May 28, 2011
(To the tune of Lady Gaga's Judas)
"ALL my grades are IN! ALL my grades are IN! ALL my grades are IN"
Indeed they are.
No more papers to read, grade, haggle over, contemplate, reflect upon, consider, examine, until the end of September.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Visiting our family doctor yesterday was full of the usual shits and giggles.
Keith: good.
Em: lactose intolerant.
Which was better than what I thought: celiac disease.
And it isn't that much of a surprise, as Em is the queen of internet diagnosing, and common sense indicated that when she didn't eat dairy she didn't feel like her insides were trying to crawl out through her nostrils.
Still, it means a lifetime of making sure she doesn't eat dairy.
She's tried the lactaids and such, but they don't seem to make much of a difference in how she feels afterwards, so avoidance, or abstinence as she referred to it yesterday, seems the more appropriate option.
I was up next and the first thing she did was look at my heating pad burn.
That's a second degree burn you have there, she said.
Oh? I replied.
But, it's healing nicely.
Oh good.
How did it happen, she asked?
I told her.
She laughed.
Because really, what else was there to do?
And then, the final act: my pap test.
Enough said.
After the doctor's we headed to Frenchy's, a gently used clothing store in Oromocto.
I love it.
Especially now, as I have lost a total of 75 pounds, and all my clothes from last summer are a little big.
In particular, shorts, capris. . .
The crotches of said garments are at my knees.
And we know I am loathe to purchase anything over $5.00 because I know by the end of the summer it won't fit.
Hence Frenchy's.
A mecca for those of us in a state of apparel transitioning and who are on a tight budget.
My foray didn't yield what I had hoped, as the last time I came out with pants, shirts, all kinds of things.
But, I did manage to get a pair of shorts, a pair of capris, and a t-shirt.
So at least I won't be running around naked or worse, looking like I'm trying to revive MC Hammer's pants.
Break it down, HAMMERTIME!
Mer and Keith, along their compadre Shauna, went to Moncton for the night to visit with their recently relocated amigo Amy.
This caused me some concern.
As always, I worry about the three of them driving to Moncton, with intentions of getting as fuzzy headed as possible as soon as they get there.
Plus, I'm worried about Amy.
Your kids spend so much time with other kids that eventually they ALL become your kids.
But, to be completely honest, I was most worried about Jasper.
He is far too young to be left on his own overnight, and unless Miss Mer could make alternate arrangements, meaning someone to come and stay the night with him, she wasn't going anywhere.
I would have made sure of that.
As usual, however, someone always steps up to the plate for Mer. . . .
. . .an activity that is being scaled down as we speak. . . .
. . .and Em agreed to spend the night at Mer's apartment with Jasper.
Em wants a new kitten.
And this was her opportunity to spend time with one without the hassle of trying to convince me and Stephen that our little household could only benefit from the addition of a kitten.
We had considered bringing Jasper here for the night, but he is so tiny I was worried that Goblet would think he was a snack and Frankie, who is a gambooling, ungraceful, long-legged, high energy hooligan would think he was a new toy.
Hence, it was better if Em relocated for the night, instead of Jasper.
I was worried about Em being in Mer's apartment on her own for the night.
I know, I know, it's a security building, blah, blah, blah. . . .
Stephen's assessment that it would be harder for me than Em was, perhaps, correct.
My cell phone by my side of the bed.
Just in case.
It never rang.
And at 9.00 am, I was awakened by the clarion call of canine bladders needing emptying.
So all must have been okay with Em and Jasper.
If not, I'll know soon.
I have to pick her up in 15 minutes for work.
Title Lyric: Babysitting by the Ramones
May 27, 2011
As much as my children can sometimes frustrate me, causing me to contemplate the continuation of the human species, they also provide me opportunities to pause and reflect upon how wonderful they are.
Last night, I get home around 5.30, and immediately head downstairs to retrieve laundry for hanging on the line in hopes that it will dry because rain is predicted for the next two days and Em needs her underwear.
All 21 pairs of it.
I know this because once I was finally finished hanging them out, I counted them.
Obsession, anyone?
And while I am out there, hanging the laundry, getting into my Zen space, my happy place, letting the worries of the day hang on the line with the laundry, I hear the all-too-familiar sounds of the lawn mower.
