Saturday nights don’t have the same meaning they used to once upon a lifetime. My plans for tonight involved a glass (or two) of red wine, a chapter or so in my book (I’m on Eclipse now, the third Twilight book), and a movie with George in the living room. Definitely a nice evening but nothing out of the ordinary.

Just before I turned the grill on to make souvlaki for supper, the dog started to whimper so I took her for a walk. After about 15 minutes I came back in and George told me that it’s our friend Dean’s birthday on Sunday and they had decided to have some friends over for a few drinks that evening. George called his parents to see if they could watch the kids for a few hours, we ate, dropped them off over there, and went to hang out with our friends.

It was a nice surprise to go from everyday plans to something a little more spontaneous. It’s also always great to spend some time talking like adults, just to get away from all the Disney talk.

We were only there for about two and a half hours or so, but it was fun and I had a good time. I had been going a little stir-crazy lately and getting out of the house – without the kids! – was definitely exactly what I needed.

And besides, it’s too late for the movie now but I can still squeeze in a chapter or three before I go to bed!

Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” is possibly my absolute song from the 80s ever. I’m not the dance-on-the-speakers kind of girl, really but I used to hang out in a goth bar that had an 80s night and every time they played that song, without fail you would find me on top of the nearest speaker dancing. I don’t know what it is, I just love the song.

I had never seen the video. Unfortunately YouTube has allowed me to see it and I think I’m traumatized just because that is one of the worst videos I have ever seen in my entire life. BAD.

But the song is still great. I’ll just never be able to get the video out of my head now when I hear it. I think it’s post-traumatic stress disorder. Enjoy!

It’s only 10:15 pm here, which is at least an hour before I normally even think about bed, but I’m so tired right now. Many late nights (U.S. election night in particular) followed by 6:15 am wake-ups have taken their toll on me, especially when you factor in the fact that I’m still coughing like someone with the plague. I need sleep but I’m trying to hang on to some hope that I’ll get a bit of rest on the weekend.

(Not likely, but a girl can dream, right?)

I finally managed to get the Halloween pictures off my camera and uploaded. I didn’t really take all that many because I was so busy with Breanna. While Hayley ran a little further ahead with our friends, I matched Breanna’s pace, walking with her to the doors and helping her hold her big bag open for candy.

However, I did get at least one good shot of Hayley and Breanna with one of their friends. Hayley was thrilled to be a spooky ghost (she was supposed to have some white face makeup on but it immediately made her itchy so we washed it off and settled for some of my dark brown eyeshadow rubbed in around her eyes), and Breanna was through the roof with her witch costume. She originally wanted to carry a broom but I vetoed that since I knew she’d never be able to carry that and her bag. Their friend made a very cute elephant – I love the jaunty trunk.

As for me, I felt a little bitchy, er witchy myself.

They got a lot of candy (which is good for me) and Breanna made me laugh because every time she got to someone’s door, she would say “Chick or treat!” and hold out her bag. She would then say thank you (or merci) and immediately turn to me and ask, “we get some more candy, Mommy?” Every single house. It was cute.

I love Halloween.

*******
When the first Harry Potter book came out, I ignored it at first. It barely even registered as a blip on my radar. Then, the second one came out and I heard a lot of buzz; I resisted them. A children’s book about a young boy who finds out he’s a wizard and goes to a special wizard school? LAME. No interest at all. The third one came out and I started to get a little curious. But mostly I still thought it sounded like a stupid story for anyone over the age of twelve.

Then the fourth one came out and while I did not see a single child reading it, I certainly saw an awful lot of adults with their nose buried in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I’m only human, I can only resist blatant marketing for so long. I went and bought the first book at the store.

I finished it in two days, went back to the store and immediately purchased the next three.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a “mild obsession” with the Harry Potter series (books, characters, and movies alike). If by “mild obsession” you mean “may need medication”. I’ve read them all at least twice if not more, I’ve seen all the movies multiple times, I’ve read fanfic, I’ve written my own fanfics, I know far more about the characters, spells, and timelines that anyone other than J.K. Rowling should, and I even have various electronic devices named after the series (my laptop is Severus Snape; my Fujifilm S700 camera is Lucius). Hell, if I had gotten a black lab instead of a Beagle, it would have been named Sirius Black.

