Crosbiemania

Screw you, you damn stairstepper

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:54:55 PDT

When I was laid off, I was exercising up to five times a week. I'd head to the gym first thing in the morning and climb on the stairstepper. After 45 minutes, I'd do some lunges and pushups and arm work. Five times a week. That's pretty freakin' good.
Well, basically it was enough to keep the fat from creeping on because now that it's running season, I'm getting my (fat) ass kicked. No, my ass isn't that fat, but damn, I'm hurting.
I started a running class two weeks ago. A couple of years ago, when I was on mat leave, I was in the same running class and I was in the middle of the pack; some days, I was near the front.
Now, I'm last. Dead last. Way last. Completely last. Last last.
Today, I went out for a little five kilometre jog with my husband. Basically, we usually stop once for a one-minute walk. Today, I stopped 17 times. No guff. My lungs are hurting, my ass is jiggling and I'm out of shape - despite three months on the stairstepper.
And I've got just six weeks to get in shape for Beat Beethoven. Last year, just a couple of weeks before the race, I got a wicked virus and was too sick to function, much less run.
This year, I've got to do it.
Runners have to do eight-kilometres in less than 50 minutes - the time it takes the Kingston Symphony to finish playing. Two years ago, I did it in 45 minutes - 5:42 kilometres, which is pretty damn fast. I couldn't do that now.
So, for six weeks, there are no more easy workouts.
I will run three to five times a week. I will drink lots of water. I will ease off the carbs. And throw out the Easter chocolate I've been nibbling on. And I will start to take my asthma medications the way I'm supposed to.
I think I'm also going to get my ducts cleaned. And get that mattress cover the asthma educator told me I should get, whatever it takes to get my former-smoker lungs in top-notch shape.
And one more thing - screw you, stairstepper.
As Janet Jackson used to say: What have you done for me lately?
You suck. (Not you Janet, the stairstepper).

The Mouse Click Heard Around The World

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:23:53 PDT

Look, here's the thing. I want to see Gene Simmons. Hopefully, I'll also bump into Ms. Shannon Tweed. I like the Simmons-Tweed family. They're actually interesting on their reality show, Family Jewels. And think what fun it would be to have KISS play the K-Rock Centre.

KISS is pulling a wicked publicity stunt. They're having fans from around North America vote to see where they'll play as part of their Demand It promotion. (I suspect they've already decided and this is genius marketing, but who cares. I love battles. The only thing I love more than battles is winning battles).

Kingston, Ont. was No. 1 for the first few days.

In fact, my K-Rock 105.7 cohost Darryl Kornicky and I were the first two people in Canada to vote for KISS.

And then came along Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Now we're sitting in second. Second stinks. No one remembers who came second. Unless, of course, you're talking about the 1988 Men's Figure Skating Championships at the Calgary Olympics. That was when Canada's Brian Orser was beat by America's Brian Boitano. (I have some weird figure skating knowledge. Don't ask).

We have been plugging the crapola out of this KISS event. We want them to come to town. It's pretty simple.

So, on Wednesday, April 15, we're holding THE MOUSE CLICK HEARD AROUND THE WORLD.

Just after 8 a.m., Kornicky and I will announce on K-Rock 105.7 when to vote and in one second, we're going to add thousands of votes to our tally.

Go to our website, www.krock1057.ca now and register or click on the button on my page so that tomorrow, you'll be ready to click and go.

Listen tomorrow morning. Sometime after 8 a.m., we're going to launch the mouse attack.

Good night, Kingston!

Yes, I do get up at 4 a.m. and no, my underwear is not always clean

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:30:56 PDT

It's the first thing people have asked me in the last three weeks: WHAT TIME DO YOU GET UP? On March 12, I started a new gig as a morning radio host on K-Rock 105.7 with Darryl Kornicky, Tony Orr on news and banter and Coach on fashion. Joking. Sports.
We start broadcasting somewhere around 5:37 a.m. and end at 10. I'm at the station at 5 a.m. prepping for that day's broadcast and working ahead on upcoming shows.

I'm lucky: If I hit just green lights, the station is exactly four and a half minutes from my home. But it doesn't help a lot.

I have to get up at 4 a.m. so that I can shower, get dressed, do my hair and makeup, eat some breakfast, kiss my son goodbye and get to work feeling normal. Everyone asks me why I just don't go in sweats with bedhead. Because I'd feel disgusting, that's why. And starting at around 8:30 real people are coming to the station so I can't really be greeting guests and advertisers and coworkers in sweats, now can I? Plus, my own ego won't let me do it. When the mic comes on, we have to be on. If I felt gross, I wouldn't feel like myself.

Trying to be helpful, my husband pointed out an article in this month's Women's Health magazine. Love the mag, rolled my eyes at the story. It's on Today cohost Natalie Morates, who also gets up at 4 a.m. to do on-air work with Matt Lauer. These are the types of stories that give women complexes. This woman is freakin' gorgeous - I don't look anything like her. She has a baby and a five-year-old. She goes to the gym five days a week. She starts off her day with multigrain toast and natural peanut butter. During the day, she nibbles on veggies. She exfoliates twice a week.

Oh, shut up already.

The pictures in the piece tell a different story: She has a person to do her hair. She has a person to do her makeup. She has a woman to roll the lint off her clothes. And if she's on the Today Show, she's making good money, so she can afford to have a good nanny to take care of her children so she can exfoliate and exercise.

Here in all its disgusting glory, is the real way a real person gets up and ready at 4 a.m. for a morning show:

- I lay all my clothes out like a five year old the night before and put them on the top of the toilet in order that I'm going to put them on: Underwear first. Then socks. Then pants and then shirt.

- The truth of the matter is one night, I forgot to put underwear out. That morning, I tiptoed back into the dark bedroom to try and quietly get some underwear without waking my husband, who also sorta gets up when the alarm goes off at 3:55 a.m. and then has to go back to sleep. I couldn't find anything but my massive pregnancy panties from three years ago. I can't stand those things. They go all the way up to my boobs. So, I had no choice. I had to do something drastic. I wore the same pair two days in a row. Sorry. Don't judge me. It was an emergency.

- I try and eat a little bowl of cereal before I leave, but doing morning radio has totally screwed up my body. I've lost six pounds in less than a month. Here's why: If I eat breakfast at 4 a.m., my body wants lunch at 10 a.m. - that is, after all, six hours later. But at 10 a.m., we're still busy working and I don't have time to make lunch at 4 a.m., so usually I eat a banana. By the time I get home, it's usually around 1 p.m. - eight hours after I've had cereal. (For a normal person, that would be like eating breakfast at 8 a.m. and then not eating lunch until 4.) I have something small and then try and eat some dinner. By night, I'm so tired, I don't snack. Too.... tired ... to .... eat.

- Here's my extensive makeup routine: Eyeliner. Mascara. Check I don't have crap in my teeth. Exfoliate? Sure, yeah, right.

- Sleep? Right now I'm sleeping from about 11 or 11:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. and then crashing hard on the weekend, but three times this week, I fell asleep while I was doing something. Once, I was eating lunch - a cucumber sandwich. Forty minutes later, I woke up cuddling the plate. The sandwich was on the floor. I'd apparently just conked out without any warning. I did it again this weekend while watching a movie with my son. One minute we were talking, the next, I was drooling.

- My nanny. I have a different name for her: My husband. I don't know how a single mother could be a morning radio host. My husband has done all of our laundry in the last month and taken care of our son every morning. (Even with all this help, I don't have time to exfoliate.)

- "Get the F**(&^ up!!!": The other morning, I was so exhausted, I couldn't get out of bed. My alarm went off at 3:55, 4:10, 4:20, 4:30. Finally, my husband basically took his legs and kicked me out of the bed. "Get up!!!" he yelled. There was no cereal that morning. Thank god, I'd remembered my underwear.

- Before anyone sees me each morning at work, I run to the studio's kitchen and look at a little mirror on the fridge to make sure I don't have gunk in my eyes, cereal in my teeth, a booger, a clump of mascara. Anything. If I'm looking alive, I head into work. Then my personal assistant takes the lint brush to me. Yes, her name is Darryl Kornicky, my cohost. We don't have lint-brush people.

It's glamorous being a morning cohost, I tell you.

Natalie Morales? Eat your heart out.

Just keeping it real for my real mommies.

Join morning radio, do hard news?

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:48:49 PDT

My first six years at The Whig-Standard, I worked as a writer and reporter. I was a music columnist and a news reporter who covered everything from Ryan Malcolm's meteoric rise on the first season of Canadian Idol, to country pie sales, to the Sept. 11 attacks, to the Juno Awards, to breaking crime stories like bikers in the city and standoffs in suburbia. I did some investigative work and wrote humour columns.

Then, I wanted a break and I became an editor.

At first, I loved my new gig. I came up with story ideas for other reporters and supervised the production of The Whig's entertainment magazine. I took part in editors' story meetings. I got to represent the paper at community events, like high school career days. And then, I began to see how much stuff that wasn't "journalism" that I had to do: I sorted mail. I laid out the paper's three crosswords, paginating each tiny clue into perfect columns.**** I typed into our computer system community listings for charity walks and band shows. (Note: Listings are key to a local paper, though, so I was quite anal about getting them perfect). I answered a lot of voicemail. I answered a lot of e-mails. I spent hours on the phone trying to get publicists to send us hi-res jpegs.

