Panty Liner Soccer

I love watching the cats play.  Steve and Lola are batting something all over the kitchen floor.  They're having so much fun.  Galloping to and fro - the epitome of feline friskiness.

I throw a glance their way - can't quite make out what they're playing with.  White and... pink??  What are they playing with?  It looks like a wad of toilet paper maybe?  Nope.  A paper towel?  Noooooope.

It's a panty-liner that they've stolen from the upstairs bathroom waste basket.  It's a panty liner that Steve is now carrying in his mouth.  Thankfully, it's a panty liner that has been rolled onto itself, thereby trapping any residual... (insert inappropriately descriptive imagery here) in its centre.  And all I could think was this:  Thank God we flush tampons.

Crazy-Ass Hand Veins

When did I start having these crazy-ass hand veins?  How did that happen?!?  I'm 44 with the hands of a grandmother.  I want to raise my hands above my heart so that all the blood rushes from them and I can pretend they are still young and pretty and not all  blue and bulgy and veiny.

The last time I was under a general anesthetic?  I didn't have bulgy veins for several weeks.  It was fantastic!  My hands looked like a teenager's.  Does your blood get thinner with a general?  If I had elective surgery every little while, would my hands look younger too?  They could give me a shot of botox for my forehead lines, but do it while I was under a general and I'd wake up with a young face AND young hands. 

My hands totally give me away.  My face, from a relative distance, appears young - full of vim and vigour.  My hands?  Might be mistaken for the Evil Queen's from Disney's Snow White.  I shall endeavour to turn this into a 'glass 1/2 full' moment... If I were to be hospitalized, they'd have NO problem finding a vein for the IV.  There, see?  Always a bright side.

Although, when I'm having sex, I do try to leave my hands over my head so that David doesn't think that he's giving an octogenarian a good rogering.

Got me by the short and curlies!

Curly hair.  Not every stylist gets it.  You just can't cut curly hair the way that you cut straight hair.  It has a life of its own.  You lose length when it dries.  It SPROINGS.  My regular stylist - Amanda - the one who can cope with curly hair, is off work, expecting her third child.   She obviously doesn't understand her importance to me.  When you only get trims on a quarterly or half-yearly basis, you need someone who knows what they're doing.  She abandoned me in my hour of need.

I asked the new stylist (whom I was assured could cut curly hair) for several shorter pieces to give the top layers some bounce.   Amanda does this all the time.  This is what I ended up with:

Yes, this shank of hair is 5 inches shorter than my shortest layer.

I want Amanda to come back.  I want her to quit having kids and going on Mat Leave.  Although, by the time I go for my next trim - she'll probably be back and my hair will have grown out again.  So I will chalk this up to a learning experience.  And next time?  When I'm booking my appointment? When I ask "Can the stylist cut curly hair?"  and they say yes... I will have a follow-up question.  "REALLY?"

Where's my salt lick?

Anybody else craving salt?  I feel like I could have a freaking salt lick and it wouldn't be enough for me.  I keep making "nom, nom, nom" noises when I pass the salt aisle at the grocery store.  You know the one... chips, peanuts, popcorn, tortilla chips...

I want to take the salt shaker and shake it directly on my tongue.  Is that wrong?  When I go to our local movie theatre, they have a popcorn salt shaker on the counter.   I shake-shake-shake it into the popcorn and then jostle the popcorn so that the popcorn salt will settle and then I'll shake-shake-shake it again and jostle...  I might even do it a third time.  In addition to totally loading it up with salt, in ensures that neither David nor Rissa can eat the first 1/3 of the of popcorn.

Are my taste buds out of whack?  Am I low on sodium in my diet?  Would it be wrong to carry a small bar of salt in my purse - just for emergency purposes? Then when I get the craving, instead of eating a bag of chips or making nachos, I could just have a couple of surreptitious licks of the salt and I'd be good to go.  Less calories, more sodium.

How early is too early for Pina Coladas?

