Crosbiemania

HOT NEWS: Queen's Cancels Homecoming (But adds a spring fling)

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:24:00 +0000

Hot news from Crosbiemania: Queen's University is cancelling its Homecoming... See letter (I received this morning because I'm a Queen's grad) from Queen's principal Tom Williams:

Dear Alumni,

I am writing to tell you about a difficult decision that I have made with respect to the Fall Homecoming.

As many of you know, Homecoming weekend for the past 4 years has been the occasion of a large and growing unsanctioned student gathering on Aberdeen Street – a small street located off campus in the student village. Numbers associated with this event have ranged from 5,000 to 10,000. This year’s event was the largest yet and resulted in an unprecedented number of police charges, arrests, violent incidents and injuries.

Since 2005, the University community, including faculty, staff, students and alumni, have worked in collaboration with City of Kingston officials and law enforcement agencies in an effort to contain this volatile situation. Despite our best efforts, the situation has worsened. The unsanctioned gathering has come to be seen by many as a “tradition” whose timing is associated with Queen’s Homecoming.

Concerns for safety have been mounting steadily and are now at a critical point. After broad consultation with faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and groups who comprise the Queen’s family, the Town/Gown Aberdeen working group, the Police, the hospitals, Fire and Rescue and legal experts, there is broad agreement that a new course of action is required.

I have therefore reached a very difficult decision: the University will not be hosting its Fall Homecoming Weekend for a minimum period of 2 years, beginning with the Homecoming of Fall 2009.

This decision has not easily been reached. I have seen first-hand the joy that alumni feel in returning to campus in the fall and I have joined in the excitement of the half-time parade at Richardson Stadium. I will feel the loss of these experiences very personally and in an effort to continue this time-honored and valued tradition the University will hold a homecoming-styled Spring Reunion Weekend in May (May 22 -24) 2009, that will include class reunions, MiniU and the Tricolour Guard dinner.

Queen’s alumni are an invaluable source of strength for this University. Your loyalty is what sets us apart from many others. I am calling on you now to make this sacrifice, because I am persuaded that something very precious and fragile is at risk: our hard-won reputation as a University that defines standards of excellence that respects the neighbourhood in which we live, and that cares about each member of our learning community.

I welcome your input on how to make the spring event the best possible occasion for alumni.

I can be reached by email at principal@queensu.ca or by regular mail.

Tom Williams
Principal and Vice-Chancellor

Dear Women's Health Magazine,

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:13:00 +0000

What I would like to say is "WTF" but since my mother reads this I won't.
Instead, I'll say "WTH" for What the Heck?

My husband and I are loyal Men's Health and Women's Health magazine readers. We don't buy them every month, but we do buy them frequently - just not usually at the same time. Sometimes when he's out on a hockey road trip, he'll grab one to read on the bus. When I'm in a drug store and I see Women's Health at the cash, I'll grab it. But we don't usually have Men's Health and Women's Health in the house at the same time.

This past weekend, our worlds collided. My husband picked up your magazine to take to a hockey tournament and I bought one at a store to read while he was gone.

Mine has country sweet peach Taylor Swift on the front (blah. She's like 12. What stresses of real life (9-5 job, kids, home) does she actually have to worry about? And my husband has the new teen heartthrob from Twilight/Never Back Down/The O.C. Cam Gigandet. (Last month's Barack Obama was a much more interesting choice).

Here's the thing. We came home together on Sunday and threw our magazines on our bed.

And, surprise, surprise, they didn't sound the same when they landed.

Now, I'm a sociology major so I did some social science research when I was at Queen's University and after conducting a very thorough examination of these two magazines, I found something shocking:

December Women's Health: $5.99
December Men's Health: $5.99

But check this out:

December Women's Health: 140 pages
December Men's Health: 236 pages

Why is my husband's magazine almost 100 pages more than mine – for the same price?

Truthfully, men's health is far more interesting than women's health. It has better recipes, tech features and exercise stuff - and far less of the frilly "How to Survive Your InLaws" and features on shoes.

So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to buy Women's Health anymore. I'm going to read my husband's magazine.

I know women pay more for their hair and drycleaning, but my husband gets 100 more pages of ads and editorial content? Don't think so.

And here is the rest of it.

Thank you mama for the concert Tee

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:33:00 +0000

This is for the young rockers: Your Hedley is my Debbie Gibson and I know just how you feel. Tomorrow is your first concert. You're going with your three best friends (BFF -until Jacob Hoggard smiles at only one of you!) and you've arranged for a parent to drop you off at the K-Rock Centre and a parent to pick you up -and right away since it's a school night. "No dilly-dallying," your parents have instructed. Or, you're too young to go unaccompanied, so God bless 'em, your parents are going with you.

When I tell people about my first concert experience, I always say it was going to see The Tragically Hip when they played Ontario Place in Toronto to promote their 1991 album Road Apples. But that wasn't really my first concert experience; it was my second. (It's just so much cooler than my first show.)

My first concert experience was when I went to Canada's Wonderland to see Debbie Gibson in the summer of 1988. Her album Out of the Blue, released in 1987, was a smash. She and Tiffany were going head-to-head on all the charts and like all the great battles of my young life in the '80s - Orser versus Boitano, Jem and the Holograms versus The Misfits, and Bryan Adams versus Corey Hart - you were loyal to only one, and I was on Debbie's team.

I was 12 at the time of the 1988 Out Of the Blue tour, so I went to my first concert with my mom and dad and eight-year-old brother.

The show was the first time I encountered the sit-versus-stand concert crowd. Everyone in front of us was standing up, screaming and jumping and singing. But the people behind us wanted to sit, so they kept tapping my mom on the shoulder asking our family to sit down. My mother politely told them I couldn't see Debbie if I sat down, so I'd have to stand since everyone else was standing. (My mother can also vividly recount this night, she had such a good time).

Debbie did all her hits - Only In My Dreams, Out Of the Blue, Foolish Games and Shake Your Love - and I sang along to every one.

At one point, even my mom had a good time. The standers became sitters when some of the people in the row in front of us abandoned their seats for a few songs.

Back in my day, I would have come home to my diary and written about my great night at my first show. You'll come home, update your Facebook page, e-mail your friends the picture you got with Jacob, and then maybe blog about it. The technology is different, but the concert experience is still very much the same. Your heart is racing (Jacob is so cool); your ears are buzzing (the concert is so loud); and your wallet is aching (buy the T-shirt, not the commemorative program. You'll get more use out of it).

And who do you have to thank for all of this? Most of you need to give your parents a big hug and kiss and then go vacuum the house for them, because they've had a role in this night out. They paid for the tickets, or helped you order them on their credit card, or are picking up you and your friends to take you to the arena or are going to the concert with you.

You do need to tuck it in the back of your mind that they made Hedley happen for you because, 19 years from now, (hypothetically speaking, of course), you'll remember that when you went to that Debbie Gibson (er, Hedley) concert, that row in front of you did abandon their seats for a few songs - only to return with concert T-shirts, which they proceeded to whip over their heads like helicopter blades.

Which repeatedly hit your mother in the face.

Over and over and over again.
And here is the rest of it.

