On Thursday, I was in the middle of a meeting. While I was listening intently as one does, I shook my shoulders slightly to loosen them up. I realized in that moment that my shoulders weren’t the only thing that was loose because I had forgotten, after almost 40 years of getting dressed in a specific order, to put on a bra. I was shocked but also strangely comfortable. Luckily, I was wearing a flowy top and we’re currently in the middle of a heat wave so it wasn’t apparent to anyone else but me. At least I hope it wasn’t. But still, it was a little confounding that for the first time in living memory, I had unintentionally forgotten to don a foundation garment:
Me (shimmying): I just realized that I forgot to put a bra on this morning. Ken: Nice. But seriously? It’s not even the weekend. Me: I know. So weird. I’ve never been so footloose and fancy-free at work. Ken: See? You announce your retirement and the standards immediately begin to slip.
And yes, it occurred to me that my wardrobe mishap may be a subconscious result of my intention to retire from the secret agency at the end of September, an intention that I made public last week. I love my job, don’t get me wrong, but Ken’s retiring at the end of June, and we have a lot of plans. I have writing to do, he has photographs of trees and clouds to take, and we both have the antique business to maintain. (Just kidding about Ken’s photos—he’s an amazing photographer but he DOES take a lot of tree pictures–see the one below titled Sunrise). If you want to see more examples of his awesome photos, search for him on iStock—his last name isn’t hyphenated and it starts with the W part). Then there’s travelling—eventually. Our anniversary cruise, the one we couldn’t take last year, also got cancelled this year, so here’s hoping for the fall, or at least January.
Sunrise
And then to double down on my subconscious reaction to retirement, on Thursday night I dreamed that I went to a retirement workshop, but it was about FUNERAL PLANNING. I was seated between a really young boy and a very grumpy older woman, and we were given categories to make decisions about like “Materials” and “Location”. I distinctly remember examining a brochure and thinking ‘I’ve never been a fan of dark wood but this Mahogany looks pretty sweet.’ Then the woman next to me said, “For Location, make sure you specify high ground, and watch out for salt levels. High salt content causes you to decompose faster.” When I woke up, I researched this and it’s patently untrue. According to Google, bodies decompose faster in fresh water than salt water, although I get the high ground thing. I don’t want my beautiful mahogany casket to turn into a boat. Plus, since Ken will be building me a mausoleum, I want a room with a view. But all of this is beside the point, which is ‘Why the hell am I equating retirement with death?!’ I mean obviously, the bra thing is a metaphor for freedom but choosing a coffin? Then again, I’ve heard that the Death card in a tarot deck isn’t really an indicator that you’re going to shuffle off the mortal coil, but more about moving from one state of being to the other. So I guess if that’s true, I’m fully invested in the transition from work life to a life of leisure. And on Monday morning, I will stare into my bra drawer, pick out the prettiest one and sigh.
Here also is a picture of the cemetery at the top of a hill that I mentioned in the video I posted last Wednesday. I got a couple of requests so here you go. I bet there’s room up there for a mausoleum…
On Wednesday night, Ken was out walking Atlas and he came home perturbed:
Ken: I was scooping, and when I looked up, there were three blue herons just sitting there, watching me. Me: That’s not good. Ken (whispers ominously): I know.
You may or may not remember that I’ve written before about herons and their portentous nature. Oh, they’re beautiful, and graceful, but they are also harbingers of doom. And sure enough, this happened the next morning:
Ken: I can’t find Bob anywhere. Me: What do you mean, ‘can’t find Bob’? Don’t joke like that. Ken: I’m not kidding. I can’t find him. I’ve looked and looked. Me: But that’s impossible. Where would he go?!
Bob is an African dwarf frog. He lives in a small tank in Ken’s office. We’ve had Bob for thirteen years, since he was given to Kate for her 10th birthday. Bob originally came with Doug and the two of them were presented to Kate in a tiny plastic cube barely big enough for a cup of water, so we quickly moved them into a small fishtank with fake plants and buildings so that they felt important, like small gods. We also assumed they were brothers because they fought A LOT. Then one day I looked up “why are my dwarf frogs fighting so much” and it turned out a) they weren’t fighting and b) Doug was Dougette. I was hopeful but we never did get any baby frogs. Dougette passed away a few years ago but it took a while for us to realize that because dwarf frogs don’t do much and just hang in the water rather lifelessly most of the time anyway. If I had a dollar for every time I had to tap on the tank and poke Bob to make sure he was still with us, I could have bought him a bigger tank. But now, not only is he not hanging languidly by his miniature Parthenon, he’s nowhere to be found. He isn’t in the tank, he isn’t on the bookcase the tank sits on, and if he somehow got out of the tank and fell OFF the bookcase, he’s not on the floor anywhere in the room. And it’s upsetting because even though he didn’t do much, he was a fixture in our lives and I hope no matter what happened to him that he didn’t suffer. F*cking herons.
