I'm going to die - I just know it!

Thud.  Thud.  Thud.  Yowl.  Yowl.

David and I share a glance.  Shake our heads.

Thud.  Thud.  More pitiful yowl.

"I don't understand why she has to be in here with us.  Rissa's door is wide open - she could just be in there."

Thud. Thud.  THUD.

We jump.

"She put her whole body into that one."

"Is she actually running at the door?"

Then we hear this:

"Oh woe is me!  WOE is me.  WAILEY!  WAILEY!  WAILEY!  I'm going to die - I just know it!  If you don't let me in, I will actually perish here in the hall and you shall have to step over my limp, lifeless body in the morning. WOE is me.  WOE!  WOE IS ME!!!"

At least we hear the cat equivalent of that - which is much more pitiful and sounds closer to death.  But we remained strong.  We wanted a good night's sleep and when the cats sleep on/with us - we don't have a good night's sleep.  Eventually Minuit left.

This morning...

Thud.  Thud.  THUD.  "I'm still here.  I can totally hear you two talking.  I know you're awake.  Why must you torture me?  All I want to do is share my love with you and purr.  Can you blame me for that?   Is it too much to ask to let your cat, your oldest cat, your most beloved cat, purr for you?!?"

That cat has stamina.

Which face is better?

Rissa asks.  At bedtime.

"Pardon?"

"Which face?  If you had to rate them?"

"This?"  She does her best impersonation of a bucktoothed gopher with a cold.

"This?" She looks like she's been hit in the head with a shovel at her left jawline - lips all askew across her face.

"This?" She sticks her tongue out slightly and rolls her eyes back in her head.

"Or THIS."  She puff out her cheeks like she a blowfish - eyes wide and glassy.

"You are so weird."

"Yes, but which is better?  You need to rate them on a scale of 1 to 4.  4 being the best and 1 being the worst.  Oh wait - plus there's this one too!"  She drops her jaw, scrunches her nose and crosses her eyes.

"On a scale of 1 to 4?  But there are five faces now!"

"Yes.  Plus there's SEVEN!  THE GOLDEN MONKEY!"

"Who ARE you?"

Rissa: Bringer of New Millennial Dadaism

And that's why I should be having sex more often...

WARNING: THERE IS TOO MUCH INFORMATION IN THIS POST

On account of the fact that when it's this lackadaisical, only when we we're not exhausted, happen to be on the same bio-rhythms kind of encounter, my body feels like this the next the day.

And we weren't trying anything new here.  We were doing our standards.  Nothing groundbreaking - nothing we had to stretch for.   I hadn't thought that I'd done myself an injury.  It wasn't like when you're first together and you go at it for so long and so hard that you can't walk the next day.  But they never tell you about that in romance novels or erotica.  Nope.  It's all banging for days, trying out numbers 32-49 of the Kama Sutra, hanging from the chandelier...  Literary depictions rarely mention the Epsom Salts baths and two days of rest you need before it doesn't hurt to pee because of micro tears around your lady bits.

Nor do they mention the bladder infections that you get if you get too cuddly after sex. When David and I were first together and were going at it like bunnies, I ended up in the Emerg - all feverish and having... shhhhhh.... blood in my, um... urine.  

The triage nurse looked at me...  looked at David.  "You're a new couple?"

 "Um, yeah... fairly new."

"You need to pee after sex."

"Pardon?"

"You need to pee after sex."

"Because why?"

And here's where she told me something that NO ONE ever thinks to tell you.   Until you wind up in the Emerg and the nursing staff give you these sad commiserative glances and finally pass along information that should be de rigueur in Sex Ed.

"Because seminal fluid can wind up in your urethra and you can get a bladder infection."

So trust me ladies - if you're at that point in your relationship where you've both been tested for STDs and he's good and you're good and you're on the pill, or the patch, or the shot and you're riding bareback - as much as you might want to cuddle right after you've done the deed...  DON'T!  Get up, race to the bathroom, pee, wash, and then head back to bed and do the cuddling then.  It can still be all romantical and snuggly - just a little bit later.  Save youreself a trip to the Emerg.  TRUST ME.  And when you're older - invest in lube.

High pressure vampires...

After nearly a week of low-pressure snow squalls cavorting their way through Ontario - the sun has graced us with its presence.  These barometric weather conditions offer the perfect metamorphic indredients to turn me into a sun-terrorized vampire.  The back of my eye sockets proclaimed the shift in my dreams.  Travelling to Australia via inter-gallactic spaceship - I was sent on an errand for extra-strength Tylenol and Advil, during intermission of the vampire musical - they couldn't source fruit bats, so they dressed up 100s of chihuahuas with wings.  It was so kind of Air Canada to add an 900 seat theatre as in-flight entertainment for its intercontinental flights.

