On Camping

My husband and daughter tried camping in the backyard last night in a tent. A number of her school chums have campers, so camping was on my kid's wish list since last summer. We did try to  pitch the tent one day last year, and the tent pole broke in the process, aborting that attempt. New year, new tent, my husband was intent on keeping his promise this year.

The Kid was practically levitating with excitement. She'd planned which stuffies were coming camping, which blanket she was bringing, which pyjamas she was going to wear...she was dancing all over the deck, unable to sit still as we tried to put up a tent.

We have both camped before. My husband went camping with  his close friends a few years ago, and his friends were a bit concerned when they saw the amount of stuff Mr. Overpack was bringing. I think they were afraid I'd actually thrown him out and the camping trip was a front. I haven't camped since I was a young teenager and spent a couple of nights in my aunt and uncle's camper. I haven't camped in a tent since "Rock me Gently" and "Rock the Boat" were at the top of the charts. (oh, go and google, I'll wait.) A week at Girl Guide camp finished my tent camping days for good. Not sure if it was the cow that looked in through the flap someone forgot to secure or the chipmunk that ran across my face in the early morning, but I was done with the tent camping thing after that experience.

I'm just not an outdoors person. I'm not a gardener. It's a necessity, not an enjoyment.  I spent 6 months in physiotherapy after an afternoon of weeding. I'm not making this up. I screwed my shoulder so badly it took 6 months of physio to fix it. I'm a container gardener. Were it not for the worms, toads, wasps, bees, hornets, mosquitoes and dirt, I'd probably quite enjoy actual gardening.

When the idea of camping first came up, I was clear in my opinion. Have fun, you two. Mommy doesn't do camp, and mommy certainly doesn't do tent. The Kid is trying to figure out the boundaries for mommy to camp, and so far she has received a confirmation that I would, in fact, camp in a Winnebago.(Since we currently do not own stock in oil companies, and couldn't afford the gas for that sucker, it's a safe assertion on my part.)  I would consider a camper, but only if it has indoor plumbing.  My personal purgatory will see me stuck in a plain where I have to walk in the dark with a flashlight to use the bathroom at night. It will no doubt also include a shower I could only access a couple of times a week. I need my daily shower. It has to have a real bed. Air mattress and sleeping bag? uh...no.

The tent went up, the air mattresses went in, and the Kid then spent 30 minutes arranging everything to her satisfaction. OCD means even in a tent things must be in a certain place.  She had snacks (dunkaroos, juice box and granola bars) She had her slippers. She had her blanket. She had her bears. Time for bed. She and hubby crawled into the tent and I went in the house and locked the doors. I could hear her talking a blue streak, and the fact that there were fireworks in the neighbourhood last night didn't help the process of sleep. I was just getting ready to call it a night when a stream of curses caused me to look out the window. The tent was down. Experienced outdoor people that my husband and I are, we hadn't tightened something or fastened something, and the pop-up tent...didn't.

After a few minutes of debate and a few tears (from the Kid and blinked back from me since my night to myself was gone) they abandoned the project and came back inside. It took until 1am for the Kid to unwind and fall asleep.

Still, the promise was at least partially kept. The Kid spent a few hours in the tent (although the magic was wearing thin because there's not much to DO in a tent. I think her friends have been blowing smoke up her butt about the glamours of camping. That, or they never had to sit in the rain and NOT touch the sides of the tent.) and my husband kept his word. Best of all, I had the house and the remote to myself. Wins all around.

Letters I would never send...

Mommy Maria's blog inspired this post. It's been THAT kind of a week here, so I think I'll do some "letters I would never send" compositions of my own. Make sure you read Maria's. I dare you not to nod and laugh out loud...


Dear small child: You've learned to whistle! Good for you. I'm proud of you, and how hard you're practicing to perfect it. Now STOP DOING IT every waking moment.


Dear family: Stop waiting for the dish fairy to magically transport the dishes to the kitchen. Pick them up and put them in the sink already.

Dear tween boys in the park: So you know the F-bomb. Good for you. It is not necessary to use it as a noun, verb, adjective and adverb in the same sentence. I would prefer that my child does not pick up that particular language skill quite yet.You are not going to shock me with your language: I worked in Customs.

