All you needs are logs; Logs are all you need

My husband and I aren't big on celebrating the Hallmark celebrations imposed on us. The worst one is Valentine's Day. I honestly think it's a Get Out Of Jail Free Card for men who behave badly.
Husbands, boyfriends and partners can act like schmucks 364 days of the year and then, on one dreary day in February, boom! All of a sudden, they're Enrique Iglesias: "I can be your hero baby. I can kiss away the pain. I will stand by you forever. You can take my breath away."
Oh barf.
You see, a real man is someone who deals with the real crap of life.
The shit.
The dirt.
The logs.

It's Friday night, the day before Valentine's Day, and my husband is tired from a long day at work. And I'm pooped from being laid off. (Being laid off is tiring, but that's another whole post.) My husband is downstairs on the couch snoozing and I'm upstairs in our bathroom giving our two-and-a-half year old son a bath.

We're playing with his fishies and fishing rod, his Little People boat and he's having a blast blowing bubbles in the water and splashing me. I'm wet so I turn to get a towel when I notice there's a magazine on top of our toilet tank. The magazine is promoting a contest to win a trip to Texas. This looks interesting ....

I swear I looked away for two seconds. Three seconds tops.

"Mommy!" my son yells.

"There's dog poo in the bath!"

I turn to look at my son and he is holding – I'm gagging just writing this – a log of poop in each hand.

"Look! Dog poo!" he squeals.

For a split second, I'm horrified. How did dog poo get in my ..... oh nooooooo.

For the first time in two and a half years - the first time in his life - my son has gone to the bathroom in the bath tub.

And now, he's holding it. Scrutinizing it. Studying it. Squishing it. (Insert more gagging here...)

"Oh my god!" I scream, which has its intended effect. My husband comes running up the stairs.

"Look, daddy! Dog poo!"

My husband shakes the logs out of my sons hands while I head out of the room. It's leave the room or throw up.

My son stands wrapped in a towel cutely trying to explain to both of us how the doggie doos came to be while my husband, god bless his soul and god help me I hope he really scrubbed his hands, picks up all the bits from the bathtub. He then scrubs the tub. Sanitizes it. Scrubs it again. Sanitizes it. And rinses it all away – while I stand with my son and run dirty towels and bathmats down to the washing machine.

Would I have done the cleaning if I had been home alone at the time? Absolutely. But, without complaining or asking for help, my husband took on the "jobs."

Now that's a gift.

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Next Valentine's, let my husband write you a card

My husband and I don't really do Valentine's Day. I think it's a day created for all men to make up for the other 364 days of the year they've been forgetful, unappreciative, "Women-are-like-shopping. I-can-go-window-shopping, I-just-can't-touch-or-buy" dinks.

My husband and I do, however, give each other a card.

Here's what he wrote: (Short but sweet and true and real)

"Feb. 14, 2009: I don't need anything for Valentine's Day as long as you're near."

I guess I could have done better than: "You're, like, totally hot and smart and stuff."

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How he proposed and 99 other Sarah secrets

On the right-hand side of this page, there's a little button called 100 Hot Things to Know about Sarah Crosbie. It's pretty old. Item No. 100: "I think the baby is a boy. My husband thinks it's a girl." Well, I now have a two-and-a-half year old – who likes to ask questions, many questions like: "Mommy, what are nipples? Do you have nipples? Does daddy have nipples?" – which shows how outdated that list is. (And, yes, I did have a boy. Ha.) Some of the items still hold very true though:

31. "I love pineapple on pizza."
82. "I love my knee-high black leather boots. I wear them every day in the fall and winter."

For 2009, here is a new 100 list:


