Downton Abbey Style!

Jim Carter & Phyllis Logan from Masterpiece's Downton Abbey

So you know how, when you're hosting a big shindig and you pretty much become relegated to the roles of Butler and/or Head Housekeeper?  Well I have to say that David plays a mean Carson to my Mrs. Hughes and we rocked the crap out of open-house entertaining last Saturday at our Annual Holiday Tea.

"Hi!!  So great to see you!"  kiss/hug/chuck upon shoulder - gracious acceptance of fetching holiday ornament/wine/liqueur/truffles/trays of treats.

"What can I get you to drink?  We have warm cider...."

"Oh, cider would be lovely!"

"We also have mulled wine this year...."

"Mulled wine?!?  Why I've never had mulled wine, I'll have some of that..."

"You just come right on in here, while I get you that drink!!" 

First sip of mulled wine hits the palate... "My, that's got a wee bit of a kick to it!"

"How is (fill in name of non-attending spouse/child/parent) doing?"

"Great!!  Great!!!  S/he/they just finished a (blank)."

"That's amazing!  I was going to ask about the (blank)!"

Doorbell!

"Please make yourself at home.  And eat!!  Eat!!  Rissa's labeled all the food types on the table!*  I'll just grab the door."

This basic conversation repeats in an endless loop from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m.  I poured out as many as 6 mugs of mulled wine for myself, but drank only one over the course of the day as I kept putting them down when I was answering the door or replenishing the Nanaimo Bars/Norwegian Sugar Balls/Gingerbread.

"Hey folks!!  There's chili!!! There is a ginormous pot of chili in a slow cooker on the counter!!! Help yourselves!!"

"Put the cat down!"

"How old is he now?" gazing upon adorable toddling child.

"Ten months!"

"Already?!?"

"Who wanted the Butterscotch Schnapps in their cider??"

"Mummy, the baby is totally falling asleep in my arms!"

For David and me it is the opportunity to open our home to all our friends and family while spending pretty much no quality time with anyone - apart from the first two guests who show.  It's kind of like your wedding day.  Filled to the brim with people you love, but all a blur... For Rissa - it's the greatest game of MANHUNT ever played.  We had 15 children between the ages of 4 and 14 racing through the house - cracking the caulking on the crown mouldings with their combined weight and ear-splitting shrieks of holiday joy. 

But, by the end of the day - when I count off the 75 or so folks who made it out and seemed to have a good time - it's always worth it.  It's our tradition.  And (but wait there's more!) our wine rack is now totally stocked!  We won't have to pay for a bottle of wine over the holidays!!

Day turns to evening and then to night.  The three of us (plus various cats) snuggle down on the sofa in the family room - the fireplace ablaze, the TV bright and we watch Babe and smile and sniff - because Farmer Hoggett had it right... "That'll do Pig...  That'll do."



*A few years back, I got these nifty little ceramic placecards to put in front of food trays, which you can write on with dry-erase markers.  I presented them to Rissa last week.

"What are they Mummy?"

"They are to label the dishes on the buffet table."

Nearly leaping out of her skin she's so excited!!!  "You mean I can label specific treats and desserts?!?"

"You can indeed!  All you need is a dry-erase marker!"

"Could I get extra-special new dry-erase markers - you know just for the Holiday Tea?!?"

"Whatever decorates your gingerbread house kid."

Musical Theatre Geeks of the world unite!

WARNING:  ADULT LANGUAGE IN THIS POST

I might have developed this... uh....little... small... (wee really)... obsession with Tim Minchin.  Nothing warranting  Mr. Minchin seeking out a restraining order or anything.  It's totally the Bloggess's fault.  In September of this year, she mentioned him in one of her posts.  I watched some clips on You Tube and fell hard for this comic musical genius.

 

I'm talking Donny Osmond/Shaun Cassidy hard.*   I want a poster of him for my bedroom ceiling. I'm this close to imagining what kind of eyes our babies would have.  Imagine scribblers filled with Mrs. Heather Minchin in curly letters, embellished with illuminated hearts and glitter glue.  

The dude is so freaking cool - it's hard to impart that kind of adoration in a non-sexual/stalker context.  He is the most profanely profound comedian/musician I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.  Think Louis C.K. as a composer-singer.  Minchin has the goods, and for a guy who doesn't read music he will blow your fucking mind with his piano playing.

(Mr. Minchin - I'm really not a stalker - nothing at ALL close to Kathy Bates in ANY context here - I promise - just your average Canadian Musical Theatre Geek - who salivates just a titch when you squeeze 25 syllables into a musical phrase and can articulate them all.)

