Stalemate

So apparently I am bitter.  Not only am I bitter but I am bitter and jaded.  Woooo…..them is fightin’ words.  So to get a little context here -  a friend of mine recently had a discussion with some guys about their search for the perfect girl.  These guys are in their thirties but seem to gravitate towards women who are younger than them.  When this was pointed out to them, they told her that they stay away from women who are the same age as them because women in their thirties are too bitter and jaded.

I don’t know why I should be surprised - there had to be a reason so many guys list 19-25 as there preferred ages no matter how old they themselves are.  And I thought it was that they wanted someone they could mold, and feel superior to.  Instead all along it’s been our fault that once we hit thirty we’re past our prime according to muslim male standards.

Well…I told my friend that us women have some steretyoes too.  The most prevalent one among my friends is that if a guy is single and still claims to be a virgin after thirty he’s on the downlow or impotent. 

I guess that leaves us at a stalemate eh?

The sad part of this is that there are a lot of girls who are looking outside of the muslim male population because of these types of attitudes, among other issues.  Muslim men have always known they have the option of marrying outside without raising too many eyebrows, but don’t worry we’re catching up.   

Women in their thirties, at least the women I know are far from bitter - they are vibrant, beautiful and full of joy.  Men in their thirties…well I guess they could have fasted a lot….?

Spring is here

The weather has finally turned and spring is in the air.  I spent the day out yesterday walking downtown and finding little park benches to sit on and enjoy the sun and a good book.  the city definitely comes alive in the summer - yesterday there were tons of people out on the paths jogging and walking their dogs.  I wish I had a dog sometimes…but then I remember that you still have to walk them when it’s -40 outside.  Maybe I’ll stick with fish.  A beta fish that swims round and round in a tiny bowl and doesn’t really require much aside from some food every couple of days.  A sign that I can’t handle too much commitment.  Tonight I went out walking again - I think we did 2km.  So much fun…and useful.  2km should be enough to burn off cake right?

Today I painted for the first time in a year too.  It felt good to go at it again.  I feel like my creative juices are running again after a long time.  Part of spring arriving is the restlessness that comes with it.  I always feel this way at this time of year.  Maybe it’s because everything seems to be in a state of renewal, including me.

Maybe I can finally convince someone to go camping with me this year.  D invited me last year to go with him and some friends but he is a boy and I was like what are you nuts?  Do you want me to get run out of town by my people? 

Randoms:

I miss the little ones - especially this little face…

I’ve been watching a good number of British movies lately - catch The Baker if you can.  It’s worth it.

I’m reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (I didn’t realize the church of Oprah had chosen it too, which is a good thing because I probably would have avoided it) and Sugar: A bitterweet history.  The first I am enjoying so far, the second is okay - the subject matter is interesting but it’s not very well written. 

And I am going to see if I can score this from the library at school - I don’t know if my passwords are still working.  It looks really interesting.

 

 

 

Milestone

I took the eleven year old out yesterday.  It was her birthday a while ago and I promised her a day all alone with auntie- without her siblings.  We had a good time - movie, bookstore, being spoiled by Auntie.  Typical outing.  Her Mom sent me an email when I got home that had me laughing.   A case of kids say the darndest things, guaranteed to have you laughing and trying to explain yourself at the same time.

Here is an sample of the emails going back and forth:

Mom:   By the way S mentioned to (her dad) and I that you are a “cougar”.  To this I just remained quiet and speechless - what exactly was going on in the car?

Me:  Ha.  Oh my God.  Chris Brown.  Very cute 18 year old.
        I happened to mention he was cute.
        S said he was sexy.
        I almost died.
        I told her I’d take him off her hands.
       She said “Auntie that would make you a cougar!”
       D almost drove off the road.
       I said “yes S…that would woudn’t it?”
       Big big sigh.  I am so old.

I don’t know what was more traumatizing - having her call the boy “sexy” or me a “cougar”.  Kids grow up way too fast these days. And I may have to start making Botox appointments.