I suspect it's like a teacher working her way up to becoming a principal in a school. Some days, you just want to teach. In my case, some days, I just wanted to write again.

So, it's funny that it took leaving newspapers and joining the K-Rock 105.7 Morning Krew to do news again. The morning show came up with the idea of doing the story of Queen's University professor Chris Mueller, who is a cancer researcher. He has a degenerative liver disease and is looking for a live liver donor. The family has basically exhausted their family and friends' potential and needed to look elsewhere, so we invited Mueller's wife, local artist Sally Milne, to our show to ask our "friends", our listeners, to think about becoming an organ donor. We also talked to Dr. Frank Markel of the Trillium Gift of Life Network about organ donation in Ontario and what it takes to become a donor.

By the end of our show on Wednesday, at 10 a.m., we already had listeners - one in New York state - calling and e-mailling us asking how they could help, or get more information about donating a portion of their liver (which, by the way, grows back).

Yes, we do silly stuff on the morning show. We baked Neil Young concert tickets into pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and we gave out lucky lottery tickets on St. Paddy's Day. But today? We did a story that really matters.

Playing reporter was rejuvenating. Loved it.

Read more on our K-Rock Morning Krew blog, including a statement by Sally Milne about her husband and how you can help Chris Mueller and other people waiting for an organ donation.

**** I mean absolutely no disrespect to hardcore crossword lovers like my mother. I appreciate the skill they take, just not the pain in my wrists from making those teeny tiny clues look so damn perfect each and every week.

It wasn't all serious this morning though. We did talk about panties. Just for a minute though. :)

Why am I wearing Band-Aids on my teeth?

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:16:14 PDT

We'd all probably look a lot more sensible if clothing stores were run by two year olds. Two year olds say it like it is. I love going into shops and seeing girls and women (and boys and men) trying on ridiculous clothes (too tight, too small, too young, too skanky) and having the salesperson squawk "Oh my god! That's so, like, fabulous! We also have it in red."
You want to gently pull the customer aside and say: "Ah, no. You look like a pregnant elephant in a curtain." (And I can say that because I, too, have looked like pregnant elephant in a curtain.)
Only once in my entire existence has a salesperson told me I looked ludicrous. It was at Agent 99 downtown and I tried on something to slinky and it showed every lump, bump and chunk. I came out of the changeroom and a lovely girl said, "Huh. That doesn't work, does it?" It was a breath of fresh air.
Yesterday, I was prepping for my first day back at work this Thursday. For three months, I have been laid off, so I spent the better part of three months with unstyled hair and no makeup. And, I've lived in elastic-waist track pants. That look was fine for buying diapers at Wal-Mart, but it doesn't exactly say: "I'm a hot radio momma."
And, so, it's back to Sarah Crosbie, circa pre-Dec.16, 2008 - the Sarah who gave a damn.
I'm drinking buckets of water, exercising, pulling my jeans and dress pants out of hibernation and doing other girly things.
My son looked at me yesterday. He was staring at my teeth.
"Mommy? Did you hurt your teeth?"
I couldn't figure out why he thought my teeth were hurt - unless, that is, I'd chipped one of them a couple of days before my new job?!
"Mommy! Why are you wearing Band-Aids on your teeth?!"
That's right. An hour earlier I'd put whitestrips on my teeth so I have a nice, pearly white smile. I'd forgotten about them...
Alone, in the bathroom, it makes so much sense to put strips of jellied bleach on my teeth.
But here, with my son staring at my teeth, I did feel a little strange having Band-Aids on my teeth.
The things we do for beauty.
When you take a step back, it can all seem a little silly.
Still, in two days, I have to say so long to my elastic-waist pants.
Diapers also have elastic-waists ...so enough of that.

And here is the rest of it.

Sarah joins K-Rock 105.7 - laid off no more!

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:19:28 PST

Seventy nine days.
79 days.
Se-vhen-tee nine dayz.

No matter how I say it or type it, I can't believe it. After 79 days, I am employed again. Part of me feels like I've been laid off forever. My god, what have I accomplished in 79 days? Part of me feels like Dec. 16, 2008 was just yesterday.

Today, The Radio Group – Kingston's K-Rock 105.7, Kix 93.5 and The Lake 102.7 – announced that I am joining the K-Rock Morning Krew. We'll be a threesome (isn't that the best way?) with the group led by Darryl Kornicky, along with Tony Orr and myself.

I start Thursday, March 12.

Every morning from 5:45 a.m. to 9 a.m., you can catch us chatting, laughing, playing good songs and holding fun contests. (Last week, while I was guesting on the show I baked Neil Young tickets into a pancake...)

I'm going to keep this short, because many of my friends are still looking for jobs and I'm very conscious of the fact many people are hurting, both emotionally and financially since being laid off.

We'll talk more later, I promise.

Sarah :)

TRAGICALLY HIP CONCERT IN KINGSTON

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 05:28:36 PST

BREAKING NEWS: Tragically Hip's Paul Langlois announces Tragically Hip will play a benefit show along with The Trews for Glenn "G" Williams who has ALS. The concert is May 23 at the K-Rock Centre.

"Paul and the rest of the guys in the Tragically Hip are unbelievable contributors to this city," Williams said this morning, admitting he's not often speechless but he was this morning during the concert announcement.

"The guys in the band just feel like - no one has ever played the Hip more," Langlois responded.

G said the ALS is not so much affecting him but his family, his wife, Jodi, and two sons.

For more information about the show, visit the K-Rock website at www.krock1057.ca.

"This is going to be a fun thing for us to do," Langlois said.

G ended the interview by thanking all his friends and listeners who've supported him.

Presale at the Hip website starts tomorrow to Friday.

Regular tickets go on sale on Saturday.

"Keep it rollin' baby," G said.

Where's my f*&^%!!& delete key?!

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:43:23 PST

K-Rock 105.7 morning host Darryl Kornicky looked at me and started howling.
Tony Orr was also smiling.
Apparently, I'd just unleashed a deep-hacking-try-and-shake-the-phlegm-out cough into the microphone. When it was on.
At 7 a.m.
For thousands to hear.
Who needs an alarm when you have Sarah Crosbie and her chest cold to get you up out of bed.
Oh, morning radio, how you scare me.
For nine years, I was a newspaper reporter and editor and there's this frickin' wonderful invention on a keyboard called a DELETE key. When you're writing a story and you make a mistake, you hit delete and it fabulously disappears from your screen.
For five mornings X 3.5 hours a morning, so 17.5 hours of my life, I've been doing morning radio and there is no delete key. Things just come flying out of my mouth and I hope they're OK, funny even. Smart, maybe. Interesting.
In one week, we talked about crusty toenails, Dorothy the Dinosaur, bad drivers, In the Night Garden, A-Rod and his drugs, the K-Rock Centre, Neil Young, animal food banks, The Tragically Hip's new song, the Academy Awards, Dweezil Zappa, Easter Seals kids, belly button fluff, Tony Orr's alleged manscaping, green box recycling, potholes, Jamaica, Pancake Tuesday, Willie Nelson, great hockey coaches, "thick" women, lottery tickets and how I am not actually Mrs. Crosbie, despite Darryl Kornicky's blog entry on the K-Rock website.
I've burned a hole through Kornicky's head staring at him this week. Partly I was staring because I was a little nutty. I had to get up at 4 a.m. Monday and Tuesday killed me and then by Wednesday I was OK. Up at 4, showered by 4:15, reading the papers, blogs, my e-mail and Twitter (my favourite new thing in life) by 4:30 so I knew everything going on in the world. But I mostly spent a good chunk of my week staring at him because, for the first time in a long, long time, I had someone in a professional capacity I could learn from. I absolutely loved my old job, putting out an entertainment magazine at The Kingston Whig-Standard, but I didn't have any mentors at the paper. They've either left and moved on, or taken jobs that meant I no longer interacted with them. This week, I had the thrill of being scared again, being on my toes. Instead of being the seasoned journalist, I was the green radio co-host. Terrified shitless and loving every single second of it.
So, I used this week as a crash course in radio. I listened very carefully every time Kornicky took a phone call with a listener to see how he interacted with them and I watched Tony Orr do the news. When he speaks, you listen to him. It's a great gift to have. So little things some people may not pay attention to – how my radio guys held the mics, how far they were from the mics, how they announced the call letters "K-Rock 1-0-5-7 – I obsessed over all week and maybe, possibly I practised in the shower at 4 a.m. when no one could hear me.
The coolest thing about K-Rock letting me crash the morning party was how much freakin' fun it was to make peoples' mornings great.
On Tuesday, I baked two Neil Young tickets into a pancake on Pancake Tuesday and held a drive-thru contest in the K-Rock parking lot. And this morning, we offered two Willie Nelson tickets to anyone who would go into a gas station in Kingston and sing a Willie song in honour of the fact he's an environmentalist and a biodiesel promoter. The winner made his wife's day. (She, in fact, ordered him to do it.)
This week also gave me a chance to play reporter again, getting Const. Mike Menor from the Kingston Police to tell us about bad drivers in the city - he once saw two people naked in a car who'd just come from skinny dipping in Portsmouth Olympic Harbour - and having Sandy Singers from the Partners in Mission Food Bank explain to us how needy families in this area can help feed their pets.
It was a fun week.
Sorry for the cough though, everyone. r
Yes, I see that "r". I'm going to leave it there. It's symbolic of the fact I no longer have a DELETE key in my professional life, heck, I don't have a professional life, but that's OK. You gotta go with the flow. A little lesson I learned from the K-Rock Morning Krew.

