I really miss my right arm.

Ironing left-handed is akin to learning to ride a unicycle, but I'm pretty sure this hobble-shouldered old dog can learn new tricks.  Cursing and taking double the time to actually get clothes wrinkle-free - but 20 minutes later, the shirt's relatively smooth.  TAH-DAAAAH!!!!  Until the iron falls, spilling water everywhere, and I reach for it with my dominant arm.  What are the synonyms for pain?  Imagine them all now... all of them...   Each one emanating from my supremely fucked right shoulder socket....

I want to take the iron, and throw it through our living room window.  Except I can't, because I can't throw with my good arm, and if I attempt with my left arm, I'll probably hit myself in the head by accident.  I want to light the now re-wrinkled shirt on fire and throw it through that broken window.  I want to dance in the flames of the burning shirt and howl into the night sky.  I don't, but I really, really want to.  My shoulder and right bicep scream with me.

"Breathe Heather.  Just breathe."  I pour myself a Scotch - my best Scotch, the 12 year old Scotch - over ice.  I tumble the ice in the glass take deep breaths. 

I will not desolve into tears.  I will not desolve into tears.  I will not desolve into tears..."  I pledge, as tears now roll down my cheeks.

David glances up from his computer.  He hasn't heard anything because he works with headphones on.  "What happened?"

"Iron," I mumble around the rim of my old-fashioned glass. Right elbow, tucked into my side, right hand pushing the glass up to my lips as my left arm holds the shoulder down, in case it decides to do anything else stupid.

"Pardon?"

I point to the offending small appliance with my chin.  "Iron.  Falling.  Catching.  Apparently right-handedness is instinctive."

"Oh baby...  Can I get you something?"  He smooths the tears from my cheeks.

"Yeah. Can you please place me in a coma for the next 18 months?"

"?!?"

"A coma.  Just put me in a coma until the shoulder unfreezes."

'Cause that's what'll happen.  A shoulder can decide to freeze, all on its own, and it can decide to unfreeze - all on its own.  Regardless of treatment, drugs, physio.  One morning a year and a half from now, I might just wake up and be fine.  Until then - bumping that arm, attempting to use it to pick shit up off the floor, absent-mindedly putting weight on it, can send the closest thing to labour pain that I've experienced since giving birth.  I'm not exaggerating.  I bumped that fucker while performing onstage and almost passed out.  For last half hour of the play, I counted the seconds to get to drugs.  My shoulder, as it freezes, is actually worse since I started physio.  That's counter-intuitive.

Apparently, my body provides the perfect storm for weird-ass shit like this.  Frozen shoulder affects only 2-3% of the population.  Between peri-menopause and Hashimodo's Disease,  I am rocking those percentages.  I am a statistical GLADIATOR!  I should totally be buying those Princess Margaret lottery tickets! I have a 98% chance of winning! 

Cat Fanatic.

"Rissa!!! BEST WALK EVER!!!"

"It was?"

"YES!!  One cat on the way there... Three, no wait!  FOUR cats on the way back..."

"Two cats there, Mummy.  You saw two cats on the way over."  We had walked Rissa over to her friend's house.

"I did?"

"Yes,  the long-haired dark grey one and a tabby."

"I can't believe that I forgot the tabby!  You're right, there was that tabby, too!  It must be all the other wildlife that's throwing off my counting."

"All the other wildlife?  What did you see?"  Like any other child raised watching Zoboomafoo, in Rissa's mind I was walking hand-in-paw with a panda bear who, in turn, had a duck-billed platypus riding upon its back, with a couple of cabybaras thrown in on the side.

"Some crazy-ass squirrels, and you remember that basset hound that you and Daddy wouldn't let me veer off course to pet?  Him.  We somehow just managed to walk down that street to come home, I don't know how it happened, it's like I have some sort of freaky furry radar.  But before we got to him, there were three other cats."  I have now morphed into an addict who got an unexpected fix. 

"Three other cats?"

"Yes.  One on the one side, close to the basset hound.  But then there was another one on the other side of the road - kitty corner to the basset hound.  There was one cat on the sidewalk that I went over to talk to, "I was all, hey cat, how you doin?" And then a second cat came from the backyard, rolled onto its back and demanded that I pet its stomach!  Plus, the other day - bunny right on the sidewalk!!"

"Plus a bunny?"

"No, the bunny was the other day, but up until today, that had been my best petting spree because there was the bunny, which didn't let me pet it, but did let me get really close to it, but then there was a cat, plus two other cats who all let me pet them - all on the same block.  It was a magical block.  But then today - BOOM - record broken!  Because on top of the all of those animals - that same long haired dark grey cat was still out and ran over to meet us when we came around the corner!!!  He ran,  from his house, all the way to the corner when he saw me!"  I'm holding my hands out - soaking up the feline spirit into my palms.  Eyes closed, thankful for the gifts I have been given.

"So, you like animals, I guess?" says Rissa's friend, who up until that moment had been standing slack-jawed at my rant.

I run back the soundtrack from the last minute and a half in my head.  Crazy Cat Lady ALL over it.  I shrug, now playing at nonchalance.  "Yeah.  You know.  Whatever."

"So the same dark grey long-hair came to you?" Rissa asks.

"HE TOTALLY DID!!!"

DOWN!! Put the bread down!

When I was younger, I worshipped at the altar of white flour.  My Mom would get these crusty Kaiser rolls - the ones you could select with the fancy tongs in the bakery dept.  I would devour them - butter slathered all over their fluffy insides.  No protein anywhere to be found.  Just bread and butter.  Two, three rolls at a time.  They took me to a happy place; a place where simple carbohydrates were converted to sugar.  Over and over I made this trip.  And pasta?  I could be half way through a plate of spaghetti, already anticipating my second plate.

When I hit puberty I started having dizzy spells.  I was taken to doctors who told my parents that the dizzy spells were brought on by hypoglycemia and that I had to change my diet.  This was in 1982, so mostly what the docs said was that I had to give up foods that converted quickly into sugar.  White bread or anything made with white flour was no longer an option.  Potatoes were discouraged.  Wait a second, potatoes... discouraged?!?  Life seemed over, or it would have been had my diet been truly altered.

Because my hypoglycemia wasn't life-threatening, diet restrictions didn't seem all that important to follow.   I'd never actually passed out - never had a seizure - didn't even flirt with comas - I got just a little bit flaky - or in my case flakier - the consequences didn't seem too dire.  Or at least, that's how I convinced my Mom that I could still eat potatoes.  Because it didn't really get worse, I sailed away into the rosy carbohydrate sunset - oblivious to consequence.

Fast-forward 15 years and a bit. You know when things come back to bite you in the ass?  Well those toothy chickens came home to roost.  I'd have managed, but David, who'd never seen me in the midst of a good sugar crash quickly became horrified and dragged me to the ER.  I saw doctors, dietitians and naturopaths who pointed me to the straight  and narrow.  The doctor said my blood sugars were borderline.  The dietitian reminded me to eat smaller meals more frequently and told me to include whole wheat in my diet - I couldn't just have a microwave dinner at work, I also had to have a whole wheat roll along with it.  The naturopath said to avoid all things wheat - stick to brown rice or quinoa for my grains - Rice crackers, rice cakes for fiber.   Soy milk instead of dairy.  "Should I go gluten-free?"  "YES.  Definitely."

