R.I.P. Evil Knievel

You know how these things happen in threes. I hope Awful Knawful isn't next.

Sick Days

So I spent two days lying on my couch this week, lapsing in and out of feverish sleep waiting for the antibiotics to kick in.

The first day, I watched an entire HBO series available on TMN on Demand called Tell Me You Love Me. Well that was quite something, let me tell you. Remember thirtysomething? It was like that, but with extremely explicit sex scenes. I mean EXTREMELY explicit sex scenes. There were scrotal sacks and bare breasts and even erect penises, and some flaccid ones, on full display, and I honestly cannot see how some of those sex scenes were not actual sex scenes. I mean I just don't know where the thrusting actor would have stuck the thing if not ... well ... in the welcoming petunia of the actress lying spread-eagled beneath him. It was really quite something.

But once you get past the sex scenes, the show was actually enthralling in other ways. Three relationships, all of them in trouble, all centred around the same couples counsellor. The first a young couple in the first blush of young love with major trust issues. The other a married couple trying desperately to get pregnant and having sex constantly, but not always terribly joyously. The third couple is the most heartbreaking -- they are totally in synch on the children and family front, both good and kind people who clearly love one another, but have stopped having sex and just cannot get it back on. They were the most compelling and the couple you were rooting for with the most intensity. Just do it, Dave and Katie! Get drunk if you must and get it on!!!

If you like shows about the vagaries of romantic love, and you don't mind the odd wild sex scene breaking out, you should check it out.

The second day, I watched two of last year's best-reviewed films: Little Children and Notes on a Scandal. The first one was at least a half-hour too long at more than two hours and I found it disturbing at times because it was all about adultery and how selfish and narcissistic it really is, when you get right down to it. The adults in the movie, in fact, were the children. But the acting was great and Patrick Wilson might have the most astonishing physique I have ever seen on a man. Kate Winslet, as always, was luminous and wonderful.

Notes on a Scandal was fantastic, fast-paced and well-written. Judi Dench is brilliant as a nasty, hateful old crone and Cate Blanchett is almost sympathetic as the schoolteacher who embarks upon a doomed affair with a 15-year-old student.

Sick days .... even when you're wishing someone would come over and snuff the life out of you, you can at least catch up on your television and movie-viewing.

Hell is Strep, Garbage Day and Pining Boy

Last night as I lugged out my garbage in blowing flurries while nursing a 103 temperature brought on by strep throat, then slipped and fell on the icy leaves that I failed to rake up before an ice storm last week caused them to stick like Krazy glue to the pavement, I thought to myself: "I am in hell."

This was only heightened by the fact that my 13-year-old son has started sleepwalking in the middle of the night, and wakes up either me or his sister to ask where his step-siblings are. This hurts one's heart. It really hurts when you're lying in bed unable to sleep because your throat is so sore, you're burning a sweaty hole in your mattress from the fever and your tailbone is throbbing from the major wipeout you took while lugging box and after box of recyclables.

The strep is why I haven't been blogging. Sorry ... I'll be back. I've always hated the month of November.

Back soon!

You can always read the Scottish Terrier and Dog News.

Tearfree

Oh Elton!

For more than 30 years, I have had two old Elton John songs on an almost continuous loop in my head -- Teacher I Need You and Elderberry Wine from the 1973 album Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player. And a few weeks ago, I was watching the season finale of Californication, and I was overjoyed to hear another song off that album -- High Flying Bird -- that I honestly had not heard in more than three decades. It immediately, and quite emotionally, transported me back to my childhood, and I realized I desperately needed to have that album. I ordered it off Amazon.ca for $5.99 and it arrived the other day, and has been on my iPod ever since.


I was just a little kid when that album came out. My sister was a huge fan, and I think it was playing constantly in our house for a year, and certainly on every road trip our family took for a couple of years. Listening to that achingly lovely song, Blues for My Baby and Me, I almost burst into tears, because I could vividly remember driving through Vermont in the fake-wood-panelled Brady Bunch station wagon on our way to Massachusetts while rubbing my father's aching shoulders as he drove. I was instantly there; I could even remember the colour of the trees and the feel of the fabric of the shirt my father was wearing.

