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.

Ménage à Moi Miscommunication

I have been married for almost 23 years. Of those almost 23 years, 22.852 of them have been unreservedly, unabashedly, unquestionably happy. Relationships cannot possibly be all sunshine and roses all of the time. Once you've said your "I do's", you do not forever exist in a state of "Happily Ever After," no matter how fucking close you might come.  In spite of what observers might think, David and I, after almost 23 years of mostly wedded bliss, still come up against unexpected conflict.

Witness: Last night David and I were both reading in the living room. I got in into my head that I wanted to have some sexy time once we reached the bedroom. Given that David had just finished a LOOONG week of teaching virtual high school to disaffected teenagers, I reckoned that he might not be up for a full on bouncy-bouncy adventure, so I threw him a soft-ball.

"When we go upstairs," I said, in my most seductive tone, "I'm going to have a ménage à moi -  FOR YOU."

When I said "FOR YOU," I meant that I was going to give more than the ol' college try. I was going to make the whole situation a feast for his senses - visual, auditory, tactile, smell... what's the fifth one? TASTE!! I could have put some taste in there as well, if I'd been specific about how he could become involved. I anticipated that, shortly after the show began, his mental exhaustion would be circumvented by a visceral bodily response. However, outside of my own head, I did not specify my expectations for the main event. 

So... when I clad myself in a low-cut, figure forming, above-the-knee nightie (sans granny panties), and grabbed my... Magic Scepter, I anticipated that David would, if not immediately, then very soon after, become ENGAGED in the afore-mentioned enterprise, and would add a hand, to help a girl out, as it were. 

David didn't get the memo. And although he did have his left hand on my knee, as a warm reminder of  another person in the bed, his other hand held his phone, whereupon he was reading his latest Sci-Fi novel. This, I noticed, in the midst of the MAIN EVENT. Which, when I noticed, made it a bit more difficult for me to... land a punch. And when I finally did win on a TKO, I immediately burst into tears, on account of the fact that he'd been reading his book during, what was supposed to have been (if only in my own brain), a seduction of the senses... FOR HIM.

In our wedding vows we promised to talk to each other, especially when it was difficult. We also promised to listen to each other, especially when it was difficult. 

And as much as I knew that it would be painful to tell him that... orbiting Venus... beside him as he read - on his phone - made me feel like shit, I knew that I had to, or we'd run into this issue again. So I laid it all out there. And when we talked, he told me that he'd thought that I'd wanted 'alone' time, which meant, to him, that he shouldn't really be involved,  when, what I wanted more than anything? Was to have him INvolved. 

He abjectly apologized. I abjectly apologized. And then I promised that, from now on, I would let him in on any and all plans for self-pleasure, because even after almost 23 years, no matter how much I might want him to? He still can't read my mind. 

So next time, I'm just gonna say, "Hey there handsome! I'm heading upstairs to play some... pelvic guitar, how'd you like to accompany me with some chest harmonica?"

And that is why you put your toys away...

It felt as though we were missing a limb for about eight months,  but we managed to survive Rissa's first year at university.

However, with no one to "adult" for, we devolved into teenagers ourselves. We forgot to do laundry, haphazardly cleaned the house and rarely grocery shopped. Rissa would come home for a weekend and clear the fridge of expired items for us.

"What are you guys eating? How many frozen pizzas do you ingest in a week!?!"

We didn't have to worry about food for Rissa's lunches, so there was no need to head out every Sunday and grab juice boxes, mini yogurts, and sandwich fixings. David took a salami and crackers to work and I existed on Protein Bars at the office.

We both began to work late. David was in rehearsals after school for various drama projects, and with no one to welcome me home except the cats, I felt there was no real point in my rushing to leave the office. Not to say that having a ginger Tom, his high-strung sister and our crotchety, arthritic senior cat at the door didn't ease the pain, but walking past Rissa's empty room for the first 5.5 months of the school year kicked me into cardiac arrhythmia.

Settling into our sans enfant routine after Reading Week, we realized that vegetables existed and that we didn't have to carve out intimacy or Running-Around-Naked-Time. To be fair, I have always enjoyed my Running-Around-Naked-Time, but David seemed to revel in striding around majestically without having to throw on underwear.

We had sex whenever and wherever the urge struck us, and we weren't quiet about it. We had dinner at friends' places and stayed out late.

Rissa arrived home at the end of April. We easily went back to our regularly scheduled programming of sofa-snuggling, binge watching Netflix and family dinners.

We didn't realize the shift in what had been our non-parental status quo until a couple of weeks ago, when Rissa was out with friends. Feeling amorous during an afternoon nap, we were well on our way to the Big Finale when the downstairs door crashed open, and Rissa sang out, "I'm ho-me!!" Nothing like a good case of coitus interruptus to put  Return of the Child into its true cock-blocking perspective.

