Chihuahua in my pants

Friday night.  Bedtime.  Rissa wriggles spasmodically under her blankets.

"I've got something in my pants!"

Sigh.  "What do you have in your pants?"

"A sliver or something!"

"A sliver?  How can you have a sliver?"

"I don't know, maybe from the dance studio."

Stalling.  She is stalling the bedtime process.

"Just ignore it."

"Ignore it?!?  ... IGNORE it?!?  If I had a Chihuahua in my pants would you tell me to just IGNORE it?  Would you tell me to worry about it in the morning?!?"

"WHAT?"

"Seriously, what if it was a... cannibalistic Chihuahua...?"

"WHAT?"

"If it was a cannibalistic Chihuahua...  and there was... was...  say a Golden Retriever... NO!  A GREAT DANE down there too..."

"You're telling me that there is now a Chihuahua and a Golden Retriever AND a Great Dane in your pants?"

"No, only a cannibalistic Chihuahua and a Great Dane - I needed complete opposite dogs to make an example.  Plus, after I said the word 'cannibalistic' I realized that the chihuahua couldn't be attacking me, I had to have another dog down there for it to attack."

"So you have a Chihuahua and a Great Dane in your pants?"

She then rolls her eyes at me.  "Of course not, but if I DID, you would just want me not to worry about them in my pants?"

Face palm.

In lieu of writing...

I am posting this... and so usher in the beginning of the holiday season...   Merry Christmas!

(Who knew that Kmart had it in 'em?)

My husband's so mean...

"Just rip it out!!  Please," I begged.

"Oh, love, I can't," said David.

"Yes, yes, you can!  Just take a spoon, or your thumb, or a FREAKING NAIL FILE, and pop out my eye.  Scramble it if you have to, but get it out!!!  Any of those will hurt less than the invisible railroad spike that is presently stabbing through my eye socket."

"I can't do that.  But I can get you a cold pack to put on your neck.  Did you take your drugs?"

"I took my drugs," I whimpered, pushing the heel of my hand into the cavity below my right eyebrow, desperately trying to remove the pressure.  "I took as many drugs as I can without damaging my liver.  They haven't kicked in yet.  Why haven't they kicked in yet??  Could you just knock me out please?  Just coldcock me upside the head and..."

"I'm not going to knock you out," David, holding my hand under the blankets.

"How about sawing my head off?  That'd do it..."

"Nope, not going to happen."

"WHY NOT?!?"

"Because I like your head.  And I like your eye.  Sure, you'd rock an eye patch for a while, but talking to one-eyed pirate version of you would get old pretty fast."  He gently squeezed my hand as I quietly sobbed.

Trepanation, by Herbert List 1944

"How about you drill a hole, just a small hole, in my head and we put in a wee pressure valve thingie??  You know, bring back the ancient art of trepanation," I suggested in a sultry tone, but I couldn't be too flirty with this appeal on account of the fact that I couldn't even open my eyes, because even the light from the night light was too bright, and my seduction really comes from my eyes.  And my boobs.  I arched my back a bit, hoping that the boobs might do the job on their own.

"No."

"You know how they have tornado sirens?  Maybe they could develop an early-warning system for barometric pressure shifts.  Like 20 minutes before it happens, the weather service could send out emergency emails to all those migraine sufferers who want to kill themselves when it shifts from extreme high pressure to extreme low pressure.  Then we could all dope ourselves up with our maximum drug dosage, before the pain has us suicidal.  Can we start a petition for that?"

"That, I will do for you."

And good morning to you...

Ggggggggggrowl...  grumble... grumble... grumble...  "Stupid yoga pants!  Stupid bra! My boobs don't belong in a bra yet!"  grumble... grumble... grumble...

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.  "Stupid stairs."

Trip. Slip.  "Stupid cat toy!"

grumble... grumble... grumble... "Stupid morning."

"Still sleepy, huh?"  Rissa comes over, enveloping me in a purple terry cloth hug.

grumble... grumble... grumble...  "Not awake yet..."

"You need a warm beverage," David says.  "The kettle's already on."

sigh.  whimper.  "Stupid kettle...  Sorry.  I'm tired."

"Yes you are."  Rissa pats me on the arm.

Collapse.

"Need to be on the floor, huh?"

"Yes."

"Comfy down there?"

"No... it's cold."  grumble... grumble... grumble...

David helps me up.  "Sit."

"I don't want to."

"Fine, don't sit.  Rissa, do you want 1/2 a banana?"

whimper...  tears... 

"Do you want 1/2 a banana?"

"Yes.  But then I'd be taking food out of my own child's moooouuuuth!"  Bigger tears.

"Okay.  You sit.  Here is a banana.  You going to be good to go in five minutes?"

sniffle... sniffle... "I don't want to go outside."

"I'll drive.  You just have to drive back.  You can do that right?  You'll be awake by then?"

"I DON'T KNOOOOOOW!!!"

David and Rissa share a commiserative look.

"I'M A BABY BEAR!!!! " grumble... grumble... grumble...

"Yes you are."  Pat. Pat. Pat.

"My eyebrows don't work."

"No, they haven't woken up yet either."

"I haven't even peed yet!'

"Well, you'd better go do that then."

***

Washing my hands... sniff... sniff... sniff... "This is disproportionate emotional response."

"Yes it is.  Come on." David hands me my decaf.  "This might help.  I'll drive.  You can even lie back and sleep for the 10 minutes."

***

whinge... whinge... whinge... "I can't lie back AND drink coffee!  Now I have coffee all over my coat..."

"You weren't supposed to be drinking the coffee, you were supposed to be sleeping."

"Which is it?? Do you want me to be awake enough to drive back or do you want me COMATOSE?!?  Sorry... sorry..."  tears

This is me, when woken in the middle of a sleep cycle and then being forced to drive.  I apparently need a sign: DISTURB AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

Hot flashes and flatulence.

I fell off the wagon last week - again.  I answered the siren call of caffeine and gluten. We've got one of those single serve Keurig coffee machines at the office and I'm always jealous because there are all these snazzy, olfactorily orgasmic caffeinated flavours, wafting their way through the office air.  Flavours that people who can drink caffeine willy-nilly, carry around in their mugs, making disgusting yummy noises.

I caved.  Twice.  The Hazelnut Cappuccino and the Southern Pecan seduced me.  I'm a whore for sweet coffees.  I freely admit it.  Perhaps others will learn from my mistakes. I dropped my loonies in the peanut butter jar that we use as a "CONTRIBUTE TO THE COFFEE FUND" receptacle and picked up the caffeine crack pipe.  Plus I might have had a french vanilla latte from Tim Hortons.  Then, oh DEAR GOD, I had a chocolate mint black tea at home, because my body was now jonesing for the caffeine. 

