My daughter is insane.

From MotivatedPhotos.com

No seriously.  She really is.  It hits her at bedtime.  She loses her mind.  But only with me.  Not with David.  She retains sanity for her father, and abandons it ALL for me.  ALL OF IT.

Tonight, as I was lying beside her with my book at 9:45 p.m., she would NOT stop talking. She rolled next to me so that we were shoulder to shoulder and looked over at me with her hazel eyes.

"Which movie is Death in?"

Yes folks - this is what goes on when she should already be asleep!   I am merely a passenger on the Rissa Ride of Insanity.  What's scary though, is that I know EXACTLY what she's talking about.  I immediately thought of the Seventh Seal, but Rissa doesn't know about the Seventh Seal, but she does know about...

"The second movie.  Bill and Ted's..."

"Bogus Journey!!! You see?  You see Mummy?  We are like..." she make a motion between her forehead and mine with her fingers...  "It's like we read each other's minds!!!"

"Go to sleep."

***

"Guess what I'm doing right now!"

 I look over at her, she's moving up and down a bit.  "Are you clenching your butt?"

"I AM!"   She moves up and down and is moving her arms in a half curl.  "What am I doing now?"

"Going to sleep?"

"Yes, but I am ALSO clenching my butt and lifting weights!"  She accompanies this with grimaces as if she might possibly be in contention for an Olympic medal in weight-lifting.

***

"Aren't you going to snuggle with me?"

"I am snuggling."

"No, you're not, you're reading."

She moves my left arm so that she can plop her head down on my chest.  Her nose is close to my armpit.

"Your armpits smell SO good!  How can they smell this good?"

"You need to stop talking and go to sleep."

"I am sleeping."

"So this is just talking in your sleep?"

"Exactly."

"Go to sleep."

"I am asleep."

"Stop talking."

"I have stopped."

"Rissa, do I need to smother you with a pillow?"

"Don't smother me with a pillow!"

"I will if you don't stop talking."

***

I look over at Rissa.  She is stuck to me like glue - all I see are her eyes above my bicep.

"Your boobs look really big in this dress!"

"Do you need attention?"

"YES.  PLEASE!!! PLEASE GIVE ME ATTENTION!!!"  She waggles her eyebrows at me in supplication.

"You are a goof."

***

"Can I just say one last thing?"

I give her a look of disbelief.

"Okay, it might not be last thing, but I'll really try."

"Okay.  One last thing then you must GO. TO. SLEEP."

"So you remember how Julia was in my room for acro at the dance camp?"

"Yes."

"So Julia didn't want to do log rolls down the cheese."

"O...kay."

"So we made a deal and I said to Julia, 'Julia if I go down the cheese then you can go down the cheese too, okay?'  And she said, 'Okay.'   So then I went down the cheese and when I finished I said, 'Okay Julia, it's now your turn.'  'I don't want to go down the cheese.'  'But Julia, you said that you would do it.'

At this point Rissa touches her forehead to mine and gives me a meaningful just-wait for it look.
"And then Mummy, Julia said,  'I LIED.'  Isn't that awesome??"

Ladies and Germs, a Gymnastics Cheese Mat - clear now?

***

"You're kissing me right?"

"Only if you're going to sleep."

She purses her lips into an ape-like kissy face that touches her top lip to her nose.  I kiss her on her lips, give her butterfly kisses with my eyes to hers and the we touch noses.

"Night-Night.  Sleep Tight.  Good-Night."

"Night-Night.  Sleep Tight.  Good-Night."

Then Rissa makes a pig snorting sound, accompanied by the raising of a fist in an 'up yours' gesture.  I return it.

"Mummy I love you."

"I love you too."

Picasso... Schmicasso

So... Picasso...  I've now been up close and personal to some of his greatest works at the AGO exhibit.   I can now say with some knowledge - "His Rose Period is my favourite period." 

