Too many toys

The Kid decided it was time for her to de-clutter her room by getting rid of the multitudes of Polly Pocket, Barbie and Littlest Pet Shop toys. I'm all for de-cluttering. A cluttered house equals a cluttered mind. However I have no qualms about cluttering up someone else's house.

Muahahahahahahahaha

So I invited Karen of Ow, my angst and her lovely sister to come peruse the wares. There was lots of laughing and excitement and yelling 'No Sale!' if something unsavoury was found and then more laughing.
This was a 'No Sale' item...

Meet 'Scoliosis Barbie'!

Also known as 'Crunkin Barbie' or 'What up Barbie'......NO SALE!
I know she's posing topless on the stove. I was going for a ghetto industrial vibe for her photo shoot.

We had a good time ooh-ing and aah-ing over shoes and outfits and PREGNANT Barbie. The sisters went home happy. And I had an excuse for why I did not do a blog post yesterday. If you're upset that there wasn't one and you've been waiting I shall reward you now for your patience with this.....

UGLY CREEPY DOLL!!!

The Kid gave her the rad urban do.

Say YES to the fun of de-cluttering!

Strawberry Elephantitis

What the hell are they putting in the water??

Poetry?

 

Some people love poetry. I love the idea of poetry. The romantic notion of it. The undying love. The ache of the starving artist. The quiet power. The angst. Some people get poetry, they understand it. I don't think I've ever understood anything about it. I don't know what's good or bad and I'm not sure I care. I do know what I like. I'm more impressed by the idea that someone would bare their soul in such a way more so than the quality in which they do it.

This is what I thought passed for poetry back in the day.
                
"The Field"

A sea of goldenrod.
Distant, charming white farmhouse direct
 from an English painting.
Reality does not live here.
Dry cornstalks sprout from the ground
 like old bones.
Grasshoppers flutter like a madman's brains.
Smell the earth.
Wind makes the surrounding trees speak.


But I don't know anything about poetry. Clearly.

This poem was used in a grade 12 english assignment with the homeslice Karen at Ow, my angst and a third girl we know. I remember the third girl NOT liking the poem so much. I however love it.

A Women's Issue 
by Margaret Atwood


The woman in the spiked device
that locks around the waist and between
the legs, with the holes in it like a tea strainer
is Exhibit A.


The woman in black with a net window
to see through and a four-inch
wooden peg jammed up
between her legs so she can't be raped
is Exhibit B.


Exhibit C is the young girl
dragged into the bush by midwives
and made to sing while they scrape the flesh
from between her legs, then tie her thighs
till she scabs over and is called healed.
Now she can be married.
For each childbirth they'll cut her
open, then sew her up.
Men like tight women.
The ones that die are carefully buried.


The next exhibit lies flat on her back
while eighty men a night
move through her, ten an hour.
She looks at the ceiling, listens
to the door open and close.
A bell keeps ringing.
Nobody knows how she got here.


You'll notice that what they have in common
is between the legs. Is this
why wars are fought?
Enemy territory, no man's
land, to be entered furtively,
fenced, owned but never surely,
scene of these desperate forays
at midnight, captures
and sticky murders, doctors' rubber gloves
greasy with blood, flesh made inert, the surge
of your own uneasy power.


This is no museum.
Who invented the word love?

This poem is good because I was told it was good. We studied it in a grade 12 creative writing class. Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. I did enjoy it. I especially enjoyed the way the teacher presented it with passion. Yelling out the 'rage' parts and all. There were many giggles over it really. I also remember he claimed to be an extra at the end of the movie 'Silence of the Lambs'. I had attended a lecture given by Mordecai Richler and had a book signed for the same teacher.

This was my high school yearbook quote.

I saw a creature, naked, bestial who
squatting upon the ground held a heart
in his hands and ate of it.
I asked "Is it good friend?"
He said "It is bitter, bitter but I like it
because it is bitter and because it is my heart."


by Stephen Crane

Like all art, poetry is very personal.

What makes your soul say YES?

This is what happens when you are too tired to write a blog.

 I offer you the classic 'Charlie the Unicorn'

Ya it's a cop out but I'm freaking tired!

Tonight I'm saying YES to my bed.

