And that's when I peed my pants... again.

So yesterday, when I was publicizing the - FLASH FREEZE WARNING - I should have realized that it would come back and bite me in the ass.

By 9:45 a.m. the puddles were already sporting a thin sheet of ice.   I found myself in a a reverse time-lapse of the spring thaw.  In my well-laced Sorels, I picked my way tentatively across the back alley by St. Michael's Church.  I was doing my best to channel Wash from Firefly "I am a leaf on the wind... "  The gusts would not affect me, they would only propel me on my journey.  I was rock steady.  My toes were antennae in front of me, my gaze firmly on the frigid pavement.  I could actually see the crystallizations forming ahead of me in the path of the wind. 

When I was in my early twenties - I'd taken a wicked fall while heading down an icy hill towards my apartment's dumpster.  It was a prat fall of cartoon proportions - the conclusion of which had me landing so hard on my ass that I put a hairline fracture in my tailbone.  For months afterwards, I was terrified to walk on anything but a level surface.

Congratulating myself on my courageous trek across the frozen terrain, I ramped up my confidence and  headed cross-country towards my office.  Stump. Stump.  Stump.  Not slipping here, no Sir, not me.    Stump. Stump.  Stump.  Carefully going uphill.  Stump.  Stump.  Stu....  An instant of footing uncertainty - the adrenaline of catching myself before the fall creating the perfect conditions for a slight panic pee.  Seriously?!?  Steady on my feet, shoulders now slumped, I cursed my lazy pelvic floor.  Okay, no more cross-country for me.  The short cut across the skating rink of a lawn, even in my Sorels, was too hazardous to contemplate.  I walked on the road and arrived alive.

By the end of the day, the wind had picked up.  David had suggested that he could pick me up on his way home from school, but I poo-poohed his concerns.  If I walked I could already be home by the time he even got to the office.  Nope, I was good. I was now confident in my walking ability.  I'd stick to the salted sidewalks.   

I should have just walked on the road, with the cars. Two near falls and two more brief panic pees had me cursing and vowing to do more Kegels at home.  Heart pumping - now doubting myself, I barely had time to register the fall when it happened.  I was up, up, up in the air and then I was down - hard - on my ass. No time even to curse - barely time to acknowledge that the most recent of panic pees was bigger than the previous two.  I lay there stunned, but already finding the bright side.  Though the pain in my ass radiated throughout my entire body and I had peed my pants even more - I knew that I hadn't landed directly on my tailbone.  Small victory to be sure, but so much better than the alternative.

When I tried to get up, my ass and hips wouldn't cooperate.  So I just lay there for a bit - the cold on my ass already helping with the swelling. When I did turn over, my knees slipped from under me and I was flat on my stomach - now I'd knocked the wind out of myself.   I had to laugh. It was ridiculous - I was ridiculous.   Someone should have videotaped it.  I crawled from the sidewalk onto the road.  I'm not sure, but we may have entered a new geological age in the time it took for me to push myself to standing.  It was still another 10 minutes of carefully picking my way along the road before I made it to our street.  Every few moments I would cheerfully call out to the other crazy people attempting to travel by foot,  "Careful!  It's icy down there!"  I would point to where I'd been and then point to my own ass in Canadian Winter Sign Language.

I shuffled towards sanctuary.  The sidewalk in front of our house and the stairs were already salted and safe.  My husband, who had offered to pick me up at work, who worried for my safety, had beaten me home.  The irony was not lost on me.

Wet enough for you?

I'm Canadian.  An Air Force brat, I split my formative years between the Maritimes and Prairies (PEI, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, back to Manitoba - with a brief anomaly in California in '81 and '82 - until I finished high school and then I found myself an Ontarian).

I remember those winters in Nova Scotia and Manitoba where, as I child, I would pray for a Snow Day.  They happened infrequently - they held MIRACLE status in my mind.  Between the ages of 9 and 12, I lived in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley  - so many of the kids were bussed in from either the North or South 'Mountain,' that when it snowed, 3/4 of the school population would disappear.   In Winnipeg, heavy snowfall, combined with strong wind-chill, would shut 'er down perhaps twice over each winter.