1. First thing I read Saturday morning: Corey Mintz's restaurant review in the Toronto Star's Living section. We once had a little chat on his blog. I tried to compliment him. He took it as a criticism, I think. So, we didn't end up pals. I still read it.
2. Ran my first half marathon in Picton in October 2008. Everyone should do a half there. It's beautiful. It took me 2:21.
3. My husband and I have committed to running the half in Ottawa in May. In October I could run 21 kilometres. Now I'm back to the five-k. Need to pick it up starting this week.
4. Love Dexter.
5. Love actor Michael C. Hall who plays Dexter.
6. Love Jennifer Carpenter, who plays Dexter's sister on the show.
7. Find it creepy Hall and Carpenter are married now.
8. It's insane Hall has never won a major acting award (like a Golden Globe) for his Dexter work – and yet Boston Legal and William Shatner have? Houston, we have a problem.
9. Speaking of marriage, I got married in 2007. The BF is now The Husband.
10. No, I didn't change my name. (So on Facebook, I look like I'm still single; I refuse to fill in details like "Married. Looking for friendship." I think that's weird.)
11. Not sure why any woman still changes her name. It's 2009.
12. Speaking of Facebook, I just joined last week. I've been holding out, but now that I have more free time on my hands (keep reading to find out why), I decided to give it a try.
13. Thanks to more free time, I just finished a Canadian novel called A Week of This by Nathan Whitlock. I've been reading it since April. I used to work so much that by the time I crawled into bed at midnight, I'd read one page and then pass out.
14. Watched Oprah for a few minutes a few weeks ago. Will Smith said something I really like and am trying to live by: "I'm tired of wasting my time. I'm tired of other people wasting my time." (I added it to my Facebook profile.)
15. Though I should read more books, I'm about to renew my subscription to Canadian Living. No, it's not the hippest magazine, but damn, they have good recipes. How do you think I learned to make chicken paprikash and spinach strata?
16. Got married at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. Best idea ever. No planning. One fax to confirm our reservation, one e-mail to confirm what colour I wanted my bouquet to be and it was done. Seriously.
17. Our wedding dinner took place at Spice Market Buffet at Planet Hollywood. I had nachos with guacamole and chocolate covered strawberries for my wedding meal. It's always ranked the No. 1 buffet on The Strip. Best wedding meal ever.
18. Have a worm-like scar on my left knee from having cyst removed when I was five years old at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto. That scar made me a little bit of who I am since kids used to make fun of it when I was little. It gave me some inner strength. This one was in the first list, but I like it so it's here, too.
19. I always buy a Lotto 649 ticket if the jackpot is over $10 million. Ten million is OK. Nine million? Oh, so not worth my time.
20. Love going out to Kingston's best restaurants: Grecos, Aqua Terra, Curry Original. And don't forget about our city's best-kept secret: Amadeus Cafe.
21. 98% of the time I'll order fish when I'm out. The other 2%? Filet mignon, done medium rare.
22. Appetizer always has to be escargot.
23. I originally wanted Hillary Clinton to be the president of the United States because I wanted a woman to win, but Barack Obama's charisma, love for his family and wife, and strength during crisis won me over.
24. Obama did a really interesting interview in Men's Health a couple of issues ago, where he said he works out five days a week and was sometimes criticized for it on the campaign trail, since people thought that time could be better used – which is insane. I'm tired of people, bosses, coworkers, anyone, really, thinking you're only good at your job if your butt is glued to your desk. People who are healthy, who have a life, who are interesting, who get out and do stuff (anything!) are more interesting and, therefore, better employees.
25. Someday I'm going to be a boss and I'm only going to hire interesting people; Interesting people who go to The Screening Room at least a couple of times a year.
26. The Screening Room, along with Amadeus Cafe, is one of Kingston's best-kept secrets. Instead of going to see Marley & Me (does the world really need more Jennifer Aniston?) go to The Screening Room, pick one of the two movies screening there and sit through an independent, foreign, possibly subtitled film. You may not love it, but it will be better than Marley & Me. Or Mall Cop, which is the No. 1 movie in the country. We're in a recession and people have money to go see Mall Cop? Help us, help us now.
27. I was laid off from The Whig-Standard on Dec. 16, 2008.
28. I still read The Whig-Standard.
29. I exercise with a rockin' local company, Body Now 4 Mums and Kids. (See bikini pic in Flickr photos. A few years ago, I never would have done that.
30. My two-year-old son can skate as well as I can.
31. When I was 12, the big thing to do was to go public skating. There were two songs that looped over and over again all night long: Aerosmith's Janie's Got a Gun and Love in an Elevator. I still can't listen to those songs.
32. Just heard a great old song at the grocery store this morning: Back To Life by Soul II Soul. I was buying my bran buds and dancing.
33. One of my old Whig columns was turned into a cartoon by illustrator Ron Lindsay and published in the Ottawa Citizen. I wrote about my son wanting a bucket load of hockey gear.
34. Because I used to be a little bit chunky (fat) I'm addicted to watching The Biggest Loser, even though I know it's absurd to lose 32 pounds in one week.
35. Last time I was at home visiting my parents, my mother showed my son a picture of me taken about eight years ago, when I was at my heaviest (about 50 pounds more than now). "Who is that?" my mother asked my son. "I don't know," he said. He didn't recognize me! (I carried a lot of it in my face.)
36. That being said, coworkers used to tell me: "But you have such a pretty face, Sarah!" Ah, thanks. So my butt? Nasty? Thighs? Make me wanna barf. Arms? Swinging in the wind. But my face looks nice.
37. I once auditioned for a hair commercial in Toronto.
38. Seeing as I am not in magazines, I obviously didn't get the gig.
39. I once auditioned for a TV show in Montreal, Guy Stuff with John Moore.
40. Seeing as I had to watch myself on reruns on Global the other day while working out at the gym, I obviously got the gig.
41. I also got the gig when I was seven months pregnant, so, no, my breasts do not look like that in real life. Sorry guys.
42. My son calls the two moles I have on my face "meatballs." No idea where that came from.
43. He also calls zits the same thing.
44. I just finished reading a piece in The Globe and Mail about what Barack Obama needs to get done in his first 100 days in office. One of his friends said one problem with Obama is he doesn't necessary succeed instantly. He needs time to get his feet wet, assess the situation and get a groove before he's rockin' it. I'm the same way. I need to get warmed up before I can really dig in. Then I'm OK, but at first, I'm quite shy.
