So, my mother is coming to visit this afternoon. I’ve known about this for a while, but waited to plead for help because of the snowfall warnings earlier this week: even though my mother is taking various forms of public transportation the entire way, snow would have made her cancel her trip for safeties. No snow and the (confusing) phone call this morning means we’re still on, and I’ll pick her up at 4pm from the bus station.

Ed and I have lived in Vancouver for 6 years, and this will be her third visit. She made one trip to our first apartment in East Van, one to our place in North Van, and now our condo. If the past has told me anything, this will likely be her only visit to SPARTA – she’s just not fond of traveling.

As the clock nears 4pm, I’m getting really antsy. Do I look okay? Will she say I’m fat? Will she find fault with our home? Will she hate the pot roast I meticulously planned and arose at 6:30am to prepare? I don’t hold that much weight in what she thinks, but she’s awfully vocal with those opinions and I really don’t want to spend the next 4 days being criticized at every turn. Tomorrow is daunting; I have the day off to spend with my mom and Ed has to work so I’m on my own. What do you do with someone who has no hobbies other than lottery tickets? How do you solve a problem like my mother? Where are the singing nuns when I need them?

Other things currently up my ass at the moment:

I want to go somewhere for Dine Out Vancouver, but almost every menu I look at features lamb, duck, or the inside parts of a pig (belly, cheek, etc). In some horrible cases, all three are served in one tragic meal. I don’t like those things! I want to eat the pig, not the insides of the pig!

When petulantly pouting about the kind of blogs that seem to attract all the swag, it was pointed out to me that all the sites that marketing companies contact to do giveaways and samples have two things in common: one, they’re all family-friendly – very few, if any, spend any time talking about the vagina – and two, they don’t write bitchy blog posts calling out marketing companies for being stupid. Sure, they’re often boring, badly written, borderline illiterate Geocities leftovers, but hey! You could get a free cell phone or camera! Oh BOY!

Yeah, I know. It’s just hard not to be bitter sometimes. With this blog’s 10th anniversary coming up in March, I should probably just accept and embrace the idea that I’ll be underground forever – I’m not willing to clean up (and dumb down) my act just for the sake of swag, and I still manage to do alright for my readers out of my own pocket. You like me even though I can’t give away stuff often, right? (lie if you have to)

Lastly, where’s my package? It’s been “with delivery courier” since 10:10 this morning.

Two hours until mom. On the up side, that means it’s 4 hours until pot roast! Hooray!

keep on truckin'.