Friday 31 August 2012

Gates and Gratitude

We've got a new gate in our backyard (no this isn't any kind of sexy talk euphemism). It's a new, white picket gate demarcating the end of our lawn and the beginning of the lane. It's so pretty! It took over a year to come to fruition because my fella did it all himself, which is extremely admirable and extremely slow. I love our gate SO much. Prior to the arrival of the Wonder Gate we had a derelict metal thing that our neighbours had run their car into. It was banged up and rusty and filled with tetanus and springy pointy bits and it didn't really close and if you touched it your hands turned a rusty red and it was a complete eyesore. My words can't do justice to how truly awful and eye-sore-ish it was. (note to self: ALWAYS take a "before" shot).

Anyhoots, in the place of that Tetanus Gate there is now this beautiful thing:

I was looking at it tonight thinking how flipping lucky I am to get to live in a house with a gate like that. Not very profound, I know, but life can be really shitty at times, and when life is shitty, I need to remember to look at that gate and feel grateful for everything not shitty (most things) in my life.

Wednesday 29 August 2012

How do I look and can you help me with my foot bulge?

I'm monkeying around with the blog format... Trying to make commenting easier and and make it all seem prettier and more user-friendly. I don't, unfortunately, have a clue about what I'm doing, so if anyone has any comments/suggestions/general abuse feel free to throw them at me either in the comments or via the electronic mail.

While you're communicating with me -- what do you think --  I fell off my bike this afternoon, and now there is a weird giant bulge forming on the inside of my foot. It's kind of blue-ish and a bit bleed-y... It hurts to walk on, but maybe I'm over-thinking it. Should I be concerned?

Relying on the Internet for medical advice since 2006

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Bic Pens

This is a good one... Buzzfeed's pick for the
12 best reviews of the new Bic Pen "For her."

Numbers 1 and 6 are particularly good...

Saturday 25 August 2012

Travelling with a toddler

Everyone knows that traveling with a child can be tiresome. Firstly, there is the sheer amount of STUFF the kid needs - the clothes; the extra clothes for when the first set gets so thoroughly encrusted with pee, snot, cheerios and stale milk that it's like they're made of cardboard (crapboard?); the diapers; the toys; the special blankie or teddy, without which your child will LOSE HER SHIT; not to mention a pair of shoes (*cough* managed to forgot those on a recent trip to Toronto). 

Assembling all the stuff and thinking through all the permutations of eventualities - rain? swimming? fancy tea where an adorable dress is required? Band aids? Kids' Tylenol? - requires more logistical planning than D-Day (small exaggeration?)


Apart from the stuff, there's the actually moving from point A to point B. Strapping a toddler into a car or plane seat seat is akin to wrestling a greased orangutan into a thimble.If you're on public transit you have to contend with your fellow travelers' falling faces as they realize that yes, the woman laden with fourteen carry ons, a filthy dolly and a wriggling 3-year old with a suspiciously brown looking bum, is going to sit next to/behind them. 


As someone who used to sanctimoniously glare and eye roll about about being within a 12-row radius of any person under 21, I feel these people's pain. Nothing kills your seat-back TV and Chardonnay buzz like listening to a child yowling or a desperate parent pleading/threatening. 

Despite all that, though, there is something great about traveling with the little ones. When we lived in Belgium we got to go to Paris a lot. We saw and did all sorts of amazing things and felt that we had a good grasp of the city, its geography and its general vibe. When we returned last summer with the kidlet, our experience of the city was totally different. For one thing, people were friendly and helpful and even smiled at us. Given our previous 2.5 years with the Belgians/French and the contemptuous sneering they regularly subjected us to, seeing smiles on Parisians' faces was disconcerting... Like coming out of the house and discovering that grass was now Monopoly money or cars were made of cheese.

I didn't quite grasp what was happening at first -- old ladies held the door open for us, rather than sniffing haughtily, teenagers smiled sympathetically as I struggled to haul the stroller down the Metro steps, rather than angrily ignoring me. When the security guard at the Musée D'Orsay came up to us in the gigantor line, I was sure it was because we had committed some infraction and were going to be asked to leave, instead he ushered us to the "Priorité" line, as if we were Jerry Lewis, or something. By the time the taxi-stand dude waved us to the front of the line and the crepe lady gave us an extra dollop of Nutella, I began to believe that miracles do happen and all it takes to melt a Parisian's stony, stony heart is the innocent smile of a child. 

In addition to the magical attitude-melting-effect of the sprog, there's also the fun of discovering new sides to a place because your activities change when you are en-childed. I can't pretend that the man and I were partyin' hard pre-baby, but back in the day when we were on a trip I would force myself to stay up past my ten pm bedtime to go out for a nice dinner or stroll. We'd shop, eat lingering meals, drink too much, go to museums and stare at stuff... Activities that aren't particularly fun with a little one.

