The Best Things In The World

Around Christmas I find myself a bit panicky at the amount of STUFF that comes into this house. There are four of us, three of which are grimly determined pack-rats, and our house isn't very big. The result is that I live in constant clutter, and that makes me a bit crazy. So I try to focus on the things that I really like, that make my life happy. And most of those things aren't things at all:

• SLEEP. Man, is there anything, anything better than going to sleep? There's the drifty, floaty feeling after putting your head down on the pillow, the rolling over in the middle of the night to realize you still have hours, or the Sunday morning dozing where you slip in and out of conciousness while surfing the contents of your head. Sleep is my number one drug.
• BABIES. The smell insanely delicious, their skin in like the warmest, softest satin and they have little corn-niblet toes that are the cutest things ever made. Plus, when they smile, that's your day, right there.
• HOT SHOWERS. I think the single greatest accomplishment of the Twentieth Century is indoor plumbing, and hot running water in abundance is the greatest thing about indoor plumbing. Being clean is one of the best feelings ever (note: the shower you take after a camping trip or a day at the beach.), but the delight of stepping into that steamy shower is not to be taken for granted.
• YOUR OWN BED. Really, doesn't everyone want to be home? And isn't home what's familiar and comfortable and safe and cozy? And isn't your bed all those things? I love to travel, but snuggling down into my own bed after a trip has to be one of the best things ever.
• A GOOD BOOK. I love it when I get a book that is so good that I think about it when I'm not reading it, and can't wait to get back to it. (Preferably IN MY OWN BED.) No matter what is going on in my life, I can always count on a good book to give me perspective, make me think, educate me or simply entertain me long enough to forget my own problems. Books are indispensible.
• SUNSHINE We live in a part of the world that gets a fair bit of cloudy weather, and boy oh boy, when the sun does come out? It's like everyone got a shot of Happy. You can see the collective mood lift and it is a serious game changer. Sunshine is nature's Prozac.
• LAUGHTER One time, a client remarked on the Christmas decorations in the salon to the Mister by saying "I really like your balls". Which, at the time, made us all run into the staff room, where we laughed so hard I thought I might pass out. And then one of us would catch the other's eye and we'd be off again like a bunch of lunatics. We laughed all day about that.  A good, gut-busting, loud and honest belly laugh is one of the best things ever.
• HUGS. Last year, when my father was very ill, and things were at their worst,  my good friend Big Liver Girl came over with some homemade soup and bread and gave me a full-body, rib-cracking, back-and-forth swaying hug. It was wonderful. It was comfort and care and acknowlegment and sympathy and  love, all in one package. How can you beat that? My friend Blair could hug as her day job, she's so good at it.
• MUSIC. Few things in this world are as remarkable as music. Happy? There's a song for that. Sad? We've got that covered. It's a particular season or occasion? No problem. The possibilities are, literally, endless. And I'm willing to wager you have a song running through your head right now.
• TAKING OFF YOUR SKI BOOTS. If you ski, you'll know exactly what I mean. If you don't, let me explain....You put on your ski boots in the morning out for a day on the slopes, and you dont' take them off until you are finished. Ski boots are heavy, and they don't bend at the ankle, so you clomp around all day in the equivient of bowling balls on your feet, looking and sounding like the Incredible Hulk. When you take those heavy, sweaty, rigid boots off, it feels like you are walking about 3 inches above the ground, and you are about to float away altogether. Plus, your ankles bend now, so getting something off the ground is not the production it was earlier.
• CLEAN I hate cleaning, but man, do I love stuff clean. When I clean a closet or a room, I have to go back into it a couple of times and just admire my efforts and how fabulous it looks.

None of these things are particularly remarkable or out of the ordinary, but they make me the happiest. And maybe because they are not particularly remarkable or out of the ordinary, that's why they make me happy.

Family Bonding at the Loudshoes

I got a text from Thing 2's cell phone this afternoon:

(Cell Phone): "Heeheyyy mMom! Ccan i gget a tattoooo on daaa bummmmmm???????todayyy??"

(Me): "Sure. I have a coupon."

(Cell Phone) "Best Friend took my phone and texted that. But it's nice to know I have your support".

(Me): "Always".

Telemarketing Follies

From time to time, meaning, at least once an hour, we get a phone call at work from a telemarketer. Lots and lots of phone calls from people who want to speak to the Mister and get him to buy something, or sign up for something, or donate something or give them something.
I get that telemarketing must be the most miserable of all jobs on God's green earth. No one wants to be a telemarketer; I imagine they've fallen into it because fate has consipired againste them, they were desperate and had no other choice, sort of like a Victorian prostitute. Really, you won't find any seven-year-olds proclaiming that when they grow up, they want to be a telemarketer.

And I get that that's their job, to get to the Mister.  Just as it is the receptionist at work's job to make sure they don't ever get anywhere near the Mister. And the receptionist at work, Barb, takes this aspect of her job deadly seriously. The only time the Mister has to deal with a telemarketer is when Barb is off on vacation, or when she's reallly pissed at him.

She is always (well, usually) very polite and says the Mister is busy with a client, and if they leave their name and number, she will pass it on. She usually pretends to take down the information and that's the end of it. On occasion, they are on to her, and ask if they can call back another time, when he's available to come to the phone, and she politely says "no", without explanation. That often gets a puzzled silence on the other end of the phone before they say "okay" and hang up. Once a telemarketer, who was already having a pretty bad day, snotted that we had a funny way of doing business, and she'd appreciate if Barb would just get the Mister already and stop screwing around. Barb hung up on her, and then called the company back and pitched the mother of all hissy fits. I'm pretty sure that young woman isn't in telemarketing any more.

