I watched the movie Waitress yesterday and I have to give it a resounding two thumbs up!  I hadn’t even heard of it but it is actually a fairly recent movie starring Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion (who I loved from the Firefly series), Jeremy Sisto (from Six Feet Under who was absolutely fabulous as the scary husband in this movie) and even Andy Griffiths.

It is apparently a romantic comedy but I would not classify it as that at all. It definitely felt like a really enjoyable Indy film (and if you know me you know I don’t like very many indy films, or else I just haven’t seen the right ones).  It is quirky and real and yet has a bit of a whimsical feel to it.

Waitress is the story of Jenna, a small town woman married to an abusive and controlling man.  She works at a diner making pies (which is a highly entertaining part of the movie – Jenna gives her culinary creations fantastic names [ie. Pregnant Miserable Self-Pitying Loser Pie]) and waiting on tables.  She seems to be a gracious and caring individual, albeit unhappy. Her miserable life comes to a head when she discovers she is pregnant.  It is downright hilarious (I know it doesn’t sound like a funny movie by my description but you’ll just have to trust me) but yet true enough to life to be really poignant as well. The script is well written and the actors are phenomenal.

My favourite quote from the movie is a section narrated by Jenna. She has been writing a letter to her baby about her ambivalence about the pregnancy and questioning her ability to mother a child.

“Dear damn baby,

Iffen you ever want to know the story of how we bought your damn crib, I’ll tell you.   Your crib was bought with the money that was supposed to buy me a new life. Every time I lay you down in that damn crib I’m gonna think ‘Damn baby. Damn crib.  You’re stuck like a pin in this damn life’.”

It makes her sound like a terrible person but she is actually very sweet which is part of what made this part funny and heart-wrenching.

I highly recommend picking this one up.

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I love cookies Christmas!

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“When people show you who they are, believe them.”
-Maya Angelou

This quote has stuck with me over a number of years. It is a lesson that continues to elude me. I recognize the truth of it and yet I cannot quite seem to absorb it enough to allow it to change me. I have to wonder how many times I must be hurt or disappointed by various people in my life before I really get it.

The interesting thing is that it is easy to read more into that sentence than is actually there. For a long time I subconsciously added “so that you can avoid them in the future” or “in order to know with whom you should cut off contact or refrain from having relationships”. But, while I do believe there is an angle of self-protection, it is not so much about saving oneself from pain as it is about truth.

If you really know the truth about a person you will not expect them to be something other than what they are. This doesn’t mean you can’t encourage a friend or partner to grow and change. But you don’t live in illusion, imagining this person to be what you want them to be. It’s not about judgment. It’s about honesty.

I tend to be optimistic about people. I imagine each new acquaintance I meet will be a life-time confidante and loyal, caring friend, a person I will be able to count on and have a history with (I know, I’m freaking out a lot of people right now!). The truth is that there are not a lot of people that are necessarily suited to be that kind of a friend to me, or are even deserving of that kind of position. But I don’t like to believe that. So when a person shows me, through word or action, that they are self-centered, or unreliable, or unkind, I often choose to ignore it without even realizing it.

Maybe it’s hard to recognize because I always want to hope for the best. That it was a one time occurrence. People make mistakes all the time. They can be thoughtless or inconsiderate. A person can believe themselves to be a great friend and their actions or words may be misinterpreted. It doesn’t mean they are fundamentally bad.

I have to remind myself that it’s not about judging a person. It’s about knowing them. If a person shows me something about themselves that I know to be a characteristic that will constantly cause me grief or rub me the wrong way I should be honest enough with myself to recognize that. I can know that some people are not the best choices for my friends. It doesn’t mean they aren’t excellent people or good friends to others with different personalities.

I suppose this is all indicative of my very egotistical belief that I am “right” and everyone not like me is “wrong”. I really need to get over myself. Because this is a lesson I really want to learn. Not only will it help me make good choices about friends in the future, but it will help me know and love the people with whom I already have relationships better because when they show me layers of their personalities, fundamental things about themselves, I will believe them. It feels good to be known for who you are.

It comes down to worrying about changing myself and not others and the wisdom to hear and see what people are telling others about themselves at every moment of the day.

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I forgot how delightful a one and half year old can be. Especially at meal times. When he eats precisely two foods. Bananas and cheese.  Everything else gets smeared, crumbled, mashed, mangled and otherwise disassembled and thrown over the high chair tray. I spend way too many minutes in a day on my hands and knees picking shit off the carpet.  We are not amused.

We spent the weekend with a bunch of awesome friends who came from far and wide, stayed up too late, ate the world’s most fabulous expensive pizza and had a great time.  It was awesome. I am exhausted.  I am too old for this.  Yes. Too old for a good time.

Also, you know how people say a wet cold feels colder? No? Well they do. And it turns out they are right. All this time I’ve been revelling in the warm weather here in Southern Ontario and when it finally dipped below zero yesterday it was cold!  It was only minus two but it felt like about minus 10. Not a mind-numbing cold. But still, I was very surprised.  And so, dear reader, another target for future complaining.  I know!  You’re thrilled!  As am I!

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I received a gift not too long ago. A once in a lifetime gift that rocked me to the core. In a good way.

An old friend who reads this blog (hi K!) had read a post I wrote about my Oma in which I mentioned the sweaters she used to knit. She made them for hundreds of children over the years. I wore many of them throughout my childhood but none were kept. When she died there were only five sweaters left. They’ve been kept so that the first five of her grandchildren who have babies can each have one. Each grandchild was allowed to pick one.  I was the first to have a child and since she was a girl I picked the only sweater that was very girly and pink. This is it:

At the time I didn’t really consider that I could eventually have a son and he wouldn’t be able to wear it. At least I didn’t consider that it would bother me if I had a son and he never got the chance to wear a sweater made by his great grandmother. But it did. It does. It’s not something I dwell on, but when I think about it it makes me a wee little bit sad.

