Oh God, one more

I clearly don’t have much of a life.

Filed under: cats , Bun Bun, PhotoFunia, Vogue

The Bun Bun, Tsarina of Mother Russia

OK, I can’t stand this. Check out this program and have some fun tonight.

Here’s Miss Bunsy supervising the proceedings in Moscow.  Putin has a lot to live up to.

Filed under: cats, life , Bunsy, Moscow, PhotoFunia, Putin

Should overweight kids be removed from their parents?

A couple of doctors have written a piece in the Medical Journal of Australia saying that obese kids would benefit from being taken into care.

Yup–removed from their parents and placed in treatment.

(By the way, this news is a little old because I started this draft post and then left it. But I suspect it will happen again.)

I keep thinking: what would I do if it were me? There isn’t a downright skinny person living in this household (with the exception of the Bunster who clocks in at a featherweight 2 1/2 pounds), and the mere thought of someone showing up to escort my child forcibly into treatment makes me puke.  

At what cost?

Admittedly, they are referring to cases that are quite serious (one of the patients in question was 110 cm (3 1/2 feet) and weighed 40 kilos (88 pounds) and parents who seem resistant to making changes.

It isn’t the first time someone has recommended this loopy idea. In the UK, a member of the National Obesity Forum said that kids who are very fat should be treated like abuse victims and removed from their families.

Hasn’t anyone told these folks what it does to kids to be removed from their parents? These experts should sit down with some foster kids for a few hours and come up with a better solution.

By the way, has anyone seen the research pointing out the higher risk of obesity in kids of single parents? Interesting theories but none of this stuff is inevitable. But oooooohhh, isn’t it just the way.

Filed under: cats, kids, life , abuse victims, overweight kids, parents, removal, treatment

The things I’ll never do

Yesterday I started thinking about the things I’ll never do.

As in my life. And it was pretty liberating.

And it all started with the word Beirut.

Helping Simone with her geography homework on the weekend, I watched as she plotted the landmarks of the Middle East on an outline map. There was Gaza, and the Dead Sea, and Jerusalem. . .and Beirut. She didn’t know how to pronounce it, so I said it out loud and then it hit me: I’ll never live there.

It had been a dream of mine in my twenties to go to the American University, nothing my parents ever really knew about or could have even afforded. I just wanted to do it. It was either Beirut (untouched at this point by the civil war that started in 1975) or Hong Kong, which seemed dizzingly exotic and remote. Either way, I figured these places were how I’d blow the family away, something every child has to do. (I’m fairly certain these fantasies were largely fueled by our National Geographic subscription.)

Before I could control myself I started babbling about Beirut to Simone–totally useless exercise, except it started me thinking about how dreams get deflated or beautifully transformed as time goes on, as in today I have a deeper connection to China than ever expected.

So here are some dreams of mine that have recently been put to bed in soft covers to sleep for. . .shall we say,  a very long time (eternity sounds so long). But before we go there, though, a moment, please, to gaze upon the glorious Paris of the East that once captured my heart:

Alrighty then.

1. I won’t live in Beirut or Hong Kong. However, I’ve done more than my share of travelling in Asia, and Beirut will be on the list one day if it ever stabilizes.

2. I won’t ever open my own restaurant. But maybe my daughter will.  (Mother living out her fantasies through her child. Gah.) For years I entertained this fantasy but cooking for family and friends is probably more fun.

3. The family piano won’t find its way here and I will not master jazz chords. Probably the most sorry to see this one go. Even as I read it now it wants to get up and bite me.

4. A dog. Ain’t gonna happen. It’ll be cats for the rest of my life. The fluffier and stupider the better.

5. A second child. I will not have. Officially gave this one up in 2000 but it still needs its own little bed to sleep in. Nighty-night.

6. I will not go back to school. At some point life teaches all things and the corresponding need to know goes down, down, down.

7. I will never fly to the moon or even into zero-gravity. At $200,000 for 30 minutes, it’s too big a drain on the single-mom wallet. Anyone who gets to go: send this space junkie your pics.

8. The Olympics won’t be awarded to Toronto in my lifetime. Or ever. And I won’t get to see them.

9. There is no chance that my nails will be “done” day in and day out.

10. I will never reconnect with a few important people who blazed through my life. Blame it on distance, time, circumstances. It just is, and it’s OK.

So how about you? I’m calling this a meme and tagging Ms. Single Mama and Lorraine over at FirstMother forum. I think their responses will be pretty cool.

Filed under: adoption, cats, food, kids, solo life

Miss Bun Bun’s feet and Sim starts Silver Birch

Well, you won’t get much prose out of me today. The weather here is just nasty and I slipped twice because I have cute boots that suck. Once was upon exiting our back door. The guy shovelling out on St. Nicholas looked at me while I swore like a trooper because I also lost my glasses off my head (which is where I usually wear them). Then I slipped on the subway tile at Jane Station and landed on my knee and I swore at the guy in the kiosk. It’s a good thing I have the densest bones in the world because my knee hurt so bad I was almost in tears by the time I reached a cab to take me to where I was going. Tomorrow, it’s all going to freeze over and be even worse.

But beauty awaited me at home. One of my long lost cousins now living in Florida e-mailed me to say he read the article about Gerard’s angioplasty at singlemindedwomen.com and that he’d often wondered if Gerard had autism. It was a lovely note and I was thrilled that a family member literally found me on the Internet.

Then Bun Bun graced me with a close-up of her feet, which are like chocolate marshmallows.

I also shot a nice one of Hailey next to the dishwasher.

