My ass is not happy.

We are on the hunt for a sofa bed.  On account of the fact that our new house does not have a guest room.  As Canadians, we need to be able to offer extreme-weather lodgings.  It's in the Canadian Manifesto.  Or it would be if Canada had a Manifesto.

My Mom took great pride in emphatically stating that we could sleep 22 people in our house.  We were military - you never knew who might stop by.  We had more sofa beds and guest beds than your average bear. It's a badge of family honour for me.  A tradition.   I need to be able to find space for 22 people to sleep in my new home.  My new, 1500 sq. foot home with NO guest room.  David's already started devising plans to jerry-rig some beds from an alternate dimension.  Patent pending.

I am determined to be able to sleep at least two.  At the very least we need a sofa bed to take care of overnight guests.  All I want is a functioning sofa bed that is actually comfortable to sit on.  Okay, a functioning sofa bed, comfortable to sit on and that doesn't look like crap.  Is that so much to ask?  Is it?  Not a fricking futon on a pine frame - I'm 45 years old - not a first year Arts student.  Not something that feels like you're balancing your derriere on concrete.  Something with a modicum of style that can accommodate overnight guests.  It's like searching out the Holy Freaking Grail.

I have been trying out sofa beds for weeks now.  My ass going from shop to shop to shop.  Kind of like Goldilocks, but with no "just right" in sight. 

This has nothing to do with the post,
but when I was trying to find a good Goldilocks
illustration I got distracted.

They're ALL too hard.  All of them.  You can look all you want online, but you cannot buy a sofa without letting your ass feel it. So we've been trolling the furniture shops.  We find the exact model that we like, that our asses enjoy - ask if it comes in a sofa bed - and the salesperson won't meet our eyes when they say "Yes."  Because they know.  They know that somewhere in the fabrication of inexpensive sofa beds, (Because, let's face it, we are NOT going to spend $3,000 on a piece of furniture.  EVER), that the base and ass cushions are injected with some sort of concrete polymer that ensures that one would rather sit on the floor than on this piece of furniture masquerading as comfortable. 

I'm desperately trying to find an alternative to IKEA here folks.  I'd love to shop local and support the little guy, but those damned Swedes with their good prices and relatively comfortable pieces and delivery are calling to me.  "Ve huv sofas end matchink sofa beds end cumfy chayerrs - ull vith slip cuverrs...  Cooom to de Scandinavian siede Headder!"  Oh God, it may be too late!

Did you guys KNOW about this?!?

It was a revelation.  With the first one I thought I'd just been lucky.  Even the second.  What a happy coincidence!  How delightful!  It was only upon savouring the third that I thought something was up.  I looked at the box.

Ladies and gentlemen, Pot Of Gold makes a CARAMEL collection!  I am undone. 

Dear God what was I thinking? I had five of them.   Okay, possibly six.   Which means that in 6 mouthfuls of sin, I ingested over 30 grams of sugar and 380 calories. Which, when you really think about it, considering the oral orgasm that I had, isn't that bad a calorie count.

I'm in rehearsals right now, we're getting down to the crunch - rehearsing on the set, bonding with the cast and crew, and people are bringing snacks to the rehearsals.  And apart from a fantastically healthful crock pot of lentil stew on Sunday - the food is utter crap.  I mean, it all tastes a-fucking-mazing, but it's crap.  M&Ms, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate bars - the newly discovered box of caramels...

Fruit plate.  We need a fricking fruit plate.  Or a vegetable plate.  Communal food is terrible for me.  The snack table, in my peripherals, beckons - it seduces.  Shiny wrappers and colourful bags with their upwards of 25 grams of sugar in them, waiting to spike my blood sugar and then allow for a good old, wallowing in my willpowerless misery, sugar crash.  High, and then not-so-high, in the space of minutes.  Eyes rolling back in my head.  People with 911 at the ready, in case I actually do slip into that sugar coma.

I need to get my shit together.  I have two days before I'm called again.  I shall gird my loins for battle.  Time for the buddy system.  Time to call in the big guns.  I have at least 5 girlfriends in the show who know me well.  They know what sugar does to me.  They shall be my security team.  See?  The first step is admitting you have a problem.  The second?   Asking for help, so that you don't have to conquer this shit alone. I'm following Bill Withers's advice.  I know I'm not strong.  I'm leaning. 

WARNING: Prone to Theatrical Displays of Melodrama

"Mummy, do you know where the plastic container with the clicking lid is?"

"No.  I do not.  I'm not sure where it went.  Maybe Daddy took it to school."

Rissa sighs deeply.  I barely hear her say,  "I call her 'Clicky'."

"Pardon me?"

Rissa now speaks loudly and clearly.  "I call her 'Clicky'."

"Did you just say that you call the container 'Clicky'?

"I call HER 'Clicky'!"

"Sorry.  This container is a girl?"

"Yes, she is a girl.  Don't judge my love!"

"I'm not judging..."

"You don't know what we have together..."  I think at this point, Rissa flings an arm up to demonstrate her heightened emotional state.

"You are completely right.  I DO NOT know, nor do I understand, the relationship that you have with the, uh... plastic container you have dubbed 'Clicky'.  Not that there is anything wrong with that."

Still doing her best Garbo, Rissa exclaims, "Why can't you support my choices?"

Then she dissolves into snorting laughter.  In betweeen snorts, "Today will be a laughing day, I can just tell!"

"Awesome."

"Every time I laugh today, I will do a different laugh."

"You do that little thing." 

"I will!"  She then lets out a burst of mad scientist mania. 

"MOO-HOO-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA!!"

"You are SO weird."

"Unique.  I am unique."

"You're something alright."

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!