Things I Don't Know

I know.  You could probably fill a book with the things I don’t know, but there are some things that I don’t understand no matter how they’re explained to me or how often.  I must have a mental block somewhere.

One of them is the rules of Rook.  I have to have the rules to this card game explained to me every single time I play.  I absolutely cannot remember them, and Rook isn’t the only game I can’t remember the rules to.  If I didn’t learn the rules before I was 8 years old, it’s all over.  So, yes, I still remember how to play Monopoly and Scrabble (I love Scrabble), but I need a refresher course for pretty much everything else.  It’s a good thing I married a man who likes to read the rule books.

I also don’t understand why anyone buys canned pineapple.  If you compare the price of a real pineapple from the produce department with a big old can of pineapple, the prices are almost the same.  The difference is that one of them tastes like heaven and the other one tastes like it’s been soaked in syrup indefinitely.  I’m told people buy the canned stuff because they’re too lazy or don’t understand how to cut up a real pineapple.  But it still doesn’t make sense to me. 

And women who buy their jewelry from the same store they bought their sweater from.  That doesn’t make sense.  When I’m in a woman’s clothing store, yes, I do see the racks of accessories.  Yes, they are there, but the necklaces and earrings are made of plastic and stainless steel.  They’re also ridiculously overpriced.  And did I mention that they are made of plastic?  Plastic.  Why would a grown woman go out in public with plastic beads around her neck unless it was a necklace made by her daughter?  It’s not that I’m necessarily very hoity-toity about the value of the jewelry I wear; I would just rather go out wearing no jewelry at all than wear plastic.  Plastic!

People who sew their own clothes confuse me, too.  Unless you’re making something extraordinarily unique, then I don’t get it.  I understand making your own prom dress, or your own wedding dress, and a few other kinds of dresses (dresses are kind of a hard number to hit), but other stuff?  Pants?  Shirts?  Vests?  When I go to the fabric store, I am shocked and slightly embarrassed by how much they are charging for fabric.  I bet the price of the fabric plus the price of the notions will be higher than what you’d pay for whatever it is from a shop down the street.  Not to mention that sewing seems to take a lifetime and has a very strong possibility of never getting done at all.

So, yeah, there’s some stuff I don’t get.  Maybe someday.

Town Rat, Country Rat

I grew up in a small town.  I moved to the city when I became an adult and I have pretty much been a city dweller ever since, but occasionally, I find myself back in small towns from time to time and the culture shock is really … intense.

For one thing, I do not find that country people have better manners than city people.  I also don’t find that city people have better fashion sense than country people.  Bear in mind – this is Canada. 

The thing that shocks me is what they seem to think of each other.  For one thing, city people who have escaped their hometown seem to be endlessly congratulating themselves on the achievement.  Is it really that amazing that you rented out an apartment in the city, then rented out a house in the city, and finally bought a house in the city?  Likewise, people who have not left the small town are also endlessly congratulating themselves on that.  Is it really that impressive that you never moved out?

For my own part, I can see the advantages of both and the disadvantages of both.  I always feel claustrophobic in the city.  I live on a fairly open street where people have backyards, front yards and sometimes even … dare I say it?  Side yards.  And I’m still deprived of sky.  I am hardly acquainted with any of my neighbours and have to drive for at least 15 minutes to get to a friend’s house.  When I lived in a small town, I could tell you who lived in almost every house.  It was easy to remember since you canvased for the Heart and Stroke Foundation regularly.  In the city, I still do volunteer work, but I hardly ever meet anyone.  And people move all the time.

In a small town, yeah – gardening is the limit.  I love gardening and there are huge lots to tend (maybe almost too big).  But nothing ever happens there.  The cultural happenings like theatre productions and festivals are downright laughable.  No opera in Italian there.  No international celebrations of anything.  No pizza delivery.  And sadly, no money.  The economy doesn’t exactly rock in those little places.  But it’s a five minute walk to the grocery store instead of a five minute drive and all your favourite stores are beside each other because it’s a small place.

Occasionally, I hear of people who were from a small town and never got over wanting it (forced into the city for university).  They’ve been plotting and planning for years to get back to that big sky and those enormous yards.  It’s the money problem that holds them back.  It holds me back too, but I think I finally might have switched over to the dark side – the city side.  Except it’s curious because I can’t explain why.  It’s a coin toss.

Open the Card First

Hypothetical situation: my kid is going to a birthday party, and I have to buy a fetching card to go with the gift.  Why?  Because I know that when the birthday boy starts opening his presents, his mom is going to say, “Open the card first” and if I don’t include a card, the kid and his mom are not going to know who it came from even if there is a tag on the gift bag.  So, I’ll have to holler at the top of my lungs (if you’re wondering why I have to yell then you clearly have not gone to enough kids’ birthday parties – it’s the same reason why they don’t notice the tag on the bag).  And let them all know that present’s from my kid.  It’s like you’re in the emergency room and you’ve been waiting forever, so when they finally call for you, you jump to your feet like a trapeze artist even though you’ve broken your ankle on one side and your femur on the other side. 

Call me The Birthday Grinch if you like, but I have a hard time buying cards for children’s parties.  Why?  Well, it’s partly because 90% of the time, I have never even heard of this kid until my kid gets an invitation to his party.  And it’s partly because I know that the kid doesn’t give a rip about the quirky line ‘I wish you a hoppy birthday’ or even the cuter-than-cute frog on the front.  Actually, he’s young enough that he probably doesn’t even care who brought him the present.  He just wants to disembowel it (I just always wanted to say that). 

