a moment of maternal genius...

Sometimes I question my own abilities as a mother... am I too harsh? too lenient? Do I favour one child over the other? are my rules too arbitrary? etc etc etc.

Today I had a moment that made me take a moment to pat myself on the back.

Oftentimes as happens when there are two kids, disagreements arise... what to have for dinner, what movie to watch, who gets the purple cup, who gets to carry the cat poo to the garbage chute (yes, my kids are weird) and so forth. For a long time I solved this with the 'pick a number between 1 and 10' strategy. This had to stop because

a) Reegs only ever picked 1 or 10
b) The time would eventually come, I figured, where one of them would accuse me of picking after the fact, so that one would win.

That's when I remembered the laws of probability and the good-old fashioned art of coin-flipping. Decisions seemed much more fair now. However, there was a problem in that generally, who ever lost would have a fit (generally, the little one, the bigger one was better at understanding that 'fair is fair'.)

My stunning ingenious alteration to this strategy? NOW, whomever loses the coin toss, gets to keep the coin and put it in their piggy bank.

EVERYBODY WINS!!

ahhh, peace and harmony for pennies a day. Well, mostly :-P

Gotchie Blog

It amazes me sometimes how the little things can throw me into a state of indescribable happiness.

I bought new underwear.

About 10 months ago, I had made plans for some dirty boy company, and decided to purchase some new gotchies for the occasion. I got a bra (which had unfortunately not lasted much more than three months, it's still in my drawer, waiting for me to get off my duff and sew the strap back together) and two pairs of black undies, one a simple bikini with a cherry design, and the other a pair of lace trimmed hipsters.

Little did I know those hipsters would prove to be the most comfortable AND sexy-good-feeling inducing underoos I would ever own.

I went back a week or two later determined to get more. They were out of stock. So I made do with the one pair I had, kicking myself for not picking up more at the time.

Today I shop and DEAR GOD, they are back in stock, so I picked up a pair in every available color in my size, as the original pair is getting rough from having been worn and washed once a week, every week, for the last 10 months. I tell you, lacy-underpants-day was ALWAYS the best day of the week. And now I have FIVE of them.

Delirious.


Underpants - more than just ass-coverage.

Oh yeah, let this pic also be a testament to how friggin baggy my pants have gotten..YAY!!

Someone might have saved my life....

My car is not in great shape. I drive a four-door white 1991 pontiac sunbird. It currently is without it's left headlight.

The other day as I travelled down to Barrie, I noticed up ahead of me, turning onto a concession road from the opposite direction, another white fourdoor 1991 pontiac sunbird on the road, also missing the right headlight.

The thought occured to me: What if I just witnessed myself from the future, or some other alternate reality driving down that road? What if it was me in the future, attempting to save my life in some way.. maybe they were driving back to my house to change the batteries in my smoke detector, or making some effort to change the past to save me from calamtity. and in my/her travels took back roads in hopes that I wouldn't see, and possibly tear a hole in the time space continuum. Maybe future me was travelling to midland to take out a mugger or rapist would have otherwise attacked me later that night had my futuristic doppelganger not intervened on my behalf.

This fascinating and surreal supposition gave way to a more depressing possibility. In the future, when humankind holds the power of time travel in it's hands... Am I still going to be driving that damn SUNBIRD???? (considering I don't think I'll be harnessing the power of timetravel in the next year or two).

Geeez. In that case, the future SUCKS.

The evolution of what?

I saw a billboard on a bus today, and it literally made me laugh out loud.  Emblazoned across the top were the words "The Evolution of Rock95 [rock 95 being our local rock station]"

Underneath these words was a series of stylized photographs depicting, in this order John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Gene Simmons of KISS, John Bon Jovi, and Chad Kroeger of Nickelback.

I'm pretty sure the intention involved a sort of generational 'tying-together' - although the use of Jagger AND Lennon is problematic considering they were contemporaries, so that kind of blows the intergenerational thing.

The humour to be found here lies in the billboard's subtext.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but in this case it needs only about 10.  With this picture, they might as well be saying

"The Evolution of Rock95 - We used to be cool, but now we kinda suck."

For Chris...

So, I'm not much of a pot smoker. I don't like drinking/smoking by myself, I like it as a social thing. Thing is, pot makes me notably UN-social. I'm a sleeper, or I turn inwards to myself. Thoughts come to me at a rapid pace, but far too fast for them to reach my mouth, before I have another rapid thought. Either that, or I feel as though I AM actually saying things out loud, when I'm not. It's like the opposite of having no inner monologue. More like my inner monologue EATS my voice.

It is on record that I once, on one of the rare occurences that I do indulge in the weed, went for nearly two hours without speaking a word. My sister, and two of my friends, one child-free weekend (the sister and I used to co-ordinate weekends so we had the same weekends without kids) were sitting around as per usual, and this evening I had opted to partake when they offered the pipe, after probably around 8 months since my previous indulgence.

