The best-laid plans...

"All right. Are we doing this?" I ask, hopping up from my yoga mat.

"Now?" replies David, looking up from his laptop. He's in the midst of programming a new script app.

"Now," I say, cracking my knuckles.

"Now, it is." He shoots me a broad grin. 

I race him up the stairs.

My clothes are off before I reach the bedroom. I turn on David's bedside lamp. Whoa! Too much light! It is WAY too bright in the room. I hunt through my bedside table, discarding items. 

A pencil.

Ear plugs.

Arnica cream.

A colourful chiffon chemise!

I drape the black and floral chemise over the bedside lamp. Now the room is too dark.

I turn on MY bedside lamp. I open my bedside table again. I find a chiffon scarf in blues and greens... that is... too small. Bright light beams from its edges. 

Where are my...? My eyes light on the wardrobe by the window. Atop the wardrobe is a basket holding my belts and scarves. YES! I flourish a pink and yellow floral square scarf - I could easily be mistaken for a 1950s magician... 

This scarf covers the full lamp shade, but its fabric is nearly transparent. The room is, once again, too bright. I artfully drape the first scarf over top of the pink and yellow scarf. Perfect.

David enters the room, doing his best impersonation of a naked Kramer. 

"Just a sec," I say, grabbing my scarf basket and making my way to the...

Tripping over a pillow at the foot of the bed, I land, arm first, against the wardrobe. Foot first too, apparently, because my big toe is now yelling at me.

"GAH!" I yell.

"Are you okay?" David asks.

"Yeah, yeah..." I limp towards the wardrobe, depositing the basket back on top. I look down to my arm where there is an abundance of scraped skin.

"What did you do?"

"I tripped and ran into the wardrobe." 

David shoots me a concerned glance, cataloguing my person.

"No blood!" I happily report. I start pulling the scraped skin off my forearm.

"Is it broken?"

Tentatively, I circle my wrist. Sore, but not unbearable. "I don't think so." I'm now pulling off more skin near my elbow. How many parts of my body made contact with the wardrobe?

"Do you need an ice pack?"

I start to shake my head, but then test out my wrist again. "Yeah, maybe." Admitting to an injury is not my strong suit. "Yes please."

"I've got this!" David runs down the stairs.

"Don't FALL!" I yell. 

The laughter starts even before he leaves the room. By the time he gets back, I am having a full-blown giggle attack.  As I velcro the cold pack to my wrist, my giggles turn into snorts.   

"We can recover from this," says David.

"Can we, though?"

"Yes," he says. "We are doing this."

"We'd better put some music on then. I'm gonna need a distraction."

"Music! Yes! Great idea!!" He swipes on his phone screen. Smooth jazz... with a LOT of saxophone.

"Too much sax," we both say at the same time, before both dissolving into laughter once more.

"We could always just put Love Over Gold on," I suggest. "No! Wait! Jackie Gleason's Music for Lovers!"

David's eyebrows tell me that I'm crazy.

"No, I'm sure that it can work! We can pretend that we're Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr from An Affair to Remember."

The next few minutes are spent doing terrible impersonations of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.

David leans in for a kiss. 

"Wait! Wait! No passionate kissing! I still have that canker sore!" I push on the canker with my tongue, distending my bottom lip, indicating said canker's location.

"Noted."

My lips twitch. "Maybe tonight isn't..."

"ARGH!" David grabs his leg.

"What? What is it?"

"Charlie horse! Charlie horse!" David massages his calf.

I bite my lips, but can't stop a snort from escaping. "Do you need me to..."

"No. Nope. I'm good."  By this time, he's laughing again.

Our laughter crescendos. We're both wiping at our eyes before we taper off into calming breaths. Our eyes meet. 

And I don't know if it was the Jackie Gleason playlist, or the mood lighting, but we regrouped.

Twenty-four and 10/12 years of marriage - never a dull moment.

All caulk, all the time...

When we moved into our house 7 years ago, there wasn't a master bedroom closet. Oh, there had been a closet, but it'd been situated in the room such that it blocked all the light from one of the two existing windows. So we'd ripped out that illumination obliterating monstrosity. In its place...? There was nothing. Ergo, there was no way to hide things behind a door, or a curtain or even a frickin' blue tarp. That was when our entire family recognized that I had an affliction. 