Cheap and free in K-Town

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:54:13 PST

This week while guesting on Kingston's K-Rock 105.7, Darryl Kornicky, Tony Orr and I discussed the fact that in the U.S., dog and cat food banks are popping up because people can't take care of their animals once they've lost their jobs. In Kingston, Ont., our own food bank, Partners in Mission, will help struggling families with pet food if they ask for the help.
In recognition of this sucking recession which sucked away my job as a newspaper editor, I've compiled a few tips for you to save a few bucks.
Post 'em if you've got them.

Cheap and Free in Kingston
1. Playtrium Gym for kids: Half price admission on Thursdays. www.playtrium.ca
2. Agnes Etherington Art Centre on Queen's campus: Children, students free. All admissions free on Thursdays. www.aeac.ca
3. Kingston Canadian Film Festival's Building “The Border”, a seminar-style event featuring Peter Raymont, David Barlow, Graham Abbey and Jonas Chernick from CBC TV’s popular series The Border. Building “The Border” is a free event and advance registration is not required. The event takes place Sunday March 1, 11:00 am at Etherington Auditorium on Stuart Street. www.kingcanfilmfest.com.
4. The Screening Room, which shows indie movies, has $5.25 tickets on Tuesday nights. (A couple bucks cheaper than the bigger theatres!). www.moviesinkingston.com
5. Free public skating at Wally Elmer until March 21 throughout the week. Check for times. http://www.cityofkingston.ca/residents/recreation/arenas/wally/icepad.asp
March 16, 2009 to March 20, 2009
6. Play with snakes: Little Ray's Reptiles. See, touch and learn about all kinds of exotic species like giant snakes, lizards, turtles, spiders, and even an American alligator named Crusher. March 16 to 20 at the Frontenac Mall. http://www.whatsonkingston.com/shopping/frontenac/index.cfm
7. Free parking at S&R Department Store in downtown Kingston.
8. Free movie rentals (and books, of course) from Kingston Frontenac Public Library. They have hit TV series, too!
9. Free instrument rentals from the Joe Chithalen Music Lending Library.
10. Get passes to go to Kingston museums (like the Hockey Hall of Fame) from the Kingston Frontenac Public Library. Just like books, you check 'em in and out. Free! Visit www.kfpl.ca/ for details.
11. Children get a free cookie at the Kingston Centre Loblaws bakery section. Sarah Crosbie's son looooves it. (She'd like a free cookie, too).
12. Free leisure swim at the Kingston YMCA on Sundays from 1:15 to 5 p.m., sponsored by the City of Kingston.
13. Free skating in Market Square, behind City Hall, 216 Ontario St.; also at rinks at City parks around the city.
14. Grades 5 and 10 Physical Activity Pass. This program offers free access to community recreation centres for all grade 5 and 10 students in the KFL&A area. Designed to promote an active lifestyle, the Grade 5 and 10 Physical Activity Pass is organized by Kingston Gets Active, KFL&A Public Health, and area school boards. http://www.kflapublichealth.ca
15. Union Gallery in Stauffer Library on Queen's University campus has no admission fee.
16. Games night at Starbucks on Barrie Street. Every Friday night at 8 p.m.
17. Minotaur on Princess Street hosts a game night on Wednesday and Sunday.

It's 5 a.m., do you know where your mother is?

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:05:36 PST

In about 10 minutes, it's time to head to radioland.
This week, I'm filling in as a morning host on K-Rock 105.7 with Darryl Kornicky.
Monday, getting up at 4 a.m. was easy - it was all on adrenaline.
Yesterday, I had that high school fear I was going to sleep through an exam panic, so I woke up at 3 a.m. - eyes wide open, laying in bed for an hour waiting to get up at 4.
Today, on our third day, I've got a rhythm. Up at 4. Into the shower. Like a high school kid on the first day of class, I get my clothes ready the night before and stack them up like pancakes (jeans, sweater, undies, socks) on the back of the toilet so I can get dressed the second I walk out of the shower.
I check e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and read some online news while I have coffee and eat cereal - though I'm cutting back on the Bran Buds this week because you have to have a key to get into the bathroom at K-Rock and I don't have one and, well, you get the picture.
This morning at 7 a.m., we're talking about animal food banks. Maybe we'll chat a little about Barack Obama's address to congress, though that's pretty heavy stuff for 7 a.m.
Must go now. It's 5:05 a.m. - which means it's time to head out.
I love doing radio, but it kills me not to see my family before I leave.

All you needs are logs; Logs are all you need

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:35:47 PST

My husband and I aren't big on celebrating the Hallmark celebrations imposed on us. The worst one is Valentine's Day. I honestly think it's a Get Out Of Jail Free Card for men who behave badly.
Husbands, boyfriends and partners can act like schmucks 364 days of the year and then, on one dreary day in February, boom! All of a sudden, they're Enrique Iglesias: "I can be your hero baby. I can kiss away the pain. I will stand by you forever. You can take my breath away."
Oh barf.
You see, a real man is someone who deals with the real crap of life.
The shit.
The dirt.
The logs.

It's Friday night, the day before Valentine's Day, and my husband is tired from a long day at work. And I'm pooped from being laid off. (Being laid off is tiring, but that's another whole post.) My husband is downstairs on the couch snoozing and I'm upstairs in our bathroom giving our two-and-a-half year old son a bath.

We're playing with his fishies and fishing rod, his Little People boat and he's having a blast blowing bubbles in the water and splashing me. I'm wet so I turn to get a towel when I notice there's a magazine on top of our toilet tank. The magazine is promoting a contest to win a trip to Texas. This looks interesting ....

I swear I looked away for two seconds. Three seconds tops.

"Mommy!" my son yells.

"There's dog poo in the bath!"

I turn to look at my son and he is holding – I'm gagging just writing this – a log of poop in each hand.

"Look! Dog poo!" he squeals.

For a split second, I'm horrified. How did dog poo get in my ..... oh nooooooo.

For the first time in two and a half years - the first time in his life - my son has gone to the bathroom in the bath tub.

And now, he's holding it. Scrutinizing it. Studying it. Squishing it. (Insert more gagging here...)

"Oh my god!" I scream, which has its intended effect. My husband comes running up the stairs.

"Look, daddy! Dog poo!"

My husband shakes the logs out of my sons hands while I head out of the room. It's leave the room or throw up.

My son stands wrapped in a towel cutely trying to explain to both of us how the doggie doos came to be while my husband, god bless his soul and god help me I hope he really scrubbed his hands, picks up all the bits from the bathtub. He then scrubs the tub. Sanitizes it. Scrubs it again. Sanitizes it. And rinses it all away – while I stand with my son and run dirty towels and bathmats down to the washing machine.

Would I have done the cleaning if I had been home alone at the time? Absolutely. But, without complaining or asking for help, my husband took on the "jobs."

Now that's a gift.

Next Valentine's, let my husband write you a card

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:05:31 PST

My husband and I don't really do Valentine's Day. I think it's a day created for all men to make up for the other 364 days of the year they've been forgetful, unappreciative, "Women-are-like-shopping. I-can-go-window-shopping, I-just-can't-touch-or-buy" dinks.

My husband and I do, however, give each other a card.

Here's what he wrote: (Short but sweet and true and real)

"Feb. 14, 2009: I don't need anything for Valentine's Day as long as you're near."

I guess I could have done better than: "You're, like, totally hot and smart and stuff."

How not to do a job interview

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 05:08:59 PST

Today is Panic Day.
It is the day I circled on my calendar two months ago.
I have now been laid off for two months and today was the day I needed to have a job by – or, it's time to panic. Not seriously panic, like I can't take care of my son, but panic because I've gone two months and no one has scooped me up.

(Which, let me tell you, is the REALLY annoying thing EMployed people do. They say, "Oh, Sarah. This was meant to be. You'll get something great. Someone will realize your talents and pick you up. You'll be fine. I just know it.) Sorry, I need to take a break from typing this. Apparently, 23 people are knocking on my front door wanting to offer me a job.
Not.
Remember in that great movie Gremlins when the good guys kill the Gremlins by exploding them in the microwave and blender? That's what my kitchen looked like last night. I was making Smartie cookies with my son for his daycare Valentine's Day party today and, thanks to an old blender and an excited toddler, there was batter dripping off the counter and down the toaster. (Don't worry. I washed our hands 10 times during one cookie-making session.)
I had just popped the cookies in the oven when the phone rang.
It was someone I'm really, really, really hoping to work with (you know who you are) returning my phone call.
Too bad my husband was at the gym – so my Mr. No. 1 is on the phone and my two-year-old son's hands are covered in Smartie cookie batter.
I pick up the phone and chat. And chat. And chat.
And now he's licking his fingers. (My son. Not my future coworker. Or, maybe he is licking his fingers in anticipation of working with me, but that's a dream.)
Now, my son's fingers are covered in liquidified cookie batter.
And the timer's going off.
And I have to get the cookies out - and oh, sh*t, they've spread into one massive cookie, so now, while they're hot, I need to cut them into cookies.
Chat, chat, chat.
"Mommy," my son says.
"What?" I mouth.
"Mommy," my son says again.
"What?" I mouth.
"I pooooeeeed."
I immediately put on my best wild-eyed look and put my index finger to my mouth in the universal sign of "SHHHHHHHHHH!"
My devil look inspires my son to play devil, too.
He runs to the counter with a stink-trail behind him and grabs the bowls of Smarties, plowing handful after handful of chocolates into his mouth.
Chat, chat, chat.
My son continues to yell at me about how Toot and Puddle (a cartoon about world-travelling pigs) is on, how it's not The Wonder Pets, nor is it the Backyardigans.
More chat, chat, chat.
Finally, my son is ticked with me.
He grabs his Fisher Price Corn Popper toy and starts to chase me around the house with it. And, so, thank god I'm training for a run, I run around my house, continuing the chat, not letting on for a moment that I'm jumping over Tickle Me Elmo, hurdling his Little Tykes tool bench and leaping over his Thomas the Train set while I try to (forgive me for saying this) run away from my son. (Just for a minute!)
Finally, my husband walks in the door.
The cookie batter is still dripping off our kitchen appliances.
My son's bum is a toxic dump and his face is a rainbow from shoving Smarties in his mouth.
And I am leaping around my livingroom.
And this, ladies and gentleman, is what it's like to try to scam a job for yourself, while being Betty Crocker, while getting some exercise, while making sure my child is getting dinner.
And you thought laid-off people sat around the house watching Oprah. Ha.

