A Praying Atheist?

Help me understand this. I have been an atheist my whole life, and not just a run-of-the-mill atheist, but quite a devout and passionate atheist. Religious people annoy me. I have known to spew: "That's like believing in Santa Claus!" over heated dinner party discussions. While I envy people having something from which to draw strength during difficult times, and for their ability to accept what terrible travails life throws at them as simply"God's will," I never quite grasped the suspension of disbelief that being religious seems to require.

And yet for the past two months, every night when I get into bed, I clasp my hands together and pray to someone, I don't know who, for strength and courage and wisdom in dealing with the breakup of my marriage, my heartbreak, my children's heartbreak and whatever the world's got in store for us. (Cue up Wilco song: "What's The World Got in Store?" -- a great empowering song if you don't know it.)

At first I don't think I even realized I was doing it. Then I started to wonder: Who exactly am I praying to? Is it my dead father? My dead friends, Dave and Daryl? My dead grandmothers who were gone before I was born? Who? Could it be I am praying to ..... GOD???!!??!! When I don't believe there is a God? And could it mean that perhaps there IS a God if I am suddenly, almost unconsciously, praying to him every night??? Has the Lord Jesus entered my soul???!!?? Will I find myself in church in a couple of Sundays singing hymns and putting that thing in my mouth? No, not priest-meat, I mean that wafer thingy!

For God's sake, is there really a god***ned God??!!???!!! Or would I pray to a Shetland pony right now if it would make me feel better?

Farewell Dr. Divinsky

Reading the Globe today, I learned that a former physician of mine had died far too young of cancer. She was only my doctor for two years and probably fewer than five appointments but she left her mark.

First of all, she was the only doctor, who after administering standard blood tests of which I'd had many before, phoned me up and said she noticed I had no immunity to rubella and as a woman of child-bearing age, I might want to consider getting the vaccine. I did indeed get the jab and to this day still wonder, why the inimitable Mimi Divinsky was the first doctor to recommend this course of action to a 30-year-old woman.

Secondly, when I was going through a rather difficult period, she recommended counselling. When I told her I thought I knew myself fairly well, she explained that it wasn't about that and sometimes others can provide valuable insights. Years later, when I finally did see a shrink I learned all too well what she meant. Right again.

RIP, again.

Down with hipster parents Part XXV

Is hipster parent bashing becoming as widespread and all-pervasive as hipster parents are? In today's NYT, David Brooks joins the pile-on. Since columnists are behind the Times Select wall, you'll have to read it here.

Tearfree's favourite line: "Innocent infants should not be compelled to sport “My Mom’s Blog Is Better Than Your Mom’s Blog” infant wear."

Weekend Observations on the Oscars and The Ho Who Led Britney Spears Astray

I am having a lazy weekend reading the papers and a couple of things are bugging me.

Let's start with the Academy Awards. I saw four of five of the movies -- missed Iwo Jima -- and I would be very happy if either Little Miss Sunshine or The Queen won. The Departed? Not Scorsese's greatest, and disturbingly violent and profane. Babel: Hard to follow, depressingly dark, plot seriously stretches credibility. The Queen was great, but it's too British to win. I loved Little Miss Sunshine, and think it deserves to win, but the backlash has already started against this movie, including from two Globe and Mail writers -- today, it's Rick Groen -- continuing to flog the horse that the film simply rips off National Lampoon's Family Vacation.

Oh please. Family on a road trip. Dead relative. Similarities end there. You could also, I suppose, argue that Little Miss Sunshine rips off The Grapes of Wrath, a novel about another dysfunctional family heading west. Tiresome, goofy argument that completely dismisses how smart, moving, well-crafted, and beautifully acted Little Miss Sunshine was. GO LMS GO!!!

And now onto Britney Spears. Firstly, I am bugged that I cannot get "Toxic" or "Hit Me Baby One More Time" out of my head in the wake of The Troubles, since I have never been a fan of the music. But here is something that is disturbing me even further. Many have suggested that Britney, who has always seemed a sweet, naive and troubled girl, didn't hit the hard stuff til she started hanging out with that evil-to-the-core skank ho, Paris Hilton.

