I Might Swear a Little.

Posted on 1/26/2007 by cheesefairy

First, I read about the Pussycat Dolls making a reality show to choose the 7th Doll. I can’t even google for a link to this; when I did it the first time there were so many shows dedicated to keeping me in touch with reality TV I became mired. Just take my word for it. Would I make this shit up? Next to Tyra Banks becoming the poster girl for self-esteem and body image (oh she’s proud, y’all, that’s why she’s in her girdle on the cover of People) it’s the most ridiculous oh I can’t even just stop it can’t you?

Then, I turned on the TV at 1:15 (pm) and it was on channel 3, which is the CBC, which is, apparently, the Land that Quality Forgot; there was a show called Living Vancouver which I have encountered and ignored in the past (it’s only been on for a couple of weeks) because it was banal and offered nothing in the way of relevance but it was just beginning a segment entitled “How to Train Your Husband” and I kept watching even though I knew it would make my blood boil but I didn’t expect that, at the end, after the woman’s husband brought her breakfast in bed, she would say, “Praise him, praise him, praise him like a small child or a dog! Or else, he’ll NEVER DO IT AGAIN!” or that I would react to this like an allergic person reacts to freshly mown grass or peanut butter, namely I puffed up and couldn’t breathe.

When I ventured to the website of the TV show to see if there was a comments section and if so, if I would be able to submit a photograph of myself all puffed up and out of breath to make my point because words weren’t going to cut it this time, no, I don’t think so, I found that not only did the story in question not have a comments section but below the story in question, directly, was a link to a Bed and Breakfast package at a local hotel – oh, you say, so what, well, it’s for your DOG it’s a goddamn bed and breakfast package at a really fucking expensive hotel for your fucking DOG because at least HE brings you a hard boiled egg when you ask for it oh wait NO HE DOESN’T, that’s your HUSBAND

…and then I lost what was left of my mind, which, as you know, was about an iota’s pinky-full anyway so, you know, no great puddle of spilt milk there.

And another thing. If any of you ever sees me write something like yesterday’s entry without a caveat at the end like Knock Wood! or So Far! LOL! could you kindly find some way to kick my ass. Yes, even all y’all who live far from me and wouldn’t know my ass from a Coldplay song. I KNOW the rules. I know the baby never keeps doing the good thing it’s doing once you acknowledge it. And I got cocky. It won’t happen again.

PS: The Wedge is playing as I type this. The Wedge is playing Mad World as done by Michael Andrews. Goddamned gorgeous. And now – Radiohead, No Surprises. The second Radiohead song in 30 minutes. I have almost a visceral reaction to Radiohead sometimes, like if I could claw out my pancreas and chew off my ears I would because it’s so beautiful I can’t stand it. Damn. Thanks, The Wedge. I may not swear at all tomorrow.

Posted in music, television, trombone | 3 Comments

How Was YOUR Day?

Posted on 1/25/2007 by cheesefairy

Today, at one week before his sevenmonurthday, Trombone got his 6 month immunizations. As with the previous two appointments, I didn’t know how he’d react.

At 2 months, his shots actually coincided with him finishing a hissy fit and becoming a really nice baby for a week or so; at 4 months he took it in stride and didn’t even object when I inched the circular sticky bandages off his fat thighs. But this morning I was especially nervous, as he had woken at 7 am and the appointment was for 9:40. The clinic is a half hour walk away. We’d have to be getting our shoes on at 9 am. Which meant either he would have to have a quick nap from 8 – 9 or no nap + sharp needles = me nursing him while I walk home to get him to stop screaming. Or so it went in my head.

At 8 am I tried for the nap. At 8:15 we came back downstairs and he chewed on stuff while I packed the stroller. At 8:40 we left the house. I figured if I walked slowly and took a meandering route, he might drop off to sleep.

We walked very slowly. It was a cool, overcast morning, not as spring-like as yesterday (yesterday it was Very Springlike, with temperatures at +10C and sunshine; I walked around in my t-shirt and Trombone went hatless, which prompted a woman pushing her own, snowsuited child in its own stroller, to comment, “Aren’t you cold?” to Trombone, to which I replied, “He has a lot of body-fat” and did not say “It’s 10 fucking degrees! Get your thyroid checked!” because I am above that sort of thing) but still very pleasant. We wandered along 1st Street, next to the park, crossed Royal Ave. and walked up Agnes Street which reminds me a lot of the East side of Vancouver, near Clark and 7th ave; lots of low-rise stucco buildings with names like “The Ridgeview” and “Marilyn Manor II” (that one cracks me up every time I pass it.)

