23 Friday Nov 2012
Posted in Well, That's Just Stupid
That’s right. Now we can buy wash cloths that are WATER ACTIVATED. Just add water and you can clean your child!!
Pictogram instructions on the back for those of us who are too simple to grasp the concept immediately or, for that matter, read.
Happy Black Friday to my American friends. Are you thankful that we live in a society that can provide such amazing products?
22 Wednesday Feb 2012
Tags
For the last year, I have been on a quest for a decent night light for Owl.
You’d think it’d be easy.
But no.
It doesn’t help that I’m being as picky as hell.
You don’t find nightlights in the grocery store or pharmacies. Even places like Walmart have an abysmally small selection.
I eventually picked up a cheapy one with a little shade on it, and that worked for quite a while, until Owl broke the shade off.
My mother gave Owl a cute little giraffe night light, which worked great until last week, when Owl managed to break that as well. I’m not even sure what he did, but the switch doesn’t work any more.
What I really want to find is a cozy little lamp – one I can keep up on the windowsill out of reach. One that is relaxing, and dim enough to keep Owl’s room feeling like night time, but bright enough that I can read by it – I spend a lot of time in that gliding rocker trying to sing Owl down to sleep without booba.
Oh, and it needs to be cheap, too, because we have no money.
Daycare Lady has a lamp she uses for the kids during naptime, which she says they really like. I borrowed it for a couple of days and I loved it – it gives a warm glow that isn’t too bright but does illuminate the room. It has an inner bit which spins, casting dancing shadows which I find very relaxing.
I totally want one.
Two problems:
1. It has Dora the Explorer on it, and it’s bright pink.
Not only is it corporate branding, but it's wrong-gender corporate branding!
2. It is discontinued.
But that’s ok. I didn’t need this exact item.
I’ve been avoiding buying Owl anything with branding on it until he is old enough to request it himself. Besides, I was sure I had seen similar things in stores before, so I started trawling the lamp aisles at places like Zellers and Walmart.
No luck! In fact, I couldn’t find ANY children’s lamps, even though I am sure that I used to see cute ones all the time when I was out training service dogs years back.
So I went online.
I found the kind of thing I was looking for, all right.
09 Wednesday Nov 2011
Posted in Life and Love
We love America.
We just don’t want to live there.
Some Eastern friends of ours went to the States on vacation last summer and were shocked at how cheap everything is.
I had to try and explain about how other costs of living (like health care – man, reading about @grammargeek’s hospital bills was just shocking for me. I can’t imagine trying to decide between my health and child… and financial solvency) balance things out.
We pay a little more for groceries, but we pay way less in health care. I’m not complaining.
But in any case, stuff is really, really cheap in America.
We Vancouverites are used to it, however, because we treat the States like our personal shopping mall.
For those of you who live in America:
Did you know that you have stuff for REALLY FRIGGING CHEAP?
Like gas. My gawd.
It makes no sense to me, because WE are the ones with oil. We rival the Middle East for oil production and yet, for some reason, we pay $1.36 a litre, which works out to 5 bucks a gallon. And then we cross the border and see your gas prices, and it’s like: WHOA.
We seriously contemplated buying a Jerrycan just so we could buy MOAR GASOHOL.
And groceries? Wow. I don’t know if it’s the way Americans seem to be in love with everying bulk, or what, but dang some things are cheap.
Like chicken. Chicken is frigging expensive up here, so we stock up on a LOT of chicken when we go to the states. And cheese. Man, we love to buy your cheap cheese.
But the ultimate in U.S. shopping experiences was going to Cost Co in the States with some friends who have a membership.
We drove down together and let Owl, who is a natural born U.S. citizen, although neither he nor the U.S. are aware of it yet, explore his native soil.
SHOW ME THE SHOPPING
One thing we have found about shopping in the states is that you can get most things in bulk – cheese, meat, waffles, margarine… except for vegetables.
You want 2 lbs of butter? Sure. But 2 lbs of frozen beans? Not in the cards for us. Oh well. We have fruits and vegetables back home, and we’re not supposed to bring them across the border anyway.
On the other hand, you do get WTF products like this: 
That’s right. Pancakes and Sausages. ONNA STICK. And they”re artificial blueberry flavoured. If that isn’t a product that sells itself, well…
I was also awed and disturbed by the gun display IN WALMART. I mean, dang, it wasn’t just like a couple of .22 hunting rifles. They were massive, black, gleaming, deadly looking things. To someone like me who NEVER sees actual guns except maybe on the hip of a police officer, it was truly bizarre.
I didn’t take a photo of the murder-weapon display because I thought that would look suspicious, but I did have to take a photo of this:
You'll shoot your eye out, kid!
…Then we went on to Cost Co where we got 5 pounds of cheese, pre-grated, 20 pounds of chicken, and a lifetime supply of waffles.
We also bought, like, 15 bottles of pop, and we got ALL the pasta sauce. America has no more. It’s all in our pantry.
Owl, can you say "consumerism"?
Good boy!
17 Tuesday May 2011
You know how sometimes you’re in the grocery store and you see something surprising (like, oh, to take a totally random example, Yogurt Soda), and decide that you totally want to spend the four dollars to find out exactly what it tastes like?
That is a universal feeling, right?
…So we happened to be in the grocery store yesterday and Perfect Husband was like “look, Yogurt Soda!”
and I was like, “I AM TOTALLY CURIOUS AND WANT TO BUY THIS PRODUCT. Should I get Original, or Mint?”
And PH. was like, “…are you serious?”
This is why I don’t normally make the decisions in our household.
I like Yogurt. I like Soda. How could this go wrong?
I thought it’d be a little like Yop. Fizzy Yop. With less sugar, since the only ingredients were yogurt (with bacterial culture!), carbonated water, and salt.
“It’s low carb!” I wheedled.
So we get home and I pour myself a fizzing glass of this fascinating new dairy product. Sure, Yogurt Soda seemed like an odd idea, but it’s clearly Indian/Middle Eastern in origin, and they make delicious yogurt drinks. PH is especially a fan of Mango Lassis. So maybe they were on to something!
you know you want to drink this
I didn’t expect it to be good, per se, but I thought it would be interesting.
Well, potable, at least.
What I didn’t expect – perhaps because one’s imagination can only stretch so far – was to recieve a mouthful of sour, curdled, death. SALTY, sour, curdled death. WITH FIZZ.
“But Carol,” some of you argue, “you don’t even drink milk. How do you know what curdled milk tastes like?”
Ok, I don’t. But I know what my baby’s puked-up stomach contents smell like, and this tasted like those smell. Only salty. And fizzy.
Kind of like baby puke in sea water. WITH FIZZ.
“But Carol,” others may point out, “It’s yogurt. That basically is sour milk.”
Okay, but I ate plain yogurt for breakfast just that morning, and its smell did not automatically turn my stomach. The memory of that plain yogurt does not haunt my dreams. That yogurt wasnt salty. Or fizzy. And it was, oh what’s the word…
Oh, right!
EDIBLE.
Then I made PH taste it, totally against his will, because until you have tried this, you don’t understand. It makes Buckley’s cough syrup seem delicious. Garbage? Divine.
Oh, you think you can imagine it, but you can’t.
Maybe the next time you sniff the milk carton and realize that the kids have been drinking directly from it, and that it now smells like the sour contents of an infant’s stomach, you could add some salt to it, pour in a dollop of club soda, and discover it for yourself.
But since PH and I spent the next hour eating anything we could find which was not Yogurt Soda, desperately trying to banish the memory from our tastebuds…
I don’t recommend it.
Unless you want to try the mint and report back to me. I can’t. PH would probably divorce me if I suggested it.
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