And what a hoopla it was

The Baby turned 13 last week – I know! – and had decided, quite some time ago, that turning 13 required a “bash” of the highest order.  I even offered her Black Friday cash in lieu of a party, but she didn’t bite.

So, a bash we did have. She hadn’t thought about much beyond who she wanted there and what she wanted to eat, so as we readied the invitations, we started to make decisions. In the end, although it was a combination of themes, I’m pretty sure a good time was had by all. The kids – all 16 of them, aged 12-14, seemed to really enjoy themselves. So here’s how we did it.

The party was held in the community room of a relative’s apartment building to accomodate the Baby’s friends and family members (I think the final tally was about 30). On the invitations, we asked guests to wear their fancy clothes a a masquerade mask.

We decorated the room in an array of purple, gold and silver. Purple and silver tablecloths, gold doilies with a floating tealight in a glass dish, and gold star ctable confetti. Silver and purple stars hung from the ceiling, and streamers and balloons rounded things out.

Dinner was buffet-style, simple penne and salad. And potato chips – lots and lots of potato chips. And cake, of course.

Stumped for entertainment beyond karaoke, we rented a Crown & Anchor Wheel and Blackjack mat from a nearby rental company. Each guest was given an equal number of poker chips to play with. No one was forced to play – they could also sing karaoke or just sit and loiter, the way teens do. But the kids really took to it – karaoke was quickly abandoned.

After about an hour of gaming, guests were directed to the Auction Table. I’d prepared 16 gift bags, all different sizes, with dollar store items and candy inside. However, the kids didn’t know what was inside the bags, so they were invited to use their “winnings” to “bid” on the bag of their choice.

Everyone opened the bag they’d “won” at the same time, to find that, in spite of shape and size the contents were all equal in value. Things like silly putty, light-up keychains, funky shoelaces, hand sanitizers (ah, the age of H1N1), Post-its, etc.

They really seemed to have a good time.The boys even wore ties, and only one kid didn’t have a mask.  There were adults present the whole time (someone had to run the Crown & Anchor) and the kids didn’t seem to mind. And it seems that kids are a little less rambunctious when they’re dressed up!

And now the Baby is 13!

Smiling on Saturday

Five things to smile about this Saturday:

1. I bumped into Mr. Brennan, who was one of the BEST teachers my kids ever encountered.
2. The sun was shining.
3. I had a marvelous three-hour nap.
4. I finally got the H1N1 shot, and didn’t have to wait in line for it.
5. It’s been six days since the dog peed in the house.

But I don’t NEED magenta

For about three days now, my printer has been warning me that I’m about to run out of magenta ink. This irks me on many levels.

The printer is one that, should any of the ink cartridges run dry, everything comes to a full and complete stop. Not like the old days, when, on the days when the black ink cartridge would run dry, I’d simply print everything in navy blue. No no – not in this era of technology so convenient it’s inconvenient.

Admittedly, I knew this when I bought the printer a few years back. And I knew the printer ran on not two but four ink cartridges – black, cyan, yellow and magenta. CMYK.  And I was assured that, generally, with average printing use, all three colour cartridges would run dry at roughly the same time, making it more sensible to purchase the rainbow pack than individuals.

They lied. I’ve replaced the Cyan three times this year, and this is the first magenta to go. And I just replaced the black three weeks ago, after having to wait to replace it until my income caught up with my outgo, and now I’m subject to printer stoppage again.

It’s maddening. Particularly since I don’t NEED magenta, not theoretically. Most of my printing is in black , and I even use the “fast normal” setting most of the time. I’m not an ink Nazi – if it needs printing it needs printing – but neither am I devil-may-care when it comes to wasting ink. I pace myself.

I could go months without NEEDING the colour magenta. Except for the fact that my printer won’t run without it. Unless someone smarter than me has figured out how to outsmart the printer.

Na-Not

It wouldn’t be November without a post about Nanowrimo – National Novel Writing Month for the unititated.

You may all thank me now for having spared you the will-I-or-won’t-I pre-Nano angst. All by myself, I decided, sometime in mid-October that “I will!” I started outlines. I brainstormed. I itched to sit down at the keyboard and begin pounding out pages of powerful prose that would some day, one day, become my next great novel.

