OK, so maybe not bears, more like bares. Not that I saw a lot of them tonight, but there were opportunities. I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

You know those days when everything seems to go wrong? That was tonight, only I was fortunate enough to not get affected--I just had to sit back and watch everyone else.

I got a call from my boss this morning telling me that my co-worker was sick, so I would be taking care of all of my girls alone tonight. No worries. I was to meet her at 3:30 at the north (Ellis) entrance of the University of Winnipeg. 

I was there by 3.

By 3:45, she still had not arrived with all of our supplies for the evening. Had I misunderstood the meeting place? I called her, left her a message (I assumed she was driving and stuck in traffic--it's been lousy all day!), and went back inside out of the icy cold wind to wait.

Five minutes later she called back. She was just in a car accident. Ouch. It's ten minutes before four, I am now expecting a carload of supplies in a vehicle I've never seen, I'm expecting another carload of food, and finally a busload of up to 16 girls with their infant children all at the same time. 

And I'm alone. Crap.

Well, the car of food arrives first, sporting a really flat tire. I'm amazed she made it to the university at all.

By this time, I was lucky enough to have one of the childcare workers arrive (Sherry, I heart you--you rock!) and she helped me lug up the food.

At the same, time the girls have arrived with all of their kids. Luckily, they knew just where to go and our room was unlocked, so they were able to find their way. 

Phew. Two crises averted.

We just need all the supplies, my really shaken up boss, and an air pump for the food vehicle (or a new tire--whichever is easier).

Next arrives a lovely black Kia (don't ask me what kind--it was black). It's transporting everything from my boss's car--along with my boss...and her boss. Next mission is to bring everything inside, and trust me, there's a lot.

Fortunately, however, there are a lot more of us now. So we somehow manage to get everything into the school. We've even got a trolley which my boss gets to push (that's a good thing, since she's looking really stiff and having trouble walking. Poor thing already has a bad knee, so she at least has something to lean on). We load up all the large bins filled with baby chairs, toys, classroom supplies, and a hundred other things. We made the mistake, however, of trying to push the cart in the elevator cart first. Don't we lose a box filled with papers and other miscellaneous tiny tidbits and random do-dads?

After a couple of minutes of scrambling, we manage to pick up all the scraps and get the cart finally into the small climbing box, person first. Much better. When the doors open again, we start unloading the elevator, only to lose another box. Just not our day.

As we are finally making our way to our classroom, my boss's boss gets a phone call--their office building has just been evacuated and is currently surrounded by firetrucks. Really? Didn't they just have a fire there a few months ago? Yup.

Nevertheless, the night must go on. We must feed the mothers and their children, who are uncharacteristically all crying (with the exception of one sweet and chubby little bundle of joy, whom I've never seen cry).

As we get everyone fed, it's apparent that my boss can't stay. She's having difficulty moving around and is still incredibly shaken.

Amazingly, though? After all the nightmares, we still managed to get through the night. Yes, the ladies were really rowdy, the babies cried a lot, and a lot of diapers had to be changed (hence the "bares"), but we survived. We even discovered the evacuation was a false alarm (another phew). 


The best part? I didn't have to wait 40 minutes to catch my bus home--I was out early and home almost an hour earlier than usual. That left me more than enough time to enjoy the King of the Ring tournament on Raw: All Hail King Sheamus!

I love Dollarama. Not as much as I used to before they added all of those extra prices (Now with items at $1.25, $1.50, and $2.00! (Although I’ll tell you a secret—most of the items were the $1 items, now with higher price points. Just saying.)), but it’s still pretty awesome.

Having one within walking distance has been fabulous. (There are over 600 across Canada, it’s almost hard not to have one within walking distance in a major city.) I probably go there weekly. You never know what they might have.

On a previous trip, I saw an awesome book: Fun & Creative Dates for Dating Couples: 52 Ways to Have Fun Together. To have a successful marriage, I believe it’s important to always keep dating (with your spouse, obviously!). Naturally, for $1.25, I picked it up. I can’t yet say that it’s quite as cool as the $2 book I bought my hubby for Christmas, Entertaining with The Sopranos (as Compiled by Carmela Soprano), but it’s still pretty awesome. So that’s what I’ve decided to do—try out some of these “great dates” and see what happens.

