How My Mother Ruined My Life (Part 3 Of 7,000,000,000)

If I have a twisted, awful sense of humour (I don't, but occasional, misinformed people THINK I do), then the blame lies solely at the feet of my mother. Please talk to her about it.

My mom is hysterical. She is quick to laugh, and when something strikes her as funny, she will giggle about it for years. I can still bring her to near tears just by MENTIONING the scene with the bracelet in Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin's "Big Business". No joke. Those of you who know her should try it. I think it makes her pee.

Lest anyone think the reason I love to publicly humiliate my family is that I am a cruel and unjust person, it is not. It is because I have been trained and conditioned my entire life to do so.

Remember how, when you were sixteen, your entire family was awful and they all looked funny and said stupid things? And you wanted nothing more than for them to fall off the edge of the planet so you could go live in a dorm like one of the cast of 'Facts of Life'? Most parents are bothered by this snotty attitude in their teenagers. My own mother saw it as a challenge.

I was in the line up at the Bank of Montreal one day (remember back when your McJob paid you by actual, physical paper cheque and you had to give it to an actual, physical human so they could put it in your account and you would then withdraw ten dollars in cash in order to pay your $4 to get into Nightmare on Elm Street? I miss those days.)

(No, I don't. I'm lazy. I like these days.)

(Except the part about the $4 movie. I miss THOSE days.)....

Anyway. The lineup.

There I was, all dressed up in my acid-washed, 20-inch waist Bluenotes, my perfectly fitted baggy Cotton Ginny sweatshirt (with matching scrunch socks, thank you), hair tortuously teased, hairsprayed bangs standing straight up from my skull (then flopping over in an effortless (HAH!) feather), hoping for all the world that the other people in the bank had noticed my flawless Cover Girl skin and smelled my Body Shop strawberry  perfume oil and wished they could be just like me; when in came my sister.

Mom had driven me to the bank, and my sister had come with her for some reason or another. Mom had been in a giddy mood all afternoon and I should have known that to leave her in the car was to invite disaster.

My sister came flying in through the doors of the bank, dressed in what she and mom had decided was the perfect foil to my anal-retentive, obsessively planned preppie outfit.

The bright pink plastic rain bonnet (freshly yanked out of the glove box JUST for this purpose) fitted her head perfectly, bow knotted at a jaunty angle under her chin.

The sunglasses fit her face to a T, shading not only her eyes, but both sides of her head (with those giant old-lady-sunglasses-side panels). The sun would not blind her ears today, no sir!

Her shirt was inside out.

She was dancing.

She was jingling about 300 cents in pennies in her hands, and shrieking at the top of her lungs,

"Mommy says if I ask nicely, you will put all my money in the bank!!!!!!!!! Will you? Will you? Will you? Will you? Will you?Will you Willyouwillyouwillyouwillyou????? If you want, I can go out and find some more under the car seat! Then you can buy that expensive acne cream!!!!"

I died. Every customer in the bank burst out into hysterical laughter, and the rotten 14-year old skipped (yes, REALLY skipped) out the door, cackling with glee, leaving me standing in the bank, wallowing in my humiliation, seething.

My mother paid her $5 to do it.

I did my banking and went back out to the car. Mom was hysterical, tears literally STREAMING down her face. She was laughing so hard she was no longer producing noise, just a strangled wheeze. It took her 10 minutes to be able to drive again. After a while, I couldn't help but join in. Come on. That's just funny. I would have loved to have seen the look on my face.

To this day, I have the rare, wonderful ability to laugh at myself. It's a great thing to be able to do. It means I can enjoy life, and see the lighter side of nearly every situation (including some for which there is no appropriate lighter side. I apologise a lot for those ones.). It's probably the greatest single thing my mother instilled in me.

So, my sweet children, the next time I force you to dance with me at a school dance, or tell an entire wedding party the story of you peeing on your auntie's new carpet, remember this:

Every time I make you blush, you are becoming a better person. I do it all for you.

And if you believe that, I have a rain bonnet I want to sell you...

Why Camping Rules

We were over at Jamie and Shawn's tonight, with Lana and Erik and all the kids, doing our 'One-Week-Till-Easter Dinner', and the subject of camping came up.

As we near another camping season, and try to decide where we want to go as a group this year, the talk naturally turned towards previous camping trips, and we were flooded with memories.

The year Squid was born, we decided to take our annual camping trip in Parson, BC. The weather would be gorgeous, the scenery would be beautiful, and it had the added bonus of not being too far from home (it wasn't till later, when we realised that Squiddy was a ticking time bomb, that we started to add 'close to major trauma centers' to our list of requirements....)

Although Jamie and Shawn had bought a motorhome, Jason and I had not yet graduated from a tent, and Lana and Erik were still camping in a cozy little freshly painted tent trailer.

Our tent was great. We could sleep all 4 of us in a row, and still had room for Squid's playpen next to us. We could probably still fit all of us in that tent, even with the big kids having grown and adding Eva to the clan, but it died an unfortunate death at the end of one of the quickest September Long trips we've ever taken. But I'm sure that will come up in a future blog.

The only down side to a tent (aside from the fact that there is no heat, no bathroom, you're sleeping on the ground, and the condensation in the mornings might hit the high-water mark left by the last great flood) is that fabric walls are not the best defence against wildlife. But I planned for that. I married Jason. One look at his big, burly body doing the peepee dance in the morning scares away pretty much every living creature on God's green earth.

When we picked the campsite, we took into account that we would be right next to the Columbia River, and that wildlife may become an issue. We planned carefully. We bought bear bells for the kids (the added bonus being that never once did we actually have to STAND UP to find them when they wandered away), we packed our food away every night, and I was careful not to wear my prey-scented perfume.

Jason and I were the first ones to arrive, and as we drove through Parson to the campground, we caught a glimpse of the liquor store (which we knew we would have to visit at least once, as our 2 huge coolers were stuffed with stupid things like food and juice).

If Jason Voorhees ran a liquor store, this would be it. The shingles were peeling from the roof, and the siding was falling off the building. One window was boarded over, and there was an abandoned car out front and two more in the back. Somehow, the flashing 'Open' sign on the one unbroken window was not overly reassuring.

"Do you wanna stop?" I asked Jason.

And he, who usually isn't bothered by my flights of fancy, took one look as we sped past and muttered,

"Nope. I've seen that movie. I know how it ends."

Not an auspicious beginning.

Once we had set up camp that first day, we sat back and looked around. This place was awesome! We would be there 10 days, so the laundry room was a plus. There were ponds and streams for Jason and the kids to fish in, a relatively clean swimming hole with a culvert perfect for jumping off of, and the campsite was huge. I checked out the washrooms, and they were spotless. Perfectly clean and well tended, and the smell of lemon cleanser was strong enough to make your eyes water. There was a cute little guest book on the counter, and the couple who ran the place had even taken the time (I assume it was her, not him) to sew little curtains for the front of the sinks so no one would have to look at unsightly plumbing while washing all the vacation off their faces. We set up our tent and assorted other gear, and sat back, waiting for rest and relaxation to overtake us.

