Keepin' it real...

I recently became very annoyed about the increasing ghetto-ization of our neighbourhood. Unfortunately, I don't mean fun and interesting ghetto-ization like where people play ghetto blasters on their stoops and wolf whistle at passing hotties. Instead I mean gritty and real ghetto-ization like where people smoke crack and expose themselves.

Because the last thing I am is afraid to confront a problem head on, I did what any self respecting individual would do and contacted my City Councillor. Embarrasingly, I have to confess that I did resort to referring to myself as a taxpayer and thus, had to endure the fleeting and painful realization that I have become my father. Believing that I would be written off as another self-important, nit-picky, elitist do-gooder, I never really imagined when I pressed "send" that I would be listened to or even better yet, receive a response. Well, receive a response I did, much to my chagrin because let's be honest, I never thought that anyone would call my bluff. I write an email, vent, get to bitch about politicians and how they don't care about anything, complain, moan, complain, moan and so on. A compulsive complainer like myself never expects to have someone actually suggest a solution, that would be downright ridiculous because everyone knows, solving a problem means no more complaining and what fun is that?

Giving credit where credit is due, my Councillor is Ward 28's Pam McConnell, so, kudos to Pam and her trusty sidekick who was entrusted with dealing with my complaint. I feel sorry for Pam's sidekick but console myself with the thought that possibly, my complaint was slightly more interesting that your average, "I don't like the pink geranium planters on College Street" or "please declare October 12 Love your Ferret Day". At least my email included words like "urination" and "indecency".

So, Pam's sidekick threw down the proverbial gauntlet and not only responded to my email but also suggested that I might want to join the local neighbourhood association who, as luck would have it, were having a meeting tonight to discuss the very issue of neighbourhood safety. I was genuinely upset to learn that I had an unresolvable conflict and suggested that Mr. Lemony Lemonade might want to attend. It seemed like a good idea because Mr. Lemony Lemonade complains about 300 times more strenuously about the gritty realness of our neighbourhood than I do. Much to my surprise, I got a one line response from Mr. Lemony Lemonade, "thanks, but I will pass on this."

Hot on the heels of Mr. Lemony Lemonade "outing" himself as an apathetic tax payer and not a hot head taxpayer like myself, I made the mistake of observing that where I was all piss and vineagar, Mr. Lemony Lemonade was verging on ambivalent. Being the king of "the last word" he retorted that perhaps I should have married an eco-warrior and instead of sitting in my comfortable abode, I could be chained to a tree or on a hunger strike. All this proves is that Mr. Lemony Lemonade clearly has no understanding of my complicated psyche at all. Now that I was earning my own keep and comfortably having achieved middle class status independent of my parents it is important that I be able to convince myself that in spite of my middle class malaise, I am still "keeping it real" even if "keeping it real" means banding together with other prissy "tax payers" to decry the injustices of having to step over homeless people on my way to work in the morning or being startled by the sight of public urination while walking the Pug.

In the end, we just agreed to disagree although I did announce rather triumphantly that Mr. Lemony Lemonade is officially banned from complaining about our gritty and real neighbourhood because clearly he wasn't willing to be part of the cure so I think that makes him part of the problem or at least a complainer without true objectives and goals like myself - a complainer who has EARNED the right to complain.

The dao of drunken parenting

After writing so earnestly yesterday about how I am going to go off and find my exercise passion in a very Oprah-esque way, I went out this evening and promptly downed slices of pizza (appetizer sized), shrimp skewers (seafood, so very healthy), cheese (no way to interpret this one as anything but cardiac arrest inducing although I did eat the cheese with figs, so , it was like eating fruit which is beyond healthy), olives (aren't they the GOOD type of fat?) and part of a mini burger that seemed to be smothered in mayo (ditto on the cardiac arrest thingy) and for good measure, I washed my cardiac arrest down with two martini's (delish) and two champagne cocktails (how civilised!). So, the truth is that I really had zero intention of exercising at all, I mean who am I kidding? the very word "cardio" makes me sweat and that's workout enough for me. However, don't think that I won't be enjoying a late night Kozy Shack 90 calorie pudding because, first, we bought a flat of them from Costco so that's the only thing that fits in the fridge and second, let's face it, it's like eating nothing at all, in fact, you might actually lose weight because they are that GOOD.

