My Week 73: Quirky Conferences, Motion Detector Lights

Thursday: I go to a conference

I was lucky enough this week to have been given funding to attend a local education conference with a colleague. The conference overall was an excellent experience, but not without some quirks. I’m not sure if this is typical of all conferences in general, but it was my first time attending one of these things and it was at times, bizarre. It was at a local hotel, and I decided on Thursday morning that walking would be a good idea, which it totally wasn’t, since the temperature was like minus 12 degrees, or what I like to call “f*cking freezing”, which is a technical term we use in Canada for pretty much anything below minus 5. By the time I arrived at the hotel, I was dying from that insane itchiness you get when you’re out in the cold then you come into someplace warm and your skin feels like it’s being eaten by piranhas. Plus, I was ten minutes late because I have a TERRIBLE sense of how long it takes to get anywhere, and this is not made any better by the strange Torontonian idea of what a “block” actually is. In most towns, a block is the distance between intersections, but in Toronto, the intersections can be at least a kilometre apart, so when someone says, “Oh it’s only three blocks away”, that can mean 40 minutes of what I call “lost walking”, where you walk and walk, the whole time feeling like you must have gone past your destination, and you keep asking people how much further it is, and they just keep saying, “Oh, it’s like one more block”.

At any rate, I was in pain, but happy to be inside, and I made my way to the registration desk. A very cheery woman took my name, gave me a lanyard with ID on it, then told me to hand in my ticket at another table for my “swag bag”. Swag bag?!! Now this was more like it—I was really excited because I know at the Academy Awards, the swag bag has things in it like make-up, and expensive jewelry, and coupons to Pizza Hut. After paying $3.50 to check my coat (I know, right?! What a rip-off), I presented my ticket and was handed a red, plastic bag, like a grocery bag. It felt pretty light, like it was filled with paper. “Is this the swag?” I asked the woman.

“Well, it’s the bag,” she said. “You can use it to put things in.”

This was sounding more and more like when I got my eyes lasered and thought the blue bags everyone was getting must be full of treats, but it was just cheap sunglasses and an eye drop schedule. Which was still one step up from this bag, which was, upon further examination, filled with paper. At least my laser bag had sunglasses in it, even if they weren’t Chanel or Dolce and Gabbana. And I already had a bag to put things in. So I shoved the plastic bag inside my own bag, feeling a little let down by the lack of swag, and went into the conference. Over the next two days, here are some other things that bewildered me, prompting me to ask the following questions:

1) Is it normal and not-rude for people to just walk out of a session while the speaker is still speaking?

The first thing I did that morning was see the keynote speaker, a famous, former football star who now spoke about his previous career and the importance of finishing his education. He was wonderful, very funny, and obviously had worked hard to put this speech together. I was standing at the back because of the lack of available seats, and wishing that someone would leave, so maybe this whole thing was my fault, because after about ten minutes, people just started getting up and walking out. I was happy at first—like a ninja, I quickly and silently slid into a vacant seat. Then it got super-distracting, as people just kept getting up and leaving, you know, with those little apologetic half-smiles as they make their way down the row to reach the aisle then scurry away like no one noticed them. By the time the football player was nearing the end of his speech, which was entertaining, funny, and emotionally moving, so definitely NOT boring, gangs of attendees were fleeing. And when he got to audience questions, people weren’t even QUIET anymore. They acted like it was the end of the movie and the credits were rolling, leisurely sauntering out and discussing where they were going for dinner. I wanted to yell, “Sit the f*ck down!” because I had checked the schedule and there were no other activities for another 45 minutes. Where the hell were they all going? It turns out—NOWHERE. The same people who were scuttling out of the grand hall were just standing around in the mezzanine when the session finally finished.

This happened on more than one occasion over the next two days, when attendees started abandoning the room with about ten minutes to go, causing the poor presenters to have to talk over the noise. Some of them would speed up their presentation, as if talking faster would make people more interested. It was really stressful—you could see the self-doubt on their faces, like “Am I boring?” No, but it’s almost lunchtime, and god forbid the tables in the food court are all taken.

2) Do presenters practice their presentations so they know how much time they’ll need?

The answer to this question is apparently not, as every session I attended finished with “Oh my god—I have so much more material to cover! How much time do I have? 3 minutes? OK, let’s see how many more PowerPoint slides I can whip through—I only have 50 left, but I think we can do this…” It was an unfortunate truth that the main point of each presentation got glossed over in the last few minutes. One poor woman was literally freaking out and exclaiming, “This is SO stressful! I’M SO STRESSED OUT!” I felt like saying, “You’re not the only one.” So, a word to the wise—plan accordingly, and time yourself so that you can end with the ending, not with the middle.

3) Am I really old?

I ask this because I came prepared to each session with a notepad and a pen. I took notes, old school style. Unlike the majority of the people in the room, most of them younger than me. Whenever a PowerPoint would go to the next slide, cell phones and Ipads would quickly rise above the crowd and everyone else would snap a picture of what was on the screen. EVERY screen. Presenters kept saying, “All of this information is on my website,” but it didn’t make any difference. It was like being at a rock concert but instead of screaming and lighters being waved around, it was eerie silence and cameras hovering in the air.

4) Are gluten-free meals the same as vegetarian meals?

Yes. At least at the Sheraton. I went to the keynote breakfast on Friday morning, featuring a marvelous Canadian writer. When I registered electronically, I indicated the gluten-free option for the meal. When the food came, it was an omelette topped with a poached egg, smothered in some kind of sauce. Aside from the overabundance of ovum, I was worried that the sauce might have flour in it, so reminded the waiter that I needed the GF meal. “Can you just bring me one with the omelette and nothing else on top?”

“Oh, don’t worry—we have special meal for you,” he said.

What he brought me was this: a plate of potato wedges, asparagus, and cherry tomatoes (fine), with a bowl of plain, poached eggs swimming in water (absolutely, pukily disgusting). I couldn’t even look at them—it was like the eyes of death staring at me. I should probably clarify at this point that I have an EXTREME aversion to any type of egg where the yolk and the white are not completely blended. Yes, I know it’s weird, but it’s based on childhood trauma. Once, when I was little, I looked into the refrigerator and saw a bowl containing a perfect canned peach half floating in delicious syrup. I didn’t question its existence—I just did what any child would do. I dipped my finger into the syrup then licked my finger. It was NOT a peach. It was an egg. So, blech. I made the waiter take away the eggs and ate the vegetables, which were fine and NOT vomit-inducing. Then I looked around and realized that my meal was apparently the fallback for the vegetarian option, as well as the kosher meal. Now as far as kosher goes, I think it has something to do with how animals are slaughtered, so I guess the eggs were cracked properly? But as for it being vegetarian—I ask again, as I have in previous blog posts (see My Week 60: Facebook Quizzes), since when are eggs vegetables? Just because they don’t have legs now doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have grown up to be actual animals if Farmer Brown hadn’t stolen the mother hen’s babies. I was talking to a guy later that day, and he was like, “Oh yes, I’m a strict vegetarian, although I do sometimes eat things with eggs in them, like cake and stuff.”

5) Am I five years old?

This is the opposite of number three. I ask this because A) in the Exhibitor’s Hall, I was accosted by someone dressed as “Clifford, The Big, Red Dog” in one of those Disney-like animal costumes, and a photographer who wanted to know if I’d like my picture taken with him. Why would I ever want that? I had no small children with me, and I don’t have a “furry” fetish, which is where you want to make out with someone dressed in a fur costume, but trust me—that dog was nowhere near hot enough. Sweaty, yes, but hot, no. B) I arrived at a session and took a seat at a table near the back. “No!” said the presenter. “You can’t sit back there. I need you to sit at this table near the front.”

“But I don’t want to sit there,” I said. I might have sounded a little petulant, but I hate sitting near the front—what if I need to go to the bathroom? Then everyone watches you leave and it’s really embarrassing.

“Well you have to,” she ordered.

It wasn’t long into the session when she showed us a movie trailer which ended with a donkey being hit and killed by a car. “I probably wouldn’t show that to a lower elementary class,” she said.

Really? Maybe because a donkey just got murdered? I didn’t want to see that, let alone exposed small children to it. Then she told us we were going to watch it AGAIN. But I couldn’t even sneak out, because I was sitting NEAR THE FRONT.

6) Is a presentation more enjoyable when there’s a sign language interpreter?

Absolutely! My last session on Friday featured a well-known guru with great ideas, but who spoke in a bit of a monotone. Fortunately, there were two sign language interpreters with her, who more than made up for her lack of style. These women were SO expressive and enthusiastic that I listened to the speaker but watched THEM the whole time. Way more entertaining. I don’t know where they get their training, but the way they were signing, it must have been the Royal Shakespeare Company. There was comedy, betrayal, death, and romance—never has “Developing Non-Fiction Writing Skills” been so exciting. Like Game of Thrones meets the Weather Channel.

Overall, it was a great time, and a wonderful learning experience. As for the swag, I DID get two free books and a USB stick, which was almost as good as a Cartier watch and made the bag completely useful.

Friday Night: Motion detector lights

On Friday night, I came home from Toronto. I went into the walk-in closet to get changed, reached up to pull the chain on the light to turn it on, but couldn’t find it.

Ken: The chain broke this week.
Me: How do I get the light on then?
Ken: I installed a motion detector light bulb.
Me: But I’m IN the closet. Why hasn’t it come on?
Ken: You have to come out of the closet. Now walk to the right, along the side of the bed. Now walk to the left and move towards the bathroom door. Take two steps forward, then hop one step back on kind of an angle.
Me: What?
Ken: You did it wrong that time. Try it again. This time, make it more of a 30 degree angle instead of a 45 degree angle.
Me: Can’t you just get another chain?
Ken: No, this is way better. Oh, by the way, when you’re finished, you have to shut the closet door. If Titus walks past, he triggers the light.
Me: I didn’t realize Titus could do Country Line Dancing.
Ken: You’ll get used to it.

Ken was right. Now, if I want the closet light on, I just hum “Achy, Breaky Heart”, the magic takes over, and it’s all good.

