They hooked me up and plugged me in. . . .

September 4, 2010

We have upgraded our cable.

This is not a decision that was easy to make. Neither Stephen or I watch a lot of television. In fact, there have been times in my life when we didn't have any cable at all.

I was fine with this.

The kids were not.

My mother has great cable at the nursing home, much better than ours, and she pays $99.00 a year.

We still were not enticed to upgrade our cable.

Our cable is basic, no-boxes-needed analog cable.

Some stations, like TLC for example, are not part of our package, but some fluke of atmospheric trickery allows us to get this station.

But all the reds on the screen come out as an LSD-induced psychedelic pink that makes you wish for downers.

And don't get me started on the snowy screen.

Cake Boss never intended for his Valentine's Day cakes to look like you're in the throes of an acid flashback, I'm sure.

The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back was Meredyth.

Quel suprise!

With her snazzy Roger's Bundle, Mer has better cable than we do.

And her siblings have noticed this.

But this wasn't the only factor in making the decision to upgrade.

I grew up in Geary.

Stop snickering.

We moved there when I was 9, in 1976, and at that time there were three stations we could get: ATV, CBC, and the French channel.

In retrospect, not having cable didn't damage my brother or me. We spent lots of time outdoors, we were busy with school, and I read a lot.

In hindsight, though, perhaps cable would have prevented me from reading books I shouldn't have been reading when I was 9. . .

Cable arrived when I was 16.

Woo.Hoo!

But again, I was rarely home. By then, I had a part time job at a convenience store in Oromocto, I was in highschool, so there was homework, and I had a boyfriend.

When he got a car, there was definitely no tv watching.

This is all a round about way of saying we upgraded cable because I wanted it, and because in the winter, on the odd occasion, I'd like to watch the CSI marathons on Spike, and see Cake Boss without the psychedelic pinks.

And the kids aren't unhappy either.

And now we have cable like Mer's.

Because the other concern I had was that my children would mutiny and start watching tv at their sister's place.

And who would be here to watch Survivor and America's Next Top Model with me if Em was at Mer's????

Its all about me.



Every Sunday evening, I go to the nursing home to visit my mother. I go Saturday's too, and have dinner with her.

Saturday's dinner menu is usually home-made baked beans and home-made brown and white bread, so I am there.

Home made bread. . .candy. . .its just like candy.

I am powerless to resist.

But Sundays are special because Mum and I spend the evening watching Antique's Roadshow and then All Creatures Great and Small.

I LOVE Antiques Roadshow. People lining up with chachka they were given by relatives, or things they bought at yardsales, each blatantly hoping the $3.00 pair of yardsale vases are really Tiffany and worth lots.

They were, in fact worth $600.00.

Othertimes, they showcase some of the ugliest stuff I've ever seen and it turns out to be valued at $120,000.

And sometimes the yardsale chachka is simply yardsale chachka.

My mother watches Antique Roadshow because she wants to know how much all the chachka in her basement is worth.

And there is chachka there, believe me.

She also like All Creatures Great and Small on Maine PBS, which she fondly refers to as Creatures.

Its a BBC production from the 1980s, set in the 1930s, based on the books by James Herriot, a pseudonym for James Alfred Wight, who was an English veterinary surgeon.

I don't mind it, but most weeks I end up in tears because of the fate that befell some creature or other.

Between Antiques and Creatures, Mum engages in her nighttime ablutions: she puts her dentures in their cup, filled with effervescent Polident, so they'll be clean in the morning.

She dons her pjs on, very carefully, because she doesn't want to mess up her hair, which she has "done" every two weeks. I then help her change from her sandals and pressure stockings into her slip on, rubber soled, no-slip shoes.

She calls my Dad to say goodnight, because he won't answer the phone during Creatures.

And then she is ready.

The problem is that my mother never really watches an entire episode of Creatures.

Mum gets her medication at around 7.30. Creatures airs at 8.00.

By 8.15, her eyes become a bit blurry, her jaw becomes somewhat slack, and you can see that her medication, especially her sleeping pill, is starting to take effect.

Her chin falls to her chest, and by 8.25 she has dozed off.

But she isn't fully asleep.

One night she scared the bejeezus out of me when she raised her head, like something from a horror film, and fixed one eye on me only to say,

"Emily's gonna be really pissed."

About what, I have never figured out.

