Stealing from Jendo…

because she isn’t giving me a grandbaby, so I’ll just copy her Freaking MEME! Play along, kids!

1. What did you do in 2004 that you’d never done before?
Started stuffandjunk.com, met amazing bloggers, virtually and in person, got reunited (ha I wrote re-untied!) with some childhood friends and hope to see more in 2005.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? My biggest failure was not getting my weight under control and getting back to a gym. It still upsets me so this year I will take a new approach to the old problem.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No
5. What countries did you visit?
Just traveled in Canada.
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
Self-esteem, a documentary project and a development deal for a new show.
7. What dates from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
March 4 a young man was shot to death, wrongfully-it was the beginning of a hard year for a good organization, which I hope to explore further.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Working on a show nominated for a Gemini.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Where do I begin? Seemingly small things can be V. large in this department. I am a work in progress.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
The usual colds, flu, fainting and clutziness.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
A large watch face on a caribeener for $12.99
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I can tell you whose DIDN’T!
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and disgusted?
A certain EX-show host who treated people like servants and showed no regard for the people who tried to make him look good.
14. Where did most of your money go?
New car, gas, kids, home theatre.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Working. I love working on shows -it wears off quickly, though.
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
Rufus’s Want One-the whole cd owns 2004 for me.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Sadder
b) thinner or fatter? Fatter (hence, sadness)
c) richer or poorer? same
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Yah, exercised regularly.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Being a doormat to those around me.
20. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve 2004?
Greek food, Sideways the movie, casual evening with a few friends close to home.
21. Did you fall in love in 2004?
No. Stayed in love.
22. How many one-night stands?
None
23. What was your favorite TV program?
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No. Hate hurts.
25. What was the best book you read?
The Bible.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Rufus Wainwright.
27. What did you want and get?
Scubaruski the Legacy.
28. What did you want and not get?
Self respect
29. What was your favorite film of this year?
It may be Sideways, I let you know later
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I worked. 45, no, I think it’s 46.
31. What one thing would have made your year measurably more satisfying?
Therapy.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Cheap, ugly, warm, serviceable.
33. What kept you sane?
This blog, Pharmaceuticals, red wine.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
None.
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
The American vote. Terrifying.
36. Who did you miss?
Claudine and Jan. One from death, one from a faded friendship.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
I’ve met so many great people, too many to say.
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004.
Every action has a reaction.
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I could cry salty tears, where have I been all these years.

Are we there, yet? …

Have you done a personal year in review?
It can be brutal.

Note to self in 2005:
Be compassionate.
Be true.
Pray hard.
Pray harder.
Love more.
Improve.
Accept the consequences of the above.

‘Hit the Deck!…

The five year old waded through his cache of goods and deemed the ‘Web Shooter’ tm his chosen toy of the moment.

Donning his spiderman snowsuit, hat and his one last existing mitten, he called the dog and left for the tundra that is our backyard. It’s minus 13 degrees celsius today. Cold enough to drive you back indoors after 20 minutes.

When he came in-ten minutes later, the dog looked like a scared, frozen pupcycle and the boy looked smug as he brandished an empty aerosol can. Looking out the glass doors I noticed that our entire deck was covered in white string. Globs and globs of white string. The barbeque, antique sled, full-sized decorative wire goose were all linked together with the white stuff. It’s just all hanging on to everything in a very un-web-like fashion.

Guess all future super heroes have to start somewhere.

“First we toast…

then we suck back the schnapps!” announced the Freaky Dane.

We were at our first-ever, real-life smorgasbord, complete with Tuborg beer and nasty schnapps. The little sandwiches were divine, dark pumpernickle with Havarti cheese, pickled herring (couldn’t.bring.myself.to.try.), shrimp, Westphalian ham, pate, eggs and toppings like red pepper, cucumber, asparagus and tomatoes.
Freaky Dane made a meeeeelion of them.

