When the hydro bill arrives, I hate being a grownup.
When martini orders are being taken, I love being a grownup.
When my best friend is dumped by her lying, cheating, bastard of a husband, I really hate being a grownup. I remember the days when my friends and I worried about nothing more than whether we had the right kind of high tops, whether our scabby knees would soon heal from that rousing round of double dutch and leave "cool scars", or whether the ouija board would reveal the initials of the boy we'd someday marry.
Childhood is actually deceptively hard - politics of the schoolyard, bickering parents, cruel kids, strict teachers, loads of homework, and of course boys and their disgusting cooties. It's hard to be a kid. Every day you have a million questions and your only course of action is to save them up and then ask an adult - why? why? because why? how come? But perhaps being an adult is harder still; life continues to present you with an infinite amount of questions, but this time around, there's no one to ask why. In fact, you learn quickly that sometimes there is no why, no how come. It just is. And there's nothing you can do about it.
You may remember a couple of months ago, I wrote about how my friend Jen had just ruptured fantastically with her husband, Jeff. They had been married all of 9 months, just bought a new house, still had tan lines from their honeymoon when Jen had the breath kicked out of her.
It's crazy, truly crazy, to conceive of any man fool enough to leave her. She is an amazing person - generous, considerate, radiant. She and Jeff seemed like the perfect couple. He was such a good guy. He once bought her a dozen umbrellas because she was always forgetting hers - he planted them around her home, her car, and her work so that she'd never be without. He had this way of kissing her neck that literally would tug at your heart to see. Looking at their wedding pictures, it would make you sick at how gorgeous and in love they looked.
They dated 5 years before marrying. They were "sure". We all were.
And in the end, none of it mattered. He was just another unfaithful husband; she was just another broken heart. Her mother was so shocked when Jen told her they were separated that she insisted that Jen give him another chance. Surely there was a misunderstanding.
But there was no misunderstand, and there would be no second chance.
a) He was caught red-handed.
b) He admitted guilt - and not just to this one indiscretion.
c) He was already living blissfully with his mistress.
But second chances presuppose that a second chance was sought, and it wasn't. He wasn't begging for forgiveness. He wasn't playing boomboxes outside her house at night in corny efforts to apologize. He very coldly put some clothes in a suitcase (the one they bought for their honeymoon), and collected his toiletries out of the bathroom. He took his house key off his keyring (engraved; a gift from Jen on their 6 month anniversary) without being asked, placed it on the kitchen counter, grabbed a bottle of merlot, and left.
For me, the hardest part is knowing that someone she loved so much could hurt her and not be sorry for it. It seems utterly incongruous to me; I think about all the parts of the story, the before and the after, and I know how they go together, but my mind (or is it my heart?) refuses to believe that it's possible.
For Jen, the hardest part is knowing that in the 6 years they were together, she never really knew him. Her whole life is called into question - what is happiness? what is love? what is trust?
She asks me this, with red-rimmed eyes, and all I can offer is a shrug and a tissue. The tissue is a mild comfort; the shrug infuriates us both. But what answers can I give her?
I helped her move out of her house and into an apartment with another woman going through the same thing, but different. You know how it is: the same level of achy and messy, but details that are heart-breaking in their own way (her cat had a collection of unfamiliar panties piled under the sofa - she found it while cleaning for a visit from her mother-in-law).
Jen's lawyer, of course, doesn't like her to leave the house empty. Jen's sense of self, however, cannot permit her to sleep in the sheets she envisioned sharing with Jeff until they thinned from wear, at which point they'd head to Sears holding hands, purchasing sheets in 5 or 10 year increments for the rest of their wedded bliss.
Meanwhile, I feel inadequate. As a friend, as a healer, as a balm, I have been inept. I don't believe in platitudes. I have no reassurance. I know that Jen will survive, and then thrive. I know she'll be okay, and then more than okay, and then great. She's strong and she's better than this. I know it, and she knows it too. But right now, none of this helps. The promise of this sunny future does little to part the clouds that distort her present circumstances. And so she plays the familiar emotional waiting game called divorce - an intricate combination of rage and mourning that leave her friends and family feeling helpless.
That's where the story left off. I spent a few days with her, knowing that I couldn't make it better, but that I had to try. This is friendship. This is growing up.
A week later, she called to tell me that Jeff's relationship with "the mistress" (that's what we call her - her name is Melanie but Jen refuses to be on a first-name basis with her) is almost as long as his and Jen's was. He was cheating when he first said "I love you"; he was cheating when he proposed; he was cheating when they applied for a 25 year mortgage and planned for the future. I couldn't tell her that they never talking about her while they watched Leno. I couldn't tell her that he hadn't written his vows in another woman's bed. I couldn't tell her the words she needed to hear, and as much as I wanted to hop another bus and race to her side, she assured me that being an adult means going through tough times alone.
I hopped the bus anyway, and told her that having friends means never having to be alone. I hugged her lots, I rescued her fern, and I bought her a big gaudy ring to wear on that finger on her left hand that now feels naked and conspicuous.
For a month, she went to work, she did yoga and ate french fries, she even called me once in a surprisingly buoyant mood when the office hottie hit on her. But in her heart, she was still sad, and it showed. She was sick, physically sick. We all worried about her.
And then the call came, you know the one, it's the one you're not expecting.
She's pregnant.
She's also scared and devastated and confused.
Especially confused.
She wants a baby. She wants to be a mother. She also never wants to see Jeff again as long as she lives. She doesn't want to have an undeniable link to him; she doesn't want a child that will be half his, a constant reminder, a good portion of his DNA. She doesn't want to drop a kid off at the mistress' house, she doesn't want to raise a kid in a hostile environment but isn't sure she can take the high road. She doesn't want to be pregnant with a baby that was probably conceived a day or two before she found another woman being fucked in her bed.
So when she visits this weekend, she'll have her two favourite Jays to cuddle with, and she'll have the added bonus of a very good clinic just down the street from us.
The kind that does abortions.
She doesn't need to be reminded of her options. What she needs right now is support for her decisions, and that's exactly what I have to give. I believe in her, and in her ability to do what's best. I also know it won't be easy. I can unquestioningly predict that these coming weeks will be the most difficult of her life, ones that she will remember long after she has forgotten about her rotten first marriage. But I also hope that she will remember that I was there for her, and that she was loved.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Happy Uterus Day
Brace yourselves.
This Sunday, many of us will dutifully send off $8 Hallmark cards to the woman who pushed us out of her twat. Those of us who won't spend money on roses for the people we choose to love on Valentine's Day will instead pay overinflated prices for dyed daisies on street corners to send to women who meddle in our lives, criticize our choices, and bring us closer to death with their incessant nagging.
The same people who complain that Valentine's Day isn't a real holiday are the first people to go for brunch on Mother's Day. "I don't need Hallmark to tell me when to love my husband" they say, "I love him all year round."
Okay, so maybe your mother is not worth celebrating. Maybe you browsed the card stores marinating in sappy sentiments, and found not one card that expressed yours:
Hey Mom. Thanks for always forgetting me at soccer practice. Don't worry, it only rained about half the time, and I probably would have caught pneumonia anyway.
Dear Mom. I guess you cut me out of your will because I'm such a disappointment. I'd wish you a happy Mother's Day but you probably threw this out without opening it.
Hi Mom. Remember how you used to tell me I'd never amount to anything? Well now you're rotting away in an old folks' home and I'm summering at my cottage on the lake. Ha. Happy Mother's Day.
But whether your mother is special or just "special", chances are you have someone in your life that deserves tribute. Of our 3 mothers, we did send a gift to Jason's Mom.
Yes, you heard right. Jason's Mom.
Over the years she has driven both of us crazy. She shows too much skin, she's a hypochondriac and a complainer, she has strings of bad boyfriends, and she whines if Jason doesn't call her enough but doesn't believe in paying long distance rates herself. But we love her, and not just because we have to. I remind myself that accidentally or not (although I suspect yes), Jason turned into that man I consider worth marrying because she raised him, or was at least present while he raised himself. Or mostly present. I mean, she slept off her hangovers in the same house where he slept, except on the weekends he was successfully farmed out to his dad.
Oh my. Did that sound a bit bitter?
Well, thank goodness it's only mother's day. You should hear me in June. I mean, technically both Jason and I must have grown from some form of sperm, but there's no evidence of this these days. I don't recognize any father in any form, and Jason's dad...well, we saw him last summer. At the funeral. The funeral we had to learn about in the newspaper because Jason's dad can't be bothered to write down our phone number or address when we send it to him. Who has never indicated that he knows when Jason's birthday is, who never knows what Jason does for a living, who apparently never even wonders who the packages we send them come from.
I think that when Jason's dad had a daughter (you know, by the woman with whom he cheated on his wife), he forget he ever had a son. And it makes me achy in my heart because I see Jason reaching out and being ignored, wanting a relationship with a man who doesn't give him the time of day, trying to forge something where a father-son link should exist, but where the father thing exists in the head but not the heart.
This week is hard at our house. The mother thing has always been tenuous for one reason or another, and mother's day is quickly followed by Jason's sister's birthday. I have watched him wander around the mall, unable to find the perfect gift or any gift because the little girl he knew has turned into a young woman and Jason didn't see it happen. He doesn't know how big she's gotten, or what her tastes are, if she looks like him, if she likes school or boys or Britney Spears (though he hopes not on both those last counts). He doesn't know her, nor will he probably ever really know his dad, whose birthday comes just a couple days after that.
So we sent a card to Jason's Mom because she's the only family we've got.
And we celebrate uterus day the only way we know how: we take our hearts, mangled from our broken families, and we make them whole by celebrating that we don't have kids. That I'm not a mother, nor will I ever be. We toast the fact that my uterus is as dysfunctional as the rest of me, that I lack the craving for kids that 99% of adults share. That our marriage will always be just the two of us, and that we will spend our lives filling the holes that parents have created for us.
And it's not bad.
This Sunday, many of us will dutifully send off $8 Hallmark cards to the woman who pushed us out of her twat. Those of us who won't spend money on roses for the people we choose to love on Valentine's Day will instead pay overinflated prices for dyed daisies on street corners to send to women who meddle in our lives, criticize our choices, and bring us closer to death with their incessant nagging.
The same people who complain that Valentine's Day isn't a real holiday are the first people to go for brunch on Mother's Day. "I don't need Hallmark to tell me when to love my husband" they say, "I love him all year round."
Okay, so maybe your mother is not worth celebrating. Maybe you browsed the card stores marinating in sappy sentiments, and found not one card that expressed yours:
Hey Mom. Thanks for always forgetting me at soccer practice. Don't worry, it only rained about half the time, and I probably would have caught pneumonia anyway.
Dear Mom. I guess you cut me out of your will because I'm such a disappointment. I'd wish you a happy Mother's Day but you probably threw this out without opening it.
Hi Mom. Remember how you used to tell me I'd never amount to anything? Well now you're rotting away in an old folks' home and I'm summering at my cottage on the lake. Ha. Happy Mother's Day.
But whether your mother is special or just "special", chances are you have someone in your life that deserves tribute. Of our 3 mothers, we did send a gift to Jason's Mom.
Yes, you heard right. Jason's Mom.
Over the years she has driven both of us crazy. She shows too much skin, she's a hypochondriac and a complainer, she has strings of bad boyfriends, and she whines if Jason doesn't call her enough but doesn't believe in paying long distance rates herself. But we love her, and not just because we have to. I remind myself that accidentally or not (although I suspect yes), Jason turned into that man I consider worth marrying because she raised him, or was at least present while he raised himself. Or mostly present. I mean, she slept off her hangovers in the same house where he slept, except on the weekends he was successfully farmed out to his dad.
Oh my. Did that sound a bit bitter?
Well, thank goodness it's only mother's day. You should hear me in June. I mean, technically both Jason and I must have grown from some form of sperm, but there's no evidence of this these days. I don't recognize any father in any form, and Jason's dad...well, we saw him last summer. At the funeral. The funeral we had to learn about in the newspaper because Jason's dad can't be bothered to write down our phone number or address when we send it to him. Who has never indicated that he knows when Jason's birthday is, who never knows what Jason does for a living, who apparently never even wonders who the packages we send them come from.
I think that when Jason's dad had a daughter (you know, by the woman with whom he cheated on his wife), he forget he ever had a son. And it makes me achy in my heart because I see Jason reaching out and being ignored, wanting a relationship with a man who doesn't give him the time of day, trying to forge something where a father-son link should exist, but where the father thing exists in the head but not the heart.
This week is hard at our house. The mother thing has always been tenuous for one reason or another, and mother's day is quickly followed by Jason's sister's birthday. I have watched him wander around the mall, unable to find the perfect gift or any gift because the little girl he knew has turned into a young woman and Jason didn't see it happen. He doesn't know how big she's gotten, or what her tastes are, if she looks like him, if she likes school or boys or Britney Spears (though he hopes not on both those last counts). He doesn't know her, nor will he probably ever really know his dad, whose birthday comes just a couple days after that.
So we sent a card to Jason's Mom because she's the only family we've got.
And we celebrate uterus day the only way we know how: we take our hearts, mangled from our broken families, and we make them whole by celebrating that we don't have kids. That I'm not a mother, nor will I ever be. We toast the fact that my uterus is as dysfunctional as the rest of me, that I lack the craving for kids that 99% of adults share. That our marriage will always be just the two of us, and that we will spend our lives filling the holes that parents have created for us.
And it's not bad.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Monday, May 08, 2006
Some Things
1. I will never hear Beyonce's Naughty Girl again without remembering that skinny little drag queen bopping around to it in the Bandshell.
2. Adhesive medical tape just may be my most-hated foe.
3. I love when Jason works late, because that's when he brings me treats. He comes home and he'll say "Look inside my pockets for a surprise!" and he rarely means just his penis. This past week, I got a string of 8 bracelets, 3 new shirts, a necklace, and my favourite, "sleepy time" boxers, that are scrumptialicious for spring.
4. Don Quixote is a more powerful sleep aid than the horse tranquilizers I used to use.
5. Getting high and watching 3 Men and a Baby is exactly as entertaining as it sounds.
6. I went to sleep last night dreaming of butterscotch pudding.
7. Under my right eye, a little toward the outer edge of my cheekbone, just beneath the skin, is a tiny nerve that twitches like a chipmunk on an electric fence every time someone says they had "a few beer". That nerve, she likes to pluralize beer with an S. Beers. Beers. Ah, that's better. Beers.
8. We've been hiking in the bluffs lately - we should know this is a bad idea based on:
a) the first day, we encountered someone getting rescued by a fire truck
b) driving down the bluffs was such a change in pressure that our ears popped
c) hiking back up the bluffs was so steep that my calves plotted revenge for no less than 3 days
And yet we continue to go back, to "watch nature reclaim the land" and to laugh in the face of posted signage warning us to "know your limit". Hahaha.
9. Making pies the other day, I had already rolled out my delicious crust when I discovered that my apples had gone bananas. You know how it is. No good. So I had an empty crust! What to do, what to do? I divided it and made a chocolate meringue pie and a quiche for dinner. Despite the fact that the quiche was made in a slightly sweet crust, Jason assured me that "your souffle is really good." Great.
10. Jason dragged me to see MI3. We shared a box of Reese's Pieces. I got a nosebleed from all the action sequences.
11. Am I supposed to get excited about a wedding between 2 dull, ugly, borderline moronic people? Horray because at least they found each other? Horray because this marriage is bound to last because neither of them could ever find anyone else? I am far too warped for wedding season.
