Glamour and Zodiac Compatibility

I don't usually write about my life in my blog. At least I don't think I do. I mean there are tidbits and particles and sometimes something about what's happening right now. But I usually just write about past events and whatever I'm thinking about, because that seems a tad more interesting than my actual life.

Don't get me wrong, my life is awesome. I enjoy it and all. It's very exciting, but I'm not exactly sure how to transfer that into blog, so I mostly just stick with odd wonderings. My life is one of those 'you had to be there' things.

Sometimes though, there are things so exciting, fabulous and glamorous that I have to document them. Birthdays, are a specific event that may fall into this category (ex. when I wrote about Caitlyn's amazing 19th birthday), but these occasions, though I wouldn't say rare are relatively few.

Why am I bringing this up now, you may ask. I will tell you why: last night was one of those such events that is noteworthy enough to take the energy to explain. Here it goes.

My friend, Jessica, is turning sixteen on Wednesday. For some reason, in our culture, we sometimes make a big deal out of the sixteenth year. Sweet Sixteen, and all that nonsense. I don't know why this exact year, perhaps because in some places you get to drive a car, or just because we can. Regardless, Jessica's party was to be no exception.

A limo was hired and and twelve (or eleven?) invitees dressed up for the occasion. Now don't get me wrong, limousines are great. They are the height of glamour and elegance, but they also contribute a lot of CO2 to our atmosphere, which is bringing about global warming. Not to get all doom and gloom on the party.

A girl's first limo ride is as exciting as anything. I had, before this occasion, been in a limousine for another party, but this time was different because we dressed up and went to a restaurant. The second limo ride is not as thrilling, though certainly a lot of fun. The novelty, however wears off and then it's just like a party, only moving through the streets.

One of the best parts of limousines, I think, is being seen by people. It wouldn't be quite as fun driving down a deserted road, it's much awesomer to drive through a city and be stared at by passers-by. Hey, you can even wave at them. 

The second exciting part of the evening was the food. I ordered the veggie lasagna, simply because there was no manicotti on the menu. When it arrived I was speechless. I had never seen such cheesiness in my life. Seriously, I wanted to erect a statue in honour of this amazing cheese (in case you hadn't realized I am a huge fan of cheese). It looked so delicious. Eventually I stopped gawked and started eating, and it was just as tasty as it was beautiful.

Beautiful cheese? Yes, and I don't expect anyone to understand it. I am weird. Accept it, and move on.

When we got back to the birthday girl's house at 11:30pm I was, needless to say, pretty tired. It is ladylike and acceptable to be a little weary after such a night as this one. We eventually all dropped of to sleep, and an amazing night ended just like that.

On another note, April is the highest birthday capacity of any month for me. I know of at least nine people who were born in the month of April. It's quite the month for celebration. 

April is the month of Aries and Tauruses. Zodiac-wise, I don't know how compatible I'm supposed to be with either. Being a Taurus myself I'm wondering if I'm compatible with other Tauruses.

On another note how much stock is it worth to put in these types of things? Does it really matter when a person was born? Does that affect the personality of a person or is it just other circumstances. I'm curious about other opinions on this. I'm gone completely off-topic so I'm ending this now. 

Responding to Insults

Sometimes people say mean stuff. I get that. Bads days are all around and foul moods often affect other people. What I don't understand is why.

I'll tell you a story. I won't name names or be biased (if I can manage it). I'll just tell the story like I was standing in the corner of the room watching a scene in a movie.

There was a group of about eight girls sitting at a table. Their ages ranged from 12-14. They were talking and someone brought up the subject of lying. The discussed if ommission was really lying, and how anyone could lie, but it was a different story if they were skilled at it. To emphasize this fact, one girl said, "I can lie, I'll show you." She turned to another girl sitting at the table and said, "I like your sweater."

For a moment, there was silence. But someone broke it and the animated talking resumed once more.

There was one girl at the table that did not join in. She just sat there in silence, struck dumb by the first girl's comment. 

...

The fact that the girl in question (the one with the sweater) couldn't care less what the first girl thought or had to say about her is beside the point. She can't help but wonder why someone would even consider saying something like that. The first moment after the incident she couldn't think of anything at all to say. Imagine it in your mind: someone has just insulted you, right to your face; it might have been meant as a joke but that doesn't change much, and you know that she means what she's is trying to say. What do you do? How do you respond to that?

Eventually this girl is able to feel bad for the girl who insulted her clothing. She can't imagine a situation where she would launch an unprovoked attack on another person like that, and so she settles on pity, because obviously that girl was in need of attention or was insecure herself.

Later she even thinks of something she could have said, if she hadn't been so shocked:

(sarcasm) "That was an excellent example, you sounded so sincere. Thank you, I will cherish your kind words close to my heart, forevermore."

(shock/pity) "I literally cannot believe what I just heard. I am so sorry that you are in a place where you need to take such desperate measures to attract attention. I wish there was someway I could help, please let me know."

(indifference) "It's a good thing it isn't your opinion that matters, then."

The thing is, we're always told what not to do in these situations. The main piece of advice given to us regarding direct(or indirect) insults is don't laugh along and pretend it's funny. That tells the person it's okay. 

No one tells you how to respond. Sure, go tell an adult, they say, but do you really want to go run off and tattle just because someone insulted your sweater? That seems like a pretty lame idea.

Any suggestions? Ideas? Advice? Thoughts? Similar stories? I'd love to hear about it.

Buddies and Fake Alexandras

I got my BEDA buddies!! 

That sounded like they were sent to me in the mail. But no, they weren't. Or you weren't. It just occurred that you're probably reading this now. Hi, welcome to the blog.

For those of you who are not aware of BEDA buddies it was started on Monday... or perhaps Tuesday and is a way for BEDAers (or BEDAzzlers, as I read somewhere) to meet up and make friends and support each other through this perilous journey we have begun.

I signed up and now I have three new friends. Don't you just love friends??

This is where I promote the blogs of my buddies:

Catherine Norris

Dr. Rena

Vita Starr

Okay now that, we got that over with, I will move on.

As I was scrolling down Maureen's blog today (a listing of the buddy assignments) I saw my name. I signed up on the ning as Alexandra M. because:

a) I've been trying to get Alexandra to catch on (not trying very hard, I will give you that) and

b) I wanted to make it easy for people to tell my gender.

See, normally, I'm known as Alex. I like Alex, it short and easy to spell and to the point. There's no extra syllables, there's an alternate spelling (Aleks or Alix), and it starts with an 'A' so alphabetical wise I'm usually called first (unless we're talking last names).

But there's something special about the name Alexandra. It's classy, it's substantial and yes, it's a mouthful but it's a lovely name. Can't you just imagine a Queen Alexandra or Lady Alexandra? What about Queen Alex? It's just not the same.

Changing names is rather difficult to do. It would be easier if I could just pack up my stuff and move, that way I could just introduce myself as Alexandra and everyone would call me that because they wouldn't know any better. Dealing with people you know?? Not as easy.

Even when I meet new people I hesitate introducing myself Alexandra. Because truthfully, it's not my name. A name (as I said in an earlier blog) is a label for a noun. My label is Alex, no matter what is on my birth certificate.

If I really wanted to be called Alexandra, I would put some effort into it, but I guess it's just not meant to be. So I'm going to change my name on the mj ning (if that's even possible).

I wish there was a word count function on these blog things. Not that I'm obsessing with length or anything. I'm totally not. And I'm going to stop right here, just to prove that to you.

I

Don't

Care

About 

Blog 

Length

;)

Cats and Death

Death is scary. And fickle. And questionable. And unknown. Which is scary. (J.K. Rowling/Dumbledore hit that one right on the nose).

Five year olds love to talk about dead pets. At Sparks sometimes pets will come up at circle time and first I'll be talking about my cat and then suddenly one of the girls brings up her cat who was run over my a car. Her father was the driver. That will spark another memory of a hamster that perished or a dog that died a year ago. It's actually quite fascinating to listen to them go on about their pets, because rarely do they want to talk about live pets, no the dead ones are much more interesting. 

