April 1

Yesterday I had this conversation with a crow outside my window.

Crow: CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW
Me: Yeah I get you. It’s nesting season. That cat is down there. Your lady friend is trying to build a nest over in that tree. I see her. I think she might have some of my hair in her beak, from the dryer vent…
Crow: *fixes his eyes on me through the window*
Me: You know, the day we moved into this place, I was as mad and stressed out as you are right now.
Crow: CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW —
Me: I’ll cut you off there. I know it’s worse to be a crow; after all, you’re a bird. Smart bird, but still a bird. Your choices for shelter are not as varied as mine. I went from an apartment to a townhouse; yes, it was stressful but not as stressful as building a nest out of threads in a tree —
Crow: CAW
Me: Right. But in HUMAN terms. In human terms, we’d just bought our first place. I was six months pregnant with our first child. We moved to a new city entirely. It would be like if you…moved to the middle of downtown Vancouver and tried to find a tree there–
Crow: CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW
Me: Exactly. You can’t even. I didn’t know how it was going to turn out. Everything was an omen. We bought the place on my birthday. That was good. Our movers were flakes and we had to fire them a week before the move. That was bad. When we arrived to move in, the previous occupant was still here…
Crow: CAW?
Me: Seriously.
Crow: CAW CAW CAW CAWCAWCAW CAW
Me: I know. That’s what I said, but, you know, in English. It didn’t look good for a few hours there. It looked very bad. I didn’t think this was the right place to make a nest at all.
Crow: CAW
Me: Well there was another tree outside our window at the time. There have always been trees…
Crow: CAW CAW
Me: Anyway. It turned out OK. See? I’m here. The kids are at school. The sun is shining. That cat is too stupid to get you.
Crow: CAW
Me: I know, you have to crow anyway. But — it’s going to be okay.

***

Eight years ago today, we moved into the townhouse where we still live. The walls are no longer as white as they were. They are peeling in places and scribbled on in others. The floors are a perpetual swirl of tiny elastic bands, the heads of LEGO minifigures, hair, toast crumbs, and good old human dust. Our little porch is a nice place to sit and drink coffee on a chilly spring morning. We know our neighbours and our neighbour’s pets, and the birds we see on the walk to school.

I mentioned the anniversary to the children as we walked from school to trampoline class at the nearby park/arena and Eli said, “Wow! Let’s celebrate with cake!”

(I might need to start a cake company so that can be the slogan.)

I do so love our nest. Caw.

Dog Friday

I had the day off today. I also had Monday and Wednesday off but somehow having Friday off makes things more festive. When I got up this morning, the sun was rising SUN! SUN! and SA walked the kids to school because he always does that on Fridays and I stayed in my pjs five more minutes before going for a great run. In the sun.

Today is the sun after all the rain. It hasn’t really been raining. This has been a metaphor.

Anyway, as they were leaving for school, I pointed out to Eli that his stuffed dog, Shortbread, was on the kitchen floor, having been removed from the school backpack. Shortbread goes back and forth to school a lot. He stayed there for a week, in the Pet Hospital in kindergarten, but he seems to be fine now.

“Is Shortbread going to school?” I asked. “Or is he staying home with me.”
Eli thought about it.
“With you,” he said. “You can take care of him. And Black Eyed* too.”
“OK,” I said.
“Don’t forget to feed them,” Eli said, glaring at me.
“And what about when they have to poop?” I asked.
“They don’t..do that,” he said.

Excellent!

The first thing I did was take a picture of the dogs and me. Because the camera was right there. Aren’t they just the cutest?

*Black Eyed might actually be called “Mini No Name**” but I don’t remember exactly.
** because Eli has a stuffed BEAR called No Name, you see.

Then it was time for me to go for a run. I debated taking the dogs but decided I didn’t want the weight. So I kissed them goodbye. I figured they’d be okay for an hour.

Wooooeeee it was a good run. I am slowly building up stamina to a 40 minute run. Today I ran more than walked, and that is better than Wednesday. The streets were not too icy and my lungs quickly got used to the cold air. My hands warmed up at exactly fourteen minutes in. Weird.

The dogs were glad to see me. This is my pink running shirt that was five dollars in the bargain bin. My joke to the neighbours I see when I come home from running is, I run until my face matches my shirt, and then I’m done.

