BUY A HOUSE

In honour of our new house purchase and attending renovations, I'm sharing an earlier bit from my show How To Leave Adolescence at 30 - written and performed in 1999, shortly after we bought our very first home in Toronto.

Buy a House

Upon returning from our honeymoon, David and I realize that for the first time in almost a year, we don’t have a project.  We flail about very briefly in panic like a couple of large bass on a catch and release fishing show before we come up with a new plan.  

We start looking at those Resale Homes magazines that you can get for free at the Shoppers Drug Mart.  It’s this nice little game we have.  It’s called “Let’s Pretend.”  Let’s pretend we are responsible adults.  Let’s pretend that we have enough money for a down payment and can carry a mortgage.  

We pore over magazines and think about where we would like to own OUR home.  Do we want a house?  Do we want a condo?  A LOFT.  Wouldn’t owning a loft be great?  We could be like Laura Holt on Remington Steele with that great loft apartment with exposed brick and beautiful wooden beams.  We could live in an old factory.  It would be so romantic.  And affordable.  Because everyone knows that lofts are an affordable alternative to owning a house. 

We enter the Candy Factory lofts showroom – filled with large windows and exposed brick and beams as far as the eye can see. We smile at one another knowing that we’ve come home.  Then we look at the price sheet.  For approximately 750 square feet of living space you have to part with approximately 400,000 dollars. Check out the security cameras from the Candy Factory Lofts right after David and I see the price sheet. You know that cartoon wolf whose eyes bug right out of his head when he sees the she wolf and he makes that noise that sounds something like AOOOOOOOOGA?  That’s exactly what David and I look like before we run screaming from the building.

We go back to looking at the Resale Homes magazine and make a call to Betty, the agent.  Two weeks later, after having seen 9 houses in total - thereby becoming true housing connoisseurs - we buy house number 4. 

Why don’t you tell them what they’ve won Bob?  

“Heather and David you have just spent the most money of your entire life on a two bedroom fixer upper with 'potential.'  This home features small cramped rooms, sloping, gouged hardwood floors, a delightfully claustrophobic staircase to an uneven second story and a bathroom so small that only a toddler could find comfort in it!” 

We take possession and spend the entire month renovating.  We’re not just talking painting and wallpapering here.  We’re talking major demolition.  We open staircases replace bath fixtures, move walls. We get WAY dirtier than Bob Villa has ever been.  The kind of dirty where you’re afraid to blow your nose at the end of the day.

We lay our own IKEA laminate flooring in the living and dining rooms.  We take a weekend to do it.  You have to pour some glue into each groove and then whack it into place with a hammer and this special groove shaped thingie that IKEA provides you with.  First day, an hour into our operation, I whack my ring finger.  Really hard.  I don’t just whack it, I rip skin off it.  Mindful of the fact that my Mother-in-law is there helping out I manage to say “Wow, that really hurts.”  

I jump up and down a little bit and get a bandage and that’s that.  It hurts, but I am above giving into the pain and a better person for it.  The next day?  Just as we are on our second to last row?  I hit my middle finger, same hand.  All the poise and grace that I had demonstrated the day before leaves me as I collapse into a heap on the floor, wailing and screaming and weeping screaming phrases like “JUST KILL ME!”  David tries to help me up and I wriggle through his arms like a toddler still screaming, "I WANT TO DIE, OH GOD, PLEASE LET ME DIE!!!!"

It takes 4 months for my fingernails to lose their blackened ends.  But you know what?  It’s worth it.  I look around our house and I know that pretty much everything, we did ourselves.  We are creating our home.  And we’re doing it from the inside out.  And every time a person comes in and says “Wow, nice floor,”   I have to smile and say “Yeah, it is.”  

I will not give up these pants!

My ass felt colder than usual when I got out of the car.  When I made it inside and took off my coat - I reached around to feel the seat of my pants.  The seat of my pants was gone.  My entire right cheek was exposed.  My shoulders slumped.  My pants were giving up the ghost.     Over a decade old - castoffs khakis from David that he had probably sourced from Value Village - my painting pants give a visual history of every paint project I have participated in.

The stark white trim from our 1st house in town.  The 1/2 tint Standish White at the 2nd house - with Mayonnaise accents.  The light Lilac from Rissa's room.  The chartreuse and orange from the Cabaret set.  Espresso brown from the front and back stairs to the basement.  Prussian Blue in the bathroom.  Stains and spackle and putty adorn these pants.  They already have a red and white polka-dotted patch from when  left half of the ass went.  I have to keep them up with a belt - they're so baggy - but  I feel like Katharine Hepburn in them, ready to tackle the world with moxy.

These pants are the perfect blend of softness and abrasion.  The fabric so aged - if you look at it too hard it'll tear on its own, and yet there's oil based paint that roughens my hands every time I wipe paint-covered digits on my legs.  I'm a colourful clown in these pants - paired with the striped painting t-shirts I do impromptu soft shoe numbers in between paint strokes.  David looks at me in this get-up and adores me - I will not give up these pants!

Which meant that last night, after my sewing machine refused to comprehend the geometry of the required patching, I sat, pantless, in the family room, in front of old Veronica Mars episodes and I hand-sewed patches to the right ass of my pants.  I'm unwilling to give up their history.  In time, they may well become held together by only the applied patches, but that too will give me joy.

Oh Body - why have you forsaken me?

Yesterday, we began renovations on our new home.  Today, my neck, back and achilles tendons no longer work.  Eight years ago, when we started the same process on our present home, I don't remember feeling like this.

I remember holding the mini-jack hammer and cackling with joy as I exposed the brick in our kitchen.   I remember swinging the mini sledge with ease.  I do NOT remember having to pause every two steps as I moved a bathroom fixture out into the hall.  Sure, a 70 inch whirlpool tub with the motor still attached is heavy, but I used to be able to heft with the best of them.

The majority of my time yesterday was spent applying a rough plaster finish over top of painted wallpaper.  Until yesterday, we hadn't realized that the walls had been wallpapered, nor that many spots on those walls were peeling.  Not a problem!  We'd had a similar issue in a couple of rooms in the old house.  I purchased a 20 lb container of spackle (felt my back twinge as I carried it to the car), brandished my spackling blades and went to work.  It was spectacular spackling!  Problem solved!  I didn't realize there'd been an issue until we'd stopped for dinner at Tim Horton's and I made the mistake of turning my head.

A couple of months back, I rolled over in bed and put my neck out - this time around it wasn't as terrifying - probably because I wasn't half asleep when it happened and I could actually move my head 15 degrees in either direction.  Plus, the "OH GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?" question was way easier to answer this time around.  I had just spent 2.5 hours moving my right shoulder up and down and up and down and side to side and side to side.  DING!  DING!  DING!!!  That clarified the shit out of this pinched nerve.

My face turned white as I tried to tilt my head back to receive David's kiss in the kitchen this morning - it immediately became apparent that this body of mine needs a tune up.  I'd been putting it off becasue I'd been in the midst of a show and I didn't want to deal with tension then, because I was afraid that if I had a massage, that my immune system would think that it was okay to give up and I'd get sick.  I was WRONG.  I should have had that massage.  'Cause now?  I don't have any spare time and I kind of need to be able to move my neck and back and Achilles tendons.

