Sure-Fire Cure for feeling like crap

I think I understand why those little jewelry boxes had those pop-up ballerinas in them.  Minature ballerinas make you feel good. You want a sure-fire cure for feeling like shit?  Go see the Pre-Ballet routines in a dance recital.  Seriously.  Bad moods cannot survive a toddler in a tutu NOT doing a dance number.  Tow-headed, brunette, skinny, rotund - doesn't matter the size or shape of the kid - as long as they're under the age of five, crammed into a frilly outfit and smiling onstage, you're golden. We should put those toddlers in a box so that you can look at them whenever you need a hit of joy.

Rissa - the scarf dance
circa 2004

Rissa - the pom-pom dance
circa 2004

Rissa - up to no good
circa 2004

Sunday was Rissa's end-of-the-year dance recital.   After 9 years of dance, Rissa knows what she's doing.   In between Rissa's four maternal-pride-inducing dance numbers, I sat for almost three hours watching other people's kids.  You know the ones.  The ones who can't dance, who look like their parents forced them into boot camp, the kids with no rhythm... 

But amidst the crap there were toddlers.  In tutus.  Abandoning choreography.  There were the toddlers who were orange birdies in their bird nest (there's always some sort of number with a bird's nest), there were the ones who were red robins - who'd had little wee felt spots placed on the floor so that they had a spot on which they needed to stay, there were teeny, tiny prima ballerinas - many of whom did NONE of the choreography and spent their time waving to the audience and galloping across the front of the stage.  I actually tear up watching these kids,  They give me such joy. 

That cute factor doesn't last.  When you have a 9-year old fucking up the same choreography?  Nowhere near as cute.  Just pisses me off.  I want to heckle them. "WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING FOR 9 MONTHS OF CLASSES?  SLEEPING?!?  GET OFF THE FUCKING STAGE!"

ps.  baby chicks in a box work as well.  You cannot remain grumpy when there are baby chicks in a box.  Especially if you pick up each of those baby chicks and hear them "peep-peep" at you.

Rissa killed it dead!

Rissa murdered my hair dryer.  It was a crafting catastrophe.  One minute she was melting crayons on a canvas - the next my hair dryer was the victim of too much "on."  We suggested she use the heat gun.

"That sounds dangerous."

"No, not if you use it correctly.  It's meant to be super hot."

"And a hair dryer isn't?"

"Not THIS hot.  A heat gun will lift paint off of furniture - a quality you don't usually look for in a hair dryer."

She and David went out to buy me a new hair dryer, and then what did she do?  She immediately tried to use the brand new hair dryer to melt crayons...

"Did I not tell you to use the heat gun?"

"Yes, but I'm worried that I'll melt my arm off.  I'm worried it's like the cornballer."

"You will not melt your arm off...   Don't point it at skin though."

Rissa's eyes got VERY wide.  "I don't think so.  The words NOT SAFE are coming to mind Mummy."

Anticipating the demise of a brand new hair dryer, I decided to give her a heat gun demonstration.  I turned it on.  It hummed to life.

"Ooooooh," said Rissa.  "It's purring.  Sounds so quiet and non-lethal.  The regular hair dryer is louder.  I thought when you started it up it would sound like a chainsaw!   You know...

Ring, da-ding-ding-ding-ding..."

When Rissa saw how quickly the crayons  melted, she quickly became a heat gun covert.  Her eyes took on a gleam.  She brandished the heat gun.  "What else can I melt?"

"Whoa there Tex!  This is when we make a rule that you only use the heat gun when there's an adult around."

Dandy Dandelions

Ahhhh.... dandelions - those delightful, yellow harbingers of spring.  I know they're weeds, I know that their root structure rivals that of a willow tree, but damn they're pretty!  A hillside of them, from a distance, makes me happy.  I love taking up one of the flowers when it's gone to seed and blowing it as I'm walking on a country road.  Sends me tripping back to my youth.  It's only when you see a dandelion up close, when  you're trying to stop their infestation into your own lawn, that you see that they're evil.

Like say, when you look upon your own backyard and count them.  By the dozens.  And then you calculate the amount of time that you'll spend, bent over, attempting to yank them from your lawn.  And, because you have lots of actual grass in the lawn already, battling said dandelions, the weeds then decide to fight back, grow bigger roots, branch out.  You can't get a clean yank when there's a root the size of Ron Jeremy in your lawn.  Even with a special weed thingie, to loosen up the soil.  'Cause you can't just go in once, you have to go down around the entire plant, multiple times, but nobody ever does that.  You try to save time, so you pray that that single stab with the upward twist will be enough, but instead you hear the crunch of the root as you pull the evil greenery from the ground,  leaving the end of that stinkin' root below the grass, dormant for a time before it bursts forth, yet again, ready to spread it's fluffy payload all over the lawn in probably 8 days' time.

I've heard tell of a water-powered weeder from Lee Valley Tools that tunnels around weeds with a shot of high-pressure water - thereby ensuring easy weed removal.  Takes twice or three times as long but removes them.  One. Weed. At. A. Time.   If I start today, patiently using the regular weeding tool that doesn't cost $49.95, by September I might have a clean lawn. 

The luck of the Amish

Rissa, at the best of times, can make words sound nothing like they're supposed to.  Last night she made a weird-ass shape around her belly button, said "DRACULA BELLY BUTTON!" and then dissolved into giggles.  David and I were mystified as to what vampires and belly buttons had to do with one another.

"DRACULA belly button?"  She only laughed harder.

"Not DRACULA belly button!  TRIANGULAR belly button."

