Her name is Lola - she self-Brazilians...

I'm not sure what we do to them, but eventually, all cats in our household run galloping towards madness.  We've had cats who spontaneously paralyze, suck on carpet and hiss at the doorbell.  Since we moved to the new house, Lola - sveltest of our felines - is now attempting to change breeds - she is licking herself hairless.

Evolution to Sphinx...

  I give her six more months... et... voila!!

Who needs psychedelic drugs...

... when you're in the midst of peri-menopause? They tell you about the sleep disturbances, the night sweats - all that great stuff - they don't tell you that your dreamscape will be a cross between Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson.

Last night, Inigo Montoya was waxing my bikini line before he replaced my kneecaps with silver plating.  To be fair - Inigo Montoya had been featured on the Mindy Project and I had watched an episode of Bones while I was on the treadmill.  It is possible I've been watching too much Netflix.

For years, I'd had no dream retention and now... TECHNICOLOR dreams.  In one night I can have 4 or 5 major dream excursions.  Hopping between murder mystery and house-shopping, archaeology and  extreme haircuts - usually accompanied by night sweats - blankets off - then the chills as the sweat cools, so in your dream you're now naked in front of your Grade 9 Geography class, with only post-its to cover your interesting bits.

I awake bearing a grudge against David because in one of my panic attack-inducing dreams there's a demon child who throws a patio door at me.  Trying to scream - only managing a whimper in my sleep - David 'there-there'ing me in his sleep, one arm curving around my midriff, patting me ineffectually when what I really need is to be able to climb inside of him so that he can keep me safe.

"You don't protect me," I say petulantly over breakfast.

"I was asleep!"

"You were awake enough to recognize that I was crying, you patted me, but then you just went back to sleep."

"Next time it happens, you have my permission to wake me up and make sure that I understand the gravity of your situation."

"Wake you up violently?"

"If need be."

I smile.  "You love me."

"Yeah."

"Enough to take an elbow to the gut?"

"Yeah."







  

The common cold - anti-aphrodisiac...

"Ooooh... naked body..." says David as we hop into the shower together.  He presses himself against me.

"Dude."

"What?"  He lathers me suggestively.

COUGH.  COUGH.  HACK.  WHEEZE.  spit.

He stops momentarily.  "You okay?"

"Oh yeah, I'm great.  Lung butter up to my clavical, but I'm good."

"You know what would make you feel better?"  Without seeing him, I know that his eyebrows are waggling with innuendo.

"Being able to take a full breath into my lungs?"

"Well yes, but..."

HACK.  COUGH.  COUGH.  spit.

"Not nearly vomiting when I cough?"

"Well that too..."

"Having enough energy to walk up the stairs?"

"Yeah..."

COUGH.  COUGH. sniff.

"What if I just toweled you..."

COUGH.  COUGH.  stagger.  spit. COUGH.  HACK.

"You're really not better yet, are you?

"What was your first clue?"  HORK.  spit.

If my breasts were 22, this wouldn't happen!

"Just one more?  Please can't we watch just one more?" I beg.

"No Mummy.  We've already watched three episodes.  You're done," says Rissa.

I look over to David forlornly.

He shrugs.  "The kid has spoken.  It's bedtime for Bonzo."

I throw myself across their laps, wailing in dissatisfaction.  They are unmoved.  As I am lying across their laps, I look down at my chest.  My breasts have caved in.

"What the?!?"  I struggle up and look down again, poking at my chest.  The girls are up where they belong.

I lie back down sideways across Rissa, my gaze now chestward.  Dents.  My breasts have DENTS!!!  The padded t-shirt bra cups are DENTED!!

"What are you doing?" Rissa asks.

"My boobs have dents," I say, poking at them.  I move back to sitting.  "See this?  No dents!"  I lie across Rissa once more.   poke, poke...  "Now?  DENTS!!!" 

My spouse and child do their best not to laugh, but are unsuccessful.

"Not funny, guys!  NOT FUNNY.  This means that I have floppy breasts.  FLOPPY BREASTS!!!" No longer wailing because they won't let me watch another Mindy Project, I am now wailing in narcissism.

"It's okay Mummy," says Rissa patting my arm.  "No one will know."

"I...  I will know!!  And your father, because he sleeps with me when I am naked.  "My breasts are DEFLATING!!!"

"They are not deflating," says David.  "They are..."

"Don't you dare say aging!"

"I wasn't..."

"Or ripening..."

"How about...?" 

"Or curing..."

"Transforming??"

"Into what exactly?"

"...soft pillowy... butterflies?"

"Okay, I can get on board with that."

My get up and go has f@¢#ed off... how do women survive middle-age?

On the plus side?  I'm 46 years old and still alive.   If this were the Middle Ages, I'd be dead already, or close to dead, or, at the very least, a great-Grandma, with incredibly saggy boobs because they didn't have proper brassieres back then.

On the minus side?  The part of my brain that is proactive, gives me moxie, lights a fire under my ass?  It's fucked off.  At present, I feel as though my picture could be placed beside the word apathetic in the dictionary.

Hey look over there, it's a pile of clothes that's needed to be ironed for the last 5 months... I should... meh...

I'm not saying that I was a 'get it done right now' gal - not like my friend Nathalie, who would buy something at a junk shop to turn into a chandelier and then the next day it would be spray-painted, wired and fucking lit up in her dining room - that wasn't me... but it didn't used to take me 10 frickin' months to hem a set of curtains. 

And although I know that I have a a couple of things working against me (thank you ever so much, thyroid disease and peri-menopause), on bad days, I am convinced that  I have morphed into a giant, corpulent, reticulated slug.

INT. JABBA'S LAIR

JABBA 

Have you met my sister? 
(cut to closeup of slightly younger female Hutt) 
She is renowned throughout the universe for her
excessive weight and sallow colour.

Checking out the back of my hair in the mirror, I have to quell the urge to self nip and tuck... "Okay, seriously??  How many rolls of back fat can a girl have surrounding her bra??"  Then you play the how can I look fine from the front, but utter shit from the back? game - rotating in front of the mirror like you're a car on a  pedestal revolve at an auto show.

I get home from work and it's all that I can do to walk over to the refrigerator to see if we have vegetables in the crisper.

I don't think my Mom went through all this shit. Yes, hot flashes - she flashed for years and years and years... but she didn't bitch out, she didn't crawl into bed at 8:00 p.m. and she sure as shit didn't resort to grilled cheese sandwiches with a side vegetable of pickles several times a week.  Oh, don't mind my daughter, the malnutrition will right itself when she's in university on a proper meal plan.

Overwhelmed is a constant.  I was at the grocery store on Saturday and found myself near tears in the canned goods aisle.  Too many people, too many colours, so much to consume...  How many children in the world can't have cereal?  What are they using to clean their floors?  That person has 17 items in the 16 item lane!!!  If I've been out in public, David generally meets me at the door with a cocktail.  He sits me down, wraps me in a blanket and stands guard for the emotional implosion. 

