Clearing up some misconceptions

For all the bitching and complaining I do, I really am a super-duper lucky gal.  I have a husband who, for some crazy reason, loves me unconditionally.  And I have three of the most incredible boys.  Sure, I lose my sh*t with them and their dumb ass decisions sometimes (OK, daily) but overall, they are well-behaved, loving, handsome individuals. I have an extended family which I love dearly, a solid roof over my head, a fridge full of semi-rotten food and a stable job (regardless of its pathetic pay, its a job which can never be off-shored).  And my friends; oh how lonely I would be without my friends.

All of these things make me luckier than most people (certainty most women) in the world.  So when I joke about killing my husband, or one-night stands with Zak Efron/Chaz Bono look-a-likes, you have to realize that I'm just joking. Same goes for stories about my questionable parenting choices. Sure my boys may or may not have gone to school wearing running shoes which could pass for flip flops, and have had a lunch which consisted of a handful of marshmallows, 2 cookies and a pop but I didn't know about these "issues" and dealt with them as soon as I sobered up (see, that's a joke.....or is it????)

I am generally a very happy person (or at least I think so, feel free to disagree....I dare you) and I use humor to cope with the stresses in my life. I am so very grateful for all of the fabulous people and things in my life.   I live a crazy, roller coaster of a life, and if I didn't joke around I seriously think my head would explode. If you are going to be a faithful reader of mine, you must be able to decipher the truth from the fiction.  Cause I'm not going to tell you, that just wouldn't be fair to all the other minions who have been paying attention. 

Good night and keep on reading.

Sit Jenn sit, good girl!

There are two questions which have pledged many great minds throughout human existence - which came first; the chicken or the egg? And can you teach an old dog new tricks?  Well the first is blatantly obvious - everyone knows that it is neither - all chickens are actually alien beings biding their time until their mother ship returns to take over the world. (actually: I think this t-shirt answers that question.) The second one, that's a little trickier.  On the one hand, yes you can eventually teach the old dog to roll over, but that is probably because the dog died of natural causes.  On the other hand, why would you want to teach an old dog new tricks.  Aren't they good enough the way they are now?  Does every dog really need to know how to pour a glass of pinot grigio? (That's a rhetorical question: of course they do, since social workers tend to label parents who train their children to do the same trick as "unfit" and "bad").  I know you're probably wondering when I'm actually going to talk about something of interest/importance, but I like to create an atmosphere of suspense for my readers, but your patience will be rewarded.......right.......now


As some of you may know, I recently started taking an introductory french class.  And because of this I've been spending a lot of time reflecting on the "old dog, new tricks" dilemma.  My classes are on Wednesday evening; during classes and shorty thereafter, I able to communicate perfectly with anyone who ONLY wants to know a) my name b) if I'm tired c) if I'm happy.  However, for some stupid reason, this new found linguistic knowledge is only able to remain in my brain for a matter of hours.  No matter what I do (listen to the course CD continuously, read the textbook repeatedly, stuff cotton balls in my ears) I cannot retain this language!  Which leads me back to the old dog-new tricks question.  Is there a point in one's life that language acquisition is nearly, if not completely impossible? 

Researchers theorize that the ability to acquire a new language is severely diminished around the age of 9. Actually I randomly picked that number cause I was too lazy to google it. But I do know that at some point during our short lives, our brain streamlines everything that's going on inside our noggins.  Whats working gets to stay, everything else is closed down.  That is why its so much easier for children to learn stuff. Nothing has been shut down; a child's brain is wide open - literally like a sponge. Language, technology, cool arm twisting tricks, whatever, it all just gets sucked right up and sticks!. Need proof? Just go ask any 9 year old how to google/text/download porn - and they'll be able to do with their eyes shut.  Its just the way our brains are designed. 

This desire of mine to learn French is stressing my brain out.  The little-tiny construction supervisors inside my cranium who naively thought the job of building my brain was complete are now scrambling to re-build the language connectors.   And I'm not kidding when I say that I can feel this process and it actually hurts.  Sure I was able to go back to university and graduate with honors, and sure all that educational mumble jumble was, at times, difficult to understand, but this french is whole other story. Whoever said that English was one of the hardest languages to learn obviously spoke French as their first language. 

But alas, it is getting easier.  I'm three classes in and I can now respond to some very basic questions which contain words which closely resemble English words.  "Tu est optimiste?" "Oui, je suis optimiste." "Tu est contente?" "Non, je ne suis pas contente" As the cobwebs and dust bunnies are slowly being evicted from my linguistic receptors, the french language is finally starting to take hold.  Now don't get me wrong, the whole masculine/feminine BS is still throwing me way off but its beginning to make sense....on paper.  Verbally, I'm not so sure.  I think the little construction men inside my brain have been too busy hooting and hollering at passing blood cells cause they're way behind schedule on the brain-vocal cords connecting highway.

