I love my Babcia more then anyone else in this world. My Babcia is my favorite person, and I think she always has been and always will be!  I had the pleasure of two weeks (on and off) with my Babcia while on vacation this past month, and much like my Mama Plum she’s never at a lack of advise when it comes to life, love, and boys!

9 Words of Wisdom from Grandma ‘Babcia’ Plum.

1:  “Men always know what fun is no matter how old they get. Old men are always bad!”  Guys love to get into your pants, and this fact apparently never changes!

2: “If I said so it means I mean!” Respect your elder, that is all.

3: “You won’t really know till you get married when people become normal…..they aren’t normal till marriage, and if it doesn’t work out, oh well you get to try again.”  Sometimes our love lives don’t turn out how we want or how we expected them too. Things changes and more importantly people changes, but life goes on, and you move on too. So “oh well”.

4: “Don’t give away too much Pączki”  A pączki is a like a polish doughnut or pastry. Mama Plum gave the same advice once. There is nothing wrong with giving away a little ‘desert’, but don’t be over indulgent and fill the plate or the other person just might get sick.

5:  “Everything gets split 11 ways”.  Babcia was saying what would happen if she won the big 80million drawing.  And I looked at her and said I think she was miscounting.  This side of my family is very small.  And she explained everyone would get some. So mamaplum and daddydoo wouldn’t share a piece they each got a piece. Same with my cousin (who is technically a step cousin and her husband and baby on the way) “ahh blood doesn’t equal family. Family is family” She’s right family is family, and family can be whoever you want it to be!

6: “As long as he knows how funny you are. You funny! (laughs) Not sure who you get that from? “  When you find someone who loves and appreciates all of you (best and worst quality’s) they are worth holding onto! And laughter really does make all the difference.

7: “Call your mother.”  When people care about you, you sorta have to show that you care back, even if it gets on your nerves.

8: “You are who you are, never what you could have been.  Life throws you all over the place, you just need to be happy” Anyone who has lived 86 years I would assume would think this is true. Life gets turned upside down and no money, royal blood, trinkets or possessions can save you or change that. But when you have family, love, and happiness nothing else matters: you don’t need anything else!

9: “Lets drink to that!” A term she uses often, and pours whatever happens to be infront of her. Life should be celebrated, and cherished. No matter what happens there is always an upside. As the quote she says all the time to me that I steal on a regular bases states: “ It could always be worse” so let’s drink to that!

My cousin has been visiting and we were talking about how people ask her for directions all over the city (something that happens to me often no matter where I travel) and I was saying it must be because we appear to be nice, sweet, approachable Canadians. But no one really knows we are Canadians. We just seem nice, sweet, approachable, and helpful (like most Canadians)

What makes someone approachable? And what doesn’t? I always share the ridiculous pickup lines that guys have used on me, but do I just seem like an easy approachable target that looks sweet enough to fall for their terrible lines or do they really find me attractive?

Do I really have nice, sweet, and approachable (Canadian) written all over my face, or is it just in my head……

One time I had gotten off the subway on my way to an event. I had about 6 bags in hand and it was a hot September night. I got off on one of those stops that are way under ground. You know the ones that take like three levels of escalators before you see the light of day.

As I could see the first set in my view I noticed it wasn’t running as people were clopped up the ’stairs’. Urg…I struggled with my bags up the long (and first) flight of escalator stairs. I started to sweat in my party dress. I was starting to get angry, but after this flight the escalators will work I thought to myself. But then…those weren’t working either. “F-this” I think, and I made my way to the elevator. Now subway elevators freak me out. If you have ever been in a NYC subway elevator you know what I’m talking about and if you haven’t just think on it for a bit.

I push the button and wait. As I’m waiting (the elevators are really slow, I want to mentioned that) this guy makes his way next to me to wait. He’s attractive at first glance, and on crutches as one leg is in a full-length cast. (I start thinking about a broken femur bone, which must hurt like a firey hell as I wait for the doors to open) He smiles, I smile back.