This hormonal shift is akin to when I was in adolescence - but now there's an added level of soul-crushing despair and self-loathing that I have to mask in front of the public.  Jazz hands Heather, keep up those jazz hands!

Big things?  They ain't happening.  It's time to refocus on the minutia of joy.   Tying on an apron to successfully finish cooking a meal that involves more than bread and cheese is a win.  And last night? I emptied the ironing basket - and not just by hiding it in a bag somewhere else in the house.  I dusted my bedside lamp, reorganized the face cloth basket, I mended a sweater of Rissa's that had been waiting for a year and a half.  By accomplishing  the seemingly inconsequential - I may just keep myself out of the nuthouse.

Why yes, this IS what middle-aged hair looks like...

"Heather, what do you want for... HOLY CRAP!!!" says David as he sticks his head behind the shower curtain.  He's reacting to the shower wall, upon which I have left all the 'extra' hair from my head.  And by 'extra' hair, I mean the hair that I regularly lose when I wash my hair. 

"Are you okay?" he asks, genuine concern in his voice.

I glance to the wall.   "Oh, this?"  I shrug.    "This is pretty much normal."  I scoop it up and offer it to him, a hamster-sized practical example of what happens when you're a middle-aged woman in peri-menopause with thyroid disease.  He shrinks back a titch.

"No, I think I'm good."

"By March Break we could make another ME - out of hair," I suggest.  "Which I will then sell to the AGO and become ridiculously wealthy and famous."

He nods mutely and backs away.

I go back to conditioning my hair.  I've never had silky, manageable hair.  My hair never bounced and behaved.  It has always been coarse and disorderly and then after I had kids, it went curly with the coarse and disorderly.  If I brush it out I resemble Rosanne Rosannadanna.

The incomparable Gilda Radner...

But on the plus side, I now feel an odd kinship with Pamela Anderson.  Although I'm less leather corset and more just barbed wire on my head.  Almost 30 years of hair dying and strangely my hair is... dry...   I've been hanging out in the alley behind the beauty shop...

"Psssssssst.... Hey... HEY!!!  Can you slip me some deep conditioner?"

I Google up on how to deep condition and apparently, I have to find another 15 minutes in my day to sit under a bonnet hair dryer with a plastic bag on my head allowing my hair to suck up moisture.

Wait a second!  I actually own a bonnet hair dryer!  And 15 minutes?  There's gotta be 15 minutes somewhere in my day!  And I'm supposed to sit during that 15 minutes?  That's a requirement?  Oh sweet Jesus, I could sit and read... an actual book!! Because you know, I 'd be trapped under the hair dryer and all...  I could have a book in one hand and a cocktail in the other!!!

If my hair weren't in such terrible shape, deep conditioning would make it greasy...  Because my hair is such crap, I will now be required to read and drink alcohol.  15 minutes??  Hell, I'll make it 30!   Watch out world!  My hair will soon be so smooth and soft that I will injure myself and others when I whip it around as I travel in my own imagined deep conditioning commercial.

Who let the dwarves into my uterus?!?

WARNING: There will be foul language in this post.

MOTHERFUCKING DWARVES.*  I'm sorry, but... REALLY...   REALLY?!?  I'm sure that the lining of my uterus is chock-a-block with rich mineral deposits which can be sold at a premium on the Disc World, but I would just like to state for the record that I did NOT give my permission for a team of mining dwarves to bring their motherfucking pick axes into my uterus to collect its bounty.

At the very least, the little rat bastards could give me a cut.  If the (WARNING: TMI) 2 and a half inch blood clot, which they apparently spent the entire night chipping away, is worth so fucking much - I deserve at least 75% of the take when they sell that fucker to the black market.

I am sure that peri-menopausal blood clots hold a certain cachet - maybe the sick twisted pricks who buy them from the motherfucking dwarves eat them à la placenta ingestion...  I don't give a cat's fragrant ass who is doing what with them, I just want my fucking cut.

There are a lot of us out there gals - if we unionize, I'm sure that we can negotiate a more than fair business contract.

2, 4, 6, 8 - OUR FEMALE BITS AREN'T YOURS TO TAKE!

WHAT DO WE WANT?  COMPENSATION!!
WHEN DO WE WANT IT?  WE'LL FUCKING DECAPITATE YOU!! 

*I choose to go the Tolkien route - not the Disney route

It all comes down to chicken vaginas...

"So what did you do in school today?"

"We had a work period in English."

"Journal entries for your ISU?"

"Yep."

"Oh, and in Geography we got to watch a video."

"What kind of video?"

"A video about sewers.  It's called Crap Shoot."

"Seriously?"  I burst into laughter.  "Madame showed you a video about sewers and it was called Crap Shoot?  That's freaking brilliant!"

"Not only that, but this is the second time I've seen it."

"I'm sorry?"

"I've seen it twice now."

I almost pee my pants.  "You've seen Crap Shoot twice?"

"Yes.  Last year in Science Class.  But that's not even the best part."

"There's a better part than just getting to watch a documentary about sewers called Crap Shoot?"

"There's this big sewer in Rome, one of the earliest sewers ever, and it's called the Giant Chicken Vagina."

"I'm sorry?"

"It's called the Cloaca Maxima - which is latin for Giant Chicken Vagina."

I snort.  "You're making this up!!"

"I am NOT!"

"This was in the documentary?"

"No, Connor just knows this because she lives on a farm.  A cloaca is part of the reproductive tract - pretty much a chicken vagina."

"So Cloaca Maxiuma would be...?"

"Giant Chicken Vagina."

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

"What is going on up there?" asks David from the kitchen below us.

"Clo...clo... a....ca... Max... i... ma!"  My stomach hurts from laughing now. "Seriously??" I ask.

"Seriously.  Connor and I almost got kicked out of class last year because we were laughing so hard.  This year, Connor isn't in Geography class with me, so I had to keep the hilarity inside."

Even better?  I get to recount this to David when I go downstairs.  He too, was impressed with a sewer documentary called Crap Shoot.

"Hey Rissa!" I yell upstairs.

"Yes?"

"Cloaca Maxima!!"

"BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA!!!!"

Cat Lap Dance...

Minuit, the oldest and most crotchety of our cats has a predilection for lap dances.  Not the pervy receiving of...  it's not like she's hanging around at the Brass Rail with $5 bills in her paws, waggling her eyebrows at the dancers.  This cat, this 6 year old, overweight feline... she gives a kick-ass, albeit slightly disturbing, lap dance.

