Might as well go for a soda, nobody hurts and nobody cries. . . .

October 9, 2010

I love Thanksgiving.

Even more than Christmas.

The older I get the more cynical I get about Christmas.

The commercialism.

The consumerism.

The humanity that fleetingly appears at Christmas, and then disappears until the same time next year.

Thanksgiving is during my favourite time of year, it isn't really cold, just comfortable, the leaves are at their peak, the sun is bright, and there is no snow to mar driving.

I'm not sitting at home or in my office marking papers and final exams, wondering if I shouldn't just walk to a staircase, close me eyes, and throw them down stairs-assigned-a grade, collect them, slap on a grade and go home to make cookies.

I'm not trying to calculate final grades, wondering just how far my limited math skills can get me before I crack.

Thanksgiving is perfect.

A-less-stressful-than-Christmas-holiday.

While Thanksgiving is less stressful than Christmas, there are some aspects that make both a challenge, no matter how much you love them.

And number one challenge on my list: going to the grocery store to get those last minute items you planned on getting days ago but never managed to.

Superstore pre-long weekend holiday = bad.

Superstore on Friday afternoon = bad.

Superstore on a Friday afternoon pre-long weekend holiday = catastrophic.

Some testosterone filled brainiac decided it would be a good time to put apple and pumpkin pies on sale for 3.97.

You can't make them for that.

And I can't make them at all, so I was hell bent to get my pies.

Another testosterone filled brainiac figured it would be a good idea to put cases of Pepsi AND Coke on sale for $1.99, limit three per family.

A stampede of pie loving cola freaks came out of every corner of the greater Fredericton region driven by their sugar and caffeine animal instincts to get, and get as many as possible no matter what the cost, financial, lives lost, or otherwise.

I overheard a woman saying she was going to get the last case of A&W diet rootbeer, even though she didn't like it, but because it was on sale and she didn't want anyone else to get it.

Um hum.

Pepsi fared better or worse depending on how you look at it, as there were at least some cases of Pepsi and Diet Pepsi left post consumer feeding frenzy.

The Coke shelves were barren, empty, lifeless, attempting to recover from the snatch and grab antics of the cola deranged and hysteria filled consumers.

I just wanted out, in one peice, with my carbonated, flavoured water, my pies and a few other items not generally sought out by the cola delerious masses.

Just when we thought Frankie's uncontrollable urinary output was under control. . . .

Last evening, I'm actually laying on the couch as exhaustion fueled by grocery shopping antics was calling all the shots.

If I'm in the living room at all during the evening, I normally sit on the loveseat, a dog beside me, and watch television or work on the computer.

The last two nights, for reasons I could probably figure out if I just took the time to do so but won't because then I may have to actually deal with somethine, I found myself laying on the couch.

Frankie interprets my being at eye-level with him as "Mummy wants to play!!!!!!!!!!!"

He brings whatever toy he has at the time, the "bad rope" or the obnoxiously squeeky football, and lays its saliva coated self beside my head.

At first glance, you'd think he just wants me to throw it for him.

But I know better and I have the scars to prove it.

Just as you are about to wrap your hands around his drool coated, loathsomely sounding toy, he lunges forward, snatching it, and of your fingers that happen to be in the way.

He'll just keep doing it, too. No matter how often you tell him that you're not going to play tug-of-war with him.

Last night, he's doing this, repeatedly.

As usual.

And then, for no reason I can think of other than insolent, I'm-going-to-get-you-revenge, he walk behind the couch, and lets out a stream of pee that would have sunk a battleship.

The sound alerted me first.

And then Stephen's cry of anguish and anger and frustration because Frankie was peeing on the Persian rug we inherited from Stephen's parents, who inherited it from Stephen's grandmother.

Adrenaline overpowered my exhaustion and I leaped off the couch with such speed I mentally paused in surprise, and ran for a bucket of hot, soapy water.

Frankie knew immediately that he was in the deepest of shit, and he ran straight into his crate.

Had he opposable thumbs, I think he would have shut the door and locked himself in.