My Week 71: Subway Etiquette, Don’t Mix Wine and Cold Medication

Wednesday: Subway etiquette

Every morning, right before I go into my office building (by the regular door, NOT the revolving door. And yes, I choose to ignore the sign that says “Please use the revolving door. Help us conserve heat” on the grounds that a) the building keeps its lights on all night, so let’s not get all uppity about ME wasting power and b) I have an irrational fear of revolving doors and it’s just better for everyone if I’m not shrieking and panicking first thing in the morning. Sorry for the long sidebar), I get a copy of The Metro, a kind of local paper from this poor guy who stands by the subway entrance every morning looking like he’s DYING from the cold, I mean like he’s in PAIN. They must pay him a lot to do this, because I know there’s no way in hell I would pass out newspapers in this weather for less than like a gazillion dollars and all the wine I could drink. The Metro focuses mostly on downtown Toronto events and features writers who are not quite at the national level, but it’s still interesting and has good recipes on Thursdays. On Wednesday, there was an article about “subway etiquette”. It wasn’t anything earth-shattering, pretty common-sense stuff like “Let people off the car before you enter” and “Be aware of your surroundings as not to hit people with your shopping bags”. After reading through the article, it occurred to me that the author had obviously NEVER BEEN on the subway, because if this is all she thinks is needed to make the subway a pleasant experience for everyone, she’s living in a fantasyland. The same fantasyland where the downtown corridor DOESN’T smell like urine and garbage and people DON’T bark at you on the escalator in College Park. (I told a colleague about being barked at, and she said, “Oh that guy. He’s barked at me before” like it was a perfectly normal thing to do.)

At any rate, after reading The Metro’s tips for subway travelers, I decide to put together my own list of do’s and don’ts for Riding The Rocket. That’s not a euphemism for other “downtown activities”, it’s the cute slogan that the Toronto Transit Commission uses to encourage people to use public transit.

1) Don’t spit in the recycling bins on the platform. The other day, I was waiting for the subway, standing near the containers for recycling, paper, and litter, when a well-dressed woman crossed in front of me and spat into the recycling bin. All I could think was “Whuh?” Like, it literally made me inarticulate in my own head. Ken has this obsession with washing empty cans and jars in the dishwasher, and I always tell him it’s a waste of time because the recycling people will just wash everything when they get it anyway. I made that up to bug him, but now I really hope it’s true. If you really have to spit in public, like if there’s absolutely NO F*CKING WAY you can help it, at least use the litter bin. That sh*t’s just going to the dump, not reappearing as a yogurt container or a juicebox with someone’s expectorant embedded in it.

2) Don’t talk to yourself. People get scared when you do that, especially if you’re having an obviously angry and animated conversation with someone imaginary, or with the cigarette packet in your front pocket. Your own personal narrative needs to stay in your own personal head. Or bring a puppet with you so that people will think you’re a ventriloquist; a whole new career might be waiting.

3) No dancing to invisible music. I’ve actually seen this more than once. The first time, it was a woman (I think) in what seemed to be a full burka with nothing visible except her eyes. Then suddenly, she started doing this crazy dance up the aisle towards the door and waited there for another three stops, just jiving away. She might have had earphones on under her headcovering, but based on her behaviour, I was like “I don’t think she’s really Muslim…” Then there are the guys who play air-guitar, who drum on the seats, or just randomly sing along to whatever the alien chip in their tooth is broadcasting. It’s like unintentional busking where NO ONE wants to give you money—they just want you to get off the subway.

4) Don’t laugh when the subway turns into “Inception”. This isn’t so much an etiquette tip, but just a reminder for myself. The Toronto subway has these new cars that swivel so they can follow the tracks more smoothly. They’re white inside with red seats, very futuristic, and when they start going around the corner, they bend. If you’re sitting in the middle, all of a sudden the cars ahead and behind you will swing away and kind of disappear, just like things were all weird and bendy in the movie “Inception”. When the curve turns into a straightaway again, the cars all swing back into a straight line. It’s quite possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, and every time it happens, I grin maniacally to myself. I can’t help it. And people either look at me strangely, or kind of nod and smile back, like they get it too. Here’s a picture of what it looks like; although it’s hard to tell, the next car has swung away. I’ve also included a picture of a squirrel who looks the same way I look EVERY TIME IT HAPPENS. No wonder I get weird looks.

5) Sit the f*ck down. What is wrong with people who INSIST on standing in the middle of the car when there are perfectly good seats available? Try taking the subway at rush hour when half the seats are open, but you can barely get on or off the car for all the people just standing there like idiots. Some of them are reading. If you’re that afraid of coming into contact with another human being that you would hold a book in one hand, hold the bacteria-ridden pole with the other, and try to maintain your balance in a moving vehicle for 5 kilometers, maybe you should just stay home. Me, I prefer to sit whenever I can, because you never know what’s going to happen. See number 6.

6) When you can’t get a seat and your subway car stops dead in the middle of the tracks, and you’re told the delay will be at least an hour and your arthritis is flaring really badly, do what I do—sink to the floor and sit there. At least 5 people will immediately jump up and offer you their seat, and when you struggle to get up, they will band together to lift you and support you. Because we all recognize that if you’re desperate and in enough pain to sit on the disgustingly dirty subway floor, you need some help. The subway might be a hotbed of weirdness at times, but people in Toronto are wonderful in a crisis.

Friday: Don’t take cold pills and drink alcohol.

This actually happened a week ago Friday, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it until now. I’m only telling it today because I think it’s important that people know how easily something like this can happen, and how the cold medication people play down the whole “mixing alcohol with this sh*t” issue. I was really sick last week, and finally resorted to taking a cold and sinus medication containing pseudophenedrine. It was OK in Toronto, where I would take it before bed and then go to sleep, but a week ago Friday, I was on the train, and I was feeling really crappy. I had a glass of wine, and right before I got off, I popped a couple of cold pills. Ken picked me up and we went to visit my aunt, where I had another glass of wine, which I didn’t quite finish. Then we went to Dominoes for take-out pizza, and while we were waiting, we went to the pub across the street to have a drink. So not quite three glasses of wine in about two hours. Let me state for the record that I’m usually able to drink as much wine as I want at any time of the day, on the assumption that “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere” as my dad likes to say. In fact, it’s 5 o’clock while I’m writing this. Somewhere.

So we picked up the pizza, and then I had to go to the bathroom, so Ken stopped at McDonald’s. That’s the LAST THING I remember until I woke up in bed at around 10 pm. I don’t remember the drive home (thank god Ken was behind the wheel). I don’t remember eating dinner. I CERTAINLY don’t remember the terrible argument I had with K (and we rarely have a wrong word between us), where I ordered Ken out of the room, then irrationally insisted that K make a list of all the furniture she needed for university next year. When she refused, I got furious and told her that she needed to decide now, because “two months is like twenty years when you’re a teenager”, and I don’t even know what that means. I absolutely don’t remember bawling and accusing her of “leaving me forever.” I also don’t remember getting ready for bed. All I know is that I woke up at ten, looked at Ken and said, “What are we doing right now?” Ken just snorted derisively and kept watching TV. I said, “I’m going down to get a glass of wine. Do you want anything?” at which point, he looked and me and said, “I think YOU’VE had enough.” Then he told me what happened. I was totally confused and embarrassed. The package of cold pills didn’t say anything about not drinking alcohol, and even on the internet, it just said that mixing them with alcohol could make you sleepy. Then I read some other anecdotal stories from people who’d had similar experiences with the same cold medication—one guy said he had to go back to the pub the next day and apologize to his mates for being a belligerent assh*le, but he didn’t remember a thing after the second pint. So here’s a warning for you all. You never know how you’re going to react when you mix alcohol and medication, so better safe than sorry—don’t take the medication. (What? Did you really think I was going to say “Don’t drink”?! You know me better than that.)

PaintNite, Reality TV

Wednesday: I go to PaintNite

Last Wednesday, I went with a group of people from work to something called “PaintNite”. If you’ve never been to one of these, you HAVE to do it. You get sent a link to a painting, and then you go to a bar and everyone has to recreate the same painting. While drinking. It’s the most fun I’ve had in a while. Our painting was called “Caribbean Cove” or something like that—it was a painting of a tranquil tropical sea with a beach in the foreground, seen through the opening of a cave. Initially, I wasn’t going to go, even though I’d already paid—in fact, I thought it was the night before, and I was lying on my couch happily wrapped in a blanket, watching an episode of Brooklyn 99 that I’d PVR’d, drinking wine and eating chicken wings. I felt bad about missing it, but I’d been really sick, like ‘coughing up a lung’ sick, and I didn’t want to go ANYWHERE. As a side note, I hope that the walls to my condo are actually soundproof because I was barking like a seal all night long for a week, and spending a long time in the morning trying to clear my lungs in the bathroom. If you were my neighbour, you might have thought an eighty year-old, emphysemic man had moved in next door. And that’s pretty much how I felt. So when I woke up on Wednesday morning and saw an email from PaintNite telling me that it was only “hours away”, I realized that I hadn’t missed it at all. But I still didn’t want to go. At the end of the day at work, though, I was talking to one of my colleagues—the same one that I went to the Toronto Circus with in Week 53, and he said that he wanted to go too, and that he was willing to meet me at my condo and go on the subway with me, etc. And that relieved my underlying fears: First, that I would have to traverse the streets of downtown alone. This might sound paranoid, but I should mention at this point that, right before Christmas, there was a string of random stabbings in my neighbourhood, including a man who lived in my building, who was stabbed to death two blocks away. He was very nice—we would say hello to each other in the elevator, and he would hold the door for me, so it was pretty upsetting. It was described by the police as “a random crime of opportunity”, although I’m not sure what kind of “opportunity” you get from killing someone—perhaps fulfilling your dream of living the rest of your life in maximum security? At any rate, I was happy to have someone to walk with. I mean, I HAVE pepper spray, but I’m terrified that if I ever had to use it, I’d point in the wrong way and shoot myself in the face with it. I’m a total klutz, for the record—in fact, just this past week, I slammed my bathroom door into my own face hard enough to take the wind out of myself, and give myself a huge bruise. When I called Ken and tried to recreate the moment so I could understand how the f*ck I had managed to do it, I almost did it again. Second, (and I realize that it’s taken a while to get to “Second”, sorry about that) was that I would show up to PaintNite and feel awkward and weird because the rest of the people there were mostly math types, and they can be very intimidating, what with their knowledge of numbers, and pi, and sh*t like that.