As I lay on the floor sobbing, my arms and legs desperately trying to absorb any emotionally grounding properties from the carpet fibres, it became immediately apparent that visual chaos makes me crazy(er).

So it shouldn't have surprised me, that in similar circumstances, I lose all critical reasoning.

This past weekend, we emptied our basement/cellar/dungeon so that we could take a long, hard look at what needs to be done, should we ever want to sell the house. Our house was built over 150 years ago. There isn't a foundation per se. There's rubble, some concrete blocks, dirt and gravel on the... let's call it a floor. At one point, in several places, the floor used to be about a foot higher. Someone had dug down, maybe for added head room? And then they never repoured a basement floor. 

This is the before:

This is the after:

Seeing this empty version of the basement? Joy.

Seeing the deck, which now houses all the crap from within the basement? Panic attack.

I should have known. I should have known by now, that THIS👆? This breaks my brain. 

David was downstairs, raking gravel and I found myself immobilized in the middle of this, unable to start purging because there is too much of EVERYTHING and IT IS EVERYWHERE. We have easily, eight different caulking guns. EIGHT OF THEM. Because why? Because in our dungeon of a basement, things have never been properly organized and categorized, so we just kept buying shit. 

There might be only two people living in our house, but we had 10 paint trays. There were bins WITHOUT LIDS full of electrical bits and plumbing bits and painting and dry walling and hardware bits. There were small appliances (that give no indication from their exteriors what their purposes are), tossed in with random trim scraps and steel wool pads, next to work gloves and twine. There were cardboard boxes that had been left to mold and rot. 

And here I was, standing in the midst of these mis-matched, unlidded, chaotic boxes of crap, unable to reach for anything on account of the fact that I was hyper-fucking-ventilating. And though all that stuff had been down there for seven fucking years and it had literally not been touched since we had moved in (apart from tools and Christmas decorations which have been used at least once a year), I couldn't just toss everything, because why? Because I was paralyzed.  

David came out to throw some stuff into the dumpster.

"How's it going up here?" he asked.

I shook my head. I suspected that if I tried to speak, I'd just burst into tears. I hate doing that.

An instant of impatience crossed his face, before he looked around the deck. And then he looked back at me. Really looked at me. 

"Hey," he said. "Hey. It's okay."

I swallowed and shook my head again. "I can't. I washed the shelves because they're just shelves. But these..." I indicated the dozens of boxes and totes. "These... They... THEY. AREN'T. ORGANIZED!"

"I know," he said, walking slowly towards me. I must have looked like a rabid coyote.

My hands came up, warding him off. If he hugged me now I'd need to be medicated.

"I can't," I said. "I know that it's ludicrous! It's fucking ridiculous! There are people in the world who have problems that are real fucking problems and I should just shut the fuck up and start tossing shit! I know that. But there are boxes that have electrical and plumbing and hardware in them and I don't know what we need to keep and what should be thrown out... because I can see it ALL!! If it was one drawer that I had to sort, I could do that. Fuck, I would LOVE doing one drawer! I excel at sorting drawers!! But this..." I gesticulated wildly with my arms. "This... This is... EVERYTHING!! And I know that ALL the tools and hardware and painting and Christmas decorations are going to have to GO. BACK. DOWN. Into that fucking basement and, and, and... by throwing out this ONE FUCKING LAVA LAMP, it's not even going to make a dent in all of our shit!!" 

"It's okay," he said. "What we're going to do is, we're going to take a break and have some breakfast." He held up a hand to stop me from arguing. "We're going to go in and eat. And we're going to have mimosas with breakfast."

"Mimosas?" I asked.

"Ish. We've got white wine, orange juice and sparkling water. After we eat, we'll go out again and you're going to sort through these three small boxes." He indicated boxes that had solvents and stain in them. "Only these boxes. You're not going to look at any other boxes."

"I'm not?"

"No, you're not. Because it makes you crazy. And we know this. And me leaving you up here to deal with all of this on your own was a bad thing..."

"But I should be able to adult on shit like this..."

