What's in a name?

For as long as I can remember, my mom made up nicknames for various family, friends, enemies and neighbours. It's not as mean spirited as it sounds. It's just something we did. And we all had nicknames for each other too.

I recently asked her when this habit originated. She replied that she'd been doing it as long as she could remember and that her father (my papa) had always had nicknames for the people in his life. Some of them are so hilarious. I wonder if it's a Newfie thing?

Anyway, here is an incomplete list of my mother's nicknames:

Pidgeon Man/Heartattack (As kids, we couldn't call him Heartattack because that was disrespectful, so we called him by his other alias because he kept a coop full of homing pidgeons in his backyard.)

Beer Man (He worked at the Beer Store for 40 years and always appeared to be a bit of a lush.)

Duck (Over-sized lady on our street that waddled.)

Duck's Son (Obvious relation to Duck)

Bela Lugosi (Creepy old lady of undetermined Eastern European nationality who smelled like cabbage and always wore boots and a kerchief.

Leek Lady (Another old lady of unspecified Eastern Bloc origins who would give my mom a grocery bag of leeks from her garden every time she saw her.

Egg Lady (Long before in-vitro fertilization became common place, this woman who belonged to our tennis club, always talked about her IVF treatments. She always had an update on the quantity of eggs in her womb.

Stubby (Short dude across the street.)

Mopey (Neighbour whose name rhymes with this and consequently is a bit on the sour side.)

Court Report (A mentally-challenged teenager who used to come over to our house all the time and give my Dad updates on what was happening at the local tennis courts. He rode a tricked up 10-speed and looked a helluva lot like Napoleon Dynamite.

Lady Jane (An effeminate teenager who liked to braid my hair.)

Crazy Helen (A complete nutter who lived on our street that used to walk around barefoot in the snow.)

Silly (A neighbour with a Mike Tyson-esque high-pitched voice and a penchant for wearing pointy Italian loafers.)

Nina Ballerina (A rather large woman named Nina who was very unlikely to ever be a ballerina.)

Durty Dag (Another neighbour, this one an Italian New Jersey house wife. She hated her husband's dog and would throw a shit fit when it got into the house. She was often heard screaming, "Get that durty dag outta my kitchen!")

Photographer (A nosey guy across the street who always appeared outta nowhere when anything was happening - akin to the paparazzi.)

The Russians (My mom's cousins who would show up unexpected and in great numbers at any time of day and night.)

You can't even imagine what we call each other!

Get on with it, America!

I'm so sick (no pun intended) of listening to the American pundits debate Obama's healthcare reform. For god's sake people! Just accept it!

An update on my hair

The clumps seem to have gotten greater in size and number. James pulled a grouping the size of a squirrel out from under the couch. Sam had a hunk the size of a hamster attached to his clammy foot after bouncing around in the Jolly Jumper. Ruby was grossed out at the gerbil-sized hair ball that was stuck to her bone. Eeeeek!

In pursuit of being hirsute

One of the many things that "they" don't tell you about childbirth and life thereafter is the fact that after you have the baby, most of your hair falls out.

At around 3 months post-partum, the shedding began. At first it was just a little extra hair in my brush and a larger clump in the shower drain. Now that I'm in the fourth month, it's coming out in clumps. It's so bad that the entire bathroom floor is covered in my hair. I found several tresses wrapped around Sam's little fingers. Jack's toy helicopter has a whole hunk wound around it's rotor. And I can't count the hunks that have recently appeared in the lint catcher in my dryer.

I feel like my hair is at half its usual bushiness.

For those of you that don't me, I have an immense brunette mane of hair. It's frizzy or curly depending on the humidity and it now reaches the middle of my back. My luv-lee hairdresser, Dean at the Lid Lounge always comments on the girth of my mop as he usually thins it out manually with his razor. But there is no need for artificial thinning techniques now. Mother Nature has decided to bless me with this 'natural' process of de-forestation.

So here I sit in a pile of my own locks. I wonder if I should put them in the recycling bin or whether I should make a wig for my baldy newborn, Sam.

Just call me Flossie

After 30+ years of going to the dentist, I finally relented and decided to floss my teeth on a regular basis.

I recently had a checkup after four years. Two of those years I was in Amsterdam and I was warned that the Dutch approach to dentistry bordered on barbaric. And the last two years I just kept putting it off.

Last month, I climbed back into the dentist chair and prepared myself for the worst. Lucky for me, I have pretty healthy teeth. Where they get me is the plaque build up in the back of my mouth. The hygienist spends several minutes chipping away at it with various tools of torture all the while telling me that I need to floss more.

This time I had enough. Starting that day, I began flossing my teeth every night before bed. I went out and bought me the first-class dental floss tape and I went at it. Now that it's a month into this new routine, I'm actually really surprised at the result. My teeth feel really good! I guess that makes me a grown-up now.

Whine & Cheese

I don't know what happened to my happy little six year old son but he's been replaced by a whining, grouchy, moody pre-teen girl!

Honestly, I don't know what to do with Jack lately. It addition to making life "worser" for him, I do all sorts of things that piss him off. Some examples:

• I almost "drown-ded" him in the pool on the weekend when he took in too much water when splashing around.
• I wrecked the CD cover he designed at daycare when I put it in his backpack.
• I want to make him sad by not letting him go to the toy store every day.
• I make him walk too much when I ask him to let the dog in.
• I was lying to him when I told him that it was going to rain today.
• I want to make him sad when I tidy up his toys at night and they're not in the same spot as where he left him.
• I tried to strangle him when I helped him pull off his PJ top.
• I deliberately squirted him in the eye with the sunscreen and therefore blinded him.
• I make him eat corn on the cob even though he stopped liking corn that morning.
• I make him almost crash his bike when I watch him too closely.

All I can say that it's exhausting. I've run the gamut of parenting techniques from ignoring it, redirecting him, correcting him, putting him in his room, asking him what's really bothering him, etc. What I really want to do is tell him to take a freakin chill pill and snap out of it.

I'm hoping that this sudden turn towards the dark side is a phase and that it has something to do with starting Grade One in a few weeks. If not, I guess I'm going to bear with him. At least I have Sam..

Welcome to my new home

I've lapsed in the blogging department since Sam was born on April 15, 2009. You might remember me from my other gig at See Jayne Blog. That blog is still there. According to my last post, I'm still pregnant and eating pasta at an Italian cafeteria. Wow, have things changed.

Why did I start a new blog? Ummm, the old one was sorta broke. I couldn't upload images anymore. The archives were irretrievable. And a bunch of stuff in the back end was making problems. That's the technical answer.

From a creative standpoint, I needed something fresh and trouble-free to sink my teeth into. People who care were complaining to me that they missed my blog posts. I have been spending way too much time on Twitter and FaceBook. The problem with Twitter and FB and why I love them so much is that it's quick and short. But the flip side is that I don't get to release all the crazies in my head.

I apologize for the uninspired blogger template. I will get around to either fixing my old blog or customizing this one with my own header graphic. But until such time you'll have to put up with the pepto-abmysmal creation that I chose as the lesser of many evils.

For those of you new to my blog, I guess I should give you an idea of what stuff appears here so you subscribe to my RSS feed (right hand column) toot sweet. I usually blog about my family, my friends, things that make me go crazy like people I see jogging in jeans or people who clip their nails on the subway. I like gossip and pop culture. And pointing out shoddy journalism.

I hope that y'all come back.