That’s More Like It

Posted on 6/9/2007 by cheesefairy

In the car yesterday morning I heard the kind of cover song I can get behind: a reggae version of Michael Bolton’s “A Love So Beautiful.” Now, I am partial to this song since it’s the closest thing to an “our song” that Saint Aardvark and I have ever had but aside from that, what I really liked about the cover is that it was totally different from the original. Which to me is the whole point of a cover tune. Otherwise it’s just karaoke.

Wait, wait, did you see me just claim a Michael Bolton tune as a meaningful part of my relationship? And you just ACCEPTED it and kept reading? You guys.

Our relationship was built just like this city: on rock and roll.

(Ah, not really but I like that sentence a lot and I’m not deleting it. I guess it was built more on rock and roll than on Michael Bolton, though.)

Way back in the way-back-ether, when we were in between dating each other, he requested this Michael Bolton tune on a radio show and had it dedicated to me for my birthday. Then he recorded the DJ’s intro and put the recording on a mixed tape.

At another point in our long history, he suprised me with two tickets to POCOHONTAS ON ICE!

As you can see, I married him to keep the world safe for the rest of you. I am a freedom fighter for the Crazy Revolution.

Yesterday morning I found some bhangra for Trombone to dance to. I found it here. The artist’s name is Ranj B and you can watch one of his videos here if you are interested.

As all of this (including this post) happened yesterday, I would have posted this oh about 24 hours ago but I sent the video below to Youtube but YT was being a little assholish – I guess too many people are watching Paris Hilton peepee in jail – so after waiting a full day for my video to be available for viewing, I Just This Morning switched to Vimeo for my cutebabyvideohosting needs and it seems pretty sweet so far. Much nicer website (I love brown and blue together) & interface (little things like a progress bar to tell you how much of your clip has been uploaded) and a lot less busy. I could do without all the logos and the progress bar across the image but as long as you can see those hips a-swivelling and hear me doing my running commentary (must remember to STOP DOING THAT when I go back to the office) it’s all good, right?

The Rhythm! The Rhythm! from tortured potato on Vimeo

Posted in more about me!, music, trombone | 8 Comments

I Just Don’t Get It, Wally

Posted on 6/8/2007 by cheesefairy

I was just flipping through radio stations, seeking music that has a good beat because Trombone likes to dance in the morning. And on the country station, a cover of “Life is a Highway,” identical to the original except that the man singing it sounds more like a muppet, less like Tom Cochrane.

Uh. Were you all out of poodle-shaped toilet paper covers to crochet? Because I can’t imagine a less productive endeavor.

Trombone is studiously ignoring it in favour of his book with page after page of animals to identify (the four main classes are “Cow,” “Dog,” “Cat” and “Duck.”)

And the radio man just said, “I think they should put up posters of Paris Hilton and underneath it should say ‘Please spay or neuter your dog’.”

How fantastic. Off to find some bhangra.

Posted in music | 2 Comments

More Random Whatnottery

Posted on 6/5/2007 by cheesefairy

I have some public service announcements:

  • I had a Sausage McMuffin on Sunday, the first one since I discovered the Tim Hortons bacon sandwiches. Holy, Moly and Frijoly, the Sausage McMuffin is a foul, evil food. Once you go Tim’s, you can’t go back.
  • Green and Black’s chocolate is on sale at London Drugs right now for $2.99 a bar instead of $3.69. GO! Wait, no, finish reading this, then say something pithy in the comments and THEN go. Unless you don’t have a London Drugs in your town, in which case, well, I’m very sorry and remind me to mail you some chocolate.
  • Michael Ondaatje was interviewed on Writers and Company on Sunday afternoon. He has one of the best voices of any writer anywhere and I would happily listen to him say “sausage mcmuffin” over and over again but I discovered, as I listened, that I feel strongly that people who go to the trouble of (for example) 25 drafts per novel should be left alone once that novel is published.