Another night, she does the same thing, but instead asks me,

"How many shifts are you working this week?"

I answered her honestly,

"All of them!"

It can't be easy living in a nursing home. I mean, the staff are wonderful, she is getting excellent care and she's in a private room.

But she longs to go back home. And the reality is that she never will, because she needs so much care, and my father just can't do it on his own.

There was a period in the two years my mother was hospitalized, pre-nursing home, where she did go home for two weeks.

Neither of my parents were happy. My dad, after years of working nights, cannot get to sleep before 5.00 am.

My mother is getting up at 5.00 am, and couldn't really be left on her own in the house. She couldn't make a meal, get herself dressed, anything.

So my dad wasn't getting any sleep.

Mum wasn't getting the care she needed.

And the tempers were flaring.

Frequently.

I went out one Friday afternoon to give my mother a bath, and spent the non-bath time doing an intervention between the two of them.

The next morning I was at DECH.

Mum fell and broke her hip. Surgery immediately required.

The nursing home process began the following Monday.

Some days she is okay about being in the nursing home, and other days she most definitely is not.

Visiting on those days can sometimes be difficult.

Mum, during those days can sometimes be difficult.

For example, and had I not witnessed this with my own eyes I would have never believed it, she got into kicking brawl with another resident.

Both of them were in wheelchairs.

If I didn't laugh at it, I would have cried.

Laughing seems healthier.

Keith mentioned this morning, after reading several blog enteries, that he was rather pleased I had not been saying much about him.

This is not to say that I haven't been planning a Keith focused blog entry. There is so much to say about Keith.

Its just that his sisters supply more day-to-day opportunities.

A lot more.

Its the result of being competing drama queens.

About Keith. . . .

I rarely call him Keith. When he was born, he was actually Keith Van Every III.

This is not what I wanted to name him. . .I wanted to name him Alexander or Zachary.

But his father insisted. I just tell everyone he is named after my Uncle Keith, who passed away shortly before Keith was born.

Since I couldn't call him Alexander or Zachary, I did what any frustrated mother would do.

I gave him a nickname.

Pookie.

After Garfield's teddy bear.

I call him Pookie pretty much everywhere, not because of any sadistic leanings on my part.

Really!

Its because when you've called someone Pookie for almost 20 years it becomes rather difficult to stop.

Unlike the girls, Pookie is mellow. Calm, serene, he oozes vibe that says, "Hey, its all alright, man. No worries. Its all good.

He's channeling the vibes of some by-gone hippy.

I'm sure of it.

Not to say that he's always been so mellow.

When he was younger, he was also called "Captain Cautious." Why?

He was terrified of the SARS scare in Toronto.

He abjectly refused to go and visit his grandmother until I assured him that under no circumstances would he contract SARS.

He was first in line for the H1N1 vaccine.

And then he contracted H1N1.

Last evening, he comes into my room, in his THC induced head space, to ask me if we were going to survive Hurricane Earl.

Or should we relocate to the basement, buy candles and bottles of water, and take the can opener downstairs so we can survive on canned soup, beans and croutons.

When he was about 5 years old, we were at Wilmot Park, happily soaking up the sun and enjoying the pool.

Dark clouds rapidly emerged out of nowhere. The sun was obliterated. A rain storm was quickly approaching.

Everyone got their kids out of the pool.

I got Emily out of the pool.

Mer refused to get out of the pool (surprised?) and Keith, in a brief bout of non-cautious solidarity, also refused to get out of the pool.

Until I mentioned that thunder and lightening often accompany these storms.

And water conducts lightening.

And Keith jumped out of the pool like a scalded cat.

Eventually Mer came out, but not until she saw me starting to walk away.

She also once, at the age of four and a half, frolicked naked in the same pool.

Not one other child in the pool.

Just Mer. Naked as the day she was born.

Where were the rest of us, you ask?

At the park. Where Mer was supposed to be.

I was two seconds away from calling the police when I saw her bare butt wiggling at the cars driving by on the Woodstock Road.

Keith is the rock, the rational one, the one who eschews drama for common sense reasoning.

The reason.

Age, a job, social friends, pot.

I used to call him Pookie Pot Pie with Bum Dumplings.

Now I just think of him as Pot Pookie.

Title Lyrics: Cable TV by Weird Al Yankovic

I'm not sleeping, I'm not sleeping anymore, anymore, anymore. . .

