How Not to Give Your Dog a Bath

In the interest of journalistic integrity, I only publish tips that I have myself tried, and know to be useful.

So, because Mr. Charlie-pants stinks, I tried this one: how to give your dog a water-less bath.

Ah! Sounds intriguing, however can you do that, you ask?

According to eHow, by sprinkling corn starch on his fur, rubbing peanut butter on something so that he'll be focused on licking, while I brush the corn starch out of the fur.

Why this doesn't work:

Once I tried this, Charlie went ballistic. He was saying, "What the HELL are you doing, lady?! That is freaking corn starch! Get it off me! Off! Isn't that what you say to me? Off!? Ha! What! What is this? Oh, now you've got THE BRUSH!? You know I don't like that thing. Stop it! No really...grrrrrrrrrr"

And he takes off in a cloud of corn starch dust, looking like some stray that's been trotting down a dusty Arizona highway covered in some heinous skin disease.

He did however enjoy the peanut butter.

And now I brace myself for the inevitable, "What happened to your dog" questions.

"He got into some corn starch. Silly bugger."

And Charlie will look up at me and say, "Ass".

Word!

I was just about to give up working at the school where I could, like walk to work because it makes way too much sense. But I checked their job postings again and found something for which I am actually qualified. Woah. That is cool. Kind of...I'm scared.

So I applied. And the principal is like, "Can you come in tomorrow for an interview," and I'm all, "Shah!" and she goes, "Right on, sistah", and I'm like "Fo shizzle", and ...

I may have imagined most of that dialogue, but I'm pretty sure I have an interview.

Yes, I'm going back into a high school.

Pray for me.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day!

Q: Hey Tip Lady,
Do you ever struggle with unsightly sweat stains on your white shirts? How do you get rid of them?

A: No, that NEVER happens to me. I don't sweat. I glow and smell beautiful at all times. Ahahaha! Now what can you do about the sweat stains? Nothing. I've tried everything. The only thing is to burn the shirt and salt the earth afterward. You're never going to get those sweat stains out and if you wear that shirt with the pit stains, people will judge you.

You can, however, avoid them! The stains, not the people who will judge you. That is forever.

I discovered this stuff at work from a colleague who was way better at research than me (which is why she still works there and I don't). She told me about Perspirex - which pretty much stops you from sweating and stinking. You clean up, put it on at night then wash it off the next morning. You do this twice a week and fuggedaboudit.

It actually works. A bit pricey, but my first bottle lasted almost an entire year so it's actually the same price as normal ones. AND no stains. Alleluia!

Greetings from the Interior

Every day is a new ride on the intestinal roller coaster! Woo! Is it going to be the Lower Colon Combine or the Tilt-a-Whirl Hurl?

The doctor said it would take me six weeks to recover. Pffft! She's only got eight years of medical training and I...have the benefit of the internet, so what does SHE know? I'll be up and at it in no time!

I asked her what I should eat to recover from this and she said, "Just be smart,".

Not helpful.

Eating an entire bag of Twizzlers is smart because they taste really good. A little plasticky but, you know, good. Especially when you've gone fourteen months with No Sugar Whatsoever and been martyred as a result....Once I was fed jello (which I only knew to be good for wrestling in) I figured my sugar fast was over. I went on a bit of a bender, and paid DEARLY for it. Once I dragged myself back into bed, by my tongue, Charlie curled up next to me, and was quite alarmed by the sounds coming from my body. He left.

Here now, I offer: The Pancreatic Prayer:

Dear Lord,
I swear I will never even LOOK at another cupcake as long as you get me out of this bathroom with my dignity intact.
Amen.
P.S. Could you please smote the bastards who invented maltodextrin. Smote 'em good. Thanks.

Are you up for it?

I feel like I've been on both sides now, just like Joni Mitchell.

Hmmm... teaching taught me about a world where there is no such thing as a savings account.

Working at C&D, someone actually asked me, in all seriousness, why I didn't put in an offer on the $3,000,000 house on Salt Spring Island.

Both worlds baffled me.

If I had to say which I hated more, I'd go with the latter.

Which is worse: disrespect or pretentiousness?

