Damn you, Mark Burnett

Bless me, father, for I have sinned.

I'm hooked on another mildly entertaining reality TV show, Rock Star: INXS. Granted, my penance shouldn't be too harsh as I don't watch American/Canadian/Hungarian Idol. At least I don't have to hear warbled Whitney Huston, and the contestants seem more like my people. Okay, except for that barefoot hillbilly guy.

I admit, I find it a little distasteful that INXS is doing this show, but I'm still watching. I realize this was their bread & butter, but c'mon. It's just bad manners. And can anyone else really sing Never Tear Us Apart? Michael Hutchence was an icon in his day. Even during his "Fat Elvis" stage (see the "Eloquently Wasted" video), he had a very compelling stage presence.

It makes me love Nirvana more.

I derided Van Halen when they went around changing lead singers (and, ironically, they approached Michael Hutchence once). I don't care how talented the rest of the band is, but most people identify a band by the singer. That would be like changing the voice of Kermit the Frog after Jim Henson died. It just wouldn't be the same.

That being said, I think there's some serious talent there. Deanna has a hell of a voice but are INXS really planning on hiring a female lead singer? Finding a new lead singer would change the band, but replacing Hutchence with a woman, sheesh, they may as well change their name. Actually, they should just change their name anyway, regardless of who they hire.

Mind you, I'm sure this is just a long probation period before they just hire Mig. Maybe because he's Australian and seems so polite, he appears to be a perfect fit with the rest of the band. If I learned anything about management and hiring, you gotta get along with the people you work with.

And, shit, if I have to hear Dave Navarro, a guy I USED to think was sooo sexy, refer to the female contestants as "sweetheart" again, I'm just going to use my old Jane's Addiction lps (yes, I'm that old) as decorative bowls.

Perhaps my penance should be to wait for Mark Burnett's other offering of crack, Survivor, to come back on TV. Maybe then I won't be wondering if J.D. Fortune (another contestant and, to my knowledge, not a porn star) will pick a better song next week.

A waste of time

There's a former city counsellor here who is walking around saying, "I told you so."

Apparantly, he's been going around for years talking about how we should all change daylight savings time by a month either way, just as the Americans are now going to do.

Personally, I'm not crazy about the idea. They're trying to sell it on the idea that it will save energy, but that doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, if there's an extra hour of night in the morning or evening, either way, you'll be using electricity for that time. And, like most mothers, I'm up early.

Probably the biggest reason why I'm against it is because I don't like the idea of getting the kids off to school when it's dark. I have a hard enough time when the sun is out and the birds are singing. And then there's the visibility factor when they're walking.

I think if we're going to seriously look at this idea, we should just take Saskatchewan's lead (and the lead of Creston, B.C. and a few other small Canadian towns) and scrap daylight savings time entirely.

I'm sure people in the far north are just laughing. Seriously, in the land of the midnight sun, how do these people put their kids to bed?

But does he also do the laundry?

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Originally uploaded by Nimcheena.

Oh. My. God.

Sure, I'll sample your hot buns.

I saw this article in the Toronto Star about a guy setting up a country inn in Collingwood. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs. Fitzmaurice and Miss Hutchinson at St. James School for teaching me how to read.

Creepy

There was a daytime execution-style murder right by the front entrance of the very large mall my mother works in yesterday.

As soon as I saw it on the news, I recognized it right away. I used to wait for the bus just steps away.

Could you imagine if you were there when it happened? Man, there must have been kids watching. Worse, what if one of the bullets ricocheted?

My mum wasn't even aware that this happened when I called her that evening. Like I said, it's a very large mall.

There's TWO!!!

But don't call him "Chuck"

Daughter's friend has a new baby brother. They named him Charlie. I don't know if they got the idea from me talking about a boy I know, but that would be the second Charlie ("Gawd, not Charles! Could I be that cruel to someone I love? No. It's Charlie) in as many years.

There's this real trend toward 100-year-old baby names. Take for instance the register for a nursery school near my house. There's kids with names such as: Lucy, Alice, Edmund, Oscar, Sadie, and Warren.

The other day, Daughter was having some mixed emotion upon finding her relatively unusual name on one of those racks of personalized items. One part of her thought it was cool that she now has note pads with her name printed on it (bonus! They have horsies and doggies wearing hats on it!), but the other part was downright concern that, in time, she won't be the only girl with her name in her school.

Believe me, you get over it. I swear, every 20-something woman is named Jennifer.

My dilemma for the day: Husband's birthday cake. No one wants to eat cake this year, so I'm thinking of Husband's two favourite snacks. Shall I stick some candles in a bowl of chips or, what I've done before with much success, get some Timbits and either put them in a trifle bowl or get a styrofoam cone and toothpick them?

Works Like New

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Originally uploaded by Nimcheena.

I had my old sewing machine tuned up and now it works like a dream.

I decided to make a few more Kool-Aid Jammers handbags after my sister saw the first one (the orange one here). She was really impressed and was happy to hear that I made a swim bag for her daughter (the blue and purple one in the back).