Seconds after you sit on any sofa in our house, Minuit appears.  She wends her way over the arm of the sofa and begins her descent lapward.  She'll take a moment before slowly placing one paw at a time upon any and all available thighs.  On occasion, she has been known to straddle two laps, front paws on one and back on another.  Then, the kneading begins.  It's usually at this time that David says 'I'm out!'  and shifts her to my lap.

This morning, as Rissa snuggled up to me on the family room couch, Minuit bestowed her lap dance upon us.

"WHOA!!  NOT COOL MINUIT!!" from the kid.  Rissa turns the cat around so that her front paws are now on my lap.

As Minuit once more displays her mad kneading talents, Rissa cuts me a glance. 

"What?" I ask.  "I'm just trying to figure out how we can make money off this ability."

"You're so gross."

"I believe the word you're looking for is 'practical'."

When did my eyelids turn to crepe paper?

I've never been a real eyeshadow kind of gal.  My eyelid landscape is less pastoral and more one bedroom walk-up.  Sure, in my late teens, I went all out with the blue eyeliner and shadow, but lately, I've stuck mostly to some eyeliner on my upper lids.  If I'm heading out for something fancy, something festive, I might throw on some shimmery highlights to make  my eyes looks bigger than they actually are.  Not anime big - that'd be impossible, and just fucking creepy - but big--ger.

Sometime in the last month, my eyelid canvas lost its stretch.  This past week alone - filled with holiday events - has sent me on a fruitless search for my lost lid collagen.   

Maybe it's under the couch...  Well there you are - climb back up here you little dickens!

Putting on simple eyeliner now involves carefully pulling my upper lid into some semblance of smooth all the while guesstimating the costs of a eye lift.  For eons we have been told to only use our ring finger to smooth anything near our eyes, on account of the fact that the skin there is so freaking delicate.  I'm now terrified that if I use more than one finger to do the stretching for eyeliner, that I'll actually leave a tear in my crepe papery eyelids.

"Heather, how are you?"

"Feeling less like myself and more like Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove... and you?"

But, on the bright side, my eyelids are so loose that I can now use them for finger plucking percussion! 

This does NOT taste like gingerbread!

"Oh God... gag... gag... BLECH... shudder

"What?  What is it?"  David asks from upstairs.

"Putting molasses on top of peanut butter toast doesn't help," I say.  "Anne-Marie was wrong."  I shudder, still gagging, as I begin to scrape the molasses layer off of my peanut butter.  gag... gag...

Two days ago, when I was complaining about how eating raw molasses tasted like crap - Anne-Marie had suggested to put it over top of peanut butter on toast.

I had already tried drinking molasses in warm water and when two sips of that made me want to hurl, I tried swallowing an undiluted tablespoon of it. That method, was also unacceptable.

Why, one might ask, was I attempting to eat raw molasses in the first place?  After my bloodwork showed that my iron stores, while normal, were on the low, low, low end of normal, my dietician gave me a list of high iron foods that I could add to my diet.  I had been making my way through the list.  So far I'd tackled lentils and molasses. Lentils - not a problem - I added some to meatloaf - I added some to rice.  I should have been happy - I shouldn't have changed tacks.

But next on the list was molasses - a single tbsp of molasses.  You use molasses in baking - in GINGERBREAD for frickssake!  I seemed completely reasonaable that a tincture of molasses with warm water would be akin to drinking gingerbread cookies. I have never been more wrong in my life.

I'm not usually a taste wuss.  On rare occasions there are flavours, when they hit my tongue, kick in the gag reflex.  Cherry cough syrup?  One of those flavours.  I actually choose to take Buckley's Mixture for my cough because I prefer camphor to the taste of fake cherry cough syrup.  Brussel Sprouts -  those suckers touch my taste buds and the pre-vomit saliva kicks into high gear. But those two taste were pretty much it.  I now have a third.  Any health food nut who tries to sing the high iron praises of molasses to me is going to get a graphic gagging replay of how my mouth reacts to molasses.

No worries, I will continue to move down the list... Quaker Instant oatmeal??  I could have just had Quaker instant oatmeal?!?  You know those exams where the first instruction was to read the entire exam and the last instruction was not to do any of the questions?  I didn't have to gag nearly as much as I've been gagging... (that's what she said...)

And THAT is how Peri Menopause makes you healthier...

Blergh.

"You okay?"

I don't even want to admit what I've done.  "Fine.  I'm fine."

David's eyebrows raise.

I'm sitting on the sofa in our petite grande room.  I have a Rusty Nail in one hand and cheap-ass Christmas romance collection in the other.

"I might have eaten bad things," I mumble.

"Pardon me?"

"grumble... grumble..."

"Pardon?"

"I HAD THREE RICE KRISPIE SQUARES BEFORE DINNER!" I eventually blurt.

David sighs.  He shakes his head.  "Oh, love..."  He knows.  He knows that it's been a rough week.

Day 5 of my period - I'm having record-breaking blood flow.  Sweet merciful Gaia how much blood can a woman lose?  David has been handing me random glasses of water all week to keep me hydrated.  And my food cravings?  They are through the roof, hence the three Rice Krispie squares before dinner, and the empty bowl that had contained chocolate chips and Skor bits in it beside me, and the Rusty Nail in my hand.

During the night, I suffer.  I suffer miserably from night sweats.  Because why?  Because of all the sugar and alcohol running through my body.  Usually I avoid it.  Not all of it because that would be bananas, but most of it.  I have no caffeine, I limit myself to one drink, I avoid overly sugary foods... 

As I flap the blankets around me, it's revelatory.  THIS.  This is how to begin living healthfully...  Not because it's good for you, but to avoid the worse stuff.  I love caramel, I love enjoying more than one of anything in life, but now that there are ramifications... ramifications that affect my sleep...  I gotta change my ways.  Surely to God there are better things out there than a caramel and alcohol!  Things that won't make me feel ill and won't give me hot flashes...

Sex!  I CAN HAVE LOTS AND LOTS OF SEX!!!  That will give me an endorphin rush AND it will HELP ME SLEEP!!!  How is that for solving things the natural way?  I am a freaking genius.

"David, come here..."

Shopping with the spouse.

We are in the Men's Outerwear department at Sears.  (David has finally abandoned his attempts to zip up his existing jacket with an XL paper clip.)

"This one.  This one is good."  David holds up a long, black parka.

"You haven't tried it on yet."

"Yes, but it LOOKS good.  Good hood, good pockets..."  David shows me the faux fur styling around the parka's hood - reveals the inside coat pockets - the extra long, 'these'll make it very warm,' cuffs.

He puts the down-filled parka on.  "OH YEAH.  This is good."  He zips... he attempts... to zip it up.

"Zipper trouble?"

"I got too excited."  He struggles to get the zipper back down.  "It's all good."  He flourishes his hand and zips again.  Again, the zipper gets caught.  That's when I start handing him other coat options.

"Try this."