I'd never had a wet winter until I moved to Ottawa.  November came and the locks froze on our car - we had to jackhammer sheets of ice off the windshield.  I was bone-chillingly cold - could never get warm.  I'd willingly take a cold sunny day in Manitoba over Ontario's damp overcast and icy.  Even with a crappy damp November, come December and straight through to the end of March it was winter - even in Southern Ontario.  There was snow.  It was cold.  Until there wasn't and it wasn't.

Sure, a 1.6 c raise in temperature over 50 years doesn't seem so bad - how can that affect anything?  It's January 6th folks, and it's raining in Southern Ontario.  We have a FLASH FREEZE WARNING.  Flash Freeze Warning?  It should already be frozen - we live in Canada!

"It's just slushy now," said David this morning, as he prepared to depart.  "Only wet.  It's raining.  The sidewalks are fine, the roads are fine."  And then he left.  To drive half an hour away.  And I let him, because I hadn't checked the morning's news yet.  And now I have read the morning's news - seen the warnings from Environment Canada and I've already left my first of what are sure to be several emails for him.

Yeah, sure, right now it hasn't frozen over. NOT YET.  You glance out your window and you see winter slush and actual puddles - nothing to worry about...  I'm not saying that it's a The Day After Tomorrow kind of storm,

I'm just worried about my spouse attempting to make his way back on the 401 at the end of his teaching day and whether or not I should try to drop off Rissa's skates at her school so that she can skate home.

Please be safe everyone.

My cat suffers from dementia.

You wouldn't think her head could do a 360 would you?

Or she's possessed.  It's an either/or I think.

We were all lazing about during the Christmas holidays - comfy and cozy in the family room - in front of the fireplace, and Minuit - the most crotchety of our beasts - went cuckoo bananas.

Not the most sociable of cats, Minuit routinely growls when the doorbell rings before waddling away to hide. This was different.  Nobody at the door.  No loud noises.  She wasn't startled by anything.  She's sitting there - eyebrows pitched in an evil tilt - growling... at... Lola.  Younger black feline Lola, is not a new addition to our household.  She's been here over 2 years now.  But there was Minuit - growling - her fur standing up on her neck. And then Lola, worried that she might get attacked - got her back up.  Deeper growling - yowls - our aged Minuit had morphed into the vocal equivalent of two tom cats marking their territory.  Deep, throaty, ANGRY growls - now at Steve, who wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

So?  What do we need here?  A cat whisperer or an exorcist?

And if it IS dementia - how do we properly deal with her new condition? 'Cause your gut impulse is to say, "Minuit, get a grip!  It's your sister Lola... Don't you remember her? (In a louder clear voice)  It's LOLA AND STEVE... YOU KNOW... LOLA AND STEVE..."  Which is possibly the worst thing that you can say to a dementia sufferer.  If they don't remember at that precise moment, they DON'T remember - calling them on it will only confuse them and make them more anxious.  (It's kind of like saying "No, Nana - you're losing your memory, but I'll badger you about it so that I'LL feel better.)

Not to anthropomorphize Minuit, but she does have a brain - so the next time that she loses it - maybe proper introductions are in order?  Spray the other cats with positive feline pheromones?  Suggestions?

But I'm a university graduate!

Now I doubt my intelligence and smell like cat shit.  Yes it's kitty litter day.

And every single time I forget  that I should be doing this job in a HAZMAT suit so that I don't reek of cat.  I should have kitty litter clothes.  I have painting clothes - the ones that I wear every time I paint - I should have kitty litter clothes so that the fallout from this particular chore doesn't cling to me like fecal remoras.

So much to scoop that I required two garbage bags - one for the crap and one 'just in case' bag because the other one was so full of clumping crap.