And some of them even sound kind of interesting. There’s the Alphabet Date, where you pick a letter out of a hat and everything you do on that date has to start with that letter. You’re supposed to bring along a pocket dictionary so you can get inspired which would help, because off the top of my head, if I get stuck with Z, other than Zebra watching at the Zoo, or going to the Zoo on Osborne,  I’m kind of out of ideas. I guess we could go Zealot hunting? (But what about X? Do we go to the hospital and get x-rays of our hands holding one other? Do you think they do that? Although I suppose we could draw x-rays of our ourselves (Ooh! Or each other, because that’s super romantic!) and then Xerox them…And that would all be done with the sweet serenade of a xylophone in the background followed up by some XBOX. Hmm, that might just work…)

I think the Alphabet Date would be entertaining just trying to figure out what you could do. Then there are other obvious ones that we don’t often think to do—go play at a park on the jungle gym, play in the rain, make pizza from  scratch (together!), horseback riding, a snow date, or just cruising flea markets and estate sales to see what other people trash and what others still treasure. (NOTE: If you are dating and considering marriage and currently not living together, I strongly recommend this date. It will let you know if your future mate is a clutter-freak, and if you’re not, get out now! (Unless they like cleaning or you always wanted to be a TV celeb and can get on the show HOARDERS.)

I’m not sure which date we’ll try first. I’d say let’s start at number 1 and then go from there, but there’s no guarantee that there will still be snow on the ground in 19 weeks.

Hah, who am I kidding? This is WINTERpeg, ManiSNOWba—of course there will be snow by the second week of October!

My nephew is four. This past summer he had his very first sleepover at our house. I have my husband to thank for that.

After spending the day together, Ryan, who had plans that night to go to a concert, asked him when he was going to sleep over at our house. “How about tonight?”

Sure, he was kind of joking because the little guy had never been away from his parents over night before, but when you make an offer to a four-year-old, you’d better be willing to deliver.

His face turned to sheer delight. You would have thought we were offering ice cream for breakfast for life or something. Because he loves my daughter so much, the chance to spend even more time with his big cousin was an automatic yes.

That’s OK, I love my nephew and I have the greatest daughter in the world (no really, she’s so easy to take care of—I credit that to my husband and the fact that she has no blood relation to me whatsoever!). This was going to be a great Saturday night. A nice easy, somewhat relaxing night.

I ‘m starting to think that nephews should come with a handbook.

Bed time was 9:30. Or at least that was when I was able to get him calmed down enough to try. Was he really calm? No. He and Leah were going to sleep in her bed, so I put him in there and let him choose the stuffed animals he wanted most to sleep with.

As I’m about to leave the room, I hear “It’s not comfy. I’m not comfy.”

Fair enough. He can always sleep in my bed and Ryan can sleep on the couch when he gets home. So I propose that to him. “Do you want to sleep in mine and Uncle Ryan’s bed?”

“OK.”

We move into our bedroom and he lies there, tossing and turning after about 10 seconds. “It’s not comfy.” So I lie down with him. It’s better, but still not “comfy.”

I turn to him and say, “You have to sleep somewhere. It’s either in Leah’s bed or my bed.”

“Your bed! Where’s your bed?”

“We’re in it, Sweetie.”

“No, this is Uncle Ryan’s bed! Where’s your bed? Is it comfy?”

I considered putting him in the basement on the futon, but that’s just mean. Also, he is afraid of Smith who lives in our basement (he’s a life-size Frankenstein monster type figure who talks when you press his hand. We’ve had him down there for almost a year and he still freaks me out. No, I could never let a child sleep down there alone. That’s just cruel.).

After reading to him, singing to him, and watching most of a movie with him, I eventually got him tired enough to almost fall asleep. By that, I mean I got him really cranky and homesick. That’s when the tears started. Luckily, crying is pretty exhausting, and just before midnight, the little guy finally fell asleep.

