Dr. Hook Was Just a Liiiiiiittle High

Your Tax Dollars In Action

My uncle presents not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times to a big city hospital emergency with severe abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. They finally keep him overnight for tests and observation, but send him home without a concrete diagnosis. "Welcome to your forties," the physician says.

Shit, I better be bracing myself then. Forty is dangerously close for me.

My uncle just turned 40 and is the most muscular guy I'm related to. Big guns, I swear. He has a physical job, is very active recreationally, and, outside of smoking since he was a teenager, is a pretty healthy guy.

Where is Dr. House when you need him?

"...I'm not using drugs anymore. I am, however, still hooked on phonics." - House

He's Gifted But He Still Can't Tie Shoelaces

Middle Child was quite indignant at the concept of Yul from Survivor possibly being voted out.

"But he's the smartest one," he said. "Why would anyone want to vote out someone who can help them back at camp? It's so unfair! They're probably just jealous."

Recently, his school had assessed him for his academic standing. Turns out that he's at a Grade 3 level.

"In our day, we would have kids like him skip a grade," the principal explained but I said (without Husband's knowledge, but he thankfully agreed with me later) that I was not at all interested in that.

So now, his teacher and the school's resource teacher will be preparing special homework for him. That means I'll be teaching him. Oh.

Action Doesn't Only Take Place on the Field

I haven't looked, but I'm sure there are comments going around that the CFL is so "budget" that their prized trophy ends up snapping in half.

Is it any wonder? I mean, I'm sure that thing has seen some action over the years: people drinking out of it, getting manhandled in bars (let alone on the football field), etc.

Like most sports trophies, the Grey Cup is permitted to stay with team members for a day-ish. And not to implicate anyone, but, er, I know someone who was allowed to have the trophy for a little while. Out of that little stay came a roll of Polaroid film starring the Grey Cup.

...someone eating cereal out of it.
...someone in bed with it, smoking a cigarette.
...someone putting it over their head, pretending to get bangs cut.

The top of the Grey Cup snapped off? I'm not surprised.

As a Rule, I Don't Watch Daytime TV

Pickles! I swear to God!!!

If I wanted to ditch Husband, I wouldn't trade him in for an ex-con anyway

If this is someone's idea of a joke, I'm not laughing.

Yesterday, I got a call from a woman named Alison from an internet dating service.

"In your initial contact, you asked a representative to phone you with more information about what we can offer," Alison said.

"Buuuut, I never contacted you in the first place," I replied. "You have the right name and the right phone number, but I'm not interested, thanks."

"Are you sure? Do you, er, want me to call you later, if you're understanding me?"

"I get what you're trying to say, but there's no one here but me. Sorry you were led down the garden path, so to speak."

I hung up and thought, "Wow, that was odd." Then I thought, what if Husband picked up the phone? What if Alison or whomever left a message with him? I'd have some explaining to do, for certain.

If I find out who did this, I'm already thinking of ways to get him or her back. Sleep well, fucker.

Chicken and Wal-Mart

How does one spend nearly $400 on groceries?

Perhaps buying six trays of boneless, skinless chicken breasts will help. Oddly, what if the person buying it isn't really a fan of chicken? But this happened in real life, as my kids would say.

Buying all sorts of organic or otherwise purportedly-labelled healthy products will raise the total. And, even though it is a healthy choice, if you let it sit in the fridge to rot, it didn't do you any favours.

Anyway, I'm not sure how he did it, but Husband managed to rack up the biggest grocery bill ever in our history. This was a couple of weeks ago, and, believe me, it didn't last longer than most trips. In fact, I think it lasted less because he didn't buy all of the staples I use. How nice to buy curry paste and fish oil, but I'm not making Indian or pad thai every day, you know?

Man, we've come a long way when we were first living together. Salad days for certain, as we would only bring $50 and a calculator to the grocery store, making sure we didn't spend more than that for the week. And it was tough: remember this was before everything was made in China. Few things cost just a dollar.

Segue.

We have municipal elections tomorrow. One of the big topics is the possibility for a Wal-Mart to come to town. They already bought a chunk of land, but it is zoned industrial so they're taking the city to court. Nice.

I can't say that I've never shopped there, but I don't go out of my way to do so. For instance, the older kids needed skating helmets. We were late in the season to get them. We checked Canadian Tire, and the usual suspects in town, but we're not going to spend $80 each for two kids who couldn't care less about ice time. So, we drove 20 minutes out of town and hit Wal-Mart. It wasn't any cheaper than Canadian Tire, but they had them. Lots of them.

In fact, they had lots of everything. Husband hardly ever shops. He was a little overwhelmed by the sheer size of the store. Getting back in the car, he said, "If Wal-Mart comes to town, it will swallow it. I totally see what so many people are upset about."

I don't know if it would decimate the downtown core, what with all the boutiques and specialty shops. They're so tourist-driven. I can't see a tourist coming in and saying, "Let's go to the edge of town to see if their Wal-Mart looks just like ours." But the old pharmacy downtown? Gone. The little sporting goods store? Bye-bye. The pet shop? See ya. I'm sure the grocery stores and the Zellers, Sears, and especially the Giant Tiger will be very badly hit.

Middle Sister swears by Wal-Mart. But then she complains that the downtown where she lives is dead. "There's so few shops, really. There's only services like doctor's offices or financial planners and stuff." Guess why?

Love Will Keep Us Together

Last week, Husband and I went to Baby Sister and The Boyfriend's apartment in Toronto to go to a grown-ups-only Halloween party. It was our first is a looooong time.

I went as Marg Delahunty because, though I had a Xena costume (borrowed from my aunt), I couldn't find an appropriate wig. But I had Marg's glasses. Husband went as a pirate. Yeah, with headwear courtesy of a McDonald's Happy Meal. You can take the kids away from the parent, but you can't take the parent out of the man.

I wanted Husband to dress like a hippie and I'd wear a mime costume. Then we could have gone as "peace" and "quiet". My other idea was to go as Ricky and Julian, but Husband is more of a Bubbles kind of guy.

Anyway, I had such a good time. I've always like my sister's friends. She's very social, so she tends to attract very cool, very interesting people. And The Boyfriend is a natural foil for her. He's a born entertainer: he prepared a bajillion dips and stuff, and don't even get me started on the bar he built. She's a born hostess: easily flitting around, sparking up conversations, with her laugh punctuating the five-minute mark. He'd turn on the music; she'd lead the Bunny Hop. He's the Captain to her Tenille.

Kim Jung Il and friend: Scary Jack-o-lantern 2006

Kim Jung Il and friend: Scary Jack-o-lantern 2006
Originally uploaded by Nimcheena.

I can't say this was my best jack-o-lantern because most people didn't know who it was.

I thought, as I was carving, that people who don't keep up with current events wouldn't recognize the leader of North Korea. That's why I carved a missile and a nuclear explosion on either side of him.

Serves me right for being tongue-in-cheek.