Most of the time, you can tell when the telemarketing company has no idea who or what they are calling. If they use the Mister's name at all, they usually get it wrong, or assume he's a woman. (In that case, Barb tell's them she's the Mister, and expidites matters. It's all in the name of efficiency.) I like the ones who call asking if they can speak to the "Head of Accounts Recievable", or "the Manager in Charge of Human Resources". We are a hair salon with 12 employees, 11 of whom are women:  ALL of us think we are in charge of Human Resources. And I guess Barb is the head of Accounts Recievable, because she's the one who knows how to work the debit machine.
I  like when they try to sell us things like calendars and pens as "client and employee incentives". Seriously? How awful is your job when you are inspired by a crappy pen with your company's name on it? (I know!! A You're a telemarketer!) Our staff is way more likely to find incentive in a plate of natchos or a Lululemon gift certificate.
We are a very low tech operation.

Barb has told people that the Mister won't tell her when he's coming in to work, that he's on vacation and she doesn't know when he'll be back, or that he's been too busy to come to the phone. She's toyed with the idea of telling people he's in rehab or a the casino.

 I've suggested that she use my brother's standard phrase when we were teenagers and someone would call looking for me: "She went crazy and we had to shoot her."

That should shut them up. It worked for my brother.

I'm Mrs Loudshoes.

I'm not graceful. There is a reason I call myself "Mrs. Loudshoes".....I'm heavy on my feet, I make a LOT of noise, and I fall down a lot.
I've been known to drop apples I'm actually in the process of eating, and watch them bounce across the floor of the salon.
I once burned my hip with a curling iron. (I was a teenager, doing my hair in the bathroom and wearing only my underwear. I dropped the hot iron and it bounced off my hip before falling into the toilet. Luckily the momentum of the drop pulled the plug out of the outlet, or I'd have never figured out how to grab the sizzling iron out of the water. I looked like I'd been branded by a very unimaginative cowboy.)
One winter's night, I was crossing the street down near the salon, and there were huge snowbanks on the sides of the road. I had to scramble up the side of one snowbank, to reach the sidewalk, and managed to loose my footing so that I slid back onto the road and underneath a parked car.

Within the past few weeks, I have managed to surpass even my own, lowest expectations of clumsiness.

• While walking through the hospital parking building, I was leaving the car and tossed my purse onto my shoulder, so that it hung crossed over my body. Somehow, I managed to fling it entirely over my head and it landed on the ground in front of me. And then I tripped over it.
• While also leaving the same hospital, I thought the doors closest to the parking lot were automatic. Turns out they weren't and I walked solidly and loudly right into the doors. The guy behind me was trying to be polite, and he asked if I was ok, but I knew he was desperately trying to hold in his laughter.
• Today at work, I licked an envelope and got a paper cut on my tongue.
• While opening a can of tuna for Toby the other morning, I carefully dumped the contents into a tupperware container, only to drop it on my slippers. Now they smell like "Eau du Thon", and Toby LOVES them with an unseemly passion.

I dont' think I'll ever dance for the Bolshoi.

Putting the "Hospital" in "Hospitality"

I've been hanging out around hospitals a LOT lately. It really is a whole new world to me; I've never been sick enough to have to spend much time in one, and thankfully, no one else I know has, either. And thank goodness, because hospitals are not places you want to spend much time in.

Luckily, we have health care in Canada, and we don't have to worry about the cost of my father's six-week hospital stay. At least once a week, one of us exclaims "Thank GOD for Tommy Douglas!" (Tommy Douglas is the father of universal health care in Canada, and in case you didn't know, Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather, either one of which would qualify him as a bad-ass.) And believe me, I'm sincerely grateful to enjoy state-supplied health insurance, but I wish I had been able to take out some sort of "parking insurance", because the parking fees at the hospital are going to be the death of me. We live sort of close to the hospital, so I can walk there, or take the bus. Otherwise, I'd be having to have a chat with my bank manager about our Line of Credit and the hospital parking.

Hospitals are no place for sick people. They are noisy and smelly and bright and generally not a good place to try to get some rest. Not to mention the fact that they are, ironically, full of sick people, so it's a good place to get even more crap to make you feel worse.

Whatever they pay nurses, it's not nearly enough. They work incredibly hard, and with a lot of good humor and upbeat attitudes. Everyone of them has been phenomenal; I can't credit them enough.

There is one doctor there who's dealing with my dad that is, very possibly, the most good looking man I've ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on. He's Iranian, and he has awesome hair, and it's very difficult to focus on what he's actually saying, because he is so delicious. Even my father, in the ICU, said as he left, "that is one handsome man". If they guy in the bed fighting to stay alive notices how attractive you are, I'd say you're in the top 1%, easily.

I'm not sure how hospitals in the US or any other country, functions without Tim Horton's. There are two in dad's hospital alone. And there are line ups at both of them, all the time. You can tell if the one in the lobby is closed, even before you come around the corner from the parking lot, because of all the people staggering around the main floor, holding their heads and sobbing. They weep with gratitude when you tell them there's another one on the third floor in the cafeteria.

The cafeteria is the strangest place....it's hidden away, first of all; you practially need a GPS and a Sherpa guide to find the place. And it's oddly empty and unpopulated, except for the line up of thirty people trying to pay. There never seems to be any but just the one cashier, and she either started today, without any training whatsoever, or she has brain damage and cannot give you change from a 10 without a calculator and consulting  most of her fingers. It takes a glacial age to get out of there, and then you find out your coffee is actually tea.

The elevators at the hospital are very slow...there are four of them, but only two work.  This means that you wait quite a while in the lobby for one to come down, and there's a crowd by then. I've smartened up and get on when it's going down to the basement, and then I ride back up and people look at me in astonishment when they realize I'd been waiting with them just a minute ago or so, and I'm already on the elevator. It freaks them out every time. You can fit a lot of people on an elevator, especially when no one's in a wheel chair. I had no idea elevators can double as clown cars.