With a child we're discovering new things, like that there's a really fantastic play area at the Jardin du Luxembourg featuring an old timey carousel,  that Toronto's Parkdale library has a fun kids' section and even if you're not a city resident, you can get a day pass ticket to use the library facilities (don't tell Rob Ford) whilst engaging in primo people-watching; that along with being a total tourist trap, Montpellier Vermont's Morse Farm Sugarworks has insanely beautiful views, enormous ice creams and a "petting zoo" consisting of a sheep and a goat that you can't actually touch, but about whom your kid will then remember and discuss for the entire 20 hours of your trip. 

That's the thing about traveling with kids, you might not be skinny dipping in the Mediterranean or drinking Sangria 'til dawn, but you're eliciting different reactions form the locals and seeing new parts of the cities and places you're in. Not a bad tradeoff for the three hours of "Wheels on the Bus" you had to sing in order to get there.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Scenes from Toddler-dom

At Ikea:
Kid:  What is this place, mummy?
Me: It's the warehouse.
Kid (gasp, eyes huge): The bear house?!


Returning to the lineup at Toronto Island Ferry after visiting the bathroom:
Kid: Daddy, Daddy, I did a pee pee and a big fart!


Friday 17 August 2012

Toronto Gets Me


Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Belgium

What can be more enticing than a post titled "Belgium."?

Well, we lived there for a couple of years, and while it was maddening and strange and the people were generally QUITE grumpy, it was also kind of magical and delightfully bizarre.

Never mind the veneration of the peeing boy statue (Mannken Pis) or the lesser known and truly disturbing peeing girl statue (Jeanneke Pis); the incomprehensible politics; the language hatred that makes the Canada-Quebec business look positively cozy; the shameful colonial past -- despite (because of?) all that, the Belgians are a bit wacky.

One of the things they do every couple of years is cover their beautiful Gothic central square (La Grande Place) in an elaborate tapestry of flowers... There's no real reason for it, but like their hot chocolate (MOTHER OF GOD) or their love of an odd parade, they do it really well...

So have a look at these pretty pictures and join me in boggling at this funny country. As my Flemish teacher told me, Belgium was created after the Napoleonic Wars to be the "tampon" between France and Germany...

Tuesday 14 August 2012

The Hairpin

My piece on writing Carnal Punishment and Love's Bouquet is up at The Hairpin!

Check it out! Not only is it super exciting to be getting the word out about my smut, but it's quite thrilling to make the cut for The Hairpin, which is my all time fave website... Funny, feministy and quirky without being all smug about it. The comments are always fantastic, and they're like an asshole-free zone on the Interwebs... Miraculous, like unicorns and fresh corn on the cob. Love it.

Also, in two wonderful worlds colliding, the fantastic Edith Zimmerman, editor of The Hairpin is being interviewed on
Q today (though sadly for her, not by that deep voiced delight, Jian Ghomeshi). She's talking about the death of Helen Gurley Brown.

Aieee! So much good in the world!

Monday 13 August 2012

This American Life

Oh, I love This American Life -- an amazing radio show that I cannot possibly over-sell. They pick a theme ... loneliness, say, or underwear , and spend an entire hour exploring what that theme means to a cast of interesting people with fascinating stories. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's sad and sometimes it's maddening. If you haven't listened, go there, download it, and then join me in falling in love with nebbishy Ira Glass and his intense awesomeness.

For any Canadians out there, this episode is a particularly good one to get started. 

The one on testosterone is also really fun and interesting. 

This story of "Nubbins" the malformed lifelike baby doll, is possibly my absolute favourite. I defy you to listen to this and not find it profoundly funny as well as a sad commentary on how horribly humanity really is... but in a FUNNY way.

Anyone else out in blogland have faves?



Thursday 9 August 2012

Getaway

I am mere moments from a fabulous getaway and I can't get there soon enough.

I'm off to a cottage for the weekend, and not just any cottage, but possibly the Platonic ideal of a cottage. Not too fancy (no TV, no Interwebs, no insulation) but not so rustic that there's no running water, electricity or screens to keep the bugs out. It's on Bob's Lake, which is kind of perfect all by itself. There's not a ton to do... Crossword puzzles to fail to complete (I don't KNOW the Jewish months, alright?!), 10-year old magazines to read, CBC to listen to, lake to jump in, kayaks to kayak. 

[Sidenote, I can't think of "kayak" without thinking of this clip from Celine Dion's interview with Larry King about Hurricane Katrina. -skip to 3:00 ish for the relevant watercraft reference with hand movements. Mother of Pearl, I enjoy that crazy crazy lady with her out-there emotions]

While I'm eagerly anticipating the cottage for all of the reasons mentioned above, plus wine wine wine and friends friends friends, I'm mostly super psyched to get away from my husband and child. Shocking, I know, but I've had a bit of a crusty summer...  Job craziness, bat infestations, random maladies, ailments, infirmities and complaints... I just need a break from neediness (and the bats, the swooping, swooping bats) and from thinking of myself as a unit, rather than a me. I love being in a relationship and being a mum, but the two can be a bit identity-gobbling, so it's nice to have some away time to remember who I am at my core -- a fairly indolent lady who likes to read a lot.

Apart from getting sunburned, mosquito-bitten, cheese-bloated and drunk, isn't that the whole point of cottaging?

Monday 6 August 2012

Love's Bouquet is up!