Which got me thinking about pets in general. I can't remember too clearly a time when we didn't have pets in our house. I know there was a time, but we got our first cat when I was pretty young.

Napoleon was the best cat for children. He was so tolerant. Living in a house with four young girls can be quite the trial fora  cat. What with all the petting, and pulling and being picked up. But he took it all like a good cat, very calm and hardly ever scratching us. He was great.

I vaguely remember when we first got that beautiful grey and white cat. It was around my dad's birthday and we had somehow convinced him that a great gift would be a pet cat. We'd never had any pets before aside from some goldfish (named Cleopatra and Anthony and Cleopatra II and Anthony II) who didn't last very long. So we drove to the SPCA and left with Napoleon.

I believe one of our foreign exchange students from France, Pauline, named him. She was fan of the human Napoleon (I never got why they called him by his first name... everyone else is known by either their full name or last name. But not Napoleon Bonaparte).

After that came Midnight. I'm not sure how he came about but I think we adopted him. I hope he came with that name, because I'm not a fan of over-used pet names.

I think then we got Josephine (as in Napoleon and ...), who was a kitten and around the same time Raven. This could be wrong as the memories are a little foggy. Raven was quite the opposite of our gentle Napoleon and we soon learned to stay away from him. Far away. He hissed and scratched and was overall unpleasant.

When we left Ontario we left our cats, but we eventually found another one. Or rather, he found us. He followed us home one day, and after we fed him he never left. He never really got an official name. He's had many but usually he's known as The Cat. Right now I'm trying to get Pritty-Kitty to catch on, but I'm not getting much progress.

I could go on, Pritty-Kitty was not the last pet to come into our home but I'll just list the rest because.

1. I haven't done a list in a while,
2. I feel like I may be boring you (not that I care too much about that) and
3. I'm getting a bit on the long side already and I fear if I go on I may lose some of you.

So hear are the rest of the pets in somewhat of a chronological order:

• Maggie, dog, 14 years old, acquired in 2006 (?)
• Geronimo, gerbil, deceased, acquired in 2006 (again, kind of foggy)
• Chai and Mocha, gerbils, deceased, acquired 2007
• Skunk, gerbil, 2 years old, acquired 2007
• Snitzlefritz, gerbil, deceased, acquired 2007 (brother to Skunk) 
• Mimi, rabbit, deceased, aquired 2007
• Caramel, guinea pig, deceased, acquired 2007 (ish)
• Bruce/Troy, fish, deceased, acquired 2007 (ish)
• Fred and George, rabbits, 2 (ish) years old, whereabouts unknown, acquired 2007

If I have forgotten any (which, given the number of pets is likely) then I apologize. No disrespect to the pets, I loved you all, even though Maddy got tired of you all eventually and stopped feeding you.

Oh and if Geronimo's out there somewhere reading this in gerbil heaven or whatever I'm really sorry. We were young and stupid. 

Cougars and Dolphins and Happy Birthdays

Happy birthday to you! 

Happy birthday to you! 

Happy birthday, dear Caitlyn! 

Happy birthday to you.

I dedicate this blog to my oldest sister, who is, as of today, able to legally purchase consume alchohal (here at least). I hope you enjoyed your cake, and just wait until next year, when you turn twenty, because if you thought today was epic, you are going to be shocked and surprised at the next installment (unless you're in China or something, in which case I'll totally send you an e-card). 

Today consisted of about 11 Birthday Insallments, some of which were more exciting than others. Here in list[ish] format are what happenings of this extraordinary day (not all of these includ me):

1. 12:04am: Birthday girl gets to hear the story of her wonderous birth told from the perspective of her incredible mother. Listener discretion is advised.
2. Birthday girl wakes up, and eats pancake breakfast.
   
