Now I'm torn

I can't decide which is a worse way to start the day:

Spider in the shower or Mouse turd on the desk

I mean, both are gross and alarming...but with spider in the shower you're all naked and vulnerable.

Then again, with mouse turd on the desk, you don't want to touch anything else, and you're creeped out for the rest of the day. And you spend the day searching every corner of the office for any other signs of mouse turds. And you keep flashing back to the time you ate sunflower seeds in a bag at your old desk, and then AFTERWARDS you noticed that the bottom of the bag was all chewed up.

But anyhow, full points to the mouse for having a sense of humour -- it left the turd on my mouse pad.

Very true

Last night, one of the girls said, "You know, I can make myself go pee every time I go to the bathroom."

Me: "Wow, that's some talent."

Her: (wistfully) "Yeah, but I can't get up on a stage and do that."

Road trip!

(Note: we were driving to Byron)


Last night we piled in the car to head to our friends' house for dinner.

K exclaimed: We should listen to our favourite song!

Me: Okay....what's our favourite song?

K: Come on Mummy! It's a road trip! SIR DUKE! CRANK IT!

Can't argue with that.

I suggest you do the same.

Conversation during this song:

E: Stevie Wonder doesn't have any bad words in his songs. You know why? 'Cause he's just a great guy.

...

S: He's still alive you know!

E & K: Really?

S: Yeah! And he was even alive back in the '80's! I bet he was even--Mummy, was he alive in the '70's?

Me: Yes, he recorded this in the '70's.

S: OH MY GOSH! He was even alive in the '70's!!! And he's still alive NOW!!

E: (quietly, so as not to embarrass me) Uh, S, Mummy was alive in the '70's...

And then just like that...

I know this is too much information, so gentlemen, feel free to stop reading right now...

But I also wonder if this is one of those universal truths that no one talks about until it happens--like when you get pregnant and you get carpal tunnel or your gums bleed, and people say, "Oh yeah, that happens to everyone."

So, I was looking in the mirror at work the other day (the same one that revealed the Eugene Levy eyebrows and Dorothy Hamill hair cut, so clearly I should avoid this mirror) and I suddenly realized that my boobs are old.

They're just looking really...tired. Probably from all the travelling south that they've been doing.

No, seriously, I'm embarrassing

We were heading out the door--to go to Mac's to get some all syrup Super Squishees, mind you--and I got:

"You're not wearing THAT are you?"

For the record, I was wearing what I wore to work that day. They felt I was "too fancy."

I tried to tell them the important wisdom that my mother once told me: you can never look too good. But they weren't buying it.

However, when they were all raring to go and I said 'Well, wait a minute, I have to go get changed' they were suddenly okay with my attire--as long as I wore flip flops with it.

And now I can't decide who was more embarrassed -- them or me.

One minor quibble

This incredible weather is awesome, don't get me wrong.

The only thing, though....(besides the whole 'the earth is warming and we're all going to fry' part)....is that when I'm driving along in the Loser Cruiser with the windows open, I can't blast 101.3 ("the heartbeat of Southwestern Ontario") and sing along with the AM gold hits!

Like the other day: they were not only playing Chiquitita by ABBA, they were playing a MUZAK version of Chiquitita, and I actually felt that I had to turn the channel so people wouldn't hear what I was listening to.

So this summer, if you see me driving around with the windows up, sweating buckets but smiling and flapping my lips to some unheard music....just know that I'm in my happy place.

That was weird

So, the fish...

Everything is going well, nobody's floating yet.

But on Friday when we got home, we couldn't find S's fish anywhere. Like, DH got a flash light out and was searching every part of the tank, and we could not see it.

(Turned out it was hiding in the rock/cave thing.)

But during the time when it was missing, DH said to K:

"K, isn't that weird? We can't find S's fish anywhere!"

K's eyes got wide, and she whispered worriedly:

"Does my fish look fatter?"

That's disturbing

S was eating a penguin-shaped cookie.

"First, I bite the feet off, so he can't run away. Then I bite the head off, so he doesn't have to watch his own death."

E nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I eat them that way too."

Classy

Last night, as I was carring my plate of chicken fingers and fries downstairs (y'know, so we could all eat dinner in front of the TV), and I stopped at the fridge to squeeze a glass of wine out of the box, I thought to myself:

"Mrs. C, you are one classy, classy broad."

Creepy

We bought some fish!

Two are still unnamed (probably a good idea not to get too emotionally attached anyway), but one is Princess. Oh, one might be Mr. Fin but I'm not sure if that has been officially chosen.

I thought working out in front of the disapproving looks of my kids was bad enough, but jumping around the basement at 6:00 am in front of these fish was even more bizarre.

E came down later and immediately went to the tank to check on them.

Me: I don't see them right now, I wonder where they are?

E: They're probably freaked out by your dancing. FREAKED OUT, I tell you!

Slow news day

The children haven't said or done anything hilarious in the last 48 hours.

I haven't done anything embarrassing (but the day ain't over yet).