They are moving my dad to another hospital soon, a re-hab place where he can get up and on his feet a bit better. I hope the parking lot is good.

Slip Sliding Away

Way back when, when I was in University, I caught the bus to campus one very rainy day. It was about this time of year, and it had been a wet autumn.

It was the middle of the morning, and there weren't too many people on the bus. There was a row of single seats on one side of the bus, some doubles on the other side, and some benches at the back. I was at the very back, facing forward, and a middle-aged woman sitting in the singles near the middle. There was only one or two other people on board, all ahead of her and I, up near the driver.

As I said, it was a really rainy day, and everything was pretty wet. The woman sitting in the single seats was wearing a longish yellow rain slicker.


At one point, the bus made a hard, fast right turn, and the rain on her jacket must have made the seat very slippery, because she shot right off that seat and onto the floor; she didn't even have time to catch herself. It was like she'd been shoved off by invisible hands. She landed right on her bum, and pretty solidly, too, and she made an impressive noise, sort of like an "ooof", but deep and low, like someone had punched a bagpipe in the stomach. One second she was sitting on that bus seat, minding her own business, and the next she was sitting on the floor of the bus in a puddle of water, wondering how the hell that happened.

And the only one to see it all happen....was me. I quickly made like I was looking out the window and didn't see her, because I figured her day was going to go a lot better from here on in if she thought no one was looking. Meanwhile, I was practically herniating myself trying not to laugh. Not only did she shoot off that seat like a cartoon coyote off a cliff, but the noise she made was unlike anything I've ever heard before or since.
I got off a few stops later and couldn't hold it in one more second. I was laughing so hard and so long I gave myself the hiccups. And then I giggled about it every ten minutes for the rest of the day.

You know, that was almost 30 years ago, and I still laugh whenever I think about it.

I'm sure someone else has their own hilarious story that day, about seeing a young woman laughing her fool head off in the pouring rain, all by herself.

I Got The Power

We've had a dull couple of days here, not in terms of the goings-on, but in terms of weather. Autumn in Ontario looks a lot like summer in western Ireland, by the way. It has been cool and wet and grey.
Last night things turned nasty; the wind picked up and the rain came down. It looked a bit like we might start gathering the animals two by two.

We had our two trees in the back yard trimmed last week. Our neighbour to the north asked us (very politely, I might add) back in the summer if we would take a look at the branch that hung over her backyard and threatened her kitchen roof. You know, you live with things for so long, you don't even notice them anymore? When we took a look at that tree, we were surprised at how much it had grown, and readily agreed that it was time we trimmed it. Then we realized that another limb from the second tree hovered right over our bedroom, and would render us paste if it ever fell down. We called the tree guy and paid him a shitload of money so that I could sleep better at night.

Let me tell you, I must told the Mister a dozen times last night that I was so glad we had trimmed those trees. I would have lain in bed all night waiting for the inevitable crash that signalled my untimely death. Most likely, I would have been writing the news story for the next days paper in my head all night, too...."A local woman and her husband were killed last night after a tree limb fell directly through their roof and onto their bed. Neighbours say they had begged the couple to trim the tree for weeks before the storm. The couple's two daughters say their parents were too busy fighting over who would call the tree guy to actually call the tree guy."

We've had the power go off now and again here, no big deal. I remember once the power went off when the girls were about 3 and 5, and they were in the bathtub. As luck would have it, I had just left the bathroom to go grab some towels when the lights went out. The wail and splashing that came from that bathtub would have raised the dead....it sounded like bagpipes on the Titanic.
I remember another time being in a movie theater when a thunderstorm turned the lights out. Man, movie theatres are dark. I know they are supposed to be dark, but still, the darkest dark that ever darked was in that theater. And about 100 people just sat there in silence for about 10 seconds wondering if they had just had a stroke and died.
Another time, the power went off when I was in the staff room in the basement at the salon. I was eating lunch and one of the little assistants was doing the laundry in the next room. When it all went black, I heard the most pitiful little whimper from her, and I was able to keep her from losing her shit altogether by calmly talking to her and producing a cigarette lighter. I don't know what she'd have done if she'd been down there by herself. She quit shortly thereafter; I don't know if it was because she was afraid to go down into the basement by herself after that.

It's funny how, when you know the lights are out, you still keep trying to turn them on anyway. I went into our bathroom to brush my teeth and flipped the switch. And then tried it again. And one more time for good measure. All the while pointing my flashlight at it. And then I tried it in the bedroom. Right after I went looking for the tv remote. Some habits are hard to break.

At around 11:15 the lights all came back on, the microwave beeped and the fridge hummed to life again. And the cat that was sleeping on my hip jumped about 10 feet in the air and let out a squawk that made sure I was wide awake too. I went around the house fixing all the clocks that were flashing, and turned off all the lights that were on. And tried to calm down the cat that had burst into flames in my bedroom.

All was fine this morning, no tree limbs down, the power back to normal and a slightly twitchy cat. I keep my phone handy, though, just in case.

Too Bad, So Sad.

Last week was a bit hectic here at Chez Loudshoes; the Mister was bulldozed by another kidney stone attack, which resulted in two trips to the hospital, there was a skunk lurking around our front door all week, which made me very twitchy, and the weather got cold really fast, which meant I had to scramble to find shoes and socks that actually covered my entire foot, something I have not needed in almost 6 months.

While at work last Wednesday, I plugged in the kettle to make my co-worker a cup of tea, and set the Tassimo machine to make myself a cup of coffee. About half way through both processes, the coffee machine sighed heavily and stopped dead, and the kettle swooned and fainted altogether. The ventilation fan stopped, leaving the room in an ominous silence, and the lights went out. I'm no electrical engineer, but I was pretty sure we'd popped a circuit somewhere. I went down into the bowels of the basement to suss out the fuse box (and I do mean bowels...the building the salon is in is about a hundred years old, and the back room in the basement has a dirt floor and has a single naked light bulb and looks like Tiny Tim and his family might have lived there. It's pretty grim.)
Nothing looked out of place.

