SWF seeks welder with sweet tooth to make sparks fly.

The chances of meeting a man who owns a suit in Havenot just decreased by about 25 billion per cent. On the other hand, if pipe fitters and welders rock your world – sister, are you in luck.

While the recent business news for Nova Scotia is optimistic for a change, I tend to agree with Jordi Morgan of News Radio 95.7 when it comes to the cabbage wasted on the Ships Start Here campaign. If this lengthy tendering process was indeed completely unbiased – why waste hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's dollars on an advertising "awareness" campaign? Who was the campaign aimed at? I don't get it, and I'm not just bitter because I didn't create it. But I did help pay for it – so I can bitch all I want.

The irony is, the Dexter government spent a small fortune on a useless spin campaign – but they couldn't throw a bone to the Yarmouth/Maine ferry – subsequently placing a choke hold on the tourism industry with their "Let 'em eat cake" mentality. Ships carrying Yankee dollars don't start, or stop in Yarmouth anymore.

Fuck. It boggles the mind.

But, if you have to eat cake, you're in luck. Sweet Hereafter Cheesecakery opened in September in the old Key Lime Pie hairdresser location on Quinpool Road. The interior is a whimsical cross between the inside of an expensive coffin and a funky whore house, and the cheesecake is truly heavenly. Owner Colin MacDougall caters to the after-dinner, or afternoon screw-the-diet crowd – dishing out creamy cheesecakes in flavours like Chocolate Amaretto, Cherry Sundae and Banana Split. Wash it all down with organic, locally-roasted Laughing Whale coffee, and your pants will be too tight to bend over and pick up the tab.

For the dietary challenged, MacDougall graciously bakes up fresh vegan options, and claims his gluten-free coconut lime cheesecake is to die for. A fresh supply of Sweetiecakes Cupcakes guarantees this is going to be another one of those winters where my ass exceeds my expectations.

My chances of meeting a well-tailored man are all but shot to shit, and I may not get my share of the shipbuilding pie, but good for you Havenot.

I really like cake.

halifaxbroad@gmail.com

Feeling rather up.

One would have to be otherwise occupied not to notice this is Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Pink is everywhere from the rink to the football field, and the annual Run for the Cure alone raised over $30 million nationally.

I show my support by giving when asked, and by feeling myself up regularly, all month long. In the car. At the rink. In the grocery store. Groping and prodding like a teenage boy, I fumble around in fear of finding a dreaded lump. A game changer.

There's nothing erotic about feeling one's self up (or rather, down) these days. In the 1970's, I recall sitting in the backseat of an AMC Gremlin with my cousin's best friend – wishing I were in the front seat with my cousin's other best friend. My "Dici or Nothing" bra even had a front clasp for speedy access, and I imagined it wrapped around my neck like a string of pearls. The front passenger seat however, was already occupied with an older, busty young woman who was a sure bet for hitting home base. The gentleman in the backseat didn't try a thing – likely because my cousin had put the fear of God in him – or maybe because I had my arms clamped tightly against my sides for fear that he would.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida baby, this wasn't. At least in the backseat.

Little did he know, I was already an old pro at being felt up. For years, the T-bar lift operator at our ski club had violated my personal space, through multi-layers and down ski jackets, at every given opportunity. Without fail, when the country boy handed me the clanking T-bar, he would smile, then seize the day, gliding his his gloved hand across my then-perky breasts. It's hard to defend yourself when you live in fear of being struck in the head by a moving object – but I never told anyone. I also never stopped using the T-bar shortcut between the Minute Mile and Champlain ski runs.

A few weeks ago, breast cancer came waltzing into our yard. The diagnosis of someone we love, brought this shitty disease closer to home. I immediately turned to my friend Kelly Hennessey for honest answers to the questions I was afraid to ask directly. Kelly is a ballsy, faith-driven breast cancer survivor who will be speaking frankly about boobs on CBC Radio's Maritime Noon today at, well, noon. Kelly is a firm (!) supporter of BRA Day (Breast Reconstruction Awareness Day) happening across Canada on Wednesday, October 19th. If you want the "been there, bought the t-shirt" truth, tune in. Now that my awareness is all too real, I'll be listening – hoping to hear Kelly snap Norma Lee McLeod's bra strap at least once.

My grandmother "Florrie", God rest her soul, used to hang on to her purse like it contained a million dollars, instead of keys to the Monte Carlo and a package of Rothmans. Once, during some distant relative's funeral, the aforementioned cousin and I were flanking Florrie in the church pew, trying quietly, desperately, to get ahold of her purse. Suppressing giggles and shushing us, Florrie held steadfast, white-knuckled – until my cousin slowly reached around – and with the deft movement of a professional, unhooked my grandmother's bra.

I laugh when I think of how quickly that purse hit the floor, and the dirty looks all three of us got for busting a gut in the Lord's lounge.

It's October 18th. Just a tad more than halfway though Breast Cancer Awareness month – and a great time to feel someone up in the front, or backseat of the minivan. Imagine how many lumps would get detected if we hadn't abandoned backseat romance for paying the mortgage, and getting down to business.

It's also a great time to let go of the purse, and give.

halifaxbroad@gmail.com

Read Kelly's blog at Gingerbread Guts.

*Get your own Dartmouth Destroyers Minor Football Crucial Catch t-shirt by emailing tom@fastline.net. Mine arrived yesterday and I love it! They come in two styles: a cap-sleeved feminine style and a regular t-shirt style. All funds go to support breast cancer!

Rescue me.

When you have 5 or more children, I guess you can be a little lackadaisical about knowing where they all are, at all times – because you have spares.

Such was the case yesterday, when I dragged home one of the neighbour's kids because he was:

A. Crying on the porch. B. Alone. C. Five-years old. D. Made eye contact.

"Which one are you?" I asked, trying to ease his muffled sobs and subsequent flow of snot, as I took him by the hand.

I didn't really care, having shooed him and his numerous siblings out of my yard on several occasions. And making small talk with anyone under the age of 60, was never my forté – but it kept me from asking the question on the tip of my tongue: "Where the fuck are your parents?".

Having spent the entire weekend in a rink parking lot, all I really wanted was a glass of wine and some peace and quiet by the fireplace. So why the hell was I toting home a small child like a discarded old chair I'd never get around to reupholstering.

"What are you doing?" asked the Little Bastard, all tucked in on the sofa watching football.

"Trying to figure out the remote so I can switch it to Treehouse." I replied.

"No. What are you doing with him?" he asked, grabbing the remote, as I steered our little neighbour toward the sofa.

"I am giving him some chocolate milk, and some love, and some Doritos, and making him cozy until his Mommy comes home." I thought to myself, tucking the other little, Little Bastard in.

"I never left you alone. Ever." I said, giving my child the motherly, yet tearful stink eye as I exited the room. "Just change the goddamned channel."

"I'm 15, and you still never leave me alone." I heard him mutter, reluctantly switching from football to some stupid kid channel.

There's a reason the mommy bird pushes the baby birds out of the nest. I think about this a great deal these days, as my only child prepares to leave the nest. Part of me is ready to watch him fly – and I promise not to milk this bird analogy to death – but part of me is afraid he'll blow a wing, or wind up face to face with the neighbour's cat.

He's ready, but am I?

Becoming a mother was like a big, weird, unexpected miracle for me, and I was determined not to screw it up. "Kids come first, at all costs" became my mantra, as I turned down party invitations, and left an otherwise lucrative career to work at home. There wouldn't be a man, or an event that would take priority over this kid.

But now what?

After our embarrassed neighbour arrived to retrieve her child, I suggested to the Little Bastard that maybe I should adopt another kid. I went so far as to call Nova Scotia's Department of Community and Child Services to see if they had any potty-trained, 5-year olds with no inclination toward hockey, lyin' around. Maybe a special needs child who couldn't speak, liked to scrub floors, and mixed the perfect Caesar.

So far, they haven't called back.

Driving the Little Bastard to school this morning, I asked him if he ever wished he had a little brother or sister, and what would he honestly think about adopting one.

He was silent for a moment, then said, "Okay Mom, do the math. You get a 5-year old now and that means you'll be, like, 90 by the time that kid is through university. And what about winter tennis in Florida, or finally being able to take off to Tuscany, like you talk about all the time?"

"And besides," he said, jumping out of the car, "you hate kids."

The Greyhound Pets of Atlantic Canada are "dedicated to placing retired greyhounds into loving homes". Had I not been forced to recently kick one of these yet-to-be-socialized, rescued dogs in the balls, so it would release my poodle from its jaws of death – this could have been a viable option to the 24/7 commitment of raising another child.

Maybe I'll billot a burly Moosehead, to keep the fetid hockey smell alive.

Maybe I'll look into Foster Parenting.

Maybe I don't have the patience, or the heart, to take another needy creature under my flabby wing.

Or, maybe I do.

halifaxbroad@gmail.com

Fighting for looth CHANGE.

Dear Father James Tony,

Thank you for your kind email regarding my status here on Earth.

While I am certainly not DEAD in the medical sense, perhaps you caught a glimpse of me yesterday downtown, wearing hand-me-down sweatpants, a soiled pyjama top and rubber boots. Understandable for you to think I was on the brink of freezing to death under a bridge next to my shopping cart full of cats, but I assure you I am not DEAD – although perhaps in a downward spiral after catching a glimpse of Chaz Bono on Dancing with the Stars.

Spiritual flat lining is a plague to even the most enlightened of lambs.

As for the $5.5 million dollars US you are claiming I have in my bank account – do you honestly think if I had $5.5 million dollars I would be walking around in the Little Bastard's filthy cast offs, wondering if Greece is going to ask the rest of the world take one up the ass, while they lie under an olive tree sipping ouzo? You must be more stunned than your spelling suggests.

I can assure you, had I even a fraction of a million dollars I would, of course, be lying in a Tuscan villa wondering if I should play tennis, or bike into town for for more Brunello. Instead, I am trying to decide if I should pay my HST, or put some oil in my furnace so I can turn the bloody heat on. It's so fucking cold in this house, a few hours in Hell is sounding rather pleasant.

So, Father James Tony, you can tell your swindling cohort spamasaurus artist, Mr. Bob Chantler, that at the present time I am indeed alive and kicking – and aside from a wet basement, a shitty wardrobe, gravitational tugging, freckles that are morphing into liver spots or Corn Flakes, and a bathroom that looks like a scene from the Reservoir Dogs – life is pretty good. Besides, I can't afford to die. At this rate, I'll be working 25 years after I am DEAD, just to catch up with Revenue Canada.

I also plan on sticking around long enough to see a few of Havenot's finest femme fatales duking it out for homelessness, December 1st at Palooka's. Fight for Change is being billed as a "fantastic night of fun and fundraising" watching 10 otherwise classy women who have enthusiastically stepped into the boxing ring to fight homelessness. I call it the ultimate cat fight and can't wait to see Meghan "The Closer" Laing and Flaunt's Kim "Upper Cut" Grant going at it like the Kardashians. Imagine Nova Scotia's sweetheart, Nancy Regan ducking and weaving as Delvina Bernard slams a right hook at her kisser. Holy shit, Father, who would want to die and miss that!? Funds raised will support Saint Leonard's Society of Nova Scotia and tickets will be available soon, so stay tuned for details.

And Father, while I appreciate that my "joy and success" remains your goal, Mrs. Teresa Hernandez, also a Christian, just picked my email address to receive an inheritance of 3.2 million pounds. And while she didn't say pounds of what, it is with profound respect (and humble submission) that Rabiu Mohamed Hassan M. Nur, a Somalian citizen, has also made a fixed deposit of the sum of 4.7 million USD in one of the banks in Burkina Faso with my name as his next of kin. All I have to do is send them my banking information.

So, I'm not DEAD, I'm LAUGHIN'!

halifaxbroad@gmail.com

*Just read an article in the Herald about a man who actually fell for one of these send money "I'm a widow from Ghana" scams. Come on people. Click to read the article called "Born Yesterday."