In addition to learning that I am a complete and utter fibber when it comes to "exercising more" I also learned that drunken parenting is highly underrated; not only is it stress free and enjoyable, it is downright fun. Now, before you go off and report me to Children's Services, Mr. Lemony Lemonade supervised said drunken parenting so, no children were hurt in the course of my drunken parenting.

My first order of drunken parenting business was to throw caution and routine to the wind and break my most sacred evening rule, "don't get Baby Girl hyper before bed" which of course meant that I promptly started a tickle fight which, in hindsight was a bad idea because in my compromised condition, I was quickly overpowered by Baby Girl (who, by the way, tickles like she is kicking the s&*% out of you). Baby Girl, in the space of seconds managed to head butt me and give me, what I believe to be a shiner on my left eye and then proceeded to square Mr. Lemony Lemonade, all the while laughing hysterically. Just in case I hadn't made her hyper enough with the tickle fight, I snuck a bag of marshmellows upstairs like a common criminal where we proceeded to shove them into our mouths by the fistful.

The tragic truth, however, is that all that my two martinis and two champagne cocktails did was remove much of the anxiety inherent in parenting one's first-born, precious, prodigy-genius child rendering me into an idiotic woman-child who thinks that feeding a two year old a pound of sugar before bed is a brilliant idea - but really, what child ever failed to get into Oxford because they had eaten marshmellows before bed?

Therefore, the inescapable conclusion is that exercising and healthy living only lead to bad, anxiety-ridden parenting while a teensy martini once a day and NO EXERCISE will render you a fantastic parent, full of joie de vivre and childish delight. So, jaunty, jogging girls with your fancy Lululemon outfits and your lithe runners legs, a votre sante and cheers!

Happiness, thy name is Kozy Shack

As much as I would like to believe that when I look into the mirror what I see is the body of a supermodel, I have to be content with the reality that I am a thirty-something working girl who has had a baby. I am unsure which fact contributes more to my flabby thirtiness; whether it is working, which by definition means complex carb snacks at breakfast meetings and endless hours parked on my spreading ass doing sweet f&*% all OR could it be the fact that I used my pregnancy as carte blanche to indulge my "craving" for hamburgers, ice cream and chocolate chip cookie dough. I am beginning to believe that it may be a combo of both items plus now, I find myself mindlessly finishing Baby Girl's meals which means that not only am I getting the fat and calories from my own meals, I am also benefitting by finishing off Baby Girl's half eaten chicken nuggets shaped like rocket ships and the tail end of yogurts and cookies.

The even bigger problem is that I really detest exercise and when I say detest, I really, really mean it. I nod knowingly when friends say things like, "I just don't feel right if I don't workout at least 5 times a week" or "I need to run every morning or else life just isn't worth living" but the truth is, they might as well be saying, "unless I poke myself in the eye with a burning hot poker, I can't concentrate" because if you asked me, it's a toss up between going for a jaunty run and poking myself in the eye. The even worse part is that I secretly long to be a lithe, springy runner, flying around effortlessly in my Lululemon flared running pants and sassy top, ponytail flying in the wind but the truth is that when I see someone jogging, I feel faint and have an immediate need for a martini and a square of chocolate. The even funnier part is that I really enjoy active activities like tennis, biking, skiing and swimming but then, they don't really feel like exercise. So, I have committed to trying to find some active, baby belly burning exercise that doesn't feel like exercise. Many, many moons ago, I did boxing and not boxercise but real honest to goodness, smelly gloves and incessant skip rope boxing and I really, really liked it because I was too exhausted to be a stress merchant or my usual onery self. Mr. Lemony Lemonade loved it because when I got home, all the fight, literally, had gone out of me and I was like a little pussy cat. I will also be trying to find a sort of combo dance/fitness class thing that might fool me into thinking that I am having a good time and not actually exercising.

In the meantime, I am thanking my lucky stars that Kozy Shack has figured out how to make their little pots of pudding goodness a mere 90 calories so that until I can figure out something that will keep my butt from further spreading, it will at least spread at a slightly slower rate.

The indomitable Mr. Kasparov

I was beyond pleasantly surprised to be asked to be a "plus one" for the Empire Club luncheon at the Royal York Hotel where the one, the only, Grandmaster himself, Mr. Gary Kasparov was to address the assembled masses. I am beyond a bumbling schoolgirl about people like Mr. Kasparov - you can have your Brad Pitts and McDreamys because I am a complete sucker for a highly accomplished mind, thus my undying love for Mr. Lemony Lemonade who could easily be called Mr. Brainy McSmarty Pants - the man can read Latin, for the love of God and speak with conviction about economics and opening gambits. I digress.