I have a total bias against the big W

‘ A former Wal-Mart employee who suffered severe brain damage in a traffic accident won’t have to pay back the company for the cost of her medical care, Wal-Mart told the family Tuesday.’ (see entire story here)

This is why I hate shopping at Walmart and will only do so under duress.  I’d rather go to Zellers which never stocks their shelves or Giant Tiger which is….well Giant Tiger.

This is another reason why you should hate them: 

 

 

 

The Colour Espresso Makes Me Suicidal…Who Knew?

Apparently choosing a colour requires some sort of emotional intelligence that I do not possess.  There.  I have admitted it to myself.  All those years of thinking I was a normal, stable person!  It’s so depressing -I may need two things of Haagen Daaz.

So the whole painting situation begins with me going with the worst shopping companion EVER to pick paint.  I thought I knew what I wanted - a light and cool colour scheme, but then changed my mind deciding to go for warmer colours.   For those of you who have been paint shopping you can attest to the fact that there are thousands of paint colours to choose from.  Seriously for a simple colour like red you can find at least 20 different shades.  So with Jazz huffing and puffing behind me I tried to decide what colours I wanted.  45 mintues later it was obvious I had developped some kind of colour dyslexia and which point Jazz turned into her alter ego Sasha ( who scares the living daylights out of me), and I had to choose a colour fast or risk losing a limb.  So I decided on a Parisian Taupe with White for the trim.  Light colours because the room was small, but still warm.

Home.  Heart palpitations begin because I am not sure anymore about the colour.

24 hours later most of the room is done.  I have done a fabulous job but the colour is not turning out.  The paint is still wet so I am not going to scream yet about how it looks like freaking BEIGE and not no Parisan Taupe!

Paint dries and it is a latte colour.  Which is fancy for beige.  I decide I need a bold colour for an accent wall because the thought that I am a person who would choose however subconsciously to paint their living room beige is enough to make me want to take up drinking.  Jazz and I go back to the store and look at colours.  Again the dyslexia, Sasha’s rage, my indecisiveness combine to make me go with an Iced Espresso. 

Home.  Iced Espresso applied to walls looks like well…brown on a wall.  I mean the colour’s nice, it matched the damn latte very well but oh my good lord - there was something about that wall that made me incredibly angry.  And then after a whole day of looking at it I got suicidal.  I moved my couch to the middle of the room facing away from the wall and I tried to tell myself that it was nice, that I did a beautiful paint job, that I wasn’t a moron, that it matched, that I wasn’t the most horrible decorator in the entire universe.  It didn’t work.  The brown seemed to be laughing at me…it’s the kind of colour that takes over your mind.  Everytime I got up and saw it I hated it more and more.  It got to be quite irrational really.  I mean who talks to a colour?  Then Del saved me by coming over and dragging me out for Thai food and promising me we could go couch shopping tomorrow.  She also assured me that she still loves me even though I suck at decision making.

So now  I need to decide what to do.  Do I prime over the brown and paint it the same as the rest of the room?  Do I choose another colour and hope I don’t hate it too?  I am going back and forth trying to decide.  I’ve decided to keep with the latte/beige/parisian taupe because there is no way I am painting the entire room again.  My whole body was killing me afterwards and I had blisters on my hands from all the work.  So that colour definitely stays.  It’s that bloody accent wall that’s driving me nuts.  All I know is it’s either me or that brown.  I am not going home until I have a can of paint in my hands.  I’ve always like orange…or red.  Or maybe I should just redo the whole room in a new scheme. 

Symptomatic of my life…indecisive, can’t commit, and deep down underneath all the bs someone who likes beige.  I deserve to eat vanilla ice cream for the rest of my life.

Spring Cleaning

I spent the day cleaning out closets, going through old bags of clothes and wondering how it is possible I accumulated as much as I do.  I also am tossing out some furniture – out are the chairs in the living room and some random bits of wood that I seem to have collected.

I have grand plans for my living room – a little bit of paint, a new sofa and we’ll be ready for spring.  If it ever get here.  The snow has been ridiculous this winter.  I almost drowned on my way to work  over the weekend.  And then because they didn’t plow the sidewalk had to walk in the road and I almost got run over by a massive snow plow.  Very stressful.  Although the snow is beautiful and when it snows it’s not cold at all – it brings back memories of pretending I was ‘Lost in the Barrens’ with my brothers.  We used to love playing in snow storms when we were little.

