Thigh Sliver

"So, how was your day?" I ask Rissa.

"People looked at me weird when Nerine was holding my leg while I was feeling up my inner thigh."

Beat, two, three...  I close my eyes for a moment.   "O...kay...  Explanation...?"

"In Science we were using plasticine and toothpicks for a project, and I ended up sitting on one of the toothpicks, so I had a sliver in my jeans, so I went to the office and asked the secretary if they had tweezers in the first-aid kit, and she did, which was great, but then I couldn't reach it, which was bad, so I needed Nerine to hold my leg up so that I could feel for it... So it sort of looked like I was feeling myself up... In the office.  There were some kids in the hall who gave me some weird looks."

"I can't imagine why."

Maternal Reenactment of event

Okay... SERIOUSLY?!?

Have I pissed off some ancient Fertility Goddess?  Did I poop on Hera's cornflakes?   Forget to return Mama Quilla's call?  Accidentally take Nim-inna's name in vain?  'Cause it's only been 17 days.  SEVENTEEN FREAKING DAYS!! 

It's stress.  It's got to be.  I mean, I forgot to take my special herbal cyclical-extension remedy pill once last week, but that shouldn't throw me back to bloody wolves.  So it's stress.  I'm gearing up to tech week with Peter Pan, running around ragged, just started a new job... that's what it is.

Please, please, please...  I didn't mean it when I complained that it was only 23 days.  23 days would be just fine.  I LOVED my 23 day cycle - it was freaking awesome!!! 

I'm not asking for me - although easing up on the machete to my nether regions would be nice - I'm asking for David and Rissa.  They have to live with me and already suffer through those 36-48 hours of Heather Zombie every 23 days.  It's like The Walking/Curled up in the Fetal Position/Weeping Dead in our house during those hours.  There is a body stumbling around our house that looks like me and kinda sounds like me, but it ain't me.  David turns to me on Day 3 and says "It's so nice to have you back."

So I'm totally cool to go back to the 23 Day Cycle.  Just fine with me.  I'd say I will no longer complain, but anyone who knows me knows that's pretty much bullshit.   But if this is the alternative, I'll take the 23 Days.

Belly Button Lint

I've been collecting David's belly button lint.  In the lip of my crystal ring holder.  You know, just to see how much we can actually accumulate over the course of the year. 

David's pretty hairy, so during the course of a regular day, his chest hair and "Happy Trail," move the lint from inside a garment towards his belly button - kind of like the circling winds of a hurricane, or, or... the Charybdis, except instead of large, sea-faring vessels, his belly button is sucking in lint.  

After a few incidences of discovering copious amounts of lint in David's navel, I got to thinking...  If we collected it, would it be enough, say... to felt minature figures of  Shetland ponies or woodland foxes? Could I begin a new career as a felting artist?  Could I sell Belly Button Lint Minatures on Etsy?  So far this is all I have collected... but I'm hopeful.

Soon this will be transformed into small woodland animals!

Instant Coffee = Gateway Drug

There used to be a time when I could drink flavoured Nescafe instant coffee and think it was good.  I drank it weak.  I drank it full of sugar.  Really what I drank was a hot milk shake with what amounted to a wee bit of coffee flavouring.  Then it all changed with Alice.  Alice made good strong coffee - and once you've had good you really can't go back to crappy.

I now triple filter my coffee.  I pour double the amount of grounds used for a single cup into the filter, then pour 8 oz of just-boiled water over it.  I then take the weak coffee from the carafe and pour it through into my latte mug and then I do it a third time, draining it back into the carafe (being careful not to tear the, now-sodden, filter), just to try to approximate the taste of what you can get from a barista.  And what about that?  I just typed BARISTA!?!  I can use barista correctly in a freaking sentence!!  What the Pooh?!?   

I still don't drink the really good/expensive coffee. I don't store my own beans in an opaque, airtight container (not in the freezer) before I grind them in a fancy schmancy grinder.  I don't have organic espresso.  I buy President's Choice Decaf Hazelnut/Vanilla coffee already ground because I'm a coffee pussy who likes her coffee to basically taste like ice cream.  I can't handle caffeine because of my hot flashes and I can't do dairy because it makes my throat all mucousy.  So I go through this rigmarole* of triple filtering to get myself a decaf, hazelnut/vanilla soy latte in the morning, going through twice as much coffee in a week all because Alice made good coffee.  Damn you Alice!!!  DAMN YOU!!!!  (Closeup of me yelling into the camera with a long pull-back from a crane.)  Next?  Next I'm going to be buying a freaking French Press. How fucking pretentious is that?!?