"Hey." He held my face in his hands and kissed me softly. "We both know that you become unhinged when confronted with visual chaos. We both know it, but we forget - until we wind up in a situation like this and you lose your ability to cope as a human." He kissed me again. "Okay?"

"Okay," I sniffled. 

When your spouse gets you? Really gets you? Life becomes a lot easier. David's brain exists in a state of near constant logic. He reminds me to press pause so that I can see the order amidst the chaos. My brain exists in a state of near constant emotion.  I remind him to press pause so that he can see human emotion amidst the logic. Thank the Gods that we found each other.

Middle-aged crazy woman

"MOTHERFUCKER!" I exclaim vehemently (and quietly - because I'm in the backyard and our adjacent neighbours have kids and I don't want them to start randomly yelling MOTHERFUCKER, and then attributing it to the middle-aged, crazy woman whose backyard abuts theirs.)

"What?" asks David, looking up from his computer programming on the outdoor sofa

"This," I say, pronouncing the syllable with vitriol, "is not big enough." 

I brandish a white metal cylinder - with lid - that I purchased at Dollarama. It was going to be my "Bug spray and firepit lighter" cylinder. But the fucker is NOT. TALL. ENOUGH. The top will not close. The top isn't even close to closing. My $3.00 purchase that, a half hour before, had produced a gleeful, money-saving grin, is now the wrong size and I am obviously a moron for having purchased it!!

"You are not a moron," says David.

"Did I just say all of that out loud?" I ask.

He gives me an Aardman Animation grin with a side of shoulder shrug.

"Why don't you get yourself a drink and come out and sit in the fresh air?" he suggests. "I'll grab the smaller bug spray that will fit in this lovely new hiding container."

I stomp back inside and prepare to make myself a Caesar with the litre of Clamato that I just purchased from Dollarama along with the aforementioned failed container. I've never made a Caesar before. I'm pretty sure that there's Clamato and vodka. Which, thank the Gods, I have. I can finish off the bottle of vodka... in the freezer so that I don't have to open the new one... I open the freezer door. MOTHERFUCKER!! We already finished that vodka. When? When did we finish it? How much vodka have we been drinking? I dig into my internal calendar and think about the vodka... MOSCOW MULES! David made Moscow Mules the other night and he pours heavy. That's why the old bottle is finished.

Well, that, and the fact that we've been drinking like fishes since the beginning of the pandemic. About 6 weeks ago, I decided that I would no longer drink on weekdays because the whole "nightcap" situation was getting out of hand. This week I fell off my Radio Flyer wagon. This week I lost my mind. I've been weepy. I've been irrationally angry. I've French-kissed the depths of despair in the back of a Plymouth Duster. If I was still having my period, I would say that I have PMS, but I'm in menopause now and the lifter hills and inclined dive loops of that particular roller coaster have mostly levelled out for me.

Except for this week. This week, I have failed at EVERY. FUCKING. THING. Except for over-dramatization and hyperbole. 

I've been doing a lot of shoulders back and deep breathing this week. I've been compartmentalizing impending panic attacks. I put them way, way back... in the back of my bedroom closet, behind the filing box of old correspondence, behind the superfluous Christmas pillows, behind the clothes rail, behind the curtain, past the bed, behind the bedroom door, past the "loft space," up the stairs from the kitchen... deeeeep into my cranium, where they stop me from hyperventilating most of the time.

I went for a walk today, and when I got home, I wasn't sure where I had walked. I'd walked myself into a state of hypnosis or early onset dementia. Did I walk across the bridge? I'm not sure. Did I see people on the boardwalk? Was I even ON the boardwalk? Yes, I must have been, because I walked past the West Beach. Didn't I?

Now, to be fair, I was using my wireless ear buds for the very first time today, whilst listening to Marc Maron's WTF, so I was definitely distracted by his interview with Tom Jones - which I highly recommend. Maybe that's all it was. That's why I can't remember 25 minutes of my walking route. I know where I started and I remember different points along the way, and, given that there are only a few alternatives to get from Point A to Point B, I must have taken one of them, which would definitely have me walking along the boardwalk. 