So you’d think that I would stop trying to buck the trends all the time. But no, I still did it. I ignored and then resisted this whole “Twilight” saga. For a very long time, I refused to even pick the first book up. And then I saw the movie trailer and sat up a little straighter and asked myself, “why have I not read this yet?!” I read Twilight and am now almost a third of the way through New Moon. I’m hoping to finish that, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn as soon as possible.

What was I thinking? I have even less reason to have fought off the Twilight stories than I did with Harry Potter. I was never into the wizard thing before those books, so it was understandable. But vampires? I’ve loved vampire stories for as long as I can remember. I read vampire novels, I watch vampire movies – I’ll even watch BAD vampire movies. I nearly had an aneurysm while watching Van Helsing but watched it anyway. The Blade trilogy goes against a lot of vampire lore, but I love those movies. One of my favorite books is The Night Inside, a Canadian vampire novel I read so many times I had to buy a new copy when the spine finally broke.

So clearly I was a good audience for Twilight and its sequels. Even the teen factor shouldn’t matter. Between Buffy (which also combined teens and vamps and which remains my favorite show EVER), The O.C., Degrassi, and Beverly Hills 90210 – past and present – I love teen shows. I should have known a book about teens and vampires would totally work for me.

I’m a little slow to catch on sometimes, but I’m trying to make up for lost time (and the bonus is that I’ll only have to wait for the fifth book – at least I get to read the first four one after the other). And I really want to go see the movie now.

But seriously, the next time a huge wildfire hit presents itself in novel format, someone please force me to read it!

The first time I saw this commercial about a month ago, I nearly choked on my coffee from laughing.

Canadian police chase. Funny because it’s almost true.

I missed who said this, but I heard it on Canada A.M. while trying to wake up this morning. It may have been CTV news correspondent Tom Clark, or he may have been repeating what someone else said, but whomever said it, I love it:

“Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Barack Obama could run. Barack Obama ran so our children could fly.”

And despite being exhausted from staying up way too late to watch Obama’s speech and then getting woken up by the alarm clock far too early this morning to walk the dog and get Hayley ready for school, hearing that quote was such a great way to start the day.

Everyone on the news keeps using the word “historic” to describe the election results. Forget historic. Try epic.

I think I had something in mind to write about today but whatever it was, I don’t remember and I can’t anyway. That’s because despite the fact that I’m Canadian, I am completely glued to election coverage. I can’t get enough of it. George is watching NCIS but he flips over to CNN on the commercials. Since that’s not enough for me, I’m also keeping a close eye on CNN.com because their front page has the map showing projections (currently Obama has 207 vs. McCain’s 135 and Obama’s leading in what were typically Republican states, time for change indeed).

Of course, I’m also refreshing over on Twitter on a near-obsessive basis to see what people are talking about (I’m sherina over on Twitter if you feel like following me).

I need to go to sleep at a decent time because I’m so tired but I don’t know if I can because I need to keep watching to make sure McCain wins.

HA! Just kidding, I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention. I’m way too left-wing die-hard Liberal up here to ever vote Republican even if I could vote below the border.

I felt like Obama was going to win but I was so nervous. And it’s not over yet but even the McCain camp is starting to say that it’s pretty much a mathematical impossibility at this point for him to win. Obama is *this close* to stepping up as the new leader of my neighbor and I’m ecstatic.

Yes, Canadians care about your American politics. To be honest I am more hyped up about this election than my own rather lackluster election up here last month.

Go Obama, go!

I am a strong supporter and advocate of public schooling. I realize that there are bad public school systems and I have been appalled to read horror stories about what has happened to some public schools, especially in the U.S. However, our school board and our school in particular are absolutely wonderful. I love the school. They took me seriously any time I had some things to discuss – when Hayley had trouble adjusting in her first year, they didn’t write me off as a hysterical first time school mom, nor did they blow me off when there were issues with another kid this year. The principal and the teachers are all incredible.

However, there is a huge drawback to having her go to school – ANY school. And that is the germ exposure. Oh my god. Hayley has been sick several times this school year and it’s only November. George has been sick for the past three weeks and I swear that in ten years together I have never seen him so sick in my life. Breanna went through almost a week of not sleeping well because she couldn’t breathe through her nose and the humidifier only did so much to help.