So there was all this caffeine RAGING through my blood stream, bouncing around like a hamster in dryer, that had to come out.  How does it exit my body?  Through my torso.  Hot flashes that could power the eastern seaboard.  I was waking up stinking of sweat because I'd been flashing all through the night.  My usually sweet-smelling arm pits reeked of wrestler...  from sleeping.  Pajamas on, pajamas off.  Hair matted to my skull from head sweat.  David woke up one morning and let out a panicked shriek until he realized it was actually me in bed with him.

Then there was the gluten.  If you're going to fall off the wagon, you might as well just throw yourself under the wheels and allow your severed body to land in the ditch, right?  We had an office meeting (which is where the first hit of caffeine came in, the sinful hazelnut cappuccino).  Timbits were at the meeting.  Timbits are from the Devil.  I never have them because the combined gluten and sugar puts me into a near sugar coma.  I stopped counting at 10.  And then, later in the week, when we had an off-site meeting, with more Timbits, I had another... we'll call it 10.  And I had pizza that night.  I ate my thin-crust pizza, moaning my way through the crusts.  And then I ate David's crusts, from his rising-crust pizza, dipping them in ranch dressing, synapses in my brain over-firing from the delicious gluten.  The flatulence happened shortly thereafter and was SPECTACULAR.  From the reek of me, you'd have thought that I'd eaten a small cow who'd been fed a steady diet of garlic for its short life.

Nice girl, shame about the flatulence.

So this week I am starting over.  No caffeine - no matter how good it smells.  Decaf all the way.  Wait!  I can get flavour shots!  I could line up bottles and bottles of flavour shots by my desk and turn my sad decaf into giddy, flavourful, pseudo-sex drinks!  Plus having those bottles would be incredibly festive, you know since we're in the holiday season and all.  And I picked up a gluten-free pizza crust at the No-Frills on Saturday so we're set there.  When life hands you flatulence...

THIS is R-rated?!?

WARNING - THIS POST IS RATED R FOR LANGUAGE.

Rissa saw her first R rated film when she was probably 10.  Yep, we were those parents.  The movie was Love Actually.  You know the one... Richard Curtis's quintessential feel-good Christmas film?  Probably one of the sweetest holiday movies ever?  The one where even the most manly of men will be crying when the kid jumps into Liam Neeson's arms?  That one.  It was rated 14A in Canada and rated R in the States for language, sexual situations and nudity.   And yes, Bill Nighy had some colourful language and there were some comical positioning of nearly nude bodies as body doubles, but it was pretty freaking tame.

Richard Curtis's latest film, About Time, also got an R-rating in the States.  We'd been looking up reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, found out it was rated R and suddenly we felt we had to develop a strategy for sneaking Rissa in.  Turns out we didn't have to worry for two reasons: 1) the movie is rated 14A in Canada and Rissa looks like she's 18 already, and 2)  in researching the MPAA rating system, we realized that David and I can take Rissa into any R rated movie we want to because we are, in fact, her parents/guardians.  Did you know that?  We could take her to see the next graphic slasher film - in the theatre - WE'RE NOT GOING TO, but we could.   

         MPAA Ratings

• Rated G: General Audiences – All Ages Admitted.
• Rated PG: Parental Guidance Suggested – Some Material May Not be Suitable for Children.
• Rated PG-13: Parents Strongly Cautioned – Some Material May be Inappropriate for Children Under 13.
• Rated R: Restricted – Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent or Adult Guardian.
• Rated NC-17: No Children Under 17 Admitted.
  
  Canadian Motion Picture Ratings

• G - General Audience - Suitable for all ages.
• PG - Parental Guidance - Parental guidance advised. There is no age restriction but some material may not be suitable for all children.
• 14A - 14 Accompaniment - Persons under 14 years of age must be accompanied by an adult.
• 18A - 18 Accompaniment - Persons under 18 years of age must be accompanied by an adult. In the Maritimes & Manitoba, children under the age of 14 are prohibited from viewing the film.
• R - Restricted - Admittance restricted to people 18 years of age or older.

After viewing About Time, we were mystified as to what could garner an R rating for the film.  No gun violence.  Yeah, there'd been some language, but David and I found it all pretty mild.  In the ratings systems in both Canada and the US apparently you get ONE FREE FUCK in the script without having to up your ratings.

According to the MPAA "A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context.4 or more utterances of 'hard language' gets you an automatic R rating."  Which I'm thinking means that if you're using fuck as an adjective and not sexually, you can get 4 before you get your R rating.  But if you say you want to fuck someone then it's automatically an R rating.  Because fucking, folks, we all know is bad.

As to the language in the film... There were a few haphazard fucks in the script, but I double checked with Rissa and apparently the fucks really start flying in the school yard at around the age of 11, so the brief use of language of its ilk in the film for our 13 year old daughter doesn't freak me out because she will literally hear worse at school.  There wasn't any nudity in the film apart from arty photographic shots of Kate Moss at a gallery in the film.  We figured that the rating had to come down to the joking mention of  oral sex and actually uttering the word 'cunnilingus.' So  About Time gets its R rating in the States for alluding to pleasing a woman orally and using technical language to describe that act... in a joke.  Although I guess I shouldn't really be surprised, Rob Ford crassly mentioned having "more than enough to eat at home" and the gasps could be heard around the world.

And yet... AND YET... violence in PG13 movies in the States has been ramping up and up and up for decades, but that's okay.  God no, don't even allude to consensual sex, but showing rampant gun violence?  Not a problem.  Snapping people's necks?  Shooting them?  Completely fine.  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!? They just did this study that's catching a lot of air time this week: GUN VIOLENCE TRENDS IN MOVIES.  Well worth a read.  And perhaps a re-examination of the ratings system, and how 'bout while we're at it,  a re-examination of what really is okay for our kids to be exposed to in film?  Cause here's the thing: I would love, love to share the Kill Bill films with Rissa for their strong portrayal of women and the brilliant visual stylization of Tarantino's film-making, but Rissa will not see those until she's at least 16 because of the extreme violence in them.  Not the language.  I really don't give two fucks about the language - the language isn't going to hurt her, isn't going to scar her.  Violent images, however, just might.  She's my kid, I've got to to look out for her.

I've been HIT!!!

BANG! 

Even on this windy, windy November's day, the sound ricocheted off buildings.

"What the hell was that?" David asked.

I looked around wildly.  "I don't know, I don't know!"  My shoulder ached a bit.

"Are you okay?  Were you hit?"  David  gave me the once over, checking for blood.