And it was just the sour cherry on top of the stale cake that was this week, because normally, this week is THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR, which is to say it’s Big Garbage Pickup Week or, as I like to call it, Big Junk Day. Last year, you may remember that we struck gold, bringing home stained-glass lampshades, antique sleds, and vintage leather suitcases. So last Sunday, as we were putting the finishing touches on my new outdoor office/garden house, we realized that the ceiling fixture wasn’t working properly. And since we’re locked down and can’t go to any stores to replace it, Ken said something that made me love him even more—“Let’s go drive around the back roads and see if anyone put a ceiling light out for Big Junk Day.” I’m sure you’re thinking, “Right. What are the odds?” But don’t scoff—sure enough, we DID find one, a very nice chandelier, as well as a 1920s Mission Oak armchair in beautiful condition that I’m now using as a desk chair in the garden house office. It was an auspicious beginning. The next night before dinner, I was raring to go. But an hour later, I was sadly disappointed:
Me: What’s with all the tarps?! Why does everyone have so many tarps? This junk is crap! Ken: Ironic.
Concession after concession, gravel road after gravel road, it was just tarps, old mattresses, and empty plant pots. Finally, we came to a junk pile that looked promising and I hopped out. Sure enough, there was a bag with a small Persian rug inside. I pulled it out, to Ken’s dismay (“You don’t need another rug to straighten!”), and put it in the truck. I was elated, but my triumph was short-lived:
Me: What’s that smell? Ken: It smells like pee. Me: It’s not the rug. Ken: It’s the rug. Me: Goddammit!
The bright spot of the week came when Ken got the mail on Thursday. There was an envelope addressed to me from Capital One with a refund cheque inside. It was for 10 cents. Here’s the background. A year ago or so, I was making a phone order from The Bay, a department store here, and my store credit card was declined. I was befuddled so I called Capital One and they told me that my account was $1.36 overdue.
Me: You seriously suspended my account because I owe you a buck thirty-six? Capital One Person: Yes. Me: Why didn’t you let me know? COP: I don’t know. Me: Cancel my account.
So she did, and told me she would clear out the $1.36. But the next time I got a bill, instead of it saying I had a zero balance, it said I owed them 8 cents. And I was like, Really, Capital One? You want 8 cents? FINE! So I took a nickel, found three old pennies, taped them all to the bill and sent it back. That was the last I heard for almost a year until yesterday when I got the cheque for 10 cents (which I assume is my 8 cents plus interest) with the stern warning that I must deposit it immediately.Maybe I’ll really screw with them and send it back with “No longer at this address”. Then again, if the herons keep showing up, I might just have to move.
Update:Well, several updates. I decided to give up on the old Singer sewing machine, and as I moved it out of the alcove where I’d left it, I looked down and Eureka! I found the battery we thought Atlas ate. We also found Bob, lifeless under the rocks in his tank. Poor Bob. We buried him next to Titus and said a few words about what a good frog he was. And considering that the average life expectancy of an African dwarf frog is 5 years, and he lived to be 13, he was a pretty lucky little amphibian, despite the herons.
I spent a lot of time last week cleaning out our garden house, which is what we call a cute little structure that Ken built many years ago in our side yard. In the summer, it’s a nice place to sit and relax, and in the winter, it stores all of our summer furniture. So with the weather getting nicer, I decided it was time to take everything out of storage and get the place spruced up. There was only one problem—earlier in the spring, in a sudden moment of lunacy, I had purchased a used elliptical machine from our neighbours across the street who had posted it on Facebook. “Look!” I said to Ken. “It’s not very expensive, we just have to wheel it over here, and it fits in perfectly with my exercise plan.” Ken gave me the look he always gives me when I announce that I’m going to exercise, which is to say, he looked at me with incredulous disbelief.
“Just put it on the porch for now,” I directed him. “We can bring it in the house when I figure out where to put it.” But finding a place for a very large piece of exercise equipment proved to be more daunting than I thought, and the elliptical stayed on the porch until I had another brainstorm. “Let’s put it in the garden house. I can exercise in there.” Ken rolled his eyes, as one does, but loaded it onto the handcart and wheeled it over. “Remind me who’s supposed to be using this to exercise again?” he asked, but I promised that it was ME. And to prove my point, once it was installed in the garden house, I immediately hopped on to prove to him that I was serious. Then I immediately cracked my head on one of the ceiling joists to prove to him that perhaps this wasn’t the best idea. But we repositioned it so that I could—I don’t know, do you RIDE an elliptical?—do whatever it is you do on one of those without giving myself a concussion.
