Dishing It Out

As modern conveniences go, I think the dishwasher is really the overlooked work-horse/miracle of the latter half of the twentieth century. Sure, washing dishes isn't that difficult or time consuming, but as any siblings that grew up without a dishwashing machine know, there are few occasions that bring boredom and resentment into a toxic half-hour quite like being made to wash and dry the dishes together. It can bring you closer, that quiet time alone in the kitchen to chat and pass the time, or, more likely, foments a bitter contest of wills that will fester into a lifetime spiteful resentment, which usually only ends when one of you moves out. 

My family got a dishwasher when we moved into a house that had one, in 1973. Before this, my parents did not  make my brother and I wash or dry the dishes after dinner, reasoning that it was faster, cheaper and easier on everyone if they did not. But we were all still thrilled to have a dishwasher. I'm pretty sure my mother bought the house for that alone. And dishwashers were not a ubiquitous thing in 1973; our Harvest Gold specimen was still worthy of note at that time. Consumer goods changed quickly in the 70s, and pretty soon dishwashers were standard. 

And I grew up in a house with a dishwasher and took it totally for granted.

The Mister did not grow up in a house with a dishwasher, and our first house when we got married did not have a dishwasher, either. You see where this is going?

The Mister and I didn't live together before we were married, and despite knowing each other for 10 years by the time we tied the knot, and having spent countless hours in each other's company, there were still a few surprises for us when we actually shared the same living space. Like, the fact, that I use about 40 spoons to cook a dinner, and we each use 120 glasses every damn day, and the Mister doesn't actually put anything in the sink, he just likes to arrange the used dishes jauntily around the edge, so that when someone want to use the sink she has to navigate around the obstacles, lest everything go crashing and breaking into said sink. We lived in that house for 4 years, and although I got used to only using 20 spoons to make the dinner, the lack of a dishwasher was always a bone of contention. (Believe me, I tried to figure out a way to put a dishwasher in that kitchen, but it was impossible. The only place to put it was bang in the middle of the room, which  meant jumping over it to get to the bathroom.) 

We had very different ideas of how to deal with the plethora of dishes, particularly baby bottles, that a family generates through the day: I thought that we should wash them as we go, having a drying rack constantly sitting beside the sink, taking up valuable counter space. The Mister would rather keep one of our two sinks with a few inches of water in it all the time, so that you could put things in it "to soak", which meant that, sooner or later, someone was going to have to put their hand into that grey, cold, yucky water to pull the plug out and wash the dishes. It was an ongoing battle, and I can assure you, for two grown people with jobs and morgages and responsible lives, we were shamefully childish about who that someone was going to be. 

The house we live in now came with a dishwasher. I nearly cried with gratitude when we first came though the place. That and the en suite bathroom meant that I didn't care if it came with a roof, we were going to buy this house.

Now the battle about the dishwasher revolves about loading it. The Mister has demonstrated a unique and masterful proficiency in loading the dishwasher; he can fit in approximately 150% more dishes than the rest of us. We think the dishwasher is full and ready to be turned on, and the Mister gets at it and there is an entire empty rack when he is done. I tell you, as Fairly Mild Super Powers go, it's a beauty. 

The problem is (for him, anyway) that now we all know how good he is at it, and we hardly bother any more. The girls and I fling in dishes willy-nilly, secure in the knowledge that the Mister will come along and make everything peachy keen again. The Mister isn't a fan of this system, obviously, but his attempts to teach us how to load the dishwasher have thus far proved fruitless. We simply don't have the talent. (Or, lets be honest, the interest.) 

The Mister likes to run the dishwasher late at night, when the water and electricity rates are cheaper, which means that I wake up in the morning to a dishwasher full of clean dishes (YAY!) that has to be emptied, (BOO!) This is a First World Problem of the first order, because I timed myself once and it took me 10 minutes to empty the dishwasher. Ten whole minutes. (I'm such a whiner...can you imagine explaining to your great-grandmother what a chore it is to put the clean dishes away that you didn't have to clean yourself??She would, rightly, slap you.)

I'm hope that there are siblings and marriages and all kinds of relationships that have been saved by the advent of the dishwasher. I'm pretty sure mine is one of them.

Big Mistake.