Finally, Miss Simone has started reading a whole buncha fiction and non-fiction books for the Silver Birch Challenge. Her first book is, fittingly, about animals in captivity. So here’s my darling. There follow, feet of the Bun Bun (captures something about her) and Hailey with just her upper body in motion. I used the night setting on each of these to avoid the flash.

Good night all!

Filed under: cats, kids, solo life , boots, glasses, Hailey, Miss Bun Bun, Silver Birch, weather

The Year of Change?

Happy New Year, everyone. I had to work for most of the holiday (grrr) but there were a couple of really nice days in there. I’m happy to report that Hailey did not kill the tree, though she tried. No doubt a nice rest in the box away from Miss H. will regenerate it for next year. (Simone’s new song for kitty is “I’m too Chubby for My Fur” since there’s now a big hole in the tree where she went in and out.)

Below, Miss H. attempts to access tree through box.

My fave moments:

My brother really seemed to enjoy himself this year. He stayed later than usual and called the food “memorable.” I’ll take that any day.

Our Yorkshire pudding puffed magnificently on Christmas Day to the delicate strains of the smoke alarm going off every five minutes. Helpful guests batted the damned thing with a broom while yours truly begged the pud to just keep rising. Later I’ll post on the recipe and method used.

I *got* Sim again by telling her all year long that no way could her cell phone be upgraded until three years had gone by. Anyway. I was able to upgrade it to an LG at minimal cost, and she was totally surprised. Gotcha.

We had one wonderful after-Christmas dinner party (Yay! a real dinner, party, finally!) shared with old friends and new. Sim made her notable crème brûlée and lapped up all the praise. This occurred after we spilled a batch of the stuff on the floor in the afternoon so it was a nice finale.

It was a white Christmas. In fact, there was so much white stuff, it was amazing when one mild day and a bunch of rain washed most of it away in 12 hours. Below, a pic I snapped from the window in the hall, just outside our door. You can really see the new and old Toronto here–and the condo rush!

Simone and I saw, unexpectedly, on December 30, the twilight funeral procession for the three dead Canadian soldiers whose bodies had just returned from Afghanistan. It happened at the corner of Yonge and Wellsley, where boisterious crowds rule. This time, though, as the cops held everyone back on all four corners there was only silence. I could tell Simone was touched too and couldn’t quite put anything into words.

We took all the holiday stuff down this weekend, and I was sorry to see it all go. Tomorrow I’ll definitely be tuning into to hear Oprah talk about the fat thing and I’ll be off to Curves myself in the morn. A new year, but some things never change!

Filed under: cats, kids, life, solo life , Christmas, Christmas tree, dinner party, Hailey, Oprah, Toronto, Yorkshire Pudding

Right now in the office

This is where Bun Bun and Hailey spend a lot of time, especially if they feel they ought to be fed. Whoever said cats were all-independent hasn’t met these two. When Hailey gets bored she pushes the sleep button on the keyboard with the moon on it, which makes the screen go black ha ha ha. Sometimes they sit so close to me while I type that I can feel their whiskers on my hands or face (if they’re sitting). To be honest, I have never owned an independent cat. They’ve all been sucky as hell. Maybe it’s something I do to them. Who knows.

Bun Bun likes to poke me with her chocolate foot, which means, “Pet and adore me now.” If I pet her on the head, she starts cooing like a pigeon. Her most satisfied purr is this noise that sounds like she has pneumonia. Both of them stare at the monitor by spells and comment on the poor quality the show.

Back to work for now. More later.

Filed under: cats , Bun Bun, computer, Hailey, keyboard

Hailey in the Christmas tree

OK, so Hailey (aka Bengal Butt) decided to scale the tree after all. Here are some pictures in “lounge” mode. I tried to snap her going in and out too, but the little devilina moves too quickly.

Always remember never to put tinsel on your tree if you have kitties! And make sure your other stuff isn’t chewable. Some kitties like to chew lights. Bad kitty.

The Bun Bun wishes she had the guts to do this kind of stuff by spells but knows she’s an uncurable goody-goody and contents herself with being mildly disapproving.

Filed under: cats , Bun Bun, chewable, Christmas tree, goody-goody, Hailey, lights, tinsel

Our Bun Bun

Little Miss Bun Bun never goes in the Christmas tree, of course. She’ll be 14 in July. Here she is in a typical pose. Wow, this camera’s fun. I just got it today.

Filed under: cats , Bun Bun, camera, Christmas tree

New pic of me

I took this pic of myself today and will be using it as my writing photo from now on. It’s not bad–I was smiling in some of them and looking too serious in others. This one was in-between. Oh hell, I’m going to be 55 on December 28–grateful my hair is still on my head and not on my chin. Guess in one more year I get to say officially I’m pushin’ 60. Juicy!

I haven’t taken any decent ones of the tree yet but I’m going to give it the college try tomorrow. Now that I’ve shooed one of our cats (Miss Hailey) out of the tree too many times to mention, she won’t go back in–which is too bad, because she looks hilarious in the tree. But the tree is brand new and I’ve been worried that those levers will break. However, over at Fluffytails, where they’ve been taking supurrrlative cats-in-the-tree photos since 2002, Iris and Fern weigh about 16 pounds together and Hailey is only 6 pounds and change. So perhaps I should have let her in it. Anyway, for all those who have never experienced the Fluffytails Xmas, here’s a taste. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll get Hailey in the tree before the season is done. I just can’t stop chuckling over how self-satisfied they both look.

Filed under: cats, kids, life, solo life , Fer, Fluffytails, Hailey, Iris, Jessica Pegis, pictures, Xmas tree