Notes From Mother’s Journal: How to Defeat a Cold In Five Easy Steps

Posted on 9/22/2010 by cheesefairy

1. Take vitamins

If the magic juice with four grillion micrograms of vitamin C is half price, buy it and drink it. It’s so magic, it says on the bottle not to drink more than a cup a day. Believe in the magic of vitamins.

2. Lower stress levels

For example, the minding of small children should be avoided when fighting sickness. Their little voices will seem louder to your tender ears than a thousand bulldozers and more strident than a flock of mosquitoes. You will want to shout at them to stop shouting and hypocrisy is the Mother’s Enemy.

3. Stay away from common allergens

Give away your cat.
Get your head out of the vacuum cleaner.
Don’t eat cheese.
Drink rum. It will burn the viruses out of your body.

4. Laugh often.

If, for example, your child puts a motorized mouse toy on your mother’s head and your mother’s hair becomes entangled in the wheels and you must cut the motorized mouse toy free with nail scissors, you should probably laugh at this until your belly is sore and your buttocks are missing.

5. If all else fails, release anger and frustration, also known as Brain Toxins, with a small rant on your personal weblog about car traffic. Demarcate it from the rest of your post, so that you will not associate it with yourself but rather with The Sickness, which needs purging.

I don’t know if the road crews that work along Canada Way are reading this but I need to tell them something and I am afraid to talk to them while I’m driving because I think they are a cranky bunch (yes, their jobs are stressful, I know, DRIVE LIKE MY CHILD WORKS THERE, but still) and also, it’s illegal to talk while driving, right? So, road crew dudes?

ONE: When you put the sign up that says the right lane is ending ahead because of construction, only really it’s the LEFT lane? That fucks us up. You guys do this a lot. Once, it was annoying. Twice, it was super annoying. Thrice, I’m all thrice? THRICE? You’re making me talk like a renaissance faire patron because you can’t look at the damn sign before you put it up? Come on now.

TWO: However, when you don’t put the “warning, random lane is closing ahead” sign up at all and just put a bunch of pylons in one of the lanes? That fucks us up too. This morning, for example, nobody knew we were changing lanes until whoops! Too late! Dead pylons. Maybe that’s why you have so many workplace injuries? Not because the drivers aren’t paying attention but because you are not letting us know what the hell is going on?

THREE: Whoever came up with the electronic billboard by the side of the road to let people know that there is roadwork ahead? Can SUCK IT. The electronic billboard says something useful, I’m sure, but its letters are too big for the board, or else flash by too quickly, so you only get to see two words at a time. And the billboards are almost never in a place, like at a stop light, where I might get a chance to read them. Here are a few pieces of useless information I have picked up from various roadside electronic billboards:

“Road work From”
“Expect Delays”
“October”

If you want, I will help you make posters with Sharpies that have ALL THE INFORMATION on them. Something like “Road work Now Till Eternity on Canada Way between Edmonds and Imperial.”

Perhaps it is too late and you have succumbed to the cold that has been threatening you. In this case, wrap yourself in wool and thank heaven it is series premiere week on television.

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Dark and Light

Posted on 9/17/2010 by cheesefairy

Trigger warning for rape, domestic violence.

I saw it yesterday, the headline at the CBC news website. I read the story, which said there had been a gang rape in Pitt Meadows (a suburb of Vancouver). It said someone had filmed the rape. It said someone had put that video on the Internet.

Kids. Teenagers. At a rave/party. It is all, currently, “alleged” except for the posting-it-on-the-Internet part. The posting-it-on-the-Internet part is inarguable, as the video keeps appearing as fast as people take it down. It’s gone “viral.”

I felt ill, reading the story. I closed the tab because I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

My sons and I played inside yesterday afternoon because it was rainy. We did puzzles and read stories and played a game where we take turns pretending to be superheroes and rescuing trapped toys and putting the bad guys in jail. The whole time I kept thinking about the boys who raped that girl. I couldn’t stop. I smelled my kids’ hair and hugged them hard and I couldn’t stop thinking who are those bastards and how did they get that way and what do their mothers think .

