Other People's Kids are fine. It's their parents I can't stand

When I was a teenager, I swore I was never getting married and never having kids, and I meant it...the irony here is out of a group of 4 of us that hung out, I am the only one who got married, had a kid and had to eat those insistent words of my youth.

My main reason for not wanting kids was because I was really not a fan of children in general. I'm an only child, so I never had a brother to convince me to stick my fingers in the spokes of a bike wheel before proceeding to spin the wheel as hard as possible, thereby losing a finger by bike-spoke amputation (like my dad did to his brother when they were kids), or a sister who stole all my clothes, read my diary and then tattled to my parents that I was smoking pot behind the gym when I was supposed to be at volleyball practice. I was fairly content to be an Only...I never longed for sibling and I'm sure my parents were thankful for that because after all the constant screaming and crying and no sleeping of my babyhood (my mother: "you did not sleep through the night for 2 years...TWO YEARS up being up half the night. Those people who said babies sleep all the time? LIE.) you could not have paid my poor mother to have another baby.

As a kid I was not a big fan of Other People's Kids either. I grew up in a great neighbourhood with lots of kids so there was always someone to ride bikes, play barbies or build forts with. Unfortunately there was that one mom aka Crazy Lady (aptly named but the other parents and she was seriously insane, with a capital I) who used to drag her son over to wherever we we gathered and insist we include him RIGHT NOW, even though the kid was creepy as fuck and we were all a little afraid of him. Then she'd proceed to start screaming at her daughter (who was a nice girl despite her horrible family, that we did hang out with) for no apparent reason, and that would usually end with Crazy Lady smacking her and dragging her home by the hair. Literally. Even at a young age, I resented having some creepy kid foisted on me by a nutbar mom which in turn made me leery about Other People's Kids even way back then.

As I got older I discovered I hated babysitting. My neighbourhood was ripe with opportunity and almost every time I did it, I'd regret it. In hindsight, I'm sure the kids weren't that bad, but I was not exactly the nurturing type and spent most of my time changing the clocks in the house to trick the kids into going to bed early so I could watch movies, call my friends and eat ice cream.

Once I got to the age when my friends started having kids, I remember having a conversation with a new mom and a mom of a 2 year old. They spent half an hour discussing bellybuttons and how long it takes for one to fall off while I sat there thinking "Are we seriously having this conversation??? BELLYBUTTONS?? Is this what happens to normal people after they have kids? OMFG, motherhood really is a cult and I don't wanna join, EVER"

Which of course was foreshadowing and I joined that same cult a few years later.I will admit after I had my son I became a lot more tolerant of children in general. No longer did I panic and mutter "Get it off...GET IT OFF" when someone plunked a baby on my lap that smelled of sour milk and Eau De Poop. I also became selectively deaf to the dulcet tones of screaming 3 year olds tearing my living room apart. And that was when I really started to notice that it usually wasn't Other People's Kids who annoyed me...it was  mostly their parents. Annoying kids are far easier to ignore then some uber-mom who gave me shit about not breast-feeding my son until he was 6 or letting him sleep in his own room so I could get some rest I was desperate for. And did I know I should be making my own baby food out of organic vegetables grown in my own garden and lovingly pureed by hand, because giving him the jarred stuff means I'm lazy and don't love him? And did I want a recipe for suger-and-gluten-free birthday cake because the minute I allow one grain of sugar to pass his lips I've put him on the road to diabetes and childhood obesity?  And was I really going back to work one day a week when he's 4 months old, because he'll need therapy when he's older, due to abandonment issues, you know.

Yeah. Other People's Kids don't piss me off nearly as much as some of their parents.

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Grandma's bake sale for Jesus? No. Just...no.

Question: How difficult is finding an organization to join that combines socialization and volunteerism?

Answer: Easy-peasy.

Question: How about an organization that's not bible-centric, doesn't revolve around bake sales/penny carnivals and appeals to anyone under 80?

Answer: Yeah. Good luck with that.