Pookie.
Cutting the grass for the same reason I'm hanging out laundry.
Because rain makes both lawn mowing and laundry hanging somewhat pointless activities, ergo, getting them completed when the sun is shining is a must.
What a great young man he is.
And of course, I have a much greater appreciation for how hard it is to mow our lawn after my escapades on Sunday.
After he was finished, I looked outside and reveled in how lovely the lawn looked.
Where he mowed that is.
The places that now await my weed wacking zeal are looking less than stellar.
But one can weed wack in the rain.
And one may.
Depending on how stressed out my sabbatical application makes me, I may be outside wacking weeds for extended periods of time.
Pookie was full of surprises last evening.
Once he had finished with the lawn, showered, refueled with spaghetti and homemade sauce, he then set out to make banana bread.
I was, to say it mildly, shocked.
Mum, can I make banana bread with those turning brown bananas on the counter?
Sure!
So while I sat in the living room alternating marking exams with checking on the drying laundry, Pook was in the kitchen whipping up banana bread.
And all he wanted from me were some easy to grant requests.
Where's the baking powder?
How full do I fill the loaf pan?
We're out of that spray stuff, so should I use butter and flour?
That is my kind of baking.
Directive, hands off.
And, I have to say, marking papers amid the smell of baking banana bread make an onerous task far more pleasant.
Plus, it tasted very good.
Thank you Pookie for replenishing my faith in children.
You are such a wonderful young man.
It would appear a trip to Montreal is in the works.
Next weekend, we'll be heading to the island to visit with Stephen's sister, who is arriving in Montreal Monday from Vancouver for two weeks to help while Stephen's mum recovers from her second knee replacement surgery.
We can't make it to Vancouver, but we can certainly make the trip to Montreal to see her.
A weekend away, with no classes to return to, no assignments to mark. . .
Almost feels like a vacation.
However, I do have some responsibilities over the remaining summer months.
After agonizing for an additional month delay because the federal election pushed back *my* timeline. . .the nerve. . .I received word that I was granted one of the two positions I applied for.
YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And I immediately hired the student I employed last summer.
So work will be completed over the summer months.
Not that it wouldn't have even if I hadn't of been able to hire a student.
But MORE work will be done.
The annual University Women's Book Sale is being held at the Brookside Mall this weekend.
I AM SO TEMPTED!
The last time I attended, I purchased 30 books.
At $2.00 a book.
I sort of promised Stephen I wouldn't go, but the clarion call of words on paper is pulling, pulling, pulling me and I may succumb tomorrow morning.
But not today.
Because today is other Friday packed to the brim.
Simply for Life weigh in at 9.45.
Doctor's appointment for humiliation and torture, 10.35.
Writing group meeting, 12.00 noon. (I probably won't get there until 12.30)
Community Kitchen, 4.00 pm.
Home to crash onto the love seat with no energy to even use the remote: priceless.
Title Lyric: A Song for My Son by Mikki Viereck
May 26, 2011
Children are wonderful.
They bring joy and happiness into your life.
Provide you with purpose; a reason to live.
And will look after you in your twilight years, making sure you are treated as well as you treated them.
But only if you have more than one because you never know what will happen and it isn't good to pin all your hopes on just one.
Yesterday was what we call a "Meredyth Day" around here.
It started out simply enough.
I arrived at her apartment at 9.00 am to sort out the lost keys debacle.
She needed the letting-in-the-building fob replaced, her apartment key replaced and her mail key was MIA as well.
Wallets and keys, wallets and keys. . . .
After lightening my bank account by $70.00 Mer was, yet again, in possession of her keys.
Which meant she could check her mail.
And there was mail!
Most flyers, or circulars, as Stephen's parents call them.
Her census letter.
And a census reminder.
Informing her that not filling out the census is against the law.
When Mer read this, she panicked.
Will they really arrest me for not completing the census? And how come it's online? I don't have internet? Oh my god what's going to happen to me????!!!!!!
Nothing Mer.
Nothing is going to happen because I won't let it.
Perhaps this is part of the overall problem.
Me.
I need to incorporate more of a sink or swim mentality.
But I didn't right away.
