My Week 143: Awkwardness at Work, 2 Quick Tales

I am sometimes awkward at work

Anyone who knows me (or visits this site frequently) knows that I can be a little awkward around other people. I quite often misinterpret the things other people say, mostly because in my head, life is like a Monty Python sketch, which is to say it’s weird, and funny, and quite often self-referential, like if you haven’t watched the show before, you might not understand the joke. For instance, the other day, I was going through some materials with a co-worker, looking for common patterns, when another colleague walked in and asked, “Have you found anything?”

“Well,” I answered, “it could be something, or it could just be a case of a million monkeys with a million typewriters.”

“Writing the bible. Right,” replied my colleague. And I so badly wanted to say, “Ah, you’ve seen this episode before,” but I didn’t, because that would be pushing my luck. And also, I wanted to hug her, because mostly when I say that, people think I’m either obsessed with monkeys, or don’t like the Bible. Not that I actually LIKE the Bible—I’m kind of ambivalent towards it, like if I was to review it, I would probably say something like “Choppy style, but interesting plot. A little too preachy for this critic. 3 out of 5 stars.”

Anyway, recently I got promoted, so I’ve gone from being able to wallow in my comfort zone to being right out there in the spotlight. And it’s hella uncomfortable. In work situations, I normally like to sit and listen, just observe, and I only say something if I think it’s important. In my head, I like to think I’m perceived thusly: “She doesn’t speak very often, but when she does, we all should listen.” Unfortunately, the reality is probably more like, “What the hell is she talking about NOW? It’s always monkeys, monkeys, monkeys.”

But since the promotion, when I’m in meetings, instead of just being able to sit there, listen, and make notes, I’m REQUIRED to speak. And it’s usually when I least expect it.

Director: And then the 4th quarter targets….
Other Director: The memo about this requires a decision note…
Chair: And now for a report from mydangblog.
Me: What?! I…We are an EFFECTIVE team.

You can tell that I was lost in thought, going through Tom Cruise movies in my head. Thank goodness I was stuck at Oblivion, and not Jerry McGuire, because “Show me the money!” might not have gone over as well. (Just for the record, they don’t actually call me ‘mydangblog’ at work, but it would be super-funny if they did.) And the other day, we were having a high up meeting, and we were told not to let people into the office without escorts, because it IS a secret agency, and there are a lot of confidential materials in the office that are not for the public’s eye. “In fact,” said one of the Directors, “this came about because last week, we discovered that a former employee was in the office, and no one knew about it.”

Me: What?! You mean, like, for days? Was he hiding somewhere? I KNEW we needed to clean up that storage room!
Director: No. He was only here for a couple of hours. He wasn’t hiding—he just wasn’t being escorted by the person who let him in.
Me: Oh, good, because otherwise that would have been REALLY disconcerting.
Director: Yes. Sigh.

Now that I’m a manager, I’m also responsible for a budget. And it’s a HUGE f*cking budget. When I was a high school department head, my total budget was $12 000, and I was responsible for every penny. I had an Excel spreadsheet with two columns: ‘What I Have’ and ‘What I Spent’. My only job was to make sure that ‘What I Spent’ was never more than ‘What I Have’. When I first saw my new budget, I was completely freaked out, and my first thought was, “I’m gonna need a bigger spreadsheet.” So I asked to have a meeting with the Manager of Finance:

Me: So I’m a little concerned about how I’m supposed to keep track of all this.
Finance Manager: Keep track?
Me: Well, there are over 200 budget lines with like another 500 sublines. Does the spreadsheet you sent me automatically calculate debits or do I have to do that manually? I think I should probably pin the calculator to the task bar if that’s the case, cuz this is gonna take a LOT of time.
Finance Manager: Uh, no. This is just ‘for your information’. We have a whole department that deals with budget calculations.
Me: Oh. OK. Cool.

And speaking of cool, the person who had my office before me had a big-ass fan. Me, I’m always cold, so I haven’t used it yet, but last week it was getting pretty hot, so I decided to turn it on.

Step 1) Plug fan in and press ‘Power’ button.
Step 2) Hold hand up in front of fan to see how cold the air is.
Step 3) Look at fan skeptically.
Step 4) Change the setting to high and place hand in front of fan again.
Step 5) Look at fan skeptically.
Step 6) Change setting to “Oscillate” and place hand in front of fan again.
Step 7) Turn fan off and then back on.
Step 8) Realize that fan is not a computer and that turning it off and on again made no difference.
Step 9) Pick up fan to shake it and discover that fan is facing backwards.
Step 10) Turn fan around so that it is no longer blowing cold air at the wall.

And finally, the coup de grace of my awkward week:

I work with a very nice gentleman about my own age. On Wednesday, I was having trouble with my computer, so I went over to his desk. He’s lucky, in that he has a window, but also unlucky, in that it looks right over into the highrise building next door. I was in the middle of a conversation with him when this happened:

Me: So are you having trouble with your drives? I can’t get anything to load.
Very Nice Gentleman: No, mine seem–
Me: Holy sh*t! There’s a girl in that window and she’s completely naked!
VNG (clears throat): Oh, gosh. Anyway–
Me: No, seriously. Good lord! Okay, now she’s putting on underwear. Doesn’t she know we can see her?!
VNG: Um, I actually can’t from where I’m sitting. So, have you tried restarting your com–
Me: She’s right there! Just stand up a little bit!
VNG: No, that’s OK.

So I stood there for a little while longer until the girl was dressed and gone. It wasn’t until later that I realized that the poor guy was probably mortified and all like “Can’t we just talk about monkeys?!” And now, I feel terrible for trying to make him look at naked ladies . But probably not as terrible as the girl would be, if she knew that she can be seen in all her glory from our office windows.

Two Quick Stories:

Crazy for Adjectives:

Right now, I’m going through resumes for a position I’m hiring for. The one notable thing is that people really go a little overboard with their superlatives. Either that, or they REALLY want to work with me. I started making a list of things that people say that will not get them a foot in the door. First, there are the people who are ‘delighted’ to be applying for the position. These people are also possessed of ‘great enthusiasm’, as well as ‘great eagerness’. Then there are the people who are ‘extremely knowledgeable’ and are ‘highly adept’. Finally, there are those who tell me that ‘As you can see’, they will be an ‘excellent addition’ and a ‘valuable member’. Then I got the feeling that maybe they all thought they were applying for a position as “puppy petter” or “ice cream truck client”. I mean, my office is a great place to work, but it’s no kitten farm, so dial it back a notch, Skippy.

Nickels and Dimes:

I was on the train Friday night, and we were sitting in the station waiting to depart, when the guy in the seat across the aisle from me suddenly starting talking VERY LOUDLY to someone on his cellphone. It was his bank. He was angry because he had paid for something by cheque from his line of credit which he rarely did, and he was charged a service fee, which he had NEVER been charged before. Then he gave the person on the other end his account number and the answer to his secret question, AND the dollar amount of the cheque, which was $2, 226.00 and I was like, “That service charge must have been huge for him to do this in front of everyone”, and also “I could totally hack his account”, at which point, he said, “It was twenty-five cents. I don’t understand why I’m being charged to use my line of credit. I want it credited back to my account immediately.” I actually snickered out loud at how serious and pissy he was. Then the train left the station and he was quiet for a while, so I assumed the bank’s customer service representative told him he was silly, and to go away. But suddenly, after about 10 minutes, I heard him say, “Yes,” and I realized he was STILL on the phone. Then he said, “Thank you. I hope this never happens again.” I just love that the customer service rep. kept him on hold for so long, hoping that he would hang up. Yet, he persisted.