"Did you not hear DRACULA belly button?" I asked David.

"That's what I heard."

"THIS shape," Rissa said - indicating the weird-ass finger shape she has around her belly button, "has NOTHING to do with vampires."

"I think that we can safely say that TRIANGULAR belly button makes no more sense.  Can you at least try to make sense?"

"Your ears don't work!  If it were a DRACULA belly button then there would be fangs."

"Fair enough."

"The other night Daddy and I were listening to the radio and this hip-hop dude said he was going to Get Lucky Tonight."  Rissa explained.  "I said 'He must be Amish."

"What do the Amish have to do with being lucky?"

"I didn't ACTUALLY say the AMISH.  I said the IRISH, but Daddy heard it as the AMISH because I did it with an accent."

"The luck of the AMISH makes NO sense."

"Exactly," says Rissa.

He is telling me this because why?!?

David is massaging my feet.   He is the best spouse.  We'd returned from an after-dinner walk; instead of me taking the lead, I'd been dragging my feet a bit, looking a little low.

(I'd had a cardiologist's appointment in the morning.  More tests - this one with me wearing an air-tight mask, riding a bike, hooked up to all sorts of monitors - to see how long it would take for me to get chest pain.  5 minutes.  It takes 5 minutes for me to get chest pain.  "Just another minute or so of data Heather," said the Doc.  "Just 80 seconds more, then we'll have a good reading!"  Giving me the thumbs up sign and smiling a wide, encouraging smile.  Having been instructed not to talk during the test, I said nothing, but I was thinking really hard, "Quit being so fucking cheerful you rat fucking bastard!")

"So," asks David that evening.  "Diagnosis?"

I snort.  "Not yet.  Still have to wait for him to go over stuff.  Although he assured me that 'We'd get to the bottom of this,' and that 'Heart disease in women is different than in men,'  whatever the hell that means.  To me, it sounds like he thinks I have heart disease, which I kind of already had figured out myself."

"He's a cardiologist - he thinks everyone has heart disease.  Don't get all freaked out."

"I'm not freaked out.  Any diagnosis would be a relief."

David is smoothing his hands along my right foot, trying his best to relieve my tension, when, swear to God, he suddenly stops and says, "What is THAT?!?" in a horrified tone.

"What is what?"  I calmly ask.

"You've got this lump on the bottom of your foot," he says.  And then he shows me this lumpy bit of something attached to my foot ligaments.

I poke at it.  It hurts a bit.   And then I laugh.

"Seriously?" I ask.  "You are pointing out more weird-ass health stuff to me, right now?"

"It's probably just a cyst," says David, now realizing his folly.

"Of course it is, why wouldn't it be?  Oooooh!  I'll bet it's one of them ganglion cysts..."

David is now mentally slapping his forehead with his palm.  "Now this in no reason to start researching this sort of thing... "

"You mean I shouldn't research this lump that you just drew my attention to... a lump that heretofore I had never even known about?  Of course not."

"You're actually quite healthy you know."

"HAH!  You mean in spite of all my weird-ass health shit?"

"YES!!  You're not some frail little flower who just reclines on the settee with... with..."

"The vapours?  Consumption?"

"Sure."

"That's not how I roll.   Now look up 'lump on sole of foot" please."

ps.  Totally not a ganglion cyst.  I have Ledderhose's Disease.  I'm going to call it Leiderhosen Disease 'cause that'll be more fun.  Best thing about Lesiderhosen Disease?  Weird-ass foot lumps (plantar fibroma)  completely benign!  Boo Yeah, who says you can't learn good shit on the internet?

We must have a poltergeist

Upon her return from school, Rissa makes her way into the kitchen.  I am writing in the dining room.

"There's leftover tosada stuff in the fridge and some cherry tomatoes,"  I direct from my post at the laptop.  Après school snack reminders are much needed for my child, who, when her blood-sugar is low, can forget things.

"Mother!! OH MY GOD!"

"What?"  I get up to see what the fuss is about.

"DUDE!" she says, indicating the room at large.  "Every cupboard is open!"

I glance around.   It is impressive.  The dishwasher is open, a drawer in the island, the tableware cupboard, the spice cupboard,  the cutlery drawer...

"We must have a poltergeist...?" I posit.

Rissa rolls her eyes.  "What were you doing?"

Both David and Rissa have mocked me mercilessly about my tendency towards Les Placards Ouverts.  Sometimes, I might forget to close cupboard doors. I inherited this family trait from my Aunt Bea. I will admit that this particular instance was truly spectacular, even for me.  I get distracticated.  Usually though, it's a door, maybe two.  I think I was mid putting-things-away.

"You need a snack," Rissa says to me.  "And I'm totally taking pictures of this."

This is what "distracticated" looks like.

I would like to state for the record that the
under-the-sink cupboard is NOT open.

Wounded isn't Newsworthy?

Madmen open fire at a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans - but this isn't news??  How has this NOT been on the front page of my CBC newsfeed since Sunday?  Oh wait.  Only 19 people were wounded.  Nobody died, so it's not newsworthy. 

What, did the pitch sessions post 'incident" have news networks postulating, "Naaaaaaah - could've been worse?"  There were over 400 people gathered for the parade and only wounds?  Not as much media punch as Boston or Newtown. And yet there will be another spate of gun purchases and 2nd Amendment Justifications and I'm left shaking my head.

