Cue the red carpet and the guys with really long trumpets

Hello the four people who read this blog! Isn't this a big improvement? A big shout out to Rachel at Blog Candy Designs for helping me fix up the hot mess that was my previous blog. I am very creative in my head, but I have no ability whatsoever to actually deliver on anything. Rachel, on the other hand, is extremely creative and I think a little psychic because most of my descriptions to her were extremely flaky and she figured me out anyway. Big props to Rachel.

You will see once you look around a bit that I have a few new items that I'm hoping to update in the very near future. My current obstacle (now that I don't have to be ashamed at how pathetic my blog looks) is that my children have TOTALLY buggered up my computer by downloading all sorts of things that exist to wreck me, and if that wasn't enough they left the desk lamp on and pulled down to about 3 inches away from the keyboard and melted everything left of 2wsx. I am NOT impressed. So, I have a brand new laptop on order that will be MINE MINE MINE. I had to hold the 'shift' key down the whole time I was typing that because the 'caps lock' is left of 2wsx. Curse those children....

As I was saying, once my laptop arrives and I refuse to let anyone touch it other than ME I can lock myself in my bedroom and pretend to be masterbating all while I'm really updating the blog. Keely told me to use that excuse so you can blame her for the ewww factor you just experienced.

Dirty Words and Lu Lu Lemon don't mix

I have a question – at what age do you allow your child to start swearing? The adults in my household have some major potty-mouths and while we try (sort of) to keep it g-rated around the little ones the rest of the time we sound like the Osbourns. J is fifteen and told me to fuck off about three times yesterday. I know that all of you with your little ankle bitters are totally horrified that something so vile will someday be uttered by your little ones, but I was OK with it because it was in context. As in, it wasn’t your typical fifteen year-old teenage head case screaming “FUCK OFF MOM I HATE YOU!!” it was, “I’m trying to finish my homework so would you just fuck off already?” She’s a good kid, but I casually ask her if she’s a crack head every once in a while just to keep her on her toes. She just rolls her eyes and tells me to fuck off. According to 20/20 all kids who end up crack heads start off good kids, so I’m just practicing due diligence.

Every time J swears I tell her to stop swearing, but clearly she knows I don’t care because she tells me to fuck off when I say that. Should I care? I don’t. Is it all that bad that I don’t really care? I'm not sure. She doesn’t gratuitously swear (at least not around me), and the rest of her vocabulary is pretty impressive for a child that age. I heard her call her friend a troglodyte the other day, so obviously her potty-mouth hasn’t compromised her ability to use more sophisticated words when insulting people.

J did, however, get kicked out of homeroom the other day for telling a girl to fuck off because she’s stupid. The girl in question (part of the ‘Lu-Lu Lemon crowd’ as J calls them) did not know what an inauguration was, and was making fun of J who was trying to lead the class in a discussion about how important the impending American inauguration of Obama is to Canada. Granted, your average 15 year-old girl is a lot more focused on trying to find a way to meet the Jonas Brothers than she is on who our political leaders are, but J is the type of person who feels it necessary to enlighten the stupid. Should she have chosen a more constructive way to prove her point? Probably. But she didn’t get kicked out of class because she was wrong, she got kicked out for using the world ‘fuck’. Not appropriate for high school, but neither is being fifteen years-old and never having heard the word ‘inauguration’ before. Still, I was initially mad until J explained that the “fuck, you’re stupid” comment came after the Lu-Lu Lemon girl asked if inauguration was a basketball term. “Fuck, you’re stupid” suddenly seemed very appropriate to me.

Fat Chick vs. Food - Week 2

Hi there! Yes, I know it’s Tuesday but I have been VERY busy lately. This fulltime job thing is really starting to impinge upon my blogging.

The first week of operation fat-no-more went fairly well. It could have been better, but I think I did alright since it was the first week out of the gate.