And there it stayed until last weekend, when the weather suddenly got much warmer. It was a gorgeous day and I immediately headed out to the garden house. I stood there contemplating the elliptical, when I had yet another brainstorm. The garden house would be a perfect spot for an outdoor office, where I could sit and write whilst listening to the bubbling of the fishpond outside the door and the birds singing in the trees nearby. But there was an elephant in the room, and by elephant, I mean a giant metal elliptical machine that, by this point in time, may or may not have become slightly spiderwebby from disuse, and that’s not my fault because I’ve been quite ill lately and here’s a slight tangent for you:
I finally called my doctor and he wanted some ‘samples’, so he sent me to a lab over half an hour away to pick up the sample bottles, and let me just say that for someone in my current situation, driving that far away from home during a pandemic when there are NO open public washrooms was one of the most terrifying things I’ve done in a while. But I made it there and back without incident. At some point later that evening, I was able to provide the required samples (which was an ordeal in and of itself and one I will NOT be sharing with you, and yes I can hear your palpable sighs of relief), and the instructions said to refrigerate them until taken back to the lab. I couldn’t stand the thought of them just sitting there in the refrigerator though, so I went into our dining room closet which is obviously where we keep wrapping paper and gift bags, and picked out a small but cheerful little bag to put them in. Then I placed the bag on the top shelf of the refrigerator. Sometime later:
Kate: Ooh, what’s this? Me: Don’t look in– Kate: What the hell, Mom?! Me: I tried to warn you.
The next morning, I had to return to the same lab, with the same sense of terror, this time with my cheerful gift bag. The line-up to get in was very long, and I was glad that my offering was charmingly concealed. When I got to the registration desk, the nurse asked why I was there:
Me (whispers): I’m just bringing back some samples. Nurse: Oh, what a lovely little gift bag. Me: You might think it contains sweets or a treat. Yet it does not. Nurse (laughs): I’ll take it in for you. Do you want the bag back? Me: No. No, I don’t.
I’m still waiting for the results and a thank you card. Tangent complete. I believe I left myself staring at the elliptical machine that was obscuring my plans for an outdoor office. I decided to sweep and mop as I considered my dilemma, all the while being taunted by the elliptical:
Elliptical Machine: Why did you buy me? You’ll NEVER use me. Be honest. Me: But I want to use you. So bad. Elliptical: You never will. Me (sadly): I know.
For sale: one elliptical machine. Bit of a bully but works fine otherwise. Just want what I paid for it, or will trade for a comfy chair.(Update: Someone is coming for it today–I hope it’s kind to her).
On Friday morning, I was having a bit of a sleep in, because I’d taken the day off. Ken still had to work, but he’s retiring at the end of June and likes lording it over me a little with his plans to spend the summer building sheds while I’m slaving at the computer. He came out of our walk-in closet wearing a shirt and boxer shorts.
Ken: Should I wear light or dark coloured pants with this shirt? Me: You work from home. Why are you even wearing pants? Ken: I always do. But on my last day of work, I won’t. I’ll have my retirement party, then at the end, I’ll get up, diminish into the West and everyone will say, “Hey, he’s not wearing any pants.” Me: That’s the best retirement gift you can give THEM— Schrodinger’s Pants. All they know is that at any given moment over the last year of your career, you were simultaneously half-dressed and fully-dressed. Ken: I’m an enigma.
And speaking of enigmas, I saw this online on Friday afternoon.
The first three words I saw were Ranch Dressing, Poison, and Crabs and now I’m a little freaked out because a) I made Ken go to the corner store on Wednesday TO GET ME RANCH DRESSING so what’s next—I have a severe shellfish allergy so is anaphylaxis on the menu this weekend? Also b) if you look at all the words carefully, the majority of them are quite violent and the whole exercise just went from fun to mildly threatening:
Chainsaw Danger Sword Clown Shim Poison Nordebeaste Crush Pills Secret Quicksand Demon Rat Apologies (which I assume is sarcastic)
The post was introduced with the sentence “It’s that time again” and the following emojis: a laughing face, a face gritting its teeth, a skull, and a demon. So did a serial killer design this list? And then there was this comment below the word jumble: “Chainsaw, unicorn, and music…a perfect trio!” and I will leave you to picture that person’s week all on your own.
In other news, I haven’t provided a quilt update for a couple of weeks because I’ve temporarily given up. I was halfway through row 9 when my 1936 Singer machine literally fell apart, so I borrowed my mother-in-law’s sewing machine and apparently it was built by NASA and I need to learn astrophysics to use it. “Why don’t you read the User Manual?” I hear you ask. Because it’s a generic User Manual for several different models and not a single instruction or picture is for the model I have. So now all I can do is wait for Ken to retire and learn to use it so he can sew more clothes for his marionette, and then he can make Youtube videos that I can follow. And when he does, he may or may not be wearing pants.
I woke up on Thursday morning to a notification that I had a new comment to moderate on my blog. I have things set so that any new commenter has to be approved, and then once approved has carte blanche to say anything they like. Spam, of course, is filtered out right away; otherwise, my entire site would be littered with people encouraging me to buy backrest pillows shaped like baseball caps, kamagra jelly, various antibiotics and other drugs, and comments like:
“It’s perfect time to make a few plans for the future and it’s time to be happy. I’ve read this publish and if I may just I desire to recommend you some fascinating issues or advice. Perhaps you can write next articles regarding this article. I want to learn more issues about it!”
Or
“I have been surfing online more than three hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the internet will be much more useful than ever before.”
