First, this is Sheri, not Neil Woodhams. I’ve only told a few of you about this, so you know it’s me. Neil is allowing me to practice on his blog. I’m testing it out, so it’s always a work in-progress.
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By Shelley Finnegan — January 27, 2024
** This is a test. This is only a test. At the sound of the rancid screeching tone, which may, in fact, be my own voice after realizing I’m out of bacon, there is no need to do a header under your desk or into your 1950s-style bunker. There’s only castor oil, tinned anchovies and maybe a turquoise formica table there anyway. But it helps for practice. You never know. Mr. Stay-Puft could go rabid at any given time.
But yes, this is only a test.
My first foray into blog writing. Thus, it’s a test to see if it works — or more accurately, if I can work IT.
A work constantly in progress; just basically word-vomiting right now, putting it all down in words, stream of consciousness, and will eventually get actual structure to it. So, at this point, don’t think this is my best work.
I’ve always found it funny that they are called “blogs,” because it makes me think of the word “bog.” Which, blogs kinda are. At least for me. A bog; a cesspool in which to dump your dumb-ass life experiences and emotions. Even the non-dumb-ass ones. The ones that make you snort-laugh and possibly fart at the same time, that are now snazzy memories.
Oooo, but hang on, speaking of Mr. Stay-Puft, I had an experience with that obese mallow. If only he was a plus-size Peep. I wouldn’t have felt so threatened.
So, the Marshmallow Mister, blue and white beret and all, thumped up to my kitchen window, which was on the second floor, and rharred at me with his sticky grin, and reached in, and stole the bacon I was cooking on the stove. I don’t blame him. It’s bacon, after all.
But his puffster hand didn’t melt from the heat. I was kinda hoping for a marshmallow-bacon s’mores type thing where I could bite off a finger or two. I got out the Hershey’s. But noooo, he took the bacon and thumped himself off. Probably literally. I mean, it is bacon after all.
I guess that proves the genuine love for that magical semi-meat product, no matter your species or genetics or whatever. Respect, Stay-Puft.
By the way, that was an actual dream I had a few years back. So don’t fret. Mr. Stay-Puft is not real, and he won’t steal your bacon. As far as I know.
That makes me think of another little ditty, about my son becoming a six-year-old entrepreneur. We were all at the Haliburton cottage, and it was the end-of-summer corn roast/bbq piss-fest. All the gazillion aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and neighbour friends were there.
It always goes late, and we always have a bonfire. And we roast marshmallows. Wellllll, as people got invariably more drunkedy, they started asking the kids to roast their marshmallows for them.
Our son solved that by offering to roast them for the drunkidies, and charging 10 cents per mallow. One of my cousins told him he should be charging 25 cents, so our son upped his price for his service. That kid made about $10 that night.
I have a couple photos of it, but they’re on my Facebook, which I am not going on these days. I’ll get to it soon, to at least copy my photos.
Oh ya, on a related note, former husband and I would pay our son five cents for every dog poop he could find in our backyard at home. We had our dog Plado at that time. Our son would venture out and yell out, “Poo!” every time he saw one, and would point, and then put a stick in the ground so that we’d be able to find them and clean them up. We called it Poo Patrol.
Oh, and also, we had a neighbour, Randy, who swore like a mother-fucker (ha). Our son was about five, and our son started the “Swear Tax.” He’d get 50 cents any time Randy swore around him. Eventually, Randy would just give him $20 in advance. Randy was hilar.
Randy had a potato-shooter, which he’d set off almost every weekend, semi-aimed across the road. We lived across the road. Occasionally, we’d find beaten-up potatoes in front of our house and neighbours’ houses. He did actually potato-splat many houses on their roofs, and it was like, “Oh, it’s just Randy, firing off his potatoes again.” Randy actually purchased potatoes just for this hobby of his.
One night, in the middle of the night, our son came into our room, and said there was a fire out in our backyard. His bedroom was glowing from the flames out there. Well, we had bonfire parties all the time, and thought maybe we hadn’t extinguished it well enough. We looked out the window, and my gawd, there was a towering inferno in our backyard. Former husband and I were immediately, like, “Randy.” Yes, yes it was. He had even chucked gasoline on our firepit. That little devil. He, of course, thought it was funny. We did too, but still, I’m glad we caught it in time.