My nephew overheard, so I just whipped up a change purse for him. No sweat for me and yet I remain Cool Auntie Jen in the very big eyes of my nephew.

As I was sewing up his change purse, I marvelled at how smooth my machine was running. So, I woke up a little early today and spent my stolen 30 minutes by creating the green and purple ones here. Okay, I still have to sew the bottom on the purple one, but isn't the feather handle a scream? And you can't really tell in this photo, but the orange one has this cute ribbon and opalescent sequin trim. The green one has shiny dangly green beads at the top.

I still don't know what I'm going to do with them: probably sell them at a craft show or something. Post a comment here and tell me what you'd pay!

The best day of my neice's life

My neice is visiting for a few days and has proclaimed on several occasions today that "This is the best day of my life."

Sure, we took her swimming, which is her favourite thing to do. I took her to the grocery store and told her she could pick any cookie she wanted (she picked those plain wafer finger cookies - the ones with the same consistency as holy communion). But she loooved watching TV.

Apparantly, she doesn't get Teletoon. I thought she was going to pee herself when Atomic Betty came on.

I thought for a moment I should unearth my old VHS copies of Peewee's Playhouse but that would mean getting the kids to watch it on the attic TV where it's, like, Africa hot. We have an air conditioner but it takes a while to cool everything down.

Oh, and I forgot the girl takes forever to get to sleep. Everyone was in bed except for me (I watch Rockstar:INXS with much guilty pleasure). Daughter and the neice were reading books and playing Barbies until 10 when Daughter basically told her cousin she was packing it in.

So Neice came downstairs and watched TV with me. I thought Rockstar would be too exciting for her so we watched a documentary on an Emily Carr contemporary named Pegi Nicol. When my sister called the next morning, asking what time she hit the sack, I replied, "Well, she watched The Daily Show with me."

After all that swimming (6 to 8 pm), she konked out on the chesterfield at 9:30.

Drama

Oh, hooray! I finally got a hit on the Where's Willy website. Okay, the fiver only went 14 km down the highway, but it's on it's way!

I am so easily amused.

Took the older kids to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Husband reads too many newspapers and actually listens to reviewers. Yes, Johnny Depp was channelling a cross between Carol Channing and that actress who played Ted Knight's wife on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Yes, he had that Emo Phillips haircut. Whatever. Have you read the book? Roald Dahl meant Willy Wonka to be a freak.

All three of us loved the movie. It ain't Citizen Kane, but it isn't supposed to be.

My parents came over on Saturday. They planned to bring my grandmother but she doesn't want to leave my gravely ill uncle alone. Poor woman. She doesn't want to sleep because she doesn't know what she's going to wake up to.

Out of nowhere, while we were eating dinner, Middle Child pipes up.

"I hope we get invited to your brother's funeral."

My mum just about choked.

"Oh, he's not going to die," she said with much fervour. My mum is convinced that despite the fact that cancer has built condominiums in several organs and bones in her brother (the one on his back is particularly troublesome-looking), he will survive this. After she made this announcement, it was swiftly followed by a hush and the burying of heads into the plates.

The Neighbourhood Grandpa

When we first moved to this house a year ago, we used to see this rather dapper-looking old man on our walks around the neighbourhood.

He would always stop to talk with the kids and then give them a loonie or a twonie.

He and his departed wife never had children, he explained. He was an only child and his wife was an English war bride so they don't really have any neices or nephews either.

"I have no one of my own to be grandfatherly to," he said. "So I adopt all the children I pass in my daily half-hour walk."

We don't see him around anymore.

An Unexpected Turn of Events

I have this very sick uncle living with my grandmother. His body is riddled with cancer and it just doesn't look good.

Husband and I made the plan to go visit him this past Saturday and, moreover, spend time with our grandmothers. Hey, as long as they're still alive and "with it", we try to get down to see them at least once a month.

Anyhow, I more or less was steeling myself for my visit with my uncle. Even at Husband's grandmother's house, I was picturing how he may look and how he may feel.

Now, I love Husband's grandmother. She's 86 and totally spry, always with a great story and stuff to do. But it's that 86 thing that got Middle Child all wrapped up on the long drive to her home.

"She's close to 100, right? Will she live that long? Or is she going to die soon?"

Que sera, sera, Middle Child, we said but if that kid didn't have some kind of premonition or something.

The kids were playing in the backyard (oh, yeah, and she lives by herself in the cutest house you ever saw where, as of last winter, she was still shovelling the snow). Husband and I were with her in the living room talking when, all of a sudden, her hands are on her face. She suddenly had a severe headache, extreme nausea, dizzyness and the shakes. Her breathing was loud and very shallow and it looked like she was getting a hot flash. We didn't take long to decide she needed to go to the hospital.

So I stayed back with the kids while Husband drove the short distance to the nearest emergency room. I called Husband's aunt, because I thought that if Gramma was incapacitated, she'd be one who would have a handle on her health. Gratefully, Husband's aunt told her daughter who is a nurse. She came down to the hospital with her mother and asked all the right questions.