May I please just ask: What the fuck is going on?  Did somebody spike the Kool Aid... again?  'Cause people are getting batshit crazy.  And not just the crazy people, but the people reporting on the crazy people.  Are mass-shootings so common place that they no longer shock?  Has laissez-faire now become the way to govern? The US tried to pass the weakest of gun legislation in April and government couldn't get their heads out of the lobbyist's asses long enough to pass better background checks.  It's like they want crazy people out there with guns.

I'm thinking now might be time to start that commune in the middle of nowhere.  Who's with me?

Hair Loss and Lederhosen

"Daddy, why do you have those weird bald patches on your legs??" asks Rissa one morning.

"I'm not sure," says David, standing in his basketball-length exercise shorts.  He peers down at his hairy limbs.  "These ones here..." he points to his calves and shins, "are probably from socks rubbing..."  He points to his ankles - "These ones are definitely from the shorter sports socks."

He pulls the legs of his shorts up a bit and looks above his knees.  "I don't know what these ones are from."

"When you wear stockings?" I ask.  "With your lederhosen?"

And then he did a little lederhosen dance.  I adore my husband.

You Tube Taster's Menu - or how to never accomplish anything in a day

It's Rissa's fault.  She sent me a video,  "Orangutan makes friend with dog."  Next thing you know, I'm using the You Tube taster's menu down the right side of the page.  Instead of exercising before work, I'm surfing You Tube - watching dozens of animals videos.   I could have at least gone into work early, so that I could leave early and then exercise.

I'm watching, "Tiger vs Orangutan," "Silverback Gorilla Meets Tourist," which then morphs to "Toddler falls in Gorilla Cage," "Lioness offering her newborn cub to Kevin Richardson," "Reunion between Anita and the wolves," "Woman details cat - mountain lion encounter," "Housecat meets bobcat," "!!!Squirrel adopted by cat learns to purr," and what may be my most favourite 13 seconds of video ever (from 0:05 - to 0:18): "Foxes Jumping on my Trampoline."   Note to self:  do not open You Tube when you are at all hormonal.

Old School Foreplay

Way back when... you know, in the Stone Age... when David and I first got together... We had the best foreplay.  We did.  It was amazing.

We'd snuggle on the couch, as close as two people could be without actually being conjoined, sigh and smile... our hands touching, our minds of a single purpose.

Everything was new.  Everything was possible.  Everything was attainable.  We could have this!  We could do that!   We would contort ourselves into pretzels so that we both got the best view.  One day, we might even be able to create perfection if we just kept on being in tune with each other.

We would open magazines to get ideas.  We used to pore through magazines!  Sorry.  Yeah... not actually talking about sex here.  This was after the having sex all-the-time phase.  We'd moved on.  A dream night for us morphed into staying up late, poring over house plan magazines.  The future opened ahead of us, unobstructed - it was glorious.  We were going to create our dream home.  We were going to buy/design the perfect plan.  We were going to build our own home with our very own hands.  This was before life... before kids...  before debt...

Virtual tours had yet to be invented.  We had to IMAGINE what most of those rooms looked like.  We'd have this great room, that butler's pantry and our very own pedestal tub in a sun-soaked bay window.

We used to dream like that.  ALL the time. Then, as it is wont to do, life got in the way - convincing you that those hopes and dreams you once had?   They're out of your reach.  Well, you know what?  I ain't buying it.  I'm going to do something old school today.  I'm heading to the best bookshop in town... the one with all the great magazines.  I'm  buying me some foreplay.

Pass me the Scalpel...

"Pass me the scalpel," I say.

"No," says David.

"Please?"

"No."

"Don't you even want to know what it's for?"

"No."

"I'm not going to use it for anything bad."

"You're going to cut into your body right?"

"Well, yeah, but just..."

"And it'll probably be near an important artery, right?"

"I would completely avoid any arteries.."

"No."

"I'll just get it myself then."

"We don't have one."

(beat)

"Can we please buy a scalpel?"

"No."

Here comes Mama Bear... or why we shouldn't force our kids to kiss hairy old relatives

Those parents who do not force our children to kiss their leathery Aunt Marjorie upon first meeting, aren't doing it to 'portend doom'  ("Why children need to feel the pinch," Macleans, May 13, 20013).   We do it so that our children will listen to their natural fight or flight response. Yes, it used to be a rite of passage that all kids had to endure. I was swept into many an uncomfortable embrace with complete strangers who happened to be 'family.'

If a stranger in the street wanted to hug your kid - would you let them?  Would you demand that your child kiss this stranger?  Would you poo-poo any ‘childish’ fears they might have about close personal contact with this stranger?  Not a chance.   Why then, when this stranger happens to be family, do people feel that thrusting their children into discomfort is okay, that giving an unwilling embrace to make another person content, is a good thing?  It's not.

That doesn't mean that children don't have to be courteous in their interaction with others - saying "goodnight," or "hello" is a reasonable request and one that I firmly encourage.

 

Yes, Anna Teitel, “a pity kiss for Aunt Marjorie when you’re 6 is a long way off from pity sex with a manipulative college boyfriend when you’re 21.”  It is a long way off, but that just means that the pattern of offering physical contact under duress has been going on for 15 years.  How’s that for conditioning?  I’m not a helicopter parent.  My 12 year old daughter walks to and from school – sans adult – and has done so since she was eight.  Much to my abject parental terror, she’s ridden the subway alone, and we both survived. 

When we teach children to ignore instinct, we teach them to get into a car with a stranger, to ride the elevator when everything in them screams not to, to offer up affection to make someone else feel good.  

p.s.

When playing the tickle game?  When the kid is screaming hysterically for you to stop?  Stop. 