He looks longingly at the first parka.  I shake my head.  "Dude.  I know that it has everything you need - but you've gotten the zipper stuck both times you've tried - you are not the most patient of zipper-ers...  This will become a thing.  You will hate this zipper."

He sighs and tries on the second coat.  "No - too baggy in the waist."

"It's got this tightening thingie, right here..."

"That's just for the bottom to keep snow out," he scoffs.  "My waist, THIS waist," he now points to his belly button, "will get too cold in that coat."

I hand him another coat.

"Ugh.  NO!"  He moves his chin back and forth.  "Scratchy.  Too scratchy."

"But what about the rest of the coat?"  I look for inside pockets and check the arm length.

"Doesn't matter - it's too scratchy - that can't be fixed."

"Unless you wear a scarf..."

"Sure, if you want to be logical about it."

*SIX COATS LATER*

"Okay, then - THIS one."  I hand him a parka with a working zipper.

"Yeah, it'll do..." he looks longingly at the first 'perfect' parka.

"I know hon, I know...  but the zipper would drive you to madness..."

"Yeah...  sigh.  Now we'll just check out Mark's Work Warehouse to see if the prices are any better."

"?!?"

"You tell me I should comparison shop..."

He's right.  I do.

We leave the big mall and head to Mark's Work Warehouse across the street.

He circles the outerwear dept.  "Nope.  Nothing here in my size."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

I hand him a medium-sized ski jacket with a hood.  "What about this?"

"Ugh.  No. (shudder)  Too colourful."  (The jacket is forest green and navy blue.)

"This one?"

"Too loose."

"This one?"

"Bad hood... Look at it.  All floppy - no warmth!  Nope there is NOTHING here.  I'll get the other one at Sears."

"The one with the working zipper, right?"

He pauses,  hangs his head.  "Yes."

I dub thee...

David has been wanting to upgrade my computer for the past two years.  About a month ago, I finally capitulated.

"All right."

"All right?"

"Start the search."

"The search for...?

"A new computer."

"REALLY!?!"

"Really."

I couldn't take the endless UNRESPONSIVE SCRIPT warnings and time lags - which is hilarious, because anyone in their 40s remembers what a true time lag is - the ones at the beginning of internet usage when it would take 23 minutes for a page to load.

First we went looking at Staples - in advance of Black Friday...  An entire aisle of laptops.  From the very cheap Google tablets...  (I'm just making that name up - it's a computer that does everything by using the Cloud.  The cloud creeps me out.  I don't want the CLOUD) ... to the ridiculously expensive.

"What do you want?"  David says

"Whatever's cheapest - whatever is faster than mine  (everything is faster than mine - my last laptop was a refurbished Dell - 4 years ago), whatever is lighter than mine (everything is lighter than mine - see last parenthetical),   whatever has a standard QWERTY keyboard ('cause with some of these new laptops, the keyboard, she shrinks just a titch).

We found a light, compact laptop and I started typing.

"No!"  I moved to the next one.

"What?"

"Split shift keys.  I shift with my left pinkie.  That keyboard," I point to the last one, "has a split shift key.  My typing will be off."  I go up and down the aisle, looking at the keyboards.  "No.... no... no... no... no... NO."

"Just try them," David urges.

I type my full name.  The first letters in my legal name now read "\" .  "Nope... nope... nope annnnnd NOPE."  Before David even opens his mouth, I stop him.  "I am an old dog. And though you might be able to teach an actual old dog new tricks - old dogs don't have to type.   I have been typing a certain way for the last 30 years.  30 YEARS.  THIRTY.  The level of practice it'll take for me to adapt to a split shift key?  I don't have time for that!!"

So he researches and online comparison-shops.  And the Lenovo that I am now typing on arrives.

"CRAP!"  says David.

"What?"

"It has a split shift key."

I look over - yep - there it is - the dreaded split-shift key.  I typety-type for a few moments.

"No, I think we're good," I say.   The keyboard, being a little shrinkified to make the laptop more compact - has designed the shift keys a little bit smaller.  I won't have to adapt that much. That's not to say that the keyboard isn't just that slight bit off  when I type certain things, I fuck them u[.  UP.  I f7ck things \up. No worries - it'll all be fine.

"Okay.  Now you have to name it," he says.

"I get to choose a name?"

"Yep."

"Huzzah!"  I LOVE choosing names.  Naming things is my forte.  Five minutes later I'm still sitting at my computer.

"Haven't got one yet?"  David asks..

"No, not yet, but..."  My fingers lift from the keyboard in anticipation...  "Nnnnnnnnope."

"You know that you can change your mind?"

"I want to get this right."  My first instinct was Margaret, but as I toss the name around in my head, it doesn't ever settle down.

"It starts with an 'm,' I say.

He raises his eyebrows.  "With an 'm'?"

"Yes."

"O....kay"

I stare at the screen.

I clear my head.  I breathe deeply.   Moments pass.  "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...." 

"Are you meditating now?"

"Shhhhh!"

"Mmmmmmmmmmmm... HAH!"

"HAH?"

"Yes.  I've got this."  I begin to type.  Eight letters.

M. A. R. Z. I. P. A. N.

"You've named your computer after almond paste?"

"No I have named my computer after a pig."

"You know a pig named marzipan?"

"No.  But if I had a pig, I would name it Marzipan.  As it stands now, when I see the computer's name I will think of a small pig, possibly made out of marzipan, who, coincidentally, is also named Marzipan."

David opens his mouth and then closes it.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing.  I love you."

The Eggnog Equation

I recently  made the mistake of looking at the nutritional information on the President's Choice "World's Best" Eggnog.  1 cup = 290 calories.  290 CALORIES???  Without the rum??  Sure, on occasion, one might drink eggnog sans rum, but I don't.  Which means that I've gotta add that extra 72 calories for an ounce of rum.  So that puts the total up to... 362 calories... for a serving of eggnog. 

Just for comparison, I thought I'd look at the calories in Kawartha Dairy Eggnog - the best eggnog in the UNIVERSE.  I looked at the calorie count and got so excited!   ONLY 190 calories per serving!!!

I could have TWO servings and it'd only be... wait... just... a... second.  They say that 1 serving is 1/2 a  cup.  Who drinks 1/2 a cup of eggnog!?!  Who does that?  I know for sure that I don't.  No one I know drinks 1/2 a cup of freaking eggnog.  An actual realistic 1 cup human serving of the best eggnog in the universe would be 380 calories, PLUS rum.  452 calories.  That is not a snack's worth of calories.  That is a meal.  That is the caloric equivalent of a meal.  *bangs head on keyboard*

Eggnog.  Oh, eggnog, why?  WHY???   I have to find a way to have a satisfying amount of your eggy, creamy goodness without giving up one of my meals in a day...  Yes, sure I could drink the light eggnog *gag*, but really, what's the point?  

sigh

SHOTS!!!  EGGNOG SHOTS!!!  I pour out 1 oz of eggnog with a 1/4 ounce of rum, top 'em with a little shake of nutmeg and I do them as SHOTS!  I haven't done a shot of anything in probably a decade.  I could have 4 eggnog shots and it'd only be a snack!!  I bet even after two shots, the sense memory of slamming back a shot will have me saying, "Okay, whoa there Nellie... let's not get out of control here..."