So we arrived at the place, and headed for an area of long tables covered with plastic dropcloths, set up with easels. As we put our coats down, a young woman ran over. “No!!” she exclaimed. “I’m not done setting up yet! You can’t sit here!” She was obviously a little high strung, so I reacted like I would to a toddler throwing a tantrum, and said, very slowly and calmly, “It’s OK, dear. We’ll go over there and wait until you’re done.” Then I turned around and laughed. (This is exactly what I did to K on the single occasion that she threw a sh*tfit at the age of 2. She never did it again, innately understanding that I would just find her amusing rather than upsetting.) The PaintNite was at a bar/restaurant called “Poutineville”, whose claim to fame was the numerous types of poutine on the menu. If you don’t know what poutine is, it’s a Canadian delicacy consisting of French fries topped with cheese and smothered with gravy. I suppose ‘delicacy’ isn’t quite the word, but that’s Canada for you. Our delicacies are more ironic than ‘delicate’—they consist of hearty things like back bacon, beer, big-ass doughnuts called “beaver tails”, and maple syrup, which is made from TREES. I ordered the pulled pork poutine, expecting a heap of savoury pulled pork IN BETWEEN the fries, cheese, and gravy, but what I got was sadly disappointing—the fries were overcooked and the pork was neither pulled nor savoury, and was just tossed on top of the gravy in big chunks. For a restaurant that’s named AFTER poutine, it was crappy poutine. In fact, I’ve had better poutine from Kentucky Fried Chicken. (By the way, Ken and I just had dinner at a local fish restaurant—they were out of perch, chicken wings, AND white wine, but they had fries and gravy on the menu. I asked the waitress if they could toss some cheese on top. “Oh, like poutine,” she answered. “Sure thing.” It tasted better than Poutineville and was a third of the cost.) My disappointment didn’t last long though, because then it was FINALLY time to come to the back tables and get ready to paint. Our instructor, Rachel, was calmer now, much like toddlers get after you leave them alone for a while, and we took our places in front of our canvases. Then we had to take an oath, mostly consisting of not drinking from the paint water or dipping our brushes in our drinks. This sounds quite ridiculous, but trust me—after an hour of drinking and painting, it became clear just how easy it would be to actually do either of those. Rachel was a pretty good instructor, although she had to scream over the rest of the bar crowd, who were drinking but NOT participating. She WAS a little off-putting at the end, when she announced that, because our group had paid with a Groupon, she wasn’t getting as much money, so she held up a clear, plastic pitcher and yelled, “This is the tip jug! Don’t leave without giving me a tip!” She claimed she was a ‘starving artist’, but she looked pretty well-fed to me. My painting ultimately came out a little different from the tranquil beach scene we were SUPPOSED to painting. I know people assumed I was expressing my inner artist, or maybe I was just having a bad day, but the fact is that, when I was painting my lovely blue sky, I accidentally got a little black on the brush, and suddenly my blue sky was threatening rain. I decided to go with it, and added dangerously high breakers, dark clouds, and a stormy beach.

My colleagues, on the other hand, had these gorgeous, turquoise seascapes, some adding sailboats and seashells. I felt a bit “the odd man out” so to speak, and worried that my unplanned non-conformity might raise some eyebrows, especially since we were all told to bring our paintings to work the next day for a “fun” competition. I must have hit a chord with other storm-loving people though, because after all the ballots were cast, my artistic endeavour placed in the top three and was given a place on the wall. That makes me sound so braggy, but honestly, I don’t win many competitions, and certainly not for my artwork. Best of all, our CEO came by to congratulate me and the other two “winners”. I hope he doesn’t think my painting represents any deep-seated anxiety. Because I sure don’t want him to know about THAT.

Saturday: Reality TV

Ken and I were watching TV last night, and a commercial came on for Oka cheese, which is a particular kind of cheese that you get in Quebec. The couple in the commercial were trying to smuggle some Oka through customs, and while I don’t really understand the point of them doing that, I was up in arms immediately.

Me: God, Ken—that’s so unrealistic. Look at that couple. She’s young, thin, and blonde, and he looks like he’s about 60. His hair is thinning, he’s pudgy—there’s no way they’re a real life couple. And he’s so cheap that he’s trying to smuggle cheese under his jacket, so he’s obviously NOT her sugar daddy.
Ken: It could happen.
Me: Not as often as it does on TV. Commercials are so clearly written by men. How many times have we seen a young pretty woman with an old pudgy guy and we’re supposed to believe she’s more than happy to deal with his “sudden onset vomiting”, which, by the way, isn’t even a THING. You ALWAYS know when you’re going to vomit. This is just male fantasizing.
Ken: About the women or the vomiting?
Me: Both. TV is so unrealistic.
Ken: Gosh, you think?

Now, I don’t want to come off as critical of older, pudgy, balding men because that’s not the point. Just once though, I’d like to see a commercial where a hot, young guy is married to an older, dumpy, gray-haired woman. But as Ken and I agreed (well, I think we agreed, but it’s hard to tell when Ken’s being sarcastic or not), TV has no connection to reality. Then again, if the American election campaign is any indication, REALITY has no connection to reality. Who other than Donald Trump could threaten on public television to randomly shoot someone on the street and NOT get arrested? What’s next? Hilary Clinton threatening to ‘cut’ Anderson Cooper? Bernie Sanders making crank calls and having pizzas delivered to Megyn Kelly’s house?

My Week 68: First Aid Fun, Please Cyberstalk Me

Wednesday: I learn first aid

I got an opportunity this week to take a two-day first aid certification course. I’ve always wanted to do this, mostly because of my fascination with the Heimlich maneuver, and an almost compulsive desire to perform it on someone, or at least perform it CORRECTLY. It was a course set up exclusively for my workplace, so on Wednesday morning, I went to a nearby hotel to learn all about CPR, bandaging wounds, what to do if you’re hit by lightning, and field surgery. I think my expectations were a little high, especially around the surgery part, because we were only being certified as Level C “first aiders” and not actual medical doctors (I DID learn about being hit by lightning. If it happens, you’re probably toast—pardon the pun). I had (and still have) a wicked case of laryngitis, so the introductory part of the session, where we all had to say our names and our first aid background was even more awkward for me than normal. I sounded like a cell phone that was dropping out—luckily, I was sitting with some very nice colleagues who filled in the gaps for me. The instructor—let’s call him Dave— was a very interesting and well-experienced former fire captain, who had some amazing stories to tell about traumatic situations and injuries, the vast majority of which seemed to have happened to his own family and friends. And himself most of all. By the second day, we’d heard all about how his wife had been in a car accident and permanently crushed her foot, his daughter had broken her femur, his grandson had almost choked to death on an Arrowroot cookie, his son came close to dying in an avalanche, and he himself had almost bled to death after being sliced open by a broken bottle during yet another car accident. I think my favourite story was how he stabbed a steak knife completely through his palm getting it out of the dishwasher. After that, we moved on to his in-laws, and their various concussions, broken limbs, and wounds. Then, at one point, he started with “We went to Punta Cana last year with another couple…” and my co-worker and I turned to each other and said simultaneously, “Oh god, no!” Sure enough, there was not only an incident involving three broken ribs and a catamaran, he also performed CPR on some random surfer who was pulled out of the ocean. Dave was like serious injury karma, and I was convinced that at least one of our group was NOT going to make it to the weekend. Still, they were useful stories which served to illustrate the many ways that humans can actually damage themselves, and how we “first aiders” can help them. It was certainly a crazy two days—here are some of the highlights.

1) On each table, there was a CPR mannequin consisting of a head and torso. Their mouths were wide open, and I kept picturing them lined up like some sort of bizarre choir. We decided to name ours “Phil”. Phil was a good sport and let us merrily pound away on his chest, yelling “Come back to us, Phil! You can do it! Phil, you’re alive!! We saved him!!”, and high-fiving each other.

2) I realized that I had some colleagues with obvious drama backgrounds, as we had to roleplay various incidents, like one of us had to collapse suddenly and the rest of the group had to save him or her. At any given moment, someone would fall to the floor gasping and writhing, and someone else would shriek “Oh dear—Mary seems unresponsive!” and we would all proceed with the steps we’d been taught:
Person 1: Wait—don’t go near her until we’ve determined there’s no danger!
Person 2: It’s safe. Mary! Mary! No, she’s definitely not breathing. You call 911 and I’ll start CPR!
Person 3: 911—we have an unresponsive female in her….twenties, haha!
Person 4: I’ll get the Automated Electric Defibrillator!

For our “practice exam”, my group was given the scenario that one of us was lying “supine” on the floor, having slipped and fallen down the stairs, and couldn’t feel her legs. It seemed really straightforward at first, but then the scenario said, “Suddenly she begins to vomit. What do you do?” We were given a chance to practice, then we had to perform it in front of the whole class, which made me super anxious because I’m a terrible actor and get really self-conscious. Things were going quite well—we were doing everything according to the book and had just gotten her into “recovery position” when one of my colleagues got a little carried away by the drama and yelled, “Oh no—she’s stopped breathing!” We all paused and stared at her, including our hapless victim. I was like, “That’s NOT in our scenario! We just saved her! No more acting!” but Dave was like, “That’s great—keep going!” I was worried we’d end up killing her and fail the course, but I have to admit that our improv was pretty good, and she survived.