Kathleen - you're the next contestant on SarahCrosbie.com!

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:34:59 PST

Well, it's time to announce the winner of the very first Crosbiemania contest.
I asked you to guess the amount of my knee-high boots. Sure, you can drop $200 to $300 on a pair of boots, but I have a toddler who costs a lot of money and now I'm the big U (unemployed), so I was a thrifty gal.
(Though not as thrifty as my mother would like me to be. She guessed my boots were $19.99. Geez, Louise, mom. Waddya want from me?)
Anyway, the winner of the inaugural contest is reader KATHLEEN who guessed they were $59.99. Did you go through my recycling looking for the bill?
They were, in fact, $59.99 from Winners, as Kathleen guessed. So, in total, $67.79 with tax.
Kathleen wins a $20 gift certificate from The Body Shop, courtesy of moi.
We'll make arrangements to get you your prize, Ms. Kathleen. :)
Thanks to everyone who entered.
Sarah "Cheapskate" Crosbie

And here is the rest of it.

Go on, give everyone an A+, Mr. Rancourt

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:36:12 PST

The Globe and Mail today has the most interesting story I've read in ages – it seems a University of Ottawa professor Denis Rancourt has been suspended (and arrested on campus and charged with trespassing) for being radical.

Erin Anderssen of the Globe and Mail writes:

"On the first day of his fourth-year physics class, University of Ottawa professor Denis Rancourt announced to his students that he had already decided their marks: Everybody was getting an A+. It was not his job, as he explained later, to rank their skills for future employers, or train them to be “information transfer machines,” regurgitating facts on demand. Released from the pressure to ace the test, they would become “scientists, not automatons,” he reasoned."

The self-described 51-year-old anarchist is fighting back and has posted his side of the story on YouTube. This idea of not doling out grades is interesting to me as I sit here at 9:31 in the morning, laid off from my job as a newspaper editor. I should be at work, WORKING, but instead, today, I will finish painting my hallway that was done, but then the paint, (please excuse my anger here) god-damn bubbled and now I have to do it again. I will buy some 1% milk for cereal and go run on a treadmill and check in with the companies (harass, actually) that I'm hoping will hire me.

How did I get laid off? How did I become one of the thousands of people with no job? See, the biggest thing about being laid-off is that it's not fair. I graduated high school with a 94.6% average. I went to Queen's University, one of the top schools in the country. I graduated with a BAH. My last year of university, I also worked full-time at The Whig-Standard, school during the day, work at night and on weekends. I busted my butt for eight years at the paper and received accolades, pats on the back, award nominations. All I wanted in return for my hard work and perseverance since Grade 9 was a good job, a good salary, and some coworkers who I could share a chuckle with. Instead, I'm in PJs, wondering, literally, what it all means now.

And here's where I trace the problem to: School. Elementary school and high school.

Kids learn very early on how to play the system. In group work, when there's two smart kids, the class a-hole and a kid who tries really hard but can't manage anything more than a 60%, the two smart kids take over, push the a-hole completely out of the system and let the try-hard do something, but not too much. When I was in school, part of the Ontario curriculum had groups of four each assigned a role: One person was the writer, one person was the "thinker," the person who came up with ideas. So far, so fair. Those two jobs worked in tandem. But then – I know some of you will remember this – one person was the encourager. It was his/her job to say: "C'mon guys. Good thinking. You're really thinking hard on this one. Nice penmanship, Sarah." And the other job was for someone to be the timer. Yup, if you have 20 minutes, the timer gave us time updates. Guess what job the a-hole got? The timer. The smart kids never cared if the other two piggy-backed on their 95% because they got 95% too.

In high school, by the time I'd reached Grade 11, I'd dropped all the maths, sciences and geography classes and took only drama, music, English, French, history and sociology classes. Why struggle through a chemistry class and get a 65% when you take English and easily get a 90%? Why, because now that I'm 31, I wish I had more of a math and science background – but high school is a marks game. You need the best marks to get into the best school so you can get the best job. (Allegedly).

But I had the best marks and went to one of the best schools and now I have no job.

It happened when I was in high school and it happens today: Kids are given the most insane/inane projects. Bristol board projects on Macbeth. Ooooh, good cut-and-paste, Jimmy. Too bad you're 18 and in Grade 12 English.

Nice title page. It's worth 10% of your mark? Title pages are very important in the real world. I did them every day in my job, I swear.

But one of the biggest problems with high school (and I know geography and socio-economic status play into this) is that people my age were taught (wrongly, of course) that smart kids went to university and, well, the others went to college.

I vividly remember taking personality tests that lead everyone in our classes to job descriptions for doctor, lawyer, journalist, writer, dentist, teacher. Did anyone ever tell us that elevator repair people can make $100,000 a year?

Not once in five years of high school (when school in Ontario went from Grade 9 to Grade 13) did any teacher, guidance counsellor or guest speaker, tell us to do anything other than get good grades and get into university.

No one presented college as an option. If you were in "advanced" classes, you went to university. No one said take a year off and work, or travel.

Yes, as 18 and 19 year olds we should have had the independence and smarts to make these decisions on our own, but since kindergarten we were groomed for university – and it takes a brave spirit to abandon the flock and go out on his own.

I was not that kid. But could I have been?

I also had close friends whose parents wouldn't chip in for school unless they took what the parents wanted them to take. Guess what happened when the kids who wanted to study art were forced into sciences? Or the kids who wanted to go to a small school were forced to go to their parents' large alma maters? They dropped out, failed, struggled.

Sure, some kids will abuse Denis Rancourt's A+ system – but that's part of the whole experience, isn't it? It's part of learning.

As I sit here, still unemployed 21 minutes later, I say the economy is showing us we need to think outside of the box and consider all options. And when it's time for my son to go to school in 16 years, we will encourage him to do whatever he wants: College, chef's school, design school, travel the world, do an exchange, apprenticeship, go to Queen's University (which, for the record, I did love, but mostly because I made the experience what I wanted it to be and spent the majority of my time working at the student newspaper).

It's good to shake things up.

And to conclude, this is a shout out to high school teachers who did rock the boat, who did treat us like adults, who did give us some freedom to explore, play and learn: Mr. Court, Mr. Baird, Mr. Jones - you guys were my faves.

Guess the price of my sexy boots. Win a prize.

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:48:02 PST

See these boots? They were made for saving. We're in a recession. I have no job. You probably either don't have a job, are worried about losing your job, or have someone in your family who's out of a job. Trust me, I get it. I'm Sarah-Save-A-Lot these days, but I still have to look good. I need to look decent so that when I'm at Wal-Mart buying Rollback bargoons, and someone sees me and says, "Dang! That Sarah Crosbie is looking fine. I need to give her a job!" So check out my boots. They're knee-high. They're sassy. OK, maybe they're pleather and not leather, but they're still sexy. So how much do you think I paid for 'em? (Here's a little help: It's not outrageous to spend more than $200 on boots. But what did I spend?) Guess right and I'll send you a little help for Valentine's Day – a $20 gift card to the Body Shop so you can get him/her something nice, courtesy of SarahCrosbie.com. All you have to do is post a comment here with your price guess. Closest wins. Contest open until midnight Feb. 9, 2009. I'll post the winning guess by 9 a.m. Feb. 10. (You have to leave a name in your comment – not anonymous – so I can match the winner to the guess. Once I declare the winner, I'll give you 24 hours to email me.)

Hi. My name is Sarah Crosbie and I am unemployed ...

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:00:31 PST

OK, after a month and a half, I can finally come out and say it: I have no job. I am unemployed. I am a free agent.
I was laid off.

