Autumn Chore Weekend

This weekend is the weekend things are supposed to get done.  Caulking (snerk - yes, I have the mind of a 12 year-old boy) of windows and such.  Maybe even a hedge trimming (snerk).  Round 1 of leaf raking was Thursday.  My inner thighs and quads are still complaining about that.  I guess I don't do a lot of squatting in my day-to-day activities.  Maybe I should have stretched first?  Oh GOD.  That's what it's come to... stretching before yard work.  Hello body - welcome to your 40s.

Errands that don't get done during the week while I'm carless are left until the weekend.  I've got my hands full, so here is a post about my crazy cats and the resulting stompery from late October...

Thou Peevish Sheep!

Meeeeh...

Yesterday morning...

David had been looking forward to sleeping in.  15 more minutes of it.  He wasn't carpooling because of an after-school literacy meeting.  He set the alarm in anticipatory joy -  there may have been some contented chortling and 'nom, nom, nom' noises as he snuggled into the bed.  Then, the cats fucked it all up.

Rissa got up before we did, but didn't feed the cats.  This had the cats looking for people in the house who would feed them.  Launching themselves onto the bed, they began their own version of an intricate Bollywood dance number.  David, doesn't enjoy cat dance at the best of times, less so when he thinks he should be sleeping in.  There may have been some hurtling of the cats off the bed, perhaps propelled by under-the-blankets feet, followed by some growling and stomping on David's part to get them out of the room.  Then a door might have been slammed.  Grumbling ensued and not the under-the-breath kind.  After two minutes of this, he left the bed and STOMPED down the hall.

What you need to understand is that we are emotional vampires in our house - we suck up the energy of others around us.  We then magnify that energy and spit it out onto unsuspecting civilians.

David was in a mood, ergo I was too.  And I already wasn't thrilled to be woken up by violent kicking followed by doors slamming.  What with Hurricane Sandy being en route, the barometric pressure was wreaking havoc with my head.  I was hoping to stagger to the bathroom, dope myself up and sleep the morning away.  And now?  Now I was up.  And worse, my stomach thought it was time to be up so I needed to eat.  So I STOMPED down the stairs.

And there was poor Rissa, minding her own business with two stompy parents grumbling and growling and having yet to even said good morning to each other on account of the fact that David was convinced that the cats should be thrown into a bag and then into a box and that box should be thrown into Lake Ontario; (it would never happen PETA - so re-fucking-lax, and un-twist your panties!)  and I was mad because instead of him asking me to do something about it he just got all stompy and slammy.

By the time I told Rissa that she couldn't wear her brand new ballet flats to school in the rain, she was ready to burst into tears.  I managed to turn her around by reminding her that her rain boots have polka-dots on them and that's ALWAYS a good thing to have on your feet. Then she got into the spirit herself.   She found a pair of knee high rainbow socks to wear underneath the polka-dotted rain boots,  and put on her stylish navy rain jacket - with belt.  Soon after, via email, David and I apologized for our peevish sheep attitudes and, at the end of the day, we all helped make dinner together.  Long-standing angry grudges averted.

We are NOT a mouse house...

Ahhh, the joys of autumn...  (Insert contented drinking your cocoa sigh here.) I sit typing at the north end of the dining room.  The early afternoon sun warms my shoulders.  The house is deliciously warm.  If I wanted, I could take my laptop and write in front of a blazing fire in the family room.

And yet...and yet... Our three cats stare with x-ray vision at the dining room walls... What's that noise?  What do I hear?  scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch...  I knew it was too good to last.  Rodentia.  Renovating our house to make it theirs.  To be fair it only sounds like something small, mousish in size and perhaps only one of them driven indoors by the cooler weather to stake claim on a rodent condo in our... main floor ceiling / 2nd floor flooring joists.

I just want to say, "DUDE.  Please.  Not now.  We can't afford an exterminator.  We still have to patch the roof where the frickin' raccoons roosted last season." 

I am a lovers of animals.  I had an encounter with a squirrel last weekend that was delightful.  He ate spiced pecans OUT OF MY HAND, and then hung like freaking Spider Man from the tree trunk upside down to eat them.   I love rodents of all shapes and sizes,  I just don't want to HOUSE them.  We already have three cats and frequently take in animals to babysit.  No more animals in our house. 

