Dear Oozing, Gum-Chewing Eyelids of Mine,

Your timing couldn't be more exemplary: Halloween! What a wonderful time to have conjunctivitis. It's very festive to go around seeing the world in a cloudy haze. You can all go ahead and turn off your expensive fog machines, now (unless you have one of those cool ones that also makes maniacal laughing sounds... BWaHahAHHaaA! You leave that bad boy on ALL YEAR, you hear me?). All you have to do is simply touch your eyeball to my eyeball and watch the thin string of slime that connects us in conjunctive matrimony as it stretches between our mutual gaze- and then in a few short hours, you'll get the very same, all natural visual effect. I will be starting a pink eye selling stand at the end of my driveway later this afternoon, when all the kids are walking home from school. Or maybe I'll hand out pink eye instead of Halloween treats. Who knows? Heaven knows, I'm full of money saving ideas these days.

What was really fun, though, was when I took 3 kids to the dentist yesterday, not fully realizing that I actually looked like someone had lubricated my eyeballs in vanilla pudding (HA. You'll never eat pudding again. This is great for your diet). They were fine when I left, I swear- perhaps a titch itchy but that can be easily blamed on the kitten (like most things that go wrong in my life. Damn you, kitten, for messing with my taxes!!). By the time I arrived, I looked like a viral monkey.


Now whenever I want to bat my eyelashes at the imaginary pool boy or a Canadian celebrity, such as Rick Mercer, I'll have to put on some kind of germ proof barrier, or wear one of those ducky yellow suits that Dustin Hoffman wore in Outbreak. Then maybe a hole will be accidentally punctured in the suit, leaving everyone vulnerable, as I lean over the hospital bed in despair as Rene Russo dies. I hope you're happy, Conjunctivitis. I hope you're reeeeeal happy.

Love Michelle.

Not even duct tape could save the Titanic.

This is the root of it all, Nerdsquad. The very pedigree that begins the evolution of the sophisticated and steadfast rules of an officially recognized gaming event. The crude parent of Olympians. The Eden of Sports.

It's the kind of crux in history that gives way to the multinational events we all attend now. A primitive moment in time when people get together (I'm thinking men), likely get drunk and try to decide what to do with the leftover apple baskets, the frozen solid horse poop, the pig's bladder or unreasonably gigantic pumpkins they've grown. "Let's display them!" "Let's Decorate them!" "Let's travel in them!" "YES! LET'S TRAVEL IN THEM!" "LET'S RACE THEM!!!!!!" And the room goes silent while the brilliant plan is absorbed.

And so it begins. The careful planning and carving, measuring & reinforcing with duct tape, the perfect home-grown boat. A thing which requires the most delicate of balance and grace to outmaneuver the rival Pro-Squash Sailor, Popular TV personality or Member of Parliament. Kayaks be damned! The crowd waiting in baited anticipation, wondering whether the stinking, fetid pumpkin which was left to rot for 2 weeks before entering the water would indeed hold the two men struggling for victory and buoyancy until the very end, the trepidation and then relief when the Black Pearl of pumpkin boat racing truly makes it halfway before the men inside flip it and land, sinking into the shallow bog like a Titanic gourd meeting its watery fate.

Here lies the very beginnings of pro sport, and why I think modern organized pro sports are stupid and boring. For one thing, in monstrous pumpkin boat racing- I've learned that cheating is definitely allowed. I've also learned that there are no gender or age boundaries. It is perfectly acceptable to stuff two grown men in a pumpkin boat and race them against a lone, white haired lady whose boat has filled to the brim with swamp water before the race even begins. She can be stuck on the edge of the bog, where she's left with no help- just an ineffective plastic kayak paddle, sloshing around in circles and muttering to herself while the triumphant winners make several passes through the finish line to get the perfect victory photograph. None of that hardly ever happens in football.

This is my kind of competitive games. Give me rudimentary, disorganized sports any day.

PS. I got to meet Rick Mercer, Canadian Hero . Yay!

Nice picture, eh? SAY IT'S NICE.