42% of Canadians Lack Basic Literacy Skills

Nearly HALF of us cannot read properly. HALF. That's huge. Specially for a first world country. I love to read so much that I cannot imagine living a life where the written word scares me or makes me uncomfortable. Growing up, I had shitty clothes, I didn't have a fancy bedroom set with a canopy bed like my friends did. I was jealous of that. But I never wanted for books. I had hundreds of books. Books I would devour until the wee hours with a flashlight under the covers, books I would read in the sun in my backyard, in the public library, at my school library, in my classroom, everywhere. I was constantly reading. If I had been allowed, I would have read at the dinner table. Reading infused my life with experiences I'll never had, let me live adventures, opened my eyes to a huge world of possibilities. To learn that nearly half of my fellow Canadians are missing out on this enriching experience makes me really, really sad.

Each year the !ndigo love of reading foundation gives grants of $40,000 to twenty schools across Canada to update the libraries of schools in need and fight illiteracy. Illiteracy to me is a form of poverty. Because, if you can't read, what are you going to do with your life? Your options are pretty limited. That we are failing generations of little Canadians by not providing them with the necessary tools to develop a love of reading makes me really, really sad. The !ndigo Foundation is giving libraries the tools they need to stay relevant to their students, to get students in those rooms filled with books, one of my most favourite places to be. Listening to the response from the Tillicum Community Annex when they were informed by the !ndigo rep that they'd won actually did make me cry a little bit. Must be getting soft in my age.

Today, I am thankful for the enriching qualities that books have added to my life. I am thankful that I can read. I am thankful that my 5-year old son can read and already shares my love of reading.

My Mother the Home Wrecker

That's right. You read that right. My fifty-two year old mother is a home wrecker. I learned all of this several weeks ago, and only now am I able to put it down in print, it disturbs me so. Ok, not really, I've mostly just been super busy and out of town and stuff. Anyways, here's the scoop: my mom came over for a visit a couple of weeks ago and dropped a bomb on me: she's been having an affair with a married man on and off for the past five years. Which means that she's been having an affair since she left my dad. I already know that she'd had an affair on my dad (she doesn't know that I know, but she'd given me enough hints that included events and dates that I was able to put it together myself), but I did not know that it was with a married man. This explains all of the cloak and dagger the past five years. Here I thought it was because he was a younger man (he is six years older than me), and she was purposefully keeping him from us because if he were to see me, it might drive the age factor home with him (I mean seriously, should he not be dating someone my age instead of my mother's?). Turns out all the secrecy was to ensure this cheating bastard's wedded bliss. Fucking hell.

My mom was suitably morose over the whole thing at least. She divulged that they tried to end it numerous times. She even moved away to try and make it easier for them to end things. And here I thought she'd moved to the same city as me to be closer to our family. Sigh. Anyways, time and distance changed nothing in the end. But apparently her crazy little tryst with the drunk had its desired affect and the cheater realized that my mom was moving on and made a decision, and chose her. So, he told his wife, left her, moved into a hotel until she can get all of her things out of their home, and then he and my mother are moving into said home. Which means that my mother will be moving back from whence she came. I'm not concerned about this. We see her no more than once a month anyways, so we'll see her less, but not a whole lot less.

Here's what I'm struggling with: my mother was so happy when she was telling me all of this. SO happy. I'm talking quite possibly happier than I have ever seen her in my adult life. We're talking walking on air, huge weight lifted from her shoulders happy. She was so happy that it was impossible not to be happy for her. I am happy for her. I honestly want her to be happy. Somebody once said (I can't remember who, but I'm sure they were wise) that you can't build your own happiness on someone else's misery, and that is exactly what my mother and the cheater intend to do. Apparently, despite "all the signs" this poor woman was completely in the dark about the affair, and when informed, became devastated. Not unlike how my own father reacted when my mother informed him she'd been miserable for the past decade and was leaving him. So, I want to be happy for her, but I have these reservations.