Bag No. 1 - not a problem.  Bag No. 2 - a cheap-ass No Frills kitchen garbage bag that tests one's patience, will to survive and mental intellect - had me ready to commit harakiri.  This video was made after I'd already been trying for 5 minutes to open it in the basement.

Hemorrhage in Aisle Three...

WARNING: There is an abundance of female information in this post

There I sit in Canadian Tire, my ass on the lowest rack in the Home Decor Aisle.

Fists in the air...  "THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!!!"  

"Ma'am?"

For a moment, I morph into a Mesopotamian Demon.   Laser beams from my eyes - poor kid backs up, hands in front of him in placation...

"Do NOT call me Ma'am..."

From The IT Crowd

Sharp stabbing knives in my ovaries.  I growl.

"Are you alright?"

"I. AM. FINE.  I just need a second to... SWEET MOTHER OF... I'm fine.  It's okay.  I'm sorry.  No need to be alarmed."  I pry myself off the rack, just finding my footing before another cramp hits me.  I grab onto a Debbie Travis basket, willing myself not to pass out.  "Breathing.  I'm breathing through it.  
I. AM. BREATHING."

"Is there anything that I can do to help?"

"Can you perform a hysterectomy?"

Blank stare.

"Never mind.  I'm good... really... I just have to... FOR THE LOVE OF...!  Give me a freakin' break here!" 

And that's when my uterus tries to fall out.  Cramping one moment and the next my lower body is doing its impersonation of the monkey from The Fly.  You know how it feels when you walk in muddy gravel in bare feet?  That's how I feel inside.  Wet.  Squishy.  Pointy.  Things between other things.  I catch a glimpse of my face in a mirror.  I am fish belly white - my blue eyes the bluest they've ever been.

I start for the door.  I will Kegel my way out of the building.  100 feet.  I just have to get 100 feet.  Every muscle in my body supports those Kegels for the entire 100 steps.

I'm pretty sure that when I sit my ass in the car I lose consciousness for a split second.  Thank God when I'd noticed a bit of spotting that morning, I'd taken precautions and thrown in the Diva Cup.  I drive home, Wagnerian arias filling the car, every time a cramp hits me. 

Amoeba-like, I ooze my way up the steps to my house. I collapse on the front hall bench.

"Hello, love," David calls from the kitchen.  "Did you have a good..." He walks out to greet me.  "Holy crap!  Are you okay?"

"DRUGS.  I NEED DRUGS!!!" 

"Again?  You're having your period again?" 

"YES."  

"Didn't it just stop 2 days ago?"

"YES."

"That's messed up."

"YOU THINK?!?"

He leads me to the kitchen.  Sits me down at the table.   He then goes to the bathroom, grabs me drugs and pours me about a litre of water.  "Here.  Take these.  Drink this.  All of it. You're dehydrated."

"Can you feel the ounces of blood that are now leaving my body, through my defective cervix too?"

"No, but I do appreciate the graphic reminder."

"I could be more descriptive."

"Not while you're drinking a litre of water you can't."

I'm dreaming of an anorexic Christmas...

How did she do it?  Vera Ellen, I mean.  How could she even stand, let alone DANCE, in White Christmas?  We watched it the other night, the girls and I.

Yeah, we sang along.  Yeah, we rolled our eyes at some of the nostalgic schtick.  Yeah, we got teary-eyed when  General Waverly came into the dining hall.   And yes, watching the horses pull that frickin' sleigh around the road as the set flew out leaving the open barn door to show everyone that there was a true Christmas miracle of fluffy falling snow, made us all go "Awwwwwwwwwwww..."

And yet every time Vera Ellen danced, all we could focus on was how she was doing it, given that she had the Body Mass Index of a cadaver.  I'm remiss - the first real dance, (not in the Sisters floor show) the one with Danny Kaye out on the pier, when she was in a longer skirt, didn't freak us out.  But from the time she appeared in that yellow outfit in the train scene - with her seemingly CGI'd waist - we winced.  I swear to God, that I, with my large peasant hands, could have spanned her middle.

