info at tenthtothefraser.ca”

I needed a topic today, so I’m going with it! Be sure and check out Briana’s memories of New Westminster too.

What were your first impressions of New Westminster and have they changed over time?

I used to take piano lessons. I would do the Royal Conservatory of Music examination every year and the exams closest to us (we lived in Burnaby) were in New Westminster. Usually at Douglas College, I think, which made absolutely no impression on me at all, but one year, my exam was at The Royal Towers Hotel.

The Royal Towers is at the corner of 6th Street and Royal Ave. It is at the top of a hill (and at the bottom of another hill, because this is New Westminster after all) so it seems incredibly tall and important when you are a child of let’s say eleven years. I thought it was quite a classy joint, because of the “Royal” in the name and also, it was a hotel! Like, you know, The Hilton!

We walked into the lobby and I swear I remember red wall-to-wall carpeting. The place smelled of stale smoke, which is actually a selling point as I have always loved that smell. The ceilings were high and the lobby chairs and couches were filled with young children nervously flexing their fingers and twiddling their ringlets. The acoustics were such that we could all hear the person who was playing his exam pieces in one of the rooms with the tall, wooden doors. No one looked at anyone else.

When it was my turn I walked into the exam room and went over to the piano. The room was bright with light from the big windows overlooking downtown. I was extra nervous knowing that everyone in the lobby, including the adorable girls with double-ponytails tied with ribbons to match their dresses, could hear me. I felt like I should have dressed better. Being in a Hotel and all.

The first time I walked past the Royal Towers as an adult, shortly after we moved to New West, I both recognized the hotel and didn’t. It’s a low-budget hotel with a sports bar and off-sales, right off a very busy road that runs through the city. I mean it is across the street from City Hall but a way-station for traveling celebrities it ain’t. I would totally have drunk beer there 15 years ago.

Which leads me to my second impression of New Westminster, which I acquired on New Year’s Eve, 1993.

Invited to a New Year’s Eve party, my roommates and I took the skytrain from East Van allll the wayyyyy to New Westminster and got off at the New Westminster skytrain station. Not New West’s best face, that station. It’s dark and of course it was NYE so there were a lot of interesting people slouching and stenching about. Then we looked at the piece of paper with the address and realized we basically had to walk 8 blocks straight up towards heaven to get to the house. So we did, up some major road crowded with massive trucks going by at incredible speeds.

The house party was dark and loud and we only knew a few people, including my bitter, bitter ex-boyfriend, who, it turned out, had specifically arranged for me to be invited so that he could trap me on the back porch, wave a bottle of champagne around and yell at me for breaking up with him.

The people who lived there brewed their own beer and made us drink it. And it was awful. Or maybe it wasn’t. After all, at the time my favourite beer was Molson Dry.

I understand if you need to take a moment.

We slept there, in New Westminster, in that hostile house, and one of us got her period on the hard, living room floor and then we had to gather ourselves and our big hair and find the skytrain station and ride alll the wayyy back to East Van. And then I think we went to Denny’s.

Those two stories are what I thought of when I first started looking at the real estate listings for New Westminster, back in 2006. I had this vague recollection of New West being a far-flung, hilly, economically poor suburb, chock full of deranged people, which explained, to my mind, why the property here was $100K cheaper than anything comparable in Vancouver.

My third impression became the lasting one when we attended our first few open houses in New Westminster. The first house we saw was in Sapperton. It was an adorable – bright red – 800 square foot cottage that wouldn’t have contained even a third of our books, so we bid it farewell, but as we walked down the hill to Sapperton Station to head back to Vancouver, I looked up at Alberta St. with its big trees and old homes and thought, wow – I didn’t even know this was here.


(not Sapperton, but a nice alley nonetheless)

When forming an opinion of a city, perspective is everything. If you like walking, small cities with that ‘small town’ feel, fabulous repeat characters in your everyday encounters, and especially if you like magnolia trees, New Westminster might suit you just fine. (If you’re into shopping malls, though, you’ll want to try Burnaby.)

