The internet is not MAGIC

It's official - we are slaves to the internet.  Thankfully the internet does not manifest as Jabba the Hutt and I don't have to wear a bikini with a collar and leash - so that's a plus.  (Although to many, this might be deemed a perk.)

Not the Internet

While in Toronto last week, we found ourselves without wireless and rather than spending mucho dineros at Starbucks and the Second Cup in beverages/food we didn't need while leeching their Wi-Fi, we instead paid $200 for a Rocket Hotspot from Rogers and started a Flex Rate wireless plan.  No, the math does NOT work out.  But now we HAVE the hardware should this situation arise in the future.

I know... you're thinking "What, you couldn't survive for a week without the internet?!?"  No, in fact we couldn't.  I  need email.  Not like it's my heroin or anything, but I communicate with the cast, musicians and crew via email.  I required the ability to be able to check in at least a couple of times a day - and David needed to be able to work online when he wasn't troubleshooting the tech at the theatre.  We had thought we would have wireless at the theatre, but we did not.  Upon this realization, a medium-sized panic ensued.

I so wish that this could be animated into the panic dance that David and I did.

Shortly thereafter, David made the executive decision to bite the bullet and purchase the Hotspot.  David knows that neither he nor I are organized/have energy enough  to finish our day at the theatre and then spend an hour at a coffee shop  juggling administrative tasks.  Plus, we had Rissa with us who would not have appreciated the extra hour of keeping herself occupied, even if we were feeding her.  PLUS, I would have gotten really fat last week if I'd had more than one large flavoured decaf soy latte a day. No, we didn't save any money doing it this way, but we did conserve precious amounts of sanity.

I realized the first day with the Hotspot that I know NOTHING about how the internet really works.  It is not, in fact, magic and mostly free.  I thought that if you weren't opening new pages online and downloading crap, that you were not using bandwidth.  Apparently, I was wrong.  David should have explained how data is transferred and what bit rate exactly is before before he said "We're good to go - you can check your mail!"  

We got the bill today for our first few hours using the Hotspot - you know you're in trouble when your bill takes 8 pages to explain everything.  We used 214.40 MB (megabytes) in approx 4 hours of owning the Hotspot.  I was not downloading ANYTHING - I had thought.  I was again wrong.  It wasn't that I had been mis-informed, but rather that I was missing information - my knowledge regarding the internet and its true nature was... apparently almost non-existent.  I HATE when I'm stupid - even if it's due to ignorance.  I know enough that if you have a laptop that has Wi-Fi capability but don't have Wi-Fi anywhere near you that you can't connect to the Net.  I know that.  I know that one shouldn't download large things or get huge updates when you're worried about bit rate.  But I really didn't know that once you are on a site like gmail that information just pretty much flows like a tap and sucks like a dock hooker on the first day of the Merchant Marines' shore leave.

And there's this too: Our first bill from Rogers was only $40.89 - and I thought GREAT!!  We totally didn't use as much as David feared we had.  YAY US!!!  Then I realized that $35 of that $40.89 was  the activation fee and the rest was just for the first few hours we had the equipment in our possession.  Anyone care to guestimate what our bill will be for the other 4 full days we were using this technology?  David suspects we'll be in the upwards of $100 for the time.  But really, that's only about $25 a day - which we totally would have spent at a coffee shop,  PLUS - we now OWN the "HOTSPOT" - how many people can say that??  When we speak of it, we can instead pretend that it's not something the size of a deck of cards but is instead a Toronto nightclub - in which we have now invested with other hip, happening people.  I can confabulate with the best of them.   Plus this way... I didn't get fat.

Bedtime = Bedlam

So, in spite of having spent hours and hours exhausting her body in dance intensive camp - Rissa was still wired at bedtime.  I made her chew a mental calmness stress-relax tab as soon as she got into bed.  Before she read for 10 minutes.  I was trying to forestall the onslaught that is Rissa.  But to no avail.

How many does it take to tire out a 12 year old?

I figured if we got into bed at 8:30 and read for a bit, that she would get sleepy, the way normal people do when they read in bed.  I try to read beside her, thinking that maybe my calm presence might soothe her, encourage her to fall asleep before the 10:00 p.m. mark.  School starts next week.  She has to get back on schedule.  Rissa abandons her book and begins to sigh dramatically.

