Same Old Story

Ice Storm.

Snow storm.

Schools closed.

Children home.

Again.

Gym closed.

Again.

Freezing cold temperatures.

I can see lots of warm, adult beverages in my very near future.

And pizza.

That is all.

American Idol Madness

I was so looking forward to the January debut of American Idol. I love the show, in spite of the fact that we, the audience, are clearly manipulated. Those heart-warming stories designed to introduce us and (I think) influence our future votes are pretty formulaic. But, we know this and accept it as part of the American Idol ride.

I don't have the stomach for the more unstable contestants, though. I don't know if it's reality tv overload or empathy or what but this year, I cannot bear to watch the under-medicated chew through their fifteen minutes of fame. They aren't funny to me anymore. They're tragic.

I don't mind those thirty second montages where the worst of the worst are trying to hit a note. They're kind of like a blooper reel in that we get a cheap chuckle without feeling the need for a shower afterward. The bits that are truly awful are the five minute spots with the mentally ill contestants. They're sad and to me, showcasing their auditions bumps right up against the exploitative.

It has been suggested that some of the more outrageous contestants are actors who have been hired specifically to provide comic relief.



I hope that is true but it won't change the fact that my thumb will be poised over the fast forward button because really, in spite of the fact that there is an undeniable morbid curiosity, I just can't bear to watch a human train wreck.

Weather Woes

Guess what?

We're supposed to be getting an ice storm tomorrow.

Oh joy.

Like the week that the kids had off after Christmas wasn't enough.

The weathermen, true to form, are foaming at the mouth and suggesting in high-pitched, excited voices, that we get ourselves down to the nearest hardware store and purchase a generator.

I don't mean to be all cynical, skeptical, eye-rolling, head-shaking, deep-sigh-expelling, but just once, it would be nice if a meteorologist got in front of us and calmly said something simple and TRUTHFUL like, "Yep. Roll of the dice, kids. Could be a doozy but then again, might just be a minor inconvenience." Because frankly, there is something about our terrain that makes it difficult for the weather to be accurately predicted.

Dallas and I are not impervious to the warnings, though. We're planning to workout tomorrow morning instead of our usual afternoon session because the possibility DOES exist that the gym may have to close early.

*sigh*

I am so ready for spring.

Schooled

A few weeks ago, I decided to switch up my parenting methods to include a merit system. I know that it's not a new idea. Kindergarten teachers practically invented it with their gold star stickers but something had to be done in my house, particularly with my son.

Dylan is twelve, wildly hormonal and struggling with one foot in childhood and one foot in adolescence. For months, the only conversation we were having with any regularity was focused on the flaws in his behaviour.

It was exhausting.

And demoralizing for both of us.

One day, angry, exasperated, with my very last nerve frayed beyond repair, I said,

"What the hell is wrong with you? Why can't you....."

I stopped, horrified, as I watched his face crumple in on itself and his shoulders slump. Years ago, I had vowed that I would not raise my children the way that my father had reared his. I would not turn parenting into a war that needed to be won. And here I was slinging one verbally abusive arrow after another. I felt deep, burning shame and immediate regret.

I made things right with Dylan that day but the experience was like a bruise that wouldn't heal. I had to find a better way, other than the sting of constant criticism, to point my kids in the right direction.

Positive reinforcement.

Now, the kids get check marks for getting it right and if we don't catch them in the act, they are encouraged to make their good deeds known. At the end of the week, we add up the check marks and if they accumulate twelve, they are rewarded.

The new program appears to be working like a charm.

Recently, I gave Olivia three choices for her reward. She could either get a new book at Barnes and Noble or an ice cream at Coldstone or two hours of time alone with me. Frankly, with the other two options, I didn't think I stood a chance. My daughter loves ice cream. Abnormally so. But she chose me.

Dylan, when faced with similar options, chose to go to the movies with his stepbrother and Dallas, which was also surprising, because my son lives for trips to Barnes and Noble.

Once again, it turns out that my children are the teachers and I am the student. Imagine that.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

My mother came for Christmas this year armed with gifts, advice and a movie called, "Food Inc." To say that it was disturbing is a huge understatement. Once I had disseminated the information presented in the movie, I couldn't revert back to the way that we had been purchasing and consuming food.

I don't want to come across as a screechy, preachy so all that I am going to say is try to get your hands on the movie and give it a few hours of your time.

A week ago over at RudeCactus, Chris posted about the movie. A ton of people commented and one of them turned me on to Michael Pollan's book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma".

Oh.My.God.

