Every Wednesday is Tip Day!

TIP #2: Magnetic Knife Strips: more than just murder weapon armories!

I thought everyone did this. But a lot of people who come to my house tell me this is a great idea. Either they're humouring me or I'm savvier than I thought. I put one of those magnetic knife strips on the inside door of my medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I attached tweezers, nail clippers, little watchmaker cases full of bobby pins, etc. I wasn't trying to channel Martha; I was just desperate for a place to store things out of reach from small people.

It works quite well. Mind you - this does beg the question: what are my guests doing in my medicine cabinet in the first place? And while they probably do rummage around in there, it's often mentioned by a guest when someone has suffered a heinous 'owie' and we all traipse into the bathroom for skinned-knee reparations. They say, "Ooh! That's a good idea," instead of "Jesus! That's a lot of Preparation H...are you okay?"

I realize this is nowhere near last week's "Listen to your Feelings" tip, but I'm still trying to get a feel for what works best in this space. Do you want to read about esoteric tips, like how to reach your inner shaman through aromatherapy, or are you more interested in practical stuff like this?

I suspect that it's the latter. Which means I'll have to actually do some research. But that's GOOD because I live to please and I have nothing else to do anyway.

Tip #3: Get Something Else to Do.

Mission Accomplished!

I did it!

I accomplished what, for me, used to be utterly impossible without a stiff drink.

1. I went to the largest mall in Vancouver.
2. The week after Christmas. (i.e. with the rest of Vancouver)
   
3. With a toddler.
4. Without a stroller.
   
5. And parked in the furthest corner of the underground parking labyrinth - and, get this: FOUND my car!

I amaze myself sometimes.

And yes, I did in fact, find a swimsuit. Okay, it isn't a bikini - I think my bikini days may well be over. While I could mourn for them, instead - in the fitting room, was one of the little reasons for this. And she's so perfect I will accept the trade-off. Besides, Roo has it totally figured out. She sticks out her smooth little belly and says, "Look at my fat tummy!"

Oh, I would love that kind of confidence. Mine is more of a "Look at how much I paid to conceal my fat tummy!"

And really - when did swimsuits get so expensive? I guess it had been eight years since I bought one. But still...anyway. I plan to enjoy it. Provided, of course, I stay IN it. It's a bit dodgy that way. I may need some reinforcements to keep a wardrobe malfunction at bay.

Nevertheless...success!

Winston Churchill Buys a Bikini

This is an okay bathing suit. If you're a pencil. They MUST have done the hair with full intention of it looking like a furiously-abused eraser. And the only person who could actually wear this is likely on life-support. Given that it's trimmed with crystals, very expensive life-support.

December 29th is, quite possibly, the worst day of the year on which to go swimsuit shopping.

I'm lolling in post-Christmas gluttony. I've only just emerged from a food-induced coma with the same resolutions to behave better next year.

Also, the blessing of the "Irish complexion" is that I fear the sun like a Gremlin and scream, "Bright Light! Bright Light" whenever it comes out. Consequently, I am so astonishingly pale that I just might blind myself in the dressing room mirror. And this is never more true than in the dead of winter. Good timing. (And yes, I've tried self-tanners which always look completely wrong. No matter how much exfoliating and smoothing I do, it always looks like I spilled furniture stain on my legs. And a tanning salon? Just...no.)

Though the odds are stacked against me - onward I go. I am not a pencil, and I am not tanned. I am pale and bloated, but by golly (who is Golly anyway?), I shall overcome! Off I go: armed with my wallet and a fierce determination (and lip gloss, of course- I'm not completely crazy!) No, this is a battle I shall win!

I shall not flag or fail. I shall go on to the end, I shall look in Swimco, I shall fight in the dressing room, I shall fight through the post-Christmas crowds, I shall defend my not-in-anyway twenty-year-old body whatever the cost may be...

I shall wear it on the beaches, I shall wear it around the pool. I shall wear it (with a cover up), in the fields and in the streets. I shall find this swimsuit and never surrender! This is what Corey Hart was going on about all those years ago. Now I know.

Why the histrionics? Hell, why not? And because I refuse to spend a week in Mexico sporting a caftan.