Boy With a Pipe 1905

Picasso's rose period was 1904-1906 (ish),  in case you too, wanted to pretend you have knowledge of Picasso's periods.  Okay, that just made me smirk.  I am an infant.  The painting above is Boy With a Pipe which wasn't in the exhibit (posters were in the gift shop though) and THIS painting, I adore. At this exhibit, I also discovered that Picasso was this amazing sculptor.  WHO KNEW?!?  Well, I'm sure lots of people knew, but I didn't until I saw his Jester,

The Jester, 1905 (note that it's also in the Rose Period)

and there was this INCREDIBLE Woman's Head.  Not that she was a super-hero called the INCREDIBLE WOMAN or anything, but this sculpture was amazing in person!

Head of a Woman (1909 early cubism)

PLUS, later in his career he did weird-ass shit!  This might possibly have been my favourite! 

Man with Sheep, 1943

Although this one would come a really close second.  The hip bones, the udders... so much to love there!

Goat, 1950

I also saw the below piece, The Acrobat, which made my ovaries hurt.  It made me wiggy.  If it had any colour I could admire, I might have been able to stand it, but because there's no torso and the joints don't make sense...  I mean look at it - there's an ass made out of an arm and a leg.  It creeped me out.  I actually felt nauseated in front of it.  My friend Jon took glee in keeping me in front of it as long as possible.

The Acrobat, 1930

There were really only a couple of his cubist paintings that I liked.  These were the ones where the women actually had some expression to them.  These were the ones that weren't all boobs and crazy eyes and half-severed women bent in half.  Generally, he painted his lovers/wives - of which he had MANY.  Wait, that sounds a bit harsh.  Let me temper that.  To my knowledge, he wasn't a bigamist - I mean the guy wasn't living in Utah or anything.  He just slept with a LOT of women.  There are 8 major relationships, with possibly dozens or hundreds more.  The dude dug the ladies.

While with Eva Gouel (who was succumbing to either cancer or TB), Picasso had an affair with Gaby Lespinasse.  While married to Olga Khoklova he had an affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter.  He had an affair with famed photographer Dora Maar (see below), while involved with Marie-Thérèse Walter.

Dora Maar, 1937

While with Dora Maar - he stepped out with Francoise Gilot - who left him, frustrated by his inability to keep it in his pants - you'd figure by this time, his penchant for the female form would have been well-known.  He'd been sleeping with Genevieve Laporte at the same time he was with Gilot.   Laporte  left him shortly after Gilot did.

The painting below was of his second wife, Jacqueline whom he met in 1953 after having been abandoned by the only women (apparently) who were smart enough to move on with their own lives.

Jacqueline with Crossed Hands, 1954

(Perhaps I'm editorializing, but come on ladies!  Really?  You think he's ever going to change?  REALLY? I  mean REALLY!?! ) He was with Jacqueline for 20 years and painted her more than any other woman.  The representations of Jacqueline have personality and depth that other later paintings don't seem to have. It became clear that, in general, I ain't a big fan of his later stuff.  Hence my attachment to the Rose Period.  The other cubist stuff was mostly in uniform shadow-box frames with glass over top of them and they had no depth - you couldn't see the brush strokes.

Which is probably why I dug the sculptures, because you could see the depth and dimension to them.  Very, very cool to discover that I'm a big fan of Picasso - the sculptor.  PLUS -  I can now speak with intelligence about The Rose Period.  BOO YEAH!

Olympic Porn

When planning your viewing of the 2012 Olympics - you have to be wily.  You want to be able to speak with authority about the big picture.  "Did you catch Branagh at the Opening Ceremonies??  Nice Caliban cover, huh?  How about that Mike Oldfield?"

I will freely admit that my favourite part of the Opening Ceremonies had to be the video segment when Daniel Craig went to Buckingham Palace and they made it look as if the Queen was actually parachuting into the stadium.  Let it not be said that Liz doesn't have a sense of humour.