And while I’m happy to be making the internet more useful than ever before, I am very aware that these are just autobots. So imagine my surprise on a sunny Thursday morning to discover that J.K Rowling HERSELF had left a comment on my blog to be moderated. It was a particularly eloquent comment too. Now, before I tell you what the comment was, I should probably state for the record that, while I love Harry Potter, the books AND the movies, I am NOT, for personal reasons, a huge J.K. Rowling fan and I may or may not have responded to her more transphobic tweets by telling her exactly how I felt about her. Still, she took the time to read my blog and even better, she left a comment on my About page. The comment read as follows:
Trash ass blog? That’s the best you can do, J.K.? Not even a cool spell like ‘Trashicus Assicus Blogamundo!’? And it’s obvious that her editors had washed their hands of this pithy tome, with nary an upper-case letter in sight. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. In addition, J.K., my ass is not trash and I have the receipts, and by receipts I mean the results of my last colorectal screening, to prove it. But then it occurred to me—maybe this wasn’t really J.K. Rowling. But I looked up the website and it took me straight to Wizarding World: The Official Home of Harry Potter. The email address was jkrowling@gmail.com. Hmmm. Seemed legit. Perhaps this was her revenge for that tweet I sent. So I emailed her and asked if she had posted a comment on my blog, and wouldn’t you know it? She must have been so ashamed of herself that she deleted her email address because my email got immediately bounced back.
And now I’m starting to wonder if this is, perhaps, the work of an imposter, albeit one with terrible writing skills and a definite lack of humour, an imposter who has gone to an awful lot of trouble only to leave an incredibly stupid comment on my About page. Actually, it’s even more nonsensical, because the comment was a reply to a reply that I had given to someone else’s comment, not even on one of the posts where I mention anything to do with Harry Potter.
Update: Apparently the dumb f*ck masquerading as J.K. Rowling clicked on other people who had commented previously on my About Page and left them rude comments too. Weirdo.
Quilt Update: 8 and 1/3 rows and then my 1936 Singer sewing machine had a nervous breakdown. I’ve borrowed Ken’s mom’s machine and now I have to figure out how THAT works.
Over the last few weeks, the AZ vaccine was made available to Gen Xers and, in Canada at least, most of us rushed to get it, because as many people recognized, those of us in Generation X are pretty devil-may-care, that’s how we were raised, and we don’t give a f*ck. Blood clots? I’ll take my damn chances if it means that people stop getting sick, small businesses can open, or I can have a graduation party for Kate. So I decided to repost this satirical look at the way our childhoods were different from kids today, originally written almost 5 years ago when kids were allowed to hang out on playgrounds without masks. I hope you enjoy…
I was watching the news at lunch on Thursday, and there was a feature on “playground safety”. A very serious and sincere woman was instructing parents on how to “inspect” their local playground to make sure it was safe for their children. Her following gems of wisdom made me realize how much the lives of children have changed since I was a kid:
1) “Make sure the playground equipment is on a soft surface such as sand or wood chips.” This is so that, in case of a fall from the monkey bars, it’s less likely the child will suffer a broken bone. Well, in my day, we didn’t have “playground equipment”. There were swings and slides, and they were usually on concrete pads, and if you happened to fall off, it was no skin off anyone’s knee but your own. The best piece of playground equipment from my childhood had to be the giant metal rocket at Churchill Park. You had to climb into it via a metal ladder that went all the way up through very tight openings to platforms at different heights. The whole structure was on a slight angle and the top platform was probably 20 feet off the ground, which made it all a little disorienting, but you were encased in a metal cage (picture a rocket-shaped Wicker Man), so it was perfectly safe unless you lost your footing and slipped off the ladder. But see, all this taught us to be CAREFUL. It was like when hockey players used to play without helmets—they thought twice before trying to block a slap shot with their heads. Now, it’s just a free-for-all, with pucks flying everywhere, and kids leaping from platform to platform or swinging maniacally off stuff without a care in the world. Really though, in my day, we had better things to do than be all supervised on a playground. The best playground in the world when I was a kid was a construction site. I remember the good old days, racing around among the nails, concrete blocks, and roof trusses, then a gang of us would swing down into the basement through an open window, and play tag. Was it dangerous? F*ck yes, it was dangerous. One time when I was too small to get in and out by myself, the neighbourhood kids swung me in, then forgot about me later when it was time to go home. After a couple of hours, my mom started to get worried and, eventually a search party found me. Sure, it was scary being down there by myself, screaming for help and whatnot, and sure, I have an intense fear of climbing through tight spaces like windows or holes in metal platforms, but it made me TOUGH. Not like these babies today.
2) “Thoroughly inspect the equipment to ensure there are no damaged areas or sharp edges.” This is good advice for today’s playgrounds, which are all made out of plastic and easily broken. Or vandalised. But that was the great thing about the slides and swings of my youth. They were sturdy and iron and medieval-looking and held together with giant bolts and chain ropes. You couldn’t damage them if you tried. You would literally need a gang of kids wielding sledgehammers to even dent the slide in my neighbourhood. Was the bottom edge sharp? Sure. Was it rusty? I would certainly hope so. Otherwise, what was the point of getting a f*cking tetanus shot?