Second reservation: the cheater. This is the guy that has dicked my mother around for the past five years (granted, she's allowed it). They were together and he was making grandiose gestures of love and intent to marry (while still married), and then he would backpedal and my mother's heart would break and she would retreat into herself in a depression that nobody had any explanation for because we didn't know what the fuck was going on. But now she trusts him implicitly and is ready to quit her job (a union job with great benefits from which she is less than five years from earning an excellent pension), uproot herself and move to be with. The romantic in me wants to applaud the fact that true love is victorious here. But the more jaded pragmatist wants to bitch-slap the romantic.

I've learned that whatever cautionary words I may choose to share with her will be wholeheartedly ignored, so I know that there's not point in saying anything to that effect. I've told her that I'm happy that she is happy. And I've thanked her for finally being honest with me. Five years of my mother's furtive behaviour finally explained is nice to have, I admit. I do question my mother's judgement, sure, I mean really, her track record isn't great: a cheater followed by a drunk with a cheater redux. Not awesome at all. But she's all growed up, and I am her kid, not her parent.

So that's the latest and greatest with my mother. The home wrecker. Sigh.

I am grateful, though, that my mother is happy. I really and truly am. I hope that it lasts.

i wanna win a bubble beach bag

I discovered Jenny Mac via the lovely Vegetable Assassin. And I gotta say, there's something about those bubble beach bags that makes me want one. So here's a shout out to Jenny Mac and her musings and her let's have a cocktail blog.

These blogging ladies make me look pretty amateur with their pro websites and their proper english and grammar and shit, but hey, I don't mind.  I'm good with my amateur looking blog (truth be told, I have honestly considered paying someone to make me a prettier page, but I figure I ought to have more than one reader before I go all out or anything, know'm'sayn?).

If you like ladies who blog, you will also like The Redneck Mommy and Her Bad Mother.  I read these sassy ladies along with the Vegetable Assassin regularly and two things never fail:  they make me laugh out loud (that right, lolz goin' on, people) and they make me feel less alone, less like a freak for putting my thoughts out here on the interwebz for everyone who wants to see it.  Not that I advertise it, but ya know, it's there...

Ok, two things of thank today:

1. Heineken.  That's right.  Beer.  I'm thankful for beer.  It has been approximately 16 months since I was able to ingest one of these lovely green bottles of alcoholic nom.  Now that Brumby is sleeping the night, I can safely have a cocktail in the evening.

2. Tomorrow marks the return of True Blood to my television screen.  Ok, so the show may not half as good as the Sookie Stackhouse books, but it's still pretty damn good.  In particular, I am looking forward to some more screen time for Eric.  I am SO Team Eric.  Oh yeah.  I'm also looking forward to the introduction of Alcide to the show, and I'm very curious how his character will play out on the series.

And there you have it, the true nature of my geek has shown itself.  My geek comes out in vampire and werewolf fiction.  I loves it, I do, and I ain't ashamed to say it!

And now, the Brumby calls...

Patience...redux

I am thankful for patience. I don’t usually have much of it to speak of, but when I do, I certainly am happy to have it. Patience has come up as a theme for me in recent days. On Sunday I needed thirty minutes to myself. I knew Chuncho was going away on Tuesday, and that those thirty minutes were quite likely going to be the only minutes in the next 7 days that I’d get for only me. So, I went to the grocery store, got the few things that I needed from there and then splurged on a grande mocha from Starbuck’s. I don’t usually have mochas, but I needed one. My patience had been running short all day, and it continued to do so as I drove home. Twice I ran yellow lights and twice, the book I read when I’m waiting to pick Sweetman up from school came slamming out of its spot in the console, as if to say, “Hey lady, take it down a notch!” The book is “Buddhism for Mothers” and regardless of whether you are a Buddhist or not, it has some easy to read, straight forward, common sense advice for managing yourself and your life with children to promote, you got it, patience. And an overall sense of calm and well-being. A reminder to stop and savour the moment, and not always be so concerned with getting here or going there or what’s happening next. Be in the now. And be ok with the fact that yes, your kid may just have really pissed you off. So, tell him so. Acknowledge the emotion. “Sweetman, mummy feels really frustrated right now.” And in doing so, in acknowledging that emotion, just that recognition of it there – the frustration – hello, frustration, you make nasty bedfriends, it takes some of the wind out of the sails of the emotion. And that, right there, adds another dose of patience to my dwindling pile.

