Wonder Woman

I prefer mittens to gloves. Sure, it's easier to dial 911 or pick your nose if you're wearing gloves, but with mittens you can really work on perfecting your chameleon walk. Helps to pass the time at the bus stop in the mornings.

For instance, Thursday morning I had to wait until 6:30 for the 6:00 bus - by way of explanation the driver muttered something about the bus not starting. I just rolled my eyes independently of one another and muttered back how glad I am to see my daily $5 contribution to Calgary Transit being put to good use, like vehicle maintenance.

Here in balmy Calgary the entire transit system keels over dead every time the thermometer strikes zero. And by "balmy" I mean "eight months of crappy," so I find it best to have a dedicated bus stop pastime. Now that it's winter again I'm getting so good at the chameleon that one actually came on to me the other day.

Or maybe it was just some guy with mittens. Tough to tell.

Anyways, you should know I suffer from a rare genetic condition known as Crazy Hair. Crazy Hair generally manifests itself in the mornings, so I often arrive at the bus stop with damp hair from trying to wash the Crazy out before I head to work. Thursday was a Crazy Hair day, and during my marathon wait for the bus I ended up with such a chill that I decided to leave my scarf on at work. Admittedly it was more Arctic Expedition than Downtown Office, and didn't really coordinate with my outfit, but if Lady Gaga can get away with a Kermit cape I figured surely I could rock a mismatched scarf until I warmed up.

The first person I saw said, "Ooooh, covering up a hickey?"

The second person I saw said, "Ooooh, covering up a hickey?"

By around the tenth person I decided to roll with it:

"Sure, why not. Having kids does wonders for the sex life."

Guess they couldn't read my poker face, because there was a long pause before an incredulous, "Really?"

Yes. Really. I wonders where it wents.

With next week's wintry forecast, I should have plenty of time to ponder that at the bus stop.

Mind Your P's and Moo's

I don't remember being taught about manners, exactly. I recall catching serious hell for throwing my pea soup on the walls and blaming it on my little brother, who was a) three and b) asleep at the time, so I knew for a fact that one was not to throw food no matter how much one disliked it.

On the other hand, my grandma's name was Mabel, so when she told me that rhyme about elbows off the table I thought it was just a story from her life.

So maybe my parents really did try to teach me, but I didn't register the lessons unless they were accompanied by a beating. Who knows where the blame lies, but the end result is that I'm still gleaning nifty tidbits to this day - Proper placement of cutlery when setting a table (age 16). Elbows off the table, for real? (age 18) If on a date, either all or none of the people involved may consume garlic (age 21). Napkin on lap (age 25). The fork was not intended for use as a shovel (age 30).

If you've ever been shocked by a revelation in etiquette (as I have), or been dumped due to lousy forking technique (which I can assure you I have not), you'll know the feeling: "How does everyone know about this stuff but me? And why didn't someone mention it before?" Fortunately, there are plenty of resources available to the decorum challenged, so if you really want to discern the correct placement of the tin of chunky soup in relation to the spork you can look it up.

I do have to say that during the course of my research on this topic, I noted some obvious gaps in the literature. Because I'm all about public service announcements, I'd like to propose a few items that, IMHO, should really form part of our collective codes of conduct:

- Photogenic is Swahili for you look worse in real life. Do everyone's self-esteem a favour and set the bar high - delete or destroy any photographs that are not eminently flattering to your subjects.

- Bring your own barf bags on the helicopter, so as not to deplete the pilot's supply.

- Wiping up your own pee splatters does not constitute "cleaning the bathroom".

- If you've been getting the milk free for seven years, you should at least take the cow on a nice vacation once in a while.

- If you're going to complain about your significant other in a public forum such as a blog, you should at least do so anonymously and/or under the guise of public service announcements.

- Cows really like the spa.

It's Business Time

Like many people, I like to celebrate the joyful things in life with a little caloric splurge. Say, a nice dessert and a glass of wine or three. And because I'm a bit of an emotional eater, I also tend to grieve with calories. And cope with stress with calories. And enjoy my holidays with calories, and have a romantic evening at home with calories, and snuggle up with some calories and just chill after a hard day. Or a relaxing day. Or a Wednesday.

So my waistline was relieved this week when a coworker suggested a revolutionary, calorie-free way to celebrate the lowly middle child of the work week. We were at a training course, and while he usually errs on the 'business' end of 'business casual', he was dressed way down for the day in jeans and a really chachi tee.

Me: Hey, you're looking casual today.
Him: Yep, it's casual Wednesday. Casual hump day.

*Crash!*

When syntactic ambiguity and the crass double entendre collide.

The more I thought about it, the better it sounded: Mondays would still be pretty far from Fridays, but you'd have that glorious Day of Casual Humping to look forward to, smack in the middle of the week. And Wednesdays happen all the time, not like those other crappy holidays that you have to wait around for all year.

As I see it, the success of Casual Hump Day would rest on everyone's buying into the concept, or things could get pretty awkward around the water cooler. So until we reach that critical mass of willing participants, mark it on your calendar, friends, and don't forget to spread the word.

Presumably, you'll still want to wear your business socks.

Message to My Minions

I keep hearing what a pain it is to leave a comment on Blogger. I recently changed my settings, so hopefully you're able to leave comments now.

Cheers,

Frecklepelt

Mysteries of the Unexplained

There are a lot of things in life I would like to know. Not enough to do any legwork over it, but sortof in a vague, "it's fun to think about it" sense. Some items in question:

- Why no stripedy dogs?

- Where do babies get their intestinal flora?

- Why do spiders always crawl into my roasting pan to die?

