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.