We didn't despair. With Rissa working nights from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. at a health-care facility, we knew that climactic sex was on the horizon.

Early Friday night, I enjoyed a lowball of spicebox whiskey. Before we headed up to bed I had the epiphanic recollection that with pot now legal in Canada, a friend had been kind enough to roll a joint for me. Having placed said joint with my vitamins on the bamboo lazy susan - above the stove where the cats couldn't mistake if for catnip - I grabbed said joint and smoked 1/4 of it...

This note was waiting for us in the main bathroom on Saturday morning:

The arrow was pointing to the toy.  Feel free to enter the
pool betting on what the toy was and its colour.

Turns out that after we had our mind-blowing, child-not-in-the-house sex, we HAD remembered to clean our accompanying sex toy in the bathroom, but we HAD NOT remembered to take it back to our room. Oh, and when I smoked up? Because I'd already imbibed my Spicebox Whiskey and was a little tottled, I enjoyed those few puffs in the windowless 1/2 bath downstairs. The main floor smelled like a frat house.

It would appear that I have yet to leave teenager mode.

Jane Austen with SEX!!!

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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.

 

Quick! The kid isn't home - let's DO this!!!

Rissa was going to be gone for three whole nights.  David and I begin sharing the the waggling eyebrow looks, the suggestive head tilts, the...

"YOU GUYS!  I CAN TOTALLY SEE YOU DOING THAT!!!!"

"What?  Doing what?!?"

Rissa rolls her eyes.  But then gives us the I'm watching you look.

Surreptitiously now, I am trying to communicate with David all the places we will have sex during our childless days:  All the kitchen counters, the living room sofa, ottoman, possibly the Laz-y-Boy, the family room sofa, the bed in our room, the blanket box in our room, against the wall in our room, the bathroom floor...

David whispers in my ear, "You can be as loud as you want."  I blush.  Rissa dramatically points to her eyes and then us.

Noisy sex - the thing you can't have when there's another person in your home.  Though you may experience an earth-shattering orgasm that makes you want to scream, possibly yodel, joyously into the abyss - you just don't.  When Rissa was little it was because the last thing I wanted was for our toddler to come into our room and holler, "DADDY YOU'RE SQUISHING MUMMY!!!"  Now that she's a teenager, and remembering myself as a teenager,  I basically don't want her to vomit when she thinks of what could be instigating the sounds from our bedroom.

We are going to have three nights.  And by nights, I really mean three late afternoons, evenings and nights of sex.  I'm hyrdating, stretching, epiladying.. I am ready... Let's DO this!!!  David comes home from work.  His laptop bag is flung from his shoulder, he struts into the kitchen...

I'm on the sofa in the family room.  My entire body is disappointment, I have a hot water bottle across my abdomen.  "Batten down the hatches...thar she blows..."

"No.  Really?"  He sits on the arm of the sofa.   He's thinking now, I can practically see the cogs turning in his brain.  "Yeah... Yeah... we should have known this.  You've been craving chocolate and pretty frisky..."

My shoulders slump.  "But we have three days!!!  We were going to have sex everywhere!!!"  I swallow my ibuprofen.

He sits beside me and drops a light kiss on my lips.  He smooths the hair off my face.  "I guess," he whispers, kissing me again, but not so lightly this time.  "I guess we're just going to have to get creative." His eyes meet mine and the bottom drops out of my stomach.

"Creative?" I gasp.  (After almost 19 years of sex with this man, he still makes me gasp.)

"VERY creative."  He cracks his knuckles, waggling his eyebrows.

I snort.  He kisses me again.

"Dinner now or later?" he asks.

"Later."

Is it wrong to do this with my husband beside me?

I'm holding my hands to my face to hide my blushing cheeks.  David shakes his head at me. 

"You are ridiculous."

"I can't help it."

We're watching The Good Wife.  Finn Polmar has just flirted with Alicia Florrick.  I feel it would be bad form to beg to rewind the scene... right away...  with David beside me.  I'll wait until the episode is over.

I'm such a cheap turn on.   I remember way back, watching Chocolat on VHS, listening to Johnny Depp say, "I'll come round some time and get that squeak out of your door."  The look on his face as he watches Juliette Binoche walk away?  I almost broke the tape rewinding it. So much better than porn. 

 ( 1:50 is where I lost my mind.)

Then there's the film version of Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightly and Matthew Macfadyen where Mr. Darcy helps Elizabeth into a carriage and then there's a close up of his fingers... and he FLEXES them.... because he's so affected by just TOUCHING her!!!   Those 5 seconds make me hyperventilate. 

