Parenting Win plus Other Things.

Oh Hallowe'en.  Just because I've been slow on the uptake as far as preparations go, doesn't mean I don't love you as much as I always have.

I usually take this holiday pretty seriously.  My kids take the brunt of it.  The oldest one mostly just humours me but the youngest has taken my enthusiasm for blood and creepiness and run with it.  I dropped her off at a Halloween party at her friend's place today.  At the door we were greeted by a Little Red Riding Hood, and a cute little skeleton and an adorable cowgirl.

And then there's my kid, looking, very much of her own accord, like something coughed up from the very bowels of hell.  Gray, pasty skin, scraggly black hair and blood dripping from her eyes.

I'm so proud.

**********************************************

Back in 2004, I took a road trip to Fort Frances, Ontario which is roughly a 20-hour drive away from where I live.  On the way, I stopped for the night and slept in the back of my car in the back of a Ford dealership outside of Wawa, Ontario.  In the cramped backseat of my 1992 Ford Tempo, I had dreams of my children turning into werewolves.

As of yesterday, a good chunk of that dealership has been washed away with a stretch of the Trans-Canada highway.  It no longer exists.

Yeah.. I was parked right around there.  - Source

I'm thinking that's a metaphor for something, but I don't know what.

Months later, reflecting on an unexpected text message

So, here I am making an honest-to-Gord attempt to be a good blogger with more than one post in a week.  Bear with me as there are bound to be errors since typing on the iPad is a royal pain.  I can't complain too much as the computer is an option.  However the idea of lying in a warm bed to blog was a lot more appealing than sitting at a computer desk.

Better company, too.

Anyway, I've been thinking the last few days about an occurrence that took place back around my birthday.  I had wanted to write about it but I guess I hadn't quite parsed out on my feelings on the whole thing.

I got a text, out of nowhere, from a friend I hadn't spoken to in almost two years.  She had been my best friend for 18 years.  We had a falling-out and well.. Things were said.  Feelings were hurt and then nothing more was said.  That was it.  We weren't friends anymore.

"They say friends don't destroy one another
What do they know about friends?"

 So back in August, I was having a quiet evening with The Guy On The Other Side of The Bed when my cell buzzed.   My stomach had dropped when I read the name and my heart started racing.  I felt vaguely nauseated, nervous, and tears came to my eyes as they are prone to whenever... well... whenever.  The message said only "Hey."  I had never deleted her from my phone, so her name came up immediately.  I thought of a reply that I felt would accurately convey my shock at hearing for her after almost two years.

"Um, hi?"

What ensued was pretty much history's shortest, most awkward small-talk text conversation.  Part of me wanted to engage more, but at that point I was wary.  I couldn't fathom why, after so much time, was she trying to reach me, especially when i had made a couple of attempts to reach out over the past few years with no response or acknowledgement.  When I ran out of small talk, I simply stopped replying.

I found out later from my mother that my dad had run into her at the store.  She was in town with her family, and he suggested she call me.  I guess it's harder for someone to hang up on a text?  I guess if it were me I'd be hesitant to pick up the phone, as well, not knowing what reaction would be waiting on the other end.  I'd considered calling, but I think I was still angry and still felt as though I was owed an apology.  I'm sure she may have felt the same way.  I don't know, I can only speculate.  Truth is, I still miss her but I am still hurt about the way things went down.

I'm still not entirely sure how I feel, at any rate.  I don't regret my part in it, only that my timing could have been better.  I sleep well at night, knowing I've done things on my own terms and at my own pace, in a way I've felt was best for myself and my children.  I don't apologize for these things, or for having times that were difficult to navigate.

I have friends, dear friends and The Guy On The Other Side of The Bed and family, all whom get that I am not perfect, far from it and for that I am eternally grateful.   I guess it still gets to me sometimes.
Such is life.

Weekend Update... but sadly, not the one with Tina Fey or Norm MacDonald even.