Normally, I'd have gone home and told the Mister (who wasn't working that day) and had him sort it out the next morning. But he had spent the day in the hospital writhing in pain (they actually gave him morphine, if you can believe it.) and had lost two night's sleep. I made an executive decision and called the electrician we usually deal with.

Our electrician's name is Steve, and he is possibly the most morose, despondent, world-weary man I've ever met. He's about 60 or so, and gives the impression of having been disappointed and disillusioned more times than you could ever count. Until, of course, you call with an electrical problem, wherein he sighs heavily and says he will be right there, and you know you have just added one more stone to the Everest of despair that he has to climb every day. He's like Eeyore.

Steve showed up, disheartened and let down by our electrical system, and indeed, the world at large. He poked around and sighed and stifled a sob once or twice, and quickly got the fan, the lights and the outlet working again. Except, there was a set of lights over the shampoo basins that he could not get to work. He tried this and that, he flicked switches on and off, he had a little cry, and finally gave me a look of deeply wounded disappointment and said he couldn't figure it out. I was afraid he would leave and slit his wrists in his truck.

Just then, the Mister came in. He had been at the hospital again that morning, getting an ultrasound (so that they could tell him he definitely had kidney stones.) and he was able to tell Steve/Eeyore that those lights didn't work because the bulbs had burned out and had not been replaced; people complained that they shone in their eyes when they were getting shampooed.

Poor Steve. He looked at me as though I had drowned his boyhood puppy while eating all his birthday cake. I've never felt so totally responsible for one person's happiness as I did at that moment.

He eventually packed up his stuff and left. I couldn't bear to tell him about the switch we have that nobody knows what it does. Or the light fixture that goes on and off according to it's own whims. (Sometimes we come in in the mornings and it's on for the first time in months. Or it just goes off for no reason at all.) Or the outlet that hates the straight iron. I'm afraid he'd lie down and weep.

Wild Life.

The Mister was driving home from work a few days ago, and although this has been the dreariest, coldest, rainiest spring this millenia, on this particular day it was very sunny. And the Mister was driving into the sun. (Stay with me, this gets relevant soon.)

He was driving on a fairly busy, four-lane artery, past the University, heading towards the bridge and the river. Way up ahead, the traffic had cleared, so he could see a fair ways up the road as it curved towards the west. And near the river, he could see something crossing the road that was alarmingly large and unusually shaped.

Now, Canada does have an abundance of wildlife, but not around here. We live in a city, in a pretty populated part of the world; we've had a black bear wander into town once, and there has been a cougar spotted not too far from here on more than one occasion. (And let's be clear, it's the actual "big cat" cougar, not a 40-year old woman on the make.) But polar bears, caribou and moose don't make an appearance around here.

(Once we went to the "Canadian Section" of the Toronto zoo, which required us to walk down a mile-long, 45° angle hill, only to see a few mangy bears, a resigned moose and one seriously pissed off raccoon. The moose was looking at me with an expression that could only mean "I know, right?". The bears were asleep, looking like nothing but some large, furry sofas and the raccoon was plotting his escape. Thing 1 was in a foul mood anyway, and the disgust on her face when she saw that raccoon made the Mister and I giggle for hours. "You made me walk all the way down here to see this??? I can see one of those eating out of the garbage pail in the breezeway any night of the week! Why don't they put a cat in there! " But the Japanese tourists were enthralled.)

The Mister was puzzled...it looked like a moose: it was big and brown, had 4 legs and was all big and broad at the top and sort of sloped down towards the back. Except....it didn't have a head. (If you think it's rare to see a moose in these parts, you can only imagine how extraordinarily unique a headless moose is.)

As the Mister drove up towards the river, and the angle of the sun changed, he was able to discern that what he thought was a headless moose was actually two guys moving a couch. The lead guy had it up on his shoulder, and the back guy was carrying it in front of him at waist level.

I wish it had been a headless moose. It would have been like the southwestern Ontario equivilent of a Sasquatch.

Things I Would Like To Know That Are None Of My Business

1. There is a homeless guy who hangs out near the Tim Hortons' near work, and I see him up at the mall occasionally. He's always polite and sober, and never says more than "have a nice day" with a genuine smile. He seems perfectly normal and functioning, except for the fact that he bathes twice a year and has no belongings or a roof over his head. Why is he homeless?? What's going on that he can't sort his life out? What's up with him. I want to know.

2. The people across the street have lived there for at least 5 years. I have barely set eyes on them in that time....they only seem to come out at night. I think they might be vampires. Also, on occasional summer evenings, I can hear what sounds like a tv coming from their backyard. From the backyard across the street. Why on earth is their tv that loud?

3. My parents have a neighbour we call "Mr. Dogshit", because he's an asshole, and he won't pick up after his dog. He's fought with everyone in the condo complex at one time or another. A few weeks ago, the police came to his door and very quietly arrested him. He's come back since (out on bail??) and been keeping a very low profile. What the hell was that all about? We are dying to know.

4. I read the obituaries every morning, and my morbid curiosity wants to know how some of them died.

5. We had a client who was planning her wedding for over a year; she was really excited about it, came in with her sisters and mother for trial runs and everything. They were all into it big time. And then one day someone called the salon to cancel everything, saying the wedding was off. We've never seen any of them since. And you can bet, even a couple of years later, one of us will occasionally wonder what happened there.

6. There is another client at the salon who's husband was convicted of fraud and sentenced to some jail time. (This was a family who regularly bounced cheques with us, and seemed to be cheerfully indifferent to financial responsibility. Turns out he was using other people's money to supplement their income, and was somewhat surprised when they objected. That was all in the paper.) She still comes into the salon, and we see him around from time to time, but he doesn't seem to be incarcerated....I am all agog to find out what's going on there.

