Change Management Is Hard, Yo

When my little girl was born she was a sleeping angel that only woke to make little baby grunts, a sound that sent a current of thrill through my newly minted mom heart. This angelic state lasted all of 24 hours before it turned to electrocution.

Day two of parenting became more akin to The Exorcist than angelic. She screamed for hours and hours and nothing we or the very concerned nursing staff did, could sooth the roaring babe. Swaddling, snuggling, feeding, bathing, singing, silence, even g****mn tilting her crib for gas did not work. Eventually the nursing staff broke their own rules and took her away to the nursing station so we could get some semblance of sleep. It was scary.

Deep down I knew she was pissed off. Where was her human snuggie suit with the IV belly button feed and ambient lighting with accompanying soundtrack? Why had we thrust her into this cold, smelly world where she was forced to breath air and suckle with her own strength? WHERE WAS HER WOMB WITH A VIEW?

Time May Change Me But I Can't Trace Time

Change seems to be my personal theme this month. In the past four weeks my life has been turned on it's ear and at first it looked all doom and gloom but lately, not so much. In fact lately my life has looked pretty damn awesome.

Oh god, did I just say that?

*turns to wooden coffee table covered in crayon marks and knocks vigorously*

About a month ago my plan to stay-at-home for one more year became, well for lack of a better word: complicated. When working from home without a steady pay cheque, trying to make any kind of life plan that involves money just becomes plain ol' difficult. It is pretty much akin to taking a high-risk gamble with a backer named Eddy the Shark. To put it mildly Eddy might break your kneecaps if things don't work out. We were occasionally treading water and it was getting uncomfortable. One more financial hiccup was going to make phone-sex operator my newest job skill.

Say What To The Dress? BlogHer NYC Edition

I told myself I wasn't going to write a BlogHer '10 post because there are already so many out there and what more could I have to add? But then I went shopping to grab just 'one more thing' for NYC (like they don't have stores or something in that city) and while browsing the racks I found it. I found the dress. The dress I was going to wear to The People's Party (are you going? I hope so, I'll be there and happy to see you) and this was the dress that made me write a BlogHer '10 post.

I Want A New Drug* (This was supposed to be a decorating the Christmas Tree post but it's not)

Yesterday at 4:45 am, I woke up in unbelievable pain. Pain that didn't seem like it could get worse yet it did. It was right under my ribs and at first it was like the worst runner's stitch ever but while I was describing it to the Telehealth nurse over the phone, it became stabbing. She said "get ye to an ER posthaste" except not in Ye Old English because that would have been weird.

So I walked back into our bedroom and said "dude, I'm going to get me some good drugs at the hospital." That woke him up fast. He bundled me out the door into a cab, with hugs and kisses and promises not to worry about the home front.

In the ride over I was trying to decide if it was a twisted ovarian cyst (been there, done that so many times but each time I'm reminded OMFG THIS IS PAINFUL) or a ruptured appendix (haven't been there or done that but I imagine it's painful). By the time we pulled into the ER, my skin colour was a mix of grey green and I was pretty much in tears. I staggered into triage like DRAMA was my middle name and I figured I must have done a great show because I didn't have to wait. I was immediately banded and told to stagger down the hall to follow the yellow line.

Yellow line in internal medicine, blue line is orthopeadics, green line is xray... can you tell I've been to this hospital many times? Thanks kid.

Anyhow, I walked down into that area and there was a young guy at the desk. I handed him my chart and he said "I'm putting you in a bed right away." Well that's not the first time a random guy has said that to me but this was the first time I was grateful to hear those words. Then he said "I'm ordering an IV right now and then we can figure out what's wrong with you". Oh my word, he was a doctor and I wanted to french him despite the searing pain that riddled my body and my devoted love of my husband.

Well I didn't french him but he made me delirious once he ordered that morphine drip.

After a brief exam, a zillion questions, and poking that resulted in me pretty much slapping him, we were both stumped. The pain was in a strange place -- maybe my gallbladder was about to blow. An ultrasound was pulled into the room and revealed nothing except my insides are way pretty.

So another ultrasound was ordered, this time with radiologists attached to it. You know, the folks who can tell me more than "you've got real purdy insides lady". But that wasn't going to happen for a while so I was allowed to wallow in my opium stupor and grab some zzzzzs.

Then I thought I need to give my family an update. I had no idea what time it was and as I fumbled for my phone with the one good arm I had left after being attacked by the bloodletters, I asked the staff member left in the room "Can I make a call?"

For the record, he was standing right by a HUGE sign that said "NO MOBILE DEVICES TO BE USED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" and it had a picture of my particular model of phone right next to the huge RED glaring words. All it needed was "This means YOU motherbumper" to drive the point home. But it didn't say that and the dude said "I won't tell".

So I called my husband and gave him the lowdown. After speaking for a few minutes -- I was kind of shocked at how crappy I sounded -- I decided to send an email to Catherine to let her know where the hell I was. Then I noticed that there was a whole bunch of "where the f*** are you emails in my inbox" and I felt overwhelmed. I couldn't answer these all.

Then I suddenly felt really alone plus overwhelmed.

So I tweeted.

"I'm in emerg on a morophin drip for mysterious pains. This must mean one thing: it must MONDAY. Mondays suck hard. Bah."

Grammatically incomplete but still, I got the point across. Anyone who knows me on Twitter knows I hate Mondays so it just seemed fitting.

And suddenly DMs and beautiful messages started pouring in. The feeling of alone and overwhelmed started to dissipate. My love of Twitter was once again renewed since it's been bashed beyond recognition for me by recent events.

Twitter CAN be filled with love and this renewed my faith.

I tweeted because I needed my friends and they were there.

For that I say thank you more loudly than you can imagine. Actually I will say it softly because I'm still in pain.

Oh yes, back to the pain.

Eventually I had the ultrasound where it was discovered that among other things, I had a kidney stone the size of a Buick that couldn't be treated except with drugs to facilitate it's exit and dull the pain. *sigh* They are giving it seven days to leave my hallowed halls which means knowing my luck, it will arrive just in time for Christmas.

