Guten Morgen.
There is an unbelievably bad smell coming from something in my living room. I have found a spot on the carpet where something was spilled that reeks, and I am hoping that is it. The Febreeze ain't working. The spot cleaning didnt help. Now I am thinking of renting a carpet cleaner and doing the whole carpet. I think it must be an old milk spill that, once wet, has just funked out and the bacteria is multiplying and funkifying everything. Disgusting.
What a long day yesterday. I was close to tears when I talked to Jay at 530. Just plain worn out by Sam and Monty constantly bursting into fights about whatever. And Sam being mouthy. And Monty climbing on the counter every five minutes. You know how it is. And I get soooo frustrated and angry. Making them go to their rooms doesn't satisfy my urge to make them
pay for how they are making me feel. So the adrenaline just gets to race around my body like a pinball with no hole to drop into at the bottom. It just pings off everything, racking up the points and making me crazy.
I took them for a walk, and put all my fierce energy into maneuvering the double stroller. Then I came home, put two to bed, and cleaned out three of my cupboards. And vacuumed the living room. And waited for Jay to get home.
I did get a good night's sleep though. No restless legs, no four am wakey wakey sit in the rocking chair eating a popsicle looking out at my street. I slept like a log. Which is a real treat.
I better go, gotta pick up Monty and then take Oma from Zellers to Fortinos and take myself to the dentiste. It has been two years. Wish me luck.
Ciao.
Two good hours of TV-ing...
I have changed my mind about the Amazing Race. It is pretty darn good. I enjoyed tonights episode very much, with the teams all going on different flights to get to St. Petersburg in Russia to eat mounds of disgusting caviar. I was dying for the one girl, um, Christie. (She looked totally great in her fleece toque while crying about the nausea.) I don't mind that Joyce and Bob are out. They seem like they are pretty happy regardless. The midget lady and her thyroid eyed cousin are pretty annoying though. The one guy was talking to the bus station person and the Thyroid totally interrupted him, and then acted like HE was a jerk.
As for LCS, sorry about my earlier post. I totally had a brainskip and forgot that he was already eliminated! Hardee har though, cause they all came back tonight for a wild card challenge, even the bitter tramp herself, Bonnie McFarland. Not sure who won, though. I think it will be a close one between Todd Glass and Jay London, with Todd Glass winning in the end.
Enough of TV! My head is spinning. I have to go email this guy who won an ebay item from me. (Scrapbooking Software.) and I mailed him the friggin box without the actual software inside! Whoopsie!
Night night. Johnathan Kellerman on the bedtime reading roster.
A.
Posting my fitness test results (already lost the paper, this is what I still remember) because i get another fit test in three months and I wanna see what changes happen.
Friday July 23
Cardio=ELITE! WTF eh? guess all the running i do after the chilens pays off. So i guess this could go up to uber-elite or something.
Sit ups= 20 - below average. Nice.
Push ups=25 - average (HATE push ups, but who likes them?)
Flexibility=above average (but I am a regular stretcher for years, so not surprising)
Wall sit =2 minutes (again, ELITE. for my AGE, she said. Ugh.)
Body Fat=24.9% - average.
Weight= 120 pounds, so BMI is 22.1 - average.
I think that's it. Not bad, really. But I need that core strength to start improving, it will be easier on my back when I have a strong front. It will be interesting to see what three months of regular exercising can do.
Now I just have to get there, I guess. Which is not hard at all. What is hard, and annoying, is when i am twenty five minutes into my step class and they come and get me because lucy is crying. And by the time i get back to the class it is over, and monty thinks because he saw me that it is time to
go, and then it is really over.
Anyways, enough about little miss gym, eh? I must say that it is 7:43 and monty is sleeping soundly and Sam and Megan (cousin over for the night) are quietly drawing in the hallway. And Lady Luck is breathin deep sleeps behind me in her cribola. Ahhhh. Can we all just take a minute and drink deep the peace that has settled over this house right now?