Another one — Randy and his wife had their second child. Little baby Lila. So Randy comes over to our place, cradling their new-born baby in his arms with her little blankie, and he trips on the steps that led up to our deck. He drops baby Lila on the deck, she fell on her head, and I freaked out, as did he.
Ya. It was a doll.
He just loved fucking with us. And all our other neighbs. I loved it. Never a dull moment.
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By Shirley Flanagan — January 27, 2024
Edited this on Feb. 25, 2024. Deleted it. No one wants to hear what I had written. Let us just leave it that I was with an abusive guy for four years, and he did end up in Penetang Prison for three years.
Honestly, my son and I can even laugh about some of the stupid-ass shit that guy did. One time when he was passed out drunk, my son and I drew penises and swastikas on his face with a black Sharpie. It was awesome.
Speaking of my son, he is coming up 23, and maaaaan, could he BE any more hilar? I gather he got it from both his dad, and me, but prob more so from his dad.
My former husband always had me laughing, no matter what – like the first time at his cottage together and he came out in his “bathing suit” which was a leopard-print thong, and he acted like it was totally normal.
Yep, this is called Blah Blah Blog for a reason — I just go random and go off in tangents, as my good friends know.
One of my good friends suggested I do a book purely on my Notes to Self that I’ve posted on Facebook over the years (I’m currently not on FB these days). I can be a spaz and I embrace it! Off the top of me noggin, a few of those Notes to Self:
- Do not confuse hair conditioner for coffee creamer
- Do not try to eat gummy worm that is actually a fishing lure
- Oven mitts were invented for a reason
- Remember where you put your coffee go-mug before going to work (I eventually found it in the linen closet)
- Ensure your car windows are closed when you go through car wash
- Do not mistaken BB pellets for sprinkles on your son’s birthday cake
- Do not, especially in summer when windows are open, yell, “JACK! OFF!” over and over when son is Spider-Manning on the staircase
- Do not think you’re cool when you make FeebTonningwell (I made Beef Wellington upside down)
- Do not mistakenly put vodka and tonic in your dog’s water bowl
- ………….and the list goes on……………..
Yes, my stories will mostly be based on humorous incidents and people… I will be repectful to not mention anyone by their actual full name.
No matter what, life and its challenges are enriched and healed through laughter!
~~Wisdom from Duran Duran ~~ and video below
“But I won’t cry for yesterday –
there’s an ordinary world
somehow I have to find –
And as I try to make my way
to the ordinary world
I will learn to survive…”
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By Cherry Fingerhutton — Feb. 17, 2024
So, I feel I’m in limbo, waiting for the axe to fall. Kind like when I came to the glorious wisdom that I was going to fail Grade 12 math, in Mr. Banks’s class at Aurora High. I mean, I was crap-butt as it was in math anyway, but our class had a deal — someone bring up the subject of the Titanic in class, and he’d forget about math and tell us all his theories about the Titanic (mind you, this is 1987, so the star-studded film with that skinny Quebecois chick singing the theme song had not come out yet). So, yes, entertaining. Did it help me learn math to a reasonable degree? No. I still count on my fingers. No joke.
When it came time for math tests, I already knew I was a goner, so instead of even trying to fill them out with any random answer that had a number in it, I wrote dark poetry on the test papers, and handed them in.
Mr. Banks never said a word to me about it. Curious, that.
Ya, so, I dropped math, and numbers-deficient me had no choice but to go to summer skoo (my girlfriends and I made up that word for “school”). Back then, you needed Grade 12 math to graduate (stupid education system — I fie you, I say, I fie you!).
But. Wait for it. Let me tell you, summer skoo math was one of the funnest, bestest, most memorableble time evah! I mean, first off, you’re sent to summer skoo in order to allow you to pass, so it’s not like I or any of my kindred numbers-deficient classmates were gonna fail.