And afternoon hit.

Apparently, the people who ran the place preferred that people check in in the mornings, because they waited till afternoon to let the mosquitoes out of their cages.

At first, I thought a cloud had moved over the sun. Then I took a look at the sky, and a swarm of the buggers had blocked every visible patch of blue. I don't say 'little buggers' here, although that is normally how I refer to the things, but 'buggers'. That is because each mosquito was roughly the size of a sparrow. Not a little sparrow. A sparrow the size of an eagle.

They would hover over you as a group, and while one of them sparred with you to distract you, another 2 or 3 would start ripping chunks of meat from your back in an attempt to drain you dry. The only defence seemed to be to swing at them with a small child, but all our available children had taken shelter in the car.

We realised that our supply of bug spray wouldn't last the day. We also needed something more powerful than the Off Skintastic we had brought along. Remember when you would go backwoods camping as a child and your dad would pull out the bottle of straight Deet? You used one drop on each wrist (the top of the wrist, not the thin skin over your veins- that was stupid), one on your shirt (being careful not to drip on your shoes, because it would melt the rubber on your Keds), and not only would the bugs leave you alone, but squirrels dropped dead out of trees as you walked past? We needed that. And some mosquito coils. And a citronella bucket. Or thirty.

We drove back into Golden (giving us the opportunity to hit a less-terrifying liquor store, so that was a bonus), and found that although they no longer sell straight Deet (apparently it's dangerous, and has therefore been made illegal), we picked up a huge supply of mosquito-deterring lotions, creams, sprays, bracelets, coils and candles. As well as a giant supply of mosquito netting and some clothes pins. We worried they might take Squid when we weren't paying attention. He was only 8 months old, and although he was already walking, he couldn't run nearly fast enough to escape a coordinated attack.

After a full few days planning a strategic offence against the invading hordes of bloodsucking monsters, we thought we had things licked. Everyone else showed up on time, parked in a horseshoe shape with the communal firepit in the middle, and Jamie and Shawn set up their giant dining room/mosquito shelter right over top of the picnic tables. We learned to take refuge in there when the flying vampires came out (and to hide in the motorhome when the campground guy sprayed the place every morning- apparently the mosquitoes were a huge problem), and things seemed to be moving along swimmingly.

Then came the skunks.

Jason woke up early one morning, as he hadn't been able to sleep well, and left the tent to make coffee and go pee.

Turns out that skunks, like me, love nothing more than a late night snack. Turns out, that UNlike me, they prefer to do their post-midnight noshing on a nice, stinky disposable diaper full of poo. Turns out that they can also get into garbage cans. Turns out, Jason hadn't been able to sleep well because there was a food fight going on right outside our doorstep.

Apparently the last few days of skunk-free camping only happened because Squid's diapers were SO foul that the odor permeated the entire province, and the skunks needed to wait for the cloud to dissipate somewhat before they could pinpoint the location of the buffet.

They had stealthily waited till the campsite was quiet and all the inhabitants were asleep (which took some time, as we were all stocked up with liquor, and it takes a while to work your way through it), and under cover of night, began their raid.

I have no idea why the garbage can lid falling off the receptacle didn't wake any of us up (well, yeah, I DO, but you'd think one of the KIDS would have heard something, at least...). With absolute precision, they separated the poopy diapers from the merely pee-soaked diapers, and dug in. Flinging scraps of fecal matter and shreds of highly absorbent synthetic God-knows-what around the campsite, they found whatever it was they wanted to eat (we're still not sure what that was, because there was roughly 38,754 pounds of crap scattered around the campsite, so it may be that nothing got eaten, and it was just the skunk equivalent of a snowball fight), and, having had their fun, went on their merry way.

I heard Jason gagging after he got out of the tent, and much traveling back and forth around the campsite as he (I now know) cleaned up the poop and diaper scraps before anyone else exited their sleeping quarters. I don't know about any of you, but when you hear your husband gagging first thing in the morning on a camping trip, do you get up to help and see what's the matter? I don't. I don't care. If he has salmonella poisoning and is puking up his lungs and my assistance is required to get him to the hospital before he expires, he will come get me. Until then, as far as I am concerned, it's his problem. I birthed his children. That gives me a free pass. Forever.

That morning, after everyone had finished eating, we all got to hear the (exceedingly funny to us, but oddly, not to Jason) story of the diaper bandits, and a lesson was learned. We talked to the campground manager, and it turns out that skunks were a huge problem for him. He needed to clear them out every few weeks, and felt bad that he hadn't warned us. So we knew that henceforth, the poopy diapers  needed to go into a bag, then into another bag, then into the giant dumpster at the gate of the campground. Every time. It didn't matter if mommy was on her 35th bag of wine, and daddy was (still) trying to start the fire, that's where it went. I am only grateful that it was one of us that woke up, as I would feel awful having to make someone else clean up my family's poo. (Insert wild cackles of laughter here, as that did indeed happen later that day, but out of love and respect and a desire to maintain the friendship, I won't say WHICH family's poo, or describe the circumstances thereof. But as a public service, I would like to suggest to everyone out there that you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever camp downhill from someone else's sewer hookup without first making sure that everyone involved has checked and double checked that things are draining properly. Just saying.)

That night the bats showed up.

Lana and Erik's tent trailer had a white awning, which reflected the moonlight, the light from the campground office, blinking lights from orbiting satellites, and possibly the residual light from stars 8 billion years burned out. It was BRIGHT. And that, apparently, lures bats in to feed. All night, we heard them as they flapped around underneath the awning, ricocheting off the canvas of the tent trailer, and twanging into the ropes. Lana and Erik and Jason and myself were awake the entire time, but none of us could summon the energy required to get out of bed long enough to set up a light and take down the awning. Jamie and Shawn heard nothing. They had air conditioning in the motorhome. They slept like the dead.

Bastards.

We learned, though. The next day after dinner, when the sun went down, so did the awning. No one was overly upset about it. You live and you learn, and these were experiences we could take with us in life, and rely on for future camping trips. The campground guy mentioned later that there were tons of bats in the woods at night. But they weren't a huge problem, because they were scared of people.

That day, the kids found frogs at the swimming hole (in which they had ceased swimming, because there were leeches. Apparently, leeches were a huge problem out there) and spent the next 64 hours dropping them into the adults' empty cups when we weren't looking so that when we dragged ourselves up to get a drink, we were confronted with nasty, warty little creatures that leapt out into your face in an attempt to escape. We were all so shell-shocked that after the first few shrieks of terror, we were simply grateful that they weren't poisonous.

As we all went to bed on the second-to-last night of the trip, we looked forward to a good, solid night's sleep. The mosquitoes had been beaten (or at least, we had come to a mutually agreed upon temporary cease-fire), the skunk problem had been solved, the bat problem eliminated, the supply of frogs was dwindling, and a nice fresh mountain breeze had taken care of any other small issues that may or may not have arisen.

As I nestled my slightly-chilled-from-sitting-around-a-dying-campfire body into my sleeping bag, and began to drift off into sleep, I felt Jason tense suddenly beside me.

