Mother's day, Food and Celebs.

That's my boy! Charlie is an excellent smiler in real life but in photos it looks either like he is surprised or is baring his teeth. Love the school tie though. This was taken at his mother's day extravaganza at school where the kids are up on stage and sing a number of songs that are designed to try to make the mother's cry. Then each kid goes up to the microphone to say why their mother is special. Last year he said "my mother is special because she tucks me in a night". This year's was, "My mother is special because she loves me." aaawww. But still that sort of seems like the default answer. They also do this for father's day and when Charlie decided he wanted to say "my father is special because he wrestles with me" the teacher told him he couldn't say it. What the hell? Little boys love to wrestle and horseplay with their Daddies. Thomas was totally ticked.


Now some kids come up with comments that are totally outing their parents. One was "my mother is special because she watches TV with me." Wow! If that was the case maybe I might bet the best, parent, ever! I'm really good at watching Toopey and Binoo and I can never resist dancing to the Backyardigans. Another kid said "My father is special because he plays Xbox with me!" Wow again. Great parenting nowadays seems to involve some kind of electronic device. Note to self - start baking more with the kids so they can say something like I'm special because I bake. Which technically I don't. Once again my style is to arrange things to make food. Like Pillsbury apple turnovers. Where you just unroll the dough, squeeze the apple filling baggy, role it up and voila! I've baked something. See how easy it is?



Yes once again I agonize over my assemblage of food. Just last night I took out Chunky Soup (sirloin beef) and it was in a large microwaveable container but I just HAD to put it in a pot and heat it up because I needed to feel like I was cooking them something. So now I've got to wash a pot that wasn't necessary. Lordy, the lengths I go to to try to make me feel like a better mother.

I did get some satisfaction of doling out some nice healthy soup (except for the sodium levels but let's not go there) into little earthenware bowls for my darlings to eat and it made me feel like goddamn Mrs. Ingall's. (Except for the fact my daughter is not blind and my husband does not have long Michael Landon hair.)

On a totally unrelated matter I had a celebrity encounter today. This would be the third in my lifetime. The first was John Travolta on Prince Arthur Avenue. He came up to me and said "excuse me miss" and I turned and I think my mouth dropped open for a second because come on, it was Danny from Grease! He asked if I knew where the cut through was to Bloor street. He must have come from the Four Season's and wanted to avoid the Avenue Road and Bloor intersection. I was all tongue tied and said, "ahhh, yeah, sure. You just go through the parking lot and see that entrance by the convenience store? You go right in there." He said and I quote, "I sure do thank you." and off he went. It seems like an americanism to me the whole, I sure do thank you business. But still, he was very friendly but what was weird is that even though he was slim his face looked sort of bloaty. Weird.

My second encounter was outside of the Timothy's at Yonge and Summerhill. The guy from "Ed" bumped into me because he was sort of walking backwards talking to somebody. He was all like, "ohmygosh I'm so sorry!" as he was shaking his hand because some of his coffee landed on it. I was breezy and said, "no problem!" In hindsight I was probably a little too smiley but I always was fond of that geeky Ed.

All of this nonsense brings us to today's celebrity encounter. I was in a Queen Street parking arcade across from St.Mike's hospital where I was going for an ultrasound. And no, I'm not pregnant. Shutup! Actually I emailed my husband and told him I was pregnant, with twins. Boys. He emailed me back that he would not be coming home from his business trip to Nashville. Ever! ha. Anyhoo, I got out of my Loser Cruiser (i.e. van) at the same time a man was getting out of his spiffy Mercedes. He had on just jeans and a windbreaker but I recognized his profile. I was walking behind him and we both stopped to wait for the elevator. I tried to sort of look at him out of the corner of my eye to confirm who I thought it might be. He was tanned and his hair was swept of his face and he was sorta wiry and slouchy. I was 99% percent sure it was Rufus Wainwright but when I got in the elevator and noticed his shiny silver leather driving mocs I knew that was the clincher. So without thinking, because I seldom do, I said, "are you Rufus Wainwright?". He smiled and said yes and then I said, "I really like your music!". To which he said, "thanks". There was a bit of silence, and lord knows I abhor silence, much like nature abhors a vacuum, so I said, "Well that was awkward!" He was very sweet and was all, "No, no. It was really very nice of you." So we got off the elevator and he sort of tapped my shoulder and said something like have a nice day. And here's the weirdest part. My first thought was, well thank god I'm having a good hair day. Like this talented gay singer would possibly notice my hair but still it feels good not to be caught on a bad hair day. I tell you once again it's the little things people.

Please excuse me while I go assemble food for my children.