From Disney to National Geographic

Our new backyard is a haven for wildlife. We have a TON of birds - lots of different kinds and often - we've got all of the squirrels, there's a family of rabbits, I've caught a glimpse of a possum, and there was a big fat groundhog or gopher or something once. All we need is a princess out there to sing and play with them and our Disney woodland is complete. 

This morning I was just gazing out the window, lost in my own thoughts, when my sights settled on a bee. It was buzzing around some leaves on a branch and I was just starting to wonder to myself if it could pollinate trees as well as flowers, and if that's what it was doing by that branch, and...

...and then a bird swooped in an ate it up mid-air. Savage.

The Dark Knight Rises...again...on Netflix.

Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is now an oldie, but damn isn't it still one of the best. The castings, the storyline, the connections throughout...so well done. And I would have loved to see them do something with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robin. That was such a smoooooth drop right at the end. It's what set the precedent for comic book movies having to be so good. Anything that didn't stand up to its standard, just wasn't worth watching. None of the dark comic book movies that have come since have been able to hold a flame to it and have flopped for failing to do so. 

Marvel did so well because they took a lighter approach. And smartly so. Thank goodness since I love those movies. I mean, so does most of the planet. 

One of those days

Today's one of those days where I just want to say "fuck it" and slow dance to Ed Sheeran very loudly in an empty room.

Getting paid at werk (not a typo)

There are some days where I just want to tear my hair out and bang my face against a wall while at work. And then there are other days where it's all right and I smile from time to time.

S; need help

me: it'll cost you

S: what?
S: I can pay you in gold coins
S: how many gold coins does [this] cost?

me: 150

S: I can give you 1.50

me: fine.

Most would think nothing of this conversation. I didn't. But then I came back from lunch.

The king of fragrance

This weekend, Malcolm came from the kitchen to find me in the living room and accused me of stinking up the bathroom and not doing anything about it (turning on the fan, lighting a candle, anything like that). I denied the allegation. He raised his eyebrows at me and we continued to watch the Jays game.

After another trip to the kitchen and back, Malcolm asked me again if I was sure I didn't forget about an odourous bathroom escapade and I again, denied being at fault. He narrowed his eyes at me, the doubt clear on his face.

After one more exit of the living room, I was ready for Malcolm to return and ask me again. He returned, but didn't ask me. This time I raised my eyebrows. He apologized.

"It was my durian drink."

March maddening

So, one of the guys in my office put together a March Madness pool to bet on the winner of the college tournament. Of course there was a majority of male entrants into the pool, looking use their college sports savvy to win the big bucks, but there were also a couple of female players in the mix as well. I would have been one of them had I been in the office that day to place my bet.

Anyway, lo and behold, the winner was one of those women! I went over to congratulate her on her winning the pot and asked her how she did it.

" Honestly, I just guessed. I don't even watch college football."

"It was a basketball tournament."

"Oh, see?!"

Pretty names for the win!
...

Update:

I've got another great quote:

"March Madness? What is that, a sale?"

Spectacular.

Friday conversations

It's a good day to be eavesdropping in the office if you want to react to some shenanigans.

This conversation:

   "I'm a huge FRIENDS fan - I just binge-watched it - and you know the dark-haired one? Oh...what's her name?"
  "..."

YOU ARE NOT A FAN OF FRIENDS IF YOU REFER TO ANYONE AS "THE DARK-HAIRED ONE"!!!!!

It's MONICA! Her name is MONICA!



And then there was this one:

"Pat, if you want to buy a new baking pan, you just go ahead an buy it for yourself. You don't NEED to buy it. It's like me: 'No, husband, I don't NEED these new shoes, but I'm going buy them anyway.'"

*voice from two rows over*: "You BUY those shoes, melody!"

   "It's not about me, we were talking about Pat and a baking pan."

*voice from two rows over*: "Oh, well you BUY that baking pan, Pat!"
...

Yes. TGIF.

A random Monday memory

Years and year ago, my dad went away somewhere and brought back a big notebook for me. It was covered in Looney Tunes characters on the outside, and the edges of the pages were gold. Dad told me that not only could I write in it like I was apt to do as a voracious reader and writer for my age, but I could also use the cartoons on the outside to trace and draw into my own artwork. What kid gets excited over a book with blank pages to write in? I did. 

