Ingleside, Ontario (you knew it was coming someday)

Since I've started blogging, I keep a running list of subjects I could possibly write about on a Word file on my desktop so I can expand upon the one line titles I've already given to about 17 or so potential posts should the mood strike as I sit in front of the computer and waste away my maternity leave trying to think of something witty to write. Or at least comprehensible. Which I'm pretty sure that first sentence you just read there isn't.

After reading K.'s blog tonight, I was inspired to revisit this list and pluck from it some sort of gem that would make you think I spent the afternoon cleverly composing it, as opposed to napping for two and half hours with the Babe, which is how my script really read. First on the list: Brad organizing ski trip and price is right trip. Though I could probably pull three weeks worth of posts out of those nine words alone, that I've lazed the day away has made me impatient to produce something, even if it means I'm poaching from next month's blogging menu.

I came up with this topic after catching a couple minutes of The Price Is Right one day. This is how I've grown: Whereas I spent my year of grad school planning courses around a game show (the prospect of watching it was the only thing that got me out of bed before 11:00 a.m. some days), I now flip to Newsworld as I scarf down my instant oatmeal and make sure I have enough Pampers packed for my morning adventures with the Babe. I used to be able to guess the price of a toaster or Mr. Clean Magic Eraser within pennies (American pennies, no less), and now I don't even know which is the latest of Barker's beauties to sue him for sexual harassment. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Anyway, the couple minutes of the show I caught as I switched the Babe from one boob to the other (which must have been what I was doing at the time, because, really, what else do I do?) drove me down memory lane to the sunny place in my heart that once held dear the prospect of taking an MPA class trip down to LA over the Easter break to stand in line outside The Price Is Right studios where I would meet my date with destiny. I had it all planned out. All that was needed to proclaim success was a t-shirt bearing a poorly ironed on decal provocatively professing "I'm spayed!" (or "I'm neutered!", as the case may be), 10 or so of my closest friends, and an answered prayer that it was me who should come on down! Because me? I WAS THE NEXT CONTESTANT ON THE PRICE IS RIGHT!!

Alas, it never happened. B-Rad, the evil mastermind who organized the MPA ski trip at Mont Blanc that led to the debauchery otherwise known as Ingleside, tried valiantly to pull off a Price Is Right tour on a student's budget, but never could quite swing it. Which is just as well, I suppose. The best memories are the ones you don't orchestrate; one snowstorm and four bald tires just help you to drift into them.