For someone who hates shopping and malls as much as I do, I have been doing a lot of shopping and spending time in malls lately.
Today, however, a force greater than my hatred for malls propelled me towards Fredericton's premiere consumerist arena.
Airconditioning.
And Meredyth's eyebrows.
I couldn't sleep last night. I was closer than I've ever been to sleeping in basement.
This is a drastic strategem, as Goblet, Stephen's cat, has eschewed litter boxes. Other than the occassional liquid deposit during times of complete desperation, she refuses to use the litter box.
We've tried everything: silica litter, litter boxes all over the house, including our bedroom (ask me how thrilled I was to have a toilet in my bedroom, and we're not talking ensuite here!), scooping everything out of the litter boxes at least once a day, making sure there is always fresh litter on hand. . . .
Nothing works.
Nothing.
The diva insists on doing her business on the basement floor. Every morning, while still in his pajamas and usually half asleep, Stephen wanders down to the basement. Within seconds of his feet hitting the floor, he joyfully exclaims,
"I see Goblet poopies!"
If ANY of the other pets even DARED to use the basement floor as their toilet, their asses would be swaddled with diapers.
Or in Tikka's case, Depends.
But because it is Goblet, there is an entire other set of rules.
In other words, she does whatever she wants, and damn the consequences because there are none.
Her latest beloved toilet space is a blue tarpaulin. The same blue tarpaulin that covered all of Meredyth's stuff while she was waiting to move into her apartment.
Thankfully, while there were some accidents, nothing was permanently damaged.
But nothing is sacred, nothing is safe from the Grand Diva Pee-Pee Express.
Hence, the mere thought of sleeping in this basement is usually quickly dismissed. But I was so tempted last evening.
Even if it did mean opening the door to becoming the newest stop for the Grand Diva Pee-Pee Express. Or worse, waking up to cat shit shoved up my nose by little furry paws.
She hates me.
Every night, I wake up to this face, glaring at me from on top of Stephen's bureau. Boring her eyes into my soul. She wants Stephen all to herself. I am the competition.
As sleeping in the basement wasn't an option, I tackled sleeping upstairs, with not one but two fans circulating hot air through our bedroom.
Usually, its me or Stephen circulating hot air.
Mostly Stephen, though.
Sleep refused to come.
I did everything I could think of to convince my body and brain that the time was right for slumber. I even played our "relaxation cd", with its directions for diaphramatic breathing (which isn't as easy as it sounds) and mediative exercises like trying to convince my arms and legs that they are feeling heavy and warm.
Warm wasn't the issue.
I took Melatonin, which usually does the trick, but not last night.
At one point, I was sleeping at the opposite end of the bed so I could be even closer to the fan. This is always dangerous because I risk waking up with Stephen's big toe up my nose.
By 6.00 am I had given up.
I got up, and actually got ready to go to work.
The dogs were confused. How come I was up so early? Confused or not, they came downstairs with me.
Okay, Frankie came downstairs with me, his puppy brain synapses firing that he would soon be outside to relieve himself shortly.
Tikka, on the other hand, has lately been doing this thing where I have to coax her to come downstairs to go outside.
So Frankie is doing the dog equivalent of hopping from foot to foot holding on to his privates, while Tikka is upstairs, philosophically contemplating the merits of walking down the stairs to go outside.
All while she gloriously and noisily licks herself.
By 8.30 I was willing to try and coax my body to sleep, again.
I didn't want to go to work. I wanted to sleep. I love sleep. I can, most of the time, sleep anywhere.
I am that person you pass on the highway, while driving home to Mum and Dad's for the weekend, with her face mashed up against the passenger side window, drool running down the side of her face, snug in her U-shaped car pillow.
Finding myself unable to sleep was most disconcerting.
I actually managed to doze off. But while trying to find the mind map to the land of Nod, my cellphone kept ringing.
But I stalwardly refused to answer.
I wanted sleep.
Who would call me, over and over and over again, when it was clear I wasn't going to answer?
Meredyth. That's who.
Eventually, she accepted that I wasn't going to answer my cellphone, so she switched tack. She called her sister, who also refused to answer her cell phone, and then her brother, who did.
Keith comes into my room around 10.00, telling me Mer wanted to talk to me. I mumbled something incoherent, but it was enough for him to tell that unless the person on the other end of the phone was telling me I won the lottery, or someone near and dear was bleeding heavily, now was not the time.
Finally, around noon (which means about 3.5 hours of sleep) she hauled out the big guns; she called the house phone, which was answered by Stephen.
Because Stephen always answers the phone.
Always.
I never answer the phone.
That's what answering machines are for.
It was clear Mer wasn't giving up and that my desperate longing for sleep was trumped by her need to do whatever was important enough for her to keep callling.
If Stephen hadn't of answered the phone, I expect she would have started calling the neighbours, concocting some story about not being able to reach me, and she was worried, so would they go over to the house and knock on the door, to create havoc with dogs, so that they would bark incessently, resulting in me HAVING to get out of bed.