And maybe, just maybe, my freaking out should be completely expected given that the mental exhaustion of living through a pandemic takes its toll on everyone. Even those of us who are fortunate enough to love our spouses and children, and love spending extra time with them... But all I really want is to be able to have play dates with people other than them now. I want to hug a person I haven't had sex with or given birth to. (I should have maybe phrased that with more specificity.) That's what it comes down to. And for some reason, this week, on the cusp of returning normalcy in Ontario, all my compartmentalizing has caught up with me. 

Which means it's time for that drink... and perhaps instead of meeting any number of self-defined deadlines - a finished chapter, a completed outline or brand new song lyrics - I just drink that fucking drink and sit back with a Regency Romance with a side of historical smut for the added endorphin rush. Then, tomorrow, I can reboot. Because if life, right now, still isn't normal? Why should I expect to be?

My New Superpower

Our weekly pancakes aren't going entirely to plan. We don't have buttermilk on hand, and none of us feel like masking up and braving the No Frills to get it. Granny's recipe is always better with buttermilk.  

"Can't we just use regular milk?" asks Rissa.

"How about we sour the milk. It only takes..." I begin.

"GAH! It will take so long!" she responds.

"Five minutes," I say, rolling my eyes. "We can wait the five minutes." 

"Okay, but we're going to end up with lime-y pancakes."

"I LOVE lime-y pancakes!" David chimes in, ever the optimist.

In spite of our best efforts, this week's pancakes are mostly crap. After mixing the grudgingly soured milk into our regular batter, we get distracted and the first batch is mostly Cajun. The second batch isn't much better, and really? In spite of my Better-Homes-and-Gardens-substitution-mentality, soured milk doesn't cut it anyway. The texture of soured milk pancakes is pretty much hit-and-miss, not like when you use buttermilk. It has to be buttermilk.

"You know what Super Power I'd like to have?" I ask.

"What?" Rissa and David respond simultaneously, as they soak their pancake failures in butter and syrup.

"I'd like to be able to snap my fingers, say 'BUTTERMILK!' and wherever I pointed, buttermilk would appear."

Rissa and David blink.

"That would be your superpower?" asks Rissa.

David coughs to disguise an involuntary snort.

"Uh.... yeah..." I say. "Then we would never again suffer the buttermilk conundrum."

"We have a buttermilk conundrum?" asks David.

"Almost every Sunday when we forget to purchase buttermilk," I say, the DUH, very apparent in my tone.

Through her laughter, Rissa queries, "So you are saying, that your first wish, if say, a genie were granting you wishes, would be to have a power that would specifically give you buttermilk on whim?"

"Yes. Definitely."

David gives me a Scooby Doo eyebrow before saying, "Nothing more broad than that? Like you have the ability to magic literally ANYTHING out of thin air and you are going to limit it to buttermilk?"

I think for a moment. "Maybe my second wish would be for coconut milk, because we seem to run out of that too."

Rissa shoots me a look of such utter disbelief that I wonder if she might be having a stroke. I am about to ask her to smile so that I can check whether her face is drooping when she says, "Ummmmm... any other specifics that you might be hoping for?"

"I might want to be able to do it without having to say 'BUTTERMILK!' Like, just think it, and it appears."

"Of course," David says. "Completely understandable." He is biting his lip. "You could be a new member of The Mystery Men."

Rissa concurs. "Instead of being the Shoveler, you could be the... MILKER??" Through some miracle she does not expel juice through her nose. 

"Mostly," I say - shooting dagger eyes at both my daughter and my husband (who is now almost crying). "I would be thrilled to SNAP! POINT! and then have the milk appear - with, or without, saying 'BUTTERMILK!' Although I'm second guessing the silent magicking now, what if I were to SNAP! POINT! and then buttermilk appeared, but those who see it, don't know it was supposed to be buttermilk?"

"You feel like people seeing this miraculous buttermilk appearance would deny its authenticity if you don't broadcast what it's supposed to be, when you're snapping and pointing?" David raises an eyebrow at me. 

"Wait!" Rissa says. "Wait, wait! What if, depending on which finger you pointed, it could be a different type of milk product?"

"Why limit it to fingers?" David asks. He generally indicates his own nipples. "Chocolate. Strawberry... Think about it."