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Threes

Posted on 4/11/2011 by cheesefairy

I like things in threes. When I am reading children’s books and they don’t keep to the rule of three, I get upset.

Maybe there isn’t a rule of three. Maybe it’s my rule and no one keeps to it because they haven’t met me yet.

What I mean is, when you are writing a story for children, there should be three (3) repetitions of the important action plot piece. I don’t know what that part is actually called, but for example:

Nat Fantastic, a story about a boy who turns into a superhero every time his mother leaves the room to do something while she is supposed to be reading him a story.

It is kind of an annoying story to me, because a) his mom keeps leaving – she goes to answer the phone, turn down the carrots and answer the door. Read the story or don’t, mom. The sooner you read it, the sooner wee Nat GOES TO BED. Ignore the muffin’crackin’ phone already, and also b) He saves a boatload of giggling, helpless girls from a crocodile and they pat his head and kiss him a lot and this offends me. Yes.

Anyway, the structure goes:

1. Mom and Nat settle in to read story
2. Mom leaves / Nat sneezes / turns into superhero / saves the day / sneezes / comes back
3. Mom comes back.
4. Mom leaves etc.
5. Mom comes back.
5. Mom leaves etc.
6. Mom comes back. The end.

I might not like the story itself but it follows the rule of three.

If Mom had left a fourth time? For another iteration of the action? I would take this book back to the library in the dead of night and not apologize for it. Four times is too many.

Maybe the rule in my head comes from learning to write five-paragraph essays? Where you have a thesis and three points and a conclusion? I don’t know. Anyone else? Just me? OK.

So, it pains me, but I must break my own rule and show you only TWO pictures from my cell phone. I don’t have three. I only have two. I’m sorry.

First one is from a few months ago, at a local drugstore chain.

That is a display of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, yes. Just to the left of the children’s books and to the right of the toys. Yes. Across the isle from the rest of the magazines, including the nudie mags that are 6 feet off the ground and hidden. You know. So kids can’t see them.

Note: I am not offended by the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition right next to the children’s books, nor am I calling scantily clad, sexy looking women ‘porn’. I am just surprised that anyone put it there.

And! Good thing Fresco’s not still nursing or he would have had a lot to say to that cover model, who was right at his face level.

Number two!

The other day we went to a different branch of the Burnaby Public Library. Because we are a little wild, like that. We like to mix it up. Usually we go to the Tommy Douglas Branch. But on Saturday we also needed to be near Metrotown (the mall) for a birthday party so we went to the Bob Prittie Branch, which is right next to Metrotown.

I haven’t been to that branch since I was in university. It is a massive library. Two floors, huge stairwells, extensive collection, nice, divided children’s area with lots of books and DVDs and blah blah blah it’s a library. Enough.

Of course the true test of any establishment is its bathroom. The Tommy Douglas Branch, as I have written before (last April, coincidentally? Oh April, month of bathrooms) has a beautiful bathroom. Small, but beautiful. New backsplash, motion activated water, soap, towels and hand dryers, as well as toilets that have low-flow and high-flow flushing options. I like options!

The bathroom at the Bob Prittie Branch is a lot like any public bathroom anywhere. It is old and dark and kind of brown all over. The sink taps were backwards (counterclockwise) and the soap dispensers set into the counter didn’t actually lead to any SOAP – the soap dispensers on the wall did work – BUT this branch still got a virtual high five from me because look:

Someone took the time to make this poster, copy and laminate one for each stall and tape one to each door. In my books, that bathroom wins.

(Whether or not anyone pays any attention to the sign itself. Though in fact, my toilet seat was spotless.)

*scratches head*

OK, so that’s it. Two photos. Not three. Nothing to see here. Move along.

*drums table with fingers*

Oh god, here, fine. Here is a hilarious picture of Fresco from the other day. Fresco who is 9 days away from turning THREE. HA. See what I did there? I RULED, that’s what.

