Pictures of my daughter in the snow

It snowed overnight - is still snowing today, as a matter of fact. My daughter & I took a walk to the park this morning. It was pretty cold, but very lovely to look at.

All about Briscoe

I had to go to the animal hospital to get a refill on Briscoe's cyclosporine. It's pretty critical because it's what is keeping him alive.

I decided to bring Briscoe with me, because he enjoys car rides. So we drove to the animal hospital, to find that it was closed. I knew they were moving to their new building at some point, but didn't know exactly when. Apparently it just happened.

The new address was posted on the door, so back into the car we went.

The thing is, their new place is one of those can't-get-there-from-here kinds of places. We're having more & more of those in Calgary these days. They're closing off streets to through traffic, creating one-ways, and putting barricades in the middle of streets to prevent left turns.

The street is annoyingly close, but it's a one way, and you can't access it from the main artery that intersects it if you're coming from the south. You also can't access it from the east because you can't cross that main artery. The only, only, only ways to get to it are to go north, go into Kensington, find a place to turn around (not easy), and then come back over the bridge and not miss the turn, OR come at it from Crowchild from the north.

In other words, if you're coming from the south or the east, you have to go position yourself to be coming from the north or the west. Of course, we live southeast of the place.

So we got to the place, and it was closed. The sign on the door said to use the OTHER door when it's closed, and use the buzzer. So we went to the other door and I rang the buzzer. And waited. Buzzed again. And waited.

A guy with a cat in a crate came up. He went through the same exercise I had done at the main entrance, and then tried the buzzer at the after-hours door. And waited.

I caught a whiff of shit. I looked down and didn't see anything. Briscoe had actually gone before we got into the car. I wondered if the cat had crapped in its crate.

He rang the buzzer again.

I got another whiff. I looked down, didn't see anything. I figured the guy must have shit his pants. He didn't mention it, though.

I said "I think I'll walk around the building and see if there are some employee entrances or something."

I started around a corner, and turned back to say something to the guy, and he was gone. I glanced up & down the street and he was nowhere. It was as if I had imagined him.

Dang! How had he gotten in? And did he think to mention that someone else was out here waiting to get in? Could he not have called out to me? I was annoyed with him. First he had the audacity to shit his pants, and then he disappeared into the building without us - and we had been there first!

I went back to the main entrance. It was still locked. But then I saw the guy with his crate through the window at the reception desk. The woman behind the desk gestured that I was supposed to go to the other entrance, where I had just been.

I stomped back over and rang the buzzer.

"Katie Toe!" someone said through the speaker just over the buzzer.

"What?" I said. No reponse. I rang the buzzer again.

"Katie Toe!" the voice said more insistently.

"I don't know what Katie Toe means!" I said. No response. I rang the buzzer again.

A woman opened the door and said "This door is not locked!!!!!"

Duh. I hadn't even tried it. But more duh . . . why are we supposed to use the buzzer then?

So I tromped in past her and said "I don't know what Katie Toe means, sorry. Wouldn't it be easier to just say 'The door isn't locked' or 'Come on in'?"

"What?" she asked. I didn't respond. Ha!

When I got to the reception desk, I got a whiff of the shit again. And sure enough, there was that guy standing right there.

I got Briscoe's refill and headed out the way I had come in.

On the sidewalk right outside the door, I saw it. There, smushed on the sidewalk with the imprint of my very own running shoe was a big turd, obviously left by Briscoe while I was trying to get in. And of course I didn't see it because I was standing on it.

After we got home, I took the shoe off to leave on my porch. Two young men came up to me while I was taking my shoe off and gave me a pamphlet alerting me to the fact that the end of false religions is near. I thanked them, and they went away.

Then we went inside, and Briscoe puked on the carpet.

So Briscoe is one really big pain in the ass, you know? And when he's gone, I'm really, really, really going to miss him, that shitting, puking, shedding little machine.

I adopted him in 1996 - I think it was at the end of July or beginning of August - not sure which. He was just a little puddle in my hand, and I held him close to me and promised him that he'd have a wonderful life with me.

I don't know how well I've lived up to that promise, but I've tried.















He came with me after my divorce, and lived with me in the little house in my hometown that I selected with him in mind: fenced-in yard, outskirts of town with access to a big field, suitable for romping and ball throwing.

My father went with me to a few Jack Russell fun days & trials in the state, which was really cool. My father has always been a hunter and a fisherman, things that I could never really enjoy with him. This was something neat we could do together.

Briscoe came with me on my second date with Eric. On our first date, when Eric found out that I had a dog, his eyes lit up. To this day, I wonder if Briscoe is what sealed the deal for us.

So Briscoe emigrated with me to Windsor, Ontario. I promised him a wonderful life in Canada. Briscoe found himself living in a house that had hardwood floor throughout, which he hated. We put rugs down wherever we could, but he still skittered from room to room. We had no yard, but we took him to a local park whenever we could, which probably wasn't often enough.

