Poulet-Vous!

It's no secret that Rissa gets wound up at bedtime as soon as I'm in the room.  I imagine that it's crazy breeding crazy.  I'd been in the city all day, so last night, Rissa was desperate to show me what she had created as an 'add-on' to her peacock costume. 

"Ooooh!  Ooooh!  You have to see what I made!"  She claps her hands in glee.

The picture doesn't really do it justice, it's way more sparkly in person. 

Then she brings out her 'Beak on a Stick" - lollipop stick inserted into folded sparkly yellow cardboard and then hot-glued in place, to make pretty much the perfect peacock beak.

"It's a great disguise," she says.  "I could totally rob a bank with this."

David and I exchange a look.

"I'd be leaving with my bags of loot..." She mimes carrying heavy bags of cash in each hand.  "Then the security guard would say 'HEY YOU!!!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE?'  And then I'd do this!"  She holds up her beak, blinks wide eyes and lets out an blameless "Bwok-ka....?" while hiding the loot under her armpits and fluffing out her imaginary beautiful plumage as a distraction.     "Then the security guard will be all 'Oh, excuse me ma'am - you go right ahead.'   And I'll be rich!  Rich I tell you!"

Shortly thereafter Rissa and I might have created a rousing rendition of POULET-VOUS - our tribute to Abba and chickens worldwide.

POULET-VOUS (bwok-ka!)

Take our eggs and breed us (bwok-ka!)

Oh how we can peck (bwok-ka!)

If you try to break our ne-ecks!

 POULET-VOUS (bwok-ka!)

Don't want no incision (bwok-ka!)

Please don't make us stew (bwok-ka!)

La question c'est Poulet-vous

POULET-VOUS?   OOOOOOOO?

On a side note:  This morning, I smoothed my fingers through David's hair, trying to convince a cowlicky part to lie flat.

"I am going to get my hair cut," he says, determinedly.  "I hope the barber shop is open.  It is Hallowe'en after all."  His lips twitch in a barely suppressed smile.    "Sweeney Todd would be open, but my chances of survival at that shop would be haphazard at best."

ps. Rissa's pumpkin this year, is carved to spell the word "GOURD." 

Thou Peevish Sheep!

Meeeeh...

Yesterday morning...

David had been looking forward to sleeping in.  15 more minutes of it.  He wasn't carpooling because of an after-school literacy meeting.  He set the alarm in anticipatory joy -  there may have been some contented chortling and 'nom, nom, nom' noises as he snuggled into the bed.  Then, the cats fucked it all up.

Rissa got up before we did, but didn't feed the cats.  This had the cats looking for people in the house who would feed them.  Launching themselves onto the bed, they began their own version of an intricate Bollywood dance number.  David, doesn't enjoy cat dance at the best of times, less so when he thinks he should be sleeping in.  There may have been some hurtling of the cats off the bed, perhaps propelled by under-the-blankets feet, followed by some growling and stomping on David's part to get them out of the room.  Then a door might have been slammed.  Grumbling ensued and not the under-the-breath kind.  After two minutes of this, he left the bed and STOMPED down the hall.

What you need to understand is that we are emotional vampires in our house - we suck up the energy of others around us.  We then magnify that energy and spit it out onto unsuspecting civilians.

David was in a mood, ergo I was too.  And I already wasn't thrilled to be woken up by violent kicking followed by doors slamming.  What with Hurricane Sandy being en route, the barometric pressure was wreaking havoc with my head.  I was hoping to stagger to the bathroom, dope myself up and sleep the morning away.  And now?  Now I was up.  And worse, my stomach thought it was time to be up so I needed to eat.  So I STOMPED down the stairs.

And there was poor Rissa, minding her own business with two stompy parents grumbling and growling and having yet to even said good morning to each other on account of the fact that David was convinced that the cats should be thrown into a bag and then into a box and that box should be thrown into Lake Ontario; (it would never happen PETA - so re-fucking-lax, and un-twist your panties!)  and I was mad because instead of him asking me to do something about it he just got all stompy and slammy.

By the time I told Rissa that she couldn't wear her brand new ballet flats to school in the rain, she was ready to burst into tears.  I managed to turn her around by reminding her that her rain boots have polka-dots on them and that's ALWAYS a good thing to have on your feet. Then she got into the spirit herself.   She found a pair of knee high rainbow socks to wear underneath the polka-dotted rain boots,  and put on her stylish navy rain jacket - with belt.  Soon after, via email, David and I apologized for our peevish sheep attitudes and, at the end of the day, we all helped make dinner together.  Long-standing angry grudges averted.

Bulemic Kitties...

I'm not sure if it's the worst sound that I've ever woken to, but it's in the top three*...  All toasty warm - sleeping in past 8:00 a.m. on a weekend...  Someone else in the house has fed the felines...  Dozing, thinking of delicious things that I might do to my spouse, when I hear this:

guh, guh, guh, guh, guh, HUYAAACK!    

The sound of a cat getting ready to hurl its breakfast on my duvet.  I bolt straight up in bed, the sudden movement terrifies the gagging cat, it departs the bed,  and leaves the resulting pukage on the hall carpet. 

It's Minuit, our oldest and fattest cat.  She eats too fast.  She maows down on her kibble like its the last food she'll ever see and then regurgitates it, usually in a place where you'll be stepping with a bare foot.  For a while there, we had a golf ball we kept in her food dish, you know, to slow her eating down, but we recently had a toddler in the house who started playing with it and it disappeared.  The golf ball, not the toddler.  For sure I'd know if there was a lost toddler in the house.  They're noisy, the little boogers.  And at the very least, the toddler's mother probably would have come looking for it.

Food is a motivator for all three of our beasts.  Every morning at 6:25 a.m. they meow and dance all over you until you get up to feed them.  The youngest, Steve & Lola, GALLOP down the hall in some sort of Cirque du Soleil choreographed gymnastics and hurl themselves down the back stairs - trying to break the sound barrier.  Minuit stumps her way down the hall and ba-doomps down the stairs (she can't move too fast or she'll just become a black, furry, stunt-cat ball).  The three then mew and yowl as if they will most certainly die before you manage to fill their food bowls.

At dinner time they get more creative.  Steve will start pushing shit off my desk to get my attention: pencils, cd cases, carefully stacked piles of paper.  Lola usually stands on the back of David's chair and shoves at him with her cat elbows.  Minuit is an Achilles Tendon nipper.