I'm at a crossroad right now. I have 2 jobs which both require me to interact with people all day...co-workers, students, sales reps and clients. A big part of my job is to be friendly, chatty and personable, all of which I enjoy doing (most of the time) but by the end of the day, I'm all chatted and friendly-ed out and am quite happy to go home and not interact with humanity (with the exception of my son)...I ignore my cel phone, make sure my IM is on stealth mode and find myself less than inclined to get my ass out the door and socialize with the couple of close friends I have, let alone make an attempt to go out and meet new people. I used to be social. I used to enjoy going out in public, getting involved and actually doing shit in a group. I'm not sure at what point enjoying time alone turned into complete social apathy, but it did and it's far beyond time I actually did something about it.

So last night I decided to quit procrastinating (which in itself is amazing because I'm a procrastination master, who lives by the code "Fuck it. If it doesn't kill me, cause me bodily injury or grevious grief, I'm putting it off until later. Way later") and find some kind of group to join, which would force me to give up this self-inflicted hermitude and get out and meet some new people while assuaging some of the guilt from my present lack of doing anything to help out in my community.

Much easier said than done.

I have a relation who is/was a member of the Masonic Lodge, so I thought I'd check out the female arm of that organization, the Eastern Star. Their website was pretty vague about what they actually do, besides charity work and meetings that sound like a cross between a Wiccan coven ritual, church service and city council meeting, so I called the masonic relative to ask about it. His reply: "That is NOT for you...all the women that belong to Eastern Star have one foot in the grave. It's full of really old women"

Nope. Not happening.

I reconsidered joining my son's school PAC. But just for as long as it took me to remember the 5 years on his elementary school PAC, where I got in way over my head by the 4th year and ended up with 4 committee positions at once including Chairperson which meant I was living and breathing fundraisers, milk programs, government grants and attempts to get more parents to volunteer so 90% of the hard work would stop falling on the same 6 people. After that hellish year I swore I would never go to another PAC meeting again and would not feel guilty about it at all because already I put in my time, plus more. So scratch the school stuff. Besides, that was all work and next-to-zero socializing...maybe if we had made the meetings BYO wine, we would have had more fun. And a better turnout.

I looked for other social-type clubs that do some community service, but I have yet to find one that doesn't involve Jesus, crafting/baking/sewing (none of which I really enjoy, unless the crafting involves tampons, the baking involves cake soaked in liquor and the sewing doesn't involve me at all because I fucking hate sewing) or being a grandma.

Where the hell are the clubs for middle-aged single divorced mothers of teenagers, who enjoy occasional recreational drinking, complaining and making sarcastic fun of pretty much everything, and just enough community service type-shit so we feel all virtuous and not guilty about the wine-fueled rant-and-hysterical laughing sessions?? Besides blogging, that is.

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The Oscars according to Spielberg

After never in his life giving a shit about award shows, my 13 year old son insisted we watch the Oscars this year. Despite the fact neither of us have seen any of the movies that were nominated (except Zero Dark Thirty, which my son saw and loved) and that I already warned him it's about a total of 5 minutes of interesting out of the entire 3-4 hours of weepy thank-you speeches, stupid musical numbers and  tributes to some guy no one knows except film-trivia-geeks that invented sound effects when he accidentally stumbled over a metal garbage can while drunk. I'm betting he'll lose interest right after Seth McFarland's monologue and want to watch a Criminal Minds rerun instead. Unless one of the female nominees has a wardrobe malfunction...then he'll want to watch right to the bitter end, because the possibility of more accidental boob-flashing is too tempting for any male.

Note: I shall henceforth be referring to my son as Spielberg on this blog, as in director Steven Spielberg, who he idolizes and is determined to follow the career path of. Seriously, the kid has been making his own movies/skits/sketch comedies for several years with the help of his buddies who enjoy hamming it up for the world to see, a video camera and close-to-professional-quality editing software...between the writing, directing and editing, he's a triple threat. And yes, I'm totally bragging because I'm proud of my kid. And possibly because I'm hoping he'll take me to the Oscars when one of his movies is nominated for Best Picture one day, where I shall embarrass the shit out of him by trying to hump Johnny Depp's leg and asking all the female nominees for a referal to whoever did their boob jobs.

