Fun times for an only child

"Hey look at this!" says Rissa.  She's just received her "prize" pack for selling a shit-load of magazines subscriptions for her school fund raiser.  They give the kids a bag chock full of items they must get in bulk from higher end dollar stores.  They're all pretty much craptastic, but it is, after all, a loot bag - it doesn't matter. 

Her favourite item?  A rubber ball attached to an elastic string.

"Look!  Look!"  She whacks it against the wall and comes back to her.  "Oh yeah!  I can do this ALL BY MYSELF!"  She whacks it again and does a spin in the air before catching it.  "Yeah, baby!!  This it the perfect toy for an only child.  I could be the poster child for this toy!" 

Whack... catch.  Whack... catch.  Whack... catch.

She whacks it harder and somehow it becomes a weapon rather than a toy.  It doesn't come back to her, but instead careens off a secondary and then tertiary wall, scaring all three cats and making me duck all before it comes back to whack her in the head.

"It's okay... I'm alright.  I'm ALRIGHT.  Do not panic...  But if I had a sibling who actually lived with us, it might be easier to play ball."

My boobs are growing.

Is one of the by-products of peri-menopause bigger boobs?  Because I'm pretty sure that my boobs are growing.  Swear to God.  I feel like I have pregnant boobs.  I'm ALL boobs.  I look in the mirror and they're just... there...  I mean really, there.  Like  KAPOW there!!   I walk into the room and they get there a few seconds before I do.

They feel... more... substantial.  And they're more, well, sensitive. Like in the nipppular and sidal regions.  Which is how they were when I was pregnant, and seeing as I just finished my period - I know that that's not the case, so what's the deal?  Anyone?   Anyone???

On the 34 symptoms of menopause site (which is really a misnomer - because menopause really means that you've ended all that shit - it should be peri-menopause.  It's like nauseous and nauseated.  Everyone says nauseous, but that means that it causes nausea in others - so if you say "I'm feeling nauseous" that really means that you're making other people want to throw up.  The word you want is nauseated - that's when you want to throw up.)  (Another by-product of peri-menopause is irritability - with small things - like improper word usage.)

So... two years ago, when I went to the 34 symptoms of menopause site, I checked off 18 of them.  Now I have 30 of them. Once I fill my peri-menopause card do I get a prize?

Heather, you've just won an all-expenses-paid vacation for 12 to... HAWAII!!!! 

I'd love to go to Hawaii.  After I've hit menopause.  If I went now, the heat and humidity would drive my irritability levels through the freaking stratosphere.  And the volcanoes - those would piss me off.  And the heat of the sun...  Safer for everyone if I go then.   Then I'd be able to lounge around in bright floral caftans with large floppy sun hats - because apparently after menopause you turn into an elderly Floridian woman.

"Bernie!  Bernie!  I said 3 olives in the martini!  THREE you bastard!"

The treadmill is trying to kill me.

"The treadmill is trying to kill me!"

"Kill you?" David asks skeptically.

"Well, it's, at the very least, trying to Gaslight me."

"And it's doing this, how??"

"Because I can't load Netflix."

David gives me the eyebrow equivalent to a face palm.   "And this is driving you mad?"

"Yes.  Yes, it is driving me mad."

David waits.

"It takes me forever to log in to Netflix on the treadmill."  (I watch Netflix via tablet when I'm on the treadmill.  It is the perfect way to distract myself from the fact that I hate exercise.  I could read a book, but it is not as distracting - I am therefore less content.  That's not to say that I don't LOVE reading books when I'm not on the treadmill - reading while I'm not on the treadmill makes me very content.)

 "How long is forever?"

"Between 5 and 22 minutes."

"That makes no sense.  I haven't had any problems with Netflix." 

"I'm telling you - it's the treadmill."

He shoots me another look.

"Only when you're on the treadmill?"

"Yes.  Only when I'm on the treadmill."

"Does it just pause momentarily... or...?"