Sunshine Bath

The kitties took turns enjoying the sun today. You can read about them and my love of animals HERE if you like.
WICKET

BEANS

MISFIT

Say YES to soaking up some rays too.

Book Sharing : "When food is Love" PART 2

I started sharing the insightful wisdom of Geneen Roth in PART 1 feel free to refresh your memory. So I'm going to get right to it then, ok?

"You split yourself into two people : the adult who has nothing to do with the pain and the child who feels nothing but the pain, the adult who functions smoothly and responds appropriately and the child who has stick-out edges and wants to say no to everything, be comforted at all times, stand up and scream for attention in the middle of a quiet auditorium. The child is your witness ; the past is indelibly etched, like a cattle brand, in her body. When people get to know you, you feel as if they are not seeing the real you because you know that next week or next month or next year, one wrong move could bring the unfinished past reeling in. You are like a connect-the-dots drawing without the line that connects the dots"


"We lost something that is irretrievable : we lost the chance of going through life with the absolute knowledge that we are loveable. That was our birthright and we never received it. Now we have to work to achieve what some people were given just because they were born to different parents. Our parents were responsible for us when we were children, but no one is responsible for us when we are adults. If they weren't there the first time around, no one can even take their place. Not a lover, not a best friend, not a teacher, not a therapist, not a support group, not anyone, Only you. You are the only one who can provide yourself with unconditional love, safety, and constant attention. Only you."


"...that couples enter a relationship madly in love, carrying a suitcase filled with clothes from past relationships, adolescence, childhood. By the time they have been together for a couple of years, they have removed all the clothes from their respective suitcases, thrown them on each other, and in utter disbelief exclaimed, "You aren't the person I fell in love with. I hardly recognize you."
We can't look forward without looking back.
We can't have healing relationships in the present without being willing to heal the pair of the past. To heal, we have to believe that healing is possible. We must want to heal more than we are afraid to feel - rage, grief, sorrow. We must want to heal more than we want anything or anyone else."


"It's not the wound that determines the quality of your life, it's what you do with the wound - how you hold it, carry it, dance with it, or bury yourself under it.
No one knows where dreams are born. And what gives people the grit to follow them. Lucille Ball's father died when she was four. Her mother remarried but sent Lucille to live with relatives. They put a dog collar around her neck and tied her to a tree in the back yard to keep her from wandering. While her body was tied  down, her mind wandered...Life is what happens as you live with the wounds. Life is not a matter of getting the wounds out of the way so that you can finally live. Wounds are never permanently erased. We are fragile beings, and some days we break all over again."




Say YES to having a long, hard look in the mirror.

KABOOM

MAJOR EPIPHANY

The Apartment Still Smells Good!!!

So I had invited two friends and the Mother to dinner and no one could make it so it was just me and the Kid. I have made stir-frys before and they have never worked out. But this one did and it tasted good too. I used a store bought spice packet from ClubHouse that I recommend highly. If you are looking for something new to try, try ClubHouse Lemon Ginger Beef Stir-fry. Yummy.

Look at that sexy beef...

I'm chopping broccoli !!!

Meat and two veg....hahahahahaha get it??

Can't stop looking at that sexy beef!

That pan is HOT!!

That's one good looking dinner!

Say YES to good food.

Things that make me F<@KING NUTS!! PART 2

***This is the blog entry that didn't get posted because I got waylaid.***

I am having tremendously crappy day so I figured why not do another installment of what annoys the crap out of me. I will either feel cleansed of all the out-of-this-world ridiculous bull that has landed in my lap or be killed silently, blissfully by the impending aneurysm. If you would like to refresh yourself with what I'm annoyed by or are just joining us and have to catch up, feel free to read THIS.
I'd like to make two notes here first...
1) My homeslice Karen at Ow, my angst has been waiting for this post (we get a kick out of each others rage and even if it doesn't translate will here, I AM very entertaining when I'm pissed!) so I hope it does not disappoint.
2) I am so angry and stressed that I am listening to a yoga CD that a friend gave me and making friends with my buddy Bacardi. Yes my day has been that crappy.