OH JOY, IT'S THE CHRISTMAS STONE! GOD REST YE MERRY, STONE!

So now I'm home, afraid to go far for fear I'll be birthing a fire-baby stone in the streets, and taking copious amounts of boring drugs.

I love how the last one says "May Cause Dizziness". In truth it should say: Take this and fall over like a drunk kitten ALL THE MO'FO TIME. Because that would have been more accurate.

Anyhow, this is my long-winded way of retelling what happened yesterday and believe it or not, this is barely a tenth of what happened. I'm saving the funny part for another post - one that I can write when the freaking DIZZY SPELLS END. I don't do dizzy well.

* I'm quoting Huey Lewis and the News which must mean the morphine hasn't worn off just yet.

*blink*

*blink*

*blink*

That would be the non-existent cursor on my computer screen.

It doesn't actually blink... in fact half the time I don't know where the little f**ker is until I hit a key but despite the fact it doesn't blink per se, I still hear it loud and clear.

*blink*

*blink*

Writing in this space has become a luxury I cannot afford and that makes me sad. BUT! I am writing. Just not here.

I'm proud of my writing elsewhere (namely:

• This Week In Muppets: Today's Jake Gyllenhaal Moment Was Brought To You By The Letter RWARR
• Pink Stinks: Or DOES IT?
• Yeah, I'm A Twilight Mom. What's It To You?
• Look Ma: I’m Watch List Worthy!
• Robin Gibb, How Deep is Your Love? Should I ask the Druid Priestess or the Housekeeper?

plus a whole bunch of other stuff over at The Bad Moms Club, Aiming Low, and MamaPop). But the writing I'm proud of is just not here.

And these are things I wanted to write about in this here space but haven't:

• The fact that I was going to stab my husband in bed the other night for suddenly getting up, going to the kitchen, and bringing back a bunch of Triscuits to eat in bed. AND I swear he used a megaphone to consume them and really drive the point home that he was EATING LOUD CRACKERS IN BED AT 3AM. Sadly I did not stab him because that would have made a better blog post (picture it, the prison diaries of a motherbumper -- I can hear the movie proposals already)
• That I've been reading recipe books like it's porn but have no intention of creating any of the delicious smut that tantalizes my eyes.
• The conservations that I'm having with my four-year old are comedy gold. Nothing is sacred in her realm and I LOVE IT. And I'm not writing any of it down because I'm a half-assed mom who likes to live in the now.
  

BUT! Yeah. Well... I haven't written any of those posts.

I also could have written about how proud I am that we decorated our Christmas tree this past weekend. Of course it's pretty easy to do that when you just pop the sucker out of the storage closet where you shoved it last year and then stick all twelve ornaments that survived the half-ass packing you did with the disclaimer "I'll repack this properly later..." which actually means sometime later in 2012 when I actually MIGHT HAVE SOME TIME. Bitter? No, not one bit.

We are all so damn busy. And by we, I mean you and me, and you over there in the corner, we are all so damn busy. Time is more precious than moon dust and moon pies these days. So what to do, what to do?

All I can do is keep my head down and keep on slogging.

Next time I'm not going to leave so much time between posts. That *blink* makes it really hard to form sentences much less coherent thoughts.

They got it wrong: Sunday's Child is Full of Face.

Drained

"YES, we must go NOW."

There is a pause in the exasperation.

"Yes, I mean it: NOW."

We have new neighbours but I'm not sure exactly which apartment they have rented but I can hear them loud and clear through my bathroom drains. Loud and freakin' clear.

Ai, the joys of apartment living.

These new neighbours obviously have offspring which is unusual in this building full of decaying folk. Oh, that was slanderous ageism there -- bad motherbumper, bad. But seriously, the majority of the peeps we pass in the hallway are totally bench pressing a hundred - easy. Many of these octogenarians and octogenarian-wannabees are nice, many are nasty, and many smell like they've been attacked by an Avon rep; most days, walking through our lobby is like running a rest home gauntlet.

For the record I love old people, in fact some of my closest friends are old people.

*sigh* I miss how the elder locals used to ignore me before I became a parent. Now I have to try to outrun some of them and their unsolicited advice -- or worse, their poking fingers that try to touch my child in what I assume is an attempt to steal her youthful pixie gold.

Anyhow, new blood in the building:

For the past week, whenever I'm in the washroom, I can hear the new neighbours. A yelling child and a sometimes-sounding-exasperated woman. Their voices come up (down?) through the drains and temporarily distract me from the swarm of fruit flies around my head.

It's weird hearing a child's voice instead of an extra-loud episode of Law and Order or Lloyd Robertson reading the national news. I swear that who ever lived in the pipe-amplifying apartment before this family, had one of those reverse Whisper 2000 units attached to their television. Or maybe they had the telly in the bathtub. All I can say is that idiot box was loud.

But back to the new child: Sometimes I wonder if this kid is around G's age. Maybe I should try to seek them out to see if they are playdate material? Maybe the mom is my kind of people. It would be nice to know someone in the building who isn't rushing to knock off a few points on the bucket-list.

But then I remember my crippling shyness and general all around awkwardness and realize that even if I found them and they didn't think I was stalking them, I'd probably alienate them somehow. Blurt out something inappropriate, make offensive small talk, fart.

So I'll just keep sitting around, swatting the fruit flies away while wishing I could get my head out of my butt long enough to demonstrate to my child that making friends isn't really that hard at all. Because it isn't, is it?

Mean Green Salad Machine

Not the black ones!

That's what everyone just loves to hear screamed out in public.

But she still yells it.

Mind you, she is not quite four years old and she is just talking about lettuce.

But it still shocks me every time I present a transgression on her plate.

The latest offenders were the benign Oak Leaf and the equally gentle Lollo Rossa.

Rejected only because of the colour of their leaves.

My daughter will only eat salad if it is 100% green. Cucumbers, green peppers, green lettuce, celery -- c'est toute.