For more than eight years, I worked at The Kingston Whig-Standard (Canada's oldest continually published daily newspaper) as a weekend reporter, a copy editor, investigative reporter, music columnist, and features editor. I covered the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City with my good friend and Whig photographer Jennifer Pritchett. We were there, in the Big Apple, to tell the story of Kingstonians affected by the attacks. One year later, we both returned to the big city to see how Kingstonians' lives had changed and to see if we could track down how some of the local charitable donations had been spent there.
I spent one weekend in Ottawa hunting down Avril Lavigne at the Juno Awards where her debut Let Go was nominated for a bucket-load of trophies in 2003. I watched Gord Downie pick a piece of fluff out of his star on Canada's Walk of Fame and call it "belly button" fuzz 2002.
I got my butt stuck in a soap box derby car when I was a young reporter. I'd gone down the hill at the charity race and when I reached the bottom, I was stuck. There were volunteers at the race who had walkie talkies at the top and bottom of the hill. The conversation went something like this: "Smoky, this is Bluebird. We've got a problem. The Whig reporter is stuck in the car."
"The Whig reporter is stuck in the car? What's the problem?"
"She's wedged herself in the vehicle. You got tools?"
"We'll look for a saw. She's really stuck, huh? Man."
Yeah, that was fun. I had a big butt, I can not lie.
I was once nominated for a National Newspaper Award, Canada's top newspaper honour for an investigative piece on disgraced choirmaster John Gallienne.
I also followed the rise of Kingston's Ryan Malcolm from unknown bar singer to the first Canadian Idol. Every week for an entire summer in 2003, I went back and forth to the John Bassett Theatre in Toronto where I documented his rise on the pop singing show. The issue where we ran not one, not two, not three but four massive features on him (The News Story, The Colour Reaction Story, The Look Back Column, The Evolution of a Person Story) the day after he won – that paper sold out. It was the best story – documenting a guy achieving his dream, with the support of his city behind him.
My idea, Cool Kids, was published last spring - a special magazine dedicated to the amazing high school students in this area.
Every week, I edited The Whig's entertainment magazine The Ticket.
I worked on that magazine every week. Forty pages, every week. All year. I have a son, but The Ticket was my baby. Now it has new (and capable) parents, but she was mine to make for you, the readers.
I've worked with incredible editors – and I married one of the best.
The highlight of my time there was when the paper was alive and screaming with energy, big (sometimes sensational) headlines (but you do want people to stop at the box, look at the paper and then buy it, right? Of course) and colourful, meaningful, important, well-written stories. It was around 2002-05 and I was a reporter, writing everything and anything and then an editor. Noreen Rasbach (now an editor at The Globe in Toronto) was the editor and Rob Tripp (now the police reporter at The Whig) was the city editor. It was a good time to be a reporter at The Whig. Every year, we went to the National Newspaper Awards and dominated the Ontario Newspaper Awards. We did kooky stories (like my piece on a Big Beaver attraction wanting to move into the area) and investigative pieces on sex offenders and health care.
That was then.
Now, I do kooky things like laundry and investigate where cheese is on sale.
One week, I went nuts buying cases of water at Food Basics for $2 each.
The next week, they were on sale at No Frills for $1.88 each.
"I lost money!" I screamed at my husband. "I should have waited!"
"Baby," he said. "It's 12 cents."
Oh, yeah. Right.
In December, I was one of 600 Sun Media employees who lost their jobs.
And I'm heartbroken to no longer be at The Whig, but what really hurts is worrying about the future of the paper. What role does local news have in an world (and economy) dictated by the Internet? Yes, it's hard for a newspaper to compete with websites on things like celebrity gossip. People magazine can report on an issue the second it happens on its website, but newspapers can't give out the information until the next day in its issue, unless the paper has a sophisticated website going, but most local papers haven't perfected (or figured out, really) how to balance the news in their pages and on their websites at the same time. But websites and national chains and the big dailies can't give local readers important local stories (the ongoing halfway house battle in Kingston, Queen's University's struggle with Homecoming, Kingston General Hospital's restructuring efforts) ... and without a local paper, who will review Kingston's theatre productions? Who will tell you about the new restaurants in town? Who will profile the up-and-coming bands that are dying for attention?
Local news is critical to a city. A local newspaper bands citizens together. It tells us about local boys heading off to the Olympics, Good Samaritans who stopped a thief in our city, how our tax money is being spent and how our OHL team is doing. (Well, I can also tell you that – the Frontenacs aren't doing well, but who am I to judge? Some days, I don't shower.)
It's an interesting time to watch newspapers and see who survives (and thrives even?) and how they do it. It would a great time to be a sociologist working in media studies because mass media is changing every second.
Will I ever be a newspaper girl again? I don't know.
Being laid off gives you a lot of time to think, (which gives you an excuse to not do the dishes), and I've realized that life is short and the career I thought I'd have forever didn't even get me to age 32.
There have been some highs and many, many lows being laid off (I haven't slept through the night in six weeks, however I have ripped arms from going to the gym so often) but that's for another time. Something a journalist would call The Followup Story.

Help me! I'm stuck in the Urban Outfitters changeroom!

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:46:31 PST

It's not that I have big legs, but I don't have twigs.
Usually, my legs are only a problem when I'm trying on knee-high boots. They're often made for girls who:
a) Weigh 102 pounds;
b) Have no muscle in their calves;
c) Have an hour to try and squish/push/pull your calf fat/muscle into your boots.

I have muscular calves. Taking up running a few years ago didn't help the situation much, but recently I learned a new lesson in why sometimes (not very often, but sometimes) it can suck to be fit.

I loved the years from around 1999 to 2005 because pants and jeans all had a flare at the bottom. I've watched enough of What Not To Wear to know that a longer pant, with a little flare elongates the legs and for someone who's 5'4" like me, that's nice. Now though? For the past couple of years, we've had skinny jeans – and I'm not sure why. Very few people look good in skinny jeans. Even skinny girls don't look good in skinny jeans. Skinny jeans are like sausage casings; they squish everything into a wrapper and then your body tries to escape the torture by squishing over top of the waistband, out the butt and at the inner thighs.

But today, for some reason, I thought I'd try them again. I've lost eight pounds in the last month and evidently, when I lost the fat, I lost my brain and became delusional. I was in Urban Outfitters - the cool store for all the Queen's University girls. It's the place you want to go if you want to have that I-look-like-everyone- else-but-I'm-so-original - swanky meets Salvation Army thrift store.

(I was exchanging a gift. I had to go in.)

I saw a pair of skinny jeans that were on sale from $100 for $39 so I thought I'd try them on. The waist was 30 - my size. And, so, in the changeroom I went. (Do you know that at Urban Outfitters they ask you your name and then write it on a chalkboard so they know who's in what room? Next time, if there is a next time, I'm going to call myself Jonas Brother No. 1 or Mary-Kate and Ashley, or Miley or She-Ra or something.)

I went into the changeroom and pulled off my jeans and slipped my first leg into the skinny jeans. And then the second. And then I pulled them up to my knees. It was here that I realized even if I took one thigh and sliced it into two, half a thigh wasn't going to fit into these pants, so there was no way a whole thigh was going in.

And there was no way my calves were coming out.

I was stuck.

It was like these damn pants had congealed to my legs. What was I going to do? Waddle out of the changeroom with pants around my knees and ask them to cut them off? I could always pull my own jeans over top and just pay for the skinny jeans. (And then waddle out of the store.)

How was it I could get them on, but not off?

I sat on the bench and tried to roll them down. Stuck.
I tried to yank them down. Stuck.
I tried to smooth them down. Stuck.

Finally, I held both ends of the pants and tugged on the left side of one leg, then the right, then the left, then the right. And, I'm telling you it's possible: Instead of thinking about sucking in my stomach, I thought about sucking in my calves. And bit by bit, the jeans started to move.

This is why girls like to buy shoes.

Skinny bitch of a day.

Michelle Obama's inauguration dress ... sexy mama

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:40:37 PST

Was Michelle Obama attacked by spitballing students?
Or is she a fashion icon in the making?

Looking back at other First Lady inaugural ball gowns, Michelle Obama's gown was a striking and bold statement that she's no fuddy duddy who's going to be staid and static.
I got my first look at Jason Wu white, floor-length, one-shoulder dress, at the televised Neighborhood Inaugural ball, where Michelle and Barack Obama danced to Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys (and a deer-in-the-headlights Mariah Carey.)
It was the first ball – and the one Barack said most represented the spirit of his campaign – where he said "First of all, how good lookin' is my wife?"
I thought the dress looked a little toilet paper-y. Would I wear a dress covered in little balls? No, but fashion is about taking risks. And every woman's fashion risk is her own. (And on the Huffington Post this morning, readers were divided over the gown. 56% said they loved it. 37% said they weren't fans. That means it's a hit, if people are split on it. Good fashion has to be controversial.)
The colour was a good choice – would it be going too far to say it stood for all the things Barack Obama stands for – hope, peace, optimism, clearing the past, looking to the future? Maybe.
A teaching assistant at Queen's University once returned an essay to me that was covered in criticisms, saying my essay was grasping, looking for too much meaning in the text. So maybe it was just a dress. Maybe Michelle liked the way it made her toned arms look – she is a gym lover and has done sleeveless before. (Barbara and Hillary always wore long-sleeved gowns, though Nancy Reagan did a bare shoulder look). Maybe it made Barack hot to be able to touch his wife's bare shoulder all night. Who knows? It is just a gown. But a risky and bold gown – one that says: If a woman has to stand by her husband's side and be supportive eye candy, at least she can look damn fine/racy doing so. You give mommas a good name, Ms. Michelle. Let's head to the gym and say chicken-wing arms be gone!

