Cannibal Chickens

Lesley has chicks.  Baby chicken-type chicks.  In her house.  Four adorable balls of feathery fluff.  I can barely contain my "squeeeee" of joy within the confines of my head.  I have picked them all up - pressed them against my cheek.  They are fluffy yellow examples of the perfection of our universe.

I just found out that these chicks are 'eating chicks.'  By that, they are meant for eating.  Not, as Rissa and David supposed when I explained this to them, cannibal chicks who are eating other chicks.  Lesley will be slaughtering these chicks after they become full-grown chickens, and then, she will eat them.  These baby chicks whom I pressed to my cheek.

And I'm going to help her do that.  Because I think I need to know how to do this.  You know, when Armageddon comes, we'll all be living on homesteads in the remaining wilds of Canada raising our own food, and I'm going to need to know how to slaughter chickens and whatever else that can be food, including humans.  'Cause ME turning into a cannibal??  After Armageddon, that's gonna be an eventuality.  I know human is supposed to taste like chicken and all that, but say you've spent the last several months/years with George the cobbler, or ferrier or whatever in post-Armageddon times George does... I don't know if I'm going to be able to eat George on account of the fact that we'd have had a relationship of sorts, you know because he makes my shoes or puts shoes on my horse - which is all we'll have left for transport, because it's after Armageddon and we'll all be riding horse or elk or reindeer - and then when the regular food runs out we're going to have eat the Georges of this world  and I want to be prepared for that eventuality. So I'm starting with chicks.   

I WON'T resort to bulimia, I WON'T resort to bulimia...

I had a good week last week, I really did.  I was a good girl.  I limited my intake of all the bad-for-me stuff.  I did.  I didn't eat after 7:00 p.m.  I had club soda with lime instead of the Rusty Nails and Chocolate Martinis that called to me. 

Until Saturday night.  That night it all went to hell.  After a sensible dinner of pork tenderloin salad, where did David and I go?  No Frills.  What did we buy?  Bags of gluten-free brownies, and rice chips and a tray  of Nanaimo Bars.  We went out for eggs.  If I really think about the calories I ingested, I might have to commit Hara-kiri.

Food rehab may be my only option.  If I went to food rehab, I could maybe sweat out the addiction to chocolate, sugar and salt.     This once-a-week bingeing is going to kill me.  I know that I'm an emotional eater.  I know that.  So when I'm feeling low because of my freaking ridiculous health issues, that's when I should just go to bed.  Even if it's 7:30 p.m.  I should NOT have two bowlfuls of cut up miniature gluten-free brownies with added chocolate chips, topped with a dollop of sour cream, followed by an ENTIRE FUCKING bag of dill pickle flavoured rice chips.  That is stupid.  I know that it will make me all dopey and stoned on the sugars and that I'll then feel like crap.  So why do I do it?  Why can I not eat healthfully?  Why can I not ignore these stupid-ass cravings?

Although honestly?  After I ate the two bowls of miniature gluten-free brownies with added chocolate chips,  topped with a dollop of sour cream, followed by an ENTIRE FUCKING bag of dill pickle flavoured rice chips, I didn't feel all that bad.  I thought I'd have the urge to purge, but... no.  It was all good, except for the all-consuming guilt, of which I wanted to rid myself immediately.  My strategy will now be this:  eat ALL the remaining gluten-free brownies to get them out of the house.  In one sitting if I have to.

'Cause my body can't take this.  This health issue roller-coaster is sucking the big one.  I exercise every fucking day of the week for at least 60 minutes - I shouldn't have to worry about weight gain!  This shit is actually making me contemplate bulimia.  I contemplate heading to the basement with a bowl into which I could blow chunks so that David and Rissa wouldn't hear me hurling my guts out in either one of the bathrooms.  Although, if I turned the fan ON in the upstairs bathroom... NO!!  This is NOT healthy behaviour!  Plus, I'm sure that I'd still get caught, noise really has a way of travelling in our house what with the extra staircases.  The echo of my retching into a stainless bowl would probably resonate through the entire house.  Plus, if you're woofing your cookies from self-induced retching?  You give yourself a headache and burst those wee little vessels around your eyes.  That is not a good look.

If I were an alcoholic, this is where I would now call my sponsor. 

Erotic Spiders - or how David doesen't listen...

