Washin' My Hands and Sneezin' in My Sleeve

I totally thought I had swyne flu today. (And yes, I totally know that's not how you spell it. But I live in America now, and it's a safe bet that Big Brother is watching and tracking bloggers that refer to possible outbreaks and, if they found out I had it, there'd be guys with hazmat suits on my doorstep and then it would be all plastic tunnels and E.T.-phone-home, and the basket on my bike is just not that big.)

[Aside: no. I'm not delirious from my bet-it's-swyne-flu at all.]

But I did have other symptoms today:

* Aching body (which had nothing to do with yesterday's yoga class)

* Headache (entirely unrelated to the Stephen-King-sponsored sleeplessness of late)

* Meager appetite (last night's late-hour chips and dip? Coincidence, I say)

Felt pretty grody when I got home, so I betook myself to bed and had a nap and, hey, presto, my symtpoms were gone. So you can call off the hazmat guys.

But I do need to acknowledge The Husband, who has tremendous self-preservation instincts loves me so much and knows it's best to let sleeping wives lie cared enough to get supper for the kids while I slumbered and then entertained them with YouTube versions of "Thriller." (Did you know there's one of 1500 Cambodian prison inmates dancing? Awesome.)

I tell ya - who needs chicken soup when they've got such a one?

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If A Tree Falls in the Forest, And Somebody Blogs About It, Does It Become Less Boring?

I've got nothing, folks. Ho-hum, hum-drum, same-old-same-old here.

No complaints from me on that front, of course. But it does make it difficult to drum up anything interesting to post. Hence the absence.

But, if a million bloggers can somehow turn straw into gold (or, at least, write down whatever comes to mind), then who's to say I'm not one in a million?

Fairly kid-centric these days. Actually, I've been feeling like a bit of a cliche lately. I'm one mini-van and two pairs of soccer cleats away from being Suburban Mom, it seems. Chauffeuring kids to playdates/birthday parties, yelling at them to do their chores, taking them to swimming classes, walking them to the bus stop - all those things that are undoubtedly good for them but don't do a ton for my self-image as Sassy, Smart, Sophisticated Mom. Doesn't help that I'm usually wearing yesterday's jeans and a shirt with only one stain as I do it all, I suppose.

The hours not taken up by munchkins are still diving headlong into the black hole that is Stephen King, I'm afraid. I'm on Book Five now, so the end is in sight.

Aaaaand, I'm out. Plus The Girl wants the computer. When exactly did my children become computer-literate?

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The REAL Reason I Need to Grow My Savings Account

Guess how much I just spent on birthday presents for other people's children:Almost $80. That there total, my friends, is more than half of my weekly grocery budget. It is three times as much as I spend on kids' haircuts (for both kids). It would fill up the fuel tank in my car almost four times (whoop - diesel's sure come down!).

Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy?

But, you are all thinking, isn't *she* the one who is purchasing these presents? Doesn't that mean she ultimately has control of the amount she spends?

Yes and no. "Yes" in that I'm the one who helps my kids choose what they want to bestow upon their friends to say Many Happy Returns, and I'm the one who whips out the credit card. I'm the one who says they can go to the party, and I'm the one who faithfully RSVPs each time.

But what are my options? Tell my kids they can't attend because I'm cheap? That seems a bit harsh - they are already subject to my whim in every other area, and I say "no" ten times more than I say "yes" as it is.

Tell my kids they can attend but they can't bring a present? Yeah, that'll make them super popular.

Try to reduce how much I spend on each present? This option certainly has merit, but have you tried to find something for a child that is a) not a piece of crap and b) might actually be fun for under $15? Plus, I'm that mom - it has to be edu-ma-ca-tional - or at the very least, require the quickening of some brain cells. Ideally, it's a) a craft that b) requires creative energy and c) takes up very little space in terms of the end product.

So, I end up at the fancy kids store, doing my darnedest to find the cheapest items in the store that still meet all the above criteria.

Honestly, I'm not sure that I can do anything differently here. It's certainly not my kids' fault that they've been invited to five birthday parties between the two of them over the next three weekends. They love going and, while I get that often the entire class is invited, I still think the receipt of invitations demonstrates some level of success in terms of that oh-so-desirable skill, The Making of Friends.

Besides, their favourite food is macaroni and cheese "from the box" - this coincides nicely with the fact that if their social calendars remain full, my grocery budget will permit only KD by the Costco case.

Or am I just being cheap? I've been known to pinch pennies, and I still labour under the impression that I should be able to purchase a complete outfit for under $20 and any more is an attempted highway robbery. Virtually every purchase leads to sticker shock, so maybe it's just me. Maybe I just need to join the twenty-first century and say, hey, this is the price of modern living. What do you think? Understandably grumpy at this ongoing assault on my pocketbook? Or outdatedly curmudgeonly and confusing of "thrift" with "lack of generosity"?