Only an almost four year old could make salad complicated. Complicated because of the royal pain the ass it becomes when eating out. Picking apart salads has become the norm and I hate it.

Hate it.

Mind you I'm eating more salad these days since all the offending non-greens make it to my plate instead.

But why can't she be this fussy about ice cream?

I'd rather eat her ice cream rejects than salad.

whine, cheese, and home reno

SB and I revisited the great "should we keep the digital box?" debate since as a family, we watch sooooo little tv and yet we pay all those heaps of important monies to maintain -- monies we actually rarely see and only appear as numbers on a screen somewhere.

Hey - do you ever think about your money and how it doesn't really exist and then you get scared because OMG what if the computers take over and cancel all your money because you just know they will hate the humans that built them. And then you freak because there is no more physical money save for the forty-eight cents at the bottom of your purse and then -- JUST IN CASE -- you might run over to the local ATM and withdraw as much as you can and stuff it under your mattress just because, you know, WHAT IF THAT REALLY HAPPENS? No? It's just me then?

Okay - back to business as "normal"

ANYHOW - we aren't really watching enough tv to justify the price. But the shows we actually DO watch we want to hump and make babies with.

So pretty much each time I get my moneyknickers in a knot, out comes the great finger to punch the buttons on the phone to cancel the damn digital box.

Then I instantly get the cold feet.

Arctic dogs and my finger goes limp.

So I do the only thing I can do. I take those sniffling pups over to the couch to watch HGTV and exercise my digits on the remote control magic wand.

Seriously folks, I know I can live on just the internet, I know I can. I don't need no stinkin' cable box to satisfy my need for A&E, HGTV, and *drool* FoodNetwork.

I think I can do it.

*sob*

Or maybe not.

Hi, my name is katie and I'm a home reno/design/real estate junkie and this is something like my sixth billionth self-inflicted blog style intervention on my inability to give up the friggin' digital box and omg, I want to punch myself in the face because this is the stupiest thing to get hung up on.

But on a lighter note: my daughter obviously has my home decoration addiction. Isn't that so cute -- in a co-dependence and potential strange mother-daughter issues kinda way?

Anyhow, Gigi, at the sage age of three, decided that we should swap the kitchen with her bedroom and she actually pitched the entire idea to me on the way home from the grocery store.

Then she proceeded to start the reno as soon as she got home.

Acting as foreman by doing nothing but barking orders from the sidelines I koboshed the whole "moving the stuff out of the kitchen" thing. That actually saved her a lot of time on the project plan so she moved to phase two: moving the bedroom into the kitch..

BEHOLD! The great kitchen / bedroom swap:

What's that? The fact that I drew an arrow towards the sink full of dirty dishes made you notice those dirty dishes? I'm new to this real estate business so forgive me. So let's move on.

Believe it or not, this used to be an apartment size galley kitchen.

I KNOW - it's hard to believe.

Notice the Italian gate-style door detail. These are made from recycled dining room chairs and lovingly fashioned into the perfect entrance to a dream bedroom.

Let's go in.

This room has everything you could dream up on your wish list --  from a bag of fruit to ... well what more do you need than a bag of fruit? Let's hear it for vitamins! No scurvy sleeping here. Fruit flies maybe but definitely no scurvy.

The room remained this way until dinner time when I discovered the gas hook-up she advertised in the bedroom-flip-kitchen unit was made of playdoh and lego blocks.

I filed my grievances at the local court house this afternoon.

He expects to hear our case sometime in November 2011.

Seriously, I have no idea when the cat went to law school.

It's Monday and I'm Bejeweled

This is where a post would appear if I had actually sat down and written one last night instead of becoming hopelessly addicted to Bejeweled on the iTouch and losing all track of time. I actually fell asleep while clutching the game between my little paws and SB woke me up by laughing at my latest addiction. I certainly hope you are pleased with yourself MamaTulip -- I squarely place the blame on your shoulders for telling me about this game.

So pretend there is a post here right now and maybe it was funny, m'kay? Thanks.

[insert funny post here]


Anyone have any iTouch/iPhone games they are addicted to and care to share? Because I'm sure this will wear thin in a couple of weeks and momma needs a new form of escape.

Also, I've got a follow-up review on my night out with the Estée Lauder team in Chicago. At least I got that done (obviously done before I started matching jewels on an alien landscape). Photo shamelessly stolen from IzzyMom's twitpic account. She got to stand next to me while I gotz prettified.

So I enter the Lent of my midlife (so let's party)

In forty days I will be forty.

I find this astounding considering I thought I'd be dead by thirty. Lord knows I certainly don't trust anyone over thirty but yet here I am, forty days to forty.

When I was born, my sister took one look at me and screamed. Apparently she was watching the very first episode of Star Trek right before being brought over to the hospital to meet her new little sister and she was convinced I was a Talosian.

It pains me that I know the name of that alien race.

And just to be clear: I'm not Talosian.

Anyhow, yes I was one of those newborns that elicited the response "that's some baby". To add to the beauty I had hip dysplasia and was bound with bandages forever and day which I'm sure won me lots of favour with my parents who now had three under five. Nothing beats changing cloth diapers on a baby that needs to also be bound up like a mummy twenty-four-seven.

So here I am, not exactly sure about how I feel about being forty in forty days but I figure if I just keep pounding on this keyboard, I might just figure it out.

Oh and did I mention a party? OH YES I DID. In approximately forty-five days I will be one of the lucky hostesses with the mostestes at THE PEOPLE'S PARTY taking place in Chicago the night before BlogHer09 (which is almost as exciting as the night before Christmas)(almost)(okay, more so) and you are ALL invited.








So click on the badge and let us know if you are going because seriously, the only requirement to get into our party is play nice (not a requirement) and be people (also, not a real requirement.)