Au revoir et bonne soirée.

Bad drivers, abandoned socks and other reasons why I drink

Disclaimer: This blog is nothing more than a vent about things that drive me crazy.  Well, actually thats what most of my blogs are about...soooo...disregard and carry on.

Top ten things rude and disrespectful people do that make me want to bang my head against a brick wall.

1) People who don't signal when driving.  There is really no excuse for blatant act of laziness.  I mean, come on, flicking your signal on takes all of about .5 seconds and only requires the use of one limb! AND the car turns it off for you!  No excuse! Get er done!

1a) People who don't turn their signal OFF.  Its like Chinese water torture!  Doesn't the clicking sound drive you crazy?  Don't you notice the evil glares you are getting from other drivers (read: me)? TURN OFF YOUR SIGNAL!

2) Opened mouthed gum chewers.  If I wanted to see a cow chewing on cud, I'd head down to the local farm or zoo.  Its rude and disgusting - close your mouth

3) Those who use the express lane (8 items or less) at the grocery store when purchasing a cart full of food.  Even if its 23 small items, you are clearly breaking the rules.  Pack up your honey nut cheerios, juice boxes, Uncle Ben's rice packets and royal gala apples and move over to a non-express lane.

4) People, who are in front of me at the grocery store and see that I'm attempting to balance (in my arms) 3 bags of milk, 2 boxes of cookies, ice cream and a club size box of KD (the 4 basic food groups in my house) AND still don't move out of the way so I can place my stuff on the conveyor belt.  Closely linked to this pet peeve is people who don't place the divider thingy on the conveyor belt to separate their crap from mine.  Grrrrr (as you may have noticed, I'm not a huge fan of grocery store and their patrons - I food shop on Fridays, just in case you're interested and want to stay away)

5) Teenagers.  Self explanatory, no need to expand

6) People who use the drive through at Tim Hortons to order the entire office's morning coffee.  If you are ordering more than 2 coffees, and its 7:15 in the morning, get your butt out of your car, walk inside and bug the people in there.  I gotta go, and don't have time to watch and wait for you to figure out who ordered the double-double and who ordered the 1 milk, 2 sugars.  MOVE IT!

7) Mac computers.  Ok, so isn't a person pet peeve but it still bugs me.  We bought a mac a few weeks ago and when we first brought it home, I thought I was in love.  But I was so very wrong - it turned out to be nothing more than a steamy one night stand with a person who I thought looked like Zac Efron at the bar but in the morning discovered that they were actually Chaz Bono's twin (crap, I've said too much.  In my defence, the lights were low, I had had one too many and my friends had all left.  Crap, too much again.  I'll shut up now)   The mac keyboard is tiny, the operating system is so simple its annoying and I can't play solitaire on it.  I want my rock-grinder of a lap top back!

8) Children (I won't name names, but they come in sizes large, medium and small and all smell like a mixture of hot dogs, grass and hockey bags) who leave their dirty socks all over the freakin place.  When I get home after a long day, I love to strip down and get comfy.  But if I take any clothing off, I put it either in the hamper or folded on my side of the closet.  The unnamed children however leave them......

here....

here.....

and even here......(don't worry, I'm a big fan of disinfectant sprays)

They need to start putting their socks in the hamper or they'll find them here.....

9) People who drive at or below the speed limit.  Now, I know that in certain parts of the world, people respect and obey speed limit signs.  But up here in the land of maple syrup and free health care, we generally take them a suggested speed. For example, if the signs says 50 km/hr, we all know that really means to do 60 km/hr (thats if you don't a ticket, 70 km/hr if you're feeling lucky).  So when I get stuck behind some inexperienced, safety conscience driver who almost anyways drives in the left lane (which we all know is for those feeling lucky), I want to pull my hair out.  Inevidentably this person will drive like Miss Daisy is in the backseat until a light turns yellow and then all of a sudden they morph into Mario Andretti, leaving me in their dust and at the red light.  They really need to include a manners component on the drivers exam - there'd be a lot less drivers on the road if they did!

10) I saved the best for last.  The rudest and most disgusting thing that people do which drives me crazy is spit!  And spit on the sidewalk. And spit the biggest, nastiness hork which required a tremendous amount of noise and effort to expropriate from their nasal cavity.  SO GROSS!  Sorry fellas, you tend to be the biggest culprit in this crime of rudeness.  Why do you do it?  And did all the boys get pulled out of class during elementary school to go to a secret spitting 101 class?  Cause as far as I can tell, its the guys who do this.  Its very unattractive and unsanitary, so please for my sanity, hygiene and sensitive gag reflex, don't spit.  