The greatest thing, however, is that my daughter is listening to it and loving it, hilariously because she thinks Elton sounds just like the Scissor Sisters and also because many of the lyrics, written by Bernie Taupin, are about women and wives and girlfriends and, well, she's only ever known Gay Elton. I had to remind her that a straight guy wrote the lyrics.

But it is so gratifying to have your daughter turn you on to the great music of her childhood and her generation, and then a week or two later, you're turning her onto the great music of your youth and telling her how you remembered giving her beloved grandfather a neck rub as you listened to it on a family road trip. It was a sweet mother-daughter moment. Thanks, Elton!

(And for any of you youngsters out there who only knew the Lion King Elton, please, go back and rediscover his first few albums. I don't think he made a good one after Captain Fantastic, but almost everything prior to that, with Bernie Taupin writing the lyrics, was well and truly brilliant.)

Why Are My Female Relatives So Bizarre?

So on Thanksgiving, I recommended both my sister and my mother go see Michael Clayton, a movie I had just seen and loved. My mother loves George Clooney, my sister works at a law firm and loves thrillers. It seemed a no-brainer: Michael Clayton was a really good, suspenseful legal thriller starring George Clooney!

A few days later the accusatory call arrived from my mother. She had gone to see the movie and she hated it. She wanted me to explain the significance of a few fairly meaningless moments in the movie, bits that were just meant to provide some insight into the characters' mindsets and weren't significant to the plot. But it was her accusatory tone, as though I had done her wrong by recommending the film, that irked.

A week later she calls to tell me my sister had also been to see the film and she hated it too. By this point, I got a bit hot under the collar. "What is the purpose of this call? I didn't write the film," I snapped. "I just liked it. Maybe you should contact the film-makers." She got huffy.

Yesterday, my sister e-mailed me in a similar accusatory tone. She hated the film. Why did I have such weird taste in movies? (This opinion stems back from many years ago when I raved about that notorious dud, "Raising Arizona" -- still one of my favourite movies of all time). Why did I think it was good? I pointed out it was one of the best-reviewed films of the year according to that Rotten Tomatoes site and, you know, there's no real accounting for taste, is there? You like what you like!

Tell me -- is this normal behaviour? If someone recommended a film to you and you didn't like it, would you get in touch with them to challenge them on the recommendation?

I wouldn't. The next time I saw the person, if they asked me if I'd ever got around to seeing it, and if so, did I love it, I would be honest and say: "I didn't really like it that much, I'm sad to say. And I didn't really get this part ... what did you think was going on there?"

But I'd never in a million years phone someone up or e-mail them and give them hell for the recommendation.

It made me grumpy. Perhaps I am over-reacting. But if any of you out there go to see the movie based on this post, I will have a tantrum if you suggest I was an idiot for liking it.

Wilbur Has a New Lease on Life

Ever since Stevie Wonder, the horny old decrepit cat, got sick and died, my other male cat, Wilbur, is like a new man.

Stevie Wonder's arrival two years ago turned Wilbur strangely aloof. And despite him being a big, young, healthy cat who is basically the undisputed king of the kitty-cat neighbourhood around our house, Wilbur was intimidated by the horny, half-blind and half-deaf old man, much to our surprise.

My aunt, a longtime country-dweller with cats, dogs, and thoroughbred horses, knows all about odd animal politics and warned me that two male cats in the same house gets weird unless they're litter-mates. And she said the younger one will frequently, although not very happily, defer to the older one.

But since Stevie is gone, Wilbur stays inside more often and is overly affectionate, loving, and quite hilarious, playing catch with toy mice, rolling over for tummy rubs whenever he catches your eye and even being nicer to our female cat, Coco. We suspect he viewed her as a treacherous traitor when she made friends with Stevie Wonder.

Now everyone is happy, especially me, with no vomit to clean up, no yowling in the middle of the night every night, no demands for a new can of food to be opened every hour, and a nice, funny tabby cat who's got a new lease on life.

I Now Despise Henri de Toulouse Lautrec

Yesterday I was informed by someone who seems to want me to join a Hate Club that I don't particularly want to join that my ex just spent the week in Paris with his girlfriend.

At first I was OK. I took a deep breath and took it all in. But then, slowly, the black misery engulfed me and I was back in that dark pit of depression with very slippery sides so that even when you try valiantly to claw your way out of it, you keep sliding back down.