And we were having such a peaceful evening.

No permanent damage to the carpet.

Just Stephen muttering under his breath about a house with no pets and we will never be able to have anything nice, ever, so we may as well throw everything out and live in a barn, and do I know what his grandmother is thinking right now, saying right now, and I should be grateful that I don't because it wouldn't be very nice.

Crisis addressed, at the least the physical aspects anyway because the emotional scars Stephen is going to carry will take a lot longer to get over, we settled back into our respective place to attempt to recoup some of the pre-pee-on-the-carpet-state.

The phone rings.

It's Stephen's sister from Vancouver.

The last thing I hear is something about Frankie and Baba's carpet and I'm asleep.

Only to be awakened and hour and a half later when Em calls, shift at Empire finished and wanting to come home.

George Strombolopolous is on the tv interviewing the guy who plays Jasper in Twilight, while I stumble around in my still sleep stage trying to locate my car keys.

Luckily, the cold and blustery wind, plus the frigid interior of the car shocked my sleep-warm body into a state of wakefulness sufficient to operate a motor vehicle.

Its the little things.

The remainder of today will be spent getting ready for the 13 person Thanksgiving meal I am preparing for 5.00.

My parents, the kids and their friends, my jack-in-the-box husband. . .

You just know something is going to happen that will end up here.

You just know.

Title Lyric: Go for Soda, by Kim Mitchell

Nothing could get better. . . .than a family get together

October 7, 2010


One more day and the weekend begins!

Normally, this would be the source of glee and excitement.

However, weekends that involve family dinners do carry with them a modicum of stress.

At least for me.

So when Stephen mentioned this morning that he thinks he's getting sick, I had a mild panic attack.

Because while I can cook for two days straight, cleaning is an entirely different issue.

One of the nice things about being married to Stephen is that, in some ways, we compliment each other.

While I slave over a hot stove for two days, he cleans the house.

While I panic over the last minute preparations, he puts the table together and sets it with our two sets of silverware.

While I have a nervous breakdown because I've run out of brown sugar, he locates all of our serving dishes and puts them in a pile on the counter for me.

So in spite of all my issues over family dinners, the house is always clean and the table is set.

And in my mind that means more than half the battle has been won.





I can't say exactly when the responsibility for family dinners fell to me.

When I returned from Ontario in 1993, bringing with me two children aged 3 1/2 and 2, and pregnant with a third (unknown to me at that time) having just left my first husband, family dinners took place at my parent's house.

Somewhere along the line, a subtle rite de passage took place: dinners came to be at my house.

The benefit: serving dishes.

After the Thanksgiving dinner where I served the meal on cookie sheets and cake tins, my parents started giving me serving dishes.

Now, I spend the week before the meal planning when I will cook what, what needs to be done first, what has to be done last minute, when to squeeze in shopping, figuring out how will I find the time to get to the Big Potato for fresh veggies, and should I try, again, to make pie crust, or should I spare myself the humiliation and indignity of explaining my patchwork pie crust and just buy them.

For some reason, the intricate art of pie crust making has eluded me.

My mother, both grandmothers, former mother-in-law, current mother-in-law all make beautiful pie crust.

Flaky.

Moist.

Tender.

Sumptuously delicious.

My pie crust is the opposite.

Think press board, hockey pucks, door stops that look as if they have been made of spare parts.

And you have MY pie crust.

When I was a teenager, I once tried making a pie crust.

My dad had to take the paint scraper and literally scrape the hardened, cement-like mass off the counter.

He may have taken some counter with him, if memory serves.

I've tried every recipe I can find, and nothing works.

But every Thanksgiving and Christmas I try to make homemade pies, because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting the same results.

And every Thanksgiving and Christmas, I end up racing to the Superstore, in a panic, hoping that I won't have to get into a full-fledged brawl with some other stressed out woman who has grabbed the last pie and now has to get said pie past me.

Cause when I want pie, I'll get pie, regardless of who I may have to take out to get it.

How come? Is a pie that important?

Yes.

Why?

Emily.

