I wanted to see what would happen if I typed “random” into Google images. What would it come up with? I was shocked to see this beautiful picture pop up on my screen. It’s haunting, yet beautiful. I’m quite amazed.
Just because I can, and because I can totally see myself saying something just like it, I thought I’d share this little comic…
I never saw a purple cow;
I never hope to see one;
but I can tell you anyhow;
I’d rather see than be one!
I think I have left a teeny tiny detail about myself out of the things I have been telling you all. Ok, I’ve likely left a lot of things out, but this is a doozie. I have a serious obsession with cows. Yes. Moooo.
When I was a teenager, I walked past a field of cows and as I stood at the fence, one of them came over and licked me. Instead of thinking about all the weird and wonderful diseases one could contract from such an experience, I became hooked. As far as I was concerned, I was in love with these beautiful creatures. And did you know that they don’t just come in black and white? It is, I think, rather akin to those kids in the 60s who got a new tv and could finally watch in colour! There are hairy cows, brown, long horns and none.
And so, I share with you, my wonderful world of cows. I have to share in picture form this way because I have sadly had to pack away my collection of cow stuffies and ornaments.
Perhaps these cows should visit the hairdresser who cut my daughters hair the first time??
There’s always one who can’t keep his head down in an earthquake drill.
I also like dogs. So the combo of dogs and cows was one I couldn’t turn down for this.
In these days where our children are incredibly over scheduled and as stressed out as the CEO of a major corporation, I was hesitant in signing up Ash for T Ball. She already does Sparks (that’s the level below Brownies, not a group for budding arsonists), and she will be doing swimming lessons as well. But, we bit the bullet and signed her up. She loves it.
After a little bit of chaos in trying to figure out when and where her team was meant to be practicing, getting uniforms for them all, and finding that ever elusive coach, it was all sorted. On Sunday we went out for Opening Ceremonies and their first game.
Something that has been splashed all over the media in recent years is those over zealous parents who beat the crap out of each other because Little Johnny got called on something and his mommy thinks the sun shines out of his ass, so how dare he get penalized. Parents get into screaming matches and fist fights while their kids look on thinking “what is wrong with those losers”. As a result of this, not only are the players now required to take a pledge of good behaviour at the beginning of the season, but so are the parents. I think this is so that if any of us break those rules, the coach can take us behind the dugout and give us a good ass kicking himself, though I’ve yet to clarify that.
So at the Opening Ceremonies, they announced all the teams and coaches (for the teams that had them..lucky buggers), took a big huge group photo, did these pledges and sang “Oh Canada”.
**Side note for all you folks out there who are totally oblivious to how things work when the National Anthem is sung - Face the flag and take your freaking hat off!! Nothing makes me madder than seeing a bunch of adult men standing around with their hats on their heads after all the kids took them off without question.**
PLAY BALL!
I gotta tell you - there is nothing cuter than little folks playing sports. In this case, it was the little kids in their oversized helmets. They were so keen, so ready to go.
After plonking these helmets onto their heads and trying valliantly to stay upright, they got ready to bat. I listened to the whisperings around me and most of it was positive, though I did hear one idiot constantly talk about how “the kids aren’t even holding the damn bat right”. We were all just enjoying the happiness showing on the faces of our kids.
Here’s the thing though. At this level, the kids are 4 to 6 years of age. They have no concept of the rules of T-Ball, of where they’re supposed to run (or when), and yet they have an amazing amount of fun. Our lovely Coach Nate got them set up to bat, tried (often in vain) to avoid getting hit with the bat as the kids waved it around, and then let them go for it.
THat’s great Coach. I’ve hit the ball, but now what the heck do I do? Run? Sweet! Run where exactly?
We had kids running in all sorts of different directions. And as us parents are known to do, we want to help. So we’re sitting in the bleachers yelling “Ruuuuuun little Johnny!” and waving our arms. Little Johnny sees this and instead of running to third like he’s meant to, he runs towards mom. “whadya want Mom?” Yeah, we need to keep our mouths shut and let the coaches do their thing right? Also, it’s kind of funny to see 3 kids from the same team all standing around on second base chatting away while the parents all yell “ruuuun!” at them. The kids are probably talking about why they bother bringing their parents to these things, and maybe next week they’ll just leave them all at home.
We even had a couple of kids who like to watch baseball at home with their daddies who decided it would be fun to slide into a base. Thankfully, Ash isn’t that ambitious. Either that or she takes after me and really really values the fact that her skin is still attached to her legs.
Eventually they all made it around to home plate, albeit through untraditional methods. Some even decided to do a little dance around it. And then it was time for them to go out and field.
My mother used to sing me a few lines from a children’s song (I think by Raafi?) about standing out in right field watching the dandelions grow, because this is what I used to do as a child. What can I say? Baseball didn’t hold my interest as much as perhaps it could have. I always used to laugh it off and think that no one’s child actually does that. Ha! Oh yes they do. In between the chats at the bases where they set up lunch dates, they would take turns counting the dandelions and the daisies that were growing. I hear there’s a few hundred out there, though I think they’ll be doing a recount on Friday at practice.
By the way. Barry Bonds has nothing on 5 year olds. Ok, I have no idea if Barry Bonds was a pitcher or not, or even who he played for, but I do know that some of these kids can throw. One little tyke (bless her heart) just about kneecapped me when she threw the ball at me.
For the next three months I get to sit and watch these wonderful kidlets hurl balls at each other’s heads, try and hit the coach with the bat and yell at each other to “ruuuuun”. I also get to hope that none of the parents get so bent out of joint that they pummel each other. Having said that, if this does happen, you bet your behind I’ll have a video camera running to capture all the fun.
