Barbie Has Puppies

Posted on 7/27/2011 by cheesefairy

Barbie hadn’t decided what she was going to do with her life. She had tried a number of professions; flight attendant, rocket scientist, fashion designer, babysitter. Most recently she had worked as a computer engineer. Barbie had 20/20 vision, but the computer company made her wear little pink glasses anyway. By the second day on the job she had a headache bigger than the RV she kept in the back yard. She’d quit that job in a hurry.

“What are you going to do with yourself?” her boss at the computer company had asked her. He was angry that she was leaving. She was a good face for the company. She made them look inclusive and a lot prettier.

Barbie shrugged. She Could Be anything (except Not Barbie). She would try something else tomorrow.

“You can’t just keep job hopping,” he said to her, ripping her ID badge from her shirt collar, “you’ll be unemployable soon.”

Barbie knew that just wasn’t true. She flashed him a fake smile and took off her high heels for the walk to the subway.

Really, her name was Barbara, but everyone called her Barbie. She kind of hated it but not enough to insist she be called something else. She had always wanted to be a “Babs” or a “Danika” or a “Gretel.” Anything but the sweet, upturned sound that was Barbie.

Barbie loved to learn and she prided herself on being able to cook her own food, fix her own car and change her own light bulbs. She had a friend called Ken who came over and flexed his muscles at her a lot but she refused to take the hint. She changed her own damn light bulbs. He was just a friend, Ken, no matter how much he angled for her bedroom.

The night she quit her job, she called Ken to come over for some drinks.

“Sure,” Ken said, “I just have to change my shirt.”

“Wear whatever,” Barbie said. “I don’t care what you wear. As long as you get your ass over here soon. You know I won’t drink alone.”

“I have a new plaid one,” Ken went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “It has pearl buttons.”

Barbie hung up.

“I’ll bring you a surprise,” Ken said, sadly, to the dial tone. “You’ll love it.”

Ken arrived with a big cardboard box balanced on his thick arms. He rang the doorbell of Barbie’s townhouse with his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Barbie called from upstairs. “Just a sec.”

She ran down the stairs and opened the door for Ken. Her heart sank when she saw him bearing a gift. She knew there was something idiotic in the cardboard box. Ken was always bringing her idiotic things. She suspected Ken might actually be an idiot but she wasn’t sure. Maybe tomorrow she Could Be a psychologist and figure it out once and for all.

“What’s in the box, Ken?” she asked through gritted teeth.

Ken grinned at her. His own teeth were always on display. They looked like piranha teeth.

“Let me in and I’ll show you.”

Barbie moved out of the way and Ken slowly eased his way into her foyer. With a foot, he cleared the bench of her trench coat and umbrella. He lowered the box slowly onto the bench and brushed his hands against his tight jeans.

Barbie looked at his shirt. One of the pearl buttons was missing. She decided not to tell him.

The box made a scratching noise. Barbie jumped.

“What the –”

No longer able to contain himself, Ken pulled the lid from the box and said,

“It’s puppies!”
“Puppies.”
“Yes! Three sweet puppies!”
“THREE puppies?”
“Three!”

Barbie stared at Ken. She didn’t move a muscle. She would not look in the box, she refused to look in the box. Barbie hated dogs and Ken knew it. Barbie was a goddamn cat person and KEN KNEW IT.

Ken kept smiling. Barbie thought in a minute she would smack his face. Just for fun, not because it would do any good.

“Take them out of here,” she said, in a low voice.
“But Barbie –”
“Take. Them. Out,” she said. She growled it. One — or all? — of the puppies whimpered. Good she thought, be afraid, you little bastards.

Ken’s smile shrank. Without it, he really was an unattractive man, Barbie realized.

“I thought you needed something to cheer you up. I thought you needed –”
“I fucking hate dogs,” Barbie said. “I asked you over for a drink.”

Ken hung his head. He saw something dripping from the bench onto Barbie’s exotic wood floor.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh no.”

Barbie looked where he was looking.

“Is that PEE? IS THAT PEE?” Barbie was shouting at Ken, at the box, at the ceiling, at the world. At her pink, perfect, horrible world. Barbie’s face burned and her eyes bulged.

It was pee.