At one point you see her ribs through that top. From then on - the movie became bitter-sweet for me. This beautiful, graceful, accomplished dancer, wearing high-necked costumes in every single shot - her legs so thin that you could see the tendons...  it was like seeing a car crash on the highway, I couldn't look away.

She hadn't always been this emaciated.  If you look at her just a few years earlier - her face was rounder, the waist not quite so wasp thin.  She looked fit.  She looked strong.  She had muscle.

From On The Town

From Wonder Man

circa 1950

Once you've been up close and personal with someone suffering from anorexia, you recognize the signs.  For me it was seeing a girlfriend from high school about 6 months after graduation.  There'd been rumors of her having an eating disorder in school, but until I saw her, with her shoulders bare, I hadn't believed it.  We were at a movie theatre, she was sitting behind me.  I turned around to say "Hi" and could see immediately that something wasn't right.  Her shoulders and collar bones stuck out, seemingly misplaced on her torso.  I stuttered, desperate not to blurt out something inappropriate.  In my head, all I thought was, "Why?!?"  Why did she do this to herself?  Why?  She didn't have extra weight.  Not that I could see.  She'd been sporty - been on teams.  She always looked healthy and fit.  But there, in that movie theatre, she looked frail.  She looked brittle.  I was afraid that I'd break her.

I saw that girl in 1987 - almost 30 years gone now, and the image of her, with her bones protruding, has kept with me.  I kick myself for keeping quiet.

Seeing Vera Ellen dance took my breath away, but not for the reasons it should have, not because she could do things with her feet that I couldn't fathom, not because she made her movement seem effortless, not because she was a spectacular dancer.  And she was.  God, she was talented!

I wish that I could have been there to tell her that.  I wish that someone had told her that.  That someone had let her know that she was perfect, just as she was.  I wish she could have seen herself through someone else's eyes - could see her talent and ability and beauty and believed in it.  I wish that her disease hadn't skewed her perception to the point that she looked like this:

White Christmas has become a cautionary tale for me.  I know, not very Christmassy, right?  It just got me thinking is all. Hold your girls tight - let them know they're perfect as they are. If they can't see it, if their mind is playing tricks on them, set them straight - get them help.  You want to have them around for always, not just at Christmas time. 

You know you're old when...

So this is how it goes is it?  I now injure myself sitting.  I came home the other night, and I ached, oh how I ached.  I could barely walk.  My hips, my knees, even my ankles refused give me support.  Apparently they were going out dancing, maybe speed skating or snowboarding while I was.... what?  Blacked out?  Had my nightcaps begun to excise actual time from my life?

What had I done?  NOTHING!!!  I went over my day.  I hadn't been running, I'd walked to work.  How was it different??  HOW?  The only thing different was that I'd worn heels.  Small wedged heeled boots. And then, later that evening, I wore a part of emerald green heels for an event at which I was performing. Am I reduced to that?  Wearing a pair of 3 inch heels prompts a bout of ... what?   Bursitis?  How is that even possible?  I shouldn't even know about bursitis!  I am 45 freaking years old!  But there were the joints of my legs - causing me such pain that silent tears rolled down my cheeks as I crawled up the stairs to find anti-inflammatories.  What had I done?  It couldn't just be the heels... could it?

Didn't hit me until yesterday when I was sitting in the family room, in front of the ottoman, gearing up to wrap more Christmas presents.  My hips and knees complained as I descended.  It didn't feel right - put stress on my already sore joints.

My lightbulb moment happened when I reached for the ribbon.  Oh, sweet merciful Jesus!  I had injured myself wrapping presents. That is what I've come to.  Sitting on the floor causes too much strain on my body.  I look like this hardy, stalwart girl - broad of shoulder - with now matronly hips, strong thighs...  but in actuality I am Camille - one sit away from rheumatism and one breath away from consumption.

So, here's what I'll be required to do from now on.  Calisthenics in the morning.  You know, to limber up so that I can... SIT.  I'd better start doing something.  Women in my family are long lived.  It'll be a painful next 50 years if I don't get my shit together.