Period Ping Pong

WARNING: Female things will be discussed

So you know how when women are around each other a lot, they can start to synch up their menstrual cycles?  Well in peri-menopause that morphs into Period Ping Pong.  My girlfriend Anne-Marie and I are racing to see who can stop menstruating first.

"I'll see your 23-day cycle and raise you a 15-day cycle!"

"Oh yeah?  Finished on Friday - started on Monday!  This is ON!"

"Diva Cup emptied 6 times!"

"Three super sized tampons - at the same time!"

"7 weeks since my last period!"

"Clots the size of toonies!"

What ever will we bond over when the bleeding stops?  Breast saggage? 

What made me think I was a bike rider??

 I must have been on crack when I thought I could do it.  I agreed to ride with actual bike riders who ride many, many kilometers.  For fun.  I was being 'one of the gang,' I was supporting a cause.  I was out of my freaking mind.

When I think of bike riding in the abstract - I think of sunny days on flat roads.   I think of shiny happy people on vintage bikes with wicker baskets on their way to picnics, sharing commiserative smiles with the other riders - joyous in their sense of community and fitness level.  Instead, I was rushing to catch up with actual bike riders, in cold drizzle, the victim of hills. Turns out I don't do well with hills.  I was fucked by those hills.

The night before, David and I had gone out for a ride - you know, to get my riding legs under me.  Problem was, it's spring and the midges are out.  Clouds of the little buggers - all having sex in mid-air and choking any idiot who desires a large breath, if say, you are winded by riding a bike for the first time in a year.  We were out for approximately 7 minutes.  Not one of those 7 minutes involved actual hills.  Had I ridden up a hill, I would have remembered.  I would have remembered that I can't do hills on a bike.  Hills are my kryptonite.

I'm fit - I do cardio every single day.  I power walk - even up hills.  I could manage, I thought.  I tried to 'tough it out' and tackled the first hill.  My angina?  Started the third pedal up that fucker.  The second hill I got off the bike 3/4 of the way up.  The third I got off 1/2 way up...  The last major hill?  I started walking at the bottom but still had people thinking I might have a heart attack.  Apparently, I stumbled as I was just walking my bike.  Given that David was driving the babysitting pace truck behind me, I'm surprised that he didn't load me into the back and escort me to the ER.

Coworkers looking at me all concerned.  "You're looking a little green.  You okay?"  Is it so wrong of me to measure my achievements by successfully NOT having a heart attack? David says I should double check with my cardiologist about that. 

Crawling back on the wagon...

I was bad last weekend.  I ate bad things.  I made bad food choices. It began innocently with gluten and sugar, then devolved into potato chips, corn twists, cookies and then ended with (shudder) amusement park donuts. Although I did discover that Chester's Corn Twists...  Pretty much gluten free!  Although deep fried in oil.

My office has bags of cookies that sit by the coffee machine.  Just sitting there.  With their gluten and their sugar and their high fructose corn syrup.  By Friday last week, my willpower had finally evaporated - I couldn't fight it any longer.  I HAD to have the Chips Ahoy cookies.  Which really pissed me off because Chips Ahoy cookies are nothing but crap.  But then I discovered that there was a leftover bag of No-Name chocolate covered almonds!!  Of course I discovered that after I'd already eaten a couple, okay 4, of the crappy Chips Ahoy.  The chocolate covered almonds were MUCH better.

Problem is, once your body has had the gluten and the sugar - you're off the wagon.  WAY off.  This shit must store in your cells, because as soon as it's back in your system - you get high and then you crash.  And it's a BAD crash.  It's a crash that makes you weepy and doubt your value in the universe, kind of crash.

This week has seen me desperately avoiding those cookies by the coffee machine and having a little extra stevia in my caffeine-free coffee with soy milk.  Mmmmmmmm...  Oh yeah, it's as good as it sounds.  For dessert I'm doing the frozen mango pieces - thank God for frozen mango pieces.  And instead of having that Rusty Nail... crap, just typing it now makes me want one... I'm having club soda with lime juice.   One day at a time, right?  I'm sitting my ass back on that wagon and revelling in its Radio Flyer rails and smooth ride. One day at a time.  I can do this.

Canada's Wonderland ain't for wusses...

WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE in this post.

As I checked my email Sunday morning, this note, in Rissa's handwriting, was to the left of the keyboard:

AWESOME LEVIATHAN FACTS!
306 feet high, 80 degree drop, 
148 km/h, 32 passengers p/car

That was the first time on Sunday that I thought I might woof my cookies. The second was when I ended up in the First Aid building at Wonderland, but more on that later.

We'd decided that our first coaster of the day would be the Leviathan.  Get it out of the way, I thought.  Be a brave girl, I thought.  I also thought I might actually DIE as the Leviathan climbed its first hill.

80 degree drop from 306 feet.  10 degrees more and it would be STRAIGHT DOWN!   

I've made a mistake!  I shouldn't be here!  Please, please, please - let my death be quick!  Don't let me be the gal who voids her bowels and has white foam around her mouth. Let me look good when they discover I'm dead.

I had my eyes closed the entire time, I didn't want to see anything. We kept going up and up and up...  How much further up is there, if you're not in a plane?!?  My hands in a death grip on the lap handles. I would not look, you couldn't make me!  I felt the near free-fall, went round the crazy-ass curves and smaller hills - eyes completely shut.  And at the end, I was still alive!  Legs very woobly, but I was alive as we made our way to The Bat and then to The Fly.

