Monster Child

"My friends think I'm a monster," says Rissa.

My spoonful of Rice Chex stops an inch from my mouth.  "Because why?"

"Because I don't eat cereal."

I shoot her a disbelieving glance before shoveling my cereal into my mouth.  I chew thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing.  Then I shake my head.  "I don't get it."

"Everybody eats cereal for breakfast," she says.  "Everybody.  I'm like the only one who doesn't.  They say 'What do you eat?!?'  And I say 'Toast.'  And they look at me like I'm crazy.  And even if I did eat cereal it'd be Raisin Bran, which NOBODY eats.  Cereal on its own is fine, but cereal with milk is... bluuuuuuuugghhhhhh."  She shudders.   "It gets all wet and..."

"Oh yeah," says David.   "Yeah.... (He too, shudders) bluuuuuuuugghhhhhh."

"Every cereal - it happens to every cereal," I say, the sense memory suffusing my very being.  I shovel in another still-crisp spoonful of Rice Chex before it disintegrates.

"Not Captain Crunch,"  says David.  "That cereal can lacerate your mouth after it's been in milk for a full half hour.  I still have scars."  I'm certain that he's feeling out the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

"No, I'm thinking more of Shredded Wheat," I say.  "You know.  You use your spoon to cut that little cross down the middle of it and you sprinkle brown sugar on it and then it's a race from the time you pour the milk on it before it morphs into mushy paste.  You have about 30 seconds where it's slightly moist but still somewhat crunchy.  I'm convinced that's why I always eat my breakfast quickly because on a cellular level I'm afraid it'll turn into mushy cereal paste."

"I'm pretty sure cereal is just a North American thing" David postulates.

I give it a think.  "Yeah... I bet you the French don't eat cereal - they probably baguette it all the way.  And the Swiss - they're more granola types."

Rissa perks up.  "Granola?  Like what you get on top of a yogurt parfait?"  She loves a yogurt parfait.

"Yes!  Exactly like that!  You can have that!  Then you can be all cosmopolitan and say, 'I have granola with  Greek yogurt.'  And you can give them a high class glance over one shoulder and raise your eyebrows and know that your taste is far superior to theirs."

 

And that's why I need a Tardis.

Because 3000 sq feet of furniture from a 2.5 story century home will not fit into a 1500 sq foot 1.5 story... even older century home.  No matter how much we might want it to.

David's a list maker.  It calms him - it gives him purpose.  So we took his laptop and went from room to room and we itemized every single piece of furniture that we have.  It was supposed to give us... perspective. I got chest pains.  And a little hyperventilate-y.  We had four options for the stuff.  Move. Sell.  Donate.  Dump.

Where was the Tardis option?  I want that option!  The option where I can just open the door to a closet and miraculously find 1000 square feet of storage space in it?  Where's that option?!?

If someone could actually work out the technology for The Tardis, they'd make gazillions of dollars to downsizing families.  Forget cold fusion people, make me a freaking Tardis!

I have a whole 4' x 8' room in our basement that is devoted to Christmas Decorations, a 10' x 10' room for crafts and sewing and another 8' x 8' room that is... who am I kidding here?  It's full of crap.  It really is.  It's got suitcases and old books that were taken off the shelves in the office when were first staging the house for selling three years ago, and furniture that was too big or superfluous.  It's a room full of stuff we never use - have NEVER used, not since we moved into this house 8 years ago.  Boxes of electronics and old stereos and extra sofa cushions from when we turned our Ikea Ektorp corner sofa into a massive chesterfield.  If I were Barbara Eden, I'd wiggle my nose and nod my head and the room would magically deposit its contents to the appropriate corresponding locations: Kijiji purchasers' homes, the Habitat ReStore and the dump.

Two closets and a cubby under the eaves.  That's what the new house has.  We do have a basement, but it's the basement of a150 year old house - a gravel and dirt floor and a sump pump working overtime.  Anything stored down there needs to be off the floor on plastic shelving in Hermetically sealed containers. 

And really, other than Christmas decorations, what needs to be stored?  The record collection that I've been carting around for decades without a turntable to play them on?  The boxes of fabric that I might find a use for, come Halloween 2020?  The books that have laid in their boxes for years now, no one to open them, no one to peruse their contents?    It's just stuff.  And it's not stuff that is bringing us joy.  We don't cling to that stuff, soak up its nostalgia and cuddle in its warmth.  We store it, just in case.  Just in case... what???  No really, just in case what?  Just in case we suddenly reside in a mausoleum where these items are displayed as relics of our past?  Where they are under-glass memories of days gone by?  Where we keep them just to say they're kept and puff up our chests in the knowledge that we hold onto our heritage?

Nope.  Not going to happen.  No more storing things.  No more just-in-casing things.  We either use them or they go.  Just typing that and a weight has fallen off my shoulders.  "They go."   Keep what's precious and let go of the rest of it go.  No buts, no gasps of  near-intention, no hemming or hawing... decide and live with that decision.   Let that beat up Elvis album find a place of pride in someone else's home - in the home of someone who plays it on a turntable with all of its skips and analog noise.  And you can rest easy in knowing that because you let go - you gave someone else joy.

In hindsight, perhaps I should have put on a bathrobe first...

But you know how it goes.  You've just showered.  You notice that at least one of the bulbs in the bathroom light fixture has died.  You know that if you don't fix it now, you won't remember to do it later.  So off I went, starkers, down the hall.