On Saturdays, I don't really plan a dinner....usually everyone fends for themselves. Leftovers, scrambled eggs, something in the freezer, they all will do for "Suit Yourself Saturday".
Last night, as I was pulling out the frying  pan to make Sweet and Sour Tofu and Broccoli, Thing 2 was wondering what to have and whining about having to do it. (For the record, I offered to make her some Sweet and Sour Tofu, but she reacted like I'd offered her some Ebola virus for dinner.) I really didn't feel like making dinner myself, and half-jokingly said "why don't we go out to eat?" Thing 1 was working, the restaurant is just up the road, and Thing 2 has a rather alarming addiction to their Chicken Fingers and Fries, so once it was out of my mouth, I knew I'd have to follow up.
We put on some pants, (we were in our pajamas already. At 6 pm. Don't judge.) grabbed our purses and got in the car. We even got a parking spot right by the door. (This becomes relevant later.)

Thing 1 was delighted to see us. ("Oh, good", she said when she was us seated in her section, "I'm kind of busy and I can ignore you for a while.") She did eventually take our orders and serve us our food, all the while treating us with a minimum of courtesy, which was a pleasant break for her.

Thing 2 had her chicken fingers and fries, with a salad, and I opted for the Chicken Souvlaki with rice and Greek Salad. (I'm sure you will agree, a way better dinner than Sweet and Sour Tofu.)
Thing 1 offered Thing 2 some jello that had been "left out for a while, no one knows how long", and which was going to be thrown out so she could have it for free. The only thing Thing 2 likes better than chicken fingers and fries is free jello.

We enjoyed our dinner very much, and as we were leaving, we were talking and congratulating ourselves on having the good sense to abandon our previous plans and go out for dinner. The two of us walked towards our grey Chevy van, and hopped in.

As I went to put my purse in it's usual spot between the seats, I noticed that the junk-filled console that usually sits there was not there.....and when I looked behind me to see if it had somehow slid back towards the rear seat, it wasn't there either. And there was some paper I didn't recognize on the floor.....and a pink, sparkly article of clothing I'd never seen before......and how come the seats were down in the middle of the van?? As all this is running through my head, Thing 2 is still yaking away about our superior intelligence, when I blurt out "Wait a minute, is this our van?" Thing 2 looks at me like I've just started speaking Cantonese, and then looks around herself for a beat or two and then looks at me in horror and yells "NO!".

We sprung out of that van like it was on it's way to hell, and realized that OUR van was right beside this one, which was identical to ours. You never saw two women run so fast as the two of us, we jumped in that van like it was an Olympic event, and hightailed it out of that parking lot before anyone came out of the restaurant to accuse us of attempted theft and possible possession of illegal van.

After we stopped laughing long enough to form coherent sentances, Thing 2 said that she'd have figured it out sooner or later, "that other van smelled wrong".

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.

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.

Pack Up Your Troubles.

We are going away on holidays next week, and I am just about at the point of organizing myself for my holidays that, if anyone told me it was all called off and I didn't have to go, I'd be altogether thrilled.
Not that I don't want to go on holidays, it's just that I don't want to get ready to go on holidays. Its so much work to get yourself organized to go on holidays that you need a holiday when you are done. Which works out well.

This year the Loudshoes family are veering wildly from our usual plans of a week up at a cottage on Lake Huron. (The cottage was sold last winter, and we don't know the new owners and they would probably charge us considerably more for the use of their dwelling than a couple of haircuts and a really good loaf of homemade soda bread.)
This year, we are going to Europe; specifically, Ireland, France and England. For two weeks, not one, which is stretching my organizational abilities to their max.

The girls are beside themselves excited, and the Mister is totally thrilled and I am trying hard not to think of this as more than a shitload of work and worry.
My father asked if I was getting excited for our trip and I said that I was beginning to have dreams about missing planes and forgetting passports and losing luggage, so yes, I think I am.

I'm always this way before a trip, trying to plan for every eventuality and driving myself absolutley crazy with all the possible disasters that I have to avert. ("Umbrellas in case it rains! Bandaids and moleskin for blisters! Immodium in case of diarhhea! Anti-venom for snakebites! Sunscreen! Rubber bands! An axe!" I have to remind myself we are going to London and Paris, not Mumbai and Mount Everest.)
I guess I come by it honestly; when my father's mother came to Canada to visit us from Ireland in 1967, she brought her own tea, because she was afraid we wouldn't have any good stuff here.

I have to tell myself that no matter what I pack, I will take lots of things I wish I hadn't, and I will forget to bring something so vital, so necessary, that I will wonder if I had been smoking crack while I was packing. One time we went to the cottage and I forgot to pack sheets for the beds.....all of them. And another time, I sent Thing 2 to summer camp with no underwear and no pajamas.