And before the Colin Firth fans get their knickers in a twist... yes, the pond scene in the Pride and Prejudice miniseries...  That's just a given.  The whole series, for that matter, acts as foreplay.  6 hours of Austen foreplay is always better than 2 hours and 9 minutes.  David is guaranteed sex after I've watched anything Austen.

Back in the present, Rissa comes in to say that she's going to bed.

"WAIT!!  Watch this with me!"

David rolls his eyes and leaves the room.

I sit on the edge of my seat as Rissa first watches the inital scene with Alicia and Finn when they make the rules about what sort of interaction they should have, and then, despite their best efforts, they end up at the diner on a date-date and he says "I can't say anything...." and does this shruggy-glancy thing.

"Do you SEE?!?"

Rissa looks at me like I'm nuts.

"I think I need more context."

As I ready myself for bed, I finally understand why the fan videos pop up.  I want to have every interaction that Alicia and Finn have ever had and edit them all together so that I can get a hit whenever I need it.

And, if I want to wallow, nay revel, in masculine edibles,  I can fantasize about the other men on the show, 'cause it's not just Matthew Goode this season.  Taye Diggs has been added to the firm, plus there's  campaign manager, Stephen Pasquale - and let us not forget Matt Czuchry as Cary Agos - who, I'm sure would never be able carry me Rhett Butler style up a ginormous staircase, but still has a voice that sounds like he's talking dirty all the time.

"You're fantasizing about them right now, aren't you?"  asks David.

I find myself startled. "Well, I mean... COME ON... I could have Finn, Dean and Johnny all... um... massaging me, with Cary whispering dirty nothings in my ear the whole time."

"You know some men might be worried about their wives showing such preference for fictitious characters."

"I have no problem if you imagine Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Kirsten Dunst and Emma Stone all together." I pause.  "Wait, give me a sec... that would probably work for me too."

Try to get this one past your filters...

SPOILER ALERT!

The soft porn had been unexpected.  From what I knew of the books, I'd gleaned that there'd be kilts, horses, time travel, romance to be sure - but the soft porn?  A delightful bonus.

The opening allusion to sex in the  first episode of Outlander - was just that - allusory.  Squeaky bedsprings groaning - first from carefree, laughter-filled bouncing, and then from actual unseen lovemaking.  The scene was charming and let you do your own imaginative heavy petting.

Later on,  David and I sat up a little straighter as oral sex filled our screen.  We exchanged glances.

"I didn't know we got this along with the good acting," said David.  He shot me a grin and waggled his eyebrows.  I waggled mine back.  Not only was there oral sex on the tv, but it was man-on-his-knees-in-front-of-his-loving-wife oral sex - some might say the best kind.

"Who produces this?"

"starz."

"...You're making that up."

"No seriously.  There, up in the corner, starz."

"For a company like that, I feel that instead of the well-scored sountrack we are hearing, it should be of the "bown-wown-chicka-wown-wown" variety.

"I'll bown-wown-choica-wown-wown you."

"I will take you at your word sir."

Music in my vulva...

"OH MY GOD THIS IS SO GOOD!!!  Turn it up!  TURN IT UP!!!"

Muse's Supremacy is playing in the car.  David cranks it.

"Best dirty guitar ever!!!  You know where I feel this?  IN MY VULVA!!!"

"MUMMY!"

"But I do.  Every time those dark notes from that guitar kick in - right there in my..."

"MUMMY!"

"Sorry, but that's where I feel it.  I bet you that Daddy totally feels it in his..."

"You are NOT normal!"

"Actually, I feel the good stuff in my fingertips," David says.  "Like light shooting out of my body."

"See?  Everyone feels music in their bodies! You're a dancer.  You probably feel it all over the place!"

"Well, I don't feel it THERE!"

And then it hits me... This is why those douchey guys drive around town with their UNCE-UNCE-UNCE bass blaring through their car speakers.  They think they're going to attract vulvas.  They think that girls are just going to dive into their open windows, or at the very least - wave them down and beg for a ride. What they don't realize is that UNCE-UNCE-UNCE sound will turn someone off as much as it will turn someone on. Plus, to a gal just walking down the street?  That UNCE-UNCE-UNCE sound, combined with the inevitable hole in the muffler and/or squealing of tires just makes me think that the dude is overcompensating for a really tiny penis.

With Supremacy, it's not just that rough guitar that gets me - when Matthew Bellamy goes into falsetto (freaking falsetto!) just before the chorus?  Say around 2:11?  YOWZA.

Combine that bit with the musical intro for Michael Buble's Cry Me A River? Game over.  Bubbles doesn't even need to sing.  I'm already done.  Alan Chang's arrangement of the strings and bass for the opening 29 seconds has liquefied my lady bits.  By the time that lone guitar strums at the 30 second mark? I need a cigarette.

