Palf ponders psilliness

A review of the iMac. Sort of.

2010-12-24T06:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I spend just over $2,000 of the credit card company's money on a shiny new 27" iMac.

I did this after work, or what passes for work the week before Christmas. Yes, I am "working" now.

I take the bus to work this time of year - too snowy and cold to cycle with any degree of enjoyment for me, although I see the odd cyclist. And by odd, I mean they are odd. Ottawa winters are not for cycling.

So I took the bus downtown from work to the Apple store, which was full of red shirted genies (that's the plural of genius, right?), one of whom sold me an iMac. I was smart - I asked how much it weighed. He told me 47 pounds. I figured that's not too heavy to lug home on the bus.

It is.

Here's what I can state with confidence about the 27" iMac.

1. The box is quite sturdy.

2. If you lean a bit away from the side carrying it, it won't hit the ground if you are at least 5'6" tall.

3. The handle is strong enough to hold the weight, even if you take it on and off 3 buses and walk 6 blocks with it.

4. It is heavy. 47 pounds, apparently.

5. It is not portable, even with the aforementioned handle.

6. Picking it up in both arms, ignoring the handle, does not improve its portability. It remains an object intended to be stationary. Not stationery - it is not a paper product, although the box is made out of cardboard.

If you're thinking of buying a 27" iMac, I strongly recommend you avoid public transit while it is in its pre-desk phase. Unlike me, you are probably not too cheap to spend $2k on a computer but not $25 on a cab ride. Or $0.50 on a phone call to your Lexus-driving spouse.

Merry Christmas. Enjoy the return of the light, which is the true reason for the season. And don't hit baby Jesus with sticks - Kenny Loggins wouldn't approve. Read this if you don't know why.

Yak Herding

2010-11-09T07:14:00.000-08:00

Life can occasionally get bat shit insane. Right now mine is feeling on the verge of bat shit insanity. Let's call it bat shit odd.

Child 2 has some sort of leg pain, which could be complex regional pain syndrome, or not. Basically there's no physical reason for the pain, but he's debilitated by it regardless. This does not make me feel like a good parent.

Child 1 is having panic attacks. Second one this week was at 8am this morning, she called from school. I remained calm and told her to breath slowly. Not sure how she is. Her boyfriend has a tendency to text her at night that he's going to kill himself. If he doesn't stop, he won't need to kill himself. His phone will be so far up his ass he'll have other concerns. Nice kid. But my daughter is not his suicide prevention line.

Spouse is looking a wee mite like he's getting into another manic episode, and is on the "Western medicine only treats symptoms" meme. Pinning him down to find out what's going on in that giant head of his is like, to steal a phrase, nailing jello to a wall. Not happening. Needs to happen.

What is my plan of attack?

1. Spend time with suffering kiddies in highly relaxed way, in hopes it will ease anxiety and alleviate symptoms (pain, panic)
2. Tell spouse he'd better get his ass to his doc or psychiatrist, as he can't stay with us if he descends into madness
3. Failing 1 and 2, move to Ulan Batar and herd yaks.

I'm concerned about option 3, as I don't like smelly animals and I do love me some indoor plumbing. Yet it holds a strange appeal right now.

Maybe I need an option 4. Steal daughter's prescription for benzodiazapans. Drug spouse once I decide if my suspicions of impending mania are correct. Cause denial is going to fail epically, and I'm guessing my yak herding skills would make me unemployed in Mongolia.

Flaming ass cups

2010-10-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

My son has a hip problem. He's had an MRI and 2 x-rays, but no diagnosis, so naturally my husband took him to accupuncture.

I've done some reading about accupuncture - about its true history, not the myth that it's been practiced in China for 6,000 years therefore must be right. About results of clinical trials looking at how effective it is for various conditions. About the total absence of evidence for meridians or qi or whatever you want to call the hypothesis behind the accupuncture points.

My distillation of this reading is that accupuncture has a powerful placebo effect, and needling can have some beneficial impact on pain perception. But it doesn't have a curative effect. I don't expect it to help with my son's very real and very debilitating hip pain - either time will, or the physicians will diagnose the cause and fix it. I refuse to believe that this debility will be permanent.

Where do flaming ass cups fit into this? Well, his second accupuncturist - the first one's in China - applied flaming cups to his ass. I think the idea behind cupping is that it draws toxins out. Yeah, in the same way a hickey does - it doesn't, it causes bruising. So I am now doubly skeptical of this particular mode of treatment, as my opinion is that applying flaming cups to a 14 year old boy's bare butt is closer to pedophelia than medicine. Git yer flamin' cups off my kid's ass, quack!

Flaming ass cups would be an awesome name for a band.

...and another thing that irritates me about religion

2010-10-05T10:52:00.000-07:00

I'm an atheist. This means I don't believe in any of the gods humankind has proposed to explain the world. None of 'em.

In all honesty, I'm trying to be all liberal and accomodating about religion, but really I think if you're religious, you aren't thinking hard enough. I think I'm right, and if you disagree, well, you must be wrong. One of my favourite bloggers, slacktivist, is religious. But his non-religious thinking is brilliant (mostly), and I love reading his blog. It's helped me understand that you can be religious, and think profoundly about your religion, and not be a bigot, and be a most excellent person. But I still think religion has some major issues and not enough religious people are willing to discuss them.

My point? I do have one. I just can't segue into it nicely. I dislike the conservatism of religion. I dislike the misogyny that goes along with that conservatism. The current pope, Benedict, has said it's sinful to rape kids and to ordain women, and they are in the same level of sin. Being ignorant of the finer points of Catholic dogma, I don't know if he really means they are equally wrong, but he did make it clear both are seriously bad.

So he runs an institution that says women can't have employment equity. That this is wrong, a sin, and a big one. Yet the church gets charitable status, so we are, with our tax dollars, supporting an institution that says it doesn't have to follow the law. This is wrong. If an organization wants to apply for tax-exempt status, it should be required to follow all laws. If it does not wish to follow these laws, it should have to file tax returns and pay tax, if there is income after expenses, on that income.

Our wimpy politicians are afraid of insulting religion. Asking people who claim to be moral authorities to follow the law doesn't seem insulting to me. Failing to do so? I'm insulted. Enough that it makes me suspicious of all religous people. Even though I'm trying to be tolerant.

Thoughts about colons

2010-09-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

There are 2 kinds of colons. That I know of. One is a punctuation mark, and the other one ends in an orifice that kind of ressembles a punctuation mark.

This post is about the latter type of colon. Specifically, about the delights of ensuring your colon remains cancer-free.

I have a family history of colon cancer, on both sides. We've been diligent at getting screened, and the only person to die of colon cancer was 91 at the time - as they generally stop screening around age 80 on the theory that a colon cancer starting then won't have time to kill you before something else does, this should in no way reflect on said relative,s screening diligence. Although I have no idea if they screened or not!

Few things induce the ick more than the thought of a long anal probe. Really - admit it - you have to think for at least 2 minutes before you can come up with something that doesn't involve eating horrible things on Fear Factor. Maybe getting uncontrollable diarhea while in a toilet-free zone. That would be pretty bad.

So I'd like to blog my experience with said long anal probe. Because it wasn't that bad. Maybe I was expecting far worse, based on a couple of episodes of House, which as we all know is 100% medically accurate at all times.

The prep starts a couple of days in advance, with some dietary restrictions. I think it was seeds and nuts - they don't want them clogging the instrument. Neither do I. I'd like any probing to be as, um, smooth as possible. So I avoided seeds and nuts.

The next step is having a tiny breakfast before 8am the day before the procedure. This is your last solid food, and, for me far more sinister, your last hit of caffeine. So I got up early and had my normal bowl of cereal and 2 lovely cups of coffee. Fresh ground beans, French press coffeemaker - the usual.

Then I got to drink my first of 2 doses of Peco-Salex. I may be spelling that wrong. It's a fizzy orange drink, made from some powder. It draws liquid into the colon, thus inducing frequent bowel movements. So you can't go anywhere that is toilet-free, unless the scenario above with uncontrolled diarhea actually appealed to you. In that case, you don't need a colon inspection, you need psychiatric help. Good luck with that.

So the frequent liquid BM is actually not that bad. I mean, there is a finite quantity of crap in your colon, and even if you are a politician, it doesn't impact the shit in your head.

What is bad is hunger. We aren't used to hunger. OK, I'm not. Except in the gee I'm hungry let me get food kind of way. But hunger in the I can't eat until 2:00pm tomorrow is outside my experience, and I don't like it. This is coming from someone who frequently forgets to eat. Substitute a worse or better ability to tolerate hunger based on your own fasting experience, assuming you have any.

The second dose is not a big deal. You're pretty much empty. It's insurance for the gastro enterologist, who has no interest in, um, muddying their view with a poorly cleaned colon. I have no interest in a muddy view - I want a nice clean effective scope, so I was keen on following the instructions to the letter, so as to avoid a repeat procedure.

The next morning I woke up hungry. Wah, wah, millions of kids are used to that, but I'm a spoiled first world middle class type, so I am not. At least not waking up hungry and then not being able to eat. Spousal unit drove me to the clinic, I brought a book which had far too many food references (avoid Donna Leon if you're fasting), and eventually got to put on that delightful gown I'm sure was designed by Armani. Then a nurse stuck an IV into my hand - clearly highly experienced, it was not as painful as the ones I got when having my first child. The sedatives were lovely.

I was wheeled into the room with a monitor, doctor and nurse/aide of some sort. I wasn't about to start interviewing them. The monitor was positioned so I could watch, and I did. The drowsiness from the sedative lifted immediately upon insertion of the probe. But it didn't hurt, it's just that I could feel it. I felt full. But there was no pain, not even any real discomfort, it didn't last very long, and I was complemented twice on the quality of my "prep".

Oh, and if all you need to do is fecal occult blood testing, I used the technique where you collect the sample from the toilet paper. Googling techniques for stool samples is an, um, interesting insight into the ingenuity of humanity.

To sum up: colon cleansing makes you hungry, colon scoping is more boring than anything else, and the internet is full of odd ideas.

Bicycle gear

2010-07-07T05:05:00.000-07:00

I've been cycling to work since I last blogged. It's been great.

Cycling involves a fair bit of delusion. I pretend I am saving money by riding in. True, I am no longer paying bus fare, and we are down to 1 car.

But that ignores a key part of the equation. Bike gear. There is an astonishing array of items cyclists can spend money on. I've been restrained since mother's day, when I caved in and bought clipless pedals and shoes. They are amazing.

Now I have a dilemma. For my birthday I got a new to me bicycle, picked up cheap at a garage sale, that I tested by riding in today. I wasn't sure what I was hoping - that it would be so much better I could justify spending money on it? That it would be so much worse I could let my daughter use it? It turns out to be a very decent little commuter bike, surprisingly fast, with great brakes and the noisiest gearing I've ever used.

So here is the dilemma. To make the bike suit me, it needs a new seat ($23), new pedals ($44), new tires ($46) and of course a spare tube ($3). Not a huge amount of money. But the bike itself cost $85, which is an amazing deal for a mid range Bianchi, but spending nearly double fixing it up when it's virtually unridden seems frivolous.

I also thought about the gear I have.

3 pairs of cycling shoes, ranging in age from 2 months to 20 years.
2 cycling jackets
1 pair of cycling shorts
Many t-shirts
4 panniers - maybe 6
Several lights, bells, reflectors not including those already on bicycles
2 pairs cycling tights, both over 20 years old and in excellent shape if you ignore the hole
Helmet - only 1, the old ones get tossed
Gloves

I haven't got cycling jerseys or other cycle-specific tops - really, how much lycra can a middle aged woman wear? And I am considering getting baggier shorts, the lycra ones, while comfortable, are, well, lycra. Tight shorts with a padded butt may not be my best look. Although I like to think I speed by so quickly no-one can tell.

Like I said, cycling involves delusion.

Spring cycling

2010-03-16T05:45:00.000-07:00

Spring is really early this year. Really early - normally, our highs are still below freezing until well into March, but it's been above freezing every single day since February 26th.

That means the snow has melted, and it's rained so the dog poo of winter has washed away. Time for cycling!

When I last saw my bicycle, it had brand new slick tires and tubes to match - all set to go. And go we did.

First, the good things about the ride. It was sunny. There was minimal traffic, including other cyclists. No dog walkers. Few runners. Not that I mind either - but the paths can get crowded, and a small minority of dog walkers have trouble with the leash concept.

Now, a couple of mediocre things. I didn't wear warm enough gloves, and my hands froze to the point that it hurt when they warmed up. Chalk that up to idiocy - it's still below freezing at sunrise. This I know. Yet I grabbed thin gloves meant for the SUV driver, not the cyclist. One section of the path had a fair bit of snow, which my lovely new tires handled quite nicely. One had ice and slush, which I cautiously rode/hopped over - you know, you're on your bike, but pushing with a foot instead of pedaling. They actually had a "road under water" sign up - very cool, as it's pretty much a bike-only road. And, last but definitely not least, a good 4km of the bike path is under construction, so I had to ride on the road. A very nice road, but at this time of year the sides of the roads are covered in gravel and winter ick, so you need to ride closer to traffic than normal.

And, to end, a few more good things! I saw a street sweeper, so the road ick will soon be gone. My back tire held up well, despite being wobbly - I think the tube is bulging. And my helmet doesn't hurt the sore spot on my head where I bashed it when I fainted on Sunday. I'm really looking forward to the ride home - it's going up to 16!

I'm very happy I rode in. It is so awesome to be on a bicycle. There is nothing else like it. For me, it's the closest I get to flying, and who hasn't dreamed of flying?

Captain obvious paging idiocy, come in, idiocy

2010-03-08T13:22:00.000-08:00

I was reading one of my favourite blogs – White Coat Underground – and found myself reading not one, but two long comment threads.

I don’t normally read long comment threads. Life is short. My eyeballs are old. And most comment threads just aren’t that interesting. But these ones were.

Pal MD’s post was in response to Isis the Scientist’s post and subsequent comments. She was replying to an e-mail sent to her by a female math grad student, who was creeped out by her advisor’s ogling. Isis mentioned, as part of the post, that in her student days she had been raped by a creep who she had refused to date. Horrible. I know too many women who’ve been raped.

The comments were mainly of the thanks for sharing, here’s my story, or here’s advice for the grad student form, but some were comments along the lines of hey, the advisor is complementing her, what’s the big deal, and women should take responsibility for protecting themselves.

Well, um, that’s where captain obvious hit me on the head. I’d never recognized how much of our culture focuses on the victim. I know that blame the victim is rampant in rape cases. But it extends beyond that, to blame the victim for failing to stop the attack, not just inciting it. So when the conversation steered in the direction of stating that rapists are responsible for rape, I found myself shocked that I had never thought of that. A d’uh moment indeed – of course rapists are responsible for rape.

So thank you to the commentors on those threads, who played captain obvious to my ignorance. Reducing the incidence of rape is not solely the responsibility of women. If we continue to believe and perpetuate the myth that women are even somewhat responsible for being raped, we give rapists an out, an excuse, a reason to avoid empathy and thought, an excuse for not controlling their violence or sexuality. To state that men can’t control themselves is insulting to men who can and do control their urges. And to state that women need to change, and not the culture that blames the victim and excuses the men, is not just insulting but dangerous, as it normalizes rape. Rape is an aberration.

Skating

2010-01-23T08:21:00.000-08:00

Ottawa's amazingly wonderful Rideau Canal is open for skating - FINALLY. Global warming must skip the canal. Which would make it global except for the bit in Ottawa that Sarah really likes.

I was skating along this morning, as the sun was rising, remembering skating as a kid. My skating is, like most of my physical activities, good enough to enjoy but on the uncoordinated side. I learned to skate in Toronto, at an outdoor rink that, remembering Toronto, was probably open about 4 days a year. My parents held my hands. Then we moved to Thunder Bay, where the rink was closed about 4 days a year. We lived across the street from a large park that had 3 skating rinks - 2 with full boards for hockey, and a smaller one for those of us unable to skate and carry a stick at the same time.

We used to skate every day until our feet froze, then come in and my mom would make hot chocolate while we cried as our feet warmed up.

Then we moved to Ottawa, and got to experience the joy of skating in a straight line in the open air for miles. Can't stop or turn? The canal is the place for you. Don't like crowds? The canal before 9am or after dark is a wide open underpopulated space.

OK, so the surface isn't exactly Zamboni-smooth, but it's pretty good. I think I like skating for the same reason I like biking - you can go pretty fast on your own power for a long time, and don't need to be very good at it to go faster than you can run.

I've been out twice in the 2 days since the full length has been opened. Tomorrow's forecast? Rain. Fuck global warming. Ah well, at least I have the memory of a great skate.

