I sing in the shower.
I also sing in the car, at the grocery store, in line at the passport office, and while I am walking my dog. I sing in the school carpool, at my friends' houses, and in the stirrups at the doctor's office. It seems I sing everywhere but where one might normally sing, but it makes me happy and I have never been told to stop - yet.
It was time for me to start doing this somewhere else - somewhere more fitting, perhaps - but I am tiny bit older than "join a band with the cute guy in your English Lit class," and my teenage daughter asked me to please stop hanging around the high school and threatened to run away, and so I am left with fewer people in my social circle to do it with. My kids sometimes agree to play air guitar along in the car but anywhere else is "just weird" and despite offering up a gift of music lessons (and maybe some other favours) my partner lets his guitar gather dust (and that is not a metaphor.)
My neighbours are getting tired of hearing More Than a Feeling from my shower and are circling a neighbourhood petition requiring me to keep my bathroom window closed or at least get a longer playlist.
My solve?
It came in the way of gift.
All of a sudden I found myself agreeing to participate in the Toronto chapter of the League Of Rock. Fast forward to me heading into the city to meet a group of people I didn't know from Adam (or Eve) and with whom I would soon be not only singing in front of, but rocking out with on stage and in recording sessions. Our group quickly nailed our song list down to four selections based on mutual likes and our playing ability. I can unequivocally say that since week two when we really started getting into it, I leave each practice session walking on air. (Of course I can't talk either, but the loud singing is cathartic and losing my voice for an hour or two afterwards is more than worth it.)
Look at it this way:
If you loved hockey when you were younger, you probably play in an old-timer league.
If you loved baseball in your teens, you likely participate in a beer-league each summer.
Aren't you sick of only watching fun from the sidelines? Pull your old bass from the downstairs closet and stretch out your vintage Zeppelin concert shirt. There are others like you and they are ready to rock.
If you play an instrument and it makes you happy to be with others, why aren't you doing something about it? You don't need to wander the city looking into seedy back street clubs searching for band mates. (However, in my experience, back street clubs usually making fucking delicious wings and serve ice cold beer so you may wanna go there anyway. Screw it; it's for research.)
Last week, one of the several music coaches involved with League of Rock popped into our session room to offer insights and critique. These coaches - international music industry insiders who are incredibly talented and accomplished in their own right - offered ideas I had never thought of before which will help stretch my abilities, not the least of which was the warmly welcomed idea of having fun and dressing the part for one of our three club performances as a group.
And friends, I am here to tell you that any activity wherein your coach suggests you all buy some fucking leather pants and bang on tambourines is more than okay with me; it's heaven.
Babies are cute and cuddly for a reason - and it's biological. Nature makes them adorable so we want to care for them; it's an aspect of our species survival and it's what makes it impossible to ignore chubby baby cheeks on a human, yet be able to walk straight past a newborn rat or brand-new puddle of wasp larvae.
However, once said babies are toddlers, those stinging wasps may make better company. If you have, had, or know toddlers, some of these experiences are going to look familiar.
YOU: "Oh look! It's almost Teagan/Sloan/Butterfly's bedtime," you think, making secret plans for a Family Size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and some light Netflix-porn to salve the day's battle wounds.
TODDLER: FUCK THAT, Y'ALL.
Why no one has made a plastic suit for dining with toddlers I will never understand. I still look at the stains on my ceiling from "Blueberry Implosion '08" and marvel at the wonder of physics.
Ours was "For the love of CHRIST!" in a park sandbox when no one would share a shovel. Points for proper context, however.
Get a soft cord and tie that child to your leg; it'll save you thousands of dollars and millions of brain cells.
via GIPHY
The red cup, parents? Seriously? ARE YOU NEW?
The CIA, CSIS, FBI, and Dawg the Bounty Hunter should enlist a 20 month-old child to employ in their capture efforts. While a toddler may not be able to wipe themselves or tie their own shoes, they can pick up your scent through concrete at 50 paces.
There is a reason nursery school was invented and that reason is arts and crafts time. Fun fact: "Montessori" loosely translated means "There is no goddamn way finger paints will ever be a thing in my home."
