Never use the magnifying mirror.

"Do you see this?" I ask.

"What?"  David is towelling his hair.

"This."  I turn the left side of my face to him.  "This."

He comes closer.  Looks.  Then looks again.  "I don't see anything."

"This."  I use my finger to show him what I'm talking about.  

"I don't see anything."

"I'm growing a beard."

"You are not growing a beard."

"I AM!"  I pull the fine hair from my jawline between my thumb and forefinger now.  "Right here."

"You're crazy."

"I can see it!  In the mirror HERE!"

"You mean in the mirror that magnifies things 5 times their regular size?  That mirror?"

"Here in this light here!" I twist my jaw up to the light and then pull his face closer.  "HERE!  See that?"

"Well, when you twist all around like that, and under the blinding light, and all up close, yeah."

"I TOLD you.  It's a beard."

"It's not a beard.  It's... down... like goose down."

I shoot him a look.

"Swan," he says quickly.  "Swan down.  You're very swanny."

"One morning I'm going to wake up with Mutton chops."

"But they'll be mostly invisible."

"But they'll still be there."

"Then you can be really confident in your application to the biker gang."

I absentmindedly tug at my downy mutton chops as I think about the possibilities.

"Just maybe don't use that as your go-to gesture when you're deep in thought," he says.  Then he ducks.

Thank God I married Roger Rabbit.

Warning: descriptive female issues in this post.

"OH FOR THE LOVE OF..." 

"What is it?"

"Day Eight apparently."

"Are we in the playoffs?"

My baleful eyes could burn through steel.

"I am BLEEDING out.  I was done.  The Diva Cup was empty."

David winces in naive male sympathy/horrified visualization.  "And now the cup runneth over?"

"No the cup does not runneth over because I wasn't wearing the frickin' cup because my body is a lying liar pants and can't make its peri-menopausal mind up!  IT WAS EMPTY THIS MORNING!!!"   I raise my fist to the 2nd floor bathroom where the Diva Cup is now residing.  "YOU WERE EMPTY!!!"

I ease off the couch and look down - at least there's no blood on the upholstery.  I carefully glide my way to the bathroom, crossing my fingers that I'll only have to wash my panties, not the jeans as well.  I don't know why washing jeans seems to add insult to injury, but it does.

I stand before the toilet, Keigeling every muscle in my pelvis.  I take a deep breath before undoing my belt.  As soon as I sit to examine the undergarment damage, I feel another deluge.

"COME ON!!!"

"Love?  You okay?"

"They're the size of TOONIES!"

"What are?"

"The blood clots that just left my body."  A blinding cramp hits me.  I don't know if the blood loss is actually making me dizzy or if it's having witnessed most of my uterine lining leave my body.

David pipes up from the living room.  "It could be worse."

"How?!?"

"They could be blood clots the size of tunas."

Thank God I married Roger Rabbit.  Without laughter my sanity would have abandoned me years ago.

The alarm cat

Meow.

Meow.

Meow.

Meow.

Oh, for the love of...

Meow.
Meow.
Meow... meow...meow...meeeeeeeeeeeowwwwwww.

I look over at the clock.  7:17.  What the?   CRAP!  I stagger out of bed, open the bedroom door and face Minuit - the most irritated cat in the galaxy.  She squints at me with her perpetually rheumy eyes.

Meow.

We have one of those false dawn clocks.   It begins emitting a relaxed glowing light about 35 minutes before you actually have to wake up.  The glow eventually gets brighter and brighter and then the tweeting bird sounds go off.  (I'm not even kidding.)  This morning? No glowing light.  No tweeting birds.

"David."  I shake his shoulder.  "David. Love.  It's 7:17."

He sits bolt upright in bed, wild-eyed.  "What the?!?"

"You didn't set your alarm love."

"Hey I know, I didn't set my alarm."  He's blinking up at me - a dazed, bed-headed owlet.

"You have to thank Minuit, she was our alarm."

Minuit is standing in the doorway scowling at us.  David exits the bed.  "Thank you Min..."   Perpetually terrified by any motion in the household, Minuit tears across the upper landing before hiding under Rissa's bed. "...nuit."

Rissa is in the bathroom getting ready for school.

"Daddy didn't set his alarm," I say, yawning while wiping the sleep guck from my eyes.  I grab my toothbrush.  "Minuit's the hero - she woke us up."

"I wondered what she was complaining about," says Rissa.  She looks over at her bedroom doorway where Minuit is now skulking.  "Good job Alarm Cat."

David, clad in work wear, is doing the Frankenstein shamble to the bathroom.  Minuit immediately bolts back under Rissa's bed.

Standing in the bathroom doorway, David runs his hands through his hair.  His hair is slightly greasy and up in all directions. "Aw man!  I was supposed to have a shower this morning." 

I hand him the baby powder.  "You'll have to powder it up love."

"Right."  He dumps about 1/4 of a cup of lavender-scented baby powder into his hand and rubs them together before dragging his hands through his hair.  Rissa and I look at him and look at each other.  David appears to have tripped and fallen into a kilo of coke - powder on his collar, the front of his shirt, under his nose, on his forehead.  His hair is covered.

I head tilt, indicating the faux cocaine fallout zone. "Dude.  You're Bright Lights Big Citying it."

"Well I can't see in the mirror, you girls are taking up all the...  Sweet!  I look like Doc Brown."

He keeps rubbing the powder through his hair.  I grab a facecloth so that he wipe up the excess from his clothing and face.