There are too many caftans in the world.

I will do my part.

Pray for me.

NEW! Every Wednesday is Tip Day

We'll see how long this lasts, because there are only so many things about which I consider myself qualified to dispense tips.

But there are plenty of other people who have plenty of tips and I'm a tip-a-holic. Also, I read a lot, and what good is all my vast wisdom if I don't share it? Or maybe this is just a way for me to try to retain all the stuff I read about. If I read it, then I actually write about it - maybe, just maybe, I'll remember some of it. Just maybe.

So here goes: Tip #1 - Don't eat yellow snow.

No. Okay, had to . Couldn't resist. For real, here 'tis:

TIP#1: EMOTIONS ARE THE GAS GAUGE OF YOUR LIFE

I've been reading through a few different books, all in an effort to become a more grounded, autonomous, less neurotic person. And a lot of them are saying the same thing: pay attention to how you feel - because just like a gas gauge in your car, an emotion is telling you to do something.

Western Culture has effectively wiped out our ability to read these gauges. We're often taught that our emotions are there to be repressed. And we all know how that works out.

From Nathaniel Branden (who is pretty heavy, I must warn you): "To face our painful emotions - to allow them to be felt, to acknowledge them, to listen to the messages they contain and perhaps to describe in words what we are feeling - requires courage and honesty; it is not an exercise in self-pity.

He goes on to talk about what happens when we don't acknowledge our emotions: blockage. Like an artery that gets blocked, all hell can break loose - if you're of a volatile nature. If you're not, then it comes out in other ways. Neither of these approaches is good for you.

And from Jerry and Esther Hicks (whose work is channelled so it's pretty high on the woo-woo scale): "As you become consciously aware of your emotions, you will always know how you are doing...your emotions provide a guidance system for you..."

So. What does it all mean? Listen and allow. One of the biggest things I learned from the the grieving process was to allow. When I lost my mother, I was cheifly concerned with how my dad and brother were faring. It was, although I didn't acknowledge it, easier than looking at how I was dealing with it. It was only on the shoulder of a trusted friend, that I fully allowed myself to freak right out. And it was scary. Going into that place of loss and rage was terrifying because I knew it would cause me to lose my fragile hold on normalcy. But so what? I needed to be abnormal for a while, or I would never BE normal again.

And it worked.

I thought before that I could somehow go around it, but you see, you have to go through it. Feel it all. And this applies to positive emotions just as much. Feel it all!

Having said that - as adults, we can't always act on all our emotions, or we'd be...in jail.

Or pregnant.

But as long as we let ourselves feel it, that's half-way through as it is.

Ta dah! Now go forth and feel....

The Alpha Male

All men should learn from the Alpha Male.

The Alpha Male wants to "Man" the cooking this Christmas. Get this: he wants to barbecue a turkey.

I'm responsible for the passive and oh-so feminine vegetables. But Alpha Male will carbonize the bird. This is patently ridiculous, of course - standing outside in the snow, char-broiling a turkey, but then the spirit of the season is all about accepting other people's bliss, right?

And I really should count myself lucky that this is his big thing: he could have said he wanted to go ice-fishing with his pals, then get drunk at a strip club.

But no, he wants to cook.

Alpha Male indeed!

Enough! Our Lattes Are Getting Cold...

Have you SEEN outside?

The Vancouverites are in a tizzy. We're trudging through snow to get our soy lattes! It's so wrong. We're using our umbrellas to sweep the snow off our cars....and it's not enough! Some of us have even....gasp...had to stop wearing Birkenstocks. Temporarily, of course, but this is some crazy shit, I tell ya.

And shovelling? Well, I'm done. Know why? Yesterday, the alpha male returned from his adventures, which means: I. Don't. Shovel. He does. As I write, he is bathing the children. And once he's finished, he can take out the garbage. And then perhaps slaughter a beast and beat his chest...I'm okay with all of that, provided I don't have to shovel.

A Primary Christmas Concert

I wasn't really in the Christmas spirit until yesterday. Nicola's school put on their primary Christmas Concert and it blew all my cuteness circuits. But more than that - it showed me just how short the years are - and how quickly my baby is growing up.