She thinks pumpkin pie is in a class of food all its own.

Rather than birthday cakes, she wants pumpkin pie.

Which looks rather odd with candles in it, but what Emmy wants. . .

And I would rather risk arrest for possible assault and battery over a pumpkin pie than have to face Em and tell her we will be pumpkin pie-less for Thanksgiving.

Em can be very scary when she wants to.

Especially if there is pumpkin pie involved.




If anyone has a fail-safe recipe for pie crust, and is willing to share, I'll give you my first born child.




Planning the menu can be a challenge as well. I have to make sure the expected dishes are present: brown sugar carrots, parsnips in a tarragon cream sauce, home made biscuits, roast turkey, bread stuffing, home made cranberry sauce (cause if I served canned cranberries, I'd be forced to eat in my room, alone).

But then I try to incorporate something different: red cabbage with apple, onion, brown sugar, vinegar. . .

My dad makes these amazing, decadent, completely illegal sweet potatoes with cream cheese. . .

They are to. die. for.

My sister-in-law, Kathryn, always makes a potato dish that makes my Stephen and the kids transform from rational beings to salivating animals.

And her broccoli/cauliflower salad with bacon and a vinegrette is so good I could eat with my hands.

Cause forks just slow me down.





Now that the kids are older, its nice to have them participate in preparing these family dinners.

Whether they want to or not.

But they still manage to avoid the clean up.

Stephen, on the other hand, starts cleaning up while people are still eating.

When we first got together, one of the things that really irritated me about eating with Stephen was that as soon as he was finished eating, he would get up from the table and start to clean up

The result of years of living alone and eating by himself.

We are literally sitting at the table, the kids and I, eating, talking, and he is removing things around us.

You can imagine I didn't let that go on for long.

But, every once in a while, usually when we are having people for dinner, he will revert to his table clearing obsession.

I spend the meal constantly asking him to sit down.

Me: Stephen, please come and sit with us.

SJP: Yeah, in a minute.

Me: Stephen, PLEASE come and sit with us. (said through a tight smile)

SJP: Coming. I'm coming. (he's getting impatient)

Now, instead of trying to gently cajole him into returning to the table, I get up, go the counter or sink or where ever he has planted himself, and say, while smiling through gritted teeth:

Me (whispering): STEPHEN GET BACK TO THE TABLE BECAUSE I AM NOT ENTERTAINING ALL THESE PEOPLE ON MY OWN AND IF YOU DON'T YOU'LL BE SLEEPING IN THE CAR FOR THE NEXT WEEK AND ITS OCTOBER WHICH MEANS YOU WILL BE VERY COLD!!!!!!!!

SJP: gives me "the look" but does come back to the table.

I'm considering tying him to the chair.




This is Mer's first Thanksgiving at home in 5 years.

Its also her 21st birthday.

We will, then, be having a combination Thanksgiving-Mer-turns-21-gathering.

Mer informs me that she will be drinking prior to the meal to celebrate turning 21.

I don't see the connection between blood alcohol poisoning and birthdays.

I really don't.

But I put the kibosh on that.

There will be no alcohol consumption before dinner.

What the kids and their friends decide to afterward, I can live with.

But no one, unless it's me, will be inebriated during dinner.

Is it because I am trying to preserve the sanctity of the family dinner?

Nope.

It's because of my father.




Everyone has *that* family member who makes family dinners entertaining and frustrating simultaneously.

In our family, this is sometimes my dad.

When we were younger, it was easier because my mother was very good at keeping him in line.

But he would still do things like eat half our dessert when we left the table to go to the bathroom.

Now, however, he lives on his own, mum is in a nursing home, and dad sometimes thinks he has carte blanche to do and say what he wants.

It usually begins with him elbowing Pookie and saying, "Hey Keith, I have a joke for you. . ." and typically goes down hill from there.

At the same time, I couldn't imagine him not being with us, and not being himself.

My mother can't hear anything, and if she can, she is an expert in pretending she can't.

She sits beside me, so I can get her anything she needs, and if someone says anything to her, she just smiles and nods.

