Every memory of lookin out the back door
I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor
It’s hard to say it
Time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye

I grew up in a small town.  Not even a town really.  Technically it was a village.  The Village Of Delburne.

I spent my whole life there, from the age of six months to just shy of eighteen, after I graduated from high school.  I think some people assume I moved out right away to get away from my parents.  But that wasn't it at all.

I needed to get away from that horrible little town's evil clutches.  You might think I'm kidding, but I'm not.  I don't think it was a conscious decision on my part at the time, but looking back I'm pretty sure my sub-conscious was screaming at me to leave before it was too late.  So I did.

People talk about "small town living" and how great it must be.  I hate to generalize, so if you live in a fantastic little place with perfect little picket fences around perfect little houses with perfect little families inside them then I'm thrilled for you...  but, and here goes the generalizing, small town living is not all it's cracked up to be. 

Smalltown school of five hundred kids total from kindergarten to grade twelve.  Smalltown jobs (one high school summer I was a youth group co-ordinator, the next summer I was a museum tour guide).  Smalltown cafe complete with "regulars" and waitresses who always knew you.

Sounds idyllic, huh?

Not so much. 

Appearances can be sooooo deceiving.

I ran into a very old friend today that I hadn't seen in years.  We played together twice a week from the time we were pre-schoolers.  Her son, unbeknownst to me until this morning, is on the same hockey team as my son.  So we got laughing and doing a bit of reminscing.  I told her how a few weeks ago when the team had a game out in Delburne and my husband asked if I wanted to go my first thought was "Why the hell would I want to go back there?"  She laughed and agreed.

The last time I was in Delburne was five years ago when we were packing up my parents old place because they too had decided it was time to move.  Mom and I went into town to get some stuff for lunch.  That was the last time I set foot in that place.  And I only live about twenty minutes away.

So Crystal makes a slightly offhand comment about "swingers", and after a curious, and incredulous, look from me, she explains to me that she was there awhile back visiting family, and was invited to a party by someone our age.  She said that sure, maybe she would drop by later with her son so she could see everyone.  She got a strange look and a reply of "Uhhh, you wouldn't want to bring him.  We'll be...  doing...  stuff.  You know.  With...  each other."

Whaaaaaaat?  Then she went on to tell me that a guy we both used to know, who is married to someone else we used to know, and is thirty five, got her eighteen year old cousin pregnant last year during one of these...  uh...  parties, and she is due soon. 

And that's just the beginning of all the soap opera stories.  I'm sure we could sit together for hours and exchange utterances of "Really?"  "What?"  "Who?"  "Are you serious?"  "She whaaaaaat?"  "EWWWWWWWW!"

I have known for a long time about the drugs that run rampant in that town, and I knew lots of people were wackos, but jesus christ on a skateboard...  SWINGERS???  I USED TO BE FRIENDS WITH THESE PEOPLE!

Really.  People I used to talk to.  Hang out with.  Drive around with.  Share a drink with.  This is not a mental image I want to have.

Excuse me while I go scrub my brain with bleach.

Every memory of walkin out the front door
I found the photo of the friend that I was lookin for
It's hard to say it
It’s time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye

Look at this photograph
Every time I do, it makes me laugh
Every time I do, it makes me.

Seems I got to have a change in scene, 'cause every night I have the strangest dreams.

Deja vu.

I mean, seriously...  what's with all the end-of-the-world type dreams?

The night before last I had this odd series of natural disaster based dreams.  I can't really say they were nightmares, or even that they were bad dreams, because I didn't feel scared or anything. 

My best friend and I went through a tornado, a tsunami (which totally should have scared me because I so don't swim - like, at ALL), a forest fire, a hurricane, and last but not least an earth shattering quake. 

I would dream of one, and then as it faded out it seemed like there was a several minute break until the next one would start.  Like some inept projector operator was having a hard time changing the reels in my dream theatre.

Anyway, the earthquake was the last one and we were in some little restaurant on the ground floor of a skyscraper and things started out with just a little quiver and some bottles falling off the shelves in the bar area.  Then just as we started to relax things started to shake again and everything was coming off the walls and we were on the floor and we just *knew* that the whole fifty stories up above us were going to come crashing down on top of us and yet there we lay on the floor carrying on what is a normal conversation for us! 

I woke up just as the building started to come down.

All I can say is "What..?"

Seems I got to have a change in scene, ’cause every night I have the strangest dreams
Imprisoned by the way things used to be, yeah, left here on my own or so it seems
I got to leave before I start to scream, ’cause somebody locked the door and took the key

Feelin’ alright? I’m not feelin’ too good myself.


I dream a lot.  And unlike a lot of people, I usually remember most of them, if not as a whole then at least in large pieces.  And among my many dreams are some very strange ones, often recurring.  Last night's was a doozy, but also very nostalgic.

We, and by 'we' I mean me and my friend Craig, were in the midst of some bizarre war zone.  Not in an actual war with bombs and helicopters and dudes in camo, but what seemed more like a street war.  People running other people down with cars, knife attacks, large objects thrown through windows.  And it would suddenly seem to get back to normal and we'd be sitting there having breakfast (odd in itself because I don't really eat breakfast as a general rule) in some cafe when suddenly the war would start back up again.