My last great novel having been my Nano result of 2004. Or maybe 2005, I can’t remember what year it was. But oh! it was great, and I loved it so. I wrote it, then edited it, then shopped it. And shopped it and shopped it.

And stopped shopping before finding an agent or editor who thought it was as great as I did.

Nonetheless. Having tried – and failed – to “cheat” at Nano in a previous year, I was enthusiastically looking forward to 2009 being The Year I Wrote Another Book.

So last Sunday I sat down to write. I wrote approximately 300 words of the story I had thought I wanted to write, wrote another 400 words of a completely different story, and then realized I didn’t want to write that story either.

I had nuthin’.

And then the week went by, and although I did write a 2400 word recap for The Disney Blog and a 900 word proposal for a new publishing project, I did not write another novel-esque word at all, at all.

So, I decided, all by myself, that this year, I won’t. No, it’s not too late, yes, if I really wanted to I could do it, but the reality is…

I got nuthin’.

Not fiction, anyway, not this time.  And I don’t really want to after all.

So best luck to my best buds who are writing their hearts out and racking up the word count. I shall cheer you on from the sidelines and celebrate with you when you cross the finish line.

And P.S. – anyone wanting to comment on my “V” recap at The Disney Blog is heartily encouraged to do so. Comment there too, if you please – and watch for this week’s recap coming Wednesday!

Not Got Shot

It seems like every conversation this last week inevitably makes its way to one topic – H1N1 and the Vaccine, or lack of it. Heard and said repeatedly in the last seven days:

Did you get the shot?

Are you getting the shot?

Is there a clinic today? Where’s it at? Do you think the lines will be long?

Let’s hope the country is equipped to handle a pandemic – they seem awfully inept at dealing with a public vaccination effort. First, let’s impress upon everyone how dangerous this virus can be and urge them to get the shot. Then let’s make it nearly impossible for anyone to get it.

A small number of shots for large populations. Regional discretion on how the clinics are handled. A couple hours from here, they managed to vaccinate in the elementary schools. Here in our city, they haven’t managed to cover the health care workers. People are standing in line for hours not knowing if they’re going to be able to get the shot when they DO get to the head of the line. The high risk group definitions seem to change week to week – last week, our entire household was considered high risk. This week, only one of us is.

So, even though I, long-time believer in conspiracy theories, am willing to get the shot, I can’t. Not yet – and who knows when? Meanwhile, people have died, most are scared, and my hands have never been so clean in all my life.

Unbelievable.

 

Scary stuff

I’m almost ready to declare this the Halloween that wasn’t. My role in the hauntings and happenings seems to have been reduced (in part, by me) to purchasing the Halloween candy.

I didn’t dress up. I didn’t purchase, or carve, the pumpkin. I didn’t participate in the costuming of the Baby. I didn’t chaperone any trick-or-treaters and I didn’t sit on the porch and dole out the goodies.

I did, however, sit and fret quietly all day today until the Green Kangaroo, away at University, posted on her Facebook.  Always nice to know she has returned from the par-tay-ing safely.

The Baby opted to go door-to-door with her cousin across town, and TKATGATI sat on the porch swing with Her Boyfriend to dole out. The Dog barked and The Man shushed. I napped.

Thus endeth a chapter of parenting and I didn’t even see it coming. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. Halloween was never my “holiday” but I’m not thrilled with feeling irrelevant.

Seen on Saturday

Can we really blame advertising for our lack of critical thinking?

This could be a good thing – as long as there’s still a choice.

Since a doctor’s “note” is usually something illegible scrawled on a prescription pad, for which you pay an extra $25, it’s about time someone said something sensible.

On Labour Day weekend, I experienced bumper-to-bumper, no-one’s-moving traffic between Toronto and Oakville. Turns out, there’s a lot worse than that.

Pedestrian living

Life without a car continues without incident – and the bus ride today wasn’t so bad either. No cell phone talkers, no Sudoku-playing drivers, and it wasn’t raining. I am shocked at the sudoku thing – I can neither drive a bus NOR do I understand Sudoko, so while being mildly impressed at someone who can do both, I do think it a stretch to even think about doing them at the same time.