When the alarm went off, it shouldn't have come as a surprise, that  the 1.5 watt nighlight energy output had me wincing.  Fighting back the nausea, I staggered to the bathroom and downed as much medicine as I could before collapsing into bed for another precious 1/2 hour of sleep.  Covers over my head, I concentrated on deep breathing. "I am breathing in deep relaxation and breathing out all tension and pain... I am breathing in..."

SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPE!  
BEEP!  BEEP!  BEEP!
SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPE! 
BEEP!  BEEP!  BEEP!

The apartment building next door has a snow removal contract.  Which is great for them.  It really is.  Allows them to get their cars out, clears their sidewalks.  Yay them.  Yay.  And I love how the snowplough operator takes his front end loader's bucket and lowers it so that it can get the best scrapage - ensuring safety for all the tenants.  Yay.

Now that the drugs are taking the edge off - I've decided to play.  I can pretend I'm a starlet in my own home - sporting my Audrey Hepburn sunglasses.  "Alright, just one autograph... Who do I make it out to?"  I am I'm a newly-turned vampire dodging pockets of sunlight - because let's face it folks - vampires do not just SPARKLE in the sun - they burst into flame - and seeing as I sunburn really easily - I've gotta be careful.   I shift my chair, I crab walk into the kitchen to avoid direct light - which has me WAY ahead of the game for my quad and thigh exercises today!  And the herbal tea remedy that I'm ingesting?  Perfect start to the day!

I'm letting my inner PollyAnna out!  Pain be damned.  There's sunshine for the first time in what seems forever and powdered snow that turns my streetscape into a freaking snowglobe.  I am DETERMINED to enjoy it!

Monster Child

"My friends think I'm a monster," says Rissa.

My spoonful of Rice Chex stops an inch from my mouth.  "Because why?"

"Because I don't eat cereal."

I shoot her a disbelieving glance before shoveling my cereal into my mouth.  I chew thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing.  Then I shake my head.  "I don't get it."

"Everybody eats cereal for breakfast," she says.  "Everybody.  I'm like the only one who doesn't.  They say 'What do you eat?!?'  And I say 'Toast.'  And they look at me like I'm crazy.  And even if I did eat cereal it'd be Raisin Bran, which NOBODY eats.  Cereal on its own is fine, but cereal with milk is... bluuuuuuuugghhhhhh."  She shudders.   "It gets all wet and..."

"Oh yeah," says David.   "Yeah.... (He too, shudders) bluuuuuuuugghhhhhh."

"Every cereal - it happens to every cereal," I say, the sense memory suffusing my very being.  I shovel in another still-crisp spoonful of Rice Chex before it disintegrates.

"Not Captain Crunch,"  says David.  "That cereal can lacerate your mouth after it's been in milk for a full half hour.  I still have scars."  I'm certain that he's feeling out the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

"No, I'm thinking more of Shredded Wheat," I say.  "You know.  You use your spoon to cut that little cross down the middle of it and you sprinkle brown sugar on it and then it's a race from the time you pour the milk on it before it morphs into mushy paste.  You have about 30 seconds where it's slightly moist but still somewhat crunchy.  I'm convinced that's why I always eat my breakfast quickly because on a cellular level I'm afraid it'll turn into mushy cereal paste."

"I'm pretty sure cereal is just a North American thing" David postulates.

I give it a think.  "Yeah... I bet you the French don't eat cereal - they probably baguette it all the way.  And the Swiss - they're more granola types."

Rissa perks up.  "Granola?  Like what you get on top of a yogurt parfait?"  She loves a yogurt parfait.

"Yes!  Exactly like that!  You can have that!  Then you can be all cosmopolitan and say, 'I have granola with  Greek yogurt.'  And you can give them a high class glance over one shoulder and raise your eyebrows and know that your taste is far superior to theirs."

 

And that's why I need a Tardis.

Because 3000 sq feet of furniture from a 2.5 story century home will not fit into a 1500 sq foot 1.5 story... even older century home.  No matter how much we might want it to.

David's a list maker.  It calms him - it gives him purpose.  So we took his laptop and went from room to room and we itemized every single piece of furniture that we have.  It was supposed to give us... perspective. I got chest pains.  And a little hyperventilate-y.  We had four options for the stuff.  Move. Sell.  Donate.  Dump.

Where was the Tardis option?  I want that option!  The option where I can just open the door to a closet and miraculously find 1000 square feet of storage space in it?  Where's that option?!?

If someone could actually work out the technology for The Tardis, they'd make gazillions of dollars to downsizing families.  Forget cold fusion people, make me a freaking Tardis!

