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Creativity.... Own It

To all my crafty, artsy friends out there:

Look, I can do it, too.

I know, this isn't me but, I was there and helping.  So, now I am qualified to give this tutorial on How to Silk Screen a T-Shirt.

1. After someone else (Taryn, for example) has made a funky design and made it into a thing in a wooden frame to push paint through (probably called a silk screen, not sure) and has mixed the paint that she brought home from school and has washed and dried the t-shirts and has laid them out and has put paint on the screen and has the squeegee in position....  pull the squeegee to the other side of the box.
2. Yay, Me!

This is what I made.

Remember

On....What We Post.

My best-friend-from-grade-5-Laurie has her own blog and I have learned in the past few days that one should be brutally aware of what one types on her blog.  Especially when it concerns what a whiny-ass, intolerable, life-sucking baby her husband is when he is sick.

Laurie was slightly overwhelmed with an upcoming school band trip for her 14-year-old daughter's Catholic school in which she was to be responsible for protecting the virginity of at least 20 other 14-year-old Catholic school girls.  She already feels like she is going to be struck by lightning every time she walks through the esteemed, judgemental halls of her daughter's school and felt that, although she was volunteering for kicks and chuckles, all of the eyes of the good parents would be upon her.

Now, the added stressor; her husband gets sick a couple of days before she is to leave.  Not just a little:  puking, rolling, panting, moaning, sweating, begging, needy sick.  Laurie has two thoughts; "I need sleep and he better not give whatever he has to me."  And she expressed this explicitly in her blog and, most certainly, to him.

She rides a bus with 52 teenagers for 15 hours to get to the great city of Vancouver, where I happen to be for work.  We have a great couple of days touring and shopping "away from it all" but, alas, the husband is still sick.  Men, seriously!

Here's the punchline; he is really sick!  She calls me at 1 am to tell me that she is catching the next flight home because her husband is in the hospital awaiting surgery for a bowel obstruction.

He's full of shit!  Sorry, it had to be said.

I can only imagine the rollercoaster of guilt and worried emotions that the 2 hour flight had in store for her.  But, my friend is resilient.  What a trooper!  By time I phoned her to check on them the following afternoon, she was just leaving the hospital room telling me that she had to get out of there because whatever that shit was that they were suctioning out of his gut, was really gross.

He's fine, she's great and all previously intact virtue is still intact, or so it is assumed.  And, I will make one more phone call to her to make sure that no one has died before I push the post button.

Oh....The Trauma

I know it has been a while.  I have been a little afraid of the internet lately, I think I'm better.  Let me take you back a few days.

I was having a happy morning; the kids had gone to school, the dogs were having their third nap of the day (the mid-morning nap), I was enjoying a particularly strong latte and trying to think up the lies that I would tell my nutritionist.  And, of course, checking my email.

A "friend", we will call her Cruella deVille, sent me this cute fun little link; www.myheritage.com "Find the Celebrity in You".  At this site, you upload a photo of yourself and it tells you which celebrities you resemble based on facial recognition technology.

Well, the first photo I uploaded went well.  I run the risk of being mobbed by the fanatic autograph seekers of Sandra Bullock and Jessica Alba and a few lesser known celebrities of obvious Asian descent (???).  The sun was in my eyes.

Then, as I continue scrolling through the pictures of my co-beauties and feel my ego growing, up pops a picture of Quentin Tarantino!  I bear a slight (but mentioned) resemblance to Quentin Tarantino!  He is not an attractive man; and he's a man.  Now, if this program was finding similarities in brilliance and creativity, this would be fine.  Looks, not so much.  I immediately closed my laptop, pushed my chair back and stared at the computer that was once my ally as though it was a basket containing a snake that I wasn't sure how to dispose of.  Then, to the mirror to check out my hairline and the profile of my nose; ego right back down there where it belongs.

I Love My Mom I Love My Mom I Love My Mom

I am 40 years old and my mother does NOT have dementia.

This is a revisiting of a story that many have heard but I feel a need to repeat because of the incredulity of the events.

A couple of years ago, I was living in Belleville, Ontario and working as a paramedic for the region. Nice place; population around 50,000 (not 25; important to remember as this unfortunate chain of events unfolds). My mother was visiting her sister in Montreal and rode the train to Belleville.  She knew that on the day of her arrival, I was working a day shift; MAY have been off on time to pick her up. The kids are at home.

Taxi ride $7.

She knew the door lock code.

She knew where I lived.

She knew the home phone number (where the kids were).

She knew my cell phone number.

She got off the train and I was not there.

Now, take a moment and think what you would do if faced with the same circumstances….

Would you perhaps…..CALL THE POLICE??

I am having chest pain right now just reliving this. I need a moment.

OK, so, as I am dropping off a patient at the hospital in the next town over, Napanee (yes, home town of Avril Lavigne), the triage nurse tells us to call our dispatcher. My partner phones, giggles (bitch, like she doesn’t have relatives), and says to me…. “It’s for you; your Mom is trying to find you.” You know that feeling when so much blood has rushed to your face that you’re fairly certain that there is none left in your legs? Yes, that was me.

Wait! It gets worse. My dispatcher goes on to tell me that they received a phone call from the Belleville Police Service who received a phone call from Mom explaining that I was supposed to pick her up at the train station and, didn’t. Since I worked so closely with the police, did they know where I was? And, that she was still waiting at the train station for me 2 hours later. And, could they please tell me that she would continue to wait. It was at this exact moment that I came to the realization that we would have to move again.

I arrived at the train station to see my Mom loading her suitcases into a VIA rail employee’s car; this poor, slight, scared-looking girl who, I am certain, had been feeling emotions that she had never felt before; some combination of fear, good samaritan-ship, and desperate hope to be able to see her family again. It’s not that my Mom comes across as a terrorist or anything. She actually seems nice enough to make you feel that you should trust her but there is that small, nagging voice in the back of your soul that says, RUN.

So, after I load my Mom’s suitcases and listen to the screeching tires of VIA rail girl making her escape, I say, as calmly as I can muster, “What the hell were you thinking?”

Her reply; “It’s not like I called 9-1-1; I called the police department’s non-emergency line…. twice. They were very nice.”

They always try to keep your kind calm.

Never has there been an admission of wrong-doing.

I now live in BC.