Ken frantically grabbed her trench coat from the floor and knelt on the floor, trying to mop the trickle of pee as it dripped from the sodden cardboard box. A pitiful whining noise came from within the box.

Barbie stood perfectly still. She counted to ten, like she had learned in her babysitter training. At the end of ten she was still enraged. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, she was still enraged. She considered the philosophy and ethics she had studied when she had worked at The University. She was still enraged.

“There’s nothing else for it,” she said. She picked up the umbrella from the floor and positioned it over Ken’s lacquered skull. “And anyway, I’ve never been to jail.”

Inspired by this product. No animals were harmed. I love puppies.

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Six Awesome Things About #bummersummer

Posted on 7/22/2011 by cheesefairy

It’s cold here, on the Lower West Coast of Canada. I am wearing pants, socks, a short-sleeved shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, and luckily I found my old, faithful maternity hoody in the trunk of the car because I was fahhhhhreeeeezing at the park this morning. This morning, July 22, one month since the first day of summer.

I’m just getting it out of the way. The complaining. First, we vent.

It’s been pissing rain for months. The last sunny day anyone in Metro Vancouver remembers was during the 2010 Olympics. It’s cold. The sun comes out for ten minutes and we take our sweaters off and bare our white shoulders and then the wind blows giant, black clouds across the sky and our shoulders get all goose-pimply and then it starts to rain. Again. I’m not talking “aha, liquid sunshine,” people. I’m not talking “a little summer rain.” I am talking about torrential, fucking, November Rain, in which it is hard to hold a candle and I should not be making this joke in JULY because it is my NOVEMBER joke and now what am I going to say in November?

What? Just don’t make the November Rain joke? Are you kidding? UNPOSSIBLE.

We — I? — try to be reasonable about weather on the West Coast. We know it is a nice place, with mountains and ocean and coffee and creative people and lots of great sushi. We pay through the goddamn nose to live here, we must think it’s worthwhile. We endure the darkness of fall and winter because we know that our spring comes first, that when our daffodils are blooming there is a good chance that the rest of Canada is still under ice. We have it good here. Park season is long, here.

And so, I have been biting my tongue — and my fingers — and not complaining. Much. Trying to keep positive, even with day after day of cool temperatures and variable cloud cover and “OH GOD that raincloud is coming STRAIGHT FOR US.” I mean it’s not a funnel cloud. Let’s have some perspective.

Six Reasons Our Crap Summer is Awesome

1. The beaches are empty.

The beach I go to is always pretty empty but last week, on a cloudy, almost-rainy day, it was just us and the Canada Geese. That means I can see my small children chasing geese down the empty beach and not hear them, which, let’s be frank, is sometimes the best way to enjoy small children.

2. You can layer up, but you can’t layer down.

People! In the rest of North America, people are sweating and heatstroking and it is serious. Heat is fucking serious. Moderate to sort-of-chilly weather is not serious. It inconveniences me in the sense that I have to go into my box of Fall clothing and find a sweater. No Emergency Room visit necessary.

3. Popsicles don’t go bad and kids don’t care if their faces freeze off while they eat them.

4. Sunscreen is expensive!

I haven’t had to buy nearly as much of it this year, which means I can afford — yes, you guessed it — more gin! *

* and also, cooler weather means I can drink more red wine. Not that I stop drinking red wine in the summer, but it is more a fall and winter drink for me.

5. I can enjoy my flannel sheets ALL YEAR ROUND!

6. There’s always tomorrow.*

I heard a guy on the radio yesterday, a weather psychologist or something, who said you can improve peoples’ moods just by saying, “I hear the sun might come out tomorrow.” Just hearing him say that made me happier. It was amazing. Because it might.**

* Or September, whichever comes first. September will be our great reward, mark my words.

** right now, for example, the sun is out. I might even get to take off my long-sleeved layer before bed.

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The Slow Road

Posted on 7/16/2011 by cheesefairy

The other day I decided I should write more letters. Who knows why. I wrote it on my list of things I want to think about and do more, and then forgot about it.

