We've All Been There

This one is sheer brilliance! Ironically, a co-worker who spends his days in a "cube" showed it to me... Enjoy!

Well! I'll Be a Monkey's Uncle!

This is the story of Marshmallow.

Marshmallow (despite the inevitable image this word conjures up) is not a sticky, sweet campfire treat. Rather, he is a cuddly, lovable, plush monkey. More importantly, he is a cuddly, lovable, plush monkey that belongs to Keka.

Or did, up until a few weeks ago. Let me explain...

Marshmallow entered little Keka's life last year, just before Christmas. As a matter of fact, it was during one of her many Christmas present shopping excursions that Chana stumbled across the adorable little monkey and the matching, twice-the-size Momma Monkey. As you may or may not already know, Chana has a bit of a soft spot for our furry primate friends, so she scooped the two of them up without a second thought. What a perfect present to share with her youngest daughter... a Momma and a Baby, just like them.

Well, even though Chana is the kind of person who will buy presents months in advance and keep them a total secret (or try to), I guess some gifts are just too good to hold on to because she "let the monkeys out of the bag" (to coin a phrase... sort of) as soon as she got back to the car! Keka fell in love instantly. She named her new best buddy "Marshmallow" and gave the Momma a name you would recognize as very appropriate if you knew Chana in person. And thus began the unbreakable friendship.

Now, let's skip ahead to the final days of this year's Summer Holidays. Chana and I, as you have probably read, took all six of our kids out to visit my Mom in Hope, BC and to Vancouver to see the ocean for the very first time in their lives. Even though it was a whirlwind tour and we could easily have stayed another 2 weeks, we had an awesome time and were able to show the kids some things they just don't have the opportunity to see back home. As silly as it may sound, one of these things was IHOP. Chana and I have always made a point of stopping at IHOP whenever we are on holidays, since there are none at all in Alberta, and decided to take the kids there for a "treat" dinner after visiting the Vancouver Aquarium all day.

I know what you're thinking... You're thinking, "What? Pancakes for supper?!?" Well, it may not be the most nutritious meal, granted, but they're only kids once, right? What's wrong with breaking the rules once in a while?

Well, about 4 hours later, in the middle of the night, we all knew what was wrong with the idea.

Apparently, when a 9-year old girl eats at IHOP for the very first time and finds it delicious ("yummy" in kid terms), said girl runs the risk of over-stuffing her little stomach ("tummy" in kid terms). Following such a stuffing, the "tummy", it seems, runs a high risk of engaging its "purge function" over the more traditional slow digestion. Should this occur while the child is in a wakened state, a simple panicked sprint to the nearest washroom can have the situation well in hand relatively quickly, with only minor discomfort, and virtually no mess.

However...

Should the child fall asleep shortly after the stuffing, as was the case with poor Keka, the "inverted digestion process" becomes much more uncomfortable, and the "collateral damage" to surrounding bedsheets, rugs, and monkeys named Marshmallow can be quite serious. While it was a simple, if unpleasant, matter of some scooping, scraping, bag-tying, scrubbing, and laundering to take care of the linen and carpets, I'm afraid the particular polystyrene inner components of Keka's plush pet prevented us from being able to adequately clean him, thus leaving him in a decidedly un-cuddly state.

I left the poor, soiled creature on the deck for a day, hoping to dry him out enough that we'd be able to rid him of most of his new, unpleasant coating, but it was to no avail. By the time we returned home to Calgary, Marshmallow was no more.

Keka was devastated. She came to accept the fact that Marshmallow was forever ruined and that she'd never again fall asleep with her little cheek pressed up against his, but she wanted to say one last goodbye. Chana tried to tell her that it was too "yucky", but Keka insisted. And that's when things went from bad to worse...

Although nobody recalls throwing the little guy out, neither he nor the tightly tied bag he was in were anywhere to be found. Keka fell asleep crying that night.

Fear not, for this story has a happy ending. You just have to be patient.

Last Friday after work, Chana and I took Keka and my daughter to the store where Marshmallow had originally been purchased because she had been promised we would at least try to find another one. Now, you have to understand something... This wasn't one of your more common stuffed animal that you're going to find dozens of on a shelf at Toys R Us. It was one of those cute, I've-never-seen-this-before-and-probably-never-will-again types. You know what I mean. So, even though we were going back to the same store, we had already warned Keka not to get her hopes up and to be prepared to possibly find a new best friend.

As we guessed, there was no Marshmallow. And, as we should have guessed, there was nothing there that could catch Keka's eye with the memory of Marshmallow still so fresh in her mind. Disappointed, we left and headed back home. On the way, though, I decided to stop at Toys R Us, just in case. Sadly, although there were a ton of cute and cuddly little furry friends to choose from, none of them were Marshmallow. There was only one more place to check before giving up... Zellers, at the other end of the mall.

