Monthly Archives: August 2008

Staying Up Late to Watch Bad Films


Despite vowing we would get more sleep this weekend, Rob and I were up until 1 AM watching the dvd, Running with Scissors. Did you know it was actually nominated for a Golden Globe? I can’t imagine why. It was a hodge-podge of quirky characters in what amounted to a montage of scenes that almost, but never quite, tells a whole story.

Note to self – the only reason to stay up late is love making. And on a further note, it is really the only truly good reason to get up early as well.

Being a geek, I was driven to google Augusten Burroughs to ascertain whether the novel he wrote was as crappy as the movie made from it. I discovered a blog, a Wikipedia page, and this YouTube video. All of which has convinced me that I need to finally work his novel into my reading rotation. I have a copy. My BFF gave it to me for my birthday two years ago, but I was never moved to read it. My own life was drama enough then. I didn’t care to know about someone else’s true life woe.

You might wonder why I bother to research and report on the author of a memoir that was a predictably shit movie, but I find writers quite interesting. I love to know about what brought them “to the show” so to speak. Where did their book come from? How do they feel about the process and what is that for them?

One of the entries in Burroughs’ blog discusses his response to being asked about fame. In his reply he notes that the death of his best friend and former partner has tempered it in a way I can relate to. It simply is not that big of a deal in the light of everything else. Much of his perception changed and he didn’t care as he once did. Funny how widowed crop up in my life sometimes.

Anyway, tomorrow be sure to drop by to read a short (very short) piece of fiction I wrote in answer to a writing prompt on the blog of one of my husband’s semi-regular readers. It’s not bad but I am going to beef it up and change a few things before trying to find a magazine to send it off to.

Recycling and Time Management


Canadians are big on returning their cans, bottles and tetra packs. I am not sure whether it’s a dedication to the environment or the conflicting nature of their relationship with money that drives them*.

If it is liquid here, it’s taxed. Given the the overall distaste for letting the government have any of their money, Canadians return their drinkables – and other people’s too.

Unlike Iowa, where I used to live and returns for deposit were taken back to the grocery, here we have “bottle depots”. These separate businesses collect and refund a fraction of the deposit to the consumer. The return is so small – fueling my cheap theory – that it is hardly worth the effort of rinsing and storing and hauling to the centers, but people do it anyway. Unlike us, however, most people I have seen at the bottle depots wait until they can fill the backs of their trucks and SUV’s before making the trip. I have even seen vans stuffed with stuffed garbage bags**. It’s the only way to make this pay, but I couldn’t stand the pile-up. Of course with us it would take months and months to accumulate a truck load even given that we must go through more rice milk tetra packs than anyone we know given the lactose situation in this household.

Visiting the Bottle Depot in The Fort is always an adventure in waiting. The drop-off is behind the building and accessible only through a narrow drive that semi-circles it and once you drive into the loop – you are stuck for the duration. There is no backing up and out or scooting around vehicles ahead of you. There is simply no room to do that.

The business is operated by immigrants – Chinese, Rob thinks – which is no surprise.  Many of the less desirable jobs and services fall to enterprising people from elsewhere when you are in boom times. The place gives off a sticky, smelly, bug-crusted feel from the goop covered table out front to the stained cloth bins that are visible from the drop off window.

The owners are very stringent about closing time, ordering waiting cars to back up and leave when they perceive they are in danger of missing that deadline. However they are loose on the concept of opening. I guess if I were doing such mind-numbing and dirty work all day, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to open my doors either. Yesterday, as an example, the Bottle Depot didn’t open until about 10 minutes after the posted time despite the line of vehicles out to the street.  But I have lived in Canada long enough now to recognize the lax Canadian mind-set on time when I see it.

Canadians believe time is fluid. Arriving anywhere for any reason on time is a concept that in my experience only Mexicans are more liberal with.

My sense of “when” and my punctuality has not been improved by living here. BabyD, for example, is the girl whose mother never gets her to school on time.

It’s funny how you get used to things. So much in Canada is just a hair off my American experiences that it still gives me a Bizzarro world feel though.

* They will spend money on Holiday trailers and multiple vehicles and acreages – gawd they are insane for faux country living here – but they will cheap-cheap over GST and text messages and at the check-out in the Safeway for what amounts to pennies.

