A good cause ... seriously ...
I RECEIVED THIS EMAIL TONIGHT (HI, SHARON!) AND I THOUGHT IT WAS PRETTY COOL. What the heck -- it was worth looking at ... AND they have some cool stuff in their online store. The gal who sent it to me is a major activist for breast cancer awareness and research and has done the Weekend to End Breast Cancer (or the American equivalent) for years, including the one in Hawaii. (Right, Mrs. Weiss???) Anyway, if it helps, then AWESOME. I don't know if you guys saw the Vancouver event on the news last weekend -- I bawled when one of the survivors in the ceremony, a 26-year-old law school student -- got up there in front of God and everyone with not a strand of hair left in her young head, just days out of her last chemo treatment.
Now that's courage.
Anyway, have a look-see ... and g'night until next week. I will have LOTS to share after the Carnage That Will Be the Lower Mainland Junior Kennel Club Camping Expedition 2005!!!!
***************************************************
The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle).
This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.
Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.
http://www.thebreastcancersite.com
AGAIN, PLEASE TELL 10 FRIENDS TO TELL 10 TODAY.
A Photo for the Kendi-Kool in All of You...
Have a great day....
VOMIT JELLY BEANS? YUMMMY! MORE PLEASE!!!!
I’d like to know who the sick freak is who made a jelly bean taste like VOMIT.
Saturday. Staples in Coquitlam. School Supply Shopping, a holiday deserving no less reverence and honor than its nearest holiday relatives, Christmas and Easter. Dad has the Wee Boyz across the highway at Monopoly-On-The-Toy-Market-In-Canada, trying to keep them entertained in all that is toyish while Yaunna and I skip gaily through the aisles, hand in hand, arms swinging, warm sunlight bathing our tanned faces, a light breeze wisping the downy hair of our bare arms. Butterflies take to their gentle flight, flitting from one display case of pencil cases to the nearby stack of student dictionaries. Birds chirrrrup happily, dogs and cats lick each other’s ears clean, even Muslims and Jews decide to call off all this nonsense in Gaza and just build a Costco and Starbucks on the Strip instead.
We found pencils. We found paper. We found white-out, Duo-Tang report covers in seven colors, fine tip markers, pencil crayons, and white rubber erasers. Simply Divine.
Dad finishes with the gluttony at the Sodom & Gomorrah R Us and returns to extract us from the warm sunlight of the office supply store before we visit irreparable damage on his Mastercard. (Sometimes the sun gets to me.) He brings with him a treat for Yaunna. “I got you Bertie Botts Beans,” Dad announces.
“Woohoo! Thanks, Daddy!” Hug, smooch. All this love over a box of jelly beans and I’ve just spent the lion’s share of our monthly budget on pencils? There is no justice.
“Mom, these are not just any jelly beans,” Yaunna explains. “These are BERTIE BOTTS BEANS – from ‘Harry Potter,’ Mom.” DUH. I shoulda known. If it ain’t about a dog, it’s gonna be Harry Potter.
Some people get their britches in a bind about all the HP stuff – “It’s witchcraft” or “It’s the work of Satan.” Last time I checked, it said JK Rowling on the front – no mention of Satan anywhere. My ex-husband’s new wife (she’s not really new—she’s actually the third wife and I only call her the New Wife because she was the one he was seeing while I was still pregnant with Yaunna, so even though they’ve been married for, like, nine years, she will always be the New Wife to me). ANYWAY, she told me years ago that if Yaunna was coming to their house for a summer visit—which never happened—she wouldn’t be allowed to bring the Harry Potter book she was reading because it was Satan’s work and black magic and yada yada yada.
New Wife should know about the witchcraft stuff, I s’pose…at least the bewitching sort. I know some
real witches that would eat their own frogs before stealing another woman’s husband, but New Wife was quite crafted in that respect. BUT, that is all water and suds under the Very Grateful He Left And Shacked Up With Her So I Could Grow My Brain Back Bridge.
Harry Potter? Work of the devil? REALLY? And all this time I just thought it was pretty damn great that my 7-, 8-, 9-, 10-, 11-, almost 12-year-old daughter was reading books rivaling the length of Tolstoy’s best efforts and actually ENJOYING herself. Operative word here: READING. There are a number of adult children on the planet who would have been helped considerably if their own generation had something like Harry Potter to entice them into the realm of reading. And I think I speak for millions when I say that there is a special place in my heart for Former Single Mothers Who Become Billionaires.