Unless, of course, if someone said, "This poor blind, nearly lame, elderly dog has to find a home or be put down." David would then have a fight on his hands 'cause my immediate go-to is "I'LL DO IT!!!" And then I hold onto that animal in a near-suffocating hug as David tries his best to quell that urge within me.  Limpid blue eyes would blink blink up at him and I would win.  'Cause really, if person says NO  to a blind, nearly lame, elderly dog who won't live for much longer any way and really has nothing wrong with them apart from the being blind, nearly lame and elderly?  That person must be a Nazi, and nobody likes being called a Nazi.  Right David? So we're keeping this theoretical dog!

But now that there's the scritch-scritching, I'm imagining there must be an infestation, possibly of Biblical proportions - 'cause they apparently did plagues up really well back then.  So in the same way that when a pet has fleas every itch you have MUST be a flea bite, or when someone in your acquaintance has pink eye your own eye begins to twitch and water... Now, every sound in my century home that scritch scritches... is now a rodent with 26 others having a house party in our walls.  On the plus side though, the boiler isn't leaking as much...

I see Zebras...

...where there aren't any.  We were driving past a farm on the weekend and I was convinced there were zebras grazing.  With delighted glee, I thought to myself, "Hey look!  ZEBRAS!"  I was just about to point them out to David, but as we drove by, I realized that in actuality they were horses wearing plaid blankets.  Which had me in near hysterics because they really looked NOTHING like zebras seeing as it was brown and white plaid.  Really, I could have been imagining golfers dressed as horses and it would have made the same amount of visual sense.  Then when I tried to explain it to David he just looked at me like I was insane... AGAIN.

NOT a zebra.

I have 3 a.m. hallucinations.   There was a small hooded woman on the back of our bedroom door not too long ago.  Reality: David's grey bathrobe with a burgundy towel on top of it - but to me - random hooded woman freaking me out to the point of hyperventilation.   The ceiling fan might have been a luminescent sea creature, or a large bug with five wings and four eyes, or an alien face.  What's just a titch scary?  This is what I see when I'm 100% completely sober.  How schizophrenic does a gal have to be to hallucinate things?

I can walk down the street and make "come here, kitty, kitty" noises to a small bag of garbage on the curb.  It's only when I'm THIS close do I realize that I've been talking to a bag.  Or I'll see a miniature crocodile, and be REALLY EXCITED over the prospect of getting to touch a MINIATURE FREAKING CROCODILE (Just WAIT until Rissa and David hear about this!!!), in the middle of our sleepy little provincial town, only to find out it's just a boring ol' fallen branch.   I like to think of it as "hopefully hallucinogenic."   (TM Heather)

Those thingies that connect power lines to each other?  Couplers?? Groove Connectors?  Whatever the hell they are?  To me?  Frogs.  Well-balanced frogs with asbestos feet so that they can withstand the power from the lines beneath them.  Although they might just be balanced on telephone wires which I don't think have the same kick to them - otherwise there'd be an awful lot of fried pigeons up there.

But then, on my walk the other morning, there was a fox.  An actual REAL fox.  A red one.  On the boardwalk. 

Walking right towards me.  Foxes move differently than dogs.  They lope.  They gambol.  Which is why I knew, even from a 100 meters away that it wasn't a dog and I got EXCITED.  But I didn't want to get my hopes up in case it was just some random stray, skinny dog with palsy.    It walked nearly up to me - about 6 feet away it sat, regarded me (at this point I was crouched down on the boardwalk to make myself as un-threatening and friendly as possible) and then it skirted around me and loped on its way.  If I'd put my hand out, I could have touched it.  I didn't.  On account of the having had a series of rabies shots just this last July from the whole feral kittens incident and David's voice was in my head saying "I will not take you to the hospital if you deliberately keep touching wild animals."  This close.  I was THIS close.  And I wasn't hallucinating nothin'!

