Wednesday, November 21, 2012

The secret cure to your common cold: Nostalgia


I cut Shira's hair the other day. It was daring, I know, but it was getting out of hand and something had to be done. Since she screams murder at the hair dresser I figured I'd take my chances here at home. (All you hair dressers out there in the world are shaking your collective heads right this very moment, aren't you?) I'm sure I'll get a lecture the next time we visit the children's salon with airplanes and horses for chairs (because I always get a lecture), but I think I did a great job. It doesn't hurt that she looks this delicious to start with. I'm posting these before and after shots for my mum who never checks facebook. She ditched facebook when I started this blog.

Our house has been overwhelmed by sickness these past couple of weeks. Chest colds, sinus infections, non-specific fevers, you name it. I even took Shira to the doctor hoping they would give her something to lighten her misery, but nothing. It's just a bad cold. The upside is that she sounds like Kathleen Turner. The downside is that she looks like this:


Poor sweaty Shira. I've also been miserable, but I managed to dull the pain last week with a little nostalgia. Head cold and all (because you can't quarantine yourself forever), I packed my bags and headed to Waterloo to see a Sloan concert. This wasn't just any concert, but a homage to their Twice Removed Tour, which I saw the first time when I was sixteen. That's right, I relived my teen years last week by singing and dancing (more like bouncing, but with great feeling) my heart out to the band that more than anything defined my years at high school. I used to have Twice Removed on tape, and I would listen to it in my mum's old car with my best friend Angie over and over and over again, taking my hands off the wheel to clap in all the right places. I loved Sloan then and they didn't disappoint last week, almost twenty years (good lord) later. The difference was that I now have less patience for drunk twenty-two year olds and eventually watched most of the show from the back of the room. Where it was less loud. With less people. And now I am officially the oldest person I know.


The best part was seeing the concert with Angie, still one of my closet friends after all this time. The photo below was taken the same year we first saw Sloan together, the one below that was snapped in the dark last week. Growing older is a strange business, but no matter the complaints it's kind of magical to do so alongside your good friends. Nineteen years ago we were watching Sloan together for the first time, probably having misled my mum into thinking that it was legal for newly licensed Angie to be my supervisor while driving to the concert with my beginner's license. I think I can trace my love of live music back to that concert, especially after I slammed my head on the stage and was pulled up by lead Chris Murphy to enjoy the rest of the concert from a seat next to Jay Ferguson playing guitar (that's right, I pulled my very own Monica, but with less dancing). Last week Angie and I were a bit more subdued, her standing next to her husband, both of them happy to be out for a night without their three little kids. I'm sure I'm the first person to say this, but isn't growing older just the craziest?

1994
2012

How do you cure a cold? What concert would you attend to relive your own youth?

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