I think that people that sit on their couch all day should be immune to such things as athletes foot and jock itch. I am a fat slovenly couch potato. Why the fuck are my feet so damn athletic? I'm pretty sure they aren't sneaking out at night for a jog!

Catholic kids go to catholic school.
French kids go to french school.
Gifted kids go to gifted school.
Why can't we send the allergy kids to an allergy specific school??
And don't talk to me about the allergy kid's rights. Where's my kid's right to a damn peanut butter sandwich?!




People that suck their teeth, either to dislodge food or in disdain, can suck my dick.

CNN. Fear mongering propagandists. If Jim Jones of Jonestown fame were alive, CNN would be his media vehicle of choice. I'd like to go on a rant about how this is clearly a news station for the mental defects of the world but I'm having to take deep breaths to center myself so I'll leave it and get another drink.

When did the 'reason' go out of the world? When did people stop being 'reasonable'? When did the obscene, falsified allegations of diluted individuals carry more credibility than that of the level-headed factual based truths of the reasonable common sense man? Hmm? What kind of world has this become? When some clearly unbalanced person can say or do whatever they want without consequence? Hmm? Where is the black and white of right and wrong? When did everything become so fucking gray??!

Wait, I need a sip or three of my drink....
Ah that's better. I do love you Rum, you ol' sot.

Even with the rum, I can't take too much more so just this last one.

Is it just me or is this guy in need of a damn slap?!

I've been working my pimp hand just for you Buddy!!

Best Laid Plans

Yesterday started off like most other days.
I woke up, tired as all hell, wanting to go back to bed but not going back to bed.
Instead I did my mom job and got the Kid to school.
I had an appointment to go to in the morning, wanting not to go but was going to go. However, the Universe must have heard my complaints and granted my wish and canceled my appointment.
I was going to have coffee with a friend in the afternoon but got hit with some disturbing news so that didn't happen.
In the evening I was going to read some asinine legal documents but the mere thought of it pissed me off so that didn't happen.
I sat down to write a blog, was momentarily side-tracked by a phone call from a friend, and then really got side-tracked bending my elbow so the blog didn't happen either.
Other than getting the Kid to and from school, not one of my plans panned out yesterday.

The best laid plans of mice and men

often go awry

If you'd like to read the Robert Burns poem that line is taken from go HERE. (I chose site that helps you understand the poem too)

Thanks

I was watching the television show M.A.S.H. today. Awesome show, right? What made M.A.S.H. so awesome was the good balance of humour with the poignant thought provoking moments that show the human casualties of the war machine. It airs on the History channel and because I was writing a blog (and not watching television, I swear) when it ended, another program began that viewed and discussed newly discovered World War II footage. I don't usually watch that kind of program but for whatever reason it caught my eye and got me thinking about how much we are surrounded by war. We have a morbid fascination with it. We are obsessed with it. It's glorified and romanticized in movies and video games. It's in our history books and the current headlines.
We say we are thankful for what the Service men and women have done for us. But do any of us really have a true appreciation of what we are thankful for? I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but I have no true grasp of the realities of war. I can't even imagine it, not on any level.

I can't imagine the fear. The bravery. The will to survive. Following orders without question. What it takes to end a life. What is taken from you to see someone die.

I can't imagine being so far from everything and everyone I know. The stress. The worry. The unknown. The noise. The mud. The disease.

I've never seen carnage. I've never executed a true act of violence. I've never had someone's blood on my hands. I've never held a dying man in my arms. I've never killed.

Maybe that's why I'm really saying thank you. I'm not thankful because of the freedom that has been provided to me. I'm not thankful because I'm a Canadian and not some goose-stepping baby killer.

I'm thankful that those men and women had the courage to do all those things that I can't even imagine. To go places I will never be able to picture. To endure fear and pain that I will never feel. To kill the enemy that I will never know.

I may have to watch it on television but I will never have to live the true horrors of war.
And for that I am thankful.
For that must be what war is. The scariest, most unimaginable horror.

Cooking with Corey aka The Ex

Candystripe and golden beets. yummy.

Meat and potatoes were his job...Master of Meat!

The FLAVOUR SAVER

Boil boil boil

Et voila! Beef and Beet Stew.

Say YES to food and friendship.