When I got pregnant, I promised him that life would be better after the baby came - I'd have a whole year off work, and we'd go for lots of walks and spend our days together.

The baby came and took all my attention. I didn't recover well from the C section, so walking was difficult. Besides, the stroller handle was too short for me. I had to bend forward to push, and it hurt my back.

And one day, Briscoe bared his teeth and growled at my baby. I lost all sense of reason. I yelled back at him with my deepest, loudest, most ferocious yell, grabbed him and literally threw him into the entryway, and slammed the door.

I was angry at him for weeks afterwards and wanted to get rid of him. Eric pleaded for us to work through it - he loved that dog as much as if he had picked him out himself. I stated my terms - Briscoe has to go back to obedience school, and we were to work with a dog behaviour therapist, and actually DO what he or she recommended.

Well, we started down that road, but I had just started a new job and things were very busy, so that slid down the tubes. We coasted. Briscoe was only dimly on my radar those days - a food dish to fill, a water dish to fill, an occasional walk around the block to deal with.

I got into the habit of letting him do his morning business on the front yard unattended while I ran around getting ready for work and getting my daughter packed up for daycare. There simply wasn't a spare minute to actually go outside with him.

Then one morning the doorbell rang, and the guy on the porch asked if the dog in the middle of the street was ours. I peered past him, and saw Briscoe's limp body in the middle of the street. I yelled to Eric, grabbed a blanket, and ran out to him. I was certain he was dead, but he was whimpering. So I gathered him up in the blanket and drove him to an animal emergency hospital. Briscoe barely moved, but made a few whimpering sounds. The whole way there, I barked at him "Don't you dare go to sleep! You stay awake!"

Briscoe spend a few nights in the hospital. Amazingly, he was in pretty good shape. A truck with a plow on the front had smacked into him, and the angle of the plow, designed to remove snow, neatly sent Briscoe sailing off to the side. If it hadn't been for the plow, Briscoe would have been a goner. The guy who came to our porch had witnessed it. He was certain that the driver didn't even know he had hit a dog.

On the way home from the hospital, I apologized to Briscoe for neglecting him, for hating him after he growled at my daughter, for not giving him the love and attention he deserved, and for letting him run around loose outside because I couldn't be bothered to go out with him.

I promised him that from that point on, he would have a wonderful life.















We arranged with a self-employed friend who was a dog-owner to take him for romps in the park a few times a week with his own dog. We tried to take him for more walks to the park. And we never let him outside loose in our yard.

Then I applied for and was offered a position out here in Calgary.

I promised Briscoe a wonderful life here. Our house is just a block from an off-lead park, the largest in the city. I promised him that there would be more walks, more time outside, and more fun.

We found that we're even busier out here than we were in Windsor. Work hours are longer and our commute is longer. Our schedules are wonkier. And now our daughter is involved in activities - ballet, gymnastics, swimming, and so on.

So we hired a dog walker to come and take our dog to the off lead park to play. And that worked out pretty well, until recently, when Briscoe nearly died from some encephylitis of the brain. Thousands and thousands of dollars later in veterinary bills (and neuroligist bills and oncologist bills and intensive round-the-clock care and an exploratory surgery and IV and nurses and so on), Briscoe is better. He has a life expectancy of a few months or a few years - they don't know. But he remains alive only because of $300/month medicine.

He's almost back to normal except he tends to poop on the spot instead of asking to go outside. And he's a little more frail, and he looks much older than he is.

He's on my lap now.

I don't think he's had a wonderful life, but it hasn't been too shabby either. People say to me "He's just a dog." But he's my dog. I want him to be happy, have some fun times, and be content.

Well, hello Sharon & Kathy!

So I know I've had at least 2 visitors to this little hovel in cyberspace!

Wish I had something intelligent to write tonight. Just got home a little bit ago and am zonked!

Love you both!

Gold shag drives me back to 5 year goals

Here's the thing about me. I'm obsessive.

I go through periods where I'm convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I've found the Meaning Of Life And The Whole Universe And Everything, and I'm convinced that this certainty will carry me through the rest of my days, or at least through the rest of the decade.

It's my own personal 43, for those of you who are Hitchhiker fans. Hey, I am 43. What a coincidence!

Then, for no reason I can determine, I lose interest in my latest passion. It's gone. Poof.

Sometimes the passion reincarnates itself into some similar or related passion. Or perhaps not.

For instance, 1997 would be the year of Tarot. I bought about 10 different Tarot decks. I learned everything I could about reading & understanding the layouts, the cards, and so on. I loved to look at the cards - they were so beautiful! I can't say I believed that the readings held the truth, but I just enjoyed the experience.

Then I dumped the whole thing. The cards eventually became interesting things for my baby girl to look at and to chew on. And then they found their way into my stamping projects.

