I did it MY way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

October 12, 2011

HAPPY 22ND BIRTHDAY MEREDYTH

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meredyth continues to be one of the strongest women I know.

Determined.

Knows her mind, and as we all know, not afraid to speak up when she feels called to.

Which is frequent.

Coming into her own.

Figuring out who she is, what she wants, who she wants to be in her future.

Everyone lives their life following multiple paths, filling multiple roles, and living through the conflicts that result from attempting to negotiate the tensions that occur within the complexities of our everyday lives.

Mer is no different.

What is different is that she is learning to negotiate those conflicts with greater ease, greater understanding, greater dignity and aplomb.

Willing to talk and explore, examine how she came to where she is and how to move forward.

My Meredyth is growing up.

Beautiful, talented, gifted, she will move forward.

Simply because she is Meredyth. 

She will continue to do things her way.

I expect nothing less.

Happy Birthday baby! You continue to make my life better each and every day!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox




Title Lyric: My Way by Frank Sinatra

Do you like sweet potatoes?

October 11, 2011

Our Thanksgiving was as plentiful and bountiful as always.

Roasted to perfection turkey, pumpernickel bread stuffing with walnuts and raisins, Dad's sweet potatoes with cream cheese and maple syrup, lite cream cheese in deference to my lifestyle change, brown sugar carrots for Em because she can no longer consume my parsnips in a tarragon cream sauce, beets for Mer because she loves them and as she says, "they turn my poop purple", my homemade olive oil drizzled potatoes baked in the oven for Em because she can't eat cream cheese potatoes and my mother loves any potato resembling a French fry that she can dip in her ramekin of ketchup, our homemade Ukrainian dill pickles, pumpkin pie that was not homemade but was very, very tasty, homemade cranberry sauce. . .

. . .that Stephen wanted to make using 5 pounds of cranberries.

Luckily I walked in just at the nick of time, and informed him that all one needed to make cranberry sauce for 8 people was two cups of cranberries.

Imagine what I would have done with cranberry sauce comprising 5 pounds of cranberries, which, when including the sugar and water would have been around 8 pounds of cranberry sauce.

Imagine.

But that was the only disaster I was able to narrowly avert.

My father transported his potatoes in a glass 9 x 13 pan complete with it's own pain-in-the-ass-lid to get off.

Plastic lid.

As I was putting his sweet potatoes in the oven, covered with tinfoil, he came into the kitchen and stated that the lid was heat resistant up to 400 degrees so I should put it back on and then put the potatoes in the oven.

My innards nudged me to overrule him, as I am the grande dame of dawne's house, but I was tired, having just taken him and my mother to Costco, the kids were hungry and whining, and all I wanted to do was make my tarragon cream sauce, heat these potatoes and get everyone to the table to eat.

I did as he said.

And then went to the bathroom.

Only to shoot off the toilet as soon as the stench of melting plastic reached my nostrils.

Which was about the same time as it reached my Dad's nostrils.

Now, I have an oven with it's bottom dotted in red plastic.

Melted, hardened red plastic and me with not one f***ing clue about how to get it off without a chisel.

And just as an aside, if I had covered the landscape of my father's oven with dots of melted, hardened red plastic, I would have NEVER heard the end of it.

I would have been reminded of my transgression during every family dinner, every high day and holiday until the end of time.

My dad said he was sorry.

And that he guessed the lid wasn't heat proof to 400 degrees.









Prior  to dinner, I had made arrangements with my father for him to meet me, Stephen and Mum at my house for 2.30, at which time we would all pile into my car and go to Costco.

My father wanted to see inside Costco, peruse its aisles to assess whether or not it would be in his best interest to purchase his own membership.

Or just make arrangements with me everytime he wanted something from there.

Given what he determined would be of any use for him, that may work out to about once a year.

About as many times as I could manage shopping with my father.

Our hour and half meander through the aisles resulted in me and Stephen purchasing a family pack of Premium Plus crackers for the kids, as well as a bag of multigrain chiabatta buns shaped like triangles.

