The Abbott's

Sitting here watching Young and the Restless, I'm reminded of just how long I have watched this show. I remember crazy things that the casual observer or new show watcher wouldn't remember. Then there is even more that I've been told by my mother who's been watching since the very beginning.

First - let's talk about the first family of Genoa City - The Abbott's.

The Abbott's come from old money and have been an institution in the town since the beginning. John Abbott - who has passed away but still comes on periodically as a conscience for Jack - his eldest son. John had four children in total. Including Jack - there is Ashley, Traci and Billy (William or Liam). The family is founders to the Jabot Cosmetics Company.

*************Let's focus on the kids first*********

Jack is the blond jokester. Has a nickname for everyone and a passion for trying to destroy Victor. More about Victor later. Jack has been married several times in my memory. Jack married Nikki Newman and helped raise Victor and Nikki's children. Jack was married to Dianne before she skipped town. Then Jack was married to Phyllis. They made a good pair in that Phyllis is so fiesty, but they split when Phyllis hooked up with Nick Newman. Nick was married to Sharon at the time. When they split, it pushed Sharon and Jack together. Funny that he helped raise Nick when he was little and now he's helping raise Nick's son! The joys of fast forwarding time on soaps! As for Jack and Sharon, I've never liked them as a couple and am glad to see that they are in the process of getting a divorce.

The baby of the family is Traci. She hasn't been on the show very much but has recently come back more often. I love Traci. The same actress has played her since they were teenagers. She's always been a little overweight and has lived under the shadow of her older siblings - Jack and Ashley(more about her later). When Traci was a teen she set her eyes on some eye candy - her pool boy Brad Carleton. Brad was working to get his way through school and Traci fell for him right away. They ended up getting married and having a daughter together. Colleen wasn't advanced age as quickly as some other kids on the show, but she was still there. Of course things didn't work out as realized when Brad fell for her older sister. It wasn't until years later that Tracy found a really good man and they moved to New York to raise Colleen. She would come back from time to time, but I've been really happy to see her on the show lately.

Onto the second child - Ashley. Another blonde, she's always been gorgeous and smart. She's been coveted by many a Genoa City man. As mentioned, her first marriage was to her sister's husband. She stole his heart with a flick of her long blonde hair. She's since married him a couple times. She's also married Victor Newman a few times too. There was also a short marriage to a photographer Blade, and then a novelist Cole Howard. She's been married probably as many times as Victor. She's not perfect, but she's got great story lines!

Billy - well he's too young to be married yet. But he does have an interesting twisted story going on right now with his half brother Cane. Billy hooked up with "Chloe" - who is the daughter of his mother's maid... or what was once a maid before coming into millions recently. Chloe got pregnant. Watching the show we are pretty much 99% certain that it's Billy's. But she went and manipulated things to get Cane to marry her. Cane thinks the baby is his, Billy knows that it's not and thus the twisted story. Billy is now dating Lily Winters, who once was the fiancee of Cane. I told you it's twisted. Hard to believe he's only been back on the show for a few months. Oh and there was that time when he almost married Mackenzie. She turned out to be his neice and that was really weird. Wonder when she'll come back on the show??

**********Onto the grandkids***********

Jack went to Asia sometime during a war I think and had a son. His son's name is Keemo and is gorgeous but didn't last long. He was the assistant to Ashley's photographer husband Blade, until Blade was suddenly killed or died of natural causes. It's kind of fuzzy to me as he was there one day, gone the next and Ashley disappeared shortly there after. Keemo also left and we haven't heard his name spoken again.

Jack ended up fathering a child with Dianne named Kyle. Originally thought to be Victor's, when Jack found out it was his - he wanted custody, but Dianne won and disappeared. I figure Kyle will be super aged any time and will come back as a strapping young teenager - which oddly enough, would put him at his rightful age.

Jack has had a few step children. Nick and Victoria Newman, Daniel Romalotti and Noah Newman.

Ashley has also been the stepmother to Nick and Victoria, even though they are all considered around the same age now.

Ashley had difficulties having children, and only has one daughter - Abby. Abby was born via Ashley stealing Victor's sperm while he was married to Hope. Abby was actually raised to be the correct age and is now a teenager. She's spoiled rotten. Her first father was Brad Carleton during one of his marriages to Ashley. But when she was around 4, Victor found out that she was his and has decided now that she's back in town and a teenager, he's going to spoil her rotten. She's now gotten a million dollar horse and anything her little heart desires. I can tell that she and I will not get along by how materialistic she is.

Colleen is the daughter of Brad and Traci. She came back as a teenager a few years ago. She's had some good relationships, some bad relationships. She's proving to be a secondary character on the show - much like her mother. She's a friend to many and I keep waiting for her to have a really juicy storyline - akin to what she had when she was a teen. The premise right now is that she's waiting tables while she works her way through college.