The Olympics offers you a veritable feast of weird and wonderful sports that no-one would ever watch apart from once every 4 years.  (Well, really, once every 2 years, now that they've staggered the winter and summer Olympics.)  There are so many events out there, that you don't want to laden yourself with those that are too time-consuming with little punch or pizazz.  You've got 36 large events (according to the official site) - with some of those larger categories sub-divided into as many as 48 other events, in say Athletics.  And what do people usually talk about, when it's all said and done?  The Men's 100 metre.

I like to plan my viewing based on a very specific athletic criteria: which events show well-toned men in next to no clothing.  My go-to events are swimming and diving.   One might think that men's beach volleyball would be up there as well, but as I realized yesterday morning, when I tried to watch a game - they make the men wear shirts!  Sure, the women are in what amounts to a sports bra and panties, but the men are in modest shorts and loose tank tops.  Here I was hoping for a flashback to the volleyball scene from Top Gun.  Ladies and gay men, if I can get you to reminisce with me for a moment.  Two words: Rick Rossovich.  I was 18, he was pretty much male perfection.

Rick Rossovich as "Slider" in Top Gun 1986

Plus there's that double high-five slap thingie that Maverick and Goose share.  THAT is men's beach volleyball in all its homoerotic glory.  But nope - not at these Olympics! 

"I am totally being gypped!" I complain to David.
"How so?"
"They are wearing shirts!!  What's the fun in that?  Men can ogle any number of the female beach volleyball players!  And I'm stuck with over-sized tank tops!!"  I snort.
"Do you want me to find you some swimming?" David asks helpfully.
"Yes please."
My husband is a god among men.

 And then I discover...  Ryan Lochte...   To quote Farmer Hoggett: "That'll do Pig.   That'll do."

See?  Swimmers have muscle but not too MUCH muscle.

The guy looks like a model... wait a second - he actually IS a model.  Fair enough.  I mean, sure, why not share that physique with the world and make money off it?  Plus, I heard him in an interview and he used an adverb!  Correctly.  (sigh)

Okay, I'll be honest ...  That's not really my criteria for which sports I watch - it's just that peri-menopause brings out the hormones in a gal and when fast forwarding through the day's events, I might get sidetracked by the men who look like they have a lot of sperm.

My sports are gymnastics and diving.  I used to do both.  Not particularly well, but I did them.  I could do a back walkover on the beam, handsprings on floor - could do reverse and inward dives.  Today, I had a major "Mother Bear" moment while I was watching an Egyptian gymnast - Sherine El-Zein.  This girl had braces on both wrists, both ankles, one knee bandaged and one thigh bandaged - which begs the question - what the hell was she doing competing at all??  I watched as she stumbled at the end of her first tumbling pass and then as she fell on her second one, probably having torn something underneath one of those many braces or bandages.  She saluted the judges and bowed out of the event.  This poor girl, devastated and in pain, was unable to get off the floor on her own steam and there I am, yelling at the TV:

"Where is her coach?!?  Where the HELL is her coach??" 

If I could have teleported to London and run to her myself - gathering her in my arms, I would have.  This poor kid.  Her Olympic dreams shattered and it was a good 45 seconds before her coach just sort of saunters over to her.  If I ever see this man, I mean EVER - I'm going to punch him in the face and say, "That's for Sherine you lazy coaching bastard!!"   Sure I might not be as proactive for myself, but put a young woman in harm's way - WATCH OUT!!

They killed Cameron!

This week I had a disproportionate emotional response to televised stimuli.  I watched Bunheads.  First off, I had been under the impression that the show was reality tv aimed at the ballerina set. Rissa is a bit of a dance fiend herself, so we PVR'd it and sat down to watch it together. Imagine my unexpected thrill when I discovered that it was not reality tv, but that Broadway star Sutton Foster (be still my theatre geek heart!) was the lead, and it was created by Amy Sherman-Palladino with her delicious brand of sarcastic banter - making me laugh out loud. What happened after the first episode was unforeseen.  (If you don't have a lot of time to read, skip down to the Spoiler Alert part.)