"What's up?" I asked, only to be interrupted by a hissed,

"Sssssh! Do you hear that???"

Lest you forget that I have issues with being scared of everything, everywhere, all the time, let me mention that the phrase just uttered by darling husband is never, EVER one I want to hear while sleeping in anything but a concrete bunker.

"Holy crap! WHAT????" I asked.

"Look."

I gingerly turned around in the direction my motionless husband was facing and looked out the (unfortunately unzipped to prevent condensation-related drowning deaths) tent window, and there, ringing the campsite in a perfect circle about 3 feet into the forest, were eyes. Pairs and pairs and pairs of eyes. I counted eleven without even having to turn my head.

"What IS that????? Skunks aren't that tall!!!!" I panic-whispered to Jason, who was desperately trying to remember anything he'd seen on the Discovery Channel about what animal stands with its head about 2 to 3 feet off the ground and what colour their eyeshine was in the dark.

"I know they aren't bears." he said, "Bears don't hunt in packs."

I almost died. My brain froze. I was trying to decide if Squid was less accessible to a cougar in the playpen in which he was sleeping, or whether I should take him out and shelter him with my body, and whether Isaiah and Liz were strong enough to fend off a night time attack by Siberian tigers, or whether we could scoop up the kids and make it to the safety of the car before the raging orangutans ripped off our limbs. I came up short on every count.

"At least close the tent window so they can't see how meaty we all are!" I gasped, "Make them WORK for it!"

"The bloody thing zips up from the outside." muttered Jason, "And I'd rather see where they are."

I was going to die. All those years of fretting about the bathrooms looking like the gates of hell and the bad man in the outhouse pit and Freddie and/or Micheal Myers and/or Reagan from 'The Exorcist' stalking me through the trees, and I was going to die at the hands of Bigfoot??? What the hell????

We perched there, for what seemed like hours, watching the ring of eyes as they closed in. Once or twice Jason would shout/hiss/whisper, and they would back off for a brief period of time, but they never left. And they always started to move in again. We finally realised that the only way to deal with the problem was for Jason and I to get up, grab the fire poking sticks, run around yelling, start the campfire again so that they couldn't sneak up on us comfortably, and remain reasonably vigilant for the rest of the night.

And just as we were about to crawl out of bed, we heard the handle on Lana and Erik's tent trailer door start to turn.

Thank. God.

Erik must have come to the same conclusion, and was coming out to deal with the problem. He had obviously picked up on the fact that Jason and I didn't want to accidentally show the animals where our tasty little kids could be found, and figured he would drive them away. We listened to him jump on the trailer steps, and move around the campsite, occasionally making a rush at one of the animals, and finally, blessedly, we fell into the most restful night's sleep we'd had since we got there.

When we woke up in the morning, we found a haggard, bloodshot, gaunt-looking Erik sitting alone at the picnic table, guzzling cup after cup of instant coffee.

We thanked him for getting up and dealing with the problem the night before and asked him what exactly the animals were.

"They were coyotes,"  he said, left eye twitching in a horrible, exhausted little dance, (in hindsight, this did make slightly more sense than it being a band of Komodo dragons, looking for someone upon whom to vent their pent-up rage.) "but that sound you heard wasn't ME getting up to deal with THEM. It was the sound of THEM trying to get into the tent railer. I think they were after the dog. We were up all night, one on guard on each end of the tent trailer, so they wouldn't eat the kids."

We spent the rest of the day listening to the shotgun as the campground manager tried to clear the coyotes off his land (having explained that they were a huge problem, and he had to hunt them every few months).

As camping trips go, it wasn't the worst one. No one needed to go to the hospital, and we left with the same number of kids we arrived with. But there were lessons learned.

Lana and Erik bought a trailer with walls.

We stopped allowing our babies to poop.

Nobody eats corn out camping anymore.

And we probably won't go back to Parson, BC.

Man, I miss camping!

Plug for The Canadian Cancer Society

OK, boys and girls! This June, Liz is once again going to be cutting all her hair off (leaving juuuuuuust enough for a fauxhawk this time) to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society!

For those of you who remember, when she did it when she was 9, she raised $3298.

We are hoping to beat that number this time around, and make an even bigger donation to a very good cause!!!

You can donate in cash, by email money transfer, by coming directly to Liz, Jason or myself, or online at: http://fundraiseforlife2012.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=492657&supid=355560506

If you're willing, we will even take the pennies from your car ashtray. No joke.

Come on, everyone! Let's do some good this spring!

The Down Side

There are lots of cool things about having kids. Today's post has nothing to do with any of them.

This is about the down side.

Kids are gross. They have very little control of their bodies, and as a result, much of what happens to their bodies gets splattered around for all the world to see.

Boogers run out of their noses. Hideous-smelling farts escape uncontrollably. Poop leaks out of the backs of their diapers. They pee in the tub. And they vomit.

Oh, man, the vomit.

My poor little Squiddie just got over a nasty stomach flu (only to be immediately followed up by croup, but that's neither here nor there.)

I spent all of Thursday night sitting up with him, either at his bedside with a bucket, or perched on the edge of the tub, rubbing his back as he ridded himself of every food he had eaten since the time of his birth. I always feel so bad for kids when they throw up. It's such a primal function, and there is nothing you can do or say to make it any less horrible. We tried giving him Pepto Bismol, but he couldn't keep it down for more than 5 minutes, so rather than continuing to replenish his digestive system with barfable substances, we gave up and decided to wait it out.

Finally, at about 6:30 Friday morning, the vomiting slowed down, then stopped (at which point Isaiah started to puke, but at least he was a little less labour-intensive than Squid, and all I had to do for him was call his school, fetch a glass of water and turn up the heat).

I ran out to Safeway and picked up about 32 bottles of ginger ale and some more Pepto, and when I got home, settled Squid onto the couch and Isaiah into his bed with nice glasses of flat, clear liquid, and spent the rest of the day on the couch with Eva, hoping I wouldn't get sick till after she did.

I was worried that Squid couldn't keep anything down, so I made sure he had a sip of ginger ale every 20 minutes or so, to keep him hydrated, and by about 3 that afternoon, when everything had stayed where it belonged, I started to feel brave.

First I gave him some Children's Tylenol to bring his fever down (which he chased with a bit more ginger ale because Tylenol tastes like 'fruit, but nasty fruit', and he needed to get it off his tongue), and after a few moments, let him go downstairs to play XBox.

He came up a while later when Jason got home from work, and asked if he could have a freezie, because he was still overheated and wanted something to eat. I figured he had last thrown up more than 8 hours ago, so a freezie couldn't hurt, grabbed him one, and sat him down on the couch to eat it.

I knew I had pushed my luck too far when the expression on his face changed suddenly and he sat bolt upright, screeching "Where's my bucket? Where's my bucket?" Ah, yes. Helpful bucket. I had been lulled into a false sense of security. It was downstairs, next to the XBox. All fresh and clean and lined with a plastic bag, and of absolutely no use to anyone.

