Reflections on Home Ownership

When Shawn and I bought our house 10 years ago, we had enough money to buy a house or a car. We decided the house would be an investment, whereas a car would depreciate as soon as we drove it off the lot. All we needed was a house on bus route that was within our price range.

Turns out. You don't get much with those requirements.

We took possession of the house in March, 2004. Since then, we've experienced burst pipes, rainy rooms, mystery wiring, and even more mysterious framing. We replaced the roof shingles, assorted plumbing, the entire front and back of our house including the bulk of the wall studs, all windows and doors, the siding, and the fences.

We hired a company to tear down the old garage that listed 15 degrees off center and build us a new one.

We also moved the stairs from the center of our house to the side and re-framed large portions of the floors.

Then there was the oil spill of 2011. We got new sewer and water lines and part of our basement floor lowered, and it only took the predicted four weeks, plus another five months to clean up.

Throw in landscaping, some finished carpentry, a lot of drywall, plaster, paint; the bashed thumbs, banged shins, Band aids, and sore body parts; the swearing and crying; the defeats and victories; and you have our homeowner experience.

So when I look back on our initial decision as a house as an investment, I can't help but think we should have considered some other more practical options.

Like a Cessna or maybe a racehorse.

The Deck Song, Friends and Babies

So my friends who inspired this blog are expecting. To celebrate the occasion, I finished The Deck Song, an Adam and Peggy collaboration*. For years the song ended at "The days grew short".

The Deck Song**

Do you remember
The days we spent
Laughing in the sun

We were happy
We were gorgeous
And the days they
Seemed to last so very long

But autumn came
The days grew short
A house got sold and
Our friends moved out

The sun came back
but it wasn't okay
Till they brought their girl
Over for the day

And we will remember
The day we spent
Laughing in the sun

Because she's so happy
She's so gorgeous
And her days they have
Really just begun

Then more happy news
A new heart beats
Soon a baby boy* will
Grace this street

And we will remember
The days we spent
Laughing in the sun

Because they are happy
They are gorgeous
And these days are going to
Last so very long

The days may grow short
The winds may grow cold
But your family and friends
Will be your home

And you will remember
The days we spent
Laughing in the sun

We are happy
We are gorgeous
And these days they
Seemed to last so very long

*Adam and I are not songwriters.

** I am never singing this song. Ever. See *.

*** I'm going with an early prediction. I'm not entirely sure babies have a gender at this point.

Everything you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask about lobsters

So as you all know, I spent the bulk of my formative years working in seafood restaurants. So here's what you need to know about lobsters:

1. Pick the dirtiest, meanest, most barnacled lobsters in the tank. Lobsters get bigger by growing a new shell under their old one. When there's no more room, the old one lets go and the new shell puffs up with water and hardens. The older the shell, the more wear it shows and the fuller it will be on the inside. The body also has an ever deepening line from nose to end (it hinges when it comes off) as it ages, look for a line. The pretty, clean lobsters have new shells and are full of water and not much meat.
2. True to gender stereotype, boys have big claws and a narrow tail (and two hard feelers at the base of the tail that touch to form a point). Girls have small claws and a wide tail (and soft feelers under the tail.
3. The green stuff is liver, also called tomalley. It is also green when raw, but runnier. The red stuff is roe. It is black when raw. Both are edible either way, though only my Asian customers showed any gusto for it raw. ("You can bring it to the table when it's done twitching.")
4. There is nothing poisonous in the body of a lobster. That is a myth. However, the stomach is in the body and it should be avoided (like all other pre-chewed food), so don't eat the opaque plastic-looking sack behind the eyeballs. Also don't eat the lungs, they are the feathery looking bits. Not toxic, but not good.
5. Despite this other enduring myth, dairy and lobster are fine to consume together. Lobster chowder, anyone? Well unless you're eating kosher, and then mixing dairy and flesh should be less of a concern than the fact that lobster is not kosher, period. 
6. Lobsters don't scream. Whoever says that is f*cking with you.
7. Lobsters will hang on to anything that ends up in their claw. If it's your body part, rip that arm off the lobster (you're killing it momentarily). One claw is very sharp and the other claw is very strong and no good comes of the panicked struggle to pry either off. Unless you count the amusement of your coworkers, and they're @ssholes who can find their own amusement. Especially when they tell you to rip the arm off after the fact.
8. Cook lobsters in salt water. Ocean water is best, but iodized salt and tap water will do fine. Just make sure it tastes like the ocean. Yes it's high in sodium, but if you're going there, it's also high in cholesterol and you're going dip it in melted butter and eat it with a side of potato salad. 
9. Bring a big pot of salt water to a rolling boil, take the elastics of a lobster, throw it in the pot head first. Repeat. When the water returns to boil, time 8 minutes a pound.

I'll make a video on how to crack a lobster with a knife next time I have lobster. Till then, carry on carry on with crackers or a hammer. Food you work for tastes best.

The phlebotomist - a KD story

I'm not saying there will be a post a day, but I feel some kind of persistence is warranted at this age.

