I'm raising a cynic

There are ramifications for encouraging one's child to pay attention to shit.  For encouraging an awareness of female behaviour and how women are perceived by the media and the world.  At 12 years of age, Rissa has become a dyed-in-the-wool speech pattern cynic.

Rissa loves cake decorating shows.  She loves watching people design cakes.  She loves the engineering of them.  She LOVES when they create flowers out of icing that look like real flowers.  When we go to the Bulk Barn, instead of candy, she asks for fondant, you know, so she can sculpt with it at home.  Hoping to find her something other than Cake Boss (shudder), I tried DC Cupcakes.  It looked promising - two sisters in DC who start their very own cupcake business.  Possible female role models in the making.  We started watching.  Rissa nearly went apoplectic.

"Mummy!!  These women sound like idiots!" (She changes her tone to Valley Girl speak) "They speak in, like, questions?  Where they, like, SAY things? And they use like as a comma or just as a, like, pause, be - like - cause they don't have brains?  ARGH!!!!" 

(Rissa at 12, is now realizing that how women are perceived in the world may be directly proportionate to how they present themselves.  My plan to indoctrinate my daughter has totally worked!  YAY me!!)

Rissa was particularly upset when the women on the show thought they might be arrested for making a cupcake slot machine, when in actuality they were almost arrested because the route they chose to drive had their truck driving near the White House thereby they were nearly flagged as terrorists and because they were riding in the back of the truck without seatbelts.  You'd figure that living in DC, these gals would know that trucks are pretty much not allowed anywhere the White House.

While we were watching DC Cupcakes, Rissa also realized that reality tv shows have pretty much NO content.  They repeat the same clips over and over, so in 22 minutes of a 30 minute slot, maybe there are really only 17 of actual show.

"They just keep repeating everything!  I KNOW this already!  I KNOW that this one customer is trying to surprise her husband for his 40th birthday at a fancy-schmancy hotel.  I KNOW that they are going to try to make a cupcake slot machine, and I KNOW that the one girl's husband is going to be the one trying to make the cupcake slot machine work.  Why do they KEEP telling me this????  I AM WATCHING THE SHOW RIGHT NOW!!!!"

At this point she collapses on the floor in a heap - a move she has perfected, in spite of her giraffe-like legs.  Then she says "WAILEY!  WAILEY!  WAAAAIIIIILLLLLEEEEEY!!!!!" (She's a big fan of Terry Pratchet's Wee Free Men - which if you haven't read - you should.  Google it.  There's a character called "not-as-big-as-medium-sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-wee-Jock-Jock")

First book in three.  One of the best YA series ever!!!

"So I take it, we don't need to save any more of these shows?" I ask, rhetorically.

She looks up from the floor in utter disbelief.  "NO!!!!  We never need to see another one of these.  EVER.  EVER."  She bangs her head on the ground.  "EVER!!!!"

What's scary?  This show made Cake Boss look almost tolerable.

I am STILL a dirty old woman...

It's Zeb's fault.  David's friend Zeb, who posted to Facebook about someone wearing a vintage Hanson t-shirt.  I'm thinking:  "VINTAGE HANSON?  How old does that make ME??"  But next thing you know, I'm googling Hanson to get my timeline right - it can't be 20 years ago and it's got to be at least 20 years before something qualifies as vintage, doesn't it?  I refrain from watching MmmBop - I don't want to head into Skanky Cougar land right away.  No it ISN'T 20 years - a mere 15 since 1997, when MmmBop hit the charts.  I find out that they are still together - still performing and, more importantly for my purposes, are now ADULTS. 

Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson circa 2012

Which makes me feel so much better, because I lusted after Taylor Hanson when he was 14 freaking years old.  Which wouldn't have been bad except for the fact that I was... let me do the math here, oh good God!  I was 29 years old.  He was skinny, he was blond, he could sing.  And boy, did I have a thing for skinny, blond, artistic types.  (actor Leonardo DiCaprio, skater  Ilia Kulik, any random blond, skinny, teenager busking near me) If I couldn't lift them over my head, or at least carry them under one arm like a clutch purse, what was the point of the crush??

I wasn't going to look at the old videos 'cause that's just SO wrong on SO many levels.  Until I realized that while I shouldn't be watching those videos, my 12 year old daughter Rissa could TOTALLY watch the videos with pre-teen immunity!!!

"Rissa, come here!  I've got something to show you!!!"  I drag her to the tablet and load up MmmBop.

First thing she says, "Are those guys or girls?  'Cause they kind of all look like girls."  I guess long hair for boys isn't the style in 2012.  But she totally dug their music.  "This is WAY better than One Direction!"

So, Taylor's the one on the left,  NOT the one in the middle - I am not THAT much of a perv.

It all came rushing back.  Just looking at the photo now makes me blush.  I am quickly writing the next paragraph before I get arrested for impure thoughts!

In my 'research'  (wink-wink-nudge-nudge),  I found out that they're still making music, still touring, still gaining fans.  In fact, they are going to be in Peterborough, ON August 25, 2012 - on the same freaking night that my rock opera has its showcase presentation in Toronto.  (I raise an arm to the Heavens and yell "WHY, GOD?!? WHY?!?")  But what's really cool?  It appears that these guys have a sense of humour and are just generally good people.  Check out the video for Thinking 'Bout Somethin' that they made in 2010, where they riff on Ray Charles' scene from The Blues Brothers...

AND ... but wait there's MORE!!! Last year a dude started a video blog campaign to have Hanson play at his wedding.   He made hundreds of video pleas to Hanson.  He was DETERMINED.  After 458 videos this is what Hanson did in return:

I know, right?  Not able to make the wedding, they offer to play the HONEYMOON?!?!?  So they're NICE, too??  And now, I'm pretty much convinced that Taylor Hanson would be the perfect artist to play the lead vampire, Aethan, in my rock opera.  You know, when we hit Broadway next year...  Just as a reminder, scroll back to the top of the blog and look at him - he's the one in the middle.  Just imagine HIM, in an Armani Suit - preying upon the female form...  I might need a second.   A girl's gotta dream.  And now that HE'S 29, I wouldn't even get arrested!

Please Sir, I want some more...

Please.  Please... someone in television land, bring back Firefly.  Please.  I'm begging.  I really need a hit of Mal.  For those who might say, "but you can see Nathan Fillion on Castle."  I know, I know - Nathan Fillion is on Castle, and it's fine...  Richard Castle is snarky and marginally sexy and all that, there are some good puns, but it's not a Joss Whedon series with Joss Whedon dialogue, and it's not Mal.  I am not craving Nathan Fillion, the actor, but rather the character Malcolm Reynolds. 

WAY darker than Castle

Don't get me wrong.  I very much enjoy Nathan Fillion.  In spite of the fact that right now I'm holding  a wee grudge against him (which I'm sure I'll get over soon) because he wouldn't pose with twine for the Bloggess - which you kinda figure he'd do, given that he appeared in Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog and didn't balk at saying "The hammer is my penis."  I'm a little disappointed, because I thought he'd have a better sense of humour, and although I get that he shouldn't have to give in to every petty plea from every crazy Comic-Con fan out out there, I just wanted him to... I don't know... take each plea on an individual basis maybe?  I kinda figured that he might give the benefit of the doubt to someone who, although she might appear completely insane in her initial request, he would realize, if he had actually read her posts, that she's not certifiably crazy and is well deserving of a picture with twine. 

I think I'm digressing.

Really, what I want, is another full season of Firefly.  Except that the movie Serenity explains the whole series, so that's probably not going to happen.   But maybe they could start AFTER Serenity is over - except then some of the characters (I won't say who, in case you haven't seen Serenity - which you HAVE to see, because it's a fantastic movie - the opening sequence alone is worth the price of admission) are dead.  And that makes me sad.  And you will be too, when you find out who Whedon killed off.

Maybe if Firefly can't come back, Joss Whedon - who should have a helluva lot of clout right now after having knocked The Avengers completely out of the park - could make a NEW series.  It could really be about ANYTHING.  Doesn't need to be vampires, or sci-fi - actually I'd still like it to be sci-fi - I dig the sci-fi... but it doesn't have to have Nathan Fillion in it.  A character almost exactly like Mal, though, would be good.  Just saying.

Bring me your furry, your potentially rabid...

The kitten... the feral one? That hung onto my hand with its teeth after I picked it up, because it was so terrified? The one I had to have "just in case" rabies shots for? It's back... And David says I'm not allowed to touch it. Not even a little bit.

Now in cat adolescence, it was following its siblings across the bottom of the yard. I must have drawn in my breath in that kitten-there-is-a-kitten!! sound and s/he spooked and instead of running after its siblings through the east side of the fence, it turned tail and ran a good 20 feet to the west fence and disappeared. A couple of minutes later it tried to cross again, and even though I was NOT making the kitten-there-is-a-kitten!! sound, (because I was purposely holding my breath) it looked at me, spooked again, and ran back under the west fence. 

And really, of course it would, because I was the crazy human who picked it up and refused to throw it down when it bit me. In the feral cat world, I am now an urban legend. "Don't go in THAT yard. The crazy lady lives there. She mauls and traps kittens and then makes coats out of them."

Then the other morning? The kittens - ALL THREE OF THEM - were playing ON OUR DECK in the sunshine!! I held my breath at the back door, trying to look inconspicuous so that I wouldn't spook them, while calculating whether I could open the door without it making its tell-tale creaky noise. Not that I was going to go pick up the kittens or anything, I just wanted to door to be open. You know, just in case they decided that they wanted to come in the house and spontaneously... cuddle. As feral cats often choose to do.

Sadly, I have not seen the kittens in a couple of days. What I did see yesterday evening after dinner, while my friends were over, was a young RACCOON!!! The neighbour's dogs had chased it from their yard to ours. It climbed up our play structure and hung out in the tree.

Sadly, this did NOT happen last night. But I wish it had. 
Picture from http://anothernortongirl.blogspot.ca/

We weren't sure, but we think that that raccoon might have had... issues. Intellectual issues. Perhaps rabies issues. It was severely uncoordinated for a raccoon, had a rough time navigating the tree and looked like nobody had taught it how to climb down the tree headfirst, which raccoons can totally do.

Example of the headfirst descent

The other thing that made us feel like maybe the raccoon wasn't altogether there, was that after it left the play structure tree, it then came over to the deck, not 8 feet away from us, and nonchalantly climbed one tree, then shinnied down, then climbed the next tree, then walked on the deck railing, then climbed the next tree and shinnied down then climbed the NEXT tree to that had small branches touching the roof and then tried to make its way onto the roof where it looked VERY confused and gave us the "Can you give me some help here?" look. 

Either the animal had major depth perception issues and couldn't tell that the first trees were nowhere close to the house, or its brain was already completely scrambled from the rabies. As it was trying to get onto the roof and looking like it might fall, I may have stood under it with my maxi skirt held in front of me like a rescue net they use for potential suicide jumpers. David told me that if I got bitten he was not going to take me to the hospital for my second series of rabies shots, I would have to drive myself. 

We are used to raccoons being on our roof. Last spring we had a mother and her 5 kits living in our eaves. We enjoyed an elaborate game of Watch-the-raccoons-leave-put-up-the-extension-ladder-screw-in-boards-to-cover-the-raccoon-holes for several nights, thinking we had finally purged our freeloading tenants, when in fact there was still that raccoon scrabbling sound (okay now I'm imagining a family of raccoons playing Scrabble, perhaps enjoying pink lemonade with cocktail umbrellas) in the eaves, and then we'd have to climb up the ladder and unscrew the boards and then slide them out of the way, because I couldn't bear the thought of potentially murdering a family of raccoons in our eaves.

One night, we thought we had done it. THEY WERE OUT!! We did our happy, raccoon-free dance. Then, the next day, the mother raccoon was back. In the day time. Climbing the ladder to the roof and walking around. Not that weird in itself, except for the fact that we were having our chimney re-built at the time and there we two dudes with mortar and bricks and a very loud radio on the roof. She was walking around and going up and down the extension ladder - and let me tell you, watching a raccoon descend headfirst down a 32-foot ladder freaks me out. 

One might well ask: "Why would a raccoon be out in the daytime, hanging out with the masons??? It seems so odd!" Until I heard her kits crying for her. Because we had boarded them up in the eaves!!! This realization made me nearly puke with anxiety. 

I HAD SEPARATED A MOTHER FROM HER BABIES!!! 

This is one of the several reasons I might wind up in Hell. 

David wasn't home, and we have a rule that you cannot climb the 32-foot extension ladder if you are by yourself (no matter how fast the job is), so I called my friend Nathalie and got her to foot the ladder while I climbed to the roof. I'm not afraid of heights per se, but it's not my favourite thing in the world to be up high without a harness. Less fun when you're climbing with a cordless drill in one hand. I unscrewed the boards and moved them out of the way. Then I watched from the office window as the mother raccoon transported all of her kits, one by one, down the extension ladder. After they were all gone, I went back up and boarded it over again. 

Crisis averted.

Except there's this SMELL this summer, that makes me think that maybe one of those kits DIED in the eaves. I'm hoping it was just a runty kit who wouldn't have made it anyway and not because I had trapped it without its mother and it died of a panic attack.

All this to say, that I was so worried about the ghost of runty raccoons past that I made David put up the extension ladder so that our latest raccoon visitor could use that as a route back down in case the small branches that touch the roof seem too spindly and breaky for the beast when it tried to get down the tree route. I think we'll have to wait and see whether it abandons the roof or takes up some small tools from our garage, opens up the boards on the eaves and announces to all its raccoon buddies, "Penthouse!! Over here!"

I hope the Bloggess didn't notice my extra boobs!

My great friends Amber and Anne-Marie and ME with the Bloggess!

So you know that gal in Total Recall, the one with the three breasts?  Well I must be a sci-fi lover's wet dream, because I have six.  Yep - SIX.  Four in the front, two in the back.  Let's do the math again, just to be safe:
 
4 + 2 = 6!!! 

Now sure, two of the front ones are armpit boobs and the back ones are back boobs and the extra four are really no more than a AAA cup, and really only are noticeable if I have a tight bra on - but still, I kinda feel like I need a 6-cupped brassiere or at least 4 more nipples to make it really interesting.  Scratch that.  Four more nipples would be problematic.  I already have to utilize a small carpenter's level at the front door to ensure that my two nipple are on the same plane before leaving the house.  Nothing worse than one nipple facing due south and one  north-east.  (Well I guess maybe there ARE worse things - Syria's in pretty bad shape right now, from all accounts. )  Instead of the 4 more nipples, maybe I could get an undergarment that smooths the extra 4 boobs into less noticeable mounds than those that seem to magically appear in unflattering photographs.

This is all to say that when I looked at my photos from the The Bloggess's (Jenny Lawson!!) reading at the Bay/Bloor Indigo last night - there's one of me from the back/side that shows an abundance of extra boobage.  I think that she was looking down and signing my book at that time, so she probably DIDN'T see, but it got me thinking... I really wish there was a way to suck in one's back fat and armpit pudge.  Oh, SURE, the easiest way would be to lose the 30 pounds that would put me at my optimum weight, but right now my cheekbones are already REALLY prominent - I know that if I lost that much weight I would look like a freaking cadaver! 