"Go to sleep."

(Eyes peering up at me from the top of her green polka-dotted sheets.) "I just need attention.  Is that so much to ask?"

"You danced ALL day!  How can you STILL be awake?"

"I don't know."  She bats her eyelashes at me.

I sigh and put down my book.  "What do you want to do?"

"An impromptu musical number."

"Okay, go for it."  Sometimes you've just got to let the crazy happen.

"Really?" she asks in delight.

"Really.  Hit me with your best shot."

She then goes into a medley of Phoebe's songs from Friends, followed by some Fosse moves at the end of the bed, a grand jete to the door, some jazz hands and then flops down on her stomach onto the bed.

"You done?"

"Not yet."  She fakes an epileptic fit, giggling maniacally.

"Now?"

"I think so."

Rissa then pretends to be a velociraptor doing a chemistry experiment that ends in a small explosion.

from HistoricLOLS.com

later... after I've turned the bedside lamp off, thinking that the extra light was the problem...

"In this light,  on your dress here, (she indicates my left breast) it kind of looks like a storm trooper.   'These aren't the droids we're looking for.' "

"Un-huh."  I reach into the beside table and grab the bottle Mental Calmness chewable tabs.  "Stop talking.  Chew this."

She chews, takes a breath as if to launch into another torrent of tangents when I shoot her my deadly laser eyes.

"I know.  Go to sleep."

"Yes."

"Or you'll smother me."

"Yes."

"Okay, but just this one last thing before you smother me?"

This is when I reach for the Mental Calmness chewable tablets and take one myself.  Perhaps if I fall asleep first, my steady breathing will lull her.

"My underwear is eating my butt."

It's wrong to shoot your daughter with an elephant dart, right?

Hair Art and Frolicking Kittens

So pretty much every time I'm in the shower, I lose half of my hair.   David says I'm exaggerating. But it's not like he can feel the ever-widening bits of scalp on his head.  Okay, I might be exaggerating... The math wouldn't work. If it were true, I'd be completely bald by now.   It seems like I lose half my hair.

But, when we're showering together (you know,  to "conserve water"), David says,  "My God, that's a lot of hair!"  And he's not talking about the hair that's in the drain, because I learned from past experience that you can't just let hair go down the drain when you AND your daughter both have shoulder-length hair.  When you do that, you end up clogging the drain, and then having to take pliers to grab what basically looks like something your cat either killed or threw up. Just be glad I'm not posting pictures of that.  In place of drain hair, I will post pictures of delightful kittens frolicking.

Imagine if you dare, something THIS size in your shower drain.

After having dealt with the pleasure of drain de-cloggage a few times, I then got into the habit of taking whatever hair that comes off in my hands as I shower, and putting it on the shower wall.  You know, for safe-keeping. Yes... it's disgusting, I would be the first to admit it.  But better that, than clogging the drain with my masses of auburn curly tresses.  Sometimes, the subway-tiled wall becomes a perfect canvas for hair art.  I want to call it hair origami, but it isn't really 3-D like that, it's more like... string art from the 70s (which I just googled and discovered it's also called symmography - fancy, no?)  We had some hanging in our house - I think my dad did them - one looked like this:

Alec Jopling original, circa 1970  You can't see the nails around which the string is wrapped, but they are there!

We also had this 'painting' which my father still threatens to give to me... it's now at the back of the guest bedroom closet...

I think they got it to celebrate my mother's Viking heritage.  She's Danish.
 

And they had these lovely pieces as well...

Wait!  I figured it out!  They were decorating with a 'global'  theme before it was hip.

Sorry, I got distracted in my old photos folder.  Really, none of those pieces has anything much to do with the sort of art which I create from my apparently superfluous hair on the shower wall.  Frankly, they're too... constrained by limits.  Mine is way more free-form.  Looser.  You know, more 'arty.'  What's funny (not ha-ha, but peculiar) is that no matter how I put the hair on the wall, it either ends up being in the shape of an elephant or an eagle.  What does that say about me? I'm sure that maybe there's some sort of new-agey explanation for that.  Like my totem is an eagle but I have the wisdom of an elephant?  I shriek like an eagle and plod like an elephant?  I'll soon be bald like an eagle and wrinkly like an elephant?  Whatever it is, it keeps me occupied and the drain clear.