"Michelle Obama may be a trained lawyer with an Ivy League education, but on Tuesday night she will be America's Top Model. What she wears to the inaugural balls will set the style agenda for the administration and hold a mirror up to what it means to be a woman in America right now, which still includes being judged by your appearance."
- Booth Moore, fashion critic, The Los Angeles Times

"Michelle Obama once more does something new and fresh [by] working with an emerging fashion star and turning Jason Wu overnight into a household name. This type of dress shape/silhouette is something that's completely unexpected. [It's] vibrant and aspirational, full and gorgeous. No one else in the past would have been this striking, this ravishing or been able to pull this look off. She's bringing sexy back."
– Us Weekly fashion director Sasha Charnin Morrison

"[Michelle Obama] wore a white, one shouldered Grecian-inspired ballgown with a ruched bodice by 26-year-old New York designer Jason Wu, in a brave and inspired statement of her allegiances. Mrs Obama teamed the full-skirted chiffon dress with drop-earrings, a glittering oversize cocktail ring and a diamond bracelet that winkled in synch with the Swarovski crystals that studded her gown. As she danced with Mr Obama to Beyonce's version of the Etta James classic At Last, the words rang true for fashion critics everywhere; finally a president's wife had gotten it right - twice.Earlier in the day, Mrs Obama drew almost universal praise for the buttercup yellow Isabel Toledo dress she wore as her inauguration outfit."
– Georgina Safe, fashion editor, The Australian

How he proposed and 99 other Sarah secrets

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:14:12 PST

On the right-hand side of this page, there's a little button called 100 Hot Things to Know about Sarah Crosbie. It's pretty old. Item No. 100: "I think the baby is a boy. My husband thinks it's a girl." Well, I now have a two-and-a-half year old – who likes to ask questions, many questions like: "Mommy, what are nipples? Do you have nipples? Does daddy have nipples?" – which shows how outdated that list is. (And, yes, I did have a boy. Ha.) Some of the items still hold very true though:

31. "I love pineapple on pizza."
82. "I love my knee-high black leather boots. I wear them every day in the fall and winter."

For 2009, here is a new 100 list:

1. First thing I read Saturday morning: Corey Mintz's restaurant review in the Toronto Star's Living section. We once had a little chat on his blog. I tried to compliment him. He took it as a criticism, I think. So, we didn't end up pals. I still read it.
2. Ran my first half marathon in Picton in October 2008. Everyone should do a half there. It's beautiful. It took me 2:21.
3. My husband and I have committed to running the half in Ottawa in May. In October I could run 21 kilometres. Now I'm back to the five-k. Need to pick it up starting this week.
4. Love Dexter.
5. Love actor Michael C. Hall who plays Dexter.
6. Love Jennifer Carpenter, who plays Dexter's sister on the show.
7. Find it creepy Hall and Carpenter are married now.
8. It's insane Hall has never won a major acting award (like a Golden Globe) for his Dexter work – and yet Boston Legal and William Shatner have? Houston, we have a problem.
9. Speaking of marriage, I got married in 2007. The BF is now The Husband.
10. No, I didn't change my name. (So on Facebook, I look like I'm still single; I refuse to fill in details like "Married. Looking for friendship." I think that's weird.)
11. Not sure why any woman still changes her name. It's 2009.
12. Speaking of Facebook, I just joined last week. I've been holding out, but now that I have more free time on my hands (keep reading to find out why), I decided to give it a try.
13. Thanks to more free time, I just finished a Canadian novel called A Week of This by Nathan Whitlock. I've been reading it since April. I used to work so much that by the time I crawled into bed at midnight, I'd read one page and then pass out.
14. Watched Oprah for a few minutes a few weeks ago. Will Smith said something I really like and am trying to live by: "I'm tired of wasting my time. I'm tired of other people wasting my time." (I added it to my Facebook profile.)
15. Though I should read more books, I'm about to renew my subscription to Canadian Living. No, it's not the hippest magazine, but damn, they have good recipes. How do you think I learned to make chicken paprikash and spinach strata?
16. Got married at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. Best idea ever. No planning. One fax to confirm our reservation, one e-mail to confirm what colour I wanted my bouquet to be and it was done. Seriously.
17. Our wedding dinner took place at Spice Market Buffet at Planet Hollywood. I had nachos with guacamole and chocolate covered strawberries for my wedding meal. It's always ranked the No. 1 buffet on The Strip. Best wedding meal ever.
18. Have a worm-like scar on my left knee from having cyst removed when I was five years old at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto. That scar made me a little bit of who I am since kids used to make fun of it when I was little. It gave me some inner strength. This one was in the first list, but I like it so it's here, too.
19. I always buy a Lotto 649 ticket if the jackpot is over $10 million. Ten million is OK. Nine million? Oh, so not worth my time.
20. Love going out to Kingston's best restaurants: Grecos, Aqua Terra, Curry Original. And don't forget about our city's best-kept secret: Amadeus Cafe.
21. 98% of the time I'll order fish when I'm out. The other 2%? Filet mignon, done medium rare.
22. Appetizer always has to be escargot.
23. I originally wanted Hillary Clinton to be the president of the United States because I wanted a woman to win, but Barack Obama's charisma, love for his family and wife, and strength during crisis won me over.
24. Obama did a really interesting interview in Men's Health a couple of issues ago, where he said he works out five days a week and was sometimes criticized for it on the campaign trail, since people thought that time could be better used – which is insane. I'm tired of people, bosses, coworkers, anyone, really, thinking you're only good at your job if your butt is glued to your desk. People who are healthy, who have a life, who are interesting, who get out and do stuff (anything!) are more interesting and, therefore, better employees.
25. Someday I'm going to be a boss and I'm only going to hire interesting people; Interesting people who go to The Screening Room at least a couple of times a year.
26. The Screening Room, along with Amadeus Cafe, is one of Kingston's best-kept secrets. Instead of going to see Marley & Me (does the world really need more Jennifer Aniston?) go to The Screening Room, pick one of the two movies screening there and sit through an independent, foreign, possibly subtitled film. You may not love it, but it will be better than Marley & Me. Or Mall Cop, which is the No. 1 movie in the country. We're in a recession and people have money to go see Mall Cop? Help us, help us now.
27. I was laid off from The Whig-Standard on Dec. 16, 2008.
28. I still read The Whig-Standard.
29. I exercise with a rockin' local company, Body Now 4 Mums and Kids. (See bikini pic in Flickr photos. A few years ago, I never would have done that.
30. My two-year-old son can skate as well as I can.
31. When I was 12, the big thing to do was to go public skating. There were two songs that looped over and over again all night long: Aerosmith's Janie's Got a Gun and Love in an Elevator. I still can't listen to those songs.
32. Just heard a great old song at the grocery store this morning: Back To Life by Soul II Soul. I was buying my bran buds and dancing.
33. One of my old Whig columns was turned into a cartoon by illustrator Ron Lindsay and published in the Ottawa Citizen. I wrote about my son wanting a bucket load of hockey gear.
34. Because I used to be a little bit chunky (fat) I'm addicted to watching The Biggest Loser, even though I know it's absurd to lose 32 pounds in one week.
35. Last time I was at home visiting my parents, my mother showed my son a picture of me taken about eight years ago, when I was at my heaviest (about 50 pounds more than now). "Who is that?" my mother asked my son. "I don't know," he said. He didn't recognize me! (I carried a lot of it in my face.)
36. That being said, coworkers used to tell me: "But you have such a pretty face, Sarah!" Ah, thanks. So my butt? Nasty? Thighs? Make me wanna barf. Arms? Swinging in the wind. But my face looks nice.
37. I once auditioned for a hair commercial in Toronto.
38. Seeing as I am not in magazines, I obviously didn't get the gig.
39. I once auditioned for a TV show in Montreal, Guy Stuff with John Moore.
40. Seeing as I had to watch myself on reruns on Global the other day while working out at the gym, I obviously got the gig.
41. I also got the gig when I was seven months pregnant, so, no, my breasts do not look like that in real life. Sorry guys.
42. My son calls the two moles I have on my face "meatballs." No idea where that came from.
43. He also calls zits the same thing.
44. I just finished reading a piece in The Globe and Mail about what Barack Obama needs to get done in his first 100 days in office. One of his friends said one problem with Obama is he doesn't necessary succeed instantly. He needs time to get his feet wet, assess the situation and get a groove before he's rockin' it. I'm the same way. I need to get warmed up before I can really dig in. Then I'm OK, but at first, I'm quite shy.
45. I was once Tasered by Kingston Police. True story. (For a Whig story, but still true.)
46. I look back on that story now and am mortified at its cheesiness, but you live and learn and become a better writer.
47. I think I like the new U2 song Get On Your Boots that was released today, though at first I thought Bono's voice sounded thin.
48. I laughed really hard in the SNL skit when Tina Fey (Sarah Palin) says she met Bono, The King of Ireland.
49. I saw U2 in concert in Toronto when I was 16.
50. But even better, I saw Depeche Mode in Toronto.
51. My first CD ever was Depeche Mode.
52. My first cassette tape was Fleetwood Mac.
53. No, I still don't own my own iPod. I borrow my husband's all the time though and make him put pop songs on it for my running music. It Takes Two by Rob Bass and DJ EZ Rock is a fave.
54. Jet is also good, though, I admit.
55. Queen is also good for running.
56. You know what's not good? Trying to run and seeing yourself on TV on Guy Stuff With John Moore with massive pregnancy boobs. It's distracting.
57. My combo for my lock from grades 7 to OAC: 57, 31, 9.
58. Can I remember any of the combos for locks we have now? No. But I can remember one that I haven't used in 13 years.
59. My husband's blog is Cancrime.com. No, it has nothing to do with a sexy daddy living his life under the stars. It's about crime. It's really good. We're like Best Buy and Future Shop. We compete but we're related. *Currently, I have more readers. But he has better legs, so we're equal, I guess.
60. I've been to the K-Rock Centre probably more times than most people. Let's count: The Wiggles, The Hip, Avril Lavigne, Sesame Street, Thomas The Train, two Kingston Frontenacs games.
61. I always get the nachos with the orange glue cheese when I go. It's a treat.
62. OK, I also get a soft pretzel.
63. And a Diet Coke. Don't judge me.
64. I love PerezHilton. Yes, I know it's crap, but I'm a former entertainment reporter and editor. I needed to be up on my crap.
65. I also like TMZ. Don't judge me.
66. I got my start at The Queen's Journal in 1999. Ten years later? Laid off. Hmmm. That's not exactly how I thought the decade would end. Let's check back with me in 2010 - or 2009 1/2. Give me a few months.
67. I recently saw one of my ex-boyfriends at a Starbucks parking lot and, I'm not sure why, I hid by slouching down in my seat until he drove away.
68. Maybe it was because I had bedhead and no makeup on. Just saying.
69. Want a REALLY good Thai meal? Try Pat's Restaurant on Division Street in Kingston, just before the 401 exit in Kingston. He was open, god bless him, on New Year's Day. I didn't want to go out for New Year's Eve, but I didn't want to have to cook on the first day of the New Year. His pork dish with spring rolls was delicious. My son loved it too. No, it's not downtown, but the food is great.
70. My car once broke down on Highway 401 near Toronto. For an hour, no one would stop to help me and I didn't have a cellphone. (This was in 2000, before everyone, including six year olds had them.) Finally, a nice guy who said he was from Port Perry, Ont., stopped and let me use his phone. An hour later, on his way back from wherever he had gone, he brought me muffins and bottled water while I waited for a tow truck. Thank you. Seriously. I lost some faith in humanity that day until that guy showed up. (One tow truck driver would only let me use his phone if I gave him my service, even though I was covered under CAA.)
71. You know who else is from Port Perry? Jayde Nicole, the Playboy Playmate of the Year. Who, btw, is dating reality TV star Brody Jenner.
72. I love Harveys because they have veggie burgers and now whole wheat buns.
73. I once flew to Europe to meet a boy. Didn't really tell my parents about that one.
74. Hi, Scott. Sarah :)
75. Have a fear of the dentist because years ago (not in Kingston) I had my wisdom teeth out and I'm not kidding, it hurt more than child birth. Seriously. Even though people always say: "I had my wisdom teeth out and then I ran a marathon the next day, got married and flew to Hawaii on my honeymoon. It didn't hurt a single bit." Good for you. Liar. (Sorry, my mom hates that word.) Fibber.
76. As kids when we were little we weren't allowed to say "liar" – nor were we allowed to go to movies on Sundays but that's another story – so we used to say Fibber Magee and Molly. Who are Magee and Molly?
77. We also used to say "Lord love a duck." Don't know where the duck came from, either.
78. I have asthma.
79. I smoked for 10 years.
80. I'm dumb.
81. In my first 100 list, I said I wanted bubbles at my wedding. I didn't get them. I did however get a mirror ball in my bouquet.
82. My husband proposed in our house. With a mirror ball. (I've never told anyone that before.) (And after a dinner at Amadeus.)
83. For a treat, I like extra hot, low-fat, decaf lattes.
84. Since I'm laid off and all, I might start going to the theatre by myself to see potential Oscar nominees. (They have nachos there, too).
85. Speaking of fun, I recently went to Chuck E. Cheese. I really had a good time.
86. My son went up in a tunnel there to poop. We're working on potty training. He likes to have "privacy." Seriously. But then, again, don't we all?
87. I don't get the Jonas Brothers.
88. I don't get Taylor Swift.
89. I like Duffy.
90. I cried in Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who on the weekend. (I'm a little sensitive these days when it comes to themes like fitting in and having a place you're meant to be.)
91. I have four people I'm deciding whether I should be friends with on Facebook. It's not that I don't like them - it's just complicated, is all.
92. I love the doctors and nurses at the Hotel Dieu Children Outpatient Clinic. Twice I've taken my son there and both times they've been fabulous. (Thank you!)
93. My son is interested in nipples. You can thank his stepbrother and sister for that one.
94. My son can sing the words to Britney Spears' Womanizer. It's wrong, I know, but it's sooo cute.
95. I know all the words to the Wonder Pets: "The phone. The phone is ringing. The phone? We'll be right there. The phone. The phone is ringing. There's an animal in trouble."
91. Backyardigans is also catchy.
92. I think I'm the only person in Kingston who thought the Avril Lavigne concert was Horrible with a capital H.
93. I scored one of the first ever Canadian print interviews with Avril. It was the time she talked about Napanee's La Pizzeria, which became a staple in interviews over the past few years.
94. I once had dinner with Avril Lavigne's mother in Amherstview at Nostalgia Station, the restaurant Ryan Malcolm's family owned and ran.
95. I love Oreo blizzards. I might go get one.
96. I voted for Peter Milliken in the last federal election. I know the Greens and NDP can't win without votes, but Conservative Brian Abrams was good and I couldn't risk having a Conservative MP in Kingston.
97. I once planted a flower basket with Kingston Mayor Harvey Rosen.
98. I can do 15 pushups on my toes. (That's down from 25 last year.)
99. My husband thinks I'm colour blind.
100. I'm not.

