The Billion Dollar Advent Calendar.

It was supposed to save us money in the long run.  This tiered, wooden grouping of minature stacked presents Advent Calendar that we found at Canadian Tire.  24 wee little gift boxes with adorable hinged doors and one larger gift box for Christmas morning.  It was PERFECT!

No more throwing the old cardboard chocolate receptacles in the recycling box, no more starting Rissa's day with a sugar high that would then plummet her into a crash as her glycemic index hit bottom.  David's Mom had found us a wall hanging version when Rissa was very little, with plush  pieces that you could then Velcro onto the scene - creating a beautiful Christmas setting by the 24th. Our three cats LOVE that Advent Calendar.  Over the years, they have absconded with a majority of the plush pieces.  Can't really blame them, they do resemble cat toys.  So we needed something new.  Something cat proof.  We would reuse this table top Advent calendar every year, fill it with treasures and create joy every single day in this December and the Decembers to come.

I think we were in a dissociative state when we bought it.  'Cause let's do the math:  $34.99 for the calendar itself, add to that HST - your grand total is $39.54.  Which, given that your average non-crap chocolate Advent calendar runs you about $10.99,  it will take us a little under 3.59 years just to get the calendar to pay for itself and that's not including the stuff we put in it.  That will take Rissa almost to her 16th Christmas.  That's okay though.  Heartfelt gifts in each of the wee boxes will make it so much more personal and we can tailor it specifically to fit Rissa.  And maybe when she's in university we can use the Advent Calendar as bait to get her to stay with us over the holidays.

Problem is, the wee little boxes into which you're supposed to stuff these heartfelt gifts are VERY wee.  The internal dimensions of the boxes are 1.5 " in height, but only about 1" in width due to the adorably hinged doors.  Unless you have something incredibly malleable, like say the Day 1 gift this year: a finger catapult rubber chicken,

it's hard to find things small enough to fit into the wee boxes.  We bought a whole lot of gifties only to find out that about half of them wouldn't fit into the wee boxes.  So then we had to go out again to find things that were small enough but not total crap, because that was kind of the point of this endeavour in the first place, NOT to have a crappy chocolate Advent Calendar.

We went out again, seeking malleable, or at least teenier gifts for the wee boxes.  You know why most of these Advent Calendar are stocked with chocolates?  Because you can get chocolates that are wee enough to fit into the wee boxes.  So what did we end up doing?  Buying small chocolates to fill some of the dud boxes.  We tried, we really tried to be frugal and heart-felt - which, if you're doing the math, would generally mean that you'd end up spending at least $25 a year to fill the sucker if you're going to the good Dollar Store - say the larger of Dollaramas.

It's totally different buying gifties for a 13 year old girl than a 6 year old girl.  The 6 year old version of Rissa would have been thrilled with cut up pages of stickers in each of the boxes.  I could have filled the entire calendar for $1 - maybe $2.  Exept that I really couldn't, because my OCD would come to the fore and I'd want to ensure that the sticker sheets were cut in straight lines or perfect circles or ovals or folded into some... origami... (Note to self: next year, do miniature origami - like the dude from Blade Runner.)  Yes, there were rows and rows of crappy barrettes and hair elastics in colours that Rissa would never touch.  Pouffy things and princess things - pretty much the antithesis of who Rissa is.  (Hence the afore-mentioned catapult rubber chicken.)  And none of those things belong in her Advent Calendar.

I'd love to have enough disposable wealth that I could go to the local artisan shop and purchase beautiful ornaments or charms or earrings or bracelets for my daughter that would fit beautifully within the calendar.  We don't have disposable wealth.   And you know what?  I am still missing one box.  Two really, because I haven't filled the 25th day - although, come to think of it, the 25th day can just be crammed with all the originally too-large presents for the wee gift boxes.  It can be a cornucopia of Christmas on the 25th!!  Rissa will open the door and things will come tumbing out at her!

Running total for the calendar: $39.54 + $25.99 (initial gift purchases) + $14.69 (Secondary purchases to fit in the boxes that the first gift didn't fit into) + $10.93 (Tertiary purchases of useful gifties in colours that Rissa would actually use and not just throw away or give to younger cousins.) 

This year's Advent Calendar cost us (drum roll puh-leeeeeze)  a whopping

   $91.15!!

