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Blog: The OC Mama
Post: Baby Elias Auctions
http://stephrenee.blogspot.com/2007/06/baby-elias-auctions.html

My new mantra....

Not that I enjoy admitting that I read chick lit, but Undomestic Goddess (Sophie Kinsella) was a pretty funny quick read. There's a passage from it that has become my new outlook on life:
If I've learned one lesson from all that's happened to me, it's that there is no such as the biggest mistake of your existence. There's no such thing as ruining your life. Life's pretty resilient thing, it turns out

I'm the type to dwell on the past, to dwell on wrongdoings, to dwell on issues with people from decades ago...it was like being slapped in the face of reality. Simple, common sense, yet brilliant.

Let's see what else is up...

Somehow my "to do" list has gotten huge, and on that list is email EVERYONE that i owe an email to...my chicks from San Jose (Wendy, Marlene, Jen, Jeana, Marcella...)...including Shelly....gotta email Suzanne...some of the chicks I've recently met here...a billion people in Ottawa (HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYAN! YOUR TEXT ALMOST MADE ME CRY!)...

Tonight I decided to tackle the garden. Or really, the ghetto chunk of mud in my backyard that is a pitiful excuse for a garden. Seriously, the amount of mud that i've got is equivalent to the size of a baby crib. But every winter I tend to neglect the life going on out there and by spring it's like some frickin' nature preserve back there.

2 years ago my mom came and visited, she cut my plants down to barely anything. I screamed at her that she had ruined everything because there were no leaves and plants need leaves for photosynthesis, blah blah (yeah way to use elementary school science class....25 years later...)...well turns out, Mom was right...you gotta snip that crap in order to encourage new growth....

Well anyway I hadn't done much to it since my mom chopped it up...and now i'm like "mother effer, when did this stuff get so insane"...

The previous owners had a bit of mint planted...have you ever seen mint? It's pretty easy to rip out if you get at it soon enough...riiigghtt....who knew that mint stems can actually turn to BARK?! That's just crazy talk!

So the sun was setting and I wanted to get a start on chopping up the madness growing out there, and while I was hacking away at the lavender (which is like chopping Medusa's hair) I remembered something a coworker told me today...that rats hang out in Home Depot's plant sections...and I thought of Morris the Rat and how maybe his thug cousins wanted to come back to mess me up...so I'm on my knees pruning away at this crazy bush (hmmm that can be taken out of context i'm sure) and the entire time I'm freaking out that a bunch of rats are going to scurry out and maul me.

In quick tv wrap up:

Marlene: so sad that they canceled What About Brian!

Hell's Kitchen started up again, I forgot how brilliant that show is. One dude keeps CRYING even before anything even's started.

You're CRYING? There's no crying in baseball...err...cooking!

Flavor of Love's Charm School just gets better and better. In fact, I nominate this week's episode for an Emmy. Brooke (aka Pumkin yes spelled that way aka The Chick Who Spit on NewYork) became slutatious at the Charm School prom night. The task: weed out all the scumbags and mama's boys to find the one true Renaissance Man. Brooke's tactic: flat out asking the guy's whether they like to f*ck or make love, whether they agree that more than a mouthful is a waste, blah blah....girl is quite possibly the dumbest whore to exist. And she's one of the few with a degree...a teaching degree!

I'm super excited for Confessions of a Matchmaker, on A&E. In another world, I would have studied the psychology between men and women. So far, the commercials hint at exactly that. Kah-toe-mahhh tay!

In case anyone is as immature as I am and might care: Frankie from Real World: San Diego died! Dang!

And to wrap this up...I went to the Life Celebration (i.e. Memorial Service) for Gina this past weekend...in case anyone ever met her or remembered me talking about her...she was one of the few genuine and sweetest people I've ever been lucky enough to have in my life.

Spend a night in Paris

By now the whole world knows Paris Hilton got out early.

And the whole world is pretty much pissed (except for Paris and Kathy of course).

Is this the alleged rash?

I'm actually livid. Full on, angry, vein-popping-out-of-my-head livid.

There's nothing I could write here that hasn't already been said all over the web. Saying that she's already served 5 days (why, 'cause she checked in 2 minutes early Sunday night?! WTF is that about?! And then getting out the morning of the 5th day?!) is already a slap in the face of...well everyone who pays taxes for LA County (I don't, but dammit, i live close enough for it to make a difference).

I am absolutely floored that so far no prison guards or county medical people or ANYONE from the "inside" hasn't leaked the truth. I really would rather have had them say that she's a celebrity and she got out because she cried. I'd feel less insulted.