3) “Teach your children about the ‘zone of safe passage’.” What the playground safety expert meant by this was that parents need to assist kids in observing other children swinging and running, and figure out how far away they need to be from them to not get kicked or knocked down. When I was a kid, no one taught you that sh*t—you learned via the school of hard knocks, pardon the pun. In other words, if you ran by someone on the swing set and got a foot in the face, you very quickly learned the “zone of safe passage” on your own. There were no adults screaming, “Veer left, Tommy! Veer Left!! Remember the zone of safe pass—Oooh!” Our parents taught us one rule, and it was the most important rule of all: “Never chase a ball onto the road. But if you’re already playing on the road, move when you see a car coming.” That was their wisdom, and it saved my life many a time. Actually, both of my parents saved my life at one time or another. Mom saved my life at a baseball game. It was before the age of netting to protect the spectators, and a fly ball was coming straight for my head. She stuck out her hand and deflected it away. The bruise on her hand later was a very good indication of what might have happened to my skull if she hadn’t been so quick-thinking. She also saved my brother from drowning on more than one occasion. My dad saved my life one day when he happened to look out a bedroom window and saw me dangling by the collar from the branch of a pear tree in our backyard, slowly choking. I’ve never seen him run so fast. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for helping me survive to adulthood.
4) “Smoking is now banned on playgrounds, so be vigilant and remind those who might not be aware.” NO SMOKING?! What? I’m sorry, but the only reason that I’m only slightly asthmatic is because my lungs were toughened up by years of second hand smoke (and first-hand as well, of course—it WAS the seventies). It’s funny how attitudes change over the years. When I was a kid, ANYONE could buy cigarettes. I still remember my mom giving me a note and a couple of dollars, and sending me to the local store to buy her a pack of Rothmans. I’d stand there in line with the other 6 year-olds, shooting the sh*t about the latest Barbie outfits, or what construction site or vacant lot we’d be meeting at later, or what vacationing family had left their milk door unlocked, then spending the change from the cigarettes on sugar candy. (Milk door, in case you’re wondering, was a tiny door next to the actual door. The milkman would open it from the outside, put the milk in, then the family could open a second door from the inside and get the milk. If you went on vacation and forgot to lock the milk door, you were an open target for the neighbourhood kids. The smallest one, usually me, would squeeze through the opening and let the others in. So if you came back from a trip and all your cookies and cigarettes were gone, you knew you’d forgotten to lock the milk door.) But people back when I was young were not as knowledgeable about the dangers of smoking. In fact, my mom, like many women, smoked through both her pregnancies. Of course, she’ll tell you she’s glad she did, because otherwise, my brother, who has a Ph.D., and I would be “insufferable” and much taller than his 6’1” and my 5’6”. Now, of course, some women are so paranoid that they won’t eat peanut butter if they’re pregnant because it “might cause allergies”. I say expose ‘em early and often—it’s the best way to toughen them up. I remember once being told off by a colleague when I was pregnant with Kate for drinking a Pepsi. No, not because it wasn’t a Coke—she said, “Don’t you know what the caffeine might do to the baby?” I was like “Hopefully keep her awake all day so she doesn’t kick the sh*t out of my stomach tonight when we should both be sleeping.” I feel terrible though—she might have gotten MORE scholarships to university if I’d gone with Pepsi Free.
Overall, I just think that monitoring your child’s every move is counterproductive to childhood. And of course, I’m exaggerating about my own youth—my parents took very good care of me and my brother, but not in that “in your face” kind of way. My dad calls it “Carefully supervised neglect,” which to me, means that you let your kid be a kid, but you’re always there to stop the baseball or the drowning, as the case may be. Personally, I’ve tried to embrace that saying, but I get that it’s not always easy. The world seems to have become a more scary place than it was 40 years ago, or maybe as an adult, I’m just more aware of it now than I was when I was young. All I know is that the first time Kate wanted to go to the store by herself (it’s just around the corner and she was 10), I had to stifle every protective instinct I had. She was gone about 30 seconds when I broke down and begged Ken to act like a stealth ninja and follow her at a safe distance so Kate wouldn’t know he was there. Ken, of course, obliged, and came back to report that she was fine—that she had made it safely through the four-way stop and was on her way home with some sugar candy and a pack of smokes.
Quilt Update: 7 rows complete and 13 to go. You can see the pattern starting to form, maybe?
I’m currently being plagued by toxicity. No, I don’t mean I’m surrounded by toxic people—in fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’m particularly fortunate to have many incredible people in both my life and work. No, when I say toxic, I’m referring to the song. Yes, Toxic by Britney Spears. I’ve had that f*cking song in my head now for several days and it’s evolved from an ear worm into a serpent. At first it was amusing. “What’s that song playing in my head?” I asked myself last week. “Oh, Britney. Fun.” A couple of days later, I was like, “Toxic? Still? What the hell?” as it became more persistent and annoying. Yesterday, it ramped up to the point where I started getting worried. Every time I stop actively thinking, I realize it’s there, playing in the background, over and over again. And the worst part is that I don’t even know all the goddamn words so it’s mostly just Britney mumbling and then belting out the chorus. I actually woke up at 3 am yesterday and the first thing I heard was “With the taste of a sip I’m drinking rye/It’s toxic, I’m hearing thunder…” and it’s even more worrisome that my brain is filling in the lyrics like THAT.
Now, I’m no stranger to the ear worm. I get them pretty regularly, thanks to good old OCD, usually based on something I’ve just listened to, but after a couple of hours or a couple of glasses of wine, they disappear. And because I have a semi-eidetic memory, I usually know the lyrics and can sing along. The week before I began my battle with the Britney Army (slight tangent: I just googled ‘what are Britney Spears’ fans called?’ but first I misspelled ‘what’ and it autofilled ‘what are hemorrhoids?’. Then I misspelled ‘Britney’ and again it autofilled with ‘what are hemorrhoids?’ To be clear, I have never done any research on that topic and thus far in my life I haven’t needed to, but it concerns me that Google associates Britney Spears with butt ailments, so I investigated further and went down a rather terrifying hemorrhoidal rabbit hole and now I know more about the topic than I ever wanted to, and I still don’t know why I can’t get Toxic out of my head.), I had Shame by Foo Fighters playing on a loop, but that was okay because a) I love Foo Fighters and b) it’s an awesome song and c) I knew all the words so I just started merrily singing along.
But now? Is it an omen? Is it a warning? Is the universe trying to tell me something? Could it be related to the sudden upswing in my OCD due to all the adhesive rug grippers I bought suddenly letting go due to several rather vigorous games of boogedy boogedy with Atlas, resulting in my carefully symmetrized rugs being askew once again (I should have known there might be issues with the product when I saw the instruction that read “For renew the sticky, wipe with cloth”)? OR…hear me out: Is Britney in danger and needs my help to free her? Well, if that’s the case, she’s sh*t out of luck, because we’re under yet another stay at home order. Sorry, Brit. At this point, I’m just resigned to having the damn song in my head forever. And you know what they say—the next step after resignation is acceptance, so hit me baby, one more time.
Quilt Update: All patches are cut, and the design has been laid out. Ken figured out how to use the sewing machine because he made a wooden marionette out of some scrap wood and decided to sew it a little shirt and pair of pants. I’ve named the marionette Marty, and he’s adorable in a kind of grotesque way and definitely has Ken’s fashion sense, but at least now Ken can teach me how to sew.Also, just in case you think I haven’t been busy, I also made this cool bookcase out of a 1970s grandfather clock shell.
Last week, I got a new tattoo. I love tattoos—I already have five of them, and now that I have Prime TV, I’ve been bingewatching Ink Master, which is a great show with a surprising amount of drama. So I was super-excited to book an appointment with Nathan at New Rise Studio, who’s the son of one of Ken’s former colleagues, and I’ve been following Nathan’s work through her Facebook page for ages. I finally made the appointment with him at the beginning of December for a January date, and just before the glorious day came, we went into lockdown again, postponing everything indefinitely. I finally was able to get the new tattoo done last week and it turned out exactly the way I hoped. And Nathan was very cool and not at all freaky like the last guy I went to, who not only gave me a tattoo but also regaled me about the time he was a Chippendales’ dancer, and told me about his stepson’s sex life.
It might seem weird that I got my own book cover tattooed on my arm, like very narcissistic and whatnot, but I don’t care. I’d originally envisioned something much smaller and less ostentatious but when Nathan showed me what he’d designed, I thought, Why the hell not?
And now my plan is to get ALL my book covers tattooed on me at some point, so I’m literally covered in covers. But that isn’t why I’m telling you this story. No, I’m telling you this as the context for a very misogynistic conversation I had recently, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
This week, I got a call out of the blue to come the next day to a hospital where a surgeon would perform a procedure on my shoulder called ‘barbotage’, which is supposed to break up the calcium deposits in my shoulder and relieve the intense pain I’ve been in for months. You might remember that I had undergone shock wave therapy for the same thing, and I had to explain to several people that it wasn’t electroshock, like they were envisioning me with electrodes attached to my skull a la Frankenstein. The shock wave therapy, despite its hefty price tag (not all of it was covered by our provincial health program) didn’t work, obviously, since the calcium was still there like a rabid little ferret, chewing away on my tendons. I’m assuming that’s what a rabid ferret would do at any rate, as I have no actual experience with either rabies or ferrets. So I went to the hospital and was greeted by the ultrasound technician, who explained that she would use the ultrasound machine to guide the surgeon as he stuck a variety of needles into a variety of places in my shoulder, particularly this long tubular needle that he would use to break up the calcium. “Just to let you know,” she said ominously, “there’s a chance the tendon could tear, or you could get an infection. Also, it will bleed a bit. I’m obligated to tell you that.” It sounded TERRIFYING. But I thought “What would Dave Navarro do?” and I signed the release she gave me.
