I hope you have sand in your crack

Hello, ma’am. Yes, that is a lovely bathing suit you have there. The sliver stars really shine against the bright pink background. And don’t worry; you can still totally pull off wearing the same bikini as the 14 year-old girl sitting next to you even though you’re pushing forty. The botox is really helping. That look of utter contempt you just shot my eight year-old son as he mistakenly sprayed a few grains of sand on your beach blanket as he ran excitedly to the lake to get more water for his sandcastle moat was a little uncalled for, however. How nice for you that your very young child sits stone still while gnawing on the same piece of watermelon for two hours, but the rest of us with normal, non-sedated children must learn to tolerate their incessant laughter and silliness while at the BEACH.

You see, most people bring their children to the beach because they have fun there. Since you’re not familiar, fun can best be described as the expenditure of time in a manner designed for pure enjoyment, most often characterized by activities that make the participant of said fun feel joyful. Parents can usually tell their children are having ‘fun’, because they express themselves with laughter, smiles and the occasional excited ‘whoop-whoop’.

If you take your child off the valium and allow him to move about, he may be able to experience fun for himself. I’m sure that piece of watermelon is simply riveting, but so is the GIANT LAKE right in front of him.

Besides, my little bastard is going to get it covered in sand anyway.

Random Tuesday - Jon, Kate and Holden Caulfield walk into a bar....

I know I really need to let the Jon and Kate thing go, but it just pisses me off more and more everyday. She rationalizes keeping the cameras rolling by saying, “Parents work. This is my career and I work for my kids”. Yeah, well most parents work by going to an office, or a restaurant or a car dealership or a factory. The butcher, the baker or the candlestick maker aren't whoring their little ankle biters out for a 'job', now are they? And then there is Jon who goes traipsing around France before the ink is dry on the divorce papers (and who am I kidding, most likely WAY before that) with a 22 year-old girl. That woman was in grade six when his first set of kids were born for crying out loud. What is wrong with these people? Could you imagine being those children and having to go to school everyday? When I was nine my mother dressed me in culottes one lousy day and I was teased for months. I feel so sorry for what those kids have to deal with now just because their parents are morons.

We sealed the deal on the cabin for trade yesterday! We went out on the weekend and had a look-see and it’s fabulous (for those catching up we found an on-line ad offering free rental on a lake front cabin in exchange for yard work). There is a lot of work that needs to get done, but I just happen to have in my possession an unemployed husband and teenager who needs to find a way to pay me back for the cell phone she lost with 26 months remaining on the contract. Hubby and the two oldest are going to head out next week and get most of the trees/bushes cut down and loaded up, and then myself and the little one are going to join them the following week for TWO WHOLE WEEKS at the lake. Ahhhh, the lake. I love the lake. The minute I step out of the car and am surrounded by trees and water I immediately just chill the fuck out.

I’m going to read Catcher and the Rye while I’m on vacation this summer. I’ve always wanted to read it, but have never gotten around to it for some reason. Then I’m going to get a dog and name it Holden Caulfield so everyone will think I’m an intellectual and take me seriously as a writer. Ha! I know, huh? Holla!

The follow are words and phrases I wish I could completely remove from my lexicon without consequence:
- Terms of Reference
- Governance Committee and Board of Directors
- Quarterly report
- Please pass the potato chips
- Where is your cell phone, J?
- Mom, it turns out we’re not going to make it to Winnipeg for a holiday this summer after all….

I think my husband is going to be the best teacher in the whole world. The thought he puts into not only what to teach the kids, but how to teach them is amazing. If all the world’s educators approached their jobs in this way, the planet would be filled with much different people.

I still need a pedicure. I'm prety sure I could sharpen knives on my feet at this point. I should really address this situation before vacation because I’m not planning on wearing shoes for two whole weeks. Hmmm…..maybe I should get one AFTER I’m back from the lake.

That is it for me, now go see Keely – she is queen of all things insightful and visionary. Is that better?

Fat Chick vs. Food - Week Twenty Four

If you recall I was lamenting last week about how we can’t really have it all, I’m happy just to be home for a while with the family, a happy fat is just fine, blah, blah, blah. What a total crock of shit, huh?

Yeah, that is what we call rationalizing a backslide people.

This is an interesting turn of events for me. Traditionally, around the 30 pound down mark something shitty happens to me and I use that as an excuse to stop exercising and start eating chocolate cake for breakfast all the while telling myself that it’s okay because hey! At least I’m eating breakfast, right?

