Posts Tagged ‘Mom’

Posts Tagged ‘Mom’


Soccer Mom

8.08.2010 | 4 Comments

You’re so stupid sometimes, Robyn”

Gee, thanks mom.

Perhaps I should back up a bit…

My mom and I were sitting around chatting yesterday, and in the valley between two conversations she pipes up and, completely out of context, says to me, “You’re so stupid sometimes, Robyn!

To which I understandably say, “Gee, thanks mom”

She continued…

All this complaining you’re doing about this mountain… if only you would see yourself as other people see you, you wouldn’t even question your ability to summit.

“You’re the most determined person I know, and if you want something to happen, then for god’s sake, it’ll happen. There’s no keeping you from doing what you damn well want to do. You’ve always been like that“.

“Okaaaaay….”

Don’t you remember when you played soccer? How old were you?

“Um, I dunno’, eight?”

That sounds about right. Anyway, you had these new soccer boots and they were horrible. You had blisters the size of fifty-cent pieces all over your poor feet. The problem was, there weren’t enough girls on the team that day, so if you didn’t play, your team would have to forfeit the game and take a loss. Your feet were in terrible shape. But would you give up? Nope. Would you quit? Nope. You knew that if you stopped playing, your team would lose, and you didn’t want that. So you ran up and down that field with your mangled, hurting feet in those terrible new boots

“…I did?”

Yes, you did. In fact, your coach wanted you to stop playing, but you refused. You convinced him to let you play! He was ready to give the game up, but you weren’t. I didn’t even have any bandaids for you. No one did. So you played with these big open blisters. It must have been awful“.

“Whoa. Really? Did we win the game?”

Oh god, no. You had no chance, and you all knew it. But you still played it“.

“Well, guess I was pretty stubborn, eh mom?”

No, I wouldn’t say stubborn. Determined.”

“But I’m stubborn now

Oh totally. You’re a pain in the ass now. But back then, I’d say you were determined. So anyway, to make a long story short, I really don’t think you’ll have a problem making it up that mountain. You’re determined, so I know you’ll do it. There’s no way you won’t.”

Gee, thanks mom.

xo

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Done and done!

6.06.2010 | 3 Comments

Well, that’s that. The Kili Gala has come and gone, and the donations are still being counted.

I just wanted to thank the many, MANY people who came out and lent a hand. My mom was there setting up tables at the beginning, selling tickets through the night, and cleaning up at the end. Good thing she won a bunch of raffle prizes to make up for her hard work!!  I went to her place this morning, and she has Tyler’s elephant photo put up on her wall already!

MJP  was a huge help, too. Bringing the slideshow, helping clean up at the end of the night, and kicking my arse in Jenga. Word to the wise: do NOT play Jenga with this guy for money.

Chris Udy was a mondo rad DJ, and thanks also goes to Fernando at Mirmor Productions for lending the mondo rad Chris the gear he needed to put on a great show.

Ali’s parents were tireless in their clean-up efforts, and they made that blah-est of tasks go by quickly at the end of the night when all we wanted to do was fall over and go to sleep. Her dad also manned the bar so that I could go get my arse kicked at Jenga.   xoxo

Ali’s brother Brian and his lovely (lucky raffle-winning) wife Pam were fab bartenders who handled the dying beer fridge with aplomb. THANK YOU!

Min Banwait came, she saw, she drummed. She set up, she made things look pretty and she helped my tireless mom, too. Thanks Mun!

Chris Bruckshaw from El Camino VolunTours was there, too! He set up a booth, chatted, gave out info, and inspired a whole bunch of people to look at vacations in a new way. Love that I’ve connected with El Camino!

And to all those that drove from afar – THANK YOU. I know Ladner is a bit far for some of you, but you came out and you got home safely, too. YAY!

Finally, I want to thank EVERYONE who came out last night. Maybe you stayed for a few hours, maybe you stayed for a few minutes… it was really, really great to have your support. That meant so very much. I can’t express my appreciation enough. I am humbled by your generosity. Truly.

And now… I need to spend the day cleaning out my car, sorting empties, cleaning my neglected home, doing laundry, walking the dogs, grocery shopping, paying bills soaking my feet and eating chocolate.

THANK YOU.

xoxo

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“Gee Robyn, you sure spend a lot of money on therapy…”

5.15.2010 | 4 Comments

Today… is my birthday.

Now, before you get all giddy and start your ‘whoop-whoop!’ing, I’d like to take this moment to honour my mother. Each year on my birthday, she revels in telling me all about my birth, and how horrendous it was.

First of all, of my two older brothers and I, I was the one that put my mother through her longest labour. She went to the hospital at about 3am on May 15th, and endured labour like a champ for an entire… three hours. Can you believe it? I mean, really – three hours! How did she ever get through it?!

I do enjoy teasing my mother about this because really, every single birth story I have ever heard relates labour being in the 15 – 60 hour (I’m not kidding am I, Caieta?) range. My mother enjoys then emphatically countering with, “I had your brother after only TWO CONTRACTIONS!”

Yah, yah… whatever mom. Now you’re just making stuff up.