The elevator doors open and I go to walk in (crutches boy had gestured for me to go first) But I stop just past the door as I notice something. There is the corner of the elevator is a big pile of poo. Yes real human poo! “Hells no!” I think to my self, and probably said it out loud too as I go to leave the elevator. As much as I don’t want to climb two sets of escalator stairs with all these bags sweating up my party dress I sure ain’t getting in that slow ass elevator with someone’s feces!

“Wait!” The guy says.

“Pardon” I turn back.

“If I ride up alone when it opens people will think I did it.”

I stare sorta blindly at him.

“You serious?!” I say

“Please. It’s only one floor.” He gives me this look that only a sweet approachable Canadian girl would fall for.

I step in the elevator as close to that door as I can. The doors shut.

I turn back and look at the guy I followed into an already gross NYC subway elevator that just happens to have a pile of poo in the corner.

“If this elevator stops and doesn’t open I will break your other leg!”

He begins to laugh…and laugh hard.

I begin to laugh.

We get off the elevator at street level laughing like I’ve never laughed with a stranger before.

“Thank you so much! You’re really sweet.”

We parted.

This story always leaves me confused. Does being sweet mean you’ll ride with poo for a complete stranger? It may, but it sure smells wrong to me!

Right now, I’m home-home, with my parents for a week or so. Just relaxin’, chilln’, and doing lots of swimming with my puppies!

It’s peaceful here. It’s quiet, well except for those frogs outside my window that actually kind of make me miss honking cars and sirens at night. It’s the Northern woods of Canada, and it’s my home.

There aren’t many luxuries in my hometown. Nowhere really to shop, or go hang out, or anything really fun to do. No real cultural anything.

SIDEBAR: Today is Canada Day so that’s pretty cultural.

I like it here because it’s familiar, nothing changes and I know everything.  It’s special to my heart.

Much like a good relationship, a good home can’t be beat.  As I went to get ready for bed last night after a late night swim I got thinking about all the things I kind of dislike or “live” with when at home.  My own bathroom I’ve always loved. It’s big and has lots of light, and yet the water pressure just doesn’t cut it in the shower.  I have a huge sink area with long big sink top with a makeup area with a chair and everything, it’s almost perfect, but then I forget that the sink is very shallow and if you turn the tap on to far it splashes water all over everything! My bed is big and huge and tall and comfy good, but it’s kind of lonely being in a big nice bed like that all alone, and then they’re those frogs outside my window.

All that is good about home has little faults that we tend to forget or over look till they are right in front of us.  A relationship is like a good home. It’s warm, inviting, it shelters you and can be used for entraining. It holds memories and creates new ones. It’s a rock that we count on….only good thing is that the person you’re in a relationship with can talk to you, and a home doesn’t really do that, unless you count “house sounds”.

And then there are those little extras, or more like the hidden “gems” of a relationship.  Just like my shallow sink that splashes unless you turn it just right, everyone has those little things about them they bring to a relationship.  These added gems get overlooked, pushed to the side and sometimes ignored because the whole package or “the home” is just so wonderful. Maybe it’s the way someone laughs, or chews their food, or holds your hand in a funny way.  Maybe it’s the sounds they make in their sleep, or sounds they don’t make during “sleep”.

Just as we get used to a new house which eventually becomes our home, do the little things start to disappear as the larger picture unfolds in a relationship and if so then why do people always say it’s all about the little things in a relationship?

I’ve talked about commercials before. I’m bothered by a commercial that deal with “female issues”, I just am. I’ve talked before on how I don’t like the women in most of them, and then I talked about how some point out how stupid the female population is. But this one takes the cake on pointing out how stupid/dumb/ridiculous the female population can be.

Bayer has come out with a new ad champagne that encourages women to learn more about their birth control. This comes off the back of them being sued millions of dollars for apparently not adequately informing women about the health risks.

Ok first off, if you take any medications you should know what it is, how it works, how it affects your body and interacts with other drugs you take. Your health should always be number one. You need to understand how stuff works. That’s “Living 101.”

Anyways, so although I agree that it’s good of Bayer to let you know that you should take control of your health I have an issue with their commercials. A huge issue.