Yes, I was hit with rubber stamping mania. I began making my own greeting cards with a vengence. Not only that, I insisted on giving sets of blank cards to other people as gifts.

Here's an example of a greeting card I made with a Tarot card:

And here's another card I made - no Tarot card here, just stamps and assorted inks and paints:

I'm going somewhere with this, honest. (Well, the pictures of the cards are entirely gratuitous.)

Here are other things I've obsessed about:

Running - don't know why. I'm not a runner. But I do subscribe to a running magazine, and I did buy $200 running shoes, a $65 windbreaker, and $45 gloves for running in cold weather that I recently gave away to a homeless man on the street.

Home decor - I seem to come back to this one every now and then. I seem to be here now.

Artsy crafty stuff - I love the notion of decoupaging my furniture and creating bold, mixed-media designs on my walls. I've never actually done these things. I just like to think that I could if I had the time and inclination.

Weight lifting - I've come back to this one repeatedly in my life as well. I love it when my arms are hard and strong. I love to feel powerful. I'm totally NOT powerful right now - I'm quite out of shape, actually. I'm considering going back to the gym. If I wait long enough, the feeling will pass.

Being self-employed - I tend to return to this one again and again. The problem is that in between times, I'm not interested in it at all. Or maybe I'm just lazy. I tend to be interested in self-employment when I'm not liking my boss. Last year, I devoted a lot of money and time in trying to get an internet business going. It might have taken off if I hadn't changed jobs. I love my new job. I love my new coworkers. But I betcha that if I have a tiff with my new boss, I'll be back on the self-employment bandwagon again. I'll blog more about this another time, but the summary is that I'm an obstinant know-it-all who can't tolerate being told what to do.

Money - I go through these extremely frugal kicks where I wash out used ziplock sandwich bags and I shop at thrift stores. I do up a budget on excel and insist my husband follow it. (This perplexes him since he's the one who pays the bills and looks after the money, mostly because he knows if it's up to me, it might not get done.) I read books on financial planning and I fret about our debt. Clearly, I'm not in a frugal kick right now. I probably could use a frugal kick, though.

ANYWAY, so about 2 years ago, I figured out that my obsessions fit broadly into 3 categories:

1. Family & Lifestyle - this includes anything that makes our lives more fun & pleasant. The home decor thing fits in, as well as all artsy crafty things, cooking, homemaking, and anything to do with my daughter's development (because I obsess about that too even though I didn't include it in the above list).

2. Health & Recreation - this includes anything that involves getting into shape, dieting, eating more vegetables, and also traveling, and other fun things.

3. Independence - this includes anything to do with finances, my career, and continuously moving myself in a direction that allows me to set my own agenda. I'd like to either be self-employed, independently wealthy, or employed by someone who thinks my shit doesn't stink and I can't do anything wrong.

So, I decided to make these 3 areas the focus of my five year goals. I did this during a time when I was obsessed with goal setting and success. This obsession also reappears frequently.

I'm 2 years into it. 2007 will be Year 3.

I haven't looked at my goals lately, so after I posted the previous 2 entries, I pulled them up and took a look at them. I'm not doing too badly with some things, but could use some push in others.

Basically, what I did is to create yearly goals out of my 5-year goals. Then I create monthly to-do's to get me to my yearly goals.

My goal for this year was to finish my daughter's bedroom. So I need to redirect my attention from the living room and the carpet and finish my daughter's bedroom!

In 2007, we can begin to consider the living room again.

Unless I'm obsessed with something completely different by then!

Retro living room

So here's a living room look that would embrace our gold shag.



So I wonder what Eric would say if I told him that if we keep the gold shag, the walls go blue.

Groovy retro or bad shag?

So people have been telling us that we should keep the shag carpet in the living room!

Last night, we tried out a new babysitter, so she came to the house for the first time, and loved the house. She said that the shag carpet is totally retro and back. This morning, I was talking on the phone with my nephew's wife, and she too said that we should keep the shag, especially if it's in good condition.

I have a friend who said that when we pull it out, she'd like to have some. And Eric has a coworker who offered to buy it from us!

Well, I can't really go art deco with gold shag carpet, can I???

So maybe I should just give in to the carpet and go seriously retro on purpose.



So if we go groovy retro, what do we do about our antique dining room suite, bookcases, and so on?

Fortunately, we have two cool pieces of furniture that go well with the carpet, in terms of shape. They both need reupholstered. Or maybe just seriously cleaned. The sofa is a genuine article, circa 1968, in pretty good condition - it actually looked almost new until we got a hold of it. And a few years ago, we bought a chair that has a really nice shape. Unfortunately, it too has suffered our lifestyle, with child, dog, a cross country move, and general carelessness.