In fact, Canada's very own Lainey is reporting that there are rumours in Hollywood that "someone" introduced Spears to crystal meth a couple of months ago, telling her it would help her lose the rest of her baby weight. That someone is rumoured to be none other than that skinny villainness Hilton herself -- or "Hollywood Ebola," as Lainey calls her -- pushing a heartbroken woman with a toddler and an infant son at home to start messing with the hard stuff in addition to convincing her to go out on the town without her underpants on and then calling up the paparazzi to make sure they got the shot.

Firstly: a woman is SUPPOSED to be somewhat doughy after just having a baby! Secondly: I hate Paris Hilton!!!

Here is my fondest wish: that Britney reaches deep down to her trailer trash core, kicks the meth, rises from the ruins, is reunited with her babies and stages an awe-inspiring triumphant comeback during which she exposes Paris Hilton for the awful immoral racist drug-pushing nasty-assed hosebag that she is. "I'm back, y'all, and I'm here to tell you that Paris Hilton is an evil drug-pushing skank!!"

And then men in uniforms with badges appear and have Hilton arrested for drug trafficking or just for being a terrible person and lock her up forever in a prison where she'll have to remove the ice-blue contacts that are making her eyes all wonky, remove her hair extensions, do without the Valtrex, let her bleached hair grow in its natural brown, gain weight from being denied coke and crystal meth and then have her arse kicked repeatedly in jail for all the nastiness and shallowness she has brought to the world.

GO BRITNEY GO!!!

Y'ALL!!!

The review you're looking for

Update: There seems to be a lot of demand to read that bad review, even more demand than there is to read about synchro swimming, one of the topics that has made RTK famous.


We know what's going on with Wiped but Gawd forbid that someone's dissed synchro swimmers. Those girls are athletes with a capital A.

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Sorry no links available for the entire text unless you provide them. We found it courtesy of Max Fawcett's blog:

“Columnist Rebecca Eckler, seemingly the first woman in Canada to both carry and birth a child, has naturally deemed it appropriate to document every stultifying moment of her experience in book form…What’s missing here is any intelligent self-analysis that might convince the reader that the book’s title is anything other than a declaration of how its pages might best have been used.”

-Emily Donaldson, reviewing Eckler’s “Wiped: Life With a Pint-Sized Dictator” in the latest Quill and Quire

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More trainwreck blogging

Our kids, ourselves

For the past week or two Tearfree's been discussing the whole idea of posting pictures of your kids on the Internet. During the course of that discussion she also admitted she doesn't like it when people try to push their choices onto their kids. IE, Dad likes the Ramones, therefore Jr. should groove to them. Mom is a staunch environmentalist, therefore her two-year-old wears a "Support Kyoto now" button. Mom and Dad want want to make names for themselves blogging therefore post a gazillion pictures of their kids, etc., etc.

This is something that I've reflected on from time to time but never really got to the bottom of. While I want to pass on the big important values to my daughter, I don't want to turn her into a little mini-me. Because I know I have strong opinions, I want her to be able to disagree with me and form her own opinions. If she wants to listen to Hilary Duff, vote PQ, and when she's 18, post pictures of herself all over the internet, well then so be it. On the other hand if her future boyfriend wants to post her pictures as part of some performance art project, threatens to leave her if she doesn't vote for an independent Quebec, and makes fun of her taste in music, I want her to have the cojones to tell him to get lost.

In the discusion of what constitutes child indoctrination, I've always, however, gotten a bit stuck on the religion question. If it's wrong, as I think it is, to use your toddler as an accessory at a political rally, why then don't I feel that it's wrong to drag him to church or synagogue or whatever? Even though I'm an atheist, I allowed my child to be baptized for the sake of family harmony. After the service, people told me they were surprised, but I just said, "It's all mumbo jumbo to me. Pass the champagne."

This piece in the Guardian (Hattip: Normblog) offers a perspective I hadn't thought of before. The wife is an atheist, the husband's a practicing Christian. She thinks the kid should decide when he's old enough. A commenter says that's stacking the decks. "To be able to make up his mind in due course, shouldn't the son be allowed to hear from both parents what they believe and what their beliefs involve?"

Now that would be tolerance.

Seinfeld Dilemma Regarding Hot Public Transit Employee

I apologize for that last post. It came after days of fuming and listening to Alanis Morissette and Courtney Love. Those girls are sure to mess with your emotions. From lyrics like: "How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out" to "Go on, take everything, take everything, I want you to!" -- I was in a bit of an emotional jumble. Just ignore it, because I have had an Elaine Benes moment that I need to share immediately.