My Week 142: Which Wolverine is Which? and They Call Me The Streak

Friday: I am befuddled by Wolverine

I remember a time when superhero movies and shows were so much simpler. There was Batman (Godspeed, Adam West—to me, you will always be the BEST bat), who fought crime with his sidekick Robin. There was the cartoon Aquaman, who lived in an underwater kingdom and rode around on a seahorse with his sidekick Aqualad, fighting the forces of evil. Then, of course, there were Superman and Spiderman, each with their OWN show. Apparently at one point, the Flash appeared on the Superman cartoon, but other than that, there were no cross-overs, no re-imaginings, no “Origin” stories and no guest appearances. It was easy to keep straight. Then came the Superfriends, which Ken INSISTS on calling the “Justice League”, and yes, I know that was their official name, Ken, but the SHOW was called Superfriends. It made sense, because they all worked together to solve crime, instead of randomly appearing in each other’s movies. (As an aside, I’m including Rocket Robin Hood in my list of childhood cartoons, but that was someone’s drug-fuelled hallucination gone bad with its bizarre mix of the Middle Ages and futuristic technology—I’m surprised no one has remade this yet. Also, there was Hercules, which I believe was created by the same studio since the characters all looked the same. I was wracking my brains trying to find the theme to Rocket Robin Hood which included the words, “Softness in his eyes and iron in his thighs”, which sounds a little pervy for a kid’s cartoon, am I right? Then I remembered THAT was Hercules, which also might explain why I thought that Rocket Robin Hood fought the Minotaur and had a sidekick named Newt).

Then, on Friday night, Ken and I decided to rent a movie, and Logan was available. We started watching it and right away, I was confused:

Me: Why is Wolverine so old? Why is he driving a limo? Where are the rest of the X-Men?
Ken: This takes place in the future. It’s, like, a reboot—a totally different timeline.
Me: So, Jennifer Lawrence isn’t in this one?
Ken: Not sure. We’ll have to wait and see.
Me: Is that Stephen Merchant?! Ooh, is Ricky Gervais in this too? I could totally see him as, like, “Sarcastic Man”. His superpower would be destroying his enemies with the lowest form of wit.

(Warning: If you haven’t seen Logan yet, there might be a spoiler or two coming up.) Anyway, in THIS movie, Professor X is really old and there’s a new, young group of mutants created by an evil scientist and a random English dude who escape from the scientist’s evil laboratory, and then it turns into a really boring chase/fight sequence involving a little girl who’s apparently Wolverine’s test-tube daughter and some guy who’s a Wolverine clone. No one can kill anyone, until—well, I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s just say an adamanatium bullet plays a role. Then Wolverine and Professor X both die, and I was so confused.

Me: I thought there was another X-Men movie coming out soon. How can that happen if Professor X is dead?
Ken: I think that’s a different timeline.
Me: How many f*cking timelines are there? This is so confusing.

Then, on Saturday afternoon, I started watching X-Men: Origins where Wolverine was part of a mercenary group that included Ryan Reynolds and Dominic Monaghan, and I was like, “What the hell? Is that DEADPOOL?! Are there HOBBITS in this movie?! This crossover thing has gone too far!” And in this one, Wolverine was a Canadian (yes, Canadian!) lumberjack. Was he ALWAYS Canadian, or are they setting up a new timeline where he works with Captain Canuck? (As another sidenote, Captain Canuck is the quintessential Canadian superhero—he has superstrength, an eidetic memory, is fully bilingual, and of course, polite. If he took his shirt off more often, Justin Trudeau could play him in the movie). After the first 10 minutes, I decided to stop watching because I needed to go back and start the X-Men series at the beginning. But trying to figure out where exactly the beginning IS seems like an impossible task, what with all the movies that are filmed later but take place BEFORE other things. It’s like Star Wars, where the first movie is Episode IV, but kids today think that’s the 4th movie, but it’s NOT, T. Or like the Alien series, where we were all like, “Is Prometheus a sequel or a prequel? Is Covenant a prequel to Prometheus? Why are we moving backwards? That’s not how time works, godammit!”

And then last night, I wanted to rewatch Suicide Squad because it was shot in Toronto right down the street from where I live, and they were all seemingly new superheroes, I think, but the movie was set in Gotham. Yes, Gotham, like where Batman is from. And then Batman was actually in it, and so was the lady from How to Get Away With Murder, and there was all this talk about Superman being dead, and I was like, “When did Superman die?! Was that at the end of Batman Vs. Superman?” Because I was asleep at that point, having been bored to tears by yet another insanely long fight scene where no one could win. And then, at the end, the credits started rolling:

Me: Don’t turn it off yet. There might be a teaser.
Ken: This is a DC Universe. Those only happen with Marvel. I think.
Me: What? Well, you never know. Just wait.

And sure enough, there WAS a teaser. And it was Ben Affleck as Batman with some kind of dossier, and in the dossier was f*cking AQUAMAN! But it wasn’t clear if he wanted to get the Superfriends back together or kill them all. And now, it’s just going to be a non-stop free-for-all of backstories, reimaginings, reboots, and timelines, until all universes are one and Rocket Robin Hood is protecting Sherwood Forest against the Joker in outer space with his trusty sidekick, Nightcrawler.

Saturday: Oh yeah, they call me The Streak

Last Saturday, I was in my bathroom upstairs getting ready for the day, and just about to have a bath, when I realized I was almost out of toilet paper. I was totally naked at the time, but Ken was outside doing yardwork, and no one could see me from the windows since our house is set back from the street, so I made my way downstairs to the cupboard where we keep the toilet paper, bottles of water, and other assorted beverages—a kind of all-purpose pantry, if you will. I was standing there with a roll of toilet paper in one hand, and a Vitamin Water in the other, when Ken, like the damned ninja he is, suddenly appeared with no warning. We stared at each other:

Ken: Well, hello there. I’m sure there’s a very interesting story behind this.
Me: Oh my god, Ken! You’re supposed to be outside! I’m naked!
Ken: Why yes. Yes, you are.
Me (running away): Stop looking at my ass!

Now, you’re probably thinking, “What’s the big deal? They’ve been married for 27 years. Surely, they’ve seen each other naked.” And you would be right, except this was broad daylight, in the middle of a room, and I was holding toilet paper and Ken was holding a garden trowel. If I was a more clever person, I might have responded with, “I’m so sorry—I have no money to pay you for your gardening services…” instead of fleeing like a streaker at a soccer game. But I’m just not comfortable being naked and running around the house unless I’m sure I’m completely alone, and even then it feels weird. Like, even in Toronto, when my roommate’s gone and I have the chain on the door so no one can sneak in, I still put on my pajamas before I leave the bathroom. I COULD run around naked, since the closest neighbour would need a high-powered telescope to see me, but you never know. Sometimes I just give the finger to my window on the off-chance that I’m being spied on, to let the other person know I see them, even though I don’t. And now what I think is that PARANOIA is my super-power, and I deserve a cross-over appearance in the Marvel/DC/Hanna Barbera universe. Just call me “Uncomfortably Naked Girl”.

My Week 141: OCD Much?

Wednesday: OCD much?

Last week, I was looking at Facebook, and someone had posted an article about one of the many Kardashian creatures and her apparent OCD. The Kardashian in question is “Kloe”, and maybe she thinks she has OCD, but I took one look at her refrigerator and freezer, and I was like “No. Just no.” Because her refrigerator and freezer made MY OCD flare up like fireworks on Victoria Day. First, her refrigerator was JAM-PACKED full of stuff. And maybe it was organized by type, but the pickle jars were all squished up against each other (who the hell needs 6 jars of pickles anyway), the salad dressing was nestled up against the mustard, and there was no satisfying equi-distance between ANYTHING. But the worst part was that there were 6 butter sticks which were NOT stacked evenly, and the margarine tubs were on a tippy, nay, haphazard angle. Lady, just because you have six cans of Red Bull lined up in a row doesn’t mean anything other than you’re probably more wired than most people. Also, the sheer amount of stuff in that refrigerator mostly proves you’re some kind of self-indulgent shopaholic with more money than brains. Then I read on about how she takes several boxes of Oreos and tosses them into jars. Jars! You’re taking Oreos out of their neat straight rows and dumping them willy-nilly into glass containers, where the cookie dust gets all over everything. And what if some of them break in the process? Now you can’t even eat them.