I lay in bed from 3 p.m. on too stunned and too grief-stricken at first to even weep as I recalled our time in Paris, and how they were the happiest moments of my life, going to restaurants like Benoit and Le Timbre, sitting in the famed Cafe de Flores laughing and chatting, walking hand in hand along the Seine and throughout the city exploring, having constant "sexy time" in the pretty little hotel room with the beautiful bathroom that I'll never forget, having a picnic in the Eiffel Tower park, drinking champagne every night, feeling really and truly in love, even after three years together, and knowing that marrying my husband was the smartest thing I ever did. I wondered if they did the same things, went to the same places, saw the same sights, felt the same way?

Eventually the tears arrived. I even called my ex at one point, not angry, just wanting to weep to him and ask him: "Did I ever mean anything to you? Was I ever special to you? Was I just the latest bird you took to Paris?" Instead, too distraught to speak, I hung up. And you know why? Partly because I didn't want to ruin his Paris buzz. Even when I feel like a bare heart on a plate, I care enough about him not to want to ruin his week in Paris with the woman he was banging while married to me.

I ended up on the phone with my friend Kimberly til 1 a.m., sobbing forlornly as she cooed and comforted. She has been my oldest friend since kindergarten, and we are not touchy-feely and never have been, but I honestly wanted her to come over so I could cry into her bosom. I wanted to crawl, sobbing, into my bed with my son at one point but managed not to. Instead I lay awake all night, and when I got up this morning, I burst into tears again looking at the Toulouse Lautrec poster hanging prominently in my living room that we bought together to commemorate our time there.

In short, I had a 24-hour breakdown that surprised even me with its intensity given I am nearing the one-year mark. But as my friend Carol said today: You can't rush grief. You can't bury it away and pretend you don't feel it and throw yourself into something or someone else and not acknowledge it, because if you do, you're destined to continue being haunted by it. You are grief-stricken. The guy you knew, for all intents and purposes, died and has been replaced by someone else who looks the same but bears no resemblance to the man you were married to. It could take years to fully get past the grief and to understand that he's gone, and perhaps he never really existed at all -- he was just an illusion. I guess she's right, but man, did this one catch me by surprise.

And now I hate Toulouse Lautrec, that pint-sized motherf***er. I have taken the poster down and I don't know what to do with it. Would anyone like it?

Annoying Co-Workers

My friend Fritzi's recent post about taking an instant dislike to a co-worker got me thinking about my own annoying co-worker. Let's call her Flo.

Flo works with me and about six other people in a fairly open office space. We all have our own little cubicles, but the dividers are only chest-height, so you simply have to stand up if you want to talk to people face to face.

Flo is an aggressive Hello-er with a loud sing-songy voice containing a subtle hint of menace. She starts two hours later than me and when she comes in, she sings "Hello Jacy!" and then proceeds to go down the other five names. Why she just can't say: "Hi, everyone," none of us understand. What's worse, if you don't say hello back immediately -- let's say you are distracted by something at the time or engrossed in your work -- she will sing the "HELLO JACY!!!!" loudly and aggressively until you say hello back. This makes me want to leap over my cubicle wall, put Flo in a headlock and smash her head into the nearest filing cabinet until the sing and the song disappear.

And to make matters even worse, even after you have the big morning hello-fest, she will still say hello to you every time you walk past her that day. If I get up to go the bathroom and she catches my eye, she'll say "Hello!" again! If I walk past her in the hall on the way to another floor, again with the goddamned "Hello!!!"

This has made me want to erupt in a scathing rant that would go along these lines: "Flo! We said hello at 11 o'clock this morning. And when I get up to leave at 5 p.m., we will say good-bye. One hello per day, and one good-bye, you got it??!??!?? And if I AM CLEARLY DEALING WITH A WORK MATTER when you come in and say hello every morning and don't answer you immediately, just live with it, OK, Flo?!??!!"

It's not like I don't talk to the woman. I include her in some of the chatty small talk that typically goes on in any office setting every day. And I don't snap at her the way I want to when she imposes herself into one-on-one conversations I might be having with other people within her earshot. Believe it or not, of the six of us in our space, I am actually the most tolerant of her. But one day soon, someone's really going to blow at Flo.