The Fly is freaking awesome!  I love The Fly.  I scream every time it takes a sharp turn, because it looks like you're going to fly straight off the tracks.  I know that I'm not going to fly straight off the tracks - they must test for cars leaving their tracks before letting the public on these things - but it doesn't stop me from screaming every time it happens.  Screaming and laughing.  The Fly is equivalent to watching Jurassic Park for me.  You scream, then you laugh, because it's so ridiculous you were screaming.  The Fly is like having primal scream/primal laugh therapy - always enjoyable.  Which is why I was surprised when, at the end of the ride, I was in pain.

My armpit suddenly felt like it had been stabbed.  I was confused, because although sometimes I do pin things into an outfit (you know, those cotton armpit guards to protect a nice dress or fancy jacket from sweat stains), I was wearing a t-shirt and a hoodie and had no recollection of having a razor-sharp, stabby thing in my clothing.  Another sharp stab.  And then two more, now down my arm.  These were different from my usual angina symptoms.  I'm groping at my side, trying to find the pin.  Where was it?  David and Rissa looking at me like I was crazy.

"Mummy, we're in public!" Rissa says, as I'm reaching inside my hoodie exposing most of my bra and a fair amount of breast.

"There's a pin!  There's got to be a pin!"

I wrestle off my jacket.  I'm acting like a crazy-woman.  "Something is there!"  I'm flapping the jacket now... "SOMETHING. IS. IN. THERE!"  David and Rissa watch as a black bug flies out.  Not a bee, not a yellow jacket - a hornet.  Somewhere during the ride, I'd picked up a passenger.  When trapped in the hoodie, it got pissed.  I'd been stung.  Multiple times.  And that shit hurts.

"Holy mother of... Yellow rat bas... Rissa, close your ears!

SHIT PISS FUCK MOTHERFUCKER!!"

Only me.  It could only happen to me.  And because David worries that any minor medical deviation for me will lead to a heart attack, we trundle off to the First Aid building where I am given Benadryl and anti-sting wipes, my vitals are monitored over a 10 minute period and I'm questioned.

"Do you have any medical conditions?"  he asks.

"How long do you have?" I respond.

The paramedic looked a bit confused when he found out that I suffered from angina.  I'm sure in his head he was thinking "And you are at an amusement park with thrill rides because why?"

"Are you nauseated?"

"Yes, but that's probably just my hypo-glycemia."

There were a couple of minutes there when I thought he was going to have an ambulance physically remove me from the property.  But eventually, I was allowed to dance off on my merry way...  Now stoned, because WOW...  Who knew that Benadryl was so freaking potent?   I was cozy and sleepy and spent the next hour with my head resting against David's lap as we sat waiting for me to come down.

The only other injuries that day for me happened when I rode Flight Deck - used to be Top Gun - your head gets rattled around in between the headrests and you wind up with cauliflower ear and your stud earrings embedded in your skull.

But really?  Only two injuries after having ridden over a dozen rides?  For me, this was a good day.


P.S. 

Later in the day, I rode the Leviathan two more times.  Eyes wide open as we took that first 80 degree drop. And you know something?  When you're looking down that 80 degreen incline?  It looks like you are going straight down.  And it's AWESOME!!  Arms in the air for the rest of the ride, except where I thought I might whack them on a support beam.  Between rides 2 and 3 I actually ran with Rissa and her friends to line up again.  The ride was that much fun.  It turned me back into a 12 year old girl.  It is my new favourite thing.  I will travel through the world extolling its virtues.  I am a Leviathan convert. 

I've won over $5,500,000!!

On 100,000 Pyramid.  On Facebook.  Because I'm such a geek.  And what's stupid?  I get anxious when I play.  I start freaking out... when I can't think of the word.   My angina kicks in a bit.  I give myself angina playing a game on Facebook.  I am a ginormous dufus.

It's understandable though.  On account of the fact that there's so much at stake.  You know... all that virtual money. The angina gets worse when I can't think of one of the answers I have to acknowledge that my dementia's already setting in.  Simple words defy me.  My palms start to sweat a bit.  I have trouble swallowing.

What is the thing that they shoot into in basketball?  Starts with an 'n.'  What is it?  What IS it??  The clock is running out!  I'm not going to get my pefect score bonus.  WHAT IS THE WORD?!?  NET!  NET!  I mistype it, I'm spelling so fast.  Nearly sobbing as I type it again, this time correctly.  PERFECT SCORE BONUS!!  I'M GOING TO THE BONUS ROUND!!!

I need to find another way to get cheap thrills. Maybe it's time to read more erotica.

Our family needs a personal assistant

Because why?  Because every now and again when I go to clear the answering machine of messages - I discover things.  Things that should have been written down kind of things.  When we get to around 8 saved messages, I try to clean them out.  Yesterday I discovered that, unbeknownst to me, my friend Lisa had called.  Might have been sometime in the last week.  Did I know about it?  No.

So I asked at the breakfast table this morning. "Did Lisa happen to call in the last little while?"

David and Rissa made thinking faces for a moment before they both said, "Nope.  Don't think so.  I didn't take a message from Lisa."  Then they went back to enjoying their breakfast.

"So there wasn't say, a message on the answering machine from Lisa maybe?"

Immediately, David reconfirmed.  "Nope.  No messages."

"No messages.  From Lisa.  On the answering machine?"

David's eyes rolled into his head, trying to access his internal CPU.  His shoulders hunched a tiny bit.

"Ummmm...  Which Lisa?"

He was playing it that way.  "The Lisa, who was the Matron of Honour at our wedding, Lisa..."

He winced.  "That Lisa.  Yes, there might have been a message from that Lisa."