2. Adhesive medical tape just may be my most-hated foe.
3. I love when Jason works late, because that's when he brings me treats. He comes home and he'll say "Look inside my pockets for a surprise!" and he rarely means just his penis. This past week, I got a string of 8 bracelets, 3 new shirts, a necklace, and my favourite, "sleepy time" boxers, that are scrumptialicious for spring.
4. Don Quixote is a more powerful sleep aid than the horse tranquilizers I used to use.
5. Getting high and watching 3 Men and a Baby is exactly as entertaining as it sounds.
6. I went to sleep last night dreaming of butterscotch pudding.
7. Under my right eye, a little toward the outer edge of my cheekbone, just beneath the skin, is a tiny nerve that twitches like a chipmunk on an electric fence every time someone says they had "a few beer". That nerve, she likes to pluralize beer with an S. Beers. Beers. Ah, that's better. Beers.
8. We've been hiking in the bluffs lately - we should know this is a bad idea based on:
a) the first day, we encountered someone getting rescued by a fire truck
b) driving down the bluffs was such a change in pressure that our ears popped
c) hiking back up the bluffs was so steep that my calves plotted revenge for no less than 3 days
And yet we continue to go back, to "watch nature reclaim the land" and to laugh in the face of posted signage warning us to "know your limit". Hahaha.
9. Making pies the other day, I had already rolled out my delicious crust when I discovered that my apples had gone bananas. You know how it is. No good. So I had an empty crust! What to do, what to do? I divided it and made a chocolate meringue pie and a quiche for dinner. Despite the fact that the quiche was made in a slightly sweet crust, Jason assured me that "your souffle is really good." Great.
10. Jason dragged me to see MI3. We shared a box of Reese's Pieces. I got a nosebleed from all the action sequences.
11. Am I supposed to get excited about a wedding between 2 dull, ugly, borderline moronic people? Horray because at least they found each other? Horray because this marriage is bound to last because neither of them could ever find anyone else? I am far too warped for wedding season.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
No Sex Please, We're Married.
Half naked in the kitchen, I'm not even sure where my bra has been thrown.
And then the phone rings.
And he answers.
He's not even wearing pants.
Such is life.
And then the phone rings.
And he answers.
He's not even wearing pants.
Such is life.
Coitus Interruptus
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Stinkin Golden Oldies
1. Oh, poor Al Green, you're so tired of being alone? Well, here's the thing. Fuck you. Do you really think any woman is going to think that's a romantic proposal? Tired of being alone? Get a dog. If you want your woman, try ' I can't live without you ' or ' I need you ' or even ' You make good macaroni ' for cripes sake. Tired of being alone? How about shut the hell up.
2. I always feel bad for the horse with no name.
3. If you're going to make inflammatory climatic predictions, you'd better bone up on your accuracy. It is NOT raining men, nor has it ever rained men, not at half past ten, and not ever. It HAS rained frogs, and fish, blood, corn, frozen squid, even cows. But not men.
4. Why does Jesus love Mrs Robinson so much? Last time I checked, she was a sinner. A fornicator! An adulteress! And heaven holds a place for her? Um, where do I sign up?
5. Let's call a spade a spade. Dear Aretha Franklin: it is not respect that you want when he comes home, it is sex. I get it. Mama wants a little sumfin sumfin. Cool. You want him to "whip it" to you and to "soc it" to you, but last time I checked, sex is spelled S-E-X not R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Also, you might want to be careful. When you exchange money for sex, it's not propers, it's prostitution. Just so you know.
6. I know why sister golden hair ain't gettin with you, and it's not because you write infrequent letters. It may be a convenient excuse that you've "been one poor correspondent", and "been too, too hard to find" but the truth is, she's dumping you because your grammar is atrocious. Sheesh.
7. And Marvellettes, don't get me started! You give a pathetic name to women everywhere the way you wait for the postman and cry when there's no package for you. It's not the postman's fault! Don't kill the messenger! Does anyone else think maybe that the guy above who is a poor correspondent is maybe the same guy making the poor Marvellettes wait and wait for a letter? Listen, Marvellettes, it's not like you're ultra loyal anyway. Sounds like you'd take up with the postman if only he gave you the time of day. I say, cut your losses. He's just not that into you!
8. Yes, the road is long with many a winding turn. This is true. But while it may be true that your brother ain't heavy, mine most definitely is. My brother thinks fritos is a food group and that playing Tiger Woods' PGA Tour on PS2 is as good as exercise. My brother is FAT, and I AM NOT going to carry him on my back.
9. Elvis, I think you should have been a bit kinder to your friend, the hound dog. Maybe it was a lie when they said he was high classed, but the truth is, you wore bedazzled jumpsuits, you ate fried peanut butter sandwiches, and you died on the toilet. Do you really think you're the authority on high class? Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?
10. What is so sweet about Alabama? Apparently, it's the incest. I mean, you don't rhyme kin with sin and expect to get off scot-free.
11. You just called to say you love me? For no other reason? Thank goodness for caller ID. If you're eating up precious minutes, it better not be just another ordinary day. That shit's expensive, especially when I'm roaming! Man. Can anyone say stalker much? Next time, send a text.
12. Isn't incense AND peppermints a bit of overkill? And if it's not overkill, then I've got news for you: since the days of beatniks and politics, there have been amazing leaps and bounds in the field of embarrassing body odours. Buy a stick of deodorant, and you're good to go!
13. Whose Moma said you can't hurry love? My Moma was married when she was 18. She didn't wait. She married the first steady paycheque that proposed. And did she hold on no matter how long it takes? Heck no! She didn't play no game of give and take - she played "get out of my house you dirty rotten bastard". And she won. End of story.
So forgive me for being cynical, but oldies just aren't for me.
2. I always feel bad for the horse with no name.
3. If you're going to make inflammatory climatic predictions, you'd better bone up on your accuracy. It is NOT raining men, nor has it ever rained men, not at half past ten, and not ever. It HAS rained frogs, and fish, blood, corn, frozen squid, even cows. But not men.
4. Why does Jesus love Mrs Robinson so much? Last time I checked, she was a sinner. A fornicator! An adulteress! And heaven holds a place for her? Um, where do I sign up?
5. Let's call a spade a spade. Dear Aretha Franklin: it is not respect that you want when he comes home, it is sex. I get it. Mama wants a little sumfin sumfin. Cool. You want him to "whip it" to you and to "soc it" to you, but last time I checked, sex is spelled S-E-X not R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Also, you might want to be careful. When you exchange money for sex, it's not propers, it's prostitution. Just so you know.
6. I know why sister golden hair ain't gettin with you, and it's not because you write infrequent letters. It may be a convenient excuse that you've "been one poor correspondent", and "been too, too hard to find" but the truth is, she's dumping you because your grammar is atrocious. Sheesh.
7. And Marvellettes, don't get me started! You give a pathetic name to women everywhere the way you wait for the postman and cry when there's no package for you. It's not the postman's fault! Don't kill the messenger! Does anyone else think maybe that the guy above who is a poor correspondent is maybe the same guy making the poor Marvellettes wait and wait for a letter? Listen, Marvellettes, it's not like you're ultra loyal anyway. Sounds like you'd take up with the postman if only he gave you the time of day. I say, cut your losses. He's just not that into you!
8. Yes, the road is long with many a winding turn. This is true. But while it may be true that your brother ain't heavy, mine most definitely is. My brother thinks fritos is a food group and that playing Tiger Woods' PGA Tour on PS2 is as good as exercise. My brother is FAT, and I AM NOT going to carry him on my back.
9. Elvis, I think you should have been a bit kinder to your friend, the hound dog. Maybe it was a lie when they said he was high classed, but the truth is, you wore bedazzled jumpsuits, you ate fried peanut butter sandwiches, and you died on the toilet. Do you really think you're the authority on high class? Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?
10. What is so sweet about Alabama? Apparently, it's the incest. I mean, you don't rhyme kin with sin and expect to get off scot-free.
11. You just called to say you love me? For no other reason? Thank goodness for caller ID. If you're eating up precious minutes, it better not be just another ordinary day. That shit's expensive, especially when I'm roaming! Man. Can anyone say stalker much? Next time, send a text.
12. Isn't incense AND peppermints a bit of overkill? And if it's not overkill, then I've got news for you: since the days of beatniks and politics, there have been amazing leaps and bounds in the field of embarrassing body odours. Buy a stick of deodorant, and you're good to go!
13. Whose Moma said you can't hurry love? My Moma was married when she was 18. She didn't wait. She married the first steady paycheque that proposed. And did she hold on no matter how long it takes? Heck no! She didn't play no game of give and take - she played "get out of my house you dirty rotten bastard". And she won. End of story.
So forgive me for being cynical, but oldies just aren't for me.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
I Vant to Suck Your Blood
Every minute of every day, a Canadian will need blood. That's a lot of minutes, and an awful lot of blood. Luckily, blood is not rare, it's not hard to find, and it's not that difficult to excavate. Blood can come from the arms of you or me.
Last week I mentioned that Jason was donating blood, and a lot of people wrote in with questions, so let me tell you a bit more about the process.
First, let me just say that in my country, Canadian Blood Services does an awesome job collecting blood and distributing it to those in need. We're lucky to have them.
Whether you are looking to set up an appointment, or you just have some questions, calling 1-888-2-DONATE will do the trick. Last week we saw that there was a clinic going on at the mall, so we called to make appointments (we both donate) - these appointments are not strictly necessary, but they help keep the donation process down to about an hour.
If it's your first time donating, all you need to bring with you is your id. If you're a regular, you have a donor card. After you sign in, you're provided with some fascinating reading material (okay, not really fascinating, but it's required). Then they'll test you to make sure your iron levels are agreeable. Unfortunately, looking like a "big strong lass" and attesting that "I eat lots of meat!" won't get you off the hook - they prick your finger. This prick is quick, and feels just like an elastic band slapping you (tmi alert: Jason says it feels like the numb gun they use on ball sacks). They swish a drop of your blood in some blue liquid, and pronounce you healthy (or not, in which case, increase your cheerios intake, and try again next time).
Next up, they give you a questionnaire and seat you in a little booth a lot like voting, where you answer questions such as Have you had dental work in the past 3 days? and Have you been in prison this year? If you're filling out this form at the mall, an old man will amble over and consider it his right to invade your privacy and look over your shoulder. Feel free to poke him with the free pens provided for just such an occasion.
Then they put a number on your chest and you wait for a nurse to 'interview' you. While you wait, you are encourage heartily by several volunteers to drink your juice (provided). You should be well-hydrated before donation. You should also have eaten well earlier, and slept well the previous night. The interview is comprised of several more questions, such as Have you taken or paid money for sex or drugs?, followed by the testing of your blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, and then the nurse will kindly check your arms for track marks. Try not to take it too personally.
Then they leave you alone in the room, where you have a little heart to heart with yourself, and you decide if you have any doubts as to the safety of your blood. If you've engaged in any 'risk' behaviours, you can discreetly opt out of the process. There is no pressure whatsoever to continue. You can drop out at any time. They're actually very kind about this - whatever your reason (and people have a lot of reasons).
Depending on how you've answered the donor questionaire, the nurse may have some follow-up questions. Personally, I have to explain the nature of the AIDS tests that I've taken in the past.
If you've met the basic eligibility criterion, then lucky you, it's blood-letting time! If you're at an impromptu clinic at the mall, you'll lie down in a chair that's similar to those lawn chair chaises-longues thingies, with the plastic slats. They give you a little pillow for your head. If you go to the permanent clinic, they have nicer facilities, and leather chair. Fancy schmancy!
Unfortunately, this is where things get complicated for me. I have the distinct honour of being known as The Worst Veins in Canada. I've always had this problem, which has been more than a nuissance to me all the many times I've had blood drawn. Lab technicians and I.V. nurses who spend their whole careers doing nothing but inserting needles get the shakes when they see me. Often, I have been stuck dozens of times in futile attempts to draw blood before the nurse collapses in tears and calls for backup. The first time I remember getting an I.V. at the age of 9, the nurse finally succeeded in getting it in, at which time my vein promptly collapsed, spurted blood, and took the whole 2-hour endeavour back to square one. When a vein is tapped, it often provides little to no blood. I just suck. I am no fan of needles, and I was wary to inflict my vein-less arms on the poor staff of Canadian Blood Services, but I figure, in the name of helping people, I should be able to withstand some extra pricks, and someone should be willing to give them to me. And they always are; often, with a smile.
Last week was no different. If I'm in a hospital facility, they've often wrapped my arm in a warm blanket to try to encourage my veins (not that it helps much). But when you're in the middle of a mall, options are limited. Usually, if you are right handed, you should give blood through your left arm, to reduce hampering your activities. I offered my left, and they looked and tapped and slapped, then squeezed and pressed, but no veins presented themselves. Then they tried my right arm, but this was no better. So at this point, they are always prepared to send me home.
They don't want to jab you. They don't want to hurt you. They're very understanding.
Having given me the choice, I assured the poor guy attending me that he could jab away, and he did. And finally, he got one. And to my astonishment, my blood didn't trickle out and the sputter away...it flowed! Success! You lay there, squeezing a ball, for 8-15 minutes (usually) while 450ml of blood is taken from you. You choose to look or not look (I choose not, sorry, I'm a bit of a wuss).
Jason, on another lawn chair, has great veins. They stand at attention at the slightest provocation. He is a nurse's dream patient. For him, a regular sized needle is used (because my veins are bad, they usually have to use a bigger one). He feels no pain. His blood moves quick.
But Jason has another problem.
The first time I discovered Jason's problem, we had been living together only a short while. Jason was doing a few dishes when a plate broke in the sink and scratched his finger. It didn't really bleed so much as blood rose to the surface of the cut, but never spilled out of the skin. But the mere sight of this hint of blood was enough to make my 6'1, 200 lb boyfriend woozy and faint-hearted. He had to sit down, and take deep breaths.
He has no problem with anyone else's blood. I bleed an awful lot, as you'll all remember, and in fact, Jason had to assist the surgeon in an emergency operation on my back once, and he was completely fine. Didn't blink an eye. The surgeon thumped him on the back for a job well done. But if it's his own blood, it's a very different story.
Jason knows that he has this problem, but he always feels so confident sitting in his lawn chair that he sneaks a peak at the tubes containing his crimson blood...to his demise. Last week was no exception. I'm sitting in my chair, squeezing the ball, being ogled by pretzel-eating shoppers 2 stories over me when I hear a nurse call "Can I get a little help?"
And I know. I know it's Jason.
They take the needle from his arm, turn him on his side, remove his glasses, fan him profusely.
The nurse by my side says to me "Don't worry, he'll be okay."
"I know," I tell her "he just does this for the female attention."
Poor Jason. Luckily, he managed to donate nearly the full amount before succumbing to his condition. He is always embarrassed by it, but they don't take chances. If you're not feeling well, they take care of you. Persisently.
Jason recovers quickly. In fact, he's up and at the cookie table before I am (go figure). They like you to sit and rest 5 minutes after your donation (if you're a newbie, you wear a special sticker and they take extra special care of you, and monitor you for a bit longer). He's got a band-aid in the crook of his elbow, and another on his finger tip where they tested for his iron, but other than that, he's looking rosy and well once again.
Over at my lawn chair I am discovered to be an "oozer" (I bleed a bit more than usual) so they wrap me up good. It restricts my elbow a bit, so no hand jobs tonight. Actually, you should refrain from lifting (it could lease to bruising) and exertion for 6-8 hours afterward. No big deal, really.