I have a whole 4' x 8' room in our basement that is devoted to Christmas Decorations, a 10' x 10' room for crafts and sewing and another 8' x 8' room that is... who am I kidding here?  It's full of crap.  It really is.  It's got suitcases and old books that were taken off the shelves in the office when were first staging the house for selling three years ago, and furniture that was too big or superfluous.  It's a room full of stuff we never use - have NEVER used, not since we moved into this house 8 years ago.  Boxes of electronics and old stereos and extra sofa cushions from when we turned our Ikea Ektorp corner sofa into a massive chesterfield.  If I were Barbara Eden, I'd wiggle my nose and nod my head and the room would magically deposit its contents to the appropriate corresponding locations: Kijiji purchasers' homes, the Habitat ReStore and the dump.

Two closets and a cubby under the eaves.  That's what the new house has.  We do have a basement, but it's the basement of a150 year old house - a gravel and dirt floor and a sump pump working overtime.  Anything stored down there needs to be off the floor on plastic shelving in Hermetically sealed containers. 

And really, other than Christmas decorations, what needs to be stored?  The record collection that I've been carting around for decades without a turntable to play them on?  The boxes of fabric that I might find a use for, come Halloween 2020?  The books that have laid in their boxes for years now, no one to open them, no one to peruse their contents?    It's just stuff.  And it's not stuff that is bringing us joy.  We don't cling to that stuff, soak up its nostalgia and cuddle in its warmth.  We store it, just in case.  Just in case... what???  No really, just in case what?  Just in case we suddenly reside in a mausoleum where these items are displayed as relics of our past?  Where they are under-glass memories of days gone by?  Where we keep them just to say they're kept and puff up our chests in the knowledge that we hold onto our heritage?

Nope.  Not going to happen.  No more storing things.  No more just-in-casing things.  We either use them or they go.  Just typing that and a weight has fallen off my shoulders.  "They go."   Keep what's precious and let go of the rest of it go.  No buts, no gasps of  near-intention, no hemming or hawing... decide and live with that decision.   Let that beat up Elvis album find a place of pride in someone else's home - in the home of someone who plays it on a turntable with all of its skips and analog noise.  And you can rest easy in knowing that because you let go - you gave someone else joy.

In hindsight, perhaps I should have put on a bathrobe first...

But you know how it goes.  You've just showered.  You notice that at least one of the bulbs in the bathroom light fixture has died.  You know that if you don't fix it now, you won't remember to do it later.  So off I went, starkers, down the hall.

"It's okay, I'm taking care of it!" I say as I head towards the stairs.

David glances my way, does a double take and then waggles his eyebrows.  "Taking care of... (he pauses salaciously) ...what?"  he asks.

"NOTHING!" yells Rissa from her room.  "YOU ARE TAKING CARE OF NOTHING!!"  (She gets grossed out when we play the innuendo game.)

"Light.  In the bathroom," I call from downstairs.  "I am fixing it."  I grab a bulb from the laundry room cupboard and sail back up the stairs, brandishing my light bulb with a triumphant "TA-DAH!!!" and head back into the bathroom, where I soon realize that I have nothing to stand on.  I run back out into the office and grab the stool.   "Not a problem!  I've got this!"

I climb up on the chair, unscrew the bottom of the fixture and balance it precariously upon the shelf below me.  Two bulbs.  Two bulbs are out.  sigh  Not to worry!  I simply refuse to be half-assed about this.  This job will be completed! I screw in the one bulb, clamber down from the chair and run back downstairs (holding my untethered boobs this time, so that I don't give myself a black eye).

"DON'T WORRY!  I AM TAKING CARE OF IT!!!"

I come back upstairs with the second bulb, "See?  All taken care of!"  I climb back up on the stool once more and screw in the second bulb.
 
"LIGHT!  WE HAVE LIGHT!!!!"  I let out a stream of mad scientist laughter to cap the moment.  

"MOOHOOHAHAHAAAAAH!!!"  

I reach for the shade and stick my tongue out as I'm trying to thread it back onto the fixture.  Then the cap pieces and a little washer thingie drops.  But I now have the shade in my hands and I don't really want to climb back down again.  "Help!  I need some help in here!"

"Mother, what have you done?" asks Rissa from her room.

"I just need an extra hand, but you should be warned that I'm..."

"Why are you ALWAYS naked?" asks Rissa from the doorway.

"I'm not ALWAYS naked."

"Mostly."

"I know that this present position of me naked up here on the stool isn't maybe the thing you wanted in your brain this morning, and that me on a stool with you at floor level just isn't cool, but would you please pass me those things?"  I motion with the big toe on my left foot.

Managing to avert and roll her eyes at the same time, Rissa hands me the missing pieces.  I put the shade back up and jump down.  "SEE?!?  I did it!!"  I step back to admire my handiwork.  I cock my head to one side - the fixture was now askew.  I climb back up again to straighten the shade and this time, THIS time, it's perfect.

"HAH-HAH!  DONE!!"

A superhero now, hand on my hips, I pose.  "My work here is done!"  My right arms rises in front of me.  I give a mighty salute and then stride to my room, majestically.

"Put your bathrobe on!"