telling stories

Single Me thought the most fanatical people were reformed ex-smokers who demanded you butt out when around them, because smoking will kill you – guaranteed! - and don’t you know how bad it makes you smell? I never realized it until I quit smoking and got on the elevator with someone who had just smoked. Let me tell you it was enough to make me want to barf! Also zealous? Those nutso religious right in the US who often hail from places with even wackier names, like Waco, and who re-elected George Bush as President. RE-ELECTED! Not just accidentally maybe kinda sorta voted for him as part of a protest vote that went terribly, horribly wrong, but RE-ELECTED, as in: Hmmm, I like Middle Eastern countries. Gimme, gimme, gimme! Whoever named Waco Waco shouldn’t really be surprised at the stock produced; it’s kind of the same thing with Moose Jaw. The pudding proof: isn’t Waco where Mrs. Federline comes from? And doesn’t Moose Jaw produce women willing to be wed into the Family Snell? I rest my case, your Honour.

And then the Babe entered out lives and impassioned advocates popped up on any number of issues, like cloth diapers vs. the kind that poison the planet and little baby pandas in China, and those who favour a drug-free birth to “get in tune with your body” vs. those who place their order for Medicare-funded drugs prior to conception. (I fall into the latter camp on both issues, for obvious reasons.) By far the most rabid were those who virtuously call themselves Lactation Consultants, which would make it seem as though they sit in a little public health room, waiting for YOU to tell THEM when there’s a problem getting the boob juice flowing, wouldn’t it? But no, they seek you out in the hospital corridors, and find you beneath the bed sheets, trying to grab 40 winks after the long, hard labour you’ve just had, and once they do, once they find you, they become Booby Pushers, simultaneously telling you to breastfeed, and YOU’RE BREASTFEEDING ALL WRONG: “There simply is no other way to feed your child; it’s the most natural, and provides your little one with EVERYTHING he needs, including immunities, without which HE MIGHT GET SICK. Thinking you might go with formula? Well, you might as well liquefy dog food and put it in the bottle you’re going to feed that precious baby with, or starve him altogether. That is, if he doesn’t die from the sickness of being sick, all because his LACK OF IMMUNITIES. No, no! Hold your areola THIS WAY!”

I was glad to be rid of ‘em, those Lactation Consultants. Anyone who has seen the Babe recently knows that it’s absurd to assume he has any issues in the sustenance department. And because I haven’t been inundated with advice on ways to rear my little Turkey Roll lately, I was caught off guard when I phoned the Ottawa Public Library to register Boh in Super Tots and the lady on the other end waxed on and on enthusiastically about what a “good turn” I was doing by registering him so early for a library program. Good turn? I haven’t heard that one since Brownies! But of course I ate it up. So long as the advice I’m getting is about stuff I’m already doing, or plan to do, then this Mom-zilla can keep her chest puffed out secure in the knowledge that she’s not completely screwing up her kid. (Not completely.)

wrestling with my demons

Good ol' dooce. Leave it to her to help carry me through my dry phase. I had completely forgotten about that book I told you about a while back (you heard it here first folks!) called No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog. Methinks a weekend excursion to Chapters might be called for Sweetie; don't say I didn't warn you. (I was going to say forewarn you, but isn't that a bit redundant? You don't warn someone after the fact, do you?)

But enough of being cocky, She Who Struggled to Write One Sentence in the Last Week and Now Thinks She Can Slag the Creators of the English Language. In today's entry, dooce picks up what is apparently suggested topic No. 32 from No One Cares What You Had for Lunch:

What are your relationship deal breakers? Some folks are annoyed if a date shows up ten minutes late. Others look for something weightier, like a felony record. Have you ever rejected someone over something that seems insignificant to your friends? Or do you have selective blindness for red flags?

Oh, my. This just brought up so many memories that four years of marriage, two mortgages and one kidlette have helped to sanitize, if not bleach altogether. Though C. and B.'s Adventures in Singleville as relayed to me over lunch last weekend definitely dredged up some of my sludgier Single Me moments, even if I did try and sound to them like a shining beacon of light now that I have jumped off the bridge called (Dear God, What Did) I (Just) Do.

Like Dead Tooth, otherwise known as Could Have Been the Perfect Guy If Not for the Caramel He Called An Incisor. He had a good job and even better prospects, studying to be some kind of engineer, so that not only could I have looked forward to a spouse with a guaranteed annual income of 80K+, but he and the other Iron Ring (mon papa) in my life could have spent endless hours over Christmas varenyky talking about pull wires and pipelines and pi and stuff. And - and! - he was tall. Like over six feet. By no means am I an Amazon, but finding a man at least as tall as me, if not taller, always seemed to be an issue in the days when I was lookin'. But I could not get past his slightly discoloured enamel, and so never called him back.

Then there was S., the Tummy Tapper. There were oh so many things about S. that I looked past to get the point that we did, the point where you start to go over to each other's house to watch T.V. (a big step in any relationship; you say PBS Nova and I say cable Entertainment Tonight.) Sitting there, eating popcorn, I couldn't take my eyes off him, and not because of his curly locks and freshly starched shirt. Rather, it was because I was watching him in silent horror, like how you watch the slo-mos on the evening news about some train wreck that happened in one of those states down in the Southern US, and it really doesn't matter which one, because they are all the same, aren't they? No. Instead of watching The Rock take down the Undertaker, or whoever the idols were back then for The Saturday Afternoon Serving of Homoeroticism For Sexually Confused Men Everywhere (a.k.a. WWF Smackdown), I watched S. slowly lift his t-shirt up to expose his navel, so that he had as much skin as was required to play the bongo on his belly button. Cheque, please!

And I'm sure there were more, but as Adoring and Wonderful Husband often says to me, When I met you I forgot about all the rest, baby. Forget indeed. And perhaps also realize that the cliché old marrieds have about how they knew right away when they first met their spouse that he or she was The One is true. Because not only was Adoring and Wonderful Husband the perfect height, he also had the best smile I have ever seen, and in all the years I've known him, he has never paused whilst flipping the channels to watch wrestling, Just to see who will win the match, I promise!, not even once.

(Oh, and if I can completely copy dooce today: What are YOUR deal-breakers?)