Dudes

Over lunch today we decided that, unscientifically statistically speaking, internet dating has to pay off at *some* point. Not everyone can big a loser or have some fatal flaw. We decided the magic number is 10. In 10 dates there's got to be someone who is reasonably attractive, has a job and a place to live and their own teeth, and no intolerable personal habits or mannerisms.

10 seems a bit low to me, but we shall see. So far we have had:

1. Frisbee. He was socially acceptable, except for the spandex shorts, basically attractive though his upper lip was not too my taste. And a bit presumptuous - "that kiss (little, lame, quick) must have got your heart pounding". Surprise, yes. Passion, no.
2. Flicky. The post office dude with the spittle. Flicky because of his weird habit of flicking the very fleshy and separate lobes of his ear. Ew.
3. Toothy. Last night's dude, who decided he didn't want a relationship but rather just dating (AKA sex) and talked about how his ex never put out all night. Plus, when he discovered I drove to our "date" said he wanted to go… parking. Yes, parking, like park somewhere and make out. Ummm… no. He was too eager and basically unemployed and lived on someone's floor and laughed to hard and showed his teeth too much. If they were nice teeth, sure, but they were splayed out like someone had sat on his head when he was a child. Yuck. I have a tooth thing.
   

This weekend I am supposed to go out with Sergio the hotel dude. I will find a nickname for him once I meet him. Girly-man probably, due to his penchant for romantic comedies, holding hands and skipping though the daisies. That will be 4.

And don’t forget Earl the helicopter dude. He seems interested and is back from "Croatia", whatever that is code for, on Sunday. His pics are hard to judge but he seems to have a bulgy eye issue in one of them. Something weird is going on anyway. I fancy him as being like Fairycakes in my mind, but I think I will be grossly disappointed by the reality of the situation. He'd be 5 if it pans out. Half way.

Volume, my friends, volume. If nothing else I'll be able to write a dating book by the end.

Crazy cat ladies

In the spirit of general thriftiness and being willing to make an easy buck, I get these emails from time to time asking if I want to do a survey on X, Y or Z. Usually they don’t apply to me or it's $25 for a hour, which isn’t worth my while, so when the cat food one came up and they were offering $90 for two hours, I thought that was OK. I'd done on of them before (years ago) and it was sort of fun.

Right.

Got a babysitter and trekked up the Yonge and Eligible - roughly a 45 minute trip. Hmmm. That should have been a clue. I get there and there are eight other ladies waiting in the office. They look a bit… down-market, but hey, whadda you expect for a survey company? Anyway, we go around in the circle and introduce ourselves and our cats and the problems immediately become apparent. Some of my favourite personality types are there!

A. The long talker. She pauses before everything like she's about to make a life-changing announcement, and then goes on at long and slow and boring length about something so basic we get her meaning before she's done the first sentence.

B. The truly crazy. Her cat is her best friend, she has a hundred boring stories about it that she thinks were all dying to hear, and she has absolutely no concept of what a focus group is for. FOCUS group, people. Not group therapy. Not a advertorial for Walmart. Focus group.

C. The my-cat-is-special type. We had a couple of those. My cat is too old or too fragile to do what normal cats do. I would buy that but my cat can'tcope I like variety but my cat can't eat fish because of the ash the ash you know the urinary tract thing and the vet said about the ash the ash the fish the flavours aaarrrggghhh!

They could have paid me $200 and it would have been barely enough. I gotta give the woman who ran the group credit, though. She shut down the long talkers and the whack jobs just as fast as she could. I bet she just loves her job.

I will never misuse the term "crazy cat lady" again. If I use it on you, you're in serious trouble.

...followed by tremors

A multitude of tremors:

My child, sweet as pie on evening, awakes like the spawn of Satan, kicking his brother, throwing my stuff, using his attitude voice.

Me, starting the day in a foul mood due to said son and the ex who cannot seem to show up on time for love or money. Stomp, stomp stomp. I am a three-year old. Got to sit in my office all morning and listen to an ACIP webinar and finished the body of Barb's chicken to keep my hands amused. I've got to keep emergency knitting for days like this. It stopped me from killing anyone.