Anyfuckingway, Spielberg and I got settled in with our fancy Oscar Night dinner (homemade chili and biscuts...probably not what the stars noshed on, but still pretty damn tasty) and we ended up watching the whole fucking thing.

The Official Oscar Show Review, according to my son:

Seth McFarland is a genius and should host every award show there is, as long as he sings about boobs and uses sock puppet for re-enactments every time.

All 13 year old boys would mistake Meryl Streep for Betty White. Also, they have no idea who Meryl Streep is and really don't care.

Musical numbers at award shows are dumb and there are far too many of them. Unless they're about actress's boobs and making fun of the night's losers. Songs like that are marginally acceptable

Steven Spielberg is a movie-making god and he should win an award every time he makes a movie. Or takes a dump, for that matter.

I can vouch for Spielberg's worship of  RealSpielberg, because he knocked his drink over in excitement one of the times the camera panned over to RealSpielberg. And now my living room carpet looks like the scene of a murder, thanks to the makers of Rasberry Crystal Light, who apparently do not have kids because if they did, all their fine drink products would be colourless to avoid unsightly stains and carpet-cleaning bills

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Sunday Stealing: 20 questions

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First Job: Working for my dad's landscaping company as a teen, which I hated, even though he gave me regular raises to try to stem the tide of bitching and complaining. It didn't work.

First Real Job: Working at a clothing store as a teenager. I was in employee-discount heaven plus I could quit working for my dad. My first career as an adult was as a hairstylist. And 22 years later, I'm still doing it and loving it.

First Volunteer Job: I was on the PAC for 5 years at my son's elementary school. Every time I see a bake sale now, I die a little inside.

First Car: I never owned a car until I got married (my ex had vehicles, but they were old junkers and I hardly ever drove them). We bought a brand new car when my sone was a baby and I still have it...it's a little worse for wear at this point

First Record: I think it was Abba. Don't judge. It was the 70's.

First Sport Played: Softball. I was not good at it at all.

First Concert: Bonjovi at BC place in Vancouver, when I was 17. It was a sea of giant, hair-sprayed permed hair

First Country Visited: USA. I have relatives there...relatives who live close to Disneyland!

First Kiss: In first grade. Can't remember his name but he kissed me then shoved me into a wall. Ahhh, young love!

First Speech: In 8th grade English class. All I remember is quaking with nerves and trying not to pass out

First Girlfriend/Boyfriend: 8th grade. His name was Mitch. He was so cute and taller than me, which at that age was rare because I towered over most of the boys at 5'9

First Encounter with a Famous Person: Pamela Anderson. I was at a pub with friends and she came in with her brother (this was back when she was on Home Improvement and Baywatch). Totally nice girl and drop dead gorgeous...I remember my friend being right pissed off with her boyfriend, who practically licking PA's feet and acting all triumphant because he briefly dated PA in high school

First Brush With Death: I've never really had my own brush with death, but one that really affected and devastated me was a friend who passed away several years ago. She was a recovering addict and alcoholic and had completed a rehab program...the last time I spoke to her, she was sober, happy and newly engaged. A couple months later she fell off the wagon and ODed.

First House/Flat Owned: A sweet little house my ex husband and I bought shortly after we got married

First Film Seen at a Cinema: Don't remember. But I vividly remember seeing ET and crying my face off during the entire movie

First Media Appearance (Radio, Newspaper, TV): In 8th grade I won a district-wide short story writing competition and there was an article in the local paper about it

First Hospital Stay: I had a couple day surgeries as a kid, but the first time I stayed over night was when I had my son. The second was when I had a hysterectomy...like the circle of life for my uterus

First Book You Remember Reading: I've been an avid reader all my life but the first series of books I was completely obsessed with was Little House On The Prairie. I wanted to choke Nellie Olsen with her blonde boing-boing curls

First Pet: A gerbil

First Election You Voted In: I think it was a municipal election. No idea who I voted for

Theme Thursday: Redneck Ingenuity

When you hear the word "redneck" what usually comes to mind is a shotgun-toting, beer-swilling, beard-wearing simpleton with bad dental work and a jacked-up truck with a confederate flag duct-taped to the back window. While in some cases this is a completely accurate description, I think rednecks often get a bad rap, especially intelligence-wise. I know a lot of rednecks and I can tell you, while some of them may not be able to explain String Theory, nobody can beat a redneck when it comes to ingenious solutions.