We are also visiting the west coast of Ireland, where my father comes from. We will be staying in the house my grandparents built, where my dad grew up and where my parents lived when they first got married. I love that house and west Kerry, and I'm really pumped to show it to my kids.

Currently, here in southwestern Ontario, the weather is stupid hot. It has been over 30°C for over a week now, and on Thursday, it was 35°, which is ridiculous. I have been keeping and eye on the weather, and in Dingle, where we will be going, it is 16°C and drizzly. (Says my father, "I could have told you that; it's always 16 and drizzly. April, August, November, February, 16 and drizzly.") With the heat and drought here, the beaches of West Kerry never looked so inviting.

This really will be a trip of a lifetime; the girls are at a terrific age to be going overseas, and I'm thrilled to be able to go to Paris, however briefly.

I just hope I pack enough tea.

Hello?

After lusting after one for lo these many months, I broke down and bought an iPhone 4 on the weekend. Judging from the way it has consumed my existence this week, I think I may be in need of some sort of 12-step programme to get on with my life.

It all started with my mp3 player. It's a crappy little iPod knock-off I got on eBay about 6 years ago. It worked okay for a while, but eventually, the jack for the earpieces got touchy, and I had to jam it in with my thumb to get sound in both ears. And it hated running almost as much as I did; the bouncing around made it so mad it skipped all over the place. It was like I was running with an actual record and turntable in my hand. The last straw was when it started declining to play certain pieces, and the words "BAD SONG!" came up on the little screen, like I need my electronic devices criticizing my taste in music.

Then I got a new phone last Christmas. It was an improvement over my last cell phone, which was 2 years old and was quite literally being held together with scotch tape. But the buttons were very small, and I was having trouble typing messages on it quickly. (God, listen to me! Talk about "First World Problems")

Eventually I decided my life was completely without meaning unless I could get onto the internet at any time I chose. We don't have internet at work, and the thought of not being able to obsessively check my Facebook at a moment's notice, or look at excerpts from "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" on YouTube was making my life a misery.
Also, we are going to Montreal in a few weeks time, and I knew an iPhone would enable me to locate each and every Tim Horton's within walking distance at any time.

So, I got the phone. I am completely enamored of it. I felt like this when my kids were growing up: "NOW look at what it can do!!"
Except, I have spent the past week on the Apple website figuring out how to use it, and loading it up with all sorts of apps and music and such. I'm wasting hours and hours with this, and neglecting the rest of my life shamefully. But it's so much fun!....I have games! And a camera! And playlists! I even found an app that when you hold the phone up to a speaker that's playing music, it will tell you what the song is and who's singing it! And another site that, if I lose my phone, will tell me where it is, anywhere in the world! (I wish there was one that would tell me where in the house I've left it, because I envision that scenario happening a LOT.)

The Mister sure likes it; he spends ages playing around with it and watching it do things. (Again, sort of like when we had kids.) Thing 1 and Thing 2 want one of their own, maybe not today, but sometime in the future. (Baby analogy still holds.)

As for me, I'm enjoying the honeymoon phase of my new aquisition....everything is rosy and shiny and new, and we're perfect together. Eventually I will probably not think about it so much and just use it when I need it. I may even make a phone call on it.

Adventures in Health Care.

I had to have an ultrasound yesterday, and no, it's not because I am pregnant. Suffice it to say, at my physical a few weeks ago, the doctor wanted to get a better look at some of my innards. If you have never had an abdominal ultrasound, let me fill you in on what you have to do. First, it is imperative that your bladder is really full when this is done. They recommend that you drink "four large glasses of water at least an hour before your appointment", their emphasis, not mine. They say this gives them a better look at your bits and pieces by getting a bit more pressure from the inside. I think it's to stop you from hanging around and asking too many questions. Just to tell you, my bladder is the tiniest of all bladders ever created. I arrive everywhere having to go to the bathroom. I ration out liquids with the precision of an American general planning an invasion; my bladder is a finely tuned machine. Ask my mother, I've always been this way. She claims she knew where every public washroom in a hundred square miles was located when I was a kid. The Mister can't figure out why I need a bathroom stop on the way to the mall. I drank one large glass of water on the way to the appointment, about 20 minutes away. By the time I had filled out the paperwork I ready to go. The waiting room was full of panicky, desperate, slightly frantic women of all ages, looking at the clock every two seconds with a slightly deranged look in their eyes and a palpable air of anguish. Every time the technicians came and called someone in, there was a collective sigh of envy and grief. You would not want to spend ten seconds in that room, lest you gave up all hope for a happy life. After a mercifully short wait, I got called in. The technician was a very nice looking young man with a devastatingly beautiful voice. It was not simply because he called my name that I thought so, he really did have a lovely, deep, rich tenor voice that made me want to listen to him all day He got me on the table, and instructed me to lie down and arrange my clothing thus, and then, in that beautiful, melodious voice that sounded like the angels themselves were calling out to you, he said, "Your bladder is really nice and full". Which struck me as so funny coming out from that face and voice that I nearly laughed out loud. Which would have rendered that sentiment as completely false. I managed to make it through the 10 minutes or so of him plopping a wallop of cold, gooey gel on my stomach and then rummaging all over my abdomen to find the required bits and pieces. At the end of the procedure, he said, again in that dulcet murmur "You can use the toilet around the corner", which made me wonder what would be the worst, most unattractive thing he could say in that voice, and still make it sound like George Clooney and Morgan Freeman were here in the room with me...perhaps or "is that smell coming from you?" or "you really should have that looked at" or "that's one hell of a cold sore". This amused me no end until the end of the appointment. At least I made it back to the salon with only two pit stops on the way.