The People's Party 2009
open-invite pre-BlogHer party
Thursday, July 23, 2009
8:30-11pm
Sheraton Chicago X ("Ten")

~~~

Hosted by:

The Bloggess
Green Mom Review/ IzzyMom
Motherbumper
Mrs. Fussypants
Playgroups Are No Place For Children
Velveteen Mind

~~~

Sponsored by:

Perhaps if I spent less time staring at the tin and more time cleaning, posts like this wouldn't happen

Am I the only one who thinks this variety of baked beans sounds like p0rn terminology?

Okay, I guess I should have kept this to myself but seriously, I think an industry that spawned such awesome terms as the money sh0t and fluffer might just be using this one too. If not, I wonder if I can charge them money to start using it? Yes, I'd give Heinz their cut but you read it here: it's my idea suckers.

Oh man, I've been resisting the urge to google those words since I bought these beans earlier this week. Mostly because I'm slightly afraid of what the search results it might bring back.

Now that I've gone there, I don't really want to eat them. Let's not talk about this anymore.

AND OMG, stop staring at the coffee splashes on the side of my fridge. STOP IT.

I don't have time for stuff like coffee stains people -- please stop whispering about my dirty fridge. Details like random splashes went the way of the dodo when my loins came to fruition and something like three year old coffee stains on an appliance I don't even own does not rank high on my "things I must do sometime in the near future" list.  Actually that list doesn't even exist. Instead of a list of things-to-do, I have been trying out the "random scrawls on scraps of paper in the purse" methodology (RSOSOPITP) and so far I've had mixed results with RSOSOPITP. I'd tell you the exact results but I can't locate them right now because there somewhere at the bottom of my purse.

Anyhow, I'm over at Canada Moms Blog today talking about butts and I cannot lie: it makes me want to die of embarrassment.

And yes, I'm still screaming LET THEM EAT RICE like Marie Antoinette on a diet -- and I'll be doing that until next Tuesday.

Now pass me my purse because I have no idea what to do next. Be careful, that clinking sound is mommy's little helper in convenient travel-size.

panning for old

Lately each time I sit down to write, instead of cranking out a somewhat complete story of katie yore, it's been a pile of trigger-induced randomness that makes a whole lot of no-sense except to me. And then sometimes not even.

Now because I'm extremely kind, I've spared you any uber-silliness of random thoughts that are as f'd up as pigs in space. Though holy crow, I really miss Pigs in Space. Mind you Veterinarian's Hospital also brings back fond memories of televisions with dials and the notion that remote controls were something out of a James Bond movie. Have I mentioned that lately I find it slightly disturbing that I can remember the days before bank machines, remotes for televisions, and sweet baby Jesus, I remember the days before Betamax and VHS. I may have even had my first date before those items became the every day norm and I think I'm going to have a panic attack now.

Speaking of attack, I had my tunes cranked the other day and I forgot how easy it is to get lost in Massive Attack. How my fancy got hardcore tickled when I blindly chose the movie Go at the theatre one night.  Not only did the show give me a dead sexy Timothy Olyphant and Taye Diggs, it changed my mind about present day zombie girl Katie Holmes, all wrapped up in a tickity-boo soundtrack. That film is definitely on my top ten list. Which one, I'm not sure, but it's on one of my top ten lists most certainly. Probably the one that also has Very Bad Things. Yeah, I liked that movie and I'll admit it.

Oh and my official first date was to the movies. This is Spinal Tap. I remember being very confused because I wasn't sure if it was really a documentary or not (if you really think I thought it was real, tsk, tsk, I just play dumb online)(I have a bumper sticker on my back that says "my other job is neurosurgeon")

Hey, my daughter's current number one musical request these days is Yeah Yeah Yeahs Zero. She knows the words because she was singing along full blast today. Or at least I think she knows the words. I come from a long line of "excuse me while I kiss this guy" kind of folks and I'm kind of hoping she didn't inherit my talent to butcher lyrics or teeth for that matter.

Not that I butcher teeth, I just have bad ones and I hope my daughter hasn't inherited them. Did you ever see that episode of The Simpsons when Lisa needs braces and the dentist shows her the Big Book of British Smiles? Yeah, I'm stopping the free association theme right here before I scare everyone away.

Flexing the atrophed blog muscle is more painful than initially expected.  Next up: magnets for weirdness ~ anyone able to relate?

talking points on pulp products

It seems that this keyboard is trying to shut me up. Each time I reach for it to pound out a personal post, it fails me. Yah, I'm blaming the keyboard and my misplaced thesaurus.

But that said, it doesn't mean I haven't got anything to say. It's just the words aren't falling into place. I blame global warming.

Anyhow, this morning my daughter decided she was going to use some of the tissue boxes in the recycling bin to make cozy little beds for some of her toys. Which is all fine and dandy except she decided that the two reclaimed tissue containers weren't enough so she proceeded to open up and remove all the tissues in ALL the new boxes of snot rags from the jumbo palette of boxes I purchased at some mega-store earlier this cold season. Holy run on sentence and...

*head hits keyboard*

Of course if I hadn't been so selfish as to leave her playing quietly in the room while I went on bathroom break, this wouldn't have happened. My bodily functions are so freakin' selfish. I'm thinking of having myself corked.

Anyhow, speaking of purchasing mass quantities of paper products (my broken post, my broken segue) yesterday I was talking with mamatulip about finding used bandages in unexpected places and she asked me to share a story. While we were talking used bandages, I was reminded of a story involving mass quantities of pulp (you may, hopefully will, understand why I thought of this story later on). Years ago when I still lived in Halifax, the local drug store had a huge sale on toilet paper and nothing appeals more to my inner cheap bastard than toilet paper on sale. How I wish that last sentence fragment wasn't actually true.

So yes, there was massive sale on shit-tickets and I went to the store to load up. Because two things are for certain in my life: I need TP and I'm gonna die. Screw taxes. Though if I get corked, I guess I won't need to get so freakin' excited about TP on sale...

YES BUT NOT POINT OF STORY (I warned you this was messy - but not as messy as say, when one forgets to purchase TP):

So I tumbled out of the store trying to negotiate staying upright with bags and bags of discount TP and ran smack into Kelsey Grammer. Literally. I knocked the man to the ground with my huge bags of shit tickets. He must have some Canadian blood in him because he apologized to me and continued down the street. Or he assumed I was indeed a mad woman and figured that was the safest exit strategy. Which it was.

