I'm older than Mrs. Robinson!!

While reading Wired this morning at breakfast, there was a photo for Marriott (EXPERIENCE the world of MARRIOTT!)  with 40-somethings laughing and using an IPad to show how hip and 'Now' they are while enjoying glasses of red wine.  Two gentlemen - one with a greying, well-groomed beard and another with trendy glasses + a woman, I'm guessing early 40s - looks kinda like Robin Wright in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  And I thought:  GOOD GOD!  THAT'S MY DEMOGRAPHIC!!! THIS AD IS AIMED AT ME!!!!  I am THAT old now.

Think back to when your parents would have cocktail parties - remember those?  When you would stay up, maybe sneak to the first landing on the staircase to listen in?  They'd be all dressed up...  smoke and drunken laughter would fill the living room?  Remember that?   Remember how OLD they seemed?  Well, more than likely, they were only in their 30s.

Then I got to thinking about Cary Grant.  Who, even now, when I re-watch Notorious, is the most mature and debonair man on the planet.  He has always seemed so much older and world-wise than I could ever hope to be in my lifetime.  He was only 43 years old when he made Notorious. That's a year younger than I am now.  Which means that I'm older than Cary Grant.  This makes me ache with such a sense of defeat, because there's just no way that I can compete.  I can't ever be that together, that deep that grounded.   I can't ever move the way he did.  I'll never be that graceful!  He moved like a freaking cat.  And yes, I know he's a dude, but let's say there was a classic female actress in her 40s - which is laughable  because it just didn't happen then.  I mean think about it.  Maybe Bette Davis in All About Eve - she was cast as a 'fading' star at the ripe old age of 42.  Actresses of a certain age just didn't get screen time then.  If you were over 40 you were relegated to the crazy roles, the mother roles, the spinster roles or the over-the-hill rolls.  And you know something?  Anne Bancroft when she starred in The Graduate was only 36 years old!!!  I'm older than Mrs. Robinson!  HOLY CRAP!  And what's worse?  Most kids don't even know who the hell she is!

Oh look!  There's Dustin Hoffman at the window of the nave! 
Whatever is HE doing there?
If only I'd had my own leopard hat and coat!

"Let me be your Mrs. Robinson."
"Who?"
"Seriously?  You don't know who Mrs. Robinson is?  What about Simon & Garfunkle?  Have you heard of them?  OH GOOD GOD!  How 'bout this?  We'll skip any sort of inappropriate sexual come on... Let me be your teacher of iconic cultural moments?"
"I could be down with that."

OY.

Weapon of Choice

I'm over there on the left...

I am in stress-containment mode. Not for me, but for the other people in my house.  The daughter.  The husband.  When did I become the sane one?

As the parent of a 12 year-old daughter, there are certain instances when you find yourself treading very carefully.  Last Thursday Rissa was in tears before heading off to school.  "I can't go to school today!  I can't!" she wailed. Now for most parents, this phrase would be a common one, but Rissa NEVER opts for missing school.  NEVER.  She can be hacking up a freaking lung and have a fever of 104 and she will say, "Mummy, I can't miss school.  I'll have homework."   So last Thursday when she was weeping and saying that she couldn't go - I was momentarily at a loss.  She had a kink her neck, was in pain and obviously over-emotional... so I did what every understanding mother does... I gave her drugs and sent her on her way.  Then on Friday I took her to the chiropractor.

More than a little bit of 'crazy eye' going on here!

Saturday, David and I got into a fight.  A really big one.  And the thing is?   David and I DON'T fight. In the almost 16 years of our acquaintance we have fought maybe 6 times.  It started off with me asking if we could get a lazy susan and ended up with me leaving the kitchen so that I wouldn't bludgeon him with a frying pan.

 "I'M GOING OUT!!!"

Then, I jogged.  And I am NOT a jogger.  I really don't have the stamina, it gives me shin splints and jogging for a person who suffers from angina is just stupid.  But there I was JOGGING.  (I'd put on two sports bras - 'cause I KNEW that I was going to run when I left the house - I was THAT mad.)

You see, David had questioned my budgeting.  He made a disparaging remark about my fiscal responsibility. And instead of realizing that David is really stressed right now with a whole shitload of extra crap on his already full plate of responsibilities - instead of talking him down logically,  I got mad.  I yelled even.  And I'm not a yeller.  You know why I yelled?   Because I'M the one who PAYS all the bills and ORGANIZES our taxes and DOES the automatic transfers every month so that when December comes around and we have to pay our house insurance we HAVE that money ready. I freaking rock at budgeting!!  I am a budgeting goddess!!  Hence my being pissed.  REALLY REALLY PISSED.  And that's why I felt the need to run.

Well, I'm just not going to go home!  I'll stay away ALL freaking afternoon and he won't know where I am and then he can just STEW in his worry.  See how he likes that!  

I'll grab the next train out of here!  That's what I'll do!   I'll go to Toronto and stay at the... I'll stay at the... the freaking Royal York Hotel and order lots and lots of room service!!!  He wants fiscal irresponsibility?  I'll show him fiscal irresponsibility!!   OH FOR THE LOVE OF... I don't have my wallet!

Look!  A squirrel!  Bet that squirrel wouldn't accuse me of mis-managing funds!  (now sobbing on the sidewalk with said squirrel patting my knee in sympathy)

Why isn't he driving after me to apologise?  Why is EVERY car NOT our car coming after to me to tell me how sorry he is for being an asshole?!? Why is he NOT taking advantage of this romantic-comedy, conflict resolution moment?

Good thing it's sunny outside.  At least it's nice weather!  Look!  Butterflies!  I love butterflies!  They're on their way to Mexico.  That's where I'll go!  MEXICO!!! 

I will just walk right into the lake.  That's what I'll do.  Fully dressed.  And then I'll catch hypo-thermia and see how he likes THAT!!  Then he'll be sorry. 

OW!! OW!! OW!!!  MY FREAKING CHEST HURTS!!  STUPID FREAKING ANGINA!!!  (slowing my pace to a walk)

Oh hey! Look, kite surfers!!  David LOVES kite surfers!  I should go home and tell him... (scowl)  NO! I'm not even going to tell him that they are down here!  I'll just horde all the kite surfing joy myself!  He'll never know that there were kite surfers here!  NEVER!!! 

After an hour, I managed to calm down.  Then I walked home and told David, "Come on - we're going down to the lake.  I want to show you something."  Then the two of sat and watched the kite surfers playing in the waves and we talked.   'Cause we made vows.  And a couple of them were this:

"I promise to talk to you, especially when it's difficult."
"I promise to listen to you, especially when it's difficult."

And you have to decide, are you going to keep promises or break them?

Taming your Tatas...

Two is so much better than one!  Double the sports bra - 1/4 the bounce.

Okay ladies.  If you have ANY more than a B cup and you do ANY sort of exercise that has you moving faster than a saunter, you need to wear the appropriate sports bra.  Hell, wear TWO sports bras.  AT THE SAME TIME.  OVER TOP OF EACH OTHER.  Unless you are aiming for breasts that settle around your navel, in which case, keep doing what you're doing - by Christmas you'll have met your goal.   Good for you!

I go to the Y.  I ride the recumbent cycle.  As I pedal my ass off, I have a view of the treadmills and elliptical machines and there are WAY too many ladies out there who are WAY too under-supported in their breastal region.  Frankly, I'm surprised that more of them aren't leaving the building with black eyes from those breasts just a-flapping and ba-doinking all over the place.  I watch these gals and MY upper chest muscles hurt.  Please ladies, strap your girls down - I promise it'll serve you well.  I PROMISE.

I recognize that not everyone can afford the fancy schmancy sports bras that will offer Total Tata Support (TTS).  But we can all afford the cheap-ass sports bras.  Just buy them a size smaller and wear two of them!  I'm a D cup and I wear the tightest possible sports bras - ON TOP OF EACH OTHER.  The ones that accentuate my armpit and back pudge and leave nasty dermatographia (those lines that you get on your skin when clothes are too tight or your pillow is too wrinkly).   But you know what?  When I go for a fitting at Victoria's Secret, the salesgirls are astounded that not only  did I breastfeed my daugther, but that my boobs belong to a gal who's 44.  No, the girls aren't as firm as once they was, but they are at least in the same general area at which they started.

And by the by... In regular bras?  Your nipples?  They should be aiming OUT, not DOWN.  So heft your girls up, using those adjustment straps, OWN your curves and bask in the beauty that is you.  You have boobs.  Treat them well and they'll stay relatively where they're supposed to and not become something to tuck into the top of your pants.

DOGGIE Boob Scarf as seen in The Regretsy Christmas Special Featuring JACK the PUG
http://www.etsy.com/shop/boobsRus?ref=shop_sugg

Multi-Breasted Female of Galaxy NGC 1512

Previous post from Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Praise be to every deity in the universe!!!  After a week of insomnia - I slept through the night!!  Halle-freakin-lulljah!! (insert angels' chorus here)  

There's been a heat/humidity wave in Southern Ontario.  A direct result of this is my morphing into the biggest belligerent bitchy bitch in several galaxies.  (I think there's a multi-breasted female in Galaxy NGC 1512 that could give me a run for my money, but really with 22 breasts and a fashion history in her neck of the woods that hasn't allowed for brassieres, you could fully understand her bitchiness.)

