Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Not Anne Geddes

Day 29: a picture that can always make you smile.

A couple of days ago I was ironing one of Twin B's new shirts. I happened to read the tag (which I tried to take a picture of but it's too small). It says "dirty laundry keeps women busy." I gasped, horrified that any piece of clothing could be this sexist. Then I considered the irony (ha! iron-y) of the situation and it made me laugh (which I understand is not the same as smiling, but on my way to laughing I paused at smiling, so I think it still works for the subject matter).
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In the shower this morning, I accidentally grabbed the conditioner instead of the shampoo. I noticed after trying to work it into a lather in my hair. Noticing my mistake, I then added shampoo to the mix. But then I freaked out because a hairdresser once told me that you should never use a 2-in-1 shampoo because the shampoo opens your hair follicles and a conditioner closes them and you don't want to get conditioner into your open follicles...or something like that. I pretty much stopped listening after she said not to use a 2-in-1 cause when a hairdresser tells you something hair related you should probably listen. Anyway, I'm trying not to move my head too much right now because I'm pretty sure my hair is going to fall out.
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I remember when conditioner first came out and it was called "cream rinse." (I can't find anything on when cream rinse came out so I might be wrong about it just being invented, but nonetheless, my mom discovered it in the late '70s.) Anyway, we used Unicure and it had a picture of a family running in a field on it. I wonder why. It's kind of like selling cookies with a picture of a Venus flytrap on it as far as the making sense portion of the ad is concerned.
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I have to go grocery shopping this afternoon. I don't have to buy conditioner OR cream rinse but that would have been a nice transitional sentence to this paragraph. I also have to go wash my car and I thought while I was there I might take my furnace filter to clean it. The problem is: I'm not sure how long you can keep a filter out of the furnace. My knowledge of furnaces and their filters is limited to the furnace guy coming to my house every year and telling me that I need to vacuum the filter often and maybe take it to the car wash to deep clean it occasionally. But what if, while I'm gone, the furnace grabs air from wherever-the-furnace-gets-hot-air-from and that air is filled with dead animal parts and glitter that, while usually caught by the filter, are now suddenly sprayed throughout the house? So do I make two trips? That seems like a lot of work. Probably I'll just go get some groceries and then come home and eat whatever treat I decided I deserved for leaving the house in the first place.

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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Two VERY scary stories

Day 28: a picture of something you're afraid of.


When the twins were about 10 months old, my parents and I took them to a family friend's cabin. The layout of the cabin is that there is one bedroom tucked into the back (no door) and an open space with a loft. My parents were staying in the large open space on the ground floor and the boys and I were in the back bedroom. It was about two in the morning when I woke up to hear this really loud swooshing sound and felt a brisk breeze: like an eagle with the wingspan of a 747 was flying directly over me, then I heard my parents bumping around in the main room so I went to check what was going on. I rounded the corner and ran into my mom wearing a raincoat with a hood over her pajamas and carrying a pillowcase. I looked around her to my dad who was standing there in his pajamas and gardening gloves, wielding a humongous old-fashioned snowshoe. Apparently, there was a bat in the cabin and they were trying to...I don't know...entertain it by performing a skit? Their costumes and props certainly had me laughing. Just to be sure you understand though: there was a bat. Inside the cabin. *shudders*


Another scary vacation with my parents story took place in a different city. The twins were now about 18-months old. We were staying with friends of my parents in a house with two guest bedrooms. The people that owned the house had grandchildren about the same age as my kids and therefore had lots of fun toys. I was going through a stage where I read nothing but thrillers. Anything involving a serial killer and some psychological trickery was my very favourite thing to read. It was our first night there and we were all exhausted. Keeping two toddlers entertained on a long car trip was not easy, so we had all crashed pretty early. Suddenly I woke up to this disembodied voice saying "Do you want to play?" and "Let's talk." Perfectly innocent phrases, WHEN IT'S NOT THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. I ran into my parents room (because I was only 26 and that's what you do when you're scared in the night, right?), to wake them up and make sure the serial killer in the house was not going to attack us. My mom (who does not read thrillers) got up and went downstairs to check on the noise. She found a toy phone that somehow got stuck on play and would not turn off. She wrapped it in a blanket and threw it in the dryer. It took me a very long time to get back to sleep.



