It got me wondering about my own Google searches. I work from home and spend a good deal of time waiting in line at grocery stores or the parking lot at my kids’ school, and I often Google random crap that pops in my head. I had a look at my recent searches and it turns out that, at first glance, I am queen of the wackadoo nutbars:

1) “oprah interview woman shot husband for cash”
Did you know Oprah has a radio station? Our new car comes with satellite radio and I obsessively sometimes listen to the rebroadcasts of her old TV shows. I find it fascinating to Google past guests to see how they’re doing today. Fun fact: I’ve been known to sit in the car in my driveway after buying groceries, listening to an entire show while the Serb folds laundry in the house.

2) “gregory brothers”
One of my online sisters-from-another-mister, the fabulous Colie, gave a shout out to this group on her blog. They’re pretty awesome.

3) “dip fish in milk”
Could this be a clue as to why my family won’t eat the dinners I cook them? #niceonenancydrew

4) “cpcrake botiquel”
I forgot to include a piece of my son’s favourite dessert in his lunch and wanted to make amends with an afterschool treat. Thankfully, my pal Google didn’t let my stubby typing fingers prevent me from finding a proper cupcake boutique.

Gratuitous cupcake porn.

5) “mama tooted”
The satellite radio also comes with a station for kids and this song is always playing. My daughter wanted to know the exact lyrics (which she has since taken to repeating at the top of her lungs to strangers while I sheepishly explain that it’s a song, not a play-by-play of my inner workings). Listen to the whole thing. I dare you not to giggle.

Keller Williams – Mama Tooted by spencer4linn

The day after I sent that letter (minus the subtext), I received the following reply:

Hi Lori,

Best,
Ms. Fancy Pants Restaurant Owner

Obviously I was thrilled with such a prompt and promising response. Then I realized I would have to speak to her, which I wasn’t so keen to do. My best work is done with a laptop as my buffer. Talking often leads to inadvertent Canadian politeness that could diminish the impact of my grievances.

Thankfully the Serb saved the day by pissing me off (who needs 9 jackets in the hall closet?!?) right before the owner called me and I had an appropriate edge to my voice. The owner kindly offered a complimentary meal for me and a guest on a night of my choosing—all I would need to do is phone in advance and speak to the manager.

I hung up quite pleased with myself; a feeling that lasted for all of three minutes, until I began imagining how it would feel to show up at the Fancy Pants Restaurant with every employee knowing that I had complained. What if someone spits in my soup? Or wipes my fork in their armpit? Or worse?*

Herein lies my conundrum: do I risk the wrath of wait staff for a free meal? What do you think? Should I walk in there with my head held high and demand some decent food without the attitude, or should I take the apology as my prize and forget about the meal? I know I’ve done a lot more for a lot less in my time…

*The Serb has worked at FPRs all over the world and he assures me that yes, worse things could easily happen.

Sweet Jeezuz, I am screwed.

And yet, as we bustled into the waiting room, we found this playing on the television at three o’clock in the afternoon:

The final scene of Scarface. Unedited. Full Volume.

Brain Leaking From Nose:
When my daughter was two-years-old, she approached me crying and pointing to her face. She was swollen from her eye to her chin on one side. She wailed and thrashed when I tried to touch her and, being the sensible mother that I am, I immediately assumed a tumour in her brain had burst and then I started freaking out.

I think I drove her to the hospital because we ended up in our car in the ER parking lot, but I have no memory of the trip because my daughter’s nose had started leaking a thick, green-red mucous at an alarming rate. We were immediately triaged and told that it wouldn’t be a long wait.

I clutched my daughter to me in the waiting room with a cloth over her nose to catch the gunk until her thundering sobs had subsided to pathetic whimpers. I slowly removed the cloth and there it was, sticking out of her nostril: a purple Light Bright piece. I don’t think I even told the nurse I was leaving.

Weirdly Wedged Foreign Objects:
I’ve documented exactly how I get so sexy for the Serb in the past, and part of that ritual involves sticking Kleenex up my nose when it’s allergy season (or cold and flu season, so basically every night).

One night I woke up with a start. Something was lodged in my sinus cavity, similar to when a piece of carrot gets stuck up there (or is that only me?). I spent the rest of the night getting kicked by my husband while I made disgusting snarfing sounds with my throat, trying to loosen whatever was stuck in my head.

In the morning I realized that one of my Kleenex wads nose plugs was missing. A quick Google search (“Kleenex stuck in nose”) confirmed my suspicions: a tissue stuck in my head would definitely fester and lead to death unless action was taken to remove it.