On second thought... I'd be more than okay if Rissa feels the music in her neck... or not at all.

Soft Porn at the Spa

 WARNING:  Adult matters discussed in this post

Let it be proclaimed from the mountain tops:  I have the best spouse and daughter in the world.  For Mothers' Day this year they gifted me a spa afternoon (with light lunch).  Four treatments in 4 hours: a facial, massage, pedicure and manicure - all in the delightful surroundings of a local spa.  Even though only one of the treatments was a 'masssage,' I got 4 massages in the time I was there.  During a facial, your face, shoulders, neck and hands are massaged.  During a massage your back, legs, neck, shoulders and arms are massaged.  During a pedicure your feet, and calves are massaged and during a manicure your forearms and hands are massaged.  I walked out of the spa like an overcooked lasagna noodle.

"What are you looking for in today's treatments?" my esthetician Casey asks.

"Relaxation.  Complete and utter relaxation."

My regular massage therapist, Erin, works on my body to heal it.  She gets in there with her elbow, releasing the knots in my shoulder and back - I love Erin - I love her therapeutic massage - I love that she fixes me, but unless I tell her to go easy on me, those massages are generally not relaxing.  I was signing up for a day of sighing and relaxed drool seeping out of my mouth.   I checked that box.

During the facial, I almost fall asleep twice. 

"Okay, when you're ready, come on out and we'll get you set up for your soak and massage," Casey says in her softest voice.

Alrighty... time to get up.  I sit up very slowly, feet testing the floor.  I grab the bathrobe and snuggle in and toddle out the door.

Casey meets me with a red wine glass full of lemon water and directs me to the next room.  Candles are everywhere.  Massage table in the centre.  To the back of the room, a jacuzzi tub.  Casey leads me over to the steaming tub.

"Okay Heather, I'm going to leave you here to soak for about 20 minutes.  The controls are on the side here.  You just relax, lay back and enjoy.  I'll be back in 20 minutes."  She backs out of the room in complete silence.

Soaking in a tub is one of my most favourite things - forget raindrops on roses - nearly scalding water with a good book in my hand, and I'm in heaven.  Soaking in a tub in a room full of candles?  Decadence. I hang my fluffy robe on the chrome hook on the wall, swig back half my glass of lemon water and sink into the perfectly heated tub.  This.  This is fantastic.  I reach over to the controls for the jacuzzi and hit the "ON" button.

It's like there is a 250 HP power motor somewhere in the room. The propulsion of the jets nearly lifts me from the tub.  Where is the low setting on this sucker?  As I'm desperately searching to adjust the settings, one particular jet gives me a jolt in my nether regions. 

"Whoa!"  I jump. I let out a surprised snort of laughter.  Do I have to pay extra for that?  And then you know how sometimes you have those thoughts that you oughtn't have?  Not-for-public-consumption thoughts?  There I was, in a jacuzzi tub with jets that apparently wanted to please me, and I had them for 20 minutes.  I sat with my hand on the controls, debating for a full minute and a half.

NO.  It would be WRONG.  Wouldn't it?  But I am supposed to be here to relax and that would relax me...  I glance over at the door.  I look at the clock on the wall.  What time had I come in?  Was it 2:00 p.m.?  I hadn't looked when I sat in the tub.  How much time had I wasted?  Then I got to thinking about the logistics.  Where were the jets?  The good ones, I mean.  Not directly under me.  So I'd have to kind of  have to position myself on one hip to get the kind of massage I was now contemplating.  Well, it wouldn't hurt to just try...

"WHOA!"  Too much!  The 250 HP was too much.  My finger punches the low setting over and over.  Where was the 'just right'?  Where was that setting?  Shouldn't there be a setting with a star beside it or something?  To let you know that if you're going to attempt something wholly inappropriate in a near public location that THIS is the setting to use?  I start giggling.  This was some sort of twisted version of Beat the Clock.  I couldn't relax under these circumstances!  Now I was totally thinking about it too much.  Here I'd already wasted a good 7.5 minutes just trying to figure out the right setting.  I snort again.  By the time I figure it out to get the full benefits - she'll be knocking on the door to let me know it's time to get out of the tub.  I turn off the jets completely.

"Get thee gone temptress.  Away with your bubbly wiles."

Still, it did keep a smile on my face for the rest of the day...

Obsessing about ONE box...

WARNING: there is too much information in this post.

We moved a week ago.  Downsizing by half means we have spectacular box stackage in the new house.  Boxes, as far as the eye can see.  Boxes, piled 4 - 6 feet high.  The master bedroom, at present nearly impenetrable, because there is an entire room of craft/sewing supplies waiting to be stacked in the back of the soon-to-be designed closet under the eaves. 