Bright side?  I did get to spend my first full day in the new house.  And even if it is now covered in shards of drywall and the upstairs bathroom no longer exists and our bedroom only has sub-floor - it's our wee cottage of a home and it WILL be amazing!

When the past comes back to bite you in the ass...

I should have been prepared. It's not like I'm new to this.  I've done shows before - I've suffered from Post-Show Depression.   But this time around - there's a 6 piece set + carry-on of emotional baggage that I hadn't counted on.

As an actor - for concentrated amounts of time - your cast and crew become your family. Generally from tech week through to closing, they're the people you see the most;  the ones you tease, the ones you cuddle, the ones you laugh at/with, the ones you tell to shut the hell up when they're making too much noise backstage.

Five years ago I did another show.  We were a tribe.  We got naked - both emotionally and physically and the fallout PSD from that show was spectacular.  Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth - fallout. Those forged friendships then, bonded some of us together on a cellular level.  We were a mess.  5 years ago, right after HAIR closed, one of my best friends died.  The last conversation I had with Shannon was my coping with the loss of my onstage tribe.

On Sunday night, I closed Jesus Christ Superstar.   Half the cast had also been in HAIR.  Same people. Same bonds.  Same teasing, cuddling and laughing.  I thought that I'd be too busy to fall into PSD.  We're moving - take possession of the house this week - my days and nights are full.  I am too busy for fallout.   Thing is? This time 5 years ago, when I was coping with PSD, I could talk to Shannon.  Shannon, The Queen of Commiseration.  Shannon, the  holder of hands and reminder to breathe.  Shannon,  the depository of secrets and the safe haven to get through the bad.

I dreamt all night of my tribe... Upon waking, my first thought was "I need to talk to Shannon."  My second thought was, "I can't, she's dead."   Hiccuping sobs, near to vomiting, as David smoothed my back and told me it would all be okay.   He doesn't understand though, that the perfect emotional storm has been set into motion. Tamped-down memories from 5 years ago, compounded with new-felt anguish from the loss of this cast and crew to which was added the remembrance of Shannon's death.   My stomach pitched and roiled - I didn't have my sea legs under me until half way through the day.

Stoicism is not amongst my character traits.  I immediately reached out to my friends, old and new, who support and 'get' me - those who suffer along with me as we regain our footing and remember that life goes on - even without those you love within arms' reach at your side. 

Chivalry is not dead.

I parked the car.  It was the first in the lot.  When I opened the door, three inches of freshly fallen powdery snow were at my feet.  The snow around my parking spot and all the way to the loading dock door was pristine.  It was too good to pass up.  I put on my hat, dropped my bag and sat my ass down in the snow.  I lay back, arms and legs outspread and revelled in snow angel creation.

I had risen and was dusting myself off when the loading dock door opened.  It was Riley, one of the dancers from the show.  He's about 16.

"Are you okay?!?"  True concern on his face.  "I saw you on your back in the snow..."

A few days previously, Riley had seen me in the midst of a sugar crash in the green room.  He probably thought I'd passed out.  He'd come to check on me.

I let out a bark of laughter.  I was still brushing snow off my jeans.  "No... Nope.  Just making a snow angel...  But it gives me such joy to discover that chivalry is not dead.  Thanks for checking up on me."

My heart broke at Value Village

The shoes were stunning.  Beautiful burgundy brogues, glowing in the flourescent lights of Value Village.  I spotted them from the end of the women's jackets aisle.    I'm always on the look out for a great pair of mens' shoes for David.  They have to be big shoes, David has massive feet.  Wide, wide, WIDE, flipper feet.  He usually buys an 11.5 or even a 12 to fit his toes into them.

So when I saw these spectacular shoes on the wall, my heart leapt.  They were pristine.  Beatifully polished - I looked at the soles, hardly any wear to them.  The tag said 14+ on them.  They were at least a size 14.  Such a shame - they were actually too large for David.  They'd be like clown shoes on him.  But they were stunning.  Probably from the 50s - I wanted to photograph them and make an encaustic print of them to hang upon my wall, they were so lovely.

Then I spotted another pair of shoes - same size - equally beautiful.  And another... and another.  6 in total.  All beautifully polished, all size 14+.

My heart sank.  These shoes, like everything else in Value Village, had belonged to someone.  They had belonged to someone who cared for them, who polished them, who took pride in wearing them.  These shoes had been donated in bulk.  Not because they were unfashionable or worn out, but because their owner had died.  A man, with size 14+ feet had died.  A snappy dresser of a man who shoed himself in the 50s - was now dead.  I imagined him very tall and thin - like a young Jimmy Stewart, with pleated trousers - possibly suspenders, a quick smile.

My heart sank again.  Who had donated the shoes?  His wife?  His life partner?  Had his surviving loved ones been responsible for the impeccably polished leather?  Had they spent an afternoon polishing these shoes before carefully placing them inside a box?  Before stuffing that box with paper and then taping it shut to go to Value Village?  Had their hands trembled while holding the packing tape?  Had they wept?  I was near to weeping imagining it all.

I started when Rissa placed her hand on my arm.

"What's wrong?"

"These shoes belonged to someone," I said.

She looked confused.  "Didn't they ALL belong to someone?"

"Yes baby, they did.  But this someone is now dead."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

She didn't ask any more questions.  She held my hand and squeezed it.  We stayed quiet for a few moments more before we turned away, still holding hands and walked to the jeans aisle.

Taxidermied Gophers

Does anyone else do this kind of stuff with their daughter?

David and the Dumpster of Death

"SON OF A..."

"MOTHER-$@*%&$!"

We had a dumpster delivered Monday morning.  We're down to the crunch before the move.  What hasn't been sold or donated by the moving date ends up in the steel depths of the most dangerous dumpster in Southern Ontario.

Before the dumpster was deposited on our driveway, we had snow.  And then rain.  And then more snow and more rain.   At this point in the winter, our driveway is the Skating Rink from Purgatory. There've been a couple of nights when it's taken me a good ten minutes to walk the 50 feet from the garage to the front of our house.

On his way to the garage, hands full of a box of  used hazardous materials, David tried to skirt by the newly placed dumpster... in the dark.  The dumpster is so wide that it leaves only 6-8 inches on either side of the driveway.  These 6-8 inches slope up to our lawn and, what with the accumulated winter precipitation, are now sheer ice.  Every step David took culminated in language that would make a dock worker blush, as his ankles repeatedly slammed against the steel of the dumpster.

Step.

"JESUS -*&$^#@ CHRIST!"

Step.

"C#&$-sucking RHINO!"

Step.

"You  $*#^@!$# - #&*#@^! -  #$@% - #&@^&! - #%!*&ING - #&*@^!*!!!!  I hope that your @#%&! - #*&^!$ and your #&@^%!# ends up with a #@&$^#%!!"

He showed me his bruised ankles upon his return.

"So what you're saying is that you injured yourself by walking with hazardous waste?"

"Yes."

"Lives up to its name, don't it?"   Then I ran, because I wasn't injured.

Bum Pocket, Boob Pocket.

It's Rissa's bedtime witching hour, when she winds up instead of down, when she giggles and plays instead of succumbing to slumber.

"Psssssssst.... do you see this tiny pocket??  It's wee!"