I had a shower, but the dogs stayed downstairs. Then I had a snack. They didn’t want any. I needed a bit of food because the next thing we did was GO TO COSTCO!

Well, first we checked our storage room to see if we needed coffee. We did.

They had never been to Costco so they weren’t that excited, but they were happy to be in the car. They like the car.

Shortbread fell asleep in the car, just like Eli always does, but Black Eyed stayed awake the whole time and seemed to enjoy the music on the radio.

Costco was busy, no duh. Friday afternoon. I parked far away and hiked in.

Yeah, I had a list, but we also had to look at other stuff, like the kid-sized recliner

and the Kobo.

The dogs really liked riding in my purse in the cart, and I think I liked it too because being without children but with stuffed animals makes you Kind of Crazy. Throw in the fact that you’re photographing the animals, and people get out of your way at Costco. Just the way I like it.

After some dithering, the dogs got bored and started to act up so I knew it was time to leave.

Last stop was at Safeway and the liquor store, because it’s Friday! Friday at the Safeway/liquor store parking lot is almost as crazy as Costco, so we parked far away again. Exercise is good for you! It’s a sunny day!

At Safeway I bought milk and bananas. At the self-checkout, the clerk came over and said,

“You’ve got a dog in your purse.”
“I have two!” I said, and dug out Black Eyed.
“Oh that’s so cute,” she said.

She did not seem to think it was odd, which was odd.

“They’re my son’s,” I said. “When he left for school he asked me to watch them..”
“So cute!” she said again. “My husband still has his stuffed bear from when he was a kid. And I still have my stuffed Santa.”
“Wow,” I said.
“The Santa was the only thing I saved from a house fire when I was two,” she said. “Everyone but my brother survived. He was two years older than me. But my parents and my seven brothers and sisters survived. And the Santa.”
“Wow,” I said again. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“My husband bought me a big Santa just like the little one, she said. So I have an old one and a new one.”

It’s great, the things people will tell you.

We went on to the liquor store.

Black Eyed allowed as how he has seen me drink a lot of Fat Tug and maybe I should buy some. I had my usual debate over nice, hoppy beer? or nice full red wine? Decided on beer.

The man ahead of me at the liquor store told the cashier and me a story about hitch-hiking through Alberta when he was fifteen, hair down to his butt, old ladies throwing eggs at him from car windows and yelling at him to get out of their town, because he was a dirty hippy.

I liked the story because of him, the young hippy, and because of the awesome old ladies throwing eggs, however misguided they might or might not have been.

He and I walked to the parking lot together. He said, “It’s like Willie Nelson said, ‘if I’d known I’d live so long, I’d’a taken better care of myself.'”

I laughed.

“Now, where’s my car,” he said. “That’s the problem with being an old hippy, you can’t remember where your car is…”
“I can’t help you with that,” I said.
“Have a good weekend,” he said.
“You too.”

Happy to be home, the dogs fell on the Costco-sized bag of Munchie Mix and fell asleep there, waiting patiently for Eli to come home from school.

School pick up ensued, then playdates with friends, then dinner. It is cold and clear tonight, and I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow and all’s well that ends well.

(Notes from Eli after viewing: i love your story! thank you for posting that story!)
(Notes from Arlo: your story is great and I really liked the pictures!)

Thanks guys. Best kids ever. Also, turns out Black Eyed is actually named Super No Name.

House Pants, Revisited

Several years ago, for my birthday, my mother wanted to buy me some nice yoga pants. We went to the Lululemon factory outlet store (don’t google, it no longer exist) and I tried on a lot of different pants and observed that their pants give everyone The Toe (you know the kind I mean. The camel kind). I chose a pair of non-stretchy, more-like-harem pants in the biggest size they had, which was 12, and we moved on with our lives. That was FOUR YEARS AGO! also an Olympic year.

Oh how I grew to love those pants. They were comfortable, non-binding, airy and light. I did not wear them to exercise, but around the house. I called them My House Pants and when I came home from anywhere, even the park, I put on my House Pants and I was home. Even when — especially when? — stay at home parenting is your full time job, it’s important to divide the day into work and not work. Or some other fuzzy line that everyone can place for him or herself.

