super sized shopping

"members only" wholesale shopping establishments have long served as the retail vatican for countless 2.4 suburban minivan driving middle americans.

(i am now a 2.0 (dog) card carrying member).

this approach to re-stocking the pantry is no different than ordering 8 sliders (these would be normal sized hamburgers in the 'british system') fries, steak, shake and diet coke combo because it costs less than a newspaper; what customer is not rendered powerless when confronted with excessive savings on excess.

45lbs of bacon rashers? 24 bottles of listerene? forget that you have the storage space of a doll's house, the latest design principles purport an industrial looking "warehouse" thematic, anyway.

and realistically, the 93 count carton of loo roll will get burned through at a pace equal to the ingestion of a box of fibre 1 that meets the standard requirement to fit into an overhead bin.

hot glue gun wedding

what do you get when you cross an art therapist with a public proclamation of love and committment?

i am fully aware of the stereotype, having been to the conferences and seen the whirling dervish day-wear accessorized with bottle cap/pipe cleaner/bread bag tie/egg shell earings. however, my nuptial imprinting was finalized in 1981. instead of following mother greylag goose to the pond, i forever thought that lady di, and therefore enough tulle to quote bible verses from the back of a small aircraft, was my destiny.

weddings surpass the (other) fat man in the beard for tchotchkes (pavarotti tried to get in on the english footballer bandwagon), more abhorrent than the 'mary-in-a-bathtub' lawn decor many people in southern indiana feel improves their 'curb appeal'. and yet a quick google of the various, and ultimately homogenous, media portals, it becomes blisteringly apparent that any bride-to-be can choose from 365 flavours of monogrammed plastic, stamped with wing-ed hearts, smooching doves, and angels with oversized eyeballs sporting a "made in china" logo a la victoria's secret branded on their bums. mickey mouse's silhouette may be the only "TM." to rival "happily ever after" paraphernalia.

and so, there will be no water colour mandalas at each place setting, affirmation dolls wrapped around the napkins, or an interactive 'love mural' for guests to contribute a found object as a way to 'commemorate the day as a collective'.

attendees might be asked to gestalt the cake, though.

registering for guests

making the cut to "the guest list" for a wedding is probably not quite as harrowing for the cutt-er, as voting off the chunky sorority cutt-ee on 'the biggest loser'. however, it might be easier to choose who will be one of the lucky recipients of grilled chicken, pasta salad, and an open bar, if you had one of those wedding registry 'point and shoot' gift guns to aim at the address book.

things to consider:

"they invited me, we no longer hang, should i still invite them?" it sort of depends if they have an opportunity to find out that you are actually having a wedding-- between tending their facebook farms, sending karma, and testing general knowledge about british punk circa. february 9th through february 12th, 1987.

"i haven't seen them in years, this would be a nice excuse to catch up." of course then you are left with the burden ("you" are chronically co-dependent) of agonizing over who to sit your middle school teacher from saudi with during dinner-- because "you" are also unable to facilitate introductions while cutting cakes/dancing romantically to louis armstrong/draping hands across each other and the bridal bouquet for a nice, sepia toned close up.

"i'll invite them because i know they wont come, but at least they will feel included". like trying to parallel park a pt cruiser rent-a-car, your judgement is nearly always off.

"do i have to invite them just because we're related? it's been years since we dressed up and ran around pretending to be carebears". this is only typically an issue when the more senior- and matriarchal- members of the family are offering "suggestions".

"how can i cherry pick co-workers and groups of friends and get away without causing any weirdness?" the answer to this is infinitely more valuable than a pain-free remedy for ingrown toenails, and unfortunately just as improbable.

"which exes can we (both) get away with inviting?" generally the ones who are now happily married and have put on 20lbs of complacency. note: "yours" has to be less attractive than "mine".

