Rabbit Stew

I have seen more Max and Ruby episodes than some parents have, and I don't have kids. At the kids' store that I manage, we have a pint sized couch and flat screen TV (read: best kids' store ever), and for a long time Max and Ruby was on loop. Then I found other DVDs and so now I cuddle up on the tiny couch and watch the original Winnie the Pooh. I mean... it's for the kids.

That's not even what this is about. This is about RUBY. That manipulative little bitch of a sister that Max has to deal with. Is this actually a show that parents allow their kids to watch? If you are unfamiliar with the show, let me sum it up for you.

"Maaaax, you're doing it wrong! Silly, you need to do it MY way."
"No Max, your job is to watch us play. That's way more fun than playing with us."
"Max, you can do what you want to do after we do everything that I want to do, and even then, we won't do what you want to do."
"See Max? This is the right way to it. Your way is wrong, you see that now, right?! Right?!"
"Max why aren't you massaging my bunions?"
"Max, Max? Where are you? Why are you hiding from me?"
"What's that behind your back Max? Is that a knife?"
"Oh you're going to cut me a slice of cake! How sweet, but I'm going to eat the whole cake. You won't like it."
Max glares at sister, sees red and murderous rage ensues.

Ok, so maybe I exaggerated a bit, but you get the point, right? Right?

I would cut a bitch if that was my sister. Then I would make rabbit stew.

But really, this is the type of kids' shows that's out there these days? Creating "healthy" sibling rivalry? If that show was out when I was a kid I'm pretty sure my brother would have looked at me, then Ruby, then me.. then strangled me in my sleep. Seriously.

What ever happened to quality shows like Bugs Bunny and The Muppets and Fraggle Rock and Mr. Dressup? Don't even get me started on "In the Night Garden", or whatever it's called. That show gives me the heebie jeebies. There is something not right with that program. Every night at 7:30 pm, toddlers everywhere zone into this weird show that would make oompa loompas look trustworthy. See? I can't even mention it without getting my "panties" in a bunch.

I really need to do some psychotherapy where I draw out my  feelings...

"And why do you feel that you have these angry thoughts against a fictional rabbit?"

"Flopsy."

This, this one was hard to write

Kristine over at Wait in the Van does this Product of Silence series, and I connected with her theme and wanted to write a piece for it. Here it is, be gentle.

**

Depression.

This is such a heavy word. It takes the air out of a room. It makes people uncomfortable and squirmy. Why? I don't know.

I was "sad" a lot as a kid. I don't know if it was depression, but my heart ached. I was never comfortable in my own skin and was a complete worry wart. A couple of years ago I was flipping through an old notebook and found entries from when I was 9 or 10 about how sad I was. To read that my child-self was so sad and so lonely was extremely upsetting. What makes children so sad? Children are supposed to be happy and dance around the maypole with flowers in their hair.

Then, my teenage years. All of my emotions were amplified. I would range from being deliriously happy, to feeling a deep anger and rage, to utterly depressed. My moods owned me, possessed me. I felt alone. I had no idea why I could not control my emotions. There were a few times where I almost dropped out of high school because I couldn't handle it. I've never told anybody before. Luckily I had parents who refused to let me give up. It wasn't until I was 16 or 17 that my cousin told me that depression runs in the family. She'd gone through bouts of depression, my aunts had, and my mom had. My mom? The woman who watched me fall into black holes and saw me crumple to the floor? I was furious with her. How could she keep this information from me? I had felt alone for years and had no idea what I was going through and she had experienced the same? She told me she didn't want me to rely on pills like some people in my family had. But I should have found out from her that I wasn't alone. I was completely against taking medication that alters the chemicals in your brain anyway. Just knowing that I was not alone helped a bit, knowing that I wasn't a freak, that genetics had a small role. I saw my first psychologist and she was amazing. She taught me how to deal with my anxiety before it was too much to handle. How to see the warning signs and proactively stop an oncoming anxiety attack or bout of depression.