And we had a truly groovy teacher, Mr. Anand, who would take us out to bars after class (yes, my younger readers, at age 17 back then, we could easily order alcomaholic drinks), and have us over to barbecues (avec alcomahol) at his home with his super-sweet pregnant wife. Don’t fret… He always made sure we took cabs, or had someone pick us up, or the non-drinkers of our class (all two of them) would ensure we got home. He even drove some of us home on occasion.
It was amazing how our classmates bonded. I immediately and instinctively became friends with the gay guy. An intuitive bonding recognition between me and said gay guys that I still have to this day. He didn’t know/realize he was gay at the time, but I certainly did, and loved him… Him: “Oh my god, you look soooo great! Those acid-wash jeans and your cherise Polo tee-shirt look so great with your pink-striped Tretorns!” …If you’re not an ’80s child, that sounds like gibberish… But, really, we did we become genuine, close friends.
Ohhh, so much more fun stories about summer skoo. One of which was when a bunch of us went out to the movies to see ‘Summer School.’ What amazing timing for that movie to come out! It’s still one of my favourites. Never gets old.
Song of the day, which emanated from some functional brain cells:
… Words that these brain cells are trying to live by… “When the world is running down, you make the best of what’s still around…”
By Shani Ferguson — Feb. 18, 2024
Maaan, sorry about that huge, yelly font, above. Didn’t mean for it to look that way. This thing is annoying me. Haven’t got it figured out yet.
People just suck. I can count on one hand how many people are truly caring, compassionate, honest, loyal, and supportive (yes, I suck at math, but like I mentioned previously, I can count using my fingers).
Okay, a few things have happened, but one of my goals on here is to make light of the shitty things. So, without getting into anything that is currently literally making me cry, I’ll distract myself and tell a story about being lied to and deceived, that, in retrospect, is funny.
I was at a wedding with my former husband. One of his buddies. I was about three-months pregnant. It was an out-of-town wedding, so we had a hotel room where the dinner/reception was. Dinner was served, and it was a plate of cold, bloody cow. Now, I’m certainly no vegetarian, but, also being precariously pregnant, it made me puke a little in my mouth… uuu. uuu. uuu. swallow. Yes, I just said “swallow.” (ha). The puke, I mean.
So, I simply couldn’t be there, lest I actually barfed under the dinner table, yet being preggers, I couldn’t bend over that far. So, former husband, being likkered, di-int even notice, but one of his buds at our table did, and so former husband took me up to our hotel room. I threw up in the bathroom toilet about three or four times, while he tried to find a hockey game on the TV.
I came out of the bathroom, hit the bed. He gave me the TV flicker, said he was going back down, because “Geez! Me and all the buds have not been together in the same place for a long time! Gotta do it while it’s happening!”
Ya, had been, like, four days.
He said he’d order something up for me (I asked for some soup and grilled cheese sammie – which never arrived), and said he’d back to check on me every half-hour or so, and that he’d be sure to be back by 1 am. That was at about 8:30 pm. Or so I thought.
Like, I didn’t care if he was up with them all night; I was sick, and told him to go do his boy-thing, but that I would appreciate him checking in once in a while.
As I just said, I thought, according to the digital clock next to the bed, that it was 8:30 pm when he left. I felt like, well, how a preggers chick would feel after seeing and trying to ingest a raw hunk o’ flesh and then puking repeatedly, so I took some gravol, got the TV flicker that husband had kindly left next to me, and turned on the TV, with one of those hotel garbage-liner bags beside me in case of future pukage.
After about an hour or so of kind of hazily half-watching that movie with Drew Barrymore, Whoopie Goldberg, and Mary-Louise Whateverthefuck, during a commercial, I flicked the flicker, and came across one of those news channels that display the time. Ya, even with my grody sickies, my preggers, wearing my gi-normous paisley printed pregger underwear and one of husband’s big tee-shirts (yes, my tummy was a basketball even a couple weeks after we conceived), I bolted up, and realized that either I had somehow, in my gravol and pukey state, been transported to an alternate reality, OR that my husband had turned that bedside digital clock back by two hours.
Yep. He did.