This will be a much shorter post than I had originally anticipated as I have roughly five minutes to throw a quick post up while I finish my coffee before I have to head into the bathroom, pretty myself up a bit and head out for another FUN-filled week at work.

Friday night, after getting the Sunday newsletters to bed, I went for a quick drink with my fellow co-workers.  Fun, and something that should be done more often I think.  Couldn't stick around long as I had a previous engagement to go thrift-store shopping with one of my best friends.  I scavenged for parts to my halloween costume, which came to me through Pinterest at the last second and managed to pick up a winter jacket and some curtains for my front window so I can stop flashing the neighbours.  As per usual, K and I ended up reducing ourself to giggling fits to the amusement of the Goodwill staff with our running commentary regarding some of the more... um... 'unique' and 'vintage' finds.

For dinner we went to a nearby East Side Mario's where my menu had gunk on it and our waiter threw coasters at us and hovered while we tried to decide.  It was disconcerting, this manner.  He was not an incompetent waiter.. all our order arrived in a timely manner and as requested.  But so aggressive! It was like he was waitering AT us.  Not the most impressive restaurant experience I've had.

Saturday was a day of coffee and cuddles and relaxing and not getting much of anything done.  Wouldn't have done it any other way.  That night I travelled to Toronto with Tess to Toronto to see the Mountain Goats in concert.  I have written previously my love for this band so you know this was very exciting for me.

See the excitement? My phone is shit and I don't have a working camera right now, so this is what you get for pictures.

The show was not disappointing (aside from the fact that the Phoenix is sorely lacking in seating of any kind so my legs were not happy the next day).  John Darnielle - with whom I got to meet and speak briefly - comes across on stage as someone who not only is happy with what he does, but genuinely excited... like 'Holy shit I can't believe I get to do this for a living' excited when he performs.

They played a number of newer songs, along with older tracks that I recognized as well.  J.D. also manages to engage the audience, telling stories and interacting and improvising.  There were a few tunes I got the impression had been made up on the spot.  If that's the case... wow.  Just wow.  Amazing.

The night ended with 'No Children' which, anyone who goes to Open Mike night knows, is probably my favorite tune of theirs.  An excellent choice for the end of night sing-along.

Oh dear.  I've gone way past my time limit.  Gotta go throw my face on.

Tootles, all.

I've been reading again.

So back when I was in school, I bought and/or procured a shit-load of books, mostly those that had been mentioned in class, with the intention of reading them.  The snag was that while in school, I never had time read anything other than the required texts for my classes.  Once I graduated, my brain went into sleep mode and I wanted nothing more than to immerse myself in comic books, suspense thrillers and Harry Potter.

I was burnt out.

I also starting blogging and reading blogs a lot more in this time so my reading materials mostly consisted of other blogs and my books got sorely neglected.  So five years later I'm getting back into reading some of those more 'meaty' books I picked up in school.

I just finished "The Road To Wigan Pier" and I was struck by how a book that was published over 80 years ago holds relevant in many ways today.  Some of the parallels I found between his descriptions of the unemployed in Britain in the 1930s and prevailing attitudes toward the unemployed and working poor at the time similar to some of the misconceptions the Occupy movement attempted to address this past year.  Namely the idea that the unemployed don't want to work.  Both Orwell and the Occupy movement pointed out that most unemployed are willing to work, were the the work there and available at a living wage.

The book comes from a very pro-Socialism standpoint.  His thesis seems to be that unless a lot of people embrace socialism very soon, the only alternative will be Fascism which, to paraphrase, is basically Socialism without any of the good stuff.  He points out a few reasons that people at the time were hesitant to consider it, despite agreeing with many of the ideals.  One argument, that could easily applied to today and the tendency of lower-middle class to accept the fallacy of trickle-down economics, is that the class-conciousness of the time meant that people who, by upbringing, considered themselves 'middle-class' (described by Orwell as 'those who pronouce their aitches') were being pushed into the working class by way of economics.   One who was raised to think of themselves as a higher class than the working class may, out of fear of 'losing their place', be apt to align themselves with systems that benefit the rich, than systems that are actually more likely to be in their own best interests.