On the food side of things I put forth a respectable effort other than Saturday night. I was good all day, but then I had to attend my brother-in-law’s birthday party that night. I ate before I left (a nice greek salad with chicken) and gave myself a pep talk the whole way over – “you will not eat all that shit the SIL will have covering every table of her house. You will drink only the mineral water you are bringing with you…”

When I first got there I was fine! Just some chips and cheese and crackers out – no biggy! I wasn’t hungry so I managed to stay away from them. Then, the SIL brings out a warm gooey goodness in the form of a ham and cheesy garlic dip baked right into a hollowed out loaf of french bread. What did she do with the part of the loaf she removed you ask? She cut it into little pieces so her guests could use the white fluffy french bread to eat the warm gooey goodness cheesy ham garlic dip. Yikes! I started madly affirming in my head –

“You will not eat all that shit the SIL will have covering every table of her house. You will drink only the mineral water you are bringing with you…” … You will not eat all that shit the SIL will have covering every table of her house. You will drink only the mineral water you are bringing with you…”

OK, mild panic, but I think I can get through it. Can I? Wait! Is that my arm going for a piece of bread? No! Stop!! What are you doing?? OMG!! Wha..!? You look like you’re going to use it to eat that dip! You ARE going for the dip! STOP! STOP!! Noooooooo………

I think you know how that ended. Alright, so I indulged in a little bread and warm gooey goodness cheesy ham garlic dip. Not TOO bad; I didn’t pig out as much as I normally would have, so that’s good, right?

But then the SIL brought out dessert. Do you know what sadistic unspeakable atrocity she created? This. For those of you too lazy to click anything right now let me sum up. This is not just any cheese ball, but a ball made from cream cheese, butter, icing sugar, brown sugar, vanilla and chocolate chips. All rolled together, chilled and covered in nuts. And just for fun she brought out chocolate graham wafers to eat it with.

So what did I do? The same thing millions who have been dealing with the food thing for years before me have done –

“Well, since I’ve already fallen off the wagon with the warm gooey goodness cheesy ham garlic dip, I might as well go whole hog and eat the cheese ball! Right? What do you mean I’m making it worse? Fuck you Inner Voice, that cheese ball looks AWESOME. Yes, I said fuck you. I’m Food Addiction and I am bigger and louder than you are right now. Huh? What do you mean I’m too fat to eat that? Who cares! At the moment I am kicking your skinny little ass all over the place. Just ask your woefully put upon stomach while it’s digesting the warm gooey goodness cheesy ham garlic dip. Oh yeah? You are no match for me – just watch this!! That’s right; I just had a handful of BBQ chips as a chaser. Don’t fuck with me Inner Voice…..

Yeah, so that was Saturday. The rest of the weekend went better than most weekends, but I did end up overeating a bit on Sunday. Not horribly bad, but Inner-Voice was still rallying the troops and organizing a counter offensive at that point so Food Addiction made more headway that he should have. However, the last few days Inner Voice has made a come back and she is ready to kick some ass. It’s -40 and snowing like a bastard and she is still making me haul my ass to the gym tonight. Go inner voice go!

I lost 1.6 pounds last week. 58.4 to go.

And you thought the Elmo song was bad...

I have managed to find a way to drive myself completely insane. Correction, I have managed to find an additional way to drive myself completely insane. My youngest is three and her name is Lena (much to the horror of my sister-in-law who frequently reminds me just how much she HATES that name. She named her daughter MacKenzie, by the way). Since Lena has been a baby I’ve sang that Barry Manilow song Copacabana to her, but substituted Lena for Lola. Every so often I grab her and we start dancing around the room while singing “…her name was Lena... she was a show girl... with yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there…..” She calls it the ‘Lena song’ and laughs her guts out every time I sing it and it’s funny.

Well, a few weeks ago we were in the car and low and behold, Barry Manilow starts singing away on the radio. For a moment Lena was COMPLETELY stunned. “How the FUCK did the Lena song get on the radio!!!???” After the initial shock wore off she started to completely freak out. When the song was over all she could say was PLAY IT AGAIN!! PLAY IT AGAIN MOMMY!! PLAY IT AGAIN RIGHT FUCKING NOW! OK, she didn’t say the ‘right fucking now’ part but it was implied. However, since the song was on the radio I couldn’t play it again, but because her reaction to the news that the Lena Song is actually a goofy lounge tune sung by Barry Manilow was so hilarious I promptly went home and downloaded it for her. Wow, was THAT a big mistake.

Now Every. Single. Time. I’m in the car with Lena the first thing I have to do is put on Copacabana. It has totally ruined my life because (a) I’m in the car with her at least twice a day if not more and (b) once you’ve heard Copacabana once it’s in your head FOR ALL OF ETERNITY. Everywhere I go now I am silently singing to myself, “at the Copa... Copacabana... The hottest club north of Havana…” It’s a living hell. And I brought it on myself! I can’t tell what’s worse - that Lena thinks she was named after a washed up barmaid slinging drinks for some asshole named Tony, or that her new favourite musician is Barry Manilow.