- How do teeth grow in? (And don't go saying gravity, because at least half of them grow up.) Or do they not 'grow' at all, but instead precipitate stalactite-style out of the rivers of snot and saliva that children exude?

- What is it about the Y chromosome that precludes correct execution of the act of laundry?

Ah, yes - the heart of the matter.

I'm not just talking the occasional red-sock-in-the-whites-load here. That can happen to anyone. No, men exhibit a special kind of ineptitude when it comes to laundry. As a public service, and to assuage my own irritation, I'm going to explain some common laundry mistakes here today:

- Agitation is the means by which the machine washes your clothes - no shaky, no washy. Handy hint #1: It's a washing machine, not a suitcase. If you have to sit on the lid to get it to close, it is too full. Remove half the contents and try again.

- Try breathing through a single layer of fabric. Now try breathing through four hundred. Note the increased resistance. The dryer notices, too. Hint #2: Remove the lint more than once a year to ensure maximum performance. (For advice regarding acceptable clothing density in the dryer, refer to Hint #1.)

- Bras have a series of teensy little hooks on the backs which serve to secure the bra around the torso. Those hooks are why you never got laid in high school, and also why every single sweater you own looks like it's been run through a herd of angry kittens. Hint #3: Doing the hooks up will reduce their destructive power, and placing the bra in the little mesh bag that lives on top the dryer (yes, that is why it's called a laundry bag, good for you!) will completely disarm it.

- It is called hang-drying, with hang here used in the same relaxed sense it is in the phrase "hang out". Recall that "hanging out" is a very passive, mellow activity. Hint #4: If you find yourself stretching garments to their full extent and violently binding them to the rack, you are channeling the wrong kind of "hang". Get out your thesaurus and start over.

- The wind speed in the basement in zero, thus the clothing cannot actually be blown from the drying rack. Hint #5: If you must use clothespins, consider your placement carefully - no one wants to go to work looking like they started their day with 12V to the nipples.

That's it for your lesson today, I hope you've found it helpful. Be sure to tune in next week for more hot topics, like "How to Tell When the Garbage Bin is Full".

The Hippiest Place on Earth

I *heart* recycling.

I like to imagine all the happy little elves situated somewhere in the bowels of Calgary, whistling joyfully whilst they sort through my recycling, which I can now - perhaps even more joyfully! - simply dump unsorted into my personal Blue Behemoth and wheel out to the curb on Wednesdays. And they're not just sorting my recycling, but everyone's recycling! Vast mountains of recycling! It's one of those things where you sortof wish you could see how it was actually done, but it might just spoil the magic. Like Disneyland. Or sweatshops.

So I stick to imagining. However, in my view it would be stingy of me not to share all my fun imaginatings with all those happy elves/sad children. But how to effectively pay the joy forward? I mean, a big shout out to 'em and all, but there's so much recycling to do that I doubt they have time to read my blog.

My opportunity presented itself while canning yet another batch of jelly. (Cherry-rhubarb, if you really want to know.) The problem: DH and I don't own a funnel, which makes pouring boiling cauldrons of syrup into weensy little half-pint jars a real bitch. So, because we a) didn't have time to go out and buy a funnel, b) are incredibly enterprising, and c) used to smoke a lot of pot, we created what we like to call a "jam bong" to fill the funnel void.

Pop quiz: How many of you immediately deduced what a jam bong would consist of?

Answer: Frankly, I'm so confident in my friends' sordid pasts that I'm not even going to bother detailing my construction methods.

Anyways, our jam bong eventually came to the end of its useful life, and the question of what to do with the component parts arose. Call me paranoid, but what might people think if they found it in the recycling? (And since we're talking green here, you know it's not even a question of throwing it in the trash.) But then I got to thinking - if I were employed as a sorter of recycled goods, even if the job paid alright and kept me out of the Nike factories or whatever, I might find myself substantially bored and longing for a little something to tweak my imagination. Seeing the occasional recycled makeshift bong would probably make my day. Possibly even my month.

So there it was - and here it is. My message in a bottle, as it were, to all you variously happy, always hard-working elves out there. Keep up the good work.

In a Pickle

Maybe it's a little TMI for some of you, but lately the instant the offspring hit their respective pillows, DH and I have been really steaming the place up. We've been going at it for hours, then finally collapsing into bed, utterly exhausted and drenched with sweat. I don't mean to gloat, but we've been doing this every night for weeks! It's like an obsession! It's the best it's ever been!

Yep, we just can't get enough of canning season.

We've canned pickles, tomatoes, corn, fruit, jelly, and so incredibly much jam that nearby bread products have begun to orbit our house. I have to launch the kids out the door in rigorously-orchestrated trajectories to reduce their risk of collision with items in the debris field (a stale baguette to the head can be life-threatening, you know). Fortunately, I'm about as handy with a calculator as I am with a pair of jar-lifting tongs, so multiple unmanned spacekids have traversed it without incident.

Haven't figured out how to keep them from coming back, yet, but I've got a call in to NASA. I'll let you in on any handy hints they provide.

I used to know this fellow who saved money by only ever carrying large bills in his wallet. He just couldn't bring himself to break a fifty. Now, I do not have this problem - sometimes I even break several at once! - but I do have a problem cracking into my precious jars of homemade preserved goods. They represent countless hours of planting, weeding, watering, peeling, chopping, and general slaving over cauldrons of boiling water.

Plus, they're just so darn pretty. And if I eat them now, I won't get to artfully arrange a few on the counter whenever someone drops by so they can properly admire my inner earth-mother/pioneer spirit/Martha Stewart/latent psychopath made flesh.

Ah, jewel-toned jars of potential admiration. That's what it's all about.

But don't tell DH, he actually thinks we're going to eat the stuff.