She has this thing for pockets.  Wee pockets in particular.  She likes to draw your attention to them - to share her love of pockets.  

Victoria's Secret makes these thermal long underwear jammies...  they have pockets.  Rissa and I have a both have a pair.  Me in a large - Rissa in an extra-small.  Rissa's bottoms fit her in length for about 6 minutes before her legs grew again.

She began mumble-singing.  Hmmmmmm-hummmming a tune that I couldn't quite hear.  She was turning this way and that.  Showing her back and  then her front.  I put my book down.

Rissa, with her tailend waggling towards me, "Bum pocket."  She jumped around and pointed to her chest. "Boob pocket."  Turning again, "Bum pocket."  And once more, "Boob pocket."  A quick jump around, "Bum Pocket!"  Another full leap, "BOOB POCKET!!"

Then the inevitable crash onto the bed - snorting with laughter -  laughing until she gives herself the hiccups.  I love bedtime.

Failure to Affix

For weeks now, in preparation for our impending move, we've been packing up our ginormous home.  Over the weekend I was tackling the office space and I ran out of packing tape.

"NO TAPE!!!  WE HAVE NO TAPE!!!"

"There might be some duct tape downstairs," says David.

Duct tape!  Perfect!  Duct tape sticks to everything - it's freaking awesome for its stickiness.  I practically skipped down to the basement to grab the tape.

I sang a happy little duct tape song when I climbed back up to the office.   I happily packed up many boxes of office supplies. ZIP-BOOM-DONE!  I brandished the roll of duct tape like a sharp shooter in a Western Film.  I used the fancy-dancy True Block labels so that all boxes could be labelled the same way, in the same corner.  It was a beautiful thing.


We're storing the office boxes in the guest bedroom.  I can see them through the pass-through from the office.  As I caught up on some writing, I looked across, feeling ever-so-accomplished at my afternoon's work. So I was actually watching as the duct tape slowly released its hold on the cardboard and the True Block labels fluttered down from the top left corners of their boxes.

Since when did duct tape NOT stick to cardboard?  When did that happen?  You get duct tape stuck to your freaking arm hair and you're praying for a bottle of paint thinner to release its seal.  You get duct tape stuck to itself and you have to throw it out.  But those cardboard boxes staring right at me - with their limp pieces of tape just lying there - all of them - middle-aged men in the midst of erectile dysfunction.  What's with cardboard??  It also repels those True Block labels. My system was ruined.  I began to panic as I realized that I'd have to use a Sharpie on raw cardboard.   I should have wrapped the entire box with duct tape and stuck the labels to that, instead of attempting to pack like a normal person.  If I'd done that I wouldn't have been sobbing on the floor when David found me.

"Okay love, you're done."

"I'm NOT done!  Look at them!  JUST LOOK AT THEM!!!"

"Come on.  We're going to get you a snack, maybe some juice..."

"I don't WANT any juice!"

"You may not WANT it, but you NEED it."

"Disproportionate emotional response?"

"Disproportionate emotional response."

And that's how she stabbed herself in the eye.

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday.  The kitchen was brightly lit - we soaked up the Vitamin D.  We were taking a break from our packing... David and I were enjoying fried eggs on toast and had called up to Rissa to come down for lunch.  Eventually she came into the kitchen, grabbed a juice box and turned on the overhead lights.

David and I shared a look.  The kitchen has 5 windows - each of them is 18 x 50 inches...  It was a sunny day.

"Ummmm.... Riss?"

"Yes?"

"I'm thinking that maybe we don't need the lights on right now."

Rissa looked around.  Looked out the windows.  Looked at us.  Her head slumped as she slowly rose. She slouched over to the light switch and flicked them off  petulantly.  "Fine. Fine.  I'll just turn off the lights and drink my juice in the dark then."  She made a show of searching for the juice box straw.

"Do you want to use my knife for your egg?" I held it out.  "Can you see it?  Careful... I mean, seeing as it's so dark..  Here you go..."

Rissa grabbed for it - deliberately failing several times.  "No, I couldn't see it." Rissa denied vehemently.    "I almost stabbed my eye out because it's so dark in here."

PMS is a PERK...

"I don't really have PMS do I?" I ask as we're driving home.

"Hmmmmm?"  David queries.

"I'm more an MS kinda gal.  That's when I lose it..."  I toss him a look.

David's eyes narrow, almost imperceptibly, but I can still see it.  How can he answer this?  What WON'T drive me to have a volcanic emotional eruption? "Well..."

"It's not a trick question!!!" I bark.  I take a couple of deep, cleansing breaths.  "Sorry.  Sorry."

"Frankly, when you're having PMS it's a good thing for me," he says.

"It is?"

"Yep.  I always know that you're period is coming by how horny you get the week before.  PMS is a perk week for me."

"It is?"

"Yep.  You're insatiable."  Then he tosses me a look.  "The first couple of days of your period... you are..."  He's thinking so hard about choosing the right words to use here...   "You're... angrily fragile."

I roll that phrase around in my mind.  Angrily Fragile.  I guess that aptly describes my disproportionate response to emotional stimuli.  And it's a lot better than calling me a psychotic she wolf - which is how I generally refer to myself during that time.

"Perk Week, huh?"

"Yep."

I waggle my eyebrows.  "Well, hold onto you hat, because in another 10-18 days, you'll be getting another one."

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

"Heather!  Heather!  Wake up!!!"

I startled awake, feeling tears on my cheeks. I was crying?  Why was I crying? 

"It's okay... It's okay..."

It all came flooding back.

"Oh David... David I had the most wonderful dream!"

"You did?  But if it was wonderful, why are you cyring?"

"Our new house had a split-level basement!"  I grabbed him by the shoulders.  "We had a second basement!!  We had an extra 1/2 bath and a guest room and a whole other storage room!   And then you went down another small set of stairs and you got to our real basement.  The one with the gravel and dirt floor and leaky walls... where all we'll ever be able to store is things in Rubbermaid containers off the floor on plastic shelves"  I hiccuped another sob. "It seemed so real!  Our storage problems were non-existent... there was a place for everything... I could keep all my old albums and craft supplies, but it was JUST A DREAM!!!!"

I don't know if I'll make it through this move.

The Panty Conundrum...

"Why do you never fold underwear?" I yell.  I am staring at a pile of unfolded ladies' panties in various colours and materials - bunched up on the top of the laundry pile - a secondary, equally-crumpled pile, is on the floor.

"They can't be folded!!"  David yells back from the kitchen.

"Come here!"

He arrives at the door and rolls his eyes.

"Weclome to Ladies' Panty Folding 101..."

"Yes," David says.  "But if I do that and try to stack them when they are folded they become this precarious tower of panties that just falls over.  If I just lay them flat one on top of the other, then there is no precarious tower and you can stack other clothes on top of them.  Like THIS!!!"  He shows off his stack of flat panties.

"Yes, but when you put the panties into a drawer like that, you can't see what pair is underneath the top one."

"You are assuming that I need to see what's underneath the top one.  Underwear are like Kleenexes - you just pull from the top."

"Boys just pull from the top.  Girls decide depending on what we're wearing that day and whether or not we need a thong."

At the mention of a thong - David winces a bit.  "You can't fold thongs!!!"