Last week we drove 45 minutes to see a simulcast of Jesus Christ Superstar from the UK.   I would have gone to see it anyway as Superstar is my favourite rock opera of all time (the best of Rice and Webber), but when I found out that Tim Minchin was starring as Judas, I lost my mind... in an adorable, not-at-all-threatening, nor indicating any sort of psychotic break, way.

The production itself was fan-fucking-tastic!  (It wasn't perfect, there were some musical direction things that I didn't agree with... DON'T, for the love of Ian Gillan, go for the Big Broadway  Finish ANYWHERE in Superstar.  It doesn't need it.)    The tour was well-staged, well-acted not too dancy-dancy...  Melanie C as Mary Magdalene killed it, Ben Foster did a great job as Jesus, Alex Hanson as Pilate was delicious,  Pete Gallagher's first notes as Ciaphus nearly had me creaming my pants... but Minchin?  Was freaking brilliant as Judas.   I didn't know he had the chops to sing it - as that epiphany hit me, I fell harder and harder for the dude.  Judas's (spoiler alert) death had me in tears - and I wasn't even anywhere close to my period.

Then there's Christmas Day!  Less than a month from getting the chance to see Superstar - Les Mis will be in theatres.  Please, please, please don't let them fuck it up!  Please!  Let it be the perfect thing for my family to do on Christmas Day!!!   Please, please, please!!!  Let me get chills, let me weep, let it be all that a musical theatre geek could hope for!!!**

*(OR for people a decade younger... Michael Jackson/Rick Astley hard.... OR for people two decades younger... Backstreet Boys/NSync hard... if you're any younger than that you probably shouldn't be reading this blog.)

**Spoiler Alert - Les Mis (apart from Anne Hathaway's I Dreamed a Dream and Eddie Redmayne's Empty Chairs at Empty Tables) did NOT live up to its hype.  For the love of all that's holy in musical theatre give us some fucking long shots!

Weight Loss Secrets Revealed!!

WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE IN THIS POST

Pssssst.... over here!

You won't have to starve yourself!  You won't have to exercise!!!  Watch how these other women lost 20, 40, even as much as 75% of their total body weight! 

Take a couple of tsp of apple cider vinegar before every meal!  Spoonfuls of honey speed the metabolism!  Acacia will increase your lean muscle!

And... it's all bullshit.  Bullshit to sell women useless shit.  'Cause you know what?  There is no quick fix for ANYTHING in life.  You want to lose weight?  You need to exercise and eat sensibly.  You want to eliminate lines around your mouth and your eyes after the fact?  Too frickin' late - you should have stayed out of the sun and never smiled.*  You want to save for your retirement?  Put 10% of your salary into an RRSP every year.

Sure, you can lose 5 lbs a week!  Totally doable!  Wait, wait... why not go at it with gusto and lose 40 lbs in a month?!?  You'll be SO svelte, SO trim... and you will gain ALL the weight back because that sort of rapid weight loss is a freaking fairy tale, despite what most women's magazine covers will tell you.

Woman's World just kills me.   Always a story about weight loss on the front.  Always an incredible sugar/fat/carb filled picture of a recipe that you MUST make.  Miracle weight loss annnnnnnnnnd baked goods.
 

"You look GREAT!!  Have you been doing Atkins?"

"Nope."

"Bernstein?"

"Nope."

"Cabbage Soup?"

"Nope."

"Israeli Army?   Dukan?  Grapefruit??"

"Nope, Nope and NOPE!  I'm doing this amazing plan..."

"Yes?!?"

"It's astounding!  It improves my sleep, I'm less depressed and I have MORE energy!!"

"OH MY GOD.  WHAT IS IT?!?  WHAT IS IT???"

"It's..."  beckon, beckon, surreptitious look, for all those desperate-to-be-thin people who might mob a girl for the information  "...sensible eating and EXERCISE... "

'Cause here's the deal folks.  Recommended weight loss is 2 lbs a week AT MOST.  That's 8 lbs a month - not 20, not 40... And you know why?  Because when you sensibly adapt your eating habits and exercise you drop weight gradually, and your body?  It doesn't think that it's starving and your metabolism won't  be completely fucked.

I'm on the treadmill 6 days a week for at least 40 minutes at a time - some of that time actually jogging - and wonders of wonders!!!  Sure enough, I've lost weight and my flabby thighs are less flabby.  So in fact, NOT a miracle - it's exercise.  And I'm not saying that a person has to jog.  Do excercise that you LIKE for at least 30 minutes a day - otherwise you won't keep doing it.  Back bothers you?  Get a recumbent cycle.  Don't like being on your feet?  Swim at the Y.  You like to dance?  Grab a copy of Just Dance for the Wii. Me?  I like to walk .  I  hop on the treadmill and watch a tv show on my tablet -  that's 42 minutes - then I'm done for the day and I'm so far up the moral high ground that my nose bleeds.

