Online Baby Maker

Here is what technology says my baby may look like.

The funny thing is, I think it could totally happen. The fact the baby maker picked blue eyes is crazy because how could it possibly know that my Dad and his Mom have blue eyes? We have a 25% chance of having a blue eyed baby. And the red hair is also a crazy coincidence because The Comedian is half Irish with lots of red heads on his side of the family. I've got a few red heads on my side of the family as well.

Either way, it sure is a cute baby! 

Start Spreading the News

I just booked a weekend trip to the Big Apple!! WHOOOO!!!  The reason for this trip is to see my childhood friend perform in the Broadway revival of Jesus Christ Superstar! He's one of the apostles, so it's a pretty big role!

We're flying in on a Saturday morning and flying home the next night so it's gonna be a short but very sweet trip.

I haven't been to NYC in almost 4 years. This will be our last hurrah before the baby arrives. Five weeks till we go!!

Gift of Life

I woke up at around 2:30am having to go pee (as usual) and I noticed my Blackberry blinking with a notification that my Dad had sent an email. I have an app that makes my BB blink specific colours depending on the sender. Dad is light blue.

I pop it open and it's an email informing me and my brothers that he has signed up to be an organ donor.

Of course, this kept me up most of the night because I do not (and will not) handle the fact my Dad won't be around someday.

When I finally fell asleep an hour later, I had crazy dreams about my Dad having donated limbs to amputies. So there were these people walking around with a part of my Dad sewn on to them.

I sent this to my Dad this morning:

"Well they're going to have to wait a really looooooong time (I would guess at least forever) to get their hands on your awesome organs."

I want to call first dibs on his heart, because it's made of gold.

The Kindness of Strangers

I got to the Tim Hortons across from my office every morning and order the exact same thing. A breakfast sandwich with just egg and swiss cheese on an english muffin, a hashbrown, a small (up until a few months ago it was a medium) steeped tea with one milk and one sugar.

At some point, I ended up getting waited on by Vanessa. And because I'm a creature of habit, and she seemed to be the only one who could get my order right - having swiss cheese requires a substitution of the processed cheese at no extra charge, which confuses most of the workers - I made sure to get into her line every morning.

One day I walked up to Vanessa's register and before I could open my mouth she said, "I know this! Don't tell me!" She punched in my order perfectly, took my money and wished me a nice day.

Since then, whenever I end up in her line, she punches in my order and we exchange pleasantries. Pretty awesome eh?

Well this morning, Vanessa showed me how much more awesome she can be.

I got in her line and ahead of me were two construction workers who ordered about 20 coffees each. (And really, 20 separate coffee orders? Why not order 2 boxes of coffee and then take a bunch of milk and sugar with you? Oh, you'd rather hold up the line behind you for 15 minutes. Of course.)

Realizing this was going to be a long wait, I pulled out my Blackberry and sent a few texts to my husband and surfed around Facebook.

I looked up a few minutes later to see how the line was moving and Vanessa made eye contact. A few moments later, she had a tea and food up on the counter beside her and she motioned for me to come up to the front.

"I saw you in line and preordered for you."

She rung me up, I quickly gave her my money and said, "I think that's one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. THANK YOU!"

She smiled and said, "You're welcome, see you tomorrow!"

I smiled all the way back to the office and told my coworkers about how great Vanessa is.

Customer service isn't completely dead.

Final Credits

Today was supposed to be awesome because it's the Leap Day. Instead, it sucked because Davy Jones passed away this morning from a massive heart attack. February has been a real stinker this year.

I've been a huge Monkees fan since I was a teenager. Before the internet became the internet, I was part of a Usenet group dedicated to them called alt.music.monkees. I would spend hours and hours on the boards talking to Monkees fans from all around the world. I even ordered a t-shirt that has alt.music.monkees fashioned into the shape of a guitar.

Through the boards, I learned that The Monkees would reunite for a 25th anniversary tour. And it would be ALL FOUR OF THEM!  I bought tickets for a show at Melody Fair in Buffalo.

A few days before the tour kicked off, it was announced that Mike Nesmith would not be joining Peter, Mickey and Davy. Boy was I mad as Mike was my favourite. But I went anyway and it was a really fun afternoon.

RIP Davy. I hope you're putting on a show for everyone in heaven.

I Will Keep Counting

Today would have been Lara's 45th birthday.

The sun is shining really brightly this morning. I am sure that is her doing.