When I amble over to the refreshment table, a volunteer greets me with "You have the choice of juice or juice."
"Um...I think I'll have the juice, please."
"Great choice!" he shouts at me. "Orange or peach?"
There are cookies on the table, and other snacks as well. Jason, recovered, is munching away. He might be woozy, but his stomach is strong like bull.
The volunteers like to remind you what a great thing you just did. Your blood donation can be split 3 ways: into red cells, which carry oxygen, that can help patients who are anemic due to blood loss, then platelets, which are cell fragments needed by cancer patients who can't produce enough of their own, and into plasma, the liquid that the carries everything, which is needed by hemophiliacs.
See this chubby arm? Once its contents are split up, it may help to save the lives of up to 3 people per donation. Between Jason and I, that's 6 people per donation. That's a lot of lives for just a little discomfort.
As we are finishing our juice, another gentlemen reaches the refreshment table. He has been unable to donate that day, for one reason or another. "Don't beat yourself up," the volunteer tells him, "the point is, you tried. Now you have the choice of juice or juice."
"Juice" the young man chooses.
"That's a great choice!" the volunteer tells him, and so the cycle continues, in more ways than one.
From the collection, the blood will be tested, twice, for any disease or discrepancies. It will also be typed. Like 46% of Canadians, Jason is type O. He is an important donor because of his universality. As an AB, I am typed with only 3% of Canadians - also important for its rarity. In short, every single donor is important, particulary because less than 4% of us currently donate. It's not enough.
After being cleared and typed, the blood makes its way to hospitals. Although it can be refrigerated for some time, your donation could be in someone else's veins 48 hours later. Blood is life - life for an accident victim, a premature baby, a cancer patient, or anyone undergoing major surgery.
The next day, when the bandages are removed, all that's left on Jason's arm is a tiny mark.
A small price to pay, even for the man who risks fainting and vomiting every time he donates.
My arm is slightly more mangled, but don't be discouraged: I'm allergic to band-aids and forgot to mention it.
The point is, people make a lot of excuses for not donating. Jason and I are probably the poster couple for reasons why not - but we go anyway. Needles suck. Feeling faint sucks. Band-aid burns suck. But you know what sucks more? Dying because there wasn't enough blood.
That sucks the most.
Donate.
Last week I mentioned that Jason was donating blood, and a lot of people wrote in with questions, so let me tell you a bit more about the process.
First, let me just say that in my country, Canadian Blood Services does an awesome job collecting blood and distributing it to those in need. We're lucky to have them.
Whether you are looking to set up an appointment, or you just have some questions, calling 1-888-2-DONATE will do the trick. Last week we saw that there was a clinic going on at the mall, so we called to make appointments (we both donate) - these appointments are not strictly necessary, but they help keep the donation process down to about an hour.
If it's your first time donating, all you need to bring with you is your id. If you're a regular, you have a donor card. After you sign in, you're provided with some fascinating reading material (okay, not really fascinating, but it's required). Then they'll test you to make sure your iron levels are agreeable. Unfortunately, looking like a "big strong lass" and attesting that "I eat lots of meat!" won't get you off the hook - they prick your finger. This prick is quick, and feels just like an elastic band slapping you (tmi alert: Jason says it feels like the numb gun they use on ball sacks). They swish a drop of your blood in some blue liquid, and pronounce you healthy (or not, in which case, increase your cheerios intake, and try again next time).
Next up, they give you a questionnaire and seat you in a little booth a lot like voting, where you answer questions such as Have you had dental work in the past 3 days? and Have you been in prison this year? If you're filling out this form at the mall, an old man will amble over and consider it his right to invade your privacy and look over your shoulder. Feel free to poke him with the free pens provided for just such an occasion.
Then they put a number on your chest and you wait for a nurse to 'interview' you. While you wait, you are encourage heartily by several volunteers to drink your juice (provided). You should be well-hydrated before donation. You should also have eaten well earlier, and slept well the previous night. The interview is comprised of several more questions, such as Have you taken or paid money for sex or drugs?, followed by the testing of your blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, and then the nurse will kindly check your arms for track marks. Try not to take it too personally.
Then they leave you alone in the room, where you have a little heart to heart with yourself, and you decide if you have any doubts as to the safety of your blood. If you've engaged in any 'risk' behaviours, you can discreetly opt out of the process. There is no pressure whatsoever to continue. You can drop out at any time. They're actually very kind about this - whatever your reason (and people have a lot of reasons).
Depending on how you've answered the donor questionaire, the nurse may have some follow-up questions. Personally, I have to explain the nature of the AIDS tests that I've taken in the past.
If you've met the basic eligibility criterion, then lucky you, it's blood-letting time! If you're at an impromptu clinic at the mall, you'll lie down in a chair that's similar to those lawn chair chaises-longues thingies, with the plastic slats. They give you a little pillow for your head. If you go to the permanent clinic, they have nicer facilities, and leather chair. Fancy schmancy!
Unfortunately, this is where things get complicated for me. I have the distinct honour of being known as The Worst Veins in Canada. I've always had this problem, which has been more than a nuissance to me all the many times I've had blood drawn. Lab technicians and I.V. nurses who spend their whole careers doing nothing but inserting needles get the shakes when they see me. Often, I have been stuck dozens of times in futile attempts to draw blood before the nurse collapses in tears and calls for backup. The first time I remember getting an I.V. at the age of 9, the nurse finally succeeded in getting it in, at which time my vein promptly collapsed, spurted blood, and took the whole 2-hour endeavour back to square one. When a vein is tapped, it often provides little to no blood. I just suck. I am no fan of needles, and I was wary to inflict my vein-less arms on the poor staff of Canadian Blood Services, but I figure, in the name of helping people, I should be able to withstand some extra pricks, and someone should be willing to give them to me. And they always are; often, with a smile.
Last week was no different. If I'm in a hospital facility, they've often wrapped my arm in a warm blanket to try to encourage my veins (not that it helps much). But when you're in the middle of a mall, options are limited. Usually, if you are right handed, you should give blood through your left arm, to reduce hampering your activities. I offered my left, and they looked and tapped and slapped, then squeezed and pressed, but no veins presented themselves. Then they tried my right arm, but this was no better. So at this point, they are always prepared to send me home.
They don't want to jab you. They don't want to hurt you. They're very understanding.
Having given me the choice, I assured the poor guy attending me that he could jab away, and he did. And finally, he got one. And to my astonishment, my blood didn't trickle out and the sputter away...it flowed! Success! You lay there, squeezing a ball, for 8-15 minutes (usually) while 450ml of blood is taken from you. You choose to look or not look (I choose not, sorry, I'm a bit of a wuss).
Jason, on another lawn chair, has great veins. They stand at attention at the slightest provocation. He is a nurse's dream patient. For him, a regular sized needle is used (because my veins are bad, they usually have to use a bigger one). He feels no pain. His blood moves quick.
But Jason has another problem.
The first time I discovered Jason's problem, we had been living together only a short while. Jason was doing a few dishes when a plate broke in the sink and scratched his finger. It didn't really bleed so much as blood rose to the surface of the cut, but never spilled out of the skin. But the mere sight of this hint of blood was enough to make my 6'1, 200 lb boyfriend woozy and faint-hearted. He had to sit down, and take deep breaths.
He has no problem with anyone else's blood. I bleed an awful lot, as you'll all remember, and in fact, Jason had to assist the surgeon in an emergency operation on my back once, and he was completely fine. Didn't blink an eye. The surgeon thumped him on the back for a job well done. But if it's his own blood, it's a very different story.
Jason knows that he has this problem, but he always feels so confident sitting in his lawn chair that he sneaks a peak at the tubes containing his crimson blood...to his demise. Last week was no exception. I'm sitting in my chair, squeezing the ball, being ogled by pretzel-eating shoppers 2 stories over me when I hear a nurse call "Can I get a little help?"
And I know. I know it's Jason.
They take the needle from his arm, turn him on his side, remove his glasses, fan him profusely.
The nurse by my side says to me "Don't worry, he'll be okay."
"I know," I tell her "he just does this for the female attention."
Poor Jason. Luckily, he managed to donate nearly the full amount before succumbing to his condition. He is always embarrassed by it, but they don't take chances. If you're not feeling well, they take care of you. Persisently.
Jason recovers quickly. In fact, he's up and at the cookie table before I am (go figure). They like you to sit and rest 5 minutes after your donation (if you're a newbie, you wear a special sticker and they take extra special care of you, and monitor you for a bit longer). He's got a band-aid in the crook of his elbow, and another on his finger tip where they tested for his iron, but other than that, he's looking rosy and well once again.
Over at my lawn chair I am discovered to be an "oozer" (I bleed a bit more than usual) so they wrap me up good. It restricts my elbow a bit, so no hand jobs tonight. Actually, you should refrain from lifting (it could lease to bruising) and exertion for 6-8 hours afterward. No big deal, really.
When I amble over to the refreshment table, a volunteer greets me with "You have the choice of juice or juice."
"Um...I think I'll have the juice, please."
"Great choice!" he shouts at me. "Orange or peach?"
There are cookies on the table, and other snacks as well. Jason, recovered, is munching away. He might be woozy, but his stomach is strong like bull.
The volunteers like to remind you what a great thing you just did. Your blood donation can be split 3 ways: into red cells, which carry oxygen, that can help patients who are anemic due to blood loss, then platelets, which are cell fragments needed by cancer patients who can't produce enough of their own, and into plasma, the liquid that the carries everything, which is needed by hemophiliacs.
See this chubby arm? Once its contents are split up, it may help to save the lives of up to 3 people per donation. Between Jason and I, that's 6 people per donation. That's a lot of lives for just a little discomfort.
As we are finishing our juice, another gentlemen reaches the refreshment table. He has been unable to donate that day, for one reason or another. "Don't beat yourself up," the volunteer tells him, "the point is, you tried. Now you have the choice of juice or juice."
"Juice" the young man chooses.
"That's a great choice!" the volunteer tells him, and so the cycle continues, in more ways than one.
From the collection, the blood will be tested, twice, for any disease or discrepancies. It will also be typed. Like 46% of Canadians, Jason is type O. He is an important donor because of his universality. As an AB, I am typed with only 3% of Canadians - also important for its rarity. In short, every single donor is important, particulary because less than 4% of us currently donate. It's not enough.
After being cleared and typed, the blood makes its way to hospitals. Although it can be refrigerated for some time, your donation could be in someone else's veins 48 hours later. Blood is life - life for an accident victim, a premature baby, a cancer patient, or anyone undergoing major surgery.
The next day, when the bandages are removed, all that's left on Jason's arm is a tiny mark.
A small price to pay, even for the man who risks fainting and vomiting every time he donates.
My arm is slightly more mangled, but don't be discouraged: I'm allergic to band-aids and forgot to mention it.
The point is, people make a lot of excuses for not donating. Jason and I are probably the poster couple for reasons why not - but we go anyway. Needles suck. Feeling faint sucks. Band-aid burns suck. But you know what sucks more? Dying because there wasn't enough blood.
That sucks the most.
Donate.
Friday, April 28, 2006
The Jamie and Jason Show, Episode 3: When Nature Attacks!
In preparation for our days off, I attempt to realign my sleep schedule to something more user-friendly by staying up for 36 hours at a time. Thusly, I went to bed exhausted at 6:15pm on Tuesday night, hoping to sleep through the night.
I didn't quite make it.
But I did sleep until about 3, which is an unbelievable stretch of sleep for me.
In a fit of good will, I let Jason sleep on without me.
Until 5:30.
At which time I woke him up with breakfast in bed, which softens the blow. Not that the blow needs much softening after 11 hours of sleep. Fucker.
We were out of the house bright and early and headed for the Phyllis Rawlinson Park in Richmond Hill. We took the scenic route, accidentally, but being up before the sun means you have lots of time for mistakes. Unfortunately, we found the park.
The park can kiss my ass. I mean, if your idea of an outdoorsy day includes about 5 minutes of walking and 3 minutes of goose watching before you head back to your car, then by all means, make a date with Phyllis. I, however, was not impressed. We traipsed about through the 'boardwalk' (note: a couple of planks strewn about does not a boardwalk make), and the 'celebration forest' (note: it was neither worth celebrating, nor a forest), the only nature we managed to commune with was the mud that Jason somehow kicked up onto his brand new white hoodie. What kind of ass wears a brand new white hoodie to walk in the woods?
Jason, that's who (note: this is not a gratuitous butt shot, because it illustrates my point - my, what an ass).
So with time to kill and energy still burning in our legs, we took the opportunity to get lost in Richmond (as if we had the choice) and serendipitously found Richmond Green, a lovely park sandwiched between two very busy streets. So with the romantic sounds of 80 km/hr traffic serenading us, we took the time to play.
Though the bugs were humongous, we contracted very little in the way of West Nile, rest assured.
On our way back to Scarborough, we discovered just how far we'd gone astray - about $70 in gas astray. Yikes.
Not to worry, we thought, drinks with Paul will make all of our troubles disappear.
We thought wrong.
Not that the drinks didn't work. They did. But we didn't have them with Paul. Paul stood us up (confidential to Paul: fuck you).
So we spent the afternoon touring Toronto's greatest thrift stores. Though we rarely buy anything, I like to look. I like to look at all the crap that people have so "generously" donated - like, for example, the t-shirts that say To The World's Greatest Dad! Ahem. I beg to differ. I think the world's greatest dad would not throw away precious childhood gifts. This so-called world's greatest dad was probably all like "Kids, this was a crappy gift. What daddy really wanted was a new set of golf clubs and a bottle of Jimmy Beam. "
Another great t-shirt was one for Shirley's Baby Shower. Now, I can understand getting rid of this piece of crap. As if you'd ever wear that again...chances are, you weren't thrilled to be at the stupid shower in the first place, let alone being made to wear itchy bargain-basement imitation cotton. That's fine. But please, tear it up into rags, use it up, wear it down, THROW IT OUT. Do not for one second think that someone wants to buy this crap. Even poor people don't deserve a Shirley's Baby Shower t-shirt! Note to salvation army: even at the low, low price of $3.99, I don't think this merchandise is going to be a prime mover.
Anyway, after a day spent in fine weather, I was thirsty. In fact, I was craving my yummarrific Summer Cocktail, the exquisite taste of which I dream about all winter long. I always assumed the recipe for this cocktail would die with me, but just this once, I'm going to share it here, between friends. Take copious notes. This blog will self-destruct in 14 days.
Jamie's Summer Cocktail:
1. Drive or walk to the closest 7-11.
2. Buy a 40 oz Slurpee in your favourite flavour.
3. On the way home, use ridiculously large straw to sip drink (by the time you reach home, you should have emptied nearly 10% of Slurpee).
4. Use vodka to refill Slurpee to 100% capacity. Stir with ridiculously large straw.
5. Enjoy.
Hits the spot. My cocktail is guaranteed to become this summer's rage - so classy that the umpteen weddings I'm required to go to will surely be serving during that annoying lull between the photos but before the receiving line. It's that good. Not even the trite email from Paul excusing his absence could affect me under the influence of this cocktail (confidential to Paul: nature doesn't have the internet, dumbass).
Now what with the early start time, and the excessive busy-ness, and the alcohol consumption, I was bushed. Barely made it past dinner time. Was in bed shortly after 8.
Woke up the next day raring to go, at 4:30 in the morning.
Went to the 24-hour grocery store to lay in supplies for a picnic lunch.
