Dem Bones, Dem Bones

One Saturday morning last fall, Ken said to me, “Hey, let’s go to the Christie Antique Show.” I did what I always do and immediately said, “Yes! Let’s do that.” Then I did the next thing I always do and immediately had second thoughts and regrets, especially after looking on the website which said that there were free shuttle buses from the parking lot to the show site. All I could think of was the line-up to get into the parking lot, the line-up to get on the bus, and the obvious huge crowds of people that would be there. So I said, “Maybe let’s not go after all,” but Ken was insistent, even when I was all sad and whiny and like, “I don’t wanna go to the antique show. Don’t make me go to the antique show,” but he made me go anyway on the grounds that “it will be fun.”

Before we left…
Me: I’m taking my wristlet. I don’t want to lug a huge purse around with me.
Five minutes later…
Ken: I’m taking my camera.
Me: You always take your camera. Why are you telling me this?
Ken: Oh, I just thought we were announcing things to each other.
Atlas (from outside): Here’s my annoucement. I’m taking a dump in the back yard! This is fun!

In the car…
Ken: Why are you staring at me like that? Is there something wrong with my outfit?
Me: I wasn’t staring at you. I was looking past you out the window.
Ken: No, you were looking at me.
Me: How would you even know that?! I’m wearing dark sunglasses. Besides, you look fine. You’re wearing your red plaid shirt and lime green T-shirt. What could possibly be wrong with that?

A moral dilemma…

Me: Did you see that video on Facebook about the job interview question?
Ken: The one where you’re driving in a lightning storm and you see three people at the side of the road?
Me: Right—“You see your best friend who once saved your life, a beautiful woman, and a sick elderly lady standing by the side of the road in a lightning storm, and you only have one seat. Who do you take?” It was easy. I solved it right away.
Ken: What do you mean, “you solved it”? Did you watch the video to the end?
Me: I didn’t need to watch it to the end. The old lady sits on my lap in the driver’s seat, my best friend sits in the other seat, and the beautiful woman sits on HIS lap.
Ken: You’re not allowed to do that. You only have one extra seat.
Me: I can do whatever the f*ck I want. It’s MY ethics. I’m the Kobayashi Maru.
Ken: No, in this situation, you’re Kirk. But it doesn’t matter. That’s not the right answer. Why don’t you EVER watch videos to the end? The CORRECT answer is: You give your keys to your best friend because you trust him to take the old woman to the hospital and then come back for you. This leaves you alone with the beautiful woman. Then he comes back and—
Me: This is starting to sound suspiciously like that logic problem where you have a rowboat and you have to take a bunch of animals across a river. It’s a MORAL DILEMMA, not a logic problem, Ken. Also, why do I want to be alone with the woman?
Ken: So you can hit it off with her.
Me: A) She’s not my type and B) That’s why my solution is more ethical. I put the woman on my best friend’s lap so that HE could hit it off with her. I’m self-sacrificial as f*ck. There. I win. ALL THE MORALS ARE MINE.
Ken: Sigh.
Me: Hey! What if my best friend, the beautiful woman, and the elderly sick woman are ALL THE SAME PERSON?
Ken: I can see that. I mean, you’re MY best friend, you’re beautiful, elderly, and you were sneezing yesterday so you MIGHT be sick…
Me: I’m ELDERLY? Your outfit sucks.

Then we got to the antique show, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. We had no problem getting parked, got a bus right away, and made it into the showgrounds less than 5 minutes after arriving. But then we realized that there were 100s of dealers and we needed a system, which was basically to wander down one row and back up another, saying, “Have we been down this aisle before? Oh yeah, I remember the giant elephant statue.” We have a friend who had a booth, and we finally found him. He said he was having a pretty good day, selling quite a bit and whatnot, when Ken pointed to a large box of bones at the front of his tent. They were priced at $5 each. When we asked about it, he said that last month, a guy came into his store with this big box of bones, wondering if he’d buy them. He was skeptical at first, but they sold like hotcakes (if hotcakes were all dirty and decomposed). So when the guy came back with another box, he bought that too, and brought them to sell at the show.