Then I started university.

There are certain things that I am still too terrified to say out loud. But I have to, for the integrity of this piece. It's easier to write out anyway, right? This is extremely difficult to write.

There were points in my teenage years were I had fleeting thoughts of suicide. But first year university brought on a whole new low. I spent a few days locked in my bedroom with the lights off and barely got out of bed. Around the time that first semester exams came around, my parents got a terrifying call. They could barely understand me through my sobs, and I was miserable. I wanted it to end. I couldn't deal with the pain anymore. I was tired. I'm sure my parents never imagined they would have to talk me down from the ledge. My parents called a suicide hotline and got them to call me. I had to describe my feelings, had I thought about suicide before? How did I imagine ending my life? Did I have a plan? It made me realize that I didn't want to die. Not yet. The next morning I was sent to see a doctor and prescribed medication. I started seeing a psychologist again. I was told that medication evens out your moods, levels out the highs and lows. I didn't want my highs to go away. Turns out they didn't. That's how high my highs are. The meds helped with the depression and anxiety that I couldn't control, the therapist helped me understand how to deal with it and prevent it.

I still deal with bouts of depression and anxiety, but I can see out of them. I've become very self-analytical and am aware of every single one of my feelings. I enjoy a good cry. I eat a lot when I'm sad. I still have highs and lows. But I have a lot of highs. I feel comfortable in my skin. Maybe too comfortable. I don't walk around naked, but when you see me, you see the real me. You see all of me. Good, bad, and terrifyingly weird.

When I hit "Publish Post" I will probably have an anxiety attack. I just told you my innermost darkest secrets. Not all of them, but some of the more heavy duty ones. And your reaction?

Man vs. Minion

All I want in life is a minion.

Seriously. If you know me, you've heard me talk about them before. If I've ever had staff working for me, I have been known to call them minions "accidentally" once or twice. Oh, to have a minion would complete my life.

Don't judge. You like doing the dishes? You get daily back rubs? Your laundry puts itself away? Didn't think so.

I could get a man I suppose. But men are unreliable and there's a likelihood that he would put "lay flat to dry" clothes in the dryer. I don't need that.

Let me introduce you to Shmork. Shmork has my breakfast ready in the morning. He has a coffee waiting by my bedside and helps me get my ass out of bed. Since he's done my laundry, and knows what the weather is going to be like, he knows exactly what type of outfit I should wear each day. If I'm at work and need a coffee or snack, he is more than happy to drop a little something off for me. When I get home, I open the door to the smell of a delicious dinner. He knows all my mom's recipes. I never have to worry about not having booze in the house because Shmork knows how much I love my wine/beer/martini/cocktail.

Shmork does more than just help out around the house too. He helps make me a better person. He gets me involved in dance classes, and he even learned how to knit so that he could teach me how! Amazing, right? If I ever am in the mood for some hubba hubba, Shmork goes out and finds a man, bops him over the head and brings him to me.

Now, while all of you suckers are trying to find "the one", or fuming over your spouse leaving their clothing on every chair in the house, I will have my Shmork.

Shmork will never leave me.
Shmork will never cheat on me with another human. (He likes cats though so I can't have a cat...)
Shmork won't pretend he's listening to me while I ask him something, then look up at me with glazed eyes.
Shmork will not lie to me.
Shmork will never stand me up.
Shmork will never clog the toilet.
Shmork will never call me to bail him out of jail.
In short, Shmork will never let me down.

Shmork, made on Despicable Me's Minion Maker

What's that you say? The likelihood of me finding a minion, let alone one named Shmork, is highly unlikely? Perhaps my best option is to name my first born Shmork, or just Minion.

I made you some edible panties

First off, the word "panties" makes me uncomfortable. I managed a lingerie store for a year and even that didn't make me feel comfortable using the word. I prefer underwear, underroos, tighty whiteys, anything but panties.