"what about the person who has already assumed that they are being invited?" find out what their food issues are and email a copy of the menu; crusted, basted, drizzled, and flambeed in that particular ingredient.

i have also learned that picking a playlist for a wedding reception doesn't necessarily mean it should meet the same criteria as the one for "good on long runs".

don't judge a book

if a hot pink sign on top of a vinyl sided warehouse reads: "thorobred lounge XV", it could easily indicate the local meeting spot for stable owning kentucky blue bloods sporting gold pinkie rings the size of pencil sharpeners.

probably not.

resistance is futile when it is time for "i-used-to-be-so-blonde-my-hair-turned-green-at-the-swimming-pool" to get the skunk stripe touched up with a few highlights. finding that "just right" salon/stylist/coffee shop sans poncey italian units of measurement/vietnamese restaurant with a kick-ass pho soup, is more challenging than locating a decent spot to sleep amongst a family of bears. and uber pricey/monochromatic/malnourished salon vidal sasoon; london is just as skeptically viewed from across monmouth street, as any converted victorian building-to-business "parlour" with frilly curtains and shrink wrapped pensioners asleep under the dryers.



this salon had a disco ball hanging in the centre (and very knowledgeable, skilled stylists with a mutual appreciation for all things low brow).

now if i can just find a gynecologist with something non-mirrored to stare at, on their office ceiling.

and they lived happily ever after...taking the piss

the second wave of weddings for us 30-something-comittment-phobe-procrastinators-worried-about-gynecological-dessication is ready to come crashing down onto the shore of holy matrimony in '08/'09. make sure you heed your mother's advice and don't eat too much cake, hit the water half an hour early, and wind up with stomach cramps. weddings are the industry du jour; every grown up little girl's moment in the spotlight. so why not cross off old/borrowed/blue and head to michael's instead of david's (bridal) and DIY yourself a little tie dye ensemble?



should a bride decide to go for the kind of theme that has a "TM" on it, then the options are limitless. lady and the tramp suggests you incorporate helium balloon dog paws into your centrepieces, bouquet and doorway decor.



i was desperate for an invitation to an acquaintance's friend's alice in wonderland wedding (before the simpson/wentz pseudo-celebs made it uber trendy and cool)- there are a couple of candidates in my circle who would vie for the role of 'caterpillar high on herb'. of course a series of characters to match the wedding party's personalities might not go amiss- perhaps a conveniant way to identify the seating plan with the seven dwarfs...



or grumpy, sleepy and funshine bears...



completed with bride and groom cake toppers, using roger hargreaves' inspiring little miss (scatterbrain) and mr men (mr messy) for the hard core anglophiles...





for the post-modernists who are seeking something more contemporary...



or the "recovering" lot who have pointed to their elephant in the living room and given it a giant tongue kiss...



whatever category of "ism" they might fall under...



while i take the whole vow/til death us do part thing seriously, i would have to say a take the piss theme is probably more my style. obviously something scatalogical would be a bit low-brow (and predictable). instead; the kind of chocolate tiered tower to put any woman with PMS (or even menopausal sans ovaries) into sugar shock at first sight. with that said, a heart shaped cake, split into pieces by an axe (several axes even), and a little plastic figurine (i would even concede to a precious moments stylized "me"), in a pair of dri-fit running shorts and supported arch athletic shoes-- leaping off the cake towards the nearest airport departure terminal. of course "excess baggage" (the matching kind when you're in your 30's), might be more appropo.

variety is the bane of (my) existence

breast feeding really is the only way to go. seriously.

we currently have several infants residing in our emergency shelter. their cute and predictable lives involve a simple sleep-"eat" (really a whole lot of 'drink')-poo schedule. today they drank us out of formula and provided me with an excuse to escape my desk (and the wonderful world of treatment plans and psychosocials). i took a routine excursion to the supermarket to replenish the powder supplies. simple enough.

