Inadequate Materials

Between Christmas and the New Year, I decided to treat myself and subscribe to In Style magazine for a year. I like clothes and makeup and all things girly, so it seemed like a fun thing to look forward to receiving in the mail every month. And it is. But I have some complaints, and I think they have more to do with ME than the magazine. WHO?! : In my teens and 20's, if you named a celebrity--a singer, actor or anyone famous for anything --I'd have been able to pull up a mental image and a list of things they were famous for. Today, I flip open the pages of my magazine, see an actual picture of a celebrity with their name printed underneath, and I STILL have no idea who the hell I'm looking at! Kristen Stewart --hmmm...name sounds familiar...is this someone I went to high school with?! Judging from her youthful photos, I'm guessing not. At least HALF the people featured in this magazine elicit this response from me now. Apparently, I really need to get with the program...

Spring is upon us! How do I know? I walked around my soggy, melting backyard today and picked up six (6) gallon-sized buckets of dog poop! Next lifetime, I get goldfish. And a mansion. And staff. Rosemary's Baby has discovered a fun new game. He sneaks into the boiler room in the basement, climbs up onto the water heater and turns off the tap. When I go to turn on the hot water in the kitchen and nothing comes out, I panic for a few seconds, thinking the well's dried up. Then I trudge down to the basement to turn it back on again for the umpteenth time. Honestly, it's like living with Curious George . It's no wonder that monkey's roommate dressed like an escaped mental patient. In other news, I have figured out something wonderful! Last week I returned my new Tassimo machine. After months of wanting one, I finally just decided I deserved a treat and bought it for myself. But it took approximately two minutes for me to realize that each coffee comes with a side orde...

I am a fossil. I knew I was a little behind the times when I was the only person in town without satellite TV or a game system, but I just put it down to being frugal and a little on the hippie-dippie side. But after visiting my siblings and seeing how much my kids loved the video games, I decided I was going to finally get with the program and go get them a Wii. So off I trotted to Zellers. When I had trouble locating the Wii console, I asked the lady behind the counter to point me in the right direction. She looked at me like I had horns growing out of my head and said they didn't have any. So I went to Wal Mart. Same thing happened there. And then again at Future Shop. It was at about this point that it occurred to me that everyone in town must be sold out, so I went home to order one online. To no avail. Apparently this Wii shortage has been a very public problem for some time. I had absolutely no idea. I probably should've just stuck with a nice, safe jigsaw puzzle. That...

Remember back in the 70's when your neighbours came home from vacation and invited you over to see their slides? You'd have to either say you were busy and then sit in your living room all night with the lights off and curtains closed, or you'd have to go over there and look at 378 pictures of them in Bermuda shorts, all the while pretending to be interested. Thank heavens for the age of the internet! Now you can be bored stiff in the comfort of your own home! A few of you have asked how the vacation went. My stock answer is that it was both awesome and exhausting. I'm glad we went, but I'm also glad to be home again. Oh, and for all you kind folks from the tri-state area who warned me not to get excited because North Carolina was freezing in the winter, you are cordially invited to come visit me here in Manitoba next January! Hotels and airports were the definite downside of travelling with kids, especially when one kid has special needs. Rosemary's Baby was e...

Back when I was a journalism student, I had a photography teacher who was an absolute nazi about us taking photos with signs of any sort in them. She said writing would draw the reader's attention away from the focus of the picture. And she'd dock us marks if we handed anything in with a sign in it. Stephen Shore , on the other hand, captured the essence of the American experience in his iconic images of road signs. Community college instructor who was late getting our final marks in because she couldn't tear herself away from Doom , or master photographer who pioneered the use of colour in his art? Hmmm...who do I trust? So, I decided on this road trip that I was going to capture as many interesting, funny and frightening signs as I could. The Captain was a real party-pooper about it, refusing to stop every fifty feet so I could get out of the car and get a proper shot. As a result, some of these images are VERY blurry. Thank goodness Stephen Shore doesn't read my blog...

I'm back! And I have enough blog fodder to keep me going for weeks! I'll try not to bore you all senseless with tales and photos of my family holiday, but be warned that this kind of thing only happens to me once every five years, so it's very feasible I'll still be talking about Vacation 2010 well into April. For the moment, I will just tell you that I have a theory about why the Minneapolis airport is actually called the "Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport". It's because when you have a tight connection to make with two small, tired, cranky children in tow, you get off at a gate in Minneapolis and have to walk, then ride the walkway (three times), then take a tram, then walk some more, until you get to your gate in St. Paul ! After 14 minutes of brisk walking, Firstborn and Rosemary's Baby very nearly staged a mutiny right in front of a crowded TGI Fridays. It's interesting how vacations work. When my plane took off this morning and I...