I'll catch you up.  Sutton Foster's character, Michelle, is a discouraged Vegas showgirl who has been wooed for the past year by Alan Ruck's geekily-adorable shoe salesman character, Hubbell.  

After finally accepting a night out with Hubbell,  Michelle gets more than a little tipsy and decides to accept Hubbell's impromptu marriage proposal and heads back to his sleepy California coastal town.  There she finds out that he still lives with his mother, Fanny, who also happens to be a dance teacher - with a studio in the back yard, and that the entire town is shocked that Hubbell has married a showgirl/stripper/pole dancer.  With me so far?  Naturally, there's conflict  between Michelle and her mother-in-law and throw in, just for kicks, Hubbell's ditzy and sweet ex-girlfriend - but Hubbell is determined to let Michelle know his feelings and says to her in a moment of privacy:

“I know you don’t love me. I’m not an idiot. But I don’t believe you’re not made that way … you wanna love, you just haven’t found the right person yet. Maybe you don’t trust that anybody’s gonna understand you. But I do. I know exactly what you want. You want to laugh, and you want to travel, and you want to be surprised, and challenged. You want to live an unexpected life. And I intend you give you exactly that.” 

After this speech, of course they have great marital consummation sex and the future seems filled with hope and possibility for our wayward heroine.  Then there's a bit of showdown between Michelle and Fanny, where there's a lot of yelling and storming out of the premises.  (Hubbell tells his mother and the whole town that Michelle is his wife and that they'd better do right by her because he loves her.)  Michelle finds her way to Fanny's dance studio, and choreographs Fanny's students in a "Let's get you prepared for an audition" spontaneous dance routine, which of course Fanny witnesses from a doorway, and then Fanny whisks our heroine away to a bar and an uneasy friendship begins between Michelle and her mother-in-law where they have their own spontaneous dance number together.  Just as everything seems to be wrapping up all tickety-boo, they find out that Hubbell has been in a car accident looking for them.  Episode 1 ends.

....SPOILER ALERT!!!!...

They fucking killed off Alan Ruck's character, Hubbell!  The killed him. He is DEAD.  Charming, sweet - and apparently good in the sack, no less - Hubbell is now DEAD.  Alan Ruck is DEAD.  They killed off Cameron!!!   (Please view above video to remind yourself of Alan Ruck as Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  Really look.  LOOK at him.)

I was okay at the beginning of the episode.  It was well-written and quirky, as Fanny tries to subvert her grief through memorial service planning, but as the episode progressed, I began to LOSE it.  

Really a lot.   

Especially around the actual memorial service part.  I started crying and couldn't stop.  Gut-wrenching sobs.  Multiple Kleenexes.  Rissa looking at me like I'd lost my mind.  It wrecked me - absolutely WRECKED me that Michelle wasn't going to have the possibility of happiness with Hubbell - this charming, lovely man.  No she didn't love him, not right then, but she COULD.   Except she couldn't, because he was now DEAD.

Hiccuping sobs.  I felt nauseated. My angina kicked in.

"Mummy, it's okay.  It's not real," said Rissa patting me gently.

"They killed Cameron!" I wailed.

"Mummy it's just a show," she said.

"But, they KILLED Cameron!!"

"He's not Cameron Mummy, he was Hubbell."

"But they still killed him!"

More wailing, and I think maybe even some gnashing of teeth.  My chest was killing me.  I ran to the alcohol cupboard in our butler's pantry.  I grabbed the rye.

"Don't do this," I said to Rissa as I poured myself a shot, still sobbing madly.  "You should not relieve your stress by (I take my shot) taking a shot of rye."  (A shot of alcohol usually helps the angina.  I could take my nitro spray, but although that takes the pain away, my heart then races madly and the sensation is more than a little disquieting in itself.  I am NOT recommending a shot of rye for everyone with angina - this was a unique situation and it works for me in a pinch.)

"Okay Mummy."  Rissa tried her very best not to laugh at me.  "Come on.  Let's go upstairs and snuggle."