Friend: People are going nuts for them. I’ve already sold most of them. Quite a few people have been teachers, you know—want to use them in their classrooms.
Ken: What kind of bones are they?
Friend: Cow bones. I think.
Me: Cow bones?
Friend: Probably.

I don’t know if I want my child in a classroom where the teacher is like, “Hey kids, check this out! It LOOKS like a human femur, but the guy told me it’s probably just a cow bone.” And the weirdest thing was, he wasn’t the ONLY dealer selling bones. There were so many of them that we lost count. There were skulls, antlers, jaw bones, full skeletons of small rodents, you name it. We walked past a booth where a guy was showing a woman a skull that was on top of a log with a branch going through the skull’s eye socket. He was actually saying this: “Sometimes when animals die in the forest, they do it on top of logs and such, and then they go into rigor mortis there. So I’ve arranged the skull and log like this—kind of like a nature scene.”

And while this may seem like a one-off, at the antique market where I currently work, there’s a dealer who has glass vials full of chicken bones, and they also sell like crazy. Go figure. I guess I should have kept last year’s Christmas turkey carcass–I could have made a fortune.

That’s Not My Name

It’ll be a quick one today—I’m up to my eyeballs in things to do and of course, today is radio show day. Last month was better, and I’m hoping I make it through the whole show without any glitches—I’ll keep you posted. And of course, I just got back from an overnight stay at a hotel, because Ken and I were at the wedding of our lovely neighbours. I do love a good wedding and I always say, “Meh. I won’t cry.” And then the bride comes walking down the aisle, and the groom lights up, and my eyes fill with tears every time. My favourite part of the ceremony, aside from the joy in the eyes of our neighbours as they tied the knot, was the officiant, who was pretty laid back. She had a microphone that kept cutting out a bit, but at the point where the rings were brought out, she very clearly said, “Ooh, nice box!” And it WAS nice, being velvet and all. Then there was the reception at a local winery. The groom’s uncles were the MCs and they were hilarious, as was the best man—it was a fantastic comedy show, and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that much at a wedding reception—not even my own.

Then of course, we had to stay overnight at a hotel because it was a bit of a distance from our house. It was an interesting hotel, and by interesting I mean, I will not stay there again, because our room was on the main floor and it had a floor to ceiling window with only a thin window blind separating us from the restaurant patio where several many people were drinking to loud music—I could have stepped out of the window right onto the dancefloor. It was freezing in the room but we couldn’t open the window because of THE PEOPLE RIGHT OUTSIDE IT. But the music shut off around 10:30 and I actually had a decent night’s sleep. In the morning, I got out of bed and the room was still freezing despite the fact that I had turned the A/C completely off. So Ken pulled up the large blind and I opened the window to get some warm air in, and literally 10 seconds later, this old guy yells, “Hey Emma!! Is that you?” And I’m standing there in the window, wearing a shortie nightie, my hair all frizzled from the humidity, bare legs, boobs hanging out, and this old guy is WALKING TOWARDS MY OPEN FLOOR TO CEILING WINDOW. He’s like five feet away from me and staring at me and again, he yells, “Emma!! Is that you?” I yell, “NO, IT’S NOT!!” and slam down the blind. It was like that scene in Life of Brian where he gets up, completely naked, throws open the curtains, yawns and stretches, then a whole crowd screams his name. But instead of thinking I was the messiah, this guy just thought I was his friend.

And I ask you—if you have a friend staying at a hotel, why would you EVER assume that the one person standing in the window of one of over 60 rooms MUST be your friend? All I can hope is that when he DID find Emma, she was fully clothed. Here’s a little earworm for your Sunday: (That’s Not My Name by The Ting Tings in case it doesn’t show up for you)

It Is What It Is

To begin, it’s Father’s Day here, so a heartfelt Happy Father’s Day to my wonderful husband, Ken, who’s an amazing dad, and same to my own awesome father—I love you both so much! And now, on with the show! Here are three quick stories, a tiny trilogy if you will:

1) This morning, I was getting ready for work. I finished brushing my teeth and when I went to put the toothbrush back, it looked weird. There was something black within the bristles. I had no idea what it was. I toyed around with getting it out for a second, then I went and got my reading glasses so I could actually see it properly. IT WAS A BUG. So I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken, who was on his way to my brother’s cottage to help him move some furniture:

Me: So I was brushing my teeth and my toothbrush looked weird…
Ken: What was wrong with it?
Me: There was a bug in it. I just brushed my teeth with a bug. UGH.
Ken: What kind of bug?
Me: A squished up dead one that was in my mouth a few minutes ago.
Ken: EW.
Me: Now I need a new toothbrush. And a new mouth.
Ken: Are you sure it wasn’t a peppercorn?
Me: From all the freshly ground pepper I put on my TACO last night? No. Definitely an insect of some kind.
Ken: Poor you. And poor, minty fresh bug.

2) As you know, I work part-time in a bookstore on the weekends. A bookstore is many things, but a bookstore can’t help you remember the book that you know literally nothing about:

Customer: Do you have that book about the guy, and that woman, and there’s an island, and a storm?
Me: That’s maybe like half of all the mystery books in here. Do you know the title?
Customer: No.
Me: Do you know who wrote it?
Customer: No.
Me: Do you remember what the cover looks like?
Customer: I think it was blue.
Me (pretending to search on the computer): I’m not seeing it in our system, sorry.
Customer: Okay, thanks.

I’m pretty sure why this guy is looking for wood fence panels. We’ve been lucky this year, and I hope I’m not jinxing anything by saying that Atlas has yet to be sprayed, unlike last year where he was 0-5 against the skunk that took up residence under our shed. This year we just have a lot of rabbits, and they’re adorable, especially the tiny ones. I only wish they wouldn’t eat my lupins. I’ll have to find out where TJ gets his fence panels from…

Euphemistically Speaking

I belong to a Writers’ Group that meets twice a month. I don’t always get to go because my schedule is nuts, but they’re really nice people so whenever I can, I attend. It’s always fun—everyone gets to share what they’re working on, and do a little reading out loud if they like, which is good for getting feedback. This past week, I showed up, and there weren’t that many people sitting around the table (the group meets at a library that has cozy seating AND a fireplace so if that isn’t reason enough to attend, I don’t know what is—the only thing better would be cocktails). We did a little attendance check, i.e. So-and-so can’t be here because she’s on vacation; Bob isn’t here because he had an appointment, and whatnot. Then someone said, “Oh, Mary’s not here because her Irish uncle is visiting.” And I was like, “That’s a new one—what’s it a euphemism for?” because all I could think of was those other sayings/excuses about visits, such as ‘I can’t come because my Aunt Flo is visiting’, or ‘I need to visit the little girl’s room’, and it occurred to me that maybe ‘a visit from your Irish uncle’ meant you’re drunk or hungover or something. AND I’M SORRY, because I KNOW that’s a terrible negative stereotype and that overall, I’m sure Irish people don’t drink anymore than the rest of us. But still… At any rate, the person who said it responded, “No, her uncle from Ireland is at her house right now,” and that clarified it a little bit, although it could STILL be a euphemism, and all I could think of was Mary, prone on her sofa, waving a glass of wine merrily and yelling “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya!”

And speaking of things you WISH were euphemisms, on Saturday, I was in a store looking for body lotion that DIDN’T contain coconut or aloe vera because I’m allergic to both. A sales woman was helping me scan the shelves. She pulled out a pump bottle that said, “Rice Lotion.”

Saleswoman: I think this one would be okay. It’s made in Korea, and the base is rice.
Me: (checks ingredients) It looks like it would work.
Saleswoman: Here’s another from the same company. It says ‘Snail Lotion’.
Me: What’s in it? (checks ingredients). It says…snail mucus.
Saleswoman:
Me:
Saleswoman: Um…
Me: Pass. I’ll stick with the rice.

Because I’d need several visits from my Irish uncle before I EVER slathered snail mucus all over my body.

