This is not the Magic Sword I thought it was...

I used to go to Saturday matinees at the CFB Winnipeg movie theatre.  Between the ages of 5 and 8, I'd get dropped off with a girlfriend (probably Kristen), we'd enjoy our 2 hours with snacks and then late in the afternoon we'd emerge bleary-eyed into the sunlight seeking out our parents' waiting arms.

When I was about 8, Kristen and I went to see The Magic Sword. Our parents thought it was the Disney version.  They were misinformed. This Magic Sword was the one with Basil Rathbone as an evil wizard and Anne Helm as the beautiful princess he was going to feed to a scary-ass dragon.  It was made in 1962 with all its attending camp and cheesy special effects.  It was the one where George (Gary Lockwood.) went on a quest to save the princess and people's faces melted off and there were vampires with electric green eyes who morphed into hags.  George's attending knights kept dying, in more and more hideous ways.  First Sir Ulrich of Germany and Sir Pedro of Spain are slain by an ogre (which in retrospect I can now totally see is a dude in a Planet of the Apes-esque suit filmed so that he looks like he's 25 feet tall).  Then Sir Anthony perishes in a swamp, followed by the deaths of Sir Dennis of France,Sir James of Scotland  and Sir Patrick of Ireland. All dead.  All of them.  Dead knights everywhere.

Crouched behind the seats in front of us, our hands over our eyes, Kristen and I glimpsed the movie...  Unable to breathe for terror, knees sticking to the gum and pop-encrusted floor of the theatre.  Hearts pounding, near-vomiting with fear.  Running to our mothers after the show was over, pale-skinned and wide-eyed.

After seeing The Magic Sword, my already over-active imagination went into overdrive.  I could relive every image from that movie as soon as I closed my eyes.  Two bald dudes in a Siamese-twin outfit, 2-headed dragons, a chimp in a suit...  some weird-ass shit.

My Mom came to kiss me goodnight and I wouldn't let her near me.  She had green eyes, just like the morphing vampire.  I was pretty sure that her eyes were glowing - I knew that she was going to suck my blood.

"YOU HAVE GREEN EYES!!!  YOU HAVE GREEN EYES!!!" 

I was in hysterics before my Dad, who didn't usually do bedtime, rescued me.  That might have been one of the times that they gave me cough syrup to aid in knocking me out.  After that Magic Sword fiasco, my Mom learned to double check what movie was playing at CFB Winnipeg before dropping me off on my own.

I was pretty good at avoiding things that would feed my imagination until  The Exorcist was shown on primetime network television when I was 12.  I was at a sleepover - I think her parents were out - I have a sneaking suspicion we were left with her older brother.   That shit messed me up.  I had post-traumatic stress after seeing it.  Seriously.  I slept with my little brother for 4 months afterwards, and to this day, if I even see a picture of Linda Blair from the movie, I want to throw up. 

Quick! Pass me the pregnancy test!

Is what I'm thinking because I haven't had my period now in 12 weeks.  I know I'm in peri-menopause and all, but there's still this little part of me that worries, you know?  It worries that this extra weight which I can't seem to get rid of lately, no matter how much I over-exercise and not eat - what if that's not extra weight?  What's if it's BABY?  What if that muffin top has nothing to do with muffins?!?  What if I'm nearing the end of my first trimester and should be making some big decisions?!?  Oh sweet Jesus!  Quick!  Pass me the pregnancy test!

HOLY FUCK!!!  Panic attack!  I am having a PANIC ATTACK!! I need to put my head between my knees.  I am 44 and 11/12  fucking years of age!!  I'm on medication to try to regulate my periods because they've been so freakin' wonky.   

Logically, I know that I'm not pregnant, (David has been fixed for 7 years and I know that I haven't been having sex with anyone else but my Hitachi Magic Wand), but you know how you get a thought in your head that just won't leave?  And the more you think about it, it just starts to seem like it's completely plausible and then completely possible?  Like, what if the vasectomy clips slipped? Or corroded...  Or were absorbed by male body parts?  How am I to know know what's going on with David's junk?  Maybe those crazy sperms really wanted to squeeze out the eye of the snake just one more time.  Their last hurrah...

Don't Google it Heather!  Do not Google pictures of a 3 month old fetus.  Do NOT open another browser tab. Don't you do it...  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.  That's it, I'm going to Shopper's. 

Still Crushing - after all these years...

1984.  I was 16.  I had a crush on a kid three years my junior.  He was strong, he was brave, he was determined.  He was open-vested.

Atreyu.  (sigh)  Oh Atreyu.  Screaming to save Artax - yanking on those frickin' reins.  And then (SPOILER ALERT) the damn horse drowns and now, almost 30 years later, I still get a lump in my throat.

And then when Atreyu meets up with Rock Biter when he is washed up on shore... Only the soulless cannot be affected: 

So what am I doing now?  Ordering the book online, because in spite of having seen the movie at least a dozen times, I've never read the original text by Michael Ende.  I may have to have box of tissues handy.  Because of the tears you sick bastards -  the kid is still 13, even after all these years!!  And it was the purest kind of love.

Tell me I don't look like that when I kiss!

We recently went to a wedding.  At this wedding there were many young, beautiful couples - years, perhaps dozens of years, younger than us.  We were seated with one of these couples.  They were hip and happening and 'NOW.'  But they sure as shit didn't know how to kiss.

I watched this beautifully coiffed and gowned young woman as she kissed her husband.   She looked like a clown blowing up a balloon.  Like a guppy sucking in air.  Like an infant trying to latch onto a nipple.  And he was digging it!

It was the least sexy kissing I've ever seen in my life.  And I've seen some bad kissing.   Pretty much every kiss that Colin Firth has given on film is a bad kiss.  And before you nail me to the wall for dissing Mr. Darcy - I urge you to go back... Go back and watch videos of Mr. Firth's kiss at the end of Pride and Prejudice and Love Actually and Bridget Jones' Diary - those are not sexy kisses.  Mr. Firth looks like he's worried that he's going to catch lip cooties from those gals.  But those terrible kisses, were like from Lady Chatterly's Lover in comparison to the kisses I witnessed at the wedding.

If someone had caught my reaction on film it would have been something like this:

You ever have one of those days?

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  I was driving into Toronto to see a friend's show.  I had Q107.1 on (the home of classic rock) - it was Psychedelic Sunday and a Beatles A-Z weekend.  The tunes were stellar.

I made sure I checked the highway update signs all the way along my route.   "Express and Collectors moving well after next transfer."  That's what I like to hear.  Singing along with the Beatles "Goooolden slumbers fill your eyyyyyyyes!" - anticipating a great show - happy to be alive.

I eased into the exit lane at the DVP and had a moment of stupification.  It was CLOSED.  The DVP was CLOSED.  But a driver wouldn't know this until they actually exited and drove 100 m and saw that they couldn't travel south because there were big freaking road blocks there, and instead everyone was being re-routed north - towards Newmarket.  The complete opposite direction of where I was supposed to be. 

My best laid plans had gone to shit.  And in that moment, I knew... I knew that if I ever was to murder anyone in my life, it would be one of those people in charge of the update signs on the highway.

I'd be introduced to a guy at a party 5 years from now and I'd ask,  "What do you do?"

And he'd say, "I program the highway update signs on the 401."

And then I would stab him in the throat with the first thing I could get my hands on (a cocktail skewer) and when he fell to the ground I would jump on his testicles... a lot.  And as he was crying and bleeding out and asking "Why?  Why?  Why?"  I would say this:

"Because you ruined my Sunday!!!  The trip that was supposed to take me 1 hour and 15 minutes mutated into a BILLION times longer!  And I missed the thing that I drove all the way into the city for!  I had to circumvent the gridlock on the 404 and when I finally got back on the highway I almost ran out of gas because I'd had to drive for so long out of my way, so I had to get off the highway and find a gas station - do you know how HARD it is to locate a gas station CLOSE to the 401 even with a GPS?!?  And then I had to use the stupid Allen Expressway which took me 25 minutes to travel 2.5 km and then when I finally got to my destination and paid for parking, I couldn't have an alcoholic beverage because I had to drive home, and when I got back to the car, there was a FUCKING PARKING TICKET on my windshield!!!  That is why!"

And then all of his highway update sign programmer friends would know.  They would know how important it is to update those signs on the highway.  He would be a lesson to them all.

That being said.  I did manage to have a lovely warm apple cider with my friends.  After I'd missed the show. 