So I was irked. My own OCD isn’t even that bad on most days—in fact, you might not even notice it, unless you look around my house and realize that all objects of décor are organized in patterns of fives (and sometimes threes or sevens), or you’ve watched me put groceries on the conveyer belt in a symmetrical fashion according to size and shape and with one inch of space between all items, or you’ve seen me in the bathroom washing my hands simply because doing that fills me with a sense of profound relief, or you’ve noticed that my thumbs are bleeding because my dermatophagia (which thank goodness is limited to my cuticles) is out of control right now and I’m not sure why.

I think a big part of the problem is that I don’t like strangers touching my stuff. This past weekend, Ken and I had a garage sale, so you can only imagine how high my stress level shot up, as stranger after stranger wandered around my yard, picking up things and putting them down in different places than the ones I’d assigned to them. It took all I had not to follow people around, re-arranging behind them, or not yelling, “If you don’t want to buy that, can you please put it back where you found it?!”

Plus I hate how judge-y people are at yard sales:

Woman: Will you do better than $20 dollars for this table?
Me: It’s from the late 1800s, so no, I’m sorry.
Woman: But the legs are a little rickety. Will you go $15?
Me: No, sorry.
Woman: Hmph. Then I’ll pass.
Me: No problem. Can you please put it back where you found it?

Seriously. An antique side table worth 5 times the price and she passed at $20 because the legs were a little “rickety”. What, was she planning to sit on it? Otherwise, it was just fine as a table. But we did sell a lot of stuff, including Frank the stuffed fish whose story you can read about in My Week 34. A woman came very early, and bought a lot of things for exactly the price we were asking and never haggled once. She admired Frank, who we’d pulled out of the shed to put by the side of the road on the grounds that neither of us REALLY wanted a dead fish in the house, so I told her she could have him for free. She loaded all of her purchases into her car, then suddenly she came back to the house. “Here,” she said, holding out a $10 bill. “That’s for the fish. I know he’s worth a lot more.” When we protested that no, she could just have him, she insisted, and tucked the bill into a glass on the table. “Don’t argue,” she laughed, and then drove away.

The other best part of the morning was when my aunts came for a visit. After looking around for a while, one of them asked if she could dig up a little bit of Solomon’s Seal from my garden for hers. They both disappeared for a minute, then my other aunt came around the corner of the house with the plant hanging out of a bag.

“Hey,” I yelled. “That crazy woman is taking plants from the garden!! Lady! Those aren’t for sale!!”

Then I realized that some of my prospective customers were looking at her, as she blithely made her way to the car. “Do you want me to stop her?” one man asked, concerned.

“No,” I laughed. “She’s family. It’s all good.” Because family is ALLOWED to touch my stuff.

My Week 140: Titus Shows Off at the Vet, Wonder Woman and Sexism

Saturday: Titus goes to the vet

On Friday night, Ken reminded me that Titus had his yearly vet appointment. He’s a pretty healthy dog, so he hasn’t actually seen the vet since this time last year. I had errands to do, but I agreed to go in my car and meet them there—not because I didn’t think Ken could do it on his own, but because I like to make sure we’re not getting soaked for extra tests. You know how veterinarians are always upselling procedures to make a profit. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—they need to make a living like the rest of us—but does a dog REALLY need a hearing test? If you open a bag of chips, and your dog doesn’t immediately appear next to you no matter where he is in the house, then your dog has a hearing problem, and it shouldn’t cost $200 to tell you that.

Anyway, on Saturday morning, I said to Titus, “Hey buddy, guess what? We’re going for a car ride!”

He immediately looked both intrigued and suspicious. “Where are we going?”

Me: The VET! It’s going to be awesome!
Titus: How is that ‘awesome’? The last time I went there, she stuck a needle in my ass. Wait—is that the place where they have those Liver Treats?
Me: Why, yes. Yes, it is.
Titus: Ok, cool.

So we got him into Ken’s SUV, where he insisted in sitting up front, and we both set off in separate vehicles. I got there at the same time as them, and I was all like, “Hey, buddy, did you have fun in the car?” but Titus was too concerned with smelling EVERY CORNER of the door frame, then EVERY CORNER the waiting room, straining against his collar, wheezing like an emphysemic old man, and whispering “So many messages…”. We managed to get him to sit still long enough on the scale to get his weight, which was 41.7 kilos. That sounded like a lot, and I was trying to do the conversion math in my head but failing I just looked it up—92 pounds). I was convinced that Titus had gotten a little ‘chunky’ over the last few months, but when the vet tech came in, she confirmed that his weight last year was 41.1 kilos.

Titus: Ha!! And you called me ‘chunky’. I’m svelte, baby. Cheese slices for everyone!!
Me: Well, I’m sorry, but you looked bigger.
Titus: That’s just my personality. I’m larger than life.

Then the vet tech gave us a form to fill in, because Titus is now technically a “senior dog”, having attained the age of 8 years old. There was a series of questions which we had to answer on a scale of zero to 3.

Ken: Does your pet seem listless?
Me (watching Titus run back and forth between the counter and the door): That would be zero.
Ken: Does your pet urinate outside the litter box?
Me: I’m confused. Is he supposed to HAVE a litter box? How big would it have to be?
Ken: I think this is a generic dog/cat survey, so I’m just going to say ‘Non-Applicable’. Has your pet’s appetite increased?
Me: He’s a Lab. I don’t think there’s an end to his appetite. Is the next question, ‘Has your pet’s appetite decreased?’ cuz you can say zero to that one too.
Ken: Ok. When your pet barks, does he dribble a little urine?
Titus: WHAT?! (Looking at floor)…Actually, maybe a little right then.
Me: No, that’s just drool. Stop staring at the treat jar.

Then our vet came in, and, long story short, she was VERY impressed with his health. Then she tried to extend his back legs and looked a little concerned:

Vet: He doesn’t want me to manipulate his right leg. Has he been favouring it?
Me: No, but every so often, it goes out from under him a bit.
Vet: Could be early hip dysplasia. We’ll have to keep an eye on it, and start him on joint health supplements. Of course, we could X-ray it right now…
Titus: Death Ray?! I’d rather smoke a joint.
Me: A ‘joint health supplement’ is a vitamin, not marijuana.

Then it was time for the shots, which Titus didn’t even notice because he was too busy eating Liver Treats to distract him. We also reluctantly agreed to bloodwork to test for heartworm, liver and kidney function, as well as flea and tick medication, and the dollar signs were just ringing up loud in my head. But after the blood was taken, the vet made him a special bandage with a little heart on it, so that totally made up for the incredible cost. At one point, she left, and Ken whispered. “What do you think? Like, $300?” and I was like, “No way—at least $500.” And yeah, guess who was right?

The best part though, was that when we came out, the place was packed, and everyone turned to look at Titus. I couldn’t have been prouder in that moment, as they ooh’ed and ah’ed over him. “What a gorgeous dog,” said one woman. “He’s a giant!” said another. People commented on his shiny coat, how well-behaved he was, and what a beautiful smile he had. None of this was lost on Titus, who’s nothing if not a showman.

Titus: Let’s do our routine—really give them something to remember. We’ll put that Shih Tzu over there to shame.
Me: OK—ready? Sit. Stay. Bang! You’re dead…OK, you’re just wounded…Fine, you’re alive—roll over.

Then he gave the crowd high fives, and everyone, including the snooty little Shih Tzu, was suitably impressed. So I guess the vet bill, which I put on Visa and will be paying off in installments, was totally worth it.

Women Only

So this week, I’ve been reading about how some guys are really upset because there are special “Women Only” showings of the new Wonder Woman movie. But I understand why they’re upset about this, because every time I’ve done “Women Only” things, men always complain about it:

1) Ringette

When I was 7 years old, I started playing Ringette. Ringette, at that time, was a Women Only sport. Of course, what I really wanted to play was hockey, but at the time women’s hockey teams were extremely rare, and girls weren’t allowed to play on boy’s hockey teams. I played Ringette until I was 14 and it was always an all-girls team. Of course, there was no body checking, or pucks, but it was still a pretty cool game. Then the guys started complaining that they wanted to play Ringette too, so now, of course, there are men’s ringette teams.

2) Brownies and Girl Guides

As a kid, I was really into nature and hiking in the forest, and basically just doing cool stuff, so I joined the Brownies. What I really wanted to join was the Cub Scouts, but girls weren’t allowed to join the Cub Scouts. I became a Brownie and got badges for sewing and cooking instead of making fires and killing bears and sh*t. But hey—I got to dance around a toadstool and my leaders were named after owls. Now, of course, thanks to boys wanting to join the Girl Guides, there are unisex troops, and adventure groups for both sexes.

3) Home Ec.

When I was in Grade 8, I was in a ‘girls only’ Home Economics class. Well, ALL the Home Economics classes were girls only. The boys got to take Industrial Arts where, instead of cooking and sewing and learning to apply make-up, they got to weld and do woodwork. But what I really wanted to take was Industrial Arts, and one day, my dream came true. The boys and girls switched classes for one period, and the Home Economics teacher made cookies for the boys while they watched, and the Industrial Arts teacher made us all key chains. I could have made my own f*cking key chain, but the teacher didn’t want me to burn my fingers melting the plastic in the electronic frying pan. Silly guy—I KNEW how to use an electric frying pan because I’d been taking Home Economics for almost a year. But I guess boys really like to make cookies because now all of these classes are co-ed.

My point? Well, women have lost all the bastions of their womenhood to men. Everything is co-ed now, thanks to men complaining that they’re being left out of all the cool stuff. All we want is the ability to do something without the opposite gender constantly wanting to join in and make things equal. Is that so wrong? I mean, men have been saying that for years.

Sarcasm aside, I think it’s a bit hysterical that a lot of the same men who are upset about not being able to see Wonder Woman would never have complained when women were FORCED to have Women Only things, like the Lioness Club instead of the Lion’s Club, or the Rebekah Lodge because women weren’t allowed to be Masons, or any other “women’s branch” of any fraternal organization, or sport, or activity because they weren’t ALLOWED to be a part of the men stuff. K pointed out that saying it’s ok because men did it to women for years doesn’t make it right, and I told her that I didn’t actually think it WAS right. It’s just ironic. And if it’s any consolation to the men out there, Wonder Woman is still wearing a ridiculously skimpy outfit. But of course, next thing you know, Batman is going to be complaining about why he can’t fight crime in a bustier too, and all the superheroes will be wearing lingerie. But that’s equality for you.

My Week 138: Nothing to See Here, Pantless People, Text Convos

This is going to be a quickie, because not only is it Mother’s Day, but we’re also celebrating a milestone birthday for my dad. Ken and I just got back from a mystery weekend that he’d arranged. “Oh boy!” I said. “A surprise, travelling somewhere, being around strangers, AND not being at home all weekend? Well, that’s just…um.” I may or may not have been sarcastic when I said it, but at any rate, I had a great time once I got there. It was a quaint little inn on the shores of Lake Erie. We got there on Friday night, and decided to sit at the bar for a drink. After a little while, Ken said, “Is that frog wearing pants?” I was a little befuddled by this sudden change in conversational direction, until I realized that behind me on the bar was a statue of a giant frog, wearing a fancy jacket and dress shoes, sporting a monocle, and yes—not wearing any pants. In fact, as I turned, his froggy-parts were directly parallel with my face.

“Hm,” I said. “He’d be right at home in downtown Toronto.”

I say this because in the last couple of weeks, what with the weather getting slightly warmer, there have been several instances of people wandering around pantless. There’s the guy who wears the pink mini-kilt with nothing underneath, who demands that people look at his ass. He can get a bit aggressive with the whole “Look at my ass NOW!” thing. The man who stands outside my office building and hands out the free Metro paper is terrified of him. I know this because a little while ago, I was on my way to work and realized the Metro man was standing behind a column on the other side of the street, kind of peeking out as he drank a cup of coffee. I didn’t know why at first, like maybe he was taking a coffee break or something and didn’t want anyone to know, but when I crossed the street, the kilt guy was running back and forth in front of my office screaming at people. I waited until he ran to the corner, then hightailed it into my building and told the security guard:

Me: There’s a guy outside wearing a pink mini-kilt and yelling at people to look at his bum.
 Security Guard: Sigh. Is he back? I already told him once that he had to leave.
Me: Well, tell him again. He’s bothering the Metro man.

(I feel very protective of the Metro man because he reminds me of Hodor, in that he’s a giant and doesn’t say much, except he always smiles and very quietly wishes me a good day.)

And the other day, there was a woman in the lobby of my office building who was completely naked from the waist down, screaming F*ck you! at anyone who looked at her. I missed that one, thank goodness, but I heard about it from several co-workers. And of course, on Wednesday, there was the charming fellow in front of my building who was WEARING pants, but insisted on thrusting his groin at everyone who passed by. I really needed to pop back to my condo to get some paperwork, but I had to wait until he was gone.

Which brings me to my point. The week before, I had borrowed a trolley from work to help move boxes to my new condo. It was an ordinary trolley, with a base of thick grey plastic. It had four wheels and a metal handle. Again, a perfectly ordinary trolley. Both times, when I brought it home, and then when I returned it, people on the street looked at me like I was crazy. Heads turned, eyebrows raised, and I was given a wide berth, and I was like, “Seriously?! This is the weirdest thing you’ve seen today?! There’s a guy on the corner with a megaphone telling people they’re all going to die because they’re sinners, there’s a woman sitting in the middle of the sidewalk rocking back and forth and yelling “Spare change” over and over, and Groin Man is merrily thrusting away. But I’M THE WEIRDO?” But I realize my mistake now—if I’d just been pantless and yelling, “Stop looking at my f*cking cart!” at everyone who passed by, no one would have given me a second thought. I guess people are so used to ‘crazy’ that ‘normal’ just scares the pants off them.

Other weird things I did this week:

Monday: We have the most random text conversations:

M: At the gym now.
 Me: I admire you for working out this late. I’m just drinking wine and running a bath. #ThugLife
L: Again, I’m just watching the OJ movie and hula hooping.
Me: OK, so I just pulled my shower curtain rod down and some of the rings fell into the toilet. This thug life is NOT what I was promised.
L: I don’t think thugs worry about shower rings. They are too busy popping caps in asses.
Me: But I had to put my hand in the toilet. That’s pretty gangster.
L: Again, I don’t think a gangster would do that. But well done you!
Me: Hand in toilet. That’s 50 Cent sh*t right there.
L: I bet 50 Cent has NEVER put his hand in a toilet.
Me: If this is thug life, I’m outtie.
M: Article: “Police remove ‘angry’ beaver that stopped traffic.”
Me: Nothing quite like an angry beaver.
L: That’s what she said…

Tuesday:

It was my dad’s actual birthday on Tuesday, and I wanted to call him and wish him Happy Birthday, but it was busy at work and I was worried I’d get sidetracked. So I wrote “Call Dad” on the palm of my hand (yes, it’s my own personal Palm Pilot), so I’d remember. I called him around 9 am, sang him the birthday song, then a little while later I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, and I realized that I’d used a permanent marker, and it was NOT coming off. So not only did I look like a neglectful daughter who couldn’t remember to call her own dear dad unless she wrote it on her hand, I spent the rest of the day having people say, “Did you call your Dad yet?”

