Literary Mom

My Cup Runneth Over

I actually didn't know it was Grey Cup weekend, until I found myself in the midst of the festivities on Saturday, but I did have a fairly cup worthy weekend of my own.

My last post was about our "Enchanted" Friday night. Saturday we had parent/teacher interviews for the Gaffer and found out that she is as perfect, smart and brilliant as we already thought. Apparently she is also quite creative and musical so I think her parentage may come into question if this continues.

Following the pre-school parenting pat on the back, I took the little Gaffer and her big sister Mlle Jensaispas to get our hair done. No matter what is happening in life, a little hair wash and blow dry can always either pick me up or put me right on the top.  Spoiled me got to go to a very fun birthday celebration in Yorkville following the lovely hair and dutiful Mr. Husband picked up the kidlets.

 

This is my very funny and talented birthday-girl friend Jacq and her friend Christian who had a friends and family party at his jewellery store, Daniel Espinosa at the bottom of the Four Seasons. The parking was so brutal and I had such nice hair, I sprang for the valet (which by the way is only 50 cents more than regular parking) and then quaffed a glass of bubbles with Jacq and her friends and found another sympatico chiquita in her buddy Janine.

Here are Christian and his sister Valerie, who sold us some lovely bling while we were playing.

Notice the fancy orange bags. Christian and Valerie are so nice and the store is so gorgeous I am doing a little shameless product placement.

To make it even worse, here's my neck with my new Daniel Espinosa bling - much more sparkly in real life.

But this isn't even the best part of the weekend. No offence Jacq baby...

Later that same night (notice the Sask. green?) look who I was this close to!!!!!!!

That's right ladies. It's Jimmy C.

Mr. Husband and I got a last minute invite from our great friends Ian and Libby to the CFL Grey Cup pre-party. We went to the Liberty Grand for cocktails while Jim and Greg and the rest of the Blue Rodeo boys played for us. Jim and I locked eyes and had a moment. It could have been a glazed stare from the power of the lights .... or not. 

We had pictures with the Cup, had a fantastic dinner, heard great tributes by Brian Williams and a hilarious stand up routine by Brent Butt of Corner Gas fame. The party was thrown by Scotiabank and I was almost ready to jump up and ask how I could get an account after the hilarious welcome from the bank's president, Rick Waugh. Then Ian whisked us over to the Convention Centre for a phenomenal show by Great Big Sea with the most energetic crowd I'd seen in a long time. Over half the people were in Saskatchewan green...not sure where the Blue Bombers fans were. I saw more Argos fans than anyone else.

For two months I had been  looking forward to this weekend because we had nothing on. By the time it was over we had been to more entertainment than some people get a chance to go to in a month. I am very spoiled, and very lucky to have such great friends who think of us when these opportunities come up.

Now that I have the hang of this picture thing, here's a few more.  Check out me, my bling and the Grey Cup.

The next four are Greg Keelor, Great Big Sea, Jim on the mandolin and the crowd at the convention centre!

 

                                                                                 

                                                                                    

Whew! This picture thing is hard! I hope you enjoyed them!                                                                                    

                            

Just when you think she's all grown up...

Actually, after 20 years of working with teenagers, I rarely think they are all grown up, but they do. Some of them think that at 12, like my buddy Sirtalksalot, but this post his about his big sister. Cupcake turns 17 on Tuesday, she has a part-time job, a full time, long term boyfriend, is in her last year of high school and is going to try and get her license on Wednesday. Last week I wrote all about her great adventure into booze buying - 4 pukers at the party and a lot of cleaning up, but apparently it was a success overall.

This morning I want to write about her birthday. Last night we went. She chose dinner and a movie. I held my breath as the movie choice came down, expecting our exciting birthday plans to go south right then and there with an argument as to why the restricted SAWIV was not a good choice for a family outing. Just as I was mentally composing my least authoritative response, she chose the movie - ENCHANTED. And reminded me all about the contradictions of adolescence. " I'm too old for you to tell me what to do." " I want to go to a G-rated movie for my birthday."  Now, secretly, I really wanted to see Enchanted as well, but since I am over 40, I think that is either called regression, or Disneyfication - an attachment to shows, characters and movies that remind us of either events in our youth, or the innocence and energy of it. (BTW - just made that up!)

I highly recommend ENCHANTED to anyone and I am disappointed we didn't take the Gaffer.  I would like to say who steals the show, but I can't because pretty much everyone has a scene strealing moment. I love that Disney has finally come out with a parody of it's own history of film without throwing in any innuendo and phallic jokes just to make sure the parents will bring their children.

And I love that our 17 year old wanted to do this for her birthday and was then just as excited to get an Eeyore mug from the Disney store as she was to receive her first gas card. 

I'm sure before today is over there will be some sort of early adulthood issue with which to deal but this morning as the Gaffer and I rise before all of the hormone producers and have an early rendezvus with Treehouse I'm going to smile about our girl who spent her Friday morning working on university applications and her Friday night with her family and Walt Disney.