Home to the Papilla-Multi-Praeclarus People - a shout out to Big Bessie! (From HubbleSite)

My period is due any day as well.  And not to become a cliched 'female' type who blames moods on her hormonal cycle, but WHAT THE POOH DUDE?!?  It's like I'm losing my mind a little bit more every day.  And I KNOW that I am, and I'm freaking helpless to stop the journey into The Hell of Irrationality.

Yesterday, I burst into tears when David asked me to go down to the beach.  I knew that I should get out of our stifling house, but also knew that I would then have to attempt to thrust my clammy sweaty body into a bathing suit.   (sidebar - I'm NOT a beach person to begin with.  I burn very easily, even with sunblock 9000 on, and I don't like getting wet.)

Sniffing back tears, I went upstairs and started the process.  I stripped off my now-sodden cotton clothing and then forced my sticky flesh into my one-piece bathing suit.  In retrospect, I could have put on my impetuously purchased pin-up girl bikini, (Rissa said "Mummy it looks GREAT!) but my mind was WAY skewed to self-loathing at this point, and no way was my fish-belly white stomach going to be put on view for Victoria Beach.  Instead, I opted for the one piece with attending melon-coloured overskirt.  Imagine if you will - a sausage casing trying to accommodate way too many fleshy bits.  Still in too precarious an emotional state, crying behind my half closed door, I could not see the humour in the situation.  NOW - this morning I do, but last evening at 4:42 p.m. NOTHING WAS FUNNY.

Determined not to give in to the hormones, I waded into Lake Ontario.  I was going to be the well-adjusted wife and mother.  I was going to participate in a family activity.  It was cold.  Not just a little bit cold - but the kind of cold where men's testicles crawl back up into their body cavities - or so David told me.  My legs ached from the temperature.  But I persevered.  I was in the water and I was wet and I was almost enjoying myself.  After about 30 seconds in the water, David looked over at me.  "Your lips are blue."  "Probably," I answered.  It was invigorating though.  The surf was all wavy which is a lot fun - even in hypothermic water temperatures.  After about 3.5 minutes David made me leave the water.  I was okay to stay and be wet even, but I guess my colour looked a little off and I was all goose-pimply and shivery and I didn't have the presence of mind to lie when he asked "Are you having chest pain?"  "Just a, uh, little bit."  If I were more petite, he would have scooped me up into his arms in a romantic gesture and carried me to the beach.  As it was, he threw an arm around my waist and dragged me out, wrapped me in a towel and told me to stay put while he went back in to make sure that Rissa and her friend didn't drown in the waves.

There I was on the beach - in 30+ degree heat and sun, clutching my white terry towel around me, teeth chattering.  He had been right.  It was good to get out of the house.  I was no longer hot.   My mood was vastly improved.  A brush with death will do that for a girl.

My version of 'Jazz Hands'

I provide my mother's friends with entertainment.   They love to hear stories of my outrageous life.  Oh that Heather.  The actress.  The writer.  The extrovert.  They love to hear stories of...

• My slapping of strangers.  "If you do that again, I'm giving you full warning, I will slap you."  He did it.  I slapped him.
  
• My unique style of parenting.   "Mummy I don't HAVE to be a lesbian do I?" Rissa has said.    "Of course not sweetie.  It would just make life so much easier for your father and me.  Just until university.  Wait until after university and then you can date whomever you want - boy OR girl.  Hey!  Look at that girl.  She's very cute.  Hook up with her, she won't get you pregnant."
  
  
• My getting my nosed pierced. Wow.  Bad idea. For me.  For other people, a fantastic idea, and it looks all sassy and trendy and cool, but I changed the ring too quickly to a prettier one - had a perpetually irritated nose for months until I removed it.
   
• My having a talisman of rowan berries tattooed on my lower back, to ward off possible ghosts in my home.  It's not a tramp stamp - it's too low for that.  What would a lower equivalent be? Something that people only get to see if I'm full-on naked?  Preen Scene? Signed Behind?  Fetching Etching?  Tart Art?  Tail Grail?
   
• My being a surrogate for a gay couple. That's worth a WHOLE other post.

According to my mother's friends I am ENTERTAINING.

A few years back, Mom was gearing up for her annual weekend with her girlfriends.  They'd been going away together every year for 2 decades at that point.  Mom and I were walking from a restaurant through the Wal-Mart parking lot.

"You haven't done anything interesting lately," she complained.  "What am I going to tell the girls?"

"Are you kidding?" I said.  "In a week's time I'm having a tummy tuck.*  Is that not enough to keep them occupied?" 

"Yes, but the tummy tuck is not happening until AFTER the weekend.  I've got nothing to tell them NOW."

So I whipped off my top and walked in my bra in the WalMark parking lot.  "There," I said.  Will that do?"