Thursday:

I ate a piece of chocolate that fell on the floor. In my defense, no one was looking, and I blew the germs off it.

Sunday:

K just gave me a Mother’s Day card with a gift certificate to the liquor store in it. Yeah, I raised that girl right.

 

My Week 137: Moving Stress, Teenager Reviews Movies

Well, it’s been one hell of a week, what with moving and all. Moving is superstressful at the best of times, and even more so when you had no intention of moving in the first place, so thank you, greedy landlord, for cashing in on the housing bubble in the big city, and forcing me to find new digs. The new place WILL be nice though, after I finish cleaning and replacing the bathroom cabinets that are covered in black mold. You might remember me telling you that every time I went to see the place, it was really awkward because the previous tenant, a university student, was half-naked. I should have realized at that point that people who are too lazy to dress themselves completely also can’t be bothered with things like making sure the microwave isn’t covered in layers of grease, that the floors don’t have mud all over them, and that the bathroom doesn’t require a hazmat suit to simply be IN it. Oh well—it seems to be my lot in life to take over places and have to clean the sh*t out of them. When Ken and I bought our cottage, it was the same deal, what with layers of dirt underneath the carpet and a stove so unsalvageable that we just tossed it out and bought a new one.

Of course, I left my condo in pristine condition, because I’m a grown-up. Also, because I was threatened with the cost of a cleaning crew if I didn’t, which I realize now was an empty threat, based on the fact that, according to my property manager, it’s a standard clause that all Tenant Termination agreements contain. If my current landlord had any balls, he would have charged half-naked girl, or at least paid ME for the cleaning, but that didn’t, and won’t happen, based on his reaction to the mold in the bathroom (by the way, he doesn’t speak English very well):

Me: What’s wrong with the cabinets?
 Him: Oh, I don’ know—maybe jus’ dirty. I clean.
Me: I don’t think Windex will work. That’s mold between the veneer and the particle board.
Him: So sorry for the inconvenience.

I emailed him later and told him that Ken and I were taking the drawer fronts off and replacing them, and that I would let him know the cost, to which he again replied, “So sorry for the inconvenience.” I think he’s confusing ‘inconvenience’ with ‘fungal lung infection’, but hey, that’s the crazy English language for you.

I suppose it’s a testament to the power of my will (among other things) that we got the whole ordeal over and done with on Friday. Here are the things that the universe kept throwing in my way to overcome:

1) Late Thursday night, part of the ceiling in the elevator lobby suddenly collapsed. On Friday morning, my concierge told me that he couldn’t put the elevator on service for the two hours I’d booked, because they were already one elevator down, and that we would just have to load everything into the hall, then do the entire move in 20 minutes.

2) I was moving into the building next door, but it was pouring rain, and we had to traverse 75 feet of flooding pavement to get from one garage bay to another.

3) The garbage company hadn’t done their usual Thursday pick-up, and the garage bay of my building was full of giant dumpsters, so we had to take everything through a narrow hallway instead of the bay, and then try NOT to get hit by garbage trucks while carrying couches in the pouring rain.

4) My property manager showed up at 10 am to pick up the keys and said he couldn’t leave until the place was completely emptied. I suggested that perhaps he should pitch in and help if he wanted to be out of there before noon, given the circumstances. He said it was OK, because he had nowhere else to be and then he literally stood in the living room for the next two hours, fiddling with his phone. He DID carry the last box out of the apartment though, so that TOTALLY made up for the fact that I was charged 5 days rent for doing what the management company suggested and not moving out on the first, which pretty much cancelled out the incentive I was given for moving out a month early (it really didn’t make up for it, and I have the email to prove that I was told to move out on the fifth, so we’ll see).

5) I had no Allen key. No one had an Allen key. How do I have furniture that was put together with an Allen key, yet I have no f*cking Allen key? Luckily, I had a multi-purpose screwdriver that I bought at Loblaws. When I initially purchased it, I thought to myself, “When am I ever going to need anything other than a Robertson head, or maybe, worst case scenario, a Philips? What are all these other weird heads for? This one’s a f*cking hexagon—when would I ever need THAT?” Well, mystery solved.

I was fortunate though, to have the help of my family throughout this whole debacle, particularly K and my brother, who has a PhD and who is also extremely cheerful and strong. Between the two of them, they got all the heavy stuff moved in record time, and found a way to get around every obstacle the universe threw at us with dignity, grace, and a minimum of swearing. I was also lucky that the concierge of my former building kept “forgetting” to take the elevator off service, which gave us pretty much the entire two hours to get my stuff out. Also, K and I took the train back together, and, without asking, not only did she carry my suitcase for me, she held my hand on the packed, standing room only subway so that I wouldn’t fall over. I don’t mind telling you this, because she NEVER READS MY BLOG. So she’ll never know how much I appreciate the little things she does for me. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, no matter how sh*tty and stressful things are, I’m extremely lucky to have people in my life who care about me and who will go out of their way for me when I need it. From Ken, who made several trips to the city to help with the preliminaries but who couldn’t be there on moving day because of work, to my parents who were willing to help with anything I needed, to all the other family and friends who offered support and encouragement, all I can say is “Don’t be sad about losing this one, universe—you didn’t know what you were up against.”

Saturday: Teenage movie reviews

On the weekend, we like to pick a movie to watch together as a family in our back room. We have a sectional couch back there, and the first person to yell, “Long spot!” gets dibs on the part of the couch where you can stretch your legs out. Sometimes they’re new movies, but when there’s nothing good available, we delve into our own collection, much to K’s dismay. On Saturday night, we had “The Hobbit,” but then I got this intense desire to watch “Lady in the Water” directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

K: What’s it about?
 Me: It’s about this apartment complex in Florida where the Super of the building discovers a mermaid in the pool. I don’t want to say much else and give it away, but it’s a great film.
K: Really? Is this going to be like when you made me watch “Bladerunner?”
Me: “Bladerunner” is an amazing movie! What are you talking about?
K: Amazing? Robots from the 80s with mullets?
Me: They didn’t have mullets! What are you talking about?
K: And Indiana Jones yelling, “Kill the robots! Kill the robots!” Yeah. Amazing.
Me: You’re a philistine.

So we watched “The Hobbit.” I kind of owed her.

My Week 136: Intruder Alert, Bad Slogan or Great Awareness Campaign?

Friday: Intruder Alert

I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion that I’m the Queen of Worst Case Scenarios. My intense planning and preparation ensures that I WILL survive a bear attack, sniper fire, a bouncy castle mishap, or a myriad of other assorted and unexpected situations. My friends and loved ones are no strangers to my forethought—a few months ago at work, I discovered that a co-worker’s brother was a firefighter:

Me: Your brother is a firefighter?! Can you text him and ask how high the ladder on the truck goes? Cuz I’m on the 27th floor and I’m worried about how I’ll get rescued if the building sets on fire.
 M: OK…he says ‘Not that high’.
Me: But what do I do then? Is there like a giant fire crane that can get me out? This is real.
M: Um…he says ‘No. You basically just have to wait for the firefighters to come up the stairs and get you, because 27 is too high up for anything else’. Sorry.
Me: Ask him if I should get one of those rope fire ladders with the hooks. I could hook it around the top of the balcony then climb down to the next balcony, and so on, until I was low enough for the ladder.
M: Aren’t you afraid of heights? Are you really going to swing down on ropes from 300 feet up in the air?
Me: So it’s just wet towels under the door and wait for rescue along with everyone else from like the third floor up? I’m so f*cked. I ALWAYS get served last.