Yeah Baby!  Can we budget for Advent or what?  Okay, NEW GOAL: Next Christmas try to spend less than $91.15.  Also, I have to fight against my urge to build a completely new Advent Calendar that would be big enough to put things into, 'cause that could quickly evolve into a yearly one-upping of the last Advent Calendar and I'm not ready to get a second mortgage on the house yet.

Help! He's too hot to touch me!

* The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but that only works if you haven't personally been to this particular clinic.  If you HAVE been to this clinic, you know EXACTLY who I'm typing about.

"Which physiotherapist would you prefer?  Justin is available..."

"NO!  NOT JUSTIN!!! ... Uh, I mean... how about Walter or Jamie...?"

"Sure we can set you up with Jamie..."

And it's not that Walter or Jamie aren't attractive young men in their own right.  Fit, muscular, nice guys - the pair of them.  It's just that Justin, the owner of the sports medicine clinic and head physiotherapist, is drop dead gorgeous.  Like movie star gorgeous.  Seriously. 

People palpitate when in close proximity to his beauty.  I can't have a guy that good looking, who I'm NOT married to, manipulating my shoulder and massaging into my arm pit for my torn rotator cuff.  One well-timed twitch on my part and the guy's got his hand on my breast.  And then after he's accidentally been touching my breasts.. See?  Do you SEE how it could quickly escalate?!?

I've been told there are other women who bring their husbands with them as chaperones if they have appointments with Justin.  Seriously.  He's that good looking.  Tall, dark and handsome.  I'd be spending all the time when he was ultrasounding my injury having lewd and lascivious thoughts.

Lee Pace is CLOSE to as good-looking as "Justin."

I was going to try to surreptitiously get a photo of him, to prove how I'm not crazy and that he does, in fact, live up to my near-worshipful reports of him, but felt that might push me well into stalker territory.

There are few real life guys who will make a gal's heart stutter with nothing other than an introduction.  Sure, after you've gotten to know someone, they might become drop-dead gorgeous to you, but that instantaneous response?  It's only happened a handful of times in my life.  In university, a guy from the French side of the Theatre Dept. had pheromones that nearly drove me out of my mind; Cosmo the clown, from California, whom I met when I did a Fringe tour in Saskatoon with my Shakespeare company in the mid 90s, who was diabolically piratical; meeting my husband in the loading dock of the theatre where we eventually married and... Justin the physiotherapist...

I become stuttery around Justin.  I purposely schedule my visits with other physiotherapists on days when I won't have to see Justin on account of my urge to giggle girlishly when he is peripherally within my vision.  One time, I had to switch from a Tuesday to a Wednesday and I forgot that Justin would be there.  He walked past me and my mouth literally turned dry - the complete opposite of what my other body parts were doing.  

He says hello to me and I can't respond verbally.  I lower my eyelashes like some twitty Southern Belle and offer a nervous smile. He probably thinks I'm mute.  I'm waiting for him to start up a conversation in ASL with me.  I had to get up, go in to the bathroom and slap myself across the face to get it together.  "No more Wednesdays!  No more Wednesdays!"  Glaring at my torn rotator cuff,  "Mend, damn you!  MEND!!!"

It's not just about getting pregnant...

"So if Rissa were a lesbian and she had a girlfriend, would you let the girlfriend sleep over?  You know, seeing as there'd be no threat of pregnancy?" asked David.

"NO!!"  The word came out even before I had time to reflect.  I think I was a shocked as David.  Heather, the liberal minded, had come up against the brick wall of motherhood.

"Really??" 

"Really.  It'd still be someone wanting to get in my daughter's pants.  It doesn't matter if that someone is a girl.   If that someone were a cuddly koala bear who wanted to get in my daughter's pants, that someone is NOT sleeping over.  Or if they are sleeping over,  it's in a completely different room down the hall.  With all the squeaky floorboards around it and maybe a bear trap."

"Really...  so you'd want them to have to be sneaky so that they could fool around?"

"Yeah, like every other teenager in the history of the world.  It was good enough for me."

"I was just thinking it through, is all.  We say that if there comes a time that she's drinking underage...

"IF there comes a time...?"

" ...That we'd rather she do it at home where it's safe than..."

"You cannot tell me that you're cool with anyone trying to get in your daughter's pants."

"Well, no, but you're thinking about this as if someone wants to get into her pants now, when she's only 13..."

"Have you seen our daughter?!?  And it's not just the getting pregnant part of sex that worries me.  I was an under-aged girl having sex.  At 16, I wasn't ready for the ramifications of it.  The emotional intensity.  No one gets to sleep over, male or female, until she's at least 18 and in a committed relationship."