"So when you said that Lisa didn't call..."

"I wasn't lying..."

"You weren't?"

"No," he said emphatically.  "I wasn't.  I just couldn't recall the existence of such a message."

Note to self: check the phone messages daily.

I love sleep so much I want to marry it.

I need to wax poetic for a moment.

Sleep, oh thou elixir of life, how your enveloping embrace maketh me to want to give you sexual favours. 

Calcium Channel blockers, oh thou relaxer of blood vessels (even the small ones), how your pervasive travel through my system maketh me want to praise your merits in song to the heavens! 

"I love my drugs!  I love my drugs!  I L-O-O-O-OVE MY DRUUUUUUUUUUUGS!!!"

My angina drugs are working again!  I woke today after a good 8 hours sleep.  Halle-freaking-lujah!!

Sleep just makes EVERYTHING better.  (Especially when you haven't been sleeping through the night for more than a couple of weeks.)  Look family!  It's your wife/mother - she's smiling and it's morning!

I'm not saying that you should just leap onto the Calcium Channel blocker train for your night sweats, but for me, when the angina meds finally kicked in, my night sweats became manageable, and my secret boyfriend, SLEEP, came back to me.  Anecdotal evidence at best, but it works for me!  I am human once more.

Ladies and Gentlemen - I give you the well-rested Heather!

No still means NO

Rehtaeh Parsons case: RCMP worried posters supporting 4 boys could incite vigilantism

 

ALL KINDS OF WRONG: CNN Pays Touching Tribute To The Rapists Who Attacked A 16-Year-Old Girl

 

Michigan High School Chooses To Protect Star Basketball Player Instead Of His Rape Victims

So I guess this is the beginning of the end.  This is when civilization collapses around us.  Our society, has lost its collective mind.  Apparently, we now throw our support behind those who violate, assault and rape girls.   And then we justify our support because it was alleged that the girl was drunk, dressed a certain way, or 'asking for it.'

When did it become acceptable to sexually assault a girl?  When did it become acceptable to watch a girl get sexually assaulted and then Instagram and Tweet it?  When did it become acceptable to call a girl a slut and make her life a living hell after the pics and tweets went public?

Oh wait!  I remember, IT DIDN'T.

IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.  

How about the next time a young woman is at a party, the people around her PROTECT her?  How about we treat her with the same care we would show towards our sisters... daughters... nieces... cousins and granddaughters?   How about we stand UP, not stand BY?   Even if the people doing the violating are on the football team or basketball team or 'popular.' Even if it means that by standing up you might not be popular afterwards.  How about we lay blame where it belongs: at the feet of the perpetrators - all of them - those hands-on and the ones who give them tacit permission, by doing nothing to stop them.

'Cause if this is the way the world is going?  If my daughter isn't safe with her peers?  I will quit civilization, start a commune in the middle of nowhere and surround myself with people who will respect and protect one another.

Sneezy Pee...

I should have done WAY more Kegels while pregnant.  Firming up that pelvic floor should have been a priority.  Sure I did them, but I don't think I did enough of them.  Kegels are a bit weird...  I don't know, kind of... squidgy...  Concentrating on those muscles for too long - it made me feel like I was trying to turn myself inside out.

Of course if I had taken the Kegels seriously, perhaps I wouldn't now have to stop walking when I sneeze... or cough.  If I feel a sneeze (or cough) coming on while I'm walking, I have to stop in mid-stride so that I can do a quick, standing leg-cross to ensure that I don't wet my pants.   My friends and I used to laugh at those commercials for the adult diapers - I especially remember the one with an attractive 50-something gal laughing while trying on clothes and she gets this look and you know that she's just peed her pants. 

Now, when I have to pee - I really have to pee.  There is no 'holding it.'  If I even think about it too much, that might set me off.  I try tightening those pelvic floor muscles, but if I'm not close to a bathroom?  Game over.  And God!  If you happen to cough or sneeze as you're getting ready to sit on the toilet?  You might as well disrobe and head straight to the shower - it'll be easier than trying to dry yourself up with wadded toilet paper.

And that's when I figured out I was deformed...

These little piggies need to go to a podiatrist...

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you... HAMMER TOE GIRL!!!  Or possibly MALLET TOE GIRL! or CLAW TOE GIRL!  44 years old and I just realized that I have mutant feet.  I thought I was dealing with some minor foot pain, brought on by corns.   Turns out I'm actually a GEN-U-INE mutant!  My feet have mutated!  And it's all brought on by wearing bad shoes - the fashionable yet tight, the beautiful yet pointy, the drop-dead-gorgeous yet heely - kinds.  My feet have been fucked over by beautiful shoes.

David is threatening to have me committed if I spend any more time fixating on my toes or looking at any pictures of weird-ass toes online.  In comparison to Google search images, mine really aren't that bad.  It's just the two next to my baby toe - on both feet.  They've always been a little bit 'piggy' in my opinion.  But seeing as I'd been brought up playing the "This Little Piggy" game - my toes totally seemed to make sense.  But then, in researching corns, I looked up hammer toes and found out there was a whole tool-oriented labelling system for weird-ass toes - and then I realized, "Wait a second - those sort of look like MY weird-ass toes!"

I knew that my feet had spread after having kids.  I knew that.  They are definitely wider.  I had to purchase a whole 1/2 size larger after having Rissa.  I replaced ALL my shoes because they weren't wide enough.  But my feet never hurt until recently.  OH GOD!  It was March Break!  I wore a pair of wedge-heeled boots and we walked so much - I had to purchase an emergency pair of converse just so that I wouldn't die from the pain.  That was the beginning of the end.