I grabbed his hand, yanked him off the couch and started to sprint for the bathroom. I really, truly believed we could make it (but then, I also believe that saying the word 'snow' out loud in June will cause the inevitable to happen, so I am probably not a reliable predictor of future events). Right as we stepped off the area rug onto laminate floor (in retrospect, I guess I should be grateful that we had stepped off area rug onto laminate floor), he erupted. Since we were running and he was facing forward, the vomit naturally sprayed in our direction of travel, creating a giant puddle of blue-tinted ginger ale in our path.

Mother Nature had laid her little trap.

As he started to round the corner into the hallway, his bare feet skidded in the puddle of barf. He struggled, almost righted himself, and, just when I though we would make it, he went down, taking me with him.

He lay on his back in the pool of liquid sugar, head turned to the side as he continued to empty his stomach, while I (for a split second, but it seemed like days) debated my next course of action. Finally, I grabbed him under his (oh, so warm and sticky) armpits, hauled him up, and carried his still-vomiting little body to the bathroom, leaving a dripping river of happiness along our path.

Jason, who had (Miraculously??? Or on purpose??? You decide....) missed the entire event, was in the kitchen, and as I called him to come help me, I realised that Eva, who loves nothing more than to tag along behind Squid everywhere he goes, was on the verge of following our nasty little trail down the hallway. I ran back into the living room, picked her up (touching as little of her as possible), and handed her to Isaiah, who looked very much as though he was going to have to find a bucket himself. I ran upstairs and grabbed as many towels as I could without having to touch anything else in the linen closet, and while Jason sat with Squid (who was fine now, as the worst had already happened) on the bathroom floor, I started to clean up the mess.

Honestly, I was lucky. There were no identifiable chunks, designed to turn me off of food for 6 months, and the liquid was virtually clear and non-staining. I didn't even gag once. I cleaned everything up with the towels, mopped the floor with super hot water, and ran it all (including my clothes, as the hems of my pants were starting to stiffen) down to the washing machine and set it to 'Obliterate'.

Feeling as though that whole awful situation had been MUCH easier to deal with than I originally thought it would, I threw on another outfit, washed my hands (twenty or thirty times), checked on Jason, Isaiah, and Eva (who were hiding out in the kitchen), and walked into the living room.

And there, laying back down on my living room couch, crusty hair matting into a solid block of drying blue raspberry, head perched exhaustedly on a throw pillow, shirt and underwear soaked through and reeking of barf, covered with a (no longer) clean quilt, was my darling Squid.

Some days, the only thing keeping me sane is knowing that it will be REALLY funny later.

How My Mother Ruined My Life (Part 2 Of 7,000,000,000)

So, when my sister and I were little, we went through a phase where we would run around the house screaming "Fire! Fire! Fire!", because it was funny to watch everyone come running. This phase only lasted a week or so, because we got in major trouble for doing it. (Remember this.)

Mom is super crafty. When we were growing up, she crocheted, she hooked rugs, she painted plates with birds and flowers, and she did that weird thing where you curl the paper around a tiny metal hook and schmeared it with glue and made 3-dimensional landscapes and country scenes in a frame (she knows what it's called, but I'm pretty sure no one else does).

Anyway, because of her incredible talent for building something out of nothing, slapping it with a coat of lacquer, and producing a masterpiece, craft times as kids were pretty fun.

One day, as the afternoon wore on and mom had no idea what to do with me, we found there were no cool craft supplies in the house. So she had to fall back on the egg carton caterpillar- you know the one I'm talking about. If you've had kids and ever run out of fun stuff in that ugly hour between Lego and dinner, you've probably made one. Half an egg carton, a pipe cleaner, googly eyes and a few markers, and you're good to go.

So mom and I put this caterpillar together, and when we reached the end of our project, she realized we had no pipe cleaners. Being that she's super mom, she had no problems coming up with a solution- she grabbed a few matches out of the jar above the stove, jammed them through the cardboard, and I was good to go.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room playing with that thing (did we all have longer attention spans back then, or did the lead paint on our walls just make us all mildly slow? I ask because there's no WAY any of my kids would have played for 3 hours with some crappy 3 cent craft...), and the inevitable finally happened. As I was 'crawling' the caterpillar along my (toxic-paint-covered) wall, I accidentally managed to strike one of the (unburnt) matches, which flared up and immediately ignited the cardboard body.

I instinctively threw the thing away from me as fast and as far as I could, which was, unfortunately, in the direction of my bed. When the bedding lit up and started to REALLY smolder, I did the only thing I could think of and threw open my door and tore down the hallway, screaming "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

(Here's where mom's bad planning and my stupidity cross paths and nearly disfigure me....)

As I came flying around the corner into the kitchen, screeching at the top of my lungs, my father, who had just returned from work, scooped me up and growled, "We told you not to do that fire thing again. I've had it- you can sit in your room till dinner time."

WHAT?????

As we marched down the hallway to my room, I tried desperately to explain to my dad (who had heard it 736,591,374,019 times that week and was having NO more of it, thank you very much!) that it WAS a real fire, and I was telling the truth that time.

I will never forget the look on his face when he tossed open my bedroom door to see the smoke billowing out and my bed skirt in flames. It made the whole episode worth while. I've never seen anyone out side of a cartoon strip make that big, shocked 'O' with their eyes and mouth. Didn't actually know it could be done.

When my mother realised what had happened, she (understandably) felt horrible. Although 'playing with matches' is right up there with 'running with scissors' and 'taking candy from strangers', she was so desperate to entertain me that afternoon that she completely neglected to burn the match heads before she gave them to the 4 year old.

Luckily, I am here to remind her (every day, should the need arise), that craft time can kill.

I'm sure she's grateful.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Ode To The Men In My Life

(I have been saving this blog for a long time, trying to work up the courage to hit 'publish'. I have realized that there is no time like the present, which is why I have (shockingly) published my second blog of the day. Please forgive any spelling errors. Blame my blurred vision.)

I am going to be serious today.

Just today, I promise.

But there is a small, select group of people I need to thank, and as the years go by, I have started to lose some of them to age or illness, and the thought that I did not thank them while they were with us eats away at me every day. So I want to make sure that I express my gratitude to the rest of them while I still have the time. If you feel like this is not the type of blog you want to read, by all means, skip this one. It's not funny, or lighthearted, or amusing. But it needs to be written.

I have a hard time saying thank you to the people I really need to say thank you to from my childhood. I have a huge sense of shame (that I will never quite get past) for needing the help as much as I do, and it is so hard for me to tell these people to their faces. For years, I had a hard time even admitting it- it's hard for me just to think about. I am getting there, but it's taking time.

It's not that I am not grateful. Far from it. I am actually so grateful to these people that there are not enough words in all the languages of the world to make them understand how important they were. I need to say thank you in a very loud, very permanent way, and this is the best avenue I have.

Let me begin.