There have been four major car accidents locally in the past week, and that’s not including what I’m sure are numerous fender-benders that go unreported. It’s a week when, after perusing the daily headlines, I’m awfully glad to be “off-road.” There have been fatalities, which is tragic – there have also been stupidity-behind-the-wheel type things, like the inebriated driver that took out four parked cars and someone’s fence on an otherwise deserted street in the wee small hours.

Seriously people, don’t drink and drive. Not even a little bit. If not for your own sake, then for everyone else’s.

The only recent drawback to not driving was passing up the sale for bottled water, 99 cents for 12 bottles. I had other purchases, and just couldn’t face hauling water on foot as well.

Of course, it still hasn’t snowed yet, nor has the sporadic cold weather occurred when I needed to go somewhere, so stay tuned.

Just like starting over

I have never understood people who say, ‘Oh, I hardly ever check my email.” This past week, I’ve come to realize, more than ever, how much I relied on my email as an integral tool in the work that I do.

In addition to losing the phone # and addresses of professional contacts, I’ve also lost any sense of what was sent where, and when. And I’ve had to learn to write an email query all over again, having lost the convenient examples of past successes that I could merely copy and paste into a new message. I’ve lost subscription records and passwords. I’ve lost things that were sent TO me, things that needed to be followed up on or responded to. I’ve lost cherished “conversations” , leaving me no record of who I was or how far I’ve come.

It’s 2000 all over again.

So, it’s been a busy week. Anyone know the email format for Readers Digest Canada?

One foot in front of the other

It’s now been almost six weeks since I went car-less, and so far, it’s been pretty tolerable. Irony – I’ve had two weekend trips in excess of 400 km round-trip since then. Thank goodness for friends and their willingness to loan their car!

Walking has been okay, as has the bus, but of course, it hasn’t snowed yet. Nor have I been required to go anywhere in a nice autumn downpour.

Things I am noticing: I think things through a little more. I have fully embraced reusable shopping bags. And I’m much less prone to feeling like I have to rescue people. As in, “I have to go to…” and I’m not jumping up and saying “I can drive you!” ‘Cause I can’t. Also, I have no idea what the price of gas is on any given day.

Also, people need to not have cell phone conversations on the bus. The other day, Mannerless Maisie boarded the bus, sat down in the very front seat and proceeded to Make Calls. Call #1 was to someone she hadn’t seen in a while, what’s going on with you, yada yada. Oh, you’re coming over tomorrow? Sure, I’ll be home all day, HERE’S MY ADDRESS. Note: Woman was not talking in a hush hush voice. I hope Back Row Creep wasn’t noting her address with intentions to go and axe murder her tomorrow.

Call #2 was leaving a voice mail with someone, including the phrases, “you know who this is, let me tell you something, knock off the crap, stop trying to make trouble for me, leave me alone, I know where you live and if you don’t knock it off I’m going to come over there and THERE’S GOING TO BE TROUBLE.”

Also at a volume level of Top Of The Lungs.

A few more calls ensued, while I tried desperately to read my textbook and tune her out. Then Tactless Tess got on the bus already talking on HER cell phone. She sat across from Mannerless Maisie and I watched/listened to several minutes of She’s Making It Hard For Me To Hear So I’ll Talk Louder And Then She’ll talk Louder And Then I’ll Talk Louder complete with glares between them. Tactless Tess finally got up to switch to a seat further away still talking and between her purse, the phone squeezed between her ear and her shoulder and the potholes, she just about ended up in my lap.

This is rilly rilly starting to bug me. For crying out loud, don’t these people have homes where they can carry on their social conversations? Or books to read on the bus?

Oh, and thanks to the Two Chatterers, the driver didn’t hear the bell ding when I pulled the cord and I got dropped off two blocks past my stop. Although it might also have had something to do with the earbud trailing from his ear.

Irony: In my class earlier that day, we’d seen a presentation about summer work placement where the recruiter actually felt it necessary to remind people that when they do their phone interview with the company, they ought not to be in the bathtub or on the bus, etc.

But other than that, it’s been okay. I don’t feel trapped, isolated or stranded. And I have a snazzy new coat and scarf, and feel very urban.

My Green Kangaroo is home for the holiday weekend, and it’s great. School seems to be really working for her, and I’ve promised to add her to my blogroll when I get around to making one. Meanwhile, it’s 4:30 a.m. according to my computer clock, which means it’s midnight-thirty, and time to call it a day.