Catholic Guilt

There is a great line in " The Commitments"(which you should see if you haven't)  where a poor Irish white guy is trying to channel the greats of soul for his saxophone and he wanders around Dublin chanting, "I'm black and I'm proud."  I have days where I wander around town with the mantra, I'm Catholic and I'm guilty.  This is one of those days.

I am the oldest (guilt!) the only daughter (more!) from a family with an Irish Catholic heritage (capital G), child of a very strict father, educated by nuns and a recipient of a virtual miracle - the unexpected and medically unpredicatble conception of the gaffer and her subsequent near-tragic but all's well that ends well, birth.

There is even a website for guilty Catholics. http://catholicguilt.net.

This, plus numerous character flaws leaves me in a state of constant second guessing and wonder. I wonder if it is too much to ask that no one else in the family touch my laptop, my clothes or wear my shoes to take out the garbage.

My battery of my laptop is pooched so I keep it in a corner of the dining room plugged in and ready to go. I have made a commitment to Jen and myself that I would blog more often and one way to do that is to have immediate access to my computer when I need it. Except I can never find it. Some minion usually moves it. Yesterday, after a 15 minute search, I discovered it under the couch in the basement and my window of opportunity had passed. Asking nicely has fallen on deaf ears. Freaking out was equally effective.

Last week, I went to the drastic step of password protecting my laptop so that it would not be worth anyone's while to move it. And now I feel bad...the guilt. Am I being selfish? Shoudn't i just roll with what's going on? Is it really such a big deal that my computer isn't  exactly where I left it!

OMIGOD!!! THE GAFFER JUST HIT A BUTTON AND I THOUGHT I LOST EVERYTHING SO I YELLED AND NOW THE BIG C.G. IS FULLY ENCOMPASSING ME.

She is off crying and I am wondering if it is my fault for typing in the am instead or arguing with Mr. Husband last night who decided he needed my password and laptop for his own devices at the same time I was getting ready to type this. I think this just makes me a patsy!

I am strong, confident, self-reliant woman, yet whenever I am in a disagreement with anyone I usually secretly think it is my fault. I constantly second guess my expectations of my step-kids and their lack of respect for my house and belongings. Yesterday, my car was scraped in a parking lot and I let the person go because I had scraped it myself a week before.

I go to church most Sundays and pray for patience, wisdom, absolution and a baby...but I have usually recounted so many sins of the week by the end of mass I feel badly asking for more gifts from God.

I'm exhausted, I'm annoyed that I went to support a friend at a funeral home last night and came home to a filthy kitchen, a teenager who washed her clothes but left all the other ones that could have gone in the load in the bag, an occupied computer and a scrape in my counter because someone couldn't be bothered to use the cutting board and I needed a rant. Now I'm going to go soothe my daughter, say my prayers and ask for patience, forgiveness and a bit of a backbone.

Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor

I promised myself I would get back on the alphabet bandwagon for my Thursday mothering alphabet series but I had such a surreal moment yesterday I just had to share.

Cupcake, my eldest step-daughter, came by my school for some university counselling with our most awesome guru on the subject. When it was over I promised to drive her to the subway so she could meet up with her friends and her boyfriend. The traffice was really slow and she said she had to be there for 4:30 or she would miss him so, being the wonderful step-mom that I am, I drove her all the way.

Of course, the cell phone started ringing - hers - and she began fielding some very interesting calls. My side of the conversations went something like, "Yes I have the money." "Don't worry you can pay me later." "He's going to get it today." "I'll have it for Saturday."

Naturally, being an overly-suspicious secondary school teacher, I said as light-heartedly as I could, "It sounds like your dealing drugs." chuckle chuckle

This led to a great swerve and dodge on her part and a conversation about the evils of ecstacy until the next call when she 'fessed up. She was having a party Saturday night at her mom's house (her birthday is coming up soon) and although her mother refused to buy alcohol, she allowed for it to be present as long as no one got out of control. There are so many conversations that can come out of that issue alone, but I don't envy her having to make those decisions and this blog is not about whether or not we should let kids drink.

It is about the fact that little Miss Cupcake was ordering breezers, mickeys and 2-6es (whoever heard of a 2-6, in my day they were twenty-sixers) from a friend's older brother while she was riding shotgun in my mini van. She even had a pretty little list in her agenda that was decorated with flowers.

There are all sorts of things I should have been thinking I'm sure. Mostly, I was remembering giving money to sketchy old men to buy us lemon gin at the liquor store beside Sporting Life that doesn't exist anymore and the time one of our 15 year old friends carried a case of Budweiser from St. Clair West station all the way to Sir Winston Churchill Park for our bush bash, with the police laughing and trailing him all the way. I asked her permission to blog this because it was so surreal and she laughed and said she thought that I had to. She did agree that it was a very awkward car drive, but we managed it with humour and we've had so many dinner table conversations about drinking and drugs and behaviour that a lecture didn't seem necessary at this point.

Underage drinking?  Rite of passage? Evil? Adolescent scourge? They'll do it anyway, I'd rather it be in my house? Who knows what is right. It takes people much smarter than me to know the answers.