Advice when you need it...or don't

I had a dilemma at work during my spare time so I reached out to my best friend (read: Señorita) to get her to talk me through it. 

Weirdly appreciated

I can be a little goofy sometimes. Sometimes my brain acts in really fast, random ways. I think this makes me a really good brainstormer, but I'll admit that sometimes the things it comes up with can be downright weird.

And yet.

It's me. That's just me and how I think and work. Sometimes these ideas will just tumble out of control and suddenly from just thinking something, I'm suddenly doing something and acting on my random ideas and being the type of person I am, I really like to see these things through right away and as fast as possible...I hate when I come up with an idea to surprise someone because I can't wait to do it. And unfortunately, I apparently like surprising people.

My brother went along with a surprise party for our parents where we hosted a dance, bought drinks and catered for 50 people with zero experience.

A large number of Malcolm's friends sent me, practically a stranger at the time, pictures of themselves wishing Malcolm a happy birthday because I didn't want him to feel homesick or lonely on his birthday.

My workplace let me build a fireplace display in the office for Christmas; photoshop, disseminate for signatures, and deliver ridiculous Valentine's Day cards; and run pot lucks and Oscar betting pools on the regular.

My parents let me travel on a whim, all the time, with people they'd barely heard of.

Malcolm lets me host gatherings at our place with little notice, but big guest lists and long itineraries.

For all of that (and likely a lot more I'm not thinking of), I just want to say "thanks." Thank you all you spectacularly supportive people for letting me be me and going along with my crazy ideas. For not telling me I'm crazy and that I should just get back to work. For not telling me my ideas are impossible or that it can't be done. For making me just as pleased to do these things as the person on the receiving ends might be.

I am weird and you're wonderful. You make my life better.

Cheese-string crisis averted

Part of my little guy's usual breakfast will include a cheese-string (lately, anyway). He likes cheese, it's easy for him to hold, and when he starts getting bored I start a little string-pull for him and he's happy to rip off the string of cheese to shove in his mouth which gets him to eat just a little more. 

The other day was not unlike any other. We got up, got changed and before I put on the coffee, I gave him his cheese-string to get him started on breakfast while I was busy. As was typical, he toddled off to wander about while I made coffee which took me all of 2 minutes. 

By the time I was done, he'd made his way back to the kitchen...empty-handed.

me: "Baby, baby where's your cheese-string?"

Baby: "Hah?"

me: "What did you do with your cheese-string?"

Baby: "Hah?"

me: "Show mommy where you put your cheese-string."

Baby: "Bup!" *puts arms up to be picked up*

me: *picks him up* "Okay, where's your cheese-string?"

Baby: *hugs me*

Great. 

I put him down and tried to retrace his steps from the last 2 minutes to see where this cheese-string had gone so I could re-claim it before it was forgotten and was left to rot in some random corner somewhere in the house.

I knew he'd come from his playroom so that's where I headed first. I checked the floor, I checked the chairs, I checked in his little pedal car. Nothing. I stood in the middle of the room to assess the situation.

If I were a toddler, where would I put my cheese-string?

Then I spotted it. 

Duh, obviously, mommy. What a thoughtful little monkey.
...

For those of you who don't know, this little dinosaur sings a song when you turn him on:
I'm a hungry dinosaur
Who likes to eat
So please feed me
a healthy treat!

I'm going to chalk it up to my little guy just following instructions.

A hot topic

With the outcry at recent cauliflower prices soaring as high as $8 per head, I was astounded to catch this low price at my local Chinese grocer, so I snapped a picture and shared it with some friends who were trustworthy for reactions.

Of course then, the following ensued:

Me: Affordable cauliflower...but at a Chinese grocer...I bet it's an imitation cauliflower

Me: "Caurifrower"

dimps: LMFAO

dimps: that was too good. 

Malcolm: Forget caurifrower, what's Finger Hot?

Nightcrawler: Lol! That's an STD.

I hadn't even noticed.

A true "what she saw/what he saw" situation...

Didn't feel the Phantom yesterday

I saw a poor production of The Phantom of the Opera last night. I complained to my husband that it just didn’t give me “the feels” like I thought it should. The pace of the entire production was way too fast, the sound engineering was poor, there was no emotion, there were no dramatic pauses, there was no chemistry between the actors…no feels. The characters who were supposed to be in love didn't touch each other or stand close until they had to finally kiss. The sets were different, but not spectacular. I know that it wasn’t a dedicated “Phantom” theatre like how the Pantages was built, but it was still lackluster.

