I just wanted coffee!

My soy milk refuses to foam.  It takes two failed foam attempts before I grab the tetra pack and double check the label.  Low Fat Soy.  Low Fat Soy does not foam.  And not only does it NOT foam - it tastes like shit.  I check the pantry - there are two more of the wrong soy milks there.  I bang my head on the counter.  I just wanted coffee.

I know, I KNOW... there are worse things in the world than not having foamy soy milk in one's morning coffee.  I am aware that right now I'm coming off as a spoiled, fucking, North-American PRINCESS, I know that.   It's just... it's just.. starting my day on an even keel is becoming a must.  My body delights in betraying me. The least amount of stress immediately kicks me into a 'fight or flight' response.  So wee, simple things that start my day off nicer, are more than just helpful, they are essential.  Yes, it's only stupid foam in my coffee, but it's stupid foam in my coffee that stops me from having my first angina attack of the day before 8:00 a.m.

I'm not coping well with stress.  Our house is on the market, I'm directing the most expensive musical our theatre group has ever produced, I'm about to begin a new job and just found out I have to have another biopsy... any of those could be stressful.  The thing is, my body is reacting disproportionately to regular amounts of stress.  I was making car-pooling plans over the weekend and I had an angina attack.  From CAR-POOLING PLANS!  What the hell is that? 

And although the notion of getting through the day drunk has a lot of some appeal, I recognize that it's not the best course of action.  So I take refuge in little things that make me contented and calm, like my morning coffee.  Therefore, to eliminate one of those stressors, I went to the grocery store and purchased the right type of soy milk.  Problem fixed.  Apparently sex is a good stress-reducer, so as soon as David gets home, that can happen... Blogging is akin to journalling, so me typing this should be helping right now... I just need to add in some self-hypnosis, exercise, listening to music, meditation, and deep breathing and I'll be good to go.  Perhaps even, without my foamy coffee.

23 Days Later...

WARNING: CYCLICAL FEMININE CONTENT

Me in the bathroom, minding my own business, just peeing... I thought.  Until I go to wipe and...

"WHAT THE?!?  It can't have been 23 days!  I just had it!!"

I rush to the calendar in the kitchen and count from my last Red Sharpie-circled days.  I am right on schedule.  23 days.  CRAP.  I had not a clue this was coming.  I am that busy.  You know how gymnasts and other elite female athletes push their bodies so hard that they don't even get periods?  Basically, they are TOO BUSY TO BLEED.  Okay, it might have something to do with their lean muscle mass to body fat ratio but I'm going with the TOO BUSY TO BLEED and wondering why that hasn't happened to me.   Although now, knowing that I was PMSing last week, does explain my several days of wanting choke people - some of whom were small children.

I forget things when I'm busy.  Things in addition to when the lining of my uterus tries to expel itself from my nether regions. I forget to take medicines, go to appointments, collect the garbage/recycling.   I have to have a good 5 -7 reminders on my email calendar.  3 days before, 2 days before, 1 day before, 10 hours before, 6 hours before, 2 hours before.   If I can walk to the appointment/meeting, maybe even 15 minutes before.  Combine regular peri-menopause with my period, and any sort of mental acuity becomes a dumb-ass, muscle car driver being hit by a CN Cargo Train at an un-barriered train crosssing.  Which, coincidentally, is how my lady bits feel right now.

I have forgotten to take my morning pill cocktail twice this week. TWICE.   Some of these pills are pills that ensure that my cycle lasts 23 days instead of 15 days - fingers crossed that that doesn't come back to bite me.

Underwear addict...

My name is Heather and I am an underwear addict.  I have over 67 pairs of underwear.  Which, when you looking at it from a less compulsive consumerist way, means that I can NOT do laundry for more than 2 months!!!

I counted them as I was trying to squirrel away the freshly laundered undergarments into my top right drawer in the walk-in closet.    I have 5 pairs of beige boycut briefs.  I have 8 pairs of white cotton boycut briefs.  Really, what it comes down to is that I have MANY boycut briefs in MANY different colours: pink, purple, turquoise, black, blue, raspberry & green, B&W patterned...  I have over 2 dozen thongs.  I have at least 3 pairs of 'Period Panties."  My cheeks runneth over with sexy panties -  the lace, the cheekinis, the ruffled.  And those are just the ones I have in my top right drawer in the closet.  In the top two drawers of the dresser, I have matching underwear sets, say 8 of them.  Okay, maybe 10.  Possibly 12.

How did this happen?  I mean really 10 should do me... should really do anyone.  7 pairs with 3 more emergency 'just-in-case-the-laundry-didn't-get-done-on-time' pairs.  And yet, when I try to sort through and edit my collection, it's like I have personal relationships with them all.  The white cotton ones with the lace feel great and are a perfect match for any of my vintage styled sleeping garments - especially the white cotton, pintuck-fronted, with the side pocket nightie that allows me to pretend that I'm in Pride and Prejudice.  The balconette and cheekini in turquoise drives David mad for the 15 seconds that it remains upon my person.   And the red panties?  Well, they're RED panties!!!