Some people, for whatever reason, because of outside factors, addiction, psychological makeup, personality, or mental illness, should not become parents. These may do well with smaller children, who are fairly pliable and easy to deal with, but when faced with pre-teens who argue, ignore, talk back and dismiss their opinions, are unable to make the adjustment. The caring, loving, attentive parent of a four year old may become the raging, angry, vindictive, unkind enemy of that same child at fourteen.

I had this type of father. I am past the anger now, and have come to terms with a horrible, horrible relationship. I have forgiven him (although I have not forgotten, nor do I choose to have a relationship with him), and I am doing my best to avoid the same pitfalls with my own children.

While my father emotionally (and, years later, physically) separated himself from his children, a group of wonderful, caring friends and neighbours stepped in. These surrogate fathers (and to no lesser degree, their families) are the sole reason I trust men today. They saved my sister and I when our mother was unable to do it all by herself, and they are the people who kept me from becoming an angry, bitter recluse.

In the last few years, three of these wonderful men have passed away. I wish to God I could say to their faces what I am about to say now.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart and with every fibre of my soul, I thank you.

Grandpa. I can only remember once in my life that you ever raised your voice to me (and I REALLY deserved it!). You were the man who taught me that not all fathers scream. You taught me that an argument can be held without nastiness and unkind words. You stepped in when you knew I needed it, without being asked. You gave me away at my wedding. You WERE my father. I love you and I miss you. When you died, customers who hadn't seen you in fifty years wrote to tell us what a great guy you were. That's the kind of impression you made.

Joe White. You were the father of my best friend. You joked with me like I was a grownup, and actually listened seriously to my ideas. You picked up on the words I WASN'T saying, and you and Linda rescued me more times than I can remember. When my whole world was shattering (because, even with the misery of having him around, I preferred the 'normalcy' of knowing my father would be there in the morning when I woke up), and my mom was trying to hold herself together, your wife came to our house, brought me home with her (knowing that my mom was unable to help me herself just then), and you held me for hours as I sobbed. You taught me that recovery is possible, and that great men can surmount less-than-stellar pasts, and be wonderful people. I miss you every day.

Lorne Shields. You opened your home to my sister and I. When our space got just too horrible, middle of the night or not, you took us in. You heard the hideousness, and in a day and age where not a lot of people stepped up, you did your best to calm the storm. You and Maryanne fed us peanut butter and banana sandwiches (on WHITE BREAD!!!!!), let us sleep on the floor, and made us feel a little more powerful under powerless circumstances. You taught us to stand tall, and appreciate the tiny things. The hole you left behind is bigger than you ever could have guessed.

Chuck Faas. Your home was an oasis of calm in a world that sometimes seemed like it was spinning out of control. Although your children were older than my sister and I, you never lost your ability to relate to kids. You and Sandy took us in and told us the truth when our father didn't care enough and our mother was too heartbroken to do it themselves. You taught us to trust our guts and our intuition, and you taught us that safety was only 55 feet away. You taught me that chaos and eggshells were not the gold standard for fatherhood. I am grateful that I am able to tell you today how incredibly much you mean to me.

Uncle Dennis. When my father managed to alienate his entire family, and  left my mother, sister and myself drowning in a pool of loneliness, you made the first move to reconnect. You knew how important our relationship was, and how sorry we were to lose it. You inherently recognised how painful and embarrassing it was for us to come crawling back to a family so shamefully treated by my father, and you gave us time, and you opened your arms (and your heart), and welcomed us back in. You will always be my favourite. Although we don't see each other as regularly as we should, you have taught me that family is forever, and that anger and resentment doesn't matter. You are my only remaining connection to that side of the family, and I am deeply, deeply grateful for you.

Although other friends and neighbors, and the families of all these men, played a part in rescuing me, it is these few who hold a special place in my heart, because that was the role I so badly needed filled. When I am proud of my accomplishments, it is their opinions and respect that I crave. When I look at my family and think "Huh. I done good.", it is they that I picture standing behind me, smiling at my offspring.

I don't visit my old neighbourhood as much as I should, nor did I visit these men as much as they have deserved. It's still painful for me, and I tend to avoid these memories except on rare occasions, even though I live mere moments away. Sometimes I am lost for words, and sound silly and unimportant, and can't convey the depth of my feelings. To all of you, please know that it is not forgetfullness or uncaring that keeps me away, but the depth of my love and appreciation (as incredibly odd as that may sound).

But when I think of 'home' and 'childhood', your faces are the prominent ones in my mind's eye. You made me who I am today. All my successes are due in equal part to each of you. I am thankful for all of you every day. God knew what he was doing when he sent me to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

How My Mother Ruined My Life (Part 1 Of 7,000,000,000)

Mom didn't like cooking.

That's not to say she wasn't great at it. When my sister and I were little, she canned beets and made homemade jams. She saved the carcasses of various fowl for soup bases, and her Yorkshire Puddings always rose perfectly. She had four hundred and thirty-three uses for a canned ham (including the can), and I still make her Foo Yung salad when we need to bring a dish to a potluck.

She threw incredible dinner parties with ridiculously good food. Remember the late '70's and early '80's??? THOSE dinner parties. The ones where the men wore their best fabric belts on their pleated pants, their wives showed up in their most colorful scarves, (elaborate knots faithfully recreated from the pictures in 'The Knaughty Look'), and you and your siblings got up real early the next morning to finish all the half-drunk Vodka Gimlets and Mai-Tais before your parents crawled out of bed.

Some of her recipes are legendary. Her crab quiche is PHENOMENAL, and people actually ask for it for Christmas (not for dinner, because then you'd have to share, but as a gift), and there have been actual physical fights (perpetrated by my husband and my cousin Connor) over the last scoop of her potato bake (which she will ONLY serve with ham, not turkey, which effectively halves the number of times we get to eat it, and therefore causes some serious holiday depression).

As wonderful a cook as she was, she didn't enjoy it so much that she wanted to spend each and every day cooped up in a kitchen, slaving over a hot fondue pot. As my sister and I got older, the Nanking Cherry Jam production slacked... then slowed... and then disappeared altogether in favour of Smucker's Strawberry. She started working (as she no longer needed to be at home during the day, ferrying small children to and from school), and began buying her boullion at the grocery store. Crab quiche (with the rising cost of seafood), became a delicacy served only on special occasions, and (insert trumpets and choirs of angels here) Friday liver and onion night disappeared right along with the no-good husband.

There were a few dishes that mom kept up with on a regular basis, because they were both incredibly tasty AND cost effective. Her chicken wings (she did something ridiculous to them that I STILL can't get quite right), her hamburger soup (a third generation of our family is now learning to ask for it for birthday dinners), and, of course, (oh, sweet memories of childhood), her pork chops.

They were amazing. Succulent, seared the PERFECT amount on the outside (she always used the thin ones so the fat would get extra crispy), with the smell making the entire neighbourhood salivate. Oh, my God. I'm pretty sure that's where the term 'better than sex' came from. They tasted mom's pork chops and nothing else ever really measured up again.