DIY

2009-12-31T18:12:00.000-08:00

My daughter Zoe now has a cork floor in her bedroom. It's called a floating floor, hopefully not because it'll get so wet with global warming that we'll need it as a raft. This is the second floor we've installed in our new to us house, and it went pretty well.

Things I learned.

Builders who put in angles other than 90 degrees are evil. If the odd angle has a doorway in it, and if the angle continues into a closet, they really, really, really hate the person who will be doing the finishing work. Did you know that a mitre box is great for 45 degree cuts, but no others?

If you could commit a sin strongly enough to go to hell, I'd be there. I had severe tool envy while installing quarter round. I really wanted a sliding compound mitre saw and an air powered nail gun. I had a mitre box, a hand saw, 2 hammers and a box of 2" finishing nails.

Quarter round is not corner round. I always thought it was called corner round. Not as funny a mishearing as the girl with colitis walks by, but still wrong. As it's 1/4 of a round stick, the name shouldn't surprise me. But it goes in the corner where the wall meets the floor, so either name fits.

2" nails are WAY too long for 11/16 inch quarter round. Unless you are looking for a real workout with a hammer.

Spackle in a tube is still one of my favourite things. Spackle. Spackle spackle spackle. Still love that word. Maybe one day I will grow up and not giggle every time I hear it. I hope not.

There are more than 4 wrong ways to cut a 45 degree angle, but only one right one.

A mistake doesn't use up much quarter round. The offcuts are amusingly curvy, and surprisingly plentiful.

Despite a total lack of experience installing trim, I can do a good job.

I should take pictures. Right now the cork floor - so beautifully installed people think it's a sheet and not planks - is underneath teen daughter's new furniture and mounds of clothing. Ah well.

I still need to install the reducer strip. If you leave a rough edge of flooring, you need to fix it before installing said strip. I spent over an hour today with a hammer and chisel, evening out the edge. Clearly there is a market for extra wide reducer strips. Unless I am the only person who measures, makes a paper mold of the odd cuts (thanks, oh creative builder, for your not quite perfect 135 degree angles), marks the piece, then adds a half inch or so at the door end. It is lovely and straight now, ready to install the perfectly cut piece of transition strip that will stop the ugly blue carpet from leaving bits all over the house. I think I will screw it in, so it's easy to remove when the carpet goes. The underpad was disintegrating, although I've removed worse.

Next job? Not sure. My credit card is keen for a break. The floor plus new furniture plus Christmas kind of caused it pain, even though most was paid off with the last bill. But boy, is the remaining blue carpet ever ugly...

Post Christmas installation blues

2009-12-26T17:21:00.000-08:00

It used to be batteries - you never had enough for all the things you bought, no matter how carefully you checked the packaging. There would always be a remote or something that needed still more batteries. Even if you only bought teddy bears, they needed batteries. Or something.

Now it's more complicated, but there are fewer tears. We spent about 45 minutes setting up the new router - dual band, or something, so when we watch YouTube videos we don't get the spinning thing while the video decides if it should progress past the 1:03 mark. I can now spend more time watching the Muppets and Monty Python sketches.

We also set up the wireless wheel. Which has a mess of wires - only wireless if you add 65 batteries or so. See paragraph 1 above. Child #3 is loving the steering wheel game, and has bought and crashed one corvette. May his real life driving prove more cautious.

Then we attacked the PVR. The instructions lie. You have to call Rogers and convince them that you are a legitimate customer. Then they try to sell you stuff you already have. Then read out serial numbers, several times. It's been a few hours, but mostly that's because my husband - who bought the PVR - was over at his dad's chipping ice off his Cadillac for the last 2 hours. Ah, holiday ice storms. If the sun comes out, it will be spectacular.

All told, we had a very nice Christmas. The kids are happy with their gifts and seem to think we got them more than enough loot. We went sledding on Christmas day, and it was fun. The driving was fine, as the freezing rain didn't start till we were back. I got booze and chocolate, in quantity, so expect to see me in the New Year as a fat alcoholic.

Ritual without religion

2009-12-05T15:42:00.000-08:00

I am a fan of blogs. Mostly science & skeptical blogs, and one that is more philosophical and political - Greta Christina's blog. Her writing is as exceptional as her thinking.

My writing is as muddy as mine, so thanks for your patience in slogging through ye olde silly blog.

But she had a thought that made me think, which is better than just thoughts I agree with. Thinking is fun. Honest. I just don't do enough of it.

She mentioned that she thought some people might be tied to the rituals, not the beliefs, of their faith, and that it was possible to be a secular Jew or Catholic.

I agree that you can be a secular Jew. By my definition, of course, which means someone who sees their Judaism as a cultural and not merely religious heritage.

Catholic I had more trouble with. Maybe because I can't see something I used to be associated with as particularly meaningful. I mean, they spend years going on about how much communion rocks, then you finally get your first communion, and it's a gummy wafer. It's tasteless, it adheres to the roof of your mouth (or retainer, if you forget to take it out), and it better not be the body of christ cause he's been dead, for, like, 2000 years, eh, so it'd, be, like, gross.

OK, so clearly by ritual she means more than ritualistic pseudo cannibalism, my favourite phrase for communion. And with Judaism the holy bits are associated with a history of persecution. Insane persecution. I mean, it's amazing anyone lasted as a Jew.

I just don't see that same history with Catholicism. Yeah, a few early Christians made excellent lion food. But it's not like the Romans were nice to everyone else, and Constantine made it the norm once he converted, I think in AD 333. Or so. And how much systematic repression against Catholics has there been since? Some, sure, the Irish would have a few stories, and certainly it was an issue for JFK. But in Canada? Not so much.

I realize a ritual is not simply meaningful cause your relatives got killed for it. Meaning I have yet to form a coherent thought. One may yet arrive, don't hold your breath.

Dropping the religious bits of Catholicism leaves guilt. Ask any former Catholic. Not much else. Christmas? The tree and gifts were adopted from the pagans. Easter? What? Did Jesus hide chocolate eggs as he staggered towards his execution carrying a cross? Maybe they left that bit out. I don't know where the chocolate egg hiding or bunny delivering them comes from, but it ain't Catholicism. What else? White dresses? Odd hats? Men wearing red dresses? The chants of a mass that come back verbatim at every funeral I sit through? I don't find it comforting, though - I find it depersonalizes the funeral.

So I don't think that there's any meaningful ritual that ties a former Catholic to Catholicism similar to those that would create a secular Jew. Am I wrong? For some people, absolutely. For me, not so much.

Really crappy weight loss plan

2009-11-03T16:06:00.000-08:00

1. Catch H1N1. Make sure your virus comes with nausea.

2. Spend 36 hours in bed, eating 2 small bowls of plain white rice. It helps with drinking fluids.

3. Stagger out of bed, eat another small bowl of rice. Enjoy feeling of being upright and not in pain.

4. Discover that you can tolerate small amounts of chili mixed in the rice. Mmmm. Flavour. You can eat almost 1/3 of a cup of this!

5. It's now day 3, and you can branch out. Go wild. Try a half bowl of muesli. It'll only take 25 minutes or so to eat. For lunch, revert back to chili and rice. Dinner? Almost an entire half asparagus omelette!

6. Day 4. The children have caught the illness. Eat a slightly less small bowl of cereal, and for lunch, almost the rest of the omelette. Dinner is great, but by now your stomach feels like you've undergone gastric bypass surgery and only holds half a bowl.

Congratulations! You've now lost 5 pounds! If you can ignore the near-constant hacking cough and your feverish children, or if you maybe wanted to lose weight, this would be a good thing.

Swine flu sucks. Get the vaccine. Once it's available...

Make it go away

2009-10-27T10:29:00.000-07:00

Swine flu news is everywhere. Or rather, 2009 H1N1(A) news.

I like reading the news, although I tend to skip stories about kids dying. I'm a parent, I don't want to imagine the heartache of losing a kid. But this flu, although mostly normal, seems to randomly kill the occasional kid. Healthy kids, too.

I'm not keen on thinking that my kids are in that demographic most likely to get a nasty case of H1N1, even though the odds are quite high that, should they get it, they'll be fine. So what can I do?

D'uh. I can get them vaccinated. Eventually - for now, lineups are brutal and only specific groups should be seeking vaccines. Happily our health department is on Twitter and is updating wait times regularly, so we can wait until it won't be a wait.

In the interim, I can hope that my daughter's current flu-like illness will, like most such illnesses, pass quickly and relatively painlessly.

Vaccinations. One of those things we should be incredibly grateful for, but aren't. I am personally extremely happy my children are highly unlikely to get whooping cough, diptheria, or mumps, let alone polio, and that the eradication of smallpox eliminates the need for that vaccination. Childhood used to be damn risky. Not so much anymore, so we freak out over risks that are miniscule in comparison with what our grandparents dealt with.

Thank you to all the scientists who have and continue to make childhood safer and healthier. You get a lot of flack from wingnuts who blame vaccines for virtually every bad thing that's happened in the last decade or so, all undeserved.

Gobble gobble

2009-10-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

I have just eaten an enormous quantity of food, accompanied by wine.

I have also just lost the button on my pants.

You might think they exploded. Assploded? No. This is not the case. They fit OK. A bit large, actually, but I am one of those many not quite a size 8 but a 6 doesn't work after turkey girls.

The button came off as I tried to remove it. This sounds like a classic cake of overturkeyitis, but I'd like to state for the record that it was a classic case of impatience. As in, holy crap, I have drunk too much wine and must pee, why do women's pants have two clasps and a button, oh never mind about the button.

So I must resew the button. And finish the wine. I am in mourning, so it's allowed. My bicycle suffered a traumatic injury. I approached it after work, with the uncharitable thought of gee, hope that isn't mine. It was. A back tire so flat, Arnold's abs are a keg in comparison. I now have 3 flat tires to fix this weekend - one on beater bike, 2 on awesome bike. So I had to trade in $5 for $3 in coins so I could take the crappy bus home, through horrific traffic. I am now paying for a bus pass I don't use, and a bus ride I loathed. Tomorrow is Friday payday long weekend. I suspect I will be a wee mite teed at myself for finishing off the red wine. But for now, I am enjoying it.

Goals for weekend. Fix bikes. Ride like maniac in amazing fall weather, with fabulous leaf colours, just like this morning - which was so beautiful it shouldn't be legal. Watch lunar crash. Realize again the universe is awesome, as is earth, and free of gods. Hug kids.

Back to school sucks

2009-09-28T16:47:00.001-07:00

Sorry, Staples. You have it all wrong. It is not the most wonderful time of the year.

Back to school season means I need to find my chequebook. Online banking doesn't work for pizza days, school fees, music books or field trips.

Back to school means new and exciting viruses to infect us. I am one of those really annoying people that rarely gets sick. My spouse gets everything. He's on his 3rd illness. Teen daughter is on her first. The boys had one each. It seems each child had a separate disease they shared only with their father. This kind of generosity he can live without.

I've already gone on at length about school lunches. The children don't eat yoghurt. They infrequently eat chicken. Fruit should be selected for longevity, as it travels back and forth frequently. I send it anyways - maybe one day they will be famished enough to actually eat it.

There are positives. I'm sure there are positives. It's nice seeing my daughter in the morning, even though she's a wee mite grumpy. I can't blame her - she likes to sleep to noon, and is up at 7. The kids spend lots of time with their friends. Sometimes at the friends' houses, which makes ours quieter. The boys spend less time on their vidiot games.

The biggest drawback is homework. I really hate homework. And no, I do not do my kids' homework. I just have to irritate the crap out of them to get them to admit to having any, then nag until my brain hurts to get them to start. This takes 90 minutes. The homework takes 10. If they remember it - we've had our first call from a teacher requesting an interview.

It's been 4 weeks. 3 illnesses. 1 meet the teacher night. 1 request for interviews. Many, many lunches, several used more than once. You'd think after a decade of this I could manage it, and I can, it's just not the most wonderful time of the year. That's at the end of June, only 9 months away!

Success

2009-09-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

I went underwear shopping yesterday. The old stuff was not fitting well under my cycling tights. When your underwear is so old and saggy that your lycra wrinkles, it's time to at least consider upgrades.

Teen daughter and I hit Winners after spending much time getting her another cell phone and plan. This will be plan # 5. May it outlast the rest. Although I do hope her background picture is changed - much as I claim to have looked awesome this morning when she laughed hysterically and took my picture, she has evidence to the contrary. Her description of my cycling garb is quite funny. Glad she is sarcastic. I can't imagine having a kid incapable of sarcasm.

Winners on a Sunday afternoon is calm. The underwear racks were wide open, and I started the hanger shuffle.

I think putting underwear on hangers would be a really lousy job.

The shuffle began as it always does - promising, there are cotton panties here, let's check out the waistband. An elastic waistband, even if covered in fabric, must be overlapped to minimize the seam. A flat seam is good. A bulky seam is not. I don't want a bulky seam leaving its impression in my less than rock hard midsection. The promise fades as I realize most of the seams are done wrong.

I find a pair with all my criteria. Except it says Hello Kitty. I've mentioned this before - I'm 42. I do not wear Hello Kitty anything, especially not underwear. That's just wrong. I can understand it in tween or smaller sizes, but they had some in women's extra large. I opted to leave the Hello Kitty panties for someone 1/3 my age - preferably younger.

Why do they make so many kinds of nylon underwear? Who wears nylon underpants? Or mylar, or whatever it's called? My parents were very keen on teaching us the merits of underwear that breaths. Well, not literally - it must allow your bum to breath. Again, not literally. I mean, I don't have a full set of lungs anywhere near my ass. This is a good thing, as there are times when inhaling in that region would be most unpleasant. What my parents meant was that the smells must escape.

That reminds me of a story told by an anthropologist. He and some colleagues had been hanging out with a hunter gatherer tribe, untouched by western civilization, yadda yadda yadda. When they finally asked the tribe members if they had any questions, they asked why do you wear clothes that hold in your farts?

An excellent question. Given that clothing is not optional in a busy city, why make that situation worse with mylar or elastane or any type of synthetic crap clinging to your butt?

I did find many practical pairs of underwear. But only if you wear pants that go up to your armpits. If my trousers rise up to just below my bellybutton, my underwear should not reach well past my waist, front or back. They should rest, comfortably, a few inches below the pants.

Happily DKNY seem to have mastered the art of the cotton bikini brief without badly sewn waist elastic, and some of their garments ended up at Winners. I am now comfortably clad in underwear that fit nicely under lycra, breath, do not shift into areas in which they do not belong, and do not pinch. Too bad they only had a few pairs in my size.

It's the little things that matter. Like comfy gotch.

Painting a small world

2009-09-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

The Nylons once said it's a small world. But I wouldn't want to paint it.

This is an admirable sentiment. I have spent far too much time painting. It started with rented bedrooms, spread into rental kitchens, moved to assisting parents and in-laws with their homes, and now has taken over more of my life than I'd like.

We managed to avoid any painting at all for our first 3 years of home ownership.

Then the floral lavender border trim in the bathroom got to me. I removed it. The paint underneath was lavender. The white paint in the rest of the room immediately started peeling, leaving a lavender room. I had no choice. I had to paint.

Then the white walls in the rest of the house started bothering me. Well, sort of white. They had been painted with flat white latex paint. The children had covered the first 4' with fingerprints. Scrubbing those removed enough of the paint to prove the house had been peach. The entire house. Peach. Ewww. So I painted it all. Bedrooms. Hallways. Kitchen. Living and dining room.

Then we moved.

Our new to us house had screaming white flat latex walls. Had. We've now painted the basement - twice. The hallways. Bedrooms. Living room. Dining room. And, in a new experience for me, the backyard shed - twice - the front and back porches, and the bits of wood trim we have in the front. Those were tricky. They are between the first and second storey windows, just about 2' above the top of our ladder.

Did you know it is possible to paint successfully while hanging outside of second storey windows? Not comfortably, but successfully.

This is not something I expected to learn. I also didn't expect to have to tell a child to stop licking his shoe, or not to throw grapes on the rug and jump on them. Life has these fun and less than fun treats for us. Bring it on.

When I grow up

2009-09-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

For me, please substitute "If" for "When".

We all had images, as children, of what being a grown up would be like. My image included an element of seriousness that has proved impossible to achieve. So I'm still waiting to feel like a real grownup.

Real grownups are capable of being serious. They drive cars to work, paying for parking and gas. They drop kids off at daycare. They have working spouses, and both take turns making serious and healthy meals for the family. I see my colleagues, many of whom are much younger than I, and wonder how they manage to radiate such an adult aura. Can they tell I'm faking it?

Right now it's back to school season. The first question everyone asks is did your kids go back to school? The correct answer is yes.

Wrong answers would be more fun.