If you haven’t seen the commercial in question let me break it down for you. There are these women who are blind folded feeling a rhinoceros.  They touch the rhino all over and are trying to figure out what they are touching.

These women give the absolute dumbest answers that one could ever say while feeling up a living breathing moving rhino!  Answers given include: a wall, a rope, a pipe, and my all time favorite is the stupid chick who get’s ear slapped in the hand by a rhino and guesses… A BRUSH!

WTF?!  Where are all these stupid women coming from!  At least I’m glad someone is trying to make sure they all know how to use birth control correctly, cause God forbid these dumb ass chicks get pregnant and start procreating…..that is if they can read the pregnancy test.

Oh here’s the link to the commercial so you can watch for yourself.

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Oh and if you like, dislike, agree, disagree, or want to cock punch me over this opinion (or me in general) you should check LostPlum (that’s me) out tonight from 10-11pm EST. on Shivio.com because I’m going to be a guest on Abiola on LSD: Love, Sex, Dating. The show is hosted by the ever amazing, always funny, constantly sexy Abiola Abrams!  It’s going to be hot hot hot.  You can watch, listen, chat, and even beam in….with me!

Now this isn’t a post or even a blog where I talk about celebrities I’ve seen, meet, or am friends with….So then why does this post have an attraction to Chevy?

As we observed him during intermission from our first level booth I joked that although Keith Jarrett (the musician that night) made it very clear no photos or recording of any kind could be had. It seemed as if Chevy looked up to the heavens (or upper balconies) arms down with palms opened up as if he was speaking to all those around him, asking for us to notice him. I joked that we were going to hear an announcement informing us he was there and welcomed photographs.

I guess one could argue Mr. Chase went from 80s-90’s hay day to nonexistence, back to hit TV show.

SIDEBAR: I’ve only seen his new show ‘Community‘ twice. Frankly the guy from The Soup scares me. And I have enough nightmares as is.

So much like Chevy’s and in the same vain Ed O’Neill aren’t we all looking for our “come back” our new hit as it were of the 21st century.  Everyone loves a great comeback story don’t they?!

So in love we fall down sometimes. We get mud in our faces and we hurt. We sometimes feel unrecognizable to others and especially other potential mates. We go from love and happiness to shame, hurt, regret, and damages. Why would you be deserving of something big if you just messed up one before.

But then again you never know where you might find it. Where that next chance for a come back, that next chance at “love” is hiding.

Like my jokes about Chevy that night, in love we are always looking to be noticed. To be embraced as it were by people, in a sense just to be recognized.

We can either sit and wait for it to happen(which it eventually does), or you can look up, look around and take notice of it all, and make people notice you.

Like Carnegie Hall we all have beautiful details in our world, filled with different people, and if you’re lucky great music! However this world is pretty enclosed when you think about. Your reach isn’t as great as you might want it to be, so we need to take advantage of what we have and see around us.  We to observe.

Take a moment, stand up, and look around.  The possibilities are endless and yet where all confined. Open yourself up to be noticed, to being recognized, and inturn being loved.

There might be a ceiling keeping us in, but when you open your eyes and let people see you, you just might be flying…..and the music is pretty good  up here, and I think Chevy would agree!

People always inform me that they too don’t like birthdays and that infact no one likes getting older. In fact everyone always assumes it’s a “getting older” thing I dislike about birthdays. That that’s why I’m not out wanting to party it up with huge big exciting plans, as I guess people expect me to do.

And then when people push as to why I hate birthdays I get flustered and close up. Cause fact of the matter is I don’t dislike getting older. Although being one year closer to 30 (the last year before 30 I might add) is a little nerve racking, and I do feel like I’m getting old. It however, is not the issue.

I just don’t have good luck or good experiences when it comes to my birthday. And I guess I just project that out there, that I assume since I’ve had so many terrible birthdays that this will just continue to happen.

Now I’m talking birthdays in resent (in my 20s) memory.  My birthdays when I was younger were pretty awesome. I had rocking birthday parties as a child that still has people talking.  However as I approached and grew into my 20s the just seemed to go down hill.