3. Birthday girl goes to work.  --Work? you may ask. On one's birthday? I asked this question as well.--
4. Birthday girl and 66.6% of her sisters and 100% of her mother went to eat Japanese for lunch. Terriacki, tempura and Californian rolls were enjoyed.
5. Birthday girl purchased alcohal (in the form of peach wine coolers that get worse tasting with every sip. Video footage was taken. Photo ID was perused. Priceless memories were made.
6. Birthday girl and 33.3% of her sisters (this portion being me) participated in timeless North American pastime. You guess it, we went shopping. An insane sale was noticed. Cardigans and incredible pants were bought. Sequened dresses were tried on. Gift cards were given out at Indigo's because it was not open [and they felt sorry for us? I don't really care, I got a free giftcard.
7. Birthday girl and 33.3% of her sisters sat on a terribly pathetic bench, hungry and exposed to the elements, and waited for rescue. Calls were made. Phones were fought over; chase ensued. Video footage was taken. --When our supposed saviors arrived I hid (unsuccessfully) behind a post, to get back at them for being 7 minutes late. This was after I had got of the pathetic bench (who is named Dave and Olaf) and waved at a car that I thought was my mother's. Anyway, they pulled up on the other side of the street and so we crossed over while the car did a u-turn and went to the OTHER side. After sitting on the pahtetic bench for twenty minutes this was too much frusteration to take. Foots were stomped. This was one of the more eventful Installments.
8. Birthday girl and 100% of sisters and 100% of father went to eat greasy food at the beach for dinner. Beers were ordered. Onions rings were eaten. Veggie burgers were eaten. Frys were eaten. Dolphins and chimpanzies were discussed (those over-zealously vicious buggers). English accents were imployed. Props to Planet Earth. You are awesome. Birthday girl is again told the story of her birth but this time from the perspective of her father.
9. Birthday girl opened presents, some of which she purchased herself. One of said gifts was the movie Enchanted which was then viewed.
10. Birthday girl and 100% of sisters and 100% of mother ate chocolate mousse cake which was labourously put together by one dedicated sisters (me). There are no words to describe the taste of this cake. Well no, actually there are a few. But I'll just let you imagine the chocolatey goodness. 
11. Birthday girl rests her head upon her pillow and dreams of cougars in ravines and what a great birthday it was. 

It was a great day as you can imagine. 

A note about that cake: The making of a chocolate mousse cake is something not to be entered into lightly. It takes time and effort and a myriad of ingredients that may require extra effort to proclaim. Multi-tasking is required and the faint-hearted need not apply. Needless to say, the results are more than worth it, so in the end the time was well spent. Here is the recipe. 

Anyway, happy birthday, Cait. I had a lot of fun, even while complaining on the pathetic bench. I hope 19 is just as good as 18 and possibly a little better. I love you oodles, even though you once told me there was cougars in the forest\ravine behind our house and I had a nightmare about it that I will probably always remember.

Worms and Songs Promoting Cannibalism

My idea tree is getting a bit sparse again. Then I went to my Sparks meeting, where I watch five-year-old girls run around and then attempt to teach them songs and games and other nonsense. As you have probably guessed, this has some blog topic potential.

Sparks have a lot of energy. I was thinking about why this could be and couldn't come up with much. There is the fact that they are very small beings and thus the energy that normal people have is doubly strengthened energy inside them. Or they are young and free of worry and thus, have less weighing them down and more energy to bounce up and down and be merry. They seem to feed off each other, as well. If one girl comes to a meeting a litle more excited than usual the other girls will follow her lead and the hour will be a longer one of my day.

Now I could sit here and make more observations about the peculiar nature of the Spark, but I'm not feeling particularly intrigued or inspired so I think I will look for something else. Aha! That book. For those of you who are not currently residing in my mind I'm talking about a workbook called The Write Brain which I believe I got at a writers conference that contains writing exercises to kick start your write brain. 

...

And I can't find anything in said book that I feel like pursuing. What a disappointment, I was really hoping that would work out.

I guess i'll go back to the Sparks. Because I just remembered a juicy tidbit filled with blogging goodness. For me at least.

There's this commonly known Girl Guide song, that isn't in any songbooks (that I know of) and is extremely irritating but somehow also widely known. This song entitled, Hermy the Worm, is narrated by someone who is sitting on a fence post chewing their bubble gum when along comes a worm named Hermy. The narrator seems to know this worm and soon enough they are engaging in a conversation where Hermy admits that he ate his brother/sister/mother/father. You sing the same verse over and over until he has eaten his entire family and then in the last rendition he burps. Terribly clever, isn't it?