*fin*

EPILOGUE: the next evening I was in a diner eating some moussaka with this really strange but stunningly good looking woman who I always kept at arms length because she was really REALLY intense, when in mid bite I felt like someone was watching me. And there was.  It was Kelsey Grammer standing in the window staring at my meal. He was admiring my plate and probably didn't recognize me because I wasn't carrying 96 rolls of toilet paper at one time. Because for the record, that's how many I did buy. Also for the record, the moussaka was really kick-ass tasty.

But that's NOT the story mamatulip wanted me to share, she wanted the one about the used bandage found in pizza as I stated in my comment on her post but you see, because my brain is filled with tickle associations, I categorized that story under brushes with celebs and somehow that Kelsey Grammer story ranks number one and outranks my soiled bandage served by a famous person story. Not sure why, but it does.

So yes, my dirty used bandage story is quick: Aged fifteen motherbumper goes to her favourite cafe to buy a pot of tea - because a pot of tea lasts the longest and she could sit there and chain smoke with her friends without worrying about being asked to leave by the management. On this particular day, she noticed the cafe had their yummy homemade pizza and she obviously had an extra few dollars in the pocket because she decided to buy a slice. And who served it up? Sarah McLaughlan. Motherbumper ate the pizza and when she got to the last few bites noticed that the last slice of pepperoni wasn't pepperoni but a sauce and cheese covered bandage. End of story.

For the record: pizza was still yummy and it wasn't Sarah's bandage. It was also years before either of us were famous.

See? that could have been an exciting story (not really) but this keyboard is failing me.

ANYHOW I was also going to talk about some new projects that have me hyper excited but I'm just worried they will sound less exciting because I obviously made the wrong sacrfices to the blogging goddesses this month and have lost what little ability I had to communicate online:

FIRST ~ Sweet Blog: with the magic of the lady behind Sweetney / MamaPop fame and with the design prowess of Mommy Melee we will take your blog to an entire new level of coolness. Seriously, we will rock you.

SECOND ~ Canada Moms Blogs: still in beta but rocking likes it's alpha. Still adding new writers all the time and will be official and stuff anyday now but go over and peak because HELLO _ AWESOME CONTENT! Once again, we will, we will rock you.

Okay, I'd better sign off now before they come to cut out my tongue.

~ image: flickr KateMonkey ~

This Horton does not help the Who

Insects. Arthropods. Ephemeral little fuckers. I have this completely over the top reaction to motherf**kin' bugs. It's not that when I think about them I get particularly squeamish or anything, I'm actually really brave in my head (exception: these guys and these guys, just googling these images made my hands fly off the keyboard when landing on that page.) But when I actually see a bug that is larger than say, a fleck of dust, I wig out. My Horton would not have helped that Who. When I set my eyes on something bug-like, I suffer a full body paralysis and I'm rendered helpless. How to rob me? Just throw a beetle in my direction and then grab my wallet - odds are, I will tell the police it was the beetle and cry to the point where everyone will be very uncomfortable in the room. I'm really good at doing that.

In fact, it's a rare occasion when I've been able to overcome this bug paralysis to snuff out the intruder - so rare that I can't actually think of a time it's happened - but I'm sure it has (well, I hope it has.) When I'm not rendered completely dysfunctional due to bug exposure, my only other reaction is to do what I term the "Scoobie-Doo run", where I actually run on the spot in mid air before disappearing over the horizon in an inexplicable cloud of dust.

While visiting friends in Korea they told me about this daily visitor they encountered and christened the "shit bug." He often entered through the screenless washroom window to land near whoever was occupying the throne and made a loud alien chittering noise. I lived in fear of meeting this bug and each time I went into their washroom, I made sure to be a quick as humanly possible. Let's just say I didn't skip my fibre while staying with them, for fear of extended visits to the throne room. Oh great, now I have Sade stuck in my head. Not that that song is about pooping (is it? She does say minimal waste, maximum joy). OK, I'm totally getting off track.

Anyhow, the shit bug got me but not in the washroom. I was sitting out in the living room when I saw what I thought was a sparrow fly in the window. It went once around the room and landed smack next to my head. With a thud. And I swear on a stack of bibles, it was the size of my hand and if you have ever seen the movie Starship Troopers (one of my all time favorites - hey, don't judge me), it looked EXACTLY like the BUGS.

Exactly. I swear.

And my friend said that I actually jumped up, and while suspended in air, ran like my name was Shaggy, and I had just seen The Stone Creature and The Ghost of Katazoma in episode two of season one of The Scooby-Doo Show called "The Fiesta Host Is an Aztec Ghost". What? You don't remember that episode. Well apparently I ran without the benefit of traction and that was the last time I sat in their living room without wearing a bug suit and carrying one of these:

What? You don't want to read about my bug phobia? You just want to know where I get off not posting for eons. Hell, I bet you don't even remember who I am it's been so long since I've posted. You are probably saying "who is this and how did she get in my reader?". Or not.

Yah, well... I will explain why.

Later.

Maybe.

Anyhow, nice to see you all, I'm just working in the motherbumper blogging muscles after an extended leave and I have a fear of over-extending myself. So I'll stop right about...here.

call of the bliss

A mercifully short post (a reprieve from the one below) just asking one quick question: Who's all headed to Blissdom in February?  I need to know who I can hit up for drinks.  Also, I need directions to the Grand Ole Opry, the nearest Target, and Cracker Barrel.  And I'm serious about the last two.

not the post I lost earlier today*

* The title refers to the fact that I wrote a completely different post earlier today but it's gone.  I started it offline and then, like a tool, I finished it online, pressed publish, and Blogger promptly ate it. And I'm sure it tasted great with that side of fava beans and nice chianti you freakin' cannibal of a platform.  So instead, I present you with a completely different post that bares no resemblance to the highly probable oscar winning screenplay of a post that is currently somewhere in the pits of hell known as the error log on Blogger.  This one has been screaming to get out for a few days, so I unleash it, raw and all crazy-like.  Blame Blogger if you don't like it.