And it’s true. My food at restaurants always comes after everyone else’s, and on the train, no matter where I’m sitting, the bar cart will come down the aisle, and I’ll be like, “Can I have—“ and the conductor will say, “We’re starting at the other end, but we’ll be with you soon,” which is always a lie because inevitably there are a dozen people who all want coffee and hot meals, then want to pay with credit cards and suddenly we’re in Brantford and I haven’t even had a glass of wine yet.

But then I googled “How do people who live in high rises get rescued from fires?” and I got a couple of helpful hints, like did you know that high rises have interior fire-separated stairwell shafts? There were also instructions for creating your own “High Rise Fire Survival Kit”, so now I have to buy a whistle and a white pillow case to signal for help (or to indicate surrender in case of an insurgence).

Anyway, long story short, I like to plan for the worst, which is why there is a bat in my bathroom. No, not a sonar-using, flappy, mammal/reptile/dinosaur ancestor, but a wooden baseball bat. It used to be under the bed, which seems like a solid place to keep a bat (and also handy for poking out the remote control if it fell back behind our headboard), but one day, I was in the bathroom, and it occurred to me that if someone snuck into our bedroom, the intruder could easily just crawl all the way around the base of the bed, hidden by the bedskirt, and I’d never know until it was too late to get my bat. I don’t know why, but I get super-jumpy sometimes when I’m alone, like as soon as I come home to my condo, I call Ken and then look under the bed and in the closets to make sure I’m alone. Yes, I know that Ken couldn’t do anything via telephone if there actually WAS someone under my bed, but at least I could scream I LOVE YOU! before I bashed the intruder’s brains in with the hammer I keep on my nightstand.

But Ken has a lot to answer for himself, particularly because he knows how easily startled I am. A couple of weeks ago, I was chopping vegetables when he suddenly appeared out of nowhere:

Me: Jesus Christ!! What the f*ck!!
 Ken: What? Didn’t you hear me coming?
Me: NO, KEN, I didn’t hear you coming, because you snuck up on me on PURPOSE!
Ken: No, I didn’t. Can you please put the knife down?

At which point I realized I was subconsciously brandishing the vegetable knife rather menacingly. But he WILL wander around the house like a stealth ninja. I should have known it was Ken, though, because I have Titus trained to recognize strange noises and react to them:

Me: What’s that?!
 Titus: Just the neighbourhood kids. Put “Friends” back on—this is The One with the Sandwich. I love sandwiches.

But on Friday morning, having taken the day off, I was looking forward to a good sleep-in. Titus had come back upstairs and was settled comfortably in next to me and we were having a nice doze, when suddenly I heard the sounds of someone walking around in the hallway. I jerked up, and so did Titus.

Me: What’s that?!
 Titus: I don’t know!
Me: You go see and I’ll get the bat!

Titus bounded off the bed and headed into the hall, while I ran into the bathroom. I grabbed the bat and tiptoed out with it high over my head…to find Ken standing in the middle of the room in his bathrobe.

Me: What the f*ck, Ken?!! Why are you still here? It’s quarter after 8!
 Ken: I had a late meeting so I decided to hang out with you for a bit. Were you seriously going to hit me with that bat?
Me: I still might. You scared the sh*t out of me.
Ken: Why would you think it was an intruder? It could have been K.
Me: Don’t be ridiculous–it’s only 8:15! There’s no way K would be up this early. And you’re supposed to be at work. Besides, you fooled Titus too.
Titus: Yeah, dude. Not cool.

But at least I know the system works. And the next time there’s a fire alarm in my condo building, I’m going to try the stairs and see how far I get.

Also Friday: The worst slogan ever or a clever awareness campaign?

On Friday, K and I planned an afternoon of lunch, movies, and shopping for books at Chapters. She’s finally home from university for the summer and I hadn’t had much of a chance to spend time with her, so it was wonderful. But at the restaurant, while we were waiting for our food, we saw something that made us at first bemused, then later hysterical. The hostess showed three people, a man and two women, to a table across the room, and as they passed, we both saw the slogan on the backs of their matching T-shirts and were both like, “What?!”

And before I tell you what it said, I just want to reinforce that I would never make fun of someone with cancer, or make light of any kind of cancer, but honest to God, the backs of their royal blue T-shirts said this in large white letters:

“Cancer touched my butt, so I kicked it’s”.

And I think they must have been home-made T-shirts because of the “it’s” (it is) instead of the possessive “its” (as in the butt belonging to cancer, which makes the whole thing even weirder). Also, we wondered if they were in some kind of butt-cancer club together, which would explain why they were they all wearing the same T-shirt, like maybe they had just done a fundraiser for butt cancer? I mean, I know there are several types of cancer that affect the posterior area, including cancer of the buttocks, but is “Butt Cancer” really a good catch-all term for them? Like, you donate money for research and you get a tax receipt thanking you for helping to stop Butt Cancer? I suppose it would probably be even more disconcerting to be wearing a T-shirt that said, “Cancer touched my rectum so I kicked it’s”, and at any rate, they seemed to be really happy and healthy-looking, so I guess they really DID kick cancer’s butt.

But in the car later, on the way home, K and I began to imagine other body parts that one could substitute for butt and there were definitely a couple that would have made the slogan even more eye-catching—the two frontrunners were “balls” and “boob”. Then I looked up “Cancer touched my butt… and discovered there are TONS of T-shirts that say “Cancer touched my breast/boob so I kicked its butt!”, but none for “balls”, which frankly would be an even better slogan ie. “Cancer touched my balls so I kicked it in the nuts”. There was a hoodie though that said, “Cancer touched my butt so I had to kick its ass” and even though it looked professionally done, it still sounded weird, but it had a blue ribbon on it, so apparently that one was talking about PROSTATE cancer. I don’t know about you, but “Cancer touched my prostate…” doesn’t sound much better than butt, and it still makes me wonder why the two women were wearing the T-shirts too, if it really was about prostate cancer. The important thing though, is that I spent over 48 hours wondering about this, and looking it up, so if those people were going for an awareness campaign, it totally worked. I am now more aware of Butt Cancer than anyone else I know, and I share my awareness with you. You’re welcome.

 

My Week 135: Leo Causes a Rift in the Universe, the Maple Leafs Save the Galaxy, and Other Musings

Things that make me go Hmm….

Last week was a long week, what with me getting up at 5:00 am and battling traffic to get into the GTA every day, working until 5, and then battling traffic to get back home again. I thought to myself, “If I had to do this every day for the rest of my career, I would gouge out my own eyes. And go on disability because of the blindness.” That might sound dramatic, (like when I said the other day that I didn’t want to go to lunch in the rain because “I don’t dry well”), because if worse came to worst, I could just quit, but that’s how much I absolutely f*cking hate driving on the 401, which gets more and more absurd every year, with traffic slowing down randomly and creeping along simply because of “volume”, which is radio-traffic-report lingo for TOO MANY GOD-DAMN CARS ON THE ROAD. And believe me, I would take public transit, if there was any available to my off-site work location. I would ride a BURRO ON A DIRT ROAD to my work location if that was possible (and if it got me there by 7:30, but burros are notoriously tardy, so…)

At any rate, I had a LOT of time in the car to ponder the state of the increasingly bizarre world. And it IS bizarre. And becoming more so every day. Why is that, you ask? Well, let me tell you exactly why, based on a theory developed by me and my work partner L one day early last year (I can’t remember who exactly said which bit, but this was an approximation of the conversation we had one gloomy day after Donald Trump was gaining traction in the polls:

Me: The world is going crazy. It’s like living in “backwards land”.
L: I blame Leo.
Me: Leonardo DiCaprio? Why?
L: When he finally won the Oscar for Best Actor, it ripped a hole in the universe.
Me: You mean like, an anomaly that destroyed the fabric of time and space?
L: Yup. It opened a portal into another dimension.
Me: Which will allow Trump to win, because that’s what has happened in a parallel universe?
L: Exactly.
Me: But “The Revenant” WAS pretty good.
L: Not THAT good.

