Why this too can be blamed on Jacob

I have been meaning to update for at least a week, maybe five or six but I’ve had trouble finding what to write about. Now this has nothing to do with writer’s block but has more to do with the fact that I am heavily censored (it’s basically China around here)(but with less yummy food). You see, I am a sharer and left to my own volition, I would talk about everything, but Jacob is very private and as such there are many things that he doesn’t want me discussing with the many, many tens of people who read my blog.

Of course, I also can't talk about work, not just because I’m not there right now, but because of privilege (and because I don’t want my colleagues to hate me)(does assuming they don’t already hate me make me super-conceited?). I can't talk about my neighbours, because Jacob thinks that they are bound to find out (and also because they are so wonderful, it would be nothing more than a love poem). I can't talk about Jacob, because he's already an egomaniac (slash super-private, Supra) and I can't talk about my parents and siblings because despite the apparent and immediate advantages, I suspect that being disowned might have a downside in the long term.

My other issue is of course the time factor – being at home with my kid means that I have a lot less time to myself. Whereas I have a pretty good amount of “me time” when I am working and have a regular lunch hour and (let’s face it) slow days at the office, at home my only “me time” takes place when Mr. Baby is sleeping. In fairness, he is a great napper, so I do have free time during the day, it just depends on whether I want to spend that time blogging or if I prefer to engage in one of my other glamorous hobbies like showering and making dinner (that’s right, if there is a blog entry posted on any given day, it’s fair to assume that I have dirty hair and /or a husband who will be getting Subway for supper*)

Of course I do have more free time in the evenings now that So You Think You Can Dance and the Bachelorette have ended for the season (yes, I watch the Bachelorette - I'm not sure why I love it so - perhaps it's because of my quickly-diminishing store of working brain cells (see previous post) or maybe it's Schadenfreude (sure, MY husband's annoying but at least he doesn't play the guitar/cheat/tell me how beautiful I am) or perhaps it's just because it's good for my self-esteem (those women might have perfect giant breasts, but none of them know how to use a possessive pronoun and EVERYONE knows that bad grammar cancels out a perfect body in the eyes of all men). Anyway, the point being that I plan to get some serious writing in before the fall shows start again. Really. I just have to find something to write about that isn’t related to my life, my husband’s life, my extended family, my neighbours or my job. Don’t worry though – I’m sure you will love my next series of blog posts, titled “Maddy. An Insider’s Look at how My Kitty Spends Her Days”.

*Before you call my mom, please note that I would never feed Mr. B. Subway—I make and freeze his meals in advance-- it’s just Jacob who gets to choose between honey mustard and regular this evening.

Chocolate as a Food Group

I eat a lot of chocolate. So much that if you asked me on any given day how much junk or candy I’d consumed, I would likely lie to you. It wouldn’t be one of those calculated lies you see so much of on 90210 (um, so I’ve heard), but rather it would be an unintentional lie of omission. 

I don’t count chocolate cupcakes as junk as long as they are called muffins (they can’t have any icing)(obviously). Fudgsicles count as a serving of milk as does hot chocolate, frozen yogurt and chocolate pudding (clearly). So basically if it’s not a candy bar, I can find a home for it in one of the four food groups recommended in Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating. But, like the crack-addicted-movie-of-the-week-prostitute-who-gives-her-kid-up-for-adoption-gets-clean-and-spends-the-last-108-minutes-of-the-movie-in-a-custody-battle-trying-to-get-him-back, I want better for my son. I want him to be able to wait until after lunch to have his first chocolate bar of the day.* I want him to be able to walk through airport security without the foil in his pocket from a stray Hershey’s kiss setting off the alarm. I want him to be able to make friends at work without being influenced by who has the best candy jar on their desk. But I don’t know where to start and fear that it might be too late given that chocolate was the primary flavour he was exposed to in utero and through breast milk.

To be clear, every meal that my kid eats is homemade, balanced and organic. When I eat chocolate around him, I sneak eat it.** And, up until recently, I had him believing that if he was eating pumpernickel bread and I was eating a like- colored piece of cake, it was the same thing.  My mother did similar things with me, pushing raisins and apples while other kids got Wagon Wheels and Chips Ahoy. Clearly her system was an excellent one, given my very healthy and balanced approach to sweets as an adult.

