After almost two and a half years, the empty lot next door has finally been sold. They started digging today, and we should see a backfilled foundation in there within a couple of weeks. Yay!

One of the crappiest things about living next to an empty lot is that everyone used it as a dumping ground for their crap. The construction crews around here (we live in a very new subdivision) were the worst — the site was full of bricks, concrete chunks, shears of wood, gravel piles, and leftover tubing. Random other people were bad too, though, and the lot had lots of garbage and accumulated yard waste in it.

The weirdest thing in the lot, though, was a car. Late last summer, someone parked their car in the lot on a shallow, flat edge, and left it there. Apparently, forever. Although it was an older car, it had a fairly current license plate on it (an AK prefix) and nothing seemed to be wrong with it. It sat there all winter though, buried in snow, and no one came calling.

Today the big digger truck worked around it and I was wondering what would happen. Just now, a tow truck pulled up to claim the prize. The tow truck driver didn’t have any trouble starting it and backing it out of the lot, so it was definitely in running order. Several of our neighbours came out to watch the towing of the car, so I assume the car didn’t belong to any of them.

I just don’t get how someone could take something like a car, and leave it somewhere. It’s not like losing your keys, or forgetting where you left your glasses. It’s a car. Even if it was damaged in some way, there are places that will tow it away for free, or you could even sell it off for parts for a few hundred dollars.

Whatever. I’m just so happy it’s gone, and with the digging today, most of the garbage and crap is gone too. Yay yay yay! A fence and an actual, finished yard are in our future!

The Captain and I just had a reading from the dictionary, and I burst out laughing not once, not twice, but three times! Here are the culprits:

people – Creatures walking around on two legs are people, unless they are bears. It is usually fairly easy to tell which are people. People means humans. You are a human. One human is a person. A bunch of persons are people.

permission – If you ask your parents to let you go to Africa to hunt penguins, you ask for their permission. If they give you their permission, they permit you to go. It’s not very likely they will give their permission. Penguins do not live in Africa. They live near the South Pole.

picture – A picture is a drawing or photograph of something. You could draw a picture of your favorite pork chop, or you could use a camera to take a picture of it. Whichever way you do it, people could look at your picture and say, “Wow, that’s a great pork chop!”

Oh, Mr. Ertel, you rooster-hating, pork-chop-loving, hilarious dude, you.

A few years ago, Sir Monkeypants’ parents downsized to a bungalow, and as a result, got rid of a lot of stuff. We tossed out most of the kid-related things — half-made crafts, old artwork, broken and dried up school supplies. There were a few kids’ books too that we gave away, but at the last minute, Sir Monkeypants rescued this one book from the pile.

The book is called “My Fun With Words Dictionary,” by James Ertel. It’s a book meant to introduce preschoolers to new words — each page has six words on it defined in bright colours with an illustration. It seemed pretty basic at first, so we dumped it into the “give away” pile, but then, while leafing through it, we discovered a wonderful thing: this is, simply, the most hilarious book ever written.

Here’s a random sampling of definitions from the book — keep in mind that this is aimed at people who are like, 4 or 5 years old.

paste – Paste is stuff you use to make one piece of paper stick to another piece of pater. You also use past when you want to paste wallpaper on a wall. Make sure you don’t paste that wallpaper across the door. It will be hard to find out how to get out of the room.

moment – Moment is a strange word. It’s sort of slippery. “I’ll be there in a moment,” says your friend. Nobody knows how long that moment is. It might be ten seconds or ten minutes. Then there is that moment when you win the prize for growing the biggest pumpkin. That is a moment you will remember.

rubber – Rubber is unusual stuff. It can stretch way out and then snap back. It can bend any which way and then come back to its original shape. Rubber is used to make tires, erasers, and toys. Rubber is made from the sap of a rubber tree. A rubber band is not a musical group.

rooster — A rooster is a very noisy chicken. A rooster is a male chicken. Roosters have a habit of yelling, “Cock-a-doodle-doo,” or something like that, when the sun comes up. This habit is very annoying to some people.