For the past week, I've been searching for the box into which I deposited the contents of my bedside table.  I have a stack of books + my e-reader in that box.  That e-reader has become my Holy Grail.  I've got the latest Kim Harrison book on it - fantasy escapism is in that e-reader - plus a crapload of erotica.  And right now - I am in great need of fantasy escapism.  The visual chaos surrounding me is making me batshit crazy.  My wild-eyed panic usually hits at the end of the day - when I'd like to decompress with a good, or at the very least, satisfying book.

As I was madly searching for the missing box last night - I had a horrifying realization.  Other contents of my bedside table are in that box.  Other adult contents of my bedside table.  My Hitachi Magic Wand is in that box!!!  I've lost my royal sceptre!  Plus other things are now missing... other 'help you have good sex' things.  Things that made me tell Rissa years ago, "Do NOT go into my bedside table."  "Why?"  "There are sex things there."  "EEEEEEEEEEEWWWW Mummy."  "Yes, and if you root around in there all you'll be able to think of is Daddy and me having sex with them."  "MUMMY!"  "Told you."

There are 15 years of marriage props in that box.  The best of the best is in that box.  Over 15 years of marriage you try and discard a lot of stuff.  Like say, the honey dust, which although it tastes good, having the dedicated time to dust or be dusted by your partner is almost non-existent and then when the dust gets even slightly wet - you just end up sticky.  And even though you're supposed to lick it off - come on - who has the time or the energy to do a full-body lick.  And then the sheets are all sticky...  And that means that you have to do even more laundry after your adult play date... 

But there are other things in that box.  Tried and true things - just the right size, just the right fit, the right amount of... shall we say... glide...  Things that were purchased at the Sex Shop equivalent of a Whole Foods store.  Pricey, organic things.

Which means that now I need to go shopping.  And you know what's going to happen, right?  I'll re-source my bedside table contents and then of course the box will show up and I'll have two of everything.  I'm having a flashback to  Double Mint commercials.   Double your pleasure, double your fun.   Even just the thought of that scenario is going to keep me smiling all day.

Help! He's too hot to touch me!

* The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but that only works if you haven't personally been to this particular clinic.  If you HAVE been to this clinic, you know EXACTLY who I'm typing about.

"Which physiotherapist would you prefer?  Justin is available..."

"NO!  NOT JUSTIN!!! ... Uh, I mean... how about Walter or Jamie...?"

"Sure we can set you up with Jamie..."

And it's not that Walter or Jamie aren't attractive young men in their own right.  Fit, muscular, nice guys - the pair of them.  It's just that Justin, the owner of the sports medicine clinic and head physiotherapist, is drop dead gorgeous.  Like movie star gorgeous.  Seriously. 

People palpitate when in close proximity to his beauty.  I can't have a guy that good looking, who I'm NOT married to, manipulating my shoulder and massaging into my arm pit for my torn rotator cuff.  One well-timed twitch on my part and the guy's got his hand on my breast.  And then after he's accidentally been touching my breasts.. See?  Do you SEE how it could quickly escalate?!?

I've been told there are other women who bring their husbands with them as chaperones if they have appointments with Justin.  Seriously.  He's that good looking.  Tall, dark and handsome.  I'd be spending all the time when he was ultrasounding my injury having lewd and lascivious thoughts.

Lee Pace is CLOSE to as good-looking as "Justin."

I was going to try to surreptitiously get a photo of him, to prove how I'm not crazy and that he does, in fact, live up to my near-worshipful reports of him, but felt that might push me well into stalker territory.

There are few real life guys who will make a gal's heart stutter with nothing other than an introduction.  Sure, after you've gotten to know someone, they might become drop-dead gorgeous to you, but that instantaneous response?  It's only happened a handful of times in my life.  In university, a guy from the French side of the Theatre Dept. had pheromones that nearly drove me out of my mind; Cosmo the clown, from California, whom I met when I did a Fringe tour in Saskatoon with my Shakespeare company in the mid 90s, who was diabolically piratical; meeting my husband in the loading dock of the theatre where we eventually married and... Justin the physiotherapist...

I become stuttery around Justin.  I purposely schedule my visits with other physiotherapists on days when I won't have to see Justin on account of my urge to giggle girlishly when he is peripherally within my vision.  One time, I had to switch from a Tuesday to a Wednesday and I forgot that Justin would be there.  He walked past me and my mouth literally turned dry - the complete opposite of what my other body parts were doing.  

He says hello to me and I can't respond verbally.  I lower my eyelashes like some twitty Southern Belle and offer a nervous smile. He probably thinks I'm mute.  I'm waiting for him to start up a conversation in ASL with me.  I had to get up, go in to the bathroom and slap myself across the face to get it together.  "No more Wednesdays!  No more Wednesdays!"  Glaring at my torn rotator cuff,  "Mend, damn you!  MEND!!!"