And this Thanksgiving, we are adding several of the kids' friends to the mix, as this is a combined birthday party/family dinner.

Meaning, a whole new brand of chaos will be introduced into an already chaotic situation.

I may have to tie everyone to their chairs.





The sad thing about this Thanksgiving will be the absence of my sister-in-law.

She is in the hospital, dealing with the pain and agony of chemotherapy. She was recently, and finally, diagosed with Bechet's Syndrome.

It will be an empty table with out her.

Stephen, the kids and I are driving an hour away from our house to see her, on Sunday, and to take her Thnaksgiving dinner and to try and pick her spirits up a bit.

Being able to see her reminds me that there is still lots to be thankful for.


Title Lyric: Family Dinner by Parokya Ni Edgar

Slow death injectable, narcosis terminal . . . Satellite sickness TV junk

October 5, 2010




I love teaching.


There is a certain pleasure you gain from teaching a required course; the knowledge that you're audience must listen to you. They can't run, they can't hide.


They're stuck with you.





I hope that in some way I have been able to combine teaching and entertainment.


My mother always said that you will attract more flies with honey than vinegar.


I interpret that as meaning I can get my students to be more engaged in what I'm talking about if I make it interesting and entertaining. . .


. . .as opposed to as dry as a popcorn fart.


I have never understood how come some professors want to, even seek to, be as dry and boring as humanly possible.

Or try to scare their students on the first day so they won't come back.

I teach a course that's required for majors and honours students in criminology.

Meaning, if they choose to leave, eventually they're gonna have to come back: you can run, but you can't hide!

My favourite teachers and professors were always the ones who were engaging and entertaining.


Learning and laughing.


Simultaneously.


Imagine.

I, too, find my students entertaining. In eleven years of teaching, I have read some wild and strange things.

For example,

The student from my deviance course, who wrote in their paper that "Jesus was scared." I believe he was.

I think this student meant,"sacred."

All for the want of being able to proofread.


The group in my introduction to qualitative research methods course who submitted a draft of their first assignment, where they outline different research questions they could ask based on a problem statement they devised.


Their question: How do morals come into play when the ligths are turned on?

In my head, I ran through ALL sorts of possibilities, none of which I dared assume was what they meant.

In 11 years of teaching this course, this was the first question I encountered where I had absolutely NO IDEA what they were asking.

Or at least I didn't want to know.

Now I know.

If anyone gets it, I'll give you a prize.

But you can't be from the intro methods class.

Another incident, again in my intro qualitative class, we were talking about what we can learn about people by looking at what they wear, carry with, etc.

I used the example of bookbags, knapsacks, sports bags, etc. Asking permission, I reached into a student's bag and. . .

. . . pulled out a half full liquor bottle.

Really. . .I knew that I can sometimes be difficult to deal with, but erring on the side of intoxication seems a bit extreme . . .

One of the other reasons I like teaching is because I'm convinced I was a stand-up comic in a previous life.

The problem: in this life, its hard to do when you're a single parent of three children.

I have more material than I know what to do with, but, alas, there seemed to be no time and no where to share this material.

Hence, teaching.

Captive audience, or audience held captive.

Either way, they can't leave.

My children don't appreciate it when my students, and their friends, actually find me funny. Pookie says things like, "Don't encourage her! She'll just keep trying."

Speaking of funny. . .

Last evening, I was nursing a bit of a buzz. . .

Brought on my going over my self-imposed limit of one glass of white wine.

Where would I have access to alcohol at 4.30 in the afternoon?

Why, the university of course!

And surely I would have had drink several glasses of wine to facilitate such a buzz?

Nope.

Just one glass over my one glass limit.

For you non-math majors that equals two.