I open up the freezer, seeking concentrated orange juice.  I've got a brutal cold and my body is craving the vitamin C.  I am Stanley, looking for my Livingstone.  This is one of those real adventures into the freezer.  I lift things up.  Sole filets from 2010, Freezies from when we moved to this house, freezer-burned mixed veggies... No orange juice.  So I'm phlegmy AND there's no orange juice. 

But there are a couple of frozen pina colada mixes...  7:03 a.m.  Too early for pina coladas?  I look at the caloric value - if I don't eat any actual food for the next 12 hours, I should be okay.  Plus the rum might just take the edge off my cold.

You ever have one of those mornings??

Lie on me!!

"Wait!  Wait!" Rissa says, as I'm trying to depart her bedside.  She clutches at me.  "You can't go yet."

"Why not?"

"You have to lie on me!!"

"Because why?"

"Because then I can put my arm on my stomach and see if I can escape."

(This is one of those things that happened by accident one night and is now apparently 'the thing to do' at bedtime.)

Rissa arranges her limbs - one arm out to the side and then one lying across her stomach.  "Okay, I'm ready.  Hit me!"

I collapse my considerable torso upon her tummy. Rissa wriggles like an ineffectual escape artist for several minutes - giggling madly, snorting and gasping with the effort to dislodge her hand.  I get up.

"No!!  No!  Not yet!!  I can do this!  Let me try the other arm!!!"

"You're insane."

"Yes, but I'm uniquely insane."  She puts her other arm on her stomach.  "Lie on me!!!"

We repeat the same procedure - she almost manages to extricate the hand at one point, in spite of my nearly double body weight upon her.  She has worked herself into a near seizure doing so, which brings on another gale of giggles.  Unable to resist, I find myself snorting, almost choking on laughter.

"You are a goof," I say, kissing her goodnight. 

"I know," she says.  She snuggles down under her duvet contentedly.  "But I'm a satisfied goof."

Popcorn Apocalypse

It's afternoon snack time!!  I have just thrown in a bag of microwave popcorn when David calls to have me find a file.  I run upstairs to find it, but immediately realize the folly in leaving unattended microwave popcorn, so I run back downstairs and ask Rissa to stand guard.

"Can you please listen for the popcorn?  2 seconds between pops." 

She rolls her eyes - immediately transforming into a 20-something who knows everything.  "I know Mummy! I know how to make popcorn.  I'll get the popcorn."  She then gives a 'you scoot' gesture with her hand.

I head back upstairs.  2 minutes later I'm wondering if I'm having the beginnings of an epileptic fit.  I'm smelling smoke.  Acrid, eye-stinging, oily...

Rissa comes up the stairs...

"I might have, um...  maybe just a little...."  She collapses on the floor.  "I can't make popcorn!!!  WAILEY, WAILEY, WAILEY!!!"

In my head, I'm remembering a conversation we had not three minutes before.  "Dude!  I just told you.  You were right beside the microwave!  You had to wait 45 seconds!  What happened?"

"I don't know.  I was washing up dishes and then... then... WAILEY, WAILEY, WAILEY!!!  I... I... I...
I CAN'T MAKE POPCORN!!!!"

You know how long the odour of scorched popcorn permeates your house?  48 hours.  Plus, we now need a new microwave - it looks like vagrants used the inside of it to keep themselves warm before adding gasoline and allowing it to really spark up.

Rissa - in mid "WAILEY"

Thigh Sliver

"So, how was your day?" I ask Rissa.

"People looked at me weird when Nerine was holding my leg while I was feeling up my inner thigh."

Beat, two, three...  I close my eyes for a moment.   "O...kay...  Explanation...?"

"In Science we were using plasticine and toothpicks for a project, and I ended up sitting on one of the toothpicks, so I had a sliver in my jeans, so I went to the office and asked the secretary if they had tweezers in the first-aid kit, and she did, which was great, but then I couldn't reach it, which was bad, so I needed Nerine to hold my leg up so that I could feel for it... So it sort of looked like I was feeling myself up... In the office.  There were some kids in the hall who gave me some weird looks."