I'm having them for breakfast this morning... You know, on account of the fact that there's a huge amount of protein in eggnog shots.  THIS.  This may be the best idea I've had EVER.  And I give it to you.  Share it freely with all those who worship at the altar of eggnog.  Merry Christmas!

Oh chocolate, thou Christmas strumpet!

Self-control, why hast thou forsaken  me?  I know that I shouldn't eat this shit.  I know that.  I'm a grown up, I've lived with my body for long enough to understand how it works.  So.....  

WHY
  CAN'T
   I   
STOP
   MYSELF??  

I'm going to hell.  It's the freaking holiday season, sending me headlong into the Hell of a Thousand Sugar Plum Comas.   Tonight's conveyance?  A box of Pot of Gold chocolates.  Sweet Jesus, the rum butter caramels and the mocha caramels and the almond caramels... You see a pattern developing here?

I was given free boxes of chocolates.  Yes, you read that right - boxes - plural.  You cannot say NO to free boxes of chocolate.  I defy even a diabetic, to say NO to receiving free chocolate.  Hell, if you can't eat them, you could at least watch someone else eat them. You know, vicarious-like.  Saying NO to boxes of chocolates is akin to turning away lottery winnings.   Have you ever heard someone say, "No thank you, I'd rather not have the 7.6 million - give it to that person over there..." ?  No, you have not.   At the very least, one accepts the lottery winnings before giving those winnings to charity.

Me?  I'm offered sinful confections and I respond thus,"FREE CHOCOLATES!?!  ALLLLL RIGHT!!!!"

And now I type this post high on sugar and chocolate.  Caramel is my Achilles Heel.  The feel of it, its sweetness on curve of my tongue - it undoes me.  You want to hobble me?  Throw a box of caramel chocolates in my path.  I'm high, with the added bonus of a sugar headache behind my eyes.  I am also consumed with guilt for eating 7 chocolates - on top of the 6 I had earlier.

Watch how Heather's blood sugar spikes then plummets - right about here on the chart.  Why does she do it, you ask?  Because once those pleasure sensors in her brain are activated, she will not be satisfied until all the caramel chocolates in her view have been consumed.  

Holiday chocolate bingeing brings on the holiday wrestling with one's inner bulimic.  I will not make myself throw up.  I will not make myself throw up.  I will not make myself throw up.  

Time to get Rissa to hide the other box before the cellophane is cracked.

Shoulders back.  Own this.  I apologize blood sugar - I fucked up.  I'll do better tomorrow.  

She loves me THIS much...

WARNING: This post might gross some readers out.

"Mummy, I've got something that you can pop on my back," says Rissa as she comes down the stairs.

I leap up from my chair.  "You do!?!"  This is groundbreaking.  Rissa rarely lets me anywhere close to Zit Country.  I can usually see it only from the highway, passing at 117 km/h.

"Yes.  BUT.  I have to ice it first to dull the pain."  She heads to the freezer.

"Well, yes, of course, you ice it..."  I try to act all nonchalant... I keep my hands demurely clasped in front of me.  I don't say, "Let me see, let me see, let me see!"

She presents her back, and pulls her cardigan to the side.

"Wow," I say.  Impressive.  It is an impressive zit.

"Wait.  JUST.  WAIT," says she.  She holds the ice cube to it - wincing.  "Okay, do your worst."  She turns her head to the side.

David comes around the corner.  "What's going on?"

"Rissa's letting me pop a zit!!!!"

"Really?"

"I can't reach it," says Rissa.

"Godspeed," says David.

"With great power comes great responsibility, With great power comes great responsibility," I chant silently to myself.  If this goes well... Dare I hope?

I squeeze the zit - a spectacular amount of guck comes out.   I do my best to internalize my 96% similarity to apes and do not whoop out loud.  "Ice it again."

"Again?"

"Again.  I want to make sure that I got it all."

She looks at me in horror.

I shrug apologetically.  "I know what I'm doing here.  Years.  Years of perfecting this."

She raises the ice cube again.

"Ready?"

"O....kay..."

I finish the job with finesse.  "Here.  Here is a Kleenex.  Apply pressure."

"Apply pressure?!?"

"Yeah.  Just so you don't get blood on your sweater."

"Blood on my..."

"Just do it."

"It still hurts."

"Medicine, in my side of the vanity.  Apply now and when you get back from school.  My job here is done."

I will wait until she's left for school before doing my Snoopy Dance.  Gross?  Most definitely.  Satisfying?  Words cannot express.

6 inches to sleep on...

“Do you have that little carpenter’s level handy?” I ask.

David looks over at me from his side of the bed.

“Because why?”

“Because I’m feeling pretty askew here,”  I say looking down at my torso.  My boobs are doing a great impersonation of a ship in distress – listing to the west.  “We have a divot in the bed.”

“I think you mean valley.  I don’t think there’s any sod that needs to be replaced from a bad golf swing.”

“Valley then.  Our bed has a valley.  See?”  I prop myself up on my side and immediately roll to the middle of the bed.  “It’s fine when I’m flat on my back, my tatas are equalized, but if I try to go on my side…”  I demonstrate a second time, rolling into David.

“That’s why,” he says - a light dawning.  “That is why, by the end of the night, I wind up with 6 inches to sleep on.”

"That's what she said."

"BAH!"

“I’m  not doing it on purpose,” I say.  “Divot.”

“Valley.”

“Whatever.”

Is it wrong to do this with my husband beside me?

I'm holding my hands to my face to hide my blushing cheeks.  David shakes his head at me. 

"You are ridiculous."

"I can't help it."

We're watching The Good Wife.  Finn Polmar has just flirted with Alicia Florrick.  I feel it would be bad form to beg to rewind the scene... right away...  with David beside me.  I'll wait until the episode is over.

I'm such a cheap turn on.   I remember way back, watching Chocolat on VHS, listening to Johnny Depp say, "I'll come round some time and get that squeak out of your door."  The look on his face as he watches Juliette Binoche walk away?  I almost broke the tape rewinding it. So much better than porn. 

 ( 1:50 is where I lost my mind.)

Then there's the film version of Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightly and Matthew Macfadyen where Mr. Darcy helps Elizabeth into a carriage and then there's a close up of his fingers... and he FLEXES them.... because he's so affected by just TOUCHING her!!!   Those 5 seconds make me hyperventilate. 