Cannibal Chickens

Lesley has chicks.  Baby chicken-type chicks.  In her house.  Four adorable balls of feathery fluff.  I can barely contain my "squeeeee" of joy within the confines of my head.  I have picked them all up - pressed them against my cheek.  They are fluffy yellow examples of the perfection of our universe.

I just found out that these chicks are 'eating chicks.'  By that, they are meant for eating.  Not, as Rissa and David supposed when I explained this to them, cannibal chicks who are eating other chicks.  Lesley will be slaughtering these chicks after they become full-grown chickens, and then, she will eat them.  These baby chicks whom I pressed to my cheek.

And I'm going to help her do that.  Because I think I need to know how to do this.  You know, when Armageddon comes, we'll all be living on homesteads in the remaining wilds of Canada raising our own food, and I'm going to need to know how to slaughter chickens and whatever else that can be food, including humans.  'Cause ME turning into a cannibal??  After Armageddon, that's gonna be an eventuality.  I know human is supposed to taste like chicken and all that, but say you've spent the last several months/years with George the cobbler, or ferrier or whatever in post-Armageddon times George does... I don't know if I'm going to be able to eat George on account of the fact that we'd have had a relationship of sorts, you know because he makes my shoes or puts shoes on my horse - which is all we'll have left for transport, because it's after Armageddon and we'll all be riding horse or elk or reindeer - and then when the regular food runs out we're going to have eat the Georges of this world  and I want to be prepared for that eventuality. So I'm starting with chicks.   

I WON'T resort to bulimia, I WON'T resort to bulimia...

I had a good week last week, I really did.  I was a good girl.  I limited my intake of all the bad-for-me stuff.  I did.  I didn't eat after 7:00 p.m.  I had club soda with lime instead of the Rusty Nails and Chocolate Martinis that called to me. 

Until Saturday night.  That night it all went to hell.  After a sensible dinner of pork tenderloin salad, where did David and I go?  No Frills.  What did we buy?  Bags of gluten-free brownies, and rice chips and a tray  of Nanaimo Bars.  We went out for eggs.  If I really think about the calories I ingested, I might have to commit Hara-kiri.

Food rehab may be my only option.  If I went to food rehab, I could maybe sweat out the addiction to chocolate, sugar and salt.     This once-a-week bingeing is going to kill me.  I know that I'm an emotional eater.  I know that.  So when I'm feeling low because of my freaking ridiculous health issues, that's when I should just go to bed.  Even if it's 7:30 p.m.  I should NOT have two bowlfuls of cut up miniature gluten-free brownies with added chocolate chips, topped with a dollop of sour cream, followed by an ENTIRE FUCKING bag of dill pickle flavoured rice chips.  That is stupid.  I know that it will make me all dopey and stoned on the sugars and that I'll then feel like crap.  So why do I do it?  Why can I not eat healthfully?  Why can I not ignore these stupid-ass cravings?

Although honestly?  After I ate the two bowls of miniature gluten-free brownies with added chocolate chips,  topped with a dollop of sour cream, followed by an ENTIRE FUCKING bag of dill pickle flavoured rice chips, I didn't feel all that bad.  I thought I'd have the urge to purge, but... no.  It was all good, except for the all-consuming guilt, of which I wanted to rid myself immediately.  My strategy will now be this:  eat ALL the remaining gluten-free brownies to get them out of the house.  In one sitting if I have to.

'Cause my body can't take this.  This health issue roller-coaster is sucking the big one.  I exercise every fucking day of the week for at least 60 minutes - I shouldn't have to worry about weight gain!  This shit is actually making me contemplate bulimia.  I contemplate heading to the basement with a bowl into which I could blow chunks so that David and Rissa wouldn't hear me hurling my guts out in either one of the bathrooms.  Although, if I turned the fan ON in the upstairs bathroom... NO!!  This is NOT healthy behaviour!  Plus, I'm sure that I'd still get caught, noise really has a way of travelling in our house what with the extra staircases.  The echo of my retching into a stainless bowl would probably resonate through the entire house.  Plus, if you're woofing your cookies from self-induced retching?  You give yourself a headache and burst those wee little vessels around your eyes.  That is not a good look.

If I were an alcoholic, this is where I would now call my sponsor.