You know that age-old question about who you would invite to a fictional Totally Awesome Dinner Party, living or dead? I’d invite Ken Jennings, Roger Ebert, Carrie Fisher, Joan Fontaine, and Randy Bachman.

Randy Bachman is a Canadian musical legend, one-time songwriter and guitarist for The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. I have to admit I didn’t really know anything about him until I started listening to his radio show on Saturday nights on CBC Radio. He strums along on his guitar, plays old tunes that follow some sort of theme, and tells THE BEST stories about his rock and roll days. He seriously has an endless supply of fascinating anecdotes and would make the best dinner partner ever. I could listen to him talk all day long.

Last night he was appearing downtown, part of a tour to promote his new book of stories from his radio show. He played some snippets of tunes but mostly shared anecdotes about how his most famous songs came to be. I almost didn’t go – I was tired, it was downtown, I didn’t have anyone to go with. But Sir Monkeypants encouraged me and I’m so glad I went – it was hugely entertaining and if I closed my eyes, I could imagine we were at the dinner table. Feel free to chime in, KenJen! Pass the potatoes, Carrie!

The thing about Randy is that he’s a Storyteller, with a capital S. He has oodles of charisma and a story isn’t just the facts – it’s full colour commentary, told with good humour and phenomenal name dropping and inviting you to feel as though you were right there with him. When I came home I tried to share some of his stories with Sir Monkeypants, but my just-the-facts approach just didn’t do it justice.

Sometimes when I’m driving to ladies’ poker on a Saturday night, I can’t even get out of the car because Randy’s show is that good. It’s called Vinyl Tap, and if you live in Canada, have a listen.

Then let me know if you want to be put on the dinner party list.

Andrea over at the fishbowl is hosting a photo challenge today – post one picture an hour between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., showing what you’re up to on this Thanksgiving Monday. I’ll be updating this post throughout the day with new photos.

Our big dinner with family was yesterday – I hosted and made my first ever turkey. It went well and everything was delicious and there were two kinds of super yummy pie, so that’s a big success.

Today is all about relaxing, playing, and eating leftovers.

Here’s our record for the week so far.

One lost jacket, thankfully recovered days later from the skating rink; one lost water bottle, thankfully recovered from the hallway at school; one lost pair of gloves, found sopping wet in the skating bag.

One entire book of Pokemon cards gone, gone, gone. These were Gal Smiley’s, and my heart breaks for her, but I did warn her about taking them to school and so I’m afraid this must turn into a Lesson Learned. Still sad though.

One broken TV (rough week for Gal Smiley), one dead vacuum cleaner, three flat tires on the Chariot, and one toilet that maddeningly does not flush, then flushes, then does not flush, then flushes, then runs, then sticks its tongue out at us and give us a raspberry.

Also: one non-functional furnace.

The furnace in particular made us bitter because the house is only seven years old, and much muttering was done about CERTAIN BUILDERS and their need to CUT CORNERS and SHODDY PRODUCTS THESE DAYS and so on. And of course, we found out it was not working on Saturday afternoon just as the weather turned chilly, and no one wants to call a repair guy on the weekend.

So we bundled up in sweaters and slippers and heavy quilts, while Sir Monkeypants went downstairs and tinkered with it. We knew based on the error code that there was something wrong with the airflow in and out but everything seemed fine to us. So although Sir Monkeypants bravely battled all weekend, by Monday we admitted defeat and called in some backup.

The guy arrives on Monday and has a poke around and says the problem is with our outtake pipe.

Here is the outtake pipe:

It’s the one that curves upright in a big S-shape.

You might notice, looking at these pipes, that they overlook a lovely bed of river rock.

Guess what the outtake pipe is full of.

ONE GUESS.

Here is the diagram illustrating the problem that I emailed to Sir Monkeypants yesterday afternoon:

So the guy from the furnace place can’t do anything about the rocks, because he can’t get them out without cutting the pipe, and this type of piping is no longer to code, so he isn’t allowed to cut it and reattach it, he’d have to replace the whole thing, a job requiring a few hours and hundreds of dollars.

OF COURSE.

Sir Monkeypants came home and got out his Mondo Shop Vac and sucked on the end of the tube while I bashed at it from below to loosen the rocks. We managed to suck out a whole bunch, but we can tell from ominous rattling sounds inside the tube that there’s at least one more still in there.

On the plus side, the obstruction has been cleared enough to allow the furnace to function. So we’ve decided to live in harmony with Mr. Last Rock and call it a wash.

Needless to say, the children have been LECTURED.

