I cut my nails.

/startrant

Hear that, world? I cut my nails in the bathroom. Let me be even more specific: the bathroom at my house.

I did not cut my nails on the bus. I did not cut my nails at the office, click click click who the HELL is doing that?! I did not cut my nails at Wal-Mart. Seriously. I go into the ladies room at Wal-Mart*, which reeks anyway, and there are big grody toenail clippings on the floor? WHAT IS THAT OMG! What kind of barbarian cuts her toenails at Wal-Mart?!

These are but a few examples of where I did not, and never will, cut my nails. Other people do and it makes me want to just spray bleach on everything before I touch it. Ive seen old men cleaning the wax out of their ears on the subway too, and wiping it on a rag. Why cant people groom at home???????

/endrant

* I avoid shopping at Wal-Mart whenever possible as I disagree with the way the corporate head cheese treat their workers, paying them poverty wages and severely punishing and even dismissing those who attempt to organize and collectively demand fair treatment. Also, I prefer to support Canadian companies. So Im a Giant Tiger and The Bay girl. Weird combo eh? Haha

But now talks have broken down in negotiations between the TPL board and the Library worker’s union, because Rob Ford wants the right to fire any librarian or library employee, anytime he wants, for any reason.

Anyone can see that this is his workaround: if he gains this concession from the union, he can fire enough staff to… you got it! Close library branches.

Even if you don’t use the library yourself, your friends, relatives, children and neighbours do. The Toronto Public Library provides services that enrich the lives of everyone in this city. Through its literacy and training programs, the TPL helps lift people out of poverty and into the workforce. It provides the space, the resources and the technology needed so desperately by the poorest children in our city to succeed at school. We need our libraries, and we need the librarians and the staff that operate our libraries to have solid, secure jobs.

Send a message to your city councillor, urging him or her to tell the board to get back to the table! It only takes a minute for you to send an email of support through this site: http://ourpubliclibrary.to/take-action/re-open/. You don’t even have to know who your councillor is: the site looks it up for you and provides a template!

I sent a message to my city councillor, John Parker, urging him to support library workers. Send one to yours today!

Babe The First: Miss Babe Ruth

This particular Babe Ruth is no baseball player – she’s my niece. Ruthie is the youngest of my four niecephews. She’s two years old, and has three older siblings: a sister and two brothers. In a family like that, if you want to be heard, you’d better come out swinging, so it’s really neat to watch Ruthie’s personality develop as she grows. When she’s not busy being loveable and huggable, she’s sassy, opinionated, persistent, and has a fascinating sense of humour.

Case in point: last weekend, Ruthie and her older sister had a sleepover at Nan and Boo’s house (my parents), then on Sunday the whole family got together for the first BBQ of the season.

At some point, my mom put a ten dollar bill and some change on the kitchen table after a trip to the store. Because of the high-traffic, kids-smashing-into-everything nature of the party, my brother thought it wise to put the money up somewhere so it wouldn’t get lost, but he got distracted as he was doing it, and couldn’t remember afterwards where he’d put Mom’s money. A long, drawn out search of the house ensued. Finally, my niece Ruthie shyly snuck into the kitchen, pulled the ten dollar bill out of her jeans pocket, and handed it to my mom.

“When Daddy said he was gonna keep the money safe, I took it so MONSTERS wouldn’t get it,” she whispered to her grandma.

Babe the Second: Miss Gwen Junior

Gwen Junior is my daughter. Two months shy of her Sweet Sixteen, she is by far my favourite person in the universe. For over a decade and a half, awesome shit has been falling out of her face:

When she was four, she accompanied her grandma to a podiatrist appointment and, thinking he could stump her (she was going through a slight know-it-all phase), the doc pointed to the model leg skeleton on his desk and asked her what a particular bone was called. Without batting an eye she replied, “sure, it’s a metatarsal!” Turns out she learned it on her LeapPad.

On her first day of grade one, I caught her singing “where oh where oh where is my backpack?” under her breath to the tune of “I Was Made For Loving You” by Kiss.