45. I was once Tasered by Kingston Police. True story. (For a Whig story, but still true.)
46. I look back on that story now and am mortified at its cheesiness, but you live and learn and become a better writer.
47. I think I like the new U2 song Get On Your Boots that was released today, though at first I thought Bono's voice sounded thin.
48. I laughed really hard in the SNL skit when Tina Fey (Sarah Palin) says she met Bono, The King of Ireland.
49. I saw U2 in concert in Toronto when I was 16.
50. But even better, I saw Depeche Mode in Toronto.
51. My first CD ever was Depeche Mode.
52. My first cassette tape was Fleetwood Mac.
53. No, I still don't own my own iPod. I borrow my husband's all the time though and make him put pop songs on it for my running music. It Takes Two by Rob Bass and DJ EZ Rock is a fave.
54. Jet is also good, though, I admit.
55. Queen is also good for running.
56. You know what's not good? Trying to run and seeing yourself on TV on Guy Stuff With John Moore with massive pregnancy boobs. It's distracting.
57. My combo for my lock from grades 7 to OAC: 57, 31, 9.
58. Can I remember any of the combos for locks we have now? No. But I can remember one that I haven't used in 13 years.
59. My husband's blog is Cancrime.com. No, it has nothing to do with a sexy daddy living his life under the stars. It's about crime. It's really good. We're like Best Buy and Future Shop. We compete but we're related. *Currently, I have more readers. But he has better legs, so we're equal, I guess.
60. I've been to the K-Rock Centre probably more times than most people. Let's count: The Wiggles, The Hip, Avril Lavigne, Sesame Street, Thomas The Train, two Kingston Frontenacs games.
61. I always get the nachos with the orange glue cheese when I go. It's a treat.
62. OK, I also get a soft pretzel.
63. And a Diet Coke. Don't judge me.
64. I love PerezHilton. Yes, I know it's crap, but I'm a former entertainment reporter and editor. I needed to be up on my crap.
65. I also like TMZ. Don't judge me.
66. I got my start at The Queen's Journal in 1999. Ten years later? Laid off. Hmmm. That's not exactly how I thought the decade would end. Let's check back with me in 2010 - or 2009 1/2. Give me a few months.
67. I recently saw one of my ex-boyfriends at a Starbucks parking lot and, I'm not sure why, I hid by slouching down in my seat until he drove away.
68. Maybe it was because I had bedhead and no makeup on. Just saying.
69. Want a REALLY good Thai meal? Try Pat's Restaurant on Division Street in Kingston, just before the 401 exit in Kingston. He was open, god bless him, on New Year's Day. I didn't want to go out for New Year's Eve, but I didn't want to have to cook on the first day of the New Year. His pork dish with spring rolls was delicious. My son loved it too. No, it's not downtown, but the food is great.
70. My car once broke down on Highway 401 near Toronto. For an hour, no one would stop to help me and I didn't have a cellphone. (This was in 2000, before everyone, including six year olds had them.) Finally, a nice guy who said he was from Port Perry, Ont., stopped and let me use his phone. An hour later, on his way back from wherever he had gone, he brought me muffins and bottled water while I waited for a tow truck. Thank you. Seriously. I lost some faith in humanity that day until that guy showed up. (One tow truck driver would only let me use his phone if I gave him my service, even though I was covered under CAA.)
71. You know who else is from Port Perry? Jayde Nicole, the Playboy Playmate of the Year. Who, btw, is dating reality TV star Brody Jenner.
72. I love Harveys because they have veggie burgers and now whole wheat buns.
73. I once flew to Europe to meet a boy. Didn't really tell my parents about that one.
74. Hi, Scott. Sarah :)
75. Have a fear of the dentist because years ago (not in Kingston) I had my wisdom teeth out and I'm not kidding, it hurt more than child birth. Seriously. Even though people always say: "I had my wisdom teeth out and then I ran a marathon the next day, got married and flew to Hawaii on my honeymoon. It didn't hurt a single bit." Good for you. Liar. (Sorry, my mom hates that word.) Fibber.
76. As kids when we were little we weren't allowed to say "liar" – nor were we allowed to go to movies on Sundays but that's another story – so we used to say Fibber Magee and Molly. Who are Magee and Molly?
77. We also used to say "Lord love a duck." Don't know where the duck came from, either.
78. I have asthma.
79. I smoked for 10 years.
80. I'm dumb.
81. In my first 100 list, I said I wanted bubbles at my wedding. I didn't get them. I did however get a mirror ball in my bouquet.
82. My husband proposed in our house. With a mirror ball. (I've never told anyone that before.) (And after a dinner at Amadeus.)
83. For a treat, I like extra hot, low-fat, decaf lattes.
84. Since I'm laid off and all, I might start going to the theatre by myself to see potential Oscar nominees. (They have nachos there, too).
85. Speaking of fun, I recently went to Chuck E. Cheese. I really had a good time.
86. My son went up in a tunnel there to poop. We're working on potty training. He likes to have "privacy." Seriously. But then, again, don't we all?
87. I don't get the Jonas Brothers.
88. I don't get Taylor Swift.
89. I like Duffy.
90. I cried in Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who on the weekend. (I'm a little sensitive these days when it comes to themes like fitting in and having a place you're meant to be.)
91. I have four people I'm deciding whether I should be friends with on Facebook. It's not that I don't like them - it's just complicated, is all.
92. I love the doctors and nurses at the Hotel Dieu Children Outpatient Clinic. Twice I've taken my son there and both times they've been fabulous. (Thank you!)
93. My son is interested in nipples. You can thank his stepbrother and sister for that one.
94. My son can sing the words to Britney Spears' Womanizer. It's wrong, I know, but it's sooo cute.
95. I know all the words to the Wonder Pets: "The phone. The phone is ringing. The phone? We'll be right there. The phone. The phone is ringing. There's an animal in trouble."
91. Backyardigans is also catchy.
92. I think I'm the only person in Kingston who thought the Avril Lavigne concert was Horrible with a capital H.
93. I scored one of the first ever Canadian print interviews with Avril. It was the time she talked about Napanee's La Pizzeria, which became a staple in interviews over the past few years.
94. I once had dinner with Avril Lavigne's mother in Amherstview at Nostalgia Station, the restaurant Ryan Malcolm's family owned and ran.
95. I love Oreo blizzards. I might go get one.
96. I voted for Peter Milliken in the last federal election. I know the Greens and NDP can't win without votes, but Conservative Brian Abrams was good and I couldn't risk having a Conservative MP in Kingston.
97. I once planted a flower basket with Kingston Mayor Harvey Rosen.
98. I can do 15 pushups on my toes. (That's down from 25 last year.)
99. My husband thinks I'm colour blind.
100. I'm not.