Wait!! TUCKING!!  That's the answer.  Tucking the back boobs and armpit boobs INTO the armpits and then just using your upper arms to hold them in!!  Plus, all the pressure it would take to keep the extra boobs in the armpits would totally work your biceps and triceps.  That's it!  The extra boobs are really exercise tools!!  I'm feeling so much  better now. People pay for this kind of equipment.  And these are all mine!  But fear not!  If a gal were to gain extra weight or stop doing push-ups after she had built up muscle in her back and chest, she could probably get them too!  See?  This is me being helpful!

My daughter is insane.

From MotivatedPhotos.com

No seriously.  She really is.  It hits her at bedtime.  She loses her mind.  But only with me.  Not with David.  She retains sanity for her father, and abandons it ALL for me.  ALL OF IT.

Tonight, as I was lying beside her with my book at 9:45 p.m., she would NOT stop talking. She rolled next to me so that we were shoulder to shoulder and looked over at me with her hazel eyes.

"Which movie is Death in?"

Yes folks - this is what goes on when she should already be asleep!   I am merely a passenger on the Rissa Ride of Insanity.  What's scary though, is that I know EXACTLY what she's talking about.  I immediately thought of the Seventh Seal, but Rissa doesn't know about the Seventh Seal, but she does know about...

"The second movie.  Bill and Ted's..."

"Bogus Journey!!! You see?  You see Mummy?  We are like..." she make a motion between her forehead and mine with her fingers...  "It's like we read each other's minds!!!"

"Go to sleep."

***

"Guess what I'm doing right now!"

 I look over at her, she's moving up and down a bit.  "Are you clenching your butt?"

"I AM!"   She moves up and down and is moving her arms in a half curl.  "What am I doing now?"

"Going to sleep?"

"Yes, but I am ALSO clenching my butt and lifting weights!"  She accompanies this with grimaces as if she might possibly be in contention for an Olympic medal in weight-lifting.

***

"Aren't you going to snuggle with me?"

"I am snuggling."

"No, you're not, you're reading."

She moves my left arm so that she can plop her head down on my chest.  Her nose is close to my armpit.

"Your armpits smell SO good!  How can they smell this good?"

"You need to stop talking and go to sleep."

"I am sleeping."

"So this is just talking in your sleep?"

"Exactly."

"Go to sleep."

"I am asleep."

"Stop talking."

"I have stopped."

"Rissa, do I need to smother you with a pillow?"

"Don't smother me with a pillow!"

"I will if you don't stop talking."

***

I look over at Rissa.  She is stuck to me like glue - all I see are her eyes above my bicep.

"Your boobs look really big in this dress!"

"Do you need attention?"

"YES.  PLEASE!!! PLEASE GIVE ME ATTENTION!!!"  She waggles her eyebrows at me in supplication.

"You are a goof."

***

"Can I just say one last thing?"

I give her a look of disbelief.

"Okay, it might not be last thing, but I'll really try."

"Okay.  One last thing then you must GO. TO. SLEEP."

"So you remember how Julia was in my room for acro at the dance camp?"

"Yes."

"So Julia didn't want to do log rolls down the cheese."

"O...kay."

"So we made a deal and I said to Julia, 'Julia if I go down the cheese then you can go down the cheese too, okay?'  And she said, 'Okay.'   So then I went down the cheese and when I finished I said, 'Okay Julia, it's now your turn.'  'I don't want to go down the cheese.'  'But Julia, you said that you would do it.'

At this point Rissa touches her forehead to mine and gives me a meaningful just-wait for it look.
"And then Mummy, Julia said,  'I LIED.'  Isn't that awesome??"

Ladies and Germs, a Gymnastics Cheese Mat - clear now?

***

"You're kissing me right?"

"Only if you're going to sleep."

She purses her lips into an ape-like kissy face that touches her top lip to her nose.  I kiss her on her lips, give her butterfly kisses with my eyes to hers and the we touch noses.