Scare And Scare Alike.

I wouldn't consider myself very nervous or high-strung, but considering how easily I get startled or scared, I may have to re-think that.

The Mister is very light on his feet, and at least once a day, he comes up behind me and scares the shit out of me. Not on purpose, mind you, just because I haven't heard him and he starts talking to me when I didn't know he was there. I've suggested he start wearing a bell, and he's suggested that I get my hearing checked.

It's happened a few times at work, too. The counter where I mix the colour formulas makes me stand with my back to the door, and inevitably someone comes in the mixing room, thinking I've heard them, and starts talking to me. I jump out of my skin and suffer a mild coronary, and then I answer their question. We had a new assistant one day, who did that while introducing himself to me. He said it was the best first day he ever had at any job.

When I was a teenager, someone gave me a life-sized poster of Humphrey Bogart for my birthday. I hung it on the inside of my bedroom door, but had to take it down after a couple of weeks; I kept waking up in the middle of the night in a mild seizure because I thought there was a man standing in my doorway. It would take ages for my adrenal glands to calm down and let me go back to sleep.

I never had to share a room with anyone much, and was used to sleeping by myself. When the Mister and I first got married, I had a couple of incidents where I'd wake up a bit and then leap out of bed in fear when I realized I could hear someone else breathing...."there's someone in the room with me!!" Then I'd remember I was married. The Mister can laugh about it now, but was really pissed back then. Have all the panic attacks you want, but don't mess with the Mister's sleep.

Today I managed to scare myself. I was awake really early this morning, so I got up to go out in the living room to read for a bit, planning on going back to bed. I turned on the light in the living room, and then went to find my book, and as I came back into the living room, caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window and for a split second was convinced there was someone outside looking in. In the exact same bathrobe as me. It scared the snot out of me.

I'm not sure if I need Valium or new glasses.

Cautionary Tale

I usually do the grocery shopping on Mondays.....no crowds + day off = Happy Mrs. Loudshoes. There are about 3 grocery stores that I frequent, depending on my mood, their specials and what I need to get.....No Frills is really cheap, but the staff is surly and testy, and there's no deli. Loblaws has everything I could ever need or want, but it's a bit more expensive and I have to dress up because I am bound to meet every single person I ever knew that I want to think well of me. Sobey's is in the middle, not too expensive, not too socially demanding, but they seem to change the entire layout of the store constantly, so that I end up going around and around the store about thirty times just to get paper towels and butter.

I went to Sobey's last week because they had pot roasts on sale and I was wearing running shoes.

I was texting Thing 1 at one point, because she had written something hilarious on my shopping list. As I was going along with my grocery cart, one of the young guys that works there jokingly said "you shouldn't text and drive", which made me laugh. As I did so, I rounded the corner to start up another aisle, and I managed to take out an entire end display of disposible aluminum trays, complete with lids. I mean, I caught that thing with the front end of my cart and absolutley clobbered it with an almight force that knocked it sideways and spewed disposible aluminum trays and their lids in a most spectacular fashion. The young guy doubled over laughing, but quickly recovered himself long enough to apologize and take in my reaction. I was too busy doubling over myself, and had trouble hearing him. He said he hoped I wasn't offended at him laughing, and I said I didn't see how he could help it; it was quite a breathtaking episode.
His boss happened by, to find the two of us picking up the stuff while wiping our eyes and occasionally bursting into guffaws. The kid said it was the best thing he'd seen all day.

