Just a Friendly Reminder

I'm not here any more, I've moved.

www.mrsspit.ca

Make sure you change your bookmarks and your blog readers.

Come Saturday, I won't update at all here anymore.

Stop on by, the coffee's on.

Turn Me On

Remember, I'm not here any more. I've moved to

www.mrsspit.ca

Come and join me there, making sure you update your bookmarks and re-direct your readers. Also, if you are so inclined, it would be great if you could be my friend!

*********

This is the man that I am married to.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love him, I adore him, and I will stand by my statement: Marrying Mr. Spit was, by far, the smartest thing I ever did.

But, this man.

He likes his consumer electronics. Well, I do too, but he really likes them. As in – ask if he wants to be alone, get nervous – like.

Which means that we have to get new stuff. Especially new AV stuff. A lot. With alarming frequency.

Let me explain my relationship to TV this way: When we were first married, we had cable so that I could watch West Wing. The problem with our cable was that you had to pay them by cheque. I had to write a cheque and mail it every month. And you know how likely that was to happen. (If you manage to write a cheque for something every month, be quiet. You make the rest of us feel bad)

They shut my cable off. They shut my cable off in August. I noticed, just before the season premiere of West Wing, in November. . .

This time last year, the mister announced that we were buying a new, ginormous, whizz-bang TV. It would have Acronyms! and Ports! and Buttons! and Screens! and Sizing Options! It was large and black and shiny, and came in a huge box that I had to help carry, and get this readers, it was $700! For a TV. To replace a TV that already worked! Then we had to buy Cables! and an UpConverter! and a Remote! And West Wing is off the air, so I don’t care!

So, we bought the TV. And a new DVD. And there were boxes! There are 5 boxes, with blinking lights under this TV! It’s like a runway. Frankly, I’ve seen server racks running entire corporations with have fewer lights.

The modem downstairs has something to do with the television. And when my dadgum phone rings, the TV tells me who is calling!

Readers, do any of you remember how you used to know who was calling you? You picked up the phone! And you said Hello! And someone said “It’s your mother”. (Or the Cable Company). And what the heck does your phone and TV have to do with each other anyway?

But all of that matters not, because I couldn’t turn it on. No, I’m not kidding. I paid for the TV. The DVD, the buttons, the cables, the acronyms, and all of those cables back there (I’ve seen better organized spaghetti in a colander). Every month, I watched money leave my account to pay for acronyms, and to have my TV tell me who was calling.

Or rather, that’s would would have happened, but I couldn’t turn the TV on.

I must protest. I have a University Degree. I did some really freaking hard economics. I can talk about hegemonic stability theory. I know from a priori evil, but I can’t turn my TV on. Do you know how to feel stupid? Be unable to turn your TV on, when a 5 year old can.

You pick up the remote and wave it around. It asks you what you want to do. No really, it asks. You tell it “Watch TV”. It goes through screens, while I sit in my chair, yelling. No, not that. No, not that either. I pay how much for static? Not the play station screen with the folding proteins. The play station screen is purgatory. I hit random buttons for random time, and then the gods of videogaming will grudgingly let me out. Maybe.

This process, which takes me 15 minutes, well it works. Oh, not well. But, eventually.

So, what does Mr. Spit do to celebrate this new-found achievement of mine? Ahh, yes.

He gets a new remote.

New Digs

Mrs. Spit is moving. . .

She has her very own domain name.

www.mrsspit.ca

I'll cross post until January 2, 2010, and then this blog will be completely re-directed to the new domain.

I've already shut off the comments here.

It's been a pleasure knowing you here, and I hope that you'll join me in my new home. Everything is moved in, and I'm unpacked enough to know where the coffee pot is.

If you go. . .

To mrsspit.ca

You will see that it is "parked"

Which is fancy-pants internet talk for:

"Mrs. Spit owns this website, but she only got it yesterday, for Christmas, and she hasn't at all set it up yet."

But, ahh. I am a website owner.

Happy Geek-mas.

(Why yes, if you have information about web hosting that you would like to share, I'd love to hear from you!)

The Wreath

Perhaps I should tell you that I was young, very young. Barely 23? At any rate, I was young and image mattered a great deal, far too much. The very notion that we had so little money for Christmas, and that there would not be days of celebration was not at all in keeping with what I wanted, wished or imagined. A limit of $30 each was not how I imagined our first Christmas together.