Spent the morning exploring Toogood Pond in Unionville. After the disappointing bitch Phyllis, we were pleasantly surprised by Toogood. There were some really amazing ecosystems to admire, and an astonishing amount of wildlife to consider. There were kilometres and kilometres of trails to walk, and Jason had to sustain himself with moon pies several times.
Luckily, my stomach was a little emptier, or else I never could have handled the obscene graffiti that we found sadly marring the park.
Oh wait. Did I say obscene? Because I meant lame. Totally lame (note to petty criminals: get a job, you lazy bums). But seriously, this was an awesome park and we were glad to see other people taking advantage of the fine weather. When we grew tired of the pedestrian circuit, we went "off-roading" into the woods. I managed to shame Jason into crossing a river on a fallen tree with one simple sentence "The Jason I knew 5 years ago would have done it." Actually, the Jason I knew 5 years ago had way more sense than that, and he never would have fallen for that trick. Man I love this kid. So easy to screw around with his head.
We mucked around like nobody's business, managing not to fall down the steep cliffs into the very cold water, though it was tempting. I would have been happy to muck about all day long, had it not been for one small thing.
Snake!!! Jason found it highly entertaining that by the time my stupid brain registered that a snake was slithering over my boot, I already had 2 feet solidly in the air, and was making a Ho!Ho!Ho! noise that he had never heard before (note to self: stop screaming like Santa Claus).
So we trekked back to the car, and I, still shaken from the snake incident, needed to be consoled. No problem, we thought, we'll forget all our troubles over a nice cuppa with Paul.
We thought wrong.
Not that the cuppa wasn't nice. It was. But we didn't have it with Paul. Paul stood us up, again (confidential to Paul: you are no longer our friend, so fekk off).
So what we did instead was to console ourselves with a picnic lunch in "Historic Unionville" (note to potential picnickers: history not included).
And then we went bra shopping. It's funny how bra shopping makes me wish I was a B-cup, and at the same time makes Jason particularly glad that I am not.
And then we went to donate blood (see a pattern here? yeah, me neither), and there was a small "incident" that required us to cancel our evening plans for downtown and stay in instead, not even partaking of the yummy Jamie Cocktails (Jamocktails, if you will).
We almost stayed awake to 9pm. Jason slept for 12 undisturbed hours; I watched him sleep for most of these. It was great. No, really. It was. It was a great weekend, even if it was actually a weekmiddle. And only 2 days of recovery before we do it all over again. Who's free on Sunday?
(as always, additional pictures can be found at Picture This)
I didn't quite make it.
But I did sleep until about 3, which is an unbelievable stretch of sleep for me.
In a fit of good will, I let Jason sleep on without me.
Until 5:30.
At which time I woke him up with breakfast in bed, which softens the blow. Not that the blow needs much softening after 11 hours of sleep. Fucker.
We were out of the house bright and early and headed for the Phyllis Rawlinson Park in Richmond Hill. We took the scenic route, accidentally, but being up before the sun means you have lots of time for mistakes. Unfortunately, we found the park.
The park can kiss my ass. I mean, if your idea of an outdoorsy day includes about 5 minutes of walking and 3 minutes of goose watching before you head back to your car, then by all means, make a date with Phyllis. I, however, was not impressed. We traipsed about through the 'boardwalk' (note: a couple of planks strewn about does not a boardwalk make), and the 'celebration forest' (note: it was neither worth celebrating, nor a forest), the only nature we managed to commune with was the mud that Jason somehow kicked up onto his brand new white hoodie. What kind of ass wears a brand new white hoodie to walk in the woods?
Jason, that's who (note: this is not a gratuitous butt shot, because it illustrates my point - my, what an ass).So with time to kill and energy still burning in our legs, we took the opportunity to get lost in Richmond (as if we had the choice) and serendipitously found Richmond Green, a lovely park sandwiched between two very busy streets. So with the romantic sounds of 80 km/hr traffic serenading us, we took the time to play.
Though the bugs were humongous, we contracted very little in the way of West Nile, rest assured.
On our way back to Scarborough, we discovered just how far we'd gone astray - about $70 in gas astray. Yikes.
Not to worry, we thought, drinks with Paul will make all of our troubles disappear.
We thought wrong.
Not that the drinks didn't work. They did. But we didn't have them with Paul. Paul stood us up (confidential to Paul: fuck you).
So we spent the afternoon touring Toronto's greatest thrift stores. Though we rarely buy anything, I like to look. I like to look at all the crap that people have so "generously" donated - like, for example, the t-shirts that say To The World's Greatest Dad! Ahem. I beg to differ. I think the world's greatest dad would not throw away precious childhood gifts. This so-called world's greatest dad was probably all like "Kids, this was a crappy gift. What daddy really wanted was a new set of golf clubs and a bottle of Jimmy Beam. "
Another great t-shirt was one for Shirley's Baby Shower. Now, I can understand getting rid of this piece of crap. As if you'd ever wear that again...chances are, you weren't thrilled to be at the stupid shower in the first place, let alone being made to wear itchy bargain-basement imitation cotton. That's fine. But please, tear it up into rags, use it up, wear it down, THROW IT OUT. Do not for one second think that someone wants to buy this crap. Even poor people don't deserve a Shirley's Baby Shower t-shirt! Note to salvation army: even at the low, low price of $3.99, I don't think this merchandise is going to be a prime mover.
Anyway, after a day spent in fine weather, I was thirsty. In fact, I was craving my yummarrific Summer Cocktail, the exquisite taste of which I dream about all winter long. I always assumed the recipe for this cocktail would die with me, but just this once, I'm going to share it here, between friends. Take copious notes. This blog will self-destruct in 14 days.
Jamie's Summer Cocktail:
1. Drive or walk to the closest 7-11.
2. Buy a 40 oz Slurpee in your favourite flavour.
3. On the way home, use ridiculously large straw to sip drink (by the time you reach home, you should have emptied nearly 10% of Slurpee).
4. Use vodka to refill Slurpee to 100% capacity. Stir with ridiculously large straw.
5. Enjoy.
Hits the spot. My cocktail is guaranteed to become this summer's rage - so classy that the umpteen weddings I'm required to go to will surely be serving during that annoying lull between the photos but before the receiving line. It's that good. Not even the trite email from Paul excusing his absence could affect me under the influence of this cocktail (confidential to Paul: nature doesn't have the internet, dumbass).
Now what with the early start time, and the excessive busy-ness, and the alcohol consumption, I was bushed. Barely made it past dinner time. Was in bed shortly after 8.
Woke up the next day raring to go, at 4:30 in the morning.
Went to the 24-hour grocery store to lay in supplies for a picnic lunch.
Spent the morning exploring Toogood Pond in Unionville. After the disappointing bitch Phyllis, we were pleasantly surprised by Toogood. There were some really amazing ecosystems to admire, and an astonishing amount of wildlife to consider. There were kilometres and kilometres of trails to walk, and Jason had to sustain himself with moon pies several times.
Luckily, my stomach was a little emptier, or else I never could have handled the obscene graffiti that we found sadly marring the park.
Oh wait. Did I say obscene? Because I meant lame. Totally lame (note to petty criminals: get a job, you lazy bums). But seriously, this was an awesome park and we were glad to see other people taking advantage of the fine weather. When we grew tired of the pedestrian circuit, we went "off-roading" into the woods. I managed to shame Jason into crossing a river on a fallen tree with one simple sentence "The Jason I knew 5 years ago would have done it." Actually, the Jason I knew 5 years ago had way more sense than that, and he never would have fallen for that trick. Man I love this kid. So easy to screw around with his head.
We mucked around like nobody's business, managing not to fall down the steep cliffs into the very cold water, though it was tempting. I would have been happy to muck about all day long, had it not been for one small thing.
Snake!!! Jason found it highly entertaining that by the time my stupid brain registered that a snake was slithering over my boot, I already had 2 feet solidly in the air, and was making a Ho!Ho!Ho! noise that he had never heard before (note to self: stop screaming like Santa Claus).
So we trekked back to the car, and I, still shaken from the snake incident, needed to be consoled. No problem, we thought, we'll forget all our troubles over a nice cuppa with Paul.
We thought wrong.
Not that the cuppa wasn't nice. It was. But we didn't have it with Paul. Paul stood us up, again (confidential to Paul: you are no longer our friend, so fekk off).
So what we did instead was to console ourselves with a picnic lunch in "Historic Unionville" (note to potential picnickers: history not included).
And then we went bra shopping. It's funny how bra shopping makes me wish I was a B-cup, and at the same time makes Jason particularly glad that I am not.
And then we went to donate blood (see a pattern here? yeah, me neither), and there was a small "incident" that required us to cancel our evening plans for downtown and stay in instead, not even partaking of the yummy Jamie Cocktails (Jamocktails, if you will).
We almost stayed awake to 9pm. Jason slept for 12 undisturbed hours; I watched him sleep for most of these. It was great. No, really. It was. It was a great weekend, even if it was actually a weekmiddle. And only 2 days of recovery before we do it all over again. Who's free on Sunday?
(as always, additional pictures can be found at Picture This)
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Blood Donation Day
When they ask if you've ever received money for sex or drugs, Jason likes to tell them that sometimes I get shopping money afterward.
Also, he worries that they'll take too much blood and he'll be erection-less later that night.
I mean, not really actually worried.
Just "worried" in the way that he says it to me a lot. Enough to get on my nerves. Enough to make me hope that they will take too much. But they don't. They're not as vindictive as I am.
Also, to his chagrin, Canadian Blood Services are meeting at the mall today. No Blood Mobile for Jason. Only the cookies will make the trip worthwhile.
Oh, and the saving a life part too. Nominally.
This quickie post has been brought to you by the letter S.
S for the "super-fun-happy-turbo-busy-mid-week-weekend" we're having.
Stay tuned tomorrow for "Mother Nature Attacks!" and other fun stories.
Also, he worries that they'll take too much blood and he'll be erection-less later that night.
I mean, not really actually worried.
Just "worried" in the way that he says it to me a lot. Enough to get on my nerves. Enough to make me hope that they will take too much. But they don't. They're not as vindictive as I am.
Also, to his chagrin, Canadian Blood Services are meeting at the mall today. No Blood Mobile for Jason. Only the cookies will make the trip worthwhile.
Oh, and the saving a life part too. Nominally.
This quickie post has been brought to you by the letter S.
S for the "super-fun-happy-turbo-busy-mid-week-weekend" we're having.
Stay tuned tomorrow for "Mother Nature Attacks!" and other fun stories.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Always a Bride, Never A Bridesmaid
Do you know who's getting married this year?
Everyone, that's who.
Literally everyone EXCEPT me.
:(
That face is not happy or smiley. It's frowny. I hate to be left out.
But seriously. Everyone.
It's pandemic.
I have been in the Sears wedding registry department so often they started issuing me a paycheque.
What the hell is in the water this year?
Ohmigod, DO NOT answer that. I may have to die a raisin's death, dehydrated and withered due to the fact that I will never again swallow a single drop of water that may or may not contain...well, you know. Ew.
But weddings are not just about hideous dresses and shoes dyed to match. They're not just about new toasters and dancing the chicken.
Underneath all the tulle, all the sugared almonds and kisses from Aunt Myrtle, lays the true meaning of weddings: cash. Er, I mean, love.
Yes, love.
Two people meet, enjoy screwing, and throw a huge party to celebrate this fact.
Take my grandparents, for example.
This is them on their wedding day in 1951, with confetti in their hair.
They met on a blind date, arranged by her sister. Pa was instantly attracted, I imagine. Nanny was a dish! Nanny always said it wasn't his height that attracted her (note her flats...a point of contention for over 50 years now!), so it must have been his motorcycle.
Motorcycle? My grandpa? My Pa drives a Buick. He often wears slippers to do so. He has a big beer belly and needs suspenders to keep his pants up. He wears little sweater vests and peaked caps. He sings songs about mares eating oats and doesn't eat steak because his dentures are too dull. Nanny and Pa cheat at cards and fight over cribbage. They make pickles together. They volunteer at Meals on Wheels and bowl together every Tuesday afternoon. I cannot imagine them zipping around town on a motorcycle. It makes me blush to even try.
They never really got engaged. My Pa pointed at a bunch of rings in a store and asked which one she wanted. They were married 3 months later; my Nanny was 19 years old, and Pa just a little older. They honeymooned in Niagara Falls.
We took this picture on their 50th anniversary, 3 kids and 9 grandkids later. 50 years is a long time, but this summer they'll be celebrating #55, which is even longer, if you hadn't noticed. They're beyond gold (in fact, they're "emerald"). And all because of that motorcycle. Would I even be here today if my Pa hadn't upped his sex appeal with a Harley? This is one of life's mysteries.
These are my parents on their wedding day in 1979, also with confetti in their hair.
They met at Tim Horton's; my father was a trucker, and my mother served the coffee. She was attracted to his quiet demeanor, especially in comparison to the much cruder sorts that mill about in coffee shops. My mother was 16. She saw that this suitor was much more serious about the relationship and broke it off, but not for long.
Like my grandmother, she is still waiting for her proposal. He simply showed her a ring in the parking lot of Tim Horton's, and at the ripe old age of 18, my mother became a beautiful bride. She was a baby. They too honeymooned in Niagara Falls.
But my father wore a ruffled tuxedo, hexing the marriage from the very start. They were not destined for happiness. She wanted 12 kids, he wanted 2. They "compromised" and had 4 (note to young couples: this is a shitty compromise), and probably only that many because my father badly wanted a boy. They never got him.
Instead they got 4 girls, who despite the divorce, loved to try on their mother's bridal gown and sigh over themselves in the mirror, imagining how bells would chime in their own futures.
My parents never rode a motorcycle. I only remember them in mini vans. What's the difference? Both couples look happy in their wedding photo. I find the shy smiles on both my mother and grandmother to be strikingly similar. Did my mother wear flats, or not? Did they carry the same flowers? Did they both dine on chicken? After the births of many babies, what causes one marriage to fail where another succeeds? This too is one of life's mysteries.
This is me on my wedding day, 2002. No confetti, just a lot of hairspray called "Cement".
We met when I was 14, in high school. We were just friends despite a few intense moments that never should have happened as we were both seeing other people, or lots of other people, as the case may be. Then I hated him. Then I fucked him. Then we got married. It's a love story for the ages.
We got engaged not because we ever intended to marry, but because I wanted the ring. He proposed to me in bed. I said "of course I will" and a year later, we did, surprising everyone, but most of all ourselves. I was 20 when we married...practically an old maid by my family's standards. We married in the sunny tropics and did not honeymoon in Niagara Falls. I did not wear flats. We did not eat chicken. We do not ride motorcycles. We did not bear children.
What will the future hold for us? Will we dance the funky chicken at our 50th wedding anniversary? This too is one of life's mysteries.
But I can tell you what we will be doing this summer: we'll be lugging around gaily wrapped toasters and toasting our friends, hoping that they too will beat the odds, that they will have happy marriages, that they will have the life together they imagine when they say "I do."
Everyone, that's who.
Literally everyone EXCEPT me.
:(
That face is not happy or smiley. It's frowny. I hate to be left out.
But seriously. Everyone.
It's pandemic.
I have been in the Sears wedding registry department so often they started issuing me a paycheque.
What the hell is in the water this year?
Ohmigod, DO NOT answer that. I may have to die a raisin's death, dehydrated and withered due to the fact that I will never again swallow a single drop of water that may or may not contain...well, you know. Ew.