Dad bought himself 3 liters of honey, 30 hearing aids and two bottles of cranberry juice for Mum.

Mum just sat in her wheelchair, watching all that was going around her, and commenting on how little my father's shopping habits have evolved since her moving into the nursing home.









Thanksgiving Monday.

Like Easter Monday and Boxing Day, Thanksgiving Monday is one of the three days in a year where I am almost completely responsibility free.

Where the day greets me not with, "these-are-all-the-things-that-you-have-to-do-before-you-can-rest-your-head-on-the-pillow" but with a "hey! The-day-is-yours-do-what-you-want!"

Three days out of 365 I experience this joy.

Livin' on the edge.

That's me.

Instead of being lurched awake by some contemporary popular music at 5.30 in the morning, I was pawed awake by a bladder challenged Tikka at 8.00 am.

Constituting sleeping in for me.

Instead of eating breakfast at the computer in a rush while Frankie stares at me and whines, I was able to eat breakfast leisurely while Frankie stared and whined at me.

Instead of running around trying to get ready for work while dragging the sleep addled Emily into the waking world, I was able to sit at the computer, mark papers and listen to Em complain about Mer wanting her to take her shift.

Em took the shift.

But Em woke up on her own steam and I was able to do all the emotion management from my desk.

This was turning into a regular holiday.

Three whole times a year.









But a whole day off was just not in the cards for me.

Almost, but not quite.

9.00 pm.

I had just finished watching two episodes of Big Bang Theory, had taken my melatonin and was happily contemplating going to bed when the phone rang.

My father.

NEVER a good sign.

EVER.

Sure enough, I was right.

My mother had fallen at the nursing home while attempting to negotiate the bathroom with her medicated-riddled systems.

Watching her do this in the past lead me to conclude that there would come a time when she was going to fall.

And she did.

A goose egg on her forehead and at the back of her head.

My father, of course, wanted me to go and make sure she was okay.

Of course he did.

Why should he drive into Fredericton to make sure his wife was okay.

I go to the hospital, because this is where I was told she was going to be.

Waiting and waiting, I call the nursing home only to find out that she wasn't coming to the hospital, as the nursing home doctor determined she didn't need to.

So I rush down to the nursing home to find my mother in her bed, ice pack behind her head, ice pack on her forehead, trying not to sleep because she is worried she had a concussion.

I'm worried too.

And if anything had happened to my mother over night, there was going to be a doctor in this city who should be worried about how long she'd be keeping her licence.

Luckily, no such incident occurred.

And my mother appears to be fine.

My father and I on the other hand. . . .

Let's just say I am not a happy camper with him right now.

Not coming into see my mother and a plastic splattered oven.

How much am I supposed to take?



Title Lyric:  Sweet Potatoes by SIA

My golden slippers are laid away. . . .

October 8, 2011


And the shits and giggles associated with multiple cat ownership and the introduction of two new cats into our happy family home continues.

Apparently, because I was at Starbucks marking advanced qualitative interviews and didn't actually witness the events myself, there were ructions.

Initially, things started out amenable enough.

Jasper started by frolicking in our room, capturing Goblet's attention.

Meaning she was sitting on her Throne, aka the Goblet box, on top of our dresser her eyes wide, pupils dilated, watching him attentively, waiting for him to make his move.

And he did.

Jumping on her, he wanted to play, and she was willing to do so, so long as there was nothing untoward happening.

And then the untoward happened.

Of course.

Kittens don't have the brain capacity to know when to stop.

Nor do some adults I know, but that's another story.

Jasper misread Goblet's acquiescence for an invitation.

To burrow under her and attempt to suckle.

Suckle Goblet.

Who was probably unaware that she even had the physical capabilities to do so.

And stunned that Jasper did.

The resulting kerfuffle was a stunned, overwrought and feeling-completely-violated Goblet who disappeared into Emily's room, seeking sanctuary from a cruel kitten who had the audacity to inform her of her biological capabilities.