We sipped red wine during the sandwich-making show, then when we sat down to eat we were given a tall beer glass of Tuborg and a leetle schnapps.
I could barely take a sip of it (I am so not a schnappy girl). But the men.
They couldn’t suck those suckers back fast enough.
‘Skohl’! Chug chug. (Increase volume).
‘SKOHL’! Chug! Chug! (More volume). Chomp chomp.
‘SKOOOOOHHHHHHLLLL, BABY!!!!!’ GLUG! GLUG! (mo-no-sy-lla-bic grun-ting, followed by laughing and much back-slapping).

The women folk WERE amused.

And they continued to suck back the Schnapp’s until two botles were polished off between five guys. One. Shot. At. A. Time.
To finish off the lunch, choclates were served, the kind with liquor in them. Many bottle-shaped chocolates had their bottle necks chewed off, contents emptied into uncomprehending mouths. After ‘dessert’ the men rose clumsily from the table and through slurred words and giggles made their way downstairs to the home theatre.

We pause for a quick design critique:
Neal, your use of colour in the home theatre is the perfect complement to the darkness required for viewing, well done. The only thing that’s missing is a new sofa. What? It’s in the bedroom? You bought it from IKEA? What’s that? It’s Swedish for ‘Won’t fit through a normal doorframe?’ Oh, you Danes, always envious of the Swedes, no? Oh, and there’s no gas fireplace in the home theatre. It’s just not the same. What? Oh, yah the new speakers. You win this round.

And we’re back.
The menfolk have let the table and staggered down to the home theatre and within minutes host, Jen, the good, kind, wife abruptly hands me two babies (cousins, combined age: ten months) because Flaky Dane has projectile vomited OUTSIDE the bathroom door. Wall. Floor. Baby seat.
She began to clean up while I played pass the baby (to other people). I like babies, especially these cuties, but I’m still harboring nasty germs.

Anyway, Neal disappears, upstairs, snorning like a sub woofer on Star Wars, then another one falls asleep in the den, another on the chair at the back of the home theatre, and yet another is almost asleep except he is interested in watching the movie. So where is the husband? In the office on the computer? No. Not in the home theatre or main floor, I checked upstairs. Neal: snoring in the master. coats on one sons bed, crib in another and there, in the little bears room lay husband-locks, covered in a baby blankie, fast asleep. He’s like a dead-guy when he sleeps there is no movement or breathing sounds.
He mumbled something about staying to watch more movies.

In fact, he’s still there. I packed up the five year old.Sweet, kind host, Jen said it was ok for the husband to stay and I assured her I would pick him up tomorrow.

So, smorgasbord= (you’ll want to eat) smor, gas (self explanatory) bord, (the state your body becomes when you’re passed out cold from the nasty schnapps).

Those Danes, chuckle chuckle, they kill me. No, really.

I got a ideeeeeeaaaaah!

Weeeee!

GE-nius. AC-tor.
(No not Jon Lovitz. WAAAAAAAY before Jon there was Snagglepuss and only old people know who I mean. So there.)

But I got a iddddeeeeeeaaaaaahhhh.

For a show.

And I got a meeeeeeeting!

Two of dem.

And I’m going to make a beautiful TV show! In about two years if the going track record is correct.

And Guess WHAT?

(No, I’ll tell you)

I got an OTHER IDeeeaaaahhh!

A serious one. The one I have to act all growed up for.

Because it’s SERIOUS. And a DOCUMENTARY.

And I will go to industry parties and have conversations that start with, “Well MY analyst says…”.

This. This is why I do what I do, even knowing that in exactly two weeks the whole thing could implode on me and I’ll have to go back and start again and come up with A NEW Ideeeeeaaaaahhhh!

Hank is in Heaven …

He came today, the grinning reaper. All toothless and pony-tailed, he looked as if he’d been through many a battle, kind of all vet-like and proud, except he couldn’t have been fifty.

He knocked at the door, all skinny frame and slow smile.

‘You got the keys?’, he asked.

‘They’re in the glove box, just as I was instructed’. I answered earnestly.

‘Doors are locked’, he sniffed.

(Idiot. How dumb can I get?)

