Rants & Raves

May 2008
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May 7
2008

And the Bloggy goes to…..

Posted by: megmartin | 19 Comments | Link to this | Category: Random Thoughts, Rants & Raves

The list is out, the judges are making the rounds, the blogosphere is teeming with readers and people making comments all over the place.

Not so long ago, the wonderful Danny over at Dad Gone Mad opened up his comments to his minions and invited us to whore ourselves out and post the link to our blog in his comment section. Naturally, we were all far too timid and respectful of his space to even consider doing this, so the list is made up of a mere 150 plus blogs that are totally worth reading.

The other day, Dee Dee over at Random Ramblings spent countless hours compiling a lengthy list of all the blogs shared, and posted it on her blog. Shortly thereafter, Heather at KelticKaos challenged Dee Dee to leave a comment on each blog on the list. This plan of hers backfired of course and she was challenged right back. The natural reaction to this return challenge was to spread the love and propose that all of her readers do the same.

So, Backpacking Dad and I started working our way down the list. It was a race. I had every intention of winning. I have no life after all. I don’t work (right now), I don’t go out very often, and clearly I never clean my house. Ha! Of all the weeks for it to happen, some higher power (thanks Pokemon) decided this was the week for me to have other duties to fulfill. Fine. I concede defeat and Backpacking Dad beat me to the end of the list but I am pretty sure I came in a distant second.

I have read some phenomenal blogs in the last week and have somehow increased, however temporarily, the traffic on my own. Yay me!

Apr 21
2008

Monday Musings

Posted by: megmartin | 4 Comments | Link to this | Category: Random Thoughts, Rants & Raves

This past weekend was….um…..interesting. As I mentioned in my Friday posts, Karma got her revenge on me for my gloating about the sun by snowing all over us. As a result, I had a rather deflated kid moping around the house because T Ball practice was cancelled. Sadly, being deflated does not necessary dictate that said child will also be quieter. If anything, the volume in the house increased as she asked me for the 18th time why she couldn’t go play and I had to explain yet again that the snow on the ground made the field all muddy. Not everyone’s parents are as brave as I am with a washing machine apparently. Or the Coaches (of which Hotty Hubby is one) are all a bunch of wimps. Or maybe we just felt like sitting our tushes on a Friday night instead of freezing our asses off watching a bunch of you kids not catch a ball. Whatever, pick an answer. And if you scream at me like that again, so help me I’ll drive you down to the diamond and let you play on your own in the snow.

By Sunday morning, all the snow was melted and the kid in question had re-inflated at the prospect of being able to throw a ball around again. I don’t think I have a seen a child more in love with her coach. (No..not her father…the other coach). Coach Nate is pretty easy on the eyes, I’m not the first to notice. But clearly my daughter has taken a shine to him. As I watched her on Sunday, chasing after him for high fives and praise, batting her eyelashes at him, and smiley that big cheesy smile, it occured to me that I was reminded of the actions of those little Barbie doll girls that swoon all over the guys at the meat markets bars. Remind me to lock her up when she’s a teenager. At least she’s paying enough attention to the Coach to take in some of his instruction right??

On our way to the car after the game, we stopped by my dad’s car to say goodbye. As we’re standing there, this woman in a huge huge truck drives into the parking lot and parks. I have never in my life seen such amazing parking, I swear. Having failed to find a spot available in the parking lot and, I’m assuming, lacking in the ability to turn the monstrous vehicle around, she decided she’d make her own spot. Up onto the sidewalk she went. I wish I’d had my camera so I could show you all. Not only was she on the sidewalk, but she was parked on the sidewalk next to the only spot open in the lot. The handicapped spot. Well, how considerate is that? No no, I couldn’t possibly park in the handicapped spot. I’ll just park up here on the sidewalk so that if anyone needs that spot they can have it. Oh, they now can’t use the ramp for their wheelchair because I’m parked on it? Well, I could move, but…well, I can barely drive this tank as it is. I think I’ll leave it there.

Seriously lady? Are you that wrapped up in our own little world?

Yesterday afternoon we were in what some would call the third circle of Hell. Though I have to say that I’m not even sure that Beelzebub himself would have subjected himself to this. Yes, yes, we were at The Wiggles performance. All in all, I have to admit it was one of the most parent friendly performances I have ever been to. Hotty Hubby and I were rolling around laughing. The Wiggles themselves had a hard time keeping a straight face a good portion of the time. As we watching the men and women cavort around on stage in some questionable costumes, I looked over to see my children emulating this. The vision of your children dancing around with huge smiles on their faces, singing along to some of the most ridiculous songs on the face of the planet, is amazing.