*
So... the tummy tuck.  I had one.  I blogged about it in ALL ITS GORY DETAIL.

theskinnyonmytummytuck.blogspot.ca

Freak of Nature

I love SO many things about the autumn.  It's cooler.  It's crisper. Leaves change colour.  My ass doesn't get heat rash.  I get to wear my stripey Victoria Secret Long Jane PJs with warm socks!

I want these pjs in EVERY colour!

We light fires in the family room - in the fireplace - we're not just going around willy-nilly setting fire to the sofa or anything.  I make stew in the crock pot and David and Rissa act as if I'm a freaking Cordon Bleu chef.  I can wear a wrap draped artistically around my shoulders overtop of a sweater and look all arty...  I get to drink hot chocolate in my Max Brenner mugs.

Hold this mug between your hands and I swear that you will get all squishy inside

I smooth gingersnap body lotion all over my body.   Which, some might say, I could wear year round, but there are spring/summer scents and autumn/winter scents and when the temperatures drop I crave those darker, more tasty scents.  Plus then David starts smelling me more and saying things like "OH MY GOD, you smell AMAZING!"  So basically, changing body lotions = MORE SEX!!! 

And yet, in the cooler seasons, David frequently says to me,  
"YOU ARE A FREAK OF NATURE!" 

When the temperature starts to drop outside, my circulatory system gets a bad case of Dissociative Identity Disorder.  It's 15 c, my lips are blue, my still as yet undiagnosed chest pain kicks in and David starts making me drink Scotch to force my wee arteries open. (Just the blended, not the single malt - I'm not a heathen.)  The other night I had to run myself a bath.  Apparently a scalding bath, because when David came to keep me company and stuck his feet in, he was pretty sure that the top layer of his skin had been boiled off.  To me, it was luke warm.

Could be my thyroid, could be my peri-menopause, whatever the reason, from September basically through to June, David is on constant "Is she having a heart attack/vascular failure"  alert and has my endocrinologist's number on speed dial.  Code Blue is how I think of it.  I go blue and David threatens to take me to the ER. After DOZENS of these trips where I am NOT having a heart attack or near death, it gets harder to convince me to go.

"I cannot keep wasting 4 hours at a time like this.  Next time I'm NOT going"

"Next time I will sling you over my shoulder and strap you to a gurney myself."

"Will not."

"Will too."

See, that's the trouble with chest pain.  Apparently, you're not allowed to ignore it.  So every time it happens, I have to then gauge whether or not I'm having any new or more severe symptoms, which becomes a little bit stressful.  And stress?  Well, stress exacerbates undiagnosed chest pain.  That fight or flight response seems to be a bit fucked in my body.  Bit of  Catch 22. I promised David that I'll pay attention and I will.  I am.  I have my nitro spray handy.  I can sip some scotch.  But I'm NOT going to let my freaky body stop me from enjoying the autumn and winter and early spring!

So bring on the extra sweaters and the woolen socks and I'll wear a freaking scarf and gloves inside so that I can enjoy these fantastic temperatures because I LOVE the autumn.  The crock pot is on with apple ginger porkloin simmering away, I'm going to snuggle under an afghan while making notes in my script (possibly with up to three cats on my lap), and I might just go make myself a hot chocolate RIGHT NOW!  :-)  'Cause you know what?  Autumn is freaking AWESOME!!

Neil Patrick Harris and Demon Poodles

Did I mention that Rissa doodles? 

Graphic novelist in the making?  Demon Poodle and her sidekick Bloody Bedlington Terrier?

***

This week we made pumpkin pie muffins/cupcakes for the bridal shower.  We covered them in cream cheese icing.

http://www.thecookbookcritic.com/archives/2005/10/pumpkin_muffins.html

Ours looked pretty much as good as these ones. 

"Cream cheese icing is my GOD.  I worship it," Rissa says while packing mini muffins into her lunch.

"Only two!  Take ONLY two!  Do NOT give me that look - you may have more when you get home from school."

Then, after school, she sits with more mini muffins.  She offers up a dramatic and satisfied sigh.

"Mummy I have an announcement to make.  I think... wait... no I am sure.  I'm getting married."

"Oh really, who is the lucky guy/girl?"

"Cream Cheese Icing.  The invitations are going out tomorrow.  We will marry and then I will EAT my spouse.  And when that doesn't work out, I'm going to marry his brother More Cream Cheese Icing. "


***


Rissa has a huge crush on Neil Patrick Harris.  Last year she watched him in a simulcast of the New York Philharmonic's concert staging of Sondheim's Company - that's how much crushes for him.

What Rissa loves most in life: babies and Neil Patrick Harris

"Mummy, I love NPH.  He is AWESOME.  And even though I know that nothing can ever come of it between us because he's gay, close to 40, married and has two kids, I don't care.  I shall always love him. For he shall always be AWESOME!"