4 shelves and quarter of the aisle was occupied by a wall of tin cans covered in teddy bears; the baby crack variety pack. regular formula with iron, organic (wonder if it comes in patchouli flavour?), advance soy with (or without) iron, lactose free (advance WITH iron), sensitive formula, 'go and grow', and advance 2 (for the overachievers). these were all then sub-categorized according to age group, by month, and finally year. struggling to locate the tin with a gold lid and picture of a bear wearing a purple bow around it's neck, i resorted to reading labels to find the matching descriptors. finally, i noticed the tiny typeface; "new design" (argh!), the bloody bear on the label was wrapped up in a yellow blanket.

american consumers can now choose between thousands of different varieties of ketchup. no longer are the options relegated to brand, size, bottle type, or colour (yes, blue and green non-holiday ketchup does exist, year round). the vanilla/cherry/lemon coca cola flavour-ization of the most popular condiment is coming to a store near you, in the form of garlic infused ketchup.

a co-worker recently told me that among the many benevolent donors in our community (money, clothes, toys, wings on buildings) one kindly lady offered her breast milk. considering each tin of formula is $13.00 and up, which seems like a ridiculous waste of money, and that doesn't even cover the cost of how many nappies ($4.50 a crap?) they are soiling daily, it doesn't seem too ludicrous an offer. if you can bid for a replacement kidney on ebay, and the american red cross will pay for your blood, this may open up a whole new section in the classifieds.

overkill

it would seem (according to the designers of useful every day objects) that people are becoming more and more incapable of performing the most basic of functions. i was standing in the queue at meijers today (24 hour hypermarket, with round the clock booze, food, garden hoses, and guinea pigs), looking for some interesting people to watch. fortunately i did not have to look further than the woman in front of me. she was sporting some nice ramen noodle hair, and an 'eric clapton; the live tour of 1998' t-shirt, which incidentally was as bleached out and thin as her hair. when i tired of making pictures out of her varicose veins (who needs to keep bike shorts, just for riding bikes anyway?) i scanned the last minute teasers and tests of the impulse impoverished; chapstick, chocolate, dog biscuits (?) and vibrating razers (for women only) battery included. with the choices of gentle angle, rubber grip etc, etc, the goal is obviously not to draw blood. a vibrating blade of sharp metal on the thin and (apparently very) delicate surface of my skin just sounds like a really bad idea.

i look forward to the day i can wipe my bum with vibrating sheets of scented toilet paper, perhaps an additional scent squirting feature for an extra 50 cents?

barbie is a hoochie-mama

part of my job description involves re-stocking the playroom, and our barbies appear to be holding a nudist convention in the rubbermaid container, so it was time to get them some clothes. the toy aisle enlightened me to the fact that barbie of 2007 is qualitatively different from 80's barbie. the trademark hair, boobs and legs are all present and accounted for, however she now sports tattoos on her plastic back, hip, and belly. *

i am not puritanical, despite being raised in 'cover up to your elbows and mid calf' muslim countries. however, i do not see the advantage in providing little girls with 'pole dancing barbie' unless this is some new and X-treme politically correct phenomena to demonstrate that even the worlds 'oldest profession' is OK; if thats what you want to be when you grow up.


* accessories are sold separately: miniature money to tuck into her undergarments.

the national gallery of modern groceries

i have a "thing" for supermarkets. i go. often. supermarket incontinence if you will. it is better than going to the local museum or art gallery as far as getting a feel for the local culture or flavour (yes, with age comes bad puns). it is also important as i am often hungry and therefore lowers the frequency of my low blood sugar tantrums.

when i first moved to the states i spent a lot of time in the supermarkets. things i had never seen before, or never imagined could be packaged "for [my] conveniance". wild honey and cinnamon flavoured butter, cheese in a can, frozen french toast and syrup; all native species to the american kitchen, especially those with pink plaid table cloths, curtains and seat cushions, dusty bread makers cluttering up the counter space, and some hand painted platitude about "home" and "family" on a rustic looking piece of wood.

last night i went to valu-market by iroquois park; an ethnically diverse immigrant neighorhood. there were 3 aisles dedicated to some unfathomable products, and some familiar ones that induced that "awwww, marmite, weetabix, robertsons marmalade, typhoo tea, pinhead scottish porridge oats (?)" feelings of old blighty. or the "holy cow, they imported this juice all the way from the u.a.e.?!"