We were playing this card game we had dubbed '12-step' as it involves collecting cards in different formation, for 12 rounds. For 2 hours (because it's a godawfully long game) we sat, the sister giggled, both friends giggled, they made fun observations while I steadfastly concentrated on my cards, occasionally grunting in assent or uttering an absent-minded 'heh'.

It was a saturday so it was classic rock saturday night. Every song that came on my sister would cry 'oooooh I LOVE this SONG!' At one point a song came on and after her declaration of love for the song, there was discussion as to what the song was called

"Oooooh! I love this song! What's it called?"
"I don't know, who does it?"
"I think it's Jethro Tull, but I don't know the name!"

Blah blah blah the game goes on. I have remained in my silence for this exchange, while the wheels in my brain worked. After what seemed like 2-3 minutes to me, but what must have been closer to 30 minutes later, I have a brainstorm.

"Aqualung."

The table stops. Everyone is staring at me, like I have snakes crawling out of my eye sockets. My sister looks shocked and says "What?" I look her dead in the eye.

"AQUALUNG."

A chorus of "what the hell are you TALKING ABOUT?" I myself, don't see what is so difficult to understand, so I turn to the others and more vehemently

"AQUALUNG."

Now they're totally weirded out, thinking that, I can only assume, that I've totally lost my mind. I haven't spoken in two hours and now, a half hour after it's no longer relevent, I come out with this non-sequitor, single word phrase. Looking down at my cards I shrug.

"That was the name of the song"

Channeling Dionysus

This weekend I seem to be living out the philosophy of eat, drink and be merry. I've not had such a relaxing couple days in a while.

Friday night, my friend Sam came up, having made the suggestion about a week ago that he come up and we have a Sam'n'Andie night. Having been ages since the last time I had company step foot into my apartment, I came home and got the place cleaned up to a suitable level for company, grabbed some sushi and a bottle of wine for my dinner, ate, had an hour-long bitch session with the sister about workstuffs and then headed down to Barrie to grab sam and get him up here, on the offer of gas money for my efforts.

Got back to the apt. gave him the tour, and we had a couple of drinks and watched some sex and the city (season two). About midnight I convinced him we should make the trek downtown ("Is it walking distance?" "I've walked there before, if that's what you mean.") and I could show him the Midland night life. About 40 minutes later we get to Shanana's which actually has a line-up for a change. All the people who are up for Thanksgiving weekend I guess. It's a big deal up here in cottage country.

We go over to Cellarmans, to try and get some food, but the kitchen is closed and the crowd is all 20 year olds, so I suggest Scully's and it's totally closed. So we hit Tim Hortons for a sammich, and I embarass the counter girl (not maliciously, I just asked her if she thought sam was hot. Her reply? "I don't know if I'm allowed to answer that")

we go back to Nana's, hitting the bank on the way, where I stupidly leave my card in the machine, which I don't realized until late last night. This time I get there and I know the doorman and he lets us in, though they're at capacity (That's right. I'm people who KNOWS people.) We got there in time to have a couple of drinks, and to check out the guys in the club, and to note that somebody turned the big screen TV to showcase or bravo or some such channell -- it usually plays the hockey game or something -- so while the place is packed with people dancing, there's softcore porn up on this giant screen. It was all very surreal, as nobody except me, sam, and this guy scott that I went to school with seemed to notice. I think his name was scott, anyway.

A guy I had a brief but fun make-out session with one new years eve, but who refuses to acknowledge me up until very recently (the guy has a kid in my daughters class last year... AWKWARD!) was there, and I waved, because sometimes I'm sadistic like that, and LIKE making them feel uncomfortable. Well, it was wierd because he kind of nodded then backed away, then next I know, he's passing behind me, and brushes right up against me and I look at Sam like "What the hell was THAT?" But I left it alone after that.

We leave not too long after last call, have a nice chat with Kenny and Wanda on the way out (the manager and one of the security staff) and grab a cab home (as we are both three sheets to the wind at this point, and the walk home is still forty minutes, but UPHILL the whole way now) Come back, finish the wine, watch more sex and the city and pass out. I felt bad, because since I passed out I hadn't grabbed pillows and blankets for the futon, which I had cleaned specifically for company.

Next morning, we got up, feeling pretty rough, and I drove him back down to barrie. Power was out all over midland, so we had to wait until elmvale to grab breakfast. Waited 20 minutes in the McDonalds for an allegedly "Fast"-food breakfast that sat none too well in our poor hungover stomachs. I had plans to stay in barrie all day until I was supposed to go to 55 special for a friends birthday, was going to go to the school and get some work done, but I figured fuck it, I'd go home, then come back later. The money i'd spend on gas would probably be less than the money I'd spend trying to entertain myself in Barrie all day long.