The other issue Orwell brings up is the tendency to avoid Socialism out of a desire not to align oneself with the prevailing ideal of what it means to be a "Socialist".  The caricature of the pistachio-shirted, sandalled, stuffy, boring, intellectual type is similar to the image of the man-hating, hairy-legged butch lesbian who will scream at someone who holds doors that causes many people to say "Yeah, I believe men and women should have the same rights, but I'm not a feminist..."  

(For the record, I fully identify as a feminist, but I am still grateful when someone holds a door for me.. why?  BECAUSE IT'S A NICE THING TO DO, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE.)

Long story short, I found this book a hell of a lot more interesting than I had originally thought I would.  The descriptions of the daily lives of the British coal miners and the living conditions of the unemployed of the working poor at the time made me look around at all I have and thank Gord for what I have.  The later parts of the book where he describes the machine age and its effects on the human population had me nodding in agreement, as many of the passages could easily have been written today.

Morning.

Sitting in the silence of the mid-morning with a coffee and the sunlight streaming through the living room windows and the cat purring contentedly on the easy chair I feel completely and totally at peace.

There is a roof overhead and food in my pantry.  My children are happy and healthy and I am well-loved.   At 32, I've come to terms with my body and made amends with my past and look, hopefully and enthusiastically to the future, while I savor the present and for this moment, I am home.

The Days are just Packed.

Whoa.  Neglectful much?

In my own defense, it's been nothing but go-go-go for the last 2-3 weeks.  I've officially been a homeowner for two weeks now.  When I first took possession of what would come to be known as The Funhouse (a previous, unpublished blog post was tentatively titled "From the Dollhouse to the Funhouse) due to the various DIY/WTF home improvements, I experienced some initial buyers remorse as the Well-Travelled One and I walked through, cataloguing every bit of chipped paint, every crack and every misguided wiring job.

Overwhelmed by the seemingly daunting tasks ahead, I had sank down on the stairs and sobbed in terror.  Holy fuck, I am NOT ready to be a grown-up.  He had out his arm around me and reassured me that it was all going to work out fine - the problems were all small and far from insurmountable - and continued to reassure me for the next week as we made numerous trips from The Dollhouse to The Funhouse and back, loading the car with boxes each time so no trip would go wasted.

I lived part-time in Home Depot, Rona and Canadian Tire.  I cried tears of frustration when attempts to paint the eldest child's room was thwarted by the previous owner's shitty, half-assed paint job and then sucked it up and moved on.

I suffered a few minor coronary episodes shopping around for carpeting for the girls' rooms, one being in the basement with a concrete floor and one having been previously "carpeted" with an overly large, untrimmed area rug that had not been trimmed to size and which had a school of Goldfish crackers living under where the bed had been.  We had a run-in with a carpet saleswoman who not once, but twice, used ethnic slurs in her sales pitch, you know the one - the one about a certain religious group and haggling.  Rhymes with getting "Schmoooooed".  For fun, when we left, I wished the lady "Shalom!" and junked their quote, which was too expensive even if I did want to do business with bigots.

Saturday it poured down rain and all the mildew and dust from packing the house up had nestled its way into my sinus and bronchial cavities so I was good and miserable and not quite sure if I was going to have movers, but with much help from friends all ended up working out well, if a little soggy.

Going back to work, I had loads to catch up on and I'm still, this week, trying to empty out the inbox. Unpacking has gone much better, the place is slowly but surely coming together with a lot of help from the well-travelled One, who has been a lifesaver, to be honest.  My misgivings upon taking possession have all but dissipated and I find it feeling more and more like home, everyday.

Conversations with my kid: I need a sarcasm sign edition.

This is a conversation I have more often than I'd like to admit.