Today's Thursday Theme is to write about something we love. And what I love is redneck ingenuity...it's part MacGyver, part Da Vinci and part beer-induced genuis. Sometimes the true elegance lies in how simple it is...taking objects and refashioning them into something else. Like upcycling, except the finished product often looks like hell. But it works.

See what I mean? Redneck ingenuity at it's finest.

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WTF? Food Edition

Yes. You read that right. It's a semen cookbook

The author states "I originally wrote the book to change the negative view of semen as food, and encourage readers to open their minds, kitchens and ultimately mouths to semen"

*insert oral sex joke here*

Imagine this scenario: going to someone's house for dinner and after everyone has eaten, the hostess proudly proclaims that the secret ingredient in tonight's meal is courtesy of her virile husband, who is sitting there mischieviously smirking while rubbing his crotch. Projectile vomiting for all, followed closely by violence.

Please keep your secret sauce to yourself, and out of my fettuccine alfredo, thankyouverymuch

If wisdom resides in my bathroom, I think I'm screwed

Yesterday I attempted to feng shui my apartment. It did not go well. My chi resisted all efforts to be directed when it's supposed to go, my apartment layout is not feng shui-frendly and there's not enough Yin in my bedroom. However, I did clean out my clothes closet and have 2 garbage bags full of stuff I never wear to give to the Sally Ann, so the day wasn't a complete karmic loss.

Feng Shui, in case you don't know, is "the Chinese art of determining the most propitious design and placement of a grave, building, room, etc, so that the maximum harmony is achieved between the flow of chi of the environment and that of the user, believed to bring good fortune" (ok, let's just stop here a second and wonder why a grave would need feng shui. Dead people no longer need good fortune. Because they are...well....dead). While I'm not a hardcore New Ager (yes, I have an altar to the 4 elements and I meditate once in a blue moon. No, I don't spend any time attempting to clear my chakkras, nor do I dance naked on my balcony during a full moon. I'm open-minded, but prefer to not get arrested for public indecency) I do believe in surrounding yourself and your environment in positive energy. Also, I like to hedge my bets, so if there is any possibility that sticking a plant in the east corner of my apartment will improve the quality of my life? Why the hell not?

The decluttering part went well (clutter is a huge energy blocker, apparently) but I think the positive vibes stemmed less from allowing good energy to flow freely and more from no longer having to look at 6 months worth of mail stacked on top of the microwave and being able to open my closet without being buried alive by an avalache of clothes. I will say I did not even attempt to declutter my son's room, because just looking at the thousand of lego pieces on the floor makes me feel most unharmonious...so I shut his bedroom door and try to think zen thoughts whenever I walk by it.

The real problem arose when I tried to do the bagua (feng shui-speak for the energy map of your home). 

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Luckily, my apartment is rectangle-shaped and fairly easily marches up with the bagua. Unfortunately, who ever designed my apartment was obviously not concerned at all about my wisdom energy residing in the bathroom. I'm not sure if this means I should be doing all my critical thinking on the toilet or what. Also, my good fortune center is in my son's room, so I'm a little concerned all my good fortunes are riding on a room full of lego-chaos that smells like feet. And I'm destined to be single the rest of my life because there's a tv in my relationship space, which is a bad thing. I hate to think that my future relationship status is all hinging on the fact that the cable company are assholes who have committed me to being forever alone, just because that's where they installed the cable outlet, but I doubt I can bring myself to call and tell them they are fucking with my feng shui and I demand they come move the outlet so I don't have to die alone.