Trombone did not sleep, nor did he cry. He watched things go by and stretched his right hand out of the stroller, grabbing for tree branches and hedges. I kept thinking, “Keep your head and arms inside the mixer at all times!” but I knew there were probably no revolving knives inside the hedges of Agnes Street so I let him be.

We headed downhill at 6th Street and passed some construction people carving lines in the road with a circular saw; they smiled at Trombone and he stared wide-eyed at them. We got to Carnarvon, where the health clinic is, 15 minutes before our appointment so we kept walking to Columbia, which is the bottom of the hill, and I thought about getting a coffee at Starbucks but decided against it. I am tired today. Don’t know why.

On Columbia we sat and watched people go by for a few minutes. The police station is at that corner and we saw several people go in and come out. Groups of people in suits with briefcases started up the hill, not talking to one another, clutching cups of coffee. I wondered if they were heading to the courthouse to watch the trial.

It’s invigorating to push a stroller up the hill from Columbia, even if it’s just one block. I felt a stretch in the back of my thighs and immediately felt more alive and well. It’s funny how exercise can do that for you.

At the clinic, a warm, buxom volunteer helped us weigh and measure Trombone (20 lbs 2 oz, 27 inches) and a student nurse explained the diseases he was being immunized against. She commented on his blue eyes and I refrained from commenting on hers (one brown and one green.) She said she had read recently that blue eyes can be inherited from as far back as 7 generations. She said was researching this because she really wants a baby with blue eyes.

Trombone was smiling and happy to be surrounded by friendly women who told him he was gorgeous. A 6 month old girl baby had just finished her post-shots feed and was sitting on her mum’s lap, staring around the room as though memorizing it for next time. She had very little hair and adult-sized ears.

Of course, he shrieked when the needles went in.

After 4 minutes of concentrated suckling and 3 minutes of pulling off my boob to look at the nice lady sitting next to me, who was not helping by making faces at him and clicking her tongue, he was back to normal, all smiles for the room and trying to eat his Passport To Health. I was letting him do this but stopped when the volunteer lady said, “Oooh, maybe you shouldn’t eat that.” She should see what I let him eat at home. Phone books, an old remote control with no batteries in it, the mail that comes for the guy who used to live here. Kid’s immunized against more than just diptheria, methinks.

15 minutes is how long you have to wait after the shots. The nurses want to make sure the baby isn’t having an adverse reaction. So we sat and looked at the other babies; tried not to listen to the one in the exam room, an 18 month year old who speaks English and Mandarin and who shrieked “I DON’T WANT THIS” (in English, obvs.) at the key moment. We all tried not to laugh. His mom, who is 7 months pregnant, had gone in with him and when they came out, she was switching off her little video camera.

Dear Trombone: I will never videotape you getting shots. Love, yr. mother.

Packed up in the stroller again, I expected some complaints (we were by then at 3 1/4 hours of awake-time, plus physical and emotional trauma) from Trombone but he just grabbed the closest duck to him and gnawed on it while I pushed 37 lbs (baby = 20, stroller = 17) up the hill. The novelty of that stretch in my thighs? Had worn off within 2 blocks.

By 3 blocks I was promising myself 8 breakfast sandwiches when I got to the top. It’s a damn steep hill.

But when we got to the top, Trombone was starting to slump forward and his eyelids were drooping. I reclined him and tucked his blanket around him and we carried on home. I parked him in the kitchen and turned on the stove fan. He sleeps still. Immunizations are magic, I tell ya.

Posted in trombone | 3 Comments

Get In My Belly!

Posted on 1/23/2007 by cheesefairy

I was afraid, as I approached the Tim Hortons, that the enormous group of ESL students would be going in ahead of me to complete their tour. I overheard their leader say, “This is a famous Canadian coffee shop. You can go in and get a coffee, or a doughnut, if you want.” But no one did. Dudes, I only had ONE HOUR before the breakfast sandwich service ended and it would have taken at least that long to get each of those people a coffee and a doughnut.

I ordered one Breakfast Sandwich, Bacon (also available: sausage) and one Breakfast Sandwich, Egg and Cheese. Because I am crazy and hungry and reckless with my change purse.

When I was a child I went to McDonald’s for breakfast once, I think we were travelling somewhere and the motel didn’t have a restaurant. And somehow I ended up with an egg dish. A terrifying, slimy, completely un-egg-like egg dish that put me off fast-food eggs for a lot of years. I do think, actually, that an egg is the kind of food that is best treated with some sensitivity, in one’s own kitchen. So much can go wrong with an egg. Shell bits can fall in the omelette, the egg can be contaminated, the person cracking the egg might have forgotten to wash her hands, the egg might be cooked incorrectly (too runny, too hard, surrounding uncooked mushrooms, [no, I will NOT let it go] etc.) Is it really worth it?