And now there is me. I’ve been in denial but I can feel it. I have a constant need to cough, and no matter how much I ignore it and don’t cough, that need doesn’t go away. When I do give in and cough, my chest hurts. Sometimes I feel like there must be an elephant sitting on my lungs. I’m tired beyond the usual I-went-to-bed-too-late tired. I know it’s coming and it’s coming fast. It worries me because I don’t have time to be sick. I have kids to take care of, housework to try to deal with, work to do… I have no time for illness of my own. I keep thinking about how George started with a cough too and now he’s on antibiotics that look like horse pills and could hardly get out of bed for a week straight.

Never mind the fact that I spoke to one of my friends outside the school today, and asked her if they had been sick since I hadn’t seen her or the two kids all of last week. The older boy had a horrible cough that kept him home all week and the younger one is still out for another full week because of pneumonia.

There are some serious germs going around our school and our community this year and they aren’t playing games with us. It sucks because I’m hoping to get a flu shot this year but I don’t want to get one while I’m under the weather.

Anyone have any good, strong chicken soup?

(I swear, I’ll get Halloween photos up soon!)

So I signed up for NaBloPoMo again this year, which means you can expect an entry a day throughout November. Of course I can’t promise they’ll all be interesting.

The first day is almost over, it’s almost midnight and I need to get to sleep since the stupid time changes tonight. Which means that my kids will be up an hour earlier than normal, great.

However, I did want to give a public service announcement – do not ever watch the movie The Strangers if you are all by yourself at home. Do not watch it if whomever you’re watching it with is going to leave and go to their own home when it’s over. That was one of the scariest movies I’ve seen since The Ring and that’s saying a lot. I love scary movies so much but I’m extremely grateful that I watched it with George instead of all alone while he was out playing a gig somewhere.

You know how, when you’re scared, sometimes you feel like your heart is all the way up in your throat? Try up behind your eyeballs. CREEPY movie. Excellent, since it was so scary, but yeah. Wow. Now I need to calm down and go to bed.

And, uh, take the dog out. Late at night after a scary movie.

Is it too late to teach her to use the cat’s litter box for tonight?

Well, come on. Are you surprised? It’s Halloween after all. Naturally I would want to flash back to the epic video, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. I have to tell you, I was young when that came out. I loved him, and had heard the song eight million times, so of course I wanted to see the video. My mother was apprehensive about letting me see it, but finally gave in because OH MY GOD, I didn’t want to go to school the next morning and be the only one who hadn’t seen it.

So I watched Mikey turn into a werewolf, I watched him sing and dance in his tight red leather jacket while reassuring his girlfriend (the woman with the world’s biggest eyes) that there was nothing to be afraid of, and then watched him turn into a zombie and get jiggy with a cemetery full of the undead.

Awesome! I loved every second of it, thought it was incredible, and laughed off my mom’s worries.

Then I went to bed and laid there with my bedside lamp blazing, terrified out of my mind. It took me three nights before I could fall asleep easily. Oops. Give me a break though. I was eight. What was my mother thinking, letting me watch scary shit like that?! (Just kidding, Mom!)

Anyway, I looked all over YouTube and I can’t find any full length clips of Thriller that allow you to embed directly (boo!) so here’s a link instead. I love watching it as much as I did then, I’m just not scared now when I watch it. I mean, Michael Jackson scares me for many reasons, but being a funky dancing zombie is not one of them.

You should also know that my friend Tanya Callendar (hi Tanya, hope you find me if you ever Google yourself, I miss you!) and I spent hours in my living room, watching, studying, rewinding, and studying some more until we had memorized and totally perfected the entire dance routine. Seriously. Tanya and I were badass.

However, despite being unable to embed the actual video here, I did actually find one of the coolest things ever. A group of groomsmen at a wedding surprised everyone by acting out the dance scene in the middle of their reception party. It is hilarious.

They’re not the best dancers ever, but the concept is there, and honestly if a group of people busted out with the crazy zombie dancing to Thriller at my wedding, I would be ecstatic.

Also, you’ve surely seen this, but watching 1500 inmates dance perfectly to Thriller in their prison yard never ever gets old.

Happy Halloween!

Yesterday I was walking outside with Hayley and Breanna, taking the dog for a walk. I had been singing little pieces of a song all day and I couldn’t remember who sang it or where I had even heard it, but it was catchy, even though I only knew the chorus, and I was enjoying it. I was singing it under my breath outside and making a mental note to Google the lyrics when I got home so I could see what the hell it was.

