tidbits of life i am willing to share

I am so ready for this semester to be done. I'm tired and sick of all the reading. I want to read and finish a novel soon. A novel.

I went to Costco TWICE this week. I don't know what has come over me. And I didn't eat the crap at the concession either times. This is where the true miracle lies.

My Comm professor drank a beer in class yesterday that the guest lecturer brought for him. It was funny. It was all of 11:15 in the morning.

I am taking the man to Mexico in May. We very much need a getaway. Time to rot on a beach before spring semester starts. Ahhhhhh....

He is done working in Edmonton. He was gone for 5 months. I believe I barely complained about it.

I have barely slept since he returned. I need my own bed. Don't tell him I said that.

I became a great aunt yesterday to a little dude named Dawson. That name has always been on my list. I love love love it. I guess now I have to invest in frosted pink lipstick and bright blue eyeshadow, since I think that's what great aunts are supposed to do. And maybe a visor.

The other day I took the children swimming at a wave pool with some friends of theirs. I hate swimming, it makes me exhausted and I find it so terribly boring. After we were done we drove 2 blocks to the closest Subway for lunch. As I pulled up I noticed two young boys, maybe 12ish, standing outside the store. They each had a handgun.

They looked so real. They probably weren't. Or maybe airsoft guns? Regardless, I was shocked. My children were shocked. We decided to drive on and remove ourselves from that end of town. I will never go back to that wave pool.

I am a snob.

get off my lawn!

The other day I was walking to school and I was crossing a VERY major intersection when all of a sudden I was on my bum. One second I was walking, with my 20 pound school bag, minding my own business and the next minute I was sitting on my butt on the wet dirty road.

There was no slip of foot, no slide, no jerky arm flung above the head. No promissory note that I was about to fall down. I just fell down.

On my bum.

In front of gads of people.

And what did I do? I laughed.

I laughed so hard I almost needed assistance getting up. When people fall I laugh. I can't help it and apparently I laugh even when it's me doing the falling.

This is good to know.

I giggled pretty much all day about it, actually and I just giggled now. I don't know why the falling makes me laugh but mercy me, do I think it's funny.

AFV is awesome for making me laugh because there is an insane amount of falling on that show. The first time I saw this clip I laughed until I wanted to puke.

The Scarlet Bozo.



You're welcome.

So...moving on. I have a pet peeve I need to get off my chest. It's this thing that the people of the world do that I just can't take anymore. Look, I know I am an impatient person. I know that I take lots of deep breaths and have inhaled the life out of every clary sage plant on earth. I know that I have to tell myself to be nice.

"Just be nice, Catherine." I say this many times a day. God made me a cranky, ornery girl who just wants everyone to not be stupid and I can't help that. I try to balance it with good things that bring sunshine and rainbows to the world. I make meals for people who have had babies. I foster other people's children when they can't do it themselves. I do these things to help balance out the crazy psycho female side of me. In the end I want God to say, "yeah, you were pretty cranky but you were nice enough, so enter."

But I can't help but transfer the blame of some of this to stupid people who, for whatever reason, haven't figured out how to be less irritating unto me. I am talking to you, students of the University of Calgary.

I am talking to YOU!

So let me help you, not that anyone who needs to hear it is reading this, but it makes me feel better and since this is my blog we should only be concerned with how I feel. Right?

Right.

Stick to the right. Please, everyone, for the love, stick to the right. Use the right side door. Walk along the right side of the hallway. When you turn the corner, stick to the right, even when you are turning left.

When you walk through your left door, into my right door, you are in my way. When you walk down the left side of your hallway, on my right side, you are in my way. When you turn the corner to the left but you hug your left, you are walking into my right and if I am hugging the right, like I am supposed to be, then you will walk right into me and therefore, you are in my way.

You see how this works? If we all stay to the right then no one is in anyone's way. Makes sense, right? Think about it. Close your eyes and imagine everyone sticking to the right, even when you are turning left. To the right. To the right. To the right.

Yep, it makes sense. But because you have no common sense you are constantly in my way and I am constantly aggravated because you don't know how to walk down a hall, or use a door or turn a corner.

Get off my lawn! You have your own lawn! Walk on your own lawn!

The university is a place of education, so be educated. I am begging you. Pay attention and allow yourself to be educated just by looking around.

It's the only free education you will get at the university.

If you go to the university, or are a person who walks in hallways and the such, consider this your public service for the day. Me giving back to the community. Balancing out the evil that is within me by providing you a way to be hugely less annoying.

And again, you're very welcome. I am just all kinds of helpful today.

the culturally bereft

So basically, in a nutshell, I very rarely have any idea what's going on.

And also, there are things that make me laugh over and over and over...

and don't slam the door!

Is the slamming of things genetic? Or contagious, maybe? I am thinking it must be genetic because my daughter, who has requested to remain nameless, has inherited the nastiest case of slamming stuff I have ever seen.

When I was a kid I remember vividly, on many occasion, storming down the stairs to my room when I was displeased with the treatment of my soul by my dream crushing parents. Before I entered my room I would hear one of the soul crushers holler "And DON'T slam the door!"

To which I would respond with the best door slam my body could provide. I was nothing if not a reasonable child.

And then I grew up and married a man whom closes things loudly when he is displeased with the soul crushers in his life. He stomps and slams and it is the one sound I don't tolerate well.

Okay, fine, there are many sounds I don't tolerate well but the slamming?? It drives me.

Crazy. Bonkers. Around the bend.

So, now, in the spirit of I-can't-wait-until-you-grow-up-and-have-a-kid-just-like-you I have grown up and now have a kid just like me. And the man. Which is just all kinds of double awesome. I have this kid who when displeased with my ability to crush her soul will slam every door on her way away from me. And then to really stick it to me she'll slam the front door, which is pretty much right under my sleeping head, as she leaves the house at 6:20 in the morning.

A real peach, she is.

The other night I sweetly explained to her that I would be removing the doors if she didn't stop slamming them late at night or early in the morning. She not so sweetly said, "IF YOU TAKE OFF MY BEDROOM DOOR I'LL KILL MYSELF." Which I thought was a tad over dramatic but try telling her that.

She did not heed my warning and a few nights ago, when it was late and the house was quiet, she decided that once again her mother is the spawn of satan and . . .

KAPOW. Door. Slammed.

I really don't think that is the sound of a door slam but I like kapow. So kapow. Door. Slammed.

And then I removed my first door.

Since I cant really remove the front door, her bedroom door is next and interestingly enough I have not heard a door slam since but it's still too early to tell if it's coincidence or if she's buying it. Further testing is required.

Maybe I'll test it further tonight when once again I kill her dreams and crush her soul.

It's exhausting being a mom.