"It goes into an endless buffering cycle.  It tells me that it can't access the network.  It stalls completely.  I was on the treadmill for 66 minutes today.  The tv show is only 42 minutes long - it took me 8 minutes to load the sucker and then it kept cacking out.  I'd get 25 seconds of video and then it would buffer for three minutes." 

"Have you tried disconnecting and reconnecting to the Internet in the tablet settings?"

"YES."  

"Have you used the memory boost function that I added the other day?"

"YES.  I have used the memory boost function that you added. I also rebooted the modem.  Twice.   IT IS THE TREADMILL."

"It just makes no sense.  There's no issue anywhere else."

"I KNOW that there's no issue anywhere else.  IT IS THE TREADMILL.  I'm not making this shit up."

"I know, I know," he says.  But really, he thinks I am.  He thinks that I'm overreacting to some minor technical difficulties.

"I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!!"

"I know.  We need to go at this from a scientific perspective.  Figure out the variables.  You need to turn it on while you're off the treadmill, then start the treadmill.  You need to carry it around the house and see if it cacks out in different spots..."

"Carry it around the house??  My 43 minute morning walk turned into 66 because I had to disconnect from the net and reconnect SEVEN times.  I boosted the tablet's memory.  I logged back in to Netflix.  I logged back out.  I hopped off the treadmill, went  upstairs and rebooted the modem. Only on the treadmill, this happens.  If I want to sit down on the couch and watch the extra 13 minutes that I couldn't get to in the morning because I ran out of time and had to go to work, it's not a problem.  It took me 8 minutes to log in this morning. A full 8 full minutes!!"  (I may or may not have grabbed him by her shirt front at this point, my temples were definitely throbbing.)

"Hey... hey... it's okay."  He smooths my shoulders.  "We'll figure this out, I promise."

Awesome, I have now turned into completely irrational woman, all because I don't want to read and exercise at the same time.  It wouldn't be so bad except that in the old house I had NO problems with Netflix while I was on the treadmill.

Later...

"So you're not the only one who's having issues with Netflix on the treadmill," says David.

"I'm not?"  Hope sprouts in my heart.

"Nope.  Apparently the electronic cycling from a treadmill motor can interfere with wireless connectivity."

"It can?"

"Yes - we used to be grounded with a battery backup at the old house - that's probably why you didn't have this problem there."

"So I'm not crazy?"

"Oh, you're still crazy - it's just not because of this."

My OCD knows no bounds

During renovations, in a desperate attempt to control the visual chaos of my environment, I've lost my mind.  I've gone round the bend folks.  My obsession this week?  Ensuring that, when I open the shower curtain, all the shampoo, conditioner and body wash bottles complement one another.   Hello Ma'am, we've got a lovely little jacket for you here, fits nice and snugly around the waist and shoulders, and ensures that your arms stay in one place.

I have little loyalty to personal grooming products.  Sure, I could  go out there and spend $25 on an organic, paraben-free, get you to smell like ambrosia shampoo, but  that ain't gonna happen.  Because why?  Because I'm not made of money and there are shampoos, conditioners and body washes out there that will do the same thing for a fraction of "Are you fucking serious?!?" prices.

As a result of my common sense and general stinginess, I buy things when they are on sale.  Love, love, LOVE Olay body wash, but it's a titch pricey, and unless it goes on sale, it doesn't get to ride shotgun home with me.  When there's a moisturizing conditioner on sale for under $3 - I buy it.   If there's a different moisturizing shampoo that's even less expensive - I buy it.  Same goes for body wash, although I do have a predilection for nicely smelling body washes and will sometimes splurge - you know, when I have Christmas or birthday money burning a hole in my pocket and my Mom's given me the directive to spend it on "something you love, just for you."  That's when I head to the local body care shop and avert my eyes when the cash register totals the sale.  I come home with things that smell of gingerbread or lemon scones and line them up on the ledge of my shower and revel in my delectability. 