Rissa continues. "SNAP! POINT! GOAT MILK!! SNAP! POINT! ALMOND MILK!!!"

"Sure, go ahead and mock me," I say.  "But with my new super powers I will be able to make unlimited baked goods and Thai food."

You put your snorkel where?!?

It's the cannabis fudge. That's why we're laughing. (Also, this may have been the first time in his life that David has ever truly been high, because I gave him just a titch more fudge than I ingested - you know, because he's taller and slightly heavier than I am.) We're laughing so hard that our abs are aching. ALL the obliques, ALL the rectuses ALL the intercostals.

"I can't breathe!! I can't breathe!!" I gasp.

David lets forth another guffaw of laughter. "You must be breathing!" He looks at me very seriously. "If you weren't breathing, you'd have passed out." Now, in a whisper, "You'd. be. un. conscious."

This sends me off into paroxysms one more. "STOP! STOP!!

"How ARE you breathing?" he asks.

"Through my vagina."

"Really?" He looks skeptically at my lap.

"I have a snorkel down there."

This confuses his eyebrows. "You have a snork-o-vag?"

"A...???"

"Snork-o... No... that doesn't sound right, does it? Snork-gina!!" He starts laughing madly once more.

"What? What?!?"

"I'm just imagining the cartoon version of that character. BWA-HA-HAAAAAAA!!! THE CLIT WOULD BE THE NOSE!!!!" Another thought hits him. "Wait... wait... VA-JORKEL!!!"

"Va-jorkel??"

"Vagina snorkel. You're welcome."

"VAAAAAAAAJORRRRRRKEL." I have the perfect song in which this word may be utilized most effectively.

♩♬ VA-JORKEL SONGS FOR VA-JORKEL CATS!! ♫
♬♩ VA-JORKEL SONGS FOR VA-JORKEL CATS!! ♩
♩♬ VA-JORKEL SONGS FOR VA-JORKEL CATS!! ♫
♬♩ VA-JORKEL SONGS FOR VA-JORKEL CATS!! ♩

David is amazed and is most certainly contemplating how he can have me canonized. And then, very quietly, he starts to sing.

♬♩ BE-CAUSE VA-JORKELS ARE AND VA-JORKELS DO ♫
♩♬ VA-JORKELS DO AND VA-JORKELS WOULD! ♩
♬♩ VA-JORKELS WOULD AND VA-JORKELS CAN! ♫
♩♬ VA-JORKELS CAN AND VA-JORKELS DO!!! ♩

Okay, number 1? David can sing - which always makes me happy, but even more so now because I am stoned and my ears are in ecstasy at the way the notes are leaving his throat. And B? After singing this particular refrain, he then recites for me the The Naming of Cats, in its entirety, in this deep, sonorous, over-the-top-sexy voice. Right beside my ear.

"How is it that I have never known you could do that?" I ask breathlessly.

David shrugs.

"In 22 and a half  years of marriage, how did I NEVER know that you were THAT kind of musical theatre geek?"

David looks chagrined.

"I'm not complaining," I assure him. "I mean, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on with my own musical theatre geekness... but all these years you could have been whispering T.S. Elliott poetry into my ears...?"

"It's not like I had a CATS costume in my closet or anything," he says.

"Anymore..." I snicker.

"I didn't!! I don't!!"

"But if you did??"

"Mr. Mistoffelees. Obviously. He can light up his own costume."

***

It's only now, reading this back, that the awkwardness of VA-JORKLE is evident. VA-JICLE would have scanned much better in the song's rhythm but is nowhere near as funny to say out loud. 

The Humpback near the Cenotaph

I swear I was not being intentionally disrespectful. I just couldn't take it any more.

Earlier in the day:

"Hoorah! I have received my shipment of Humpback Posture Correctors!!" (There's a sentence every woman wants to utter.) It's been a process folks. After having purchased 6 different styles of posture correctors - each of which was either the wrong fit/size/comfort-level, I finally found these:

In addition to supporting my devolving posture, these babies give a nice added lift to the girls. 