Christmas Eve came, and we decided to open our presents. I cannot recall what I bought for Mr. Spit, but he gave me this parcel, wrapped with care, and he was so happy. Love was shinning out of his eyes, he was pleased.

All good stories have a bit of drama. This one too.

It seems to me, that marital gift buying is 2 parts knowing your partner, 2 parts having a wish list, and 1.75 parts sheer dumb luck. We have found that you even the score with the wish list.

And while I'm confessing, I should tell you that Mr. Spit found my love of Christmas bewildering. Christmas is an entire season for me, with boxes of decorations, and 2 trees. A wreath for every door. Every surface that will stand still has garland. Ornaments from my childhood.

For the record, Christmas at Mr. Spit's meant going out to the garage, hauling the tree in, pulling off the sheet that covered it, standing it up, fluffing up the homemade popcorn chains, and shoving the presents under it. On Boxing Day, you covered the tree back up, and took it back out to the garage. Not what you might call a big deal.

We had, you might say, slightly different expectations and slightly divergent experiences on this whole Christmas thing. Which came crashing together that night.

My gift was before the wish list.

I opened my present. It was, well, I took a picture for you.

Yeah. Not what I was expecting either. I guess my face showed it. That look of love and excitement on his face? Oh yeah, it was gone.

And we could all argue, what woman wouldn't be overcome with a crocheted wreath? With crocheted roses! And hangy bits of ribbon!

It probably didn't help when my mum came asked who on earth gave us that ugly wreath. The tacky, tasteless wreath I hung over my couch! Mr. Spit came entered the living room in time to hear me commenting that it was the worst gift I'd ever received.

We had words over the wreath: hard words, mad words, difficult words, sad words, and finally, understanding words.

It turns out, Mr. Spit bought the wreath because he knew how much I loved Christmas. He wanted to give me a decoration, because he knew I liked decorating. A wreath didn't seem to be such a stretch for a woman who already had 5. He bought the gift with me in mind, and he bought it with love, negotiating a lower price from the lady who made it. He didn't buy the first thing he saw, he looked and he thought. He bought it with love and care and delight, thinking he was going to make his brand-new bride so happy.

My mum and I were sitting on the couch the other night, chatting after dinner. She looked at the wreath, hung in it's traditional place behind the Christmas tree, and she smiled and said "It's still ugly."

"Oh, I don't know", I replied. "Almost 10 years later it kind of grows on you."

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas.

Words of My Mother

My mother always taught me to be polite and not make waves. She also taught me to never, ever be rude or crass. These 2 things are warring in my head. I'm fuming. I tried to ignore it, but frankly, I'm mad as hell. I'm not willing to stay silent. Someone needs to speak up.

Someone should be celebrating her second daughter's birthday, and instead she's remembering that her daughter couldn't stay. And another blogger posted, wonderfully about this. Which is a good and kind thing, to remember together.

When your best friend's husband leaves her and the kids for his 19 year old secretary, you don't rave about the lingerie your husband bought you for your birthday.

When your SIL's mother has died, you don't phone on the anniversary of her death and talk about your mother.

And when someone's child has died, you don't comment that you'll kiss your own kids because you are so sad. That's rude. More than rude, it's actually mean. Cruel. Thoughtless.

It's all of those things because you are making the situation about you, and not about the hurting person. It's mean because you are being selfish. It's inappropriate to respond to someone's grief with your joy.

There are appropriate words for this situation. Two of them.

I'm sorry.

You could go a step further. You could add 4 more words.

I'm thinking of you.

And if you can't figure out how to be nice, how to be polite, how not to make a bad situation about you, shut the hell up.

I mean it, muzzle it.

Book Me

Ahem. . .

This has post has been kicking around, for, well awhile. But, I was doing some Christmas baking, and my mum came for coffee, and now it's late and my teeth really hurt and I don't have a post for today. So, consider this a burst of summer memories, in a wintry moment, would you?

*******************
Slate has Obama's summer reading list up. Now, it seems to me, but asking to see someone's reading list, especially a summer one, is like asking: boxers or briefs.

It's a fundamentally personal question that gets given all sorts of meanings that aren't necessarily true, and more than that, no one is going to answer really honestly anyway.

You may have noticed that I'm a book person. Not just a reader, but a book lover. A reader reads, a book lover enjoys everything about books. A book lover goes to books first. A book lover buys books for the sake of having them.