But weddings are not just about hideous dresses and shoes dyed to match. They're not just about new toasters and dancing the chicken.
Underneath all the tulle, all the sugared almonds and kisses from Aunt Myrtle, lays the true meaning of weddings: cash. Er, I mean, love.
Yes, love.
Two people meet, enjoy screwing, and throw a huge party to celebrate this fact.
Take my grandparents, for example.
This is them on their wedding day in 1951, with confetti in their hair.
They met on a blind date, arranged by her sister. Pa was instantly attracted, I imagine. Nanny was a dish! Nanny always said it wasn't his height that attracted her (note her flats...a point of contention for over 50 years now!), so it must have been his motorcycle.
Motorcycle? My grandpa? My Pa drives a Buick. He often wears slippers to do so. He has a big beer belly and needs suspenders to keep his pants up. He wears little sweater vests and peaked caps. He sings songs about mares eating oats and doesn't eat steak because his dentures are too dull. Nanny and Pa cheat at cards and fight over cribbage. They make pickles together. They volunteer at Meals on Wheels and bowl together every Tuesday afternoon. I cannot imagine them zipping around town on a motorcycle. It makes me blush to even try.
They never really got engaged. My Pa pointed at a bunch of rings in a store and asked which one she wanted. They were married 3 months later; my Nanny was 19 years old, and Pa just a little older. They honeymooned in Niagara Falls.
We took this picture on their 50th anniversary, 3 kids and 9 grandkids later. 50 years is a long time, but this summer they'll be celebrating #55, which is even longer, if you hadn't noticed. They're beyond gold (in fact, they're "emerald"). And all because of that motorcycle. Would I even be here today if my Pa hadn't upped his sex appeal with a Harley? This is one of life's mysteries.
These are my parents on their wedding day in 1979, also with confetti in their hair.
They met at Tim Horton's; my father was a trucker, and my mother served the coffee. She was attracted to his quiet demeanor, especially in comparison to the much cruder sorts that mill about in coffee shops. My mother was 16. She saw that this suitor was much more serious about the relationship and broke it off, but not for long.
Like my grandmother, she is still waiting for her proposal. He simply showed her a ring in the parking lot of Tim Horton's, and at the ripe old age of 18, my mother became a beautiful bride. She was a baby. They too honeymooned in Niagara Falls.
But my father wore a ruffled tuxedo, hexing the marriage from the very start. They were not destined for happiness. She wanted 12 kids, he wanted 2. They "compromised" and had 4 (note to young couples: this is a shitty compromise), and probably only that many because my father badly wanted a boy. They never got him.
Instead they got 4 girls, who despite the divorce, loved to try on their mother's bridal gown and sigh over themselves in the mirror, imagining how bells would chime in their own futures.
My parents never rode a motorcycle. I only remember them in mini vans. What's the difference? Both couples look happy in their wedding photo. I find the shy smiles on both my mother and grandmother to be strikingly similar. Did my mother wear flats, or not? Did they carry the same flowers? Did they both dine on chicken? After the births of many babies, what causes one marriage to fail where another succeeds? This too is one of life's mysteries.
This is me on my wedding day, 2002. No confetti, just a lot of hairspray called "Cement".
We met when I was 14, in high school. We were just friends despite a few intense moments that never should have happened as we were both seeing other people, or lots of other people, as the case may be. Then I hated him. Then I fucked him. Then we got married. It's a love story for the ages.
We got engaged not because we ever intended to marry, but because I wanted the ring. He proposed to me in bed. I said "of course I will" and a year later, we did, surprising everyone, but most of all ourselves. I was 20 when we married...practically an old maid by my family's standards. We married in the sunny tropics and did not honeymoon in Niagara Falls. I did not wear flats. We did not eat chicken. We do not ride motorcycles. We did not bear children.
What will the future hold for us? Will we dance the funky chicken at our 50th wedding anniversary? This too is one of life's mysteries.
But I can tell you what we will be doing this summer: we'll be lugging around gaily wrapped toasters and toasting our friends, hoping that they too will beat the odds, that they will have happy marriages, that they will have the life together they imagine when they say "I do."
Friday, April 21, 2006
R.I.P. Favourite Finger
It was a hot and steamy shower. The body wash smelled of kumquat and kiwi; the shampoo was lathered on thick. The showerhead was on a favourite setting, massage, but friskiness between the two bathers was kept to a minimum because the two lovers thought they had all the time in the world.
But they were wrong.
Dead wrong.
Little did they know that a strange but lethal weapon had been lurking in the dim corners of the shower stall the entire time, just waiting for the perfect opportunity for total and utter destruction.
"Eek! I'm bleeding!" shouted the short one.
"Where are you bleeding from this time?" asked the taller one, unsurprised.
"Fuck! I just shaved off my finger!" yelled Jay, offering up the bloody stump where her hand used to be as evidence.
The sight of so much blood surprises Jason, surprises him so much in fact that instead of feigning concern, he says "Holy shit, how'd you do that?"
Jay, swooning bravely in pain, is not so much in pain that she neglects to punch her husband for such a callous remark. With her good hand, of course.
And then the two, Jay clutching her throbbing finger, and Jason, clutching his throbbing jaw, watch a surprising amount of bloodied water swirl down the bathtub drain.
Out of the shower, Jay is unable to dry herself, and Jason takes certain liberties despite the urgency of the situation. Both are secretly glad that blood is pooling on their ugly, ugly bathroom mat. Both are glad it can finally be guiltlessly thrown out.
"What do you want to do?" asks Jason, who immediately feels like an oaf for asking such a thing.
"Get back in the shower" says Jay, without any irony. Suddenly, Jason feels like less of an oaf.
"Back in the shower? But your finger!" thunders Jason, believing himself to be the voice of reason, but also believing that little things like reason rarely get in Jamie's way.
"Well, I still have shampoo in my hair, and I've only shaved one leg!" Jay shouts, appalled.
"But it nearly killed you the first time around!" shouts Jason, appalleder.
But of course they get back into the shower anyway, because Jamie wills it so, and Jason gently rinses the shampoo from her hair while Jay courageously struggles to keep her bloody stump raised above her heart to stem the bloodflow. In truth, the bleeding is not quite so bad at that, but also in truth, Jay is a bit of a dramaqueen.
Out of the shower once again, Jay displays her famous love of hospitals by refusing to go to one.
"Maybe it's not so bad" she mumbles, inspecting the damage. The fingertip is intact. However, the razor somehow managed to slit a hole through her fingernail and slice into the flesh underneath.
Lady Gillette, oh how I despise thee. How can anything so sweet, so pink, so plastic, shed so much blood? Pink plastic is the stuff of Barbie Dream Corvette and lawn flamingos. Pink plastic should not aim to maim. Why hast thee forsaken me?
Before Jay can put up a respectable fight, Jason dials the telehealth phone line, and speaks to nurse Brian. Nurse Brian will tell them if a trip to the hospital is necessary or not.
Jay, weak from loss of blood (or, maybe, just maybe, weak from the earlier consumption of 5 and a half martinis), can only hear snippets from the conversation:
"No, I don't know how she managed to shave through her fingernail. It was a disposable for crying out loud!"
"Yeah, that's her. I'm sure her file is quite thick. She bleeds a lot."
"No, the razor seems to be fine."
Jamie is so outraged that Jason and Nurse Brian seem to be more concerned with the razor's well being than her own that she nearly faints...or well, passes out. Whichever.
At the hospital, Jay is fairly certain that all the doctors are smirking at her. She is fairly certain that the doctor is writing incriminating statements about her in her permanent medical record, but when she inquires, the information is firmly denied her. In a parade of gauze and iodine, Jay marches up and down the halls shouting "Attica! Attica!" and no one really knows why. Jason, however, is content to sit back and enjoy the view afforded by the paper-thin gown that doesn't tie up in the back.
Jason is able to transport her back home, sedated. Her finger is mercifully unrecognizable underneath the copious amounts of sterile bandage. Any talk of her former finger nail, "lacerated nailbeds", stitches, or pink safety razors, send her spiraling into a woozy tailspin.
So she lies in bed mourning the temporary loss of her finger, her favourite finger, by far her most useful finger. She made all her favourite gestures with this finger. She expressed many of her favourite emotions with this finger. And now, drowned in gauze, it has lots its ability to intimidate and threaten. It looks like a big fluffy white marshmallow, as harmless as...well, as harmless as a Lady Gillette.
The Culprit:
Lady Gillette is so heartless she doesn't even have the decency to appear contrite. Premeditated, you ask? Yes, we ask ourselves that too. Either way, Jay has resolved to go "au naturel" until safety razors actually become safe.
The victim:
This finger is not the finger it once was. It may be months before the damage is repaired. Despite the fact that Jay was forced into a tetanus shot, Jason prays that lockjaw will settle in anyway, because without it, he's in for an awful lot of complaining.
The solution:
Temporary at best. It still doesn't properly convey my malicious intent, and will do an even poorer job of it should lockjaw set it and deprive me of my beloved obscenities.
But as you can see, I am determined to get through this with the grace and dignity you've become accustomed to here at Kill the Goat. Now go, and leave me to my pain and grief. Do not feed guilty about enjoying your weekends as I spend mine bedridden and practically delirious from the two children's Tylenol I'll take before bed. Just try to think of me fondly, remember me whole-fingered as in better days, and above all...beware the lurking lump of plastic in your showers. It's not as innocent as it looks.
But they were wrong.
Dead wrong.
Little did they know that a strange but lethal weapon had been lurking in the dim corners of the shower stall the entire time, just waiting for the perfect opportunity for total and utter destruction.
"Eek! I'm bleeding!" shouted the short one.
"Where are you bleeding from this time?" asked the taller one, unsurprised.
"Fuck! I just shaved off my finger!" yelled Jay, offering up the bloody stump where her hand used to be as evidence.
The sight of so much blood surprises Jason, surprises him so much in fact that instead of feigning concern, he says "Holy shit, how'd you do that?"
Jay, swooning bravely in pain, is not so much in pain that she neglects to punch her husband for such a callous remark. With her good hand, of course.
And then the two, Jay clutching her throbbing finger, and Jason, clutching his throbbing jaw, watch a surprising amount of bloodied water swirl down the bathtub drain.
Out of the shower, Jay is unable to dry herself, and Jason takes certain liberties despite the urgency of the situation. Both are secretly glad that blood is pooling on their ugly, ugly bathroom mat. Both are glad it can finally be guiltlessly thrown out.
"What do you want to do?" asks Jason, who immediately feels like an oaf for asking such a thing.
"Get back in the shower" says Jay, without any irony. Suddenly, Jason feels like less of an oaf.
"Back in the shower? But your finger!" thunders Jason, believing himself to be the voice of reason, but also believing that little things like reason rarely get in Jamie's way.
"Well, I still have shampoo in my hair, and I've only shaved one leg!" Jay shouts, appalled.
"But it nearly killed you the first time around!" shouts Jason, appalleder.
But of course they get back into the shower anyway, because Jamie wills it so, and Jason gently rinses the shampoo from her hair while Jay courageously struggles to keep her bloody stump raised above her heart to stem the bloodflow. In truth, the bleeding is not quite so bad at that, but also in truth, Jay is a bit of a dramaqueen.
Out of the shower once again, Jay displays her famous love of hospitals by refusing to go to one.
"Maybe it's not so bad" she mumbles, inspecting the damage. The fingertip is intact. However, the razor somehow managed to slit a hole through her fingernail and slice into the flesh underneath.
Lady Gillette, oh how I despise thee. How can anything so sweet, so pink, so plastic, shed so much blood? Pink plastic is the stuff of Barbie Dream Corvette and lawn flamingos. Pink plastic should not aim to maim. Why hast thee forsaken me?
Before Jay can put up a respectable fight, Jason dials the telehealth phone line, and speaks to nurse Brian. Nurse Brian will tell them if a trip to the hospital is necessary or not.
Jay, weak from loss of blood (or, maybe, just maybe, weak from the earlier consumption of 5 and a half martinis), can only hear snippets from the conversation:
"No, I don't know how she managed to shave through her fingernail. It was a disposable for crying out loud!"
"Yeah, that's her. I'm sure her file is quite thick. She bleeds a lot."
"No, the razor seems to be fine."
Jamie is so outraged that Jason and Nurse Brian seem to be more concerned with the razor's well being than her own that she nearly faints...or well, passes out. Whichever.
At the hospital, Jay is fairly certain that all the doctors are smirking at her. She is fairly certain that the doctor is writing incriminating statements about her in her permanent medical record, but when she inquires, the information is firmly denied her. In a parade of gauze and iodine, Jay marches up and down the halls shouting "Attica! Attica!" and no one really knows why. Jason, however, is content to sit back and enjoy the view afforded by the paper-thin gown that doesn't tie up in the back.
Jason is able to transport her back home, sedated. Her finger is mercifully unrecognizable underneath the copious amounts of sterile bandage. Any talk of her former finger nail, "lacerated nailbeds", stitches, or pink safety razors, send her spiraling into a woozy tailspin.
So she lies in bed mourning the temporary loss of her finger, her favourite finger, by far her most useful finger. She made all her favourite gestures with this finger. She expressed many of her favourite emotions with this finger. And now, drowned in gauze, it has lots its ability to intimidate and threaten. It looks like a big fluffy white marshmallow, as harmless as...well, as harmless as a Lady Gillette.
The Culprit:
Lady Gillette is so heartless she doesn't even have the decency to appear contrite. Premeditated, you ask? Yes, we ask ourselves that too. Either way, Jay has resolved to go "au naturel" until safety razors actually become safe.
The victim:
This finger is not the finger it once was. It may be months before the damage is repaired. Despite the fact that Jay was forced into a tetanus shot, Jason prays that lockjaw will settle in anyway, because without it, he's in for an awful lot of complaining.
The solution:
Temporary at best. It still doesn't properly convey my malicious intent, and will do an even poorer job of it should lockjaw set it and deprive me of my beloved obscenities.
But as you can see, I am determined to get through this with the grace and dignity you've become accustomed to here at Kill the Goat. Now go, and leave me to my pain and grief. Do not feed guilty about enjoying your weekends as I spend mine bedridden and practically delirious from the two children's Tylenol I'll take before bed. Just try to think of me fondly, remember me whole-fingered as in better days, and above all...beware the lurking lump of plastic in your showers. It's not as innocent as it looks.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
My Baby Takes The Morning Train
I know this will come to a shock to most of you, but the vile truth is that Jason works for a living. He sets his alarm 3, 4, sometimes even 5 times a week, gets up early on at least half those occasions, puts on pants (real pants, not pajama pants, but real pants, the kinds with zippers and belt loops and such) and goes to work.
I am not exactly what you would call a big fan of work. I strongly suspect that I am deathly allergic to it, and therefore I try never to be in the same room as work. Occasionally someone who doesn't know me very well will assume that I work, or that I am at least willing/capable of it, and perhaps may even suggest that I do a little something for them. This is why I get manicures. "I just got my nails done" is a get-out-of-work free card that works every time. Unfortunately, manicures cost money, and for those of us born without a trust fund, work is usually the pesky way to earn the stuff. It's distasteful, but true. Luckily, I happened upon a fail proof method for tricking others into earning money for me:
1. purchase push-up bra
2. see #1
Not everyone hates work; some go quite willingly. These people are clearly stupid. They have fallen pray to the relentless brain-washing of the global marketplace. These people, the "bosses", put you through the humiliating job-application process so that you'll feel grateful when you obtain a job you don't want at a pay rate you can barely live on.