Rice crackers, rice cakes, rice pasta - for years now they've been the vehicle upon which I devour my protein.  Because a lot of people have now leapt onto the gluten-free bandwagon,  not eating wheat is a little easier.  There's a dedicated section of the No Frills filled with high-priced, sawdust-tasting, gluten-free options. Sure, I succumb to the call of the wild Timbit now and again, but mostly I've been towing the line.

Which is why I've been a little confused as to why my blood sugar has suddenly decided to swan dive.  Used to be I could go 3 hours between fuel stops.  Now, at the 2 hour mark, I'm thrown back into graphic reminiscence of first trimester nausea and dizziness.  Upon research - I'm more confused than ever.  Could be hypoglycemia, could be peri-menopause, could be thyroid...  Place your bets!  Place your bets!

As a hypoglycemic of the new Millennium, I've learned that I need to be concerned about the glycemic index and glycemic load of foods.  Anything in the "HIGH" range should be avoided.  Turns out that  the carbohydrates I've been consuming for the last decade or so are some of the WORST things I could be eating for my blood sugar.  And last summer a Naturopath friend found out I was on thyroid medication and freaked out when she saw me drinking soy milk.

"YOU CAN'T HAVE SOY!!"

"I can't??"

"NO!   It will render your thyroid medication ineffective."

"It will?"

"It will."

So the foods that were supposed to help me 15 years ago are now screwing with me?  Not cool advances in dietary restrictions!  NOT COOL!   I go in to talk to my doctor to get a referral to a dietician.

I tell him about the worsening dizziness and the new nausea.  He tells me I don't need to talk to a dietician.

"I can tell you what you need to do.  You need to have three small meals and three snacks."

"I do that."

"You  need to have protein with your carbs and/or avoid all carbs.  Avoid root vegetables..."

"Uhhhh.... what about what the Canada Food guide says?"

"No, carbs are bad.  I rarely eat any carbs..."

"I think maybe I should talk to a..."

"Almonds!  If you feel like your blood sugar's dropping, have a handful of almonds..."

"I do that.  I'm not so much worried about the dizziness... it's dizziness's sidekick, nausea, that's worrying me."

"Why didn't you mention the nausea?"

"I did mention the nausea.  That's why I wanted to talk to a dietician."

"Well if I'd concentrated on the nausea - we wouldn't be going down this path about the dizziness.  This is a waste of time.  I've now wasted my time.  If we're talking about nausea with hunger, that's a different thing.  That's possible stomach tumors."

Always great when your GP threatens you with stomach cancer to shut you up.

I refused to cave.  "Maybe it's best if I talk to a dietician."

"Good eating habits, if you follow them, can deal with all of this.  If you track your food patterns.  There this website that..."

"I track my food patterns."

He's circling his wagons now.  "Make sure you have protein with every snack.  You could do soy..."

Okay, we're back to the protein are we?  "I've been told to avoid soy because of my thyroid medication."

"Told?  Or did you READ about it?"

Ah yes, now I'm the hypochondriac who diagnoses herself over the internet.  Hold your ground, Heather.  "Told.  A licensed naturopath told me.  MAYBE. IT'S. BEST. IF. I. SEE. A. DIETICIAN." You patronizing, unlistening rat bastard... 

My eyebrows raise slightly.  This is ON...

He heaves a resigned sigh and grabs his tape recorder.  "Patient has been  having issues with possible hypoglycemia, worsening dizziness and nausea.  I have spoken to her about eating smaller meals with snacks, tracking her food patterns.  Patient would still like to speak to a dietician..."    He finishes with the tape recorder.  "It'll still probably take several weeks to get a referral."

"I can wait."

She started it!!

"Don't crash while I'm doing this," I say as I unbuckle my seat belt.

"O....kay," says David - eyes now glued to the road in front of him.  His peripherals have extended to a 6 foot radius around the car.

We're on our way to the airport.  Rissa is travelling to Vancouver. BY HERSELF.  At 14.  And yes, there are kids who travel as unaccompanied minors, all over the world, at much younger ages, but those unaccompanied minors don't have legs up to their armpits and  perky boobs.  They don't get mistaken for 21.  The last time Rissa travelled by train to my parents' place she had a guy in his 30s ask where she went to school.  She gave the name of our home town.

Dude says, "I didn't know there was a university there."

Rissa say, "There isn't.  It's a public school.  I'm in Grade 8."

That's when Dude moved seats, fearing incarceration just by proximity, I'm guessing.

I would have been okay if we could go through security with her - if I could have sat next to her until she boarded the plane.  But it's the 21st century, unless you have your own boarding pass, that ain't happening in an airport.

So there I am, climbing into the backseat of the car.

"Needed to be back here, huh?" says Rissa.

"Yes."  I wrap my arm around her, trying to absorb her into my side.  If we become conjoined before we reach security, they'll have to let me in.

She snuggles into me.  We chitchat the rest of the way to Pearson.  We sing at the top of our lungs to her airport playlist.  By the time we make it to the airport, my stomach has calmed a titch.  It'll be okay.  She'll be fine.

As my foot steps into the terminal, nausea takes hold.  I'm holding Rissa's hand, fake-smiling as we wend our way to the security station.  We'd  checked-in online - so I didn't have any person behind a desk to say this to:  "She's only 14!!!  She might look like she's all grown up, but she's ONLY 14!!  Don't let any creepers try to feel her up before she's on the plane!  LOOK OUT FOR MY BABY!!!"

Instead, we walk past the shops and restaurants towards security.  We see the queue barriers and Rissa stops dead.  I'm keeping it together.  I am KEEPING IT TOGETHER.  She turns to me and gives a little smile, but then her bottom lip trembles a bit and she grabs onto me as if I'm a life preserver.  I can feel her hiccuping to hold back sobs.  I'm done for.  I start bawling like a newborn calf.

"It's okay, baby... It's okay baby...  It's okay..."  I'm smoothing her hair.  To David:  "What's the cheapest ticket we can buy!?!"

"Heather, you're not helping," says David.

"She started it!"

David pulls me away from from her.  "You okay?" he asks Rissa.

"Yeah..." she says, putting her chin up, not meeting his eye.  "I'm fine."  Then she pats me on the shoulder "Mummy, I'm fine," she says.  "See?"  She gives me a broad grin.  "I'm okay.  I'll text you when I get to the gate."

We walk her to the bottom of the security line.

"May I see your boarding pass?" the security guard asks.  He checks it over.  "Okay, you're all in order.  You can line up there."

"SHE'S ONLY 14!!!" I blurt out as she walks away from us.

She's not in yet.  There are a few people in front of her.  I'm holding David's hand so tightly, I've cut off the circulation.  Just as she's reaching the door, one of the female security guards asks to see her boarding pass again.  The uniformed officer takes the pass and checks it with the first guy.  She returns to Rissa.

"You'll be heading to gate 227.  When you get out of security, you'll turn to your left," the officer says.  Rissa nods and thanks her.  I share a moment of eye contact with the security guard and mouth THANK YOU to her across the queue line.  Then Rissa's through the door.  I can't see her.  I CAN'T SEE HER!!!  David moves me further around so that I can at least see the back of her head as she's moving by the conveyor belt.  I lose sight again.

"Where is she?!?"