Actual tremor - 5.5 on the Richter scale, apparently. Centred in Ottawa but very noticeable here. I was in the library or I wouldn't even have noticed it. I was walking though the stacks and I though to myself, I really am too fat if I make the shelves jiggle like that. I stopped walking and they kept jiggling so I figured it wasn't me. Looked around and other people were looking around too so I figure it was a quake.
Not nearly as scary as being stuck in the possessed elevator last week though. I really thought I was going to die then, clutching poor Jackie's hand.

And another emotional tremor when I went to meet my psych gal today and she said they were going home "just in case" because of the earthquake - was that OK? Feh. I had the cloud of doom over me all afternoon after that. What, you call the suicide line and they put you on hold? That's how I feel.

Relatively peaceful evening, though. Thank goodness for small mercies.

There'll be peace in the valley tonight

Some nights just seem to fall into place seamlessly, and this was one of them. I wonder why? Maybe because I spent more time lecturing them about being nice to each other, about not *actually* hitting one and other and their friends. Calvin just seemed more at peace tonight. Less fractious, like the world was giving him the short end of the stick.

Whatever it is, I am delighted. This is what having a family is about. Letting them sleep under the desk if they want to. Making yogurt popsicles and saying they can eat them for breakfast. Showers instead of baths. Picking the big battles and letting everything else slide, especially when it doesn't matter at all.

And my central park came home. Phew!

Sing it with me, baby.

Another one bites the dust

OK, I really gave this guy the benefit of the doubt. He said he was average... and he was. Not fat. He has a job, a kid, seemed relatively intelligent despite poor poor typing skills.

But...

In person, he had some serious flaws. He talked a mile a minute (kind of like his multiple emails) and got...brace yourself... spittley at the corners of his mouth. OK to talk to, a bit too agreeable. but whatever.

Major flaw - manners. He had a drink when I arrived. Fine, but he had already paid for it, didn't ask if I wanted one certainly didn't offer to pay for it. He's a cheap tipper and bitched about the cost of the beer. And it was hot today and he was sitting in full-on sun when I arrived. He didn't ask if I wanted to move to the shade and he sat with his back to the sun while I had it full in my eyes. Never once took off his sunglasses.

Really? Can you make a SMALL effort? Would that kill you? You got an hour to make the best impression possible - and you didn't. Your mother would be ashamed. No wonder these people are single.

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My central park hoody might be a victim of the Tottenham bluegrass debacle. I left it in my brother's van and I'm scared to ask for it back in case he doesn't have it. All that Malabrigo... *sob*. All that work. Back and two almost completed fronts. Sigh. That'll teach me.

Philosophy 101

Here's a philosophical question for you. Actual responses encouraged.

Are people meant to stay together forever? Over the span of 10 or 20 years, it is reasonable to expect that people will change and grow apart?

If the answer is yes, who's responsibility should it be to deal with the fraying threads of the relationship? Let me rephrase that - why does it always seem to be the woman's job to stay "stable" for the sake of the kids, and the man's job to go off and seek happiness at the expense of everyone around them? Why does a man's happiness seem to be so pressing that they feel it's acceptable to make everyone in their previous life miserable?

Early 40's are bad times, my friends. Unfortunately this late-onset adolescence doesn't seem to be limited to a certain age.

Speechless

I am so sad and angry and discouraged and sad I can't even find any words. This is going to be a shitstorm.

Trauma

My kids both have night terrors. I don't know anyone else's kids who get this and sometimes I think my plate is just too full. Am I traumatizing them so much that they need to let it out at night? The books say no, but I don't know that I am convinced.

It's charming. They start screaming - usually No, no, no! or Stop stop stop! in increasingly panicked tones. The will stand up in bed and wave their arms like they're trying to grab something, or push something away, or...? I don't know. The best/worst part is that they (according to the books, and my experience) don't even know I'm there. I can't comfort them, calm them down, anything - they really don't seem to know I'm there. It's tough because they seem SO upset but there's nothing I can do. On the other hand, I just have to be there to make sure they don't hurt themselves. I say nice things occasionally (mostly just to feel like I'm doing something) but other than that I don't have to be concerned or sympathetic. Just there.
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I am spending the weekend at the Tottenham bluegrass festival with my brother and his two kids. I am trying not to think about all the things I should be doing instead, but having cleaned the most dire parts of my house today I have alleviated much of the guilt and plan to enjoy myself. Even if it is in Tottenham.
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I have a new victim on PoF. He has a kid and claims to be educated and literate, but his emails are BRUTAL. Run on, little punctuation, no caps, typos galore.. I freely admit to being a snob when it comes to communication and I called him on it. He said he actually could spell but couldn't be bothered to spend the time to do it "properly", and maybe he has a point. He spelled algorithm properly. Anyway, he's certainly interested - he sends me two emails for my every one (weird?) and he's not hideous and might be OK. Maybe I'll find out one day.
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And finally... I have been chosen from a cast of thousands, selecting the appropriate answers in not one but TWO questionnaires, to do a survey. It pays $90 for two hours which seems worth the trek to Yonge and Eg and a babysitter. But... it's for cat food. Yes, cat food. I've officially been certified as a crazy cat lady.