I know they are there - I can feel them!!!

Okay...  So neck hair...  What the pooh?  First off, why do women even GET neck hair?  Does HRT get rid of neck hair?  If it does, damn the health consequences - I'm in!  Yes, I'm that vain.  You get more vain the wrinklier and hairier you get.

Secondly, half the time you can't SEE the neck hair, but you can FEEL them.  To which David says "If nobody but you can see them, why are you so worried about them?"  BECAUSE I KNOW THEY'RE THERE!  It's what happens when you're sitting in front of the t.v. minding your own business.   You might reach up to brush something off your neck and then you feel the hairs (yes PLURAL) and you have to run to the bathroom and grab the tweezers.  Because the worst scenario is you NOT noticing them until they're very dark, a cm long and you start looking like Billy Vann in drag as Griselda from the Hilarious House of Frightenstein.  And you think to yourself, My GOD!  How have I NOT seen this??  Which probably means that up until that time, people have been politely ignoring your transformation into the Wild Wolfwoman of Wagga Wagga. 

And then sometimes, there are grey neck hairs, which you really can't see, but are even coarser than regular neck hairs which means that you feel them EVEN MORE and then become obsessed about getting rid of them.  Grey, coarse neck hairs drive a woman insane and are like poop icing on an already shitty cupcake.  Plus, did you know that laser hair removal can't remove grey hairs??  Because they laser can't see the follicles.  I thought lasers were smarter than that.

Really, what you need, is a miner's helmet and a magnifying mirror that you can sit in front of.  Because the bathroom mirror, you can't get close enough to, usually because of the sink, and if you get the magnifying mirror up to your face, then you only have the one hand and you can't use the other hand to identify the hair on your neck.  (Here.  Here is where you should be ripping hairs from your neck.)   You haphazardly start tweezing the fine hairs that totally belong on one's neck.  And if you try to sit with a magnifying mirror, it's never at neck level and you have to skooch down and you might put your back out doing that. 

This past week, we were staying in a condo that didn't have mirror over the bathrrom sink, (they are renovating) which meant that if you were going to stand in front of a mirror you had to stand wedged beside the toilet to look at the side medicine cabinet adjacent to the sinks.  This meant that that you were WAY far away from the mirror.  Or you were putting your back out trying to twist your body sideways over the cabinet to look into the mirror.

Okay, imagine there is no mirror overtop of the sinks, but only the one on the side.  And you have to ignore the magnifying shaving mirror in this picture, because our bathroom didn't have that. Otherwise, I wouldn't be complaining so much right now.  Also, imagine that there is a toilet approximately 9 inches away from the right hand side of the sink cabinet which is where you have to stand to see yourself in the mirror.

 

 

Then I thought!  Flashlight tweezers!!  Right?  Tweezers with a flashlight attached to them!  I'm sure that I could use a wee flashlight and some duct tape and whip something together.  Doesn't that make complete sense?  Of course, we don't have a tiny flashlight anywhere and though I do keep the plastic handle of my curling iron on with electrical tape, I though that my flashlight tweezers with duct tape might look a little déclassé.  Unless I used coloured duct tape, then it could be a statement.  

But then when I actually googled flashlight tweezers, I found these!!!  These might be my salvation.  Plus they're pretty spiffy looking, yes?  And if I ever have to be in a Sci-Fi film they'd be awesome as something to insert into a body cavity to look for alien caviar.

Possible salvation for the overly-hirsuit

I'm sorry... I'm Canadian...

What Canadians say instead of "um."

I am not rich enough to warrant my politeness.  I paid $26 for a buffet breakfast this morning, because I didn't want to offend the waitress.  See, she'd already poured me juice... I was unwilling to abandon a tumbler of orange juice on account of the fact that I took a sip before I knew what was going on! 

I don't have $26 to spend on breakfast!  (And I mean, come on!!!  Breakfasts should be no more than $5!  Eggs, 2 pieces of bacon and potatoes?  I could feed SIX people for... let me do the math here... about $9 with ingredients bought at No Frills).  But more the fool me, as I had a few spare moments this morning while waiting for the theatre to open, I decided that I would have a leisurely breakfast at an upscale diner that I had passed a couple times this week.