So after Jason and I moved into our (skanky) apartment after high school, I decided that the very first time we had someone over for dinner, I would make mom's pork chops (this had the added bonus of not requiring us to entertain for MONTHS, because we had to save up for the cost of the ingredients). Sure, every once in a while we would serve some unsuspecting coworker Safeway brand macaroni & cheese, or a bag of stale-dated chips from Liquidation World, but when we actually invited someone over for a MEAL, that's what I would serve.

And then it finally happened. We saved up enough money to invite a friend we'd had since junior high over for dinner (the requirement was that the dinner guest be single- we only had enough money for 6 pork chops). For confidentiality purposes, I will not name said friend, but he had almost the same name as an a.a. milne character. Let's call him...... Pooh the Winnie (If this seems confusing to you, don't worry- he'll get the joke. So will his parents. It's not about you.).

We cleaned up the apartment (super easy when you own 3 sticks of furniture and next to no clothing), went ingredient shopping, and I started to cook (following mom's handwritten directions on the recipe card with near-religious zeal). By the time Chris- er- Winnie showed up, my meal was perfect. It looked like mom's. It smelled like mom's. And oh, glory, best of all, it tasted like mom's.

I was ecstatic. I watched as Winnie lifted a forkful of pork chop, (slathered in gravy and served over rice) to his mouth, and nearly quivered with glee as he chewed, swallowed, and looked at me.

"That's awesome Heather," he said, "tastes great."

"Thank you," I trilled (in my very best 'shoulder pads and melted Velveeta' dinner-party voice), "it's my mom's recipe."

"Yeah?" asked Chris. "You know she got it off the back of a Campbell's soup can, right???"

 Golden.

Change

I don't like change.

Spontaneity bothers me.

I wanted to leave Europe because the towels felt different.

I try not to travel north, because the water in Edmonton smells funny.

I live in the same co-op I lived in as a little kid. It's less than fifteen blocks from the house in which I spent the majority of my childhood. And twenty blocks from the house Jason grew up in. His mom still lives there.

I still own sweatshirts from high school (Only now I use them as legwarmers. Or headbands.)

So when my coffeepot died last year, I was a wreck. We had this coffeemaker before we had kids. Mom bought it for us when we moved into our first apartment (she could have waited- we couldn't afford coffee), and it always, faithfully, served the perfect pot.

It saw midnight feedings and early mornings with all four of my babies. It woke us up on eighteen New Year's Days. It produced a peace pot when we talked after an argument. It had moved up the property ladder with us as we made our way to our current home. It was family.

Sure, over the years it took longer and longer to get the promised pot of coffee. Who cares??? With advanced age comes the right to slow down a little bit. Relax. Take things easy. Maybe the hot plate didn't keep the coffee as warm as it used to, but which of us doesn't find it a little harder to stay warm as we reach middle age? The water tank leaked a little, but anyone who doesn't expect a little incontinence in their golden years is kidding themselves.

We started to notice that the pots of coffee we brewed every morning were coming out less and less full (we credited that to the leaking water tank), and finally, one morning, after flipping the 'On' switch, nothing happened.

We did everything we could. We thumped it once or twice, to see if we could restart its vital systems. We plugged it into a different outlet, trying to see if we could continue life support. We ran some vinegar through it to see if any of the major arteries were clogged. We used every heroic measure we could think of.

Finally, I leaned over and patted it softly on the lid.

"It's ok." I said. "I understand. We'll miss you."

I couldn't believe it. It couldn't really be gone- we had been together for so long!!!

Maybe if I had taken better care of it. Run CLR through it every once in a while. Kept it away from the window on really cold winter days...

Who was this coffeemaker to just abandon me? To leave me behind like this? Alone and without caffeine? I run a DAYHOME, for God's sake! I NEED MY MORNING COFFEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

How was I going to make it through this? I just didn't have the strength for this kind of loss. The depression was crippling. I could barely move.

And then, finally, the pain began to lessen. The sun came up, and I was almost able to enjoy the sunrise. Maybe, just maybe, I could cope.

I found myself able to make decisions again. I was reconstructing my life in the face of my loss, and I knew things would be different, but it was time to move on.

And finally, I turned to Jason and told him I needed him to run to Wal Mart and pick up another coffeemaker. I could never have the carefree, untroubled cup of coffee that I had heretofore enjoyed, but I had accepted my loss, and once again had hope for the future.

(Note: The aforementioned stages of grief, as defined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, were experienced by me over the half-hour period of time immediately following the expiration of said coffeemaker. People experience grief differently. There is no textbook 'order' in which you should feel these emotions, nor is there a 'correct' timeline until the final stage of acceptance and hope. If, however, you find yourself lying prone on the couch, sobbing hysterically into a crusty tea towel MORE than 11 weeks after the heating element in your toaster gives out, you may want to consult a professional. Maybe even two.)

Jason went to get a new coffeemaker. I knew it wouldn't be the same, and I knew I would always have a special place in my heart for the OLD coffeemaker, but I had high hopes.

I realised when he brought it home that it was going to require a period of adjustment. I found myself becoming jealous of the new coffeemaker. Jason paid it so much more attention than he paid the old one. He actually bought filters that fit the new coffeemaker (What? All of a sudden we're too GOOD to fold a basket filter into a cone??? The new coffeemaker needs fancy new stuff, so now we're just tossing away the 87365891029 basket filters left from the old one? Whatever.) He actually checked to make sure the level of the water in the pot was equal with the '12 Cups' line on the glass, rather than simply leaving it under the tap till it overflowed and dumping it blindly into the machine. Sure, the thing had some neat features. You could yank the pot out while it was brewing, and it would stop and wait for you to pour yourself a cup and replace the carafe, thereby avoiding the 'light-speed switch-and-splatter' we had been suffering with in the mornings. No one in our house has EVER waited for a pot to finish brewing before getting a cup of coffee. (Mostly because it took the old one 45 minutes to brew each pot.) He was infatuated. He was blinded to its faults.

It was ugly.

It was new.

It was....... different.

Things eventually got better, but it's still not the same. It's not my REAL coffeemaker. It's not the boss of me. I only use it cause I have to. Sure, the colour and appearance have grown on me. I actually kind of enjoy the taste of HOT coffee. I haven't had a splatter burn in months, and it doesn't give off a funny smell as it brews. But I know it's just trying to manipulate me. Win me over. Make me forget. It's not fooling me.

If you think for a SECOND I wouldn't take Old Faithful back if I had the chance, you're crazy.

I'm pretty sure I'm not.

Sweet Nothings

My sister in law gave Eva a package of Crayola Bathtime Tadoodles for Christmas. For those of you not in the know, these are floating tub crayons that wash off with warm water, and are encased in giant tubby cartoon-like bodies so chubby little hands can hold them easily.

Although Eva loves nothing more than to chew on a crayon, and was using them to great advantage, I couldn't help but do some thinking during bathtime the other day. I realized how wasted these crayons were on someone who couldn't even SAY "Surrealism', let alone explain how her Dali-esque style captured the vivid, mysterious dreams of a toddler during slumber. I bet you these things cost ten or twenty bucks! Could we not find a better use for them??? (Remember- control issues.)