I have never been raped. I only know what it is to be ogled, hooted at, thought of as public property. I know I am lucky. Now I am a mother of sons. People say at least you never have to worry about them. At least you don’t have to get out the shotgun when the boys come to the door. And I never say when what boys come to the door? These boys, my boys? Any boys? The bad boys?

How do I make sure these boys, my boys, are never those boys.

And you say – and I say, too- of course not. They are sweet and wonderful and smart and funny and respectful and polite.

But where do those boys come from. They come from somewhere.

The ones who think it is OK to rape.
The ones who think it is OK to watch.
The ones who think it is OK to film.
The ones who think it is OK to put the film on the Internet for the whole fucking world to see.

That’s a lot of boys.
And probably some girls too.

Because I am all clenched up about this and it’s not because I am insecure in my parenting or because I think there should be greater controls on what kids can post on Facebook, it’s because there is still shit like this going on in the world, STILL, after hundreds and hundreds of years of evolution and poetry and science, there is STILL THIS SHIT going on in the world, men and boys are STILL RAPING because they think it’s OK,

breathe

I direct you away from here, to a place I just visited for the first time today, called Violence UnSilenced. It is a safe space for people to share their stories of being hurt. It is a place that gives survivors a voice, that they might be supported by the community. If there is a light on it, maybe it will stop.

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I Gotcher Bullets Right Here

Posted on 9/15/2010 by cheesefairy
  • Jeggings! Whenever I say the word ‘jeggings,’ SA squirms a little and kills a kitten. (no, not really, kitten-lovers) I was sort of ‘enh, things are weird in the world, see also: open toed booties’ but then I saw a pair of real life jeggings on this neighbour girl, age 9 and they looked OK but then! then! they sagged in the crotch and there was this weird denim-looking clothing behaving like panty hose and so I added that to my list of reasons I will never wear jeggings, right behind that whole “10 lbs of apples in a 5 lb sack” reason. However, the Gap is selling them for $80 a pair so more power to you, Gap! Way to charge $80 for tights!
  • Preschool has started again and the change between last year’s timid, peaked three year old and this year’s confident, boisterous four year old is not to be believed. Trombone just goes a-bouncing in there, sits with his friends, begs me to set up playdates for him. These two girls followed us to our car today, I thought they were going to come home with us. The joy these kids displayed when they were reunited after a long summer apart could put to shame those posters of people kissing in train stations.

    You know the ones? “Last kiss in Paris” or something? Always for sale in poster shops and on campus the first week of class?

    I adore preschool. I adore the children and what they have done for my child and also I adore three mornings a week with just one child, whose civilizing is coming along nicely, thanks.

  • This morning Fresco and I went to the Burnaby and New Westminster libraries to return books and movies and take out new ones. Fresco was thrilled to find his old favourite, The Potty Book for Boys. I have not been pressing the issue of potty training with Fresco because he is stubborner than a sack of hammer-wielding donkeys and just as loud, but the internal conversation has gone somewhat like this:
    Balanced Me: He’ll come to it when he’s ready. Don’t push. Let it be his idea!
    Unbalanced Me: But what if he never comes to it! And I’ll be following him at his highschool graduation with a package of Depends!
    BM: Not going to happen. Everyone trains eventually. Remember all the advice you’ve absorbed…
    UBM: Absorbed! Like a SIZE 18 YEAR OLD DIAPER!

    Anyway I am excited that today is the first day Fresco has said “I want to wear underpants and be a big boy!” Let the games begin.

  • The City of New Westminster places hanging baskets of plants from lamp posts along 6th avenue. The plant outside the library is so long, it touches the parking metre. It tickled my cheek while i was paying for parking! Freakshow, City of New Westminster! Maybe less ivy next year!
  • I have been waiting months to be sure this is true: The Wiggles are dead to us. They are deleted from the PVR.
  • What are the kids watching? Fresco is obsessed like only a 2ish year old can be with They Might Be Giants’ “Here Come the ABCs” and “Here Come the 123s.” a fine example from that latter album can be enjoyed here Trombone, like everyone his age, apparently, is obsessed with superheroes. The closest he gets to superheroes is the occasional episode of Go Diego Go! but just today I picked up The Wonder Pets at the library and that went over very well. They Save The Day, which appeals to Trombone. They are singing animals, which appeals to Fresco. There is a duck, which appeals to me.
  • Last week I made the monumental decision to grow my hair out instead of getting it re-cut in my usual style. Because: it was cute, growing out. It was all wingy and flingy and good. Once I made the decision? It went bad. Now what.
  • For my bromance, I’m thinking: two guys who work as thieves, monitoring the Internet for vacationers and breaking into their empty houses, then in one such house they find two other guys who work as cops, posting fake vacation tweets on bait accounts and then catching the bad guys! And then, do they fall in love? Cancel each other out? Go on a road trip? Is there an earthquake? I’ve always wanted to write a Choose Your Own Adventure book for grown ups. Stay tuned.
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Acceptable Risk Also Ends in Death. Eventually.

Posted on 9/13/2010 by cheesefairy

I was going to participate in ControverSunday this week but I thought about the topic – To Protect or Not to Protect – (children, not car insurance or condoms) and realized that I don’t have any strong opinions. (you can read a post someone else wrote, though right here and if you have a strong opinion, you can participate. Anyone can! How splendid!)

Every child is different. Every parent is more or less protective based on personal experience. I couldn’t say “you should…” because I don’t know you. Or your kid. Or your “issues” if you want to be all 1998 about it.

Here is my motto, which borrows a little from Scouting and a little from Douglas Adams:

Anything can happen at any time, and it probably won’t. Unless it does. Be prepared.

At the barber shop 2 weeks ago I read a magazine from 1989 that said The Big Earthquake Was Coming Any Day. 21 years ago. You would think I’d be scared but I’m not. I’ve never experienced an earthquake. I have no reason to fear one. What have I experienced that gives me fear?

– a sinus headache so bad I thought it was a stroke
– hearing sirens minutes after my kids go out with someone else
– driving so close to the edge of a cliff I could hear our wheels scraping at loose rocks
– hearing Fresco’s chest rattle like a maraca and taking him to Emergency

What have I not experienced that gives me fear?

– cancer, firsthand
– serious illness in my kids
– serious illness in my partner
– serious illness in my parents

The common thread there is death. In case you couldn’t tell. What might kill me or those people I care about, that’s what scares me, whether I’ve experienced it or not. For some reason, earthquakes don’t count, even though The Big One will likely kill us all and then won’t the banks be laughing.

Not that I’m preoccupied (reallyI’mnot) but all roads lead to death. I know this because every time I write a short story, it ends up circling around death like vultures over – dammit!

I start funny. I look for plot. I end in death.

Observe this blog post. It is now about death.

I would like to get away from it. For one thing, it is kind of boring and it has been done. Death is everywhere in literature. I just read the most amazing death scene. It was in a book by Colum McCann that I picked up at the library the other day.

(I chose it based entirely on its cover! Apparently you can do that, after all. They say you shouldn’t. At first I thought it was too precious a book for me but now I am sucked in.)

Anyway, now that I’ve read that amazing death scene I have no reason to try to write about death. I feel there is no reason. And yet. I guess I actually *think* there is no reason because if I *felt* there was no reason then my *feelings* would let me write about something else. Except I wrote the one story about death and I thought: OK! That’s it! I got it out of my system! Wrongo.

The problem with the character driven story is that the characters inevitably drive you where they want to go. Which, because they are in my head, means to the morgue. So much drama. Can’t we go to the beach and not drown there? Can’t we go to the park and not find a dead body in the bushes? Can’t we be lighthearted? Self?

There are other interesting things that happen to people besides death, right?

Like, winning lotteries? And loving their pets? And. Then the pets die. Of course.