"It's not really about the folding is it?"

"Pardon?"

"You don't like folding them because now you can't tell the difference between my underwear and Rissa's and it freaks you out."

"Maybe."

"Do you fold them with your eyes closed now?"

"Maybe."

"That explains a lot then."

Me and Igor, we're like this...

If I were a horse, I'd have been taken out back and shot.    Or at least, that's what my parents always threatened to do when I was younger.

The limping started about a week and a half ago.  I blame 'Art.'  See, I'm in a show. I needed to get used to my costume before we moved to theatre.  It's the shoes' fault.  The shoes are kick-ass red.  They zip up at the back with these snazzy make-you-want-to-do-unmentionable-things-to-me straps that go around my ankles.  I am fierce in these shoes. The only thing I remember before the injury was that I zipped them up.  Yes folks - injury by zipping.   (How many men just winced?)  I had to convince my Achilles Tendons to fit into these fabulous shoes - you know, on account of the fact that I have such... well-defined... tendons.  I think maybe I convinced my right foot too hard - now it hurts to go downstairs.  And when I point my foot.  And when I flex it.  Strangely enough it doesn't hurt to just WALK on it.   But I do have quite a hitch in my get-along when I'm descending a staircase.

The incomparable Marty Feldman as Igor
and Gene Wilder as Dr. Frankenstein
in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein

Last night... Injury by tucking in.  Bed time with the kid.  Me, exhausted, from packing up our office.  I flopped down on top of Rissa - not unlike a dolphin out of water.  Then, as I prepare to hug her, I moved my right arm along the top of the quilt - and something 'popped'.  Rissa didn't hear the pop - all she heard was the screaming the accompanied the pop.

"OH NO!!! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO NOOOOOOOO!!!!  Oh CRAP!  CRAP!!!!"

"What?!?  What did you DO?!?"

"I think I just separated my shoulder."

"AGAIN?!?  Mummy!"

"I didn't do it on purpose!  I was just trying to hug you!"  I tentatively try the movements that usually hurt when I've injured my rotator cuff.  To the side - not terrible... To the front - a little more ouchy.

"Daddy!  You better come in here!  Mummy just hurt herself."

"AGAIN?!?"

"I am not as clumsy as... Would you help me up please?... as you think I am."

"Un-huh..."

"I'm NOT!"

David, enters with the Traumeel.   "Where does it hurt?"

"From my shoulder to my elbow..."

"Pardon me?"

"FROM MY STUPID SHOULDER TO MY STUPID ELBOW!!!"  I'm already starting to favour my right side.  The hunching has begun.

"How?  How do you do this to yourself?"

"My ligaments are weird.  I'm a dork."

"Yep."

"This is a different pain though, so I don't think that it's the rotator cuff this time.  That's good, right?"

David kisses me.  "I'm so glad that you're a glass half-full person."

Who are you wearing?

"Rissa, come look!!"  I yell.

"What?  What?"  She slides in the kitchen in her socked feet.

I point out the window.  "Look!  The snow is falling all in slow motion!  Isn't it beautiful??"

"OOOOOOOOH!  It's so pretty!"

(Given this year's snow ridiculous accumulation, I don't know how we can still be impressed, but there it is.)

"It looks so... so... sophisticated," she says.  "I feel like I'm not fancy enough to even watch it fall.  I should avert my eyes."

"Do you feel under-dressed?"

"I do."

"Shall we change into our ball gowns?"

"Oh, yes!  Let's."

It was one of those "little things" days.  I love those days.

The Human Whisperer

It was one of the worst days of my life. My friend Shannon had died. It was about 2 weeks after she'd had a successful stem cell transplant - her prognosis had been good. Except now she was dead. I almost threw up when her partner John told me, my knees threatened to buckle, white-knuckled fingers held the top of our kitchen island so that I wouldn't crumble. The rest of my day was bi-polar.  I'd be okay for a few minutes, but then I'd choke on sobs - I couldn't breathe. The pit of my stomach was roiling - my own internal hurricane - I kept swallowing bile.

We watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - a really bad choice when one of your best friends has just died. Life and death are so skewed in that film. I collapsed in bed at the end of the night - another crying jag - David smoothing his hands across my back - me trying to catch my breath - clutching for calm before the emotions slammed me again.

Our cat, Minuit, leapt onto the bed. She dropped a soft toy on my chest. It was part of a monster doll set - little plush pieces that velcroed together - you could add an arm or an extra eye, a tail or horns - like making your very own tribe of Wild Things.

"Honey," I said to her. "I can't.  I can't play right now." Minuit liked you to throw the toy and she'd fetch it for you - it was one of her favourite games. I took the toy away and stashed it in my bedside table.  David held me as I started to cry once more.

A few minutes later, Minuit dropped another piece on me.

"Minuit. No. I can't." That piece, too, ended up in the bedside table.

A few minutes later - another piece, and then, when I refused the throw that one, another...  and another... and another...

She didn't want to play. She was bringing me gifts. We were on the second floor, and every time I took a toy, she'd tromp two floors down to the basement - jump into the toy box to find a piece and she'd offer it to me. 

I guess she didn't know what else to do, given my bouts of hysterical sobbing. She was giving me the equivalent of dead mice - she wanted me to feel better. It went on for about half and hour. I found myself laughing and crying, with 23 monster toy pieces in the bedside table by the time she was done. Then, she lay beside me, pressed to my side - pumping her paws against my ribs to let me know that she was there.

So go ahead, try and tell me that cats are anti-social. You're wrong.

Where's the frickin' SNOOZE button?

I used to be a terrible sleeper.  Before I gave birth to progeny.  My brain wouldn't shut down.  If something woke me at 6:25 a.m. on a Saturday morning, no matter how tired my body was, I was incapable of returning to slumber.  Thoughts would careen from synapse to synapse.  Bits of songs,  lines from a play, whatever most occupied my waking moments, would sabatoge my rest.

Then I had Rissa.  After experiencing new-parent exhaustion, falling back to sleep wasn't an issue.  When I pushed through those 2 a.m. feedings, I found that I could sleep through anything. And as long as Rissa wasn't calling for me specifically in the middle of the night - I was good.  I could coast on that bleary-eyed mental fog,  my constant companion in those early years, and let David handle the middle of the night.  If Rissa was calling for me?  If she was whispering for me in the middle of the night?  I was up immediately.  That maternal protection gene is wicked fierce when it hits you.  But if David was there, I could tune out any noise. I could let him grab her and bring her to bed - I could sleep while I was nursing her.  I did.

Which means that for the last 13.5 years, apart from trips to the ER with croup and dealing with the hot flashes,  I've been pretty rested. And then, we signed the papers to buy the new house.  Which means that now?  My sleeping is completely ravaged.  If I wake up needing to pee before dawn - I'm screwed.  As soon as my eyes open, my natural inclination to obsess rules the rest of my body.

How are we going to convert the buffet to a vanity for the new bathroom?  Is the kitchen faucet a single hole or a three hole - we have no closeup pictures of the sink!!!  Do we have enough boxes for our books?   How much will we have to pay the electricians for their re-wiring job of the 3-way switch in the front hall - why haven't they invoiced us for that yet??  Where will the kitty litter boxes go in the new house?  "Where are you from Jesus, what do you want Jesus, TELL me!"