In the Fall of 2013, I washed my house pants and the elastic waistband didn’t dry properly or in enough time or something and it took on a funk. The smell of mildew, or clothes-that-sit-around-too-long-in-the-washer. I washed them several times, used vinegar, pine-sol, stain remover, magic voodoo sauce, to no avail. The waistband of my favourite pants smelled bad. And no, the waistband is not near my face, but it is the only part of the house pants that touched my body, so my body’s heat would sometimes activate the smell and then I would get a whiff that was bad and you know, house pants are for RELAXING, not making you feel bad about your smell.

I kept them in the drawer for a while and then, recently, I gave them away, rationalizing that maybe some other genius person in the world would be able to get the smell out, or maybe a person who has no sense of smell could buy them and enjoy them, since they were otherwise in fantastic shape, having only really been worn around the, you know, HOUSE for four years.

This left me with a lack of house pants and this was sad, especially as it is winter, the season when we most need house pants.

I purchased some tights on a whim and they have worked out great as running tights but they are not so comfortable for lounging around the house.

I purchased some cheap flowy-style yoga-ish pants but they are shiny fabric’d and remind me of Elvis and have no pockets.

I have been wearing flannel polka-dot pyjama pants but the waist is held by a ribbon and it’s always coming undone and also they have no pockets.

WOE IS ME.

Yesterday my mother called me.

“I was given some yoga pants,” she said. “They are too long for me. Would you like them?”

Leaving aside the question of who gives another person yoga pants (except I know you’re curious, so the answer is: the friend of my mother’s who is a relative of someone who works in or near a yoga pant factory) I had the feeling these pants would work for me. She described them as harem-style, with an elastic waist, and pockets, and drawstring around the ankles. It was too much to hope that they would be the same style as my dearly beloved and recently so stinky house pants but hope I did because what is a life without hope.

Today, my mother met me at the mall and we had coffee and shopped for things and she gave me the house pants and THEY ARE NEARLY* EXACTLY THE SAME.

*they are pleated and I think they might be a size 10 (there is no label) and the inseam is shorter than the old house pants but other than that, they are the same. Same! Same! Pants!

It was an average, ordinary day, and then my new house pants came home.

Here is a picture of my trying to show you my pants. In the House kind of yoga this pose is called “teenage flamingo.”

Happy New Year My Pretties

I’m not sure if you noticed but it’s 2014 now. We’re three days in. The other day Arlo told me his favourite numbers are seventeen and twenty-two. Eli likes twenty-three and …I forget the other. I like nines and seventeens myself. Not fond of the number 4. That this year ends with a four and that it is also my fourtiesthhh birthday in a month makes me kind of cringe but then I was born in a year that ends with four so what the hell is my problem. At some point you have to make peace with the number you hate. #sobernod

There are a lot of lessons all around me, all the time. For seven years I was a mother (um, I still am) and that was full of lessons. Now I am a part-time worker in an environment that is challenging and if I tell you that it’s full of lessons imagine a small car crammed so full of balloons you can’t even drive and you just sit and laugh and laugh until the force of your laughter causes some of the balloons to pop and then you pull out of your parking spot and drive away. Every time I go to work I am challenged in some other part of my brain and personality. Mostly it is not challenging in an intellectual way any more; I have started to grasp the wheres and hows of the work.

Well kind of. It is the government, which means nothing is what it seems and information is either from 2001 or hidden down rabbit holes that you can’t access from your computer because that website is forbidden.

But now I am dealing with the emotional or interpersonal challenges, such as the person I work with who is just really the opposite of me entirely, for which I can neither fault her nor embrace her. The lessons I’m learning are of this nature: you can’t change peoples’ minds about you, when you smile larger you look friendlier, be yourself no matter what they say, let it go, let it go, let it go. I have always had trouble letting things go, not all things but the things that bother me. Of course. Holding on to things is how we remember them and how we remember is how we know who we are. I guess. But holding on to things that are hurtful or mystifying or debilitating causes me stress. Going over and over and over things in my head only makes me feel more hamster-like, and that makes me not sleep, not want to go to work, not want to do anything but tear tissues to shreds and panic. And it makes me grumpy. And when I’m grumpy and stressed I can’t learn because my brain shuts off the part of it that learns, and then I make more mistakes which incurs the correction of the person I work with which makes me feel worse and then I keep replaying how I could have done it differently and look how long this sentence is YOU GUYS I am the poster-girl for letting go.