Dear graffiti artists: Painting the only play structure for the little kids with obscenities and pictures of the one finger salute, breasts and penises only shows that you are not as cool as you think you are. And there are generally two testicles or 5 fingers, just sayin...

Dear city workers: clean the damn play structure already. It's covered in obscenities and graphic pictures.

Dear Ellen Degeneres: Come to K-W for Oktoberfest already. I'm tired of the campaign.

Dear Richelle Mead: thank you for Dimitri. Now hurry up and write the next installment!

Dear women's plus size clothing designers: Not all of the female population are comfortable with their bra straps showing. Not all of the female population want the girls showing in their entirety. Some of us have a modicum of modesty left. I don't WANT to wear a camisole under a sundress...it's HOT. Cut it higher and make the straps thicker. Seriously.

Dear women's clothing designers: We are not all twigs. We are not all 20. And can you get together and agree on consistent size measurements please. I don't have time to try on the same dress in 3 sizes to find out which size 16 yours is...

Dear husband: fanning the covers after a dinner featuring beer and sauerkraut does not "share the wealth." It annoys the wife.

Dear husband: I am reading my book. It is a funny book and it's making me laugh. Do not ask me what I'm reading. You can read it when I'm finished, but right now, I'm in the zone. shush.

Dear woman in the supermarket pawing through the cherries to get the best ones: Knock it off. I don't want your pawed through cherries. Just pick up the little bag like the rest of us and move along. And don't even think about stopping at the grapes to do the same thing.

Dear sample lady: You should perhaps mention the fact that there is freaking peanut butter in the ice cream before you hand it out. I just don't like the taste, but do you realize you could kill someone? sheesh. blech, plooey, blech. 

Dear woman in the checkout line: Yes, I get it. You're in a hurry. That's why you're in the self checkout, 8 items or less line. So am I . And I'm ahead of you  so stop huffing and puffing, this house won't blow down.

Dear people in restrooms, small child at home: flush the damn toilet already. If it takes 2 flushes, flush it again. jeez.

Dear telemarketers: off my planet.

Dear BP: how could you NOT have a shut-off valve on the damn oil well? What did you THINK would happen? And yeah, there are some of us in the world who care about pelicans, turtles and crawfish fishermen.

There, I feel better now...

Reasons why I'll Never be a Chef

I have a confession: I'm addicted to the Food Network. I like nothing better than to sit and watch one of the Ultimate Recipe Showdowns, or the cake, sugar or candy showdowns. It boggles my mind to make Shrek out of cake. I love to watch Cake Boss on TLC too. And I don't watch Ricardo and Friends just for the sexy Quebeçois accent: I love the innovative ways he makes simple food (and his cookbook is great.)  I'm a Chef wannabe.

I'll never be a chef, though.

• I hate to cut onions. My eyes burn for a couple of hours every time I do. 
• I almost amputated my finger cutting off the end of a cob of corn so that it would fit in the microwave. Knives are not my friend.
• I hate the feel of raw ground meat. I hate handling it, I hate mixing it, and meatballs/meatloaf mixed in my standing mixer tends to be tough from over mixing. 
• I hate mixing things with my hands, period. I would never mix a salad with my hands. Maybe it's why I can make pie crust so well-I handle it as little as possible.
• I'm not adventurous with flavours. I'm a good cook, but not an innovative one. Adventurous is putting a bit of dry mustard in my meatloaf (and the family didn't like it.)
• I hate cleaning up after baking. One of my claims to fame is scratch chocolate cream pie, but I don't make it often because it takes every freaking bowl and pot in the house to make.  
• I'm not going to spend 8 hours and 57 steps to make a dish that has 243 ingredients, most of which require a trip to a bigger city and a bank loan to acquire.  Chances are, the family wouldn't eat it anyway.
• I'm dangerously, life threateningly allergic to garlic. Vampires have nothing to fear from me.
• I don't know how to light our barbeque, and have no interest to learn. If hubby wants to "cook meat on flame" why would I take that pleasure away from him? There is only one license to grill in our house. (I don't know how to work the snowblower either. If I knew how to operate it, I might be expected to do it...but I digress)
• Sugar burns are not fun. I did it once-never again.
• There is a limit to even ultimate, 25 year guaranteed non-stick cookware if you burn the sugar well enough...Brittle is an oxymoron if the brittle has cooled onto the pot.