** Soda and alcohol returns mainly. Stuff we only rarely consume.

A Week in Review: August 18th thru the 22nd


Globe and Mail writer, Christie Blatchford, was moaning about blogging and bloggers in Thursday’s paper, so in her honor I have decided to write the most banal of all blogging pieces – the update on my life.

I find “real” writers’ abhorence of blogs and their laments about the decline of “real” writing and journalism amusing. Newspapers long ago succumbed to the tabloidy tricks that placed selling above content. Print will never be able to compete with cable news channels and the Internet for timeliness of delivery, and when it comes to depth of topic, the political blogs have the edge and the freedom. Everything evolves. Just ask Darwin.

Besides journalists with blue-blooded leanings make lousy bloggers anyway.

So read along as I squander my finite word bank* by committing to the blogosphere my “most idle thoughts and mundane obeservations”**

My funked up mood from earlier in the week has cleared up thanks to a near complete abandonment of my schedule. No gym. Late lunches. Later suppers. No manuscript.

I just did as I pleased, and oddly it pleased me to reorganize the bathroom closet and search out the source of the fouler by the day odor in the cabinet where the dry goods are kept. The former is still awaiting final purge approval from the husband and the latter turned out to be a sack of something that had reached the gelatinous stage of decomposition therefore defying labeling attempts by both Rob and I.

I attended writing group on Tuesday evening and managed to be racially offensive to a potential new member of Cree descent. I didn’t do it on purpose but as I was explaining more of my novel to the group after reading the first several pages, I mentioned that one of the stories my main character tells is based on a family story. My grandmother’s great- uncle was the source of much concern when he was a toddler because a local native woman took quite the shine to him and hovered about whenever they ventured into town. The family, like most white immigrant settlers of the time, mistakenly thought she might snatch him. I could see the new member tightening as I told the story – even though I explained its origins and how it fit within my novel. I hate having to weigh words. I hate more that when people are offended they often fume instead of speaking up.

I finalized my writing course picks for the fall. Made out my yoga class schedule.

I prepared a new dish for supper.***

BabyD and I shopped. For her. She is quite the opinionated little clothes pony. While trying on a variety of pants, she jumped, pranced and wiggled – admiring herself in the full-length mirror as she did so. One pair of leggings left her standing completely still and not smiling. When I inquired about this, I was told,

“This pants don’t make me dance, Mom.”

A girl with her priorities straight.

While at the cute children’s clothes boutique, which is actually in The Fort, I overheard the owner mention she was looking for part-time help and I inquired. I nearly danced myself when she asked me to bring in a resume. Until I remembered that I don’t want to work for someone and that I dislike “service” work. Oh, and I am none to fond of the constant flow of humanity in the real world and that I find most things SAHM-ish incomprehensibly dull.

In fact now that I am sounding a bit more mommy-bloggish than I am comfortable with- let’s get back to me, shall we?

All deck work stopped this week. Rob and I are slightly fried around the edges and have just taken a step back from all the reno for this week. Sometimes one needs to surf the web and watch pointless movies in bed.

I got back to contributing at Moms Speak Up. Wrote a piece on Texas teachers being allowed to carry concealed weapons on the job. I won’t go into why this is the worst idea ever but if you knew some of the people I have worked with over the course of two decades, you would just take me at my word. I have yet to meet the educator who hasn’t uttered the phrase “It’s a good thing I wasn’t carrying a gun” at least once in their career – out loud and in the presence of witnesses.

Oh, and I have been reading. A novel.

Finally, I finished tagging my earliest blog posts from mid 2006 until about the time Rob and I started dating. Mostly very depressing widow stuff, but if that kind of thing interests you or you would like to know where I started my blogging journey, I am now easy to search under widowhood or grief. They can also be found under remarriage or long distance relationships or YWBB. Enjoy.

* Michael Farber of Sports Illustrated believes that writers have but a finite number of printable word combinations in them and to blog is to basically piss them to the wind.

** To quote Ms. Blatchford

*** That deserves its own paragraph. I am sure my husband can attest to the wonder of my attempting to expand my meager repertoire.