Bubbles. Soapy, messy, sticky sometimes, and slippery but so much fun and the bringer of much happiness! As a kid we didn’t dabble in bubbles at all. Mostly construction sites because they had the rad hills of rock and boulders, great for potentially killing ourselves because that’s what we did! I bet if I had bubbles, I might have had a more relaxed childhood! Haha!

Anyways, Bubbles did come into my life at the Laundromat in the form of a table top arcade game called Bubble Bobble! That was expensive! I used to steal $10 rolls of quarters from my parents office (they ran a restaurant/gas station so always had rolls of change on hand) and spend hours at the ‘mat playing Bubble Bobble. It was odd, no one bothered to look for us ever… guess the benefits of living in a hamlet were that you trusted people to not steal you? (I think my mother was too trusting, but I digress.)

Back to bubbles. I watch my kids enjoys the bubbles and it’s like a magical entity, like faeries and mystical creatures kind of magic. They love it! It brings smiles to them no matter how crappy their mood is.

Bubbles seem to be that thing that releases their minds from whatever stress they may be suffering like sharing issues or Mom making them wear the wrong shoes or that they are just generally in a state of “woke up on the wrong side of bed” -ness. The bubbles release endorphins or something because when the bubble juice comes out, those little frowns turn upside down and the sounds of glee burst out of their little faces! This is much better than the alternative, of which I liken to banshees!

I really should take a page out of my kids’ handbooks. If you’re in a craptastic mood and things just seem to be blah, just bring out the bubbles and relax and enjoy! Sometimes I think my kids have better stress management skills than I do!

Children can be a blessing and a bit of a pain in the ass all at the same time. They have super human powers, I swear to an omnipotent being, they do. The power to overwhelm, destroy, and create mayhem all around them. They are Discord.

Every time I need to make important phone calls or get one, they are constantly talking to me so loudly that I cannot, for the life of me, hear the person on the phone. They have some kind of cell tower or modem built into their little brains somehow and can detect when a phone call is about to make connection. And the chaos begins. Even the neighbour’s kids knows when to ring the doorbell, when I’m on an important call!

Another magical power children possess is time warp. They have the ability to make time speed up especially when you need to be somewhere and have a tight schedule. I always plan to leave 15 minutes before we should actually leave the house and I still seem to leave late. Or they make time slow to a crawl when you are running out of ideas to entertain them. If you don’t have enough activities scheduled you are in for trouble! No wonder (never the children, well mine anyways) WE pass out at 8:45pm!!

The sassy little buggers have this ability to make the biggest messes out of just a little bit of stuff. I have a sand and water table, it rained and gave it just enough water to turn that sand into the clumpiest and muddiest gunk that resembles cement. They tracked all that grime into the house! In addition, and I don’t know how, they manage to get all this gritty sand in their bums!! If you ever wanted a gamble, with a guaranteed win, you could bet money on it, it would be that kids get sand in their bums!! Guess what Daddy is cleaning up in the backyard? It’s like a cement truck exploded out there!

They are magical creatures, children are. I thought math class was challenging or heck University even! Having children, and surviving the chaos they bring, is something to revel in, in the end. It’s the gauntlet that takes, no… makes you know what it’s like to overcome challenge!

Parenthood, it’s a crazy-train for sure!

I have been watching Community these days, I’m still way behind everyone else in the world but that’s okay. I’m not in a race to keep up nor am I trying to keep up with the Jones’, I’m just watching it at my leisure and enjoying it at my own pace.

I have kids and with tonnes of great shows to watch, it can get a little overwhelming with it all to get a chance to see everything! Community is pretty funny. It has a cast of characters that you could conceivably have in reality whilst at College or University.

We’ve all had the elderly student on campus who’s kind of lonely at home and needs to get out and do something during the day. My Uncle Joe went back to University to take some classes, now in my mid 30′s I commend him for doing it! However, in my mid 20′s struggling with exams and bell shaped curves, I was not so supportive as I believed that people like my Uncle Joe were skewing my course’s class mean, I didn’t think he was going to carry on in that particular field of study, therefore screwing up the marks for everyone. Now that I reflect, I feel like such an ass! Could one person change the mean by a whole standard deviation in say a class of 400? Outliers were outliers for a reason. So really, I just needed to stop blaming people and just studied harder. Fortunately, I have not met anyone quite as obnoxious and prejudice while in University as Pierce Hawthorne.

My favourite character is Abed! Abed is cool! Why is he so cool? He’s an observer. He watches people. He finds behavioural patterns in his little group of friends positive and negative and has valuable input! You can go to Abed and ask him what he thinks about whatever and he’ll tell you straight up! I don’t know what it is about him, I find him intriguing and attractive. His awkwardness is also a huge positive attribute to me, he reminds me a bit of Moss in IT Crowd, who I also LOVE! ! He is also incredibly nerdy, likes to Cosplay, and his very talented! Love this character!