"It's okay, I'm taking care of it!" I say as I head towards the stairs.

David glances my way, does a double take and then waggles his eyebrows.  "Taking care of... (he pauses salaciously) ...what?"  he asks.

"NOTHING!" yells Rissa from her room.  "YOU ARE TAKING CARE OF NOTHING!!"  (She gets grossed out when we play the innuendo game.)

"Light.  In the bathroom," I call from downstairs.  "I am fixing it."  I grab a bulb from the laundry room cupboard and sail back up the stairs, brandishing my light bulb with a triumphant "TA-DAH!!!" and head back into the bathroom, where I soon realize that I have nothing to stand on.  I run back out into the office and grab the stool.   "Not a problem!  I've got this!"

I climb up on the chair, unscrew the bottom of the fixture and balance it precariously upon the shelf below me.  Two bulbs.  Two bulbs are out.  sigh  Not to worry!  I simply refuse to be half-assed about this.  This job will be completed! I screw in the one bulb, clamber down from the chair and run back downstairs (holding my untethered boobs this time, so that I don't give myself a black eye).

"DON'T WORRY!  I AM TAKING CARE OF IT!!!"

I come back upstairs with the second bulb, "See?  All taken care of!"  I climb back up on the stool once more and screw in the second bulb.
 
"LIGHT!  WE HAVE LIGHT!!!!"  I let out a stream of mad scientist laughter to cap the moment.  

"MOOHOOHAHAHAAAAAH!!!"  

I reach for the shade and stick my tongue out as I'm trying to thread it back onto the fixture.  Then the cap pieces and a little washer thingie drops.  But I now have the shade in my hands and I don't really want to climb back down again.  "Help!  I need some help in here!"

"Mother, what have you done?" asks Rissa from her room.

"I just need an extra hand, but you should be warned that I'm..."

"Why are you ALWAYS naked?" asks Rissa from the doorway.

"I'm not ALWAYS naked."

"Mostly."

"I know that this present position of me naked up here on the stool isn't maybe the thing you wanted in your brain this morning, and that me on a stool with you at floor level just isn't cool, but would you please pass me those things?"  I motion with the big toe on my left foot.

Managing to avert and roll her eyes at the same time, Rissa hands me the missing pieces.  I put the shade back up and jump down.  "SEE?!?  I did it!!"  I step back to admire my handiwork.  I cock my head to one side - the fixture was now askew.  I climb back up again to straighten the shade and this time, THIS time, it's perfect.

"HAH-HAH!  DONE!!"

A superhero now, hand on my hips, I pose.  "My work here is done!"  My right arms rises in front of me.  I give a mighty salute and then stride to my room, majestically.

"Put your bathrobe on!"

Face Palm

It's not just me, right?

Other works in this series include:

The counter above the dishwasher is NOT the dishwasher!


I am NOT your sink whore!

and

Tea Towels are NOT dishcloths!

The perils of cheese.

Remember when you were a kid, and you ate the  fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza so fast that the roof of your mouth became stuccoed with blisters?  Afterwards, your tongue couldn't help but play with the damaged skin of your palate - feeling out all of those bumps.  For hours, even days afterward (depending on how hot the pizza had been) that tenderness remained.  I injured myself so frequently in pizza eating mishaps, that as an adult - I'll let the pizza get to lukewarm to avoid repeating that sensation.

In all my 45 years, I'd never really burnt my tongue before.  Not really.  Minor heat-testing ouches on the tip lose all significance.  That was amateur hour.  Grated cheese, that has fallen onto a well-oiled griddle, may look dried up and innocuous, but really it's a deep fried tongue destroyer.  One piece, demensioned at about 5 mm by 1.5 cm, can damage an area thrice that in size when it's in your mouth and you begin to panic.

"Ahhhhh!  Unnnnnhhh!   AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"     

Spit!  Spit!  Spit!

"What are you doing?"

"Hot cheethe!  Deep fried cheethe!  On my tongue!!"

That deep-seated, pain-induced panic suddenly flashed me back 20 years to my time at the Canadian Space Agency.  I'd gone for afternoon break with a couple people from the office.  It was a hot, hot summer's day - we were on a Creamsicle Quest.  In my haste to get the icy cold treat in my mouth, my tongue became stuck on the underside of that sweet orangeyness and when I immediately tried to pull it off, I somehow managed to get the rest of it stuck on the inside of my lips, creating a completely frozen mouth seal around the offending comestible. 

I didn't want to draw attention to the fact that I'd made such a dim-witted food miscalculation (every Canadian knows not to place a relatively dry tongue on frozen things), so I let the Creamsicle rest where it was, desperate to keep the terror at bay, attempting to concentrate all my hot breath towards the front of my mouth.  I contributed as best I could to the conversation around me with calm "Mmmmm-hmmmms" and "Un-unhs," my brain functions split between allowing for stilted vocalization, ensuring that I didn't hyperventilate and keeping me on my feet, for I was desperate to collapse in a full-on panic attack.

Where was the closest Emergency Room? Would I have to undergo a Lipectomy, and if so, would they have to use part of my vagina to fix my face?!?  Then what would they use to fix my vagina?  Would I have to have some dead woman's transplanted vagina?!?  Would I then have Franken-Vagina?!?  This is what went through my head for the 75 seconds it took for the exterior of the creamsicle to melt and release its hold on my mouth.  To this day, eating a creamsicle for me is akin to being at the top of a roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland in that split second before it drops - deliciously terrifying.

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.