Anyhoo. Jason is one of the above psychotics who do not loathe their work. He will tell you some crap about accomplishment, and self-worth, and blah, blah, blah, but between you and me, there are 2 basic reasons why Jason likes going to work:
1. At work, unlike home, he is the boss. He makes his own decisions. He tells people what to do, and they actually do it.
2. It gives him 8 Jamie-free hours per day, 5 days a week. Despite the fact that at work he deals with constant muzak, 100+ cranky employees, complainy customers, phone calls, emails, shipment, delivery, staff meetings and a thousand other distractions, he calls work "his quiet place."
But like all worker bees, he comes home to his Queen. His Queen, potential big-money-maker.
He never fails to ask, after his day at the office, "Did you write a best-seller today?"
I've never answered yes yet; most days, I can only say that I've written to his grandmother, and potentially she'll send another $12 cheque and a plea to keep Jesus in his heart on his next birthday.
But he's not discouraged. He believes.
He dreams of becoming a kept man. He calls me his "little investment"; he puts in a few solid years of work now so that I can stay home and write, and barring an alimony-free divorce, he'll be retired by the age of 30 with no more pressing constraints on his time than an 8-car garage filled with classic Jags and Beamers waiting to be rebuilt.
To his credit, he never tells people that I don't work. He actually refers to my writing as work, which, on the days that I eat Fritos and paint my toenails, makes me feel just a tad guilty. And I wonder how long he'll be so generous about our arrangement. When he turns 30 and our ability to eat still depends entirely on his paycheque, won't he start thinking that maybe it's time I pull my weight?
And then what? I have no skills! I have no experience! Resume is a dirty word to people like me.
And where did I get my princess presumptions anyway? My father was a trucker, for gawd's sake!
So basically, I'm screwed. I have roughly 4 years to either:
a) Leave Jason, poor schmuck, for a sugarier daddy.
b) Convince Jason that his manhood depends on his ability/willingness to provide.
c) Write a serious money-maker or exploit some other get-rich-quick scheme.
Unfortunately, many of these options sound a lot like work. Except for writing, of course. I happen to like writing, but only when I can write at my own pace. "Art should not be rushed" I say, but what I really mean is "I should not be rushed." And certainly, I have no idea how to write "popular" fiction, and have no particular inclination to do so anyway. The most highly printed material is The Bible, but it's been done to death. The second most printed piece is the Ikea catalogue, and frankly, I think I'd have a better chance with the religious stuff.
So there you have it, Jason.
Don't quit your day job.
I am not exactly what you would call a big fan of work. I strongly suspect that I am deathly allergic to it, and therefore I try never to be in the same room as work. Occasionally someone who doesn't know me very well will assume that I work, or that I am at least willing/capable of it, and perhaps may even suggest that I do a little something for them. This is why I get manicures. "I just got my nails done" is a get-out-of-work free card that works every time. Unfortunately, manicures cost money, and for those of us born without a trust fund, work is usually the pesky way to earn the stuff. It's distasteful, but true. Luckily, I happened upon a fail proof method for tricking others into earning money for me:
1. purchase push-up bra
2. see #1
Not everyone hates work; some go quite willingly. These people are clearly stupid. They have fallen pray to the relentless brain-washing of the global marketplace. These people, the "bosses", put you through the humiliating job-application process so that you'll feel grateful when you obtain a job you don't want at a pay rate you can barely live on.
Anyhoo. Jason is one of the above psychotics who do not loathe their work. He will tell you some crap about accomplishment, and self-worth, and blah, blah, blah, but between you and me, there are 2 basic reasons why Jason likes going to work:
1. At work, unlike home, he is the boss. He makes his own decisions. He tells people what to do, and they actually do it.
2. It gives him 8 Jamie-free hours per day, 5 days a week. Despite the fact that at work he deals with constant muzak, 100+ cranky employees, complainy customers, phone calls, emails, shipment, delivery, staff meetings and a thousand other distractions, he calls work "his quiet place."
But like all worker bees, he comes home to his Queen. His Queen, potential big-money-maker.
He never fails to ask, after his day at the office, "Did you write a best-seller today?"
I've never answered yes yet; most days, I can only say that I've written to his grandmother, and potentially she'll send another $12 cheque and a plea to keep Jesus in his heart on his next birthday.
But he's not discouraged. He believes.
He dreams of becoming a kept man. He calls me his "little investment"; he puts in a few solid years of work now so that I can stay home and write, and barring an alimony-free divorce, he'll be retired by the age of 30 with no more pressing constraints on his time than an 8-car garage filled with classic Jags and Beamers waiting to be rebuilt.
To his credit, he never tells people that I don't work. He actually refers to my writing as work, which, on the days that I eat Fritos and paint my toenails, makes me feel just a tad guilty. And I wonder how long he'll be so generous about our arrangement. When he turns 30 and our ability to eat still depends entirely on his paycheque, won't he start thinking that maybe it's time I pull my weight?
And then what? I have no skills! I have no experience! Resume is a dirty word to people like me.
And where did I get my princess presumptions anyway? My father was a trucker, for gawd's sake!
So basically, I'm screwed. I have roughly 4 years to either:
a) Leave Jason, poor schmuck, for a sugarier daddy.
b) Convince Jason that his manhood depends on his ability/willingness to provide.
c) Write a serious money-maker or exploit some other get-rich-quick scheme.
Unfortunately, many of these options sound a lot like work. Except for writing, of course. I happen to like writing, but only when I can write at my own pace. "Art should not be rushed" I say, but what I really mean is "I should not be rushed." And certainly, I have no idea how to write "popular" fiction, and have no particular inclination to do so anyway. The most highly printed material is The Bible, but it's been done to death. The second most printed piece is the Ikea catalogue, and frankly, I think I'd have a better chance with the religious stuff.
So there you have it, Jason.
Don't quit your day job.
Monday, April 17, 2006
The Bunny Has Left the Building
Jason was lucky enough to procure himself a nice 4-day weekend, and then generous enough to give it away. I had suggested that since we would not be visiting family, perhaps one of the other managers would appreciate the opportunity. Of course, someone was all too eager to accept...but not for actual Easter purposes. Turns out, he had a hot date. His first hot date in 8 months.
"Oh, so you won't be going to church, then?" Jason inquired of him.
The guy paled "Er...no."
"Well then I don't think you should get the day off," Jason admonished.
The guy blanched before Jason admitted he was just fucking with him.
So instead of a holiday weekend, we dealt with this mess: Tuesday on, Wednesday off, Thursday on, Friday off, Saturday on, Sunday off, Monday on...whew. It's not so much the hassle than the fact that I can never remember if I should be waking up alone in bed or not.
The first Easter Jason and I were together, I got jewelry. The next 6 netted me nothing. "Except," Jason reminds me, "for the joy you get seeing me discover hundreds upon hundreds of chocolates." Oh right.
This year I hid 281 pieces of chocolate: big ones, small ones, caramel ones, peanut butter ones, slightly obscene ones. All the good hiding places were taken after the first 13, and I quickly morphed from the happy hippity-hop of the Easter bunny to the evil clop of the 3-horned devil woman. Meanwhile, Jason slept in bliss. Fucker.
Running solely on Diet Pepsi fumes after a solid 32 hours awake, the last 5 of which were spent kneading dough (ow, my freakin ulnas), I finally grabbed Jason's hunting bucket and headed for the room.
"Wake the fuck up" I told him, pleasantly. "It's Easter, goddammit, get your ass in gear."
He hunted like a trooper, I tell you. And in the end, 278 chocolates were found; 2 are still missing, one rolled under the furnace where it is probably meeting a bubbly fondu-like death as we speak.
And then, for the rest of the day, Jason repeated his 4 favourite words over and over and over and over:
"Can I eat this?"
"Can I eat this?"
"Can I eat this?"
"CAN I EAT THIS!?!?!?!"
So my new Easter tradition involves allowing him to burn the roof of his mouth severely on the first loaf of bread that comes out of the oven, and then secretly relishing his tears for the rest of the day as he contemplates all the delicious food he is too sore to eat. This may not catch on in other families, but I think it's a keeper at our house. An alternative to this tradition may involve raw lamb, but something tells me that puddles of chocolatey vomit all over my kitchen floors may deaden my appetite as well.
After supper, Jason's Momma called. She has a knack for calling as we're about to crack open a third bottle of wine, with hillllllllllllllarious results. Jason has the uncanny ability of chatting inanely with his mother while communicating with me via increasingly enthusiastic eye-rolling. Jason recounted the blow-by-blow of our herbarific Easter meal, which Jason's Mom found to be very non-traditional. Of course, her idea of traditional includes ham, potatoes, and macaroni salad, to which Jason shouted "A fine feast for the plebs!"
Hehe. Plebs. That's like, practically my favourite word. I taught him that. I also taught him to be a snob. It's tough to teach a boy who will wear buckets on his head to be a snob, but he's learning. In fact, it's illegal for me to publish the word he called her when she confessed that she was reading a Danielle Steele.
All told, it was a fun, funny weekend, barring that one incident with the new neighbour whom we've not yet met but who now knows where and how I wanted Jason's penis "in the next 5 minutes or else." And after we sizzled, we baked. Baking with Jason is an exercise in patience; baking for Jason is an exercise in futility. No matter what I bake, or how much, it may as well not exist because it's already gone. I baked an apple pie on Thursday. He ate half for dessert, and half for breakfast the next morning. For Easter we baked a white chocolate raspberry swirl cake. It's too bad I liked it because I sure as hell will never get another taste.
"Can I eat this?"
"Yes, Jason, if you can find room for it in your tummy, you can eat that."
Even after 8 pounds of chocolate, 4 lamb chops, and a loaf of bread, he found room not just for a piece, but for two. And if I'm not mistaken, I can hear the familiar noise of someone raiding the fridge right now...and I doubt he's in there for the cauliflower.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Easter: Not Just For Kids Anymore.
Two summers ago, my mother desperately needed my help and she didn't even know it. Her kitchen was calling, no, crying, for a clean sweep. As it happens, I am a fabulous clean sweeper, which means I can ruthlessly assess the usefulness of every item in my or anyone else's house, and mercilessly throw out every last thing that serves no real purpose. My mother's kitchen served no real purpose.
Since the dawning of ages, mankind has mocked my mother's cooking. She knew how to make 2 things: charred black crap, and boiled potatoes. And that's what we ate every single day until my mother discovered the frozen food aisle, and then we feasted on the likes of chicken nuggets and tater tots. The frozen food aisle was for a long time the best thing to ever happened to our family.
I had a sneaking suspicion that underneath the burnt stuff, my mother might actually be harboring the likes of chicken, steak, or pork chops, and I strongly suspected that these things, - called meat, as it turns out - might be unearthed if only my mother stopped using the warbly pots that were too warped to sit straight on the burner and had no less than 30 years worth of accumulated scorch marks on the bottom and no handle left except for a nub that was too hot to handle and too weak to even try.
So I clean swept her kitchen, starting with those pots, and including jars of NutriSystem milkshake powder that expired in 1993; pieces of tupperware that were lidless, stained, and disfigured from too many micro-waves; dusty mugs featuring gouges so large they had been mangling the lips of coffee drinkers for generations; 7 out of the 8 sugar bowls I found scattered throughout the cupboards, reasoning that since my mother appeared not to keep sugar in the house, she probably didn't need all 8; and no less than 37 knives that came in varying states of disrepair: some were so dull they couldn't slice through water, some had lost their handles, some were so rusted I believed them to be ancient artifacts unearthed from the backyard, but no, my mother assured me they dated from no further back than my great-grandmother's wedding shower.
My mother, for some reason, was particularly attached to the 37 knives she no longer used, and I had to fight tooth and nail to have them tossed. However, the one thing that my mother did see fit for the garbage I immediately plucked back out. It was this:
Okay, okay, it's nothing special to look at. It's a piece of 80s artisan crap. It's ugly and it's hand made and I would never look twice at this thing because it's the kind it kitchsy crap I'm allergic to. BUT, it was made by my mother's hands. She painted it in her early 20s and it has been a part of our family's Easter since as far back as I can remember. My mother was always very generous about hiding chocolates around the house for us kids, but every year, this egg would sit on the kitchen table, and on Easter morning it would be filled with candy that my mother assured us was the Easter Bunny's concession to grown-ups and was to be eaten by adults only.
So ugly or not, I remembered this egg fondly and was appalled that while she had held on for dear life to a motor-oil sponsored calendar from 1988, she had so cavalierly thrown out the closest thing our family has to an heirloom. And then I found this:
For more than 2 decades that egg sat filled with parents-only chocolate, and I never looked too closely at it. But the day it ended up in the garbage was the day I discovered that it had been a very early present from my mom. Since there are only 2 names on the egg, that means it is probably circa 1983, which dates it back to the Easter-bonnet picture from yesterday's post. I don't ever remember having seen the inscription before then.
My mother would have been 22 years old, which is a few years younger than I am now. It gives a small ache to my heart to picture this young woman at pottery class making a present for her 2 babies, who were probably spending the evening at grandma's house. It's hard to imagine that your parents were ever young, were ever anything like you. But this egg reminds me of how young she was when she had her kids (she had 4 kids under the age of 5 just weeks after she turned 26). Certainly, she spent her early 20s differently than I am. She was pregnant most of the time, she changed diapers (and washed diapers...she didn't use cloth exclusively, but she did use them), she nursed 4 kids and 1 husband through the chicken pox, she made bland boiled potatoes every night, and went to PTA meetings when she could.
I see myself hanging on to immaturity as best as I can, romping about in puddles and hiding eggs for my husband, and it contrasts violently to my mother, thrust into maturity. That little egg on the table was the only tie to her young womanhood. While she spent time find 4 dresses, 4 pairs of frilly socks (or white tights, depending on the weather), 4 pairs of dress shoes that didn't pinch our toes, 4 Easter bonnets in colours we wouldn't fight over, I am spending the same time in my life doing things far more self-indulgent.
Yesterday, Jason and I decided to try our hand at decorating eggs, something neither of us had done before. I bought a kit that promised "swirls of dazzling colour" but actually netted "blobs of baby-shit green." First we emptied the eggs of their contents via the very interesting blow-the-egg method. Then we bobbed some eggs into the disappointing dye, hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but instead being incredibly unsurprised by the less than dazzling results. Then we abandoned the dye (well, after bathing in vegetable oil to rid ourselves of the water-soluble mess), and used markers and paints instead. We made margaritas and laughed all night long at our lack of artistic skills, and it struck me how differently this night was for me than it must have been for my mother at her pottery class.
It would have been a rare night off from the kids, but it was not spent with her husband. Married 4 years at this point, I don't ever remember my mother and father laughing together, or going out of their way to share time together. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you'll know that my father isn't my (or my mother's, or anyone's) favourite person, but even in the days before divorce and disaccord, I don't remember them as a happy couple.
She was 22 years old. She must have had hopes and dreams. She must have wondered about her future. As she hid eggs for us to find the next morning, I am certain that she loved her kids, but I wonder if she loved her life. I wonder if she felt like she was living for herself, or for her kids. I wonder if she ever felt regret, or if she felt trapped, or if she ever cried alone, frightened of what she'd gotten into. We spend an awful lot of time living in very close quarters with our parents, but do we ever really know them?
This Easter will be just for Jason and I. I haven't spoken to my mother in 15 months, I think. Some days I really miss her, and some days I remember why we aren't speaking and I hurt all over again, and some days I don't think of her at all. But through the marvels of garbage-picking, the egg has been salvaged and sits in my house now. I look at the egg and I remember what it meant to my family, and I feel closer to her now than I have in years.