You’ve read the blog post about the time she found a syntax error on a subway poster, and you’ve read my tongue-in-cheek entry about the slang terms and expressions she uses that drive me bonkers and/or make me laugh.

But by far, the most incredible thing she’s ever said actually occurred quite recently. Earlier this month, I was down with the sickness – the flu bug that was making the rounds of the city finally caught up with me and I spent almost a week in bed wishing for death. She was a good kid while I was sick – made her own meals, didn’t push her luck, gave me an occasional hug.

One evening, I simply had to go to the store, even though I physically wasn’t up to it and should have stayed home. But we had no food, and Gwen Junior was studying (studying!!!) for an exam, so off I went. Because I was all punch-drunk on Nyquil, I accidentally left a loaf of bread on the bus, and didn’t realize it until I got home. When I discovered my loss, I burst into tears. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. My wailing drew my daughter from her bedroom into the living room, where she found me standing in the doorway berating myself between sobs: “I’m so STUPID and I’m such a CRAP MOM and I CAN’T EVEN FEED MY CHILD and who even loses a loaf of bread?! Now we have no bread and I’m too sick to do anything about it so they might as well just take her away! Wahhhhh!”

Well, my fifteen year old daughter stood in front of me, hands on hips, with one eyebrow cocked in a WTF expression I know well because I see it in the mirror every day. In a stern, no-nonsense voice, she said, “hold on there just a second, and f*cking relax already. It’s just a two dollar loaf of bread. You are not a bad parent. You are certainly not stupid. You’re only saying those things because you’re feeling sorry for yourself, which I can’t blame you for, but pity parties don’t help anyone. But you’re right about not being able to feed me, so take a breath, sit down there on the couch, and I’ll bring you some of the soup I just made. You feed me every day. Today I’ll feed you.”

Sure, she dropped an F-bomb. Sure, she reprimanded her mother, which normally she wouldn’t have gotten away with. But her glass-half-full, take-a-chill-pill attitude stopped me in my tracks. She’s absolutely right, I thought. This is not an insurmountable crisis. And besides, I won’t lie… it was WONDERFUL to be taken care of.

Out of the mouths of babes…

Dear Uncle Epi,

I wish to make known to you the fact that your ex (Aunt Zema) has taken up unlawful residence just to the right of Mount Nez. I don’t need to tell you how inconvenient and yes, uncomfortable, it is to be victim to such squatter’s rights.

I must insist that you cease and desist such inflammatory dermatoses forthwith.

Sincerely,

Gwen Styles

Bonus Round:

1. 90′s rap lyrics

Drunk karaoke - circa January 2011

Okay well “enjoyed” might be misleading – actually it was the crappiest shawarma I’ve had in months. What’s up, Anoush? You did not bring your A-game today! The company was lovely, though.

After walking with Soju to the scene of her meeting in Yorkville, I decided to have a wander through Pusateri’s on my way back to the office. For those of you who don’t know – Pusateri’s is a chi chi frou frou gourmet food store where lunch costs 85$ and they offer valet parking and pet minding for your diamond-collar-studded yapper named Pookums.

So I poked around for a while, but eventually I got tired of being shoved and jostled by wealthy matriarchs and sunglass-wearing socialites who could obviously smell the middle class on me and did not spare the snake eyes. So I grabbed the cheapest drink in the cooler and got the hell out of Dodge.

Is this crap good? Let's find out.

That drink ended up being Zevia® Natural Diet Ginger Ale. Zevia is soda pop sweetened with Stevia instead of sugar or aspartame, which is how they get off calling their soda “natural”. Yeah, cause it’s chock full of natural ingredients like citric acid, erythritol and “caramel colour”. Uh, what’s the caramel colour made of? BET IT’S A CHEMICAL!

Mmmm erythritol, my favourite!

But whatever, I eat chemicals for breakfast (literally) so I’m not offput by this. Since I currently have clear skin and am having a good hair day, I’ve decided to share my taste testing experience with you in the form of Instagram photos. Here’s my in-the-end reaction to this product:

Meh, it's okay. Not worth 2$ though.