Hell, until a few years ago, I didn’t even trust myself with an egg. When we were kids, I would go to my friend J’s house and we would bake cookies and though I enjoyed the cookies and the baking of them, J. ALWAYS had to crack the eggs because I was frightened of the responsibility. And the slime. So slimy. And for a long time I was really confused about how some eggs were chickens and some eggs were just eggs. To add to my confusion, my uncle, who hates eggs of all kinds, in fact, he’s phobic, I think, refers to them as “abortions,” which is just. Well, typical, really. But, another day for that one.

(When I moved out on my own I got over a lot of food fears. Out of necessity, I had to learn to crack eggs. Which is good, because if I had to keep calling J. to come over every time I wanted cookies, well, let’s just say she’d be living here and probably really hating me a lot.)

When Sarah and I lived in a little brown house called Serendip in East Vancouver, we would often find ourselves in possession of just a little too much red wine and thus would be compelled to drink the excess, often all in one evening, to avoid having to explain our excessive wine possession to the wine police. The mornings following these evenings would find one of us (cash money permitting) staggering the two blocks up to Main Street, retrieving McMuffins from McDonald’s and a Very Large container of Sunny D from the Very Awesome CK Mart so that we might be well and greasily nourished while we watched TV and our slightly crazy roommate, Dave.

I don’t remember if Sarah takes egg on her McMuffin but I never did. Always Sausage McMuffin, no egg. The foul, slimy memory of the McDonald’s egg stayed with me for 20 years. It still makes me shiver.

Last year, my co-worker, Co-worker A, introduced me to the Bacon ‘N’ Egger from A&W. Now, at A&W there is no egg-less option. One cannot have a Bacon ‘N’. It must include the egg. Since it wasn’t McDonald’s and since I do tend to get mind-blotteringly, co-worker-bitingly hungry from time to time and since, in our work building, A&W is really the best option for food (oh yes, this is pathetic) I ate the Egger with hardly a second thought. I ate Fast Food Egg! Go me!

I have already rhapsodized at length about this breakfast sandwich.

The Tim Hortons breakfast sandwich, in short, is very damn good.

The egg was egg-like, not a creepy blob moulded by a machine. The cheese was processed, which is as it should be. There were no confusing condiments. The bacon sandwich contained three small strips of bacon, which, to answer your question, Pat, NO, was not enough but that is why I keep bacon in my pockets at all times because There is Never Enough Bacon. But what set this sandwich apart was its breadstuff.

The contents of a McMuffin, of course, are found within an English Muffin.

The Bacon ‘N’ Egger, a hamburger bun.

The Tim Hortons Breakfast Sandwich is contained in a biscuit. A sweet-ish, toasted tea biscuit. At first, I thought this was very delicious. It is certainly consistent – both sandwiches featured the same perfectly toasted biscuit. No variation could be found, which is not something I could say for any of the Bacon ‘N’ Eggers I’ve had. (Those buns, just like any bun, get soggy. I can’t see this happening with the TH biscuits.) However, the texture of these biscuits was just a bit cloying. Just a bit – stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth-y. Let us say that if it had been a Tim Hortons on Main Street instead of a McDonald’s, our Saturday mornings would not have been helped in the least by the Tim Hortons Breakfast Sandwich.

I reflected as I walked home:

1. The biscuit was a nice variation, yes. Better than the Bacon ‘N’ Egger, I think,
though
1. a) A&W did introduce a “Homestyle” Egger which substituted a whole wheat bun and added a slice of tomato – unfortunately this was only available in the Ham or Bacon version and I do enjoy the Sausage – which was a nice change and did create the illusion of Health.

and
1. b) The sweetness of the biscuit almost sent me down sweetness alley and made me want to douse it in maple syrup.

on the other hand,
2. The McDonald’s English Muffin is just the right texture to absorb the grease from the sausage (or bacon), providing just enough resistence to your teeth while still being not too tough to chew.

Therefore:
3. If the McMuffin included a normal egg (like TH’s) and a slice of tomato (like the Homestyle Egger) then we would have a clear winner. A clear hybrid winner. Fantasy Breakfast Sandwich! Activate!

Posted in food, television | 10 Comments

The Bacon. It is Calling Me.