"I can't imagine why."

Maternal Reenactment of event

Okay... SERIOUSLY?!?

Have I pissed off some ancient Fertility Goddess?  Did I poop on Hera's cornflakes?   Forget to return Mama Quilla's call?  Accidentally take Nim-inna's name in vain?  'Cause it's only been 17 days.  SEVENTEEN FREAKING DAYS!! 

It's stress.  It's got to be.  I mean, I forgot to take my special herbal cyclical-extension remedy pill once last week, but that shouldn't throw me back to bloody wolves.  So it's stress.  I'm gearing up to tech week with Peter Pan, running around ragged, just started a new job... that's what it is.

Please, please, please...  I didn't mean it when I complained that it was only 23 days.  23 days would be just fine.  I LOVED my 23 day cycle - it was freaking awesome!!! 

I'm not asking for me - although easing up on the machete to my nether regions would be nice - I'm asking for David and Rissa.  They have to live with me and already suffer through those 36-48 hours of Heather Zombie every 23 days.  It's like The Walking/Curled up in the Fetal Position/Weeping Dead in our house during those hours.  There is a body stumbling around our house that looks like me and kinda sounds like me, but it ain't me.  David turns to me on Day 3 and says "It's so nice to have you back."

So I'm totally cool to go back to the 23 Day Cycle.  Just fine with me.  I'd say I will no longer complain, but anyone who knows me knows that's pretty much bullshit.   But if this is the alternative, I'll take the 23 Days.

Belly Button Lint

I've been collecting David's belly button lint.  In the lip of my crystal ring holder.  You know, just to see how much we can actually accumulate over the course of the year. 

David's pretty hairy, so during the course of a regular day, his chest hair and "Happy Trail," move the lint from inside a garment towards his belly button - kind of like the circling winds of a hurricane, or, or... the Charybdis, except instead of large, sea-faring vessels, his belly button is sucking in lint.  

After a few incidences of discovering copious amounts of lint in David's navel, I got to thinking...  If we collected it, would it be enough, say... to felt minature figures of  Shetland ponies or woodland foxes? Could I begin a new career as a felting artist?  Could I sell Belly Button Lint Minatures on Etsy?  So far this is all I have collected... but I'm hopeful.

Soon this will be transformed into small woodland animals!

Instant Coffee = Gateway Drug

There used to be a time when I could drink flavoured Nescafe instant coffee and think it was good.  I drank it weak.  I drank it full of sugar.  Really what I drank was a hot milk shake with what amounted to a wee bit of coffee flavouring.  Then it all changed with Alice.  Alice made good strong coffee - and once you've had good you really can't go back to crappy.

I now triple filter my coffee.  I pour double the amount of grounds used for a single cup into the filter, then pour 8 oz of just-boiled water over it.  I then take the weak coffee from the carafe and pour it through into my latte mug and then I do it a third time, draining it back into the carafe (being careful not to tear the, now-sodden, filter), just to try to approximate the taste of what you can get from a barista.  And what about that?  I just typed BARISTA!?!  I can use barista correctly in a freaking sentence!!  What the Pooh?!?   

I still don't drink the really good/expensive coffee. I don't store my own beans in an opaque, airtight container (not in the freezer) before I grind them in a fancy schmancy grinder.  I don't have organic espresso.  I buy President's Choice Decaf Hazelnut/Vanilla coffee already ground because I'm a coffee pussy who likes her coffee to basically taste like ice cream.  I can't handle caffeine because of my hot flashes and I can't do dairy because it makes my throat all mucousy.  So I go through this rigmarole* of triple filtering to get myself a decaf, hazelnut/vanilla soy latte in the morning, going through twice as much coffee in a week all because Alice made good coffee.  Damn you Alice!!!  DAMN YOU!!!!  (Closeup of me yelling into the camera with a long pull-back from a crane.)  Next?  Next I'm going to be buying a freaking French Press. How fucking pretentious is that?!?

