Your Official Winter Olympics Ambassador

photo source here

That would be ME!!

(not me the ice sculpture - me, the ambassador.)

(although I do feel like the ice sculpture sometimes...cold-hearted, block-headed, kinda bloaty and cankle-y...)

(I have yet to feel quite old enough to be rockin' the adult snow diaper)

FYI, the carving above is referred to as an Inukshuk, which is - I believe - Aleutian for bloated and cankled one, or Great Whale Blubber God.

See? I'm a wealth of information. Stick with me, peeps. We're going places.

I'm self-elected, but hey. The sash looks pretty spiffy over my parka, and if I'm not mistaken, I think that ambassadors wear tiaras of some sort.

(and if they don't, they should)

Within the next month or so, I will begin my own BvonB Network coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Rest assured, there will be very little sports talked about. I really do not like sports all that much.

Nope, I plan on walking in and amongst the great unwashed, and sleuthing out the weird and wonderful, the oddities and lunacies.

In true Baroness fashion, I will couple my keen powers of observation with mad photography skills, and give you coverage unlike any other. There will be pictures of people taking pictures; I'm hoping that there are many more Clive Barker wanna-bes out there, clicking, and turning, bending and contorting. And wearing black socks and sneakers.

I consider it my ambassadorial duty to bring all of this to you. Because, you know, tickets to even the most hideous winter events (I think this might be the cross-country ski/badger shoot), are insanely expensive.

Yet, you'll see things here for absolutely free. I might throw in a set of Ginzu knives, if I'm feeling generous. Maybe even a SlapChop or two (but I can't wait all day).

Say it.

You are lucky to have me.

As a teaser, I will entice you with a local commercial. It combines 2 sports that illustrates the awesomeness that is Canada.

Enjoy!

How Green Was My Valley

In the summer between high school graduation and first year university, I took it upon myself to get a job. I was tired of begging for silly little things that I most certainly did not need, but most certainly did want.

Up until this point in time, my father flatly refused to allow me to have a job; with his lower-middle class income; come tax time, he needed all the dependants he could get. And since I was an only child, prematurely losing me to the work force would cut that crucial number by a whopping 50%.

I should point out that my life up until this point was bland. Suburban, over-protected, sheltered to the point of wondering if I had Stockholm Syndrome. Bland. Bland. Bland.

Any knowledge of life came from television sit-coms; any knowledge of sex and its intricacies were gleaned from general hearsay, countless library visits to the Science section, and the discovery of Erica Jong. I had a vague idea of the physics of it all, but in practical terms, with nary a boyfriend throughout my years in school, I was hopelessly naive.

Cut to my new, exciting, inner city job as a hotel chambermaid.

Enter Ruth.

Rough talkin’, hard drinkin’, fast livin’ Ruth. Ruth who liked to party with cowboys. Ruth who was known to get in a scuffle now and again. Ruth who had done time in the hoosegow. Ruth who didn’t always go right home from work. Ruth whose frantic husband would call the housekeeping office the next afternoon, trying to locate his wandering bride.

Ruth who taught me more about life and work ethic and how the world turns in those first two months than I had learned in the prior 17 years leading up to that July.

To weasel one’s way into Ruth’s good graces was to walk amongst the lofty upper echelon of the Housekeeping Department. If there is such a thing.

Whatever knowledge I may have lacked due to being pitifully sheltered? I more than made up for in my book smarts and wicked crazy research skills. I knew full and well how to win Ruth’s respect. All it would take would be good ol’fashioned hard work. And lots of it.

It did not take long before I had set myself apart from the rest of the motley crew. I was now the ‘go-to’ person upon whom Ruth would call if she needed to get the job done fast and efficient-like.

One morning, we were advised by the front desk that we would need to clear an entire floor to accommodate the impending arrival of a busload of tourists. After our pre-work coffee, Ruth barked in my general direction, “You’re with me on 4. Let’s move it.”

Here it was. My chance for greatness. My call up to the bigs.

For most of the morning, she and I just busted it out, working in silence; two ballerinas in an effortless, pine-scented choreography. I would scrub bathtub rings, she would dust. I would tuck in sheets, she would vacuum. I deluded myself into thinking that the Hotel Doyenne was slightly impressed with my perfect little hospital corners. It was when I eschewed our coffee break in the interest of time that she may have even fallen in love with me a little. Whatever. All I knew was at that point, her demeanour shifted ever so slightly, and I was privilege to witness a Ruth that few knew – thoughtful, smiling, playful.

This silliness all came to a head as we neared the end of the rooms. After stripping the bed, Ruth knelt down to check out if there were any goodies left behind underneath on the floor, as she had hundreds of times before. She emerged from just above the horizon of the mattress, holding what looked like a plain brown lunch bag. I glanced over to watch her peek inside and raise her eyebrows.

“Well, looky here”, she smirked.