I don't want to have to wear Birkenstocks all the time!  I get that they're comfy - I get that they feel good - I even owned a knock-off pair myself, when I was in university.  But here's the thing: you start off thinking that you'll just wear them in the summer, but then you end up wearing them with socks in the fall, then winter and soon, you've morphed into a modern-day hippie and once that happens, you might as well start that commune, wear a poncho and grow pot to sell to glaucoma patients.  I'm totally going to end up in the BIG HOUSE because of my mutant feet.

PMS Dance Party

The days of miracles have returned!  I am the living, breathing recipient of a freaking miracle!  PRAISE BE TO EVERY GODDESS ASSOCIATED WITH THE FEMININE CYCLE!! For the first time in over 8 years, my period is LATE!!!  (insert Hallelujah Chorus here)

It has been almost 5 weeks since my last cycle.  To some women - this is a nothing, a bit of fluff in the great scheme of things.  Some women have long, irregular cycles as a matter of course.  Not I.  Lately, I was down to the 15 or 17 day cycle.  Now every time I go to pee - knowing that I'm past my 'regular' cycle, I do a spot check.  Seriously.  "Am I bleeding?  Now?  "How 'bout now?"

This means that for over a month I haven't had to be drugged!  Well, not for this.  I have a spring in my step, a swagger in my walk, a smile in my speech - all the time.  Well, most of the time.

Yesterday, I might have wanted to kill all living things in my house.  Blinding rage when they had the nerve to ask me how my day was, or whether or not one of them had time for a dentist appointment today.  "Why should I know, what YOUR schedule is?!?

I went driving and had to stop myself from forcing idiot drivers off the freaking road.  "Oh, you had to turn there?!?  Do you know what a fucking turn signal is?!?  DO YOU, YOU YELLOW RAT BASTARD?!?"

I was packaging books to ship and became so stressed that my angina kicked in.  I cried in the parking lot after buying food for dinner.

That's when it struck me that my behaviour was not in the normal range. Disproportionate emotional response to stimuli, weepiness, revenge fantasies... this was PMS.  REALLY BAD PMS.  Crazy-ass PMS which apparently has me teetering on the edge of The Cliffs of Insanity.  Worse PMS than usual.  Is that the trade-off?  Longer periods, but I might get arrested for manslaughter?  I can't believe I'm saying this, but I might prefer the saner, shorter periods.  Seriously.  If I'm going to turn into an emotional fuck nut who is pissed off at the world - who scares her spouse, child and pets... I'll take a little more blood, more frequently and just spend those first two days drugged out of mind.

How long can you tread water?

Underwater photography by the amazing Rafal Makiela

I'm making the effort.  My head's above the surface... but there are days....  Days when, honestly, it would be easier to go under and stay under.  Suck in water and sit at the bottom of the pool.  Instead, I drown proof.

I've been fighting my body for as long as I can remember.  Since I was a kid.  But the last 6 years have been particularly challenging.  72 Months.  2190 Days.  Some of those days I just want to raise the white flag.

I am a walking, talking bundle of symptoms.  Every new doctor has a new theory.  I suspect that many of their theories centre around me being a hypochondriacal fuck-nut.  I'm not crazy.  There are times when I just want to do my best Barbra Streisand and yell at the top of my lungs "I WON'T BE NUTS FOR YOU!!"

My mother says I'm "sensitive," that I'm 'in tune' with my body.  I'm pretty sure she says this, while inside, she wonders where the hell I came from.  Migraines, Hypoglycemia, Peri-menopause, Hashimoto's Disease, and Microvascular Angina.  I am so tired of being tired.  And when I'm this exhausted the bitter twins gang up on me: ennui and entropy.  They make me want to sit... and eat ice cream.. and weep,  instead of purposefully walking out into the fresh air.  They turn me into a peevish sheep.  I HATE being a peevish sheep!  Meh.

And I know, I KNOW that I'm fighting symptoms that I really can't control.  People ask me how I am and, for the most part, I lie.  Because they don't want to know... not really.  I don't want to be the girl who whines, but she's there inside me, just itching to get out.   The thyroid crap and the peri-menopause alone can make a gal wiggy, but it's the attending depression on the periphery, hiding just out of sight, that terrifies me.  I lost 2 years of my life to it when I was in my 20s.  I don't ever want to go back.

So I sit up a little taller.  I take in a breath.  Sometimes I cry.  I distract myself with the wonderful.  And often, when another day has crept above the horizon - it's better.

Doesn't that jiggle when you run?

I said to David, as I watched him in the bathroom this morning.  He was in his boxer shorts, shaving in the other mirror,  and it struck me how loose they were and that they wouldn't give a guy ANY support for his manly bits.  That's why I asked.

He looked at me, confused for a second.  I made a downward glance.  "You know.  Your penis.  Does it hurt when you run without a jockstrap?"

That's when Rissa walked in to the bathroom.  She rolled her eyes at us, said "PARENTS!" deposited her toothbrush back in the toothbrush glass and then left.

David and I shared a glance. "I think that was a flounce," said David.  "I think you're right," said I.

David continued shaving.

"Seriously," I said.  "Isn't it uncomfortable?"

David shrugged.  "Not really.  You kind of get used to it.  When you're wearing shorts, you can kind of tuck it."

"Tuck it?!?"  I'm trying to figure out the logistics of that.

"You know, if the shorts are tight enough," he says.

I continued looking at how baggy the boxers were.  It just didn't seem right to me.  Then I looked down at my own boobs and did a size comparison.