It just may be possible that I'm not thinking logically when I don my Women Chest Brace Up yesterday. I recognize now, that wearing a garment that thrusts one's shoulders back might not be the best course of action when one has displaced an upper rib while drying her hair that morning. 

I am excited though. 

"THIS IS IT!! THIS IS THE DAY THAT I TAKE MY BACK...   BACK!!"

Months of terrible typing posture are going to be rectified. I strap that sucker on and revel in its mild armpit discomfort. By dinner, apart from the near-constant, minor back ache, I have forgotten that I 'm wearing it.

David and I go for our post-dinner perambulation, enjoying the crisp night air. My posture? Spec-fucking-tacular! My shoulder blades? Done. 

A half hour from our house, the comfort-seeking choreography begins. The wiggling of the shoulders, the walking pelvic tilt, the attempts to round out my back stymied by the persistent pull from the 85% Nylon and 15% polyester fibres yanking at my armpit region.

"You okay?" asks David.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. I think that..." (shoulder jiggle, breast shimmy) "maybe I should have taken off my Posture Corset before we left the house."

"Didn't you put a rib out this morning?"

"Yeah."

"Why are you wearing a Posture Corset then?!?"

"I thought it was a good idea at the time?" I say as tried to release my shoulders again.

"How long have you been wearing it."

"Like seven hours?" We are now approaching the cenotaph in our downtown park - lit with billions of lumens to ensure that local hoodlums will shy from it.

"You need to take that off ASAP."

We pass the cenotaph, and head up towards King Street. I get about 20 feet away and I go temporarily insane.

"Nope! Can't! CANNOT DO THIS!!!" I unzip my coat and begin to struggle with my zippered sweater (for extra winter warmth) underneath. The zipper sticks. "ARGH!!!"

"Whoa! Whoa!" says David.

"Can't!! Now I'm trapped! I'm TRAPPED in my sweater AND my Bra X Strap Vest!!! I'm going to DIE here!! I can't see anything!!!"

David fumbles for my zipper in the near-dark.

"Oh for the love of... There is a light source brighter than the sun right behind us!" I walk over into the cenotaph's light and manage to unzip my sweater and pull up the long sleeved shirt beneath it - revealing my bra and posture corrector to the world. I reach for the three massive hooks under my boobs and David quickly steps in front of me to offer some spousal shielding, though frankly at this point, I wouldn't care if our entire town saw me topless, I just need the sucker unhooked.

"Oh thank God. THANK GOD!" I say, ecstatic from the near-orgasmic release of tension in my shoulders. "Thank you, thank you, thank you..." I hug David. "So good. It feels so fucking good."

"Okay. Simmer down there..."

We have decided that the implementation of the Prevent Chest Hunchback should be done in baby steps. Or at least until my rib goes back to where its supposed to live.

THE PANIC LIAR

David sucks at stopping conversations. When he has the opportunity to make a declarative statement that will allow him to be able to walk away? He can't do it.

Thursday, March 12, right before it was announced that schools would be closed and the shit had yet to actually hit the fan, David was antsy to get home. He was in rehearsals with his students for the student-written, one-act play festival. They rehearsed three afternoons a week. At 4:30 p.m., the last day before March Break, with the exuberance of teenage drama kids, they were champing at the bit to go through their plays "Just one more time, Sir?"

"Guys," said David. "No can do. I've gotta get home." (This is where he should have stopped talking.)  "It's my turn to cook dinner. It's Perogy Night!"

(There is no Perogy Night.)

"Perogy Night?!?  Really?  Cool! Do you make them yourself?"

"I do!" (He doesn't.)

"Really? The dough and everything?"

"Oh yeah!" (Nope.)

"How do you cook them?"

"Oh, I boil them up first and then like to brown them in a frying pan." (Really? You don't just take them from the freezer and nuke them and brown them?)

"What are you filling them with tonight?"

"Cheddar, bacon and chive." (And chive?!?)

David is a panic liar. He can't do small talk. He invariably says something interesting enough that there will always be follow up questions. Witness what happened when he bought a suit.

When I asked him how the perogy debacle had manifested, he said, "I didn't want to tell them that the thought of having to watch them rehearse it one more time would make my brain implode."

"You were trying to be nice."