Happy Birthday my sweet friend. We all miss you so very much.

Family Day

Today is Family Day in Ontario, so I got a day off work.

Today also marks the 28th year since my mother passed away.

I called my Dad as I always do on this day. And I prayed he wouldn't remember. And while I don't think he totally forgot, this is the first year we didn't actually acknowledge it out loud.

Instead he told me that he's planning to drive to Long Island, NY this weekend, to meet a lady he's been talking to on the internet for the last 3 months. His plan is to drive there, have a coffee with her, and then drive back.

I freaked out and told him he's nuts to drive all the way out there for really no reason, and all by himself. He yelled at me and said that he can do whatever he likes. I yelled back and told him if anything were to happen to him, it would be HOURS before we could get to him, and never mind how much it would cost for him to be treated at a hospital. We kept yelling at each other until we finally said HAPPY FAMILY DAY, I LOVE YOU and hung up.

I actually glad we had it out rather than what happened last year, where we sat at the kitchen table and cried our eyes out.

We miss you Mommy. xoxo

RIP x 2

My birthday party was a complete disaster. Exactly two friends showed up. Everyone else cancelled because of the weather.

It hasn't snowed all winter (and people question the effects of global warming) until today. All fucking day. We got about a foot dumped on us. And then the emails and texts started coming in. "Sorry!" "I'll make it up to you!" "It's crazy out there!"

YEAH WHATEVER. This is Canada and seriously people, with a little effort and caution, you could have made it! How did you survive every other winter up until now?!

The two friends who did show up got to see me in full pouting glory. Chalk it up to a combination of pregnancy hormones and memories of failed birthdays from my childhood.

And the icing on my birthday cake? Whitney Houston went and died.  So whatever life was left in my party died when the news broke.

I'm officially moving my birthday to August 8th.

I Would Rather Deal With Freddy Krueger

I have always had vivid dreams. Since getting pregnant and Lara passing away, my dreams have turned into insane nightmares.

My "favourite" so far was where I was lying in my bed and a swarm of bees were stinging my feet. I was trying to get away, but The Comedian was pinning me down. I was screaming at him to let me go. I punched him in the face and clawed at his eyes but he wouldn't release me. And I was wailing because of the pain of the bee stings.

It was so real that I was crying out in real life and it took my husband a solid five minutes to wake me up. I was so shaken I had tears streaming down my face and snot running out of my nose. I couldn't stop shaking and I actually threw the covers off to make sure the bees weren't still there.

I've had two dreams about Lara. And both of them involved her hubby getting remarried very shortly after her passing. I was a member of the wedding party in both dreams. In the first one, I knew she was there but I couldn't see her face. In the second one, she was there, sitting up at the front before the ceremony. She was wearing a beautiful red dress and she looked to be about 15 years older. She didn't say anything, but we made eye contact.

I really hope these crazy dreams aren't affecting the baby. And I really hope these dreams aren't coming from the baby!  Bees?!  Really?!

Kids These Days

I was sitting in the food court just down the street from my office, having lunch today - grilled cheese and french fries, probably not the best thing for baby but whatever!  The place was packed so anytime someone would vacate a seat, another person would quickly fill it.

The two seats next to me were soon filled by a young man and woman. The man was Irish complete with accent. The woman was Canadian but of Indian decent. They were chit chatting while I was chowing down and browsing the web on my Blackberry.

Here's a portion of their conversation:

Girl: How old are your parents?

Boy: My Dad is 56 and my Mom is 63. How about yours?

Girl: My Dad is 60 and my Mom is 58.

Boy: How old was your mom when she had you?

Girl: Oh she was old!  She was 34 when she had me.

Boy: That's pretty late in life don't you think?

Girl: Yeah. I think my parents wish they had had us earlier so they could have done more stuff with us. I wish they were younger you know, so they could be around longer.

I had two immediate reactions. The first was WTF, I'm turning 37 tomorrow and I'm certainly not OLD and I'm having a kid in 6 months.  The second was, OMG maybe I *am* too old for this?  Is this what my kid will be saying in 24 years to her friend while having lunch in between classes?

I still don't know whether to scream or burst into tears.

My Dad was almost 40 when I was born. I used to wish he were younger, especially since he's all I have had since I was 9 years old. But now I know with his age, came wisdom and insight that none of my friend's younger parents had. Which is probably why we all turned out pretty awesome.