There is NO medical condition that would stop her from being in jail. There's women who are pregnant and give BIRTH in prison. And this alleged rash...how does being at home help it? Oh, the uniforms aren't rinsed in fabric softener? No kidding, that's why jail is punishment.

Other sources say it was purely psychological, that she couldn't hack it in prison and was pretty much having a nervous breakdown. She had her own private cell for eff's sake. Her version of prison is what people on the outside live each day.

Then there's the issue of food. She complained to her family daily that the hot dogs and jello were just nasty.Well...once again...hence why it's called PRISON. I'd hate eating prison hot dogs too. (well, actually i like hot dogs, but i'm guessing prison hot dogs are made of mystery meat). But that's also why I don't effing drive with a DUI or with a suspended license! 'Cause I don't want itchy orange jumpsuits, unknown-meat hot dogs, and metal toilets.

I gotta see if I can write to whatever department is in charge of this. Maybe I can call their PR person, Steve Whitmore. Maybe I can call and just harass the crap out of them. Either way, if I don't do something, i'll end up with an unspecified medical condition.

You are a running queen, young and sweet, only seventeen....

Good luck to Carrie who's got her crazy ass long marathon this weekend.

Go Sens...no really...c'mon Sens! GO DAMMIT!

I've spent the past 7 years getting ripped on for being Canadian, and every week I hear some retarded comment coming from someone like it was the first time I've heard their moronic wisecrack.

Dear Americans: I've heard EVERYTHING already. All it does is annoy me NOT because of the comment, but because it's boring me to tears hearing all the wisecracks.

In other news, mutha effing Senators, i NEED you to win. You don't understand. The last barrage of wisecracks come from coworkers and rather than go on about how they can shove the Ducks up their ass, I'd rather bring my Sens towel to work with pride and say "yeah...you may own alotta things...but Canadians live eat breathe hockey!"....

From "best of" craigslist (I'd give credit to the poster, but there was obviously no name or email addy to give credit to) for this:

Dear Anaheim resident who posted on Ottawa.craigslist in Rants and Raves,

Re: your posting entitled "hockey?"

Thank you soooo much for your lovely posting about the upcoming Ducks/Sens finals. Your instincts are spot on, of course, for Canadians love to be belittled by Americans not only with respect to our national pastime but on the grounds of our mere existence as well!

It was so considerate of you to get up on your Southern California soapbox in an attempt to inform your poor, deprived, igloo-dwelling neighbours to the North about things we’ve never known. In particular I think we really appreciated learning that hockey has never even been on your radar because of the “…plethora of choices regarding how to fill free time…there are sports, such as baseball, or basketball.” Well, whaddya know! For a few decades there I think we really believed that hockey was itself a sport; we can’t thank you enough for pointing out the error of our ways. I mean, ninety years of professional-level competition in North America, people for whom the game is a full-time job, a standard set of rules by which one must play, a nine-month NHL playing season in which there are televised matches every week, multi-million-dollar contracts for boys in men’s bodies, organized leagues for kids, adults and seniors – male and female – across Canada, the US and Europe… oh yes, and the men’s and women’s teams at the winter Olympics, the mother of all sporting competitions. Clearly nothing about hockey qualifies it as a sport, and it’s simply that we Canadians have been mistaken these past 150-odd years. Thanks to you, Anaheimer, we will all start watching real sports from now on. I’m sure you’ll have a list of stellar recommendations like NASCAR and WWE.

Of course, with the abundance of outdoor things to do in sunny SoCal, such as “…mountains to hike or ride a bicycle in [and] the gorgeous pacific ocean to swim in or sun ourselves beside.” Well – Canada certainly has no mountains. I mean, the Rockies definitely don’t extend into Alberta or British Columbia, and the Appalachians haven’t dominated the northern Québec landscape for the past umpteen millennia. There’s certainly no thought of hiking or biking through these nonexistent mountains. We wouldn’t dream of going hiking in our snowshoes, and we’ve never even heard of this bicycle you mentioned – does it work like a dogsled team, but with the dogs pulling a two-wheeled sled? And swimming? Forget swimming, I’m sure no one in Canada has ever even thought about this ocean of which you speak, especially not any of the 3 million people living in the greater Vancouver and greater Victoria metro areas. Now granted Ottawa isn’t even remotely near the Pacific, but even still, there’s no way you’d catch anyone from this city swimming in or taking the sun by the Ottawa River, the St. Lawrence, Lake Ontario, or any of the hundreds of other body of water in a hundred-kilometre radius. I mean, what would we be thinking – swimming, in the outdoors, in late May, in Canada? Nonsense, we’re still in our parkas!