Why is it that the comfortable beige panies are not enough for me?  Am I that vain that my ass, hidden beneath several layers of clothing,  needs to be clad in the lingerie equivalent of precious gems?  Yes.  Yes I am.  Black thongs for darker clothing.  Beige panties for translucent clothing.  Sparkly blue to make David lose his mind.

Really it's good for a gal's psyche.  'Cause sometimes just knowing that you are wearing bright red lacy panties can get you through that bad day.  When you're ready to decapitate someone who doesn't understand social cues, who doesn't have two synapses to rub together, who wastes oxygen on the planet, you can always think, "My ass looks amazing right now," and sometimes, that, can be enough.

If men gave birth...

Had to share this video from the Netherlands... Two Dutch television hosts Dennis Storm and Valerio Zena offered to experience the pain of childbirth.  Of course their birthing experience didn't include vomiting, involuntary pooping/diarrhea, bursting facial blood vessels, having a 'taint' torn/sliced and then sutured after the fact... but good on them for being guinea pigs.

The Fabulous Lesbian Muffcrats...

This is how much David and Rissa love me.  They bought me THESE at our local charity shop!!

Aren't they the absolute best?!?  I think they're supposed to be be mice, but they look more like muskrats to me on account of their poufy head fur and long tails.  And then when I really looked at their attire - it struck me that the one in the tuxedo had a very feminine, tailored flair, what with the form-fitting vest and cravat and lace around her wrists.  And then I thought, what if these are two female muskrats... on their wedding day!?!  David and Rissa found me my very own diversity-affirming stuffed animals that I can place on my desk and adore EVERY SINGLE DAY!!  I have Fabulous Lesbian Muffcrats!!!  How great is that?!?  The only thing better?  If they were actual taxidermied muskrats.

Salsa counts as a vegetable right?

We're producing Peter Pan.*  I'm directing, David is the tech director and Rissa is dancing.  Sunday is our big rehearsal day.  Our family is at the rehearsal hall all day, which means that no one is home to prep dinner.  Which means that by the time we get home for dinner?  We have Resort Food.  As in the kind of food you RESORT to having when you simply don't have the energy to prepare anything healthy.

Last night?  NACHOS!  Rissa thinks she's died and gone to Heaven.

"Until the show opens we get to eat crappy food all the time, don't we?"

She has given me a list of foods that she thinks would be appropriate options for our Sunday dinners:

Kraft Dinner
Badly Breaded Chicken Nuggets
Frozen Pizza
Poutine
Pasta with canned Alfredo/Carbonara sauce.

If you see someone on the street in a simple carbohydrate/sodium coma?  That'd be me.

* Shameless plug - Peter Pan is playing in Port Hope, ON - the last weekend of February first weekend in March, 2013 

Winning the lottery wouldn't be enough...

Before we bought our beautiful heritage house, we had a meeting with the bank where they looked at our debt ratio.   I was depressed.  I was sure that we wouldn't be able to afford the house.  But then, miracles of miracles, the bank said yes we could.

The bank lied.

In the 70s?  My family lived in Nova Scotia and we'd buy a lottery ticket where the grand prize was $100,000.  It was SO MUCH money!  We would spend hours and hours dreaming as a family about what we would do with those winnings.  The trips we we take, the cars we'd buy, the pool we'd install.  If we won $100, 000 now, it would only pay off a third of our debt.   If we were to win the Early-Bird draw from one of those Home Lotteries?  We would still owe money to the bank.

The bank says, "Here, have a credit line!  Here, have another credit line!"

We say, "Are you sure we can afford all this?"

The bank says, "We are completely sure!"

The bank are lying bastards.

They talk about the benefits of home ownership.  You're not throwing money into a black hole of rent - you have 'equity' in your home - it's an investment.  What they don't talk about?  Is the fact that you'll never have disposable income again once you own a house.  Maintenance on a house is expensive.   And maintenance on a century home?  Forget about it!  There's a reason they are called money pits. 

We are so fucking house poor.  Every job?  Costs at least $1000. Minimum.  And when you're in a heritage home or even heritage district, you can't just go the economical way.  The Heritage Committee can't tell you what you can do to the inside of your home, but they are fascists about the outside.  If we were to replace or repair our windows to satisfy the Heritage Committee?  It would be about $1000, per window.  We have 37 windows - not including the basement windows.

You don't think about this when you fall in love with a house.  You are seduced by the butler's pantry and servants' staircase and claw footed bathtub and sloped ceilings in the attic.  You salivate over the wood-burning fireplace and transomed windows.  You don't think about the fact that it will take, according to the rate at which we are paying down our debt now (which is the 'one step forward, 3 steps back' ratio), 75 years to pay off our debt.  I just did the math.  I'll be 119 when I'm debt free at this rate.  Not a problem!  The women in my family are long lived. We'll pay it all off and then we'll be able to afford that trip to Disney - with the grandkids, great grandkids and possibly great grandkids.  It'll be a helluva party!