Southern Ontario family perishes from hypothermia...

Yesterday morning it was 16 degrees in our house.  I met Rissa in the kitchen - she was bundled into her ginormous bathrobe, over which she had thrown on my down-filled winter coat.  She was breathing on her hands to warm them.  My first thought: Dear God, the boiler has given up the ghost, we're all going to freeze to death and we are THIS close to spring!  The news will report, "Despite entering the 'Out like a lamb' part of March, this Southern Ontario family sadly perished from hypothermia. Memorial Services will be held this weekend."

The floors were cold, the walls were cold - I'm pretty sure that I could see my breath in the downstairs bathroom.  I reached out for the radiator, dreading what I might find to be true.  Boilers are expensive.  They are very, very expensive.  We have money put aside, but it was put aside for the new roof that we didn't manage to fix last year  Maybe if we started buying lottery tickets?  My palm touched the radiator.  The radiator was warm, deliciously hot, in fact.  It was the house that was freezing.  What was going on?

Last week was March Break - we did a lot of sleeping in.  David and Rissa had the week off and I didn't have to go into the office until 10:00, which is why we didn't notice that we'd forgotten to spring ahead the thermostat clock until yesterday morning when we all rose at the crack of dawn.  The radiators  thought it was 5:35 a.m. instead of 6:35 a.m.

"It's okay sweetie!  We were just morons!" See that? Bright side totally found!

That erection is not for me.

Warning: Adult Sexual Content

Sunday morning, I gently wake.  Snuggling into David in bed.  He moves his arm so that I can rest my head on his chest.  I make yummy noises.  This is perfection.  I run my hand over his chest and then downward.

"Well 'Hello Sailor!'" Nothing like being given a full salute from below decks first thing in the morning.  I tilt my head to give him a closed-mouth kiss - on account of the fact that neither of us has brushed our teeth yet.  The day is beginning well.  Then I remember.  It's Sunday morning - we've slept in.  He's just woken up.

"That erection isn't really for me, is it?" I pout.  "You just need to pee, don't you?"

He reaches down and squeezes my derriere a couple of times.

"Now it's at least half for you."

I always have to have my own spin...

Thank you so much Bad Word Mama for nominating me for the Liebster Award!

Very kind of you indeed.  It is always nice to know that someone thinks well of you.  And that someone thinks well enough to encourage you to post a kick-ass graphic and share the love with other bloggers?  Pretty gratifying.  Nice too, to know, that Bad Word Mama is a gal, like me, who doesn't have a lot of extra time and she's into streamlining the process.  Instead of asking a blogger to answer 25 or 10 or even 5 questions about themselves, she's asked for one (1).

What is the biggest regret that I have?

The regrets that I have come from my wedding day.  Oh CRAP! That makes it sound like I'm not happy to be married to David.  Which would be a complete and utter lie.  I'm very happy to be married to David - it'll be 15 years this August - we're having a big-ass party celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary.  I love him lots! And more importantly, I LIKE him lots and still want to do the bouncy-bouncy with him. 

My regrets, and there are a couple from that day, are these:  when David and I got to the speeches, we thanked everyone for coming and offered up the mic to the Fathers of the Bride and Groom.  When they didn't leap immediately at the opportunity to speak - we basically said, "Nope?  No one wants to say anything?  Okay, then we're good to go... everybody start dancing!!"  I really wish that we'd urged both our fathers to talk.  I would have liked to hear what my Dad and David's Dad thought about it all.  They're both great story tellers, they probably would have made us cry.

The other regret from that day is that we had several relatives who had passed away and couldn't be there with us.  We had a table set up with pictures of our absent friends/relatives who were no longer with us, but I really wish that I'd mentioned them all by name and really talked about how much they meant to us.  And as by-product of that regret, I wish that Rissa had had a chance to meet all these people - that she'd known how great they were and had her own memories of them instead of the ones I share through story-telling.

And now... the  NOMINATIONS.

Folks should know this: I'm the person on Facebook who, when assailed by one of those "pass it on if you have a soul" posts happens, I completely change the wording, take the chain letterness out of it and encourage folks to share it, only if they want, with no potential karmic fallout.   I've posted about that in my Magical Meerkat post.

So here's what I'm going to do.  The 5 people I have nominated write well and make me laugh and I think other people should read them and laugh too.  If they, in turn, want to post the kick-ass award on their blog and nominate others, lovely, if not... no worries, it's all good.  If you want to share something about yourself - do so... If you want to answer the question that I answered, go for it...  Paying it forward is a great thing, I am a big supporter!  So check these folks out - they're worth it! 