Luckily, aluminum foil pans do not leave much of a mess, and we managed to clean it up quickly, but I'll tell you, those things can fly. There was one that must have been twenty feet away.

So not only should you not text and drive, you should probably not text and drive a grocery cart, either.

Better Late Than Never. Really.

I get quite a lot of stuff done on any given day; I keep thinking I should start a list in the morning of all my accomplishments, and then I would realize how many gazillion decisions I make all the time, and how much I actually do get done when I think I'm lolling about not doing anything. I would do that, except I am a terrible procrastinator, and I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I'm very good at getting the things done that have to be done; I excell under pressure and I am freaking brilliant at mulit-tasking and working to a deadline. But if there is even the slightest chance that I am not going to be held accountable for my inertia, all bets are off. Especially if I'm the ultimate beneficiary....I am very understanding when it comes to my own transgressions; I will forgive myself unendingly, and then buy myself an ice cream to make me feel better.

Currently, I have three or four unfinished knitting and crochet projects lying around the house. I keep meaning to finish them but honestly? it's never going to happen. I've completely lost interest in them and nobody cares if they get done or not. It's like I am a very bad Grade 7 girlfriend, and my boyfriend is the two by two scarf I was really excited about a while ago but have lost interest in, but I haven't told him yet. I've moved on to the off-white wool hat with the cables, and I'm hoping the scarf will just take the hint and go away.
Starting a new project before I've finished the last one is the kiss of death for anything creative in my life; it just will not ever, ever regain my mercurial attention again in this lifetime.

When I painted the bathroom in the basement, oh, 5 years ago, I had the girls make some pictures which I planned on framing and using in there. I should probably get the frames for that.

I have a bathrobe that someone bought me for Christmas years ago. It's a bit too small and it has Winnie-The-Pooh all over it. The fabric is woefully unequipped for sopping up any water from my post-shower body, and it has borne the brunt of numerous cat-claws (from the early morning Tuna Beg-a-thon.) I keep meaning to replace it.

I can't even close the junk drawer in the kitchen. (Okay, any of the junk drawers in the kitchen, of which there are several.) Someday I'm going to clean those out, but not before I stumble into the jutting corners and gouge a divot out of my thigh a few more times.

I've been meaning to find a new dentist for about a year now. We keep schlepping off to the old dentist with very bad grace, which is a 30 minute drive right across town in rush hour traffic, and I think it's time we put everyone of us out of our collective misery. The dentist included.

There is a few meters of gauzy, light yellow fabric I purchased to make curtains for our en suite bathroom sitting by my sewing machine. They have been there for about 7 years now. I'm already tired of that particular paint job in the bathroom and will be re-doing it shortly. If I ever get around to it.

Butting Out

I'm a reformed smoker; I quit smoking 19 years ago this week. I'd love to say it was the most difficult thing I've ever done, and I'm so proud of myself, but honestly? it wasn't nearly as hard to quit as I thought it would be, and I feel a little ashamed of myself whenever people congratulate me.

I started smoking, like most idiots do, because I was young and stupid and I thought it would make me look older and smarter. I persisted under that illusion for 15 years, and believe me, I was a dedicated smoker. It punctuated my day, gave me a reason to take a break or to transition from one activity to another. I met fellow smokers outside at parties, I had something to do when waiting for something or someone, and it was how you knew that dinner was over.

I don't think there has been any other activity that has undergone such a mainstream turnaround in such a short time as smoking. When I was younger,cigarettes were everywhere, and completely acceptable. I remember, as a kid, tellers smoking in banks and cashiers at grocery stores smoking while they worked. You could smoke in the movies and on planes. They only stopped students from smoking during lectures the year before I went to university. Clients could smoke while they were getting their hair done; I was allowed to smoke while doing my job as a receptionist. My mom had a smoking room when she was in hospital for back surgery in the early 70's. And by the mid-80's that was all on the way out, and by the beginning of the 90's, it was done; you couldn't smoke anywhere in public anymore.

And at that point, I was getting tired of smoking. I was tired of spending the money, of finding a place to have a cigarette, of the smell on my clothes and constant ragging from my friends and co-workers. And I was dating the Mister, and he never smoked and if there's one thing I really did stick to when I smoked it was that I never smoked in someone's house who didn't smoke themselves. So I was spending more and more time at his place, and smoking was becoming more and more inconvenient. And my neice, Widget, was born the year before, and every time I lit a cigarette in her presence I felt irresponsible and guilty. And I'd had enough.

