Sometimes, it's all about the shoes.

Things I could talk about in this post:

1. How disgusting my house is.
No, seriously. It's almost like if A&E's Hoarders had nasty drunken sex with TLC's knock-off show Hoarding Buried Alive and they made a love child and I moved into it. I've been cleaning like crazy and barely making a dent. After I blog, I have to clean my living room. My friend is dropping her child off here in the morning and I don't think she'd like it if he was encapsulated in a sea of Lego or devoured by the mutant dust bunny I'm quite sure lives under the recliner.

I'm not so inclined to talk about the mess in my house. Get it? Damn, I'm punny.

2. My children are fighting too much.
Seriously: this shit has to stop. It's ridiculous and unfair. When you have a house full of boys, you might miss out on some cute things like spring dresses and ballet recitals. The consolation prize, however, is that boys don't have that ear-piercing scream that girls ha-- oh, wait a minute: Yes they do. Spawnling and Gutsy have taken to threatening to throw/hit/smack/launch/ricochet-off-the-other's-forehead various objects of various sizes. One will pick up an item when he's angry and hold it over his head while the other lets out a high-pitched screech and then grabs something even bigger to hold over his own head. Then, threatener #1 will shriek like a pigtailed princess and pick up a larger item to hold menacingly over his head. And this goes on and on and the screaming gets louder and louder and higher and higher until one of them chickens out and runs away. Nobody ever actually throws an item - it's all about the posturing. It reminds me of two male birds on a nature program vying for a female's attention, tweeting loudly and trying to scare the other off. The only problem? No mute button. Reality sucks.

Realistically, I don't want to talk about this, either. (Okay, that one's not so funny. My pun quota has been reached.)

3. I have to have surgery next month.
I have an incisional hernia in my stomach. It's a direct result of the emergency c-section I had with Gutsy. I've had the darn thing for eight or so years and it's never been particularly painful. But it's time to go under the knife and get 'er fixed. The more weight I lose, the more uncomfortable it's becoming. I guess the fat created a nice little home for it, keeping it all warm and cozy. Let this be a lesson to all of you: losing weight is bad. The surgery itself is the more invasive kind of hernia repair and I'll be in the hospital for at least three days, followed by a good two or three weeks of recovery time. You can probably see why I don't want to talk about this.

So with that in mind, let's get really girly and materialistic for a moment and talk about my new shoes!

A couple of days ago, I went out with a friend of mine who is positively shoe-obsessed. No, I'm not kidding. I'm not saying she "likes shoes" or "she enjoys shopping." Those are grossly inaccurate statements. She hates all shopping unless it's for footwear. I've been shoe shopping with her once before, and it was like watching an olympic sport: she, the passionate athlete, seeking out not just the gold medal, but all of them. As many as she can buy win, be it made of leather or suede, be it buckled or zipped, high-heeled or flat. She is a puma and the shoes are her little bunny rabbits, unknowingly about to get pounced on with her wild little claws.

I guess I'm back to comparing things to nature shoes - uh, shows.

I don't often buy things for myself, but with my new job I've been forced to invest in a few office-y things like dress pants and shirts and stuff. I went out last week with my stylish sister to acquire those items, but held off on the shoes due to time. I'm glad I did, because there is nobody but this particular friend that I'd rather hit up a BOGO or two with. That type of passion is contagious.

Anyway, I tried on a few pairs and just wasn't feeling it. And, of course, the ones I really liked weren't to be found in my size. I was losing hope. And then, as I walked down the last aisle....

THERE.

THEY.

WERE.

I never believed in love at first site until I saw my husband held my firstborn in my arms saw these shoes staring back at me longingly from the shelf. God, they're beautiful. They're funky. They're versatile. They're comfortable. They have pink butterflies inside them. They have freaking rhinestones on the toes. They feel like a pair of illegal massage parlour girls working their happy endings upon my feet.

Not that I would, uh, actually know what that feels like.

Anyway, I am totally digging my shoes. I'm possibly digging them just a little too much, but escapism is nice sometimes. Maybe I can wear them while cleaning my house, or running away from my screechy little gremlins, or during my surgery.

No. Not during my surgery. If I wake up with blood on them I'm going to be pissed. The surgeon would owe me a new pair. And I don't think he'd would be nearly as fun to shoe shop with.