When they are NOT begging for food, they are perfectly lovely beasts.  They are the beasts who warm the very cockles of my heart.  They are the beasts who purr loudly as they snuggle down under the blankets, the beasts who lovingly head butt you before palpating your lap and settling in for a cat nap in front of the fire.  I'm an animal person in general.  A cat person in particular.  Sometimes to the detriment of my health.

see http://whatthepoohdude.blogspot.ca/2012/07/dont-cuddle-feral-kittens.html

Yesterday we went to Rissa's friend's farm and I was informed that there were 12 kittens in the barn.  Her friend's dad said we could take home as many kittens as we could carry!!!  I looked at David with ecstatic, pleading baby blues, my eyelashes fluttering.  Telepathically I promised him ANYTHING he wanted. 

"No way.  Nuh-unh.  No more cats.  You will just have to come here and play with them in the barn."

I have no problem with that.


*Waking to a toddler with the barking seal cough of croup IS worse.  I know this because the last time I heard it was almost a decade ago and just the memory of it throws me right back to driving to the hospital in the dead of winter trying to keep it together so that my 2 year-old didn't see her mother panic. 

Upper body suckage...

So the other day after my walk, I had a small reserve of energy and I thought that I'd mow the lawn.  David usually does it but I was thinking I'd get major spouse points if I did it for him.  Except  I couldn't start it.  I tried like 10 freaking times to yank the starter thingie.  Nothing.  And now both my arms were strained on account of the fact that I tried with my left arm when my right arm couldn't do it.

Why I would think to even try my left arm, when my right arm is OBVIOUSLY the stronger one, I don't know.  I could have plugged in the electric mower, but that is a real pain in the ass.  Of course now thinking about it, I'm feeling guilty for not having tried it, but I almost always  mow over the cord, which even I know is bad.

Can they (whomever 'they' are) not have a gas-powered mower that you don't have to dislocate your shoulder to start?  I hate to say it, but can they not make a girlie mower?  I mean, I'm not some frail little flower here.  I actually HAVE arm muscles.  I can do pushups (real ones) and everything.  I'm one of those girls folks refer to as "STRONG LIKE BULL."  I can heft things.  (As long as I'm lifting with my legs too, you know, so my lower back doesn't go out and I don't displace a rib.)

So I messaged David and he said "Did you hold the lever down?"  And I thought AH-HAH!  That must be it!  I didn't hold the emergency release lever down.  So I  went out and tried again, holding the emergency release lever down...  and...  NOTHING!!!  (Why you need to hold that down while you're mowing doesn't even make sense to me.)  Now the slight strain on my arms had morphed into real strain.  And I was getting stressed about it too, so now my angina kicked in.  So then I needed to have a rusty nail and lie down for a bit.

And then of course, David came home and he could just do it - ZIP BOOM - because he's a man and stupid men have more stupid upper body strength (by and large) than women.  I'm not being a dismissive of feminine strength here girls, I mean, maybe there are tonnes of you out there who have crazy-ass upper body strength and awe the general populace when you're called in to tighten lugnuts for your neighbours and such.  I'm wallowing in my own personal physical ineffectuality here... I might need a moment and another rusty nail.

JOYFUL DISBELIEF!!

David is twisting the lids back on the peanut butter and jam.  I am looking at him incredulously -  eyes wide,  my eyebrows raised nearly to my hairline.

"What?!" asks David.

"It's just..."  I'm nearly speechless.  "I never see you do that."

He snorts.  "I do too!"

"HAH!  You NEVER put things away."

"I put things away in the morning!"   He turns to Rissa for backup.

"No, Daddy, you don't."

"Usually I do!"

"No Daddy."

"At least half the time."

Rissa and I shake our heads.

"I put things away!!"

I place a consoling hand upon his shoulder.  "Sweetie.  I'm sorry.  Let me restate.  Yes, occasionally you do  put your sandwich making ingredients away, but you always leave something."

"Not always."

"Yes.  ALWAYS.  You might put the sandwich meats away, but you'll leave the wrappers from your cheese slices.  You'll put the cheese slice wappers in the garbage, but you'll leave the bread bag open and Miracle Whip knives on the island."

"I just leave those things so that Rissa can make her lunch."

"I don't use Miracle Whip Daddy."

"Fine!  Fine!  I will put away EVERYTHING!  You just watch me!!!  See this!?!  I am PUTTING AWAY the sandwich meats!  These knives?  Going in the dishwasher.  You," he turns to Rissa,  "are going to have to find a NEW knife!"

"Okay Daddy."

In a dramatic show of domesticity, David takes the dishcloth and 'cleans' the island of its bread crumbs and morning muck.  His hand carefully carries the detritus of sandwich preparation to the garbage under the sink and he deposits it with a flourish.  "Let it not be said that I can't clean up after myself!"

Rissa and I hold our tongues.

David leaves for work. Then, Rissa makes her lunch and leaves for school.  I have already started writing this post.

I make my way back into the kitchen, I tidy the cheese knife Rissa has left behind and put all of her breakfast dishes, which she has left on the counter right above the dishwasher, into the dishwasher.  Then I take a damp dishcloth and wash the island before cleaning up the floor under the sink where dramatically thrown crumbs have fallen short of the garbage can.  And as I'm doing this?  All I feel is LOVE for the pair of them.  Because after I nag and nag and nag?  They really do try.

Storm's a comin'!

David arrives home, a little later than usual. 

"I have things for you,"  he says, before running back out to the car.

"Oh really?"

He comes back, hefting a full bag of firewood and making He-Man- look-how-strong-I-am noises.

"Firewood?"

"In case you're cold."  He says as he runs out once more.  (Yesterday, I'd had a fairly violent code blue - David kept throwing blankets on me and Rissa ran me a hot bath.)

He returns, arms laden with a veritable cornucopia of items.  He displays them with husbandly pride.  "You can have Fleur de Sel dark chocolate  and/or chocolate chip cookie lava cakes and/or cookies & cream ice cream!  You could have all three - together!  Plus (but wait there's more!)  I have these too!  (He indicates a bottle of Pinot Grigio and a box of Shiraz.)   I wasn't sure which you might want.  And there's a six pack of Stella Artois - mostly for me, but if you want them you can have them.  I wanted to cover all bases.  You can do a little from column A, a little from column B if that works."  He is an eager border collie puppy.

So either... he is making up for that extramarital affair he is having or...

"Is this because my period is coming?"  (I'd been on the cusp for a couple of days now)

"... I thought I'd be prepared."

"So you're saying that my period is akin to preparing for a category 4 storm front?"  (His eyes widen slightly.)    "Oh my God!  I'm Hurricane Heather!  You're battening down the hatches!  This is you calling in food and alcohol equivalents of the National Guard!"

 I can see him thinking very carefully about his response.

