Fleas = BLACK DEATH

Fleas, the bringers of the Black Death, have infested our cats, our home, yea verily, our souls.  I am posting this picture of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers because photos of actual fleas make me want to hurl.  A lot.   I have to say that as pictures of Flea go - it's a pretty good one - usually he looks way crazier, more gap-toothed and less, uh... toned.  This photo makes me want to get really close to him to read the tattoo above his left nipple and maybe just see how his chest might feel, you know, under my hands...  But I digress.

Flea

 Barely tolerable graphic of a flea deservedly about to be drowned.  Suck it you bastard!!

In a fog of repellent I type. (hack, hack, wheeze)  I despise fleas.  I despise that they can jump 150 times their height and escape if you're not vigilant when trying to kill them.  They freaking BOUNCE!  Fleas turn me into a vengeful, predatory, serial killer,  laughing manically as I catalogue my death count.  My eyes glaze over in a haze of vengeance as I watch them drown in 2 qt casserole of dish soap and water.  I see them struggling and do NOTHING to help them!

I get such satisfaction when I take a flea and pop it between my thumbnails.  It's gross and disgusting, but that POP! when one of these suckers dies, is frickin' music to my ears.  I wish I could find the milk of human kindness somewhere.  I rescue spiders, bats, mice, those hairy millipede thingies... worms on the sidewalk... but fleas... (shudder) I get all twitchy and itchy as soon as I find one and then go on a primate-esque grooming binge with the cats.  We have three freaking cats!  And Lola, the littlest, seems to be the tastiest.  I probably got a dozen (shudder) of the little parasites off her.  What is the emoticon for vomit partially filling one's mouth?

As soon as David gets home from work, I will be heading to the vet to get some Advantage and probably more flea spray. See?  This is the peril of a one-car household.  I NEED Advantage to start my home grown extinction of a species and I am car-less!  It had been such a great idea to go down to one car, when he was teaching in town, but now he teaches 50 km away and I am car-less  and we NEED to start Advantage treatment right NOW!!! And I need more flea-killing spray.  I already went through one full can which sprays 2000 square feet.  It conked out on our 2nd floor and I still need to do the attic.   And then I'll need to do it AGAIN in a couple of weeks.  EEEEEEEEW!!

I wish there was something like an EMP, that instead of knocking out electrical devices, it could fry every frickin' flea's brain - make their grey matter explode in their own devious, disgusting, disease-carrying craniums.  Wait!  David's totally a techie!  Maybe he could make me an app that would do that.  You hold your IPhone up to the flea-ridden animal and hit a button and presto the fleas' brains explode!  Just for fleas though.  Not cats, or dogs, or kids, or grownups,or mice, or bats or spiders or worms.

*Except fleas - that's the subtitle on the interior page

p.s.  
David, upon his return from work today: "What is in this casserole dish doing here full of water and, cat hair and... specks of... are those fleas?"

I laugh cruelly.  "Yes, fleas.  FLEAS.  FLEEEEAAAAS!  (my eyes get very wide and very crazy) This is the Casserole of Death - none shall survive."  Now I totally want to have a little gangplank up to the casserole with miniature palmtrees and signs around the casserole saying things like "Flea Spa Day, all parasites welcome!"  "Mani-Pedi specials here!"  "Aromatherapy Massage included!"   Then when they get to the edge and see that it's just dish soap and water...  I submerge the gangplank and watch them not tread water.

MOOOHOOOHAAHAAHAA!!!!
 

Duck Butts

Duck Butts.  They make me laugh.  I just can't help myself.  They provide sheer joy.  Their little webbed feet dancing to keep them underwater - delightful.  They then bob back up, reminiscent of that bobbing water toy from the 70s, adding an odd sense of nostalgia for me.  It's a two-fer.

hee hee hee

Sometimes they do it in duos and trios and that's even funnier.  They are like little feathered synchronized swimmers. 

They could give the Russians a run for their money in snchronicity.

It's the simple pleasures in life.  Duck butts make me happy.  They make me laugh.

True laughter, when it hits, is like a modern-day miracle.  I once laughed so hard in a film that I was "shushed" by the patron in front of me.  He was about 4 - the film was Horton Hears a Who.  The scene was with Vlad the Vulture who threatened to devour his prey...  "First I will devour it and then [coughs] regurgitate it and devour it again - so, two times devoured."  I almost wet my pants giving in to the true laugh, hence the vehement "Shush!!!" by the 4 year old.   It was that deep and chortley laugh - the kind of laugh that we all used to have when we were little - the contagious kind. Giving into that laugh is akin to rebirth for me. 