All of a sudden I sang one of the lines loud enough for Hayley to hear.

“Mommy! You’re singing Hannah Montana!”

Oh, crap. I’m 15 again. Or maybe I’m just embracing today’s music despite being more than twice Miley Cyrus’ age. Yes, that’s it. I’m old but I’m still hip! Wait, do the hip kids still say “hip”? Hmmm.

(The truth is I actually do like Miley Cyrus. I particularly love “See You Again” and “If We Were A Movie”. It’s the Jonas Brothers that I don’t get at all. They suck. I know, I’m not exactly in their demographic but it doesn’t change anything.)

*******

Since getting a dog, I’ve found myself irritated by things. Not things Pearl does herself (though I could write a book about all the things she does that annoy me too), other people.

For one thing, there’s such a huge social aspect to walking dogs. Other people want to talk to you. Other people with dogs chat with you while your dogs sniff each other’s butts and try to dominate each other. People who love animals want to stop and ask you how old your puppy is and is that really a purebred Beagle, wow! It’s nice. I don’t usually mind. But when it’s pouring rain or freezing cold, I don’t always want to stand around making small talk. Small talk is not easy for me anyway, doing it when I really want my damn dog to just pee and let me go back inside is not fun.

Then there was the couple who walked past and were amused by Pearl who was trying to drag me down the front walk so she could jump on them. I’m trying to work on her jumping because – and I swear not everyone gets this – not every person likes having a dog jump on them. I immediately pulled the leash back to correct her, then got in between her and the two people. I crouched down to tell her to sit, and then started telling her to stay. Every time she started trying to go jump on them, I said no, and repeated the process. The girl started laughing and said, “oh it’s okay! It’s okay, let her come up, I love dogs!” I had to tell her, no it isn’t okay because I don’t want my dog jumping unless she’s asked to. While I appreciated her friendly nature, it was really annoying to have someone interfere with my training.

The worst thing though is the dog owners who don’t pick up after their dogs. That’s annoying anyway, I hate seeing dog crap on the side of the grass anyway. It’s doubly annoying now that I have a dog too. I am constantly paranoid that someone will see a big pile on the grass just after I’ve gone by and automatically assume that it was my dog and I just couldn’t be bothered (I nearly said “couldn’t be arsed” but that sounds like I’m trying to be Faux British) to pick it up. See, I’m the person who will carry a bag every single time and will not leave any dog crap behind. Once she went a second time and I had no bag – we were right out front so I ran in and ripped the plastic bag off someone’s Sears catalog and used that. Another time I actually used a wad of tissues in my pocket. I just can’t in good conscience leave it behind. It drives me nuts to think someone might lump me in with the lazy dog owners. Sometimes I worry someone will yell at me for a pile that doesn’t even belong to my dog.

(That may sound paranoid but I did once have someone on their porch snottily ask me, “aren’t you going to pick up after him?!” after Pearl had squatted on their lawn. I looked at her and said, “my dog’s a female. She just peed. If you have something to pick that up, let me know.”)

The dog ownership extras I had forgotten since I last had a dog, ahh.

*******
Last week we called the superintendent of our building because our hot water tap in the tub had been leaking. It dripped a bit. Then all of a sudden it was more like constantly running, to the point that we had to shut the water off in the wall because it made the bathroom too humid. The guy came up, looked at it, and told us the pipes were shot and they’d have to redo most of the bathroom.

Uh?

So on Friday we had a new tub, tiles, insulation, and more sitting in the hall outside our front door. On Monday morning a contractor arrived at our apartment and began demolition. Do you know how loud it is when someone takes a crowbar to ceramic tiles? It was awesome. I can’t tell you how much I wish I could have asked for a turn, it must be so satisfying.

On Monday night it looked like this:

That was an adventure, especially when you only have one bathroom. Luckily, by Wednesday night it looked like this:

Then today we were finally able to have showers and baths again instead of sponge baths. Technically, the tub was ready yesterday but I know how much my kids splash, the tiles would have been soaked in the first five minutes.

It’s nice to have something new in this freakin’ old and outdated apartment. Maybe I can figure out some way to convince them to update our kitchen next!