Showing posts with label Losing My Mind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Losing My Mind. Show all posts

Saturday, April 29, 2023

The Cursed Roof

Driiiiiiiiip.

Driiiiiiiiip.

Driiiiiiiiip.

Fuck.

Nope. No, I am not going to look. I don't need to look, because that problem has been solved. The leaky roof above of our kitchen ceiling has been fixed. 

IT. 

HAS. 

BEEN. 

FIXED.

Driiiiiiiiip.

Driiiiiiiiip.

Driiiiiiiiip.

For the love of... I square my shoulders and stand up. I walk over to the kitchen. The light fixture is filling with water... again.


Cue Heather, mixing her first Dirty Martini. At 10:42 a.m. On the last Saturday in April. 

In 2018, we'd been led to believe that our entire roof had been replaced. This was erroneous. The roofer we'd hired had not, in fact, replaced any of it. He had re-shingled it. We had to call him back six times to deal with our leaky eaves. SIX

But... GOOD NEWS!... after only six return trips, it was fixed.

HOORAH!!

Cut to Dec 2022, when our kitchen ceiling begins to leak...into our light fixtures. Through Google, I discover that not only is this phenomenon an electrocution hazard, but a house fire hazard. Who knew? 

This is when I start making Martinis. Because coping with alcohol is a great coping mechanism. (It's NOT, kids.)  

Yes, we could have gone back to the original roofer, but given his track record, we didn't trust his work product.  And frankly, winding up in small claims court with this roofing shyster seemed like it would wind up costing us more money. We get a quote from another roofer, and it will be $13,000.00 to replace the back part of the roof. 

THIRTEEN. 

THOUSAND. 

DOLLARS. 

For 400 square feet of roof.  We shop around, get recommendations and find another roofer. 

And they attempt a repair, with the proviso that if it doesn't work, they will give us a deal on a more extensive roof repair. So, of course, it doesn't work, and they have to do that roof repair, which appears to work... until today... when it doesn't. And we are looking at another complete roof repair.

Which is when I start making Dirty Martinis. Again.

Because that's what I have the ingredients for. I have vodka. I have olives. I have olive juice. (Up until 30 minutes ago, I had a 1/2 oz. of vermouth.) 

It might seem odd that someone with Meniere's Disease (where you're supposed to limit your sodium intake to avoid the worst of the symptoms that invariably have you falling to the ground when your vestibular system ceases to function) might choose to OD on the sodium found in olives and olive brine... but when the alternative is to run the airport with your Visa and your passport and go somewhere, ANYWHERE else in the world where one doesn't have to contemplate a leaky roof and the thousands of dollars to repair it....

Two Dirty Martinis in, I'm no longer as worried, and strangely, the prospect of tearing down our kitchen ceiling to discover from whence the leak originates, seems no longer so daunting.


* written while under the influence of 2, no... 3... dirty martinis. 


Addendum:

After the initial leaks, we tore down the ceiling. 







During a downpour we discovered where the water was coming in.

 

However, after that downpour, regular rainy days haven't created a single drip. 

With me in the kitchen on the phone looking at all the places the ceiling had leaked during the deluge, our roofer came back and spent an HOUR AND FIVE MINUTES trying to recreate the leak with a hose and couldn't do it. What sort of crazy-ass weather system has to hit us to make it rain inside? 

What is today's coping cocktail??


Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Irregular Heather

WARNING: Colourful language in this post.

Fact: My internal thermostat is fucked. I've dealt with hot flashes since the age of 36. But the night sweats? The truly disgusting, sleep-annihilating, life-altering, make-you-feel-like-you-have-malaria... 

Wait. 

Maybe it's not night sweats. Maybe it's malaria.


It's January. In Canada. There are no mosquitos.

Maybe it's COVID... again. 

Cue rapid test.

Not COVID.

I haven't slept through the night - in a really, really... REALLY long time. What's the part of your brain that's responsible for logic? The frontal lobe? My frontal lobe is fucking exhausted.

Seven years ago, I thought I'd kicked them - the night sweats. I exercise regularly. I cut out caffeine. I don't have more than one drink at a time. Or, if I do, at least I KNOW to expect the night sweats and I weigh the pleasure from a second spiced whiskey against the waking multiple times during the night drowning in my own secretions. 

But I have NOT been enjoying extra spiced whiskeys. Number 1, because of the night sweats, but also because, Number 2, Health Canada has now told us that we can only have 2 drinks a week or we will all die of cancer.

What kind of cancer? How much of it? How long will it take to get here? And when it's here, how much shorter will I live because of it? What are we talking? Will it take weeks off my life? Years? How many years?

Cue breathing into a paper bag.

Suffice to say that I haven't been drinking a lot. Which is why I'm so confused as to why now, after years of having thought I'd figured this shit out, havoc has been wreaked upon my body... yet again. Or is this what's supposed to be happening? Maybe seven years ago, when the night sweats got bad, and I figured out how to put them on the back burner (HAH!), that was just the dress rehearsal and at the age of 54 and a half, I have reached opening night for EGG-FREE AND INSANE: THE SCREAMOPERA.

With my mis-firing hormones, I get chilled in the evening, lips almost blue, so I throw on a sweater and woolen work socks. But I know, I know, that when I go to bed that I will be too hot if I wear all that shit, and yet...? I can't go naked. Because if I go naked - like I used to be able to do...

Cue montage of Heather basking in her naked sleeping glory...

Cut back to:

I'll wake up in the middle of the night, having thrown off the blankets because I am the temperature of the sun and all that night sweat... SWEAT... will then dry on my body at which point hypothermia kicks in and my teeth literally begin to chatter, and I have woken David up with all the noise. 

So, every night before bed, I strip down to a t-shirt and panties.  But then my feet are blocks of fucking ice and I pull the woolen work socks back on. And I burrow under our flannel sheets, down-alternative duvet and woven blanket topper. My feet, now encased in woolen work socks, are deliciously toasty. Our cats, Steve and Lola immediately bookend my feet, adding supplementary warmth. All is well with the world.

Until 1:37 a.m. when my feet are on fire and my sternum and scalp are soaked and I want to vomit from the heat. I don't, because cleaning up vomit at 1:37 a.m. is not a thing anyone wants to be doing. So I tear off the woolen work socks and jettison the covers, panic-panting as my heart races and both cats,  look at me like I've completely lost it.

Within three minutes, I'm no longer hysterical as my body temperature plummets. I wring out my t-shirt and crawl back under the covers. Except my feet are cold again. So I grab the socks and put them back on.  And go back to sleep. Until 3:53 a.m. when the cycle repeats itself.