While we wait for anything worthy of report, please enjoy this video of Gene Gene The Dancing Machine. My friend R sent me a clip yesterday, and now I can't get the song out of my head.

Well that'll teach me

We went to the mall tonight, and I bought a pair of running shoes.

Not, like, shoes that you wear running, but cool running shoes.

Mostly because when we went out, I had to wear the RUNNING kind of running shoes, and I felt like a dork.

So I left the family slumped on a bench and went into the store. Tried on several pairs of Converse, and narrowed it down to two pairs.

One pair was significantly cheaper than the other...but it was also kind of a lame colour.

And I thought about it, and pondered getting the cheaper, slightly ugly pair. But then I gave myself a pep talk:

"Come on, treat yourself this once. You always buy the cheapest stuff, sacrifice so that everyone else can get what they want. Just this once, don't sell yourself short. You're worth it. Get the black and white one stars. They're cool. You're cool. You deserve it."

I walked out of the store with my head held high, and showed my new shoes to DH.

"Oh. Now we have exactly the same shoes."

No wonder I liked them so much. I see them in the front hall every day.

I'm such a maroon.

Now we'll just have to get matching track suits and be done with it.

I'm starting a new club

In traffic yesterday, there was a guy on a Harley in front of me, and another Harley drove by and they gave each other that secret little wave.

And I thought, "I totally want to start doing that to other drivers of mini-vans."

But what would the signal for the Loser Cruiser club be? What sign conveys the fact that you've completely given up? Can we come up with something that will be as effective as that other universal sign of social resignation--wearing track pants in public? I really want to know:

What hand gesture or signal can we give to each other in public?

Suggestions?

Unsolicited truths

I was putting on some pants the other day, and S randomly said:

"Those pants make your butt look big."

Yesterday I was playing Mario Kart with K, and she had to wait for me to finish eating before we could continue.

"It won't take you long to finish that. You have a really big mouth."

Out of the mouths of babes? Nuts to that.


(Also, for those of you following the exciting story of my stage hair....on second sight, it's a little more Mom from That '70's Show than Charlie's Angels. But in my head, I'm still totally Kelly....)

I'm not gonna lie

In the show I'm doing this weekend, I have THE MOST AWESOME HAIR EVER.

I look like one of Charlie's Angels.

(The original show, obviously, we're not recognizing the movies here...)

(And I only mean that I look like a non-specific Angel--it's not Sabrina's bowl cut, and it's not long enough to be Kelly's or whatever's Farrah's name was....)

(It's not Shelley Hack's swooped over to one side look, either.)

It's all curled and feathered and UH-MAZING.

DH couldn't understand why I was so excited about this hair.  I tried to explain:

"What if someone came along and suddenly made you look exactly like G.I. Joe? I spent hours and hours playing Charlie's Angels when I was a kid, and now I look like one!"

The other exciting thing about this show?

I've been introduced to the wonderful world of 'foundation garments.' Or, as sister J calls them: sausage casings.

Nuts to you, working out early every morning! I'm going to let spandex do the work for me! Sure, my muffin top has now been squeezed up to my chin, but hey, at least when I dance it doesn't look like 'two pigs fighting under a blanket.'

I could watch this forever

I don't think there are any words for this, but I'll try:

Weird lips, rectangular bass, socks, heavy-set guy who doesn't want to be there, and lady rocking out on the keyboard.

The girls' reviews?

"That's a nice song about being friendly with Jesus!"

"He really says the words clearly, I can understand everything he says!"

So sit back and enjoy the ska-rock stylings of...Sonseed.

It's not always the schoolyard

In the last little while, I've noticed the girls throwing some new phrases into their conversations...


<CRASH>  "My bad!"

"And she was was really bugging me and she was all up in my face..."


I assume these are being picked up from the other kids.

But last night...

I was hunkered down in the spare bedroom with E because she had some kind of tubercular cough going on that was going to keep everyone up all night. Everyone was in the room with us before bedtime, playing, reading the 2003 Guiness Book Of World Records, the usual...

It should be noted that the bed in this room, where my mum stays when she's visiting, is a four post bed.

K was swinging around on one of the posts, and announced:

"Look at me! I'm a pole dancer!"

DH and I played it cool, and I casually asked her where she heard that expression.

"From Grandma! The last time she stayed here S was playing on this and Grandma said 'Tell your mom you're going to be a pole dancer when you grow up!'"

So, in my defence, lapses of judgement are clearly a genetic issue for me.

Scientific reasoning

E came down this morning, obviously stricken by the worst cold in the history of the world.

"I'm not very steady on my feet today."

Later, she explained:

"I was stuffed up all night, so I didn't get any sleep. That's why I'm not steady on my feet--they didn't get any sleep either."

EGADS!

I just watched a video of myself on Facebook.

As soon as it was over, I marched into the bathroom and started applying eye makeup.

I am determined to figure out how to do this whole makeup thing. Sure a month away from my 40th birthday seems a bit late, but now more than ever I think I need to make friends with Max Factor and Maybelline.

I don't know what I can do about the jowls, though...short of wearing one of those head bandages that people used to wear when they had the mumps...