Was Mer concerned because she couldn't reach me?
No.
But she was probably pissed off.
Mer wanted a drive, to go the bank and then the mall.
Normally, I wouldn't have to go to the bank because one of the kids was paid.
Normal and Meredyth aren't words I ever use in the same sentence, however.
Mer is paid by cheque.
And because she has been a client of her bank for less than a year, they automatically place a 5 business day hold on any cheque she puts through her account.
Imagine her reaction to this the first time she put a cheque in her account.
Bank bureaucracy will never be more important than Mer wanting her money.
(Think of the poor, Pentecostal ladies at Sears during the Leon's fiasco. . .)
Some finangling lead to have the 5 business day hold reduced to a 24 hour hold, but this was still too long for my 20 year old daughter who wanted her money.
Now.
Solution: Mum puts the cheque through her account, because no such holds exist with Mum's account.
Which means Mum has to go to the bank with Meredyth when she gets paid.
Which meant incessant phone calls from Mer until her poor mother succumbed and hauled her sleep deprived, sweat inundated body out of bed.
Misery loves company, right? So I made Stephen and Em come with me.
Stephen because he was the boob who answered the phone when she called.
Em because it was either she come with us to the airconditioned bank and mall, or be trapped in the inferno that is our house listening to Keith and Mer's "friend" (aka Keith's best friend) play their music while getting "into a THC induced headspace."
Choices, choices.
Having said how much I dislike the mall, I have to admit that I do delight in going to the mall with Meredyth and Emily.
Is it because they are loving and appreciative of their mother taking them to the mall?No.
Is it because it is the penultimate opportunity for estrogen filled family bonding?
Nope.
Is it because my daughter's get along so well that seeing them together fills my heart and sould with joy in the knowledge that I have been a good parent?
Not. Even. Close.
It's because its entertaining.
At least for me.
Mer and Em are similar in many ways: they're both stubborn, opinionated, determined that they are always right. They have both been born with a tendency towards being drama queens, traits that clearly came from the paternal end of the gene pool.
However, in one fundamental, and entertaining way, they are very different.
Mer struts through the mall like a model in a New York fashion show. Sunglasses resting atop her ponytailed head, she walks through the mall like she OWNS it. Her walk and body language scream, "I AM HERE. LOOK AT ME!!!!"
Emily, on the other hand, is not as extroverted as her sister.
But not many other people are, either.
Em is reserved, demure, reflective. Each time she goes into the mall the same thought runs through her head,
"Just leave me alone. I want to be alone. I don't want to talk to you. Don't look at me. Don't look in my direction. And do not laugh withine 100 meters of whereever I am standing."
She is quiet, comtemplative. . .
Except at home.
The two of them together at the mall, then, provides me with unfettered entertainment.
I like walking behind them, watching Mer in all her grandness and Emily trying not to get run over by Mer in all her grandness.
The actual truth is, I walk behind them so I can give the stink-eye to the hoards of testosterone carriers who think its okay to look at MY daughters are if they were slabs of triple grade A beef.
First they see the girls.
And then they see MAMA.
And then they don't look again.
Ever.
And if they do, because the message isn't clear, permanent blindness occurs when I poke their eyes out.
So, the getting-Mum-out-of-bed and the bank-cheque mess sorted, it left only Mer's eyebrows to be addressed.
I don't get why women insist on paying money for something they can do by themselves.
Or not at all.
I don't do anything with my eyebrows, and I look fine.
Right????
Everytime Mer says she has to "get her eyebrows done" I have to forcibly stop myself from rolling my eyes.
How can my daughter, the daughter of a makeup-abjuring-feminist-who-begs-and-pleads-for-young-women-to-not-put-their-money-into-an-industry-that-subjugates-women-by-convincing-them-they-need-to-wear-goop-and-glop-to-be-beautiful-and-why-do-we-shave-our-legs-anyway, think she needs to "have her eyebrows done?"
I mean, if she insists on not "doing her eyebrows" herself, I would be happy to do them for her for free.
Of course, I can't guarantee that she would look like she had two eyebrows. . .there may be some gaps leading people to think "There is the poor girl who was born with four separate eyebrows," but at least she'd have $12.00 extra dollars in her wallet.
And when she gets these eyebrows done, and she finds me in Wal-Mart (I know, I know, I was in Wal-Mart. The guilt will consume me for at least a week!)
I was in the process of looking for a Downey Ball, two lampshades, brass hooks, two garbage cans, and a curtain rod.
She walks over to me looking like someone went all whoop-ass on her face with hot wax and serrated edged-tweezers.
Her eyebrow region is red and splotchy.
And she willingly pays for this torture.
I say, shave damn things off and get eyebrows tattooed on.
Sure, it'll hurt, but only once, and you'll never have to pay for done eyebrows again.
Title lyric: I'm Not Sleeping by Counting Crows.
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