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Oh, Honey - You Can Just Leave That Barn Door...

...the horse is looooong gone.

So I went to go get cheques yesterday. (And yes - it is "cheques," thank you very much.)

In the good old days back at the SCU, this would have been a simple matter of dropping by the Member Services counter, explaining what I needed, rattling off my 5-digit account number, and that's it.

If I felt the need to prolong my stay, I could have hemmed and hawwed over the fancy ones they offer, only to decide finally that, yes, I think I'll stay with the no-extra-charge-plain ones.

6 minutes, tops.

But it seems we're in the brave new world of banking now.

The Husband and I have hated our bank down here since the get-go. Back in Canada, we chose the SCU as our financial needs provider right from the start and thus managed to avoid Big Banks altogether.

But down here, membership in a credit union is very restricted to whichever special interest group it serves. We are not Lutherans nor teachers nor steelworkers nor do we live within any of the extremely small geographical boundaries. And so, we found ourselves at one of the Big Ones.

The initial shock was for the fees. It's pay-as-you-go banking and the definition of "go" seems to be a mouse click. Gone are the days of easy transfers. Kaput are the days of an allotted number of free transactions a month. Wanna set up an automatic transfer? That's gonna cost you.

Then came the nasty surprise of what are known as "closing costs." Looking into the labyrinthine process that is buying a house in the States, we came quite quickly to discover that doing a quick credit check, giving a thumbs up as to our pay-it-back-worthiness, and copying off a few mortgage documents for us to sign is major bucks. As in, "thousands of dollars" major bucks.

(I seem to remember obtaining a mortgage from the SCU costing a grand total of about $200, but that was almost fifteen years ago, so mayhap it's gone up there, too.)

But cheques? Cheques should be easy. That's just a quick ticky box and delivered to your house in 7-10 days, yes?

Apparently not.

I popped into the Big One yesterday at lunch, and had to sign in with the host. Yup, they've got triage.

The host brought me almost immediately into Seth's cubicle. This because there was no line-up. Making the need for a triage nurse/host somewhat questionable, but whatever. At least he has a job.

Now Seth was very nice, but also fairly nervous, as his manager was there to "observe." He was quite sweet, and my heart went out to him. Trying to do one's job under the watchful eye of an evaluator = a trying experience. I was beaming confidence and smiles Seth's way as we began.

Sweet Seth: So, what can I help you with.

PM: I would like some cheques. [Ha - I can spell it any way I want when it's spoken. You better believe I pronounce those Q's]

SS: Sure thing.

[5 minute delay to try unsuccessfully several times to use my PIN card to call up my account, only to revert to the actual account number on the actual cheque I had brought in. Like I say, he was nervous.]

SS: Alright, now before you go, could I ask you a few questions about the services you have with The Big One? We'd like to make sure we are meeting your needs.

PM: [Again with the empathy.] Sure, no problem!

SS: I see you're transferring some money into your savings account...

PM: Yup, slow but sure! [sensing where this is going] But it's not really a set amount every month, so we do it manually. We don't want to set up automatic transfers.

SS: Oh...okay. Well, what about the types of accounts you have with us? I see you have chequing and savings...

PM: Actually, we've just started to give our kids allowances. Do you have a kid-friendly no-fee account?

SS: Yes, definitely. [explains] All I need is their socials. Did you want to set those up now?

PM: [Realizes he means SSNs. Don't think our kids even have them. Plus, my lunch break is getting very short.] No thanks, I'll just pop in sometime.

SS: Did you want to schedule an appointment?

PM: No thanks, I just work downstairs. I'll come in.

SS: Well, here's my card. So, what are you saving for? A vacation? A new car?

PM: [Too polite to tell him this is a somewhat personal question, especially as he's probably just following the script that Manager Man is evaluating] Uh, a house.

SS: Ah, I see. Are you keeping an eye on the mortgage rates?

PM: [Thinking, no, dumbass, I'm partying like it's 2007 and assuming a pulse and Greenspan's bargain basement interest rates will be allll I need.] Yup, it's certainly a good time to buy right now. But we need a bigger downpayment, so hence the savings.

SS: [chuckling] Yeah, they need you to have, what, 10% down now at least. My wife and I just bought a house actually.

PM: [Salt in the wound, much?] Oh, how exciting.

SS: Are you thinking about your growing your credit at all?

PM: Uh, yes. That's why we have credit cards that we pay off in full every month.

SS: Oh, I don't see them listed here.... So... what's your safety net? Like, if one of you lost your jobs, what would you do?

PM: [Seriously?!] Um, well, that's what the whole savings thing is for, too. You know - work towards the downpayment, use it as a safety net if something goes wrong - that sort of thing.