When David came down this morning, I'd already been up for hours.  "We're going to have to drug you, aren't we?"

"Either that or whack me on the head whenever you feel me stir in bed.  I'm willing to take on a concussion if I get more sleep.  What's your blunt instrument of choice?"

Shredding the Past

Boxes... and boxes... and still more boxes.  And there I was, on my ass in the Rec Room, sorting through them.  Boxes of books and fabric.  Boxes of craft supplies and more fabric.  Boxes of Tae Kwon Do equipment and MORE fabric.  And the mother lode of nostalgia... a box of letters.

Decades of correspondence in a bankers box.  Untouched letters, languishing in a box for the 8.5 years we've resided in our present home.  And before that, they languished in another box in our other two homes and before that, I carted them around in an old Cougar boot box until there were too many letters to fit into that box.  Letters, read once, then stacked in order from past to present - wrapped with elastics, now so aged  that the elastic is stuck to the paper and disintegrates if you touch it.

I sat amidst my paper equivalent to carbon dating.   Letters from childhood friends written on Care Bear cards with stickers of horses and kittens,

international penpal letters from France and Australia, letters from  high school friends (Bug, Skin, PJ and Cam),  notes from a "Secret Admirer," that had appeared in my locker first year university.   Love letters from old boyfriends.   Letters from my parents and grandparents, my Mom's best friend Vivien.  Cards and mementos from my friend Shannon who died unexpectedly in 2009.

A box full of forgotten history.  Glancing through, there were return address names that rang NO bells at all and yet I found an old napkin, from when I was 16, that I'd slipped to an older guy (he was probably all of 23) at the mall that said, "Dir Sir, you are incredibly handsome."  He'd returned it to me, having written on the other side, "Dear 'Madame' THANK YOU!" with a smiley face below.

I was prepared to shred it all.  I'd hefted the shredder down from the office when David demanded I eat lunch.  After eating though, I was going to bite the bullet and purge it all.

"I haven't looked at them for this long.  It'd take me months to read through everything and distinguish the good from the bad.  I don't have the time.  We don't have the space."

David shot me a glance.  "We can make space.  It's one box.  You've kept them.  They're part of your past.  One box isn't going to make a difference.  We can tuck it in under the stairs."

"Maybe..."  A weight lifted.  That felt better.  "Plus when I'm dead, and Rissa has to sort through them all, it'd probably be fun for her..."  I stopped.  

"What?"

"Nothing," I said, swallowing my last bite of grilled cheese.  "It's okay.  I'll just... I'll just..."  I ran back down to the basement.

Read.  Shred.  Read. Shred.  Read. Shhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrread.

"What are you doing?" asked David from his shop area.

"So I found this erotic story that, uh... Tim wrote me..."

He raised his eyebrows.  "You did huh?"

"Yeah..."   Shhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrread.  I was blushing.

"That good huh?"

"Yep..."  Shhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrread. "I'm thinking that reading erotica where one's mother figures prominently, might not be quite the nostalgic experience Rissa would be hoping for upon my death."  Shhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrread.

"You might be right."

I glanced through the other letters.  They were innocuous enough - slightly titillating, but not downright graphic.   Proclaimed affection - even love - my romantic past in ink.  That, I thought, she might want a glimpse into.  Hell, I do to.  Maybe next weekend, I'll sit down with a pot of tea or a good single malt and dive into my past.

What's happening to our Tupperware?

I must have a symbiotic worm hole in my house.  I swear to God that for every lost sock in the dryer, a Tupperware container also disappears.  I could earn a doctorate in this area.  I'm going to get a grant for the next phase of my thesis.

We have a billion Tupperware lids - all stacked in the island drawer - they must be going at it like rabbits in there.   I always check the fridge when we seem low on containers, and sometimes there are the science experiments in the back of the fridge, but that still doesn't explain the multitude of extra lids residing in the drawer.  We haven't been doing any house painting which usually takes up containers.  And let's face it, you can't really take a sandwich container without a lid unless you want a stale sandwich for lunch. 

Are gremlins in our house destroying just the containers?  For gremlin fun?  Are they dancing madly upon them as we sleep - cracking the questionably recyclable plastic - leaving us with only the lids -  which are freaking useless?? Strike that, not useless.  I have an artist friend, Lisa, who does eco-art.  She can take bread tags and create lighting shades for twinkle lights.  She has salvaged copper wire and bicycle wheels and made a freaking Korean Dragon.

Dragon, 2005,  Lisa Brunetta

So I'm going to send her all my old lids - she'll know what to do with them.  She'll create art, it will be astounding.

And I?  I will take my ass to the No Frills and purchase my biennial replacement containers.  WAIT!    WAIT!   GPS chips!!  We could put in wee little GPS chips...  create another layer of plastic on top - like a skin graft, but a plastic graft - which would allow them to still be washed, but would have them programmed so when you asked a family member if they knew where the containers were and they said no, you could say "AH-HAH!" and dance around calling them a liar, when you found said missing containers unde their bed. The technology's not quite there yet, but I feel confident that, within the next year or so, I could perfect it.  I will be having my IPO in 2015.  Who's in?

My ass is not happy.

We are on the hunt for a sofa bed.  On account of the fact that our new house does not have a guest room.  As Canadians, we need to be able to offer extreme-weather lodgings.  It's in the Canadian Manifesto.  Or it would be if Canada had a Manifesto.

My Mom took great pride in emphatically stating that we could sleep 22 people in our house.  We were military - you never knew who might stop by.  We had more sofa beds and guest beds than your average bear. It's a badge of family honour for me.  A tradition.   I need to be able to find space for 22 people to sleep in my new home.  My new, 1500 sq. foot home with NO guest room.  David's already started devising plans to jerry-rig some beds from an alternate dimension.  Patent pending.

I am determined to be able to sleep at least two.  At the very least we need a sofa bed to take care of overnight guests.  All I want is a functioning sofa bed that is actually comfortable to sit on.  Okay, a functioning sofa bed, comfortable to sit on and that doesn't look like crap.  Is that so much to ask?  Is it?  Not a fricking futon on a pine frame - I'm 45 years old - not a first year Arts student.  Not something that feels like you're balancing your derriere on concrete.  Something with a modicum of style that can accommodate overnight guests.  It's like searching out the Holy Freaking Grail.

I have been trying out sofa beds for weeks now.  My ass going from shop to shop to shop.  Kind of like Goldilocks, but with no "just right" in sight. 

This has nothing to do with the post,
but when I was trying to find a good Goldilocks
illustration I got distracted.

They're ALL too hard.  All of them.  You can look all you want online, but you cannot buy a sofa without letting your ass feel it. So we've been trolling the furniture shops.  We find the exact model that we like, that our asses enjoy - ask if it comes in a sofa bed - and the salesperson won't meet our eyes when they say "Yes."  Because they know.  They know that somewhere in the fabrication of inexpensive sofa beds, (Because, let's face it, we are NOT going to spend $3,000 on a piece of furniture.  EVER), that the base and ass cushions are injected with some sort of concrete polymer that ensures that one would rather sit on the floor than on this piece of furniture masquerading as comfortable. 