I lost my virginity on my birthday and it wasn’t anything exciting.

I was in a bad car accident on my birthday.

I’ve had 3 very important people in my life die on my birthday, and 2 right near my birthday.

A Psychic told me on I wouldn’t live much past 25 the day before I turned 25.

I’ve walked in on my boyfriend at the time with another girl the day of my birthday.

I had everyone and I mean EVERYONE forget my 21^st birthday. (my parents, my boyfriend at the time, and my friends)

and so on….

Last year for the first time in a long time since moving to this city I surface from my room.  In a “hey I’ll be out at this bar if you happen to want to show” fashion I let friends know I’d be out. I ended up getting drunker then I can ever recall and maybe dying my friends sink pick from all the cupcake frosting I puked up in his sink. It was bad news. Cause although I had a nice time with some friends, I spent the entire time alittle uncomfortable. To many people and unknown intensions.  Did people really want to celebrate my birthday or just celebrate?

The thing is I think we all have ideals of perfect outings, gatherings, dates, and or experiences.  We want to feel loved, appreciated, and special on a certain occasion: this being my birthday.   You hear people say all the time that events are better when you’re in a relationship, that unless you have one special person to celebrate with then it’s just not as good.

I think I can admit that yes for once I’d love to have a day, this being my birthday where I am in a relationship with someone who truly cares about me and wants to make me feel special.  Wouldn’t that be nice?

I’ve never really had a boyfriend or guy I was involved with recognize or to be honest remember my birthday (unless you go back to the virginity story). I’ve never had a guy say this day is about you and let’s actually make it about you.

I was thinking about this last night. Thinking about how maybe one day someone will embrace me on the day my parents first embraced me, and maybe I’ll start to like getting older.

Here’s to Friday being just another year like all the rest…..

The subway system being one of the most popular, it’s usually always there for you (usually). It gets you places, it provides entertainment and it opens doors.

You could say it is the most constant relationship I’ve had since moving to NYC.

SIDEBAR: We did have that 3-month break but that’s another story.

Yup, I think the subway is my true NYC boyfriend. He’s usually on time, he smells sometimes, he’s cool, and always has someplace to take me…. oh and he’s a fun big long thing to ride on!

However, if it’s my one true relationship I must project my fears and hang-ups that I usually foresee in men on my beloved subway boyfriend.

And I do. I’m scared of the subway most of the time. I stand back away from the edge (see above sidebar), I get disgusted by others my boyfriend lets ride on him, I make comments about his smell and appearance, I worry when he’s not on time, and I get pissed when he’s not there for me when I need him, yet he seems to be there for others.

But like all relationships I’m prepared for what might go wrong.  See the subway has its emergency plan. It is in ever car, on every line: The, “what to do in case of an emergency” procedure plan.

The emergency brake is usually right above this list of procedures. The list of what to do in case of fire, evacuation, illness, police emergency and so on.  What does one do? Not what you think. In fact you don’t pull the emergency brake.

In all emergency matters you never pull the brake.

The brake is like a false security. Much like the false security you have in a relationship. If something goes wrong you can’t just push a button or pull a cord and all will be ok. You can’t always walk away unscathed.

In case of an emergency you need to turn to the procedures to handle the situation in the right manner. You need to calm down and walk through step by step.

In relationships we aren’t always prepared for the “emergencies” we face but we can’t always fall back on a false security that things will be ok.  Something or in this case someone isn’t always there to catch you, isn’t there to save you, and in most cases just isn’t there fore you.

Although, subway emergencies don’t happen often, relationship emergencies happen all the time. Whether it is a real fire, or just an irate passenger we need to learn to just breath and take the right steps in making things better.

Now if only there was a manual for that…..

Here’s the thing I have been thinking about how I’ve been told on 3 occasions when I’ve meet a guy I’ve been seeing (involved with or dating) friends.

I’ve been told how great that guy is, how special he is, and how I better, in a sense, watch myself. I’ve been told that I need to understand how special and wonderful said guy is, and how I need to treat him well.