Since the dawning of ages, mankind has mocked my mother's cooking. She knew how to make 2 things: charred black crap, and boiled potatoes. And that's what we ate every single day until my mother discovered the frozen food aisle, and then we feasted on the likes of chicken nuggets and tater tots. The frozen food aisle was for a long time the best thing to ever happened to our family.
I had a sneaking suspicion that underneath the burnt stuff, my mother might actually be harboring the likes of chicken, steak, or pork chops, and I strongly suspected that these things, - called meat, as it turns out - might be unearthed if only my mother stopped using the warbly pots that were too warped to sit straight on the burner and had no less than 30 years worth of accumulated scorch marks on the bottom and no handle left except for a nub that was too hot to handle and too weak to even try.
So I clean swept her kitchen, starting with those pots, and including jars of NutriSystem milkshake powder that expired in 1993; pieces of tupperware that were lidless, stained, and disfigured from too many micro-waves; dusty mugs featuring gouges so large they had been mangling the lips of coffee drinkers for generations; 7 out of the 8 sugar bowls I found scattered throughout the cupboards, reasoning that since my mother appeared not to keep sugar in the house, she probably didn't need all 8; and no less than 37 knives that came in varying states of disrepair: some were so dull they couldn't slice through water, some had lost their handles, some were so rusted I believed them to be ancient artifacts unearthed from the backyard, but no, my mother assured me they dated from no further back than my great-grandmother's wedding shower.
My mother, for some reason, was particularly attached to the 37 knives she no longer used, and I had to fight tooth and nail to have them tossed. However, the one thing that my mother did see fit for the garbage I immediately plucked back out. It was this:
Okay, okay, it's nothing special to look at. It's a piece of 80s artisan crap. It's ugly and it's hand made and I would never look twice at this thing because it's the kind it kitchsy crap I'm allergic to. BUT, it was made by my mother's hands. She painted it in her early 20s and it has been a part of our family's Easter since as far back as I can remember. My mother was always very generous about hiding chocolates around the house for us kids, but every year, this egg would sit on the kitchen table, and on Easter morning it would be filled with candy that my mother assured us was the Easter Bunny's concession to grown-ups and was to be eaten by adults only.
So ugly or not, I remembered this egg fondly and was appalled that while she had held on for dear life to a motor-oil sponsored calendar from 1988, she had so cavalierly thrown out the closest thing our family has to an heirloom. And then I found this:
For more than 2 decades that egg sat filled with parents-only chocolate, and I never looked too closely at it. But the day it ended up in the garbage was the day I discovered that it had been a very early present from my mom. Since there are only 2 names on the egg, that means it is probably circa 1983, which dates it back to the Easter-bonnet picture from yesterday's post. I don't ever remember having seen the inscription before then.
My mother would have been 22 years old, which is a few years younger than I am now. It gives a small ache to my heart to picture this young woman at pottery class making a present for her 2 babies, who were probably spending the evening at grandma's house. It's hard to imagine that your parents were ever young, were ever anything like you. But this egg reminds me of how young she was when she had her kids (she had 4 kids under the age of 5 just weeks after she turned 26). Certainly, she spent her early 20s differently than I am. She was pregnant most of the time, she changed diapers (and washed diapers...she didn't use cloth exclusively, but she did use them), she nursed 4 kids and 1 husband through the chicken pox, she made bland boiled potatoes every night, and went to PTA meetings when she could.
I see myself hanging on to immaturity as best as I can, romping about in puddles and hiding eggs for my husband, and it contrasts violently to my mother, thrust into maturity. That little egg on the table was the only tie to her young womanhood. While she spent time find 4 dresses, 4 pairs of frilly socks (or white tights, depending on the weather), 4 pairs of dress shoes that didn't pinch our toes, 4 Easter bonnets in colours we wouldn't fight over, I am spending the same time in my life doing things far more self-indulgent.
Yesterday, Jason and I decided to try our hand at decorating eggs, something neither of us had done before. I bought a kit that promised "swirls of dazzling colour" but actually netted "blobs of baby-shit green." First we emptied the eggs of their contents via the very interesting blow-the-egg method. Then we bobbed some eggs into the disappointing dye, hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but instead being incredibly unsurprised by the less than dazzling results. Then we abandoned the dye (well, after bathing in vegetable oil to rid ourselves of the water-soluble mess), and used markers and paints instead. We made margaritas and laughed all night long at our lack of artistic skills, and it struck me how differently this night was for me than it must have been for my mother at her pottery class.
It would have been a rare night off from the kids, but it was not spent with her husband. Married 4 years at this point, I don't ever remember my mother and father laughing together, or going out of their way to share time together. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you'll know that my father isn't my (or my mother's, or anyone's) favourite person, but even in the days before divorce and disaccord, I don't remember them as a happy couple.
She was 22 years old. She must have had hopes and dreams. She must have wondered about her future. As she hid eggs for us to find the next morning, I am certain that she loved her kids, but I wonder if she loved her life. I wonder if she felt like she was living for herself, or for her kids. I wonder if she ever felt regret, or if she felt trapped, or if she ever cried alone, frightened of what she'd gotten into. We spend an awful lot of time living in very close quarters with our parents, but do we ever really know them?
This Easter will be just for Jason and I. I haven't spoken to my mother in 15 months, I think. Some days I really miss her, and some days I remember why we aren't speaking and I hurt all over again, and some days I don't think of her at all. But through the marvels of garbage-picking, the egg has been salvaged and sits in my house now. I look at the egg and I remember what it meant to my family, and I feel closer to her now than I have in years.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Easter comes but once a year, but the chocolate you eat will stay on your hips forever.
What the hell ever happened to the Easter bonnet? When I was a kid, all 4 of us little girls (my sisters and I) would line up in our fancy dresses, with our little white socks with the ruffle trim folded down over our patent leather shoes, and my mother would curl our bangs just so, thus ensuring that our hair would be worthy and do justice to our Easter bonnets.
This picture was taken in 1984 when there were still only 2 of us, and only 1 of us had hair enough to curl, but by god we wore our bonnets, with all the frills upon it. We were the grandest ladies at the Easter parade. I sometimes think that my sisters and I were the last kids to ever wear the Easter bonnet because I haven't seen it since.
Another Easter staple of my childhood was the poncho. The Easter poncho (hand knitted, of course) was especially exciting because we certainly didn't get to wear it just any old Easter. No, it had to be a very mild Easter indeed where we would be granted permission to wear the Poncho instead of the dreaded "dress coat" that we'd been wearing to church all winter long. You see, my mother was one of those militant types who strongly believed that if we didn't wear coats, we would all die messy, phlegmy deaths. So the poncho was a treat. It meant spring, and relief, was here.
We always hunted for eggs in the morning, even when we were all cranky teenagers and we didn't wake before noon anymore. This being Canada, we only hunted indoors, but my mother must have hidden hundreds of eggs around the house, some of which were never found, and are probably still rotting in dark crevices of that old house today (don't worry - we never used real eggs as some families do; we were strictly into chocolate). I never found as many eggs as the others because I am not a morning person and not particularly industrious either. Not to worry; my mother always insisted we dump the eggs into one communal basket and "share". Hah.
We often would receive small presents in addition to chocolate.
In 1990, as you can see, we received neon sunglasses. What you can't see is that we also got neon sandals to match. Styling. Often we would receive some "spring" toys, like bubble wands, skipping ropes, sidewalk chalk, and butterfly nets (which, though we never caught any butterflies, we often came home with toads, much to my mother's dismay).
This was also the Easter that my baby sister, then 3, caught the chicken pox and generously gave it to my father. While the rest of us ate ham, the two of them soaked in a baking soda-bath that didn't do much to relieve the itching. The rest of us tried to feign sympathy as we strutted about in our ponchos, caught toads, and pretended to eat all the chocolate.
When I was a teenager, I began to think that perhaps 13 lbs of chocolate was not the best thing for my waist line. Ingeniously, my mother took it upon herself to hide fruit that year. Of course, it's much harder to hide a watermelon than a tiny chocolate egg, and the results were as preposterous as you are imagining. I also had little use for frog-catching paraphenalia and my bonnet days were over (as I was then going through a bit of a mohawk phase), so my mother started me on my Easter purse collection.
It's so fuzzy and pink, could it be anything other than an Easter purse? I think not. It's also so impractical that if I didn't limit my usage of it to 2 or 3 days per year, it would either drive me mad, or turn into Easter garbage. It didn't come with money, it came with "cotton candy" pink hair dye inside - just the perfect colour to for ushering in spring.
This is my best-loved Easter handbag. The pastel beading reminds me of an Easter egg. This one I "inherited" from a deceased woman who had no further use for it. I've since seen other antique Goldco bags on ebay, but I've yet to see this exact one...and yes, I do wish I had the Easter bonnet to match.
These days I have relinquished my role as Easter egg hunter because I have become the Easter egg hider. No, I don't have children, but I do have a husband who missed out on some key elements of his childhood and as long as they involve chocolate, he is more than happy to relive them. If we're brave (or drunk), we may even try our hand at dying some eggs, because frankly, the stain-to-furniture ratio has been appallingly low lately, and let's face it, now that I've posted the neon glasses, what's left for next year? I'll turn out my famous Easter cakes and keep none for myself, watch Jason blow up Peeps in the microwave, and maybe, just maybe, I'll go outside without my coat.
Please feel free to share your own Easter memories/plans/traditions in the comments section.
And remember, real men hunt with a bucket, not with a basket.
This picture was taken in 1984 when there were still only 2 of us, and only 1 of us had hair enough to curl, but by god we wore our bonnets, with all the frills upon it. We were the grandest ladies at the Easter parade. I sometimes think that my sisters and I were the last kids to ever wear the Easter bonnet because I haven't seen it since.
Another Easter staple of my childhood was the poncho. The Easter poncho (hand knitted, of course) was especially exciting because we certainly didn't get to wear it just any old Easter. No, it had to be a very mild Easter indeed where we would be granted permission to wear the Poncho instead of the dreaded "dress coat" that we'd been wearing to church all winter long. You see, my mother was one of those militant types who strongly believed that if we didn't wear coats, we would all die messy, phlegmy deaths. So the poncho was a treat. It meant spring, and relief, was here.
We always hunted for eggs in the morning, even when we were all cranky teenagers and we didn't wake before noon anymore. This being Canada, we only hunted indoors, but my mother must have hidden hundreds of eggs around the house, some of which were never found, and are probably still rotting in dark crevices of that old house today (don't worry - we never used real eggs as some families do; we were strictly into chocolate). I never found as many eggs as the others because I am not a morning person and not particularly industrious either. Not to worry; my mother always insisted we dump the eggs into one communal basket and "share". Hah.
We often would receive small presents in addition to chocolate.
In 1990, as you can see, we received neon sunglasses. What you can't see is that we also got neon sandals to match. Styling. Often we would receive some "spring" toys, like bubble wands, skipping ropes, sidewalk chalk, and butterfly nets (which, though we never caught any butterflies, we often came home with toads, much to my mother's dismay).
This was also the Easter that my baby sister, then 3, caught the chicken pox and generously gave it to my father. While the rest of us ate ham, the two of them soaked in a baking soda-bath that didn't do much to relieve the itching. The rest of us tried to feign sympathy as we strutted about in our ponchos, caught toads, and pretended to eat all the chocolate.
When I was a teenager, I began to think that perhaps 13 lbs of chocolate was not the best thing for my waist line. Ingeniously, my mother took it upon herself to hide fruit that year. Of course, it's much harder to hide a watermelon than a tiny chocolate egg, and the results were as preposterous as you are imagining. I also had little use for frog-catching paraphenalia and my bonnet days were over (as I was then going through a bit of a mohawk phase), so my mother started me on my Easter purse collection.
It's so fuzzy and pink, could it be anything other than an Easter purse? I think not. It's also so impractical that if I didn't limit my usage of it to 2 or 3 days per year, it would either drive me mad, or turn into Easter garbage. It didn't come with money, it came with "cotton candy" pink hair dye inside - just the perfect colour to for ushering in spring.
This is my best-loved Easter handbag. The pastel beading reminds me of an Easter egg. This one I "inherited" from a deceased woman who had no further use for it. I've since seen other antique Goldco bags on ebay, but I've yet to see this exact one...and yes, I do wish I had the Easter bonnet to match.
These days I have relinquished my role as Easter egg hunter because I have become the Easter egg hider. No, I don't have children, but I do have a husband who missed out on some key elements of his childhood and as long as they involve chocolate, he is more than happy to relive them. If we're brave (or drunk), we may even try our hand at dying some eggs, because frankly, the stain-to-furniture ratio has been appallingly low lately, and let's face it, now that I've posted the neon glasses, what's left for next year? I'll turn out my famous Easter cakes and keep none for myself, watch Jason blow up Peeps in the microwave, and maybe, just maybe, I'll go outside without my coat.
Please feel free to share your own Easter memories/plans/traditions in the comments section.
And remember, real men hunt with a bucket, not with a basket.
Monday, April 10, 2006
The Best $75 000 I Ever Spent.
When I first went to that great institution of booze, blow jobs, and brainwashing, er, higher learning (called University), I moved into a glorified hole optimistically named Residence. Ah, residence, hallowed place where I showered in special shoes, drank Crown Royal for supper, and learned 101 more uses for shaving cream.
I lasted a month.
Which is not to say that residence was too much for me. The truth of the matter was, someone just couldn't live without me. So he threw caution to the wind and "rescued" me from the mysterious stains of Stanton Res and whisked me off to a comparatively luxurious apartment (read: a shoebox that cost as much as a 7-bedroom home, but which we loved anyway).
In some ways, that month spent living communally was one of the craziest I've ever survived. We wore beer steins on lanyards (in those days the University actually provided you with a plastic beer mug to wear around your neck - it meant beer at half price in the Byward Market); we collected pictures of topless Sunshine Boys, scissored out of the local news rag; we saved each other repeatedly from the dusty bowels of the research library and from the nerdy Carleton engineering students who tried to grope above their league. We lived intimately among strangers and became fast friends.
And then, as quickly as we had moved all of my shit up 8 flights of stairs (of course the elevator was out on moving day!), we moved it back down. Jason and I rented a big truck we couldn't drive and made 3 stops in 2 cities, covering several hundred kilometres during which it was often touch-and-go for my goldfish who weathered the move in a margarine container in my lap.
After 13 exhausting hours of hauling furniture in the rain (uphill both ways), we craved only sleep (and maybe some chicken), but instead we were treated to a going away party thrown by the 8th floor. Of course, people from several floors up and several floors down came too. I was hungry enough to eat an ox, but instead I had a very stiff rye&coke (well, whiskey and diet pepsi, actually), you know, the kind that you mix yourself in 40oz cups on my empty stomach, and then another, and then another.
And then a funny thing happened. A rainbow fell out of my mouth. Well, maybe not a real rainbow, but the vomit was so colourful it sure looked pretty. I spent the entirety of my own going away party on the floor of a public washroom. It was a multi-stall facility, but apparently I locked the main door and for the next several hours, as I fell in and out of consciousness, friends would politely knock and inquire as to the state of my rainbows.
Meanwhile, Jason had not quite reached the rainbow stage. However, he had reached the "it seems like a good idea to climb into this shopping cart and let other people race me" stage. He ripped a really expensive pair of pants that night.