And before the Colin Firth fans get their knickers in a twist... yes, the pond scene in the Pride and Prejudice miniseries...  That's just a given.  The whole series, for that matter, acts as foreplay.  6 hours of Austen foreplay is always better than 2 hours and 9 minutes.  David is guaranteed sex after I've watched anything Austen.

Back in the present, Rissa comes in to say that she's going to bed.

"WAIT!!  Watch this with me!"

David rolls his eyes and leaves the room.

I sit on the edge of my seat as Rissa first watches the inital scene with Alicia and Finn when they make the rules about what sort of interaction they should have, and then, despite their best efforts, they end up at the diner on a date-date and he says "I can't say anything...." and does this shruggy-glancy thing.

"Do you SEE?!?"

Rissa looks at me like I'm nuts.

"I think I need more context."

As I ready myself for bed, I finally understand why the fan videos pop up.  I want to have every interaction that Alicia and Finn have ever had and edit them all together so that I can get a hit whenever I need it.

And, if I want to wallow, nay revel, in masculine edibles,  I can fantasize about the other men on the show, 'cause it's not just Matthew Goode this season.  Taye Diggs has been added to the firm, plus there's  campaign manager, Stephen Pasquale - and let us not forget Matt Czuchry as Cary Agos - who, I'm sure would never be able carry me Rhett Butler style up a ginormous staircase, but still has a voice that sounds like he's talking dirty all the time.

"You're fantasizing about them right now, aren't you?"  asks David.

I find myself startled. "Well, I mean... COME ON... I could have Finn, Dean and Johnny all... um... massaging me, with Cary whispering dirty nothings in my ear the whole time."

"You know some men might be worried about their wives showing such preference for fictitious characters."

"I have no problem if you imagine Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Kirsten Dunst and Emma Stone all together." I pause.  "Wait, give me a sec... that would probably work for me too."

And it only cost us $56.48!!!

"OH MY GOD,"  says David.

"G'aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh..." say I.

"It's SOOOOO good...."

"Mmmmmmm.... hmmmmmmm," I sigh.

I move my legs.  It is delicious.

David gives a decidedly dirty chortle. 

"We need to do this more often."

"We are in complete agreement my love."

David makes the same noises he makes when he has his favourite hot chocolate.  "Is it warm enough for you?"

"Yes."

"That's all it takes - just that little bit of heat."

"Yes."

Our hips bump.  We sigh again.  Bliss... unadulterated bliss.

"How much did it cost?" David asks as he rolls us over.

$49.99 + tax."

"So worth it." 

"I'm putting it in as a budget line for next year."

"I love that you think ahead." 

"That's only $4.71 a month...  $1 and change a week.... For all..."  I rub against him.  "Of..."  I kiss him.  "This."  Our hips tremble.

Flannel Sheets from Sears.  For an added thrill - place them over top of a heated mattress pad.  You won't regret it. 

Dangerous: Unmaintained Road

"Wait!  What did that sign just say?" Rissa asks as we careen around a corner as the rough gravel road turns even rougher, then strangely becomes less gravelly and more made of dirt and grass with a light covering of snow.

"Dangerous: Unmaintained Road."

"What?!?"

"Use at your own risk."

"WHAT?!?"

"It's a short cut."

"We're trusting the GPS?!?"

(In the past, the GPS had been known to lead us slightly astray.  I particularly enjoyed a winter's trip to pick Rissa up from a sleepover after a heavy snowfall.  Following our trusty GPS, I noticed the road getting narrower and narrower and, as I drove up a one-lane road, praying to reach the top of a hill, I suddenly realized that the emergency kit was not in the car, nor did I have proper winter boots on, nor did I have a cell phone... and the sun was setting.)

"No worries," says David as we hit another bump.  "It's all good."

We are parallel-ish to the 401.  We'd veered off the 401 because it'd taken us an hour to go 17 km from Belleville to Trenton.  This detour was saving us from an evening of highway entrapment.

Rissa doesn't like bumpy roads at the best of times.  Me?  A good windy, gravelly road is the next best thing to a roller coaster.

"We're all going to die," wails Rissa from the back seat.  "We're aaaaaaaaalllll going to die!!"

"Wheeeeeeeeee!!!" I say, hands up in the air.

"Sit in the middle seat and look at the road," suggests David.

"What road?!?  There is no road!"

"It's an adventure!!!"

"I will have trauma after this ride!"

"You will have a story to tell!!"

"I will have a story to tell... of my TRAUMA!!!"

"Guys!  Guys!!!  I recognize this road!  I recognize this road!!!"  We take the bridge back over the 401.  Kilometres of red tail-lights illuminate the night sky.

"See?  Success!  We would have been stuck in this!  Victorious!!  We are VICTORIOUS!!!"  I then sing a little of the Adventureland Theme Song.

"Yay...." says Rissa weakly from the backseat.

I now understand the zip-up, floral, velour nightie/housecoat/muumuu...

You see them in the lingerie departments of the Bay. You see them in the Sears catalogue. You have memories of your Gran or your Great-Gran wearing one. You think to yourself: I will never wear one of those. 

I'm shopping for one.

I used to sleep naked. I used to revel in my naked slumber. Since the night sweats began, nakedness is not an option. I'm the peri-menopausal Karate Kid.

Blankets ON!  

Blankets OFF!

Blankets on one leg and half your torso!

Blankets OFF!

Blankets on your legs!

Blankets on your torso!  

Blankets OFF!!!

In between fits of thermo-nuclear heat - you get chilled. Your teeth chatter as your sweat cools.

The other night I was in my striped, zip-up onesie. Night sweats came and I UN-ZIPPED. No hems to raise or lower - no pajama tops to tear off, then hunt for on the floor when I got cold. Getting my arms out of the fairly snug onesie did rouse me a bit from sleep, but the zipper - that zipper - EPIPHANIC!!!

This is why older women wear the zip-up nighties/housecoats/muumuus! The zipper is key!! No buttons, no hems, no snaps that you then have to struggle to re-snap after a hot flash!!!  t's all about the zipper!!! You're hot? You unzip!! You're really hot?  You unzip and take your arms out!!! It's perfect. 

SUMMER

WINTER
1 & 2 would be full-length but could zip off the bottoms

I propose going that one step further. Muumuu-sized onesies with a little more give in the arm/shoulder area. Focusing on the on/off functionality would give you the freedom to extract yourself from any arm covering. 

Gen X updated maternity wear - making it fun and sexy.  Now we will conquer night sweat attire.  I'll start a design collective with other like minded night sweat sufferers! 

This is NOT your Grandmother's loungewear! The NÜÜNÜÜ!!!!! (a modern take on a onesie/muumuu). The ADAPTAN!!! (a caftan suited to everyone's needs). The ZIPSIE! (a zip-up nightie featuring zippers in the armpits, legs, crotch and chest area!)