This morning, while I research HRT and cancer risks, I'm enjoying a spiced whiskey. 



Monday, August 29, 2022

Surreptitious OCD

David, Rissa and I are in a charming French restaurant in Baldwin Village. 

Red walls. Black baseboards. Brilliant yellow door. Art everywhere.

We choose to sit inside. You know, because of the art. Instead of facing the wall displaying the larger artwork, my vista will be the opposite wall; the unexpected opportunity to gaze upon a gallery of many smaller pieces makes me very happy.

Every piece on the wall is askew. 

I'm doing my best to give my entire focus to the conversation; however, my peripherals are on high alert.

Do the restaurateurs not see that the vintage Asian paintings nearest to the door are both OFF?!? Beside a larger piece - also at least an 1/8 of an inch NOT straight? Next to three paintings arranged over top of each other - all OFFAnd the next four paintings directly across from me...

"Ma," says Rissa. "You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," I say, forcing my eyes to my club soda and lime. 

But my peripherals...They know. 

Rissa's talking about work. David's talking about...

The upper right corner of an 8x10 painting is angled towards the ceiling...




"Ma??"

"Huh?"

"Are you having a stroke?"

"No," I say, wishing for a pocket level. I smile broadly at them, my regular response whenever they ask this frequent question. Both sides of my mouth lift reassuringly.

"The artwork... It's... ahhhhhhhh... it's a bit... off."

Rissa takes a look. David turns around.

"Ooooh, yeah," says Rissa. "Wow." She tilts her head this way and that, scanning the entire wall. "I think the larger painting might be straight. Wait. No. I think it's off too."

I swallow. My fingers clutch the edge of the table.

Rissa glances at me. "You want to fix them all, don't you?"

"DON'T YOU?!?"

"No."

David snorts. "Do not do it."

"I'm not going to," I huff.  "I will disregard it."

David and Rissa share a glance before rolling their eyes.

"I will." And I do.

Until my delicious chicken salad is finished and I and no longer have food to distract me. Whereupon, I ever-so-casually rise from the table and saunter over to the first pieces of art on the wall.

"Heather!" David whisper-chastises.

"I'm just admiring them from closer," I say, leaning in to look at the signature, my hand resting delicately against the frame. My back blocks the waiter's view. I adjust the frame.

Rissa smirks. "Uh-huh..."

I move to the next painting, and the next.

"She's actually being quite subtle," begins Rissa.

SLAM! My thigh bangs into the corner of the table. The very pointy corner. Bruising. There will be much bruising. My head spins around to see if the waiter is paying attention. He isn't. I quickly straighten the two painting behind the table. Can I get to the next ones?

"That artist is very famous," calls the cook from behind the kitchen counter. 

Busted. 

"Oh?" I ask. I haven't even been looking at the actual artwork. All I can focus on is the frames. The cook tells me the artist's name, which I immediately forget. 

I calmly walk back to our table.

"Until you whacked the table, you were very inconspicuous," says Rissa.

"Right?!? I can be sneaky when I need to... Oh, for the love of..." In my haste to straighten the last two paintings, I overcorrected one of them.

"Serves you right," says David.

"If I were a super hero, I would be The Leveller."

"You mean instead of being able to fly or have super-human strength, you would straighten artwork?"

"And furniture. It would be multi-purpose. And I could do it just with my mind."

David Malki's WONDERMARK



Saturday, July 9, 2022

It appears I've been catfished...


 "You've what?" asks Rissa, slightly laggy on her end of the video call. "Who have you been talking to? What did you do?"

"Nothing," I say. "I think it's just my age."

"It's what? What do you mean it's your age?"

"I think you just get to a certain age and..."

"You think there are people specifically targeting* 50-something women? What did they do? Did you cancel your credit cards?!?"

"Huh?" It takes me a second. "No! Oh, no, I haven't been catfished like that."

"In what way have you been catfished?"

"In the way that I am slowly becoming a catfish."

Now Rissa pauses. And blinks. 

"I am developing jowls." I indicate my jaw line. 

She blinks again. "How does this having anything..."

"I have the jowls and now there are more whiskers here." I point to the corners of my mouth. "And here." I point to my bottom lip line.

"I can see no whiskers, Ma."

"They are there. I can feel them." My tongue touches each side of my mouth, back and forth, feeling for the whiskers. I lick my bottom lip line. I can still feel them, even though I spent a good 15 minutes plucking those suckers earlier in the day.

"There are no visible whiskers, Ma."

"That's because they're mostly white and I pluck them. But they're there, and if I let them grow, between the whiskers and the slight jowls - total catfish."

"You are ridiculous."

"That's as may be, but I'm either going to evolve into a catfish or have a very stylized Fu Mancu moustache."


            *Side note - why does targeting only have one 't' before the 'ing,' but getting has two??

Saturday, December 4, 2021

I am now THAT old.

This is the week. It's the week that I bought a high-end bird feeder so that I can watch the birds from my kitchen window and I discovered that, from the side, I have jowls. 

And then, as I headed to Shoppers Drug Mart to replace my bottle of Women 50+ multi-vitamins, I realized that my level of frugality rivals that of an octogenarian. 

Recently, when I had to stay at a small pharmacy for 15 minutes after my flu shot,  I was pretty psyched to discover Canada Style at Home magazine's Christmas issue - for $6.99! It's been easily a decade since I've bought a magazine. It's a blast from the past to my early days as a stay-at-home mom when I would open a magazine and be completely transported. 


Christmas is my jam. I'm that person who, in the dead of summer, if I find a Christmas store? Frickin' ECSTATIC! If I had the start up funds to RUN a Christmas store? Done. And not one of those crappy add-your-name-to-an-ornament stores. I'm talking high end - Patience Brewster Krinkles, Kurt Adler Nutcrackers, glass-ornaments-shipped-from-Germany shit. If you want to see me in a near-constant state of animated joy, catch me anywhere between November 12 and when David and Rissa go back to school after the holiday break. 

So, my trip to Shoppers for the vitamins, that literally list me as being middle aged, is just that little bit easier because I figure that I can grab maybe four or five holiday magazines and distribute them around my home so that if I ever feel the need? I can get a quick hit of Holiday Heroin. This will be great and economical, because I'd recently been on Amazon sourcing retro decorating coffee table books which were upwards of $35 a piece. Which, I'm sure that we can all agree, is too much.

I look at the magazine rack and I'm very happy to discover that there are tonnes of Christmas magazines. Hooray!! I will just grab up... this one... to start... and... 