There is one thing I must say about this little Wiggles adventure of ours. My father bought these tickets for us, so that the kids could get to see a great show without us having to sell any internal organs to pay for it (thanks Dad!). They were, theoretically, fantastic tickets. Floor seats, 12th row back. Every show we’ve ever seen at the Arena were floor seats and while this was the furthest back we’ve ever sat, the floor is usually a great place to be. And it would have been but for one small issue.
When we found our seats, we got settled and looked around to see if there was anyone else we knew. Because, you know, in an arena that hold thousands of people, you’re bound to see someone you know right? A woman and her small child came and sat in front of us and we adjusted our positions accordingly so that the kids could still see the stage. Great, looks like this will work out well. Unfortunately, the two women with children sitting to the right of the woman in front of us had other ideas.

Woman to the right: “Excuse me ma’am, we’ve been separated from some friends of ours who are now over at the other end of the row and we’d really like to sit with them [because we can't possibly survive without them]. Would you consider switching places with them?”

Woman in front of us: “Umm…..umm……sure. I guess so”

And off she goes to switch places. Hotty Hubby and are not to worried at this point because surely the seats will be filled with yet another parent and child right? Haha! No so my friends! I looked up to find two amazon women filling the seats to join their friends. So, now we have a group of 6 adults to go with 2 children. And they’re all freaking giants.

A word of advice to all of you out there. When you go to a children’s show, put on for children, for the benefit of children and making them smile, where the greatest portion of the audience is made up of..you guessed it…children - please do not sit a group of gigantors in front of the CHILDREN.

I may have mentioned at some point before, I can fairly vocal at times. The exception seemed to be with the Broom Cupboard Lady - but on the whole I make my opinions known when I feel like it. So there I am, sitting behind the Giants of Lilliput Land and saying such things as “Gee [Hotty Hubby], I don’t know what to do, the kids can’t see over the GIANT ADULTS IN FRONT OF THEM!” “What are we going to do to make sure the kids CAN SEE?!” “I wonder if they’ll slide down in their seats a bit so, you know, the kids can actually see the show that’s meant for them”.

I should have saved my breath. The show started, the “ladies” in front of us were still sitting up nice and tall and swaying back and forth so that neither of my children could see, and I was verging on smack down status. So I hauled the kids out of their seats and went and sat in the stands. Now, not only could the kids see, but they could dance. Sweet.

Kids Performace Seating Etiquette 101: If you’re at a kid’s show and there’s kids sitting behind you, please ensure you do your best to allow the kids behind you to see the show that cost a fortune to get into.

Apr 5
2008

Excuse me?!?

Posted by: megmartin | 6 Comments | Link to this | Category: Family & Friends, Rants & Raves

If anyone is planning an event in the near future, where a microphone or megaphone might be in order, fear not! I have the perfect thing for you. My son. I swear to you this child has no volume control. At least not at the appropriate times that one would wish for it. What is perhaps the most perplexing and frustrating thing for me is that when I need him to be quiet, he is not. When I need to him to speak up so that I can actually hear him, he whispers. I am getting bald patches from the hair pulling that this provokes. However, this is not the thing that prompted this post. Not directly.

Yesterday afternoon was a perfect example of of his inability to control this “gift”. We made a stop at the bank in the midst of my lengthy list of boring and endless errands. This is not a favourite task for me or for the children, but alas it is something that must be done. In all the years I have been frequenting banks, I must admit that I have never seen one that is a party scene (wouldn’t that be cool), but they aren’t all hush hush like the library either. Having said that, when we are out in public and especially when we are in somewhat confined spaces such as a bank that is rigged with silent alarms, I do like my spawn to at least pretend to exercise some decorum lest they scare the little Barbie doll behind the counter and prompt her to trigger said alarm. I’d hate to have to try and get the kids to sleep on a concrete slab. Personally I can sleep anywhere, anytime, but they are a little pampered in that respect. They would at least require a sheet.

I digress.

Yesterday we stopped at the bank and the kids ran (yes really) to their normal corner where the bank has supplied some rather ancient looking Fisher Price toys that are probably holding enough germs and viruses to kill off an entire third world country. I stood in the long line up looking as bored as I could possibly manage in the hopes that the Barbies would hurry up and get me through the line. In front of me in the line was an acne covered teenager humming along to his iPod, a rather good looking guy in a power suit who probably drove up in the compensation car I saw out front, and a pinched looking woman who looked like the broom that was normally stored up her ass had in fact been pushed up so far it was about to fill the hole left by her shrunken heart. I’m sure there were other people in the line too but these were the ones I noticed.

