2 March 2003

Little City of Dorkwads on the Prairie

Basement report: It's been a busy month. After one week of father and one week of father-in-law, the drywall is up (though not taped, plastered and sanded) and the bathroom fully functional. Much remains but it should be completely finished by spring, at which point the deck and fence rear their ugly heads. As does foreclosure and bankruptcy.

Employment report: After four fruitless months hurling resumes into the void, I'm going back to my roots - bike mechanic. I've given up pursuing the ephemeral 'real job' for the time being and will spend the summer spinning wrenches in a bike shop. The money is abysmal but enough to help make ends meet (i.e. it will cover day-care costs, barely). And it's the one job I've always truly enjoyed. Right now I'm negotiating with a couple of shops, trying to find the right combination of good atmosphere, decent shift flexibility and a reasonable road bike clientele. On Friday I had the strangest job interview ever: I called a shop earlier in the day and told them I could see them after five if I could bring Maddy, otherwise it would have to wait. That was fine, they said, we could use the boardroom and shut the door. Alas the boardroom was busy and she was having way too much fun reorganizing shelves in the shop, so I said we should all go sit in the van. So there we had our interview, three adults and Maddy, eating fish crackers, drinking apple juice and periodically interjecting. Everyone I've talked to has offered me a job, so it's nice to know that I have one marketable skill. Nevertheless, I feel deep shame.

Life With Maddy report: selections from emails to the Fan Club.

Maddy has issues with etiquette:

Last night Mads demanded some pretzels but Annette decided to draw a line in the sand and require that she say please. Thereupon followed a contest of wills. She absolutely refused. She offered to say "the other please," whatever the hell that was. After a while she turned to me and said "You want to get the bag down so that I can have it." I almost rewarded her for finding a way to rephrase it as a statement and still remain relatively polite, but one look at Annette and I remembered to insist on please. Maddy caved in about an hour later.

Maddy tests limits:

Maddy sits in a chair holding a stuffed toy.

"Are you happy? Dad, are you happy?"

"Uh, yeah, I'm happy, I guess."

Maddy hurls the stuffed animal to the floor and smiles.

"Are you happy now?"

Later that evening she repeated the experiment with her mother, changing the protocol to incorporate an overturned bowl of pees as the stimulus.

Maddy has bad dreams:

At six-thirty she climbed into bed with us. At seven she woke up, moaning and crying: "Mama! Mama! There's a chicken in my pants. We need to get away. Mama, we need to get away! There's a cock-a-doodle in my pants. We need to get away from the cock-a-doodle."

And we stupidly make the situation worse:

Tonight Annette dropped her in the armchair and turned on the TV while rewinding a Winnie the Pooh tape. The TV was tuned to the Animal Planet channel. Annette walked away without checking what was on; I looked up and saw utter horror on Maddy's face; on TV, a man's head covered in swarming bees. We already have bee issues thanks to Pooh, but this put us right over the limit. "Mama, we need to go the other room and close the door and get away from the bees!!!"

Maddy has the vocabulary of a longshoreman:

Lately she's been heard to utter oaths: "What the hell is that, Mom?" "Jesus Christ!" (when her leg became tangled in an extension cord). "Oh shit!"

I know this is a Bad Thing and will cause terrible problems down the road, but I can't help finding it hugely funny. Cursing toddlers are cute. Annette says I'm the one that has to go meet the teachers. Annette's sister claims that Maddy will not be invited to birthday parties. I'm also in trouble for letting her stay up until 10:30 to watch South Park.

Positive developments in life (for a change) report:

Through friends at the university, I've been hooked up with a CBC radio producer who wants to do half-a-dozen short segments called "New Calgarian", in which a person who relocated here for personal/professional reasons does not in fact think that Calgary is God's Chosen Paradise and the Best Place in the World to Live (i.e. I will bitch). It will be a nice counter to all the mindless civic boosterism that so poisons public discourse for apathetic nihilists like myself. Planned themes: crappy shopping; stupid drivers (they ACTUALLY SLOW DOWN TO 30 KM/H IN SCHOOL AND PLAYGROUND ZONES, most of which seem to be located on major arteries, causing frequent near-collisions, while pedestrians CROSS THE STREET WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING - one second you're fiddling with your stereo, the next second the back of someone's head is coming through your windshield); huge, bland suburban houses and monster SUVs (oh, wait, that's North America in general); reactionary politics; a by-law that makes cats found off their owner's property subject to ticketing and fines; lack of ethnic diversity (hey, Alberta's multicultural, there are Angles AND Saxons!); etc. Should do wonders for the job-hunt! I'll know next week if this is going to fly; if so, I'll publish the text of all rants here. (Actually, preliminary scripts are here.)