It was semi-organized chaos. Kids with ants in their pants trying very hard to listen to the teacher and examine sweater lint simultaneously. Kindergartners in paper antlers square-dancing - or trying to. Grade Twos furiously picking their noses. Songs sung with such fervency they were shouted. But most of all, it was the proud faces of the joyful parents lined up along the gymnasium walls. It wasn't the performance that moved me - it was the audience.

What stopped me was the sublime expressions of the parents. They were all thinking the same thing: How could it be that just six short years ago, I held this child in my arms and all she could do was depend on me completely? And now...look at her!

She glows. Her own world is here, swirling about her with private feelings and thoughts. Her friends, her classmates, her teacher, her school. This is hers. It is not something we share. It is her world. How happy she looks in the eye of this playful storm! I see myself in her features, I see the man I love in her eyes. If I look hard enough, I can even see my late mother's grace in her movements. It's all so much - there in this small package of exuberance. And yet - for all that I can see within her, there is a core of individuality, of beautiful freshness that is her, and her alone.

It was only five years ago that I watched her take her first faltering steps, and look - she is dancing!

I have stepped away, as she needs me to. To allow her room in this new world of hers.

But it's my steps that now falter.

Noggin' Out

It's that time of year. When grocery stores haul out Egg Nog. What the hell IS this stuff? And why would anyone want to drink it?

The French Canadians call it "Lait de poule" which is like, milk of the chicken. Does that sound appealing? Okay, yes, the vegans of the world would ask me why I drink the milk of the cow and to them I say, 'because soy cheese is the single most objectionable thing ever invented'. I also happen to hold the affable opinion that vegans are large-scale freaks. But hey, I love freaks. They keep things interesting. It's the smug freaks I can't stand. They must be smacked. But that's not the point. And while I'm sure there's a vegan version of The Nog (which is even scarier) the point is still The Nog itself. Just...why?

I've always found it a bit suspect. Even as a kid, when I took everything so literally I refused to eat sponge cake because it was made of sponge. Mum said, "Here have some Egg Nog," to which one can only say, "I'm sorry, what?" Egg - to drink? No thank you, I'll just sniff these pencil shavings over here. And 'nog' - even if I knew what a 'nog' was, I wouldn't drink one. I mean, look at it!

I've done some research, and I can confidently tell you that it originated as some kind of dare. Also, we can blame England for this (as for most things of a dubious nature like James Blunt and mushy peas).

If you're a nogger, please let me know. Tell me why.

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

...I've never really been sure how that saying ends. It just always starts something stupidly sentimental. But it got me thinking about how what your children say reveals much about your parenting.

Like a three-year-old who yells from the backseat: "Pick a lane, asshole!" That tells you that you need to curb the vocals while you drive. Or perhaps, a six-year-old with her hands on her hips, sighing, "I can NOT do everything all at once, people!"

So I know what I need to work on. But yesterday, the kid comment came out of nowhere.

ME: Wow, I have a really bad stomach ache.

NIC: Are you okay?

ME: Yeah, I'll be fine. I think I just need to lie down for a few minutes.

NIC: Too much Drama?

I mean, WHAT? I thought that maybe it was my cooking, but really - upon reflection she's probably right. Knowing me - the stomach ache is likely the result of too much drama, but dear God, how can Nic be THAT insightful? Now that's just freaky.

When Nic gets home from school today, I'll make sure to set her up with a clipboard and pen while I lie on the couch and tell her about my childhood.

And I wondered if Roo was also a little guru at my feet - full of toddler koans. But I think she's just too non-sequitur for me. I just don't get her wisdom. It's too Zen for me. You know, like the two monks that were walking across a bridge when one said, "I fear the water" and the other one said, "Yes, but I'm very tall,".

I don't get stuff like that. Never have. And Roo is kind of like that.

Case in point:

As I write this, Roo is sitting by the window uttering her stream-of-consciousness wisdom and this is what she's saying. Verbatim:

"I don't have to blow my nose, but I do. I'm a lady and I don't brush my teeth and I don't just blow my nose. "

Ah, how like life, no? The contradictions and confusions all melted down into this diamond of truth: you don't HAVE to blow your nose.