I am all over the place here—probably has something to do with my dumb kids who are currently ARGUING over the stupid computer games that came in the varying varieties of Cheerios they coerced me to buy on Saturday. To quote a particularly melodramatic, overweight woman I used to know who was convinced that she had diabetes and therefore needed to have a milkshake every two hours, “I CAN'T THINK A THOUGHT—-now stop at McDonald’s, quick.”
Back to the Bertie Bott’s Beans. We loaded into the Overpriced Leased Family Car and prepared to leave The Land of Fruit and Pencils.
“Wait! I forgot iron-on paper!” Dad says.
“So go back and we’ll wait.” Lucky bastard gets to go back into the store ALONE.
“Here, Mom – try this one.” Yaunna hands me a jelly bean. Yummm. This one tastes sorta fruity.
“Hey, can I see the box?” I ask. Oh, they’re manufactured by Jelly Belly—there’s no way that they will really taste like ‘green grass,’ ‘earthworm,’ ‘spinach,’ or ‘ear wax.’ And CERTAINLY there won’t be one that tastes like vomit.
“These are good, Yaun,” I boast. “See, they aren’t REALLY flavored like all these disgusting things.” I know everything. I Am Mother, Hear Me Roar. I hand her the box back and suck the remnants of that fruity bean out of my teeth while I wait for Husband.
“Here, Mom-—try one’a mine,” Brennie says.
“Sure thing. Thanks, Bren.”
“That one looks like Tutti Frutti, Mom,” pipes Yaun.
POP! Chew, chew, chew…OMIGOD—IT’S NOT TUTTI FRUTTI.
It’s VOMIT.
I open the car door and empty the contents of my burning mouth onto the pavement. Hurriedly I search the console of the Overpriced Leased Family Car for anything to drink-—dead diet Coke, curdled soy in a lost Kendon bottle, motor oil-—to rinse the VOMIT from my mouth.
I’m gonna sue these a**holes. I’d like to know the sorry suck who volunteered to have his stomach bile extracted in order to replicate the taste of vomit for these "magical" jelly beans. Even worse, who was stupid enough to volunteer for the panel to sample these beans?
New Wife, were YOU in on this? I shoulda known.
I got your happy period RIGHT OV'A HE'AH...
Swish, swish, crinkle.“Huh?”
Swish, swish, crinkle.I keep hearing this sound—so I stop. So does the sound.
Swish, swish, crinkle.OHMYGODIT’SMEMAKINGTHATSOUND.
I’m gonna find the bastard who invented these MOMMY DIAPERS and I’m gonna kill him. And then, I’m gonna make him wear a maxi pad on his forehead and go to his stupid little board meetings where everyone will know that We Women are onto him. And then, I’m gonna make him wear a T-shirt that says, “I invented the Mommy Diaper and made sure that there was ample scratchy paper fibers to make the swish-swish-crackle sound when chicks walk, all because my mommy didn't breastfeed me.” The back of the T-shirt will read: "I am a bastard child."
And have you SEEN the new commercials from Tampax? The ones that always come on while you're sitting on the couch with your pre-adolescent and/or puberty-crazed children? "Have a happy period" is the new logo. THAT has to be the product of some sick dude who asks his wife, "You on the rag?" He probably kvetches to his buddies at the country club, "Yeah, Deb's on the cotton pony this week so she is bitching at me about getting rid of my severed Pygmy head collection AGAIN--says it scares the kids. What a couple a'weenies." He's probably the same guy who, when his secretary is at her desk quietly sobbing because her cat, her best friend of 17 years, has just been put to sleep secondary to his five-year battle with kitty AIDS -- "What's YOUR problem? That time of the month or sumthin'?"
Ladies, let's find the Tampax PR manager who coined the phrase, "Have a happy period," pool our money, and look on eBay for some cash-starved fool who would be willing to break his nose. Then we can leave him with some tampons to shove into his face--and they will be OB tampons so that the jerk has to try to stop the hemorrhaging out of his face without the advantage of an applicator.