I'm not sure that it matters, but I haven't watched television in at least 6 months. (I think the last show was a Discovery production about King Tut. Egyptology is a secret love of mine). The last television series I watched was the West Wing, which went off the air in 2006 (Oh, how I miss thee Toby).

And about the only thing that might tell you, knowing that I don't watch TV and I read obsessively, is that much like anything else, there are some books I will cop to reading, and there are some that I won't. You can go and look at any book lovers list. They will effectively have 2 piles. The living room pile (Wayson Choy's Not Yet, Julie and Julia, A Prairie Mennonite Woman's history, The Book of Negro's and a re-read of Mansfield Park).

Ahh, by my bed. Yes, well. If you really want to know what a book lover reads, check out beside their bed. Next to the loo. In their home study. Those books are in helter skelter piles. Some books stay in the pile for a long time. You can see what books I've been trying to read for a year (Late Nights on Air, by Elizabeth Hayes) and more. I've been buying book series. Much the same way that people buy television series, but possibly more pulpy. There you'll find Elizabeth Peter's - both her Amelia Peabody and her Vicky Bliss books. You'll find the Aunt Dimity books, and an Ian Rankin Novel. I've got The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (and I'm not sure what the heck happened here - I sat up until 1:30 am reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

And so I feel for your President. I'd die if my list got publicized. I really would.

Sometimes a book is just a book.

Solstice

I have never celebrated the Solstice in any sort of formal way. I am a Christian, and that means that my meaning for this time of year is different, and the solstice, while forming the impetus for choosing this time of year to celebrate, is very much subsumed in Christmas.

The first year, the year we buried Gabe, I was content to do so in the dark. Last year, I lived in the middle, and this year, I chose to live for tomorrow, and not yesterday.

Part of that living has meaning in finding the parts of life, the parts of the world that we interact with, that balance, precariously. It has meaning in finding the parts on the edge, the parts where the margins are thin. It is almost possible that pragmatic me is becoming more mystical. (But only almost).

I understand that there are parts of the world where the lines between heaven and earth, death and resurrection, birth and sacrifice are thinner. Yesterday was one of those days.

I had hoped to be more cheerful yesterday, to have, using my new word, more equanimity. I didn't do as well as I had hoped, but on a day that for me at least, marks an end to the year, I am content to leave that in the past.

I am content to focus on time with friends, and egg nog latte and an engaging discussion about a book. I'm content to focus on shopping for Christmas dinner, eating dinner with Mr. Spit, and the joy of curling up under a flannel duvet cover, after a hot bath with bubbles.

I am content to recognize the very purpose of margins, of edges. They divide. This from that, past from present, and yes, bitter from sweet.

To gently whisper, alleluia.

Acknowledge We Pray

Gabriel's funeral was 2 years ago today. It is hard to believe that I have come this far, that this much time has passed, that he has been gone for so very long. I remember this day not with sorrow, but rather joy at the promise of the resurrection. I remember tears that last for a moment, and eternity forever. If I struggle with anything, it was a death so close to a birth. It is hard to reconcile the death of your child at a time in the year that we celebrate the birth of the Messiah. It is hard to bury your son on the shortest day of the year, it is strange to recognize that this is the turning point in the year. Darkness before, and light again.

I went to the U of A Chaplain's Festival of Lessons and Carols, which was, as always, spectacular. I have heard the text many times: the prayers and the lessons don't change from year to year. This year, for the first time, I heard, really heard, part of the bidding prayer.

The church, or rather the people who make her, are so often unkind to the grieving, especially those grieving children. We are the forgotten, the left behind, and in a church desperate to increase membership through birth rate, we are the unwelcome and the unworthy. We don't fit in, and so often churches aren't a place of care and concern for us.

There was such comfort, to find in the words of the liturgy, space enough for me.
: :
Lastly let us remember before God all those who rejoice with
us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude
which no man can number, whose hope was in the
Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we for
evermore are one.

Bidding Prayer, Festival of 9 Lessons and Carols.

The Winnah. . .

Ladies and Gentlemen:

By an almost country mile, the winner is:

Gidget!

Saturday Quotes

Contrary to popular notion, truck drivers know nothing about good restaurants. If you want a reliable tip, drive into a town, go to the nearest appliance store and seek out the dishwasher repair man. He spends a lot of time in restaurant kitchens and usually has strong opinions about them.

Bryan Miller

Running

I haven't talked about why I started to run again, not really. I jokingly (and on nights like tonight, not so jokingly) say that my goal for running is not to die.