My angels! Love's Bouquet's fragrant aroma is ready to be inhaled by the world's reading public.

It's up on Amazon Kindle, my dickie birds, for the bargain price of $4.25.

Best part? You don't even have to own a Kindle to read it. Amazon will kindly download it your computer without making you a slave to their proprietary hardware! Hurray!

If you do buy it and read it, my feathery doves, and you are so moved, leaving reviews is very helpful, apparently. It tells others out there that the book is worth their hard earned (but entirely reasonable) $4.25.

Hurray!



Sunday 5 August 2012

Things it would have been helpful to know sooner

  1. Always get the rash looked at
  2. Cheap mouse traps work best
  3. Never wake a toddler who has fallen asleep in the car, until all groceries are unloaded, and possibly you've had a gin and tonic
  4. Relationships should mostly be easy
  5. Thank-you notes are always worth it
  6. Take 2 aspirin before passing out
  7. When you need to pee in a bathing suit, you can just scooch the crotch material over, without having to take the whole thing off
  8. People don't offer to help unless they mean it
  9. If your tights keep slipping down, wearing your underwear OVER them will keep them up
  10.  Always carry bandaids
  11. How long you breastfeed really doesn't matter
Anyone else have others to offer?

Thursday 2 August 2012

Judging a book by its cover

I am totally not a visual person. I can't really tell if something looks good on me, if a box will fit through a door or if a photograph has a good composition. I'm so non-visual, that when my husband and I have discussed rearranging furniture he has actually gone to the point of cutting out scale models of the items we're going to move and then given me the little cutouts to move around on graph paper, like a super boring game of paper dolls. While his plan didn't help me visualize what the room would look like if the table were over THERE, I think it assisted him in handling the frustration of trying to get decisions from someone who just repeats, "I have no idea what you're talking about," when he's trying to describe something.


All that to say that when it came time to choose a cover for my soon-to-be-released novel, Love's Bouquet, I was nervous. Covers, as I am learning, are vitally important, especially in the e-book, self-publishing world. Your readers have to take a leap of faith when buying your book. Because it hasn't been vetted by a publishing house, they have no way of knowing if you're the second coming of J.K. Rowling or if you view Snookie as a literary heroine. Aside from the short blurb you write about your book, the cover is the only tool you have to convey what it's about,  its tone as well as whether or not you're actually competent. That's a lot of pressure for one simple image.

Knowing I could never actually come up with something on my own, I searched the Internet until I found someone creating e-book covers in a vein I liked.

Judy at Custom Ebook Covers was great, especially considering I didn't really know what I was doing, and our communication was just an email version of "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Here's the cover:

While that's not how I originally conceived of Wendy, or the back of James' head, I think it coveys what the book is about: A fun, flirty romance involving laughter love and tulips, oh the tulips!




mascara and lipstick

I am not good with makeup. This makes no sense, since my mother was a stone cold fox back in the day, leaving a trail of  marriage proposals,  broken hearts and white gloves wherever she went. I am also blessed with THREE sisters, who, in between psychologically torturing me, dissing my love life and always getting shotgun, could have at least taught me how to curl my eye lashes. 

Somehow, despite the overwhelming femaleness of my household, no one was very girly, and as a result, none of my sisters really know what to do with makeup. If I needed advice on how to swim the butterfly or sing off key, I would have been set, but what do with foundation or how to apply eye shadow, and they were useless.
This lack of knowledge has been fine for most of my life. I look okay, a bit thin lipped, squinty eyed and freckly, but mostly okay. It's not like I never wear makeup, on the day of my wedding I made an effort with the unguents and potions and creams - though I was careful not to go overboard - there's nothing weirder than not actually looking like yourself in your wedding pictures.

Lately, though, I've started to realise I need to up my game.  I'm on the wrong side of 35, and I can't get away with thinking that my youthful cuteness will mask my awkward wardrobe, sproingy hair or increasingly wrinkly face.

I need makeup, is what I'm saying.

So I made a vow to myself not to go to work without mascara. This isn't the first time I've resolved to care more about my appearance. When we moved overseas I decided that it was a new me, on a new continent, and that from now on I'd wear mascara and lipstick every day. I trotted out of the house on that first day, feeling like a glamorous and mysterious femme fatale with my "full" face of makeup on. I had a bunch of errands, including sorting out my new identity card. The photo on my carte d'identité is totally smoking... I've got sultry eyes, full lips and non-crazy hair. I was thrilled. The new me was going to totally rock. I'd start wearing scarves and heels everywhere! I was going Full Euro!

The next day, and I am not exaggerating, I woke up with an eye infection, a sty, and a giant ulcerating cold sore on my lip. By the time all of my various makeup-induced ailments had cleared up, I'd lost my enthusiasm for the project.

This time it's different, though. I'm no longer a girlish 30, but deep, deep into the decade... My eyes need to "pop" and  my lips need to be embiggened, I've been wearing mascara for a few months now, without eye-infections of Biblical magnitude raining down on me, so maybe it's safe to try lipstick... Who knows, maybe I'll even dig out those scarves I bought all those years ago and have never felt I could carry off...