And while we both have maybe watched a little too much Dr. Who, the theory makes sense. After Leo got his Oscar, celebrities started dying, Brexit happened, and Trump became the President-elect. And that’s just a drop in the bizarro bucket. I googled “the strangest things that happened in 2016” and got like over a thousand hits. When I did the same for 2015, I got 5 hits, and then “Weird and Wonderful Things that Happened at the Zoo”.

So yeah, 2016 was an anomaly, and although, right now, 2017 is like “Hold my beer”, because it’s just as f-ed up frankly, I think we’ll be seeing a course correction soon. Right now, the Toronto Maple Leafs are in the play-offs. The last time this happened was 2004, the year that the Mayans predicted the world would end. And it didn’t, because the Leafs made the play-offs and closed another time/space rift that occurred in 2003 after Roman Polanski won an Oscar for best director, subsequently allowing George W. Bush to win a second term (and apparently Meryl Streep gave Polanski a standing ovation—this is true because I checked with Snopes.com. And now I think Meryl Streep also has something to do with all of this, like she’s an interstellar, cross-universe traveller whose only job is to stir sh*t up like she did in 2003, and again at the 2017 Academy Awards where she slammed Donald Trump and started a war with North Korea. OK, that hasn’t happened YET, but who knows if it’s all part of her insidious plan?). Long story short, I am convinced that world events are simply the machinations of the dastardly Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences trying to mess with the space/time continuum. Luckily, we have the plucky heroes of Canada’s favourite hockey franchise, there to win the hearts and souls of the galaxy. They might never attain the Stanley Cup, but what’s that in the face of saving the universe?

Other Weird Things:

The Carlton Cinema audiences don’t understand drama:

The Carlton Cinema is very close to where I live in the city, but I have to stop going there, because the audiences are f*cking me up and making me think I don’t understand movies. A couple of years ago, my brother and I went to see a film there, purportedly a drama, but the audience kept laughing so hysterically that I got all stressed out. I asked my brother, who has a PhD, what was so funny, and he said, “I don’t know.” Then a while ago, within the same two week period, I saw both “Split” (M. Night Shyamalan’s film about a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder who kidnaps three girls), and “Get Out” (a psychological thriller by Jordan Peele). In both cases, the audience members at the Carlton laughed their asses off at every single scene, and I was soooo confused. Until last night, when I re-watched “Split” with Ken, K, and her girlfriend, and NO ONE LAUGHED, stupid Carlton Audience. You need to grow up.

When Doors Don’t Open:

Yesterday, Ken and I went out for Round Two of stool shopping (when I was finished writing this post, I asked Ken to read it and tell me if I needed to add anything, at which point he said, “A ‘stool’ joke. You really missed an opportunity for humour there.” OK, honey). At the third store, we approached the doors and they didn’t open. I stood there, completely befuddled and disoriented, until Ken said, “You need to pull the handle. Welcome back to the 1900s.” It was like the time the battery on my car fob died and I had no idea how to get into the car, until Ken reminded me that the key would still open the lock on the door. His timing was impeccable, because I was seriously considering just smashing the window in so that I wouldn’t be late to work.

As a side note, we didn’t find any stools AGAIN, which prompted me to say very loudly and angrily, “F*ck stool shopping. I have some fabric and a staple gun. Let’s just fix the ones we have.” Which we did, and I didn’t even need the fabric because once Ken repaired the broken seats, I got out-voted by everyone who thought the leather still looked really good. Even though I was like, “What do you want, this old leather, or this REALLY beautiful fabric?” and then I was accused of “being manipulative” and “trying to sway popular opinion with my adjectives.”

My Bluetooth Speaks Better Italian than Me:

The other day I needed to call a co-worker to tell her I was running late because of highway “volume”. I tried using her first name twice, but the Bluetooth Lady in my rental car just kept saying, “Do you mean ‘Margaret’? Do you mean ‘Marion”? (those are my aunts), and I was like NO!!! So I said my co-worker’s full name, but because her last name is Italian and the Bluetooth Lady was already struggling, I said it phonetically. And then the Bluetooth Lady said, “Do you mean _____?” and pronounced her last name with a perfect Italian accent, like she was schooling me or whatnot. And I was like “if you can figure this out, why did you have so much damn trouble with a perfectly easy to understand FIRST NAME and then claim you couldn’t understand my commands?!” She would fit right into the Carlton Cinema crowd.

Insects as Art and Neil Hedley:

This morning, Ken and I were watching the news (on CBC, because I no longer watch CTV since I got into a Twitter feud with a dude named Neil Hedley, who’s an announcer with some radio station called Zoom-a Radio, which I have never even heard of nor listened to, like most people, I imagine. The fact that CTV chooses someone like him with zero political knowledge and the thinnest skin possible makes me dismiss them as a serious news source. My Twitter feud with him started when Trump tried his initial Muslim ban. The news anchor asked Neil why he thought that Trump had only targeted 6 countries, to which Neil replied, “Maybe he knows something we don’t know. He’s the one who gets intelligence briefings.” So I tweeted to him that perhaps he had fanned the flames of racism by implying that the six countries were guilty of something more than NOT having oil or Trump Towers, and he just went off on me like the baby he apparently is. And he never did clarify what he meant, although he claimed I “missed his point”. Of course, the very next week, he made fun of Eastern Canadians by mocking them with a stereotyped accent but I left it alone on the grounds that he really is too stupid to bother with. People like that will never be self-reflective, only defensive. Kind of like what’s happening all around the world right now.) Anyway, Ken and I were watching CBC, and there was a story about a woman who has a new exhibit in an art gallery. Her “art” is pinning insects to the walls of said gallery in different patterns. Real insects. Dead insects. That she buys on Ebay. The art gallery owner was ecstatic and claimed that her exhibition was “perfect for Canada’s 150th birthday”. I said to Ken, “If I went to a graveyard and dug up a bunch of corpses, and laid them out in a Fibonacci sequence on the floor of the Art Gallery of Ontario, I could be famous too.” The Canadian Mint also put out a special $3 coin to celebrate our 150th. Not a coin worth $1.50, which might make SOME kind of sense, but no, three bucks. Except it costs $19.95 to buy one.  But if you think insects and nonsensical monetary denominations are yet another indicator of a world gone mad, just remember that the Toronto Maple Leafs are the REAL Guardians of the Galaxy, and one day they will save us all. Go Leafs Go.

My Week 134: Toronto the Weird

Saturday: Old Man Kicking Pigeons

I was looking for something to write about and checked my phone, where I keep notes. The only thing I’d put in there recently was “Old Man Kicking Pigeons”. I saw this at Dundas Square, a place in central downtown Toronto where strange things happen on a daily basis. The man was about 6 feet tall, wearing a dress shirt, dress pants, and leather shoes. He had white hair and a neatly trimmed white beard. And he was stomping around, Frankenstein-style, with his arms out in front of him, trying to kick the pigeons that were landing on the sidewalk to peck at crumbs and then running out onto the road to flail at them. Now, you might be all like “That’s horrible!”, but don’t worry because downtown pigeons are clever as f*ck, and instinctively can dodge cars, pedestrians, raccoons, and crazy old dudes. But this wasn’t even the weirdest thing that I saw there that day. There was also a woman dressed as Alice In Wonderland, but she had a rabbit face and ears and was standing on a large box. There was a man with a cat that does tricks like dancing on its back legs or jumping onto his shoulders, which, I suppose is pretty tricksy for a cat, considering Raven just gives me the death stare when I say, “Come here”. There are fire-eaters, proselytizers, steel drum musicians, sidewalk chalk artists, and someone wandering around wearing a poo emoji hat for who knows what reason. It’s like the worst circus in the world, but it’s free (unless you volunteer to pay for the ‘free’ Bible/Koran or give someone money for miming how to get out of a box), but everyone wants to see it. There are actually “sightseeing bus tours” in Toronto, these double decker jobs that stop at Dundas Square and everyone piles out and takes selfies with Alice and the guy with the “The Apocalypse is Nigh” sign (he actually has a very nice smile, which he doesn’t get to use much due to the end of the world coming and whatnot). And all I can think is how cool this must seem to all the tourists. But to me, the coolest thing is that it’s the only intersection with diagonal as well as straight pedestrian crossings, so suddenly the light will change and people are traversing the road in this incredibly orderly pattern, kind of like that city scene in The Matrix, only instead of the lady in red, there’s a homeless guy with his pants down around his knees and Neo is selling knock-off handbags while Mr. Smith is kicking pigeons. Toronto—it’s weird and wonderful, but mostly weird.