Then I felt bad for thinking so lowly of the production. These were professionals putting on a classic production – could I have done any better? Who was I to judge? Maybe after so many years – decades, in fact – since the last time I’d seen the show, maybe my tastes had matured and The Phantom was not something that was any good to begin with, but my immature theatre-sense at the time didn’t know any better. I’d seen it so long ago and unwarrantedly put it on this fantastically high pedestal that nothing would ever be able to come close to. That had to be it, right?

And yet, here I am at work (maybe I shouldn’t include that fact), listening to the original London cast soundtrack on YouTube with a shitty pair of headphones, and…the feels!

I mean, it’s not fair to compare last night’s singers to Michael Crawford or Sarah Brightman, okay fine. But just the emotion that you can hear in their performances is enough to confirm to me that this IS a production that can give me goosebumps. As I listen, I can totally envision the original production that I saw on stage so long ago with the rich colours and costumes and set design; the billowing mist of the underwater lake, the smoke of the hundreds of candles that rose magically from the stage, the elaborate, glittering, infamous chandelier.

And it’s not just the singers or the remembered visuals – the accompanying orchestra for this soundtrack version is just so expressive – it’s a character of the musical itself. There are pleading strings, ominous brasses, thundering percussion. I got the feels more from these recorded instruments than I did from the onstage actors last night.

I appreciate the efforts of a production company to put on a show – I really do – but they just happened to miss the mark with this one. They’re all talented individuals in their own rights, but this combination was just not a winning one. As my brother commented, “we should have watched the [2004] movie version before watching this show…that way anything by comparison to the movie would have been better.”

True story.

It should have been safe

When you're on a conference call at work, it's customary to call in, and then put yourself on mute while you listen. With that in mind, when I had to burp during my after-lunch meeting, it should have been safe to do so, so I did.

..except I wasn't on mute.

Office lingo

I've been back to work for a few weeks now and while I'm pretty much adjusted to it, I'm still a little rusty on my office lingo. For example, the following conversation happened:

Boss: YOA come to 6F oooppss
Me: ?????
Me: are you asking me to come to 6F
Boss: Yes.

If I'd been in full swing, I wouldn't have had to question it. Duh.

The muffin (wo)man

In an attempt to be the wholesome, ideal mother save a couple of bucks every week, I've been trying to make use of my muffin tins by baking muffins once a week to serve as a quick grab item for breakfast. I've tried a couple of recipes so far and the best one to date was a banana chocolate chip muffin. Being banana, this recipe was great because it also allowed me to make use of all the overripe bananas I was prone to having at the end of the week.

So far, my plan was going well:
1. Muffins from home so I'm not buying muffins while at work.
2. Banana muffins mean I'm getting to use overripe bananas instead of tossing them out.
3. Chocolate chip banana muffins mean "yum, chocolate!"

However, this week, the batch didn't turn out so hot. I was trying to convey that the muffins weren't "throw immediately into the garbage" no good, but they just weren't tasty. Some couldn't understand how they could be bad when there was chocolate involved, some just thought I was being modest. But the conversation I had with Malcolm last night perfectly relayed why they weren't so hot.

Me: Sorry the muffins this week weren't so great.
Malc: Oh, honey, don't be hard on yourself, they're good!
Me: No they're not, you can barely taste the banana.
Malc: These are banana muffins?!

See? Chocolate chip banana muffin fail. Accidental chocolate chip only muffin win.

The boots of regret

Something like 10 years ago, I went down to Washington D. C. to play in an annual volleyball tournament. Along the way, our driving convoy stopped in Grove City, PA to shop at the outlets there. It was my first time there, and man, were there ever deals!

I was still a new player back then, young and probably barely employed. But I made out like a bandit on things that cost me no more than $10 - 20 apiece. I stuck to the stores that I was familiar with and was pretty sure that I could afford to shop in: The GAP, Aeropostale (and this was before it came to Canada), the Nike Store...it was there I scored some great deals. Thinking I'd done all I could, I tagged along with another friend into a shoe store I'd never heard of before. Today, I couldn't tell you what it was called, but that's where this story REALLY began.