Damn you, computer spill-checker!!!!!

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:51:38 PST

Being a lover of words and stories, it always amuses me how one wrong word can ruin a good thing. (Yes, you don't need to send me a note saying I've made mistakes, too. Every reporter/editor/blogger has made boo-boos. It's one of the reasons people love blogging. Blogs don't have to be as perfect as newspaper pieces. My biggest newspaper mistake (and there weren't that many, I'll have you know) was getting the date of Pearl Harbor wrong in a story years ago. Never believe what you read on the Internet!) Check out this ad for a Muskoka cottage that was in The Toronto Star. The read is thrilling, simply because this is a house fit for a celebrity. The idea of living in such a mansion is amazing – and then – boom. You get to the end of the story, and it's a hard slap across the face. Nothing is ever as good as it seems ...
(Try to survive the exclamation points! There are a billion of them!!)

"This Muskoka Cottage is what makes the good life great! Finally, a cottage as distinguished as you! For the past several decades, Muskoka design has been as predictable as the trade winds, vaulted ceiling & hardwood! This "Lake Joe" cottage is an appreciation for "Signature Touches" that unlock & conquer style & design! The interior of both the boathouse cabana & main were custom designed. In total the cottage can accommodate 16 comfortably with 5.5 baths over 6,000 sq. ft. of liv. space! Have you ever: Spent a quarter of a million on an outdoor hot tub? Imported Caribbean sand for a volley ball court? Installed a Blackhawk Security System? Placed an Infinity Waterfall in the outdoor area? Heard such a sound system that is thrilling & unforgettable musical experience thru out the site? Have a 24 hr. lighting and gardener on hand from Advanced Mechanical Installs? If dreams come true, this is it! Completely detailed and furnished!! Take the key & viola!"

*And, yes, I actually just spent a quarter of a million on an outdoor hot tub on Tuesday. Voila!

A different kind of threesome

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 07:26:33 PST

In England, the word "brilliant" has a different meaning than here. If Canadians say Dexter is a brilliant show, we mean it's smart. If we say, "that Sarah Crosbie is quite brilliant" we mean I'm smart and stuff. But in England, if someone says "that show is brilliant," it means wonderful, fabulous, perfect.
I have a "brilliant" British friend who I've known since we did a band exchange (no, not like band camp) when we were in high school. (Little known fact: I played the oboe for five years.) She recently sent me an e-mail about what's going on in her life. I read it quickly and was happy to know she was doing well and 2009 was going to be the year of her life when she found herself a nice man.
Then, two days later, I reread the e-mail. We only communicate a few times each year, so I read it again to see if I had missed anything. It's funny how your eyes skim over something and don't get the real meaning.
I thought she said: She was going to find a man. But that's not what she said at all.
What she actually said was: "My new years resolution for 2009 is for a man to find me ( i have written that correctly, as i have no time or interest in speed dating, internet dating etc...)."
I realized in my 31 years that I've never heard a woman say that before. It's always "I'm gonna find me a man!" But anything is possible – maybe more men will start declaring, "I'm gonna find me a nice woman!" (And actually mean it.) Anything seems to be possible these days. After all, America elected a black (and scrumptious) president, Mr. Barack Obama, Mickey Rourke has made a comeback*, and despite the fact that American Idol continues to produce super flops (Taylor Hicks, Katherine McPhee, Rueben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino) while voted-out losers like Chris Daughtry and Jennifer Hudson score big-time, a new season of the show debuts tonight.
Of course, not all women are ready to hurry up and wait. Sometimes women have to take it into their own hands and I admire the gusto of three local ladies who are doing it together. Yes, we girls like to go to the bathroom together. Now, we're banding together to find love together: "Attention gentlemen: Are you footloose and fancy free? Three professional, single women, EACH wanting a kind, considerate, single, unattached male between the ages of 55-75 years for companionship, travel and to share life's adventures. Please send a note with your age and phone number."
The ladies placed the ad in Kingston's daily newspaper, The Whig-Standard.
Note, too, that all they want is someone between the ages of 55 and 75. It's not like when men place ads that say, "Seventy five year old gentleman seeking lady, 24 to 27, with blonde hair, svelte figure, high income, love of nature, fishing, Alaska, beer, bacon burgers who is happy, loving, perfect, kind, and smokin' hot."
What do you think? Should women sit back and let the men find them, or should women be proactive and go get 'em. Half empty or half full? Desperate or keen? Pathetic or driven? I say you go after what you want, or do what feels right for you so you'll never have regrets.
One last thing: You're never too old to get hitched. And that's brilliant.