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Nothing says Happy Anniversary like Chicken Paprikash

December 21st (or is it the 23rd?) was my one-year wedding anniversary.
We got hitched at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas last year with some of our family, but not everyone could make the trip, so we decided this year to do it up and invite some of our friends and family we would have liked to have at our wedding.
Now, logically, a good place to hold a party would be our home.
Yeah, um, there's a problem with that. You see, I hate cleaning and my husband does most of it (I kid you not, and no, you may not have him.) But what always ends up happening is that the night before the party, I'm up until 3 a.m. madly scrubbing, throwing things in closets and blowing dust bunnies back under the couch so that it seems like I'm helping. And then I'd have to bake and make snacky snacks ... and then it would be more work than fun.
So, we decided to rent a room and throw a little party at a restaurant.
Where to go? We have so many favourites in Kingston, but then I had an "A ha!" moment: Amadeus Cafe on Princess Street.
It always shocks me when my husband and I talk about Amadeus (also known by some as the Schnitzel Haus) and someone will say they've never tried it.
It is one of Kingston's best kept little secrets, I think.
We asked for their back private room and I selected a menu of three entrees for our 25 guests: chicken paprikash, cabbage rolls and, for the youngins, a cheese quesadilla. (Though many people, including my mother, chose the quesadilla and it looked incredible.)
Our little back room was decorated by the restaurant in garland covered in twinkling white lights and our stockings were hung with care. (OK, jackets were hung with care. Twas the night before the night before Christmas you know, when I was writing this.)
The food was divine. Everyone loved the chicken paprikash - "I didn't think I was going to like it, but I loved it!" proclaimed one diner (my dad).
And the drinks were delicious and good on the budget for anyone who's trying to save some money in these trying times. (A frothy hot chocolate piled with whip cream is just $2.95 and a Coors Light $3.50. How about a glass of Shiraz for just $5.25? The same glass of wine would run you $8 in other local restaurants).
Our little soiree ended with everyone sharing homemade crepes stuffed with peaches and accented with whip cream. (Can you ever have too much whip? Well, maybe. See my previous post about my S&M Christmas outfit.)
Amadeus is a sweet little restaurant where my husband and I shared one of our most romantic meals when we were just lovebirds dating. And now that I have this wonderful anniversary dinner to remember, I'll get it in my brain that my wedding anniversary is the 21st and not the 23rd. (Truly, I swear I'm the girl and my husband's the guy, even though he's the one who cleans and always remembers the date).
Thinking of booking a little do? Crosbiemania gives Amadeus four stars. Call Brian there. He'll take good care of you.
And do try the chicken paprikash. It's warm, soft and red – just like love.

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Fishnets, knee-high boots and charity