No, we sold them to a coal mine in China.

School? Is that required once they hit 10?

We sent them last year - do you think they need more time?

We would, but it totally interferes with their video gaming.

I think so. Haven't actually seen them in a few days. When did it start?

Back to school is not the most wonderful time of the year, despite the Staples' commercials. It means spending money on school supplies you put somewhere in June so you wouldn't have to buy them again in August. It means getting the kids out of bed in the morning and attempting to get them to eat. This is a real challenge with teen daughter, who thinks noon is an excellent time to wake up. Her bus comes at 7:20. She usually gets up around 7:10, staggers into the bathroom, rushes off, then calls her dad on her cell to say she missed the bus.

These are challenges I can handle easily. I don't even get that grumpy. Our local Staples has ample supplies at reasonable prices, and short lineups.

My real challenge is the school lunch.

I tweeted recently that school lunches were invented by an intelligent species of mold to ensure a reliable food supply.

My children don't like sandwiches. They don't like cold meat. Or warm yoghurt. It's ridiculous. Last year middle child lost his lunch bag on day 2. This year youngest child lost his on day 1. How do you lose your lunch? It's not like they are in a class of hundreds. Middle child didn't eat the healthy stuff I sent him with. So I sent it back today for youngest child. Teen daughter is still claiming vegetarian status, so I sent her with a fruit salad instead of chicken. I really hate making them lunches. If they ate them, it would be different. Honest.

My brilliant plan this year was to include mini freezer packs with the lunches, so that the yoghurt would stay cold. But I haven't actually sent any yoghurt left - the little bastards ate it all at home. Maybe I should just make lunches, send them with snacks, and they can eat the lunch when they get home?

A real grown up would have the answer. My mother, a true grown up, used to make all the sandwiches on Sunday and freeze them. We'd grab a sandwich and a piece of fruit, get milk at school, and all would be well. I seem to have survived without ever eating prepackaged granola bars, rice crispy squares, froot snaks or the other pseudo-foods marketed as suitable for noontime eating.

Good bye, summer. I really enjoyed mornings without making lunches. Only 8 more years until the youngest finishes high school - and I actually hope they go by far less quickly than the last 8. I may gripe, but the thought of them leaving is almost unbearable. They are terrific kids.

Underpants

2009-08-20T15:29:00.000-07:00

I am 42 years old.

I have been wearing underwear since I was 2. According to my mother, reluctantly - I preferred the diaper.

I survived braless until I had kids. Despite seriously tiny boobs, saggage occurred. Not much, but enough that a bra is needed for 2 reasons.

1. Hoist the wee former milkers up to a respectable level (no, it's NOT eye level).

2. Hide the nips office air conditioning causes.

This means I have decades of experience with both gotch and brassieres. I can tell you I loath and despise shopping for either.

Bras

For some reason, bra manufacturers have decided women are like concrete - we need reinforcing. While the underwire is not rebar, it can feel like it. I refuse to wear underwire bras. Fabric should be more than adequate to support a few ounces of flesh. There are 3 types of underwire free bras I've discovered.

1. The sports bra. This is designed to clamp boobs to chest with a grip Superman would envy. As noted above, this type of support for my tiny bosom is excessive. Also, they tend to cover vast areas beyond the actual fat deposits, and feel almost as sexy as control top pantyhose. Almost.

2. The actual woman's bra, without underwire. These are almost as difficult to find as honest personal ads. Not that I look for the latter, I'm just guessing they are like resumes, but less accurate. When found, I tend to buy all of them. Sadly, most tend to come in odd colours. Why would I want a blue bra? I don't want to wear a blue bra under a white blouse. Or under anything, really.

3. The training bra. This name always makes me giggle. What are they being trained for? Constriction? Horrible underwire bras? This is a rapidly diminishing source of wire-free bras, as even the kiddie brassieres are rapidly growing wires. Can I just point out that pre-pregnancy breasts are fabulously beautiful gravity defying creatures, and sticking a wire under them is pointless? I hope it's pointless. My other issue with underwire is its tendancy to escape the fabric and poke. Fuck, I hate them!

Gotch

I love the word gotch. I don't know why. Gotch. Fungible. Revolting. Anyone who thinks gotch are fungible is revolting. We used to call my little sister gotchola and throw underwear at her. Now we have the audacity to complain that she lives thousands of miles away. We were assholes. Sorry Andrea.

Most underwear is made out of industrial strength polyester, and should never, ever touch skin. Never. I don't want something that, if too hot, will melt into my privates anywhere near my groin.

Much of the remaining panty stock is made of lace. Nylon lace. Scratchy nylon lace. How sexy is the feeling that you need to scratch? It's not. Neither are nylon lace underpants.

Then you have your standard cotton panties. These fall into 2 types. Uncomfortable, and comfortable. The former outnumber the latter about 100 to 1.

Criteria for comfortable cotton panties.

1. Elastic should not be sewn into a bulky seam that chafes the side and the inner thighs. My inner thighs are sensitive, something I am happy about, and I do not wish to desensitize them through constant chafing.

2. They should not reach the armpits. My coverage needs are modest. Briefs should be brief.

3. Butt floss need not apply. I realize the thong gained enormous popularity. Not here.

I've complained about our profligate spending in prior posts, and noted my holy underwear is unlikely to be replaced due to poverty. But the truth is in this post. I simply lack the willpower to search for the needle in the haystack that is the perfect cover for my sexy bits.

Hot hot hot

2009-08-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

Finally, in mid August, summer has come to Ottawa. Figures the hot, humid weather coincides with my deciding to ride my bike to work.

I love riding my bike. My commute is a particularly nice one - I cycle through the Experimental Farm, then along the canal, leaving only a few blocks in what passes for traffic here. Hard to imagine why I didn't do this sooner. It's my 4th year in my current work location, why did I take the bus or drive until now? Insanity, clearly.

There are downsides to my commute, all personal.

1. I sweat when exercising. Even very modest exercise - like, say, coasting downhill on a bike - makes me sweaty.
2. I turn beet red and stay that way for at least 20 minutes after exercising, even if I end up in a deep freeze.
3. Hunger. I now bring 2 lunches to work.

Item 1 is readily resolved with a visit to the bathroom and a change of clothing. Item 2 resolves itself, eventually. Item 3 is really an upside, I like eating. Clearly, looking at the girth of the average North American, I am not alone in this.

Lunch #1 this week is a chickpea and spinach salad. Lunch #2 is an immodestly sized wrap. The recipe said you could substitute green beans for avocado, so I did. Oddly good. Not that I don't love avocado, it's just that they seem to pick them so early that I half think the avocado tree wasn't even planted yet. If you're in Canada and need a durable substitute for a hockey puck, the typical avocado found in our supermarkets would provide lengthy service.

I realize shipping an avocado from Mexico to Ottawa requires that they be picked before peak ripeness, or you'll end up with a truck full of black, rotting mush. But at least one out of the 100's of avocados for sale should be less than rock hard, right? I'd guess they are picked so early they just never ripen.

Another food that is no longer edible is the peach. Why do today's peaches start out like hard rubber balls, and immediately rot, without ever passing through an edible phase? My kids used to eat fruit once a year, in peach season. Their motivation was simple - if you eat a half a quart of peaches, you can pretty much fart at will. In a small boy, this is an irresistable temptation. I miss the peaches. Not the farts.

I should probably grow my own. Unfortunately, to build and heat a greenhouse for avocados will mean selling the Lexus, the house, and possibly a kid or two. Peaches are pretty borderline here too. So I'll hope that the earwigs have left a few of my still green tomatoes in a near-edible state, and look forward to a fruit picked while ripe. The blackberries were too long ago, and the squirrels ended up eating about half the crop. Soon they will start littering our driveway and yard with acorns. They leave enough on the road it looks like peanut butter after a few cars have gone over them.

I am not eating acorns. But maybe I should? Anyone have any recipes for fresh acorns?

Summer weekends rock

2009-08-03T17:33:00.001-07:00

I had a perfect summer weekend. Perfect.

I gardened on Saturday. Ripped out plants, weeded, divided perennials, flung weeds in compost, edged beds. All the things that make me happy, and the garden does look better.

Sunday Hugh and I got to sleep in (nudge nudge wink wink say no more). It's one of the fringe benefits of the kids getting older - we get more time together in bed. Actually, not so much fringe as simply unexpected and really nice. It was raining, but Zoe got up early (10:30 is early for her) and we went for a bike ride.

Ottawa has a series of parkways along the river and canal, and they are closed to drivers on Sundays until 1:00. Makes for great cycling, especially in light rain when all the other cyclists opt to stay in. Wimps.

The only bad thing was Zoe hit a curb wrong when we were 2 blocks from home, flipped off her bike and scraped her knees. Her leg is pretty bruised. I ran home with the 2 bikes & drove her home. Of course, I grabbed a towel too so my wet muddy butt wouldn't mar the Lexus.

Then I got home and threw out my shorts. Zoe pointed out a hole in the bum. How lovely. Good thing I don't wear a thong.

Today was lovely, I mucked about in the compost after another sweet lie in with my awesome spouse. His sister and her family got into town last night, we spent a couple of hours visiting with them at my father in law's place, where they are staying. It's odd - they have 2 girls, the older is about 5'3" and 200 pounds. The younger is about 5'8" and maybe 145 pounds - slim, but not overly so. I wonder if it bugs the older that the younger is basically a hot blond and she's invisible? It must, sometimes.

I even went for a run, gasp, after deciding it just wasn't for me. It isn't for me in the sense that I'll never be a great runner, but it is in the sense that it's cheap, quick, effective and occasionally great. Today was a short but great run, I had oomph and didn't push it too hard.

So, this has been a truly dull post, apologies to my hordes of imaginary fans. But it was such a great weekend I had to write it down.

My own scarlet A!

2009-07-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

I noticed a few atheist blogs had a scarlet A on them, and, in a desire to spend my limited time on earth in a highly valuable and productive way, clicked on one.

Now I have my very own A!

Click on it if you, too, wish to learn more about the A; the link is to the out campaign. Not out, as it outing someone for their sexual preferences when they'd prefer not to have those publicly known, but out as in the truth is out! I'm an atheist!

Not exactly a point of pride with me. I'm an atheist because I don't believe there is a god. The more I learn about the world, the more I realize my previously unthinking atheism sure seems a better fit than some "I can do everything but won't because, um, free will" living up in the sky not intervening. Never intervening. Letting the wee children die.

Enough of that - it's Friday afternoon before a long weekend with a decent weather forecast.

I will be gardening.

I probably won't be driving the new Lexus much - like all of Hugh's cars, it's comfortable with a terrific suspension and all the excitement of a warm bath. Alone.

I also plan on cycling. Finally, my bicycle is not stuck to the garage wall, but on the ground, where I can tinker until the brakes work and then hop on.

Life is good. I plan on living it as well as I can for as long as I can, and hope that when I die, people say that I was fun to be with. There's enough serious crap in the world that we really need to grab every chance at fun we can. With the usual responsibilities first caveat...so I might attack the old couch with a crowbar, but I will be responsible (deep sigh) and try to give it away first.

If you think you want my couch, it's really crappy, and it would be much better to let me trash it, OK?

Sweaty garden love

2009-07-25T15:26:00.001-07:00

I've been mucking about in the garden. Despite forecasts threatening still more rain, it's been dry today. So I moved hostas. And ferns. And divided a sedum. They have got to be the easiest plant to divide.

More of my hostas and ferns are now where they'll be happier, in dappled shade, and more of my sun loving plants are now in the sun. I'm looking out at my garden, thinking gee, in 5 years everything but the tree will be in a different place. I'm one of those gardeners - the ones who will dig up an entire bed and replant everything 4" to the left, because it looks better that way.

Gardening is free. This makes me very, very happy, because buying a used Lexus is not free. We signed the papers this morning. Thursday we can pick it up. I've felt slightly ill ever since - borrowing $22K for something that isn't a house is literally painful. Now we need to set up a HELOC so we can pay of the car loan at 8.19% and move it to 3.25% - we only need to keep it at the higher rate for a month.

Rearranging furniture is also free. After I gardened for a few hours, I cleaned our bathrooms. They were revolting. Revolting. That is a fabulous word. Revolting! Fungible! Revolting fungible bathroom! Then I went into our revolting living room, and attempted to make it look lovely by moving things around. Now parts of it look better than they did. And I don't think anything looks worse, so while it won't be in Architectural Digest, it also won't be in Trailer Park Quarterly, the only design mag in comic book format. Heck, too many words in dem other fancy magazines, eh?

Maybe I'll feel better once we actually have a Lexus in the driveway, instead of a much larger than I'd like debt. Note I used a Lexus, not the Lexus - I still don't actually believe we bought it, although the debt feels far too real. My inner Scot was obviously in a coma. Damn. I'll have to grab him and choke him with his sporin.

Learning

2009-07-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

Things I didn't know.

This is not an exhaustive list - just a few tidbits of previously unknown unknowns now known, to abuse a truly bad Rumsfeld speech.

1. Hugh is fully capable of spending foolish sums of money on a car

2. Twitter is fun

We haven't actually purchased the Lexus. All the money for it is still in our bank accounts.

I lie.

The money for it is still to be borrowed. If I had $30K kicking around, my underwear wouldn't have holes in it.

Hugh visited Import Car Centre on Tuesday. Eddie was off - eye surgery. Ouch.

Wednesday. He just missed Eddie.

Thursday. Eddie and he chatted, Hugh agreed to go back.

Friday. Hugh returns. Eddie gets him to take the kids for a drive.

Hugh's comment? The steering seems looser. Of course, he's been driving his brother's minivan. A '95 Caravan, on its 4th transmission. The power steering has long since ceased to have any power - turning right is a true workout.

I think a race car's steering is loose in comparison.

Hugh knows this - it was a joke. He really wants that Lexus.

His rationale for today? We haven't looked at any other cars, ergo we must want this one.

He is right. We do. I do. The kids do.

Eddie knows he sold a car with one sentence - humour me - drive a Lexus.

I'm looking at the above post, realizing it seems to consist solely of one sentence paragraphs. Is Twitter changing the way I write? Can I go past 140 characters? Will any thought of substance ever leave my head again?

Can I write an entire post consisting entirely of questions?

If you wish to read the tweets of a new twit, I'm teragram42 on Twitter. If you wish to read the tweets of someone who is at least semi literate, may I recommend Stephen Fry?

Mud glorious mud

2009-07-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

Despite our Lexus detour, I did much mucking about.

Mucking about is a highly accurate term for the end result of gardening - tools and gardener covered in muck.

I weeded. Nails filled with muck.

I trimmed most of the rest of the hedge. Hands covered in muck.

I divided 2 perennials and moved chunks to where the hedge between us and our neighbour's driveway used to be. Much muck, on hands arms and feet.

I weeded by the side yard. Hands, arms, feet and eyes mucky. Lots of small black flies, which go under my glasses into my eyes, hence the mucky eyes.

Moved 2 grasses. Muck, as noted above, on hands and arms.

This was all before car shopping. I did change my shirt and shoes - orange Crocs are not for driving. Or leaving the yard. Or anything involving other people seeing you, really.

I divided 2 more daylilies after. More muck. Is it allowable to wash your feet in the bathroom sink? Our main floor bathroom has a sink and toilet just inside the back door, where I leave the crocs. The sink seems a wee mite more civilized for washing than the toilet.

car hunt

2009-07-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

I decided to get serious about the car hunt. Keep in mind that the term grown up makes me giggle when you consider the term serious.

We went to the nearest Toyota dealer and test drove a 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan, an eminently practical vehicle. We're practical, right?

The steering was loose. Brakes? Soft. Soggy, even. Road feel? Van like. It felt like a minivan, and everyone reviewing them commented on how car like they are. Fucking liers. They were just brainwashed - roadwashed - by the other crappy driving vans they had.

Minivans suck. That's why families turned en masse from them to the SUV, which looks like a truck. And sucks gas like, well, like our current car.

We then headed off to Import Car Centre. located beside XXX adult videos - must be 18 or older to enter. Lovely neighbourhood. We shop in it when we need to buy something at a pawn shop. Imagine my surprise when we saw row upon row of not beaters but beemers. By import car centre, then mean high end imports.

So we asked them about the 2004 Sienna's they had advertised. Sold. So we told him what we wanted, a vehicle that seats 6 or 7. We chatted briefly. He asked us if we'd do him a favour - test drive a Lexus SUV. What can you say when it's put that way? I mean, we're not dumb enough to actually buy a fucking SUV just because some smooth salesguy gets us to drive it.

We drove it.

Hugh raved for 30 minutes, then made me drive it back to the dealership. It's a very nice ride.

We chatted with Eddie, the used car guy. He's the half owner of Import Car Centre. They also have an 8 car garage a few blocks over, and own the land the lot is on. He's been working there for 21 years. I mentioned my concern that an SUV and a sedan don't offer much difference, but an SUV is a lot more money. What happened? Before I could say "must leave, hair needs washing", we were in a Toyota Avalon, winging around Ottawa. We both agreed the suspension just wasn't as nice, the brakes, as firm, the ride, as lovely, as the Lexus.

What to do?

Well, we chatted a while, and left.

Hugh may play the sucker well, but for him to spend nearly $30,000 on a car is not a spur of the moment thing. He buys things on the spur of the moment because they are cheap. Not because he loves them.

But he loves that Lexus.

I am in a very odd, and entirely unexpected space.

I don't really want to spend more than $15,000 on a car. If we do, it means we can't pay off the line of credit until next February, at the earliest, and so we can't replace the kitchen counters. Or my underpants, which meet the maternal criteria of throw out those underwear they're full of holes what if you get in an accident category. DISCLAIMER. They are really comfortable. Like going commando. Not that I would....

So I am in the odd position of trying to convince my stay at home no income husband that he should buy a Lexus. He drives a lot. He doesn't buy himself anything luxurious, or even nice. This is a man who will wear used underwear. I know, too icky to imagine. But I've never seen him love a ride like he loved that Lexus. I want him to have it.

Even though I hate SUVs, and think luxury cars are a silly way to spend too much money on a utility. Would you buy Evian hot water for your shower? High octane gas for your '99 Ford Econoline van? Swarovski crystals for your white trash neighbour? Well, um, no, idiot. Yet I want my husband to buy this car, and feel like he made the right decision every time he drives it.

This is not a place I thought we'd be in our car hunt. I pictured Hugh wanting to buy his friend's 2000 Cadillac Seville, or an old crappy cheap minivan, and me trying to convince him to upgrade to a 2004 Toyota Sienna with 140,000 km and rust.

Life, sometimes, has nice surprises, and this may be one! Some would claim deities. Yet why would a god intervene on something as trivial and humanly controllable as a car, when kids die of entirely preventable causes. Atheism is more reasonable, the more you know about our world. That, and extreme gratitude for the luck of being born in a rich country. Thanks, oh Palframan ancestors, for deciding England/Ireland/Scotland/Wales sucks. Cause Canada doesn't. Even though I still think Pat Buchanan's term, Soviet Canuckistan, is hilarious, we are no 'stan country.

I will, of course, let you know if end up with a Lexus or something more suited to a trailor park.

perfect day

2009-07-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

Today was amazing. Sunny, not too hot, not at all humid.

Naturally, I decided I had to wash all the towels. But I also gardened until it started raining. Lovely, it were.

The front NE bed is now kidney shaped. Sort of. I yanked out the ornamental onions, which means most will still come up next year. I also removed weeds. We've had a mess of rain. That's the technical term, honest. And it's helped the quack grass and other weeds to thrive. Amazing how well rooted grass not on the lawn is. Weeding is one of those things people who pass by always say that's a lot of work. As I tell them - it's only work if you don't like it. And I love it.

I seeded more lawn between the flower beds, as the bits I seeded July 2nd are a wee mite sparse. My inner Scot is dead - I can splurge on grass seed. Honest. I haven't smelt so much as a wiff of sporin.

I also did some hedge trimming.

I realize most people use an electric hedge trimmer. I do not use power tools, my experience in the basement nothwithstanding. I spent an entire summer mowing our not insubstantial lawn with a push mower - it worked fine. So I trim hedges with manual clippers, which are never sharp enough. Yes, I sharpened them, I have a file specifically for that purpose. But it doesn't seem to do much.

My hedge trimming technique is effective, if unorthodox.

1. Trim bits you can reach.

2. Jump to trim bits you can't.

3. Get large shaky wooden ladder. Trim half of top you can reach from that side.

4. Whack hedge periodically to dislodge trimmed bits.

5. Use trimmed bits as mulch under pine.

I got half done, so it looks even less tidy than before - now it has odd bits sticking up on half of the top. I'm not going back out there - the mosquitoes are fierce. Fierce, I tell you, fierce. And standing on a rickety ladder with freshly sharpened clippers swatting mosquitoes is even less smart than not swatting mosquitoes.

To further improve a perfect day, the blackberries are ripening, and I managed to creep through the entire patch without any bleeding. They were delicious. I laughed at the berries at the grocery store, priced at $2.99 per half pint. Hah! I ate half a pint before I even got into the patch.

So now I will head back to work, with a composter full of weeds, a half trimmed hedge, a nicely seeded new chunk o' lawn and blackberries to look forward to when I get home. The clean towels are OK too, but not exactly life altering.

Car obsessions

2009-07-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

I have a tendency to obsess when a task is open.

Witness posts on finishing the basement. It filled most waking thoughts. Now that it's done, I can barely remember we have one.

I remember the last time we "had" to buy a car. My old Tercel had died. Murdered, actually, by a cruel and incompetent owner who failed to check the oil. That would be me. Did you know that a Tercel driven at 100km/hour without oil sounds like a jackhammer? And that if you then put 4 litres of oil in the engine, it sounds like a machine gun is mounted to the roof?

It was the Tercel's premature demise that introduced me to the stress of the car hunt. I lucked in, after a couple of weeks, to baby blue, who I traded for $130 and a bus pass. I still have the bus pass.

So now the green machine is dead, Hugh and I have driven 2 compact hatchbacks, and I've coaxed out of him that he wants something safe, with lots of seats. Minivan! Party on! Excellent!

After learning of my husband's desire for something with many seats, I identified appropriate vehicles. Then he told me he wants to test drive his buddy's old Cadillac. I was revolted. Revolting is a wonderful word. So is fungible. So are ergo and ergot.

I don't want a 10 year old Cadillac. I don't want a Cadillac of any age. The thought makes me ill. Clearly this is not rational, but to me a Cadillac represents stupidity and ostentatious displays of wealth and old men that smell a little bit like pee. I don't want to own one. I will not drive one. I have told Hugh he's more than welcome to try it out, but he better not buy it. I didn't tell him about my negative Cadillac associations, he'd probably suggest therapy. I did my boring old gas mileage whine.

Tomorrow, if all goes according to my nefarious plan, we'll head out to Stittsville, where #1 son has his drum lessons. There is a used car dealer there that has a few Odysseys and Siennas. Might as well drive one, and see if we hate them or not. Of course, the nefariousness of my plan is negated somewhat by the fact that I told Hugh my plan, test driving old cars isn't illegal, and it's actually quite convenient to make the trip to Stittsville count twice.

I will try not to bore the world with my car hunt. I will succeed, if only because most of the world is completely unaware of my existence. This is a good thing. I like being able to garden in orange crocs and purple gloves and dirty clothing without seeing my picture at the grocery store checkout counter.

Green machine dies

2009-07-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

It's official - the green machine, our 1996 Grand Marquis, has died. Revival estimates start at $1,000, well above our willingness to spend on repairs. So the fire fighters of Ottawa will gain a new practice vehicle. I bet they could make $$$ selling tickets to watch them break into/smash up/stack cars.

Now our car hunt will start in earnest. We've never done this before, at least not for a family car. Our last 2 vehicles were my father in law's old Grand Marquis. Grand Marquises? Grands Marquis? English and pluralization, that's an exercise in illogic. So the last car we actually researched, found, test drove and bought was baby blue, a 1995 Eagle Summit. It was a terrific car.

My goal is to buy a fuel efficient hatchback or small station wagon.

I have no idea what Hugh's goal is.

This could present problems. He does the driving, so I should back off and let him decide. But I am likely to find this impossible. I could say it's because I'm a control freak, or because it's an expensive purchase and I should have a say in it, or because I've done the research so he should just shut up and do what I say. But the truth is that I like the way the little hatchbacks look, and want one.

Can you spell superficial?

Hugh will do exactly what I do - find logical, compelling reasons to buy what he likes.

This actually won't be much of an issue - we're both car averse. He once called the CAA and couldn't remember the make or model of vehicle he drove. I didn't own a car until I was over 30. As long as it fits 5 people and has a trunk, we should be happy. Hugh will also want something he's comfortable driving, a not unreasonable requirement.

A final thought. Zoe, our unnaturally responsible and lovely daughter, will be driving in under a year. A vehicle she really, really, really doesn't want to be seen in might be a plus. I did find a 1966 wood panelled station wagon that made her recoil in horror. The Chevy Astro van performs a similar function. Alas, both require nearly the entire oil output of Saudi Arabia to fill the tank, so choosing one to reduce Zoe's driving seems, well, dumb.

My summer vacation

2009-07-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am FAR too old to write an essay on what I did on my summer vacation. But isn't that why I blog? To barf out what no human wants to hear?

The vacation started well - much mucking about in garden. The wounds have almost healed. Which means, of course, that I didn't get nearly enough gardening in. I blame our extremely wet weather.

Spousal unit headed over to a friend's house, in town for the weekend. His friend talked him into going out to lunch with other in town people, as it was his high school's 50th anniversary reunion. High school reunions are for people who, um, went to the high school. Not spouses. This I know. Yet my spouse insisted I go to the lunch. Fine. Drinking beer on a patio on a lovely day in June is not exactly hardship, so I went, and it was fine. Then he insisted I go to the dinner that night. I have to admit it wasn't as horrible as I imagined, but watching old people fail to recognize each other and complain about the small print on name tags is not fun.

Sunday, more mucking in dirt. Then the rest of the family headed up to the cottage as Zoe invited 2 friends and our car only holds 6. I stayed home and cleaned and watched Bon Cop, Bad Cop - much fun. Very Canadian. Worth renting, if you're in the mood for low budget humour with occasional subtitles.

My brother drove me up to the cottage the next day, meaning I got to spend an hour holding Adrian, my new nephew. It were nice, it were. He was in that rarest of newborn phases, alert and quiet. Definitely a treat. We got to the cottage, and the kids informed me the car broke. Sigh. Our vehicle was fun when it had a bit of character. It's less fun now. I'd noticed the "suspension not working" light, and assumed that it was the sensor. Or the suspension. Either way, I wasn't going to do anything about it. But driving over gravel roads in a large vehicle with 6 people and no suspension isn't good for the car, and Hugh hit a rock and the tailpipes separated.

We spent some time Tuesday lying under the vehicle, attaching wire to the tailpipes. By "we", I mean Hugh did it as I reluctantly assisted. He managed to drive the vehicle back to town, and my brother left, leaving me at the cottage, in the rain, with 3 teenage girls and 2 boys. The girls don't like bugs, and we made them mad by bringing them a large toad and an enormous spider to show them. Yes, I should grow up, but it was too much fun to resist.

Wednesday Hugh returned, with his dad's car, and I left him up there with his brother and 1 boy. He showed up at home about 2 hours after we got back. Nice timing - gave me enough time to do all the laundry and put everything away. And feed the kids.

Thursday the rain began in earnest. We used my brother in law's vehicle to do some errands, including shopping with boy #1 for a cell phone. This is a child who would rather saw off his arm than call a stranger, but he needs a cell. Ah well, it's his money. Sort of. He buys the phone, I pay the $25 a month for unlimited text and highly limited talk. So far he's texted his sister and her friends, as his friends are at camp and not textable.

While at Future Shop getting Zoe a new cell - because you know, after almost a year, the "old" one is so, like, uncool, cause, like, everyone, like, has the, like, same one, you know? I bought myself an early b-day present. I am now the proud owner of the game active, Personal Trainer for Wii. It is very cheery. I want to create an abusive personal trainer game for Wii. The trainer would be highly sarcastic and insulting. Move it, you fat slob would be the trademark line. Much better than keep it up! You're doing great! Wow, that's real energy! You're a track star! Fuck off - I'm in my bedroom, pretending to jog with a remote in one hand and a nunchuck strapped to my thigh. Track star I am not.

So, dear imaginary reader, that has been my summer vacation to date. I left out the thrilling housework, but would like to report that our basement storage area is gradually looking less cluttered. I anticipate a return to work on Monday, to be followed by a call from spousal unit informing me that our mechanic has deemed our vehicle unworthy of repair. As we don't want to spend more than $200, and it needs a new suspension, tailpipe and power steering, odds are excellent our mechanic will not do the repairs. Fortunately, said mechanic is located only 2 blocks from Cohen's, where you can drive your old junker onto the scale and get CASH for it. Baby blue, my tiny commuter bug, fetched me $130, which I promptly spent on food. That was fun. That was also at the peak of the market, when scrap metal was so valuable people were stealing manhole covers. The green machine, while easily 4x the size of baby blue, might get us $50. That's OK. It's better than spending hundreds to allow it to limp for another week or so, until the next bit breaks.

I think I'll have to take another week off, later this summer. For now, it's off to the airport to drop off my parents, who are spending 2 weeks hiking in Newfoundland. We will use their car. Yeah!

Flashbacks!

2009-06-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

I've lived a sheltered life, so I'm definitely not talking acid flashbacks here.

No, it's parenting flashbacks.

My sister in law just had her second wee bundle of joy, a barely under 9 pound boy who is lovely. My thought was poor sister in law, good thing the horrible part only lasts 6 weeks or so.

Yeah, nobody really tells you how awful newborns are. And honestly, as you glow through pregnancy, basking in thoughts of how great it'll be when baby arrives, you wouldn't believe them. But they are horrible. You never know when they'll sleep, or for how long. Is baby asleep for 2 hours - I should nap. 20 minutes? I should do the dishes. Or shower. But baby is, of course, unable to let you know this vital piece of info. So you nap and get woken up just as you hit REM sleep. Or do the dishes, then the laundry, then a few other dull chores, then figure baby will wake up soon, no point napping, then kick yourself as you stagger around exhausted, wishing you'd napped.

But once they smile and coo, you turn into the puddle of love struck mush you knew you'd be all through your pregnancy. So I am looking forward to seeing my wee nephew in a few weeks...and will tolerate visits before then, because my sister in law is many kinds of awesome and I'll do whatever I need to to help her out and let her know I think she's awesome.

All this gives me flashbacks to the good stuff, too. Like Westley, after being weaned at the insane age of 3, telling me he liked it when my milk things worked. If any kid is going to marry a women with HUGE tracts of land, it's him. And no, mine are not even close to Pamela Anderson. More like Gwen Stefani, pre-implants. But to a wee baby, they are perfection, and my assumption on his future size preferences are based on proportion. My boobs were about the size of his head when he was born, so won't he assume head sized boobs are about right? Ouch, my back hurts just thinking about it!

I also remember all the stuff babies seem to end up with. Swings. Change pads. Diapers by the gros. Wipes by the tonne. Several outfits a day. Bathtub. Carriage. Bed. Bassinet for napping. Baby carriers, for front and back. Slings. Receiving blankets. I'm amazed we didn't lose the kids amongst all the stuff. Boy, do I ever not miss those days! I've always been a person who likes kids who can talk.

Good luck, sister in law. Your wee boy is perfect. And you will do a rocking awesome job.

My brain hurts!

2009-06-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to figure out a data warehouse. It doesn't yet exist, so no data play allowed - only reading of schema and data dictionaries. Except the dictionaries aren't readable, they are web pages that scroll on for ages with every field clickable to another unending page. The schema are jpg files that print best on paper roughly the size of my cube.

I am supposed to focus on this and become the expert for my area. Happily, I will have help. Sadly, I don't know where to begin. What do I need to know? I dunno.

There are lots of things I don't know. Some I don't want to know - like how many boys has my daughter kissed? I'd prefer to pretend that I know the answer, and that it's 1. Some require base knowledge I lack, like assessing the quality of a scientific study. And some are boring, to me at least, like sports stuff. I know the NHL is in final playoffs now. I don't know who's playing, or if it's the final final or semis, and I don't care.

There are things nobody knows. Is there really an invisible being that can't be detected with any of our scientific instruments, who has left no proof of existence yet managed to make everything? I think no is a pretty safe answer, but I'm in a minority there. So I try to focus on what I think I know. I think many aspects of religious teachings are harmful. Teaching followers that being gay is bad, or that women should be subservient, or that condoms shouldn't be used even to protect against AIDS is just wrong. I think that followers of a religion have an obligation to protest those aspects of their religion that are wrong. I don't care how they protest - leave the church, tell your priest/rabbi/preacher/yogi/shaman/chief grand chicken pooba, write the leaders, I don't care. But do something and encourage others to do something, if you care about your religion. Otherwise, it deserves to disappear. If you don't care enough about something to improve it, how important is it, really?

Right. Soapbox away. I read that if you pour hydrogen peroxide on a pine cone, you get huge flames. This I really want to try, but I don't want the kids to catch me. Hmmm. This is where desire for fun and being a responsible parent conflict. I'll keep thinking on how I can remove that conflict. Fire is fun. Getting burned, not so much.