You don't just.

The Nativity. Sort of...

Yesterday I directed a show. We had two rehearsals - neither of which resembled each other or the actual performance in any way. But we still did it. And for this - we are amazed.

The Nativity Story: by the Hamilton Street Puppet Theatre Collective
Starring: Nicola, Rachael, Catie, various Little People and the dog.*

*dog appears with the permission of Canadian Actors Equity Association

Scene 1: an angel appears to Mary.

ME: Rachael - that's you! You're the angel. Appear! ...hooray - there's the angel. Now, what do you say to Mary?

RACHAEL: Thank you.

ME: No honey, the angel tells Mary about the baby.

RACHAEL: You gonna have a baby!

ME: Well shouted. Excellent projection. Okay, angel - that's enough. Now, scene 2 - Joseph and Mary...hello? You guys there? Good. Now off you go on the donkey...donkey? Charlie! Stop eating the Baby Jesus! Oh God...a dingo ate my baby! Nobody gets that but me. Okay, Charlie - spit out baby Jesus. Plech. Okay - he's kind of a slobbery baby - put it back in your dress, Mary. Ready? Okay!

NICOLA: We're off to Bethlehem to....what are we doing? ...oh yeah, to have a baby.

CATIE: No, to stay at the inn.

NICOLA: Yeah, but we're also going to have a baby.

CATIE: But we have to get to the inn first.

NICOLA: But we have to....

ME: And so it was that there were many people in Bethlehem and the inns were full. So one kindly innkeeper allowed them to stay in his manger with the animals.

Shuffle, shuffle . . . Little People animals produced and lined up on stage.

NICOLA: Where's the horse? Charlie NO! Mooooooooooom! Charlie's eating the horse!

ME: Give that back! Bad dog. Okay...go! ...And lo, it was in that manger where Mary gave birth to her son... (Clunk. Baby Jesus is dropped unceremoniously into the cradle with a plop. ) Meanwhile, high on a hillside the shepherds were watching their flock...okay, their one and only sheep, when a star appeared...a STAR appeared....no, not the angel...the star...okay, the star and the angel appeared.

RACHAEL: You gonna have a baby!

ME: Uh...we did that already. But yes, the star - I mean, the angel - announced the baby. And...and...somewhere else, there were Three Wise Men...what? Oh, there were two Wise Men who also saw the star and ... what are you doing?

CATIE: It's the gold.

ME: Where did you get my bracelet?

NICOLA: From your closet.

ME: Well, we're nothing if not authentic. Okay! And they knew that the star meant a great ruler had been born and they followed the star all the way to Bethlehem were they found the baby...woops!....baby okay? Spit out the baby Charlie! ....where they found the baby and gave him gold, frankincense and myrrh.

RACHAEL: You gonna have a baby!

NICOLA: No! She already had the baby.

RACHAEL: No! I say the baby!

ME: And that's the end of the story. They didn't exactly live happily ever after...in fact, never mind. The End. Take a bow, puppeteers!

AUDIENCE: raucous applause.

The kids were great. Charlie, pulled a total Diva move and refused to do his scene where the puppets ride on his back to Bethlehem. He wasn't true to the blocking, forgot all his lines and was totally uncooperative.

Actors!

A best friend is someone who also thinks hamsters are funny.

I'm one of those lucky people to have had the same best friend since grade school. Granted she lives very far away - but she gets me like nobody else. Even in ways Andy doesn't get. Like this. He would never send me this wonderfully pointless thing, and he'd just shake his head when he sees me gasping for air from laughing so hard.

I mean, it's a hamster. On a piano. Eating popcorn. What's not to love?

And weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Don't Let it Snow! Just don't.

"Oh the weather outside is frightful But the fire is so delightful..."

- or would be if the effing squirrels weren't in our chimney and we could actually have a fire. ***********************************************************************************
In light of the Christmas season, I will do my best to refrain from my usual snark and write only pleasant, nice things. And this will be my most boring post ever....