3) Continuing with the drama theme, we also had to perform CPR on a baby doll. After being instructed on how to do it, we each had to get up and demonstrate what we’d learned in front of the class. The first few people tried to determine responsiveness by calling “Baby, Baby! Wake up!”, so everyone else, including me, followed suit, until one of our male colleagues got up, frantically ran to the doll, and yelled, “Samantha! Samantha! Wake up! Oh no, my baby girl is unresponsive!”, and everyone after him called the baby something different. I was like WTF?! I didn’t know we were allowed to NAME the baby! Why didn’t someone tell us? I had the perfect name ready, and if you’ve read this blog before, you’ll know it’s “Johnson”. See? It works for a boy OR a girl. Or a monkey butler.

Aside from the all the thespian-y stuff, I DID learn some pretty cool things, like when people stop breathing, they go very pale, and their nipples lose colour. We watched a video of a man in England being revived with CPR, and Dave pointed out that the English are a very pasty bunch even when they ARE breathing, so if you’re not sure, check their nipples. Yes, I just said the word “nipples” twice. Well, technically, three times. And I also learned the Heimlich manoeuvre, which came in really handy at dinner last night, when Ken started to choke.

Me: Are you OK? Do you need the Heimlich maneuver?!
Ken: No—cough—I just swallowed the wrong way.
Me: Stand up! Really, I’ve got this. Prepare to be Heimliched!
Ken: No! I’m fine—do I need to show you my nipples to prove it?
Me: Sigh.

As a side note, let me just say that the night before training started, as I was leaving work, my manager said, “Have fun at first aid training,” and I responded with “It’s going to be great. I’ll be Heimliching EVERYONE by the time it’s over, just wait!” She smiled and said, “All right then.” Yep. Say “Heimliching” out loud. Not the way to impress your boss.

Thursday: I set up a new Twitter account

I used to have a Twitter account, but last year I shut it down because Twitter is kind of boring. Very few people post anything original anymore—it’s all just retweets of other people’s retweets. I tried following different comedians, but most of them are extremely unfunny in real life. For example, I followed John Cleese of Monty Python fame, thinking that he would be hilarious. But instead of humour, it was just things like “My daughter is coming for a visit” or “My dog died.” At first I thought the tweet about his dog was some kind of weird, dry British absurdism, but no—his dog actually had died, and then it was like hundreds of people tweeting condolences to him. I followed Ricky Gervais for a while, but instead of being funny, his tweets are all just rant-y and angry. But the main reason I quit Twitter was because I was being cyberstalked by someone. It sounds funny to say now, but at the time, it was very unsettling, especially since he was getting other people to let him look at my Facebook page and Twitter account:

Bob: On May 3^rd, I posted on Facebook that I went to a party…
Me: We’re not friends on Facebook. How would I know that?
Bob: …and on May 6^th, you tweeted about your cat and your fish. It was obviously about ME.
Me: First, I have you blocked on Twitter. Second, why would I tweet about you anyway?
Bob: I’m the fish! I’M THE FISH!! Stop tweeting about me!
Me: Oh my god, I can’t even.

Ultimately, I had to stay away from social media for a while—you can only block so many people, and if someone is determined to creep your Facebook because he “likes to see what you and your family are up to”, there’s really no escape. Lately though, I’ve been thinking about expanding mydangblog and reaching out to more people (I got the idea from one of my blog friends, BunKaryudo), so I decided to open a new Twitter account. It’s @mydangblog in case you want to follow me, but there’s not much there yet, mostly because I don’t have the time or resources to tweet twenty times a day. So it probably won’t amount to much. It’s so bare right now, in fact, that Twitter emailed me the other day to ask me if I knew “how to Tweet”. Yes, I know how to f*cking Tweet—it’s not rocket science. Stop hounding me, Twitter. I’ll get to you eventually.

By the way, I have a bunch of other blog friends, but I have NO idea how to set up a widget-y thing so that I can link them to my blog. So here are the other great people I currently follow, at least the ones who post regularly,and if anyone knows how to link them on my site, please tell me, because Youtube is useless. Also, if I missed you and you want to be linked, just let me know. I’ll add you as soon as I figure out how.

Freethinkers Anonymous at freethinkersanonymous.com
The Years of Living Non-judgmentally at annkoplow.wordpress.com
The Lonely Author at thelonelyauthorblog.wordpress.com

My Week 67: Disturbing Trends in Men’s Fashion, Korean Musical Chairs, Faux Pas

Friday: I ponder disturbing trends in men’s fashion

I know what you’re thinking as you read this topic: “Men’s fashion”? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Like me, you might be married to a man who thinks pink and red are complementary colours or that three t-shirts of varying shades of lime and orange are perfect under a burgundy sweater. Or you might be the parent of a teenage boy who dresses almost exclusively in jeans and a hoodie. Or maybe you just look around you at men in general and realize that there aren’t a lot of fashionable options for men, compared to women. But lately, men, or at least men’s designers (which I say with a snicker as I imagine some cabal of thin, bespectacled hipsters try to decide if the smoking jacket could EVER be revived) are experimenting in some disturbing ways with the way men present themselves to the public. So here are a couple of male fashion trends that are kind of bizarre, and not particularly appealing to me, and many others apparently.

1) The Man-Bun: The other day, one of my relatives posted on Facebook, “Is it against the law to punch a guy with a man-bun in the throat?” My response is that legally, it’s probably wrong to do it, but ethically it might be a toss-up. Unless the man-bun was fake, in which case the punch would be a moral imperative. It’s bad enough that men can somehow grow luxurious locks of hair, when so many women, including myself, are stuck with fine, thin hair that no amount of volumizer can help. When my hair was longer, if I tried to put it in a bun, it literally became something the size of a cotton ball. But now, men are deliberately growing out their hair exclusively to put it in a bun. A f*cking bun. What the hell is up with that? If a man has long, lovely hair, he should just let it flow naturally and not constrain it. The man-ponytail was hard enough to swallow, but now men are swanning around looking like stocky, testosterone-y ballerinas. Guys, if you want to put your hair in a bun, you should be required to wear a tutu so that you don’t confuse people. Of course, my favourite look was always the bald man ponytail—you know, the guy with male pattern baldness who grew the back of his hair out REALLY long—a “senior citizen out front, party in the back” kind of thing. What I really want to see is a man who can French-braid his own hair. THAT would be impressive. Frankly, I don’t really know why I have animosity towards the man-bun. I just know that it looks silly. I tried to picture Ken with a fake-ass man-bun sitting atop his shaved head, and it made me laugh. In fact, I’m looking at him right now, picturing it and laughing, and he doesn’t know why. Then he read this and said, “Now I know why you were laughing at me.”

2) The Poo Beard: For those of you who don’t know what a “poo beard” is, it’s what I call those bushy beards that a lot of men are sporting these days. I call them poo beards because I read a study about men and facial hair hygiene which said that swabs taken from hundreds of men’s fancy, trendy beards showed an abundance of fecal matter when held under ultra-violet light. Yep. Poo. Which reinforces what many women already know—men are not very concerned with personal cleanliness. When I was much, much younger, I worked in a doughnut shop to make money for university. It wasn’t a bad job until closing time, when I had to clean the bathrooms. The women’s bathroom was usually pretty decent, but the men’s? You needed a gas mask and full hazmat suit to even go in it. I can’t accurately depict for you how disgusting it was without making you want to vomit (as I wanted to on many occasions)—suffice it to say the only way to thoroughly clean the men’s room was to use a flamethrower. Every night, I was like, “Is it even worth cleaning it? Wouldn’t it be better to just bulldoze this sh*thole down and build a new one?” So the fact that a lot of men have poo in their beards is not surprising to me at all. And fellas, you can put glitter on it, or bedazzle it the f*ck up all you want, it will still be a nest of poo. Just shave that mother off—any woman who tells you she loves facial hair is lying. And shave your armpits while you’re at it—there’s nothing more yucky than a guy in a muscle shirt with sweaty armpit hair. The only time a man should ever grow anything deliberately on his face is during “Movember” when men grow mustaches to raise money for prostate cancer research. (As a side note, I’m lobbying hard for “Vag-uary”, when women can grow out their full Brazilians to raise money for—OK, I was totally stuck here so I asked Ken:

Me: If there was a month like Movember for women called “Vag-uary, what would we raise money for?
Ken: Um…cervical cancer?
Me: But a vagina isn’t a cervix.
Ken: Well, my mustache isn’t my ass.

Problem solved. Ken always grows a spectacular mustache in Movember that I call the “Lemmy”—it’s like a biker/Motorhead thing that really needs a cowboy hat to make it complete. Apparently this year at work, the “Lemmy” was so impressive that his female co-workers began to refer to it as “Big Jimmy”. Ken was initially pretty chuffed, but he drew the line when they asked him to make up a voice for it. I guess “Big Jimmy” was the strong, silent type. And I made him constantly wash his hands before I went anywhere near it.

Wednesday: Korean musical chairs

On Wednesday, I went out for dinner with my brother. We were both in the mood for some Asian food, and downtown Toronto is the kind of place where you can’t move without tripping over restaurants featuring cuisine from every country in the Pacific Rim. (That might be an incorrect reference—my knowledge of geography is, as you probably are aware, really sucky. But it sounds cool.) Anyway, we decided on a Korean place not too far away that we both love, called Yummy Barbeque. The food is great, although the downside is that no one speaks English, and the TVs are constantly tuned to K-Pop bands. The boy bands try to look and act just like One Direction, and the girl bands look and act like 12 year-olds trying to be sexy. Aside from that, it’s a pretty quiet place. Until Wednesday night, when the weirdest thing happened. After we ordered from a waitress who just smiled and pointed at things, we were waiting for our food and chatting, when the owner, a Korean man about eighty years old, shuffled by our table and stood there surveying the restaurant. And thus began the musical chairs. He went to a table near the door, stared at it for a minute, then took one chair and started dragging across the restaurant with him. Very slowly and loudly. Then he put it at another table near the cash register, took a chair from THAT table and dragged it back to the first table. He did this for the next hour. By the time we were done eating, he had manage to rearrange ALL the chairs into virtually the exact same pattern and chair-to-table ratio that they were when he started. No one helped him. No one spoke to him. He was like a tiny Asian zombie. At one point, I said to my brother, “What the hell do you think he’s doing?” My brother, who has a Ph.D, replied, “I honestly have no idea.” But maybe it was some kind of ritual to generate luck and good fortune, because on the way back, I saw a beautiful sweater in a store window, and not only did it fit me, it was on sale for 60% off. Thanks, crazy Korean zombie man.