After all this vocational searching, I think that I'd rather do something useful. But still be respected for it. C&D was only useful to the elite, and at that, 'useful' became a very loose term. At least as a teacher, even if I just helped one kid graduate - that was useful. If I helped a hundred of them do it - then woah, that's saving the bloody world.

So, if I do get a teaching gig, then when people ask me what I do, I can say: "I save the world...slowly."

Is it me...?

I've been quiet for a while because this pancreatitis thing is a bitch. It's had me down and out, I'm afraid, and no amount of pithy notions can pull me from my bed.

Here's a tip though: if you ever get sick, don't troll the internet for information about your illness. In less than ten minutes you can convince yourself that you are, in fact, dying.

I don't think Andy takes me seriously anymore because I go stumbling into the living room telling him what I've just discovered: I think I have Cystic Fibrosis. I KNOW! How crazy is that?

Ten minutes later...

"Wait! WaitWaitWait! No. I don't. It's Sickle Cell Anemia. It must be."

Oh God! Now I have acute Hypochondria too!!!!

Every Wednesday is Tip Day!

Q: Hey tip lady? What do you do with all the ARTWORK the kids make/bring home? Like the giant paper mache swan that looks like it was run over by a combine, or the giant toothpick/toiletroll castle from summer camp? Do your kids notice when these things mysteriously "disappear"? Mine do.... I'm being swamped by stick man drawings!!!! Please advise!!!

A: Can I just start by weeping with gratitude that people are actually reading this blog and now...asking me stuff!? I cannot tell you how much that tickles me. Does that mean my life is pathetically empty or that I'm now entertaining delusions of advice-columnist grandeur...

But on to the question: Yeah. Artwork. It's a loose term. Here's what I do:

For flat stuff:

• I keep a running gallery on the fridge.
  
• Once a month, I take it all down: the kids get to keep ONE thing each. They have to learn discernment, and while every scribble is precious and all that - the best ones lose their lustre if you keep it all.
  
• The ONE thing that they want to keep goes in a file in my filing cabinet. At the end of the school year, we take it all out and make a book "Kindergarten 2007" or whatever, and in it, we keep the class photo, the report cards, the hilarious picture of mummy riding a broom - whatever it happens to be. Posterity preserved.
  
• The rest of it goes to Great Grandpa. My grandfather is 99 (round of applause) and is, to his own bemusement, living in a care home. Apparently, he quite enjoys these monthly packages of artwork and a letter from me updating him on our family's adventures for the month. (This one's gonna be a doozy!)
  

Or....

• We made a collage (see the photo) of some of the best ones. I got a cheap frame at a garage sale, and we pasted our favourites down over the lame picture of a mountain. We ripped the edges to make it look...artistic...and then we painted white glue over it. I dig it.
  

For three-dimensional papier-mache swan type stuff:

• God. Take a breath. Praise it deleriously. Tell them it's so amazing that you have to take a photo of it.
  
• Then out it goes.
  

I feel your pain. We had to keep a shoebox dinosaur diorama for two years because Nic thought it was the greatest thing ever. The fact that Charlie ingests everything has changed that - so luckily she now understands that once it's been chewed, it's gone, baby. Gone.

If you have guilt when you toss it, consider what Peter Walsh says: "If you let your sentiment overrun your house, you're inhibiting your family's ability to have a life worth preserving. Ironic, isn't it?"

Keep the questions coming. Send 'em to classiclustre@gmail.com. I'll answer anything.

Where IS the dog?

There's a phrase that keeps getting bandied about this house. We'll kind of suddenly realize that it's calm and the air is pure and say, "Where's the dog?"

For the past few days, I've been in a drug-induced coma - emerging only to empty my nose and bladder, and to let the dog out. I then forget about him for a few hours and now he's mad at me.

He comes in all indignant and jumps straight onto the formerly white couch. He flumps himself into a ball and gives me a pointed look I wish I could replicate. I think he's saying, "Talk to the butt, lady,"

And the worst part is - I deserve it.

Charlie the Farting Dog

If I'd had him on a steady diet of cauliflower and beans, I'd understand it.

But the truth is: Charlie is a farting machine. And they're the silent but deadly type. Which makes for awkward moments when guests are here.

The one and only benefit to this delicate problem is that we can blame every bad smell on Charlie. Yes, that's unfair, but hey, he's got to pull his weight somehow.

In school I was consistently sent to stand in the hall during German class because I could never conjugate the verb "fahren" without snickering. When I got to: er fart I would always collapse into giggles. My teacher also didn't appreciate our creativity in thinking up words like "farfrompoopin" . Maybe it was that I tried to say everything like I was The Swedish Chef on The Muppet Show, but I spent a lot of time in the hall that year.

The point remains that I have a flatulent dog. And I don't think I'd be taken seriously if I called my vet and said, "Yeah, um. My dog is farting. Can you make him stop?"

So how do you cure dog farts? Now that's a tip I need.

Even in Australia

My friends and family - whom I adore - are the only thing stopping me from moving to Australia.

I really dig the idea of my kids growing up with cute accents. And sunshine. That would be good.

See, when things get shitty, I am exactly like Alexander in Alexander and the Terrible Horrible Very Bad Day. Every time something goes wrong, he says, "I think I'll move to Australia."

But in the end his mom says, "Some days are like that. Even in Australia."

Time to Go Public

I thought I'd change things up a little on the blog. Because what this page really needs is a picture of my butt.

We're, what - two weeks- into 2009, and I have already pronounced it shitty. My first week was spent in the hospital, the second week - Andy gets laid off. Yes, it could suck more, but let's not even think about that.

In the Chinese calendar, 2009 is the Year of the Turd.

I can't realistically write off the entire year yet. But so far...WTF? There's a cosmic force out there giving us a wedgie. It's GOT to get better. It's got to.

You know what this means, of course: NO RENOS. We've approached reno-pause. While I was so looking forward to picking out tile and hardware, I also knew it would make me crazy. Crazier. See how well I've accepted it? Maybe I'm numb. That must be it. I'm so not a calm and accepting person. I'm a head-case most of the time. But I'm on a new medi-cay-shun now and I'm wondering if it's turned me into a calm and accepting shadow of my former neurotic self.

I always resisted taking drugs (even the fun kind). So when I was told I had to take pills everyday - likely for the rest of my life - I did what every health-conscious, rational and intelligent person would do: I refused.

Oh, sure you'd LIKE me to take these SSRIs because the pharmaceutical companies are paying you off to arbitrarily prescribe this when there's nothing actually wrong with me! Everyone cries. A little. Everyone gets upset. A lot. And...yells at strangers....and...why is EVERYONE staring at me!? I am NOT shouting! Much. I honestly thought I was 'just emotional'. Albeit dangerously so at times, I consistently denied that there was something Terribly Wrong.

But, once Nic was born and post-partem hit me hard, I decided to take them. I felt better, so I stopped taking them.

Going OFF these drugs is a big, sweaty stroll through Hell. If you are on an SSRI and you want to go off it - TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR - and do it gradually. These are not drugs you fuck around with. Any drug that gives you electric shocks when you go off is NOT a benign little pill. No, that's not the phone ringing, it's your lips. Going off it is as crazy-making as the symptoms that made you go on it in the first place. Worse - because they don't creep up on you - they hit you in the face like a caffeinated squirrel.

But I made it through - I went off. Because I could manage this without drugs. Yeah, I'm that good. It's just a matter of being more sensible, and eating properly and getting exercise. No, I don't need drugs. I need to just read more self-help books, and meditate more.

ANDY: But K - you cry at butter commercials. That's not normal. And you're really worried about the dog choking to death on lint...again - not normal.

ME: I'm just hormonal. It's that time.

ANDY: It can't be that time every day of the month.

ME: It's not! You're projecting!

ANDY: No. I'm observing.

ME: Oh you are SO smug.

ANDY: What did I say? Why are you sobbing again? See...this is what I'm talking about....

ME: It's your fault.

ANDY: I'm not capable of making you "hormonal".

ME: Oh, I have two children who are living proof that you are!

ANDY: But you're not pregnant now. ARE YOU?!

ME: No!

ANDY: Then don't you think you're maybe feeling something a little .... not normal?

ME: No!

ANDY: It looks to me like you're really struggling.

ME: I'm just not trying hard enough. If I just use my mind to control my emotions...

ANDY: The problem is in your mind. If you had a broken leg, we'd give you a crutch. If you've got some broken synapses, you need a crutch. There's no difference.

ME: I will not use a crutch!

And so it went...

It was all because I couldn't see it. If it's happening inside my head and there are no tests to indicate that I'm missing this chemical or that chemical, then it can't be real. And because mental health is STILL not talked about openly, I was afraid of the stereotype that I was, myself, perpetuating by not talking about it. Not only did I not talk about it, I didn't accept it either. Which is weird because I have such a hate-on for Tom Cruise and his loopy medicine-hating Scientology, that you'd think I'd take everything I could just to spite them.

When I was in the hospital, I had to come clean with all the doctors. I told them that I'd stopped taking my medication and why. They nodded in understanding, and promptly put me back on. I asked the doctor, "Will I have to take this for the rest of my life," and he said, "Yes." I was beyond depressed. Why me? Why am I stuck in a hospital with pancreatitis? Why couldn't I have stuck with my drug-free existence?! Why didn't I try harder!

Then it hit me. In the past three years, Andy's buried two friends. Both of them were young and impossibly healthy and it was just bad luck. One had an accident and one had a heart attack. The results are the same. Either way, I realized that if either of them had to pop a pill everyday, they wouldn't complain, but they can't.

So I will.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day

MATELESS SOCKS
We have a hoe-zone in our house. You probably have one too. It's where socks go. You know you put a pair into the wash and you come out with one. Where does it go? It goes to the hoe-zone. And it's gone, baby. It's gone. Still, I live in hope, and I pin up the mate-less one to the bulletin board I keep beside the washing machine. After a week, if the mate hasn't turned up (and it never does) I have a little talk with that sock, and let it know that it wasn't meant to be and well, no there actually won't be other socks, and actually, what IS my damage...I'm talking to a sock! Then I jam my hand into it and give the girls another hapless sock each, and we use them to dust. We pretend that they're dust-eating monsters, and whoever has the dirtiest sock at the end of the run wins!



BASKETS AND BOXES
I'm clutter-phobic. Always have been. I blame my parents because they collected everything and my dad had a garage-sale addiction that resulted in a basement and garage so full of stuff he's was like a one-man Walmart. If I said, "I'm going to buy a kettle," he'd say, "Hang on, I think I have ....six...none of them work, but I can make them work, if I can find...a...woah, what's this?" Anyway, as a result of living with clutter, I'm now kind of obsessive about not having it around. Sometimes, I get a little crazy with it. Like - I can't work unless my desk is clear. Or, I can't go to sleep unless my room is tidy. I call it crash cleaning. I get a box or a basket, fill it with EVERYTHING that shouldn't be in that room, and put it away. I'm not actually doing anything useful here, but it makes me feel better because it gets it out of my immediate line of vision. When I have time, I deal with it. But it makes it all less overwhelming. This is also how I get the children to tidy their room. "Fill the basket" is accomplished much quicker than, "Put everything away,".


TICKLE FILE

Nic brings home entire forests of paperwork from school. We always lose it. So I borrowed this tip from organizing guru David Allen: get a tickler file. It's just one of those monthly, daily files, and shove whatever paper, invitation, ticket, claim slip, whatever that needs to be dealt with into the relevant day. So, if you're diligent about doing this every evening, you just pick up that day's divider, and put it in the back. Easy. You may discover that there is a paper sitting there for tomorrow and realize you have something to do.

I also do my paperwork on Fridays, so if there's something that needs to be filed, paid, answered, whatever, I shove it into that Friday's divider and deal with it then.

Approaching Renopause

Everyone I've ever known to have renovated their home (with one exception) has experienced reno-stress.

Our first speed-bump on the road to renos was actually getting one of the contractors to call us back. That took a year. Now that we've actually got one, it's great!

And the blueprints arrived yesterday...so exciting...what did he design? Oh I can't wait...wait. That's not what we wanted. Why is there a hallway there? The room we wanted to be bigger is exactly the same size. We did say, we want to "expand" the room. I checked, that means "to make bigger".

It starts.

Bruised and Gun Shy

One of my dearest friends sent me a book this Christmas. She knows me well enough that she chose this title: I Don't Know What I Want But I Know It's Not This by Julie Jansen.