I don't think I can sustain 'pleasant and nice' for long. But I will make a mundane comment on the weather: It's snowing in Vancouver. This doesn't happen very often. It's the kind of dense, wet, sloppy snow that turns instantly to slush and makes pushing the stroller difficult. But what it also does, is make that hot cup of tea all the more delightful. (Ah, see? I can do pleasant...sort of.)

Snow is the main reason I moved here. To get away from the stuff. Andy thinks I moved here to be with him, but the truth is, he was a perk. My brother-in-law lives in ...Ottawa, which means he deals with five-foot snowdrifts and frozen nostril hairs (not to mention a disturbing proximity to federal politics). He obviously has mental problems, but we just don't talk about it.

Whereas, I can pinpoint the exact moment when I made the decision to move from Kingston, Ontario to Vancouver, B.C. : it was 8:24am, on Day Three of not being able to get into my car because it was covered in 1/2 an inch of ice. I knew there was a better way to live than standing in two feet of snow, with a kettle of boiling water and a hair-dryer trying to get into my car so I could get to work. "That's it," I said to the cab driver. "I'm going west."

So I did.

Now that I've been here for over a decade, I always feel a little affronted when the snow comes. There's a mixture of saccharine pining for ...not the beauty of snow, but the paycheck of the job I had in the snowy place. I suppose it's like getting the location allowance for working in Iqaluit (where it is currently -21 which is likely too cold for squirrels). Okay, Kingston, Ontario is nothing like Iqaluit. But, it's Cold Enough. And that's that.

See? Most boring post ever. But I had to post something because of the deluge of letters from faithful readers who were appalled that I stooped to writing about Brangelina. (Alright, it was only one - BUT that one was paying attention, and for that - is duly rewarded with a new and fascinating and helpful and wonderful serving of Words to Live By.)

You're welcome.

Enough already!

Admittedly, posting a comment about a magazine article without having read the actual article is, well, dumb. But I saw this at the post office this morning and was thinking about it the whole long walk home.

Why is what Angelina did so uncool? Did she drug Brad and force him to leave his wife to go and populate a small country with her? WHY ISN'T WHAT BRAD DID UNCOOL?!

Okay, stealing another woman's husband is bad. I'll give you that. But we don't know what was going on in their marriage, which obviously wasn't all that great if someone could stray so easily. But all the interest on what The Other Woman did is misplaced. The man is just as responsible for firebombing the marriage as the woman is.

I mean, come on! Angelina is disturbingly gorgeous, but she's still just a person. And Brad supposedly is capable of making his own decisions. He fell in love with her. He left his wife for her. Why is that HER fault? So every beautiful woman who turns my husband's head is a bad person and responsible for my feelings of jealousy?

Whateveh...

Granted, I could have actually read the article. Maybe Angelina told Brad that she could see the future and convinced him that if he stayed with Jennifer then eventually his toes would fall off and his parents would die tragically. I don't know. I don't even actually care. I'm only really interested in what they're wearing.

Thus the perusal of Vogue that sparked the snark in the first place.

Happy Monday everyone!

I am now off to rid my house of all things that stress me out. Polly Pocket and Playmobil - say goodbye. And look out, Charlie!

Even a Bad Review is a Good Review!

That's me - on the bed, smoking a joint. Just so you know. NOT A REAL JOINT. IT'S OREGANO. NOT A REAL JOINT. NOT REAL. PREEEEE-TEND. WE'RE ALL PRETENDING.

A local writer, Rachel Scot, reviewed the play I've been in. It closed last night so hopefully I'll get my life back now. She kind of trashed it - but in a nice way. Here, the highlights:

"The Memory of Water is a solid ... family drama about three daughters who return home to bury their mother. As if by clockwork, the skeletons emerge from the closet. Although the play addresses serious issues, it is billed as a comedy and the writing is full of opportunities for homespun humour and quirky familial moments. Reminiscent of “Three Sisters” and “Crimes of the Heart,” each sister is an archetype: the eldest is uptight and responsible, the middle sister is a stony workaholic, and the youngest is delightfully insane.

The relationships between the sisters and their men aren’t very believable. ..The breakdown moments, where each sister comes home to the fact that her mother is dead, lack the depth to be cathartic....Despite these faults, Heather Cant and Karryn Ransom (youngest sister Catherine) have some lovely authentic moments of connection and Ransom in particular revives the flagging humour in the play.

