Old Age Has Officially Arrived

Last night, I played ultimate with FameThrowa, a practice game before our season starts next week. I’ve basically done nothing physical since before Captain Jelly Belly was born, so I know I’m going to be hurting. So far, so good though. I really took it easy trotting around the field last night. One girl who was covering me on defense told me she really liked the way I ran casually around the field instead of going “all out.” Sadly, I was going all out at the time.

Anyway, there’s this really experienced guy on our team named Quincy (name changed to protect the innocent). I knew him from a few seasons back when my old team used to play his all the time. He was known as “the fast guy” and none of the guys on my team ever wanted to mark him. So last night at practice, when introduced us, I knew who he was.

It turns out there are two Quincys on the team, and said that she wanted to refer to this fast guy as “Dr. Quincy Jones” since he is a doctor. And then I was like, “DOCTOR Quincy Jones?” And she was like, “Yes, he’s an allergist,” and I was like, “Um, he’s my allergist.” Granted he does not wear shorts and a t-shirt to the office, but I cannot believe that I totally didn’t recognize him! I’m still totally not over it.

I thought I’d really lost some brain cells from the two pregnancies, but really, this is ridiculous. I think I need some new glasses…or a new brain…or both!

Death Of The Hash Brown

Today was Mother’s Day and Captain Jelly Belly and Gal Smiley (with the help of Sir Monkeypants) got me some lovely blue-purple flowers. They made me really happy and I love my little family a whole, whole bunch.

To celebrate, we decided to go to Denny’s for lunch, which is a little family special-occasion tradition. We always go there when friends from Toronto are visiting because there are no Denny’s in Toronto, and when we offer up the Denny’s for dinner everyone always says yes and it’s a matter of half hour at most before I’m face deep in a French Slam with a side order of rye toast.

But when we got there, it was closed! Not closed as in, the owner had a family emergency kind of closed, but closed as in, boarded up, blinds drawn, sign removed. Closed!

Farewell, stacks of pancakes with a lump of butter so big it looks like a scoop of ice cream! So long, huge portions of scrambled eggs that leave me drowsy with protein! Goodbye, oh you delicious hash browns, you! Sunday brunches will never be the same again.

License Plate Watch

I saw my very first “AAAA” license plate at the Loblaws today. It brought a thrill to my heart that only fellow license plate geeks can comprehend.

I also saw an “AW” plate, meaning that AX, AY, and AZ can’t be very far behind. So it’s only a matter of months, at most, before the first B- prefixes start showing up. I’m salivating in anticipation.

The 4-letter plates were introduced just before CapnPlanet moved to Californ-I-A, which I think, was in the summer of 1997. So it has taken just eight years to go through all the possible combinations that would have been available with the old style plates. It’s crazy how cars have multiplied, and become disposible, in our society. Makes me look at the hybrids as a real — and encouraging — future prospect.

Traffic Question

For a long time I’ve wondered how to handle this traffic situation:

Say you have a major street, Main Street. And cutting across it is a smaller street, Small Street. Where Small Street meets Main Street, Small Street has a stop sign for both directions. Main Street traffic, however, goes right through (so I guess, it’s like a 2-way stop).

If you come to a stop sign on Small Street, and someone else comes to the sign on the other side of Main on Small Street, do you treat it with the same rules as a 4-way stop? That is, do you have to wait for the other person to go first, if they arrived first? What if you have an opportunity to go but, due to traffic flow, they can’t? Do you still have to wait?

Also, extending this to the 4-way stop scenario — if you are stopped at a 4-way, and it’s not technically your right of way, but you can go, and the person who arrived before you has to stop to wait for pedestrians, can you go ahead and go?

Hm.

‘Tis The Season

Garage sale season opened today. I went to about 8 of them this morning. No purchases but I feel the thrill of knowing that the stuff I need is out there, cheap.

Before last year I never saw the appeal of buying someone else’s crap. That was before our neighbours, Rob and Kelly, turned us on to the fact that the real currency of garage sales is kids’ stuff. They bought their son, who is just a few months older than The Captain, a sandbox, a slide, a picnic table, and a car all for a fraction of the price, at a single garage sale. After that we were hooked, and last summer we spent several Saturday mornings scoping for our own finds. Hell, we were up early anyway.

This year I am seriously on the prowl for a trike, a wagon, and a toy airplane. Any good quality girls’ clothes I can find would be a bonus. And it’s all out there, somewhere! I will find you! Stay alive, no matter what occurs!

One drawback of garage sale season, though, is that the line at the Tim’s drive through is prohibitively long. Made-at-home coffee just isn’t the same.

Even worse than the toilet paper debate…

It never fails to amaze me how passionately people feel about the pre-breakfast versus post-breakfast toothbrushing. Sir Monkeypants and I are both pre-breakfast brushers and I didn’t realise when we first met how important that was, but it’s clear to me now that if we differed on this issue we would have no chance at a happy marriage.

I can’t count the number of people who are post-breakfast brushers who have tried to convince me that their way is “right.” The latest was my chiropractor who, granted, can be a little preachy as it is, but man, she just wouldn’t let it go. I had the same debate with a few of my roommates in university — not that I felt that my way was superior in some way, I was just used to it and liked it and didn’t feel like changing. You’d think I was a smoker or something.

I’m sure there are an equal number of pre-breakfast brushers out there who are just as dedicated to their point of view. But either way, we’ll be raising The Captain and Gal Smiley as pre-breakfast brushers. Hopefully this doesn’t open us up to prosecution in the future.

Pants on! Pants on!

The Captain is at an age when he really wants to help out with whatever you’re doing. Yesterday I was changing Gal Smiley’s diaper and he wanted to lend a hand. Just as I got the diaper on, the timer went on the Mac and Cheese I was making for lunch. So I handed the Gal’s pants to The Captain, and said, “Here, put these on, will you?” and dashed into the kitchen.

The Captain was so cute. He tried really hard. His pants putting on method consists of holding the pants next to her legs, and chanting “Pants on! Pants on! Pants on!” over and over. It didn’t quite work but it definitely was entertaining!

Wisteria Lane

I just finished watching this week’s Desperate Housewives and since it seems to be popular with my extensive readership, I thought I’d ask y’all…where does everyone live in relation to each other?

Last week it seemed clear that Bree and Lynette live directly across from each other. This week it seems that Mrs. McCluskey (aka Laningham) also lives across from Lynette. So I guess Mrs. McCluskey and Bree are next-door-neighbours.

Mrs. Huber, I think, used to live two doors down from Bree. It seems that her house is right next door to Paul and Zach Young (as Mrs. Huber’s sister often runs into Zach in her driveway). So I guess the Youngs live on the other side of Bree? But that would put the Youngs between Bree and Mrs. Huber, and I thought that Mike Delfino, when he first met Susan at Mary Alice’s funeral, said that *he* lived right next door to the Youngs. Hm.

In the very first episode, Susan seemed to live directly across the street from the Youngs. I think Edie lives on the same side of the street as Susan, but a few doors down — possibly directly across from Mike. Are Susan and Lynette next-door-neighbours?

Where is Gabrielle’s house? It seems she lives a little ways down the street from Bree (at least), and directly next door is a nameless family with the little girl who blackmailed her. And do John and his parents live on the street as well?

I feel like it’s one of those big grid problems where they give you clues like “The person who lives in the blue house likes to ride bikes” and “The hang glider lives between the blue and green houses” and so on and you have to match everyone up!