Came home, and did sweet dick-all all day except Myspace, facebook, watch movies and scrapbook. absolutely freaking blissful. around 6ish, I decided I needed more supplies for the scrapbooking and headed out for the dollar store. I had asked my friend derek if he wanted to coffee after. It was at the dollar store that I realized I couldn't find EITHER of my bank cards, having lost the other one a few days earlier. Having less than half a tank of gas in my car, I realized that I probably shouldn't go to barrie if I have to make my cash (which was diminished by then) last until tuesday when I can get to the bank again.

So Derek and I meet up at the bay street timmies, exchanging anecdotes and whatnot for the next two hours, and I'm contacted by another friend, nic, who is having a sort of mini-houswarming at his place, so I decide after coffee is done, that I'll head over there. I get there as people are leaving but I have a pretty good time chatting it up with Nic, another friend/acquaintance Justin, and Michelle, a very outspoken, exuberant but generally fun co-worker of Nics, until about 1am, when I decided to toddle off home and get some sleepy sleepy.

So here I sit in my underwear, in need of a bath, and prepping to go get my kids so we can have a Thanksgiving 'Let's having chicken and call it turkey' dinner, as the rest of my family made plans without me this year, which kind of irks me, I'll admit. They're having a "Meet the Fokkers" night.. Nicky and Frank are having a dinner so our parents can meet Frank's parents. No siblings allowed.

So I'm off to soak for a bit.

It’s 3:15 am, my time.

Andie is a little buzzed tonight, a bizarre combination of rye and Tim Hortons Coffee. Oh Tim, if you weren't a corpse, probably no more than bones at this time, I would make sweet sweet love to you. A little buzzed and very cold.

The baseball banquet was more fun than expected, dinner surpassing dessert in the yum category, chicken covered in all manner of seasoning, and broiled potatoes with a tangy lemon suggestion. There was dancing and door prizes. I'm the proud owner of a glass cutting board and insulated wine bottle. Being a woman's league, there was not an eligible male in sight, with the possible exception of the DJ, and both K and I commented on his gawkish cuteness, but neither bothered to investigate further. Oh, the road not taken.

We coffee, and convinced by my good friend Danno, we are guided to the entrance to the very pit of hell, but in P-tang, they call it Yorkies. There are bars that girls drag their boyfriends to, and this is a bar that guys drag their girlfriend too. Or in our case, their very understanding female friends. or as K put it, their awesome understanding female friends. As I then said, their 'going above and beyond the call of duty awesome understanding female friends' *looks pointedly at Danno*

For a bribe of two rounds, we keep him company. The band is alright, but I've heard better. They can handle Stevie Ray, which is admirable, but then proceed to eff up something as simple as Third Eye Blind. "might have been a request" I surmise. A man who smells of onions .... yes, ONIONS.... says he heard a rumour we could dance ("it would be awesome, if we could dance... "it's been running through my head all day). Dan gets the kiss of death (the kiss of death is chaste, given to the foreheadal area) and I say 'Never again."

Sit in Timmies parking lot, Bob has joined us. It's cold but conversation is plentiful, even for almost 2 am. Watching police pulling over errant drivers, I'm glad my car is at home. It gets colder, coversation dies down, as the caffiene rushes rush off. We part ways.

At home, I have two messages, both from sam, one is the boy, one is the girl. My cat is being nocturnal and chasing imaginary ghosts, perhaps evil spirits dragged from the bar called Yorkies, but I call sketchy. I'm cold and tired and tomorrow is another day.

The Art of Axl (originally posted @ Mog.com)

Artist: Guns N Roses, Alice In Chains, Tragically Hip, Velvet Revolver Album: Use Your Illusion One, Use Your Illusion 2, Publisher Demos, World Container Track: Pretty Tied Up, Don't Damn Me, Knockin on heaven's door, the real thing, Fly Other Tags: Quirks, observations


Axl – Acl-suhl – To Pull an Axl – The act of shouting random unrelated shit at the end of a song

the act of inserting Unrelated machismo-tainted spoken word portions into a song, usually during the outtr0.

Does it drive anyone else nuts when Musicians do this? I've dubbed this act 'Pulling an Axl' as Mr. Rose seems to be one of the worst offenders. They range from semi-weird to the inconceivably inane. Think of the particularly line part in 'Pretty tied up'; "Cool Ranch Dressing"

WHAT . THE . F$&%. (my now-reading-age kid is in the room). Cool Ranch Dressing?

He pulls a double-Axl (smirk smirk) at the end of 'Don't Damn Me' off Use Your Illusion I. At songs end, he blurts out "Smokem if you got 'em!" for no particular reason. Maybe he thought better of it, because then – possibly forgetting that they were still RECORDING – he declares "ALL RIGHT ! THAT SUCKED !"