I stop and smell the roses too.  Truly.  There's no reason I would make that shit up.   I will actually back up and smell a rose, if I catch it out of the corner of my eye.  I gaze with awe at monarch butterflies - especially now before they make their trek to Mexico.  There are hundreds of them out on the beach - it's like walking through a fairy tale illustration.  I ask strangers if I can pet their dogs.  I carpe the diem as much as I can.  I've basically become my mother, which is a good thing.  She's like freaking PollyAnna - it's awesome to see her in action. 

I have not always been this way.  My mom was the ultimate optimist, my dad the ultimate pessimist.  It could have gone either way for me, but I took after my father.  Then, in my 20s, I suffered from depression.   The big, dark, seething pit of vipers in a bottomless pit in your stomach kind of depression.  I clawed my way out and basically had to rethink the way I looked at the world.  I had a choice.  I could either a) Be afraid that every day I would get hit by a bus and wallow in existential angst or b) I could live my life.  I chose b).   It wasn't easy.  Wallowing in existential angst takes way less effort.  I basically had to re-wire my brain.  It was like that episode of Seinfeld where George did the opposite of what his instincts told him.   I forced myself to focus on the positive and after a while, it became habit.  And now, I smell the roses.  I laugh at duck butts.  I find humour in a bad situation. 'Cause if you can't laugh at all the bullshit?  You're wasting an opportunity.  How often do you get the chance to almost pee your pants nowadays?  (Unless you've had a couple of babies squeezed out through your vagina and that happens every time you sneeze or cough.)

An open letter to the Bloggess's publishers...

Dear Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam:

Please let Jenny Lawson rest.  Please.  Let's Pretend This Never Happened was on the NY Times Best-Seller list for 4 months - often in the top 15 books.  You've made TONNES of money off it.  She's done her bit with touring and readings and book signings and BIG SURPRISE she ended up suffering from vital exhaustion.  Let her rest.

She should be doing this.

I'm sure that she, of the diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder, agreed to do all these signings, but dudes, seriously, LET HER REST.  And when she says she's ready to do more, tell her "That's okay Jenny, we're good.  Thanks for sacrificing your tenuous mental health for our book sales, but we'd rather have you alive and well."

This is me, and I'll throw myself in front of her, so that she has time to rest.

I'm in Mama Bear mode here.  I know that this touring has probably pushed her boundaries in a lot of good ways, and that she may have learned many coping mechanisms to deal with the crowds - all good - but when I read her posts about suffering from Vital Exhaustion - I got scared.  And I felt guilty - because I WAS a person in one of those crowds in Toronto - knowing who she was and how she copes (or doesn't) and I loved hearing her read and speak with clarity and compassion to people in that crowd.

And now, I'm worried for her.  I worry that she feels pressure to be in the public eye when she doesn't have to be.  Those who admire her will continue to read her blog and her book.  I've recommended both and will continue to do so.  But now, what I really want, is for her to have time to rest and relax and reboot and concentrate on being less exhausted, so that she doesn't lose it completely, because frankly, she's no good to me completely crazy.  Selfishly, I want the caustic, cuckoo-bananas writing that I've come to crave and if she's gone completely around the frickin' bend, I won't get it. 

Please.  LET HER REST.  There are a lot of us Mama Bears out there.  You don't want us to attack. 

Babysitting bulldogs...

Her name is Jelly.  Jelly Bean.  Jelly is blind in one eye, mostly deaf and breaks wind as only an elderly bulldog can.  She is in our care until Monday.  She is a french bulldog and, according to Rissa, near perfection.

Essence de Jelly.

"This dog.  THIS dog.  Is the BEST dog in the entire world.  I will have a dog like this of my very own one day."

The three cats in the house have differing opinions.  Steve, for one, might want to have a contract put out on her, but he isn't the sharpest claw on the paw if you know what I'm saying.  Minuit has placed herself on a self-imposed hunger strike for fear that she might run into Jelly at the food bowls.  (As Minuit is the size of a raccoon, this might not be such a bad thing.)  And Lola?  Well I'm pretty sure that Lola might be the one who called animal services to inform them of a rabid dog on the premises.  She's crafty that one.

 

Lola - plotting from doorway.

We're living in the midst of a Mexican Standoff.  The tension is high when they're in relatively close proximity to one another.  And by close proximity, I mean that the dog stays in one place, completely calm, and a cat is usually in an adjacent doorway ready to puff tail, blow fur, growl and race away the minute that Jelly's breathing hitches.  Half the time Jelly can't even see them.