"She's going through the scanner," he says.  He's half a foot taller, and can crane his head much further, than I.  "She's through.  She's putting her shoes back on.  She's got her bag now.  She's opening it.  She's putting her boarding pass into the zippered front...  There she is..."  He indicates this tall young woman, shoulders back, head up, striding towards her gate.

"You okay?" David asks.

I start to nod my head, but then shake it.   My bottom lip starts trembling.  My morning coffee threatens to travel back up my esophagus.  "I think I might throw up."

"Let's have a bite to eat," he says.  "Your blood sugar's probably low.  We can wait until she's on the plane."

"Okay," I say.  "She didn't wave after she went through security."

"No, she didn't," he says.  "She probably couldn't see that far - she didn't have her glasses on."

He's right.  She can't see that far without her glasses on.  That was why.  It wasn't because she didn't need us any more.  She just couldn't see us.  That was it. 

After the waitress takes our order, I rest my head on the table.  This is so much worse than her riding from the Downsview subway south across the city, around Union Station  to meet us at Wellesley Station when she was 12.  She was 1/2 a foot shorter then - she wasn't mistaken for a university student then.

"I need Gravol."  I'm up, out of my seat running across to the last-minute shop.  Organic Gravol is all they have.  Here I wanted something to knock me out - the anti-nauseau equivalent to Xanax - and what was at the shop?  Organic, made from dried, crushed ginger, Gravol.  "You don't have anything that will put me into a short-term coma??"  I buy them anyway.  I head back to the restaurant and down one more than the recommended dose, hoping that might do the trick.

bing

David looks down at his phone.  He holds it out to me.

I'm at the gate now parental units.

"Do you want to text her back?" he asks.

"Yes!!!"  I take the phone, but can't make my fingers work.  My organic drugs have yet to take effect, I'm still shaky.  "Tell her to fake a seizure if anyone gets close to her."

He rolls his eyes.  Texts back "yay."

bing

Boarding now.  Love you.  MWAH!

            Text us as soon as you land.

Yeppers!

"That's it," he says.  "Off she goes.  You okay now?"

"I'm fine," I say.  "But she totally started the crying.  It wasn't me, you know."

"I know."

We leave the terminal, heading towards the parking garage.  17 feet away from the terminal, I stop dead.

"You want to make sure the plane leaves the runway?"

"Yes please."

Some things have to be documented.

"You guys just don't understand!!"

"Nobody else's mother does this, you know..."

"Yes, but this needs to be documented!  I've been suffering for at least two weeks now!"  I'm sitting at the computer with the web cam.

"She's right Heather, this is weird... even for you."

"Why are you guys laughing?"

"Why?  Because not only are you taking a picture of an ingrown hair you pulled from your neck, you're taking a picture of that ingrown hair, while listening to I'm Kissing You from Romeo and Juliet."

"I'm multi-tasking!"

"But this," I say, brandishing my tweezers, "was in my neck!  THIS!  A freaking Brillo Pad hair!  Feel it!"  I run over to David, thrusting the closed tweezers at him.  "Feel this!  Just FEEL it!!"

Eyes wide, face covered with 'just humour her,' he feels the hair caught between the tweezers. He raises his eyebrows.  "That is, indeed, a Brillo Pad hair.  I can see why having it in your neck would bother you."

"I know... right?  Rissa, you should take a look at this!"

"No, I"m good thanks."

"Just feel it.  So you understand my pain."

"No, really...  I'm okay Mummy...."

"Heather, stop terrorizing her."

"I'm not terrorizing her."

"You are chasing her around with a neck hair held between tweezers."

"You guys just don't understand.  I've been waiting at least 20 minutes to even see if this was what I thought it was."

David looks at me like I'm nuts... again.

"During the movie (we'd been watching Terminator 2), I was picking at it and felt something, and I looked down and thought that it might be an ingrown hair, but couldn't be sure until I did a proper examination in brighter light, so I waited a whole other 20 minutes, with it balanced on my index finger, until I could go upstairs and grab the tweezers and make sure."

"You sat, holding a potential ingrown hair on your index finger for 20 minutes?"

Even I, at this point, realize that I'm sounding a little... odd.

"I'd been losing my mind - it was like I was growing a second head, out of my neck."

"And that's what was causing you to lose you mind, huh?"

"This time, yes."

Death by Raincoat

Thunderstorms in the morning.  I'm dressed like a Popsicle: lime green umbrella, bright pink rain coat, yellow rubber boots.  Rain coming at me sideways as I walk to work.  I'm wet from mid-thigh to the top of my boots.  It takes me all day to get dry. 

It's bank day.  A couple of cheques to deposit and bills to pay for work.  I start the trek downtown.  No longer raining, but for a couple of drops here and there - sun threatening to break through the clouds.  By the time I get to King Street - the day looks to clear.  I'm waiting in line for the business teller.  Five minutes pass.  Another five.  Now I'm feeling a little woozy.  It's past snack time and I don't have a snack on me.  What's the rule Heather?   Always have a snack.  I can feel my shins begin to sweat in my rubber boots.  And then I notice that my ass and upper thighs, covered by the rain coat, are self-basting.  The underside of my breasts threaten to become a viaduct. 

I hold onto the queuing pole.  I unzip my jacket.  It has these two little grommets under each of the armpits - you know - to help you breathe while sheathed in plastic - but I don't think they're working. Would it be wrong to completely strip down to my underwear? I think that's the only thing that might stop me from passing out.  

I feel my throat.  It's clammy.  Clammy isn't good. Clammy, for me, usually immediately precedes... great, the little dots of light have come - dancing around my peripheral vision.    I bend my knees slightly, wiggle my toes.  I won't pass out... I won't pass out.   I'm muttering to myself.  Stop muttering to yourself Heather!  They'll think you're crazy or a bank robber.  Holding on tighter to the pole.  Looking straight into the security camera.  I am not a bank robber.  I'm just hot.  Scrunching my eyes shut to stop the dancing dots.  Then popping them open when the world starts to tilt. The teller is beckoning me forward.

"Strange weather today."

"Mmmm... hmmm..."  I place my bills on the counter.  Don't pass out.  Do NOT pass out.

"Well, at least you were dressed for it."

"Yep.  Little warm now, though."  I think I have sweat pooling into my boots now.

"I can imagine.  Those raincoats don't breathe very well, do they?"

I nod in assent, my own breathing now shallow.

"Well, I think you're all good to go here."  She hands me the bills, I somehow manage to throw them into my bag and stagger to the door.  As soon as I'm out the door, I whip of my jacket, matador-esque - nearly blinding myself when the drawstrings with their little pink plastic tightener thingies come up and whack me in the head.  I'm a sweat zombie, insensibly stumbling down the sidewalk. 

Death by raincoat.  That's how they'll describe this when it gets into the local paper.  I gulp in lungfuls of air - desperate for oxygen while still doing my best not to hyperventilate.  I flap the hem of my shirt - airing out my wet stomach.  I glance down at the potentially womanslaughtering garment.  Where were the airing out holes?  Where were they??  Under the armpits.  Two grommets in each.  The grommets were there, but they didn't go through the lining of the coat.  Holes in the outside rubbery part of the coat, yes, but not all the way through.  This was not a breathable jacket!  These exterior grommets were decoys!  I'm clutching the armpits in a murderous grip - threatening to strangle the coat when I hear...

"Love your boots!!"

