Rose's Cantina

On Friday, Scott presented me with my first Christmas present and I'm sharing it with you. It's a brand new (to me) desktop computer complete with Word for professional typists. That means I'll be able to chuck the old Student version of Word that has been the bane of my existence. I know, you're all saying: "Hey, Roseanne Rosanna Danna! I thought you were poor! How did you score the new tech?" The answer is this. Scott found a guy who refurbishes old government computers and sells them on Kijiji for, like, two hundred bucks. Oh you're skeptical? How can you possibly get a computer for two hundred bucks unless it fell off a truck in Gatineau somewhere?  It might have come from Idontgiveashitistan, for all I care. Who am I to look a gift horse? It's better than the six hundred dollar laptop I got from HP, the one that comes with a screen full of ads and free offers from other companies, the kind that gives you viruses unless you buy the vi...

My life has changed in the last few weeks. First, I lost my Kindle. Then my computer caught a virus. Then I saw the dreaded red blink on the printer – no more ink. And finally, my iPhone started dropping apps. I found myself in a technological dead zone. It’s as if God gave me a time out. If that wasn’t bad enough, the high-priced coffee machine my son bought me started exploding and then died. We sent it along to a Wall-e style graveyard where all the old Cuisinarts and Kitchen Aids go to die. The coffee machine isn’t that big a problem; the fact is, I don’t really like coffee, if I were to be perfectly honest, so I’m back to tea, and not the expensive kind, either. The kind you buy at the ethnic food store, two dollars for three hundred bags of Darjeeling. In past days, I’ve realized I’m in need of a complete technological retrofit. I need a new phone. Will it be an iPhone 5 or a Samsung Galaxy? I need a new computer. Will it be a Mac or a new PC with Windows 8? T...

This year, I decided to do Christmas on the cheap and not feel guilty about it. So we'll be putting up a tree, making nice food, hauling in some stomach-warming bevvies and giving the finger to Santa Claus. Nick and Shyla have a baby on the way, Marissa and Jeff are in a very pricey wedding party and Scott and I are broke -- as usual. Stef has money but Stef can afford to buy his own presents. So we've arranged it so that one couple or a Stef will give another couple one present and that will be it. Before you blurt it out, let me stop you right there. There will be no secret Santa, no present stealing. Our Christmas will be transparent and will level the playing field for the "have nots". For the past few years, I've felt guilty about the lack of great and expensive presents. Even when I was a single mom, there was always a Playstation or an iPod under the tree. We were pretty poor but I wanted to make sure the kids got what everybody else was gett...