‘Um, sorry, I, um, forgot the part about you getting in the car to get the keys. You could break in, the pin hole where someone broke in before is under the door handle, it’s rusted, try that’. I offered, hopefully.

‘Broke into a few cars in my day, shouldn’t be a problem’. He shrugged and walked toward his tow truck.

I couldn’t resist. I grabbed my boots, and jacket and went out to watch.
Sure enough he had the door open within a few minutes, with an old car antenna.

‘I wasn’t sure if this was the car. I always check the VIN number on the dash, but your note said it all. This is the first time there was an apology to the neighbors on a car.’ he said looking at me like the idiot I appear to be.
The note said the car was going to Car Heaven and would be picked up soon, sorry for the inconvenience and the eye sore.

‘If you look carefully, you’ll notice that all my neighbors are standing in their doorways, beaming with hapiness that this crate is going.’ I said surreptitiously.

He glanced about.

Caught looking, some of the neighbors came outside to cheer on the removal process. I’d like to say a parade formed but that would be a lie.

And so with the neighbors waving, the driver shaking his head and me smiling like an idiot, Hank went to Car Heaven.

Car Heaven will take your old car off your hands for a tax receipt of about $60 which can be bestowed on the charity of your choice. So, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers has $60. more today, I can love my new car without the guilt of Hank looking on and hopefully somewhere, someone might remember not to drive home tonight after a few too many. It would be nice if Hank didn’t die in vain.

So long, my sweet chariot.

So Far …

I’ve force-fed Christmas spirit into my days thusly:

-Took the five year old to see the musical, ‘Annie’.

-Took the five year old to see Cinderella and Clifford the Big Red Dog at Castle Oma (it’s actually called, Casa Loma, but we’ve renamed it in honour of the granparent that lives close to this hulking excuse for a castle).

-Took out some old favourite recipes and baked. And baked. And baked.
(Shortbread cookie, anyone?)

-Took time to watch exactly one movie, Intolerable Cruelty.

-Took notes.

-Took to bed to get rid of this yucky cold that makes me sound AND LOOK like Brenda Vaccaro. Eek.

-Took a couple of minutes to myself. It felt like hours, hmmm.

-Got taken to see Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe Christmas Concert. If you’re Canadian and listen to CBC Radio and have heard this story teller, the names Dave and Morley will make you chuckle. If you’re American you’ll just have to wait for the tv show to come out. It’s being developed as a series as we speak.

-Got taken to the cleaners by the sixteen year old, who -on a daily basis- has needed money for everything from busfare, to christmas gifts, to parties, and a gift for the boyfriend. I hope her friends enjoy their presents, she seemed to run out of funds just before she needed to shop for the family.

Still on the To Do list:

-Find the glory of the holiday in the eyes of my family and friends as we remember the reason for the season.

Hope you get taken there, too.

The Magic of the Theatre…

I’ve always hated the word, ‘cocooning’. It’s so lame that I figured I would like to be the new Faith Popcorn and coin a bunch of phrases and words to describe the zeitgeist that is 2004.

It’s party season and cocooning is not on the agenda. Drinking, feasting and more drinking seems to be in order (except the drinking part keeps trying to butt in line to be first). I go hot and cold on socializing. I share equal love for a room full of people and an empty room, sometimes in the same moment, but that’s the Gemini in me. Yah, other than that two-faced part.

So, have you ever just blown-off a party to sit at home and ‘cocoon’? It’s easy to get sucked into the new vortex we now know as ‘the home theatre’, especially when you’re watching a fantastic movie with your family. ‘Settling in’ barely describes what you’re experiencing. But at no other time do you feel the depth of heaviness at the thought of lifting yourself from the sofa.