Now, onto the good stuff: Valentine's Day. We all know it's a scam, but I'm pretty sure it's not going anywhere. Just like those princes in Namibia with my inheritance. Yes, V-day is retarded. But maybe it's because it's our own fault. I'm single, so I don't have the problem of being disappointed on V-day. But quietly expecting for fireworks and romance from your significant other is going to disappoint you. Seriously. Nobody's a mind reader (except for magicians) and you should have figured that out over Christmas (or Hannukah or whatever) when you got something from the Body Shop.

And if Valentine's Day was successful with more couples, I'd have more friends with late November birthdays.

I'm not saying I've had great V-days. My first Valentine's in a relationship, I came face to face with homemade edible panties. I'm all about DIYs.. but umm.. edible panties? I was 16, my first relationship and in love, and freaking out over these sticky candy "panties" made of fruit roll ups and licorice and other assorted goodies. Would I pretty please wear them? Hells no. Candy is for eating and no detours on the way to my belly. Now I see that it was super sweet and creative, but at 16, I did not appreciate them. I hope he still does DIYs for his girlfriends, just maybe not edible undies.

My last Valentine's in a relationship started off ok. The boyfriend made dinner, but I was extremely sick and left halfway through to go to the clinic. He didn't come with me, instead I later found out that he messaged a girl (stupid dirty fucking bitch) to complain about how I didn't appreciate his dinner. :)

I don't hate Valentine's Day, probably because I don't hate being single and I love the candy. And because February 15th means SALE CANDY! And more specifically, SALE CINNAMON HEARTS!! I literally eat them by the pound. I will be at Shoppers bright and early to get my hands on some of that sale candy.

Get in my belly

As an aside, I need to tell you all a joke that my brother said over dinner last time I was home. Here's how it all went down:

Me: Why is there an extra 'r' in February? And why isn't there also an extra 'r' in January? It should be Janruary.
Brother: It's Febrrrrrrruary because it's cold. Brrrr

That was my most favourite lame joke ever told. He normally has good one liners, which made the groaner that much better. Had to be there. Had to be there.

Summer Sisters - or - When I Was Almost Eaten by Bears

Before some of you little pervs decide to stick your head in the gutter - no this post is not about a hot lesbian summer love affair. That's next week.

This is about me and my summer sister from when I was growing up. A and I (I am still not familiar with the etiquette about talking about people unbeknownst to them) were born 3 months apart, and our moms were best friends. We were complete opposites, but in the summer when I would visit her in the countryside of BC, we always had so much fun. She was a wild child. I was this tiny, shy, quiet girl, and she was loud, outgoing and always rearing to go. Our opposite personalities became more pronounced the older we got, but that never made any difference when we were together.

Her mom pointed out one summer that whenever I was around, something crazy always happened. Looking back, I'm wondering if maybe I was a bad luck charm!

One summer when I was really little I was staying at their place and we experienced one of the worst storms I can remember. That's saying a lot since I used to live in Calgary. Normally, I love storms. You would have to peel me from the windows. Black outs? I loved them. But this storm shook their log house. Log houses should NOT shake. I thought I was going to die in that house, and I cried like the little girl that I was.

Another summer not long after, A's brother's friends went bridge jumping. They lived on the Slocan River in BC which is pretty fast in some areas. A couple miles up the road was a bridge that the kids used to jump from into the river below. When one of the girls went to jump her arm got caught on the railing, and the weight of her body falling sliced her hand right through the bone. By the time she was rushed back to the house, she had lost a lot of blood and her hand was barely attached to her arm. I'm pretty sure she's still alive, and that her hand was ok... but I blocked out the rest of it after I accidentally looked at her hand.

See the rapid progression of events here people??

Then when I was 15 I was chased by bears. Ya, BEARS.

That summer we had played Clue 52 times and gone up and down the river on tubes countless times a day. Floating down that river on a tube is my happy place. With the sun shining on my face, the heat of the inner tube combined with the icy water, the mountains and clear blue skies as my back drop, I was in heaven. Occasionally we would lie on the beach, then float back down the river to her house.