Random photo of a chair

Thursday: Sex Toys

On Thursday morning, my colleague came in exhausted. “Someone kept calling my cell phone at like 2 o’clock in the morning. It was a wrong number every time. Then I would get a text message or a voice mail. It was making me crazy and I couldn’t get back to sleep.” “Ah,” I said, “that’s why I turn off my vibrator before I go to sleep.” Needless to say, I am NEVER going to live that one down.

My Week 66: I Get My Eyeballs Lasered, Raven Loses Bathroom Privileges

Monday: I get my eyeballs lasered.

Two weeks ago, I saw my eye doctor for a variety of reasons, and at the end of the appointment, he basically told me that the only thing that would truly make a difference to my abysmal vision was laser eye surgery. While this may sound really cool and superhero-ish, like having your eyes get turned into lasers so you can cut things like metal and sandwiches, and defeat your enemies all with your laser eye superpower, it’s really not like that at all. As I discovered. What it actually meant was that a surgeon would use a laser to reshape my corneas, enabling me to see properly for the first time in about 40 years without really thick glasses or annoying specially made contact lenses. I used to laugh at the eye doctor’s when he would ask me to read the smallest line I could see on the chart without my glasses, and I would be like, “Chart? What chart? Where am I right now? Where did you go?!” Once when K was a baby, she woke up in the middle of the night screaming, and without thinking I raced to her room. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see where I was going and I slammed into the doorframe and broke my toe.

So I went to the consultation, mostly for my own safety, and to my surprise, the clinic was able to do the surgery a week later. I was initially really pumped about it, but as the days wore on, I also started to get a little (OK, a lot) nervous about it, mostly because they give you a LOT of information about EXACTLY what happens, and frankly, I would have been good not knowing ANY of it. Plus, as you may remember, I’d had that incident on Christmas Eve which sent me to the emergency room, and I was still feeling kind of lousy and out of sorts. But I decided to persevere, and on Monday morning, Ken and I went to the laser clinic, all ready for the eyeball carving. We could both tell my anxiety was peaking, because when we got to the clinic, there were three people in the waiting room, and they all had these little blue bags that looked like travel kits or something, and name tags. Then I went in for the last check on my eyes before the procedure, and no one gave me anything. I went back to the waiting room and whispered to Ken, “I didn’t get a bag.” Ken looked around and told me not to worry, that the bags must be for something else. Then another guy came in, and after his final eye check, he came back out to the waiting room WITH A BLUE BAG. At this point, I couldn’t keep it in any longer, and I just kind of burst out, in front of everyone, “Um…I don’t have a bag. Am I supposed to have a bag? Because everyone else has a bag. Sorry, it just seems like I’m the only one without a bag here.” I realize that I most likely sounded like a five year-old, but WTF? There could have been important stuff in the bag, like a valuable prize or coupons for Pizza Hut. The only other time I’d seen a bag that was even vaguely similar was when my brother used to fly first class and he would give me the “first class kit” they hand out to people who can afford to fly first class. These kits always contained things like “Soothing Temple Balm”, or “Refreshing Lip Gel”, or sleeping masks—all things designed to reduce the stress level of the first class passengers, because obviously they’re the ones who need the stress reduction, not the poor passengers in Economy all squished in like sardines with screaming babies and NO FREE ALCOHOL. Obviously. And of course, the biggest irony was that if it WAS a stress-relief kit, I was the one person in the waiting room who seemed to really need it and I DIDN’T HAVE ONE. But it was OK–the nurse came over right away and apologized profusely for forgetting to give my bag and my name tag, which apparently was super-important in helping everyone remember what number to set the laser to or whatever.

When I finally felt like enough time had passed to make it look like I wasn’t extremely dying to see what was in the bag, I opened it. Man, was I disappointed. It was a pair of dark sunglasses, two night shields, a roll of surgical tape, and a very complex eyedrop schedule. The night shields and tape were for “when I was sleeping”, although I had no idea how I was going to sleep with giant clear plastic circles taped to my face, waking up to put in eyedrops every f*cking hour. But I’d made such a fuss about the bag that I didn’t feel like I could back out at this point, and very soon I found myself in the “prep” room, where the prep entailed sitting in a super-comfy leather recliner and being give a healthy dose of Ativan, the sublingual kind that melts under your tongue and starts to act within about 30 seconds. So I very quickly went from 60 to zero, and pretty much no longer cared about the blue bag, laser beams, or forgetting to stay still and having my nose accidentally cut off (you might think that was a bizarre fear, but when I was lying there, the surgeon actually said, “Turn your head slightly to the left—we don’t want the laser to hit your nose.” So there.) Also, the music that was playing was modern pop music, and NOT Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, so I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get “Clockwork Orange’d”.

I’m not going into details about the actual procedure itself because I recognize that some people are already very sensitive about even the THOUGHT of someone touching their eyes—suffice it to say that the whole thing was quick, like under eight minutes with only about 75 seconds of that actually under the two different lasers, virtually painless, and when it was over, I could f*cking see. Like, REALLY see. Things were a little hazy at first, but over the course of the day, that went away, and by dinnertime, I could read the titles on the books across the room. Of course, there were some cons to the whole ordeal. For example, I can’t see in the dark like a cat the way I’d hoped, or look through walls with super X-ray vision like they used to promise in the ads in comic books, you may remember, right next to the ads for Sea Monkeys—nope, it’s just normal 20/20 eyesight. And you could tell how many years I’d been wearing contact lenses, because I keep freaking myself out. For example, I woke up in the middle of the night on Tuesday, and my first panicked thought was “Holy Sh*t, I fell asleep with my contacts in!” But I hadn’t. I could just see everything clearly in the moonlight—in fact, I could see the moonlight. And I was able to make my way to the bathroom without tripping on the dog, or running into a door. And here’s the other great thing—I was feeling pretty bad the whole past week, because in an earlier blog, I had offered to donate a certain body part to Russian scientists with the promise that it was in great shape, much better than any of my other organs, but after Christmas Eve, I felt like I would have to renege on that promise. But now, I can donate my eyes to them and avoid yet another international incident. And as for the blue bag, I’ve been taking it with me everywhere. Not only does it hold all my eye paraphernalia, it makes people think I’ve been flying first class.

Wednesday: Raven loses her bathroom privileges

I realized this week that my bathroom didn’t smell the way it always does, which is soapy and fresh and lady-like (most of the time, until Ken uses it, which ticks me off because he has his own bathroom and it’s not my fault that mine is closer to our bed). No, it smelled of cat urine. I have a litter box in the corner for Raven to supplement the one downstairs (for a tiny cat, she has a major output) but Ken cleans it out every day, so it’s never been a problem. But by Wednesday, it smelled less like my bathroom and more like an outhouse in the middle of a forest that only cats used, and because only cats used it, it never got cleaned, because they’re cats. This is sometimes called circular logic, but if you’re a cat owner, you will totally get it. At any rate, I got really fed up, and decided to replace the whole litter box, you know, just throw it all in the garbage and buy a new one. So I tossed it all in a big black garbage bag, and put it outside. Then I went back into my bathroom and everything still reeked. I sniffed around and realized then to my horror that the rug next to my bathtub was the source of the odour. It was a cat piss nightmare. I threw it out the nearest door, sprayed the floor with bleach, then waited. Sure enough, about 15 minutes later, the little diva came strolling in. She walked to the middle of the room, turned towards the litter box, then did a double-take when she realized it was gone and that there was a lovely wastebasket in its place.

Raven: What the hell is going on? Where’s my toilet?
Me: BOTH your toilets are in the garbage. You just lost bathroom privileges for good. Raven: What are you talking about?! Why?
Me: Remember a few months ago, when you were peeing on the bathmat and I had to throw it away? I told you if you did it again, you could kiss the upstairs bathroom goodbye.
Raven: But it was cosy…
Me: Toilets aren’t supposed to be “cosy”! Besides, this was an area rug. It was low pile and definitely NOT cosy.
Raven: Yeah, but it had a nice floral pattern. It was like taking a leak outside in the garden. You could almost hear the birds chirping.
Me: If you want to hear the birds chirping, I can permanently accommodate you.
Raven (leaving): Screw you.
Me: And stay out of the closet!!

The upside, so I initially thought, was that I no longer had to keep the door partially closed and locked with a hook to prevent Titus from running in and eating the “delicious kitty candy” from the litter box. But apparently both my pets are asshats, because the next day, Titus wandered in through the now-wide open door and ripped apart the garbage. Personally, I think the cat put him up to it.