I don't even know where to begin except that I feel compelled to tell everyone who will give me the time of day about this book.

Sunday, Dallas and I traveled twenty eight miles (just over 60 kms) to do our weekly grocery shop at a local co-op that offers a great selection of organic product. Better yet, they try to purchase as much produce, meat and dairy as they can from local farmers who adhere to sustainable practices. We most definitely spent more money but I'd gladly sacrifice other lifestyle expenses rather than go back to shopping at a traditional grocery store. Knowledge is troublesome like that.

We've also given up bottled water.

For good.

Dallas had a harder time getting his head around the perceived inconvenience of this decision because we were consuming about thirty, 20oz bottles a week. But big surprise,it turned out to be a remarkably easy transition. With our new stainless steel water canteens, the switch didn't even cause a blip.

We most definitely do not belong on a soapbox because frankly, we can't cast a bunch of stones from our glass house. But we have the information now.

And there is no turning back.

Postcard From Middle Age

Some habits die hard as do the expectations surrounding said habits.

Most of my life has been spent on a diet of some sort. Any of you who have been reading me for a period of time know that I am not friendly with my bathroom scale, hence the need to try each new fad diet that passes by my radar. I hate the thing. I'm also not terribly fond of the tape measure or the electronic fat loss monitor. I'm convinced that I must be living in an alternate, horrible reality where regular exercise and clean eating don't make a whisper of a difference because every morning, when I step onto that wretched scale, it reads the same number.

Day after day.

Week after week.

I am so frustrated.

My husband tells me not to give up. He encourages me by commenting that my rear end is smaller and since I generally try to avoid looking at my ass (because if we were meant to do that, I'm convinced we would have been given the ability to rotate our heads 360º), I have to take his word for it.

The thing is, I'm not going to give up. This is a lifestyle, not a diet. I've adopted the attitude that exercise and portion control are as important as any other rung on the ladder of my priority list. Not negotiable.

But the quick gratification of a diet is difficult to overcome. Back on the HCG thing, I'd get on the scale each morning to find myself down at least half a pound. I was shedding a complete size every couple of weeks. It was intoxicating and it was relatively easy to deprive myself because the results were almost instantaneous. Unfortunately, they couldn't be sustained of course, because diets don't work. And the metabolic havoc they create is profound.

So here I am, with my shiny, new lifestyle, wondering when my bathroom scale is going to accurately reflect the effort that I am expending to become a fit member of society. I watched a news segment recently that discussed the fact that one can be fat and fit at the same time.

I was horrified.

Because my resting heart rate hovers around 60 bpm now. I can run, at top speed, for over four minutes and my body responds by wanting more. I've gone from twenty to thirty three to forty minute cardio sessions. I CRAVE them.

And I lift weights. Lots of them. I am laser-focused on form. I push myself to the very limits of my nearly forty three year old body. I seek the burn that comes from fatigued muscles. I don't cheat.

But still, the scale does not move.

I've been told to be patient; to stay on the path with the promise that there will soon come a day when a threshold will be reached and the scales will start to tip in my favour.

I hope so because in spite of the fact that I feel great, sleep better and manage my stress like a champ, I am not content. There is a lean girl inside me trying to claw her way out.

Dear Littermaid

I'm breaking up with you.

Two and a half years ago, after feeling emotionally blackmailed into dragging home a gorgeous little kitten and because I didn't want to get the "Shitty Parent of the Year" award, I pretended that I was happy about the event. This, in spite of the fact that I knew I was going to have to deal with kitty poop and kitty pee, which was a serious challenge to my refined gag reflex.

Imagine my delight when I happened upon you, sitting sexily right there on the shelf, promising automatic waste removal. You said YOU would take care of everything and that I would have minimal involvement. Golly, I fell hard for you right there in the aisle. I couldn't get you home fast enough.

Remember how it was back then? You were so strong and competent. I used to poke my head into the laundry room just to marvel at your technological genius. I told everyone I knew about you. I was absolutely smitten.

After a couple of months though, the honeymoon was over and you began to change. You became moody and uncontrollable. Several times a day, I could hear you in there, scraping your rake back and forth across the litter, obsessively, until I was forced to walk in there and shut you off while I tried to diagnose the issue. You became hugely temperamental. If there was slightly too much litter added, you'd wheeze and huff and stop doing your job or you would make this sound like a door in a haunted house repeatedly opening. But like most couples, we found a way to work it out, didn't we? For the next year or so, we managed, even though the flame of infatuation had clearly been extinguished. I'd seen your filthy underside and it wasn't pretty.