7. I did a client's hair only a few times, and then didn't see her again. She was from Ukraine, right off the plane, and she said she had met her husband on the Internet and then came over here to marry him. I always wondered if she was a mail-order bride. It's not really something that you can ask someone, is it?

8. Other people's finances are an endless source of speculation for me. I come by it honestly, my mother and I spend a lot of time playing "How Do You Think They Can Afford That?"? I wonder all the time if people are in shitloads of debt or if money is no object. I find it difficult not to ask perfect strangers at Ikea if they can actually pay for that new bookcase, or are they adding to the tsunami of owing that will eventually drown them for ever? The Mister hates taking me to Ikea.

9. There is a woman in the neighborhood who walks a LOT. She's must be out walking for hours every day, I see her all the time. That in itself is worthy of note, but when she walks she swings her arms so hard and vigorously that it's a wonder they're still attached to her shoulders. Seriously, she'd hurt you if you got in her way. My father has nicknamed her The Woman That Walks With Her Arms, and if you mention that to anyone at this end of town, they will gasp with recognition and say "I know exactly who you're talking about!" Why does she do that? And doesn't it hurt? I want to know.

To Each His Own.

I was in the car the other day with my daughters, and we came up against a one-way street, which prevented me from turning off the street I was on and going in the direction I wanted. No problem, thinks I, I'll go down a block and do it there, which is what I did. For some reason, this enraged Thing 2 mightily, and she went on a verbal rampage dedicated to her hatred of one-way streets....."What good is a street where you can only drive one direction?? Why shouldn't we be able to drive down there if we want??? This makes NO SENSE!!". It was pretty intense, especially considering we still managed to get where we wanted to go without any trouble. Still, she had decided that this was a hill worth dying on, and was determined to make a big, noisy deal about it.
I realized that everyone something for which they have an incredibly strong opinion, out of all proportion to the issue.

• How the toilet paper hangs. Some people think the toilet paper MUST hang from the top of the roll, while others are sure it must come from the bottom. I've heard people have wild screaming matches about this, sure that their way is the right and proper way and that anyone who thinks otherwise is "a drunken slob". Personally, I'm just happy if there IS toilet paper.
• That the open end of the pillow cases face the middle of the bed. (Or the wall, in the case of a single bed.) I knew a girl who's mother practically wept with disappointment that her daughter and I could make a bed and not know this crucial detail....how were we ever to grow up to be responsible, tax-paying citizens without knowing (or caring!) about this life-altering task? Placing the open end of the pillow cases towards the outside of the bed was tantamount to selling our bodies and smoking crack. To this day, I have no idea what the hell she was talking about.
• Using the phrase "you guys" when addressing a group where there is a woman present. I knew a woman who was incredibly offended when that phrase was used when she was there, because she was so obviously NOT a guy, and therefore the phrase was used to exclude her. And I've heard the same opinion from other women, as well, which baffles me. I get that the word "guys" does not mean exclusively those with a Y chromosome, and whoever is saying it probably wants me to pipe down with the rest of them.
• How to fold towels. Apparently, life as we know it will come to a screeching halt and civilization will cease as we know it if you fold a towel in half, and half again. The correct and only true right way to do this is by folding a towel in half and then in thirds, as God wants it. I was told this by mother of an ex-boyfriend, who scared the crap out of me on more than one occasion.
• Ketchup on French toast. Okay, this one is mine. One Sunday morning, not too long after we were married, I made breakfast for the Mister and I. (You can tell we were newlyweds by the fact that A)I was making breakfast for the Mister and B) he was eating it. He doesn't eat breakfast, and he was probably still being polite about it.) I made French toast, and had maple syrup with mine. The Mister put ketchup on his. I nearly threw up. Ketchup on French toast is an abomination against God and man. He countered that you put ketchup on eggs, and French toast is just bread and eggs, so why not?? Because, I said, I DO NOT put ketchup on eggs, and it's vile, that's why not. (Just for the record, I don't put ketchup on hardly anything, just fries and burgers. Not grilled cheese, not scrambled eggs, not macaroni. The Mister is bewildered.)
• The Designated Hitter Rule. When I was dating, a friend gave me an invaluable piece of advice: if you are struggling to find something to talk about, ask him about his opinion on the Designated Hitter Rule; there's barely a man alive who does not have an opinion about the Designated Hitter Rule. And she was right, in the right hands, that question will usually take care of the rest of the evening. (In baseball, in the American League, the pitcher does not have to take a turn at bat, they send in a special guy, the Designated Hitter, to hit the ball for him and run around the bases.) I've seen heads burst into flames discussing the Designated Hitter Rule....only pull it out when you want things to REALLY liven up.

Who knew?

Smell You Later.

My friend Erin wrote this on her blog, and it inspired me to consider one's sense of smell. It really is an incredibly powerful trigger, for good and for bad. A particular smell can remind you of a person or a place or a time with such potency that for a tiny second, you are right back there again. And a smell can be comforting or repellent or intriguing right now, so that in a few years from now, you will be smack dab in 2010 all over again.

1. Chanel #5. This was the only perfume my mother ever wore, and she only wore it when she and my dad were going out to some big, fancy occasion. It smells like excitement and anticipation and grown-ups to me. On the other hand, I knew a woman who hated Chanel #5, because it was worn by her father's new wife, the one he left her mother for. To each his own.

2. Campfires. The smell of summer., and vacations and parties.

3. Clementines. The smell of Christmas.

4. Sheets dried on the line. That totally smells like freshness and cleanliness and purity.

5. The Mister's cologne. I figured out that the Mister was trying to woo me was when I realized that he was wearing cologne. He never wears cologne, mostly because his allergies won't tolerate it. So, it was a very big deal that he put it on to impress me. And whenever I smell it, I am reminded of that sticky, rainy summer day when we went to the CNE and ate fries and it dawned on me that he cared what I thought.

6. The top of a baby's head. The most perfect smell in the world. Whenever I smell that, I am taken back to nuzzling that downy little head with my cheek, and holding that impossibly small little body in my arms, and nursing at 3 a.m. and feeling like the only person awake in the whole universe.

7. Food when you are really hungry. I don't care what's being cooked, the smell of something on the go when you are faint with hunger is one of the most powerfully fabulous smells in the whole world. You see how people perk up when they smell dinner being prepared on an airplane? And that's airplane food, people.

8. Bad perfume. I once worked with a woman that I particularly disliked, and she wore "Poison" by Dior, and I now hate that stuff. Smells like rotting lilies and over-ripe fruit and whiny, bitter women and betrayal. To me, anyway.

9. Schools. What is that smell? Whenever I walk into a school, any school, I am hit with a mixture of orange peel and sweat and floor cleaner and wet wool.

10. The smell of the beach. Off mosquito repellent, coconut sunscreen and hot sand.

11. Me. The only perfume I really wore with any regularity was "Dewberry" by The Body Shop. I always got so many compliments on that fruity, sweet perfume...it was what I imagined purple to smell like. I don't wear it anymore, mostly because I don't wear any perfume anymore; too many people are allergic to scents to wear perfume. But, if anything smells like me, I think that is it.

Where I Begin My New Identity.

The Mister got a GPS a few weeks ago, which he loves. I have no idea why he got a GPS, since nearly all our driving in within the medium-sized city in which I grew up, and he has lived in for 35 years....chances are that if we have to go somewhere, we already know how to get to it. And most of the driving we do here is between work and home, no assistance required. But the Mister loves an electronic gadget, and couldn't pass up the chance to aquire one, no matter how useless I think it is.
He and the girls seem to spend the majority of the time with the GPS confounding the poor thing. They tell it where they want to go, and the device figures out a route, and then the three of them proceed to take every wrong turn and round-about journey possible, gleefully cackling when the nice English lady on the GPS repeatedly begs them to "turn right, then turn left" at ever corner we pass. Honestly, I would be in complete agreement if the nice English lady on the GPS started swearing a blue streak and telling us to go find our own way home if we are so freaking smart.

Anyway, I was driving the Mister home from work yesterday afternoon at around 4:30, with the girls in the car, and the Mister was telling me that you can programme the device to tell it when you want to arrive somewhere, and it will figure out the time you have to leave, and even alert you when it's time to go. I said I have one of those already, it's called my watch and my head and a sense of responsibility. But he and the girls argued that this was so much better, because it was electronic and therefore, much cooler, and ergo, vastly superiour to my primitive methods.
I said "isn't it way easier to just look at a clock and think 'I had better get going', than go to all that trouble?", and I got HEAPS of scorn dumped on me, with much more enthusiasm than the situation warrented, I have to say.

Thing 1 said "that's just the sort of thing Grandpa would say. Wait a minute....that's because YOU ARE GRANDPA!". Well, the two of them ran with that for a minute or two, thinking up all the ways in which I resemble a 74 year old man with bad knees. "See? You're Grandpa!" they would happily exclaim at each example. When I objected, they trimphantly shouted me down with more examples.

After a minute or two of silence, I yawned, and said I thought I might put my pajamas on right when we got home and go straight to bed before dinner. And Thing 1 shot right out with "What did I JUST say???"

She's right. I'm Grandpa.

Little Things for Little Minds, Part 2

A few days ago, Thing 2's grade 7 class got a visit from the local police to talk to them about the evils of graffiti.

The police told them about the expenses incurred by the victims of graffiti, the eyesore it creates and the general no-goodniks who perpetuate it. However, for some reason, the officer who came to talk gave them examples of graffiti; hilarious examples, in fact. (One was a stop sign with "Don't" above and "Believing" below.) Rather than discouraging the little darlings, I think he just gave them ideas.

I'm not a proponent of graffiti, having been the recipient at the salon too many times to count. Spray painting other people's property with your name or profanities or lewd drawings seems to be about the worst waste of time and energy I can think of, and pitifully childishly attention-seeking, to boot.

But when I see a bit of creativity that makes me laugh out loud? Well, I kind of like that.
I saw this on the way home from dropping Thing 1 off at her high school, and it made my day:

The only problem is, I have this song stuck in my head now. (This is for my dad, who has NO idea what the hell this has to do with that graffiti: the relevant bit is at 1:55.)

Things I Forget All the Time

I just finished a very good book about a woman who is diagnosed with "early on-set Alzhiemer's", (Still Alice, I highly recommend it). Since reading it I find myself worried about every little failure in my memory, and then I remember that I've always forgotten stuff all the time...I keep telling my kids "my head is like a toilet; you can only put so much shit in it at once".
My memory is definitely selective; I can remember ridiculous things, like people's maiden names or where we've seen that actor before, but completely forget to pick up the drycleaning, or where I put the chicken after I came home from grocery shopping. (Hint: follow the smell in a couple of days.) When I regularly found myself looking after other people's children, I lived in fear of forgetting to pick them up from something. (Fortunately, the one time that DID happen, I managed to high-tail it right smart back to the school yard before they freaked out, but not before they noticed I was gone. It took a while before they trusted me again.)

Some things I forget with a tedious regularity are...