So in addition to replacing her keys, I contacted Bell Aliant and requested that they install internet in her apartment and put it on my bill.
My mother's phone at the nursing home is on my account, so I knew this was something that could be done.
I'm not paying for Mer's internet.
She is.
Because I will take the money out of her account every month.
Just like I do with her cell phone bill.
She angled for a bundle that included internet, cable and phone service.
The look on my face was enough to tell her the likelihood of that happening.
This morning, then, sometime between 8.00-5.00 someone will go to Mer's apartment and set up her internet.
Somehow, someway I just know I'm going to regret this.
The thing about Mer is that she has this way of taking one thing and ballooning it into several.
I've fallen for this several times in the past, expected it, and was therefore ready when she attempted to slide in request number two.
Would I drive her downtown to the grocery store?
No.
I have to go to work Mer.
Part of the challenge of being an academic in the summer is that, to those on the outside, even those who have grown up with you and know exactly what you're work life is like, it appears as if you are "off."
Oh it must be nice to have the summer off, my neighbour said the other day.
It would be nice, I replied, but I don't have the summer off. I have a textbook I'm working on, a couple of articles I'm trying to write, a grant application that makes getting into the FBI look easy, and hopefully if the government ever decides to make up it's mind, a research assistant to supervise. Plus I want to revamp a couple of my courses, and introduce a new one which needs researching and organization.
And there is the sabbatical application that's due Tuesday and the papers and exams to mark for my Intersession classes.
Summer off?
Only in my dreams.
So no, Mer, I am not driving you downtown to the grocery store.
At least not right now.
BUT, I will drive you this afternoon.
I will take you as soon as I've picked Em up from school and in the hour space before she has to go to work.
For 5.00 pm.
It appeared, on the surface, that she understood the words that were coming from my mouth to her ears.
But you know those appearances. . . they can be deceiving little things.
Pick up Em at 3.30.
She calls Mer to let her know we're on our way.
No answer.
Hmmmm. . . . .
A few minutes later, we try again.
Still no answer.
Driving into her building's parking lot, I call and leave a message.
I'm here. Come on out.
No call back.
I call Keith, because he was with her earlier and he does tend to be the one person who knows where she is and what she's doing.
He doesn't answer.
Which, as an aside, caused me to pause and ponder the usefulness of cell phones if people don't answer the damn things when you need them to.
I call Mer. Again.
Mer, it's me. I am outside you're apartment building. I will wait here for 5 minutes and if you aren't here in 5 minutes I'm leaving because Em isn't going to be late for work. I told you when I would be here, and I have to say I don't understand why you aren't here, and why you aren't answering your phone.
And we sat for 5 minutes, waiting, hoping every time someone came out of the building, it was Mer.
Em suggested we go in and buzz her apartment.
That won't do any good. Her buzzer is hooked up to her cell phone and if she isn't answering calls, she isn't answering the buzzer, I replied.
After 5 minutes, I left, muttering under my breath about natural consequences and how I knew this was going to bite me in the ass.
No time to go downtown, however, there was time to deal with the underwear issue that has been plaguing me for two weeks.
Only because the store from which I was purchasing said underwear was uptown and close to the theater.
And as soon as I put the car in park, and turned off the ignition, sure enough my phone rang.
I knew who it was.
And I knew what was coming,
Sure enough, a tearful, breathless Mer was on the other end of the line.
She'd fallen asleep.
Okay. I understand. I understand the need to nap very, very well.
Could I come back.
And here is where the ugliness started.
No, Mer. I can't. There isn't enough time to go all the way back to your apartment, pick you up, go downtown, get your groceries, and then go back uptown to get Em to work for 5.00 pm.
She hung up on me.
And then called back.
Ranting and yelling at me that I knew this was her only day to do this because she is working doubles and the internet guy is coming sometime between 8-5 so she can't leave and I do have time I just don't want to.
And then she hung up on me again.
At which point I shut my phone off, put it in the glove compartment, got out of the car, locked it, and went into the store to get my mother's underwear.
Which, at this point, seemed a hell of a lot less traumatic than dealing with Mer.
It was.
At least for now.
I selected three pairs.
But not without some trepidation.
Hoping against hope that I won't have to return these ones.
I even laid the smallest size against the next size up in an effort to make an informed decision about which size would be the most appropriate.
Underwear should, in no way, cause so much trauma.
Really.
Title Lyric: Hanging Up by Myra
May 25, 2011
Almost finished Intersession!
One final exam, tomorrow morning.
Half of yesterday's final exam marked.
Making me wonder if the students who sat in class and listened to me talk about crime and film for three hours, every afternoon for almost a month, are the same students who wrote the exam.
Or pod people.
A couple of weeks ago I had to stay home, cancelling my morning class to deal with cramps that essentially rendered me incapacitated.
In an effort to quell the pain enough for me to sleep, I hauled out our heating pad.
Clearly, desperate measures were needed though.
All was well and good.
I recovered.
But a couple of days later I came out of the shower and noticed, just barely mind you because I was sans lunettes, that I was in possession of an angry looking, fairly large red spot.
What this angry looking red spot was remained to be determined.
At least until I dried off, got my glasses from the bedroom and returned to the bathroom to check it out.
A blister.
More specifically a burn blister.
A burn gleaned from the use of the heating pad.
The burn is only part of the issue.
The real question is how come I didn't feel that I was burning myself with the heating pad?
Intense pain?
Nope.
Pamprin induced unconsciousness?
Nope.
Stupidity?
Um, maybe.
The kids.
Yes.
It is the kid's fault I didn't feel the heating pad burning my skin like a chicken on a bbq.
How can I blame such an asinine thing on my children?
Easy.
C-sections.
Each one of my children arrived via c-section.
And each cut occurred on exactly the same spot.
Meaning that by the time Em came around, I had lost all feeling in that part of my body.
It's true!
And weird, really, to know that you're pinching yourself and can't feel it.
Hence the burn.
Which is taking forever to heal.
But really, who burns themselves with a heating pad?????
Today I do not have to teach.
I will mark exams and papers.
Prepare tomorrow morning's exam.
Flesh out an outline for an article I've been contemplating about the film Hard Candy.
Which means watching Hard Candy again, not for it's entertainment value, but for it's critical commentary about good and evil.
Bask in the sunshine we have been blessed with for today, and possibly tomorrow.
Who knew two sunny days in a row would happen?
I've already got a load of Keith's laundry in the washer.
Hanging it out later will provide me a much needed Zen experience.
So, what does one do when they have a full day of no teaching, sunshine all around them and Zen opportunities for later in the day?
Purchase new keys for Mer.
In addition to being challenged in holding on to wallets, keys seem to be Mer's kryptonite.
She can't hold on to them.
Misplaces them at every turn.
She can get into her building via some hook up with her cell phone.
But, she can't access her mail.
Which means she can't access her income tax money.
Which she didn't realize until I mentioned to her that her return would be going to her address, not mine.
At this point, getting the keys became a priority.
I think the mailman coming to her door and telling her that there was no way he could get one more piece of mail into her already crammed and overflowing mailbox may have had something to do with it, as well.
This morning, then, after I drop Em off at school, and instead of going to work as I had planned, I am traipsing over to Mer's apartment to pay for her keys to be replaced so she can get her tax return money and repay me for getting her keys replaced.
Nothing, and I mean nothing is simple with this child.
My parents made me wear a glasses chain when I was six because I kept losing my glasses.
Did nothing for my self esteem to be called Granny Gump in grade one.
But I didn't lose my glasses again.
I am contemplating stapling Mer's keys and wallet to her forehead.
Title Lyric: Burn by Usher
May 24, 2011
Let the Last-Week-Of-Intersession Countdown begin!
Yesterday was just a day of doing things I wanted to do.
Going to the movies. . .
Always a good thing in my books.
Pirates of the Caribbean
Better than I had anticipated.
Much better actually.
A bit slow at the beginning, but when it picked up, it picked up.
Besides, unless you were a complete moron as a director, a film with Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and Ian McShane couldn't be a bad thing.
A guest appearance by Keith Richards.
Cameo of Dame Judi Dench.
Plus hissing, feral mermaids and the fountain of youth?
A much better than I thought it would be film indeed.
Even Stephen came with us.
But that may have been more about wanting to spend family time than any particular interest in the movie.
I'll take time together any way I can get it.
Which is why, when we returned home, I agreed to go with Stephen to take the dogs for a run.
It was cold, but not raining, I hadn't been out with the three of them for a while, and I just wanted to stretch my legs after sitting in the theater for two and a half hours.
It was a long movie.
Plus, honestly, I am trying to avoid the pain of cutting the grass Saturday, which has yet to make it's presence known to it's full extent.
Although it is starting.
I am hurting more this morning than I did yesterday.
I didn't even know I had those muscles in my back.
Figuring a walk with my beloved husband and adored canines would keep me limber, off we went to the farm.
Frankie and Tikka take any drive in the car to mean an escape from the humdum normality of their everyday lives.
Unless that drive ends up at the vet.
They whine and prance and carry on behind the confines of their dog gate.
Generally behaving in a manner that would suggest, erroneously I might add, that they are prisoners in the house, never fed, loved, played with, talked to or doted upon.
Kept in the basement.
Ignored.
Bereft of human kindness.
They should both get Oscars.
And whether we arrive at the farm, the woodlot, the Thatch Road, or their ultimate destination of choice, Mactaquac, they always act the same.
When we arrive, they bolt out of the back of the car like inmates ridding themselves of their shackles.
Run around and sniff everything, every spot, calling to each other like kids at a carnival, "COME SEE THIS!"
They leap, run, cavort, sniff, poop and pee themselves senseless and generally just let themselves live in the moment, enjoying every second, milking the entire experience for what it's worth.
And if we encounter other dogs, Tikka steps aside and watches Frankie carry on like a lunatic, a look of blissful contentment on her face.
The kind of look mothers get at playgrounds when their children find someone to play with.
Taking them out is soul satisfying as well as physically beneficial.
Now that I am so, so, so, so close to finishing teaching, and will spend the summer working normal hours a week, 40 instead of anywhere between 65-80, I will be able to spend more time with them.
Last evening, after supper and the making of spaghetti sauce for tonight and rice pudding for my starving son, and when I was supposed to be preparing the exam for Crime and Popular Film, I found myself trawling along the internet and came to the most amazing website.
The British Film Institute.
BFI for short.
And they have a collection of books called BFI Classics.
Books and books and more books about films like On the Waterfront, Thelma and Louise, Trainspotting, Psycho, Se7en, Bonnie and Clyde, The Big Lebowski. . . .
And books about filmmakers: Hitchcock, Scorsese, Kubrick. . .
It was like finding Christmas in May.
And then, on Amazon.com I found a memoir written by Blanche Caldwell Barrow, wife of Buck Barrow, sister-in-law to Clyde Barrow and frenemie of Bonnie Parker.
Imagine what reading her account would bring to my discussion of Bonnie and Clyde.
The UNB Bookstore is going to be busy when they open my email and see all the books I've asked them to order.
I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!
I am such a nerd.
One of the things I am really looking forward to is spending more time outside.
And more time in our existing gardens.
And facilitating the creation of new gardens.
Cause mowing that lawn has sparked all sorts of creative stirrings regarding how to lessen the pain of those infernally steep hills.
Get rid of the grass, make new, big beds, and plants ground covers in them, with some rocks for decoration and lots and lots of dark, rich soil.
Connect two of our gardens by removing the strip of lawn between them, and plant the 120 bulbs we bought in Montreal in March.
And put more of the space filling ground cover back there.
Plans, plans, I have plans for being outside, breathing fresh air, getting some sun and generally not spending my evenings in front of a computer or passed out in my bed from brain exhaustion.
I should have started losing weight ages ago.
I actually want to be outside doing things.
'magin that.
Title Lyric: Fresh Air by Quicksilver Messaging Service
May 23, 2011
Our lawn is a bitch to mow.
Which I sort of knew, as our house is on a hill and the backyard is nothing but hills and dips.
But knowing and experiencing are two different things.
Very different.
And I should have known what the afternoon would be like from the less than auspicious beginning.
We have a heavy lawn mower.
Two people, minimum, are required to bring it out of the basement to the back deck.
It also has an adjustable handle. . .
Stephen loosened the handle so I could grasp the front of the lawn mower while he walked backwards up the step with the back end of the lawn mower.
Where the engine is.
So it's heavier.
Such a gentleman, my husband.
Consequently, the adjustable handle, which was supposed to be upright as Stephen tightened it enough. . .
. . .was not tight enough and came down over my shoulders, pinning my arms to my side, and ensuring my hands had no where to go other than where they were, holding the lawn mower.
Pinned by the lawn mower.
A metaphor for the entire afternoon.
Stephen found my predicament hilarious.
I was less than amused.
But, at the same time, aware that 70 pounds ago, the handle would have probably knocked me on the head rendering me unconscious.
Yeah weight loss???
We managed until we got to the top of the stairs, because we were on an angle.
When we were both level. . .
. . .keep your snarky comments to yourselves, please. . .
. . .and Stephen wanted to put the lawn mower down, that became a bit of a challenge.
Because if I let go, the handle would have slipped even further down.
Somehow, we managed to keep the mower at an angle long enough for me to extricate myself from this most unfortunate position.
Nothing is ever easy around here.
Nothing.
Next we had to tackle the weed wacker.
It needed new wire on the spool.
Hmmmm. . . .
I think this calls for a visit across the street to our most friendly neighbour who has a yard care business and knows how to do these things.
He wasn't surprised to see me.
Neither Stephen and I are what you would call machine savvy people.
We can't even put up a clothesline.
He was very patient and showed me how to get the wire onto the spool.
Assuming, most erroneously, that I would remember and be able to do it myself the next time.
Back home.
Spool in weed wacker.
That I do know how to do.
All that was left was to start the thing and let the wacking commence!
Assuming, most erroneously, that I would remember the very precise order of operations necessary to begin said machine.
Back across the street.
More patient demonstrations.
And a roaring weed wacker ready to throw of the winter sloth and begin its hard work.
Weed wacking isn't the hardest thing to do in our yard.
But there is a lot of it.
We have lots of trees and gardens that are not amenable to lawn mowing.
Hence I wack their perimeter, making everything look nice and neat.
Those hills are a pain to mow, and in all honesty, you can't, so I wack those.
The plan was I wack and Stephen mows.
You know what they say about the best laid plans. . . .
Stephen is taking a blood pressure medication that makes his legs swell, his feet hurt, creates fatigue and generally changes his usually industrious and friendly disposition.
He eventually started mowing.
But he'd mow a bit and stop.
Do something else.
Mow some more and stop.
Do something else, perhaps inside the house where I couldn't see him.
Mow some more and stop.
Not the roaring mower pushed to the limits of it's endurance I'd become used to.
He mowed the front yard and called it quits.
I don't think so.
One, the lawn must be cut otherwise we're going to have to hire someone from the city with their handy dandy ride on mowers to come and rescue us from the rapidly encroaching lawn.
Two, the sun is out and who knows when THAT will happen again.
Three, and most important, I wanted it done.
He wasn't budging.
So, I did what any other loving, caring, sympathetic wife would do.
Got angry.
And did it myself.
When I want something done, I want it done and I don't want any whining, bitching, moaning, kvetching, about it.
Just do it.
And I did.
I'd never cut this lawn or used this mower before, and in doing so acquired a greater understanding of where the weed wacker could be used.
So it was a learning experience.
And, truth be told, I actually didn't mind mowing the lawn.
I can see me doing it again.
Imagine.
As the sun was out, I also insisted on washing all the laundry, bedding, and hanging it all on the clothesline.
Undies and all.
Meaning between wacking and mowing, I was in and out of the house with baskets of laundry.
By the time all was finished, I had a shower, had dinner with all the kids. . .
. . .a rare event and one I normally cook for but was too tired to do so, therefore I made Stephen purchase pizza I couldn't eat, meaning I ate cottage cheese and boneless, skinless chicken breast while they satiated themselves on luscious, cheesy, olive and mushroom pizza. .
. . . made fruit salad and put sunshine dried sweet smelling sheets and blankets on the bed. . .
. . .and was then off to the nursing home.
There was still the underwear to deal with.
Same size as the original purchase.
Not what she wanted.
Back to Sears I go.
And I said to my mother that if she didn't like what I brought back next time, she was coming with me.
Cause I'm tired of returning underwear.
Today I am sore, but it's the kind of sore you get from accomplishing something.
So it's a good sore.
And the day is light.
We're off the the new Pirates of the Carribean movie as soon as Em can remove herself from the shower and beautify herself.
Mer's coming with us, so we'll stop and collect her.
Keith's already at work.
Even Stephen is coming.
A nice way to spend a very cold, very windy Victoria Day.
And the yard. . . .it just looks so good!
Title Lyric: Dear Mr. President by Pink
May 22, 2011
The world didn't end.
Surprise.
More predictable?
Underwear.
As soon as my mother eyeballed the underwear she asked for, she announced they "looked awfully big."
I checked against the underwear in her drawer.
She was right.
One size too big to be exact.
That'll teach me to take messages at 6.15 am and then rush to purchase underwear after work when my brain has officially shut down due to overuse.
You'll have to take them back, she said.
Because that I didn't already know.
Of course, when I took them back for what was supposed to be a straight exchange, there was not one pair of underwear in the size my mother wanted.
I know this because I checked.
Twice.
With Stephen as my witness.
Which will be necessary when I tell her that yes, I got her underwear in the right size, but no, they aren't the same kind.
Every other size?
Piles and piles.
Of course.
What did I do?
Spent 30 minutes looking for replacements as close to what she had as humanly possible.
Instead of the four I returned, I came out with six.
I know she is going to tell me that she doesn't need six pair.
Because now she has nine pair.
And there are only seven days in the week.
But. . . .
The buy three for this price was the only Mum size I could find.
Unless she wanted to wear something shiny and slippery.
And I assumed she didn't.
Tonight will tell the tale.
There was a bonus, however.
Other than getting my mother the right sized underwear.
Chocolate.
As we were leaving Sears, I noticed a sale bin and inside were several bars of the relatively expensive Lindt chocolate bars.
90% cocoa.
Yummy!
And instead of bearing the usual $3.79 pricetag, several bars were sporting $1.80 sale stickers.
I bought all of them.
One of the few things I am allowed to eat on my SFL plan is dark chocolate.
The more cocoa the better.
Usually I stick to the 85%.
But I couldn't pass up such a great sale.
Plus, NO ONE in my house likes them.
Just me.
In normal circumstances, I'd have to hide those chocolate bars somewhere in the house to prevent child consumption.
Or Stephen gobbling.
But not these ones.
Again, it's the little things.
Our grass is getting very long.
Unruly looking.
Downright sloppy.
Seems that's what happens when you have a month of rain with smitches of sunlight thrown in.
We're in the midst of a battle regarding the lawn.
I want it cut, by us, now.
Stephen thinks its gotten too long and wants a one time yard servicing.
AKA he doesn't want to do it.
So, I am going out this afternoon to cut it.
The sun is out.
Which is enough incentive on its own.
But more than that, I just cannot stand looking at it anymore.
All our neighbours have cut their grass.
Meaning the disaster that is masquerading as our grass is even more noticeable.
Growing up, I had to cut the lawn every single Saturday.
Out in the morning, pre-ipod, so all I had to entertain me was my imagination, I would haul our very old lawn mower from the garage and spend at least 30 minutes trying to get the damn thing started, before I began the two hour journey from front to back making the yard look nice.
I didn't mind it so much.
Until the morning I almost mowed over a snake.
That sent me into the house, yelling at my father to get said snake from under the front porch because I was NOT going back out there until it was gone.
I also left the lawn mower running.
Which didn't score points with my dad.
Too bad, so sad.
So I am not unacquainted with the technical aspects of lawn mowing.
But, you know, in the ten years I've lived in this house I've never cut the grass.
Ever.
Weed wack?
You know it.
Nothing I love more than getting out the weed wacker and making the difficult to mow spots of our yard look good.
Plus I like the obliterating everything out feature.
Cause you hear NOTHING when you're weed wacking.
Not even your own thoughts.
Hence why I like it so much.
I spend way too much time with my thoughts as it is.
I don't like that my hands are numb and tingly afterwards, but that's short lived.
So this afternoon is dedicated to yard work.
Maybe even some weeding.
Which should tell you how desperate I am to get outside in the sunshine.
I am looking forward to yard work.
What next?
Housecleaning?
God forbid!
Title Lyric: He Used to Cut My Grass by Frank Zappa