     

It’s almost asparagus season and I can’t friggin wait. I am so tired of eating mostly potatoes, kale and squash.  This eating locally thing can be a bit boring.  I cheated a few times I think with celery ( I cannot make soup without celery!) but I refuse to buy stuff from bloody Chile or Brazil in the dead of winter.  My eco footprint is already big enough thank you very much.  So April is when things start to get good around here.  The hydro tomatoes start in April too.  If you haven’t already realized I have a seasonal chart on my fridge.

AP came out with this article about drug particles being found in the water.   Are people just clueing into this now?  This is old news.  The question is what are we going to do about it?  Not much if will be done if you consider what the issues are.  Money and the pharmaceutical companies.  It costs lots of money to screen, test and properly filter our water supplies (and even then we can’t get everything) and just as importantly we need to stop overmedicating ourselves.  I wonder if people are ever going to realize once and for all that every step we take has repercussions.  We also need to take responsibility for ourselves, that doesn’t include popping a pill for every little thing.  I know as well as anyone how hard it is to quit smoking but it makes me so angry when I see people who are taking about 20 pills to deal with their crappy cholesterol, their crappy heart, their crappy lungs and their crappy blood pressure and they’re still puffing merrily away.  They could at least pretend to be ashamed of themselves. 

I found a website that will allow you to check if the products you are using contain harmful ingredients.  I checked out the list last night and the only one I really have to change is my toothpaste.  I already use pretty good shampoos and conditioners and I’ve switched to different body washes too.  Apparently my favourite lotions are not on the danger list - thank God for small miracles.  The all natural stuff is ridiculously expensive too.  I saw one for 65.00 the other day…I’d rather use the actual avocado than pay 65.00 for a pot of lotion. I actually found a really nice shampoo that is made in my area and uses only natural products.  It’s expensive but not unreasonably so.  I also want to switch to more naturally based household cleaners.  With my allergies as well as the toxic cancer causing agents abounding in most cleaners I think it’s about time.   My allergies have been pretty bad for the last two days.  Whenever I do a big cleaning I suffer for it.  I have a mask but it only helps so much.  This is why I need a maid.  Not because I am lazy or anything.

 

Ahhhh Shit

Today the cops finally tracked me down and served me with a subpoena.  I’ve ben avoiding them for a month.  Then today they sent a uniform to the house and I forgot I had put some zit blaster on my face in a strategic pattern to combat the uglies and good thing it wasn’t a cute cop or my life would really suck.  So much for being a good citizen – I know have to go to court to point out the little shit that caused all this mess.  And this time he will not be drunk and i’m sure will remember my face and one day I shall run into him downtown and he’ll mug me just for the hell of it.

Feck.

Bad Chinese, Good Italian

Went out tonight with a friend - ate really bad Chinese food.  And really bad Chinese food is unlike any other really bad food.  It’s really really really bad.  Should have gone for Thai instead.  To make up for it we went to an Italian dessert place and picked up some fabulous little tarts and some good coffee.  I gained 5 pounds from a tiny lemon tart, I just know it.  Oh well - more of me to love I guess.

We traded books tonight - and had some good conversation, mostly surrounding her wailing “why are men such jerks?”, and me nodding in sympathy.  The agonies of the mating process…but then I always think it’s nothing a good bit of haagen daaz can’t fix.  My friend is a little less shallow than me I guess.  But then she is a litte cracky - I mean his email was pretty normal, I don’t know where she got the stuff she was reading into it. Everyone knows men can be a little emotionally retarded - you just have to decide if you can live with whatever level they are at.  It’s like one of those scales…1= misfiring synapses but if I eat enough ice cream i can pretend you’re normal and 10= oh my god your parents are brother and sister aren’t they?