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Outhouse phobias are perfectly reasonable

For some reason I’m pondering outhouses tonight. Don’t ask me why. This is the type of shit that pops into my head at any given moment and screams “You will now spend the next 15 minutes obsessing about pooping in a pit and only once you have fully explored this topic, you may move on to something slightly less disturbing. Enjoy!”

Stupid brain.

Anyhoo, back in the marriage days, we used to do a lot of camping. My ex loves to camp and is one of those people that used to spend his weekends as a teen out in the bush with only a small tarp, a knife and a can of pork and beans. Personally I think this was less camping and more an exercise in pretending to be homeless and I never did understand how sleeping on the ground with only a rock for a pillow was supposed to be anyone’s idea of fun. I had never camped in my life until I met him because my parents idea of camping was staying at a hotel that didn’t offer room service, so you can see why this sounded more like self-subjected torture than a hella good time.

I did start camping and was shocked to discover I liked it. Ok, not all of it…I really hate sleeping in a tent but thankfully that’s why campers and RVs were invented. My ex and I came to a compromise and started borrowing his parents camper to go camping after we had our son and even he grudgingly admitted that changing diapers or trying to get a 3 year old to have a nap was FAR easier in a camper. Not to mention the fridge was handy in that it kept all the beer cold instead of having to make a daily trip to the store for more ice.

When we camped with the camper we had a rule that the toilet was for #1 only…this ensured the sewage tank would not get full after 4 days and save us from living with that subtle but lingering Eau De Poo smell, which was inevitable no matter how many  chemicals got dumped down the toilet. Which left us three options for dropping a log: use the campground-provided outhouses, squat behind a tree and fervently hope you are not hunkered down in a patch of poison oak  or hold it until you get home.

Paranoia dictated I go with option #3.

I don’t care how well maintained an outhouse is (and the majority at the campgrounds we went to were), the fact is you are squatting over an open pit full of fuck knows how many other people’s bodily waste, in a tiny airless shack and you are breathing in microscopic particles OF OTHER PEOPLE’S SHIT. Not to mention those outhouse pits are deep…my imagination goes into overdrive thinking about what could potentially be living in that shit pit…mutant rats, giant snakes, machete-wielding serial killers…YOU JUST DON’T KNOW AND NO FUCKING WAY AM I FINDING OUT. So needless to say there were many camping trips that ended with me arriving home and practically weeping in appreciation over my clean and non-smelly flush-toilet followed by a bowel evacuation so epic I could almost hear my toilet whimpering in fear and awe.

There may be no record of anyone getting stabbed in the ass by some shit-covered psycho lurking in an outhouse pit, but I am NOT going to be the first reported victim.

Theme Thursday: Complaining is my favourite

When I saw that this week's Theme Thursday's topic was pet peeves, my first thought was "holy shit, this post is just gonna write itself". I have many pet peeves...MANY. I'm one of those people who is easily annoyed and once something is placed on my Shit List, it's usually there for life. Often to the point I can't remember why it pissed me off in the first place, but my brain tells me there was a perfectly good reason for the hatred, so I should just carry on. A perfect example of this is the city of Portland, Oregon...Portland annoys the shit out of me for some long-forgotten reason and I haven't been anywhere near Portland for at least 20 years. But some primal feeling insists I hate Portland, so I just go with it and continue to despise a city I've probably not visited since I was a kid.

If I were to try and list the rest of my pet peeves, we'd be here all day. It would probably be easier to list the shit that doesn't piss me off, because that list might contain about 6 items. I used to think my Shit List was ridiculous, until I discovered my friend Wade's Shit List, which puts my own to shame. A bunch of us had a group on FB and for a while we did a Wade Hates Wednesday, where we'd all post pics of his pet peeves, which was easy because they are legion, and hilarious because some of the funniest things stick in his craw.