I apologise to all of you who have read this post because you will now spend the rest of the day humming Copacabana. Welcome to my world.

God Bless America

There is a real upside to this whole blogging thing that I hadn’t at all considered, and that is how I would end up meeting so many different kinds of people. And by different kinds I mean Americans!

Americans have always been so abstract to me. We get pretty much all of your media so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with your popular culture, or even your actual culture (I watch documentaries too!), but I'm not sure I've ever been, you know, friends with a real live American. The only Americans I know are the ones whose parents ran like hell in the early seventies to avoid getting dragged into that stupid war. But those people were about two years old when they moved here so I don't count them as Americans. And you know what I’ve learned so far? I think I like you guys!

To be honest I still can't comprehend WHAT YOU WERE THINKING politically during the last eight years, but you have since redeemed yourself with the last election. I know not everybody was responsible for the whole 'Bush destroying the world' thing, but I gotta tell ya…it has been hard to watch from up here. But, that’s all behind us now and you elected Obama! I think I can safely speak for the rest of the planet when I say NICE GOING. If you would have actually elected Mr. Burns and Snow Princess Barbie there I would have had to figure out a way to take up residence on the moon.

Aside from our political differences (although, we’re not doing much better up here. I’m sure most of you have never heard of Stephen Harper, but trust me when I say he deserves top seat on the sucks-ass list) we are pretty much the same. I have noticed a few subtle differences that amuse me though.

Like the fact that you treat the letter 'u' like the nerdy kid on the playground that everyone excludes until you suddenly need one more player to make the teams even. 'Neighbour' 'Colour' 'Labour'....'u' only gets to hang out in these words when they're in Canada. When they go for a weekend road trip to the States? Poor 'u' doesn't get to go. What's up with that? U is a cool letter! You need it to spell some really awesome worlds like 'ukulele' and 'vulva' and 'fuck'.

Or that you don't have Clamato juice! Clamato is the greatest beverage EVER. Do you know what it is? It's part tomato juice, part clam juice and random spices. Yes, I know it sounds repulsive but trust me - it's splendid. If you ever happen upon some Clamato, preferably Motts Clamato, make yourself a Caesar. A Caesar is just like a Bloody Mary, but you know, good. Here is what you need to do - take your glass and rim it with celery salt. Regular salt works too, but it's better if you have celery salt. Then you put in some ice, 1.5 ounces of vodka (or however much you like - go wild!) 3 or 4 drops of tabasco sauce, a splash of worcestershire sauce, dash of salt & pepper, and then fill the glass with Clamato juice. Add a celery stick to garnish and serve. The next time you're in Canada order one. You won't be sorry.

Americans also have a million realty shows and I would totally win them all but I'm not allowed to enter any of them because I'm Canadian. Me and the letter 'u' can just sit up here and lump it I guess.

Or the fact that literally hundreds of thousands of people go to football games at all levels. Pro right down to high school - you all take your football VERY seriously. And I think it’s brilliant everyone gets drunk in the parking lot prior to the game. I love that because it seems so very neighbourly (the u is triumphant!), and frankly, something Canadians would do. I’m not sure why we don’t. We get drunk everywhere else, but so far we haven’t been able to nail down the finer points of the tailgate party. I think I’m going to try and get that tradition going here. Does anyone know the history and origins of the tailgate party? I would love to hear to hear how that one got started. The one thing we do have in abundance up here is drunk people.

Beefs and Bouquets for Random Tuesday

Better late than never, right? Yeah, I know Tuesday is almost over but I was actually REALLY busy at work today. I even got to use my brain the whole day! It was awesome. I better go home now and watch some really bad television to balance that shit out.

I know the Tuesday thing is supposed to be random, but I'm breaking with convention and giving it just the tiniest bit of structure. Sort of a beef and bouquets, if you will. I have had a rash of recent service experience that were both superb and horrendous. Since I have a public forum at my disposal, I'm going to use my right of free expression and tell you who ROCKS and who SUCKS ASS.