Now, Zellers isn't exactly the greatest department store. They are what I'd call "almost-adequate". So, we told Keka in no uncertain terms that there would be no Marshmallow here, but possibly a different animal that she could learn to love. She may only be 9, but she understood and let us take her to the toy department.

On the way, the girls got a little side-tracked by the display of Halloween costumes, trying on mad-hatter hats and trying to scare each other with rubber masks. This meant that I arrived at the aisle with the plush toys before the rest of them did. I have to tell you, I'm not sure if I've ever seen a more pathetic collection of stuffed animals. There were very few to choose from, and what was there was not of the highest quality. It was sort of like the crappy prizes they give away at carnivals after you've spent $50 trying to get a stupid plastic ring to land just right on a soda pop bottle. Poor Keka.

And then I saw Marshmallow. I couldn't believe my eyes! There, right on top, was Marshmallow! Not ruined and smelly like the last time he was seen, but restored to his former state of glory... And he was the only one! In fact, there wasn't even a sign to indicate Zellers even sold this toy, or how much he cost. I felt like I'd just stepped into the Twilight Zone! In a heartbeat, I grabbed the monkey and ran to find Keka.

I'll never be able to properly describe the look in that little girl's eyes as she took Marshmallow and crushed him against herself. It was as if she had just witnessed a miracle.

Who knows? Maybe she had.

Unrequited Geeking

Last weekend, while Chana and I were just sitting around the house, she happened to show me something in a flyer. To be perfectly honest with you, I have no idea what that "something" was, though, because a completely different "something" caught my eye instead. And that "something" was a Skype-enabled USB phone. Now, whether you know what that is or not, you might be thinking that it sounds a little on the geeky side...

And how!

Okay, just so we're all on the same page here, Skype is a web-based service that allows you to use your PC to call other PCs also running Skype (voice chat, essentially), but can also be used to make and receive calls to and from mobile phones and landlines. The PC to PC method is absolutely free, PC to landline/mobile calls are dirt-cheap (or free in the U.S. and Canada until the end of the year), and a to purchase a number that landline/mobile users can call to reach you on your PC costs about $45CAD per year.

Basically, it's simply the freakin' cheapest telephone setup possible, short of tapping into your neighbor's line.

Don't want to sit around with a headset and mic every time you want to make a call? Yeah, me neither! And that's where the Skype-enabled USB phone comes in. You simply plug this little baby into an available USB port (has anyone ever tried to plug something into an unavailable USB port?) the way you would plug a normal phone into a walljack, get Skype running on your PC, and away you go. Simple, tidy, and (in case I haven't mentioned it) cheap.

So, after seeing that London Drugs, one of our local retailers, was having a sale on these phones, I made a point of stopping in to get one. You see, I don't have a home phone. I have a cell phone, which is better for me because I'm not home enough to have a real phone just sitting there collecting dust and costing money. But, if you've ever had a conversation on a cell phone for more than 3 minutes, you know what a pain it is to hold on to the stupid thing while you try to go about making dinner, washing dishes, or whatever. So, I figured, since this USB-thingy was so cheap, and Skype is so cheap, not to mention that I'm so cheap, I might as well get myself hooked up with the whole thing.

As is my luck, not only had the sale not started yet, but the product hadn't even been delivered. Now, I'm not exactly what you'd call the most patient person in the world, especially when it comes to geeking-out, so I immediately started looking around for other places to buy a Skype phone. Future Shop had one, but it was too expensive. Best Buy had one on sale, but the sale ended the day before. A small shop near where I work had one, but a little research online told me it was garbage. And then I stumbled across one with a name I recognized, got good ratings online, and only cost $26. And the store was right across the street from where I work! Awesome!

Knowing I was going to go get one on my coffee break, I decided to log into my Skype account and purchase a SkypeIn number... You know, sort of get everything set up so I could just go home, plug in my new gadget and wait for someone to call me. And that's when my whole plan came crashing down around me like a house of cards.

It seems that there are no Canadian SkypeIn numbers yet. I can get one in the States, in England, heck, I can even get one in Poland, but then people would have to call there to reach me. Kinda defeats the purpose! I can still use Skype to make calls from my PC, no problem, but nobody can call me.

Apparently, it has something to do with the Canadian Radio-Television Commission not releasing Canadian phone numbers to Skype because Skype does not offer a 911 service. I think that's a load of crap since Skype isn't trying to be a telephone provider, per se, and there are other applications similar to Skype that do offer Canadian numbers, like vbuzzer. I could go with one of those, but I'd be more comfortable sticking with a company and application with a good reputation. I don't want to buy something from somebody, only to find out the quality is crap, you know?