Before I get to the nitty gritty and because I don't want to detract from the brilliance that is Kasparov, let me gush and say that the man quoted Einstein and Godel's Incompleteness Theorem causing me to swoon inappropriately into my strawberry shortcake. Thankfully for my family (the event was heavily covered by the media) I was able to maintain a modicum of dignity and refrained from pushing through the crowd and demanding that Mr. Kasparov sign my chest with a Sharpie like a common groupie.

Although I was disappointed that Mr. Kasparov didn't regale us with stories of his amazing chess career, attempting to beat and ultimately beating IBM's Deep Blue super computer , thoughts on the illusive Bobby Fisher and growing up a chess genius behind the Iron Curtain, what he did do was send the proverbial shot across the bow of those of us in the western world who have snoozed through the deconstruction of Russia and the rise of Putin, whose gaze, by the by, turns my blood chilly. As the Chairman of The United Civil Front characterised as "a broad, non-ideological coalition of opposition groups called The Other Russia" Mr. Kasparaov was passionate and eloquent in conveying his key message - that western leaders, by remaining silent have cloaked the actions of Putin and his government in a shroud of legitimacy, or as Mr. Kasparov suggests, have provided Mr. Putin with "demoncratic credentials". Not being happy with his criticism of Mr. Putin and his cronies, Mr. Kasparov also derided the UN as outdated and ineffective and chided the US and President Bush for a lack of a coherent strategy with respect to the Iraq War. Being a long time lover of all things controversial and provocative, I was giddy and I think I experienced a contact high.

I am not well informed about the internal politics of the Russian Federation and have only passing familiarity with such things as the alarming and highly suspect rise of the Russian oligarchs and the sensational and suspicious deaths of the dissident journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the just plain dissident and enigmatic Alexander Litvinenko. That being said, I listened carefully to what Mr. Kasparov said this afternoon and I have resolved to question those in power and will therefore, write another of my ubiquitous letters to my MP and to Mr. Mackay, Minister of Foreign Affairs (he can be reached at: 509-S Centre Block, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6 or at mackay.p@parl.gc.ca). It may seem small and ineffective, but it is one of the few practical ways in which I can express my views and be counted.

In fairness to our Grande Queso, Prime Minister Harper, I will add that at the most recent meeting of the G8 in Germany, Stephen (whose gaze also turns my bloody chilly) acted in a most un-Canadian manner and confronted Vlad Putin about alleged anti-democratic behaviour and human rights abuses in Russia. Kudos to you Stephen. Putin, however, in what I perceive to be his typical unflappable fashion did the political equivalent of answering a question with a question and suggested that Canada is not immune from similar criticism and therefore should refrain from casting the proverbial stone. Duh?

In any event, read, question and make your voice heard. I, more than anyone, would prefer to buy a cute pair of shoes or watch really, really bad television but out there somewhere, people live in fear and the least that I can do is question, question and question some more.

In all, I was struck by the personal risk that Mr. Kasparov was taking without promise of any personal gain other than harassment and possible incarceration. It is a long way from the insular world of chess to the rough and tumble world of democratic/human rights activist. So, to you my geeky chess crush Mr. Kasparov, I say, check and mate.

Farewell sweet Tapas...

My current bugaboo is Tapas. Unfortunately for me, it is also my sick little addiction but I am forced to ask - am I addicted to the Tapas or am I addicted to the hype; either way, it's tragic. As my current "love-hate," here's the breakdown - love vs. hate:

Love: because I am a huge fan of the "tasting" and the "sample". I am the one at the table who ends up hating what I ordered and trying to scam bites off of everyone else's plate. I can also NEVER decide what I want and am the consummate restaurant wheeler and dealer; poor Mr. Lemony Lemonade typically gets drafted into my plans (I am quite certain that it was in the vows between love and honour) that typically involve sharing any number of items accross all menu categories . Half an appetizer, plus a quarter of my entree plus part of my salad for part of his prime rib plus a sip of his wine in exchange for my potato, part of my fish and a bite of my dessert. Tapas is therefore, like enforced sharing and tasting - my friends and family are required to engage in my twisted game of indecision and gluttony.