And then came "THE INCIDENT". Remember the night you rudely jolted us out of sleep with what sounded like machine gun fire? It was like being in a war zone. Turns out you were having a temper tantrum with your rake. I might have thrown you around a bit that night but I'm not entirely sure because things get kind of murky at 3am. All I do know is that after "the incident" you were never the same.

Finally, you just up and quit. I was so angry but the prospect of having to get even more up close and personal with the cat scat sent me running back to the store.

And we bought another, new and improved you and your really fancy, $150 brother, just to be safe. Turns out, your entire family is worthless.

I guess there must have been some residual hard feelings because this time, you walked off the job after only a few months. We called your parents, Mr. and Mrs. Customer Service, but they kept us on hold for twenty five minutes and then sent us to a general mailbox to leave a message, which made my head explode. And your brother? Well, he might have appeared beautiful coming out of the box, what with his air filtration and timers but as it turned out, he was a pig, flinging litter all over the laundry room floor. Worse, he refused to completely close his receptacle thus treating us to the gagalicious odour of waste, twenty four hours a day.

So I'm done with you, Littermaid. You remind me of too much of my ex husband: lazy, unreasonable and ridiculously expensive. I'd rather shovel caca the old fashioned way than give you another chance.

National Delurker Day 2010

(Thanks to Aimee for the great artwork again this year)

Hey kids,

National Delurker Day is here again!

Chris over at Rude Cactus sent a note this week reminding us of this very special day. It's that time of year when some of us bloggers ask you fabulous readers/fellow bloggers to reveal yourselves by leaving us a comment.

Because we are insecure and need to feel the love, internet.

For those of you new to blogspeak, a "lurker" is best defined as someone who reads a blog but does not comment or otherwise make himself known in any way.

I confess, I am generally a lurker. There are blogs that I read every day but I'm not much of a comment person because it's kind of like leaving a message on voice mail. I get all nervous and self conscious which results in a garbled, incoherent mess. I am one of those that needs time to craft a thoughtful reply because I've spent a lifetime flossing my teeth with my boot laces, as you will soon read.

I use this day every year to write about some of my most embarrassing moments because they are plentiful and easily recalled. Take my grandmother's funeral, for instance.

________________________________________

I was on my way to our regional airport to board a flight for Las Vegas to attend yet another brain melting trade show when my mum emailed me to tell me that my Grammy had passed away.

(Yes, you read that correctly and getting into our family dynamic would just take waaayyy too long to explain so let's just say we're a technically savvy bunch and leave it at that, shall we?)

I pulled onto the shoulder of the road, called my mother and then had myself a mini breakdown. The rest of the day was a blur of arrangements and the following morning, I flew home to New Brunswick.

I despise funerals. They are an awful tradition.

We all feel sad. Check.
We know that those closest to us would like to be able to make it better. Check.
One must speak in a low, appropriately somber, voice. Check.
One must try to control one's emotions even though one's throat aches with unshed tears. Check.
And it is something just this side of torture to sit for hours in a funeral home accepting condolences from decent people who just want to show you a little support. Nobody knows what to say, which is understandable because what can really be said other than, "I'm sorry".

Because they are awful and because I hate them with the fire of a thousand suns, I don't do especially well at funerals. During the viewing for my grandmother,(yes, we are that family, too),someone encouraged me to place my hand over Grammy's so that I wouldn't dream of her. But what if I wanted to dream of her, I thought and instead of voicing this, I walked up to the casket with my sister cousins.

Predictably, we commented about how peaceful she looked and what a good job they did with her hair. I touched her hand and immediately understood that my grandmother was gone. Her hand was cold, oddly dense and foreign. It stunned me and I felt myself awash in unbridled grief. I looked at her face and noticed that the funeral home had painted her lips in a colour uncharacteristic of my gram, which made me unreasonably angry.

As I rifled through my purse for a tube of something more appropriate, I muttered, "Grammy wouldn't be caught dead in that lipstick."

In horror, realizing what I had just said, I snapped my head up, eyes wide and sucked in my breath, clamping my hand over my mouth.

IDIOT, IDIOT, IDIOT.

I looked at my sisters, expecting to see disappointment and disgust in their faces. Instead, I was met with mild surprise and suppressed laughter. They get me. Completely.

It was then that I understood what I had always known. Funerals are not for the deceased. They are for the living.

____________________________________

On this, my third official National Delurker Day, I want to thank the tens of you for reading. I really appreciate that you have given me a voice.