Topless photos boost ratings

While Jacy's been publishing the bottomless photos here, I have been showcasing topless males with wiener dogs at my new blog, the Daily Dachshund and Dog News, and completely naked women with scotties at the Scottish Terrier and Dog News.

Don't let anyone tell you that naughty photos don't do wonders for blog traffic. Now, who can we feature next?

Tearfree vs. weather woman

Okay, I am going to have to do a bit of an embarrassing climbdown here, but since my diatribe against the weather woman Monday not only did she get the forecast for the week right, but she changed her style and even started mentioning diagreements among meteorologists.

If she keeps this up next week, it will be time for an official RTK retraction.

"Serenity Now, Serenity Now, Serenity Now"

So I ran into someone the other night who told me things about the final year of my marriage that I didn't know and didn't want to know -- just further deceptions, lies I was told, etc. Of course my initial reaction was to go home and weep. Then to get mad at the person for telling me what he did because there was a definite "pot kettle black" element to our brief discussion -- this guy was no marital angel himself, and none of us are. But then the other kind of anger set in as I lay there all night and absorbed what I was told and put the remaining pieces in the painful puzzle that was the final year of my marriage.

And in swept my friend Funnypants, who proceeded to give me some of the best and funniest advice ever about dealing with anger.

He says much of this advice is borrowed heavily from Buddha, but with his own unique spin. And there truly are lessons to all of us here if we still find ourselves angry about terrible times from the past.

Here are some snippets from the dear Funnypants:

"Do not dwell on, or try to understand, the evil sh*t. The bad stuff that's been done to you, and the anger you feel about it, is a red hot coal. You want to pick up that f***er and hurl it smack into the gob of the arsepig who's done you harm. But what's the first thing you do? You burn your own goddamn hand!"

And another, again, with thanks to Buddha:

"Imagine all the terrible things that have happened as a teaspoon of salt. Put a teaspoon of salt in a glass of water and it's going to taste pretty nasty, right? You can't change the nature of the salt because, well, it's motherf***ing salty isn't it? So if the salt is the bad sh*t that's gone down, the trick is to make more water. Stop obsessing about the nature of the salt and fill up your life with good things. A teaspoon of salt in a bathtub, a pool, a lake - sure, it's still there, but as you add more water it becomes increasingly imperceptible."

Good advice to all of us who find ourselves staring down the rage beast every now and again.

Further to That Whole Sexual Harassment Thing

So today I went for a massage because my neck has been killing me. I decided to splurge on a 90-minute deal because it had been so long since I'd been for a massage and because I am spinning and running regularly, I thought I could use the whole full body job, not just my neck and shoulders.

Now you tell me if this was inappropriate.

I had a male masseuse, looks like the less attractive older brother of Ryan Gosling. He is NOT eastern European, as is my usual practice, because I went to the secondary place, not my usual spa. He was a bit of a mouth-breather but seemed pleasant enough.

So while he's working my legs and glutes (just at the side, not a full-buttock massage), he asks: "Do you work out?" I say yes and tell him what my weekly routine is. To which he replies: "I can tell, because you've got an incredibly hard butt. It's really impressive."

I think I stopped breathing for a moment or two, I was so taken aback, and then was quite uncomfortable since he was vigorously kneading my naked hips and my upper thighs at the time. But he never said another thing that was unprofessional. And eventually I relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the massage, even though I was suddenly acutely aware that I wasn't wearing any underwear under the blanket.

So was it unprofessional? Was that sexual harassment? Or was it just the talk of the trade?

I honestly don't know.

p.s. That photo above? I wish!

Weather woman drives me nuts

Almost every evening while I am preparing dinner I listen to CBC radio and the local weather woman, Getta Nadkarni, who sends me round the bend. The basic problem is that she believes her own weather forecasts and it's all the worse because she's not actually a meterologist, but rather just a telegenic new ager with four days of training at the CBC's Toronto weather headquarters.

Every Monday. Geeta will tell you what's in store for the coming weekend as if she's not just playing the odds at the roulette table. And then with supreme confidence, she will lay out what's going to happen every day of the week until then. She never expresses any doubt at all that what she says will happen will actually happen.

And the hosts of the show never take her to task for being repeatedly wrong about either the weather forecast or whatever quack homeopathic remedy she might also be touting.

So today in the interests of hard-hitting investigative research, I noted Geeta's forecast for the week, which I will fact check for accuracy everyday.