I'm desperately trying to find an alternative to IKEA here folks.  I'd love to shop local and support the little guy, but those damned Swedes with their good prices and relatively comfortable pieces and delivery are calling to me.  "Ve huv sofas end matchink sofa beds end cumfy chayerrs - ull vith slip cuverrs...  Cooom to de Scandinavian siede Headder!"  Oh God, it may be too late!

Did you guys KNOW about this?!?

It was a revelation.  With the first one I thought I'd just been lucky.  Even the second.  What a happy coincidence!  How delightful!  It was only upon savouring the third that I thought something was up.  I looked at the box.

Ladies and gentlemen, Pot Of Gold makes a CARAMEL collection!  I am undone. 

Dear God what was I thinking? I had five of them.   Okay, possibly six.   Which means that in 6 mouthfuls of sin, I ingested over 30 grams of sugar and 380 calories. Which, when you really think about it, considering the oral orgasm that I had, isn't that bad a calorie count.

I'm in rehearsals right now, we're getting down to the crunch - rehearsing on the set, bonding with the cast and crew, and people are bringing snacks to the rehearsals.  And apart from a fantastically healthful crock pot of lentil stew on Sunday - the food is utter crap.  I mean, it all tastes a-fucking-mazing, but it's crap.  M&Ms, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate bars - the newly discovered box of caramels...

Fruit plate.  We need a fricking fruit plate.  Or a vegetable plate.  Communal food is terrible for me.  The snack table, in my peripherals, beckons - it seduces.  Shiny wrappers and colourful bags with their upwards of 25 grams of sugar in them, waiting to spike my blood sugar and then allow for a good old, wallowing in my willpowerless misery, sugar crash.  High, and then not-so-high, in the space of minutes.  Eyes rolling back in my head.  People with 911 at the ready, in case I actually do slip into that sugar coma.

I need to get my shit together.  I have two days before I'm called again.  I shall gird my loins for battle.  Time for the buddy system.  Time to call in the big guns.  I have at least 5 girlfriends in the show who know me well.  They know what sugar does to me.  They shall be my security team.  See?  The first step is admitting you have a problem.  The second?   Asking for help, so that you don't have to conquer this shit alone. I'm following Bill Withers's advice.  I know I'm not strong.  I'm leaning. 

WARNING: Prone to Theatrical Displays of Melodrama

"Mummy, do you know where the plastic container with the clicking lid is?"

"No.  I do not.  I'm not sure where it went.  Maybe Daddy took it to school."

Rissa sighs deeply.  I barely hear her say,  "I call her 'Clicky'."

"Pardon me?"

Rissa now speaks loudly and clearly.  "I call her 'Clicky'."

"Did you just say that you call the container 'Clicky'?

"I call HER 'Clicky'!"

"Sorry.  This container is a girl?"

"Yes, she is a girl.  Don't judge my love!"

"I'm not judging..."

"You don't know what we have together..."  I think at this point, Rissa flings an arm up to demonstrate her heightened emotional state.

"You are completely right.  I DO NOT know, nor do I understand, the relationship that you have with the, uh... plastic container you have dubbed 'Clicky'.  Not that there is anything wrong with that."

Still doing her best Garbo, Rissa exclaims, "Why can't you support my choices?"

Then she dissolves into snorting laughter.  In betweeen snorts, "Today will be a laughing day, I can just tell!"

"Awesome."

"Every time I laugh today, I will do a different laugh."

"You do that little thing." 

"I will!"  She then lets out a burst of mad scientist mania. 

"MOO-HOO-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA!!"

"You are SO weird."

"Unique.  I am unique."

"You're something alright."

I'm going to die - I just know it!

Thud.  Thud.  Thud.  Yowl.  Yowl.

David and I share a glance.  Shake our heads.

Thud.  Thud.  More pitiful yowl.

"I don't understand why she has to be in here with us.  Rissa's door is wide open - she could just be in there."

Thud. Thud.  THUD.

We jump.

"She put her whole body into that one."

"Is she actually running at the door?"

Then we hear this:

"Oh woe is me!  WOE is me.  WAILEY!  WAILEY!  WAILEY!  I'm going to die - I just know it!  If you don't let me in, I will actually perish here in the hall and you shall have to step over my limp, lifeless body in the morning. WOE is me.  WOE!  WOE IS ME!!!"

At least we hear the cat equivalent of that - which is much more pitiful and sounds closer to death.  But we remained strong.  We wanted a good night's sleep and when the cats sleep on/with us - we don't have a good night's sleep.  Eventually Minuit left.

This morning...

Thud.  Thud.  THUD.  "I'm still here.  I can totally hear you two talking.  I know you're awake.  Why must you torture me?  All I want to do is share my love with you and purr.  Can you blame me for that?   Is it too much to ask to let your cat, your oldest cat, your most beloved cat, purr for you?!?"

That cat has stamina.

Which face is better?

Rissa asks.  At bedtime.

"Pardon?"

"Which face?  If you had to rate them?"

"This?"  She does her best impersonation of a bucktoothed gopher with a cold.

"This?" She looks like she's been hit in the head with a shovel at her left jawline - lips all askew across her face.

"This?" She sticks her tongue out slightly and rolls her eyes back in her head.

"Or THIS."  She puff out her cheeks like she a blowfish - eyes wide and glassy.

"You are so weird."

"Yes, but which is better?  You need to rate them on a scale of 1 to 4.  4 being the best and 1 being the worst.  Oh wait - plus there's this one too!"  She drops her jaw, scrunches her nose and crosses her eyes.

"On a scale of 1 to 4?  But there are five faces now!"

"Yes.  Plus there's SEVEN!  THE GOLDEN MONKEY!"

"Who ARE you?"

Rissa: Bringer of New Millennial Dadaism

And that's why I should be having sex more often...

WARNING: THERE IS TOO MUCH INFORMATION IN THIS POST

On account of the fact that when it's this lackadaisical, only when we we're not exhausted, happen to be on the same bio-rhythms kind of encounter, my body feels like this the next the day.

And we weren't trying anything new here.  We were doing our standards.  Nothing groundbreaking - nothing we had to stretch for.   I hadn't thought that I'd done myself an injury.  It wasn't like when you're first together and you go at it for so long and so hard that you can't walk the next day.  But they never tell you about that in romance novels or erotica.  Nope.  It's all banging for days, trying out numbers 32-49 of the Kama Sutra, hanging from the chandelier...  Literary depictions rarely mention the Epsom Salts baths and two days of rest you need before it doesn't hurt to pee because of micro tears around your lady bits.

Nor do they mention the bladder infections that you get if you get too cuddly after sex. When David and I were first together and were going at it like bunnies, I ended up in the Emerg - all feverish and having... shhhhhh.... blood in my, um... urine.  

The triage nurse looked at me...  looked at David.  "You're a new couple?"

 "Um, yeah... fairly new."

"You need to pee after sex."

"Pardon?"

"You need to pee after sex."

"Because why?"

And here's where she told me something that NO ONE ever thinks to tell you.   Until you wind up in the Emerg and the nursing staff give you these sad commiserative glances and finally pass along information that should be de rigueur in Sex Ed.

"Because seminal fluid can wind up in your urethra and you can get a bladder infection."