A Whole Lot of Nothing

Mommy Adventures

Pink Dryer Lint

Stuff White People Like

Not Your Average Mom

Self-amputation should not be your go-to...

David wants to amputate his right leg...  and replace it instead with a sproingy prosthetic.  He has a pinched sciatic nerve - which if he were to actually see the chiropractor and/or physiotherapist, he could probably fix.  But right now he thinks the best idea would be to amputate said limb and get a cool prosthetic. I'm hiding the the hack saws.

David: "This is not fun any more."

Me:  "Was this really ever fun?"

David: "It had novelty for a while.  I was enjoying the wallowing."

Me: "Maybe there's somebody out there with a voodoo doll who is sticking pins in your hip!"

David: "That would mean that somebody out there really hates me."

Me:  "I think that's the only logical explanation, I mean, other than you not going to the doctor, chiropractor or physiotherapist. So Big Guy, who did you piss off?"

David: "I really don't know."

Me:  "Must be one of those many women who, when they throw themselves at you for sex, you turn down on account of the fact that you're married to me."

David:  "That must be it."

Tuna Sweater

Every time.  Every single time.  When I open a can of tuna - I end up with tuna sweater, or tuna shirt or tuna blouse or tuna dress.  If I have long sleeves on - I end up smelling like a fish market...

I met David at the door the other day, wrapped my arms around his neck, leaned in for a kiss...

"What have YOU been up to?" He said, waggling his eyebrows at me.

"Dude!  I'm making dinner!   It's tuna juice."

"I'll say it's tuna juice..." more waggling of the eyebrows.

"No seriously.  It's TUNA juice.  We're having tuna melts for dinner."

He looked a little crestfallen for a moment.  Then he perked up.  "I like tuna melts."

The Anal Gland Squeeze

WARNING: This post is gross

Me, averting my nose.  Minuit, really pissed.

My cat, Minuit, stinks.  Really a lot.  She has impacted anal glands.  Probably on account of the fact that she's so fat - something that happened when she developed her fear of people when we lived in New York for 6 months.  When Minuit walks by you, you are almost certain that you have just stepped in cat shit.  Except that it's her and it's coming from her own anal glands.

The last time that I took Minuit to the vet, the beast had her anal glands squeezed.  (Minuit, not the vet.)  I held Minuit, the vet squeezed.  Not Minuit's finest moment methinks.  Although after that, when she was taken to the back to have her nails trimmed she was positively passive - I guess when you've had your anal glands squeezed, the hardship of a nail trimming seems less traumatic.

After the anal gland squeeze, Minuit didn't stink!  She was fresh as a daisy.  It was like having a new cat in the house.  But now it's been a couple of months and the stink has returned.  So I either have to take her bi-monthly to the vet to have her anal glands squeezed, or I need to learn how to squeeze them myself.  The cost-efficiency quotient of my learning the technique is out-weighing the gross-out factor.  One of my sisters-in-law is a vet - I'm thinking she might be able to coach me.

The Naked Heather

You never know how much time you really spend naked until your kid has a sleepover. Thursday night, Rissa had three other friends sleep over, and I had to make a concerted effort NOT to be naked in my own home.  I had to close doors, I had to take a bathrobe with me when I took a shower... I had to get dressed in my bedroom...  Which lead me to this thought: I must walk around naked ALL the time. 

I get dressed as I'm walking to the kitchen.  I might have pants on, maybe my bra is on, maybe it isn't... rarely is a shirt upon my person.  I start the kettle to boil, I feed the cats, all while going topless.  Rissa frequently greets me with a "Mother!  Clothes!  ON NOW!"

I'm the only who really does it in our house. Though Rissa spent her first decade rarely wearing clothing inside the house, at the age of 11 she starting wrapping herself in towels, bathrobes and generally not wanting to be naked.  At all.  EVER.  David started covering up a few years before that, probably on account of the fact that Rissa did a lot of pointing and tittering at his groinal direction.  But me?  Nekkid.  Most of the time.  I cavort, I skip down the stairs (although when I do, I must hold my tatas so that I don't give myself a black eye), I lounge.

Being naked is a great thing.   I enjoy my liberation from garments.  I alone, the mother, have this freedom in our home.  I send out a call to other mothers - embrace this!  Cast off your clothing and luxuriate in nakedness with me!  Embarass your adolescent children, titillate your partners!  Mothers of the world - DISROBE!!