Poor little friend of mine.  And (drumroll please!) she is about to turn 30!!!  She was having a mild heart attack at the thought of being 30 and single.  I kept telling her it gets better after 30.  You’re older so you tend to forget all the stuff that was so important in your 20’s.  So if you want to marry a guy who is say a 5 on the scale of ER ( 5= were you shaken as an infant?), then go right ahead.  Some people call it settling , or you could call it an insurance policy.  Who the hell else is going to pick your arse up off the floor when you  fall going to the bathroom in the middle of the night? 

I kid of course.  I am way deeper than this.

Does gravol come in red heart shapes?

Today I ate a handful of little red cinnamon hearts and then promptly puked.  After a night of insomnia, some crazy vertigo and a rolling stomach I decided to call it quits for the day at 11h30.   If I can’t keep the cinnamon hearts down and on Valentine’s Day at that, what is the use of it all?  So I came home, popped a gravol and slept like a baby.  I woke to U busting in the house all worried about me.  She almost gave me a heart attack.   Apparently I didn’t sound so hot when I left her a message this morning and when she couldn’t get ahold of me (thanks to the gravol) she decided I was comatose or dead or something.  I’m not the only crazy person around I see…. At least I know if I’m ever in danger of slipping into a coma she’s got a key and she knows how to use it.

We are trying to plan a getaway next month - trying to decide where to go.  I wanted to go visit N in California, but there is no way I can down there without going to LA to see the family.  Right now may not be the best time to go down there what with the situation being what it is- U wants to go to Cuba and sit on the beach all day, which I am totally down with.  We’ll see what happens.  All I know is I need some peace and some sun.  

Valentine’s Day means “meh” to me, except an excuse for the above mentioned cinnamon hearts, but in honour of it (belatedly as it’s after midnight) I’ll post one of my favourite songs….

(I tried finding a version done by Sarah Vaughan that would embed but no luck - you’ll have to make do with Chaka) 

And here are a  few pictures of my loves:

                   

 Close-up of the newest member of the group!

In the Still of the Night We Are All Faced With Some Kind of Truth

Who knows when you will be put to the test - how you will do justice to all those lessons taught to you over the years.  Our nature is to want to pretend like it will never happen - our teachings exhort us to remember and remember often.  Years ago when we were told that my father had a tumour on his kidney, I was forced to come face to face with my fears.  I had to decide very quickly how I was going to let it affect my life, what my communications with God would be like and essentially what kind of person I had grown up to be.  You  try to learn to handle the earth shattering sadness you feel.  In the end, my father was very lucky and was subjected to a minor surgery that removed his tumour completely.   Now with the news that my grandmother has been diagnosed with kidney cancer I am faced again with the same dilemmas.  Which in itself is a sorry testament to my growth as a human being.  I wish I could be braver, and more certain and be able to breath “lahawla wala quwatta illabillah”.  I am ashamed not to be able to walk with a steady gate and a clear eye, knowing that the end we all fear moves closer to each of us every day.  Instead I feel sick and sad and helpless.  I reach out to people so they can warm me with their words- words I force them to say.  I realize too how easy it is to feel entitled to more.  When I tell people my grandma is in her 80’s,  they nod understandingly and for a second the thought drifts across my mind, “That is too young! She could see 90 easily…”  And I cringe immediately and am ashamed.  I hate to admit that I would think that when so many would give anything for half of what she’s lived.  How easily I demand from God His Mercy, His Healing, His Grace.   My Grandmother will be, if God wills,  okay - she has a localized cancer which is good.  She has a type of cancer that is, if you are going to get cancer, not one of the lethal ones.  Hopefully with radiation they will manage to keep it under control.  She will be at my cousins’ wedding in the summer.  She will sing happy birthday to us on each of our birthdays,  as she’s done for as long as I can remember.  I won’t have to watch my mother mourn hers yet.  But what kind of treatment will help me manage my inner self, make me a better person, and help me control those passions that threaten to engulf me?   After all these years I still wait for that sign that I can exhale, I wait to mature, I wait to die before I die.

If you come across this post please remember us in your du’as - pray for the healing of my grandmother and if you remember,  spare a thought for her wayward grandaughter.