Then she likes to tell me that when I was born, she thought she “had given birth to a slug”. Here, she likes to refer to the miracle of my entry into this world as “gross”, “disgusting”, and “horrible”. This was because I was born ‘In the Caul’. That means that the amniotic sac was still intact as mom squished my skull toward the light of day. (It’s a good thing that the movie “Alien” hadn’t come out yet, or that would have been one panicked delivery room.)

And now, I get to the best part of my birth story…

Y’see, I have a lot of little ‘beauty marks’ on my skin. A lot of people have them (in fact, my friend Eran and I have identical ones on our left feet!), and they don’t bother me at all. Well… they shouldn’t bother me, anyway. But they totally do bother me, thanks to my GENIUS mother who found the absolute best way to warp and humiliate me at the same time.

As a young, impressionable child, I innocently asked my mom about my beauty marks one day. She looked down at her precious daughter, smiled sweetly as only a mother can, and said that I had so many beauty marks because I came out of her butt.

So yes,  according to my mother, I was born a butt-slug.  Apparently not my finest moment.

HOWEVER… there is one thing that my mother tells me about my birth that doesn’t actually send me over the edge: she tells me that she knew right away that I was something special. And she knew in some way that I would be a different type of person, someone who was meant for great things. (She assures me that she did not have an epidural, so it wasn’t the drugs talking or anything.) Now, she never really told me any of this until about a year ago. I grew up sound in the knowledge that I was not a precious snowflake, nor was I the only child on the planet. I was taught that I was to be nice to other people, because I was other people. Sure, I was individual, but that didn’t mean I had the right to pronounce that I was better than someone else.

Since I was a kid, I have felt that I was meant for something big. Something extraordinary. Something important. I’d be happy, I’d be content, and I would be so because I capitalize on whatever it is that’s inside me. My heart, my mind, my passion… maybe my drive, my knowledge, or my talent…

I have instinctively known that somehow, someway, I’d be living a life where I knew that all my dreams could come true if only I asked them to.

…and today, on my 34th birthday, when I stopped to think about it, I remembered that I was born at 6:49 in the morning.

I’d already won the lotto before I took my first breath.

Thanks, mom.

You may now commence your ‘Whoop-Whoop!’ing.

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I Blame My Mother

3.31.2010 | 3 Comments

When we were quite a bit younger, Ali and I were in the Ladner Stingrays Swim Club. Not only did we have swim meets on the weekends and swim practices in the evenings, we also had the most evil thing in the entire world: 7am before-school swims.

That’s right. We had to get up at 6:30, and go to the Ladner OUTDOOR pool. I will never, ever forget the feeling of stepping onto that cold, nubbly concrete deck, and looking into that water just knowing that I had to jump in there.

They told me that the pool was “heated”, and one could certainly ascertain that by simply looking at the water through the mist of the morning, and seeing the streams of teasing “steam” coming off it. I believed them. I actually believed them. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I’d be all wrapped up in my comfy jammies (with my bathing suit underneath, of course), and would sometimes even have a warm blanket draped around my shoulders. My feet, bare and feeling the cold of the deck, tried to tell me to run. They knew that it was cold! But noooo. My stupid brain said that I had to get into the pool.

To have to get all the comfy layers off to jump into a massive bath of cold water was not at all easy. To this day I simply cannot handle getting into cold water. I get all panicky and freaked out, and begin flailing in the water as I try desperately to doggy paddle and cry at the same time.

The ONLY thing that made the morning bearable was the fact that my mother was (and still is) an inventive, intelligent woman. She knew that her children wouldn’t want to wake up and go swimming! Did she want to fight with three grumpy, snarly kids when she herself was half-asleep? No!

To wake her children up on those 7am swim mornings, my mother would gently place a small chocolate macaroon on our tongues as we slept. She’d stay with us until we woke up, happily to the taste of chocolate, and then she’d hand us another macaroon and softly tell us that we needed to get up and get ready to go. And we would.

To this day, the taste of chocolate & coconut reminds me of my mom. It makes me smile. It reminds me that even though I may have to do something I don’t want to do, I can make it sorta’ fun if I get creative with it. My mom actually made it possible for us to look forward to those 7am swims. Genius, isn’t it?

And so, that’s why I am bringing a bag of chocolate macaroons with me on my Kili climb. I’ll have them tucked away beside my sleeping bag, and when I am woken the morning, I will grab a macaroon and be happy, even for a brief moment, before I get my cold clothes on and trudge up a mountain.

Gotta’ say, I love the fact that I can turn even the most strenuous of physical activities into an excuse to eat chocolate. Thanks mom! xo

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Very Happy Valentine

2.14.2010 | 0 Comments

My Valentine (my mom, as always) was so very thoughtful this year. As a way to support my climbing Kilimanjaro, she went the extra mile to get me a gift that would not only give me energy, but help me with acclimatization.

My mom got me Himalayan Pink Salt, dark chocolate caramel chocolates from Purdy’s. She figured that since they came from the mountains, they’d be full of acclimatized air, and so would benefit me greatly.

Thanks mom!!

xo

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