It's hard to believe, but one day the child who worshipped the literal ground you walk on will tell you they're "going to Matt's house for a Call of Duty marathon on Playstation," but then drive directly #2 Sideroad and party all night in a fallow soybean field with drunken teenagers who think they invented lying.
Potty training can be a shit show. Literally.
89.5% of these moments involve watching your child sleep.
RELATED: 8 Ways to Reduce the Stress of Parenting Toddlers
I have spent the last three days engaged in a battle which has left me limp and broken.
My house has not seen the remains of war like this since the great "Shit, the Internet is Down" meltdown of ’13. It’s bad here, but I am hell-bent on winning. My enemy is a worthy opponent; small but steady. I’m taking them down quickly, but they have the advantage of a rapid reproductive system whereas I have two kids, a broken dishwasher, and I am tired.
My opponent?
Fruit flies. Swarms of them.
We Canadians love our summers and it's no wonder. We wait patiently through months and months of snow and ice until finally, one day, the smell of thawing dog shit fills the air and we smile, knowing warmer weather is upon us. Snow gives way to blossoms, which gives way to delicious seasonal fruit that will fill long vacant bowls on kitchen tables across the land. And with the bountiful harvest come the scourge of a nation: Drosophila Melanogaster, the common fruit fly. Sounds like someone in Voldemort's army of darkness.
At first I was catching them with the vacuum. They clustered outside of my food cupboard like desperate teenage club-goers bribing the bouncer, so I thought they were an easy target. I snuck up on them, stealth-like, and did manage to catch a few. But flies fly, so they move quicker than an 17-year-old girl when someone says, “Hey! Have you seen the pictures of Justin Bieber nude on Hawaiian beach?”
Then I tried the red wine in a glass thing but forgot to put a funnel in the glass so the flies couldn’t get out after they drank. Now I just have intoxicated fruit flies leaving purple vomit spots all over my kitchen. Since their life cycle is only 24 hours, by 2pm my kitchen was full of drunken teenage flies fornicating on my good plates. It’s crazy here, like a Cancun-are Senor Frogs in mid-February. Someone started a wet T-shirt contest and I slipped on a puddle and hit my head on the counter.
Just before I blacked out, I heard them giggling and talking about putting my bra in the freezer.
I get invaded by fruit flies every year. I'm not sure why they seem to target me specifically, but they do and I now I have to deal with it. I don't like to think too hard about where they come from, and all I know is that they weren't here before the fruit came in so clearly they came in on the fruit. While I almost always wash the fruit before I eat it, sometim...oh sweet Jesus. I'm eating larvae, aren't I?
The fruit fly issue isn't an isolated one. It's a long, drawn out annual battle of wits and power and I am NOT GOING TO LOSE THIS YEAR. I've tried all the Pinterest tricks, from the paper funnel in sugar water (my son drank it and used the cone as a spit-ball cannon), to the small glass of "decoy" wine (made the flies drunk and copulate more aggressively) to stern lectures (they have incredibly short attention spans for something with such a short life cycle).
Fruit flies aren't exciting bugs like lice or centipedes. At least with those creatures you get a nod of sympathy from the pharmacist or the fireman you called to destroy them. With fruit flies all you get is a "This is not an appropriate 911 emergency call." But those people - those people - they don't quite understand what you're dealing with. This is SERIOUS BUSINESS.
Here's my updated strategy for Summer 2016 to eradicate these flying assholes while maintaining my sanity:
I'll stop eating fruit. This may be harsh, but I am sick of having tiny brown bugs cover every inch of counter-top real estate. I may lose out on vitamins and fiber, but a little bit of scurvy and some constipation never killed anyone. I am an adult and sometimes adults need to make tough decisions, like opting for no balanced nutrition.
Failing the above, I will remove all food and foodstuffs from the home. We will eat entirely at restaurants, taking no meal inside the confines of our home but rather only accepting food handed to us in our car through sliding windows. I don't care if it takes until October; I will dine out every single meal until the fruit flies understand I am not fooling around.
Desperate times often call for cans of aerosol poison and drunken phone calls to realtors. If things persist beyond a reasonable amount of time, we'll probably need to move.
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