What happens in Vegas... I share with you!

After years of dreaming about doing such a thing, and months of planning and waiting for it to be official, last week I finally went on a vacation with girlfriends - to Las Vegas!! I've mooned over the idea of taking a girls only trip for ages, with many different girlfriends, fantasizing about road trips, all-inclusive resorts, backpacking treks through Europe, etc. I always had the best intentions of following through, as I'm sure my friends did, but for whatever reason these trips just never panned out. But, I got lucky this time, and a group of 6 girls (2 of us with children!) managed to actually coordinate an out-of-country vacation - together! 

Las Vegas is the perfect place to go to with a group of friends. Especially if you're all women. If you're a woman the perks area never-ending, and people will trip over themselves trying to get you into their clubs. The whole point of Vegas is to get women drunk by offering them open-bar promos and VIP access, which of course brings in the men, who spend an obscene amount of money trying to get with these impared women. It's all so obvious, and honestly pretty friggin' exploitive and immoral, but really, when the line-up to get into any given club if you're not on the guest/promo list is hundreds of people long, you'll take the freebies when they're offered to you. Luckily, our group was savvy enough to take advantage of the perks without falling prey to their true purpose, and we just laughed at how unfair it all was. Men, quite frankly, get gouged in Vegas. They even have to pay to use the pools in the hotels they're guests of! They pay $40 cover (on average) for bars, $10-15 per drink that would be $6-7 here, and if you're not "on the list" forget about getting in anywhere. It's not gonna happen unless you book and pay for bottle service, which starts at several hundred dollars and goes up into the 1000s without blinking. We felt pretty bad for the men who were clearly in town with their girlfriends/wives, and they were still getting completely screwed, just because it's been determined that all men want to throw their money away in attempts to lure drunk girls on vacation into sleeping with them, and these men need to be taken advantage of. Kinda sad.

Anyway, like I said, we took advantage of the perks of our gender and hit up some of the best clubs: Tao, Lavo, Moon at The Palms, Studio 54... and we had a blast dancing and gawking at the extravagance of the strip. We ate disgusting amounts of McDonald's and IHOP in the wee morning hours, laid out by the pool for a few hours each day, did some serious shopping at the outlet centre nearby (scored myself a sweet Coach purse for $99), and managed to do some impressive touring around taking pictures of all the iconic casinos and bars that before last week I had only seen on tv. Seriously, Caeser's Palace is unbelievable. It had talking, moving, marble statues! What the hell is that? And where else on earth could you find something so ridiculous? Only in Vegas.

I don't know if I would need to go back to Las Vegas anytime soon (or ever?). The lifestyle of drinking and tanning and not sleeping was pretty hard on my body - I swear I aged 5 years in as many days - but it was the trip of a lifetime, and I'll have incredible memories to look back on fondly forever. The girls I shared this time with were fun and crazy, and we experienced shockingly little drama during our time together. I can't imagine having done this particular trip with anyone else. :)

Protecting EI for new mothers

The specifics of this issue took me a bit to really get, but this is certainly worth the effort it takes to understand it. NDP MP Chris Charlton is working hard to get a bill (that was passed in March 09) enforced that resonates with me as a feminist, as a mother, and as an empathetic member of my community during this down-turn in the economy. You can read about it on Ms. Charlton's website here.

Let me paint a picture: A woman gives birth and takes her due maternity leave. After her year, she returns to work only to get laid off, because her company has been struggling like so many others these days. She applies for employment insurance, like anyone else would do, only to find out that the government says she used up all of her employment insurance while taking maternity leave. She's shit out of luck, and possibly now without any sustainable way of putting food on the table. And of course, she has a new baby to care for. 

What's happening is the government is punishing women in these circumstances for taking maternity leave. This must change.

Taking one's rightful maternity leave should have NO impact on whether or not mothers qualify for "regular" employment insurance upon returning to their jobs. It implies that they were no longer employed, or were on a personal sabbatical during the time they were away from their desks. While on maternity leave women remain fully employed members of their companies, earning the same benefits throughout their leave. They are not on vacation during this time, and they should not be penalized though they are. 

There is a petition on Chris Charlton's website that you can print, sign, and mail back to her (postage free). She will then present it in The House of Commons, and hopefully convince Parliament to enforce this bill as early as Mother's Day! 

Please help participate in this movement to protect new moms during this awful recession. If you need any further incentive, just imagine how utterly devastated and pissed you would be if this happened to you. And how grateful you would feel if people banded together to do what's right for you and your family.

 

Searching for something satisfying...

My husband took our son out for a bagel and some father-son bonding while I have my Friday lie-in. He wants me to workout and shower in this time (not because he's a jerk, but because I told him I have to do that before we start our fun-filled family day in this beautiful spring weather). As he was heading out the door I think I remember telling him that "maybe" I would do those things while they were out. I haven't. 

Instead I've been reading a wicked-ass blog that I stumbled upon randomly through a facebook ad for a mani-pedi bar here in Toronto. The author of the blog owns the mani-pedi bar and for some inexplicable reason, she has connected her business website with her personal (and I do mean PERSONAL) blog page. While I would NEVER want the two things mixing, she seems like a pretty cool girl, and she might even be using her blog as a marketing tool - promoting her salon by publicizing her Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle. You know, 'I'm just like you. I struggle, I love, I have successes and failures. Don't you want to hang out at my Mani-Pedi Bar?' Anyway, whether the connection of work to personal life is as savvy as I'm making it out to be, or just a weird choice that I'm too suspicious to look past, I really enjoyed reading her posts, and it got me thinking...

I miss my pre-baby life. I miss it in a way that I never expected I would and it sucks sometimes. I know I made the right choice to marry my husband - there isn't a better man in the world better for me than him, and I love love love him. And my son? Forget about it, he's everything that words couldn't possibly express. I sing him a song called My Boy, My Joy, and sometimes I find myself just staring at him in loving amazement. BUT... I feel such guilt because I need more in my life than just being a wife and mother. I need my independence. I need time to myself where I'm not being responsible for someone else. Hell, perhaps I even need it more than other moms do... I don't know. I just know that, like it or not, I do have a wanderlust that's been there forever, and it didn't go away when I became a mother. If anything it's made me feel a little trapped. Trapped by responsibility in some ways, trapped by guilt that I need more than other moms do - that I'm selfish. I find myself envying this stranger's Sex and the City-esque life. Wishing that I had her freedom and resenting that I haven't experienced near the successes that she has - even though she probably wouldn't even see her life in such a way.

While lamenting about similar stuff to my brother a while ago, he responded, "well you are Dad...". Like that was in itself an explanation for my struggles. I didn't say anything, but I was offended, and have given it a lot of thought since. You see, my father left our family because he couldn't handle the role of being a "full-time" dad and husband. He resented the expectation he felt to provide for us in the traditional sense. After he left, he moved every year or so, because he got itchy. He's always wandered - from job to job, passion to passion, woman to woman - and we have never been a priority. We have always come second to his passions, to his needs. It terrifies me and breaks my heart that people compare me to him so much. I know he's in there, but I also know that there's a lot of him that is NOT in me, things that I reject and run screaming in the other direction from. I don't accept that I'm destined to fulfill some genetic prophecy my father left for me because I yearn for something more from my life.

Whether my family and/or others get it or not, at the end of my day I want more time to write, to read, to travel, see movies, to go out with girlfriends, to plan fundraisers, to learn, to organize, to exercise. I want to feel fulfilled by a passion. I want to feel useful and powerful beyond my homelife, as a part of the global community. I want to feel successful and smart and desirable. I want to be a wicked mother, and a kick-ass woman separate of that. I'll totally cop to getting the intense, dreaming, passionate side of my father. But I also got the nurturing and committed parts of my mother. I just happen to want it all, and I think I'm becoming okay with that. Now I have to figure out how to get it!

I'm thinking a Mani-Pedi might be in order!! 

Spring is coming

I just had to drag my kid, kicking and screaming out of his first puddle. After 20 minutes of splashing, stomping and throwing rocks in this puddle, he was soaked and filthy (and no doubt cold - although I'm sure that didn't register as a terribly big deal to him). I told him a couple of times that it was time to go, but I realized pretty quickly that the only way I was going to get him away from that puddle was in my arms. So I picked him up and carried him away, with snot and drool and tears dripping from every facial orifice (his not mine). I couldn't help but laugh the whole time while he lost his damned mind. I hope I didn't give him a complex, but it was funny as hell.

I can't wait until I can pick him up a pair of proper rain boots and I can let him go at it until he's had his fill. Watching him discover all the fun of that puddle was probably just as enjoyable for me as it was for him. Well, almost. :)

Friday Fill-In (On Saturday)

FRIDAY FILL-INS

1. Getting up with the kid and letting my husband sleep in was my last random act of kindness. 

2. Another place to network online: Twittermoms

3. Changes can occur in matters of the heart.

4. Coffee, tea or raspberry smoothies.

5. My family and I are often on separate paths.

6. Our random birth luck reminds me that there is a whole world of suffering people who didn't choose to be born into their circumstances and we have the responsibility to help.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to hitting up Devil's Martini with the girls, tomorrow my plans include shopping for a new wall clock and Sunday, I want to work out and spring clean!

"Fidelity" Don't Divorce Us

I am Canadian, and I believe in Gay Rights everywhere, including the right to marry, and right now legally married homosexual couples in California are being threatened. Ken Starr (of Bill Clinton scandal fame) has put forth a legal movement to nullify the marriages of gay couples in California, in response to the passing of Proposition 8 last fall, and this touching video is trying to get the word out that that must not happen. In passing such legislation, government would be undermining loving, committed relationships and the families created from those unions (not to mention taking away the human right they already have to choose who they marry, for goodness sake). It is important to spread their message of love everywhere, not just in the current hotspots. I feel so fortunate to live in Canada at a time like this. All love is recognized as equal here, and we can marry our partners freely, regardless of gender. I figure the more people who see this video, who get a little more exposed to the perspective of these gay families, the more everyone will see just how alike we all are in our ability and right to love. We can, and must, push out the ignorant, divisive mindset that is trying to dictate something we should all unite together for. After all, what are any of us without love?

Let's spread the message - please enjoy this video:


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

This is What a Feminist Looks Like

I was originally going to write an inspired post about this subject, but my mind is elsewhere tonight and I can't switch out just yet. Anyway, I came across this video in my drafts folder and realized I'd forgotten to post it, so here it is. I love it and I hope you will love it and join me on the Feminist train!!