That said, I understand why she did it. If one’s child loves fruit and vegetables and pumpernickel bread why taint his taste buds? It’s not child abuse to give one’s child broccoli for dessert if he likes the stuff, is it? But I worry – could I be addicted to chocolate because my mother took something that should be occasionally allowed and made it into something forbidden and therefore more desirable***? According to the dietician***** I consulted, yes. The occasional treat is better than no treat (or too many treats).

So, finally, a couple of weeks ago, I gave Mr. Baby a bite of a my chocolate muffin. He started laughing. Not smiling. Laughing.  And then he opened his sweet little mouth for another bite.

*Something I’ve been unable to do since we became Costco members

**A family tradition according to my mother who fed me nothing but “nature’s candy” until I was old enough to know better.

***She also took a similar approach to boys, which explains the icky man-whore**** I dated --and was so strangely attracted to-- when I was seventeen

****Icky man-whore, if you are reading this, sorry. But on a positive note, good job you for learning to read!

*****Yes, I went to see a dietician to ensure that I was feeding Mr B. all the right things. Being in charge of another person’s diet is stressful okay?

Just smart enough to know how stupid I've become

I used to be smarter than this. Seriously. Any spelling errors, misplaced modifiers*, errors of fact**, or misused words are likely a result of my newly-acquired stupidity. Of course the tragedy lies in the fact that I am just smart enough to know how stupid I have become.

I am currently on extended leave from my lawyer-job in order to stay home with my 14-month-old son and I love it. I love taking him to the park and to swimming lessons and to music class. I love feeling his little arms wrap around my neck when I carry him upstairs for his afternoon nap and the way he nuzzles into my shoulder when he first wakes up, still warm and groggy from sleep. I love all of that way more than I love thinking. Which is obviously a sign that I am getting dumber by the day.

The fact that I am so incredibly happy spending my time conversing with a one-year-old even comes as a surprise to me. Who knew that I could be so happy using my mind so little?

I can only imagine the conversation I would have with pre-baby-me:

“Aren’t you bored?”

“Nope”

“But you aren’t using your brain.”

“Not true, I have to think about what time to reapply the sunscreen and what time the next nap should take place and whether Mr. Baby has had enough iron, protein and calcium on any given day.”

“But what about your career?”

“It will still be there. I have a very limited window of time where Mr. B. will let me bathe him and cuddle him and will want to spend every waking moment with me. Fourteen or fifteen years, max.”

“You are an imbecile”

“That word sounds so familiar….what does it mean?”

Forgotten words are the most obvious sign of my quickly atrophying brain. It’s not even about trying to remember super-complicated words like [insert super-complicated word here, I can’t think of one] but simple things like the relationship between a lamb and a sheep.

I have heard that it all comes back as soon as you return to work, but I am really not sure. I just picture my brain getting all limp and weak, like a leg that comes out of a cast. Sure, there may be muscle in there, but that pale, skinny leg will not help you win a race. I have visions of myself telling clients that while I am unable to help them with their actual issue, I would be happy to recite any Dr. Seuss book of their choice from memory, free of charge of course.***

Though maybe things aren’t as bad as I think. When I couldn’t remember the relationship between a lamb and a sheep, I asked my still-thinking-on-a-daily-basis husband, who apparently didn’t know either. Pondering the issue for a few moments, he ultimately decided that sheep was the generic term for lamb (female) and ram (male). Happily, even I wasn’t dumb enough to buy that.

*In fact, I don’t even remember what that means.

**though not errors in judgment, those have always be an issue for me

***I am being a little modest here, my repertoire extends far beyond Dr. Seuss. Very Hungry Caterpillar? Where the Wild Things Are? Are You my Mother? I know them all.

Why I Haven’t Paid for a Hairdryer Since the Eighties

So I have a secret power. Ok, maybe not so secret, but calling it a super-power seems a little hyperbolic and telling people that I have a power is a little too new-agey for my taste. So secret power is what I'm going with.

