Love means having to say you're sorry...

WARNING: Adult language in this post

I know, I know... That's not what what's-her-face says in Love Story.  Ali MacGraw.  The correct quotation is "Love means never having to say you're sorry."  Which I think is a shitty quotation.  What kind of douche are you if you don't apologize for the shit you do?  The bad stuff.  The unsupportive and biased things you do because you're blind to your own perspective and maybe don't have all the information, kind of things...  What?  Are your loved ones just supposed to divine that you feel remorse?

If you say mean-spirited things...  apologize!  If you hurt someone's feelings... apologize!  If you dissed a friend's new partner thinking you know all the facts, but the truth is you don't... you need to... APOLOGIZE.  And not just if you feel like shit afterwards.

Basically when you realize you're wrong... about ANYTHING - you need to fucking regroup and own up to it.   I'm not saying that you should just lie down and be someone's doormat when you know, deep down in your heart of hearts, that  you're right, but if something suddenly becomes clear to you and you know you fucked up?  You've got to own that.  You need to grow a pair and take ownership of your misguidance.  'Cause hurt feelings can create a chasm between you and your loved ones, which, if neither one of you moves beyond, will grow wider and wider until you can't even make out who's on the other side of the divide.  Life's too short to write friendships off.  Trust me.  Apologize.

Your kids are watching it... what are you doing about it?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Taken prisoner... Send painkillers...

This morning I awoke to the mother of all migraines.   She looked like this:

Meg Mucklebones from Ridley Scott's Legend

The 1 inch of sunlight from beneath the blind - that tiny amount of light - was akin to having good ol' Meg use her lovely fingernails to gouge out my baby blues.   I popped as many pills as I could * and crawled down the stairs, clutching a set of earplugs.

Why, one might ask, would I need earplugs when Rissa is away with her grandparents for the week and David works in near silence at his computer all day?  Because our roof is being re-roofed this week and there are 5 men on it, with stompy steel-toed construction boots and generator-powered air-nail guns.  Don't get me wrong, I love these guys, they're doing a freaking amazing job at putting what must be (given the cost of the project) gold-encrusted shingles onto my roof and they seem genuinely thrilled when I bring them lavender lemonade (which if you haven't tried, you have to) and key lime squares, but when the pain in your eye sockets makes you puke - construction noise doesn't help.

I staggered to the couch in the family room, pulled the blanket over my head and told David to wake me up in an hour and a half so that I could get ready to go to work.  At 9:00 a.m. when he woke me, I was  insensible from the drugs and speaking in tongues...  or so he says.    He brought me a sleeping mask and called into work for me to let my boss know that I wouldn't be in until the afternoon.

My Mom always knew when I was really sick - by how much I would sleep.  There were many a day when I would get to the end of the sidwalk on my way to school, clutch my abdomen and inform my mother that my spleen had to be removed, but when I was really sick?  I just slept.  Like the dead.  All pale and clammy and barely breathing.

This morning was one of those sleeps.  I was out for HOURS.  And when I finally awoke from the sleep coma, I was delighted to find one of the cats snuggled protectively into the curve of my body and daylight had ceased to make me want to hurl.  The worst was over - but I had the residual raven's claws around my eyeballs - just holding on, you know, to remind me that at any moment it could sever my optic nerves for fun.  Like say, if I caught the gleam of a piece of cutlery bathed in sunlight in the sink at the wrong angle - it'd be all over.  There are times when I have to wear sunglasses in the house or at even at night to stop the glare of headlights from... wait a second!  I can't believe that I didn't realize this before!  Corey Hart must suffer from migraines!   Just like me!  Just like JK Rowling!  Poor bugger was suffering from the pain of migraines and nobody knew because he was hiding it in his lyrics all poetical-like.  I feel so much closer to him now. 

*Yes, I am a pill-popper.  But I'm not a moron about it.  I'm not downing 6 extra strength Tylenol with 4 Avil migraine gel caps.  I take the absolute top limit of what won't a) erode my stomach lining b) destroy my liver c) put me into the hospital for a drug overdose.  Don't be stupid folks - take the recommended dosages - your liver will thank you for it.

I am not your sink whore!

4 days.  I left them for 4 days.  I tried.  I really did.  I was making a point.  My point: do your own frickin' dishes! There weren't even that many:  a frying pan Rissa had used for scrambled eggs, cutlery, some serving utensils, that green, silicone, paint-stick-style stirrer and some wee ice cream bowls.

I couldn't take it any longer.  I couldn't.  The stench got to me.  I can only hold my ground until there's a stench.  I caved.  I washed the dishes.  I couldn't leave them another day.  It was the stench.  I had to eliminate the stench.

Basically, it comes down to this - I am the only one in the house who cares when it is clean.  Just me. In our living room there is a box of old media - VHS tapes and DVDs with a couple of universal remotes and cables thrown in for good measure.  David put the box there 2 weeks ago.  It is not my box.  I didn't put it there.  And yet, I have this preternatural clairvoyance that tells me I will be the one moving it.  Because I will go crazy before the others do.

If I'm cooking in a mad dash and David comes in - he is horrified by the state of the kitchen mid-dinner  prep.  He'll put things away and say things like: "How can you work like this?"  But the house as a whole?  Neither he nor Rissa really give a rat's ass about it.  But if I try to play the 'let's see how long it takes them to notice' game - I'd be waiting until the SECOND FREAKING COMING before it would occur to them to clean up their shit.  'Cause that's the thing - it's THEIR shit.  NOT mine.  THEIRS.  Okay it's mostly their shit.  The chicken wire in the living room is mine, but that's there for a reason.

Dear Abby: I think my cat's into kink

Steve didn't show up for breakfast on Saturday morning.   Which worried the crap out of me because the last time Steve didn't show up for food, he almost died and we spent $1400 at the vet.  My heart sank.  I was going to find him dead.  I was going to go down into the basement and find my cat dead from a recurrent bladder infection.  Stupid cat.  My shoulders slumped.  I took a deep breath and made my way downstairs. 

"Steve?  Steve honey?  You okay bud?"

I peeked around the corner into our rec room.  My eyes widened.  Steve was lying by David's drum kit...  with a clear plastic bag on his head.  I thought he was dead until he let out a single pitiful meow.

"WHAT THE... STEVE!  STEVE!!!"

I rushed over and took the bag off his head, he didn't fight me, didn't look freaked out - kind of looked stoned.  I don't know exactly how long his head had been in the bag, but the bag...  it had water in the bottom of it from where, I'm just postulating here, Steve drooled into it.  I didn't technically find the cat with his pants down, 'cause cats don't wear pants, but I think we can safely say that this is what it looked like:  Feline Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation.  I know, I know... what grown cats do in their private time should stay private, but Steve's kink almost got him killed.  9 lives.  8 lives.  We're on life #7 folks, and if these things come in threes, I shudder at what I'll find him doing next.

HELP! I need a good psychiatrist!

Is what my friend, the OR nurse, thought I'd emailed her about.    (I'd sent an email message to a couple of my nursing friends, because I figured that they are the ones on the front lines and know the good vs bad doctors.)

My friend responded via email. "Very good news that your cardiac issues have been resolved, and about the referral, I am at a bit of a loss.  I work in the OR, so I don't work with any psychiatrists, but I know that the hospital does have a mental health division.  I can look into it more if you still need me to."

What I'd actually wanted a recommendation for, was a PHY-SI-A-TRIST.  Not a mind doctor*, but rather a doctor who deals with optimizing the body as a whole.  All the bits and pieces together: bones, nerves, muscles.  A physiatrist is your go-to doc, to get your body back on track when it's fucked up beyond all measure (dealing with post-stroke victims, pain management etc), but regular specialists (?!?) still can't figure out what your deal is.

What's really awesome, is how completely blasé she was about my having been labeled  a hypochondriacal fucknut, and then subsequently abandoned by a broad spectrum of the medical profession (which is kind of how I feel a lot of the time).  I'll bet that if I had asked if she knew anyone who could help me get rid of a body, she'd have said "When does it need to disappear?"  She's good people.

*ps - By the by, seeking out help for any illness (mental or physical) is one of the bravest things that you can do.  I don't happen to need a shrink right now, but when my existential angst kicks back in, I just might, and I hope to God that I'm brave enough, if/when that happens, to get the help I need.

I love when my boobs sweat.

This is a sarcastic dance.

You know what I'm talking about ladies.  It's awesome, right?   You're sitting at the computer before bed, trying to get some work done or at least check in on the state of the universe.  You're in some sort of nightie/chemise/tank top - sans bra - because wearing a bra in this heat would make you kill puppies.  You've got the overhead fan on full-blast, moving the hot air around you.

After about 30 seconds, you feel it start to trickle: boob sweat.  You pull out the front of your nightie/chemise/tank top and see the wet spots that have appeared underneath your boobs.  First they're just small - like the size of a quarter or loonie, but after about 5 minutes they have grown to the size of pancakes.  The last time I had to deal with wet spots that size on my torso was when my breast milk first came in.   After the wet spots appear, it's usually when you reach into your clothes, you know, to test the temperature underneath your boobs.  I took a thermometer and stuck it under my girls: 104.5 F!

And then you realize that your ass, too, is sweating.  And your inner thighs.  And your shins.  How can shins sweat?  There's nothing to a shin!!!   How are sweating shins even possible?!?

I found myself wishing that the semi-shag rug in the office was made of terry cloth so that I could tear off my clothes and roll on it.  I was this close to doing just that when I remembered that I hadn't vacuumed lately and if I did tear off my clothes and roll on the semi-shag carpet, my sweaty body would then be covered in cat hair and carpet lint.  Although, if someone took a photo essay of me doing that, maybe I could make it into 'art.'

How Rissa almost expired from playing soccer...

From a distance, she looked like a cartoon character - those big white paws grabbing for the soccer ball in that massive net.  It was kind of like watching Mickey Mouse as goalkeeper.  She made some incredible saves and had some kick-ass kicks.  When she was in net, my heart was in my throat.  Under my breath, I may have threatened the safety of several  'Under 15' girls who seemed a little too 'gung ho' with their cleats around my little girl when she was reaching for the ball.  Rissa ain't so little, but once a Mama Bear, always a Mama Bear.

After the post-game shaking of hands, she came off the field  - looking a little ill.  In fact, pretty much all the girls on the team looked like they were going to drop dead.  It was 39 degrees with the humidex - I was worried that maybe she was suffering from heat exhaustion.  I knew she shouldn't have played!  It was too hot!  She looked like she might puke.  She staggered towards me.  I reached out for her, ready to catch her if she stumbled.

"Mummy... Mummmy..."

"What is it sweetie?"

"My hands...  My hands..."

"Yes, sweetie?"  Oh God, I was going to have to take her the ER!  She couldn't even speak properly!  That's one of the signs of heat sickness!

 "They... They..."  She tottered a bit more. I grabbed her shoulders, steadying her.   "MY HANDS SMELL LIKE FEET!  They smell like (gag)... FEET!"  She thrust the offending appendages near my nose and I too, almost woofed my cookies.

In the 2nd Half of the game, as goalkeeper, Rissa had worn the 'team' gloves...  After another girl had sweat in them for the 1st half and every other goalie on the team had sweat in them for the previous 6 games. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't think these gloves get washed.  EVER.  These were Satan's Gloves.

So yes, her hands did smell like feet.  I smelled twice, because I couldn't believe how bad they were.  Rissa, on the drive home, kept smelling them and fake gagging because she thought it was so frickin' hilarious.

When did I start needing face spackle?

It appears that I can no longer sleep on my side.  Because when I do?  My face develops sleep craters.

I get up, well-rested, thinking all is well with the universe, until I look in the mirror.   My face, which had enjoyed the delicate sqwoosh of the pillow beneath my cheek, now has a sleep crater around its eye.

And you know what?  They don't make face spackle.  Not for eye craters, not for forehead lines, and even if they did, you'd have to buy it in a tub - not a tube.  Seeing as eye cream generally goes for $20 or more for 15 ml of the stuff, I know I couldn't afford a freaking tub of it.

I've even attempted to convince my face to  go back to where it's supposed to be with intricate facial exercises, but I'm realizing that you pretty much just have to wait it out until your face bounces back on its own.  This can be tough going, given the elasticity a gal's face retains after the age of 40. 

I'm lucky if 'bounce back' happens after my morning decaf and breakfast... but there are days I just have to use my hand to make it look like I'm deep in thought well into mid-morning.  Plus, that way I can pull everything up and out of the way and I look really alert.

Specific Rim

I was making my case to go see what looks like the BEST summer movie EVER - Pacific Rim.  Rissa needed to do her due diligence. 

"Who's in it?"

"Who's in it?   Who are you?  Roger Ebert?"

"Who's Roger Ebert?"

*face palm*

"I don't know," says David.  "It looks pretty cheesy."

"Come on guys - it's a crazy-ass,  summer action movie,  pretty much MADE for teenaged boys."

David shoots me a look.

"I'm serious.  Guillermo Del Toro said he made it for 12 year old boys."

Rissa starts to perk up.   "I like crazy-ass action."  Then she looks a little chagrined.

"If I'm being honest, I thought it was Specific Rim."

"Oh, you mean like, 'This is the specific rim where the massive robots are going to fight the ginormous alien monsters.'  That kind of specific?"

"Yep."

"Totally makes sense."

ps:  DO NOT see Pacific Rim, if you are the type who wants realism or high art in your movies - this is not the film for you.  DO see Pacific Rim if you enjoy grand fromage in your summer cinema.  This is possibly one of the cheesiest - we're talking a wheel of Brie, some Gorgonzola and Wensleydale shoulder to shoulder with Gouda and Emmental and then slathered in Chèvre - kind of cheese.  There are lines that are unintentionally laugh out loud funny with acting delivery that is... Independece Day-esque.  There's heart-felt with gumption with a twist of Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech.  This is like Top Gun, but instead of fighter jets you have big-ass robots and instead of Russians, you have big-ass alien monsters.  And damn was it fun to watch! 

Best Birthday EVER!

Sometimes a birthday reaches perfection.

First off, the weather gods heard my plea and took away the humidity which really helped with my wanting to murder those around me.  David and Rissa made me breakfast and gave me these birthday cards:

David's card made me weepy when I read it.  He wrote
"I'm Always aiming for THIS box."

Rissa 'gets' me.  In addition to choosing a card with squirrels in party hats,
she wrote "...as weird and as awesome as you..."

When I got home from work, Rissa had made me my favourite 3-in-1 chocolate birthday cake, of which  I had 2 pieces... because it was my birthday.  Then they gave me this:

Any guesses?  Think on it, and we'll get back to that.

After presenting me with my gift, David and Rissa then kidnapped me and took me to the big city for seafood!  When I asked David if we could walk to the next portion of the evening - he told me the intersection to which we were going (Yonge & Carlton) and that we had to be there at 6:40.  6:40. Yonge & Carlton.  There was an art-house cinema at Yonge and Carlton.  My eyes got wide.  Was the 2nd thing a movie thing??  A movie we couldn't see in small-town Ontario??

"Is it a movie?!?"  Going to the movies is my favourite activity.  Sex is a step down from going to the movies for me and I love sex.

"It might be..."

What movies had I been jonesing to see that didn't play near us?  I could only think of one that I'd been whining about.  An angels' chorus went off in my head...

"Is it maybe a Joss Whedon movie?  Maybe an adaptation of Shakespeare kind of movie?!?"  I was now bouncing in my seat.

"Yes.  Yes it is."

They took me to see Much Ado About Nothing!  That's how much my spouse and kid love me.  Neither one of them love Shakespeare the way that I do and yet they took me to do something that I would love.  The Bard geek in me was very happy.

Back to the weird-ass gift...

Did you figure it out?  Althought it might look like a duvet, it's not.  It is a weighted blanket, on account of the fact that in the summer, I hate being able to only have the sheet on me because it's too hot.  So they made me this blanket filled with plastic beads.  They learned how to use the sewing machine and made it themselves and it was a (shhhhh!) secret.   There was much waggling of eyebrows and knowing glances between them for the last 2 weeks, but they managed not to spill the beads.  (See what I did there?  The blanket was filled with... plastic beads.)  It weighs approximately 19 lbs.   If it were filled with lead I could totally take it with me to the dentist's office!  According to this brand you can buy, there are all these other benefits too...

http://www.myweightedblanket.com/

What's truly spectacular?  I only have one (1) thing on that list!!  How great is that?  Even better?  My Disorder/Syndrome Blanket didn't smother me when I slept under it, so that's a real plus!  And it was relatively cool to sleep under - the true test will be when the humidity comes back and I want to kill all living things in my path.

And this morning?  I ate birthday cake for breakfast - because I could.  Life is good.

Stoned dudes in Sears

I was recently in Sears buying underwear for Rissa.  I wasn't really 'put together,' hadn't dressed up, probably had no makeup on.  It was an emergency underwear trip - she needed them and she needed them fast.

I was lined up, ready to pay with my 6 pairs of xs panties, when the guy in front of me in line, a fairly well-dressed guy in his early 20s, stood staring at me.  He was transfixed.

"Your eyes are soooooooo blue.... They are incredible.  Joe... Joe... LOOK at her eyes - aren't they the most beautiful eyes you've ever seen?"  His buddy waiting at the end of the cash looked at me and began to stare as well.

"Wow.  They are amazing."

I was beginning to blush - I mean sure, my eyes are fairly blue and occasionally, if I've eaten too much wasabi, they'll even go turquoise, but really, this was more than I've ever gotten from strange young men in a check-out line.  They were totally hitting on me.  I felt good.  I felt like I was having a MILF moment, it was a great day...  until I realized these two young men were most assuredly stoned.

"Joe, her eyes.... her eyes...  Miss..."

And he had just called me "Miss." Bless his little heart.

They were completely stoned and the objects of their collective stoneated fixation were my eyes.  I moved my head from side to side - their gaze followed - apparently I was a living, breathing, blue-eyed tennis match.  I traded a look with the cashier.  She raised her eyebrows.

"Wow," said the first dude.  "What are you doing here?"

"I'm buying underwear."

They both blushed.  I don't know what they were thinking before, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it now involved my nether regions.

"For my daughter.  I'm buying underwear for my daughter."

They looked so confused.  I wanted to pat them on their little heads and tell them it was going to be alright.

As they left, these stoned dudes kept looking back.  I smiled and waved.  They shyly waved back.  It's the little things in life that can make a gal's day brighter.

i DESPISE summer!

WARNING: There is adult language in this post

 

Just shoot me now.  Please.

I know, I know... I know that I'm not supposed to.  After a long winter and meteorologically weird spring, I know that I'm supposed to be SO happy that heat has come to Canada... but for me, summer in Southern Ontario sucks the BIG ONE, BIG TIME.  Summer sucks King Kong's massive dick and the Blob's sweaty balls.  It sucks Godzilla's gigantic gonads and Pulgasari's prodigious prick.  It sucks Crocosaurus's collasal chubby!  It sucks  Mothra's massive meat stick!  Summer SUCKS!!!

Honestly, I would rather have -45 °C with the windchill than a humidex of over 27 °C. You know why?  Because you can dress for the cold.  You cannot dress for the heat.  Once you're naked, short of flaying the skin from your body, you can't get any more naked.  How many times must I powder my inner thighs so that they don't stick together?!?  HOW MANY?!?  'Cause I am not, nor have I ever been a gal who has a 'thigh gap.'  And who are these sick pukes who are hyping the 'thigh gap' as something to achieve?  I want to find those people and drown them in a pool of cellulite.

I have heat rash on top of my heat rash.  You cannot feel sexy when you have heat rash on your ass.  David will kiss me before bed, trying to get my motor running...  I look at him like he has suggested that we roll in barbed wire and then have a salt water bath.

I start sweating IMMEDIATELY after getting out of the shower.  I have to dry off AFTER drying off... Several times.  Humidity is an oppressive bitch!

I have fantasies about snowstorms or a cold snap in the fall - that is what I want.  It has only been 3 days of hot so far this summer.  I'm doomed.  No wait!  If I hide in the basement and we use only the BBQ to cook, and I exist on Diazepam I might be able to survive.  I might make it through to September.  Or.... OR... I could just spend the entire summer at the movies.  Now there's a way to problem solve.  I wonder if I could sneak in a sleeping bag.  Wish me luck.

Pocket-Sized Bombshell

My friend is a bombshell.  When I'm with her, it's like hanging out with Marilyn Monroe.   A shorter, more shapely Marilyn Monroe.  She is the flame to every male moth within her orbit.  Has been ever since high school.  Most definitely she is gorgeous, that's part of it, but she has something MORE.  Something intangible.  I don't know if it is her pheromones or her complete disdain for the males of our species in general, but every time I'm with her I feel I need to document the experience for a psychology journal.  It's something to see.

Marilyn Monroe photographed by Milton Greene

 Picture, if you will... We sit at a table, minding our own business.  Almost immediately, any straight male within arms' length puts his shoulders back, sits up straighter, sucks in his gut.  They start talking a little louder so that they can maybe get her attention.  Then other dudes at tables a little bit further away and those sitting at the bar fall into her wake.   I'm not saying that she's a landlocked Charybdis, but it is kind of like watching a whirlpool or black hole suck things into it.  And she's just sitting there...  Not noticing the men salivating at her.

Honestly? I think that it really is because she could care less.  She has no interest in those guys and that, well that added to her ridiculous sexpot, bombshell beauty is what does it.  I could be naked doing the Charleston and I swear to God not one man would notice me. And I'm a redhead with D-cups.  She could totally do mass-hypnosis with this power.  If I could figure out a way we could make money off this super power - I could be her agent and we'd be rich!  Until then, I will just watch and document - it must be worthy of a phenomenon being named after it at the very least.

This is your "Go-To"?

WARNING - This post is about sex. 

We took a workshop at an 'adult' club in 'sensual sensory deprivation.'  Welcome to marriage after the first decade.  When David mentioned it, I immediately imagined a water tank in the dark in complete silence, basically like being trapped alive in a box, pretty much my ultimate nightmare, but with the added horrifying element of being in the water.  But I was willing to give it a whirl.  What the hell, right?

It turns out 'sensual sensory deprivation?' Was blindfolding.  Okay, so David and I have been married for almost 15 years.  I'm pretty sure that we tried blindfolding each other the 3rd weekend we spent together.  And yet, when the instructor, Mistress... Suitably Clever/Slightly Scary name asked who had experimented with blindfolding, in this room of 20 couples,  maybe 4 sets of hands went up.  I was baffled.  I mean really, truth be told, we were at what was pretty much a swingers' club.  Couples were mostly there to hook up with each other.  David and I?  Were there for the workshop.  And to swim naked in a heated pool.  I mean, why not?  We were there already and had 1/2 an hour to kill before the workshop.   Sure, I'd accepted a shot of single malt scotch from another couple, but I was really doing that just being polite.

So when only 4 couples sheepishly admitted to having blindfolded each other - it struck me as odd.  These couples went to a swingers' club to hook up with other couples before they tried blindfolding.  Sex with strangers before blindfolding.  And blindfolding, if we're being honest, is really the most benign of sexual kinks.  I know, because I know stuff.  I have read A LOT...  REALLY. A. LOT.  I knew about stuff long before there were 50 Shades of Grey.  But here I was feeling like part of the most worldly couple in the room because, not only had we done blindfolding, but we'd done sensual massage  (isn't that really just lead up to sex anyway?), and found interesting uses for silk scarves.  I know. I know.  Too much information... but I just thought it was weird.  Don't you think it was weird?  I always figured that marriage was about a couple figuring out together ways to spice things up - you know as a couple.   No third, fourth or fifth parties, no barn animals.   You pick up one of those books that suggests newfangled sexual positions, you blindfold each other, buy some edible underwear and you're good to go.  Right?  Am I too old-fashioned?

My boobs aren't supposed to be there.

So you know when you lie on your back in bed and your boobs nearly rest in your armpits?  What is that?   Remember when you were in your 20s and the girls were pert and perky and in their place?  It's not like they're National Geographic boobs now, but as I approach 45, they do have an udder-like quality to them that they didn't once have.

I mean, sure, David's not complaining, but then dudes don't seem to mind what kind of shape the boobs are in... as long as they're boobs, you know?

When I'm lying in bed, if I tilt to my left a bit, the right one is gorgeous - it faces the ceiling perfectly, but then the left one is actually IN my armpit.  If I move too far to the left, it's like a scene from Titanic where EVERYTHING starts to slide.  Sometimes it's fun just to flop back and forth to see what happens.  If you do it in water, you can almost create your own jacuzzi. Really, this as a perk.  I should market it.

You know what would be even better?  Prehensile breasts.  Breasts that could move on their own!  No woman would need a bra because the breasts would self-adjust to the perfect level!!!  There must be scientists out there working on this!  I'm afraid to google it though - there'd be some crazy-ass shit coming up in the search results.

Touch her and die...

I am now the mother of a teenaged daughter.  How the hell did that happen?  One day she was 3 and now she's 13.  Rissa is now 13.  Except she looks like she's 17.  She draws the male eye.  And not just the eye of her peers, but the eye of dudes who are a good 5-10 years older than her; dudes who excel at leering.

I remember what it was like being a girl of her age, with a cute little figure and watching as the boys ran into things because they were looking at my ass instead of where they were walking.   When it was happening to me - I thought it was hilarious.  "Look at those dumb boys!  That guy ran into a light post!"  Now it's happening to her and it's freaking me out.

As a direct result of my freaking out, I'm starting to freak her out.  But I'm trying to be cool and hip about it.

"We'll have a code," I say.

"What kind of code?"

"Put down the machete."

"Huh?"

" 'Put down the machete' will be code for anything stupid that shouldn't be happening.  Like when a guy tries to touch your boobs, you say 'Put down the machete.' ''

Rissa looks at me like I'm nuts.

"Anything drug-related could be 'Stop smoking the baby.'  Like if some stoned dude offers you and your friends anything to do with drugs, you say... " I pause, eyebrows raised, waiting for her to fill in the blanks.

"Stop smoking the baby?"

"Exactly."

"O.....kay."

"Guy tries to cop a feel?" I quiz.

"Put down the machete."

"You get offered drugs?"

"Stop smoking the baby."

"Perfect!  Plus it just makes you sound crazy, and most folks don't want to mess with crazy people."

Me grabbing the testicles of any dude who tries to feel Rissa up.

I brought this on myself.

WARNING: Female things discussed.

Peter de Seve, Thar She Blows (sketch)

I am in idiot.  Why couldn't I just leave well enough alone?  Sure, there was that pregnancy scare because I hadn't had my period in 3 months, but why couldn't I just embrace the peri-menopause?  Why did I have to seek out the OBGYN who put me on pills to regulate my wonky periods?

"Take one of these pills the 1st to the 15th of the month for the next three months."

"D'uh... Okay Doc." 

I should have just cancelled the appointment.  I mean sure, before the 3 month drought, when the appointment had been set, I was down to a 17 or a 15 or an 18 day cycle, but what if that 3 month drought was leading into actual cessation of bleeding?  Did I just ruin it? 

'Cause two days after I stopped taking the pill...

 THAR SHE BLOWS!!!

The flood had returneth.  I used to think that two days of heavy bleeding with make-you-yodel cramping was bad.  I take it back.  5 days of heavy bleeding with accompanying cramping and blood clots the size of toonies is worse.  My body, was not happy with me.

Plus?!?   UNDER THE CHIN ACNE.  What the hell?  For those three months, my crazy-ass, peri-menopasue acne had abated.  Period comes back and I looked like a small pox victim. And MOODY?!?  Great mother Gaia - the mood swings.  David and Rissa exist in juxtaposed states of placation or self-preservation depending upon what emotion is wending its way through my body.

I now have to maintain strength of resolve on account of the frickin' food cravings.  There was a tray of praline encrusted graham crackers at the office yesterday.  Praline encrusted graham crackers should not be eaten by me.  There was enough gluten and sugar in those tidbits to take down a water buffalo.  After having eaten 4 of those suckers my already tenuous hold on civility was gone.  I felt like shit and I felt guilty for having allowed myself to be seduced by the deadly plate.  I needed to exercise and was a petulant and despondent lump.  I had to walk.  I didn't want to walk.  I wanted to lie in bed and read erotica.  But after dinner, I put one depressed foot in front of the other and I walked.  And  just the way Karen Walrond told me to in her Houston TEDx talk, I looked for the light.   With the sun low in the sky I found myself on the boardwalk, breathing in the wildflowers, crouching down to pet a furry caterpillar and listening to the red-winged blackbirds.  Clichéd, dorky, make-you-feel-good things.  But you know what?  They did.  And by the time I returned home 45 minutes later I was no longer a peevish sheep and I still had enough time to lie in bed under the covers and read erotica.   It was really win-win all around.

Snatched from the jaws of death...

So basically, if you threaten a cat with euthanasia?  They get better.  That's what happened to Steve.  One day at death's door ...  Me checking in on him every two hours overnight as he was sequestered in our main floor bathroom.  Him just lying there - near flat as a pancake and all glassy-eyed.  And I'd basically prepared myself for taking him in the next morning and giving the order.  The "put him out of his misery" order.  Except that the next morning - there he was sitting up and when I called his name, he actually looked at me, all clear-eyed and on the cusp of being alert. 

Apparently, each beast we own gets one funding of extraordinary measures.  We give them that one brush with death.  That near-cross on the River Styx.  It's happened with a bunch of our cats.  Nym - $900 who then managed to live another couple of years.  Bardolph - $1800 - for a month I had to feed that frickin' cat through a tube in his neck because he refused to eat - and then he was all better and lived another 4 years.  So they each get their one episode.  They either bounce back, or they get put down.  We prepare for the worst - know when to cut our losses and they sense it.  They know that if they want to remain on this mortal coil they perk the fuck up and live.

And for that I'm thankful.  Because Steve is the greatest cat.  He is a cat of epic personality and snuggliness.  It would have sucked to put him down.  And now?  After a 1/2 dozen visits and re-checks from our amazing vet team, he lies on the foot of our bed and purrs.  Yesterday, he started playing again - chasing after toys, cavorting under my feet.  He's back.

ps - We are the human parents of a feline rock star.  Every single person working at the vet clinic knows and loves Steve.  "STEVE!"  "Hey buddy!"  "Hiya handsome!"  "How's Mr. Steve?"   Nobody there knows my name, but by God they were pulling for my orange tabby.  My cat.  My goofy and personable cat had everyone in that clinic wrapped around his paw - that positive psychic energy may well be what saved him.