The year-long process leading up to being a kidney donor is surreal; a cross between being a hero – the treatment by technicians who perform the tests; and undergoing an alien probe – the tests themselves.

One I won't forget was a blood test at Dartmouth General. It was the first, and perhaps not by chance, the last time I had blood taken at Dartmouth General.

The phlebotomist, that's what they're called, commented on both the volume of things I was being tested for, and the rarity of some of the things I was being tested for.

I explained I was donating a kidney.

Needle in and rubber hose off, she looks up at me and asks "Is this the first time you've donated a kidney?"

Dumbstruck is recognizable; the phlebotomist caught it right away.

"I can't believe I just said that," she said.

"Well," I said, "It's not something I've been asked before."

Bullying is everybody's problem

I wrote this shortly after Rehteah Parsons died. I use writing as a way to blow off mental steam about stuff that makes me really angry, especially social justice issues. 

 Bullying is everybody's problem

Another kid is dead because of bullying. Everyone is angry and demanding answers. How could this happen? Why didn't anyone step in? Who failed?

People want heads on stakes.

So how did it happen? The short answer is because we as a society sit back and let it happen. We even facilitate it, and this is why:

Kids are mean, but we don’t like to think so

Everyone likes to think of childhood as a time of innocence and wonder. Children are perfect and adorable; untainted by life. Truth is, kids are born mean. A recent study by the University of British Columbia show infants as young as nine months want individuals who share their tastes to be treated well by others, but want those whose tastes differ from their own to be treated badly.

This only gets worse as they get older. By the time they are rounding out their elementary school education, they've fully learned to determine who is like them and are more than capable of exacting their own punishments on those who are not. Carrying on to junior high means more personal freedoms, extracurricular activities and more opportunities for bullies to continue the abuse. By the time bullied kids reach high school, the only hope is to go to a bigger school where greater numbers lower the probability of being publicly humiliated. Unfortunately, social media is doing it's best to ensure everybody knows exactly who you are no matter where you are.

We grown ups blame the victim, because we don’t like to think that kids are rapists

The Rehtaeh tragedy occurred on the heels of the Steubenville rape case in the States. Under similar circumstances, a girl was raped repeatedly. When two of the rapists were convicted, that’s right, rapists, not boys, they received a significant outpouring of support. The arguments ranged from "boys will be boys" to "is it really a crime if the victim was unconscious?" The former says boys will be rapists, the latter says anyone who is unconscious is asking for it. I have nephews. I've been rendered unconscious repeatedly for surgery. These arguments are repugnant beyond measure.

We grown ups blame the victim, because we don’t like people who are different than us

People are indoctrinated in social constructs that create an us-and-them while they are still little children. We give little girls Barbies, and Easy Bake ovens, and dress them in pink. Little boys get GI Joe, trucks, toy guns, and we dress them in blue. We even put them on separate sports teams at an age when running in a straight line is an accomplishment. So at an age when hormonally and physically, the two sexes are as similar as they will ever be, we’re teaching boys and girls that they are completely different. The problem with that is, kids are far more likely to be mean to those that are different.

Most children are raised to follow a religion, of which, all the major ones hold a fundamental belief of being the only one. So before religion, when it may have been gender, or hair colour, skin colour, or brand of sneakers, now kids have faith in which to divide who is like them and who is not. In schools with different faiths, this is an opportunity to harass other faiths, but even within the same faith, we can find the righteous and the wrong. The righteous are rewarded and the sinners are punished. In both the Steubenville case and in Rehtaeh’s case, blame was cast on the girls for being drunk, or for being at the party in the first place. They shouldn’t have been drinking, they shouldn’t have been there, because as the good books say, sinners get what they deserve.

Now I can’t speak to generations earlier than mine, but for those born post 1975, alcohol to excess and parties are a teenage condition. Teenagers are in that awkward stage where they are reasonable facsimiles of adults, but they haven’t been alive long enough to understand consequences. As it is said, good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions. I was lucky when I was a teenager, and I had great friends. I know I was in similar states at that age. At some point or another, so was everyone I knew, we just looked out for one another.

The blame these girls received for being drunk at a party is unfounded. They were teens doing what teens do. By placing the blame on them, what society is saying is it is okay to violate and abuse someone if they exercise poor judgement. The problem with that is, if you haven’t noticed, poor judgement is a human condition.

We blame the victim, because it’s easier than doing something about it

According to the school Rehtaeh attended, “School administration was never aware of any act of bullying taking place on school property”. If Rehtaeh had told them, the school said they would have acted on it immediately. So it is all Rehtaeh’s fault for not reporting it. On this, school administrators have to pull their heads out of the sand. There is not a school in this nation where bullying does not occur.

So where do we go from here?

For starters, we lose the rose-coloured glasses about childhood. Just because a belief is pervasive, it doesn’t make it right. They may be adorable, but they can be assholes. Kids need to know that the persecution of people who are different from them is wrong. They also need to know that no one is ever really that different. We're all human beings and we all deserve to be treated humanely.