Until this morning. I woke up and I was going to write in my journal but I had left it downstairs and I didn’t want to go get it (and yes, I have four or seven or ninety other journals but this is the one I’m using RIGHT NOW which is why it was in my purse [oh god it’s the second time I’ve used the word ‘purse’ in a week and I hate that word — mostly because of the letter ‘u’ — have we had this conversation before?] In fact just yesterday I bought a new, hardcover, spiral bound journal with owls all over it, mostly because it was 75% off the regular price, so, $4, but also mostly because I HAVE A NOTEBOOK PROBLEM) so I found some paper in my desk drawer and I decided I would write a letter to my friend, my former pen-pal, Melissa, who lives in Wisconsin. I have Melissa’s address, and her phone number; in fact we are Facebook friends but we hardly ever communicate. Not that we have to, because we have one of those magical friendships that just picks up where you tossed it.

I wrote Melissa a letter — it was her birthday last week — and put it in an envelope and put a couple of stamps on it and tucked it into my purse (OH GOD HELP ME THAT’S THREE) and went about my business for the rest of the morning.

Later, I was doing something and I thought,

“Oh, I wonder if Melissa has replied to my letter yet.”

It took me a full thirty seconds to remember that I hadn’t even put SHOES on yet, let alone had the several necessary days (months?) passed required for Melissa to have received, read, and replied to my letter.

The Internet has ruined my ability to delay gratification. (It’s OK, the Internet has given me a lot of things in return.)

I used to have many pen pals. I used to write letters to my friends in Italy, Australia and America (did I ever tell you I had a penpal in California named Elizabeth Lemon IT’S TRUE!) and then pine for weeks while I waited for them to write back. I needed that many pen pals, you see, so that I could get a letter from someone every couple of weeks.

There was Virginia, the sweet, innocent girl in Melbourne. Last I heard from her she was in her teens and working at McDonald’s.
There was Stacy, a boy, who couldn’t spell worth a damn but wanted to be a graffiti artist. He wrote my name on a wall in Australia. He spelled it right.
There were Vincenzo and Maxi, who were both Italian. I am friends with them on Facebook. Believe it.
There was another girl in Australia who was pretty awesome and I think her name was Vanessa.

Now I have instant pen friends. I have twitter and facebook and google+ and this blog. When I was adding people to my circles on google+ I realized that only 10% of the people in my electronic network are people I have actually smelled.

Which is cool. I bet all you pretend people smell great.

Anyway, I like writing letters. I like the surprise of envelopes with strange handwriting on them. I like forgetting you’ve written someone and then hearing back from them. It’s like taking a roll of photos to the drugstore for developing. What’s on that roll of film? You can’t just turn the camera around, you have to wait like a dog waits for its dinner.

Which is not a ‘times were better when we didn’t have The Email’ sentiment. Number one: I don’t miss back when. (more on that another day) Number two: I love The Email. It is a great replacement for The Phone. But not so much for The Letter, maybe?

I have a few more sheets of fantastic Barbapapa note paper left (seriously, I wrote that post SEVEN YEARS ago and I was even THEN trying not to buy more notebooks, holy hell. I have a problem). If you would like a letter from me, email your address to torturedpotato at gmail dot com. I promise to write (and not to use too many parentheses.)

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Notes From Mother’s Journal: How We Spent A Rainy Summer Day

Posted on 7/14/2011 by cheesefairy

Yes, it’s another list-like post related to my children.

[standard disclaimer re: mommy blogging vs: ‘real’ blogging vs: writing vs: ‘real writing’]

[complaining about the weather]

[realizing that husband will be out after work and so I have 13 hrs alone with them until the kids go to bed]

1. I ask the children for input on what to do on this rainy day. Here is our list:

– go to Playland / Science World / Aquarium (all on one line because those things have an equal chance of happening, which is to say ZERO chance)
– take down recycling
– splash in puddles
– go to the Burnaby library
– go to a not-deep pool
– go to the farmers market
– play with Lego

2. We build a swimming pool out of Lego. It has a diving board, a lifeguard, and safety lights surrounding it. It has since been disassembled and thrown around the room or I would show you a picture. It was pretty cool. I like playing with Lego.

..but three year olds don’t. Not for very long. So I give Fresco some coins, fill the kitchen sink with soapy water and tell him to wash as much money as he can.