But what has really impressed us, Anaheimer, is actually not the way in which you so joyfully condescend towards us about sports and leisure. Although we’re eternally grateful for all that your posting has taught us about the great outdoors, that’s not what impresses us most. Nor did our jaws drop at your unequivocal prediction about two teams and a game you self-professedly “…don’t know shit about.” Rather, we are fully in awe over your ability to honestly and unapologetically be forthcoming about your own ignorance:

“[A]lso, since we're being open and honest here, until about 12 hours ago i'd never even heard of ottowa [sic].”

Wow, Anaheimer – we can only imagine how much courage and strength of character that kind of declaration required. How admirable! I mean, to tell the world that you’d never even heard of Ottawa! That takes guts. Of course, I’m sure in your case the ignorance you profess is forgivable. After all, there’s certainly no reason for Ottawa to appear on your radar. As Canada’s fourth-largest city, host of a half-dozen of internationally-acclaimed festivals such as Winterlude and BluesFest, and the seat of the Canadian federal government and the Supreme Court, not to mention its location just 95km north of a U.S. border and its job as this year’s host to the FIFA U-20 World Cup (oh wait, maybe football, or soccer as you call it, isn’t a sport either?), there’s simply no reason you should ever have heard of Ottawa. I can understand completely how Ottawa could fail to catch your attention in the recent past. I mean, really, our annual murder rate of under 40 victims in a city of 1.5 million is too low to draw attention to the city. And it’s not like anything controversial ever happens here – the permissive marijuana laws we enjoy, our legalization of gay marriage, our outspoken disapproval of the invasion of Iraq, and the extremely antagonistic relationship between your quick-witted, upstanding, brilliant president and our human-rights supporting, left-leaning, multilingual former Prime Minister Chrétien, all of which came out of Ottawa, certainly did not garner the attention of fair and unbiased American news sources such as FoxNews or CNN. Oh and by the way, your consistent misspelling Ottawa in your post is a brilliantly effective way of driving your point home. Excellent tactic.

So thank you, Anaheimer, for reminding those of us in Ottawa, and Canadians in general, of how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. Now that we know that Southern California’s offerings in terms of the great outdoors are vastly superior to the paltry oceans, forests, lakes, mountains, ski hills, hiking trails, white water rapids, national parks, waterfalls and wildlife reserves that are within a short distance of Ottawa, we’ve realized the errors of our ways. Perhaps if we were to model ourselves after you by doing such things as swimming when it’s warm, cycling (whatever that means) to get to work, playing sports or “laying out” (translation for Canadians: this is American-speak for what is grammatically correctly referred to as "taking the sun," "tanning," or "voluntarily inducing skin cancer") the average Joe could really learn to appreciate, treasure and preserve all of the pleasures of the outdoors. And you know, we could learn a thing or two from people like you about how to acknowledge, respect and learn from people of other nations and cultures. Although it would mean that we would have to forget everything we’ve ever learned about current affairs and geography, unquestioningly assume that if it didn’t originate in America it’s not worth our time, proclaim our superior certainty on subjects we’re certain only that we know nothing about, and unabashedly profess our ignorance of basic general knowledge for the whole world to hear, well then tabarnac les amies et amis, we’d certainly be better off doing so if it meant we could be more like you.

I mean, after all, what Canadian wouldn’t want everyone else on the planet to think we’re a bunch of self-righteous, ignorant fucks?

Yours truly,

Woman from Montréal who Doesn’t Give a Shit About Hockey


Now the point that i'm trying to make isn't that Ottawa is fabulous. To be honest, I really do understand why Californians haven't heard of it. There's just too much stuff going on here to warrant any news on the REST of the US, let alone a whole other country. So unless Canada gets bombed, odds are we're not going to hear about it 'cause we've got plenty of random stuff to make the news here.

I think my point is really that us Canadians are bitter people. Bittterrrr. We're sick of being ripped on.

But really Canada...you should take PRIDE in your anonymity. California is a fantastic place to live, and I dig the OC...but what with this whole illegal immigration issue one thing is clear: once word gets out that a place is awesome, then EVERYONE wants to go there.

So...Enjoy being obscure. Canada's got some pretty awesome stuff (as listed in the post) but the whole world doesn't need to know. Really. Just appreciate what you've got and leave it at that. Maybe one day i'll be able to move back home, and I don't want to have it all go to hell.

At least the Craigslister didn't point out that Alex Trebek and William Shatner are Canadian...that's just grasping at straws.