"Oh, I get it!!  Your penis is nowhere close to the size of my boobs and it's lower to the ground."

"Huh?"  He looked a little insulted.

"Your regular, every day penis, when it's not, excited - not as much extra flesh to bob around, as say," I grab my boobs, "THESE."

When in doubt, if you've wounded a man's ego - distract him with breasts.

Why CAN'T you 'spot lose' your inner thigh fat?

I know.  I know.  We've been told... and told again.  You cannot 'spot lose' weight.  Like, say, if your body is in great shape, except for your inner thighs, or back fat, or armpit pudge.  There are NO exercises that you can do to get rid of the extra flesh in one specific area.    You lose weight from all over your body when you drop the poundage.

Thing is?  I'm pretty sure that you lose it from your extremities first.  Which is why I have astonishingly delicate wrists, ankles and cheekbones for a girl of my bodaciousness.  Which would be awesome if I were completely covered from neckline to ankle, but summer's coming up and that means it's bathing suit/camisole/shorts season.

My worry is this... if I lose the extra 30 pounds that the BMI says I should lose - so that I get rid of the inner thigh, back and armpit fat - won't that mean that my wrists, ankles and cheekbones will give me the look of a cadaver, or at the very least Vera Ellen in White Christmas?

Why, oh why, can I not view myself with my spouse's eyes?  David's eyes... that love every ounce of me.  The eyes that waggle their eyebrows when he sees me bend over to do anything...  Hyper-critical Heather focuses on the back fat and the crazy-ass veins in my hands and the face wrinkles and he... he calls me beautiful.  And not only does he call me beautiful he actually believes it!

So as I sit, having had an extra helping of apple crisp after dinner, near to tears because I did not walk on the treadmill today, feeling like a slug,  I'm attempting to see myself through David-Perspective Glasses.  I just have to get through this pathetic, wallowing moment and then I can make better choices tomorrow.  There.  (deep breath) I have shaken this off and am now revelling in my delicate extremities. 

Check out the ankles on me!!

You can't die from these, right?!?

Heather the Valkyrie
Deviant Art
(helmet acquired from the artist Lodin)

It's been more than two weeks now, suffering from the Nachtschweiß.  I feel the German phrasing is warranted  because night-sweat effects are near-Wagnerian.  I am THIS close to grabbing a winged helmet and shrieking from a mountain top.  

Sunday morning, I was doing the dishes naked.  I'd had a bathrobe on, but when that burst into flames, I dropped it. David really wanted to take a picture of me at the sink like that, "You are ADORABLE!" but didn't want to get arrested for promoting pornography.  Rissa just shook her head.  "You are naked ALL the time!"

If only I could use this power for good.  Like Johnny Storm.  "FLAME ON!"    Although in my case it might be "SWEAT ON!"  I could emit a shower of sweat from my body and drown criminals in it.

But if I go around naked, I just get cold.  Too hot - then too cold.  I need Open & Close Clothes so that I can just open up when I'm hot and close when I'm cold.  Wait, I think they have that already - it's called a trench-coat.  Maybe flashers are just men having hot flashes...

I've been taking a sleeping pill every third evening, so that I can occasionally get a full night's sleep, but not get addicted to sleeping pills.  The after-effects of the pill stay with you for a bit, but so totally worth it to be able to sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time.     I've been walking around like a freaking zombie.  I can't do caffeine - because it's bad for hot flashes.  At turns, I'm grumpy and weepy... my family just has to guess which version of me they'll find.  It's like having a new baby or a puppy in the house.  I'm 44 frickin' years old.  Rissa was a baby a dozen years ago - I didn't  have the energy for no sleep when I was 32, I certainly can't pull an all-nighter now.  I can't stay up past 10:00 pm - unless I'm reading a good book.

I am praying with every fibre of my being that when my calcium channel blockers kick back in, this spate of Nachtschweiß will settle down.  If not, my mother assures me that "This too shall pass."  WHEN?!?  WHEN shall it pass?  "Well, my hot flashes stopped by the time I was... maybe... 63."   I can therefore optimistically say that it won't be two full decades of suffering then - just 18 years.   See, there's always a silver lining.

They'd get scared off by the smut...

I highly recommend Megan Hart's erotica

Friends want me to join them on "Goodreads."  I would, but I worry that they'd get scared off by the smut.  I read smut.  And lots of it.  I could varnish the truth and say I read romance, but really, it's smut.  I'm not dog-earing pages in these books to re-read passages for their pithy wording or great insights into philosophy.

That's not to say that I don't also read lit-ruh-cha... (please read that with a poncy upper class British accent).  I do.  I've read and continue to read Pulitzer Prize, Governor General and Hugo award-winning books.  Shakespeare's my guy!  It might be surprising to realize, but there is smut out there that is well-written.  And no, I ain't talking Fifty Shades of Grey.  I did a whole other post about that last summer.

It's just that I'd feel bad, say, if a friend who might have wanted a closer bond with me by looking through my "want to read" section, then panics when s/he discovers many of my titles might involve... threesomes featuring strong men with single syllable masculine names like Nick, or Zach or Jake spending all their waking hours pleasuring a woman whom they both love and worship.  Though honestly?  Most of the time I read for escapism and what better way for me to escape ... then to imagine two men making sure that my breasts are warm?  A gal has two breasts, she might as well have a mouth on each of them... I'm just saying...  But To Kill A Mockingbird is still totally my favourite book.

ps.  Thank you to Badger for reminding me of Tom Leher's take on SMUT