I think the reason I like Abed so much is that he reminds me of all my friends I met in University and who I left behind in Calgary and Edmonton. I have had the pleasure of hanging with a group of the most incredible people! Nerdiest lot in the world but so funny! Experts in their obsessions from gaming, anime, engineering, programming, and even network solutions! Abed is the embodiment of all the passion, witty banters, and ridiculous shenanigans that I have seen in all my friends over the last 15 -20 years and it’s so good to be reminded about all that craziness and the fun that was had together.

It’s nice to watch Abed in Community and be reminded that I have some pretty awesome friends like him, that’s why I love Abed so much!

Today while I suffer the pains of a terrible infection, I have a moment of some kind, I don’t know if its an epiphany or just an “A-Ha” moment.

So I have these two kids that I made with my husband. They are these little people that have their own personalities and their own preferences. It amazes me that I have these people in my life that trust us to give them advice and care for their well being.

I used to get all worked up and worried about how I was going to raise them to be good examples of society and hope that they don’t turn into little sociopaths that will harm themselves or those around them. My head was filled with rules, Do’s and Don’t's, Make Sure This Never Happens, and Don’t Expose Them to X… constantly infesting my head with anxiety, fear, and constant worry,  no wonder I’m stressed out!

Today as I was waddling down the stairs (why waddling? I’ll tell you next time!) I realised that we ARE setting the examples for them! We share influences that we had in our youth with our kids all the time! For instance, recently we have introduced our children to the things that were a significant impact on our childhood, like Mario Brothers, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory, Pac-Man, and Q-Bert, etc. As we continue to introduce them to the things that we love, we are inadvertently sharing aspects of ourselves through the characters and stories that made us who we are today, and quite frankly, we are not terrible people so why am I agonising?

I shouldn’t and I won’t.

That whole Tabula Rasa business is pretty amazing when you see it first hand. What’s more fascinating is watching them prefer one thing over the other!

When you look at the “Life with Kids” scene and take away the craziness of daily life challenges like incessant behaviours, sleepless nights, and all that common stuff that parents love to keep secret from other people (especially the couples without kids!) and kind of step back from the chaos and observe how the kids learn and gradually you get to see their personalities unravel right in front of you!  You get to have front row seats at one of the best things nature has to offer, watching your kids grow and become who they are.

That is one of the most amazing things that should not be forgotten about being a parent!

For Easter Grandpa and Grandma Ross came to the island for a visit. We went up island to Port Renfrew to see the Botanical Beach with them. I had never been to Botanical Beach. It was times like this that I wished I had a better camera! My experience at the beach was so awe inspiring! I am surrounded by technology all day and everyday that when I come to see the phenomena that nature creates, it’s breath taking!

We went during low tide so we could see the pods. Before we could find any pods we had to climb HUGE lime stone hills covered in seaweed, mussel clusters, and barnacles! It was amazing! I had to stop to take in the ocean scenery from where I stood. I felt so high above everything all at the same time being physically low in a naturally occurring crater on this lime stone hill!

Each pod had it’s own community, we were like giants peering into each little planet among a solar system of many. So fascinating!

I really enjoyed going to Botanical Beach! The road up to Port Renfrew is twisty and a little bit scary but once we got past Jordan River the roads straighten out a little. If ever you are in the area, Botanical Beach is worth having a looksee!

I recently signed up for Roller Derby training with the Eves of Destruction. I thought I have reached my mid-life crisis point, must have! Why would I sign up to something that could potentially break me in more ways I can imagine?! I’m not steady on my feet let alone add wheels to my feet! But I did it anyway, I took my money in to one of the scrimmages the Belles of the Brawl (?) was having, I was scared and thought “What in the hell was I thinking?!”

All these women are hardcore, they skate with ease and they jump and shit! I am going to die! Yet, in my fear was incredible excitement. I haven’t felt so excited and scared and freaked out about anything for such a long time, it was awesome!

I forgot who I was.

When I was a kid, I did a horizontal bungee thing at school, it failed tremendously! Thankfully I had a helmet on. My head slammed the floor so hard you could hear all the students and teachers gasp, they were really scared I cracked my head open, and the camera kept rolling!! Everyone was so concerned that I had a concussion, they took the helmet off of me and I was laughing hysterically! Guess who was featured on the 6pm News that night! Gave the public a fright! The anchorwoman said after seeing that clip she would rather the vertical bungee over the horizontal any time! Funny, I don’t remember signing a release form…huh.

Anyways, after that, in University I used to improv with friends, we were all friends that hung out and liked to do crazy things on stage just because it was fun. We traveled all over, made many more friends and had lots of experiences.

I got pregnant and was put on the back burner and later inadvertently booted by the head mistress (not the nicest gal, I tell ya!).