OK Tire - sucks ass. I had a flat tire yesterday morning and when I called and asked them to please pick it up at my house, tow it to their facility, fix it and then call me, they said 'no'. Really, that's it. Just 'no'. Not "No, I'm sorry but we're too busy this morning, possibly we can fit you in this afternoon", not "No, we are short staffed and cannot accommodate this request right now" not even "No, I'm really hung-over right now and Larry the repair guy just left to go get us cheeseburgers”. Just ‘No’. WTF?

South Albert Tire - rocks. They didn't say "No", they just picked up my car, repaired it quickly, didn't charge me two limbs and a blow job to fix it and were nice to me when I got there to pick it up. See OK Tire? Was that so hard?

The Roof Top Bar and Grill - sucks ass. They are really overpriced, their food is horrible and they use very low quality ingredients. Honest to Christ I've had better steak at Bonanza. And they put horseradish in my Caesar. Ew.

Miso Sushi - rocks. Their rice is just a little warm still when they serve it to you and their menu is fabulous. OK, sure, they forget stuff a lot but the staff is usually very pleasant about it. It might be because none of them speak English and they just nod and smile not matter what the hell I’m saying, but that’s fine with me. The best part? On the tables are little shot classes that hold the pencils. Written on the shot glasses are sayings like, "You're ugly, but so I'm drunk I won't notice until morning". It still cracks me up every time I go there.

TD Canada Trust - rocks. They always give us money whenever we ask for it. We can ask for ANYTHING and they just hand it over.

TD Canada Trust - sucks ass. They always give us money whenever we ask for it. We can ask for ANYTHING and they just hand it over.

Sorry for the structure. Next Tuesday I’ll be all crazed and unglued. Promise.

Fat Chick vs. Food - Week One

OK everyone! It's the official start to the FoN plan of getting my shit together and FINALLY dropping all this grossness off of my body. For someone who seems to have the reputation of getting what she wants it seems odd I let myself get to this point. I need to start bossing myself around I guess. How did I get so porky you ask? Here is a little background....

I try to have a decent amount of self-esteem, which is not easily accomplished when you are a seriously overweight individual. I have to have little talks with myself that generally go like this:

“I refuse to be one of those women who are totally obsessed with their body. I’m a feminist, dammit! I certainly would never want to perpetuate the notion that women need to be thin in order to be worthy and happy. The media is responsible for society’s hyper-focus on the perfect female form and I for one am NOT going to buy into that. Pass the Doritos.”

While I feel that all of the above is true and I stand by it, I’m not really sure when I decided that I need to be fat in order to prove how committed I am to the cause. Gloria Steinem isn't fat now, is she? The truth is this – the ‘society pressure’ argument is what I use as a convenient excuse to justify my fatness.

The weight as been an issue for a long time now, and I have tried addressing it several different times over the last ten years with varying levels of success. By April of 2006 I had lost 35lbs and was feeling pretty good, especially since I had just had a baby in December of 2005. Then life intervened and that May my father died on the 12th and my grandmother died on the 27th. Both of those people were very, very important to me, I loved them to death and I did not handle their passing very well., especially since they died within weeks of each other. I wasn’t sure how to deal with being in a world that they were no longer a part of and well….having chocolate cake for breakfast seemed to make me feel better. I was in such a major depression that I was willing to grasp at anything that made me feel better. I put all that 35lbs back on and then an extra 5lbs for good measure.

By spring of 2007 I had managed to pull myself together again and by August of that year had lost 30 lbs. I was feeling like I might actually do it this time! Sure, I still had 30+ pounds go, but I was on a roll! Then, well....that fall something bad happened, let's just say that. Anyhoo....long story short I got super fat again and have pretty much stayed that way ever since. Now I’m 35 years old and have three kids and need to lose AT LEAST 60 pounds.

What the hell is my problem? If I can only lose weight when things are going well in my life then I’m going to have trouble because life sucks ass sometimes and pigging out doesn’t actually help. Things seem to be going my way a little more lately – but what I need now is a coping strategy so that when the next life crisis comes my way I can deal with it properly. Maybe I should start smoking a ton of weed or playing VLT’s every night until 3:00 am or something. Actually, the pot will probably give me the munchies so that won’t help and we’re kind of broke which makes it difficult to be a hard-core gambling addict. Anyone out there have any ideas on how to cope with stress that doesn’t involve food? The first person to say ‘clean your house’ might get a virtual boot up their ass, however.