First I dragged my family to a walk-in clinic where a doctor poked and prodded my proboscis before declaring me clear of foreign objects. I didn’t believe him. The Serb went home with the kids (rolling his eyes the whole way) while I hauled my clogged cookies to the ER. I may have exaggerated my discomfort slightly to the doctor there and he ordered an X-ray to get to the bottom of things. He peered at me over the folder holding the results.

“Before I tell you the findings, do you promise not to stick Kleenex up your nose?” he asked.

“I promise,” I answered.

“Good,” he replied. “We see a lot of things stuck in a lot of places, but there’s nothing in your sinus cavity that shouldn’t be there.”

By this point I was feeling a lot better. Like, perfectly fine. I thanked the doctor and left before he realized that my family stuck crap up their noses and signed me up for a TLC show, like that one where they eat diapers.

I should probably invest in one of these.

*This post is dedicated to my sister the nurse, who puts up with my frantic phone calls concerning the likelihood of brains leaking from one’s nose. (Answer: Not likely. But also not impossible.)

I recently dined at Fancy-Pants Restaurant with two friends and feel compelled to share our experience with you. I was looking forward to sampling the best of Toronto at your Fancy Pants Restaurant Location, but unfortunately, not even our most basic expectations were met.

[I decided to get a second mortgage and have dinner at your crazy-expensive restaurant so I could see what all the fuss is about. Judging from the braggy wall photos, Oprah and her Hollywood friends seem to love it. I'm now thinking you accosted them at a Starbucks or Whole Foods to snap those pictures.]

From the moment we arrived, your employees were incredibly rude and condescending. The hostess appeared to be greatly inconvenienced when taking our coats and she proceeded to seat us at the most remote table in the farthest corner of the near-empty restaurant.

[Listen, I can bring out my inner bitch with the best of them; however, this cranky cow took the cake. She made Mad Men's Betty Draper look like Betty White.]

Our waiter was not much better: his overall demeanour—sneering at our questions, rushing us through our courses and apparent relief when we left—was that of someone wishing he (or rather, we) were somewhere else.

[Oh, to be a douche-nugget aspiring actor in Da Big Smoke. Speaking of smoke, we kept waiting for him to offer us a spliff.]

While my meal was excellent, my friend’s rice pasta verged from al dente to crunchy. Instead of ordering a new dish, she waited for our server to enquire about her meal to inform him of her discontent. He never did.

[You think I'm cranky when I don't eat? My friend would have written you a note so bitter as to render you speechless, but I think she ate her pen. FYI, it tasted better than the pasta.]

I was ready to chalk up his contemptuous service to having a bad day until witnessing his transformation when dealing with other guests. In particular, two ladies at the table beside us had our waiter and another employee doting on them throughout their meal while we were virtually ignored. Such blatant and clumsy genuflecting was not only excessive, but also quite embarrassing to witness.

[These lucky bitches were given complimentary cocktails and wine pairings with each elaborate course. It was at this point that I contemplated setting my hair on fire so as to draw attention to our empty wine glasses, but Douche Nugget and his cohort were too busy wedging their hipster-doofus craniums up the other diners' butts to have noticed.]

My companions were visiting from New York and are accustomed to a certain level of service when dining at a restaurant of Fancy Pants Restaurant’s reputed calibre (and frankly, so am I). They could not believe how deplorable your service was. With so many amazing culinary options in Toronto, I was extremely embarrassed and disappointed with our choice.

[We passed an awesome-smelling Shawarma place that would've not only hit the spot, but also left us enough cash for a spa day. On Rodeo Drive.] 

I sincerely hope that you will encourage your staff to make more of an effort to ensure that all customers receive an extraordinary dining experience. My meal was wonderful and if we had been treated with a modicum of respect and graciousness, I would have left confident of my return to Fancy Pants Restaurant. As it is, I now feel obligated to warn people of our unsatisfying experience.

[You were like the gorgeous jock in grade twelve who I finally got to make out with, only to realize he kissed like an epileptic St. Bernard. #epicdiningfail]

Best regards,
[You suck,]

Lori Dyan
[I'm still hungry]

This place is like the nerdy drama geek you should've made out with who grew up to be Ryan Gosling (or Reynolds, depending on your tastes).

Before “scrapbook” was a verb, I was making killer photo albums. I’m a compulsive picture taker and keepsake keeper, which resulted in a lovely chronicling of my wanton and hedonistic youth. My wedding album is work of art, as is the recording of our move to Toronto, and my first pregnancy. Then I had a kid and it all went down the toilet.

I love marking the special occasions in their lives, but I’m the absolute worst and preserving them. The last image I put in a photo album was from my son’s second birthday. He is now almost nine. My four-year-old daughter is missing completely.