"No...  this is me, your faithful and loving husband, providing coping options to you, my lovely wife, in the event of any situation that might arise."

Smart man.
 

Don't open that Tupperware!

We could make our own penicillin with some of the contents of our fridge right now.    Show of hands, who else only cleans their fridge out on a quarterly or bi-annual basis?  As a science experiment it's kind of cool - as a surprise when you're opening a container - not so much.  That's why I highly recommend the see-through containers.  Then you can just see all the delicious, moldy-green bits (shudder) and know what has to go before opening the vessel and releasing the new species you're cultivating into the air like Anthrax.  There are times, when the entire container ends up in the garbage.  Usually it's David who does that.  I can't stand to throw anything away that could be properly recycled.  I will empty even the foulest container, overcoming my food odor gag-reflex to get that sucker washed and put into the recycling bin.

We don't have a garburator, which means that when we do have a refrigerator stacked with muck and yuck plastic containers - we need to take a large spoon, walk to the main floor bathroom (oh so conveniently located off the kitchen) and begin the FQQ (Food of Questionable Quality) purge into the toilet.  WARNING - make sure the food is in bite sized pieces when you do this!  Don't just take a whole freaking chicken breast or head of broccoli /cauliflower and think you can flush it - it WON'T work!  Also - make sure that you have a plunger on hand - just in case your bite-sized pieces of FQQ get clogged in said toilet.  'Cause nothing says party like a bathroom floor filled with an inch of contaminated water.

Fridge cleaning is one of those household chores that just gets put on the back burner for other more noticeable things, like say dirty dishes in the sink or occasional chairs covered in cat hair.  I'm all for the lower effort housecleaning - the things that take next to no time to do but make it look like the house is really clean.  Vacuuming is a good one.  You see those nice vacuum marks on the floor and it can go a great way to perfect the illusion of cleanliness.  Every day when I'm done my shower I make sure the bathroom sink is clean.  I can do that quick fix in about 60 seconds.  I was a Molly Maid during university, so when I'm motivated, the house can get cleaned fairly quickly.  Or it would if I didn't get all distracticated - which happens ALL the time to me. 

I start in one room and then something else will catch my eye, so those papers that I had intended to file up in the study wind up on the stairs as I break down cardboard boxes which remind me there are more in the basement, but then I notice that the kitty litter needs to be changed, and when I'm in the tool room locating the garbage bags for the kitty litter I see that the floor needs to be swept and then when I go to get the broom, I notice that the cats have taken a strand of the carpet underneath David's drum set and are unraveling it... and then it's the end of the day and other than the clean bathroom sink that I managed to wipe after my shower, the house pretty much looks the same.  And then, even when I do go on an all-out cleaning fit and the house is vacuumed and counters are clear of crap, Rissa comes home and says "Is someone coming over tonight?  The house is so clean!" 

"NO!! NO ONE IS COMING OVER!!!  YOU KNOW IT IS POSSIBLE THAT WE, AS A FAMILY, WORKING COOPERATIVELY, COULD LIVE IN A HOUSE WHERE THINGS ARE CLEANED, TIDIED AND FREAKING VACUUMED AS A MATTER OF COURSE!!!!"

Brad Pitt and Chanel No. 5??

Okay, so Chanel No. 5 ads.   WHAT. THE. POOH.  Brad Pitt is the new face of Chanel No. 5?  My friend Meg said that it happened, but I thought she was high.   Brad Pitt?  Chanel No. 5?

And then I found it - a 31 second commercial that can make the most nonsensical hallucinogenic experience seem like watching the most simplistic inaugural address.

"It's not a journey;* every journey ends, but we go on.  The world turns and we turn with it.  Plans disappear, dreams take over."

My eyes rolled back in my head so far in disbelief, I almost gave myself a brain aneurysm.  My snorts of laughter almost choked me.   But then, somewhere around the 18 second mark...   Brad Pitt actually turns to the camera and looks directly... at ME.

"But wherever I go... there you are... "  

And there it is folks, that's where my near-hysterical scoffing got stuck in my throat.  Because when he looked into the camera and said those words?  I actually clenched.  With my girlie bits.  Dead serious.  My mouth got dry.  It was akin to Johnny Depp in Chocolate suggesting that he'd "come round sometime and get that squeak out of" Juliette Binoche's door.   But then?  Pitt looked away and the spell was completely broken with these words...

"My luck.  My fate.  My fortune.  Chanel No. 5.   Inevitable."

I had to watch it again.  It was like a train wreck.  Eye roll, eye roll, snort, scoff, eye roll, snort, snort, scoff, eye roll, eye roll, eye roll,  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, eye roll...  OH. MY. BLESSED. GOD, blah, blah, blah, snort, scoff, snort, blah, blah, blah de freakin' blah.

Six times.  I have watched it six times.  And I gotta say that in the midst of those 27 painful - they paid him HOW MUCH?? - seconds?  The other  4 seconds where I'm pretty sure he's promising that he will leave Angelina Jolie for ME?   Effective advertising.  And you know how I know that?  Because I'm not even attracted to Brad Pitt.  I mean sure, when David and I play Would You Rather - we both pretty much get stuck at the "Would you rather have dinner with George Clooney and Brad Pitt?"  option, but that has everything to do with how much fun they are in the Oceans movies.  So I was a bit surprised that there was any attraction for me at all.  'Course, my period's due (again) and I am incredibly horny.

Chanel perfume ads always seem to be fashioned as cinematic melodramas from the 1940s.  And let's face it, Bette Davis did it so much better in Now Voyager.   

"Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars."   

You know why these ads don't work?  Because it's no longer 1979 and none of these spokespeople are Catherine Deneuve.  You have to be her to pull off that existential, melodramatic shit.   Although Audrey Tautou did a pretty good job in 2009.  So maybe what I should say is that you can't be American, or Australian, or British or a Russian immigrant to pull off a quintessentially French ad.  I think you have to be French.  Like with a capital "F" and italics, kind of French.

* and you just KNOW that there would have been a freaking semi-colon there!

Wedding Weekend Roundup

We're at another wedding this weekend with little time to write/edit (fingers crossed for sunshine around 3:00 p.m. for Pete & Kate),  so may I please direct your attention to these:

Shilling for Schools  (How to encourage our children to pimp)

YAY!!  YOGURT!!  (Another reason why I love my crazy daughter)

 

and

The Twitching Hours  (Me at my most logical)

For Your Sanitary Needs...