• The Alphabet. When I put things in alphabetical order, I have to mentally run through it Every. Single. Time....."Q, R, S, T !"
• The Reusable Shopping Bags. Sure, they seem like a good idea, (although, I still have to buy plastic kitchen bags, so exactly HOW are they helping the environment? Does the environment care whether or not I paid for the plastic I'm throwing out or if I got it free with my groceries?) but I forget to put them in the car at all, let alone bring them into the grocery store with me.
• The Salon's Phone Number. I have worked at that salon for twenty-seven freaking years, and occasionally, my brain completely crashes, and I have to really think about the phone number that has been the exact same number since October of 1982.
• Stuff in the Oven. I regularly put muffin tins or cookie sheets in the oven temporarily, instead of taking them downstairs to the cabinet where I usually keep them. I habitually forget that I have done so, and preheat the oven to bake something, only to find myself with 4 leppin' hot pans and no where to put them. I had to be forcibly stopped from putting anything plastic anywhere near the stove for the very same reason.
• Returning Movies. I don't bother even renting movies anymore, because I will forget to return them, until Blockbuster threatens me with a horrendous "restocking" bill, and I probably didn't even get around to watching the movie.
• Horizontal/Vertical. I have to think twice when pressed to use one term or another.... "Horizon=Horizontal".
• Some Names. We have a couple of clients at the shop in the Sherry/Cheryl/Sharon vein, and they confound me every single time. I have to make sure I look at my day-sheet and repeat the name several times before I can trust myself to speak. It does not help that their last names are McLean/McLeod/McLaird, I couldn't even BEGIN to team those up.

What Goes Around....

Yesterday morning it was way busy at Starbucks, for some reason the place was packed, the line up was almost out the door and all the tables were full. I stopped in for my morning coffee, and expected that it might take a while, given the crowd. The three, female university students a couple of people ahead of me took afront to this, loudly complaining about the length of time it was taking for the line to move.

When they got up to the counter, none of them bothered to take the cell phones out of their ears to rattle off their orders, (one of my very pettest of peeves) and because of the ambient noise, the music and the cashiers inability to distinguish which remarks were addressed to her and which to the phones or the companions, she had a little trouble getting their orders right. By the time the last one reeled off her "ventinowhipdoublefoamextrahotsoyskinnyvanillalatte", the cashier was a bit flummoxed. She repeated what she thought she heard, and the girl gave a big sigh, rolled her eyes, having been inconvenienced beyond all reason, and babbled her order again. The poor cashier politely said that she couldn't hear her very well, and one of the other ones snotted "what is wrong with you??", and then repeated the order like she was talking to a two-year old and flounced off.

The cashier, to her credit, gave the order to the barista, without adding "and a whole lot of spit!", and went on to the next customer.
While the barista made the drinks, the three young women continued to complain and bitch, "we are NEVER coming to this Starbucks ever again", in that sing-songy way that is fashionable among some young women nowadays. (Which begs the question, why do so many young women and gay men affect the same sort of "accent"? What is with that?)

The barista gave them their drinks and cheerily wished them a good day, and they swarmed the cream and sugar station to get their lids, wherein the one who made such a fuss promptly knocked over her ventinowhipdoublefoamextrahotsoyskinnyvanillalatte all over the floor.

Well played, Universe, well played.

Get Me To the Church

I have two "Wendy" friends, Big Liver Girl and the Reverend Wendy. The Reverend Wendy really is an ordained Anglican minister, and is about as much fun as I think the Anglican church will allow. (Big Liver Girl Wendy is a licenced physiotherapist, so I pretty much have my physical and spiritual needs covered when it comes to my Wendys.) I'm Catholic, and Big Liver Girl is United, so and Anglican service was all new to us.

Big Liver Girl decided that it was time we went to see the Reverend Wendy preach, so we roused ourselves out of the house last Sunday, and drove up the road a bit to see her. She had no idea we were coming, so you should have seen her eyes sproing out of her head when she found us sitting in her church. (I should be so lucky as to get that sort of welcome everywhere.)

The Reverend Wendy's church is a lovely little jewel of a church; a hundred-and something- year-old stone and pine affair in the country, that smells exactly like a church should. It is smallish, with lots of stained glass windows, and it looks pretty much like I expect it looked when it was built.

It was the Rememberance Day ceremony, so we sang "God Save the Queen" and "Oh, Canada", and you could tell people really meant it. Actually, all the hymns were good...church is the only place I'm allowed to sing with the gusto I enjoy, and it pleases me mightily when I have good material.

It has come to my attention in the past that Big Liver Girl and I should NEVER, EVER find ourselves in situations where A) solemnity is important, and B) we should be quiet. We are masters of neither. I don't think we made it past the first reading before she whispered something in my ear that had me weeping with laughter and had the pew rattling off the floor. Seriously, she's a menace.

There was a teenage couple ahead of us that had us utterly enthralled. They must have started dating the night before, because he couldn't keep his hands off her, and she was very happy to let him. Big Liver Girl wondered aloud if they thought, perhaps, they were at a drive-in, rather than church on a Sunday morning. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be allowed at a Catholic mass...man, I remember when it was a big deal to wear jeans to mass, let alone snuggle with your sweetie. And, also? they were drinking coffee. During the service. Those Anglicans are wild, I tell you.

After the ceremony, we went up to the hall, where they had lunch set out! It was fabulous! The Wendys and I sat and talked for while drinking coffee and eating some pretty wonderful carrot cake with cream cheese icing. It was marvelous.

I can't remember the last time I had that much fun at church. Sorry, Irish-Catholic ancestors.

Fish Tales

Our fish finally died.

We've had a I say 'finally' because that thing was defying the laws of biology and nature in an increasingly alarming way. That fish has been hanging on by a thread for months now, swimming upside-down, languishing at the bottom of the bowl for hours on end, floating on the surface of the water and generally doing his level best to give us the idea that he was no longer. Then, when one of us would give the glass a rap to see if he was, in fact, dead, he's rouse himself out of his stupor and swim around as usual for a day or so and then repeat the performance. It was getting tiresome.

We have not had a great record when it comes to keeping fish. The Loudshoes household seems to be a Kryptonite for domesticated fish. This last one managed to survive us for at least a year (nobody is quite sure who bought him, or when), but we did go through a spell there with goldfish where they were practically disposable....I think we went through a couple a week.