Problem with buying all these different products is that when they eventually make their way to reside in my shower - they look like this:

Which for a normal sane person (who knows that the shower curtain can just be shut and you don't have to see anything, that you won't even be aware of the fact that nothing matches in size or colour), wouldn't be an issue.  For me, until the house ceases to have a layer of drywall dust over everything, it's made me wiggy.  Sure, you can get fancy-dancy bath containers that cost you an arm and a leg so that everything matches, but I  haven't lost my sense of frugality with my sanity.

So off I went to Dollarama, seeking the perfect body care receptacles.  Small enough to fit on the shelves, but big enough and of such pleasing shape that they would be practical and (in my present state of psychosis), pretty.  I bought cheap-ass hand soaps that looked like the labels could easily be pulled off.

In hindsight, I'll still be picking little bits of glue off them until Armageddon (nail polish remover can take most of the gumminess away, but not all of it apparently), but until then, things will match.  Although, there had been some milk bottle style body wash bottles for $2 a pop that might look even better and would add a whole turn of the century feel to what's behind the curtain...

Parched in the Sahara

WARNING: THERE IS DISCUSSION OF FEMALE ISSUES IN THIS POST.

 

Sam Brown, explodingdog.com

My camel did not make it.   It had been days since he'd died.  I found myself trudging through the desert, my skin burning, sand in my throat...   Hot wind blowing around me, almost through me.  I could feel sand on my face.  Pricks of it picking at my cheeks - then harder and harder as the gusts increased.  Chunks of sand...

CHUNKS OF SAND??

I open an eye.   Lola is there standing beside my head, punching my cheek with her paw.

"Off!!  OFF!!!"

6:02 a.m.  How did she get in?  We'd installed a door to our room just a couple of weeks ago so that this very thing would no longer happen on a Sunday morning - could Lola now walk through walls?  Had our cat actually created a worm hole into our room?  Were we going to become millionaires because of our Mensa cat?  I look over to the doorway and do a face palm.  David hadn't shut the door last night.  Awesome.  I roll out of bed.

I run the gauntlet of falsely affectionate cats and stagger downstairs.  One races me down, another wends its way through my legs and Steve?  He lies across the stairs in all his tomcat glory. This house has somehow transformed all three of our felines into the most languorous of stair lying beasts.  In the other house, they never once draped themselves across the width of a tread.  This house, you're running a fur-covered obstacle course to get downstairs, and with two black cats, you take your life in your hands if you're trying to do anything in half-light.

I feed the beasts and climb back upstairs.  God, I'm burning up.  Why am I so hot?? My mouth is so fricking dry.  HOT.  And then I remember.  The night before, I'd had two glasses of wine and a flute of champagne to celebrate family birthdays. Stupid peri-menopause.  One glass of alcohol.  ONLY ONE.  No matter how good it tastes.  ONLY ONE GLASS OF ALCOHOL HEATHER!  Or what?  You have blinding hot flashes.  I know this!  But it was a really great blended red - went down so smoothly.  Why does my mouth feel full of cotton?  I wasn't drunk - I'd had the booze over a several-hours-long period.

I've lost all my saliva!  I am SALIVALESS!  I scan my memory for what else I'd ingested to get me this parched.  Popcorn.  I'd had some popcorn.  And there'd been feta cheese in the salad... I smask my dry lips...  annnnnnd I am having my period.  Bingo.  Combine salt ingestion and bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig and you're going to get a little bit dry feel like Akhenaten post-embalming.  I down a glass of water and desperately try to source my saliva.  Nope.  I down another glass.  Not yet. My tongue is still sticking to the roof of my mouth.  Another glass.  There.  There now.  Some moisture. 

Fricking period.  Fricking peri-menopause.  I should have known the week before, when I'd wanted to carry around my own personal salt lick.   And now I've been emptying my Diva Cup every two hours or so.  It's astounding how blasé I have become about menstruation.  When I was younger, the notion of using an OB tampon completely squicked me out, but apparently now that I have a blood faucet installed down there, I could become a full-on general surgeon.  Seeing blood on my hands is common place.

My poor family.  Rissa'll be brushing her teeth and glance over at me - I'll be in some state of Diva Cup removal or re-insertion.

"MUMMY!!"

"Sorry.  Look away.  Look away."

She'll turn her back and walk to the door.  The toilets in this house aren't as close to the sinks as they were in the old house.  So there I am in my fluffy pink socks, with my stripey onesie around my ankles shuffling to the sink to rinse out the Diva Cup shouting, "AVERT YOUR EYES!  AVERT YOUR EYES!"

"Nobody else's mother does this stuff you know."

"Think of all the material you'll have for your memoirs."

Fine line between BFF and Stalker

I am totally crushing on Emma Stone. She is perhaps my new favourite person in the world.  Not only is she a great actor, articulate and funny, but she does this?!? 

She killed the battle, AND if that wasn't amazing enough, her first song was Hook, by Blues Traveller - an obscure blast from the past for today's crowd, AND we're getting to the important part here...  Hook is my favourite Blues Traveller song... ever.  I mean, EVER.  And she picked it.  She picked my favourite Blues Traveller song. 

So that's got to be a sign right?  A sign that she and I should be BFFs?  'Cause it's not stalkery at all that I, a 45 year old small-town Ontario gal, have mad fantasies where Emma Stone and I sip lattes at the local coffee joint and we shoot the shit comparing favourite media and travel destinations before maybe going shopping for cute vintage dresses together.  That's not weird right? 

I'm keeping these WHY?

Nope.  Wipe... How 'bout this one?  Nope.  Wipe...  Wait, wait, wait...  this one'll be the one... NOPE.  Scrub.  Wiiiiiiiiiiiipe.  Why do I even have these?!?

Lipsticks.  How many should a gal have?  You know... in the drawer of your vanity, or bottom of your make up kit.  12? 22?  116?  I have an entire drawer of lipsticks that are impossible to wear. Wait.  I'll try to look at this as a positive.   I would be able to sport some of them if I wore heavy makeup and dressed as a drag queen or a geisha.  Note to self: train for a new career.

And yet, instead of throwing them out, I still have them stashed away, like some secret cache of diamonds, some dating back to 1996.  I have this amazing Estee Lauder lipstick that gives off an odd odour, but I'm unwilling to part with it.  What's the shelf life for lipstick?  If, say, I was on a archaelogical dig and found some lipstick (in the perfect shade) in an Egyptian tomb, could I apply it or would I be slowly poisoning myself to death if it became my favourite colour? 

Every time is the same.  I carefully draw on the lip liner - apply the colour to my lips and then jump back from the mirror in horror.  I'm not wearing enough eye liner for this colour.  My skin isn't orange enough for this colour.  I wasn't going for a Goth look, but what the hell...  "Hey David!  How do I get a casting call for Vampire Diaries?!?"  Then the toilet paper comes out.  I pour liberal amounts of makeup remover on the TP and attempt to remove the horrific shade.  Invariably, I end up looking like a clown who's gone on a bender and then have to reapply all makeup from the nose down.

What it comes down to, is that I don't want to give it up the control. You know... my colour-choosing free will, where as an adult woman in her 40s I should know by now what works and what doesn't.  Although considering that I've been  sucking at it royally for the last three decades, maybe it's time to go to Shoppers and sit down in the chair with the Cosmetics Dept person and let them go to town.  Have a good ol' Apply and Wipe session there so that when I want to go out in public I don't have to waste precious time figuring out that I don't actually own a shade of red that looks good on me.  All I want is to achieve 1940s starlet without the harlot, that shouldn't be so hard.    And yet I feel I need to gather a group of like-minded individuals, mount up on steeds and ride the world to seek out the Holy Lipstick.

 

ONE LIPSTICK TO COLOUR US ALL.  

The perfect red lipstick.  Like the magical travelling pants... but in lipstick and you don't put it on your ass.  (Unless you're into that, and more power to you, if that's your kink.)