The Gospel According to Mark (W.)

Overheard:

Avril: Do you want to know what my parents were going to name me if they didn't think of Avril?

Us: What?

Avril: Darlene! Can you IMAGINE? Me? As a Darlene?

Me: You are so not a Darlene.

Avril: Is ANYONE a Darlene?

Mark: (deadpan) Darlene is a perfectly fine name…if you're born when you're 40.*

*We all fall over laughing at this.

Note: it's AY-vril. Not AV-ril.

Practising for Retirement

So.

We are still snowed in. As much as I *thought* I looked forward to a day or two being unarguably house bound, I find myself resenting it, just a little bit.

The Boy finally made it home today, after being snowbound at a friends house for the last 2 days and nights.

The Road is still a disaster and currently The Neighbor We've Never Actually Talked To is attempting to tackle the vicious drifts with a puny little snowblower.

Good luck with that, then.

I was able to work from home today, and am happy because I would have been anxious about the projects I am managing. So that's good.

J. and I had the house to ourselves all day Sunday. It was as if life had suddenly fast-forwarded to give us a glimpse of our life 30 years from now. At home, making home made chicken noodle soup, tv tuned to either the History Channel, or Discovery, watching the weather, commenting on the weather, talking in depth about the weather, swearing at the weather, entertaining neighbors, tending to our menagerie of pets, and worrying about our kids.

I'm cool with a life like that in 30 years. As a matter of fact, I look forward to it.

B-L-I-Z-Z-A-R-D

Being that we live in Saskatchewan, Friday’s forecast of snow over the weekend didn’t surprise anyone.

So last night, when The Boy asked if we could drive him to Lumsden to meet a friend (who lives on a farm about 15km on the other side of Lumsden), we said “sure”. The 11km drive to Lumsden was uneventful. The highway was snowpacked, but we drove slow, and got home safely.

The wind started howling somewhere around 9pm, which is about the same time as the snow started travelling in a predominantly horizontal position. It blew like the Big Bad Wolf all night, and we woke up this morning to a white out. It’s now 5pm, and the wind and snow show no signs of letting up. This is problematic for several reasons:

1. Our driveway has a 6 foot drift directly behind the garage doors. Although we’ve discussed buying a snow blower in the past, we just never got around to it. And that 6 foot drift? Is just the concrete pad of our driveway. I’m not even going into the condition of the other ONE HUNDRED METERS of driveway that would get us to the arterial road.

2. New neighbors of ours, a sweet, young, newly married couple, who moved a 100 year old house out of a disappearing Saskatchewan town (thus saving it from being abandoned) to our street, tried to climb the hill we live on in their HUGE TRUCK and got stuck in a 4 foot drift. Our Volkswagen’s don’t stand a chance. The SYNMC came over this afternoon, and we lent them pants while theirs flopped around in our dryer for an hour. They might be sleeping over tonight. Yay! A real life sleepover!

3. Our other neighbor, a very generous and all around good guy to have around, has a Bobcat, and offered to help them dig out. (in addition to having a Bobcat, this neighbor also has a glass eye. Which I once held in the palm of my hand. But that’s a story for another time). The snow is so deep and heavy that the bobcat got stuck and Mr. Glass Eye walked home. So just to review, we now have one HUGE TRUCK and one BOBCAT stuck in snow drifts on the one and only road that links us to civilization.

4. Our Closest Neighbors and Best Friends, are stuck in their house with their nineteen month old grand daughter whom they agreed to babysit last night, and are shockingly low in the diaper supply area. Potty training may begin earlier than planned…

5. The Boy, who we’ve now agreed will spend the night at his friend’s house on a school night, is VERY CONCERNED about not being able to get to school tomorrow. Because tomorrow, he is scheduled to write his first ever final exam.

6. J. has strep throat, and has not improved since Friday. I wish we had gone to a walk in clinic yesterday, but J. refuses to see anyone other than Dr. K., whom J. admires for his gruff truthiness.

7. It’s Cadbury Easter Cream Egg season and if there’s one time of year I love, it’s when there’s CECE’s at the gas station. I ran out of CECEs yesterday. Pooh.

8. My work needs me. And I need it. I called my bosses this afternoon at home, (oddly, it didn't feel that weird calling my bosses at home...) and lucky me, that they're so cool with life circumstances. Looks as though I will be working from home tomorrow, as will J.


Spring cannot come soon enough.

Happy Birthday

There is a person, whose birthday it is today.

And due to time, and distance, and mistakes, and history, shortsightedness, hurt feelings and misunderstandings, I am unable to wish a Happy Birthday directly.

But, if there is one thing I want this person to know, it is: that my wish for her, not only on her birthday, but every day, is everything she wishes for herself.

She deserves to have her Happily Ever After...

And because of our shared journeys, no matter how long ago, I will always think of her as my "best friend"...

So Happy Birthday, B. I love thee.

xoxo

Why Unilever is on My "Rhymes with Spit" List

I have this amazingly talented and smart friend who is working on developing a business idea, that I am telling you? Is going to revolutionize the television and film industry.

She named her company this extremely appropriate name, which kind of rhymed with a Unilever product.

Now, I might say, that due to the difference of product (apples to africa), no one in their RIGHT MIND would ever confuse the two products.