With mentioning all the kids - I didn't really talk about the other aspects of the Abbots.

**********What about John?**********

When I was a kid he was married to: Dina and had Jack, Ashley and Traci.
Then he married Jill and she became and Abbott. She's a fiesty one too - and that's who he had Billy with. She's had a very strong connection to Jabot and always loved John. They married twice.

John had two interracial relationships - Mamie, the longterm housekeeper and Ellen Winters. He also briefly dated Gina Romalotti and Katherine Chancellor.

But his most recent marriage was the craziest of all. He fell in love with Gloria. Gloria has proven to be a very strong character on the show and has had many relationships as well. Through Gloria - John had two step children - Michael Baldwin and Kevin Fisher. They have since had many a crazy adventure involving not only John's house and estate but the company he loved.

I'm sure this is just touching the tip of the iceberg, but I know from my lifetime of growing with Young and the Restless, that knowing the background can truly help you enjoy the show.

Ouch!

That's it folks. I think I'm finally losing it.

Twice this past week I have stubbed my toes on assorted objects.

First happened on Sunday when my poor baby toe was clocked off the side of a chest that was for some reason in the middle of the floor. I hobbled around, asked for an amputation, in which James insisted I sleep off before making a big decision such as that. Sure enough - I woke up Monday morning without any pain and it was good that the baby toe that has a slight bend and a very small toe nail was still on my foot.

The second major toe stubbing happened a few hours ago and was followed by many tears, whimpering, ice, and me trying to get it to move, only to cry and whimper more. James was good with me - even though he saw me do it and could've predicted it would happen a second before I did it. Wish he had told me about that - but at least he brought me the ice and helped me limp back over to the couch.

Either I'm losing my eyesight, or our apartment is so full of crap that is in the process of getting packed, getting sorted or is packed - that I have no where to go but to walk my big clod hoppers into things. As I got glasses a few months ago, it could be my eyes, but I'm probably going to lean towards the fact that I'm not used to having all this crap just lying about in my way.

The stupidest part about today's whacking, was that I actually walked into the bottom of the stairs. As many of you know, we're living in a basement apartment at my parents until we move into our new house in March. The apartment has white walls and white ceilings. It's very stark. To top it off, all of our overhead lighting is flourescent which can be very hard on the eyes. To remedy this, we've got several table lamps that cast a softer glow. Both times I was walking, this was the only light I had.

The side of the stairs and the walls are white, so the corner of my eye wasn't really noticing the fact that they had somehow moved the stairs directly onto my path to the kitchen. Of course James doesn't believe the stairs really moved. He thinks that I altered my regular path due to a pile of shoes that I had placed near the bottom of the stairs in my effort to sort things I want and don't want. As those shoes were moved while I was busy cursing and crying in the other room, I can't really say for sure. There's no way I'd blame those sexy boots that used to go dancing with me back in my heyday. They must've moved the stairs.

Either way - here it is almost three hours later and my toes are throbbing. The last three toes were affected by the altercation - and yes, this includes my slightly crocked baby toe with the very tiny toe nail. As the last two toes are always crooked, I can't quite tell if I broke them yet - but they sure do hurt.

All I keep thinking is how incredibly lucky I am to have hit my right foot and not my left.

During Labour Day 2008, my mothers family had their annual family reunion and horseshoe tournament. Lucky me was in charge of the event and I also got to play. I'm competitive, and have won the tournament before, much to the chagrin of my brother who held the title for three years previously. Anyhow, this year I was focused on playing and watching my partner and competitor throw their shoes. All of a sudden one was coming right at me. I lifted one leg to get out of the way, but the other wasn't that fortunate. My big toe on my left foot was clocked right good by a heavy iron horseshoe. Almost immediately the toenail was filled with blood. (Gross I know but it's my story and I'm going to share it.) The blood turned black and my toe was very very sore. I did some research, which stated that sometimes poking a hole in the nail allows for the pressure to escape. As I contemplated this, many other sources said that within a few weeks or a month the nail will fall off and just regrow. Of course there are others that said that I should see a doctor immediately. I opted to do nothing.

About two months later, nothing was going on. The toe was black, still occasionally tender if hit against anything and I really wanted it to go away. James suggested painting the toenail. Well wouldn't you know it - the paint didn't work! Now I had all red toenails and one black/red nail. Disappointed I accepted my fate. I was going to have a black toenail forever.

Here it is 6 months later and the toe is still there and still black. It has shown a bit of promise, in that the quick has grown a little longer and the blackness is moving every so slowly to the end of the toe. But it's still really gross to look at.

Maybe I should just start over and get new feet. Do you think they still do feet amputations?