When, may I ask, did magazines start costing $15.99? Or $17.99? I go from magazine to magazine and the cheapest Christmas magazine on the rack was $12.99. For a magazine?!? I mean, it's just a magazine right? Printed on paper? From a large organization like Better Homes and Gardens? Or House Beautiful or Oprah? Oprah's was $17.99. What the actual fuck? It's a MAGAZINE!!!

And then I start to doubt myself. Had I completely confabulated the $6.99 price from before?? From when I was waiting to see if I'd go into anaphylaxis from my flu shot? I don't think so, because I distinctly remember thinking that $6.99 was a perfectly reasonable price to pay for that magazine. 

And then I recognize that this it one of those 'unmet expectations' moments. Where you have an idea in your head and then reality doesn't match up with it and you freak the fuck out. So, I breathe in. And breathe out. It's all good. They're double or almost triple the anticipated price, but that's okay, because I'll just buy... two... magazines then.

Except I can't. I just can't spend almost THIRTEEN DOLLARS on a magazine! I have the magazine in my fully-sanitized hands - because we're still in the midst of a PANDEMIC -  and then I put it back and then I pick it up again and replace it. I just can't!

I look like a crazy person for the entire 8 minute walk back home. Gesticulating wildly - talking to myself. "Grumble, grumble, grumble... THIRTEEN DOLLARS?!? Grumble, grumble, grumble SEVENTEEN-NINETY-NINE?!?!?" 

So I get back home and I hop onto Amazon. My logic has me believing that spending $35+ on a hardcover coffee table book is now more than reasonable. (It's not.) I start sourcing coffee table books, because if I'm spending a ridiculous amount of money - it's at least going to be a hardcovered something. But all I can find are Country Christmas Crafts and Southern Living Christmas and Christmas Baking. I don't want to do crafts, nor do I want to decorate my plantation!! And I sure as shit do not need any more holiday baking recipes. And now I can't even find that Mid-Century Christmas book that had me all fired up to get the magazines in the first place! 

But then I get a brainwave! Maybe there are discounted magazines somewhere from the clearing houses!! 

Nope. 

Not for anything related to Christmas decorating. 2021's issues are still all $12.99 or more. Except for Style at Home, which seems to be the only... Except for STYLE AT HOME!! I google their publisher TVA Publications, and am thrilled to discover, that they offer back issues of actual, physical, hold-it-in-your-hand, magazines!!! I also discover that Style at Home does holiday issues for both November and December!! At a crazy discount from the original cover price! Seriously, the lowest priced issues are from Nov and Dec of 2018 and they are only $1.80 per issue!!! I put 7 holiday issues (one from 2021 at the completely reasonable full price of $6.99 and then two from 2020, 2019 and 2018) into my online basket. HAH! I have foiled the magazine robber barons and their exorbitant prices!!! And then I look at the shipping. It will cost $17.07. 🤦

But you know what? Even with that shipping charge? Totally worth it. I will get 7 magazines shipped to my door in 2 days' time and if I average out the cost of everything?  $7.83 a magazine. And that I am more than willing to pay. And I will be able to peruse those festive magazines as I watch the birds from my kitchen window while doing my jowl-reducing exercises.

***


ps.  Did you know that they make 'decorative' books? Which aren't books at all - they just look like books? You can stack them so that they make you look either well-travelled or festive.  Guess how much they cost in Canada? Go ahead. Take a stab.  $26.77 FOR A FAKE BOOK. You can't open these books. They have no pictures of Christmas or pictures of anything at all in them!! Plus, I just looked at the dimensions, and they're not even coffee table book size. They are 7.5" x 9.25" And they charge $26.77 for a single one. You'd have to spend over $100.00 to achieve the look below!!




Monday, November 1, 2021

The brain, she don't work like she used to...

As I'm writing, I know exactly the word I want to use. It means getting up, but in a sexy, Regency romance kind of way. Sort of like unbending, something akin to having a sexy lap. The word itself? Not a fucking clue.

Any of you know what the word is? Wordhippo did not immediately find it for me. And now, I'm on the cusp of a brain aneurysm trying to find the word as it hides in my hippocampus. Yes, I can make a pun, referencing the thesaurus site that I use, but I can't remember the fucking word.

I used to have a brain that held onto the minutiae of almost every topic. Who was the female lead in Arrival? Amy Adams! Have I seen the movie? NO! But I remember her face from the movie trailers. 

UNFOLDED! I think the word might be unfolded. "Sebastian unfolded his legs and rose." Maybe. Maybe not. It's on the tip of my brain and I can neither confirm nor deny that that is the word I've been searching for.

I have incorrectly purchased shampoo. Three times. THREE. With my crazy-ass curly, brittle hair, I infrequently use shampoo. I'm a big proponent of rinsing the crap out of my scalp and then slathering on the conditioner. As a result, I go through conditioner like... hotcakes? (That phrase isn't even appropriate for this particularly analogy. If my brain was working properly, I would know the exact analogy for my conditioner usage.) 

I recently began to slather on my conditioner and I realized that it was NOT conditioner, but rather shampoo. I went to look at my XL bottle of conditioner and it wasn't conditioner, it was, in fact, shampoo. I'd just purchased the wrong bottle when I went to Shoppers. So I went back and bought the correct bottle of conditioner, except that when I got home, I had purchased the large bottle of shampoo - AGAIN. So I got a refund for the bottle and went to get the proper bottle and, turns out, I purchased ANOTHER bottle of shampoo, which I then had to immediately exchange for conditioner. This means two things: not only is my brain collapsing like a black hole, I have apparently lost my ability to read.

I was searching for my red Pixie pants a while back. The new red pixie pants that I had bought from Old Navy to replace the red Pixie pants that were old enough to look a little faded and worn at the seams. I remember wearing the new pants. I knew I had bought them, but had no clue what had happened to them. The only thing I could think of was that the new red Pixie pants had wound up in a batch of to-be-donated clothes that had gone to charity. So I ordered another pair of red Pixie pants. 

On the day that the new red Pixie pants arrived, I was looking for something in the bathroom closet, and, lo and behold! At the back of the bathroom closet - which is deep, like we-have-pull-out-drawers into-the-eaves-to-utilize-all-the-space-in-the-closet deep - I find my original red Pixie pants. Not in the front. Behind baskets. In the back, back, back of the frickin' bathroom closet! How did they get there? Did I put them there? And if so, WHY?!? Are my family members trying to gaslight me?

There was another thing that makes me certain that I'm descending into early Alzheimer's and I. CAN'T. REMEMBER. WHAT. IT. IS!! But I do know that earlier today I had identified that other thing! Because I remember thinking, HOLY CRAP! Four things are a whole fucking lot! And yeah, I joke, and many other people joke about this, but when I've lost the plot... of my own existence? It scares the crap out of me. 

Also, I just started watching Young Wallander which has a Swedish actor (Adam Gustav Justus PÃ¥lsson) who looks remarkably like a taller version of another actor, a musical theatre actor, who also does TV and film. He played King George in the original cast of Hamilton. He's in Mindhunter. He was in the original cast of Spring Awakening and had guest spots on Glee - as Lea Michelle's potential boyfriend, I think?? He's in the new Matrix movie?!? All of which... I KNOW!! I remember all of these things! But I cannot remember the dude's name. And it has me balancing on the edge of madness.

So I just looked him up. It's Jonathan frickin' Groff. Sweet merciful Moses. 


Well, at least I'll be able to sleep tonight. And who knows? Tomorrow may well come and I might have forgotten all of this. Bright side!!


Monday, September 20, 2021

All caulk, all the time...

When we moved into our house 7 years ago, there wasn't a master bedroom closet. Oh, there had been a closet, but it'd been situated in the room such that it blocked all the light from one of the two existing windows. So we'd ripped out that illumination obliterating monstrosity. In its place...? There was nothing. Ergo, there was no way to hide things behind a door, or a curtain or even a frickin' blue tarp. That was when our entire family recognized that I had an affliction. 

As I lay on the floor sobbing, my arms and legs desperately trying to absorb any emotionally grounding properties from the carpet fibres, it became immediately apparent that visual chaos makes me crazy(er).

So it shouldn't have surprised me, that in similar circumstances, I lose all critical reasoning.

This past weekend, we emptied our basement/cellar/dungeon so that we could take a long, hard look at what needs to be done, should we ever want to sell the house. Our house was built over 150 years ago. There isn't a foundation per se. There's rubble, some concrete blocks, dirt and gravel on the... let's call it a floor. At one point, in several places, the floor used to be about a foot higher. Someone had dug down, maybe for added head room? And then they never repoured a basement floor. 

This is the before:

This is the after:

Seeing this empty version of the basement? Joy.

Seeing the deck, which now houses all the crap from within the basement? Panic attack.

I should have known. I should have known by now, that THIS👆? This breaks my brain. 

David was downstairs, raking gravel and I found myself immobilized in the middle of this, unable to start purging because there is too much of EVERYTHING and IT IS EVERYWHERE. We have easily, eight different caulking guns. EIGHT OF THEM. Because why? Because in our dungeon of a basement, things have never been properly organized and categorized, so we just kept buying shit. 

There might be only two people living in our house, but we had 10 paint trays. There were bins WITHOUT LIDS full of electrical bits and plumbing bits and painting and dry walling and hardware bits. There were small appliances (that give no indication from their exteriors what their purposes are), tossed in with random trim scraps and steel wool pads, next to work gloves and twine. There were cardboard boxes that had been left to mold and rot. 

And here I was, standing in the midst of these mis-matched, unlidded, chaotic boxes of crap, unable to reach for anything on account of the fact that I was hyper-fucking-ventilating. And though all that stuff had been down there for seven fucking years and it had literally not been touched since we had moved in (apart from tools and Christmas decorations which have been used at least once a year), I couldn't just toss everything, because why? Because I was paralyzed.  

David came out to throw some stuff into the dumpster.

"How's it going up here?" he asked.

I shook my head. I suspected that if I tried to speak, I'd just burst into tears. I hate doing that.

An instant of impatience crossed his face, before he looked around the deck. And then he looked back at me. Really looked at me. 

"Hey," he said. "Hey. It's okay."

I swallowed and shook my head again. "I can't. I washed the shelves because they're just shelves. But these..." I indicated the dozens of boxes and totes. "These... They... THEY. AREN'T. ORGANIZED!"

"I know," he said, walking slowly towards me. I must have looked like a rabid coyote.

My hands came up, warding him off. If he hugged me now I'd need to be medicated.

"I can't," I said. "I know that it's ludicrous! It's fucking ridiculous! There are people in the world who have problems that are real fucking problems and I should just shut the fuck up and start tossing shit! I know that. But there are boxes that have electrical and plumbing and hardware in them and I don't know what we need to keep and what should be thrown out... because I can see it ALL!! If it was one drawer that I had to sort, I could do that. Fuck, I would LOVE doing one drawer! I excel at sorting drawers!! But this..." I gesticulated wildly with my arms. "This... This is... EVERYTHING!! And I know that ALL the tools and hardware and painting and Christmas decorations are going to have to GO. BACK. DOWN. Into that fucking basement and, and, and... by throwing out this ONE FUCKING LAVA LAMP, it's not even going to make a dent in all of our shit!!" 

"It's okay," he said. "What we're going to do is, we're going to take a break and have some breakfast." He held up a hand to stop me from arguing. "We're going to go in and eat. And we're going to have mimosas with breakfast."

"Mimosas?" I asked.

"Ish. We've got white wine, orange juice and sparkling water. After we eat, we'll go out again and you're going to sort through these three small boxes." He indicated boxes that had solvents and stain in them. "Only these boxes. You're not going to look at any other boxes."

"I'm not?"

"No, you're not. Because it makes you crazy. And we know this. And me leaving you up here to deal with all of this on your own was a bad thing..."

"But I should be able to adult on shit like this..."

"Hey." He held my face in his hands and kissed me softly. "We both know that you become unhinged when confronted with visual chaos. We both know it, but we forget - until we wind up in a situation like this and you lose your ability to cope as a human." He kissed me again. "Okay?"

"Okay," I sniffled. 

When your spouse gets you? Really gets you? Life becomes a lot easier. David's brain exists in a state of near constant logic. He reminds me to press pause so that I can see the order amidst the chaos. My brain exists in a state of near constant emotion.  I remind him to press pause so that he can see human emotion amidst the logic. Thank the Gods that we found each other.




Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Like wet dog and old towels...

I come down this morning - all ready to bite into the meat of the day. Wait. That sounds revolting. All revved up and ready to go?? Bright eyed and bushy tailed? Better? Worse? Or just more like a lemur?

While heading into the kitchen to make myself some breakfast, I notice that we did not put the cover on our patio furniture last night. There were violent thunder storms and torrential downpours last night. The sofa cushions now look like toddlers who went into the pool in their diapers.

"Crap."

We'd been good all summer. Every night, we'd covered the sofa with extra outdoor fabric that I had fashioned into water-resistant origami, something more upscale than a blue tarp. 

"Why can't we just use the blue tarp?" David had asked.

My eyes had gone very wide - the result of a near stroke. My mouth had opened and closed - I was a big-mouthed bass, ripped from the depths of a fresh water lake.

He'd held up a calming hand. "It's okay. It's okay. We won't use a blue tarp. It's okay my love... Just out of curiosity though, did a blue tarp ever hurt you in anyway?" He had then ducked when I swung at him.

And now, all my well-laid plans have been completely rogered. And not in that "Hey-it's-Wednesday-night-and-the-kid-is-back-at-university" way.  

Standing at the back door, gazing upon the now-amphibious cushions, I drag my hand over my face. I could just ignore them. I could ignore them and my day can go on as originally scheduled. I'd exercise, write a couple of chapters, do some web design, read a play for the character discussion I'm having tonight...  sigh

They'll get all mildewy and smell like wet dog and old towels. I look at the sky. Not actively raining at present, but still very cloudy. However, this could all be moot if I check The Weather Network and it forecasts...  Light Rain. Four inch foam cushions cannot dry in light fucking rain. And you can't put foam in the dryer, because Google says that it will either melt or start a dryer fire - not that our massive cushions would even fit in our dryer. For the love of...

3 HOURS LATER...

The cushions, now denuded of their covers and extra ass-squooshing batting, stand on end, draining upon the outdoor wicker sofa. I squeeze the cushions every 10 minutes, forcefully lobbying the liquid to leave its water-logged haven. The batting has been placed in the dryer on delicate, twice for each piece of batting.

And now? Now, the sun is out. And, according to the Weather Network, will be for the rest of day. And although I may never be able to open my hands again from the repetitive strain of deep foam squeezing, and I had to dictate this post, I'm sure that my newfound hand strength will come in handy. My super power will be grabbing villains by their lycra suits and shaking them until they surrender. The authorities will have to help with releasing said villains from my claw-like grasp - but I think I have a solid starting point for a new, and certainly lucrative, career.

Thursday, June 17, 2021

Middle-aged crazy woman

"MOTHERFUCKER!" I exclaim vehemently (and quietly - because I'm in the backyard and our adjacent neighbours have kids and I don't want them to start randomly yelling MOTHERFUCKER, and then attributing it to the middle-aged, crazy woman whose backyard abuts theirs.)

"What?" asks David, looking up from his computer programming on the outdoor sofa

"This," I say, pronouncing the syllable with vitriol, "is not big enough." 

I brandish a white metal cylinder - with lid - that I purchased at Dollarama. It was going to be my "Bug spray and firepit lighter" cylinder. But the fucker is NOT. TALL. ENOUGH. The top will not close. The top isn't even close to closing. My $3.00 purchase that, a half hour before, had produced a gleeful, money-saving grin, is now the wrong size and I am obviously a moron for having purchased it!!

"You are not a moron," says David.

"Did I just say all of that out loud?" I ask.

He gives me an Aardman Animation grin with a side of shoulder shrug.

"Why don't you get yourself a drink and come out and sit in the fresh air?" he suggests. "I'll grab the smaller bug spray that will fit in this lovely new hiding container."

I stomp back inside and prepare to make myself a Caesar with the litre of Clamato that I just purchased from Dollarama along with the aforementioned failed container. I've never made a Caesar before. I'm pretty sure that there's Clamato and vodka. Which, thank the Gods, I have. I can finish off the bottle of vodka... in the freezer so that I don't have to open the new one... I open the freezer door. MOTHERFUCKER!! We already finished that vodka. When? When did we finish it? How much vodka have we been drinking? I dig into my internal calendar and think about the vodka... MOSCOW MULES! David made Moscow Mules the other night and he pours heavy. That's why the old bottle is finished.

Well, that, and the fact that we've been drinking like fishes since the beginning of the pandemic. About 6 weeks ago, I decided that I would no longer drink on weekdays because the whole "nightcap" situation was getting out of hand. This week I fell off my Radio Flyer wagon. This week I lost my mind. I've been weepy. I've been irrationally angry. I've French-kissed the depths of despair in the back of a Plymouth Duster. If I was still having my period, I would say that I have PMS, but I'm in menopause now and the lifter hills and inclined dive loops of that particular roller coaster have mostly levelled out for me.

Except for this week. This week, I have failed at EVERY. FUCKING. THING. Except for over-dramatization and hyperbole. 

I've been doing a lot of shoulders back and deep breathing this week. I've been compartmentalizing impending panic attacks. I put them way, way back... in the back of my bedroom closet, behind the filing box of old correspondence, behind the superfluous Christmas pillows, behind the clothes rail, behind the curtain, past the bed, behind the bedroom door, past the "loft space," up the stairs from the kitchen... deeeeep into my cranium, where they stop me from hyperventilating most of the time.

I went for a walk today, and when I got home, I wasn't sure where I had walked. I'd walked myself into a state of hypnosis or early onset dementia. Did I walk across the bridge? I'm not sure. Did I see people on the boardwalk? Was I even ON the boardwalk? Yes, I must have been, because I walked past the West Beach. Didn't I?

Now, to be fair, I was using my wireless ear buds for the very first time today, whilst listening to Marc Maron's WTF, so I was definitely distracted by his interview with Tom Jones - which I highly recommend. Maybe that's all it was. That's why I can't remember 25 minutes of my walking route. I know where I started and I remember different points along the way, and, given that there are only a few alternatives to get from Point A to Point B, I must have taken one of them, which would definitely have me walking along the boardwalk. 

And maybe, just maybe, my freaking out should be completely expected given that the mental exhaustion of living through a pandemic takes its toll on everyone. Even those of us who are fortunate enough to love our spouses and children, and love spending extra time with them... But all I really want is to be able to have play dates with people other than them now. I want to hug a person I haven't had sex with or given birth to. (I should have maybe phrased that with more specificity.) That's what it comes down to. And for some reason, this week, on the cusp of returning normalcy in Ontario, all my compartmentalizing has caught up with me. 

Which means it's time for that drink... and perhaps instead of meeting any number of self-defined deadlines - a finished chapter, a completed outline or brand new song lyrics - I just drink that fucking drink and sit back with a Regency Romance with a side of historical smut for the added endorphin rush. Then, tomorrow, I can reboot. Because if life, right now, still isn't normal? Why should I expect to be?


Sunday, May 16, 2021

ALL THE BAD WORDS

WARNING: There are bad words in this post.

*

*

*

*

*

*

"SHIT, PISS, FUCK, MOTHER FUCKER!!!" I yell, nausea washing over me. 

I have spent the last 60 minutes painstakingly placing, pinning, and subsequently sewing together the edges of outdoor fabric to a recycled zipper only to  just now discover that the ends of the zipper do not match up. By about three inches. How the fuck is that even possible? Zippers have two sides that are of equal FUCKING length!! While I angrily attempt to close the zipper, the zipper pull... comes off in my hand. I broke the zipper. The zipper pull in my hand mocks me mercilessly. I storm down the stairs in a fit of failure.

David, who has heard my barbaric YAWP, is prepared. "Hey, love," he commiserates, his voice soft and supporting, without even knowing yet why he is offering his spousal commiseration. 

"I GIVE UP!!" I yowl, flopping down on the living room floor, desperately trying to ground myself as I drag my fingers through the carpet fibers.

"What happened?" he asks, propping himself over me, availing himself of an unexpected arm workout in this endeavor.

"THE ZIPPER DOESN"T MATCH UP!!" I wail.

"The zipper?" he queries.

"THE FUCKING ZIPPER DOESN'T MATCH UP!!!" I let out a bark of near-hysterical laughter, as I jam the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. "The zipper, which I have spent FOREVER lining up doesn't match, which is fucking impossible, because it's a ZIPPER with two equally matched sides  AND..." This is where I begin to cackle maniacally... "I yanked the zipper pull off!! I YANKED IT OFF OF THE FUCKING ZIPPER!!!" I show him the zipper pull. "It won't go back on!!!"

"Oh," says David, still braced in a plank above me. "That sounds bad."

"Yeah," I say. "I've spent 4 hours so far seam ripping the old cushions, cutting new fabric and sewing Turkish corners!! I should have just bought new cushions."

We purchased our outdoor sofa in 2008. 13 years on, to save a buck or 800, I decide that I will sew new covers for the existing cushions. Did you know that good outdoor sofa cushions - JUST THE CUSHIONS - cost as much as an actual fucking sofa?!? I mean, for the price of purchasing brand new cushions for our existing outdoor sofa, I could buy a brand new loveseat and two chairs WITH their cushions!

Defiantly waging war against consumerism, I purchased bright red discount outdoor fabric last fall in preparation for recovering the cushions. It costs me a quarter of the price of brand new cushions. Over the past week I have begun my adventures in reupholstering. 

I'm not an upholstery virgin, I have "box cushioned" a 1/2 dozen times since I've owned grown up furniture. I have the old piping, the old cushion covers and the old zippers. No actual instructions for these particular covers which aren't technically box cushions, but I'm sure that my dormant sewing intuition will soon kick into high gear.

I am lucid enough to recognize that I might need to refresh my skill set. I watch some quick and dirty YouTube videos on "Turkish Cushions," "Piping for seat cushions," "Zippers for seat cushions." I extrapolate, I bob, I weave... I feel almost confident about possible outcomes. Turns out that wrestling with a 36" zipper while herding extra stiff outdoor fabric through a non-commercial sewing machine is not my forte. Hence my vitriolic outburst.

David walks me up the stairs and offers an extra set of problem-solving eyes as we face the fallout from my valiant first effort. Having him there alleviates my urge to take all the fabric and cushions and throw them out the window while speaking in tongues. By some miracle, I manage to get the zipper pull back onto the zipper. That there? A big fucking win for me. After a quarter of an hour, it seems like I've managed to figure out a path forward which involves me ripping out the stitching for half of the zipper and refolding my Turkish corners. I no longer want to sob uncontrollably. 

"You okay?" David asks.

"Y... eah... I think so."

"Do you need a beverage of some sort?"

"Yes please."

"Whiskey?"

"Yes please. TALL."

I re-tuck, I re-pin, I re-sew. It looks mostly like it should. I stuff the old cushion into the new cover and notice that the fit is... if I'm using my indoor voice, imprecise.  For it to look good, I will have to rip out the front piping... again. My face scrunches up. My inner banshee demands to be free. I force my shoulders down. I take a calming breath. And another. I eschew foul language. 

I walk calmly downstairs and message a friend who sews for the theatre. I offer her heaps of money to finish the project. She hasn't responded yet. But if she doesn't, I'm going to donate the rest of the material to our local theatre and I am buying some fucking replacement cushions. Life is too fucking short. I don't want "Death by sewing aneurysm" in my obituary.

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

I spent HOW much at No Frills??



"That will be $232.31 - would you like to use your $10 reward from your PC points?" says the teenager cashier at No Frills.

"I'm sorry it was HOW much?"

"$232.31." 

"Yes. Yes, I would like to use my $10 in reward points." I say as calmly as I can, while inside my head I am yelling at the top of my lungs:

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT! TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO FUCKING DOLLARS!?!"

(And just so we're all clear here - I am shopping for two, count 'em TWO people now.)

Last week I made the mistake of shopping at Walmart for groceries - which I don't usually do, because I always spend too much, on account of the fact that I don't know my way around the grocery part of the store and I always see shit that I don't need, but I suddenly desperately want. I had gone for the cheap cans of red and green Thai curry - but had ended up with a quick dry sports bra, a vintage Queen t-shirt, 3 types of gluten free bread products, 2 body washes (on sale), waffle fries (fucking waffle fries?!?), and rice and pasta alternatives, because I might as well stock up so that I didn't have to go back the next week.

While in Walmart, I could feel myself leaning into a panic attack. You know, because all of a sudden you look around and see that everyone in the store is wearing masks and you realize you're trapped in some weird-ass sort of sci-fi version of your life where you haven't been able to see your parents in forever because they're old and you might kill them from the pandemic that's been in Canada for almost a year? That kind of panic attack? The Musac playing over the speakers was All By Myself - not the Celine Dion version, but the original by Eric Carman. Instead of jamming out to it in a delightfully campy air drumming solo Ã  la Bridget Jones's Diary, I found myself fighting the urge to lie in the middle of the vitamin aisle making floor angels while hysterically sobbing.

So this week? No shopping at Walmart. It is No Frills. I will be in and out in 20 minutes. I bring three bags in with me, which is overkill, because there are only eight items on my shopping list (milk, peppers, ground meat, apples, unsweetened chocolate, cheese, sour cream and cottage cheese) - and there is no way that I will have to use all three bags. But I approach the check out lane (63 minutes later) and see that there are WAY more than eights items in my cart - certainly more than three bags will hold, so I ask for a couple more. After paying the $222.31 for the food, I'm in some sort of fugue state as I pack up everything - unsure as to what the fuck I have purchased. I mean, as I'm seeing the items in my actual hands I have no idea what they are and what they've cost. 

On the drive home, all I say is "$222.31, $222.31, $222.31..." like some sort of weird fucking mantra. Even as  the groceries are unpacked on my kitchen counter, I still cannot comprehend what went wrong. Then I look at the receipt, particularly for the higher ticket items.

$7.97 Kitty Litter - wasn't on my list, but... on sale this week! We have three fucking cats, extra fucking kitty litter is a necessity. 

$10.00 Hot chocolate mix - because David loves his hot chocolate and although we are not out yet, by the end of the week we probably will be, depending on how cold the fucking weather is.

$9.47 Decadent Milk Chocolate Chips - see point above, but change "hot chocolate" to "fucking  chocolate chips."

$10.00 Smoked Salmon - but it was for three smaller packs that, yes, are a fucking luxury, but I really like smoked salmon and the per portion price is very fucking reasonable and $10.00 is much cheaper than buying a fucking new pair of shoes.

It goes on and on. And not just higher ticket items. Whipping cream? Why the fuck do I need whipping cream? Because I might make something that will require it. Maybe. Not sure what it will be, but I have read a bunch of fucking recipes this week and I'm sure that one of them had whipping cream in it. Two types of fucking ice cream - one for David and lactose free coconut ice cream for me. Because there is no ice cream in the house and can we not have something sweet as a fucking pick-me-up?!? Licorice tea - which is FUCKING soothing, even if we have six other fucking herbal teas in the cupboard already.

When I add up all the things that were not on my shopping list, but were either just good to have on hand for when I would need them, or sounded like something David might want as a treat or I might like to snack on right when I got home... (Dill Pickle Quaker Fucking Mini Rice Cakes) I realize that I have spent $195.07 more than I needed to today. 

"ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE DOLLARS AND SEVEN FUCKING CENTS!?!"

What the actual fuck? I mean, I know that we'll eat it all, but almost two hundred dollars more than I needed to spend? What the fuck went wrong? What was I doing? I can tell you what I wasn't fucking doing, I wasn't actually looking at my fucking shopping list while I was at fucking No Frills. And what I also wasn't doing? I wasn't purchasing ONLY the things that were on that fucking list. 

Oh Jesus... I went up and down all the aisles. ALL of them. You don't do that at the grocery store! You get in and you get the fuck out - that is your mission when you shop. It's not a fucking invitation to lose your mind and buy whatever the fuck you want!!  Give me just a second while I bang my head on the table.  (Deep breath. Shoulders back.)

The good news? Now I can whip some fucking cream (that isn't in ANY way lactose-free) to put on my lactose-fucking-free coconut milk ice cream which I can then cover in salted fucking caramel sauce. 

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

MOLES? We don't need no stinking MOLES!


Is mole DNA similar to rabbit DNA? And by "mole" I mean a mole on your face or body, and by rabbit I mean literal fucking rabbits. If you have two moles on your face, do their melanocytes then multiply exponentially like the proverbial rabbit? Is my face now a Ponzi Scheme?

Last year I had one small mole on my forehead, which I totally thought was a zit, but it wasn't, because no matter how hard I tried to pop it, nothing happened. Then another one showed up on my forehead and another, then one on my cheek and then two more on the opposite cheek. And now there are two others that have developed beside my mouth. 


If, over the past year, my one benign mole (because, yeah, I checked that shit out with a dermatologist) has become eight, I'm fairly certain that within a decade I will become the Mole-Faced Woman. The upside of this eventuality is that it can, and should, be monetized. 

Today? My skin melts. I go upstairs to pluck my chin, neck and face hairs (because THAT'S a daily thing now) and my skin has slumped like melted wax. My thought process goes like this:

"WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO MY FACE?!?"

I try to recall all the things that I've done so far over the course of the morning that might contribute to a House of Wax moment upon my person, but it takes me a full 90 seconds of panicked thought before I calm down enough to realize that they are just slinkles (sleep wrinkles). That calm is lost when I realize that those slinkles remain embedded in my skin four fucking hours after I have stopped sleeping on my face AND and I have no recollection of even seeing my face this morning, even though logic says that that shit had to have been there earlier, like WHEN I WOKE UP.   

Do you know that they make pillows for this? To avoid slinkles. They look like the kind of pillow you might wind up on if you have cervical trauma. For $174.00 + tax you can sleep the sleep of the uncomfortable so that your face at least slumps backward while you sleep.


Whenever I mention any of these things to David or Rissa they look at me like I'm nuts.

"Nobody notices this stuff but you."

"Uhhhhhh.... not true. Every other menopausal woman out there notices this shit."

"On themselves maybe, but not on other people. You have to be VERY close to other people like REALLY close to notice what YOU see in a mirror with 5X magnification."

I can't fault this chain of thought. No one other than David and Rissa gets that close to me - especially now, with all the physical distancing and mask wearing. In spite of laser eye surgery, David's eyes don't even really work that well up close and personal and Rissa repeatedly tells me that I am crazy and that I'm beautiful the way I am and I should just accept that fact.   Plus, with me already starting to forget shit? I'm not going to remember what my original face looked like. So the next time I gaze into my 5X magnification mirror, I can just be happy that I own one that helps me locate that mother-fucking white hair on my neck that I've been playing with for the last hour as I've been watching The Crown.






Wednesday, September 23, 2020

You'll let me know when I'm elderly, right?

"Yes. I will," says Rissa.

"Thank you."

"You are elderly."

"Runh?"


"Ma, you're showing all the signs."

"I'm 52!"

"Do you, or do you not implement fall prevention measures?"

"Yes, but that's for the ear thing..."

"Is that a bowl of hard candies on the counter?"

"Yes..."

"How many pills do you take each day?"

"Many of those are vitamins!"

"How many are prescriptions?

"Two," I say sullenly.

"What was that?"

"TWO!! I TAKE TWO PRESCRIPTIONS!!!"

"And what else?"

"Iron pills."

"For?"

"Anemia!!"

"Do you have more than one pre-existing condition?" She raises her eyebrows at me.

"Oh for the... YES! But I only have the ear thing because of the thyroid thing!"

"What about migraines?"

"Well, if you're going to count EVERYTHING..."

"Hypoglycemia??" Another eyebrow raise.

"Shut up."

"All signs point to elderly."

"I would just like to say that when I updated my life insurance, that NONE of my conditions stopped me from getting coverage again."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. All my issues? Unless they're heart or lungs related? They mean dick to insurers. So SUCK IT!"

"Is that an early-onset dementia mood swing??"









Saturday, July 20, 2019

Full of Moist



I'm standing in the kitchen - fighting with a safety pin to ensure that my tatas don't escape my cotton summer dress. The sweat is... everywhere. My forehead, neck, décolletage... Between my shoulder blades, the curve of my ass... MY FUCKING SHINS!

I start to hyperventilate in discomfort. I'm nauseated.