The trick is to avoid the home theatre if you want to accomplish anything, even sleep. Tearing yourself away from the near perfect image on the near perfect screen is difficult. The darkness descends and suddenly your seat feels welded to the, well, seat. It’s intoxicating and delicious to have a real live movie playing on a theatre screen in your own home. It’s decadent and wonderfully proletariat at the same time. Just call me the nouveau Lumpen Proletariat. Now back to our movie …

Parent Review …

She looked at us through suspicious eyes.
“He’s an only child, yes?”
“No, he has a sister”, we replied.
“His e’s are backwards”, she threw out.
“Yes, but he seems to KNOW they’re backwards”, I replied defensively.
“And he doesn’t know where to put the finger space so he isn’t reading words, yet.” She said accusingly.
“But we know he can’t read, yet, how would he know when a word stops and starts if he can’t read?” I questioned earnestly trying not to offend the teacher.
“This is SENIOR kindergarten. He must know all the letters, recognize all the vowels, identify ch, th, sh, sounds by sight, count to 100 hundred AND listen and respond accordingly by the end of June, and he should be able to read.”
“Gah gah gah” we answered.
So overall:
The five year old is average.
His parents?
Apparently we’re failing.

And Then I Came To …

on the bathroom floor, looking under the claw footed tub.

There ought to be a law.
No ‘underneath’ under tubs. Underneaths are just wrong, they shouldn’t exist.

Our claw-footed tub (yes, the feet actually resemble bird claws or talons and are brass in nature), has a space between the bottom of the tub and the floor. I’ve lived here for three years and didn’t realize this was the hiding place of the mother of all dust bunnies.

When I came to…
I looked at it. It looked at me, defiantly. This was more accurately the GRANDMOTHER of all dust bunnies, and she was MINE.

Tackling the mess, with gloves and breathing apparatus, I scooped the chunks of dust up. Gray, aged, damp dust clung to the floor fighting, in vain against the impending cleanliness.

And what reward awaits those who now use the bathroom?
If you were to crawl on your belly, face to the tub you will see clear to the back wall, if you wanted to.

And now that I know what can happen ‘underneath’ I’ve decided to clean there every three years whether it needs it or not. Oh, but don’t tell the husband. He’s convinced I have no idea how to clean a bathroom.

Maria Full Of Grapes …

(Maria Full of Grace)

See this movie. It’s starkly brilliant and suspenseful. The young lead actress is beautifully contained, yet her presence is electric.
Just see it.

Two Towers.

A meandering story with several plots plodding through middle earth. Each plot- meaning each group of freaks, both hot and cold, has the journeymen-elf-dwarf, potential king meeting up with danger, often.
What did I learn from this movie? The good guys are the ones with good teeth. All people of middle earth have various accents leading me to believe that Great Britain has apparently been sucked into some vortex to the middle of the earth.
That animation process on the ugly old schizo-elf is freaky. That face creeped me out, but good. I will not be seeing Polar Express for fear that Gollum/Yodawannabe face may show up somewhere. I will never go into a marsh. There is waaaay too much testosterone in middle earth. I think New Zealand is the New Final Frontier, I’d love to boldly go there after seeing this film.

Elf.

Dumb. Funny. Harmless. Waste of Zoey Deschanel’s talent.
The whole family enjoyed it. I think it was the Merlot.

Projector screen.

Heavenly. There are no more words.

Gifts From Children…

are so precious.

Two years ago my lovely daughter picked the Christmas season to test her ability to remove things from stores without the benefit of PAYMENT. I was thrilled to recieve a phone call (while at a festive gathering) from a very kind police officer who had the misfortune of dealing with shoplifters at STUFF Mart.
It was just a lip gloss. She had the money to pay for it. She just didn’t.
She was banned from the store for one year.

This was the year she asked for gift certificates. Guess where most of them were redeemable?

This year her early gift to me was an afternoon suspension for smoking. Interesting. I must be completely riding the denial boat, because to believe her I have to admit she is the first non-smoker nailed for having a cigarette in her hand on school property. If that’s the case I informed her that she deserved the suspension for STUPIDITY.

She managed to top that gift too!
She dropped a course because she didn’t get along with the teacher. The course was LAW. She could ace that course. She already had a run-in with the LAW.

Most recently a teacher called to inform me she stopped going to math.
For a month.

All of this is painful to acknowledge for one reason.

I did all that when I was her age. All of it.
(Except for the getting caught part.)