"So public places all the time?  No one up in her room?"

"Only if the bedroom door remains open 100% of the time."

"What if they're watching a movie in the basement under a blanket...?"

"No blankets!!!"  I could hear myself starting to panic.

"It's cold in the basement."

"I don't care!  NO BLANKETS!  And we get to randomly run down the stairs and say things like 'Would you kids like popcorn?' and sit on the arm of the sofa or maybe even in between them."

"This is a whole new side to you.  You're so... GRRRRRRRRR..."

"Damn straight.  I'm not going to make it easy for ANYONE to get into my daughter's pants."

Maybe next time I should just braid it...

WARNING: This post is about girly bits

David was away all last week.  So on Friday, I wanted to spiff up for his return.  You know, wash and style the hair, shave the legs, groom the girly bits.  I wanted to be all smooth and nice smelling - although frankly after a week of sleeping on his own, a female orangutan in bed with him may well have been enough to get his motor running.

The shower went off without a hitch.  I emerged squeaky clean with nicely shaved legs. Gingersnap body lotion liberally spread over my limbs had me wanting to take me to bed.  Then I got down to the real business - the talcum powder and female weed whacker (Epilady) came out.  I always feel like the Epilady needs to be started with a pull start, like a chain saw.  Ring-duh-ding-ding-ding...

Anyone else notice that half these designs are unsymmetrical?!?

There was a time when 'bikini line' actually meant 'bikini line.'  That time has passed. Due to peri-menopause's mad grip on my hormones, the 'must be groomed' area now really stretches from c-section scar to... knee.  In fact, I AM the female orangutan.  After a week apart from your loved one, you want to look good... everywhere.  I'm never completely bare down there, but I do like to keep the shop tidy.  The talcum powder came out to smooth the skin and I went to work.

Upper thigh, actual bikini line, always goes first.  It's never problematic, you don't have to bend yourself in half to get a good view of the area.  Then it's the back of the legs, which, yes, I could just shave, but I'm prone to razor burn and then I'd be all bumpy and I'd have to do it way more often than the once a month it tends to get done now.   After the easy bits, it's time for the most challenging of female grooming.  Inner, inner thigh and upper, upper, back of the thigh.  Both areas come very close to being mistaken for delicate tissue without actually being internal organs. One has to use a cautious hand with the weed whacker in these areas.

Friday night, my hand slipped.  One second I was blithely denuding my inner, inner thigh, and the next I was desperately trying to pry the teeth of the Epilady off my turkey bum.

"Mother-f*!#ing Satan tool!"

I had to rip the cord out of the wall to stop the motor, but before I managed that Herculean feat, the machine had torn through the remains of my perineum, bounced off my labia and grabbed onto my upper thigh. I'm pretty sure that I then went into shock. When I finally looked down, I saw that I had road rash on my hooha and as an added plus, a bald patch.

I had just wanted to look good and now I needed Polysporin and an ice pack.  And some Band-Aids. And folks?  No matter how sexy you try to say it, "Hey there handsome, want to remove my Band-Aids??"  does not really set the romantic mood.  Thank God I'm good at misdirection, is all I'm saying.

Condoms +

"He may only touch your boobs if he is doing it with two separate Swiffers held from the length of their poles."

My daughter is now of an age where there's a real possibility that dudes will be touching her boobs.  She has a boyfriend (whom I adore), but he's still a teenaged boy with all the attending testosterone.  He's going to want to touch her boobs.   Hell, I'm her Mom and I want to touch her boobs.  That sounded wrong didn't it?  Oh God, I'm going to turn into that Grandma from Sixteen Candles!  I'm going to be feeling up my granddaughters.  It's just that new boobs are the antithesis of 45 year old, having nursed one's young, boobs.  There's a level of visual fascination there.  Mine haven't been like that in SOOOOO long.

Is it wrong of me to want my daughter to wear a mask that makes her look like Quasimodo?  Convince her to walk with a limp, talk in a terrifying accent?  Just until university. Knowing that she's holding hands?  Totally cool with that.  It's adorable.  I hear that she's being kissed goodbye on the doorstep and I have a moment of commiserative joy, of me going "Awwwwwwww."  Then I remember what it was like to be having those first kisses.  And then I remember what happens when you start to feel tingly.  When there's pressure to let him to second base and then to third and then he wants to slide home...