I glance up, and there's my friend Henry, all dapper in his sweater and complementary tie - looking cool and British and not like he's going to pass out from heat exhaustion.  He smiles and waves.  I wave back and cross the road to say hello.  By the time I get to the other sidewalk, my breathing has calmed, I'm no longer dizzy.  I look down at my boots.  I love them too. 

So there I was... naked, running with scissors...

Stompy.  I was SOOOOOO stompy.  Throwing blankets and sheets down to be washed.  Stomp.  Stomp.  Stomp.  David and Rissa exchanging "What the hell is happening?" looks below in the kitchen.

The panic had beset me while still in bed.   I'd looked up at the ceiling with the skim coat of drywall compound taunting me - just waiting to cover the entire room with its fallout of dust.  I shot a terrified look over to the closet wall.  Plastic running the entire length of the wall reassured me - the clothes might be safe.

I then glanced at the carpet.  Oh God.  Carpet and drywall dust - we were doomed.  The taper/mudder was coming back that day - there would be sanding - I had to find more floor coverings. I had one rotten sheet that covered 10 square feet.  I had to find more plastic.   Where was more plastic?!?  We didn't have enough plastic to cover the entire floor!!

My head shot side to side in panic before I spotted, in the corner, a bunched up pile of plastic.  Okay... Okay... this might work. If I could just get to the corner... but I couldn't, because our under-the-bed containers (that had been moved when we shoved the bed to the centre of the room), were in my way.    And a box full of completely superfluous shit was in my way.  And there were clothes on the chair just sitting there.  And what about our bedding?!?   

That's when, still naked,  I'd grabbed all the bedding off the bed and threw it down the stairs.  I ran back to our room and grabbed the plastic sheeting that we'd pulled off to be able to sleep in the bed overnight and laid it over top of the now-bare mattress.  I grabbed the first under-the-bed container, defying the strain in my bad shoulder and hefted it towards the stairs.

"DAVID!!  David I need you!!"
(Now I'd morphed into Inigo Montoya.)

David appeared at the bottom of the stairs.  His eyebrows raised at my nakedness and apoplectic state, but he said not a word.    He met me half way up the stairs, stepping around the previously thrown laundry and took the container from me.  I ran back up the stairs to grab the 2nd container, which I carried downstairs myself.

More looks passed between David and Rissa.  I knew I was behaving irrationally.  I knew that.  Could I stop it?  No.

I moved the superfluous shit box.  I grabbed the plastic sheeting.  Scissors!  I needed scissors!!  Where were the fucking scissors?!?  I was giving myself whiplash trying to locate them in the room.  I launched myself across the bed when I spotted the errant tool on the dresser.  Armed now, I cut the sheeting in two pieces - one could go at the head of the bed and then other at the foot.  What about beside the bed?!?  The one side had been covered by the stupid rotten sheet - but there was still the other side!!  We didn't have any more plastic.  Old sheets!  Where were our old sheets?  I had no fucking clue - probably hidden in the eaves of the now-sealed wall of closet.

I raced to Rissa's room.  I was now naked, running with scissors... I opened Rissa's blanket box.. no sheets.  But there was an old plaid polar fleece blanket.  "HAH!"  I ran with it back to my room and used the scissors to cleave it in half.  If I put them end-to-end that might just do!  Yes, that'd do.  The floor was mostly covered.  The drywall dust wouldn't hit the carpet, but if someone - say a taper/mudder of near gigantic proportions was moving around on these haphazard pieces of floor covering... TAPE!! I needed tape!  Painters' Tape, I found out, does not stick to plastic.  DUCT TAPE!  I needed duct tape.  By the time I was done, there was a patchwork quilt of pastic sheeting, a rotten sheet, cut up blankets and duct tape covering the majority of floor that was within drop distance of drywall dust.  Then, then I took a breath... and apologized to my family.

p.s.  Turns out?  According to our taper/mudder... plastic sheeting? Not the best bet when you then might want to walk on the area.  Better idea?  Floor underlayment paper.  Thankfully, he had to take another day for the mudding to really dry, so we had time to visit the home building centre and do this after work yesterday...

p.p.s.
Peri-menopause and home renovations don't mix.

Are they made from diamond dust?

You ever shop for bed skirts?  I was killing time at a Bed, Bath & Beyond a bit back, thinking "Hey!  We need some new bed skirts - I'll just have a looksee in their linens dept."

They started at $45 and went up from there.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the bed perimeter x 15 inches of good fabric sewn onto a piece of crap fabric that actually sits on the box spring, right? Is the part that you can actually see made from spun gold or diamond dust?  It's just sheet fabric right?  It doesn't even have to be high-count sheet fabric - it's not going to go anywhere close to your body, and at floor level who is going to say, "Hey, that's 180 count fabric if ever I saw it"??

This is when not having energy pisses me off.  If I had loads of energy I would just buy some cheap-ass sheets and make my own bed skirts.  It's not rocket surgery.

My present ennui is stopping me from saving money. I'm all about saving money and now here I am, on the verge of buying freaking bed skirts.  And even if I did buy the bed skirts, just the thought of having to take the mattress and bedding off the box spring to then carefully smooth out the bed skirt seems too daunting a task.

So is this ennui that comes of moving to a new home and having accomplished the first round of renovations, or am I veering into depression territory?  Is my peri-menopause truly kicking into high gear and fucking with my sanity now?  'Cause either of those would be inconvenient.

What's really concerning me is that I don't want to go to movies.  And going to movies for me is probably my most favourite activity in the world - 3 weeks out of the month.  For the 4th week, I'm hormonal and all I want is sex, but those other 3 weeks, if I could see three movies a day in a movie theatre - I'd be in Heaven.  So when David suggests that we go see a movie, and I can't muster up the energy to leave the house, that's a pretty big freaking red flag for me.  Problem is, the signs of depression?  Apathy, exhaustion, mental fog?  Are remarkably like signs of Peri-menopause... depression, crashing fatigue, mental fog.  Which are also remarkably like signs of Hypothyroidism...  fatigue, depression, mental fog. 

I feel like I'm playing hormonal roulette...
 
Place your bets!  Place your bets!

Drowning once more in a pool of depression scares the shit out of me.  So I refuse to do that.  Not going to happen.  This, I have decided, is all peri-menopause crap.  My hormones have simply kicked into a higher gear of fucking with me - which, now that I'm aware and I know all the symptoms - I can counteract.  Today, when I get home from work, I'm ironing for the first time since Christmas. 

Baby steps, folks.  Tomorrow I'll unpack the last two boxes in my bedroom.

My boobs are growing.

Is one of the by-products of peri-menopause bigger boobs?  Because I'm pretty sure that my boobs are growing.  Swear to God.  I feel like I have pregnant boobs.  I'm ALL boobs.  I look in the mirror and they're just... there...  I mean really, there.  Like  KAPOW there!!   I walk into the room and they get there a few seconds before I do.

They feel... more... substantial.  And they're more, well, sensitive. Like in the nipppular and sidal regions.  Which is how they were when I was pregnant, and seeing as I just finished my period - I know that that's not the case, so what's the deal?  Anyone?   Anyone???