"I think maybe...  I don't know what it... what the... WHAT THE?!?"  There, on my right shoulder was the bullet.  Green, about 2 inches long by 1/2 inch wide. Shot from the ass of a Canada Goose, still wending its navigationally-challenged way north-west, hundreds of feet above me.  The winged beast was honking in elation  "SUCKER!  SUCKER! SUCKER!!"

"Oh God!  GOD!  I've been hit!  I've been HIT!!! It was a fly-by!"  I felt faint, but I didn't want to move my head too much in case I got goose shit in my eye.

"Hold on, hold on," David said.  "You're okay... it's okay."  Chivalrously, he reached down and grabbed some freshly fallen maple leaves, using them to wipe the goosey bomb off me.  The turd actually made a thumping noise when it hit the ground.  We both jumped back, examining it.

"That's some shit."

"Yep."

"That's not like a little seagull turd."

"Nope."

"They say that getting bird poop on you is good luck."

"I'm feeling pretty lucky that it didn't hit me in the head.  I'd be dead now."

"TURD TERMINAL VELOCITY."

"Har-dee-freaking-har..."

"Seriously though, you're okay?"  He was looking me over, all concerned for my well-being.

"Yes, yes  I'm... HOLY FUCK!!!   MOTHER OF... MY EYE!"  In the wind, a maple leaf had apparently decided to commit hari kari on my face.

"Was that a leaf?"

"YES.  STEM. DIRECTLY IN MY EYE. IS THERE BLOOD?  IS THE EYE STILL IN ITS SOCKET?"

For the rest of the walk I was like an informant, waiting to be taken out.  Things always come in threes... That third thing was there, lying in wait... It had to be coming...

Oh yeah, I'm HIP... *

Oh yeah, I'm on the cutting edge...

On my way home yesterday, it became apparent that I could never be one of those kids who wears his pants half-way down his ass.  As I was cutting through the Via Rail parking lot, I could feel the waistband of my tights begin to give.  I've had these tights for probably a decade - it's understandable that they might be giving up the ghost.

By the time I was over the tracks making my way down George Street, the crotch of my tights had descended by at least 3 inches - I could feel the air gap under my hooha getting wider... and wider.  Another half a block and I could now feel my underwear, in apparent solidarity, beginning to give up its tenacious hold on my hips and slide downward.  My skirt was a scant inch below my coat and even though I tried my best to surreptitiously hitch up the tights on my upper thighs, I knew I couldn't get them up high enough without showing my wares to the public.  Fuck it!  I thought, glancing around the vacant street, and hiked everything up.  There!  Good to go.  Only 5 blocks and I'd be home.

Nope, the tights were apparently dead.  The closer I came to the main road and actual people, the more my waistband lolled around like a llama in a coma.  I crossed the next intersection and could feel air, ice cold Canadian air, on my ass crack... and then seconds later, as my underwear fell, I could feel that same ice cold Canadian air, underneath the shelf of my ass.  I was now striding like a bow-legged cowboy, thighs wide apart, praying that the tights and underwear wouldn't get to my knees before I made it home.  Laughing maniacally the entire way - wondering how it is that all those near-pantless kids in high school can stand it.  How do they not just go into hysterics every time they leave the house?  I almost fell 12 times and I was walking 5 blocks.

As soon as I closed my front door, those tights came off.  I held them before me like the Olympic torch and walked majestically towards the kitchen.

"You have served me well opaque black tights.  Thank you for your years of service.  But this, my friend, shall be a one-time anecdote - you shall not betray me again.  Adieu." 

I have to say though, it was pretty invigorating, having -17 degree air whistling through my nethers.  Perhaps on one of those 'hard to wake up' mornings, I just won't wear underwear to work.

*This post used to be entitled, Oh yes, I'm 'GANGSTA'...  It was brought to my attention last week that the word 'gangsta' can have racial overtones.  Please, let me know your thoughts on the 'G' word and whether its common cultural use today causes you offense.

How bad days become brilliant.

Last Saturday we were having a house showing. Our house isn't even on the market, but our former real estate agent will send city folks to see our place every now and again if they want a massive century home that takes 4 hours to clean. Prepping one's house for a showing has to be amongst the things I despise most in life. David always states: "We will not do anything special, the house isn't on the market, they'll just have to cut us some slack."

I just can't. It has to be more than clean, more than just tidy. It has to look pretty. It has to be inviting.  It has to say "Look, aren't I a beautiful home? Wouldn't you want to live here?" I can't 'haphazard' it before a house showing - I CAN'T!  I 'touch-up paint' the freaking kitchen cupboards, I fold my visible sweaters in the walk-in closet, if putting a sprig of parsley in the kitty litter was a sign of clean kitty litter, I'd do that. Having a house showing stresses me the fuck out.

Which is why, when I was tidying our bedroom and noticed that David's t-shirt drawer in the dresser wouldn't close, it made me mental. With slumping shoulders I pulled the drawer out to look inside the dresser to see if there were internal reasons why the sucker wouldn't close.  I looked at the back of the drawer and saw that the floral drawer liner paper that I'd placed in it years ago was askew and was bunching out the back of the drawer.  I tugged on it once and the freaking drawer fell apart on me!  Its antique bottom fell completely out. Panicking, I clutched the drawer's contents to my chest. Thousands of t-shirts against my bosom with no fucking clue as to how to just shove them back into the drawer and then cram said drawer in the dresser and pretend that nothing had happened, because stupid-ass strangers were going to be coming to our house in mere fucking minutes!! Rage welled within me; angry tears on the periphery.  I dropped the drawer onto the floor and began adjusting those fucking t-shirts.

A glint of something caught my eye. A silver chain. Its appearance caused me to literally catch my breath. There, amidst the well-worn cottons of my spouse, was part of my broken heart. A coloured glass pendant on a chain, my most treasured gift from my late friend Shannon. Strike that. Not 'late.'  Dead.  Shannon is dead and although she was often 'late' in life (a fact she, herself, would freely admit), calling her 'late' in death seems to homogenize her dying.  Sugar-coating it doesn't help, she is dead.  Missing her is a part of my life.

I had been searching for the pendant for months when I had assumed our cat Lola had stolen it (I think I might have to report my cat to Interpol). Lola must have pushed it off the dresser into the slightly open drawer beneath. The pendant's reappearance, at any time would have been a happy discovery, but at this particular moment, it was miraculous. My impending tears of rage did a complete 180 and I found myself laughing and crying in complete and utter joy.  I fastened that chain around my neck, feeling the weight of the pendant against my chest, and recognizing that a piece of my heart, missing for months, was now once again present.