Now I get alittle thrown off because these are always the conversations I see people telling the guy who is dating the girl, at least that’s how it happens in the movies and on TV. It’s almost never people telling the girl to take care of the guy she is dating. Or is it?

Now most of the time when this happens I kind of want to say “Are you kidding me? You just meet me, but let me tell you something I am the real catch in this relationship.” Alas, I jus say, “ I know” and nod my head, or smile sweetly as I get told how great their guy friend is and how lucky I apparently am to be graced with his presence.

Here’s what gets me though. I don’t think I’ve ever had a friend tell any guy I’ve ever brought around that I am a catch, or they need to treat me right. In fact, I pretty much am positive no friend has ever let a guy know that I am worthy of being treated well.

Maybe my friends assume that by the time I get around to introducing guys to them that I’ve already vented the bad ones out. Maybe they trust my judgment and what I’m doing.

But then again knowing my past judgment in relationships or men you would think my friends would let boys know that they should treat me well.

So question is do my friends just trust me that much? I find that hard to believe. Maybe no one really cares in a sense. They just assume I’ll pull myself back up at the end of the day, like I always do so why waste their time telling a guy I’m dating to treat me right and realize I’m special….but I think I’m worth that, just alittle bit, maybe.

Like most people I have my drink of choice. I’m a top-shelf gin and tonic girl, extra lime please. However, I love me a good (scratch that) great Mojito!

SIDEBAR: a Mojito is not supposed to be too sweet and when there isn’t a ton of sugar in them they are divine! I have been known to devour quite a few when the occasion arises.

So if you don’t know what a Mojito is that’s cool I’ll forgive you guys, all I will say is a major component is Mint. Yummy yummy crushed up mint.

Here is something I’ve always noticed and always commented on when out drinking Mojito.

I always get a stick! Now I’m sure getting a bit of stick attached to the mint steam has happened to lots of people. But this happens to me every single time. One drink after another, one bartender after another.

I always have this short piece of stick in my Mojito! Always!

Maybe it’s a sign of something. Maybe it’s Dionysus or some other drinking God alluding to facts unknown in life. Maybe my life has been one giant stick, or better yet maybe my dating life, my love life always seems wonderful, seems perfect, is much like a delicious Mojito but deep down inside is a shark little stick, a small flaw getting ready to pock me and bust the bubble.

And then again you never know. Cause about two months ago I went on a amazing first date, and in the spirit of being honest had about 5 (maybe 6) Mojito over dinner, and not one, NOT A ONE had a stick in them….

Hmmm… maybe it was a sign or something.

I wrote once about the things Mama Plum has taught me about sex, love, boys, relationships, and life. She’s always good for a few sweet life tips. So in the spirit of her visit this time here are a few more…..

7 NEW Mama Plum lessons about love, sex, relationships and life.

1. “Life can be great without kids.”  Now I wasn’t sure if she was speaking with a little regret here at first, but after she elaborated she was clear that. Being happy with yourself is the most important thing, and you don’t need things or people (aka children) to be successful, happy or fulfilling in life.  “Be happy in yourself first, and the rest doesn’t really matter.”

2. “Monkey Shines” This new term is now my favorite term to describe sexual acts. The actual term is defined as a mischievous or playful trick or a prank. But my mother uses this term to describe mischievous acts two individuals may get into….with their pants off!

3. “Just make sure he’s nice” My mother is convinced that as long as a guy is “nice” that all other pieces will fall into place. “You haven’t always picked the nicest guys” I’m finally starting to realize what she means by this.

4. “There will always be something” There will always be something about a perspective mate no matter how perfect one may seem. You have to learn to realize that we all have faults, we all have issues, and we all have a history that makes us imperfect. Learning to see our own faults makes it easier to overlook some of those in others.

5. “A guy who appreciates art is a keeper.” I’ve spoke about this before and it really is true.

6. “Make sure he knows how lucky he is.” Being with someone who appreciates you for everything you are and realizes just how special you are is what we all need. Everyone is special and amazing you just need people in your life who realize it too.

7. “Good friends are everything.”  I don’t need to elaborate!