Here I am around the 30 lbs mark and life could not be going more swimmingly. All the things I’ve ever wanted seem to have fallen into place in a way that I never really thought would actually happen. No horrendous loss has befallen me, no reality crushing blow has shaken my foundation…. hell, my biggest worry of late is reserved for the kids of Jon and Kate Plus 8. Oh yeah, did you see him this weekend??? He was photographed in France gallivanting with some chippy – can you believe that? Dumbass. What about the KIDS Jon! Think of the KIDS!!! They’re old enough to read now! How do you think they feel seeing their father with someone else all over a magazine cover? Dumbass! Sorry, back to the fat chick thing....

As I was saying, my life is going just fine, and yet I still find myself in a familiar position - TOTALLY WUSING OUT. Why? Why Why Why is this so hard for me? Why do I fall off the wagon after seeing so much success? Oprah would say that it’s because I have low self esteem and don’t think I’m worthy of a healthy body. Okay, there might be some of that there, but I don’t think that’s the whole answer. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and this time around I think I’m sabotaging myself because I’m worried my contented little life will vanish any day now if I get my weight under control. I know that sounds ridiculous to all of you sane and rational people out there, but I’m a little nutty. I believe that if I get the last major thing in my life that has been a serious problem for me under control I’ll be way too happy and therefore something terrible will happen. Logically I know that’s ridiculous, but that’s where my brain goes. It’s not easy being crazy, trust me.

I have all the tools I need. My whole family is very supportive. I do not have one of those husbands on the reality shows that makes his wife feel like crap every time she leaves him with the kids to go work out. He is all for it – never once has he ever suggested he couldn’t hold down the fort while I went to work out. I know he wants me to get into shape. That poor guy really is pretty screwed. He’s the one with a front row seat watching me give up, and I know how badly he wants to kick my ass and tell me to quit fucking around and get back at ‘er, but he can’t. He has learned that lesson well over the years. If he doesn’t say anything he has to sit back and watch me get fat all over again. If he does say something, he has to watch me have a total freak out, accuse him of not loving me anymore and then have a raging battle that ends in us not speaking. And then he’ll have to watch me get fat all over again anyway.

What I need to do is stop worrying about the things I can’t control and start focusing on what I CAN control. I can’t control when someone I love gets cancer, but I can control my weight and health. There really isn’t a finite amount of good things that can happen to me. Is it temping fate to even write that down?

I have gained five pounds in the last month. That’s a total loss of 23lbs since January, and a whopping 37 pounds to go. Sigh.

Backslide over. And……..here we go!

Random Tuesday - Americans, toques and mindless drivel. In that exact order.

Happy belated Fourth of July you crazy Americans! I love you even though you shun the metric system, and the letter ‘u’ and the tasty goodness that is clamato juice. I hope you all had a blast with your giant trucks, bud light and apple pie. Or grits. What are grits, anyway? I’ve always thought they were some kind of potato concoction, but I’m not exactly sure about that.

Canada Day (our version of Independence Day) is July 1st, so last weekend we went for the obligatory celebrations in the park with over priced concessions, cover-bands and fireworks. I’m REALLY upset I didn’t bring my camera, because some of the people there were awesome. Who knew the Canadian flag made such a good toga?

My daughter is fifteen and desperately trying to find her ‘cool’. I’m usually just fine with this and stand by the motto that as long as she’s not dressed like a whore, she can wear whatever she wants. However, she has recently added a toque to her wardrobe repertoire (that’s a winter hat for all those south of the border). Yes, in JULY. I am usually good at biting my lip when she wears or does something I think is stupid provided it doesn’t cause harm. I shut it when she dyed her hair pumpkin orange. I kept it to my own self when she came home wearing 80’s style flashdance leg warmers. I even managed to let the phase that saw her wearing a skirt and jeans at the SAME TIME go by. However, I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut when she left to go to the mall this weekend in a skirt, tank top, flip flops and a wool hat. I knew the minute my ‘why in hell are you wearing a toque in July??’ comment came out of my mouth I had totally screwed myself. That stupid thing has been glued to her head every day since, and I predict will be well into August.

I REALLY need a pedicure.

I think I found an awesome deal for our vacation this year. We are really out of money (the Hubby doesn’t start working until September, so it’s been a little lean around the FoN household recently), but still really want to go somewhere for a holiday this summer. There is this super great used crap website for locals (sort of a Craig’s list type thing) that was advertising a free lakefront cabin about an hour out of town in exchange for someone to stay there and do some landscaping. Perfect!! I love this trade economy that has suddenly sprung up. The people with the cabin can afford to forgo rental income they would make on it, but have no time to deal with the yard work and upkeep. The Hubby has the whole summer off and a ton of free time, but subsequently we have no money to rent a cabin with. Sounds like a perfect match to me! Lakefront even! I have no follow up pithy comment for this, I’m just happy we figured out a way to have a vacation.

Hey – I wonder what kind of service I can offer to get a free pedicure? Surely I must have something to offer. If anyone out there hears of anyone who wants to trade a pedicure for a list of pointless observations and musings give them my email address, okay?