My Week 65: Christmas Eve at the Emergency Room, Festive Misunderstandings

Christmas Eve at the Emergency Room

Christmas Eve started off well enough. I got all kinds of things done in the morning, including wrapping all the presents I’d bought the day before, and finishing decorating the house—I like to plan ahead, but only to a certain extent. Then I made a cheesecake to take to my brother’s house later for a family get together. Sometime around noon, I started feeling a little strange, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Right before we were about to leave, I went upstairs to finish getting ready, and that’s when I had a rather shocking revelation: something wasn’t in the place that it normally was. In fact, according to my rudimentary knowledge of female anatomy, something was definitely in a place that it should NEVER be. I had a moment of panic, then I did what any reasonable person would do—I screamed for Ken. After discussing it with him, I called my doctor’s emergency line. I got an answering machine which told me that no one was available to take my call. Which makes sense, right? I mean, why staff an emergency line on a holiday? People with holiday emergencies can just go f*ck themselves, or wait for the office to open on Tuesday. So I called Telehealth Ontario, and after a very convoluted conversation with a nurse, during which she told me several anecdotes about surrogate grandmothers and breastfeeding 12 year-olds, she told me what I had already assumed. I’m not going to get into the details—that’s not necessary; in fact, that’s the point of the story if you’re patient (no pun intended, haha)—but within the next 5 minutes, Ken and I were on our way to the hospital emergency room. I envisioned a ward of hundreds of sneezing, sniffling people, all in line ahead of me, but when we got there, it was actually really quiet. We saw the triage nurse within ten minutes, I got put in a bed in a private room with a nice, warm blanket, then we waited for the doctor. And we waited. And we waited. 2 hours later, I was visited by a lovely young man who looked African but was educated in England, judging by his charming accent and the way he exclaimed, “Bloody hell” as he tried unsuccessfully to make a 3D diagram of my problem out of Kleenex. In the end, he reassured me that while it was frightening, I would live to see Christmas, and he referred me to an OB/GYN who would call me to arrange an appointment. Also, he told me to go home, get lots of rest, and not do ANY work for the next few days, which is why I’m writing this a day early while Ken cleans the house and makes scones. But on the way home, I started to get really pissed off. I said to Ken, “This is SO unfair! I had to spend Christmas Eve in an emergency room, and it wasn’t even for some COOL reason. What am I supposed to say to people? Instead of being all like “Ooh, wow!”, people will just be worried. Why couldn’t it have been something like….” And here I was stumped. I couldn’t think of anything offhand that would actually be a COOL reason to go to the emergency room. “Come on, Ken,” I said. “Think of something that would make people be all amazed.” So Ken and I tried to brainstorm:

Ken: I know. You broke your butt.
Me: In what possible universe would “breaking your butt” be cool?! That’s not cool, it’s just embarrassing!
Ken: Oh, ok…what about…getting shot in the butt?
Me: What?! How is that any better? It`s still your BUTT!
Ken: Well, maybe you got shot in the butt while you were trying to save someone from being kidnapped or something.
Me: It sounds more like you were running AWAY from kidnappers instead of trying to rescue someone from them. And it’s still your butt. Wait, what about this? You were carving the turkey for Christmas dinner and you accidentally cut off your finger, so you had to go to the emergency room to have it reattached.
Ken: THAT’S not cool.
Me: Why the f*ck not?!
Ken: You cut off your own finger. That’s not cool; that’s just careless.
Me: I’ve got nothing else.
Ken: Me neither.

Bottom line: There is NO cool reason to go to an emergency room.

Earlier that week: I have a festive misunderstanding.

Last Monday, I went out for lunch with my two aunts. We went to a local Indian restaurant called ‘Tandoori Night’, which is supposed to be one of the number one Indian restaurants in the region. It was a beautiful looking place with a lovely atmosphere, but things got off to a bit of a rocky start when the waiter, who seemed to be new, had difficulty describing the specials.

Us: So what are the specials today?
Waiter: They’re all curry.
Aunt: What do you mean, ‘they’re all curry’?
Waiter: The chicken special is curry, the lamb special is curry, the beef special is curry. Aunt: What about the seafood special?
Waiter: It’s curry.
Aunt: Yes, I get that, but which curry is it? There are 3 different types of seafood curry on the menu.
Waiter: It’s the shrimp. Curry.
Me (trying to be helpful): I think he means that it’s shrimp with a curry sauce?
Waiter: Yes. Shrimp with a curry sauce.
Aunt (exasperated): OK, let me explain. There are 3 chicken curry dishes on the menu, and they are all different. Which one is it?
Waiter: It’s the one with the green chiles.
Aunt: Sigh. Just give me the Chicken Vindaloo.

5 minutes later, we heard the owner taking an order from the table behind us, and sure enough, he was pointing out each dish on the menu that was the special for the day, which made things a lot clearer. In the end, I ordered the Tandoori Chicken and it was absolutely delicious; the reviews weren’t lying. Aside from the waiter, who wasn’t a great communicator but was actually a pretty good waiter, we were all really happy with our food and the general experience. When we went to the counter to pay, we complimented the owner on the food, and I told him I’d definitely come back again, possibly with my husband. He was pleased and said, in his heavily accented English, “Vee’re also open on Christmas Day.” I expressed the thought that it would be awesome to have Indian take-out on Christmas Day, but my aunt said to him, “But that means you have to work though, right?” The conversation which ensued is a wonderful demonstration of how an accent can throw off an entire conversation, and make me look like an idiot at the same time.

Owner: Yes, I have to vork all day. It’s too bad—it’s a big Sikh day.
Me: Oh, what do you call it?
Owner: Tandoori Night.
Me: Like the restaurant? Cool.
Owner: Yes, that’s the name of the restaurant.
Me: Oh, I see. No, I meant, what do you call your Sikh day? Does it have a special name? Owner: No… (goes over to a table)
Aunt (sotto voce): You know, I don’t think he’s Sikh.
Me: But he said it was a big Sikh holiday. Maybe the other employees are Sikh? Although, I didn’t know the Sikhs had a celebration around this time of year…
(Owner returns)
Me to Owner: So, do you celebrate your special day at the same time as Christmas or do you have it some other time in December?
Owner (confused): We don’t have ANY celebrations in December.
Me: I’m sorry, I thought you said that Christmas was a big Sikh day…
Owner: Yes, because everyone calls in ‘seek’. No one wants to vork on Christmas. Just like New Year’s Day. They all go out and party, party, then they all call in seek, hahaha! So I have to vork.
Me: So not a holiday, then.
Owner: Not for me, hahaha!
Aunts: *hysterical laughter*
Me: Oh my god, I have never been so embarrassed in my life.
Aunts: *continue laughing hysterically*

Moral of the story: Know your religious festivals. Happy Kwanzaa, everyone.

My Week 64: Donald Trump Meets Justin Trudeau, Titus–Weapon of Mass Destruction

A Challenge

This week, our new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was subjected to the infamous MacLean’s magazine “60 second” pre-interview interview, where the interviewee is asked several questions in rapid-fire succession and has to answer in under a minute. Justin did well, from my perspective, but there was one gaffe regarding the existence of the Balkan States. I didn’t really notice, since I have ZERO knowledge of world geography, but other people were a little up in arms, including a lot of Balkan people, and my own beloved brother. He’s not a huge fan of Justin Trudeau, and he emailed me from the airport with his own short but hilarious pseudo-interview of the new Prime Minister. I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing an short excerpt here:

Q: What about great explorers? Do you have a favourite?
A: Well, my kids love Dora. She seems pretty cool.
Q: Now, about those Baltic States…have you settled on a favourite yet?
A: I sure have! I think that Latviania is totally awesome.

He then suggested that I do my own MacLean’s style interview with Justin this week, but I couldn’t do it, mostly because A) I like Justin Trudeau, and B) my brother already did a pretty stellar job. But there was a lot of potential for humour here, and as a result, I decide to recreate (or create, actually) the first meeting between Justin Trudeau, politician and person extraordinaire, with Donald Trump, neither of those. So here goes:

Donald: So what am I doing here again?
Aide: You’re meeting with Justin Trudeau, the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada. He’s interested in meeting with all the candidates for the American presidency. Just to be fair.
Justin: It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Trump.
Donald: So what, you’re like the King of the Arctic or something?
Justin (laughs gently): No, no, I’m the Prime Minister of Canada. Canada is the second largest country in the world after Russian in terms of landmass. It’s the world’s most educated country, and it has more lakes than all the other countries in the world combined.
Donald: What the f*ck ARE you, a geography teacher or something?
Justin: Well, I do have a working knowledge of geography. For example, the Balkan States definitely exists. In fact, though, I used to be a drama teacher.
Donald: All actors are gay, and I don’t give a sh*t about the Balcanadians. Save the drama for your mama, pretty boy. Now, what exactly do you want?
Justin: Well, you’re currently the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. I was just interested in your campaign platform, you know—what are your issues?
Donald: Well, I have a lot of issues–
Justin: Mm, yes, I’ve heard.
Donald: –but what I really want to do is bring American back to the Americans and dig it out of the hole that Muslim from Alaska put it in.
Justin (confused): Are you talking about President Obama? He’s not Muslim and he’s from Hawaii.
Donald: That’s what the Democrats would HAVE you believe. Anyway, who else have you met with?
Justin: I met with Jeb Bush…
Donald: Putz!
Justin: What?
Donald: Jeb Bush, not you.
Justin: Oh. Also, Ben Carson…
Donald: Ass! Again, Ben Carson, not you.
Justin: Why are you so derogatory about your colleagues? I quite liked Carly Fiorina… Donald: Woman! Again, Fiorina, not you, Justine.
Justin (rolls eyes): I feel like we’re not making much headway here. Why don’t I introduce you to some of MY colleagues? This is Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport. He used to be an astronaut, which is pretty cool. And this is Harjit Sajjan, my Minister of National Defence.
Donald (sotto voce): You know he’s wearing a towel on his head, right?
Justin: That’s a turban, Mr. Trump—he’s a Sikh.
Donald: So deporting him, then?
Justin: What?! NO. He’s a trusted member of my cabinet!
Donald: That’s what JFK said about Lee Harvey Oswald, and look how THAT turned out. Justin: I don’t think JFK EVER said that, and I find your comments racist and divisive.
Donald: Fine. But don’t come crying to me when he sneaks into that condemned row house you call an official residence and tries to blow you up in your bed.
Justin: 24 Sussex Drive isn’t a “condemned row house”. It’s a historical monument. I lived there as a child.
Donald: Holy sh*t, you’ve been Prime Minister since you were a kid? Why the hell have I never heard of you?
Justin: No, no, that was when my father was Prime Minister. There were others in between. Remember the guy in the sweater vest?
Donald: It rings a bell, although I don’t remember his name. Nice hair, though. By the way, have I told you my plans for my OWN official residence? I’m building a new Trump Tower on the grounds of the White House. Ivana is turning the White House into a retail store for her clothing line. Or is it Ivanka? Or Melania? Or Marla? God, I love the letters “I” and “M”. That’s why I’m so pissed at the Muslims. Islam stole my two favourite letters of the alphabet. What’s yours?
Justin: I like all the letters of the alphabet equally.
Donald: Jennifer Lawrence or Jennifer Lopez?
Justin: Uh…I’m a fan of theatre AND music…
Donald: No kidding, Justine. Scandinavia?
Justin: That’s a thing—wait, this is starting to sound really familiar. Are you working for MacLean’s magazine, by any chance?
Donald: Is that like Vogue or Cosmo? Oh hey, look who’s here! It’s my running mate, Kanye West!
Kanye: I’m the greatest living rock star!
Justin: You picked Kanye West to be your potential vice-president?!
Kanye: I named my new baby “Saint”. Saint West. (drops mike)
Justin: OK. First, where did you even GET a microphone from, and second, that wasn’t a dropworthy moment.
Kanye: Start learning the words to “Golddigger”, fool. It’s your new national anthem. Justin: Oh my God, I need a drink.
Donald: Attaboy. Just be drunk all the time. It works for me.

