Game of Thrones could give a gal a complex

Breasts.  Oh, the breasts on  Game of Thrones... They are everywhere.  You can't possibly miss them.   People have been making graphs about the boobs per episode in the show.  They are the pertest, highest, smallest areola'd breasts I've ever seen.  The Red Priestess Melisandre?  SPOILER ALERT Has areolas the size of  dimes.  I mean sure, she's probably cold, most of the time when you're seeing her breasts she's in a bath, or a cool breeze (or at least the breeze from off-camera fans), so it's understandable that her nipples get all tightened, but...  Milisandre's nipples look to be the size of pencil erasers - albeit raspberry-tipped in colour.

If a gal is auditioning for Game of Thrones, is that just a part of the process?  "Great audition!  Loved your take on that scene, beautiful range...  Now if you could just do that scene again naked..."   Quick question: Where are the real boobs?  It has become clear to me that Game of Thrones must be cast entirely of women who have never breast fed a child.

Hate to break it to the Game of Thrones viewers, but womanly areolas are not the size of dimes.  My areolas?  (Please excuse me while I grab the ruler.)  Holy crap!  That can't be right.  They are three inches across!  Seriously?  Let me just measure again...  yep, still three inches.  Now that's at a dead stand-still with no cool breeze or arousal to erect those nipples, and I am a D cup, but I don't think that I'm alone in sporting a pair of ta-tas with areolas larger than a silver dollar. 

I know that the titillation factor on the show is out for a certain demographic, but people aren't just watching for the gratuitous soft porn.  Right... RIGHT???  It's giving viewers a totally unrealistic idea of what to expect from your average free-range breast. The same way that porn makes dudes think that you can have a triple E cup size that doesn't sag.  The producers are really doing a disservice to viewers everywhere by not throwing in a couple of pendulous breasts with dollar-pancake-sized areolas.

And while we're at it, how about some equal full-frontal for the dudes on the show?  You can't possibly tell me that boobs are less a sexual characteristic than the penis.  I mean they're right there - out in front - TA-DA!  Yes they're meant to breast feed our young, but that's not the first thing that goes through a person's head when they see them. "Hey look at those great lactation glands..."  is not tripping off the tongues of viewers.  Sure, the occasional male ass gets thrown in, but it's never for long and you never get the same fondling of a male ass that you get of the female form.

EQUAL FONDLING!
REAL BOOBS!
THROW IN A PENIS NOW AND AGAIN!

I'll have to work on the chant, but you get my drift.

The Ladylike Pee

I had a sneezing fit at the office.  When the sneezes hit, I held onto my desk and clamped my knees together as if the freedom of the Western world depended on it.  I hadn't needed to go to the bathroom before that moment, but after the 5 sneezes, it seemed like it would be prudent for me to relieve myself before I started my walk home.

From the Poo Pourri Campaign - not technically the same bodily function
but the visual was too perfect to pass up.

I hefted my 1950s floral skirt around my waist, quickly de-briefed and plunked myself down on the toilet. The subsequent sneeze hit me completely unprepared.  One minute I was having a genteel little tinkle, the next - I was projectile peeing.  It was as if a water balloon had been tossed from a great height against a wall.  Two enormous sneezes wracked through my body.  Upon their completion, I resembled a hurricane survivor.  Damp from the waist down, pee on the toilet seat, pee on the floor in front of the toilet seat and pee on the wall 6 feet away from the toilet seat.  It was impressive.  I hadn't thought there could be that much urine in a gal's bladder.  I had underestimated my innate power.

It made me think:  Incontinent, post-partum women will be our champions. Raging forest fires can and will be extinguished with feminine aid. Planes full of  weak-bladdered women surrounded by pepper-filled pot-pourri sachets will be launched into the skies.  Primed with full bladders (having drunk their weight in their beverage of choice), taking deep breaths of sneeze-inducing pepper, legions of leaky ladies will let loose and obliterate fires from above.  We are the new super heroes.  Clad not in capes, but crotchless panties, we will save the world. 

Lumberjack in Drag

"Have you decided what colour you'd like for your nails?"  The esthetician points with her chin over to the selection of nail polishes on the counter as she massaged my calves.

I pick up the nail wheels, vacillating between the reds and the pinks. Seduce Him (although that should really be Seduce Him/Her - I know plenty of gals out there who love it when their partners wear bright red polish on their extremities.  Blushing Bride - HAH!  Royal Tease - Seriously??

Holding the wheel down near my feet to check out the colours in context to their eventual placement, I startle when she says,  "What about your fingernails?"


"Oh, no, I don't do fingernails," I immediately say.

Because I don't.  Not with my hands.  I have big strong 'peasant' hands.  Or so I've been told.  I can't ever buy vintage gloves because my hands won't fit into them.  The girth of my hand is a whopping 8.25 inches.  If I place my hands up against David's, his hands are just slightly larger than mine.  And he's got big hands.