When you combine my love of mementos with my attention span (roughly that of a Muppet), you’re left with a 76-litre (that’s, like, 837 gallons) Tupperware storage bin crammed with crumpled arts and crafts (facilitated by someone else, obviously) that likely wouldn’t even make the scrapbook edit.

This failure to part with garbage stuff pertains to all areas of my life. The 837-gallon rubber tote is simply the most glaring example. I have a stash of MAC lip gloss that I ordered in a panic five years ago after the colour was discontinued. Did it matter that I was pushing the limits of lip gloss chemistry when I bought enough to take me into 2020? Apparently not.

I’m consoled by, and resigned to, the fact that I come by this trait genetically. My eighty-six-year-old grandma has been known to keep salad dressing and ketchup years past their expiration dates. Although we’re dealing with condiments versus cosmetics and crafts, the motivation to hang on to them remains the same: we have plans for them. We just haven’t gotten around to figuring out what they are yet.

Look out, 2012. You’re about to be de-Tupperfied.

R.I.P. Lustrebloom Lip Gloss, I'll miss you even though you made my lips tingle in a bad way when I used you.

The day before yesterday marked the twelfth anniversary of getting proposed to by the Serb, after nagging him for days to do so, whilst clinging to him on the back of a Vespa.

I don’t know if it’s a case of symbiotic amnesia or early-onset dementia, but neither of us remember how we decided to get married. We started dating in August 1998 and by the summer of 1999 we were booking our tickets and buying rings. The Serb asked my parents for my hand (a blog post unto itself, since it was only the second time he’d met them) and I bought my wedding dress from a prom dress clearance rack.

I hired an event planner on the island to take care of the arrangements and made sure everyone from the flight attendants to the hotel manager knew we were on our weddingmoon.* On our way to the airport we mailed “We got hitched!” announcements to our friends and family. And yet, despite all of these preparations, neither of us can remember the other suggesting (or—ahem—proposing) that we get married.

We were on the island for two glorious weeks before the actual ceremony—making it more of a honeyding, I suppose—and during that time I continued to ask my non-fiancé if he planned on officially asking me to marry him. He would inevitably respond by handing me a(nother) cocktail.

The day before our wedding, the Serb and I were zipping home from a snorkelling session when I declared my love for him with these words: “For f*ck sakes—are you gonna propose to me, or what?!?”

That adoring nudge did it. The Serb looked over his shoulder at me and yelled: “You wanna marry me?”

I did.

*Lamest term EVER, unless using it will get you free stuff.

We hang out with Jews, Muslims, Catholics and Buddhists, and the guy who married us is Mormon (sidebar: does that make us Mormon? Twelve years later, I still haven’t received a firm answer on that one). My point being, we aren’t anti-religion…it’s just never been our thing to seek out organized religion.

One reason we adore our kids’ hippie school is that they explore all forms of spirituality. My eight-year-old son is the proud owner of a dreidel and read Old Testament stories this year. The year before it was saints from the New Testament. Next year it will be Norse gods, followed by Hinduism and other faiths.

Here is where the irony kicks in: as a result of his exposure to different beliefs, my son is becoming quite religious (i.e. last year he chose to be Saint Jerome for Halloween). I’m cool with him sampling from the spiritual buffet, but the Serb and I are heading into uncharted waters—it’s like a couple of pacifists who unintentionally raise a marine.

A week before Christmas, my son announced that he wanted to attend church on Christmas Eve. Our traditions normally include gorging on sushi at a restaurant topped off with a Toblerone fondue at home, but we agreed to check out a house of the Lord after our customary feast of raw fish.

Since I didn’t know where to begin finding an appropriate church, I turned to my source of all sacred knowledge: Google. My search term was simple and to the point: “gay friendly church Ontario.” If we could find a local place of worship that allowed a dude to marry another dude, chances are they wouldn’t mind a group of heathens like us showing up.

It turns out that Ontario churches (the United ones, anyway) love the gays as much as I do, and we were welcomed with open arms. My son declared that we would be sitting in the second row (pew?) and he sat back to study a song (hymn?) book as people filed into the church (did I mention we were 40 minutes early?).

I leaned over to the Serb. “He could end up being a minister or pastor or whatever they’re called,” I whispered. “He’s really into this.”

My husband eyed his pious son, happily poring over the hymns, and agreed.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed being at church—everyone was very friendly, kids were running around playing and the atmosphere was one of kindness and camaraderie. If my kid wanted to make church a regular thing, I would gladly accompany him.