You saw that part about Ransom, right? The reviewer gave us a rousing, "meh" but she mentioned ME!

God, actors are obnoxiously needy aren't we?

You say it's your birthday!

Well today is my birthday.

Thirty eight. Hmm. Seems to fit. It's like being size Extra Medium or something.

My brother and I were both born in December, and we both decided long ago that it kind of sucks. But unlike me, his birthday is the day after Christmas which sucks even harder.

My birthday is Saint Nicholas Day - which only really matters if you're in Germany, which I'm not, but STILL, I kind of dig the fact that there's a bunch of Germanic merry-making going down on my big day. Actually, on my 19th birthday, Marc Lepin turned it into Montreal Massacre day and I spent the next eight birthdays feeling lousy because I thought I shouldn't celebrate on such a sad day. But then, feeling lousy never helped anyone so I decided to PARTY!

Back to my brother: for the past forty years, the poor dude has had leftover turkey for his birthday dinner. His gifts are always wrapped in Christmas paper, and people even put them under the tree - so he would have to wait a day to open them. I never realized it before, but that truly bites.

So in that sense, I'm really quite lucky. And tonight is the last show of the run, so it'll be the closing night soiree, as well as my birthday.

I sure hope I can open my eyes tomorrow!

Gift Giving 101

Tis the season. Let the nog pour and the neuroses flourish! And as usual, a public service announcement is necessary: WARNING! Consumers please be aware of T.P.P. Syndrome. Don't let it happen to you. T.P.P. Syndrome is real. And it can be devastating to your holiday cheer. In fact, it is the sole cause of the need to drink copious amounts of said holiday cheer.

Tiny Plastic Pieces Syndrome afflicts mostly those with young families - particularly of the female variety. The makers of Polly Pocket and Playmobil are at the top of my personal shit list. Why? Have you ever searched for Polly Pocket shoes? It's like hunting for a piece of dust. With a puppy.

That's why.

I have an amazing friend who's pragmatism makes me sit at her comfortably-shod feet in wonder and say, "Teach me the ways, oh Practical One,". She has it down - books. Nothin' but books. What kid doesn't like books? The kids enjoy it, the parents enjoy it (unless it's a My Little Pony story*) and there's virtually no more space taken up in your house. Books last (unless you have a puppy) and they're often treasured far more than some small pieces of PLASTIC CRAP. But I'm getting excited again. I would like to say that I'm thinking of the exploited workers in Indonesia sitting for hours in a factory while making Polly Pocket shoes and wondering when their lives became so unbearable. But I don't. I'm utterly self-absorbed about it all. I just think about how this is going to make life harder for me.

Self-reflection counts, right? I'm not as bad a person as long as I realize I'm shallow and self-absorbed. Right? Validation required. Clearly symptomatic of deeper insecurities and neuroses. Well, duh. If I didn't have those, what in God's name would I write about?

(*The only way Andy and I can stomach the My Little Pony books is to imagine their names are actually those of porn stars. Seriously. Try it. It's hilarious. It's truly the only way to get through it.)

Why, oh why does gift-giving have to be so...fraught. Yes, fraught. Maybe it's my own issues...no wait, of COURSE it's my own issues. Isn't everything? But the point is: the gifts you give my children tell me how much you either like or hate me.

I mean, if it contains billions of small plastic parts - why?

What did I ever do to you?

Funnel Head!

Poor Charlie Bucket. He really is Bucket Head now. Funnel Head. Cone Head. We call him names and all the other dogs laugh at him. It's so unfair.

He's been snipped. Somewhat alarmingly however, he tried to hump Nic's leg THE DAY AFTER surgery. I mean, I know it takes a few weeks for the hormones to vamoose, but the Next Day? Obviously we made the right decision or we'd have the canine casanova on our hands and all the other dog owners would hate us. I mean, more than they already do.

Poor dog - he wants that contraption off. And so do we! He keeps scraping past our legs and God help you if you get the side of it in your face. It's the dog's revenge.