September 3, 2010

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.

Everything will always be alright when we go shopping. . .

September 1, 2010

Last evening, I come home from work. Its about 9.30 pm. I go upstairs to throw myself on the bed and staple my fan to my forehead.

On the bureau is Reilly, Emily's 16 year old, six toed brown mackerel tabby. His head is hanging over the bureau, and his eyes are saying, "Drench me. Drown me. Shave me. I don't care. Just end this hell."


He looked so forlorn and pitiful that I had to pet him, love him, and try to convince him that the deep fat heat fryer we currently live in will cool off.

His response: to head butt me.


Showing me love and affection. (I am somewhat skeptical of this because I've seen him to the same thing to the toilet.)

And leaving clumps of cat hair stuck to the sheen of sweat covering my forehead.

Now, I'm not only hot and sweaty, but I have fur bits sprouting from my forehead.











It's so hot, I willingly went to the mall this morning.


Okay, sort of willingly. Keith had to work at 10.00 am, and Emily had a book bag snafu that warranted attention, so I found myself leisurly strolling through the mall, basking in the air conditioning.


Bookbag snafu you ask???


Emily was so excited last evening when I picked her up from work: she had a new bookbag, purchased with her own money.


Its midnight, hot, I have cat hair sprouting from my forehead, I am tired and I still need to get home and staple the fan to my forehead, or, sleep in Frankie's puppy pool.


The kids are talking to each other, and possibly me, but I'm not sure. All I hear is a mumble of voices and the click, click, click of phone keys as they text their friends, or not unimaginable, each other.


Keith and Em then decided they want to to McDonalds, at midnight.


I've done this before. . .they miss supper, didn't have enough time on their break to eat, so they want to fuel up before they go home to wind down from the hectic hurly-burly of Empire Theaters.


And Tuesday night is cheap night at the theater, $5.99 a ticket. Cheap tickets + a heatwave = a stampede of people who want to spend enough money to earn them seats in the blissfully airconditioned theater.


It is absolute pandamonium on Tuesday nights.


They were tired, hungry, weary of the harsh work world their mother has forced them into because she doesn't want them laying around like couch potatoes all summer.


I despise McDonalds' Drive-Thru at night. Or anytime. And I really have no use for drive-throughs in general.



I never know if the tinny voice barking from the thingy you talk into is actually talking to me. I mean, how come people working drive-throughs always sound like they are talking to you from the inside of a tunnel, padded with burlap bags, with their mouths full of marbles?


So, Emily is blasting Glee from the cd player, with Rachael wailing a Barbara Streisand tune about no one raining on her parade, and Keith is in the back seat reminding me that he wants TWO double cheeseburgers and a large rootbeer while Em is beside me repeating over and over, "three bbq sauces so I'll get two" like she is some sort of Thorazine induced fugue state.


FINALLY the marble mouth speaker person apologizes for making me wait and asks me what I want.


At least that's what I think he said.


I YELL at him, "TWO DOUBLE CHEESEBURGERS, A LARGE ROOTBEER, A NUMBER ONE WITH A SPRITE AND THREE BBQ SAUCES SO I'LL GET TWO!"


I am sure that people in Saint John heard me.

And then I drive off to wait in the line for the next window. The marble-mouth speaker person is babbling something but I didn't wait to hear what it was.


It's busy. I am wondering what the hell all these people are doing at McDonald's after midnight. I didn't have a choice but to be there, but what evil force brought out all of these fast-food manic denizens of the night?????????


So, amid the marble mouth yelling behind me, the resounding bass beat of Eminem from the car in front of me, manned by young men who don't look old enough for puberty, and the van of squealing 16 year old girls behind me, I hear, just barely mind you,


"And I paid $90.00 for my bookbag, but I thought it was supposed to be half off."


My mother senses start tingling, and all of a sudden the background noise of the midnight McDonald's drive-through becomes a soft hum, and all I hear over and over in my head is "$90.00 for my bookbag."


I spin my head around to Em. I say, "Did you say you paid $90.00 for a bookbag and it was half off. You mean the bookbag sitting on the front passenger side of the car, which is not plated in white gold with full carat diamonds, sapphaires, emeralds and rubies as glittering accessories was regularly $180.00!!!!!!!"


She looks at me as if I've just had a lobotomy.


"No. It was regularly $90.00, but I thought it was half off."