Speaking of my body, I got a new tattoo to commemorate the publication of Dark Nocturnes. One of my favourite stories is Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus. I’m so lucky because I have an amazing tattoo guy who did this for me, and I love it:

Ode To The Smelly Chair

You all know how much I love a good bargain but sometimes, it can be a problem. In the past, I’ve been given the eyeroll by my daughter at the grocery store when I buy 30 rolls of toilet paper just to get the extra points. And I only ever buy something from Lancome if there’s a “gift with purchase”, which means that I have more eye make-up remover and sample size mascara than I could possibly use in one lifetime. But sometimes, my love of a bargain has its downside. Well, downside mostly for Ken:

Me: I need you to go into Ayr tonight around 7 o’clock.
Ken: What? Why?
Me: I bought a 7 foot column.
Ken: What do you mean a column?
Me: You know, like, a pillar. It was a really good price.
Ken: What do you want it for?
Me: I don’t know yet. But it’s awesome, and I told them you’d be by around 7. Here’s the address.

And the column WAS awesome, even Ken agreed. Right now it’s in the corner of my office, but one day, it will be used for something really cool, like a super-tall pedestal for a bust of Shakespeare, or to hold up a low ceiling or something. I do this to Ken all the time, and I’m glad he’s the kind of guy who sees into the future for this stuff. Last week, I made him go and buy a vacuum cleaner hose for the central vacuum cleaner upstairs. He gave me a hard time, which is par for the course, but he later agreed that for $30, it was worth the drive to Cambridge so that he didn’t have to drag the downstairs hose up the stairs anymore. See, I’m always thinking of ways to make his life easier.

I’ve gotten many amazing bargains over the years, but I’ve learned some lessons the hard way. Like, don’t buy furniture from chain smokers. Several years ago, we were looking for a certain kind of chair for in front of our fireplace. I was on Facebook, and I saw the perfect chair: dark brown leather, tufted back, recliner—perfect for Ken after a hard day, and very match-ey with the rest of the room’s motif. So I called the owners, and arranged to go and see it. When I got to their house, I was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of cigarette smoke. I looked at the chair, which was gorgeous, but told them I’d have to talk to my husband first and would let them know (because I didn’t want to buy it, but also didn’t want to be mean to this nice old couple who were, apparently, well on their way to lung cancer). Well, when Ken saw the picture of it, he fell in chair-love. “Their house reeks,” I said.
“It’s leather,” he replied. “We can just wipe it down.”
Well, OK then. So we drove back out, paid for it, and loaded it up. He kept saying things like, “See, it’s not so bad,” to which I would reply, “It’s on the trailer and I can still smell it.” But we got it in the house, and it looked amazing. “See,” said Ken, “it’s perfect. And it hardly smells at all.” So we went to bed that night, feeling pretty good about our great deal. Then in the morning, I came downstairs. My living room smelled like a BINGO HALL. I kid you not, it was like a bunch of emphysemic senior citizens had set up shop with their cards and dabbers in front of my fireplace. The chair spent the next three days out on the front porch.
After three days, we brought it back in. It became immediately clear that the problem had NOT been solved, so out came the leather cleaner and the Febreze. Day after day, I cleaned and sprayed that damn chair with a variety of floral and geographic scent-sations. One night, Ken was so simultaneously sad about the smell, but happy about the comfort level of the chair that he spread a blanket over the entire thing to mask the odour and fell blissfully asleep in it. At this point, I realized that no matter how much the chair smelled, Ken loved it like a child—a smelly, poorly behaved child—and I could never convince him to part with it. Over the years, the smell has faded to the point where it’s completely undetectable, unless it’s particularly warm and humid outside and we haven’t turned the air conditioning on yet. And we still call it the Smelly Chair. But it was a great deal, and if nothing else, I’m all about a bargain.

In other news, I’m getting this post ready early today, Saturday, because I’m doing a book fair until 8 pm as DarkWinter Press. It’s an outdoor book fair. The current temperature is 8 degrees Celsius (about 46 degrees Fahrenheit), it’s overcast, and it’s windy. Do you know why that is? Because we’ve gone past False Spring and are now in the Second Winter of Our Discontent. I really hope I sell some books before I freeze to death.