I told myself I was "not buying any cigarettes today". And after I did one day, I figured I could do another one. And after that, I could do one more. And by the third day, I didn't want to go through all the shouting in my head if I caved and bought some. So I didn't. And by the end of the week, I decided that if I could do that, I could do it indefinitely. And by the end of two weeks, I realized that I had quit smoking.

My mom and dad quit smoking shortly after I did; they had smoked a lot longer than me, and it was a lot tougher for them, and I'm proud that they stuck with it. I'm glad they did too....I haven't seen that anyone who smokes past their 50s is better off for it.

So when people ask me how I did it, I'd love to be able to brag and say I overcame a horrendous addition with my formidable willpower. But really, I just..... stopped. Just like that.

Fall On Your Knees.

You know, sometimes I'm pretty sure the universe is sitting around, langorously blowing smoke rings, and looking down on me saying "really, that girl is getting too full of herself. Let's remind her of exactly who is in charge".

Last Friday was an incredibly beautiful spring day here; warm without being too hot, sunny and bright, a silky cool breeze to keep everything in motion. With the Mister's aunt in the hospital, my evenings have been taken up the past week, and I had found no time for a run for ages. I was bound and determined that I was going running Friday morning, a good run too; no shortcuts, no slacking, no excuses. And lo and behold, I found myself actually enjoying that run! I couldn't believe it: I wasn't gasping for breath! My feet weighed their regular amount, no added lead! My hip joints were not threatening to go into business for themselves!! This wasn't so bad after all!!

Just as I came to the last few hundred yards before home, and I marvelled at my incredible self, my toe hit a bit of sidewalk that was sticking up, and I found myself body surfing the pavement. I went down like a runaway elevator. My knees took the brunt of it, breaking my fall with skin and bone, and then my hands and elbows wanted in on the party, and finally, my generous belly.

Picture it: a chubby, sweaty middle-aged woman rolling around on the sidewalk in the middle of the morning, wearing running shoes and bellowing obscenities at top volume. There didn't seem to be anyone around to witness my performance, but I'm pretty sure that even if there had been, they'd have kept out of sight.

I picked myself up, examined the damage with as much dignity as I could muster, and limped home with blood dripping down my legs. Luckily it wasn't far. The injuries were confined mostly to my knees, which were shredded, and a bit of wear on my hands and elbows. Bandaids were administered, and I walked with care for the rest of the day, but mostly, I was okay.

The next afternoon, the Mister and I had to go to a cocktail party. I went home after work and got changed to go, and put on a skirt, as the friction of pants on my knees was unpleasant. When we were in the car on the way to the party, the Mister asked if I was considering standing for the duration of the party. When I asked why, he glanced at my skirt, which had ridden up enough when I sat down to reveal my grubby, bloody bandaged knees. Very elegant. So I did stand up for the entire party, thank you.

Apparently, pride really DOES go before a fall.
Thanks, universe, for so eloquently and graphically teaching me that lesson.
I got it.

Bored

A few weeks ago, Thing 2 texted me from school to beg me to come and get her, as the lesson she was attending was, "so boring I want to kill myself". It turns out the teacher, in attempt to corral some waning Grade 7 interest, was trying to tie in the history lesson with the Vancouver Olympics, which were taking place at the time. Her misguided but well intentioned lesson? The history of Curling. (The sport, not the styling.)
Okay, now I get what Thing 2's deal was....present day curling is a yawn-fest, but the history of curling? would put me to sleep.
For the record, I did not come and get her from school, and since she had no access to sharp objects, C02 or prescription drugs, she was unable to carry out Plan B. She just had to put up and shut up, as all of us have had to do at one time or another.

I got to thinking about boring things that I have had to endure, and really, the list wasn't all that long. Probably because I bring a book with me everywhere and I rarely have time to be bored. When I can recall being bored, it has to do with being trapped somewhere and not being able to change my circumstances:

• I was at a wedding once, where the speeches were interminable, but worse than that, the groom's side gave every one of their speeches in French. For about 45 minutes. The bride's family and friends did not speak French. You can imagine how much that did to endear the both families to each other.
• I took a class in Canadian Foreign Policy when I went to university. My GOD that was boring. It didn't help that the professor had the personality of a stop sign, but also, Canadian foreign policy consists mostly of "and then in 1978 a committee was formed to discuss the possibility of arranging a meeting where there might be a vote on the idea of at some point maybe having a discussion about sub-section 56-D of the legislation in progress concerning the matter of tariffs with Central America." That was delivered in the most monotonous of monotones, and for a whole semester, too.
• I've been on a few dates or attended a few parties where I wished I had brought my book. Especially one party, where singing show tunes was the main entertainment, and it was so loud you couldn't talk to anyone else. Also, there was no booze allowed, because the hosts did not allow drinking in their home.
• Because the Mister and I own our own business, people who are looking for recruits into their own "multi-level marketing" business think we would be IDEAL candidates.....we talk to people all day! we could sell the products in the salon! it's a win-win situation!! (Except, we are not interested as we already own our own business and don't need another one.) As a result, I have found myself sitting through more than one attempt to seduce me into taking part, mostly because I was too stupid to figure out what it was before attending, or too polite to get up and leave when I did figure it out. I usually want to chew off my own arm and beat myself to death with it, just to put an end to it.
• Occasionally at the salon, we have to have "product knowledge" seminars. This is usually when we bring in a new product line and have to learn what does what and so on. The rep from the company comes, invariably reads the information off the label and asks if we have any questions...."this shampoo is for colour-treated hair, so, yeah, you would use this on hair that has been coloured." It will destroy your soul. I'm not sure why we have to have someone come in and read a label to me; I can read them perfectly well myself, but that seems to be the way it's done.
• I had a client for a while that I dreaded to see his name in the appointment book. He really was the most boring person God ever made, I swear. Thank God I could cut his hair fast, because for the half hour I had to deal with him, he talked non-stop about: what he ate today, what he's allergic to, what he dreamt last night and his past medical history. And guess what he did for a living? He sold duct work. Which he could also talk about for a half an hour. (Looking back, the poor man probably had some sort of syndrome that made him unfit for human company, but he was still mind-numbingly boring.)

Honorable mention goes to an event that I did not attend, but my father did. As a James Joyce scholar, my father attended a continuous reading of the book "Ulysses" for some sort of anniversary of the author, or some such nerdy reason. The reading started at, I think, 2 p.m. and continued, with various people reading, until the book was finished, about 20 hours later, or some such thing. When told of the event, I was dutifully impressed, under the impression that it was an experiment to see if it was possible for people to actually DIE of boredom. My dad lived through it, and if it's possible, seemed to actually enjoy it, so I guess not, but I'm not convinced.

Given all that, I figured Thing 2 could handle a less-than-interesting history lesson. At least it wasn't in French.

My Mundane Life Goals

I'm not at all ambitious. I'm very happy with what I've got, and there's not much more that I want. I have no desire to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, or to run a marathon or to read the Encyclopedia Brittanica from cover to cover. I have no interest in bragging rights. The Loudshoes family motto is "That Will Do", and really, that will do. So, my goals are modest and my dreams few:

• To be able to put my keys in the same place all the time, so I can find them again whenever I want.
• To have closets that are not full. Where you can just take things out without having to take out other things first.
• To have a van that does not look like a toxic waste dump.
• To wake up without help from a 12-pound, furry orange alarm clock.
• To be able to watch a movie all the way through in one go, without falling asleep.
• To be able to tolerate crowds, so that walking through one does not make me want to throttle the living shit out of certain people.
• To not eat all the bread and butter at the restaurant, and ask for more, because then I'm too full to eat my meal.
• To stop making up ridiculous words to existing songs, so that I can no longer remember the actual words to the song. ("Sexy Cat" for "Sexy Back" being the most egregious example.)
• To finally find that perfect pair of black shoes that go with everything in my closet and a few things I don't even own yet.
• To make salad dressing that does not taste exactly the same no matter what I put in it.
• To like my hair.

Things You Will Never Hear Me Say

1. Camping? I'd love to! I hope it's good and cold out there!
2. Oh, yes, more blue cheese, please!
3. I think I've slept enough.
4. I'm sorry, I can't come that day, I have to clean my house.
5. This movie is so boring; I hope that guy keeps making comments about it, only louder.
6. Oh my gosh! You are so right! I do charge too much for my work! Let me lower the price for you; I make too much anyway.
7. I could listen to gangsta-rap all the live long day. SO relaxing.
8. Don't be silly, I love telemarketers! What can you sell me?
9. Books are over-rated. Give me Nascar any day.
10. Please tell me more about how I can make all kinds of money in a multi-level marketing scheme.
11. Let me help you with that math homework.
12. I'm giving up coffee.
13. Competitive sports?!? Sign me up!!
14. Really, you can never spend too much on a car.
15. Your baby looks like Yoda.