Hate: slavishly following trends and paying the price. Knowing that I am being manipulated and not caring, paying three times the going price for a ridiculously small portion and still not caring. You can't buy this brand of hipness people, oh, sorry, errr, yes in fact you can buy this kind of hipness because apparently, I just did four weeks ago at Kultura. After all, would I really want a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes if they cost $19.99 at Payless, absolument NON! The correlation between expensive and cool is as inevitable as it is pathetic.

The fact that I am blogging about Tapas is a sure sign that its status as the "it-food" has clearly passed, I acknowledge that it is so January '07. That being said, it's still everyhwere and I continue to be awed by the marketing genius behind the devilish little plates of goodness. The concept is fiendeshly simple in its execution - make smaller portions, ask people to buy more and charge them the same price as if they were eating regular sized, single portions - cunning.

Having got my petit rant out of my system and coming clean with my dirty little secret, I can publicly admit that I have personally eaten at three major Tapas locations in T.O., one of which I can't recall so it couldn't have been that good. Without going into specifics, because God knows that I would make a truly pathetic restaurant critic:

Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar
9 Church Street
...really does have amazing french fries as promised although it's more lunchy than dinnery and lunch cost a small fortune (around $100 - ouch!)

Kultura
169 King Street East
...really does have the best ambience but I felt pretentious, nevertheless, I did love the chocolate dessert

As an aside and digression: Baby Brother went to Lee and whole heartedly supports what I have heard about the Black Cod being delish, that being said, I refuse to go because I have seen Susur Lee on a number of television shows and he seems like a bit of a nasty piece of work - and I don't care how good you are at something, you still have to play well with others. The moral of the story is that I won't go to Lee or Susur or any Susur/Lee related locations because I am conscientously objecting to Mr. Lee's fanciness.

Having reached my Tapas rock bottom I am now officially swearing off the stuff - my Tapas shame spiral is at an end and I will endeavour to replace every last dollar frittered away on Tapas back into Baby Girl's college fund.

Having got this monkey off my back, I can say with conviction that Tapas has put the ASS back in dining.

The Diabolical Otter

It is almost beyond belief that my family can provide such interesting fodder for a blog - and really, I am not convinced that the high jinx of the Lemony Lemonades is really all that interesting or inspiring but this is like my own little Prozac or my cheap and cheerful alternative to pricey therapy. That being said, I was reminded this evening while supping with my parents, Baby Girl and Mr. Lemony Lemonade about one of my most favourite summertime dilemmas - the Diabolical Otter.

It all officially began for the Summer of '07 when I made the mistake of asking my parents, recently returned from "up North" if they had seen hide or hair of the Diabolical Otter. I should explain, said Diabolical Otter entered the scene last summer after my parents had invested my inheritance in building a boathouse at their cottage. At the conclusion of said construction, which, by the by, rivalled the Taj Mahal in its importance, dedication of parental man hours and general angst, the Diabolical Otter appeared.

The Diabolical Otter at a moment's notice and the minute that the cottage was vacated, would hop or leap or whatever an amphibious rodent is want to do, and would take a huge poop on the dock of the boathouse. Once, we left the boathouse only to realize that we had forgotten some important and no doubt essential piece of equipment and quickly returned to the boathouse only to find that in the intervening minutes, the Diabolical Otter had done his diabolical business right on the dock. The combination of the stealth and the stinkiness culminated in the Otter being dubbed by me as "the Diabolical Otter." Only the most diabolical creature could be so MEAN as to desecrate the boathouse. I mean, didn't the bloody thing know that it was simply ruining our peaceful enjoyment of nature and the outdoors. How, in God's name, was I supposed to commune with the natural world with the stink of Otter poop ruining it all for me? Of course, my father felt that the Diabolical Otter was an afront to all that was good and right with the world and did not appreciate it when I helpfully pointed out that the Diabolical Otter was likely taking some sort of lefty-liberal-tree hugging-pro-environment stand and protesting the fact that we had inadvertently built the Taj Mahal directly over its home, mating ground, Otter public space or sacred Otter burial site. It was a stand of poopy proportions, a sort of Otter f-you.

Of course, the pooping Diabolical Otter is now safely ensconced in the Lemony Lemonade vernacular, right alongside things like the genius of John Denver. However, the Diabolical Otter is not important because of the stinky poops but because he started the ongoing Lemony Lemonade dialogue as to how to deal with the Diabolical Otter, because you see, the Lemony Lemonades are what I call "big picture people." Silly little details like actually solving a problem would be far too "micro" for us, we hire people to solve problems, but we are giants of the commentary, the complaint and the personal soapbox. Therefore, we are engaged in debate from now and on into infinity about the motivation of the poopy Diabolical Otter - was he or she hugged enough as a child, was this a failing of the Otter community as a whole that they had managed to create such a scallywag and by God, wasn't there a governmental agency that was responsible for dealing with this sort of thing? Didn't we pay our taxes in order to be protected from vexing, small rodents and their poop!