No, I'm not trying to live longer, I'm trying to not die while running. So far, I have succeeded. But, really, every time is a new adventure. I'm, dare I say it, getting a bit into this. Oh, I don't like it much, and the first 2 intervals are very, very close to hell, but, slowly, I'm getting there. I only sort of hate it.

Every time I finish a run, I post that I didn't die on Facebook. Several friends, including blogger friends, tell me that they are proud of me, and believe you me, I'm thankful. I'm still very slow, very out of shape, and desperately worried I will be the last person to finish the 5K race in March.

But the dying thing.

I quit smoking, for good, 3 weeks after Anna died - that was June 1. I took up running 6 months after - the start of November. I won't lie. I sat in my back yard, a week or so after her death, and I realized:

Anna was 36. Just 36. I am 31. We were not so far apart in age. We shared a medical condition, and we were both obese. I sat in my back yard, and with my breath catching in my throat, I realized that we are very alike.

I quit smoking. I tell people a shortened version of the truth - I tell them that I realized that I was then 30, and if I didn't quit then, I would smoke for the rest of my life, and I didn't want to do that. Mostly, I quit smoking because Anna died.

I started running at the start of November, because I need to lose weight. I need weight bearing exercise that increases my heart rate. I can't pretend, I can ignore, I can't deny. I need to be more healthy.

Part of running the St. Patrick's day race is to give myself a goal. I'm a goal kind of person. I like goals, knowing where I want to end up. I suspect I'll run more in the summer.

But also, as I have been thinking for the last few weeks, Anna's baby was due in 15 days. Anna's baby that she tried to conceive for 3 years. I think for most people, Anna's death overshadowed the death of her child. I understand. But I didn't get to go to a birth, I went to a funeral instead.

So, I am running for me, because I'm older, because I need to make some changes. But March?

March is for my friend, and her child. March is for those who finished their race, before I ever began.

Name Game

Warning. . .

There's a Poll.

Could you click to open the post, so that you can participate in the poll?

Yes, that means you. Even if you just lurk.

The iPhone needs a name.

The name options (in the poll on the side) are:

Gidget
Steve
Estelle
Digit512
Bingley-Beep

Have I mentioned that you really should vote in the poll on your left?

Thanks.

Join the Revolution

I had the start of a long, rambly post about isolation.

Except, umm, I kept picking up my new iPhone, to marvel at it.

I think this is love.

If you'll excuse me, I'll be back tomorrow.

I have to go find more apps.

Surely, there must be some good blogging ones.

(yes, I am completely pathetic. I can live with that.)

Nothing to See Here

These aren't the droids you're looking for. . . .

Homeward Bound

I am sitting with my computer in my lap, typing away in the departures lounge, staring at slot machines. I have told Mr. Spit to go and take the last of our American money and see what he can win us back (I'm not going to participate, and Mr. T, you are buying coffee on Wednesday, I gambled away my coffee money!). I'm going to ramble on a bit about the trip

I managed to get through security without losing my passport, and I bought chocolate, and we had dinner at Chili's. Which raises an interesting point.

The steak fajitas at Chili's in the airport are $12.99. At home, we go to Chili's fairly often, and there, well there, my steak fajitas are $21.99. Does anyone else smell Mrs. Spit getting ripped off?

But, rambling about Vegas.

We had a good time. Especially when the Kelly's arrived, and we ate the most incredible dinner ever. We were at the top of THE Hotel and the view was absolutely incredible.

The fountains of Bellagio were absolutely incredible, and so was the food. Vegas is a food town. The housekeeping and amenities at TI were ok, not great, but the company was good.

Mystere was amazing, and I'm sure Mr. Spit will want to tell you all about the little dam we met. (Best dam tour ever!)

Anyway, our plane has arrived, so it's time to shut down the computer and get on with going home.

All Grown Up Now

Ahem.

I have decided.

I am not going to be a jelly bean saleswoman (selling only the black ones, because any other kinds are revolting)

I am not going to design firework shows. (Although, this was the most tempting career I could think of for a long time.)

I will not become a blast engineer. (Hello, the fact I didn't know you could divide by zero was always going to be a limiting factor)

I am not going to marry for money (Hate to say it, but it didn't work last time anyway)

No.

None of those.

Not at all, at all.

I have a plan.

I.

I am going

I am going to
(run away

and)

join the circus.