Remember back before we all had a mobile phone implanted in our head and used the interwebz to communicate every single brain fart 24/7?  Now we twitter when we pass gas in hopes that it amuses the masses.  What... that's just me? Well that's embarrassing.

Anyhow, do you remember when a PDA was something that made you uncomfortable if it was overused in public by friends - or worse, by strangers on the bus?  These days a PDA just provides amusement or frustration.  Like when you see some wired idiot chick walk into a lamppost because she was all caught up in twitting that she just grabbed grande caffe latte from the rudest little punk ever, and she needs to share it with the world.  Because I never do anything like that anymore, I don't think my plastic surgeon could save me again.  Or worse - when you see a caregiver on the playground answering something on their device that is way more important than stopping little Johnny from thumping all the other kids on the head because he's so desperate for attention, he'll do anything to get it.

We are so instantaneous these days, I find it kind of funny remembering the excitement I could barely contain the Christmas Day I received an answering machine, one that used  a microcassette *ooh ahhh cool 80s technology*.  I could leave the house and not miss my calls! WE WERE GETTING SO CLOSE TO THE SPACE 1999 ERA,  I could feel it in my the seat of my acid washed jeans.

Not sure why I have to say this but for the record, I actually never owned anything acid washed.

We now live in an era where you if you want to be found, you can be which is something I'm very thankful didn't exist when I was in my twenties.  GPS back than was probably just a STD.

Anyhow, when I was scraping the recesses of my poor overtired brain, trying to remember the details of the apartment from the Truffle post, I for no particular reason, suddenly remembered a weird incident that was creepy and pathetic.  And it made me think about how it would have panned out in this day and age of rocket ships, robot vacuums, and tiny portable telephone machines.

So begins my next rambling story:

After surviving the aforementioned small demented historical group of Katie's roommates from hell, I moved into a place on my own.  I lived in that same tiny split level studio for many years and loved having my space - albeit teeny tiny - to myself.  Though during times of extra creepiness, like the story soon to follow, it would have been nice to have someone around.  Thank goodness for security buildings is all I can say.

At that time, I had a friend, who I will call Carver for no other reason than I like the name, and he was from a super large family.  Carver had over twenty siblings, and being one of the youngest, he often hung out with his nephews that were older than him or the same age.  The ones I met, lived in the same tiny town and they loved to visit their big city Uncle.  Some would come down for weekends to party and every so often, I'd join in on the fun.  Well evidently, one of his nephews, who I will call Blaine, took a shining to me and decided he was going to try and woo me.

So one weekend, he came down from his rural home to get him a mountain bride take a chance at me.  It happened to be the same weekend I had decided to go camping with some friends.  When we went camping, we did back country, involving lots of portaging and walking ridiculous distances to be rewarded with kick ass nature, both stunning and painful. Worth every damn bug bite.  So I was gone probably four days, and when I returned I was pleased to see the blinking message light. Then I realized I had fourteen messages. That couldn't be good.

I remember thinking "who is this?" when I listened to the first message, which went something like this:

"Hi... it's Blaine... I'm in town this weekend... I was wondering if you wanted to catch a movie this afternoon... I'll try calling you back in an hour..."

Then the next message:

"Hi, it's Blaine again. Remember me? I'm Carver's nephew and I thought maybe we could catch that movie. I'll try back in an hour...."

Then:

"Hey, it's me again, I'm just across from your place and thought I'd try while I was passing by... I'll try again in an hour..."

Then

 "I'm at the theatre, I bought two tickets so I'll just wait out front here, that way we don't need to wait in line"

Then:

"Hey there, I wonder where you are? I wish you'd answer..."

Then:
"Look, I've called a bunch of times, why aren't you answering your phone? Where are you?"

This went for the rest of the messages, he was sounding pretty ticked, and way more than a little stalkerish.  Basically these calls spanned more than a twelve hour period.  Which is pretty damn wacky doodle.  And totally qualifiies as creepy in my books.  Plus, how the hell did he know where I lived?

I remember being stunned and totally freaked out.  Like someone was watching me and ohmyholyfing I need a knife.  Calling Carver was the next thing I did. He didn't even know his nephew was in town that weekend and he was super apologetic when I calmly told him what I had just listened to.  I specifically remember I couldn't believe how calm I was, because I also felt like screaming at him and letting all my terrified anger out on him.  But instead, despite feeling stunned, I calmly - in an almost threatening tone - told him that if I ever heard from Blaine ever again, in any way - ever - period - I would do something about it.

What exactly I would do, I had no idea, but I was really into Sam Peckinpah movies at that time.  My imagination probably ran wild.

And of course I know I shouldn't joke, but that is how I deal with things. And I'd be lying if I said this was the only time this happened to me, or was even the most threatening.   Regardless, I was completely creeped out and really pissed off. Pissed off because when crap like this happens, it's threatening - there's always that "what if I end up the story of the week on Dateline?"  Pissed off because "How freakin' dare he go all creep on my answering machine?"  Pissed off because how dare he make me think twice before answering the phone (because Hello, call display was still a rare feature on phones back in the olden days).

I was tempted to change my number after that but somehow I was pretty sure he'd never call again.  And I was right, he never did call again as far as I know.

But when I thought of this story recently, I wondered how that would have panned out in present day.  You know if I was twenty something now, I would have had a cell phone glued to my ear, and that makes me wonder if he would have been able to be all creepy to me more.  Somedays I hate being so accessible and in truth, I rarely turn on my phone.  In fact, I have no idea where my phone is right now.  And honestly, somedays I wonder if it was incidents like this, that made me hate the phone so much.