As the service began I had visions of our sweet boy ministering to the sick and the poor, dedicating his life to a higher calling. My reverie was interrupted by my son.

“Mommmeeee—when is this over? I’m thiiiirsteeee.” We were exactly three minutes into the programme.

“It just started,” I murmured.

“But it’s soooo boring,” he whined.

“You wanted to come here,” I reminded him. “What did you expect?”

“Something different than this. When is it oooooverrrrr?”

I turned to the Serb, but he was already halfway up the aisle with our four-year-old daughter, who was gesturing her need to pee. I didn’t see them again until the service was over.

I spent the next forty-five minutes threatening to withhold presents from my son if he didn’t sit still and we left with my son declaring that the church I chose was “the wrong kind.” Since our adventure, my son has reaffirmed his desire to be a wizard when he grows up. It turns out his religious calling was more of a whisper. But he still kicks my ass at dreidel.

And to all, a good night…

(all I want for Christmas is a nap)

As with many things in my life, I blame the internet: it’s full of websites purporting so-easy-a-monkey-could-make-it recipes, all of them accompanied by saliva-inducing photographs that look so yummy they might as well be scratch and sniff.

These websites make a sucker out of people like me.

Thursday was Easy Bake Chicken Parmesan. The picture, ingredient list and number of steps made it seem like a no-brainer:

Chicken, sauce, cheese and croutons...what could possibly go wrong?

The results looked somewhat like this:

That red stuff ain't sauce, y'all....

The notable exception? While the cheesy-crouton topping was crispy verging on burnt, the chicken underneath was raw. While the Serb was upstairs with the kids I scrambled to fix my fiasco, but alas, the microwave was no match for my culinary catastrophe and promptly overheated, leaving me to haul ass to Dominos for some restitution with extra pepperoni.

The following night I was heading out with the Restless Writers for dinner so I planned a delicious-looking sweet-and-spicy chicken crockpot recipe for my family:

Five ingredients in a crockpot...how hard can that be?

An hour before I was due to leave, the Serb had gone to pick up the kids from school and I sent the following tweet:

Forgive me Twitter, for I have sinned...

I attempted to salvage the meal by dousing the chicken in sweet-and-sour sauce and throwing it in the oven. The results were, to put it mildly, revolting:

This looks like what you pull out of a chicken before you roast it.

The Serb walked in the door, inhaled once and asked, “Are you improvising dinner again?”

My kids were less restrained.

“What’s that disgusting smell?” asked one.

“It smells like toilet,” said the other.

“What’s plan B?” asked the Serb, mouth-breathing like his life depended on it.

Plan B (aka my third attempt at dinner that day) was frozen fish sticks along with the wilted broccoli and mushy rice I reclaimed from the chicken disaster. My family gobbled their meal and even asked for seconds. You might think I’d recaptured my cooking mojo. You would be wrong. It was the ketchup, and a lot of it.

On the first day of Christmas, my family gave to me
No toilet paper that I could see

On the second day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see

On the third day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Three grey hairs
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see

On the fourth day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Four soggy boots
Three grey hairs
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see

On the fifth day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Five golden rings (around the toilet)
Four soggy boots
Three grey hairs
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see

On the sixth day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Six crusty Kleenex
Five golden rings (around the toilet)
Four soggy boots
Three grey hairs
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see

On the seventh day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Seven loads of laundry
Six crusty Kleenex
Five golden rings (around the toilet)
Four soggy boots
Three grey hairs
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see

On the eighth day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Eight hours of whining
Seven loads of laundry
Six crusty Kleenex
Five golden rings (around the toilet)
Four soggy boots
Three grey hairs
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see

On the ninth day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Nine broken crayons
Eight hours of whining
Seven loads of laundry
Six crusty Kleenex
Five golden rings (around the toilet)
Four soggy boots
Three grey hairs
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see

On the tenth day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Ten stupid fart jokes
Nine broken crayons
Eight hours of whining
Seven loads of laundry
Six crusty Kleenex
Five golden rings (around the toilet)
Four soggy boots
Three grey hairs
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Eleven closed-eye photos
Ten stupid fart jokes
Nine broken crayons
Eight hours of whining
Seven loads of laundry
Six crusty Kleenex
Five golden rings (around the toilet)
Four soggy boots
Three grey hairs
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my family gave to me
Twelve headless Barbies
Eleven closed-eye photos
Ten stupid fart jokes
Nine broken crayons
Eight hours of whining
Seven loads of laundry
Six crusty Kleenex
Five golden rings (around the toilet)
Four soggy boots
Three grey hairs
Two cranky kids
And no toilet paper that I could see