Jasper just went downstairs looking for other amusement and entertainment, unaware of the shit storm he'd just created by just being his special self.

And I missed the whole thing.

Damn you marking! Damn you!









In spite of all the work Stephen and I have to do this weekend, we decided to take a time out yesterday afternoon and just enjoy the day.

A lovely, unusually warm October day. . .around 23 degrees, breezy, the kind of day that just screams come outside because the weather isn't going to be like this much longer.

Probably not even into Monday.

So we showered, and off we went.

Arriving downtown on a Saturday afternoon, we were able to browse through stores we usually only encounter on Sundays when they are closed.

Going inside these stores was very enjoyable.

And of course, reminded us that we were in no position to be able to afford any of the goodies proffered.

Looking was just as much fun.

And a lot more affordable.









Not that we didn't purchase anything.

Just not things we didn't need.

For example, Stephen has been on a quest for size 13 slippers for months.

Size 13 slippers are, indeed, hard to come by in Fredericton.

Almost impossible.

Our luck changed, however, when we encountered a shoe store downtown, went inside, and lo and behold, didn't they have a pair of Foamtread slippers. . .

. . . .the slip on kind, not the ones you actually have to take the time to put your feet into, in a size 13.

For only $56.00.

But at this point, more would have been paid if only to cease the whinging and whining about not having slippers.

The little things.

Really. . . it's the little things that made the world go round.

I just hope that this pair of slippers doesn't succumb the same fate as the other two pairs of slippers he's had in the last two and a half years.

Hopefully, now that he has outgrown his puppy faze, all slippers will be safe.










We also purchased a wrap around your head light thingy for Stephen to wear when he takes the dogs out after dark.

Which will be happening more frequently, as the sun sets completely by 7.30.

We get home from work at 6.00 pm and by the time supper is over its 7.00 pm.

Making for a short walk in daylight.

Clearly something had to be done.

Hence the Stephen light that wraps around his head.

Hopefully the little woodland creatures who may inhabit the farm space under the cover of night will be as frightened of the night light as they are of the sun.




Title Lyric: Golden Slippers (no artist)

The soup was hot and chicken and on the stove. . . .

October 7, 2011

October 7, 2011

Tired.

This morning I am tired.

And it's all Frankie's fault.

Last weekend, I bought a lovely, whole chicken from Victory.

I love chicken, and nothing is better than roast chicken and baked potatoes when the high for the day is hovering around 10 degrees.

Fresh, yellow beans as a delicious accompanying side.

Of course, any woman worth her salt knows that taking the rack of the chicken, post-consumption, and boiling it for chicken soup is the only decent thing to do when such a situation presents itself.

So I did.

A medley of carrots, celery, onions, chicken and alphabet shaped pasta.

And the result was a warm, delicious homemade chicken soup enough for one supper and several lunches.

I love my dogs.

And they love a ladle full of Mummy's homemade chicken soup mixed in with their kibble.

Unfortunately, the ladle full of soup, while a wonderful means of bringing the dogs into our soup filled world, didn't have the desired outcome.

But it did have an outcome.

Because out came a pile of warm, soft dog shit on my bedroom floor just beside the litter box.

Another foot to the right and it would have been in there ready for the pooper scooper.

Rather than me getting out of bed at 2.20 in the morning to the most putrid stench permeating the previously clean, cool air inhabiting our room.

Putrid actually doesn't even come close.

Before I could even clean it up I had to take the two of them out, because you can't take one out without the other, in order to ensure that there wasn't any more bowel detritus lying in wait for me.

Returning into the house to be greeted by an equally tired Stephen bearing a biodegradable poop bag and a container of Lysol wipes.

I did the best I could with what I had, and ended the cleaning process with piling Lysol wipes onto the remnants of the pile in an effort to mute the mild stench that continued to linger in the air.