"Okay," I said, still sniffling.  But the emotional pain is still whacking me over the head.  Really hard.  What the hell was going on here?

Rissa lead me upstairs and we settled into the big bed - my bed.  She handed me Kleenexes.

"You know, we never really saw the body of Hubbell, Mummy.  Maybe his ex-girlfriend just kidnapped him and is holding him someplace," Rissa said.

This is how messed up I am.  I actually perked up at the notion.  Maybe Cameron WASN'T dead.  Maybe he was just being held by some psychopath in an undisclosed location, a la Stephen King's Misery.   But then I started crying again.  

"No, they killed him.  They killed him to give her EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE!!!"

Then David came home.  I tried to recount the story to him - he did his best to follow, but I could see him exchanging  She's-having-a-moment looks with Rissa.  I imagined he must be trying to picture the kitchen calendar in his head to see if my PMS should be kicking in yet.  (It shouldn't - I just HAD my freaking period!!)

"I don't know why this is affecting me so much," I sobbed.  "It's just that he was so sweet.  So nice to her.  They had the possibility of a wonderful future and now... (sob, sob) it's GONE!!!"

"Hey," he said.  "Hey.  It's okay.  It's okay."  He leaned over me in bed, kissed me.

I continued to cry. Really hard.

"Heather!"  He held my face.  "Look at me!  Look... at... me..."

I looked up at him.

"It's okay," he said.  "I'm here."

"Yes, but Cameron's NOT!!!!!"  There was no reasoning with me.

David got his fierce, in-charge look.  "No.  LISTEN to me Heather.  I'M still here.  I'm not dead."  He looked at me meaningfully.

My head cleared.  I got it.  I grabbed onto David like he was a freaking life preserver and I was in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912.  My pre-David life associated with Ferris Bueller's Day Off - the death of Alan Ruck's character, a sweet and selfless man who does everything for the woman he loves... BINGO.   

This? This is what happens to me on an average Tuesday night. Just imagine when there's something to cry about.

Naked Wombats

Naked wombats.  Without any pre-written content, it simply struck me as an interesting title for a post, but then, when I went looking for pictures, I actually found a mostly naked wombat baby, which has now become my animal of choice.  JUST LOOK AT IT!!!

Yes, this is a naked wombat!

Did you know that wombats are marsupials like kangaroos, koalas, opossums, possums and the Tasmanian Devil - who carry their young in pouches until they are able to fend for themselves?  Imagine if you will, Bugs Bunny's Tasmanian Devil having a fit inside someone's pouch?  What sort of elasticity would that pouch have to have?

Having seen the naked baby wombat, I went looking for other pics and saw that the full grown wombat is THIS big!!!

Much bigger than a naked baby wombat

This makes me want it even more!!! I can just imagine curling up next to it in bed.  I'm sure that I can make David see that this is a good thing - at least in the winter - the wombat would be warm and would cut our electric mattress heating pad costs by half, I'm dead certain.  Plus (but wait there's MORE!) I could put my hands in its pouch and they would then be very warm too!  Way better than putting them in David's armpits when I'm cold!  Really, this is a win-win for David.

And then I discovered that WAY, WAY back before it went extinct 46,000 years ago, there was a GIANT WOMBAT!!!   Like the size of a freaking RHINOCEROS kind of giant.  It was called a Diprotodon and it was part of a group of unusual species dubbed "Australian Megafauna."  How cool is that?  It's like a freaking Prog Rock band! 

Ladies and Gentlemen!  We bring you now....
AUSTRALIAN MEGAFAUNA!!

Giant Wombat!!  Also with a pouch!!!

Scale to human

Other Australian Megafauna include the Zygomaturus - another giant marsupial similar to the modern pygmy hippopatamus - but still a marsupial which means it has a POUCH!!!

Zygomaturus

Then there is the Palorshestes - yet ANOTHER marsupial with a POUCH!!!