Officially on the wagon...ouch!

I purged my office of crap this morning (Hot Tameles? Really?) so I couldn't eat anything bad all day. What virtue. ETA I forgot - I ate the last two Lune Moons as part of the purge - does that count for or against?

Then this afternoon Miko and I instituted the Tame the Boys Plan - phase one. She took Jack while I took Calvin. They both bitched and moaned but I figured it would work out OK. HA.

Calvin had a 20 minute meltdown over the prospect of being taken away from his friends for a Whole Day, during which I contemplated the fact that someone smelled a lot like BO. Who could it be? Turns out, I realize with horror, it's him! My wee 8 year old. OK, so he was all hot and sweaty but he smelled like a trucker. Ew.

Anyway, I got him calmed down, we went out to eat, he said it was too noisy to do homework so we came home, where it allllll fell apart. Screaming fits about the homework. Crashing and throwing things. That old routine. Feh. So much for quality time.

Then Jack come home, declaring he DIDN'T have a good time and didn't want to go with Miko and didn't do anything fun. Liar, liar.

So, unmitigated disaster? We're doing it again next week, with roles reversed. It can't be any worse, can it?
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The love of my life on PoF is a smoker. Bummer. He didn't even care that I was fat. There goes another one back into the pond.

I drowned my sorrows with some chocolate I had stashed and several ice-cream sandwiches. I sure hope those are gone soon.

Inane remarks to put off snacking.

Ah, another weekend bites the dust. This one was quite harmonious! Maybe it's the vitamins, maybe it's the phase of the moon but Calvin and I seem to be getting along a bit better these days. Jack, of course, is a phase or two behind and is still trying to be the bad boy, but I can cope with him. He calls me mama when he's being sweet. How can that not melt your heart?

I gotta stop eating. Suggestions? Anyone know a good electroshock therapist? I keep having good intentions, but then I go to the grocery story and boxes of ice cream sandwiches follow me home. How does that happen? I have the body of a 55 year old man, complete with gut from underboob to gunt. I should be belting my pants under my boobs. Hey, weren't high-waisted pants coming back???? Maybe I could make a fashion trend actually work for me.

My little gardening experiment seem to be taking off. I have about 6 sprouted seeds and have transplanted them to soil. That should kill them off. I'm looking forward to the process of eliminating the ones with balls. Genocide? Homicide? Maleicide? Just plain sex selection? Hitler would be proud.

That old chestnut

So the last dude I went out with seemed mildly interested after the fact. He did get back to me, suggested we do something and when I responded then promptly ignored me for two days. I can take being ignored - I'm only a bit needy - but hey, if you're able to check your messages and read them, surely it wouldn't kill you to respond? Especially when you eventual response is less than a dozen words. WTF?

Another pet peeve: ... instead of proper punctuation. I like ... as much as the next person but it's no substitute for a period or a comma. You can't have one giant sentence with the ideas separated by ...s. Sheesh.
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I'm back on the chunky machine. Did the inside of the tea cosy...badly. Swatched for the sleeves of my central park hoody. I love that sweater. Too bad it gives me a headache to knit by hand these days. And I loves me that machine. I did the I-cord for the tea cosy in about 5 minutes flat. How long would it take to knit two feet of I-cord? For me, forever.

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Oh yeah. OK, I have general feelings if incompetence and inadequacy around pretty much everything I do. I realize that and I know it's not a particularly attractive quality and I work on it. But some days...