My craptastic morning turned ecstatic in an instant. Me... so stressed and anal about tidying up the house, so worried about shit that nobody cares about... If I hadn't cared, that pendant would still be in that drawer, lying in wait until we eventually moved from this house and David had to finally go through those t-shirts. And although I would have greeted his discovery of the pendant, probably years from now, with spectacular joy, I'm glad that I found it myself, and I'm glad that I found it in juxtaposition of doing stupid-ass tidying up. Little things can and do mean a lot. I have definitive proof.

I have the PERFECT idea for Dragon's Den!

WARNING: THERE IS TOO MUCH INFORMATION IN THIS POST.

Winter in Canada.  Cold, right?  In some places VERY COLD.  We're not even into ACTUAL winter yet and I can see the effects on my poor spouse.  We went for a walk on Friday night as the sun was going down and David was unprepared.  After our invigorating half hour walk we decided we needed an emergency warm-up bath.

So here's the thing... A guy's penis is pretty much his very own fleshy thermometer.  You guys out there know what I'm talking about.  You've all jumped into a cold lake at one point in your life and felt the penile effects (she types with knowing raised eyebrows) on what I'm sure is a 'better-than-average-sized' male organ.  A dude's testicles basically try to climb up into his pelvis for safety.  Really, the human penis's external nature is a BIG design flaw.  One hoof to the sack and you're down.  I'm not sure, evolutionarily speaking, why having it all out there in the open was a good thing.  But I digress...

Friday night.  We get home from our walk.  We've filled up the tub with near-scalding water.  (According to David, I have asbestos skin and what could boil a regular person, feels tepid to me.)  Teeth chattering, we've stripped off our clothes.  Poor David was blue.  Down there.

"Oh honey..." I commiserate.

He glanced down.  "I'm COLD!  I'm very cold."

"I know love."  I give him a salacious wink.  "Oh, I know that you're not in top form right now."  I immersed myself in the water.

Unwilling to boil his boys, David sat on the edge of the tub and dipped his feet in. The poor guy was shivering badly.  So I did what any helpful spouse would do, I warmed up my hands in the hot water and cupped them around his uh... manly bits.  The sound that David let out was a cross between eating the best chocolate in the world and well, a girl cupping her warm hands around one's manly bits.  He was happy.  His biology loosened everything up and he gave me a "SO THERE" glance with waggled eybrows.

"Told you I was just cold."

And that, my friends, is when I came up with the idea for the  CockMitt ® (patent pending).  Some variation on a sport cup with a heated malleable memory-foam-esque lining that would form to a man's very personal dimensions and ensure that he stayed warm in the winter months.  The PERFECT Christmas gift.  I'm already working on exterior cup options:

Ambushed in the change room!

By my own ass, no less.  It's the 3-way mirror's fault.  Feeling great about myself - finding that cute perfect-for-me dress - that I actually have the money in hand to pay for - I sashay my ass into the change room.  I cast off my clothes and as I'm turning around, I catch a glimpse of something in that 3-way mirror.

I was wearing a thong on account of the fact that the particular jeans I'd worn were tightish and I didn't want panty  lines.  This was not a sexy thong - I still wear the maternity thongs that have that nice wide waist-band - even though the last time I was pregant was almost 9 years ago.  They are fashioned from man-made fibres - they will survive the APOCALYPSE as long as I continue to wash them.  Which I do and have been ever since I bought the suckers.  I know how important it is to be wearing clean underwear...  Sorry, I got distracted by the thong...  The glimpse that I caught in the mirror was my bruised ass!  On either side of the thong bit that goes between your cheeks, I had deep blue bruises on my ass.  What the hell had I done to myself?  How could my ass be bruised? How does one even DO that?!?

I reach down to see if the bruises actually hurt and they are not actually bruises... it's ass lint.  I have blue ass lint from my jeans.  AND as if that wasn't depressing enough, as I haphazardly glance up, I can also see my back in the mirror.  Bulgy-bulgy-back-bulges around my bra.  Above it and below - made worse because I'm contorting my head around to view the ass lint damage.  I spin back to face front, but I'm in a 3-way mirror - and although I can no longer be horrified by the ass lint I can still see on both my right and left, bulgy-bulgy-back-bulges.   I have to jump to the side, out of the mirror's view and flatten myself against the wall NOT to see them. In the blind spot of the change room, I  struggle into that perfect-for-me dress.  I reach out with one leg and unfold the mirror's right side - then I do the same to the left side so there is now one large flat mirror in front of me.  I jump in front of the mirror - giving a heroic "HAH!"  And damn, don't I look fantastic in that dress! 

I learn something from my daughter every day.

For instance... according to my daughter, these are the signs for "Uterus Falling Out." 

Apparently last year, in Grade 7, Rissa and her friends figured it out so that they could torment the boys.  I don't know how accurate it is in ASL, but I'll be signing it myself from now on.  Above Rissa exhibits the commiserative face during the signing, but it can also be done with the angry face.

I jinxed it!

I should have known better than to post that I had an abundance of energy.  Those petty cold gods sure do love their schadenfreude.  Tuesday morning I awoke... no, strike that.  Who am I kidding? I never really woke up during the day.  Went back to bed for a couple of hours to see if I could re-boot, but when the 2nd alarm went off, it merely confirmed that I was in no way fit for work.   My voice drops an octave with a virus - all I have to do is say "Hello" on the phone and people know somethings up.  I'm either sick, or I've just had really great sex with a plugged nose.

I've been GO-GO-GO for so long that when I finally could see the light at the end of the tunnel... the train crashed.  This is a design flaw in our physiology.   Who builds something that does that?  A little bit less stress and the body collapses in on itself?  That's pretty fucked. 

My Mom always knew when I was really sick, because I would sleep.  I must really be sick. I have spent 17 of the last 24 hours sleeping.  This morning I remain entrenched in cotton-headed ninny-muggins-ness, but I can at least stand.  So now's the time when I get dressed and drag my sorry ass in to work.  Because that's what we do right?  We go into work.  We don't want to take the time to get well, because we can't afford it.  We would rather infect the entire office than lose a day's pay.  I might as well go up to everyone and lick them, no matter how much hand sanitizer I bathe in. Sorry folks!  This is all about me and my bottom line - your health is incidental.  Enjoy your complimentary surgical mask.

Here comes the sun (doo-doo-doo-doo...)

Fall Back is my favourite time of year EVER.  To have forgotten to set your clock back on Saturday night  and then have the unexpected epiphany Sunday morning that you can sleep in the extra hour?  And then there's the following Monday!  That day where your body wakes up feeling refreshed, recharged and ready to tackle the work week - it puts me in a state of near-Nirvana.