A few examples:

Birthday candles. Maybe at some point his cake caught fire and was ruined. In which case, I'd hate birthday candles too

Lotion totally pisses him off

At least we don't have to worry he'll ever make a suit out of women

If anyone ever wanted to torture Wade, sticking him a room full of balloons would do the trick

I do agree with him about disliking roundabouts...they're highly annoying because no one knows who's turn it is ever. Traffic-calming, my ass

The sun. Wade would make an excellent vampire, I think

I think the sun makes his list because this is what happens to him when he goes out in it. Note: I don't think he hates Will Ferrell, but I could be wrong

The zoo. Probably for the reasons above.

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Monday Blog Hop: Friday was my Monday and why yes, it did suck enormously

This week, my "I Don't Like Mondays" post has been brought to you by last Friday, which turned out to be the most annoying day of last week. And what I learned from it? My boss should really never go out of town again and perm sales are the work of the devil. Also? That Murphy's Law guy is a complete fucking prick.

I should probably explain.

I have 2 jobs...I'm a stylist at a hair salon and I also teach at a hairdressing school. I love both my jobs about 94.7% of the time, but Friday fell under the category of this

Fill it to the brim. The. Brim.

I worked at the salon in the morning, where both hair sinks decided to completely clog up and stop draining. Normally, this would be my boss's problem, but since he was away for 3 days, it was my problem. After a bottle of Liquid plumber and angry plunging the sinks with a toilet plunger  (neither of which helped at all), I called a plumber. Who informed me he couldn't get there that day. As did the next 4 places I phoned. Finally, the last place said they'd send someone as soon as they could, which at this point could not be soon enough because my co-worker was reduced to rinsing her colour clients while bailing the sink into a garbage can every 30 seconds.

Right around then, it was time for me to leave and head to my job at the school, so I wished her good luck and told her to call me as soon as the plumber showed up. I got to the school and realize it's the last day of a perm sale, which means the place is packed and the students are running their asses off trying to keep up (welcome to the wonderful world of salon madness, ladies. And when you reach a point in your career where days like this are the norm and by the end of the day your arms feel like they're about to fall off, your entire lower body feels like it's wrapped in a blanket of ache and all you want to do is go home, lie down with a big bottle of wine and not speak to another human being for at least 12 hours? Congratulations, you're a success! Painkillers, wrist braces for the inevitable carpel tunnel and colour stains on every single item of clothing you own for all!!!).

Now this rush of perm clients is a good thing...the best way to learn is by doing, especially when you know you have a specific amount of time until your next client gets there, so this helps students build up speed as well as skill. The problem arises when a) you realize 5 students have perms on the go at the same time and only 2 sinks to rinse these perms, and b) all these perm clients have put a massive strain on the hot water tank, which can no longer keep up. And now you have the choice of rinsing clients with hypothermically cold water or running back and forth to the kettle to warm up the water  to be put in bowls/water pitcher/anything else you can find that will hold water.

Necessity truly is the mother of invention.

Thankfully, we made it through the day, although by the end all the students looked like they were on the verge of collapse and I was ready to go home and amputate my feet because they were so fucking sore, but I had to run back to the salon and see what was happening with the plumbing issue.

Plumber's Diagnosis: "You pipes are set up stupid. That's why your sinks clog easily"

And for this? Plus 15 minutes of snaking the pipes? He charged $120.

AND he refused to bill us and insisted on cash. Which cleaned out our float. But there was the small amount of satisfaction of having to pay part of it with loonies, toonies and quarters...apparently he was not very impressed by being paid with a big handful of change, but quite frankly I was not impressed with being charged $120 for stating the obvious and a couple minutes of actual work, so I guess we're even.

Since today is a statutory holiday here, I'm taking the day off. And I'm going to enjoy every plumbing-problem-free minute of it

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Theme Thursday: Go to hell, Hallmark

Let's get this out of the way: I am not a fan of Valentine's Day for several reasons, some of which I've posted about here (warning: lots of swearing and bitter in that post...but if you hate V Day, you'll probably enjoy it). Besides the rampant commercialism/materialism disguised as a fluffy teddy bear made in Korea that says "Be Mine" with a side of cheap chocolate in a heart-shaped box, and the whole pressure for couples to make grand gestures of love that include over-priced flowers and a meal that you could get any other day of the year for half the price, I suppose the biggest thing is V-Day has always made me feel inadequate.