That’s enough from me. Go see Keely, our Captain O’ Captain of pointless observations and musings at the Unmom. She’ll hook you up with lots of drivel. It’s kind of her thing.

Fat Chick vs. Food - Week Twenty Three

So…..this is not going that well. The weight loss thing, that is. Lots of other things are going well, but Fat Chick vs. Food? Not so much.

Keely pointed out to me the other day that not everything can go well all at once. While my first response was of the, ‘No fair!’ variety, she has a good point. Everything requires effort, and most people have a finite amount of effort in them (super mom types aside, but they at least have Percocet). I have a lot of shit I need to pay attention to, and usually one suffers at the hand of the other. It’s a priority thing, I guess.

I can invest my marriage OR weight loss. I can play with my kids OR clean the house. I can go to work OR get all my personal ducks in a row. I have to pick, and there are consequences to each.

I can hang out with my husband who is home every night for the first time in our married life, or I can leave him and the kids and hit the gym. You know how long I’ve been waiting for all of us to be on the same schedule and to be able to do regular things like eat dinner together every night? Fifteen years. No kidding.

I can quit my job and have a beautifully decorated and spotless house, wake up every morning and go for a run, play with the kids whenever I want, etc, or I can earn money and pay for things like shelter and food and clothing. You see where I am going with this.

For the last six months Fat Chick has been a high priority. She has received a lot of attention, and it’s been working! She’s dropped almost 30 pounds! This is quite a bit and has certainly improved my quality of life, my clothing options and fitness level. I’m feeling good. I could be feeling better if I was working on dropping the next 30 pounds, but….the whole priority thing has shifted somewhat.

This is not to say I have given up all together. I’m making concessions here and there. I’ve been taking the stairs quite a bit at work (and I work on the 12th floor, so that’s a lot of stairs), and the other night we all went for a bike ride. Sure, it was to get ice cream, but it was still a bike ride dammit!

I’m going to continue the Fat Chick posts because they keep me honest. I’m also going to start trying to get my family active with me, which shouldn’t be too hard because they love being outside now that summer is finally here. The Hubby and I even tried playing tennis last weekend. I’ve never played tennis before, and not surprisingly I completely suck, but so does he so there is a lot of running after balls going on. I’m hanging in there.

Fat and miserable is a terrible way to live, but I might be okay with fat and happy. For the short-term, anyway. SHORT TERM.

FoN and Superkeely vs. the Fucktard Sisters - the Final Chapter

I'm wrapping this bad boy up today! Click here if you need a refresher.

Like I said, I’m not entirely sure what went down while I was running for my life, but from the bits and pieces I can gather Valentina tried to unsuccessfully pin down the Fucktard Sister, the group of guys at our table just sat there half stunned, half turned on that a real honest-to-god girl fight was unfolding right before them, and Keely took off trying to find some help.

By the time I had reached the stage and the safety of the Hubby, Keely had alerted security to the situation and was trying to lead the bouncers through to the direction of the Fucktard Sisters. The Hubby, pretty fucking mad two crazy chicks were trying to kill his wife, threw his drumsticks down and charged to the front of the stage. Hearing the drums suddenly stop the rest of the four guys in the band looked behind them to see what the hell was going on. They were able to figure it out just in time to get out of the way while the Hubby took the microphone to address security.

“This crazy bitch here, and that crazy bitch there. Get them the fuck out of this bar right goddamn NOW.”

The bouncers were being led through the crowd by Keely who was trying to direct traffic and move the people on the dance floor out of the way.

From my view on stage all of a sudden I saw a huge bouncer come up behind each Fucktard Sister, grab them around the waist and haul them each – kicking, screaming and massive hair flying - out of the bar. Keely was standing front and centre, laughing hysterically while giving each one of them the finger. I’m pretty sure that if they would have managed to free themselves from the bouncers Keely would have been their next target.

So there we were. On stage in front of 300 stunned people, the Fucktard Sisters were being hauled out by giant men while screaming profanities, Keely was still giving the double birdies to each one of them, the band stood silent while they tried to figure out what in the hell was going on, and I was in the middle of the stage with a crowd of people (most of whom I knew) staring up at me. After a moment or two of awkward, the band decides to start up again with ‘We are the Champions’ and the crowd goes wild. I stayed up there for a moment, waving at the Fucktard Sisters (who were about halfway out of the bar at this point and still completely wigging out) and savoring my victory. My victory over the fact that not only can I run faster than they can, but I have friends who are good in a crisis. My one and only bar fight in the history books.

I know there were a bunch of you waiting to hear all about the ass kicking they took at the hands of me and Keely, but……. we’re Canadian. That’s just not how we roll.