I often joke that someday I would like to be interviewed on the CBC about the novel I wrote that wins the Super XYZ Prize! but actually, I don’t think I would. I would like people to read it, enjoy it or not, write me letters saying so and then form book clubs or whatever. But don’t ask me to explain it to you. If you didn’t get it? Either you are an idiot or I have failed as a writer. Either way, I don’t think I want to talk about it on a national radio show.

Ah, with an attitude like that I am BOUND for glory, non?

Speaking of random French and writing, here is a small story.

A few months ago I decided that it would be in everyone’s best interests (in our house) to have a bedtime routine. A ritual. A nice, calming thing the baby could count on and then he would be all, “Hey, let me in that crib so I can go to BED, yo!” Saint Aardvark agreed. It’s just safer. So we started to “do” bedtime as many people do: a couple of board books, a bath, some aloud-reading from a proper storybook, some cuddling and feeding and putting down for the night.

The aloud-reading takes place up in our bedroom. We read Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, Paddington Bear, Curious George, then we started Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Over the months, Trombone has gone from squirming and wailing the whole time to playing nicely while we read a few pages every night. It’s more to get him used to the ritual and the sound of words than for him to take anything from the actual content of what we’re reading. So when we got back from vacation and I couldn’t find Coraline, we picked up a novel that had been in our headboard bookshelf for months. A novel I swore I would never read. A novel Saint Aardvark finished in one day and almost burned.

The Da Vinci Code. All 102 chapters of it.

Wow, does it suck. But because we’re reading it aloud, we get to use our throat-clearingly rotten French accents and mock the writing mercilessly:

SA: Give us more detail on the parquet floors of the Louvre, Dan Brown. We need more chapters and we’re never gonna crack 100 unless you PAD THE HELL out of this puppy.
Me: Say “nowadays” again, Dan Brown. How about you take up a paragraph explaining some boring detail and then take up ANOTHER paragraph rewriting it as dialogue! Did you get paid by the word or what?

which serves the wonderful purpose of helping us relax and laugh a lot.

It also gives me hope. I may publish a novel yet. As long as nobody makes me talk about it.

Posted in food, trombone, writing | 7 Comments

I Have this Knot

Posted on 6/4/2007 by cheesefairy

In the very middle of my stomach, there is a knot. It is not food poisoning or cramps and I have not been exercising strenuously.

I woke up this morning at 6:15. As I dropped my legs over the edge of the bed, I thought, When I’m back at work, I’ll have been up for 45 minutes by now. As I trudged down the stairs, past Trombone’s room I thought, When I’m back at work I’ll have to be getting him up now, so that we’ll be on time. I poured my coffee and a cool breeze blew in the kitchen window and it smelled like morning and I thought, I only have four weeks left to enjoy morning. And then I noticed the knot.

It is not, as you might expect, a knot of fear or dread or sadness. I have picked it apart to its core, examining its strands against my carpet with a magnifying glass and I have determined this: it exists because I am his mother. That is the only reason I have this knot, sitting twisted below my ribcage and above my guts. But calling it the “only” reason makes it sound small, like a negligable knot. It is not. It is cast-iron heavy and solidly present. I would do well to be as present as my knot.

It sounds like this: slow down, slow down, sit still, be with me, let me stroke your hair, go, be free, be wonderful.

It is gleeful when he climbs the stairs, when he claps his hands, when he finds every duck on every page of every book on the shelf. It keeps me from hovering. It reminds me not to gasp every time he bumps a head or twists an ankle because if I do not gasp, fifty percent of the time he does not know he is hurt.

My knot will be with me forever. It will always tighten a little when he smiles, reaches for me, pushes me away. That’s just the way knots are.

Posted in trombone | 3 Comments

Questions! Suggestions! Birthday Glee!

Posted on 6/1/2007 by cheesefairy

This day last year was my last day of work. I had pizza for lunch and sweated copiously. My 40-foot belly, resplendant in its pink tank top, came around corners 15 minutes before the rest of me. People kept telling me I might give birth in the elevator (and laughed when I declared I would then name the baby “Otis”) – a real possibility given the elevator’s age, health and extreme sloth. Other people thought I might give birth at my desk. So I took my stapler and CDs, shuffled home and sat on my wide, flat ass for another whole month before that baby came out.