If it's a WOMAN who came up with that slogan, then, Sista, you're OUTTA the band. Chicks don't wish other chicks "happy periods." NOT COOL.
Period.
I wonder how much that damn T-shirt is gonna cost me.
ONE LAST POST FOR TONIGHT...
This flurry of post'age should provide some major reading material for all y'all for quite some time. (Gawd, I hate that expression. Makes me sound so SMART.)
For those that I have not been in touch with lately--and you know who you are--here's a brief overview of the last few months. And then I REALLY have to go to bed because I am gonna get my ass kicked tomorrow with all of the work I have to do that has gone completely ignored tonight (ssshhh, don't tell Husband).
Since June:
We became Permanent Residents on June 1. Now I can say whatever I want about the Canadian government's utter lack of organization and they can't evict me from the country. Oh, wait. I did that before. Never mind.
They allowed Yaunna to finish the 5th grade. Now we enter Middle School Purgatory.
I downsized my work to approximately 25% of its former monstrous self in order to regain some sanity. (It totally hasn't worked and now I have 75% less money every month. Shit.)
You all know that my father-in-law, Ken Young, died on June 30 after a courageous struggle with liver cancer. We love ya, Grampa ... he checks in now and again from Heaven by turning on random appliances and toys throughout the house. Seriously. It's totally freaky. (Grampa, just don't watch if your son ever DOES get lucky again--go talk to God for that 4 minutes, would ya?)
Kendon turned 1. And his horns finally popped through.
Blake came up for his Five Weeks of Summer Fun. I don't know if he had fun, but he sure fished a lot. (THANK YOU, UNCLE IAN & AUNTIE KIM!!!)
I got to go to Bard on the Beach and see "Hamlet." Nothing was rotten in the State of Denmark on that night--it was S-I-M-P-L-Y divine. AND it was our first night out
alone since Kendon's birth. How wondrous!
My sister came to visit for two weeks and I did the courses at SFU as the first step in my Back To School Adventures to become a full-time book editor. I won a yellow mechanical pencil and an erasable red pen in a spelling bee. (My word was 'bailiff.') Now all I need is a nanny and some books to edit. I got this GREAT pen...!
Mom is officially a Kitchen & Bath Designer and Jennifer Aniston's parents came into their showroom last week, looking for a new bathroom (or kitchen). Anyway, Momma Aniston is, let's say, ummm, ICY. Cherry must not fall far from the tree, eh, Mrs. Pitt? That's the pits. Dead horse? Okay, I'll stop.
Husband has been working like a madman and is currently on a CERTAIN comic book film, the third in the series, with the letter 'X' and the word 'Men' in its title. (We're not supposed to blog about this sort of stuff, though I WISH I could show you the SWEEEEET photos of the Really-Cool-And-Important-Model-That-I-Am-Forbidden-To-Tell-You-About-Until-The-Movie-Comes-Out that Honey built all by his wittle self! It's BEEEEAUTIFUL!)
I'm hoping to be pharmacologically enhanced soon (under the doctor's careful guidance) so that I am nicer to my kids and I can shrug off the burning desire to tell all my neighbors to find themselves a nice black hole to get sucked into. (Shit, I'm so tired, I'm crackin' myself up on that one.) Okay, ANDREA -- I didn't mean YOU. Really. I LOVE you. No, I mean it. Seriously. *Gawd, I need a tissue...oh, make it stop...my sides hurt...* Comedy is tragedy, I'm tellin' ya. Oh, and if you know Tom Cruise--tell him to KISS MY ASS. No such thing as postpartum depression??? Man, I'd like to force a 9 lb. 8 oz. turd through the end of his weenis, make his boobies swell to 40 times their normal size and then leak, crack, and bleed, and THEN see how much he feels like going for a jog. Did he HONESTLY say that jogging can cure depression? Seriously? You're not shittin' me?
I'm sure there are things that I have forgotten or failed to trivialize here, but I gotta go to bed. I've been revisited by that Thing That Makes Us Female over the last few days (for the second time in three weeks) and I think the massive blood loss is making me delirious. Too much information? Sorry.
For you male readers, take a lesson from Husband: When your wife/girlfriend/significant other asks/begs/demands that you buy corks for her, do it with pride and don't diminish the experience or rob yourself of some much-deserved admiration by hiding the feminine hygiene product underneath a Maxim. Husband marched RIGHT into the Shopper's Drug Mart tonight, grabbed two boxes of 'Ultra' corks, and paid straight away, looking the female clerk in the eye the whole time. She, of course, giggled and tee hee'd and asked him if he had any single brothers because the Knight In Shining Armor that he is, well, it's just damned irresistible to a woman that a man is willing to buy twinkie corks without batting an eye. And WITHOUT the need to conceal their girlie-loot with a glossy-paged, over-priced display of masculinity.
I love my Husband. To bed I must.
BABY BUNZOS...I could NOT resist...
There is an even more irresistible photo of Kendon in the blow-up pool with his bottle hanging from his lip...but it's a frontal shot and he's birthday-suitin' it, wiener and all, and I'm afraid some uptight suck is gonna think it's baby porn or sumthin'. But these wee lit'le buns...awww...that's my Kendie-Q...and I'm gonna save EVERY LAST ONE of these photos to share with his future wife. She's gonna love me for it.
Don't touch the CAAAAAAAT!
THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T EVER PICK UP MOM'S BROWN LAZY CAT WHEN HE'S JUST GOTTEN HIS ASS KICKED BY THE NEIGHBORHOOD TOM.
Poor Yaunna. She bled A LOT. And after an emergent trip to the doctor's, a thorough cleansing (for four days straight), lots of gauze and sterile dressings, seven days of antibiotics, some formidable swelling and some really pretty green, yellow, and deep purple bruising, AND tons of sympathy, she's healed. Almost.
And the cat is fine, too, thank you very much.
Like this face? Want it to live with YOU?
He's 3.
Need I say more?
The Oldest and the Youngest
There's Blake. And Kendon. My oldest boy is holding my youngest boy. And they are staring at the computer. At a hunting or fishing game. Notice the blank, mouth-askew concentration. Glad to see Blake was able to instill some brotherly wisdom in his pint-sized sib.
They are 15 years and three weeks apart. Who'da thunk it? Boys are great. I'd not admit that in the light of most days when Brennan is running around trying to fart on Yaunna or smear boogers on anyone within his arm's reach, when Blake is talking about his new plans to go into the Coast Guard and patrol the Columbia River harbors in a boat with a great big machine gun (remember, we're Uhmerikans), or when Kendon is SCREAMING like a bloody banshee (seriously, we can't go ANYwhere anymore because he screams the entire car ride and I'm afraid that I might intentionally slam into a wall to shut him the hell up)...but I'm hoping that everything I hear about 'Demon Boys Become Trustworthy Teens' is true.
What about the 'Angelic Girls Become Hormonal Hellions'? Good thing we get to pick the day Yaunna checks into the Hall of Puberty. I think it's gonna happen the day we hand her the keys to her new apartment. She should be good and ready by then. Right? ("Moooooommmmm, that is so MEEEEAAANNNN!")
Dis is ma baby sissy ...
I owe this girl a LOT of money. She gave me an entire week OFF, away from the kids, and she did it with styyyyyle. (See post below for description of where I was; while it may have been a week away from the chil'ens, it was no picnic.)
I have a link for her blog on the sidebar, but she told me that she only has dial-up at home and it takes like 614 years for her pics to load, so she isn't posting often. Too bad. She's damn funny. Must run in the family. At least something does...I think I got passed up in the good-looking, Neutrogena, fresh-faced department.
Ugly Girl, Center Left, with the Prominent Gums
Okay, so this is probably THE most unflattering photograph of me ever taken, BUT...this was THE party, the cherry on the sundae after a very grueling week, and I was pleasantly (or not so pleasantly) 'on the drink.' Yes, folks, I have a weakness for flavored beers, especially the raspberry special brew of the Steamworks in downtown Van. And after an extremely intense bonding week with these lovely folks--my peer group for the Book Editing Immersion Workshop--it was time to put aside our manuscripts and all of the good stuff we literally CRAMMED into our skulls and cram our stomachs with all things liquid. At least I did. (Remember, I don't get out much...). There were a FEW other people who enjoyed the martini menu (David) and the house red (Lara) and hmmmmm...who else wants to be given up here? I can't look like a lush alone, so I will siiiiing like a canary.
ANYHOOOO...it was fun. Until the next morning when God turned the sun up to Really Bright just to punish me. Thank God my sister was here to replenish my soul with Powerade and my husband is the Supportive Wonderful Type who tried to feed me dry toast and Gravol.
I learned a TON in this week of manuscript slicing and dicing, and I was even fortunate enough to walk away with the REAL, published book from the manuscript we worked on, "Wild About Science" by Victoria Miles (a Canadian writer!). It was AWESOME. The little tiny creature in the middle--she was my editor (I love saying that--MY editor)--THAT is Lynn Henry. Man, is SHE a diva! In a totally good way, of course. I love that woman. Her brain is SO full of stuff--I swear she probably knows everything in the whole wide world. AND she gave me the most awesome gift at the end of the week--"Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott. *sniff sniff* It was just so great. *Tissue please.*
Now, I don't wanna embarrass the rest of the crew by naming them, so I won't go left to right or anything, but Rowena, Lara, and Crazy Vanessa from NY--they rocked. We had the BEST group. It was so fun--exhausting but exhilarating. AND--there's more--I learned all about public transit! After spending $22 to park and almost getting locked into the parking garage because of some crazy bike race (the Tour de Gas Town) on the first day, I discovered the train that dropped me across the street from SFU Harbour Centre. It RULED. Of course, all of the other bleary-eyed, early morning transit riders looked at me like I was on a day pass from Riverview because I was SO excited to be out of the house on a TRAIN that I sat perfectly erect in my seat and smiled at everything and stared out all the windows...I think those two Filipinas are STILL convinced that I was trying to eavesdrop, but honestly, I don't speak Tagalog and I was just trying to get a look out the window. Very exciting stuff, you see. Even if I looked a little mental.
SOOOO ... if anyone needs a book edited, I'm your man, er, WOman. Seriously. I need titles for the resume. Tell your writer friends. Call them. Now. They won't mind. It's not midnight yet.
No, I have not had ANY raspberry beer tonight so bugger off. (Do you have any?)
Youngest Young Turns One
SO THIS WAS SIX WEEKS AGO...but better late than never, EH? Our Kendie-Q is now 13 months old, but at his birthday, he had a really good time obliterating his cake. He shared it with everyone. And smeared it everywhere. Who started such a stupid tradition? WHAT A MESS! Awwww, but it really was quite adorable...really...seriously...and that red dye #10 will eventually wash out of the kitchen towels and Kendon's lower intestine.
Do I really need to say ANYTHING here?
Ummmm...okayyyy...this is at the border crossing. Husband is planning on Photoshop'ing the cement bump into something more suggestive, but since he hasn't had time to grope it yet (s'pose it's not really on the list of Super Important Shit To Screw Around With), I figgered it would be fun to exploit, anyway. I s'pose a speed hump is better than no hump at all. Or not. Depends on what kind of mood you're in. OMIGAWD, my kids are going to read this. BLAKE AND YAUNNA: Don't you have CHORES to do???? Blake, you've seen the photos of what can happen to your body parts if you find yourself in unclean territory, and Yaunna, we will TALK about this when you're 18. Did I mention that Yaunna isn't allowed to date until she's MARRIED???
Geezus, I'm a LOOOOOSER ...
I just realized, with Yaunna looking over my shoulder saying, "Yeah, Mom!", that I have not posted ANYthing since July 3. What a total farthead. Er, fart-head. It was decided by the members of the Copy Editing and Proofreading class that I took at SFU in July that 'fart-head' should be hyphenated. Seriously. That became a conversation. I needed to come up with an example for an entirely different question and I quoted Brennan, and so 'fart-head' became the Word du Jour. I'm so trendy, ain't I? What? No?
Fart-head.
So Jane did this ... I had to try it, too...
Harry Potter Personality Quiz by
Pirate Monkeys Inc.I think I am definitely becoming a recluse or hermit as I get older. I just want the neighbors to LEAVE ME ALONE. No offense, of course. And please knock or call if you need anything or if my dogs are in your yard, or if my children are offending you during your attempt at an afternoon nap/shag, or if you need to borrow the bike pump. EXCEPT for the sleazebag down the block who STOLE the bike pump. I'm over it. I got it back. It's done with. I've let go of it. CAN'T YOU TELL???
What were we talking about?