6:30 this morning I DIDN'T CARE that the cats were whining, it didn't bother me that they were jockeying for position on the bed, ON ME.  For the first time in weeks, I wasn't exhausted.  I came downstairs at 6:45 and the sun was up!  Sweet merciful deities it was up!!  It wasn't dark out - the photosynthesis converted those solar rays into undiluted energy....  Energy for ME.  MY ENERGY.  On a Monday freaking morning.  It never happens.

So I have this proposal.  25-hour days.  'Cause that's all it really took to have me back on track.  Just that extra hour.  If I could just have that hour every day - life would equalize.  I would be a better person.  I'd have more patience, humour and grace.  If there were 25 hours in a day, I could descend a set of stairs like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, I would have the self-possession of Katharine Hepburn, the flexibility of Esther Williams.  I have that ONE day a year.  It's today - the Monday after Fall Back day.    If you cross my path today, just watch... Watch how I glide through the day, watch my smile, see my beatific glow... Revel with me on the day after Fall Back.  I cannot guarantee that tomorrow the after-effects will still be with me.  Get the best version of Heather while you can.

Halloween Hangover



Apparently The Nightmare Before Christmas is much to old to garner immediate recognition.
  Oh God, I just Googled it - 19-freaking-93!!! That is 20 years ago!  HOLY CRAP!
  No wonder I wasn't recognized.  Plus, I was missing some stitched-back-together
 scars when I went to work in the morning.

It was a dark and stormy night in Southern Ontario.  We had maybe a half dozen brave visitors come to our door.  Adorable first-timers. Little pink kitty cats and lop-eared bunnies. "You will be the first house that she came to on her first ever Halloween."  Good thing I wasn't dressed as a zombie.

What with there not being a lot of visitors, that box of a zillion miniature candy bars ended up just sitting there, it's brightly coloured wrappers emitting a siren call.


Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

Every single year.  Every single year I say that it won't happen again. Thing is?  Those wee little candy bars?  Well, they're so... wee.  They look so innocent, so harmless, so... not going to make you want to throw up.  I'm 45 freaking years old and I went to bed early - medicated with Gravol - with a tummy ache and questionable GI fortitude.  Next year.  Next year we will give out gift cards to Bulk Barn.  Or raisins.  How many packages of crappy raisins would a gal have to eat to make herself sick?

Netflix is making me emotionally unstable.

Netflix has made me healthier.  Well, Netflix and the tablet whereby I can view Netflix, has made me healthier.  I take my collapsible treadmill out of the closet in our study, pop on a TV show, hit the START button and go.  Minimum 30 minutes a day of guaranteed walking and that's on top of my walking back and forth to work.  My cardio capacity is fan-freaking-tastic.

My emotional stability, however, has been completely fucked by Netflix.  Way back when, before the advent of DVD sets, you used to be able to ramp up to an obsession.  Over the course of years you would become addicted and could develop a healthy relationship with a TV show.  The first clue for me should have been when David and I mainlined the first season of Kiefer Sutherland's 24 in a period of 48 hours when it showed up at Blockbuster video.  Blockbuster has since died, but Netflix's on-demand streaming of television series is sending me 'round the bend.

Watching television on Netflix is akin to starting a tumultuous love affair.  Scratch that.  Love affair is too tame.  Full-On Bacchanalian Orgy would be more accurate.  Netflix is following Alice down the Rabbit Hole. I watched the entire 3rd season of The United States of Tara by Wednesday of this week.

All this, after I get home from work.  Eight of those episodes were watched on Wednesday alone.  Why??  Because I could.  They were right there, Netflix lets you know that the next episode will load automatically in 15 seconds, you don't even have to touch the remote to get your next hit!  15 seconds!?!   I can't wait for those 15 seconds.  I had to know what was happening to Tara right now!!  I had to know what Dr. Hattarus was doing to help her.  I had to know if Marshall would be okay, if Kate would make it as a flight attendant, if Charmaine would gain some fucking perspective, if Max could take any more.

All that concentrated time has convinced me that I have an emotional connection to them.  I care so much.  And not in that patient wanting-to-see-what-happens-to-Daphne-and-Niles way.  With Netflix you don't allow yourself the time to process information over the course of a week.  Watching a series on Netflix is meeting, falling in love, and being cruelly dumped within a weekend.  If you choose to watch shows with the truly fucked up characters, your hold on reality becomes tenuous.  The realization that a particular show only had three seasons, or two seasons without some sort of satisfying conclusion, like say BBC's The Hour - can send you searching for consolation chocolate and a cocktail.  Escapism on this grand a scale has never been so attainable and potentially damaging.  Unless you're doing crack.

David watched the last two episodes of USOT with me last night after having previously viewed only the ender of Season 2.  He was horrified.  But for him it was a perspective shift.  "Whenever I think that you're crazy - I will remember this moment.  You are not that crazy."    That alone, makes today's emotional fallout worth bearing.

Frankenovaries strike again...

WARNING: THIS POST IS ABOUT SEX WITH YOUNG MEN

There are sooooooo many things to enjoy about peri-menopause - it's hard to pick a favourite.  But pretty high on that list would be how my peri-menopausal ovaries take over my higher brain functions when in the presence of young men.  My lady bits are apparently so desperate for that last stab at sure-fire insemination, that the most innocent of contact with a man in his prime, say between the ages of 19-22, will bring on L.U.S.T.  All-encompassing - choke you with its power - LUST.  

The good thing is, by and large, I'm not around young men most of the time. David's 40;  most of our friends are between the ages of 30 and 55.   I'm pretty sure that's what's kept me from getting arrested.  "Ma'am, put the boy down.  Put him down NOW."  Problem is? If this menopause thing doesn't happen in the next 5 years... Rissa will then be 18 1/2, and more than likely, she'll be bringing male friends home who will then be in that dreaded YOUNG MAN age bracket.  And no matter what your average cougar tries to tell you?  It is NEVER cool to hit on your daughter's friends.  NEVER.

I'm scared.  'Cause right now, when confronted with a young man full of youthful testosterone (the essence of stalwart sperm as it were), I pretty much lose my mind.  My failing ovaries do the Frankenstein walk.   

"Sperm.  Must have sperm."   

WAIT!!  Maybe my ovaries are actually ZOMBIE ovaries!  That is probably closer to the truth.  Maybe they've just come back to life and they are hungering for that young sperm because way back then, that's what they were supposed to be on the hunt for!  Somewhere in their little poor little zombie ovary brains they think  recognize virility and they want it.  The final gasp before the shop shuts down and puts the CLOSED FOR BUSINESS sign in the window.