*Looking for a hot night with your lady/man? Rent 1986's 9 1/2 Weeks with Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger. It's a hot movie, but not one that you have to go through saloon-style doors into a creepy back room to rent. Know what I mean? ...

Check out these buns

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:14:02 PST

There are a few rules that every single health magazine/TV show/newspaper article/blog/fitness expert will give you when you're trying to lose weight and become a healthier person:
- Eat lean meats, such as chicken (no skin, of course) instead of fattier cuts;
- Drink water (This is my least favourite. Why can't water taste like Diet Coke?);
- Don't eat at least three hours before going to bed;
- Use portion control and don't make dinner your heaviest meal;
- Always eat breakfast, because you'll eat less during the day;
- Limit sugary drinks such as pops and juices;
- And watch your carbs. Don't eat a load of them and when you do eat breads and pastas and wraps and rice, make them whole grain or at least whole wheat. (Make them brown, essentially.)
White bread and pasta are about as popular these days as new Vancouver Canucks' player Mats Sundin because there is basically no nutritional value in them. So all health experts say switching out the white for the brown is one small step that will keep you at a healthy weight.
I think in the last five years, I have eaten maybe five to 10 pieces of white bread - and that's when I had no choice, either when I've been visiting family or out at a restaurant.
It has always been my pet peeve that no fast food restaurants - with the exception of chain sub shops - served any of their products on whole wheat, or, even better, multigrain products. Sometimes, especially when you're travelling, or even if you're just a burnt out tired mama, fast food works and you can make it healthy if you try: A small burger with just lettuce and a little ketchup, a grilled chicken wrap with just lettuce, a salad hold the cheese, the bacon, the croutons, the chili, the nacho chips, the sour cream and the creamy dressing. (Yes, it's still a salad.)
Why am I so nuts about this stuff? I was born with a birth defect.
I was born without a metabolism.
I eat one cookie and I've got a pound of lard stuck to my behind.
Sneak in a few pieces of cheese? Oh, look, I not only have two lovehandles, I now have three. (The third one is like an office chair; it swivels around.)
Eat a pile of salty cashews? Just call me Cankle Crosbie.
Joking aside (oh, that's where the third lovehandle went - my left side) I really do have to be vigilant about what I eat and drink and my exercise. I fight hard to be a size 6 to 8 and it has only been in the last three years that I've learned to keep my weight in check. I once weighed 50 pounds more than I do now and I couldn't walk around the block I was so out of shape.
So, it was with much glee that I opened my mail today and I saw a flyer in my mailbox that said, "Nice Buns." (Why, thank you.) It was a Harvey's flyer announcing: "Harvey's NEW whole wheat bun."
The restaurant is also introducing a new warm grilled Chicken BLT Salad. (If you take the bacon off it, it looks quite nice.)
I've always liked Harvey's. It was a treat to go there when I was a kid and they're one of the only places with a veggie burger. Now I can have a veggie burger on a whole wheat bun or a grilled chicken sandwich on whole wheat. Is it perfect? No, a whole grain bun would be best because some whole wheat buns aren't that much better than white buns, but for me, it's the little things that matter. Now if someone could just come up with a water that tasted like pop, I'd be a happy girl.

Where there's stank, there's a smoke?

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:53:38 PST

I am a smoker – but I haven't had a cigarette in more than four years.
I smoked off and on from the time I was a teenager to my late 20s, quitting often and never succeeding. And then, one day, I realized there was something seriously wrong with my breathing and I was an out-of-shape tub-a-lub.
Four years later, and with asthma as my souvenir from those 12 years of smoking, I'm still always a little worried something will reignite my need to smoke.
I don't think non-smokers have any idea what it's like to be a non-smoker around cigarette smoke. Sometimes it smells so awful I could gag. Othertimes, I think it smells absolutely de-lish-ous. Nothing has ever matched the succulent pairing of a glass of wine and a cigarette - except maybe, maybe bread drenched in the pooling butter in escargot.
We were out and about today and when we got back in the car to come home, I smelled cigarettes.
"What's that smell?" I said to my husband.
I started sniffing my coat, my pants, the car chair, his jacket.
"What are you doing?" he snarked.
"I smell cigarettes," I told him.
He looked at me like I was crazy and then told me I was crazy.
"Your being neurotic, you know," he said.
Somewhere in my car was a cigarette. I didn't care that he didn't believe me. He's never been a smoker so he has no idea of the pull of a butt's smell. (Yes, some butts smell good. Who knew?)
After a 10-minute drive home, we pulled into our driveway. I went to get my toddler son out of the back seat of the car and I just knew where the cigarette was. I could sense it. I ripped my son's winter boot off his foot and turned it upside down. And there, wedged in between the thick treads, was a cigarette butt.
I love it when I'm right.

Blood, black toenails and why you should always shovel your driveway

sarah@sarahcrosbie.com (Sarah Crosbie) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:41:31 PST

"What's wrong with your toenails?!" the paramedic said loudly enough that I could hear her upstairs.
She was in the top floor of our house, attending to my husband whose head was dripping blood on our floor. I was running around our kitchen, one floor below, trying to find my cellphone and where I'd dropped my car keys.
"He hurt his toes, too?" I thought.
"I'm coming!!!" I screamed as I ran up the steps to the paramedics and my sick and injured husband.
A few hours earlier, my husband and I had been enjoying a quiet day, relaxing on our one-year wedding anniversary. We'd celebrated with our family and friends the day before and, on our official anniversary, we were just taking it easy. After dinner, I tiptoed upstairs and put my husband's anniversary card on his pillow so he could open it when we were going to bed later that night. But a few minutes after dinner, he said he didn't feel good and went to rest on the couch. An hour later, he was much worse and so he went up to bed for the night. (This was really not the way I expected my anniversary night to go, but marriage is for better and for worse.) He'd put my anniversary card on my pillow, too.
"We'll open them tomorrow morning when you feel better, OK?" I told him.
I crawled into bed with my husband. He was clammy and restless - not feeling good. There was definitely no bow-chicka-bow-bow going on tonight.
Off to sleep I went, thinking warm thoughts about surviving our first year of marriage ...
BAM!
There was a loud thud in my house.
BAM!
Another one.
And then a crash.
I got up out of bed. In my tired brain, I thought my husband was crashing around in the kitchen, maybe do doing dishes – even though it just a little before 4 a.m. He wasn't there. He also wasn't in our bathroom.
And then I saw him, collapsed in the doorway of a bedroom.
His head was bleeding and he was unconscious.
I started yelling, screaming for him to wake up.
He didn't stir but my two-year-old son woke up.
I called 911. It was the first time I've ever had to do that in my life.
And then, probably from adrenaline, I went into a calm take-care-of-my-family zone.
I'd taken a CPR course a couple of years ago and I remembered the instructor said homeowners should always make sure paramedics can find their house, especially if it's dark and the weather is bad. I flew through my home, turning on every inside and outside light. Then I found my car keys and repeatedly hit the lock function on my keychain so my car's taillights would continually flash. I scooped up my son and put him on my bed with toys to keep him busy and then sat with my husband until the paramedics arrived (outrageously quickly).
(We got a good lesson in why you should always shovel your driveway. This was the weekend when Kingston had a major dump on Friday and then more snow Sunday morning and our driveway was full of snow, even though we'd shovelled it twice already that weekend. The paramedics could barely walk through our driveway and there was no chance of getting a stretcher up through the snow if there had been a serious problem.)
The paramedics checked out my husband and thought that he'd fallen and hit his head.
"So, he didn't have a heart attack? A stroke?" I asked.
They said they thought he was sick and had likely been lightheaded, fallen, and hit his head on a dresser. But they still wanted him to go emerg and get checked out.
Relieved, I set out through my home to find everything I needed to go to Kingston General Hospital - with a two-year-old at 4 a.m.
And then I heard one of the paramedics say: "What's wrong with your toenails?"
"I'm coming!!!" I screamed to everyone, bounding up the stairs, two at a time.
What could be wrong now?
And then, as soon as I got back to my husband, for the first time since the drama began half an hour earlier, I felt my family was going to be OK.
"Runner's toe," my husband said.
"It's from running a half marathon. Blood under the toenail."
"Well, that will teach you to do something silly like that then, won't it?" the paramedic said with a smile.
My husband smiled, too.
And I exhaled.
I've never been so happy to see his blood-filled, black and purple toenails.
In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, in good toenails and bad.