Hello, Crickets!

I’m listening to the plaintive cry of a Beagle in the next yard. He sounds like he’s howling in pain but since he does this every quarter hour I think he just suffers from separation anxiety. His owners do a very good job of ignoring him, the rest of the neighbors? Not so much.

It’s been over a year since our dog departed and I still look for signs of healing from the husband. The dogs’ toys still lay at his feet under his desk where he spends most of his days as a sort of memorial to the past. One day he’ll move them to a box and put them ‘away’ and we’ll be able to say the official mourning period is over. In the meantime the rallying cry for a new dog carries on -sounding much like the baying of the Beagles’ over the fence. Only louder.

The one picture I have of that little bastard (technically, correct) he looks like he’s giving the camera a dirty look.

“F*** arf.”

I mentioned the $10,000 in furniture, accessories and medication, yes?

Instead of the toys he barely chewed on (he was too busy working his way through the living room couch) I choose to keep the pile of receipts from his life under my desk. Just in case I start to soften. Monetarily, we don’t want a dog. Emotionally? Well, we still miss that little guy.

So why is it that everyone we know who would NEVER own a dog suddenly has one? They whip out the ‘baby’ pictures and tell endearing tales of dog-training. Their stories charm me, make my heart skip a beat and I think “Maybe I’m ready!”

That is, until I get home and see the little pile of toys still sitting at his master’s feet… and hear the howls of the damn dog next door.

Nope. Not ready.

I’m On Fire…

and not in the ‘good’ way. I’m being attacked by the loud, clanging internal clock that pokes it’s sweaty head out every so often to announce, ‘TIME’S UP!’

It starts like a weakness in the knees and a shaky, spine-tingling shiver. As soon as the brain registers it, it’s on the move like a shot of adrenalin, a bolt of heat that pulses through your body until it erupts at your head. Suddenly you’re covered in a film of cold sweat and your body temperature flashes into super-hot mode. It lasts mere minutes. By the time you’re loosening your collar, sweater, blanket, whatever -you’re back to what I’ve come to know as normal.

I find it fascinating however my family doesn’t share the same feeling. They have been known to hold strategy meetings when I’m out -kind of like Al Anon for peri-menopause. I think they should call it, Survival of the Flashes and there should be courses and support groups for loved ones on how to cope with that evil-personified-witch-of a-monster-who-is-subjecting-everyone-to-her-polarizing-mood-swings. If someone comes up with it I would like it to be named after me, The Queen of the Hot Flashes because heck if you’re going to go through it you might as well own it (and have awards).

Remember. I invented it.

It’s Over…

The tile is gone. Sent back, banished to the tile warehouse from whence it came. Au revoir, mosaic tile stupide. You proved nothing, you gave no pleasure, you you you… disappointed me. You sat so perfectly in your box, perfect, grout-free, sparkly. I loved you passionately licked you furtively every time I walked past your temporary home on the bench while I waited for you to become my walls of splendor. But the days turned into weeks and still you sat collecting dust on the bench. Nobody wanted to take you on. Reports and updates of my designer/coworker’s fiasco using the same tile spread like fire.

‘There must be a manufacturing error.’

Words like a knife in my heart. This couldn’t be. So beautiful but dysfunctional, so impossible to install without error. The reports got worse. We see every seam. Grout-free means it must be error free except they won’t interlock. Correcting it makes it worse. The tiles sink in too deep and can’t be popped out.

‘The entire back splash will have to come out’, she reported.

Tile! Why did you have to be so poorly designed? WHY? Why couldn’t you play well with other tiles? Prima Donna tile. My designer/coworker sent pictures of her client’s kitchen to the tile store. It wasn’t the first time they heard about the tile being too difficult to install. They were sorry about her client’s back-splash and they would honour the return of my untouched, uninstalled, dust-covered boxes of the most beautiful, but diva-like tile on the planet.

We took it back today -made it ride in the hatch like an inanimate object rather than the work-of-art marble tile I was sold on. We hoisted you with great effort onto the counter and sadly turned you in. My eye began to wander at all the sparkly tile around and before I knew it I was smitten anew. The grey marble bullet strips spoke to me. Their tone was less diva, more alto or fifth business, It was a humble beckoning rather than an earnest ‘lookatme!’ The husband took to it straight away and since it was an even trade the deal went down rather painlessly.

We’ll be picking up our new tile next week and getting it installed soon… hopefully without incident.

Would You Rather…

Watch hockey or curling?

I’m not sure what’s happened, if earth has ripped us a new axis or what but lots of people are coming out of the wood work and proudly declaring their love of curling.

What?

Hockey I can understand. You can be loud, proud and well, loud. Curling just seems so subdued. Like golf but with more innuendo. If you listen to the game without watching you’ll hear what I’m talking about. Try adding, ‘that’s what she said!’ to the commentary. Trust me, it’s way more enjoyable than actually paying attention to the game. It’s almost as much fun as the Lost drinking game which requires taking a shot of something something when certain moments occur like when Flocke (fake Locke) says, “I can tell you what you want to know” or Jack looking up skyward in angst (Jack’s depressed, CHEERS!)

But sit down and follow the commentary for curling. Voices are not raised, the commentator does not get breathless and make rushed pronouncements just subtle remarks that set up the line beautifully. But don’t take my word for it, you have to play along. Today when you hear things like “he’s digging in the corner!” or “oh, so close!” just add the line “that’s what she said” and tell me you didn’t giggle like a ten year old boy.

Then try it during a curling match. Same thing but longer, slower, with more dulcet tones…

(that’s what she said heeeeeeeeheeeeeeheeeeee!)

Being Fifty…

Talk about an exercise in aversion.

Even typing Fifty just feels wrong. But it’s there, it’s square … root is… math … and right or wrong I’ve hit it and it was unresponsive, frigid, even. Except, that’s a lie! Fifty IS responsive! It responds to touch in a flaccid, saggy way. It folds into itself creating a wave of ugly wrinkles when poked. Gravity pushes down on it and everything kind of congeals in a mess in the middle. But, heck, it’s still a response!

The consultant looked at me, frowning. Well, you couldn’t really call it a frown, the skin around her eyes barely moved.

“Yes, I have Botox in my forehead. I started at 37 and kept getting the shots so I wouldn’t develop the deep worry lines like yours my grandmother’s.”

She did a quick tour of my lines with her calculator. My face would cost approximately $1200.00 to plum up and freeze into a youthful glow. That’s $350 for the worry lines between my eyebrows, $400 for the lines beside my nose and $450 for the lines that go from the sides of my nose to my lips. I don’t need Botox at the corners of my mouth, yet, she informed me (take away $350). But that’s not all! Botox only lasts around 4 months, the other plumping stuff may last up to six months. That equals a whole lot of math per year that I could be spending on a vacation! A really GOOD vacation with meals and everything!

“Is the price ever going to be affordable to average women?” I asked, naively.

“Why would it? Women will pay whatever it takes”.

Suddenly I was disgusted with myself, my vanity, my insecurity about aging. I know better, I do and yet I’m falling for the biggest, cruelest marketing trap geared to women.

“You’re STILL not good enough”!

Every ad geared to my age category reminds me of my flawed appearance. A WRINKLE? A GREY HAIR? Your death awaits you, welcome to the end! But if you rub it, dye it, lift it, fill it with poison, or just cut it off, you will achieve eternal youth.

Valerie Bertinell didn’t just lose weight she had a TON of surgery done to her body and face to tighten up the leftovers but the message to us is ‘SEE? You too can look like Barbie.’ That toy model we grew up with never aged, sagged, drooped or wrinkled. She is still impossibly proportioned and as perky as ever. I know this to be impossible, I’m a free-thinking female yet I was seduced by the message that I could STILL improve and that I should improve because everyone else is doing it!

So I lost weight. Again. Losing 40 pounds to free myself of hypertension and high blood sugar wasn’t good enough. Losing weight didn’t turn me into a swim suit model (I didn’t expect it to but dammit, all the messages bombarding my brain gave me the illusion of a swim suit body). On the practical side I did it with a doctor, covered by our provincial medical system (yay, Doctor Daniels!) There were no meetings, nobody telling me I had to make losing weight about going to meetings, creating a secondary lifestyle - yuck! No supplements, no weird drinks, no special, expensive food plan, just common sense and the accountability of seeing a gruff, unsmiling man looking at the number on the cattle-sized weigh scale asking me if I exercised during the week. Hey, whatever works -my blood pressure is down and THAT should be good enough.