Yesterday I was in a public washroom.  In one of the stalls, someone had left a makeshift toilet seat cover made from artfully placed toilet paper.  Woman after woman turned away from that stall as if it the Black Death were in residence. I guess they all assumed that someone had done their business and then left the "seat cover" there. And I was thinking, what if this was a 'pay it forward' gift, left as a fresh offering for the next user?  What if it was a true moment of altruistic kindness?  Because logistically, I kind of think that if that toilet paper toilet seat cover had been used, wouldn't it have stuck to the ass of the person who had used it before?

I mean, I'm not sure, because, me, personally?  I have never used a toilet seat cover in my life.  I don't comprehend the whole idea of toilet seat covers.  All they make me think is Why??  What possible use do they serve?  I mean really?  What is your ass going to catch from a toilet seat?  If the seat is wet, can't a gal just wipe it off with a great wad of toilet paper?  You're washing your hands afterwards right?  'Cause if you're not washing your hands?  Then YOU are pretty much the Typhoid Mary, not someone who just haphazardly tinkled on the seat.

If you place toilet paper strategically over top of a sprinkled (with someone else's pee) toilet seat, is that now slightly wet toilet paper, not just going to stick to your ass?  And won't you have to pull that wet paper off your ass with bare hands? Unless you wear gloves in the stall - which begs a whole other set of questions if you're doing that.

This may be simplistic, but isn't the important part of your ass actually NOT on the seat, but rather suspended over the toilet bowl?  What are these toilet seat cover users afraid of exactly?  Are the cheeks of your ass going to catch a disease from a toilet seat? 

(Warning: graphically descriptive passage to follow)
The only people who should be worried about the germs on the cheeks of their ass are the people who spend a lot of time touching their own ass cheeks.  Do they... I don't know, scratch or massage, or just generally play with their ass cheeks and then what?  Eat finger foods without washing their hands first?   shudder  These folks must be worried about what they're going to catch from the seat because they obviously devote considerable time to playing with their own asses.   Practically speaking, even if you had hemorrhoids, wouldn't they too, be over top of the toilet bowl, you know closer to... wait for it... ur...anus?  Wouldn't they?  And before you suggest them... ass cheek zits?  Think about it.  How hard would someone have to sit on a toilet seat to actually pop ass zits that just happened to be in a ring around their ass exactly where they would rest upon the toilet seat?  I'm just sayin' here.

A friend told me that she actually sits ON HER HANDS on the toilet seat.  I was dumbfounded, and it  must have shown on my face.  "But I wash my hands afterward!"  This makes it better how?!?  She would rather have her HANDS touch the seat upon which other peoples' asses had rested rather than her ass?  That makes aboslutely NO sense to me.  Then there's the camp that doesn't ever sit on the toilets, they just squat.  Which, to be fair, is probably great strength training for your legs.  Basically what it comes down to?  Wash your freaking hands. A lot.  Especially if they've come into contact with someone else's pee, or ass.  Washing your own ass would be a good thing too.

p.s. Do not even THINK about hinting that crabs are another reason to use a toilet seat cover.  This from the Centre for Disease Control:

"A common misconception is that pubic lice are spread easily by sitting on a toilet seat. This would be extremely rare because lice cannot live long away from a warm human body and they do not have feet designed to hold onto or walk on smooth surfaces such as toilet seats."

So unless crabs have secret sweat shops that make wee little suction cups for their feet - I think humans and our asses are safe sitting on a public toilet - sans covers.

Shilling for Schools

So it's that time of year where schools do their fundraising and your child gets to sell useless shit to your family and friends.  I'm sorry, that's unfair.  In the past couple of years, at Rissa's school, they've been selling magazine subscriptions which can actually be good things.  They make good Christmas presents and such.  Much better than selling chocolate bars or freaking candles.  She comes home with the special catalogue and I spend immeasurable time tittering over the titles.

There is a Canadian Stamp News and  Canadian Coin News.  There is Dog Fancy and Cat Fancy - which pretty much makes me think of animals dressing up in tuxedos and ballgowns - perhaps with accompanying capes.

Horses are apparently VERY big in the magazine world.  For instance, did you know there is a Canadian Horse Journal (Central & Atlantic Edition) AND a Canadian Horse Journal (Pacific & Prairie Edition)?  There is Horse & Rider, Horse Canada, Horse Country, Horse Illustrated, Horse Sport and Horses All.  I am not making this shit up.    Wait!  Wait!  There is also Western Horse Review!   Sadly I could not find neither Unicorn Style nor Dolphin Fancy - which I think would most definitely sell if all the horse stuff does.   Tween girls and closet stuffie collectors would totally eat that crap up!

My two favourites have to be PREDATOR XTREME  "Predator Xtreme's target audience consists of predator and varmint hunters."  Yes, you read that right "varmint hunters." Yep, Elmer Fudd has a magazine aimed at him.   AND... wait for it... GUN DOG "Tips Training and Expert Features."   And all I can picture is a Labradoodle with and AK-47.  "You'll never take me alive coppers!!"  I am supposed to be ordering magazines right now, and instead I'm making my way through the catalogue... and snorting with laughter... AGAIN.  Wait!  I just found FRANCE "The next best thing to being there."  Sometimes it really is the little things.

YAY!!! YOGURT!!!

We went grocery shopping today at the No Frills and it was an ADVENTURE.  I bribed Rissa to come by saying that she could pick out a treat.  First off, we had the turquoise shopping trolley on account of the fact that we walked.  Rissa was adamant that she pull it along "I..." she paused dramatically, "am a BIG girl!"  She might have then thrown in some jazz hands which sent the cart careening for a bit, but she managed to salvage the situation before she launched herself into traffic.

She was very helpful in the store.  Kept me on track because we were, after all, shopping between the hours of 3 and 5 p.m.

"So I was thinking Mummy..."

"Yes?"

"We already have a lot of treats at home, so I was wondering..." labrador retriever eyebrows "if... um... you know..." more labrador retriever eyebrows "I could pick out a treat the NEXT time we go shopping??"

"You're planning ahead."

"Yes, I am.  You know why?  Because... I ... am a BIG girl."  Toothy grin.

We managed to get home, Rissa dragging the full cart behind her, almost getting killed crossing Division Street, but refusing to allow me to help because, "I AM A BIG GIRL!!!!"

We unpacked the groceries and Rissa made her very excited baby giraffe noise when she lifted the yogurt out.  "Oohoohoohooohooohoooh."  She took the assortment of 16 yogurts and opened the cardboard covering with near reverence and an accompanying angelic "Aaaaaaah-aaaaaaaaah" noise.  She then snap-snapped the 2 tiers of 8 attached yogurts into 4 groups of 4 giving a maniacally-pleased laugh as she did so.  "Heeheeheeheehee."  Those 4 groups then became 8 groups of 2 with more self-satisfied giggling.  "Snap - Titter - Snap - Titter." 

