Crosbiemania

A dream come true, and the salt finally out of the wound

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:43:00 +0000

When one of my life loves left me, he set a card on my keyboard. In it, was $400 in $20s to cover the last month of rent he owed me and a note about how he knew he'd see my name published in Cosmo one day when one of my stories made it in there.

I was a newspaper reporter, but my real dream was to see my name in a magazine. I've always loved magazines. I think I got it from my mom buying People, The National Enquirer and Woman's World every time we reached the cash at the grocery store. I loved and still love People. But I also buy and read the crappy In Touchs to Vanity Fair to Men's Health - which is so much better than Women's Health. Women get the stories on lip gloss and shoes and the men get the pieces on abs.

I got that card around seven years ago. Or was it six? Eight? (Funny how one breakup feels like your death at the time and now I can't pinpoint the year).

For some reason, a part of me was always bothered that I hadn't made it into a magazine. It's fair to say that I stayed in my safe "smaller town newspaper place" - I was a big fish in a small pond. I gave up a gig at a big paper for my family. But then I also had a baby and took a year off writing completely and then I got laid off, which was completely soul destroying, humiliating and degrading.

Then, I switched careers and started doing radio.

It looked like I'd never make it into a magazine.

And then I found Canadian Running magazine. I'm a reluctant runner. I've done two half marathons, a couple of 8Ks, a 10 and other little runs. I take running classes and run at the gym, but it's a challenge because I have asthma from years of smoking. Any info I can get on how to make a run easier I want. I turned to the magazine and enjoyed the fact it's all Canadian, with info on Canadian runs, marathons and personalities.

I shot off an email to the editor and said I'd be available to write if he ever needed a running writer or a writing runner...

The January and February 2010 Canadian Running has my first magazine piece, a profile on a Quebec running club. I grabbed it out of my mailbox when it got here and did a little dance in my kitchen.

It was a little dream come true - even if it wasn't Cosmo.

Can you burn down a house with pancakes, The Bold and The Beautiful and Poppycock?

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:30:00 +0000

The sickness is upon us.
It's hard to think of much else these days other than the H1N1 flu,
but every now and then, we need a little laughter, a little brightness
in our lives.
May I introduce my grandmother Lois, who is with my family now just in
spirit and memories.
God love her, she was a hoot.
My grandmother was divorced and had spent a long time alone, living in
her little seniors' building. Whenever we went to visit, she never had
anything in her fridge - maybe a can of ginger ale, maybe some of her
famous almond cake. (I miss that cake so much).
She ate out a lot, often ordering something that wasn't on the menu.
But the restaurants made it for her because she was a regular. And,
when she was hungry for a “quick bite” it was easier for her to drive
to the local Tim Hortons than it was to go do a full grocery shopping
trip.
She always went to get her hair done and loved shopping from the Sears
catalogue. She'd never be seen without her hair curled just so and all
her makeup on. She loved doing her nails. Never went anywhere without
her nails perfectly filed and painted.
(When we went to her funeral years ago, I was horrified to discover
that the funeral home's makeup artist had not just toned her down, but
made her look completely natural. She looked pretty, but not like my
grandma. Where was her coral fingernail polish? Where was the fushia
lipstick? She wasn't drenched in perfume. That's the over-the-top lady
I knew and loved).
When I was 10 years old in Grade 5, I caught a bad case of the chicken
pox. Both my parents worked, so my mom called my 75-year-old grandma
to come and look after me.
I was stationed upstairs in my sick bed, with my grandmother
downstairs watching her soaps. She loved the Bold And The Beautiful
and All My Children.
One day, she decided to make me microwavable pancakes for lunch. They
were a new thing. You just nuked 'em for three minutes.
I laid upstairs for what seemed like forever doing homework and watching TV.
Eventually, I thought I should go check on these pancakes.
I came downstairs to find two torched pancakes in the microwave, which
was blinking 33:33. My grandmother had cooked these things for 30:33
too long. They were sizzled to death, like when a kid fries an ant
under a microscope.
My mom banned my grandma from using the microwave and ordered me to
keep an eye on her. (The pancake smell never came out of our
microwave, even after many vinegar baths).
I spent the next week in the den with my grandma watching soaps. I can
still turn on All My Children and follow the stories of Adam Chandler
and Erica Kane.
And I made the lunches for the remainder of her visit. I remember many
bowls of licorice allsorts and Poppycock.
Even in sickness, you have to smile.
Black pancakes always do it for me.

How a Kingston woman saved a life. I obviously need to do more with mine

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:46:00 +0000

Here is the incredible story of Sherrie Edmunds, Chris Mueller and Sally Milne.
Three of the greatest people you'll ever meet.
And my husband would really like more of Sally's muffins that she baked us.
When you've had enough of Balloon Boy, read this story in Maclean's.

How Twinkle Twinkle became a part of Thanksgiving dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:49:00 +0000

Some ramblings from this week.
I'll fill you in on the Chris Mueller story this weekend.
sarah xo

Tiny tales from the studio of Sarah Crosbie and the K-Rock 105.7 Morning Krew:

We’re not religious people, but every Thanksgiving, we have to all cross our arms against our chests, hold the hands of the people next to us and sing a hymn my mother sang at the dinner table when she was little: “Be present at our table, Lord. Be here and every where adored. (Something, something, something … we often mumble through the middle) “… with thee. Amen.”
This year was the first year my three-year-son has really been at the table with all of us.

As soon as we launched into the song, he started to sob. (You’d probably cry too if you heard the 20 of us singing off key together.)

When grace was over, he wiped away a tear.

“Now Twinkle Twinkle!” he said.

And so, now we have a new tradition.

After we sing grace, we launch into Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Don’t you love traditions?

*

Always wanted to see The Tragically Hip? What about seeing them in Amsterdam – at a sold-out show? K-Rock 105.7 wants to send you and a friend to Holland to see Gord Downie, Gord Sinclair, Johnny Fay, Rob Baker and Paul Langlois. All you have to do is cut the ballot out of The Whig-Standard each day, fill it out, bring here to the radio station, 863 Princess St., and wait for us to call your name at 8 a.m., noon, 4 and 7 p.m. You’ll have 10 minutes, 57 seconds to call in and qualify. Then, all the qualifiers will gather at the Grizzly Grill on Oct. 28 and draw a grand-prize winner. Send us a postcard.

*

File this one under kids say the darndest things: My son is obsessed with Tranformers, Bakugan and Ben Ten. (Don’t know what Bakugan is all about, don’t want to know. Hopefully this is a short-lived phase.) He’s also developing a bit of thing for dinosaurs. We have a massive book on all the creatures that we read every night. It’s like Fun Times With Phonics And Sarah as I try to phonetically sound out all these huge words: Pachycephalosaurus and Rhamphorhynchus and Micropachycephalosaurus.

My son asked why there aren’t dinosaurs anymore.

“They all died,” I said.

This is like the time when my son asked me how it is the sky made rain. I’m not entirely, 100% sure. I should have paid better attention in Grade 3.

“Sweetie, they just all became extinct. Let’s leave it at that.”

Hours later, my son wanted to talk dinosaurs again.

“Mommy, all the dinosaurs died. You know why?” he asked.

“Why, honey?”

“They all stink,” he said.

“Extinct,” I corrected him.

“Yeah, they stink!”

*

Haven’t thought of a Halloween costume this year? One of the big costumes is supposed to be Kate Gosselin, from the reality TV show Jon and Kate Plus 8. All week, listen for your cue to call and instantly win $50 to Audrey’s Costume Castle. Or, e-mail us your Halloween pictures to havoc@krock1057.ca. Each day we’ll choose one qualifier from e-mail too. Then, we’ll choose one grand prize winner who’ll get $400 to Audrey’s, a dinner for eight at the Grizzly Grill, plus entrance to all the Hub Halloween parties. Ain’t that boo-tiful?