Fatigue, alas

2009-05-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

I think the hardest part of being a new mom was the unrelenting lack of sleep. It was brutal. I am very, very happy my kids are past the age of constant nocturnal wakefulness. Thanks, kids.

So any current fatigue is self inflicted. The inflictor was a terrific concert. Leonard Cohen. Our own Canuckistan crooner, putting on a series of shows across N American to replenish his funds, after his "agent" stole his $$$.

Should I thank the agent? Naw. I'll just be grateful for a few lovely accidents.

1. My dad, a luddite, got up early and bought tickets at the box office.
2. My dad, a luddite, mismanaged his calendar and double booked himself.
3. My dad, a singer, chose rehearsal over Cohen.
4. My mom called me to see if I wanted to go. Oh yes please and thank you very much.

The concert was 3 hours of amazing. Cohen was great. His doo-wap trio was terrific. The 6 guys playing everything from accordian to double bass to harmonica to clarinet along with the usual guitar/bass guitar/drums/saxophone were great. He sang every song I wanted to hear, and then some.

Other good stuff.

Connor's room in the basement is done. Done! He's sleeping down there, along with Domo, Labbit and his drums. Labbit is a stuffed rabbit with a mustache. Domo is google-able. I don't know what he is, but Connor likes him.

TIF is black. I visited a very funny dermatologist who lied and said liquid nitrogen would hurt. It stung a tiny bit, but it was not at all painful. Now the bit of TIF I can see is black. Yeah, it's kind of gros, and there is a chunk o' TIF under the nail looking like she always has, but it'll be nice if the quarter inch sticking out dies and falls off. I go back to the dermatologist in a month. I really liked her can of liquid nitrogen. I wonder what other cool toys she has? I honestly hope I don't ever need to find out...

My dentist is still happy with my teeth. No more visits for 9 months! His only concern is that an old filling I have is slightly discoloured, but it's a cosmetic concern, and if I haven't noticed, it's not important.

I am enjoying Marianne now. Before it was Everybody Knows, then Famous Blue Raincoat, then Who by Water (I think - I know the lyrics, not always the song names). I expect Suzanne to show up, and Chelsea Hotel. Maybe even Hallelujah. I may be tired, but I'm happy!

Patience: A missing virtue

2009-05-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

I'm not the most patient of people, although I've learned to fake it over the years.

We spent the weekend - guess where - in the basement. I am beginning to hate my basement. I like the part with finished floor. I hate the visible Dricore. Also the carpet on the stairs, which reminds me that it's super ugly and I am in a state of debt that has killed ye olde inner Scot. It's true - I never wake up worried about debt. Maybe it's because 11 hours of painting trim causes me to lapse into unconsciousness.

I had budgeted about $150 for the trim - it's just a few strips of pine, right? Wrong. I spent about 20 minutes in the trim aisle at Home Depot, before going into trim overload and piling the cart high with trim that was close enough to what we have upstairs. I did my best to measure out 139 feet of the trim, and 168 feet of corner round. Plus 5 pieces of door casing. It cost $508. I just about fell over, then paid and staggered out to the car. My transport technique for items too long for the car is to open the passenger side front window and stuff everything in. We only live 6 blocks away. It worked fine.

Did you know that car repair in an older vehicle is dramatically different than in a younger one? Our check engine light came on. So we checked the oil. It's fine. I am recalling this happening on big red - we used black electrical tape to block the light, it's very distracting. So far, with the green machine, we have been more successful at not being distracted. We checked the engine, right? So until it actually develops symptoms, I assume the light came on because of a broken sensor. Denial, something Bush taught us all.

I think the children had a good long weekend. I know I fed them 3 times, and Connor and Zoe actually each cooked twice. Amazing what skills can be imparted through neglect. Maybe I should write a book about it - super passive parenting, or how to force your kids to raise themselves. It's actually terrible for their nutrition. Connor ate 2 boxes of fudgesicles. With some help from Westley. Zoe was luckier - she has a very active social life, and got actual cooked food at a friend's house. Plus she's in a health phase, imparted no doubt by her teacher in a class that used to be called home economics but now has a name I can never remember.

My garden is calling to me, really loud. But there's still trim to paint, as despite 11 hours of work it's not done. It's almost done, just about 6 pieces left. The flooring is mostly in, thanks to Hugh, who is barely mobile after 3 days on hand and knee whacking in tiny bits of highly warped floor. They say it's engineered. I say it's engineered in the same way a sanitary engineer is an engineer. It's designed and produced, no doubt to specifications, but if it's actually engineered, the engineers are drunk. Every piece is warped. Every 60th piece is mis-shapen and can't be used. I have to admit it looks great, though. Maybe one day I'll have the energy to put batteries in the camera and take pictures. Or get Zoe to take a few.

Mike and Hugh will be back at it. Maybe tonight the door will be in. We kind of left the doorway unfloored, as we have 4 options to choose from and need Mike's opinion. He'll have one, it will be option 5, and it will look good but take hours to do. Poor Hugh. Glad I have a day job!

Springtime (not for Hitler)

2009-05-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

It's spring in Ottawa, my absolute favourite time of year. The leaves are unfurling. The grass and weeds are growing. Tulips, daffodils and crabapples are in bloom. Lilacs and bearded iris are about to pop.

The last few weekends have been a gardener's misery. Damp. Even wet. Which has allowed me to finish painting the basement, and will allow me to install flooring tomorrow.

I did not buy bamboo. I tried. According to the salesman, 1.1 billion Chinese are refusing to ship Guo Ya bamboo to Canada. I suspect the truth is closer to limited supply for carbonized bamboo, higher prices in the US and less paperwork = send it there. It doesn't really matter, apparently any engineered flooring can go in a basement.

So Connor and I headed off to Home Depot, to peruse their selection of idiot proof click install engineered hardwood. There are several systems, many finishes, and no sales. Of the 3 that were in stock and had a click system that actually looked like it would hold a floor together, Connor chose the most expensive. He liked the more mottled graining and the warmth of the finish. This, from a child whose idea of fashion is a slightly ripped t-shirt and pants so large he stole my belt. I have to admit the graining on the acacia wood is nicer than oak, which, while lovely, is a bit strong.

So you'd think we're done, right? We have 30 boxes of flooring in the basement. Mike is dropping off a saw so we don't have to use a jigsaw. The basement is painted, and the trim removed from the one spot that had trim. But we have a very important decision to make.

What direction should the planks go?

This is a seemingly obvious question. I assumed they would go east-west. Mike assumed they would go north south. Hugh likes the idea of a diagonal. But only in one of the two rooms. My plan is to lay out a few planks and try to guess what will look best. Mike's theory is that the outside walls are straight, so going N-S would mean fewer cuts. Having installed the subfloor, I can tell you with absolute confidence that in no section of the basement are the outside walls straight.

We will resolve this, far more easily than the Irish resolved their "troubles", and far sooner than anyone will resolve the constant middle east crisis. Which reminds me of a lovely Dan Quayle quote - the global importance of the middle east is keeping the near east and the far east from infringing on eachother. The US really needs to stop electing politicians who prove that anyone can grow up to become president. Obama was an awesome start. Wish we weren't headed in the opposite direction - go Iggy!

must.stop.reading.results.of.stupidity.

2009-05-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

I have a terrible habit of reading a website called what's the harm.net. It publishes incidents of people following non-scientific practices and being harmed as a result. This includes dead children whose parents' religious faith resulted in denied or delayed access to effective care.

I know these parents loved their kids, and didn't want them to die. So how brainwashed were they, to believe some ill-educated church representative would save their kid?

There are side effects to medical treatments. Some of those are permanent, and in some instances are worse than the illness they were intended to treat. But the risks are, to a large extent, known and documented, as are the risks of the illness. Why is comparative risk analysis such a difficult concept for most people to grasp?

Here's a nice, simple example. Guillain-Barre syndrome. This is an auto-immune response that can be triggered by vaccines, although it's more commonly triggered by an illness (possibly one a vaccine would have prevented!)

The risk of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome after a flu vaccine is about one in a million.
The risk of dying of the flu is about 4%, or 1 in 25. Most of those 4% will be in a higher risk population - the very young, very old, or already ill. So for a healthy adult, it's a lot lower than 4% for most flus. But it's still a LOT higher than one in a million. And Guillain Barre, horrible though it is, is treatable and the individuals with it usually get 100% better. Eventually.

I'm probably taking a much larger risk by painting my basement. The primer is really stinky! Smells like ammonia.

Other risks more likely to result in death than vaccination:
1. Driving to the store to buy beer
2. Flying anywhere
3. Smoking
4. Excess drinking
5. Being overweight
6. Not exercising
7. Not wearing a helmet when you cycle/rollerblade/skateboard (for me, walk!)
8. Seeking and following medical advice from an "alternative" practitioner when you are actually sick
9. Swimming unsupervised
10. Having unprotected sex in a non-monogamous relationship

Now, a lot of these things are way more fun than a needle. And you can choose to do them or not - so these are controllable risks. But choosing vaccination instead of disease is a harm reduction strategy, kind of like needle exchanges - there is a risk, but it's WAY lower than the risk of the disease.

I think Jenny McCarthy may prove that having lovely sweater puppies and a terrible brain can be a deadly combination. Check out the Jenny McCarthy body count site. Stupidity kills. Don't listen to it!

electric mayhem

2009-04-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

The electrical work on our basement is done!

It took Mike and I several minutes to realize we had no clue how the basement was wired, so rewiring was out of the question.

It took our electrician friend 3 nights of after-work visits to realize he needed more bits. As he's already got a real life, moving into our basement to help us wasn't an option.

It took a paid electrician less than a morning to finish off the excellent work our friend had done.

In the interim, as I had nothing to work on, I started running again (OK, slow granny shuffle, but it's definitely NOT a walk), cleaned up the front garden, moved the yukka, cut down the rest of the smoke tree in the hope that it will generate beautifully shaped new growth to replace the old, split the Karl Forrester reed grass and helped Hugh move the dishwasher.

Why did we move the dishwasher?

Mice.

Apparently they used the underside of our rarely-used dishwasher as a disco. Or an outhouse. Same end result. Much poop. It's now cleaned, and access to their disco has been foamed in. They can still get under the sink.

Hugh's plan? Trap and release. His initial plan was to flush them, as he figured they'd survive a trip through the sewers. But he decided against that, and released one in a field and one in a massively busy intersection, near a garden centre. Will they survive? It doesn't seem that likely, but they'll make better food outside of our house.

And now, a word on renewal pruning.

Renewal pruning involves cutting 1/3 of an overgrown shrub down to the ground in each of 3 consecutive years. The theory is that this will encourage the healthy, enormous root system to put up new shoots, which can be selectively pruned as required to create a brand new healthy beautifully shaped shrub. The pictures in gardening books make it look easy and idiot proof. And honestly, cutting down shrubs is something I'm good at.

The reality so far is that the shrub has sent out some new growth, mostly parallel to the ground, and the rabbits have eaten a lot of it. What we have now is an oddly shaped stump with various branches sticking out all over the place, mostly chewed up by rabbits. I am still hoping real new growth will emerge, now that there isn't a remaining old branch sucking up energy.

Next steps? In the garden, the honeysuckle must go. In the house, drywall must move from piles on the floor to the ceiling. In the kitchen, we'll hope the mice don't build another disco.

red hot strapping mama

2009-04-11T14:14:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah. We're done with the metal. Today we started the strapping, and it was good. I learned how to use a powerful drill, and spent much of the day screwing. Strapping to the ceiling, of course. Please note there are 2 screws for every meeting of strap to joists.

Here's the nasty corner, with 2 levels of ductwork, all framing by moi meme. Isn't it shiny?

And here's the incentive to finish:

Yes, that's a full drum kit in our living room. The boys had band practice yesterday, and I don't know what songs they played, but I can tell you it was loud. We bought a mess of sound insulation today, we'll probably start insulating on Monday, once the wiring and cable is done. I asked Hugh 3 times if he'd do the cable tomorrow. Here's what I now know.

1. It only takes 10 minutes.
2. It's easy to do.
3. You just go to the box and finish it (huh?).

What I don't know is whether or not Hugh will actually run the cable tomorrow. Maybe if I ask him to show me, he'll just do it.

Tomorrow is also Easter, when we commemorate a resurrection by finding chocolate eggs hypothetically laid by a placental mammal. I'm voting we switch it to the Easter platypus. Far more interesting and plausible.

Happy oestrus, all! May your garden prove fertile, and anything else you wish to multiply.

opinions and rationalization

2009-04-02T07:20:00.001-07:00

I am pondering flooring options for our basement.

The subfloor will be happiest with a floating floor, and so will I - I don't want to pay for installation, and I really like mucking around with my hands. It's very satisfying, even when the end result is a tad disappointing. Like the roman shades I made - they worked out perfectly, but they just don't look that great. They are too blah. I need to paint them or something.

My initial plan was cork flooring. It is beautiful. It is $5 a square foot, a tad expensive, but affordable (except to my inner Scot). It installs easily, and is rated for basement installations. But it is prone to nicks, I mean, it is cork - we all have some experience working with it, although it tends to be get this cork out of the way of my wine "work". My children are wonderful, delightful, amazing creatures. Quite possibly the best children ever to exist. Yet I know their understanding of "be careful on the floor" and mine come from different universes. So the floor will get nicked. It will. Absolutely. And the children will spill brightly coloured drinks on it. Think orange pop meets grape pop meets pomegranate juice. Their idea of a quick clean up is to remember to tell me a couple of days later.

Actually, that's optimistic. Connor cleaned his last spill by cutting a hole in the rug, then cutting out an almost-matching hole from a slightly hidden clean part and sticking it in the spill hole. He was so impressed with his ingenuity it was hard to tell him why that's a bad idea. I shudder at what he'd do to the cork, especially knowing my concern that they keep it safe...

Next option. Bamboo. Teragren sells a Leeds certified oh-so-green floating bamboo floor that gets a high rating from Consumer Reports for durability. But it's pricey. How pricey, I don't know - probably about 50% more than cork. That may kill the Scot. More likely it will enrage him and he will start waking me up even earlier. I'll still check it out. Hugh may axe it before the Scot even finds out.

Last click flooring option I'd consider - engineered wood. Not sure if it actually comes as a floating floor, usually it's a glue thing and I don't want to glue anything. Laminate doesn't need glueing, but I have a severe aversion to laminate flooring despite its low cost and ease of installation. U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi, you're just UGLY.

So - my options are expensive but durable or fairly expensive but destroyable. Looking at all the dents and holes in our drywall, I think durability has to be high on the "need" side in this decision. Common sense occasionally sucks big time.

fingers and framing and funds, oh my!

2009-03-31T16:24:00.000-07:00

I am a bit of a control freak. I like to do things all by myself. But I am now getting help from our awesome friend Mike, who is capable of taking control ever so gently. He does have the advantage of a renovation skill set, including monster tools and actual experience.

As you can see from picture #1, he removed 2 walls worth of drywall, something I wouldn't have done - too much work. It will look better, as we'll actually have even corners now. My plan was strategically located furniture, the inexperienced DIY'ers friend.

This is the wall! And door! Note the desk and TV on the wrong side! And 1/4" wider than the door! Even perfectionists make mistakes...

This is a sideways picture of the closet that will hide the main water intake. I'd turn it, but that would involve technological skills I have yet to master.

This is the plumbing, sans framing, right side up. Note the brilliant flooring job around said artifact.

This is some of my framing. Alas, not all survived, as the drywall on the right side of this picture was removed.

See the progress? See?

Next steps - well, Mike'll be back tomorrow, doing more framing. He and Hugh will be framing in the bulkheads, and adding cable outlets. I'll be attempting to earn the $$$ to pay for this - as we can't just use Mike as volunteer labour. If he just did a day to help, fine, but he's talking about framing and electrical and drywall and taping - way too much work to not pay him!

My icky 11th finger has merited me a fast-track visit to a dermatologist. My GP was concerned. Why? I've had the silly icky thing for years, if it was cancerous I'd be dead by now. Not pining for the fjords. Pushing up the daisies. Joining the bleeding choir Mehitabel. F***king snuffed it (children watching as I type). So I will meet a 3rd dermatologist in May. #1 took a nasty black thing off my leg. It wasn't cancer. #2 diagnosed a benign spider hemangioma on my 3rd child. It will vanish when pubertis rears its lovely head (pun sort of intended). Now #3 will likely shorten my icky finger, to see if it represents some form of carcinoma, and will find it's fine but may remove it anyways. That won't be fun - the silly thing has its own blood supply and starts at the base of my nail, if not lower. Ah well, now all that remains is to come up with a witty yet unassuming name for it, a task made easier by the fact that smarter minds than I are working on it! Thanks, smart minds.