Here it is: I can return basically anything. I really can't remember how I discovered this talent, but I do feel like the discovery was both secret and powerful.

Let's be honest, part of my talent stems from my lack of shame (yes, random store clerk, I AM returning this half-eaten head of lettuce)(I feel like lettuce should last at least week, don’t you?) and my (potentially distorted) sense of how long things should last (WHAT? This blow dryer doesn’t come with a lifetime guarantee? How is that possible? It only gets used once a day – at most! Why is everything in this world disposable?) 

I also believe in (read: love) extended warrantees. My husband (let’s call him Jacob)(because that’s his name) used to think that warrantees were only profitable for the store until he met me and witnessed how a regular yellow Sony Walkman could metamorphose into a shiny new MP3 player* with the help of one extended warrantee and a few very nice Future Shop employees.** Sometimes the extended warrantee will really work to your advantage – take the case of my DVD player that broke nearly five years into the warrantee. Not only did I get a new one in its place, but because the cost had come down significantly since I bought the original, I was able to talk them into giving me an upgrade.

However, the point of this blog post is not just to show-off but to share my wisdom (frankly I am sick of returning things for friends and family). So here it is –

Sheri’s Guide to Returning and Exchanging Anything:

or 

Why I Haven’t Paid for a Hairdryer Since the Eighties:

1. Don’t be too proud to suck up. It doesn’t matter how annoying the teenage manager actually is, if you want a full refund for your mostly-eaten baked potato you have to make him feel like he is the smartest, most powerful man in the world. He might even surprise you and throw in a free medium Frosty.***

2. Assume that it IS returnable. Produce should not be mouldy when you get it home, lipstick should be the shade the package suggests, and if the movie theatre was way too cold thus affecting your enjoyment of the show, let them know. You will get a credit.

3. Use what you’ve got. When I was younger and cuter and left the house with clean clothes and hair, I used that to my advantage. Now I am less young and less cute and am generally covered in whatever Mr. Baby ate at his last meal but I have a ludicrously cute baby.

4. Know your audience. Teenage boys don’t care about your cute baby and women in their twenties (thirties, forties and fifties****) generally don’t care if you are young and cute (unless you are male).

5. Appeal to their sense of power. As everyone likes to feel powerful, if they CAN do it for you they will, as long as you make sure to show how impressed and grateful you are (as well you should be – you just got a new coffeemaker!).

6. Appeal to their sense of logic. Yes, I realize that these videos auto-sold to my account because I had them for three months, but if you buy them back from me I am far more likely to remain a renting customer which is more profitable for Blockbuster in the long-run. (For the record, they did, and I am).

7. Don’t take no for an answer (the first three to five times). If the clerk can’t give you what you want, ask if there is a manager around. If she’s not around, ask when she will be and return to the store at that time.

8. Don’t be too quick to threaten to never come back (as you really have to be willing to never go back) The cost of your $8.00 hair conditioner might not be worth boycotting Shopper’s Drug Mart for life, especially because there will come a time that you will need diapers and it would suck not to be able to buy some at the store two blocks away.****

9. Keep the box. Everything (even really old things) are easier to return in their original packaging. While Jacob is not a huge fan of our basement full of boxes, he does enjoy our new coffeemaker, toaster oven and DVD player.

10. Be creative. If they can’t give you your money back, ask for a store credit. If they don’t give credits ask for a direct exchange. You’ll be surprised how often they say yes.

11. Don’t be a law-douche. If you are a law student you are likely anxious to tell them all about contract law, consideration, negligence, snails in ginger beer and anything else that you learned in class that week. Don’t. You will sound like a douche.

*In the interest of full disclosure, the actual order was walkman, discman, MP3 player

**Over the course of about 10 (music-filled) years. The trick is to purchase a new warrantee with every exchange/upgrade. 

***This story is based on actual events. In certain cases, characters may have been changed for dramatic purposes. For example, the teenage manager might actually have been really nice and kind of cute. Also, there might have been two refunded potatoes and one of them might have already been eaten. 


****The events described are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental.

*****By about age sixty, many women do start to appreciate young and cute as they likely have a child or grandchild your age. Happily, it  also seems that with time people’s standards for “young and cute” relax significantly and begin to include anyone under age 40 (my senior citizen friend Helen always tells me that I look like a teenager. It’s pretty great, I’m not going to lie)

Earthquakes and Home Renos

So there was an eathquake around here the other day – a real one measuring 5 on the Richter Scale. People were terrified, piling out of buildings, swarming the streets, leaving their government jobs early(!). And while I was worried enough about our shaking upper floor to grab Mr. Baby and run downstairs, I had no idea that it was an earthquake until Mr. Baby and I headed out for a walk about 20 minutes post-quake only to find Chainsmoking Neighbour still visibly shaking on her porch (I was tempted to write “quaking” rather than “shaking” right there for the sake of my husband, but I resisted)(mostly)

“Did you feel that?” she said

“Sure, you did too?” I said, shocked

“Of course, it measured 5.5 on the Richter scale”

At this point I realized that the shaking had been caused by an earthquake and not Noisy* Neighbours’ home renos. I should have known – the banging and vibrating they cause always lasts more than 30 seconds.

I do like Noisy Neighbours - they are polite and friendly but there has been so much vibrating and banging coming from their side of the house that I am tempted to renovate just out of spite. Of course my plan is to wait until they have a baby and to subtly find out their baby’s nap schedule. At that point I will find contractors who are willing to work at exactly those times and who will make a lot of noise but who don’t really know what they are doing so that the reno takes a really, really, really long time (Noisy Neighbours are do-it-yourselfers). And then I will be happy.

*they are not just renovating, they are also really into music

Sheri's Blog?

“What are you going to name your blog?” asked my husband. 

“Trying to Find my Funny”

“You don’t think that’s setting expectations too high?”

“No, because it’s about how I lost my funny not about how I AM funny”

“Are you going to talk about that every time?”

“Well no, but it’s the reason I am starting the blog”

“Hmmm….I prefer a blog that is titled what it is going to talk about, it’s less confusing. Take Carolyn’s blog – Hell in a Handbasket …the name just doesn’t make sense”

“Sure it does— she has religious themes – it’s a Christian blog”

“But she never talks about going to hell in a handbasket so I always forget that is her blog”

 “Then what should she call it? “ I ask

“Carolyn’s blog”.

Trying to Find my Funny

So I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while, namely because whenever I see much stupider, less funny people with blogs I think – what the crap? How does that unfunny, bad speller have a blog –with readers- while I don’t (the answer generally comes down to laziness, of course –apparently all the brain power these people save by not trying to spell or be interesting converts into writing energy)?

The thing is that I am a little fearful that I have lost my funny. I used to be really funny – writing sketches and essays and short stories and articles and winning contests all over the place. Then I went to law school and the funny ended. Well mostly. I still wrote funny letters to boyfriends and people I was looking to Internet date (never both at the same time).  Before you judge and tell me that letters to people over Jdate should not count as writing, I will assure you that those letters constituted some of my best material and almost made up for the fact that I was wearing a padded bra while writing said letters. True story.

Then I got married and a job practicing Parliamentary law. Oh and I had a baby who I am currently staying home with. So now the full extent of my funny consists of Facebook status updates (some better than others), funny voices for the baby and the occasional angry e-mail to my sister, depending on who you ask.

Another reason I worry that I am losing my funny has to do with the fact that I am married to someone who is worse than not funny – someone who thinks he is funny, but is not. Correction - seniors (preferably Jewish) and nerds find him quite witty if not hilarious (not surprisingly, his father thinks that he is Jackie Mason)(the highest possible compliment that one can bestow upon a person in his eyes).  So while I don’t blame my husband completely (for this), I do feel myself pandering to him, making stupid puns and jokes meant for the geriatric set in hope of hearing a chuckle. And while I do enjoy making my husband laugh, a little part of me dies inside every time I hear him say “good one honey”.

So I have decided to start a blog. If nothing else, it is good practice – a good way for me to find my funny again. I need an audience other than my baby, who for all I know has his father’s sense of humour.