Lissa Has Left …

The Vomitorium.
It’s all gone. Nothing left.
Including my previous appetite. Even white bread seems too spicy right now.

The porcelain bus has been parked and I’m in sensible recovery mode, except I forgot I had joined a cookie exchange!

Yes!
Nothing says, “I’m better now!” than a shopping-prepping-rolling-cutting-baking-cooling-cookie decorating frenzy!!

I don’t know if the lemon-pistachio biscotti has the right amount of lemon zest and I can’t tell if the toasted texture is screaming, ‘Dip me’.

I can’t bring myself to try it.

Hey, I learned something, though. Even doubling a lemon pistachio biscotti recipe (which included hand-shelling four cups of pistachio nuts) still means you have to make a FULL BATCH of sugar cookies because even though it SAYS it will make 160 pieces, it DOESN’T!

So, I’ll be coming home with 12 dozen batches of cookies-which means NO MORE HOLIDAY BAKING, according to the rules.

Too bad the family will be eating it without me.
I need to go lie down.

‘Jane, Stop This Crazy Thing..!’

I need to get off this Vomit Comet!

Just slow it down a bit maybe so I can accomodate the exiting innerds properly.
(Besides using the bathroom floor, and being prepared for more than one exit at the same time, that is).

Norwalk, Schmorwalk!

I even fainted twice. I do that. I’m a fainter. But, I didn’t land face first on porcelain and become concussed, as usual.

Chills, spills, thrills, adventures in nausea and fever madness.

I am a new ride.

“I’d Like Your Opinion…”

The Husband said.
I immediately fell over laughing.
“Right, yah, as if, you do NOT want my opinion. What is it you want me to AGREE with you on?”

Come and see.

With the arrival of the new technology in our basement comes the new ‘floor-plan problem’.

“The sofa CANNOT go here, it doesn’t work, I tried it. So I went to (my new favourite store) EQ3 and bought this incredible chrome and glass shelving for the components that will go right here, the sofa will have to go against this other wall”.

I just looked at him. Waiting.

“You probably want to SEE that the sofa doesn’t go there.”

I just waited.

“Move it with me and see”.

We did.

Before I could step back and look he launched into the pitch again.
“See it just doesn’t look right from here”.

He was standing IN FRONT of the screen, across the room.

I sat on the couch and looked at him.
“Wow, the sweet spot. It’s perfect. Doesn’t it make sense to sit on the sofa FACING the screen from across the room like in a theatre? The fireplace is cozy and warm right BESIDE where I’m sitting. And I’m PERFECTLY centred to the screen. That new shelf, although nice, isn’t necessary because you need to mount the projector, right? I’d take it back”

Defeated, he said,
“I hate you”.

It Has…

Arrived.

The Hi-Def-Con-Five Multi-Switched Uni-Toggled Lens-Capped Picture Magnifier is sitting on a shelf.

The husband is very giggly about the home theatre.

The not-so-much hi-tech television is on the kitchen floor awaiting pick up.

We are now a one-projector family.

(I hope it works.)

OK, So, Like, You Know…

when you pray and pray and pray for something and you don’t understand why it isn’t happening on your timetable and much-wiser friends remind you that it’s NOT about YOUR time it’s about HIS and then you sit back all harumph-y and grumbly-like and pout and gnash your teeth and you wait and then you try to forget you even asked except something is reminding you in small ways all the time that there is something you REALLY REALLY WANT to do and you JUST NEED THE CHANCE and all things to align and then and then AND THEN (no more and then) SOMETHING HAPPENS and you realize that THIS MIGHT BE the answer to prayer and that maybe just maybe He isn’t trying to tell you to get lost pray for something else so you don’t want to blow it because this is big and wonderful and you don’t even want to succumb to the juicyness of savouring the sheer potential of what is being presented as a possibility because it may be just that a possibility so you’re trying not to get all bouncy and eager because you’re afraid it’s just another test of your patience, faith and heart?

That’s pretty much what I’m feeling RIGHT NOW.