When down to the yogurt duos, she had 8 different ways so separate them: 

Like castanets - "Ssssnap!" 

Over her head, with a flourish - "SNAP!" 

The reveal of a magic trick - "TA-DA! SNAP!" 

Covertly, behind her back - "Snap." 

To the side with a cackle -"heh-heh-heh - SSSSSSSNAP!!"   

Nearly silent, underneath her shirt - "..." 

Meticulously - "s...s....s...nap!"

Nonchalantly, while looking the opposite direction -  "snap"  

Then it was time to colour coordinate her yogurt.  And yes, according to the ROYGBIV spectrum.  I adore my child.

Apparently I DON'T learn...

Okay, so I might need a babysitter.  I know that I keep posting that I don't, but I think maybe... I do.  My hips are hurting... AGAIN... Because why?  Because I jogged on the treadmill and now my arthritis/bursitis is acting up.  (And yes, I'm only 44 freaking years of age, but I was a gymnast, hence the 72 year old hips.)  Last week, when I jogged on the treadmill, they hurt and David said, "You probably shouldn't jog any more."  So leading up to the weekend I totally didn't jog.  Now some of that is because I just didn't have the time to do anything, but I was trying to make sure that I'd be able to dance at the wedding on Saturday, because it would suck not to be able to dance at one of your best friends' weddings.  So I left off the jogging and was able to dance.  YAY!  

But today I jogged again.  I could lie and say that I was just testing to see if my hips hurt EVERY time I jogged, but I won't do that.  I was jogging to burn more calories.  I only had one episode of Buffy on the media player and that only last 41 minutes, so I figured I'd up the cardio ante by jogging.  I kind of thought, if I only jog every other time, maybe I can manage it.  I was wrong.  This is me admitting that I'm wrong.  See that?  Gold freaking star for Heather.

I was wrong on Saturday too.  I ate the wrong food.  With full knowledge of my blood sugar issues, I might have eaten, um, two pieces of wedding cake, and then for the late-night snack, I might have had um, two pieces of Pizza Hut pizza and maybe, a, uh... lemon square.   (The cake part was totally understandable and you would have done it too.  Usually wedding cake sucks!!! But this cake was SO good!   JULIA IS AN AMAZING BAKER!  After the first piece, the 2nd piece just called to me in a siren voice that made me lose my mind a bit.)

I'm pretty sure it's the Pizza Hut pizzas' fault.  Because Pizza Hut pizza is basically pizza toppings slathered onto deep fried white bread - which is apparently my nemesis.  You'd figure that it'd be something WAY more dangerous, involving, say, throwing stars and maybe a mace, but, no it's white bread. That, combined with being exhausted was a bad combo.  There are good combos.  Like ham and pineapple on a thin crust gluten-free pizza or Gene Kelly & Donald O'Connor, but me tired and eating the wrong foods is pretty much a recipe for falling into near hypo-glycemic shock.

The wedding was divided into two camps  One camp thought that maybe I'd just heard that someone had died.  Any light in my eyes faded and I spent a lot of time trying not to cry. I think I might have been mourning the passing of my common sense.  And then the other camp was all, "Look at the drunken Matron of Honour - poor thing can't hold her liquor."  Which, by the way, I totally can, and if I could have actually articulated more than two words together I would have told them that. "I'm Danish by God - I can drink anyone here under the table!  Pass me that bottle of Aquavit!  Skol!!" But when you're basically drunk on sugar, you're pretty much screwed until you can reboot, which for me means having something sweet like orange juice along with some protein and a place to sleep.  It was such a bad sugar crash that I actually allowed David, Rissa and the groom to pretty much carry me to the car.   And this from a gal who refuses help at the best of times.

So, if you see me in public, veering towards slices of deep dish pizza or late night baked goods, lay a hand upon my arm and say "Remember the wedding?"  It might just be enough to keep me in line.

BLARGH!

WARNING: LANGUAGE

Rissa was snuggled into her bed.  I was lying beside her.  From the main floor we heard David:

"BLAAAAARGH!!!!!!  SON OF A FUCKING BITCH!!! ARGH!!  FUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!"

Followed by "I'm FINE!. FUCK!!!  I'M FINE!"

David stomp, stomp stomps back up the stairs.   "Grumble, grumble, grumble..." 

"What happened?" I asked, maintaining a straight face.

"I stubbed both my toes...  at the SAME time... grumble, grumble...."

Rissa and I say nothing. I can taste blood in my mouth from the effort.   David stomps back to the study.

"Daddy sometimes over-reacts to pain," Rissa observes.

"Sometimes," I agree.  "I think you should tell him that.  Go ahead." I make a you do it motion with my chin.

"Nuh-unh.  You!" she says, pointing at me.

"No way.  You!"  I point back.

"Mummy you just have the right rhythm for it."

"The right rhythm?"

"Yeah, your rhythm is all... thump ba da thump, ba da boomp... booomp...    booomp...  snooooooore...  See?  your rhythm is so relaxed it's almost ASLEEP.  You should totally be the one to tell him.  You're a calming influence.  Me? Not so much."

You'd think I'd know better...

So last night was the night before I'm the Matron of Honour in a wedding party.  What time did I get to bed?  2:45 a.m.  Not because I was partying beforehand at the rehearsal dinner.  (Although I did see a friend totally kick ass in a drag king contest!!!  Woo-hoo!)  But I was home at 11 freaking 30 p.m. and made the mistake of checking my email and then my brain woke up.  So I was playing Scrabble and answering messages and chatting.  And then it was 2:45 and I went to bed and David said "ARE YOU CRAZY?!?"  To which I replied "Well, yes...  Oh... but you mean because it's so late."  And then, as I was falling asleep I was totally having anxious bride moments:

OH MY GOD!  WE DIDN'T SET 3 OF THE TABLES (we totally did)

OH MY GOD!  WE DIDN'T CLEAR THE PIZZA BOXES OFF THE DANCE FLOOR!  (totally did and the groomsmen can worry about all that shit today before we get there.)

OH MY GOD!  THE HALL DOESN'T HAVE A CEILING!   (!?!)

OH MY GOD!  RON MCLEAN IS PERFORMING AS A DRAG KING.  WAIT!  THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE - RON MCLEAN IS A DUDE.  DRAG QUEEN?  DON MCLEAN?  WHAT IS HE/SHE SINGING?  (that's when I knew I was just confabulating shit.)

Apparently the bride gave me all her pre-wedding anxiety cause she slept like  a freaking baby. You're welcome Amber!