That, and everytime I respond to Sweetman that way, with the acknowledgement of the emotion, without freaking out, without yelling, without grinding my teeth down to little calcified nubs, I am teaching myself to respond that way next time. I’m slowly but surely beating down a mental path of responding by acknowledging the emotion without letting it own me. And, I think that’s fairly powerful. If I can own the emotion, recognize the emotion, feel the emotion but don’t give in to the emotion. This is pretty huge for me.

And then, patience strikes again on Tuesday. Different kind of patience this time.




I can't remember the last time I listened to this song, but it was playing in the grocery store on Tuesday, and lo and behold, I still remember all the words.  I hope that you appreciate that I visited youtube to find this video. I mostly can't handle youtube because I can't NOT read the comments posted on all the videos even though I think you have to have a prerequisite IQ of 12 to post comments on youtube.  The asinine inflammatory nature of the majority of these comments grates me.  The remainder are wholly uninterpretable.

So, that was patience, the second part this week.

Patience, part three, struck only minutes ago when I was wondering when "The Crazies" is going to come out on DVD.

Because I am really, really looking forward to this movie, and it seems to be taking nine years to come out.  Yes, nine years.  Did I mention that this post is about patience and my lack of it?!  Anyways, I went to www.rogersvideo.ca in the hopes that it would be listed as a new release, but no dice.  It appears as though I must carry on with this patience business until June 29th.  Frempf!  In any case, another good reminder of this path to patience that I am on.

This Child is My Warrant

We watched "The Road" with Viggo Mortensen last night. It was heavy. I mean HEAV-Y. Very well-told story, beautifully played out, but really, really heavy. But even Chuncho could not deny the beauty of the story. It's not going to make you feel good. Not at all. In fact, there were numerous times that I was YELLING at the screen for various reasons. There are parts that will horrify you. The inhumanities people will do to each other in desperate times were very well highlighted in this movie. But mostly, it was just sad. Sad in a tragic way that you want this father and son to succeed, you want them to reach the promised land of the coast and find food and animals and shelter and humanity still in tact.

I used to be able to watch these movies and just say, "Shit man, that would suck balls." But now, when I watch these post-apocalyptic movies, all I can think about is what we would do and how we would survive and keep our kids safe. It sort of makes watching these movies a little bit stressful. And it always reminds me how fucked we would be if we didn't have Chuncho. I don't even know how to shoot a freaking gun. And rest assured, when the apocalypse comes (and I do hope that it DOESN'T come, and I do hope that this is just my paranoia coming out) there won't be time enough for rifle training.

A quote from the movie struck a chord in me. "This child is my warrant. If he is not the word of God, God never spoke."

That quote makes me want to read the book. But I'm fairly certain that if the movie was that heavy, that the book will be even heavier. I mean, jeez, on the cover of the book it says "a work of such terrible beauty, you will struggle to look away." That pretty much sums up how I felt about the movie, too. Terrible beauty.

Is terrible beauty something to be thankful for? I think so. In the way that it makes me thankful for things like sitting here, on my butt in front of my laptop with me tea beside me, my Brumby babbling happily in his exersaucer, with the freedom to write about terrible beauty. I'm not endlessly migrating through a post-apocalyptic world where cannibals want to rape and then eat me. I'm not hoping for a single cricket for my next meal, hoping for decent shelter to lay my head tonight. I'm sitting here, comfy in my yoga pants (aka sittin' on the couch pants), belly full of bagel with sour cherry-kiwi jam, warm and dry and happy. Thankful. And mostly unprepared for any kind of apocalyptic activity.

I am thankful for phlegm

No seriously, I am.  Totally.  Phlegm is awesome.  It lets you know you’re alive.  At this point, I’d like to thank the fine people at Puffs for saving my nose skin.  That shit might leave a weird greasy feeling on my face, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative.  The alternative being raw hamburger nostrils.  Youch. 