"I was trying to be nice."

"That's a good thing."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Next time though, don't tell them that you have to go home to feed your alpaca."

The tilted tata - using transformational positioning to achieve a youthful bosom

"Do you think we can take tasteful pictures of my breasts?"

David perks up. "Most certainly."

"For public consumption?"

"Pardon?"

"You know, for my blog..."

"Ummmmm..." His mouth opens and closes. "Don't get me wrong.  I am ALL for your breasts being on display. But... why do you want to have tasteful breast pictures on your blog?"

"I want to discuss breast balance with visual aids."

"Ahhhh... Might I say again... I am all for your breasts and your right to proudly display them in the public domain... I just worry that if you have pictures of your breasts on your blog that you will then get blocked because of nudity... frankly, because of nipples. Breast health sites get blocked because of the nipples."

"Well that's ridiculous.  They're just nipples. On breasts. Which 50% of the adult population has."

"And I reiterate, I am all for them being out there."

"It's not like I'm filming myself having sex - I'm not going to be playing with my breasts in the pictures."

David had not anticipated this escalation. "Uhhhhh...."

"I just want pictures. I want to compare the breast balance."

"Balance?"

"Yes, comparative balance.  When lying on your back, most middle-aged breasts C cup or higher, pretty much slide into your armpits. I have discovered that there is a particular ribcage roll combined with torso tilt that gives the appearance of youthful firmness so that your breast - because it only works for one breast at a time - resembles a vintage jello mold."

"Is that what you're doing when you say 'Look at this! Look at this!' in bed?" David asks.

"Most of the time, yeah."

"I think for this particular post to work, and by that I mean so that you don't get blocked and you don't get a bunch of whack - pardon the pun - jobs stalking you, you'll have to take euphemistic pictures."

My eyes light up.  "That I can do."

As I'm gathering up my visual aids, David comes back into the room with his phone in hand.  "I found a level app that should help, lie down on the carpet."

That right there? That's why our marriage works.

With this app placed on my chest, we discovered that a
16 degree ribcage roll  with 3 degree torso tilt helps
 my breast achieve faux firmness. The level that
resembles a breast? An unexpected bonus.

The Really Useful Pit Group

"Don't shave them DRY!!" I gasp, horrified.

"Ah, but my pits are youthful, Mama..."

"Oh, I get it, and my pits are elderly, decrepit, crabby pits?"

She shrugs and shaves her own dry armpits.

"You've got to watch out for them though," I say.  "The hair in the elderly, decrepit, crabby pits is so strong that it can yank the blades from the very razor that tries to shaves them."

"You guys are so weird," says David, from the kitchen below us.

"Not weird," I respond.  "Evolving.  My elderly, decrepit, crabby pits have abilities."

The conversation has brought David upstairs.  "They have abilities?  Like...?"

"Retracting armpit hair!!!  That can catch criminals!!"

"Like Spider Man?"  He then mimes armpit hair shooting out from his own pits.

"Exactly like Spider Man except it's coming from armpits and is, in fact, armpit hair."

"Not the most popular super hero," says David.

"I don't know," says Rissa.  "I think we should make it a web series."

"HAH!"

"I gotta go to work," says David, heading back downstairs. 

"I need some breakfast," I say following him.  "This is today's blog post.  Rissa, how did you describe your pits?"

"Youthful."

"Youthful?" David questions.  "I thought you said USEFUL!  Which made complete sense when you then had retractable armpit hair."

"If they were useful, wouldn't they be opening doors for people?"

"Yes, and they'd fold your laundry..."

"The Really Useful Pit Group??"*

"YES!!  And they would sing..."  He opens his pits and throws a melodic scale my way. LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-AAAAA!!!!"

"Other families don't do this," says Rissa.

*For all you musical theatre buffs out there.  You're welcome.

Good News! I'm IMMORTAL!!!

WARNING: Feminine issues discussed


"Are you FREAKING kidding me?"

"What? What is it?"  David looks into the bathroom from the hallway.  He finds me on the toilet, scowling downward.  I shoot him a look.

"Seriously?" he asks.  "Didn't you just...?"

"Yes.  Yes I DID just... It's been almost two full weeks - off and on."