And I mean, sure, I like sex... who doesn't? It's a lot of fun.  But until peri-menopause hit, it wasn't my every waking thought.  It was on the back burner and then right before my period, David would know that something was on the horizon because I was doing my best impersonation of a sailor on shore leave.  He actually said to me at one point, "Honey, I'm feeling a bit like I'm just the man attached to the penis."  I'm chagrined to say that, at that time, he probably was.  There were several years where those ovaries were convinced they needed attention - and a lot of it.  Lately, though, I though that it was all easing up, that the girls had calmed down.  I was wrong.

So this is basically a warning to all the young bucks out there.  Give me and my voracious ovaries a wide berth.  Don't come too close or you may be sucked into our orbit and who knows when, or even if, you'll escape.  I'd say we're like a black hole, but I'm a redhead... (ba-doom-ching) You get the gist, right?  Keep your distance.  It's for your own safety.  Just sayin'.

I am the dog?!? I am the dog?!?

"BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA!!!  Look at them!  LOOK AT THEM!!!"

"You're a dog!"  says Rissa.

"No, I'm not!"  says I.

"You're totally a dog.  You're all like...  talking, talking, talking, conversing while walking...
SQUIRREL!!!!"

"You can't tell me that you weren't entertained watching those two squirrels chase each other around and around that pine tree.  And then when they went from the pine tree over to the maple tree and did it again? Classic squirrel."

"You are a dog."

"I'm totally NOT a dog.  It's just that squirrels are the kings of slapsti... HEY! ANOTHER SQUIRREL!!!"

"I told you!"

"But just look at him!  He's holding a nut between his little paws!"

I don't carry a cell phone with me to take my own pictures.
This is NOT my actual squirrel. 
Mine was in a tree, but it was even cuter than this one.

"TOLD YOU SO!"

"Yes, but I'd do it with any cute animal.  Cats.  Bunnies.  Kangaroos..."

"Kangaroos?  If there were kangaroos chasing each other around the trunk of a tree I'd watch that."

"See?  You'd stop and notice them.  Basically your speciesist."

"Speciesist?"

"You're speciesist.  If those squirrels were not run-of-the-mill squirrels, but kangaroos instead, you would pay attention, you'd get excited.  SQUIRREL RIGHTS!  SQUIRREL RIGHTS!!!"

"KANGAROO RIGHTS!  KANGAROO RIGHTS!!!"

This might be when the cars started slowing down to rubber-neck.

And that's why David needs to wear a cup at home....

WARNING: There are inferred epithets in this post.

"HOLY $*&!  MOTHER - &@%!%#  JESUS! "

After dinner, on the nights when we're not over-programmed to the nth degree - David likes to change into his pj pants and a nice warm sweater.  We'll snuggle in on the family room sofa and he'll either read or work on his laptop or we'll watch TV.

Our cats, it seems, have pre-cognition.  As soon as David's pajama'd lap becomes available - all three of them appear.  Never when he's in jeans.  It's like the sound of him sitting in the cotton jersey has special appeal.

Minuit is usually the first up.  She hefts herself on to the couch and starts kneading his leg.  David will absently pat her on the head.  This is when she either a) begins to feel a little amorous herself and wants to reciprocate or b) has a mean streak in her.  Her paws move to David's groinal region and she'll invariably locate his balls.  At 15 lbs, Minuit provides a fair amount of weight behind her palpation of his, uh... boys...

"MINUIT!  NO!  NO!  #$*&-SUCKING FELINE!!"

"I think, for accuracy's sake that should be #$*&-PRODDING feline, hon.  The other just goes way over the line into bestiality."

If he has patience, Minuit ends up thrust onto my lap where I have no external organs to be damaged.   If he doesn't have patience, she may wind up testing the "Do cats always land on their feet?" theory.   On a really good night, say after Minuit has conferred with her furry siblings, there will be a parade of pussy cats all wanting to enjoy the thrills of David's lap.  Maybe it's like their own version of A Night of Living Dangerously.

"I need a cup to watch TV."

"Maybe if you're good, you'll get one for Christmas." 

Cat proofing the kitchen...

thump...  thump...  thump...

I didn't think they were that smart.  Minuit, in particular, seems like she doesn't have two synapses to rub together.  Steve will frequently roll off the ottoman by accident and Lola - well Lola is the sneakiest of the bunch - but it's not like she's doing cat calculus in her spare time.

Someone may have been slipping them some organic brain stimulant.  They are now remembering things.  Like where we keep the cat kibble.

thump...  thump...  thump...

I'm not saying that we have a CATS of NIMH case on our hands, but two days ago, they all looked at the kibble bag as if it was some master illusionist, magically appearing from NOWHERE, and then yesterday?

They started opening the cupboard door where it's kept.    It's not really like they can open the bag itself, because they don't have opposable thumbs (yet), but they can sure as shit bite through the side of the bag  guaranteeing that their food goes stale.  Although really, fresh cat kibble and stale cat kibble... I've tried them both and neither is particularly tasty to my palate.

So now we have the toddler locks on the cupboard.  And the sad sound that we hear from our starving felines is...

thump...  thump...  thump...

...as they attempt to circumvent our security system.  I'll have to be on the watch to see if they mount a B&E into David's makeshift workshop in the basement.  If they learn how to use tools we're totally screwed.

Period comfort foods...

There are the foods you should be eating...  You know, iron-fortified foods, brown rice, lentils, dairy products, fish... all supposed to help with PMS and all, frankly, bullshit. We don't want them, we don't eat them.  We find our own ways to get through the inconvenience of bleeding from our vaginas.

My Top Ten Period Comfort Foods:

Leftover tortilla chips all crunched together with salsa in a bowl, eaten like it's cereal.  (That way you know an appropriate portion size.)

Nutella on anything, especially something salty.

Smoked mussels or oysters.

Cream Cheese icing - out of the can.

Dill pickle chips.

Chocolate Raspberry Martinis - from my emergency freezer flask.

Cheez-Whiz on toast.  Or, if it's really bad, Easy Cheese sprayed from a can directly into your mouth.

Chocolate covered pretzels.

Ridiculously priced Ben & Jerry's or Hagen Daas from the tub.

Home made Turtles*: Chocolate chips, pecan pieces drizzled with caramel sauce into a bowl - eaten with a spoon.  Repeat as necessary.

*If you have the patience to make and then wait for the actual candies try this recipe.
  http://candy.about.com/od/kidfriendlytreats/r/turtles.htm

I'm entering my second adolescence.

For the second time in my life I am catastrophically clumsy.  I didn't get the memo.  The one where it tells you that when you hit peri-menopause you enter your second adolescence.  I trip,slip, bump into things, drop dishes, stub my toes and fall up the stairs.  Not down, but up.  My dork factor is at 11.