At one point Craig and I were looking for someone, standing on the side of a highway.  I shaded my eyes from the sun and pointed, saying "Oh, here she comes", and this woman, whoever she was, was walking toward us across the road...  when suddenly she is hit by a large vehicle and splattered in chunks and pieces all over the highway in graphic and vivid detail...  I freaked and immediately started to throw up and Craig was standing beside me holding my hair back (throwback to our drinking days, I guess?) and then just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped again, and we were back inside finishing our breakfast.

The dream seemed to go on for hours and hours, but that's the gist of it. I have absolutely no idea what it all meant, if anything.

And while the subject matter was strange and scary, it was also comforting to 'see' Craig again.  I think that's even more bizarre than the dream itself. 

He's one of the people I really and truly miss from my "old" life.  The last time I saw him was six years ago, while I was still pregnant with my daughter.  We emailed a couple times a few years ago after he tracked me down on GradFinder and contacted me.  But then we lost touch again. 

I hate that.

"Everyone and everything has to poop sometimes" - Bear In The Big Blue House

Poop can be funny.  I used to be a full time nanny, so between eight years of that and having my own two kids, I have plenty of poop stories.

One day I was at work and the grandma came over to visit.  One of the little boys, being about three at the time, called her into the bathroom to do the wiping duties.  As he hopped off the toilet, he turned around and started to reach into the toilet.  His grandma said "Brady!  You can't touch poop!  It's got germs in it!"

Brady leaned over to take a closer look, and then, looking perplexed, said "I don't see any germs!  Just some corn!"

Oddly enough, as he got older Brady was rather grossed out by poop, including his own.  He was already five and still refusing to wipe his own ass!  Finally one day I told him that he was a big boy and should learn to do it himself.  He stared at me, completely horrified, and asked "WHY???"  I asked him why he couldn't do it himself and he replied "Because it grosses me out!" 

I paused and then said "Well don't you think it grosses me out too?!"  He looked surprised, and thoughtful, then nodded and took the toilet paper.  Whew!

The family I had worked for previously had a little boy named Kyle.  He was around four and also still needed help with the wiping duties.  He disappeared into the bathroom upstairs one day.  He was in there for about ten minutes and I called up to him "Are you done?"  "No!"  I waited another five minutes and still no call for help.  "Kyle!  Are you finished?"  "No!"  "Another five minutes passed and I was starting to get worried, so I called up the stairs again.  "Kyle!  Aren't you done yet??"  Clearly annoyed with me he yelled back "NO!  One of my poops is RESTING!" 

I laughed for about ten minutes.

I have many more poop stories, but I will share them another day perhaps.

And totally not on the subject of poop, I ended up with way better tickets for the Aerosmith show.  On the floor near the catwalk again!

Young lust, honey now ain't it a bitch?  Sometimes you gotta scratch that itch.  So what ya gonna do about it?

I'm going to see Aerosmith again this April and I really hope they do that song.  It's my favorite.  (Notice me trying to contain my excitement.) 

I have been neglecting my blog lately because I've had so many little things on the go that every time I sat down to write I would think "But what is there to write about?" 

I've been working on my secret-ish project.  Whether it succeeds or not, I've already made a nice chunk of change off it, so it hasn't been wasted time. 

I've also been attempting to re-organize my house when I'm not working on the project.  I'm fairly organized to begin with, but with the new influx of toys from Christmas it was driving me crazy not having anywhere to put them.  I finally broke down and bought some drawer/shelving units to put in the playroom, so now I just have to actually put stuff in them.

I spent all last Saturday at my brother's.  He wanted to stage a Christmas dinner do-over, since he and his wife and one of the kids were sick on Christmas Day.

Flashback: 

We all showed up at their place Christmas morning and my sister (in law) answered the door and told me they were all throwing up.  So I had my hand over my mouth and nose going around their house gathering up gifts.  Then the rest of us turned around and went back to mom and dad's (where we all immediately washed our hands thoroughly), so my brother and sister in law and their kids missed Christmas with us.  So we had a do-over last Saturday. 

We took the kids skating while I was there.  They live in a tiny little village of like two hundred people, and yet they have an indoor ice rink.  They leave the building open all day and evening so people can come and go as they please.

Then when we were done skating I realized I'd lost my keys.  Shit.  And my husband was at work an hour away.  I knew he'd be pissed for like a week if he had to come all the way out to give me keys.

My brother and I walked back and forth between the arena and the house looking for them, then our other brother also joined us in the search and we did the circuit twice with no luck.  And by that time I was starting to panic.

When my mom and dad got there my mom called roadside assistance and said she was with me and that I'd locked my keys in the van, so I could at least look and see if they were in there.  Sure enough, there they were on the passenger seat underneath some papers, thank goodness.  I must have set them there when I went to get my nephew my spare pair of gloves because he lost his.

So then we had our do-over dinner.  It almost wasn't, because just as we were setting the last of the food on the table my  two year old niece came dashing by, grabbed a corner of the tablecloth, and yanked.  Luckily the dishes were heavy enough that they only slid a little.

Afterward she got put in the bathtub.  I went in to check on her and caught her eating the bubbles from the bubblebath.  Ew.  Didn't seem to phase her either.  Little freak.

Then on Sunday I dodged volunteer casino duty.  The minor hockey commission has to do a volunteer shift at one of the local casinos every year and I got tricked into saying yes.  Which is a long story that I won't bother with except to say that I managed to get out of it.   It cost me a new CD/mp3 player for my husband's car, but it was worth it not to have to subject my headache and oncoming cold to eight hours in a loud, smoky casino. 

See, I should really make more individual short posts as opposed to waiting a week or two in between and making occasional long ones.