V.I.P.

What do you think of when you see those initials? What most people think of, I’m sure. Not me, though. For me, those initials stand for Virtual Irish Pub.

Back in the dark ages of the internets, chat rooms were all the thing. Or so I was told. I had no idea. But I’d just recently bought a computer so I thought I’d check it out. I was (and still am) fascinated by all things Irish and somehow stumbled upon the V.I.P. (along with another one – P45). I’d never been in a chat room before, so I had nothing to compare it to – I just thought it was cool. It had a limit of about 30 people at a time, so it wasn’t hard to keep up with conversations. At the time, I was infatuated with the show Ballykissangel, so my handle was Niamh (not that I liked her, I just thought it was better than Assumpta, the character I did like.)

One day, I started chatting to this guy whose handle was Aston. He told me he was from the back of beyond in Ontario. He asked where I was from and when I said Boston – I always said Boston, it was all people knew of Massachusetts – he said “Number Four, Bobby Orr!” We chatted a lot when we were both logged on. Eventually we traded email addresses and real names. But there was one thing we lied about; our ages. He told me he was 23 (he was 19). I told him I was 29 (I was 31, soon to be 32).

The emails got more and more frequent and led to phone calls. We’d talk for hours (until I got a $400 phone bill one month) and he finally asked if he could come down for a visit. I said yes and he came down for New Year’s Eve, for the big 1999/2000 changeover.

And that was that. He came, he visited, we confessed that we’d lied about our ages. Then he went home, packed up all his stuff and moved here permanently at the beginning of March and he’s been here ever since. We got married that June, thus rendering him That Canadian Boy I Married (TCBIM for short). It’s been seven and a half years – longer than any relationship I’ve ever had. And even though he drives me insane some (many) days, we still laugh a lot, we still talk a lot and in spite of the vast difference in our age, I think we’re doing ok.

This post is part of Flaunt It Friday. Go check it out; participate in it, even.

Is that better?

I took a bunch of stuff out of my sidebar. Is it loading better now? If so, I may go back to the Tiki Monkey template.

Is It Me?

Except, of course, I don’t have that serene smile on my face and the floor would be strewn with toys. Other than that, it’s exactly like me.

The End Is Near

Thank fuck. I can’t wait until November is over. I don’t think I’m going to do this next year. It’s been more stress than fun.

The Socket, She Is Dry

Whatever a dry socket is, that’s what I’ve got. It fucking hurts. The dentist packed it with something yesterday, which helped immensely, and I have to go back tomorrow to get it done again. Why can’t I just have a normal tooth pulling? Why all these unnecessary complications?

In other news:

Boo has learned how to scale the four-foot high gate we put on her door. The kind that you screw in to the wall. It only has up and down bars, so I don’t know how she’s accomplishing this, but she did tonight. Tomorrow, I’m buying one of those chain locks for the outside of her door. I don’t have any other options at this point.

And my dryer is dying. Because that’s what I need right now – one more fucking expense.

I’m so sick of my life right now, I could scream. Just scream. But I’m not going to because it will make my mouth hurt again.

The Daring Book For Girls

Upon first perusal, some might wonder why The Daring Book For Girls is getting such rave reviews. In this age of cell phones, video games and instant messenger, do girls really want to know how to press flowers or make a daisy chain? Isn’t that a little old-fashioned?

Yes. Yes it is. And old-fashioned is good. Old-fashioned can be fun. But the old-fashioned ideas in The Daring Book For Girls, by Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz (founders of Mother-Talk) are also interspersed with such common-sense information like how to change a tire. How to negotiate a salary. The Greek and Latin roots of words. All useful information that anyone (girl or boy) should know.

Read the rest of the review here.

Boo Baby!

Today was Boo’s third birthday.

Everyone wore party hats.

Even the dog.

There was obviously homemade cake.

And there were presents.

It’s good to be three.

Happy birthday, baby girl.

I Have No Time

I”m not reading any blogs these days. I open Bloglines and say “Holy shit, there’s no way I can read all those posts,” and I shut it down again, totally overwhelmed. I’m not really enjoying NaBlowhatsitwhatsit this go round. I don’t think I was reading this many blogs this time last year. So, I apologize. I’m not ignoring you…well, I am, sort of. *sigh* Reading blogs shouldn’t be this much pressure. And I know people aren’t commenting on my blog as much (although that could be the dire content recently), so it’s not just me. Are all of you feeling as panicked as me or am I just a freak? Don’t answer that.

Anyway.

I had to get a tooth pulled on the day before Thanksgiving. Holy fuck. It kills. And I have this taste in my mouth that is just vile. VILE. Like rotting flesh vile, constantly draining down the back of my throat. It’s Dis. Gus. Ting. Yesterday, I looked like I’d been beaten – my eye was puffed half shut and my cheek…Well, I could have been this guy’s sister:

I can’t believe I had to get a tooth pulled. Well, I mean, I can because I’ve been babying this damned tooth for a year or two now. It had a huge filling in it and I knew a bit of it had fallen out, so I bought the stuff you get at the pharmacy, the stuff you’re supposed to use until you can get to a dentist. Only I didn’t go to the dentist because we don’t have dental insurance and if it was pay the mortgage or fix my tooth, well, we paid the mortgage. I kept packing the tooth with the filling stuff and every so often, more real filling would fall out. About six months ago, the whole thing fell out. So, I packed the entire hole in my tooth; and it was sizable – the tooth was more filling than tooth. But finally it abscessed. And it hurt like hell. I finally was forced to the dentist’s two weeks ago and she charged me $98 to take an x-ray and tell me the tooth was not really salvageable. No shit, Sherlock.

My options were to get a root canal and a crown, to get an implant or to get it pulled. A root canal and implant? $3,100. An implant? $2,980. Pulling the tooth? $153. So, no tooth. And I feel old and kind of like a female Cletus. It’s really bothering me, really bumming me out.

And it really fucking hurts.

Where are the Kleenex?

I just finished watching Stranger Than Fiction, with Emma Thompson and Wil Farrell. I don’t really like Wil Farrell, but I love Emma Thompson and the premise of the movie looked good. If you haven’t seen this yet, watch it. It’s not crazy, nutty Wil Farrell. It’s good. Really, surprisingly good. I didn’t expect to like it so much. I also didn’t expect to wind up sobbing on the couch at the end, though.

Roast

Well, I managed to make the roast. It wasn’t nearly as good as I’d hoped. It wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t $70 good. I’d definitely try cooking a roast that way again, just probably not a rib roast. Everything else was excellent, though, and we had a really lovely, low-key Thanksgiving. The kids are asleep upstairs, TCBIM is asleep on the couch and I’m going over to my friend’s for adult beverages.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, too!