Two small glasses of white wine, on an empty stomach, and I was experiencing the world through alcohol addled brain that accelerated my already-too-easy-to-accelerate-inhibitions,
forcing Emily to stare me in the eye at the theaters, before checking her hours for the week, and firmly state, "You will stand here, still, and talk to no one until I get back" then giving Stephen the okay to forcibly remove me from the theater if I was too loud, while Keith attempts to mask his fear of oh-gawd-my-mother-is-here-and-she's-hard-enough-to-deal-with-when-she-isn't-tipsy while serving the hoards of customers wanting into the movies for $5.99 a ticket, when his mother is mouthing, "I love you Pookie!"

Let me just state that I was in no way incapacitated, out-of-control-falling-down-and-urinating-on-myself-drunk.

Those days, thankfully, are way behind me.

And I never urinated on myself.

I was just feeling a bit giggly.

Happy.

Loving the world.

And like all enjoyable things when you become older, it was finished too soon.

Once we were back in the car, on our way home, me ensconced in the front seat while Stephen drove, the effects were already starting to wear off.

Leaving me ready for bed at 6.30.

Knowing I could easily go to bed at 6.30 and sleep through the night, didn't mean I should go to bed at 6.30 and sleep through the night.

Not really wanting to do anything, I decided I would check out these amazing cable channels we have, with some trepidation, let into our home.

Trepidation, you say? How come? What could be so wrong with a few cable channels?

Because I can become absolutely enamoured with things I would normally never become enamoured with.

Last evening, in an effort to not go to bed at 6.30, I turned on the television and met someone I would never meet in a 100 years.

Because I just wouldn't be that lucky.

Bill.

The Exterminator.

A&E, which seems to be more about entertainment than art, was running back-to-back episodes of Bill the Exterminator.

I love it!

Donnie, that's me, according to my children, if I was older, thinner, with the Louisiana twang, and a bouffant hair-do straight out of the 1950s!

Plus, we're both afraid of snakes.

Bill's hair, too, is a marvel of nature. Long in the back, spiked on the sides, and two long peices framing either side of his face.

It's hard to take someone seriously when they look like they had their hair cut, with the lights off in the dead of night, by a giggling gaggle of 5 year old girls.

Nonetheless, I am hooked tighter than a rattlesnake in a snake tong.

And apparently, I can watch as many episodes as I want, because we have free Rogers on Demand.

For now.

Just what I need: another television obsession.

I'll be talking Louisiana twang for weeks!

Title Lyric: Exterminator by Primal Scream

Look out weekend cause, here I come, because weekends were werrrre. . . .

October 4, 2010


For the first time in a long time, I had a relatively peaceful weekend.

In spite of getting up every three hours to take the dogs out to pee, poo or whatever else they have to do as a result of the medication they are taking for their sarcoptic mange.

Several times over the weekend, Emily came to me, pointing out one spot or another, asking if she had sarcoptic mange.

She spent Saturday evening cleaning her room, after working all day. Stripping her bed, vacuuming, insisting she annhiliate even the possibility that there may be been a molecule of the sarcoptic mite in her room.


Die mites, die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




Saturday, Stephen drove the kids to work for 11.00 am, leaving me in bed until I felt like getting up.


Around 11.38 because my need to pee superceded my desire to stay in bed.


I spent the day working on the proofreading-edits-from-hell until 3.00, when I hung out laundry, had a shower and then did the one thing I hate doing on the weekend.


Or any day for that matter.


Grocery shopping.


And while I had every intention of being at the grocery store for 3.30, it was actually 4.10 before we found a spot in the Superstore parking lot.

Of course, because I was in a hurry, the store was packed.

And my mother is not a patient woman. I called to ensure her that I would be at the nursing home by 5.15 at the latest. I also asked if she needed anything; granola bars because my dad never get the kind she likes, Sweet and Salty. . .I know there's something there, but I can't quite put my finger on it; cranberry juice because she thinks they water down the juice at the nursing home, or anything else she thought she may need.

She claims she understood that I'd be there, and that I was at the grocery store.

Not 5 minutes later, she calls my cell phone.

I say, "Hello, Mum" because I knew it was her.

She yells at me, "DAWNE! IS THAT YOU???????"

On more than one occassion, she has commented on how little faith she has in cell phones.

And she feels that yelling is the only way to confirm that she is actually talking to me, and that I can hear her.