Did he check on me? Yes, once. At 12:00 according to the fake-ass digital clock. Husband was all, like, “It’s only 12, so I’m going back down for bit.” I didn’t let on that I was onto his gig.
He returned at 3:oo, fake-time.
I was pissed off, but didn’t even mention it until we got home the next day. I told him that I knew. He was all, like, “What? How did you know?” And I just said, “You gave me the TV flicker. I’m no dummy. Not that hard to find out the real time.”
By then, I kinda thought it was funny that he thought he could get away with it. Ahh, my Peter Pan husband. Lots of stories on that note.
But I’ve never been a dummy. I may seem naive sometimes, but those wheels are turning. Well, not when it comes to myself (see Notes to Self, above), but with others… well, I am a Scorpio, afterall.
By Shariqui Finklestein — Feb. 18, 2024
Okay now, Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. Blogsite (sorry, don’t know your specific gender or pronoun, and gawd knows we don’t want to get that wrong these days), we’ve now got the dot-dot-dot as a separator between posts. I still can’t figure out how to do a proper blog.
Oh, so the dot-stuff made me think of something just now. I was adopted at about three days-old. All good. Found my bio-parents and bio-family when I was 31. Really coolio story about that, but I’ll tell it later. Point being, my bio-dad called me Bio-Dot (as in biological daughter). Or sometimes, just Dot. …And as Forrest Gump once said, “And that’s all I have to say about that right now.”
Oh me, oh my. I just went to the can, man, and dropped my glasses in. Well, they fell off my face as I looked down to flush. COME ON, we all look down!
I’m back now, glasses all good and cleaned, and was attempting to tell you what happened, sans glasses. I did take two years of typing in high skoo, and I know the “home line” or whatever (is that what it was called?), but was all a blur to me. I don’t know how Helen Keller did it.
I’m still here tonight. Was just listening to tunes, and came across this one.
It brings up thoughts about the bad man/men (NOT my former husband. He was a treasure).
If you hate that I’m doing this, that’s okay. But I’m doing this blog to purge and heal. When I relate to a song, or anything, I share it. Liz, I know you get it.
My aim is still to make funny, and I’m sure I’ll be able to find some kind of joke in this sometime soon.
Yep, still here. My mom and I always have this thing where when we get off the phone, we have to leave it on a funny note. I feel the same about this blog, because, ya, the above was a little heavy.
By Shandori Fenening — Feb. 19, 2024
Sorry, got distracted doing tarot cards for a friend. So ya, sharing a funny note…
My former husband, my friend Megan, her husband and I went to my family cottage for an extended long weekend (this is prior to us all having chillens). We had started at former husband’s family cottage, where we barbecued great steaks and whatnot, and played a lot of Yahtzee in the gazebo (YAHTS-LA-ROTS!)
Sooo, we eventually traversed over to my family cottage. Former husband and I in our vehicular, and Megan and her former husband in theirs. They followed us. I’m embarrassed to say this, but us chicks, as passengers, drank coolers in our respective vehicles. We had to pull over a couple times for us chicks to water the weeds, so-to-speak. One time was behind the grocery store in Minden. The boys, too. Yes, we were despicable, but, hey, we were in our late-20s, so, we were still like university students in that way.
Anyway, after we got to my family cottage, former husband did an inventory of what was in the kitchen. Not much, besides stuff that apparently never left there from my grandparents’ days, like spices in tin cans from the 1950s, “plasters” (ie: Band-Aids) in a tin box from the 1940s, and my Dad’s moldy cheese and spoiled milk and such in the fridge (my Dad was not there that weekend).
So, former husband sent Megan and I into town to buy some groceries. He made a list. In his handwriting. Megan and I read the list when we got to the store, and we were like, “Is this written in German or something? What the hell is ‘tootapasti’?” No cell phones back then, so we did the best we could to interpret this man’s abstract-art-type of the pen to paper. “Tootapasti.”
It became kind of a game to Megan and I, trying to decipher this cipher. After much pondering, we decided it meant “toothpaste.” Eureka, we felt so bright and accomplished to have figured it out! Yes! We got it!
We get back to the cottage, unload the groceries in the kitchen, and former husband says, “Where’s the tomato paste?”