I ask her what I thought was the only logical question, "Well, how come you bought it then? Why didn't you just say you didn't want it, and take it back to the shelf?"


"Because I didn't want to look stupid."


I was, for a fraction of a second, rendered speechless.


Eventually we get our food. Marble mouth is actually a middle age man. I am still stuck on the bookbag, while Em and Keith rummage around in their McDonald's bags ensuring the got what they asked for.


While driving home I asked her if she really meant to by a $90.00 bookbag with her hard earned hourly minimum wage.


I calculated that she had to work 12 hours to afford that bookbag.


She said, no, she meant to spend $45.00 of her hard earned money.


Which, in a roundabout way, explains the book bag snafu and why I was in the mall first thing this morning.


We amble towards the store. Em was right: there was a promotion for bookbags. And in Em's defense, the signage was strategically laid out so that even the savviest of shoppers would have been blinded by the

sign outside of said store.

Missing the entire meaning of the sign.

Upon closer inspection, meaning a magnifying glass the size of the Hubble telescope, I was able to discern that below the blazing 50% off, the sign actually said:

Buy one bookbag at regular price and get 50% off the second bookbag.

Em was pissed off at being dupped. She walked around the mall lamenting poor signage and the tricks merchants use to entice people to trade their cows for a handful of beans.

She did was anyone in her position would have done.

She returned the bookbag of false promises, got her money back, and found a just-as-nice-bookbag for $45.00.

And she had enough for a pencil case and lunch.

Most importantly, she learned a valuable lesson:

Always read the fine print.

Happy Birthday JM!

Title Lyric: Shopping by the Barenaked Ladies

The first day that I went to school yes, I remember clearly . . .

August 31, 2010




It's the last day of August. In a little over a week Em will begin grade 11 and Keith will be in his second year of university.


And I will be back in the classroom.

Where did the summer go?

I love the beginning of the school year, or, I love September, which happens to be the beginning of the school year.

Either way, September and October are my favourite months. The weather is moving from so-oppressively-hot-that-sitting-in-Frankie's-puppy-pool-in-my-bathing-suit-is-worth-blinding-the-entire-population-of-Fredericton, to cool-and-breezy-liveable-daytime-temperatures-and-easy-sleeping-nightime-temperatures-that-allow-my-psycho-side-to-hibernate.

I love the palate of fall colours that fill the trees. Harvest time, lucious stews, hot homemade soup, making bread, long walks with the dogs, early nights where I curl up on the loveseat to watch the new season of House, Criminal Minds, and the other programs I enjoy watching with the kids.

I don't know how I feel about November. It depends on how early the snow starts.

And December is a bi-polar roller coaster ride of fluctuating joy and manic panic: joy at the term being over, to manic panic about the endless end of the term marking, to joy that the term is over, to manic panic over Christmas.

(As an aside, any mother will tell you that Christmas is ANYTHING BUT relaxing. . .no matter how old your kids are!)

But right now I am happy September will be here tomorrow. Even if we are suffering through July temperatures that make me want to lie naked in Frankie's pool and risk the blinding of small aircraft pilots, or having them mistake me for an suburban landing pad.

Or potential jail time for very indecent exposure.

I love the delusions of September brings. Most people make resolutions at New Year's. Not me. I am all about

September Delusions

Delusion #1: I will be organized this year.

Ask anyone, teaching assistant, research assistant, student who happens to walk into my office, organization is completely beyond me. I have purchased all sorts of things that are supposed to keep me organized. Colored file folders, desk dodads that hold files, round thingies for pens and scissors and white out, accordian file folders for research. . .

I have it all.

None of it works.

Why? Because the inherent flaw in all of these organizational goodies is knowing how to use them, and remembering what you put in them.

Neither of which I have mastered.

My office is made up of stacks and stacks and stacks of piles: file folders, empty and with things in them, books literally at the stage of almost, but never quite, toppling over, binders, empty and full. A fan that rests of a pile of papers and I don't even know what they are anymore. My bookshelves are crammed with books, books and more books, movies that are only alphabetized because Emily spent an afternoon organizing them (for a measly $10.00) and Keith reshelves them when I stick them on top of one another, with the delusion that I will put them in their proper place later.

