My boys are brilliant!

Check out my kids during their stage debut today at the Music in the Streets festival in Keswick, Ontario...



I swear I have the most talented children in existence.

On a sadder note, today is my Dad's birthday - the second one we haven't been able to celebrate with him since he passed away almost two years ago. I bought a lovely little pot of bright, yellow Gerbera daisies and brought them to the cemetery. They really perked up his spot.


Happy Birthday Dad! We wish we could be with you today, and always.

Freaked out!

It's a curse.

For as long as I can remember I have been surrounded by freaks. At work...at school...standing next to me in the grocery store...at the dentist's office...and even in cyberspace.

It's as if they seek me out because they know how absolutely crazy they drive me. I don't know what it is, but I can't seem to swing a dead cat and not hit either an enormously pregnant teenager with a smoke in one hand and her one-year-old in a stroller in the other, or a bandanna-wearing, Trailer Park Boy who has no respect for authority and thinks the world owes him something, or that ridiculous driver who absolutely MUST get in front of you, no matter how fast you're going, just to slow down to a snail's pace.

Or maybe it's not as bad as it seems at all, and the Universe is just telling me that I need to stop expecting so much from my fellow man and lower the bar a little. This would turn out to be especially funny (exasperating?) when I started this job and was suddenly expected to conduct interviews with people who had never been acquainted with a bar of soap, let alone a curriculum vitae. The bar is now six-feet-under...as is my pride.

At my previous job my manager took me aside once and told me to stop coming down so hard on people all the time, and that really made me think. I can't help it: I have such high expectations of myself, and I subconsciously cascade that onto others around me.

The Dalai Lama says that the secret to true happiness is 'tolerance'. Followers of the Hindu religion believe in Karma: that we all have our own personal crosses to bear and lessons to learn in each lifetime, and that it is only once we achieve enlightenment that we are able to end the series of reincarnations and finally pass over to Nirvana.

So it would seem that my 'cross' is the expectant young tramp with no regard for her unborn child's life, the cretin with the goatee, tats and mentality of entitlement that could very well be the baby daddy, and the inconsiderate and shockingly dangerous driver that I have no choice but to share the road with every day all rolled into one.

Yikes...I think I need a vacation...

I am a tight ass

Have you ever had your butt rubbed??? I have...and it's delightful. I highly recommend it.

Recently I have started seeing a chiropractor again after my sacrum started bothering me. I have been having a hard time sitting for long periods since I fell on my butt a few months back. Figuring that the company benefit plan covers $500 of chiropractic services per year, and I'm paying $50 per month just to have the stupid plan I might as well use it.

Today I went for a chiropractic session, and had a half-hour massage beforehand to loosen me up. The chiropractor told me to have the masseur work on my sacrum area and glutes. Nicole normally works on my back, so this was going to be different. She started with my right cheek, and it was pretty tender. For the first time since I can remember I felt sharp pain during the massage. Then she switched to my left cheek, and as I braced myself for more discomfort, she commented on how much worse my left side was.

It would seem I am a lopsided tight ass.

I asked Nicole if she does a lot of butt rubs. She giggled and said "Yeah."

So after my rub I went down the hall for my adjustment, and as I lay down on my tummy the doctor put a weeny bit of pressure on my lower back, and....CRACK! She praised my masseur for a job well done. I had my adjustment and she sent me home to soak in a tub with epsom salts and to then ice my back to finish up the treatment.

I have decided I don't want to be a tight ass anymore, and I'll be going back for another bum massage with Nicole as soon as I get back from Ottawa.

Things that made me smile today

• An impromptu rainstorm in the middle of a hot, sunny day
• Locker room chat with my coworker and boss
• A Fido commercial
• A Macintosh computer commercial
  
• A delicious dinner
• A customer with a crazy sense of humour
• A fat cat lying beside me on the couch
• A crazy-ass redneck who completely perpetrated the union stereotype
• A cute text message from my sweetheart

Adventure on the "high seas"

Yesterday Ber and I together with the boys went on a three-hour sailing tour around Toronto Harbour on the Tall Ship Adventures with Toronto Brigantine group. We all helped out in hoisting and bringing down the sails, which made it all the more fun, especially for Josh and Tyssen who had never sailed before. They are now both very interested in learning more about it. We were on a boat very much like this one below, and it was captained by a teenager who seemed to have forgotten more about sailing than I'll ever know.

I ended up kicking myself extra hard because in all the stress of trying to make it to the end of Lower Spadina from my office in Oshawa before the ship sailed at 6pm I neglected to bring my camera with me...and missed out on all kinds of fabulous photo ops!!! I still haven't gotten over it...arghhhhh!!! Hopefully I'll be able to post a link to other people's photos soon, as there were a few other passengers who had the presence of mind to come better prepared than myself.