Two-faced Sarah Crosbie (Pretty Ugly)

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Before I had a baby, I'd always look at the pictures of celebrities in the fashion and gossip magazines who looked perfecto just a few weeks after having their babies. Their stomachs would be flat, their skin perfect, their hair flowy and gorgeous and their clothes ripped from the runways.
"It's so easy!" I thought to myself.
Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha. (That's me laughing at myself right now).
Monday to Friday, I do it up. I wear clean (sometimes even ironed) clothes. I style my hair and put on lipstick and mascara. (I dropped eyeliner earlier this year, since I think it saves me a couple of minutes each morning, which I can use to eat cereal or watching Toopy and Binoo.) But on weekends? Oooo, I'm ugly. Or "f-ugly" as the kids would say. No makeup. I don't do my hair and I'm always in runners. But some mornings, it's worse than ugly. Some mornings like in the pic above left, I'm that "Fat Celebrities Without Makeup, Caught on the Beach With Blubber and Celulite Hanging Every Which Way" mother. See this pic you young, unmarried, childless girls? This is what motherhood looks like. It's not pretty, but it's the truth.
However, please see what a little makeup, hair putty and sleep can do for you (right). I'm a freakin' supermodel. I'm just like that Evolution Dove commercial, really. Pretty on the inside, and on the outside? It depends – on the day, on the mood, whether or not I just happen to be posing for my wedding photos.
But know this mothers: We all have our good days and bad days.
I guess what I'm saying is, when you feel ugly? Think of me.
We all have our moments. Good and bad.

How to Get a Job, By Sara(h) Cosby

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:58:00 +0000

This week, I was invited to return to Queen's University, my alma mater, and speak to arts and science undergrads about finding a career (or not) once they graduate.

Maybe it was the free pizza and pop or maybe the students were really interested to learn about what they can do with an arts degree, but they packed a classroom - and on the night of the American election no less.

(Let me just say right now that if Sarah Palin had won the election with John McCain, I was seriously contemplating switching my given name for my middle one.)

Here are some of the issues we covered and the advice I gave:

1. What if I have no idea what I want to do after I graduate:Well, what if I don't really know what I want to do when I'm 31? Most people have the wrong idea that everyone knows what they want to do "when they grow up." No, they don't. Sure, some little girls start playing doctor with the little boys next door at the age of three and now they're surgeons, but many of us aren't sure what we want to do for the rest of our lives. It's true that since I was a little girl, I wanted to work at a newspaper, but that doesn't mean I don't also have dreams about working on a TV show, running a small B&B with my hubby in England, or hosting a radio show. I say after you graduate, if you can afford it, take a year and dabble. Teach English in China. Serve in a fancy restaurant. Volunteer in Mexico, building houses for people who are less fortunate. Train for a marathon. You've been in school since kindergarten. Take 12 months for yourself.

2. But if I take a year off, all my friends will have a career and I won't!: Oh, so what. I can tell you from experience, that one or two years aren't going to make or break you. In my group of friends, we all chose different post-university paths. Some of us went straight into the workforce, some of us went to college, some of us took multiple internships, but guess what? In the long run, it didn't matter. It's not a race. Your career (and, more importantly, your life) is about you and your pace.

3. Interview tips? The best advice I ever read is that the second you wake up on the day of your interview, the interview starts. Think about the fact you could cut off your potential boss on the highway driving to the interview, or she could see you putting your hand under your shirt and rubbing it on your armpit so you can smell it to make sure you don't have B. O. You never know who's watching you. Also spend some time in the city in which you're applying for the job. That says you want to learn more about your future home. And in the interview you can say: "As soon as I leave here, I'm actually going to zip over to Sam's Coffee Bar. They have the best lattes. I've only been here for a weekend, and I'm addicted." Also, Google your future employers and learn everything you can about them.

4. Resume tips? I don't ever want you to send me your resume if you're going to tell me you're hardworking. What else are you going to be? A lazy sloth? Tell me who you really are on your resume. If you are applying to be a newspaper entertainment writer, you should tell me you've seen 74 movies at the Screening Room, you have six magazine subscriptions and you're taking a French cooking class. That says more about who you are than telling me you're hardworking, motivated and a fast learner.

5. Final thoughts?Please, I beg of you, learn how to spell your potential employer's name: I've been Sarah Crosby, Sara Crosbie, Sara Crosby and Sara(h) Cosby. (Although, if the world turns on its head and things go horribly wrong in the U. S. in 2012 and a certain somebody becomes a major player on the world stage, you may also call me Elizabeth Crosbie.)

My love for Barack's love

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:45:00 +0000

Do you want to know why I love Barack Obama?
Yes, of course, he handily defeated Sarah Palin, who's the worst kind of woman since she thinks she has a right to speak for every single woman in the United States with her pro-life nuttery, but that's not why I love him.
I love him because he loves his wife.
Way, way more than I should, I hear boyfriends/partners/husbands make disparaging remarks about girlfriends/partners/wives. They tell intimate secrets that I would be mortified to know is out in the public domain and they make inappropriate comments to other women.
I don't ever want to hear again that it's OK for men to look as long as they don't touch. Yes, fine, look, but don't tell me you're looking.
What I rarely hear and see from men are public declarations of love and PDAs. Think about it: When's the last time you were out with a group of friends, and one of the couples just spontaneously kissed? Grabbed? Hugged? Gave the bum a little squeeze?
I think Obama's warm marriage makes him appealling to women. He looks like he wants to kiss Michelle, unlike the staged Al and Tipper Gore face smushings we had to deal with in 2000.
On Tuesday, a beaming Obama brought Michelle and his two daughters out on stage in Chicago to make his acceptance speech and within a minute or two, he was professing his love for all the world to see and hear: "... I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart, and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden. And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation's next first lady Michelle Obama."
Now, if Obama can get up in front of the world – the world – and declare that his wife is "the love of my life" can't you send your honey some flowers at work? Grab her as she's leaving the office for lunch and plant one on her? Send her a card in the mail, just because? Take out an ad on your local newspaper to say her short hair looks nice. Blog about her? And then, most importantly, boast about it to your buddies?
As Barack Obama would say: Yes, You Can!

Beans, beans the magical fruit. They make you happy, they make you t**t

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:07:00 +0000

Every year at The Whig, we hold a Chilifest as a United Way fundraiser.
A few years ago, when I was a single gal living in my own little apartment, I made a massive batch of chili according to my mama's instructions.
It was OK, but no one really ate it. There were really good cooks at work who were making steak chili, pork tenderloin chili and chilies with real chili peppers and authentic seasonings. I tossed in a bunch of extra lean ground beef, some chili powder and green peppers.
Last year was a little worse. The husband and I were in a massive, massive fight so I was ticked off the whole time I was making the chili. In between dumping ingredients into our big pot, I was fighting. During one wicked round of arguing, I left the chili, only to discover that all the kidney beans had stuck to the side of the container and had burnt themselves black.
With no time to make another batch, I had only one option: I had to pick out all sizzled-black kidney beans, one by one. Do you have any idea how long it takes to pick two cans of kidney beans out of a batch of chili. Again, no one at work really ate my chili (even though I threw in pineapple to sassy it up a little).
This year.
Well, what can I say.
It has been a nutty few weeks.
There's work, which takes up a bulk of my life.
Exercise.
Toddler.
Errands and the stuff of life.
Plus, I've been doing a bunch of things for our United Way fundraising.
(We also spent a night this week at the Wiggles. See previous post).
So, it's Thursday night, chili is due the next day, and as a member of the United Way committee, I have to have it done. I have all the ingredients: Lean ground turkey, peppers, onions, chili powder, (pineapple, maybe) and beans.
Except, by the time I got home from work at 6:30, I still had a column to write for work, movie capsules to finish off for the Saturday paper, Halloween stuff to get ready for the next day, and dinner to make.
And, yet, being the superstar mother, wife, baker, cook, leaf-raker woman that I am, I got my pot of chili done and still had time to watch CSI at 9 p.m.
How'd I do it?
I'd like to take this moment to thank Campbell's, maker of wonder soups and Chunky CHILIs. Four cans of chili, plus one can of beef soup to alter the consistency, plus some hand-cut green peppers and I had chili. Which no one ate again. But chili it was. And on time. (Don't tell anyone. My United Way chili committee would be "a-gassed.")

Wanna make me smile? Wiggle that thang.

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:44:00 +0000

Spend a decade covering entertainment as a columnist, reporter and editor, and you can become jaded. When musicians, actors, comics and artists are starting out, they ask and plead for coverage and they're happy for any help they get. Sometimes, depending on how many events are going on in the city, how busy reporters are, and the size of the newspaper, all we can offer them is a listing: Their name, location of the event, time it starts and cost of admission.