"The Dog Ate My Blackberry" and Other Things I Heard Today

This is my 501st post. How frightening that I've only written 500 in almost three years of blogging. I hang my head in shame. But I promise this will be a good one.

What have I been doing over the last week? If you were to ask my friends, they would answer "bragging". And they would be correct: Last Tuesday I got a shiny new toy and I couldn't wait to let all the kids in the sandbox know about it. Everywhere I went, I flaunted my iPhone in its pretty pink case. I took pictures on the fly just because I could, and uploaded them to Facebook right then and there - you guessed it - just because I could do that, too. I updated statuses on social networking sites to reflect the mundane things I was doing, like 'sitting by a fire' and 'checking the price of berries at the grocery store'. There seemed to be no end to the incessant crowing on my part, which would eventually tear apart the very social fabric that makes me cool in the first place, new phone or not.

And then came the glitch that changed everything.

About a month ago I was catapulted over the wall and into the exciting kingdom of Texting, where I realized there was a whole new way of being popular. Gone are the days of only having petty conversations with people who are in the same room as you; now we can compare the price of nail polish from almost anywhere in the world. Technology is incredible! I had no idea so many people wanted to tell me their useless crap. I must be very important. Furthermore, they seem moderately interested in my even more useless replies. Even when I'm alone I have people to whine to about finding coffee grounds in the bottom of my cup. And, better still, I can make plans to have someone bring me a fresh, coffee-ground-free java while in the comfort of my own bathroom.

Yes, sirree. Texting is truly wonderful! It's just a damn shame I wasn't receive most of them this week.

For some reason, when my number was ported over to the new carrier, texts stopped coming my way from anyone who isn't on the same network as I am. Pretty sucky, considering that encompasses at least 75% of the people I wanted to brag about my phone to. I had to do all my gloating in person instead, which was so much more work. Being egotistical from the comfort of my couch definitely wins over having to drag all the gremlins to a park meetup, you know?

Oh, and my applications were crashing, too. Double your fun. Bugger it all.

After making several frustrating calls to the carrier's tech "support" people and doing much of my own "supporting" - including telling them what was wrong based on my own research and how they could probably fix it while thinking about how I used to be a way better tech support rep than they'll ever be - I concluded there was no other way to solve the problem but to head back to the store where I originally bought the phone. So, this afternoon I left the gremlins with capable Geekster and made my way to the mall.

I spent three-and-a-half hours in the store and ended up leaving with a new phone, a new SIM card, and a new number. The guy at Wireless Wave was fantastic, so I have to give them some big props. If you're ever in the market for a new phone in Ottawa, go see them at Carlingwood Mall. If Luc is around, that's the guy you want to go to. I couldn't believe he spent that much time on the phone with the carrier on one ear and Apple support on the other. Obviously, he sensed I was a very important person and felt the need to go above and beyond.

Or maybe it was the double shot americano coffee and biscotti I bought him while he was on hold. Bribery or my awesomeness? We may never really know the answer to this important question...

Since I was practically a fixture in the store for an entire afternoon, I witnessed several very interesting transactions. There was the girl who didn't seem to understand that all of Canada was sold out of the new iPhone, and the fact that hers accidentally got wet and she was leaving on vacation tomorrow was not going to make the Apple Elves build any faster in Steve Jobs' magic sweat workshop.

There was the girl who said she needed a new Blackberry and, when asked what happened to hers, replied with 'You're not going to believe this, but my dog ate it'. It nearly caused me to spit hot americano across the room in laughter, and I had to turn away when she eventually took out her mangled, tooth-indented, drool-damaged cell. There was amusement and there was pity; my insides were so conflicted.

Finally, there was the guy who came in wanting a new phone and had an Ontario Health Card (which can't be used as ID in most places), a fake credit card, and a promise that he remembered his social insurance number 'off by heart'. It didn't go over quite the way he had planned. I think he ended paying for his phone in full and leaving with a pay-as-you-go card. No clue why they didn't trust the guy. I mean, he remembers his SIN off by heart, isn't that good enough to pass as ID? Picky, picky.

Karma's a bitch, isn't it? I brag and I end up wasting my life away in the mall, drinking too much coffee and having to run to the bathroom halfway through my adventures at the cell phone store.