I dunno, this was a ramble down memory lane that made me wonder... anyone else have a similiar story?  Lots of freaks out there.  And for once, I'm not talking about me (or you).

breakfast of truffles

When I was twenty, I lived right next door to a very busy diner.  It was one of those classic greasy spoons filled with formica table booths, vinyl seats repaired with large weaves of duct tape, and a team of waitresses in matching uniforms the colour of baby poo.  I think they also may have worn those paper hats and had ruffled hankies pinned like a peacock tail behind their name tag, drawing more attention to the bustline than the stretchy polyester ever did - but that detail may be window dressing, care of my brain.  If they didn't have the hats and decorated busoms, they should have.  Trust me, it would have completed their outfits in ways that a coordinating handbag never could.

In the front of the restaurant was a row of stout vinyl stools along a counter where patrons could drink bottomless cups of coffee.  It was coffee brewed to a point that could only be referred to "chewy" if speaking in the positive.  There was also a large front window, greasy more than transparent, framed with curtains that never moved, and accented with wall-to-wall spider plants hanging on chains painted gold for extra class.  A real five-star place.

All I can remember about the menu is breakfast was cheap and the poutine was acceptable in a pinch.  The men who worked the grill looked the type that would say "No Coke. Pepsi" if you asked for a variation from their "speciality".  And if you get that dinosaur of a reference, you're my generation baby.  But that is neither here nor there because it was the diner that revisited me recently and not the oily men in hairnets or waitresses with heaving unibusoms.

I lived in a third floor walk up in a renovated row house.  The apartment was large, had a deep bathtub with claws (that was the clincher for the rental), and built in wall cabinets with glass doors.  My room was in the front, overlooking a busy street, and whenever the pizza delivery man pulled up to collect his next order from the joint across the way, the thumping of his techno music made my window rattle in protest.  My windows did not like his particular choice of fat beat, she preferred Nirvana.

That's all I remember about that particular apartment - well that and a roommate who was the first in a small, demented historical group of my roommates from hell.  She was the Hedy to my Allie a la SWF.  But she will be part of a future post, not this one.

Anyhow, I worked retail back then, so my mornings rarely started before nine.

*let there be a moment of silence for the days where I considered waking up before 9am a travesty and miscarriage of justice*

Once a week I would be startled and roused up at the unearthly hour of five a.m. by a loud truck pulling up in front of the diner.  Two men would jump out of the back of an open-back truck that looked like it was built from rust, gum, and popsicle sticks.  They would loudly roll out two huge empty metal barrels - without any consideration for my sleep - into the alley behind the diner.

BANG bang bang bang THUD.... roooooooooooooooool thud
BANG bang bang bang THUD.... roooooooooooooooool thud

And then, using a dolly, they would pull out of the alley two capped barrels.  They would grunt, swear, then grunt some more, swear some more, and eventually get these two obviously heavy barrels into the back of the truck.  Then one of the men would slap the roof of the cab to get driver's attention. He would spark the sparkless engine and off they would go.  Standing in the back among a group of like barrels.

Always at five a.m.. Always two barrels.

Being a city gal my entire existence, leading a charmed sheltered life, I had no idea what was in those barrels.  Nor did I care.  I only cared that these yahoos disturbed my precious precious sleep.  Something I still whine about to this day.

But one day, or should I say night... no, it was more like a night that morphed into a day, like it does, but without the benefit of my sleeping... I found out what was in the barrels.

It was a late night of partying, a night so long and prolific, cab fare was spent at an after-hours club - because a walk home seemed like a really good idea as a forked over my last five bucks for a double rum and coke.  A few of my party friends lived in the same 'hood, so we did the walk to sobriety together.

As we rounded the corner to my apartment, I saw that 5 a.m. truck coming up the street.  Waving my friends goodbye, I stood by the door to find out exactly what these men ferried in the barrels - even though up to this point, I didn't care.  Maybe I was feeling ballsy enough to tell them to be more considerate of my sleep, you know, being fueled with liquid courage as they say, but more than likely I saw this as an opportunity to learn exactly what was going on.  My intentions are always that pure, I'll have you know.  Anyhow, I stood in the doorway to my place, key in hand, trying to look casual and hoping I didn't sway too much as they pulled up to the curb.

And that's when it hit me.

The stench.

A stench akin to rotting flesh mixed with eau du the bottom of my locker which was always crammed with the rotting shitty lunches my Mom made (sorry Mom) is about as close as I can get to describing what eminated from this truck as it pulled up.

I couldn't stick around.  I fumbled with my key, trying to cease the need to inhale, and barely made it into the stairwell.  It was a rare weekday off and as I stumbed into bed, I heard the thump of a hand on the cab roof, and away they drove - without a doubt leaving their distinct perfume to hang in the air.

Not having a clue as to what these men were doing and why they smelled like that, I did what I always do when mystified - I asked my Dad.  Screw encyclopaedias - my Dad knows almost everything.  And of course, he knew.  They were pig farmers picking up slop.

So you ask, why tell this ever so exciting flashback from the annals of my mind?  I say "why not?"

Oh and recently I found a bag in my daughter's school backpack - a knotted plastic bag from the grocery store that had something wet inside.  When I opened it up, for a split second I was once again standing on that street, inhaling the stench of the pig farmer's slop in barrels - albeit on a small scale.  A small pair of three days wet underwear, left to ferment in plastic and pee had taken me on that trip back in time.

Ain't life grand?

nip and tug

Last week on my blog roll call post, catnip inspired me to do what I hope is a great idea for my new blogroll.  Instead of a sidebar blogroll, I'm making the blog roll a post (as opposed to a page - because Blogger is too uncoordinated to include pages in the template - cheap bastards - and when I say cheap bastards I'm referring to myself in the plural because I'm too damn cheap to pay for a premium platform, so a blog roll post it is... and whoops, that would be the first tangent of 2009 folks, I'll get us back on track).

So yes, I will create a blogroll post AND update it on a regular basis so that the technorati love keeps giving and giving and giving and giving and we all get the recognition we deserve in the blogosphere.  And then we will all get free chocolate and autographed pictures of David Hasselhoff because I understand that's what happens when your ranking goes up.