She left to go get the surgeon and I sat there waiting, almost sick with fear. They came back and after some chit chat (he had a deceptively charming English accent), I didn’t feel any more comforted:
Me: So I heard this procedure has a 90% success rate.
Surgeon: Meh. There haven’t been many clinical studies. It’s probably more like 60%. Fingers crossed.
Me:
Then he draped me and began the procedure:
Surgeon: I’m going to inject you with lidocaine. It will feel like a bee sting.
Me: Let me know when.
Surgeon: It’s already done. You’re okay?
Me: Yep.
Surgeon: Okay, now I’m going to inject your bursa with a local anaesthetic. Are you still good?
Me: I got a tattoo last week. This doesn’t hurt as much as that did, and the tattoo didn’t really hurt.
Surgeon: I’m going to insert the barbotage needle now…So you have a tattoo? My wife wants one, but I told her she wasn’t allowed to get one. And I told my kids that if either of THEM got one, they could find a new place to live.
Me:
Surgeon: How are you feeling? Just a few more minutes.
Me:
Like, what do you even say in response to that? I mean, I had a ton of things I could have said in response to that, but the dude had a giant needle stuck deep inside my shoulder, so I didn’t feel it was an appropriate moment to explain to him that we were living in the 21st century. I mean, could you imagine that kind of conversation at MY house?
Me: I’m going to get a tattoo.
Ken: You’re not allowed.
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! See ya when it’s done, nerd.
The procedure was quickly finished up—it was nowhere near as bad as I’d thought—and he gave me some aftercare tips then vanished. Right before he left…I still didn’t say anything because what if I have to go back for another treatment? But if I do, I’m going to make sure I see Nathan FIRST.
Yesterday morning, I woke up, opened my eyes and immediately grabbed my phone to text Ken (he was downstairs, but I’m lazy and the bed was so cozy):
I was filled with relief. And what could possibly have brought about this reverent—nay blissful—attitude towards the state of our dog’s bowels? Well, let’s backtrack a bit.
On Wednesday, I was in the middle of a meeting when Kate skidded into the room and announced loudly, “Atlas just threw up!” I managed to convince her that, having just been accepted into a Veterinary Technician program, cleaning it up would be great practice, so she did, and after my meeting was over, I went to investigate. It was A LOT. Then about half an hour after lunch, he did it again. And after his mid-afternoon snack. For dinner, we gave him a small amount of steamed rice and plain yogurt, and he seemed OK, so on Thursday morning, we gave him the same. Around 10 am, I let him out and he tossed up all the rice and yogurt. My heart sank, and I started immediately fearing the worst—either an obstruction or a tumour.
Let’s backtrack a little bit more. Atlas the monster dog, our canine enfant terrible, is a typical Lab. Which is to say, he will eat literally anything. I’ve pulled plastic tags, bottle caps, deck screws, my car key fob, and other assorted and bizarre items out of his mouth on a regular basis. A couple of weeks ago, he came into the house with a chunk of ice in his mouth (I’m in Canada and it’s winter) so I wasn’t too concerned, until Kate came home, saw him, and yelled, “Why the hell does the dog have glass in his mouth?!” Turns out it wasn’t ice. I have no idea where he could have gotten a large piece of glass from—Ken and I never put our recycling out back. I found him eating okra once outside too—I had to look it up, because I’ve never bought it before in my life. Where he gets this stuff is beyond me, and we’re also currently missing several jigsaw puzzle pieces and three of Kate’s earrings. So the idea of an obstruction was NOT far-fetched.
We took him to the vet on Thursday, where he spent the day, getting examined and tested. When Ken finally brought him home, he was tired but starving. The vet was pretty sure it wasn’t an obstruction, mostly because, as she put it, “He’s very…enthusiastic” which I took to mean that he was leaping into the air and yelling “Yee Hah!!” as he normally does whenever he knows liver treats are close by. She said to give him the stomach medicine she’d prescribed and not to feed him until Friday morning, then give him special canned food—one tablespoon every hour, and see if he held it down. But the most important thing was to make sure he was pooping. Which he didn’t. All day Friday, and all Friday night.
And then finally, it was Saturday morning and EUREKA!
Right now, I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, What the heck is going on here? This is supposed to be a HUMOUR BLOG. None of this sh*t is funny! But wait—there’s more.
Me: So where’s the poo?
Ken: Just over by the fence.
Me: Have you examined it yet?
Ken: Of course not. I was saving it for you.
Me: Awesome, thanks!
Ken: You’re not going out NOW, are you? It’s minus 5 and you’re in your pajamas.
Me: I need a long stick.
And if you’re not laughing at the thought of me, out there in my pajamas and slippers, ankle deep in snow, poking through my dog’s poop with a stick, I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t find anything unusual in it, more’s the pity:
Kate: Did Atlas poop out my earrings yet?