Me: Good job cleaning the living room for me.
R:  I'm sorry, I was trying to find something.
.... Pause....
Me: No.  Good job.  Really.  I'm not being sarcastic.
R: oh.  It's hard to tell, sometimes.
Me: I know *sigh*

Packing, purging, moving and other things less pleasant than a golf shoe to the face.

So, I may have recently mentioned that I bought a house.  Did I mention that? I might have mentioned that.  I only keep mentioning it in an effort to actually convince myself it's true.

The downside to buying a house (aside from mortgage payments, house insurance, lawyers fees and having to do your own repairs without being able to legally call your landlord/dad to do the them... I mean, if I ask I'm sure he'd help, but after this move he's no longer legally obligated to it) is, unless you're planning to rent (which comes with it's own set of issues I won't pretend to understand or care about) then the purchase of a home usually entails MOVING.  Which, although I'm only moving 15 minutes away and not across the country, is generally a giant pain in the ass.

Ever see those movies/tv shows where someone moves out of a place and they move out with ONE BOX?

I laugh when I see that bullshit.  Laugh in a bitter, ironic sort of way.  I have never had a move that has required less than a full truckload and several car loads.   What kind of bizarre ascetic existence do these people live that all their shit fits into ONE BOX?

When my late former mother-in-law passed, she was without a will.  My ex and I, who was the last child at home, were pretty much tasked with dealing with whatever was left after his myriad brothers and sisters had gathered their belongings from the matriarchal home.   Which was a lot.  Most went to storage and when we were finally ready to move into our first apartment, we were pretty much fully furnished.  Over subsequent moves we would try to purge some of our stuff... We had so much stuff.   When we were expecting our oldest we moved to a single room in Barrie, so we had to get rid of a LOT.  When things didn't work out there and we came back to my parents place, tails between respective legs, there was even less.

In my adult life, moving has always been mostly disastrous.  Moves with the ex-hub were disorganized at best, with frantic calls to friends-with-trucks the night before we were due to leave.  After we split, moving became a hassle for different reasons.  I seemed to always end up in hospital when I was supposed to move.  After ex-hub and I split, I had to move out of the apartment we were in, since although I was carrying it on my own, I was also pregnant and knew I wouldn't be able to afford it once I went on maternity leave.   So when my sister and I moved in together, the moving date ended up falling on the same date I was in the hospital giving birth.  Less than two years later, the stress of the house fire and having to suddenly move again caused a flare-up in my colitis that landed me in hospital again.  Which meant my family was tasked with moving me, again.

The last move, into the dollhouse here, was the most successful, if you gauge success as not being hospitalized and having both parents still talking to you at the end of the move to be the definition of success.

Before the move comes the purging.  I have a hard time throwing things away.  I think I'm closer to a pack-rat than a hoarder, although there was a time that my insistence on keeping a box full of broken cuckoo clocks for possible craft use may have said something different.   My aversion to throwing things away is borne of a) sentimentality, b) guilt, c) stinginess and d) a distinct distaste for landfills.

A) sentimentality. It's over rated.  This move, I finally threw out most of my wedding shit.  FINALLY.  I kept some for years thinking that the girls might like to have it... But really, what kid wants souvenirs of their parents wedding that eventually crashed and burned before they were even old enough to remember?  There are still pictures and stories.  That will have to be good enough for them.

B) Guilt.  Holy shit do I have a love-hate with school work.  I hate that the schools send home every last piece of it and that I feel like the worlds worst mother if I throw out any of it.  I love keeping the artwork and creative writing... But everything else? I KNOW my kids can spell.  I KNOW they can do basic math.  I don't need every last scrap of evidence to that effect.  But I go to throw that stuff out and I feel like I might as well give up my mom card.   I even tried to throw out my OWN school work that my mother kept and passed down to me and I couldn't do it.  I felt like I was slapping 6-year-old Andrea In. The. Face.

C) I'm cheap.  I don't buy things just to toss them or give them away later.