Frankenovaries strike again...

WARNING: THIS POST IS ABOUT SEX WITH YOUNG MEN

There are sooooooo many things to enjoy about peri-menopause - it's hard to pick a favourite.  But pretty high on that list would be how my peri-menopausal ovaries take over my higher brain functions when in the presence of young men.  My lady bits are apparently so desperate for that last stab at sure-fire insemination, that the most innocent of contact with a man in his prime, say between the ages of 19-22, will bring on L.U.S.T.  All-encompassing - choke you with its power - LUST.  

The good thing is, by and large, I'm not around young men most of the time. David's 40;  most of our friends are between the ages of 30 and 55.   I'm pretty sure that's what's kept me from getting arrested.  "Ma'am, put the boy down.  Put him down NOW."  Problem is? If this menopause thing doesn't happen in the next 5 years... Rissa will then be 18 1/2, and more than likely, she'll be bringing male friends home who will then be in that dreaded YOUNG MAN age bracket.  And no matter what your average cougar tries to tell you?  It is NEVER cool to hit on your daughter's friends.  NEVER.

I'm scared.  'Cause right now, when confronted with a young man full of youthful testosterone (the essence of stalwart sperm as it were), I pretty much lose my mind.  My failing ovaries do the Frankenstein walk.   

"Sperm.  Must have sperm."   

WAIT!!  Maybe my ovaries are actually ZOMBIE ovaries!  That is probably closer to the truth.  Maybe they've just come back to life and they are hungering for that young sperm because way back then, that's what they were supposed to be on the hunt for!  Somewhere in their little poor little zombie ovary brains they think  recognize virility and they want it.  The final gasp before the shop shuts down and puts the CLOSED FOR BUSINESS sign in the window.

And I mean, sure, I like sex... who doesn't? It's a lot of fun.  But until peri-menopause hit, it wasn't my every waking thought.  It was on the back burner and then right before my period, David would know that something was on the horizon because I was doing my best impersonation of a sailor on shore leave.  He actually said to me at one point, "Honey, I'm feeling a bit like I'm just the man attached to the penis."  I'm chagrined to say that, at that time, he probably was.  There were several years where those ovaries were convinced they needed attention - and a lot of it.  Lately, though, I though that it was all easing up, that the girls had calmed down.  I was wrong.

So this is basically a warning to all the young bucks out there.  Give me and my voracious ovaries a wide berth.  Don't come too close or you may be sucked into our orbit and who knows when, or even if, you'll escape.  I'd say we're like a black hole, but I'm a redhead... (ba-doom-ching) You get the gist, right?  Keep your distance.  It's for your own safety.  Just sayin'.

R'UH R'OH!! I'm behaving inappropriately... AGAIN.

I'm screwed.  My new crush is totally inappropriate on at least 2 levels (there might be more).

1. He's an 18 year old boy.
   
   *face palm*
   
   (But really, if you think about it - this isn't as bad as when I had a crush on Taylor Hanson when he was 16, because at least this kid is technically LEGAL.)
2. He bears more than a passing resemblance to my daughter's 13 year old boyfriend.  And that, my friends, makes me a perv AND a bad Mom.
   
   *face palm*

I recently heard him interviewed on a rebroadcast of yesterday's Q with Jian Ghomeshi.  This 18 year old was so freaking well-spoken that I actually got turned on listening to him. (Quick!  Hit the listen button on the Q page right now before you even scroll down - experience what I initially experienced while driving home last night .) The fact that's he's adorable and articulate??  I was already in the midst of indecent day dreams about the kid WHILE DRIVING HOME.  Eloquence is my crack.  That doesn't sound right.  Eloquence is like crack to me.  Someone who can turn a phrase with confidence?  sigh. 

But then I got home and Googled the kid  and he looks like this:

Jan Lisiecki.

I mean LOOK at him.  Just LOOK at him.  I want to pick him up and squidge him!  PLUS, in addition to being my latest skinny blonde boy crush (young Leonardo DiCaprio, young Taylor Hanson, young Ilia Kulik), he's this astoundingly fantastic pianist.  I listened to him play two Chopin Etudes and got positively light-headed.  Then I might have watched a video of him playing and of course had to extrapolate about how all that intensity and manual dexterity would make for some pretty spectacular fireworks in a more intimate arena... Hold on... wait a second... I just need another second here...

NO!!!!!!

Bad Heather.  Very bad Heather.   But I mean, come on, LOOK AT HIM!!!

SUPER SPINATUS!!!

