Archive for November, 2008

• Awesome

  Date: 2008.11.27 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 1

  Coughing up your lungs is so. much. fun. Really you should try it. And extra fun side effects include elevated blood pressure, light-headedness and the always fun circles under your eyes because you haven’t slept properly in days. And your voice will slowly start to slip away from you. Maybe if you are really lucky within the next few days the extend of your voice will even be reduced to squeaks.

  Oh yeah, and “it tastes awful but it works” Buckley’s can #suckit. FAIL! It’s “the one doctor’s recommend” Benylin for the win.

  So much awesome.

• Sacrifice Remembered

  Date: 2008.11.05 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 2

  How many times have you heard the “what Canada lacks in history it makes up for in geography” statement? Have I told you my impression of that? It’s a load of bull. Canada has a vibrant history, unfortunately our educators see fit to present it in the world’s most boring manner possible.

  I did a double major in university – one part anthropology and one part history. Both drew me in because of one thing – stories. Both tell stories, be they of a person or a country or a time. Canada has fantastic stories, ones that get lost and forgotten all too much in the dry recitation of facts and dates.

  But sometimes people remember. RH Thompson, whom some of you probably know best as Jasper Dale from Road to Avonlea, remembered. Thankfully he went one step further and acted. It is largely due to him that we are recognizing Vigil 1914-1918. I caught him on Canada AM this morning and he said something that I hadn’t quite thought of. We have only one WWI veteran still living in Canada, John Babcock. He’s 107 years old. He was fifteen when he joined Canada’s Expeditionary Forces. FIFTEEN.

  Thompson said that when he passes, the living history of WWI also passes in Canada. The book will close and cease to be written.

  But it must continue to be read. That’s our job. To remember. To honour.

  The men and women who volunteered in WWI faced horrors that we cannot even begin to imagine. Life in the trenches, in the medical tents…. All we have left of their sacrifices are written memories, memories that must be read and shared.

  We owe so much to those men and women who volunteers and served. We owe so much to the men and women who stayed at home and bought Victory Bonds and planted Victory Gardens. Who knitted socks and sent care packages to their loved ones. Who did not break faith.

  They called WWI The Great War – The War To End All Wars. It saw the introduction of chemical warfare, tanks, submarines. In Canada we think of Passchedales, the Somme, Ypres, and of course, Vimy. It was Vimy that saw Canadian forces unite for the first time as a national unit under Canadian command.

  In many ways it was WWI that defined Canada as a nation.

  But there were sacrifices made that we cannot forget.

  Wear your poppy. Thank a veteran. Remember.

• We Won’t Break Faith

  Date: 2008.11.04 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 1

  This evening, in the middle of all the US election madness, Vigil 1914-1918 begins.

  Take a minute amid all the craziness to remember those that fought in the trenches. Keep the faith.

• I’m not sure who is in charge

  Date: 2008.11.02 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 2

  But I wish that they would come explain daylight savings to my cat.

• I stole my roommate’s perfume

  Date: 2008.11.01 | Category: sometimes I ramble | Response: 7

  Not literally, of course. I was reminded of it from Jonniker’s Work It Mom! post on perfumes.

  Like most girls I think I went through the various phases of perfumes. Love’s Baby Soft was, of course, the first. I remember my older sister wearing it and thought it was the Best. Thing. Ever. I used to steal samples out of her old magazines. I patiently waited until the day when I would be old enough to wear it. Ok, that’s a lie. I am rarely patient but eventually the day came when I got my very first bottle of Love’s Baby Soft.

  

  (Let’s not talk about the shape of the bottle which reminds me of something else entirely…)

  I wore that perfume with complete abandon. Luckily for well…everyone even when you douse yourself with Love’s Baby Soft it is fairly forgiving. Unlike the next step up the perfume chain. Because sooner or later, like all teenage girls, I realized that Love’s Baby Soft was for babies. I was not a baby.

  So like the little lemming that I was, I and the entire female population of my junior high class, moved up the perfume chain. To Exclamation!

  

  (It even looks like an exclamation point! Cool right?!?!?!)