Right, off to play on the Wii Fit and watch American Idol, the world's most annoying show. Waste time much? I do.

I'm not bleeding

2009-03-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

We have a new subfloor! I took pictures of the before, but by the time of the after, I was not able to move enough to take pictures, let alone kick DD off the computer to upload them. Suffice it to say that it looks like a mess o' particleboard.

We started on Friday night. I say we, as Hugh figured out the cutting and did a fair bit of installation. It's a very satisfying job, as it goes by quite quickly.

What did I learn?

1. Walls aren't straight. They vary by as much as 1/2" over a 4' span.
2. If you use a prybar to pull flooring against drywall, the drywall gives more than the floor moves.
3. It's really exhausting to cut large quantities of floor tile with a jigsaw.
4. You will wear out the blade of one jigsaw, making this a rare occasion when my husband's propensity to acquire multiples of every object - we had 2 Soloflex machines for a long time - was useful.
5. If you have really calloused hands, splinters don't hurt.
6. You get a LOT of splinters installing particleboard based product.
7. Fancy cuts are really cool and look fun installed, like around a door or staircase.
8. Small children's books make great temporary spacers to keep that 1/4" gap open.
9. Croquet mallets can be used to pound the tapping block, with great success.
10. A tapping block, when hit often enough, produces enormous splinters.

I was up before 6am on Saturday, and realized using a jigsaw at 6 am would make my family AND the neighbours hate me. So I did 2 loads of laundry instead. Then used the jigsaw. Hugh did about 1/3 of the floor in total, which is impressive considering he also took Connor to his drum lesson, bought items for Zoe's party, dropped of Westley at a b-day party and spent a couple of hours at his dad's on Sunday.

I did the remaining 2/3, the laundry, cleaned the house before and after Zoe's party and bought stuff for the kids' lunches. It was a busy weekend.

The party went well. Zoe had a dozen or so of her closest friends over. I'm pretty confident I've mentioned before how loud teenagers are - they make a jigsaw seem like a lullaby. The critical number for volume to increase is 4, including Zoe. Four makes the same amount of loud, consistent noise as 15. It does not get quieter as the night goes on. We'll be adding sound insulation to the basement ceiling.

Next step - my favourite one. Mike and Hugh are building the wall today, so my job is to come home and praise their brilliant efforts. I drew the wall on the floor in a fuschia Sharpie marker, including the location of the door. It's fun drawing on the floor. How often do you get to do that?

Wii wii wii!

2009-03-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was DD's 15th birthday. Aside from the usual thoughts - you know, that all parents have, it feels like just yesterday she was in my arms, they grow up so fast, blah blah blah - we gave her a Wii Fit.

The Wii Fit costs $99 plus tax, at least in Ottawa. It is widely unavailable. Hugh bought one at Loblaws, our grocery store. Why Loblaws is able to stock these devices and Future Shop is not is beyond me.

I already had a Mii, thanks to my children walking me through her creation. I am not very good at picking out which Mii is me, but again, the kids helped. It also helps that my Mii's name is Sarah; why would I call it anything else?

The Wii Fit starts off by assessing your fitness age. I was expecting a grueling trial, counting pushups, testing core strength, aerobic capacity, maybe even reflexes. This was an unrealistic expectation for a small plastic board, as I now realize. I think I had to stand on the board, relatively still, for a few seconds. I had to tell it how old I was, and my height. It weighed me. So far, we all count as normal weight. It made me shift weight from one foot to the other, then told me I clearly was unbalanced and expressed surprise that I could walk. This I enjoyed. Humour in a computer game - bring it on! Even though this test was yesterday, I forget the rest. Except my brilliant result - my Wii Fit age is 40! Yippee! I scored younger than I am, by all of 18 months!

I played a lot of the Wii Fit games. I learned how to navigate down a river in a bubble. That has to go on my resume. I did push ups and planks. I ran on the spot. I stepped up and down. I dropped balls into holes by shifting my weight. I learned how to breath, and several yoga poses. I also discovered that I ROCK the Wii hula hoop. I am currently #1, #2 and #3, with a top score of 880 somethings on the 3 minute super hula hoop game. Woo hoo! I'd like to claim that spending over an hour with a fitness device caused soreness, at least in those muscles I don't use much. It didn't. But I can see how you'd learn a few good moves that you could do independently. I also liked the competitive aspect - ranking your hooping, or ball dropping, or breathing. Although getting a high score in breathing seems odd.

I'm looking forward to more fun on the Fit. In between construction work, of course - we bought a mess of subfloor and it is now acclimatizing to our basement. Hugh paid the boys 10 cents per subfloor 2x2 tile to bring them in from the car and lay them on the floor. They were thrilled. I am now the not very proud owner of a Home Depot credit card account (the card will arrive later), which got me $25 off my purchase and promises of future gift cards, should my HD spending reach heights that, sadly, are highly attainable. I'm still throttling the inner Scot, who is not nearly as keen on the cork flooring as Hugh and I are - Hugh really liked it.

the project expands

2009-03-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

I've done almost no framing in the last week. Instead, I've emptied bookshelves and moved as much as I can into the unfinished room in the basement. The furnace room. Where, if there were monsters, they would live. It's also where the laundry is, so not everything fit - no way am I blocking off or infringing on my laundry area.

I've cut up rugs, dragged them outside and dumped them in the garage. Now the room that will eventually be 2 rooms is bare concrete floor, a 300 pound 15 year old TV, a really old, solid oak desk and the computer table. Things I couldn't move - at least not without severe damage to self. And I'm feeling battered enough. We had a mess of books, and I think I moved most of them twice. Plus I dragged a few loads of, um, lovely stuff to Value Village, before opening hours, so they couldn't refuse it. I have one load left. Tomorrow.

The plan has expanded quite a lot. Initially I was going to finish the ceiling and use a bookcase for a wall. Now I'm adding a subfloor system, a real wall and door, and a ceiling. Plus I'll likely drywall the ceiling, and add a nice floor on top of the subfloor. I am leaning towards cork.

There are only a few obstacles now in my way.

1. No cash
2. Not strong enough to get the stuff home from Home Depot
3. See 1

I'll do it anyways. Heck, the entire economy seems to be based on the rich borrowing from the Chinese to buy crap we don't need. I've estimated the subfloor at $900, which I can scrounge up, and the cork at around $4k, which I can't. It is well within my line of credit availability, but och, laddy, the Scottish in me is nae so keen on that. I'll start with what I can afford. And see how I feel once it comes time to buy the fancy shmancy floor. The thing is, while I could just leave the subfloor and throw a few area rugs on it, I am really, really, really not keen on moving all the bookcases back, then moving them AGAIN when I finally suppress the inner Scot and buy a floor. My back is currently trying to throttle the Scot for thinking about it.

Our living room has been transformed from an island of tranquility to the rec room, as of course the kids can't survive without the computer or vidiot games. They are playing some Bond game on the Wii, many explosions are occuring. Happily the drum kit has not been reassembled, as that could compel Hugh and I to move into the attic. Or the basement. There's lots of room!

My 6th finger

2009-03-14T05:53:00.000-07:00

I've read that if you get a full body scan, odds are good doctors will find 3 to 4 abnormalities, none of which are likely to kill or injure you. We're all freaks! Meaning, of course, that freakish traits are normal, and the perfect human would indeed be a freak.

I have an abnormality you can scan with your eyeballs. It's a teeny tiny "finger", growing under my nail on my ring finger, and it's icky.

I realize this isn't the easiest image to see. It's small, you can only see the tip of it on the end of my finger. Near the clearly trashed edge of the burl of a formerly nice end table. Sigh. We bought the furniture from a guy moving to Arizona, so it was cheap, and we've considered it as utilitarian until the kids are old enough to not destroy it. As child #1 is fond of hosting parties, those years are not yet in sight.

Back to mini-me, my tiny icky finger. It's been growing under my nail for years, compelling me to keep the nails long. But construction work and long nails are a very bad combo, so I cut off my nails, revealing my icky finger to the entire world. Mwah hah hah! The world includes my doctor, a lovely GP, who immediately said it's got to come off and filled in the referral to one of the very few dermatologists in Ottawa. Hence my 21st century need to document this, for surely the world would end if a minute detail of any of our lives were to perish.../sarcasm off.

OK, time to find my good friend the cordless drill and start more framing. I will try not to do any unintentional self surgery on any of my 11 digits, but if I do, I will not post images of injuries until it's safe to take pictures. I don't want to get blood on the camera. Or the keyboard, which is already sticky.

Once more, with power

2009-03-08T13:01:00.001-07:00

I have given up on wood framing, in favour of the wonder that is metal framing. It is straight. It uses much shorter screws. It is straight. Did I mention straight?

The wood framing ressembled DNA. Lovely, I think the double helix of our genome is beautiful, and I'm sure the shape is quite useful. But it's really hard to attach drywall to. Especially with lousy tools.

So I returned to Home Depot, spouse in tow, where we purchased a smallish amount of metal framing and a largish amount of screws.

I am happy with the result so far, which took about 2 hours. This compares to a lesser result with over 6 hours of work with lumber. Now, I'm not dissing wood - wood is great. Especially when it's still growing as part of a tree. But 2x2 lumber is a few things.

1. It's 1.5x1.5
2. It's curvy, unlike me
3. It's a pain in the ass to screw without stripping the screws

You see my work? Isn't it lovely? Or at least acceptable? I am not done. Here's a picture of my favourite corner, to give you a sense of the challenge I have created for myself.

Note the bit that dips down near the letter R. Why my son has screwed a large letter R to the wall is a mystery, but if that's his chosen form of self expression, far be it from me to suggest something more personal, like a tattoo. He can continue screwing things to the wall. Especially if it keeps him from facial piercings.

I am done for the day. I finished enough to realize it will likely work, but not without much use of tin snips. The tin snips do work, I'm just not exactly muscular, and it's a bit awkward snipping a C shaped piece of metal without slicing your fingers. So far I only have a couple of scrapes, and I got them before we made it out of the store. Good thing my tetanus shot is up to date! If I start feeling stiff, I'm getting another one just in case.

Oh - I am no longer envious of the Amish. I have acquired a loaner cordless drill. It is my friend. I have already learned that no matter how hard you push, if you have the bit rotating counter-clockwise the screw will not bite. I am not going to disclose how often I did this.

I don't want to join the Amish!

2009-03-02T05:13:00.000-08:00

My construction project has begun.

Connor, aka middle child, wants his own bedroom. This is not an unreasonable request, and he's more than happy to have it in the basement. Our basement already has a large room that is mostly finished. Mostly. The walls are drywalled and painted. The floors have an assortment of coverings, none of which will ever be seen in a home decor magazine. There is lighting, and you could call it mood lighting if the mood you want is cave-like.

There is also an unfinished ceiling and a mess of ductwork. The ductwork is sort of in one place. I'd describe it as an L with a couple of small extra legs. An unfinished ceiling is not good for a bedroom because it doesn't muffle the sound of people walking overhead. It is also really bad at muffling Connor's drumming, which, while skilled, is not quiet.

I did some research on ceilings - if googling "finish basement ceiling" qualifies as research. It probably doesn't, but is there such a thing as peer review for construction articles? There probably should be. The Journal of Competent Construction is begging for a publisher. Mike Holmes should be the editor.

I found several options. All of them, except for the just-spray-paint-the-whole-thing-black one, involve framing the "obstructions". So I decided that I would do that, then decide whether to go with drywall, tongue & groove wood or acoustic tile.

The framing directions I found looked pretty basic and feasible. I mean, it's not exactly carpentry when you can cover your mistakes with drywall, right? So I spent about an hour on Friday night, gazing worshipfully at the ceiling with it's various bits of ductwork coiling around eachother. I drew a lovely diagram of where my framing would go, carefully colour coded. In pencil and crayon. MOMA, watch out! That drawing could be the most successful part of the job.

The next day, after my usual Saturday morning cleanup, I ventured into Home Depot to buy a few bits of lumber to allow me to get started. I did a couple of things right.

1. I looked at the wood to pick straighter bits that weren't full of knots and dings.
2. I remembered to buy screws.

I also did a couple of things wrong.

1. I didn't look at metal studs, which are easier to work with.
2. I bought 3.5" screws - WAY too long.

I was delighted that the wood fit nicely into the car. I was less delighted at home when I couldn't get the window to go up, but Hugh fixed that. A stuck down window in Ottawa in winter makes a car undrivable.

I brought all the wood downstairs. Hugh found me a drill. He said I wouldn't need the table saw, which is buried in the garage, as it'd only take a couple of seconds to cut through each 2x2. I found a saw. I measured 3 times. I made the first couple of cuts, which did not take a couple of seconds but went relatively well. It doesn't matter if the wood splinters at the end, because you won't see it, right?

After cutting 2 lengths and 11 cross bits of lumber, it was time to start attaching them. Connor taught me of the existance of a wondrous item, the awl. I really, really like the awl. So far, it's my favourite part of the job. Yeah Connor! You rock.

I then stuck in a screw, attached the drill, and watched as the drill failed to turn. I ramped up the power, and stripped the screw. No problem - I bought a kilo of them. I stripped the next screw. So I found a drill bit you can use to get the hole started. But our tools are an eclectic bunch. Acquired at various garage sales over the years, with the odd 70% off kit from Canadian Tire to supplement them, they have endured many migrations and shuffling of parts. So I have a cordless drill with bits - but no charger. A powerful drill with no bits, that is an extremely effective device for stripping screws. And an antique drill that is manual.

My framing work consisted of cutting lumber with a saw, drilling holes with a manual drill, and screwing bits together with a screwdriver. I felt like I was imitating some electricity-hating commune, although I did have the benefit of artificial light.

I now have a 90" span complete with 7 cross bits, a 36" span with cross bits, the bottom bits to attach the 2 together, and really sore hands. And I woke up realizing I didn't align the already drilled holes properly so will need to redo the 4 holes in the 90" span that will, eventually, link up to the 36" span. Make that 5, as I also did one wrong and realized it yesterday.

I feel a sense of accomplishment. I have 2 spans done, although not attached to the ceiling joists yet, and only 10 to go. This may be feasible, even without power tools.

NOTE. Anyone using this as construction advice is an idiot, and should seek urgent psychiatric help IMMEDIATELY.

Dogma, again

2009-02-26T12:50:00.001-08:00

The more I surf these here intertubes, the more I realize how irrational we are. Our ability to cling to ideas that deserve to be flogged, ridiculed and trashed is astonishing. Dogma leads us to more stupidity.

The Omnibus Autism Vaccine ruling clearly stated that no scientific evidence was presented that demonstrates a causal link between vaccinations, specifically MMR, and autism. None. Yet anti-vax nutters are getting a forum in the Huffington Post, claiming that there is a link, and either it hasn't yet been proved, or the courts have proved it so there. Of course, scientific fact is not something a court can create, but never mind that - it's inconvenient and doesn't fit the mindset of those convinced of their argument. It also doesn't fit the court rulings they claim are evidence of a link - they are applying dogma to distort, lie and twist the facts to promote their dangerous viewpoint.

I'm assuming a few things about people who agree with anti-vax arguments.

1. They have no understanding of relative risk. Vaccines do, in rare instances, cause severe and lasting harm. The high fever following the old pertussis vaccine brain damaged more than a few kids. Fewer than pertussis, but how awful for those parents. Compensation varies by country. If your child is injured by a vaccine, you should be compensated. It is really sad. But if your child is injured by an illness, there is no compensation. And those odds are much, much higher, especially if your child is not vaccinated and is exposed to other unvaccinated children regularly. The odds of brain damage from measels is about 1 in 1000, from what I've read. From measles vaccine, about 1 in 1 million or less, again, according to what I've read. That means the vaccine is 1000 times less likely to injure your child than the illness. If measles was rare and hard to catch, then it might not make sense to risk that injury, but it is neither rare nor difficult to catch - just look at what's happening in England thanks to imbeciles pushing the gullible to refuse to protect their children.

2. They don't know how vaccines work. Vaccines trigger an immune response in the host that mimics the response the disease causes. Your immune system remembers the trigger, and can quickly attack the disease if exposed. This doesn't mean vaccination guarantees you won't get sick. But your system will likely respond much more quickly, and you won't get as sick. Look up cowpox and smallpox, that's how vaccination started. To state that small babies shouldn't receive a vaccine until their immune systems are more robust is to ignore that a disease won't wait, and that it's better to stimulate with a very well tested vaccination than with a potentially highly lethal illness.