I got home from work today and my neighbour's unemployed single mom, friend is gloating about her new car. Not new to her, no. NEW. Seriously? I have a decent full time job and I still drive a 10-year old car poice of shit that won;t keep air in the tires and doesn't have a fucking radio. I don;t want to hear about your stupid key fob. WTF? Debt load, my ass. That's just irresponsible. Not that it makes me feel responsible. Nope, I just feel lame.

And then the neighbour who shall be nameless starts talking about her kid and how much he reads and he goes through books so fast and there's no point in buying them he'd read all night if she let him blah blah blah and I just want to fucking slap her. She KNOWS my kids both completely suck at reading and she does it anyway, all the time. She's supposed to be my friend - is she socially unconscious or is she really trying to feel better at my expense?

A gave me a smack in the head and said don't be stupid. I think she might be right.

Said children of mine are relative angels these days, I am delighted to say. I hesitate to mention it as we all know what will happen as a result, but WTF. I bitch about them so much I should mention the nice stuff too. Jack gave Calvin a big hug in bed this morning and they lay all snuggled up together for a micromoment. It warmed the cockles of my stony heart.

Pet peeves

Mute point
Peaks or peeks - as in my interest
Walla (this one enrages me for some reason)
They're, their and there
The fact that gmail won't load on my computer. iPod? Sure. Work? No problem. My GD effing home computer? No way. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Emergency switching to hotmail for now. (Oh oh oh! Just remembered I can try my other computer! Who knew I'd actually have a use for it?)
The itty bitty keys on my iPOD touch.
Shopper's Drug Mart having "family" sized chocolate bars on sale for $1
Evening primrose oil, which is supposed to reduce PMS breast pain and reduce swelling. Ah, no. It seems to have the opposite effect on me.
Hotdog buns in packages of eight
People who don't check/return emails
People who ask me to do stuff.

Have I forgotten any?

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I broke down and went to the dentist. $60 later, it turns out it's not 13 cracked teeth; rather just a few very tense muscles. A judicious application of Advil and some self awareness and it's MUCH better. Tends to flare at dinner and bedtime, go figure. (My right upper canine is now barking at me annoyingly, but if that doesn't go down in a few days, I'm back at the dentist soon anyway. Feels like root canal material to me. My teeth are such crap.)

Important questions

What's that bird that makes a chirping sound like an annoyingly yippy puppy? It starts just before dark and goes on for what seems like forever. Drives me batty.

I have done something unspeakable to the whole left side of my mouth - it feels like all the gums are really sensitive, plus I have a toothache in each tooth. Could this possible be from clenching my teeth? I dunno, but I shall have to go to the dentist if it doesn't let up in a few days...

Went on a real date last night, which went OK but I haven't heard anything from dude so it was probably a disaster. He made me play frisbee. Talk about a well-prepared dude, I guess he dates a lot. Actually, he told me he does so I am unsurprised by his slickness. He's got that Mike Green upper lip though, so I don't know if I can get over that. MG was one creepy dude. Plus, who wears spandex bike shorts on a first date? What ever happened to making a good first impression? One *can* bike in regular clothes with out spontaneously combusting, you know.

Weekends off are great. I slept in until noon today - what sloth! Then I cleaned the kids' rooms - even under the beds!, fixed Jack's light (which has been draped over the door to the closet and finally the handle of the closet) for months now so I thought it was time... I'm reeeaaaallly slow but I get there eventually. Planted snow peas, lettuce and cucumber.

Oh yeah! When I was buying the veggie plants, I sailed in at 4:45. It's one of those temporary set-ups enclosed by wire fencing for the growing season, set up in the parking lot of No-Frills and it closes at 5. Anyway, I pick my plants and go up to the cash to pay. However... not only is there no-one at the cash but the fencing has been chained shut! And it was only 4:50. I can't say I was hysterical or anything but I did wonder what the chances of me climbing the fence were like. Slim, I should think. Of course I happened to be wearing a skirt, how appropriate! Now I'm not the kind of person who will ask a perfect stranger to go find someone to let me out so imagine my relief when who should come along but Shannifer's sister, Andrea! I have never been so happy to see someone in all my life. She toddled off to ask the management about springing me and offered to stay with me till I was released. Fortunately just then the guy who runs it came back - just a pee break. Glad I didn't have to go all McGuyver on the temporary fencing. All that for five bucks worth of plants.

BM's pa seems to be out of the woods. Death's door one day and perky as hell the next. Isn't the body a mysterious thing? Colour me relieved.

