Last Friday morning, I walked home from the grocery store with tears running down my face. It had promised to be a very ordinary day: drop off the kids at school, pick up a few things from the supermarket, get some laundry done and some emails answered before teaching at noon. I’d be thinking about…
Category: Humanitrivia
Adventures in the lives of humans.
Tragic Follow-Up to a Five-Year-Old’s Birthday
You know how everything old is new again? How marketers realized that all the kids of the 80s are having their own kids and will pay good money for things that make them go Aw man, I used to have one of those!! Well, I didn’t, as it happens, have any of these particular items,…
Stress Is Just How We Roll These Days
Doesn’t it seem like stress has been trending for too long? Like it’s a bit ridiculous that feeling hassled is not reserved for crunch times – that instead it’s just a way of life? Last week a colleague, who also happens to be my friend and neighbour, asked me, “Do you ever feel like you’re just barely…
Spring Flowers and their Intoxicating Magic
Yay, it’s spring! Somehow, I’m even more excited about it this year than usual. I’m glad there’s been plenty of rain, like there’s supposed to be. I’m glad there’s been nice sweater-weather – some years it seems we go straight from winter to summer. A few weeks ago, I had a dream weekend (for the…
Nerdy Mom Plays With Kids’ Toys, Vol. 6 – Tender Moments
Happy Friday, lovely di-hards! Minnie could never have guessed that being lost at sea would result in a very special connection with a misunderstood sea “monster”. After all, he’s really just a creature looking for love, like you and me (but more scaly). Sometimes, if an orphaned mini counting-bear comes along at the right point in…
The 2016 Review + New Year Questionnaire
Happy New Year! Isn’t it nice to have a new start, after the year we’ve had? Time for the semi-traditional New Year’s Questionnaire. This year, I’ve decided to take some liberties with it. That is to say, I deleted or modified the questions that were annoying me or seemed repetitive. No time for baloney in 2017!…
Nerdy Mom Plays With Kids’ Toys, Vol. 5: Animal Affinities
Nerdy Mom’s back. ALL RIGHT. [insert classic ’90s hip-hop moves] *** [subscribe2]
Antique Children’s Book: The Epic Animal Cutes Conclusion
Here we go. The conclusion of Animal Cutes – and finally, some hope for our ugly friends. Puppy knows. Like the sunflowers among which he frolics, his time in the sun will nourish him in health as he becomes an adult dog. He also knows he’s actually the love-child of a Mastiff and a St. Bernard, so…
Antique Children’s Book, Part 3: Kangaroo, Elephant, and Pig
I know, the last instalment was kind of intense… Not as whimsical as they look, these Animal Cutes. I’m afraid Part 3 also contains some sinister activities. Poor Miss K. Look at her face. She is clearly fleeing in terror. My sleuthing tells me that the backwards K on her shirt symbolizes, in baseball, “a strikeout looking…
Antique Children’s Book, Part 2 – Sailor Hippo, Tommy Duckling, and Ostrich
Antique Children’s Book, Animal Cutes: The plot thickens. If you thought the questionably cute critters in Part 1 were subversive, get a load of Part 2. Hoo boy. So many questions. Why is the hippo a sailor? Why is he old and illiterate? Why is he trying to look wise? I have a notion that “Old…