The Captain has assigned us all superpowers. I guess we’ll be changing our last name to Incredible any day now.

His own superpower is Ice Hands. Beware his power to turn your kidneys to ice when he touches you first thing in the morning (or in the afternoon, or in the evening, or pretty much any time).

Little Miss Sunshine has the power to Look Cute. (Note to self: wean child off Disney Princesses IMMEDIATELY.)

Gal Smiley has the power to Watch TV For Many Hours Without Stopping. She’s very proud of herself. So am I, honey, so am I.

Sir Monkeypants has unbeatable Burping Power. I believe his record is 13 in a row. Just between you and me, his secret is Diet Pepsi. Don’t tell any of our arch enemies.

My own superpower is to Drink Blech Hot Chocolate. With his many food allergies, the Captain has to drink a protein drink a few times a day that we affectionately call “hot chocolate.” If it sits for more than a few minutes it starts to separate and gets all grainy, and then the Captain rejects it but he always offers it to me in a very friendly manner – “You can have this now, Mommy.”

And I usually finish it up, because at least half of my daily calories comes from Stuff The Kids Didn’t Finish.

And thus, superpower. I’m planning a Blech Hot Chocolate for the front of my superhero spandex.

Quake before us, those with evil intentions!

Now that Little Miss Sunshine is happily settled into morning kindergarten, I have about two hours every weekday all to myself. That’s ten whole hours. PURE GOLD.

I’m totally over feeling aimless about it and now I have booked those poor, poor ten hours with about 90 different tasks, including:

• reorganizing every cabinet in the house
• single-handedly finishing the basement (if I can overcome my fear of saws)
• sorting all the toys in the house, finding all missing pieces, and garage sale-ing the stuff we don’t use
• cleaning all the stuff that never usually gets cleaned, like the top of the kitchen cabinets (EW EW EW)
• creating a book of my blog posts for my own keepsake
• improving my photography skills by maybe taking some classes or generally getting out of the house because there are only so many photos you can take of the kids’ toys
• completely revamping my physical health, via yoga/swimming/running/tap dancing/joining a gym
• plan a family vacation for the spring
• give the garden some badly needed TLC
• making an advent calendar for this coming Christmas season
• start working on any one of the three business ideas that I have as this is my long term plan for continuing to avoid the actual working world for many, many years to come

And yet so far, all I have managed to get done is grocery shopping, blog reading, and making new twitter backgrounds for my turtle_head and bolottawa accounts. At this rate, by the end of the school year I’ll have worn a hole in the couch and the house will be dirtier than ever.

How is it possible that ten hours can fly by so fast?

I’ve decided I need to schedule my days. One day is already devoted to grocery shopping, which is so heavenly without any kids along that I just can’t give that up. One day is laundry and chores. That leaves three mornings a week, three two-hour segments, to give to about 88 other projects.

Totally doable, right?

I yelled at the kids today.

It doesn’t happen very often. I’m a pretty patient mom. My problem is that I tend to be patient, patient, patient, then EXPLODE when they least suspect it. I lull them into a sense of security and love, only to BLOW UP at random times. Now that’s good parenting.

Today two of the three were having simultaneous mega-meltdowns, while the third was trying to broker peace between them by screaming overtop about how everyone was WRONG, and this was after I’d asked them to do their homework about 20 times, and yeah. That was it.

YOU – find something to do on your own, I am not available to play right now.

YOU – pack up the toys and do your homework, NOW.

YOU – sit down and eat something, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

Then I sat and fumed and felt horribly guilty while giving minimal homework help in a snappish manner.

The real problem is that when I do scream at them, they are all so, so very good. Everyone quietly does their work. Everyone gets along swimmingly. No one bothers me because they can’t find this one Pokemon card and they need that one Pokemon right now because it is their FAVOURITE Pokemon and they’ve already looked everywhere and there is no way I will find it in 30 seconds if I come upstairs.

(Totally will.)

So although I die a little inside from their goodness, and vow to never yell again, they do make it hard to turn away from that line of discipline, you know?

**********

Making things worse, I watched The Princess And The Frog this morning with Little Miss Sunshine (she was home sick with a bad head cold). Neither of us had seen it before and (SPOILER) an adorable, sweet character DIES near the end.

This was super bad news as I am a crier, I cry at everything fictional, books, TV, movies, commercials for life insurance. So the character starts eeking out his last words, and the Little Miss is choking up a bit, and instead of comforting her I start weeping, WEEPING, as if the world will be ending any moment now.