Brought to you by the letters... S C O T C and H

Clumping cat litter?  When it gets covered with a deluge of water?  When you're trying to get it off the floor with paper towels or scoop it up into a dust pan?  VERY close, in consistency and appearance, to cat diarrhea.  (quelling urge to vomit)  Even though I KNOW that it's NOT cat diarrhea, the look of it, the feel of it...  and given that the water covering it was slightly warm... the temperature of it?  NOT what I want to be cleaning up first thing in the morning.

Which is why the last time I had to do it, I then gave the job of emptying  the emergency (HAH!) water catcher container thingie, which resides under the boiler's pressure valve in the depths of our Hannibal Lecter basement, to Rissa.  Has she done it?? No, she has not.  I gave her the job because, at the age of 12, her brain should still work.  And yet, as per yesterday's post, the passing of that particular baton was... pre-mature.    Apparently, in all my peri-menopause, multiple concussions, wonky freakin' thyroid glory - my brain still works better than the other people co-habitating with me.  And I forget things ALL THE TIME!!  And I forget WORDS.  Words for nouns, like 'teapot' and 'dish towel'... and that's on a good day.

I'm going to have to put post-it notes all around the house, like someone with Alzheimer's, reminding me to do things because I get distracted.  (See Don't Open That Tupperware - 4th paragraph.)  Nearly last on my daily list of things to accomplish has been to empty the emergency water catcher container thingie.  We already had to safeguard our unreliable-boiler-circumvention-system by putting a paving stone in the bottom of the emergency water catcher container thingie, so that the cats wouldn't keep knocking it over, you know, for cat fun.   They would dance around in the faux cat diarrhea soup (quelling urge to vomit) and then leave little clay cat footprints ALL over the house.  Good times.

Some would suggest that it might be time to replace our inconsistent-at-best boiler.   Some have WAY more money in their savings than we do.  We just need to keep vigil over the water level and empty it every couple/three days during the heating season.  Easy Peasy.  (HAH!)  I had a EUREKA!! moment this morning and finally moved the kitty litter boxes further away from the sub-boiler flood plain, scooped, paper toweled, mopped the floors AND reorganized under the stairs (because I got distracted) ALL before 9:00 a.m.  And you know what?  Scotch smells really good at 9:30 in the morning.  Cheers!

THIS DOES NOT BELONG IN THE SINK!

It's like every time I have ever reminded her has NEVER happened.  Because there it was.  In the sink.  The empty apple juice bottle, from which Rissa had poured her morning juice, sitting there, IN THE FREAKING SINK!!!!

"RISSA!!!!"  I grab the bottle and hold it aloft - an impromptu weapon.

"Yes Mummy?"  She comes in to the kitchen.  Upon seeing me, she backs up a step.  Her ingratiating/panicked smile withers under the wrath that is me.

"BLARGH!!!!!! 

"THIS," I gesticulate with the empty bottle,  "THIS DOES NOT BELONG IN THE SINK!!!"

"Was that in the sink?"  Rissa feigns innocence.  She blink-blinks at me like a newborn fawn.

I make a noise that is not human.  Her eyes get very wide.  "You are NOT that cute.  Where does THIS belong?!?"

".........?"  I can barely hear her response.

"WHERE?!?"

"In the recycling?"

"YES!  THIS. BELONGS. IN. THE. RECYCLING!!   Now please, for the love of everything holy in this galaxy, please put it IN the recycling before I beat you to death with it."   I throw in another "BLARGH!" for good measure.  She laughs, which is good, because it means that she doesn't know how close I truly am to bludgeoning her with the bottle.

It's a virtual mantra. "Rinse.  Please rinse.  Please rinse and deposit in the recycling."  She's heard it so often that she should now be annoying her peers with her vigilance when they visit.  In hushed tones she should be saying, "Never leave anything in the sink that could go in the recycling or the garbage.  My Mom's head actually implodes if she catches you." 

Oh GOD.  I have morphed into this... this naggy, anal-retentive,  MOTHER...   I tell her EVERY morning to make her bed.  After my reminding her, literally THOUSANDS of times,  that her bed should be made,  it's as if I'm speaking in tongues.  She looks at me in confusion.  I am an incomprehensible, tenuously polite woman and this new-found knowledge is a revelation.

"Why yes, Mummy.  What a great idea!  Making my bed would make my room much tidier.  I will hasten to do your bidding."