Poor Leah, though, who graciously shared her bed with her little cousin. Apparently he is quite the kicker. While he eventually got a good night’s sleep in a bed that wasn’t “comfy,” she barely slept a wink and around 3:30 in the morning, she snuck downstairs and slept on our living room couch. (Not the basement, because I don’t think even she wants to sleep near Smith.)

(Are you getting the hint, Smith? Kids and adults find you creepy!)

NOTE: when the incredibly unattractive Smith talks, his mouth moves and his eyes light up. That's not the creepiest part. It's the fact that he stands alone in a dark corner waiting, and, well, just being creepy!

Sadly, Smith is not the creepiest thing that lives in our basement. That would be Smith 2 (pronounced "two," not "the second").Smith 2 is the result of my husband's corpsing phase. A gentleman, but still ugly. He needs to put on some clothes. Hmm, I guess he's not a gentleman after all...

The other day, my step-daughter brought home THE permission slip. She’s 10, in grade 5, it’s not hard to figure out which form I’m talking about. Let me give you a hint—she’s coming upon a time in her life when her body and those of her classmates are beginning to undergo changes.

Oh yes—it was the sex-ed. permission slip!

Is that weird for me? Not at all. As soon as she told me I said I was completely for her learning about it at school and that her dad would probably say the same thing. It was her mom I was a bit concerned about.

Leah’s mom is, well, a little, um, how to put this nicely, hmm. Let’s go with over-protective? Safety is really important (which is fantastic, obviously. I just don't want to risk her being over-sheltered--it makes for a difficult future; been there, done that.).

I was a little concerned that Leah’s mom, who won’t take her out for Halloween (to shelter her from Satanists), wouldn’t want her to take health class with the other kids in school. It’s never easy being that kid. The one who always has to leave the room when they start talking about our bodies changing. Trust me, it’s never easy.

Why my mother decided not to let me participate in sex-ed. in grade 5 I will never know. I got to go in grade 6, but for some reason, not in grade 5.
It’s so hard. As if your formative years aren’t difficult enough (remember how I said I used to get called a Nazi because of my German heritage?), now you’re the weirdo-kid who isn’t allowed to learn about health. And it’s not like my mom sat me down and started talking about it in grade 5 either (which is odd considering as a nurse she is in the health care profession).

I just had to wait an extra year.

Could that be why I didn’t shave my legs until grade 8? I was a year behind (I used to speed swim provincially and I would use that as my excuse for not doing it in grade 7—we all had to keep our leg hair until big meets when everyone, including the guys, were expected to shave their legs. It helped make us go faster because there was less resistance. (Wow, even as an 12-year-old I was full of creativity. Thank you science, you helped make me a convincing liar!)) Of course the real reason was a combination of laziness and lack of knowledge—shaving your legs was probably on the grade 5 health curriculum.

Sadly, I must apologize to all those in my seventh grade class as I also didn't start consistently wearing deodorant until grade 8, either. It was more of a sporadic thing in grade 7. I don’t think I smelled, but then do smelly people ever realize that they smell? Maybe that’s why I’m so adamant that Leah brushes her hair and teeth and bathes at least daily (well only brushes her teeth at least daily. I’m OCD about washing my hands before I eat, but not multiple baths and stuff. That’s just crazy!)

Luckily, we spoke to Leah’s mother and it’s a go. Thankfully. (Provided the school doesn’t teach oral sex, etc, etc. Seriously? Do they do that now? Why? These kids are 10! Do they need to know that? Or as my mother would say, “Does anyone need to know that?”)

Well, Leah now gets to learn most of this stuff at school so that, as parents, we can just skim over it when it’s time for “the talk.”

Man being a parent is easy! 

When it comes to cooking, some people’ve got  it, and some just don’t.
Take my step-daughter’s mother. According to my daughter, her mom makes whipped butter instead of cream (by accident; at least she didn’t add salt instead of sugar) and something about soupy-burnt waffles? I sort of stopped listening so I could focus on not throwing up in my mouth. (Does that make me a bad parent?)