When the first one, Goldie, died, the girls were quite small; we didn't even have Toby yet. Goldie's death was traumatic and agonizing....Thing 1 and Thing 2 cried as though their little hearts would break. By the time Sausage, the third one died, they hardly blinked. I got a passing "fish is dead" as one of them headed out to school one day. After that, they didn't even bother naming them, it was too much trouble to remember what it was called; they all ended up being called "the fish".

We eventually wised up and stopped getting 35 cent goldfish, and bought a Siamese Fighting Fish, or "Beta", which was not only prettier, but was also hardier. They tend to thrive on neglect (always abundant around here) and had the added bonus of entertaining us by puffing up and putting on a fierce show of aggression when placed in front of a mirror. (The goldfish were woefully unimpressive after that, how could they compete with the Liberace of the fish world?) The Betas tend to last a bit longer, too. No one could remember who bought this one, or when.

All I know is that it wasn't me, because the last thing I would pay good money for was one more thing I had to look after.

Anyway, it's finally gone, and I think it took us a couple of days to even notice, largely because he had been playing at dying for so long, none of us took him seriously. He probably died just to show us up.

I hope to God nobody around here takes it into their fool head to get another fish. Or else I will start languishing at the bottom of my bowl, and playing dead. I wonder if anyone will notice.

Self-Tanner Blues

Our assistant at work, Summer, is an all around nice girl that works hard and makes me laugh very much. She is 22, and I am 47, and I'm pretty sure she didn't think she would ever be friends with someone the same age as her mother.

Summer was going to a wedding last Saturday after work, and she brought all her stuff with her in the morning to get ready at the salon. Because she wasn't planning on wearing pantyhose, she put some self-tanner on her legs for a few days beforehand.
For those of you who are either hazy on the ins and outs of self-tanner, indeed, self-tanner at all, it is the fake tanning lotion you put on your pasty, fish-belly white skin to make it look as though you have been lolling in the sunshine.for days on end. Applying it is a bit tricky, since you can't always reach where you want to put it on, and it takes a few hours to "develop", so the thoroughness of your job isn't immediately apparent. Also, you can't let yourself touch anything until it dries. And it's kind of smelly. Why do we use that stuff again?

When Summer put her dress on and went to leave, she looked down to find that the tanner had taken on her knees better than the rest of her legs, which meant that her gams looked bitchin', but her knees looked grubby and foul. After a lot of swearing and exclaiming, she took a washcloth to the offending knees and gave them a good scrub.
But then when she went to leave, she looked down, and she'd scrubbed too hard! Her knees were now, and I quote, "two shiny, white glowing knobs in the middle of my legs!". I know it was Halloween and all, but that's not really the sort of look you want to sport at a wedding.

A quick application of bronzer (the powder stuff you put on your face to make it look like you've been lolling in the sun) and things were better.

She said she made sure she held her purse in front of her, and crossed her legs a lot until they got into the dim light of the reception hall.
Well played, Assistant, well played.

Lotsa Busy

I used to work in a restaurant when I was a teenager, and there was a guy who washed the dishes named Stavro who was straight off the boat from Greece. Stavro was all kinds of fun, and was learning English as quickly as he could. (We were unfailingly helpful in teaching him all sorts of swear words.) In the middle of the Saturday night mayhem, when we were booked to the rafters and ran out of forks, Stavro would gleefully throw his hands in the air and exclaim "LOTSA BUSY, LOTSA BUSY!!" to anyone in the kitchen.

It's been "lotsa busy" here this past week.

Among other things I did last week, was attend an "Amazing Race" type event here in town. My friend Anne was invited me along, knowing I would be game for any and all Amazing Race themed events anytime, anywhere. (Thing 1 and I would sign up for the real Amazing Race in a heartbeat if they would accept Canadians. Which they DO NOT. We've got it all planned out, Thing 1 will do all the bungee jumping and I will eat all the gross stuff.)

We had a riot, just as expected.

Unlike the regular Amazing Race, there was no million dollars at the end for the winner. In fact, I'm not sure the winner got anything at all, except for the bragging rights. And further fact, WE paid THEM to participate. (The proceeds went to a local charity, I don't think the organizers just absconded with the money.)

There were about 116 people participating, in teams of 4 to 12, and it was quite a sight around the city, let me tell you. All the teams were in costumes, of a sort, doing ridiculous things in public and not at all shy about it. Here is our team, having interrupted a street hockey game to get a picture of us playing with the pumpkin we had to haul around all night:

That's me in the middle with the sunflower hat, the orange feather boa and the rainbow argyle socks on. (Our team was the "Tacky Tootsies", and I have no trouble doing tacky. )

At one point we met some very confused German exchange students, who stopped us to ask us what the hell was going on and why were there so many strangely dressed adults who should know better running around on the streets demanding 1972 pennies and hay. (For the scavenger hunt.) I expect that was an interesting phone call back to Berlin that evening....."and zey run around wearing strange clothes for ze poor people!"

On Sunday, I highlighted Thing 1's hair, which takes all day. I wanted to use her and Thing 2 for part of a photo shoot we were doing for the shop on Monday, so I needed to colour her hair for the photos. Photo shoots sound glamorous and exciting, but they are hard work. Luckily, when your children are your models, and you are only taking pictures of their hair, it's a lot easier. (I remember doing the hair and makeup for a magazine layout that involved 8 children under 10 years of age. They all sat around like wax figures until one of the mothers suggested we give them some Coca Cola, and a few minutes later we had to scrape them all off the ceiling. That was a challenging shoot.)

I went to a cocktail party, did a few haircuts in my kitchen, got the groceries and cleaned the house, went to a book club meeting and managed to have a beer with Big Liver Girl.

A busy week, but a good one.