3. They have no clue how prevalent and damaging the illnesses are. Diptheria killed so many. Polio killed and crippled thousands, if not millions. Tetanus - OUCH. Whooping cough is a horrible illness, my neighbour's vaccinated kids had it, and were sick for a month with a mild case - it can last much longer and result in brain damage due to lack of oxygen in the unvaccinated. It's milder in adults, because our airways are bigger.

4. They don't care about other people's children, who legitimately cannot be vaccinated. My friend's daughter is allergic to eggs. Many vaccines are grown in eggs. She cannot give her daughter these vaccines, as for her a side effect would be likely death - not a risk any doctor would advise a parent to take! Other kids may be immunocompromised. Do you want your kid infecting the kid with leukemia and killing them? It's also possible, of course, that those listening to the anti-vax charlatans are unaware of the risk their unvaccinated sprogs pose others, in which case shame on them for not doing the research on an issue impacting their children's health.

5. Following up on 4...they don't do the research on an issue of vital importance to their children's health!

I've proposed a new mandatory course in high school. It will help keep teh stoopid down. I think. It is a course that teaches, with many examples, the difference between a scientific hypothesis and a scientific theory. It teaches relative risk, and how to assess it. It also teaches the difference between causation and correlation. For those who have trouble with these concepts, it teaches regression towards the mean and perception bias. Which I possess. I hate reading stuff by religious right wingers, or ID proponents, or anti vaccine dingbats. It makes me mad. So I don't read it. But avoiding information you are likely to disagree with results in bias.

This post is hereby awarded an EPIC FAIL for silly. Sorry.

ding dong the strike is gone

2009-02-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

It's Friday afternoon, and glancing out the window shows my favourite winter precipitation - snow. I'm looking forward to reading on the bus on the way home, far preferable to driving in crappy traffic. Thanks, oh Ottawa bus drivers, for not being on strike anymore.

I'm reading Ever Since Darwin, a collection of Stephen Jay Gould essays. He's beaten up a bit for his NOMA ideas, stating that religion and science do not overlap. I think his rational was that religion is the department of the unknowable, and science is concerned with what's knowable, ergo no overlap. Too bad the fundies think religion is everything, so nothing's outside its irrational reach.

Ergo is a great word. So is ergot. A rye disease, ergot is, that made many mad. It's also used to make LSD. We had a stray cat, briefly, named ergot. It did not eat rye. We also had 2 cats that loved catnip. Is getting cats stoned bad? I'd have unambiguously said no before learning of the links between schizophrenia and marijuana. I realize correlation is not causation, but it's worth knowing that there is a link and letting your kids know, so they can decide whether a toke is worth it. Poor Michael Phelps. He won 8 gold medals - let him party in peace!

Back to NOMA. I think he was trying to find a way forwards, to let religious people focus on their needs so that science could progress, and particularly so science education could progress, without diverting time and resources into fighting idiocy. Or IDiocy, if you're talking intelligent design crap. But as religious followers have failed to embrace NOMA, it's not really a useful concept. Unless you're a religious scientist, in which case it makes compartmentalization easier.

All religions seem to have some loopy ideas, like ritualistic pseudo cannibalism, or eternal life, or reincarnation as another life form. Eternal life's a pretty good marketing ploy, though - follow us and you'll never die! Hard to beat that spiel. Think for yourself and, um, you'll, um, have self respect! Or not. I wish religion was a force for good. I think most people are good, including most religious people, but I don't see anything that convinces me that religion promotes goodness.

Here's my idea to reduce deficits. Stop giving religious organizations tax exempt status. If they have a charitable foundation, that can qualify, but they should otherwise be treated as businesses. Why should Scientology not pay tax on the sale of their de-thetanizing machines or whatever they're called? Or the Vatican on their incredible wealth? If the primary objective of a religion is charitable, then this shouldn't be an issue at all. But I suspect a lot of the income supports activities that shouldn't qualify as tax-exempt. And that includes the mainstream religions as well as the truly wingnut ones, like Scientology.

Vonnegut poked fun so well. The Church of Jesus Christ the Kidnapped is still my favourite mock faith. I must read Slapstick again. And also Catch-22. I realize that's Heller and not Vonnegut, but they both wrote brilliant satire. I wonder what Swift would have thought of fundamentalism? I bet it would have been fun to read.

the bat is dead

2009-02-18T13:26:00.001-08:00

Just an update to my "bats" post.

Hugh has informed me, sadly, that the bat has died. Despite his best efforts at feeding it grubs.

It's now in the garage, not the liquor cabinet, where it will remain until the ground thaws and it can be buried.

I hope it's the last one I ever see in the house.

isms

2009-02-18T12:09:00.000-08:00

It's 200 years since Darwin's birth. Lincoln's too, although as far as I know there isn't such a thing as Lincolnism. There really isn't such a thing as Darwinism either, but it's used as shorthand for evolution through natural selection.

I've read a fair bit about Darwin, evolution, natural selection and the impact of that theory on biology. It's really cool. I get quite excited reading about it, but I also think it's fun to lie on my back and look at trees. Both these activities have the advantage of being cheap and harmless.

Darwin's theory still manages to upset and confuse people. It doesn't help that most journalists don't have the scientific background to discern nonsense from science, and feel that fair = average. As in, if there are 2 sides, then the middle of them must be right. It's an obvious untruth, but it seems an enduring one.

Ben Stein, in his idiot movie Expelled, claimed evolution didn't explain thermodynamics or the origin of the universe or gravity or abiogenis. D'uh. It's a theory on how life came to be so diverse. Not on why apples fall to the ground. Or the tendency towards entropy in a closed system. Or physics. Religion doesn't start my car. Or explain why it sometimes doesn't start. But that isn't a valid argument against it - it never was a substitute for a good mechanic.

What's the opposite of an ism? Is the opposite of Catholicism atheism? Or agnosticism? Or my favourite term - apathism? I had a friend who was an apathist - she didn't care if there was a god. I thought that was really funny. I still do. I also still think farts are funny. Maybe the opposite of dogmatism is rationalism, or simply reason.

Darwinism is an abused term, often used to try to make it like the religious isms, but Darwin was a human who had a unique opportunity to study nature, and developed a brilliant theory as a result. He didn't found a religion. He was a strict materialist. I'm not smart enough to define that well. I think it means he saw everything as a product of natural forces, not divine creation, and all aspects of life as well. So the mind is a function of the brain, not a separate entity created by yahweh. Wallace - who wrote to Darwin about his theory of natural selection and spurred the publication of On the Origin of Species - thought humans were an exception to the theory. So everything evolved, but we were an act of special creation. Much research went into trying to prove we weren't really similar to other primates. It failed. It supported our common ancestry. Not sure what wearing sock monkey hats supports, other than badly made accessories.

I'll keep on reading about science, because it's fascinating. But I'll try not to be an ism.

Acronyms

2009-02-12T12:09:00.000-08:00

I have a terrible problem.

I no longer understand English.

On occasion, I look at comments posted after articles or blog posts, and I'm finding a lot of them really hard to follow. Some acronyms I know, like LOL. Even ROTFLMAO. Some I can figure out, like WTF and IMO or AFAIK. But others - and I don't know what they stand for so I can't repeat them - leave me lost. Bewildered. Confused.

I assume there's a site somewhere that lists them all. I suppose I should look for it. But, although I am not old, my memory she is like Swiss cheese, and I fear most of them will land in a hole.

The blog posts I can follow best are usually by subject matter experts (SMEs, which sounds very Peter Pan to me - SMEE! The crocodile! Smee!) who are attempting to correct a blatently false assertion. For example, that vaccines cause more harm than they prevent. Or that the earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old. Or that intelligent design is a science.

I'm glad my kids are vaccinated. For me, it was an easy choice. The odds of my children being damaged by a vaccine are about 1 in a 1000 - and I mean damaged in a longer term way than a sore arm and 2 days of excess phlegm. The odds of them catching and being damaged by an illness that they are being vaccinated against are about 1 in 100, and that assumes most kids get vaccinated and there is herd immunity. If vaccination rates fall, then those odds rise.

Do people not know that mumps used to be the leading cause of male infertility? Or that rubella causes horrific birth defects if a pregnant woman has it? Or that measles was a common cause of brain damage? Ditto whooping cough? Polio is just an awful disease. My grandmother had a deformed foot caused by polio. It embarrassed her, but happily wasn't debilitating. And she had a great sense of humour. Can you vaccinate against the humourless? I don't think it's caused by a virus, so I guess not.

While I'm ranting on the topic of vaccine stupidity, how hard is it to understand that influenza and a cold are NOT the same? And that a dead flu virus can't cause a rhinovirus infection?

It's hard to assess the volumes of information washing over us daily. That's why we have experts - they are taught how to assess information quality, and are paid to keep their expertise up to date and apply it. I'd rather listen to a doctor on the merits and risks of vaccination than a homeopath.

I read a comment on homepathy that made me giggle. For those of you who don't know, homeopathy goes on the premise that a solution that's diluted to the point that you can't detect any trace of the original substance still has a memory of that substance. But all water has been in contact with excrement. Does that mean we drink memories of poop?

Elephants, wasabi and algebra

2009-02-10T07:19:00.000-08:00

I've been helping my 12 year old with algebra. So far so good, although algebra is a lot easier than integral calculus.

I've discovered a few things while tutoring my scholastically challenged middle child.

1. Repetition really helps
2. Silly examples reduce tension
3. I get a sense of accomplishment out of his success

The poor kid was incredibly frustrated - he's used to math being easy for him, and this wasn't. It wasn't easy, it wasn't intuitive, and he wasn't getting the right answers. Also, the concept of transforming each side by doing an opposite function is hard to grasp.

My example.

Cheese/Wasabi*wasabi=cheese

I don't think this actually worked, except to stem the flow of tears of frustration. And honestly, if you're frustrated to the point of tears, you aren't learning.

He got through the questions. And the quiz. And got the 3rd highest mark in the class. Which gave him something quite rare in his educational history - a sense of pride in his accomplishment. As his mother and wasabi inspired tutor, I share his pride.

Isn't that one of the deadly sins? Yet in this instance it's inspiring my son to work harder - and this is a kid who almost failed grade 6. It turns out if you do none of your assignments, don't hand in tests and fail quizes, they can actually fail you. He pulled his act together in time to hit grade 7, and is doing marginally better. Summer school is a distinct possibility. But not for algebra!

Much ado about nothing

2009-02-06T11:22:00.001-08:00

I've been reading far too many blogs, chiefly on the topic of atheism.

I'm not a great thinker. I do know when something bugs me, when I agree and when I disagree. And I was having trouble finding arguments from atheists dealing with religion that resonated. Just saying so and so did a bad thing in the name of religion so religion is bad doesn't cut it. Neither do examples like the failure of abstinence-only sex education to prevent STDs, pregnancy or premarital sex. People can do dumb things in the name of religion, but does that make religion wrong?

I don't mean wrong in the sense of factually wrong, I mean in the sense of morally wrong. Is religion morally wrong?

This is not a silly question, so it isn't really on-topic for this blog. How can I make this silly? Well, I tried with the title.

Much ado about nothing is how I see the whole religious fussing about atheism, defining it in ways that show they don't understand it's not a belief system, it's nothing. I don't believe that giant pink fuzzy slippers will terrorize the universe. I hope nobody does. But that doesn't define anything about me any more than not believing there's an invisible entity who controls everything but does nothing does. It doesn't make me bad. It doesn't make me amoral or immoral. It just means that my sense of right and wrong don't come from a set of religious rules.

I agree with Christopher Hitchens on this. Actually, I love his writing and am inclined to agree with much, although not all, of his writings. I strongly suspect that "don't kill" wasn't a revelation after Moses announced it - it was already a cultural norm. A lot of right and wrong come from the golden rule, which in turn likely comes from our ability to empathize.

Please don't ask me if empathy is a genetic trait. I think so, and I think that its absence in people we call sociopaths is incurable, but I doubt it's as simple as finding the empathy gene. How would it help us survive? Far more knowledgeable and capable writers have already discussed group survival as compatible with evolutionary theory.

To sum up: atheism isn't anti-anything, it's just an absence of belief in deities. So fussing about atheism is much ado about nothing, literally.

And thanks to the many bloggers I've read who have really funny comments about some religious silliness, like abstinence only education. I've had far too much fun reading your blogs! For a list, go to http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula, he has the top 30 and a few are truly brilliant.

Books!

2009-01-12T10:05:00.001-08:00

Me love books. Me like cookie monster, but with books. Well, no blue fur, either. And I don't eat the books. I hope I have a better vocabulary. OK, me not like cookie monster.

Me book monster!

Here are some books I really, really, really enjoyed, and on the theory that my taste is impeccable, I am listing them assuming that everyone in the world can benefit from my impeccable taste. I am leaving out highly popular current authors, as you've heard of them.

Disclaimer: my taste is only considered impeccable by me. And only for books. If you don't like a book I list, I can't give you back the time/money you've spent. But think of all the time wasted watching celebrities on the red carpet - any of these books is way better than that!

1. The Water Method Man - John Irving. I have read this book many times. It cannot be made into a movie, it is far to incoherent. And hilarious. My mom kept my dad awake, because the bed was shaking with laughter.
2. The Shadow of the Sun - Ryszard Kapuscinski. Poland's first African correspondent. This is a terrific series of articles, and you can feel his love for his subject. Not at all condescending, beautifully written, and not a bucket of tears.
3. The Price of Water in Finistere - Bodil Malmsten. Highly readable, enjoyable, some laughs, much enjoyment. Her translation of her French is terrific. Almost as funny as David Sedaris' translation of his French in Me Talk Pretty One Day.
4. God is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens. OK, this is a best seller, but I have it here because it's funny, totally unlike anything Richard Dawkins seems capable of writing. So if you want to read a tract by an avowed atheist, this one's actually quite a lot of fun.
5. Coming Through Slaughter - Michael Ondaatje. Way before The English Patient, Ondaatje wrote some beautiful books. In the Skin of a Lion and Running in the Family are highly recommended too.
6. Molly Ivins. I am currently reading anything I can by her. What a loss - she died in 2007. Her political commentary is savage and funny and highly readable.
7. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy. Sad, but incredible. After you read this, if you haven't yet, read Midnight's Children, the 25 year Booker prize winner by Salman Rushdie.
8. A Student of Weather - Elizabeth Hays. Starts out as a Canuck prairie book, but goes very far away from that.
9. Larry's Party - Carole Shields. Happy endings for all, and no schmaltz! How hard is that?

Thanks to those who've given me great book suggestions - The Know-It All by A. J. Jacobs was a lot of fun. I'm still waiting to get back Absurdistan - the problem with giving people books you want to read is that they don't always lend them to you.

Lots more, I know, I just have a terrible memory so this is highly weighted towards books I've read in the last few months, with a few of my top-ever added in.

Bats

2009-01-03T06:26:00.000-08:00

I scream like a girl.

Last night I was about to leave my room, likely to tell Hugh something as we were watching separate TV shows in separate rooms. Odd, that - the TV used to be a family thing, now we have so much choice we need multiple TVs.

I noticed a brown object by the door and wondered what the kids had left. I bent over to look and pick it up, and it started moving. It was very clearly a bat, opening its mouth and trying to scare me as it back frantically under the door back into my closet.

Note to young single women who think a husband is great for romance, southern travel, walks on the beach and other rare and wonderful things. A husband is for icky things. Dead mouse in the wall covered in maggots? Grain moth larvae dropping from the ceiling? Bat under your door? The automatic reaction for me is to scream Hugh! Hugh! Help!

In this instance, Hugh misinterpreted my words, although the tone did bring him in. He thought I said my back! My back! as I'd been painting, and it was wonky. A bat! A bat! I ran screaming downstairs as he searched for the tiny winged mammal. I came back up with the boys, who were extremely excited. My daughter remained in the basement, playing Wii with her friend Tyler.

The bat now lives in a small box, with a piece of apple and a sock from our extensive collection of single socks. What do you feed a bat in the Ottawa winter? Despite the plethora of wildlife invading our home periodically, none of it seems like bat food. Was it eating the grain moths?

Time to google bats. Unless it died of fright in its new home. At least I know what Hugh will be doing for the next few weeks - bat care. As long as he doesn't start raising insects to feed it, all will be well.

Tis the season! Merry merry.

2008-12-24T14:04:00.000-08:00

The big day is tomorrow, the gifts are wrapped, we head out soon to Grandma Janet's house for lobster souffle. Mmm, lobster. She keeps threatening to stop making it, but happily has not made good on those threats.

I hear the pope has equated homosexuality with destruction of the rainforests. Hmmm. Is he equating trees with penises? Probably not - he doesn't want to cut down trees, but only wants penises up if they are ready to make babies. I still figure we got the go forth and multiply thing down quite well, thank you very much, and can move on to another goal. Love thy neighbour gets my vote. I love Christmas, despite being an atheist, but I do get annoyed at those who think their way is the only way.