Today I am coming to work in the streetcar and seething silently to myself about one of my pet peeves -- people who get off the streetcar via the front doors during rush hour. Getting out the front doors during rush hour is the height of rudeness, arrogance and inconsideration. It slows down the flow of traffic of people getting onto the streetcar who have to pay at the front. The side doors are there for PEOPLE TO DISEMBARK!! I have always, always made a point, even when it's not rush hour, to leave the streetcar via the side doors, and I sneer openly at the people who insist on getting out the front door when there is a crowd of people waiting to get on. I believe I have even hissed. I have certainly ranted.

So I am sitting on the streetcar and I notice suddenly that the streetcar driver is exceedingly hot. I am talking square-jawed, high-cheek-boned, great-haircut, George Clooney hotness. Seriously, seriously hot. And naturally, I can't stop watching him, and then begin finding him even hotter. He helps a woman on the streetcar with a stroller. He smiles and coos at her baby. He cracks a funny joke to a girl who doesn't show him her transfer. Most importantly, he doesn't seem gay, and there is no wedding ring. And UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE I KNOW, I am not into wooing married men.

I decide, since he drives a car on my line, I must somehow speak to this public transit Adonis in some moderately flirtatious way. And yet, in order to talk to him, I would be forced to disembark via the front door during rush hour. Do I abandon my principles in order to make a connection with one of the hottest men I've seen in years? Do I disembark via the front doors during rush hour??!!??!!

No. I did not. He doesn't even know I'm alive. Elaine would be ashamed.

Photos of non-fur children cont'd

In the comments section of RTK's last item on posting pictures of your kids, Danigirl of Postcards form the Mothership comments:

Hmmm. I think I disagree with the gist of this post. I post pix of my boys on a fairly regular basis, maybe a couple of times a month, depending on how adorable they happen to be or whether I remembered to bring the camera along.

The idea of posting pictures in itself isn't bad, and if someone posts in lieu of having anything better to day and people still visit, I can't really see how that's a problem either.

I do admit that bathtub pix of little girls make me cringe. It's a double standard, I guess, cuz I don't feel so worried about my boys. But, I wouldn't expose their bits, either.

I think text can be even more revealing than pix. That's the part that worries me. When do I stop owning the right to tell their stories?

Well, I would start by asking "when did you ever acquire the right to tell their stories?" I find this idea that they're young so it's all okay, which I've seen put forth by many Mummy bloggers including Dooce, rather wrong headed to say the least.

I think the question you need to ask is: who am I doing this for? If you're doing it for you or even partly for you, fine, but BE HONEST about it and be prepared that your children might not appreciate it.

After all, how would you feel if someone posted several pictures of you a month without your permission? If it was great art, I might be okay with it, but if it was someone trying to get a book deal on the back of my pics, I would, at the very least, want a cut of the proceeds.

I agree with you that text can be just as invasive as photos, which is why there are a lot of things and people I don't write about. Of course none of this is to say that family members or others should have the right to veto everything displeasing that is written about them. In may cases, there is indeed a public "right to know" and, of course, a lot of the great characters in literature are based on real people who were, no doubt, very unhappy with their fictional representations. If the writers can live with that and deal with the consequences then I'm certainly okay with it too.

In the case of many Mummy blogs though I'm not sure the product created is worth the violation of privacy although for all I know, the kids may grow up not to care in the slightest. That's the part that remains to be seen.

And just one more point for the week when Britney shaved her head in her latest episode of self destruction, perhaps it's not a bad idea to reflect on what the glare of publicity can do to young children.

More fur children on all animal-blogging Monday

Monday morning mouse murder

Complete commotion before dawn this morning with the animals going wild.

Looks like Fonzie has won his reprieve.

WARNING: A concerned commenter suggests you do not click on the picture if your are mouse-a-phobic.

Weekend We-told-you-so edition

We told you synchro swimming was totally cool.
Now, see the McGill synchro team perform on one of Arcade Fire's Neon Bible videos. Go here and click on 1 Swimmers in the upper left hand corner. This sport is definitely on an upswing!

We told you Ségo was a lightweight. Now French intellectuals have finally caught on.

We told you about smoking denialists. Now the Globe's interviewing one. Guess which famous Canadian said, "To me, tobacco is a grounding herb," ... as smoke swirls like a ghostly halo around blond wisps of hair twisted on the top of her head?"