The countertop is my nemesis...

Rage, all-encompassing RAGE.  Because why?  Because David left the peanut butter and honey out on the countertop.

All-encompassing rage with a side of dockworker swearing.  Because why?  Because there are crumbs on the countertop.

All-encompassing rage and swearing with a side of growling and hiccuping sobs. Because why?  Because there are not one, not two, but three broken bread tags on the countertop.

Common denominator?  The countertop.  When pristine, its 4" x 4" tiled surface is charming, and cottage-y.  Problem is, it's never pristine.  When we bought the house the grout was already stained.  The kind of stained that make you think that you might develop dysentery by wiping it. 

We don't have the budget to replace it.  And because I seem to be the only person in the house to actually wipe it - the countertop has become my nemesis.

Quick!  TO GOOGLE!!  "Stained grout."  Huzzah!!  There is grout paint!  The local hardware store carries it!!  I buy it.  I paint the grout.  TA-DAH!!!  New countertop!!

Until I try to wipe the grout the first time.  Until I need to scrub the grout to get all the bits of things that wind up in the grout, NOT on the tile.  EVERYTHING winds up in the grout.  David spilled our tin of dill weed.  I anticipate cleaning up dill for the next 4 years.  I need a special grout vacuum.  I need one of those wee little sucking vacuums that you can use for the crumbs in your keyboard.

I try to remain calm when it's time to wipe down the counters every night.  I approach it with quietly, cloth down by my side so that I don't startle it.  I hum gently to myself.

Wipe.  SIGH.
Wipe.   For the love of...
Wipe.  You YELLOW RAT BASTARD OF A COUNTERTOP!!!!

My parents just replaced their laminate countertops with a Corian solid surface countertop.  It was like seeing Shangri-La for the first time. 

I laid my head on the counter.  "It's so smooth!!!!"  I crawled up on the counter and lay there, my cheek against its cool surface, my hands caressing its non-grouted top.  "Soooooo smooooooth...." I might have wept a little.  Right there I then I decided to put money aside every month to able to afford a countertop such as theirs.  It might take years, but it will happen.

Next stop, the SEX OLYMPICS!!!

I always had a sneaking suspicion that I'd go crazy - I just didn't know that it would hit me quite this young.  I am 46 years old and my mind has already begun the descent into madness.  Not only that -  I'm watching it board the CRAZY TRAIN, don Groucho Marx glasses (with nose) and wave at me mockingly from the window.

It's because of sex.  I'm thinking about sex almost all the time.  Because why?  Because Rissa has had a boyfriend for almost three years, who now lives in the same town and walks her home everyday after school. We love him, he's a great boy, and he obviously adores her (hence the walking her home everyday), but he's still a boy who wants to touch my daughter's boobs.  This notion of someone wanting to grope my daughter, has made me fucking mental. 

Rissa and I were doing bedtime, chatting and laughing, with the added delight of a small tickle fight, and I accidentally copped a feel.

"Sorry!  Sorry!  Not cool for your Mom to cop a feel."

"It's okay Mummy.  It's not like you were squeezing them."

And then the thought hit me.  "Has...the boyfriend done any...?"

And then... she shrugged.  That's all it took.  A shrug.  Letting me know that the boyfriend had already copped a feel.

"Oh God!  OH GOD!  Above the waist!!  He can touch you anywhere ABOVE THE WAIST!!  PLEASE, KEEP IT ALL ABOVE THE WAIST!!!"

This is when David yelled from downstairs "Everything okay up there?"

"Mummy's gone crazy."

You know how Inception is all about creating an idea in someone else's mind?  That planted idea takes hold so strongly that it cannot be unrooted.  The idea of the boyfriend having sex with my daughter has undone me.  No longer am I the cool, collected, unflappable, unembarrassable mother.  Now conversations with her about sex have me imagining the boyfriend having sex with her - ALL THE TIME.

David's attempt at pragmatism: "Well there are worse things than having her first time be with someone who so obviously adores her."

"SHE IS FOURTEEN!!!!"

When they study after school, I see his hand on her knee and in my twisted mind, it's one short step from that relatively innocent affection to her entering the Sex Olympics.  (face palm) And when your daughter's made it to the Olympics you want to be all supportive and thrilled with her performance,

"Great job honey!!  Great job!!  That double-twisting somersault mount was AMAZING!!"

but it's THE SEX OLYMPICS!!!! (head banging on table) 

I have layered scarring on my tongue from biting it so hard.  She knows.  I know she knows.  She's not dumb.  But I also remember what it's like to get caught up in a moment and get all tingly and squishy inside.  And the next thing you know - BAM! - hymen-less.

So here's what I've come up with:  I try not to harrangue her every single minute of the day, and she has a prescription for the pill.  I have told her that this prescription is not tacit permission.  I have told her that I still believe she should wait until she's older - much, MUCH, older... but I'm not an idiot - she's in a long-standing relationship with a boy and I remember what I was doing at her age with boys who weren't my long-standing boyfriend. I frequently share the fact that, at 16, I was not emotionally ready for sex.  I share the fact that I had a terrifying almost pregnancy at 16, and did not practice safe sex when I was young.  I tell her it was by the grace of divine intervention that I didn't end up pregnant, with and STD and HIV.  During my Tourette's moments I might yell out the words VAGINAL WARTS now and again.

I didn't think this would be me.  I thought I'd be even-tempered and intellectual about it all.  I thought my usually brash nature would take over and allow me a measure of laid-backness to my daughter's maturity.

"I'll take Illogical Suppositions for $1000 Alex..."

I didn't account for the Mom Factor.  The very thought of my baby having sex makes me hyperventillate.  My massage therapist came up with a great idea.  We start a parents' group.  It would be a rotation system - we would all talk to other people's teenagers about sex.  Teenagers, with whom we don't share DNA.  Teenagers with whom we don't have a huge emotional connection.  Without the Wonder Years' esque remembrances of the day they were born,  how their teddy bear got its name, or their first day of school, it will be so much easier to talk freely about chlamydia and the fact that oral sex should be an equal opportunity sexual act.

I'm starting a sign up sheet for NOT YOUR MOM'S SEX TALK - who's in?  Until we really get going, I'm handing out these pins.

This brassiere will self-destruct in 10 seconds...

Lifting the straps wasn't helping. Why not?   Lifting the straps always helps.  The band just seems to... What the?  I'm in the office bathroom.  I lift my shirt and present my back to the mirror.  The whole left side of the brassiere band is... torn??  How much pressure are my tatas putting on this brassiere?

I'd noticed the week before that the double-sided fusing tape that sticks the front and the back of the band together was a little more visible - that it was hanging around under my armpits - looking a little worse for the wear, but it's a freaking brassiere!  Sure they get dingy, the cups and band might get loose, under wire might start to poke you, but this brassiere was BROKEN.