* So up until JUST NOW I thought that the word was "rig-a-ma-role"  /ˈrig(ə)məˌrōl/ There is no 'a' after the 'g.'  Although there is the implied short 'e' in the pronunciation.  Who knew?

Communal Germ Box

...AKA a box of Timbits.  I'm not supposed to eat Timbits.  They're full of gluten and sugar and everything that can push me to edge of a sugar coma.

But when they're on a table, right in front of a gal?  And when you haven't had a snack?  And when you're in the middle of a rehearsal and stressed?  That's when you reach into the Timbits box.  Where other people, with other fingers have felt up the Timbits.

I had one.  Okay, maybe I had two... Okay, I had three.  Which really?  Isn't even as many calories as a full-on donut.  But it does mean that I stuck my hand in the Communal Germ Box three times instead of one.  It also means that the next day is when my sore throat started.  And my mouth started feeling a little pasty and the blocked nostril thing began.

Basically, I was being punished for eating the gluten and the sugar by the Gods of Reminding Me to Eat Well.  The Gods said "HA-HA!  You think that you won't be screwed over for three little Timbits eh?  Now we will concentrate all the viruses that have come into even indirect contact with every hand that has reached into this box and you Heather shall feel their winter-cold effects."

But for those 5 seconds at a time that those Timbits were making love to my mouth?  Totally worth it.

We used to have sex...

We had plans.  Last weekend we were going to get naked.  We were going to waggle our eyebrows suggestively.  We were going to get sweaty from the 'bouncy-bouncy."  We had plans.  You know what David and I ended up doing?  Having an Epsom Salts bath and collapsing into separate sleep comas.

We spent our Saturday groaning while crouched awkwardly on the family room rug... doing NOTHING sexy.  You know what we were doing?  We were weaving squares of fabric through 7x10 foot pieces of plastic chicken wire.  For set decoration.  For 6 hours.  After about the first 15 minutes, my 44 year-old arthritic hips started to ache.  (8 years of gymnastics folks!  Not one Olympic medal and plenty of arthritis.)  After an hour, I turned to David and warned him, "We're not having sex tonight."   All he said was a commiserative, "I know."

We're so busy.  We keep planning to have sex and it just doesn't happen.   By the time we make it to bed, David and I have to stifle our yawns as we lie face to face.  We keep saying that we'll go to bed earlier, that we'll enjoy some afternoon delight and then it's 11:00 p.m. or Rissa's home.  There's no time!  And not just no time for foreplay and hide the salami - I'm too tired take out the Magic Wand and give myself a 2-3 minute quickie!

Soon.  Soon, when the show is over and we have our lives back again - we'll reconvene in our marital bed and blow each other's minds and other body parts, but until then - the only thing I'm humping?  Is my pillow, with my head.

Did I SAY you could touch my stomach?!?

When you're pregnant you become a public commodity.  Strangers ask you your business, tell you whether you're having a boy or a girl and have opinions on what foods go in your cart at the No Frills.

Way back when... when I was pregnant with Rissa - I was working in an office.  I did a lot of work with the desktop publishing department.   I came into the office one day and this desktop publishing dude suddenly put his hands very low on my pregnant stomach.  I'm not a touching-phobe, in fact I'm pretty darned snuggly with those I'm close to,  but if I don't KNOW the person, I'm not really cool with being touched, up close and personal - low on my body, adjacent to my hooha.  I didn't know this guy.

Without a pause, I reached down and grabbed his crotch, firmly... in such a way where he could not extricate himself easily.  I then said this:

"You need to ask first."  I squeezed a little bit.  His eyes got a little wider.  I smiled kindly at him, waiting, my head resting in an "I'm listening" tilt.

