Do not underestimate the joy that you can experience at the LCBO.

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario may now be my favourite place on earth.  And for more than just the incredible array of single malt scotches that one can purchase there. 

My  friends and I were picking up a few libations and took them up to the cash.  We were making jokes, being a little silly - hadn't seen each other in a bit - doing some catching up.  The woman at the cash took one look at me and asked for my I.D. 

Our disbelief was comical.  I puffed up my chest, grinning, and gave her my driver's license.  She literally did a double take.  She then leaned over the counter to look closer at my face.  Which, to be fair, was underneath this hat,

so maybe that's what threw her off, but that still meant that first glance - she thought I was 25 or under!  TWENTY YEARS younger than I am!

She was chagrined.  "You're only 7 years younger than me."

"It's probably the hat," I said, commiseratively, trying my best not to happy dance right in front of her.  I did, however, pretty much do my "I got carded" dance all the way home.

Which means folks - silly hats?  Can take 20 years off your appearance.  Today I will be sporting a sombrero.

And that's how I almost screwed us out of financial freedom!

I will be unstable for the next 7.5 weeks.  I give you all fair warning.   Do NOT tease me.  Not now.  In fact, do not tease me for the next 7.5 weeks.  Treat the next 7.5 weeks as if I am hormonally unbalanced.  I am very fragile.  It ain't hormones - it's house.

We sold our house.  After years of trying (off and on), somehow, around Christmas Break, the stars aligned just right  and it... sold.  It wasn't even on the market.

A friend who recently became a real estate agent said, "Hey, what's happening with your house?  Is it still on the market?'

And we said, "No, but if you know people who want a ginormous century home, what the hell, bring 'em by."

So two days later she did.  She showed the house.  We got an email after the showing:   "The people loved it!!  They are asking about taxes, heating and hydro costs. Also they asked about possible March closing."

David and I were nonplussed.    People never asked about closing dates with our house.  Never.  After years, we'd become very accustomed to people saying that they loved the house.  It's a 2.5 story red brick century home - it has servants' staircases and a butler's pantry.  Everybody loves the house. But it usually goes like this:  "They loved the house..."  And then after the (dot, dot, dot)...   the agent says,  "They don't like the neighbourhood."  "It's too big."  "There are too many stairs."  "They don't like the yard."  "They don't like your neighbours' dogs."  (I didn't even know my neighbours had dogs.)

So even after this particularly positive response, David and I were, "Yeah, whatever, they liked the house.  Sure they did, mmmm-hmmmm.  Here are all our utilities costs.  Go ahead and let them see them... whatever... "

And then, by the end of that week, they wanted to come by and see it again.  With their daughter.  And David and I were all, "Yeah, sure they can see it again... with their daughter... whatever..."  Unaffected scoffing followed.

And then they made an offer.  David and I kept looking at each other.  Seriously?  We have an offer on the house?  Seriously?!?  

It was during the offer period that I started to become unstable.  They offered 24 K less, we countered with 12 K less, figuring we could eliminate some of the negotiations, and then they came back 2,000 under our counter offer but they wanted the kitchen island included.  The kitchen island?!?  The kitchen island which was an exclusion?!?   I went cuckoo-bananas.  

That island was an exclusion!  It was listed as an exclusion!  They offered less and they wanted my island!?!  All my love for this home immediately concentrated into that kitchen island.  David and I had sourced the base at an antique store.  It was a 1920's medical table.  With push-through drawers and a tip up back and a pull-out end and two places if you wanted stirrups - which come to think of it, means that there were naked ladies up there showing their hoohas on that table...  But that's not the point!  The point is that this table - along with the hand-crafted maple butcher block top that David created for it - became the perfect  movable island.  It became MY perfect movable island.  And now these people offered us less and were trying to steal it from me.  David and I went upstairs to talk.

I shook my head violently.  "Nope.  No way.  They cannot have that island! NO!!!"

"For the sake of a sale, are you really going to worry about it?"

"Yes!  Yes I am!  The house wasn't even on the market!  We didn't ask them to make an offer!  They offer us less than our very reasonable counter-offer, and then they want my island?!?  Well, they can't have it!!  I will  accept their stingy counter-offer, but that's it!  NO ISLAND!!!"

"So you would be willing to walk away from this deal, even though we've been trying to sell for what seems like forever, for the sake of that island?"

"Yes.  Yes, I would."

So I tromped downstairs, grumbling all the way.  We countered back, without the island, and then had to wait to see if my sudden attachment to furniture was worth screwing us out of a house deal.  A house deal that would, for the first time since we had owned this home, have us relatively debt free.  Oh God, I changed my mind!  They could have the stupid island.  They were going to walk away.  I went crazy and now they were going to walk away.  Except they didn't.

They accepted our counter-offer, without the island, and scheduled a house inspection.  And then they signed off on the house inspection.  And then we signed papers and everything.  The house was sold.  We had sold our house.  HOLY CRAP!  We'd sold our house.  Whoo-freaking-hoo!!  I started a happy 'sold our house' dance... "We sold our hou-ouse!  We sold our hou-ouse!  We sold our...  Oh crap!  Now we have to a buy a new one!  In just over 2 months' time.  Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!"  

I think that's when David handed me the paper bag.

Wrong shirt, wrong bra...

You know those days?  The days when you think you look a certain way, but then, when you catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror, you realize that you are overly optimistic?  Yesterday morning was one of those days.  Yesterday morning the armpit pudge was particularly pulchritudinous.  The bastards. 

I was dressed, ready to hop on the treadmill - one of my tightest sports bras and my old Les Mis t-shirt adorning my torso.  Standing at the kitchen island, I was eating my breakfast.   Across from me was our antique window mirror.  I actually did a small spit take of orange juice.  My two extra front boobs - the ones that hide near my armpits, were more than just visible - they were a solid A cup. 

"ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?"

"What?  What?!?" asks David.

"THIS!"  I point to the offending armpit pudge.  "THESE."  Poke.  Poke. (And then a double-time, cross-torso, more accusatory) Poke-Poke.  I lie across the kitchen island and wail, banging my head on the butcher block top.

"Heather - it's the bra.  The bra is too tight.  That's not usually how you look."

"But it's how I look right NOW!"  Thud.  Thud.  Thud.  "I shouldn't have THESE."  Poke. Poke.  "I exercise at least an hour every freaking day!  THESE shouldn't exist.  How much do I have to exercise to get rid of THESE?!?"

This is one of those moments when David knew not to say anything - it could go very quickly from bad to worse if he spoke.  He just waited.

"Stupid thyroid!   Stupid peri-menopause!"

David remained silent.  Blood, I'm sure, filling his mouth from his bitten tongue.

My head fell to my chest.  I took a deep breath, lifted my head and squared my shoulders.  "FUCK IT!"  I tucked the armpit pudge into the bra.  "I'm getting on the treadmill.  I don't want to see YOU again. " (I gave a meaningful glance to the offending flesh with an accompanying Poke. Poke) "Do you hear that?  I will exercise and I will take this too-tight bra off and you will go back to AAA size.  Got that?!?"  I climbed the stairs.  "I will not perform cosmetic surgery on myself, I will not perform cosmetic surgery on myself..."

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.