Maybe

Maybe I'm cheap, maybe I'm missing the fun gene, maybe I got dropped on the head as a baby (actually, I'm pretty sure that happened)

I decided to try my hand at the slots today. I showed up with my 24 dollars (and remind me to pay Martha back her $2 tomorrow, would you?). And I put $2 in the machine.

I don't "get" this whole gambling thing.

It went something like this. . .

Mrs. S: How do I use this thing, what do I hit?

Martha the Fabulous: Hit the button that says 75 credits.

Mrs. S hits the button. She loses 75 cents. Hits the button again, loses another $75 cents.

Mrs. S: Why won't it let me bet?

M the Fab: You've run out of money. Here's $2.

I put more money in. I lose that. Mr. S shows up with a $20. I put the $20 in. Surely having lost $4, my luck must be about to change.

I press the 250 Credits button (going all in!).

I lose $2.50.

And another $2.50

And another.

And more after that. I start betting 75 cents again. I lose that.

Finally, I am down to 1.33. I win big. Really big.

Which means that when I cashed out of the machine, I had only LOST $6. Yep. . .

I lost $6 in 5 minutes. Playing the Star Wars slot machines.

I took my left over $16, handed part of it over to Mr. Spit, and went shoe shopping with Martha.

Much better that.

But, seriously, how is losing about a dollar a minute fun? I could have walked around the casino, dropping dollar bills, and that would at least have been fun for the person who found them. . .

Recessionary Tactics

I knew that the economy was still bad in the states. Really bad in some places.

But I had no idea how bad it was in Vegas. None. I'm so sorry, if only I had known.

These poor, poor young women. And the cocktail waitresses.

They aren't being paid enough.

There is Dior, Gucci, Armani, Fendi, Prada, D and G, BCBG, Zara, Kenneth Cole, Kate Spade, all of these stores, it must be so painful to walk by.

To walk by, and to not be able to afford . . .

An entire skirt, or an entire shirt, and not just half a shirt or 1/3 of the skirt.

I just didn't know that the recession would be so significant that women couldn't afford to completely clothe themselves.

Perhaps your fine President could put together a stimulus package so that these poor women could cover themselves and stop the other kind of stimulus?

Games

My father always told me that everyone had a game, and that you shouldn't play another man's game until you knew his rules.

Which is, on the whole of it, not bad advice for a woman in Vegas. I have been surprised how much game playing their really is. Oh, there's the Casino, where you expect the games. There's the men (and women!) handing out cards for prostitutes, there's the rodeo ticket sellers, there's the guy's with the the VIP passes for night clubs, the hucksters trying to sell stuff by giving it away for free. (Nothing's free, especially not in Vegas) Everywhere, bombarding me, there's advertising.

And I'm trying to make sense of it all. There's gondoliers on rides through indoor canals, with second rate opera, and a first rate ticket price (64 dollars for a 2 person gondola ride? Your kidding, right?). There's the 15 dollar room service coffee, the $50 of "free" slot machine money. Everyone has a game going on.

Our bit of the game today was to remember and forget. To remember Gabriel, and how much we love and miss him, and to forget that I have been pregnant 4 times and still have nothing to show for it. To forget the gut wrenching and back breaking pain of still not having a child to call our own, in a bed, in the nursery. To forget that we expected another child by the first anniversary, and we were sure of another child by the second. To forget.

Bill Engvald's game was to make us laugh, and we did. On a day like today, you can do worse than listen to a man who loves his wife and kids, loves his life, and is so darn funny. And for those who have seen his show, the other part of his game. PMP, HYS.

We went into the restaurant (ok, this is a Vegas resort, one of the restaurants) and we ordered a meal, and then we asked for a slice of cake and a candle. This is a problem, because obviously what we really don't want is 15 waiters coming out of the kitchen, standing in front of us, singing happy birthday, while we cry. It's going to be anything but game-like to explain - Surprise! You just sang happy birthday to a dead baby.

We asked, well Mr. Spit asked, while I looked mutely, the waiter, trying to explain that we sing our son happy birthday every year, but he's not here, because umm, he died, and it's a long story, and could we have the cake and a candle. We'll take it from there, these are our rules.

I have learned a lot about a bunch of different games. Some I know the rules too, and I'm willing to play, and some I've learned to just stay away from. But anyway, from my father to you, some advice.

Everyone has a game. Don't play until you know the rules.

*****
And a million thank you's for your kind words, comments and thoughts yesterday. We appreciated them.