Pregnancy and motherhood changed everything. You think you have image issues once you get pregnant and have a kid. What about life changing issues?! No one invites you out because they assume, “You’ve got kids so you have no time…”. My friend at the time, who ran the improv group, really thought this and NEVER considered my availability ever again after that.

Sure, pregnancy and raising kids are a busy time in your life but we’re not dead to the old life we had. It takes a great deal of adjustment for sure, but it’s easy to just leave the new mom’s off the list because they “are too busy”.

I have been “too busy” for 5 years. I lost who I was. I was wrapped up in the conflict of trying to be a mother and like it (I signed up for this, didn’t I? Now I had better love this job!) and missing the “Crazy Mannie” that I once was that was involved in stuff and did things that was fun and socially fulfilling.

I struggled for the past 5 years, trying to find the thing or things that I wanted to be involved in. I started crocheting, thanks to my friend Heather, but I needed something else to do, I needed to challenge myself! So I signed up to a sewing class with my friend Jennifer, I love it! I no longer fear my sewing machine!

And why the Roller Derby? Even with the crochet and sewing. I can easily be proud of all the things I can make but deep down I am still a performer that does stupid shit and survive it all because that’s what “Crazy Mannie” does. I do these things to prove to myself that it may be the scariest thing but I will succeed at it because I’m stubborn and persistant!

I am in the midst of crocheting a Finn and Jake pair of dolls. The pattern that I got courtesy of LucyRavenscar (https://www.etsy.com/shop/lucyravenscar) is for an 11″ Finn and a 7″ Jake.

As I reflect on the size difference of my Finn compared to the size it “should” be, the 11 inches brings me back to my 16th year.

I was dating a boy named Andrew at the time. We were riding in his Mom’s minivan and she and my Mom needed to make a stop at a market off of 97th Street in Edmonton. Now 97th Street was a notorious street for call girls and it used to be (could still be for all I know!) the butt of many a derogatory joke prostitute-wise, by day though, a busy bustling Chinatown stretch for grocers and herb sellers and patrons for anything oriental in nature.

It was summer and I dressed to match the weather. Jean shorts, tank top, and a knitted long vest that came down to my thighs, I thought this was appropriate dress for the weather, since I was a teenager I thought I was pretty good at picking out clothes. Now remember, I have a long tiny pony tail that hangs from the back of my head and pretty well bald at the top of my head, this is what alopecia state I was in. So to me I looked alright! Normal teen.

I decided I needed to have a cigarette. So I exited the van and stood on the corner and lit my cigarette… okay this sounds all sorts of terrible, and I now no longer wonder why the following conversation had occurred.

A man in grey sweat pants and a dirty t-shirt rides up to me on his 10-speed bicycle and I thought to myself, if he asks to bum a smoke I am all ready to say, “No, I do not have an extra smoke for you, now get lost creep!”

He takes a look at me from top to bottom and asks me, “Hey there, are you a working girl?”

“Excuse me?” I thought I heard him say working girl? Did I hear him right?

“You know, a working girl?” he repeats.

Whoa!!! Hold on a minute! “NO!!” I exclaimed shocked and appalled that he even suggest I was a call girl!! I stumble on my words and continue to tell him I am most certainly not, I have a good home and am in no way interested in this kind of lifestyle!

“Well, that’s too bad,” he says, “you could have had an 11″ cock!” As he rides way on his 10 speed bike with his safeway bags dangling on the back of it filled with who knows what.  If I had a rock to throw at him I would have!

Still in shock I tell my Mom and Andrew’s Mom once they returned to the van. Andrew’s Mom says to my mother, “Well of course your daughter was mistaken for a prostitute, look how pretty she is!!”

From then on, whenever I had a vietnamese sub or anything of length in my hands, I could hear a boy down the hall of my high school ask me if it was 11 inches long.

Only me. This crazy crap only happens to me! Haha!

Alopecia universalis or alopecia areata universalis is a medical condition involving rapid loss of all hair, including eyebrows andeyelashes. It is the most severe form of alopecia areata, with an incidence of .001% (1 in 100,000).^{[citation needed]}

I have been “blessed” with the Alopecia from the age of 10. It started off as Alopecia Areata (spots on the head) and it turned into Totalis by the 13th year when all my finger, arm, leg, knee, and even toe hairs fell off.

Growing up with this condition was not as fun as it could have been. I seriously looked like I had cancer, it was not a good look, especially when I didn’t deserve the sympathy I was getting, I was totally misinforming everyone! I wasn’t dying. I was just balding, everywhere.

Now let’s look at this condition from a child’s point of view. Mom and Dad and all the doctors are baffled! Clueless! There could be cause, 5 different ones, only one can really be pegged. Stress. I grew up in a very stress inducing environment. Let’s just go with that. More stressful than a normal 10 year old should ever experience.