I have hallucinations during the night.  The hallucinations generally centre around the ceiling fan in our bedroom.  The fan turns into a starfish, an alien life-form or a hobbled octopus missing three legs.  The other night it was a Robotic Spider.  Matrix-like in its design, with cameras in its abdomen - massive eyes, whirring noise, looking down on me as I slept.  I had the presence of mind to be aware that I was buck naked and pulled sheets up to cover my ta-tas in case the robotic spiders were broadcasting video of me sleeping to the world at large.

I was telling David about it over breakfast.

"Erotic Spiders?" he asks.

"No, not EROTIC spiders.  ROBOTIC spiders!"

"Earn more sessions by sleeving?"*

I took in what he'd originally said.  "EROTIC spiders?  Are spiders a fetish thing now?  'Cause... EEEEEWWWW!  Oh, and, you and your daughter both have bad ears."

"Bat ears?"

I roll my eyes at him.  "Cute."

 

* ps.  From Roxanne

C.D. Bales: [shouting through the front door] Ten more seconds and I'm leaving!
Roxanne Kowalski: [opening the door] What did you say?
C.D. Bales: I said, ten more seconds and I'm leaving! Wait a second! What did you think I said?
Roxanne Kowalski: I thought you said, "Earn more sessions by sleeving."
C.D. Bales: Well, what the hell does that mean?
Roxanne Kowalski: I don't know. That's why I came out.

Raccoons are dealing crack in my attic

You know how some people don't want to go to the doctor because they just know it's going to be bad news?  We don't want to put our extension ladder up to the roof for the same reason. In spite of the fact that our good neighbour Neil was pretty sure he saw a family of raccoons shinnying up our drain pipe and then entering our roof.  AGAIN.

Last night, as I was typing this, I heard bigger-than-squirrel noises coming from our eaves.  Which means we're going to have to grab that extension ladder and go up and take a look.  And I just know that we're not going to like what we're going to see. 

Raccoons with switch blades, dealing crack. 

That's what we're going to find.  And holes in our roof.  Ginormous-freaking holes that will have to be repaired.

This spring, I was focused on combatting dandelions - not varmints.  I was planning that kind of attack.  Now we have to evict a raccoon colony from our roof.  Can we use Indiegogo or Kickstarter to raise funds for this?  I know!  I could turn it into performance art!  I'll film it in B&W and use subtitles.

We totally would have had the funds to do the roof this year if we hadn't had to pay if I weren't so freaking honest and demanded that David claim all the income he made from self-employment this year, thereby owing a nauseau-inducing tax amount to the CRA.  Damn me and my wanting to support better education and healthcare in our country!  What the hell is wrong with me?  Why couldn't I just LIE like everyone else?

We headed to bed, but the party above us was so loud that David decided that he'd to take a look.  Naked.  In the dark.  He wanted to suss out the situation and see if he could spy the raccoons out the back window, you know, surreptitious-like.  Instead, he found himself in the middle of the dark attic, hearing close-up raccoon noises that made it sound as if he were surrounded.  Naked.  In the dark.  By raccoons with switch blades dealing crack.  Then,  as I lay in the room below all this, David lost his mind.

The pounding and growling began... 

BANG!  BANG-BANG-BANG!   BANG!  BANG-BANG-BANG!
GROWL!!!  

A Stomp-esque musical number from my vantage point. It went on for a good 7 minutes. I'm surprised that Rissa didn't wake from the pandemonium.  Eventually, David returned to bed.

"Are they gone now," I asked.

"No."  There was a pout in his voice.

"Still in the roof?"

"They are partying over-top of the light fixture.  I'd bang and then they'd skitter away, but then they'd come right back. Taunting me... Banging back...  'Oh yeah!?!  You're going to bang at us?  How about this!?!' "

He put his head on my chest.  "We're going to have to go up with the ladder, aren't we?"

"Yep."

ps.  So we got the ladder out.  It became immediately apparent that the raccoons had eaten their way AROUND the boards that we had placed over their old entry points.  Note to self: find extra money to put sheet metal on the eaves when we fix the roof.

Best trip to the gynecologist ever!