I'm not a romantic person and never have been. While I fully appreciate nice gestures like someone cooking me dinner or telling me I love you/you look fantastic today/you made me laugh so hard I peed myself a little, I'm too practical to appreciate shit like rose petals scattered artfully on the bed. Because rolling around a bed with flowers stuck in my butt crack does not appeal to me. Also,who's going to have to clean that shit up after? Me, that's who. And coming home to a house full of lit candles would make me panic about fire hazards and convince me the evening will inevitably end with my hair going up like a torch. Fortunately my ex husband was as unromantic as me, so V-Day would pass fairly quietly without a shit-ton of Hallmark-induced guilt.

However, when my son started school, V-Day inadequacy reared it's red-foil-wrapped,heart-shaped head once again. Not only is your kid supposed to bring V-Day cards for all his little classmates (and curse the teachers who don't send home a class list so you have to spend 3 hours trying to get a 6 year old to remember everyone's name) but the Uber- Moms would up the ante with homemade cards origamied into cupids, personalized chocolate hearts with each child name written on it in icing calligraphy and a platter of assorted home-baked goods that would have put Martha Stewart to shame. Which would leave me and my Walmart-purchased Star Wars cards and cookies hastily bought at the grocery store on the way to school (still in the plastic container) feeling like a parenting equivalent of the red-headed stepchild.  I bet any parent reading this knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Except for the Uber-Moms. Who will laugh with pity and go back to helping their kid build a working model of the International Space Station made entirely out of gingerbread.

Because my son is now 13 and at the age where he and his friends express their feelings by mocking each other (and the girls they like) endlessly and the occasional headlock, of it is with a reasonable amount of relief that this V Day will pass mostly unnoticed. Until the 15th, when all the chocolate goes on clearance and I can stock up

Wordless Wednesday

Monday Morning Pinterest Hangover part 2

As usual, I wasted far too much time on The Pinterest yesterday and thought I'd share some of the stuff I pinned. And as an added bonus I'm playing along with Mod Mom Beyond IndieDom's I Hate Mondays blog hop, which you can see here...

Best excuse for not being able to get out of bed ever. I'm going to try it out on my boss today and see how quick he tells me to break up with my blankets and get the hell to work already

Seriously. And possibly on meth and acid as well.

If I had a wine dispenser I would never leave my house again. Except to go buy wine refills

I thought the wine dispenser was brilliant and then I found this...that's right, a fucking wine cellar under your kitchen!! The only problem I can see is falling down the spiral staircase while drunk. So I think I'd line it with pillows, for safety's sake

As evidenced in my last post, I am not a fan of Valentines Day. I have no idea who wrote this poem but it's like they've been crawling around inside my brain

Well, that explains algebra

Rant Redeux: Valentine's Day

I’m in the middle of deleting my old blog (only 1389 more posts to go!! Hooray for whatever fartmonkey designed that site so you can only delete one post at a fucking time!! Thanks a lot, asshole!!)) and I came across this rant from 2010. Apparently I was fairly bitter. Also, I enjoyed dropping the F-bomb. It’s possible these two things are connected and also possible both are still applicable.

Enjoy…and I apologize for all the swearing in advance. Ok, not really. But if you have delicate sensibilities, you might want to skip this post. And unfollow my blog ASAP.