It's not rocket science and it's not magic - it's working at it.  Take it from a gal who is prone to depression herself, working at it will make you healthier and happier.  Yeah, sometimes on a Saturday morning, it's a pain in the ass and you grumble most of your way through it, but you WILL feel better.  I'm not just blowing smoke up your ass and you don't have to pay me for it.  Oh and another thing?  Anyone in their 40s is ALLOWED to have lines on their face!  They're not crow's feet, they're smile lines and what you should really worry about is if you DON'T have them.
 
*Botox or plastic surgery can help with wrinkles and lines.  Sure, you look like a freaking robotic doll, but if it makes you happy and you've got the cash, go for it!  Whatever creams your panties.  However, there is absolutely NO inexpensive 'fine line' cream that you can grab at Shoppers Drug Mart that will turn back the clock.  Do NOT waste your money.

How do snakes have sex?

Asks Rissa.  At bedtime.  Because she's crazy.

"Mummy, how do snakes actually have sex?"

"Pardon?"   Gear shift.  I was mildly confused as the last thing she'd said had been:

"Mummy what if you just started sprouting extra ears all over your head?"

As to the snake sex thing, I really hadn't a clue.  I was pretty much in the dark as to the logistics of reptile mating.*  "Well I imagine the male has a penis and the female has some sort of vagina..."

"Mummy!!!!  What if the male snake IS the penis?"

I think I then made a Scooby Doo sound.

Ruh??

"No seriously Mummy!  It totally could be true!  The male snake would BE the penis and then he would just..."

"Put his entire body inside the female?"

"Maybe....  Although that would probably be a lot for a female snake to take...  Wait!  Wait!  What if all snakes are just males..."

"They aren't."

"But what if they were?"

"So basically, if there were no female snakes, and the male snake IS the penis - what you're saying is that there would be a bunch of penises slithering around on the ground?"

"Mummy.... EEEEEEEEEEW!!"

"Dude.  You totally started it."

* Oh and just in case you were wondering, male snakes have two-headed penises.  The hemi-penis.  (See the diagram below - third section up from the tail.)  When I told Rissa that - she said there needed to be a different word.  "Plurenis" is what she came up with.

Never take pictures of me when I'm talking...

Smiling... laughing - that's okay, but if you catch me on film/pixels while I'm talking,  I look like I'm either in the midst of an epileptic fit, morphing into a velociraptor or channelling Lucille Ball in one of the episodes where she has to deal with stomping grapes or packaging chocolates.

Below is a pic of me giving my Toast to the Groom at a wedding from October.  I know, HOT, right?  Who wouldn't want to tap that?  Later we played Throw Wedding Favors into Heather's Mouth!

NEVER when I'm talking.  There is a plethora of photographic evidence from more than a handful of public events where I've had to give a speech.  I'm sure that I looked just fine actually giving the speech, but catch any of the individual seconds of those speeches candidly?  It's like I'm having a stroke, and instead of calling 911, the photographer took pictures of it.  DUDE!!!  How about a little fucking dignity here?

And as I've already let that horse out of the barn - here are some others...

Help me!  I have lock jaw!!

Brain aneurysm!  I am having a brain aneurysm!!!

Nothing to do with public speaking but here's when I got too friendly with an alpaca and it spat on me.   Here is the before...

Oh aren't you the sweetest little alpaca I've ever seen!

 And here is the after...

I totally deserved that.

Don't show anyone your boobs online!!!

"Don't show anyone your boobs online!"

"Don't type anything that you wouldn't want your grandparents to see!!"  I know her friends, they're all good kids and maybe I'm worrying over nothing at this point, but my mind goes to these freaky places.  You know the ones - where my tween daughter is pregnant and hooked on Crack and debating whether she's going to keep the baby.  Aaaaaand the angina kicks in.

Ever since she hit puberty and had a defined waist - my maternal panic has gone into overdrive.  There are dudes out there who want to have SEX with my baby.  The summer she was 11 we'd go for family walks and we'd be garnering some male attention, I'd preen a bit and think to myself  "Well I guess that I look good today..."  until I saw that it wasn't ME they were looking at - it was my daughter.

"Don't eyeball her you PERV!! SHE IS 11!!" I wanted to get her a t-shirt "I am NOT as old as you think I am".  And it's not  just teenaged boys - it's MEN.  Like men my age.  "I will END you - you freak!  She is a baby!!!!!"

s

Bay Moon Studio pin

I'm so fucked.  Rissa was always an attractive girl, but what with her dance training and her height and her lovely alabaster skin - she's now frickin' gorgeous.  And the more gorgeous she gets the more I lose my mind.

Because it is sooooo much different than when I was young.  It's no longer a case of "You show me yours, I'll show you mine."  It's morphed into "You show me yours via webcam and I'll post it to the entire universe and have you labeled a dirty slut."