"Sorry..."  he strangled out, his eyes watering.  "I'll ask."

"Good man."  I waited patiently, hand still a claw around what manly bits hadn't crawled back up inside his body.

"May I... "  he swallowed and looked a bit green.  "May I touch your stomach?"

I released him and feigned delight.  "Why thank you SO much for asking!  You know a lot of people just touch without asking."  I lifted up my top, exposing the vast expanse of child-incubating skin. I take on a conspiratory tone. "You can even touch my popped belly button if you like, I don't let just anyone do that."

When you're scared...

My friend Lesley B shared a Vimeo video gift with me. She said "This might be the greatest thing ever."   I'm pretty sure she's right.

The film is by Bianca Giaever (who just graduated from Middlebury College in Middlebury VT), entitled The Scared is Scared.  The story is written by Asa Baker-Rouse - a six year old boy.  I have been sucker-punched by this sweet and melancholic short film which kisses brilliance.  Enjoy.

CLICK THESE WORDS:  THE SCARED IS SCARED

Asa Bear & Toby Mouse

Trapped in Virus Land

Oh Noro Virus - you yellow rat bastard... You don't just take the 24-48 hours of hovering near-death from your sufferers, but you take the "still contagious" time after the infected begin to improve.  So even though I'm now only slightly nauseated and achy and could probably handle getting back to work if I were doped up on Gravol, I'm not going to, because I try to follow this rule:  DON'T BE A DOUCHE!

And it's douchey to infect the population with something that gives you explosive diarrhea.  Just accept the fact that you are not the most important person in the universe, the world can survive without you, lose the couple of day's pay and DON'T BE A DOUCHE!

Because it you decide you are going to be a douche? Others are going to hurl when they put plain white rice in their mouths, others will be lying on the bathroom floor, hands clutching the cool porcelain of the toilet as their only connection to life and other people's families will be giving them the "Do we need to go to the ER?" eyes and walking in front of them when they go down the stairs in case they pass out. 

I'm losing the two days' pay. 

Crazy Squirrel House Party

www.ebaumsworld.com

Or raccoons.  It could be raccoons.  Whatever's up there sounds bigger than squirrels.  And I think they brought tools.  Or maybe they're just taking chunks of the old brick chimney and using them as tools to dismantle the boards that we placed over the eaves the last time the raccoons decided to take up residence.

And now, so that I don't work myself into a stroke thinking about raccoons dismantling my roof (WHILE THE HOUSE IS ON THE MARKET!!!),   I will postulate that maybe, there's just a team of them setting up a very innocent Rube Goldberg machine up there... that might account for the rolling bowling ball noise I'm hearing. 

In fact, maybe in addition to the Rube Goldberg machine, there's a whole Varmint Amusement Park up there.  Raccoons, squirrels and maybe a porcupine grabbing their burlap sacks, determinedly climbing a set of stairs (that they've also built) and sliding down the BIG SLIDE.  Maybe some carnie-type raccoons smoking cigarillos underneath John Waters-style mustaches trying to knock up the pretty high school possums before they leave town.  Maybe the next thing they set up will be THE AVALANCHE with loud rock music and the tattooed and pierced porcupine running it will yell,  


"DO YOU WANT TO GO FASTER?!?" 
And the varmints on the ride will squeal and shriek,  "YEEEEEEES!!!"  

(Except for those couple of possums who got bullied by their older siblings to go on the ride in the first place, who are screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" as they cling to the sides of the ride for dear life.) 

At which point, the neighbours will call to make noise complaints and we'll be arrested for disturbing the peace and running a Varmint Amusement Park without a license.

I might have an aneurysm first...

Shoot me now.  Just put me out of my misery.  Our house is on the market.  My OCD is going into hyper drive.  Our house cannot maintain 'spotless' - it really can't.  It's like the opposite of a half-life.  Our environment can remain clean/tidy for about 3.2 hours.  It then reverts back to its natural state of 'lived-in.'  And my version of clean?  Very different from David and Rissa's. I used to be a Molly Maid.  If I missed a spot, I could get have my pay docked. 