Friday: Titus, weapon of mass destruction

Titus has been having some issues of his own lately, mostly involving damage and injury to both people AND household items. Last month, he enthusiastically jumped at K, and they cracked skulls hard enough to give K an actual concussion, confirmed by our family physician. Then he punched Ken in the head during a particularly exciting wrestling match, leaving Ken with a large gash on his forehead. Living in Toronto has exempted me from much of the carnage, although he DID whack me in the face the other day while trying to give me a “high-five”. But apparently, he saved the best of himself for the moment I came home for Christmas holidays. Yesterday morning before Ken left for work, he told me this:

Ken: Titus threw up this morning.
Me: What? Is he OK?
Ken: I think so. He ate breakfast, then he had “sexy time” with his dog cushion. I think he just got carried away and overdid it.
Me: Oh god—I didn’t need to know ANY of that.

Later though, he was acting a little weird. I came back from an eye doctor’s appointment and was in the middle of making lunch, when he wanted to go outside. I let him out, and saw him do some “business”. 5 minutes later, he wanted out again. More business, this time “number two”. He should have been good for the next couple of hours, but no—within 5 minutes, he was back at the door again. I told him that I wasn’t running a flophouse, and it wasn’t a revolving door, so he could just stay in for a while. He looked at me strangely, then threw up all over our breakfast room. I mean ALL OVER. Piles and piles of ALL OVER. I freaked out and put him outside where he did it again. So I did what any reasonable person would do—I called Ken.

Ken: Hey. I’m driving back from lunch with some people from work. You’re on speaker phone.
Me: Titus is really sick. Come home! I’ve never seen so much vomit. It’s like he’s been saving it up for DAYS. The rug by the patio door is a complete write-off.
Everyone: Ewwwww.
Ken: I have to work until 7 tonight.
Everyone: No, you don’t, Ken.
Ken: Ok, I’ll be home soon.

Right before Ken came home, the phone rang. It was a telemarketer. Within the next two minutes, the following happened:

1) The telemarketer tried to convince me to sign up for an On-Star plan for my car.
2) Titus started to heave by the door.
3) I screamed into the phone, “Titus, NO! Not THAT rug too!”
4) The telemarketer said, “Pardon? Were you talking to me?”
5) Ken came walking towards the house.
6) I screamed “Titus! Go outside!” and I opened the door and pushed him towards Ken, but he wouldn’t budge. I said to the telemarketer, “My dog is about to throw up. I can’t talk now.”
7) The telemarketer offered to call me back AFTER the dog had thrown up. I apologized to the telemarketer for screaming in her ear.
8) Titus vomited all over the floor.
9) Ken said, “Why are you on the phone when the dog is puking right in front of you? You don’t even drive the car enough to pay for an On-Star plan. It’s not worth the money.”
10) I informed Ken that I had no interest in discussing the prudence of an On-Star plan at that moment, because I was too busy cleaning up dog puke. I believe my exact words were “What the F*CK, Ken?!!”
11) Ken took Titus outside.

We still have no idea what caused this extraordinary episode. For dinner, I made him steamed rice (Titus, not Ken), and he seemed to be fine. Today, I made him homemade natural dog cookies, and he drooled excitedly. Things seem to be back to normal. Except that I’m down one small Persian rug, and I felt so bad about the telemarketer that when she called back, I signed up for a hardware update. The universe works in mysterious ways.

I Have Holiday Inadequacy, A Stream of Consciousness Religious Moment

Thursday: This holiday season is making me feel incompetent

I’ve always considered myself a fairly creative person. My house is decorated nicely, I write middling well, I can paint a little, and make craft-y type things when the mood strikes. But lately, I’ve come to realize that there are people out there who are WAY more creative than me. Case in point—in the last couple of weeks, people at work have been decorating their cubicles for Christmas. It started off with just a few co-workers hanging snowflake ornaments and tinsel on their fabric walls. I was feeling pretty satisfied with my design—a miniature stocking that I grabbed out of the closet at home, and a paper snowflake that a colleague made for me one afternoon—he was practicing making them from instructions from the internet so he could impress his wife on the weekend. So I ended up with something like this:

Not bad right? Understated and elegant, with a homemade touch. Added bonus—I found a red pushpin on the floor, and I used it to secure the snowflake in keeping with my colour scheme. Brilliant planning, I’d have to say. Sure, I could have gone a little more crazy, but I didn’t want people to think I had too much time on my hands.

But then, I came in on Thursday morning to discover that the people in the department up the aisle from mine had decorated THEIR cubicles. Here are a few examples:

A Reindeer stable?! An entire Christmas house, held up with yardsticks?! An “homage” to the ugly Christmas sweater?! One woman had gone with the theme “Christmas in the Tropics”, having made palm trees out of construction paper and coconuts out of brown balloons. Suddenly, I was feeling angsty, but I comforted myself that at least my display was cost efficient. Then I happened to remark to one of the women, “Oh, you guys have really gone all out!” and she cheerfully replied, “Oh, this is all from the dollar store— it just took a few bucks and some imagination!” So while I have a ‘few bucks’, apparently I’m lacking in the imagination component of the holiday season.

And to make matters worse, there’s Secret Santa. You may remember that I’ve had issues in the past with this torturous aspect of the workplace, but this year it seems that I may be the ‘Bad Santa’. I’ve been doing all right myself, having received some decent little tokens from my ‘giver’, but I’m starting to feel that I’m not doing enough for my ‘receiver’. I organized several treats for my SS, based on her list of likes and dislikes, and thought that it would be enough to wait until she was away from her desk, then run by her cubicle and toss something on her keyboard without getting caught. Holy sh*t, was I wrong, based on the mayhem around me. One woman came back from lunch and discovered a half-dozen red roses carefully arranged in a vase on her desk. Another colleague was sent on a scavenger hunt (which started with a poem, 6 stanzas long, written in iambic pentameter and mounted on a piece of yellow shirtboard) and ended with her finding an assortment of clues and goodies scattered throughout the office and all tastefully wrapped in yellow tissue paper. The icing on the Christmas cake was the cubicle that was decorated some time in the night as a representation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The entire space was domed with red tinsel garlands hanging from the ceiling. There was a sign on the outside of the cubicle which read “1. Shelter 2. Fire 3. Food 4. Drink” and so on, with ‘Shelter’ crossed out. We were simultaneously amazed and jealous, and more than a little worried about how Fire would be represented the next day. But fear not—her Secret Santa created a campfire out of construction paper, and a bundle of handmade twig pencils, complete with a giant marshmallow on a stick. Seriously, WTF? I mean, how are the rest of us supposed to compete with THAT? The best I had done so far was scribble “I hope you like this chocolate” on a post-it note and stick it to a pack of Lindor. It’s not that I don’t WANT to be more clever—I have great ideas but I just don’t have the energy to put them into action. For example, I had this brainstorm that I would take the box of fruit-flavoured mini-candy canes I got her and strew all 60 of them around her cubicle, then put the empty box on her desk with an Elf on the Shelf in it, like HE’D done it. But I couldn’t find an Elf, and it was late, so I just tossed them around, stuck a couple in her shoes, and went home. I don’t think she was impressed because by the time I got to work the next morning, there wasn’t a single candy cane in sight. Then I worried that maybe she was a real neat-freak, and that instead of being charmed, she was pissed that she had to clean up the mess. Then she spent the rest of the day eating oranges and apples. I know this, because I kept sneaking by her desk to see if she was enjoying the candy canes, but I never saw them again. I know it’s all supposed to be in fun, and everyone keeps saying, “Oh, it’s the thought that counts,” but why can’t people just be as mediocre as ME? When the bar is set too high, we ALL suffer. Except the people who have time to write sonnets. My only hope is that when we have our big ‘reveal’ next week, she’s able to see that my intentions were good, and that if I’d had the time, energy, and wherewithal, it would have been…well, something amazing, I’m sure. Plus, there’s a bag of potato chips waiting for her on Monday morning—maybe I’ll get wild and put a bow on it.

Friday: I have a stream of consciousness religious moment

On Friday, we were talking at work, and someone mentioned that Kanye West and one of the Kardashians (I can never remember which one is which—they all look alike thanks to the wonders of cosmetic surgery, and they all seem to be pregnant all the f*cking time) had another baby. You might remember how I ripped Kanye West for naming his first baby “North”—that’s right, North West. North West of where I am is Manitoba, which seems to me to be a much better name for a baby than a compass direction, but if you think I have no imagination, I’m feeling pretty good next to old Kanye. Especially right now. Because my first reaction was, “Did he name this baby ‘South’? It’s a great theme—two more kids and he could easily find his way to his own ass.” But alas, no. This baby, he named “Saint”. Yes, Saint West, the patron saint of stupid parents everywhere. And then I was confused, because it seemed a little sacreligious, but a friend pointed out that ‘Santo’ was a very popular boy’s name in Italian, and it means ‘Saint’. Which got me to thinking about how other cultures have no trouble naming their children after religious figures. For example, there are a LOT of Hispanic men named Jesus, which I believe is pronounced ‘Hey Zeus’, and which I also think is an awesome name—it kind of channels ‘Son of God’ and ‘Lightning Bolt Guy’ all at the same time. And this seems to work for them, but how weird would it be if I had named my son ‘Jesus’, like the actual ‘Gee Zus’ pronunciation? I come from a Scottish/English background, and I know people would have thought I was being a little presumptuous, like I thought my kid was the next Messiah or something. Which got me to thinking about Jesus, and the fact that the church across the road recently had their doors redesigned. On one door is an angel, painted in gold, hovering in mid-air. The other door is where things get weird. It’s supposed to be Jesus on the cross, but whoever painted it did Jesus in REALLY dark gold paint, and the cross in light gold, so from across the street, it looks like Jesus is standing on the edge of a diving platform, getting ready to do a double pike, three and a half turn twist. It’s very disconcerting. In fact, I can see him right now, and all I can think about is Jesus getting the gold medal at the Olympics, which would have been a much nicer thing to happen to him. And then churches would be full of swimming pools instead of pews and ALL the water would be holy. Oh yeah. See, maybe I am more creative than I thought.