At 7:55 a.m.  Minuit, our VERY fat black cat, decided that I must arise from bed.  David had already put food down for all the cats, but she was adamant that I had to get up.  The thing you need to know about Minuit is that she sounds like Edward G. Robinson when she talks.  Or at least she sounds like how Mel Blanc used to voice Edward G. Robinson.  Check it out for the 2:08 mark - and every time he saysYEAH?  YEAH?  Imagine it's "MEOW,  MEOW."

Palpating my hips, my stomach, my neck.  "Hey."  palpate palpate.   MEOW.  MEOW!!!"  Palpate, palpate...  "MEOW!"  Head butt, nibble on chin, pat, pat, pat on face.  "HEY!"  Climbing over my abdominal aorta and cut off my blood supply for a second.  "MEOW!"    And then I was up. 

But now, it is 3 hours later, and I shall attempt an hour long nap so that I won't fall into a sleep-deprived coma in my platform stillettos later today.   This photo?  This is the photo of Heather as she did a face plant during the meal.  That is baked potato  We had a baked potato bar!  And what's sad?  I can remember being able to stay up for much later and having much less sleep than this and still managing to cope the next day.  Without caffeine either, 'cause I never used to drink coffee.  Okay sure, that was probably in my 20s, although come to think of it if I was up for 24 hours then my legs would just KILL me the next day, even then.   Oh how the mighty have fallen.

I ain't a ballerina...

...but in my dreams I dress like one.  In my dreams I also carry myself like Audrey Hepburn.  The way she glides down a staircase in Roman Holiday?  That's how I imagine I look. In reality I have WAY more linebacker in my presentation.

I salivate as I pass by windows featuring adorable little smock-like dresses.  There was a shop just down the street that had a window full of clothing made for women with no boobs.  I coveted everything in this shop.

This shop had precious clothing for A or B cup ballerina women who can wear something sans defined waist-lines without looking like they're pregnant.   A-line and over-dresses in wild patterns that are made for teenagers or twenty-somethings without  my 36DD chest.  In the 90s, I wore tonnes of clothing that wasn't right for my body type.  Long tunic sweaters that went down almost to my knees.  It's no wonder that people kept offering me their seats on public transit.  With boobs my size, if I wear something waistless I'm going to look 5-6 months pregnant just from the shelf of my rack.

Basically whatever shape you are - you need to wear clothes which accentuate that shape.  I am a generous version of the hour-glass.  I have NEVER been that petite, dude-can-sweep-me-into-his arms, flat-chested girl.  I am more of the emphasize-the-tits-and-ass kind of gal.  But that doesn't stop me from wanting to be able to wear all the pretty ballerina-y dresses that my 12 year old daughter can wear.  Of course Rissa actually IS a ballerina with little to no body fat on her.

I know, I know - women always want what they don't have.  If you have large boobs, you want perky boobs, if you have small boobs, you want large ones.  Curly-haired redheads want to have straight raven black or blond hair.  If you have long legs... okay really, who am I kidding, NOBODY wants short legs. 

Once I knew that I had to wear things that fit my shape, life got easier.  And then when Mad Men came on?  I was pretty much in Nirvana!!!  Curvaceous women celebrated on television?

1960s-inspired clothing actually IN stores?  A freaking dream come true for girls like me.  I embrace my curves.  There are tonnes of women who don't.  Women who think they're hiding what they consider figure-flaws by wearing baggy clothing and un-flattering undergarments.  These women are wrong.

My Mum came downstairs one day wearing a forest green velour upscale tracksuit (just even typing those adjectives make me shudder) she had received from a family friend who was cleaning out her closet.

"Look what I got - it's practically new!!"

"Mum it doesn't FIT you.  It's too big in the shoulders, the bust - the hips -  it's too big EVERYWHERE.

"Oh... it's fine."

"Mum the pants are ginormous on you."

And then Rissa walked into the room "Wow, Mor-Mor - that's a LOT of crotch!"    This observation held so much more weight than anything I could say.  The tracksuit has been retired.

You've got to kiss a lot of a**holes

THERE WILL BE ADULT LANGUAGE IN THIS POST

Every girl experiences it.  Asshole Douchebaggery.  Behaviours that change the way a gal sees the world of potential romantic interests.  It happened to me when I was 18.  I  had a string of bad luck.

First there was "Kevin the Asshole." We met doing summer musical theatre at Rainbow Stage. If you think about it, the odds were that he should have been geeky or gay (or both), not an asshole.  I had an inkling he wasn't terribly committed to a monogamous relationship when he decided that a good way to make us closer would be to have a menage a trois with one of my best friends.  I thought I'd call his bluff, but he wasn't bluffing.  AWKWARD.

So I broke up with him.  Later, at a University of Winnipeg theatre social, I ran into his ex-girlfriend.  Me being the kind of girl I am, I said, "I think we broke up with the same guy."  To which she replied "How long did you date Kevin?"  "About 8 months."  pause, two, three... "I've been seeing him for 2 years."  That there? That would be the sound of the other shoe, which I didn't know even existed, dropping.

Yep - there were at least two of us - if not more.  Turns out Kevin the Asshole explained me to her as "A little puppy who just wouldn't take the hint."  And her to me as "an ex-girlfriend who just won't let go."  He gave us the same Hudson Bay Teddy Bears for Christmas (remember those snuggly white bears with the red scarves?), the Valentine's Day rose I gave to him, he gave to her.  The Valentine's handcuffs I gave to him, he USED with her. It was... illuminating - if that word meant soul-destroying.

I borrowed my friend Heidi's car and the other girlfriend and I drove down to The Keg where Kevin worked.  We found Kevin's section and sat patiently, waiting for an opportunity to converse with him.  To his credit, he was fairly calm when we greeted him.  Didn't panic.  Almost nonchalant as he said he'd "get his stuff and then we could talk."  And then he escaped through the kitchen.  A coward AND an asshole.

The other girlfriend and I drove back to the social, commiserating all the way.  How could we have been so stupid, so blind?  How could we not know??  When we arrived back at the social, Kevin was waiting for us.  "I didn't want you both showing up at my house (he still lived with his parents), so I figured I'd come here and let you yell at me."  That's when other girlfriend and I devolved into shrieking harpies and he stood there, oh-so-calmly taking it.  "You broke up with ME, Heather, I don't see the issue.  How can you be angry?"  At one point, when we had finally taken a breath in our haranguing, he said, "I need a drink.  Why don't you girls wait here to think up other things that you can blame me for."  And he walked into the social.   I, honest to God, saw RED.   I followed him in, shoved him in the middle of his back and cuffed him on the side of his head.  And then I ranted.  I don't remember what I said, but what was important was that it was loud,  incredibly dramatic and crowd-captivating.  I then took another swing at him which he ducked.  After that, he ceased to exist for me.  It was the strangest thing.  I looked at him and had no emotional response to him at all. The sad part?  At the end of the night, I saw him still trying to work his magic with the other girl.  And even sadder?  I saw her falling for it.