Often, they're grateful and appreciative. Usually, we do much better: Every week, we publish [in the Ticket] photos and feature stories on local artists and out-of-town artists performing/exhibiting/ entertaining in the Kingston area. A story usually warrants a heap of love from the person being profiled.

You always hope that when they say they'll remember you when they make it big, they mean it.

Having the K-Rock Centre has ushered in a new level of frustration for those of us who cover entertainment. Bigger stars equal bigger shows, but bigger headaches, too.

We try to give our readers superior coverage but that's hard to do when Sheryl Crow would only do preshow interviews with two radio stations and Avril Lavigne's handlers levied a heavy contract on us about what we could and couldn't do with the photographs we took and refused to give her hometown newspaper an interview. Photographers in Canada are already buzzing on the 'Net about the fact they haven't been allowed to shoot the Bob Dylan show. (Kingston could change that on Nov. 15).

But it doesn't have to be this way. When the Little Guy becomes the Big Guy, The Guy can still be gracious and accommodating. I have proof of it from Anthony, Jeff, Murray and Sam.

It's true: Avril Lavigne could learn a thing or two from The Wiggles.

The Australian entertainers were in town Tuesday to perform for one of the toughest crowds: Children; hungry, overtired, overexcited, poopy-in-their-diapers, (Oh, was that just my kid?) children.

These four singers -middle-aged men who are known as the yellow Wiggle (Sam), the red Wiggle (Murray), the blue Wiggle (Anthony) and purple Wiggle (Jeff) - started the show by leaving the stage and walking around to meet the concertgoers.

What's scarier - Lavigne having to walk through a crowd of teens or Wiggles dancing through throngs of children who will be out for blood soon if they don't hear classics like Dorothy the Dinosaur and Fruit Salad (Yummy, Yummy). I think the Wiggles take the bigger risk by leaving the stage.

I may be the only person who saw Lavigne at the K-Rock Centre and thought the concert was a snoozefest. Everyone I talked to looovved her. She didn't interact with the audience and there was no dancing. Yes, the hot pink piano was sexy and her vocals were good, but her show, in terms of entertainment? Not good enough for such a seasoned performer.

The Wiggles, on the other hand, mixed song with dance - including the famed lift from Dirty Dancing - with acrobatics and comedy. Murray (Mr. red Wiggle) was outed by his band-mates, who told the crowd he was named the sixth best guitarist in Australia. To show the adults he has a sense of humour, he played the opening to Stairway to Heaven.

The Wiggles' publicist also called us and asked if we'd like an interview - and which Wiggle we'd like to interview. They called us?! Huh?

Yes, these guys are children's entertainers but they're rock stars for anyone under eight. And they're rich.

Maybe they're truly gracious or maybe they're brilliant self promoters, but it doesn't matter. I was entertained. Performers who come to the K-Rock Centre have a new standard to attain. They better Wiggle it.
And here is the rest of it.

You give me $50 and I spend $57

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:34:00 +0000

I am one of the people on our newspaper's United Way committee. The United Way raises money for numerous different non-profits in our region such as Interval House, which is our shelter for abused women.
To raise money, we've held several different events at The Whig such as a potluck lunch, a putting challenge and a Chilifest. I also did a quiz about people in our building. (I.E. Which person in the newsroom starred in a production at Queen's University that received one out of five stars from the campus paper?) Ah, that would be me. Anyways. I needed a prize to give the winner. Who doesn't love prizes? So, out of the blue, I called Fanatics, a fairly new restaurant in Kingston at the corner of Princess and Barrie streets. It's a sports bar, but nice inside. The booths have their own TVs, there are big screen TVs around the bar and the food is by the legendary Kingston cuisine family, the Days. Clark Days runs Aqua Terra in the Radisson in downtown and makes the best steaks in the city. Also, the restaurant's brunch is a bargoon: Waffles, creme brulee, fish, pasta, roast beef, dessert trays, chicken, bacon, fresh bread, it goes on and on. But that's another story. Anyway. Back to Fanatics. I called Matt Day, who is Clark's son and asked if his restaurant would donate a $10 or $15 gift certificate to be my prize for our United Way quiz.
He said no - no $10 or $15 gift certificate.
Instead, he said he'd give me $50.
This is an important offer. First of all, Fanatics is a fairly new restaurant in a large space in a downtown already inundated with restaurants. To me, it would have been understandable to give me $10. His restaurant is just starting out. Second, he doesn't know me. He really had no reason to help me other than that I said it was in support of the United Way.
So, thank you Matt and Fanatics. Your generosity already paid off.
Tonight, my family and I went to the restaurant and had a chili pizza, two glasses of red wine, bread and spinach and artichoke dip and the kid's pizza - you get unlimited drinks, pizza, pasta, chicken fingers or mini burgers, and an ice cream sundae for $6.99. The thing I love most about this "sports bar" is that they had seven red wines by the glass and we had a delicious shiraz. There are many bars in the city you can get a good red in. And we'll be back. My son loved the TVs. (And the drink menus are attached to hockey pucks, which any hockey-loving toddler will enjoy).
Pay it forward.

And here is the rest of it.

Wanted: A jock strap to fit a two-year-old!

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 15:02:00 +0000

I swear we were looking for a rake.
We have a large red maple in our backyard that coats our lawn and another maple on our front lawn that blankets that grass, too.
My son was asking for a rake and so, I thought, it could only be a good thing to teach him some manual labour at the tender age of two.
When I was a kid (and a teen), I hated doing yard work with my parents. I always had this silly thought that the cool kids were going to be driving by my house at the same time I was raking and they'd think I was a loser. But here's the thing: from the yard, with a rake in your hand, it may seem like the cool kids are driving by in slooooomo mocking you, but when you're in a car, driving by someone's house, you don't have time to assess everything going on in the street, have time to mock the raker, and then look cool driving away. Plus, there's no shame in helping your parents.
Except, we couldn't find a toy rake anywhere, so we headed to the used kids' stores, where we've found some incredible deals.
The second we walked in the door of one of the stores, my son saw "them." They were on the floor, a little dusty, basically hidden under a rack of kids' winter coats and snow pants.
"Skates!" my son screamed.
For the past month, my son has been asking for skates. But he's two. Whose two-year-old has ice skates?
Ah, mine does.
If he wasn't my son, I'd think he had wacko parents who were forcing him to pick up a stick and wear skates in the hopes of being the next Sidney Crosbie, er, Crosby.
My son is an interesting study in nature versus nurture. I can't skate. His father, however, is a goalie and his 15-year-old brother plays rep hockey.
As soon as our toddler son turned one, he became obsessed with all things hockey and never left the house without a hockey stick. This isn't something we forced on him; it was something he wanted to do. In fact, I promptly put him in music lessons to counteract his obsession with the (outrageously expensive) game. But he persevered.
In the summer and fall, we played hockey in the driveway. In the winter, we were forced into the garage. Sure, he's had a wandering eye (he is male, after all). He had a thing for diggers and, for awhile, he couldn't get enough of screwdrivers, but lately, it has been all hockey all the time.
I don't know how he spotted these skates, but there they were: size eight skates and just $10.
We bought them and brought them home. He walked across our lawn in his skates to show the neighbours, ate his dinner sitting on the couch wearing them and went to bed with his skates on his night table so he could see them as he fell asleep.
When his father got home later that night, and went into our son's room to give him a good-night kiss, he woke up, pointed at his skates, and in his sleep whispered: "I bought skates!"
The next morning, my son woke up, got his skates and carried them to the breakfast table.
"Mommy. I need a homot." A what? "A homot."
So, there we were, first thing on a Sunday morning at Canadian Tire, with all the other hockey parents.
We grabbed a helmet, made for two-to-five-year-olds, (seriously, what two-year-old needs to skate?) and headed home. But when we got home, my son had one final request: "I need goves," he announced.
We told him no-no, there would be no gloves. A few minutes later, he appeared with an old pair of volleyball knee pads on his hands. "Goves!" he shouted with glee. I don't even want to know what he's going to do with his Winnie The Pooh sippy cup.
And here is the rest of it.