But Unilever, being the huge ugly conglomorate it is, attacked her after she legally registered the name. Made her spend $1000 on American and Canadian lawyers every time she had to respond to their incessant "cease and decist" letters - and, in the end, forced her to change the name of her business.

So to Unilever, I say this: Although I immensely admire your Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, it's never cool to be a bully, and as such, YOU SUCK.

And just so you know? Perhaps you should consider a name change, yourselves.

To: I CAN Believe It's Not Butter.

Will Wonders Ever Cease?

A few days ago, J. and I received our Revenue Canada tax packages in the mail.

The Government of Canada sends us tax packages every year as a favor, to remind us that they'll still be expecting our yearly contribution.

Tax time is a very exciting time of year for Revenue Canada. You can imagine how slow it would be in the "off" season, what with no taxation going on. It's so slow, in fact, that legislators once proposed that the entire Revenue Canada Call Centre workforce get reassigned to Saskatchewan's pothole filling department, in an effort to boost it to three.

Anyhow, in an effort to make the Canadian taxation process as easy as possible, have devised a literal library of helpful "guides" which are available, for free, at any Canada Post outlet. Canada Post Outlets also sell stamps.

But due to the size and complexity of the Revenue Canada Tax Guide, Revenue Canada recommends that only Canadian Citizens who hold a Masters Degree or higher, and and who have access to 3 tonne trucks should attempt to make sense of the guides and/or take them home.

The rest of us, they say, should take our highly confidential income information to the highly qualified high school drop outs at the nearest H&R Block Brach.

Lucky for me, J. happens to hold a Masters Degree or higher. It does not matter that J. has a degree in (and I am not making this up), Unsaturated Soil Mechanics. Being that he's a pretty smart dude, when last year, he "suggested" that he could save us $29 whole dollars, rather than give it to H&R Block, and prepare my income tax at home, I readily agreed and mentally started wondering where I could spend my unbudgeted almost thirty dollars.

Well. Imagine my surprise today to find a letter in the mail from Revenue Canada, stating, very officiously, that after reassessing my income tax from last year, they found an ERROR. Shit, I thought. I shouldn't have spent that $29.

On the contrary, the letter said. You have a FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLAR deposit going into your account.

Also, they stated, I was entitled to INTEREST on the FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS, which would be considered "income", so I was to include it on line 56,583 of this year's return.

Imagine! Revenue Canada GIVING MONEY BACK!

After this latest development, and for the fine and outstanding work they do, I purpose raises for the employees of Revenue Canada. And may all three of them have a healthy and productive Tax Season.

The Most Amazing (Secret) Scrambled Egg Recipe, courtesy of The Girl

Ingredients:

8 eggs
1.5 tsp *************
2 tsp ********** ****
1 pinch ***** ****
1 pinch ******* ******
2 tbsp ******

Instructions:

1. Get eggs out of fridge.
2. Crack them.
3. Put in secret ingredients.
4. Mix it all together.
5. Put some milk in.
6. Cook them using top secret cooking method that may or may not include enough ****** to singlehandedly block an artery.

***** and ****** to taste.

Serves 4.

The End.

A sampling of conversations I've had with the vets office, begging an emergency appointment:

1. Isaboo has a tick! No, I can't remove it because IT IS ON HER EYEBALL.

2. Isaboo has a rat! IN HER MOUTH. (Turns out that by bringing both Isaboo and the rat carcass into the vet that it was actually a pocket gopher - WHICH IS THE CLOSEST THING POSSIBLE TO A RAT.)

3. Isaboo's leg is broken! She's not walking on it! She's holding it up by her head!

Do you want to know about embarrassment? Izzy had somehow, in a feat of supercanine dexterity, managed to get her front left leg up underneath her collar - thus just immobilizing her leg, not breaking it.

Of course, had I figured this out BEFORE arriving at the vet's office with tears running down my cheeks, I could have AVOIDED the humiliation of the vet collapsing onto the metal examination table in fits of laughter after unceremoniously removing Izzy's collar and freeing her paw. Izzy, not able to refrain herself, proceeded to roll over and smother the vet (who as still slapping the table while hooting and hollering) with doggy kisses - upside down, little furry legs waving happily...

Proust Questionnaire

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Waking up slowly onto crisp sheets in the arms of the one I love to a clean house and our lovely children.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

My impatience.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Giving myself the time everyday to bathe in the tub.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Kindness, humour, intelligence, all the traits of my paternal grandfather, and the man I married.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Loyalty, humour, adaptability. Openness.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

“True Story” and explatives.

When and where were you happiest?

Right this moment I'm happy, but I’ll remember 5:27am, 27 August, 1995 and 3pm, 21 December 2007 until the day I die.

Which talent would you most like to have?

Portion control.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

My frantic nature.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My marriage, and our children.

Where would you like to live?

Anywhere other than Saskatchewan in winter. California, Costa Rica.

What is your most treasured possession?

My wedding rings. My mother’s things. My grandmothers things.

Who are your heros in real life?

My family. I do admire them very, very much.

What are your favorite names?

Amelia, because I remember hearing my mom say it.

Anne, Anthony.

What is it that you most dislike?

War. Illness. Frustration.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

A blackbird. Or my own cat.

What is your greatest regret?

Not spending every waking moment with my mother when she was sick and dying.

How would you like to die?

Old. Very old and without regret. And without any pain, if possible. And slightly drunk, while we’re at it.