Cheers to chicks and cakes!

I had a really wonderful afternoon with my oldest and dearest best friend. We were talking this week about cakes, as we have done periodically for the past, oh, four years or so! This talk led to us agreeing to go out today to look into potential cake decorating classes. Both of us have been looking at potentially doing this for years and it was so awesome to go out and meet with someone who has some serious talent.

We stopped by Klara Johnson's in downtown Galt. (For those of you out of town, that's an area of Cambridge, Ontario.) She was really nice and helpful, explained what was taught in the class in a nutshell and showed us some samples of what we'd be learning. The course seems really in depth. Problem is - it'd be running right on the day that I'd be moving into my new house! I don't think it'd look good if I suddenly disappeared in the middle of the move to go decorate imaginary cakes that aren't even real cakes yet!

Our next stop will be going to The Cake Box. As many of you know, the Cake Box designed the awesome wedding cake for our wedding. She works a lot in fondant, and that truly is what I'm interested in working with. I believe Devon is the same way as it seems to be a much more fun, pliable option for us to create crazy cakes. They have different class options - including a private session if you can get up to five people together to work on anything you want. To me this sounds great as we can learn all about what we WANT to learn, and gear it more to us rather than to a set course design that might cover all the different styles of icing and piping.

How this whole thing got insane for me is watching the Food Network. They have two really amazing shows that I seem to like watching any chance I can. Ace of Cakes is where I started. They create these crazy insane cakes in any style that you want. The most recent shows I watched had a huge phone booth for the movie premiere of Get Smart and then they also made a light house for a naval school. What was so amusing is that both of them had an electronic element. I know that I'm light years from using electricity and flashing lights and smoke machines, but the fondant seems pretty easy to work with and sculpt anyway you want.

The other show on the Food Network - is the Food Network Challenge. These challenges are AMAZING. 8 hours to create some sort of cake or dessert type thing. Usually they have a theme and sometimes there is a secret theme where they don't know what to expect until they get there. I've seen baby shower cakes, city scapes, wedding cakes, sweet sixteen cakes and a crazy Christmas tree made with edible ornaments, tree toppers and garlands.

I watch them work and it seems that in no time they sketch things out and then make them take shape. All it takes is a really good cake base. Of course that's something I need to work on. I tend to follow recipes and most cakes I've made are out of a box or from a family recipe. Not very great bases I think for the cakes I have in mind!

I'm not even sure if we're going to take a decorating class or if we are just going to go and start practicing on our own. It isn't that we want to be professionals, we'd just like to do birthday cakes that are really creative, and cakes for parties and such. It's a skill that will come in handy as her kids grow and mine are born and start to also grow. Kristina, my other best friend, might also join in our crazy cake concoctions.

I think it will be very fun to see how this cake chaos ends up!

P.S. I love you

I was a big blubbering crying baby this morning. I got up early with a bit of a headache - usually leads to a bad day. I left bed and went to the living room to try and relax... okay I was trying to pack a couple boxes (got two more done - yay!) As I was packing, I turned on a movie that I had wanted to see that was being shown on our satellite. (Have I told you that I'm going to miss satellite when we move.)

The movie: P.S. I Love You
Starring: Hilary Swank

I missed probably about 15 minutes of the start of the movie, but feel that I came during a very integral part as I was immediately swept into the story.

Here's the gist of the story, Hilary's husband dies of a brain tumor. He was 35, she was 29. they lived in New York. The remainder of the story is how through letters he had planned helped her come back from the brink and find herself again.

All throughout the story I was crying. I cried through the sad moments, I cried through the happy ones. I cried when one of his letters told her to buy a lamp and I cried when she sang a really bad karaoke song. I wasn't really sad, but I couldn't stop the tears. It touched me. Moved me. I really felt her pain and the heartache of trying to move on when a big piece of you was missing.

It's a people story, the kind that I love to watch and hate forcing James to sit through. But it made me think of James. Made me think of what life would be like without him and if I could truly go on. I also wondered if I would do the same with him had I found a brain tumor. I thought I might want to. Give him a hand in moving on. But then I worried, what if he moved on before my last letter was sent? What if he found another woman to love, and she resented the letters that I sent. Felt I was the other woman, rather than his wife.

I love my husband. The thought of him with any other woman freaks me out, but yet I know that if I passed I'd want him to still be happy. I'd want him to live on and learn to live without me. My husband is caring and loving and just a wonderful human being. I think that movie helped me see that I need to love the moments now.

Anyhow - enough about me. See the movie. Go by yourself or with someone that you trust - because believe me - you'll cry too.

Happily though, my headache is gone...

To have the Olympics or not?

Getting away from the whole house buying process for a post - let's talk about something near and dear to my heart - the Beer Olympics.