So basically, we have two competing influences. The carpet, a chair, and the sofa say "Go retro!" The dining room suite, marble-topped sideboard, and two antique bookcases say "Go traditional, or fake a sort of art nouveau merges into art deco kind of look. (Yes, I know they were oppositional, but Common Man didn't rush out and buy all art deco stuff - he merged some new stuff with the art nouveau stuff he already had.)

I have a pretty darned good life, don't I? The fact that I can obsess about these things means I don't have any real problems to obsess about.

The idealism of Saturdays

Ahhh . . . another Saturday morning!

Saturday mornings are like new childhoods - so much potential! The whole weekend of possibility stretches out before us. Our to-do lists look achievable. We look forward to special bonding moments with loved ones, lots of laughter, good food, relaxation, and just a lot of wonderful experiences altogether!

Contrast this to Sunday evening, when we wonder where in the hell the weekend went, and why we didn't accomplish one damned thing on our to-do list!

So my husband & daughter are out of the house most of the day. I'm thinking today I could tidy up the house so that the new sitter doesn't flee in terror tonight minutes after she arrives. I could get totally caught up on the laundry and even pick out all my outfits for the coming week. I could take the dog for a walk. I could go to Old Navy and pick up some of those girls' jeans on sale for $20 a pair that I saw advertised in a flyer with this morning's paper. I could put together my own personal toolbox that I've been thinking about, complete with a padlock, so that I could keep it upstairs and not worry that my daughter will try her hand at renovating the furniture or antique bookcases.

Or I could sit here and blog about it.

I think I need to prioritize and make up a to-do list for the day. I'm actually a big fan of to-do lists. I usually have a master to-do list of things I want to accomplish in my life, things I want to accomplish within the next 5 years, this year, this month, this week, and so on.

However, I've fallen off the wagon these past several months, and I think it's time to revisit my long-term goals and rejig my shorter term plans accordingly.

But that's a topic for another blog entry.

Today, I think I'll tidy the house, get groceries, assemble my own toolbox with a padlock, and rip out my daughter's bedroom carpet. If I accomplish all these things today, I will be very pleased. If I accomplished only half of them, I'll still be pretty happy.

"Before" pictures of my daughter's bedroom

Here are some "before" pictures of my daughter's bedroom. When these pictures were taken, the blinds were new (barely visible in right corner of 1st picture). You can't see the ceiling in these photos, but they were basic white.

The room is also a wee bit cluttery.

Note the lovely rust coloured carpet paired with pink trim.

My daughter wants to paint the furniture too. Not a bad idea.

Very cool chainstitched rugs

Today at my work, we celebrated Multicultural Day with a potluck, and then were invited to look at some very cool chainstitched rugs. I nearly bought one. I still might. I took the guy's card.

The rugs are here Cashmere Crafts, but here are a few of the ones that I was particularly interested in.

Fantasizing about the living room

These images are from homemag.com.

Here is a living room look that I like:

The only thing I don't like about it is that the blue painting on the right wall seems incongruent with the rest of the room.

Here's a fun-looking room:

I think I need to post some "before" pictures of this house!

Cool names for bands

As if I didn't have enough stuff to hold my attention, one thing I get a kick out of doing is collecting what I think would be cool names for bands. I don't actually sit around and try to think these up. Rather, I hear a phrase or an expression or a word, and I think "Hey, that would be a cool name for a band!"

Here are some names I think would make cool names for a band.

Rogue Nation
Bad Pink
Mother (would cause wonder - a tribute to Mother, or a shortened profanity?)
Avid Horsemen
Caution Horses (actually a Cowboy Junkies album name but would make a cool band name.)

I have more, but can't think of them now.

One might also wonder why I'm posting at 2:40 a.m. Wide awake for some reason.

Going Art Deco

For the past two years, I've been wrestling with what to do with this house. Summary: my husband & I moved to Calgary, moved into his parents' house, and his parents bought a condo.

Of course, all of Calgary is booming, and property values are obscene. But my husband's parents lived in a neighborhood which is now becoming impossibly swanky. Perfectly decent houses are being demolished, and being replaced with mini-castles of the arts & crafts or Frank Lloyd Wright variety.

In fact, we've determined that if we put a second floor on this house, we'd have a view of the downtown skyline on one side of the house, and the mountains on the other.

So we haven't wanted to make extensive improvements or renovations on this house, because we're holding out for the Big Reno - - or the Big Demolition Followed By Entirely New House, whichever the case may be.

The only things stopping us are lack of time & lack of money!

So I've been living in this house that feels totally my in-laws. Not that they're horrible people - I love them and very much appreciate the opportunity they've provided us.

But I want our house to express us, our lives, and so on.

Okay, I'll be even more blunt. Dang, I hope my mother-in-law doesn't blog-surf. The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt her feelings.

But let's just say her taste and mine are nowhere near each other. For instance, we haven't been able to replace the gold shag carpet in the living room yet. She argues that it's top quality and people still comment that it looks like it's new.

She's right. It does look new. It's still well-padded and very pleasant to walk barefoot on, and it's clear that she kept it very clean.

May I quote my mother?

When I was in high school, I went with my mother to pick out carpet for the living room. The salesman kept trying to talk her into a higher end carpet with the best padding. He said "This carpet with this padding will last you 30 years!"

My mother retorted "I don't want to have the same damned carpet 30 years from now!!!"

Anyway, if my mother had been in my shoes, she'd have ripped that carpet out by now.

Of course, my husband argues for prudence, and speaks of the day in the near future when we can install some low-priced but decent carpet to "tide us over" until we do the renovations.

My mother would have ignored him and ripped the carpet out herself. Then they would have been forced to get new carpet then & there.

Several friends have said "You should go hardwood."

I'd love to go hardwood. But my ever prudent husband points out that we're just going to rip it out in a few years. It would be easier to re-use carpet, perhaps in a utility room or something.

Anyway, I ramble. (Isn't that what blogs are for?)

My in-laws did do some upgrading. They spent a lot of money on new floor tiles for kitchen, hallway, and bathroom, new countertops, new wall tiles in the kitchen, paint, and so on. The kitchen looks reasonable, but the bathroom is a dog's breakfast.

The bathroom has 1950 style tiles on the wall, which are totally groovy. They absolutely CLASH with the "trying to be sophisticated" taupe-ish textured large floor tiles of the mid 90's. And the guy who did the work for them convinced them to let him cover the bathroom counter with the same glossy black countertop tiles he used in the kitchen - with GOLD trim! Oh my god, it's a travesty!

Oh, and the bathtub is pink.

The master bedroom has the same gold carpet as the living room, and the trim in the room is painted pink. Not pretty.

There are a few other unsightly things happening in the house.

Anyway, I've been trying to come up with some things we could do in the interim, but the last thing I want is a cobbled, make-shift look.

I believe, after we replace our furnace, our next major purchase will be new carpet for the living room. I'm thinking something beige and unassuming.

So we have a dining room suite that my husband inherited from his brother who passed away 7 yrs ago. It's a bit on the art deco side. I've been wondering how to incorporate those pieces into a new look, and have been perplexed. Then my husband brought another piece of furniture home - an end table kind of thing, looks like it was made in the 40's and looks like late end art deco.

So it hit me. I need to go art deco.

But right now, I'm trying to renovate my daughter's bedroom. I'm trying to do it myself. My husband has doubts about the wisdom of this. He is NOT a do-it-yourselfer kind of guy. He's a hire-someone-and-get-it-done-right-the-first-time kind of guy.

So my daughter & I picked out the room's colors, and I began to paint. I did the ceiling already - dark blue, with glow-in-the-dark stars and a moon - very cool.

I was thinking I might as well leave the carpet be while I paint (rust coloured shag), so it can be the drop cloth.

But now I'm finding I can't paint the baseboards.

So yesterday I ripped up a corner of the carpet to find hardwood underneath. Sheesh! I then knew that I had to rip out all the carpet.

So then I had another brainstorm - I should move my daughter's bed into our room for awhile, and possibly some of the furniture. This would open the room up and allow me to finish more quickly.

I went into our bedroom, pondered the layout, then rearranged the furniture. It's a bitch to move antique furniture over shag carpet, by the way.

So then I tried to move my daughter's bed into our room. It wouldn't fit through our door.

I disassembled it as far as I could, but I couldn't get some of the bolts out. So I reassembled it and put it back in her room.

I was pooped by this time. Besides, it was time to get ready to go to shul for Simchat Torah, where we danced in circles around the Torah - more physical exertion!

Today I'm pretty stiff as I type this.

But I know two things.

We're going to spiff up this house, with a nod to art deco, and I'm going to move the rest of my daughter's furniture into our bedroom and leave the bed. I can work around it.

That's another flaw of this house - it originally only had 2 bedrooms. My inlaws added one in the basement. (Actually, my mother-in-law calls it the lower level.)

Okay, enough already. If anyone actually started reading this entry, I'm sure they haven't made it this far.

A letter to my mother

Dear Mom,

It's been nearly six years since we've spoken to each other. I suppose your passing away has something to do with that. You never believed in life after death anyway. However, my imagination has led me to feel your presence occasionally. You'd probably agree that it was just my imagination, but I know you'd be really pleased that I felt like you were here.

If you're angry with me about your final days, well, you should just put that behind you. I know you always said you wanted someone to end it for you before you ended up helpless and vulnerable in a nursing home. But you should have expected that my sister and I would have been selfish enough to want to keep you, to hold on to hope that you could return to even something close to who you really were.

Besides, what point is holding a grudge against us? It's only a matter of time before we join you in the afterlife, wherever you are, if there is indeed such a thing. And should that come to pass, we expect to have a beer with you and to celebrate being together again. (Is there beer where you are?)

So do you know what's been happening with your family since you've been gone? Do they give you some sort of peephole from the other world so you can keep tabs on us?

If so, then you know that you have a granddaughter. Yep, somehow or other, my husband's little swimmer found some old remaining egg in this old body. I had her just about 9 months after you passed away. People suggest that perhaps my daughter IS you.

Sometimes I think this might be true. She has many of your traits.

• She has wavy brown hair and brown eyes.
• She's a total ham! She loves to sing, tell jokes, get up on stage, and so on. Oh sure, people say "All kids like to do that." Not true. MY child likes to do it even more than other children, and guess what - MY child does it better.
• She frequently has "Oh, piss on it!" moments. She doesn't have much patience with things that don't work, processes that fail, and so on. She'll probably parallel park just like you did - one chance and if the car doesn't slide in the first time, to hell with that, let's park somewhere else.
• She's beautiful, just like you.
• She's opinionated, just like you.
• She's brilliant, just like you.

Sometimes we have stare-downs, to see who laughs first, just like you and I did. So far, I always win, but she's getting better. I don't recall ever winning that game with you!

Oh god, would you ever love her! And you know, she knows about you, too. She refers to you as "Grandma Joyce." She asks questions about what Grandma Joyce looks like, what Grandma Joyce did, and so on.

She knows the story about you & your brothers letting Pet Pig into the kitchen. I think I told her the skating story once, but she didn't understand it. She'll understand it in a few years. I'll tell her again.

She's in kindergarten now, Mom, and you would be amazed at this school. It's the school that both you and I should have gone to when we were children. However, the school didn't exist back then, and of course, it's in a completely different country than the one you & I grew up in.

At this school, children don't sit at desks. They get to move around, work on their projects collaboratively, sit in groups for storytime or for particular lessons. Nobody would snatch away a drawing away from a child the way some idiot teacher did to you, and nobody would disrespect or humiliate a child the way some of my teachers got off on doing when I was in grade school.

It's a school that genuinely respects and feeds curious little minds.

Anyway, all this is just to tell you that you have a wonderful, intelligent, humorous, beautiful, and engaging granddaughter now.

Do you also know that we moved to Calgary? I wish you could see it. Maybe you can. It's a booming city. It seems every day, some building we're used to seeing is torn down and a new one put into its place. They're not much for history here, unfortunately. But it does have sites that you'd find extremely interesting, such as the Glenbow Museum, Heritage Park, and other such places.

There are a lot of other changes in the family - lots of new babies, an engagement, houses being built, new jobs, and so on.

So, if you do have this peephole into the world, you probably know that your mother passed away in 2004. Ninety three years old is a respectable age. Nevertheless, she knew she was dying, and she didn't want to. And frankly, we didn't want her to either.

Perhaps she's there with you now. Tell her that I made a batch of no-bake chocolate cookies a few weeks ago. I didn't have instant oatmeal on hand, so I used slow-cook oatmeal. Tell her it didn't work. But I ate the cookies anyway.

Mom, I still get fleeting nanosecond notions that I should pick up the phone and call you because it seems like it's been awhile, and then, almost the same moment, I remember that I can't. Those are hard moments.

Mom, I love you, and I miss you every single day.

Do blogs really need background music?

Do blogs really need background music?

Do any websites, really???

Nothing is more annoying than to be secretly surfing a little at work, and to come upon a website with loud, smarmy music. Whoa, you just can't close that window fast enough!

And when I'm on the computer at home, I have my own playlist that I'm listening to. It's annoying with some other music, unbidden and unrequested, comes blaring over top of my music.

Websites aren't like tv shows or movies. I don't think websites are enhanced by music, especially those bizarre, synthesized versions of songs we're supposed to be familiar with. The backdrop of an emotion or feeling that the webmaster is trying to convey is completely lost on me. I get away from that site as quickly as I can, because the only emotion I feel is annoyance.

For many of us, surfing is supposed to be a nice, quiet activity. If we want music, we probably already have our own music going on in the background.

How do you pronounce "Chandra"?

My father named me. My mother was going to call me either "Amy" or "Elaine" - she hadn't quite decided. But then my father said to my mother, "Well, you got to name the first baby. I should get to name this one." He found the name "Chandra" in some book he was reading. It was an Indian surname.

I have no idea how he decided to pronounce it "Shandra" to rhyme with "Sandra." I cruised along happily with my name until I got to school. There, several teachers insisted on calling me "Shondra." I would have to correct them over and over and over - "It's 'SHAN-dra,' you know, like chandelier."

When I went to university, however, I decided "Shondra" sounded more refined. So I began introducing myself as "Shondra" to new people I would meet. However, to family and to friends who had known me for years, I was still "Shandra."

My first husband called me "Shandra," but at work, I was "Shondra." When my work world & private world collided, people from work would get flustered and say "Oh my gosh, I've been mispronouncing your name! How DO you pronounce your name, anyway?"