There. Don't that feel good?
I am going to go downstairs now and clean up from supper. Jay is working late. (Late has changed definitions lately. Late used to be six thirty seven. Now late is after nine.) Last Comic Standing is on tonight! Whoopee! And then I will attempt to watch the Amazing Race again since Tracy is coming over and it is her favorite show. It's not bad, I just find it a little boring watching when they are all hanging out at the airport.
So goodbaye. My guess for tonight is that the chubby black guy (what the heck is his name? Not Alonzo, the other one.) is OUT.
Fo Shizzle, Hola.
Don't ask me what that means. I saw it on the internet once on the RLS Foundation website. (Don't laugh, but that is the Restless Legs Syndrome website, which I was on from about two in the morning until five in the morning for the last two months of my Lucy preg'cy.) And I thought it was a funny greeting. So now it is something I say to my sister Jen when I call her. It always gets a laugh.
I love using nicknames for people. Lots of different ones for each person. Here are some examples.
Joanne Silver - Coco, Jola, Cola, J-lo, Chanel, Jojo.
Sandra Bigas - San, Sand, Laraine, Sandro.
Jennifer Sloan - Jean-Claude, Claudia, Gigi, Gigi Fontaine, JC, Claudette.
Siobbhan Sloan - Bib, Biby, Sio, Anny Bon, Bibette.
Charlie Sloan - Chas, Chunker, Fathee, Charles.
Cari Stewart - Carola, Cari-Louise, Louise, Karpinski.
You know I like ya when I don't call ya by yer given name, is what I'm sayin. It's fun, you should try it. Actually, I think there are cultures where your name changes according to who is using it. Like in Polish, if you have a son named Tomascz, and you were his mother, you would call him Tomschu. My friend Heather used to call her son whose name was Kazmierz (Kaz) by Kazunya. And all the kids thought his name was lasagna.
Okay I gotta go start my day. I am yippin about nicknames while there are hungry baby birds waiting for mama to drop some yums in their mouths.
Hot.
But at least now there is a breeze. It is really hard to lie on my couch and reread The Bourne Identity in the evenings when I am uncomfortably hot. My couch feels all clammy and itchy. Like I am laying on the back of a warthog or something.
I have gone to the gym (air conditioned!) thrice since I signed up. I go tonight for the Kardio Knockout. And tomorrow is my FIT test. That'll be a laugh. "Um, your cardio is that of a winded old man and you have 67% body fat." Ah, well, I guess that is what I am there for eh.
Went to Mac to see an academic counselor yesterday, about scoopin up that last course and graduating with my BA in April. Looks like it might be very possible. So that is cool. Just gotta register for Sept. I am sooo looking forward to going to class. It is such a lovely thing, to sit there sipping tea and just having to listen to someone talk, compared to what goes on in my days. And I love school in the fall. That Indian summer, knapsack resting on your shoulders feeling. You feel part of it. You feel alive, as you walk briskly towards your building, glance up at the trees that shade your path, passing students and knowing you have five minutes to get in and get settled before class starts.
The Forderer Family has changed their vacation plans once again, since California did not work out. Now I think we are going to the Delawana Resort on Georgian Bay for the last week ofAugust. It looks choice, beautiful locale, tons to do, great food, and kids activities. It ain't cheap, but I know we would probably spend a decent amount if we rented a cottage ourselves, plus food, boat rental, etc. And I would still be COOKING and CLEANING. Blech. That ain't no vacayshun for mama now, is it? I hate cooking barbecuey plates and tongs and gritty knives and forks with lukewarm soft water. At the Delawana Resort, my friends, there is a full breakfast and dinner buffet, plus bag lunches if you are going on a boat ride or a hike. And our room has it's own private sun deck. Well, the room I will be calling to reserve for us later on this evening has the deck. I have just totally talked myself into firming up these plans. Ahh the power of the pen!