Yes! I am a genius. Best activity ever:

a) We have a lot of spare change. Enough to give some to every dude on Davie Street who ever asked me for spare change.
b) Children can practice their counting.
c) Children can figure out the value of money.
d) When they get bored of just washing, you clean out the OTHER SIDE of the sink (yes, we have a two-sided sink) and give them tongs.
e) And marbles!
f) Pick up the marbles with the tongs! Move them to the other sink! Repeat!
g) Fill this bottle with marbles! Fill it with coins! Dump it out! You are loving this game!
h) Now you are not.

3. Agree with Trombone that giving him all the quarters would be the best way for him to get a gumball a day and thus, fulfill his mandate of making me a better mother.

4. Deny him a quarter a day.

5. Decide, on reflection, to give him fifty cents a week; one quarter for a gumball and the other to save in his piggy bank.

6. Great, fifty cents for each child. A dollar a week.

7. Wait, did I just implement an allowance? Isn’t that something I should be doing, like, after hours of thought and discussion with my partner?

8. Fuck it; he’s not coming home till 9 pm.

9. Decide we will go to the Burnaby Library, then to the grocery store, then to the gumball machine outside the grocery store, then home.

10. Repeat this plan verbally more times than if it we were in The Italian Job, because the children keep re-jigging the order to put the gumball machine first.

11. Find cat poop on bathroom floor. Oh what fun! The cat has made a treasure hunt for us!

Cat poop treasure hunts are another great rainy day activity:

a) You have to use your eyes to tell what is poop and what is just thread, clumps of cat hair, or toast crusts on the carpet.
b) You have to use balance to step carefully around the cat poop.
c) You have to wash your hands several hundred times, with soap, which is great prep for cold and flu season. *

* no, I don’t make the children pick up the poop. But I do still make them wash their hands. Because I can.

12. Treasure hunt terminates on 3rd floor, in my bedroom, on SA’s side of the bed.

13. Decide to make a fantastic lasagna. An EPIC lasagna. Write grocery list. Realize I will spend roughly $20 on lasagna that only I will be eating. (and SA, if there’s any left) Decide I’m worth it!

14. It isn’t raining so we get shoes on and go outside and — now it’s raining.

15. Burnaby Library. I pay my fines using my new debit card. It works!

16. Grocery store! Two kids! Torrential rain! WTF is wrong with me!

17. Oh yeah. I have Gumball Bribery on my side.

18. Instruct children to “follow me” and “don’t touch anything” and “hold on to their quarters” and “follow me” 800 times.

19. Search in vain for “fennel seeds” that are no-name brand and cost less than $7. Decide to use rosemary. Meanwhile, another customer is laughing. Why is she laughing? Oh, because the spice isle is across from the marshmallows and my 3 year old has a bag of marshmallows in his mouth and is shaking it like a dog shakes a stuffed toy he is particularly fond of.

20. Using a gumball machine is a great activity for children too! Because:

a) Small motor skills used to put quarter in the slot and turn the knob.
b) Hand-eye coordination required to get gumball in your hand, not on the disgusting floor of the Safe — oh hell, just eat it.
c) Jaw coordination and strengthening.
d) Stress-relieving amusement for me, the parent, as I watch the kids try to blow bubbles with the gum. They have *no idea* what they’re doing.

21. Start preparing my Awesome Lasagna of Awesomeness. Prepare lunch for children, then attempt to enforce Quiet Time.

22. Have two telephone conversations in the locked bathroom while the children scream “TRICK OR TREAT” from outside it.

23. The rain has stopped. Kids find their friends in the courtyard. Will I be able to convince them to leave the fun frolic and come to the farmers market or should I just enjoy that they are not in the house.

24. Decisions decisions.

25. It’s so quiet. I like quiet. Maybe I will write a —

26. Someone’s crying.

27. Someone else hit someone with a stick.

28. It hasn’t rained for two hours so the children want to have a waterfight. I lock the door and hide inside.

a) This teaches them self-sufficiency!
b) And keeps the house dry!
c) Just kidding.