Or at least that's what I thought the physiotherapist said it was.  It's actually SuPRAspinatus.  Supra - Latin for above and Spinatus from the Latin 'spina' which means thorn - which really has nothing to do with the spine, other than the vertabrae to which the muscle attaches look kind of spiny I guess, but that's only if you're looking at the actual bones of the spine - which begs the question, were those Romans looking at peoples' spines - like outside of their skin?  When did that sort of thing start happening?  Who was the first guy to think "I know, let's cut this person open and look at all their bony bits?"  Course that would have been in Latin so it would have been more like - "Scio, quis sit iste interficiam aperire et vide omnia frena suis ossea," but I guess WAY back when, when those Romans were naming things they got sort of literal.  But me? I'm sticking with SUPER SPINATUS - it makes me feel like Super Grover.

Your SUPER SPINATUS is the top muscle in your rotator cuff.  Mine is angry. It got pissed off about a month ago and apparently, when one continues to use said muscle, it'll say FUCK YOU and just decide to stop working.  What's truly sad is that I didn't even really injure it doing anything.  I felt a wee twinge one night doing some pushups.  And it's not like I decided one night Hey!  I know!  I'm going to do 100 pushups and completely fuck up my body! after having not attempted them in decades.  That's not what happened.  I worked up to it - you know, gradual-like.  I went the girly pushup route for a while - then I did half and half - then I was doing 10 full-on pushups every night before bed.  Whereupon, one night, I had a small twinge and then a few nights later that twinge became more aggressively ouchy. Now I'm going to have to lie and invent some shit and say that I fell dramatically or did it bungy jumping - I can't say that my body can't handle 10 measly pushups.  I was so proud of those pushups.  What has happened to my body that doing 10 freaking pushups can put me out of commission?

So here's where I started to fuck up a bit.  Once the pain started, I didn't really stop using the arm. The twinges started and I just figured that I'd move through it.  I will admit that was an error on my part.  I was lifting things and holding things and high-fiving things and by the time I got to my physiotherapy appointment yesterday, my shoulder was an achy mass of irritated muscle - even when it was hanging limply by my side.

Then, when you're recounting your behaviours over the past couple of weeks to the physiotherapist it becomes clear that you've been an idiot.  And not just 'cause you can see the look of disappointment on the physiotherapist's face, but because you realize, in your own brain, that you're a complete moron and that your body does not bounce back the way it used to when you were younger.  And everything that they tell you makes complete sense and would be the recommendation that you'd give to your friend the next time that they injure their SUPER SPINATUS.  So now, as I hold my elbows into my body as I'm typing and thrust my shoulders back to improve my posture every time the tape pulls (the tape that the physiotherapist has placed on my back to remind me to sit up straight) I know that it is my own stupidity that will have me visiting the physiotherapist twice a week for the next couple of months. 

One good thing to come out of this adventure is that I get to be stoned for awhile, you know, until the swelling goes down.  Like right now?  I'm totally stoned on Aleve.  The good thing - strike that - the GREAT thing about having my particular body chemistry is that naproxen can make me loopy.  So can 1/2 a glass of wine.  Mix 'em together and you've got a really happy Heather Bunny.  But don't. Seriously.  Drugs and alcohol don't mix kids.  Even better?  I don't have to do exercises yet.  I LOVE this physiotherapist. I have damaged myself so much that it's probably going to take a week or two to take the swelling down.  I'm sure that after that, when I've gotten to know Jeremy really well over the next few months I'll be cursing him when I eventually have to do exercises, but for now?  I just get to lie on the table and let him ultrasound me.  Yeah, that's right.  I'm getting ultrasounded.  And while he's ultrasounding my shoulder I know he's thinking Man, for someone who is 45 her shoulder is freaking hot.

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.

Still Crushing - after all these years...

1984.  I was 16.  I had a crush on a kid three years my junior.  He was strong, he was brave, he was determined.  He was open-vested.

Atreyu.  (sigh)  Oh Atreyu.  Screaming to save Artax - yanking on those frickin' reins.  And then (SPOILER ALERT) the damn horse drowns and now, almost 30 years later, I still get a lump in my throat.

And then when Atreyu meets up with Rock Biter when he is washed up on shore... Only the soulless cannot be affected: 

So what am I doing now?  Ordering the book online, because in spite of having seen the movie at least a dozen times, I've never read the original text by Michael Ende.  I may have to have box of tissues handy.  Because of the tears you sick bastards -  the kid is still 13, even after all these years!!  And it was the purest kind of love.

Ryan could come stay with me... I mean us...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/03/21/ryan-gosling-acting-break.html

I'm just saying.  You know, if Ryan Gosling really needs a break and someplace to chill.  He could chill in our attic.  It would be a no-stress environment for him.  I mean, apart from dealing with the mid-40s woman pretending she's all nonchalant, who just happens to be on the floor below him, imagining him doing pushups right before bed...  on top of her. 