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My Eyeballs Might Fall Out Soon But I’m Happy

Posted on 4/7/2011 by cheesefairy

After last week’s April Manifesto, I carried on living my life for two whole days of healthy, happy madness, and then licked a bad shopping cart or something because Monday morning I woke up feeling distinctly like truck goo. 24 short hours later and I was mostly fine. All hail — oh I don’t know what to hail anymore. Evidently my immune system has the fortitude of a housefly. Won’t be hailing that.

Let us not discuss how I have been sick on and off with two-day breaks for the past MONTH. Let us instead discuss how much great reading I have had the time to do!

There has been internet reading. I started using a feed reader this calendar year but keep forgetting to Go To It because I have been old-skool click-around-the-net reading for the past *mumble* years. Anyway, I have caught up on my feed reader TWICE. That’s like 600 posts. I can’t link to any of them because they’re gone, now, but I read them dammit. I read them.

There has also been magazine reading. Recently I discovered the second floor of the New Westminster Public Library. The magazines are up there. Tonnes of them. Mostly I’ve been taking out literary journals, to see what the published and prize winning are writing these days. Note: I don’t recommend reading these when you are flat on your back because a) they are generally not nearly funny enough and b) if you are aspiring to be published or prized it can be demoralizing to read excellent writing while you are unable to hold a ballpoint in your hand. Prism International and Event Magazine (through New Westminster’s own Douglas College) feature some very fine writing indeed.

I also borrowed a copy of Yoga Journal, which turns out to be mostly a shill for The Weight Loss Consortium.

I read Sarah Silverman’s autobiography, “The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee.”. A lot of it was very funny. I never paid much attention to Sarah Silverman but now I am more interested in her.

I read “A Spot of Bother”by Mark Haddon. It was an excellent dysfunctional family novel, very British, which is a nice change from Canadian dysfunction. The British do it much funnier. Each quirky character got a POV chapter and it was a bit dizzying. Like a revolving door of quirk. But it all tied together in the end and what a relief.

And right now I am finishing a collection of Raymond Carver stories and essays called “Call if You need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose.” His short fiction is inspiring; slow burn, dread in your stomach, and characters who are just perfect. They are just on-the-nose perfect. Then there are the essays.

First, his essay “On Writing.” He references another essay, by Flannery O’Connor, called “Writing Short Stories,” in which she ..talks about writing as an act of discovery. O’Connor says she most often did not know where she was going when she sat down to work on a short story. She says she doubts that many writers know where they are going when they begin something. (p 91)

Carver goes on to say:

When I read this some years ago it came as a shock that she, or anyone for that matter, wrote stories in this fashion. I thought this was my uncomfortable secret, and I was a little uneasy with it. (p 92)

I am not comparing myself to Raymond Carver or Flannery O’Connor but I also thought that was my uncomfortable secret.

In the next essay, “Fires” he talks about influences. He says,

I have to say that the greatest single influence on my life, and on my writing, directly and indirectly, has been my two children. They were born before I was twenty, and from beginning to end of our habitation under the same roof…there wasn’t any area of my life where their heavy and often baleful influence didn’t reach. (p 97)

He talks about realizing that having these children, and having to make some kind of living to help support his family, meant he would only be able to write short stories and poems, things he has an hour for after dinner. So he wrote stories and poems.

This hit-and-miss way of writing lasted for nearly two decades. There were good times back there, of course; certain grown-up pleasures and satisfactions that only parents have access to. But I’d take poison before I’d go through that time again. (p 102)

Number one thing I love about this: the matter-of-factness, the ‘well, I was going to write something so it had to be short. Damn kids. Get outta my garage.’

