I'm Really Quite Terrible At Breathing Like A Normal Person

I feel like Goldie Hawn's character in Overboard when she's gone catatonic in a corner and her four so-called sons are busying themselves by throwing grapes at her mouth, only no one's actually throwing grapes at my mouth, and I'm hungry. Also, I'm not catatonic.



I think what I really mean is that I envy Goldie Hawn's character in Overboard, because she gets to be catatonic and have grapes, while I just get to be panicked about everything I have to get done in the next 36 hours while three cats stare on in bewilderment and refuse to learn how to serve me some damn dinner.



The Palinode and I leave for Blissdom Canada in Toronto on Thursday morning, and before then, I have to design eleventy skillion things, buy extra cat litter, make up extra litter boxes for the cats, launder all the clothes, pick up my coat where I left it at a friend's house, work up some speaking notes for my Blissdom Canada panel called The Art And Science Of Finding Inspiration – And Using It, read half a book, pack my suitcase, make it through a dentist appointment slated to be at least two hours long, and and and and and and and lots of other stuff.



Right now I am hiding out in bed, working from the padded safety of several blankets and three pillows, and I am reminding myself to please actually breathe like a normal person once in a while. I'm really quite terrible at it.

Luckily, my eyes have started to fail me. They won't focus anymore, and they keep registering what looks like sunspots when I look at stuff, so I am forced to stop staring at the computer for a while and actually go shower and find sustenance.

You know it's a great day when the early stages of blindness present a silver lining for you.



Here's to showering! And maybe a sandwich! Heave, ho!

The Potato Prescription: Lemony, Lemony Roasted Potatoes With Garlic

I have been given opportunity to panic recently. I'm not going to tell you why, because I am all about creating suspense, but I am going to tell you how I deal with that panic.

Me and panic have a long history. We met back in about 1974 and became fast bedfellows. It wasn't until sometime in 1999 when I found out that, aside from being a versatile starch, potatoes could be wonderfully calming when I found myself having an extended episode of anxiety in my bathtub, which is where I like to have my extended episodes of anxiety. Potatoes mellow me out. I've never looked into the science behind it, but it works.

With my recent bout of panic, I decided that it was time for a good, strong dose of my favourite starch: Lemony, Lemony Roasted Potatoes With Garlic. They get two lemonys, because these babies are lemony.

Lemony, Lemony Roasted Potatoes With Garlic

5 medium potatoes
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons dried oregano
3 cloves minced garlic

Cut each of the potatoes in half and boil in salted water for 15 minutes. Drain the water and cut the potatoes into smaller chunks.

Mix the rest of the ingredients together and then toss them with the potato chunks until the potatoes are evenly coated.

Bake the potatoes in a single layer in a baking pan at at 400°F for 45 minutes. Turn the potatoes over after a little more than 20 minutes to ensure even roasting.

EAT.

A pile of these tart potatoes, taken at the first sign of panic, especially when coupled with a nap, will set you aright. Panic: averted.*

You're welcome!

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* Unless of course there's babies, in which case panic is always indicated, plus you could win free stuff if it is before March 16, 2011.

Let's Panic About Babies! Is Pretty Twisted, And You Probably Want To Win Your Very Own Copy

I was hearing about all of these other people getting their copies of Let's Panic About Babies! already, and I had on my best pouty face about not having mine yet, but nothing, not even a severely protruding lower lip, will speed up shipping to Canada, so I just had to wait it out and hope I got my copy before those babies started high school. Finally, yesterday afternoon, my blessed copy arrived one week after its launch. We Canadians do suffer so.

The first great thing I noticed about Let's Panic About Babies! is that you can't talk! about the book! without using! at least one! exclamation mark! (I used five extra ones, but you can't use zero exclamation marks. It's innately exclamatory!)

The second great thing that I noticed about this book? If you hold the cover up against your face just right, it totally looks like you are going to eat that baby, and not in that cute I-want-to-put-your-feet-in-my-mouth way, either. I look thoroughly psychotic.



(By the way, you might have noticed that I am wearing one of Eden's famous t-shirts under my haute couture red flannel in that photo. This is purely coincidental. I am not obsessed with the authors of this book. For serious.)

Okay, look. I think I've started this review off on the wrong foot. For one thing, you probably weren't even aware this was a review. It is! For another thing, I have painted myself to be a baby-eating psychotic with an Eden Kennedy obsession. I'm not! I'm a perfectly normal human being who likes the authors Alice Bradley and Eden Kennedy in a perfectly normal way and who wants to tell you that Let's Panic About Babies! is a perfectly normal book about pregnancy, childbirth, and early babyhood.

Oh, who am I kidding. This book is not a perfectly normal book. It is a perfectly ridiculous book, and it is a perfectly sometimes twisted book, but it is not normal, and this is a good thing, because there is nothing normal about pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood.

Some people will try to give you the impression that all of this is very natural and wonderful as a way to convince that all of this is normal. Let me tell you one thing I know from my 38 years of worldly experience: natural is not what we mean when we talk about normal. Natural is lions eviscerating wildebeests. Natural is giant spills of molten rock devouring Pompeii. Natural is spending years of your life knowing that you have someone else's snot or old food or vomit or poo stuck somewhere on your person at all times because you had the wild idea to procreate.

Aaaaand back to the book, because that's why we're here. How about you watch this video trailer to acquaint yourself with the flavour of Let's Panic About Babies! while I go and pour myself some more of that lovely hot, brown juice I call joe?



See? Twisted.

I feel compelled to tell you that I like this book even though I have no babies now nor will I ever. I am the least baby-having person around since some doctors absconded with my uterus coming on four years ago, and yet I still laughed my fool head off until the Palinode demanded to know what was so funny at nearly three in the morning thankyouverymuch, because, as it turns out, anyone can panic about babies. If there's something to panic about, it's definitely babies, and panicking about them is hilarious, if Alice and Eden have anything to say about it, which they do for over 260 ridiculous pages.

What I want to do for you, because this book is worth spreading, and also because Alice Bradley and Eden Kennedy should be spre...

That sentence looked like it was going nowhere good.

What I meant to say is that I want to give away one spanky, awesome copy of Let's Panic About Babies!


THE WINNER HAS BEEN PICKED AND THE GIVEAWAY OVER. A VERY BOO HOO TO YOU.

If you would like ONE chance to get your hands on Let's Panic About Babies!, do one of the following. If you would like TWO chances to win, do both of the following:

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me something that has to do with babies and panicking. I'm sure you've panicked at several points in your life, and I'm also sure that at least one of those incidents was baby-related.


2. Post the following tweet on Twitter, complete with hashtag:
   
   What should we panic about? Let's Panic About Babies! http://tinyurl.com/panicaboutbabies  #panicaboutbabies

I will pick picked one lucky person at random on March 15th at midnight and announce announced the winner both here and on Twitter.

While you enthusiastically enter this giveaway and await my announcement of the lucky winner, you can also avail yourself of the full menu of Let's Panic About Babies! charms:

Like them on Facebook

Follow them on Twitter

Check out the Let's Panic! website

Buy the book!

So, get with the commenting and the tweeting. I hope you win!

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UPDATE: And the winner is MayB of Buggering Crap Monkies! She's one funny lady by nature, so this is a perfect win.

Thanks for playing!