RTK -- consistently ahead of the trends!!!

We've All Had Bad Hair Days, But .....

I woke up this morning and did my customary search of my favourite celebrity blogs and look what I found. Britney Spears. After a one-day stop at rehab, she went out and shaved her head and got a couple of tattoos. She's looking very GI Jane, no?

Now don't get me wrong. As someone who was born a blonde and then sadly had to watch it fade -- after having children -- to a boring shade of dishwater boringness, I got caught up in the tyranny of being born a blonde and started that endless and expensive cycle of highlighting. After years of peroxide, I started to wonder what my real shade was and how glossy my hair might look if it wasn't chemically brutalized every six weeks. I fantasized about shaving my head and letting it start all over again. But instead, I just dyed it darker, and now I have a lovely golden brunette shade that I only need to have touched up every two months or so because of the lack of roots!

Hey, Britney -- we've all had bad hair days. You especially with all your ratty-assed weaves and alternating dye jobs. It's clear your hair was bugging your ass. I guess I get it -- shave it all off, start over again. But you might want to kick all the drugs and the booze before taking such a drastic step.

Poor Britney. She looks crazier than a rabid bat in that photo. And here we thought Lindsay Lohan was the young Hollywood train wreck. You'd think after seeing what just befell Anna Nicole Smith, these girls might rethink the drug and alcohol consumption.

Smoking is fatal

Yet another reason not to smoke for Jacy's taxi driver And yet another great cover shot for the Journal de Montreal, which went with the headline "Pause-Cigarette Fatale."

Talk about overthinking it

In today's Globe, Rick Salutin, whose "logic" is frequently puzzling, asks why people watch the Superbowl and then attempts to answer his own question:

For many, it's an escape -- from realms like work, family or politics, which can be oppressive and bewildering. You can easily grasp a football game, just as you can understand sitcoms or Canadian Idol. In fact, with Canadian Idol, you get to vote and you have a clear sense of what your vote means, way more than in most elections. So you turn on the Super Bowl, partly to get away from the baffling politics of the environment, health care or crime.

And to think, Tearfree thought people watched the Superbowl because they liked football. Not to mention the fact that she still can't figure out what's going on in a football game. Soccer is easy to grasp -- you put a ball in a net, hockey -- you put a puck in a net, basketball -- you put a different type of ball in a different type of net, but football -- yeah, sure, the touchdowns are easy enough to grasp but all the rest seems very complicated. Or perhaps it's just me?

Pictures of your kids -- Part 2

After yesterday's post on whether or not it's okay to post countless pictures of your kids on the internet, Tearfree did some more thinking on the subject and came to the conclusion that the occasional pic is ok, but making your kid(s) a staple of your blogging is not because it violates their privacy. Tearfree finds the case of one blogger who herself remained visually anonymous while posting kiddie pics almost daily particularly out of line.

Bloggers who constantly post kid pics on blogs with decent traffic are using their kids for their own interests. Issuing a disclaimer that you've thought about your actions but are are still pic-posting because you want to share your joy in your child or your motherhood issues is all well and good but it doesn't address the fundamental problem nor the fact that when you use your kids regularly on your blog to generate traffic, you've also put yourself in a classic conflict-of-interest situation.

Interestingly enough, here in Quebec, a Supreme Court of Canada decision against a photographer who published a street shot of a teenage girl without her permission has resulted in major restrictions on photographers' rights. As someone who generally favours as few restrictions on freedom of seech as possible, that decision does indeed scare Tearfree in certain ways, but she supports it in others.

So next time you se some Mummy blogger posting the gazillionth photo of her kid, you might want to consider the issues the Supremes had to grapple with and wonder whether in years to come Mummy bloggers are going to find themselves hit with a whole bunch of lawsuits:

Civil liability ‑‑ Invasion of privacy ‑‑ Publication in arts magazine of photograph of teenager taken in public place without her permission ‑‑ Whether publication of photograph infringes teenager’s right to her image and to privacy ‑‑ Whether freedom of artistic expression or public’s right to information justifies publication of photograph ‑‑ Whether publication of photograph caused teenager prejudice ‑‑ Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, R.S.Q., c. C‑12, ss. 3, 5, 9.1, 49.