29. Collect recycling so I can cross three things off the list.

30. And now, a drink. Of alcohol.

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In His Own Words

Posted on 7/10/2011 by cheesefairy

I decided to interview Trombone today because we are both sitting on the couch and he is going to sleep. I do not want him to go to sleep because if he naps, he will be up until all hours tonight. Then, his brother wakes him up at 5:30 am and in the morning? The two children who were up till 9 and rose at 5:30? Are INSUFFERABLE. That is what happened last night / this morning and whoah nelly, it was bad.

I know I complain about this a lot. Sometimes, it is all I can do. Sorry.

***

Trombone: How many minutes till it’s treat time, Mommy?
Me: I dunno. Half an hour?
Trombone: Seven minutes.
Me: Uh, no. What are you going to have for your treat?
T: Um. Maybe some ice cream? Or a freezie.
Me: Mm. Freezies.

T: You can ask me some more questions.
Me: What do you think I should ask you?
T: What about if I tell you all my favourite things.
Me: OK.
T: My favourite superhero is Iron Man. I love riding my bike. Sometimes playing with my friends, J and T. Sometimes J likes T better than me. Now why don’t you tell me all of your favourites. I guess — ponies.
Me: I do like ponies. I also like reading. And I like writing. And I —
T: Do you like going on vacations?
Me: Yeah
T: Me too.
Me: Where would you like to go on a vacation?
T: (thinks) Mexico. Maybe Mexico.
Me: What do you think it would be like?
T: I think it would be lots of tropical islands and, um, it would be really sunny and hot.
Me: What would you do there?
T: I would just lie on the beach and maybe swim in the water.
Me: That sounds fun.
T: —
Me: We should go to Mexico.
T: —

Me: Ummmmmm. If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?
T: A superhero. That’s the only thing I want to be. Only thing. And I can make up my own Justice League.
Me: What would your power be?
T: Well, I would actually be the ruler. And I would be Superman, because I think he is the real ruler. He has soldiers to fight crime.
Me: …What if you couldn’t be a superhero, what would you be?
T: I would be a giant. A GIANT.

Me: What do you like better, dogs or cats?
T: I like dogs better.
Me: How come?
T: (yawns) Cause…there’s a Superdog. And I have a dog costume. Maybe next year, Fresco can be Superdog for Halloween. Wearing his Supercape (sings) Ba ba baaaaaa!
Me: What else would you like to tell me about yourself?
T: When I’m SuperTrombone, my power is strength. I can lift a whole planet with one tiny pinky. I know it would take a hundred men. But I can do it. Only one person and a pinky. I wouldn’t need any help. Maybe a little help from SuperFresco. He’s my sidekick.
Me: Nice.

T: But now I’m pretending to be Batman.
Me: Uh huh.
T: (gets up from his side of the couch and rubs my leg)
Me: What?
T: Just your leg looks so smooth from over there. (looks over my shoulder) Wow..is that all the words I’m saying?
Me: Yup.
T: My favourite books that aren’t comics are Captain Underpants books.
Me: Hmmm. What do you like about them?
T: Cause the bad guys have funny names. And so does Captain Underpants.
Me: Is ‘underpants’ a funny word?
T: Heh heh. Maybe.

Me: What do you think I could do better as a mom?
T: I think you could give me candy all day.
Me: All day?
T: ALL DAY LONG.
Me: What do you like about candy?
T: That it’s sweet and it tastes yummy.
Me: That’s the best.
T: Yummy yummy yummy. You’re the yummiest mommy I ever had.
Me: Thanks.

T: I have a Justice League movie.
Me: And is it good?
T: Yes it is. It’s really good. And it has guns in it.
Me: How come there are guns?
T: Cause there’s a war.
Me: Oh. Who wins the war?
T: The superheroes.
Me: Of course. How do they win? Do they shoot guns?
T: No, they do not. Well, the soldiers put their guns down. And then there’s a giant robot? And then, he stops wanting to fight the superheroes when they put their guns down.
Me: So they stop fighting and the war stops?
T: Yes. That’s exactly right.
Me: Do you think that would work in real life?
T: I don’t know. Lower your weapons!
Me: What weapons?
T: Your brain. Put your brain into your body! Lower it!
Me: Uhh
T: There. I took it out and smashed it into your body. It’s in your body now, not in your head.
Me: Uhhhh
T: Ha ha! I win the war!

The End.

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