Hospital Blues

Last night I took Thing 1 to the mall and had a good hard fall on the ice in the parking lot, and today I have one hell of a sore shoulder. The result is a day off work and a trip to the hospital this morning. (The irony is, I gave up running for the winter because I was afraid that I might slip and fall and have to take some time off work.)The nurse said she figured I would be the first of a parade of such injuries, since it rained and then got cold yesterday.

The hospital was pretty efficient; we have a "sort of emergency" room at one hospital, for people who need attention, but it's not life threatening. I got the Mister to drop me off there on his way to work, because after a fairly painful night, I thought I might have done something serious and we are leaving for Florida in a few days, and the last place I want to spend my holidays is in Orlando General. Not to mention, I spend allllll day with my hands up at shoulder height, anything that interferes with that compromises my paycheque mightily.
After some x-rays and a couple of hours at the hospital, the diagnosis was "you have a sore shoulder", which was fine with me, at least it wasn't a fracture or a torn rotator cuff or Dutch Elm disease.

Hospitals are miserable places, what with being full of sick people and all. But the people watching is truly fascinating...I just wanted so much to be able to ask everyone around me "so, what are you in here for?". (And it does not escape my notice that I would be asking the very same question if we were all in jail.) I did bring a book, but mostly I watched everyone else:

• Naturally, the vast majority of the patient population is elderly. Getting old is not for sissies, and lots of people do it with more grace and humor than I think I am going to muster.
• Being significantly overweight makes your life very much harder. And mobility problems as a result of being overweight makes every little action that much harder still. Note to self: lose ten pounds before it is sixty pounds.
• People who work in hospitals really do care. Every single person I encountered was efficient but friendly, and made sure I was getting what I needed done as soon as they could.
• Sick people are cranky and impatient. It's just as well I'm not a nurse, can you imagine me dealing with that all day?
• The number of pregnant women who smoke is surprising, given all the information on the subject.
• When you have three people in a waiting room with the same first name, hilarity ensues.

My right wing is still sore, but after a nap and some chocolate, I think I'm on the mend. But I'm staying away from that damn mall.

My Inadvertant Criminal Career

When you live in a place where the temperature routinely gets to a point where it could re-arrange your anatomy without provocation, you end up having an entire wardrobe of winter gear. You have your "holy shit, that's cold" coat, which is totally ugly but entirely up to the job of keeping you warm, your "kind of cold, formal" coat, which is reasonably warm, but makes you look kind of attractive, your "sort of around freezing, casual" coat, which will keep you comfortable if you find yourself outside for less than an hour, and reasonably presentable. And there are all sorts of permutations in between; I guess the average Canadian has about 6 winter coats.
I have all of the above, and then some. One of my favorite coats is my plain, black wool number, that looks fine with jeans and skirts, is not too bulky (i.e does not make me look Michelin man-like at all) and can be worn 80% of the time between November and March.

This morning it was a little milder than it has been for the past month, and so I pulled out my trusty black winter coat (that I hadn't worn in a while) and put it on with my bitchin' silk scarf that elicits compliments wherever I go. When I put it on, I vaguely noticed that there were 3 buttons instead of 4, which felt kind of funny when I did it up, but I figured the bottom one fell off. Hmmm.

When I went to put my receipt from Starbucks into my pocket later this morning, the pockets were all sewn up, and I could't put anything in there. Didn't remember that from before. Hmmmm.

When I went out at lunch time to mail some letters, I picked up the coat from the rack in the staff room, from the Hindenburg of black wool coats that were hung up in the staff room. "Must be mine, because my gloves and scarf are in it, but I don't remember my coat being that long". Hmmm.

Just before I leave, I decide to go to the bathroom, and take off my coat. When I put it back on, my hand catches in the tear in the inner lining near the left arm. I never noticed that before. Hmmm... (You probably see where this is going long before I did...)

Wait a second....I DON'T THINK THIS IS MY BLACK WOOL COAT!!!!! A quick check to the label confirms that this is, indeed, NOT my coat. At all.
Clearly, I have stolen another person's coat. And I have gotten the better end of the deal, because I'm pretty sure this coat is much more expensive than my coat. This one claims it was made in Italy, and I'll bet my coat never saw Europe in it's life.

I have no idea who's coat this is, when I got it, or from when. I've been wracking my brains, but for the life of me, I have no clue whatsoever. My co-workers were splitting a gut laughing at me.

So....who's is it? And where did I get it? And when??? I think I'd like to know when, exactly, I entered a life of crime.

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.

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.

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.