I will lose my mind.  There are nicks and dings on the baseboards and people have been coming into my house!!!  I need to get my quart of paint and a detailing brush. Right now!  The bath mats need to be vacuumed.  Fully vacuumed.  Not what happens when I ask David to vacuum them, but REAL vacuuming.

We decided on the spur of the moment to list the house.  "Hey you know what would be fun to do in the midst of all the other things we're doing this winter?!?  SELL THE HOUSE!!!"  (palm slap to forehead) 

All our windows were sealed in the fall and of course we didn't clean between the inside and storm windows. There are freaking cobwebs and dust in some of those windows because boys?  Boys don't see that kind of dirt!  It's winter in Canada, I can't just go willy-nilly and unseal windows and re-clean everything.  What a freaking pain in the ass that would be.  But now that I've thought about it, there I'll be, stripping the removable caulking and vacuuming the window ledges and washing the windows.  FUCK.  David says, "No one notices those things."  I do.  I notice these things.  And I'm sure there are other anal people out there who will too.

Whenever we sold our other houses, Rissa and I would just disappear for a week or so and the house would be sold expediently - zip, zap, zoom!  But this house, oh this house... This ginormous century home in a small town, it's going to take more than a week to sell.  And I can't leave while that happens because I have commitments.  Although...  if I go temporarily insane I could be committed to the psych ward of a local hospital for a month or so?  That would relieve me of all of my responsibilities.  That holds some appeal.

A Week's Worth of Pooh

TI-I-I-IME'S NOT ON MY SIDE... NO IT AIN'T...

What with two house showings this weekend and an all-day Peter Pan rehearsal Sunday - editing time is nigh on non-existent. 

So here are some links to previous posts: Salsa Counts as a Vegetable right?, Underwear Addict, 23 Days Later and The Fabulous Lesbian Muffcrats  and for your viewing pleasure, a picture of Steve the Cat.

I just wanted coffee!

My soy milk refuses to foam.  It takes two failed foam attempts before I grab the tetra pack and double check the label.  Low Fat Soy.  Low Fat Soy does not foam.  And not only does it NOT foam - it tastes like shit.  I check the pantry - there are two more of the wrong soy milks there.  I bang my head on the counter.  I just wanted coffee.

I know, I KNOW... there are worse things in the world than not having foamy soy milk in one's morning coffee.  I am aware that right now I'm coming off as a spoiled, fucking, North-American PRINCESS, I know that.   It's just... it's just.. starting my day on an even keel is becoming a must.  My body delights in betraying me. The least amount of stress immediately kicks me into a 'fight or flight' response.  So wee, simple things that start my day off nicer, are more than just helpful, they are essential.  Yes, it's only stupid foam in my coffee, but it's stupid foam in my coffee that stops me from having my first angina attack of the day before 8:00 a.m.

I'm not coping well with stress.  Our house is on the market, I'm directing the most expensive musical our theatre group has ever produced, I'm about to begin a new job and just found out I have to have another biopsy... any of those could be stressful.  The thing is, my body is reacting disproportionately to regular amounts of stress.  I was making car-pooling plans over the weekend and I had an angina attack.  From CAR-POOLING PLANS!  What the hell is that? 

And although the notion of getting through the day drunk has a lot of some appeal, I recognize that it's not the best course of action.  So I take refuge in little things that make me contented and calm, like my morning coffee.  Therefore, to eliminate one of those stressors, I went to the grocery store and purchased the right type of soy milk.  Problem fixed.  Apparently sex is a good stress-reducer, so as soon as David gets home, that can happen... Blogging is akin to journalling, so me typing this should be helping right now... I just need to add in some self-hypnosis, exercise, listening to music, meditation, and deep breathing and I'll be good to go.  Perhaps even, without my foamy coffee.