So she sweetly tucks my hair behind my ear and ever-so-gently strokes my head and murmurs that everything will okay, don’t cry mommy.

MOTHER OF THE YEAR, right there.

**********

Hm. Uncontrolled weeping followed by irrational screaming.

checks calendar

How many more years until menopause, again?

Last week while driving home, Sir Monkeypants heard a review of the movie Contagion on CBC Radio. It was by Robert Fontaine, who I have a love-hate relationship with: totally respect his opinion on movies, hate the way his constant mugging for bon mots means we have to listen to terrible pun after terrible pun.

So he’s reviewing Contagion, and in this particular movie, there’s a deadly virus on the loose. The authorities have asked the press to keep a lid on things, to avoid hysteria, but then word leaks to some bloggers (oh no, NOT THE BLOGGERS), and all hell breaks loose. Mad terror, lies and exaggerations thrown about, PANIC.

And Robert quotes the movie (and I’m sure he rubbed his hands with glee at the cleverness of this line), and says:

“A blog isn’t real writing. It’s graffti with punctuation.”

Sir Monkeypants came home and told me what he had heard and wanted to know what I thought about it. And here’s what I think:

That’s not true.

I think non-bloggers often have the perception that bloggers are either a) attention-seeking reporter-wannabes, who often say inflammatory things or even make up rumours about personalities, politicians, or current events, for the purpose of getting themselves talked about; or b) moms in yoga pants who go on and on and on about the unbearable cuteness of their tots.

And it’s true, both of those kind of bloggers exist.

But blog posts in and of themselves are an art form. A well-written blog post, in just a few hundred words, can move me to tears by perfectly capturing the human experience. A powerful blog post can inspire discussion, and I have changed my way of thinking from reading the thoughtful comments of other intelligent, considerate people. A blog post can tell a story just as well as an episode of a TV show; a blog can create characters as powerful as any movie; a blog can unite images with words as well as any art-house film.

I should know. I’ve seen them. I’ve read them. I’ve known them.

Just like there are beach novels and meaty classics, just like there are summer tentpole movies and thoughtful indie films, just like there’s crappy reality TV and powerful, Emmy-winning dramas – there are all kinds of blogs. Some are trashy, some are simple, some are just not your thing.

But the best ones, oh the best ones…they can be so strong. They can bring beauty to our lives. They can bring us together. They can change the world.

It’s more than just graffiti. It’s stories, it’s essays, it’s ideas.

It’s all of us.

Gal Smiley turns seven years old on Wednesday.

She’s always asking me for a story. Just like her father. “Tell me a story,” she will say, many times a day. “A story about when you were a baby. Or when I was a baby. Or about our family.”

I usually say, “I am not good at telling stories.” It’s not really the telling that stops me cold, it’s the coming up with ideas. We have our family legends but I’ve told them, over and over, day in, day out. She wants something new.

I can never remember anything, especially when put on the spot. I’m like a sad little storyteller caught in the headlights. What did we do yesterday? Last month? Last year? It’s all a blank when I’m trying to focus on what’s for lunch tomorrow.

So to celebrate the seventh anniversary of her birth – a birth, I might add, that was easy and powerful and will forever be one of the best moments of my life – I offer her a story.

Today Captain Jelly Belly was home sick. After we picked up Little Miss Sunshine from morning kindergarten, we were three introverts in the house.

One was happy to slide cars down the hallway, carefully noting the score for each Hot Wheels in his notebook.

One was immersed in the world of Strawberry Shortcake, soft murmuring from one doll to the other.

One was tap tap tapping on her computer, while lunch simmered on the stove.

It was very, very quiet.

There is another one, though. One who always sidles up to me, asking me what I’m doing. The one who wants to help, or play a game, or get out the paints right this minute. Don’t ask her to wait. She’ll just do it herself.

The one who spurs the others into a rowdy game of hide and seek. The one who gathers everyone for a dance party. The one who slyly turns up the volume on the TV when she thinks I’m not looking.

The one who pulls us all together. The one who makes us a family.

Some days I want a little quiet. Today, it was too quiet.

I missed you, Gal Smiley.

Brie hosts Monday Moments over at Capital Mom every week. This week’s theme was Celebrate.

I spent all morning today going through my photos from August. I’m still keeping up with my 365 project and it’s going well, but holy CRAP, the photos. When you take pictures every single day, they really add up.

I had over 550 photos from August to sort through – this was after daily reviews where I deleted the blurry ones or the ones with closed eyes. After extreme purging I still had 330 leftover to rename, sort, and comment on. Of these, I chose about 35 to print – mostly shots of things we did this summer that the kids will want to remember.