One time we were getting up the courage to swim in the freezing water when we saw what looked to be 2 people swimming towards us, which was odd. Then A realized that it was a mama bear and her cub, clearly in distress. The cub must have fallen in the water and the mama was trying to catch up to her. Peeps, I don't know if y'all know this... but there if there is one thing in this world that you do not mess with - it's a mama bear. Here is what then went through my head: "holy motherfucking jesus fucking goddamn fucking fuck I am going to die".

I will let this sink in for you.

So we scrambled back onto the rocky beach and then proceeded to wade through the inlet where there were BLOODSUCKING LEECHES towards the steep "hill" that led to the road. We had to climb a broken ladder and maneuver some rocks to get up to the road, which suddenly seemed very far away. We knew we had to get to the road quickly because the next piece of land where the bears could get out of the river was our little beach. A had just had knee surgery from a bad ski fall and climbing + running were pretty difficult for her to manage. Here I am at the bottom of the hill/cliff pushing her up to the road and is she rushing? No.

Now that we're finally up on the road, I'm begging her to try to run. I'm crying. I believe that death in the form of an angry mama bear who blames us for her cub's probable drowning is right behind us. I think she smirked at my level of fear. Then we hear barking. And because running from bears isn't enough, we look behind us to see that 2 attack dogs are chasing us. I believe they were dobermans but my life was flashing before my eyes so I could be mistaken. (I actually love dobermans and have met a couple of the suckiest pups ever, but when you train a dog to ATTACK, they are fucking scary.) Oh, so did I mention that there were a few questionable neighbours who were growing questionable herbs in their fields? They had dogs.

So it's at this point that A gets her ass in gear and starts to try to run. Thanks, babe. Out of nowhere, I see a streak of fur coming at me on my right and it's a massive german shepherd. AKA my savior. He starts bounding after the other 2 dogs and they bugger off. I'm still in shock and wondering when the bears are going to come eat me. We hear barking coming from up the mountain behind us and hope that the bears are being chased by any combination of the 3 dogs. Home is close by and I crumble into tears.

A and I recount the story for her parents, who, like me, are shocked and glad we're ok. However 5 minutes later, it's not such a big deal and all of a sudden I'm a pansy. Anybody else want to rewind that story and tell me HOW I'M A PANSY?!

I'm just glad I didn't shit my pants. That would actually have been embarrassing. I'm also glad I didn't get any leeches on me. Because I hate leeches. Fuckers.

Mama bear & cub

 

 

I was gonna have a picture of an angry bear but it actually scared me too much to look at the pictures. So I put this one up. Do not google "angry bear" or "bear attack". Just don't.

And here is where I bare my soul

I have a secret: I'm kind of emotional.

I know, right?

But really, I have mushy insides. And feel lots. Sometimes I cry against my will. I'm all "no, I'm a tough bitch", and my insides are all like "CRY CRY CRY CRY SNOT CRY CRY CRY". The truth is, I'm a huge softy. Puppies, babies, puppies, they make me coo and and warm my heart.

Looking back, when I was younger I was naive and optimistic and warmhearted. I was a softy and very emotional. Too emotional. I had anxiety and depression problems, and on top of it all, I wore my heart on my sleeve. I'm sure that about half of teenagers experience the same thing. I was so up and down, I really had no control over my emotions. I will never forget the time that I was in the car with my guy friends and laughing to the point of tears; those tears became real and I started crying uncontrollably. Boys don't deal with tears very well, teenage boys just get nervous and scared and very uncomfortable. It was fun. Another time during Christmas I started crying over dinner because I missed my papa J who had just passed... years before.