Civil rights ‑‑ Right to privacy ‑‑ Right to one’s image ‑‑ Publication in arts magazine of photograph of teenager taken in public place without her permission ‑‑ Balancing of right to privacy and freedom of expression ‑‑ Whether publication of photograph infringes teenager’s right to her image and to privacy ‑‑ Whether freedom of artistic expression or public’s right to information justifies publication of photograph ‑‑ Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, R.S.Q., c. C‑12, ss. 3, 5, 9.1.

Civil rights ‑‑ Freedom of expression ‑‑ Freedom of artistic expression ‑‑ Publication in arts magazine of photograph of teenager taken in public place without her permission ‑‑ Balancing of right to privacy and freedom of expression ‑‑ Whether freedom of artistic expression or public’s right to information justifies publication of photograph even though such publication infringes teenager’s right to her image and to privacy ‑‑ Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, R.S.Q., c. C‑12, ss. 3, 5, 9.1.

In the age of Youtube and cellphone cameras, we are no doubt going to be hearing a lot more about these types of issues in the years to come.

The silver screen

Tearfree doesn't know how she managed to miss this photo until this evening's trip to the grocery store when she saw a very large colour version of it gracing the cover of the Journal de Montreal. All she'll say is she doesn't much care for Patrick Huard's mullet especially given the controversy around black turtlenecks.

In other Quebec movie news Tearfree is worried about getting frisked as cinema operators crack down on video pirates. Although she has never made bootleg DVDs, she does regularly bring her own candy, chips and soft drinks to the movies because the prices at the concession stand are so outrageous they have led to a flourishing black market in movie snacks. Why just across the street from the Paramount theatre in downtown Montreal, there's a Jean Coutu with a special candy and chip wall that caters almost exclusively to movie goers.

Up until now, everyone's looked the other way, but Tearfree will be a lot more careful on her next licorice smuggling expedition. Any tips on where to stash it or should she just be totally brazen about it and assume that all they're looking for is video cams?

A Surreal Valentine's Day Moment

Today I was taking a very crowded streetcar to work in the middle of a blizzard, and I had the misfortune of sitting in the seat in front of a woman who was yapping to her boyfriend on her cellphone. The woman made me want to leap out of the streetcar and back into the raging blizzard.

She was talking loudly to her boyfriend, Tom. Poor Tom, I will call him. Her end of the conversation went just like this for the entire 30-minute ride:

"I want the biggest rock in Toronto so you'd better get a job."

"I want you to be employable because I want a honeymoon cruise and new things for the apartment that I refuse to get at Zeller's and I want a huge rock."

"Listen Tom, you better do a hundred seminars because I want the biggest rock in Toronto and I get to pick it out, not you, do you understand what I am saying to you? Do I have to speak more slowly?"

"You'd better get a job that pays more than that, Tom, because I am not going on any cheap cruise, I want an expensive cruise, do you hear me?"

"You do triple the seminars, Tom, because seriously, I want a rock and really expensive sheets and new furniture and a really expensive honeymoon, do you get it?"

The strange thing was, she had a very deadened zombie voice, not the nagging, hectoring voice you might imagine.

But I digress. By the end of the streetcar ride, I was close to spinning around in my seat, ripping the cellphone from her hand and shrieking: "Hey, Tom ... RUN!!! RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!!! RUN, TOM, RUN!!!!!"

Now I know I am not in a very loving state of mind these days but honestly, poor Tom. Poor, poor Tom. What a happy union he has in store for him if this is how he gets treated on Valentine's Stinking Day.

It's about all those pictures of your kids

Tearfree's commented before that she finds people who post endless pictures of their kids and endless pictures of themselves and their kids more than just a tad exhibitionistic.

No, Tearfree doesn't worry that pedophile psychos are going to sweep down and prey on the sweet innocent babes. And yes she understands that writers often use their family as fodder. But still...there comes a point, and Tearfree thinks many Mummy bloggers have gone way beyond that point. Despite all the lengthy angst-filled protestations to the contrary, it strikes Tearfree that the flurry of kiddie photos isn't so much about the offspring as it is about their parents' look-at-me needs. James Poniewoznik pretty much nails it when he writes that "the generation that as children was told by TV that 'the most important person in the whole wide world is you' is finding it hard to pass that torch."

Mummy blogs are indeed all about Mummy. It's why they're called Mummy blogs. And while on a philosphical level, Tearfree agrees that great art should not be suppressed because of some family member's supercilious over-sensitivity, she laughs at the imaginary meetings Mummy bloggers envision where they explain to their aggrieved teenage kids that they did it because were Writers.