I may have mentioned from time to time that I live in Canada. Just the mere mention of this country to some people sends them into spirally daydreams of us living in igloos, eating moose, and wearing big heavy parkas and snow shoes while there is 6 feet of snow on the ground.
While I will be the first to admit that moose is in fact rather tasty, it’s not a common delicacy on this side of the country. We prefer instead to purchase half a cow and throw it into our freezers. And the 6 feet of snow? Thankfully not here, though some of my family members are not so lucky on the east coast.
I live in Victoria, British Columbia. The weather here is, well, um….unpredictable? Take last Thursday for example. In the space of two hours as I sat here and read my book and glanced out the window, I saw sun then hail then sun then rain then snow then hail then sun then rain then snow again. The saying here is “If you don’t like the weather, wait 10 minutes” and it’s very true.
When I first moved here from New Zealand in 2001, I found it to be incredibly balmy a good portion of the year. In fact, the weather is rather a lot like the weather in Auckland. I paraded around all year in my flip flops like some sort of hero that was hell bent on converting the rest of the world. I rarely wore a jacket, unless it was raining. My stepmother constantly complained it was cold and I informed her that she was a wimp and went about my day.
Now, 7 years later, I find myself wearing a jacket from October through to May. Gone are the days of the year round flip flops and you can go screw yourself if you think you are getting me to wear anything but pants until June. I believe this is a phenomenon known as “acclimatization”? I now live in pants, fleece sweaters and either my running shoes or my Ugg boots (authentic ones from NZ!).
Fashion faux pas aside though, I really am grateful for living on this side of the country where I rarely have to deal with more than 6 inches of snow, and even that melts after two days. The rain can be a bit tiresome after the 26th straight day of downpours, and the wind knocks over fences once in awhile, but it’s a nice city. We live on an island and it’s fantastic.
It is green here all year round and that’s a happy thing. I used to think my father was insane because wherever he went, he took his camera. Then he would sit us all down for a picture show and instead of seeing cool pictures of homeless people cuddling their dogs or loving couples having a fist fight in the park, there were millions of pictures of flowers and trees and birds. Bloody nature lover. I had no idea my dad was so deep.
Somehow, this penchant for nature pictures has rubbed off on me and I find myself with more pictures of ducks and flowers than I do of the hellions. But they’re awfully pretty aren’t they??
When my daughter was a baby, she was bald. When she was two, she was still bald. This used to upset me beyond belief as I encountered person upon person who would look at my beautiful daughter, dressed head to toe in pink and ask “How old is your little boy?” Are you freaking kidding me?!? Ok, fine, she’s bald. I can get past this.
Thankfully at the age of almost 6, she is no longer bald. In fact over the last few years she has grown a lot of hair and, just as I do with my own hair, when it reaches a certain length I decide it must be culled. After all, who really needs all that hair right?
(A before shot)
Last week was one of these instances. After what seemed like the millionth time fighting with Ash to brush her hair and not have her scream blue murder as I hit tangle after tangle, I pronounced it hair cutting time. This was met with a mixture of crocodile tears, door slamming, huge sighs and finally sulky resignation - and we headed off to the salon.
Being a somewhat lower income family, I was not about to take her to a froo-froo salon where they would wash her hair with lilac smelling shampoo, condition it with eau-de-dove and fan her hair dry with palm fronds. No sir, not me. Off we went to the budget salon where you can get a shampoo, cut and blow dry for $10. Having been met at the desk by an unhappy looking woman who had likely been on her feet for all of 2 hours, Ash was planted firmly on her behind, head cranked back to get scrubbed. Shampoo done? Excellent, slap her on her backside in a chair and manhandle her head to facilitate a cut.
Now, I am sure that there are many children who cannot sit still in a hair dresser’s chair for the love of all that is holy, but Ash is not one of these children. Because of this fact, I was positive that this cut would go smoothly and she would look lovely. The instructions given to the hairdresser - “Right now, her hair is between her shoulder blades. I’d like about 2 1/2 inches taken off so that it sits just on, or just past, her shoulders.” Simple!
10 minutes later (yes, that should have been my first clue), she was pronounced done, “$9.40 please” and I was dumbfounded! How on earth could “just on or just past the shoulders” be misinterpreted so badly as to mean “just at her chin line”. That’s a whole extra 2 inches! As I quietly seethed inside, I paid the money and off we went.
By the time we got home, I was livid but not quite sure what to do. I’m sure it’s incredibly hard to glue hair back on and while she may sit still for a hair cut, I was positive she would not for a glue job. Turns out that in the hurried chop, this cut was also very much angled to the right and very uneven.
Despite the protests of Hotty Hubby, and the voice of my mother in the back of my head (that’s where I keep her), I seethed about this internally for the next two days before taking action. Then, in a fit of boldness I marched myself in there to tell the offending person how unhappy I was. Imagine my distress when she said “Oh, sorry” and turned and walked away.
Many of you don’t know me personally but if you did, you would know that walking away from me when I’m unhappy about something is a sure fire way to get yourself swallowed into a firey ball of rage. Thankfully this is where the manager, sensing my wrath, stepped in to the rescue. She apologized profusely, personally fixed the cut and even glued the hair back on. Alright, she fixed it.
To be honest, I think the cut quite suits Ash and while it’s not what I asked for, it is easy maintained and managed. But I can tell you this much, I won’t be returning there.