Yup, that's me, grabbing my butt cheeks

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:24:00 +0000

A friend asked me a tough question: "What makes someone want to run a half-marathon and have to pay for it, too?"
It's a good question, one that I think about every time I reach the eight-kilometre mark on our route. I'm good for eight kilometers; everything after that hurts.
My husband and I are training for a half-marathon race in Toronto in September. It costs $75 for each of us to enter, plus travelling costs, and we'll need a hotel room the night before the race.
I ran my first half-marathon – 21.1 kilometres - last year in Picton. Nothing can top that experience. The air felt clean and easy on my asthmatic lungs. And everyone in the town comes out and stands along the route to cheer you on, offer you juice and homemade cookies and wave signs that encourage you to keep going.
Training for that run was one of the toughest things I’ve done. By the time we got up to the 15-kilometre mark in our training runs, I was running so slowly I was basically walking and my glutes (my bum cheeks) were so sore, I was running around Kingston, for everyone to see, holding each cheek with my hands.
I vowed this year I'd be better prepared. We started training earlier and I’ve been doing hill and interval work.
Slowly, over the past few weeks, I've noticed the runs becoming easier. When we set off our latest run, I knew it was going to be special. My lungs felt great. My legs felt great. I felt like I could just keep going and going and going.
Our training schedule dictated that we had to do 15 kilometres.
Somewhere just after 10 kilometres, we noticed the skies darkening. And soon I was getting wet. I thought it was my husband's sweat hitting me in the face. If only.
It was droplets of rain, the size of cherries.
By kilometre 11, it was pouring. We had ponds in our shoes. Our clothes were slicked to us. We were going to keep running, but then the thunder and lightning started.
We had to head home.
By the time we pulled into our driveway, we had finished 12 kilometres. We were supposed to do three more - but how? When you're training for these runs, it's the last few kilometres that hurt the most, so the pain was just about to come. I felt like we were throwing away 12 kilometres.
As the thunder boomed, I yelled to my husband that I had a plan.
"We can run on the spot for 18 minutes, that's how long another three kilometres would take us!"
He stared blankly at me, droplets rolling off his nose.
"Like doggie paddling, but running, but in the garage," I explained.
We were like fish out of water. We had nowhere to go. No way to run safely with the lightning show. And my hubby was not having any of my running-on-the-spot shenanigans.
So, now, next weekend, we have to attempt 15 kilometres again.
If we get too far behind in our training, I'll be that girl, jogging through Kingston, barely holding on, holding her bum cheeks.
What makes me want to run a half-marathon and have to pay for it, too?

Worms + coffee = Delish!

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 01:22:00 +0000

For most of the four-hour ride from the cottage to home, I thought about people who make neon advertising signs.
Do they ever feel like they should suggest that perhaps a customer's sign isn't exactly the most appealing?
One of the things I love about going to my parents' cottage is that they are surrounded by villages and hamlets that seem to be untouched by progress.
Most of these places don't even have a chain coffee shop. These quaint stops are still dominated by the ma-and-pa gas station/restaurant/corner store/coffee stop.
I love my grande decafs but it's liberating going into a roadside shack to grab a coffee from a carafe that could be 24 hours old. Live a little. It's part of the adventure of a vacation.
But this time, on the way home, I noticed something about many of these little stops - something I've never noticed. We pulled up to the first stop. We were just 20 minutes into our four-hour drive: I know they have coffee here. I've come here for our boat gas for decades.
There was a neon sign in the window: COFFEE & WORMS.
Maybe it was the winding cottage road. Maybe it was that I had too much syrup on my french toast that morning. Maybe I was dreading leaving serenity. For whatever reason, my stomach flipped when I saw the combo.
Years ago, when I was only about 10 years old, we were having a family dinner at the cottage. We used to have this glass jug in the fridge that stored our drinking water. The container had a red plastic flip top and was decorated in red strawberries and a swirling green vine. Once, at dinner, my mom asked me to go to the fridge and get the water. I pulled it out and discovered a metre-long worm floating in the jug.
To this day, the only explanation is that a very smart, very conniving worm opened the top of the styrofoam cup we got from Big Jer's Bait Shop, climbed through the dirt and moss and mountains of other creatures we were going to hook to go fishing, inched his way up from the bottom shelf in the fridge door to the top shelf in the main part of the fridge, slithered over the strawberry water jug, opened its little red lid and cannon-balled inside.
It's the only explanation.
So seeing COFFEE & WORMS made my stomach flip. Drinking worms. Ugh.
The next stop also had a neon sign: COFFEE + LIVE BAIT. (Better than dead bait, I suppose.)
The final stop also had a neon sign in its window: COFFEE + WORMS + GAS. (Better than coffee + worms = gas, I suppose.)
But it was here I got my coffee. A medium-bodied coffee with earthy undertones, I'd say.

Screw you, you damn stairstepper

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:40:00 +0000

When I was laid off, I was exercising up to five times a week. I'd head to the gym first thing in the morning and climb on the stairstepper. After 45 minutes, I'd do some lunges and pushups and arm work. Five times a week. That's pretty freakin' good.
Well, basically it was enough to keep the fat from creeping on because now that it's running season, I'm getting my (fat) ass kicked. No, my ass isn't that fat, but damn, I'm hurting.
I started a running class two weeks ago. A couple of years ago, when I was on mat leave, I was in the same running class and I was in the middle of the pack; some days, I was near the front.
Now, I'm last. Dead last. Way last. Completely last. Last last.
Today, I went out for a little five kilometre jog with my husband. Basically, we usually stop once for a one-minute walk. Today, I stopped 17 times. No guff. My lungs are hurting, my ass is jiggling and I'm out of shape - despite three months on the stairstepper.
And I've got just six weeks to get in shape for Beat Beethoven. Last year, just a couple of weeks before the race, I got a wicked virus and was too sick to function, much less run.
This year, I've got to do it.
Runners have to do eight-kilometres in less than 50 minutes - the time it takes the Kingston Symphony to finish playing. Two years ago, I did it in 45 minutes - 5:42 kilometres, which is pretty damn fast. I couldn't do that now.
So, for six weeks, there are no more easy workouts.
I will run three to five times a week. I will drink lots of water. I will ease off the carbs. And throw out the Easter chocolate I've been nibbling on. And I will start to take my asthma medications the way I'm supposed to.
I think I'm also going to get my ducts cleaned. And get that mattress cover the asthma educator told me I should get, whatever it takes to get my former-smoker lungs in top-notch shape.
And one more thing - screw you, stairstepper.
As Janet Jackson used to say: What have you done for me lately?
You suck. (Not you Janet, the stairstepper).

The Mouse Click Heard Around The World

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:08:00 +0000

Look, here's the thing. I want to see Gene Simmons. Hopefully, I'll also bump into Ms. Shannon Tweed. I like the Simmons-Tweed family. They're actually interesting on their reality show, Family Jewels. And think what fun it would be to have KISS play the K-Rock Centre.

KISS is pulling a wicked publicity stunt. They're having fans from around North America vote to see where they'll play as part of their Demand It promotion. (I suspect they've already decided and this is genius marketing, but who cares. I love battles. The only thing I love more than battles is winning battles).

Kingston, Ont. was No. 1 for the first few days.

In fact, my K-Rock 105.7 cohost Darryl Kornicky and I were the first two people in Canada to vote for KISS.