"What's that phrase?  Never trust something that bleeds for 5 days but doesn't....?" He quickly changes tacks before I stab him with the cuticle scissors within my reach.  "Wait!   There's a bright side."

I glare at him.  "Pray, tell..."

"You've been bleeding this long and you haven't died...  I think...  Heather, I think you might be IMMORTAL!"

"HAH!"

"No seriously.  This right here?  THIS is you achieving immortality."

Doubling over with another cramp, I manage a small, yet incredibly sarcastic "Hurray." 

Spongy Mc-Wipey

"Are you done with this?" asks David as he holds up the scrubby sponge.

"I am, thanks.  If you wouldn't mind putting it away."

He looks around all confuseled.

"You don't know where it lives, do you?" I ask.

"Sure I do," he says - gesticulating wildly - a vain attempt to distract from his ignorance.

"In the cupboard there," I vaguely point to the vanity.

He reaches for the drawer...

"No, the cupboard, hon..."  And then it hits me.

"What?"  he asks.

"How long have we lived in this house?"

"Hmmmm?"

"When did we move?  Over a year ago, right?"

"Y.... es."

I raise my eybrows at him.  "You've never seen that sponge before, have you?  It's never been in your hand."

"Ummmm...""

I let out a deep cackle.  "You have never cleaned this bathroom."

"Uhhhh...  Well...  No...  I guess that I haven't..."

"Wait!  Have you EVER cleaned a bathroom?"  I think back to our last house.  "Have you actually ever cleaned a toilet?"

"Of course I have cleaned a toilet.  I've even cleaned the tub once or twice, but usually what happens is that you re-clean it after me, so we decided..."

I look at him.

"...that it was probably better if you did the bathrooms..." he trails off.

"We decided?"

"Well you do tend to re-clean something if you think it hasn't been done right," he defends.

I raise my eyebrows again.

"To be fair," he backpedals.  "You might not feel the need to re-clean something if it had been properly cleaned in the first place."

I snort.  "Is this like when you were younger and if you and your brother waited long enough to finish a chore your Mom would just lose patience and do it herself?"

"NO!  Of course not.  I just have a different skill-set around the house.  See, I am the one who FIXES the toilets.  I vacuum like nobody's business.  I hook up all our new media players..."  He looks like he's waiting for a high-five.

"Dude.  You didn't know where the sponge LIVED."

"But I do know what it's used for.."  He gives a tentative grin.

A laugh escapes me.  "Other women would not react with laughter to this situation?'

"No they probably wouldn't."

I smile.  "Other women don't blog."

From New Girl

Who needs psychedelic drugs...

... when you're in the midst of peri-menopause? They tell you about the sleep disturbances, the night sweats - all that great stuff - they don't tell you that your dreamscape will be a cross between Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson.

Last night, Inigo Montoya was waxing my bikini line before he replaced my kneecaps with silver plating.  To be fair - Inigo Montoya had been featured on the Mindy Project and I had watched an episode of Bones while I was on the treadmill.  It is possible I've been watching too much Netflix.

For years, I'd had no dream retention and now... TECHNICOLOR dreams.  In one night I can have 4 or 5 major dream excursions.  Hopping between murder mystery and house-shopping, archaeology and  extreme haircuts - usually accompanied by night sweats - blankets off - then the chills as the sweat cools, so in your dream you're now naked in front of your Grade 9 Geography class, with only post-its to cover your interesting bits.

I awake bearing a grudge against David because in one of my panic attack-inducing dreams there's a demon child who throws a patio door at me.  Trying to scream - only managing a whimper in my sleep - David 'there-there'ing me in his sleep, one arm curving around my midriff, patting me ineffectually when what I really need is to be able to climb inside of him so that he can keep me safe.

"You don't protect me," I say petulantly over breakfast.

"I was asleep!"

"You were awake enough to recognize that I was crying, you patted me, but then you just went back to sleep."

"Next time it happens, you have my permission to wake me up and make sure that I understand the gravity of your situation."

"Wake you up violently?"

"If need be."

I smile.  "You love me."

"Yeah."

"Enough to take an elbow to the gut?"

"Yeah."