Posted on 1/23/2007 by cheesefairy

All right, this is getting ridiculous. I NEED to eat the Tim Hortons breakfast sandwich and I am GOING to get one today. I have no discernable schedule – how can I not get to Tim Hortons, which is a 15 minute walk if we dawdle, by 11 am 5 days running?

See, now that I’ve committed myself with people watching, it’ll happen.

As a reward, I will tell you later about how good the bacon was or was not. But of course, it will be good, because it’s bacon and the only way bacon is not good is if it is raw (although some people believe “smoked” = cooked and will eat raw, slimy bacon right out of the deli case; man, the first time I saw that I was all “uh, buddy? OK, I guess you know what you’re doing…”) or if it is bacon “bits” which are not bacon at all but little chunks of briquette, based on what was sprinkled on the “Works” I had at New York Fries on Sunday.

Dudes, “The Works” = fries, chili, cheese sauce, green onion and bacon bits. Supposed to have sour cream too but I drew the line there because sour cream grosses me out.

But I added malt vinegar and Tabasco. You know, for flavour.

(I know. I’m a foul, inconsistent creature. And no, I’m not pregnant again.)

It was immediately satisfying but I was hungry again an hour later.

Posted in food | 1 Comment

Where is My Mind

Posted on 1/19/2007 by cheesefairy

Back in August, fuelled by caffeine or testosterone or sweat or the sweet, sweet smell of fresh babytoes, I went on at some length about body image post-partum. Something about terrorists and body changes and life changes and pants? I’m not going to re-read the whole thing – like I say, I was on some kind of drug (endorphins?) and frankly I can’t imagine why I didn’t give a passing whoop-dee-do to the part of me I really want “back” now that I’m no longer pregnant.

My mind.

1. I think it’s 2006. I really do.
2. I leave the house at roughly the same time every day, to go one way or the other, often by bus. Every time I take a bus, I look up the bus schedule. They run every half hour. Every day, the same schedule. Every day I get on the 11:40 bus. Every day I look it up.
3. I wrote #2 earlier, after I looked up the bus schedule.
4. I walk around thinking I should email X, I should call Z, I should really do laundry. 24 hours will pass and I think I’ve done all those things until I get to the laundry, which is still dirty and then I realize I’ve done none of it.
5. This morning I trudged into the kitchen, slopped some milk into a coffee cup and then poured water into it instead of coffee. Mmm.
6. That’s the 2nd time this week I have done this.
7. I can’t remember the words to The Philosopher’s Drinking Song! This scares me because I have ALWAYS known the words (I was a very cute 2 year old, yes) and I’m afraid the post-pregnancy is going to eat even my old memory stores! (Not that I need the prices of Stilton in my head [$3.49/100g, 11 years ago] but there is a kind of security in knowing that I still remember the dumb things I haven’t needed to remember for years but still have always remembered.)
8. Sentences. Are. Hard.
9. I couldn’t remember Trombone’s name today. Just stared at him for a few seconds while it came to me. It’s not like I’ve go 6 other kids (Maria, Consuela, Orlando, Sebastian, Francesca, Gordito! WhoEVER you are!) to cycle through. Just the one.

My mind has lost its elasticity. I was setting about archiving this blog and looked at some of the stuff I wrote 3 years ago and it was witty. It made me say, “Heh! Witty!” like a chimp learning to speak. And then I cried because yeah, checkitout, my elastic brain is all sloooooowwwww and squiiiiiiishy now. Where’s my sock? Beans!

I did not give birth through my brain! There is no reason for it to be all stretched out!

Boing! Boing! BOING!

I know it will come back because I have seen other people have babies and they still have their brains. Isn’t there a loosening of ligaments in pregnancy? Where the elastin in the body gets augmented so your bits can stretch all to hell and back to birth the baby? Maybe I need elastin supplements. Is it in Jello? I would be willing to eat a lot of Jello. Especially the orange kind.

In those first few months I was so busy and hopped up on hormones I didn’t have time to care that I had no brain. But now that the infant is starting to self-amuse, I sit staring at my hands, thinking, the baby will soon be smarter than me because its brain is growing and mine is shrinking! And then I surf the ‘net and find all kinds of better written blogs than mine and then I watch more Tyra. Her hair is different EVERY DAY!

I guess, the way some people do crunches or go to the gym to lose that post-partum belly flab, I’ll have to get Saint Aardvark to greet me every morning with, “What day is it? What YEAR is it? What’s the sum of 4 and 12? Who was the first prime minister of Canada? What is your son’s name?” and make sure he supervises as I pour my first cup of coffee.

Posted in trombone | 10 Comments