While she shopped, I browsed. As I browsed, I came across a pair of knee-high boots. Back then, I guess stretchy leather was not as common because when it came to these kinds of boots, you either had tiny little calves that fit the all-leather made boots, or you had giant-sized calves that had to be squeezed into boots that were part leather, part ugly-black-elastic-stretch-section-in-the-back. Being of the latter half of the population, I didn't have high hopes with these all-leather boots.

But then.

They fit! They fit like a glove! They were all leather! I was astounded. I took a few steps in them and they were comfortable. I checked out the brand name on the box - Kenneth Cole. All I knew was that it was a brand name that was typically out of range for my starving-student budget.

But then.

I flipped my heel and looked at the price tag stapled to the bottom of the boot: $98. $98?! You can never get boots - knee-high boots - for less than a hundred dollars!

But then.

My inexperienced shopping mind made the following "logical" deduction:

• I hadn't come on this volleyball trip prepared to shop
• Everything else I had bought on this unexpected trip was less than $20
• These boots were $98 and were 5x more expensive than anything else I'd bought so far
• I didn't need the boots
• Therefore, don't buy the boots.

And so, feeling good about brain power, I didn't buy the boots, got in the car, and continued on with the caravan, away from the outlets and on to our volleyball tournament in Washington. Surprisingly, it wasn't until I got back to Toronto the next weekend that it kicked in.

I should have bought those boots.

Perhaps I should have. but hey, they were just boots, I could find another pair. And so, feeling a little bit of regret, I decided to find myself a pair of replacement boots. That's when the REAL regret kicked in.

I couldn't find another pair.

All leather boots didn't fit me. Boots that did fit me had that terrible ugly elastic section in the back. Any boots that came close to being not-ugly-enough-to-want-to-buy were astronomically expensive. None of them were comfortable.

It plagued me for years that I couldn't find another pair. The scene played over and over in my mind: me standing there with the boots ON my feet, deciding I didn't need them, and then me walking out of the store without them. I wanted to scream at that past reflection of myself, buy the damn boots! You'll never find the same!

I regretted it. Oh, I regretted it hard. For YEARS. Since then, I've made it a point in my life to be sure that I'll never regret NOT buying something while I could, again. And that is the story, of the boots of regret...
...

...and that, honey, is why I HAD to buy these new Kenneth Cole boots while I was supposed to be grocery shopping!

After the show it's the after party

And usually the after party (of the party, that is...I'm not exactly putting on any [free] shows at my house) involves a mountain of dishes, a buffet of leftovers, further party-activity coordination, table and floor clean-up, simultaneous guest entertainment, not to mention baby-watching. Is it worth all the trouble, just to have a few hours of socializing with friends?

Always.

Besides, many hands make light work and none of the guests could be coerced to sit down and enjoy themselves. Dishes were washed, leftovers were packed, tables and floors cleaned and swept, and the baby not just watched, but bathed! With all of that so quickly out of the way, it was no time before we jammed a candle into a box of doughnuts and called it a cake for the birthday guest amongst us (despite the actual cake sitting a little further away on the table).

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I had a good time with good friends and family last night. That's all.

Mom-ninja level: 0

I put the little guy down for his second nap of the day. It was a great success: he fell asleep without needing to be nursed or rocked, and since I didn't swaddle him, I was able to tuck a blanket tightly around him without him waking up. All I had to do from there was extricate myself stealthily from the living room and let him nap away...

From my lying position on the couch, I sat up...onto a crinkly toy. I put my feet onto the floor...and kicked a rattle. Standing up...a jingly ball rolled into my vacant spot on the couch.  Tip-toeing from the room...I knocked a pen onto the glass table-top.

...and my little guy slept through it all...phew!

Like Chandler's gum

One of the most ridiculously coldest days out ever (-42°C) and I was struck with a moment.  Freezing cold as it was outside, the sun was streaming in the windows, warming all of the rooms it touched. I was in the kitchen with the sunshine pouring in through the glass patio doors. A pot of congee was cooking on the stove, steaming up the tops of the windows. Ed Sheeran softly played from the radio and the house was quiet as Malcolm was upstairs putting the baby down for a nap. The dishes were done and all plans for the day had been cancelled due to the extreme cold outside, and yet there I was having a perfectly warm and cozy moment inside. It was good.
...

This was what was playing during my moment: