So, we decided to roll the dice and go to Palm Springs to visit family during weeks 34 and 35 of my pregnancy. The good news, I didn’t birth a baby in the U.S. of A, the bad news, that means I will never be the mother of a President of the United States (I should have used a pencil when I put that on my bucket list).4am wake up call from this little gem. She accomplished so much this morning: drank a bottle, brushed her teeth, ate a bunch of raspberries (yes, in that order), had a shower, watched part of Zootopia, turned on and off the lights about 53 times, noticed there is a rubber ducky in the hot tub, exclaimed “duck” a few times (which sounded like something else), gave me three hugs and bonked her head #GooseEgg

A little afternoon reading. Her forehead bruise is changing colour already. Fact: Olivia heals more quickly than Wolverine! #XMen #HughJackman #LazyDay #PalmSpringsForTheWin

Patti and Olivia had a falling out this morning. It could have something to do with Olivia chasing her around saying “go…. goooooooooo!” #FickleFriends #BuddiesBeingBuddies

And just like that they were friends again! #BuddiesBeingBuddies

In our family if you want something at the store you have to carry it home yourself. #Candy #DowntownPalmSprings #BabiesWhoLift #TheySeeMeStrolling

Stay great! 

Everyone meet Pandi, Pandi meet everyone. A second generation panda hailing from the forests of the Sichuan province of China by way of Michaels in Signal Hill, Calgary,  Pandi brings to her role as Olivia’s bestest gal pal extensive experience in the areas of emotional support (cuddling), passive listening, human rights law and sitting still for extended periods of time. She is the current international staring contest champion following the 2017 doping scandal which saw the reigning champion Gabby, a goat from Wisconsin, U.S.A. stripped of her title. Gabby was accused and later found guilty of using a banned substance to make her pupils appear larger and was convicted of possession with the intent to sell. She received a life time ban and some time in The Clink.

Welcome to the family, Pandi.

Stay great!

Kate

Well, well, well, the peanut butter thief has returned to the scene of the crime…

… leaving behind my peanut butter (some of it anyway). As you will recall, I never thought I would see that little Rubbermaid container again. I was wrong.

I also thought I would feel differently if I ever saw it again; that a sense of relief would rush over my body; that perhaps I had missed it in my previous two highly extensive searches; I was wrong again. Instead the butterknife markings visible on the outside of the container, told a story of a soul-less creature who had helped themselves to more than half of my peanut butter.  Why they put it back is beyond me. I very clearly could not eat the remaining spread, it was too risky. Generally speaking when it comes to exposing myself to the possibility of contracting a communicable disease, I tend to be overly cautious. So, peanut butter pillager, at the very least, you could have cleaned out the container before tossing it back in the fridge. You could have also left me a heart-felt apology post-it note that read something like:

“I’m sorry I was so selfish and have a penchant for thievery. I thought that since I deprived you and your growing child of peanut butter for your rice cakes and such, the least I could do was wash out your container so as to not inconvenience you further, given you can’t eat the remaining contents as they contain trace amounts of my saliva, as well as remnants of my inconsideration. Please accept my apology.” 

Nope, instead it was put back in the fridge, like nothing had happened. Only something had happened, they took my contingency protein supply and in the process they compromised the sacrosanctity of the communal fridge honour system. I suppose I can now relate, on some level at least, to how the three bears must have felt when that little girl B&E’d their little cottage and used their stuff. I bet they never felt safe in their home again, particularly given that humans are a bear’s number one predator (that is so quickly forgotten because she was an innocent looking wee human). Goldilocks entered their home without their consent, ate from each of their bowls of porridge, sat in each of their chairs and then tested out each of their three beds. Creepy AF if you ask me.

On that day I took the container, I washed it clean of its contents, and I simply shook my head. What else is a gal to do in a situation like this? It is just peanut butter after all, not to mention when I realized it was gone in the first place I made peace with the fact that the inconsiderate walk among us, often undetected.

Stay great!

She cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision – she cried out twice, a cry that was more than a breath: ‘the horror! The horror!’

I am she. The she who waddled to the office kitchen to retrieve the peanut butter and jam I keep in the fridge in case of emergencies; yes, by emergencies I mean dry, plain rice cakes. Given the limited shelf space in the communal fridge I am considerate enough to keep my PB&J in small plastic Rubbermaid containers so as to not take up too much of the fridge’s capacity. When I opened the fridge that morning, my peanut butter was gone… gone I say; hence, the horror!

It takes a special kind of person to walk into a kitchen, open the fridge, and take someone else’s food; special in the sociopathic sense of the term. Rule of thumb dictates that strip club rules apply when it comes to common room fridges: if it isn’t yours, you can look but you certainly mustn’t touch. Unfortunately for me, we don’t have some burly bouncer standing guard protecting the assets in question.

I contemplated embarking on an organization wide hunt for my peanut butter; yes like they did in Salem back in the day with the so-called witches; invoking mass hysteria among my colleagues – ‘if they took my peanut butter, your ham sandwich could be next. Where does it stop?’… together we’d hunt down the culprit and bring all of this to an end. No there would be no burning at the stake, but there would be some serious guilt tripping from the hungry pregnant woman and growing baby who were deprived of their second breakfast that morning.

I went through something similar a few years back with my cans of Diet Coke that would mysteriously go missing from the fridge. This happened more than once, until one day I’d had enough and decided to take action. To quote George W. Bush:

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

I would not get fooled again. I started taping a note on my cans of Diet Coke that read: not yours. That way, if someone was standing there, fridge open, unsure whether or not they had placed the beverage there earlier, it was clear, they hadn’t. It didn’t matter who it belonged to, the key message was, it didn’t belong to them. This approach worked, and folks found it kind of funny – win-win.

You know, I can understand it when it comes to a can of Diet Coke, it is plausible that it could have been theirs, all of the cans look the same, but a small Rubbermaid container filled with PB? I feel like you would remember scooping a few tablespoons of peanut butter into a small container and then putting it in the fridge at work. I would anyway.

Sure, I’ve made peace with the the fact that I will not likely see my little peanut butter container again; and no, there will be no witch hunt at the office – ain’t nobody got time for that! Instead I have cut my losses and replaced the little container of peanut butter with an identical container, with identical contents. The key difference being the not at all passive aggressive label that now stretches across the front of the container. I think my message is pretty clear:

Stay great!

I’m sure it is a common misconception, but when I got pregnant I thought, this is amazing, I will now have the strength of a grown woman and a wee baby; a one man advantage – I will win all things, all the time. Nope. I thought wrong. I thought very wrong in fact. Pregnancy has sucked the life out of me, which when you think about it is kind of ironic because I’m growing life inside of me. Mind. Blown.

With my first pregnancy (Olivia is now 16 months old, so it wasn’t too long ago), I was nauseous for the first 22 weeks. With all the strength I could muster I held onto the mantra, you can do anything for nine months. This is true, but then I was kicked in the lady balls… did you know that pregnancy is actually almost 10 months? Me neither.

This time my nausea has been so bad that I have had a hard time functioning, hence why I have been MIA and oh so very cranky.

            (Nauseous, cranky face… but this pregnancy pillow is the best invention ever!)

One thing that has been reinforced now that I am on pregnancy two, is, as soon as people find out you are pregnant it is like you have been initiated into this club you have no interest in being in; a very exclusive club, where everyone and their mother want to tell you their birth story. About how their experience was the toughest, most gruelling, painful thing anyone has ever been through; about how they tried all the inns in Bethlehem and couldn’t find a place to stay so they ended up crashing in some old carport looking structure with a manger in it and birthed their baby, without an epidural, and with more vaginal tears than one could imagine.

Sidebar: Tears is meant to be read as “tares”, not tears like the ones you cry when you are watching a YouTube video of a soldier returning home from a tour of duty to his or her loyal golden retriever who is so excited to see them that it sounds like it is crying and you think it is going to wag its tail off.  Although now that I think about it I’m pretty sure the aforementioned vaginas did cry a fair bit if even 10% of what was described to me by women I know (and women I don’t know for that matter) is accurate. In fact it is a miracle their vaginas don’t have PTSD as far as I’m concerned.

Anytime a friend asks me about my experience, I’m very honest – it took 7 hours total start to finish, began with a water break on our bedroom floor a week before my due date (not to be confused with a coffee break, my waters broke – yes, waters, it is plural, another thing I didn’t know), me saying “Ok hun, it’s go time”, a bit of discomfort, and then an unfamiliar pain, an epidural that only froze half of my body, me being nice to the nurses and not very nice to my husband, a little bit of barfing, 2 hours of pushing, a perfect wee baby being born, and no tearing. The experience wasn’t as fun as jumping on a trampoline or eating ice cream, but about an hour afterwards I said to my husband, “I could definitely do that again.” You see, I’m convinced that someone ‘Men in Blacks’ you after you are done birthing; erases the memory with the hope that you will consider doing it again at some point in the future.

I haven’t experienced it yet this round, as I’ve largely been in hiding, but the worst phase of pregnancy is the belly touching by complete strangers (I don’t mind when friends do it). Everyone wants to touch your belly and some of em don’t ask you before they do it. One time when I was pregnant with Olivia I went into a Starbucks and ordered my very specific pregnant woman drink – grande, extra-hot, half-sweet, non-fat DECAF caramel latte (this time it is mint tea because coffee is ew… I’m hoping I will like it again post-pregnancy). After I ordered, the barista said: “oh, can I touch your belly” and reached her hand out to touch it. Yes she asked, but I was suddenly faced with a Sophie’s choice: do I let her touch my belly or risk getting the wrong drink? In the split second I had to answer the question I pimped out my belly with the hope I’d get what I ordered, “sure, I guess so.” Like magnets on a fridge, her hands were stuck to my belly, and they were moving around in circles… *shudder* I got the right hot beverage that day, but left feeling like I needed to take a hot shower.

Now, I promise I won’t let this pregnancy take over my writing, after all I’m more than just a uterus. I have plenty of other random things to talk about.  On a pregnancy related note though, I will ask that you pray for my husband. He needs all of the positive thoughts he can get for the next six months – I’m certainly not offering many these days.

To conclude, I will concede that having the ability to grow a human in one’s belly is truly remarkable. It is a miracle really, like God and science put their differences aside and came together on this one thing to ensure that mankind lives on. I don’t take it for granted. However, while I am so thankful that I seem to be such a fertile Myrtle, I am going to be real with y’all, I am not a fan of the process one must go through to grow a baby. My take on pregnancy will not always be sunny, it will more likely be somewhat dark-cloudy with a 98% chance of meatballs (we have turkey meatballs on a weekly basis). So stay tuned, and of course, as always, stay great!

I’m not fancy… let me put that out there right away. For the most part, you will find me wearing comfy clothes and a pair of canvass shoes… with no laces… (yes, just like they do in prison… but I’m on the outside, and CHOOSE to dress that way… that is the difference AND the definition of freedom). I think I look presentable, but maybe I’m one of those daytime talk-show makeovers away from realizing my full potential, from an appearance perspective anyway.

When my husband and I were looking for this particular baby accessory that I just had to have (that we never ended up using, not even once), we decided to go to the fancy store where they sell ‘special’ baby stuff. We walked in and were ‘greeted’ by an employee who immediately directed us to the less expensive part of the store. Yep, you read that right. She said, and I quote: “the less expensive items are over there…” pointing with her index finger to make sure we knew where to go. Whoa. What? That was unexpected and completely unprompted by anything I had said. My husband watched me, unsure of how I would respond, but I simply smiled and said, “OK, great, thanks.”

Surprisingly, this wasn’t the first time I had been Pretty Woman’d [the act of being unfairly judged and disrespected in a store because of one’s perceived station in life]. There was no point in getting defensive with her… I am by no means Oprah rich, but we can afford any item they sell in that store, more comfortably than she likely can. Although I shouldn’t make the same assumption she did; for all I know, she could be exceedingly wealthy and volunteers her time at the local baby boutique where she is a bouncer that maintains world order by corralling customers into different areas of the store based on their perceived net worth. The Lord’s work… praise be.

Stuff like this doesn’t offend me, I am pretty secure in who I am. One thing that I’ve known to be true for some time is that high end does not always equate to a high degree of customer service and customer satisfaction. Fact: I get better customer service from the Walmart greeter than I do at Nordstrom (and yet I still buy my dresses at Nordstrom…).

One of the primary observations I have noted about high end stores is that many of the well put together, young 20-somethings working the cash registers have been assimilated into a culture (brand) that they themselves cannot afford… sad really. Think about that for a minute. I walk in, willing to shell out $1200 for a bag, and they don’t give me the time of day because I don’t match the image that they have of who their customer should be…  and to some extent the dummies work on commission…big mistake… huge!

Stay great!

My poor dog Winston has many a time been the victim of an aggressive pack of uptown Chihuahua street-fighters. The poor guy was not so blessed geo-politically; his kind hail from Switzerland and for the most part he demonstrates his neutrality to a fault. The other morning as I was walking with the boys at the off leash park, Winston was attacked by a small to medium sized dog. I never thought I would say this given the maintenance and cost involved with grooming our dogs, but it is fortunate that Winston is 72% fur, as it was his fur that protected him from the rabid little bastard that was desperately trying to penetrate his skin with his scrappy little teeth. I found myself in the middle of a Michael Vik-like scenario (only in the sense that it was a dog fight, I was in no way responsible for arranging the match, nor did I profit from it in any way), while the beast’s owner non-chalantly pushed her stroller like nothing was happening. Finally Winston pinned him down with one of his gigantic paws – it was then that the owner rushed over… now she is concerned? I also thought, I hope to God the little terrorist isn’t dead underneath Winston. I can tell you one thing, he wouldn’t be walking the green mile for this one, that’s for sure.

As I pulled Winston off of the dog, he was very much alive and still trying to bite Winston’s neck. The owner exclaimed: “He has never done this before…” I looked at her in disbelief, with my coffee all over my buttoned down shirt, and in my hair for that matter, and exclaimed, “bulls*t.”

…ok, I didn’t actually say that, I actually replied with “I think he has…” I did call bullsh*t with my eyes and judgmental eyebrows though. She didn’t say anything in response. She checked him for any blood (there was none), put him on his leash and walked away.

I feel that too often, (disclaimer: but NOT always), small to medium sized dogs are acquired as accessories. They are not accessories, or your babies, they are your responsibility and they can be a 12-15 year commitment. The common misconception is that because they are small, they are easily managed and are not in need of training. *False* The little suckers can do just as much damage as the big guys – pee on everything, bark incessantly and bite the faces of small children (the untrained ones anyway… we have some very well behaved little pups in our lives that do not demonstrate the bad behaviour I’ve listed above… wanna know why? Because they have responsible owners who have trained them).

(Speaking of… here is Patti the Pug with her little buddy Olivia)

Look how scary our boys are… if you are not careful they might lick you to death…

If I may, I’m going to get a little preachy here for a minute, since the burn of my extra-hot latte is still fresh on my skin… I feel like I have the license to do so; so, to all those dog owners who have selected a small-medium sized dog so that you and your boyfriend “Slade” or “Hunter” can play house for a couple of years until you get married and have kids, please train and socialize your dogs, for the sake of humanity… it is the right thing to do.