Number two thing: hearing a male writer talk about the job of child-rearing / family life and its effect on his writing. This is something I hear a lot from women who are mothers who write. (woman motherwriters?) And a lot of that is because of the company I keep and the memoirs I’m interested in. (rock stars and woman motherwriters, mainly. And Sarah Silverman.) I don’t think I’ve ever heard a male writer say, ‘Man, yeah, my kids kept me from writing novels. Pain in the ass. Worth it, but a total pain in the ass.’ Most of the time, male writers with children appear to function as male writers without children: seamlessly. Which may be because they are not talking about how they are writing their novels on post-its in the bathroom, or because they genuinely aren’t, they’re writing when they feel like it while their partners take up the slack.

I don’t know. But Raymond Carver makes me happy. May he rest in peace.

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On Liking Our Kids

Posted on 4/5/2011 by cheesefairy

Megan has a daughter who just turned two. The two-year-old is not napping consistently, she’s whiny and needy and wonderful and gorgeous and funny and tantrum-my. Megan is frustrated and desperately needs a spa weekend with five of her closest friends. The other night, on twitter, she said, “It’s weird. I’m like up and down every other minute. “Oh, she’s adorable. I love her!” Then “I’m gonna kill her.”

I almost tweeted back to Megan, “I haven’t ‘liked’ my kids in years.” But I didn’t. For one thing, it’s not true. Most of the time – 50% of every day? – I like my kids. They are really neat kids. They can also be jackasses, especially around their mother, and I have many moments of really NOT liking them. Especially from the ages of 2 – Present. For two: thinking about those not-liking moments made me feel mean, and like a terrible parent.

Then I thought some more and I realized I was confusing like with love. I will always (forever) love my kids but I don’t always (every day) have to like them. After all, they are Beginner People. They are going through phases and stages that will help them become the people they will be someday. They are like aliens halfway out of the pod. Slimy baby chicks kicking their way out of eggshells. I like eggs. I like chickens. Not so fond of slime.

But why did I have the expectation that I would like my kids? They are just people, like all people. I don’t like all people. Even all the people I am related to.

When babies are new, it is an adjustment. Everyone says “enjoy this time” but you’re covered in pee and milk and sweat and blood. You know why they call them “receiving blankets”? For all the bodily fluids they will be receiving.

But you adjust. You get the hang of the baby. You know when it’s going to cry, (when you’re on the phone or in the car) when it’s going to poop (right after you leave a place with a change table), and when it’s going to smile the biggest (when you are just about to leave it at a bus stop). You figure out how to predict the unpredictable behavior.

And they are pure love. Even when they scream and flail and turn red in the face you forgive them. There’s not even anything to forgive. They are babies. You don’t ‘like’ your baby. It would be like ‘liking’ a watermelon if there was nothing else on earth for you to eat. You adore your baby. You hate your baby. You adore your baby again.

You might wish it (babyhood)(the screaming) would end, you might have lesser or greater experiences of depression and you would find support for those things on the Internet, at your doctor, or public health clinic.

Toddlers, though. When a baby starts to walk, it’s called a toddler but really, I call it toddlerhood when the baby is asserting its will. When a baby starts to morph into a person, no, of course it was always a person, but a Person with preferences and opinions and, more importantly, the ability to act on those preferences and opinions.

There is still that unconditional love that you felt with the baby, but because the baby is now sort of a Person, you enjoy its Personhood too. You like the little words it says and the way it pets cats or screams at spiders or puts blueberries in its nose and looks like a movie special effect, and you start to like it. It is an entertaining/loving/genius little Person, and you like it. But oh no. It also likes to throw things at dogs and it complains when you wash its hair but it still rubs yogurt in there every day, and it just punched its brother in the face! For no reason! No! I Do Not Like That Person.

I don’t like my child, therefore I am a monster who doesn’t love my child. I thought that way, until I thought of it this way:

Do I like everyone I claim to love, all the time? No. And that includes myself. We all make mistakes. We are all jerks. We are all worthy of understanding, forgiveness, respect, and love, whether or not we are likeable in a given moment.

I don’t have to project I like you at all times in order to raise my kids to be the kind of people I want them to be. I have to project I love you.

It is both a revelation and a relief.

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