Which brings me to the coup de grace, if you will. The straw that broke the karmic camel's back.

As I was leaving the facilities with an empty bladder, I made my way through a very narrow hallway. There was another way out, but it would have taken me further away from the store, whereas this narrow exit brought me right in front of it. As I rounded the corner, an elderly man in a walker was making his way toward me. We met in the middle of the hallway and I had to turn sideways to make room for his walker. It was then that he stopped me and smiled.

"Hey!" he said with a thick Eastern European accent. "I like big ladies. You are big, beautiful lady. They have nice, round bum. Mmmmmm..."

"Um..." I said, taken completely off guard.

The decrepit, toothless man continued. "Know what I like to do with big lady? I like to go have bed with her. Would you like that? You could go have bed with me!"

I was about to show him just how compact his walker can get by sticking it up his elderly ass when I was tugged on the arm by a mall employee. "Here, miss. You can also exit this way!"

I snarled at the grizzly grinning gummer as she pulled me away from him. "Thank you" I said to her, relieved. "Really. Thank you. That guy has no idea how much pent up rage I have in my today"

I was too traumatized to tell the story for a few hours afterward. For a while I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to have sex again without seeing his perverted geriatric face. Nothing kills libido like a dirty old man who wants to have bed with you. Gross.

When I told this story to Emely - or, rather, asked a mutual friend to tell it so I wouldn't have to relive the horror - she sent me a text that read:

Ew! That's gross. But at least you have options.

It's nice to put a positive spin on things, isn't it?

Excuse me while I throw up a little in my mouth.

There we go. All better. And for those of you who rolled your eyes at my repetitive announcement of the new Maven toy, rejoice, for I have been paid back by the cosmos, tenfold. Barf-o-rama!

Baby Boot Camp

When The Sister and I go shopping and I bring one of the gremlins, it's not because I'm a sucker for punishment.

When she chases Spawnling around the house with a shoe of his in each hand, enacts a perfect wrestling hold to put his coat on, hastily chases him outside and stuffs him unceremoniously into his car seat as he cackles evilly, she's not doing it because I'm too busy deciding what purse would go best with my shoes.

When she hovers around him in a mall, bribes him to get into the stroller by buying him a lollipop, navigates carefully around store racks that have clothing he could stain with his sticky little hands, all while attempting to buy things, I'm not off getting myself a bagel and a coffee because I feel like it.

When she's trying to negotiate a movie in the van for him to watch, changing it because he decides ten seconds in that he hates that one, reaching haphazardly behind her to pick up his dropped lollipop, contorting her body into uncomfortably painful positions to tickle him when he gets grumpy, I don't ignore the entire kerfuffle and instead belt out Weezer tunes because I'm being insensitive.

See, The Sister - AKA Photo Lush - has no little spawns of her own yet. And given that it took five years of dating before her and Chemgineer moved in together, I'll probably be throwing her first baby shower about the time we enter the next ice age. In the meantime I have three gremlins at nearly all stages of development for her to sink her future parenting teeth into.

Thanks to me, she can learn to steer through the ferocious storms of toddler tantrums, attempt to focus on her daily tasks while simultaneously processing a six-year-old's incessant monologues, and delicately, oh so very delicately, tiptoe around a preteen's precarious mood swings.

By the time she has her own children she will be nothing short of a parenting goddess, and people will bow at her feet for she has knowledge they only wish they, too, possessed. She'll know why we say "because I said so" and that it's okay to yell "STOP YELLING!" in certain situations. She'll understand how important shopping lists are when your mind is on telling the kids they can't have every damn thing in the store, and why you should never, ever leave your box of tampons where someone can reach it ("Look, mom! Nose plugs!")

When my sister becomes a mother she will already know that you can't watch a movie from start to finish without pausing it. That spit-up stains can be covered up with a nice scarf. That rock music trumps Raffi after you've given birth to your second child.

***

As she was struggling to get Spawnling into his car seat today while avoiding his sticky lollipop hands, I loaded the shopping bags into the trunk and sat in the front seat eating Peanut M&Ms with my free hands - all two of them.

Why? Because I love my sister enough to let her get sticky hands all over her hair, that's why.

(Photo: My sister as a baby. Sooo cute!)