I can’t afford to tighten up the leftovers or pay to temporarily reduce the effects of aging on my skin. Clearly there has to be an alternative to all the noise, the negative messages, the stereotyping and it’s all up here (points to head). I looked at the old lady looking back at me in the mirror and made a decision, a vow as it were. I promised NOT to buy into the false advertising that I need to rid myself of any signs of aging at tremendous expense in order to feel good about me. I will look after my health.
It’s amazing how a virtual trip around the world (virtual is the key word, I’m in Waikiki today), a bit of concealer for the dark circles and a little blush can make a difference. I’m also going to treat myself on a regular basis to the easiest, cheapest facelift in the freaking world. Smile. Seriously go look in a mirror and do it! The change is amazing! And if anybody asks, yes, I invented the cure for aging and I’m giving the secret away to you for FREE! Do it. Go on, really. You’ll thank me.

The Line…

… between boy and brat is very thin.

Sure, you can have that heart to heart talk, explain things with proper terms and watch him concentrate on your words, nodding as he absorbs each new point, processing the information. You can ask for assurance that your words won’t become weapons on the playground, that all you say will not be shared. You count on those momentary glimpses of maturity and understanding to step forward and be the grown up boy you hope he’ll become. That composed boy who thanks you for explaining all those strange terms and things is the boy you are so proud to know, proud of how he handled all the new information. How he…

screamed out “sexual intercourse!!!” as he slid down the school yard hill last week.

The line got thinner as I heard the principal explain the ‘zero tolerance’ policy that the boy violated. She seemed to feel the need to explain that the school cannot abide any inappropriate talk of sexuality or homophobic remarks. She doesn’t know me very well. I too cannot abide. I vowed the boy/brat was going to regret saying anything. A storm cloud hung over the car as I drove home from work, planning what I would say. I would be calm, even, I would not allow emotion to take over.

“YOU ARE IN SOOO MUCH TROUBLE!” I said loudly (OK, I yelled a little).
“HOW COULD YOU? I DEMANDED.

His answer was incomprehensible, he was obviously upset.

I growled at the husband who started to ask a question.

“GRRRRR!” This was my moment. Calm, even and unemotional didn’t have a chance -I was raving. I circled the prey glancing back at the husband to make sure he stood back.

At some point it occurred to me that the boy was never going to understand because the husband was no better at keeping information to himself than a ten year old. The big boys can gossip way more than any women I know. So who’s to blame? I handed the boy the best information he would ever learn and what did he do? He didn’t just tell his friends, he screamed his knowledge out for everyone to hear at recess. This shouldn’t have been a surprise.

I grounded him for the entire weekend, which lasted one day.

I grounded myself for being an idiot telling a ten year old the facts of life when he asked.

“I Want You…

I want you so ba-a-a-ad, babe!

I want yououououou…”

The house vibrates, shakes, rattles, the voice strives to reproduce John’s resonant perfection.
But the 13 year olds vocal chords just can’t reach down low enough- give it a couple of more years. Maybe by then his ear will develop and he’ll notice when he sings the whole thing half a tone below the lead guitars sultry notes. The drums sound uninspired, but accompany the discord obediently.

“She’s so.”

(wait for it)

“Heavyyyyyyy.” The harmonies are lost as the singer hits all the notes in order. By himself. Suddenly the drums are gone and it’s just one voice trying to hit the high note. The ten year old leaves to make a cheese bagel for lunch. I guess the discipline thing hasn’t kicked in yet, the second guitarist comes up for a snack, too.

My ears hurt, my head hurts, I’m crabby but this isn’t about me it’s about giving the boys a chance to be boys being a band in a basement. The ever-increasing amplifiers prove the dad gene is alive and well and festering in these young pups. Bigger will always be better -car, amplifier, other, etc and with ‘it’ comes increasingly more confidence.

They switch to an uneven interpretation of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”. A range of guitar effects are presented after each musical stanza, testing, annoyingly. One day they may do another garage concert for their friends and the neighbors. A proud mom may still insist on video taping all of it. A proud dad may upload it to You Tube and their legend may begin. Until then its a mere afternoon of vibrating, shaking and rattling, and plenty of pain medication.

Lines That Make You Laugh…

I grew up hearing the statement, “I had to laugh…”

The dot dot dot is important. I grew up with lots of dot dot dots, too.

My mother likes to tell stories of her experiences. Her father was a story teller and an artist. My father made monosyllabic grunting noises and basically tuned all those around him out. He never told me a story.