And then came along Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Now we're sitting in second. Second stinks. No one remembers who came second. Unless, of course, you're talking about the 1988 Men's Figure Skating Championships at the Calgary Olympics. That was when Canada's Brian Orser was beat by America's Brian Boitano. (I have some weird figure skating knowledge. Don't ask).

We have been plugging the crapola out of this KISS event. We want them to come to town. It's pretty simple.

So, on Wednesday, April 15, we're holding THE MOUSE CLICK HEARD AROUND THE WORLD.

Just after 8 a.m., Kornicky and I will announce on K-Rock 105.7 when to vote and in one second, we're going to add thousands of votes to our tally.

Go to our website, www.krock1057.ca now and register or click on the button on my page so that tomorrow, you'll be ready to click and go.

Listen tomorrow morning. Sometime after 8 a.m., we're going to launch the mouse attack.

Good night, Kingston!

Yes, I do get up at 4 a.m. and no, my underwear is not always clean

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 20:03:00 +0000

It's the first thing people have asked me in the last three weeks: WHAT TIME DO YOU GET UP? On March 12, I started a new gig as a morning radio host on K-Rock 105.7 with Darryl Kornicky, Tony Orr on news and banter and Coach on fashion. Joking. Sports.
We start broadcasting somewhere around 5:37 a.m. and end at 10. I'm at the station at 5 a.m. prepping for that day's broadcast and working ahead on upcoming shows.

I'm lucky: If I hit just green lights, the station is exactly four and a half minutes from my home. But it doesn't help a lot.

I have to get up at 4 a.m. so that I can shower, get dressed, do my hair and makeup, eat some breakfast, kiss my son goodbye and get to work feeling normal. Everyone asks me why I just don't go in sweats with bedhead. Because I'd feel disgusting, that's why. And starting at around 8:30 real people are coming to the station so I can't really be greeting guests and advertisers and coworkers in sweats, now can I? Plus, my own ego won't let me do it. When the mic comes on, we have to be on. If I felt gross, I wouldn't feel like myself.

Trying to be helpful, my husband pointed out an article in this month's Women's Health magazine. Love the mag, rolled my eyes at the story. It's on Today cohost Natalie Morates, who also gets up at 4 a.m. to do on-air work with Matt Lauer. These are the types of stories that give women complexes. This woman is freakin' gorgeous - I don't look anything like her. She has a baby and a five-year-old. She goes to the gym five days a week. She starts off her day with multigrain toast and natural peanut butter. During the day, she nibbles on veggies. She exfoliates twice a week.

Oh, shut up already.

The pictures in the piece tell a different story: She has a person to do her hair. She has a person to do her makeup. She has a woman to roll the lint off her clothes. And if she's on the Today Show, she's making good money, so she can afford to have a good nanny to take care of her children so she can exfoliate and exercise.

Here in all its disgusting glory, is the real way a real person gets up and ready at 4 a.m. for a morning show:

- I lay all my clothes out like a five year old the night before and put them on the top of the toilet in order that I'm going to put them on: Underwear first. Then socks. Then pants and then shirt.

- The truth of the matter is one night, I forgot to put underwear out. That morning, I tiptoed back into the dark bedroom to try and quietly get some underwear without waking my husband, who also sorta gets up when the alarm goes off at 3:55 a.m. and then has to go back to sleep. I couldn't find anything but my massive pregnancy panties from three years ago. I can't stand those things. They go all the way up to my boobs. So, I had no choice. I had to do something drastic. I wore the same pair two days in a row. Sorry. Don't judge me. It was an emergency.

- I try and eat a little bowl of cereal before I leave, but doing morning radio has totally screwed up my body. I've lost six pounds in less than a month. Here's why: If I eat breakfast at 4 a.m., my body wants lunch at 10 a.m. - that is, after all, six hours later. But at 10 a.m., we're still busy working and I don't have time to make lunch at 4 a.m., so usually I eat a banana. By the time I get home, it's usually around 1 p.m. - eight hours after I've had cereal. (For a normal person, that would be like eating breakfast at 8 a.m. and then not eating lunch until 4.) I have something small and then try and eat some dinner. By night, I'm so tired, I don't snack. Too.... tired ... to .... eat.

- Here's my extensive makeup routine: Eyeliner. Mascara. Check I don't have crap in my teeth. Exfoliate? Sure, yeah, right.

- Sleep? Right now I'm sleeping from about 11 or 11:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. and then crashing hard on the weekend, but three times this week, I fell asleep while I was doing something. Once, I was eating lunch - a cucumber sandwich. Forty minutes later, I woke up cuddling the plate. The sandwich was on the floor. I'd apparently just conked out without any warning. I did it again this weekend while watching a movie with my son. One minute we were talking, the next, I was drooling.

- My nanny. I have a different name for her: My husband. I don't know how a single mother could be a morning radio host. My husband has done all of our laundry in the last month and taken care of our son every morning. (Even with all this help, I don't have time to exfoliate.)

- "Get the F**(&^ up!!!": The other morning, I was so exhausted, I couldn't get out of bed. My alarm went off at 3:55, 4:10, 4:20, 4:30. Finally, my husband basically took his legs and kicked me out of the bed. "Get up!!!" he yelled. There was no cereal that morning. Thank god, I'd remembered my underwear.

- Before anyone sees me each morning at work, I run to the studio's kitchen and look at a little mirror on the fridge to make sure I don't have gunk in my eyes, cereal in my teeth, a booger, a clump of mascara. Anything. If I'm looking alive, I head into work. Then my personal assistant takes the lint brush to me. Yes, her name is Darryl Kornicky, my cohost. We don't have lint-brush people.

It's glamorous being a morning cohost, I tell you.

Natalie Morales? Eat your heart out.

Just keeping it real for my real mommies.

Join morning radio, do hard news?

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:26:00 +0000

My first six years at The Whig-Standard, I worked as a writer and reporter. I was a music columnist and a news reporter who covered everything from Ryan Malcolm's meteoric rise on the first season of Canadian Idol, to country pie sales, to the Sept. 11 attacks, to the Juno Awards, to breaking crime stories like bikers in the city and standoffs in suburbia. I did some investigative work and wrote humour columns.

Then, I wanted a break and I became an editor.

At first, I loved my new gig. I came up with story ideas for other reporters and supervised the production of The Whig's entertainment magazine. I took part in editors' story meetings. I got to represent the paper at community events, like high school career days. And then, I began to see how much stuff that wasn't "journalism" that I had to do: I sorted mail. I laid out the paper's three crosswords, paginating each tiny clue into perfect columns.**** I typed into our computer system community listings for charity walks and band shows. (Note: Listings are key to a local paper, though, so I was quite anal about getting them perfect). I answered a lot of voicemail. I answered a lot of e-mails. I spent hours on the phone trying to get publicists to send us hi-res jpegs.

I suspect it's like a teacher working her way up to becoming a principal in a school. Some days, you just want to teach. In my case, some days, I just wanted to write again.

So, it's funny that it took leaving newspapers and joining the K-Rock 105.7 Morning Krew to do news again. The morning show came up with the idea of doing the story of Queen's University professor Chris Mueller, who is a cancer researcher. He has a degenerative liver disease and is looking for a live liver donor. The family has basically exhausted their family and friends' potential and needed to look elsewhere, so we invited Mueller's wife, local artist Sally Milne, to our show to ask our "friends", our listeners, to think about becoming an organ donor. We also talked to Dr. Frank Markel of the Trillium Gift of Life Network about organ donation in Ontario and what it takes to become a donor.

By the end of our show on Wednesday, at 10 a.m., we already had listeners - one in New York state - calling and e-mailling us asking how they could help, or get more information about donating a portion of their liver (which, by the way, grows back).

Yes, we do silly stuff on the morning show. We baked Neil Young concert tickets into pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and we gave out lucky lottery tickets on St. Paddy's Day. But today? We did a story that really matters.

Playing reporter was rejuvenating. Loved it.

Read more on our K-Rock Morning Krew blog, including a statement by Sally Milne about her husband and how you can help Chris Mueller and other people waiting for an organ donation.

**** I mean absolutely no disrespect to hardcore crossword lovers like my mother. I appreciate the skill they take, just not the pain in my wrists from making those teeny tiny clues look so damn perfect each and every week.

It wasn't all serious this morning though. We did talk about panties. Just for a minute though. :)

Why am I wearing Band-Aids on my teeth?

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:50:00 +0000

We'd all probably look a lot more sensible if clothing stores were run by two year olds. Two year olds say it like it is. I love going into shops and seeing girls and women (and boys and men) trying on ridiculous clothes (too tight, too small, too young, too skanky) and having the salesperson squawk "Oh my god! That's so, like, fabulous! We also have it in red."
You want to gently pull the customer aside and say: "Ah, no. You look like a pregnant elephant in a curtain." (And I can say that because I, too, have looked like pregnant elephant in a curtain.)
Only once in my entire existence has a salesperson told me I looked ludicrous. It was at Agent 99 downtown and I tried on something to slinky and it showed every lump, bump and chunk. I came out of the changeroom and a lovely girl said, "Huh. That doesn't work, does it?" It was a breath of fresh air.
Yesterday, I was prepping for my first day back at work this Thursday. For three months, I have been laid off, so I spent the better part of three months with unstyled hair and no makeup. And, I've lived in elastic-waist track pants. That look was fine for buying diapers at Wal-Mart, but it doesn't exactly say: "I'm a hot radio momma."
And, so, it's back to Sarah Crosbie, circa pre-Dec.16, 2008 - the Sarah who gave a damn.
I'm drinking buckets of water, exercising, pulling my jeans and dress pants out of hibernation and doing other girly things.
My son looked at me yesterday. He was staring at my teeth.
"Mommy? Did you hurt your teeth?"
I couldn't figure out why he thought my teeth were hurt - unless, that is, I'd chipped one of them a couple of days before my new job?!
"Mommy! Why are you wearing Band-Aids on your teeth?!"
That's right. An hour earlier I'd put whitestrips on my teeth so I have a nice, pearly white smile. I'd forgotten about them...
Alone, in the bathroom, it makes so much sense to put strips of jellied bleach on my teeth.
But here, with my son staring at my teeth, I did feel a little strange having Band-Aids on my teeth.
The things we do for beauty.
When you take a step back, it can all seem a little silly.
Still, in two days, I have to say so long to my elastic-waist pants.
Diapers also have elastic-waists ...so enough of that.

And here is the rest of it.

Sarah joins K-Rock 105.7 - laid off no more!

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:54:00 +0000

Seventy nine days.
79 days.
Se-vhen-tee nine dayz.

No matter how I say it or type it, I can't believe it. After 79 days, I am employed again. Part of me feels like I've been laid off forever. My god, what have I accomplished in 79 days? Part of me feels like Dec. 16, 2008 was just yesterday.

Today, The Radio Group – Kingston's K-Rock 105.7, Kix 93.5 and The Lake 102.7 – announced that I am joining the K-Rock Morning Krew. We'll be a threesome (isn't that the best way?) with the group led by Darryl Kornicky, along with Tony Orr and myself.

I start Thursday, March 12.

Every morning from 5:45 a.m. to 9 a.m., you can catch us chatting, laughing, playing good songs and holding fun contests. (Last week, while I was guesting on the show I baked Neil Young tickets into a pancake...)

I'm going to keep this short, because many of my friends are still looking for jobs and I'm very conscious of the fact many people are hurting, both emotionally and financially since being laid off.

We'll talk more later, I promise.

Sarah :)

TRAGICALLY HIP CONCERT IN KINGSTON

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:21:00 +0000

BREAKING NEWS: Tragically Hip's Paul Langlois announces Tragically Hip will play a benefit show along with The Trews for Glenn "G" Williams who has ALS. The concert is May 23 at the K-Rock Centre.

"Paul and the rest of the guys in the Tragically Hip are unbelievable contributors to this city," Williams said this morning, admitting he's not often speechless but he was this morning during the concert announcement.

"The guys in the band just feel like - no one has ever played the Hip more," Langlois responded.

G said the ALS is not so much affecting him but his family, his wife, Jodi, and two sons.

For more information about the show, visit the K-Rock website at www.krock1057.ca.

"This is going to be a fun thing for us to do," Langlois said.

G ended the interview by thanking all his friends and listeners who've supported him.

Presale at the Hip website starts tomorrow to Friday.

Regular tickets go on sale on Saturday.

"Keep it rollin' baby," G said.

Where's my f*&^%!!& delete key?!

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:00:00 +0000

K-Rock 105.7 morning host Darryl Kornicky looked at me and started howling.
Tony Orr was also smiling.
Apparently, I'd just unleashed a deep-hacking-try-and-shake-the-phlegm-out cough into the microphone. When it was on.
At 7 a.m.
For thousands to hear.
Who needs an alarm when you have Sarah Crosbie and her chest cold to get you up out of bed.
Oh, morning radio, how you scare me.
For nine years, I was a newspaper reporter and editor and there's this frickin' wonderful invention on a keyboard called a DELETE key. When you're writing a story and you make a mistake, you hit delete and it fabulously disappears from your screen.
For five mornings X 3.5 hours a morning, so 17.5 hours of my life, I've been doing morning radio and there is no delete key. Things just come flying out of my mouth and I hope they're OK, funny even. Smart, maybe. Interesting.
In one week, we talked about crusty toenails, Dorothy the Dinosaur, bad drivers, In the Night Garden, A-Rod and his drugs, the K-Rock Centre, Neil Young, animal food banks, The Tragically Hip's new song, the Academy Awards, Dweezil Zappa, Easter Seals kids, belly button fluff, Tony Orr's alleged manscaping, green box recycling, potholes, Jamaica, Pancake Tuesday, Willie Nelson, great hockey coaches, "thick" women, lottery tickets and how I am not actually Mrs. Crosbie, despite Darryl Kornicky's blog entry on the K-Rock website.
I've burned a hole through Kornicky's head staring at him this week. Partly I was staring because I was a little nutty. I had to get up at 4 a.m. Monday and Tuesday killed me and then by Wednesday I was OK. Up at 4, showered by 4:15, reading the papers, blogs, my e-mail and Twitter (my favourite new thing in life) by 4:30 so I knew everything going on in the world. But I mostly spent a good chunk of my week staring at him because, for the first time in a long, long time, I had someone in a professional capacity I could learn from. I absolutely loved my old job, putting out an entertainment magazine at The Kingston Whig-Standard, but I didn't have any mentors at the paper. They've either left and moved on, or taken jobs that meant I no longer interacted with them. This week, I had the thrill of being scared again, being on my toes. Instead of being the seasoned journalist, I was the green radio co-host. Terrified shitless and loving every single second of it.
So, I used this week as a crash course in radio. I listened very carefully every time Kornicky took a phone call with a listener to see how he interacted with them and I watched Tony Orr do the news. When he speaks, you listen to him. It's a great gift to have. So little things some people may not pay attention to – how my radio guys held the mics, how far they were from the mics, how they announced the call letters "K-Rock 1-0-5-7 – I obsessed over all week and maybe, possibly I practised in the shower at 4 a.m. when no one could hear me.
The coolest thing about K-Rock letting me crash the morning party was how much freakin' fun it was to make peoples' mornings great.
On Tuesday, I baked two Neil Young tickets into a pancake on Pancake Tuesday and held a drive-thru contest in the K-Rock parking lot. And this morning, we offered two Willie Nelson tickets to anyone who would go into a gas station in Kingston and sing a Willie song in honour of the fact he's an environmentalist and a biodiesel promoter. The winner made his wife's day. (She, in fact, ordered him to do it.)
This week also gave me a chance to play reporter again, getting Const. Mike Menor from the Kingston Police to tell us about bad drivers in the city - he once saw two people naked in a car who'd just come from skinny dipping in Portsmouth Olympic Harbour - and having Sandy Singers from the Partners in Mission Food Bank explain to us how needy families in this area can help feed their pets.
It was a fun week.
Sorry for the cough though, everyone. r
Yes, I see that "r". I'm going to leave it there. It's symbolic of the fact I no longer have a DELETE key in my professional life, heck, I don't have a professional life, but that's OK. You gotta go with the flow. A little lesson I learned from the K-Rock Morning Krew.

Cheap and free in K-Town

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:50:00 +0000

This week while guesting on Kingston's K-Rock 105.7, Darryl Kornicky, Tony Orr and I discussed the fact that in the U.S., dog and cat food banks are popping up because people can't take care of their animals once they've lost their jobs. In Kingston, Ont., our own food bank, Partners in Mission, will help struggling families with pet food if they ask for the help.
In recognition of this sucking recession which sucked away my job as a newspaper editor, I've compiled a few tips for you to save a few bucks.
Post 'em if you've got them.

Cheap and Free in Kingston
1. Playtrium Gym for kids: Half price admission on Thursdays. www.playtrium.ca
2. Agnes Etherington Art Centre on Queen's campus: Children, students free. All admissions free on Thursdays. www.aeac.ca
3. Kingston Canadian Film Festival's Building “The Border”, a seminar-style event featuring Peter Raymont, David Barlow, Graham Abbey and Jonas Chernick from CBC TV’s popular series The Border. Building “The Border” is a free event and advance registration is not required. The event takes place Sunday March 1, 11:00 am at Etherington Auditorium on Stuart Street. www.kingcanfilmfest.com.
4. The Screening Room, which shows indie movies, has $5.25 tickets on Tuesday nights. (A couple bucks cheaper than the bigger theatres!). www.moviesinkingston.com
5. Free public skating at Wally Elmer until March 21 throughout the week. Check for times. http://www.cityofkingston.ca/residents/recreation/arenas/wally/icepad.asp
March 16, 2009 to March 20, 2009
6. Play with snakes: Little Ray's Reptiles. See, touch and learn about all kinds of exotic species like giant snakes, lizards, turtles, spiders, and even an American alligator named Crusher. March 16 to 20 at the Frontenac Mall. http://www.whatsonkingston.com/shopping/frontenac/index.cfm
7. Free parking at S&R Department Store in downtown Kingston.
8. Free movie rentals (and books, of course) from Kingston Frontenac Public Library. They have hit TV series, too!
9. Free instrument rentals from the Joe Chithalen Music Lending Library.
10. Get passes to go to Kingston museums (like the Hockey Hall of Fame) from the Kingston Frontenac Public Library. Just like books, you check 'em in and out. Free! Visit www.kfpl.ca/ for details.
11. Children get a free cookie at the Kingston Centre Loblaws bakery section. Sarah Crosbie's son looooves it. (She'd like a free cookie, too).
12. Free leisure swim at the Kingston YMCA on Sundays from 1:15 to 5 p.m., sponsored by the City of Kingston.
13. Free skating in Market Square, behind City Hall, 216 Ontario St.; also at rinks at City parks around the city.
14. Grades 5 and 10 Physical Activity Pass. This program offers free access to community recreation centres for all grade 5 and 10 students in the KFL&A area. Designed to promote an active lifestyle, the Grade 5 and 10 Physical Activity Pass is organized by Kingston Gets Active, KFL&A Public Health, and area school boards. http://www.kflapublichealth.ca
15. Union Gallery in Stauffer Library on Queen's University campus has no admission fee.
16. Games night at Starbucks on Barrie Street. Every Friday night at 8 p.m.
17. Minotaur on Princess Street hosts a game night on Wednesday and Sunday.

It's 5 a.m., do you know where your mother is?

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:00:00 +0000

In about 10 minutes, it's time to head to radioland.
This week, I'm filling in as a morning host on K-Rock 105.7 with Darryl Kornicky.
Monday, getting up at 4 a.m. was easy - it was all on adrenaline.
Yesterday, I had that high school fear I was going to sleep through an exam panic, so I woke up at 3 a.m. - eyes wide open, laying in bed for an hour waiting to get up at 4.
Today, on our third day, I've got a rhythm. Up at 4. Into the shower. Like a high school kid on the first day of class, I get my clothes ready the night before and stack them up like pancakes (jeans, sweater, undies, socks) on the back of the toilet so I can get dressed the second I walk out of the shower.
I check e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and read some online news while I have coffee and eat cereal - though I'm cutting back on the Bran Buds this week because you have to have a key to get into the bathroom at K-Rock and I don't have one and, well, you get the picture.
This morning at 7 a.m., we're talking about animal food banks. Maybe we'll chat a little about Barack Obama's address to congress, though that's pretty heavy stuff for 7 a.m.
Must go now. It's 5:05 a.m. - which means it's time to head out.
I love doing radio, but it kills me not to see my family before I leave.

All you needs are logs; Logs are all you need

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:11:00 +0000

My husband and I aren't big on celebrating the Hallmark celebrations imposed on us. The worst one is Valentine's Day. I honestly think it's a Get Out Of Jail Free Card for men who behave badly.
Husbands, boyfriends and partners can act like schmucks 364 days of the year and then, on one dreary day in February, boom! All of a sudden, they're Enrique Iglesias: "I can be your hero baby. I can kiss away the pain. I will stand by you forever. You can take my breath away."
Oh barf.
You see, a real man is someone who deals with the real crap of life.
The shit.
The dirt.
The logs.

It's Friday night, the day before Valentine's Day, and my husband is tired from a long day at work. And I'm pooped from being laid off. (Being laid off is tiring, but that's another whole post.) My husband is downstairs on the couch snoozing and I'm upstairs in our bathroom giving our two-and-a-half year old son a bath.

We're playing with his fishies and fishing rod, his Little People boat and he's having a blast blowing bubbles in the water and splashing me. I'm wet so I turn to get a towel when I notice there's a magazine on top of our toilet tank. The magazine is promoting a contest to win a trip to Texas. This looks interesting ....

I swear I looked away for two seconds. Three seconds tops.

"Mommy!" my son yells.

"There's dog poo in the bath!"

I turn to look at my son and he is holding – I'm gagging just writing this – a log of poop in each hand.

"Look! Dog poo!" he squeals.

For a split second, I'm horrified. How did dog poo get in my ..... oh nooooooo.

For the first time in two and a half years - the first time in his life - my son has gone to the bathroom in the bath tub.

And now, he's holding it. Scrutinizing it. Studying it. Squishing it. (Insert more gagging here...)

"Oh my god!" I scream, which has its intended effect. My husband comes running up the stairs.

"Look, daddy! Dog poo!"

My husband shakes the logs out of my sons hands while I head out of the room. It's leave the room or throw up.

My son stands wrapped in a towel cutely trying to explain to both of us how the doggie doos came to be while my husband, god bless his soul and god help me I hope he really scrubbed his hands, picks up all the bits from the bathtub. He then scrubs the tub. Sanitizes it. Scrubs it again. Sanitizes it. And rinses it all away – while I stand with my son and run dirty towels and bathmats down to the washing machine.

Would I have done the cleaning if I had been home alone at the time? Absolutely. But, without complaining or asking for help, my husband took on the "jobs."

Now that's a gift.

Next Valentine's, let my husband write you a card

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 02:59:00 +0000

My husband and I don't really do Valentine's Day. I think it's a day created for all men to make up for the other 364 days of the year they've been forgetful, unappreciative, "Women-are-like-shopping. I-can-go-window-shopping, I-just-can't-touch-or-buy" dinks.

My husband and I do, however, give each other a card.

Here's what he wrote: (Short but sweet and true and real)

"Feb. 14, 2009: I don't need anything for Valentine's Day as long as you're near."

I guess I could have done better than: "You're, like, totally hot and smart and stuff."

How not to do a job interview

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:54:00 +0000

Today is Panic Day.
It is the day I circled on my calendar two months ago.
I have now been laid off for two months and today was the day I needed to have a job by – or, it's time to panic. Not seriously panic, like I can't take care of my son, but panic because I've gone two months and no one has scooped me up.

(Which, let me tell you, is the REALLY annoying thing EMployed people do. They say, "Oh, Sarah. This was meant to be. You'll get something great. Someone will realize your talents and pick you up. You'll be fine. I just know it.) Sorry, I need to take a break from typing this. Apparently, 23 people are knocking on my front door wanting to offer me a job.
Not.
Remember in that great movie Gremlins when the good guys kill the Gremlins by exploding them in the microwave and blender? That's what my kitchen looked like last night. I was making Smartie cookies with my son for his daycare Valentine's Day party today and, thanks to an old blender and an excited toddler, there was batter dripping off the counter and down the toaster. (Don't worry. I washed our hands 10 times during one cookie-making session.)
I had just popped the cookies in the oven when the phone rang.
It was someone I'm really, really, really hoping to work with (you know who you are) returning my phone call.
Too bad my husband was at the gym – so my Mr. No. 1 is on the phone and my two-year-old son's hands are covered in Smartie cookie batter.
I pick up the phone and chat. And chat. And chat.
And now he's licking his fingers. (My son. Not my future coworker. Or, maybe he is licking his fingers in anticipation of working with me, but that's a dream.)
Now, my son's fingers are covered in liquidified cookie batter.
And the timer's going off.
And I have to get the cookies out - and oh, sh*t, they've spread into one massive cookie, so now, while they're hot, I need to cut them into cookies.
Chat, chat, chat.
"Mommy," my son says.
"What?" I mouth.
"Mommy," my son says again.
"What?" I mouth.
"I pooooeeeed."
I immediately put on my best wild-eyed look and put my index finger to my mouth in the universal sign of "SHHHHHHHHHH!"
My devil look inspires my son to play devil, too.
He runs to the counter with a stink-trail behind him and grabs the bowls of Smarties, plowing handful after handful of chocolates into his mouth.
Chat, chat, chat.
My son continues to yell at me about how Toot and Puddle (a cartoon about world-travelling pigs) is on, how it's not The Wonder Pets, nor is it the Backyardigans.
More chat, chat, chat.
Finally, my son is ticked with me.
He grabs his Fisher Price Corn Popper toy and starts to chase me around the house with it. And, so, thank god I'm training for a run, I run around my house, continuing the chat, not letting on for a moment that I'm jumping over Tickle Me Elmo, hurdling his Little Tykes tool bench and leaping over his Thomas the Train set while I try to (forgive me for saying this) run away from my son. (Just for a minute!)
Finally, my husband walks in the door.
The cookie batter is still dripping off our kitchen appliances.
My son's bum is a toxic dump and his face is a rainbow from shoving Smarties in his mouth.
And I am leaping around my livingroom.
And this, ladies and gentleman, is what it's like to try to scam a job for yourself, while being Betty Crocker, while getting some exercise, while making sure my child is getting dinner.
And you thought laid-off people sat around the house watching Oprah. Ha.

Kathleen - you're the next contestant on SarahCrosbie.com!

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:30:00 +0000

Well, it's time to announce the winner of the very first Crosbiemania contest.
I asked you to guess the amount of my knee-high boots. Sure, you can drop $200 to $300 on a pair of boots, but I have a toddler who costs a lot of money and now I'm the big U (unemployed), so I was a thrifty gal.
(Though not as thrifty as my mother would like me to be. She guessed my boots were $19.99. Geez, Louise, mom. Waddya want from me?)
Anyway, the winner of the inaugural contest is reader KATHLEEN who guessed they were $59.99. Did you go through my recycling looking for the bill?
They were, in fact, $59.99 from Winners, as Kathleen guessed. So, in total, $67.79 with tax.
Kathleen wins a $20 gift certificate from The Body Shop, courtesy of moi.
We'll make arrangements to get you your prize, Ms. Kathleen. :)
Thanks to everyone who entered.
Sarah "Cheapskate" Crosbie

And here is the rest of it.

Go on, give everyone an A+, Mr. Rancourt

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:26:00 +0000

The Globe and Mail today has the most interesting story I've read in ages – it seems a University of Ottawa professor Denis Rancourt has been suspended (and arrested on campus and charged with trespassing) for being radical.

Erin Anderssen of the Globe and Mail writes:

"On the first day of his fourth-year physics class, University of Ottawa professor Denis Rancourt announced to his students that he had already decided their marks: Everybody was getting an A+. It was not his job, as he explained later, to rank their skills for future employers, or train them to be “information transfer machines,” regurgitating facts on demand. Released from the pressure to ace the test, they would become “scientists, not automatons,” he reasoned."

The self-described 51-year-old anarchist is fighting back and has posted his side of the story on YouTube. This idea of not doling out grades is interesting to me as I sit here at 9:31 in the morning, laid off from my job as a newspaper editor. I should be at work, WORKING, but instead, today, I will finish painting my hallway that was done, but then the paint, (please excuse my anger here) god-damn bubbled and now I have to do it again. I will buy some 1% milk for cereal and go run on a treadmill and check in with the companies (harass, actually) that I'm hoping will hire me.

How did I get laid off? How did I become one of the thousands of people with no job? See, the biggest thing about being laid-off is that it's not fair. I graduated high school with a 94.6% average. I went to Queen's University, one of the top schools in the country. I graduated with a BAH. My last year of university, I also worked full-time at The Whig-Standard, school during the day, work at night and on weekends. I busted my butt for eight years at the paper and received accolades, pats on the back, award nominations. All I wanted in return for my hard work and perseverance since Grade 9 was a good job, a good salary, and some coworkers who I could share a chuckle with. Instead, I'm in PJs, wondering, literally, what it all means now.

And here's where I trace the problem to: School. Elementary school and high school.

Kids learn very early on how to play the system. In group work, when there's two smart kids, the class a-hole and a kid who tries really hard but can't manage anything more than a 60%, the two smart kids take over, push the a-hole completely out of the system and let the try-hard do something, but not too much. When I was in school, part of the Ontario curriculum had groups of four each assigned a role: One person was the writer, one person was the "thinker," the person who came up with ideas. So far, so fair. Those two jobs worked in tandem. But then – I know some of you will remember this – one person was the encourager. It was his/her job to say: "C'mon guys. Good thinking. You're really thinking hard on this one. Nice penmanship, Sarah." And the other job was for someone to be the timer. Yup, if you have 20 minutes, the timer gave us time updates. Guess what job the a-hole got? The timer. The smart kids never cared if the other two piggy-backed on their 95% because they got 95% too.

In high school, by the time I'd reached Grade 11, I'd dropped all the maths, sciences and geography classes and took only drama, music, English, French, history and sociology classes. Why struggle through a chemistry class and get a 65% when you take English and easily get a 90%? Why, because now that I'm 31, I wish I had more of a math and science background – but high school is a marks game. You need the best marks to get into the best school so you can get the best job. (Allegedly).

But I had the best marks and went to one of the best schools and now I have no job.

It happened when I was in high school and it happens today: Kids are given the most insane/inane projects. Bristol board projects on Macbeth. Ooooh, good cut-and-paste, Jimmy. Too bad you're 18 and in Grade 12 English.

Nice title page. It's worth 10% of your mark? Title pages are very important in the real world. I did them every day in my job, I swear.

But one of the biggest problems with high school (and I know geography and socio-economic status play into this) is that people my age were taught (wrongly, of course) that smart kids went to university and, well, the others went to college.

I vividly remember taking personality tests that lead everyone in our classes to job descriptions for doctor, lawyer, journalist, writer, dentist, teacher. Did anyone ever tell us that elevator repair people can make $100,000 a year?

Not once in five years of high school (when school in Ontario went from Grade 9 to Grade 13) did any teacher, guidance counsellor or guest speaker, tell us to do anything other than get good grades and get into university.

No one presented college as an option. If you were in "advanced" classes, you went to university. No one said take a year off and work, or travel.

Yes, as 18 and 19 year olds we should have had the independence and smarts to make these decisions on our own, but since kindergarten we were groomed for university – and it takes a brave spirit to abandon the flock and go out on his own.

I was not that kid. But could I have been?

I also had close friends whose parents wouldn't chip in for school unless they took what the parents wanted them to take. Guess what happened when the kids who wanted to study art were forced into sciences? Or the kids who wanted to go to a small school were forced to go to their parents' large alma maters? They dropped out, failed, struggled.

Sure, some kids will abuse Denis Rancourt's A+ system – but that's part of the whole experience, isn't it? It's part of learning.

As I sit here, still unemployed 21 minutes later, I say the economy is showing us we need to think outside of the box and consider all options. And when it's time for my son to go to school in 16 years, we will encourage him to do whatever he wants: College, chef's school, design school, travel the world, do an exchange, apprenticeship, go to Queen's University (which, for the record, I did love, but mostly because I made the experience what I wanted it to be and spent the majority of my time working at the student newspaper).

It's good to shake things up.

And to conclude, this is a shout out to high school teachers who did rock the boat, who did treat us like adults, who did give us some freedom to explore, play and learn: Mr. Court, Mr. Baird, Mr. Jones - you guys were my faves.

Guess the price of my sexy boots. Win a prize.

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:15:00 +0000

See these boots? They were made for saving. We're in a recession. I have no job. You probably either don't have a job, are worried about losing your job, or have someone in your family who's out of a job. Trust me, I get it. I'm Sarah-Save-A-Lot these days, but I still have to look good. I need to look decent so that when I'm at Wal-Mart buying Rollback bargoons, and someone sees me and says, "Dang! That Sarah Crosbie is looking fine. I need to give her a job!" So check out my boots. They're knee-high. They're sassy. OK, maybe they're pleather and not leather, but they're still sexy. So how much do you think I paid for 'em? (Here's a little help: It's not outrageous to spend more than $200 on boots. But what did I spend?) Guess right and I'll send you a little help for Valentine's Day – a $20 gift card to the Body Shop so you can get him/her something nice, courtesy of SarahCrosbie.com. All you have to do is post a comment here with your price guess. Closest wins. Contest open until midnight Feb. 9, 2009. I'll post the winning guess by 9 a.m. Feb. 10. (You have to leave a name in your comment – not anonymous – so I can match the winner to the guess. Once I declare the winner, I'll give you 24 hours to email me.)

Hi. My name is Sarah Crosbie and I am unemployed ...

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:24:00 +0000

OK, after a month and a half, I can finally come out and say it: I have no job. I am unemployed. I am a free agent.
I was laid off.

For more than eight years, I worked at The Kingston Whig-Standard (Canada's oldest continually published daily newspaper) as a weekend reporter, a copy editor, investigative reporter, music columnist, and features editor. I covered the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City with my good friend and Whig photographer Jennifer Pritchett. We were there, in the Big Apple, to tell the story of Kingstonians affected by the attacks. One year later, we both returned to the big city to see how Kingstonians' lives had changed and to see if we could track down how some of the local charitable donations had been spent there.
I spent one weekend in Ottawa hunting down Avril Lavigne at the Juno Awards where her debut Let Go was nominated for a bucket-load of trophies in 2003. I watched Gord Downie pick a piece of fluff out of his star on Canada's Walk of Fame and call it "belly button" fuzz 2002.
I got my butt stuck in a soap box derby car when I was a young reporter. I'd gone down the hill at the charity race and when I reached the bottom, I was stuck. There were volunteers at the race who had walkie talkies at the top and bottom of the hill. The conversation went something like this: "Smoky, this is Bluebird. We've got a problem. The Whig reporter is stuck in the car."
"The Whig reporter is stuck in the car? What's the problem?"
"She's wedged herself in the vehicle. You got tools?"
"We'll look for a saw. She's really stuck, huh? Man."
Yeah, that was fun. I had a big butt, I can not lie.
I was once nominated for a National Newspaper Award, Canada's top newspaper honour for an investigative piece on disgraced choirmaster John Gallienne.
I also followed the rise of Kingston's Ryan Malcolm from unknown bar singer to the first Canadian Idol. Every week for an entire summer in 2003, I went back and forth to the John Bassett Theatre in Toronto where I documented his rise on the pop singing show. The issue where we ran not one, not two, not three but four massive features on him (The News Story, The Colour Reaction Story, The Look Back Column, The Evolution of a Person Story) the day after he won – that paper sold out. It was the best story – documenting a guy achieving his dream, with the support of his city behind him.
My idea, Cool Kids, was published last spring - a special magazine dedicated to the amazing high school students in this area.
Every week, I edited The Whig's entertainment magazine The Ticket.
I worked on that magazine every week. Forty pages, every week. All year. I have a son, but The Ticket was my baby. Now it has new (and capable) parents, but she was mine to make for you, the readers.
I've worked with incredible editors – and I married one of the best.
The highlight of my time there was when the paper was alive and screaming with energy, big (sometimes sensational) headlines (but you do want people to stop at the box, look at the paper and then buy it, right? Of course) and colourful, meaningful, important, well-written stories. It was around 2002-05 and I was a reporter, writing everything and anything and then an editor. Noreen Rasbach (now an editor at The Globe in Toronto) was the editor and Rob Tripp (now the police reporter at The Whig) was the city editor. It was a good time to be a reporter at The Whig. Every year, we went to the National Newspaper Awards and dominated the Ontario Newspaper Awards. We did kooky stories (like my piece on a Big Beaver attraction wanting to move into the area) and investigative pieces on sex offenders and health care.
That was then.
Now, I do kooky things like laundry and investigate where cheese is on sale.
One week, I went nuts buying cases of water at Food Basics for $2 each.
The next week, they were on sale at No Frills for $1.88 each.
"I lost money!" I screamed at my husband. "I should have waited!"
"Baby," he said. "It's 12 cents."
Oh, yeah. Right.
In December, I was one of 600 Sun Media employees who lost their jobs.
And I'm heartbroken to no longer be at The Whig, but what really hurts is worrying about the future of the paper. What role does local news have in an world (and economy) dictated by the Internet? Yes, it's hard for a newspaper to compete with websites on things like celebrity gossip. People magazine can report on an issue the second it happens on its website, but newspapers can't give out the information until the next day in its issue, unless the paper has a sophisticated website going, but most local papers haven't perfected (or figured out, really) how to balance the news in their pages and on their websites at the same time. But websites and national chains and the big dailies can't give local readers important local stories (the ongoing halfway house battle in Kingston, Queen's University's struggle with Homecoming, Kingston General Hospital's restructuring efforts) ... and without a local paper, who will review Kingston's theatre productions? Who will tell you about the new restaurants in town? Who will profile the up-and-coming bands that are dying for attention?
Local news is critical to a city. A local newspaper bands citizens together. It tells us about local boys heading off to the Olympics, Good Samaritans who stopped a thief in our city, how our tax money is being spent and how our OHL team is doing. (Well, I can also tell you that – the Frontenacs aren't doing well, but who am I to judge? Some days, I don't shower.)
It's an interesting time to watch newspapers and see who survives (and thrives even?) and how they do it. It would a great time to be a sociologist working in media studies because mass media is changing every second.
Will I ever be a newspaper girl again? I don't know.
Being laid off gives you a lot of time to think, (which gives you an excuse to not do the dishes), and I've realized that life is short and the career I thought I'd have forever didn't even get me to age 32.
There have been some highs and many, many lows being laid off (I haven't slept through the night in six weeks, however I have ripped arms from going to the gym so often) but that's for another time. Something a journalist would call The Followup Story.

Help me! I'm stuck in the Urban Outfitters changeroom!

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:17:00 +0000

It's not that I have big legs, but I don't have twigs.
Usually, my legs are only a problem when I'm trying on knee-high boots. They're often made for girls who:
a) Weigh 102 pounds;
b) Have no muscle in their calves;
c) Have an hour to try and squish/push/pull your calf fat/muscle into your boots.

I have muscular calves. Taking up running a few years ago didn't help the situation much, but recently I learned a new lesson in why sometimes (not very often, but sometimes) it can suck to be fit.

I loved the years from around 1999 to 2005 because pants and jeans all had a flare at the bottom. I've watched enough of What Not To Wear to know that a longer pant, with a little flare elongates the legs and for someone who's 5'4" like me, that's nice. Now though? For the past couple of years, we've had skinny jeans – and I'm not sure why. Very few people look good in skinny jeans. Even skinny girls don't look good in skinny jeans. Skinny jeans are like sausage casings; they squish everything into a wrapper and then your body tries to escape the torture by squishing over top of the waistband, out the butt and at the inner thighs.

But today, for some reason, I thought I'd try them again. I've lost eight pounds in the last month and evidently, when I lost the fat, I lost my brain and became delusional. I was in Urban Outfitters - the cool store for all the Queen's University girls. It's the place you want to go if you want to have that I-look-like-everyone- else-but-I'm-so-original - swanky meets Salvation Army thrift store.

(I was exchanging a gift. I had to go in.)

I saw a pair of skinny jeans that were on sale from $100 for $39 so I thought I'd try them on. The waist was 30 - my size. And, so, in the changeroom I went. (Do you know that at Urban Outfitters they ask you your name and then write it on a chalkboard so they know who's in what room? Next time, if there is a next time, I'm going to call myself Jonas Brother No. 1 or Mary-Kate and Ashley, or Miley or She-Ra or something.)

I went into the changeroom and pulled off my jeans and slipped my first leg into the skinny jeans. And then the second. And then I pulled them up to my knees. It was here that I realized even if I took one thigh and sliced it into two, half a thigh wasn't going to fit into these pants, so there was no way a whole thigh was going in.

And there was no way my calves were coming out.

I was stuck.

It was like these damn pants had congealed to my legs. What was I going to do? Waddle out of the changeroom with pants around my knees and ask them to cut them off? I could always pull my own jeans over top and just pay for the skinny jeans. (And then waddle out of the store.)

How was it I could get them on, but not off?

I sat on the bench and tried to roll them down. Stuck.
I tried to yank them down. Stuck.
I tried to smooth them down. Stuck.

Finally, I held both ends of the pants and tugged on the left side of one leg, then the right, then the left, then the right. And, I'm telling you it's possible: Instead of thinking about sucking in my stomach, I thought about sucking in my calves. And bit by bit, the jeans started to move.

This is why girls like to buy shoes.

Skinny bitch of a day.

Michelle Obama's inauguration dress ... sexy mama

noreply@blogger.com (sarah) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:15:00 +0000

Was Michelle Obama attacked by spitballing students?
Or is she a fashion icon in the making?

Looking back at other First Lady inaugural ball gowns, Michelle Obama's gown was a striking and bold statement that she's no fuddy duddy who's going to be staid and static.
I got my first look at Jason Wu white, floor-length, one-shoulder dress, at the televised Neighborhood Inaugural ball, where Michelle and Barack Obama danced to Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys (and a deer-in-the-headlights Mariah Carey.)
It was the first ball – and the one Barack said most represented the spirit of his campaign – where he said "First of all, how good lookin' is my wife?"
I thought the dress looked a little toilet paper-y. Would I wear a dress covered in little balls? No, but fashion is about taking risks. And every woman's fashion risk is her own. (And on the Huffington Post this morning, readers were divided over the gown. 56% said they loved it. 37% said they weren't fans. That means it's a hit, if people are split on it. Good fashion has to be controversial.)
The colour was a good choice – would it be going too far to say it stood for all the things Barack Obama stands for – hope, peace, optimism, clearing the past, looking to the future? Maybe.
A teaching assistant at Queen's University once returned an essay to me that was covered in criticisms, saying my essay was grasping, looking for too much meaning in the text. So maybe it was just a dress. Maybe Michelle liked the way it made her toned arms look – she is a gym lover and has done sleeveless before. (Barbara and Hillary always wore long-sleeved gowns, though Nancy Reagan did a bare shoulder look). Maybe it made Barack hot to be able to touch his wife's bare shoulder all night. Who knows? It is just a gown. But a risky and bold gown – one that says: If a woman has to stand by her husband's side and be supportive eye candy, at least she can look damn fine/racy doing so. You give mommas a good name, Ms. Michelle. Let's head to the gym and say chicken-wing arms be gone!

"Michelle Obama may be a trained lawyer with an Ivy League education, but on Tuesday night she will be America's Top Model. What she wears to the inaugural balls will set the style agenda for the administration and hold a mirror up to what it means to be a woman in America right now, which still includes being judged by your appearance."
- Booth Moore, fashion critic, The Los Angeles Times

"Michelle Obama once more does something new and fresh [by] working with an emerging fashion star and turning Jason Wu overnight into a household name. This type of dress shape/silhouette is something that's completely unexpected. [It's] vibrant and aspirational, full and gorgeous. No one else in the past would have been this striking, this ravishing or been able to pull this look off. She's bringing sexy back."
– Us Weekly fashion director Sasha Charnin Morrison

"[Michelle Obama] wore a white, one shouldered Grecian-inspired ballgown with a ruched bodice by 26-year-old New York designer Jason Wu, in a brave and inspired statement of her allegiances. Mrs Obama teamed the full-skirted chiffon dress with drop-earrings, a glittering oversize cocktail ring and a diamond bracelet that winkled in synch with the Swarovski crystals that studded her gown. As she danced with Mr Obama to Beyonce's version of the Etta James classic At Last, the words rang true for fashion critics everywhere; finally a president's wife had gotten it right - twice.Earlier in the day, Mrs Obama drew almost universal praise for the buttercup yellow Isabel Toledo dress she wore as her inauguration outfit."
– Georgina Safe, fashion editor, The Australian