  Of course we applied it ever bit as liberally as we had applied Love’s Baby Soft. All I can say is OMG our poor teachers! Their poor, poor olfactory systems. How it must have killed them. And since all girls seemed to go through the same phase at the same time, year after year… But fear not, it didn’t last long. For next came…the Vanilla Phase.

  The Vanilla Phase was interesting because it didn’t involve just one perfume. It ranged from the Body’s Shops Vanilla Oil to my weapon of choice…

  

  (That gold topper? That means it was classy y’all.)

  Yes, Vanilla Fields. I don’t even know how long I wore this perfume but let me tell you it was far, far too long. It was a bit gentler than the Exclamation! More forgiving for the amount that we poured on ourselves at least. But again I say, our poor teachers. And coaches. I have vivid memories of applying this after gym class and basketball practice. All the other girls had some form of vanilla perfume in their arsenal. The one thing worse that girls drowning themselves in vanilla scent? A bunch of girls all drenching themselves in slightly different vanilla scents.

  After this came the Calvin Klein phase. I was in high school when CK One exploded. It was for girls and boys. When applied liberally and en masse it could peel paint off walls. An entire classroom where boys and girls alike all wore the same scent – how exciting! (No wonder they later made a “no scent” rule in my high school.) I’ll be honest, although I briefly used CK One I wasn’t fond of it. The idea of smelling the same as my boyfriend at the time, who yes did use it, kind of skeeved me out. So I made a switch but nothing too dramatic. I mean, CK was where it was at so I couldn’t jump ship all together.

  

  (Even classier than Vanilla Fields because it was Calvin Klein – a real designer.)

  Calvin Klein’s Eternity was socially acceptable because it was still Calvin Klein. I didn’t smell like the boy I had since kicked to the curb (and thankfully the next did not wear CK One but he did wear Drakkar Noir so you know…not entirely an improvement – all I can say is I’m really happy Axe wasn’t around in those days). Eternity was not just girly, it was womanly. It seemed hopelessly grown up and I felt hopelessly grown up when wearing it. It got me throught the rest of high school and the first couple of years of university.

  Then I went into perfume pergatory. I was tired of Eternity – it was no longer me. I wasn’t the me I was in high school and I couldn’t be expected to still wear that perfume now could I? The problem was that I didn’t have one that was me. I flitted here and there usually using a perfume sample until they ran out. Clinique Happy. Givenchy’s Very Irristable was my perfume of choice for quite awhile (or at least until I ran out of samples). Nothing was quite right but I made do.

  Then I moved in with a a roommate who had the same name as I did. Yep, for real and let me tell you that occasionally caused some telephone confusion. One day I noticed that she was wearing a really, really nice perfume.

  

  (Ok, the box is tacky I admit, but I still love it.)

  It Givenchy’s Amarige D’amour and it was perfect. I had found my new scent but…but…I couldn’t wear it! I mean, we were roommates, we had the same name, we were friends, we each had a slightly crazy cat and worst of all she had told me the story of how she found it. It involved smelling just about every scent at The Bay and let me tell you, that’s no small task. I can get a headache just walking through that floor. She practically deserved a medal just for that effort. We just couldn’t smell the same. That would have progressed into almost creepy single white female togetherness. So I was stuck in a place worse than not having a scent – finding a scent and not being able to wear it. So I continued with Givenchy’s Very Irrestible, a perfectly fine scent if not mine.

  But then I moved. I didn’t just move out I moved away to another province, another city. Someplace where I wasn’t friends with hardly anyone who knew her and those that did didn’t know her well enough to know her scent. I promptly went out and bought myself a bottle of Amarige D’amour. I wore it whenever I went out, be it on a date or just hanging out with friends. I claimed it as my own. Long gone were the days of drenching myself in perfume. It’s a subtle tantalizing scent and long gone were the days where I drenched myself in perfume. I wore just enough that people smelled it when only when I leaned it close or perhaps when I flipped my hair (more from the fact that it is always annoyingly in my face than a Charlie’s Angles flirty hair flip).

  Although I rarely wear perfume these days Givenchy’s Amarige D’amout is still the only one that I wear. Let me tell you, it’s not always easy to find in stores but i’s worth the effort. It travels with me and it’s one of the few items in the house that I can find without a problem.

  I have found and claimed my scent. Too bad I stole it from my roommate.