I'm a busy, work from home mom to a 5 year old who loves shrimp and Vietnamese Pho (noodle) soup, but who won't eat tomatoes (although ketchup is fine.) My husband is a meat and potatoes guy who could eat pork chops every night, and eats the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day. There's not much point in getting creative if no one will eat it and my daughter will be scrounging for a cheese string and hotdog instead.

I am a snob about one thing, though. I am a scratch baker. It might be a counterpoint to the Lemon Pie/Blueberry Muffins/Boston Creme Pie from a box  that I ate as a child. My daughter came home one day with the astonishing discovery that cake comes in a box. She was pretty excited about that. Not in my house, honey. I make pie crust, bread, muffins, and other baking from scratch. I even tried to make Apple Strudel once, and used to spend days every year making hand dipped chocolate truffles and dipped cherries. My baking is good, but not "wow, would you look at that". It's more Edna Staebler than Martha Stewart, but it's good.

And so I live vicariously. I marvel at the creations that Charmian Christie comes up with. I sit in jaw-dropping amazement at the Hanging Gardens of Babylon made out of cake, the chandelier made out of sugar, and the Sesame Street cake with characters made of modelling chocolate. I pick up tidbits along the way but I'll most likely never need to know how to make a four foot tall cake. I don't have that much counter space.

And now, I need to go. My daughter and I are going to make banana bread.

A Writer's Hierarchy of Writing Genres

I attended Wordstock at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario last weekend. I've always been eclectic in my interests, and do a bit of this and that. I am a corporate and magazine writer, a wanna be kid lit writer, a wanna be novelist and a lover of words. I have been a contract writer, an academic writer and a government risk-assessment paper writer. I am not, nor have I ever considered myself a journalist.

Journalists, to my mind, are more immediate, more facts and figures, and often, more courageous than I will ever be. You will never catch me standing in a war zone reporting on an important, minute by minute event, or sitting in a courtroom reporting and analyzing the trial. It's not the kind of writer I am, nor is it the kind of writer that I want to be. I couldn't ask someone who has just lost their family how they feel. I admire journalists; I just don't consider myself one.

It's a funny thing, this writing profession. There are many different types of writing, and there is a subtle hierarchy, or at least there appears to be one. Non-fiction writers consider many fiction writers to be hacks or lucky, although I suspect many of us harbour fiction desires. I know I certainly do. I was amazed at the vitriol that Dan Brown's, Stephenie Meyer's and JK Rowlings' books have been met with in the non-fiction sector. Maybe there are some grammatical and constructional short comings, but they are a darn good read and in the case of Meyer and Rowlings, my mind boggles at the depth of character development. I will be reading Dan Brown's latest book when I save enough pennies to buy it.

I sat in a session at Wordstock that had a few magazine writers and the rest were journalists. They way we approached a story and research could not have been more diametrically different. While the mag writers would be busy transcribing interviews, organizing notes and planning the drafts, journalists had gotten the quote, filed a story and gone out for a beer. We looked at each other like we were crazy. Both Mag and journalists write and tell stories but one approach was alien to the other.

It got me thinking about the different types of writer and how we view each other.