As we were preparing to pull into the parking lot, we noticed some shit-for-brains on one of those e-bikes zooming down the sidewalk. The sidewalk! Whatta jerk! He was weaving from side to side too – it was ridiculous. So we’re just about to make a right turn into the parking lot (using the driveway with the big IN sign, cause we like obeying signs yo) when a dude in a white work van makes a left turn into the street (from the IN driveway, because he’s a rebel who disobeys signs I guess). This guy was seriously ugly – bright yellowish red afro that started right at the top of his head because of his receding hair line, a sleeveless basketball jersey, and crazy I’m-on-crack bugged out eyes.

Well, he didn’t look where he was going when he pulled out, because he was too busy cackling at e-bike guy, and he T BONED ANOTHER CAR! We saw the whole thing.

Which means we also saw him freak the hell out, throw that work van into reverse, and flee the scene through the Red Lobster parking lot at about 80kmph. We rushed to the woman in the middle of Dufferin Street, who saw my gentleman friend approaching and starting pointing at him and screeching “you hit me! You hit my car!!!”

When he succeeded in reassuring her that it wasn’t us that hit her, she threw her arms around him in a big ole adrenaline induced bear hug and then I got so jealous I beat her up.

Just kidding haha

Anyway, we provided descriptions and our contact info and off she went on her merry little way to the collision reporting centre.

This is what the guy looked like. I spent all afternoon drawing *cough*tracingfrompicturesiprintedofftheinternet*cough* this picture so gimme a little love, wouldja?

Look Ma I'm An Artist!

Where the heck have I been, anyway?

Funny you should ask.

Mostly I’ve been busy doing stuff like, oh I dunno, marching in parades and stuff…

… and working full time! Not at my job though – I’m in the Cheri Dinovo campaign office, helping one of the most fabulous NDP MPP’s in Ontario get re-elected!

You’d have to be living under a rock not to know the two following things:

1. I lean so far to the left it’s a wonder I don’t fall over, and;
2. There is a provincial election called in Ontario for October 6th.

So while I’m gone (from here anyway) - follow me on Twitter why dontcha. I’m on there quite a bit.

Forgive me. It’s just that… well, I’ll be honest: I kinda feel like I’ve lost an actual family member, and I wanted to keep my grief private for a day or two. Besides, what could I have possibly written that hasn’t been covered already, by hundreds of bloggers, thousands of chalk-wielding Torontonians, through tens of thousands of tweets?

In the last two days, I have cried. I have raged. I have mourned. I have cried some more. This is new to me. I have never before been this affected by the death of a politician. When I found out Monday morning, I stopped breathing. My chest hurt. I felt spontaneous and uncontrollable pinpricks of tears in my eyes. I felt panic and fear and despair. What will we do now? I thought. How will we continue the fight to defend working people and families without our leader?

Who will lead us?

Then, the most amazing thing happened. Jack spoke to us. He wrote us a letter. And it all became clear. The pinpricks subsided. The fear abated. The panic and despair lessened. Jack told us what we must do. He told us not to lose hope. He told us that the best response to those who would tell us to give up our cause will be to recommit with energy and determination to our work. He told us that our energy, our vision,  and our passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today. He told us to be loving, hopeful and optimistic.

He told us he believes in us.

© Stuart Thursby

What will we do now? We will pick up the torch and carry on the fight to defend families and working people, to ensure every Canadian has access to health care, affordable childcare, and good jobs that pay enough to feed their family AND pay the bills, not one or the other. We will ensure that no one is left behind – not the unemployed, not those who suffer from addiction or mental health issues, not seniors, not children. We will remember our proud history of social justice.

How will we continue the fight? We will continue it with energy, and with passion. We will succeed because finally, we have real choice. Our votes matter. Our voices matter. We won’t let them tell us it can’t be done.

Who will lead us? My friends… we will. WE WILL.