On the 34 symptoms of menopause site (which is really a misnomer - because menopause really means that you've ended all that shit - it should be peri-menopause.  It's like nauseous and nauseated.  Everyone says nauseous, but that means that it causes nausea in others - so if you say "I'm feeling nauseous" that really means that you're making other people want to throw up.  The word you want is nauseated - that's when you want to throw up.)  (Another by-product of peri-menopause is irritability - with small things - like improper word usage.)

So... two years ago, when I went to the 34 symptoms of menopause site, I checked off 18 of them.  Now I have 30 of them. Once I fill my peri-menopause card do I get a prize?

Heather, you've just won an all-expenses-paid vacation for 12 to... HAWAII!!!! 

I'd love to go to Hawaii.  After I've hit menopause.  If I went now, the heat and humidity would drive my irritability levels through the freaking stratosphere.  And the volcanoes - those would piss me off.  And the heat of the sun...  Safer for everyone if I go then.   Then I'd be able to lounge around in bright floral caftans with large floppy sun hats - because apparently after menopause you turn into an elderly Floridian woman.

"Bernie!  Bernie!  I said 3 olives in the martini!  THREE you bastard!"

The treadmill is trying to kill me.

"The treadmill is trying to kill me!"

"Kill you?" David asks skeptically.

"Well, it's, at the very least, trying to Gaslight me."

"And it's doing this, how??"

"Because I can't load Netflix."

David gives me the eyebrow equivalent to a face palm.   "And this is driving you mad?"

"Yes.  Yes, it is driving me mad."

David waits.

"It takes me forever to log in to Netflix on the treadmill."  (I watch Netflix via tablet when I'm on the treadmill.  It is the perfect way to distract myself from the fact that I hate exercise.  I could read a book, but it is not as distracting - I am therefore less content.  That's not to say that I don't LOVE reading books when I'm not on the treadmill - reading while I'm not on the treadmill makes me very content.)

 "How long is forever?"

"Between 5 and 22 minutes."

"That makes no sense.  I haven't had any problems with Netflix." 

"I'm telling you - it's the treadmill."

He shoots me another look.

"Only when you're on the treadmill?"

"Yes.  Only when I'm on the treadmill."

"Does it just pause momentarily... or...?"

"It goes into an endless buffering cycle.  It tells me that it can't access the network.  It stalls completely.  I was on the treadmill for 66 minutes today.  The tv show is only 42 minutes long - it took me 8 minutes to load the sucker and then it kept cacking out.  I'd get 25 seconds of video and then it would buffer for three minutes." 

"Have you tried disconnecting and reconnecting to the Internet in the tablet settings?"

"YES."  

"Have you used the memory boost function that I added the other day?"

"YES.  I have used the memory boost function that you added. I also rebooted the modem.  Twice.   IT IS THE TREADMILL."

"It just makes no sense.  There's no issue anywhere else."

"I KNOW that there's no issue anywhere else.  IT IS THE TREADMILL.  I'm not making this shit up."

"I know, I know," he says.  But really, he thinks I am.  He thinks that I'm overreacting to some minor technical difficulties.

"I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!!"

"I know.  We need to go at this from a scientific perspective.  Figure out the variables.  You need to turn it on while you're off the treadmill, then start the treadmill.  You need to carry it around the house and see if it cacks out in different spots..."

"Carry it around the house??  My 43 minute morning walk turned into 66 because I had to disconnect from the net and reconnect SEVEN times.  I boosted the tablet's memory.  I logged back in to Netflix.  I logged back out.  I hopped off the treadmill, went  upstairs and rebooted the modem. Only on the treadmill, this happens.  If I want to sit down on the couch and watch the extra 13 minutes that I couldn't get to in the morning because I ran out of time and had to go to work, it's not a problem.  It took me 8 minutes to log in this morning. A full 8 full minutes!!"  (I may or may not have grabbed him by her shirt front at this point, my temples were definitely throbbing.)

"Hey... hey... it's okay."  He smooths my shoulders.  "We'll figure this out, I promise."

Awesome, I have now turned into completely irrational woman, all because I don't want to read and exercise at the same time.  It wouldn't be so bad except that in the old house I had NO problems with Netflix while I was on the treadmill.

Later...

"So you're not the only one who's having issues with Netflix on the treadmill," says David.

"I'm not?"  Hope sprouts in my heart.

"Nope.  Apparently the electronic cycling from a treadmill motor can interfere with wireless connectivity."

"It can?"

"Yes - we used to be grounded with a battery backup at the old house - that's probably why you didn't have this problem there."

"So I'm not crazy?"

"Oh, you're still crazy - it's just not because of this."

My OCD knows no bounds

During renovations, in a desperate attempt to control the visual chaos of my environment, I've lost my mind.  I've gone round the bend folks.  My obsession this week?  Ensuring that, when I open the shower curtain, all the shampoo, conditioner and body wash bottles complement one another.   Hello Ma'am, we've got a lovely little jacket for you here, fits nice and snugly around the waist and shoulders, and ensures that your arms stay in one place.

I have little loyalty to personal grooming products.  Sure, I could  go out there and spend $25 on an organic, paraben-free, get you to smell like ambrosia shampoo, but  that ain't gonna happen.  Because why?  Because I'm not made of money and there are shampoos, conditioners and body washes out there that will do the same thing for a fraction of "Are you fucking serious?!?" prices.

As a result of my common sense and general stinginess, I buy things when they are on sale.  Love, love, LOVE Olay body wash, but it's a titch pricey, and unless it goes on sale, it doesn't get to ride shotgun home with me.  When there's a moisturizing conditioner on sale for under $3 - I buy it.   If there's a different moisturizing shampoo that's even less expensive - I buy it.  Same goes for body wash, although I do have a predilection for nicely smelling body washes and will sometimes splurge - you know, when I have Christmas or birthday money burning a hole in my pocket and my Mom's given me the directive to spend it on "something you love, just for you."  That's when I head to the local body care shop and avert my eyes when the cash register totals the sale.  I come home with things that smell of gingerbread or lemon scones and line them up on the ledge of my shower and revel in my delectability. 

Problem with buying all these different products is that when they eventually make their way to reside in my shower - they look like this:

Which for a normal sane person (who knows that the shower curtain can just be shut and you don't have to see anything, that you won't even be aware of the fact that nothing matches in size or colour), wouldn't be an issue.  For me, until the house ceases to have a layer of drywall dust over everything, it's made me wiggy.  Sure, you can get fancy-dancy bath containers that cost you an arm and a leg so that everything matches, but I  haven't lost my sense of frugality with my sanity.

So off I went to Dollarama, seeking the perfect body care receptacles.  Small enough to fit on the shelves, but big enough and of such pleasing shape that they would be practical and (in my present state of psychosis), pretty.  I bought cheap-ass hand soaps that looked like the labels could easily be pulled off.

In hindsight, I'll still be picking little bits of glue off them until Armageddon (nail polish remover can take most of the gumminess away, but not all of it apparently), but until then, things will match.  Although, there had been some milk bottle style body wash bottles for $2 a pop that might look even better and would add a whole turn of the century feel to what's behind the curtain...

Parched in the Sahara

WARNING: THERE IS DISCUSSION OF FEMALE ISSUES IN THIS POST.

 

Sam Brown, explodingdog.com

My camel did not make it.   It had been days since he'd died.  I found myself trudging through the desert, my skin burning, sand in my throat...   Hot wind blowing around me, almost through me.  I could feel sand on my face.  Pricks of it picking at my cheeks - then harder and harder as the gusts increased.  Chunks of sand...