Secret revealed: How to get Sarah to shut up

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:53:00 +0000

Door to door, the trip from my front door to my parents' cottage is four and a half hours, which is a long time for adults and a really long time for a two year old.

We bought a DVD player for the car so he can watch Mighty Machines, Finding Nemo and The Wiggles but the DVD viewing will end in a year or two and I will subject him to the Crosbie car fun. We will sing Down By the Bay (Did you ever see a frog sitting on a log? Did you ever see a cat wearing a hat?) and Old MacDonald.

When my brother and I were growing up, and the songs got old, we'd hold competitions, like I Spy with My Little Eye and Count the Road Signs - whoever saw and counted the most won. (The 1988 debate over whether real estate signs count for a point was never amicably resolved.)

But my all-time favourite way to pass the time on the drive to the cottage was my dad's challenge.

"Alright, Sarah, if you can be quiet for the next half an hour, and not say a word, I'll give you a quarter to spend," he'd say with a devilish grin and a twinkle in his eye.

I'd watch the clock tick from 4 p. m. to 4:09 to 4:12 to 4:24 to 4:31.

"I did it!" I'd scream. "I did it! You owe me a quarter! Let's do it again!"

The competitor in me would never lose a challenge and so I'd shut up for the two-hour drive and make myself a buck.

But my son, who's just 24 months old, can't play these silly games yet and so we rely on videos and toys to entertain him on long drives.

Only once, in his two years, have we taken him as a treat to get fast food.

We took him to McDonald's to get chicken nuggets and fries. He loved the nuggets, refused the fries, and ate heaping spoonfuls of our Thai takeout dinner. But he did love the toy. His kids' meal came with a plastic toy bird from the movie Kung Fu Panda.

Growing up, fast food was a treat in my house so I treasured the little plastic knickknacks that came bundled with the kids' meals.

I still have two plastic Fraggles and their little toy cars, a McDonald's Hamburglar in a blue race car and a Kermit the Frog that rides around on a rocking horse that was a promo toy for the animated TV show Muppet Babies.

As we headed west to the cottage on Highway 401, and lunchtime approached, I told my son we'd get something to eat and he'd get a treat.

"A treat! Oh!" he squealed. We stopped at a highway restaurant and I ordered him a kids' meal.

This was a key junction in our trip. I needed him to fill his tummy, get back in the car and then be fascinated with this new toy (as rinkydink as I knew it would be.) It just had to keep him amused long enough so that he'd be happy and eventually drift off to sleep for the final two hours of the trip.

I dumped out the nuggets and pulled out the fries and looked in the bag for the toy.

"Treat! Treat!" he yelled happily. But there was no toy in this kids'

meal. Instead, there was a disc tucked in a cardboard sleeve.

Since when did fast-food restaurants start giving out audiobooks?

"You can enjoy the adventure almost anywhere and anytime! Pop in your Listening Library CD while riding in the car, getting dressed, relaxing at home, or at bedtime," the package read.

"Here you go, sweetie," I said, handing him the square package.

"Where treat?" he asked. Exactly.

Have we really become so technological that we can't give children a toy car? What's next? A coupon for our children to download Mary Had a Little Lamb from iTunes?

(Did you ever see a boy, who didn't want a car toy? Down By the Bay!)
And here is the rest of it.

Attack of the Bleacher Creature

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:53:00 +0000

At the end of Grade 6, we were all 12 years old, and dying to start Grade 7 because most of our mothers had told us that once we started Grade 7, we could wear makeup. A little makeup. Just a tad.
I remember going to the mall with my friends where we spent hours agonizing over how to spend our allowances. I remember every piece of makeup I bought that day: One emerald green eyeliner, one dark blue eyeliner, one purple eyeliner, clear mascara (maybe the silliest invention ever, but very ’80s ), concealer cream for the black bags under my eyes that my friends insisted I cover (and we wonder why girls and women are so image obsessed) and foundation to shovel on my wrinkle-free, zit-free, perfect 12-year-old skin. (The beauty industry gets you early and gets you good.)
Pretty much every girl in my class looked the same on that first day of school, everyone that is, but Laura.
Laura was a weird girl. She came into Grade 7 with a bad rep because she’d allegedly made out with boys under the bleachers. (Years later when a group of us were reminiscing, we wondered: Our school didn’t even have bleachers, did it?) But what Laura did on that first day, sealed her fate as a weirdo: She came to school with the eyeliner on her lower and upper lids. It wasn’t that she used too much or put it on in a funny way – it was the colour. Her eyes were tomato red. She looked like she had a school’s worth of pink eye. It’s how I looked at Queen’s after I pulled back-to-back all-nighters to finish sociology essays. She had outlined her eyes in lipliner that must have had a name like cherry explosion or red-hot rouge.
I thought about Laura this weekend every time I looked in the mirror. Early Saturday morning, when I wasn’t really awake and hadn’t had any coffee yet, my son and I were playing in our living room. I asked him for a kiss.
He looked at me and smiled and came charging toward me. But instead of his lips connecting with my cheek, his chin smacked my eye (actually the black bag under my right eye). I don’t want to sound like a wuss, but it hurt. A lot. Enough to make me cry.
“I sorry,” my two-year-old cried as he saw a tear roll down my cheek.
I wiped away my tear and then felt another one coming. I wiped that one away too, a pink-tinged tear …
Blood!?
My bag under my eye was bleeding? (At least I wasn’t bleeding black.)
Hours later, for the first time in my life, I had a black eye. Spots around the bottom of my eye was purple, blue – and cherry explosion red.
I was asked the same question repeatedly over the weekend: “What happened to your eye?” (I actually thought it was strange so many people asked me this because what if my black eye wasn’t from a kissing accident with my toddler?)
I’ve also had friends and even a doctor once ask me about the number of bruises I had on my body. One, I’m sort of clumsy. Two, I’ve always bruised easily. Three, when you have a busy life and a toddler, you’re often rushing around, doing things haphazardly, too quickly, too fast and accidents happen. And now I have to do insane things to entertain my son like climb dirt piles and run up slides and give horsey rides around my kitchen.
There are so many more bruises to come.
But bruises disappear.
After a few days, my black eye was gone.
But I’ll always have the memory of my son running so fast, so hard, to kiss to me, that he turned me into Laura Red Eye, the Bleacher Creature.

The husband, the beer-can fish and the perfect sandwich

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:08:00 +0000

I think my husband is pretty close to perfect (sorry to gush but I'm still a newlywed so I have to savour the love). How do I love thee? Let me count the ways (but I don't have much room here so I'm going to count only to three).

1. You leave love notes in my car.

2. You've taken up running so that I have someone to accompany me on my five-kilometre loop.

3. You (happily) went to the movies to see Sex and the City with me - which, by the way, was almost two and a half hours long. And it was bad. So, so bad.

See? There's a lot to love.

But he also has some major flaws.

My No. 1 pet peeve is the kind of thing that can kill a relationship.

Ladies, I know you're with me on this one: A steak sandwich and its chopped-up, saucy sister sandwich, the Philly cheesesteak.

We like to spend our money in local, specialty restaurants, but sometimes, if we're travelling or out with family, we eat at chain restaurants and that means he's going to order The Sandwich of Doom.

This is how our conversation goes: "Ready to order?" the server asks.

"I'll have the steak sandwich," my husband will say.

"Yeah, um, could we actually have

a minute?" I'll snark. And then I berate him.