A couple of days ago, when I was supposed to be working, I was actually out on a lunch date. The night before, my toddler son had asked me to draw pictures of him and his mommy and daddy. "What's dat?" he asked, pointing to a picture I'd drawn of myself, which, unfortunately for me, resembled an illustration of Star Trek's Spock. (I was a straight-A student in high school, who struggled to get 60s and 70s in art.)
"That's a skirt," I said.
"Skirt?" he asked.
"Yes, skirt," I replied.
"Mommy, you don't wear skirts! You wear hockey skates."
It was one of those smack-me-upside-the-head moments, where I realized that, in fact, I had worn skates more than skirts in the past month:
Skates: 3.
Skirts: 0.
So, with my fishnet stockings, mini black skirt and knee-high boots, I set off to work, ready to take my sweetie out for lunch and play hooky for a few hours.
We met up for lunch at Confederation Place Hotel, where we greeted by the delicious smell of hearty stuffing, loaded with herbs; moist, glistening turkey; and a view of Kingston's snow-sprinkled harbour that's fit for a snowglobe.
I was already seated when my husband came up behind me, put his hand on my shoulder to gently let me know he was there, and then bent down and kissed me, stealing some of my sparkly pink lipstick.
Ah, it was just the two of us …
… and more than 100 Kingstonians who also wanted to give underprivileged local teenagers a Christmas.
Operation Teen Christmas 2008 was a lunch with a silent and live auction to raise money so that teenagers can have a gift under the tree on Dec. 25. Teenagers are often overlooked when it comes to clothing and toy drives. Last year, the Salvation Army decided to do something about it and started this lunch. Tickets were $25. Money was also raised through the auctions. Diners had the opportunity to bid on 10, eight-person turkey dinners that would be delivered to needy families on Christmas Eve.
Fellow diners who attended last year said the gathering was much larger this year. And next year, like any three-year-old, it could be an event that's wonderfully out-of-control, because I tell you, it's only a matter of time before others learn about this event and it sells out.
Sure, you have to sneak out of work for a few hours, but how can anything be bad that feels sooo good?
After a delicious lunch, two cups of coffee, and a few bites of mini carrot cakes and Nanaimo bars – each table had their own platter of desserts with brownies and chocolate-covered strawberries – it was time for my date with my husband to come to an end.
Life is busy, especially this time of year, and everyone I know craves more time with their significant other. Next year, think about turning Operation Teen Christmas into your own lunch-time sneak-away.
It's better to give than to receive, but this event is a win-win situation: By buying a $25 lunch, you're raising money for the Salvation Army to give a teenager a gift so that she can still believe in Christmas magic and you get to go on a week-day date. And be a little naughty. Or nice.
Operation Teen Christmas 2009? I'd like to reserve two tickets, please.
Whoever said fishnet stockings and charity don't mix?

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Sarah Crosbie sucks, source says

Sometimes, all you can do is laugh, especially when times are trying: Economies are tanking, people are being laid off, and your shovel is calling you from the garage, taunting you that soon, it will be time to hit the driveway.

Late one night, a couple of weeks ago, a man was unloading his goalie equipment out of his car when another man approached him in the parking lot of a local hockey rink.

Now, this goalie does not usually play for this team. He was filling in for an acquaintance who was injured.

As the goalie unloaded his equipment, the other man started talking about how he knows the goalie works at The Whig-Standard and he had some thoughts to share about the paper's magazine, The Ticket.

The man told the goalie about how he'd heard that a former Ticket editor had left Kingston and gone on to a big paper in Toronto.

The man really missed the former editor, he said.

Really, really missed her. Really, really, really missed her. He told the goalie that he understood that the editor he liked so much had been filling in for the current editor (that would be me) while she was on maternity leave and The Whig was forced to give the current editor (me, again) her job back once she returned after a one-year maternity leave. (Isn't that nuts that women are allowed to have babies and return to their jobs?)

He said the fact that the paper had lost the former editor and had to welcome back the current editor was a stain on The Whig since the former editor was a genius, who was funny and smart and articulate and much better than the new editor (still me).

The goalie asked the man whether he knew the former editor, since it was odd to hear a reader heap such praise on an editor, especially one who'd left the paper. Was she his sister? His cousin? His friend?

No, no, no, the man said. He just loved her work.

The goalie happily chatted with this man and listened to him - like any good journalist would do. You never know where you're going to hear a good story.

The goalie wondered what he should tell this unhappy reader ... and decided to think about it.

(This tale reminds me of a great riddle my father told me once when I was a girl: "A boy is riding in a car with his father when they get in a car crash. The father dies. The boy is rushed to hospital. When he arrives at the ER, the surgeon refuses to do the surgery. 'I can not operate on this child. He's my son.' How can this be?" Now, back in the 1980s, in the days when no one could have foreseen a black man and a woman being two of the top choices to run the White House, it wasn't easy to come up with an answer.)

"The surgeon is a ghost who came back from the dead!" I shouted.

"No! The boy was a twin separated at birth and the surgeon is looking at the wrong twin!"

The answer, of course, is that the surgeon is the boy's mother. But, back in the 1980s, my little brain heard "surgeon" and I thought "man."

Now, in 2008, there's still an interesting gender stereotype that remains. People assume that women take their husbands' last names when they get married. But some do not. Like me.

As the goalie walked into the rink with the man, he wondered what he should say to him.

"Have a good game," the goalie said as they hit the change room.

"Wait until I tell my wife this one," he thought to himself.

(Have I ever mentioned that my husband is a goalie?)

And here is the rest of it.

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Dear Women's Health Magazine,

What I would like to say is "WTF" but since my mother reads this I won't.
Instead, I'll say "WTH" for What the Heck?

My husband and I are loyal Men's Health and Women's Health magazine readers. We don't buy them every month, but we do buy them frequently - just not usually at the same time. Sometimes when he's out on a hockey road trip, he'll grab one to read on the bus. When I'm in a drug store and I see Women's Health at the cash, I'll grab it. But we don't usually have Men's Health and Women's Health in the house at the same time.