CHUNKS OF SAND??

I open an eye.   Lola is there standing beside my head, punching my cheek with her paw.

"Off!!  OFF!!!"

6:02 a.m.  How did she get in?  We'd installed a door to our room just a couple of weeks ago so that this very thing would no longer happen on a Sunday morning - could Lola now walk through walls?  Had our cat actually created a worm hole into our room?  Were we going to become millionaires because of our Mensa cat?  I look over to the doorway and do a face palm.  David hadn't shut the door last night.  Awesome.  I roll out of bed.

I run the gauntlet of falsely affectionate cats and stagger downstairs.  One races me down, another wends its way through my legs and Steve?  He lies across the stairs in all his tomcat glory. This house has somehow transformed all three of our felines into the most languorous of stair lying beasts.  In the other house, they never once draped themselves across the width of a tread.  This house, you're running a fur-covered obstacle course to get downstairs, and with two black cats, you take your life in your hands if you're trying to do anything in half-light.

I feed the beasts and climb back upstairs.  God, I'm burning up.  Why am I so hot?? My mouth is so fricking dry.  HOT.  And then I remember.  The night before, I'd had two glasses of wine and a flute of champagne to celebrate family birthdays. Stupid peri-menopause.  One glass of alcohol.  ONLY ONE.  No matter how good it tastes.  ONLY ONE GLASS OF ALCOHOL HEATHER!  Or what?  You have blinding hot flashes.  I know this!  But it was a really great blended red - went down so smoothly.  Why does my mouth feel full of cotton?  I wasn't drunk - I'd had the booze over a several-hours-long period.

I've lost all my saliva!  I am SALIVALESS!  I scan my memory for what else I'd ingested to get me this parched.  Popcorn.  I'd had some popcorn.  And there'd been feta cheese in the salad... I smask my dry lips...  annnnnnd I am having my period.  Bingo.  Combine salt ingestion and bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig and you're going to get a little bit dry feel like Akhenaten post-embalming.  I down a glass of water and desperately try to source my saliva.  Nope.  I down another glass.  Not yet. My tongue is still sticking to the roof of my mouth.  Another glass.  There.  There now.  Some moisture. 

Fricking period.  Fricking peri-menopause.  I should have known the week before, when I'd wanted to carry around my own personal salt lick.   And now I've been emptying my Diva Cup every two hours or so.  It's astounding how blasé I have become about menstruation.  When I was younger, the notion of using an OB tampon completely squicked me out, but apparently now that I have a blood faucet installed down there, I could become a full-on general surgeon.  Seeing blood on my hands is common place.

My poor family.  Rissa'll be brushing her teeth and glance over at me - I'll be in some state of Diva Cup removal or re-insertion.

"MUMMY!!"

"Sorry.  Look away.  Look away."

She'll turn her back and walk to the door.  The toilets in this house aren't as close to the sinks as they were in the old house.  So there I am in my fluffy pink socks, with my stripey onesie around my ankles shuffling to the sink to rinse out the Diva Cup shouting, "AVERT YOUR EYES!  AVERT YOUR EYES!"

"Nobody else's mother does this stuff you know."

"Think of all the material you'll have for your memoirs."

Panic-struck spackling...

It seems like such a good idea when I'm lying in bed staring at the ceiling. I look up at the outline of where the closet had been.  I see the damage of the torn-asunder drywall plugs - the drilled screw holes, the decimated drywall.  Why had it been bothering me so much?  Yes, there were 43 holes in the wall of various sizes, but I had spackle - it could be fixed!  I had this!  I leap from the bed with vigor.

"I've figured out what I'm going to do today!" I share with David.

"Excellent!"

"I am going to spackle our bedroom ceiling and wall!"   I can barely contain myself - this was going to be great.

"Fantastic idea!!  I think I know where the drop sheets are.  I'll go grab them for you."

I don't know why, but my vigor wanes a titch at the word 'drop sheets.'  I shake it off.  No worries!  I am set to go!  I grab the spackling tools in one hand and bend down to lift up the spackling tub...

You know when you expect something of a certain size to weigh a certain weight?  My shoulder isn't dislocated, per se, but my old shoulder separation does sing out an operatic "WHAT THE FUCK!?!?"  I look down at the container.  16 kgs... I do some quick math in my head... double it plus a bit - so that sucker weighs in at a whopping 36 lbs - ish.  I just tried to pick up a toddler with one hand.  My other hand is still full of spackling tools.  "David!!!  Would you mind grabbing the spackle for me?"

"Not a problem."  He shoves three drop sheets into my waiting arm,  (why would I need three drop sheets?) and hefts the spackling into the bedroom.  "You okay?  Do you want me to....?"

"Nope!  I'm good!  I've got this!!  You go ahead."

David heads downstairs to hook up the sink in the 1/2 bath.  We are the King and Queen of dividing and conquering - we are going to get so much done!

So one drop sheet goes over the headboard and the bedside tables and then the other one goes on top of the bed...  I look around at the outline of the old closet which buts up to the temporary curtains that close off the new closet...  I guess that the other drop sheet should cover the clothing rail to protect the clothes from drywall dust...

That's when the panic hits.  Sure, now, for the next hour or so I would be scraping old nasty bits off the wall, and then I would be layering the spackling over the damaged areas... but after that... after that... the spackle would have to be sanded. I lie down on the bed.  We were going to make drywall dust.  Lots and lots of drywall dust.  In the bedroom.  I was going to have to move all the furniture out and all the clothing... but the carpet would still be on the floor!  Could I carefully rip out the carpet so that it could be relaid?

"How you doing?" David asks from the doorway.

I look over, the whites of my eyes gleaming in panic - I'm hyperventillating a bit.

"Whoa!  Whoa!!  It's okay!"

"NO!  No, it's not!!!  There is going to be dust all over this room!!  Everything's going to have to come out!!!  Where are we going to put it?!?  Maybe we could lay all the clothes over the  bookcase in Rissa's room..."

"Heather!  WHOA!!  We're not going to sand today!"

"We're not?" I sniffle.

"No.  No sanding.  We're just filling holes today and then later, in the summer, we'll smooth out everything..."

I lose focus, because I'm looking at the 43 holes in the wall and ceiling.  Smooth everything out??  SMOOTH EVERYTHING OUT?!?  We were going to have to use an entire tub of spackling to fill those areas, how in God's name were we going to smooth it out?

"Heather!"  In the 1940's drama version of this scenario - David gives me a sharp slap across the face.

"It's okay," I say.  "It's good.  It's all good."  I take a deep breath.  "I've got this."

"You sure?"

"Oh yeah, no problem."

2 hours later, I have done a rough plaster coat over the entire bedroom wall.  Sure, there was only damage to an 8 foot by 8 foot area, but by rough plastering the entire wall - I have ensured that the wall NEVER has to be sanded.  The ceiling, yes, but we can put sheets down and can tape plastic around the closet to protect the clothing and it is, after all, low-dust drywall compound.  Panic folks, it's the mother of invention.

I now understand my husband...

He'd suddenly gone all grumpy.  We were installing the chrome cup pulls in the kitchen and by 'we,' I mean him - 'cause he was hogging all the tools.  He had two drills, two screwdrivers and was hoarding all the bolts.  I had a cardboard template of the new cup pull and a pencil.  I took off the old pull, lined up the template to conceal the old holes, drew my little circles and then David went to town.  Or he was going to go to town before he realized that he had to use three different drill bits and he'd already fucked up one hole.