Need I say more… But Megan and I laughed and laughed, and we still talk about “tootapastie” to this day. Like, even earlier tonight.
By Chantilly Feegayhan — Feb. 21, 2024
So, what came to mind right now is when my son was in Kindergarten, and one afternoon when I met him at the school bus stop, I could see his little distraught face pressed against the window.
He brought home a painting that he did of a blue dinosaur. He told me that his teacher said it was “wrong,” because it was blue. And a note was with it from teacher that said his dad and I were supposed to sign it to show that we’d seen it, as if we agreed his art was wrong, and our son was to bring it back the next day to teacher.
Well now, me being an artist, I got my son an apple juice box and a couple of Oreos (wait, that has nothing to do with being an artist, but, well, you get it), and told him, “That painting is fabulous. I love it. It’s going up on the fridge.”
And then I said, “Now listen carefully to me, son. Tomorrow, you tell your teacher that everyone has their own opinion, and that ‘art is subjective.'”
And I explained to our son, but he kinda already knew what I meant, because of my kooky art, but I had him say those words back to me, “Art is subjective,” and told him to remember those words and tell his teacher the next day.
And he did. He told her that her opinion didn’t really matter because art is subjective.
And we got a phone call from said teacher. Like, really?
Anyway, I adore that our son stood up for himself, and defended his self-expression! Atta boy! And he’s always been self-expressive; his own person. Like when he got his first faux-hawk when he was seven. And got both his ears pierced when he was about 14. And other stuff. Oh, I don’t mean he got other things pierced, just sayin’ he’s always been himself. Love that kid!
By Sallie Fagan — Feb. 23, 2024
Looking back, I was kind of a rebel from a very young age. Like, I wasn’t going around the neighbourhood holding up a women’s lib sign and yelling about women’s rights (although, funny, my Dad had told me I had three choices for a career: secretary, teacher, or stewardess. Riiiight.)
No, instead, I protested in our house about many things. When I was about six or seven, my parents got themselves a king-size bed, and gave me their double bed. I did not find it comfortable. It wasn’t soft enough. Who did I think I was, the Princess and the Pea? So, in protest, I slept on my hardwood floor with my fave doll, Mrs. Beasley. There are photos that my parents took of me sleeping on my bedroom floor – they thought it was cute. But I persisted for months, demanding better quality sleeping conditions. Eventually they got a foam topper for the double bed.
And then there was my eating issue. This went on from about age six to age 16. I never really liked food to begin with; I was a picky eater, and I refused to eat anything I didn’t like. My parents would do the whole parental thing, “You’re not leaving the table until you eat your dinner! There are children starving in China!” Wellll, that was fine with me. I just sat there with my arms crossed, with a non-expression on my face, looking at the floor.
My parents and brother would leave the kitchen to go watch TV, and they’d turn off most of the lights in the kitchen. I was basically in the dark.
But nooo, I was resolute. Eventually, like, three or four hours later, my Mom would check on me. Nothing had changed. No eaties by me. My Mom said, “What are you doing, and what do you want?” I said, “Peanut butter.” Well, my Mom called that bluff, and brought me a jar of peanut butter, and said, “Okay then. Put peanut butter on your food, and eat up.”
So I called that bluff right back at her, and put peanut butter on my food. The chicken, the peas and carrots, the side salad.
That was an ongoing thing. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure why my Mom just didn’t put a jar of peanut butter on the table at dinner time.
Another thing I did if I didn’t like my dinner food, was to kill it in the lit candles that my Mom always had on the table at dinner time. I’d impale some food-form with my fork, and light it on fire in the candle flames.
And, let me tell you, the worst was when my Mom cooked liver and onions. Ugh. Even the thought of it, the smell of it, makes me puke a little in my mouth. Well now, that was a total atrocity to me, and I’d pull my whole thing, BUT I would also put masses of scotch tape over my nose. Even peanut butter never fixed that brown, blatant slab of disgustingness.
My parents actually laugh their butts off about it now, though back then, they were trying to be serious parents and encourage me to “At least TRY it!”
NEV-AH! And I still have never tried liver and onions to this day. Gross.