Of course, that's what religions do - claim their way is the only way, so please tithe to us. Why are they all so down on gays? Why do celebate men in dresses seem so threatened by intercourse? What's wrong with birth control? Why do fundamentalists get so uptight about science, specifically evolution? How much wood could a wood chuch chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

So, tomorrow we will unwrap gifts under our pagan tree, eat turkey, enjoy being with our families and not go to church. Most of our traditions come from the pagans, celebrating the return of the light. Turns out a big party is way more appealing than a day in church. So happy solstice, enjoy whatever traditions you have. I will!

Silly news

2008-12-18T06:23:00.000-08:00

Our local paper has proclaimed the imminent arrival of snowmaggedon - even though the actual article notes we won't get much snow. This is our over the fold front page headline. Aren't there more, um, relevant and important stories to report? Like the proof that our friends to the south have a government that approved torture, at the highest levels?

Snowmaggedon is a fun word. Not headline-worthy unless we're actually getting above average amounts of snow, but fun. Torture is not a fun word. Are the editors trying to keep things light before Christmas?

Time to develop and market a "Free Lynddie England - Arrest Bush" t-shirt. You could have a whole series, given how many people in that horrific administration participated in approving torture.

The argument that torture could prevent a 9-11 is demonstrably false. Nothing prevents an individual being tortured from lying, and doing so convincingly, or telling partial truths that mislead. The evidence I've read shows any form of torture to result in individuals telling their abusers what the abusers want to hear - which isn't the same as providing reliable intelligence, the supposed goal of such heinous treatment.

The only good thing I can see about torture is that it lets us use many synonyms for really bad.

Horrible
Horrific
Heinous
Hideous
Evil
Wrong
Immoral
Abusive
Inhumane

Did I mention wrong? It's that simple - torture is wrong. Always. In all situations. Are there degrees of wrong? Well, there are certainly degrees of culpability. Those authorizing and directing it may be more or less culpable than those carrying out orders, but I'd argue the more senior individuals should be held as ultimately accountable.

Free Lynddie! Arrest Bush! They executed individuals after WWII for the same tactics. I don't think execution is acceptable either, but prosecution is essential to start reinstating America as the leader of the free world. Right now it's a sorry pit of immorality at the highest levels. Thanks Shrub. Have a crappy Christmas. It's what you deserve.

I'd like to apply for a job, please

2008-12-16T09:53:00.000-08:00

Several attractive positions have recently opened, and I'd like to be considered for each of them, based on my qualifications.

1. Spouse of Madonna. I understand the last one worked for 8 years, and received total compensation of $95 million. My husband and I have agreed that we could share this job, which would allow us to provide superior service in meeting her needs.
2. Canadian Senator. There are 18 positions available, and I am applying for the Ontario based ones. My qualifications include Canadian citizenship, an ability to sound very indignant as required, willingness to participate as an unelected stuffed shirt, excellent literacy skills and superior bullshitting prowess.
3. US Senator from Illinois. Qualifications: I have absolutely no links to Blagojevich or Obama, therefore it would be a relatively scandal-free appointment. See 2 above for other qualifications, excluding the first one. I realize my lack of US citizenship could be solved if I am first given position 1.

Thank you for your kind consideration. I look forward to hearing from and working with you for obscene rates of compensation, totally incommensurate with my qualifications.

Strikers of the world, untie!

2008-12-11T11:29:00.001-08:00

I like words that, when misspelled, make other words. Call it inadvertent silliness. Unite and untie. Santa and Satan.

Isn't the word union about bringing things together? A union of heart and mind. But labour unions seem to be about division. Labour and management. Closed shop. Picket lines you can't cross. Our side and their side.

Unions have done great things in the past that brought us all benefits. Things like paid vacation. Paid sick leave. Not getting fired for not sleeping with the boss. Weekends. Health benefits. Pension plans. Working conditions that won't kill you. Clearly some of these are more important than others...but the least important reason I've heard is the right to pick your shifts. Um, if you're in a service industry, aren't the required hours dictated by the needs of those you are serving?

In this instance, the strikers are the bus drivers of Ottawa, a well-paid group by most accounts. 300 of the 2200 union members took the trouble to vote, and 98% of them elected to go on strike. Those 300 were largely senior union members, who are the ones who get first pick at...choosing their shifts! So now all of their colleagues are unpaid, in the cold and likely to be subject to abuse once the buses return to service. How can only 300 people vote, in a matter that directly and immediately impacts them? Was it hard to vote? Was it an open ballot, so only those in favour of strike action felt comfortable voting? Did you have to vote in some odd location? I smell something fishy. Old fishy. Old, smelly, mercury-laden fishy.

In the interim, I have combined car pooling, abandoning husband carless and walking to reach my place of employment. My daughter missed a day of school, but that's because we were snowed in - and quite frankly, a day of school missed isn't going to impact her. She has a long walk home. The boys walk both ways, as mommy stole the car. I was late for work, as I had to drop off dd (darling daughter) at school, and she had to do her hair before we could leave.

Things the strike has impacted for me personally.
1. 3 hours late to work yesterday - scrounged ride from neighbour
2. Scrounged ride most of way home yesterday, long walk on unplowed sidewalks
3. 1/2 hour late today, long walk from parking spot in cold weather (yes, I'm being a wimp)
4. Burned an extra 3 litres of fuel, contributing additional greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. I don't think that's why it's raining on Monday, but still...
5. My children walking long distances when traffic is heavy

They really need to change some rules around striking. One has to be that a legitimate strike vote requires a minimum level of participation - greater than 14% - in addition to a majority of those voting. 300 out of 2200 is ridiculous. I'm sure most of those less-senior drivers would like the senior driver perks, but they may also want a paycheque before Christmas. Unions. They should rename them dividers, that's what they do.

Conservatives step in own rhetoric

2008-12-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

They didn't like the smell and are trying to wash it out, but the odour remains...

Our minority government, elected just a few short weeks ago, has SNAFU'd mightily. Harper asked for an election, claiming parliament was unworkable. Well, he's now guaranteed it'll be unworkable. He failed in his bid for a majority, despite a truly lame duck liberal leader, and now may lose his leadership as well as his position as PM. Such fun!

Pundits everywhere are thanking the Harper led government for a wealth of material, possibly leading to larger paycheques in the holiday season. Not enough to stimulate the economy, and certainly not the stimulus Harper may have planned, but far more enjoyable to watch than, say, bridge repairs.

Ottawa's actually had not one, but two bridge repairs broadcast live on TV. And people say this city is dull.

I wonder if Harper's idiocy and arrogance will hurt him as much as the expression "wide stance" hurt Republicans? Amazing what you can learn from conservatives. I had no idea airport washrooms were a hotbed of sexuality. Clearly I haven't lived.

I wonder if the coalition looking to replace the minority government will realize what they are getting themselves into? You'll have 3 parties, 2 of which could never form a government, 1 of which is hated outside Quebec, led by a leader best remembered as the guy a puffin pooped on in a commercial. They can't possibly increase their support under those conditions, can they? Even if the liberals manage to elect a new leader that has some credibility (Ignatief, please), that isn't likely before May as they seem too rigidly organized to figure out something sooner. By May, Dion, Layton and Duceppe could become 3 of the least liked figures in Canada, assuming they last that long. Dion looks beyond smug in the latest photos. He has nothing to lose. Neither does Layton. Or Duceppe, either, really.

Our government is revolting! No, really, it is absolutely revolting. Thanks for the entertainment. I'd far rather read about this than criminals furthering their political ends through murder.

Good news on the stock markets - a 10% loss is hardly worth anything!

On the home front - we have Wii'd. Now we need to balance. And that can wait until after the shopping insanity ends. Next acquisition? RC Skunk. Connor has decided he needs one. Why?

I bought silly pens. They are intended to be impossible to borrow. One claims to be from a pedophilia clinic - from perv to normal in 30 days! The rest aren't as funny. Here are some thoughts on pens I wouldn't want to borrow:

1. Fungal infection clinic - clear up those nasty sores fast!
2. Free STD testing, open 24 hours a day! Drop in and drop your pants anytime.
3. Laxative lovers anonymous. Free group enema sessions nightly.

Insult of the day - evidential idiot. Can be used accurately for creationists and intelligent design "theorists", or anyone who uses the word theory when they clearly mean hypothesis.

Silliness is the opposite of insanity

2008-11-28T08:29:00.000-08:00

There's too much insanity in the world. Look at Mumbai/Bombay, where it looks like religious whackjobs have decided their ideology is more important than people's lives. I think they should be called thugs and criminals, not terrorists - terrorism has an appeal that criminality may lack.

On the silliness side, our brilliant government has decided that if they can't win a majority government following the rules, they'll change the rules and starve the opposition of cash. This is their response to the worldwide economic fiasco. It'll save all of $20 million every 4 years or so. And, not inconsquentially, make it more likely they'll win the next election with an actual majority government, as they have proved far better at fundraising. Now, I think the opposition should focus on getting better at fundraising, it's not like setting up a website that accepts donations is beyond today's technology, but they also need to shape up as who in their right mind would support a lame duck leader like Dion?

Is religion, on the whole, bad? Hard to decide, and it really shouldn't be given all religions claim to teach goodness. So at the least religion is one justification people can use to do bad things. There are others - I disagree with atheists who claim religion is the sole cause of much evil, like the inquisition, holocaust, war, etc. If it hadn't been religious differences, the whackos among us would have found other justifications. Mao and Stalin used political ideology. I can't make ideology silly right now. Some ideologies are silly, but their practitioners tend to cause too much harm.

OK, I will try to make ideology silly.

Conservative ideology - government is bad. Vote for me.
Liberal ideology - it's not your fault. Unless you're a conservative.
Creationist ideology - I didn't evolve! Try not to agree, please.
Fundamentalist Islam ideology - women are too hot, so we wrap them in cloth. Does this mean they acknowledge their penises are stronger than their willpower?
Papal ideology - I am infallible. So were my predecessors. But I'm sorry about the whole Galileo thing. And the concordat with the Nazis. Bad connection to our boss, I guess.

Fingers crossed, India and Pakistan will work together to root out criminal wimps bent on attacking civilians to make a point.

Insult of the day: Nipple totalitarian (for a breast feeding fanatic - and yes, boob is best, and I am glad those days are well behind me).

More snow!

2008-11-26T08:12:00.001-08:00

The white stuff continues to fall, albeit slowly. Cheers me right up, it does.

The "holiday season" is upon us. Lots of midwinter festivities coincide with the winter solstice, which makes sense as you need a big party to celebrate the return of light. Celebrate what you want, but it all started when we got fed up with the dark and partied when we saw the days were getting longer, even if only by a couple of minutes.

I know where Christmas and many of its symbols come from - the tree, the manger, Santa, gifts, lights. But where does the Easter Bunny come from? The holiday marks a state execution and subsequent miraculous revival and physical liftoff into skyland. Where do we get a bunny hiding chocolate eggs from that? Did Jesus hide eggs in his tomb? Did he breed rabbits at any time? I thought he was a carpenter. Clearly my theological shortcomings are significant.

I keep meaning to read the bible. But the beginning is really dull. Genesis. All that begetting. I think the only thing we've achieved from that old and often miserably translated book is the go forth and multiply bit. That we proved really good at. Time to move away from that, and onto something useful, like treating people well. Assuming you want to follow an old book, which many seem to inclined to do. I am also ideologically impaired. I like silliness, but it's not exactly an ideology. I dislike ideologues. Thinking is better than reacting based on dogma or ideology. In my opinion. Which is, as noted, uninformed by theological or biblical knowledge. I do, however, possess a high degree of knowledge on Monty Python skits and movies. So I know about the killer rabbit, just not the Easter one. The killer one is a lot funnier, and you don't have to spend a small fortune every Spring buying stuff to convince small children that a giant rabbit snuck into the house and hid eggs.

This is the first year all my kids are skeptical of Santa. My youngest can't figure out the logistics. How many people live in the world? He visits them all? The same night? How? He's always been a skeptic.

Silly things people do because of ideology.

1. Tell men in dresses bad things they've done.
2. Communion - tell me it isn't ritualistic pseudo cannibalism.
3. Funny hats. What religion doesn't have them? Hats, headgear, whatever - it seems popular.

Asshat is one of my favourite insults, although I've never used it. I just like how it sounds. Asshat.

Snow!

2008-11-25T10:38:00.000-08:00

I realize, given the title of this blog, it should perhaps be psnow, but there is a line between silly and stoopid which that crosses.

It is snowing. I love snow. More is better, even though I hate driving in the stuff. I paid over $1,500 last year in snow-related car repairs, and that was without any collisions. Did you know - and I didn't - that if you overheat your engine by repeatedly spinning your tires, you can crack the manifold? This results in a very bad smell as coolant leaks all over the snow/ice/meltwater from spinning tires. It also results in a very expensive car repair - even more expensive than that miraculous invention, the snow tire. I do know snow tires work. I just didn't buy any. See fourth last word in first sentence for how this should be discribed.

Lines I really like:
Republicans only care about children until the cord is cut. (from Margaret and Helen's blog)
The reasonable man seeks to adapt himself to suit the world. The unreasonable man seeks to adapt the world to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. (Shaw)
There's no proof anywhere that life was meant to be serious. (I forget, and will look it up)
Sir, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea. (Lady Aster)
Madam, if I were your husband, I'd drink it. (Sir Winston Churchill)

Oh, to have a mind that quick! It must make life fun. And frustrating.

Now for some economic predictions for 2009. If you wish to use these to make money, take the direct route - send it to your favourite charity, then invest the tax refund in government bonds or, better still, your highest-interest debt.

1. The markets will go up, and down, and people will freak out either way.
2. The US will run a big deficit. Really big.
3. My request for a bailout will be declined. Apparently I am not too big to fail. Should I give up exercise?

Psyllium, psychiatrists, psst

2008-11-21T09:07:00.000-08:00

I have nothing more to say about running, particularly about my running, and really I just don't have enough to say on any one topic to have a specific blog.

My head is pulled 2 ways now.

1. The economy sucks, so Christmas is a frivolous expense
2. I have kids, Christmas is not optional

The kids want items approaching the GDP of a small country - really small, like Lichtenstein. But well beyond my willingness or ability to fund. What is a peavey amp? Why is it better than the one we bought last year at the pawn shop? Isn't the guitar loud enough now? And how is a distortion pedal different from a wah-wah pedal different from the knobby bits on the guitar that should have some function? Do philosophers ask themselves these questions, or just tell their offspring to piss off?

The middle child wants a Wii. Wii wii wii all the way home. A Wii seems kind of cool, but we already have a PS2 with Guitar Hero and Rock Band. And other games I don't play, but they seem to capture much of his time and effort. Unlike school, which captures his attention only when he is forcibly confined in a desk - now immediately in front of the teacher, as she has figured out his ability to do as little as possible while seeming quite diligent. I can see his future CV:

Serious rock drummer seeks low-input employment to fund video game habit.

Education
Some grade 7 done

Experience
Able to work under constant supervision, if nagged continually
Kick ass drumming skills

Does this sound like a child who deserves a Wii? Do any of us deserve a Wii, when 40% of the world's population lacks even a basic latrine? Yet somehow I can't envision my children's faces lit up with joy at the knowledge that mummy spent the Christmas money on outhouses for slum dwellers in the Congo.

I once seriously considered purchasing a sheep for a village in my husband's name. That was back when our daughter called him Daaaaaad. He's the only man I know whose instinct, when given the choice between finishing a beer and chasing a sheep, is to choose the latter. Really, in our neighbourhood it should never be a choice, it's not like we live in the country, yet he did end up chasing and tackling a sheep that had escaped its owner/future BBQ chef. And he did injure himself most seriously, and there was much laughing. So for a while anything sheep themed was funny.

Zoe has requested a chicken in her name for a village. Not as an alternative to a gift, as an additional one. My aunt has decided to help the poor. She is extremely rich, so this should not have been a recent decision for her. She has decided to help the poor by telling us all to buy our children livestock for the third world. I don't know what she wants us to buy her - wool sweaters instead of cashmere?

To Wii or nNot to Wii, that is my question.
Whether tis nobler to provide foodstuffs for starving children or, in the name of greed, purchase it?

I am now plagiarizing from myself. Exerpt from e-mail sent, expressing the thought that perhaps my children would accept poetry in lieu of gifts.

Ode to a 9 year old boy on Christmas morn.
Oh Westley, how the sun doth reflect off the snow and make thy cheeks sparkle. How the tears from the giftless tree gleam in the morning light. Oh, how thy does dentest the floor with thy rage, tis truly a sight to behold.