Shortly after Kevin the Asshole, there was "Older Dude Who Wanted a Hummer in his Car."  My dad was a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force.  On occasion I might go to events with my parents at the Officer's Mess.  This one time a Capt. who taught with my Dad at the Nav School hit on me.  I was 18.  He was about a dozen years older than me.  AND, (I'm sure you can guess this part)... He was married.  As Rissa would say "CREEPER."

And right after that, there was "Dude with no Moral Compass."  I was at a family cottage, hanging with my older cousins and their friends who were in their mid-twenties.  We were enjoying a nice bonfire - some folks having some laughs - roasting marshmallows, drinking beverages.  I was a bit tipsy, I won't lie.  One of the guys, a good-looking and affable gent, asked if I'd like to go for a walk.  On this walk he became, shall we say, amorous.  As he kissed me, something was kicking around in the back of my tipsy mind.   

Wait a second... this guy is married!!!  And like NEWLY married, like only a YEAR married.
"HEY!  You're MARRIED!"

"Baby, that should bother me, it shouldn't bother you."

REALLY?!?  I mean, Really? 

And then... I didn't date anyone for about a year.  I needed to regroup.  I'd been wounded and had turned into one of those girls who would say "All men are assholes." Finding myself spouting pejorative cliches made me crazy, but I totally had facts to back that shit up.  It was a LOOOOOOONG time before I was willing to trust anyone, but eventually it happened.  I dated again, I even fell in love and eventually,  I found THE ONE and his name was David.  And I can say with complete certainty that David, is NOT an asshole.

Dryer Sheets of Death

Looks so innocuous, doesn't it?

Our laundry/bathroom is on our main floor.  We have two doors leading into it, one from the back hall and one from the back staircase.*  There are occasions where I might bound into the room from either direction.  Did you know that you can slip, in your bare feet, when previously used dryer sheets have been rubbed into the floor.?  Residual fabric softener, it turns out, is a great floor waxer.  Who knew?  Not I.  Until I galloped down the stairs, skittered into the laundry/bathroom, hit a slippery patch, IN MY BARE FEET, and went careening into the door jamb, sliding down the jamb, full weight upon my arm to rest in a pile of legs and arms.  I believe all the neighbours on our street could hear me colourfully peppering the air with Danish expletives.

Åh for Satan da også!

I looked around to see what had caused me to slip and there was nothing there. I mean NOTHING.  Not a piece of clothing, not a rug without a slippy-pad, not a dryer sheet.  So I crawled across the floor and started feeling around the way a blind person might, my hand out in front of me brushing from left to right and back again to feel the floor.  And somewhere around the chrome waste basket (where dryer sheets are supposed to be put), I felt a bunch of really slippery spots.  So what did I do?  I got up and tried to walk over the spot and SLIPPED AGAIN!!!  Which means that I fell on my ass TWICE.  The second time as an EXPERIMENT.  I lay on the floor, laughing at my own stupidity for a few moments as the cats mocked me from the doorway.

I bruise if someone breathes on me so if I actually injure myself, it's a sight to behold.  There will be bruises on me that I don't even remember getting.  I bump into a shopping cart at the grocery store and end up looking like I've gone three rounds with a welter weight.  David frequently looks at me and says, "What the hell did you do to yourself?"    This has happened when I've been massaged:

I trip, slip, scald, goose-egg, gouge, sprain and gash myself... I am THAT clumsy.  I always win the "How many scars do you have?" game.  It used to really put potential boyfriends off because they'd want to be all manly and itemize every wee little mark they had on their bodies and I have literally DOZENS.  I've split my head open, fallen through a glass table, punctured my leg through a snowsuit...   It's only because people know me so well that David hasn't been picked up for abuse. Thank God (touch wood) Rissa seems to have more grace and coordination than I ever had.  Although she does excel at collapsing to the floor in dramatic gestures.

* I thought it would be too poncy to say we had a servants' staircase, but we totally do!  By no means do we have servants, we just live in a century home that once had them.  When we were renovating, we saw what looked to be the top of a run of stairs in the upper hall, so we opened the walls and discovered two sets of stairs in the back of the house.  We found one from the main floor to the 2nd floor and a second staircase from the main floor to the basement.  I felt like Indiana Freaking Jones!  I had always wanted to have back stairs.  One downside to all these various stairs in the house, when a bat finds its way in?   It can be REALLY hard to catch the sucker because it has several escape routes.   

And THAT'S how you burn a house down!

I have a tendency to get distracted.  Like today, when I was making very healthful (HAH!) nachos for my lunch.  I walked away from the oven when I was broiling.  This is a mistake.  'Cause THIS is what happened.   Nothing like a little oven fire to get the angina started.

I once melted the bottom off an aluminum sauce pan because I got all distracticated.  I tried to multi-task while boiling water.  I walked away from the pot, and then the pot MELTED.  It looked like the molten metal thingie from Terminator 2  (another movie that we shouldn't show Rissa yet, no matter how cool it is).


 
It looked exactly like this, except that it was all over my burner drip pans and the stove.   I realized then that I should NOT walk away from the kitchen. EVER.

And I try not to, but today  - I was multi-tasking - trying to clean the house and cook and write and voila!  Parchment Paper Fire.  Thank God that's all it was.

I'm notorious for forgetting to turn the stove off.  They say that if you keep forgetting where you put your keys, but still know what keys are actually used for, you don't have Alzheimer's.  I still know what a stove does, so I think I'm okay,  but this sort of shit happens to me all the time now.

When I can't remember the word "ambition"?  Or the name of a movie star that I KNOW I know?  That scares the crap out of me.  But this?  This could burn the house to the ground.  Usually though, Rissa or David are around and have the presence of mind to turn the oven off.  If I'm the only one in the house and something lights on fire, I'd be the only casualty, so that's a positive.  CRAP.  And the cats.  That would be bad for me to burn three cats.  I better get on this.  AH-HA!!  Oven timer!!  Perfect thing to actually use.  There.  Problem solved.  No krispie kitties nor ashen Heathers. I just have to remember to pay attention to it!

Down on the ground, Frog!!

So I was on the streetcar and subway during rush hour not too long ago and I made a fantastic discovery.  I wasn't terrified!!! These modes of public transportation were jam-packed with people and I wasn't headed for a panic attack.