Then we need to talk frankly to kids about sex. We also need to talk frankly to adults about sex. That there are adults who use arguments like “boys will be boys” to defend rape means some adults aren’t getting it either. The difference consensual and non-consensual sex needs to be clearly understood by all.

After that, society needs to re-examine the sinner-saint complex. To say a teenager who drank too much is asking to be raped is like saying jay-walkers deserve to be mowed down by dump trucks.  

Finally, we’re back where we started, with the fact that kids are mean. School boards and parents need understand that bullying happens day in and day out in every single school. Both school staff and parents need to do more than trot out the same tired “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” garbage. Because it’s just that, garbage. Broken bones heal. Words kill. Just ask the parents of a dead teenager.

That one time I was a store mannequin

When I was in university, I got an early morning call to my dorm room from Margery McHattie, a lady who lived in the community I grew up in and worked in the box office for the Bauer Theatre, the theatre on campus.

It was university, and morning, so I had a lovely drunken chat and then went back to sleep for a couple hours. I woke up thinking about a whacked out dream I had. Marge McHattie from Copper Lake called me and asked me if I wanted to be a store mannequin in the mall. It was weird enough to be attributed to the beer/Wheel pizza combo I had before passing out, I mean I lived in Antigonish. Getting a MacDonald's was epic. Live mannequins? Total insanity.

But I couldn't dismiss it out of hand, because there might be money involved. I always needed money. I figured Marge could only have gotten my number from my mother, so I called mom and asked as casually as I could, not wanting to rat myself out for being drunk enough to not tell the difference between talking and dreaming, if anyone had happen to call requesting my acting services (I was doing volunteer theatre at the time).

Goldmine! It was real. Bless Marge, she picked the neighbour girl for work. I called Marge, got the number for my future employer and called for details.

As a reader note, everything that is cool about this story is already over.

When I called, I spoke to an extremely enthusiastic entrepreneur who was going to bring big-city trends to small-town Antigonish through innovative advertising and high-end fashion. That's right. Antigonish was getting its very own Cotton Ginny. 

The owner didn't have any money to pay me, what with starting up the business and all, but she did offer me any outfit I wanted in the store at cost. Well, she didn't have to ask me twice. What a deal!

Now you may be starting to consider the possibility that I hadn't really thought this through. A live mannequin. In the mall. In Antigonish. For 50 per cent off clothing. From Cotton Ginny. Fear not. I figured I could eliminate all awkwardness by ensuring my friends had no idea I was doing it. Problem solved.

Ha ha ha.

The day came. The store owner introduced me to another girl, her store clerk, whom I was to give a crash course in being a mannequin, (because the four plays I'd been in made me a qualified mannequin coach), then we were to don full clown makeup and rainbow clown wigs to complement our feminine and floral Cotton Ginny dresses. The clown part had not been raised previously. I still don't get it. However, I was beginning to realize this may be embarrassing, so a white grease mask and a rainbow Afro was sounding better with every minute.

After five minutes worth of drama training, the store clerk and I did our best to become Cotton Ginny mannequin clowns in the public washroom. She was a little more girly than I, what with her wearing shoes and me wearing the army boots I showed up in. By girly, I mean slightly less of a freak.

Because it sure was a freak show. For two hours the two of us got our vogue on, attempting to shift between poses like robots. During that time, we were repeatedly poked, prodded, pointed at, laughed at, and children of all ages flipped us the bird. It's the one time in my life I've been able to say "thank god I'm in full clown makeup" and really mean it. It's also the only time I've said that.

After what seemed like a bit past forever, the owner told us our time was up. I asked if I could keep the dress because I got clown makeup on the neckline. She said no.

It was at this point the clerk and I realized there wasn't any makeup remover in the bag the owner gave us. We asked her for some. She told us to go over to the drugstore and get a handful of lotion from the tester bottles.

If you ever find yourself wishing to be rid of full clown makeup in a small town mall, feel confident that with heavy scrubbing with paper towels, hand lotion, and liquid soap, you can get a heavy layer of greasepaint off your face in the public washroom. You won't need to exfoliate for months afterwards.  You just need to ignore the other bathroom patrons, because explaining the situation does nothing to make you look less crazy. Oh, you were a mannequin. In the mall. In Antigonish.

I did get my outfit of choice: low-rise jeans, a cable-knit sweater, a matching long-sleeved shirt, and a leather belt stamped with little flowers. Remarkable details to remember from 20 years ago, hey?

Well that's the thing with public humiliation a character-building exercise. It's the knowledge you keep with you for life that helps you make good decisions in the future. Never once since that time have I ever considered agreeing to be a mannequin in a mall in Antigonish for discounted clothing from a mom-wear store. Not even for a second.

I'm not really an oracle

I'm not really an oracle. I can't tell the future. I don't even believe people can tell the future, except for situations that end in the words "I told you so".

I am called the Oracle of Chappell Street, though, by my friends. This is because I have a freakishly good memory, not a third eye. It makes me excellent at Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy and a pain to argue with.

That's why this blog is called the Oracle of Chappell Street.

It also sounds cool, in a super geeky kind of way.