As many of you know, last year I spent the better part of four months planning a grand event called the Beer Olympics. I formed a committee to help me organize and tried to keep the Olympians out of the loop. After all - I didn't want anyone practicing before hand. We wanted it to be a surprise and no team deserved an unfair advantage. (Of course Team Canada with it's five strong power drinkers did have a slight advantage but that goes to the fact that the teams were unfairly divided.) My committee was called the BOC or the Beer Olympic Committee. We would email and chat nearly every day for weeks talking about who was doing what and how we what events we were going to have. They were integral in helping me get the event going and it was great to have them as sounding boards.

When the day came and the sun started to come out, everyone was in good spirits and ready for a challenge. Just looking at the pictures, you could tell that everyone was having a blast and everyone was pleasantly surprised by how smooth everything went. Sure there were some minor glitches - such as the barbecue being too far away from the action so our official barbecue master had to miss out on lots of stuff and some of the games were too short and some too long. But the games were awesome. Everyone that I talked to that day said they would definitely be back for the next games and all were very excited to compete again.

However, before the event I received a lot of flack from people for the following reasons:

• I was unwilling to change the date of the event and some great people would be away and missed it - even though the date worked for most people as it was before most summer vacations would begin and before the gorgeously pregnant BOCVP would be too uncomfortable to move
  
• I was charging too much money for a full day of alcohol, barbecue dinner and events and entertainment - yes folks I was asking for $15 (Hilarious considering that I probably forked out a few hundred of my own cash to make the party a huge success)
• The event was called the Beer Olympics and some people don't like beer and would prefer to drink vodka, whisky or rum - why couldn't it be the drinking olympics?
  
• Those not drinking beer thought it wasn't fair that they had to pay in full for the event - they felt that we should've supplied alternative alcohol to drink(again - insert the few hundred dollars I had to pay extra for them to still have the time of their lives)
  
• Many people were scared off by the prospect of being forced to chug beer over and over again

I kept up with the event despite not breaking even because lets face it - the Beer Olympics were the best party that I've ever thrown! Sure we had an entire team back out with three days to spare, sure we had people say they were coming and then not show up - sure we had more beer than we knew what to do with - and ended up with an entire kegs worth of beer left over at the end of everything. But I've never laughed so hard, felt so proud and enjoyed myself more.

Here it is a new year and some people have expressed interest in participating in another games. I'd gladly work on them but there are so many other things going this year. We are moving, and with the mortgage and everything, I cannot afford to foot the entire bill with hopes that it will get paid back. Also, by moving I have to pack and get our old house ready just to move and unpack. Who knows how long unpacking and settling in will take. I won't have as much time to devote to the Games as I did last year. Our new house doesn't have the same amount of land as Mount Clyde does - and even though mom and dad would probably let us back in, that's a lot to ask. And as our apartment here is already rented out once we move, we don't have a bathroom that would be devoted to the competitors. This means renting a portapotty - which again = more money.

There are potentially two other possible locations that could host the Olympics - but looking at both would mean a lot more people - namely people that I don't know. I wouldn't be in as much control as I was last year and somehow that scares me a little. Last year, I knew who was invited and I knew the teams. And sure there were some random people that said they were coming, I was cool with that as the people that I did know vouched for them. As it turned out - only Mike, the crazy Brit on team UAE, was the only person I hadn't met before. He was awesome too!

What if we go to an alternate venue and things get out of hand and people start taking over? I don't like losing control and that's why I avoid roller coasters if possible. Who's to say I wouldn't have one if I hosted the Olympics at someone elses house? Also at someone elses house I'd be incredibly worried about things getting damaged or things going awry.

The other potential venues are also on complete ends of the spectrum as far as our friends go. One is in Paris - which is about a half hour away from the people in Cambridge. We make the trek all the time, but the people from Guelph probably wouldn't. They'd have an hour to go. The other venue is in Guelph - which probably means the people from Paris are out. Who's going to want to drive an hour to go to something and drink - and have to find a designated driver to take you home?

More and more I keep thinking that the Olympics should probably be postponed this year. Very good friends of mine are either having babies or will be breastfeeding. Some are getting married too and are focused on that. I can't ask them to come to an event where there will be lots of alcohol in a strange town.

I think the best idea, unless someone steps up with a better one, is to just have a housewarming party for me and James where there just happens to be some fun games such as chicken foot and pound offs. Or if we have the Olympics, have a BYOB and have people bring stuff for potluck and maybe only pay like $5 for incidentals instead. We could have it at our house in the city - and just have smaller teams. I'd still like to have the event around Summer Solstice, as it just makes sense to do it before the summer comes and everyone gets out of the city.

So many things to think about...