On a side note, I beg of you, please don’t make the same mistakes that you have made with your pets, with your children. Do not let their nanny shelter them. Make sure she takes them to the park and lets them play in the dirt with the other kids. Let her introduce them to television and McDonalds so they have something in common with the other kids at school. Don’t freak out if they lick a shopping cart handle at Costco. Do not ask them which biscotti they would prefer at age 3, they don’t know (I have witnessed this… the kid got overwhelmed when his mother asked him to use his words… he proceeded to throw his glass bottle of milk at the ground and it shattered… she was embarrassed and I was proud of him) and finally, when you go to the children’s section of the bookstore, don’t tell the salesperson who has offered to help you find a book that your 2-year old is advanced – that isn’t really a thing and it makes you look like a dick. Life very rarely gives us second chances, this is yours. You have failed your dogs (and by extension other dog owners like me), don’t fail your children too – give ’em the chance of survival in a world that is not designed to cater to their every need. I think you owe the rest of us at least that much.

Stay great!

Those who know me know that I have always been a patron of the arts… AND crafts for that matter. On my walks to and from work I would pass by many down on their luck folks with signs asking for money; I am not certain if they were homeless or not, on account of not knowing if they had homes. I was happy to oblige if it was clear to me that effort went into the development of the key messaging, if the sign was creative and if it made me laugh or think. I ran into these guys on my walk home one night from work. I felt that their sign was very creative and deserving of my patronage.  I should also mention, one condition I place on the funding is that I must be permitted to take a photo of the sign prior to the disbursement of funds. In this case I offered them $5 if I could take a picture of it.. that’s exactly how I said it too. After the words came out of my mouth I felt the need to clarify and followed up with “I meant a picture of the sign, not your little penis…”

Then there was this guy, Dave, who was only $1.75 short of taking over the world… $1.75… how could I not help him realize his destiny. On a side note I liked both his sign and his hat. I gave Dave $3.50 that night, all the change I had. Admittedly my motive was somewhat self-serving in that I wanted to make sure that I secured my place in the new world order, if his plans were to ever come to fruition…

Stay great!

I am afraid of bears. I don’t hike, or camp, or hang out near dumpsters in mountain adjacent communities for this very reason. While I am afraid, I have always been a little curious about them. They are so fast, powerful and agile for a beast of their size. In the same way I have done considerable research on plane and helicopter crashes prior to booking my flights… (I have a completely rational fear of flying…) I’ve read extensively about bears and bear safety and have acquired many random bear facts in my time.. want to hear some? Yeah?  Ok, here goes:

1. A grizzly bear’s jaw is strong enough to crush a bowling ball… think about that for a second… now think about the fact that the photo below was captured as a colleague and I drove past cars parked on the side of the highway taking photos of this giant grizzly as he was searching for food… did you know that naive tourists in tin-can-like vehicles may be considered a food source by a bear?  In fact, several of these uninformed tourists may or may not have been eaten in the making of a future Facebook album documenting their camping trip through the Rockies… we didn’t stick around to find out (we didn’t stop at all)… What I can confirm however is that if under these circumstances the bear did eat any of the tourists, he would not be held criminally responsible for his actions (in other words, he would not be shot, or tasered, or even taken into custody), as baiting is not permitted in this jurisdiction. Actually, I believe that procedure dictates that the Wildlife and Gaming Officer is required to give the bear a high five, a pat on the bum and say “good game” before sending him back into the forest, belly full and happy. A response I am supportive of, being a strong proponent of Darwinism and all.

3. During hibernation bears do not defecate… So, the answer to the seemingly rhetorical question, ‘does a bear shit in the woods?’ is, not in the winter. Fact: Scientists do not know how the bear’s body converts its feces back into protein, but you know who does? God… Creationism – 1 / Science – 0

4. Human pollution has caused the average length of polar bears’ penises to shrink (Correction, make that: Science – negative 1). So many questions… first off, who funded this study and for what purpose? Second, can I see the job description they posted seeking the research assistant for this study? I can’t imagine it not including the following key competencies: must have soft hands and an inappropriate affection for bears… or the ability to fake it at minimum.

Finally, were the following variables considered?

• Polars bears spend plenty of time in the cold water and lying around on the ice. Is it possible that the subjects may have been suffering from an old fashioned case of temperature induced shrinkage?

• Or, is it possible that the female polar bears have gotten less attractive and/or more naggy over time?

5. A bear can fit 150lbs in its belly. Yeah, me too… 

Stay great!