The other Axlism, is to add weird rambling spoken word parts to otherwise decent songs. I won't even get into them, but they are usually tinged with some kind of hostile machismo, but it's really hard to tell, because he's pretty much just blathering and spewing profanity.

He's not the only one guilty. In the publisher demo release of Alice in Chains 'The Real Thing' Layne, possibly (no, probably) under the influence of some sort of narcotic, sings loud, sings proud 'Sexual Chocolate, Baby!' Maybe he was practicing to be the first singer for GNR II … I mean, velvet revolver.

We have our own offenders at home here, including one near and dear to my heart, Mr. Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip. Although he's well known for his intensive monologuing during live shows (which I don't count as Axlisms, since 1. They tend to form some sort of narrative, rather than random verbal threats to no one in particular and 2. They're darn entertaining.

however, Gordie's picked up a disconcerting habit of adding bizarre little qualifiers to lyrics, such as his excessive use of 'That's right' in the song 'Fly'.

Does anyone else have some examples of gratuitous 'Axling?' Especially those committed in a studio, rather than onstage? The onstage Axlism is a teensy bit more forgivable than the studio recorded one. I mean, hey, who doesn't get a little excited in front of crowd, right?

Most embarassing moment.

Again, I'm finding stories I told people a while back, and since I'm bored I feel like posting random shit.

I once, in an incident I must have repressed for many years because whenever I guess asked my most embarassing moment I forget about this one, was thrown cartoon style from a tread mill.

It seems I am unable to walk at a speed of 6km an hour. News to me, wish someone had told me before hand.

Now wait, it gets better. I Wasn't thrown right away... No, I had had the foresight to grab hold of the handle when things started to get a big dodgy... thing is, I was still holding on when my feet came out from under me. So I am still holding on to the bars though. Picture me if you will, going 'fwap fwap fwap against the tread. Yup. Feeling intense heat growing against my shirt-front, I decided it might be a good idea to let go before I set myself on fire. Whoosh.

Now because this is me, this doesn't happen in the privacy of my own home where I can look around and say 'Oh thank GOD no one saw that'. No, fate doesn't like me quite that much. THis happens at the local Y. On one side of me, my friend and workout companion laughing her ass off like some kind of retard, not trying at all to do something logical like help me. On the other side of me on a stationary bike, one incredibly handsome man, looking like he just witnessed an antelope being devoured by a pack of jackals. Just horrified.

Intro to Myspace

I found this story in my MySpace inbox from a while ago, explaining to my friend Michael, the story of how I got mixed up in this crazy universe, and I thought "This shit is pretty damn funny!" so here it is..... a little flashback....

Picture it... december 2005....

Okay, so here's my story...

As you already know, I set myself up a bullshit profile called Joe Blow -- I'm a mecca of originality -- so I could check out my friends music site. At the time I had the hots for this guy john (number 1 on top 8) and a couple weeks after I had made the fake profile, I recieved an email saying that John wanted to add me as a friend.

Was it the same guy? I was pleasantly surprised to find it was, but a little confused as to whether he knew it was me, and if he did, how he knew. So I added him and sent him a little message that said the following...

"Hi, I'm not really Joe Blow. He's hiding somewhere in border region of Afghanistan. Delta Force may have already killed him"

Charming and cute right? That's what I thought.

So anyway, since I was bored as fuck that night, I decided what the hell, I would set my profile up proper, adding pictures and my actual name (at the time I went by Andie on here). So as I am setting up, I see this handy little option allowing you to import your address book. So I figured, 'ahh that must be how he knew I was on here.'

So import my address book, and since it automatically sent it to everyone who had an account, I came to the horrifying realization that He may NOT EVEN KNOW I WAS ON HERE!! So now i am panicking, thinking back to the message that sounded so cute at the time, but is now sounding completely random and frankly, a little psychotic, especially considering that by this time I had erased all evidence of the existence of my alter ego, Joe blow.

Dear God, I thought to myself. So I did what any woman in a crisis does, I phoned my best friend and told her of my stupidity. Tears of both laughter and humiliation were streaming down my face as I contemplated how completely psycho I was going to come across.

Her advice to me, god love her, was to just come clean and explain what happened and hope for the best. So the next day I wrote him a long email saying pretty much what is written here, adding that I really like talking and hanging out with him, but if he was uncomfortable with that now, that I would understand, but that it was really just a harmless misunderstanding. I ended by asking him to get in touch with me, and that if he didn't I would take the hint.

A day and a half later I was greeted by an IM saying that I was indeed crazy but also really funny. I'd like to say that we ended up hooking up after that and lived happily ever after, but we have forged a great friendship since.

Yeah, so that's my Myspace iniation story.