In a stroke of what I can only call sheer genius, my mother was the first and to date, the only one to posit a possible solution. She determined that without a doubt, the best and only solution was to smear bear scent on the boathouse. This suggestion silenced the Lemony Lemonades for about one nano-second as all our little pea brains spun furiously attempting to come up with a retort, a put down or witty remark. Let's just say that while we all chortled and generally rolled our eyes to indicate just how very crazy smearing bear scent on the boathouse was, what we were all really thinking was "curses, why didn't I think of that." My mistake was to suggest that perhaps smearing bear scent was perhaps going to create an even large problem. For example, what were we going to do with thirty horny bears on our dock? or, what if the bears showed up and I had gotten some bear scent on me and I was carted off and held as their captive? or, far more likely, what if a bunch of drunk adolescent bears decided to "hang" at our place, smoke pot and listen to rock and roll music at uncivilised and anti-social hours? Thank God one of us was thinking straight!

You will be happy to hear that this isn't the end of the tale because tonight at dinner we were updated. As it turns out, a box that formerly housed a television had somehow fallen onto the dock over the winter and this past weekend my father discovered that the Diabolical Otter, in a show of gallantry and impeccable manners, had decided to use said box as his own Otter Port-a-Potty. My father determined, therefore, that the box was to become a permanent fixture at the boathouse, as it is far easier to clean up the oily, slick, otter poop from the box rather than the dock itself; we are to think of it like an Otter kitty litter box.

Just when I thought that my head might actually explode, my mother piped up with possibly her most inspired thought to date - she had in fact thought of another SOLUTION. All we needed to do was smear the boathouse in otter blood because, she stated, as if she actually knew, that an animal will not venture to a place where another member of their species had died. But of course, she continued, it would be difficult to locate sufficient quantities of otter blood to really do the trick.

So, my Diabolical Otter friend, I am certainly glad that my mother is on my side of this equation because I am not quite sure if she is a genius or a budding serial killer, either way, I say to you Diabolical Otter you have been a worthy adversary but you are no match for the Lemony Lemonades.

My country for a drop of pee...

Just when I thought that there was no lower level to which I could sink, I sank.

You should understand that I am a complete hypochondriac-by-proxy, which means that I am constantly convinced that Baby Girl has contracted some devastating (but not deadly) disease. The slightest hint of a sniffle or sneeze sends me running for my second most prized reference book in the entire world, The Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence (the first place going to The Oxford Dictionary of Saints). Just this weekend, Baby Girl, while using her new baseball tee turned to me and said that it hurt when she peed, so, I quickly diagnosed the Black Death. Mr. Lemony Lemonade thought it best to get a second opinion (no fun!) - from a "conventional medical doctor."

We went to the pediatrician this afternoon and quite to my utter dismay, we were told that a urine sample was necessary. Now, Baby Girl is NOT POTTY TRAINED, or, at least, she is apparently potty trained at daycare but at home, the potty is a place to play with her dollies and read books. Anyhow, we were given two options: option one, conventional plastic cup and option two, a plastic bag that has an oval hole cut into it surrounded by sticky plastic that is somehow attached to, errr, the nether regions to collect pee. I assessed the options: option one, tough, given that she can't pee on demand and even more difficult, as I have to somehow figure out how to get the cup in the right place at the right time. Option two seemed on its face easier but could it really work?

We tried option one first which found Mr. Lemony Lemonade and I in our suits in the bathroom bracing ourselves for how in the world we were ever going to achieve what was clearly doomed to failure from the start. Feeling that it was necessary to give it a try, I put on the latex glove and use the provided antiseptic wipe to, well, wipe. That marked the end of the easy portion of the program. What ensued was the most ridiculous gymnastics; attempting to get Baby Girl on the potty, trying to get the jar into position, trying to stop Baby Girl from squirming and trying to watch what I was doing. At least Baby Girl had the sense to declare the whole thing a bust. In any event, it doesn't take a bleeding engineer to work out the logistics on a two year old, full size toilet, two adults and one, very small plastic cup into which the two year old is supposed to pee. Option one aborted.