While Stephen opened the window thinking the frigid night air would help.

All it did was suspend the stench particles.

So he turned the fan on and dispersed the suspended stench particles.

At that point, I didn't care.

I was tired enough to sleep through the lingering stench.

As was Stephen.

Although he could sleep through just about anything.

And has.









After observing Frankie during his breakfast shenanigans, I came to the conclusion that it may not have been my soup that caused Frankie to become such a loosie goosie.

Apparently, he has developed an ingenious and creative system for getting into the garbage.

Using his snout, he lifts the lid of the garbage can and inserts his head into the garbage can to enjoy whatever treats he figures are in there, waiting for him.

And from what I can see, he's been doing this undetected for quite some time.

Which explains incidents like last night.

I hope.

Because I am running out of explanations for his need to dump in my bedroom in the middle of the night.









Emily called me at lunch time yesterday, as she always does.

However, it was the first time she ever called to say that after I was finished teaching my last class, meaning 5.30, could we take a few minutes and go to Jinglers.

The used clothing store.

The one I frequent as it is one of the few places I can purchase affordable clothing.

Not that there aren't other places I could shop for clothing.

I just can't afford them.

So for Emily, who shops exclusively at expensive boutique clothing stores, this was quite a shock.

And then she explained the reasoning behind her request.

Denim day at the high school.

And she needed a denim shirt to wear with denim pants.

So off we went.

I found three shirts, a sweater and a pair of jeans.

For $11.00.

Who couldn't be excited by that.

Really.



Title Lyric: The Soup by Regina Spektor

Everyone's crawling around on all fours. . . .cos they're shutting all the doors. . . .

October 6, 2011


As a social scientist, I am trained to observe, record and analyze.

Recently, I have noted a correlation between my ability to mediate feline malcontent and time of day.

Morning, I'm your girl. Call on me to separate your frantic felines from their hissing, spitting, general growling and smacking at one another.

Yesterday my reflexes were lightening quick creating a formidable, non-injurious block against Dibley's chasing Goblet up the stairs after one of her infrequent visits to the lower regions of the house.

Admittedly, she is venturing out more often, however, not often enough for Stephen who worries that she is becoming even more anti-social than she's already demonstrated.

And the exercise she experienced, also infrequent, was more than beneficial to her overall physical well being.

In fact, Stephen's worry for her has resulted in our not only moving a litter box into our room, but also her food.

Her not eating causes much concern for someone in our happy home.

While I think she could stand to lose a few pounds.

Me and the vet.









Back to negotiating.

Supper time, I am less engaged in the actual process of negotiating and lean more toward time outs in separate corners.

With sometimes less-than-friendly movements spurned by my exponentially increasing exhaustion from teaching three classes, meetings with students who just can't seem to understand what it is I want them to do no matter how well I think I explain it, or how much sense it makes to me, and the always present familial responsibilities that follow me where ever I go thanks to the horrific and completely unnecessary act of texting.

Meaning I am tired when I come home.

And even the happy faces of loving puppies and adorable felines aren't enough to sustain me through an entire evening.

Even though "evening" is a lose term that encompasses the time period from 7-9 pm as I am usually sound asleep by 9.30 pm.

Including weekends.

Especially weekends.









Late night-early morning I am a completely useless negotiator.

Dibley has taken to late night visiting with Goblet.

Whether or not Goblet wants late night visits is a moot point.

He still makes them.

In the wee hours of the morning, I am awakened by a growling, unhappy, generally pissed-off-that-no-matter-what-she-does-this-keeps-happening Goblet.

Staring beady-eyed at Dibley, who, non-plussed, is sitting in front of her wondering why she's so consistently so hostile.

I realized the other night, after hauling myself from under the warmth of my sheets, blankey and duvet, Stephen snoring beside me oblivious to the cacophony of an irate Goblet, that Dibley is non-plussed because he can't hear her growling and is apparently unable to read her facial expressions of body language, rendering him the feline embodiment of Sheldon Cooper.

And Goblet has yet to understand this about him.

Provided she would even care if she did.

In fact, caring that Dibley is unable to hear them or read them is of little concern to Goblet or or any of the other cats and dogs in this animal infested loony bin I call home.

And if I want to return to any semblance of sleep, and I always do unless I am plagued by some thought that pops into my head while I crawl from the depths of my bed, rendering me unable to return to slumber which happens more frequently than you would think, there is only one appropriate course of action.

Toss, gently, Dibley out of the room and shut the door, effectively calming Goblet enough that she'll settle down and go back to sleep allowing the rest of us who actually awaken when sensing distress in the force to do the same.

Rude, elemental and primal though it may be, sometime just shutting the door on your problems is the only effective solution.

Especially when desperately needed and wanted sleep is involved.

Unfortunately, this has never been a viable course of action when dealing with the kids or Stephen.

Undaunted by continued failure, I am going to keep trying.

Observe and refine.

That's the social scientists model.




Title Lyric: Shutting the Doors by Kirsty MacColl

They give me cat scratch fever. . ..

October 4, 2011


Today, finally, after almost a week of being home Em is returning to school.

Most reluctantly.

If she could swing it, she'd squeeze another day at home, under the guise of caring for Reilley.

But Reilley is fine as long as he is left in peace.

And Em has close to a week's worth of school to catch up on.

Now, given the education system in this province, that may not be as much as you'd think, but the bottom line is she's behind.

In addition, it's Safe Schools Week.

For Em, even more dreaded than exams.

Jumping out of buses, evacuations, Red Alerts.

At the end of the day more about fear mongering, fearing terrorists attacks on the school, bomb scares, etc.

Creating a more-than-anxious-even-though-she-is-already-anxious-Emily

Week nights of working through the traumas, hearing about how much she hates this week and perhaps celebrating the knowledge that this will, indeed, be her last foray into Safe Schools Week.

Plus, even more than the trauma of Safe Schools Week, she just really needs to return to the real world.

Whether she wants to or not.

But because I really need her to.

Really, really.









Reilley.

Survived his trip to the vet without too much long term suffering, agony, strain, anguish or stress.

At least for him.

Em on the other hand was more than a little distressed.

Reilley was suffering from an infected wound.

A wound created by Jasper or Dibley.

Jasper because he wanted to play.

Dibley because he was trying to assert his dominance.

It wasn't a big wound. . .more just a scratch. Well, a deep scratch.

We didn't even know there was a scratch until the vet cut away the fur covering the scratch and the wound started to ooze.

Em was not impressed.

She turned about as green as the ooze.

The pain was a result of the scratch being located on his paw in an area with little skin, just more bone.

The resulting infection caused swelling, which caused stretching of the skin, the locus of the pain.

At least it wasn't something related to his joints or muscles.

He'll spend his next couple of days resting and relaxing in Em's room, food, water, litter box all within his immediate vicinity.

Radio playing for him while Em is away at school.

No other cats or dogs allowed in her room for the duration of time it takes him to heal.

Ten days worth of antibiotics should do the trick.

Emotional scarring. . .that may take a little longer.

For Reilley and Emily.









Most of yesterday was spent working on my latest journal article project.

Which is turning out, as usual, to be more than I anticipated.

But not bad more, just more.

While writing, I was listening to episodes of, of course, Big Bang Theory.

I can't work in silence.

I can work at Starbucks or the library because neither of them are silent.

But there are benefits to working at home.

Because how I respond to writing and watching Big Bang Theory would certainly get me kicked out of the library, and in all probability, Starbucks.

As it is, Stephen shuts the bedroom door and puts the fan on for white noise.

As Big Bang Theory results in laughing, laughing, laughing until my right side protested by sending sharp pains throughout my body because I did, indeed, continue to laugh.

Who couldn't.

In a moment of sharing, I posted some of my Sheldon lines as my facebook status.

One of my colleagues thinks I've developed an alter ego.