"You need to tell me when you start getting tingly.  Seriously. 'Cause then you need to be on the pill. Along with the condoms.  You cannot use condoms alone as birth control.  You can't!!!  It has to be Condoms +.  Condoms + spermicidal foam.  Condoms + the patch.  Condoms + an IUD!!!  And if he gets an orgasm, you get one too!!"

I'm facing the battleground folks.  I have a teenaged daughter.  From now until she leaves home, we're standing guard against teen pregnancy. There are those parents who will just forbid sex, or ignore the possibility that their kids will be having it, but I remember what it was like being 16 and feeling tingly.  I remember.  Sex is a biological imperative for boys, and though some parents don't want to admit it, girls too.  It's what we want to do - as a species.  To turn a blind eye to that fact is insane.  You might as well deny climate change.  12-15 years from now I will be ready to be a grandmother.  Until then, I will stand armed with a fireplace poker, ready to disable any sperm provider that wants to knock up my daughter.

I'm not being euphemistic.  It's a promise.

A sucker for snow

I woke up this morning and saw this in my backyard:

Then out the kitchen window, looking east:

And from our front window:

I know that there are naysayers out there, who hate the snow, who grumble and pout at the first sight of it, but I'm not one of them.  I love the first real snowfall.  Second and third snowfalls too.  The sixth and seventh ain't bad either.  I LOVE them.  Waking up to new fallen snow makes me happy. 

You know why?  Because it immediately brings out the 5 year old in me, filled with wonder and awe and the possibility of a snow day. That fresh snow, topping the pines, decorating the junipers... it's a moment of natural perfection.   White and clean - looking like a real-life Christmas card just from frozen precipitation. It makes me want to grab a toboggan and rush to the Catholic high school's track and giggle and shriek my way down to the bottom of the hills that surround it.  Let me have that.  Let me enjoy the moment before the +1 this afternoon turns the beautiful white into slushy grey and brown and has me yelling at family members to make sure to clean their feet off outside.

Carpe freaking nix folks - it's Canada, we're Canadians and winter is here!

Bankrupted by the Bulk Barn

They all seem so innocent.  Those plexi-glassed bins, with their silver scoops.  The aisle with its spices and herbs - the colourful cake sprinkles.  The plastic bags with their attending labelling closures.   The cute little golf pencils, to label the afore-mentioned closures.  A little of this, a little of that...

"Ooooooh.... plantain chips!  I LOVE plantain chips.  Aztec hot chocolate?  That's a must-have!"

Then you get to the cash and you find out that the 18 small items in your shopping basket, which don't even fill half the basket, total (attending ominous music) ...

$89.21  

"I'm sorry?  The total is WHAT?!?  Is the coloured sugar actually coloured cocaine??  This is less than ONE bag of food!!  $89.21?!?"

When you finally have that receipt in your hands, you are a crazy person.  You are the wife of a suspected philandering husband.  Your eyes flash over the totals.  Is this really stevia sweetener or is it diamond dust? What's that charge??  I just spent $6.78 for a scant cup and a half of white chocolate chips?!?

You've got to know your shit at the Bulk Barn.  The gluten free section??  HAH!  Gluten-free all purpose flour, pre-mixed, is 83¢  per 100 grams.  If you buy the individual ingredients separately and just mix it together at home?  32¢  per 100 grams.  And yet, it's still a billion times more expensive than regular flour.

And then add to that, the emergency mid-afternoon sugar-crash snacks that you buy, which, if you could just eat a chocolate bar instead, you could grab at the freaking Dollarama, and you'd spend less than 5 dollars on a week's worth of mid-day sustenance to stabilize your wayward blood sugar.  But no, you're at the Bulk Barn with their chrome impulse-buy shelves at the front cash. Those chrome shelves filled with Lara Bars and Luna bars and everything else that's so healthful and fucking pretentious... gluten free, dairy free, egg free, soy free, non GMO, vegan, kosher... and they cost between $1.79 and a gazillion dollars per bar, but sweet glucose index, you're eating healthy.

I come back from the Bulk Barn and I have to shift funds from one bank account to another to cover the impending shortage.  No seriously.  Sunday after I was at Bulk Barn - I had to move money around.  On the plus side?  I do have miniature muffin wrappers with adorable gingerbread men on them sure to elicit "Aren't they adorable?" murmurs at our holiday tea this year.