There’s another reason too, and this is what really makes me The Birthday Grinch.  My brain has always had accounting software installed in it and I can’t look at any transaction of assets without deciding whether or not the transaction was good for me, good for them, good for both of us, or a loss for both of us.  So, that means that I’m placing the cost of having my kid at their party versus how much I spent on a gift.  Personally, I think it should work out that the gift I brought should be worth more than what they spent on my kid at the party.  But I also work on a budget and if someone spends a ridiculous amount of their kid’s party then that’s their business.  What I don’t like is that I have to trim what I spend on the birthday boy’s present to allow for a card – which no one even cares about.

But then, you should see me hosting my kid’s party and watch me hover over my kid when it’s time to open the presents.  “Open the card first!”  WHAT!?!  I’ve got to do something to teach my kid to stall their greed and show appreciation.  Stupid world. 

Babies Don't Take Showers

Now, you’d think that the subject of baby showers would be as pure as the babies themselves.  I like party planning and baby showers are one of my favourite events to plan.  What’s not to love?  It’s a party to celebrate the birth of a baby – how adorable.  Here’s what I think needs to be done for a fabulous, frugal, event.

Invitations

If you can, paper invitations are the classy way to go.  I know with the advent of technology, facebook seems like an obvious solution, but I find invitations can get lost in someone’s inbox along with all the game requests and additional crap that is shoved on us each day.  I recommend supplementing the written invitation with a personal invitation that is sent to someone’s private message box.  That way, it comes across as a deliberate invite instead of a random wheel of fortune spin down your friend list. 

Also, send it a week to two weeks before the party.  Give the guest a chance to get a gift and mark it on their calendar without having the event so far in the future that it gets forgotten.  And tack on an RSVP.  That helps.

Party Games

Personally, I don’t need these.  Some people despise baby showers because of them.  And who can blame them?  Sometimes you have to identify a mashed up chocolate bar in a diaper.  There may be tasteful party games, but I’d rather not chance it.  I would like my guests to be as comfortable as possible and visiting amongst themselves is half the reason for coming.  Besides, I don’t have to be a performing monkey and I get to put the money spent on prizes into the food budget instead.  Ha ha!

Food

Have a couple sweet things, a couple salty things, a punch and a jug of water and BOOM!

Party Favours

I like doing these.  I think it saves the mom from having to hunt everyone down after the party to give them thank-you cards.  Aren’t we trying to help her out?  So, as people leave, have a little basket of lovelies for the guests to choose from with a little thank-you note attached.  Appreciation has been shown and the new mom is off the hook. 

The Budget

When you do the invitations, they should cost nothing to less than nothing.  Seriously apply your mind to solving this problem.  They should be memorable and free.  Be resourceful.  If you serve six dishes at the party, three of them should be made from things you have in your kitchen anyway.  The other three can be purchased.  How you mix it up is up to you.  The party favours should not cost more than $1.50 per guest.  It negates the purpose of the having the guests bring gifts if the favours cost more than that (and I think $1.50 is generous).

Happy Baby Day! 

Since it's a Robot

One of my hobbies is watching movie trailers.  That way I don’t need to see the movie, because oops!  Ninety percent of the time they spoil the movie in the two minute and thirty second teaser. 

The other day I saw the trailer for Pacific Rim and I have to say I was sort of surprised.  I used to watch a great deal of anime, so mecha anime has been one of my past times.  Granted, I haven’t really kept up on my anime fetish due to my increasingly limited amount of time that I can devote to that sort of thing … and these days I’d rather watch a Korean drama … But that is entirely beside the point.  Just because I haven’t seen anything lately doesn’t mean that I’m not familiar with the greatest mecha anime of all time – Evangelion.

And when I think of monsters coming up from a dimensional portal in the Pacific Ocean to kill us all and a whole slew of guys in suits moving their legs to get the legs of the mech to move … I think, “Couldn’t they get the rights to Evangelion?  And if they couldn’t get the rights to Evangelion, then why did they even bother?”

Am I wrong in my outrage that action movies these days focus so hard on special effects that they sort of overlook another important element of storytelling – a plot?  Personally, I blame Alfred Hitchcock and Daphne du Maurier.  Why them?  Because of The Birds that’s why.  In The Birds (1963), the main idea of the plot is to get a mama’s boy’s mother to accept another woman in her son’s life.  I know – you thought it was about birds.  Yes, in the midst of this – there are insane birds that kill people.  Then, we can blame Jaws while we’re at it.  I know, you thought Jaws was about a killer shark.  No, it’s about a guy who’s scared of water who learns not to be after he kills a man-eating great white shark.  Well, even though I have a place in my heart for both those films (they’re classics), I prefer something with a little more thought put into it. 

I remember watching a review for V for Vendetta where they talked about how it was an action film and yet it was not (p.s. that movie had the best ally scenario I have ever seen).  The point is I don’t need to have every moment of a film be jam-packed with action scene after action scene.  You can have car chases, mafia hits, skydiving, and robots as big as the Empire State Building without compromising plot.  Evangelion proves that.

Well, you don’t have to take my word for it.  Surely, the Rotten Tomato score will speak for itself when Pacific Rim scores somewhere between a five and a six.