You know how people choose words for the year and then try to – I don’t know – focus? on the words or make themselves work around the words, well I’ve never really been able to do that (don’t fact-check me, I didn’t go looking and it wouldn’t entirely surprise me if I did in fact try to choose a word one year and then abandon it) because one word for a whole year feels kind of impossible. Yes, the newness of January makes it easy to focus on the word but what about when the norovirus hits and your family is out for three weeks and you don’t even remember what it is to have clean armpits, what of your word then? FORGOTTEN. Unless your word is forget.

Over the Christmas holidays I found myself tied up in knots about things and it occurred to me that my word, or guiding principle if you prefer, might need to be RELEASE. In part because LET GO is two words unless you write it LETGO which is good but kind of urgent and reminiscent of LEGO, whereas RELEASE has two meanings; verb and noun, and it just sounds nice. RELEASE. When I say it to myself I unclench my fists, I stretch out my jaw, I smile widely no matter how silly I look, I cast my mind to other places. I send the hamster wheel of ridiculous analysis off spinning into space where it can wheel and spin forever for all I care, and I think about something else instead. Like how much I like the sound of RELEASE. A new lease. Freedom from the perception that anything I do can make a difference to how another individual perceives me. I AM ME. And that is all.

Making Children Cry Since 2006

There isn’t much more frustrating than trying to help someone who’s too far gone to be helped.

“Stop chewing at your neck bandage,” one says to a cat. “Then the bleeding will heal and you will no longer need a neck bandage.” Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, says the cat. It’s itchy, says the cat.

“Eat this sandwich,” one says to a child. “You will be less likely to kick me in the shins like a wildebeest* if you have food in your stomach.”
“I’m NOT HUNGRY AND I RESENT THE IMPLICATION!” replies the child as he winds up to kick you in the shins.

*I don’t think wildebeest actually kick.

This evening, after a full week of school that included:

– a playdate on Monday (Arlo and Eli)
– a dress rehearsal for the Christmas concert on Tuesday afternoon (Arlo)
– me working on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday (though only half a day friday because SNOW MY GOD [SNOMG])
– an afternoon and evening Christmas concert on Thursday (Arlo)
– staying up until nine o’ clock and getting up at 6:50 every morning (Arlo)
– waking up three to five times a night coughing for a week (Eli) (and me) (and SA)
– ice skating this morning (Arlo) including walking to the rink in the SNOMG
– Christmas party for Eli
– including cookies and singing and hot chocolate and finally a movie
– more playing in the snow
– a lot of candy canes
– and finally the last minutes of the last day of school…
– more playing in the snow
– being surprised by me coming home early from work and meeting them after school
– walking home, all cold and soggy

…the children were tired. So tired. Their eyes were melting and their brains smoking. WOULD THEY ADMIT IT? BOLLOCKS.

The first hint of trouble came at about 4 pm. They had been lying on the living room floor, staring at the Christmas tree with their melting eyes, and I took a moment to look at my computer which at 4 pm usually means twitter.

An open laptop is an invitation. (hey Dell, you can use that if you pay me for it, yeah?) The kids came running over. I let Eli tweet a tweet, then I let Arlo tweet a tweet and it was funny and good. And perfectly spelled. And then Arlo wanted to tweet a second tweet and it was rude so I said no and he insisted so I shut the laptop.

AND LO, HIS MELTING EYES DID WEEP.

Eli also did weep because he had been anticipating a second turn at the tweeting. I apologized and shut down the tweeting machine.

Next up: Arlo crammed a peanut butter cup in his mouth and sprayed chocolate all over me while he asked if he could go play at the neighbour’s house. “Did you eat all your lunch?” I asked. He shook his head. I asked him to please eat some real food, having already heard about the cupcakes, hot chocolate, cookies and candy they had both feasted on all day.

MORE WEEPING BECAUSE WHY DO YOU STOP ME FROM DOING THE THING I WANT TO ARGHHHHHH

Turned out his lunch had been finished. “Huh,” he said, blinking, “I don’t remember doing that.”