My mind is filled with Urban Mythological "lipstick parties" where boys have girls with different colours of lipstick give them blow jobs in the dark.

"Don't put anyone's penis in your mouth!"

"Mummy.  Eeeeeeeeeew!"

"I'm just saying...."

"Gross."

A brain wave comes to me.  Agree with her.  "Yes it IS gross and you should therefore wait until you are finished university before going anywhere near that.  Plus boys never shower enough and it would be really stinky."

"Eeeeeeeew!"

"The minute you start to get tingly around ANYONE - you tell me and we'll put you on the pill!  And you'll have a diaphragm.  And an IUD."

"Mummy, I'm only 12..."

"Yes, but you don't LOOK 12 and dudes start to think with their penises really early in life.  Trust me on this."

Please, oh please, please, please.  Keep my daughter safe - keep her smart - keep her confident.  Let her have moxie.  Let her know the difference between a guy who just wants to get in her pants and a guy who wants to cherish her heart.  Or girl. In fact a girl would be great!  At least if she has a girlfriend she can't get pregnant.

 

Under Pressure

And that's how I accidentally took anti-depressants...

I'm spending so much time stoned now.  Not REALLY stoned.  Just migraine medication stoned.  And menstrual medication.  And arthritis medication.  I slept for 4 extra hours one morning after taking the most innocent-looking of pills.  It was a wee trapezoid shape - so wee and pretty.   It knocked me out.  It was the best nap I've had in a long time.  A deep sleep where drool seeped from the corner of my mouth - leaving me feeling like a contented bear greeting the spring.

Occasionally when I'm reaching into the pill container in my purse - I'll empty an assortment of pills and I have NO idea what they are.  The trapezoid ones are some sort of muscle relaxant and I know I should have those with food because they're hard on a gal's stomach.  But the yellow ones, with the number on the one side and the random letters on the other?  Not a clue.  Aceta-something?  I am smart enough to know not to take any of these pills with alcohol, but other than that?  Is it a T3 with caffeine?  Because if it is, I can't take that after noon on account of my crazy-ass sensitivity to caffeine.

When I was 19, I was sent to Dr. Shrink because of chronic insomnia.   I just couldn't sleep at night.  My body was exhausted, but my mind would NOT shut down.  I'd recently had my existential angst/awakening to mortal fear and my GP suggested that seeing a shrink might be helpful.  The shrink put me on sleeping pills that knocked me out.  I would wake up all muzzy headed and remained kind of vague the entire day.  A couple of months later - I had a check-up with my GP and he asked how the anti-depressants were working out for me.

"Excuse me?"

"The anti-depressants that Dr. Shrink put you on.  Are they helping?"  He showed me the note in my chart from Dr. Shrink.

"So these aren't sleeping pills?"

"No, but they can help with sleep."

The next visit with Dr. Shrink I asked him why he hadn't told me that I was on anti-depressants.

"Oh, but I did."

"Ummmmm.... no you didn't."

"Yes I'm certain I did."

"I'm pretty certain that you didn't."

So... arguing with a shrink never makes a person seem sane  At best you sound whiny, at worst you come off as paranoid.  I stopped my arguing and left it at this:  "Okay... let's just say that this will be my last session with you, you Gaslighting bastard."

You know what caused the insomnia?  Caffeine.  Our family's habit was to take tea after dinner.  I had developed a sensitivity to caffeine and couldn't sleep because of Tetley's Tea.  (This was before I discovered Capt. Picard and Earl Grey - hot.) The smallest amounts of caffeine after lunch can ruin my sleep.  After a major operation, I was put on T3s with codeine and caffeine.  I was exhausted, dying for sleep, but awake all night because of the caffeine.  David called the surgeon and asked for T3s without the caffeine.

She was dumbfounded.  "There's not enough caffeine in those pills to keep a person up."

"Yes, in a normal person, that might be so," replied David.  "However, we are dealing with Heather and she is a freak of nature."

The good thing about my body being so freakishly sensitive is that I know almost immediately when something is wrong with me.  The bad thing about my body being so freakishly sensitive is that almost anything can send my body off into the land of disproportionate symptoms. Too much sugar?  Dizzy.  Too little protein?  Dizzy.  Flickering fluorescent lights?  Migraine.  Wallowing in post coital splendour for too long?  Bladder infection.

My Mom still looks at me and asks "Where the hell did you come from?"  She is healthy as the proverbial horse and my Dad - apart from cholesterol issues is doing just great.  Me?  I am the delicate flower prone to getting high off of caramel.  I can say though, that knowing to avoid caffeine - makes it WAY easier to sleep at night.  Without mis-prescribed anti-depressants.