Any HOO. I better go, it is gettin near dinner time. Ciao for niao.
I GAVE IN.
Sandy has been gently coaxing me to join her gym for months. And I finally gave in. I am a Taurus, which means I don't do anything you ask me to right away, I have to come to it on my own. Silly though. This is a good thing. Period.
1. Child care is included in the price. I can drop off the kidlets and go work out, sit in the sauna, talk to people without running away every fifteen seconds to reel someone in, and go to the bathroom ALONE. What a dealio. I couldnt pay someone thirty bucks a month to watch my kids three or four times a week. They would laugh in my face. So this part alone is magnifico.
2. They have a ton of classes, from body sculpting to stepping to pilates. I am all about the classes. I do not do well to sit there and do numerous repetitions with weights or stay on a treadmill on my own accord. I get bored. So this is good.
3. It's only 31 bucks a month. That's it. No extra costs or anything, and I get a free month. I spend more a month on Diet Coke than this.
4. While most of my baby fat is gone, things have shifted. And they won't get unshifted unless I do some real exercise. Not just running around after the kids exercise.
5. Sandy goes. So she will get me to go. And I will get her to go.
6. Strength training = less aches and pains = happier mama.
So you see I am glad for having made this desishz. Once again, my oldest and dearest friend Sandra Laraine Burnadette brings something good to my life.
Ciao. Gotta go brush some little teeth.
When I picked Sam up from camp today I found him sitting under a tree with a bunch of other kids, he had his Spiderman novel in his hands but he was looking up at one of the counselors who was telling a story and listening to her. It reminded me of when I was a kid at Camp Marydale.
We usually went for two weeks of the summer to camp, the rest of the summer we had a babysitter, because both of my parents worked. I remember a big barn where you made crafts, things with nails and wood, pressing bug shapes and letters into leather pieces to make a barrette or wristband. We went canoeing on this funny round little man made lake. We practiced archery, with cheap bows and arrows, and swam in the pool. Our counselor had us properly terrified of peeing in the pool, she said that the chemicals in the pool would react with our pee and there would be a pink cloud all around your body if you did it.
One afternoon I remember sitting under a tree, and we were making 'gimp' bracelets, weaving long different coloured plastic strings together in a way that was more complicated than braiding and then tying them around our wrists. The counselors were talking about stuff. I found them fascinating. There was one counselor named Angel who had super long hair parted right down the middle. It was a gorgeous light brown color and hung like a curtain on either side of her face as she tied off campers bracelets, pulling their wrists to her and using her teeth to get the knots tight.
This was 1977. And Elvis had just died. And the counselors were talking about it. I listened for as long as I could and then blurted out, "Who is Elvis?"
They stared at me. Angel looked sad.
One of the other counselors, an older girl who was loud and a little mean and whose bum was always hanging out of her shorts, snorted at me.
"He's the King of Rock 'n Roll, you idiot." She said.
"Oh."
Gladly, the horn for the bus went off so I didnt have to sit there for too much longer. But I went right home and had my mom tell me all she could about Elvis. And Angel was really nice to me the next day, and for the rest of camp. So it was totally worth it.
I hope Sam holds these memories, of warm lazy afternoons under a tree, waiting for his mom to come. Of bright sun and friends shouting to him in the pool to jump in. Of enjoying how good cold water can taste when you are really thirsty, and how a chilly damp morning can change into a beautiful day without you hardly noticing.
A.
Man, reading Austin's blog before bed tonight has got me wide awake and ready to get out my Norton Anthologies and read some poems! One of my other favourite poems is Auden's "In Memory of WB Yeats". I like it better than anything Yeats wrote himself! I will paste it below, and it looks longish but it reads fast, and the last four lines are totally worth it. (Don't skip to the end if you can help it, why you in sucha hurry anyways?)
W.H. Auden - In memory of W.B. Yeats
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they're fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
What a privilege, to read something like this aloud.
Night night,
A.