Anne Frank

Anne Frank.

News of the death of Miep Gies yesterday renewed once again, the story of Otto Frank and his family. And every single time that I read about their struggles to survive the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands, it is like a kick to the stomach.

Oh, I know that inside the pages of Anne Frank's diary, there are many examples of real courage, real heroism and selfless sacrifice but personally, I am never able to get over the circumstances under which this story was born.

A few years ago, I traveled to Germany and on a cold, snowy day in March, I visited the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. The first thing that struck me was the sheer size. Spread out over nearly five acres, the place is immense. It is filled with 2711 concrete slabs (steles) of various sizes which are arranged in neat rows. The effect is disjointed and disturbing. Like most, I put pencil to paper and learned that each stele could represent four to six THOUSAND people who were exterminated either through starvation or execution. Jews alone, could account for over 2100 people per slab. As I wandered around through the endless sea of steles, the magnitude of those numbers made my head hurt.

(photo courtesy of Wikimedia)

It was more than the death, though. It was the manner in which these people were treated before they died. Ghettos. Cattle cars. Concentration camps. It scars the soul. And the fact is, the Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum. The Nazis were not the only ones responsible. People knew what was going on. Ordinary citizens of multiple nationalities and ethnicities hid their fellow man trying to help him escape the horror.

People knew.

And still, at the end of it all, at least eleven million (some estimates put it as high as seventeen million) "undesirables" were murdered. How does that happen?

I guess we only need to look at Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur for the answer.

Hello Monday

So last week was a total bust.

The children never made it back to school and our routine was a complete washout. I felt like I had cotton in my head for five days. The children would open their mouths and speak but they sounded like they were under water.

I smiled and nodded a lot.

I forgot simple things like passwords, keys and my bank card pin number. Rounding the corner into my neighbourhood, I shed tears of joy to see that someone made it out to open the gym. The forty five minutes that I spent there most days last week was blessed salvation. I'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank the Black Eyed Peas. Their latest album, "The E.N.D." is the only reason that I did not end up on the floor of my closet with a box of Ding Dongs.

And then the weekend came.

We vowed that we would take Saturday and do nothing but that didn't really work out very well. Instead, we cleaned and shopped. People had complained that the camera we were using for Skype was a hunk of junk so we decided to upgrade to something better.

At Sam's, we had a choice between a decent model and the superduper, extra fancy, do-everything-you-could-possibly-want-or-imagine, Microsoft LifeCam Cinema. Like idiots, we chose the Microsoft product thinking (stupidly) that it might be more compatible with our computer, which runs on a Microsoft operating system.

It didn't.

While researching the problem, I came across some tech advice which suggested that some of the Microsoft software on my computer might be interfering with the operation of the LifeCam, which of course, made PERFECT sense.

So I blithely uninstalled it.

And now my computer is buggered. Seriously freaking STUFFED.

In the last twenty four hours, I have uttered every single swear word available in the lexicon.

Today, one of the busiest days of my week, the majority of my time will be spent fixing my damn laptop. Sometimes, I really piss myself off.

On the bright side, though, my children are no longer pummeling the tar out of each other so really, it's all good.

No End in Sight

Day three of no school.

It could be worse. At least the gym has been open.

I've been splitting time between the office and home in an effort to try and prevent either of my children from blowing themselves up. And believe me, my kids are capable. It's not like they are problematic but they are independent and fearless which is a dangerous combination if left to their own devices for an extended length of time.

Overnight tonight, we are expecting a pretty good storm with lots of the white stuff and temperatures expected to drop to -4F/-20C. My kids haven't got a snowball's chance in hell (pun intended) of seeing the inside of a classroom until Monday, at the very earliest.

Normally, snow days are an inconvenience. I left a message for a girlfriend today begging her to come over and extract the ice pick from my brain and the knitting needle from inside my ear but it really hasn't been all that bad. The kids have played outside or over at friends' houses for most of the 17 DAYS that they have been fancy free.

It's not them.

It's the prolonged interruption to our routine that is making me crazy. Seriously, it's like being kicked in the teeth by a donkey over and over again.

At work, I am very organized. I use a planner. I can lay my hands on obscure, ages-old documents in 10 seconds flat because I actually use my file drawers at the office. Having to schlep folders back and forth has put a kink in my compartmentalized life. Using my VPN connection from home to link up to the server at my office is a frustrating, hit or miss, process which to date, has inconveniently blocked me out of a few drives to which I desperately need access. That sound you hear is my sanity leaping out of my ears and hitting the floor. THERE IS A REASON I DO NOT OFTEN WORK FROM HOME.