Today’s nostalgic moment was brought to you by Curtis Mayfield, my second cup of coffee and this month called June.

The other day, Joanna’s suggestion to eat chocolate while wearing lipgloss was spot on. Apparently I am now one of those women who takes to her bed with The Vapours once a month so I may buy a case of Green and Black’s chocolate to keep on the bedside table. There are many other good chocolates out there, but the flavour that remains in my mouth after a piece of G&B’s is a bittersweet, almost espresso-like warmth that I have not tasted in these other chocolates. Ordinarily I am able to eat one or two pieces of chocolate and get on with my day, but the other day I ate almost a whole bar. I must need the iron. Body wisdom.

Arwen suggested this remedy for Trombone’s daytime sleeplessness: “Maybe he would like lip gloss? And a T-Shirt saying ‘This is what Ashley Judd looks like’. Because that would be fun.”

I think this is a fantastic idea. I did offer lipgloss but Trombone scorned it (though I am told that 4 year old boys often play with makeup so I will try again in 3 years.) We may have to make the t-shirts ourselves with Sharpies.

If anyone were to ask me, “Cheesefairy, do you have any regrets?” my answer would be, “One. That I never purchased the “Guns Don’t Kill People: Mario Van Peebles” t-shirt from t-shirt hell. (so very not safe for work)” Thus, one of the things on my “someday” list is to print my own t-shirts. In addition to the brilliant “This is what Ashley Judd looks like” and the almost as good “This is why I’m hot,” recent slogan ideas include, “Get out of my way and give me my bacon,” “Shhh, I’m in my authentic place,” and, inspired by a photo I took yesterday of myself where I look 15 weeks pregnant, (with arrow pointing to belly) “Old baby fat, not new baby bump.” I figure I can market that one to celebrities.

Or I could just keep going back to threadless and wish their largest t-shirt came in a size that didn’t make me look like a rocket about to blast off.

Hoo. And then, Merseydotes asked if Trombone’s hair was a baby wig. Oh no! She’s not kidding. Where the hell have I been? Not outraged in the UK, for one.

Trombone’s hair is one of the best things about him. It’s straight at the front and curly at the back and in some light it’s red and in others blond. He likes to style it himself using banana and cereal as pomade. There are trendy kids on Robson Street who don’t have hair as stylin’ as Trombone’s after breakfast.

If I were to get Trombone a baby wig 1. I would have to hurry because he is practically not a baby anymore and 2. I would get the Samuel L.

In my last entry, after the photo of Trombone in his surfer/stockbroker pose, Sarah justifiably asked if I would promise Trombone wouldn’t eat her kids. As you may know, Sarah and Michael and their children are coming to Vancouver for a week at the end of June so my kid consuming hers could happen. However, though his appetite is as enormous as the rest of him, Trombone has not yet shown any signs of taste for human flesh (yay, he’s not a zombie!) and has even responded well to my requests that he not bite me for fun. And anyway, he still only has two teeth insert much swearing, pounding of fists and pulling out of own hair here so I don’t think he’d get very far.

Speaking of Sarah’s beautiful children, one of them turns THREE today. Happy happy birthday, Rowan! It is unbelievable and wonderful that you are three years old. I wish you all manner of cakes and balloons and whatever makes you giggle gleefully. Except locking your sister in the closet. That’s just mean.

Also? Happy 3 years of parenthood to Sarah and Michael! because while the marking of a birth-day primarily celebrates the anniversary of existence of a fabulous little person, I think it should also acknowledge the hard work of that person’s parents. Until the little person gets big enough to move out of the house and then it’s all about the tequila and karaoke.

What? Are we the only ones? I doubt that very much.

Posted in bloggity!, food, people, trombone | 3 Comments