By Sheddie Friggin — Feb. 24, 2024
So, speaking of “Sheddie,” I had a math teacher in Grade 10 (yesss, the wretched numbers class). His name was Mr. George. George George. Yep, that’s the name he went by. He was an itsy-bitsy Sri Lankan fellow, who never really got hold of the English language.
We called him Meesta Goj (with a soft G, like George without the “r” ).
I’ve always wondered what his real Sri Lankan name was.
Anyway, it was another one of those kind of goof-off classes, where us students always tried to throw him off his agenda. My friend Ian had this thing where he’d get all of us in the class to suddenly stop, and in tandem, point up to the ceiling and stare at it. That was a good one, because of course, Meesta Goj would always look up to see what we were looking at.
Well, Meesta Goj, caught on, and somehow knew it was Ian who started it, and he’d say, “Eeen! To the office! Now!” Eeen (Ian) was sent off there on a regular basis.
Another friend in the class was Elliot. He also liked to mess around in class, and then it would be, “Idiot! To the office! Now!” No, he wasn’t necessarily calling Elliot an idiot. That was just how he pronounced things.
So, Meesta Goj called me Sheddie. He’d say to me, “Sheddie, get to wook.”
And that name stuck, as a nick-name. Sheddie. My high skoo friends started calling me that, and they still do. And university friends to whom I told this story to. They still call me Sheddie, or Shed.
Not being racist or anything here, at all; that never crossed my mind, even then. Just telling it like it was. It was funny, and yep, Meesta Goj has given me a legacy with the Sheddie.
By Shelby Fig-Newton — Feb. 25, 2024
Okay, about three years ago or so, Megan encouraged me to do online dating. Actually, no, she dared me. I really didn’t want to, and she said, “Okay, make it the worst profile ever, be an idiot if you want, and I guarantee you, you’ll still get responses.”
So, I did it for shits and giggles. Meg was on the phone with me while I filled out my profile. I was all honest for the first part (well, I still injected some humour), and then used my no-filter humour for the rest of it. As I was telling her what I had written, we couldn’t stop laughing.
I’m, like, “Are you sure I should actually post this?” She said, “Absolutely. You might come across a dude like you who is quirky and has the same weird sense of humour.”
It was supposed to be a joke. But lo and behold, I got a ton of responses. At that time, I never really followed up on any of them, because I truly wasn’t up for dating then.
Fast-forward to about six months ago. I went back on that site, and my profile was still in the site’s data bank or whatever, so I re-activated it, just to see…
It’s still fun and wacky.
By Sherington Feverpitch — March 2, 2024
So. Let me tell you a few ditties about my Mom. I totally love her to the moon and back now, and cherished her as a little girl, but we had some challenging times in-between. They now make me laugh. In no particular order:
Apologizes for the below, not breaking it up into paragraphs. Every time I did that, another bullet-point would show up.
- When I was a teenager, my Mom would rifle through my bedroom while I was at skoo. She found my birth control pills. She took them away. When I got home from skoo, she sat me down at the kitchen table, pulled them out, and said, “What is this?” She actually didn’t really know, but she had the gist. Like, this is the woman who would not allow me to use tampons because they entered my vagina. So, long story short, she told my Dad and my then-boyfriend’s mom (she kinda thought it was funny and held nothing against her son nor I; she was a nurse and was smart about these kinds of things), and my Mom exclaimed to me, “You are no longer having intercourse!” Like, riiiight. All I had to do was re-fill my prescription from the nice clinic in Newmarket that kinda catered to teenage girls. From then on, I kept my birth control pills in my locker at skoo. Oddly, she didn’t demand that I no longer see that boyfriend. And he gave me some stellar advice: “Tell them what they want to hear, and then do what you want.” Well, I chose not to speak at home for about a year. Not a word. My Dad would try to provoke me at dinner, “Eat your peas. I hear they are good for birth control.” Yep, it’s all funny now, especially because boyfriend was still always around, and my parents even took him to Florida with us for March Break.