"Nope.  No thank you.  I'd just feel like a lumberjack in drag."

"What?  No!" The esthetician admonishes me.  She grabs my hands.  Splays them out for all the world to see.  "You have strong hands.  Nice long fingers.  Your nails are in good shape.  Don't let anyone tell you that you can't wear polish."

It was revelatory.  'Don't let anyone tell me...'  Nobody, had told me I couldn't wear nail polish.  That was all on me.  A passing comment from years before had apparently scarred me.  The same way when your 4th Grade Art teacher tells you you can't draw, or a relative says you're 'big' when they mean tall.  These things stick with you.  You absorb these comments into your psyche.  You become them.

The time had come for me to say "Fuck it!" and embrace my strong, capable hands...  To adorn them in girly glitter, delight in their durability - to feel the same joy as when I look down at my spectacularly sparkly pink toe nails.  I'm a magpie at heart.  Sparkly things make me happy.  I spend most of my days typing.   At the office, at home - I type.  My hands are in my peripheral vision all day long.  They should be tipped with glitter and glam!  They should make me grin.  Do I like them?  Damned straight, I do!    I'm 45 frickin' years old - it's time to grow up - to own what makes me... ME. 

David, Paladin against the APOCALYPSE

We are all just part of the Matrix folks.  We are all just cogs in a wheel… frickin’ useless, tech-reliant, cogs in the wheel of the Internet.  Come the Apocalypse, we are totally fucked. 

We were completely cut off Sunday night.  We lost all knowledge, all connection, all ability to interact with humanity.  Our modem died. 

   

We don’t have cable, ergo we don’t have cable t.v., which means we don’t have network news.  I hope that nothing important has happened over the past few of days.   Without the Internet, there is no Weather Network, no updates from CBC.ca, no reminders from my calendar on Gmail. 

There was no Netflix.

 

Our 'landline' is VOIP (Voice Over Internet Provider) "Why would we pay for phone service when we can get it for almost free?"  The only trick?  Sans working modem, you can’t call out, can’t receive calls in.  Our cell phones only work (sporadically) in the north-east corner of the living room.  You also can't get phone messages on VOIP without a modem, say like from a dental clinic receptionist, who might be trying to get ahold of you to remind you that your daughter is missing her dentist appointment, right now at 4:15 p.m. (which you would have known about, had your 3 Google reminders come through), because she can't leave a message on your 'landline' because it no longer really exists.

The first night was nothing to worry about.  It was kind of like camping.  It was the ‘Olden Days.’ We all read books.  We watched a… DVD.  It was charming, it was quaint.  We would just grab a new modem from Staples the next day after work.

Turns out?  You can’t buy a modem from Staples.  And before you deny it wholeheartedly merely out of hand... Yes, it is possible to buy one from Staples online, but you cannot go into an actual Staples and actually purchase a physical modem that you can actually take home with you.  Routers, yes.  Modems no.   

Not a problem – we’d go to the mall to The Source and get one there.  The Source does not sell modems.  "Try Bell."  Bell does indeed have modems in their store, but they will not sell you one.  Because why?  Because they want you to sign up for an Internet subscription.

“But we don’t need an Internet subscription.”

“Unless you have a Bell Internet subscription, we cannot sell you a modem.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you have actual modems, right there, in the back of your store, right now, but you will not sell me one?”

“That is correct.”

In the Tarantino film version of this moment, David then had to pull me off the Bell customer service agent when I started slamming the back of her head into the floor.

David did not want to make the trek a ½ hour away to the closest Future Shop or Best Buy just in case when we got there, they too, did not stock modems.  We went home.  We found a phone book, an actual honest-to-God paper phone book.   He called Future Shop – no modems – "You can order one online…"

“I don’t have a modem!  I can’t GET online!!”

He called Best Buy – “Yes Sir, we stock modems!  You can order a modem online and it’ll get to you in a couple of days.”

Determined not to be foiled, David started maniacally scrounging around in our various tech baskets and bins; cursing and throwing things, until finally...

“A-HA!!!”

“A-HA?!?”

He brandished a wireless Rogers Hub – which we had purchased 2 years ago, when we had been working in Toronto for a week and needed to be connected.  We had kept it active with a nominal fee... for emergencies.  The only wee little snag was that the data usage that you got with the Hub was ridiculously expensive.

He  powered up his Mac.  Shoulders back, he cracked his knuckles and turned on the Hub.  Then he surfed to every tech supply store in the western world – you know, to do a cost analysis - as fast as he possibly could, to minimize our bandwidth consumption with the Hub.  And then he ordered a new modem from Amazon.ca - out of spite.

Sprung from my loins...

Have been experiencing technical difficulties... (will explain later) posting on the fly...

Rissa gave me this card for Mother's Day...

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!"