Many people have a fear of crowds.  Mine stems from when I was 16 and got trampled at a Michael Jackson Dance-Off competition in Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg.  (I couldn't make that shit up.)  One second I was sitting on the grass minding my own business, and then next my friend Heidi was rescuing me from people who were actually walking ON my squooshed body.  A direct result of the  Michael Jackson Dance-Off trampling was an abject terror of crowds that lasted 26 years.

Canada Day in on Parliament Hill had me sweaty and hyperventilating.  Travelling in rush hour pushed me close to vomit.  Security at concerts would attempt to eject me from a crowded venue with little success.  "Excuse me miss?  We're clearing the stadium now, you have to vacate your seat."  I would turn to them with wide and crazy eyes, and say something along the lines of, "I have a phobia of crowds.  If you don't want to clean up the mess that involves hysterical weeping, shrieking and almost certainly projectile vomiting, I'd let me have a few minutes.  Please."

The phobia was all about being IN a moving crowd.  Sitting in a crowd for me was fine.  Performing onstage in front of a crowded house was fine.  The minute there was any kind of movement that had me caught up IN it?  I was toast.

Then we moved to NY for 5 months.  NY is crowded almost ALL the time.  There were a couple of times that I'd have to wait for the next train, and the next train and perhaps the train after that before I could reach a comfort level of transit capacity.  

I can tell you the exact day that I got over my phobia.  It was the day before Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, November 24, 2010.  We'd decided to head down and see them inflate the balloons near the Museum of Natural History.  For the next 2 hours, I was shoulder to shoulder, heel to toe with thousands of people in a crowd.  In my mind, we were cattle on the way to an abattoir.  We plodded our way around the blocks where the balloons were corralled, I put one foot in front of the other, and two hours later?  Phobia was gone.  That's not to say that there wasn't a shitload of heavy breathing, nausea and heart palpitations on my part for probably the first hour of that cattle parade, but after that?  I was okay.  In a way that I hadn't been in 26 years.   David and Rissa kept talking to me to keep me occupied.  And what I remember most from the evening is that I got to see Kermit the Frog, apparently arrested and pinned to the ground with netting.

Down on the ground FROG!  ON YOUR STOMACH ON THE GROUND!!!  Drop the gun!

I highly recommend this method for curing a crowd phobia.  You're in a defined area with other people at the beginning of the holiday season, so the crowd is more apt to be patient and smiley.  Before you get into the crowd you can have hot chocolate.  There are LOTS of police and medical professionals in case of emergency, so if you start freaking out they can get you to safety relatively quickly.  The weather is cool so you won't overheat. PLUS you get to see them blow up cartoon characters which keeps you all distracticated from the reality of you being packed in like sardines with strangers. 

And now?  I can have these great moments on the TTC where I realize that I'm no longer afraid of crowds and I can be all smiley towards other people in the midst of the crowd who look like they're going to woof their cookies.

Bad Parenting 101

So sometimes you just suck at parenting.  You make bad choices.  David standing at the top of the stairs with Rissa cowering below him on the landing three steps below.  "Go get your book!  You are old enough to be able to go down the stairs by yourself with the lights on!  If you don't go downstairs and get your book, you will stand on this landing ALL night."  You draw the wrong line in the sand, lead with anger instead of patience.  Like I did when Rissa was about 4... "I am NOT killing that spider up in the highest corner of the public washroom for you because you're worried it might bite you.  And if you keep crying I will leave you in the bathroom to pee all by yourself.  (Wail!  Wail! Wail!)  Okay, I warned you.  You will pee all by yourself."  Just awesome standing outside that washroom with horrified on-lookers.  But I had drawn the line in the sand.  It was the WRONG line in the sand, but I couldn't go back.

 

When Rissa was two I locked her in the garage.  And before you threaten to call children's services... It was so I wouldn't kill her.  She was having a full-on tantrum, I picked her up under one arm to carry her up to her room.  She was wailing, screaming and scratching and I knew that I wouldn't be able to make it up the stairs without strangling her, so I opened the garage door, turned on the light, put her in and then shut the door.  I held on to the other side of the door as she wailed and screamed and told her that Mummy could not let her in because Mummy needed a time out.  David was horrified when he got home.  "What would you rather"? I asked.  "Coming home to a strangled child or a child who was in the garage for 2 minutes?"

 

As they get older you make different mistakes.  You think your mature 12 year old kid can see the 14A movie.  Yesterday we might have taken Rissa to see Looper.  It's a film starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Bruce Willis - Rissa LOVES both those actors, with a pretty big crush on JGL.  It is a film featuring time travel... murder for pay and.... apparently... limb amputation.  Well-written, did NOT go where I expected it to.  Great film... for ADULTS.  About 20 minutes in, after a particularly violent section of character-building plot, Rissa leans over to me and says, "What is this movie rated?"  If I'd been a good parent, knowing as I did how her body language had changed and sensing her discomfort, I should have then taken her out of the movie.  I didn't.  I was a bad parent.  But I DID cover her eyes when I knew that the really bad shit was coming up.  Does that help my case here?

WAY too much fun!!

Right after that we went to see Pitch Perfect, a movie about collegiate acapella singing - which our geeky little household absolute adores - we'd been following The Sing-Off (see the clip of all-girl group Delilah below) for the past couple of years.  I barked laughter at least a 1/2 dozen times, which happens rarely for me at the movies.  I'm more of a chuckler unless it strikes my comedic fancy which Hanna Mae Lee's character did.  ("I ate my twin in the womb.")    As the movie was ending Rissa announced, "WE NEED TO OWN THIS!!" 

It was the perfect movie to purge Rissa's mind of the 14A nastiness from the first movie. There, see?  Now we were the GOOD parents.  Of course I had to spend  45 minutes holding Rissa's hand in bed, having given her a couple of stress tabs to chew, waiting for her to fall asleep because she wouldn't let me leave and mentioned several times "I really didn't like the Joseph Gordon Levitt movie Mummy.  It was NOT Inception." 

When I was 12, I made the mistake of watching The Exorcist while having a sleep over at a friend's house.  (It was the 1980 and apparently it was okay to have rated R horror movies on primetime then.)  I slept with my little brother for 4 months after that.  To this day, if I see even a film still of Linda Blair from the movie I want to throw up.  She's 12.  We know that Rissa she can handle the F-word, adult comedic situations and cartoony violence.  There may be times when she acts 16, and talks about non-neutonion fluids, but as she clung to my hand last night - even in sleep - she's still my little girl and as much as I want to share the Kill Bill movies with her?  She's too young.  I can wait.  She'll be older all too soon.