* So up until JUST NOW I thought that the word was "rig-a-ma-role"  /ˈrig(ə)məˌrōl/ There is no 'a' after the 'g.'  Although there is the implied short 'e' in the pronunciation.  Who knew?

Communal Germ Box

...AKA a box of Timbits.  I'm not supposed to eat Timbits.  They're full of gluten and sugar and everything that can push me to edge of a sugar coma.

But when they're on a table, right in front of a gal?  And when you haven't had a snack?  And when you're in the middle of a rehearsal and stressed?  That's when you reach into the Timbits box.  Where other people, with other fingers have felt up the Timbits.

I had one.  Okay, maybe I had two... Okay, I had three.  Which really?  Isn't even as many calories as a full-on donut.  But it does mean that I stuck my hand in the Communal Germ Box three times instead of one.  It also means that the next day is when my sore throat started.  And my mouth started feeling a little pasty and the blocked nostril thing began.

Basically, I was being punished for eating the gluten and the sugar by the Gods of Reminding Me to Eat Well.  The Gods said "HA-HA!  You think that you won't be screwed over for three little Timbits eh?  Now we will concentrate all the viruses that have come into even indirect contact with every hand that has reached into this box and you Heather shall feel their winter-cold effects."

But for those 5 seconds at a time that those Timbits were making love to my mouth?  Totally worth it.

We used to have sex...

We had plans.  Last weekend we were going to get naked.  We were going to waggle our eyebrows suggestively.  We were going to get sweaty from the 'bouncy-bouncy."  We had plans.  You know what David and I ended up doing?  Having an Epsom Salts bath and collapsing into separate sleep comas.

We spent our Saturday groaning while crouched awkwardly on the family room rug... doing NOTHING sexy.  You know what we were doing?  We were weaving squares of fabric through 7x10 foot pieces of plastic chicken wire.  For set decoration.  For 6 hours.  After about the first 15 minutes, my 44 year-old arthritic hips started to ache.  (8 years of gymnastics folks!  Not one Olympic medal and plenty of arthritis.)  After an hour, I turned to David and warned him, "We're not having sex tonight."   All he said was a commiserative, "I know."

We're so busy.  We keep planning to have sex and it just doesn't happen.   By the time we make it to bed, David and I have to stifle our yawns as we lie face to face.  We keep saying that we'll go to bed earlier, that we'll enjoy some afternoon delight and then it's 11:00 p.m. or Rissa's home.  There's no time!  And not just no time for foreplay and hide the salami - I'm too tired take out the Magic Wand and give myself a 2-3 minute quickie!

Soon.  Soon, when the show is over and we have our lives back again - we'll reconvene in our marital bed and blow each other's minds and other body parts, but until then - the only thing I'm humping?  Is my pillow, with my head.

Did I SAY you could touch my stomach?!?

When you're pregnant you become a public commodity.  Strangers ask you your business, tell you whether you're having a boy or a girl and have opinions on what foods go in your cart at the No Frills.

Way back when... when I was pregnant with Rissa - I was working in an office.  I did a lot of work with the desktop publishing department.   I came into the office one day and this desktop publishing dude suddenly put his hands very low on my pregnant stomach.  I'm not a touching-phobe, in fact I'm pretty darned snuggly with those I'm close to,  but if I don't KNOW the person, I'm not really cool with being touched, up close and personal - low on my body, adjacent to my hooha.  I didn't know this guy.

Without a pause, I reached down and grabbed his crotch, firmly... in such a way where he could not extricate himself easily.  I then said this:

"You need to ask first."  I squeezed a little bit.  His eyes got a little wider.  I smiled kindly at him, waiting, my head resting in an "I'm listening" tilt.

"Sorry..."  he strangled out, his eyes watering.  "I'll ask."

"Good man."  I waited patiently, hand still a claw around what manly bits hadn't crawled back up inside his body.

"May I... "  he swallowed and looked a bit green.  "May I touch your stomach?"

I released him and feigned delight.  "Why thank you SO much for asking!  You know a lot of people just touch without asking."  I lifted up my top, exposing the vast expanse of child-incubating skin. I take on a conspiratory tone. "You can even touch my popped belly button if you like, I don't let just anyone do that."