When the sun was coming up and very few people remained standing, I bid them all adieu. I somehow managed to leave my toilet-fortress in order to thank my guests for such a fond farewell, but what I did not so adeptly manage was to stand on my own 2 feet. Soon I found myself splayed on the floor, my sexy backless dress failing me in every way imaginable (but please, for the love of god, try not to imagine this).
Long story short, the next day I resolved to start wearing underwear again.
Happy Monday, y'all.
I lasted a month.
Which is not to say that residence was too much for me. The truth of the matter was, someone just couldn't live without me. So he threw caution to the wind and "rescued" me from the mysterious stains of Stanton Res and whisked me off to a comparatively luxurious apartment (read: a shoebox that cost as much as a 7-bedroom home, but which we loved anyway).
In some ways, that month spent living communally was one of the craziest I've ever survived. We wore beer steins on lanyards (in those days the University actually provided you with a plastic beer mug to wear around your neck - it meant beer at half price in the Byward Market); we collected pictures of topless Sunshine Boys, scissored out of the local news rag; we saved each other repeatedly from the dusty bowels of the research library and from the nerdy Carleton engineering students who tried to grope above their league. We lived intimately among strangers and became fast friends.
And then, as quickly as we had moved all of my shit up 8 flights of stairs (of course the elevator was out on moving day!), we moved it back down. Jason and I rented a big truck we couldn't drive and made 3 stops in 2 cities, covering several hundred kilometres during which it was often touch-and-go for my goldfish who weathered the move in a margarine container in my lap.
After 13 exhausting hours of hauling furniture in the rain (uphill both ways), we craved only sleep (and maybe some chicken), but instead we were treated to a going away party thrown by the 8th floor. Of course, people from several floors up and several floors down came too. I was hungry enough to eat an ox, but instead I had a very stiff rye&coke (well, whiskey and diet pepsi, actually), you know, the kind that you mix yourself in 40oz cups on my empty stomach, and then another, and then another.
And then a funny thing happened. A rainbow fell out of my mouth. Well, maybe not a real rainbow, but the vomit was so colourful it sure looked pretty. I spent the entirety of my own going away party on the floor of a public washroom. It was a multi-stall facility, but apparently I locked the main door and for the next several hours, as I fell in and out of consciousness, friends would politely knock and inquire as to the state of my rainbows.
Meanwhile, Jason had not quite reached the rainbow stage. However, he had reached the "it seems like a good idea to climb into this shopping cart and let other people race me" stage. He ripped a really expensive pair of pants that night.
When the sun was coming up and very few people remained standing, I bid them all adieu. I somehow managed to leave my toilet-fortress in order to thank my guests for such a fond farewell, but what I did not so adeptly manage was to stand on my own 2 feet. Soon I found myself splayed on the floor, my sexy backless dress failing me in every way imaginable (but please, for the love of god, try not to imagine this).
Long story short, the next day I resolved to start wearing underwear again.
Happy Monday, y'all.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The Futility of Recycling
Apparently Michigan was getting fed up of dealing with our stinky Toronto garbage, or else our rotting heaps were getting too hefty to haul all the way to Michigan, but either way, the powers that be decided that they were spending too much money on stuff we don't even want anymore.
This sparked a renewed recycling initiative in the GTA. To reduce the amount of waste we threw to the curb, the city implemented a compost program in addition to the recycling program. To discourage us from cheating, they limited garbage pick-up to one bag per household every 2 weeks. Now, normally I wouldn't mind. I have always been a first-rate recycler. So every day Jason asks me "what is this?" and I tell him which box to put it in - brown, green, or blue. The rules are impossibly complicated, and the garbage men are finicky. If you don't tape up your cardboard in just such a way, then their superior garbage morality prohibits them from taking it. The grocery stores around here sell special bags for your compost, made of supposedly special plastic that looks the same but certainly costs more, but you don't have to use them, and in fact if you have more compost than fits in your compost bin, then you must put the additional stuff in clear plastic bags, while the green compost bags that you paid extravagant amounts for are of no use.
Still, we persevere. Jason hasn't caught on, of course. He doesn't know where coffee grinds go, and it doesn't make sense to him that a foil plate is recyclable while tin foil is not. It doesn't make much sense to me either, but luckily I have a knack for remembering senseless things.
Our upstairs neighbours, however, are hostile to the idea. If we don't fill our compost bin to the top, then they see this as an invitation to load it up with their own garbage. In fact, on a few occasions, we've caught them putting our compost in our garbage, and putting their garbage in our compost. That is, until one of other neighbours stole our compost bin, because these things cost money to replace you know, and obviously the city thinks that even though they've imposed on our very lifestyles just to do this crazy thing that is useless anyway when your neighbours are insane, but they think we the taxpayers should continue to pay out of pocket for the privilege of sorting through our own trash.
Now, I could deal with all of that, if it wasn't for this:
Do you know what they do with my recyclables? The cardboard, which I have lovingly collected, grudgingly sorted and assembled, and crankily tied up with tape or string, is taken away, reverted to pulp, and sold away so it can be turned into a recycled paper product.
My plastics are melted down and made into new plastics.
My compostables, which include very personal things like tissues, dirty diapers, and nail clippings, are piled into a dung heap where they eventually become fertilizer.
The city makes money on converting my trash, and then it sells it back to me AT FULL PRICE. I am paying money for the pleasure of re-receiving my own garbage. I think we citizens should be charging them to come get our valuable shitty diapers and half-eating apples. This stuff is pure gold, baby, and we're giving it away! And even worse, we're buying it back! And we don't even get a price break!
If this is not the definition of pure insanity, then I don't know what is. Citizens, it is time to take back our refuse! Demand a fair price for the goldmines in our glad bags. For years they have pretended that garbage pick-up was a favour bestowed upon the taxpayers, but now we know the truth! Garbage is a booming economy, and we're giving away our stocks for free! We are the shareholders of our own slop. Unite, fellow garbage producers, and make your garbage work for you.
And remember: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - MY ASS!
This sparked a renewed recycling initiative in the GTA. To reduce the amount of waste we threw to the curb, the city implemented a compost program in addition to the recycling program. To discourage us from cheating, they limited garbage pick-up to one bag per household every 2 weeks. Now, normally I wouldn't mind. I have always been a first-rate recycler. So every day Jason asks me "what is this?" and I tell him which box to put it in - brown, green, or blue. The rules are impossibly complicated, and the garbage men are finicky. If you don't tape up your cardboard in just such a way, then their superior garbage morality prohibits them from taking it. The grocery stores around here sell special bags for your compost, made of supposedly special plastic that looks the same but certainly costs more, but you don't have to use them, and in fact if you have more compost than fits in your compost bin, then you must put the additional stuff in clear plastic bags, while the green compost bags that you paid extravagant amounts for are of no use.
Still, we persevere. Jason hasn't caught on, of course. He doesn't know where coffee grinds go, and it doesn't make sense to him that a foil plate is recyclable while tin foil is not. It doesn't make much sense to me either, but luckily I have a knack for remembering senseless things.
Our upstairs neighbours, however, are hostile to the idea. If we don't fill our compost bin to the top, then they see this as an invitation to load it up with their own garbage. In fact, on a few occasions, we've caught them putting our compost in our garbage, and putting their garbage in our compost. That is, until one of other neighbours stole our compost bin, because these things cost money to replace you know, and obviously the city thinks that even though they've imposed on our very lifestyles just to do this crazy thing that is useless anyway when your neighbours are insane, but they think we the taxpayers should continue to pay out of pocket for the privilege of sorting through our own trash.
Now, I could deal with all of that, if it wasn't for this:
Do you know what they do with my recyclables? The cardboard, which I have lovingly collected, grudgingly sorted and assembled, and crankily tied up with tape or string, is taken away, reverted to pulp, and sold away so it can be turned into a recycled paper product.
My plastics are melted down and made into new plastics.
My compostables, which include very personal things like tissues, dirty diapers, and nail clippings, are piled into a dung heap where they eventually become fertilizer.
The city makes money on converting my trash, and then it sells it back to me AT FULL PRICE. I am paying money for the pleasure of re-receiving my own garbage. I think we citizens should be charging them to come get our valuable shitty diapers and half-eating apples. This stuff is pure gold, baby, and we're giving it away! And even worse, we're buying it back! And we don't even get a price break!
If this is not the definition of pure insanity, then I don't know what is. Citizens, it is time to take back our refuse! Demand a fair price for the goldmines in our glad bags. For years they have pretended that garbage pick-up was a favour bestowed upon the taxpayers, but now we know the truth! Garbage is a booming economy, and we're giving away our stocks for free! We are the shareholders of our own slop. Unite, fellow garbage producers, and make your garbage work for you.
And remember: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - MY ASS!
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
International Ball Dropping Day
Sure we like the horny geese, and washing the car, flirty skirts and flip-flops (though I still do my walking in boots, thankyouverymuch), and being out in the nice weather (at least until it's sprinkler time again) - but we also like spring on behalf of Jason's balls, which believe me, appreciate it more than you can know.
You see, though I complain immensely about the cold, cold weather outside, I cannot help but invite it in. I resent having to wear a coat out of doors, but indoors, I MUST be wrapped in a blanket in order to be comfortable. This means that all winter long, the windows have been wide open. The average temperature in my house is somewhere below freezing - I know this because every morning I have to defrost the shampoo before I use it. We can often see our breath fog up the frigid air as we speak. The furniture tends to collect frost overnight. The upside is that during winter, we don't have to pay to refrigerate our meat, because in essence, our apartment becomes a meat-locker, and Jason and I are the prime cuts. I like it that way.
Jason, however, is a warm-blooded creature, and functions best if his blood is still warm enough to flow through his veins. He becomes incensed on the mornings where I have to revive him, even when I tell him that blue lips are sexy. He finds it painful to urinate peesicles, and inconvenient to wear more than 8 pairs of socks at a time. Complain, complain, complain! That's all he's done all winter long (well, except for January, when he caught pneumonia, and all he did was shiver and wheeze). Personally, I think Jason is just a big baby, but I'll give him this: I have missed his balls. In the transitional period of October, his balls just shrink in reaction to the cold, but by November, they tuck themselves back up into his body and hibernate there. Once inverted ball syndrome has set in, those suckers will not descend until the warm weather is assured.
Jason, of course, blames me. Me! Me, his favourite testicle tickler, his cajones caresser, nut nudger, scrotum stroker. Me! Life is so unfair. Frankly, I think the cold is only a convenient excuse. I personally think the disappearance of his balls has more to do with his recent interest in emo music and the amount of time spent preening in front of the mirror.
However, discussing the situation with Kim, we decided it would be "nice" of me to encourage their descent, and that perhaps with the help of the blogging community, we could get those suckers down for good.
So, towards this end, I propose this: if you have any pity for Jason's balls, you'll link back to this post, and maybe tell your own readers about his missing appendages. Feel free to include any male that you know who's also been suffering sans scrotum these past few months. The linking part is easy, this second part will require a bit more effort, but please, think of the balls! You know in Finding Neverland, the audience claps to show that they believe in fairies...well, Jason's not a fairy. Just a man without his balls. So instead of clapping, I ask you to cross your legs. Cross them right now, and cross them good, and for the love of balls, think happy testicle thoughts. Go!
Go forth in peace, and spread the joy that is International Ball Dropping Day. If you've done me the favour of a link, be sure and let me know (comments, email, trackback) and you'll have earned yourself not just my thanks, not just Jason's balls' freedom, but a link and a mention in the section below. Then we can visit each others' sites and revel in the ballsy love.
Testicle Power!
Visit Kim's ode to this happy day.
St. Jude does her saintly duty - does this make her the patron saint of testicles now?
John heats things up with spring fever.
Nicole bemoans Jason's fate under her toilet-humour-du-jour.
Warcry Girl helps us Spring Forward!, and even offers an anthem.
Michelle offers up In Search of Big Balls, which makes me a little nervous. How big is BIG?
DB writes about another man's balls in I Must Be Nuts.
Thank you Candace for taking part.
Better Safe Than Sorry wishes Jason success and thermal underwear.
Vince lends his sympathy.
Ellen has the balls to remind us of her own story.
Antipo promises to send only her "perviest" readers, for which I am eternally grateful.
Junebugg lends moral support - kind of like an emotional jockstrap, if you will.
Therese provide an 'unrelated' note.
Fairydragonfly hears my plea for help.
Tupperfan chimes in with his original take on "teabagging".
Bud Buckley takes a time out from singing to send me a link.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Spring Has Sprung, So Sayeth I.
Well, okay, the calendar says it too. But screw the calendar. The calendar doesn't make it so. The sky might still shit down snow as hard as ever, and the calendar couldn't do a damn thing about it. But when I decide spring is here, I break out the flip flops and start dragging Jason across the countryside and if spring doesn't like it, spring can just kiss my butt.
We went to the Milne Dam Conservation Park that snakes around Rouge River, which Jason took issue with because it's not so much "in the bush" as an "urban park" which is not as naturerrific as we would have liked, but when you live in the city, you have to be thankful for any grass or trees you get.
Jason calls the roots "nature's staircase" which is sweet until they try to trip you up, which, if you're me, they absolutely do. For some reason we took the path less trampled, which led us down a very steep slope that culminated in the world's tiniest ledge, where we used only our big toes to shimmy ourselves across. Somehow, I managed to cross this treacherous bit, and when we were on firmer land, I toppled over, ass into mud, hair into brambles, and then I just kind of kept rolling down until my left side found wet. "It's okay," I shouted "spring is in my pants!"
And I had the pleasure of carrying around a sopping amount of spring for the duration of our hike.
The geese were honking like mad. I could only imagine how painfully horny they were based on these honks, which I assumed were the equivalent of a weathered-looking 40 year old woman squeezed into pleather, body glitter spread across the cleavage of her sagging bosom, looking for love in all the wrong places. Or they were just honking. It's hard to tell.
It was a sort of fabulous day in the end, even if I did come home with bog cultures in my pockets. There weren't many other people out save for a couple of cute men who held hands when they weren't bird watching so we had nature (or the urban version of nature) to ourselves. It was a little soggier than usual, and certainly more brown than green, but a breath of fresh air all the same.
We went to the Milne Dam Conservation Park that snakes around Rouge River, which Jason took issue with because it's not so much "in the bush" as an "urban park" which is not as naturerrific as we would have liked, but when you live in the city, you have to be thankful for any grass or trees you get.
Jason calls the roots "nature's staircase" which is sweet until they try to trip you up, which, if you're me, they absolutely do. For some reason we took the path less trampled, which led us down a very steep slope that culminated in the world's tiniest ledge, where we used only our big toes to shimmy ourselves across. Somehow, I managed to cross this treacherous bit, and when we were on firmer land, I toppled over, ass into mud, hair into brambles, and then I just kind of kept rolling down until my left side found wet. "It's okay," I shouted "spring is in my pants!"
And I had the pleasure of carrying around a sopping amount of spring for the duration of our hike.
The geese were honking like mad. I could only imagine how painfully horny they were based on these honks, which I assumed were the equivalent of a weathered-looking 40 year old woman squeezed into pleather, body glitter spread across the cleavage of her sagging bosom, looking for love in all the wrong places. Or they were just honking. It's hard to tell.
It was a sort of fabulous day in the end, even if I did come home with bog cultures in my pockets. There weren't many other people out save for a couple of cute men who held hands when they weren't bird watching so we had nature (or the urban version of nature) to ourselves. It was a little soggier than usual, and certainly more brown than green, but a breath of fresh air all the same.
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