"Why are you having that? It's never good. You always say it's tough and chewy. It has no taste. It's full of gristle. The bun is like cardboard."

And then he gets it anyway. And he doesn't like it.

"I don't know why I got that. It's never good. It was tough and chewy. It had no taste. It was full of gristle. The bun was like cardboard," he'll say.

So you can understand my horror when he ordered a Philly cheesesteak from a little hole in the wall called the Lakeview Tavern and Restaurant in Erinsville, a town about 45 minutes northwest of Kingston.

From the outside, it looks dumpy. But inside? It's fantastic. There's a bar with red vinyl swivel seats. The restaurant's tables and chairs are mismatched and many chairs are brown-flowered vinyl, just like the kind my grandmother used to have in her dining room.

There are arcade games - Ms. Pac-Man, Terminator 3, and, my favourite, Big Buck Hunter III, which lets you shoot animals with a massive gun. (My son thought this was incredible, even though we didn't put any money in it.)

There are stuffed fish and deer heads on the wall. (My son thought these were incredible, too. It was like going to the petting zoo and not having to actually touch the dirty things.)

And then the piece de resistance -a fish hanging on the wall made out of Molson Export beer cans.

"Nemo!" my 23-month-old son shouted.

"Hi Nemo! Hi! Hi! Hi!" he squealed, just days after discovering the animated fish movie Finding Nemo.

And then it was time to order. I asked for a chicken wrap. My son got chicken fingers. My stepson ordered a burger and my stepdaughter ordered breakfast - eggs and bacon.

All simple roadhouse staples. "And I'll have the Philly cheesesteak," my husband said.

Once he got it, he took one bite and then shoved it at me.

"Taste this," he said.

"I know, I know, it tastes like cardboard," I said as I bit into the -

Tender strips of melt-in-your-mouth steak, sauteed onions and green pepper dripping in a sweet barbecue sauce and blanketed in mozzarella, on a warm, toasted bun.

A fish made out of beer cans and a delicious steak sandwich. What more could a girl want? A glass of Shiraz.

And Lakeview has that, too. My husband. Such a genius.

And here is the rest of it.

The controlling man in my life

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:08:00 +0000

I need to apologize to every mother who, in my self-obsessed 20s, I condemned as being a bad parent because I thought you were letting your baby be a wild child. I know now that you don't control your toddler; he controls you.

While my 23-month-old is the apple of my eye, he's become a crab apple in the past few weeks as he learns to assert his independence.

He has two favourite sayings. If he drops something and I offer to get it, he'll reject my help: "No, I get it!"

And my baby boy who used to love being in his stroller or in a shopping cart, doesn't like to sit anymore.

"I walk!" he'll demand.

One of my favourite things to do with my son is (was) grocery shopping. He'd sit in the cart and choose green peppers for me to bag and we'd open a bag of cookies in the store and each have one.

This week, when we went shopping, I evidently brought the wrong child. Strange, how the spawn of the devil looks just like my angelic boy.

We stepped into the store and there, just a few steps in, was my worst nightmare: A bin full of pink, blue, green and purple balls.

"Balls!" my son shouted. "Balls! Balls! Balls!"

(Whoever set this display up, doesn't have children or has a vendetta against mothers.)

Before I could grab my son, he picked up two balls and then kicked them toward the broccoli. Then, he escaped under the turnstile, leaving me behind with the shopping cart.

On my way to grab him, I threw two bunches of broccoli (just 99 cents each!) into my cart and took off in my high-heeled shoes. We zipped through the pharmacy for diapers and then headed to the meat section for chicken, still playing soccer with two balls.

Then, he picked up the balls and whipped them at a frozen hamburger display and then ran away.

With five packages of cold, soggy chicken skewers under my arm, I set off to catch him, my purse still in the cart, now an aisle away.

And then he fell. Face first. The screams echoed in the store.

I picked him up and carried him back to the shopping cart, his legs like egg beaters, whirling around, kicking me in the thighs and stomach. I grabbed one ball from the frozen burgers display and chased the other, which was rolling towards the dairy section.

"I walk! I walk!" he screamed.

As soon as I put him down again, he took off. Giggling. I caught up to my son in the cereal aisle, where he threw himself on the floor and started kicking the shelf, causing boxes of bran to topple.

"Excuse me!" a woman said, exasperated as she tried to get past us. I scooped up my son again and

stuck him in the main part of the cart with the food. As I flew around the aisles, my son calmed down.

I was checking my grocery list, enjoying the peace, when a woman strutted over to my cart.

"Ma'am," she spitted. "Your son -" she paused. "Is sitting on your broccoli!" He must have sensed the hostility

because he snapped out of his happy place.

"I walk!" he screamed.

We dashed to the checkout, where my son whipped the balls at a 20-something male cashier - over and over again.

"I'm so sorry," I apologized - over and over again.

"This is the best part of my day," he said, as he rang through my flattened broccoli.

"It's fun." Fun?

And here is the rest of it.

Essential tactics for gossip girls

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:29:00 +0000

My husband and I have a thing we do (OK, it's a thing I do) when I want to tell him a story about someone when we're out in public.

If we're going out for dinner, I'll prep him on the drive to the restaurant.

"Tonight," I'll say, "I'm going to tell you a story about Dan Bandanamana. But, when I do, I'm going to call him Bille Bo Bob."

"Uh huh," my husband will reply, knowing that he's going to have to sit through one of my dramas.

It's a scheme I've devised so that I can talk about someone without worrying about whether his wife/sister/coworker/brother is sitting next to me - unbeknownst to me.

I started doing this a few years ago because when we went out for dinner we could never tell stories that involved anyone because we were always surrounded by people we knew, or people who we knew knew us, even if they didn't know we knew them. Know what I mean?

The new-name scheme is a plan I think other people should adopt.

I was out for dinner the other night with my girlfriends talking about whether it's OK that we feed our toddlers wieners, chicken fingers and chocolate milk for dinner when I heard: "Blah, blah, blah, Sarah Crosbie, blah, blah, blah."

The table next to us was having a good time chatting - about me. I was sitting just one person away from them so I gave them a smile.

They were so involved in their conversation, they didn't notice my gesture. Nope, they had no idea that that girl enjoying her glass of Australian shiraz was me. Sarah Crosbie.

"Blah, blah, blah, Sarah Crosbie, blah, blah, blah," – I could make out only every third word or so. I wasn't annoyed I was being talked about. I was amused. But then, my amusement turned to worry. I know I'm due for a hair cut and, yes, I've gained five pounds over the last few months. Maybe I looked so out of sorts I didn't even look like myself?

Working at a newspaper brings a certain amount of celebrity when you live in a city the size of Kingston.

There are times I like chatting with readers - like when I'm out on a date with my hubby, having a nice time, sipping wine - (when I look good) -and there are times when I'm not so keen about chatting with readers, like when I'm at the drugstore buying diapers with bedhead and raccoon eyes from yesterday's mascara.

One time a few months ago, a lovely older man who was in his 70s or 80s met me at the cash register and wanted to chat.

"Well, fancy meeting you here so early in the morning, Sarah Crosbie!" he said with a huge smile.

"I'm getting my newspaper. Whatcha getting this time of day?"

"Oh, well, you know," I said, as I tried to hide the box of tampons behind my back.

I slowly backed away, mumbling something about having to go grab something, anything, to get me out of the humiliating situation. It was like having to talk about feminine products with my grandpa.

I also once had a Kingstonian tell me she was at a little resort, Los Corales, in Santiago de Cuba, the same week my husband and I were there - and she saw us.

Saw us doing what? I thought. Frolicking on the beach? Kissing?

Hoovering our dinner? Jumping in the pool with our clothes on? My mind raced as I tried to rewind the entire vacation in my head.

I don't have a problem with people talking about me. All I ask is that if you are going to take my advice and give me a new name so you can gab about me openly, you make it something fun like Billie Bo Bobette.