In the space of two days, I gave myself a black eye with the chest freezer door and pinched a nerve in my neck rolling over in bed.  If they'd happened at the same time I could have done a great impression of a pirate with a health insurance claim.

This is NOT me sporting a jaunty cap,
I have a cold pack over one eye

Dorky McDorks a Lot

There's nothing quite like believing you've paralyzed yourself to push you directly into hysterical hyperventilation.  Still half-asleep, I realized that my chin was stuck looking over my left shoulder.  When I tried to move it at all, sharp stabbing pains shot through my neck and then stabbed down into my right shoulder blade.  David was awakened by the sounds of my panic.

"Wha...  what is it??"

"I can't move!  I can't move!"

"WHAT?!?"

"My head, it's stu... stu... stu..."  If I could have moved my head at all, I would have searched the room for a paper bag into which I could  hyperventilate/vomit in terror.

"It's okay, it's okay.  You need to breathe."

"Can't! I CAN'T!!!"

Now I would have slapped me at this point.  David didn't of course.  I was still trapped on my side, so he would have been slapping my head into the bed.  If I'd been sitting up, he might have been able to slap the neck loose if he hit me from the other side. There must have been lots of the whites of my eyes showing because David was starting to look pretty terrified himself.  He managed to get me sitting up - my head still trapped looking left.  I had those hiccuping sobs going - still half asleep and by no means rational.

"What if it stays like this?!?"

"It's not going to stay like this."

"You don't know that!!  YOU DON'T KNOW!!!  Did we write about this in our living wills?  I've changed my mind, don't pull the plug."

"You've pinched a nerve.  I'm going to get you some anti-inflammatories."

"DON'T LEAVE ME!!!"

"I'll be right back.  I promise.  Just breathe."

It took David 33 seconds to come back with drugs.   "Now I'm just going to go downstairs and heat up the bean bag for you.  You need to stay calm."  He helped me lie back down.

I was awake enough then, that I tried to put on a brave face. I didn't claw at him, I didn't wail.  I wasn't going to be a baby about it.  The panic was still there, but fuck it!  I could pretend that it wasn't.  I counted while he was gone.  While counting to 197, I deliberately moved my head through the pain so that I could at least look straight up at the ceiling.  There were some crunching sounds, but as I was much less panicked with my head facing up, it was totally worth the pain.  David came back, armed wtih a cold pack, a heating pad and his lap top.  "Hey!  You're looking at the ceiling!  How did you do that?"

"Determination."

"It says that you need to alternate ice and heat.  Muscle relaxants are helpful.  You can have massage." 

If you are in desperate need of massage therapy or chiropractic adjustment, you will injure yourself at 4:00 a.m. on the Sunday of Thanksgiving Weekend.  I was on my own until Tuesday.  Sure, we could have trundled down to the ER, but it was a pinched nerve; they would have pumped me full of drugs, but not much else.  

This injury also coincided with the beginning of tech week for my latest play.  I had to be in rehearsal that night - it was a slapstick comedy.  To ensure that I wouldn't move my head when I was at rehearsal, David took me to Shopper's Drug Mart to get me a neck brace.

"I'm going to look like a dork!"

"Yes, but you will be a dork who won't hurt herself more."

If you ever want attention?  Show up anywhere with a neck brace on.  Complete strangers will ask you what you've done.

Now, 10 days later, after two massages and a chiropractic adjustment I have almost full mobility and the complete certainty that I won't survive paralysis.

Rissa's new career path

Last night at bedtime.

"New career path Mummy!  No longer will I be a chiropractor or massage therapist.  I will now be... a NINJA.  My catch phrase shall be "You will never see me coming!"  From her position lying in the bed, Rissa launches herself up at me, pulling me flat against her chest, her arms iron bars against my back.  "See? You didn't see me coming!"  Releasing me, she takes a deeply satisfied breath.   "I'll have a cool ninja name too.  Like Lotus Flower or Turtle Swan..."

"Turtle swan...?"

She mimes the action of a turtle retreating into its shell before morphing into a swan.  "Does this look like a turtle swan?  Or more like a frog elephant?"

"Hard to say."

"Or maybe I'd be more like Ninja who attacks at dusk because she has a curfew...  or Ninja who attacks before dawn so that her parents don't know what she's up to and she has time to change before going to school... "

She gets a crazed glint in her eye.  "You'll never see me coming!!!!"  She grabs me again, clutching me tightly to her torso once more.

Trapped in the crook of her neck, I manage a muffled, "I totally saw you coming!"

"No you didn't."

"I'm thinking that you might want to go with the catch phrase AFTER the attack."

And that's why I'm supposed to cut down on my alcohol...

Cause it gives me hot flashes.  And now, apparently... Night Terrors.  Not just regular nightmares, but crazy-ass, finding out that Nate Berkus, in addition to being an interior designer, is the leader of a boy band who has people eviscerated when you discover that they are 100% auto-tuned, full-on NIGHT FREAKING TERRORS.

I had two drinks.  Is my ability to handle my alcohol also being compromised by peri-menopause?  (That would be incredibly sad, given my Scandinavian heritage.)  Or is it because the second drink,  "Oh, don't worry, the ice is displacing the alcohol - it's really only a double," actually was a quadruple?   Plus?  Over Thanksgiving - to cope with the pinched nerve in my neck?  I may have imbibed a bit to take the edge off.  During the full course of the day, I might have had a couple of pina colada coolers and a couple of glasses of wine.  And again - the hot flashes were like rocket liftoffs.   One drink?  I'm fine.  More than one?  You can BBQ on my torso.

And then there's  caffeine.  Not only will it keep me up at night if I ingest it after noon, but waking up with the night sweats adds a certain - I was about to say je ne sais quoi, but I totally quoi - it's just that I don't have enough adjectives to adequately describe the sensations in a way that men will understand.  Other women of a certain age get it.  They know all about it.  But most dudes?  They have not one freaking clue as to how those hot flashes can turn you from rational wife and mother to slathering murderous wielder of words and weapons.  My middle name during one of these spells could truly be 'harangue' - not necessarily at other people, but towards the universe in general.  Men not in the know, pass it off as us being hormonal and 'tut-tut' us and give us patronizing little pats on the shoulder.  Experienced husbands and partners know the drill.  They duck and roll - find the safe spot in the house - don't make eye contact - stay under the radar - hand you a bag of frozen peas to put on the back of your neck.  They are the ones who know not to mock, at least not while you're in the room... Mostly, methinks, so that one's harangue doesn't devolve into a crying jag that could rival Biblically proportioned floods. 

So no caffeine or alcohol for me... not now.  Most doctors will agree on that point anyhow.   I'll be smart - it's for my own good.  I anticipate quite a bender though, when I've actually made it to menopause. 