Tuesday Sun and cloud mixed. No showers. She assured us -- promised in fact -- that they will end overnight. And it's supposed to be chilly tomorrow morning.

Wednesay and Thursday Rainy. Highs of 12 to 15.

Friday Sun and cloud mixed. No rain.

Weekend Missed her tea leaf reading as I was running the food processor.

Scroll down to if you want to see Geeta with her pink umbrella.

Dinner With Pals

Last night I had the lovely Gifted Typist and Tanya Espanya over for dinner, accompanied of course by their handsome trophy spouses and one very sweet, content and adorable baby.

I have decided getting to know people through their writing might be the very best way to get to know people. I feel as though I have known GT and Tanya for years, because I actually did get to know them for months, through their entertaining and candid blogs, before we actually met in person.

Tanya and I have lots in common: the youngest in our families, we have siblings who think they're our parents, which at times drives us both nuts. Tanya has a "smother mother" in one sister; my own sister used to be that way and it took me years to get her out of it. We both have eccentric but ultimately loveable brothers.

GT? She and I both had mothers who were ... shall we say ... difficult when we grew up and that difficulty continues to be a problem every now and again.

Mostly, though, all three of us pretty much share the same world view on almost every topic, and the same sense of humour. There was a lot of laughing last night and a lot of unspoken understanding on various subjects. The husbands were awfully tolerant of our behaviour, and very funny themselves.

So all of you out there who have made friends in the blogosphere? Take a chance and hook up in person. Chances are that if you like someone's blog and someone's take on life, you'll be inviting a great new friend into your life.

Next on our target list, by the way, is Beth and MDG. And Dale, of course, for GT and me. Tanya has already been blessed (cursed?) to make his acquaintance.

R.I.P. Horny, Drooling, Vomitous Cat

Yes, Stevie Wonder has gone to a happier place.

For the past month, he was vomiting all the time. Morning, noon, middle of the night. I have now cleaned up more cat vomit than children's vomit and I have been a mother for 17 years. I tried experimenting with his diet, etc., and was in touch with the vet. But nothing stopped the barfing.

After a particularly vomity night, I took Stevie Wonder to the vet this morning and he felt a mass in the cat's abdomen and said he had some kind of cancer so what did I want to do? Spend weeks pumping him full of drugs or euthanize him? I chose to have him put to sleep right then and there.

Even though that cat annoyed the hell out of me, I bawled as they put him to sleep, because he was a sweet, gentle cat despite the dry-humping, the drooling and other weirdnesses. And it was heartbreaking because as soon as I put him in his box to take him to the vet's, it was as though he knew. He knew he was sick, he knew I was cursing him every time he barfed, and he probably knew he wouldn't be coming back home. And so I cried for a half hour, but not like I have cried with other pets who got sick and died. One dog, two cats -- total number of heavy-duty sobbing days? Probably on average, five days for each pet. For Steve Wonder? A half hour. He was an odd kitty when I took him in as a stray two years ago and he just kept getting odder.

When I got back home from the vet's and started doing my weekend housecleaning, what do you suppose I stumbled upon? Yet another huge vomit patch in my son's bedroom that I hadn't noticed earlier in the day. Last weekend I discovered he'd yakked in one of my old, abandoned purses in my bedroom closet.

That cat was ready to go. I hope he is frolicking with other kitties wherever he is and is able to eat as much as he wants without spewing it right back up.

The Single/Heartbroken Woman's Diet

I always thought I was a woman who loved to cook. In fact, I really only like cooking and take great joy in eating when I'm happy. And since I haven't been terribly happy this past year, I have reverted to a college student's eat-to-live diet.

Yes, I cook for my kids, but I usually don't eat what they're eating. I'll sit with them while they nosh, and occasionally nibble, something that annoys my son, who says to me too frequently these days: "Why don't you eat?" or "Is that all you're eating?" I feel bad but I just can't help it -- I am just not hungry. I eat a fairly big lunch at work, and then I don't really want anything til 8 p.m. or so. And it is usually one of the following few meals:

1. Raisin bran.
2. Ace Bakery crisps with some cheese, some olives and an apple.
3. Some dried apricots and almonds.
4. A peanut butter sandwich.
5. A salmon salad sandwich.