This past weekend, our worlds collided. My husband picked up your magazine to take to a hockey tournament and I bought one at a store to read while he was gone.

Mine has country sweet peach Taylor Swift on the front (blah. She's like 12. What stresses of real life (9-5 job, kids, home) does she actually have to worry about? And my husband has the new teen heartthrob from Twilight/Never Back Down/The O.C. Cam Gigandet. (Last month's Barack Obama was a much more interesting choice).

Here's the thing. We came home together on Sunday and threw our magazines on our bed.

And, surprise, surprise, they didn't sound the same when they landed.

Now, I'm a sociology major so I did some social science research when I was at Queen's University and after conducting a very thorough examination of these two magazines, I found something shocking:

December Women's Health: $5.99
December Men's Health: $5.99

But check this out:

December Women's Health: 140 pages
December Men's Health: 236 pages

Why is my husband's magazine almost 100 pages more than mine – for the same price?

Truthfully, men's health is far more interesting than women's health. It has better recipes, tech features and exercise stuff - and far less of the frilly "How to Survive Your InLaws" and features on shoes.

So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to buy Women's Health anymore. I'm going to read my husband's magazine.

I know women pay more for their hair and drycleaning, but my husband gets 100 more pages of ads and editorial content? Don't think so.


And here is the rest of it.

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My love for Barack's love

Do you want to know why I love Barack Obama?
Yes, of course, he handily defeated Sarah Palin, who's the worst kind of woman since she thinks she has a right to speak for every single woman in the United States with her pro-life nuttery, but that's not why I love him.
I love him because he loves his wife.
Way, way more than I should, I hear boyfriends/partners/husbands make disparaging remarks about girlfriends/partners/wives. They tell intimate secrets that I would be mortified to know is out in the public domain and they make inappropriate comments to other women.
I don't ever want to hear again that it's OK for men to look as long as they don't touch. Yes, fine, look, but don't tell me you're looking.
What I rarely hear and see from men are public declarations of love and PDAs. Think about it: When's the last time you were out with a group of friends, and one of the couples just spontaneously kissed? Grabbed? Hugged? Gave the bum a little squeeze?
I think Obama's warm marriage makes him appealling to women. He looks like he wants to kiss Michelle, unlike the staged Al and Tipper Gore face smushings we had to deal with in 2000.
On Tuesday, a beaming Obama brought Michelle and his two daughters out on stage in Chicago to make his acceptance speech and within a minute or two, he was professing his love for all the world to see and hear: "... I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart, and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden. And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation's next first lady Michelle Obama."
Now, if Obama can get up in front of the world – the world – and declare that his wife is "the love of my life" can't you send your honey some flowers at work? Grab her as she's leaving the office for lunch and plant one on her? Send her a card in the mail, just because? Take out an ad on your local newspaper to say her short hair looks nice. Blog about her? And then, most importantly, boast about it to your buddies?
As Barack Obama would say: Yes, You Can!

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The husband, the beer-can fish and the perfect sandwich

I think my husband is pretty close to perfect (sorry to gush but I'm still a newlywed so I have to savour the love). How do I love thee? Let me count the ways (but I don't have much room here so I'm going to count only to three).

1. You leave love notes in my car.

2. You've taken up running so that I have someone to accompany me on my five-kilometre loop.

3. You (happily) went to the movies to see Sex and the City with me - which, by the way, was almost two and a half hours long. And it was bad. So, so bad.

See? There's a lot to love.

But he also has some major flaws.

My No. 1 pet peeve is the kind of thing that can kill a relationship.

Ladies, I know you're with me on this one: A steak sandwich and its chopped-up, saucy sister sandwich, the Philly cheesesteak.

We like to spend our money in local, specialty restaurants, but sometimes, if we're travelling or out with family, we eat at chain restaurants and that means he's going to order The Sandwich of Doom.

This is how our conversation goes: "Ready to order?" the server asks.

"I'll have the steak sandwich," my husband will say.

"Yeah, um, could we actually have

a minute?" I'll snark. And then I berate him.

"Why are you having that? It's never good. You always say it's tough and chewy. It has no taste. It's full of gristle. The bun is like cardboard."

And then he gets it anyway. And he doesn't like it.

"I don't know why I got that. It's never good. It was tough and chewy. It had no taste. It was full of gristle. The bun was like cardboard," he'll say.

So you can understand my horror when he ordered a Philly cheesesteak from a little hole in the wall called the Lakeview Tavern and Restaurant in Erinsville, a town about 45 minutes northwest of Kingston.

From the outside, it looks dumpy. But inside? It's fantastic. There's a bar with red vinyl swivel seats. The restaurant's tables and chairs are mismatched and many chairs are brown-flowered vinyl, just like the kind my grandmother used to have in her dining room.

There are arcade games - Ms. Pac-Man, Terminator 3, and, my favourite, Big Buck Hunter III, which lets you shoot animals with a massive gun. (My son thought this was incredible, even though we didn't put any money in it.)

There are stuffed fish and deer heads on the wall. (My son thought these were incredible, too. It was like going to the petting zoo and not having to actually touch the dirty things.)

And then the piece de resistance -a fish hanging on the wall made out of Molson Export beer cans.