I decided to let it, and him, go. Sadly he was back in five minutes, tears streaming down his face anew because neighbour friend was eating dinner. I could not take any more weeping. No more weeping. I needed to make pizza so I could eat it. This was the plan. Time for big guns.

“Would you like to sit on the couch and watch a movie,” I asked.

Oh yes. Yes. He sat, remote controls in hand, shivering, eyes swollen.

“But it’s my turn to pick,” Eli pointed out. More tears. Another round of tears for all my children! Cheers to the tears!

“I will pick,” I said. I picked the Drake and Josh Christmas Special. They were both happy about this.

I made pizza and fed it to them on the couch. After the pizza and movie they had dessert, because you need dessert right? Wouldn’t want your sugar levels to dip.

“Now,” I said, “it is bedtime.” I began to move things around in preparation for bedtime.
“I am going to make a movie,” Arlo announced. He took the tripod from the stairs and started to pull the legs out.
“How can you make a movie when it’s bedtime?” I said with a very false joviality.
“I’m not going to bed right now,” he said. “I’m making my movie first.”

I won’t transcribe the rest. There was more crying, me sending them upstairs, them making horrible shrieking noises, me yelling from downstairs that they should stop, and then more crying because I yelled.

I mean. You guys.

If you’re crying this much, you’re exhausted. If you’re exhausted you should sleep. If I’m telling you this, it’s not to assert some kind of puppet asshole control over you, it’s just because if you sleep you’ll feel better.*

They sleep now, tears dry on their cheeks. Soon, I will too.

*If I added up all the hours I’ve spent thinking about sleep in the past seven years I could buy a hotel. If the hours were worth money, which they are not.

Nine Secrets

1. Sometimes, at work, when I’m befuddled and feel quite moronic, I think about the nice things people said to me — not just nice, but totally over-the-top supportive and kind — when I despair-posted the other week and then I smile to myself and soldier on. I never said thank you to those people, so thank you. Your sweetness lives on in my brain heart place.

2. I channelled the real Santa and bought Arlo a ridiculous Nerf gun for Christmas. Because nothing says Christmas like a gun made to kill zombies. If foam darts could kill zombies we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, would we.

3. I was having a direct message conversation with my fabulous father-in-law the other day. We were talking about squirrels and their natural predators and he wrote, “It’s a tough world when you taste good & aren’t too bright” and I just keep seeing it at the top of my DMs in twitter and every time I see it I laugh and wonder if I could tattoo that somewhere on my person or if I should just put it on the blog and have it live forever here instead of on my skin, where it would take up rather a lot of space.

Well, now that’s done.

4. I walked into a pointy part of our banister last week and I have had a black eye for a whole week and I am really tired of people making domestic abuse jokes. I’m still participating in the conversations with people, because I know what kind of conversation they’re expecting to have and I’m too tired to crusade but I’m thinking percentage-wise at least one person who has been present for one of the many “oh did you REALLY walk into a banister?” conversations I’ve had this past week has actually been abused by a partner and that just makes me sad.

5. The other day I cried walking home from taking the kids to school because this woman was taking her grade-one-aged daughter to school and they were very late and the girl didn’t want to go and the mom was dragging her up the hill and there was crying and yelling and the daughter dropped to the snow and wouldn’t get up and I just couldn’t take it. Sometimes I just can’t take it.

6. All the clear, cold, snowy weather we were having made me a bit panicky. As Eli put it two days ago, “I wish all this snowing would just stop.” (he was cold)(I’m just a creature of habit who needs rain to survive, apparently.)(Don’t get me wrong, if I could pick what kind of weather I’d prefer to have for thirty days straight I would pick sunshine and cold over dark and rainy, but I’m USED to dark and rainy and we fears change we does.)

7. If I had to work more than two or three days a week I would be typing this from the psychiatric ward. Picking a part time job was the smartest thing I ever did.

8. It’s exactly two months until my fortieth birthday!

9. I don’t have a ninth thing but I can’t leave it at eight because I detest the number eight and the number nine is automatically more powerful.

Here is a photo to compensate.(?)