My father-in-law’s idea of a casserole is a box of KD, a can of corn, and perhaps a can of pork and beans. Basically whatever is in the cupboard.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for experimentation (although I am a firm believer that if you are going to eat KD, you need to eat it just as it is. Don’t add wieners or extra cheese (especially processed cheese slices!) or anything else you think might make it taste better. It’s not that great to begin with—it’s just a good choice for comfort food around that time of the month. Followed by a Reese Peanut Butter Cup chaser). 


When it comes to recipes, I take one of two approaches:

1. I take a look at the ingredients, get out what they suggest, and just sort of throw everything together, plus a few extras that I think work (and that does work well at times—I have an amazing pasta sauce I make from scratch that’s to die for (although it rarely tastes the same twice…) which is why I sometimes make it around the holidays, bottle it up, and give it away.)
2. I follow the recipe to the extreme. Every little thing, I do. In perfect order I might add. Only need a ¼ tsp of something? That’s all you’re gonna get! (unless it’s vanilla extract—I always add more of that because I love the smell so much) I’m like a recipe Nazi (that was an inside joke for my husband. I’m not really a Nazi (even though I’m German and spent my childhood getting called one because my dad came over from there. Man, kids can be cruel)).
   

I like to think I get my mad cooking skills from the two most important ladies in my life—my mom and my Nana (who’s no longer with us, but she ran the Riverside Grill in Selkirk, MB for 45-ish years with my grandpa). 


Tonight, however, I’m not sure I want my mom’s cooking skills.

While working up in my office, I got a call from my parents alarm company. Apparently their smoke alarm was going off and no one was answering at home, so the company called to let me know what was going on and that the fire trucks had been dispatched.

I’m kind of worried, but not too worried. (This isn’t the first time I’ve received a call about their alarm going off.) First, I decide to call my parents at home. Just in case.

After three or four rings, there’s a loud sizzling sound. I’m wondering if this is a sick joke from their alarm company? And then my mom answers. She’s just a-cookin away in her kitchen. Of course. I know that sound. I know the smell. And I know how smoky the house gets but how amazing everything tastes a few days later when we finally get to eat it.

My mom was making cabbage rolls and meatballs, preparing for Thanksgiving.

And then the fire department came.

My first thought was, “Crap. Dad’s gonna be pissed when he finds out.”

When the firemen arrived, apparently her first words were, “Crap. What’s Peter going to think when he gets home? He’ll be home any minute. Oh, and by the way, I was just cooking. No fires. I’ve got all the windows open to let the smoke out.”

Naturally, when the firemen found out what she was cooking, they invited themselves over for Thanksgiving Dinner (which I’m OK with. There’s going to be so much food. And firemen typically have nice bodies. I can say this because my husband has me watch wrestling with him and that is filled with ripped guys in teeny-tiny trunks. What, does he not expect me to look? Please, it’s so not all about the wrestling for me! I watch it for the “articles.” Yeah, that’s it!)

In the meantime, Mom, you’re a great cook, but as someone who reads the Bible, you should know this:


                 “Man cannot live on food burnt to a crisp alone.” 

Tonight I have decided to start a new writing project. It’s not that the previous one wasn’t working; I’m just suffering a bit of writer’s block.

As in I don’t have a plot.

Don’t get me wrong, I have characters. They’re great characters. And I know about them as individuals, I jus t haven’t decided how they are going to meet. Or why. (Well, actually, I do know. Sort of. It’s just really confusing.)

In the meantime, I had another idea. Again, I’ve got my two protagonists. I know who they are (for the most part) and I even think I know how they come into contact, I’m just not entirely sure what’s going to happen once they meet.

Oh the life of a writer—it’s just so frustrating.