"Nemo!" my 23-month-old son shouted.

"Hi Nemo! Hi! Hi! Hi!" he squealed, just days after discovering the animated fish movie Finding Nemo.

And then it was time to order. I asked for a chicken wrap. My son got chicken fingers. My stepson ordered a burger and my stepdaughter ordered breakfast - eggs and bacon.

All simple roadhouse staples. "And I'll have the Philly cheesesteak," my husband said.

Once he got it, he took one bite and then shoved it at me.

"Taste this," he said.

"I know, I know, it tastes like cardboard," I said as I bit into the -

Tender strips of melt-in-your-mouth steak, sauteed onions and green pepper dripping in a sweet barbecue sauce and blanketed in mozzarella, on a warm, toasted bun.

A fish made out of beer cans and a delicious steak sandwich. What more could a girl want? A glass of Shiraz.

And Lakeview has that, too. My husband. Such a genius.


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Essential tactics for gossip girls

My husband and I have a thing we do (OK, it's a thing I do) when I want to tell him a story about someone when we're out in public.

If we're going out for dinner, I'll prep him on the drive to the restaurant.

"Tonight," I'll say, "I'm going to tell you a story about Dan Bandanamana. But, when I do, I'm going to call him Bille Bo Bob."

"Uh huh," my husband will reply, knowing that he's going to have to sit through one of my dramas.

It's a scheme I've devised so that I can talk about someone without worrying about whether his wife/sister/coworker/brother is sitting next to me - unbeknownst to me.

I started doing this a few years ago because when we went out for dinner we could never tell stories that involved anyone because we were always surrounded by people we knew, or people who we knew knew us, even if they didn't know we knew them. Know what I mean?

The new-name scheme is a plan I think other people should adopt.

I was out for dinner the other night with my girlfriends talking about whether it's OK that we feed our toddlers wieners, chicken fingers and chocolate milk for dinner when I heard: "Blah, blah, blah, Sarah Crosbie, blah, blah, blah."

The table next to us was having a good time chatting - about me. I was sitting just one person away from them so I gave them a smile.

They were so involved in their conversation, they didn't notice my gesture. Nope, they had no idea that that girl enjoying her glass of Australian shiraz was me. Sarah Crosbie.

"Blah, blah, blah, Sarah Crosbie, blah, blah, blah," – I could make out only every third word or so. I wasn't annoyed I was being talked about. I was amused. But then, my amusement turned to worry. I know I'm due for a hair cut and, yes, I've gained five pounds over the last few months. Maybe I looked so out of sorts I didn't even look like myself?

Working at a newspaper brings a certain amount of celebrity when you live in a city the size of Kingston.

There are times I like chatting with readers - like when I'm out on a date with my hubby, having a nice time, sipping wine - (when I look good) -and there are times when I'm not so keen about chatting with readers, like when I'm at the drugstore buying diapers with bedhead and raccoon eyes from yesterday's mascara.

One time a few months ago, a lovely older man who was in his 70s or 80s met me at the cash register and wanted to chat.

"Well, fancy meeting you here so early in the morning, Sarah Crosbie!" he said with a huge smile.

"I'm getting my newspaper. Whatcha getting this time of day?"

"Oh, well, you know," I said, as I tried to hide the box of tampons behind my back.

I slowly backed away, mumbling something about having to go grab something, anything, to get me out of the humiliating situation. It was like having to talk about feminine products with my grandpa.

I also once had a Kingstonian tell me she was at a little resort, Los Corales, in Santiago de Cuba, the same week my husband and I were there - and she saw us.

Saw us doing what? I thought. Frolicking on the beach? Kissing?

Hoovering our dinner? Jumping in the pool with our clothes on? My mind raced as I tried to rewind the entire vacation in my head.

I don't have a problem with people talking about me. All I ask is that if you are going to take my advice and give me a new name so you can gab about me openly, you make it something fun like Billie Bo Bobette.

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Sex and the City and refried beans