Eli, practising for his first Facebook profile picture, which will be taken at his first Kings of Leon show.

Santa, etc.

Last year our neighbour, who was then 7, received an iPad from Santa, which totally fucking wrecks it for the rest of us. This year, Arlo has decided he wants an iPhone for Christmas, a black one, and I have, of course, decided to be logical at him, repeatedly. Thus, we have had the following conversation several times in the past weeks:

Arlo: I wonder if I really WILL get an iPhone 5 for Christmas. [smiles to himself]
Me: Hmmmm, do you think so?
Arlo: Well, it is pretty much the ONLY thing I want.
Me: Yeah..
Arlo: And Santa can do anything. And
Me: But expensive electronics are really not for kids.
Arlo: But NEIGHBOUR KID got an iPad last year from Santa
Me: I think his whole family got the iPad, actually..
Arlo: But mostly HE plays with it *
Me: Anyway, there are so many toys that are appropriate for children. There’s a whole Toys R Us store full of toys. I think those are the kinds of gifts Santa likes to give.
Arlo: I guess. But I really want an iPhone 5. A black one. [smiles dreamily]

*if most of your sentences start with “but” it’s probably not a productive conversation.

We have talked about what in god’s name he would do with a smart phone, how he’d have to pay for a data plan, which he could never afford on the one dollar per week he gets in allowance, especially since he always ends up spending his spending money on candy or to pay for things like the half a tube of toothpaste he squeezed out of the tube just to see what would happen, this last just the other day. (seriously dude wtf.) We have discussed how much they cost and how fragile they are (this child drops at least four things a day). We have even discussed the angle of proprietary software, thanks to Saint Aardvark’s personal bug up the ass, er, interests.

It isn’t the point. He doesn’t care about, or even hear, arguments against. Arlo thinks Santa is real. Arlo thinks Santa is magic. Arlo thinks Santa is going to give him what he most desires, because Santa wants Arlo to be happy and the iPhone 5 (in black) will make him happy.

Or possibly, Arlo knows Santa isn’t real and this is just a massive test.

Either way, this issue has been pushing my buttons, which of course makes it super fun for the kids. Push the buttons again! Again! iPhones for children are NOT part of our family value package. $500 gifts of any kind are not how we roll. You’ve been around enough Christmases and watched me shop, you should KNOW this. Want some damn Lego. You’re SEVEN. Ask for a pogo stick.

But you want what you want, because you want it. I’ve been so sensible for so long (about material things) I forgot what it is to just want something because you want it. Yes, because other people want it, because it’s a status symbol, because of what it represents. Still. Because you want it.

These examples of how my child is different from me sneak up on me. We all joke about stuff like “oh my kid is going to be an accountant because I’m a poet..but I’ll love him anyway,” but it’s sneakier than that. It’s a kid’s job to test his parent’s values, to assert his individuality. As soon as he can figure out a way to do it. So here I am, trucking along smug as a bug about my book-reading, music-loving kind-hearted child and then he says something that makes him sound like he’s a greedy, materialistic, value-less, status-seeking brat. Is he getting it, all the stuff I’m showing and telling? Is he going to join a frat someday? How will I handle it?

Except he’s a kid, just yacking on about stuff he doesn’t understand.

(For an entertaining/infuriating time, try talking to kids under 8 about gigabytes. Hilarious. Or precious metals. Everything that sparkles is a precious metal.)

It’s all part of separation. Letting go. I can’t make him value the things I value, and I don’t value the things he values, and all of this is as it should be. He can want an iPhone and he won’t get one, and the disappointment will be hard to watch, but he’ll take it and deal with it and it will help form him. He’s himself, not a clone of me. I spend so much time looking for the similarities between us I sometimes forget to appreciate and marvel at the differences.

Postscript, several days later.

Today the kids wanted to go shopping for Christmas presents. Arlo asked me for a list of things I wanted for Christmas yesterday and then he took it upstairs. I’m going to look at it and decide what to get you, he said.

This morning he wrote a list of stocking presents he would like, for Eli to peruse, and Eli wrote a list for him. Then Arlo came over and whispered in my ear:

Today can we go to a toy store, so I can look for something for Eli’s stocking?

I MEAN COME ON. YES OF COURSE.