I have plants, which I do remember to water, picture of kids and pets and parents and students, post-its are littered everywhere. . .phone numbers, to-do lists, reminders of things to use in class. I have boxes full of things I can't remember, an empty wine bottle (teaching tool. . .really!) The kid's artwork fills my walls. Even my office door, both sides, hasn't escaped the mania that is me. Keith got a movie-of-the-day calendar one year at Christmas, and I went through it, taking all the pages that had tid-bits of info about crime films. They are now taped all over my door.

You can't imagine the number of people who have almost pooped their pants when I fling open the door, not realizing they are there reading all these glorious tidbits: 12 Angry Men has no women in the cast, or, The heart shaped glasses worn in Lolita were only seen in the publicity posters of the film. They were never a part of the film.

I should keep toilet paper handy.

Delusion #2: I WILL be on time for class.

No matter how hard I try, I can never seem to be on time.

Anywhere.

Ever.

Not for anything. Ask my kids. They have traumatic tales of waiting at school, wondering where the hell I was, and when was I going to get there.

I was 45 minutes late for my first ever date with Stephen. He thought I wasn't coming. When I did get there, it was clear he had been dealing with his anxiety with martinis.

I have read articles and books and snippets in magazines about how to "manage my time." I have talked with colleagues to see how they manage their time. I have a daytimer, my lifeline, full of all the things I have to do and when they have to be done. Color coded and highlighted in some instances.

I really try. I set my computer clock ahead 15 minutes. I try and have everything organized the night before class starts. I don't make appointments a half hour before class.

Nothing works.

Inevitably, someone calls, be it kids, husband, parents, brother. Or just as I am getting ready to go, there is someone at the door with a CRISIS that has to be dealt with RIGHT NOW! Or I run into a colleague I rarely see on the way to class and we stop to chat. Or there is a line up for coffee and I HAVE to have that coffee or I will not be lucid in any way while in class.

Presuming, of course, that I am EVER lucid.

But, each September, I commit myself to being more proactive about time.

Delusion #3: I will develop a syllabus I can actually deliver, or, at least get through all the material I have outlined.

The BEST line EVER invented is "This syllabus is tentative and is subject to change."

I want to introduce my students to so many things, and there is stuff I just have to share with them, both the stuff they need to know, and stuff I think they should know, and stuff they want to know.

I want to get it all into the course.

Sometimes I am so passionate about what I am teaching that I get a "little" exciteable and move off into directions I never planned, showing clips from 70s television shows that will make my point better than I ever could, or comedy clips that are so poignant I just have to show them.

On the good days, I can find my way back. On the not-so-good-days buckets of coffee- saturated doughnuts wouldn't be enough to help me find my way back.

Delusion #4: I will read and respond to all my email.

I can hear the laughing. I can. I can hear you laughing, snickering, snorting.

Its okay. I deserve it.

Up front, I should say I despise email. My students know this.

I miss the days of actually talking to people. When I was an undergraduate at this very university, in the 1980s, I had to talk to my professors. If I wanted an extension (which of course I NEVER did), or didn't understand something from the lecture (again, never happened) I had to go to the office of my professor, knock on the door, and engage in the face-to-face interaction known as "conversation."

Email allows students to say things to and ask for things from their professors they would NEVER ask face-to-face.

Plus, email means I have to work even more hours than I already do. . .it makes me "accessible" 24 hours a day.

And I am not accessible 24 hours a day. Most days I'm not accessible 24 minutes.

The question, "Did you get my email? You know, the one I sent at 2.30 am. . ." sends me into a state of complete. paralyzed. incredulity.

Let me tell you something: at 2.30 in the morning, I am sleeping on my feather pillow, usually on my right side, mouth guard snuggly fit into my mouth (gotta prevent TMJ), joining the chorus of snoring (although I don't think I snore) filling my bedroom like the orchestra at the Met. The soprano snoring of Goblet, the alto snoring of Reilley and Frankie, the deep baritone of Stephen and Tikka, fighting for just-one-corner-of the duvet so I don't wake up with hypothermia.

So no.

I didnot get your email.

And WHY were you emailing me at 2.30 in the frickin' morning????????!!!!!!!!!!!

Let the September Delusions begin!

Title Lyric: The First Day I Went to School, by The Count from Sesame Street

Girl, you'll be a woman, soon.

August 30, 2010


I am finally sort of back to work. . .in my office, all alone. There were times this past month when I wondered if this was ever going to be possible again.