I saw the word “bromance” today. Maybe I will write a series of humourous bromances. But the dudebros can’t drive. I am commencing a phase I call writer-driven stories.

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The Beach

Posted on 9/3/2010 by cheesefairy

Now that we live in the Mizzle, I no longer make a pilgrimage to Second Beach at English Bay. Vancouver beaches are too far to go with kids. One kid, maybe. Two kids, no. It’s OK, we have our own beach. It is called Barnet Marine Park and it is a 15 minute drive from our house. This is what it always looks like when we show up.

Most people arrive at Barnet starting around 11 am, which is perfect because we start packing up to go about 11:30. Earlier than that, there are sometimes a couple of people walking by the water or doing tai chi. There are also people who fish. This morning, we only shared the beach with a starfish, and only because the tide was so far out. Within an hour, the starfish and his log were covered with water again and I could stop worrying about the seagulls eating him.

There were also 800 jellyfish. At least. This is a small one.

This is the first year I have been to the beach several times in one summer. In past years we have only remembered to go in the middle of September, when the light coming over the mountains is duller and the sand is cold between our toes. This year, we went a lot. It is an easy trip, as long as you sing very loudly to Fresco on the way home so he doesn’t fall asleep in the car.

The boys are at a good age for beaching. They are neither terrified of waves (Trombone, 2 years ago) or likely to fall in because they have no depth perception (last year, Fresco). This is not to say that they are well behaved. They will fight to the death over THE BEST STICK EVER, (sorry, didn’t get a picture of it, but it was completely unlike every other stick within reach oh my god what is wrong with you children?) But they also roll around in the sand like demented puppies and show each other rocks they’ve found and brush the sand off each others’ feet.

Today was an easy day. We showed up, took our shoes off and had a snack. Trombone was trying to build a racetrack and Fresco was mostly concerned with the butterfly net I found in the storage room right before we left. They were both wonderfully, quietly self-amused for quite a few minutes.

I kept thinking about how every year we have a last trip to the beach and how I remember that last trip all year. I remember all our trips to the beach, actually, because they’re almost always peaceful and happy trips. There are mountains all around, the ocean is cool on your hot feet, the sand is clean and there is a surprising amount to do in all that vast expanse of beach. Digging holes. Filling holes. Filling buckets. Pouring buckets. Writing in the sand. Erasing the writing in the sand.

Everywhere it’s Fall. People are talking about school, parents are anxious about their kids, kids are anxious about their 3 ring binders, lunch boxes have been mouldering all summer. For me, it’s just the start of September. Trombone will go back to preschool on the 13th and I will start my annual campaign to Not Catch Any Contagious Diseases. But still, it feels like Fall. Like every Fall.

I wonder how homeschooled kids feel about Fall and whether, when they are adults, you will see them tweeting things like: don’t get the appeal of corduroy pants actually or never understand why people like the smell of pencil sharpeners so much . Will we still be tweeting when the homeschooled kids are old enough to be nostalgic about their not-school years? I don’t know.

I do know that a butterfly net is not just good for catching butterflies. It can also be used to strain the good stuff from the sand, for catching rocks from the ocean, for waving about idly and for keeping your face free of bees. Should there be bees. Which there were not, at the beach, today.

Sidenote: We have had this hat for two summers now. You know how there are some hats that you buy and lose in the same day, and then there are the other ones that stick around forever? Re-Elect Ramal is a $1.99 Salvation Army Thrift Store purchase. Every time one of us wears it, I wonder if Ramal won or not.

Ramal? Did you win, Ramal? A nation wonders.

One beach thing I am not fond of is crows. A group of crows, while we were down at the water, went into our cloth bag, pulled out the box of crackers, opened it and stole half of them. Crows! Like raccoons with wings!

So while we sat on the blanket in the shade, guarding the rest of our snack, Fresco practiced his seagull call. It worked. The crows stayed away after that.

I ate almonds and Fresco ate blueberries and Trombone was a few feet away, digging a really big hole that he then put himself in. The ocean lapped and the geese drifted and a train went by. Some days, huh? Some days are just too good.

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