If you ask my parents about a random emotional outburst of mine, they will tell you this story: me at 9, 10, 11 crying over seemingly nothing. When they can finally get a word in over the sobbing and hiccuping, asking me what's wrong, they hear this: "I... MISS... JILLI..AN!!" You see, Jillian was my best friend from when I was 2 until she moved away when I was 5. FIVE YEARS OLD PEOPLE. And here I was having an emotional melt down years later. Embarrassing. So now when my parents think I'm crying over nothing, they ask me if I miss Jillian. Fuckers.

I think that because I was always so emotional growing up, I started to keep the mushy ones in. I didn't want to be seen as this emotionally fucked up girl who shouldn't be taken seriously because she couldn't control her tears. So I was tougher. Showed off my muscles more. Grunted more. It wasn't hard to put the mushy away because I've always had a dark, sarcastic side. However before, where I had the angel on one shoulder and devil on the other, now the devil gave the angel a black eye and she got pissed off and left.

Huh, this post has turned into more than I bargained for. I didn't intend for it to be a soul baring post. I walked into this post thinking "hey, I'm gonna write about how much I used to be a sissy". Didn't know I'd end up psycho analyzing myself. Yay.

So, for the worst post in the history of posts.... I'm going to end this one before you all find out more about my insides. I'm going to stick to my dark side from now on. This side is less funny.

Snowmageddon

Any of you living on the US east coast or Ontario have heard the winter storm warnings over the past couple of days. And if you're in the States, then please tell me it's not as bad as I've heard.

Because I'm not ready for SNOWMAGEDDON. Not when I have to walk 5 miles, uphill both ways, with the wind in my face the whole time. Ok, so it's not 5 miles, and it's not uphill. But I do have to walk. And SHOVEL.

I'm still waiting for the news to say "hide your children, lock up your valuables!". Because those weather people are starting to scare me. Anybody hear a reporter say SNOWMAGEDDON yet? Should I be writing out a will tonight in case I'm buried in an avalanche on my way to work? Not that anybody wants my debt. Too bad you couldn't put your debt in your will, because I have a couple people in mind of who I would add to the will.

I wish I was a kid for the day tomorrow. Because you know that all the schools are gonna be closed, and that snowman building conditions will be prime. I'd also build an igloo. My cousin once built an igloo using some snow and a lot of water. It was pretty sweet, except that I was too big to go inside of it. Sad sad day.

Here are some random flashbacks as I sit here thinking about winters when I was a kid:

- I used to catch the bus when I lived in Calgary, and this one kid had a pole he would hork onto to judge how cold it was. I say hork instead of spit because you gotta have a little something extra for added velocity and weight. We could judge how cold it was by how long it would take to freeze on the pole. Clever, right?
- I missed the bus once when it was -30C and there were a few feet of snow. I had been standing there waiting for only 15 minutes, but I was so cold I couldn't move from my spot. Good thing my dad drove by and found me frozen in a snowbank.
- There were a few winters where I would ski almost every weekend. My mom had organized ski lessons for the kids at school and so we'd hit up COP (Calgary Olympic Park) a few times a week. My favourite part was when the sun would set and the lights would hit the snow. It was magical. I would stay on the slopes as long as I could. Even if I had to pee. Even if I maybe peed a little one time because I tried to hold it too long. But don't tell anybody that.
- When snow just naturally sticks together and requires almost no effort to make a snowball, you HAVE to have a snowball fight. It's a rule. Being friends with guys most often meant that I got pummeled with snowballs first. But did I ever lose? No. My winning strategy? Let them pummel me with so many snowballs that they tell me to give up. Refuse surrender. More pummeling. Refuse surrender, body is numb anyway. More pummeling. Victory, because the other side has given up because this girl looks like a drowned rat. A victorious drowned rat.

So tomorrow, I wish that I was a kid again. So I could have another victorious snowball fight or build an igloo. Alas, I will be shoveling my way out of my apartment and manning a non-snow fort (work) all day. Big sigh.

Bring it on snowmageddon. Bring. It. On.
(But be gentle)

I take winter very seriously.