Okay, first off? The Yonge Street Diner has little to do with Yonge Street and everything to do with the Marriott.    I shouldn't have gone in.  I should have just gone across the street to McDonald's and got a couple of breakfast burritos and a fork and eaten the scrambled eggs out of them for about $23 less than I spent for the buffet at the Marriott's trapping 'diner'. Had I walked a couple of blocks further I could have gone to Fran's and spent WAY less.  Or if I weren't trying so hard to avoid gluten - I could have gone to the Second Cup and had a muffin or cupcake or streudel or brownie or biscotti with my decaf/soy/hazelnut/latte.  And before you say anything -  I like coffee to taste like dessert and that isn't wrong!!!

I opened the menu and my angina kicked in a little bit when I saw that the hot buffet breakfast was $21 - but that's okay, because it included the coffee and juice (HAH!) The a la carte menu started at $14.50, but then I might not get home fries and half the reason I pay for breakfast out is to get the homefries, plus then I would have had to pay for the orange juice, which I'm sure would have been like $6.  This is all that was going through my head as I'm weighing my options.  I only drank a sip of the o.j., maybe I can give her a quarter for that?  If I just leave a Toonie, could I slink out and go across the street to get a breakfast burrito?  What if I just loudly announce to the room at large "I am not wealthy enough to eat here!"  They'll be embarrassed for me and give me that pitying look, but then I can save all that money.  What did I then do?  I got up and went to the buffett tables and got my probably powdered scrambled eggs (I've waitressed for hotel buffets - I know the deal), overdone bacon and homefries.  And then I paid my $26 - $21+tax+tip because the waitress was very nice.  Because also in my internal dialogue earlier I had been thinking what if the waitress really NEEDS the lousy $2.50 tip that I'm going to leave her?  Only $2.50 because come on, all she did was bring me juice... and ketchup.  She brough me ketchup too. CRAP!  I should have given her more.

On a complete tangent - I just caught a tourist kid on the sidewalk doing the Greased Lightning dance beside the window. What was fantastic is that Adele's Rumour Has It came on the EXACT time the kid started dancing and it was perfectly synchronized. (I know she's a tourist because her parents are well dressed and perusing a map.  Plus from what I was lip reading, they seemed to be speaking in a foreign tongue.)

Imagine this, but with a blond, possibly Scandinavian, girl with her parents as unwitting backup

 Oh and before I forget - Rissa has decided to call the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line the Yonge-University-Vagina line.  There's my girl...

Cuckoo-Bananas busy, but there's this...

So as I'm up to my armpits in rock opera, I don't have a lot of spare time, so I thought I'd post this from June:

 Eggshells Under Their Feet

Yesterday morning I awoke in the midst of another horrific hot flash.  Stumbling and growling all the way down the stairs - David and Rissa's eyes got really big as I stomped my way into the kitchen. I was fanning my face with my hands and flapping my arms to get air into my armpits.

"I'm not even going to ask," I said

"If it's hot in here?" David replied.

"Yes, I'm not asking, because..."

"It's not hot," Rissa cheerfully piped up.  "It's just you."

"Awesome!  That is just freaking awesome!!!"  I open the freezer and grab a velcro ice pack and strap it around my neck.

"Interesting look," said David, ignoring the laser beams coming out of my eyes.  He then whispered, "Are you going for an auto-erotic asphyxiation type look?"  I growled at him.

"I am only  44 years old," I griped, as I attempted to start my coffee.  "44 YEARS OLD!!!  My Mom had hot flashes until she was 60!!!  You could have to live with THIS (I point violently to myself, drawing a wide, erratic circle around my head) for another SIXTEEN years!!!"  I grab the soy milk and my hazelnut flavouring.  The mug is warm.  "THIS MUG IS TOO WARM TO HOLD!!!"

Rissa then giggled, which let me know that David must have done something behind my back.   
"WHAT???  What did he do?  Did he just make a 'she's crazy' gesture?!?"