Our household is a well-oiled machine during school days. Everything from meals to homework to showers are carefully planned and executed. I would have been freaking GREAT in the military (but only if I could have run the whole thing, of course). My kids know exactly what the expectations are and they grudgingly adhere but it's been a lawless state for two and a half weeks now. I can't argue with them about strict bedtimes or any such thing because they look at me, furrow their brow in confusion and say, "Why? There's no school tomorrow."

And they're right. There isn't a single good excuse not to let them stay up an hour later or spend a bit more time on their laptops and handhelds.

I guess hell hath frozen over.

Gluteus In Incendia

Oh my god.

My buttocks are on fire.

Sunday, after waking to snow on the ground, Dallas and I were slightly panicked because we had let it hang out for the better part of two weeks. Yes, we continued to go the gym and put in some pretty serious workouts but we didn't deny ourselves food or alcohol. Sunday marked a return to discipline. It was the day we would do both a cardio AND a lower body workout just to kick things off properly.

Except our gym was closed due to weather.

I freaked. "What will we do?" I asked, "I have RESOLUTIONS to keep!"

Dallas replied that we would manage with the weights we had at home.

"But what about our cardio?" I bleated.

Dallas, with a straight face, calmly turned my way and said, "I plan to run up and down the stairs for twenty minutes."

Our stairs. In our house.

Besides the fact that me running up and down our stairs would be nothing short of a freak show, I cringed at the thought of my children watching.

And laughing.

AND FILMING.

Yes, that's right. Dylan received a hand held camcorder for Christmas this year and he'd like nothing more than to post his sweaty, crazed, mother all over YouTube. I don't know what the hell Santa was thinking giving a twelve year old boy, who thinks farts are the epitome of humour, a blackmail device.

So, I reasoned that there had to be a plan B. And gratefully, there was. Another gym was open. Whew. We took our time, had lunch and then waited an appropriate interval before heading out.

We got to the gym, walked in the door and were told that they would only remain open for another 15 minutes.

Due to the weather.

We debated for about two seconds (cardio or weights) before deciding to get in as much of our leg work out as possible. Dallas hopped onto a machine and I decided to change things up because I felt that my routine had become stagnant.

I did lunges.

With free weights.

Lots and lots of lunges.

Five miserable, sweat-inducing, grunting, jesusmaryandjoseph sets.

And one set of squats with a forty-five pound bar on my back.

Then, I got on to this great hamstring curl machine that we don't have at our gym for five sets and finished with one set of dead lifts.

Calves were last. I only managed a couple of sets before the staff guy walked by and told me he was turning out the lights. He seemed slightly annoyed so I figured that that was my not-so-subtle cue to leave.

Dallas, because he is a considerate man, had walked out the door after precisely fifteen minutes and thus, was sitting in the car patiently waiting for me when I walked out.

We both agreed that it was just a mediocre effort.

Today, I disagree. It was an excellent work out. My rear end is so tender to the touch that I can barely sit. I got a hint of how bad it would be last night when the first piercing twinges appeared. Enough so that as I was about to descend the stairs after tucking my children in for the night, I contemplated getting on my belly, sticking my hands out like Superman and flying down.

Except I couldn't bend my legs low enough to actually get on the floor.

And I was worried about my son and that damn camcorder.

Snow Daze

Today is the first day back to school and work for our family. Except it hasn't worked out that way because Murphy and I are apparently joined at the hip.

Yesterday morning, we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow on the ground. This concerned us because in spite of the fact that we experience these conditions EVERY YEAR, we live in a town that refuses to buy the equipment necessary to clear the bloody roads. Thus, here we are Monday morning, with below freezing temperatures as the predicted highs and big surprise, THE SCHOOLS ARE CLOSED. Worse, the gym is closed.

It offends the Canadian in me.

Anyway, I'm working from home which is not ideal, but it does afford me the opportunity to wear my slippers and sweats all day. What I can't share with you because I have no way to upload it, is the sound of my daughter playing upstairs. She's uniquely vocal.

The television is turned on to a loud, repetitive cartoon and Liv expresses herself in a sort of singsong, high-pitched screech. It's like all of her make believe characters are the lead in a bad Broadway musical. They don't talk to each other. They sing. Sort of. Like Yoko Ono.

In any case, it's distracting.

The weather forecast for the next couple of days includes snow and temperatures low enough to set regional records. The prospect of moving to Florida has become a whole lot more appealing.