Now somehow, this song has traditionally been cherished in the hearts of girls of all ages, despite the fact that it is lame, repetitive and promotes cannibalism. If it were just the first two demerits, I might be able to handle it's absurd popularity, but the fact that it is supposed to be a comical song (with that hilarious burp punchline) that tells girls that it's okay for worms to eat their family members as long as it's funny at the end.

So of course when we are choosing what song we will sing and everyone is putting forward their ideas, someone naturally suggests Hermy the Worm (I have no idea how some of them learned it; older sisters perhaps?). I cannot count the number of times I have explained that I do not endorse songs about cannibalism and that we will not be singing them at Sparks, but they are always so persistent.

The good character trait of the average Spark, though, is that they are easily distracted. I just have to pick the first song that pops into my head and start singing, and soon enough the follow suit and forget about their worm friend for the time being.

The problem is, that I don't exactly know how to finish the song off for good. It's the default in everyone's mind, whenever they think of a campfire. Hermy the Worm, Hermy the Worm! I guess some people don't realize that the song suggests that abusing your siblings and parents (by eating them or other methods) is okay. I know no one is going to go home and take a chomp out of their little brother just because they sang the song, but it plants the SEED. Which is bad. Because cannibalism is wrong. And any song that suggests otherwise is a song that should not be sung by five-year-olds.

A Tall Obsession

It's taken me until 8:00pm to start writing this, which is rather out of character of me. But I really couldn't think of anything to say. It's funny actually because today I found this:

THE RULES OF BLOG EVERY DAY APRIL (BEDA)

1. Blog every day in April. 

THE BLOG EVERY DAY IN APRIL MANIFESTO

I commit to this idea and am determined to create something EVERY DAY in April, including weekends. Every day, I will find something to say. I embrace the reality that there is always something to talk about, if you are willing to take the time to look for it. 

I, Alex McGown, promise to blog every day in April.

In the above Manifesto it says that I will find something to write about every day, because there is always something to be written. A platform to be taken. An opinion to share.

So now that I have officially taken the BEDA oath, I feel the need to write something compelling. Something witty and intriguing. Which is how, sitting at the dinner table, something my mother said brought me to my topic: height!

As a society, we are very obsessed with height. The people in ads, are the people who generally represent us (however poorly they do it) and models are supposed to be tall.

Women wear high heeled shoes, to appear taller (or is there another reason that I'm missing? Because the last time I checked they were dreadfully uncomfortable) and basically we're obsessed with height.

Now, being a tall[ish] person myself I've always thought it strange when people remarked on my height with awe and wonder. Because really, being tall doesn't say anything about you is awesomer then anyone else. Sure, you can reach the top shelf at the grocery store and jump up and hit the ceiling in underground parking garages, but it's nothing to be proud of. It's not like one day I climbed up a huge tower and sat there and watched the world below me, which made me grow inches taller because of my increased perspective on the world. It's nothing as exciting as that. It's just the way I am. I ate my vegetables (most of the time) and here I am. 5'6" (no that's not extraordinarily tall but it's taller than some).

So why are short[er] people jealous at times? Yes, I'm taller than you. Yes, I can see the top of your head. Yes, I keep growing. Do you want an apology? You're not getting one. Just get over it. As I used to say in my younger years:

Cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it. (I was one wise kid, huh?)

And once you have done that you will truly be over it. Because building a bridge is tough stuff. I hear it really builds character. By the time you are finished your bridge I hope you will have moved on from the fact that I am taller than you. It's not that big of a deal. Not trying to minimise your sufferings or anything, but if you have a better explanation for your whining, now would be the time to speak up... I didn't think so.

Another unusually characteristic of this particular blog is that I'm going to end it right here. I'm not going to dig deeper for another topic, or prattle on about something meaningless. As a wise young blogger quoted a few days ago: quality, not quantity. I realize that I have been focusing on the length of my blogs a bit more, but I'm letting that go now. If this is all I have to say, I'm not going to bemoan that fact. I'm going to accept it. This is me accepting it.