A well-heeled girl hits a low point

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:21:00 +0000

I've been having a low week. A very low week. I've felt flat. And my emotions have been constantly flip-flopping. I know what I need to elevate my mood; what I need to give myself a boost.
But I can't have them. Not yet.
My bad week started on Sunday when I met up with some girlfriends to go for a run. We met at one of their houses on a quiet, countryside road off Highway 15 in the city's east end.I was feeling good. It had rained the night before and the air felt damp and cool. My asthmatic lungs felt free. Breathe in. Breathe out.
I was so happy to be running and so happy to be chatting with my girlfriends, whom I don't get to see often.
And then - thud.
I had been running (and chatting) when my left foot hit the road's soft shoulder and I went down.
My left knee smacked loose gravel and my left hand automatically went down too to try and keep the rest of my body from tumbling. I heard my friend ask if I was OK.
Scraped hand. Dirt on my legs. Is that blood on my knee? Is that a piece of rock embedded in my hand? Wait, is that a second splotch of blood on my knee? I'm bleeding? From running?
Instead of having a motor mouth, I should have just been motoring and I wouldn't have fallen.
My pride kept me from stopping. I shook it off and kept going - another 9.5 kilometres in about an hour.
It wasn't until I finished the run and I was driving home that I realized it wasn't my knee or hand that was sore. It was my ankle.
When I got home, I limped into my house. Even when I've had low self-esteem, I've always, as silly as it sounds, loved my small ankles. No cankles here. (Dad: a cankle is when your calf doesn't taper at the ankle. Your leg looks like one long log. (Calf + ankle = cankle.)
But today, my plum-sized ankle had swollen to the size of an apple.
My husband ordered me to RICE it - rest, ice, compression and elevation.
(Did he forget we have an non-stop 22-month-old? I haven't had rest in two years. And I use all of our ice for my Diet Cokes. Compression? Decompression would be good. And elevation? Yes! That one I can definitely do if I can do it with shoes.)
I will always happily put on a pair of high-heel shoes to make myself feel better. Red patent-leather heels have chameleon-like powers. They can make you feel like a sophisticated lady or a sex machine.
"You know, Sarah," my husband said, while examining my ankle, "you're going to have to wear flat shoes to work tomorrow."
Not once, in nine years, have I worn flat shoes to work. Even when I was nine months pregnant, I wore my four-inch high heels every day (that's my wedding-day, high-heeled, happy foot in the photo above). And now, because of one fall, I have to wear flat shoes to work? Every day this week I had to wear running shoes or flip-flops.
I'm only five-foot-four (and a bit) and though I'm not now, I've been overweight - almost 50 pounds heavier sometimes - so heels have played an important role in my life.
Heels make you taller. When you look taller, you look leaner. And pointy-toed shoes elongate your body. Stacy London I'm not, but I've learned the tricks to make clothing slimming.
Am I shallow and insecure because I've let my footwear dictate my mood my all week? I don't think so. Some women get their confidence from dolling themselves up with makeup; some women like to accessorize with purses; some women love jewelry. I'm head over heels for high heels.
Don't understand the power of a heel? Spend a day walking in my shoes and you'll see.
And here is the rest of it.

A talent for handling raw meat

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:11:00 +0000

What mattered most in the Crosbie household when I was growing up was hard work. Just as there are no small parts, just small actors, my parents taught me that when it comes to making and saving money, there are no bad jobs, just bad attitudes.
Like every teenager, when school ended I wanted a summer job that was cool.
(For those of you who think like my dad does, I don’t mean air-conditioned. I mean sweet, fun, comfy, hip – something that would make your friends jealous.)
My very first summer job was working at a community newspaper. I made $9 an hour – which was an incredible amount of money for 1994.
When my job wasn’t available the following the year, I knew I had to go on the hunt and I also knew that it couldn’t get any better than writing stories and columns in a nice air-conditioned building. (Yes, the job was cool on two levels.)
And so hunting I went.
I handed out more than 100 resumes and I waited and waited for a call while all my friends landed what seemed like perfect summer jobs: lifeguarding, summer camp counselors, Gap salesperson. It didn’t get better than The Gap.
And then I waited.
Finally, I got the call. A fast-food place that specialized in fries wanted me to come in for an interview.
I put on a brave face for my parents but I was freaking out on the inside. Fast food wasn’t cool. Being greasy wasn’t cool. But money was money. A job was a job. Beggars can’t be choosers. I remember sitting with my mother in my kitchen going over and over and over possible interview questions.
“Why fries?” the fast-food manager asked the following morning.
“I’m sorry?” I questioned. “Why fries?” was not one of the questions my mother and I had rehearsed.
I had top grades. I had spirit. I had gusto. I had determination.
What I didn’t have was any sort of an answer for this man’s question.
“Why fries? Why choose fries over pizza or subs or donuts?” he said very seriously.
The question seemed far too philosophical for a high school kid looking to making minimum wage (which was $6.85 an hour).
I remember babbling about fries being hot and crispy. Subs and donuts aren’t hot and crispy. No sirree. They’re cold. And with pizza, well, there’s just one pizza slice, but with fries, you can eat just one, or two, or 39. And incredible new advances are being made every day in the French fry industry. Poutine is becoming popular. Some people are making nacho fries, using fries in place of nacho chips. It is a revolutionary idea to add sour cream on fries; a nice way to cool them down on a hot summer’s day, I always say.
I returned home to my parents, completely sure I ruined my one and only interview.
An hour later, the phone rang.
“You seem to have a knack for fries,” the manager said.
“You’re hired.”
I worked hard at that job. No, it wasn’t cool. Mean high school kids flicked pennies and shot spit balls at me when I was working at the cash register and I came home every night slicked with grease. And yes, it was damn hot working around the deep fryers. But I made money. Nothing could compare though to the next summer when, again, I couldn’t get a job – until a butcher shop called me in for an interview.
“You look like the kind of girl who has a talent for handling raw meat,” the manager said.
“You’re hired!”

Meet the E-mail forward king

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:10:00 +0000

I’d like to bestow an honour on my father: Dad, I declare thee the E-mail Forwarding King of Canada.
Right now in my e-mail inbox I have probably a few hundred forwards he’s sent me over the past few months. I have to be honest: Most of them I don’t open because I know the e-mail is going to contain a collection of cute baby animals photographs or silly jokes. Have you heard the one about the three dads who walk into a bar on Father’s Day? No? Me neither, but I can probably get it for you. It’s undoubtedly in my father’s Forward Vault and, any day now, he’s going to unleash it on the world.
The latest one he sent me is titled: To My Wine Drinking Friends:
“Wine for Seniors,
California vintners, in the Napa Valley area, which primarily produces Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio wines, have developed a new hybrid grape that acts as an anti-diuretic. It is expected to reduce the number of trips older people have to make to the bathroom during the night. The new wine will be marketed as...”
(Ready for the punchline? I’m sorry to do this to you…)
“Pino More!”
Do you see why I don’t open many of these things? They’re incredibly lame. But my problem is, I know my father likes sending them to me. They’re an easy way for a father to communicate with his daughter. I don’t think there are very many dads out there who are going to sit their 31-year-old daughters down and say, “Honey. I can sense that you’re feeling overwhelmed with life. You have a busy toddler and a demanding job. Every mother and wife feels like she has to take on the world. Let’s talk. Want to grab a Green Tea Frappucino (no whip) and share?”
But e-mail forwards a nice way to say: “Hey. I’m your dad and I’m thinking about you. And wine. And bad punchlines. And cute animal baby animals.”
It has been a stressful month in my home. Our sewer backed up in our house. Then my son got an ear infection. Then I got a wicked bronchial virus – which I gave to my husband. Then my son came down with a gastrointestinal virus, which made him so sick, we panicked a little and took him to Hotel Dieu’s Children’s Outpatient Centre because we were sure he was becoming deyhydrated since he couldn’t keep anything in his tummy. I obviously complained a little too much to my mother, because my father abandoned his forwards and started sending me real – albeit one-line – e-mails that said things such as: “Chin up! Have a hot shower and a nap and you’ll feel better!”
Still, the respite could last only so long. Within a couple of days, I noticed my inbox was filling up again with forwards, followed by e-mails from my dad enquiring as to whether I had actually read his forwards.
There is one piece of mail I got from my father that made me smile; a true, genuine, smile:
1. There are at least two people in this world that you would die for.
2. At least 15 people in this world love you in some way.
3. The only reason anyone would ever hate you is because they want to be just like you.
4. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don’t like you.
5. Every night, someone thinks about you before they go to sleep.
6. You mean the world to someone.
7. You are special and unique.
8. Someone that you don’t even know exists loves you.
9. When you make the biggest mistake ever, something good comes from it.
10. When you think the world has turned its back on you take another look.
11. Always remember the compliments you received. Forget the rude remarks.
Yes, I got this in the mail from my dad – but not e-mail.
He’d actually sent me these 11 tips in an e-mail forward days ago, and then he realized I’d likely never read them. So, he printed them on two pages, taped the pages together, and mailed them to my home.
And then, of course, he e-mailed me to ask if I got his letter.
Gotta love him.
Happy Father’s Day, dads.