A lightbulb went on. I realized that if I combined my constant desire for communication with my intense need to show my kids what a great mom I am, I could use these crayons for a new and improved purpose- sweet nothings!

I finished bathing Eva, sanitized the pee out of the tub (There's always some in there. I know it.), and scribbled on the wall in my best Mommy Dearest printing...

"What a great Christmas. I have an awesome family, and I love how polite and well behaved my children are, even when it's been crazy busy. You all make me so proud!
Love, Mom"

What a great way to wake up, I thought to myself. A little validation, a little boost to their self esteem, and every day would be a success! When they made their first million, they would not only dedicate the book to me, but 'Nurturing the Successful Adult' would be the first chapter. All about me.

The next morning, when I woke up after Jason left for work, I noticed he had added-

"Love you guys! Have a good day!"

Brilliant! It was so fun and easy that people were nearly COMPELLED to be kind to each other.

Liz chipped in that afternoon with the phrase,

"This is an awesome idea!"

And Squid wrote his name. Although Isaiah hadn't added anything to the wall yet, it was Christmas holidays and he hadn't actually been HOME for the past 2 days. HE could catch up later.

I should have known better.

This morning there was a little Darth Vader face drawn on the wall, with the words,

"Isaiah, Liz, Squid and Eva.... I AM YOUR FATHER." written below them.

Under that, in different handwriting, was the phrase,

"No- you're not."

Then, by a third separate author-

"Ooh- AWKWARD!"

It was beginning to take on the appearance of a bathroom stall in a gas station in Forest Lawn.

I warned the family that the Tadoodles were to be used for good, and not evil, but I can tell I am already fighting a losing battle.

I just now went upstairs to put away the towels, and underneath my inspiring, uplifting message to the kids wishing them a great first day back at school are the words,

"I see London,
I see France,
I see....
GROSS! PUT THAT BACK IN YOUR PANTS! I'M TELLING!!!!!!!!"

I give up.

Giving

I sit here, shopping done, house decorated, gifts wrapped, Christmas dinner prepped and ready to go in the oven at dawn (or whatever the hell time it is that cooking starts- Jason does all that. I serve booze and make gravy). I am ready. Bring it on.

Given a few minutes of down time, I have a chance to appreciate what Christmas is and how grateful I am. I think a lot about gratitude at Christmas. Our kids are spoiled rotten every year, always getting a few things they desperately want, a few things they didn't know they wanted, and a few things they didn't really want (Underwear. Every year. Love, Santa.) Jason and I usually get each other a bunch of stuff we don't need, and we can shop for our relatives without having to worry overly much about the budget.

It wasn't always like this.

Our first Christmas after Isaiah was born was hideous. He was an August baby, and I had gone back to work at the beginning of December. I felt like the worst mother on the planet. Jason was doing on-call snow removal at $127.50 every two weeks. He wanted to pick up a few shifts somewhere else, but since we couldn't predict the snow, we couldn't always predict when he'd be available for other work, and that generally doesn't go over well with employers. However, the money he made in the summer from that landscaping job was good enough to make it worth sucking it up in the winter. When you added Jason's income to my $165 unemployment cheque every two weeks, it meant I had to go back to work. On the up side, McDonald's was close to the house, so I didn't have to scrape up money for a bus pass.

We were miserable. We were 19, COMPLETELY broke, and had a new baby we couldn't afford. Formula was too expensive, so I was pumping bottles for him before I left each night for work. We could barely afford diapers, had been to the food bank more than once in the last 4 months, and aside from the McDonald's leftovers at the end of the night, had no real source of protein.

We resented each other, and (this was the worst part) we resented Isaiah. We were barely speaking, and if we could have afforded to split up, we would have. I hated that I had ruined my life, that I had been trapped by pregnancy in a doomed relationship, and that my mother was disappointed in me. I despised that when I was out walking with Isaiah, people stared (I still looked about 13 years old), but it didn't matter, because I couldn't stand leaving the apartment anyway. I hated that Jason and I were spending Christmas apart (not knowing how to fix the tension or figure out the arrangements for Christmas with my newly single mom and his widowed mom, we decided to go to our separate ways for the holidays), because I figured it would probably be our last Christmas together.

We had no money for gifts. None. We had no money for food, rent, cable, phone, or electricity, so Christmas had sunk so far down our list that it didn't even register. We'd each scraped together something so we could buy our moms some crappy gift, but that was it. The only small consolation was that Isaiah was too young to remember how bad this would suck. I tried to keep it from our friends and family how truly, disgustingly AWFUL things were, but it's hard to put on a brave face when you're screaming inside.

Someone figured it out.

On the 20th of December, our doorbell rang. There was no snow that day, so Jason was home. He was in the living room, avoiding me, and I was in the bedroom with the baby, avoiding him.

I answered the door, and there was a box. A giant, big box, and my mom standing behind it. She couldn't possibly have carried the thing in there herself.

"I don't know what it is," she answered when I asked her what was going on, "they just needed a key to get it to your front door. I know who it's from, but I'll never tell you, so don't ask. Merry Christmas!" And off she went (scampered?).

We dragged the box into the apartment and opened it up.

Oh. My. God.

The top layer of the box had a new shirt and sweater for Jason, a new shirt and sweater for me, and a set of sleepers and some outfits for Isaiah. There were baby toys, a package of diapers, and baby wipes. There were new books for both of us (we are HUGE readers- it was like giving an addict some heroin- our eyes kept drifting back to them), and a set of dishtowels. And underneath, there were cans. Cans and cans of BRAND NAME food- not the crappy stuff people donate to the Food Bank. There was a frozen turkey, and boxes of Stove Top stuffing (we have used it religiously since- it will for ever and always be my favourite stuffing). There were fruits, and vegetables, and boxes of juice. There was a carton of milk, and a tin of coffee. There was a thing of eggnog, and a frozen pumpkin pie. And at the very bottom, there was a $50 gift certificate to Safeway. Fifty dollars. I had NEVER spent that much on groceries at once.

We stared at the contents of this box, stunned at the generosity it involved. We had new clothes, which we hadn't been able to buy in a year. Isaiah had a gift to open, even if it wasn't from us, and we have that silver rattle to this day. We had more food that we knew what to do with (even though we had no idea how to cook any of it), and we had the guarantee of MORE groceries in the near future (we intended to save the gift card, but the excitement of shopping overwhelmed us and we went first thing the next morning).

I started to sob. I'm crying now as I write this.

It wasn't just gifts and food. It was enough generosity to take an increasingly heavy burden off our shoulders for a few days so that we could breathe. It was the reassurance that although people wanted us to succeed on our own, that we would never be completely forgotten. It was a reminder that however badly we screwed up, someone still loved us. It was recognition that we were trying as hard as we could, and appreciation for the effort.

It was a giant box of hope.

I looked up to see Jason putting things away in the cupboards (some of them had never actually held anything before), tears rolling silently down his face. He would never have admitted it, but that box meant everything to him too.

We set aside our tension, and bitterness, and anger. We put everything away, and cooked a giant (with some telephone advice from both moms) Christmas dinner. We sat in the living room afterwards, full, and happy, and watched our 4 month old ignore his rattle.