I felt a little ridiculous saying that although my parents had intended that I be "Shandra," I preferred "Shondra." It made me feel pretentious. Perhaps I was pretentious.

Yup, in retrospect, I was. I grew up in a small town in Ohio, and even among the dorks, I was a dork - I was SuperDork. I longed to cast off this small-town identity and embrace the REAL me struggling to get out, the me that was cultured and interesting and fabulous. I had no idea at the time what a cliche I was. I really believed that somehow I was different.

And truth be told, I was different. My little small-t0wn high school valued things like school spirit, football games, athleticism, and so on. I had no use for school spirit. School was a pragmatic concern - their role was to educate me so I could get the hell out of there. Football games merely provided me the opportunity to play a clarinet during half-time. I didn't give a rat's ass who won or lost. Athleticism? Ha! If any of my phys ed teachers even remember me, which is doubtful, they'd say I was the one chosen last for the team, and I was pretty damned sullen about it.

I was the kid who tried out for every play, and got roles in most of them. I was the kid in choir. I was the tall girl in Grade 12 with a "Fuck all of you!" attitude - I wore makeup and high heels so that I'd be more beautiful and taller than everyone else so I could look over their heads and yawn disinterestedly. I was the one who didn't put myself out too much to make new friends - what was the point? I'd e out of here soon enough anyway, off to where my real friends were waiting. Besides, I already had my little circle of friends, and they were all I needed.

So yes, I was definitely Chandra pronounced "Shondra." Man, it's a wonder anyone tolerated me at that school. Oh wait - they didn't.

Anyway, fast forward - I continue to introduce myself as "Shondra" for the next 20 years. My current (and hopefully final) husband calls me "Shondra." He says it suits me better.

So now I live in a western Canadian city. I introduce myself as "Shondra." But for some reason, they all call me "Shandra" here. I don't bother to correct them. Now the situation is reversed. I'm "Shondra" at home and "Shandra" at work.

Yesterday, at my daughter's birthday party, the daughter of one of my coworkers was invited. Her father, the parent that I work with, said "Wait - we've been calling you 'Shandra,' but your husband just called you 'Shondra.' How do you say your name?"

When I try to explain that I have no idea anymore, and it really doesn't matter anyway, people ask me "Well, what do you WANT to be called?" So I ask them "Which do YOU like better?" Sometimes they pick one over the other. But if they're unwilling to do that and if they press me, I say "Okay, my family and my childhood friends call me 'Shandra.' My friends since university call me 'Shondra.'"

This causes some people to determine that my real name must be 'Shandra' since this is what my parents named me. Others decide that I was 'Shandra' but am 'Shondra' now.

Sometimes I think it would have been easier to be "Amy" or "Elaine." Especially "Elaine." I could be an "Elaine." But it's too late. I'm Chandra/Shandra/Shondra to the bone.

A rant to toy manufacturers

My daughter had her birthday party today. She actually turned five a few weeks ago, but her birthday landed on the first day of Rosh Hoshana, so we had just a modest little celebration with her grandparents that day. Her big party was today.

So of course she received an obscene amount of wonderful presents, most of which are some variation of Barbie dolls, Bratz, and so on. They were all elaborately packaged against a backdrop of some scenery, but of course, the scenery is cardboard, and not intended to be part of the play set, but rather something to make the toy itself look more attractive & enticing.

Each toy took me at least 10 minutes to open. Each doll's hair was tacked against the cardboard, and tacked to itself, to such an extent that they looked quite tousled by the time I got them free. Each was imprisoned in some godawful kinky position - whoever started this excessive package craze is surely a sadist.

While I was yanking and swearing and twisting and gauging the toys out (along with all the acoutrements they come with, such as tiny handbags that don't even open, multiple pairs of slutty shoes, and so on), I fell to musing to myself.

Well, it probably happened after I cut my finger for the third time on some jagged edge of that really thick, almost Tupperware-like plastic shit they package the toys in.

So let's say I see a Barbie set that I want to buy for my daughter. Let's say I take it to the checkout and say "I'll buy this for you if you take it completely out of its packaging, without tearing any of the clothes or messing up her hair."

Possibly the store clerk might give it a go, or might refer me to Customer Service.

At any rate, let's say someone on the staff obliges.

And then let's say there's a consumer backlash and EVERYONE starts insisting that their Barbie dolls and other toys be unpackaged before we'll buy them.

Christmas would be a mess. Store managers would see that their human resources were being devoted to unpackaging the products. They would tell the clerks "No more unpacking. Customers have to take them home and unpack them on their own."

So customers stop buying them.

Then the buyers for the store stop ordering such crap from manufacturers, and buy instead toys that are packaged more reasonably.

Anyway, I was just daydreaming. I suppose I could write letters of complaint to toy manufacturers, and I'm sure that if I got a reply at all, it would be some bullshit about they have to package extensively to ensure the product reached the consumer in the best condition possible (like hell! My daughter's Barbies look like they've just had sex when they emerge from all that packaging.)

I'm not saying don't package at all. Of course, things have to be packaged to some extent to ensure the product remains in its kinky position before reaching the customer. But what they're doing these days is beyond reason. I don't like it. It makes me very grumpy. My daughter is bouncing around trying to be patient while I'm struggling to keep her away from all the jagged edges and the twist ties and everything else.

If you're not a parent or haven't bought a Barbie or Bratz or Little Mermaid or other doll set, then you have no idea. Let me give you one.

First, you have to jackhammer your way through the safety-glass quality plastic that the entire unit is encased in. There is supposed to be a way to do this neatly, and you try that first. Then, failing that, you resort to industrial shears to cut right through the plastic. This results in jagged edges that can sever a human hand from the arm.

Meanwhile, your daughter is jumping up and down, asking if she can have it now, and insisting that you please hurry.

You discover that the doll's body is affixed to one layer of cardboard, usually at about seven to ten places. They are wired to the cardboard, and you have to go to the back of the cardboard to untwist each wire that is holding the doll in place, usually at each wrist, the waist, the neck, the ankles, and in a few places through the hair.

So you turn the cardboard over to undo all those wires. But wait! You can't get to the wire because there's another layer of cardboard over the whole back of the unit. So you rip the back cardboard off. It doesn't come off in one piece. It comes off in little pieces.

With a pile of cardboard confetti at your feet, you set about to untwist the wires.

But wait! Someone put two or three crisscrossing layers of packing tape over the wires. It doesn't peel off. So you take your industrial strength scissors and start gauging at it.

Finally the tape comes off and the little wires are untwisted. You yank the Barbie from her bondage, and discover that her hair is stitched together somewhere not far from the ends of her hair. This is clearly to keep the hair looking like she just stepped out of the salon - while she's in the box! But now she's out of the box. It looks like she had extensions put in two years ago and the braid has grown past her shoulders.

By the time you daintily clip the stitching out, the doll has a Carol Brady shag.

You go to hand the doll to your daughter, but she's nowhere to be found. You discover her in the other room, playing with the cardboard scenery that the doll came in. She's no longer interested in the doll.

It took me about as long to type all of that as it did to open a single Barbie set.

Any toy manufacturers out there?????

Life in a northern town

I was driving across town after I picked up my daughter's birthday cake, and it hit me out of the blue, the way it does upon occasion. Wow. Somehow, this kid from an Ohio cornfield is living in a Canadian city of a million people. Oh, and the kid is Jewish now.

I thought about all I've gone through to bring me to this point, and how many lives I've lived already, and I said "Dang, Chandra! You have an interesting life. You should blog that."

I already have a couple of blogs going, both of them anonymous. They're really not very interesting - one is about fitness, the other is this motivational thing. I seem to have this compulsion to do public speaking and write self-help material. I think I'm starting to become a fairly decent public speaker. As for the self-help material, I've managed to write an ebook, some articles, and the blog.

I toyed with the idea of making this blog anonymous. I decided not to. Who knows - perhaps some long-lost friend from the past will find me through this blog. (God, I hope I remember him/her.) Or even more interesting, a long-lost enemy. More likely, however, is that this blog, like 99.9999% of the others, will drift along in pleasant obscurity.

So who am I?

Today, I'm a mother of a five-year-old, I work in the not-for-profit sector, my daily thoughts usually include wondering if I'll ever finish painting my daughter's bedroom and wondering if I'll ever use those $200 running shoes I bought last year.

Intermittently, I have other thoughts that are tangential to my identity, such as:

1. I should pick up the guitar again. I was getting fairly good at it for awhile.
2. I should pick up the bass, too. And the piano. No. I won't pick up the piano.
3. I fancy myself as an artsy fartsy crafty person. It would be easier to fancy myself thusly if this ever manifested itself in actual artwork. I was into rubber stamping for awhile, and there is an oil pastel done by yours truly hanging in our living room. It's geometric, bold, exciting, and hopelessly amateur.
4. I should start a blog about my wonderful life. Nah, I don't have time.
5. I would be an absolute, drop-dead, gorgeous babe if I could just lose weight. Men's tongues would fall out of their mouths & land on the sidewalk, books would fall from library shelves, and meteors would disturb air traffic controllers. I guess it's best I don't lose that weight.
6. This house we're living in doesn't feel like my house. We moved into my husband's parent's house in 2004, and we still haven't replaced the gold shag carpet.
7. I wish we had time to have sex more often. Oops, did I say that out loud?

So, basically, I flirt with being a musician and an artist, but I spend my time fussing over my figure and this damned house.

Oh, come on! Admit it! Doesn't this make for WONDERFUL blogfodder? Stay tuned for more - hope you can sleep nights waiting for it!\