I shall hug this Ikea basket - it will give me strength.

Steve's the bravest, but again, not so smart.  He's my sloppy tomcat - who executes a shoulder roll to have his belly rubbed the minute you're close.  Strangely, he has not tried this manoeuvre with Jelly...  there are still a couple of days to go though - it could happen.

Only the cruelest and most unkind of humans could resist this face.

The internet is not MAGIC

It's official - we are slaves to the internet.  Thankfully the internet does not manifest as Jabba the Hutt and I don't have to wear a bikini with a collar and leash - so that's a plus.  (Although to many, this might be deemed a perk.)

Not the Internet

While in Toronto last week, we found ourselves without wireless and rather than spending mucho dineros at Starbucks and the Second Cup in beverages/food we didn't need while leeching their Wi-Fi, we instead paid $200 for a Rocket Hotspot from Rogers and started a Flex Rate wireless plan.  No, the math does NOT work out.  But now we HAVE the hardware should this situation arise in the future.

I know... you're thinking "What, you couldn't survive for a week without the internet?!?"  No, in fact we couldn't.  I  need email.  Not like it's my heroin or anything, but I communicate with the cast, musicians and crew via email.  I required the ability to be able to check in at least a couple of times a day - and David needed to be able to work online when he wasn't troubleshooting the tech at the theatre.  We had thought we would have wireless at the theatre, but we did not.  Upon this realization, a medium-sized panic ensued.

I so wish that this could be animated into the panic dance that David and I did.

Shortly thereafter, David made the executive decision to bite the bullet and purchase the Hotspot.  David knows that neither he nor I are organized/have energy enough  to finish our day at the theatre and then spend an hour at a coffee shop  juggling administrative tasks.  Plus, we had Rissa with us who would not have appreciated the extra hour of keeping herself occupied, even if we were feeding her.  PLUS, I would have gotten really fat last week if I'd had more than one large flavoured decaf soy latte a day. No, we didn't save any money doing it this way, but we did conserve precious amounts of sanity.

I realized the first day with the Hotspot that I know NOTHING about how the internet really works.  It is not, in fact, magic and mostly free.  I thought that if you weren't opening new pages online and downloading crap, that you were not using bandwidth.  Apparently, I was wrong.  David should have explained how data is transferred and what bit rate exactly is before before he said "We're good to go - you can check your mail!"  

We got the bill today for our first few hours using the Hotspot - you know you're in trouble when your bill takes 8 pages to explain everything.  We used 214.40 MB (megabytes) in approx 4 hours of owning the Hotspot.  I was not downloading ANYTHING - I had thought.  I was again wrong.  It wasn't that I had been mis-informed, but rather that I was missing information - my knowledge regarding the internet and its true nature was... apparently almost non-existent.  I HATE when I'm stupid - even if it's due to ignorance.  I know enough that if you have a laptop that has Wi-Fi capability but don't have Wi-Fi anywhere near you that you can't connect to the Net.  I know that.  I know that one shouldn't download large things or get huge updates when you're worried about bit rate.  But I really didn't know that once you are on a site like gmail that information just pretty much flows like a tap and sucks like a dock hooker on the first day of the Merchant Marines' shore leave.

And there's this too: Our first bill from Rogers was only $40.89 - and I thought GREAT!!  We totally didn't use as much as David feared we had.  YAY US!!!  Then I realized that $35 of that $40.89 was  the activation fee and the rest was just for the first few hours we had the equipment in our possession.  Anyone care to guestimate what our bill will be for the other 4 full days we were using this technology?  David suspects we'll be in the upwards of $100 for the time.  But really, that's only about $25 a day - which we totally would have spent at a coffee shop,  PLUS - we now OWN the "HOTSPOT" - how many people can say that??  When we speak of it, we can instead pretend that it's not something the size of a deck of cards but is instead a Toronto nightclub - in which we have now invested with other hip, happening people.  I can confabulate with the best of them.   Plus this way... I didn't get fat.

Bedtime = Bedlam

So, in spite of having spent hours and hours exhausting her body in dance intensive camp - Rissa was still wired at bedtime.  I made her chew a mental calmness stress-relax tab as soon as she got into bed.  Before she read for 10 minutes.  I was trying to forestall the onslaught that is Rissa.  But to no avail.

How many does it take to tire out a 12 year old?