I could be all caj...(that's short for casual, see, I'm hip)... I wouldn't fawn over him or anything, that would be so déclassé. Occasionally I'd invite him to a family dinner, "Ryan, we're having pot roast!  You in?"  Ask if he wants to go the library, that sort of thing.  Small provincial town - if he wore a ballcap I'm sure that folks wouldn't recognize him.  Just sayin.'

Sex is GOOD...

WARNING!! Adult sexual content in this post!

The grinding of pelvises, the bumping of uglies, the making of the beast with two backs...  The orgasm that makes you laugh or cry or yodel.  It's so freaking good!

For the first time in at least a month, David and I reconnected... intimately.  Right afterwards, we turned to each other and said "This is SO GOOD.  We should do this more often."  That night, I slept like a baby.  When we came down the next morning, we shared knowing glances.  I giggled like a school girl, he waggled his eyebrows at me.   The tension release was fantastic!

And yet we don't make it a priority.  It doesn't take that much effort.  I mean, once you get through the squaring of the shoulders in preparation for the mount.  You know what I'm talking about.  You're tired, your pillow whispers dirty nothings to you, or that last chapter in your book beckons.  You lean in for that half-assed attempt at a kiss, mentally rolling your eyes.

But then... if you're actually present in the moment?  You remember that kissing this person is not just a good thing, it's a great thing.  That tasting this person makes you wet... If you can just get through the first part and get to the remembering part?  The sex is pretty much always good.  I mean, if you're doing it right.   And after almost 15 years of marriage, David and I are definitely doing it right.  We excel at sex.  We should be given medals for it.  We just have to keep jumping up into the saddle and embracing the yodel.

Musical Theatre Geeks of the world unite!

WARNING:  ADULT LANGUAGE IN THIS POST

I might have developed this... uh....little... small... (wee really)... obsession with Tim Minchin.  Nothing warranting  Mr. Minchin seeking out a restraining order or anything.  It's totally the Bloggess's fault.  In September of this year, she mentioned him in one of her posts.  I watched some clips on You Tube and fell hard for this comic musical genius.

 

I'm talking Donny Osmond/Shaun Cassidy hard.*   I want a poster of him for my bedroom ceiling. I'm this close to imagining what kind of eyes our babies would have.  Imagine scribblers filled with Mrs. Heather Minchin in curly letters, embellished with illuminated hearts and glitter glue.  

The dude is so freaking cool - it's hard to impart that kind of adoration in a non-sexual/stalker context.  He is the most profanely profound comedian/musician I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.  Think Louis C.K. as a composer-singer.  Minchin has the goods, and for a guy who doesn't read music he will blow your fucking mind with his piano playing.

(Mr. Minchin - I'm really not a stalker - nothing at ALL close to Kathy Bates in ANY context here - I promise - just your average Canadian Musical Theatre Geek - who salivates just a titch when you squeeze 25 syllables into a musical phrase and can articulate them all.)

Last week we drove 45 minutes to see a simulcast of Jesus Christ Superstar from the UK.   I would have gone to see it anyway as Superstar is my favourite rock opera of all time (the best of Rice and Webber), but when I found out that Tim Minchin was starring as Judas, I lost my mind... in an adorable, not-at-all-threatening, nor indicating any sort of psychotic break, way.

The production itself was fan-fucking-tastic!  (It wasn't perfect, there were some musical direction things that I didn't agree with... DON'T, for the love of Ian Gillan, go for the Big Broadway  Finish ANYWHERE in Superstar.  It doesn't need it.)    The tour was well-staged, well-acted not too dancy-dancy...  Melanie C as Mary Magdalene killed it, Ben Foster did a great job as Jesus, Alex Hanson as Pilate was delicious,  Pete Gallagher's first notes as Ciaphus nearly had me creaming my pants... but Minchin?  Was freaking brilliant as Judas.   I didn't know he had the chops to sing it - as that epiphany hit me, I fell harder and harder for the dude.  Judas's (spoiler alert) death had me in tears - and I wasn't even anywhere close to my period.

Then there's Christmas Day!  Less than a month from getting the chance to see Superstar - Les Mis will be in theatres.  Please, please, please don't let them fuck it up!  Please!  Let it be the perfect thing for my family to do on Christmas Day!!!   Please, please, please!!!  Let me get chills, let me weep, let it be all that a musical theatre geek could hope for!!!**

*(OR for people a decade younger... Michael Jackson/Rick Astley hard.... OR for people two decades younger... Backstreet Boys/NSync hard... if you're any younger than that you probably shouldn't be reading this blog.)

**Spoiler Alert - Les Mis (apart from Anne Hathaway's I Dreamed a Dream and Eddie Redmayne's Empty Chairs at Empty Tables) did NOT live up to its hype.  For the love of all that's holy in musical theatre give us some fucking long shots!