It must be these newfangled, wide, comfort bands that they're throwing on all these brassieres.  Well, all the brassieres for the women in their 40s, who want to mask the back pudge and armpit pudge, while still lifting the girls to parallel from the ground.  Nice soft, extra wide, malleable, elastic-y, tuck in your extra flesh, comfort bands that are all the afore-mentioned adjectives, but really don't lift and separate all that much.

In all my 46 years on this planet, I have never had a brassiere break on me before. For the price you're shelling out for the really well-made ones, I feel that brassieres are supposed to last... indefinitely. 

Okay, I just Googled it.  It is recommended that you replace your bra every 6-9 months.  HAH!  Show of hands... who replaces their brassiere every 6-9 months? I just asked around the office - apparently they do.  But I work in an office of mature, well-put together women.  Crap, now I have to research.  Apparently I should have 3-5 everyday bras in rotation and I should never wash them in the washing machine or put them in the dryer.  Who has the time to hand-wash delicates??  I don't put mine in the dryer, but they do go in the washing machine in a delicates bag.  Also, word to the wise, if you have a larger cup-size, your bra won't last as long either.  Excellent, I am now being punished for having a D cup.

So let's just do the math.  3-5 bras, at an average cost of $45 each (not the Victoria's Secret 2 for 1 deals, but not the chichi, made in France, $175 ones either) ... So... $180 (ish) every 6-9 months?  That's $360 a year. PLUS TAX.  That's $406 a year.  Really?  What woman does that?  I now have to start a savings account to pay for brassieres.  My $1.11 a day for support account.

I look into my bra drawer and I have bras that are,  Sweet Jesus, there are some in there that are over 20 years old.  That can't be right.  Yes, many of them are the 10-seconds-to-naked bras - for show and nothing more, it's probably due to their age that these items look better when one is horizontal rather than vertical.

"Hi there sailor... ready to come in to pier?" 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2... and... NAKED.

My Mom just bought me a fancy schmancy strapless bra this past summer. The support it offers is EPIC.  I can jog in this strapless brassiere, not one word of a lie.  Mind you, its massive molded cups make me look like a G cup instead of a D.  Rissa saw it and decided to wear one cup as a helmet.  Not a wonder that when I'm wearing this bra under men will almost have a brain aneurysm trying to meet my gaze.

I can't put it off any longer.  I have to go bra shopping this weekend.  I'm years behind in bra purchases.  I'll simply block off three to five hours on Saturday and try on everything in my size range.  My change room will be a revolving door of decolletage.  I can do this.  I can invest this time in better breast support.  It could be much worse, I could need a new swimsuit.

Do you type to your Grandma with those fingers?

I've got a job for all the socially-conscious hacktivists out there.  Join together you cyber Robin Hoods - join forces and find the anonymous trolls who spread their bile throughout the Interwebs.  Identify these trolls, procure evidence of their gross violations of common civility and then give transcripts of those violations to the trolls' Grandmothers.

Public shaming on a social network scale doesn't work for these folks - they get off on flaming things up in the comments sections of newspapers, blogs and twitter feeds.  You need to bring in the big guns for these people.

Post something mean to another kid at school?  Get a call from your Nonna.

Post something racist? Dinner across the table from you Grandma.

Joke about gay-bashing or slut-shaming?  Wake up to your Granny at your door.

Threaten to rape, assault, murder someone...?  Not only will the Cyber Robin Hoods give the transcripts to the police, but they'll tell your Mee-Maw. 

Reading "SHAME ON YOU!!!" from the masses won't faze them, but I can bet that having the person whose good opinion means the most to them in the world - be it a parent, grandparent, favourite aunt, uncle,  mentor?  Having that person shame a troll?  I bet that'd stick.  I bet having to look your Nana  in the eye and explain to her why you've called someone a dirty whore and hope they were hate fucked would bring your shame to a whole different level.  Modern shame isn't working - we need Old School for this.

I thought we were past the baby gate stage...

We watch as he makes a beeline for the living room.  "Bodhi??  Where you going, buddy?"  He doesn't even acknowledge us.  He takes his 100 lb bulk and climbs up into the Lazy Boy, squeezing his hairiness between the arms of the chair - legs splayed - head over the side.

"Bodhi.  Dude.  You don't belong on there.  DOWN."

His eyebrows droop before he slides dejectedly off the Lazy Boy.  He immediately moves towards the sofa.  "No.  Bodhi, NO."  Head down, he moves past us towards the kitchen/family area.  I beat him to the punch, going the other way around the stairs and place a kitchen chair on its side on top of the family room sofa.  "Dude.  Seriously.  No couches.  No.  You shed too much."

He sighs, cocks his head to one side, and gives us the eyes... you know the ones... the "how could you do this to me, aren't I the most adorable thing you've ever seen in your life, why are you punishing me when I am so new to your home?" eyes.

"Stand your ground," I warn David.  "Don't let him play you.  We have to be a united front."

"I'm thinking this is a losing battle."

"Everything is going to smell of dog."

"Well, he is, in fact... a dog."

"Yes, but the furniture isn't.  Find the baby gate."

Thankfully, we've just emptied the storage locker and have yet to move its contents into our... I was going to call it a basement, but crawlspace/cellar is more accurate - it has an egress door and a dirt/gravel floor.  Two baby gates lean against the wall of the living room - we haven't had to use them in years.  We wrestle with the old-fashioned wooden gate.

The doorways in our new house aren't the same width as our old house.  The original markings that we'd left with Sharpie on the gate are now completely wrong.  It takes us about 6 tries before we get the geometry right.  The gate now blocks the path to the living room.  Bodhi stares at the gate and huffs at us.

"Sorry dude."

He walks away.  He goes over to his food bowl and stands there... crestfallen.  He glances sidelong at us, using his peripherals - I guess he's trying to figure out if we're going to steal his food now too.  He sighs again and slowly sinks to the floor, lying with his head on the rim of his food bowl, but not eating.  He just lies there.  His eyes cut to us and then back to the bowl.  He takes one piece of kibble and begins to chew.  As he finishes the piece, he glances over at us again.  He's holding his breath.  We're holding ours. 

David raises his eyebrows questioningly.  I shrug.  He motions over to Bodhi with his chin.  I shrug again.

"Have you ever seen a dog do this?" he whispers.

"No," I whisper back. "I think maybe his old cat used to stalk him while he was eating."

"Ahhhhh..."

We sit on the bottom stair, silently watching as Bodhi eats with the daintiness of a 18th century debutante.  He finishes and looks back at us... wags his tail.

A week and a half in... I'm totally going to cave.  I might as well start shopping now for possible quilts we can use to cover the family room sofa. 

p.s.  There IS a dog bed, bought - BRAND NEW - the day he arrived.  It sits on the floor beside the family room sofa - his disinterest is EPIC.