D) I hate the idea of throwing things into landfills. I once held on to four broken DVD players and three broken VCRS for well over two years because..Gah, LANDFILLS. Organizations like FreeCycle have helped, as has discovering the electronics disposal and scrap metal donation bins. Our local one have been seeing a lot of action.

Well, I'm off to packs a few more boxes. Time to pack the bookshelf. Last move I had over seven boxes of books. It'll be interesting to see how many I have now. It will also be fun to see the book shelves work them back into their original, non-bowed shape.

My boyfriend scares me sometimes.

This post is a short preamble to the longer post with pictures that I have planned, that i may or may not get around to writing, of our adventures in the Bruce Peninsula.  Now that Blogger's iPad page has an actual editor, I may get around to posting more.  Also, it's my birthday today, so feel free to fawn accordingly in the comments.

So, this weekend The Guy For Whom I Have Not Come Up With A Good Blog Alias™ who for the purposes of this post, I shall refer to as My Navigator and I took a trip up to Tobermory, Ontario.  One of the stops was to the Bruce Caves, just outside of Wiarton, Ontario.  This conversation happened.

Approximately 1.5 hours before getting to Wiarton, we're looking at the map.  Navigator claims he has never been to these caves before. I'm a little skeptical, since he is one who has Been Many Places, but he insists so I believe him.

Navigator:  So, we have to turn onto Grey Road 1, but since it's in town, it'll probably be called something different.  I dunno, something like "Frank Street".
Me:  It'd be funny if it was actually called Frank Street.

1.5 hours later, we are in Wiarton, driving around getting gas, food and Tim Hortons coffee.  We turn onto a side street.  It's Frank Street.

Me: Whoa, there actually is a Frank street here.
Navigator: weird.
Me:  Heh.  I wonder if that's the road we have to take? That'd be freaky.

We go get coffee and he goes to check the directions to Grey Road one.  He gets back in the car.

Navigator: Okay, so we have to take a right out of the parking lot and another right at the lights. 

So, following his instructions, I take a right out of the parking lot, and a right at the lights.  The street we turn onto, which we have been told is Grey Road 1, looks familiar.

Navigator:  Look.
Me:  Holy shit.  Frank Street? 

Navigator: yup.
Me:  *blinks*  You're fucking scary.

With Respect to Messers Barker, Hoppus and Delonge, I Guess this really is growing up.

Anyone born after 1995 is probably not going to get that title, but oh well. Such is Life.

So, I bought a house. *applause*

Yup. Bought a house, and I take possession at the end of next month. I'm just now getting excited about it, mostly because I'm lost in a haze of "Holy mother of Gord, what the hell have I gotten myself into?" and "Sweet merciful Jebus, what all do I have to do?"

I don't do large purchases well, and this is the largest purchase I've ever made. The day my Real Estate agent texted me to let me know the offer had been accepted, I called my mom and cried, because truth be told, I was scared shitless.

(okay, I still am. Writing about this, even, I could pee a little. That might be the coffee, though.)

So, now I have a month of cleaning, organizing, purging and packing ahead of me. But in the end? My own property, my own home, my own BATHTUB (omg, three years with only a shower, you cannot begin to imagine...) my kids each with their own space, not piled one on top of the other. Amazing. It's been a long time coming and yeah, I have to give myself some credit for doing all this on a single income.

Go me!

Today is the Warrior Dash and I am at home doing laundry and organizing the shed (and blogging, apparently) because the illness I was fighting earlier this week ended up being a rather nasty chest infection that still has not entirely gone away. Huge disappointment, you bet. But considering I can't run across my living room without getting winded right now, a giant obstacle race was probably not in my best interest.

I'm still guest blogging over at Feministe this week. There's a pretty good debate going on regarding scent free workplaces right now, and an earlier post about delaying sexual activity in kids got picked up by The Lady Garden, so although it was not without criticism, that's still pretty cool in my books.

oh, and I got tweeted by the Good Lovelies when I wrote to them to ask permission to reprint their lyrics for this post.