Oh and when I say catnip, I mean the blogger catnip, not the weed my cats roll and smoka man, because if I'm going to do drugs, it's not going to be something as cheap as catnip - take my word on that.  Cats are notorious for selecting cheap & weak drugs to abuse but being control freaks AND cheap, they like to only ACT stoned, not actually BE stoned.  Cats are a strange and thrifty species.  But that's a post topic to tackle another day.

Today, I'm going to tackle the term "mommy blogger".  Do you like that term and do you apply it to your posty self?  Personally the term makes me squirm and my gut-reaction is to say "no, I don't like it".  But why do I dislike the term?  I'm a mommy (well... technically, I'm a momma because I'm raising a young Tennessee Williams) and I'm a blogger, so logically, I should be a mommy blogger and proud to wear the moniker.

But I'm not exactly comfortable with it and I'm not exactly sure why.  For the record, I also hate the term cougar which was a term my friends wore with some kind of warped pride back when we were all single and thirty-somethings and once again, it made me squirm.  It's not that I don't like cougars, it just seems so confining to define yourself by one small aspect of your life.  Unless of course you are a professional cougar who lives, eats, and breathes young men and crave their life blood.  For that, I can get calling yourself a cougar.

I think most of my uncomfortable feelings stem from resistance to being pigeon-holed.  Wow, saying "being pigeon-holed" sounds vague nasty and something that would cost a lot to have done extra *wink wink nudge nudge*.  Also possibly something PETA would get on your case about.  ANYHOW I'm more than a mommy and I write about things that are not mommy, yet I'm pretty damn sure I fall into the category of mommy blogger.  And there is nothing "wrong" with that (implying there is a "right" which I don't want to do so that's why I'm abusing the quotes).

Let's see:  I have cute (imo) pictures of my kid on my blog and I talk about how she outsmarts me on a fairly regular basis, but I still consider the mommy part as only one aspect of my blog, not my defining standard.  I have always thought I blogged about life in general and the fact that I am also a parent plays a part mostly because I work from home.

Plus I cannot forget how much I write about my insanity - perhaps I even write more about my insanity than getting outsmarted by a preschooler.  So maybe I should be a unstable blogger - now there is a label I can wear with pride.

But to be fair, I only started blogging because I became a parent so again I revisit the mommy label.  Would I feel better if I was called a parent blogger?  Possibly.  Mommy does scream I have a v*gina and I don't like to be defined by my sex.  Le Sigh.  Why can't I just be a life blogger?

So how do you feel about the term mommy blogger?  Meh?  Love it? Embrace it? Hate it?  Discuss.  I'll sit back and read the comments while eating my cheetos and gossip trolling for Binkywood.  Though if I don't get any comments, I'll assume no one cares.  It's probably been discussed to death elsewhere at another time and I'm just late to the party that I didn't even realize had been thrown.

In other news: have you read the roast of Tanis, The Redneck Mommy?  You may have heard of her before... on CNN or in mug shots on the wall of your local post office.  Her online roast started today over at Cynical Dad and trust me, that lady had it coming - this is what she gets for having such an amazing rack and using her powers for both good and evil.  So go read Part I, though in my opinion, Part III will be the best because that's where my contribution will be found*.  Don't worry, I'll linky love it when it's posted.  So what better way to spend a Monday than roasting another blogger, especially one as je-ne-sais-quoi as Tanis.  Now go on and get BUT after you tell me if your thoughts the term mommyblogger.

* totally kidding - totally totally kidding, the other roasters rule

roll call

I wrote this last night but never finished it... but I'll leave it in it's virginal state because I love to use the word virginal in relation to something I produced and I'm too lazy to go through and correct it - so pretend it's last night, m'kay, and everyone will get out alive.


So I think I muttered something about possible resolutions for this new year thing in my last post, ones that won't instantly turn to dust.  Speaking of dust, I just watched The Golden Compass (not Gilden) and if you've seen the movie or read the book, you get the dust reference.  If you haven't seen it, it was meh so I guess it really was Gilden.

Yes so it's New Year's Day, and so far my list of resolutions includes:

• floss daily

And that's pretty much it.  So I've got about an hour and forty-five minutes before that one fails and shit, I don't even know if I've got floss in the house.

I can't help it, with this distraction and all.  We got iTunes gift certificates and I'm rebuilding my 90s and early millennia with missing singles and CDs.  The ones that were borrowed and never returned, lifted when throwing house parties, lost with the relationships - the ones thrown from car windows along with a lot of tears and swear words - and smokes.  These are the ones that over the years have been unexpectedly heard again on the airwaves, usually prefaced with the word retro, and always made me say "I've got to get that one again" prior to drifting into a mind-blowing memory, rife with potential for tangents.  Those are the best kind of trips down memory lane - the ones with soundtracks.  Today it was The Charlatans and I'll leave it at that.

Anyhow, this brings me to a small request.  On my list of things to do before oh-eight ended was a template cleanse which is nothing like a body detox but I'll use the silly analogy anyway.  So when I slimmed down the sidebars and shoved them into a new pair of skinny jeans with lots of muffin top flowing in all unharnessed directions - a muffin top that I'm hiding with a cleverly draped t-shirt - I lost some stuff.  One of those things was my blogroll.

So I have decided on another resolution for 2009, one too accompany the massaging of mah bloody gums, and one with potential for success: I will build a new blogroll and this post will serve as an open roll call.  If I've never seen you before, I may debate the linkage but I'm nice so don't be scared of that disclaimer.

So basically: leave me your linkage, and I will more than likely provide some technorati love for 2009.  But no commercial ventures please - just personal blogs.  Discretion is up to me baby.

from the Hunter S. Thompson Motivational Poster collection

And I've decided to live my life according to Hunter S. Thompson: so free drugs to everyone who learns to really relax.  Not sure who's supplying the drugs, and those drugs might be Motrin or Beano, but it's free drugs that are free but not drug-free, so stop complaining would ya'.

Oh and I found some floss last night so when it comes to keeping my resolution, I'm right on target.  YEE HAW.