Canada: Back to the Dark Ages

Allow me to wax hyberbolic for a moment.  I love being Canadian.  It is the absolute best country in the galaxy!  I LOVE it.  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!  I love living in Canada.  The people, the wildlife, the breadth and scope of our land, the change in seasons...  I am proud to be a Canadian and to live in our democratic, and yes, somewhat socialist state.  I revel in our beauty and spirit of bon amie.  Very little in the Canadian experience causes me true ire because the abundance of good that we have as Canadians is so vast, so spectacular, so unlike anything else in the world...  But Holy crap, do I DESPISE losing the sunlight in the winter! 

Every year, come October, the sun rises a little later - which means that when you get up in the morning you're staggering from your bed in the dark.  And not in that fun, because you've just had that drunken hookup with an ex and have to make it home before work, kind of staggering.  You're staggering because without your bedside light on, you literally can't see.  And, with due respect to our hardworking farming communities, unless you're a shift worker, waking up when it's still dark outside, just seems fucked up. 

They say that Daylight Savings Time helps, but really??  At 7:00 a.m. in November?  It's pitch black.   And then, by about 4:30 p.m.?  PITCH FREAKING BLACK.  Three words: Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I don't personally lose my mind (well not completely anyway) in the winter months, but my get-up-and-go gene tends to lay dormant, and I know plenty of folks who bring out their inner cave dweller for the duration of the winter... Monosyllabic, furrowed of brow and prone to beating things with sticks.

And those sunrise lamps for your bedroom?  Not sure if they actually work.  Over the course of 30 minutes, our light comes on very gradual-like to simulate the sunrise.  Now it might just be because right now we're still staying up too late because we've got shit we need to get done, but in the morning, even with that gradual increase in light in our room, when you step into the hall, you still trip over cat toys because it's so freaking dark.  WAIT!!  WAAAAIIIIIT!!!  Every home north of the 49th parallel could have an entire house that's set up on solar battery powered sunrise simulators!!  So that, no matter where you are in your house, it seems like it's actually day time.  You acclimatize yourself to that state for the the 1/2 hour 45 minutes before you leave for work and then... you step into darkness.  CRAP.  Suggestions?  Anyone?

Next time it'll be fire engine red!

I have been a redhead for more years now than I haven't.   There have been occasional comments on the colour now and again, but something about this newest shade is driving folks wild.

Recently, I was in Toronto for a public speaking engagement.  As I was walking to the venue, a very attractive, incredibly well dressed man in the Gay Village, stopped me on the street.

"I LOVE YOUR HAIR!!!   OH MY GOD IT'S STU...U...U....NNING!!!"

At the grocery store, two men, in separate aisles, stopped me.  I was standing next to the sauces and one guy said to me, "This sauce is SO hot, it'll turn that gorgeous red hair... BROWN."  Sometimes guys aren't quite on their game. 

This morning, in the kitchen, I marvelled that this shade was getting so much attention.

Rissa:  You know what you should do next time?

Me: What?

Rissa: Dye it FIRE ENGINE RED (she uses jazz hands to signify the colour's vibrance.)

Me: Huh?

Rissa:  Yep.  Like literally the colour of a fire engine.  AND,   ANNNNNND... you add a little siren in your hair too... so you'd be going "Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo..." with the light all rotating...

David: (piping in) And maybe have a little ladder at the back too.  THEN you'll get noticed.

Me:  Uh-huh...

Rissa:  OR!!!  WAIT!! WAIT!!! ORRRRRRRR.... you turn it into an Arctic scene - you put little penguins up there, maybe some polar bears...

Me:  What does that have to do with red hair?


Rissa:  Nothing, but it'd be cool, you have to admit...

David: Depends if you're clubbing seals...  

Me: DAVID!!!  (He shrugs)


Me:  So basically, you're saying that I should treat my hair as an ever-changing diorama?

Rissa & David: YES!!!

David:  Then when you go to a royal wedding you can kick everyone's asses with YOUR fascinator!

(The best part of ALL of this might just be that David knows what a fascinator is.)

From 2010 Fantasy Hair Competition
Manchester, NH
Rachel Bishop (model)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1268235/International-Fantasy-Hair-Models-fashion-ships-castles-dos-blow-bubbles.html

M... M... M.... My Melasma

 This is the soundtrack for this post.

I have always been fish belly white.  Some smatterings of freckles on my face in the summer, but traditionally, my pale skin could be used as a signal point in the dark. Like you could line a bunch of me up on a runway and we'd be great markers for night flights arriving at Toronto's Pearson Airport.

A couple of years ago I started developing melasma (a tan or dark skin discoloration) upon my face.  Pregnant women occasionally get this - it's dubbed The Mask of Pregnancy - kind of like the Mask of Zorro, but you can't take this mask off.

I'm NOT pregnant and I never had it during pregnancy, but turns out other hormonal changes in women can bring it on too.  Like, say... peri-menopause.   And, I've just now read, thyroid disease.   ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?  What do I have? Peri-menopause AND thyroid disease.  So basically, I'm doubly screwed without any of the benefits.

I went to a skin clinic to see how much it would cost to treat.  For a mere $1000 they could give me laser treatments and accompanying cream that might help.  MIGHT?  For $1000, they should give you a freaking guarantee, I'm thinking.  I figured that using some BB Cream would be a lot cheaper and would mostly mask the mask.  Now it just looks like I'm new to this whole 'makeup' thing and have forgotten to smooth my foundation on my jawline.

"You know if you feather out the edges..."

"I HAVE feathered out the frickin' edges - my face is a whole different colour than the rest of me!!!  This colour?!?  It's doesn't come off!"

Every time I've mentioned it to David, he just shakes his head.  "You look beautiful.  You always look beautiful."

"To YOU!  I always look beautiful TO YOU!!"

"No, I think we can state empirically..."

"You have love juice in your system - you're not thinking rationally!!"  I hold up my arm to my face.  "See this?!?  THIS is the colour my face should be!"

"Yeah, but your face gets sun..."

"I wear SPF 30 EVERY day, I should have NO colour on my face, I should look like a freaking MIME!"

"A little colour is good - makes you look healthy.  When you don't have colour on your face, people usually ask you if you're okay."

"BLAAAAARGH!!!"

Mentioned the melasma to my doctor at my yearly physical.  "Oh, that's hardly noticeable at all.  You just have a bit of colour in your face.  If it's hormonal you can't really do anything about it anyway."   He was facing away from me when I made to strangle him.

The good news is... after my body has decided its hormonal future, these particular delights should stop.  After I've truly made it through THE CHANGE I might get my skin back - possibly my rationality too.