[And on for awhile like this, until I finally got to declare how nice it was to meet both of them and finally leave.]

Now, here's the deal. I get that America is in bad shape right now. In part, the blame for this shape is a result of not asking exactly these types of questions.

But.

It's a little late to start, yes? And why is Seth (as a mouthpiece for The Big One) the one asking the questions? Shouldn't every person with a bank account (and credit cards and insurance and the embarrassment of riches that is TWO jobs in one household given current economic conditions) have been considering these issues for a long time?

All I wanted was some cheques. Apparently, the cost of said cheques is 25 minutes wasted of my lunch break and the baring of my financial soul. Sigh.

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In Which Real Life Returns with a Vengeance

Hoooo-boy. Apparently Life-As-I-Know-It was none too impressed that I left the country for awhile to dilly over suppers and brunches with near'n'dears and dally over some fabulous church services.

Nope, my life spent the weekend not enjoying a breather from injecting regular (but small) doses of chaos into my days, but plotting to make me rue the day I tried to escape it for a few hours.

In the house for all of five minutes last night, I headed to turn on the shower to transform some overtired, cranky, whiny, stinky children into overtired, cranky, whiny, sweet-smelling children. I turned the knob and - zing! - the faucet shot off and hit the other end of the tub. Who knew it was loose? More importantly, who knew water pressure was that strong?

So, we did baths last night.

Fortunately, I work from home on Mondays, so I was here to let in the shower repair guy. Less fortunately, I work from home on Mondays, which made today's increasingly-intermittent-until-essentially-nonexistent internet connection a bit of a big deal.

I guess I needed all that non-working time to try to organize today's flurry of birthday party invitations. We now have five invites spread out over the next three weekends. Apparently 6 years + 9 months ago and 8 years + 9 months ago couples in our area were very bored.

Add a last minute, unauthorized playdate (with bonus explanation over the phone to an eight-year-old that I can't arrange for another girl's mom to pick her up and that she needs permission from a parent and not an older brother to come to my house spur of the moment), and I think it's time for another vacation.

Although apparently I can't actually leave the house, for fear of my regular routine going all beserk on me.

Oh, and Happy Easter.

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And God SHUT The Door

Did anyone else here have the Burl Ives audio version of Noah's Ark? We did. We also had Jonah. There's just nothing like the deep voice of Burl Ives describing the destruction of Ninevah to put the fear of, well, God in a kid.

We listened to those tapes over and over. They were eight kinds of awesome because they were multimedia - a tape AND accompanying book. With pictures. In colour. This, of course, ranked very high on the entertainment scale, given that I was wont to force my brothers to participate in playing school with used textbooks or intense surveys about which one of them would make the best president of the country.

[The geek is strong in you, young Skywalker...]

I think I shall have to remember these tapes when my kids start complaining about being bored: "You want nothing to do?! All I had when I was your age was BURL IVES!!"

(An aside: nothing gets my goat more than ungrateful children. I have been known to snatch supper out of from beneath a complainer and start lecturing about refugee camp conditions in the Sudan or how what is in front of them would feed an ENTIRE family! in Ethiopia! for A WHOLE WEEK!)

Anyhoo, I've been thinking of Mr. Ives all day today as I've been mentally - and now physically - preparing my own ark. We're headed up to the north country for Easter fun, and there appears to be some fairly significant flooding going on in Manitoba right now.

So no sacrificial animals or anything, but the PM family will definitely be filing into our ark (aka The Husband's VW2.0) two by two as soon as everyone gets home.

When we get to Emerson, we'll let out a dove. Have olive branches at the ready, or we'll be tempted to turn around and come home where it's dry.

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I Dream of Lobstrosities

Stupid Stephen King.

Oh sure, Misery and The Shining were pretty good, but as far as I was concerned the rest of his oeuvre consisted of bloody proms, undead Fluffys, and arm-ripping clowns, so I didn't pay it much attention. I figured he was like the John Grisham of horror.

And, of course, I like to read about much more enlightening things like a suitcase with a million little legs, feudal-era police forces made up of werewolves, dwarves and trolls, and a personified Death WHO ALWAYS SPEAKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

(Seriously folks, having almost completed The Year of the Pratchett, I must confess that it has been one of the best - and probably the guiltiest - literary years of my existence.)

Nevertheless, between Pratchetts as I was and desperate for something to read, I picked up The Husband's latest - The Dark Tower series by SSK. I'd heard the odd good word, often from places I trusted, so thought it might be better than re-reading Austen yet again.

The first book, it was okay. So-so. Middling. Interesting enough to make me want to find out what happens, but not so much that I couldn't switch over to Sense and Sensibility without crying about it.

I asked The Husband if the next one was better. Yup, he assured me, it gets much more interesting.

That was two nights ago. Two. Very. SHORT. Nights.