(Wow but I lead a fascinating life.)

Grand Finale - moving on.

OK, I am posting this sort of reluctantly since I kind of feel like it makes me look like a mad psycho stalker, but WTF. If you haven't figured that out by now... ;)

When we left our happy couple, Daniel and Ange, they had merrily arrange to meet up in the Yonge and Eg neighbourhood in which Ange resides. Unfortunately, Ange had "something com up" and had to email Daniel to let him know she couldn't make it.

Darling Daniel didn't take it well. He thought she should have called him to let him know. Really? I was pretty sure that's what cell phones were for, but when you didn't call me to cancel and instead thought it was appropriate to use email, I thought I'd been mistaken and quit using mine. Ange sent him a quick message saying "I think I made my point." and then promptly blocked him.

I was tempted not to block him just to see what he would say, but common sense won out. I want him to be pissed, but not to make a cast-iron connection between Ange and I. I don't think that would be good. He could, theoretically, do the same thing again, under a different name, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume he's got bigger fish to fuck with. I have blocked him from my profile and deleted Ange's entirely.

End of story.
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Here is the modern equivalent of the plastic owl used to scare away pigeons: the rubber coyote, complete with hairy tail. These (apparently) scare away Canada geese so they don't leave nasty pile of goose shit everywhere. They are put in strategic location, and - get this - it's someone's job to move them around periodically!

Here he is, lurking outside our building (yes, highly illegal on-the-property shot.)



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The kids got to go rock climbing at the school fun fair last weekend. Jack was gung ho but bailed half way up.





Calvin made it up the "hard side" in about 15 seconds. He LOVED it.

Up:



And down.


It's a pretty sophisticated set up - it's all mechanized so they don't have a person on the other end of the cable, and if they let go they just hang. They grab the padded part of the cable and it lowers them slowly down. Pretty cool.
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Happy children. Upper and lower blocks have FINALLY united. We now have a zillion kids and two nets. Awesome.


The upper and lower blocks of our street have FINALLY united. We now have a zillion kids and two nets. Awesome.

Life Lessons

1. Don't drink on a school night. I went out for a pedicure/drinking night last night. Besides the odd company (one instant-drunk and one gal who actually passed out on her face. In the salon. I kid you not.) it was a lot of fun, but even with dragging my sorry ass home at 11, I still felt like death all day. I'm obviously too old for this.
   
2. Revenge is sweet. I have developed an alter ego - Ange the Angelic Angel - on PoF. She was developed purely to smite the arsehole that blocked me, and it's fun. Ange is blonde and likes wild sex. Otherwise I pretty much stick to the facts so I don;t have to remember much. Darling Daniel (we can upgrade him from dude now) seems to like Ange (as do numerous other men, due to Ange's proclivity for wild sex) and is happy to converse. Ange's lack of a picture seems to bother him though - he asked that I provide one next time I wanted to chat. So I have uploaded one, though I neglected to let him know. He can find out in his own sweet time. With any luck he'll suggest meeting up and then I can do to him what he did to me. I do strongly suspect he'd do it to Ange as well, but I really hope to get there first. Revenge IS a dish best served cold. EDITED to add - yes, Daniel is hot for the picture of Ange and suggested meeting up on Friday. Gosh, will he show? Will he cancel? Will SHE cancel? Tune in next time for the ongoing drama....
   
3. Men are dicks. See above.
4. Discretion is the better part of valour. I shall refrain from waxing rhapsodic about my latest conquests. They all seem to end up in the crapper anyway.
5. Honesty is not the best policy. A little judicious whitewashing of my actual views would probably attract more fish (pardon the horrible pun). I revised my PoF profile once, and I think I shall edit even more. It's like a cover letter, right? What you're aiming for is an interview where you can put your best foot forward.
6. Life is short - make the most of it. People seem to be threatening to drop dead around me. Not my peeps necessarily, but my peeps peeps. I don't like this - it makes me sad for them and makes me contemplate my own family's frailties. My skinny little boys were lying in bed this morning covered only with a sheet and I thought they looked like dead refugee children, lying on a street with a sheet tossed over them. So we celebrated the rain by watching Star Wars I and eating pizza. Peace and harmony reigned for the first time in weeks. If only it we could live on pizza and TV. And the best organic baby cukes from Fresh From the Farm. YumMy.