So you can imagine my complete shock when I opened a package from my friend and found this:

It’s like a gift from beyond the grave. It took my breath away. My Oma made this sweater. I knew it right away because it’s one of the most common patterns she made. I hadn’t realized that my mom had sent one of these sweaters, made by her mother who was still living at the time, when my friend’s son was born over seven years ago. Yes, it has flowers on it. But with manly black stripes and a skunk. Skunks are masculine, right? I’m ok with putting it on my boy.

The letter that came with the package said some beautiful things about the grandmother that I loved and selflessly gave my son, gave me, something that touched me very, very deeply. The sweaters aren’t the height of fashion, but they were made with love and they offer a connection to my past that no store-bought item could ever compare with.

Thanks, K, for thinking of me and my kids. You will never know how much it meant to me.

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Lest you think I’m done whining about being sick…I’m still sick. Waa, waa.

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Schmutzie started this one. I’m not going to tag anyone. Feel free to do it if you want.

• Pumping gas. It took me until I was out of high school to be able to pump gas and I still feel jumpy when I do it. Maybe I’ve seen too many movies where gas stations explode into mushroom clouds of fire but I suspect that this is going to happen every time I pump gas. I love the pay at the pump phenomenon because it allows to me to get gas and get out of there as fast as possible.
• Shopping cart handles. I use shopping carts a lot because I need a place to contain the one year old who will wreak havoc if allowed to run free. But I always feel jumpy about the handles that I know have been touched by thousands of other people who may or may not be sick or may or may not have washed their hands after going to the bathroom. I’m not a really paranoid person when interacting with people. I don’t worry about shaking hands or public door handles or having a person over to my home, even when they’re sick. But I am highly suspicious of those shopping carts. You never know what plague is hiding out on them.
• People who sell their religion door to door. Along with people who claim to know what God is thinking or use God as an excuse not to make decisions for themselves or believe that religious tracts accomplish anything but piss people off.
• Fruits and vegetables in the same dish, for example salads with strawberries or orange slices. There is no excuse for this kind of abomination. There is something so very wrong about the mixing of these two categories. Even the fact that they are both in the same “food group” makes me uncomfortable. The only exception to this rule is ham and pineapple pizza which is fabulicious.
• Lineups (Schmutzie had this one too). I always try to pick the line I think will be shortest and do you think I am EVER right? It seems the very act of me getting in line makes a cashier’s IQ drop several hundred points and slow down the whole process by minutes, hours, days.
• Jello or Pasta Salad. I’m sorry but the most important ingredient in salad is lettuce or spinach. If there is no lettuce? Not salad. Actually, I am extremely suspicious of Jello and cold pasta on their own. There is something questionable about both foods.
• Toilets. I always suspect that toilets are just waiting to back up and flood all over the bathroom. Every flush is a disaster waiting to happen. It is absolutely the most disgusting thing to clean up and I suspect the toilet knows which person would find the task the most putrifical and will go from functioning normally to plugged-up, poop-spewing john from hell in seconds.
• Water Filters. How do you ever know they are working? Answer: You don’t. Deep down I suspect that the lead seeping into our drinking water from 100 year old lead pipes is getting through our tap filter and then again through our Brita pitcher filter. Yes, I filter twice. I am that suspicious. But lead can really f*ck up kids brains. I will be glad when we can live in a newer house where I don’t have to be so concerned about lead. I never used a filter until this year. But I never needed to before.

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I know, at this point all you hear (read) is “whine, whine, whine, snot, bitch, bitch, whine.”  That’s ok. But I need to vent somewhere.

Is it just me or did all the germs in the universe unite to form some kind of super-virus the MOMENT there was a recall on all forms of infant and children’s cold medications???  Because parents really need to have more suffering in their lives and what better way to do it than torture their children with runny noses and coughing for which there is no medicine we can (supposedly) safely give?  I still have a bit left over in my medicine cabinet and I’m totally giving it to them. Because their little faces are so raw from runny noses that they both look like they have leprosy and it’s scary!  You can’t take away any relief from cold symptoms that we have for our kids!  Parents everywhere will revolt!  Ok. I will revolt.  But still.  Those scientist types better be working around the clock to find an alternative that works at least as well.  Because I think after one whole winter without any children’s cold remedies, parents will be ready for a fight.

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Ever have a great idea that you were really excited about and had someone rain on your parade?

Behold, the great idea: Tomato soup in a sippy cup!  Avoids the mess that usually follows a meal involving liquids and saves the forty pounds of crackers I have to crush into the soup to keep it at a consistency that the baby can manage to spoon up.

The response to my resourcefulness?

  

If you can’t tell, this is Kieran telling me to shove my ingenuity where the sun don’t shine.

I don’t know if it was the fact that he saw me pour soup into the cup that is normally used for water and that he wanted water, or if he was just so upset by how very, very wrong the whole ordeal was.  Soup must be eaten out of a bowl! The violation of the water cup! is! unacceptable!  Contemptible!  An abomination! What other response can there be but weeping and gnashing of teeth?

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But if you are anal about the proper use of words (like me) then you will enjoy reading this. It’s quite funny. Why are there so many scantily clad women?  I have no earthly idea.  I thought I would be blameless in this word inventory but it turns out there were a few in there that I have been misusing, assuming the author is correct.  I suppose you could argue his point in some of the cases.  Enjoy people!

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