Stupid Stephen King. Not only am I hooked on this new series (which impacts my allotted Pratchett time), but I am also extremely tired. And, until I'm done (5 books more to go after this one), we're probably talking about 6 hour nights.

Grrrrr.

Now, if you'll excuse me, The Gunslinger and Eddie Dean have just misplaced the schizophrenic black lady with no legs - I must be off.

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Caveat Emptor

Given the recent spirit of the age, and because we are parents extraordinaire, we've started to give the kids allowances.

(Of course, it took months of hemming and hawing and procrastinating careful consideration of our options to get to this point, so they have been kept waiting for some time.)

They're quite the thing, allowances. Do you tie them to chores and use them as bribes for servitude? Do you say that being part of this household = sharing in the money that comes in (no strings attached) but in the same breath point out that being part of this household = sharing in the responsibilities that keep things working smoothly?

(Potay-to, potah-to, some might say, but we've chosen the latter. But I'm extra sneaky - I only hand out allowances on Saturday if chores are done; otherwise, they have to wait until the next day to receive allowances-that-aren't-tied-to-chores.)

And how much? Is this a bit o' spending money, just enough to blow on Pic-a-Pop and Fun Dip? Or is it more serious, leading to budgets and clothes purchases and "if you want brand name blue jeans you can very well pay for them out of your own money"?

After much of the aforementioned procrastination  deliberation, we decided 50 cents per year of life per week was a good formula, the total of which would be divided between the ol' Spend-Save-Give jars.

Two weeks in, and the kids were rabid to dip into the Spend jars, so two little fistfuls of dollars accompanied us on tonight's trip to the mall to buy pants for The Boy (sigh, again. It's a good thing I like his ankles - I see them a lot. Although, given his propensity towards the pants-less-ness, maybe he doesn't really need more than one or two pairs).

I must say, I'm awfully glad we didn't give them more money. Of course, it's our own fault we took them to the Dollar Store. The Girl came home the proud owner of a graduation-themed teddy bear promptly dubbed "University Bear" and The Boy got some [airquote] "Yu-Gi-Oh" cards with some serious Chinglish to betray their knocked-off-ness.

Blue-eye White Dragon! A dragon in the legend with the magic Power to destroy all oppoments! Wonderful Power you can not imagel!!!

Fighter of Sun! While fighting against monster and statistics for facts about damnification,effective to boost the offensive of the card up to 500 points!!

Of course, all of this Happy Spend Time would be incomplete without a sobering but instructive life lesson:

A Conversation Overhead

Dad, what's "interest"?

It's where you borrow money from someone and they charge you. Like if I borrowed a dollar from you, and you said you wanted a dollar and five cents back.

Dad, I'd never charge you interest. You could just have the dollar.

That's good. Don't become a loan shark.

What's a loan shark?

It's someone who lends someone else money at an exorbitant interest rate. And know what happens if you don't pay back a loan shark?

What?

They break your legs.

[...] Why do they break your legs?

It's an incentive to pay them back. Just think, if you just got to keep the money and nothing happened to you, then everyone else would just keep the money, too.

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Bonne Anniversaire, Mini-Me!

"Don't forget to do all your favourite 7-year-old things today - it's the last day you can do them!"

[Puzzled] "Like what?"

"Well, aren't there some things that you like to do that you won't be able to do when you're eight?"

[...] "Nope."

Oh sweet girl, you warmed my heart yesterday. Like you do everyday, of course, but yesterday you reminded me that just because it seems as though you are two steps and a breath away from curfews, boyfriends, and driver's permits, you're still quite happy in your Mom Teddy world.

Not that you haven't grown up this past year. And faced challenges that, truth be told, would make your mother quake. Starting your third school in three years, learning how to swim, figuring out how to add profile pictures to the contacts on your personal email account - all things that I'm not sure I could do if I tried.

And yet you do it effortlessly. Sure, there's often whining involved, but when it comes down to it, soaking up the world and negotiating your way through it come as naturally as breathing to you. Your capacity to absorb knowledge is astounding, and your memory frightens me with its detailed recall (particularly when you bust me on something I was hoping you would forget about). You are sweet and kind and generous, and it's no wonder your friends love you.

Your creativity is sheer delight - only you would set up an entire carnival in our basement, complete with tickets, games ("Guess the number of beads - no counting!"), and prizes. And, of course, you've got that winning way about you, grinning as you handed me an envelope filled with Free! Tickets! to the Carnival! in order to coerce your mother downstairs.

Child of mine, girl of my heart, looking at you is like looking at a mirror. Except everything in this mirror is more colourful, more beautiful - you have taken the best parts of me and transformed them into richer, shinier versions of the pale originals you received.

May this year be a fabulous year filled with the new and the wondrous, fitting effortlessly alongside the old and the familiar.

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