Looks like a giant Tapir, but is NOT because it too has a POUCH!!

And LOOK!!!  This is a Procoptodon!  Which was a GIANT KANGAROO - with its own POUCH!!!

I wanted this one to look really big, but in actuality it was only about 10 feet tall

David just looked at me like I was fucking nuts when I showed him what I've done this morning in between answering emails.  Maybe what this all comes down to is that I want my very own pouch.   You know, like to keep my wallet and hair clips in and possibly my emergency Gravol and maybe some hand lotion.  He just asked me "Do you want your own pouch?"  See, we're totally simpatico!  Plus, now with the pictorial evidence for other pouch options, I'm pretty sure that he'll let me have a regular-sized wombat, you know, on account of the fact that he doesn't want me to use prehistoric mammal DNA and wind up going all Jurassic Park. 

Bad Rhymes at Bed Time

In pre-production for PETER PAN this weekend, so please enjoy this from earlier in the summer...

Sometime in the last couple of years Rissa and I started cracking each other's toes.  It's my friend Shawn's fault.  He cracked my toes while we were in a play together (not actually during the play but rather while we were in the dressing room) and then I did it to Rissa and she giggled like a mad fool about it so it became a thing for us.  David, just in case you were wondering, wants NOTHING to do with the whole toe cracking fad. The whole process hurts, REALLY hurts, but it must be a good pain I guess, because we will beg each other to do it.  Usually at bed time.   "Mummy, will you crack my toes?  Please??"  Then I begin and she shrieks and yodels with the pain and release of the toe cracking.  Then she does mine and I'm even louder than she is.  It's our own twisted version of This Little Piggie and it's all a great way to end the day.

It's Rissa's storm before the calm.  It happens pretty much every night at bedtime.  She loses her mind a wee bit and needs to release energy before she can finally settle down.  It's always with me.  Never with David does she turn into a complete looney bird.  Only with me.   I wonder what that signifies?

Last night was no exception.  Rissa had been off with her GrandMer and GrandEl this weekend while David and I were up at a friend's cottage.  As is usually the case when we have been separated from Rissa for a few days - she needs to tell us absolutely everything when we see her once more - usually right away without breathing as she speaks.  Apparently it's genetic.  I now understand why my parents used to say to me,  "Heather, BREATHE!"

I called Mom one time, hoping for commiseration.  "Mom - she NEVER stops talking."  There was a brief pause before maniacal laughter rang out from my mother's end of the call. 

So last night, Rissa was talking about having overheard a bunch of teenagers using an interesting bad phrase.

"What kind of phrase?" I asked.

"Penis Butt," says Rissa.

"I'm sorry?"

She gave me a look of utter disdain.  "Mummy, I can't SAY it."

Right, because for the most part, my daughter is a rule follower and she's not supposed to use bad language, so she doesn't.

"Penis butt?"  I'm trying to work it out in my head.  "Penis butt?  Do you mean Cock-ass?"

"No Mummy.  Another bad word for penis."

Now there are LOTS of bad words for penis.  I know many of them.  I'm not entirely sure that I should be playing this game with my 12 year old daughter.

"Schlong-Behind?  Dong-Bottom?"

"Mummy."  Again with the disdain.

"Dick-Ass?"

"YES!!" 

Well, that made sense.  Dick-ass.  It's colourful - doesn't rhyme though.  Which then had me trying to make an anatomical phrase that rhymed.  Again (and I fully realize this),  NOT the best thing to be doing with my 12 year old daughter.

"PENIS-ANUS!!"

Whereupon we gales of giggles hit us.  And of course I couldn't just leave it there.  I was in rhyming mode now.

"Vagina Angina!!"

Without a pause, Rissa came back with "Pussy-Stress??"

I gave her a look of utter shock before almost peeing myself and then giving her a high five.

"EXACTLY!!!   But you can't use that with ANY of your friends.  Promise me!!! None of these phrases with friends!  Their parents won't let you near them if they start sounding like dock-workers."