She was there, even commiserated with me a while back when we stared in disbelief as David cleaned up his own kitchen mess.  She was my wingman.  They know, they both know that the house would devolve to anarchy without me in it.  And yet... and yet...  I frequently find myself turning into the snorting, crazy-eyed woman in a bath robe threatening the life of my child.  Because, it's not like she has a brain injury.  She's not Drew freakin' Barrymore in 50 First Dates where each day she has forgotten everything she learned the day before.  SHE SHOULD KNOW THIS!!! 

9:00 a.m.  Too early to start drinking?

Ball Gag Mouth Warmers

"I have a plan!" he says.  "I know what we can use!"

"For what?"

"Your outside angina."   

"Excuse me?"  I gave him the "I couldn't have possibly heard that correctly"  look.

He rolls his eyes at me.  "AN-gina.  I said Angina."

"Okay, that makes WAY more sense to me.  I was a bit confused by the whole outside vs. inside notion - it pretty much HAS to be inside, doesn't it?"

He shoots me a look.

"Wow.  Tough Crowd.  Okay.  Tell me your plan!"

"Whenever you go outside in the winter and breathe, it sets off your angina, right?"

"Right."

"So we can take a dryer ball with the air holes in it, cut it open and then insert a hotpocket handwarmer in it and make some ties to hold it on your head and... VOILA!"

"A ball-gag mouth warmer!  AWESOME!"

"No, no, no!!  That's not what I meant... I meant..." he's now obviously picturing it in his head ... "Oh my God!  It's totally a ball gag mouth warmer."

"But in blue,"  I offer.  "With pointy plastic spikey things.  It would be a real conversation starter."

Instead he ordered me these:

Look!  It's a minature flask  - ON A CHAIN - so that I can have 1 oz. of emergency booze on me at all times!!!

AND he also got me this!  It's called the COLD AVENGER  - It should really come with a cape to complete the ensemble. 

Can't wait to wear that around town.   It's almost like I'm Darth Vader.

Rissa says "I think you should just actually GET a Darth Vader mask.  It would be WAY cooler."

JUST WEAR PAJAMAS!!!

Rissa repels blankets.  She starts the night all cozy underneath the sheets and duvet and comforter and afghan, all of which she apparently needs to have.

"I like the WEIGHT, Mummy.  It's almost like there's an elephant on me."

David and I reckon we can upgrade to a lead blanket or, perhaps chain mail - less bulky, but still weighty enough to keep her happy.  But I digress.  It doesn't matter how many blankets we put on her, whenever we check on Rissa, she is either a) on TOP of the blankets, huddled in a ball in the centre of her bed shivering for warmth  or b) sideways on the bed with limbs splayed EVERYWHERE, blankets now underneath the bed.

This kid can splay like no other.  She has the longest frickin' legs that I've ever seen.  Rissa's always been a splayer.  She did it in her crib.  Arms and legs extended - pushing against the rails, usually sideways.  She'd often wake up with divots on her forehead from the crib rails. 

As we come into winter, trying to keep her zero-body-fat body warm overnight is a challenge.  Long pajamas seem to be anathema to her.

"JUST WEAR PAJAMAS!  YOU'LL BE WARMER!!"

"I AM WEARING PAJAMAS!"

"YOU ARE WEARING SHORTS AND A TANK TOP!"

"THESE ARE MY PAJAMAS!"

"THOSE ARE YOUR SUMMER PAJAMAS!"

"YES, BUT THEY ARE STILL PAJAMAS!!"

So this is what I'm going to do:  I will make her a sleep sack.  Not a sleeping bag.  A sleep sack.  You know, like the ones toddlers use because they can't be trusted not to strangle themselves with a blanket.  Like this - except for a 12 year old.

Grobag Baby Sleep Sack

 
I'll find me a cheap-ass comforter and cut out arm holes and a neck hole and I'll make her a sleep sack.  I might even let her choose the cheap-ass comforter... she could help with the sewing!!  See that?  Mother-Daughter project right there!  Teachable moment!  HAH!  And if I can actually get her to wear a long-sleeved shirt - perhaps she might make it through the night without dying of hypothermia.