So here's my own version of the writer's hierarchy. At one time or another I have been all and continue to be some of these. This is done tongue in cheek and with complete respect and affection to my peers in other genres. Hopefully I will offend no one by offending everyone equally:

1. Top of the food chain: Academic Writers

Academic writers are the top of the writing food chain. They do serious work, they do serious research and write about serious things. (they may or may not be paid serious money, seriously) So serious, in fact, that no one outside their own discipline (and sometimes within it) can make heads or tails of what they are saying. Of course, no one wants to admit that they don't understand the writing. (It's kind of like modern art-no one wants to admit they don't get the painting so they nod and say something like "what an interesting composition.) Unless they teach (shudder) Women's Studies, English, Media Studies, or some other fluffy arts program academic writers remain at the top of the writing food chain, secure in the knowledge that they will not be challenged because no one understands what they've said anyway. (and just to be clear, I hold a MA in Political Science with a specialty in Canadian Government and Business-Government Relations)

2. Not far behind: Technical Writers

Technical writers are a close second to academics. They write textbooks, manuals and handbooks and enjoy it. They talk a strange language peppered with words like Visio, screen grab, xml, info-mapping, decision trees and text boxes. They are detail-oriented and genuinely care whether the egg or the chicken came first because it could impact the decision tree graph. Technical writers get excited over the minutiae. Why use words when a bar graph will do?
(I am a geek who likes writing handbooks and position papers)

3. Corporate Writing

Corporate writers and trainers can command rates of $100+ an hour. Brochures, websites, client correspondence, annual reports-the money is in corporate writing. Now granted, you have to make a CEO who is an actuary look humble, compassionate and aware of something other than the bottom line, but the money is good and the gigs tend to be steady. It may not be as exciting as writing about pets and babies, but it certainly pays much better.

4. Magazine Writers and Journalists

Magazine writers and journalists write informational pieces, current events, political analysis, how-to articles and many other things that are the bread and butter of the media and print news world, and increasingly, the web. While the approach may be different-journalists often do not have the luxury of a 3 week deadline, the approach is the same: investigate, interview and inform. It's much harder to write a good 200 word article. Unfortunately, pay rates do not reflect the hours of research, background, sources and interviews that are required to create the finished product.

5-Marketing/Advertising Writers

Marketing and advertising copywriters make things look interesting, compelling and entice people to buy something. I spent many hours when I worked in compliance taking out all the pretty marketing claims that, unfortunately were against insurance legislative rules in most of Canada. Because of this propensity to pare down the fluffy marketing stuff, I have to work really hard at writing fluffy marketing stuff...To some people it's easy peasy. I am not one of those people. I'm far too honest to be a good advertising copywriter, although I'm learning. I have nothing but respect and admiration for good marketing copy writers.

6-Fiction Writers

Fiction writers live in an alternate dimension from non-fiction writers. They create worlds and characters that take over plots, refuse to speak planned dialogue, and argue incessantly with their writer-creators. If successful, they score huge book deals, have their books made into movies and end up on The View or on Oprah's book club. Their books get banned, debated, discussed, analyzed and translated. Their characters may become part of the zeitgeist of a period, and their books may become the "must read" of the moment. Most non-fiction writers harbour dreams of a best selling novel but hide the envy behind derision for sentence structure, run-on sentences, dangling particles, serial commas and verb-article agreement.

Romance writers and children's writers are a special subset of fiction writers. I rediscovered romance writing, and has it come a long way from heaving bosoms. I'd like to try to write romance, but I suspect I'm too Catholic and straight-laced. I might be able to write it, but I'd giggle like a 6th grader the whole time. As far as kidlit goes, everyone thinks they can write for children...until they try. Picture books are harder than they seem. Been there, done that, amassing the rejects.

So there's my writers' hierarchy. Where do you fit? How would you order it?

Things that are sent to vex you

My grandmother used to say that "some things are sent to vex you." I never understood what she meant when I was a child, but as an adult and a mother, I now know exactly what she means.

For example:

• On Labour Day weekend this year, I was in provisions mode, intent on making big batches of chili, muffins and baking to put in the freezer. Our stove element burned out on Sunday evening, leaving me without a stove until we could replace it on Tuesday. It was clearly something sent to vex me.

• When summer camp ended in September, my previously fully toilet-trained daughter regressed, in part due to a sustained hissy fit that summer camp was over. She returned to relieving herself in her clothes rather than on the toilet, which triggered another round of peeing by my anxiety-ridden black cat. (See All About Pee) We are only now getting back on track, and I still haven't put her back in big girl panties, but we have progressed to training pants again. It was something sent to vex me.