I must admit, I was intrigued. What mystery could it be that could possibly evoke any reaction at all from seen-it-all Ruth? And in a lunch bag, no less? Was it someone’s stash? A über-raunchy porno mag? Huge wads of cash?

As she passed me the bag across the expanse of the mattress, she lightly flicked the outside surface; the bag began to hum.

Still, I was blithely oblivious. Yeah, I know. Shut up.

I gingerly took the bag and snuck a peek.

“Ya-a-a-aah! Jeeeeesus, Ruth!”, I yelped.

As meteoric the speed as I dropped the vibrator was the speed at which Ruth dropped to her knees, laughing so violently as to start gasping for air. She cackled so hard I thought she was going to give herself an asthma attack.

“Just how stupid are you, anyway, girl?” she wondered between guffaws.

“Ummmm - pretty fucking stupid?”, I offered.

“Yeah, that’s about right.”

Wiping her eyes, her laughter slowly subsiding, Ruth shot me a rare dazzling smile. She had been the one to bust my green suburban naivete cherry, and she knew it. The master and her pupil, sequestered in Room 425 of the Holiday Inn.

In that moment, that bio-dome that my parents had so lovingly constructed began to get a fatal architectural flaw.

And life – real, true, funny, bizarre, humming life – began to trickle through.

Every Baroness Should Have a Castle

I know what you're thinking.

It's only kings and queens who have castles.

You may remember from an earlier post that, damn it all, I am going to be a rebel. I'm not going to make history by being well-behaved or by dreaming small.

Like my pal Sandy says, "Bigger's better, more is best."

So I'm thinking that instead of some crappy timeshare in Puerto Vallarta, I should have a castle.

You know, a fortress. A stronghold. Something substantial, but still something that feels all snuggly and comfy inside. Something that makes me sigh because of its structural beauty.

Here's the castle I choose:

Nathan Fillion, a.k.a. Rick Castle

Not only was he born in the same city as me(I see this as a plus - shared history and all that), he's funny and rogue-ish and all kinds of variations of yummy.

If you've not ever heard of my castle, I urge you to rent the movie "Waitress".

He'll charm your moat right off.

Today's Letters: S,N,L & (von) B

*(Non)Spoiler Alert: At some point during this post, I will be referring to an inconsequential scene from "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" movie. So, if you:

a) haven't seen the movie yet and are intending to,
b) are an Indy oficianado/George Lucas stalker, or
c) are worried that I am a pathological liar, DO NOT proceed past the middle of this post.
You have been warned.

Two things you must know about the von Bloggenschtern children.

Number one. They are, in this completely impartial mother's estimation, 2 of the insane-liest funny people on earth. Really. They amuse me to no end (and as a Baroness - I am not easily amused).

Number two. In order to nourish this humour and to keep it strong and thriving, they have been raised on a steady diet of the tv and movies that the Baron and I deem to be worthy of taking up space in their brains' culture center. Sure, there's a lot of stuff in there that we were in no way responsible for, but in the main, we've shown them the way.

Of the many shows we watch, the one with the most longevity is Saturday Night Live. Both the Baron and I have been viewers for many, many years. I myself lapsed a little in the Charles Rocket years, but the Baron has remained steadfast (one word here : sucKAH!).

And, in raising children, one of the coolest things for me is patiently sitting on the sidelines, watching them discover something (you already know is) great for themselves. SNL has become quite a vonB bonding experience, and has produced many family catchphrases that my very funny sons manage to trot out at just the appropriate moments. Hilarity then ensues.

What's with this rambling preamble?

To set the scene for 2 proud parenting humour moments that happened this last weekend:

Scene 1: Goldberg's Deli, Bellevue Factoria Mall

The von B's have tried valiantly to finish their huge American food portions. But there is just one lox and bagel that cannot, in any terms, be shoved down anyone's pie hole. We are sated, people.
So our lovely waitress comes by, and the Baron asks her if she could put the bagel in a bag to go.

Well, says our waitress, we don't have any bags - how about a box?

Which leads our sons to start singing their version of "Lox in a Box", a take-off of the Justin Timberlake/Andy Samberg song from a recent SNL Digital Short:





We laughed. We cried. We bought the hot mustard.

Scene 2: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie

In one very somber scene, Indy is packing up some things, and the camera pans across the room. Across some significant artifacts from the past, across his desk, festooned with personal photos.

It stops right in front of a picture of Sean Connery, who at one point played Henry Jones, Indy's father.

Do the von B's let this poignant moment go? Hellz, no.

In full view of my family, I shake my fist at the screen, and under my breath mutter,

"TREBEK!!".

We all shake with the giggles, and are quickly marginalized by the rest of the theatre-goers as the lunatic backwoods Canadian family.

Between gasping for air between guffaws, I kvell over the coolness that is my children. On the days they rock, they RAWK.

For those of you not familiar with the SNL-contrived rivalry between Sean Connery and Alex Trebek, enjoy: