Why my daughter won't play Scrabble with me.

"I hate this game more than anything in the world," says Rissa as we finish.

My heart sinks.  I've had such hopes.  She's an avid reader now - she knows so many words.  I only tried to guide her word choices a... uh... few... (okay 6) times.  She wanted to put down kinesis, but would have used up two s's and didn't get as many points as if she'd used her k in another place - which is where both Mor Mor and I (gently) suggested that she... ...  ... do.

And the Myopic Parent Award goes to...

I have obviously forgotten that Rissa plays most games ironically.  She doesn't care how many points there might be.  Mor Mor played a word and because Rissa could play the exact same word, she did, because it made her laugh, even though her placement of the word didn't get her as many points because Mor Mor had gone first and got a double word score.

"Why do you hate it?" I finally ask, realizing that my future may never include playing word games regularly with my daughter.

"Because you're like that Portuguese International student in first year university who says 'Hey, I know, let's all play Scrabble - it'll be so much fun!!'  And then he puts down all his letters making a 16 letter word joining three other small words, and he gets a GABAZILLION points and when you ask him what the word means he says, 'It's the act of grilling ducks under the Portuguese moonlight... in SPANISH.'  Mummy nobody likes that guy.  Nobody.  Asking me to play Scrabble with you is akin to me asking you to go out into the backyard and shoot all the bunnies."

How did the serpent get in the frother?!?

"GAAAAAAAHHHH!!!  HOLY MOTHER OF...!!!" 
I flap the dish towel in my panic.

"What?  What is it?"  Rissa asks.

"Treacherous insect!!"

"What!?!"

"Okay, so you know how when you said that there was a cobra in the kitty litter?"

"I didn't say there was a cobra in the kitty litter," Rissa says, peeking around the corner from the stairwell.   "I said that it was very AMMONIA-Y.  Though that would be much worse than just the ammonia smell."

"So I had cobra on the brain.  And then in my peripheral vision at the sink, I see this red slitted eye in the frother - which was obviously from a red-eyed serpent..."

"...Obviously..." She continues to scoop litter.

"...although why a serpent would choose to crawl into a frother is beyond me - so it made me jump..."

"...and scream..."  She sprinkles the baking soda.

"...and scream.  But on second glance it was a ladybug on the rim of the askew frother lid just peeking out."

"How could you confuse...?"

"Some serpents have red eyes."

"Really...?"

I shrug.  "The tormenting serpents do."  I turn back to the sink to finish drying the--  "GAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"

"Where is the ladybug now?"

"On the handle of the frother."

p.s.

So, when I went hunting for a picture of a red eyed serpent to prove my hypothesis - this movie poster came up right away... and I would just like to draw everyone's attention to the RED eyes of the sea serpent...

Plus... The tag line at the top is worth the price of admission my friends!

"FABULOUS!  SPECTACULAR! TERRIFYING!
The raw courage of women without men lost in a fantastic HELL-ON-EARTH!"

That there?  1950s pay dirt!

p.p.s.

And there IS SO at least one type of snake that has red eyes - the Ruby-Eyed Viper.



p.p.p.s.

Plus this one, which is pretty much the embodiment of the reason I was screaming in the first place.  And if there were more spots on its eye it could totally be mistaken for a ladybug. Or vice-versa.

How long has this been on my face?

It's a good morning.  I manage to wake up without whining about it.  David makes me delicious scrambled eggs.  I get dressed and throw a little makeup on, you know, just in case the really hot physiotherapist is at the clinic.  I even volunteer to move the cars around so that I can make it to my 7:30 appointment.

"Bye guys!  Love you!!"

And he's there - the Greek God (masquerading as a physiotherapist) rubbing shoulders with the plebes.   He shoots me a look with eyes clad in lashes so thick they probably distort his vision. My visceral reaction pinballs around my chest before it eventually centering in my groin.  And a GOOD MORNING to you too!  I smile winsomely at him, giving him the patented Heather dimple on my right side.  My own physiotherapist beckons me into the treatment room and we chit chat throughout my treatment.  For this early on a Friday, I am rocking the positivity and wakefulness.  I WIN at morning!

Appointment is done.  I have less limp and more saunter après treatment as I head back to the car.  Door opens, doesn't take me nearly as long to fold myself behind the wheel on account of the electrodes and ultrasound.  I start the car, Adele's Chasing Pavements is already playing on the sound system.  I ease my way into traffic.  There's a red light - this will be the most graceful braking - EVER.  Yep, totally landed that stop.  The judges give me 10s all around. 

I glance in the rear-view mirror and do a double take. I look like I have a cold sore the size of PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND on my top lip.  What the...?  Ketchup.  From this morning's breakfast.  That has been there for the past hour and 15 minutes.  Awesome.  My lovely lop-sided grin that I threw at the hot physiotherapist must have looked like a Syphilitic prostitute's come-on.  I scrub the ketchup off with my finger and then eat it, because... you know... ketchup.

 

Feline induced funk

"We need to kill all the cats."

"Huh?"

I am lying on my side in bed, eyebrows so low that I can feel them on my upper lip.

"WE. NEED. TO. KILL. ALL. THE. CATS."

"You don't mean that.  You love the cats."

"4:45!"

"Hmmm?"

"4 FUCKING 45 this morning Minuit with her fishy kibble cat breath and her petulant 'MEH' was in my face.  And then when I tried to ignore her she copped a feel and nipped at my nose."

"I'm sorry love."

"Why?  It's not your fault...  ...   ...  Wait, it IS your fault.  You closed the bedroom door last night and she was trapped inside with us which means that at 4 FUCKING 45 a.m. (because she is terrified of you) I was the only person she could wake up to let her out."  I open one glaring eye at David.  "And then... and THEN... fucking Lola comes in at 6:45 and breathes on me and fucking chirps at me."

"So this would have nothing to do with the fact that you didn't sleep well all weekend because you drank too much wine and it gave you hot flashes, and this just happened to be night three of poor sleep?"

"And what the fuck is THAT about?  All I want is to enjoy a good bottle of wine and by bottle, I don't even mean bottle, I mean two glasses.  Why am I being punished?"  I roll onto my stomach softly sobbing.  "I hate peri-menopause.  I hate cats."

"No, you don't.  You cross traffic to pet them."

"I hate cats this morning," I huff.   I think about what I've actually verbalized and reconsider my stance on cat euthanasia.    "We don't have to kill them all.  Minuit and Lola will be sent to Kitty Boarding School.  Steve can stay.  STEVE!  YOU CAN STAY, but your sisters are being shipped off to learn the error of their ways."