• On the weekend, we did a few loads of laundry, and I headed outside to pin it on our clothesline. The wind was quite strong, and blew dust into my eye. I went in the house for a minute to try to get the dust out of my eye, and when I returned, the wind had blown our umbrella-style clothesline inside out, collapsing it and throwing the clean but wet clothes on the ground. It was something sent to vex me.

• And this morning...I have 3 articles due at the end of April, and I'm stymied on finding a couple of simple statistics, and am writing while waiting for permission to quote from a text that is the basis for one of the stories. Tuesday and Thursday mornings, my daughter attends pre-school, and I usually have a good 2 hours of writing time. Today, however, I had to sing at a funeral at our church after dropping my daughter at pre-school. I arrived in time for the funeral, only to find the parking lot full, so I parked on the street. I opened the driver's door, locking it as I went like always, and grabbed my purse and music bag of books to pull them across the passenger seat, the stick shift and the driver's seat to get them out of the car. I had already thrown my keys in my purse...and then decided to go around to the passenger side to retrieve my purse and books from that side...so I closed the door and started to walk around, realizing a nanosecond later that my door was locked...and the keys were in my purse instead of in my hand. I was the cantor at the funeral, and my books, purse, and most important at the moment, my glasses were locked in the car, with my cell phone. I had to leave in an hour to pick up my daughter from pre-school... As I tried to stave off the meltdown, I sprinted up to the choir loft, borrowed my friend's cell phone, and then called my husband to come and unlock the car while I then composed myself to sing the solos. My arms were almost too short to read the music...but St. Cecilia, patron saint of musicians (and apparently, absentminded, busy moms), came through for me and I was able to sing the music adequately. My husband arrived a few minutes later to spring my purse from the car...I'm usually so careful about making sure that my keys are in my hand before I close the door, but I was preoccupied with the other vexing issue of finding the elusive statistic...it was a momentary lapse in concentration...which led to something sent to vex me.

I get it now, Grandma. I get it. Some things ARE sent to vex you.

Patience

There are points in every marriage when it's all you can do not to kill your spouse...I am fortunate that I have a kind and caring spouse, with whom I share the same values and beliefs, same sense of humour, and a mutual tolerance and respect for the interests that we don't share...we get along pretty well most of the time. Every once in awhile, however...

• 5 years ago he wrote an IOU in my birthday card...the week after he'd gone out and spent a ridiculous amount of money on computer junk that was still in the original packaging a year later...his rationale for it was that we were being paid in a few days and he would make good on it then. (I can hear the groans from the women from here, and I can see the puzzled expression of the men wondering what my point is...) His head did eventually grow back...and I was sent roses for Valentines Day (to the office) a few weeks later. He has never forgotten my birthday again.
• He arrived home after Boxing Day shopping this year (his favorite thing) with a big grin on his face. He first pushed a grind and brew coffeemaker into the house...and followed it up with a robot vacuum-the kind that is supposed to clean the floors for you. He told me the vacuum was to "help me keep the house clean." He was smart enough to give me the coffeemaker first... And the vacuum? I have named it Spot and refuse to find out how to use it. If he wants to "help me keep the house clean" he can operate it...
• And this week...he woke me first thing in the morning to tell me that he felt sick and that he'd seen blood in his stool. He's been having ongoing medical problems for the past year, and has had every test, scope, oscopy, xray and scan known to modern medicine and they have found nothing. After he insisted on a "show and tell" (before coffee...) I agreed that something looked off...so off he went to the ER for what turned out to be the day. Our daughter was turning 4 the next day, and she was going to be taking pink and purple cupcakes to pre-school the next morning, and that night we were having the grandparents. I spent the day getting the house ready, baking, icing and decorating cupcakes, fielding calls from my mom and his parents and his work colleagues and refusing to think the worst...When he arrived home, he announced that the red in the stool had not been blood...it had been too much red licorice.

Sometimes, you just have to walk away...and pour a very large glass of white wine.