We sent a thank you card, signed by both of us (and chewed by Isaiah), and mom promised to deliver it to the right people. We still don't know who sent the box, but we're grateful. Maybe we would have made it through the holidays anyway, and maybe we would still be together today, but I truly believe that moments like that forge bonds that may never otherwise exist.  We have celebrated 17 Christmases since then, and have added three more children to the circle on the floor around the tree. And that first Christmas is the one we talk about.

Not knowing who was behind it made it even better. When you're that low, and that broken, the last thing you sometimes want to do is look into the eyes of your benefactor, no matter how badly you needed the help. It's a reminder that you aren't measuring up. I know that's how I would have felt.

So this Christmas, help someone. Give something. Give time, or money, or food, or love. Pay off someone's Christmas layaway plan. Shovel the neighbour's walk. Put your paycheque into a Sally Ann kettle. Buy the coffee of the guy behind you in line. Do whatever you can, in whatever way you can. But do it anonymously.

And to the person or people who put together that miracle for us so many years ago, that 3 foot by 3 foot box saved our Christmas.

And it probably saved our family.

Thank you again.

Update To The Previous...

My mom called me today, howling, to tell me she read the last blog ('Why I Am The Way I Am').

She explained (through shrieks of laughter and tears of mirth) that she remembers the entire incident like it was yesterday (having previously forgotten all about it), and it seems, after seeing it written down in black & white, that the 'drug dog' scenario may have been a somewhat silly idea after all.

Ah, the sweet, sweet taste of vindication....

Why I Am The Way I Am

When the big kids were really little and we lived in the condo, we used to have Isaiah's birthday parties outside. The yard was the size of a postage stamp, but it was still bigger than the whole inside of my house smashed together and rolled out flat. Besides, outside gave us adults the opportunity to get really drunk on cheap booze and play rousing games of volleyball with the balloons after my mom and grandparents left.

Anyway, this one birthday party, we're all sitting there, chatting it up, and all of a sudden a GIANT German Shepherd walks in through the gate and sits himself down in the middle of the party and helps himself to a slice of (ridiculously good) birthday cake.

I try not to argue with German Shepherds, ever, so I sat there, quietly fuming, until about 5 minutes later when his owner sauntered over from the bagel place across the street, looked at her dog and the cake, and says,

"Oh- look! He had some cake!"

And walks out the gate with her (much less hungry) dog, not a word of apology spilling from her lips.

My mom was talking to my Grandma (she was awesome, and I miss her to this day, but together, she and mom came up with some WEIRD stuff) about it later, and between the two of them, they decided that it must have been a drug-sniffing dog, sent in by the cops to investigate the party and look for cocaine (Really? You couldn't even credit me with something soft? You had to go straight for the hard stuff?), and when he didn't find any drugs (in the cake???), they left.

Anyone else would have thought that the dog had finished eating his (ill-mannered) owner's bag of recently purchased bagels and had come over for dessert.

When I pointed out that the police don't just send drug sniffing dogs at random into small children's birthday parties, and that there is generally some prior reason for doing it, she refused to back down. Her mind was made up. She wondered about my neighbours.

This is why I'm twitchy.

Hookers and Hit & Runs

A hooker once hit my car.

No joke.

I'm sure she was a very nice lady, but she worked some pretty odd shifts and had some impulse control problems. This does not make for a cautious, defensive driver.

Right after Liz was born, when we were living in our 'slightly less skanky than the downstairs one' upstairs apartment (see my post 'On Poverty'), we figured we were in an ok area. It wasn't GREAT- it was one of the small apartments by the old Ernest Manning High School normally rented by teenagers with babies (Huh. Go figger.), but we didn't think the neighborhood was all THAT bad.

Until one night, the phone rang at about 2 a.m.

When I answered it, a woman identified herself as Constable Whasserpickle, and told me my car had been involved in a hit and run. Because we have friends and family with some seriously warped senses of humor, I politely told her to go back to her beer & hung up the phone.

Ring, ring.

Now I was irritated. I picked up the phone, and in my very best 'I'm bigger than you and I have a stick' voice, told her that if she woke up either of our kids with her screwing around, she could come up here and put them back to sleep herself. At which point she (in her best 'I'm bigger than you and I have a stick AND a gun' voice) informed me that no, she really WAS Constable Whasserpickle, and my car really HAD been involved in a hit and run.

"That's impossible," I told her, "it's outside."

"Yeah." she said. "Yours was the 'hit' part."

Come ON!!! Why couldn't we just catch a break??? That Dodge Aries had cost us at LEAST $20 to buy from my aunt (Ok- she charged us $1- I'm a compulsive liar), and was the first car we'd owned together. And now you're telling me it was destroyed in full view of my front door???

I told Jason what had happened, and while he stood staring out the window, I dressed quickly and ran downstairs.

Constable Whasserpickle met me at the front door and walked me over to my car, which, to my INTENSE relief, had a broken taillight, and no other perceptible damage (good deal, too- we could only afford PL & PD). The mint condition classic Trans-Am behind me, however, which had been pushed into my car by the truck that had done all the damage, had fared much less well. It was still a Trans-Am. It was just....... shorter.

The truck that had inflicted all the pain on our poor, defenseless vehicles was sitting all catterwonky in the middle of the intersection down the street, with the paddywagon pulled up beside it.

I turned to my neighbor, the owner of the Trans-Am, to tell him how sorry I was about his car, when I noticed he was laughing.

Like HOWLING.

Like he was leaning on his hood and tears were rolling down his cheeks.
And that's when I noticed the police officer chuckling. And then I saw the OTHER neighbor, handcuffed and on the ground, swearing like a drunken sailor with Tourette’s.

Turns out, one of the guys who lived in the apartment building next door to us had rented some companionship for the evening. It seems that at the end of the night, he realized he had no money to pay the tab (remember- he lived in our neighborhood. I'm surprised she didn't ask for cash up front. Or at least do a credit check), and she decided to take his truck as.... collateral. She hit him over the head with a bottle of booze (which I can only assume was a 1787 Chateau Lafitte or a 1951 Grange Hermitage), grabbed the keys out of his pants’ pocket (which were apparently not on his person where they should have been), and took off out the door, kicking him in the nether regions as she went past.

Luckily, the woman's thought processes were so slowed by the evening’s consumption of fine wine, rare cheeses and innocent fun that our saintly neighbor had enough time to regain consciousness, dress himself, and (here's the best part) CALL 911, before she made it to the end of the block (ricocheting off other vehicles like the little metal ball in a pinball machine).

At this point she abandoned the effort in the middle of the intersection (perhaps she hadn’t taken driver’s ed classes at AMA), switched off the truck, crawled into the back, and fell asleep. When the cops got there, good neighbor was standing out front, angrier than hell at this violation of his civic right and personal property, and she was having a nice nap on a pile of painter's tarps in the bed of the truck.

Never let anyone tell you that you live in a bad neighborhood.

Make them prove it.