- Like I said, this is in no particular order. When I separated from former-husband, I rented a townhouse in Nouveau Marche (Newmarket). My parents were living in Aurora, and they’d drop by unexpectedly sometimes (I hate that!). They’d pull up and catch me on my front porch with a smoke and a glass of wine. SHIT!!!! But that wasn’t the worst. When they came inside, both of them were running their fingers over the tiny baseboards, and saying how dusty they were. Well, I had always kept a clean house. And especially because my son was living with me most of the time, and he had friends over, and I had friends over, etc. When parents were leaving, at my front door, my Mom said, “Do you want me to lend you my vacuum cleaner?” My gawd, every Saturday I would vacuum, swiffer, mop, clean overall in-between commercials of whatever my son and I were watching on TV. Hauled that mother-fucking vacuum over three floors. So, my Mom says that, and I said, “What? Why?” And she said, “Well, apparently your vacuum must be broken or you don’t have one.” Ahhh, mothers!
- Again, in no particular order… When I was home during the summer after first-year university, my friends and I were going to a pool party. My friends came to pick me up. My parents greeted them at the front door. They were all in swimsuits (two girls and two boys). It was summer, and pool par-tay time! I came down the stairs in my bikini, and my Mom stopped me at the bottom of the stairs, in front of my friends, and she and my Dad said in unison, “Oh,” with a look of shock and concern on their faces. I said, “What? I’ve got a towel and sunscreen lotion and a tee-shirt here with me.” They (well, my Mom) asked me to turn around, which I did, and then she said, “Oh. I guess you are settling into your body.” They had seen me every year in a bikini since I was born, at the cottage, in Florida, etc. Sure, during first-year university, I put on about seven pounds, which meant I was 112 pounds, at 5’6″. Well now, at age 54, I think I’m finally getting to the point of actually “settling into my body.”
- My Mom’s good friend wanted to do an exorcism on me. My Mom was in this bible group with about five or six other women, and they would meet up weekly, taking turns at each of their homes. I never really knew when they’d be at my house when I got home from skoo. My Dad (bless him), even though he worked all the time and was away a lot, would know ahead of time if the bible group was at our house. He would come home early, meet me at the skoo bus stop, and tell me, “The God Squad is here. We need to sneak in through the garage and hide ourselves.” The God Squad — hilar that my Dad came up with that. My Dad and I would kinda listen from the kitchen; they were in the dining room, and we’d hear that good friend of my Mom’s suddenly and loudly yelling gibberish. Apparently, she was ‘speaking in tongues.’ Right. And she wanted to do an exorcism on me because I had constant screamy nightmares (which started from age two or three, and still have, due to abuse when I was tiny – not my parents or family, don’t worry), and also because — get this — I was sexually active. Yep, my Mom also told the God Squad about then-boyfriend. One afternoon they got me into the dining room, and made me sit down and hold hands with all of them around the table, and they prayed/chanted for me to atone for my sins and be a good girl. I had brought this all upon myself and the scourge also tainted my family from my evil. Obv, my Dad was not there at that time. Well, I was simply in shock. Didn’t know what to do. Frozen. That was when my Mom’s good friend said, “We can see she has been taken over. Let’s get her up to her room and begin.” Meaning, exorcism. My Mom, still having some sense in her somewhere, said no, and they eventually let me go. I ran the hell out of there into the woods of our backyard. I find it funny now. Crazy religious people. And my saviour Dad, and him making a joke out of it by calling them “The God Squad.” He and I still laugh about it today. My Mom has no idea what we mean when we say that. It’s an inside joke between my Dad and I.
- At the cottage when I was about 47, my Mom took me aside, held my face in her hands, looking at me intently, and said, “What kind of lip liner do you use, to cover up those wrinkles?” I didn’t even have time to answer. I don’t use lip liner, nor lipstick, and she knew it. Then she said, “Ohhhh. Yes, I see you don’t bother with that.”
- One time when my Mom unexpectedly pulled up in front of the townhouse, I was out front, as usual during the summer. I was chatting with my neighbour Paula. My Mom had never met Paula before. She said to Paula, “Oh my. Look at my daughter. She used to have such a lovely bob (hair) and used to be so put-together. I’m sorry.” What????