So what I consider to be the stupidest excuse ever invented for a holiday is quickly approaching…Valentine’s Day. I have many reasons for hating V Day, the most important being that my bitter black heart dried up and blew away years ago and any display of love and affection makes me vomit in my mouth. No, not really. I just wanted to say that because it cracked me up (note: this is actually a lie…I really was/am this bitter. But my bitter does crack me up because if I can’t have a sense of humour about this sort of shit then I really am pathetic). My main reasons for hating V Day…

1) It’s a worthless holiday invented by greedy corporations who want you to buy useless shit that no one needs or even really wants. How many fucking trees does Hallmark have to fucking murder for you to buy someone a stupid fucking card that says “I love you”? Hint: Just say the words out loud, for fucks sakes...you don’t need a garishly decorated piece of paper to do that. Better yet, bake a cake and write it on that...because cake is delicious, consumable and environmentally friendly. And who needs a fucking teddy bear holding a heart? I’m a 38 year old woman (note: I’m almost 42 now. And still single. What a shock. Not.), not a 6 year old...I’d rather you give me a live bear to roam free in my back yard. He'd make a great deterrent for the next fucker who tries to wreck my fence (note: some fucker had just wrecked my fence a couple days before writing this. I still want a bear, but I moved into an apartment and my balcony may be too small for a bear. Also the neighbours might complain if I let him roam the hallways of the building). And as far as chocolate goes? If you really fucking loved me, you be bringing me chocolate every fucking day, not just when the corporate deity of love tells you to. FYI: chocolate covered cherries are my favourite. Just so you know.

2) Since when do you need a fucking excuse to tell someone you love them? Quit being a fucking sycophantic yes-person who listens to the Man (because he’s a fucking cock-biting prick who you are allowing to control you through subliminal advertising...that’s a whole different rant though) and tell the person you love that you love them every fucking day, not just on some pre-approved corporate joke of a holiday. And you don’t have to spend money either...words don’t cost anything, nor does a nice back massage. You could piss a big heart in the snow for them, because that also doesn’t cost anything, but that’s really more of an observation than a recommendation.

3) Valentines Day is like a kick in the nuts/tits to single people. Thanks for the fucking reminder that no one loves me and I’m going to fucking die alone and bitter, with 236 cats in a house that smells like pee and despair. I know I’m single...I don’t need to be hit over the head with a giant foil heart wielded by a fucking pink life-sized Beanie Baby to fucking remember that. So fuck off with all the hearts and flowers shit and let me wallow in my fucking aloneness, eating an entire 10 lb box of chocolate, chased by a gallon of vodka and then promptly thrown up all over the kitchen in peace.

Streamlining, technology brain farts and prehistoric bird shit

Last night I decided I needed to streamline my social networking process. It's far easier if everything is under the "Maple Syrup Land" umbrella, so I went and switched everything around...and now when I go on fb I feel like I have multiple personality syndrome because I have to remember if I'm posting as me or Maple Syrup Land or my salon page. I'm living in fear that I'm going to get all confused and start sharing things like this on my work page instead of my MSL page by accident:

Painted penises. Not really appropriate for work. Unless you offer body-painting services.

Also, technology continues to be the bane of my existence because no matter how many times I try to give my blog those little buttons that link to my fb page/titter/pinterest I can never get it to work. Either I'm missing the part of the brain that can understand a tutorial so simple a 5 year old could figure it out, or I'm allergic to words like "HTML" and when I see them I automatically go in to "fight or flight" response mode ("fight" being pounding on the keyboard and calling my laptop a cockbiting asstard..."flight" being giving up and  googling "cakes with booze in them"). I've concluded I need someone to do this computery shit for me and plan on putting an ad on Craigslist that say "Will trade free haircuts and bacon to someone who can do computer-related stuff for me. Must be techno-savy, not smell like sour dirt and despair, and not try to explain what you're doing because I don't want to fucking know, that's what I'm paying you with haircuts and meat for"

In other news, a bird took a massive dump on my balcony. I don't know what kind of evil Birdzilla was ingesting, but I'm now hoping it rains for the next week because I really don't want to spend all day scrubbing petrified liquid shit...I don't think a cleaning product exists that can get rid of that kind of horror. On the other hand, it makes me grateful my son is long out of diapers and I no longer have to deal with explosive pooping episodes 10 times a day...if only I could rid his room of the never-ending foot funk smell that no air freshener can touch, life would be grand and stank-free.

PS You can find me on fb here, on twitter here and pinterest here