Of those, there are seven – SEVEN out of hundreds – that I consider to be really good pictures. Quality shots of the kind that you might want to frame. And I’m not talking professional photographer quality here – just shots that came out well that I am not embarrassed to show people. SEVEN.

The best photo I took all month, and I am not even kidding.

I have to say that after all this time I really thought I would get better. I am a firm believer that the more you do something, the better you get, and if you want to be good at something, you need to put the time in. Natural talent might exist, but for me it’s all about the hard work.

So I’m rather frustrated that my photography skills don’t seem to be inching towards quality in any way. I took a class with the fabulous Anna Epp this past spring and she taught me how to use the camera on manual mode, and I have been practicing at that every single day, and yet, the camera on automatic mode can always, ALWAYS, take a better shot than me.

ANNOYING.

I don’t think I have a good point here, other than that pure experience in this case does not seem to be moving me forward. So I guess I should be checking out some photography blogs? Reading books on photography? Maybe taking some more classes?

Hm.

**********

In other news, my friend Miker wrote yesterday to let me know that CTV has not renewed So You Think You Can Dance Canada for another season. Apparently the ratings were way down this summer. I forgot about my blog’s superpowers when it comes to dance show and I complained with no regard for responsible use of that power.

I’m so sorry.

I mean, obviously there were huge problems with the show, and also CTV is at fault for scheduling it when it did (concurrent with the American version, whereas previously it hasn’t really kicked into gear until after the American one ends, which in my opinion, made a HUGE difference to the ratings this year). But I will miss the ability to actually vote, I will miss Luthor and Shotyme’s choreography, I will miss intense doses of The Cheeseman, and I will miss the odd sighting of Dan Karaty and Mia Michaels, who seem to be on the outs with the American version.

RIP, SYTYCDC.

I’m having one of those super productive days where I feel like I can do anything. So far I have:

• visited the grocery store, the bank, the drugstore, a hardware store, a Large Evil Bargain Department Store, and the mall, where I hit up several sales, all part of today’s Festival of Errands;
• completely reorganized the playroom, which involved bringing up a whole wall unit from the basement and assembling it (using power tools, y’all, ’cause that’s how I roll);
• cut up four enormous boxes that came with our new shed in preparation for recycling day tomorrow (using a sharp knife/tool thing, because that’s how I roll);
• washed, dried, and folded five loads of laundry, and also changed the sheets on the beds; and
• assembled the loot bags for Gal Smiley’s birthday party next weekend, including making custom name tags for each one.

All that in addition to the usual daily grind of making lunches, doing dishes, wiping bums, and walking all over hell’s creation to pick up kids and drop them at other people’s houses (more on that some other time).

Hear me roar. In fact, I will even treat you to a photo of my new super organized playroom, because that’s how I roll:

This is all in marked contrast to last Friday, which was Little Miss Sunshine’s first day of JK. I came home to an empty house and literally did not know what to do with myself. I put away a little laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, then just stood in the middle of the kitchen with a blank look in my eyes.

It felt too decadent to do something for myself, like reading or surfing, but I didn’t want to start a major project from my to-do list because it was Friday, and I wasn’t inspired to do any writing. Even now I cannot account for about two hours in there. I guess I was just blissed out on the joy of being alone.

People keep asking me if I am sad or wistful or teary-eyed about the Little Miss starting JK. In actually fact I’m pretty happy about it. It’s only 2 1/2 hours a day, so I still get plenty of one-on-one time with her and we have lots of fun events and classes and playdates planned for this year. Plus, she’s really ready to go, and I’m really ready to have two hours a day to focus on some Life Projects For Me, so it’s win-win.

What really got to me last Friday, though, was that we were all five of us walking to school together, happily as a family. But because the Little Miss is a slow walker, and we had to take her around to the front of the school to the Kindergarten entrance, Sir Monkeypants told the older two that they could run on ahead as soon as we were within sight of the school.

So the Captain was all, “Now, Dad? Now can I go? How about now? NOW?” And seriously, it was all I could do not to grab him and tell him NO, it is not time to go, not now, NOT EVER in a very creepy Carrie’s-Mother kind of way. THEY’LL NEVER TAKE MY BABY.

The minute the school was in sight he took off, but he got tired of running so ended up walking about 30 feet ahead of us the rest of the way, so it’s not like he vanished or anything. And yet.

And yet.

He’s only eight, and already I’m struggling to keep up. It can’t quite be time to go, can it?