Clearly, Mr. Ertel has some serious issues with roosters, not to mention a wickedly dry sense of humour.

The other day I was tidying up and found this book and stuck it on the kids’ bookshelf. Here, I should mention the very important fact that we only have the second volume in the series — letters L-Z. A-K are mysteriously AWOL. Anyway, the Captain found the book and now is totally obsessed with it, and for his bedtime “story,” he now gets to read a few pages of definitions. We can hardly keep a straight face, but we have to try our best, because explaining what is hilarious about this book would take all night, and we’re trying to get CJB into bed. But seriously, it’s entertainment for the masses.

We all love the book so much that yesterday I looked on eBay to see if I could find the first volume. I was shocked to find at least 10 copies for sale — plus you can get several through Amazon.com. The edition we have was published in 1974, but it was reprinted in 1980, and again in 1991, apparently with no edits or updates to the inside text. Crazy!

It will cost us at least $25 US to buy the book and pay to have it shipped to Canada (sadly, we could not find any Canadian sellers). But we’re thinking it over. I can’t imagine what Mr. Ertel has to say about Apples, Dogs, or Invisible.

For the past several years, my mother has been making Family Pyjamas for her daughters and all their progeny. They are all made from the same pattern — a big top with a V-neck and single big button, combined with simple elastic waist pants. There are summer varieties — short sleeves and shorts, made from cotton — and winter varieties — long sleeves and pants, made from flannel.

My mom is a sucker for the remnant table, and she can’t resist a good deal on a piece of fabric, so we often get odd and out-of-season prints used for our PJs. Plus, she adores big, bold colours and patterns, so while FameThrowa continues to emphasize that she prefers PJs that are neutral, plain colours, she continues to actually receive PJs that are bright purple with a pattern of pink and green hearts. Us Turtleheads pretty easy going on the material front, so this past Christmas, I got new new flannel sets — one bright red with a pattern of huge purple and yellow ladybugs, and one bright pink with a pattern of green frogs. Cute, comfy, and warm — what’s not to like?

In the past couple of weeks, however, I’ve noticed an exciting new trend — on several occasions, I’ve seen teenagers, boys or girls, out and about in exactly these types of pants. I’m talking flannel PJ pants, in bright colours and patterns. The first time I saw a teenaged girl at the mall in her PJ pants, she was with her parents, and I admit I gave her my best look of sympathy, because I thought she must be very, very ill, maybe terminally ill, if her parents let her come to the mall in her jammies. But since then, there have been at least three other mall sightings, and the other day, when I was driving past the local high school, I spotted at least two more flannel jammie pants on kids as they huddled for warmth out front like a gaggle of penguins.

My point here is this: I have an opportunity here to join the cutting edge of fashion merely by wearing my pyjamas out of the house. Think of it! Not only are we talking maximum comfort — my jammie pants are even more comfy than my maternity pants — but also, extreme ease of dressing. Basically, I’d just have to roll out of bed in the morning, pull on a sweater, and good to go. And the kids would be just as easy — no more chasing them down and hog-tying them just to get clothes on them before we leave the house. Instead, I’d just pull a sweatshirt over their PJ tops and voila! fashion forward outfits for all.

I think it’s safe to say this is one trend I’ll be embracing. In fact, I’m off to the grocery store…these blue and green plaid flannel PJ pants should fit right in!

I used to think that the only really great thing about being pregnant was the pregnant lady parking at the grocery store. I rarely parked in the special spots when I was pregnant with the Captain, but with Gal Smiley and this one I’ve been a heavy user. With two kids to juggle and a cart full of groceries to push, in -30 degree weather, I’ll take any excuse for the close parking. Our new Superstore has like, 10 pregnant lady spots but it’s surprising how often they are almost all full. On the few occasions when I actually haven’t been able to get pregnant lady parking, I get all mad and vigilante — I want to stand outside and police every woman who comes out, forcing her to show an ultrasound picture to validate her parking choice, subject to a sentence of many, many glares and feelings of self-righteousness on my part.

Anyway, I’ve recently moved into maternity wear and I have a new pregnancy benefit: elastic waist pants. All my maternity pants are fully elastic around the waistband, with the added bonus of a big stretchy panel in front. Not only are these things a breeze to pop down and up for potty time, they also expand at will whenever I’m faced with an enormous meal (which, let’s face it, is at least five times a day these days). My youngest sister has special elastic waist pants that she calls her “buffet pants,” suitable for all-you-can-eat buffets, as they expand with your growing tummy. My maternity pants are like all buffet pants, all the time. The comfort! The quickness of the pee! The ability to eat a dozen chocolate chip oatmeal muffins in one sitting and not have to have the guilty reminder of a too-tight waistband!

Yup, I’ll miss the maternity pants when they’re gone.

This week we will be a TV Ratings Family for Canada. That means we have to record, on a detailed survey, exactly what we are watching, and who is watching it, every moment of every day for a week. The survey company called us last week to ask if we would be interested, and because I don’t really do much during the day except eat bonbons and surf the web, I said, “YOU KNOW IT, BAD BOY.”

Actually I’m rather excited about the prospect of having total, wide-reaching influence on what gets shown on TV in Canada. I can hardly wait until next Tuesday, when I will proudly mark the 9-10pm hour as showing VERONICA MARS, Thank You Very Much. And I’m sure they will care so much that someone out there will be like, “Oh man! Someone is watching! Give that show a fourth season!” Also I am looking forward to standing up and being counted as one of the bazillions who watches Grey’s Anatomy and Heroes. They really can’t get enough love.

When our survey arrived in the mail, enclosed was their “gift to me,” a brand-new five dollar bill. Five bucks! Now I can have a coffee AND a doughnut as I support my favourite shows. Sweet!

Oh, and I forgot to mention, there are a few spots on the survey for “visitors,” so if someone is over at our place and flips on the TV, we can record that. So if there’s a marginal show that you want to save, now is the time! Come on over and get yourself counted at the Neilson-Turtlehead household.

Since our beloved shrimp Jacques died last week, we’ve had a resurgence of algae in our fish tank. So a couple of days ago, I went over to Big Al’s for a new solution. This time, I decided, no more shrimp — instead we’d get a Pleco, which is a kind of catfish that likes to eat algae.

Unfortunately the Plecos had a big problem — they were very, very ugly. Seriously ugly. Big hairy things with huge sucker mouths and a general bad attitude. The smallest ones they had were already at least four times as big as the wee guppies we keep in the tank, and likely to grow even bigger. Blech.

Luckily, the guy working there had a new idea for me — I just love the way that all the staff at Big Al’s speaks with absolute authority as they offer you a completely different opinion as the last employee you talked to. Anyway, this dude recommended Otto Cats, which are really tiny catfish. They’ll eat the algae but they never grow bigger than an inch or two long…and, they are just the cutest little dudes ever!

They like to have a friend so we brought two of them home, Jacques and Jacques. They’re so adorable. We refer to one as “Focused Jacques” because the moment he was in the tank, he latched on to a corner of the wall and started systematically cleaning, millimeter by millimeter, row by row. The other is called “ADD Jacques” because he can never stay in one place for longer than 10 seconds at a time — he has to dash from one patch to another to another until he collapses, exhausted, on a rock for a rest.

Both are doing excellent work, although due to their different work ethics, they don’t seem to be very social with each other. It’s kind of like having a Republican and a Democrat in the tank — never the twain shall meet. I love the Otto Cats so much though, I’m trying to convince that we need some more. A whole gang! The Otto Cat Crips!