The salmon salad jag is an interesting one. My late father was nuts about salmon salad sandwiches. He ate them all the time. And lately, I have been dreaming about him constantly. Disturbingly, he is always beckoning me to come to where he is, usually on a beach or a rocky island in Georgian Bay, and telling me how much nicer it is where he is than where I am. In my dreams, I sort of tell him to piss off and of course I can't and won't come where he is right now. Sometimes, he is eating a salmon salad sandwich. And I wake up craving them and now I'm eating them regularly when I really hadn't noshed on them since my childhood.

Anyway, I suppose when I eventually get happy again I will want to cook delicious meals for myself like the ones I used to cook when I was married. Roast beef, roast chicken, grilled steaks, chicken pot pie, beef stew with Guinness, etc. -- stuff I still make for the kids but just seemed to have lost my appetite for. I guess this is why I was much more zaftig when I was married than I am now.

In any event, I am having dear friends Gifted Typist and Tanya Espanya and their trophy spouses over for dinner tomorrow night and I am going to attempt to eat my cooking for a change. I can't very well sneak a bowl of Raisin Bran onto the table while they're enjoying my pasta.

And on Sunday, I am going to cook a delicious Maple Chicken and Ribs recipe from the new Nigella Lawson cookbook. Maybe that will get my culinary interests piqued again.

I hate Facebook but...

...do have to admit this is kind of cute. Alas, my dog's friends requests are both more numerous and far more exotic than mine:


Our previous "I hate Facebook" coverage can be found here.

'Perv' at park saga continues

Further to my blogging last week and Jacy's most recent post, I have a new instalment in the "perv" at the park saga.

Today as we were all standing around bracing against the cold winds whipping down from the Mountain from which Montreal takes its name, our elderly hero suddenly bolted, exclaiming that he must take his leave and heading in the opposite direction to his home.

Minutes letter he re-emerged, this time homeward bound and in the company of the auburn tressed maiden who he had evidently sought out like a heat-seeking missile.

As I surveyed the scene, I shook my head in dismay.

The young woman wears an IPod so she can listen to music while walking to work. The chances that she wants a half-deaf guy trotting along beside her mumbling banalities are next to nil no matter how polite a front she might put up.

The dog walker who originally raised this whole perv issue with me said, "Now she's going to have to change her route."

"Well," I said. "She can tell him she prefers to walk alone and listen to music."

"Girls find that so hard to do," she said.

And that to me is the crux of the problem. Girls have to be able to get out of these situations without changing their route. And we shouldn't assume they are incapable of accomplishing this and that we have to treat them as frail flowers.

Sexual Weirdness in the Workplace

Ever since my beloved co-blogger, Tearfree, posted about the Potential Park Perv, I have been thinking about the nature of workplace sexual harassment. Mostly how if it's a playful hot guy with abs saying suggestive things at the office, most women will flirt right back or instant message their closest office friend to breathlessly report that the hot guy just complimented her clavicle. Remember Daniel Cleaver in "Bridget Jones Diary?" What woman among us didn't "schwing" at that scene when the elevator doors opened and there was his bad ass, the man who devilishly messaged Bridget a few scenes later: "Your tits look great in that top." Had Daniel Cleaver looked and behaved like Mr. Titspervert, or a similarly greasy-haired guy with Coke-bottle glasses and his pants pulled up to his nipples at any workplace? Immediate sexual harassment complaint.

There is a dear man at my office, a big, husky bear of a guy, who has always made the most politically incorrect jokes and offered neck rubs routinely to the women in the office. I have known him since we were both in our 20s, when such office humour was commonplace. He is a work friend -- we usually try to go out for lunch once a month or so and I gratefully accept the neck rubs since I suffer from chronic concrete-neck. When I was a real mess earlier this year, he found me sobbing a few times in stairwells or outside the office in the back alley, and he gave me big, comforting hugs as I literally sobbed on his shoulder. He was kind, gentle and smart, and sweetly assured me I was going to be OK eventually.

The younger women in the office, however, think he's a perv due to the ribald jokes and the offers of neck rubs.