He went upstairs and gathered his money. He had five dollars.

More whispering:

I want to get him a stuffed dog. Or maybe a Lego minifigure.

OK, I said. We can find those.

After much negotiation — you really don’t want to know how much or the nature of, just be aware that in real life there were more than two line breaks between the previous paragraph and this one — Arlo and I ended up at Toys R Us while Eli and SA went to Value Village because Eli of course also wanted to get a present for Arlo for HIS stocking but only had one dollar to his name, plus of course we couldn’t be at the same store at the same time because SECRETS.

Arlo went right over to the stuffed animal department and picked up a stuffed golden retriever puppy.

This one, he said.
How much is it? I said.
Uh, I don’t know, he said.

It was eight dollars. I fronted him the extra three.

PPS:
In case you haven’t seen it, this account of a 7 year old’s Christmas list is dead on and the annotations are everything I have been thinking for the past two months.

My Homemade Macaroni and Cheese with Sundried Tomatoes and Caramelized Onions

First the children’s servings of macaroni and cheese were left on their plates until they became cold. I told the children they should try the food hot, that even I prefer my food hot, but they weren’t going for it. When food is cold, you can really taste the flavours I guess. Or it tastes worse so you don’t have to lie about hating it.

Eli: Takes a small bite; gags; turns bright red; doesn’t vomit but sounds like he might. Is excused.

Arlo takes a small bite. Ponders.
SA: What do you think?
Arlo: Well. I don’t really like it.
SA: Try a second bite. See if you can taste the flavours.
Arlo takes a second bite. Ponders.
Arlo: Well. It’s creamy. And plain. And a bit chewy.
SA: Yes..
Arlo: And a bit bitter. And a tiny bit spicy.
SA: Hmmm
Arlo: Yeah.
SA: So what part don’t you like.
Arlo: I don’t like the creamy part and the chewy part together. And I don’t like the bitter part. And the spicy part, it’s not really that spicy, just a tiny bit spicy, but when you first taste it you think “Oh, here comes the spicy part. My mouth is going to set on fire!” But then it’s not that spicy after all.
SA: I see.

The macaroni and cheese contained no spices other than salt and garlic powder.

I had two servings. It was delicious.

One Hundred – Ways to Be Better

The past several days have been challenging. Eli was sick so he stayed home from school on Friday, which meant I stayed home from work with him. He rested and played video games and watched TV and I read the Internet, which made me angry and grumpy.

It’s actually good for me to work because at work there is no internet, only live people and live people as represented by their files, so I am not tempted to judge (mostly). It is so much easier to judge on the Internet. Sometimes it feels like that’s what it’s for. Pictures! LIKE OR NOT LIKE. Music! LIKE OR NOT LIKE. Blog posts, articles, opinions, dinosaur dioramas set up after dark while children are sleeping to make the children think the dinosaurs have come to life in the night. LIKE? NOT LIKE? Santa. Thanksgiving. American politics. Canadian politics. Feminism. Assholes. People being mean to assholes, making them also assholes. LIKE. NOT LIKE.

Picture the beginning of time. (Note: this is not the Genesis version of the beginning of time. This is the Time Before Assholes.) There is only one asshole in this world. People just move around him/her. One day another person treats the original asshole (OA) how he thinks OA should be treated, making him also an asshole (AAA). Now there are two assholes, which is not triple A at ALL. If you scale this and everyone tells two friends like the shampoo commercial, we are in a world overrun with assholes who just wanted to tell THAT asshole what an asshole he was being.

But if that guys had just walked around that first, original asshole, we’d all be fine right now. As it is, we’re all in danger of becoming the asshole. Not to say you can’t go back. We all do assholish things, but wouldn’t it be better just to avoid the whole thing.

Anyway, that was my plan by the end of the day Friday.

Yesterday was a comedy of errors sort of day, the summary of which is: I spent almost all day inside with two children who were bored of me, each other, and the inside of the house. It culminated in me sending them to separate rooms at 5 pm and instructing them not to come out until they heard their father come home from his many comedy-of-error-like errands.