He was also probably sucking up my nearly apoplectic mood on account of the fact that when we went downstairs to find the right sized drill bits, we'd discovered that the spring rain of the last few days had left about 3 inches of water in our basement - which should have been sucked away by the sump pump, but said sump pump had apparently committed hari kari.  We found this out because our neighbours who own the other half of our semi-detached home - witnessed its demise as it ripped itself out of the wall on their half of the basement.  Bright side?  The cats hadn't been in the basement to cover themselves in mud since we moved the kitty litter upstairs before the weekend, and our neighbour's dad knows enough about sump pumps to install a new one.  Nevertheless, I had that wild look in my eye and David put the bottle of scotch in front of me as soon as we got upstairs.

David began prepping once more to drill the new holes for the cup pulls, so I decided to put on the chrome knobs on the upper cabinets.  It became immediately clear that the template we had used originally to drill the holes for the upper knobs was... inaccurate.  Two knobs up and my OCD nearly gave me a stroke.  Almost every hole on the upper cabinets was mismatched.  Off just enough to make me wince and bang my head on the island.

"FUCK IT!!!"  I sang out.  "We will not worry about this now.  No knobs tonight!"

David looked a titch frustrated with me.  He was going to try to use job-finishing logic, I just knew it.  I headed him off at the pass.  "NO!  No knobs!  Because if we put these knobs up, then we'll have to adjust all the cupboard doors and that will take forever, and if I come downstairs to an entire wall of uneven knobs I WILL FREAKING LOSE IT!  So NO KNOBS!!!"

He was well on his way to grumpy after that.  It just got worse when he started installing the cup pulls.  I didn't understand why he looked like he was going to throw each of those drills and screwdrivers through the wall, until (after I hemmed the closet curtains in our bedroom during my cooling off period) I finished the last four cup pulls myself.

Because our kitchen drawers are a mish-mash of new drawer fronts on old uneven drawers - they are a little finicky.  The old cup pulls were not the same size, nor the same mounting centre dimensions as the new ones.  We had to hide the old holes, which meant that we had to drill the new holes slightly higher and slightly closer together.  The cup pulls themselves had to have one size hole for the attaching channel, but the bolts had to have another smaller sized hole drilled, and where the old drawer front was coverd by a new drawer front, the bolts themselves had to be ever-so-slightly countersunk.
 

Old Pull

Old Pull's holes

New Pull with smaller mounting centres

New Pull's Template

Drill Bit to fit bolt size

Large Hole, Small Hole

Change to bigger drill bit to fit cup pull channel,
but don't use too much pressure or...
oh for FUCK'S SAKE!!!

Large hole, larger hole

After much cursing - the finished product

Only six tries it took me to get the first cup pull done. I am recuperating with scotch.  I now understand my husband. 

House of the Raising Shims

Certain things become apparent only AFTER you have moved into your new home.  It comes down to this: Love is blind.  When you fall in love with your new place, its character, its quaintness, its nooks and crannies - you have blinders on.  With these 'in love' blinders, you can see no faults.  It is only upon taking possession of the house that we realize the living room walls are covered in painted, lifting wallpaper - noticeable now, because the walls are empty.  No to worry!  Quick faux fesco finish and those walls become a 'feature'!

Every single floor in the new house is uneven. I swear to you that, other than the threshhold to the master ensuite, I didn't notice any floor issues the 4 times we were in the house before we took possession.  None.  And yet... and yet after we own the house, it quickly becomes apparent that we need to buy shims in bulk.   "Quick, hand me a shim!" 

David and I begin to argue about the relative nature of 'level.'

"Do you want it level to the walls?  To the ceiling?  To the floor?"

"What I want is to look at a piece of furniture against a wall and not think I'm in a Dali painting!!"

We planned a nice long 2 week overlap between the closing of the new place and the sale of our old place for our very small renovations.  We would take March Break and turn it into a family project.  WE HAD  LOTS OF TIME.  (Sorry, I need to stifle hysterical laughter for a moment.)

We didn't have that much to do in the new house before we moved in.  We were being conservative in our renovations.  We were tackling them ourselves.  (With some very generous help from friends and family, and tradespeople to do the tricky bits.)  We were taking a 1 bedroom with ensuite and 2nd floor loft family room and turning it into a 2 bedroom with a common bathroom... 

... and we thought we'd shift where the master closet is to utilize all the space under the eaves... and we might have decided to move a cellar egress door to create a traditional door to the basement so that the cats would be able to navigate down the non-conforming-to-code stairs...  and we were putting up an entire wall of upper cabinets in the kitchen...  and we were laying floor... and intended to eliminate the separate 2nd floor laundry to open up a wall so that the common bathroom could have more space...  and we needed to bump out a closet on the main floor to house an upright freezer, washer/dryer and treadmill...  and we were going to create a wall of repurposed antique windows, which we would then frost/etch/cover with stained glass so that Rissa would have some privacy...  and we were going to add custom cut angeled doors to the sloped ceilinged bedrooms, because there weren't any.  No problem.

Strangely enough, in that 2 week overlap before we moved in, not one of those jobs was actually completed in full.  Go figure.

The bathroom is 'mostly' done.  The fixtures are in!  And we can shower - so WHOO-HOO for that!  We need to finish the drywall, tape and mud and put on the beadboard wainscotting and chair rail and then paint - but at least we can shower!  In keeping with no floors in this house being level, the floor of the old laundry room and the floor where the new shower/tub combo resides, has about 4 inches of level disparity.  Step between those different floor levels and you're in for a wild ride.  It's not quite the beginning of the Leviathan, but if you've had a nightcap (or 6 - you know, to cope with living in a home during renovations), it's close.   I'm just going to pretend that we're living on a houseboat.  That's why nothing's level.  We've even added a waterproof light fixture over the shower so that we can really immerse ourselves in our 'marine' bathroom.

The new closet in the bedroom has clothing rods, but nothing to hide them from view.  The flooring in the living room and foyer is done, but not the 1/2 bath.  The upper kitchen cupboards are up, but still need a coat of paint... and handles.  The closet on the main floor needs to be taped, mudded - and something to cover it.  The wall of windows, the privacy doors and the door to the basement?  I'm thinking that will happen in the summer.

And yet, with every box that we unpack - the floor space increases.  Smaller jobs are getting done.  We mostly got the office area settled on Monday night, and last night David made a microwave shelf to get the appliance off the counter.  We hung the curtain rod in front of the main floor closet - I have no fucking idea where the curtain rings are,  but they'll turn up as soon as I buy new ones.

I'm looking out our kitchen window, towards the back yard and there's some sort of gnarly tree (which I hope will be a flowering apple) and a little group of bushes with our bench and some haphazard flower pots beside it.  This morning, there are two blue jays poking around in the mostly-revealed spring grass.  I couldn't see this view from our other kitchen window - it was always too high to get a good look at the backyard.  I had to get on my tippy-toes to enjoy the green.  And now, here I am, typing with a view.  It's going to be okay.

We're the white trash!!!

I'd been holding back the hypervintilation for most of the morning.  I'd stepped over and around things - did the Stanley meeting Livingstone in my bedroom as I finally located a pair of tights, pried open the vanity drawer that didn't have its handle, because it STILL needs another coat of paint before the handle can go on and I can't seem to find the time to paint...