So, no Skype-enabled USB phone for me, for now. Until the CRTC relaxes a bit, I'll have to find something else to do with my computer to ease this current need to geek-out... Any suggestions?

Gratuitous Comeback

Last night, we took Chana's eldest and youngest daughters out for dinner to celebrate their respective birthdays. The place wasn't busy at all, and we only had 3 of the 6 kids in tow (mine was the third), but the service still started off a little slow. Usually this annoys me, but tonight I have to admit that I didn't really notice until the waitress apologized to us.

She started telling us about the crazy day she'd been having, in that way waitresses do... You know, like you're one of their friends whose just popped by for a visit. She explained that she'd had to go back to the kitchen four times on her shift already to make corrections, which didn't exactly instill any confidence in us, as we hadn't yet placed our soon-to-be-mixed-up orders. Then she went on to tell us that one of her tables had left a huge tip for her, but probably because they felt sorry for her, rather than for the service.

I had no idea how to respond to this, but Chana stepped in and saved the day with the funniest one-liner ever, delivered in her usual, deeply heart-felt voice:

"Oh, honey. Don't you worry... We won't make that mistake."

Child: Handle with Care

My day started off on a bit of a sad note... As we were walking up to the place where I leave my daughter for Before-and-After-School Care, she asked me, "Who's at the door?" I looked up and there was, in fact, a lady, with a baby in a stroller, standing on the stoop and talking to the caregiver. This may not seem weird, but it was because I drop my daughter off about an hour before anyone else does.

Now, I'm not the nosey type, so I just stood at the bottom of the stairs, out of earshot, waiting for the conversation to end. At one point, the caregiver leaned out, gave the lady a quick hug, then indicated that I was waiting to drop off my daughter. The lady moved aside to let us pass and, as we did so, I noticed the lady was crying and I heard her say, "...daycare is starving him. I was just hoping you had a spot open..."

The next couple of minutes were filled with me getting my daughter in the door and talking to the caregiver about the pick-up and drop-off arrangements for the new school year. The whole time, the lady with the baby stood on the steps outside, sobbing. If I'd had a bit more time to think about it, I'd probably have been quite uncomfortable with the whole situation (I don't usually know how to deal with "emotional people") but, as it was, I had a bus to catch and was feeling just a little rushed. As I made my way back down the walk, I turned to give my daughter a wave good-bye and saw that the caregiver was inviting the crying lady inside.

Once on the bus, I had some time to reflect on what I had just witnessed. Obviously, this lady was having a very difficult time with her current child care solution, based on the "starving him" comment and her being desperate enough to knock on the door of a complete stranger at 6:30 in the morning just because there was an "Approved Child Care" sign in the front window. Although I've never been pushed to this point myself, the whole scene reminded me of the few times that I've had similar predicaments and how helpless I felt. I once picked my daughter up from daycare (she was an infant at the time) and was told by one of the staff, "You should take her to a doctor. She's had a fever all day." What?!? And I'm hearing about it now? At the end of the day? Needless to say, I completely lost it and my daughter was out of that daycare faster than you can blink. It's a horrible feeling when you find yourself without someone to watch your child so you can go off to work. Worse still is having to leave your child with someone, then spending the whole day wondering if they are okay.

When I was a young lad, things were different. Most families had one parent who worked and one who stayed home to take care of the kids. Mom was always there to see us off to school, to have lunch waiting for us, and to make us do our homework before we went out to play. Nowadays, though, it's almost impossible to raise kids on a single income. Sure, I manage well enough on my own with my daughter, but it's still the same thing: Every parent in our house has to go to work. In turn, that means the kids have to go with someone in the meantime... someone that can be trusted and counted on to take decent care of them and see to their basic needs.

I don't know what's going to happen with the crying lady and her little baby. I do know that the dayhome I'm using is pretty full. Of course, I also know that my daughter's caregiver is a woman with a big heart and an amazing reputation in the neighborhood. Hopefully, even if she can't help the lady out personally, she'll be able to point her in the direction of someone who can.

Wee Wisdom

At the tender age of seven, my daughter is already beginning to question the constructs and immutable laws of her little universe. As we were walking to the store yesterday, she watched her feet for a while then turned to me and said,

"I step on cracks all the time, but when I go to Mommy's, she never has a broken back."

No One's Laughing Now

For years, the jokes and satirical impressions have made us laugh. In the end, though, it's just not funny.

(Thanks to Adem for the heads up...)