Again, a look of disdain.  "Mummy.  I know that!"

Our is a different Mother-Daughter relationship.

Don't Mind the White Trash

I live in an amazing century home.  Built in 1906, by one of the prominent local builders in my town, it is a bonafide grand home...  2.5 stories...  Triple brick... It has a formal front staircase and two, count them, TWO, back staircases.  A butler's pantry, claw-footed bathtub, original stained glass, french doors.  I love it.  Have always loved it.  Can't really afford to live in it.

We are the House Poor.  Those who own century homes/money pits will know whereof I speak.  Every job that needs to be done costs at least $1000.  Last year we replaced the chimney - it was $3000.  You want to make money?   Rebuild freaking chimneys!  Hoping to eliminate our crazy debt load, the house has been on the market a couple of times in the last two years.  Lots of activity.  Many people came to see our house.  Many people LOVED our house.  Never once did we get an offer.  And it has nothing to do with the house.  It's the location. 

You see, across the street a little ways down looks like this:

Shouldn't be a problem right?  Looks fairly tidy, well kept?  What you don't realize is that from May until October, usually there are about 4 guys without shirts on, drinking beer, perhaps in front of a chiminea, possibly playing loud redneck music and more than likely yelling at one of their dogs "PRINCESS - SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

One of our next-door neighbours is a delightful family of three - we occasionally enjoy a beverage or meal with this family.  This is our other next-door neighbour:

There are approximately 8 apartments in this building.  This is an old Google Maps photo - it doesn't show the dingy white plastic lawn furniture that decorates the back entrance and the front doesn't show the near waist-high monster dandelions that are there presently.  Sometimes, for additional colour, there's a No Frills shopping cart left in the parking lot.  When our house was on the market, I would frequently hide the No Frills shopping cart behind the house - thinking to myself "Do you not SEE the for sale sign on our lawn??  Can't you help us out here??"  There's a drunk woman in the front left apartment who sounds like Harvey Fierstein.  She threatens to call the cops when she hears kids with skateboards on the street.  She is also convinced that she can hear all of our phone conversations. "I'm hearing things I shouldn't be hearing.  PERSONAL things,"  and that these personal conversations interfere with her cable.

These are the things that potential buyers sometimes (ALWAYS) notice when they come to view our house.  I say this because our real estate agent called us this week and asked to show our house even though it isn't presently on the market - her buyers were looking for a century home.  So we tidied and vacuumed and went to the library for an hour during the showing.  And sure enough.  They loved the house - hated the neighbourhood.  It's like they don't see the other good houses on the block, they only notice the white trash. 

But you know what?  In the 7 years we've been living in the house?  We really haven't ever had a problem with ANY of our neighbours.  Sure, I've had to call the police when there were fisticuffs - okay, really one guy pulled another guy off of his bike and started beating the crap out of him... but that was down the street - had nothing to do with us.  (A friend was over at the time.  He said "How come you never sit out on our front porch?"  It was quite literally the NEXT minute when the fight broke out.)  There was the time that the drunk lady next door (different one) fell off her bike and knocked her teeth out on the curb and I told Rissa to gather up tea towels while I called 911.  Rissa  learned all about first-aid - so really that was a teachable moment.  Oh, and maybe for a time there were some nice young men selling dope out of the back apartment next door.

The loudest it really gets (apart from the "PRINCESS - SHUT THE FUCK UP!" moments) is when one of the 'good' neighbours' children is having a melt down in the their backyard.   4 year olds have really big lungs.

But all of that is completely inconsequential - we open our back door to this:

A mature maple tree, stunning deck, swing, zip-line, woodsy play structure and marshmallow roasting area. This is where we spend our outdoor time.  This is where we live.  This is our home.  White Trash Neighbourhood or no, we love it.  And when thinking about potential neighbours - please remember - the white trash doesn't live WITH you.  They live NEAR you.  It really does make a difference.  One day, in the oh-so-distant future, we'll be out of debt and will truly be able to call it ours.