Option two was too complex for our parental pea brains, so the doctor did the whole peel and stick thing. Of course Baby Girl was amused for about a nano second before removing the whole bag contraption thingy-majig. Option two aborted.

So, now I am at home plying Baby Girl with water as if a drought is imminent and chasing her around the house with the Fisher Price Sing and Learn Potty (the potty plays music when she pees) and generally enthusing about urination, like, "oh, I wish I could do a pee pee in the potty" or "wouldn't it be fun to pee pee in the potty" and the ultimate sign of desperation "Dora likes doing a pee pee in the potty." Finally, I got her to sit on the bloody thing and she sat there for 33 minutes! She doesn't do anything for 33 minutes EVER, nothing, or at least not anything that I have ever witnessed. She read a few books, fed her Dora doll pretend peas and carrots, did a puzzle and coloured a picture - all while sitting on the potty! After 33 minutes, not a drop of pee pee was to be found; I practically fought back the tears.

So, if Baby Girl is suffering from the Black Death, I will never know because I can't get any sodding pee.

Fixation Fridays

For those of you who know me at all, know that my kin are beyond 'splaining. Those who have the misfortune of crossing our path or God forbid, being invited to dinner, are lucky to survive the interaction with their sanity intact. This isn't because we attempt to poke out your eyes with dull spoons or have an unusually large taxidermy collection - no serial killers in my family. Instead, it's because we appear so normal, so plain potato chips that the an objective third party observer is inevitably struck by the incongruity of the apparent normality with the craziness that lies just beneath the surface. The Lemony Lemonades are a bunch of stark raving mad lunatics who someone, anyone, should clearly be medicating before we are allowed to do any real damage.

That being said, we are also a great source of humour for those who are not actually related, but poor Mr. Lemony Lemonade had the misfortune to marry into the madness, so, he finds it less funny than others.

Of all the Lemony Lemonades, none is more entertaining on a pound for pound basis than my father - likely because he is downright likable and genuinely humorous and because he appears to be the most normal of the bunch making his idiosyncracies all the more hilarious. Of all of his characteristics, his most marked is his unerring commitment to his views on anything and everything ranging from controversial political issues to country music. No matter how many times we tell him that we could care less about his views on weather or capital punishment, he persists in providing said views. This characteristic is only slightly more prominent than his anal retentive commitment to pattern and routine.

With summer in full force, I recently reflected on my most favourite summer memories and was immediately reminded of my love of the smells and sounds of summer. Unlike some, however, my smells and sounds of summer are not of the laughing children and bbq variety but instead are tangled with memories of my father's unerring commitment to life's injustices.

We previously lived next door to a prolific, amateur, lawn care specialist who, for whatever reason, chose to trim his delectible lawn right around dinner time or at least right around OUR dinner time because clearly he cut his lawn AFTER his dinner time, which apparently was about 4 p.m. Needless to say, just as our collective asses would touch the chairs around the Lemony Lemonade table, the mower would start up. Every time, without fail, my father would freak out which involved him getting alarmingly red in the face and tirading about how "every goddamned night....just as we sit down to goddamned dinner...how many goddamned times can you cut a goddamned lawn...one day...going to set that goddamned mower on fire" and so on. It never occurred to him that the neighbour sensed his displeasure and that was why he cut the goddamned lawn every goddamned dinner time - because that is the role of the neighbour, to grate on your nerves with their own idiosyncracies and issues until you think that if they park their car too close to the edge of the driveway one more time or drag their rubbish loudly to the corner at 5 a.m. or remind you one more time that your children are loud, drunken, louts who should be imprisoned for staying up past 11 p.m., that you will be justified in egging their house and flipping them the finger every morning as you both leave for work.

All of this common sense, however, was totally lost on my father and as such, we lived in the house for 25 plus years which conservatively means that we were treated to the lawn mowing tirade about a thousand times and God bless him, it never changed, it only got more intense until I was sure that his head would explode, or at the very least spin around.

More recently, my siblings have moved out, I now have my own home with my own family and my parents sold that particular house a number years ago but I still get a warm, fuzzy feeling when I hear lawn mowers and smell the scent of freshly cut grass - for some inexplicable reason, I sort of miss those summer dinners around the family table, accompanied by the dulcet tones of the neighbour's mower and my father's impending infarction - because these are the comforting, sentimental sounds of my life...GODDAMIT.