These are the things I do know. We trust Cupcake, She has good marks, is responsible, rarely stays out late or past curfew, holds a part-time job, doesn't do drugs or smoke and has never come home falling down drunk or noticeably over-intoxicated. And she's honest, at least about buying her breezers!

PS - although not remotely connected to this blog, but never far from my day-to-day life, here's a link on a great article on msn.com today about adoption.

Weekend...What Weekend?

Friday night - Mr. Husband's firm's 35th anniversary celebration at the Palais Royale....I was seriously underdressed and rather self-conscious all night but champagne flowed at the entrance and the band was fantastic - Prairie Oyster Band!

Saturday 6 am - rise and shine in order to line up for the Random House warehouse book sale...love having friends who have jobs that have fringe benefits for me...bought 83 books which are still in the trunk of the car as I have nowhere to put them in already over-cluttered house, but just couldn't resist.

Saturday 6:45 am - driving book buying compatriot who is also a lawyer to book sale while she notarizes necessary documents for never ending adoption paper work

Saturday 7 am - phoned home to make sure Sir Talksalot was awake and out of bed for basketball practice and that Mr. Husband was up for his PD day at the firm.

Saturday 8-9:30 am - bought books...heaven for an English teacher

Saturday 10:15 - slunk into classroom at Humber College for Writer's Circle with Rona Maynard...great speaker about family and memoir...looking forward to reading her book My Mother's Daughter: A Memoir which I managed to buy at the book sale an hour earlier

Saturday 11:00 am - have first page of novel eviscerated by Kim Moritsugu (author of The Restoration of Emily) and Janie Yoon from House of Anansi Press

Saturday 1:00 pm head home dying for nap

Saturday 1:45 crawl onto bed

Saturday 2:00 pm at Loblaw's with Mlle Jenesaispas who would like to buy some groceries for baking. Since the Gaffer has been dumped on her for most of the weekend, it seems a small sacrifice.

Saturday 6:00 pm in cab back to Etobicoke for dinner party with ski buddies...fantastic meal, great friends

Sunday 12:05 am falling asleep on feet at dinner party while ping-pong tourney rages around me

Sunday 1:00 am crawl into bed, 3:00 am Gaffer wakes up

Sunday 6:30 am wake up in order to wake up Sir Talksalot for basketball game.

Sunday 7:00 am The Gaffer wakes up for the day.

Sunday 9:15 am stuck in stalled subway trying to make it to the Baby and Toddler Show.

Sunday 10 - 1 trying to help three awesome business moms throw greatest VIP party for mommas and kids and chat about the power and wonders of this community

Sunday 2:30pm got home, everyone out at basketball, fell asleep for 1 glorious hour

Sunday 6 pm - dinner with great friends, lots of fine and fantastic flank steak and Rosie Reisman low fat chocolate chip cake made by the dad!

Sunday 10 pm, crawled into bed to blog and wonder how it is I spent a weekend buying books for and about children, listening to a speaker about mothers, daughters and families and providing services at The Baby and Toddler Show yet spend little to no time with my own family.

Sweet Sixteen???

If you read the comment from Ellen on "D is for Driver and Daughter", you will know that we have a sister in need.  Ellen's daughter is turning 16 in February and she is looking for ideas to help mark this milestone for both mother and daughter in a more cost effective manner than those seen on the OC and 90210 reruns.

I have a few ideas but the combined knowledge of all of you super moms out there should be able to help Ellen out...please add yours in the comment section.

• create a spa day at home: pamper yourself and your daughters with foot soaks, facials, manicures and pedicures....have her invite friends over to do the same

                                     

• host a 'fancy dinner party' for just you and your family or for a few of her friends. Develop a theme, decorate the table, create menus to put out

• take her to get her learner's permit for driving first thing in the morning and then find a big wide space to let her drive around before you go out for a girls' lunch

• play hookey from work and school, go for a lunch that means something to the two of you and a movie in the middle of the day, throw in a mani-pedi at one of the more affordable nail places

Are there things your daughter especially likes, music or books that she is into???  Give us some more details and we will think up even more ideas. Won't we girls?

Spinning

The theme of the day is spinning!

Had my first spin class, lasted 25 minutes and crotch hurts so much can hardly sit down!

The Gaffer will only wear clothes that twirl, aka spin...makes for interesting morning dress time.

Tonight is parent-teacher interviews for my school, tomorrow is Mr. Husband's birthday, Neil Young tickets for Massey Hall are even sold out at the scalper level and there is not a Guitar Hero III in all of the city of Toronto...so the wheels of my tires are spinning as loudly as my brain as I rush around trying to get gifts that are elusive and the necessary dinner feast...which includes cheese fondue (which makes my stomach spin - yuck! and a Harry Potter Cake, chosen from Baskin and Robbins by the Gaffer!)

Final spin? The one around the house looking for the MIA digital camera with 200 pictures of the summer still on it that have not been unloaded so I can include pictures here, alas...no luck!

PS - 24 days, no internet...spinning deep into the vortex of no return...aaaaahhhhhhh!