My father-in-law likes to tell the same stories, over and over. I enjoy pointing out to the husband when he’s repeating something he’s already told me that he’s turning into his dad.

But I am safe. This is one area I will not turn into my mother. I can’t tell a story, joke, cite a quote, or even quickly google what it is I’m trying to convey. That gene skipped out and had a smoke the day it was supposed to be handed out in pre-natal class. I’ve never even had the chance to say, “I had to laugh (dot dot dot)”.

So how is it a person ends up in a story-telling medium? I’m as tangential as they come and can literally lose the plot without a compass on a dime on a slow boat to China. Literally. It’s almost like a gift in itself. Add the sudden memory lapses of estrogen on crack and you’ve got one wrinkled space cadet.

So what was I saying?

My mother will start to relay a moment beginning with the line, “I had to laugh…” and start laughing before the story begins. Many hee hees later her captive audience starts to wonder if attempts at escape would really be futile. Her story is rarely as memorable as the laugh, or the line, “I had to laugh…”.

It’s become one of those lines that’s brought out in quiet moments as an inside joke. Say it with the accent and it’s good for some chuckles. Best part? You never have to actually tell the dot dot dots.

Yesterday, When I Was Born…

and fell off the turnip truck, I believed her.

Today I am wiser.

The 21 year old wasn’t in her bed at 5:30AM. I didn’t panic, I turned on my cell phone and sure enough there was a text message saying she fell asleep at a guy’s house watching a movie and would be home in the morning.

Um.

The first thing I think:
Who cares, I’m not your mother.

Second thing I think:
Oh, crap I am!

What does one say when one is confronted with an adult situation requiring adult-like grace?
I don’t know, I’ve never been the mother of a 21 year old. What would I want my mother to say if I left a message saying I fell asleep at a guy’s house.

“Make sure he makes you breakfast”

Her reply to me?

“Who is this and what have you done with my mother??!”

Mwahahaha.

Haiti At Home…

We’ve seen the visuals and read the headlines. To some they are just stories, something to discuss like the weather, to others its a wake up call to help. Some donate money and others immediately go into crisis mode and head to the epicenter of need.

For the emergency food bank in a forgotten pocket of Scarborough the disaster is here, now. The pain is palpable as one person after another tells of loved ones lost, hurt or killed. Eyes fill with tears as stories are shared of trying to get news of missing loved ones. You feel a paralyzing helplessness as you listen.

“My cousin and her baby are gone, dead”, “I don’t know where my husband is”.

Some look like they want to run, escape the words, shed the fresh layer of pain. All you can do is hug them, hold their hand, whisper words of encouragement.

Some of the Haitian women sit together, quietly talking to each other in French. Some are alone, head in hands. They came here with their children looking for a better life. They come in on Saturday mornings to get extra food for their families to get through the week. They look out for each other, some volunteer their time at the food bank while older children watch their little ones. Their husbands are not here. They wait for court hearings so they can work and eventually sponsor their husbands. Now many are not even sure their husbands are alive.

These Haitians did not come directly from Haiti. Many came from Florida having already sought refuge years ago in the US. Many have southern accents after a decade in Georgia, Florida or Texas. The same government rushing to Haiti’s aid is also responsible for deporting thousands of Haitians under the George Bush government. They had already escaped their 4th world existence looking for a better life, many found it in the US but George cleansed the counties by turfing out family after family of illegal immigrants, many of whom had started families, held jobs and paid taxes in their adopted country. They lacked official documents from a homeland where corruption is the only language. For those who landed in Canada the struggles they face every day are nothing compared to what they’ve known.

Haiti was a politically corrupt, social and economic nightmare before this earthquake. Education was difficult to come by and poverty was everywhere in that tiny nation. Most of it’s people are God-fearing and pious and today it was reported that nightly in Port au Prince many gather in the hills and sing hymns of praise and worship -thankful to be alive. In a place with almost no means of progressing to a third world country Haitians stay hopeful and humble.

We invited the Saturday morning crowd, our food bank clients and volunteers to join us for a prayer for Haiti -if they wanted to. We stood in the lobby so those who wanted to could take part and those that didn’t wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. It was a large surprise when many left the ‘church’ to come and pray in the lobby. Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Catholic and many more stood close together, bowed their heads and asked for Haiti’s healing.

The moment wasn’t lost on any of us.