A Little Man's love for Ga-ma

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:06:00 +0000

After I gave birth to my son, mothers of sons all told me the same thing: There's a special bond that exists between mothers and sons; a special kind of love.
What no one said, was that my 21-month-old son would be willing to kick me to curb with his size-5 Velcro runners, if it meant he got to be with grandma, or as he calls her "Ga-ma."
It all started when he was three months old. The Husband and I decided to go away for one night, but one night, when you have a baby, feels like a million nights. As a mother, you so desperately want a break, and then once you're gone for half an hour, you want your baby back.
After our 24-hour rendezvous, we returned to my parents' house the next morning to pick up our son and take him home. I expected him to smile and reach out to me. Yes, I realize he was only three months old, but I was his existence. Or, I had been until that trip away. He clung to my mother, ignoring the fact we'd come to get him. That was the night she cleverly planted the idea, I'm sure, that he could come live with her. And live happily ever after.
My parents live a couple hours away, so when we go for visits, we often stay the whole weekend. The second we get in the house, my mother whisks away her grandson. First, she shows him all the new clothes she's bought him. Then, she shows him the toys. Sometimes it's just a ball or two. Sometimes it's a dump truck, a bubble lawnmower, sandbox shovels, a Backyardigans colouring book and a play fireman's hat.
Next, my mom takes her grandson up to the kitchen to show him all the food she's made him: There are his favourite homemade bran muffins, his favourite chicken noodle soup and his favourite coo-coos (cookies). Plus, she's made him Jello. And bought him a new sippy cup for his milk. And did we see the new magnetic letters on the fridge she bought him, too? (He'll sit with her for half an hour and sing the alphabet while lining up the orange, purple and yellow letters, but here, at home, he'll use them only as hockey pucks.)
Sometimes it breaks my heart when we're all together and I need some mother-son time and I'll ask him to come hug me.
"No!" he'll bark.
"Ga-ma!"
"Sweetie," I'll say, tenderly.
"Who's the one who carried you for nine months, gave birth to you, breastfed you at 1, 3, 5, 7 in the morning? For a year? Who takes you to daycare every morning? Who gets up with you every morning at 6 a.m.? Who loves you the most?"
He'll pause and look at me and smile. Then, he'll tentatively take a step toward me and –
"Ga-ma!" he'll shriek with joy.
While I feign being distraught (OK, I actually do get upset) I love that he loves her so much, but it also breaks my heart.
Last weekend, my parents came for a quick visit on Sunday afternoon. They used to like visiting me. Now they come to see their grandson.
"Oh, hi," my mother will say, as she bolts through the door, shoving me aside, her eyes darting around the house searching for her grandson.
In the few hours my parents were here, grandson and Ga-ma picked rhubarb out of the garden together; watched MVP: Most Valuable Primate, the greatest movie ever made for a toddler; a story about a hockey-playing monkey!; ate crackers and hummus and read his new Thomas book. Then, it was time for his afternoon nap. When he woke up two hours later, Ga-ma was gone.
"Ga-ma!" my son called in his sweet sing-song voice.
"Ga-ma! Ga-ma?"
But Ga-ma was gone, back to her home, two hours away.
Lucky are you, the grandparents who live in the same city as your grandchildren.
There's a special bond that exists between mothers and sons; a special kind of love.
But the love between a Ga-ma and her boy? It's true love.

Sex and the City and refried beans

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:40:00 +0000

I remember five years ago when my best friend popped by my apartment for a visit.
I’ve always been messy – (but it’s an organized mess) and I never know where anything is (I would, my husband and my mother tell me, if I’d just put things back in their proper place) - but I’d sunk to a new low.
I’d become a prisoner on my own couch. In a semicircle surrounding me were 10, 15, maybe 20 cans of opened refried beans with a fork stuck in them. Yes, I’d been eating the beans out of the cans. I’d washed the beans back with a case or two of Diet Coke. I’d eaten myself into a corner.
“Oh, Sarah,” my friend said, surprised, shocked, saddened at what my life had become.
A few weeks earlier, my live-in boyfriend had left our “love nest” and me. About half a day later he had a new girlfriend. The one-two punch gutted me. The days that followed were about survival. Wake up. Shower. Go to work. Come home from work. Cry. Eat dinner. (The only thing I could eat that didn’t make me throw up was refried beans and Diet Coke.) Cry. Go to sleep.
My friend lovingly scolded me and told me it was time to pick myself up and get outside and do something.
“Yes!” I told her.
“I’m going to go do something!”
After she left my home, I had an epiphany: I had nowhere to go and nothing to do.
I lost myself in that relationship. I did what too many girls do: I made myself all about my relationship and I’d become one-dimensional.
I did really need something to do – but what? When I wasn’t working, I’d been a girlfriend and now that I wasn’t a girlfriend, I had nothing to do when I wasn’t working.
I stood on my apartment balcony and looked out at Kingston. The sky was licorice black that night and the stars were sparkling. And in that night sky, I saw it. I saw a sign. It was a sign from the heavens.
OK, it was actually a sign from Blockbuster.
I lived just a few steps from the downtown video store on Queen Street. It was there I found something to pick myself up. It was there I found four new friends. It was there I found Sex and the City on DVD.
I didn’t get HBO so I’d only seen bits and pieces of the cable show when I was visiting my parents’ house but every time I turned it on there, one of the show’s star’s breasts were on display and I didn’t want my parents to think I was into porn, so I always quickly turned the show off.
Here, in the comfort of my own pigsty, I could watch the sordid adventures/affairs of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte without feeling guilty. In fact, I could watch the episodes over and over and over again.
Soon, my routine changed. For the better. Wake up. Shower. Go to work. Come home from work. Watch Sex and the City. Eat dinner. (I started buying my dinners at Blockbuster when I picked up the DVDs – convenient or what? – so I was now on to nacho chips and the bright orange plastic cheese nacho cheese dip and Diet Coke.) Watch Sex and the City. Go to sleep.
Truly, I credit the show for pulling me out of my slump.
These four friends did cool things: Charlotte hung out in art galleries. Miranda ran a marathon. Samantha did yoga. Carrie wrote newspaper columns – for a living.
Like millions of women, I’m dying to reunite with my girls now that Sex and the City: The Movie is in theatres.
Carrie and company always celebrated with Cosmopolitans.
I’ll have a Diet Coke and maybe some nachos.
For old times’ sake.

(This column appeared in the May 31 edition of The Ticket, inside The Kingston Whig-Standard)

And here is the rest of it.