Me: Not yet. Maybe next time.
It’s nice to have something to look forward to, am I right?
On Tuesday morning, I was getting ready for work when my phone rang. I wouldn’t normally answer an actual phone call that early (or any time really unless it was family) but it was a Toronto number and I work with several people who live there. So I put down my blush brush and said, “Hello?” A woman’s voice answered: “Hello, I’m calling from Doctor ____’s office for Shane Brien.”
And there it was. Like an elusive ghost from the past, Blazefordayz Shane had suddenly reappeared.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Shane hasn’t had this number for a few years.”
The woman sounded confused, but said, “Okay, thank you. Goodbye” and she hung up.
For those of you who haven’t been here long enough to know the saga of Shane Brien, let me remind you quickly. I received a company cell phone about 4 years ago. Almost immediately, I began getting text messages about Soca parties, Facetime calls from Shane’s mother, messages from Shane’s jealous girlfriend (“You better not be with that Angela”) and invitations from his friends to play soccer, go to Vegas, and smoke weed, as well as various job offers from temp companies. In fact, one of my favourites was the time I was offered a ‘warehouse’ job, and after a certain amount of contemplation, I offered to get a team together and requested the blueprints to the warehouse (you can read all about this in My Week 226: All About The Bordens). The response was a confused “What do you mean?” and I realized I may have misjudged the situation.
Over the years, the calls and messages have continued sporadically. I tried to hunt down Shane, but to no avail. Unfortunately, there are several ways to spell both ‘Shane’ and ‘Brien’, leading to about nine permutations, none of which matched anyone on social media that I could see. But I did find out tidbits of information first from a jewelry chain, who had the number associated with a Shane Brien in Brampton. He also had a Canadian Tire Points Card, long expired. And now this—a doctor’s office calling for him.
It made me very concerned. After all, Shane and I go way back, and at a certain point, I began to feel quite motherly towards him. But after all these years, people STILL don’t know he changed his number and they’re STILL looking for him? And then I had a terrible thought: What if Shane had been murdered?!
In case you’re wondering why this escalated so quickly, I started watching a crime show on Netflix about a hotel called The Cecil where people have died or disappeared from. In the very first episode about a Chinese student who went there and was never seen again, I immediately, after an aerial shot of the roof, announced, “She’s in the water tank.” Ken looked it up online, and she was, indeed, found in the water tank, obviously because ‘putting bodies in water tanks’ is the new ‘tossing them into a dumpster’ in the world of crime dramas, and I’m REALLY good at solving mysteries. But it got me thinking, What if…
So bear with me: Shane Brien, a popular young man, goes to a jewelry store to purchase two gifts, each an engraved bracelet. One is for his fiancé, and the other is for a woman named Angela whom he is seeing ‘on the side’. After a heavy night of drinking and Soca dancing, Shane inadvertently gives the wrong gift to the fiancé, who is understandably furious. Little does Shane know that ‘Darla’ (that’s what I’m calling her) is the type of woman that you should never scorn. She begins to plot and plan. She goes to Canadian Tire and drains Shane’s points account with the purchase of an air fryer to establish her alibi—she couldn’t possibly be responsible for Shane’s impending disappearance—after all, she just bought an air fryer to make him chicken wings for f*ck sake! (Darla swears a lot when she’s nervous).
But she’s a small woman—how on earth will she exact her revenge on the duplicitous Shane? Then she has a brainstorm—she calls a ‘temp agency’ which is really a front for a criminal enterprise and asks to hire a ‘cleaner’. And as everyone knows, if a ‘warehouse job’ is a money heist, then a ‘cleaning service’ is obviously who you call when you want someone disappeared.
The ‘cleaning service’ is expensive, but Darla has access to all of Shane’s accounts as well as his passwords. She arranges to have them send Shane a text message advertising a rooftop SOCA party. Party of ONE, but Shane doesn’t know that yet.
“I’ll meet you there,” Darla says with a sweet smile. But she doesn’t. She just sits at home eating chicken wings (those air fryers are pretty goddamn awesome), waiting for the call telling her the ordeal is over. The ‘cleaning company’, in the meantime, has lured poor Shane up to the rooftop of a local hotel with the promise of sweet Soca music, and deposited him in the water tank. He’s never seen again.
Darla, of course, has the password to his cellphone account, which she cancels, although she continues to text Shane to establish a solid alibi and also throw suspicion onto ‘that Angela’. But the one thing she didn’t count on was that Shane’s cell phone number would be passed on to me, a crime drama afficionado. I hope I’m wrong about all this, but I rarely am.
Of course, there could be a much simpler explanation—Shane got a new cell phone and forgot to tell people he’d changed his number. But somehow, I doubt it…
Also, check back here on Wednesday for Creative Wednesdays—I have a big announcement!
Ivory Towers is one of Canada’s leading drag queens. With over 18 years experience she has won many titles including Miss Gay Toronto, Crews and Tangos drag race and many more. She has been featured in commercials with Sephora, Visa debit, Molson Canadian and Ikea.
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