It really helps when I get in the right writing mode. What follows is my writing checklist:

·         Comfortable clothes – CHECK

·         Candles and incense lit – CHECK

·         Glass of coke – CHECK (sort of—it’s missing the caffeine, but then I would like to sleep tonight. I think…)

·         Music – CHECK

·         Writing exercise – not yet

While it’s fun to just sit down and write cold, it usually works better when you have an idea. And since I sort of have an idea, I can almost just begin. But tonight I decided I would dig through some of my writing tools (since I have a lot—as in so many I will probably never use them all (unless I move to a cabin in the woods with no TV, XBOX, or internet and only have my computer, music, candles, and a year’s supply of Coke Zero then I could probably get through them. Well, maybe I’d need more than a year’s supply of Coke; let’s go with 3 years. Also, I don’t know how well I’d do with people around. Maybe only on weekends I could see my husband? Also, in this fantasy/alternate reality I don’t have kids yet. Clothes would be optional and I’d still be able to go for walks and jogs out in the woods (I think I would wear clothes for that part, though), and I’d swim regularly in the lake that my cabin would be beside. Hmm, and maybe it could have mountains, too. With mountain lions. But not mean ones, friendly ones. And they’d stop by for visits and I’d feed them dry cat food (sometimes mixed in with the wet stuff, I suppose) so I could get in a bit of a cat cuddle without my allergies acting up too badly. Yeah, that could work. Also, I think I’d want a dog that takes care of itself and only comes to visit me when I’m on breaks. And also, this dog doesn’t shed. I’ll call her Kamme. Ooh! And we can run together, and go for swims, and howl at the moon together. No, just kidding. I wouldn’t howl at the moon, I’d probably just make faces at it…Hmm, I already miss my husband, though. Sure, I’m having a good time with Kamme and my mountain lions, but I think I’d need to see Ryan more often than on weekends. And my step-daughter, I’d miss her too much. But no distractions other than that. And I wouldn’t mind it being dark a lot so that I could use my candles more often, but not all the time, because I don’t want to get depressed due to lack of sunlight. So, maybe I should move to Nunavit or Yukon? I’m sure they pay well up there. As long as there aren’t vampires, unless I get to have magic powers and my mountain lion friends can save me regularly from them. Yup, I think this could work. Yeah, then I really do think I would get through all of my writing tools (Ha! I bet you thought I forgot what I was originally talking about! Take that, non-multi-tasker/tangent –talkers!) Now I have some parenthesis to close (Two should do it. Plus this one.))).

OK, well, I might have just got my writing exercise in after all.

What I was going to say was that I will choose one of my books, pick the topic for today’s date and write for all of your reading pleasure. Maybe I still will!

September 21: “Write a daydream.”

Ha! That's awesome! I can honestly say that I did not look at the topic before I began babbling about life with mountain lions and living in an awesome cabin in the North West Territories or Alaska. Honest. That just means less writing.

 So…

·         Writing Exercise – CHECK

Sweet, now that I’m done, I can go watch TV or play XBOX. Awesome.

While reading my book about weeds (cleverly titled Weeds!) I stumbled on the page devoted to poison ivy. Oh the memories.

When I was young, my mom took me to FortWhyte Centre (now FortWhyte Alive). It was just the two of us--mother-daughter bonding time. We took a guided nature walk.

Believe it or not, I used to be really quiet. Audibly, I still am--hence the reason I've tried voice lessons and projection classes. Maybe I just don't like yelling. Anyway, while we were on our walk, we passed this lovely plant with white berries. I asked the guide what they were. Naturally, me being so quiet and timid, he didn't hear a word I said.

We walked a bit more.

Then we came upon some more of those pretty berries. I asked again.

He still didn't hear me.

I don't know how long that went on for, but eventually I decided to do something bold. I picked several of the berries, walked to the front of the group, tugged on his shirt and held out my hand, "What are these?"

A look of horror on his face, he immediately grabbed my hand and turned it over, shaking all the remnants of the berries. "That's poison ivy!"

Oops.

He made my mom take me back to the main building and wash my hands as thoroughly as she could.

Of course it didn't help. That's a horrible itch, too. Right on the palm of your hand. Luckily I didn't touch my face with that hand at all...

Oops again.