I figured if we got into bed at 8:30 and read for a bit, that she would get sleepy, the way normal people do when they read in bed.  I try to read beside her, thinking that maybe my calm presence might soothe her, encourage her to fall asleep before the 10:00 p.m. mark.  School starts next week.  She has to get back on schedule.  Rissa abandons her book and begins to sigh dramatically.

"Go to sleep."

(Eyes peering up at me from the top of her green polka-dotted sheets.) "I just need attention.  Is that so much to ask?"

"You danced ALL day!  How can you STILL be awake?"

"I don't know."  She bats her eyelashes at me.

I sigh and put down my book.  "What do you want to do?"

"An impromptu musical number."

"Okay, go for it."  Sometimes you've just got to let the crazy happen.

"Really?" she asks in delight.

"Really.  Hit me with your best shot."

She then goes into a medley of Phoebe's songs from Friends, followed by some Fosse moves at the end of the bed, a grand jete to the door, some jazz hands and then flops down on her stomach onto the bed.

"You done?"

"Not yet."  She fakes an epileptic fit, giggling maniacally.

"Now?"

"I think so."

Rissa then pretends to be a velociraptor doing a chemistry experiment that ends in a small explosion.

from HistoricLOLS.com

later... after I've turned the bedside lamp off, thinking that the extra light was the problem...

"In this light,  on your dress here, (she indicates my left breast) it kind of looks like a storm trooper.   'These aren't the droids we're looking for.' "

"Un-huh."  I reach into the beside table and grab the bottle Mental Calmness chewable tabs.  "Stop talking.  Chew this."

She chews, takes a breath as if to launch into another torrent of tangents when I shoot her my deadly laser eyes.

"I know.  Go to sleep."

"Yes."

"Or you'll smother me."

"Yes."

"Okay, but just this one last thing before you smother me?"

This is when I reach for the Mental Calmness chewable tablets and take one myself.  Perhaps if I fall asleep first, my steady breathing will lull her.

"My underwear is eating my butt."

It's wrong to shoot your daughter with an elephant dart, right?

Hair Art and Frolicking Kittens

So pretty much every time I'm in the shower, I lose half of my hair.   David says I'm exaggerating. But it's not like he can feel the ever-widening bits of scalp on his head.  Okay, I might be exaggerating... The math wouldn't work. If it were true, I'd be completely bald by now.   It seems like I lose half my hair.

But, when we're showering together (you know,  to "conserve water"), David says,  "My God, that's a lot of hair!"  And he's not talking about the hair that's in the drain, because I learned from past experience that you can't just let hair go down the drain when you AND your daughter both have shoulder-length hair.  When you do that, you end up clogging the drain, and then having to take pliers to grab what basically looks like something your cat either killed or threw up. Just be glad I'm not posting pictures of that.  In place of drain hair, I will post pictures of delightful kittens frolicking.

Imagine if you dare, something THIS size in your shower drain.

After having dealt with the pleasure of drain de-cloggage a few times, I then got into the habit of taking whatever hair that comes off in my hands as I shower, and putting it on the shower wall.  You know, for safe-keeping. Yes... it's disgusting, I would be the first to admit it.  But better that, than clogging the drain with my masses of auburn curly tresses.  Sometimes, the subway-tiled wall becomes a perfect canvas for hair art.  I want to call it hair origami, but it isn't really 3-D like that, it's more like... string art from the 70s (which I just googled and discovered it's also called symmography - fancy, no?)  We had some hanging in our house - I think my dad did them - one looked like this:

Alec Jopling original, circa 1970  You can't see the nails around which the string is wrapped, but they are there!

We also had this 'painting' which my father still threatens to give to me... it's now at the back of the guest bedroom closet...

I think they got it to celebrate my mother's Viking heritage.  She's Danish.
 

And they had these lovely pieces as well...

Wait!  I figured it out!  They were decorating with a 'global'  theme before it was hip.

Sorry, I got distracted in my old photos folder.  Really, none of those pieces has anything much to do with the sort of art which I create from my apparently superfluous hair on the shower wall.  Frankly, they're too... constrained by limits.  Mine is way more free-form.  Looser.  You know, more 'arty.'  What's funny (not ha-ha, but peculiar) is that no matter how I put the hair on the wall, it either ends up being in the shape of an elephant or an eagle.  What does that say about me? I'm sure that maybe there's some sort of new-agey explanation for that.  Like my totem is an eagle but I have the wisdom of an elephant?  I shriek like an eagle and plod like an elephant?  I'll soon be bald like an eagle and wrinkly like an elephant?  Whatever it is, it keeps me occupied and the drain clear.