Category: Princess

Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Suburban

A Real Life American Soap Opera

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Days of our Military

As the Socialites Turn

All My (General’s) Children

The Old and the Beautiful

The Young and the Breathless

The General’s Hospital

Those who know me know there is nothing I love more than a good soap opera (and no, that’s not an oxymoron). I have watched soaps since I was six years old when I would rush off the school bus so I could watch The Edge of Night with my mother. My biggest worry about going to a new school was whether I would still get home in time to see my shows. My guilty obsession continues to this day. I keep waiting for Alex Trebek to announce that he is starting a new Soap Opera Jeopardy. I would so win that thing. Move over Ken Jennings, there’s a new champ in town.

Any-hoo, that said, it appears there’s a new real-life soap that has people on the edge of their seats. Who is the shirtless FBI agent? Were military secrets really revealed during pillow talk? It even stars a set of a real live Kardashian twins! (Wait…what’s that? The Kardashians are real? How were we supposed to know that?)

Yes, Americans have a brand-new scandal to sink their teeth into and thank heavens for that. The election is over and YouTube kittens can only take us so far. And since I am an expert on all things “soap opera-ish”, I thought I would offer a brief summary of…ahem…affairs.

Former CIA director, David Petraeus, has admitted to having an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwel and for this heinous crime he has resigned his high ranking military position. According to Petraeous himself, he and Broadwell started their affair a year ago after working together for more than 6 years. Reportedly, she nicknamed him, Peaches. Nice. The man is a four-star general and she gives him a nickname you would normally bestow on a cat.

Anyway, back to my story: Paula and David conduct their covert affair in the caves of Afghanastan until David, most likely feeling badly about thinking with his heat-seeking missile instead of his superior brain, decides to break it off. He plays her Taylor Swift’s song over the phone and tells her: “We are never, ever, ever getting back together…like ever.” Paula is heart-broken and when she hears of another hussy, one Jill Kelley, moving in on her man, she starts firing off threatening anonymous e-mails. “Stay away from my boyfriend or I’ll beat you up afterschool on the playground.” (I don’t have the actual transcripts…I’m just guessing based on the maturity of the people in the situation.)

Poor sweet Jill, a kind woman who is a real live diplomat…wait…what’s that? She’s not a real diplomat? Turns out she’s a rich socialite who organizes parties for high-ranking military men even though she’s in no way connected to military. (Hmmm…that sounds like an interesting job. Where does one apply?) Jill, in fear for her life because of these 8-grader-like e-mail threats,  asks her friend at the FBI (a friend who sends her shirtless pictures of himself) to investigate.

He does and loandbehold…the affair between Paula and David is revealed! Oh no! The tears! The anger! The resignation of Big David! But wait! Suddenly the tables are turned on Jill and she too comes under scrutiny. Turns out sweet Jill has been carrying on a long-distance relationship with General John Allen, David’s successor. 20-30,000 pages worth of e-mails. Wow! General John must be one hell of typist to get all of those e-mails out and run the American army in Afghanistan. (I can barely write this blog and get dinner on the table in the same day.)

Finally, because no soap opera is complete without an evil twin, the press has uncovered an ugly divorce scandal involving Jill Kelley’s twin sister, Natalie. Turns out, according to the judge, Natalie “lacks honesty and integrity” and should not have custody of her children. Ouch! Oddly, both the generals vouched for Ms. Liar Liar Pants-on-Fire in court saying she was a good mother. I wonder what constitutes a good mother in their books?

Now, all because two people who were married to two other people, couldn’t keep their pants zipped, everyone in this story is under investigation by both the government and the media. Stay tuned for breathless updates from the poor reporters who have been pulled from more important stories to cover this debacle.

I will continue to follow the story, like most of North America, mostly because it’s in my face all the time and also because it’s so ridiculous I have to keep reading to see what will happen next. But I hope it wraps up soon. I prefer my soaps the old fashion-way – poorly written, funny without trying to be, slow-moving and, most importantly, fake.

Memoir, Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Suburban

Pears vs. apples – Why you should never ask a woman if she’s eating for two

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 POP QUIZ!
When is it OK to ask a woman if she’s “eating for two”?
a. Never
b. When hell freezes over.
c. When you see the baby’s head crowning.
d. When she’s eating.

I have read that there are two types of bodies – pears and apples. Pear shaped women are apparently the lucky ones, despite the fact they sometimes seem oddly out of proportion. They look like “real women” – all hips and boobs and tiny waists. We are told that this is also good thing in terms of health. And of course it is. Because I am an apple shape.  Us apples carry our weight around our middles, much like pregnant women. Apple men can rub their bellies and say, “This is one nice belly. Yup, I earned this belly.” A woman does that and everyone assumes there is a child nestled in there. And god forbid if there isn’t. Then she’s just a slob. The pear shaped woman can just smile and wiggle those ample hips of hers. That doesn’t work so well for the apple woman. Shaking my ample belly doesn’t have quite the same womanly affect.

All of that said: what on earth possesses people to ask a woman of ANY age if she is pregnant? Seriously. As an elementary school teacher, I have worked with hundreds of women of child-bearing age and it has never occurred to me to ask any of them if they are “with child” or “eating for two”. Or even worse, pat their belly and say, “Congratulations!” And yet I’ve seen it happen (and had it done to me) on many an occasion. It is horrifically embarrassing for everyone involved when a mistake has been made. The poor (usually apple-shaped) woman has to smile, say no, and make some joke about having eaten too many donuts that morning. The person who has made the faux-pas, hopefully, feels mortified and starts to stammer, “Oh I’m so sorry. It must be that blouse you’re wearing…” The people within earshot immediately have something else to do that requires them to leave the premises as quickly as possible.

Here’s a fact: sometimes women have bellies that protrude. It may be their body-type, monthly bloating, a tumour, or just too much cake going in the cake hole. Or they may actually BE pregnant, but not ready to share that information with the world. Whatever the reason, your mouth should stay shut until you get the birth announcement in the mail.

So, the answer to the above question is of course: a. Never, never, never. I don’t care if you see that baby’s head hanging out from below a lady’s skirts. I don’t care if you have just come back from hell wearing a toque and a parka. Don’t ask, wait to be told. And if (god help you) you ask a woman if she’s eating for two when she’s actually eating?! I’m sorry. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Memoir, Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Suburban

I was a pregnant angel: Why Halloween is still my least favorite holiday

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This is what I “might” have looked like if I hadn’t been forced to wear my winter coat under my costume.

Trick or treating was banned in the village where I grew up. It was sort of like that Kevin Bacon movie, “Footloose” where the town council bans dancing after some kids are killed returning home from a dance. Rumour had it that one year a little girl in our neighbourhood had been hit by a car and killed while she was out trick or treating. The community leaders met and decided that letting children go door to door to beg for candy was too dangerous and was henceforth outlawed.

Instead, all of the parents (read: moms) gathered together the week before Halloween, with their assigned treats, and stuffed large paper bags with all sorts of Halloween goodies – chips, chocolate bars, cans of pops, even the yucky stuff like candy kisses made into those bags. They filled enough bags so that every kid in the village would get one.

Then, on Halloween night, all of the kids would get dressed up in their Halloween finest and go to Rec Centre for a two-hour ‘party’. The party was the same every year. March in, sit down, listen to a speech about how much fun we were going to have. Then the musical chairs portion of the evening would be begin. We all got in small circles and marched around to the music, while the judges fluttered in and out of our groups. If they tapped you on the shoulder, it meant you had to sit down because your costume was lame and you weren’t going to win the costume contest. By the end, there was only one boy and one girl left standing – the winners of the Costume Contest! Hooray for them! Then we would play some spooky games until it was time to get our treat bags. Once we got our bags we were put out of our misery and allowed to watch a movie, while we ate as much candy as we could shove in our faces.  For some reason, the movie was always, Ed, The Talking Horse, a rather bizarre Halloween choice I always thought.

One year, in a fit of Halloween frenzy, my mother made me an angel costume. I had long blonde hair then and when my mother put the halo on my head, I felt like I WAS an angel. Unfortunately, that was also the year the community decided to combine the annual Halloween party with an outdoor skating party. Halloween night arrived and it was about -20 degrees outside.

My father insisted I wear my winter coat.

“But it will cover up my costume!” I protested.

“Well, just put your coat on under your costume.”

I figured this was better than hiding my beautiful costume, so I put my puffy coat on first and then had my mother wriggle the dress over my head. She adjusted the halo and stepped back.

“Does it look OK?” I asked.

“Now you look like a pregnant angel,” my father said, starting to laugh.

This set my younger brother off and soon they were both howling at the 10-year-old pregnant angel.

My mother fussed with my outfit and whispered, “Ignore them. You look lovely.”

I did not look lovely. I looked like an albino penguin and skated like one, too. Thanks to my brother, all of the other kids called me “the pregnant angel” within minutes of my arrival. And I didn’t win the costume contest. I think the judges thought there was something unseemly about a pregnant angel.

Eventually the ban on trick-or-treating was lifted but by then, I was too old and ‘mature’ to go door to door. It left a bad taste in my mouth…one that I have tried to get rid of for years by eating numerous tiny chocolate bars and small, air-filled bags of chips. But I still do my civic duty and hand out treats to the youngsters when they come to my door. And when I see a little girl who looks miserable because she’s been forced to cover up her costume with her coat or even worse, jam it on underneath her costume, I give her a little extra treat. Eat up honey…it takes away the bad taste.

Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Raves, Suburban, Teacher

Sticks and Stones…Why words can hurt us

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There are a lot of things I don’t understand, like people’s love of scotch (it tastes like cleaning oil), physics, and the public fascination with US uber-conservative and lawyer, Ann Coulter. This woman is a nasty piece of work. I can only imagine that she must have suffered some terrible pain in her lifetime that has made her dead inside to the feelings of others. Recently , Ms. Coulter tweated that she approved of Governor Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the “retard” during the third presidential debate. Seriously?!

Despite on-line condemnation from everyone everywhere, including Special Olympian John Franklin Stephens, Ms. Coulter defended her choice of words a week later on the Piers Morgan show. She said she wasn’t insulting people with mental challenges; she was insulting the president. She said she chose the word “because it’s a synonym for ‘loser.’” Seriously…again?! That doesn’t make it better!!!

But she’s right. The term ‘retard’ is most often used as an insult and it’s used because it implies that the person being insulted is not smart and a loser. But the part that Ms. Coulter seems to have missed is that’s why it’s not used by polite, caring society anymore. That’s why newscasters and reporters are referring to it as the ‘r-word’; because, it dehumanizes people with mental disabilities, therefore making it OK to abuse them.

And that’s the problem with words – they can be used to dehumanize others so that we can abuse them without any fear of guilt. On a global scale, it’s what the Nazis did when they rounded up the Jews. They dehumanized them making it OK for their soldiers to torture and kill them. On a smaller scale, this is also what happens with bullying. Call a girl a “slut” and it’s a lot easier to make fun of her and victimize her. Call a boy a “gay loser” and it’s a lot easier to beat him up and say hateful things about him. These people become “things” and not human beings anymore.

This thinking goes beyond hatred and moves into contempt. It means that you consider someone worthless or inferior to you. Once you don’t care about something, you are free to be as cruel as you want without fear of guilt, empathy, compassion or sympathy. In her book, Just because it’s not wrong, doesn’t make it right, Barbara Coloroso quotes Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire on how the world was able to ignore the genocide in Rwanda. He said that with silent indifference, the international community endorsed, “the ethical and moral mistake of ranking some humans as more human as others.”

So, Ms. Coulter, when you use the ‘r-word’ and say that you only did so because, in your mind, it’s a synonym for loser, I believe you. But if your end goal was to dehumanize the president so that we would all join you in your campaign of contempt, I think you missed the boat there. The only person dehumanized by this exchange was you.

The only conclusion I can reach is that we are in desperate need of a transfusion of humanity. If we believe that all humans are human, then how are we going to prove it? We can only prove it through our actions. Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.

Memoir, Pop Culture, Princess, Teacher

“OMG – What are those things?!” – Why teachers should always preview the class movie.

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I popped the DVD in the machine and turned out the lights.

“Is everybody ready?” I asked.

The kids had moved all of the desks to the back of the room and pulled their chairs to the front. Some were less than a foot away from the big screen TV I had managed to snag from the AV room.

“Move out of the way, Josh. I can’t see!” one of the girls yelled.

“Move your own chair,” Josh said. “What? You got a piano tied to your butt?”

Josh’s friends laughed.

“OK, enough,” I said. “Remember. I can turn this off anytime. I need you to cooperate with me. I have to finish these reading assessments by the end of the day and the only way I’m going to do that is if you all watch the movie and eat your snack and be quiet. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” they all grumbled.

‘This movie is called Babies. It’s about one year in the life four babies. One is from Mongolia, one is from Namibia, one is from San Francisco and the other one is from Tokyo. You can see how babies are raised in ways that are very different from here.”

“Have you seen it, Mrs. H?” one boy asked.

My heart stopped a little bit. No, I hadn’t. I had meant to preview it during the week but other things kept bumping it off my to-do list.  I figured: it’s an award winning documentary, rated G…what could possibly go wrong? It’s rated G, for heavens sake. Most of these kids had already seen movies that I still couldn’t watch for fear of nightmares.

“No, I haven’t but it has won a ton of awards and I think it will be great. You will learn about babies for health class and about different countries for social studies. Two birds with one stone! Hooray! Now, when I call your name, I need you to join me in the hall for your reading assessment. It will only take a few minutes and then you’ll be right back at the movie. OK?”