Mummy bloggers, you are not going to know what's hit you. Maybe later, Tearfree will ring your alarms and ask her 12-year-old to follow up on this post and write something more about blogging parents and what kids think of them.
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Previous hipster parent dissing posts can be found here and here.

Koolaid serial killer???

Sitemeter reveals


Google reveals


Tearfree guesses


Anyone got any other candidates?

Anna Nicole: Tearfree's two cents

OK, so Tearfree never saw Anna Nicole's TV show or even heard her interviewed, but she did follow, albeit haphazardly, the coverage of the Supreme Court Case and her son's death.

Tearfree has a certain grudging admiration for young women who are -- how should she put it -- "pragmatic" enough to marry old men either for money or power. As a kid she rembers being simultaneously fascinated and appalled by the Jackie/Ari match and photos of former U.S. supreme court justice, William O. Douglas, who at age 67 married an all-American college girl.

As a young woman, Tearfree was puzzled by the sexual sacrifices that other women were prepared to make for security although she now realizes that the "sacrifices" weren't necessarily as great as they appeared since all these wives seem to have had various younger men on the side.

In any case props to Anna Nicole for marrying the grizzled gazillionaire and getting long-term gain for some short-term pain.

Tearfree does however have some concerns about the motherless five-month-old daughter and she would like all these lawyers and judges to stop screwing around and conduct the DNA tests that will determine the paternity of the child and then give Dad the kid. How hard can that be? DO IT NOW.

As well Tearfree has some questions for everyone out there who is complaing about the coverage of Anna Nicole's death given all the starving children in Africa, bodies piling up in Iraq, etc, etc? Don't you understand that we all get it? And that your thoughts are completely banal? Or do you actually think you're expressing an original point of view?

Monday Morning Mailbag

First, dear readers, Tearfree apologizes for her absence last week. She is fully aware that she broke one of her own blogging rules, namely no disappearing without warning -- unless it is a true emergency-- and she begs your forgiveness. The reason Tearfree vanished was because she had to sort out her finances to figure out how much she can put into her RRSP this year. Along with her employment at the ivory tower, she runs a little consulting business on the side, so this involved lots and lots of fishing receipts out of shoeboxes and filing dental insurance claims etc, etc. The whole process is still not entirely finished so blogging may continue to be less than regular this week, but it will certainly be more frequent than last week.

To mark her return to the blogosphere, Tearfree thought she should take time to answer reader questions.

Whatever happened to 40 and no boat?

Alert readers know that 40 is a member of my extended blended family so I called and asked him why he'd quit blogging and if he had anything to say to RTK readers.

"I quit because you pissed me off," he said. "I can't remember why."

So much for BAYL.

What are you and Jacy going to do about your cats that you hate?

I am near the breaking point with my cat. He tortures our sweet dog, causing her to yap, and lately the yapping has been getting more and more frequent and is starting to drive me nuts. I think I am going to phone the woman, who passed this bum cat off to me seven years ago and who now has a fabulous cat, and tell her tht after seven years I've finally had it and I'm sending the cat back to her. However if any of you are interested in adopting Fonzie, please post in the comments.

As for Jacy's cat, no doubt she will update us all in the comments.

Is that hot celebrity chef David Adjey gay?

Site meter shows that we get a lot of traffic from people wanting an answer to this question and unfortunately I have no idea. Frankly given Jacy's current situation, I'm more interested in whether he's single.

You've blogged about serial killers in the past so how come you're ignoring Robert Picton?

I'm not so much interested in serial killers as people's reactions to them. Let me do some research on people who said Picton was just a regular nice guy and get back to you.

Are there any new softwood lumber developments?

I am trying to get an interview with Concerned Lumberjack about softwood lumber updates, his new job, etc, but he is super Bay Street busy these days. Doesn't even answer his Blackberry.

How did you cast your ballot in the Trainwrecks vote?

B, all the way. They say it's the safest best in multiple choice exams

Just Because It is So Ridiculous, It's Funny

Now That's What You Call Denial

I love Toronto taxi drivers. Some of the best, most uplifting and novel-worthy stories I have ever heard have come from Toronto cab drivers. They come from all over the world, many of them highly educated, many of them with heartbreaking and inspiring tales about how they ended up here. I usually leave the taxi feeling humbled and awed.

Tonight I had a guy from the Ukraine. He told me his first name but I can't remember it. It was clear, however, that he couldn't be placed in the "highly educated" category of Toronto taxi driver. He was smoking heavily when I got in the cab, tossing the butt out the window when I sat down. He had a voice like the voice of a 65-year-old man who'd smoked two packs a day since he was 12 -- which he said was pretty much exactly what he was.

And he insisted to me, the whole way home, that "smoking does not cause cancer." When I told him my own father died of a massive stroke at 67 after smoking heavily since he was 14, he said: "That is just coincidence. Probably he ate the wrong foods." He also insisted that the Number One killer of adults is stress, depression and anxiety -- which means, by the way, that I am going to croak any minute now; this could be my last post!!! -- and that since cigarettes calm his nerves and cheer him up, it is crucial that he continue to smoke them.

I was almost impressed with the sheer magnitude of the denial. It's like continuing to believe the Earth is flat, or that Paris Hilton is a classy and elegant young lady.

Why I'd Sooner Give H***jobs for Crack Than Give Up My Cleaning Lady

Gosh I love my cleaning lady. I am sorry if I have been posting too much dreary depression lately. I am going to stop now, and return this blog to the fun, sunny and informative place that Tearfree can be proud of.

And so today, I am going to write about why I love my cleaning lady.

1. She looks like Linda Hunt. Remember Linda Hunt? She played a nasty little man in the Year of Living Dangerously, worth a rental if you haven't seen it if only to take in the sheer and breathtaking beauty of a young Mel Gibson, before he went all weird and drunk and racist. I always thought Linda Hunt was cute as a button. And my cleaning lady looks just like her, but cuter. Way cuter than in that picture up there.

2. She cried when I told her what's happened to me. It was nice to know she cared and that I am not just a cheque to her.

3. Since learning what happened to me, and despite being cut back to only twice a month, she does the sweetest things to make me feel better. She dug warm flannel sheets that I had forgotten all about out from the back of the linen closet and put them on my bed. She plumped and arranged the pillows on the middle of the headboard, not a stack on each side, as if to say: ``See! You have this whole big bed all to yourself now! That's not so bad, is it?!?! And look how House and Home it looks now!!!"

4. She cleaned my oven and my fridge today. Two big jobs. Usually she only does that once every few months. She did it to make me feel better, I know she did.

5. She loves my kitty cats and always makes sure they're in the house when she leaves.

6. She loves my kids and laughs at their shenanigans even if she has to clean around them.

7. She even shovelled my front steps today.

These are just a few reasons why I love her, and, indeed, would sooner sell sexual services on a street corner to obese horny men with oozing boils than get rid of her. I love her so much, in fact, that I am going to print this off and leave it for her when she returns in two weeks.

Cancelling the Foster Child: An Especially Proud Moment

So even though my estranged husband is promising to be very generous re: the house and our finances in a proposed separation agreement, that has not stopped me from freaking out about money.

The week after he left, I de-ordered a lot of Rogers Cable services, and I knocked down the cleaning lady from once a week to twice a month. Some of you may think -- wow, life's tough. But there were four kids and I work full-time and he wasn't very helpful on the cleaning front, so rather than fight about why I had to scrub the tubs, do the vacuuming and clean the toilets again this week, we decided we'd have a cleaning lady once a week for all those nasty jobs. We paid the woman well, because we were so grateful. I feel for poor Gail, the best cleaning lady on the planet!

But yesterday I had to phone Foster Parents Canada and cancel the foster child. Poor little Sahib, struggling in an impoverished Egyptian village, will no longer be the benefactor of my $33 a month. I wonder what they'll tell him. "Sahib, in the West, marriages break up frequently. Your foster mother has been dumped by your foster father, and she's really nervous that a life of poverty -- much like yours, in fact, Sahib -- is ahead for her if she doesn't drastically reduce her monthly expenses. You're in good company, Sahib -- she also axed the cleaning lady, the Movie Network and one kid's cellphone, and she's actually considering killing one of the family pets due in part to the amount of canned food he demands at all hours of the night and day and then refuses to eat. So it could be worse, little Sahib! Better luck next foster family!"

Pressing Question: Is it Wrong to Want to Put a Pet to Sleep Because He's Annoying the Living Crap Out of You?

I know, I know -- another pet post. But please bear with me -- I need advice.

I had two nice young cats -- Wilbur and Coco. And suddenly, about two years ago, this ancient guy showed up. Only two teeth left, half-blind with cataracts, in bad shape, quite old. And I felt so sorry for him that I took him in. As my onetime husband said: We've already got two, so what's the big deal about a third? The Humane Society was over-run with cats and wouldn't take him. And it was clear to me this old guy was some old lady's lap kitty and when the old lady went into the home or died, someone just opened the door and let him out. He was obviously an indoor cat and the wimpy animal-lover in me just couldn't turn him away, figuring he's as old as the hills and he'll die soon anyway.

He's still alive.

At first, Stevie Wonder was totally low-maintenance. Grateful to have a home, he just slept and ate and would briefly go outside to do his business. But then he started demanding attention. Now I like lap cats as much as the next person -- there is one sitting on my feet purring away as I type this. But Stevie Wonder is like the perverted old uncle of lap cats. Within seconds of him jumping in my lap, he is soon dry-humping me and quivering with excitement while trying to suckle me at the same time. It is the creepiest, most disturbing thing you've ever seen. And he's also now taken to wandering through the house in the middle of the night yowling for reasons none of us understand, including the two younger cats who were here first. He doesn't seem to be in pain and he's not sick -- it is just some old-man weirdo cat thing. But I have a third-floor loft bedroom with no door, so every night he wakes me up. And I need my sleep right now as I struggle to adjust to the reality of being single again. If I wake up even slightly, I remember what's happened and lie there and weep. Every night, this cat is waking me up and causing me to lie and weep.

In short, Stevie Wonder is bugging my ass. I can't find anyone who will take him -- who wants an old blind toothless horny house cat? So I kind of want to have him put to sleep. Even the children don't seem horrified by this idea ... he freaks them out too. But I feel it's wrong to order the execution of another living soul just because he's getting on your nerves. Isn't that Hitler-esque? Or not?

Super Venting Friday

What is it with all these people complaining about how New Blogger sucks and all these others spreading the meme?

First of all, New Blogger is great once you get used to it.

But most important of all BLOGGER IS FREE!!!!!!!

Yes, yes, yes, all of this, the links, the photos, the templates comes free, gratuit, kostenlos.

How hard is this to understand? Really, please, if a complainer can clear this up for me, I'll buy you a Martini -- FREE!!!

P.S. Read Tanya Espanya on another entity that generates prolific undeserved complaining.

Against nutritionists and gardening

Regular readers know Tearfree holds a serious grudge against nutritionists (among others) and their pseudo science. The Unhappy Meals article in last Sunday's NYT magazine explains in detail many of the scientific problems in nutritional research and also makes the point that nutritionists take the fun out of eating.

Needless to say Tearfree doesn't agree with the ending where author Michael Pollan exorts readers to "Cook. And if you can, plant a garden … the food you grow yourself contributes to your health long before you sit down to eat it. So you might want to think about putting down this article now and picking up a spatula or hoe."


Tearfree has made it clear before that she does not want to garden or do yoga as so many of her friends and peer group members do. She would rather sit and read a book or wireless blog in a garden tended by someone else. Her ancestors worked long and hard so they could stop making a living from the land and Tearfree is greatly indebted to them. Bring on the heirloom tomatoes but please oh please, stop telling Tearfree she should be growing them herself instead of blogging.

And Michael Keren, that goes for you too.

Black turtleneck blogging

In keeping with this week's "Oh, those wild and wacky Quebec cops" theme, it's time to discuss something that's been bugging Tearfree about Bon Cop, Bad Cop for quite a while. Why oh why does this movie make fun of gorgeous Colm Feore for wearing a black turtleneck?

Tearfree has always been a fan of black turtlenecks on men, and she has certainly never associated them with squaredom. Just the opposite, in fact, as it takes a certain je ne sais quoi, which Colm Feore has definitely got, to pull off a black turtleneck.

Furthermore a quick google-imaging (is this a new expression?) of the black turtleneck would seem to underline the sweater's stylishness.

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Now admittedly, the guy in the bottom centre is an exception to the rule in his Fuzziwuzzi knitwear, but fortunately Tearfree has never been exposed to such a site in person.

The only reason Tearfree can possibly fathom for laughing at the turtleneck-clad Colm Feore was that he was wearing his in the middle of summer, which was a tad odd.

Fashion experts? Russell Smith? Please weigh in.