David looks at me. "Love, are you okay?"

I burst into tears. "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I wail.

"Oh love, it's okay."

"It's not, it really isn't. I'm SO hot. It's so fucking humid. Meaghan and Ron are WRONG. S...s...summer is n..not the b...b....best season!"

David attempts to hug me.  I recoil.

"Don't!! DON'T!! I'm so sweaty. I'm disgusting!"

"You're not disgusting."

"I AM!!!"

"Do you want to stay home?"

"YES!!!"

I am supposed to go with David to his Step-Mom's house to help him sort through his father's stuff. I am supposed to have dinner with David and his son. I am supposed to be a rational and functioning member of society.

I'm in the midst of a humidity tantrum.

"It's okay, you can stay home. You don't have to come."

"I... don't?" I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. David gives me a tissue and I blow.

"You don't."

"I w...wanted to," I sob apologetically. "I wanted to go..."

"I know you did. But you don't have to."

"I'm so sweaty."

"I know."

I start struggling with the buttons of my dress. I'm a rabbit caught in a cotton pastel plaid trap. I start to panic.

"Whoa... it's okay."  David hold me still and helps me get my arms out of the dress and undoes my brassiere.

"Th...thank you." I'm still crying.

"Go change and I'll get you the cool pack from the freezer."

Sniffling, I stumble up the stairs, dropping my slip as I go. I find a cotton nightie and slip it over my disgustingly moist body.

David meets me in the living room. The window air conditioner is on full blast. He helps me drape a cool pack around my neck. He cracks open a sparkling water and sets it on a tray on the ottoman.

"Okay. Here's your phone and your e-reader. You can plant yourself here until your temperature has come down."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. And you can always have a cold shower."

I burst into tears again. "I already DID!!! After I exercised, I h...h... had a cold shower!! And the minute I got out, I was already swea...sweating!  I even stood in front of the fan in our room to dry the sweat before putting my dress on but it didn't help, so I put powder everywhere and now I'm ca...caked in wet baby powder... and I'm STILL sweaty!!!"

David bites his lip. "I'm sorry... I know it's not funny..."

"I know I'm ridiculous! I know that!!!"


David just puts his arm around me. "It's okay. This is a day for me anyway. You don't need to be there to go through Dad's stuff with me..."

I sob louder. "I'm so sorry!"

"No, it's okay. It really is. You take the afternoon and relax. Read. Watch some trash t.v. and cool down. I'll see you tonight."

30 minutes later I have managed to come back to my senses. I go upstairs to get dressed. Pulling my nightie off, I notice some dirt on my stomach. How could I have possibly gotten dirt on my...?

I look closer.

It's not dirt.

It's a moth.

Earlier, when I'd stood in front of the fan in a vain attempt to dry the post-shower sweat, a dead moth had been blown against my stomach. The sweat from my body allowed that dead moth to stick to me - a Southern Ontario tattoo, so to speak.

I let out a snort of laughter. And then I head downstairs where the AC is blasting and my e-reader is packed with downloaded library books. I'm aiming to immerse myself in delicious steampunk vampire/werewolf smut and get the good kind of moist.

Yes summer, you and your fucking humidex may have momentarily brought me to an emotional/physical low, but I'm hydrated now and I have enough media to keep me occupied until the humidity breaks. Just two more months and it will be autumn. And I will dance at your funeral summer. I will dance.


Saturday, March 2, 2019

Watch out for the permanent intergalactic concrete.

Did you know that to get new countertops you have to purchase entirely new base cabinets upon which you can place said countertops? It doesn't seem logical to me. I mean, when you've got cabinets...




...FUNCTIONING... underneath the countertops, surely I can remove the existing countertops, attach the new ones, et voilà! BRAND NEW KITCHEN!!! 

Now perhaps you are asking yourself why those charming 4 x 4 tile countertops need to be removed in the first place.  Let's go macro for a second...






That's not dirty grout. That is grout that has been cleaned, nay bleached, repeatedly. You could eat off those countertops - they just look like shit. The grout is so old and discoloured that it needs to be painted quarterly in advance of any public gathering that we host. And yeah, after I paint the grout, it doesn't look that bad apart from the cracked tiles. But the fact that you can't fucking wipe crumbs off the counters because they get stuck in the multiple layers of grout paint over top of the grout has made me mental ever since we bought the house.

Smooth countertops. That's all I want. I want to be able to actually wipe them - not have to use a Shop-Vac on them. I want countertops that are not only clean, but that look clean. And I have wanted this for the past 5 years. So this is the year. This is the year that we update our kitchen by changing those fucking countertops. 

This is our plan. Unbeknownst to us, this plan of action only works if your countertops aren't tile. 

Oh sure, you might think that you'll be able to salvage the existing cabinets and you... are adorable. Because when it comes down to removing those countertops, you realize that the fuckers who installed the tile countertops, screwed the backing board from the top down and the only way to get to those screws, is to remove the tiles, which is pretty fucking much impossible because they've been adhered using what must be permanent intergalactic concrete. 

But you try. You sure do try to pry those rat bastards away from their backing board. You chisel, you hammer, you pry bar, you thank God you are wearing safety goggles when tiny shards of tile ping off the goggles instead of piercing your corneas.

Can you get a full tile off? NO, you cannot. Can you get to any screws? One. You can get to a single fucking screw. Can you unscrew it? NO. It is filled in with permanent intergalactic concrete. 

This is when you realize that the only way you'll be able to remove those countertops is if you buy special diamond-encrusted blades for three types of saws (jig, circular and sabre) to cut through the tile, its permanent intergalactic concrete adhered backing board, the screws attaching the board to the top of the cabinet and the top of the cabinet. Somewhere in the midst of this adventure, you also come to the realization that it is ridiculous to think that 'salvage' has ever been an option, when the 'cabinets' are held together like this:


This is my kitchen cabinet to the left of my stove.
This is what we found when we took out the drawers
and pried off the molding.




What even IS this? Why are there 1x6s
on end between the two 'cabinets'? Are these shims?

There are no tops to these cabinets. There are no bottoms to these cabinets. They have been built in place using spare wood to make 'sides' with enough nails to make crucifiers jealous.


In our excavation I found a weapon I can use
when I fight in Game of Thrones.

So you use your diamond encrusted blades and cut through those tile countertops... like hot knives through very, very, very hard, screaming butter. Without the countertops the cabinets below pretty much give up and collapse. In a few short hours, 7 base cabinets are decimated. You move them all into the backyard, where they shall sit under the pergola until spring arrives. 





And then you sit down, with a large scotch and your laptop, and you order new cabinets from IKEA.