“Yes. We promise,” said the one girl who might have actually been listening to me. The rest of them were trading snacks, whispering to the friends, and moving their chairs to get a better view.

I hit play and called the first name on my alphabetical list.

“Ryan, my friend. You are first.”

Two chairs were set up in the hall perfectly so that I could see the class (but not the movie) and they could see me but not the reader. It was a delicate balance of supervision and assessment and doing these two things at once was challenging, to say the least. It would be a wonder if I didn’t have a split personality by the end of the day.

Ryan read his piece smoothly and quickly, while the rest of the class was immersed in their snacks and the movie. One down, 29 to go.

“Katie!”

“Robert!”

I had six students done when the buzzing started.

“What is that?”

“What is she doing?”

“Is that a…?”

“Oh my God! That’s her boob!”

The class went crazy.

“No way!” somebody shouted.

“Yes, look at it. It’s huge! It’s bigger than that baby’s whole head.”

“Oh my god. That’s sooo gross.”

The giggling had reached a peak and could be heard in the hall and beyond.

I dropped my clipboard of reading scores and raced into the room. The student I was reading with somehow made it there ahead of me.

Sure enough, there was the Nambian mother, completely topless, feeding her baby. Her heavy breasts hung almost to the ground and two babies were simultaneously sucking on them and playing with them.

And then, as quickly as it started, it was over. The film moved back to the California baby demurely drinking formula from a bottle fed to her by her father. I paused the movie and considered my options.

“Nooo! Turn it back on!”

“Don’t stop the movie just for that, Mrs. H! It’s no big deal. It’s natural, right?”

If I stopped the movie now, there would be no way I would finish the reading assessments by the weekend. And besides, they were right. Breastfeeding is natural and there was nothing gratuitous about the scene.  Next year they would all get the “sex talk” despite the fact that some of them still played with dolls and action figures.

“Do you think you can handle this maturely, boys and girls?” I asked, pretending like I trusted them to act more mature than my husband would if he were watching the same movie.

“We promise!”

“Pinky swear!”

So, I turned the movie back on, crossed my fingers, and called the next name.

The lesson I learned that day? Well, that previewing a movie before showing it to 30 ten-year-olds is not just a “good” idea, it’s essential. I was lucky it was just a little boob on display. Amazingly, I didn’t get any flack over the movie. I don’t know if the kids just didn’t tell their parents or if the parents agreed with me that it wouldn’t hurt them but I know I lucked out. So, do yourself a favour and watch the movie first and if you see boob or hear cursing, you might want to put it aside and find yourself a new electronic babysitter. Just a tip.

 

Memoir, Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Suburban

John Tesh says blogging about your diet will help you lose weight…thanks for the tip, Tipster.

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Fasting

First of all, where does that stupid word come from? Fasting…there’s nothing fast about fasting. It actually feels like time is standing still. How many more hours until I can eat? Has it really only been an hour??? When can I go to bed? Because when I go to bed, then I’ll go to sleep and when I wake up, I can eat!!!

It makes my brain hurt and my body tired…or perhaps it’s the other way around.

So, why I am doing it? Well, I signed up for this “nutritional program”. Cleanse your way to better health! Be a slimmer, healthier, happier you! Who doesn’t want that? I’m all about health. Nothing is more important to me. Well, sometimes chocolate. And definitely wine. But nope. Health. Health is #1. Of course, there is also that little matter of seeing pictures of myself in a bathing suit this summer. That was not nice. No one should have to see that. I wanted to get a t-shirt made that said, “Look away! Avert your eyes! You will turn into a pillar of salt if you gaze upon this sad spectacle!” But alas, I had no sign and no doubt scarred a few poor souls for life, through no fault of their own.

So, I signed up for this (expensive) program that promised better health, slimmer thighs and perhaps happiness for life. Supposedly there is a mountain of science behind the program basically saying that it’s been flown to us from a mystical land on the backs of unicorns. Just follow our plan, the magic fairies sing, and you too will look like Jennifer Anniston (Disclaimer: minus the hair…we can’t do anything about the hair. That’s a gift from God). This plan involves drinking 2 protein shakes a day: ideally, one in the morning and one at night. (I don’t like to say breakfast and dinner because then it just sounds sad.) At noontime, you get to eat one “healthy meal of 400-600” calories. Enjoy it because it’s the only solid food you will put in your mouth for the rest of the day. This wouldn’t be so bad if you could choose your 600 calories (let’s not be silly, here, who would pick the 400 calorie option?). A glass or two of wine, some cheese and crackers, an apple (for fibre and to keep the doctor away) and maybe a handful of veggies to keep the fanatics happy. But no. It’s all fruits and veggies and lean protein, blah, blah, blah. To make things worse (if that’s possible), wine, sugar, wheat, caffeine, and I believe possibly, air, need to be eliminated from your diet altogether. Lord save me from my own vanity.

I wonder if Jennifer Anniston eats this way? I once saw an interview with Cindy Crawford where she said she wishes she could get up in the mornings and look like Cindy Crawford, the Supermodel. Between airbrushing and personal chefs and private trainers, it’s no wonder these women look the way they do. And for us mere mortals to aspire to look like them is ridiculous if not bordering on the insane. (My husband would like to note that I crossed that border a long time ago. I hope you like sleeping on the couch, Big Fella!)

So, here I sit, at 3:30 on a Friday, with no food in my belly, other than two small powdered disks of I don’t know what (perhaps they are ground fairy dust designed to melt fat and erase wrinkles – oh please, please!).  And I wonder, WHY??? I don’t think Ms. Universe is about to come calling and Vogue hasn’t booked a visit in, like, ages. I’m can still see my own toes and don’t have Type 2 diabetes…yet. I’m already married and it’s much too expensive for my husband to divorce me now. So….WHY???? If you can tell me, please do. For now, I will sip my herbal tea and wait for tomorrow to come.

(Is 6 pm to early to go to bed?)

Memoir, Pop Culture, Princess, Rants, Suburban, Teacher

No one told me I’d have to raise my own children!

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Response to Brenda MacDonald’s Oct 15, 2012 column: Two Cents Worth

I’d like to add my two cents worth to Brenda MacDonald’s recent column in the Bedford-Sackville Daily News. In this week’s column, she laments the fact that she can no longer trust her sons’ teachers to teach them “the moral, value, life lesson, don’t-miss-a- deadline stuff”. Wow. My heart goes out to her. I mean, as a parent, I didn’t know either that I was actually expected to teach my children morals and values. This wasn’t in my “What to expect when you’re expecting” book! I mean, I understood that until they started school, I would have to teach them certain things like, “Don’t touch the stove or you’ll get burned!” and “Don’t flush your dinky toys down the toilet or we’ll have to pee in the yard!” But I felt safe in knowing that once my boys started school that responsibility, that heavy, heavy burden, would be lifted off my shoulders and placed on the backs of those miracle workers known as teachers. And when the last of my (two) children got on the school bus to begin his first day of school, I heaved a heavy sigh of relief. I felt light. No more worrying about educating my children on life lessons or morals or values. That job was now up to the teacher. I now have one child in grade 9 and another in grade 12 and I’m afraid I have a lot of catching up to do. You see I trusted their extraordinary teachers to teach them all of the morals and values and life lessons they would ever need. Thanks to Ms. MacDonald, I now realize how wrong I was.

Sarcasm aside, Ms. MacDonald’s initial concern that her child was given a 5-week extension on his middle school project and was not docked any points off his final grade is certainly valid. None of us likes it when we work our butts off and get our work done on time and the person in the cubicle next to us does the minimum amount and still gets paid as much or more than we do. (Yes, real life sucks, too.)

Ms. MacDonald admits that schools across the country have adopted no-zero policies, which means students can’t be penalized for what is considered a “behaviour issue” such as handing in a project late. Some parents and teachers are currently banding together to protest this new rule. The most high profile case on the books right now involves a teacher in Alberta who was suspended for going against the rule and assigning a child a zero. Ms. MacDonald dimisses the rapid spread of this policy across the country by saying, “I have no time such nonsense.” Nonsense or not, it is here, and teachers are required to follow the guidelines set forth by their provincial departments of education, their school boards and their school administrators. Shaming and blaming teachers (“I no longer totally trust them to teach my children anymore.”) is shifting blame to an easily identifiable group and allows Ms. MacDonald to ignore that other “nonsense”. A backhanded compliment like “don’t get me wrong, teachers are an admirable bunch” is as insulting as saying, “That dress is lovely. It really hides all the weight you’ve gained.”

Teacher responsibilities have grown over the years to include much more than the traditional reading, writing, and arithmetic. The obesity crisis, the bullying crisis, the identity crisis – all of these things are now being placed on schools. Fix our children, parents cry! Oh, and while you’re at it, make sure they can still read, write and do math better than children in other countries.

I did not, have not, and will not ever expect my child’s teacher to prepare my child for the “real world”. I want my child’s math teacher to teach him math and his biology teacher to teach him biology. I can handle the life-lessons, the morals, the values and “don’t miss a deadline” stuff. That’s what I signed up for.