So trust me ladies - if you're at that point in your relationship where you've both been tested for STDs and he's good and you're good and you're on the pill, or the patch, or the shot and you're riding bareback - as much as you might want to cuddle right after you've done the deed...  DON'T!  Get up, race to the bathroom, pee, wash, and then head back to bed and do the cuddling then.  It can still be all romantical and snuggly - just a little bit later.  Save youreself a trip to the Emerg.  TRUST ME.  And when you're older - invest in lube.

High pressure vampires...

After nearly a week of low-pressure snow squalls cavorting their way through Ontario - the sun has graced us with its presence.  These barometric weather conditions offer the perfect metamorphic indredients to turn me into a sun-terrorized vampire.  The back of my eye sockets proclaimed the shift in my dreams.  Travelling to Australia via inter-gallactic spaceship - I was sent on an errand for extra-strength Tylenol and Advil, during intermission of the vampire musical - they couldn't source fruit bats, so they dressed up 100s of chihuahuas with wings.  It was so kind of Air Canada to add an 900 seat theatre as in-flight entertainment for its intercontinental flights.

When the alarm went off, it shouldn't have come as a surprise, that  the 1.5 watt nighlight energy output had me wincing.  Fighting back the nausea, I staggered to the bathroom and downed as much medicine as I could before collapsing into bed for another precious 1/2 hour of sleep.  Covers over my head, I concentrated on deep breathing. "I am breathing in deep relaxation and breathing out all tension and pain... I am breathing in..."

SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPE!  
BEEP!  BEEP!  BEEP!
SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPE! 
BEEP!  BEEP!  BEEP!

The apartment building next door has a snow removal contract.  Which is great for them.  It really is.  Allows them to get their cars out, clears their sidewalks.  Yay them.  Yay.  And I love how the snowplough operator takes his front end loader's bucket and lowers it so that it can get the best scrapage - ensuring safety for all the tenants.  Yay.

Now that the drugs are taking the edge off - I've decided to play.  I can pretend I'm a starlet in my own home - sporting my Audrey Hepburn sunglasses.  "Alright, just one autograph... Who do I make it out to?"  I am I'm a newly-turned vampire dodging pockets of sunlight - because let's face it folks - vampires do not just SPARKLE in the sun - they burst into flame - and seeing as I sunburn really easily - I've gotta be careful.   I shift my chair, I crab walk into the kitchen to avoid direct light - which has me WAY ahead of the game for my quad and thigh exercises today!  And the herbal tea remedy that I'm ingesting?  Perfect start to the day!

I'm letting my inner PollyAnna out!  Pain be damned.  There's sunshine for the first time in what seems forever and powdered snow that turns my streetscape into a freaking snowglobe.  I am DETERMINED to enjoy it!

Monster Child

"My friends think I'm a monster," says Rissa.

My spoonful of Rice Chex stops an inch from my mouth.  "Because why?"

"Because I don't eat cereal."

I shoot her a disbelieving glance before shoveling my cereal into my mouth.  I chew thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing.  Then I shake my head.  "I don't get it."

"Everybody eats cereal for breakfast," she says.  "Everybody.  I'm like the only one who doesn't.  They say 'What do you eat?!?'  And I say 'Toast.'  And they look at me like I'm crazy.  And even if I did eat cereal it'd be Raisin Bran, which NOBODY eats.  Cereal on its own is fine, but cereal with milk is... bluuuuuuuugghhhhhh."  She shudders.   "It gets all wet and..."

"Oh yeah," says David.   "Yeah.... (He too, shudders) bluuuuuuuugghhhhhh."

"Every cereal - it happens to every cereal," I say, the sense memory suffusing my very being.  I shovel in another still-crisp spoonful of Rice Chex before it disintegrates.

"Not Captain Crunch,"  says David.  "That cereal can lacerate your mouth after it's been in milk for a full half hour.  I still have scars."  I'm certain that he's feeling out the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

"No, I'm thinking more of Shredded Wheat," I say.  "You know.  You use your spoon to cut that little cross down the middle of it and you sprinkle brown sugar on it and then it's a race from the time you pour the milk on it before it morphs into mushy paste.  You have about 30 seconds where it's slightly moist but still somewhat crunchy.  I'm convinced that's why I always eat my breakfast quickly because on a cellular level I'm afraid it'll turn into mushy cereal paste."

"I'm pretty sure cereal is just a North American thing" David postulates.

I give it a think.  "Yeah... I bet you the French don't eat cereal - they probably baguette it all the way.  And the Swiss - they're more granola types."

Rissa perks up.  "Granola?  Like what you get on top of a yogurt parfait?"  She loves a yogurt parfait.

"Yes!  Exactly like that!  You can have that!  Then you can be all cosmopolitan and say, 'I have granola with  Greek yogurt.'  And you can give them a high class glance over one shoulder and raise your eyebrows and know that your taste is far superior to theirs."

 

And that's why I need a Tardis.

Because 3000 sq feet of furniture from a 2.5 story century home will not fit into a 1500 sq foot 1.5 story... even older century home.  No matter how much we might want it to.

David's a list maker.  It calms him - it gives him purpose.  So we took his laptop and went from room to room and we itemized every single piece of furniture that we have.  It was supposed to give us... perspective. I got chest pains.  And a little hyperventilate-y.  We had four options for the stuff.  Move. Sell.  Donate.  Dump.

Where was the Tardis option?  I want that option!  The option where I can just open the door to a closet and miraculously find 1000 square feet of storage space in it?  Where's that option?!?

If someone could actually work out the technology for The Tardis, they'd make gazillions of dollars to downsizing families.  Forget cold fusion people, make me a freaking Tardis!

I have a whole 4' x 8' room in our basement that is devoted to Christmas Decorations, a 10' x 10' room for crafts and sewing and another 8' x 8' room that is... who am I kidding here?  It's full of crap.  It really is.  It's got suitcases and old books that were taken off the shelves in the office when were first staging the house for selling three years ago, and furniture that was too big or superfluous.  It's a room full of stuff we never use - have NEVER used, not since we moved into this house 8 years ago.  Boxes of electronics and old stereos and extra sofa cushions from when we turned our Ikea Ektorp corner sofa into a massive chesterfield.  If I were Barbara Eden, I'd wiggle my nose and nod my head and the room would magically deposit its contents to the appropriate corresponding locations: Kijiji purchasers' homes, the Habitat ReStore and the dump.

Two closets and a cubby under the eaves.  That's what the new house has.  We do have a basement, but it's the basement of a150 year old house - a gravel and dirt floor and a sump pump working overtime.  Anything stored down there needs to be off the floor on plastic shelving in Hermetically sealed containers. 

And really, other than Christmas decorations, what needs to be stored?  The record collection that I've been carting around for decades without a turntable to play them on?  The boxes of fabric that I might find a use for, come Halloween 2020?  The books that have laid in their boxes for years now, no one to open them, no one to peruse their contents?    It's just stuff.  And it's not stuff that is bringing us joy.  We don't cling to that stuff, soak up its nostalgia and cuddle in its warmth.  We store it, just in case.  Just in case... what???  No really, just in case what?  Just in case we suddenly reside in a mausoleum where these items are displayed as relics of our past?  Where they are under-glass memories of days gone by?  Where we keep them just to say they're kept and puff up our chests in the knowledge that we hold onto our heritage?