Visual chaos makes me mental.  The day we moved in I ended up lying on the floor, topless and sobbing.  10 days later the house is still rife with visual chaos.   We haven't moved in 8 years.  In the last house, I managed to have things behind doors and curtains, hidden in  drawers.  I had perfected the art of squirrelling things away.  In this house (half the size of our other), we have too much crap to squirrel and no place to squirrel it.

David is dropping me at work.  I get into the car, take one look at the top of the driveway beside our house and muffle a sob.

"What?  What is it?"  David's hand on my knee - he's so concerned.

"We're the White Trash."

"What?"

"WE ARE THE WHITE TRASH!!  We have old chairs on our lawn and things up against the fence and knocked over things and bags of garbage and random pieces of cardboard..."

"Heather, we just moved in."

"I know that!!  Don't you think I know that?!?  But your average person driving down this street doesn't know that.  'Look there's an old ratty armchair, just sitting there by the back door.  How can they let that happen?'  The only thing we're missing is a CAR UP ON BLOCKS!!!"

By this time I am hyperventilating.  I've closed my eyes to avoid the mess, but even with my eyes closed I know that it's there, so with my eyes still glued shut, I turn my head to face the side of the house.

David doesn't say anything.

I work a bit later than usual, and then have to run a couple of errands.  By the time I get home and walk up the driveway,  there is nothing there.  Nothing.  Not a chair, not a bag of garbage, not a random old bannister... nothing knocked over or piled haphazardly. 

I stick my head around the back of the house.  David has cleaned off the deck area, leaving only our bistro set and BBQ.  All the stuff that still needs to eventually go into the still-to-be-built shed, is stacked neatly against our fence, out of sight from the street.  My heart nearly bursts with joy.

I walk into the house.

"You made me a haven."

"I did."

"You organized everything."

"I did."

"You must really love me."

"I do." 

Deer in the headlights...

A buck, a doe and a fawn stand in the headlights of an oncoming Mack truck.  Our family took possession of the new house on March 4th.  By the next day, we had broken it.  8:00 p.m. Wednesday, after spending 12 hours demolishing things, I stood at the entrance to the common bathroom and started to hyperventilate. Hours before, there had been working fixtures in the room: a shower, a bath, a sink, a toilet... walls.  At 8:00 p.m.?  NOTHING.  We'd had the house for 18 hours.

"I... I... I have to leave now," I said to David.  (He and our friend Jamie had now moved on to ripping up the old floors.)

"I... I..." A wave of nausea hit.  "I can't... I... I need to go..."

I staggered back to our old house (we had two weeks of overlap before our house deal closed), dropped my dusty paint clothes and ran a bath - in my working bathroom.  I threw in multiple couple of cups of Epsom Salts and immersed myself in the cast iron tub. I was in desperate need of a Calgon moment.

So we're just a wee bit behind where we thought we'd be.  Not a problem.  The door to the basement hasn't happened.  At present there is an egress door - which means we can totally pretend there's a twister and run down to the basement with our pets.  Right now, we're leaving that door open and can see into our 150 year old cellar - how many people really get the chance to see gravel and dirt and lopsided jack posts?  That's Canadian history right there folks!  And really?  The living room from which you access the basement is pretty much a fortress of boxes, so seeing the basement isn't really even an option yet.  It's like a surprise part of the house."Wait, don't look yet,  not yet... and now... open your eyes!"

I can walk between unfinished studs from our bedroom to the now plumbed bathroom - we had a killer plumber who did the job in half the time expected and left us with ALL our fixtures working!  I got to have my hair shampooed and conditioned in the kitchen sink - scalp massage courtesy of David - as the caulking for the shower sets.   I don't know where.my... (insert random nouns here) are, but that just means it's like a scavenger hunt - every day.   Last night I found pants!

We had Professional Tetris movers.  Swear to God.  They managed to get a 2 tonne, 4 foot wide wardrobe up a 30 inch set of stairs and over a knee wall without damaging walls or killing anyone.  Christmas decorations are now packed into the secret eaves hidey hole which will afford us quite the adventure come December this year.  And that computer program we used to figure out where all our shit was going to go?  Mostly worked and after the move we only had to give away two more major pieces of furniture - which, when you are downsizing from 3000 to 1500 sq feet - is pretty freaking remarkable.

My Dad took two for the team.  He came to help with construction and it was only on day 2 that he required two staples in his head from whacking it on the angled ceiling of our story and a half house.  And then the silly bugger CAME BACK and continued to build.  What do you give a guy who does that for you??  David's Mom painted and cleaned and packed and kept me moving when everything in me wanted to sit down and bawl like a baby.  AND she stocked our freezer with enough meals to ensure that we didn't have to cook during the 10 days of renovations and we can still now defrost something and not worry about dinner.  David's step-sister brought lunch, made us treats and housed us for three nights until we could find our bed linens.

That is not to say that last Sunday, when we were really IN the house for the first time, David and Rissa didn't witness my collapse on the floor of our impenetrable bedroom and my subsequent flailing as I tried to locate a paper bag into which I could breathe.  But... even in my wee cottage of a new home, covered in boxes with many rooms remaining unfinished, I have this space...

Not quite a Great Room - doesn't have the sq footage to be dubbed thus.  We're calling it our petit grand room.  And do you see that- in the midst of my kitchen area? It's a turquoise fridge.  A cheap-ass fridge-only unit that I took to the autobody shop and, in spite of looking at me like I was insane, they painted for me.  I have a turquoise fridge.  It's all going to be okay.

Complex math at 5:45 a.m.

If you have to paint 20 kitchen cupboard doors with space to dry only 8 flat at a time, and each door needs to be primed with super-adherent primer that must have 2-4 hours drying time before covering the cupboards (back and front) with at least two coats of furniture paint, and if the furniture paint requires 10-12 hours drying time before re-coating, what is the minimum amount of time that it will take you paint all 20 cupboards and still have between 6-8 hours sleep?  The front of the doors are already primed.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd.... GO!

My thought process at 5:45 a.m. folks.  Shoot me now.   'Cause this painting of kitchen cupboard doors has to happen  at the same time that actual qualified painters are painting walls and ceilings on our main floor, electricians and plumbers are electrifying and plumbing and my husband and father are making sawdust while framing bathrooms and new doors to bedrooms and the basement - one of which areas is located directly adjacent to the only room that has enough floor space to dry the cupboard doors.  I thought I had it all figured out - the fronts of the doors are all primed, I just have to prime the backs and then start with the good paint.  To save on floorspace, I could just mount the doors on the cabinets and paint them while they're upright - even though the painting rules advise one NOT to paint kitchen cupboards this way.

RULES!  I am a rule follower!  I'd be breaking the RULES!!!

But what if I did really, really thin coats of paint?  All I really have to do is finish the fronts of the doors before Friday.  The backs of them can wait until the freaking summer when we'll notice that they're not painted.

WAIT!!  WAAAAAAAAAAIT!!!!!  

We have some sawhorse/work benches in the garage!!! We could take them over and throw some spare 2 x 4s on them and then we'd have an additional flat surface to rest drying cupboard doors on!!!  All 20 doors might be able to dry flat!!!    IT. COULD. WORK!