The Mer-is-moving-back-home saga seems to have run its course. She is now ensconsed her own apartment. No more sleeping on the couch for her, or taking over Em's bedroom, making it her own personal closet. No more pulling her bra and panties out of the couch for Keith.

You can only imagine the look on Keith's face when he pulled Mer's bra out from between the couch cushions.

Almost more than anything else, save how much I love my family, I love to read.

I never have less than 5 books in my purse at one time, fiction, non-fiction, it doesn't matter to me.

When I was younger, I don't know how many buses I almost missed because I was reading while eating breakfast. Or the arguments with my brother over who was going to read the cereal box.

Worst of all was that I was notorious for reading in the bathroom. And in a house with one bathroom this was often a problem.

More than once I was happily reading in the bathroom, minding my own business, not even aware of how much time had passed. Meanwhile (usually) my father is outside the bathroom door, dancing from foot to foot, pounding on the door, yelling:

"You'd better not be reading in there!"

I would jump off the tiolet like a scalded cat. Haul up my drawers, stuff whatever I was reading down the back of my pants, and scuttle out of the bathroom while my father ran in there holding on for dear life.

Literally.

Once, he scared me so bad that I dropped my brother's Archie's comic book in toilet (thankfully I had already flushed). I had to hide the wet comic in the back of my closet, wrapped in a towel, until it dried. Of course, I didn't know that when it dried it would be the size of a Funk and Wagnall's dictionary, a water stained F and W dictionary, with water wavy pages.

No way I was shoving that down the back of my pants.

So reading is a passion. I'm in a book club. I get special coupons from Chapters for being a "preferred customer." I spend hours in used bookstores, combing through the stacks, looking for all sorts of hidden treasures. In Antigonish, my first stop was the used book store, located downtown. It was small, but this wasn't an issue.

It had books.

I dig through bins in hospital book shops, pour over the discount section at Chapters, and when I have the time, the library is my favourite place.

And I was never the kid who read only kid's books. My parents were also avid readers, so if there was a book in the house, I read it.

Hence, I met Jacqueline Susann, Harold Robbins and Stephen King when I was quite young. You cannot imagine the trouble that got me into. My mother was not the least bit thrilled that her 11 year old daughter was reading about the trials and tribulations of Seconal addicted movie stars in 1960s Hollywood.

And I'm willing to bet that she, in no way, appreciated the questions that emerged from my readings of these books.

My parents were not the kind of parents you could just approach with a question.

Edith Bunker, from my favourite show All in the Family, laments in the episode where she realizes that she was going through menopause,

"When I was a young girl, I didn't know what young girls were supposed to know. Now I'm an old woman and I don't know what old women are supposed to know."

Prime example: how I learned about periods.

When I was in grade 6, which was still considered elementary school at that time, my homeroom teacher (who absolutely terrified me), came into the classroom when the girls were changing for gym.

The boys changed somewhere else. . .probably in the hallway.

She said something like, "If you need anything during your time of the month, just let me know. We have what you need in the teacher's lounge."

All the girls nodded, me included. Except I had absolutely.no.clue. what she talking about.

None.

Nada.

At the same time, though, there was an internal voice saying to me that this was something I was supposed to know, and clearly everybody else knew, so the smart thing was to pretend that I knew what she was talking about, and go along with it.

Looking back, if she had of pulled out a pad or tampon, I would have assumed my mother missed something on the school supply list.

Later that evening, during dinner, I mentioned what my teacher had said.

My mother dropped her fork.

My father started coughing.

And then my mother looked at my father and said something about this was not the teacher's business and it was our decision to talk with her about this when we were ready.

Okay, now I KNEW there was something going on.

Nothing else was said. After supper, after the dishes and homework were done and by brother and I were in our jammies watching tv, my parents called us into the kitchen.

They had paper and pencils with them.

Somehow I just knew we weren't playing tic-tac-toe or hangman.

And then we had the "you're going to be woman soon" talk.

They drew pictures. Used words I didn't know (in spite of reading Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins. I mean, novelists selling novels about sex don't usually talk about ovaries and fallopian tubes).

Looking back, I can't imagine how they felt about having "this talk" with me. I should be thankful they weren't playing Neil Diamond in the background.

Bottom line: this was not something I was going to enjoy.

At least they were right about that.

To this day, neither my brother or I can figure out why he had to be included.

Title Lyric: Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon, by Neil Diamond