Visiting a dude whose job is to stick his hand up your hooha is not my favourite thing - (unless that dude is my husband) - but I don't dread it.  I don't get all freaked out about it.  I usually sit back with a magazine while I'm waiting... sometimes I read during the exam.  Somebody has to stick their hand up there, right?  It might as well be a person who's trained to do it. 

Although I do wonder why dudes become gynecologists.  It can't just be for the free vaginas.  As a young medical student, I'm sure that in the abstract, having a day filled with women showing you their wares would be titillating and all... but in reality - I'm betting you end up getting a whole lot of wrinkly-ass vag in your face, and I'm pretty sure that not everyone weeds around the garden if you get my meaning.

But I digress...  My most recent trip to the "lady doctor" was fantastically satisfying.  It wasn't like he gave me a leering grin and said "Oh, I like what you've done down here," before he whipped out the Hitachi Magic Wand or anything...  He told me... wait, I'm still bursting with feminine pride here...  He told me... that I have a small uterus.  NEVER in my life have I been told that I have a small ANYTHING. And now it turns out I have a small uterus.  AND small ovaries.  Petite even.  For a gal who has been at least a size 10 most of her adult life - I never thought my incubator and eggs would be defined as small.  I blushed and said in a modest tone as I waved my hand demurely, "Oh, stop... you just say that to all the girls."

So maybe that's the trick, I just need to visit specialists who concentrate on the inner parts of my body.  Maybe my appendix, too, is diminutive!  I could have copies of an MRI kept in my wallet that I could take out when I'm feeling dumpy.  Yes, I may have armpit pudge, but look at that spleen!!

Synchronized Soccer with Rissa

Rissa's playing soccer this summer.  She and David went out to buy equipment.  She came back with shin guards, snazzy cleats and... nose plugs. You know, for all those underwater games.

I threw a look at David.  He shrugged.

Rissa put on the nose plugs and complained that they didn't feel right.

"I don't think that these will stop me from breathing.  Air is totally going to get in."

"Try breathing in through your nose," said David.

Rissa tried and went cross-eyed.  "It still feels weird."

"That's because you're wearing them backwards."

She put them on upside down, now looking like a small bull with a ring through its nose.

"No, not upside down," said David.  "See how this is kind of nose-shaped?  Try wearing it like that."

"OH!!!!  That makes SO much more sense," she said  before trying out some synchronized swimming moves.  Soon as this is an Olympic sport, she's going to kick ass.

Sure-Fire Cure for feeling like crap

I think I understand why those little jewelry boxes had those pop-up ballerinas in them.  Minature ballerinas make you feel good. You want a sure-fire cure for feeling like shit?  Go see the Pre-Ballet routines in a dance recital.  Seriously.  Bad moods cannot survive a toddler in a tutu NOT doing a dance number.  Tow-headed, brunette, skinny, rotund - doesn't matter the size or shape of the kid - as long as they're under the age of five, crammed into a frilly outfit and smiling onstage, you're golden. We should put those toddlers in a box so that you can look at them whenever you need a hit of joy.

Rissa - the scarf dance
circa 2004

Rissa - the pom-pom dance
circa 2004

Rissa - up to no good
circa 2004

Sunday was Rissa's end-of-the-year dance recital.   After 9 years of dance, Rissa knows what she's doing.   In between Rissa's four maternal-pride-inducing dance numbers, I sat for almost three hours watching other people's kids.  You know the ones.  The ones who can't dance, who look like their parents forced them into boot camp, the kids with no rhythm... 

But amidst the crap there were toddlers.  In tutus.  Abandoning choreography.  There were the toddlers who were orange birdies in their bird nest (there's always some sort of number with a bird's nest), there were the ones who were red robins - who'd had little wee felt spots placed on the floor so that they had a spot on which they needed to stay, there were teeny, tiny prima ballerinas - many of whom did NONE of the choreography and spent their time waving to the audience and galloping across the front of the stage.  I actually tear up watching these kids,  They give me such joy. 

That cute factor doesn't last.  When you have a 9-year old fucking up the same choreography?  Nowhere near as cute.  Just pisses me off.  I want to heckle them. "WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING FOR 9 MONTHS OF CLASSES?  SLEEPING?!?  GET OFF THE FUCKING STAGE!"

ps.  baby chicks in a box work as well.  You cannot remain grumpy when there are baby chicks in a box.  Especially if you pick up each of those baby chicks and hear them "peep-peep" at you.