I knew right away that this broom cupboard of a woman was going to be an issue, but hoped that my instincts were a little further off than they usually are. Sure enough, my son decided that the bank would be the perfect place to test out his admittedly stellar vocal range. Top of his lungs, singing some completely made up lyrics.

I shushed him a couple of times and his sister tried to clamp her hand over his mouth and nose to smother him into silence but he would not be dissuaded. We got closer to the front of the line and I could see the acne commercial, the Barbies and the power suit stifling giggles at my son’s little ditty so I didn’t bother shushing him anymore. In fact, my extreme blush (think lobster) was disappearing and I was fast approaching a semi normal complexion. I was happy to have scored such an amazing crowd of people. Happy that I was not being chased with pitchforks for bringing this hellion into their midst and disturbing the peace.

This feeling of relief was rather short lived however. Broom lady had finally finished her business and was heading towards us to leave the bank. I really thought she was going to be her proper little British self and keep walking. Oh how wrong I was.

Broom Lady: “May I suggest that the next time you bring your……children <said with incredible scorn>……into a public place like this, that you keep them within an appropriate range and actually control them?” (all said in her snippy little British accent)

Me: “uuuhhhhhh” (yes, I’m a little slow on the uptake)

Broom Lady: “I really have no wish to be subjected to this……noise <there’s that scorn again>….when I come into the bank and expect peaceful quiet to conduct my business”

Power suit guy: **GASP**

Acne Boy: **Bug Eyed**

Twinkies: **Gaping mouths**

I looked at her, balled up my fist, sang “Another one bites the dust” at full volume and punched her in the head.

“How’s that for peaceful quiet bitch!?”

Actually I stood there dumbfounded while she waddled off with the broom sliding further up her ass than it already was. Of course by now, my son was perfectly quiet. He was too busy watching his mother get bitched out to continue his song. He waited until we got to the grocery store to continue …. where he found a few other preschool aged children to join him. They will begin their world tour, to promote their album, in the summer.

Mar 30
2008

Locked Out - What do we do?

Posted by: megmartin | One Comment | Link to this | Category: Rants & Raves

According to Wikipedia “A library is a collection of information, sources, resources, and services: it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual. In the more traditional sense, a library is a collection of books.”

This is something I think we all know. Something else we all know is that this is place of knowledge, of learning, of fun. I grew up visiting the library to research school projects, to find that next crime thriller in the series that had enthralled me for so long or just to hang out with my friends and not be lying to my mother - “no Mom, I really was at the library”.

As I got older, got my own job and was responsible for paying rent and bills, I discovered that money for books to read for enjoyment was a little further down on the priority list than I would perhaps like. But what’s that? Oh, the library! Of course. Off I would trudge with my backpack and take out as many books as I could carry. This number was usually far lower than the number I was allowed to take, but short of buying myself a donkey to cart all those books around on, a backpack full was all I could manage. The library was a small piece of sanity in my hectic world, somewhere I could escape to and leave the world behind. To be able to escape into the world of the Swiss Family Robinson or to experience the heartbreak of Anne Frank, is something that I hold near and dear to my heart. Just being able to sit and read a newspaper in the relative quiet of the stacks was an experience that many in this world never get to experience.

While the library is still all that and more, now that I have my own children, I see other facets to the institution. Now when I visit, I see parents and caregivers sharing the joy of the books with the children in their charge. The expressions on the faces of those children as they read about the life of the mouse under the stairs and how he escapes from the big black cat. The giggles you hear ripple through the kid’s area as they hear about Walter the Farting dog. Story time for the kids introduces them to the wonders that await them through their lives and the explorations they can embark on as they wander the world of the library.

All of this, and so much more, is why the last weeks and months have been so horrible in the world of Victoria BC book lovers.

We are locked out of our libraries!!

In September of 2007, the union workers that staff our libraries in Greater Victoria went on strike. They are seeking pay equity and getting nowhere. The last pay equity agreement was reached in 1992 and was intended as a way to end gender based pay scales. So why, 15 years later, were the Labour Relations Association and Libraries Board so unwilling to bend that our library workers felt the need to strike? This is an answer we are still waiting for.

Over the months between September and February, the union continued to strike but the libraries remained open with minimal services. The lack of internet service a concern to a small few. The inability to pay fines not a big worry. But, the Library Board and LRA, in all its infinite wisdom felt that they were losing inordinate amounts of money and as a result, a lockout was surely a better solution.

February 18, 2008 - All the library workers, and the library patrons were locked out indefinitely with no whispers of negotiations.

As a result, I have gone from almost daily visits to the library with my children to nothing. Numerous times I have tried to explain the situation to them but at the ages of 3 and 5, how do you explain something so complex that many adults cannot understand it? How do you help change the injustice that is being done?

Not only have the workers been locked out, and are therefore losing wages and salaries that inevitably support their own families, but the people like me, who frequent the library, have also been locked out. As taxpayers, this is our library too. There has been much discussion surrounding this on a local forum of mine (KidsInVictoria) with many of us wondering how we could help. How can we get our point across to the negotiators, to the people who make these big decisions? How do we make them understand what an impact they are having on the lives of the children, of the students, the elderly and the shut ins?

A couple of local mommas who will forever be heroes in my mind, staged a “story time sit in” at the GVLRA offices. Had my children not been sick, I would have attended myself.

I have come to realise over the last months that we take our library privileges for granted. Today while reading a post From the Pear, it struck me as funny that she was raving about how great the library was and the tongue in cheek shock of not being arrested for leaving the library with books that cost so much. It also made me incredibly sad to think that it could be months before my children see the inside of a library again. Every day I hope that our union and our GVLRA will be able to reach an agreement, but at the same time I need to be realistic and understand how hard those negotiations can be.

Here’s something special for you though - we now hold the distinction of being the only city in all of North America to ever be locked out of our libraries. Yay??

Stay tuned!

Mar 28
2008

Adventures in haircutting

Posted by: megmartin | 3 Comments | Link to this | Category: Family & Friends, Pics, Rants & Raves

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.

Mar 27
2008

Al-Qaida’s got nothing on Schools!

Posted by: megmartin | 2 Comments | Link to this | Category: Random Thoughts, Rants & Raves

A new form of torture has recently been employed in the house of the Mad Woman. Unfortunately it was inflicted on me. Cold water baths, electrocution, nail pulling and whippings have nothing on the pain that is (dum dum DUM!) Spring Break. Now, don’t get all giddy and start picture hot young things in bikinis and swim shorts all drunk and cavorting in Florida. This is elementary school.

Thanks to the poor timing of Easter this year, it coincided horribly with Spring Break and this added extra days to the already dreaded timespan that many of the parents were looking at with trepidation. What on earth would we all do with our spawn home for so long? Is this a test to see if we have any hope of surviving Summer Vacation? If so, many of us failed miserably.

Ash’s school was out from the 15th until today. That, for all you budding mathematicians out there, is 12 days. Twelve days of two children under the age of 6 thundering around my house, jumping on my bed at unholy hours of the morning (think 8am) and doing their level best to kill each other in the most creative ways possible. For the first six days I would jump to rescue whichever child was struggling the most and throw the offending party out the top floor window with instructions to “get out and stay out”. Once day 7 hit however, all bets were off. You hooligans want to kill each other? Have at it!

This statement was taken far more literally than I had originally anticipated and I would find 40 lbs of son hurtling down the stairs at high speed, while his big sister stood at the top and giggled to herself maniacally. On the flip side, once the son had recovered from his flight, he took great delight in planting himself on top of his sister’s chest and using his knees to choke her. All the while, I laid blissfully on the couch reading my book and hoped that they could at least do me the honour of hurting each other equally so I didn’t have to hear any “She got more than I did!” comments.

I had hoped that with the arrival of Spring Break, so would arrive the miracle of children sleeping in past 8am. Wishful thinking at its best. For the first week, both of my hellions took great delight in waking up somewhere between 6am and 7:30am. After crawling out of bed, they would join forces and take turns coming into our room to do the creepy-inches-from-your-face-stare-til-you-wake-up thing that they are busily perfecting. Thankfully, I am a fan of the electronic babysitter and am confident that their rooms are both stocked with books and toys and would send them back to their rooms until I decided it was time to drag my ass out of bed.

Sadly, over the last few day, they have decided that sleeping in isn’t so bad after all. This poses great problems on the morning they are meant to return to school. As if it wasn’t hard enough for me to get out of bed, it was like struggling to get a cat into a bath when I tried to get Ash out of bed for school. And this is the final act of torture inflicted upon us by our schools. Its almost as if the administrators sit around and plot all this.

Now if I could just escape the other new torture known as housecleaning, I’d be free as a bird.

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