So after blood tests and and EEG, nothing came up. They all came back to the house about four hours later. Gramma said she felt that it had maybe been "the time."

Then we went to my grandmother's. My uncle looked pretty good, actually.

But is Kathie Lee Gifford in the Belfry?

At the end of my street, there are two churches, both with bell towers.

The Catholic church's bells ring at noon and six. That's nice enough, but the Anglican church (I think that's Episcopalian to you Americans) absolutely sings. Their bells ring out long elaborate songs, richly layered and, frankly, rather catchy.

I had always assumed that the songs it plays, usually around 7 pm, were hymns. But yesterday, we were out for a walk (okay, going to the 7-11 for Slurpees), when we ran into one of the kindergarten teachers at my kids' school. She was pushing her stroller with her husband and the two of them were laughing.

"Having fun?" I asked.

"Yeah, we're actually trying to play 'Name That Tune' and it only took us 26 steps."

"Huh?"

"St. Andrew's bells! They crack us up! Haven't you noticed that they play a lot of middle-of-the-road 70s songs? Listen. They're playing 'I'll Never Fall in Love Again.'"

Sure enough, they were. So that gave me the incentive to sit on my porch and keep listening. I didn't get the next one but the one after that was definitely Can't Keep My Eyes Off Of You.

If they take requests, I hope they know some Edward Bear songs. Those are in my range.

Thinking of Drinking

Hey! I need your help!

If you can think of a famous Canadian alcoholic, let me know. You can post your comment here or, if you know me well, email me.

I'm compiling a list and I can only think of Mordecai Richler (well, he just looks drunk), and, the easy one, Sir John A. Macdonald. Americans learn their first president couldn't tell a lie. Ours couldn't stand!

Ernest Hemingway working at the Toronto Star doesn't count as being Canadian enough.

By ways of jogging your memory, check out this site. It's called The National Pist. And I'd sooner read it before that CanWest rag.

Loudmouth Golf Pants

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Originally uploaded by Nimcheena.

I finished the pants Husband wanted and, I must say, I did a fabulous job.

I matched all the plaids, made the pockets out of sturdier fabric so it can hold golf balls, and even made Husband's beloved cuffed hem. It's made out of fabric that has a bit of stretch to them. All in all, a great pair of golf pants.

Then I moved on to making my neice a Kool-Aid Jammers swimming lessons tote bag and my 20-year-old sewing machine bit the dust. It's fixable, though. Thankfully, there's a sewing machine sales and repair shop not far from my house.

First Full Week of Summer Vacation

The two older kids are spending the days this whole week at an arts camp run through our local art gallery. According to Middle Child, he had anticipated that it would be the highlight of his summer. At Junior Kindergarten, they discussed what they were going to do while they weren't in school. Middle Child mentioned Art Camp. Are you going on any trips, he was asked? "I think so. But I'm going to Art Camp."

Anyway, he went today and he said it was "a little bit stinky." He wouldn't really elaborate, but I have the distinct impression that he feels that he's better than anyone and there's nothing the instructors can teach him. Oh well, suck it up. Mumma paid for the whole week. He had more fun yesterday at Ikea (where the five of us ate dinner for $12! And we got the frozen yogurts at closing for 50 cents each).

We spent Canada Day at home. My parents and sister came over for the day and we did lots of small town stuff: walked around downtown, went to the city's daytime Canada Day celebrations (the kids got their faces painted and they got free balloon animals, popcorn and cotton candy so they were happy), had a barbecue and then wrapped it up with the city's parade. It's a candy grab but I waited in anticipation for the Tim Horton's float. The local owners hand out waxed paper wrapped Timbits and water bottles.

The folks left and Husband took the older kids to the big fireworks show. I plunked Baby Boy into the stroller and went for a walk, hoping it would knock him out. I popped some popcorn, left it to cool and went out. My route was going to be to walk to the kids' school and back but just as I was walking past my friend's house, one of her sons said, from the backyard, "There's Jen!" They poked their heads out, hands full of sparklers, and invited us to light them off with them.

That led to a glass of wine.

That led to us sticking around until the fireworks which we could see near perfectly. I swear, it was the longest show the city has ever put on: about 30 minutes.

Today's American Independence Day. Huzzah. I had to call a company in Pennsylvania to clear up some stuff regarding a magazine subscription payment. Apparantly, their bank has problems recognizing credit cards from "international banks". "Well, I personally am going to call up your bank up there today and make sure everything's hunky-dory," Becky Sue told me (and I'm not making up the name). I explained that it may be difficult "because this was our, for lack of a more understandable term, our Fourth of July." "Oh, happy Fourth of July!" "Actually, it's the first of July and we call it Canada Day." "Well, happy Independence Day! Enjoy your tailgate parties." "Yeah, I'm just gonna get my biscuits and shoo-fly pie out of the oven and rev up the barbecue for some beer can chicken."

No sense trying to educate. Yeehaw!