To sum up: I am afraid of bats with the wing span of a 747 and toy phones that trick you into thinking they're serial killers.

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Monday, February 7, 2011

Casting Stones




Day 27: a picture of yourself and a family member.


This is a picture of me and my cousin from a very long time ago. (I used my mad photoshop skills to remove my parents from the picture--I know you're surprised because you totally can't tell, right?)
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Update on my cousin: He lives with the mother of his children. They had another baby.
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When I was in grade one, I went to school with this girl who was "poor." Honestly, the fact that she grew up in the same neighbourhood as me probably meant that she wasn't poor, but at the age of six, that was the only reason I could think of that she looked like she did. She was unwashed, wore threadbare clothes, and was in the green group for reading (obviously that meant she was dumb too).
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I had a daydream that I helped this girl. I made her have a bath then I brushed her hair and gave her some of my clothes to wear. I magically made her able to read and fed her a good meal. And she lived happily ever after. (What? I was six.)
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Anyway, that's what I want to do with my cousin...and his kids. I want to move him here, make him stop drinking, send him to school, and watch his life change before my eyes. I want to bathe and dress his children, send them to a nice school in this neighbourhood, and watch them become successful and happy. I want them all to live happily ever after.
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But perhaps their happily ever after and my happily ever after are not the same thing. Maybe they like living on a farm and running around barefoot in the summer. Maybe they have friends where they are that love them for who they are and don't want to change them. Maybe they don't see their lives as unhappy and unsuccessful.
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I don't know what happened to that girl that I went to school with in grade one. All I know is that I'm a total asshole. Who am I to judge someone else's life? I'm not in possession of all the details; I don't know anyone else's thoughts and feelings. If people are happy to be exactly who they are, what right do I have to wish something different for them just because it conforms to my idea of what is right and good?
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Now if you will excuse me; I have to go pick up all the stones I've cast over the years. Happy, successful people keep tripping over them.
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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Orphans, Dogs, Teenagers, and OCD

Day 26: a picture of something that means a lot to you.


Psssst...guess what? I'm bored of this picture of the day game. However, such is my OCD that I can't stop until I reach 30. I can't leave it unfinished. I have a friend that has the same problem. We once became addicted to playing Free Cell on the computer. The games were generated randomly, but they were numbered so that if you didn't finish a game or you wanted to try it again in fewer moves, you could go back to that same game. We started at 1 and couldn't move on until we'd beat it. We made it to three-hundred and some. In order. Over a period of months. And then we found something else to do (raise our children, maybe?). The really odd thing is that I can never play Free Cell again because I can't remember what number we were on and I lost the spreadsheet we made where we kept track of it.

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Tomorrow is the twins' birthday. They will be 14. I am old enough to have children who can drive a car (with a responsible adult), shave, and watch "The Family Guy." This seems rather unbelievable.

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A picture of something that means a lot to me? I feel like this should be really profound. Like I should have a picture of a young African child that I sponsor or an animal I saved from certain death at the pound. I also feel like if I have a picture of my collection of notecards or a picture from a holiday I take every year with my bff, you'll consider me shallow...especially after mentioning the orphan/dog thing.

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Today is a big cleaning, laundry, calling people, emailing others, grocery shopping, birthday shopping, seeing baby, basketball game, yoga day. I'm not sure how I'm going to fit everything in there, but it all needs to be done. Good thing the boys had an early basketball practice today, forcing me to get up early. It's only eight o'clock and already I've cleaned a couple of rooms and done some laundry. I predict a large crash in the early afternoon.

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A pricture of something that means a lot to me?

That big ball of burning gas in the sky. Right now that means everything. Because without it I am a big ball of anxiety, unhappiness, and stress.