My friend and I have been together since university when neither of us had jobs but we were both getting a teaching degree to "fall back on". She never fell back on hers. She went on to work in the arts and now manages a theatre company. If I weren't so happy for her I'd be insanely jealous. I fell back on my teaching degree pretty much immediately. And you know, for the first few years, I really loved it. But ever since I left it in 2005, I've been in a revolving door of careers and now, I'm just dizzy.

When I moved to BC over a decade ago, I'd already been teaching in Ontario for four years. They were good years. But the fall of public education was looming, so I went to a very expensive career counselling office downtown. They charged me $500 to do all their diagnostic tests. After a few weeks, they called me in and gave me my money back. Everything I'd written pointed to the fact that I was meant to do exactly the thing I resolutely said I didn't want to do. Teach.

Consequently, I went back to teaching. Had a few good years, then it all fell apart. Like with most things, the unravelling began with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Budget Cuts, Overcrowding, Violence, and Burn-Out.

My puny budget of $350 was cut to the ridiculous sum of $150. How you run a theatre program on $150 is beyond me, and there's only so much fund-raising you can do over and above your regular duties. At the same time, Phys.Ed had just been handed $5,000 and the message was clear: The Arts Don't Matter. I became jaded and bitter. Here was a program that was responsible for keeping some kids in school! What do you do if you're not a jock and you're not a scholar? Maybe you find yourself some other way. Maybe you need an outlet of artistic expression. And why can't we celebrate the kid taking a bow after learning all the lines and blocking to King Lear - instead of the kid who scores a touchdown? Why doesn't THAT matter? It still frosts my giblet.

At one point, I was up to 42 kids in a class. I didn't have enough chairs. There were kids sitting on the floor. I have always known that Drama is the scholastic dumping ground of the counselling department. Face it. She doesn't fit in anywhere else, put her in Drama. I get it. And you know, I would always take them. Because sometimes you get some real gems that way. They discover they belong in the Arts, and to be there when a kid finds her voice is a nearly spiritual experience. Still, we ought to be able to sit down while it's happening!

Finally, I stayed too long in a school that was plagued with a toxic mixture of apathy and violence. I should have left after the first kid was killed on school property. But I stayed. A year later, another one was stabbed four times. He was my student, and while he lived, it wasn't the same after that. Nothing was.

And I burned out.

So, during my hospital stay, I read this book cover to cover and did all the exercises. Guess what? I'm supposed to be teaching.

Am I crazy to try to give it yet another shot? Or am I following my true calling?

Every Wednesday is Tip Day

I told the doctors I had to get out of the hospital on Tuesday because WEDNESDAY is Tip Day and I have, like, six readers, who cannot be let down! Clearly they understood the critical nature of the situation, and they busted me out.

So, today, I have tips. Boy do I have tips.

1. How to Lose Those Last 10 Pounds: get a bout of acute pancreatitis! Your results will amaze you! You won't want to eat, and whatever you do eat will come right back out again. It's brilliant. (Side effects can include the loss of the will to live. Just sayin'.)

2. Weird Things to Put in Your Hair: my all-inclusive resort did not include shampoo. I had to wash my hair with hand soap. (And washing your hair with your wrist covered in plastic wrap and your legs shaking is a whole new adventure!) But whatever - the result was not pretty. And thanks to alert reader, Samara, I was reminded of the old vinegar trick.

• VINEGAR: After shampooing, rinse your hair with vinegar. This removes all the crap your hair has attracted just by being, well, hair. You get shinier and softer hair and no, you won't smell like fish & chips because you rinse it out. Be smart and keep it out of your eyes. (I speak from this morning's wake up experience! Agh! It's burning! I'm AWAKE already!)
• EGGS: My roomate in college put eggs in her hair. I don't recommend this because to rinse it out, she used super-hot water and cooked the egg into her curly hair. We all spent an hour picking scrambled egg out of her hair. Funny - yes. Effective - not so much.
• TEA: Some people swear that tea will darken your hair. I tried this. It did absolutely nothing for me. But that's likely because my hair is already pretty dark. Rather, if you have stinky feet, put them in a bucket of cooled tea - the tannic acid removes persistent foot odour. Apparently.
  