This hurts me. Because I know what a kind heart he has. He means absolutely no harm and has never once, in all the years I've known him, hit on me. Yes, he has told me I have great legs, commented on my outfits and declared I have perfect feet in the summer when he can see my toes. I guess I am complicit, because I am a sucker for a compliment and always thanked him for his comments instead of saying: "It is highly inappropriate for you to comment on my pedicure and I am going to complain to Human Resources immediately."

I guess it is a whole different world now, when people are sometimes unable to see the grey areas and only see the black and white. I fear for my friend and what might happen to him, and I fully intend to go to bat for him if he finds himself in any serious trouble. But I find it all very sad, and I know he very likely wouldn't be in this position if he looked like Enrique Iglesias.

Attempting to Survive Teenaged-Girl Crazy Years Through Music

I won't deny that my daughter has been tougher to raise than my son. My friend Jennifer, a mother of one of each, like me, once pointed out to me that "boys are like dogs and girls are like cats." In my case, that has generally been true. My son has always been affable and easy-going and as a toddler, I could trick or distract him out of having a tantrum quite easily. My daughter? No such luck. The girl could keep a tantrum going for hours, a bad mood going for days and a general malaise/utter contempt for her parents for weeks or months.

She's been pretty up and down, I'd say, since she was about 12 or 13. Sadly, I thought she was coming out of it a bit right when my marriage broke up. But the breakup has set her back a year or so and she is in an extreme angry phase -- angry at me, most of all, for having failed at marriage and consequently for failing her. There are others she's mad at, don't get me wrong. But I am bearing the brunt and have spent a lot of nights this past year sobbing quietly in my pillow about it, along with everything else.

It is trying at times but, thankfully, one place where we always find common ground is music. I am so proud of her musical knowledge and smarts -- at 17, she knows more than me about pop music, and my knowledge runs pretty deep. She can tell me what hip hop bands started in what city and when, who they influenced, who they spawned. Hip hop represents a large void in my musical mental database. I knew House of Pain and Grandmaster Flash and some of the other huge acts, but too many acts I did not know very well at all.

Which is why I am so delighted to have discovered, retroactively, and thanks to my angry daughter, A Tribe Called Quest. I have had it playing non-stop for weeks in my house and on my iPod. It is fantastic "chill" hip hop/jazz music, very intelligent, very sexy, melodic, rhythmic with lots of cool samples. My daughter calls it "hook-up" music, and she's right -- when you listen to it, you want to dance for three hours and then have sex for three more.

If you aren't familiar with A Tribe Called Quest, download some of it. I am sure Fritzi and Beth know all about it. I feel embarrassed to be discovering them almost 20 YEARS after they first arrived on the scene and went on to influence hundreds of hip hop acts. I knew some Quest songs and liked them, but never had any of their albums or any of their tunes on my iPod and now I am kicking myself.

And in that vein, here is a mix of one of their best-known songs, "Can I Kick It?" I like the version on the album better, but it's still sweet. Love the Lou Reed sample:

Trains and Other Updates; Bad Product Alert

1. I have further investigated the train situation. Apparently they have upped the number of freight trains they allow to use those rails. It's the big hulking slow-moving freight trains, apparently, that are making most of the noise, particularly in the middle of the night. And yes, neighbours living right next to the tracks report that they often signal to one another when they see the other coming from the other direction, at all hours of the day and night. Very considerate of them. What, is there a raging, blinding blizzard? Has one of them derailed? Have a herd of moose stumbled out of the various strip mall parking lots and the hulking freight trains cannot possibly stop in time to avoid hitting them? Sheeeesh.

2. Colombian mispronounciation of the week: "I am a gick." I thought "gick" was some Spanish word for something I couldn't fathom, perhaps even a slur of some sort. He meant geek. And he really takes it so well when I burst out laughing at his verbal missteps. He starts laughing as hard as I do.

3. Bad product of the week: the Colgate whitening toothpaste that has two separate chambers of toothpaste: one the blue whiteing gel, the other the thick fluoride paste. They are supposed to meld together in equal measures every squeeze. But of course they do not. The less viscous blue gel comes out easier and a much faster pace and in greater quantities than the paste. The paste gums up and solidifies, no matter how diligently you cap the tube. Which means you only get the gel, and the tube gets all messed up -- it's just a terrible hassle twice a day. Avoid this product!!!

"Help! I'm suffering Facebook envy"

Add this great article to the "I Hate Facebook" files. (via Jeff Jarvis)