My Week 62: I Finally Meet The Serial Killer Upstairs, I Make Faux Pas

Tuesday: I meet the Serial Killer upstairs

If you read this blog with any kind of regularity (thanks!) you’ll know that I’ve been plagued by an upstairs neighbour who likes to hammer, saw, and generally make the kind of noises that I have associated with building a cage for his kidnapping victims. These noises regularly take place in the middle of the night, causing me to call the concierge in our building on more than one occasion.

On Tuesday, I invited a friend over for dinner and drinks, and since we both had errands, she agreed to come by around 5:30. I bought some groceries and arrived home around 4:30, excited to have someone to cook for—I love cooking, but sometimes I get carried away and end up eating fettucine al fredo or cauliflower casserole for the next four days. Within two minutes of putting away the groceries, though, the racket started. It sounded like the guy upstairs was either throwing furniture around his condo like he was Jason Statham in some kind of ninja battle (choose any Jason Stratham movie for this scenario because it happens in ALL of them), or his latest victim was trying to escape. It was crazy loud and very unnerving, so when my friend arrived, I went down to meet her in the lobby, and spoke to the concierge, another new young man whose English was equally as suspect as all the others.

Me: The tenant in the unit above me is making terrible noise. It sounds like he’s throwing furniture around.
Concierge: Today is not moving day.
Me: What? No, I know that. I’ve had trouble with this before. I’m just letting you know that if it hasn’t stopped making noise by 10 o’clock, I’ll be calling you to talk to him.
Concierge: OK.

So my friend and I went upstairs. At this point, the furniture-tossing had turned into the usual hammering. She was astounded at the noise, having heard me complain about it on several occasions, but maybe she thought I was exaggerating. We ate to the hammer’s rhythm, then tried to relax and have a couple of drinks, but we were both distracted, and the speculation re: the upstairs tenant’s activities got more and more silly as we had more and more drinks. I stuck to my “serial killer” premise, but she was convinced he was a vampire who was building his own coffin room where no sunlight could penetrate. She finally left around 8:45, and I went down with her. We both told the concierge how ridiculous the noise level was. “See,” I said. “Even my friend can tell you how annoying it is, and it doesn’t sound like he’s going to be done any time soon.” The concierge was very sympathetic, and assured me that he was prepared to deal with it. Little did I know that this concierge took his job very seriously, and was going to take matters into his own hands. But not in that good way, where he dangles the guy off the balcony and makes him swear to shut the f*ck up, like Jason Statham in pretty much every one of his films.

I’d just finished having a bath, and was standing there in my pajamas, taking out my contact lenses, when I thought I heard a knock at the door. Nobody EVER knocks on my door, but I thought I should take a look just to be sure. I have a peephole, which I hate using, because I read a horror novel once about a giant, possessed teddy bear, and when it knocked on the main character’s door and he looked through the peephole, IT WAS STARING INTO THE PEEPHOLE BACK AT HIM. So I approached the peephole with caution—it was kind of steamed up from my bath, but there was definitely someone standing there. I don`t have a chain, so I did the next best thing—I yelled through the door:

Me: Can I help you?
Guy: I’m your upstairs neighbour.

At this point, I just about fainted. What the f*ck was he doing at my door??! I didn’t know what to say, so I yelled back, very innocently:

Me: Oh, hi. What’s up?
Guy: The concierge said I was making too much noise and it was bothering you. I’ve come to apologize.

And right away in my head I was like ‘Ha Ha—I was right! He’s definitely a serial killer. He doesn’t want trouble from ANYONE!’ Unlike a vampire, who would have snuck in through my balcony door in a cloud of mist, and turned me into a creature of the night for payback. But I was still really freaked out. At the same time, I’m also Canadian, and talking through the door just seemed rude. So I opened the door and we continued thusly:

Me: Yes, it’s been kind of noisy.
Guy: I’m putting in a new floor. The concierge suggested that I come and talk to you, so we could establish a schedule that would be acceptable to you.

The concierge told him to come and talk to me?! Even if he wasn’t a serial killer, what if he’d been really pissed off that I’d complained about him, and instead of apologizing, he’d come to yell at me? Now I was scared AND angry. But that’s a good combination if I’m about to battle a man who wants to put me in a box for his own sick amusement. Except for the fact that I could only see out of one eye, having been in the PROCESS of removing my contact lenses when he knocked. Well, if it came down to a fight, I could squint.

Me: Oh…well, I guess any time before 10 pm is fine, now that I know what you’re doing. Just as long as it’s not the middle of the night, it’s fine.
Guy: I don’t know what you mean. I never work in the middle of the night.

I wanted to snicker at the sheer audacity of THAT lie. But I didn’t want to tempt fate, so I just quickly muttered, “Ok then, I guess we’ll just agree to disagree”, then carried on:

Me: All right then. Let’s just say anytime during the day, and all weekend if you like, since I’m not here on the weekends, and not after 10 pm.
Guy: Sure, that sounds fine. Thanks. The new floor is really well insulated, so once it’s in, you should never hear anything from my unit. Goodnight then.

I shut the door, and did what any sensible person would do—I called Ken. But he wasn’t home, so I talked to K:

Me: The serial killer from upstairs just came to my door!
K: What serial killer?
Me: Oh my god, don’t you EVER read my blog?!
K: Not usually, no.
Me: Never mind. Tell your dad to call me when he gets in. If I’m still alive….

But sure enough, the serial killer upstairs has kept to his word. He might only be replacing 3 square feet a day, judging by how long it’s taking him, but he stopped every night this week by 9. He doesn’t want ANY trouble.

Friday: I make a series of faux pas

On Friday, I was talking to a colleague and eating popcorn at the same time. I’m not very coordinated, and every time I tried to put a handful in my mouth, I would drop a few pieces on the floor. And then we would both have to chase after them and pick them up, since our agency has this crazy policy that you can’t just leave food on the floor because it attracts rodents. After a few forays under desks to find the popcorn, laughing hysterically at my lack of coordination while we did it, I finally gave up and put the bag away. A little while later, I was standing in a group of people discussing serious type issues. I looked down and realized that there was popcorn in the pashmina/scarf I had around my neck. Without thinking, I picked it out of my scarf and ate it. Then I looked up and realized that everyone was staring at me. Because I just ATE FOOD OUT OF MY CLOTHING. And to make matters worse, another piece had fallen out of my scarf and was lying on the floor in the middle of our group. I could have (and was) totally embarrassed, but luckily, I work with really nice people, and when I started to laugh at the absurdity of what I’d just done, so did they, and we all ended up with tears rolling down our faces at the sight of me using my scarf as a place to “save food for later”. But over the next 24 hours, I made several missteps that remind me how difficult I find having conversations.

1) At the doctor’s office. I had a check-up with my doctor who, when he discovered that I had just turned 50, got very excited. Not because he was happy for me, but because there are several new ‘protocols’ that have to be followed when you become a certain age.

Doctor: So here’s a requisition for a mammogram—
Me: Yuck.
Doctor: Ha ha, I know. So you just call and make an appointment—you can do this yourself and then you’ll be in their system. Also, here’s a home test for colon cancer screening–
Me: A home test? What?
Doctor: Oh yes, the instructions are inside this envelope. You just send it in—the postage is pre-paid, and once you’re in their system, they’ll send you yearly reminders. Also, the Pap test–
Me: I have to do THAT at home?! How do I do THAT??!!
Doctor: Um, no, I just meant that you’ll receive automatic reminders about when you’re due for one. There’s no home test for that. Obviously.

2) At the variety store where K works. I went to give him his lunch and she was really excited about a magnet she’d found. It was one of those magnets that will pick up anything and then not let it go without tremendous effort. But then I got worried:

Me: Take it easy with that thing. Don’t put it near your…you know.
K: What? Mom, I don’t think you understand how magnets work. My ‘you know’ is not made of metal.
Me: Well, it’s a really strong magnet. It could rip the iron out of your blood. I hear an MRI can do that, and it’s a giant magnet.
K: This magnet is used to open the locks on that cabinet. Do you really think it could do that AND rip the iron out of your blood?
Me: Well, just be careful.

3) While building a hall tree. I convinced Ken to build me a hall tree out of a couple of old doors, a table, and some cool hardware. He was installing the hooks and my dad was helping:

Dad: That wood is pretty thick. Should you drill a pilot hole first?
Ken: No, I think I can do this by hand.
Me: Yeah, Dad, Ken is a pretty forceful screwer. Wait—I…sigh.

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Come for the laughs, stay for the lunacy

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My Week 66: I Get My Eyeballs Lasered, Raven Loses Bathroom Privileges

My Week 65: Christmas Eve at the Emergency Room, Festive Misunderstandings

My Week 64: Donald Trump Meets Justin Trudeau, Titus–Weapon of Mass Destruction

I Have Holiday Inadequacy, A Stream of Consciousness Religious Moment

My Week 62: I Finally Meet The Serial Killer Upstairs, I Make Faux Pas

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