This morning I woke up with the best of intentions but something about the way Arlo accompanied me at the grocery store talking incessantly about iPhones and caramel popcorn and can we get Frutopia WHY NOT WHY DON”T YOU EVER BUY ME ANYTHING I WANT while I was trying to find vanilla yogurt that was in between 0-10% fat and didn’t have 30g of sugar per half cup and I don’t even LIKE yogurt but it’s the only thing Eli eats some days, something about that just made me get crankier and be the asshole in the room again. Yes, I was the jerk in the yogurt aisle tearing a strip off her kid because this basket is full of things you like and I don’t so don’t say I never buy you anything and also when’s the last time you ate a vegetable, that’s right, never, so just shut up about caramel popcorn. Eat a head of broccoli and I will buy caramel popcorn. I’M WAITING RIGHT HERE FOR YOU TO EAT BROCCOLI.

STILL WAITING. GOT MY CAPS ON, SON.

However, there was a truck parking over two spaces in the parking lot of the grocery store and I did not slash his tires or leave a passive-aggressive note on the windshield. I made attempts to give him/her the benefit of the doubt, plus there are lots of parking spots at Superstore, and walked away.

Sunday count:
Asshole brain: 4. Non-asshole brain: 1.

It’s hard not being an asshole. I am going to keep trying. Also I will never type the word asshole on this blog again, I promise.

Ninety-Nine — Failer

It’s exhausting to be bad at something.

Like, really bad. So bad someone corrects you every fifteen minutes. So bad you second guess every move because you want to avoid being corrected but your second guessing turns to third guessing and then you never make the right call and end up being corrected anyway.

Friday I asked the woman at work who is training me if I had done something correctly, bracing myself for the “No you forgot X Y AND Z, AGAIN,” but instead she nodded and said, “yup,” and it was such a relief. I have been realizing that in general I am quite accustomed to being right, correct, and good at things. And this job where I am not right, correct, or good at things is taking its toll on me.

I am tough and have a lifetime of being right, correct, and good at things standing behind me to back me up. I can give myself bathroom and driving-to-work pep-talks, but the glow from them only lasts fifteen minutes at best because, well, I am bad at my job.

Can I remember the last time I failed? Let’s see. We don’t count stories rejected, because that’s part of the writer’s life. We don’t count parenthood because we can’t really know until, well ever. There are blog posts — many of them — without comments. That counts for failure in my world.

I can forgive myself all minor failures because in the greater world I feel like a success. And this is a gift; from my heritage to me. From me as a middle-class white girl whose parents stayed together and didn’t do drugs, to me.

Coincidentally — serendipitously? — at work I move around the files of people who have not had these gifts given to them. They were set up for failure from conception. Then, when they failed, they were berated. Their lives stacked failure upon failure like Lego bricks. Over time they have come to believe they are incompetent, incapable of anything but robbing a gas station, beating a girlfriend. Offered a chance to do something hard, to make something of themselves, with the backdrop of failure behind them, they take it, fail, do it again. Whereas I, coming from a place of reward and love, luxury and privilege, balk and tire at the first signs of difficulty. My eyes are tired. I complain. I’m so tired of being bad at this job.

I could quit. All the stress would vanish. We could go back to our old budget, our old lives. I could choose that path. I could have five luxurious days off a week again.

But I won’t.

I am lucky to be here, lucky to be me. I have a job, when many do not. I have a brain, as rusty as it is. I have supportive family, understanding kids, a car that runs.

Having been built up my whole life, I can afford to fail.

It is as important to be resilient as it is to be competent. It is good for me to fuck up, day after day, to have someone following me around checking up on me, telling me where I went wrong. It shows me how my kids must feel, sometimes. It will help me be a better parent, a better person, more forgiving and patient.

Oh it sucks. It sucks so hard to be 39 and 3/4s and be incompetent at something. Truly, panic-inducingly incompetent.

But after weekend one (the one with the kids) and weekend two (the two days where I am blessedly alone), I will start to feel like I might be ready to give it another try. I will be ready to walk into work again, strong and tall, with my many competencies to help keep me upright as I am slammed by waves of “you did this wrong” and “you put this thing here instead of there” and “don’t you remember? the ponies go in the UPPER mail slot.”

(Really. Ponies. Who knew.)

Someday I’ll look back at this and laugh. Maybe even next week? Probably not. But someday.

bad with titles

pretty good with stories