Now back to being a kid. Kids are mean, that’s a given. Adults are quiet, they don’t discuss what they don’t understand. And it was the early 80s, thankfully I didn’t have to waste time on my hair and product and all that morning pain in the buttness. But the fluorescent colours and the tights and baggy shirts… oh man, no wonder the humour of having no hair didn’t stand a chance!!

Let’s fast forward a few years. Junior High. I was going to UofA hospital, PUVA treatments. Ultra violet radiation treatment 3x a week. This treatment pretty well wiped out all the rest of the air I had on my head. It was supposed to promote hair growth but it instead killed all follicles in it’s wake. 15 years later I find out that it didn’t work. Research flop. I figured as much.

Puberty, wow, that was tough! Boys are so mean. Teenaged girls even meaner! No one wanted to date the bald girl. That’s okay. I didn’t need to date anyone at that time, we think we’re so stinking smart as teenagers, ha!

Adulthood. Well Universityhood. I wore a velvet ball cap. I had regrown my strand of hair that came out the top of my head that I had cut off in 9th grade. It was 1/4 thick and braided. I looked like Jet Li in the old kungfu films. People thought I was all punked out. My friend Chris said when he first overheard me tell someone how to get a golden Chocobo, his thoughts were, “She’s cool and she races Chocobos! Must follow her!” Life in university was pretty awesome. I would relive it anyday!

Before I started classes in University, I tattooed my eyebrows, they weren’t coming back and I couldn’t guarantee that my eyebrows were level drawing them on at 6am for an 8am class, hell no! Plus by the end of the day in high school, I had rubbed one brow off already! Great, now people will think this punked out chick is also high as a kite, she can’t even be bothered to draw her other eyebrow! When it was frigging Math class that did it, I rubbed my brow off trying to wrap my brain around quadratic equations.

So now, brows been tattooed for 15+ years, and I wear wigs, all lengths and colours of them. Like I say, some people have shoes as far as the eye can see, I have wigs. Windy days are my enemy! Winters in Alberta were too cold, now I know what a Sphynx cat feels like! I don’t go to mosh pits no more. Hair’s too expensive to lose. Roll play is so much fun though!! I also have a very dirty comment that I share amongst others with plenty of drinks that make us alopecians the new wonder of the world. Haha!

That’s all for now, I’ll probably post how pregnancy changes everything… hair loss becomes hair growth and lashes!! But that’ll be for another day.

Cheers!

New Blog.

I finally have an account on Pocky! This is novel! Been a few years!

So here we are. I decided to write a blog because blogging on Facebook is a social media faux pas apparently. I see social media as a gripe wall of sorts. You can convey feelings, trivial crap, or whatever the heck you want. I didn’t get a list of rules that said I couldn’t post my feelings on it when I signed up but I guess no one wants to see or read about my feelings or do they?

Lots of people criticize the use of social media. I hear things like:

“It’s not a diary, it’s Facebook/Twitter”

“I don’t want to hear your every thought”

“We don’t want to know what you had for breakfast”

And the list goes on…

I remember there was a gripe wall in CAB at the University of Alberta. Everyday people wrote what pissed them off or what thoughts they had. First line was always a HUGE “GEERS SUCK” and “AGGIES SUCK”… no one criticized the board, it was just there.

Why did no one complain about what was expressed on the gripe wall? It’s because it was anonymous. It’s easy to separate oneself if you don’t have a face to associate to the sentence.

Facebook and Twitter have changed the way we express ourselves. Prior to those sites we had LiveJournals and other blogs from various different websites to express our inner most feelings about things, our deepest thoughts, and anything else we wanted to share with the world.

Why then is there an unwritten rule about what can be expressed on Facebook or Twitter? I don’t get it. Am I using the social media wrong? I don’t think so. I convey my feelings and pictures of my life because of the list of folks on my Facebook become my friends because they think I’m interesting and want to see and read what I have to say.

I argue that when you meet me in person, my Facebook page and my Twitter reflect who I am on the internet the same way I am in person. I am not a different person in real life from the person I am in the virtual world.

Sometimes I post things that are very emotional, I am an emotional and sensitive person, but I also express emotional things over coffee or dinner with friends, is it still inappropriate to do that in public?

I could write a book or poetry about my feeling, draw a comic, make a movie… whatever I want and tell the world, why? Because I have that power.

We have the freedom to express ourselves. We are people with feelings. When I hear that someone doesn’t want to here about ____ then, as a person with the power of a click of a button, you can “hide” that particular status or “unfriend” that person.

We have a right to be on the internet as anyone else. We have differing opinions, the internet world is not this special utopia that we abide by different rules than in the real world.

At least not on a site that allows you to convey your feelings. So on that note, that’s my “feelings” on the matter.

Cheers!