"Night-Night.  Sleep Tight.  Good-Night."

"Night-Night.  Sleep Tight.  Good-Night."

Then Rissa makes a pig snorting sound, accompanied by the raising of a fist in an 'up yours' gesture.  I return it.

"Mummy I love you."

"I love you too."

Picasso... Schmicasso

So... Picasso...  I've now been up close and personal to some of his greatest works at the AGO exhibit.   I can now say with some knowledge - "His Rose Period is my favourite period." 

Boy With a Pipe 1905

Picasso's rose period was 1904-1906 (ish),  in case you too, wanted to pretend you have knowledge of Picasso's periods.  Okay, that just made me smirk.  I am an infant.  The painting above is Boy With a Pipe which wasn't in the exhibit (posters were in the gift shop though) and THIS painting, I adore. At this exhibit, I also discovered that Picasso was this amazing sculptor.  WHO KNEW?!?  Well, I'm sure lots of people knew, but I didn't until I saw his Jester,

The Jester, 1905 (note that it's also in the Rose Period)

and there was this INCREDIBLE Woman's Head.  Not that she was a super-hero called the INCREDIBLE WOMAN or anything, but this sculpture was amazing in person!

Head of a Woman (1909 early cubism)

PLUS, later in his career he did weird-ass shit!  This might possibly have been my favourite! 

Man with Sheep, 1943

Although this one would come a really close second.  The hip bones, the udders... so much to love there!

Goat, 1950

I also saw the below piece, The Acrobat, which made my ovaries hurt.  It made me wiggy.  If it had any colour I could admire, I might have been able to stand it, but because there's no torso and the joints don't make sense...  I mean look at it - there's an ass made out of an arm and a leg.  It creeped me out.  I actually felt nauseated in front of it.  My friend Jon took glee in keeping me in front of it as long as possible.

The Acrobat, 1930

There were really only a couple of his cubist paintings that I liked.  These were the ones where the women actually had some expression to them.  These were the ones that weren't all boobs and crazy eyes and half-severed women bent in half.  Generally, he painted his lovers/wives - of which he had MANY.  Wait, that sounds a bit harsh.  Let me temper that.  To my knowledge, he wasn't a bigamist - I mean the guy wasn't living in Utah or anything.  He just slept with a LOT of women.  There are 8 major relationships, with possibly dozens or hundreds more.  The dude dug the ladies.

While with Eva Gouel (who was succumbing to either cancer or TB), Picasso had an affair with Gaby Lespinasse.  While married to Olga Khoklova he had an affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter.  He had an affair with famed photographer Dora Maar (see below), while involved with Marie-Thérèse Walter.

Dora Maar, 1937

While with Dora Maar - he stepped out with Francoise Gilot - who left him, frustrated by his inability to keep it in his pants - you'd figure by this time, his penchant for the female form would have been well-known.  He'd been sleeping with Genevieve Laporte at the same time he was with Gilot.   Laporte  left him shortly after Gilot did.

The painting below was of his second wife, Jacqueline whom he met in 1953 after having been abandoned by the only women (apparently) who were smart enough to move on with their own lives.

Jacqueline with Crossed Hands, 1954

(Perhaps I'm editorializing, but come on ladies!  Really?  You think he's ever going to change?  REALLY? I  mean REALLY!?! ) He was with Jacqueline for 20 years and painted her more than any other woman.  The representations of Jacqueline have personality and depth that other later paintings don't seem to have. It became clear that, in general, I ain't a big fan of his later stuff.  Hence my attachment to the Rose Period.  The other cubist stuff was mostly in uniform shadow-box frames with glass over top of them and they had no depth - you couldn't see the brush strokes.

Which is probably why I dug the sculptures, because you could see the depth and dimension to them.  Very, very cool to discover that I'm a big fan of Picasso - the sculptor.  PLUS -  I can now speak with intelligence about The Rose Period.  BOO YEAH!