Epilogue -

This happened about twelve years ago. Our city is not that big, and while the Fucktard Sisters and I don’t exactly frequent the same type of establishments, I am still to this day on the semi-lookout for that giant hair. I haven’t ever seen the youngest one (the one who hit me in the face), but I’ve seen the oldest one twice. The first time I saw her was in a mall and I managed to see the hair coming over the crowd in time to avoid a pass by in the aisle. The second time……. she was getting into a bar fight.

FoN and Superkeely vs. the Fucktard Sisters - Part IV

The saga of my one and only bar fight continues. If you need to catch up a go read these.

She started to drunkenly charge through the bar immediately. I tried to stop laughing, because at that point I was terrified, but on her way over to my table she crashed into the corner of a chair and fell over. She was only down for a second or two when her giant hair shot back up and she resumed stumbling my direction. Amazingly, she was still clinging to her beer bottle.

Sitting at our table was a group of our male friends. To put it mildly, these guys are giant pussies. They are white collar dudes who avoid confrontation at all costs so not to get their polo shirts dirty. I had given them a general overview of the Fucktard Sister situation earlier in the night, but aside from cracking a few jokes they had long since forgot about it and were not at all concerned for my safety. I knew they would be no help whatsoever.

Realizing I only had seconds to live, I did a quick scan of the bar trying to locate a bouncer, an exit sign, Scotty waiting to beam me up, a bookshelf that if you pull the right book it leads to a secret passageway, anything that might help get me out of this. Nadda. Crap! Here she comes………..

“Whase so fucken funny? Youwannagobitch?”

“Um, no. I do not want to go. Are you okay? That looked like a nasty spill you just took back there.”

That's when the Fucktard Sister leaned across the table and swung at my head with her beer bottle. I was a little tipsy by this point, so my reaction time was not that great. I did manage to get out of the way enough that she didn’t knock me unconscious, but the beer bottle/fist combo still connected with my face just under my left eye.

Ow. The only thing I remember going through my head at that moment was RUN. Right as I took off I saw out of the corner of my eye that Valentina reappeared from behind the Fucktard Sister and was trying to restrain her from leaping over the table to kill me. I bolted.

I started running through the bar trying to find a bouncer. The band was pretty popular by then and usually at least once a show some stupid drunk girl would try to get on stage to grope one of the guys. Consequently, they often had security hanging around the dance floor area. I gave a quick glance over my shoulder to see if the Fucktard Sister was in hot pursuit or if the table of people I was with managed to restrain her. No such luck. As I looked behind me I could see that she had managed to free herself from Valentina (no surprise there, Valentina weights about 100 pounds) and with beer bottle and giant hair a-blazin’ was coming to get me.

You must remember a few things here. First of all, the band had been playing all night long so the band guys didn’t fully get what was going down. Secondly, the bar was filled with people I know. I didn’t tell them all exactly what was developing throughout the course of the evening because some of the people there were acquaintances and I really didn't want them to know I was in danger of getting into a bar fight. People from work, for example. I had a professional job and I didn’t think a drunk-bitch bar fight would really do wonders for advancing my career or reputation.

Anyway, back to the running. I was grateful Valentina managed to give me a bit of head start because clearly the Fucktard Sister was in it to win it. Thank god I was familiar with that bar because I knew exactly how to weasel my way through the crowd, tables and dance floor to try to get to security. There was a DJ booth right beside the stage, so I headed straight for it. Yeah, I know a DJ wasn’t really what I needed at that moment, but I figured bar staff of any form would improve my situation. I mean, they worked there, so they were sort of obligated to help me, no? As it turns out, not really, no.

I made it to the DJ booth! I started banging on the door - “Hey! Let me in! Some crazed fugly drunk and hairy chick is trying to kill me!! Let me in goddamn it! GAH! She’s coming!! For FUCK sakes open the fucking door!!!!”

Dude just starred through the glass at me pointing to his ear, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders.

“Yeah, I know you can’t hear me, there is a FUCKING ROCK BAND playing three feet away. Isn’t my crying and flailing enough for you to think you should open the door anyway?” FUCKER! Wait a minute…there is a rock band playing three feet away! Hubby!!

Without the aid of the 20 year-old DJ (fucker), no bouncer in sight and nowhere else to go, I jumped on stage and ran behind the drum kit. Mid song.

The band was on stage kicking ass when I ran up behind the Hubby all out of breath. He kept drumming, but looked at me and mouthed, “What’s up?”

I pointed at the front of the stage. I’m not exactly sure what went down while I was running for my life, but all I saw at that moment was Fucktard Sister 1 (the one that smacked me in the face) struggling through the crowd trying to get up to the left of the stage, and Fucktard Sister 2 (I had sort of forgot about her) struggling through the crowd to get up to the right of the stage. The band was still playing.

That’s when I saw Keely.