See the little turds all floating around Pt. 2 (aka, poo in the sink)

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:23:00 +0000

To understand this moment of sheer barfiness, one must first read 'See the little turds all floating around' below. Then you may read on to enjoy this moment of groddy-ness.

So, last night, The Husband is in our den, which is on the main floor of our house. I'm upstairs, cleaning up, when all of a sudden, I start to shriek: "Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!"

"What's wrong?" he screams up at me.

"There's poo in the bathroom sink!" I cry inbetween gags.

I can hear him bounding downstairs into the laundry room. He assumes that we've had another backup and the feces have backed up so far that now they're exploding up through our sinks.

But that's not actually what happened.

I had picked up a dirty diaper from my son's room.

When I tossed it (a little too hard, a little too fast) into the garbage can in the bathroom, a pancake-shaped doo-doo slipped out of the diaper and landed in the sink.

Bleh!

'See the little turds all floating around'

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:16:00 +0000

Saturday morning of the long weekend, and I am standing in my laundry room with my new best friend Justin. Justin, you see, is the man who was supposed to make all my problems disappear.
What Justin has to say is serious business. I watch as my husband and Justin talk, each nodding their head knowingly about the situation at hand and what we have to do to fix it. I shake my head knowingly, too, pretending to be interested in the conversation. But truth be told, I’m daydreaming about a Girl Guide camp I went to when I was 12 years old. It was there, in our tent, late at night, that I learned something dirty, something so disgusting my mother banned me from repeating it in our house for many years. But here, in my own laundry room, the song danced around my head, like the doo doos that were bobbing up and down on my laundry room floor in a flood of black water.
“Sam. Sam. The laboratory man. Chief inspector of the outhouse can. Toilet paper, toilet paper, paper towels, listen to the rumble of the human bowels.
“Deep down, under the ground, see the little turds all floating around. Sam. Sam. The laboratory man. Scooping up the poopies with his bare, bare hands. Yah!”
Our home, it seems, was experiencing a main line backup. When Justin The Plumber first got to our house that morning, he thought our problem was a minor blockage in the sewer pipe. An hour later, the situation has been upgraded to what my two-year-old son would call an “uh-oh.”
Justin feeds a black-and-white camera down our main line through our “cleanout,” which looks like a portal to another world (it’s really just a hole in our floor) to see what is causing the problem.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says, as he stares at what looked like blobs to me.
(Apparently sometimes you can see rats crawling toward you, so I’m happy I see only blobs.)
As he feeds the camera through our line, he points out one, two, three, four massive tree roots that have grown into our line. The roots, he says, are acting as barriers, so things – food, toilet paper, other non-mentionables that go down the toilet – can’t pass.
“Man, really, I’ve never seen anything like this. Your line also looks deformed!”
Really, truly, I’m so glad my pipes are so screwed up we could be a training academy for apprenticing plumbers, but it has to be pointed out that the, ahem, Number 2s are still doing the backstroke around my laundry room floor.
Now, this is really awful, but I truly want to go up to Justin and gently explain that those little swimmers aren’t mine. I don’t know whose they are – maybe a neighbour’s? a sewer rat’s? – but they aren’t mine.
After much discussion about how we were going to solve this stinky situation, Justin The Plumber recommends he doesn’t clean our main line. He’d pushed through a blockage that was causing the problem but he says our pipe is too fragile and too deformed to be cleaned and the whole thing could crumble – which would cause more of a backup. His advice is to get the whole pipe, tree roots and all, dug out and replaced.
Then Justin The Plumber says something I’ll never forget: “I hate to give good people bad news, but these things can run as high as $8,000, $10,000.”
I think back to my laundry room floor.
Maybe I’ll take a gamble. I did, after all, get hitched in Vegas last year.
“How long will our pipe last if we don’t fix it?” I ask.
Justin The Plumber says our pipe may last a few months.
Or, our very next flush could be our last.
So, what he was saying is: It’s a crapshoot.

[This column appeared today in the Ticket, the magazine I edit that appears every Saturday inside the Kingston Whig-Standard, my day job. Starting this week, I'll post my Whig column here regularly.]

That's My Boy

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:12:00 +0000

So, I'm a full dancing addict.
When I was five years old, I took tap and jazz lessons at a little studio. (I remember being so young that I couldn't figure out why our dance teacher didn't look like all us little girls – but realized that if I sucked in my tummy really hard, I, too, could have boobies. It was actually my rib cage sticking out, but at five, I thought I'd given myself a chest. Anyway.)
One year later, doctors discovered that I had a benign tumour in my knee. But the countless doctor visits/diagnosis/operation at Sick Kids in Toronto/recuperation time totally killed my dream of dancing for a good year. By the time I got back into it, I'd missed a couple of years and all of a sudden there were competitive dancers in my grade and me. I just wanted to dance. I didn't want to take a ballet class, a tap class and a jazz class. I just wanted to do jazz. (Jazz hands!) But the place I went did something awful to me: They made a "competitive" class and a regular class for everyone else, which had people 12 to 60 years old in it. I hated dancing with the old farts and I quit soon after. One of the biggest mistakes in my life; I just didn't have the sophistication/understanding/maturity to suggest to my parents that I go somewhere else to dance or take a different class.
Every time there was a high school dance, I'd beg my friends to go. I never cared if I looked silly, I just wanted to dance.
I remember in university, on the stage at AJs, dancing to Grease. Coming through the crowd at me was my uni crush, Scott. I looked at my roommate, grabbed her hand, stared in the face and ordered: "Dance! Dance like you've never danced before!!!"
We never hooked up but we did dance a few times together and had a slow dance together at our graduating prom.
I don't have a lot of time to dance now, but I still love it. (My only regret about my December wedding is that we didn't dance. There were 11 of us in Las Vegas, so not enough to have our own party and the Hubbie and I were too exhausted/overwhelmed/silly to go on a hunt in the city for an appropriate club.)
Now, I get on my dance thang two ways: My son, who's almost two, and I have dance parties in our kitchen. I also watch dance TV - Dancing With the Stars, and So You Think You Can Dance.
It would horrify most men, but I've taught my son to point his toe and tap it to the music.
But best of all, the other night, Dancing With the Stars came on, and just as Cheryl Burke and Christian de la Fuente were about to dance, my son tugged on arm and said, "Momma! Momma! I das. I das!"
Maybe in a decade or so, he'll be able to show me how to booty shake. It's my goal in life right now.
Seriously.
I'm not kidding.
Any booty shaking tips appreciated.

Here's my favourite dance video. If my hubby ever ditches me, I'm finding this guy, stealing him from his wife, and marrying him. Now this is a groom.

The hiatus is over

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:37:00 +0000

So, here's the thing.
Going back to work, having a toddler, trying to keep fit, and have a mini life pretty much sucks all the energy out of you. OK, truthfully, going back to work fulltime sucks all the energy out of you.
That's why I haven't written here in, um, ages.
BUT I am going to do my darndest to give you a little somethin' somethin' frequently.
There is much history to cover, my friends.
Like, did you know I got married in December? In Vegas. Tis true.
Here's a wedding pic.
Click below to see it. It is tasty, I promise.

It's a pic of a salad one of our family members ate before the wedding.
What? You thought you were going to get a dress pic?
Tomorrow. Or the day after. We'll see.

Miss Teen Canada Canada (a.k.a. dumb girls)

noreply@blogger.com (no one) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:10:00 +0000

Not to worry: I haven't gone, as the cool kids say, psycho.
You know the saying: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Check out this girl below. Brunettes of the world, say a little thank you that you weren't born blonde.
Here she is, Miss Stupide America, a.k.a. Miss South Carolina competing in the Miss Teen USA pageant.
I can't even get over how ridiculous and funny this woman is - a true leader for the U S of A!
(Ok to be fair, when I was little, I wanted to grow up to be Miss Venezuela. Don't tell anyone.)

And here is the rest of it.