Good bye people, I have a huge case- load of missing sock reports to get through. But I'd be interested to know if I'm the only one with these pet-peeves.  Do you have any others?  Please post them in the comment box and we can discuss.

The human condition

I've been working a lot lately; so much so I was considering saving some time and just sleeping on the stupid bus.  However, its cold and nasty outside. And I think there is probably some policy somewhere which frowns upon establishing residency on a school bus (heck, I'm not allowed to have a taped piece of paper on the bus so a folding bed would be a definite no-no).  But all this driving means that I've also been doing a lot of thinking and contemplating.  So while I'm not busy scanning people's garbage piles, I've been considering run of the mill, every day issues such as quantum physics, the disenfranchisement of certain ethnic minorities, the economic downturn...you know the usual! Yet, there is one issue that I've been spending a lot of time toying with and that is humans and how our unique "higher order" brain system actually makes us really, really stupid. And it was actually a field full of alpacas which lead me to this conclusion. Let me explain....

My current bus route takes me far north into God's country.  Actually, once you get to God's country, make a left, drive forever and just when you think you're about to fall off the edge of the earth, you'll be at my last bus stop.  And along the way, I pass a couple of alpaca farms.  At first glance this animals aren't that smart looking.  In fact, they looked kinda stoned.  But let me tell you, they've got it all figured out.  We humans think we're so much better than the rest of the animal kingdom.  So much so that we don't even consider ourselves to be part of that kingdom.  But stupid humans, we need to take a lesson from the alpacas, or almost any other herd-type animal for that matter. (I don't want the sheep and cows to feel left out)

First of all, I'm pretty sure that animals don't worry about what they look like or what the other animals think of them. It's a "take me as I am" mentality.  That's why we don't see mirrors or cosmetics on farms (although watching an alpaca putting on lipstick would be downright hilarious).  There are no perfumes to mask their odors or alpaca spas to get primped and polished.  And if an alpaca trips or farts, life goes on.  They don't blush, or run home thinking that their life is over cause the cute alpaca in the next field saw them fall and now they will never get a date for the alpaca prom. NO! The attitude is "yeah, I farted. Big freakin deal".  But not us humans, we spend so much time, money and heartache worrying about what others think.  And not even people we know and love.  I'm talking about complete strangers - people we probably won't ever see again.  When was the last time you went to the mall without any makeup or "nice" clothes (and by nice I mean clean, matching and not covered in unknown stains).  Never?  Why? Cause you want to look presentable and not crazy to all those strangers you'll pass. 

Secondly, alpacas don't spend one single millisecond considering how their offspring will turn out.  Nor do they compare their cria (baby alpaca) to other crias.  Animals feed their young, protect them from the elements and pass on the necessary survival skills, thats it!  Humans are probably the only species which spend countless hours worrying if they're good enough parents,if they child is meeting the appropriate milestones and if they're child is as smart as little Susie and Tommy down the street. And to let you in on a little secret, no one is ever as smart as Susie and Tommy.  In fact Susie and Tommy aren't as smart as Susie and Tommy; their mom is just lying about all their great achievements to make her feel better about her questionable parenting choices.  Never once will you hear an alpaca mother yell at her offspring to "get back into the barn right this second and clean your stall, cause if your father comes homes from the fields and see this mess, you will be grounded for an entire year!" Nope, not gonna hear it.  If its not related to the survival of the species, then alpacas just don't care. Plain and simple

While we're on the topic of offspring, if a teenage, hormonal alpaca were to ever talk back or question his/her parents, they'd probably get kicked in the head or at least the ass.  And no other alpaca is going to go "Oh my God, did you see how that mama alpaca just disciplined her own child!  I am so calling Alpaca protective services".  Nope, they think "stupid cria, totally deserved that ass-whooping for the way they just talked back".  But we all know that teenage alpacas are good girls and boys and would never ever talk back to their parents!

Finally, when alpacas grow up, they don't have issues. If nothing else separates us from the animal kingdom, its issues.  Humans have a lot of issues.  You're probably thinking "but Jenn, I had a wonderful childhood, full of loving and happy memories - I have no issues".  WRONG!  Every single one of us has an issue and if you think you don't, then you have issues with your issues.  And everyone wants to blame everyone else for their issues.  Drug addict? Blame your mother for not breastfeeding you long enough OR for breastfeeding you too long.  Complusive liar? Blame your father for being too overbearing, or for not being strict enough.  Douchebag? Blame your neighbour's uncle's sister-in-law.  Accept personal responsiblity? No way, no how. It's not the human way.

So come on people, lets stop acting so humanly and more like a bunch of alpacas.  Cause I've heard the hay is great and the fur coat is simply fabulous!