"Nope, not at all.  Un-unh.  Nope."  Both of them looking all sweet and innocent.  David has the decency to look chagrined before admitting "I just raised my eyebrows like this."  He demonstrates.  It's the 'Oh boy, fasten your seatbelts' look.  I do my best not to bludgeon him.

"How about I make you an iced capp?  Would that help?"  He moved swiftly out of my arm's reach.

"Maybe," I pouted.  Then I realized what he was offering.  "Yes please.  (sigh)  David, you just don't understand.  I can't do this to you guys for another 16 years.  You'll lose your minds.  You can't be walking on eggshells all that time.  That's not fair to you!  I am considering hormone replacement.  This (again another  finger circling my skull for emphasis), is making me consider HRT!!!  It's not supposed cause as much cancer now, but I can't be on hormone replacement for SIXTEEN years!  That's just asking for bad shit to happen to my body!!!  I have enough bad shit happening to my body already!!"

It was at that point that Rissa led me to the kitchen table, sat me down and patted me on my arm in a gesture of placation.  David then put the homemade iced capp into my hand.  It was cool and delicious and took my mind off the volcano in my torso.

What if I commit major crimes before I actually make it to Menopause?  This is only PERI-Meonopause - and already I'm pretty much out of my mind.  Can I make it through another 16 years?  Will I be able to use it as an excuse in court?  Like, for when I murder someone when they look at me funny or drive slowly in front of me or chew with their mouth open?!?   The only upside to jail is that the metal bars will proabably be cool when I bang my head on them.

She's completely fine, her mother's freaking out...

No time to post this yesterday - better late than never...

Couldn't find a pic of Alfred E. Newman in drag as an over-protective mother

So today is the first day of Rissa's aerial arts circus camp.  At the end of her day, she will be catching a bus, riding to the subway, then taking the subway to meet us downtown.  All by herself.  For 45 minutes or more. I might throw up on the keyboard as I'm typing this.

This is our workshop week for the rock opera.  We're doing the 2 birds, 1 stone thing.  We are in downtown Toronto working through 90 minutes of musical material from our soon-to-be-produced Broadway smash hit Mythos: The Crimson Chorus.  (I am dreaming BIG with this show!)  We work from 11:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.  Rissa will be having the time of her life at aerial circus camp from 9 to 4.   45 minutes away by public transit.  She is 12.  (Okay, having read that back, my angina just kicked in.)

I need to just re-frickin-lax.  #1 - she's 12, not 6.  She managed just fine when she was 10 in NY when she was taking ballet classes.  We would ride the PATH train in together and she would get off at 9th Street Station and make her way off the subway and walk the one block to Joffrey just fine.  She never died nor was abducted once.   Now she's 12. (Looks at least 15.  She's 5'4".  Carries herself well.) and #2...

OH MY GOD!  SHE LOOKS 15 AND SHE'LL BE RIDING THE SUBWAY BY HERSELF! 
 

SHE HAS BOOBS!!!

I'm going to hurl.  All over the frickin' keyboard.

LATER... 4:10 p.m.
Rissa called to say she was just heading over to catch the bus.  My stomach starts to cramp.  Minor hyperventilation ensues.

LATER... 5:00 p.m.
Rissa has yet to call.  I'm pretty sure that she has been abducted.  I begin planning my vengeful retaliation on the bastards who did her in.

LATER... 5:05 p.m.
I have asked David about a dozen times if he thinks she is okay.

LATER... 5:10 p.m.
We are waiting in line at Subway.  We are getting Rissa her favourite sub as a reward for being so brave -  if she comes back alive.

LATER... 5:15 p.m.
She's not dead!  She is at Wellesley (Well - Lesley as she calls it) Station.  I sprint from Subway, leaving David to pay, run as fast as I possibly can until I reach the corner from which Rissa will be able to see me.  Then I wave in a completely unconcerned way as I saunter nonchalantly over to her. I might have chucked her on the shoulder to show how perfectly okay I am.

"Hey you!  How was your day?"

To which she replies  "It was AWESOME!"

I look her over.  She doesn't appear to have been molested, no clothing askew, no blood anywhere.  Then I take the hand of my beautiful 12 year old daughter (she still lets me do this) and we walk, swinging arms to meet her father.  One small step for Rissa, one giant step for Heather.  And tomorrow I get to go through this all again.