Nope.  Not going to happen.  No more storing things.  No more just-in-casing things.  We either use them or they go.  Just typing that and a weight has fallen off my shoulders.  "They go."   Keep what's precious and let go of the rest of it go.  No buts, no gasps of  near-intention, no hemming or hawing... decide and live with that decision.   Let that beat up Elvis album find a place of pride in someone else's home - in the home of someone who plays it on a turntable with all of its skips and analog noise.  And you can rest easy in knowing that because you let go - you gave someone else joy.

In hindsight, perhaps I should have put on a bathrobe first...

But you know how it goes.  You've just showered.  You notice that at least one of the bulbs in the bathroom light fixture has died.  You know that if you don't fix it now, you won't remember to do it later.  So off I went, starkers, down the hall.

"It's okay, I'm taking care of it!" I say as I head towards the stairs.

David glances my way, does a double take and then waggles his eyebrows.  "Taking care of... (he pauses salaciously) ...what?"  he asks.

"NOTHING!" yells Rissa from her room.  "YOU ARE TAKING CARE OF NOTHING!!"  (She gets grossed out when we play the innuendo game.)

"Light.  In the bathroom," I call from downstairs.  "I am fixing it."  I grab a bulb from the laundry room cupboard and sail back up the stairs, brandishing my light bulb with a triumphant "TA-DAH!!!" and head back into the bathroom, where I soon realize that I have nothing to stand on.  I run back out into the office and grab the stool.   "Not a problem!  I've got this!"

I climb up on the chair, unscrew the bottom of the fixture and balance it precariously upon the shelf below me.  Two bulbs.  Two bulbs are out.  sigh  Not to worry!  I simply refuse to be half-assed about this.  This job will be completed! I screw in the one bulb, clamber down from the chair and run back downstairs (holding my untethered boobs this time, so that I don't give myself a black eye).

"DON'T WORRY!  I AM TAKING CARE OF IT!!!"

I come back upstairs with the second bulb, "See?  All taken care of!"  I climb back up on the stool once more and screw in the second bulb.
 
"LIGHT!  WE HAVE LIGHT!!!!"  I let out a stream of mad scientist laughter to cap the moment.  

"MOOHOOHAHAHAAAAAH!!!"  

I reach for the shade and stick my tongue out as I'm trying to thread it back onto the fixture.  Then the cap pieces and a little washer thingie drops.  But I now have the shade in my hands and I don't really want to climb back down again.  "Help!  I need some help in here!"

"Mother, what have you done?" asks Rissa from her room.

"I just need an extra hand, but you should be warned that I'm..."

"Why are you ALWAYS naked?" asks Rissa from the doorway.

"I'm not ALWAYS naked."

"Mostly."

"I know that this present position of me naked up here on the stool isn't maybe the thing you wanted in your brain this morning, and that me on a stool with you at floor level just isn't cool, but would you please pass me those things?"  I motion with the big toe on my left foot.

Managing to avert and roll her eyes at the same time, Rissa hands me the missing pieces.  I put the shade back up and jump down.  "SEE?!?  I did it!!"  I step back to admire my handiwork.  I cock my head to one side - the fixture was now askew.  I climb back up again to straighten the shade and this time, THIS time, it's perfect.

"HAH-HAH!  DONE!!"

A superhero now, hand on my hips, I pose.  "My work here is done!"  My right arms rises in front of me.  I give a mighty salute and then stride to my room, majestically.

"Put your bathrobe on!"

Face Palm

It's not just me, right?

Other works in this series include:

The counter above the dishwasher is NOT the dishwasher!


I am NOT your sink whore!

and

Tea Towels are NOT dishcloths!

The perils of cheese.

Remember when you were a kid, and you ate the  fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza so fast that the roof of your mouth became stuccoed with blisters?  Afterwards, your tongue couldn't help but play with the damaged skin of your palate - feeling out all of those bumps.  For hours, even days afterward (depending on how hot the pizza had been) that tenderness remained.  I injured myself so frequently in pizza eating mishaps, that as an adult - I'll let the pizza get to lukewarm to avoid repeating that sensation.

In all my 45 years, I'd never really burnt my tongue before.  Not really.  Minor heat-testing ouches on the tip lose all significance.  That was amateur hour.  Grated cheese, that has fallen onto a well-oiled griddle, may look dried up and innocuous, but really it's a deep fried tongue destroyer.  One piece, demensioned at about 5 mm by 1.5 cm, can damage an area thrice that in size when it's in your mouth and you begin to panic.

"Ahhhhh!  Unnnnnhhh!   AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"     

Spit!  Spit!  Spit!

"What are you doing?"

"Hot cheethe!  Deep fried cheethe!  On my tongue!!"

That deep-seated, pain-induced panic suddenly flashed me back 20 years to my time at the Canadian Space Agency.  I'd gone for afternoon break with a couple people from the office.  It was a hot, hot summer's day - we were on a Creamsicle Quest.  In my haste to get the icy cold treat in my mouth, my tongue became stuck on the underside of that sweet orangeyness and when I immediately tried to pull it off, I somehow managed to get the rest of it stuck on the inside of my lips, creating a completely frozen mouth seal around the offending comestible. 

I didn't want to draw attention to the fact that I'd made such a dim-witted food miscalculation (every Canadian knows not to place a relatively dry tongue on frozen things), so I let the Creamsicle rest where it was, desperate to keep the terror at bay, attempting to concentrate all my hot breath towards the front of my mouth.  I contributed as best I could to the conversation around me with calm "Mmmmm-hmmmms" and "Un-unhs," my brain functions split between allowing for stilted vocalization, ensuring that I didn't hyperventilate and keeping me on my feet, for I was desperate to collapse in a full-on panic attack.

Where was the closest Emergency Room? Would I have to undergo a Lipectomy, and if so, would they have to use part of my vagina to fix my face?!?  Then what would they use to fix my vagina?  Would I have to have some dead woman's transplanted vagina?!?  Would I then have Franken-Vagina?!?  This is what went through my head for the 75 seconds it took for the exterior of the creamsicle to melt and release its hold on my mouth.  To this day, eating a creamsicle for me is akin to being at the top of a roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland in that split second before it drops - deliciously terrifying.

Do not underestimate the joy that you can experience at the LCBO.

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario may now be my favourite place on earth.  And for more than just the incredible array of single malt scotches that one can purchase there. 

My  friends and I were picking up a few libations and took them up to the cash.  We were making jokes, being a little silly - hadn't seen each other in a bit - doing some catching up.  The woman at the cash took one look at me and asked for my I.D. 

Our disbelief was comical.  I puffed up my chest, grinning, and gave her my driver's license.  She literally did a double take.  She then leaned over the counter to look closer at my face.  Which, to be fair, was underneath this hat,

so maybe that's what threw her off, but that still meant that first glance - she thought I was 25 or under!  TWENTY YEARS younger than I am!

She was chagrined.  "You're only 7 years younger than me."

"It's probably the hat," I said, commiseratively, trying my best not to happy dance right in front of her.  I did, however, pretty much do my "I got carded" dance all the way home.

Which means folks - silly hats?  Can take 20 years off your appearance.  Today I will be sporting a sombrero.