 

My Week 133: I Have a Wee Rant About Why Kids Are Important

Friday: It gets funny after the first bit…

One of my favourite sayings is “It’s easier to build a child than repair an adult”. I’ve worked with children, teenagers, and adult learners most of my life, so I can attest to the fact that the saying is absolutely true. About twenty years ago, I taught at an adult high school, and witnessed first-hand the struggles that my adult students went through—the same ones they went through as teenagers the first time through high school, repeating the same patterns over and over again. I had Charlie, a fifty-year-old truck driver who was more comfortable behind the wheel than behind a desk; Lorna, who helped her husband run their own business and was now retired, but who was ashamed to have never graduated; Mohammed and Abdi, two Somali brothers who had difficulty with English but tried SO hard; Jack, whose early experiences with teachers as a child with undiagnosed AD/HD had made him hate school; Linda, whose epilepsy medication didn’t always cut it, and the seizures were still such a source of embarrassment for her that she would skip class for days after one, and so many more people who just wanted to feel a sense of achievement by graduating from high school (Lorna’s grandkids came and cheered when she got her diploma). But they were a terrific group—I still have the card they all signed for me at the end of the year.

At the other end of the spectrum are the wee ones, so fresh and full of enthusiasm, an excitement for living that sometimes gets hammered out of them too soon. The other day, I was remembering something I witnessed about 5 years ago, and which still makes me so upset: I was at the grocery store, and I saw a woman come in with the most adorable looking boy about 5 years-old. As they passed me, I could hear him saying, “Mommy, can I drive the little cart? The little cart? Mommy, can I?” He was asking over and over, looking up at her, trying to get her attention. There’s no way she couldn’t have heard him, but she kept ignoring him until they walked past the little grocery carts that the stores have for kids (so that they can feel like big people) and disappeared into the aisles. I wanted to call after her, “Would it f*cking kill you to just let the kid drive the f*cking little cart?” I mean, I don’t know what was going on in her life that she thought it was OK to just blow him off like he wasn’t important, and maybe she was just having a bad day, but it infuriated me. Just like the other day, when my brother was telling me about a child in my nephew’s grade one class. Apparently, “Eddie” has trouble getting along with the other kids, so while everyone else sits at tables in groups of 5, Eddie sits at a desk by himself in the corner. Every day. All day long. All I could think is “What the f*ck is wrong with Eddie’s parents that they aren’t freaking about their six-year-old being isolated like that?” And while you might be thinking, “Well, I wouldn’t want my kid sitting next to Eddie if Eddie can’t behave”, how is Eddie going ever going to get along with ANYONE if he’s continually isolated? The Eddie of today becomes the Jack of tomorrow, and you can take that to the f*cking bank. But I’m not blaming Eddie’s teacher, although it’s a pretty stupid solution. No, this is down to Eddie’s parents, who NEVER come to parent night, activity days, observation days, weekly skating, swimming and so on. My brother, in the three years that my nephew has been in the same class as Eddie, has ever met either of them. Again, I don’t know their circumstances but I keep thinking of Eddie, skating by himself when the other kids have a mom or dad there, and it makes me sad. Which leads me to the main point, and yes I do have one: I was reading a little while ago about some so-called parenting guru who said that our children shouldn’t be the most important things in our lives. And I was like, “You’re an idiot.” And here is why he is completely wrong.

*Disclaimer: If you think your children are the most important things in your life, but you let them do whatever the hell they want and spoil them rotten, you’re doing it wrong.

1) Your children are responsible for what happens to you when you get old. Treat them well, and teach them to be responsible and caring adults, and you’ll probably end up in an upscale retirement home with people who don’t make you feel terrible when you wet the bed. Or maybe you can even live WITH your children if you went all out and took them to the movies once in a while, rented a cottage in the summer to have special family times, or let them drive the LITTLE CART. Treat them like crap and you’ll end up on an ice floe, or in a nursing home that serves mystery meat and has bingo every single night (yes, I know—some people like bingo. I’m NOT one of them), and they won’t come to visit.

2) Adults have pretty much f*cked up the world at this point. Global warming, species going extinct every minute, Donald Trump, oceans choked with plastic—we OWE them. The least we can do is mentor them and help them see the world as the precious thing that it is, not a commodity to be exploited until it runs dry. And buy them a puppy. Every child should have a puppy. Children who are allergic to dogs can have those hairless Chihuahua things. If you don’t like dogs, either suck it up, or buy them a cat. Or a monkey butler. If my parents had bought me a monkey butler, I would have a PhD in Environmental Science and I would have cured global warming AND cancer by now. They DID get me a kitten, so at least I have two undergraduate degrees. But no matter what the pet is, help them to learn how to be responsible for it.

3) What else is MORE important than our children? Seriously? The stuff that we decorate our homes with? The cars we drive? Our jobs? Getting away from the kids to hang with other adults? When I was a kid, I don’t remember that we didn’t have a lot of money. I DO remember family car trips to little towns on a Sunday, walking through the bush and identifying trees at a local arboretum, going with my dad to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning and buying treats for my mom who was sleeping in after a long week of looking after me and my brother. My family (Mom, Dad, my brother and me) spent a lot of time together, learning how to be in the world and how to be responsible for it. I’m eternally grateful to my parents for always thinking “what would be nice for the kids?”, not only when I was young, but as an adult. It didn’t make me “entitled”, and by the way, most young people today aren’t either, despite what the people who make their money from certain parenting blogs, fake news magazines, and internet clickbait try to tell you. Face it—we’re all gonna die. “Things” are irrelevant, but leaving this world with the memories of a day at the beach, or being able to laugh around the dinner table because you didn’t make your kid eat broccoli but gave her hot dogs instead aren’t.

4) To continue, my second favourite saying is “The most important things in life aren’t things.” I’m the mother to a wonderful 18 year-old, and yes, so-called “Parenting Expert”, she is the centre of my universe. I don’t apologize for that. I can buy whatever the hell I want. I can go to the Dollar Store and get crap for my house, save up and buy crap I don’t need, or surround myself with stuff that doesn’t matter. The only thing I can’t buy is a child who is OK in the world. That, I have to work at. I also had to work at GETTING a child, because you can’t just buy one of them either, like a puppy or a kitten (or a monkey butler). Ken and I tried for a long time to have a baby, and we had some tragedy along the way. When my daughter was finally born, I was incredibly grateful to the universe for that gift. Because that’s what kids are. A f*cking gift. If you can’t see that, if you want to discount children as the most important thing in your life because some dude named Leonard Sax says you’re a failure as a parent because you like to give your child choices and make them a responsible and active voice in the family dynamic, then don’t complain when the nurse won’t make you hot dogs or cry because the polar bears all died.

*I’m really tired and may or may not have had a couple of glasses of wine, one of which I just spilled on myself. Yeah, it’s a bit of a rant. Next week it’ll be funny—I promise.