3. And speaking of feet: Some people give themselves a facial made from a couple of crushed aspirin tablets, and water - and they put it on their face! In the interest of research, I tried this. Not. A.Good. Idea. However - I have an alternative tip for this: do the same thing, but put the paste on your feet (much less sensitive). Prop yourself in front of the tv for 20 minutes then rinse it off. Tah-dah! ASA has just power-sanded your feet and they should be soft now.

4. What about hairy feet? No, that was just to get your attention. But this tip is about shaving your legs - and if you're part hobbit and you have hairy feet, then shaving your feet too. Now, I don't know why this works so well, and I don't care, I just do it because it does. After I shave my legs, I mix rubbing alcohol with baby oil and slather it on them. When you do this, you'll thank me. Whoever touches your legs will thank me. Enjoy.


Coming up: Next week, when your hair is shiny, your feet smell sweet and your legs are smooth, you'll learn what to do with mate-less socks, find an instant clutter-buster, and a fool-proof tip on organizing paperwork!

God, I'm starting to sound almost useful.

Better write something inane and trivial tomorrow.
I'm back, baby! I'm BACK!

A different kind of vacation

I’ve just returned from my five-day stay in the all-inclusive resort called Royal Columbian Hospital. In spite of the Fraser Health Authority’s efforts, I don’t recommend it.

It’s a funny thing – being in a hospital.

We’re a tiny microcosm of society here in Ward 3.

There’s Jeanne, Dave, Mark and me. Every time poor Mark heads to the toilet we all yell, “Move that stone!” Today, Mark finally passed it and we actually clapped after he gave birth to a bouncing baby kidney stone.

David’s IV got ripped out by some well-meaning bonehead (me) helping him out of his sweater and we all cringed for him as he got it repositioned. All of us having had the initial agony of IV penetration, we felt for him (and I felt worse than anyone because it was my fault.) He very sweetly pointed out that all the morphine in his bag helped it not hurt too much. Jeanne just came in from the ICU and doesn’t talk much. Me?…well. I am waiting. I’m the one that is the most mobile since they took my IV out last night. I am the most independent and the most liable to do an Irish jig between beds.

I could be moaning about missing out on my Mexican holiday but that would depress me too much so instead I’ve catastrophized it: if we’d gone to Mexico something unspeakably dreadful would have happened. Yes. I’ve decided. Totally fatalistic, I know – but it’s all I got. One of us would have suffered a heat stroke, been poisoned by bad tequila or mugged. And I’d rather be stuck in a Canadian hospital than a Mexican one. But…their food may be better. Maybe I’d get burrito-flavoured custard.

And speaking of food, you’d think that after being on a liquid diet for the past four days, my first solid food would be like manna from Heaven. No. I still hate wax beans.

Earwax beans.

And speaking of drugs…some are good, and some are better. Is it Percocet time yet?

The nurses come by and ask how your pain is, and if it’s bad they give you this lovely little pill called ‘Percocet’. Percocet makes the happy bunnies dance on rainbows. And since my bunnies are stuck in a blizzard in Canada while they were supposed to be cavorting on a beach in Mexico, bring it on!

What did you get for Christmas, Karryn?

I got acute pancreatitis and a narcotic addiction. What did YOU get?

THE EMPRESS'S NEW CLOTHES

I love fashion. So the worst part of being stuck in a hospital isn’t the fact that I’m not healthy enough to be in the outside world, it’s the fact that I have to wear assless gowns. To even call them ‘gowns’ is disrespectful to the House of Dior. However, ‘gowns’ they are and if I’m stuck in one, then I will continue my narcotics-induced delusions….

This season it’s all about pale blues and greens. We’re going shapeless and open. A sassy little showing of butt cheek is what makes this look so unapologetically free! Now you can cinch it in at the waist, but that really looks like you’re trying too hard and what we’re going for here is unkempt and unhealthy. This look says, ‘needy’ and ‘weak’. But the metal side snaps on the sleeves are a little edgy – juxtaposing the peaceful quality of the gowns themselves.

As you can see we’re accessorizing with blue paper slippers – it’s a total departure from last season’s suffocating platform pumps. Again this is a kind of unexpected ornamentation that is so inspired. And the piece de resistance is, of course, the IV tree. It’s what all the hot patients are pushing around the ward. It’s such an attention-getter when the alarm goes off.