"Nothing like Cocaine Thursday," David says, blending in the last of the power into his hair.

"It's perfect after Hump Day," Rissa agrees.

The reason for all those baby/kitten/puppy videos #2016Election

The stress of the 2016 Presidential election has my lower intestines in Stevedore Stopper knots.  I'm not even American.  The outcome of the election won't really affect me as someone north of the 42nd.  I mean, apart from all the anti-Hillary Republicans who are threatening to move to Canada should the Democrats win and the anti-Trump Democrats/Independents who are threatening to move to Canada should the Donald win.

If Trump wins and he builds a wall across the US/Mexican border - it won't affect me.  If Hillary wins and it turns out there are even MORE emails that she didn't safeguard appropriately -  it won't affect me.  If Trump wins and throws Hillary into jail - it won't affect me.  If Hillary wins and raises taxes on wealthy Americans - it won't affect me. If Trump wins and he repeals the Clean Air Act - it won't... wait a second...  If Hillary wins and there is a Second Revolutionary War - it won't... uh... I'm really close to that northern border.

It's the end of the world as we know it!! 
Deep cleansing breaths, deep cleansing breaths... 

Hey everyone look! Baby ostrich racing cars.






And these are ANIMALS jumping on TRAMPOLINES!

Kittens and puppies with babies!

Dogs meeting kittens for the first time.

It's a baby who laughs when you tear paper!

And then if you really start freaking out and you need to take control back - channel your inner Jesse Jane McParland.

And that's why you shouldn't exercise.

Me - this morning.

It is before breakfast. It is before work. I am on the treadmill - watching Daredevil on Netflix.  Moving at 3.5 miles an hour on an incline of three.  'Cause if I don't do it before I go to work, it will not happen for the rest of day.  And if I don't move my ass, expending energy and calories, I will not sleep well - which, tomorrow morning, will result in a tired Heather sporting a fetching side of petulance.

Every morning I'm on that treadmill. At the 5:00 minute mark I start swinging my arms wildly forward for a minute.  At 6:00 minutes I do the arm equivalent of a deep lunge to the side - targeting (at least in my lay-person, inner trainer's mind) my back boobs.  I don't know if it's true, but I can kind of feel that area moving around when I try it, so I figure that something must be going on. I repeat these actions every 5 minutes until I hit 40:00.

YEAH!  Last one!  I whip those arms forward.  THIS.  IS.  GOOD.  I'm sweaty and I've burned up (I squint at the display in the half-light) 276 calories. Only 5 more minutes then I can cool down for 5 minutes.  YEAH! I AM AN EXERCISING GODDESS!!

I swing those arms a little higher.  As I'm swinging them back, my left arm somehow catches the wire from my ear buds, ripping my left ear bud from my ear.  Even before my arm has finished its swing, the right ear bud joins its partner in ferocious solidarity right before the tablet leaps off the treadmill ledge, landing on the belt.  I dodge the tablet, grabbing the arm rails for balance, but can't help but watch as the tablet is propelled off the treadmill into the piano behind me.  As I remain fixated on whether I've just killed the tablet, my feet leave the treadmill belt and I find myself parkouring to avoid crushing the tablet, while still clinging to the arm rails. 

On the upside, I got a real good stretch of my arms before letting go.

Snakes don't have legs

"So if they're asking do I have experience working with animals, does that mean REAL experience?   I mean, I have three cats," says Rissa.

"Yes, you do have three cats," I reply. "And don't discount the dogs that we've had."

"But do they mean experience like squeezing a gopher's anal glands?"

"What!?!"

"Or like, I've seen a bunny... once?"

"I don't know..."

"Or is it please collect my horse's urine?"

"Where are you...?"

"Or can you spout general animal information like 'snakes don't have legs' ?"

Snort.  "I say put it all down.  You never know where you might be placed."

"Check.  Now onto the Code of Conduct.  O...kay...  O...kay...  O...kay...  WHOA!!!  What about lighting fires?  Why don't they specify lighting fires?  That seems like a no-no in addition to the no drugs, alcohol and serious behavioural problems."

"I think that pyromania might fall under the serious behavioural problems."

She's already moved on.  "Under gender I'm going to say 'squirrel' for you."

You can bet that whomever ends up with her for a summer exchange is going to be entertained at the very least.

Heart of Darkness Dance Party

"OH MY GOD!" Rissa exclaims.

"What?" I ask, glancing up from my e-reader.

"This," she says, indicating her book.  "THIS. STUPID. BOOK."

"What are you reading?"

"Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  ARGH!"  The book has fallen from her hands and banged her on the head.

"Dude.  Careful."

"It's not me!  IT'S. THIS. STINKING. BOOK."  She holds it out to me.  "It's not weighted correctly. You see this?  This here?"  She's indicating the first 6th of the tome.  "This is the actual book. 77 pages.  You see this?" She indicates the other 350  pages.  "This is the part where it explains to you why those 77 pages are worth reading!!"

"Seriously?"

"You shouldn't have to have FIVE times as many pages explaining why the book should be read!!!"

"I have to concur."

"Right?!?   It's a 77 page monologue. GAH!  And I have to read 10 pages tonight. He just keeps talking and talking and talllllking.  I'm not going to make it."  She brightens for a moment.  "I'll   have to have a Heart of Darkness Dance break every 2 pages."

"That sounds like a plan."

"Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack should do it."

Never underestimate the power of a good soundtrack when played on your Crosley portable record player at 45rpm.