I remember five years ago when my best friend popped by my apartment for a visit.
I’ve always been messy – (but it’s an organized mess) and I never know where anything is (I would, my husband and my mother tell me, if I’d just put things back in their proper place) - but I’d sunk to a new low.
I’d become a prisoner on my own couch. In a semicircle surrounding me were 10, 15, maybe 20 cans of opened refried beans with a fork stuck in them. Yes, I’d been eating the beans out of the cans. I’d washed the beans back with a case or two of Diet Coke. I’d eaten myself into a corner.
“Oh, Sarah,” my friend said, surprised, shocked, saddened at what my life had become.
A few weeks earlier, my live-in boyfriend had left our “love nest” and me. About half a day later he had a new girlfriend. The one-two punch gutted me. The days that followed were about survival. Wake up. Shower. Go to work. Come home from work. Cry. Eat dinner. (The only thing I could eat that didn’t make me throw up was refried beans and Diet Coke.) Cry. Go to sleep.
My friend lovingly scolded me and told me it was time to pick myself up and get outside and do something.
“Yes!” I told her.
“I’m going to go do something!”
After she left my home, I had an epiphany: I had nowhere to go and nothing to do.
I lost myself in that relationship. I did what too many girls do: I made myself all about my relationship and I’d become one-dimensional.
I did really need something to do – but what? When I wasn’t working, I’d been a girlfriend and now that I wasn’t a girlfriend, I had nothing to do when I wasn’t working.
I stood on my apartment balcony and looked out at Kingston. The sky was licorice black that night and the stars were sparkling. And in that night sky, I saw it. I saw a sign. It was a sign from the heavens.
OK, it was actually a sign from Blockbuster.
I lived just a few steps from the downtown video store on Queen Street. It was there I found something to pick myself up. It was there I found four new friends. It was there I found Sex and the City on DVD.
I didn’t get HBO so I’d only seen bits and pieces of the cable show when I was visiting my parents’ house but every time I turned it on there, one of the show’s star’s breasts were on display and I didn’t want my parents to think I was into porn, so I always quickly turned the show off.
Here, in the comfort of my own pigsty, I could watch the sordid adventures/affairs of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte without feeling guilty. In fact, I could watch the episodes over and over and over again.
Soon, my routine changed. For the better. Wake up. Shower. Go to work. Come home from work. Watch Sex and the City. Eat dinner. (I started buying my dinners at Blockbuster when I picked up the DVDs – convenient or what? – so I was now on to nacho chips and the bright orange plastic cheese nacho cheese dip and Diet Coke.) Watch Sex and the City. Go to sleep.
Truly, I credit the show for pulling me out of my slump.
These four friends did cool things: Charlotte hung out in art galleries. Miranda ran a marathon. Samantha did yoga. Carrie wrote newspaper columns – for a living.
Like millions of women, I’m dying to reunite with my girls now that Sex and the City: The Movie is in theatres.
Carrie and company always celebrated with Cosmopolitans.
I’ll have a Diet Coke and maybe some nachos.
For old times’ sake.

(This column appeared in the May 31 edition of The Ticket, inside The Kingston Whig-Standard)

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'See the little turds all floating around'

Saturday morning of the long weekend, and I am standing in my laundry room with my new best friend Justin. Justin, you see, is the man who was supposed to make all my problems disappear.
What Justin has to say is serious business. I watch as my husband and Justin talk, each nodding their head knowingly about the situation at hand and what we have to do to fix it. I shake my head knowingly, too, pretending to be interested in the conversation. But truth be told, I’m daydreaming about a Girl Guide camp I went to when I was 12 years old. It was there, in our tent, late at night, that I learned something dirty, something so disgusting my mother banned me from repeating it in our house for many years. But here, in my own laundry room, the song danced around my head, like the doo doos that were bobbing up and down on my laundry room floor in a flood of black water.
“Sam. Sam. The laboratory man. Chief inspector of the outhouse can. Toilet paper, toilet paper, paper towels, listen to the rumble of the human bowels.
“Deep down, under the ground, see the little turds all floating around. Sam. Sam. The laboratory man. Scooping up the poopies with his bare, bare hands. Yah!”
Our home, it seems, was experiencing a main line backup. When Justin The Plumber first got to our house that morning, he thought our problem was a minor blockage in the sewer pipe. An hour later, the situation has been upgraded to what my two-year-old son would call an “uh-oh.”
Justin feeds a black-and-white camera down our main line through our “cleanout,” which looks like a portal to another world (it’s really just a hole in our floor) to see what is causing the problem.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says, as he stares at what looked like blobs to me.
(Apparently sometimes you can see rats crawling toward you, so I’m happy I see only blobs.)
As he feeds the camera through our line, he points out one, two, three, four massive tree roots that have grown into our line. The roots, he says, are acting as barriers, so things – food, toilet paper, other non-mentionables that go down the toilet – can’t pass.
“Man, really, I’ve never seen anything like this. Your line also looks deformed!”
Really, truly, I’m so glad my pipes are so screwed up we could be a training academy for apprenticing plumbers, but it has to be pointed out that the, ahem, Number 2s are still doing the backstroke around my laundry room floor.
Now, this is really awful, but I truly want to go up to Justin and gently explain that those little swimmers aren’t mine. I don’t know whose they are – maybe a neighbour’s? a sewer rat’s? – but they aren’t mine.
After much discussion about how we were going to solve this stinky situation, Justin The Plumber recommends he doesn’t clean our main line. He’d pushed through a blockage that was causing the problem but he says our pipe is too fragile and too deformed to be cleaned and the whole thing could crumble – which would cause more of a backup. His advice is to get the whole pipe, tree roots and all, dug out and replaced.
Then Justin The Plumber says something I’ll never forget: “I hate to give good people bad news, but these things can run as high as $8,000, $10,000.”
I think back to my laundry room floor.
Maybe I’ll take a gamble. I did, after all, get hitched in Vegas last year.
“How long will our pipe last if we don’t fix it?” I ask.
Justin The Plumber says our pipe may last a few months.
Or, our very next flush could be our last.
So, what he was saying is: It’s a crapshoot.

[This column appeared today in the Ticket, the magazine I edit that appears every Saturday inside the Kingston Whig-Standard, my day job. Starting this week, I'll post my Whig column here regularly.]

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