Tongue-in-cheek aside, I’m gonna put a shout out to magical boobah juice in the hopes that it keeps little Brumby from getting the same extent of illness that I managed to procure two nights ago.  It hit me like a ton of bricks on Tuesday night.  Out of nowhere, I became a phlegm factory.  By the time I went to bed, my tonsils felt as big as grapefruits.  Fast forward to the next morning where I assumed the magnificent and lovely visage of Miss Death Warmed Over.  By last night little Brumby was coughing, and today he’s got a runny nose, too.  But, he’s still in good spirits, after having had a 12-hour sleep last night.  Go-go-gadget-boobah-juice-antibodies!!  Hopefully they keep up the good work, and he doesn’t get to the point where he feels like I did yesterday.  Cuz that pretty much sucked balls.

Patience

I know that I'm supposed to be focussing on the positive and being all sweetness and light and grateful and thankful, and I'll get to that…but first, I need to bitch and moan and make myself feel better.

Yesterday my eldest child broke a window. On purpose. Yep. Wilful destruction of property. Luckily said property was ours, but still. He broke a window simply to see if he could. Oh, and "to let some fresh air in". I was so flabbergasted, and still kind of am, that I'm still unsure as to appropriate consequences. Chuncho was gone until the wee hours, but luckily G$ is here, and he took care of cleaning up all the glass and boarding up the window.

So, was this just one of those things – he needed to test the boundaries of physics just to see? Is it a sign of violent tendencies to come? How uptight ought I to be about this little turn of events?

I haven't fully sussed out the consequences yet, but here is what he already knows: no tv, computer games or wii for at least the rest of this week. No dessert or treats for the rest of this week. Chuncho and I need to sit down and decide the sum total of the consequences, but here's what I've been tossing around:

According to the internets, average replacement cost of a window that size is $300. So, I'm thinking of doing up a schedule of extra chores (over and above his usual clean his room, put away his laundry, dishes challenges) that are worth $ towards replacement of the window. So, say vacuuming the living room would earn $5. Cleaning the bathroom would earn $10. And so on and so forth. So, he has no tv, no computer games, or wii until he has done enough extra chores to pay off the cost of the window. Is that too harsh for a 5-year old? Fuck, sometimes I'd like a manual please.

Add to that this morning when, first thing I hear out of bed, pre-tea (and tea is one of the things I am grateful for, don't let me forget to tell you about it), he's using this horrid noisemaker thing that one of his grandparents gave him (because they hate me, obviously), so I ask him to stop because it is too loud for this early in the morning (especially pre-tea!). So, he goes into his room and puts it away. Next thing I know, he's got his maracas (again, a gift from the grandparents) out, and he's shaking them like nobody's business. By this time, I'm sure I'm shooting daggers out of my eyeballs, but I am trying desperately to stay calm, not get mad, not yell, and practice Cesar Millan's calm assertiveness. I figure if it works for dogs, maybe it can work for kids too. And it's definitely in everyone's best interest to remain as calm as possible. Last, but certainly not least, I hear the little bugger playing his freaking recorder (this one a gift from my aunt…obviously my family is out to drive me insane). At this point in time, I put out an all points bulletin to all of my facebook friends in search of some patience. While I may not have found any, I did find some solace in knowing that my friends often find themselves in short supply of this important resource, too, and that I am not alone.

Ok, big sigh out. Complaining finished.

Two things of note to be thankful for:

1. Double bergamot earl grey tea – yum! My favourite part about earl grey tea, and now more of it in a single tea bag! Thank-you kind people at Stash!
   

   
    

2. And this is a biggee – SLEEP! I have been sleep training the Brumby in his own crib, and after nearly two weeks, I think it is paying off. For the past three nights, he has slept on his own for no less than 10 hours straight! There have been a few wake up and fuss for a minute or two interludes, but overall, it's going very well. The pain and suffering of last week seems to be paying off, knock on wood. The actual going to sleep process seems to be getting easier as well. Last night when I put him to bed, he just went to sleep. No crying, no fussing, just the recognition of the fact that he was tired, and the tools in place to help himself to fall asleep on his own! Now that is definitely something to be thankful for! A baby that can fall asleep on his own and stay asleep all night. Sweetman didn't sleep the night till he was well over two years old.
   

   
    

And, in celebration of successful sleep training, I am going out tonight to a fundraiser for the SPCA will my friend Blackie. It is a tacky animal art silent auction. I hope to return home with at least one item that will make Chuncho roll his eyes.