my most interesting and memorable finds were the bags of aloe gel dessert. picture directions showed this product in a bowl with chopped up bananas, presumably you could smear the leftovers on your shoulders if you were eating it by the pool. for rehydration purposes i would have to reccomend "birds nest in a can" (this is verbatim, what is on the label and list of ingredients). moving over to the freezer section, amongst the birds claws (no thanks), and packages of frozen won tons ready to steam or throw into soup (mmmm!) there were different ice lollies; black bean, and my favourite for all those children that wont eat their vegetables, grean bean flavoured lollies. of course as you progress down the wall of glass you shift back into salisbury-steak-n-mashed-potatoes-n-beans-n-biscuits-n-gravy in a box.

going to a different countries supermarket is rather like bird watching, well i suppose its not, at least you know there are a finite set of species you can refer to in books. the supermarket is where i hope to see the inconceivable, like sugarcane toothpaste. baskin and robbins could do a line of toothpaste and mouthwash; cookies and cream, pistachio, and espresso mocha chip for the morning.

money (that's what i want), i want your money

i did my taxes today; for those of you that are in the "poverty income tax bracket", which is under 55K (99.9999% of my friends) you can go to the IRS website and file your taxes for FREE! i have nothing complicated like businesses, children or property/investments; mine is "EZ", and yet i find it as complicated as being told to put an incision in someone's aorta and locate the mitrial valve. i chose to do A' levels (british curriculuum for 16-18 year olds) versus I.B. (international baccalaureate) or the U.S. high school diploma, because it meant that i would not have to take any more maths classes and leave trigonometry as a distant memory. following my "right brain destiny" i chose history of art as my bachelor's degree and art therapy as my master's. unfortunately the GRE and pre-requisites of statistics sent me into a frenzy with my blankie. while i dislike the tendency towards victimhood and excuses, i do suspect that i have a legitimate problem with numbers (it is a diagnosable condition, although i tend towards more of the obsessive-compulsive category), as i have been shown how to do fractions by multiple people, at various points in my brain's development, and i still cannot add, subtract, multiply or divide for all the tea in china- at least not without a lot of crying thrown in.

money has never been a priority or personal goal, obviously i would have chased after the M.D. title of psychiatrist rather than lowly social services professional. how ironic that 2 degrees leaves me earning a pittance in comparison to my client's high school diplomas and hairdresser/pizza parlour manager salaries. however, i have always paid my bills on time and my credit card to zero, aside from a book addiction, i am pretty "cheap". i will not live from pay cheque to pay cheque, i cannot tolerate that anxiety. however, i am 31 years old and i do not have any "investments". i have a savings account and a couple of CD's, while this puts me in better shape than others, i will either have to die young, marry rich, or inherit a gothic french castle from distant, dead relatives (and WHY is it that i do not have those rich relatives that everyone else seems to have stashed away?!). perhaps this is why i have been procuring my "nurturing" and "housewifely/mother" skills, in the hope that i land a prince charming, a la cinderella, and the other piece of the puzzle will be "provided" for. however, life is not all stepford wives, pearls and peach twin sets, there are prince charmings who are just as fiscally oblivious as me; rescuing is just not an option. it is time to head to borders (like i need an excuse) to locate the "money management for dummies", otherwise i will be the blue haired old codger greeting you at wal-mart 34 years from now because my pension will not cover the co-pay for my bi-focals.

Attention Deficit Television Disorder

have you ever thought how boring those 3-5 minutes that you spend pumping petrol into your car can be? i personally watch the numbers rack up in abject horror that filling my car is now comparable to buying a pair of shoes, albeit cheap ones. this is also usually done while i'm trying to stand frozen at an angle that will maintain optimum flow, a slight shift down and the machine assumes my transaction is complete and begins offering me receipt choices. thanks to a 20 inch tv screen built into pump # 3, i can now catch up on 20 seconds of local news before i learn who is the "fastest" and "most experienced" lawyer that can get me out of those pesky DUI's. i sincerely hope these clever design people hurry up and install a tv into washing machine lids, god knows i could do with the distraction while im pouring a cup of tide onto my dirty socks.