- More to come….
By Shelby Fyeegahen — March 4, 2024
By Shut-it Feeyagan – – March 14, 2024
Do you remember the first time you heard Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit?
I do. Not only did I hear it, I saw the video, and it was large, and it was loud, and it changed everything.
I was in a sorority in University, and it was an annual formal-thing, where you get all dressed up, served sit-down dinner, and then a dance, etc; like going to your formal at high school. But with served booze. And at The Art Gallery of London, with a live orchestra playing classical during dinner… fancy-schmancier than any high school formals.
I was not dating anyone at the time, so I had to “borrow” a date. Who, in fact, was my high skoo boyfriend, Chris. He and I had always stayed friends, and were even house-mates during second year. And I became good friends with his girlfriend, Naomi. She “lent” him to me for the event. Lovely, amazing woman, that Naomi.
So, the dinner part ended, and the dancing/mega-partying part began, with a huge screen, playing music videos. There were a few song/videos, which some of the girls went to dance to (you know, boys are not typically dancey-types), and then…
Smells Like Teen Spirit came up; the tune and the video. I had never heard it before, nor had Chris or a few of my friends. BUT, there was this mass exodus out onto the dance floor, with these hoity-toity sorority girls allll over it; mimicking the cheerleaders, lifting their dresses, and, well, being down-and-dirty with it. I could mention a few names… Ok, I’ll mention two last names and then think what you want: Rogers and Bassett. As in the telecommunications business, and the beer business. Among other girls from big-name families.
So…. Chris and I and my friends were seeing this craziness, with posh girls going nuts for grunge, and we got out there on the floor, and of course, it was like nothing we’d ever heard or seen before.
And like everyone in the world, I was instantly diggin’ this tune and the video.
Chris actually liked to dance, and him being 6-foot-four, he picked me up and danced me and threw me all around (in a good dancing way), but I always had my eyes on that video screen, and eventually, he and I just started doing what the other peeps were doing. Jumping up and down, throwing our heads and hair back and forth like maniacal what-nots (can’t think of a word right now that better fits).
It was the first time I’d heard/seen it, Kurt and the band, and those cheerleaders and all of head-thrashers, and crowd-jumping, etc in the video. I was a Nirvana virgin until then. I had to ask one of my sorority sisters who this band was.
But instantly hooked. This may be a bad analogy, but I kinda liken it to when North Americans first experienced the Beatles.
Don’t get me wrong, the Beatles are on a different level, but the sudden and welcome change in music was instantly embraced.
We all knew this was something big. A culture-changer. And it was.
Gawd knows how those posh girls instantly knew the song — and knew all the words, let alone how to “dance” to it.
But I’ll never forget it. Nirvana. 1991.
… And then there’s this version! Hilar, and love it!
By Sari Finnaglehan — March 15, 2024
Okay, so was just looking for something on YouTube to fall asleep to, and saw this thing that has 166 million views. Yes! I’ve never come across anything with that many views, so I simply had to watch.
And it is rather brilliant! It takes ages and ages to watch, like, years (it’s actually only 20 minutes, but in this day and age, with the short-to-zero attention span, that seems like a lifetime).
Here it is, and it is hilarious, yet educational! But the humour is what’s best!
By Charlie Fiegieburger — March 31, 2024
So Easter happened. Which I’ve been alone for, for about eight years. Whatever.
Prior, former husband and I would split the Easter time with our son. But my son, starting at about age 13, on Easter Monday (when he was with his dad), would text me: “Happy Haysoos is Alive Again Day!” Haysoos, as in the phonetic way of pronouncing Jesus in, I think, Spanish or something.
Anyway, we are soooooo not religious, so that was my son’s joke! He makes-a-me-laugh…
So this past Easter, for the first time ever, he didn’t text me that. So I texted him: “I guess Haysoos did not get alive again this year! Happy Pagan Spring Celebration!”
His response was: “The Easter bunny is a Liberal lie.”
I totally snort-laughed when I read that. He cracks me up. And he loves messing with me about politics.
I replied: “No, the Easter bunny is a Conservative plot to keep children in-line.”
That’s all for now.