The luck of the Amish

Rissa, at the best of times, can make words sound nothing like they're supposed to.  Last night she made a weird-ass shape around her belly button, said "DRACULA BELLY BUTTON!" and then dissolved into giggles.  David and I were mystified as to what vampires and belly buttons had to do with one another.

"DRACULA belly button?"  She only laughed harder.

"Not DRACULA belly button!  TRIANGULAR belly button."

"Did you not hear DRACULA belly button?" I asked David.

"That's what I heard."

"THIS shape," Rissa said - indicating the weird-ass finger shape she has around her belly button, "has NOTHING to do with vampires."

"I think that we can safely say that TRIANGULAR belly button makes no more sense.  Can you at least try to make sense?"

"Your ears don't work!  If it were a DRACULA belly button then there would be fangs."

"Fair enough."

"The other night Daddy and I were listening to the radio and this hip-hop dude said he was going to Get Lucky Tonight."  Rissa explained.  "I said 'He must be Amish."

"What do the Amish have to do with being lucky?"

"I didn't ACTUALLY say the AMISH.  I said the IRISH, but Daddy heard it as the AMISH because I did it with an accent."

"The luck of the AMISH makes NO sense."

"Exactly," says Rissa.

He is telling me this because why?!?

David is massaging my feet.   He is the best spouse.  We'd returned from an after-dinner walk; instead of me taking the lead, I'd been dragging my feet a bit, looking a little low.

(I'd had a cardiologist's appointment in the morning.  More tests - this one with me wearing an air-tight mask, riding a bike, hooked up to all sorts of monitors - to see how long it would take for me to get chest pain.  5 minutes.  It takes 5 minutes for me to get chest pain.  "Just another minute or so of data Heather," said the Doc.  "Just 80 seconds more, then we'll have a good reading!"  Giving me the thumbs up sign and smiling a wide, encouraging smile.  Having been instructed not to talk during the test, I said nothing, but I was thinking really hard, "Quit being so fucking cheerful you rat fucking bastard!")

"So," asks David that evening.  "Diagnosis?"

I snort.  "Not yet.  Still have to wait for him to go over stuff.  Although he assured me that 'We'd get to the bottom of this,' and that 'Heart disease in women is different than in men,'  whatever the hell that means.  To me, it sounds like he thinks I have heart disease, which I kind of already had figured out myself."

"He's a cardiologist - he thinks everyone has heart disease.  Don't get all freaked out."

"I'm not freaked out.  Any diagnosis would be a relief."

David is smoothing his hands along my right foot, trying his best to relieve my tension, when, swear to God, he suddenly stops and says, "What is THAT?!?" in a horrified tone.

"What is what?"  I calmly ask.

"You've got this lump on the bottom of your foot," he says.  And then he shows me this lumpy bit of something attached to my foot ligaments.

I poke at it.  It hurts a bit.   And then I laugh.

"Seriously?" I ask.  "You are pointing out more weird-ass health stuff to me, right now?"

"It's probably just a cyst," says David, now realizing his folly.

"Of course it is, why wouldn't it be?  Oooooh!  I'll bet it's one of them ganglion cysts..."

David is now mentally slapping his forehead with his palm.  "Now this in no reason to start researching this sort of thing... "

"You mean I shouldn't research this lump that you just drew my attention to... a lump that heretofore I had never even known about?  Of course not."

"You're actually quite healthy you know."

"HAH!  You mean in spite of all my weird-ass health shit?"

"YES!!  You're not some frail little flower who just reclines on the settee with... with..."

"The vapours?  Consumption?"

"Sure."

"That's not how I roll.   Now look up 'lump on sole of foot" please."

ps.  Totally not a ganglion cyst.  I have Ledderhose's Disease.  I'm going to call it Leiderhosen Disease 'cause that'll be more fun.  Best thing about Lesiderhosen Disease?  Weird-ass foot lumps (plantar fibroma)  completely benign!  Boo Yeah, who says you can't learn good shit on the internet?

We must have a poltergeist

Upon her return from school, Rissa makes her way into the kitchen.  I am writing in the dining room.

"There's leftover tosada stuff in the fridge and some cherry tomatoes,"  I direct from my post at the laptop.  Après school snack reminders are much needed for my child, who, when her blood-sugar is low, can forget things.

"Mother!! OH MY GOD!"

"What?"  I get up to see what the fuss is about.

"DUDE!" she says, indicating the room at large.  "Every cupboard is open!"

I glance around.   It is impressive.  The dishwasher is open, a drawer in the island, the tableware cupboard, the spice cupboard,  the cutlery drawer...

"We must have a poltergeist...?" I posit.

Rissa rolls her eyes.  "What were you doing?"

Both David and Rissa have mocked me mercilessly about my tendency towards Les Placards Ouverts.  Sometimes, I might forget to close cupboard doors. I inherited this family trait from my Aunt Bea. I will admit that this particular instance was truly spectacular, even for me.  I get distracticated.  Usually though, it's a door, maybe two.  I think I was mid putting-things-away.

"You need a snack," Rissa says to me.  "And I'm totally taking pictures of this."

This is what "distracticated" looks like.

I would like to state for the record that the
under-the-sink cupboard is NOT open.

Wounded isn't Newsworthy?

Madmen open fire at a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans - but this isn't news??  How has this NOT been on the front page of my CBC newsfeed since Sunday?  Oh wait.  Only 19 people were wounded.  Nobody died, so it's not newsworthy. 

What, did the pitch sessions post 'incident" have news networks postulating, "Naaaaaaah - could've been worse?"  There were over 400 people gathered for the parade and only wounds?  Not as much media punch as Boston or Newtown. And yet there will be another spate of gun purchases and 2nd Amendment Justifications and I'm left shaking my head.

May I please just ask: What the fuck is going on?  Did somebody spike the Kool Aid... again?  'Cause people are getting batshit crazy.  And not just the crazy people, but the people reporting on the crazy people.  Are mass-shootings so common place that they no longer shock?  Has laissez-faire now become the way to govern? The US tried to pass the weakest of gun legislation in April and government couldn't get their heads out of the lobbyist's asses long enough to pass better background checks.  It's like they want crazy people out there with guns.

I'm thinking now might be time to start that commune in the middle of nowhere.  Who's with me?

Hair Loss and Lederhosen

"Daddy, why do you have those weird bald patches on your legs??" asks Rissa one morning.

"I'm not sure," says David, standing in his basketball-length exercise shorts.  He peers down at his hairy limbs.  "These ones here..." he points to his calves and shins, "are probably from socks rubbing..."  He points to his ankles - "These ones are definitely from the shorter sports socks."

He pulls the legs of his shorts up a bit and looks above his knees.  "I don't know what these ones are from."

"When you wear stockings?" I ask.  "With your lederhosen?"

And then he did a little lederhosen dance.  I adore my husband.

You Tube Taster's Menu - or how to never accomplish anything in a day

It's Rissa's fault.  She sent me a video,  "Orangutan makes friend with dog."  Next thing you know, I'm using the You Tube taster's menu down the right side of the page.  Instead of exercising before work, I'm surfing You Tube - watching dozens of animals videos.   I could have at least gone into work early, so that I could leave early and then exercise.

I'm watching, "Tiger vs Orangutan," "Silverback Gorilla Meets Tourist," which then morphs to "Toddler falls in Gorilla Cage," "Lioness offering her newborn cub to Kevin Richardson," "Reunion between Anita and the wolves," "Woman details cat - mountain lion encounter," "Housecat meets bobcat," "!!!Squirrel adopted by cat learns to purr," and what may be my most favourite 13 seconds of video ever (from 0:05 - to 0:18): "Foxes Jumping on my Trampoline."   Note to self:  do not open You Tube when you are at all hormonal.

Old School Foreplay

Way back when... you know, in the Stone Age... when David and I first got together... We had the best foreplay.  We did.  It was amazing.

We'd snuggle on the couch, as close as two people could be without actually being conjoined, sigh and smile... our hands touching, our minds of a single purpose.

Everything was new.  Everything was possible.  Everything was attainable.  We could have this!  We could do that!   We would contort ourselves into pretzels so that we both got the best view.  One day, we might even be able to create perfection if we just kept on being in tune with each other.

We would open magazines to get ideas.  We used to pore through magazines!  Sorry.  Yeah... not actually talking about sex here.  This was after the having sex all-the-time phase.  We'd moved on.  A dream night for us morphed into staying up late, poring over house plan magazines.  The future opened ahead of us, unobstructed - it was glorious.  We were going to create our dream home.  We were going to buy/design the perfect plan.  We were going to build our own home with our very own hands.  This was before life... before kids...  before debt...

Virtual tours had yet to be invented.  We had to IMAGINE what most of those rooms looked like.  We'd have this great room, that butler's pantry and our very own pedestal tub in a sun-soaked bay window.

We used to dream like that.  ALL the time. Then, as it is wont to do, life got in the way - convincing you that those hopes and dreams you once had?   They're out of your reach.  Well, you know what?  I ain't buying it.  I'm going to do something old school today.  I'm heading to the best bookshop in town... the one with all the great magazines.  I'm  buying me some foreplay.