She then says, "ARE YOU GOING TO THE GROCERY STORE??"

Me: "Yes Mum. Would you like something?"

Mum: "I NEED BIRDSEED."

Not for her to eat.

For the birdfeeder we bought her for Mother's Day. It hangs on a branch of a tree outside my mother's window.

She loves to watch the birds, and squirrels, the fox and groundhogs that roam the wooded area outside her window.

She doesn't like crows, and yells at them when they try to eat out of the birdfeeder.

They're scared shitless of her.

Mum: "ARE YOU COMING FOR SUPPER?"

Me: "Yes Mum. I'll be there no later than 5.15."

Mum: "DON'T BE LATER THAN 5.15, OR I'LL HAVE TO START WITHOUT YOU."

We say our goodbyes, I rub my ear to establish that I have some feeling left, and continue to run through the grocery store like a crazy person.

Because I wouldn't want to be late for pizza and garlic fingers, chocolate macaroons and the CTV News Channel.

Seriously, it was really good.





How come, when you're in a hurry, you run into people you actually want to talk to?

So I run by people, yelling behind me that I am happy to see them, and would love to talk, but I have to get to the nursing home by 5.15!

With Stephen behind me, trying to keep up with me, because inevitably, I pick the cart with the wonky wheel, or the cart leans to the right or left, meaning if we're not careful we would end up walking in circles.

Our grocery cart full, but probably not with everything we needed, we get to the checkout line by 4.50.

As inescapable as it is to run into people you know while in a hurry is the absolute certainty that you end up at a checkout manned by the.slowest.cashier.

Sure enough.

There I am.

There he is.

I don't want to name names, or describe this person, but suffice to say, I usually take great pains to prevent being in his lane.

But because I was propelled by my mother's disapproval, I didn't bother to take the 3 seconds I needed to ascertain exactly who was the captain of the cash register.

We are talking about someone who is so slow, I could put my empty cart in his line of one, and run all over the grocery store getting what I needed, and he still would't be ready to begin processing my order.

He looks at every item.

He comments on every item.

Even the way he speaks is slow.

It is beyond painful.

Stephen, the-man-who-loves-grocery-stores-and-has-more-patience-than-anyone-I-know, even gets frustrated to the point of wanting to get behind the cash register, push the cashier out of the way, and scan the groceries himself.

I try to be patient.

I really do.

The first, and I so hoped, only time we had this cashier, I tried to be patient, kind, gentle.

However, in spite of my best efforts, he just wasn't getting the fact that I really needed to get out of the grocery store.

He actually said to me that if I was in such a hurry, I should probably get to the grocery store sooner.

Even he wasn't so oblivious to the scathing look I gave him, peircing him through to the very core of his being.





Sunday I spend the afternoon cooking and baking.

But not until it became very clear that in our rushed panic through the grocery store, I missed several things.

So Stephen had to make another run to the grocery store to get the things I needed: potatoes, onions, milk, shortening. . . .

But the end result was worth it:

Corn chowder and homemade cheese and herb biscuits.

Stew, made early so it will season while sitting in the fridge until at least tomorrow.

And chicken parmegan for tonight.





I experienced a rare bliss: Sunday afternoon at home.

So quiet was yesterday afternoon, I was able to watch a movie. Not a good movie, but the point was I sat, watched it, and was not interrupted.

Silent Hill.

I'm not certain I got the point of the movie, which is too bad, because it had potential. Unfortunately, all the dots weren't connected and lots of questions were left unanswered.

Only Saturday evening was I informed that our cable package includes being able to order movies from the comfort of my own home.

Hallelujah!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, this means I will have to practice a level of restraint never seen in the modern world.

Or face the Wrath-of-Stephen when the cable bill arrives, because its 50 pages long.




In the future, when I experience the normal weekend I will be able to reflect back upon this heavenly and unusally blissful weekend, and cling to it like a person clinging to a buoy with great white sharks circling around them, just waiting for blood.


Title Lyric: Weekend by Black Eyed Peas