Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The Talker

I'm expecting a very large Christmas gift this year from Rogers. (Rogers the company, no, not you random blog-reading guys named-Roger - although, feel free). We bundle all of our household media (cable, internet, home phone and Eric's cell phone) from these guys, so we always receive a nice hefty monthly bill from them...which I pay promptly because I want nothing, NOTHING to interfere with the enjoyment I get daily from my PVR

But it's not the cable side who love us. It's the wireless. And you know why? Because my husband used over 1600 cell phone minutes last month. 1600. I will spare you from digging out your own calculator and tell you that is over 26 solid hours of air time.

Now, you may think about this ridiculous number and say...well, Naive Wife, surely he must be chatting up some yappy minx who-is-not-you, because that's a LOT of usage. But no...here is what makes this truly alarming...it's volume, plain and simple. Rarely, if ever are calls more than 5 minutes. Our bill last month came in a large 8x10 envelope - meaning, it was too thick to FOLD. Pages and pages of incoming and outgoing calls. And it's not even a work phone, at least in the 9-to-5 sense. No, I looked at the bill with what can only be described as shock and awe, and even knowing who most of the calls are to and from (bandmates, band agents, personal training clients, friends and me) it is still a sight to behold. 

Now maybe it's just me. Maybe there are lots of people who regularly use this many minutes, and that fact that I even find this noteworthy enough to blog about says much more about me and my lameness than him. I mean, I had my own phone line in my bedroom in high school and I was on it all the time. I'm sure I talked more than 26 hours a month...but I was 16 and this was waaaaayyy before internet. (I pause here for a moment to imagine a chatroom scenario using our Commodore 64 - which surely would have entailed downloading a text message on cassette and then walking said cassette down the street to a friends house.)

Anyway, I have come to terms with the fact that my husband is neither a teenage girl nor, the other obvious option, a drug dealer (the first option is actually more likely than the second). No, its all legit. Crazy, but legit. 

Still, you're welcome, Rogers.  I am assuming that our thank you/Christmas gift is in the mail. I'm sure Eric would like a new iPhone, but I'm thinking maybe a new PVR? With three tuners and more recording hours? Thanks. 






Monday, December 15, 2008

Timbits!

Its been so long since I updated I almost forgot i even had a blog! 

However, Kieran has just fallen asleep watching The Polar Express for the zillionth time,  and Kaya is also napping, so I'll see what I can write before my unexpected break ends.  

So, we are in full-on Christmas mode here. This year is the first that Kieran is able to grasp the whole Christmas concept. He loves Christmas movies and has, thankfully just moved away from requesting some cheap animated version of Babes in Toyland ad nauseum, to the MUCH more entertaining Polar Express. Or as he calls it "Po Pess", which, might I just say,  took me FOREVER to translate to regular English. Especially since I actually 'misheard' it the first time as Bo Bess, which sounded suspiciously to me like an American Idol contestant and not at all like a magical steam train to the North Pole.

***

Speaking of movies, I caught the tail end of Erin Brockovich on TV last  night.  It's one of those movies, along with Shawshank Redemption, and My Cousin Vinny that I will watch every single time it comes on TV no matter what else is on or what else I should be doing.  And while I was watching it, mad that I had missed the first hour and a half even though I've seen it 10 times, I realized how much I miss movies that have a great story. It could be that I've spent the last couple of years in toddler territory, but it seems to me more and more that we don't get movies with great stories any more.  We get superheroes (sorry, Eric), special effects, crazy violence, or a relatively boring story with a twist ending, but very few fantastic stories. Shawshank Redemption, which I will easily rank as my favourite movie of all time, is one of those. I miss that.  

***

How much soup is too much soup? I find it slightly alarming that Kieran is requesting soup for every single meal of  every single day. Any soup will do, but mainly, the Italian Wedding Soup is the perennial favourite. It's quite tiresome actually. He was also on a salad tangent for quite awhile, prompting Eric to note that Kieran could live quite happily on the lunch special at East Side Mario's. This current eating trend is, at least, cheaper that the shrimp fixation of a few months ago. 

Kaya on the other hand, is in love with (and I pause here while I gag for a moment)...beets. I loathe beets.  To me, they smell like dirt. Sweet purple dirt. But Kaya, in surely what is going to be one of her many acts of youthful rebellion,  loooves them. After a meal is done and her entire mouth is stained purplish red, she looks like a baby vampire just finishing a ritual sacrifice, which is creepy rather than cute. 

***
And my break is up for now. Back to the real world where I am behind on my Christmas baking, wrapping, shopping, packing and cleaning. Apparently, I'm getting a Dyson handheld vacuum cleaner as a pre-Christmas gift this year. Eric had to tread lightly, as husbands must do, when bestowing cleaning appliances upon their wives at Christmastime, but I'm genuinely excited. You would be too if you had an 8-month old Cheerio flinging vampire-baby in your house.