Confessions of a Clutter Junkie

Every parent has moments when they feel like the worse parent on earth. Some of these moments are monumental, like the time my husband sat helpless a foot from our daughter as the tricycle she was riding tipped and broke her leg in two places before he had a chance to react. In the vast scheme of things that I will encounter as a parent, my recent plummet into crappy mother regions was not on par with the first broken heart, but it still left me feeling inadequate and useless. You see, I lost my daughter's report card for swimming, and had to send her back to a new session without her report card to prove that she'd graduated from Bubblers to Floaters.

We had the report card before Christmas. My in-laws remember looking at it just before Christmas when they babysat so that we could attend my husband's work social. My husband and I clearly remember a conversation about stashing the report card in our daughter's swimming bag so that it WOULDN'T get lost in the pre-Christmas panic to hide the clutter. I vaguely recall placing said report card in said location...and now have no idea where it is.

I have always been a stacker. From the time I was small, I filed my things in piles. It drove my "packer" mother crazy (Packer-noun-someone who places things away in drawers or cupboards. Whose desk and dressers are pristine, coffee tables free of magazines, mail, bills or clutter...she starts to twitch after about 20 minutes in my home) and she once threw out all the notes for an essay that I was working on because she thought it was junk, because it was in a pile on the floor near the garbage. Like any stacker, I can lay hands on anything on my desk in seconds because I know what is in every stack on my desk...as long as no one moved them. The company I worked for instituted a "clean desk" policy, so that all the piles of paper had to be cleared from our desk every night....Packers rejoiced; stackers cleared out the bottom drawer of filing cabinets, lifted our stacks FROM the desk TO the drawer at night, and then reversed the procedure in the morning, complying with the spirit if not the letter of the dictate...My stacks were under control...until I married the Clutter King.

My husband is an Uber-Stacker and has a genetic predisposition to hang onto things. When 2 stackers marry, chaos and clutter can result, and factor in a small house, a small child, 2 cats and a ton of toys, books, crafts, yarn, tools and other miscellaneous stuff...and the results aren't pretty. My husband will move my stacks to look for things that should be in his stacks...the cats will knock OVER the stacks...the kid will move the stacks...you get the picture. I no longer know what is in the stacks...and chaos results.

The added piece to this is that my daughter must have been a squirrel or a magpie in another life. She loves to stash her treasures...but never in the box that they orginally came in. The Mr Potatohead case became the new home for the plastic menagerie. The Barbie box holds the tea-set, and who knows what treasures I'll find in her Dora backpack...She also moves her treasures periodically, so even if I think I know where to locate something...it's often been relocated when I go looking for it again. I've put a moratorium on removing game pieces for Shoots and Ladders or Candyland, after Backpack went AWOL for a number of months and we had to substitute Lumpy. Diego went missing 3 times in 12 hours..until Mommy dropped the boom and issued the moratorium.

Our house has been out of control for a few months now, and persistent health challenges have sapped my strength and allowed the dust bunnies to stage a coup and take over the house. My husband arrived home on Boxing Day with a Grind and Brew Coffeemaker...and a Robot Vaccuum. He was wise enough to give me the coffeemaker first, because the vaccuum was "to help me keep the house clean"...it's one of those vacs that drives around the perimeter of the room in concentric circles, sweeping as it goes. It's a wonderful plan in theory...but you have to pick UP all the stuff from the floor first, and that's a full time job in our house. "Spot" as I have called the vaccuum, and flat out refuse to learn how to operate it, is no match for a 4 year old with playdough and Barbie shoes...

I know I have to get a handle on the clutter and the chaos. I'm overwhelmed by the enormity of it...but it has to be done. The mere thought of tackling my daughter's room leaves me shaking...but it's a small room with too much stuff and it needs a thorough sandblasting. If I approach it from the standpoint of a treasure hunt, maybe it will go better, or I'll try the "set the timer for 1 hour and see what you can accomplish" method of clutter busting. That MIGHT get me in the door...about a foot.

I know the report card will materialize eventually. I have to tackle the clutter shortly because I need to find all my tax documents, which are currently in hidey holes because I didn't have time to file them before Christmas. If I tackle the clutter, it will make things easier on all of us, so I need to square my shoulders, take a deep breath and start...now if I can only find the broom and dustpan.