Why not?

He's funny and has an IQ of 187.

Who wouldn't want such an alter ego?




Title Lyric: Cat Scratch Fever by Ted Nugent

Drive me, keep on driving me. . . .

October 3, 2011


Emily has been home from school since last Wednesday.

Whatever she has, a cold I suspect, has taken up residence in her immune weak corpus and rendered her almost completely incapable of anything beyond drinking ginger ale, munching soda crackers, and complaining about being sick thinking I was in a position to do something about it.

Again, unfair assumptions about the extent of my superpowers.

And believe me, if I had superpowers enough to magic her well, I'd do it.

In fact, I would have done it last week.

About five minutes after she announced she wasn't feeling well.

For the last five days, between the extended periods of laying in her bed, or Keith's as he has a cable tv in his room, she's been wandering around the house in her housecoat, clutching whichever cat she was able to lay her hands on, occasionally breaking long enough for a bath.

Being home sick has proven to be less entertaining than you would think.

However, it did enable her to observe what was going on around us.

Or the cats to be more specific.









While our cats are becoming more comfortable with one another, there are still some pockets of discomfort and distress among our feline companions.

In particular, between Dibley and Reilley.

Dibley and Goblet.

Jasper is still a kitten so he is completely immune to whether or not the other pets actually like him.

He really just doesn't care.

Which is probably good for him in the long run.

Friday evening, when the monsters-under-the-bed relocated to Em's room, there was some kerfuffle from the monsters about squatter's rights, rendering Reilley with a swollen joint just above one of his front paws.

Over the course of the weekend, he's just not been himself.

No chatting.

No running into my room to join girl time with me and Em, adding his two cents to our conversations as he has done since as long as I can remember.

Em moving him from bed to litter box to food bowl to water to coffee cream container.

Meaning this morning, at 7.00 am I was on the phone with the vet begging and pleading for an appointment today.

I can't take watching him in misery any longer.

Viewing a shadow of his former self in each and every encounter we have.

Plus, Em hasn't exactly been her usual, miserable self while sick.

She's been a hyper-focused of her usual miserable self while sick because she's in a frantic state about Reilley's misery.

In thirty minutes, Reilley warmly ensconced in his cat carrier complete with Emily-smelling old shirts, crate resting comfortably on Em's lap, Keith in the backseat for dropping-off-at-the-university purposes.

I am hoping that it's just sprained.

Not like when Tikka shattered all the bones in her front foot and had to have a cast for six weeks.

Six weeks wherein her cast covered paw was covered with an IV bag and she wasn't supposed to go outside for anything other than relieving herself.

It was a very, very long six weeks with Stephen and Tikka trapped in the house.

Both lasted about three weeks.

And then Tikka and the IV bag, along with Stephen, were taking walks each and everyday.

Good thing.

Otherwise I may have had to force them outside for playtime.

Reilley needs painkillers and time.

Only one of which we can provide without the exorbitant financial intervention of the vet.

Boo Haa.

Who needs groceries.









Em will indeed be returning to school tomorrow.

For no other reason than I need to protect whatever sanity I have left.

Which, admittedly, isn't much.

To ease her, slowly, into re-engaging with the mass public, she is attending her driver's ed, in-car instruction this evening.

From 3.45 to 6.45 she'll be behind the wheel of someone else's car, learning to reconnect with the world outside of the confines of our home.

I'll be at home.

Stephen at work, Keith at work, Em behind the wheel of someone's car.

And me. . .

Wallowing in the blissful silence of our happy home.

Outside of the monsters-who-will-probably-come-out-from-under-the-bed to cavort in the expanse of the house, it'll be a lovely, Dawne-only, incredibly rare, time.

All the time while I nurse the pain-addled Reilley back to his former self.

At least until Em returns home and take control.

Because she will.

He is her cat afterall.

Maternal instinct.

It's a powerful thing.



Title Lyric: Home Sick Home by Faith No More